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papercorgiworld · 4 months

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I don't want you to be my girlfriend

Blaise, Mattheo, Enzo, Tom, Theodore and Draco

There’s a big misunderstanding concerning your future together.

Warning: no warning, just a very fluffy fluff thingy

This was brought to you thanks to this request, but I must apologize I changed some details, but I guess the essential plot is stil there. If you spot an error that hurts your brain, let me know and save another reader. And as per usual, my darling readers happy readings! I love you all, big time!

“When we graduate things are going to change. I have big plans.” You hear your boyfriend’s voice and feel yourself get all giddy, convinced that you are part of these big plans, but suddenly you stop in your tracks. “I mean (y/n) isn’t going to be my girlfriend forever.” Next, there's silence. “Are you sure?” You hear Pansy ask and with a pounding heart you listen to your boyfriend’s answer. “Yeah. Never been so sure of anything in my life. She won’t be my girlfriend for long anymore. Things change.”

Without making a single sound you turn down the stairs of the astronomy tower. Tears streaming down your face. You were so in love with him. All the two of you did lately was talk about your future together. When did he stop loving me? Did he ever love me at all?

The next morning you looked like crap. You looked like someone who had been crying all night, which is exactly what had happened. So you skipped breakfast and just went to class where you spent your time staring in front of you and avoiding your boyfriend’s gaze at all costs. He watched you from a few seats away. When he grew inpatient waiting for you to look at him he enchanted a little note and sent it to you, but to his horror you just looked at the folded paper laying on your desk without opening it, before returning to look at the professor.

He truly doesn’t know how you managed to, but after class you just disappeared. He had immediately gotten up and walked towards you and yet you had somehow snuck past him through the other students. He picked up the unopened note he had sent you and felt his heart ache. First you didn’t show up at the astronomy tower last night, then you skipped breakfast and now you were obviously avoiding him. What did I do? I hate it when I don’t know what I did? Bad joke? Forgot about a date? Salazar, what if I did something so bad that she’s breaking up with me?

He had searched every nook and cranny of the castle to find you, which was quite a lot of work, but to no avail. I don’t even know where she’s hiding? Have we somehow grown apart without me even noticing? I’m such a shit boyfriend, I’m gonna lose the love of my life.

Defeated, he walked back to the slytherin common room when one last possible hiding spot came to mind. How did I not check there earlier?

Blaise

There you sat curled up doodling in your journal, back resting against the whomping willow. “Really not the safest spot to be. The tree gets mad from time to time.” He startles you and for a moment you stare at him with wide eyes, before relaxing. As soon as you process that it’s Blaise you roll your eyes. “Oh, really? After seven years at this school I really had no clue.” Your sarcasm is almost like venom and makes Blaise’s smile disappear. In silence he joins you, sitting too close to your liking so you move an inch away and he lets his head fall back in annoyance with your childish behavior. “I have no idea what I did, but I’m sorry, I always am when I hurt you.” His voice is soft and his hand reaches for yours, keeping you from scribbling in your notebook.

You shake your head in disbelief. How could he be sorry, when he was planning on breaking up with you. You feel tears welling up and grit your teeth in an attempt to hold them back. “When we talked about our garden together, which plants and trees we would prefer and that there needed to be a little bench… I thought you meant it. I thought you really wanted that with me.” At your words he moves a bit away from the tree to face you properly. “I do. I do want all of those things. You know that. We were just talking about our future together yesterday morning. What makes you think I wouldn’t want that with you?”

Your eyes are angry. How dare he lie like this. “I heard you last night at the astronomy tower. You want to break up with me. You had big plans and I wasn’t going to be your girlfriend anymore.” Blaise stares for a moment, before chuckling and looking away. “Unbelievable, you seriously had me worried for a moment.” All your anger subsides and confusion takes over, eyebrows knitting together. “You won’t be my girlfriend forever, (y/n), because I have other plans for you.” Blaise explains, but you still don’t catch on to what he’s hinting at. “Darling, I bought a ring.” Your eyes widen and your heart feels like it’s going to explode. “That’s what I was talking about. I showed it to everyone last night.” With shaky hands you put your notebook aside and move a little closer to your boyfriend. “An engagement ring?” Blaise nods and smiles as he adores your utterly confused face. “After we graduate, on a random date, when you don’t see it coming I’m gonna pop the question.”

Even though you were sitting in front of him he’s still surprised when you suddenly wrap your arms around his neck. “Spoiler alert, I'm gonna say yes.” You whisper all giddy and he responds by hugging you tighter than ever. Gods, I hope so, because I really love you.

Mattheo

Mattheo sighs, relieved that he’s finally found you. Sitting against the whomping willow with your knees pressed against your chest and headphones on, probably listening to the same four sad songs on repeat. He watches you from afar for a moment as he worries about what’s gotten you so upset and worse why you haven’t come to find him for consolidation yet. Even when you were angry with him you came to him to figure it out. You rarely closed yourself off for so long as you had done today and it frightened Mattheo.

Quietly he walks over to you and as soon as you spot him you turn to look away from him, making Mattheo almost reach for his chest. He decides to lean against the tree next to you, giving you some space as you’re still sitting curled up on the ground. The silence between you two is excruciating. Soundless tears run down your cheeks as you realize that this might be the last moment between you two. As painful as the silence is, Mattheo wants to give you time to start talking, it’s only when he hears you sob that he loses his patience and immediately gets down on his knees next to you. He takes off your headphones and looks at you with soft eyes. “I beg you, please, talk to me.” His fingers brush your cheeks and you savor the moment of his touch, before speaking up.

“It’s cruel Matt, making someone believe in a future together, while you’re planning a break up. I mean who does that. Yesterday morning we were arguing about marriage or kids first and in the evening you’re telling everyone that you don’t want me to be your girlfriend.” A pathetic sob escapes you and Mattheo opens his mouth, but you cut in before he can say anything. “I still love you, you know. I still want that future with you. Did I scare you away or something?” Mattheo’s heart squeezes at your painful sobs. Scare me away? How can you think of something like that? “No, no, you could never scare me away.” Mattheo wants to hold you, but you softly push his hand away. “Then tell me, what did I do wrong? Why are we breaking up?” Mattheo stares at you in disbelief, not following at all. “We aren’t. We’re never-”

“I heard you, Matt, last night at the astronomy tower. I heard you say that I wasn’t going to be your girlfriend for long.” Something changes in the way Mattheo looks at you, but you can’t quite capture it, he looks almost disappointed. “Wow. Definitely not how I planned it, but okay.” Mattheo says dryly, but also amused. There’s this sweet mischievous glimmer in his eyes that calms you, but also has you frowning. He searches in his pocket, obviously being enchanted, it takes him a while to find what he’s looking for and you stare at him in confusion as he makes a funny face. “Matt-” He shushes you and you study him carefully as he moves from sitting on both knees to resting on one knee, before pulling out a tiny box.

“If it’s up to me, (y/n), you will no longer be my girlfriend, because I want you to marry me.” You quickly shake your head and sit up a bit straighter to check if you’re really seeing what you’re seeing. Slowly, his free hand reaches to open the flannel ring box. “So (y/n) (y/l/n), will you marry me?” Your mouth opens as you stare at the ring, before looking at Mattheo whose smile is filled with love. You nod, ignoring the elegant and shiny ring, you lunge towards him and he wraps his arms around you. He quickly closes the box to keep the ring safe, before kissing you passionately. When you break apart, your foreheads rest against each other. “The answer’s yes by the way.” You whisper with flustered eyes. Mattheo licks his lip, smirking at the beautiful fiance in his arms. “I assumed that much.” He said, eyes shining with happiness. “But, dear future wife, don’t you ever assume silly things again, like maybe me dumping you. Never going to happen, understand?” Sheepishly you chew your lip, embarrassed with your own dramatics. When you nod, his smile grows brighter and leans in for another passionate kiss.

Enzo

As soon as Lorenzo spotted you, he came running towards the whomping willow, though carefully watching the tree so as not to get attacked by it. You were just laying on the ground staring up at the sky and the tree, but you knew Enzo was coming your way. You had been together for so long you could hear it was him just by his footsteps. You took a deep breath, trying to get rid of the weight on your chest, knowing that your relationship would all be over soon. With a happy smile Enzo’s face comes into your view as he stands next to you looking down at you. “Found you.” He quips rather proud of himself and you snort. Joking before breaking up that’s just rude. Did our relationship really mean nothing?

When Lorenzo notices your displeasure with his presence he kneels down next to you. “Everything alright?” He asks with a soft, worried voice as he scans your face for any hints. You chew your lip for a moment before sitting up, eyes wandering around, avoiding Enzo. “I really looked forward to it.” Enzo frowns and sits down next to you, his arm brushing yours. Before he can ask for an explanation, you continue. “Cooking together every evening. Going to bed together. Waking up and arguing in the bathroom, but making up at the breakfast table. You were going to make that boring adult everyday routine fun, you would make everyday worth it.” Lorenzo drops his head, looking down. She’s breaking up with. He heard you struggle to keep yourself from sobbing and looked back up.

He wasn’t just gonna let you break up with him. He grabbed both of your hands and pulled you towards him, now your teary eyes were forced to meet his. “Darling, whatever dumb thing I did, I love you too much to have done it on purpose, so please just talk to me.” You narrow your eyes at him, confused by what he was saying. You sniffle and he wraps an arm around your head pulling towards him, forcing you to rest on his shoulder for a moment. “Please, don’t break up with me.” Your boyfriend whispers, before placing a soft kiss on your temple. You pull away and look at him. “I don’t want to break up with you, you’re the one that’s done with our relationship.” Enzo’s eyes widen and his mouth drops a bit. “Wha- why? Why would you say something so ridiculous!” He sounds almost angry with you for suggesting something so outrageous.

You frown and bite back. “Don’t play dumb, Berkshire! I heard you last night at the astronomy tower talking to all your friends and Pansy, who’s my friend by the way, about how I wasn’t going to be your girlfriend for long anymore. Hah!” You point at him, thinking you’ve cornered him, figured out all his lies, but he doesn’t look impressed at all. “Oh right, right… but tell me, darling, if I’m planning on breaking up with you then… uhm, why did I spend a ridiculous amount of money on an engagement ring?” With one swift move he presents you a small velvet ring box and judges you, before quickly tucking it back into his pocket. Your mouth just hangs agape as you watch him put the ring box away. “Miss I-have-it-all-figured-out, do you have any other crazy assumptions? Maybe you think I bought that for one of my other girlfriends-” You give him a soft push and he smiles at your flustered face.

“Break up with you? Have you lost it? Gods, I’m marrying an idiot.” Lorenzo laughs and pulls you onto his lap. You’re still trying to wrap your head around the fact that Enzo bought an engagement ring. “Marrying an idiot? Enz, I haven’t said yes.” You say, attempting to sound composed and he grins at you. “That’s because you haven’t seen the ring, yet.” You snake an arm around his neck. “So show me.” You brush your nose against his and he smirks, happy that you're eager to see the ring and say yes. Enzo steals a tender kiss from you before moving his lips to your ear. “I don’t think so.” You look at him with curious eyes and he explains himself. “I have this whole thing planned and it’s already bad enough that you know I’m going to propose. I don’t need you knowing about anything else I have in store for you.” Merlin, I love him. Desperately your lips crash into his, passionately kissing your future husband as he holds you tight.

Tom

He studies you from afar as you focus on your journal. He adores your elegant figure, small against the great whomping willow. He approaches you with a featherlight step and you don’t notice him until he speaks up with a serious tone. “You had me worried. Disappearing for a whole day.” Your heart jumps as his sudden presence startles you and you quickly close your journal. When you look up he notices your exhausted eyes and crouches down to your level. His fingers brushing your jawline before grabbing a hold of your chin as you try to turn away from him. With a firm grip he forces you to meet his eyes. “Have you been crying, dear?” Your eyes go dead at his question. “Don’t pretend to care. I know you’re breaking up with me.”

Your voice is cold and your words catch him off guard, dropping his hand and studying your face. “When we talked about traveling the world, I thought it was going to be you and me. Searching for the boundaries of magic, you and me… always.” His face goes cold as tears visually well up in your eyes. “I can’t believe you’re breaking up with me. I don’t understand. I thought we were happy.” Now you can no longer hold your tears back, instantly your hands cover your face and Tom grits his teeth at the sound of your sobbing. “Enough.” He says sternly, grabbing your hands and making you look at him. “I don’t know what’s gotten into your silly little head, but I’m not breaking up with you, not now, not ever!”

He can spot a glimmer of hope in your eyes at his words and he sighs. “Quite to the contrary, actually. I’m planning on spending the rest of my life with you and I want to make it official.” You swallow and shake your head a little as you remember last night's words. “But- but I heard you talk yesterday evening… you said I wasn’t going to be your girlfriend forever.” Tom’s lips form a line and he cups your face, thumbs brushing over the stains of your tears. “You should know better than to eavesdrop. You missed out on a bit of context.” Your eyebrows knit together. “You’re not breaking up with me?” With a soft smile he shakes no. “I missed out on the context?” Tom nods and you feel yourself relax. “Okay.” You whisper and you lean towards Tom so he can embrace you. With your head pressed against his chest you wonder. “I don’t get it, what context?” Tom smiles to himself. “You’ll find out soon enough.” He pulls away a little so he can place a tender kiss on your soft lips. I can’t believe she almost found out about the proposal. If she had seen the ring last night the surprise would’ve been ruined.

Theodore

You were trying to focus on the book in your hands, but you had to reread every sentence twice, because your mind kept going to Theodore’s words. Frustrated with your incapacity to read, you sigh and look around taking in your surroundings, it’s then that you spot Theo slowly walking in your direction. “Here it goes.” You mutter to yourself as you mentally prepare yourself for a painful break up. “Where have you been all day?” Theo asks, noticing you looking at him. You shrug, not in the mood for small talk. “Here.” You say dryly and Theodore’s tongue darts around in his mouth as he tries to figure out what’s going on. “Why did you ignore my note?” You look away from him. Can’t he just cut to the chase.

Again you shrug, eyes still staring into the distance. Theodore raises his eyebrows, a little annoyed by your attitude. “Okay, princess. I’ll play.” He goes to sit opposite of you, giving you all his attention, but you snap your head towards him at his words. “You are unbelievable, Theodore Nott!” Your loud voice makes Theo clench his jaw. “Right back at ya, sweetie.” He’s annoyed, but he tries to stay calm, seeing how upset you are. “Don’t ‘sweetie’ me, Nott.” You snare. “I know you’re here to break up with me. I heard you talking at the astronomy tower last night. I know about your big plans that don’t involve a girlfriend. So you can scurry off now. I’ll be fine.” Theo opens his mouth before closing it again and chuckling softly. You frown. “This isn’t funny.” You say, clearly hurt by his lack of emotion. You reach for your book to hit it against his arm, but your boyfriend ceases the opportunity to grab your wrist and pull you closer to him, much to your dislike.

“It’s funny, trust me.” He whispers, chuckling as he closes the space between you two. “I’m not gonna scurry off, princess, and I’m not breaking up with your dumb ass.” You try to pull your wrist free. “I heard you say-” Theo snakes an arm around your waist to keep you close, before interrupting you. “You heard what exactly?” You fall silent and look up at him with watery eyes. “Because I’m not breaking up with you, I love you a little too much and I’ve invested a bit too much money in an engagement ring. So you and I, we’re not breaking up any time soon.” The sadness in your eyes is replaced by surprise. “Engagement ring?” You whisper barely audible and Theo nods softly, eyes focused on yours. “So did you maybe hear me say something like : she’s not going to be my girlfriend for long?” He leans closer to you, eyes moving between your lips and your eyes. “Because you’re not going to be my girlfriend for long, since you’ll be my fiance soon and then-” Your lips crash on his and his hand moves to your head as he kisses you back passionately. “I’m an idiot.” You whisper between kisses, only making him kiss you harder. “Yeah, you are. You’re lucky you’re cute.” You frown and he chuckles. “I love you.”

Draco

With closed eyes you enjoy the sounds of nature around you. “Hey!” You recognize your boyfriend’s voice and turn to see him walk up to you with his usual flair, though carefully watching the whomping willow afraid of what it might do. You turn away from him, not ready to face him after hearing him talk about breaking up with you last night. “What’s got you hiding out here?” He watches you with crossed arms and you chew your lip, fingers playing with the grass by your side. You were rarely this distance and he gets more worried. He decides to sit down next to you. “If something’s wrong you can tell me.” You’re surprised by the softness of his voice and turn to him. His heart breaks a little when he notices your puffy eyes, but he stays quiet, waiting for you to tell him what’s going on.

