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hushedhands · 3 years ago

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Challenge 83

@cecilia02 @everbeenminee Astra watching Andrew's coronation.

Astra Orders set an alarm for three o’clock in the morning, but she didn't need it. She didn't sleep at all.

Her mom had invited her to watch the once-in-a-generation event with her little cousins in Illéa Palace, but Astra had refused. Kile had offered to stay the night and keep her company, but that hadn't felt right either. Her dad had suggested not watching at all, which was cute but not really a solution. It would be weeks before footage of this faded from the news, and even then there would be anniversary specials forever. Astra might as well bite the bullet and watch the coronation that had almost been hers.

She wished her parents and her boyfriend weren’t making such a fuss about this. History was full of women who'd almost married princes and then gone home to watch them become kings. Her Uncle Maxon had left dozens of such women in his wake when he’d chosen to marry Aunt Ames, though Astra didn't have the telephone numbers of any of them. She wished Andrew had enough ex-girlfriends to make a proper club like the former Selected. It might have been nice to have someone who could understand this indescribable feeling without the need for words to name it.

It wasn't that she wanted to be married to Andy. She had no doubt at all that she'd made the right decision in calling off their relationship, and that was totally separate from the fact that she was now wildly in love with Kile.

But there was something aching in her chest as she watched the aerial shots of the city of London on the little television in her apartment in Angeles, curled up in her warmest fuzzy pajamas, hair in a messy version of her ballet bun, hands clinging to her mug of tea for dear life. Today was the day that standing by Andrew's side for his coronation went from something she wouldn’t do to something she couldn't do. She'd chosen to walk away, but this was the day that the door locked behind her.

Never was a hard word to give to Andrew, even if Kile had her Always.

The camera above the crowd panned past the palace Astra had stayed in that summer, and her chest squeezed hard. Whatever else had happened there, it had been a refuge for her at a time in her life when she’d needed it most.

It all started when she had been offered an incredible opportunity to dance for the Waverly ballet company in the summer, and an opportunity to attend an elite seminar with London’s royal ballet company in the spring, and Kile, realizing that he and Astra wouldn’t see each other for over six months, had broken up with her very suddenly.

Well, technically it had been a mutual decision. She hadn’t seen him much during his first year at school, and now she was off on her own adventures, and it seemed like a terrible time to try to make a relationship work. What if he met someone amazing at university? What if she met someone in Waverly or London? Was it fair to deny themselves new relationships and experiences just because they’d always been together? Weren’t they technically together by default, anyway?

It was a reasonable question. If you married someone you’d had playdates with for as long as you could remember, and you never even tried to date someone else, it was probably a relationship by default… right?

As she got on the plane for London, it had hit her hard that she wouldn’t have a hope of seeing Kile again, maybe for an entire year. The earliest she’d be back in Angeles was the next fall, and that’s exactly when he’d be leaving to go back to school again. And this time they wouldn’t talk to each other on the telephone almost every single day, and she wouldn’t slip secret notes in the care packages his parents sent him from home, and he wouldn’t surprise her by sitting in the audience during a matinee performance after sneaking back into town without telling her...

And maybe he never would again.

It was possible she’d cried the whole flight overseas, it was hard to remember. She must have rehydrated somehow, or she’d have shriveled up and died of the heartbreak. That time was all a blur now.

But what Astra remembered clearly, sitting on her sofa four years later, was the way she’d felt walking into that little old palace on the north side of the city and realizing that it was essentially hers for the season. It really paid to have a paranoid king for an uncle sometimes, because Maxon had pulled a dozen favors with the English royal family to get Astra somewhere safe and comfortable to live for a few months. She was technically an Illéan princess by title, so he wouldn’t hear of letting her rent a crumby apartment somewhere in the city, and besides, wherever she stayed needed to have enough room for a security detail. Still, even for a small palace, it was a palace and it was hers.

The old place had plenty of full-time staff that kept it in good shape as an estate of historical significance to the English monarchy, but Astra herself didn’t have maids or butlers, or a chef to keep her fed. At night, everyone who worked to keep the palace maintained went home, so it was only her and the security detail.

But she was allowed to order takeout from restaurants around town, so on her very first night alone she ordered enough food to live off of for a while, until she could get to a grocery store. She sprawled on a sofa in the downstairs sitting room, doodling in the notebook her Aunt May had given her for her last birthday, until there was a surprise knock on the archway in the entrance of the sitting room.

“Hello.” Andrew stood there, still in his business suit from the day, though with no tie, and with the top button undone. He looked ruffled, and in his hands he carried a large bottle of red wine. “Sorry to barge in… there isn’t exactly a doorbell in this place, and without staff to handle arrivals and departures… well, I did knock.” he awkwardly concluded.

Astra, still in her tank top and stretchy pants from the plane, would have felt severely underdressed to received a prince at a palace, except this was one of her oldest and best friends, and some of the ache in her heart from leaving Kile on the other side of the world eased away just from looking at him. She hugged him, “You don’t need to knock. It’s good to see you.”

“And you.” he hugged her back. “Ah, and here. A housewarming gift.” he offered her the wine.

“You’re just in time for dinner.”

“Am I?”

“It should be here soon. The finest spicy noodles and sautéed vegetables in the land. Although, if there’s no doorbell…”

“The guard at the gate will take it from the delivery driver and have someone bring it in.” he grinned.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go hunt down something to open that bottle.” she said.

A new city, a change of scenery, some delicious New Asian food, a bottle of old wine, a dear old friend… this was the recipe to get over a breakup. Astra knew it, because she already felt worlds better, just struggling to find a way into the wine bottle. There wasn’t a corkscrew in the kitchens that they could find, and this palace didn’t have its own wine cellar, which was the only other place they could think to find wine accessories. In the end, Andrew took an impressive, ancient sword off of a display rack on a wall at the top of the grand staircase and carefully poked the sharp end down until it was lodged into the cork.

Astra laughed so hard her sides hurt as she twisted the bottle out in front of her and Andrew slowly stepped backward. After a couple of tries, the cork loosened up enough that he could use brute force to pull the rest of it out.

When the food arrived, they carried it up to the top floor, to a balcony that overlooked the city, and they had a picnic of sorts.

“Where’s Lucas? You two are usually a package set.” Astra asked between bites of spicy noodles.

“Still finishing up his first year at university.”

“Oh, of course! Kile— “ She stopped abruptly, her chest squeezed tightly, her tongue fell heavy in her mouth, and she drowned the bitter taste of his name on her lips with expensive wine.

“Oh dear. That won’t do.” Andrew leant over and brushed away an errant tear from her cheek. “You mean to tell me… well, he’s safe isn’t he? He’s not unwell?”

“No, no he’s fine. He’s at school… and I’m here.”

Andrew studied her face carefully. He’d met Kile and Astra on the same day, at the same moment, so they’d been friends for exactly the same amount of time. He knew that they’d been together romantically for almost seven years now, the teenage equivalent of a sixty-year marriage. “So you’re… taking time apart?”

“We’ve decided to go our separate ways.” Astra said, the words soft and wispy in her throat. “We’re not… we’re not headed in the same direction anymore. We might never head in the same direction again. After university, he wants to see the world. And I… I might travel around for a while as a dancer, but I can’t imagine not being there for Addy once she becomes Queen… Even if that wasn’t true, we won’t have a good chance to be in the same city for at least a year… and a lot can happen in a year.”

Andrew took a large sip from his glass and then refilled hers.

“That’s really difficult, Astra… I’m so sorry. I know how much you love each other. It must be hell, knowing that you’re growing apart from the person you’re closest to in the world.”

Astra choked a sob in her wineglass and Andrew’s eyes widened, “God, I’m sorry! What a terrible thing to say—“ he sat both of their glasses safely aside and wrapped her in a warm hug.

Astra got his suit all wet from her tears, but she felt comfortable in his arms. “I’m not crying because of you, stupid.” She explained when she had the breath to do so. “It’s definitely because of him. I just… I didn’t think anyone would understand. But you do.”

“I don’t.” Andy rushed to correct her. “Not really. I’ve never experienced anything like that. The closest I can imagine is if… if I lost touch with someone in the Palace kid gang. You’re my best friends, apart from Luke, and I’ve known you forever. If I had to say goodbye to one of you, to lose you forever… it’s not even close to what you’re feeling, but just the thought hurts enough for me to know that you’re going through hell.”

Astra sniffled and collected her wineglass again, ready for more sips, content to allow herself to be comforted by her friend. “Hell has better wine than I expected, I’ll give it that much.”

“Not a bad view, either.” Andrew agreed with a small chuckle, looking out at the city.

“Didn’t expect one of my very best friends to come with me to hell.” Astra timidly admitted.

“And I’m not leaving until I get you out of it.” he’d promised.

Andrew always did have words as sweet as honey.

They drank the whole bottle that night, between the two of them. They had as good an excuse as two teenagers needed: they couldn’t find a wine stopper. Andrew offered to stay the night with her so that she wouldn’t be alone, but now that the world was blurry and warm from the wine, Astra felt delightfully sleepy. She was going to get her first good night’s sleep since losing Kile. So Andrew left, promising to bring breakfast the next morning to check on her.

He checked on her a lot.

He brought her breakfast and dinner every day, and he’d probably have brought her lunch too, except that she was always at her dance seminar during the daytime. Astra ended every night with her body pleasantly tired from dancing, a new half a bottle of wine in her stomach, and her mind full of whatever nice, easy conversation she’d had with Andrew just before bed. Her first week in England flew by.

That Friday night, Andrew appeared in the doorway to the sitting room right on schedule, two bottles of wine in hand.

“You’re mad.” Astra giggled.

“It’s the weekend.” he argued. “You don’t have to dance tomorrow, and I don’t have any public appearances to make until next Tuesday.”

“You’re off work until Tuesday? You English royals really know how to take it easy.” she laughed. She didn’t think her cousins had taken a three day weekend in their lives.

“We’ll keep the second bottle on standby, just in case we decide we want to try it.”

But of course, they were young and it was a Friday night, they definitely wanted to try it. Somewhere after the first glass of the second bottle, refilling glasses got too risky and they started drinking straight from the bottle, passing it back and forth. There was a television show on, showing a concert happening on the other side of the city in a stadium Astra could just see if she stood tall enough on the balcony.

Andrew watched her going almost en pointe to try to spy the stadium, mesmerized by her strength and balance and grace. “Can we dance?”

Astra smiled brightly. Dancing was her favorite in the world, of course they could dance! They danced in their socks to the music on the television until Andrew collapsed, out of breath, on the sofa. Astra joined him, blood pumping pleasantly fast through her veins.

“I’m out of shape!” he bemoaned.

“I’m a professional athlete, don’t compare yourself to me. You did just fine.”

“I did? Do you think I could join the ballet?” He laughed giddily.

She’d never seen him giddy like this.

Andy carried the weight of his country on his shoulders, he always had. Addy hadn’t really started bearing Illéa on her back until she was eleven or twelve, old enough to understand what was coming for her, but Andrew had always been a future king, even when he was tiny. Seeing him now, not a care in the world, laughing about joining the ballet… Astra’s heart twisted in her chest and for the first time since breaking up with Kile, it had absolutely nothing to do with him.

He had no part of this.

Astra leant forward and kissed Andrew on the warm, red cheek.

He looked at her, stunned, smile falling off his face. “What was that for?”

“I don’t know… just because. Just for you.”

“Just for me…” he’d mused.

“For being good to me. For taking care of me while I’m here. For… for being you. Yeah… just for you.” Astra nodded, this time more certain that the words made sense outside of her wine-fogged mind.

“I should be me more often.” he chuckled.

Astra blinked.

Should he?

***

There was a version of Astra’s stay in London where she pined away for her ex-boyfriend every moment she got, and maybe poured that pain into her dancing because it was overflowing from her heart and needed somewhere to go. That’s what she’d been expecting deep down. But what really happened was, she found a favorite market to buy groceries from, she found a bakery between her palace and the dance studio that kept her in much-needed carbs, she found a park with a pond where lots of locals liked to walk their dogs, which meant she got to pet a lot of dogs, and she started falling in love with the city.

And then there was Andrew.

He knew her so well, and they’d loved each other as friends for so long, and spending those mornings and nights with him felt so easy, so smooth.

And he was handsome and kind and… ugh, handsome. Astra didn’t regret kissing him on the cheek. Not even when he stood with her on the balcony a week later, watching the sunset, and she laced her hand with his.

“Are you quite alright?” he’d asked, not because she’d grabbed his hand, but just because he was still so worried about her.

“When I got here, I thought the answer to that question would be no forever.” Astra confessed. “And listen… I don’t really know who I am without Kile, he’s been a part of me for my whole life… but these past two weeks I’ve started to find out… and I like it. I like getting to know me.”

Andrew smiled down at her and squeezed her hand.

“And I like you too, Andrew.”

His smile became pained, “Astra—“

“It’s okay. You’re the next king and blah blah blah.” he laughed, because there were so few people in the world who could blah blah blah being an heir to a throne, but Astra was certainly one of them.

“It isn’t that.” he corrected her with a shake of his head. “It’s… you’re getting out of a serious relationship. You can’t like anyone yet—“

“Yes I can.” Astra scoffed, a challenging glint in her eyes, “Watch me.”

“But we’ve been friends our whole lives, too. Wouldn’t you like to like someone different? A stranger, maybe?”

“Where would I find one of those?” Astra lamented, only half-joking. Having a king for an uncle really limited one’s opportunities to meet strangers.

Andrew peered at her closely, then seemingly made up his mind all at once, saying, “Put on a dress.”

“What?”

“Put on a dress, I’ve got a surprise for you!”

Just like that, Andrew was downstairs talking to his security team and Astra was upstairs trying to figure out what dress to wear. There was a sweet springtime yellow thing… and then there was the red thing.

Astra made up her mind quickly. She chose the red thing. She chose everything that the red thing implied.

She appeared at the bottom of the stairs and Andrew’s eyes widened.

“Is this alright? I have other dresses—“

“S’perfect—“ he muttered and then cleared his throat, “Ahem, that is perfect Astra. Let us be off.”

He formally offered her his arm and she accepted with a proud smirk at the flush in his cheeks, then they ducked into his car and his driver whisked them off across town.

“What are we doing?” Astra asked after they took a turn to a part of town she’d never been to before.

“Did I not say it is a surprise?”

“Yes, but—“

“We’ve got guards, and I’ve gone to this place before. There’s no need to worry.”

“Andrew—“

“It’s where I go when I need to meet strangers.”

Astra blinked, dumbfounded.“You? Meet strangers?”

“How else am I supposed to find a queen? ” he muttered mutinously.

Astra stared over at him for a long moment, never having given it a second thought. Addy would be free to date whomever she chose, but if all else failed she could always have a Selection to find her husband. Andrew had nothing like that to choose from.

Astra was surprised when the car pulled to a stop at the backdoor to a nightclub. Could princes of England really go clubbing? But this place looked like it had tight security, and there were signs posted prominently that there were no cameras allowed on the premises. Andrew’s and Astra’s bodyguards stayed close by as they entered the club and Astra’s ears were assaulted by music so loud she could no longer hear it. All she could hear was the beat.

Andrew took her to the bar and bought her whatever drink she wanted, and then leant in close to her ear so that she could hear him say, “What do you think?”

“It’s a little loud!”

He chuckled, “About the strangers.”

“Oh!” Astra looked around as she spun the little umbrella from her pink drink between her fingers. There were all kinds of men here. Some older than her, some younger, some looked athletic and some looked bookish, and they were all having fun, losing themselves to the same beat. “What do you think?!” she yelled at him.

He looked around at the women in the room, sizing them up, and then shrugged, “Hard to say.”

“How do we meet them?!” Astra was yelling, while somehow he was able to keep his voice low and still be heard when he leaned close to her ear.

“Honestly? They usually just come up to me…” he confessed.

Astra rolled her eyes. Royals.

Sure enough, several women came up to Andrew and threw themselves at him while he and Astra waited for even one man to make a pass at her.

“Maybe you’re intimidating them away!” Astra suggested.

“Maybe so. Do you want me to go dance?”

Did she want him to go dance with one of the strange women in the club so that a strange man might come up to her and hit on her?

Not really, no. She wanted to dance with him. She liked dancing with him. More than that, she didn’t want to dance with anyone else. And she didn’t want him to dance with anyone else. She took his hand and dragged him out to the dance floor, their bodyguards hilariously close by, and they started moving.

It wasn’t dancing the way Astra was trained to think of it. There was no choreography, no gentle swell of melody to carry her movements, this was something far more basic than that. The best part was how quickly she was able to stop thinking about anything but her own breath, the sweat on her brow, and the man in front of her.

There was nothing else in the world. For as long as they could stay with the beat, there was only the beat. Endorphins that she associated with a long hard workout flooded her body, and Astra felt good. And beyond feeling good, she did not feel sad. She did not miss anybody. Not her family on the other side of the world, and not Kile. She was complete right here. All she had to do was make this last forever.

“I am not a professional dancer.” Andrew reminded her, breath coming far too fast to get that whole sentence out without gasping for air several times in the middle.

Astra giggled at him, then hugged him close, “This place is magical!” she yelled in his ear.

“Magical?”

And just to prove the point, and to express her gratitude, she pecked his lips with a kiss.

That was it, right? A kiss of gratitude?

As first kisses went, it was silly. They were both too out of breath to do more than mash their lips together for a second and then go back to gasping for air. Andrew led them away for water and after a few minutes to recover, he was ready to try again.

Astra helped him find a way to move to every other beat instead of every beat, essentially cutting the speed of his dancing in half for him. That helped tremendously. But to help him do this, she had to wrap her arms around his neck to guide him, and once he had the beat it was all much less frantic and much more sensual. This time when they kissed, it was not a silly peck on the lips.

Astra had only ever kissed Kile before, but since that was never happening again, she didn’t allow herself to think about that. She didn’t think about how Andrew was taller than Kile, and his cheeks were softer because he shaved every single morning without fail. She didn’t think about anything except how nice it was not to feel pain. When she was with Andrew, especially when she was kissing Andrew, she felt nothing but joy.

Was she using him to feel better?

If someone made you feel better and wanted to be around you, was that even using them?

They stayed at the club until Andrew was too tired to go on (and even Astra was ready to admit she was tired), and then they climbed back into Andrew’s car and rode off into the night.

Astra’s ears were ringing with the sudden silence, and they were both flushed and dripping with sweat. Astra was ready to bet her face matched the red of her dress and her hair, and was ready to feel embarrassed about that somewhere beneath her exhaustion, when Andrew slid his hand over to hers and squeezed.

She looked over at him and smiled.

It was past 2 in the morning when they got back to Astra’s palace, and Astra couldn’t believe they’d spent so many hours getting swept away like that.

“I’d do that every night if I thought my hearing could survive it.” Astra admitted as they struggled to get up the stairs, feeling distinctly like they had overcooked pasta for legs.

Astra took an ice-cold bath and then rolled her legs out to try to avert any soreness the next morning, and then she found Andrew in one of the guest bedrooms. “Thanks for the dancing… sorry we didn’t meet any strangers.” she grinned.

“I’m not.” he admitted, with complete candor.

“Well then, no future queen for you and no non-childhood friend to date for me.”

“Perhaps you could find a childhood enemy?” he suggested, and she laughed at the dryness of voice as he made the joke.

“Yes, I’ll have to make do.” she agreed.

***

The kisses felt stolen for the first week, like they were getting away with something they weren’t supposed to, but then one day Andrew showed up with Astra’s favorite breakfast, and two paper travel cups of tea, and he pecked her on the lips in greeting and it didn’t feel stolen at all. It felt as comfortable as an old sweater, and made her feel just as warm inside.

To celebrate the end of her first month in London, Astra ordered dinner for them from the same restaurant they’d eaten at on her very first night in town. He showed up looking frazzled after a long day of talking with members of parliament, but all the more pleased to see her because that stress was over now. And, of course, he brought her the same kind of wine they’d shared that first night.

Astra had bought a corkscrew weeks ago now, so they didn’t need to resort to using ancient swords to open their alcohol, which made it slightly less interesting. Astra curled up against him on the balcony overlooking the city and kissed him every chance she got.

“You’re certainly in a mood.” he noted with a smile down at her, after their fourth surprise kiss.

“I’m just glad to be here.”

“Are you?” he seemed surprised. She didn’t blame him. It was quite a turn from her first weepy night a month ago.

“Yes. I think London’s been good for me.”

And maybe she meant the city, with her new favorite local spots and the friends she was making at the seminar, but maybe she meant Andrew. Maybe she couldn’t really tell the difference, and it was all just good for her.

“I am very glad to hear that.”

“I wish I didn’t have to go to Waverly in two months.” Astra admitted. “It’s an amazing opportunity for my career, not to mention I’ll get to visit my grandparents in Carolina all the time, but… I like London.”

This time she was blatantly talking about him.

“Well… London’s not going anywhere anytime soon, I suppose.” he pointed out, fully onto her game.

She hmm-ed into her wineglass, “I suppose not.”

“And you’re always welcome in London, you know.”

Astra giggled and shook her head, surprising him with another kiss as a reward for playing along with her silly euphemism.

Later that night, when the food was stashed away in the kitchen and the wine was mostly empty, Andrew joined Astra again on the balcony as she stood there with the springtime breeze blowing through her loose, curly hair. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and pressed a kiss to her shoulder.

“I meant it, you know.” he said. “You could stay as long as you like. There’s a tremendous ballet company in London, perhaps you’ve heard of it.”

Astra laughed, pressing a hand to his over her stomach and turning to look up at him. “Maybe someday.”

“You’re dead-set on going to Waverly, then?”

“Well, I’ve signed a contract.” she explained.

“Ah. They shall imprison you if you break it. I understand.”

His voice was always so serious when he joked, never giving away the game. She laughed at the thought and said, “Yes, there’s a special prison for ballet dancers who break their contracts, it’s especially brutal. I hear they make you dance to jazz all day.”

This time his lips brushed the placed where her shoulders met her neck, and her breath hitched at the sensation. “I shan’t extradite you.” he concluded, his warm lips brushing her skin. “I shall keep you here, safe and sound, far away from the ballet constables.”

Astra laced her fingers with his over her stomach and said, “They’re relentless, the ballet constables. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”

His lips trailed up her neck and stopped at her ear where he said softly, “I think I can manage.”

