#all my pencils were destroyed that I had on tables

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

I liked the amount of money I received from working at a school but thinking about going back gives me the hives and makes me want to vomit

[hp-hcs]

• smut • aurora boy-realis (stop talking) — soft! tom riddle x gn! artist! reader

warnings: SMUT MDNI, no assigned sex-specific identifiers or anatomical terms, short and not really detailed smut but wtv, hella ooc tom for my delulu readers, like i cannot stress this enough he is ooc, i took canon and just chucked it into the garbage okay

i have had this sitting in my drafts, finished and ready to publish, for the last week now bc the imposter syndrome lowkey convinced me that i’m a terrible writer so anywhore enjoy this train wreck

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Don’t move.”

Tom froze.

Your charcoal stick moved in broad strokes against the page, your eyes darting between Tom and your sketchbook.

“…Can I move yet?”

“No. Stop talking.”

You were probably the only person who could actually get away with telling Tom Riddle to shut up.

(He’d never admit it, but that boy knew damn well that he was whipped.)

~~~

Your charcoal-stained hands left dusty black marks on Tom’s skin.

His chest heaved under you. “Damn tease.”

“Stop talking.” Your eyebrows furrowed in concentration, a spare pencil held between your teeth as you used his torso as a makeshift table for your sketchbook.

He wiggled impatiently as his fingers tightened on your hips. “Baby, please–”

You grunted, taking in a shaky breath as you tried to collect yourself from his sudden movement.

He grinned slyly at your reaction, jerking his hips up experimentally. His cock pressed in deeper.

You bit your bottom lip hard enough to bleed as you desperately tried to stifle your moans and keep yourself steady. “You’re an ass.”

“Maybe.” Tom gently pulled your sketchbook and pencil from your fingers, leaning over to carefully set them on the nightstand. “But you don’t really mind, do you, love?”

You grumble at the loss of your art supplies, pouting down at him. “Sometimes.”

He cupped the back of your head, gently rolling the pair of you over so that he was on top. “I’ll make it up to you.”

~~~

“Tom!”

“That’s it, there you go, honey. So good for me,” the boy in question murmured against the skin of your neck as his fingers slipped down to help you out.

His thrusts were slow and deep, driving you absolutely crazy. You couldn’t help but cup his face in your hands, stroking his cheekbones with your thumbs in utter devotion.

“Oh, Tom—”

“I’m here, darling. Let go.”

You came with another cry of his name.

~~~

Your paintbrush ran over the thin, raised pink lines that traveled across Tom’s back and shoulders—caused by your own fingernails just last night—and covered them with a thick coat of purple.

You were in your element here, circling around your boyfriend and chewing on your bottom lip as you worked on your masterpiece. You paused in front of him to survey your chef-d’oeuvre, smudging the lines of green and white that ran along his ribs and up between his pecs with your thumb a bit more until you were satisfied.

Tom stood shirtless in front of you, his entire torso—from the top of his neck all the way down to the waistband of his trousers—covered in a beautiful artistic rendition of the Aurora Borealis flickering across a starry sky.

You picked up your enchanted camera, lining up the shot before snapping a magical moving photograph of your boyfriend patiently allowing himself to be used as a canvas.

You set the camera back down, screwing on the lids of your paint jars and humming cheerily.

“Right. Well, you can go wash up now. Thank you, love.” You kissed his cheek, unperturbed.

Tom was baffled. Wash off this masterpiece? Destroy it like it was nothing?

“At least join me?” he asked with that damn pout of his that could make you melt on the spot.

Tom could always do that. He was your sun, your moon, and your stars; you’d gladly move the heavens just to see him smile.

(Plus, showers with Tom always ended in sex. Win-win.)

~~~

Blues and purples swirled in the water that pooled at your feet.

Pinks and greens stained your hips, your thighs, your throat.

Tom’s lips were pressed firmly against yours, moving slowly as the steady flow of water pouring down on the pair of you slowly grew cold. Tom pulled back solely so that he could look at you, taking you in.

Tom looked at you as if you were his sun, the very thing his entire world revolved around.

Like a deity, deserving of the entire galaxy’s devotion.

So, without another thought, Tom did what any sane mortal man would. He dropped down to his knees and began to pray.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

comments are always appreciated!!

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part four

summary: all the stars aligned, and it was you.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.9k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, r is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: this is your reminder to reblog and comment on fics you like!! it helps us writers out a TON the girlies who get it get it. thanks!!

series masterlist // playlist

"I just have to ask you a few questions... is that okay?" Coriolanus asks, sitting across from you at the small table you find yourself chained to.

"Please." You nod, grinning at him. You were so tired, the bags under your eyes were evidence enough of that. Screw getting you food- Coryo is worried if you don't sleep you'll be all but useless in the games, even if all he needs you to do is run and hide.

"It's just so people can get to know you a bit better. Okay, so..." He looks down at the sheet in front of him, tapping the pencil against the table as he tries to focus on reading. "First, nice and easy, what is your full name?"

"Y/N M/N L/N."

"Great... Okay, and where are you from?"

"District Twelve, born and raised."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I'll be eighteen next week." You smile.

"Oh, really?" He asks, pausing mid-sentence as he starts writing it down.

"Yeah." You smile. "Hopefully I'll live to see the day."

"You will." He tries to be reassuring as he scribbles the finished answer on his sheet. God, you got unlucky. Not that his eighteenth was a big celebration like some of his classmates, but Tigris made him a cake with ingredients she'd been saving up for and she refit his school uniform for him. You wouldn't even have that- you would be spending the day fighting for your life, if you even made it that long.

"And who is in your family unit?" He reads directly from the slip as he forces himself to move on.

"Well, there's me, my brother, he's fifteen, and then my ma and pa." You nod. "Well, my pa isn't home much. Lots of work in the mines; usually has sixteen-hour days. I hardly ever see him." You admit, sadness laced into your tone. "Saw him, I mean."

"My father died in Twelve." Coryo says, catching you off guard. He doesn't even fully understand why he felt the need to tell you this. "About ten years ago, it was rebels."

"I remember that." You reply quietly, recalling the lockdown placed on the District after the murder of a peacekeeper general. "He was the general. Crassus Snow, I assume?"

"Yes."

Everyone was forced into their homes at gunpoint, and in search of the responsible parties everyone you knew had their home destroyed by peacekeepers. Yourself included. Your bed was torn apart, and your mattress shredded for any hidden weapons or plans. Since then, you have shared a bed with your brother. A new mattress was hard to make, and your ma never got the free time or materials again.

Up until this week, that was the scariest day of your life. Just before the peacekeepers kicked in your door, your mother had grabbed the two of you and shoved you into an opening under the floorboards- a crawlspace made from a faulty foundation. You were in there for what felt like hours, listening to shouting and your home being ruined as you held onto each other with a hand pressed over your brother's mouth to keep him from crying too loud. Your mother's cries that day never seemed to end.

"It's a small world." You say after a solid few moments of silence, and Coryo can see it in the way you're staring at his paper that you're not reading it. You're zoned out completely. "I'm sorry that happened to you. It must have been scary."

"The war was hard on all of us." He responds. "What... what do you remember?" He had never heard anything about it besides the bare bones of what happened, he had never considered that the people of Twelve would remember it as well. And judging by the look on your face, it wasn't a good memory.

"I was about six, maybe seven, and I was playing with my brother, and I didn't hear anything but my ma must have because she grabbed us and hid us under the floorboards so fast I could have got whiplash. Peacekeepers came into our home, tore the whole thing to shreds, hurt my ma, then took off. Onto the next house. I didn't find out until a while later that rebels killed the peacekeeper general, they were looking for any evidence of conspiracy, I guess. The people who did it."

"Sounds like it was scarier for you than for me."

"But I want you to know," You speak so quickly you almost cut him off. "My parents had nothing to do with it. My pa is an honest, good man. All he ever wanted was to keep us safe. We're not rebels, I promise you that."

Coriolanus almost wishes you were, so he wouldn't be so hurt by what his people were putting you through. "I know. I wouldn't blame you for that."

"Thank you." You whisper, picking at your nails now as you look down at your shaky hands.

Coryo clears his throat, forcing himself to look away from you. "Uh..." He chuckles at the next question, making you look up at him again. "Are you married?"

"No." You reply, having almost completely forgotten about the worksheet in front of him. "I'm not."

"It's just... I just, I have to ask." He says, clearing his throat as he writes it down.

"Of course." You nod in understanding.

"Boyfriend?" He asks, and as you squint at the sheet you can see it's not there, and he quickly covers the next lines with his palm, cheeks flushing pink.

"Yes." You giggle as he snaps his head up to look at you.

"You do?" He asks, voice catching as his curls fall back onto his forehead from the sudden movement.

"Yes, what is so wrong in that?" You raise an eyebrow at him, trying not to laugh.

"No, no, I mean, of course you do, you're beautiful, I just, you never mentioned-"

"Relax, Coriolanus. I'm kidding." You smile at the panic in his tone. "No, I don't have a boyfriend."

"Oh, right. Thanks, it's just for, yeah..." He mumbles, pretending to write something down behind his cupped hand so you couldn't see.

You shake your head at him while he's not paying attention, smiling to yourself.

"So, uh, do you have a job?"

"Not formally, but my ma is a seamstress. I help her lots with that. Fixing people's work clothes, stuff like that." You answer, getting back on topic.

"Did you make your dress?" He asks.

"Now I know that question's not on that form of yours." You laugh. "But yes, my ma made it for me when I was five. It's been my favourite ever since."

He looked the parts of it over that he could see above the table. It was well worn down, but well cared for. Similar to a lot of his own clothing.

"It used to be this big, flowing thing. Too big for a five year old- I would step on the bottom of it, just tore it right up." You recall. "So we trimmed the bottom, and as I grew, it grew right with me. I stitched up the bottom when I was old enough to enter the reaping, so now it's got shorts instead. But I still love it, lots of good memories held in the pockets of this old thing."

Shorts instead. So it's easier to run in. The thought haunts Coryo for a moment. The idea that you, at twelve years old, decided this is what you would want to run in, to die in, and took the liberty of sewing up the crotch in it yourself. Every stitch possibly sealing your fate.

"It's nice. I like it." He responds.

"Thank you." You smile, nodding proudly to yourself as you look down at the fabric. "It's real comfy, too."

"It looks it. Not very... restricting." He chooses his words wisely. No wonder you had kept it so many years. It still fit, so why not? Especially when it looked so good on you. The typically plain, neutral tone of the fabric complimented your skin tone so well. Even in bad lighting, it seemed as though you were glowing where the cloth met your skin. Glowing everywhere, now that he thought about it. Maybe you just lit up every room you walked into. Maybe it wasn't the clothing that was made just for you and hugged your form so flawlessly, maybe it was just you.

"Yes, it is not." You agree. "Now, our time is limited. Next question." You interrupt his thoughts, gesturing to the sheet of paper in between you.

"Yes, sorry." Coryo chuckles, shaking the distraction from his head. "Any hobbies?

"Reading."

"I did know that." He smiles to himself. "Anything else?"

"Well..." You think about it for a moment, chewing your lip. "I have a cat, and I like to play with him and take care of him, does that count?"

"I'll count it." He nods, quickly jotting it down. "What's your cat's name?" He asks, purely out of curiosity.

"Tybalt." You giggle.

"Tybalt?" Coryo tilts his head at you and you nod, bottom lip drawn between your teeth.

He nods slightly, prompting you to explain. "He's named after a character from Romeo and Juliet."

"That's your favourite, I remember."

"Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives." You quote. "Mercutio calls Tybalt the king of the cats, so I named him after that."

"That's clever. Very funny."

"Thank you. I thought so." You smile proudly, watching him write down your cats name in his notes. "What is this for, if I can ask?"

"Uh, there's going to be an interview you'll have to do the night before the games. It'll be aired live on Capitol television, and people will be able to send in donations so I can send you things in the arena. Just like I told you." Coryo explains.

"An interview?" You ask. "What does that entail?"

"Well, I'm not sure yet." He answers honestly. "But we'll pass this sheet onto the host, Lucky, if you remember him, and he can ask you questions about your family, your life, any of this stuff. I think really whatever we want, though, so if there's anything in particular you want to say or talk about I can write that down for you."

"Oh, I'm really not sure." You reply. "Nothing in particular, but if you need me to talk I can talk about books for hours on end." You smile.

"Could you do a monologue?" He suggests. He had discussed this with Tigris before, and he was hoping you would, but knowing you, you would be dropping quotes in your interview anyway so you might as well commit to it and display how smart you are with something well-planned.

"Maybe, if you could find me a copy of Romeo and Juliet." You smile. "I think I know it, but it would be nice to have a refresher. Just to make sure I get it right. Would be awfully embarrassing if I made a mistake."

Coryo nods, quickly writing that down in the margins of the page. Considering he had never even heard of this book, it may be hard, but he would certainly try for you. "That would be great. Your goodbye was very moving, although quite confusing for most, but it had people talking about you and that's what we want."

"Okay. I'll practice."

"Thank you." Coryo smiles. "And I just have one more question on here to fill out... Do you have any special skills that you think will be helpful in the games?"

Your smile fades slightly and you just shake your head.

"That's okay. We'll figure it out."

That night, Coryo came to see you again. You were curled up with his blanket, draped half over yourself and half over Jessup as he lay next to you. It was a small blanket, obviously meant for a child, but it helped anyway. Maybe it was just a placebo, but for you, that was more than enough.

As you got up, hearing him call your name in a familiar tone, you draped the blanket more fully over Jessup before making your way over to the bars of the enclosure. "Good evening, Coryo. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I brought you some things." He whispers, digging in his bag.

"How kind." You smile, watching as he pulls things out, handing you a napkin with some bread wrapped inside and tucking whatever else he brought under his arm to give to you after you've eaten. "Can you sit for a few minutes?"

"Of course." He nods, sitting down with you as you cross your legs and unfold the fabric carefully as not to drop what's inside. "I was hoping to talk to you anyway."

"Let's talk; it is not day." You smile, leaning toward him more.

"Should I be asking what that's from?" He jokes, but is surprised when you shrug.

"You could, but I wouldn't want to bore you." You giggle, shaking your head. "Take a guess, though. I believe you'd know it."

He smiles, watching as you take a bite out of the bread. "Romeo and Juliet?"

"Yes." You nod in confirmation, covering your mouth while you speak. "You're a real fan, now, aren't you?"

"I guess so." He chuckles. "The fact that I've never read it is unimportant."

"Completely irrelevant." You agree with a quiet laugh. His smile fades as his eyes land on something behind you, and you turn to follow his gaze over your shoulder. "What are you looking at?" You whisper, looking back at him again.

"Are you sharing everything I bring you with Jessup?" He asks, voice stern as his brow furrows at the question.

"I try to." You nod, taking another bite. "He's not well. I think something bit him the first night we were here."

"You can't." Coryo insists. Of course, he wants you to win, and you handing over every bit of sustenance or help you receive is only lessening your odds. Making Jessup stronger and you only weaker. "I know you're a good person, but once you get in that arena you won't have any friends. Not even him." Coryo explains, strategically skipping over the part where it makes him ill to see you sleeping with your head on the boy's shoulder and sharing the blanket that he gifted to you.