“I feel stupid, Draco.” You confess and he frowns at you, before you continue. “I- I just thought that when we lay in bed discussing the interior of our mansion that- I guess I believed that you really wanted that. You really had me believing you wanted that future with me.” Your boyfriend’s face goes paler than it usually is, but you don’t notice the horror in his eyes. “I respect your choice and I won’t make any drama, but I want you to know that I really wanted that… a future for just the two of us.” With those words you get up, feeling tears well up. “What?” Draco almost yells as he instantly gets up after you. “You can’t break up with me.” He grabs your hand and you look at him, confused at his words. “I’m not breaking up with you, you are breaking up with me.” Your explanation almost hurts Draco’s brain as he tries to make sense of what you’re saying. “No. No. Why would I break up with you?”

You press your lips into a line as you now notice how utterly confused he is. Your eyes rest on his hand holding onto yours, he didn’t want you to go anywhere. You look up at him, frowning. “But I heard you… last night… you said that- that I wasn’t going to be your girlfriend forever. Pansy asked if you were sure and you said yes. I clearly heard you say that.” Draco seems to relax at your words and a soft smile creeps up his lips. “Oh, love.” He lets go of your hand, before taking a step closer so there’s only an inch between you two and slings his arms around you, hugging you as he softly chuckles. “I’m not breaking up with you.” The calmness in his voice convinces you of his sincerity and you feel all the pain and tension leave your heart, making you blink away soft tears of joy.

You enjoy his warmth and hug him back, but after a moment your mind goes back to last night. “But then, what were you talking about?” You move away from him as you feel a bit of doubt make its way back to your heart. Draco tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and adores you with the sweetest smile on his lips. “You won’t be my girlfriend for long because I intend on marrying you.” Your eyes widen and you feel the purest form of happiness rush through you. “Marry me?” You whisper in surprise, not really believing what you had just heard. “Yes and I’m sure of it.” An intense blush forms on your cheeks and your eyes get sparkly as a soft laugh of joy leaves your lips. “I love you, Draco Malfoy.” He kisses tenderly, before locking his eyes with your and wiggling his eyebrows. “I love you too, future Mrs Malfoy.” You laugh and bite your lip. “I like that.” Draco pulls you closer, happy to hear your approval. You break a passionate kiss when your mind starts wondering again. “When are you asking?” You ask with a cheeky smile and Draco scoffs at your question. “I’m not telling. It’s already bad enough you know that I’m gonna ask.”

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mdhwrites · 3 months

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You said the arcs of certain characters in TOH have an 'Us vs. Them mentality.' I take it that's because, as you say, the narrative pins the bad qualities of certain characters on separate parties (e.g. "Amity's flaws are only because of her mom"), but would you care to elaborate further on said mentality and how it sticks out to you in TOH?

So shockingly, not really. It plays into it but I am actually inherently talking about the same sort of mentality that Belos perpetuates but back onto Luz. After all, if you look at the main cast by even mid season 2 we have a problem forming. Eda: Has lost her criminal edge, has no personal interests, is defined by being nice in a way befitting Luz's worldview. Momma Eda.

Amity: No longer is studious and hard working but instead focuses more on her girlfriend and her nerdy interests. Is also now just nice. Was only shown genuine care by Luz, instead of just trying to fulfill her nerdy desires, once she finds out Amity is into Azura.

Lilith: Has turned into a nerd and given up on any ambitions that had led to her previous actions, becoming a nice cool aunt. Only now has Luz tried to form any relationship with her (admittedly, she didn't get many chances before now).

Hunter: Has only been being given kindness because he has shown a capacity for kindness that Luz only really started showing him, beyond not wanting him to die, once he showed he had a nerdy interest in wild magic.

Gus: Was a nerd from go and always nice, even if he could be slightly selfish.

Willow: By mid S2, is essentially out of the show for the past half season, has never had a strong personality and is just nice. Yes, she'll start her jock stuff soon... And never have a real conversation with Luz again, at least not until S3 maybe? So a full season where Luz and Willow, after Willow might have stopped being nerdy/an outcast, where Luz doesn't have an interest in her anymore.

And uh, just as a reminder to S3, Hunter gains a scifi interest post redemption and Luz explicitly listens to NOTHING her mother says to her during her big speech in For the Future until she reveals herself to be a secret nerd. At that point, suddenly Luz dials in.

For TOH, a show supposedly about the individual and self expression, characters either lose their personality and/or gain the personality that matches LUZ. There is less character variety in interests and personalities than even 90s cartoons much of the time by the end of TOH because these characters all lose so much of themselves fitting in with the good guys, especially the redeemed ones.

This is where your argument for this does come into play. I'll frame it as the fandom likes to with Amity: "She didn't have Luz in her life yet."

Amity is only a bitch while she is hanging out with the wrong crowd. Socialites, those with ambition and jocks. The Luz enters her life and despite the fact that the ONE time Luz ever calls Amity out for being a bitch being when Amity is being a bully to King and clearly trying to get a rise out of Luz, making that moment meaningless, that simple fact starts warping Amity. Starts making her turn back to her good, nerdy side. And because this is such an inherently good thing, there is no difficulty in doing this. She needs no motivation, no calling out, nothing. She just needs to desire to be like Luz/liked by Luz. She can discard her entire friend group and do things that should get her disowned with how evil Odalia is and face zero consequences because... I guess that's the power of becoming a nerd.

You are beyond reproach. You can only do good. Same goes for Hunter. Despite YEARS of potential propaganda and the like, Luz just getting into his life and admittedly jabbing at Belos/him a little, is all it takes for him to embrace the inherent goodness, displayed by his nerdiness about wild magic, and start becoming a better person. For this, he loses his home but that is only seen as a positive because indeed, he got away from those hostile that made him a bad person. He could now be a good person because he no longer had those influences and could embrace Luz's way of life.

With the show's themes, why is this the case? Shouldn't their base personalities be allowed to exist? Shouldn't a wide range of ideologies and the like be allowed since that is a part of self expression? Instead, when people don't like Luz approves, they are disapproved by Luz and either need to get the fuck out or conform.

And this is all without getting into how she becomes Jesus in the last episode...

None of this is intentional but if someone told me that the show felt hostile to them because they didn't consider themselves a nerd or because they tried to get somewhere in life, I wouldn't blame them. The show has a weirdly narrow belief in who is a good person. Who is allowed to exist in the main cast, a problem that cascades issues into a lot of its themes. I mean, this is the first show I've ever had to ask if character arcs are actually hurt the themes of the show because of this, a blog I sadly couldn't refind.

There is admittedly an element of this where I might not have thought about it without the fandom. Most people I know who are multi-fandom still agree that TOH is aggressive against others, even for a fandom. That it lashes out and blames others for its problems. Almost like a *gestures at the thesis*

And that doesn't help make any of this be less uncomfortable unfortunately. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical

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localbidisaster · 2 years

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The Truth - TOH Hunter x Reader

Summary: Hunter tells Reader about the whole Grimmwalker thing

Warnings: possible spoilers for Hollow mind and Thanks to them

You can tell that something's wrong, that something's bothering him. He's been quieter than usual, distancing himself not only from you but everyone else. Well, everyone else except for Willow.

It's something you've feared for a while now. He's been getting closer to her, and you can't help but worry that your relationship is nearing its end.

You can't blame him. She's considerate, powerful, courageous, and so much more. She'd be perfect for him...

At this point, it seems inevitable. He's going to break up with you. At first, it hurt; well, it still hurts, but not nearly as much as it did in the beginning. You're trying to accept it. You love him. You'll always love him. You love him enough to let him go if it means he'll get the happiness he's always deserved.

"(Y/N)?" He asks you one evening, visibly nervous. "Can I talk to you outside?" You nod, faking your best smile. "Of course."

It's time.

You take a deep breath in an attempt to calm yourself before following him out of the door and onto the porch. You sit down next to him on the bottom step, anxiously fidgeting with your hands.

He takes a deep breath of his own, "You can do this, Hunter," he mumbles to himself. "There's something, umm..." He pauses, trying to find the right words, "I'm not—it's just–" he sighs, burying his head in his hands. "Titan, I knew this would be hard but I thought I was more prepared than this..."

I'm not in love with you anymore. You can imagine him saying it. It's probably what he wanted to say. You turn your head away from him, quickly wiping away the few tears that managed to escape your eyes.

"Are you going to break up with me, Hunter?" You ask, sniffling. "What?" He exclaims in shock, looking terrified as he turns to look at you. "N-No! Never! Why would you think that?" He blurts out, voice laden with fear and confusion.

"You—You're crying– Oh my titan," he gasps, moving to gently wipe away your tears. "Tell me what's wrong. Please! I need to fix whatever I did."

You sniffled again. "You didn't do anything wrong... I'm just being insecure..." He frowns, "You can tell me what's bothering you, you know that, right?" His hands move to cup your face, "You've always been there for me, and I'll always be here for you."

You lean into his touch. "Nothing makes me happier than knowing that you've made more friends," you explain, "But, something's been bothering you recently, and you've been distant. Willow seems to be the only one you want to be around anymore... I'm afraid you don't love me anymore because you've fallen for her."

You gently move Hunter's hands off your face, leaning away from him. "I love you so much. If you're happier with her than I want you to be with her, it's what you deserve."

Small amounts of tears welled up in his eyes, and he quickly wiped them away. "Willow is one of my best friends, but that's all she is. I don't want her. I want you. I've only been spending so much time with her because I had to tell you something important but I was afraid that you'd... sorta... Break up with me..."

You tilted your head slightly in confusion. "Willow was helping to reassure and prepare me to tell you," he elaborated. A mix of relief and concern flooded you.

"What did you want to tell me that had you so scared?" You questioned. He took a deep breath, "You can do this, Hunter..."

"Do you know what a Grimmwalker is?" He asks, looking away. You think for a moment. "I think I read about them in a book once. They're clones that come from a whole bunch of different ingredients. Bones of who they originated from and whatnot, if I recall correctly."

He nodded slowly, "I'm a Grimmwalker. When Luz and I got trapped in Belos's mind we found out. He created me, (Y/N). I don't even know who or what I am. I don't know if I'm human, a witch, or something entirely different. I... I don't even know if you'll still love me now that you know."

With tears streaming down his face he refused to look at you. "Hunter..." You whispered. "Hey... Look at me," you said softly, gently grabbing his face and turning him to look at you. "Why would I stop loving you? You didn't choose how you came into this world. It's not your fault."

You smile warmly, "I can't stop loving you. I don't care about who or what you may or may not be, all I care about is that you're you." He blushes lightly as you proceed to gently kiss his tears away.

"You aren't mad or anything because I'm a Grimmwalker?" He hesitantly asks. You shake your head, "No. Absolutely not." He smiles, "I love you." You grin, "Love you, too."

#the owl house #toh #toh x reader #the owl house x reader #toh hunter #the owl house hunter #toh hunter x reader #the owl house hunter x reader #hollow mind spoilers #thanks to them spoilers

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gemini-magic17 · 8 months

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Entanglement Chapter Twenty

**Kit's POV

The sound of the waves crashing against the shore made me know that we were very close to Dristarya. It was early when we got there and as I set my eyes on it for the first time it was astounding. Never before have I seen a castle so huge and ancient-looking as if it was built thousands of years ago. With how bare it looked and no signs of life I really started to question if the details that Willow was given were correct. It doesn't seem like anyone has lived here for many years.

"Hey", I hear Boorman say as he comes up behind me.

"Hey", I responded back still focused on the shore in front of me.

"What's wrong", he asked.

"I don't think anyone lives here."

"Why do you say that", he questioned.

"Just look at it. The entire island looks abandoned the only thing that I see is birds flying overhead what about you", I looked at him.

"Are you sure about that from what I see it looks like someone arrived here recently", he pointed towards the shore and I furrowed my eyebrows to where he was pointing at.

"Is that a boat", I asked squinting trying to clearly make out what I was looking at.

"Well from what I can see it is", he said.

I couldn't stop looking in that direction and the closer we got I was praying that what Willow had told me was indeed true. Then out of nowhere came the she-devil herself as the ship made its way partially on the shore.

"I'm going to go look for Y/n, the captain said he wants to stay aboard the ship; you and Boorman can do what you like", she said and proceeded to leap off the boat.

"Fuck that", I told her and went after her.

"Excuse me."

"You heard me. I don't know who the fuck you think you are or who you are talking to but I am not the one you want to piss off. I know I hurt her that I practically put her through hell but you have no right to tell me the fuck to do", I stated getting into her face.

"I am her wife, not you and I will do everything I can to make things right with her even if it takes me the rest of my fucking life to do so. Don't you think for a second that you can swoop in and try to take her away because you can't", I said.

"I won't need to try if she goes willingly", she said smirking and that made my blood boil.

"You know what Amara yo-", I began but was cut off.

"After all, who could deal with the shit you put her through. Do you really think that she is going to forgive you and take you back after everything? I have known her for my entire life and when I say what you put her through she will never forgive you", she said with a hard stare, and at that I couldn't hate her more than right now. Not just because she was threatening to take Y/n away but that I knew she was right with how she would never forgive me.

"Follow if you want I don't care anymore. I now know that I have nothing to worry about when it comes to you", she said and she began to walk off.

"Don't take what she says to heart Kit she is just jealous that you have Y/n and she doesn't", Boorman said.

"That's the thing, Boorman I don't have her. I may be married to Y/n but I don't have her not where it counts", I said, and we went to catch up to Amara as we made our way to the gates.

**Ser Easton's POV

These past couple of days have been quite peaceful and I know that is unusual to say considering this island is full of dragons. Yet, there is no fighting, yelling, or political issues to worry about here. I roamed all around Dristarya making sure to know the ins and outs of this place in case of an attack or unwanted visitors.

As I made my way to the opening under the castle I was told by Y/n to be careful as she recounted what happened to her when she arrived that very day. Getting closer to my intended destination in the corner of my eye I noticed a ship approaching. I couldn't see who was aboard but as it started to get nearer I hid behind a gigantic rock that was close enough to shore to see who was present.

It wasn't until the ship got closer to the shoreline that I saw it was Kit aboard and I was shocked. Why the hell was she here? Did she know that the princess fled to Dristarya? How could she have found out about it then? Many questions raced through my mind and it wasn't until they were making their way off the boat that I carefully mad my way to the castle to avoid being seen by them.

As soon as I was out of sight I ran all the way back to the castle making sure that I got to the trail before they could. I burst open the castle doors and searched through every room to find Y/n. I couldn't find her which led me to believe she was still sleeping. I ran as fast as I could to her room and when I made it there I was terribly out of breath. I began to bang my fist on her door knowing she would awake from the noise.

**Y/n's POV

I was fast asleep in my chambers when a loud banging on my door woke me up. Along with the constant fist pounding on the door, I could hear who could only be Ser Easton yelling with urgency.

"Princess! Princess!"

I jumped out of bed and rushed to open the door where I was met with an out-of-breath Ser Easton. He was leaning on the door frame trying to catch his breath from the obvious haste he made trying to get here.

"What's wrong? Did something happen", I asked with concern believing that something happened to him.

"I was out for a walk along the beach and saw a ship coming this way", he said.

"What? What are you talking about no one comes here", I said with confusion and a hint of worry that is evident in my voice.

"That's the thing Y/n I got closer to the beach making sure that the people on board didn't see me and I recognized one of them."

"Well, who was it", I questioned with anticipation building inside me.

"Your not gonna like it", he said and I step closer to him where I looked him directly into his eyes.

"Who was it Ser Easton", I said.

"It was Kit Tanthalos Princess", he said, and when the words poured out of his mouth my heart stopped for a second.

"Oh", I responded and the anger I was harboring toward her started bubbling to the surface.

"How did she even know to come here", I asked him and made my way to get some clothes.

"I can only think of one possibility."

"Which is", I said and began to change in the bathroom while we continued our conversation.

"Willow must have told her", I stopped what I was doing when I heard him say those words.

"I don't believe he would do that. He knows how much pain I felt with what Kit put me through. I just don't believe he would sell me out like that", I said clearly in denial about the whole thing.

"It is the only way she could have known Y/n I'm sorry. Willow is the only one who knows you are here and you know I wouldn't tell anyone especially her of all people."

"I suppose you are right", I said knowing what he said was true. I finished dressing and made my way out of my chambers.

"Y/n where are you going", he asked following hot on my trail through the castle's hallways.

"You said they were coming towards the beach yes which means they will be coming up the trail soon enough", I asked.

"Yes, what is it that you intend to do", he asked and we were outside of the castle's walls.

"I am going to go give Kit and her comrades a warm welcome to Dristarya", I turned to him and said.

"How exactly are you going to do that", he asked, and just then I could feel Kylora come up behind me.