Astra’s entire body erupted in chills, and suddenly she didn’t want to continue their elaborate, jokey banter about the consequences of her actions. She turned in his arms and pressed her lips roughly to his, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that all she really wanted was to lose herself in the taste and the feel and the smell of him. Andrew was the only person in the world who made her not care about the future, and when his lips were on her skin that was doubly true.

It wasn’t exactly real happiness she felt when she was lying in bed with him, his sandy brown hair all ruffled, his arm slung across her like he was afraid she’d disappear in the night. True, meaningful, lasting happiness was something that required a lot of factors: feeling good about the present and hopeful about the future, and at peace with the past. Astra wasn’t at peace with her past, and she didn’t even want to think about the future, but the present… the present was so good. It was one out of three. One out of three wasn’t bad.

***

If Andrew’s parents noticed that he was essentially living with Astra that spring, they didn’t say anything about it. Maybe they just assumed that, since they were close friends, he was keeping her company and enjoying a nice, extended visit. And that was perfectly true, except that they were sharing a bed and occasionally a shower, and they shared a cup of coffee in the morning and a bottle of wine at night.

They didn’t go back to that club, but they found other ways to go out together without being photographed. There were secret tables in the kitchens of restaurants, special royal boxes in theaters, private trains to private estates, and one time there was a royal yacht. Astra was surprised that Andy had so much freedom, as the heir to the throne. Addy couldn’t have dreamed of roaming around Illéa the way that Andrew was gallivanting across his future kingdom. Sure, part of it was Andrew making sure Astra was having the time of her life— he probably didn’t usually venture away from home so much— but even so.

“Will you be able to keep this up once you’re king?” she’d asked him as they sat curled up together on a train ride returning from the south. “All this rambling.” she explained at his questioning look.

“Ah. No, there will certainly be less. But my job will be nothing nearly so intense as King Maxon’s, if that is what you’re thinking. For one thing, I’ve got parliament.”

Astra wasn't exactly sure how England’s parliament worked. She knew King Eoan set the legislative agenda, but he couldn’t pass any kind of law on his own. “I can’t believe they let you have a whole train to yourself, and you barely have to work.” she teased.

His arm was wrapped around her shoulders, and his thumb began tracing her upper arm as he said, “If you think my future job’s a scandal, you should see what our queen has to do. Host parties, go shopping, appear at events…” his voice sounded as if it was a strain to remain light and carefree. As if his words were more important than he wanted them to be.

Astra leaned her head on his shoulder. Those were all things she already did for Illéa. Well, she didn’t host many parties, but she sometimes helped her Aunt Ames out when things were especially overwhelming. It was strange to think that she had experience doing the same job as the Queen of England.

“All that, and she gets to retire young?”

“Assuming that whole heir business is sorted out sufficiently early.” he admitted.

“Oh, that.” Astra giggled.

“On the whole, it’s not a terrible job.” he said.

“No, not when you factor in the jewelry.” Astra agreed, still joking.

“Precisely.” Andrew nodded with a small smile against the top of her head.

Astra wasn’t sure why he didn’t return her joke with one of his own.

***

Though Astra very much enjoyed being swept off her feet by the prince, it was the quiet nights at the palace that meant the most to her. Sometimes, after dinner and a long, hot bath, her joints would feel well enough to practice some choreography in one of the drawing rooms. Andrew would play the piano for her, putting years of lessons to use for the first time. Sometimes her joints would not feel well enough for more dancing after a long day at the seminar, and he’d rub her battered feet and ankles until she melted into a puddle at the other end of the sofa or bed, or wherever they happened to be.

She’d ask him about his work, but he wouldn’t tell her much. Maybe he was worried about protecting state secrets, or maybe he didn’t want to worry her. Maybe he didn’t want her to see him in less than a good mood, because he was only there to make her happy. And how could she not be happy?

One night, in the middle of her second month in England, as she laid awake in their bed and brushed her fingers through his unruly hair (a sight so few had ever seen: the Heir to England with unruly hair), she pressed a kiss to the shell of his ear and said softly, “What are we going to do when I have to leave for Waverly?”

Sleepily, he’d pried his eyes open, his eyelashes fluttering against her skin. “What would you like to do?”

“Freeze this moment in amber. Live in it forever.”

“Be young, in love, and carefree forever?” he’d smirked.

“In love?” she’d hesitated, surprised. They’d only been attached at the lips for six weeks now, as impossible as it seemed. Hadn’t they enjoyed half a lifetime together already?

“Oh dear.” He’d lifted his head up so that he could look in her eyes, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Astra shook her head, “It’s okay. I do love you Andrew.”

“Do you?” he sounded amazed.

And she did. She’d always loved him, just as he’d always loved her. They’d grown up together, perfect friends, how could she not love him?

“I’m sorry you didn’t know that already.” she let her hand fall from his hair down his spine, coming to rest on his bare lower back. She traced the shape of a heart there with her finger and he shuddered. “You’re one of the best friends I’ll ever have, and I love you.”

He smiled and returned his cheek to her chest, listening for her heartbeat. “Yes. This moment would do just fine.”

“We could freeze this moment and allow archaeologists to discover it in a few thousand years.”

“And if we don’t like the future, we could simply freeze this moment again.” he agreed.

“You don’t think you’d be bored after a few thousand years?”

He grinned, one hand tracing her ribcage lazily, “I could find a few ways to keep myself occupied.”

***

Astra didn’t notice the first time there was a photographer waiting outside of the dance studio after her rehearsals. And then, a couple of days later, when a rumor sourced to a local food delivery driver was printed in a Sunday paper saying that he delivered Prince Andrew’s favorite kind of curry to the Palace where Astra was staying a couple of times per week. She didn’t mind when Andrew suggested they stop sneaking out to exclusive clubs or restaurants around the city, because staying in was extremely entertaining.

But it was hard to miss when Andrew nervously appeared in her doorway one evening and said, instead of ‘hello’ or ‘how was your day’, “Grandmother has asked to meet you.”

Astra gaped. Queen Cerridwen, King Eoan’s mother, had never met any of the Illéan royals in-person. Maybe she’d met Uncle Maxon back before he was King, when she was still the active queen, but maybe not even then. “Me? Wh…why?”

Andrew ran a hand through his hair and ruffled it in a way that would have been funny if he hadn’t look so stressed. He sank to his knees to sit next to Astra, who’d been sitting on the floor, using the coffee table to hold her nail polish bottles as she painted her toes. “The rumors got to her.”

“Rumors… about us?”

Andrew nodded, “I’ve had the press department squashing everything the second they hear about it, and it’s bought us some time, but the rumors have been consistent for long enough now—“

“The rumors that we’re spending time together?” Astra asked.

“Yes.” Andrew looked faintly nauseous.

Astra smiled and traced his cheekbone with her thumb soothingly, “We are spending time together. We’re not being falsely accused.”

“No, I know… I think, just… I think we need to talk.”

Those were heavy words.

Kile had been the last one to say those words to her, and the outcome had been really unpleasant.

“You didn’t bring wine?” Astra noticed for the first time.

“I wanted us to keep our heads clear.”

“Are you ending this?” Astra asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“No.” Andrew promised. “But we’ve never talked about what this is before. I’ve been able to buy us a little slice of time to ourselves, but I’ve reached the end of my tricks.”

Astra looked into his eyes carefully, noticing the strain there for the first time, “You never said you had to use tricks…”

“I didn’t want you to have to worry about it. I wanted to be… uncomplicated. Simple. After everything you’ve been through, I thought that you needed simplicity.”

“I did.” she admitted, chest suddenly aching at the thought that the simple times might be gone.

He brushed an errant curl behind her ear and smiled bracingly, “I am not here to tell you that the world is ending. Merely that people have found us out. They’re asking questions that I do not have the answers to, and in lieu of my answers, they are coming to their own conclusions. Grandmother amongst the rest.”

“She wants to meet me because she knows we’ve been dating?”

Andrew huffed a breath, “It’s her way of forcing the matter at hand. When it comes to me, to dating the English Heir, there is dating and there is Dating. Courting. Something official, not just between you and I, but between us and all of England.”

Astra looked a little creeped out at the thought, “They… want in on our dates?”

Andrew rubbed his brow, “In a manner of speaking… there comes a point when I’m meant to introduce anyone I am seeing to the people of England as a potential future queen.”

“Why? It’s not like they get to vote on who stays in your bed, or in our case, my bed.”

“No, but it’s…” he seemed so uncomfortable at having to explain this to her. Probably any English girl he dated would have seen this coming a mile away and known what to expect. Astra blushed a little, feeling inadequate for the first time all spring. “It’s a bit like a small Selection, perhaps. They get to know the person their prince is dating and they get to watch me court their future queen.”

“Oh, and your gramma wants you to do that with me?” What a relief to know she was just a confused old woman who’d misunderstood.

“Precisely. Meeting Grandmother at her estate in Scotland would signal the official start to our official courtship.”

Astra felt all the tension leave her body and she smirked at him, “Your gramma is proposing marriage to me on your behalf.”

“Basically.”

“What’s she in such a hurry for? We’re teenagers.”

Andrew let out an exasperated sigh, relieved now that he could see Astra wasn’t panicking and throwing everything she owned into a bag to haul back to Illéa on the first flight out the next morning. “I don’t know. You’re a good match, obviously. My father is close with your uncle, but it would be smart to solidify that alliance with some kind of marriage.”

“Very sexy and romantic.” Astra giggled.

“Isn’t it just?” he agreed wryly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, “I suppose she’s worried because I’ll be king in a few more years. She doesn’t want me to have to go through that enormous transition of responsibility by myself. I suppose finding a queen would be much harder as king than as prince, too. Father’s even asked me if I want to take a few months next year and devote myself to dating full time before he begins handing off responsibilities to me in earnest. As part of a formal ascension plan.”

“What a conversation.”

“You can’t begin to imagine.”

Astra collapsed into giggles, doing her best to imagine it anyway. King Eoan asking his son if he wanted to be a full-time, 40-hours-per-week dater as part of his obligations to the crown.

“It’s good you think this is funny.” he sulked, but he only partially meant it. He was genuinely glad she was laughing instead of crying.

Fairly certain her toes were dry now, Astra stood and screwed the caps on her polish, stashing the bottles in a drawer next to her vanity. She stretched, fingers reached for the ceiling, going up on her toes, and as she came down she whisked her loose t-shirt over her head.

“Astra.” Andrew cleared his throat, forcing his eyes away from her lacy, pale blue and white bra, “Clear heads, remember?”

“I’m just getting comfortable.” she said in a voice that clearly told him she was not just getting comfortable.

He stood and she came over and loosened his tie for him. He placed a hand over hers when she made for his shirt’s buttons and said, “Do you want this to last past April?”

Astra gulped, “I wish April was forever.”

He stared at her, the only flicker of doubt coming from the small twitch of his eyebrow. “That’s not the same thing.”

“… I know.”

“You don’t have to answer me tonight, but we should talk about it. If we keep going past April, I suspect it will make the most sense for you… for you to meet grandmother.”

This time, when Astra continued with his buttons, it was a genuine effort to help him get comfortable, and not a ploy to see his bare chest. Seeing his bare chest was an undeniable bonus, though. She linked her fingers with his and dragged him towards her bed, and then she flopped down on her back and stared up at the top of her four poster canopy. “So what would happen after I met your grandmother?”

“You’d get some secret service protection.” Andrew laid on his stomach and used his finger to draw doodles on the smooth, soft skin above her navel. His breath felt warm as it puffed against her ribs, but her skin erupted in goosebumps anyway, and he pressed a chaste kiss to them. He knew the effect he had on her, and it only made him want to cherish her more.

“I’d go back to Illéa, though. To Waverly.”

“Yes. We’d coordinate that. It would probably be a less hectic place for you than in England.”

“You think England will be hectic if you announce we’re officially dating?”

Andrew huffed one dry, humorless laugh. “When they find out I’m thinking of making you their princess… sweetheart, it’s going to be a nightmare of a circus.”

“Terrifying clowns?”

“The most terrifying.” he agreed.

Astra sighed, “Then what? How long would we get to date before they’d expect you to decide whether you want to marry me or not?”

“Given the time you’d be spending in Illéa, we could get a year.”

“A year.” Astra liked the sound of that. Sure, she’d dance until her contract was up in Waverly, but then she’d come back and get to do this with Andrew for months and months. His dad might even let him date her full-time. Morning, noon, and night cuddles.

“Yes, and then…”

“And then a fairytale proposal. Would it have to be public?”

“Gosh, no.” Andrew promised. “But it would need to have a good story behind it. Take you somewhere meaningful—“

“Like the club where we first kissed.” Astra teased, running her hands through his hair.

“No, not at all.” he chuckled.

“And would I get to wear one of the crown jewels or something?”

Andrew lifted his head to look at her. “Would you want one?”

Astra laughed. It was all so completely silly. She was an eighteen year old girl! A boy was offering her a crown jewel! She laughed some more.

“Our engagement would be six months, eight at most.” he said. “That’s going to be the hardest time for you. You won’t be royal yet, but you’ll have all the expectations. Of course, you’d have everything you’d need from us. Security, education, an allowance for your clothes.”

“Mmm, clothes.”

“And then—“

“A royal wedding?”

“Yes.”

“And a royal honeymoon?”

“Of course.” he pressed another kiss to her skin, this one not so chaste.

“And then I’m your princess?”

“Until we take our oaths to become king and queen.”

“You really think I could be queen?”

“You think you couldn’t?”

“I know how hard it is on my Aunt Ames. It’s not really the life I saw for myself.”

“It’s different in England, you know. We’re smaller than most Illéan provinces, and we’ve got parliament.”

She couldn’t continue to fantasize about marrying him without understanding what he meant when he said that. “Andy, how does parliament help you?”

“Eh… help is not the word.” Andrew admitted. “It’s more that they take certain responsibilities off the monarch’s plate. Whether they do so in a manner that helps is an entirely different question. But unlike Queen America, who assists on many matters of policy and diplomacy, my mother’s job is almost entirely ceremonial, supporting my father’s efforts.”

“So do you think I could dance if we were married?”

Andrew fell quiet, wracking his brain for a way. “Not once we were engaged… I just can’t imagine that you would have time. And you’d quickly become one of the most famous women in the world… not that you’re anonymous now, just that we’re talking about a whole different stratosphere of public interest… even if we found time for you to dance in the royal ballet, it might not be safe.”

Astra hated that answer, but it made perfect sense to her. Addy had never regularly commuted into the city for any reason. Keeping her safe during recurring, publicly open performances would have been a nightmare, and Astra supposed that would be true for her too.

Astra also knew she wasn’t going to dance forever. She probably had a good ten or twelve years before retirement, and that was only if she avoided any major injuries. In Astra’s experience, injuries and pregnancies were two of the most common reasons dancers retired younger than thirty and they were both to be avoided.

“How long do you think we could put all of this off? I don’t want to stop dancing.”

“I know. I want you to dance! You’re bloody magnificent when you dance.”

“Just when I dance?” she teased suggestively.

“Other times too.” he smirked up at her. He let his face fall gently on her stomach, breathing in the smell of her body wash and then lifting his head again, “I could tell Grandmother we’re not yet ready. You could go to Waverly and come back for visits now and again.”

“Sounds like I’d miss you.”

“I’d miss you too.”

“Sounds better to me, though.”

“I suppose it must. The people mightn’t be fooled, they’ll still expect something is happening between us.”

“They’d be right.”

“But Astra… No matter what, I’ll be King four years from now. There’s no delaying that. ”

“That’s a long time, Andy.”

“I can’t… you must understand, I’d need to know for certain by then.”

“Of course!”

“Ideally… Ideally I would be married by then so that we could share the coronation ceremony.”

“So we could have a wedding earlier that fall? You’d propose that spring? That gives us a few years. That gives me time to dance.”

“But would it be enough?”

“Three years is forever, Andy.” Astra grinned down at him.

“And you’d really consider being my queen?”

“I’d consider a lot of things for blue eyes like yours.”

“They are an important part of the benefits package.” he agreed, placing an arm on either side of her and bringing himself up so that they were eye to eye. “Along with lots of travel to exotic locations. The finest champagne money can buy. Famous designers tripping over themselves to clothe you. A handful of palaces. Lots of diamonds.” he punctuated each of these offers with a deep, heated kiss and by the end Astra was absolutely dizzy and in no state to negotiate her future job benefits.

***

By the end of the week it was not just one photographer waiting outside of the ballet studio anymore, there were dozens. They were aggressive and pushy, yelling her name and constantly demanding she tell them if she was seeing Andrew. Her Illéan security detail was not pleased. The theater that housed the ballet was difficult to secure against so many persistent intruders, and there was serious discussion about whether they could even let her finish the seminar. They also discussed calling King Maxon and asking him for reinforcements, which made Astra’s stomach feel sick. She didn’t want her uncle to have to pay money and spare resources to send across the world to her all because of her love life.

It was a tense day and a half before Andrew was able to come through with security of his own to supplement her detail. It had been a tough thing to organize, given she wasn’t officially his girlfriend, but he’d found a way for her.

If Astra knew anything in those days, it was that he would always find a way for her. That had never been the problem.

There were reporters outside of Astra’s palace now, night and day, and they marked each time Andrew came or went. Instead of lounging together on the balcony overlooking the city, Astra and Andrew had to draw the curtains closed for the sake of their privacy.

“We should just tell them we’re not really dating.” Astra said. “I can’t outright lie to them.” Andrew insisted. “I can’t break trust with my people. I don’t have to confirm we’re together, but I can’t just tell them we’re not.”

“There’s got to be a way… tell them we have no intention of courting right now. That’s not a lie, is it?”

“It’s a bit transparent.” Andrew pointed out.

“Well, I’d love to hear your better idea!”

Andrew sighed into her hair. They were dancing to the music on the television, its glow the only light in her bedroom. “Maybe we break up. And I tell them we broke up.”

“You’re breaking up with me?” Astra suddenly sounded so small and vulnerable, he squeezed her tighter, “No! Not really. Not in that way. It’s just a way we can… buy you some more time before we have to fess up to anything.”

Astra didn’t want to fake-break up with Andrew. She wanted the entire world to leave them to their peace and quiet in their little palace of domestic bliss forever. What was so complicated about that?

Andrew had the idea of staying away one night to try to relieve some of the heat, but all it did was leave Astra pacing the floor alone, listening to the rumble of dozens of people camped out on the street in front of her palace all night.

Astra and Andrew were summoned by Queen Waverly the next day and sat down together on the sofa in her office.

Everything about it was embarrassing. Andy’s mother needed to know how long they had been romantic, how far their romance had gone, how serious they were about their future together, and why Andrew had turned down his grandmother’s invitation.

“Lovey, she wasn’t trying to force your hand.” Waverly told Andrew sympathetically. “What’s happening now out there… it’s going to get worse, the longer we let the media spin itself up into a frenzy.”

Astra said, “I only have a week and a half left, your Majesty—“

“Astra.” Waverly reproached the use of her title. “We’re having this discussion as family. Call me Aunt Waverly… if you’re marrying my son, call me Mum.”

Astra gulped, looking at Andrew, lost.

“We’ve only been together a few months, we don’t know—“ Andrew spoke up, until Waverly nodded and held up her hand to silence him.

“I understand entirely.” She turned her head to the side to study a giant portrait of one of Andy’s female ancestors. “Listen you two, I know that this is a complicated situation. The only thing that will help is being forthright with the people.”

“If Astra meets grandmother, the people will be demanding a proposal by Christmas.”

“Perhaps so.”

“We’re not ready for that.” Andrew was keeping a lid on his princely composure, but Astra could tell he felt hopelessly trapped by his mother and the palace and his people beyond its walls. He was ready to rattle the cages.

Waverly nodded, “Your father and I will do everything we possibly can for you, you know that. We only want your happiness. But things are getting very intense, very fast out there. That’s happening because you’re choosing not to do things the conventional way. You must understand that.”

Very intense, very fast. That was Astra’s whole relationship with Andrew in a nutshell.

“It’s just a week and a half.” Astra reiterated. “Then I’ll be back in Illéa and the press can calm down for a while.”

“The speculation won’t stop until it is addressed by us, and it might even turn ugly.” Waverly warned. “When you stop giving them fresh photograph opportunities every day at your ballet house, when there aren’t rumors flying about sightings of the two of you all over London—“

“Not true, by the way.” Andrew said.

“Some of them could be.” Astra reminded him.

“Only the very old ones. We’ve not been out in a fortnight.”

Astra nodded.

“My point is, in a vacuum of real news, someone will invent rumors to splash on their tabloids. It will be anything and everything. Abuse, affairs, pregnancy out of wedlock, Astra will be a gold digger who broke Andy’s heart one week, the next week Andy will be a womanizing fiend who took advantage of a childhood friend. Relations between England and Illéa will be on the brink—“

“They won’t!” Astra objected.

“Only in the magazines.” Waverly replied. “But we wouldn't want any hostile nations thinking the rumors were true and attempting to take advantage of the supposed rift. You see how this could spiral?”

The room fell to silence for the first time. Astra shivered just a little, “I feel like I’ve been tossed into a tornado.”

“It gets better." Waverly promised. “Once you’re proactive about telling your own story, it gets harder for the media to frenzy over half-credible unattributed rumors.”

Astra buried her face in her hands. She’d thought she’d have years before she had to tell the media a story about her relationship with Andrew. It felt wrong that the people of England were forcing an eighteen year old girl to move so quickly.

“I just need time.” Astra said into her hands.

“Right.” Waverly made up her mind and stood, “In that case, Eoan and I are inviting you to stay here with us for the rest of your visit, Astra. We’ll tell the media that we’re very much looking forward to spending time with you before the end of your trip.”

“No, wait…” Astra looked up, heartbroken that she was losing her private little palace. Would she even get to go back and say goodbye to it?

“This isn’t a punishment, sweetheart.” Waverly sighed and then tugged Astra up to standing, pulling her into a tight hug. “You’re not in trouble. Not one little bit. You’ll have more privacy here, behind our gates and with all of our guards. You’ll have one of our cars to drive you to and from the ballet, and Andy won’t be caught coming and going at all hours of the night because he already lives here… or he did before you came to town.” she said the last part teasingly to her oldest son, who had the temerity to blush at his shamelessness.

Astra felt her eyes sting with tears, “I love that palace… it’s been a good home for me.”

Waverly smiled sweetly, “You’ll be welcome to stay there the next time you come back. If you and Andrew announce an engagement, we’ll fully staff the place for you so that it’s safer. Perhaps you and Andrew could use it as your home for the time between your marriage and his assumption of the crown.”

“Really?” Andrew looked enticed by the offer.