"Oh..." You say, so quietly he can hardly hear. "But-"

"Y/N." He cuts you off, a serious look on his face. "If you keep feeding him, keep helping him, and it comes down to you and him in the end, who do you think will win in that fight? If you had all the same nutrients and sleep, who do you think will win?"

"I- well..." You stutter, looking back at your friend. "It won't come to that. I think we both know that."

"We have to assume it will." He pleads, eyes now locked on yours. "Don't make it easier for him."

"Coryo, he's got a family, siblings, his ma to get home to. They need him." You protest, leaning closer so no one else could properly hear.

"So do you." He reminds you. The look of guilt that crosses your face indicates to him that even though you had your own family, something about Jessup makes you willing to give that up for him to get home. "What about Tybalt? He'll never know what happened to his own mother. Or your brother losing his sister. Y/N, please..."

Your eyes widen at the mention of your cat and your brother in particular. Clearly, Coryo is so desperate for you to listen that he's pulling strings he shouldn't. To make you hurt. To make you pay attention.

Tears fill your eyes as you speak. "I know." Your voice cracks, and the pit in Coryo's stomach tells him he's gone too far. "I'm sorry, I just- I don't want to be afraid anymore. It's selfish of me, I know, but I won't last long and I know that so I just want to get it over with." You cry quietly, reaching up to wipe your eyes on your wrist. You hadn't been so candid with him before, he almost doesn't recognize you without a smile on your face.

"Hey, no, don't be sorry. It's not selfish." He whispers, without hesitation reaching through the bars and resting his hand on your knee. Your skin is cold to the touch, even for him after he had just walked all the way here in the same air. "But it'll be over soon, and I'll get you home. I'll do everything I can."

You sniff and nod, hesitating before placing your hand over his. "I promise I'll do my best in the interview. I want you to win your prize."

Coryo's mouth gets dry at the insinuation. You didn't think you could win, you won't even consider it even with all the encouragement he tries to feed you every day, but you want him to win. "That's not important." He says, shocking himself with the sentiment. The Plinth Prize is his only hope at a viable future, at saving his family. But right now, he doesn't even care.

You don't respond right away, just sliding your hand under his to hold it. His skin on yours feels warm, comforting, the same way it did when he held it when you were first dumped in the zoo. You don't know if it's more comforting to you or him.

"I'm sorry to cry at you, I just sometimes realize what's going to happen to me and spiral over the possibilities and no matter how hard I try to accept it..." You shake your head, looking down at your hands. "I'm still fearful." Your voice drops below a whisper.

"Then don't accept it." Coryo grasps your hand tighter, leaning closer to you and looking at you through the bars. "Fight. Try to win."

taglist: @soulessjourney, @keziahcore, @that-veela-girl, @motorsport, @dreamyysouls, @rockstarbfs, @Lanadelrey3, @rawrmameh, @3zae-zae3, @babyspice6, @pastel0rchid, @maysileeewrites, @articxari, @Urfavpouge, @Multivitaminfy, @baybieruth, @kitscutie, @annaelise, @serrendiipty, @fratboyharrysgf0201, @totallynotkaibiased, @stelleduarte, @klplynn, @secretsicanthideanymore, @bejeweledreverie, @fals3-g0d, @drewsandsebastianswife, @niicole-87, @queenofshinigamis, @innercreationflower, @nallasstuff, @spring-goddess1, @baybieruth, @lovelyxtom, @throughgoeshxmilton, @enwonie, @scorpiolystoned, @iovemoonyy, @kodzuvk, @soupasoup, @eedwardss, @thatmarvelchick19, @wearemadeofstardust0, @regulusblackcore, @kbakery , @qardasngan, @omgsuperstarg, @kuroosbby001, @puredreamagination,

if your user has a strikethrough i wasn't able to tag you! i'm so sorry!

[lastoneout]

It's also like super fucking infuriating to see people continue to argue that generative AI is the best way for disabled and/or poor people to make art because like, you know what helps make art more accessible? Giving poor and disabled people money.

Like take me for instance, I'm disabled. I get severe migraines and intense leg/back pain if I sit at my computer for too long, my hEDS makes holding pens and pencils hard, my ADHD makes it hard for me to start certain tasks and/or stop them before I potentially hurt myself, my neck also hurts if I look down too much, my dyslexia AND my ADHD both make it difficult to keep track of a story as I write and use correct spelling and grammar, plus, I need to prioritize taking care of myself and going to appointments and keeping my house clean and that takes up a lot of my free time. All of these things make creating the kind of art I want to create difficult if not occasionally impossible.

So what do you think would solve my problems better? Giving me money so that I can have a drawing tablet and desk chair that won't hurt my neck or back, another tablet + pen and a lap table and comfortable body pillows for drawing in bed, easier transportation to my doctors appointments, effective treatment for my chronic pain and migraines, the ability hire someone to help me keep my house clean, a spelling/grammar checker that isn't complete ass, and a therapist and psychatrist who can help me manage my ADHD better?

Or an AI program that takes my input and spits out a drawing or story made of stolen content glued together that, in the case of the art, I cannot meaningfully edit without starting over, which also destroys the environment in the process?

Seems pretty obvious to me. I don't need AI, I need help to manage the things that are actually stopping me from being able to write and draw.

Or take my mom. She's had severe rhumatoid arthritis since she was a small child, her hands are deformed and she relies on her wheelchair to get around. She doesn't need AI to help her paint, she needs special paint brushes she can actually hold, a table her wheelchair will fit at, and someone to help her with personal hygiene/keep her house clean/take her to doctors appointments so she actually has free time to paint.

Does that poor kid growing up in public housing with parents who are too poor to afford art classes or supplies or to send them to college really need a computer program to draw for them, or do they need support to help them take those classes, buy drawing supplies, and money so they can go to college.

Blind people can paint, deaf musicians exist, people with missing limbs find all sorts of ways to make art, people with parkinson's paint with typewriters, my mother can't hold a normal paintbrush and she makes some of the most beautiful watercolor paintings I've ever seen, Van Gogh had bipolar disorder and only sold like one painting when he was alive, I mean for real how many different artists have you heard of who's biographies start with them being born into poverty?

This is not meant to be inspiration porn, these people are just ones who were able to find ways to make art despite their struggles. They shouldn't have had to struggle at all, but god imagine how many more artisrs and writers we could have had if none of them had to overcome those struggles. It breaks my heart to think of all the wonderful art that never got to exist because no one helped the people who could have made it actually have the time, money, support, and safety they needed to make it. AI would not have saved them because making art isn't the problem, being disadvantaged is the problem. Living in a world that refuses to make room for you is the problem. Being fucking poor is the problem. Humans have always found ways to make art despite huge barriers, the solution isn't a computer that makes art for them, it's SUPPORT AND MONEY SO THEY CAN OVERCOME THOSE BARRIERS AND MAKE THEIR OWN ART.

As a last example: I love watching dancing and I would love to be able to dance, but I'm terrible at it(I got kicked off a dance team for not being able to learn the dance at all despite spending weeks on it, idk my brain wasn't made for dancing) and my disabled body makes it more pain than pleasure if not actively dangerous, anyway. Having a robot dressed to look like me dance next to me while I get to watch would not make me feel like I'm getting to dance. It would actually be extremely fucking demoralizing and frustrating. I would hate that!!

Having an AI spit out a painting or book would not make me feel like I got to paint or write a book. It's a fucking anamatronic doll running on stolen ideas and it will never be the same as getting to actually expirience the joy of creating art first hand. AI is not the solution. Helping people who need it is the solution. And I am CONSTANTLY pissed to think about all the time and money that goes into these fucking AI programs that would be better spent helping disabled and poor people get the help they need so they can make art themselves, all while the people running the nightmare plagiarism pollution machines pretend that their horrible inventions exist to help people like me.

[afyrian]

no. 8 - googly eyes masterlist

    glue, glitter, and googly eyes, the three main components of any good craft time. you can supply kids with an array of supplies, but none will ever as integral as those three. which you learn rather quickly when you head down for your scheduled time. 

  the table is already covered in glitter and cut up pieces of paper. popsicle sticks are violated behind belief and little girls are destroying each other's creations. after seeing the sight that sits before you, you breath a sigh of relief knowing that your group will likely be a little more mature. however, you can't help but feel bad for yachi.

  she sits at the corner of the table, right besides the one your group will be sitting at. she has some bags under her eyes and is clearly regretting choosing one of the younger groups of kids. they're going crazy around the table and are occasionally spilling things on her and not caring. "you doing okay?" you sit next to her, pursing your lips. 

  "i'm so tired, please distract me with something that is adult related,” she grabs your shoulder with her hands, resting her forehead on them, sighing out loud. 

  you tap your chin, narrowing your eyes, “ooh yeah, i’m stuck with atsumu all week if you didn’t see the plans. like last night, we had a scary campfire night and like we laughed together.. it was wild.”

  she raises her head up with her mouth wide open and her eyes staring into yours. “oh my gosh, you were flirting with atsumu miya?!”

  the volume of her voice immediately makes you cringe, hands reaching to cover her mouth. the idea of ‘flirting’ with him makes you want to laugh and roll your eyes. “no! we were just laughing, nothing more! besides, for one, he doesn’t even remember me. and two, he was such an.. ass,” you try to whisper the last part, looking down at some modeling clay in front of you.

  “you totally were,” yachi shakes her head, grabbing a pencil and doodling on her paper, “and who cares! he could be this new person, i mean you wouldn’t be laughing with him if he is as he was years ago. like yes, you’re totally valid for how you feel about how he treated you. so talk to him about it or something! especially because i can totally tell you’re freaking out.”

  you shake your head slightly, pulling at the clay and squishing it back into a ball. “it’d just be awkward, i mean i acted like i didn’t know either.. just to save from the embarrassment,” you lean forward, resting your forehead on the table, letting out a short sigh.

  “oh my gosh, y/n, i can’t believe you. you’re so lucky i have to leave soon because i want to be hounding you so bad,” she leans against her hand, elbow resting on the wooden table. 

  you roll your eyes at her words, acting like they didn’t make you feel something. last night, even if it’s your worst nightmare come true, you did have fun. pretending to argue with him, proving him wrong and watching as he tries to hold back a truthful apology. something about it stirred a feeling within, and yachi certainly isn’t help you understand what it may be. 

  “well you’d be hounding about nothing.. we do have archery after this so i will let you know how it goes. but nothing is happening between us,” you lean over and bump her shoulder, trying to ignore that feeling in your gut.

  yachi looks over at you, shaking her head. she’s always known you a little better than you’ve known yourself. she’s intuitive like that, ignoring the activity just to give you advice, “ooh something will definitely happen, trust me. you just watch.”

  she gets up from her spot to bring her group with her to their next activity. looking back at you she points her finger at you, “you’ll see! especially if you tell the truth!”

a/n: this is so short but i wanted to get something out!! it didn’t post last night this is fantastic D: taglist (open): @lemurzsquad, @froyaoya, @localgaytrainwreck, @guitarstringed-scars, @girlkissersco, @hyenagoated

[randoms-fandoms]

Hello! I was wondering if you could perhaps write a calamity trio x reader? More specifically, what would happen if all of the girls had a crush on the same person?

Omg yes this is such a cute idea :0 (sorry the reader won’t really be the focus 😅 it’s an Anne pov, and Marcy and Sash are still very much in it)

Warnings: none

Relationships: they have a crush on you👀

Anne, Sasha, and Marcy had grown more after returning from Amphibia— they had at least another year until Marcy had to move, as her disappearance had prompted her parents to put their plans on hold for a few months, meaning she could stay in California the time being— but even though the three of them were no longer geographically torn apart, conflicting schedules meant that they hardly had time to spend together.

However, now that the trio had begun the new school year, life had been going pretty well. The pestering questions from other students and even teachers were annoying, but easy to get used to. Things felt normal again.

Anne loved her friends a lot, but she also wanted to expand her circle a bit. That was kind of hard when everyone knew her as the superhero girl who defended the city from robots last summer, but her adventures in Amphibia had given her nothing if not tenacity.

Finally, after a month or so of having no one to hang out with during school, she met someone new. Someone who hadn’t seen her destroy a fleet of robots on live television over the summer.

Anne only had two classes with you, and you had separate lunch periods, but that was perfectly fine. You had sat together in class every day since you first started school there, and Anne had quickly made a habit of texting you often. Photos of Domino, memes, random thoughts— she found every excuse to text you. She even took a few cute selfies with you! Overall, your fast friendship was wonderful.

Weeks into this new friendship, however, Anne was beginning to realize something. Her feelings for you were… changing. She didn’t used to struggle with eye contact when you complimented her. She had never before turned into a blushing mess just from a hug. Suddenly, your every action had her overthinking.

“Anne? Are you listening?” An amused voice broke through her thoughts.

Anne looked up to see you staring at her, confused. “Oh, haha— sorry I was just zoning out.” Anne said, face burning. “What did you say?”

“I was just wondering if you wanted to go to the library after school to work on our group project.” You asked.

“Yeah totally!” Anne answered quickly. This is the first time they’ve invited me to hang out outside of school!

“Wait— I mean, I’d love to… but I have plans already. Sorry.” Anne said, frowning. She had forgotten that she and her other two friends were going to be hanging out all afternoon, and even sleeping over at Marcy’s house.

“That’s alright. how about Sunday? It’s due on Monday, you know.” You said with a little laugh.

Anne groaned. “I know, sorry. That sounds good, you can come to my place.”

“I’ll text you, okay?” You smiled as you stood up to put away your notebook and pencil. Anne hid her face; you thought it was funny, but really she was hiding how your sweet smile always made her blush.

Anne needed advice.

Marcy and Sasha were engrossed in conversation (something about a manga they both read; Anne didn’t quite know), but Anne was distracted. She sat on Marcy’s bed, scrolling through her album of selfies with you.

“Anyway, I’m going to get some snacks and change into my pajamas. You guys get comfy too!” Marcy said, plugging her phone into the charger by her bedside table.

Anne waited for Marcy to close the door before she unzipped her backpack and pulled out her overnight stuff.

“So how are you doing? It’s been a while since we’ve hung out.” Sasha made conversation while she walked into the adjoining bathroom to change.

Anne sighed. “Nothing bad,” she started, quickly pulling on her pajamas. It was just a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt, nothing like Sasha’s cute matching sweatsuit. Anne wondered if you would think she looked cute if she dressed up. “…I’m just a little… I don’t know. I feel kind of weird.”

“Well what’s up, girl? Having bad dreams again?” Sasha re-entered the room, taking out her ponytail, and lie down on Marcy’s queen sized bed.

Anne smiled softly to herself, getting lost in thought for a moment. She loved how Sasha was always so worried about her. Back when they had just barely gotten home from Amphibia, Sasha would stay up on the phone with Anne all night while she cried. Sometimes she was missing the Plantars, sometimes she was convinced one of Andrias’s robots was after her again, sometimes she was having a panic attack thinking about her own inevitable death— no matter how long it took, Sasha was always there.

“Anne?”

“No, I’m fine.” Anne said, a little embarrassed. She sat back against the headboard. “Just normal teenager things.”

“Great,” Sasha said, smiling and closing her eyes. “Can’t get enough of that. Lay it on me.” She said, getting comfy.