"I'll give them a dragon's welcome", I said with an upturned smile.

#kit tanthalos x reader #hazel callahan x reader #willow 2022 #kit tanthalos #ruby cruz #willow fanfic

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thewritetofreespeech · 4 days

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Halsin x Reader

words: 1.2K

rating: G

pairing: Halsin x Reader/Tav (post-epilogue)

-----------------------------------🐻-------------------------------------

When Halsin took on the duty of reforming the Shadow Lands and taking care of the refugees there, he didn’t realize how much work it would be.

He was not shy of hard work. Halsin loved it. He felt useless for the first time in centuries. However, taking care of so many children, along with helping Thaniel resort balance to the blighted nature around the land, was draining.

“Are you alright master Halsin?”

The druid turned to see one of his old charges there, Willow. A sweet girl. Shy as a rabbit from what he remembered from his time in the grove, but still brave enough to leave it when her heart felt the call to help those in need. She had arrived from the Grove a few months after his own return from meeting friends. Wanting to help. Halsin had been delighted. Selfishly hoping that perhaps some of his efforts as Archdruid had rubbed off on her.

“Yes, I’m fine Willow. And you don’t need to call me ‘master Halsin’ anymore. As I’ve mentioned, Halsin is fine.”

“Oh. Yes. Sorry. Old habits.” The girl bashfully fiddled with her hair and shuffled her feet. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright. You looked tired.”

“Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to look the part, now, would we?” Halsin teased. To which Willow bashfully stammered more, and he laughed. “Don’t worry. I appreciate the concern. I am a little tired if I’m being honest. Nothing a goodnight’s sleep won’t cure.”

“You do so much to take care of us mast—I mean, Halsin. Someone should take care of you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” He replied. Perhaps missing the true meaning of her words. “I am quite capable of taking care of myself. Most days. And, I do have someone to help take care of me.”

Since the meeting with their friends, Halsin was delighted to have [Y/N] back by his side. Their time apart had been brief for an elf, yet it felt like the longest time in his existence. He was over the moon when they agreed to come back here with him, now that things were settled; here and in the Gate. Their presence, their compassion, their desire to help this place as well, was a light that this place desperately needed still. And, he had come to realize, he did too.

Halsin said his goodnights to Willow and returned to the small home he had built, which now housed him and [Y/N]. Where once he would have spent his life in tents, or even simpler under the stars, more and more these days he was growing fond of these walls. A phase, he assumed.

"Not making any progress with her?" [Y/N] asked when he arrived at their door. Their ‘town’ was very small. The center of which you could see clearly from one end to the other from your own front door. Which was what [Y/N] was doing with their evening cup of tea.

"What?" Halsin looked confused. Then realized what they must be talking about. "Oh, Willow? She is very clever, but I fear it will take her some time before understanding the basics of her medicine and magic. Progress is a process."

[Y/N] chuckled. "No, I mean progress. You know she's into you, right?"

Halsin was for once surprised. He supposed, deep down, he knew of their attraction to him. He was usually very good at uncovering the desires of others. But with Willow he had been.... blinded to her advances. "Honestly no. I hadn't noticed."

It was [Y/N]’s turn to be surprised it seemed, as they pondered his comment and sipped their tea. “Oh. I’m surprised. I thought you would have jumped on that in a moment. Literally.”

Halsin frowned a little at [Y/N]. “I don’t ‘jump’ on anything.” True, he was open to all experiences that nature had to offer, but he thought he was a little more discerning than that. “Besides, when would I have time? Between the children, the lands, what little spare time I have is spent with you or in bed.”

“Or both.” He had to chuckle at that. When oh when would he develop the skill for not putting his foot in his mouth. Maybe in his next quarter century. “But, you know I don’t mind if you pursue something with her. You’re welcome to explore….whatever path you’d like. With whomever you’d like.”

Halsin was taken aback. Was that how he sounded when he brought this up to his lovers? “And you would really be comfortable with that?”

“You told me when we initially got together that you weren’t someone for monogamy.” They reminded him. “I didn’t assume that changed, or our relationship changed while we were apart. If you want to spend an evening with someone, I understand.”

That had all been true. When he met them, he had been very clear that monogamy wasn’t for him. He had told them that he kept to nature’s way. To roam. To find root and purchase in whatever bed he might find like the dandelion seed on the wind. So why hadn’t he done that?

At first Halsin thought that it was because he was so focused on his new cause. As he also mentioned to them when they met, he could get consumed with something and rarely come up for air. Plus, the children were his top priority. It wouldn’t be fair to have a partner when his full attention couldn’t be on them.

But, the more he thought about it in this moment, Halsin realized that he, for once, simply hadn’t been interested.

In the few moments alone, when his thoughts drifted to desire, he thought of [Y/N] and nothing else. Their face was what he thought of when he took hold of his own needs. Their sweet words. Memories of their body. Now that they were back in the flesh, his eye had wondered even less further. The thought of spending an evening with the willowy Willow didn’t disgust him, but he also didn’t feel desire for it.

Halsin suddenly realized, to his own shock, that he had almost completely shifted from the roaming bear to the wolf. Complete with his own cave, and pack, and mate. He had been…domesticated.

“I…don’t think so.” Halsin finally answered [Y/N]. “At least, not at this time. I would rather stay home with you tonight. If that’s alright?”

[Y/N] smiled at him. Then walked inside with what remained of their tea. “I didn’t come all this way to sit at home alone. Again, not that I would mind for an evening. But, you know.”

Halsin thought he did.

Though he couldn’t say he understood a lot of things going on in the moment, what he did understand is that he wanted to be with [Y/N]. To be only with them for what time they were allowed. To let himself be domesticated.

#;pen & paper (fanfiction)#baldur's gate #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #bg3 scenarios #bg3 imagine #bg3 fanfiction #baldur's gate fanfiction #halsin #halsin x tav #halsin x reader #bg3 post game #fanfiction

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lollytea · 5 months

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Ok ok insufferable hunlow headcanons... you know there are some couples who are quite private. If they're in public they'll maybe hold hands at most. If they're fighting u won't even know about it until after they've broken up or it's resolved. Well, with their close friends, Hunlow are the OPPOSITE. even in their situationship when they're trying to be subtle. Their friends know so much about their relationship against their will because they're too obsessed with each other to shut up. (1/2)

YES EXACTLY!!! I remember seeing a headcanon once that Hunter and Willow would be way more low-key about their relationship and prefer to keep their love relatively private, as opposed to Luz and Amity who are very open about it. Everybody has their own interpretation, but I personally cannot picture that at all.

I think they are as LOUD and OBNOXIOUS as any teenagers who are experiencing their first romance. I think they are so mushy even while out in public that it makes other people nauseous.

(Never forget Dana's art with Hunter happily melting in Willow's hand. I am getting heavy implications that they are not in a private setting. They are doing that gay shit in front of people. Unbelievable.)

I think it's a sweet idea that provides a sense of catharsis for both characters.

Willow is stated by Dana to be a person who tries not to brag about things. It's the reason why not a lot of people knew that she regularly worked out. Because she barely talked about it. I personally see it as a form of corrective behaviour where she irons out characteristics that she views as unlikeable, in her efforts to be more palatable to the people around her. Because, as shown in HMH, Willow does possess a boastful streak and has the petty urge to show off every now and again. I think it would be nice for her to express a bit more teenage immaturity in circumstances where its harmless for her to do so. Like at school, where she is so childishly giddy to have a special boy all to herself. I love the idea of Hunter's presence being something that influences Willow to act her age in an easy, lighthearted way.

Who cares if it's annoying? Who cares if it's untastefully braggy? Who cares if she looks blushy and sappy and ridiculous? She's calling her boyfriend a gigglebug in the middle of the goddamn hexside hallway and teasing about how she could sweep him up Princess style and he's eating it up. She's never felt so alive.

MEANWHILE! Hunter is a person who feels love so intensely and passionately while also being a hopeless chatterbox who's incapable of keeping things to himself. AND ALSO he's never gotten the opportunity to really express how deeply he loves. Belos starved him of affection and isolated him from other people. He had to hide Flapjack's existence during the stage where Flapjack was becoming the most ardently adored creature in his life. Hunter has all this love constantly pouring out of him at all times and he can barely handle it. He's bottled it up for far too long. He died and came back to life with a vengeance for living ferociously. He's not going to subdue himself anymore. He wants to be held!! He wants hugs!!! And kisses!!!! He wants someone to caress his face and stroke his hair!!!! He wants to squeeze the people he loves so tight that they leave an imprint on his flesh. Let him be loudly and annoyingly in love with Willow with no idea how to be normal about it. Let him gleefully announce "Willow brought me a bouquet of flowers!! 🥰" In the hexsquad group chat every damn day. And let nobody tell him to shut up. Please, he needs this.

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foxes-that-run · 7 months

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Coney Island

To Zane Lowe (at 36mins) Taylor talked about Coney Island being about male regret and place everyone wanted to be but now with the lights are off. In this Lyric video Taylor referenced Harry's winding wheels, a metaphor for soulmates. It is co-written with William Bowery, Joe has no credit.

Winding Wheel

The Winding Wheel is a Ryan Adams’ song. (Ryan made a rock cover album of 1989). There is a post about it here. Ryan described it as a metaphor for an “ultimate soulmate”.

13 December 2013, Harry posted 'better still be my winding wheel' on Taylor's birthday. Say don't go was written 2 weeks later.

27 February 2015, the first photos of Taylor with Calvin were posted and Harry posted an overgrown winding wheel to IG

11 January 2018, Taylor put a Ferris Wheel in the open of End Game

11 December 2020, this Lyric Video has a ferris wheel

This is very long, this song hits so many classic Haylor themes that its dense. When it is all written out like this it boggles my mind people would think it is about another muse or several.

Taylor also said on radio about Coney Island:

"Aaron Dessner sent me this track that he created with his brother Bryce, and I wrote the lyrics and the melody with William Bowery. I was coming from a place of somebody who’s been in a relationship for decades and wakes up one day & realizes that they have taken their partner for granted. It speaks to people who are trying to communicate - but they’re two ships passing in the night. They’re trying to love each other but their signals are somehow missing each other.”

She also said ships in the nights about Exile in that interview and in the lyrics of Willow.

Live performances

Coney Island has been played live once, 28 April 2023 in Atlanta. This is one day before the High Infidelity anniversary of April 29. The other song was The Other Side of the Door which has similar theme of wanting a lover back and regret for ruining a relationship.

Lyrics

[Verse 1: Taylor Swift] Break my soul in two looking for you But you're right here If I can't relate to you anymore Then who am I related to?

The opening verse does not pull punches, it ends with 'if I can't relate to who then who am I related to?' Taylor and Harry have a lot of shared history, similar careers and while no one is as big as Taylor Harry is in a small group who can relate. They have respectively sung about being each others soulmate. To loose that is devastating.

Breaking her soul looking is similar to:

Don't blame me "For you, I would cross the line / fall from grace"

Illicit affairs "And you know damn well / For you I would ruin myself / …a million little times"

Slut! "And if they call me a slut / You know it might be worth it for once"

And if this is the long haul How'd we get here so soon? Did I close my fist around something delicate? Did I shatter you?

This again refers to this concept that even apart they are each others person, so to feel they aren’t connecting is a loss

Closing her fist around something Delicate is a reference to the song, which is also about Harry, more on why here. Shattering him is a reference to Falling, to be so lonely. and possibly renegade. Shattered pieces are also in mirrorball.

[Chorus: Taylor Swift] And I'm sitting on a bench in Coney Island Wondering, where did my baby go? The fast times, the bright lights, the merry go Sorry for not making you my centerfold

The fast times, bright lights describe their life, the place to be:

I Know Places: "Lights flash and we’ll run for the fences"

Wonderland: "Flashing lights and we took a wrong turn and we fell down a rabbit hole"

New Romantics: "We’re all here, the lights and noise are blinding"

Is it Over Now: "And did you think I didn't see you? / There were flashin' lights"

Merry-go round, and lost again with no surprises, disappointments refers to the cyclical nature of their relationship.

Blank Space: "But you’ll come back each time you leave"

Style: "And when we go crashing down we come back every time"

Cardigan: "And I knew you’d come back to"me"

OOTW "We were built to fall apart / Then fall back together (back together)"

Sorry for not making me your centerfold breaks my heart, meaning sorry you were not her end game when she thought he would stay with Joe. Lets take Labyrinth as a nice sequel.

Over and over Lost again with no surprises Disappointments, close your eyes And it gets colder and colder When the sun goes down

Maroon "How the hell did we lose sight of us again? Sobbin' with your head in your hands Ain't that the way shit always ends?" The chorus ends sadly, with it getting colder and colder the longer it goes on like that.

Taylor has referred to watching sunsets with Harry, usually in happy, wistful times, but here it is sad, the sun is setting on them. Sunsets are also in:

Out Of The Woods: When you started crying, baby, I did, too, but when the sun came up I was looking at you

Wildest Dreams: "Say you’ll remember me standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe"

It’s Nice To Have A Friend: Light pink sky up on the roof, sun sinks down, no curfew

Harry and Taylor also posted Sunset photos in Cannes a year apart, which Taylor referenced in the promotion for Cruel Summer, Slut!'s music video also had a similar sky.

[Verse 2: Matt Berninger with Taylor Swift] The question pounds my head What's a lifetime of achievement If I pushed you to the edge But you were too polite to leave me?

The lifetime achievement having no meaning without this muse reflects a theme that Harry and Taylor have sung about the cost of fame in Mirrorball, your on your own kid and Sign of the Times. In Suburban Legends Taylor sings "I didn't come here to make friends We were born to be suburban legends" which to me plays into the idea that they put their careers first and the relationship suffered.

Suburban Legends "I broke my own heart 'cause you were too polite to do it"

And do you miss the rogue Who coaxed you into paradise and left you there? Will you forgive my soul When you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?

Taylor describes Harry as a rogue is a troublemaker Harry has been in IKYWT, "you were trouble", 22 "you look like bad news" Style "James Dean daydream" and Ready for it? "Knew he was a killer first time that I saw him". Harry has also described himself this way in Trouble "You know i’m trouble / I’m trouble with you"

He coaxed her into paradise and left her there in the Virgin Isles in Now that we don't talk and famously the boat.

[Chorus: Taylor Swift with Matt Berninger] 'Cause we were like the mall before the internet It was the one place to be The mischief, the gift-wrapped suburban dreams Sorry for not winning you an arcade ring

Taylor talks about the line of the mall before the internet because it was the one place to be to Zane Lowe, linked above. I love this line, they were the one place to be, the two biggest pop stars in love. I also find a parallel in this line and August, "And say, "Meet me behind the mall" August being the other person, not Harry and Taylor, they meet behind the mall which Harry and Taylor are.

Gift-wrapped suburban dreams refers to Suburban Legends, where Harry and Taylor are the idols of suburbia. "We were born to be suburban legends [...] We were born to be national treasures/ When you told me we'd get back together"

Similar to the centerfold line, not winning you an arcade ring is saying sorry for not getting back together as they had thought. Falling is Harry's perspective on this belief that Taylor would stay with someone else. This time I will choose SOTB as my sequel track. ;)

[Bridge: Taylor Swift, Matt Berninger, Both] Were you waiting at our old spot In the tree line by the gold clock Did I leave you hanging every single day? Were you standing in the hallway With a big cake, happy birthday

In the unreleased Hunger Harry indicates they may have broken up on his birthday "We could ruin a perfect night / On my birthday I made you cry". This may have been in 2015, they had been seen together in late 2014, up to 2 weeks before Harry's birthday. Then Taylor was in Nashville on his birthday and she met CH 3 weeks later.

Hallways are also in 10 songs, generally meeting in them, but here they break up. Taylor also mentioned the birthday line to Zane Lowe as the album came out just before her birthday.

Did I paint your bluest skies the darkest grey? A universe away And when I got into the accident The sight that flashed before me was your face But when I walked up to the podium I think that I forgot to say your name

The accident is a reference to the Snow mobile accident in Is it over now? and OOTW: "Remember when you hit the brakes too soon / Twenty stitches in a hospital room / When you started crying, baby, I did too / But when the sun came up, I was looking at you"

To me, I forgot to say your name at the podium is a reference to Taylors 2013 VMA speech where she said "I'd like to say the person who inspired this song, you know exactly who you are, and now I have one of these!" Harry and Taylor were both musicians, the inspired each other and as evidenced by still writing to each other 10 years later this speech diminished that.

Harry’s unreleased Talk and includes “You forgot my name / Sick and tired of me, I can feel the heat” which, no one forgets his name so I take it as referring to the podium.