“You’ll need to live somewhere, dear. You couldn’t live with your parents as newlyweds, it would be unbearable.” Waverly teased. “England would never get an heir that way.”

Heirs.

Hearing the queen say that word in this palace, next to the crown prince made it feel very real and very scary. Did Astra want her kids to be heirs? She thought again of Addy and Jamesy… she loved them more than anything in the world, but she couldn’t imagine raising her children for such an incredible responsibility.

Waverly continued softly, “The main thing is, we need to be very delicate here, my loves. When Andrew becomes king, he will become the head of the church. Please understand, I do not mind what you the two of you do or don’t do, so long as you are safe and consenting.”

“Mother.” Andy squirmed.

“But it would put Andrew in a difficult position, becoming head of the church, if he was seen to have a… well a marriage-style relationship with a woman who was not his wife for too long.”

“Yes, heaven forbid I have a healthy, long-term girlfriend.” Andy scowled.

“It’s the vows to God that are the issue at hand, not heaven, and you know it.” Waverly scolded his sass quietly, but efficiently.

“So we break up.” Astra concluded. “We officially break up when I go back to Illéa, and then when it’s time, I come back to England and we publicly reunite… you don’t have any church issues, and I have time to dance.”

Waverly looked between them quietly. “It might be the only option, short of scheduling dinner with your grandmother.”

Andrew looked almost as sad as if the breakup was real. Maybe he was scared it would become real once Astra was out of the whirlwind. She laced her fingers with his and squeezed, “We’ll figure this out.”

He squeezed back twice, gently.

***

That night Astra slept in Andrew’s bedroom for the first time in their entire affair.

“The maids are gonna know.”

“Everyone knows.” he snorted into her hair. “That’s why we’re here and not across town in our own palace.”

“Your parents are in the building.” she complained when his hands began wandering her body.

“Not close enough to hear anything.”

“Still… what if they have to walk by for a glass of water or something?”

“You want me to keep my hands to myself tonight?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Oh, so shall we see who can be quietest?” he brushed his fingers across her ribs and she quietly shrieked a giggle. “You are so bad at this, darling.”

“Oh yeah?” she got her revenge with vicious tickles, exploiting every sensitive spot she’d found on his body the last few months.

***

Living in the English palace was an easy adjustment for Astra. She'd grown up in Illéa Palace which, as the functioning capital building of one of the largest nations in the world, was larger and had a much bigger staff. The English palace was certainly ancient and stately, but Astra had grown up visiting the place, so at least she wasn’t too dazzled to see this for what it was.

There was no more delivery from local restaurants once those palace gates were closed, but the royal chef made sure that Andy and Astra had everything they wanted delivered to one of their rooms each night, so that wasn’t actually too much of a change. Not only that, but the maids were discrete and only came onto their floor when Andrew was at work and Astra was at the ballet for the day, so it was almost like their bedrooms magically tidied themselves up each day.

Really, the biggest change for Astra had been weeks before, when rumors had started flying and she and Andrew had stopped venturing out into London. Andrew still appeared in her doorway just in time for dinner, looking handsome and happy to see her. They still shared good meals and long baths, and a warm bed each night. But now the illusion that time didn't exist and that they could continue peacefully, blissfully existing in their little bubble forever was burst.

Since the royal palace hadn't released a statement about the gorgeous young foreign princess living in the same palace as their handsome young future king, salacious headlines were beginning to trickle from tabloids to increasingly reputable news sources. Astra and Andrew's private affair wasn’t so private anymore.

Some part of Astra had been hoping that the rumors would die down once she and Andrew had retreated into the palace, even though she knew better. But on her second-to-final rehearsal before her big seminar performance, photographers started camping out overnight at the stage door to the ballet, not just hounding Astra but harassing her fellow dancers, too. It was humiliating to think that these world-class performers, some of whom Astra had idolized for years, were getting manhandled on their way to and from work every day because of Astra’s love life. She wasn’t sure her reputation in the industry would ever recover from this. Who would want to work with her when her very presence could cause such a disruption?

She cried in the backseat of the car on her way back to the royal palace that day, but she had big sunglasses on, and at least no photographers caught her moment of weakness.

“I don’t want to be the girl who’s dating the future king. I want to be a damn good dancer.” Astra said that night, her cheek pressed to Andrew’s chest as he drew swirling designs on her bare back with his fingers.

“You are both.”

“You don’t understand… you literally can’t.”

“What?” Andrew wasn’t insulted, which was the great thing about him. He was always humble about his own limitations. “Why can I not understand?”

“Have you ever looked up to someone who was truly excellent at the very thing that you wanted to be truly excellent at?”

“Of course.”

“Who?”

“King Maxon.”

Astra rolled her eyes and lifted her head so he could see her at it. “You met him when you could still count your age on one hand.”

“So?”

“So most people never get to meet their idols, and if they do it’s because they’ve worked extremely hard to become very good at something. There are choreographers and dancers at this seminar that I’ve admired for a decade. And now my presence is turning their workplace, a place I consider to be sacred, into a hostile circus.”

Andrew frowned down at her and said softly, “Did I not promise you terrifying clowns?”

“I don’t want to bring chaos to every stage I cross.” Astra pouted.

Andrew nodded and said, “So we should announce our breakup immediately. I’ll release a statement tomorrow, and ask a friend of mine to appear in public with me tomorrow night… a woman. It won’t cure everything overnight, but it would surely alleviate some of the pressure.”

Astra stared into his eyes, then studied the line of his nose, the cut of his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw. “That’s a lot of trouble to go through just for me.”

“Astra, are you joking? You’re the one going through trouble for me.”

Astra nodded, but she dropped a kiss onto his lips anyway. “Okay, but the breakup is fake.” her lips danced over his.

His teeth gently teased her lower lip as he replied, “Yeah. I noticed.”

***

As warm and inviting as the arms holding her were, Astra had a difficult time staying asleep that night. She was nervous about returning to rehearsals the next morning, nervous about their final performance, now only a couple of days away, nervous about her new relationship with Andrew, and nervous about being nervous about her new relationship with Andrew.

At around four in the morning she slipped out of bed and tiptoed back to her suite, where she found a pitcher of water and a tray of snacks waiting for her. She spent so many hours of her day exercising that sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night ravenously, painfully hungry, so she’d requested that she be left some snacks just in case. She picked at a scone, lost in her anxieties, and her stress about not being able to sleep, until the telephone next to her bed rang so loudly and shrilly that it caused her to jump and splash some of her glass of water onto her night shirt.

“Hello?” Astra picked up the phone, hoping to hear an Illéan voice on the other end of the line. She hadn’t spoken to Addy in a few days, and it had been almost a week since her Aunt Ames or Uncle Maxon had phoned. She hadn’t spoken to her parents in longer than that, but they’d be arriving in London in less that twenty-four hours so that they could watch her final performance, so she wasn’t too desperate to speak to them.

And while the voice on the other line was Illéan, it definitely wasn’t one she had been expecting.

“Hey.”

Astra’s stomach clenched and her body flooded with adrenaline. She reminded herself to behave like a normal person and not like a lunatic when, as casually as she could, she replied, “Kile? Is that you?” like she didn’t know. Like she wouldn’t know his voice anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance. She knew his voice better than she knew her own.

“Sorry, I know it’s the middle of the night over there. …You don’t sound like you were sleeping, though.”

He would know.

Astra gulped hard, “I needed a snack.” It was a lie, but it was close enough to the truth.

“Hm. Is he there then?”

Astra felt defensive anger flare up in her chest, and only later realized that the anger was covering a sense of guilt. “So what if he is? You broke up with me—“

“Astra—“

“No, it’s okay. I’m not saying that in a mean way. I’m stating a fact. We are not together because you broke up with me, so why do you care if he’s here?”

There was a long pause and then a low groan on the other end of the phone. Astra heard a brush of fabric over his microphone, as if he’d been rubbing his face and his sleeve caught on the receiver.

“I want to know if he’s there, because I want to talk to you when you’re alone. It’s why I’m calling so late… or early, I guess.” Kile said.

Astra’s traitor heart beat faster. What did he want to talk to her about when she was alone? Was he going to apologize? Was he going to ask for her back?

It was too late, obviously. Astra had obviously moved on. Obviously. “He’s not here.”

Kile sounded relieved when he said, “Good.” and that annoyed Astra. He had no right to be relieved that she wasn’t in bed with another man. He’d hurt her in a way she’d never known she could hurt before.

She lashed out, “I didn’t want to wake him up with my snacking. But he’ll probably notice I’m gone soon, so you should hurry up and say what you want to say.”

The pained sound that snuck out of his throat with his next exhale was not as satisfying as Astra had hoped it would be. She regretted her words already. Maybe now he wouldn’t ask for her back… not that she wanted him to.

Kile said, “Let me ask you something…”

This was it. He was going to ask for forgiveness. He was going to ask her to come back to Illéa and be with him.

“What do you want more than anything in the world?” Kile said.

What was he expecting her to say? That she wanted him? She was dating the Crown Prince of England!

“Astra?”

“What do you mean, Kile?”

“What do you mean, what do I mean? For our whole lives you’ve always wanted one thing more than anything in the world. What is it?”

Oh. Astra replied almost mechanically, her voice barely above a mumble, “I want to be the Prima Ballerina for the Angeles Ballet for at least a season, maybe two.”

“And you wanted that enough that you didn’t even think about moving closer to my university, because it would have taken you away from the Angeles ballet. And not for a good reason, like that invitation you got to dance in Waverly. For no reason. For me.”

“You’re not no reason—“

“No, I’m just not a good enough reason.”

“Kile—“

“You can’t argue with that.”

“You said you wouldn’t promise to look for apprenticeships and internships in the cities where I was dancing. You said you don’t want to live in Angeles when you grow up!”

“I don’t. I’m going to go where I can do my best work.” he said plainly. “I still think you and I made a good choice to split up.”

Hearing him say that was hard. She wanted him to regret it. She wanted him to miss her like she had missed him before Andrew had swept her off her feet. Losing him had changed her and she would never be the same as she was before, and he wasn’t even sorry.

Kile continued, “I’m just saying… what was the point of drawing a line in the sand about you and me if you were just going to walk all over it for Andy?”

“What?”

“We both know that you’ll never be prima anything if you marry Andy. You told me yourself, every waking hour of a prima’s life is devoted to dancing or preparing to dance. There are no hobbies, no vacations, no date nights. There definitely isn't time to be somebody’s princess.”

“I’m already an Illéan Prin—“

“Cut the shit, Astra, you know what I mean.” Kile sounded exasperated, and she knew why. She was trying to miss his point, but he wasn’t exactly being subtle about it so dodging it was proving impossible.

“Maybe I want something else now. Maybe I want to marry Andrew.”

“Look… Andy’s not a bad guy—“ Kile admitted through gritted teeth, “But there will be plenty of not bad guys waiting for you after you retire. So if you pick him, do it because you want the life he’ll give you more than the life you can earn for yourself. And be ready to bury your dreams of being a prima ballerina forever, if you do. I know you, and I know you’re getting swept up in this—“

“Don’t talk about me like I’m some helpless little… little damsel, Kile.” Astra snapped.

“Think about it logistically. Do you want to move to the other side of the world from your parents and your little brothers? They’ll visit you as often as they can, but your visits to Illéa will always be to the Palace, to King Maxon and Addy. You won’t be able to go home again. Do you want to have to keep a royal schedule, planned months and years in advance? And you can forget being around from Addy once she becomes queen, you’ll be trapped on the far side of an ocean.”

“Kile—“ Astra tried to interrupt him because she wanted him to stop making sense.

“What about the little things? What about the weather? You’re an Angeles girl, are you going to miss the sun? You know they use different numbers for temperature over there, right? How’s it going to feel to wake up in the morning and have some maid tell you that it’s twenty-five degrees outside, so you’d better stay in the shade to keep cool?”

“Kile.” Astra laughed.

“I’m serious. You’re not just choosing a career here, Astra, you’re choosing a life: from the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep.” Kile paused and let out a tired sigh. “I just don’t want you to make a big mistake that you can’t undo. I know how badly you want to dance. You’re not ready for this, and even if you were, this wouldn’t be the right choice for you.”

“I’ve changed, Kile.” she wanted to add that he’d changed her. That losing him had made her someone new, someone she didn’t even know yet, but she kept that part to herself. Listening to his voice for so long that night… suddenly she found that she didn’t want to hurt him anymore.

“It’s barely been three months, Astra. You haven’t changed that much.” he promised.

Astra wasn’t sure. Sometimes change was gradual, sure, but sometimes change was all at once. Traumatic change was a sudden shattering of what came before, such that one could never go back again. That was what losing Kile had been like.

But did that mean she wanted to give up dancing and become Andrew’s princess? His queen? His wife and the mother of his heirs? Did she want to leave Illéa forever and eventually move into this palace?

She wanted all of that when she was wrapped up in Andrew’s arms.

But here, alone in the middle of the night when she had her wits about her…

She climbed back into bed and woke Andrew up with steady, gentle kisses. Everything about the love they made that morning was slow and desperate, and even though she hadn’t meant it to, in the end it felt like goodbye.

***

Astra was gone to her final rehearsals before dawn, but later that morning Andrew was true to his word and made a big announcement that he and Astra had both been secretly dating, and were now publicly broken up. He made a good show of wandering around London looking sad that day, and that night he went out to dinner with a fashion model friend, who did not mind the publicity one little bit.

There were still plenty of photographers salivating at the chance to photograph Astra looking dismal at having lost the chance to become an English princess, but at least they were leaving the rest of the dancers, and everyone else associated with the ballet, in peace.

Astra’s parents arrived at the royal palace in time for dinner that night, and Astra had a lot of explaining to do to them. King Eoan and Queen Waverly seemed to find Astra’s discomfort at explaining her affair with Andrew to her parents over roasted asparagus incredibly amusing, and possibly reminiscent of the beginning of their own relationship. It wasn’t fair, though. Andrew missed all the “fun”, making sure it looked like he was rebounding with that gorgeous model.

That night, Astra was too nervous about her impending final performance to wait up for Andrew to get back to the Palace. She could go to bed early or never at all. She drank some tea laced with a little bit of melatonin and fell asleep soon after dinner.

She woke up in Andrew’s arms, her cheek pressed to the side of his bare chest. She listened to him breathe deeply and evenly for a little while and tried one last time.

She could quit dancing.

She could leave Illéa forever.

She could raise her children to be heirs.

Her children could raise their children to be heirs.

When she died, her bones could be interred in a big old church.

Her whole life could be that easy.

God, it would be so easy.

“Andy?” she whispered.

He didn’t stir.

“Andrew?” she tried again, this time pulling away from him and sitting up in bed.

He didn’t hear her, but he reacted to the loss of her warmth, and eventually his heavy eyelids fluttered open. “Astra?”

“What time did you get in last night?”

“This morning.” He admitted, yawning widely. “I expect the tabloids will be plastered with headlines about their debaucherous future king today.”

“Was it any fun?”

“Yeah. Ellie’s great; she’s always happy to be photographed on my arm. Missed you, though.” he added, as if suddenly awake enough to worry that she was jealous.

She wasn’t the slightest bit jealous. Well, the slightest bit, but not for the reasons he would assume. Astra was jealous because Ellie could keep being photographed on Andrew’s arm for as long as she pleased, with no consequences.

“Maybe you should marry Ellie.” Astra suggested.

Andrew laughed, and it turned into a yawn. Then he explained, “Ellie’s too focused on her career right now. And anyway, she’d be far more interested in you.”

“Now that would be a tabloid headline.” Astra joked weakly.

“What’s the matter? Are you nervous for your performance? Is it because you’re leaving England this time tomorrow? Is it because you told your parents what’s been happening between us—“

“I’m not nervous.” Astra said, even though her stomach was in knots. Those weren’t nerves. That was grief. “Andy… I want to be a ballet dancer.”

Andrew sat up in bed now and rubbed the sleep from his eyes so he could focus on her. The words were familiar, but her tone was alarming. “Of course you do. You are a ballet dancer, and you’re bloody brilliant.”

“I want to be a prima ballerina.”

“Okay.”

“That sort of excellence takes years to achieve.”

“Good job you’ve been dancing since you were four years old, then.”

“Shh.” she pressed a finger to his lips so that he would stop talking back and listen to her. He complied. “I won’t be ready to be a prima for seven or eight years. I have a lot to learn. And when I’m ready, I want to be a Prima Ballerina for at least one season, maybe two. That’s every waking hour devoted to dance for two years straight. Then I want to live in Angeles and stay close to Addy in the first few years of her reign. I want to be there when she gets married and has babies, because she is great at putting on a brave face and absolutely terrible at processing the emotions that are scaring her into needing to be brave. She’s going to need me, and I’m excited to be there for her. I can’t live on a different continent than my dad. There can’t such a huge time difference between me and my mom. I can’t be a foreign queen. I don’t want to be foreign at all. Andrew… I can’t marry you.” Her cheeks were wet and her voice cracked, but she didn’t know when, in that little breathless tirade, she’d started crying.

Andrew stared blankly ahead, hugging his knees to his chest around their blanket. He didn’t look surprised. He’d known she was too good to be true all along. Finding his queen could never have been so easy, so perfect. He shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.

“Andy, none of those reasons I gave have anything to do with you. I love you. You’re a good man, and a great partner, and you have no business being such a talented kisser when you’re so handsome. It’s overkill.” she waited for him to smile. She waited for him to do anything. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Andrew. I just can’t marry you. I’m eighteen years old, I just got control of my life. I’m not ready to sign it over to a monarchy. I would love to be your wife, Andy, but I would hate to be your queen.”

Andrew blinked hard, then looked over at her. His voice was too casual, his words were too easy when he said, “I understand entirely. I can wait.”

Astra furrowed her brow, trying to hold his far off gaze. “Wait? What do you mean, wait?”

“You want to be a prima ballerina, and you said it would take you nine or ten years to accomplish your goal. Fine. I will wait, and when you’re ready I’ll ask to marry you.”

“No, Andy—“

“I don’t mind ruling on my own for a while.”

“That’s more than a while! You’ll be king in four years—“

“It isn’t a problem.” he insisted.

“Did you hear the part about what I want to do after I retire? About living in Illéa, about staying close to my family?”

“Astra, once we’re married, you can do whatever you like.”

“But queens have responsibilities.”

“We can redefine the role to mean whatever you’d like it to mean. I don’t care. I love you, Astra, and you’re the best future queen I could ever hope for.”

Astra paused, blinking hard against the tears in her eyes. It hurt to hear him say that. It hurt to realize that he didn’t believe he deserved any better. “Andy, that’s not true. You deserve a wife who will stay by your side. You deserve a wife who adores you and would be willing to sacrifice her own ambitions to serve England. I’m not good enough to be your queen.”

“Then no one ever will be.”

“Andrew—“

“Let me wait for you, Astra, please.” His voice broke on that last work, his eyes finally meeting hers and betraying his anguish. “Let me hope. It’s all that I have left.”

Astra couldn’t figure out what would be crueler, to let him hope when she’d made up her mind, or to take that hopeless hope away from him.

So she wrapped him up in her arms and they laid down. She combed her fingers through his hair and he brushed his thumb against her ribs until her alarm clock rang and her last day in London began.

***

In retrospect, Astra should have chosen a happy, upbeat, peppy song for her exhibition. She could have flounced all over the stage and spun a ridiculous number of times on her toes, and allowed her partner to toss her all over the place with an enormous smile on her face.

Instead, she’d chosen an exhibition from a ballet about a woman mourning her dead lover, dancing with his ghost. She’d been thinking of Kile when she’d chosen it, hoping it would help her work out her feelings about their doomed childhood romance. Now she was about to take the stage of the royal ballet, with Andrew and his parents in the royal box, watching her close enough that she could see the pained look on Andrew’s face as clear as anything.

Astra and her dance partner, Geoffrey, took their place while the stage was lit in nothing but the darkest of blue lights. He laid down across on their only set piece, an enormous fake rock, and Astra settled over him in a dramatic pose of despair, arm flung over her forehead.

The first part of the dance was hers alone. Her grief, her agony, her desperation. None of it was fake. When Geoffrey arose, as a ghost, and began dancing with her, the bittersweet mixture of joy and sorrow was easy to tap into. Nothing brought her more joy than dancing, and nothing brought her more sorrow in that moment than Andrew watching her live the life she’d chosen over him.

When Geoffrey faded back into the fog upstage and left Astra alone again in the center of the stage, all the passion and desperation fled with him. The rest of the dance was small and slow, painfully precise movements timed with the orchestra just so that if she made the slightest misstep, it would be immediately, embarrassingly obvious.

But Astra did not have to fake the exhaustion and resignation her character was feeling. If she allowed herself to second guess her decision to break away from Andrew now, she’d second guess it forever. The roar of the audience as the last tremulous notes from the string section died away seemed to make a deafening contrast.

Astra was surprised to find tears had started pouring down her cheeks somewhere during that performance. Geoffrey returned and took her hand, and they bowed. As was customary for this exhibition, several members of the audience threw flowers onto the stage. From the third row, Astra’s dad threw a whole bouquet, and a little teddy bear. Astra laughed as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. Then she turned to the royal box to curtsey, perfectly observing royal protocol, and was startled to find that Andrew had been crying, too.

He tossed her a single white rose with a beautiful red satin ribbon tied around the stem, but the look on his face was resignation. He could love her with all of his heart for all of his life and still never be able to give her the kind of affirmation she got from a packed theater full of an adoring audience. He’d seen her dance dozens of times in her room at her little palace, and hell, he’d even danced with her himself. But seeing her like this in front of them…

He could wait until the oceans ran dry and the mountains fell flat, and every single star in the sky flickered into darkness… Astra was never coming back to him.

Astra spent that night with her parents, letting them gush over her and spoil her with presents, and help her pack up the life she’d made in London for the last few months. She hoped Andrew would come and say goodbye once her parents went back to the suite they were staying in, but he never appeared, and Astra didn’t chase him down because she thought he deserved to set the terms. That dance had been her goodbye to him. It was up to him whether he wanted to say goodbye in return.

The next morning, Queen Waverly was the only one in the entrance hall waiting to see the Orders family off as they left. The English Royal jet would take them as far as Carolina, where they would visit James’ family for a little while.

Astra imagined Andrew’s private car speeding out onto the tarmac to stop them. She imagined him dashing from the backseat and waving his arms to alert the pilots that they couldn’t leave until he’d said his farewells.

He didn’t come. It was easier this way.