Anne laughed. Marcy walked back in the room, making her jump. Her heart was already in her throat, beating hard from the nerves of talking about her feelings (however roundabout).

“Hey guys! Sorry it took me a minute, I accidentally spilled the first bowl of chips.” Marcy said, shrugging. Sasha stood up and took a bag of candy from her arms, which were full of snack food.

“I’m surprised you didn’t drop more, with how much you’re carrying.” She replied, kicking a pillow out of the way so she could sit down on the plush carpet.

Marcy laughed. “Anyway, what are you guys talking about?” She said, relaxing on the beanbag chair next to the outlet where her phone was charging. She put the arm full of snacks on the ground between her and Sasha.

Sasha looked at Anne, waiting for her to answer.

“Oh, haha, I just wanted some advice.” She blushed. “I think I might… have a crush on someone.” She looked away, laughing awkwardly while Sasha and Marcy freaked out.

“Oh my god, that’s great!” Sasha smiled widely.

“Are you gonna ask them out?” Marcy asked, gasping. “You have to tell us everything!”

Anne grinned self consciously, thinking about you. Asking you out. “Well, we met at school, and I really like them…”

“Is it someone we know?” Sasha asked teasingly.

Anne shrugged. With how new they are to the school, what are the odds that they’ve met my two only friends? “Maybe. Anyway, we’ve been friends for a while, and suddenly I just can’t think straight when I’m around them… I’m worried that if I don’t say something and get it off my chest, they’ll notice, and— I don’t know, it would just be embarrassing.” Anne ranted.

Sasha nodded seriously. “Classic story. Not to worry, though, Marce and I have tons of experience with crushes.”

Marcy laughed nervously. “Sasha, you said you wouldn’t tell!” She lightly punched Sasha, who ignored her.

“Anyway, who is it?” The blonde asked. She took a handful of chips and ate them, casually relaxing against the pillows on the floor.

Anne, still sitting on the bed, leaned down to whisper in Sasha’s ear. She was pretty confident that she wouldn’t even recognize your name, but the other girl gasped as soon as she said it.

“No. Freaking. Way. Marcy you would not believe this— Anne likes the same person you do!”

Anne’s heart dropped. “What?” She distantly registered that Marcy said the exact same thing at the exact same time. She would have laughed if she didn’t feel so… weird.

“We eat lunch together like every day.” Sasha explained to Anne. “Marcy has a huge crush on them.”

“You do too!” Marcy accused, embarrassed, making Sasha blush.

“Whatever, at least I can act normal about it!” Sasha argued.

Anne felt an unfamiliar twist in her stomach. Jealousy. They hang out every day? She frowned. She wondered if Sasha was as confident and flirty with you as she was with her sometimes.

“So we all like the same person?” Marcy clarified, after a moment of tense silence. “I didn’t really think they would be your type,” she said to Anne.

“I didn’t even know I had a type!” Anne said, a little exasperated. She had never felt so strongly about a crush before. She thought about your laugh, how you teased her sometimes, how she had picked out a nickname for her…

Sasha for once didn’t really have any advice. “Well who do they like?”

Marcy shrugged. “They always avoid the question. I’ve tried asking.”

Anne was shocked. “Really? You guys talk about that stuff?”

Sasha giggled. “Yeah, some of us are better at hiding our feelings.“

Anne rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She paused for a moment. “…Are you guys going to ask them out?”

Sasha shrugged. “Maybe. Should I?”

Anne thought about that. Now that the initial surprise had worn off, she found that she wasn’t upset that Marcy and Sasha liked you. She wondered if you would be interested in dating all of them. The trio had shared everything with each other ever since they had first become friends… come to think of it, Anne found that she liked the idea of all of them dating you.

“I think we all should.” Marcy said, smiling. “How should we do it?”

“Let’s FaceTime them,” Sasha suggested. “I want to see how they react.”

Anne shook her head. She knew she was far too shy and awkward about the whole situation for that to end well. “How about just texting? We could create a groupchat.”

The other girls nodded. “Alright, sounds good!”

Marcy inviter you, her, and Sasha to join a groupchat. Anne snorted a laugh when Marcy renamed the chat to an emoji: 🫣

“Who wants to go first?” Asked Sasha, feeling nervous.

Anne just wanted to get it over with, wanted to know what you thought. “I will.” She quickly typed out a simple message and sent it.

You replied quickly, much to Anne’s relief.

I like you.

Me?

Why are you saying it in a gc?

Worrying that this was too weird, that you hated her now, Anne was already typing her apology when Sasha and Marcy replied.

Because I do too :D

Me too

Marcy squealed, dropping her phone and hiding her face. “Ah, this is crazy!”

Sasha laughed. Anne knew she was trying to play it cool, but secretly cared just as much. Anne herself felt sick to her stomach from nerves. Her heart nearly stopped when the notification that you replied came in.

Do you all wanna go on a date tmrw? We can talk abt it over lunch

I didn’t know u were friends :)

Anne sighed in relief, laughing. Friends is an understatement. She grinned, excited, hearing Marcy and Sasha celebrating around her. Her heart swelled with joy, glad that her two best friends would be there with her in this new relationship.

She was so caught up in her own emotions that she didn’t notice Sasha taking a selfie of the room, including all three of the girls in it. It popped up in the groupchat.

Anne clicked on the picture, seeing Sasha in the corner of the screen, Marcy waving with one hand and holding her phone in the other, and herself distracted and staring at her screen. Her face was absolutely glowing with happiness, cheeks darkened with a blush, staring fondly at your messages.

“Sash, that’s such an embarrassing picture of me!” Anne looked up, not really upset.

Sasha stuck her tongue out. “It’s cute. I bet our new lover thinks so too.” She said teasingly. Anne looked down at her phone again, still smiling.

Marcy came in for a hug. “First date tomorrow, Anne! Are you excited?”

Anne laughed, hugging Marcy back. “Heck yeah!”

“We should do a spa night!” Sasha said, standing up. “Marcy, do you still have those face masks I got for you? We’ll be absolutely glowing tomorrow.” She posed, making Anne and Marcy laugh.

“Of course!” Marcy replied excitedly. “I even have some nail polish; our signature colors!”

Anne couldn’t stop smiling as she followed Marcy and Sasha into the bathroom. She felt great. Despite things changing for her after she returned from Amphibia, the love she shared with her friends stayed the same. And now, they could all open their hearts up more, expanding that love, growing exponentially closer.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed reading about these dorks crushing on you :P have a nice day!

[fancyfeathers]

have you watched queen's gambit? if you have, imagine beth harmon! darling as william's student. she is decimating every man in the chess club one day, and the whole department, even university is there to witness or join the challenge. william who happened to "stop by" casually offers to play. the game becomes actually longer and more intense. darling's confident and hungry posture falls as her objective goes from decimating her opponent to literally surviving. when he finally wins, she is humiliated badly(at least thats how she feels, william made sure no boy there insulted her intelligence at all lol) it's fun. i can see her becoming obsessed with taking him down and he is all "miss (name) can we focus on the lesson right now?"

Omg I love this idea especially because my mother insisted I play chess when I was in kindergarten all the way to my senior year and I met a girl when playing at a city championship who just reminded me of her and I played against her and she just destroyed me and then afterwards we exchanged phone numbers and we have been best friends since. Anywho that’s enough of me rambling lol.

But anywho I couldn’t play chess for the life of me anymore

I imagine that William would hear about her when his students were talking in class. When he catches them he asks what they are talking about that is so much more important than his lesson and the boys explain that one of them who is in the chess club had just gotten miserably beat by one of the only women at the university, he was planning on challenging her again after today’s classes. Then the next day comes and William asks his student how his match went, and he gotten beat even worse than before. Then the next day William hears his entire class talking about how she beat every single boy in the club and the professor who runs it. Then he hears how everyone around the university is attempting to beat her but no one has succeeded. So one day after class, William decides to see the rumored lady in action. The chess club has never been more active, people practically pouring out the door to watch. William squeezes his way pass everyone to watch and he recognizes her from passing in the hall…

“Miss (Name), she is one of my philosophy students, taking a minor in linguistic studies as well.”

Another one of the university professors had snuck up behind him, one of philosophy professors and the chaperone of the chess club.

“I think she is in my advanced number theory class next semester-“

“W-What how?!”

William is cut off my her competitor, staring down at the board in pure shock, he had just lost but it had only been a few mere minutes. William watched as she stood up and reached out to shake her opponent’s hand but he merely stood up and walked off in a fit. She just watches him leave and doesn’t notice the footsteps approaching her and she turns her head to see the scarlet eyed professor extending his hand to her.

“Professor William James Moriarty, I teach mathematics, care for a match?”

The two sit down at the table and the game begins. To say it was a long match was and understatement, dragging on hours since there are no use of clocks in the club and it is reaching night hours when Louis gets worried about his brother and shows up to the university to see the two of them playing and she is tugging at her hair in frustration as she stares down at the board. Only a few students and professors are left watching. Then she finally makes her move, and as she is grabbing her pencil to make note of it she hears William move a piece on the board and-

“Checkmate.”

She stares down at the board in pure shock, she actually lost. She stands up and shakes his hand silently before walking off herself with her few friends from the chess club trying to make her feel better about her loss.

William goes home with Louis who immediately asks why her was still here. But all William can think about is the intelligence of this young women. Then the first semester ends and winter break comes and goes and everyone returns to campus and she begins in William’s class but before he has the chance to speak to her at the end of class she runs off, presumably to the chess club. So after finishing a bit of filing William goes as well and sees her sitting playing a game with another one of the students and having a conversation.

“I don’t know why loosing to Professor Moriarty is bothering you so much, you literally won the Nationals over winter break in London, why don’t you focus on that victory-“

“Because I won those matches and I lost miserably to Professor Moriarty, it doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense is the fact that you are still here, you could literally be playing against some of the best in the world if you wanted but instead you are still here of all places, why?”

“Because I want to beat him.”

He begins watching her more closely after overhearing that. He picks up on her little habits, how she shows up thirty seconds before his class starts, she packs up her things forty seconds before the bell and when class is dismissed she is always the first one out the door. As semester moves on he also notices how distracted she is getting, staring off at the ceiling and not writing anything down, the lack of work on her assignments and how she is seemingly growing more and more distant to everything, and her grade in his class is suffering because of it.

“Miss (Name), please stay after class.”

He says mere seconds before the bell rings and she is about to stand up to leave and all of her class mates stare at her as she approaches his desk instead. He scolds her for her behavior in class, telling her that he knows she is intelligent and…

Her eyes were still staring off else where…

“Can I see your bag please?”

She hesitantly hands her bag off to him and he opens it and looks through it and pulls out a bottle of pills.

“I will be talking to administration about this, you will be most likely removed from the chess club and potentially expelled.”

“…I understand.”

The next day she is sitting in her dorm room, she had not gone to class that day when a secretary from administration came knocking at her door to escort her to the main office. She is taken to the headmaster’s office where William is sitting there as well. She is also reprimanded for her behavior in her mathematics class and use of such substances and she will be removed from the chess club…

“…you would be expelled but Professor Moriarty has offered you an alternative. You will be staying at the Moriarty estate and be under his care where he will monitor your credit recover and lessons at his home since the use of such substances calls for your removal from campus.”

“…I understand.”

Her things are packed up from the dorm and she is moved into the Moriarty estate and is silent for her first few days there until he calls her downstairs to his study and there is a chess board set up on his desk.

“You have a very interesting mind, I will be honest when I say I had my own motivations in letting you stay here. I wish to understand how your mind works, so would you like to play a game?”

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Fifteen

I sit on a kitchen chair sulkily drinking my burned cappuccino, crafted with minimum love and far too much bubbly froth, as Jude rifles around downstairs doing something that I didn’t bother to ask about. I only hear the occasional thump, or opening door, while his Americano gets cold on the table across from me. 

I stare out the window at the blue, sparkling sea under the afternoon sun and resent the fact that I’m finally back by the water, my favourite place to be, and it’s far too cold to swim in it. If I stare long enough and let my vision blur I can almost see myself out there like a ghost, seventeen in a little bikini, paddling out as far as my waist and then gliding forward with my face towards the horizon, early morning, an empty beach when everything was so much easier than it is these days. I thought life was complicated then. I thought that I had it hard, but I didn’t. I didn’t know a thing. 

I don’t know what Jude is doing downstairs. He stopped making sounds a while ago now, and I half expected him to come back up to the kitchen. My cappuccino is down to its final dregs, and his coffee sits full, black and so still that the light from the kitchen window reflects perfectly on the surface. When I reach out and touch the cup it’s still relatively warm, so I take it off the table to bring it to him. 

He’s sitting on the couch with one foot up on the coffee table. His profile is facing me, tilted down to look at the book he has balanced on his lap. One hand is on the page, the other rests on a little pile of rumpled orange neoprene on the cushion. He hardly glances at me as I make my way to him and place his coffee on the table next to his ankle, and holds out the fabric to me. 

“Your bikini.”

“You found it?”

“Yeah I had a look. It was in my sister’s room.”

“Someone must have thought it was hers.”

“Yeah.”

I take it from him, and he looks back at the book in his lap, which, now that I’m nearer to him I see is full of pretty pencil drawings. There’s a drawing of fishermen climbing aboard a little boat. A man teeing up a golf ball. A woman having a cigarette, leaning over wooden railings with a distant look on her face. I sit down next to him and look too. 

“Is this your work?”

“Yeah, this was my sketchbook from a few years ago. I found it when I was looking around, actually, I forgot that I even did some of these.”

“You never showed this to me before.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No, even though you promised.”

“Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay. I’m glad I didn’t see these, they would have shattered my confidence.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true, evidently you were twice the artist at eighteen than I ever was.”

“Your work was beautiful. And it isn’t a contest anyway, you can’t compare one style with another.”

He clearly underestimates my ability to compare anything and everything in my life in order to make me feel as awful as possible about my own abilities at all times. “Yeah I suppose.” I say benignly. 

He flips a few more pages in silence, and I wonder perhaps if he’s remembering where he was when he drew these things. I wonder where I was at those moments too. When he drew the couple playing tennis, was I lying on the beach with Claire? What about that drawing of Kasper playing Xbox, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in concentration? Maybe I was destroying Kelly in a ruthless game of ping pong in the caravan park community hall. We were doing all of the things that normal teenagers do when left to ourselves,  but I do know that I never really did anything back then without thinking about him, where he was and what he was doing. Not from the moment I clapped eyes on him. 

He turns over to a new page close to the back of the sketchbook and we both tense up. I’ve seen these drawings before. Five heads arranged on a page. One on each corner, and one in the middle. Me. My face. My expressions. Jude says nothing, he doesn’t move. I wondered two years ago, when I found these drawings in the depths of his Instagram page, just as I wonder now; what was he thinking about when he drew these?

“It’s me.” I say, pretending to be surprised. 

“Yes, it’s you.”

“I like the way that you drew me.”

“Thank you.” He’s frowning now. “I liked drawing you.”

“That one in the middle.” I say. “I don’t know what that expression is. You know, I’ve never seen myself look like that.”

“You make that face all the time.”