#haylor #evermore #coney island

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coraniaid · 9 months

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98 + Fuffy

This one ended up being a bit longer than I was aiming for, sorry. A few years post-canon (but mostly canon compliant, except that I ignore the comics and that perhaps some people who die in Chosen or the final season of Angel are still alive here). Buffy POV.

Years later, she still has nightmares.

Bad ones: the kind that ... well, she's sat through enough college psychology classes in her life to recognize one of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. And she was an active Slayer for almost eight years, after all. She fought ancient demons and gods and monsters; she risked her life pretty much every night. She saw friends die. Died twice herself. No wonder she’s still a little messed up.

But knowing why they’re happening doesn't ever seem to help. She still wakes up in the middle of the night, and for a minute -- or five minutes, or an hour -- she's just a scared little kid again, too afraid of the things that go bump in the dark to lie down and go back to sleep. Terrified by the weight of everything the world wants her to do. By the thought of having to be the Chosen One again.

Dawn's always telling her she should talk to somebody about them. An expert, she means. A specialist.

But -- even if it wasn't ever real -- her false memory of that time in a clinic when she was younger is too strong. She doesn't want to go back there. Not ever. Or to go anywhere even a little bit like it. She doesn't want to be a freak in somebody's lab -- poked and prodded and tested and restrained. She just wants to be herself. She just wants to be Buffy.

So she still has nightmares. Sometimes she dies: drowning alone in the dark, unable to move or cry for help; tumbling from a tower in the sky; not strong enough to drag herself out of the grave before the dead soil fills her lungs and she suffocates below the ground. And sometimes she doesn't die. Sometimes the dreams are much worse than that.

The thing is, they never seem to happen when she expects. Never when it feels like they should. Significant milestones come and go without even a bad dream -- she’d slept right through the anniversary of that last, desperate fight under Sunnydale, not even waking up once -- and then other times, without warning, she'll spend a whole week unable to sleep at all, or waking up shaking and sweating every time she tries.

It all started after she decided to step back from the Slayer Organization she'd helped set up. Half a year in charge of that was enough, she'd told herself. Living out in some remote castle in Scotland, cut off from the normal world ... that wasn't who she wanted to be anymore. That wasn’t what she’d been hoping for when she said goodbye to Sunnydale. She wasn't the one and only Chosen One any more, after all. Maybe it was time to stop pretending. Maybe it was time to grow up.

So they'd held a vote on who would replace her, made it all official. And then, when it was over – and after she'd congratulated Kennedy as sincerely as she could manage -- she'd packed her things up and moved back to California. Northern California though, this time. San Francisco. SoCal still had a few too many unpleasant memories (the bits of it that weren’t literally underground these days).

Once she’d arrived, she'd settled into that normal life she'd always told herself she wanted. Went back to college. Signed up to be an English major. Bought a house, with some of the old Watcher’s Council money that GIles had passed on to her. She'd even gotten married, a couple of months ago, just a little while after graduating, however unreal that still feels. Willow's been telling her she should look into grad school, but she’s not sure whether she wants to follow in her younger sister’s footsteps quite so soon.

So, yeah, everything's been going really well.

Except that, after a few months, the nightmares had started.

That's why at 3 AM she finds herself downstairs in the kitchen, pretending to read a book, wondering if it would be a bad idea to go out for a run. This is a pretty safe neighborhood, but still, she might get lucky. Something supernatural out there might be too stupid to stay away.

If she’d thought it would help, she’d be out there already. But would it? She doesn't really know. She doesn't know what to do.

And while she’s deliberating, a creaking floorboard reminds her that she's not alone.

"Hey, B," a familiar voice says sleepily. "What's up?"

Buffy had never asked Faith to come with her when she left Scotland. Actually, she'd kind of assumed she was leaving the Slayer Organization in Faith’s more than capable hands: the girls all still loved her, after all, all idolized her in a way they'd never quite seemed to treat Buffy herself. (The same way she remembers Dawn treating her, the first few months after Faith arrived in Sunnydale, even if intellectually she knows that that’s not what really happened.) She'd assumed it would be Faith, not Kennedy, who would be replacing her as leader. Right up until the point she told Faith about her plan to go back to the States, and the other Slayer had just nodded and asked her when they were leaving and whether she’d already booked a flight. Like it wasn't even a question whether she'd be coming with her.

She'd stuck with Buffy for four years since. Not always sharing the same house, but always close by. She’d listened to her complain about her course load, or bad professors, or unfairly difficult exams, or let her rave and enthuse about analysis of poems or novels which she isn't sure Faith has ever read. It’s been good – really good, better than Buffy had expected – to have a familiar face around. To not be doing this all by herself. It’s been good for her to have Faith.

(The two of them are still going patrolling together most nights too, however retired they might be officially. She thinks that that's an itch that never really goes away for anyone. Though there weren’t many active vamps in the Bay Area even when she’d first arrived, and these days there are barely any.)

Faith’s stuck by Buffy for almost as long as anyone. And now she's here with Buffy in the middle of the night, wearing a pair of Buffy's old pajamas and a concerned look on her face, and Buffy can't even bring herself to face her.

"Glory again?" Faith guesses.

Buffy shakes her head, wordlessly. Keeps her eyes glued to the book she isn’t reading.

It's true that those are some of the worst of the recurring nightmares. Everything about that year is painful, and worse in the dreams. Dropping out of college, or being found out as a total academic fraud, as somebody who shouldn't even have been let into college in the first place. Losing her Mom, again and again, for different reasons every time. Not being able to save Dawn, or not being able to want to save Dawn. Watching her fall, or forgetting her entirely: stumbling across her broken body lying on the ground and only seeing a stranger. Thinking that she'd always been an only child and always would be. Sometimes, in those dreams, it's almost comforting when the world drifts inexorably into hell.

But those aren't the dreams she's been having lately. That's not what's keeping her from sleeping. It’s Faith. That’s who she’s been dreaming about. That’s why she can’t sleep.

"I killed you," she mumbles, putting the book down but still not quite able to make eye contact.

It all feels so real, even now. Even with Faith – the real Faith, not a dream – sitting only a couple of feet away from her, patiently waiting for her to explain.

"We were fighting, just like we ... before," she goes on. "Just before graduation. I didn't want to, but I couldn't stop. And when I ... at the end, you didn't fall. I stabbed you, and you bled to death in my arms. I killed you."

The other woman shakes her head.

"Don't know if you've noticed, but I'm tougher than I look," Faith says. "Haven't even died once, unlike some Slayers I could mention. And lucky for me, all the cool chicks dig scars."

She pulls her pajama top up slightly to demonstrate. There’s still a pale scar there, yes, even after all this time. Proof of what Buffy had done: not just in a dream, but in real life. Something she’ll never be able to undo. She reaches out, just for a second, as if she was going to touch it. To trace the faint mark she’d left across her fellow Slayer’s skin.

"Did ... does it hurt?"

It's not the first time she's asked the question. Guesses that it won't be the last.

"Sometimes," Faith admits. "A little."

She used to pretend that it didn't, Buffy remembers. But they’re more honest with each other these days. They’ve had to be.

"You shouldn't be beating yourself about this, B," Faith says carefully, sitting down next to her. "It was a long time ago, and you did what you had to do. Like you said back then, I'd have done the same if I had the chance. Hell, I did a lot worse. I think we both know that I’m the one who should be apologizing"

Buffy remembers. How powerless she’d felt, how violated, how justified she’d felt in her rage afterwards. But she’d thrown the first stone, hadn’t she? She’d crossed the invisible line first. And in truth, when she thinks about things she’s sorry for doing to Faith, the scar is only the start of it.

"It's not just the fight," Buffy admits. "It's … it’s everything about that year. I could have ... I should have done so much more for you. But I never knew how scared you were. I never realized that you were so alone. I think … I think I didn’t want to see it."

Faith frowns. Gets that look in her eyes that Buffy knows means she’s fighting down the urge to say something impulsive.

"I was scared," the other Slayer admits, slowly. "You’re right. And angry. All the time. And a little bit crazy too, I think, at least towards the end. But I don't think you could've talked me out of it. Not you, not anyone. None of it was ever your fault. I think I had to figure that stuff out on my own. Had to be honest with myself about what I felt, and what I could do about it."

"I should have tried harder," Buffy says stubbornly, not wanting to let this go. Because arguing with Faith, fighting with her – that’s always been easier, hasn’t it? That’s always been something she could do.

She’d had a whole life of her own, back then. A mom, and a sister, and a big house. She could have tried to share it with her. That would have been better, wouldn’t it? But she hadn’t wanted to share. She’d refused. That was what she’d told her Mom, the very first night Faith came for dinner. That Faith trying to spend time with her was creepy.

(That was one of the only nights that Faith had ever come for dinner, she realizes now.)

"You did try, Buffy," Faith says firmly. "You were the only one who ever did. You were the first person in my life who ever tried to look out for me, even after everything I did. I'm not ever going to forget that, and you shouldn’t either."

Part of Buffy wants to believe that. She does. And she knows her friends would all agree. Vocally, some of them. But it’s too easy though, isn’t it? Too convenient. To make excuses, to find reasons why you didn’t have to help. To make yourself seem better than you ever really were.

“You came to Sunnydale looking for me,” Buffy says, putting her hand on the table, brushing against Faith’s. “You wanted to be with me. And I tried to murder you.”

They’d never talked about it at the time, not openly. But looking back, she must have seen it, mustn’t she? How much time Faith wanted to spend with her, how little she cared about anyone or anything else. How pleased she’d been when Scott Hope dumped her, how furious she’d been when she found out about Angel later. How could Buffy not have seen what was right in front of her, unless she was trying to ignore it?

"You did what you had to do," Faith tells her again, more firmly this time. She rests her other hand on Buffy’s. Squeezes it lightly, just for a second.

Buffy sighs.

"You always say that," she says, trying not to sound like she’s complaining.

"Always will," Faith nods equably. "Because it's the truth."

Buffy shakes her head.

"God, Faith, you were just a kid. If I--"

"So were you, B,” Faith says. “We all were."

She pauses, looks a little uncomfortable.

“Look, Buffy,” she says, “I dunno if it helps at all, but when I was in prison, the shrink we had at group sessions used to tell us that an apology had to convince two people. The person you’d wronged, and the person you wanted to become. So, uh.”

Buffy listens. Tries to be patient. Willow had pulled some tricks after Sunnydale – a bit of magic, a little old-fashioned hacking – and these days nobody seemed to remember that Faith was supposed to be behind bars. But Faith remembers, she knows that, and she knows how hard it is for her to talk about that part of her life.

“He used to have us write them down,” Faith adds. “I guess there are a lot of unsent letters to you back in the big house that I forgot to take with me when I split. None of them were ever good enough anyway. We were meant to write them down, and then try to imagine how the people we were going to write to might reply. Try to put ourselves in their shoes, I mean.”

Faith fidgets a little in her chair, as though she’s having second thoughts about this speech. Or maybe because putting herself in Buffy’s shoes was a large part of why she’d ended up in prison in the first place.

“The point is … maybe that’s stupid. Maybe it was only ever a way to get some of us to shut up for a few minutes. But I thought maybe we could try it. Only, instead of you having to imagine how I’d respond, you could just listen to me. Maybe copy what I said. Say it yourself.”

Buffy nods slowly. Faith was right: it does sound a little stupid. But at the same time, she guesses it can’t hurt. She manages a weak smile. Nods her approval. Waits for Faith to tell her when to start.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you more, when we were both kids, Faith,” she says, when the other Slayer gives her the signal. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you into more of my life. I’m sorry I stabbed you.”

“I hear you, B,” Faith says seriously, brown eyes focused on her. Gestures for her to repeat it, to keep echoing her as she continues. “I get what you’re saying. And I forgive you. I know you helped me as much as you could. More than anyone else. Way more. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think I could have been happy back then unless I was the only person in your life, the way you were for me. Unless you gave up on your mom and your Watcher and all your other friends. And that wasn’t ever fair to ask of you. That wouldn’t have been healthy, for either of us.”

Faith pauses, face serious, waiting for her to finish repeating that all back to her. Leans in a little closer, like she’s sharing a secret.

“Plus,” she says, waggling her eyebrows, “You kind of looked amazing when you stabbed me. Total smokeshow.”

“Faith!” Buffy protests, feeling herself starting to blush the way she had when she was younger. “I am not repeating that.”

Faith smirks, and Buffy lets herself think. it still seems kind of stupid, even without that last part.. She’s not naive enough to think it will fix everything. But at the same time, she thinks that maybe it was useful. A little bit, anyway.

“Thank you,” she says. “That helped.”

For a minute neither of them says anything. The only sound in the house is the ticking of the clock over the kitchen table. Faith still hasn’t let go of her hand.

"Still … if I could go back and change things, I would," Buffy admits. "Back to the beginning, I mean. I wish that I--"

She doesn't finish the sentence. You don't spend years of your life in touch with Anya, on-again and off-again vengeance demon, without realizing it might not be a good idea to make open-ended world-changing wishes out loud in the middle of the night. (She thinks Anya’s mostly human these days, but it’s hard to keep track. Maybe she should write more.)

"It … uh. It hasn't been all bad, has it Buffy?" Faith asks her, suddenly sounding almost nervous. "There's some things you wouldn't change, right?"

She’s looking at one of the rings she’s wearing, Buffy sees, on the hand that’s resting on top of her own. A silver one.

Faith's always loved wearing rings. Has done ever since Buffy met her. She’s got a whole collection of them. This one is a little different though. Brand new, something Faith’s been wearing all the time for weeks now. This one Buffy helped pick out herself; a perfect match to the ring she's wearing on her own hand. It turned out Faith was a bit of a traditionalist that way.

"You wouldn't change this, would you, B?" Faith repeats softly, staring down at the ring on her left hand.

"You know I wouldn't," Buffy says firmly. "That goes without saying."

She pauses. Faith’s looking at her expectantly. Waiting for her to take the lead.

"But you want me to say it anyway, huh," Buffy realizes.

Well, she can do that. She guesses it’s her turn to be the one doing the reassuring anyway. Buffy steps up, leans in, wraps her arms around the other Slayer and kisses her softly on the forehead the way she knows she likes. Feels Faith shiver slightly under her touch, leaning into it the way she always does. Remembers suddenly just how thin those pajamas are; how little Faith is wearing underneath.

"I've made a lot of decisions in my life that I regret," Buffy says softly, "But you, Mrs. Summers, are not one of them."

Faith was a bit of an unexpected traditionalist about that as well. Buffy had been all for both of them keeping their names, or hyphenating them, sharing them, but the other Slayer had insisted. Had, finally, admitted that she just didn't like her old last name at all, that there was a reason she'd never used back in Sunnydale, why it had taken Buffy so long to even learn what it was. "Faith Summers, though,” the other woman had said quietly, "I think that's a name I could be proud of. That's someone I'd like to be."

The ceremony itself, back in June, had been a pretty small affair.

They’d only allowed themselves a handful of guests each. Willow and Kennedy; Xander and Andrew; Dawn and Amanda. Faith had spent weeks threatening to invite Angel to play the part of her best man – especially once she realized just how mortifying Buffy found the prospect – but in the end she'd opted to be merciful and just invited Gunn and Fred and Wesley up from LA, plus Robin from wherever he called home these days. Buffy has a feeling neither Angel or Spike minded missing out on this experience.

And Giles had been there too, flying out of England for the first time in almost two years. She'd been so pleased he could make it. It was a little bit like ... well. He was family, wasn’t he?

"Your mother would have been very proud of you today," he'd told her at the airport, when she’d rushed up to meet him and totally embarrassed him with a hug. "Proud of you both. As am I. But then, I hope you already knew that."

And then – because of course nothing could go smoothly for long – they'd had to reschedule the whole thing almost at the last minute; pushing everything back by a week so they could all make an emergency trip to Cleveland.

Even though she and Faith were pretty much retired now -- and even though Kennedy was too, as of last year, along with Amanda and Rona and most of the other former Sunnydale Potentials -- they still got called up for the main events. For the real apocalypses, when the Organization needed its biggest guns. This time it had been the Sisterhood of Jhe again, Buffy thinks. Trying to open another Hellmouth, almost ten years after the first attempt. Their timing had sucked, but at least she'd been able to take her frustrations out on a few big demons. She's sure Faith had been a lot more vicious than usual in her Slaying too. Between them, they hadn't really left much of anyone to interrogate afterwards. Maybe it was a good thing that that wasn’t something either of them had to worry about anymore.