Kenna and James stayed with Astra’s grandparents for a few days, but James had to go back to work and Kenna needed to get back to the Palace. Aunt Ames had five children, two of them under the age of six, and though they had plenty of help in that Palace, Kenna was their primary nanny, their aunt, and she missed them like crazy.

Astra stayed with her grandparents for a couple of weeks, until her contract at the Waverly Ballet began. The media frenzy around her got much better in that time, though it was impossible not to notice that things were staying hectic around Andrew as the English tabloids seemed to catch on to how severely he’d had his heart broken.

Astra wished she could take some of that public shame away.

She wished she could take some of his pain away, even as she was mending her own broken heart. Her weeks in Carolina were good for that purpose. Her grandparents spoiled her rotten, and she gave her body a much-needed break from dancing. Instead, she spent her days learning needlepoint from her grandmother, and her nights stargazing out by the pond where her parents used to sneak off on dates before Gramma Magda gave up trying to convince Kenna to marry someone from a higher caste.

When Astra packed her bags to take the short flight up to Waverly to begin yet another new life with another new ballet company, she was still wearing the beautiful red ribbon that Andrew gave her as a parting gift on that rose, tied around her wrist.

And when, years later, she sat on her sofa and watched him become King of England in front of the entire world, her fingers traced that now slightly frayed red ribbon, Andy’s last gift to her, in a familiar, much-practiced gesture.

It would have been so easy to say yes, to give in to the pressure and let herself get swept away by the English people, the royal traditions, the prince’s staggering blue eyes. It would have been a good life, too. A perfectly fine marriage.

But Astra didn’t want to be queen, and now she wouldn’t have to be, and the freedom she felt watching Andrew bear the weight of that crown was all the reminder she needed: she made the right decision. And now, despite the dull ache of longing in her chest for he boy she’d loved and left behind, she was happy. Truly happy. She was at peace with her past, content in her present, and excited for her future.

When the coronation coverage ended, Astra got ready to return to bed. She was surprised when her phone rang, but she knew exactly who it would be.

“Mom?” she said, before the person on the other line could say a word. Her little cousins would have had just enough time to be tucked back into bed by now, if Aunt May was helping. Kenna would have rushed to the phone as soon as she got the chance.

“Sweetie? How are you, little bug?”

“I’m fine, Mom, I don’t need the pet names.” Astra grinned, rolling her eyes.

“Are you sure?” Kenna double-checked.

“Yeah. I wish Andrew wasn’t alone up there. I still love him, I don’t want him to suffer. But I was nothing but relieved when they put that crown on his head and I didn’t have to put one on mine. I made the right choice.”

“I know you did, honey, but just because you did the right thing doesn’t mean you have to feel perfectly fine about it. Especially not on a night like this.”

“Honestly, Mom… my time in London feels like another life. One I’m nothing but grateful for, but not one I want to relive.”

At first, Astra’s spring with Andrew felt like it had never really happened, or like it had happened to someone else, or like it was all a fever dream: too hot, too heady, a surreal hallucination more than a fairytale fantasy. But now, with some time and space, Astra could see it for what it really was: a romantic affair with someone she could have chosen to marry, but who ultimately was not the right fit for her. On the one hand, Astra and Andrew loved each other, and their marriage would have been fine: they’d known each other forever and they each fully understood the challenges of the royal life they would have been embarking on together.

On the other hand, Astra had known what she wanted out of life since she was a very small girl. It was a hard thing to ask an eighteen year old to walk away from a guaranteed royal wedding for a chance to work very hard to one day, possibly, make her dream come true. If Astra hadn’t grown up in Illéa Palace, she might not have made the same choice. But everything she got out of her life from now on was truly hers, she was the captain of her own fate, and even if she failed and never became a prima ballerina, at least this way she’d have had the chance.

“But Mom?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t ever tell Gramma Magda that Andrew proposed to me and I turned him down. I think she would disown me.”

#challenge #Astra and Andrew Challenge #RIP your dashes if the Keep Reading doesn't work #its almost 16000 words long #one for every tear I cried breaking Andrew's heart

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kanerallels · 3 years ago

Note

Heyy, I saw your prompt list— could you maybe do Mackelena (with a side of Philinda and Huntingbird, if possible) and soulmates? Congrats of 111 followers!!

Thank you so much!!! I hope you enjoy this-- it's my first AOS fic so here goes nothing!

Pairing: Alphonso Mackenzie/Elena Rodriguez (minor Philinda and Huntingbird)

Word Count: 3,143

Tags/Warnings: rated G (for giant simp, which Mack is, good talk), character death mentioned, as is divorce

For most of his life, Mack had believed in soulmates. He’d grown up being taught that he’d meet someone, and when they first touched, their respective soulmate marks-- for him, a mark on his right hand, very dark brown streaked through with honey-gold-- would light up, and they would share a Moment. A brief snippet of time from the future that would show them their life together, if they chose to move forward with their relationship.

Some didn’t. Mack knew people who hadn’t stayed with their soulmate. But he’d seen, overwhelmingly, that when a person found their soulmate and stuck with them, they were far happier than if they didn’t.

He’d always thought that the only woman he’d ever be in a serious relationship with would be his soulmate. But then he’d met Nicole. The two of them had fallen hard and fast, and even now, after their divorce, Mack would never say he regretted it. Regretted how it ended, yes. But he had loved Nicole, even if she hadn’t been his soulmate.

Some days, Mack wasn’t sure if he’d ever find his soulmate. But he was fine with that for now, fine working at the mechanic shop that he co-owned. He had friends around him, and he visited his brother whenever he could. So he’d wait, and that was okay for now.

There were days, though, when he wondered. Was there really one woman waiting out there for him somewhere?

The sound of arguing broke Mack out of his musings, and he looked up from the car just as Fitz stalked into the back of the garage, looking irritated. Running a hand through his already messy hair, he said, “I’ve had about enough of this, it’s your turn. Have fun.”

“Have fun with what?” Mack asked, wiping his hands off on the rag he had resting next to his toolbox. “Something wrong, Turbo?”

Clearly trying to calm himself, Fitz took a deep breath and pointed over his shoulder. “There’s an irate customer out there, demanding that we hurry up and fix her car. I tried telling her that we’ve got a queue and we’re going to start on hers soon, but she didn’t exactly give me a chance. She wants to talk to the mechanic who’s working on her car.”

“Which name is that?” Mack asked.

“Rodriguez-- she’s on your list, I think.”

“Great.” Suppressing a grimace, Mack set aside the rag and headed towards the door that separated the garage where they worked and their main office. “I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

“If you’re lucky,” Fitz muttered.

Ignoring that, Mack stepped through the doorway. He spotted the customer almost immediately-- a Latina woman with dark brown hair braided back from her face, dressed in a black leather jacket and jeans. She caught sight of him and stomped up towards him. “Oh, you must be the turtle man who’s working on my car,” she said, her low voice furious.

One of Mack’s eyebrows shot up, despite himself. “Turtle man? We’ve only had the car for a couple weeks.”

“Yes, and I need it fixed,” the woman said emphatically. “Fast, so why don’t you get a move on? If I’d known you were going to take all year--”

Holding up his hands, Mack said, “I understand you’re upset, Ms. Rodriguez. But one of our best workers quit last week, and we’re having a hard time catching up. Obviously we’ll get your car done as soon as possible, but there are a few other cars before it. I should be done with them over the next few days, and I will personally make sure that your car is taken care of. Does that sound fair?”

Ms. Rodriguez eyed him for a moment, looking skeptical, but then let out a sigh. “Okay. I’m-- I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were short-staffed.”

“Nothing we can’t handle, it’s just a little backlog,” Mack assured her. “But I promise you, Ms. Rodriguez, your car will be one of the next ones.”

“Good to know,” she said with a nod. “And you can call me Elena. I mean, it’s the least I can do considering I kind of chewed out your friend back there. And you.”

Releasing a chuckle, Mack said, “Fitz can handle it. You can call me Mack, and we’ll call you as soon as your car is ready.”

Shaking her head, Elena said, “Oh, I don’t think so, Turtleman.”

“Sorry?” Mack asked, caught off guard.

“After how long it’s taken already? I’m coming back here to make sure you don’t start ignoring me again. I’ll be back in two days. See you then.”

With that, Elena breezed out of the office, leaving Mack with his mouth open as he stared after her. Huh, he thought, eventually turning to head back to his work. It looked like he’d be seeing a lot more of this Elena.

Sure enough, Elena was back two days later, just as Mack finished work on the last car and had started an assessment to see what was wrong with Elena’s. The short answer was, he soon learned, everything. This car was not going to be a short project.

When he told Elena that, she just shrugged. “Guess you’ll be seeing me a lot, Turtleman. Get used to it, and get to work.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mack said, hiding a grin as he headed off to find his toolbox.

~ ~ ~

“Soulmates definitely aren’t real,” Bobbi told him.

Mack raised a skeptical eyebrow at his friend. “What makes you say that?” he asked, taking a sip of his drink. They were at a bar, celebrating the promotion Bobbi had gotten at her job-- although Mack had a feeling there was another reason they were here. He’d known Bobbi long enough that he could figure it out when there was something she wanted to tell him.

“It doesn’t make any sense, scientifically,” Bobbi explained. “And it’s definitely not logical. I mean, touching someone and you see the future? It doesn’t really make any sense, Mack.”

“Maybe not,” Mack admitted, deciding not to expand on his own theories in that area. “But there’s a lot about love that doesn’t make sense, and it’s not like the whole world had one mass hallucination.”

“Maybe not,” Bobbi said, sounding skeptical. “But unless you can provide me with a scientific explanation for it, I’d say it’s a load of bull.”

“Uh-huh,” Mack said. “So the soulmate thing had nothing to do with the fact that you’re back with Hunter again?”

“Of course not--” Bobbi stopped. “Wait. You knew?”

“Didn’t take much to put it back together,” Mack said wryly. “You only take me out for drinks out of the blue like this when you need to tell me something important, and it’s usually about you and him. Also, he changed his Facebook photo to you and him again.”

“Wha-- I told him to be subtle!” Bobbi let out a groan, burying her face in her hands. “He is so typical.”

“So, you are back together,” Mack said, and he saw a small smile start across Bobbi’s face.

“Well… yeah. We are. We’re taking it slow, and he’s at least trying to not make soulmate comments-- but that’ll last.” Giving him a sideways glance, Bobbi asked, “How do you feel about this?”

“What, you and Hunter?” Mack took another drink to avoid answering right away. “I’m happy for you two, obviously. I just don’t want to see either of you hurt again. I’ve had to bail Hunter out of too many drunk tanks for that.”

“I know-- that’s part of why we’re taking it slow this time,” Bobbi said with a laugh. “For your sanity.”

“My sanity appreciates the effort, but I’m not the one in the relationship,” Mack pointed out. “It’s up to you two, not me. But seriously, I am happy for you guys.”

“Thanks, Mack,” Bobbi said. “By the way, I might have asked Hunter if he’d meet us for dinner nearby.”

“I had a feeling there was another part to the plan,” Mack said. “Well, if you two are paying, I’m in.”

They made their way to the restaurant where Hunter was waiting, and had just settled down at the table with him and were starting to flip through the menus to order when Mack’s phone buzzed.

“Ah-- hang on one minute,” he told them, pulling out his phone and checking it. He was pleasantly surprised to see it was a text from Elena, who had gotten his phone number the second time she’d come by the garage, in order to ‘make sure he was keeping on task’ in her words.

The text held an image of a turtle, and the words, at the zoo earlier. I think I found your long lost brother.

Mack found himself grinning as he texted back, For someone who wants their car fixed fast, you’re not very nice to the guy fixing it.

Elena’s response was quick. What, are you gonna not fix it now? I found your long lost brother! Mack chuckled as her next text came a few seconds later. Besides, you’re too much of a softie to refuse to finish the job for me.

Guess you know me too well, Mack responded.

Well enough to know you’re a softie.

Shaking his head, Mack put away his phone and looked up to see Bobbi and Hunter watching him, both wearing sly grins. “Who was that?” Hunter asked, innocence dripping from his tone.

“Just a friend,” Mack said. He knew better than to give Hunter too much information when he was in a mood like this. Grabbing his menu, he flipped it open and started browsing, ignoring the sly looks that Bobbi and Hunter exchanged. He was going to get interrogated about this, he knew already. But there would be nothing for them to find out. Elena was just a friend, after all.

~ ~ ~

“By the way, soulmates are definitely real,” Phil Coulson told him.

Mack gave him a surprised look as he took the paper bag from the older man. He’d stopped at Phil’s coffee shop on the way into work, as he did from time to time, and was picking up coffee and desserts for the shop. “Why do you bring that up?” he asked.

Shrugging, Phil said, “Something Bobbi and Hunter mentioned when they were in here yesterday.”

“Let me guess-- Hunter brought up him and Bobbi being soulmates again?” Mack said, grinning wryly.

“Surprisingly, no,” Phil said as he rang up his bill. “They were discussing you. Hunter is under the impression you’ve met your soulmate for some reason, and Bobbi was telling them that they don’t exist.”

“Huh. Sounds about right,” Mack said, trying to hide his surprise. Although it shouldn’t shock him that Hunter immediately made the leap from “texting someone he likes” to “he has a soulmate and hasn’t told us”. Bobbi would probably handle things a little more cautiously, thankfully. “Looks like I’d better tell him he’s wrong.”

“Really? No one yet?” Phil asked.

Mack shrugged as he handed over cash for the order. “I have no idea who she is or where she is. I have been married before, but I guess that was part of why we didn’t last. Part of it, anyway.”

Nodding, Phil said, “I know the feeling. I was in love quite a few times before May and I finally met.”

“Really?” Mack said in surprise.

“Sure. Just because there’s one specific person out there for you doesn’t mean you won’t be attracted to other people. It’s normal.” Putting the cash in the register, Phil said, “But there’s something different about the woman who’s the one for you. I could tell right away that she was special. Just took a while for us to realize just what was different.”

“What he’s not telling you,” came the voice of Melinda May as she came in through the front door, a duffel bag over her shoulder, “is that it took us two years to finally figure out that we were soulmates, and it was only because he’d just been hit by a car and I had to give him CPR.” She held up one hand, stained a sunny yellow.

“We all find love in different ways,” Phil said, giving May a soft, loving grin. “How was class?”

“We’ve got some new idiots to beat up on,” May replied, moving behind the counter to drop a kiss onto her husband’s cheek. “And Daisy kicked a practice dummy through a wall, so she’s getting even better.”

“My wife and daughter are terrifying,” Phil said, grinning even wider. “Here’s your change, Mack.”

“Oh-- thanks.” Pocketing it, Mack gave May and Phil a nod before heading out the door and down the street.

It only took him a few minutes to walk the short distance back to the garage, and when he got there, he found a familiar, slight figure waiting for him next to her car, with a sly grin on her face.

“Late again, Turtleman,” Elena teased him as Mack set the paper bag down on the nearest clean surface.

“I’m pretty sure you’re always here early, Yo-Yo,” he told her.

“Yo-Yo?” Elena lifted a curious eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, cause you keep coming back here.”

“You’d almost think you minded me showing up,” she teased as Mack pulled open the paper bag and pulled out two disposable cups of coffee.

Handing her one, he said, “I don’t mind.”

The smile Elena shot at him was brighter than the sunshine coming through the window in the corner, and it warmed Mack as he got to work.

~ ~ ~

“Hey, Mack?”

Mack looked up from his work on Elena’s car to where Daisy was sitting in the back of her dad’s 1962 Chevy Corvette, which he affectionately referred to as “Lola.” However, Lola needed a little work done, so Phil had relinquished the car into Daisy’s hands, and she’d brought it to Mack for him to look at.

“What’s up, Tremors?” he asked.

Daisy didn’t respond right away, fiddling with the edge of her jacket as she bit her lip. “Do you believe in soulmates?” she blurted out.

One of Mack’s eyebrows shot up, and he almost asked what prompted the question-- but stopped abruptly as he remembered what day it was. A year to the day since Daisy’s boyfriend, Lincoln, had died when a robber had broken into his house and shot him when he’d tried to protect Daisy. The man had been arrested, but Mack knew that only soothed part of the pain for his friend.

“I do,” he said cautiously-- he’d never learned whether Lincoln was Daisy’s soulmate or not. Regardless, he decided to speak the truth. “I believe in soulmates. But I also believe you can be truly, deeply in love with a person who’s not your soulmate. It doesn’t make them any less important to you and your life.”

Daisy jerked a quick nod, staring determinedly up at the ceiling. “He wasn’t mine,” she said suddenly. “Lincoln. May and Dad already know, but I just…” She trailed off, blinking hard.

Mack nodded slowly. “Maybe he wasn’t. But I knew Lincoln. He was happy with you, and he loved you. In the end, that might matter more than being someone’s soulmate.”

Taking a deep breath, Daisy nodded. “Thanks, Mack.”

“Any time, Tremors.”

They dropped into silence after that, until Mack heard someone knock on the office door. “Hey, Mack!”

Mack felt a smile crossing his face as he moved from behind the car to see Elena strolling towards him, hands in her pockets. “Hey, Yo-Yo,” he said, and Elena returned the smile.

“You know, the nickname is growing on me, Turtleman.” Turning her gaze to the car behind him, she said, “So? Do you have good news for me?”

“I do,” Mack said, patting the side of her car. “After almost a month of work, I finally finished it. Your car is finally fixed.”

A grin flashed across Elena’s face. “About time-- but thank you. I owe you. Literally and figuratively. I probably owe you for all that coffee you bought me.”

Waving a hand, Mack said, “Don’t worry about it. I was happy to do it.” He paused, the reality of it finally hitting him. If his work was finished… he wouldn’t be seeing Elena again.

No sense in moping about it, he told himself sternly. Grabbing the keys from the table next to him, he dropped them in Elena’s outstretched hand. “All yours,” he told her.

Elena nodded, stuffing the keys in her pocket. “Thanks, Mack.” She paused for a second, then extended a hand to shake.

Mack blinked in surprise-- he hadn’t expected such a formal goodbye. But he went to shake her hand, and it was only as his fingers were curling around hers that he noticed the dark blue soulmark on her palm.

A flash of light radiated from their hands, and Mack felt himself transported away from the garage:

He was sitting on the couch in his apartment, leaning back and relaxing. He could hear voices in the kitchen-- a man’s baritone, and Daisy laughing-- and music was emanating from a radio a little ways away.

A soft noise from next to him caught his attention, and he glanced over to see Elena, curled up next to him, her head resting on his chest as she hummed along to the song. Mack wrapped an arm around her and dropped a kiss onto her forehead, and she let out a soft noise. “Te amo,” she whispered, and Mack felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth.

“Love you back,” he said as a wave of contentment swept over him.

Mack’s eyes snapped open and caught hold of Elena’s. To his shock, a slow smile was spreading across her face. “I knew it,” she said.

“Oh, you knew it?” Mack said, trying to steady his voice. “How exactly did you know it?”

“You’ve got your mark on your hand, too,” she said with a shrug. “Other than that… put it together, Turtleman. I wasn’t just hanging around here waiting for my car. Well, other than the first time.”

Mack felt a smile start to grow on his own face, and then another voice broke through his thoughts.

“Holy. Crap.”

Both of them looked at where Daisy was still lounging in her dad’s car, her eyes wide and a huge grin on her face. “This is awesome,” she said.

Mack exchanged a look with Elena. “I’ll call you?” he offered, and Elena snorted.

“Knowing you? I’ll call you first, Turtleman.” Shooting him a wink, she turned and strolled out of the garage, a spring in her step. For a long minute, Mack watched her, feeling himself grinning like an idiot. Then he turned back to his work, making a mental note to learn Spanish.

#alphonso mack mackenzie #alphonso mackenzie #elena rodriguez #yo yo rodriguez #mackelena #daisy johnson #phil coulson #melinda may #bobbi morse #lance hunter #agents of s.h.i.e.l.d #aos #aos fanfic #111 followers celebration #it was dope. the end

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makaylajadewrites · 4 years ago

Text

Of Teddy Bears and Sweet Nothings

Hi all! This is just a cute little one-shot that I felt inspired to write after this thread. Now, I do not have an ASD, but I received advise from a few people who do, but I'm always open to suggestions/advice!

Read on AO3 here

Pairing: Derek Morgan/Spencer Reid

Additional Tags: Teddy Bears, Autism, Autistic Spencer Reid, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Implied/Referenced Sex

Word Count: 2410

Summary: Spencer fears that his love for stuffed animals, specifically one special teddy bear, is enough to scare Derek away. He couldn't be more wrong.

The animals had always been a secret. The stuffed animals, that is. He had never told anybody about his incessant desire for them; how hugging one close to his chest at night made the darkness seem a bit more bearable, and helped him to sleep throughout the night. How their softness comforted him and helped him to wind down. He had quite a few of them, and most of them were placed around the head of his bed.

But his absolute favorite one, an old brown teddy bear, was the exception to that. It was made of soft brown wool, its black eyes wide circles and its little nose stitched vertically with an upside down Y for a mouth. Around its neck was a pink checkered ribbon tied in a bow. He had had it ever since he was little, when his mother bought it for him at a fair - when she was still cognizant enough to go out in public without experiencing a panic attack or letting her delusions rule her decision making. It was at least two decades old, but looking at it, one could tell that it had been well cared for and loved. It had no stains or rips, and while the wool was getting a bit rougher with age, it was still soft for the most part.

He loved his plushies dearly. Like toys that were designed for stimming, his animals helped him calm down and relax, especially at night if he was antsy from a case or it had been a particularly stressful day at work. He didn’t like to broadcast his stimming at work, so he often resisted the urge and waited until he got home, where he could stim all he wanted to his heart’s content. He liked his routine. Sometimes the constant stress of his job could be overwhelming, and he didn’t eat as much or as often as he probably should have, but he was taking care of himself as best as he knew how. He had always been dependable, especially since he had been forced to grow up at a young age when his father left.

His father’s leaving had definitely taken its toll, and growing up, he had been responsible for his own wellbeing as well as his mother’s. It was chaotic at times with little to no order, but the one constant that always had been there (and always would be, if Spencer had anything to do about) was his teddy bear. He knew it seemed childish, and he warred himself about it sometimes since he was a grown man who depended on a teddy bear to function. But the comfort it brought him rivaled the occasional thoughts of self-deprecation, and even though he kept that secret, he took it everywhere with him, hidden in the depths of his messenger back underneath of crime scene photos and case files.

And then he started dating Derek.