I try to mimic it a bit, the quirk at the corner of my mouth, the cheeky tilt of the head. “I do?”

“Yeah it’s how you look when you’ve said something that you think is going to make me laugh.”

“Ah, that explains it. I try to make you laugh all of the time with my shit jokes.” And I laugh then, hoping that I’ll set him off too, as I usually can. Just a smile usually has him grinning right back, but not now. He stays perfectly still with that flat, stoic expression on his face, and I let my grin slowly slide away and we lapse into a long silence. 

“I don’t want to be your friend.” He says. 

“What?”

He looks at me and his hands fall limp by his sides. There is a tremble in his voice. “I don’t want to be your friend. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t do it.”

My heart kicks up and I start to feel sick. “What do you mean?”

“You told me, outside the hospital, that you don’t want to ruin our friendship with any other complicated feelings, that it’s all too important to you. Well I’ve thought about it now and I don’t think I know how to be your friend without my feelings for you getting in the way. It’s not fair on me. Or on you. I can’t do it.”

“Are you saying that you don’t want to be in each other’s lives anymore?”

“I’m saying the same thing to you now as you said to me that night in Jen’s flat. I’m not sure that friendship – like, real friendship with no other feelings involved is possible for you and me. I thought that maybe you were wrong at the time, but you weren’t. If we’re not going to be together then this just isn’t fair. So, yeah, I want to be in your life, but apparently it’s not in the same way that you want to be in mine anymore. I can’t put myself through it.”

“Put yourself through-”

“Having to be around you and not ever getting to have more than just friendship. Like, to potentially be around when you decide that you want those things with another guy. That’s too hard, and I just don’t want to do that to myself. This isn’t an ultimatum or anything like that, I’m just stating a fact. You can feel, or not feel, whatever you want, but I need to take care of myself here, and I’d rather if my heart didn’t break every time I look at you.”

I start to feel flustered. “But that’s not what I want.”

“Well, sorry but I-”

“No, I don’t want that.” My voice shakes. “Where is this coming from all of a sudden?”

“This is not all of a sudden. This is what I wanted to say to you at breakfast before our plans got derailed. I’m sorry I put it off, I just find it hard to face things.”

“Jude, no, I want-”

“Yeah, what do you want?” He looks straight into my eyes with an intensity that makes me want to shrink away. It’s the simplest question in the world, and yet so weighted and complex that it hangs heavy in the air. I can’t speak.

“What do you want, Evie?”

“You.” I manage. 

“As a friend, or as more?”

I try to derail. “You’re being different around me. You’re all distant and withdrawn, I don’t like you when you’re like this.”

His mouth is a grim line. “You’re so confusing. I have no idea what you’re thinking, or what you want from me. You really mess with my head.”

“I’m not! You’re the one who’s confusing! You’ve always been confusing and unclear and non-communicative, so I don’t know why-”

“No, don’t do that.”

“Huh?”

“You’re trying to turn this around and throw it back at me. Just face it. Am I being unclear right now? Was I unclear with you in Berlin? The way I remember it I looked you right in the face and I told you what I felt, I broke up with my girlfriend for you. I made moves and I took action, so don’t try and say that to me. Unclear. Please, Evie. You have some nerve.”

I’m stunned. I fully expected him to back down straight away, to sit there and take it, but I realise immediately that I was a fool. He sees right through me, and my stomach starts churning.

“Yeah.” He goes on. “You’re right that I couldn’t talk to you about my feelings four years ago- two years ago, and I had reasons for that, but yeah, I’ll freely admit that I was a bad communicator and I confused you, but to be honest, all of that stuff pales in comparison to the way that you are. You are so much worse at it than I ever was. I don’t know what to do, or what to say to you, because it seems like no matter what I do or say it’s the wrong thing, or it upsets you or freaks you out. Am I allowed to want you or not? Like, which is the right thing? If I tell you I do, you’re frightened, and if I keep my distance and pretend like I don’t you’re devastated, Evie, I’m in limbo here. What do you want?”

Tears spring to my eyes. “I… I don’t know.”

He stops, takes a slow breath, and says more gently. “I thought that you’d want me to kiss you. That’s why I did it. I thought I was sure about it, the things you said to me before about having never gotten over me, the way you acted around me that night I got kicked out of the bar, you looked at me like… like you wanted me. I thought it was a sure shot, I’ve never been that wrong before. I really thought you’d be all in.”

I did too.

“And you kissed me back. You did. You grabbed my face, bit my lip and you, you kissed me back. I was there.” His exhale is a shaky whoosh. “And I don’t understand why you were so enthusiastic about me when you thought I still had a girlfriend, but the minute you found out that I didn’t you were so put off.”

“I… wasn’t.”

“Yeah you were, as though there was something more exciting about having me sneak around with you than having everything out in the open. Why is that?”

“Maybe I’m just awful, then.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like a victim, that’s not you. I don’t think you’re awful, I just want to understand.”

“Maybe the things I feel and do don’t make logical sense.”

“No, come on. Stop that.”

I feel trapped like a mouse. All I can do is sit blinking, and wonder what the repercussions of getting up and running away from this might be. Surely I could just hide in the bathroom or something. I feel unsettled in my seat, uncomfortable in my skin, too overwhelmed to meet his eyes. 

“Stop buying into this image of yourself of being somehow defective, irreparable or too complicated to understand. You do things for a reason, I just wish you’d help me understand what those reasons are instead of deflecting and trying to wriggle your way out of talking about things in a normal way.”

“I don’t.”

He whips the book off his lap and drops it onto the coffee table. I look at it. Stare at the yellowed pages and the crease along the damaged corner of the cover because it’s easier than looking at him. “My God, yes you do. Yes you do, and you have to stop doing it, because it’s boring. I don’t know why you do it, but you lean so much on this victim mentality and tell yourself stories about how badly you’ve been hurt, and how nobody wants you or loves you or could ever possibly do so, when it’s all a big lie. Look in the mirror, Evie. You’re a pretty girl, and you know it, you act like you don’t, but you do. Believe me, I’ve heard the way men talk about you, I’ve seen the way they watch you walk across the room, and I know you’ve seen it too. You just prefer to act like the world has cursed you with averageness because it better fits your narrative, just like this insane, teenaged idea about who’s in and out of your league.” 

The hierarchical structure of the dating pool. 

“Do you like living by the idea that I’m somehow too good for you but I want you anyway? Is it an ego thing? You know, I was pretty flattered by it when we were younger, but now I think it’s ridiculous. I’ve told you, I’m sitting here telling you that I like you, I’ve been obsessed with you, I lose sleep over you and you’re ignoring it in favour of your own, comfortable delusions, and your whole ‘poor me’ mentality. What the hell is that?”

“Well you are too good for me.” I manage, with words shrill and wobbly, and I’m not even buying it anymore. 

“Let me decide those things for myself. It’s always been obvious to me that I’d love you, you’re everything that I love. You’re so funny and goofy, ambitious and talented and so beautiful that you make me weak from looking at you sometimes, but sometimes I really wish that I didn’t, you know? I think my life would be easier if I felt nothing for you at all.”

“Well, fine, I feel the same.” I say as stinging tears pour over my cheeks. “Because being around you only reminds me of all the things I don’t like about myself, and you’re the reason I feel like shit.”

His spine stiffens and he shuts his eyes for a beat, like he’s trying to bear the full weight of my ridiculousness upon his shoulders. “That just isn’t true. If I wasn’t around there’d only be some other person to pile this onto. This mentality, this inherent dislike you have for yourself has nothing to do with me, and the way you’re blaming me for all this… You know that it isn’t fair on me, it makes it near impossible for me to communicate with you about how I’m feeling. When I call you out on something that’s hurtful to me and you turn it around and immediately internalise what I’m saying as some confirmation that you’re a bad person it kills any chances we have of talking this out rationally. It means that we can’t work through it together.”

Nobody has ever said things like this to me before. Something inside my head is misfiring, and I realise that everything I want to say is some variation of an expression of my victimhood. But even as I sift through a catalogue of defensive words I could use, things that shift the blame away from me, make me look innocent, but I know it will be useless to say them. They would only push him further away from me and be the final blow in this relationship that I’ve already made gallant inroads in destroying. I can’t, not when he looks at me like that, with this painful mixture of upset and confusion, frustration and vulnerability. But mostly because deep down I know that he’s right. I feel my brain trying to chew on that new thought, almost, almost taking it on before deciding it can’t digest it. It ejects it right out the top of my head. “You’re wrong.” I say with wild eyes that can’t focus on anything in front of me. “You’re just plain wrong.” But he knows he isn’t. He doesn’t look pleased about it, in fact he looks completely drained, but he knows. 

“Evie, I’m not. You have to think about the way that you are, the way that you treat yourself and speak to yourself. You are more horrible to yourself than anybody else could possibly put the time into being.”

“The way that you’re speaking to me is horrible.” I manage, in one last half-hearted attempt at combat in a war that I’ve already lost and he shrugs. “There isn’t anything wrong with conflict. You and I have needed to talk about this for a long time.”

I just give him a jerky shrug and sniffle. “Oh.” I say, thickly into the wrist that’s wiping tears and snot from my lip.

“I want you to see it from my perspective, I’ve hurt you, really badly, and I know that and I’ll never stop being sorry for it, but you’ve hurt me too. I know you don’t mean it, and it’s because of the way that you feel about yourself, but I’m just asking you to step out of your own head for a minute and think about you’re affecting the people around you instead.”

“I really don’t know how to be different, Jude. This is just how I am.”

He takes both of my hands in his, linking our fingers together and looking into my eyes with his steady, unflinching gaze, and if he cares about the snot, he doesn’t show it.  “Look, I’m telling you, I, Jude Turner, am in love with you. I have felt like this since I was eighteen, and it’s not some big joke, or a big, elaborate trick on you. I do not have a psychiatric disease. Do you feel the same?”

He waits, eyebrows raised for what must be a full, agonising minute for me to say something, and then, more gently than anything he’s said in the last ten minutes he says “Evie, do you have feelings for me?”

“Oh of course I do.” I whimper, and new tears pour freely down my face. “How obvious is it? Everyone knows about me and my affliction. I can’t hide it. I’ve hardly ever thought about another guy since I met you.”

“So talk to me.” His eyes are pleading, and his thumbs stroke the soft underside of my wrists. “What is going on in your head?” 

“God, I’m just so afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of change. Of being hurt. Of what people might think. Of you and what you’ll want from me.” 

“What do you think I’m going to want from you?”

I pull one hand out of his grip to swipe my face again and my lip quivers. I’m sobbing now, and Jude is patient, even as I let the silence stretch on and whimper and cough until I feel ready to speak again. “God, I’m so insane.”

“You aren’t.”

“It’s going to sound stupid, but I’m afraid that you’ll want me.”

He hesitates. “Well…”

“Me. My body. Sex. Things I won’t be good at. And that I’ll show you new ways to be disappointed in someone that you couldn’t even conceive of before.” 

“I’m honestly not sure what to say to that.”

“It’s so stupid, I knew it, I shouldn’t have admitted that, God, never-”

“No, I just don’t know what to say that won’t make you feel worse. Do you want me to say that I don’t want that or that I do?”

“Tell me the truth.”

“Well I do. Of course I do. Don’t you?”

I recall my heady, vivid dreams of my hands on his body. “I’ve thought about it.”

“You wouldn’t disappoint me. Never. I’d never expect anything, any kind of wild performance out of you, or whatever you believe I might want. I’ll worship you, you won’t ever regret it.”

“It scares me.” I say, very quietly. “I’ve done it before, plenty of times, but, I don’t know. It’s just that it never… I never…”

“I hated it at first too.” He confesses, tucking my hair behind my ear. “It can be terrible if it’s the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

I blink. I was sure that Jude, who in my head is the master of his own sexuality, would have had nothing but a rich history of total satisfaction. I never imagined a reality where things didn’t always come easy for him in that regard. He reads my questioning expression and shrugs lightly. “I was fourteen the first time.” He explains. “It was in a playground with this girl I used to know. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but I remember all the other details about it, like how I could hear my friends talking and laughing somewhere off in the distance, and the way my mouth tasted too sweet, like the cider we’d stolen from someone’s dad. I hated it so much I really thought I was going to get sick, and then in school, every time someone brought it up again I thought I’d be sick then too.”

“Oh, Jude…”

“We were really big on trying to be adults at the time, but I didn’t want any of it. I wanted to ride my bike around and climb trees, but that kind of thing was too embarrassing to admit, so…” A shrug. “It’s how it was. You can’t really go backwards from there, you know, like, have sex one day and then cycle race down a big hill the next day, you’re just like an adult and you have to live with it.”

“I never would have thought that about you.” 

“Well, it’s pretty much the only topic that you and I never seem to be able to talk about, isn’t it? Sex, I mean.” 

“I suppose so.”

“It gets better.” He tells me. “I swear, and like, I’m not saying this so that you’ll leap into bed with me, but if you ever wanted to try it out with me then I promise I’ll show you it can be good. It’s meant to be fun, and nice, and yeah, obviously it’s a bit vulnerable but it’s gone from being the worst thing I’ve ever done to the best thing, so I think it can be the same for you.”

“And if I’m really shit at it?”

“You couldn’t be.”

“I think you might be shocked at how shit I can be at things.”

“I just don’t believe that. You’ve never been bad at a thing in your life, and I’m a good teacher.” He splits into a grin, but there’s new heat in his eyes as they trace a slow triangle from my eyes to my lips and back. He’s thinking about it now. 

I start thinking about it too, and heat instantly flares in my face, and the sun hits the angle of his cheek, warming his apricot coloured skin. Nobody has ever looked quite as pretty as he does at this moment. I look away quickly. “Those things you said in Berlin, about wanting me to be your girlfriend. That was too much.”

“Okay.”

“That feels too intense too soon, that’s why I was afraid. It felt like you’d done all of this thinking about what you wanted and you’d broken up with Astrid and you’d put all of these things in place and you expected me to just go along with it all without warning me.”

He hesitates. “Yeah, you’re right. I kind of did.”

“I really don’t know how to deal with things like that, when people just come at me head on and expect me to react, I can’t. I panic, and I don’t know what to say, and that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be with you, it’s just that the idea of going all in like that feels like too much change all at once.”

“We can go as slowly as you want. I don’t mean to pressure you.”

“You’re just used to asking for things directly, I get it, but it doesn’t work like that with me.”

“I understand that, I’m sorry.” He looks like he might cry. 

“I’m sorry.” We reach for each other and I slot my head under his chin while he wraps his arms around me, and immediately I notice that I’ve blinked wet mascara onto his shirt. Oops. “I’m sorry that I’ve confused you and hurt you like this. I was so wrapped up with my own stuff that I didn’t think about you. Or maybe I did, maybe I just assumed that you could handle it.”

“I’m just a human man,”

“I know.”

“It’s only painful because of how much I care about you.”

“I’ll try to be better with the whole… victim thing. I didn’t even know I was like that.”

“It’s best to talk to someone about that stuff.”

“Like in therapy?”

“It mightn’t be a bad idea.” 

“I don’t think I’m bad enough for something like that. It feels a bit extreme.”

I feel him sigh. “Alright. It’s up to you.” 