(Buffy had met Kennedy's replacement as head of the Organization briefly in Cleveland, while they were being briefed before the mission. She was a nice kid called Satsu, who had been gratifyingly starstruck at meeting both of the original Slayers, but who had still kept her head enough to give them their orders just like everyone else. It was good to know that the other Slayers -- the new ones, the ones young enough not to have retired yet -- were in competent hands. And Buffy knows that they have been, all along, whether that means Kennedy or Satsu or whoever will come after her. That's part of why Buffy doesn't regret her decision to step back from that side of things. Not for a minute. Even if it has meant a few more sleepless nights. Nobody can carry that much weight for long.)

And a week after Cleveland, that was it: Faith and Buffy, married. Not because of a wish, or one of Willow’s spells gone wrong, but for real. Forever. Legally binding, recognized by the State of California and everything (although a lot of awful people seemed awfully unhappy about that). When Buffy had been younger, she could never have imagined any of this. She'd thought that being a Slayer meant that anything like this was impossible. That this was something only normal girls got to have. And she'd never thought that she’d want it quite so much: her own parents’ marriage hadn’t exactly endeared her to the institution as a whole. Even a couple of years ago, she’d never have admitted to anyone quite how happy it would make her.

And she is, Buffy realizes. Even with the odd nightmares. She’s sitting in her kitchen with the love of her life, waiting for the sun to come up and a new day to begin, and she’s never been happier. She thinks her younger self would be delighted to know that, somehow, everything had worked out okay.

Maybe she's been looking at things the wrong way all this time. It's not that the nightmares started when she moved out here. It's that the waking nightmares – the real world nightmares, the kind with teeth and names and minds of their own – had become rare enough she finally started noticing the other kind.

"Look, B, I've got to get back to bed or I won't be any use for anything at work tomorrow," Faith says, fighting back a yawn, shooting an apologetic look at the clock on the wall. “Guess I’m not as young as I used to be. Good thing I’m still wicked hot.”

Buffy nods absently. She's still not sure what she's going to do next. Whether she's heading off for that late night run, or ...

"I'll see you in the morning before I head out for work," Faith promises. "Unless, uh."

Buffy makes a decision. Stands up.

"Well," she says slowly, "I guess it wouldn't be very chivalrous of me to leave my wife alone all night, would it?"

Faith grins at her wolfishly. Just the way she had when they'd first met. Like a co-conspirator; a partner in crime. As if the two of them still had a secret that nobody else could share. And for a second, it's like no time has passed at all. Like they could still be dancing together back in the Bronze, just the two of them, or out on patrol looking for vampires in some forgotten Sunnydale cemetery that's long since been buried deep in a hole in the desert. When it seemed like high school was going to last forever. When they'd both only been able to focus on the present; on the immediate demands of the here and now. Finding the next vamp, dusting it, and moving on to the one after that.

Buffy puts her arm around Faith's waist, fingers resting carefully just below her scar, walks with her towards the stairs. Maybe they weren't so wrong, back then. Maybe this is what matters. Maybe this is all that ever did. Just the two of them, just the present moment. And when the other Slayer looks up at her, when she leans her head to rest on her shoulder, something in her eyes makes Buffy sure they're both thinking the same thing.

"There's my girl," she breathes.

#btvs #fanfiction #fuffy #buffy x faith #asks #thanks!#still working through these...

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supernovafics · 2 years

Text

𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐋𝐄

pairing: ari levinson x fem!reader

summary: in which it had been more than a year since you had last spoken to or seen ari, and with the painful way things ended between you both you were completely okay with never speaking to him again. however, it is a birthday party that finally places you both in the same vicinity and leads to one too many awkward and emotional encounters

word count: 3.9k words

warnings: angst, slight fluff, explicit language

author’s note: first time writing for ari and i’m surprised it has taken me this long lol (full folklore series masterlist here!)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

❝i think i’ve seen this film before, and i didn't like the ending. you're not my homeland anymore, so what am i defending now? you were my town. now i’m in exile, seein' you out.❞

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“I’m surprised we haven’t talked yet today.”

You weren’t too shocked to hear Ari’s voice right then, mainly because you knew that having some sort of an actual conversation with him was inevitable. And, in fact, the only thing that truly surprised you about that moment was that it hadn’t happened sooner.

You turned your gaze toward him and lifted your shoulders in a simple shrug. “I don’t know. There really isn’t anything to talk about.”

There was definitely a lot that the two of you could talk about, but you wanted to pretend that everything was completely okay between you both. Because it had been a little over a year since you two had last spoken, and now everything actually was fine between you two, for the most part. Somewhat. Barely.

Ari gave you a look that called you on your bullshit, and you hated that somehow, after all that time apart, he could still read you so easily.

When you first saw him earlier that day, it startled you. Your mind immediately traveled back to the last time you saw him, which was a moment full of angry tears and yelling that you now looked back on as the best worst thing to ever happen to you.

Following the brief look at him that caused a million different emotions to wash over you in the span of a few seconds, you continued on with the conversation you were having and pretended as if you hadn’t been affected by his presence at all.

In hindsight, you really shouldn’t have been too surprised to see him; it was mainly his family at the party, after all. However, it was rare and almost a given at that point that he would not show up to family events because he was always so busy with work. This specific event was for his niece’s seventh birthday, which had the theme of both princesses and cowboys because Willow couldn’t choose just one. Although you and Ari were no longer together, you still remained great friends with his sister, Celia, which was the reason why you had been invited to her house for the birthday party.

You had looked away from Ari so quickly that you were unsure if he had noticed you in the expansive backyard, which was full of many people and a huge bouncy house that was probably the first thing he saw. However, you could practically feel his gaze on you, and when you finally met his eyes, even though the two of you were on opposite ends of the backyard, you could feel something silently being said between you both.

Absolutely nothing was verbally said, nor was any gesture made as the pair of you simply stared at one another for a few moments. When you finally pulled your eyes away from his, out of your peripheral vision, you noticed him look away as well and begin to greet some of his family members.

For some reason, you thought that would be the extent of interaction you would have with him at the birthday party. However, now there you both were, hours later, standing next to the bouncy house and watching the last few kids, including Willow, continue to bounce their little hearts out.

“What do you want me to say?” You asked him. Finally, breaking the minor silence that had been prevailing.

He shrugged halfheartedly. “The cynical part of me was expecting an immediate “fuck you” or “I hate you.””

You let out a soft sigh and met his gaze. “I don’t hate you, Ari.”

The statement actually had some truth to it. Yes, you had been angry at him for a long time, and there was even a period where you did find yourself hating him just a little bit. But that wasn’t how things were anymore. It was all different now. You were in a better place. Happier. Much happier than what you had been a year ago.

Ultimately, Ari pulled his eyes away from yours. You were unsure if he fully believed what you had said, and you were also unsure if you should allow yourself to care about what he thought anymore.

“How have you been?” He decided to ask instead of pushing further on the previous topic.

Typically, you hated small talk, but at that moment, you felt extremely grateful for the mundanity. Even if it was with someone that you couldn’t remember the last time you spoke simple small talk with because your relationship had once been so far past that.

“I’ve been good,” You told him, keeping your response short and simple. “Really good, actually.”

Once again, Ari was quiet, and you were unsure what that meant. You wanted the conversation to be over because the underlying awkwardness of it all was becoming unbearable. But, there was also a part of you that wanted to keep going because you had no idea when you would talk to Ari again.

You were about to speak, pose another mundane question just to say something, and fill the air of silence. However, before you could, Ari finally responded to your previous words.

“I don’t know,” He ultimately told you. “I don’t know if I can believe that. There’s something about you right now that’s telling me that’s not entirely true.”

You weren’t surprised by the bluntness of Ari’s words; his honesty was a quality that you had been pretty familiar with, but that didn’t mean that his words didn’t still sting. And his words didn’t only make you feel upset, but they made you angry too. You didn’t expect to feel so affected by anything Ari would say anymore, but him acting as if he knew shit about you and your life anymore made you actually want to say “fuck you” to him. He completely lost the privilege to make comments like that when he ended things a year ago.

“How could you possibly say that?” You said, keeping your voice level and trying hard not to let the all too familiar feelings of anger cause you to yell at the man standing next to you. “You don’t know me anymore, Ari. As hard as that may be for you to believe. Things are different, and they’re better than what they used to be. Than what we used to be.”

You didn’t allow Ari any chance to respond to anything you said before you walked away, sincerely hoping that he would not follow you. The minor conversation was over, and you couldn’t help but be mad at yourself that there was a moment where you had wanted it to continue.

You didn’t glance back at him at all as you walked over to where Celia was standing by the goodie bag table, which was unsurprisingly a huge mess due to how quickly the kids had ransacked it a little while earlier.

“Need any help cleaning up?” You asked her; however, you didn’t wait for a response before you began tossing half-empty and half-eaten items that were on the table into the garbage bag that was close by.

“You’re amazing,” She said, smiling at you. Things were quiet for a few moments as you both threw stuff in the garbage. “Also, he’s an idiot.”

You looked up at her. “You heard the conversation?”

“No, but I saw the ending,” She told you, and a part of you honestly felt glad that she hadn’t heard. “And when you walked over here, I’ve never seen you look that pissed before. So, whatever he said, he’s an idiot for saying it.”

You couldn’t help but smile at Celia’s words and feel so grateful for the friendship you had with her. And you weren’t even surprised that she was immediately on your side, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened with you and Ari.

Celia knew the ins and outs of your and Ari’s relationship, especially the aftermath of it. You had initially felt hesitant about it, but she was the first person you called when things ended between you and him. From the moment Ari introduced you both, the two of you just clicked, bonding over the most random things. Therefore, it had felt almost second nature to call her, and of course, she was there for you and helped you through it all.

You finally glanced over at Ari and saw him giving a small wave to Willow, who was waving wildly at him from inside the bouncy house. “Did you know he was coming today?”

“Honestly, no,” Celia answered with a small shake of her head. “Of course, I sent him an invite because I can’t not send him one. But I didn’t even know he was back in the states until today.”

You simply nodded at her words before continuing to toss things into the trash. Stealing another glance at Ari, a small part of you couldn’t help but feel upset that the first conversation you had in over a year ended badly. However, you were quick to push that feeling away because you refused to allow yourself to care when it wasn’t your fault that it had taken that turn.

If you were being completely honest, you couldn’t wait to go home because then you knew that you wouldn’t have to see him again.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

❝ so step right out, there is no amount of crying i can do for you. all this time we always walked a very thin line. ❞

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It wasn’t long before the final guests at the party left, and the only people remaining were you, Ari, Celia, her husband Theo, and Willow, who was currently fast asleep in Ari’s arms.

”Can you put her in bed?” Celia asked him as she took a sip from her wine glass. Since the party was over, she didn’t waste a second opening up a bottle because of how stressful the day had been. You didn’t blame her, and in fact, if you didn’t have to drive home yourself, you would’ve joined her and also had a glass.

“Yeah, no problem,” Ari answered and began heading to the back door. He walked slowly so that he wouldn’t wake Willow, but that didn’t seem to work because her head quickly popped up, and her eyes opened, almost as if she had never been fully asleep in the first place.

“I want Y/N to come too. She tells the best bedtime stories,” She said with a wide smile on her sleepy face.

You hesitated for a brief moment. The backyard was cleaned up, aside from the few tables and chairs that were still scattered about, and you were ready to say your own goodbyes to Celia and Theo and then head home. However, seeing that hopeful and happy glint in Willow’s eyes, you knew that you couldn’t say no to her, even if that meant being around Ari again.

“Yes, I’ll come too,” You responded and smiled at her.

Nothing was said between you and Ari as you walked inside the house. Instead, it was Willow doing most of the talking, successfully curbing all of the awkwardness as she rambled on about how awesome her party was and yawning between every few sentences.

You didn’t really want to speak to Ari again. You were completely willing and okay with leaving the previous conversation on that sour note, and you felt somewhat at peace with doing that.

So, you knew that once Willow was in her pajamas, tucked in bed, and you told her a story that would put her to sleep, you’d be able to leave without saying anything more to Ari.

“What story do you want to hear?” You asked as you knelt down next to Willow’s twin-sized bed; Ari was on the other side.

“Can it be something new?” The young girl responded. “Ooh, and it can be about cowboys and princesses?”

You laughed a bit because with what the theme of her birthday party had been, you should’ve easily seen that coming. “Okay… Oh, I have the perfect idea.”

You didn’t really have any concrete ideas for the story, but you began telling one anyway, pulling out whatever was coming to your mind, adding it in, and making sure that it all made sense.

Ari watched intently and had a small smile on his face as he listened to you tell the story to Willow. Your voice was both animated and soft, and he saw how intrigued, and happy Willow was as you spoke. That moment made him miss you more than he already did.

As you continued on with the story, you noticed how Willow’s eyes became heavier. You kept going but made your words softer and softer until you trailed off and stopped completely once she was sleeping.

“Good thing she fell asleep there because I had no idea how that story was going to end,” You said, realizing a little too late that your joking words had been directed at Ari.

“So, that means I’ll never get to know the ending?” Ari asked, and you couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his statement. However, you stopped yourself mid-laugh because it suddenly felt wrong to joke around with him, so it sounded more like you made a weird coughing sound.

Things became quiet as you both simply observed Willow’s even breaths and how peaceful she looked, and you were pondering exactly how you should finally make your exit and head home. But, before you could even get close to saying the word “goodbye,” Ari broke the silence.

“Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. It was a really shitty comment to make.”

“It’s fine,” You told him. It didn’t really feel fine, but it felt better to say that rather than how you were really feeling, which was a mix of emotions that you couldn’t fully decipher anymore.

“Do you hate me for everything?” He asked, and before you could even think about answering his question, you both noticed Willow slightly stir in her bed.

You were quick to turn off her lamp and flick on the small bunny night light she had on her nightstand, and Ari followed suit as you quietly walked out of the room. He fully expected you to say goodbye to him and leave, but you didn’t. Instead, you walked into the bathroom that was across the hall, gesturing for him to follow you inside, which he did, and you closed the door behind you both.

You didn’t realize how small the bathroom was until the door was closed, and there was barely any room for you to take a few steps back so that you weren’t insanely close to Ari. Although this closeness made you feel slightly uncomfortable, you couldn’t allow yourself to leave just yet.

Ultimately, you didn’t answer Ari’s previous question, and instead, you asked one of your own. “Why do you keep thinking that I hate you? Do you want me to?”

“I don’t know,” He told you with a slight shrug. “At least then I would know you feel something toward me.”

“I will always feel something for you,” You said softly, deliberately avoiding his gaze and instead focusing on the shower curtain behind him. “I kinda hate that, but it’s true. And it won’t always be something bad. Right now, it isn’t something bad.”

Your honest words fell from your lips before you could fully think about them, and for a brief moment, you felt as if you had said too much. However, Ari spoke before you could further grow to regret your words.

“I’ll always feel something for you too,” He responded, voice matching the same softness as yours.

Maybe this was the vulnerable and honest conversation that you both finally needed to have with one another after a year of not speaking and leaving things on an upsetting note. Of course, this felt weird and foreign, and a part of you wanted to flee the bathroom, but it also felt relieving to let out at least a small fraction of the things that you had been harboring for a while.

“I can’t believe it took us over a year to get some type of closure with one another.”

“It’s not that surprising; we’re both stubborn as hell. And I’m also an idiot for not trying to reach out sooner,” Ari responded, and you almost smiled until you heard his next words. “I’ve missed you.”

You were quick to shake your head at him. “You can’t say that.”

“But if it’s the truth?”

“Then you’re just making things so much harder than they should be.”

A part of you missed him too, but you couldn’t allow yourself to say that. Nothing was different than what it had been a year ago. You were still you, and he was still him. The two of you already knew that things couldn’t work, so there was no point in falling back into anything, even if it felt almost too comfortable and easy to do so.

“How?” He asked, and you almost found yourself laughing at the one-worded question because of how obvious the answer should have been to him.

“Because we can’t do this anymore. Absolutely nothing has changed. You still go to different countries for months on end, and I’m still right here. At first, it was okay waiting for you to come back, but eventually, it got lonely, and I wanted more,” Your eyes were on his as you spoke, and let your final words come out quietly. “And you couldn’t give me more.”

“I’m not going back.”

You didn’t expect to be so affected by anything Ari would say anymore, but those four words hit you hard. They had been exactly what you had wanted to hear for forever. And finally hearing them inadvertently made your heartbeat speed up while simultaneously dropping into your stomach.

“What? Why?” You finally managed to ask after a short stint of unbearable silence.

“It’s time,” He stated as if it was the simplest thing in the world. “I’ve been wanting to for a few months now, and after a long mission in Morocco, I decided that would be the last one. I just got back a week ago.”

Considering how big of a bombshell his initial words had been, the follow-up “explanation” wasn’t enough for you. And then there was the fact that he was doing this now. Now, instead of a year ago when you had practically begged him to.