Derek Morgan, the ever impressive agent and his colleague who could have any woman that he wanted, had actually been the one to drop the question. He asked Spencer if he wanted to go to dinner one night after a normal day of work. Both pleasantly shocked and elated, Spencer agreed instantly. He had been nurturing his affection for Derek in private, letting it grow and sprout as their time together gradually turned into not-so-platonic interactions. Derek was a touchy person, and even though Spencer would usually avoid contact at all costs, when it was Derek, it wasn’t so bad.

One of Derek’s favorite things to do was to caress his hair on the jet when they were on their way home after a long and stressful case. It was soothing, calming, and sometimes he found it hard to believe that the same fingers that gently combed through his chestnut curls had been wrapped around a handgun just hours before.

That affection blossomed, and soon enough, they were in a full fledged relationship. They didn’t ever come out to the rest of the team, but Derek didn’t really try to keep it a secret either. He began to call him other pet names, and although pretty boy would forever be their mutual favorite, Spencer appreciated ‘baby’ and ‘sweetheart’ too. He was amazed by how confident Derek was when it came to their relationship in public, because when they went out together, Derek always wanted to hold his hand and wrap an arm around him, but if Spencer was having a moment of touch aversion, he would never push it, and would allow Spencer to initiate the contact between them, and even if he couldn’t throughout the duration of the night, Derek never mentioned it.

The first time they had sex was incredible.

Derek was so gentle, so loving, and he took his time with Spencer since he was inexperienced in the realm of intimacy. Spencer had been with Ethan throughout the majority of his time in college, and over the years he had slept with a few men and women here and there, but most of those occasions were rare one night stands; he wasn’t in the double digits (possibly even triple) like Morgan was. But Derek assured Spencer that he wasn’t a number, he would never be, because this wasn’t just a hookup to him. He wanted it to be long term, and Spencer couldn’t be happier.

Their sex life was perfect. Spencer wouldn’t change a thing about it, because Derek really was the best partner for him. He cared about Spencer’s enjoyment and pleasure far more than his own, and on more than one occasion, Derek had spoiled Spencer without expecting him to return the favor.

“Sex isn’t a favor that needs to be returned, Spence,” Derek had chastised him after one of those times, his fingers cupping the sharp line of his jaw. They lay together, both naked beneath the soft sheets of Derek’s bed. Their legs lay intertwined together, Spencer’s toes curling against the back of Derek’s muscular calf. “It’s an honor, to be able to physically show my love for you.”

“You mean that?” Spence asked, raising his hand up to cup Derek’s hand over his rosy cheek, “It’s an honor?”

“An honor,” Derek confirmed, leaning in and kissing the tip of his nose, a smile spreading across Spencer’s face, “to love you.”

If Spencer had liked his routine before, he liked it even more now. Almost everyday after work, he spent the evening at Derek’s house, sharing dinner with him and spending the night the majority of days. Derek had been over to his apartment a few times, but they had never spent the night there together, much less had sex in his apartment. It was always at Derek’s house, not that that was a problem, but sometimes Spencer preferred the comfort of his own home.

But Spencer invited Derek to his apartment after work, and although Derek looked a little surprised, he instantly complied. They arrived together in the other man’s car since Spencer most often took the subway, and together they entered the organized chaos of his book-laden apartment. Even though it looked messy, everything was meticulously placed just as Spencer liked it. The stacks of books around the apartment were placed in alphabetical order and the ones on the shelves followed the Dewey decimal system. Derek knew better than to disturb his books; Spencer had threatened to get Penelope to hack his computer if he ever messed with his organization, and Derek was quick to surrender and kiss away the pout on Spencer’s lips.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Derek asked him, and Spencer instantly bobbed his head yes, a crooked smile on his face after Derek kissed him again. The two got comfy in their PJs (Derek used the ones from his go-bag). Spencer had on a pair of gray sweatpants and one of Derek’s sweatshirts, and Derek wore a black Nike basketball shorts and a tank top. The two made a bowl of popcorn to share and eventually settled in and watched a documentary on ocean life, but halfway through, their cuddling soon turned into a make-out session, nothing too wild, and both were pretty tame for the most part. Derek liked to touch Spencer’s legs, but Spencer pulled away from the kiss when he felt his touch traveling upwards, halting his partner by putting his hands over top of Derek’s when he remembered something quite crucial:

His stuffed animals were on his bed.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Derek asked, mouthing up the column of his neck, the alabaster skin flushed warmly. When Spencer didn’t respond right away, Derek pulled back immediately, scanning his lover’s face in concern. “Spence?”

“I just... I’m tired, Derek,” he said softly. Derek frowned, squeezing his hips gently and letting them rest there, not making any further moves to grope him. Of course Derek would be able to tell if something was wrong, Spencer realized, he was a behavioral profiler for Christ’s sake!

“Pretty boy,” he murmured, raising a hand up to touch his face gently, swiping a thumb over the arch of his cheekbone. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

“I just... I don’t want you to think any less of me,” Spencer murmured elusively.

“Why would I ever think less of you?” he asked, and Spencer’s hands slid down from Derek’s bare shoulders to his biceps, feeling the muscles rippling under his touch. He didn’t offer a verbal response, simply shrugging lamely. The last thing he wanted was for Derek to think he was childish or immature, and he feared that his stuffed animals would send that impression.

“If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine... But can you show me instead?” Derek asked, and slowly, unsurely, Spencer nodded his head. He stood up from the couch and away from Derek’s touch, and he collected his messenger back from the dining room table. He returned and set it down on the coffee table, lifting the flap and digging around before retrieving his teddy bear, holding it delicately in both hands for Derek to see. Derek frowned, looking over it briefly and then up towards Spencer, confusion clear on his face.

“Babe, I don’t... I don’t understand,” he said slowly, “You have a teddy bear? What about it?”

Spencer took a deep breath and slowly moved to sit down beside him, sitting the bear in his lap. “You don’t think it’s weird?” he asked quietly, looking down at its brown head while twirling the pink ribbon around his fingers.

“Of course not,” Derek said, smiling gently at Spencer and reaching for his hand which Spencer took immediately.

“I have more, you know,” he blurted out, feeling like he was in a safe environment to reveal even more of his secret. But he was smiling brightly, unable to help the feeling of joy he felt since Derek didn’t think he was strange or childish.

“More?” he repeated, “As in, more teddy bears?”

“More stuffed animals,” he corrected before explaining further, “I like the texture of them. They’re soft and they help me calm down after a long day.”

“Oh yeah?” Derek hummed, “You stim with them?”

“Yeah,” Spencer said before shrugging, “They just... I don’t know. They make me feel safe, I guess. They comfort me.”

“I hope I can be a source of comfort for you too, pretty boy,” Derek said, leaning over and kissing his temple before resting his head against Spencer’s. The young doctor just smiled, holding his bear close.

“You already are.”

About a week later, on an off day, Derek invited Spencer over to his apartment so they could spend the day together. He was always excited to spend time with Derek. He always made him feel so giddy, and he could stim freely around Derek without feeling self-conscious or the fear of judgement. Once he made it to Derek’s house, he was waiting for him at the door and welcomed him in, closing the door behind him.

“Hi, baby,” Derek said, hugging his lover and greeting him with a sweet kiss. Spencer smiled in response, hugging his lover around the waist.

“Hi, Der,” he hummed, and they kissed again before separating. “I missed you,” he confessed.

“We saw each other yesterday,” Derek reminded him with a laugh, and Spencer just grinned and shrugged, letting Derek lead the way into the living room. On the coffee table sat a lavender box, but Spencer didn’t mention it until Derek reached for it and held it out to him.

“I, um... I got you something,” he murmured, almost shyly, and Spencer blinked, confused.

“Why?” he asked, hesitantly accepting the box that he now realized was a gift box, a royal purple ribbon of silk tied around it carefully.

“I thought you would like it,” Derek offered simply, guiding Spencer to sit down with him on the sofa. Confused yet secretly excited, pale dainty fingers opened up the box carefully, pulling the ribbon loose and lifting the lid. Inside lay a light brown teddy bear, another purple ribbon tied into a bow around its neck. Spencer slowly reached for it and lifted it out of the box, glancing back and forth between it and Derek.

“Do you like it?” Derek asked softly.

Spencer didn’t respond right away, twirling the ribbon around his fingers and looking into the bear’s black eyes, his head nodding of its own accord. He looked up towards Derek, holding it close with tears in his own light brown eyes.

“I love it,” he said, unable to help the few tears that fell from his eyes. It was such a small gift, but it meant so much to him that Derek thought about him enough to buy a present filled with so much meaning.

“I just... wanted to get you something that can comfort you when I can’t be there,” Derek said, moving to wrap an arm around Spencer’s waist comfortingly. Spencer smiled and leaned into his side, hugging the stuffed bear to his chest.

“I don’t think I’ll need it all that often,” Spencer said honestly, Derek’s hand gently wiping some of his tears away.

“Why’s that?” Derek asked in a gentle voice, and Spencer smiled, turning to meet his eyes.

“Because I have you,” he whispered, “I love you, Derek.”

“I love you too, baby,” Derek’s whisper soon followed, every ounce of love and affection dripping from his deep voice.

And the two shared a kiss, the soft brown bear between them.

#please reblog if you enjoyed!#moreid #Spencer reid #Derek morgan #criminal minds #cm

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canyouhearthelight · 4 years ago

Text

The Miys, Ch. 122

Annnnd WE’RE BACK!

Thank you so much for your patience during the hiatus. Work is still crazy, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel there *crosses fingers*. And I was able to build back up my cushion of chapters, so that was a huge win for me.

As a reminder, this is a skip forward roughly 4 years from chapter 121. So, if you read a bit and start to wonder “wait, did I miss something?”, you probably didn’t and it’s most likely something I am going to circle back to. Don’t be a afraid to shoot me an ask, however, if you are just really thrown off by something! I’ll gladly clarify unless it’s something plot-specific.

Thanks, as always, go to @baelpenrose, @raven-fae, and @charlylimph-blog. By the way, Raven is working on a podcast of The Miys, which I am incredibly stoked about. Please follow @glimmeringfeatherspodcast for updates!

I carefully adjusted my glasses as I suppressed a giggle at Noah, who was swarmed with small yellow puffs of fuzz. In the last seven years since their discovery, Else’s hyper-fast evolution hadn’t slowed down much, although Grey did promise that it had slowed down. Noah buzzed at the puff resting on one of its vomu, eliciting a purr. “I believe they learned this behavior from Mac.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” I admitted. “I caught him playing with several of them a couple days ago.”

“I have observed them together on frequent occasions.” Reaching up, it plucked another puff from the top of its head. “I cannot hear if you sit on my sensory organs, podling.” Soon after Else evolved to the point they could live outside of a habitat tank, Miys had developed a tendency to treat them like its own young, and generally had several of them perched somewhere.

“How many of them are there now?” I asked, reaching out slightly before stopping myself from petting the closest canary-sized fluff. “Else, can I pick you up?”

In response, it bounced onto my hand. I’d noticed how little they spoke now, but Miys had assured us it was a normal stage in hive-being evolution - once Else became too large to actually fit in our bodies, it wasn’t able to communicate through the translator chip. At this stage, it could still hear us, but communicating back was a work in process. Mostly, they just trilled and chirped.

“Currently, there are five hundred and seven thousand, six hundred and twenty-three.”

“They’re very adaptable,” I observed.

With the one free vomu it had, Noah made a nodding gesture. “Most species that reach sentience are. We are able to observe Else’s evolution on a much shorter time scale than most, as well. Consider humanity’s evolution, and imagine seeing it take place in years rather than over the course of millenia.”

“I know,” I laughed. “But seeing it is way more incredible than imagining it.” I adjusted my glasses again, eliciting the buzz that usually meant Noah was exasperated with me.

“Why do humans insist on using those instead of having their eyes repaired?”

“My eyes aren’t damaged,” I reminded it. “And you did repair my eyes. I’m wearing these because my eyes are working right. You know this.”

“In principle, not in practice.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Our eyes evolved to work in a specific kind of light. Earth’s sun is yellow, I think? But Von’s sun is more blue.” I gestured at the light emitters in the corridor. “When the light is in the twilight cycle like this, some humans can’t see as well as we could in Earth-twilight. Hence the glasses.”

“Sight is so inefficient.”

I just shook my head. I couldn’t exactly argue. “Between the light and the gravity, it’s been a huge adjustment.”

“You have all adjusted in quite - innovative ways,” Noah replied. “My kind have done many of these relocations. Not all species adapt well.”

“What was it you called it?” I squinted, both from trying to see what was ahead of me and from thinking. I’m going to have to talk to someone about some flashlights, I swear… “We ‘persist’?”

“Humans are remarkably stubborn, yes,” it confirmed. “As Arthur Farro seems to prefer explaining it, your species began space travel by attaching chemical ignition drives to your posteriors.”

Even after so long, some things just did not translate. “Yep, we very much strapped a rocket to our asses to achieve spaceflight,” I laughed. “Everything on Earth kind of evolved and adapted like that. We learned what wouldn’t poison us by watching others die from eating it, that kind of thing. Even our superstitions, and later our laws, were basically ‘hey, let’s not do this, it kills people’.” A liw made its way into my line of sight, rocking to mimic a confused head-tilt. “You rescued us for our sight, not because we are a particularly bright species.”

“I understand that the polite thing to do, according to your customs, is to object to that statement, however I have been told on several occasions that I lack any skill in falsehoods.”

“We bombed ourselves back to the Stone Age the second we hit our highest peak in technology.” I reached out and patted what would have been a shoulder on a human. “You don’t have to lie about that. Arthur has studied an absurd percentage of human history. Even from a scholarly perspective, I am assured we are a singularly idiotic race. Besides, we’d already ruined an entire planet at that point...”

“It has evidenced itself to be a lesson well-learned.” It returned the pat, gently. “For a species historically inclined to warfare, those on the Yjq have demonstrated a profound proclivity toward peace.”

“Trying to keep it that way, bud,” I admitted.

Removing yet another puff from its sensory organs, Noah continued. “Please be assured, also, that Terrans are far from ‘singularly’ idiotic. There are many species in the Galactic Community that are demonstrably lacking in what you refer to as ‘common sense’.”

Noah was still a terrible gossip. “Do tell,” I asked, crossing my mental fingers that we weren’t the worst out there.

“Preeyar,” it listed immediately.

“The rift-valley avians?”

“The same. They experience terrible reactions to liquid water, and yet they are fascinated by fountains and insist upon touching them!” Startled chirps erupted as all six appendages on Noah’s upper body flung out in frustration. “Any vessel transporting Preeyar has specific instructions on how to treat the resulting burns.”

I had to admit, that was pretty bad. “Terrans at least learn not to touch things that will burn us by the time we can speak, usually.” My nose tickled as several little Else-puffs migrated over to me, upset by the grand gesture from my friend. I was almost glad it was so difficult for humans to see in the corridor, because I probably looked absurd.

“Shalt’krii are somehow just as difficult,” Noah confessed. “As a species that have what you term an ‘allergy’ to sonic waves - they develop painful rashes and can have seizures when exposed. Yet, it is entirely inevitable when transporting a large group that several will have forgotten or neglected to bring dampeners.”

“Oh my gosh,” I gasped, trying not to laugh and upset Else again. “How?”

“It has eluded the Galactic Council since they joined. The dampeners are far less barbaric than what the So-K’nor do to resolve a similar concern, but I must privately admit that the So-K’nor are at least more consistent and effective.”

Well, yeah, deliberately deafening yourself permanently when you go off-world tends to be that way, I thought to myself. I knew I didn’t need to say it out loud, but I also knew that Noah would not address my thoughts out loud. “Okay, maybe we aren’t that bad,” I granted. “I think the worst we do is ingest mild poisons.”

“On an alarmingly frequent basis, yes. Including plants native to your world that actually attempt to digest you as you eat them.”

I shook my head. “Not this girl. I don’t like pineapple.”

“And the number of humans on the ship who willingly consume lactic acid, knowing it will cause them digestive distress?” If it had eyebrows, they would be arching, I just knew it.

“You have pointed out several times over the years that you can’t taste,” I pointed out. “So you have no idea how tempting cheese can be.”

Noah shook one vomu like a head. “Incorrect. Having witnessed the sheer amount of it that Tyche consumed once she realized that you were not lactose intolerant, there is empirical evidence to support your claim.”

Unconsciously, my hand jumped to touch my left ear before I could force it down. “I remember the spicy food,” I said carefully, stroking one of the fluffs on my arms. “But I didn’t know about the cheese. Come to think of it - “ I stopped in my tracks and turned to face Noah directly, “Why weren’t the consoles just adjusted to make all the food… I dunno, lactose-free, I guess?”

Two liw reached to pluck several yellow beings from my arms and head as Noah used one vomu to start ticking reasons. “One, because I was specifically asked not to by Grey Hodenson and Xiomara Kalloe, the consensus being that bovines are, in fact, in the genetic database. Two, because that was attempted several weeks before you were brought on board, and I was tempted to damage my sensory organs to block out the sheer number of complaints regarding how everything tasted.” Thankfully, its vomu was still empty when it flung outward. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to accommodate requests regarding something you do not experience?”

I felt slightly ashamed. “Not entirely, no.” Trying to lighten the mood slightly, I felt the need to point out “Besides, I really like goat cheese.”

“Something about chetter and mootsareeleh,” Noah grumbled.

“Ohhhhh,” I whispered. “Eyeah… do not mess with Italians’ mozzarella, I have learned. And cheddar does have a very specific flavor. I can see those being very loud complaints.”

“In eight Terran years, I am still confused why the color of the chetter is a determining factor, as well as how something so soft can be compared to an edged weapon.”

I felt like I was going to explode from suppressed laughter. I had to stop, tears streaming down my face, and catch my breath. “Oh, Noah… I honestly don’t know if I can explain that, but I can try…”

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#the miys #humans are weird #found family #humans baffle aliens #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #original science fiction #science fiction #sci fi #original sci fi #my writing

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pepperonyspizza · 4 years ago

Note

soulmate au where you touch your soulmate for the first time it leaves a handprint that's how you know they are your soulmate

well, this went kinda out of hand and ended up way longer than I wanted it to be lmao also this didn’t give me any specific ship so I went with pepperony :) I hope that’s what you wanted! ~*~ There is this rule that Tony has: Do not touch Pepper. Ever. He’s not sure how it started but something about their ‘professional’ relationship has put that barrier over the years - but that doesn’t stop Tony from testing just how solid said wall is every now and then. The media isn’t calling him a sleazy asshole for nothing and it’s not like he’s being too obnoxious about it.

A nudge of his shoulder against hers, his hand a fleeting pressure on the small of her back, always with a securing layer of clothing between them. That’s it. Nothing more.

Tony tells himself that he doesn’t push it any further because, deep down, there is something that resembles a gentleman, not because he’s scared to drive them to a point from which there is no going back.

But that fear (not that it’s actually that) isn’t enough to keep Tony from wishing that things could be different, especially during a moment like this one when Pepper is tearing into him about yet another board meeting he’s missed and he wants nothing more than to shut her up.

It would be so easy. Tony can imagine it in his head perfectly. He would reach for her, wrap his fingers around her slender wrist and she would stop talking in an instant to stare at him in shock.

More would happen after that, at least according to his fantasy. They’d kiss and stumble out of the messy workshop to continue what they had started upstairs in his bedroom. His real bedroom, the one only he gets to see. Well, and Pepper of course when she interrupts his peaceful sleep with her nagging—

“Tony!”

He blinks out of his daydream, realizing that he’s been staring at a bland wall for the last minute. The woman he’s been ignoring is looking everything but amused and not even the charming grin he shoots her way can calm her down.

“Yes, dear?”

“Have you listened to anything I just said?”

“...something about a board meeting that is scheduled for today?”

“Was,” Pepper corrects, sighing deeply. “It was scheduled for today, Tony. 3 hours ago. I told you about it this morning.”

“Oops.”

“Oops?!” He gets up from his chair but she’s close on his heels even as he moves further into the large space of his workshop. “That’s all you have to say after I spent the past thirty minutes cleaning up your mess?”

It must have been something important for Pepper to be this angry at him. He must have missed at least four other meetings this week alone and she’s barely done so much as lecture him about those.

Tony whirls around with his hands up, “Woah, easy now. It’s not that big of a deal, right?” His grin is all teeth as Pepper’s nostrils flare. “Okay, that was the wrong thing to say. Let me try again. I’m really sorry. I forgot.”

She crosses her arms and huffs but she isn’t yelling anymore.

“Let me make it up to you,” he continues with a smile, “How about dinner? Just the two of us and some fancy food.”

And just like that, he’s back to square one The fire in Pepper’s eyes is back, brighter and more deadly than before. Tony can’t believe that he’s said the wrong thing again.

“Dinner? Are you serious?” She throws her arms up, looking both annoyed and exhausted, which makes Tony feel like he’s getting scolded by a teacher. “Thanks to your little stunt, I’ll most likely be dealing with this all night. I won’t have time to indulge any of your antics.”

“Pep.”

“If you are so desperate for a nice dinner, how about you show up for the one you have scheduled for tomorrow evening?”

“Pepper.”

“Because, and I swear to god, Tony, if you miss anything else this week, I’ll—”

“Potts!”

Tony barks at least, too tired to continue this argument any longer. He absentmindedly reaches for her, settling one of his hands on her forearm before he can think twice about it.

It takes less than a heartbeat for Pepper to react. She goes silent, not because he told her to but because he’s literally holding onto her, which has never happened before.

Her skin is all smooth and soft, such a strong contrast to his own. Tony wants to slap himself for only finding out now when he could have been touching her for all those years.

But then Pepper’s eyes go wide and she jerks back like he’s burnt her. Tony lets go without comment, although the five steps she takes back aren’t necessary. He won’t jump her. They are friends, aren’t they? Friends touch each other casually.

“Come on, Pep. I promise that I’m not infectious.” He does his best to grin as he shows her the palms of his rough hands. “And no oil or grease stains either. See?”

She doesn’t look down. In fact, it doesn’t seem like she’s looking at him at all but rather straight through him. Tony frowns, a little concerned and very much confused. His gaze drops down to where Pepper is clutching her arm and his eyebrows almost shoot into his hairline when he sees what her small hands are trying to cover up.

Tony takes a step towards her, waiting for her to take one back and keep them apart. She doesn’t. Pepper only snaps out of her frozen like state when he’s already close enough to pull her arm out of the way.