I shut my eyes for a few moments and listen to the sound of his heartbeat beneath his ribs. I’m so tired, my body is weak and drained from the conflict and the emotion of this whole conversation, but I’m finally peaceful, like the worst is over. It doesn’t feel like the times I fought with Dean, I don’t feel beaten down and stripped of dignity and made a fool of, I feel a distinct calm, as though something has been repaired. Yet there is still one thing eating me. 

 “Can we be something between friends and a couple?” I say, and I tilt my head up to watch what my question does to him. 

His eyes do a tour of my face. “What does that entail?”

“It means give me time to get comfortable with you.” 

“Okay, I promise I won’t try to coax you into bed with me before you’re ready.”

“You might find that hard.” I tease, he smiles. “I’ll keep my hands to myself at all times.”

“Not at all times.”

“Okay sometimes. I might need some sort of guidebook for this. I’ve only had girlfriends and friends before, not grey areas.” 

“Have you ever considered being more like a normal boy?”

He laughs for the first time all day and it feels like he’s filling my body with sweet honey. What have I been doing? I’m crazy about him. He doesn’t scare me, not when we’re sitting like this, wrapped up in eachother, basking in the warm spring sun that comes through the windows, and maybe we are meant to be together, because he makes me feel this indescribable way that nobody else ever has before him, and maybe nobody ever will again. 

“Okay, so just to confirm, you want me?”

“Yes, Jude, I do.”

“Then the rest is just noise. We can figure it out.”

We smile at each other, and I say “I bet no other girl has ever made things so hard for you before.”

“You haven’t made it hard.”

“That’s a lie – I’m sure you’re used to women just flinging themselves right at you.”

He looks at me like I’ve said something really weird. “I feel a little concerned about the things you believe about me at times.”

“Please.” I grab his americano from the coffee table and put it into his hands. “Finish this, I spent good money on it.”

“This really is a horrible coffee, isn’t it?”

“Yeah it’s rank.” 

He takes a perfunctory sip and pulls a sour face. “Thanks a lot, Liam.

Beginning // Prev // Next

[kallard]

Old Friends

War buddies don't exist in the meeting room. It's a battle between a lot of different officers. Some continue fighting when they don't realize that they have been shot.

Kallard let loose a mighty yawn as he dropped into the wooden chair. He immediately rocked the chair back onto its hind legs, balancing himself with a single foot. The table in front of him wasn’t dirty, but it was covered in stains and carvings. Some of the carvings were proclamations of love and admiration, while others were simply crude insults.

A server approached Kallard from his right and bowed their head respectfully. She then stood straight and fixed the man with a soft smile, waiting for his order. When it didn’t come the waitress shot him a confused look that asked, “What can I get you?”

“Oh, right, two glasses of whiskey, two fingers each, top shelf,” Kallard said as he offered a small coin purse to the server. “Whatever’s left is yours.”

The girl smiled at him and accepted his coin and slipped it into a pocket on her black apron. She took out a notepad and quickly wrote down his order as she scurried off. Kallard watched her as she left, leaning back in his chair to follow her as she vanished behind the kitchen door. One of the other patrons smirked at the Garlean and called out to him.

“Look all ya want, kid, she ain’t gonna go with a lowlife like you,” the gruffy man said, affixing Kallard with an amused smile.

“Fuck off,” Kallard told the stranger, looking at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Mind your business.”

Before he could offer any kind of retort, Kallard held up his hand and looked away, making it obvious he was done with the drunken fool. He wasn’t here to cause a fight just yet. Instead he kept his eyes on the server as she approached with two whiskey glasses on a small wooden tray. She approached him from the kitchen area with a smile on her lips, setting down one glass in front of Kallard and the other opposite of him.

“Oi,” Kallard said, motioning at the empty chair across from him. “Pop a squat. I got words for you.”

The server looked confused at first but obliged and sat down. She took hold of the glass of whiskey and took a sip, knowing it had been ordered for her and not anyone else. Why was this stranger buying her a drink? He didn’t look like the type of guy to pick up a random girl at work, at least she hoped he wasn’t.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” Kallard asked the server before he reached up to his head and pulled back his hair, slicking it back momentarily. “How about now?”

Sky blue eyes went wide as the gears started turning in the woman’s head. She hastily tossed the cup back onto the table, spilling its contents as she shot out of her chair. The server then picked up her chair and smashed it against the ground and broke a leg off. She took hold of the makeshift weapon, holding it like a club and ready to defend herself.

“Whoa, shit,” Kallard said, releasing his hair and leaning forward. “Easy, I’m not here to hurt you or anyone. I just want to talk is all.”

By now several people were staring at the pair, the noise of the chair breaking drawing their eyes towards the two. The server shook her head and kept her defensive pose. She looked at Kallard with fear in her eyes, only to lower her chair leg. Her eyes narrowed as the server squinted at him, the weapon in her hands forgotten for now.

“Decimus,” the server said in a whisper-like tone.

“’Ey, that’s a start,” Kallard said with a cocky smile. “Jeez, you don’t see me for ten years and want to bash my skull in? Damn, thought we had a better relationship than that.”

The server dropped her club and picked a seat closer to Kallard and plopped down into it. She then reached down to her apron and removed the notepad and pencil. After rifling through a series of papers with words already written on them, the server eventually came to a blank page.

“I thought you were dead,” she had written. “The base you were on was destroyed and I assumed you and Seia were dead.”

“Yeah, well, funny story…” Kallard said before looking at the others in the tavern. “How about we move somewhere more private, hmm? Too many prying eyes,” he shouted the last part and whoever was left looking at him turned away, either out of shame or not wanting to piss the man off.

The server got up from her chair and walked over to the main door. She then clapped her hands loudly and waved her arms in the air, getting the attention of everyone inside. Rather than telling them to get out, she simply pointed at the door and stomped a foot, making it clear she wanted everyone out. Several people groaned as they got up, tossing coins onto their tables before sauntering out, hoping to find another watering hole they could waste time at. Once everyone was gone the server smiled, closed and locked the door before walking back over to Kallard’s table and taking her seat once more. She reached out and stole his whiskey and drained the cup of its contents.

“We didn’t die back then,” Kallard said now that the bar was empty. “Obviously.”

“Then what happened?” the server had written on her notepad, showing Kallard when she was finished writing.

“Hold on, why aren’t you talking?” Kallard asked, a little disappointed he didn’t have anything to drink now.

“I’m deaf,” the server simply wrote.

“The fuck? How did that happen? Last I saw you you had no issue hearing things.”

“I got sick and was medically discharged from service,” she had written down.

“Fuck me,” Kallard muttered. “You’re sick too? It’s not cancer, is it?”

“It was,” she had written before shrugging. “But it was a small tumor that I had removed. It just took my hearing with it. Haven’t been able for a while now.”

“I guess that explains why they transferred you out of the unit. Well, shit, I’m sorry you lost your hearing.”

“It’s okay, I’ve learned to live without it. Why are you here, if you’re not here to kill me, Decimus?” she asked with her notepad.

“Well, I came to see if you could help me out. I got a job that needs doing and I can’t do it alone,” Kallard said as he lit a cigarette. The server reached over and stole his pack of cigarettes, like she stole his drink. She took a cigarette out and held it out for Kallard to light, which he did without argument.

“Must be a big job if you came all the way out here to find me,” the server had written down, sliding the pad down to show Kallard. “What’s the job and does it pay well? I’m tired of his job.”

“Hah! Atta girl,” Kallard said with a toothy grin. He opened his mouth to say something else but instead coughed a few times and brought a hand to cover his mouth.

“You’re not contagious are you?”

“Fuck no, it’s cancer and it’s killing me,” he said with a frown and a shake of his head. “And no, there’s nothing I can do about it, not anymore. Doc friend of mine said I got a couple more months left in me, so I’m planning one final mission. I aim to sink a Garlean airship.”

“You want to what?” the server asked Kallard as she shoot him a questioning look. “You want to destroy Garlean property?”

“I’m gonna tell you a story, and I’ll try to keep it brief. Few years ago Seia and I were stationed at some base in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. Some cunt, let’s call him Captain Cunt, decided my sister was his property and took things into his own hands, if you catch my drift. Fucked her up real good.

“After that Seia stopped doing everything. She stopped talking, stopped eating and refused to leave her bed. So, I killed the guy. Spread his entrails across the base and mounted his head on a fucking pike. Seeing no other choice but out, Seia and I escaped, destroyed the base and killed everyone on it and left.

“We were on the run for a couple of years before they finally found us. Well, they didn’t find me as I rarely left our apartment. They instead found Seia and stole her from me, whisking her away to a base even I didn’t know about. It took me several months to find her only to have Seia die in my arms.”

The server frowned and reached out to take Kallard’s hand with her own. She mouthed her words of apology, but he had grown tired of other people’s pity. Kallard moved to jerk his hand away but then realized that this was an act of kindness, not pity. This woman had known Seia and had been good friends with both of them before they were transferred away. During their time together Kallard and Seia did their best to impart what they knew about the job onto the server, believing she would make a fine agent.

“Obviously,” Kallard continued after looking away to regain his composure. Talking about Seia’s death always got to him. “I’m angry. And, well, you remember when I broke that dude’s nose for looking at sis wrong? Well, I’m like that except I’m murderin’ everyone even remotely associated with Seia’s death. I’m talking people who ordered folk around, ordered us around, that kinda shit.

“No good people who need putting down. The very same people who drove us to war and made us the enemies of the entire fucking world. So, I’ve been killing them off, one by one. I’ve run out of folk to kill and my path leads me to this, a single Garlean base far north of here housing a single large airship.

“I believe they aim to use this to try and continue the war effort. Too many of us have that hate in our heart still and I want to lower their numbers. Less Garleans causing problems the better.”

“And you want me to help?” the server asked once Kallard was finished telling his tale of woe and revenge.

“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking. I need you to fly my ship and ensure my friend does not come to any harm. You’ll have one job, and one job alone: Keep Yuki safe.”

“She must mean a lot to you to come all this way to ask me of all people for help,” the server had written down in her little notebook.

“She does, and it would mean a great deal if you could help me out. Whatever it is you need, I’ll take care of. Place to live? You got it. Clothing, food, other needs? All on me. You were a good friend to me and Seia back in the day and I’m sorry for not keeping in touch after we got transferred. Seia kept asking about you, but we were both busy and obviously fell out of touch. I know I can’t make up for the years apart, but I can try. So, will you help me, Julia?”

“Before I agree, what am I flying?” Julia asked with a soft smile.

“One of the empire’s hyper-sonic assault carriers. I stole one a few months back.”

“Oh fuck yes,” the server wrote with a huge smile. “Yes, a thousand times yes.”

“Hah!” Kallard whooped with an equally big smile. “I knew it wouldn’t take much to get you involved. You were the meanest fuckin’ pilot I ever served with.”

“Yeah, well, I had a good teacher. When do we ship out?”

“Well, the mission isn’t for a few more weeks. I got some stuff to iron out and a few more folk to ask for help. Plus, it’ll give you time to fall in love with Yuki.”

“Love?!” Julia had written with shock on her face.

“Oh, yeah, I mean it. You’ll love this girl. She’s sweet as candy and not fake about it either. Probably the kindest soul I ever met. We’ve gotten real close since we met and I’d do anything for her,” Kallard said with a warm smile. It was true, he had a lot of feelings for Yuki and saw her as more as a little sister than a friend at this point. “She’s a good kid. You’ll love her cooking if not her.”

“That’s high praise coming from you,” Julia retorted, using her notepad to speak. “Coming from a guy who didn’t like anyone.”

“Hey now,” Kallard said with a snort. “I didn’t hate everyone! I liked you, Cass and Seia. Does that count?”

“No,” Julia mouthed, making an X with her arms.

“Aww, come on, you don’t have to do me dirty like that.”

“Too bad, so sad. Cry me a river!” Julia wrote in her notepad, running out of paper by now.

“Alright, as much as I love this lovely bar you found yourself in, I’m getting antsy and want to get the fuck out of dodge.”

“Okay, just let me close up and quit my job,” Julia wrote with a big, shit eating grin.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll meet you outside.”

Kallard got up from his chair and made his way towards the front door. He quickly tossed a look behind him, watching as Julia ran from table to table, giving it a quick wipe down with a stained white rag. With a smile on his face Kallard pushed the door open and stepped out into the cool night air and took in a deep breath before lighting a fresh cigarette after forgetting about his last one.

“You hear that, Seia,” Kallard said to the sky. “Jules is back in action and she’s ready to kick ass and take names. Don’t worry, I’ll be seeing you soon.”

A hand was then dipped into one of his long coat’s pockets. He dug around for a moment, rifling through wads of paper, cigarette packs and matches. After a moment of fumbling Kallard pulled a small radio out and toggled the on switch. He coughed, cleared his throat and then began the task of ringing up what little friends he had in hope that they would be as willing to help him as Julia was. And so, Kallard set out to assemble his merry band of ne’er-do-wells.

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things, Chapter 37: From the Dust

In the Shattering of Things, Chapter 37: From the Dust

My Dragon Age: Inquisition long fic featuring my OC Rose Trevelyan, my Level 1 archer who romances both Cullen (slow burn) and Garrett Hawke (fast burn)

Longfic Summary:

Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.

Chapter Summary: Broken and fading, Rose is recovered from the mountain pass above Haven, another seeming miracle. As she recovers she wrestles with the ordeal she faced, all that she survived, the forces that enabled her survival and everything that stretches before her.

CW: Graphic descriptions of injuries and medical treatments

Excerpt:

By the time I wake again there’s daylight filtering in through the gaps in the canvas flaps. My arm is bound in a firm sling and my shoulder hurts less, but I can still feel the distant squeal of the red lyrium in the back of my mind. Across the tent, Candlelight wavers on a makeshift table where Cullen is hunched over a journal scratching notes. His quiet company, the gesture of his presence while I slept fills me with unexpected bliss which punches forcefully through the grief and guilt and exhaustion.

I attempt to roll up to sitting, the cot creaking and he jolts to attention from where he’d been referencing a book.

“Keeping out the riff raff?” I ask, attempting some lightness in spite of everything.

“You’re awake,” he says, stating the obvious but with relief, his expression soft, setting down his pencil and coming sheepishly across the tent. “How do you feel?”

“Like I was chucked against a trebuchet like a ragdoll,” I groan, clutching my shoulder in its sling. Cullen helps me up to sitting and then steps back again fidgeting anxiously.

“I offered to keep watch in case you woke up. Let me get Ellendra.”

“No, no–” I protest. “Just, stay for a minute.” He looks momentarily unsure, no doubt the propriety of my ask weighing on him slightly, but he nods and drags a crate over to sit on.

“Of course.” 

“Can you tell me the situation?” I ask. He runs his hand through his hair, his expression grim. 

“Thankfully we were able to get enough supplies up into the pass to shelter everyone in shifts. But we only have enough food for another week with the strictest rationing. Game is hard to come by up here and we need to start moving.”

“Have we made contact with anyone?” 

“Leliana and I have ravens out to the nearest strongholds and the Fereldan and Orlesian governments, but we haven’t received word from anyone yet. I have scouting teams trekking in three directions but their reports haven’t come back yet. I suspect I’ll have their birds by morning if not earlier.”