It got quiet again because you couldn’t find any words to say. Right then, the urge to leave the bathroom was stronger than ever, but your feet felt completely glued to the white tiled floor.

“I’m sorry,” Ari said, filling the silence.

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I know what you’re thinking.”

There were a million things circling your mind right then, so if he was able to sum all of it up in one succinct statement, you would’ve been very surprised.

“I know I should’ve done this a year ago, and I really wish I did. And I’m so, so fucking sorry that I didn’t.”

Maybe you still were an easy book to read because his words were an almost too perfect summation of what you had wanted to hear. It felt almost unfair to you that it took him over a year to finally say all of these things. They were the words that you had expected, hoped, he would say to you a day after ending things and breaking your heart, not a year after.

For some instances, the phrase “better late than never” worked perfectly, but not for this. It felt as if all of these confessions from Ari were coming way, way too late.

You had gotten to a place where you no longer felt sad or angry about how things ended between you and him. Instead, you were fully, or at least mostly, at peace with it all. And you really did not want to fall back into something that would only end with you once again hurting for months on end.

“Give me a reason, or just tell me why you’re finally doing this now, instead of then,” You said, and both you and Ari knew what the underlying question to your words were. “Why wasn’t I enough a year ago?”

“I was a selfish dumbass, and I didn’t realize how much I needed you until I didn’t have you anymore. But, I didn’t call you or say anything because I thought if I was stupid enough to let you go, then maybe I didn’t deserve to have you back,” Ari explained, and it was painful how truthful you could tell each and every one of those words were. “There wasn’t one moment that I didn’t think about you this entire year, though.”

It was a solid mix of sad and angry tears that hit you so abruptly and threatened to spill from your eyes. Sad because it hurt hearing Ari’s words, and angry because you wished you had heard them so much earlier.

“You should’ve called,” You muttered, hastily brushing away a stray tear that had rolled down your cheek. “All I wanted was for you to say something. Anything.”

“I’m sorry,” He whispered back, and you could hear his sincerity behind the simple two words.

You felt his hand reach for yours, and when he intertwined your fingers with his, you simultaneously hated and loved how much comfort you felt from having your hand in his again. He gave your hand a small squeeze before closing the minor amount of space between you both and wrapping his arms around you. Instead of tensing at his touch, you leaned into it. Your body was a traitor to how fickle and confused your mind felt at that moment. However, you completely accepted the embrace and reciprocated, burying your face in his chest and taking in his all too familiar smell that you had missed so much.

For the first time that night, the silence felt comfortable, and there was nothing more that needed to be said at that moment because it was all being conveyed nonverbally through the tight hug you two had found yourselves in.

You were unsure how long the two of you stood like that, but when you pulled away after what felt like an hour and also only a minute, you looked up at Ari.

“I should head home,” You said, and he nodded understandingly. He almost reluctantly said his final goodbyes to you; however, you began speaking again. “Do you wanna come?”

Ari couldn’t hold back his smile, and it took a lot within him to not lean in and kiss you right then; which was something that you actually wouldn’t have been completely opposed to.

With how royally he fucked things up a year ago, he was willing to take whatever you would give him and follow your lead with however you wanted to move things. And to him, your words felt like a move in a good direction, which was all he could really ask for and it was all he wanted.

“I would love to.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

❝ second, third, and hundredth chances. balancin' on breaking branches. those eyes add insult to injury. ❞

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know ur thoughts<333

#ari levinson x reader #ari levinson imagine #ari levinson x female reader #ari levinson x oc #ari levinson #chris evans fanfiction #chris evans imagine

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lopsicle · 1 year

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Ahh, it’s been like months since I’ve posted anything! I am acc working on three fics rn, I only expect one of them to be finished soon though, so I figured I should write some quick headcanons to at least put something into my blog, and I decided on The Owl House as I’m pretty fixated on it at the moment!! These may also be a bit rambly! Also

There are Major Watching and Dreaming spoilers below, you have been warned!

——-

Luz Noceda:

•Practically a 50/50 switch. She loves getting tickled, but also doesn’t mind dishing it back out. I also feel like she’d try to deny the times when she’s in a lee mood and try to focus on tickling others to keep them happy, but the others can definitely help her with that!

•Her worst spot is her ribs, no doubt, she goes mad with laughter if they’re even touched. Other bad spots are her knees and stomach.

•Her favourite kind of tickles are cheer up tickles, she thinks it’s fun to give them, and desperately needs to receive them sometimes.

•It’s easy for her to catch onto if someone wants tickles, but if they’re being difficult, she’ll still make them ask!

•Speaking of, she cannot ask for tickles in the slightest, she gets too flustered and worries about being needy!

•Even though Amity and Eda have told her it’s okay

•Her main was of asking is initiating a tickle fight but giving up half way through

•Her tickling style is really random, she can go from scribbling, to squeezing, anything to keep her lees on their toes really!

•She can also be very attentive of a Lee’s needs and even switches up teases depending on who she’s tickling!

•Also let’s talk about Titan Luz? Calamity Luz? Whatever people are calling that form of her!

•TICKLISH HOOVES! I absolutely live for ticklish hooves, I honestly think she has my favourite character design ever!

•She has fangs which is amazing for raspberries or tummy noms, she can be such a vicious ler in this form, I wish it stayed!

Amity Blight

•A switch but definitely a whole lot more lee then ler! Being the youngest she was obviously the victim of tickle attacks from the twins, but once she got better with abomination magic, she was sure to get revenge!

•Speaking of, if she’s in a lee mood and doesn’t want to ask, she will use her abominations to tickle herself, though she doesn’t have to do that much anymore because Luz always makes sure she has tickles!

•Her worst spot is by far her neck, a second being her ears! Soft, fluffy tickles work really well her, like she will scream!

•In addition, if she’s being tickled anywhere else, she’s generally prefers more sharp tickles, like nails tracing or poking against her, the kind of tickling you’d see in a tickle fight!

•Also she wins those, period, even if she’s mostly a lee, she can be an absolutely cruel ler, only stopping when her lee is completely out of breath!

•And she uses abominations to hold people down if they got too squirmy

•Also when Luz found out Amity was ticklish, the witch never had peace from that moment on, she was constantly trying to tickle her!

•She gets very flustered from baby talk and coddling in general, though that’s not to say she doesn’t like it

•Also teases about her blush will kill her on the spot

•She can be so sweet during aftercare, both a lee and a ler! If she’s a lee, she’ll be mumbling a whole lot of giggly ‘thank you’s’ and sometimes cuddling up to the ler depending on who it is, and when she’s the ler, she’ll always tell the lee that they did amazing and took a lot of tickles!

•Unless she’s being a mean ler, which she can be a lot of time! Soft ler Amity is for Luz and Luz only! And sometimes Willow, okay definitely for Willow!

•Also her laughter is either the most bubbly soft thing you’ve ever heard, or full of screaming, no inbetween

Willow Park

•Definitely more of a ler in the group, but struggles with meeting her needs when she’s in a Lee mood, she can ask just fine, but she never wants to bother anyone with asking for tickles

•That being said, she is such a sweet ler, she uses such playful teases, and generally prefers using softer tickles unless a lee asks otherwise!

•Always checks up on a lee when tickling them, and she’s so nice to them afterwards, she’ll offer lees water and always give them whatever they need after a tickle session!

• Occasionally uses her vines or plants to help her, but only if a lee is being difficult

•Her teasing style is really praise-y, calling a lee adorable and cute and generally just showering them with compliments

•Even though she can’t handle it back

•Speaking of, her armpits are her worst spot, followed by her back and feet, she’s probably the least ticklish out of the Hexsquad but that still means she’s very ticklish!

•Her laughter is fairly normal, though she does try to quiet herself down to snickering whenever she’s laughing as to try and not be annoying, though her lers normally coax her out of things like that, either through soft reassurances or just jabbing their fingers into her armpit to really get that laughter outta her

•Constantly gets into tickle fights with Gus, but when the two team up to wreck someone, it’s practically over for them

•Night tickles are the best for her, just the thought of trying to keep her giggling quiet while being tickled to not wake anyone up is too flustered for her to take!

•Also her dads constantly tickled when she was younger, I don’t make the rules

Gus Porter

•He’s pretty open about tickling, though is cautious not to ask too much as to not come across as needy

•When he thinks he’s asked too much, he’ll use illusions or just tickle the other person to provoke them into getting him back

•Has no trouble saying the tword and constantly uses it to fluster the others

•If someone is having a hard time asking someone for tickles, Gus will just pop up and ask for them, even if the other person didn’t ask

•He sees tickling as a helpful thing, to either destress or torment whoever was unlucky enough to catch him in a ler mood

•Yeah, this child is EVIL when it comes to being a ler! The lee could be in the middle of trying to actually ask for tickles and he’ll just go straight for their death spot!

•Will constantly tease the lee with ‘What’s wrong? I thought you wanted this!’ Or ‘Don’t lie, we both know you love this!’

•Would cast illusions of the lee getting wrecked in front of them casually

•The type of ler where he could just wiggle his fingers and the lee is already in anticipation

•But he’s also an absolute baby when he’s a lee

•Curling up, kicking her legs around, clinging onto the ler, he’s the cutest Lee, it makes you forget about how vicious he can be!

•Also ticklish stomach, like a death spot for him, he will scream and kick you if it’s even touches

Hunter Noceda/Deamonne

•He thinks he’s this big bad ler, but everyone knows he’s just this total lee who’d probably fluster himself with his own teases

•His ears are a melt spot, he calls it a ‘weak spot’ though, melting is too childish for him! Though he will always thank a ler who tickles him there!

•He’s the definition of a walking tickle spot, he could barely handle Flapjack nuzzling against his neck

•He didn’t even know what tickling was for most of his life until Luz tried to tickle him one time, and he was hit with the worst lee mood ever!

•He also never ever asks, he’s far too flustered for things like that, however occasionally, Luz or Darius give him a mask to use while he’s trying to ask for tickles so it’s not as flustering for him!

•Also he shut down the first time Willow tickled him, and that only encouraged her to do it even more! Like I mentioned, it’s one of her favourite ways to destress, and Hunter just likes the feeling!

•Any tease can get to him well enough, compliments and nicknames are his favourites though!

•Has this crackly laugh that’s he pretty insecure about, but Willow thinks it’s absolutely adorable!

•The squirmiest lee on the planet, this boy can’t sit still for the life of him, it’s impossible!

•He is the reason Willie has to hold lees down with vines sometimes

•When he is a ler, he can be sort of awkward with teasing, but when it comes to actual tickling, he is a menace! He’s actually made notes on the different tickles people prefer and makes sure to use them!

•The first one to lose in a tickle fight, it’s not even a competition!

——

Well, there’s my first list of headcanons for this show! I’ll be sure to make more for different characters, and maybe even expand on these because I feel it’s a little short, but I’d prefer to get some content out!

#sfw tickling community #tickle headcanons #tickle content #the owl house tickle #toh tickle #owl house tickle #lee! luz #lee luz #ler luz #ler amity #lee amity #ler willow #lee willow #lee gus #ler gus #ler hunter #lee hunter

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polyhexian · 8 months

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Okay, but the exciting Willow and jasper murder bonding episode:

They all find out what happened with vee and are properly horrified, and that night Willow goes to sneak out of the house to kill him. She has decided that this man is willing to dissect a child alive and he can't be allowed free but he can't be brought to justice of any kind either without endangering vee or the rest of them. She makes the decision that it has to be done and she won't put this on anyone else's conscience and she also doesn't want anyone to stop her. So she's sneaking out when a voice in the darkness stops her like hm, where are you off to? And shes like ACK totally caught. And she doesn't think to ask why jasper is also lingering about fully dressed at three in the morning, but she is brave and deviant and she stands up straight and tells him the truth. She's going to kill Jacob.

Jasper is like hm. Interesting. Well I suppose murder requires adult supervision, how about I tag along. And she's like ?????? But he is not stopping her so she's like uh. Okay. So they're off on their little adventure. They don't know where he lives so they go to the historical society first to track him down and all that fun stuff, and as they're doing all this theyre chatting away. They talk about hunter and jasper promises not to tell him about her crush and she gets all flustered and embarrassed. He shows her some neat plant magic tricks to like pick a lock with a vine. She misses her dads like hell and he's being A Comforting Paternal Figure and he promises her that he's sure they're fighting with everything they've got to make sure they're still there when she gets back, and that even if they don't know where she is they'll never give up hoping she makes it back. It's all very emotional!

And then of course WHAM! we find our guy. They break in and kick his butt and now he's on the ground and Willow has her staff pointed at him and a hard look in the eyes and she's like okay. Do or die moment. Its time to kill him.

Only for dear jasper to interject, like, are you sure you want to do this? And she's like I have to. And he's like you don't have to do anything. You're choosing to. And she's like but it's the right thing to do! And he says it may be the right thing to be done, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. And she hesitates and he tells her that once you kill someone, you're different. It changes you. From that moment on you have to live with the fact you have taken someone's life away, that you have been the arbiter of life and death for someone else. You decided their future held no value, that whatever they might have been, good or bad, is gone forever, because of you, and you can't ever take that back. And she's like I know. I can handle it. And he says he knows she can, but that doesn't mean she has to. It's just as hard to walk away as it is to pull the trigger. They're both decisions. And she has to decide who she wants to be, who she wants other people to know she is, what change she wants to put in her heart. Eventually he talks her down and she backs up and says she doesn't want to be a killer. She wants to see the best in people. She wants to believe people can be good, that people can change. Jacob is cowering on the floor begging for his life and she doesn't want to be the kind of person that kills someone in cold blood like that, even if he deserves it.

Jasper says she's very smart and very brave. He looks down at terrified Jacob and says he won't be a problem anymore, right? He knows that if he ever hurts anyone again that there won't be any mercy this time, right? So he's going to be good. And Jacob nods rapidly and says yup uh huh I've turned over a new leaf I am going to be soooo good and jasper says and you're also going to pack a bag, get on a train and never come back to graves field, right? And Jacob is like Yup uh huh whatever you say scary man. And Willow is like visibly relieved because The Adult Is Handling It and he tells her to go home and get back to bed before anyone notices she's gone. He will make sure Jacob leaves town. And she's like okay. Thank you. And she leaves.

And Jacob is sitting up like haha okay. Um. Thanks for that, I-- only for jasper to immediately shoves him back down with a boot to the chest like if you really thought that you could put a little girl in a cage and that I would let you live then you are more stupid than you look. Willow is a good person and she hasn't had to live in a world where she has to sacrifice her innocence for her safety or the safety of those around her. Unfortunately for you, that is not the world I have lived in. A little more blood on my hands won't change me a bit. And we just see the terrified realization on Jacobs face before we cut away with a scream. Dun dun dun.

We fade back in to the hustle and bustle of the Noceda household in the morning, Luz getting ready for school, vee making breakfast, Camila getting ready for work, all the kids laughing and yelling. Jasper walks in and yawns talking about what a good morning run that was, and Willow gives him a grateful smile before she notices like. A splatter of blood on his shoes he missed cleaning up. And you just see her frown like... Not quite sure if that means what she thinks it means, before hunter is like hey, Willow, are you okay? And she's just back to her sunny disposition like pfft! Of course! Now hand me the maple syrup dummy stop hogging it all! Jasper just ruffles vee's hair as he steps past her to grab a box of Cheerios and like. Willow knows. But she's not going to say a word. Cut away to the outside of the house and then cut to black. Ba ba BAHHHH

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gubes-sweaters · 1 year

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Fire on Fire

Summary: Spencer’s post-prison therapy session doesn’t go quite as planned. While discussing the ghosts of his past he becomes spacy, thoughts lingering on what could’ve been.

Content Warning(s): Talks of Spencer’s trauma, addiction, allusions to what cat did to spencer, brief mentions of Maeve’s death, a brief mention of what happened to the unsub from season 5 episode 12 ‘uncanny valley’ aka the living dolls episode. (I think that’s all but if there’s any more let me know) !ALSO ANYTHING THAT THE ‘THERAPIST’ SAYS IN HERE IS NOT ANY SORT OF SOUND ADVICE, IT JUST USED AS A PLOT POINT!

Word Count: 1.7k

Chapter 1: Maybe it’s all That i’ve Been Through

“Now Spencer, have you made any attempts to contact any of the people you’d like to reconcile with? At least the ones we wrote down last session,” the woman asks as she closes his patient file. She pushes her wide glasses up her nose with her nimble fingers, shifting in her seat before looking up at him.

“Yes, I um, actually got to everyone, except for one, but I don’t think I’m going to reach out to the one I scribbled off,” he says, trying not to fidget much in his seat.