There, covering a good part of her forearm is a crimson handprint. Not any handprint but Tony’s. He puts his hand right on top of it to check, to make sure that it hasn’t been there before even though he already knows so.

His hand fits perfectly on top of it. His eyes snap back up to Pepper’s face when she fails to respond to… well, anything. Frankly, the woman looks like she’s seen a ghost. Any other time, Tony would have been insulted but given the current circumstances, he kind of understands.

“Are you going to say something?” “Mr. Stark, I—”

Mr. Stark. She’s just found out that he’s her soulmate and she’s trying to go with formal titles? Hell no. That’s not how they are going to play.

Tony cuts her off for the second time that day but instead of snapping, he kisses her. It’s not his proudest moment and he’ll blame his poor impulse control for it later. Pepper lets out a surprised squeak that’s muffled by his mouth pressing against hers but otherwise makes no move to stop him.

It will happen eventually, Tony is absolutely sure of it - but until that happens, he’s going to take full advantage of her hesitation. Kissing Pepper has been his number one fantasy for so long and now that the knowledge of him being her soulmate hangs above them, the fire inside him has only grown hotter.

Her hand comes in contact with his body just like he’s expected but not to push him away but to fist her hand into the fabric of his tank top and pull him closer. Tony realizes with a start that he’s kissing back.

Pepper is kissing him. With quite a lot of enthusiasm, he might add.

Tony doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts or at what point Pepper’s free hand has moved to his neck. He does notice the sudden and unnatural warmth that spreads over his skin where she’s touching him. It’s much warmer than the heat radiating from her hand should be, so much that he breaks the kiss with a startled yelp.

The woman in front of him pulls her hand away quickly as her eyes snap open. If Tony wasn’t so scared about what the hell was going on, he would have been smug about the dazed look on Pepper’s face and the state of her lips. She opens her mouth to say something but then her gaze drops down to his neck. Whatever she sees there is enough to keep her quiet.

“What?! What is it? What is happening?” Pepper only stares. “Potts!”

“I am sorry,” she says, already in the process of reaching out again before she thinks better of it and drops her arm back down to her side. “I am so sorry, Tony. I didn’t think about...”

She trails off and Tony panics. What the hell has she done to him? His skin is no longer burning but the part she’s touched is still warm. It’s a calming heat but with how nervous Pepper looks, even that is not enough to keep him from freaking out.

He dashes across the workshop and towards the full-length mirror in one of the corners, expecting the worst. The handprint he finds on his neck is completely logical and yet baffles him. He’d been so distracted by the mark he’s left on her that he’d forgotten about this part.

Not only is he her soulmate but she’s his soulmate as well.

Tony turns around, the biggest grin plastered across his face as he watches Pepper approach him, “Potts.”

“This is a disaster!” His heart drops. Isn’t she happy about this? It’s everyone’s dream to find their soulmate… or maybe it’s not that she’s finally found hers but rather who it has turned out to be.

“There is no way we can cover that up unless you’re wearing a turtleneck to every single one of your meetings from now on.”

He frowns. “What?” “This will be a P.R nightmare.”

“Are you seriously thinking about the stupid company right now?” Tony asks with annoyance and the slightest bit of hurt in his voice. “We’re soulmates, Pepper. You kissed me!”

“Actually, you kissed me.” “And you kissed back!” He points at the handprint on his neck and yeah, its location will make it impossible to hide. Not that Tony minds that. “Look how you claimed me. Everyone will see this and know that you did it.” The speed at which she turns red has to be some sort of record.

“I didn’t mean to! Besides, no one will know that it’s my hand.”

“Nope, at least not until I tell them. And I will.”

“Tony!”

“I’ll tell everyone, Potts. And you better tell any schmuck that tries to flirt with you that you already found your soulmate.” She’s quiet as she observes him. Tony doubts that she’s aware of the fact that she’s biting her lip but that doesn’t stop his lizard brain from wanting to kiss her again. The mark on his neck tingles, sending a shiver down his spine.

“We have to talk about this. We can’t just… this will get complicated.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Tony promises as he settles his hands on her hips. “I’m a genius. You’re smart. We got this.” He leans forward, his breath ghosting over her face. “We’ll have all the time in the world to talk. Later.”

Before Pepper has the chance to object, he kisses her. This time, it takes not nearly as long before she’s returning the kiss, both her hands buried in his hair. It feels amazing. Like it is destined to be.

In some way, Tony thinks that it is.

#pepperony #tony stark #pepper potts #fanfic #my writing

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yourfavewriteress · 5 years ago

Text

easy progression | josh anderson

Teaser: “You should feel like you can wear my sweater without asking.”

As I woke up, the sun was shining brightly on my face. I opened my eyes slightly with a sigh. Noticing that Josh wasn’t next to me, I sat up, looking over his room where both of our clothes were sprawled out on the floor.

Josh and I had met a few months ago at my local grocery store, which happened to be his as well. As smart as he was, he clearly didn’t know how to pick out produce.

“Hey,” I heard from next to me. I turned slowly, locking eyes with probably one of the most attractive guys I’ve ever seen in person.

“Hi?” I furrowed my eyebrows at him.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you, I’m sure early on Saturday is the worst time to interact with people,” He smiled, sheepishly.

“You’re not bothering,” I smiled in response, noticing the tint of pink on his cheeks. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” He breathed, looking back at the various peppers in front of him. “I was wondering if you knew how to decide which ones are good or not?”

“Of the peppers?” I asked. He looked back at me, biting his lip while nodding.

“I promise this is not a pick-up line or anything,” He said quickly before I could respond. “I’m truly lost here. I was just gonna grab whatever, but then I saw someone here earlier and they stood here for at least 10 minutes picking.”

“It’s fine,” I laughed. “Uhm, I’m pretty sure you just have to pick the ones that are closest to the shape of peppers you see on TV or in magazines. I usually look for ones that just look like they should be in a photoshoot and not here.”

He smiled, “That’s smart.”

“Yeah, they also should be kinda heavy, like this one,” I handed him one. He took it from my hands, examining it.

“Okay, that makes sense,” He nodded.

“Anything else?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at him.

He looked over at me and I watched as he searched my face for a few seconds, “No, uhm, thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” I smiled, before moving back over to my cart. I barely moved an inch before he walked over to me, blocking my way.

“Last question?”

Standing next to my cart, I finally got a good view of just how tall and fit this guy was. Clearly an athlete, I noticed his Columbus Blue Jackets windbreaker.

“Mhm,” I hummed, looking up at him.

“What’s your name?”

I blushed, “I thought you weren’t flirting?”

He blushed, too, “I wasn’t. But, I think I might change my mind.”

“Y/N,” I held out my hand to him.

“I’m Josh,” He returned my handshake. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too.”

“So, Y/N,” He started. “Are you from around here?”

I couldn’t hold back my laugh as I responded, “Really?”

“What?” He grinned. “What else could I have said?”

“Anything, honestly,” I teased.

“Well, I actually live in this neighborhood, so it is a valid question,” He shrugged.

“Yes, I live in the neighborhood.”

“Where?” He asked. “Wait, don’t answer that, that’s weird.”

“I wasn’t going to,” I laughed.

“Good,” He said. “But, I would really like to take you out sometime. If you’ll let me.”

“Already?”

He shrugged again, “We’re in a grocery store, I’m sure you probably have other things to do right this second.”

“I do,” I trailed off. “How about I give you my number and we start there?”

“I can live with those terms.”

Four months later, and here I was in Josh’s bed. We went out a few times after that day and Josh truly surprised me. Not only was he an actual gentleman, he made me laugh and feel safe.

Our relationship progressed nicely, if I might say. We went out a few times, one resulting is the most amazing overnight. Josh was funny, caring, protective, and as much as I hated to admit it, irresistible. Since we lived so close together, we spent a lot of time together at each other’s apartments.

I quickly brushed my teeth in his bathroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. When I was done rinsing my mouth, I put my hair up in the best bun possible after Josh’s fingers did their work on it the night before. Walking through the room, I picked up Josh’s hoodie on the floor, bringing it with me downstairs to the kitchen.

Josh’s back was to me as he was making what I hoped was our breakfast.

“Hey, can I wear this?” I held up the sweater as he turned around. Although this wasn’t the first time Josh and I had slept together, I made sure to be careful about how comfortable I got, especially with his belongings. We never really talked about what we were or what was/wasn’t okay to do. To be safe, I made sure to always ask.

He smiled, “Of course, go for it.”

“Thanks,” I slid the hoodie over my head, smoothing it over my tank top and shorts.

“Good morning to you, too,” He said, turning back to the pan in front of him.

“Good morning, Joshua,” I laughed. “How did you sleep?”

“Really good,” He responded, looking back at me with a grin on his face. He continued to watch me as I adjusted my bun.

“What?”

“Nothing, you just look really cute,” He said.

“Josh, I looked in the mirror before I came down here. Please don’t lie to me.” He laughed loudly, throwing his head back.

“What are you making me?” I asked, smiling at him.

“Oh, did you want something?” He asked. I stared at him, and he smirked. “I kind of only made enough for one.”

“Oh, so what are you gonna eat?” I challenged. “Guests always eat first.”

“You know what, I’ll give you that one,” He nodded. I watched as he walked over to my place at the counter. “What do you suggest I eat? You?”

“You’re gross,” I rolled my eyes. “Last night wasn’t enough?”

He laughed, “I don’t think I could ever get enough of you.”

I looked around the kitchen trying to hide my blush, “You’re literally so cheesy.”

He shrugged, leaning down to kiss me. “It’s just bacon and eggs, by the way.”

“Sounds nice,” I smiled against his lips.

“I also wanted to talk to you about something,” He said, locking eyes with me.

“Okay,” I narrowed mine at him.

“It’s not bad,” He laughed, noticing my reaction. He walked back over to the food and I waited as he finished up. We sat in a comfortable silence while we ate, but I couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room.

As he sat next to me eating, I turned to him.

“Is this the part where you tell me you met someone else?”

He rolled his eyes, turning to face me. “You really think I would do that to you?”

Unsure of how to respond to such a bold question, I shrugged.

“I think you’re amazing,” He started. “Like, beyond amazing, honestly. I don’t see myself wanting to hang out with anyone else, and I was wondering how you felt about that?”

I breathed, smiling, “I thought you were going to say the opposite.”

“Why?” He laughed.

“I don’t know what goes on in your head,” I responded.

“Well,” He spread his legs wider, pulling me and the chair I was sitting on closer to him and in between his legs. “I know that you are really, really, hot, especially right now.”

“My hair?”

“Hey, I’m taking credit for this, don’t bash my work,” He joked, pushing one of my flyaways behind my ear.

“You’re such a clown,” I rolled my eyes.

He paused, and we stared at each other while I assumed he collected his thoughts. “I care about you, a lot. And, I care about this. I want to introduce you to my friends so they can stop acting like you don’t exist and I’m crazy. I don’t want to keep acting like this is casual and we’re just friends. I don’t want to be your friend, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot these past few weeks. I want you to know that this is way more than casual for me, and I want to be with you. I want you to trust me and I really hope I’m not blowing this. I just, I know you deserve to be with someone who’s going to commit to you, and I’m telling you right now, I will and I want to. I want you, and this.”

“What caused this big realization?” I asked.

“Ever since we met, you’re all I can think about. No matter how hard I try, I want to see you, and touch you, and be with you. And, I know this might sound fucking crazy because we haven’t known each other for that long, but I really feel like this isn’t something I should fight. You’re really fucking incredible and I hope you know that. And, I’m probably saying too much right now and freaking you out, but I had to say it before I leave tomorrow. You should know how I feel about you and you should feel like you can wear my sweater without asking.”

“Josh,” I smiled, leaning in to him. “Are you asking to be my boyfriend?”

“Yeah, I am,” He mumbled, blushing.

I pressed my lips to his, wrapping my arms around his neck. “If you would have given it a couple hours, I would be the one saying all that to you.”

“Really?” He smirked.

“Mhm,” I pecked his lips again.

“So, you finally admit you like me?” He teased, kissing the corner of my mouth, his arms around my waist holding me against him.

“You know that I like you.”

“I had a feeling,” He smiled. “But, it’s nice to hear it.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I do really like you. I just didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I think you’re amazing, too.”

“How amazing?”

“So amazing that I’m letting you even look at me before I shower,” I joked, running my fingers through his hair.

“And, you look fucking good.” I stood up from my chair, moving to straddle Josh’s lap.

“Well, you look fucking good,” I repeated, kissing him again. He smiled against me, kissing back.

“Can we go back to bed?”

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vanderlindeandco · 4 years ago

Text

Whiskey and Chocolate (Bill Guarnere x Reader)

Sequel to Silver and Sapphire

Thank you @wecomrades for fact-checking this and for very kindly pointing out a glaring error that I have since patched (half-assedly, but still)

You weren’t the biggest fan of what you saw when you checked your appearance in the cracked mirror inside the half-destroyed house you’d be spending the night in. Your hair was limp and dirty, the circles beneath your eyes darker than you’d expected even knowing you were sleep-deprived, and your cheeks had taken on an unfamiliar hollowness, no doubt from being on your feet for most of every day without enough food to make up for all the energy you expended. But you were in one piece, and for being where you were, that would have to be enough. You tucked a few loose strands of hair under your headscarf, and straightened the necklace that still felt foreign, the chain as light as the touch of a feather every time it shifted against your skin. You reached up to touch its stone as you walked back outside, pulling your coat tighter around you as the cold wind nipped at your face and neck.

“There you are.” Bill was waiting at the aid station when you reached it, and to your surprise, you found he’d cleaned up, presumably as well as he could given the circumstances. His face was mostly clean-shaven, a couple small cuts betraying the extent of his efforts, and his uniform, while far from clean, had wet spots in place of stains he’d tried to clean off with varying levels of success. What looked like two blankets were draped over his shoulder, and his pockets were bulging.

“Thought I’d run off?” you asked.

“Nah, just figured you were gettin’ pretty for our date,” he said, “Not that you needed to.”

You ignored the little flutter in your chest.“You clean up all right yourself.”

“Why thank you,” he said. “Had to skip a few steps of my usual toilette, but what’re you gonna do about it? This ain’t exactly the Ritz anyway.”

“I’m impressed,” you said, though it was more by the fact that he’d tried at all than by what the results were. To be entirely honest, you had been becoming increasingly uncertain whether you should have said yes to this date - or whatever it was - after he had left earlier, the most rational part of your brain telling you that you were being unprofessional and that he might just want to get laid, but he’d already presented evidence to the contrary, and this stacked more proof onto the pile.

“You hungry?” he asked, pulling a tin of rations from one of his pockets.

“For mystery meat, always,” you said, and he chuckled, tossing you a can.

“C’mon, I got a place we can go.”

You followed him down the main road, past several soldiers on guard, and then down a side street, where he nodded toward an inset doorstep; it was just wide enough for the two of you, and clear of rubble - you wondered if he’d come by earlier to clear it out. It was close enough to the rest of the company for some level of security, but tucked away enough to provide a little privacy, and when you sat down in it, elbow to elbow with Bill, his proximity to you ignited your nervousness all over again. “You don’t mind gettin’ a little cozy, do you?” he asked as he scooted back a little further, leaning against the door. “Figured it’d be good for keeping warmth in, and all.”

“Oh, is that it?” you teased. “Just want to keep the warmth in, huh?”

“‘Course,” he said, faking offense at your doubtfulness. “What’re you trying to imply? I ain’t never been called anything less than a gentleman.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Now I know that’s a lie, and lying’s not very gentleman-like, if you ask me.”

He took the can of rations from your hand and began to open it for you. “This make up for it?”

You considered whether you should let him off easy, and then decided to. “Sure.”

“Good.” He handed you the opened can, and you pulled your multi-tool from your pocket, unfolding the spoon to begin eating.

“So,” you said after you swallowed your first bite. “What’s your history?”

“This a job interview or something?” he asked, and you shrugged.

“Maybe.”

That made him smile, and he took a bite of his food, swallowing quickly, before answering. “Well, ma’am,” he emphasized the word, “I’m the youngest of ten. Grew up in South Philly. Dropped out of high school after Pearl Harbor to go build tanks. Ma didn’t like that too much, so I finished school and worked by night. Same year I volunteered for this shit-” he gestured vaguely at the mess around you, “-and you know the rest.”

“Sounds pretty busy, finishing school and working nights,” you commented, impressed by his dedication.

He shrugged. “I wasn’t the only one doing it.”

That was it, you realized - that was why you were out here with him, because under all the bluster and sweet-talking, he was a kid from the States, just like you, just trying to do the right thing. He didn’t think he was anything that special, but you’d heard plenty about him that he didn’t say himself, and you knew that he was. It didn’t hurt that he knew how to make you laugh until your sides hurt, either. “How about you?” he asked, stirring his food and scooping up another bite, not noticing that you’d been staring at him, which you only realized when he broke the silence. “What’s your story?”

You told him, but speaking about your hometown was bittersweet. It had been nearly a year since you’d seen it now, what with training and then deployment, and you found yourself hurrying to finish the tale, wanting to get your mind off the place you missed so dearly.

“Ain’t too easy thinking about it now, is it?” he said once you’d finished, and you nodded, surprised by how easily he’d read you.

He looked down, scuffing the toe of one boot in the dust. “Helps me remember what the hell I’m doing out here, though.”

He was right - that was the only good way to look at it - perhaps through that lens you could remember your home a little more sweetly, and you nodded, sitting back to watch the sky, in which a weak sun was setting.

“Real cheerful pair, aren’t we?” he commented, “Actin’ like a couple of salty old timers, talking about the good old days.”

You chuckled. “You’ve got a point. But I got something that might cheer us up.” You withdrew the bottle of Scotch from inside your coat and Bill’s eyes lit up.

“Excellent.”

A few shared sips of the liquor began to loosen your tongue and lift your spirits and soon you were chatting comfortably again, laughing as Bill recounted stories of the mischief he’d frequently perpetrated as a child (which didn’t surprise you) and soon he began to poke you for stories of your own. “C’mon, you’re telling me you never got in trouble? Never snuck out? Egged a house? Nothin’?” There was so much disappointment in his eyes as you shook your head that you were tempted to make something up just to make him laugh, but you discarded the notion to stay honest.

“I was a pretty good kid.”

“Boring,” he said, shaking his head as he sat back and took another sip from the bottle.

“No it’s not!” you exclaimed indignantly, and then a memory came back to you. “Oh, I got something.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Let me guess, you, uh... Put out the silverware in the wrong places? Kept a library book past its due date?”

“Oh hush,” you said, and his teasing turned to laughter. “Or else I won’t tell you.”

“All right, all right, what?” he said, and then fell silent, although there was still a smile on his lips, his cheeks rosy above the turned-up collar of his coat.

“When I was a kid, my parents bought me a bike for my ninth birthday,” you said. “I’d outgrown my old one, and I was going to get passed down my sister’s, but she left it in the driveway once and my dad drove over it on his way to work-” that pulled a burst of laughter from Bill, “-so they had to get me a new one. It was my first day riding it, and I was going fast; you know how when you get a new bike and everything’s all new and greased up well, you can really fly?” He nodded. “Well, I was doing that, whipping down the sidewalk. It’d rained the day before and there were a few puddles, but I didn’t really care since I was wearing stuff I didn’t mind getting dirty.”

“I don’t know where this is going, but it ain’t gonna end well, is it?” Bill asked as he passed you the bottle.

“No, it’s not.” You took a sip of the burning liquid and continued. “I couldn’t see one of our neighbors walking down to the sidewalk because they had a tall hedge at the edge of their property. So I didn’t think much of the puddle in front of their house. As it happened, I flew through that puddle right as Mr. Becker got to the sidewalk in a white flannel suit.” Bill laughed gleefully. “Well, it wasn’t so white after that. He started yelling and I got scared and rode like hell all the way home. Guess I thought I was going fast enough he didn’t see my face, but that was dumb ‘cause he only lived five houses up the block and he knew exactly who I was. He came and talked to my parents and I got my bike taken away for three weeks.”

“Wow,” Bill said, laughing. “I guess you aren’t a perfect angel after all; I’m impressed!”

“I s’pose so,” you said. “Happy now?”

“Yeah, I was trying to figure out if you really stand on as high a pedestal as I thought.” He wasn’t looking at you, focused instead on unscrewing the cap from the bottle of Scotch, but you were watching him, curious.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you asked.

“Well, just that you seem a little more human now,” he replied, and when he met your eyes and saw the confusion on your face, he added, “Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.”

“Thanks?”

He chucked, nodding. “You’re welcome.”

The sun was sliding down toward the horizon rapidly, its weak light dying, and you nodded toward the blankets, which still hung over Bill’s shoulder. “Can I have one of those?”

“For a fee,” he said with a wink.

“Yeah? Do you accept chocolate?”

“It’s my number one form of currency these days,” he said, handing you one of the blankets as you withdrew a chocolate bar from one of your outer pockets and began to peel it open, tearing back the paper. You broke off a chunk and held it out to him, but instead of using his hands, which he had just slipped back into his pockets, he opened his mouth expectantly, and you placed the chocolate in it, cringing at the strong alcohol smell that his breath carried.

“What?” he asked as he bit down. “I got bad breath or something?”

“Flammable, more like,” you said, breaking off a piece of chocolate for yourself.

The pair of you sat in comfortable silence then, your head resting against the door, and the blanket pulled tight around your shoulders. It was a cold night, but remarkably still, and the temperature was much more tolerable in the absence of wind. The sun set quickly as you shared the dessert, and soon full dark had fallen.

Bill pulled a pair of cigarettes from the pack in his pocket, and was searching for his lighter when a familiar fwoomp sounded from somewhere too close by, followed half a second later by another, and you barely had a chance to react before the first mortar landed just twenty feet away, exploding in flame and dirt and flying rocks, and Bill threw himself over you, crushing you back against the door, his body shielding yours as a second, and then third mortar exploded across the street. But you were barely thinking of the danger once the initial shock had passed, and the mortars’ impacts slowly moved away; instead the blood pumping through your veins, the thoughts rushing through your head- they were mostly because of Bill, how he’d reacted instantly to cover you, protecting you without any thought for his own well-being. The mortars fell farther and farther from you, and you knew the Germans didn’t really know you and he were right there - they were just trying to cause any damage they could and keep the troops there on their toes, but it didn’t stop the pounding of your heart, especially when you realized how closely Bill’s body was still pressed against yours even after the last mortar exploded and silence fell, his breath hot across your cheek as he said, “You okay?”

“Fine,” you said. “You?”