“How many are we? How many did we lose?” I ask anxiously. 

“We would have lost a lot more if it weren’t for you,” he says, avoiding the question. 

“Cullen.”

“Best estimate is we lost a hundred and fifty or so. It’s hard to know exactly as we never had official counts of civilians. And the other issue is that morale is low. If we don’t find a way to rally, we’re going to start losing people to their injuries,” he explains. “The healers we have on staff are talented but they are critically low on supplies. And they’re tired themselves.”

“Supplies they’re using on me,” I huff, annoyed with the situation. He chides me with a look. 

“It’s unfortunate, but you’re needed. Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he says. “I’m not sure what to do about the morale, but I’m hoping–”

“We need a direction. Something to look forward to.”

“I know,” he sighs, rubbing his neck. “You’ve always been better at that part. At the moment they don’t know much about how you are, only that you were recovered from the pass. Once Ellendra clears you to leave the tent it would be good to make the rounds.”

“I will,” I nod. Resting on his elbows, his hands clasped, he looks impossibly defeated in spite of having survived the attack of an enemy at least ten times stronger, against all odds. 

“What was Haven like? After,” he asks quietly. I sigh deeply. 

“It was a graveyard. Only the gate and the Chantry withstood the Avalanche. I was able to run to the Chantry’s door and hide around the corner, but I was still buried to my waist. And then the templars came scouting…”

“The templars?” he asks, sitting forward.

“Yes, their general was with them. They were looking for survivors… and me.”

“Samson,” he spits, shaking his head. “I can’t– I can’t believe– no. I can. He only ever wanted two things. He wanted authority. And he wanted lyrium. And I’m sure the Elder One offered them both.” Cullen seemed to be working it out to himself, trying to reconcile the friend he’d once known with the corrupted man who effortlessly pummeled into the snow.

“It must have been hard to see him like that,” I say, not knowing what else to say.

“Hard?” Cullen asks, a little bit forcefully. He shakes his head. “No. In a way it’s completely unsurprising. It makes me sick to think about it. I could have done more to convince the others to come to the Inquisition. I– should have–” He hunches over his knees again and rubs his forehead, his mouth pressed into a bitter frown.

“Cullen,” I say softly. “You can’t take that on yourself. I won’t let you.”

“I wish you luck in stopping me,” he scoffs quietly. He glances up and snorts a regretful laugh. “Forgive me.”

Read the whole chapter at AO3

DAFF Crew Tag List:

@warpedlegacy | @rakshadow | @rosella-writes | @effelants | @bluewren | @breninarthur | @ar-lath-ma-cully | @dreadfutures | @ir0n-angel | @inquisimer | @crackinglamb | @nirikeehan | @oxygenforthewicked | @mogwaei | @exalted-dawn-drabbles | @melisusthewee | @blarrghe | @agentkatie

[brynn-lear]

Dear Lee,

I hope that despite your troubles (I heard you weren't looking forward to tomorrow/today) you are taking good care of yourself. In case you forgot to, here is a reminder to drink and eat + an extra reminder of how cool you are because you are so resilient and strong! (I am cheering you on!)

And while I love to send my support, I am also here for the ask game /evil laugh. I had no idea how many I could send, so I hope I didn't choose too many :( If I did end up asking too much, just ignore the ones you don't like /gen /nohardfeeling /youdoyou

So... what about "L", "O", "V", "E" + Dimitri? It seems fitting!!

Or maybe "H" for Gallagher if you're feeling silly / to increase combat the housewife allegations >:D

Sending you hugs and good vibes,

ㅤ

- Shiro.

L - Love when did they realize they were in love?

𝐃𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐢: ██ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████ ████ ████, ███ ████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ████. ████ ██ █████ █████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ 30 ██ ██ ████████ ████ █ ████████ ████, █████'█ ████ ██ ██████████████ ████████ ████ ██ ████.

𝐁𝐫𝐲𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐞: She still hasn't realized she's in love. Unfortunately, Brynn views romance as a theme in horror and that reflects on her writing.

O - Object what’s something they have that reminds them of the other?

𝐃𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐢: Brynn isn't one to give gifts— she thinks it's a rather daunting task. Her house is poor and she highly doubts whatever material present she could give will not satisfy him deep down. So, she went for a more personal approach... She learned a few skills from her grandfather and made riding boots. As to where she got information on his shoe size, Felix would be happy to rant about how weird it was that she used mud from a rainy day to measure it.

Dimitri was ecstatic to receive them... And incredibly sad when he accepted years later that it no longer fits him. Miraculously, Brynn just asks him for his shoe size this time. She doesn't mind making them. It's one great way to honor her deceased hero.

𝐁𝐫𝐲𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐞: Since she often loses her valuables, especially writing utensils (there's a certain nameless outlander who gave her a pencil but she lost that too), Dimitri gifted her a lifetime supply of quills. He often apologizes that it's an excessive gift, given how it's been 6 years and she has yet to run out of them. Brynn thanks him each time he strings out incoherent sorry-s, saying the supply had helped her a ton. But really. She hasn't lost a single one of his gifts.

V - Vanished what would they do if the other vanished one day?

Answered here ^^

E - Encourage how do they encourage each other?

𝐃𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐫𝐢:

𝐁𝐫𝐲𝐧𝐥𝐞𝐞: The most in effective cheerleader in the battlefield. Says the most cringeworthy phrases. "Destroy them, my liege!" "Mess em up, Your Highness!", "Slay, king!". She's not exactly aware that she's being loud and obnoxious. Sylvain likes to join in to turn Dimitri's face redder.

"You're dashing, Dimitri! Shows us those biceps! Right, Brynn?!"

"Yeah, what he said!"

"Do you even know what words and implications you're condoning?!"

H - Hungry does one of them cook? What do they do for dinner?

𝙶𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚊𝚐𝚑𝚎𝚛 is unfortunately a decent cook, but 𝐁𝐫𝐲𝐧𝐧 will never admit that. During the Alone Together event, Brynn tries her best to avoid him at all costs when in Penacony, but hunger struck. Heartily, he laughed and prepared something for her near-lifeless pleas for food. Since then, Brynn pays with gratitude little by little. The tips she'd leave on the table always amused Gallagher. There's no denying that no matter how much she makes the relationship seem transactional, what their relationship has a clear "wine and dine" label.

[haltandcatchfiretothemax]

FEMSLASH FEBRUARY #7: In which Cameron and Donna plot revenge, once again

[CN: references to sexual assault and harassment in film; death of a minor character and sexual harasser]

[CN: references to use of CBD and THC] . . It was a Friday night, and Cameron and Donna had put on their pajamas, laid out a spread of snacks and beverages, and retreated to their media room for a screening of Promising Young Woman. They were sitting on the couch together, under a large, shared blanket.

Cameron popped a CBD gummy into her mouth and said, “I understand that this movie was triggering for some people, and that a lot of people just didn’t like the end, but, I don’t know. I get it. I feel it. I’d love to ruin a terrible, violent man’s wedding.”

“Same,” Donna said. She took a drag from her vape pen. “We also might be kind of biased though. We’ve ruined a couple men’s careers.” Then, she started to laugh hysterically. “Oh my G0d, Jacob Wheeler had to resign because you ruined that presentation!”

Cameron started to laugh with her. “I forgot about that!”

After a few minutes of watching the movie, Donna said, “Seriously, though. There are guys from when I was in school and from when I first started working who I would find and quietly destroy now if I could.”

Eyes wide, Cameron said, “Hunt Whitmarsh!”

“No,” Donna shook her head, “he didn’t sexually harass me or hurt me, he just, you know, tricked me.” She thought about it, and said, “Okay, maybe Hunt. But there are other guys higher on my list, who definitely deserve to be publicly outed and shamed for their misconduct.”

Cameron narrowed her eyes. “Two words. Harpor Capital.”

Donna sat up and whacked Cameron’s arm with her hand. “YES. Exactly!”

“I should’ve let you tell them off,” Cameron said. “I nearly slapped that guy for what he said about your lipstick.” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, angry all over again despite how many years had passed.

“No, you were right to drag me away,” Donna conceded. “It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“I don’t know,” Cameron said. “Embarrassing them in front of a restaurant full of venture capitalists and other tech people having meetings might have made them think twice.”

“Maybe,” Donna shrugged.

Then, Cameron said, “We should have jumped them.”

Donna cackled, “Jumped them? Yeah, I’m sure I would have been an unstoppable powerhouse in my pencil skirt and kitten heels.”

Stubbornly, Cameron insisted, “We could have taken them. One of them was shorter than you and the other one, the bigger creep, was in his forties, drunk, and nowhere close to being in fighting shape. One good ostrich kick and I could have sent him into the next week.”

The image of Cameron as an ostrich, which Donna secretly thought of as Cameron’s totem or power animal, flapping her wings and screeching and kicking, and a man flying through the fabric of time and space into the future, made Donna dissolve into a fit of uncontrollable giggles.

“You’re all loopy now, but I saw the way you went after Hunt at COMDEX,” Cameron said. “You probably could’ve done some real damage. Some kind of facial scar, or something.”

Donna kept laughing, and sank into her seat and further under their blanket. Then, she abruptly stopped, paused the movie, and grabbed Cameron’s arm. “We should look them up now. We should find Mac and Tim from Harpor Capital! And then we can figure out how to put them out of business!”

Cameron’s eye’s widened. “Oh my G0d, Donna. You are so right! We should find them right now!” She reached for Donna’s tablet, which was sitting on the coffee table, and put it in her lap. Donna handed her vape pen to Cameron, opened her browser, and searched for ‘Harpor Capital’ ‘San Francisco.’

There were no results for a Harpor Capital in San Francisco, though there were many results for various Harper Capitals in other cities. “You think maybe they’ve already closed down?” Donna asked.

“It could just be that search doesn’t even work anymore,” Cameron groaned.

Undeterred, Donna searched for ‘mac harpor’ ‘harpor capital.’ An obituary popped up.

Cameron took the tablet from a stunned Donna and said, “Holy shit.” She clicked on the link, and skimmed the obituary. “This says he died in a skiing accident.”

“It does not say that,” Donna scoffed. She snatched the tablet back, and then saw it there for herself: Mac Harpor had skied into a tree, passed out, and died of exposure. Donna stared at the article for a minutes before letting out a snort.

Cameron started to bark with laughter, and Donna joined her. After a minute, Donna insisted, “We shouldn’t laugh!” through tears.

“I’m not laughing because he’s dead even though that’s great, I’m laughing because you started to laugh!”

“Here, let’s look up the shorter creep,” Donna said, taking the tablet back again. She typed ‘Tim Henkel’ ‘Harpor’ into the search bar, hit enter, and watched the results come up. She started to laugh again as soon as she saw them.

“What?!” Cameron grabbed the tablet and looked at it, and started to laugh again, this time doubling over before she could even comment. “Conspiracy to commit wire fraud!” she finally managed to sputter. “He’s doing twenty years in the fed! I love this song!”

When they finally stopped laughing, Cameron frowned. “I guess we can’t ruin them, they beat us to it. Unless we wanna have Tim shanked, which, I’m not really willing to go there.”

“Yeah. Definitely not worth it,” Donna shook her head.

Cameron turned to look at Donna, and smiled. “You wanna watch Gone Girl next, maybe?”

“Yes! I love that idea!” Donna exclaimed. She put the tablet back on the table, reached over and hugged Cameron, and kissed her cheek before grabbing the remote, and hitting play.

[studywgabi]

My Morning Routine with Body Dysmorphic Disorder

From the ages of 12 to 16, I spent 4 hours getting ready for school every weekday morning. First period started at 7:35 A.M., I woke up at 3:40 and usually arrived to class around 7:55 with an apologetic smile and a late pass. I said it was car trouble, or that my alarm hadn't gone off.

I spent the first hour-and-a-half of my day plucking my eyebrows, my temples, and my forehead up to my hairline, sitting side saddle on the sink and twisting around towards the mirror when I got tired of standing. I shaved the rest of the face from the eyes down: my cheeks, my sideburns, mustache, beard, and nose, my neck, and my ears with just water, no shaving cream. Then I spent another hour-and-a-half in the shower, turning the water on to rinse my razor and off again to shave repeatedly to try and stretch the heat as long as possible. I covered my entire body with shaving cream, painting myself white. I started with my stomach, then my breasts, my sternum, my nipples, then my sides, my underarms, my back as far up as I could reach and then my shoulders as far down, though I always missed a strip of skin above my waist. My hairline on the back of my neck, so nothing could stand up, even if I was scared. Then my arms, my hands, my knuckles, I wasn't very careful and I gave myself a few scars. Next my legs, feet, toes and pubic hair. When the water ran ice cold, I would turn it off, get out, and set up my makeup table while I waited for it to warm up again. I got back in, nicked myself a few more times, then washed my hair and body and used my prescription acne cleanser. My parents bought men's razors in bulk because I needed a new one every day. My clean skin only lasted a couple of hours, then turned into 11:00 A.M. shadow.

The next hour was makeup: sunscreen, moisturizer, primer, foundation, concealer, bronzer, contour, setting powder, blush, chapstick, lip liner, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and mascara. I wasn't very good at it; it always came out cakey or racoony. I listened to music, mostly Taylor Swift or Avril Lavigne, sometimes showtunes, while I worked. Then I brushed my hair, adding some brown eyeshadow to the bald spots to make it look fuller, got dressed in my school uniform, and packed up my lunch and books in a rush. No time for breakfast and I had the early lunch period at 10:35 anyway. I'm a girly-girl. I think I would have loved makeup the way I love fashion. I think it would have been fun to experiment with new colors, new styles, new brands, my favorite actresses' recommendations.

If I didn't do this, I couldn't leave my house. So I had the flu a lot. And I never went out on weekends. My one goal in life was beauty, or getting as close to it as someone like me could. It took up everything: my time, my energy, my focus. For the rest of the day, when I wasn't grooming, I was thinking about it.

Two years later, I don't do it anymore, but I miss it. If felt so good. It was so satisfying to destroy all those little parts of myself over and over again every day. I looked forward to it. I enjoyed the routine of it; it was so familiar to me. Mondays were my favorite, when I could free myself of all the evil that had built up over the weekend. I can't stand to touch my skin now and have to remember how smooth it used to be. I've scratched myself bloody trying to find some relief.

There have been setbacks. I snuck my mother's tweezers into the bathroom a couple of times, or she left her razor lying around after she thought I'd gotten over it. If I grow my nails out long enough, I can use them. I've tried other methods- new snake oil miracle razors, every depilatory cream, waxing, threading, bleaching, free consultations for expensive laser and electrolysis.

All the adults in my life were so happy and proud of me when I stopped. I don't feel I've made any "progress" as they define it. I don't perform those behaviors anymore, but I feel even worse. I hate myself even more, I feel trapped inside my own skin. I'm not any more loved or accepted now than I was then, which was all that mattered to me.

They have no idea what it is to be hideous. They could never, ever understand what it's like to have to exist in this world in this body. To have to live with yourself and sleep at night knowing what you are. To never be a woman, to never be young, to be inhuman, your own vile, repulsive species, something completely separate than everyone around you that should be kept locked in a cage away from society. Something that should be put down for it's own good. To be some kind of animal, or beast, to be born a monster. To want to gouge your own eyes out so you never have to see yourself, to want to die because you aren't strong enough to live this way. To know that you'll spend every last moment of your whole life alone.