Despite the relaxing room equipped with a white noise machine, dim lights, along with the comforting smell and crackling sound of a candle, Spencer found it nearly impossible to do just that. It may be because these therapist seasons were the last step before he could fully return to the BAU. His anxiousness to bury himself in his work once again was clawing at him.

He’s not used to having the watchful eye of a professional to pick apart his behavior at all times, at least while he’s in this room with her. He feels intimidated and paranoid, but those feelings aren’t as strong as they were while he was in prison. Which is the whole reason why he’s stuck in this room right now.

“Why was that?” The older woman inquired as she stares at him, her head cocks to the side as her wavy gray hair that frames her face shifts with her.

“I didn’t realize how many people there were that I wanted to connect with,” he says, looking out the window thinking of the difficult dinner he had just last night. They were the second to last on the dreaded list. As if she can hear his thoughts his therapist pipes up.

“Now I know you had a few people you wanted to speak to. There was a distant relative of a man named Tobias Hankle who was…” she trails off to let Spencer fill in the gaps.

“An unidentified suspect, an unsub. It’s what we call the people in our criminal investigations.” Spencer says.

“Right, and he was the reason for your addiction. Correct?” She asks in an attempt to keep him engaged in the conversation.

“Mhm,” is all Spencer musters up.

He looks out at the view from the therapist's office. There’s a park right across the road with large willow trees, casting shadows down at a happy family. ‘That could've been him,’ he thinks to himself. A dad playing with the older child. The kid bopping along happily in the lush grass. A woman sat at a park bench, not too far from the other two, with a baby happily gurgling on her lap, clapping along to the antics of the two in from of them. It pains him to know he has no memories of his own like that. Not from his own childhood and none from a family of his own.

“Spencer?’ The woman sitting across the mahogany coffee table asks him.

“Yes?” he responds, not even realizing she was still speaking to him.

“I asked you about the others on the list. Both of your parents, Derek Morgan, Stephen Gideon, Elle Greenaway, Mary and Joe Donovan, and one last one that’s scribbled over. Who’ve you reached out to?”

“Um, I sent Tobias Hankle’s cousin and letter, then I talked to my mom, but there’s not a lot to talk about with her. She hardly knows who I am anymore. I sent my dad an email and he sent one back, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to read it quite yet. I talked to Morgan. I actually had dinner at his house with his family and it was nice. Stephen Gideon didn’t pick up any of my calls and he didn’t email me back. Elle called me back, it was nice to hear her again,” he says before he cuts himself off. The last two, Maeve’s parents, that was the terrible dinner he had the night prior.

The memories were still so fresh and it hurt to think about for too long. The actual memories themselves were not terrible, they were content and happy, but something about seeing that Maeve came from such a happy family hurt even more. She was pure sunshine and now he knows where she got it from.

“And?” She pushes.

“I talked to my ex-girlfriend's parents last night. After everything they’re been through I didn’t think they would’ve wanted to talk to me, but they did. They welcomed me into their own home. I think hearing them talk about everything made me blame myself a lot less,” he says trying to choke back tears. The lump in his throat seemed to swell.

He thinks about the tight hug her mom gave him. How she commented about how tired he looked as she dished out food for him. It was the first really good home cooked meal he enjoyed since before prison, other than at Morgan’s house the week prior. He thought about Maeve’s dad talking about Maeve when she was younger. It made his empty heart clench, sitting there imaging Maeve sitting next to him at the table, giggling along to her fathers stories. A shiny diamond ring on her finger, that catches the light from the delicate chandelier that hung over her parents' dinner table, as she lifts a glass of wine to her lips. The thought of that never happening made Spencer’s loneliness all the more soul crushing. He longed for that feeling of domesticity.

“That was progress. We talked about you alleviating the blame that you pile on yourself. Now, I would like to know who this is on the bottom you scribbled off?” she asks, pointing her pen to the writing at the bottom of a notebook.

“I’m not too particularly keen on reaching out to her.”

“Why is that, are you afraid of rejection from this mystery person,” she inquires.

“No, everything with Cat Adams was very recent, and I know the investigation just stirred up her life. At least that’s what I heard from my team. I’m not sure if I want to do that again,” Spencer replies with a shrug of his shoulder before chewing on the inside of his lip. He knew he was partially making excuses.

“Well, this is your time to be a little selfish when it comes to your healing. We’re also supposed to be growing some more empathy for people like Tobias Hankle and Cat Adams. We’re not washing them of any wrong doings but,” is all she gets out before Spencer cuts in.

“I know, the bureau wants me to still feel bad for unsubs and in a lot of cases I do. Samantha Malcom is one that sticks out, sure she kidnapped women and basically turned them into living dolls, two of them she even accidentally killed, but she had also been physically, sexually, emotionally, and mentally abused by her father her entire childhood. Part of my heart hurts for her. There’s too many to count in all honesty. I look at them and it’s like looking in the mirror,” He says quickly.

“Spencer, I know you have a good heart, but after all you’ve been through in prison and your wrongful conviction I think it’d be best to speak with someone who knew Cat Adams and was going through similar things to her in order to not look at this all so… clinically. We can look at these peoples actions as monstrous, but we can’t paint everyone incapable of changing their lives. Abuse victims aren’t a monolith and if you think of what Cat has been through and think that her way out is justified, or any person's way out was justified, then we can’t have you working in the field with that mentality, given everything you’ve been through,” she says, trying to give him the softest, empathetic smile.

“I didn’t say that people seek vigilante justice or everyone reaches a tipping point. I never said those things were a healthy reaction either. I just,” this time it was the older woman's turn to interrupt him.

“You just poisoned men while in prison in the name of vigilante justice, or framed a man for assault, or told your unit chief Emily Prentiss that you would’ve had no problem murdering Peter Lewis a.k.a. Mr. Scratch. Spencer I know how your brain has been scrambled by being put in such a dog eat dog environment like that prison is. I just want you to exercise empathy by reaching out to her. I’m not asking you to ever justify any of Cat Adams’ behavior and I’m never going to ask you to forgive her for anything. You have a right to feel hurt, violated, and angry. I just want you to look at Cat Adams and see where her life went when she was hellbent on revenge. Then look at this family member of hers and see how she’s healed. At least I presume they’re a family member.”

“It’s her half sister. On her dad’s side.” he says shortly, feeling like a child who’s just been scolded by a parent. He knows she’s right in the effects of how it could help with healing, but a part of his heart that holds that hatred and content for Cat wants to project that onto her.

“Great, when you’re comfortable, reach out to her and simply ask to talk in a location that has brought you comfortability in your life other than your house. So you can feel a bit more relaxed and ready to open up. All of this is about doing what you can to improve your quality of life and your mental health. I care about you Spencer, I really do,” when she finishes her statement offers up another soft simple before opening his patient file backup once more.

“Alright.” he says with a gentle sigh.

“Well, that’s all for this week. Unless there’s something else you’d like to talk about. If not I’ll see you in two weeks,” she says, preparing to stand up.

When Spencer shakes his head no, they both wordlessly standup as he exits the room. He knew he already had the next appointment booked so he leaves with a polite wave and a tight lipped smile. Once he reaches his car, he takes a deep breath before cranking up his car. The warm August air causes him to shed his cardigan before pulling out his phone. He hovers over a number Penelope gave him. Dread fills his stomach once he hits the button to call her. Spencer once again looks at the happy family, now packing up their stuff as the line picks up.

“Hello?”

A/N: AHHHH! So I fell in love with writing again. Part of my burnout was caused by not wanting to pick up my series “unexpected turns” again because I didn’t plan it all out ahead of time, which was the worlds biggest mistake, but I digress because in my free time I’m going to rework that series while I put out this one. This one is already fully planned out and all of the rough drafts are done for it. So, the only thing I have left to do is polish this series, while reworking the other one. Any who I hope you enjoy the start to this series, if you do please like, comment, and reblog my work. Any engagement is much appreciated!

Taglist: @striving4averagegirl @measure-in-pain @tvandfanfic @haylaansmi @rexorangecouny @sophiario

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader #Spencer reid x fem reader #Spencer reid x fem!reader #Spencer reid fanfic #criminal minds #criminalminds #criminal minds fanfic #criminal minds fluff #criminal minds fanfiction #matthew gray gubler fanfiction #matthew gray gubler fluff #matthew gray gubler #mgg

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mask-of-anubis · 9 months

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Patricia: I don’t even want to go to dinner anymore, my parents will only spend it gushing about Piper.

Eddie: How about I come and be your hype man? You know how good I am at talking you up! Watch this:

Eddie: Hey Willow! Did you know Patricia is super cool?

Willow: No way! Can I get your autograph miss?

#house of anubis #patricia williamson #willow jenks #eddie miller #source: brooklyn 99

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hooksignal · 4 months

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My AEW Revolution 2024 Predictions

I am so excited for this ppv and I have to much energy on myself so, deal with it

Tornado Tag Match Sting's Last Match - Darby Allin & Sting (AEW Tag Team Champions) VS Golf Trainers- oh sorry- AEW EVP'S Matthew & Nicholas Jackson

Let's start with the cherry on the top, I am so ready to cry on this match, even knowing that most likely Sting will appear again on AEW but not wrestling again

But for sure, 100% that the not Young Bucks anymore will win this match - I mean if its Sting's last match will Darby defend both belts alone?? I mean he is capable of it. but come on, one last match of this amazing tag team against the non Young Bucks is the perfect finish for this era

AEW WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP - Samoa Joe (C) VS Swerve Strickland VS Hangman Adam Page

Everyone is imagining that it will Swerve versus Hangman and Samoa Joe will be like third wheeling or something like that

this one will be pretty intense both men fighting for the gold and Samoa Joe defending it

I really want Swerve to win it but I think Samoa Joe will retain it, I mean it's the first ppv that he defends it

AEW WOMEN'S WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP - "Timeless" Toni Storm (C) VS Deonna Purrazo

Besides the Zero Hour one with Kris and Willow versus Julia Hart and Skye Blue, this is the only women´s match on the ppv..........come on AEW, your women's division is so freaking powerful and you still don´t know how to properly promoted, and we are on the International Women's month, come on......

I think Deonna Purrazo will win it for sure, but if Toni retains it I am so excited to see how this feud will keep going, because this feud was so well played, I am more than seated for this match

AEW INTERNATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP - Orange Cassidy (C) VS Roderick Strong

It has to be Orange Cassidy, if it isn´t I will shave my eyebrows

Roderick Strong is being too annoying for Orange it has to be our denim and thumbs up man

AEW CONTINENTAL CROWN CHAMPIONSHIP - Eddie Kingston (C) VS Bryan Danielson

I am a bit uncertain with this one, but I think Eddie will retain it

and what an hell of a match this will be

Will Ospreay VS Konosuke Takeshita

another one that I am have no clue too who might win

but I guess Will Ospreay

TNT CHAMPIONSHIP - (Pro Pokemon Hunter) Christian Cage (C) VS Daniel Garcia

I am so excited for this one

But still for how much I would like to see Daniel with the gold, I am 100% sure that the Patriarchy will mess with this match

But its more than time for Daniel to be a champion (again)

FTR VS Jon Moxley & Claudio Castagnoli

I am also unsure about this one, just to be different

But I think Jon Moxley and Claudio Castagnoli will win it

ALL STAR 8-MAN SCRAMBLE - Dante Martin VS HOOK (FTW Champion) VS Brian Cage VS Magnus VS Chris Jericho VS Powerhouse Hobbs VS Brian Cage VS Wardlow

yes I am pretty HOOK biased but I dont think he will win this one, even tho I am an huge fan of this fighting big dudes agenda

also 2/5 of the Lads fighting each other

also 3/5 of Team Taz fighting each other

I think it will be more between Hobbs and Wardlow for sure, after yesterday's Collision

Zero Hour: Kris Statlander & Willow Nightingale VS Julia Hart (TBS Champion) & Skye Blue

I am so excited for this one!!!

I think it will be Kris and Willow, in my mind if it Julia and Skye Blue, I think Willow will possibly turn on Kris idk why

Zero Hour: 12 MAN TAG MATCH - Bang Bang Scissor Gang VS Jeff Jarrett, Jay Lethal, Satnam Singh, Private Party & Willie Mack

Come on it has to be Bang Bang Scissor Gang because they are Bang Bang Scissor Gang!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, what do you guys think?? Pls talk to me-

#aew #aew hook #730 hook #aew revolution #samoa joe #swerve strickland #hangman adam page #eddie kingston #toni storm #deonna purrazzo #kris statlander #stokely hathaway #prince nana #mogul embassy #sting #darby allin

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carpisuns · 1 year

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Huntlow Hearts Exchange gift for @amanitaaurelia ! Happy belated Valentine's Day 💕

Rating: G

Word count: 6.3k

Summary: She spun around, breaking the vines around her ankles. “Why do you still call me that? We only got to play flyer derby together one time. I’m not your captain anymore.”

Hunter blinked, magenta eyes wide. “Of course you are.”

“Why?”

“Because … because I’d follow you anywhere. Captain.”

After another failed attempt to make a portal door, Willow feels at fault. Just when she's about to break down, Hunter finds her.

when we talk like this

“Ugh, it’s no use!” Luz groaned. “We’re never gonna figure out a way to make a portal work.”

Willow frowned, watching Luz pace back and forth across the clubhouse floor. Normally, Luz was the one who was brimming with enthusiasm and ready to try new ideas. But lately she’d gotten restless. Agitated.

“We can’t give up yet! We’ll find a way,” Amity said, trying valiantly for certainty but not quite making the mark.

Luz stopped pacing. “How? Without Titan’s blood, we don’t have power. We can’t—”

“Actually,” Hunter cut in, drawing out every syllable, “there might be another way.”

Willow glanced at him. He was grinning with his tooth gap on full display, brows arched, absolutely dripping with Golden Guard confidence.

Flapjack twittered softly on his shoulder. They all looked at Hunter expectantly.

“And? Care to share with the class?” Gus put down whatever human doohickey he’d been playing with. “Dude, we’ve talked about the dramatic pause thing. I mean, I of all people appreciate the power of some good theatrics, but you really don’t need to make a whole production of it every time you have an idea. Just spit it out.”

Hunter’s grin slipped into a pout. “Fine,” he said, sweeping his forelock out of his face.

His hair had grown shockingly fast since they’d arrived. After just a few weeks, the back was long and scraggly. Willow had to wonder how he’d managed to keep it so short and neat before. At this rate, he must’ve had to pay daily visits to the castle’s barber.

He’d pulled it back in a tiny blond tuft at the back of his neck. She couldn’t decide whether it was stupid or cute. (Both, probably.)

“Okay, so, we know we need Titan’s blood to power the door,” Hunter said. “And obviously we can’t get any here. But what if we could use a substitute?”

Luz’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of substitute?”

“Well, I’ve read a lot about how the Titan’s magic powers the Boiling Isles. Every natural ecosystem, every living thing that grows on the Titan’s corpse is infused with its magic. If we can get something that’s been growing on the Isles, there might be enough Titan magic in it to power the door.”

“But how are we supposed to get something from the Isles without a door?” Vee piped up.

“That’s where the captain comes in.”

Willow blinked. “Me? How exactly am I supposed to do that?”

“You can use your plant magic to recreate a plant that’s native to the Isles!” Hunter said. “Of course, it would be best to use an actual plant from the Isles, but after centuries of native growth on the Titan, the magic should be part of the plant’s genetic structure. So if Willow is able to create a plant with her own magic that’s a close enough match to the native plant—to the point that it has the same genome—we just might have what we need.”

“Hmm,” Gus said. “Sounds like a long shot.”

“Right, but what do we have to lose by trying? Besides, if anyone can do this, it’s Willow, right?” Hunter turned to her. “What do you say, Captain? Worth a shot?”

Everyone was staring at her now. Gus, Amity, and Vee looked pretty convinced by Hunter’s presentation. Even Luz looked mildly hopeful. And Hunter was waiting patiently for her answer, no trace of doubt on his face.

“Um,” she said.

I can do this. I can do this.

Willow took a deep breath and stood, shoulders squared. “Yeah. Let’s give it a go.”

Hunter beamed at her. “Cool. Well, um, we probably want to pick a plant that we know grows close to a confirmed deposit of Titan’s blood. That way the magical connection will be stronger. Any ideas?”

“What about Eclipse Lake?” Amity suggested. “The blood is gone now, but at least we know it used to be there.”

“Good idea. Do we know what kinds of plants grow there?” Hunter asked.

Willow frowned, trying to remember back to her botany class. “Well, I know that there are starfire lilies in that area. They’re really old and pretty rare, but they’re really useful for potions, because if you pluck the petals they leak this kinda sticky blue stuff that’s supposed to amplify the effects or whatever potion you’re making.”