“Still in one piece, far as I can tell.” He pushed himself back a little, and steadied himself, his face just centimeters away; his gaze caught yours, and instantly you were drowning in his warm, dark eyes. He paused there for a long moment, a moment in which your heart clenched and that instinct you’d been pushing away all night told you to go ahead and make a move, but by the time you’d resolved to, the moment had already broken and he was shifting himself off you, settling back down on the stones. “Damn Krauts; never lettin’ us get a moment’s peace,” he grumbled.

You looked at him, saw the disappointment in his eyes as his hands fell into his lap, one thumbnail scratching at a rough patch on the other. You felt certain then, or at least, as certain as you thought you were going to feel, and you put away your inhibitions and let yourself speak the words on your lips.“What do you need a moment’s peace for?”

He looked over at you then, and you could read every emotion that passed across his face in the space of just a couple seconds. At first, just interest, his eyebrows raised slightly. Then a spark of curiosity, of hope, followed rapidly by uncertainty, and then, when you held his gaze, sureness, followed by…. A smirk? “You sure know how to manipulate a guy into making the first move,” he said, and then sat back, surprising you.

“I… what?” You’d been expecting him to kiss you, and you were so prepared for it, your brain lagged in adjusting when his actions diverged so sharply from the course you’d expected.

“I ain’t doing it,” he said, crossing his arms, and then his ankles, the picture of stubborn resolution, his gaze fixed on the hovel across the street. “I’m not gonna try and kiss you, just so you can pull back and act all hard to get. I know how you girls are.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Oh you do, do you?”

He looked back at you, and his eyes narrowed slightly. “I don’t like that look. You look like you’re plotting something.” He hunched his shoulders in a little tighter as if to protect himself from you. “You gonna stab me and steal my money?”

“What money?” you said, laughing, but when he opened his mouth to protest, an indignant expression on his face, you surged toward him and cut him off with a kiss, pressing your lips firmly to his, and he stiffened, obviously startled, and then his posture softened, his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you into him from your uncomfortable crouched position. He tasted like whiskey and chocolate, but that wasn’t what was so intoxicating about the kiss. You settled in his lap, your arms falling about his neck, one hand pulling off his helmet so you could push your fingers through his short hair as his chapped lips caressed yours, soft yet passionate. “You still think you know everything about me?” you murmured as he tugged your hair just hard enough to pull your head back, exposing your throat for him, his lips pulling a sound from you that made your cheeks redden, and you squeezed your mouth shut as he chuckled against your skin, kissing the spot he had just nipped.

“Maybe a little more than you’d like.” His voice was deep and quiet, and it alone would have been enough to make you shiver. Combined with what he was doing to you, it was nearly overwhelming, so you let your eyes close as he pulled you in a little tighter and slipped an arm inside your coat to wrap around your waist, his fingers digging into the soft flesh there.

He stopped suddenly, and you opened your eyes, suddenly self-conscious, but when you looked at him, he was just smiling at you, the affection in his gaze so genuine it made your chest feel tight. “What?” you asked.

“Nothin,’” he said. “Just didn’t think joining the Army’d end me up with the prettiest girl on the western front in my lap.”

You felt your already flushed cheeks grow hotter. “You’re just saying that.”

“Think what you like; I’ll find a way to convince ya,” he said, and your heart jumped, and you leaned down to kiss him again. You knew the whiskey made you bolder than you usually would have been, but somehow, in this moment of peace, carved out from months of violence, cold, and fear, you had no doubts anymore about what you were doing. Bill had a big attitude, but it was one of the things you liked about him, and beneath all the big talk was a good man. A very good man.

“Guarnere!” Bill pulled back from the kiss, groaning at the sound of Malarkey’s voice somewhere nearby and you slipped off him, instantly missing his touch, and also his warmth as the cold night wrapped around you again. “You down here?” Malark’s voice was at the end of the side street now, and Bill sat forward, sticking his head out of the doorway.

“What?”

“Lip wants you for something. Sorry to interrupt whatever you got going on here.” He said the last with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, and Bill nodded.

“I’ll be right there.”

“All right.” As Malarkey’s footsteps retreated, Bill looked back at you, his expression equally frustrated and apologetic.

“Don’t worry about it,” you said before he had a chance to speak. “We’ll do this again, yeah?”

Your words seemed to restore his good spirits, and there was a suggestive twinkle in his eye when he said, “Yeah, minus Malark cutting in.” He stood, extending a hand to you and you took it, letting him pull you to your feet. You didn’t stop yourself, letting your momentum carry you forward to press a kiss to his cheek, and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders, giving you a tight squeeze before he released you so you could walk out to the street.

“‘Night, Bill,” you said as you reached the main road, and he blew a kiss over his shoulder as he walked away, a swagger in his steps. It was then that you realized you’d never even thanked him for covering you when the mortars came in. But it could wait for next time.

#band of brothers #bill guarnere #bill guarnere x reader #bob #i need to rewatch and reread everything #and then hopefully I will make fewer stupid mistakes #but thankfully Linda is simultaneously v smart and v kind and got me pointed in the right direction #and hey guess what #i'm still bad at titles!#honestly not worth reporting on anymore

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gofancyninjaworld · 3 years ago

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OPM Mega review (chapters 131 - 148): Part 2 To the side, not the sidelines

A continuation of part 1 of the mega review. This isn’t a narrative account, but rather a look at all the other groups and happenings around where the main battle is raging.

Heroism in all sizes

It’s like the end of the world. City Z isn’t the first city to face near total devastation. But City A was at least gone in a flash. People had almost no time to consider their imminent demise. In City Z, the carnage has had time to build and to come from multiple directions. From vampiric monster roots enveloping and sucking the lives out of inhabitants by the block. From powerful earthquakes splitting and even twisting the ground. From aerial bombardments of gigantic rubble and from the sea itself as the coastline is threatened by a chain of tsunamis. Survivors aren’t bothering to try driving: it’s whatever you can carry as fast as you can.

Those who gave up their beds. The Hero Hospital in City S has come to serve as an impromptu staging post for nearby heroes. Like a middle finger stuck up at face of civilisation, the tower previously buried underground and its glowing red monster is just about visible from the hillsides of City S and draws heroes in like a beacon. First Metal Bat, then Mumen Rider, then the Tank Toppers, then the Blizzard Group, then all the other heroes hospitalised in the aftermath of either the Day of Chaos or Garou’s depredations discharge themselves against medical advice and run in to see who they can save.

just as well they all went -- the roads are so impassable and the situation so volatile that they’re literally the only rescue coming for hours if not days

Swept up in the mood, the martial artists were considering moving out too, only for Suiryu to pour cold water on the notion. It has done me a world of good to see that Suiryu has been inspired by Max and Snek and not Saitama. He finally gets it that a hero is someone who has the courage to step into the path of danger because someone needs help, and not because they’re strong and think they’ll win.

No space for playing hero. It’s very wise that Suiryu advised his fellow martial artists not to play hero. If many have complained about how heroes seem to be blessed with life, no such protections are afforded to non-heroes. The people who went in alongside heroes have suffered grievously, although those who have died did so bravely.

I have a one-person prayer circle going for Sekingar. I pray that ONE will choose to spare his fine non-hero one-eyed, single-handed ass. I have come to like the guy and I’ve been impressed at how he has stayed calm when trapped in City Z, succeeded in encouraging discouraged heroes and even asserting a genuine authority to guide Metal Bat and King. I don’t think there’s too many more like him in the executive of the Hero Association and think it’d be a shame if he didn’t bring his hard-won experiences back to guide them in what’s sure to be a crisis.

The king under the mountain

This arc has introduced us to a lot of concepts and players who are likely to have long-term effect on the world. In this series of chapters, some of these ideas are developed further.

Came for the pussy, stayed for the tentacles. I’m sorry, I’m allowed one double entendre a week and I decided to curse you with it. I wouldn’t have mentioned this but Drive Knight’s comings and goings are almost certainly going to be very plot-relevant later. He was supposed to be gone with his prize of one Nyan, but then he saw the tower emerge and Psykos-Orochi wave tentacles skyward and as much as a cyborg with no discernable facial features can be said to yearn, he yearned. For a sample that is.

He stuck around as long as it took him to get a sample of Orochi and then he was gone, without so much as a ‘thank you for your help’. At present, we’ll just have to see what this is all about later.

When the cat’s away the mice will play. The only way to foment a world ending crisis is to have the guy who can squash it all and wonder what the fuss was about occupied elsewhere. Through meeting Flashy Flash and getting a tour into the deepest reaches of the Monster Association thanks to Manako, and a couple of other things, Saitama is literally trapped in an alternative dimension. Although, being Saitama, if he felt a sense of urgency, he’d break back into the real world without a second thought. Right now he’s curious,worried for his house, but mostly hungry. Some curry would be nice.

The real question is how are the heroes going to hold out until Saitama arrives? I’ve been touched by how genre-savvy Genos and King are about this. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so brutally true.

The formal establishment of extra-spatial dimensions as a feature not restricted to a few unusual individuals. Phoenixman first got us learning about the idea of extra dimensions, in his case a private manifestation of his inner psyche. Neither he nor Child Emperor physically moved.

Ninchirin introduces us to the idea of an extra-spatial dimension that physical objects can be stowed in and taken from.

But nothing takes it as far as ‘God’ with the existence of a pocket dimension with its own timeline that takes people in wholesale. Whether a lot of time passes on the outside (as it does for Saitama and co) or no time passes (as it does for Psykos-Orochi) seems to depend on ‘His’ will.

The formal establishment of ‘God’ as a singular being with a distinct personality. Homeless Emperor first talked about ‘God’ as being a being who tasked him with eliminating humanity after he despaired of living as one. Pyskos expands on that concept. She saw ‘God’ very differently, as a quasi-planetary being rather than as a vaguely humanoid one, but her experience of ‘Him’ as a being who bestowed power and a mission on her bears striking similarity to that of Homeless Emperor.

How people get to talk to ‘God’ becomes clear when we see Flashy Flash and Saitama accidentally summoning ‘Him’ via handling a box. Which leads very naturally to elucidating some of the mystery of Blast.

Finding out why Blast is still the number 1 hero. If the likes of Tatsumaki leave us scratching our heads as to how any hero could outwork her in terms of facing monsters, Blast gives us an answer. He specialises in dealing with non-physical threats, which he does by having some sort of dimension-hopping gizmo. The black box he disposes of identical to that seen in Tatsumaki’s flashback, leading us naturally to think about what business the facility holding her was having with ‘Him.’ Webcomic readers see a gimme as well in the construction of the Ninja Village Flash hails from, along with Blast paying the ninjas a visit.

With Blast having taken Saitama and co out of reality, it’s going to be an unknown while before they pop back into it.

Sleeping is such a nice euphemism for dying

The principle of explosive growth through surviving situations that should have killed one is by this point a well-established mechanic within the story. After seeing Phoenixman come back from the dead, it should perhaps not be a surprise to us that Orochi does the same. In coming back, he’s evolved into a distributed form that can regrow after even extensive destruction and the consequences of his doing so are already covered in part 1 of this review.

Speaking of evolution, what about Garou? We left Garou buried under tons of rock in the wake of Tatsumaki lifting the base. Yet again, he does not die -- thank you Darkshine for your anti blunt trauma vaccination -- and little by little, we see him dig himself out, and transforming himself as he goes as he dreams of a world in which he enforces peace but very unconventional means.

In retrospect, the sequence of Garou’s eyes closing in response to his humanising memory of Tareo is the most ominous as the eyes that open again have not a shred of humanity in them.

It reminds me a lot of what we saw happen to Gouketsu when the latter accepted a monster cell, his human eyes closing as a new set of monster ones opened.

At long last, Garou makes it back to the surface. But what’s this? Where’s the wise-cracking, judgemental little shit we love? What is this near silent, befanged, clawed feral creature beating down on everything he sees? Oh dear. He is not sleeping sweetly, dreaming pleasant dreams of a world perfectly obedient while he waits for the fist of some self-righteous prince to awaken him to his destiny. Garou may perceive it as lapses in consciousness, but it’s the monster within eating him alive. He’s dying. He is under real existential threat of being completely lost to monsterfication and how it is that he can save his humanity is a big point of interest.

In his flawed way, Bang is trying to get through to Garou. I don’t hold out big prospects of him reaching him. And if he does, I hold out even smaller prospects of him actually beating Garou. Barring some interruption, we might be about to see the tragedy of a master beaten down by his student.

I’m going to leave this review here. What comes next is all too soon going to change the status quo of the story, if not for the better, then certainly for the more eventful.

#OPM #review #Snek #Saitama #Garou #Bang #Flashy Flash #Sekingar #a lot has happened #and the heroes working bravely in the background to save as many as they can is indeed heroism at its best #how the supernatural meddling fits in with everything that we see going on we don't yet know #Garou coming back onto the scene is a far more ominous re-emergence than it was in the webcomic #this could get really ugly

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aliveanddrunkonsunlight · 4 years ago

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Amazing race or Modern P&P?

Amazing Race - So, uh, this has been sitting in my Google docs for over a year. It’s never going to get written, so I’m gonna post all of it.

The first day of the race is the hottest day of the year in London. Brienne said goodbye to her dad, making sure he knew where all of the production office phone numbers were, in case he needed to get in touch with her. “I’ll be fine, love.” He said and kissed her on the cheek. “Have a lovely time.” They’d exchanged a long hug in the entryway, guilt clawing at her chest, before she swung her backpack onto her shoulders and walked out to where the scheduled car waited for her.

The Race had been a popular show in the States for over a decade. With ratings dropping, the producers had decided to partner with media companies across the world and open the competition to participants worldwide. Instead of having competitors audition for the show in pairs, or “teams” as the producers called them, this season was also different because everyone auditioned individually.

Once Brienne learned she was going to be on the show, she received an email which included fact sheets on all the other participants. Contestants were supposed to look at all the profiles and narrow down their choice for a teammate to three or four people. On the first day of shooting--today--they would have a chance to meet, interview, and pick their teammates. She was dreading that bit. Despite her size and strength, she’d always been picked last for team sports in school, and she could do without being retraumatized by it as an adult. She’d been diligent about doing her research on the other participants and stuck her top three list in her back pocket.

The car takes her all the way to the north side of Tower Bridge, where Brienne has instructions to get out and walk across. Her driver wishes her luck and hands her a bottle of water as she loads on her pack. She’s going to be a sweaty mess before she even arrives at the start.

Reminding herself of her yoga breathing, Brienne stares out at the slow moving water of the Thames for a few seconds before she starts her walk across. She has to dodge around tourists, her pack gets jostled as people pass, and Brienne starts to understand why the producers asked them to do this. It’s good training for the rest of the race. She knows they will be traveling through tight spaces with their backpacks and probably in hotter conditions than London’s. Once she reaches the south end of the bridge, she can see people in purple Race shirts. “Hi!” One of them greets as she approaches. “You must be Brienne Tarth?”

She can feel her adrenaline kick in and all she wants is to do this. To get started. The young woman gives Brienne instructions, but she’s barely listening. At the bottom of the stairs of the bridge, someone else wearing a Race shirt directs her to the right.

Brienne blinks, trying to take in the scene. There’s a small park, which is blocked off for filming, and she can understand why they picked it, as it’s nestled between City Hall and Tower Bridge. Not to mention that on the other side of the Thames is the Tower of London and a view of a few of the modern skyscrapers added to London’s skyline in the last few years. “Brienne?” she hears a familiar voice and looks up to see Catelyn Stark striding towards her, her long auburn hair piled up on her head in a messy, but elegant bun. Catelyn was half the reason she was here at all. “We’re starting to gather all the contestants so we can start filming you choosing your partners.”

The older woman gestures for someone and a minute later, a young woman with a slightly upturned nose and glittering brown eyes is standing in front of Brienne, dotting her face with a makeup brush. “You have lovely skin,” the young girl tells her. “Just taking away some of that shine for camera.”

Surveying her fellow contestants is a surreal feeling. She recognizes them all, due to the producers’ email, and her own time spent narrowing down a top three list. Brienne has to wonder if the others did as much research on her as she has on them. Her gaze continues around the circle until she spots him.

He is somehow even more beautiful than his pictures. His golden hair glitters brightly in the sunlight. He’s cut it since casting, it’s cropped closer now, but it doesn’t make him look any less attractive. There’s a slight smile on his face, as if all this is entertaining more than anything, and he keeps raising his eyebrows when anyone meets his gaze. He hasn’t noticed her staring. Yet.

The strangest thing about him is while most people are dressed in athletic wear, he’s wearing a white button up shirt. Anyone else might look out of place, like they’re wearing their father’s suit, but he has the sleeves rolled up, showing off his tanned forearms, and he looks relaxed. She hates him for it because she feels as if she’s about to lose her breakfast.

He folds his arms across his chest and she can see the swell of his bicep through his shirt. Seriously, fuck him.

Except he had the best resume by far. He had grown up splitting time between Spain, Denmark, and the United States, so he had knowledge of several languages. Had played all variety of sports his whole life, although he preferred lacrosse and football. He’d even played in a professional league, but when he injured his right knee, he’d had to give up any burgeoning professional career.

She knows she’s probably not even on his radar, so she’ll have to approach him quickly once the producers give them permission. Cameras and crew seem to be circling around, so perhaps it’s time. Brienne feels her gut tightening with nerves. Catelyn comes to the middle of their circle, a clipboard under her arm, and makes a short welcome speech. “Okay, once I step out of the circle, a horn will sound, and you are free to approach each other to choose your team.” She tosses a wink at Brienne and then the horn buzzes.

She’s taken all of a single step when she notices Jaime striding towards her. “Hi, I’m Jaime.” He smiles and she expects two rows of dazzling white teeth, but she notices a couple of his bottom ones are crooked. It makes him all the more appealing, somehow, knowing someone who looks like him has flaws. He extends a hand, shaking hers.

“Uh, hello, yes, I know. From the producers’ email?” She stutters, eyes averted. He’s too pretty to look at for too long. She takes a breath, steadying herself. “Anyway, I’m Brienne.”

“Hello, Brienne. So why should you be my teammate?”

Now she looks him levelly in the eye. “I’m strong.” He crooks an eyebrow up at his, perhaps impressed by her candor. “I’ve done sports for most of my life. Fencing, football, rowing. I came in fourth at Olympics qualifying three years ago.”

“Brava,” he says, slightly snidely, but pushes on. “Any languages?”

“Italian. A little Greek.” When this earns her another surprised look from Jaime, she explains, “My father is a classics professor.” She is about to ask why she should pick him, even though she’s mostly had her mind made up about him for weeks, when another contestant, a slim girl with long brown hair curled carefully, comes over to Jaime and touches him on the arm.

“Hi, I’m Margaery.”

“Uh, hi,” Jaime says, a little distractedly, and Brienne can understand why. Unlike most of the other women here, who are wearing tank tops and leggings, Margaery is wearing only a sports bra, her midriff bare, showing off her tiny waist. Not to mention her sports bra appears to be a push-up one--Brienne didn’t even know they made those, but of course they do--because her breasts have an amazing amount of cleavage for someone so petite. Jaime can barely keep his eyes on her face. She lets out a sigh, realizing her top pick for teammate all too easily has fallen for the nearest pretty thing. But before she can step away to talk to her second choice, Jaime manages to tear himself away from the young woman long enough to tell her, “It was nice to meet you, Brienne.”

Maybe hope isn’t lost after all.

When the twenty minutes are up, they all stand in a circle again and announce their top choices. There are some complicated rules about what happens if multiple people pick the same person, but they’re fair rules, so Brienne is fine with it. She’s too busy trying not to freak out that she didn’t plan this strategically enough, because now it’s obvious to her that everyone will want Jaime as a partner, and she should have selected someone else as her first choice. But it seems too late to change it now. She’d spoken with her second and third choice and they’re both lovely, but they’re not Jaime. To her, he was the only partner who could match her athletically, thus giving them the best chance of winning the grand prize: a million dollars.

Her heart hammers in her chest. The announcement is alphabetical, so it means she probably has to go first, except the cameraman is setting up in front of someone else. Addam. Oh thank god.

Another cameraman approaches her, but she barely has time to think about it, because Addam is already announcing his pick. “Margaery.” Margaery’s eyes widen, but she covers quickly, smiling prettily and giving him a small wave.

“Brienne,” the cameraman whispers, prompting her. “Jaime,” she says solemnly. He smiles politely and nods at her, his expression giving nothing away about how he feels. A couple other people pick him as well and they’re not even through the first half of the alphabet yet. It doesn’t really matter, she tells herself. It’s over. Jaime will pick Margaery and Margaery will pick him.

She’s so caught up in her thoughts she’s barely paying attention when the cameraman finally focuses on Jaime. He flashes that million watt smile and says, Margaery. “Brienne.”

What? She opens her eyes--she hadn’t even realized they were closed--and stares at him, mouth half open. Oh god, she is an idiot. He lets out a small laugh and winks at her.

#jaime x brienne #amazing race au #team oathkeeper #WIP meme

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magpiemorality · 5 years ago

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“You come here often?” “Well, I work here. So I think I’d have to say ‘yes’.” For intrulogical, maybe? The prompt gave me big them vibes, i love it when Remus flirts shamelessly and Logan is seemingly completely unreceptive to it

Can you continue the Creativitwins and Intrulogical prompt Please? Maybe they go to an aquarium or a library? - Anonymous

Bro now we need to see what happens at the aquarium!! - Anonymous

Remus Gets A Boyfriend

First | Previous | AO3

***

Friday evening found Remus racing from work to home to get ready. He barrelled in the door, bowling past Roman who nearly choked on the chips he was eating in surprise.

“What the hell dude, what’s the rush?!” He called, but Remus was too busy to reply. He threw his bag down and stripped off, flinging clothes everywhere and hopping around as he changed into his nicest jeans and top, grabbing a jacket and knocking straight into Roman in the doorway when he turned to race back out.

“What the hell?!” He shouted, rubbing the red mark on his nose as Roman groaned and clutched the door frame to stay upright.

“Oh my god you hit like a damn truck, bro, ow.”

Remus glared at him. “This is totally your fault, and now I’m going to be late and look like an idiot too! Where’s your makeup. Fix me, miscreant!”

“Alright, alright, cool it. If you tell me where you’re going in such a rush I just might.”

That translated to gossip time, so as Remus sat on the toilet seat in the bathroom and Roman dug his concealers out quickly he explained the date, wincing when Roman squealed so loud it could’ve shattered something. “It’s just a date!”

“Yeah with Logan, your one true love!”