It was so difficult for me to accept my BDD diagnosis. I guess I still haven't. I don't "fixate on my perceived flaws," other people do. I do my best to correct my very much real flaws so that other people don't have to look at them. I didn't come up with this on my own, I didn't choose to be ill, if that's what I am, and I sure as hell didn't choose this body. I don't want to look like this, I don't want to upset people with my appearance, I don't want it to be necessary for me to do all this to fix myself, but it's just what I have to do. I accepted that, and I couldn't understand why no one else did.

Is there someone who could prove me wrong? Is there someone who could wait for me, not mind that I'm late to everything, that I always cancel plans at the last minute? Is there someone who wouldn't mind that I'm a crybaby, that I'm too particular and too sensitive? Is there someone who wouldn't mind me? There wasn't then and there isn't now and I don't think there's going to be. And as hard as I try, I can't stop needing there to be, and I can't be that person for myself.

[crescentblossom66]

Dead Bird Metro: The Tale of two Girls Chapter 19

She tapped her claws on the table impatiently, waiting for the other two people that she had ordered back to their new HQ. With the Leowles and Penguiads out of the relevant parts of the Metro, the leader of the Nyakuza found it best to be in the center, it was easier to control all affairs from there.

The young cat next to her mirrored her motions, she really needed to buy her a new coat, they had insisted that they wanted one like hers, and she gladly obliged, however, by now the wine red coat that complimented their rare purple fur nicely, was torn up quite a bit and it was getting bit small now.

The door to the large meeting room opened and a white British Shorthair entered the room, her orange eyes went from the Empress to Maemi, who gave a short nod just like her mentor.

“I'm not too late I presume? I still had to deal with a rather ignorant business partner, which resulted in my departure being a little delayed.” She dusted off her black blazer and gray pencil skirt before sitting down on the chair to the left of the table.

“No, Nozomi, you're just on time, I wager that Toshihiro will keep us waiting.” Empress looked at the time again, it was now 03:02pm, of course the meeting time was exactly at 3.

“Quite. I so loath his tardiness.” Nozomi reached for her tablet typing something in a speed that left Maemi in awe.

It took another ten minutes until the door finally opened a second time and a cat with near pitch black fur entered. Maemi really liked the beautiful dark blue kimono with a wave pattern he wore, it reminded them of a famous painting they had seen in the museum that he was the curator of now.

“My apologies

I could not get here faster

Please, do not mind me”

“You're always incredibly late! Toshihiro, that's exactly the reason why I hate working together with you.” Nozomi's fur bristled at the sincere apology of the male cat that only bowed down deeply to emphasize his regret.

“You wound me my lady

I ran as fast as I could

Inspiration struck”

He answered before he went to sit down. With her closest allies now brought together, the Empress started to talk. “The reason you're all here today should be obvious, given the recent developments between us and the bird gangs.”

Nozomi nodded, not even taking her eyes off the screen, still typing furiously. “You think that they'll try to attack us next, I wager, and I agree, it's only logical for them to try to weaken our moral by killing us.”

Maemi jumped a bit at the thought of either of the three cats in the room with them dying, the little jolt caused Nozomi to stop and look up with a warm smile, “Don't worry yourself, Maemi, I don't plan on dying to those dimwitted cretins.-” The smaller cat relaxed a bit, “-Even should they make it into my office building, they'll find that traversing it won't be easy.” She looked back down with a smirk, starting to type again.

“Pesky little birds

We will destroy them, no doubt

You need not worry”

The assurance and confidence of both of their colleagues was reassuring, so far they had stayed away from fighting them, thinking that the sheer number of the Nyakuza was enough to deter the owls and penguins from attacking them. Maemi would have never thought that a bunch of birds could put up so much of a fight, but the thing that worried them the most was the two human girls that were mentioned over and over again by the cats in their ranks. One supposedly had brown hair tied in a pony tail, a cold and calculated young girl, who kills cats without betting an eye. The other girl had a darker skin tone and curly hair, apparently that one was charismatic and could think quick on her feet.

The Empress slowly rose from her chair and started to walk up to the big window, staring toward the old industrial district. “No doubt will they try to take you out, sooner or later, all I ask is that you'll prepare for combat. I'm not losing our hard earned territory again.”

“Positive. As I said, I'm not planning on losing to them, capturing and running the Leowles' businesses was annoying enough.” Toshihiro only nodded in agreement.

“Good, I want you to return to your businesses, kill any birds that come your way...Maemi-”

“Yes, ma'am!” The young cat saluted and proudly waited for an order.

“-I need you to head to our storage near the edge of the shopping district, no doubt will they try to sabotage us by breaking our weapons and supplies. Greet those birds for me if they show up, will you.”

“Dead or alive, ma'am?” The tall, gray cat thought about it for a moment, before coming to a conclusion.

“Alive would be better, capture them when the opportunity presents itself.” Maemi nodded with a serious expression. They wouldn't fail, those birds would pay for killing so many Nyakuza!

“Dismissed.” At that, the three cats got up and filed back out of the room leaving the tall cat behind, whose eyes narrowed, “Why do you struggle so much against the natural order, cats eat birds, it has always been so, and it will continue to be so.”

-

Dave looked around, almost shaking as they moved around the edge of the Nyakuza territory, it was determined that he and Enrique were to head to the big storage hall. Miraculously, both leaders managed to not kill one another in the meeting the day prior, however, Dave noticed the tension of his boss, and the sheer hatred for the leader of the Leowles.

Enrique, who appeared as calm as ever, was leading him and a group of five owl and five penguins, a small group had an easier time staying undetected, that was something that Hattie explained to them, and the old, yellow bird had nodded in approval. “You have that micro chip that your leader has given you, right, amigo?”

Dave rummaged around in the inside pocket of his jacket and felt the small piece of technology still being where it should be, for a moment he had feared that he had lost it. DJ Grooves had entrusted him with it, telling him that they could open the gate to the storage hall with it. He didn't understand anything he had told him, but it boiled down to 'Put the chip on the card reader, it will to the rest'. The small penguin was proud at being given such an important item, he couldn't mess this up now! “I got it right in my pocket, don't worry.”

They continue on through the alleys until they spot the storage hall. “So far so good.” Enrique observes the guards that have taken position around the big building. He sees around five cats guarding the outside of the hall. The low number wasn't unusual, they still had their claws full with running the former Leowle and Penguiad territory, that and the fact that they lost quite a lot of cats in the assault on their HQ.

Dave peeks around the corner, and gets pulled back by Enrique when one of the cats looked their way. The small eagle-owl starts whispering after motioning for the penguins and owls that were with them to come closer. “We'll attack them from both sides, I'll lure them over here. Dave-” The penguin jolted up in surprise.

“A pincer attack, dude, that's brutal, man. Bow wasn't joking when she had us watch out for you owl when Hattie came walking toward us that day.” The penguin shuddered a bit.

“-I want you and the penguins to go around the building and strike from behind. ¿Comprendes amigo?“

“Yes?” He looked a bit uncertain, kind of understanding what he just asked and kind of not. The penguins followed behind him, drawing their weapons as they walked behind the building from the left side waiting for Enrique to draw the attention to him and the owls. They started to attack as soon as they heard a loud 'How DARE you!' come from the position of the owls. Dave quickly took out one of the cats by stabbing him in the back while Enrique finished off a cat that had tried to slash him with their claws, only for their neck to meet his sharp talon on the way. The other owls and penguins quickly overwhelmed the remaining three. “Take that, fur balls!” One of the penguins cheered and high...oned? His brethren. The owls, meanwhile tried to focus on the front.

Enrique looked around some more, Dave following shortly behind him. “That's a big hall, alright, I wonder how many dangerous weapons they're storing in there.” Dave looked up at the massive, green building, while Enrique walked up to the small panel that required some kind of code. “You think there's more of those fur balls in there?” The penguin moved next to the panel, away from the door, just in case more cats came running out when he put the chip onto the panel and the door opens.

“We'll find out, ready when you are, Dave.” The penguin nodded and waited for the other penguins and owls to be in position before putting the micro chip on the electronic device. A robotic 'Access granted' could be heard. The door slowly opened, Dave gripped his knife tight and looked over at Enrique, whose eyes narrowed.

Nothing happened...absolute silence. The doors were fully open and for a full 10 seconds there was no noise, but the noise of his own breathing in Dave's ears. He watched as Enrique peeked around the corner into the storage hall and followed when he moved from his position and slowly entered, his weapon at the ready.

The hall was dark, hardly any windows made it difficult for the penguins to see. Enrique on the other hand could see nothing out of the ordinary. Some big crates with food, large shelves full of various blunt weapons like bats and golf clubs, even crow bars. He slowly inched forward scanning the whole room, behind him the penguins, Dave and his group of owls followed close behind. He looked between the large shelves moving further and further in.

He was about to get out the dynamite that his boss had entrusted him with, when he heard a loud voice above him. “I've heard that birds like to be free...-” His eyes widen in shock when he heard a loud snapping noise and saw a huge metal cage fall down from the ceiling. Dave yelped when the cage hit the ground with a massive steely thud. “-well, I like mine caged.” A small purple cat in a red jacket jumped down from one of the support beams at the top and landed on the cage gracefully. “I would have preferred to kill you for all my friends YOU killed, but the boss wants you alive for some reason.” They gave the owls and penguins a glare, their green eyes glistening with hatred as they jumped to the ground.

Dave appeared shocked, but snapped himself out of it. “You won't get away with this! DJ Grooves will come and save us!” The penguins behind him rallied together and cheered, showing their refusal to give up. Enrique growled at the young cat, countering their glare with his own. His feathers rising up, as he watched their smirk.

“You're making a big mistake, even should you kill us the rest of the Leowles will avenge our deaths.” Internally Enrique was angry at himself, he should have seen this coming, yet, he realized to late that they were being watched the moment they entered.

Maemi only dusted off their paws before making their exit, the owls and penguins yelling and fighting against the bars of the cage, making them laugh as they left the building. Maemi closed the doors, leaving Dave, Enrique, and the penguins and owls that followed them in near pitch black darkness.

Dave sat down on the ground, hitting his head on a metal bar, that he couldn't see. “We really messed up big time now.” He let out a deep sigh.

“They won't lose, Dave. My boss and yours, Hattie, and Bow will get the job done.” Enrique tried to cheer his new friend up, but he looked like he was on the verge of a breakdown.

“W-What are they gonna do to us?” Dave asked with a shaky voice, he started to shiver a bit. Still true to his nature, the eagle-owl was oddly calm.

“They'll likely will use us as bait. They want to lure the others into a trap.” Enrique cringed a bit when he noticed that the flightless bird had started to shake even more.

“We really done it now. We...We'll get DJ Grooves and the others killed.” His voice was nothing more than a near broken whisper.

Enrique only laughed a little, “I'd like to see them try! Those four aren't stupid, Dave. They'll notice that something's wrong when we don't come back.” He wanted to say that they could also think that they've been killed, but decided to not tell Dave that, thinking that it would harm the already depressed bird more.

“...What do we do now?” Dave inquired. This darkness felt like it was crushing him.

“We...we wait, compadre, we wait.”

[dioles-writes]

• OC FICLET •

Masterlist | Characters: Felix (he/him), January (he/him), Akali (he/him), Rory (they/she), Kuali’i (he/him)

Credits to @jiphenn as the characters in purple are all hers!

There was a knock at the door.

Felix was with the rest of the Board Game Club, sitting next to Akali as they all drank hot chocolate, chatting and playing board games.

“Can you go open the door Felix?” January asked, taking a sip of his drink.

Felix stood up from his seat, leaving Akali who was absolutely destroying him at Monopoly and swinging open the door.

Standing before him was Kuali’i, multicoloured hair loosely curled, an awkward smile on his face. He looked like he was regretting everything. Felix smirked at him. “Oh, hi.”

“Hey guys, your new club members are here!” Rory popped up from behind Kuali’i with a grin, pushing him through the door. January was immediately all smiles, springing up with his usual enthusiasm. “Oh, you guys are here!” He ran up quickly to lock the door, completely ecstatic. He turned to the rest of the club. “You guys know what that means.” He was grinning from ear to ear. Felix took his seat next to Akali again.

“Power sharing!”

January was absolutely brimming with excitement. “This also gives us a chance to see how we’ve improved!” He continued. “I’ll go first!”

January retrieved a freshly sharpened pencil from his bag, like the very first club meeting. Felix got flashbacks to his freaky aura switch, as he stabbed himself clean through his hand, blood slicking the table. “My power is weight! Meaning I can change the rate at which gravity pulls it down.” He said with a smile, dangling the pencil over his hand.

At the last second he pulled his hand away with a chuckle. “Just kidding!” He stared at the horrified expressions of the original members, his green and purple eyes twinkling. “I’m not doing that again.” Astley, Rory, Kuali’i, Wilder and Gunther looked extremely confused.

“I can do it normally like this.” January placed his thumb over the eraser, and the pencil came crashing down at the table with a large thud, faster than ever. Felix was relieved he didn’t stab himself again.

January stood up, continuing his demonstration. “I can also make it work like this now!” He grabbed the pencil and chucked it across the room. He tapped his thumb against his index finger almost immediately, and the pencil stopped mid-flight, falling harshly into the table again.

“And I can do this now too!” He said, cracking his fingers. He touched the chair he was just sitting on, and the whole club watched, captivated, as the chair slowly started to lift off the ground and float. “Now the gravitational pull is less than it was before, meaning I can float things.” January explained, tapping his thumb against his finger again and causing the chair to fall back down.

“Next is Akali!” January said, taking a seat once more.

Akali pulled his gloves off, and shadows immediately started seeping from the cracks in his palms, his familiar shadow creatures emerging.

This time, instead of three, four came out. They were larger now too, probably nine feet tall, and the air around the creatures seemed colder, more sinister, radiating an ominous presence. “I can make shadow creatures.” Akali said. “I can also switch positions with them.” He flickered to each spot with ease, before finally teleporting back down to his spot. He put his gloves back on. “That’s it.” He said with a shrug.

“Next up is Felix!”

Felix stood up, taking a deep breath. Ever since the club had practiced their powers at January’s mansion he had been working day and night to improve his portals. He’d practiced portaling different objects around his room, then also around their house. He spent most nights when he was free after school at January’s, the two of them working together. He’d been determined to not make a fool of himself again. This would be the ultimate test - to see if he’d actually made any real improvements.

“I can make portals.” He said with a smile, swiping his hand through the air. Below his feet an electric blue portal crackled to life, expanding underneath the entire table and sucking the club in.

When they resurfaced, they were standing on a random hilltop in Germany. Mountains rose up around them, surrounded by large rolling hills, all of it a majestic green. Felix wondered why this place had popped up in his mind, out of all the other countries. The whole club looked extremely alarmed, besides January, Rory, Gunther and Astley, who were probably used to this sort of thing by now. With a swipe of his hand, Felix landed them back in the club room, like they’d never even left.

“WOW!” January exclaimed, clapping loudly and looking genuinely impressed.

Felix grinned at him and sat back down.