“Oh my god what if he is and I blow it-”

“Dude you’re sounding like Virgil,” Roman scoffed, rolling his eyes in the middle of dabbing lightly at Remus’s nose, and then under his eyes because why not go the whole way, he thought.

Remus squinted at him. “Who is Virgil, then?”

“Just some guy at work. Never mind that, your date! Where are you going, what are you doing, what are you wearing, tell me everything.”

“Uh,” Remus frowned, plucking at his shirt. What was wrong with this? “The aquarium, to see the jellyfish, and I was gonna wear this. I’m not changing now, I’m gonna be late! Are you done?!”

“Just the finishing touches…” Roman muttered, dabbing a dot of concealer onto Remus’s nose and booping it away with a grin as Remus batted his hand away with a scowl. “All done. Enjoy your date, bro.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Remus said, distracted as he raced out to finish grabbing his things and get on the way to the aquarium.

***

Remus panted as he jogged down the street and up the Aquarium steps to where Logan was waiting, impeccably dressed and looking cool as a cucumber, as usual. “Sorry if I made you wait! I had to leave work a little later than I wanted to, just Karen being shit again, nothing crazy. Were you out here long?”

Logan placed a hand on Remus’s shoulder with a faintly amused tilt to his mouth, and shook his head. “Stop panicking. You’re well within time, Remus,” he said firmly, squeezing gently before letting go. “Shall we go in? I would like to see some of the other sections before the jellies.”

“You call them jellies?” Remus asked as they started to walk. “For some reason I figured you as a scientific name only kinda guy.”

The other man laughed, shrugging a shoulder. “It’s been known to happen. But you can’t look at those bags of dumb and not end up calling them jellies. Did you know they-”

They chatted easily as they walked through to the ticket booth, and promptly snag number one. As Remus tried to pay, Logan leaned forwards to interject that he already had their tickets. “It seemed logical for me to get them, and I was already here. It’s my treat,” he explained, as Remus tried not to pout.

“No that’s, that’s great. Thanks. I’ll just get you a plushie at the store then!”

Logan just laughed his same fond laugh.

The Aquarium wasn’t too busy, luckily. It was still term time for schools and a Friday evening wasn’t prime for family outings like that. The show would likely be a bit busier, but mostly Remus and Logan were left in relative peace to wander through the dark tanks and enthuse over the various exhibits together. They took a short break before heading through to the jellyfish section, finding a bench near the all the corals and just watching things swim by.

“So,” Remus began after a minute’s comfortable silence. “You come here often?”

It was meant to be a little tease. Logan wasn’t meant to reply with “well, I work here. SO I think I’d have to say ‘yes’.”

Remus short circuited. “Come again now?”

“I work here, Remus. Remember? Marine biologist. I conduct some research here when I can.”

“You… work here. The place I asked you to go on a date. Where you- oh, you even bought the tickets, and you knew there would be space!” Remus groaned, burying his face in his hands in shame and misery. How had he got this so wrong?!

Logan was still softly laughing as he pulled the embarrassed man’s hands from his face. “Come now, didn’t I say it was a place of interest to me? I did agree to come. It might be my place of work, but I love to visit when I can just enjoy it nonetheless.”

“It was supposed to be super romantic, I would buy us tickets, we’d hold hands, learn about some super cool dumb as shit jellyfish, maybe get a silly thing from the gift store…”

“It can still be all those things, Remus,” Logan interrupted quietly, and dear lord if he wasn’t blushing when Remus looked over in surprise. His shy little smile was the cherry on top, and Remus silently pledged his undying devotion there and then. He took the hand that Logan offered, and followed when the scientist stood up, leading him towards the show and entwining their fingers together.

The show was very good indeed, with Logan almost bouncing in excitement as he watched beside him, their hands linked, and the added bonus of cool jellyfish facts! Logan confessed he hadn’t seen the show yet, and jellyfish were far from his speciality, so it turned out to not be the worst decision Remus had ever unwittingly made, but rather one of his better accidental ones.

They did also get gifts in the shop, courtesy of Logan’s staff discount. A plushy squid for Logan that Remus presented him with pride after (finally) remembering his research into cephalopods, and Remus was gifted a bunch of those funky rubber tentacle fingers, immediately making plans to use them to freak Roman out at the earliest opportunity.

So all in all, not a bad date at all. But he would maybe do a bit of research for the next one… Maybe!

Although if all of them ended with Logan doing his soft laugh as he agreed that yes, he would quite like to be Remus’s boyfriend, maybe he just wouldn’t bother.

–

The End!

#writepie #intrulogical #ts remus #ts logan #ts roman #ts writing #ts sanders sides #ts sanders sides aus #ts sanders sides fic #sanders sides

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revisionaryhistory · 4 years ago

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Three Days ~ 55

~*~Sebastian~*~

I stared at her. Stunned. I'm not sure if it's how the conversation went or she wants me and whatever comes with me. Emma is so intentional. Her words carry meaning. She wants to be clear and asks for clarity. This is heaven for my overthinking brain. I’m not stuck wondering what she means nor am I afraid to ask. Because I know she'll answer. Really answer.

"I've got eight years on you, how are you the more mature one?"

"Stabilizing influence and frighteningly direct communication of my second dad."

The expression on her face and deadpanned delivery had me laughing. "I can see that. I'll be the emotionally reactive one and you can be the calming one." Then I remembered. "Although, Eli did tell a story about you laying into some guy in Hawaii at a volleyball game. Ed dumped you in the ocean. I wish there was video."

"There is. You'll have to get dad to send it to you."

Tuesday was a good day. Workout was hard and my abs were already sore, but we'd laughed a lot. Good phone call with mom. The house had come together, she was enjoying some time in the pool, and she'd picked up some piano students. My afternoon was spent in my manager, Emily's, office. Mostly she and I, but a few conference calls. I was about to be busy. The next six weeks I was more gone than home. I was excited about the work. Excited to see friends.

Admittedly, the timing wasn't the greatest, new relationship and all, but I was confident we'd figure it out. This is different. I'd like to say it was because my previous experience is whining and bitching about me being gone so long, knowing I was going to pay for the distance, and trying to front-load my leaving to make it more palatable. While all of those all true, the actual difference is I care. The emotionally unavailable hot and cold thing comes into play here. I put up a wall to block the whining and bitching, not really listening, because it's my job. Bitching at me isn’t going to change anything and I’m not going to feel guilty for doing my job. Well, I do, but it just pisses me off because I shouldn’t. The expectation of gifts, dinners, or a vacation to make up for being gone made those a lot less fun. And I was never successful at cramming a bunch of stuff in before I left, because my work didn't start when I left. It starts weeks before. I don’t leave for filming for a month, but I’m already prepping: gym reading, watching things, research, and studying the script. I get pretty singularly focused. I don't know any other way. And when pushed I shut down. I don't respond. I brood. And I appear cold. None of this is right. Some just is. Some is my fault. Getting to where I didn't care about her (any of the previous hers) feelings and concerns with me gone was a side effect of shutting down and I regret doing that. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about her feelings. It was feeling ineffectual to do anything about it and my self-protection kicking in. Looking back, saying effectively “deal with it” was incredibly insensitive. Not proud of it.

But now, sitting here looking at my schedule I’m finding places I can find some time for us. We’ll figure it out. I can tell you what won’t happen. Emma won't whine where I block her out. She's not going to emotionally blackmail me for things, which will make me want to give. And she’ll leave me alone to prep, let me bounce things off her, or cook something to remind me to eat. I need all of those. I care how Emma's going to feel about me being gone. I care about what we’ve begun and how we'll keep in touch. I also know that while I'm away she will carry on living the life she had before she had me and be just fine.

Emma had practice tonight and a game tomorrow. It was after eight when she called. She was in a tank top and her hair was wet from her shower. I caught up on her day before leading into mine. "I have good news and bad news."

"OK." Emma drug out the word, wary of my response.

"When I get back from Canada, I've got some time to spend with you. Then I’m gone for the month of July. Fashion show, audition and meetings, comic con, then filming in Rome." Playing off last night’s conversation, I added. "I'm not expecting a bad reaction."

"Well, that's good." Her hand moved toward the screen and I chose to believe she was touching my face. "I'II miss you, but I’m excited for you. And me getting to hear about what you're doing. Living vicariously."

I'd had some time to think. I had a lot of thoughts on plans. This was the soonest. "You get back Tuesday, doubleheader Wednesday, and I get back late Thursday. What's your weekend look like?"

"Empty. I'll come to you. You'll barely be home if you come here. I can come anytime Friday. I'll be done with work except maybe packing up my room. I can do that whenever."

"Early Friday. Thursday night." I wanted to maximize our time. "I have to do some work."

"I can amuse myself."

"Maybe the shop you liked so much will be having a sale?" I laughed at the way her eyes lit up. "July fourth weekend I'm at a fashion show. Wanna go to Paris?"

"What?" Her face moved closer to the screen. I’d surprised her.

"Not necessarily Paris, but near. The third is the show. Have you been to Paris?"

"Family spent the summer in Europe when we were thirteen. Then Pearl Jam tours. Love Paris."

"Not much more than a long weekend, but museums and I'm sure we can find some romantic Paris shit to do."

"I would love to go to Paris with you."

That was good because I'd already made reservations. "California for about two weeks then straight to Italy for at least that. Depends on how long shooting takes. Hopefully back in time to join you in Chicago. Then nothing until the end of August. Will and I had been talking about a group of us going away. We were waiting for my schedule. What do you think about a group trip and we stay a little longer or go off alone? It would be a beach somewhere."

"You going to rub sunscreen on me?"

"Um yay, part of my volleyball job. Beer bitch and sunscreen applier."

“I’m in."

"End of August is a Disney thing. Labor Day weekend is the Toronto Film Fest. Little stuff in there, nothing big. No idea past then."

She laughed, eyes wide, and moving her head in all directions "It's crazy like a tour schedule. I'm jealous. I love touring."

"I thought about Rome, but the schedule's tight. You wouldn't see me."

"I wasn't trying for an invite. I'll get some of my summer PD hours done so I won't have to worry about them. Make sure I've got time for us."

I leaned back on the couch, "That was easy."

She glared at me. "I thought you weren't expecting a bad reaction?"

I shook my head, "No, no, I wasn't. Just an observation. Thought I might have to talk you into the beach." I held it a second before smiling, "Not really. I do know it’s a lot."

"I will always go to a beach."

"You’re not allowed to play volleyball."

"Did you get the video from dad?"

"About an hour ago." I'd enjoyed it several times. "You're a feisty little thing."

Wednesday was a day of pictures and texts. After the gym, I settled in my extra room to prep. I had my laptop on the table, a stack of books on top of my script, and a huge bottle of water. I took a picture and posted it to Instagram along with one of me with a pencil between my teeth and pulling my hair.

Emma ~ How'd you get a picture of your expression during your last blow job?

Sebastian ~ Hidden camera in bedroom. You should see the other things I have. Coupling Season 1. "The Cupboard of Patrick's Love."

Emma ~ “You really don't have enough blood for both ends of your body, do you?"

Sebastian ~ Very good, Sally.

Love that she can quote one of my favorite shows.

After lunch, Emma posted a picture of her in the middle of a group hug with her students. "I'll miss my munchkins.” I sent a sad face emoji.

Then I fell into a hole. I got pulled into my research and reading and the next time I picked up my phone it was one a.m. I need time like this and put my phone on do not disturb. The only thing that comes through is two calls from the same number within a few minutes. Anyone important knows how to reach me. Emma knew, but she didn't. Not even when the Demonic Crickets won their game. She posted several pictures, but I got a much better one in a text. Emma with her back to the camera in her team tank, arm up flexing her bicep, and her looking over her shoulder smiling at me. The gold flecks in her eyes were sparkling and the darker ring made the green more intense.

Emma ~ Hope you're getting a lot done. Internally anyway. XOXO

Sebastian ~ * 12 hours later * Yeah, I did. I'm hungry. Congrats on the win. Picture is beautiful.

Sebastian ~ You're beautiful

Her thank you came while I was working out. After a shower, I fell back into my hole until it was time for therapy.

I'd been seeing Celie for a long time. Frequency varied. She had a dark brown bob, glasses, and a round face. At this point, I could read her as well as she could me. If she was looking at me over her glasses, she thought I was full of shit. No words needed. She was about ten years older than me and her style worked for me. It was a great one-sided friendship.

I took my regular spot on the blue couch, "How are you today, Celie?"

Celie smiled. She had the unconditional positive regard thing down. I say that, but she does genuinely like me. Most of the time. I can be a pain in the ass. "I've had a good day and after you I get to go home. You seem to be in a good mood. Tell what's going on with you, Seb."

I was always her last client of the day. Sometimes I needed more than an hour. "I am in a good mood. I met somebody. Last time I saw you I was going to help my parents move. I met Emma there. In a grocery store, if you can believe that."

"Sounds like you can't."

"I asked her to dinner in under fifteen minutes."

She widened her eyes in disbelief. Exactly my point. "Did you? Good for you, Seb. A complete stranger. What led you to ask her out?"

"I was all covered up and she tells me I looked like a rehab patient checking into the clinic up the road. But she was kind to me. A sketchy stranger. She didn’t know who I was until we were outside and I introduced myself. She helped me find the things on my list and we chatted." I put my hands in front of my chest, fingers splayed. "She felt good. I didn't know why, just enough that I knew I wanted to know more.”

“And what do you know now?”

I spent the next several minutes telling Celie the salient points. We’ve been doing this long enough that explaining isn’t necessary. She’ll recognize why things are important. My face hurt from smiling after I was finished talking about Emma. I stopped short of the whole conversation on Sunday.

“Besides the obvious early relationship high, how are you feeling about all this?”

“Good. Happy. Hopeful. The only concerning thing was Saturday I woke up from a night terror, panic attack. I got myself calmed down pretty quick, wrote for a while, and once Emma got up I went for a run.”

“Even with being happy, there’s been quite a bit of emotional activity. I’m pleased that you’ve only woken up once. Much better. What do you suspect triggered you?”

I took a deep breath, “Emma and I wound up in this conversation Sunday afternoon. A couple of my friends at the party had told her I wasn’t acting like I normally do with women, but more like I am with friends. This led to a conversation about my relationship issues. I’m not the same with her. She really doesn’t know that version of me. I think that’s why I had the anxiety. It was the night after the party but before the conversation. First time we’d been around my friends. I think it was not because I’m scared, but because I’m not. Like you said, there’s been a lot of emotional shit going on and I’m good. Remarkably good.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Emma is different. She’s incredibly kind and is . . . gentle. Not weak though. She’s strong.”

Celie shook her head, “When I think of gentle people it’s a combination. They can be painfully truthful, but their manner makes others able to listen. They have a compassion for others.”

“Exactly! I noticed she knew everyone. She talked to everyone and used their name. I asked and she said she looked at their nametags and you never know what someone’s day has been. That might be the first nice thing that’s happened all day. I know it’s a little thing, but it’s her. She’s like that with me. She doesn’t try to talk me out of being anxious or overthinking. She doesn’t think my insecurities are stupid. They’re all just part of me.”

“She accepts you.”

“Right. The more we got to know each other, the more we talked, I felt safe. She doesn’t do those things I usually shut down over. I don’t feel the need to protect myself. She’s very different.” Celie was looking at me over her glasses. Uh oh. “You’re giving me the look.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Why? I thought I was doing good. I asked out a stranger and got this amazing woman.”

“Sebastian, as quick as you are to fault yourself, you’re slow to take credit.”

“Take credit?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees. “You think this relationship is different because of Emma. You lucked out and met an accepting, kind, gentle person.”

“Yes. No. Both. Emma is different and she makes me different.”

Celie made a loud, jarring beeping noise. This was new.

“Ok, I guess I’m wrong.”

“You are. Not completely. You’re not giving yourself enough credit. Any credit. You’ve worked very hard. You’ve read. You’ve journaled. You’ve talked. You’ve done things I’ve asked you to even if you didn’t understand or want to. I’ve seen you grow. To give responsibility for this relationship being different all to Emma is dangerous. What’s going to happen when she falls off this pedestal you’ve put her on? Is that going to be an excuse to shut down and protect yourself? Fall back on old habits.”

I could feel my eyebrows pulled down and the scowl on my face. “So you’re saying this isn’t as good as I think it is.”

“Not at all. I’m saying it’s got as much to do with you as it does her. Previously you would have never asked out a woman you met in a grocery. But that seems to be the furthest you’re going with how you’re different. I do not believe for one second that no other woman you’ve gone out with has been kind and accepting. Or would have been if you would have been able to show them you. You used to do things to test them. You’d say or do things to see how they’d react. As we’ve talked, you weren’t being real, so you don’t know that their reactions were.”

I nodded then looked down, “I know. Pretty manipulative.” I felt Celie’s hand on my arm and looked back up. Her face was very soft with a smile.

“Stop, Seb. You need to be proud of yourself. You are doing things differently. You have learned from your past, grown, and come a long way in accepting yourself. Warts and all. You have shown Emma who you are, even the parts you don’t like so much. She can have credit for how she’s responded to you, but you deserve the credit for being brave enough to show her in an honest and authentic way. That allowed her to respond in an equally honest and authentic way.”

I grabbed a tissue from the ever-present box on the table and wiped the wet from my face. Neither the first nor the last time I’d cry in this room.

"If you had met her even a year ago, with her exactly as she is now, this relationship would be very different."

"The wedding."

"Excuse me?"

Yeah, non sequitur. "I was supposed to go to a friend’s wedding last summer but didn't because there was a change in my shooting schedule. Emma was at the wedding. You're right. Had I met her then," I shook my head. “I wouldn't have been ready for her and now could have never happened."

Celie shrugged, "Probably not."

I sniffed and wiped my eyes, "How do I get her off this pedestal I’ve put her on?"

"You seem pretty smitten. Maybe not take her off, just lower it a little." I laughed and she went on. "What you do is own your part. You have been making choices to improve yourself. You have been making choices to go out of your comfort zone. And you have been making choices to let her know you. Emma's been making similar choices to be with you. I'm sure you know what she's come through to be where she is. It seems like you complement each other. Recognize this is both of you waking up and choosing to be with each other. Talk and negotiate what that means. Tell her what you want. And when you're not talking you listen. Listen to what she needs from you. The most important for you is to keep processing the feelings with her. She's the only one who can help those make a picture. And you need to give her the same gift. She has things she’s not so proud of and afraid for you to know about her. We all do. You will need to accept her and treat her with gentle kindness she gives you.”

I was crying again. "She told me. I told her she was different than the others. She asked if maybe I was different."

Celie snickered, "I like her."

"You would. She speaks therapy."

"I want to be very clear, Seb. She sounds wonderful and she may make you better. You sound wonderful and I bet you make her better too. That’s how it should work in a relationship. You help each other along. It takes two people with self-awareness making choices to do what it takes. You both have to choose growth, honestly, humility, vulnerability, and sacrifice. I hear you holding up your end. I’ve not heard you do this before. And while she may be the right woman, you've become the right man. Please, please, do not underestimate how much work you've put in to become the right man for another person.”

"I want to go home and cry for an hour or so."

"I wish Emma was here for you."

I shook my head with a grimace, "It's going to be ugly until I get it out."

"Yes. I think Emma would want to be there to hold you and you'd find more acceptance and comfort in that than you can imagine."

At home, I grabbed a beer, sank down in my favorite chair, and cried. I felt everything all at once but fought to untangle the threads. Sad was remnants of the past and dissipated quickly. Its friends regret and shame fought a little harder to stick around, but they were toxic and needed to go. Pride and relief were together too. Celie was right. I had worked hard. An infinite number of hours had gone into figuring myself out. There have been so many times I thought I'd be stuck forever. Sometime in the last two years that I've been without a girlfriend, all the work must have come together. In the last two years I've been filming almost nonstop. Five movies have come out. Two of which were Marvel circuses. It's like all the therapy (and the work that goes with it) knitted me back together while I was busy filming and living my life. Celie had told me to trust the process. I couldn't rush it or make changes happen before it was time. Patience. I am inherently impatient. Pride was for the work. Relief was for seeing results. Finally.

Next was happy. I’m in a good place. I'm excited about the movie I’m making. I have supportive, fun friends, and a loving family. I don't need a girlfriend to be happy, but one does bring everything together. I like having a person who is mine. Mine in the sense of us experiencing life together. The good and bad. I like that. I want that. And now I have it. The beginnings of it, anyway.

After I pulled my shit together, I wanted to talk to Emma. I wanted support. Maybe not support, but I felt raw. I wanted someone to soothe the raw nerves, to sit with me while all this new stuff integrated. I wish she was here. What I needed was a hug.

Sebastian ~ Can you talk?

I don't like that I asked. It feels insecure and I have zero reasons to feel insecure. I quickly decided to cut myself some slack.

My phone rang and I connected to FaceTime. "Hey." Her bright smile and obvious happiness to see me did wonders to soothe those raw nerves.

Emma's face went from a smile to wide-eyed concern. "Sebastian, what’s wrong? You look like you've been crying. What happened?" Before I could answer, she jumped to a correct conclusion. "You had therapy. Good, bad, or cathartic tears?"

"Mostly the last one."

Her hand went to her chest, "Ok." She picked up what I assumed was her iPad and crossed to the chair in her bedroom. I could see her pull her knees up when she put her feet on the ottoman. She rested the iPad on her knees.

"Mostly a repeat of what we talked about Sunday. Celie said I wasn't giving myself enough credit for the work I've done. My growth."

As Emma had alluded to the same thing, I expected a smile or some acknowledgment of her asking if I was different. Instead, I got, "What do you think?"

"I think I still need to work on not being so hard on myself." I smiled because that statement was me still being hard on myself. "When Celie pointed out how I've changed I could see it and was proud of myself. I can’t see it on my own yet, but I'll get there. I never thought anyone would get past my walls. It wasn't someone getting in, it was me getting out." More goddamned tears.

Emma reached out and touched the screen. "I‘m so happy for you. Proud of you too."

Her words felt like a hug. Close enough for now. "Thank you."

"I know you're a grown man, but I wish I was there. Crying alone sucks."

"Oh," I laughed a little, "the chances of us having a messy reunion are high."

"Why?"

"A lot of you and I talk today. I know me, it's gonna hit me when I see you."

"I should warn you. I have a strict policy that nobody cries alone in my presence."

I smiled at her exaggerated southern accent with the "Steel Magnolias" quote. "See ... gonna be messy."

#Sebastian Stan #sebastian stan fanfiction #fanfiction

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