One by one, the rest of the club showed off their powers. No one else had improved as much as January and Felix (with Maddox and Astley not being able to improve at all) but the club all had much better control over their abilities from when they last showed them off three months ago.

Eventually, it reached Kuali’i.

He glanced around, looking like he was debating if he should escape or not, before seemingly deciding he was in it too deep to walk away now. He swallowed. “I’m Kuali’i and this is my power.”

He swiped his two fingers up and a red holographic screen appeared in front of him. “I guess you can kind of call it getting my way.” He broadcasted the screen into a bigger one that faced the rest of the Board Game Club. “If I have a goal in mind, I’m able to achieve it as long as I meet three requirements.” The entire club watched him curiously as he continued to explain.

“So, for example, say I wanna grow two inches,” A header with the title ‘GROW TWO INCHES’ popped up on the screen. He clicked it and it expanded, turning into a three-item checklist:

GROW TWO INCHES TALLER

[] Run for five miles

[] Sleep for eleven hours straight

[] Make five new friends

MONTHLY POWER UPS REMAINING: 3

“So as long as I complete these three tasks my goal will happen.” Kuali’i said. “Monthly power ups help me complete a task easier. So in this case I could increase my stamina or speed for a while so I could run five miles more effortlessly.” Kuali’i exited out of the goal.

“That’s why I didn’t join the club at first. Cause I didn’t really need to.” He swiped back a little bit, revealing a goal that read, “AVOID GETTING INJECTED AND FOUND OUT BY THE DIOLE VACCINE”.

Felix thought about how hard January had been pushing the club to recruit him. How many times Felix had brought up the club, trying to convince him to join. How confused he had been for the last few months, on why Kuali’i, who was tall, attractive, well-liked, and had seemingly everything, would want to lose it all when the vaccine came out.

“I still don’t really need to join…” Kuali‘I mumbled. “But it was a task on one of my other goals.”

Felix almost laughed at the irony of it all. He couldn’t believe it. Kuali’i didn’t even want to join them now - he was simply doing it to complete a task. Months of trying to get closer to him, to have him feel more comfortable, and the guy still didn’t really trust them. Felix was absolutely shocked.

“That’s about all I can do.” Kuali’i said, swiping down and making the screen vanish.

[romerona]

Chapter 7: Strawberry mission.

-In which the daughter of the Lord of Darkness who was born with the sole purpose of destroying the universe falls in love with Peter Parker.-

Masterlist.

-----------------------------

Carina had designated rooms in each of the sanctuaries, Hong Kong, New York, Nepal and London, rooms made for the Agamotto lineage only.

She hardly used them though, as she spent most of her time in the Kamar Taj but from time to time she liked to stay there, whenever she needed to be alone. It was a little of a safe space for her, in there she wasn't bothered nor did she had to meet anyone's expectations, nor did she feel judged with every step she took.

All her rooms except for the one in Kamar Taj have a considerable large space, every aspect within the bedrooms is wonderfully crafted, and her room in London was no different. High ceilings, long walls, and large windows with a wonderful view of the city.

Her bedroom has modern vintage furniture from the bed set, the seating set, the wooden desks and the beautiful library that was below a chandelier. The furniture is said to be made from the finest material and fabric, aside from that, the bedroom contains decorations that look beautiful.

Sitting on a comfortable chair with books covering the old mahogany colour of the wooden table and a cup of Ginseng tea was one of the few pleasures life has to offer, at least from Carina's perspective, the only thing that could make it better was if she had a bowl of strawberries but alas nothing in life is ever perfect.

Her pencil traced words over the white paper. She was doing her homework. It was due for the upcoming week but Carina liked having things from school done so she could have free time.

Mathematics, unfortunately, was what the homework was about.

They were learning about The Pythagorean Theorem, and for the most part, she didn't understand it; why does she need to learn the fundamental relation between the three sides of a right triangle? Oh, and don't let her get started in the hypotenuse.

Regardless, she does her best to have every answer correct, uses every formula and double-checks the results, because as much as she doesn't like it, she was still learning, and most importantly finishing her assignments.

It took her a few hours to finish not just her mathematics assignments but all the others. They weren't much but they were extensive, sort of answering questions 3 to 5 but each question had an a-b-c derivative.

Once her assignments were done she made her way back to the Kamar Taj.

"Good day, Miss Agamotto." Said a voice, making her halt her steps.

Carina turns to the source of the voice and politely smiles at the master. "Good day, Master Rama."

Master Rama was one of the few people who treated her semi-nicely, although most of her interactions usually were short and quick.

"Were you here for a while?" He asked, eyeing the books in her hands. "I didn't see you enter, does the supreme knows you're here?"

Carina nodded, holding the books to her chest. "Yes, she does, I told her I'll be here to do my Homework."

"And are you finished with it?" He asked, an eyebrow shooting to his hairline, quizzically.

"Of course."

"Well, go on then." He held out his hand to motion the way she was just walking. "Don't let me hold you any longer."

"Have a great day, Master Rama." She smiled at him politely once again before continuing her walk.

He sent her a nod of appreciation."You as well, Miss Agamotto."

Coming back to the Kamar Taj, she made it her mission to get a bowl of Strawberries from the kitchens without the cook knowing.

But unfortunately, her planes were interrupted by Eloise Colombo when she used her white cane to trip her.

Carina hissed when she hit the ground, her hand breaking her hand, making her drop all the books in her hand.

"Always at the bottom, aren't you, Carina?"Laughs Eloise, making Hanna chuckle oo.

"Leave me alone." Carina rolled her eyes while looking at the scrape on her scar hand.

"And why would we do that?" Eloise asked with snobbishnesses and sarcasm. "We're just fans, not many people get to know the powerful Miss Agamotto."

"I think you mean the helpless Miss Agamotto, Eloise." Hanna huffed out a laugh.

Carina ignore them, and began to pick up her scrambled books, she went to pick up the last one but Hanna hold it out of her reach.

"What's this?" She asked, looking at it when her eyes lit up in realisation. "Oh, it's the math assignment, I thought it was meant for next week."

"It is, but of course, little miss perfect over here has done it already." Eloise scoffs, crossing her arms vexingly.

"Just give it back." Carina sighs, tiredly.

Hanna turns to look at Eloise while she hums in thought, "No, I don't think we will. This will save us time, Hanna ripped the pages off."

"No, wait—"

Just before Hanna could tear the page a voice cut through, making all of them freeze.

"What is going on?" Said Stephen, walking towards them, a couple of familiar books in his hands.

"Nothing," Hanna said quickly, nervous.

Eloise's head turned to where Stephen has now stopped. "We were just leaving."

Hanna nodded hastily. "Yeah, yeah we were."

"Then give her the book back before you do, it doesn't belong to you," Stephen said, frowning at the girls. "Didn't your parents teach you to not take things that weren't yours?"

Eloise nodded, head down in shame. "They did."

"Who are your parents again? I'm sure they'll love to hear about this." Stephen tilts his head up in challenge.

Eloise nudged Hanna, who was quick to throw the book at Carina, before bolting away, leaving Carina to grab her books and scramble to her feet.

"Kids these days..." Stephen scoffs, shaking his head before looking over at Carina. "You alright?"

Carina nodded while dusting the dirt off her robes. "I'm fine."

"You know, a little gratitude would be nice," Stephen said.

"Sorry," Carina mumbles not meeting his eyes whilst fidgeting with the star stone, she was embarrassed to be caught in a position like that and slightly irritated. "Thank you but I didn't need your help."

Stephan scoffs, eyebrows shooting up unconvinced. "Oh really? Because it didn't seem to me like you wanted them to trash your book apart."

Carina didn't say anything, she just sighed not feeling like bantering with him because she know she didn't have anything under control. "Yeah, I'm sorry, you're right."

"Nothing broken?" He asked after a pause.

"No, just a scrape." Carina shook her head, finally looking at him and giving him a small smile, holding her hand up.

He gazed at her hand. "Just make sure to wash it, otherwise it'll get infected and you'll lose your hand."

"Why thank you, Doctor, what would it be of me without your help." Carina mocks, sending him a teasing smile and making him roll his eyes.

"Where are you going anyway?" She asked, looking at the pile of books in his hand.

"The library." He said, straightening up as if he had remembered what he was doing before coming across her. "I finish the books you gave me and want to start with the next ones."

Carina's eyes went wide. "Oh, already?"

Stephen nodded, slightly petulantly. "I told you I had a photographic memory."

"Geez, what a show-off you are, Stephen." Carina teases with an eye roll as he glared at her.

"Jealousy is not a good look, kid." He turns on his heel and begins to make his way to the library once again.

Carina giggled, scrambling to follow him. "I'll admit, I am a little jealous. I think photographic memory is pretty cool."

"I know it is." He said, glancing down at her with a small grin. "Now leave, go wash your hand."

"I'll do that later, I want to go to the library too now that I know you're going to take the books back."

"Don't." He sighs.

"Too late, come on."

After a few minutes of silence, Stephen asked. "You know, I found it odd that you and your outgoing little spirit didn't defend yourself from those girls, or at least said something back at them."

Carina purses her lips and looked down at her books, feeling a little embarrassed and shy. "I'm not a fan of violence or confrontation so..."

"So, you're just going to let them walk all over you?" Stephen asked frowning down at her, lips falling into a thin line.

"I don't know..." she shrugged hopelessly. "I just don't like it, confrontation makes me uncomfortable, I'll rather just leave the problem for the peace."

"How hippyish of you." He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "I'm going to give you some advice, a rather good one too so listen up."

"What?" Carina looked up at him in expectation.

"When people hit you or say mean things to you they don't know how much it hurts, they only know who they are aiming at, so you have to learn to hit back," Stephen said, a cold remak in his tone.

Carina purses her lips in thought, what Stephen said did have some reasons but then again, learning how to hit back it'll only become a cycle.

"Easier said than done."

Thankfully, they were quick to arrive at the library, where Wong was sitting at his desk, reading his time away.

"Wong," Carina called placing her books on the nearest table, grinning at him when he looked up. "Look what I brought you. This is Stephen Strange."

"Hey." Stephen gave him a tight smile nodding in acknowledgement, whilst Wong stood up from his chair to greet him.

"Mr Strange."

"Uh... Stephen, please." Stephen said, placing the books on Wong's desk. "And you are Wong, right?" He said, sending Carina a quick quizzical look.

Wong nodded in confirmation as well as Carina.

"So, it's just Wong? Like... Adele?" He asks, amusingly. "Or... Aristotle. Drake. Bono." He glanced at Carina who was looking just like Wong was, unamused. "Eminem."

"Good thing you're a Doctor, 'cause you wouldn't have made it as a comedian, Stephen," Carina said, giggling at her joke, earning an annoyed look from Stephen.

She glanced at the stack of books then at Wong. "There is Astronomia Nova and now that my debt is paid, I'm going down."

She grabbed her books and rounded Wong's desk, and walked down the lower part of the library, where supposedly only masters are allowed but she was an exception, the only rule was that she was not allowed to read the supreme's book collection.

She was fine with it, although she had to admit she was intrigued about those books she'll never dare to read them, not unless she's allowed to.

Sitting down at one of the many tables, Carina pulled out a Magazine she had brought back from England, The Cosmopolitan, not her favourite but it's definitely on the top five.

She hadn't had time to read magazines in a while, too busy with homework and other things, like getting the newcomers to settle in.

Taylor Swift was on the cover, she's a famous singer. Carina knew that because she had seen her on several covers now, she hardly listened to music or knew much about pop culture, but she knew enough to know who the Kardashians are, Kim's her favourite, she knew about Beyoncé, Timothée Chalamet, Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Emma Stone, Kanye West, Tony Stark— but she supposed he is a whole category of his own— and a few more.

The pop culture wasn't something she usually looks forward to when she reads a magazine but rather the fashion section. Because fashion magazines show that style is about individuality, it is a way to display people's personalities but it also displays the feelings and mood of a person and reflects on who they are.

Living in Kamar-Taj, where everyone wears the same robes and individuality only exists in the people's hearts, she was allured to learn about it, she found her individuality in fashion, although she doesn't own clothing other than the robes she likes to add her touches from time to time.

"This section is for Masters only." The voice of Wong echoed through the walls, making Carina look up from the magazine at the two men entering the section.

"Then why is she here?" Stephen asked and Carina pulled her tongue out.

"Because at my discretion, others may use it." Wong glanced at her before walking further into the library, in between the shelves whilst Stephen observed the area. "We should start with Maxim's Primer. How is your Sanskrit?"

"Awful." Mutters Carina, eyes back on the magazine on new designs from Versace.

Stephen spared her a glance. "I'm fluent in Google Translate."

"Vedic," Wong told him, handing him the books. "Classical Sanskrit."

"What are those?" Asked Strange, causing Carina to be distracted one more time.

"The Ancient One's private collection." She told him before Wong could.

Stephen frowns, looking between her and Wong. "So, they're forbidden?"

"No knowledge in Kamar-Taj is forbidden. Only certain practices."

"Only for me." Carina huffs, crossing her arms.

Wong sent her a look. "Because those books are far too advanced for anyone other than the Sorcerer Supreme, let alone children."

"Yeah yeah." Carina rolled her eyes, feeling slightly annoyed so she decided to go back to her magazine.

"This one's got pages missing," Stephen said.

"That's the book of Cagliostro," Wong explained while looking for another book at the bottom of a shelf. "The study of time. One of the rituals was stolen by a former Master. A zealot called Kaecilius. Just after he strung up the former librarian, and relieved him of his head."

Carina shudders, fleetingly remembering that night, her hands subconsciously closing at the memories as her stomach did weird twists.

"I'm now the guardian of these books. So if a volume from this collection should be stolen again, I'd know it. And you'd be dead before you ever left the compound." He snaps the book of Cagliostro shut and took it out of Stephen's hands.

"What if it's just overdue?" Asks Stephen, huffing an awkward laugh yet Wong doesn't seem to be impressed. "You know? Any... late fees I should know about? Maiming perhaps?"

"No, just constant scolding," Carina said, smiling at Wong who ignore her and gave Stephen the last of his books. "But I wouldn't push it."

"You know, people used to think that I was funny," Stephen mumbles, taking the books from the librarian.

"Did they work for you?" Wong asks a heartbeat later and Carina couldn't help but chuckle. "Probably, I reckon that memory of his didn't retain any good jokes, if we're leading by previous examples."

"Alright." Stephen huffed and began to make his way out of the section. "Well, it's been lovely talking to you two, thank you, Wong for the books and the horrifying story and the threat upon my life."

"I better see you at dinner." Called Carina as he walked out.

Stephen scoffs, shaking his head, sending her a side glance. "Worry about rinsing your hand, or it'll get her infected."

"What happened to your hand?" Asks Wong once Stephen left.

Carina shook her head and waved her hand dismissively. "Nothing, just a scratch."

He held his hand out, and Carina gave it to him. "I fell earlier today, nothing to worry about."

Wong hums, letting go of it. "Listen to Strange and go wash it."

"Fine." Carina sighs tiredly but stands up nonetheless.

Gathering her things, she bit Wong her goodbyes before going to her room reluctantly, she was craving strawberries.

A/N: I hope you enjoy this chapter. Please, if you want to get tagged tell me.