Luz’s head snapped up. “Like Titan’s blood.”

“Sort of.”

“That sounds perfect,” Hunter said. “Do you think you can conjure one?”

Willow bit her lip. “Um, we dissected them once in class. I think … yeah, I can do it. I just have to remember the pattern.”

“Take your time,” Hunter said.

Willow closed her eyes. In her mind, all plants had a pattern—a signature unique to every species. When she held it in her mind she could feel it in her fingers, her palms, a tingling up her arms and to her chest, the source of all her magic. It was a pull, a question, a call to bring the plant to life. Like if she asked with enough certainty, it would answer with leaves and stems and blossoms at her feet.

Tentora razor plants had a spiky pattern, sharp and angular. Gemmaranda bushes were cloudy and dreamlike. And starfire lilies—she squeezed her eyes shut tighter, remembering—they were like a shower of sparks.

“Ready,” she murmured.

She raised a finger, holding the pattern in her mind. Then, carefully, she drew a spell circle. It glowed in the air, and when it faded, an enormous lily burst through a crack in the floorboards.

“Nice work, Willow!” Gus said. “Does it look like the real thing?”

Willow inspected it. A supple black stem. Large, sharp-edged leaves. And dark blue petals, with flecks of luminescent orange scattered across the surface like glowing embers.

“Yeah,” she said. “It looks right to me.”

“Okay, so, do we just … pick it up?” Luz crouched down by the flower. “Maybe we coat the edges of the door in the blue stuff?”

“Let’s try that,” Hunter said. “Captain, wanna do the honors, since this is your handiwork?”

“Sure.”

Willow plucked a petal to release the liquid, and the lily let out a cry. Everyone jumped.

“Titan, what was that?” Gus shouted. “Willow, did that thing just scream at us?”

“Oh! Sorry. Forgot to tell you about that little side effect. They’re a little bit vain, and going bald is not exactly their favorite.” She winced as she plucked another petal, letting the liquid spill over her fingers. “Sorry, little friend! This is really important, I promise.”

When her hands were properly dripping in starfire juice, she stood and walked to the door. Everyone followed her out of the clubhouse, watching as she ran her fingers along the doorframe, staining it midnight blue.

They all stared through the open door, waiting with bated breath. The seconds ticked by. No light. No sign of magic. Not even a spark.

“Well,” Gus said finally, “I’m gonna take that as a no.”

He said it lightly, casually, like it was a joke, but Willow knew Gus well enough to recognize the disappointment in his voice. Behind her, Luz let out a weary sigh, and Willow felt her own heart sink inside her chest.

She’d gotten too used to being hailed as the best plant witch at Hexside. She’d forgotten what it felt like to fail like this. And somehow, this felt even worse than Professor Hermonculus humiliating her in class. He didn’t matter to her anymore. He was cruel and callous and he’d always been wrong about her.

No … this time, away from her dads, trapped under glass, crushing her friends’ last seed of hope—all with plant magic, the one thing she was supposed to be good at …

This time felt much worse.

A hand came to rest on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” Amity said. “We’ll figure something else out. Thanks for trying, Willow.”

She offered a small, encouraging smile. Something about it made old fire spark inside Willow’s blood. She knew Amity wasn’t like that anymore, that she wasn’t trying to be condescending, that she was just trying to be nice, but it made Willow remember things she’d rather forget. Those early days when they’d first started hanging out again, back when Amity went out of her way to compliment Willow for every small, unimpressive bit of magic. When she’d heap on encouragements every time she made a small slip-up—even when she didn’t slip up. Back when Amity still saw her as Half-a-Witch Willow, something small and weak she had to protect. Someone who wore failures on her shoulders like a cloak. Someone who couldn’t help anyone, even herself.

Willow forced a smile. “Would you guys excuse me for a minute? I’ve gotta go, um, check on the garden. I’ll be right back.”

She strode past Hunter, refusing to look him in the eye. She couldn’t bear to see whatever brand of disappointment she would find there.

The summer air was sticky, and the sun beat down on her bare shoulders. She really should go water the garden—it hadn’t rained this week—but instead she found herself venturing further into the woods. Gardening always made her feel better when she was stressed or sad, but it didn’t help with this kind of mood. Her hands had balled into bloodstained fists, shaking at her sides. She didn’t trust them to be gentle right now.

In the cover of the trees, Willow paced back and forth across undergrowth. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and it felt like her veins were stretching under her skin, magic coursing through every bloodpath in her body.

She forced herself to stop moving and close her eyes, sucking in a deep breath. She counted the seconds on her fingers, just like her dads had taught her.

Her eyes snapped open. Dad. Papa.

Where were they now?

A familiar ache seized in her chest. There was nothing she could do to help them. No way to protect them, or even know if they were okay. She couldn’t even help her friends here, couldn’t find a way back home, couldn’t do … anything.

A lump formed in her throat, and hot tears blurred her vision. She blinked them away furiously, remembering at the last second not to touch her face with her sticky fingers. She wouldn’t cry over this. She had to be strong. For Gus, and Hunter, and Amity, and Luz. For her dads. For everyone.

But she didn’t feel strong today. She felt lost, and weak, and broken, and that made her angry—angry at herself for failing again, angry at Belos for hurting people, just … angry.

A groan slipped through her teeth as she paced through the trees again. She still remembered the time when Luz and Amity had entered her mindscape and seen all the burning inside of her. She thought she was done with burning now. But sleeping embers have a way of sparking back into life. Like buried seeds that burst through shell and soil to clamor toward the sun.

Her mindscape was a forest, but Willow had always thought of herself as a garden. She had a multitude of scattered seeds inside her. Some she cultivated carefully (compassion, patience, loyalty, confidence—all the things she wanted to be). And some she ignored, hoping they would never sprout. Those seeds scared her. She didn’t want to know what they could be if they grew.

But some of them grew anyway, without her permission, for years and years, because “out of sight” never really was “out of mind.” She hated that about herself—that underneath all the layers of bud and blossom that she painstakingly grew from her own tears and sweat, bitter seeds slept beneath her soil. They woke unbidden, taking stealthy root inside her heart, creeping upward to choke out every goodness she had fought so hard to keep alive. Anger, fear, hopelessness—they were all like thorny vines that tangled in her ribs and twined around her veins, relentless weeds that crawled through every space and corner and filled her blood like poison, like—

“Captain?”

Willow flinched, pulled back to the reality of the forest around her—the creaking trunks, the fluttering leaves, the rich smell of dirt and moss. And an alarming tightness around her feet. She glanced down to see a thick knot of vines wrapped around her ankles, thorns pressed against her skin.

It had been a long time since that had happened to her.

“Captain?” Hunter asked again.

“What?” she snapped—harsher than she meant to. She kept her back to him, face burning. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the vines.

Hunter hesitated. “Um, we decided to take a break. Camila’s making something called lemon … laminate, I think? Some kind of human drink. If you want some.”

Her hands clenched into fists at her sides. The starfire juice had dried a little, but it still made her fingers stick together. She took in a slow, deep breath. “No, thanks.”

“Um, are you sure? Luz says it’s—”

“Hunter, please go.”

A pause. “Captain, are you okay?”

Finally, she broke. She spun around, breaking the vines around her ankles. “Why do you still call me that? We only got to play flyer derby together one time. I’m not your captain anymore.”

Hunter blinked, magenta eyes wide. “Of course you are.”

“Why?”

“Because … because I’d follow you anywhere. Captain.”

Hunter held her gaze. His cheeks were flushed, but he stood tall, shoulders squared, like he was ready to follow her into battle right this second. It was the stance of the Golden Guard. A proud soldier who wasn’t afraid of anything.

But Willow had seen Hunter when he was afraid. And lonely. And unsure. She’d seen him happy too—having conversations with Flapjack that she couldn’t really follow, nerding out over some weird human thing with Gus, laughing at Luz’s Principal Bump impression.

It was hard to remember sometimes that not so long ago, he’d been the leader of the Emperor’s Coven. Now, instead of a white cloak and a golden mask, he wore a brightly colored shirt with a pattern of weird squiggles and shapes. (What had Luz called it again? “Bowling alley carpet.”) He looked strangely out of place against the muted forest backdrop, but somehow, he’d always seemed to belong in this place much more than Willow ever did.

Still, he wanted to get back home, and he’d been counting on her back there. Hunter was smart. He studied a lot. He cared a lot. He offered more ideas than anyone else. And he’d seemed so hopeful about this one. And somehow that fact made her failure even worse. Of everyone there, why did it cut the deepest to know that she’d let Hunter down?

Willow sighed. “You shouldn’t follow me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t a flyer derby match. It’s—it’s real life, and it’s complicated, and it’s scary, and if we lose then …” She swallowed. “You just—you shouldn’t put so much faith in me. I don’t know what I’m doing. And I’m just gonna screw it up, like I always do. Like I just did.”

Hunter was quiet for a moment. “Is this about what happened with the door? It wasn’t your fault. We all knew it was a slim shot.”

“No—I mean, yes, but it’s more that that! I just …” Willow sank onto a mossy log. “I’m so tired, Hunter. I’m so tired of being half a witch.”

He didn’t answer for a long time, until she wondered whether he had left. But when she glanced up, he was still standing there, head bowed, with his face hidden in shadow.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“Sorry for what?”

“I’m sorry for making you feel like that. I—I shouldn’t have put so much pressure on you, especially when I knew it probably wouldn’t work, and—”

“It’s not you,” Willow said quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Neither did you,” he said. “It seems like you conjured that lily perfectly. The only reason it didn’t work was that it was never going to work. It wasn’t a proper substitute for Titan’s blood. I mean, it was just a stupid theory. You can’t blame yourself for not being able to bend the laws of magic.”

“It wasn’t a stupid theory,” Willow said. “Just an untested one.”

Hunter let out a breath. “And now we know it doesn’t work.”

“Right. Now we know.”

Hunter perched on the log beside her and stared down at his shoes (the weird rubber slip-ons with holes in them—his “clowndals,” according to Amity).

“I still think about it all the time, you know,” he said. “That day.”

His voice was such a timid, quiet thing—so unlike his usual eager chatter. His brows were drawn, shoulders sloped, eyes glued to the forest floor, his whole stance colored with remorse.

“What day?” she asked.

“The day we met. When I kidnapped you all for the Emperor’s Coven, and I thought you would be happy, but then you said … you said the same thing. That you’re just half a witch.” He squeezed his eyes shut, like even the thought itself was painful. “I felt awful. I couldn’t believe I had made you of all people feel so … small. I know what that feels like. And I promised myself then that I would never make you feel that way again.”

“You didn’t.”

He lifted his eyes to meet hers. “Then why are you saying it now?”

“Because … I know that people look up to me now. Gus. Luz. Even Amity, I think.” She glanced his way but didn’t dare to include him in the list (although, if she was honest, she was pretty sure he should be the first one—a thought that made her feel strange and proud and nervous all at once).

“And I guess sometimes I’m just scared,” she went on. “Scared that underneath everything, I’m still just Half-a-Witch Willow. That I’m just pretending I’m someone different, and everyone’s gonna figure it out. That I’m gonna fail them, because I’m not strong enough to protect them, and I was lying by promising that I could.”

She took a shaking breath, gripping her knees. “And I can’t fail. I have to be strong, so we can all get back home. So we can save our families. So we can saved the Isles.” She shook her head. “I’ve been slacking off lately. I should be training more. If I’d been training maybe I’d be stronger. And sharper. My magic would be better. Maybe I could’ve conjured up a better lily. One that actually would’ve worked like you said.”

“It was never going to work. Even with a real lily from the lake.”

“Well, we don’t know that. I probably got something wrong. Maybe if I’d—”

“Cap—Willow.”

She fell silent, eyes drawn to the shape of his profile, smattered with gold that filtered down through the leaves.

Hunter breathed in. “I’ve been in the Emperor’s Coven for as long as I can remember. With the best and brightest and strongest witches on the Boiling Isles. But until that day at Hexside, I had never met a witch a like you.”

Willow heartbeat stumbled. She wasn’t sure whether it was what he said or the fact that it was Hunter who said it.

“Your magic is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” he continued, talking faster as he went. “You’re as good as some of the coven heads—and they’ve had years more experience than you! But—but what makes you a great witch is more than just your magic. It’s, like … your”—he paused, apparently struggling for words—“your heart? I don’t know; I’ve known a lot of talented witches whose magic was impressive technically but it just lacked … something. It felt kind of empty, I guess? But yours is never like that.”

He still hadn’t looked at her, but his hands had sprung to life, like they were weaving a subtle magic of their own as he spoke to the trees around them.

“Obviously I can’t do magic,” Hunter said, “but I’ve studied about to a lot. And one thing I learned is that inner magic always has an emotional core. And the quality of the magic depends on where it comes from. And yours … yours always comes from this place of compassion and care and protection. I think that’s why it’s so strong. You’re a powerful witch not just because you’re good at magic but because you’re a good person.”

His voice was slowing down now, softening to match the murmuring trees, and his hands came to rest on knees, gripping the hem of his shorts. “You’re kind, and smart, and brave, and strong. And—and when you don’t feel brave you’re still strong. And when you don’t feel strong you’re still … you’re still … Willow.”

At last, he turned to her, holding her gaze with a look in his eyes that made something stir deep in her chest.

“You’re Willow,” he repeated, softly, almost reverently, like it meant something, like her name was an answer to the most important question. And somehow, she got it.

She opened her mouth, but no words came. Hunter groaned.

“Ugh, I don’t know how to say what I mean,” he said. “That was—sorry, that was probably stupid. I—I want to make you understand, but I just—”

“I understand.” Willow paused. “Thank you.”

A blush spread from his cheeks to his ears. “A-anytime,” he said.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The longer she watched him, the more the stirring in her chest grew stronger—like the flowers of her garden were just waking up, unfurling their petals to greet the sun.

She turned her gaze back to the trees.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier,” she said quietly. “Sometimes I just get … angry. And I have a hard time controlling it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched for a reaction. She’d just admitted something she didn’t like to admit to anyone, even herself. Those bitter seeds and thorny vines she wished that she could kill.

But Hunter didn’t even move, and when he spoke, his voice was calm. “It's okay. Everyone gets angry.”

She turned back to him. “That’s not an excuse. I shouldn’t treat my friends that way.”

“Well, maybe, sometimes, you just need to … let it out?”

She blinked. “Huh?”

“You have a lot of reasons to be angry,” Hunter said. “You cant hold it in all the time, right? So if you ever need to be angry … you can be angry at me. It’s okay.” He offered a gentle smile, a loose strand of hair lifting in the breeze.

“Hunter, I’m not mad at you.”

“No, I know! I’m just saying that you can be mad at me. If you need to. If you need somewhere to let it go. I can take it. Promise. I’ve taken worse.”

Her eyes roved over the notch in his ear, the scar on his face, the bags under his eyes—still present after weeks of rest. He had taken a lot. Too much. But he came through it all like this—still hopeful, still trusting, still so willing to place his faith in her.

Somehow she could sense the way she looked to him. He could still see them, she was sure (the weeds and bitter seeds), but that’s not what mattered to him. He saw the whole garden. He saw her.

Willow cleared her throat, ignoring the goosebumps that sprang up on her arms. “I don’t think that will work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t feel angry when I look at you. I can’t let it go, because when you show up, it’s gone.”

“Oh. Well. That’s—that’s good, I guess.” He let out a nervous chuckle. “Isn’t it?”

She smiled. “Yeah, it is. Thanks, Hunter. For helping me feel like myself again.”

He smiled back, cheeks still dusted in pink. “Cool. Happy to help.”

She couldn’t help but stare at the gap between his teeth; his sharply bent nose; his thick, dark brows that somehow didn’t match his hair at all. All these little things that by themselves might seem imperfect. But when you put them all together, it was Hunter. And Hunter was … Hunter was …

She shook her head, trying not to notice the heat in her cheeks and the fluttering in her stomach. “I think you said there was some, uh, limmy-nad? I want to try some.”

“Yeah. Um, sure.”

They both stood, and she walked quickly in the direction of the house.

“Wait!”

He grabbed her hand but dropped it, cheeks blazing, as soon as she turned around. Her fingers twitched at her sides.

“Y-yeah?” she asked.

He sucked in a breath and addressed a patch of mushrooms at their feet. “Um, I just wanted to tell you that … I know you’re kind of carrying a lot right now, and you—you don’t have to do it by yourself. I learned that, when I ran away. I thought I’d have to be on my own. But—but you and Gus—you saved me. All of you. If it weren’t for you, I’d be—I’d …”

His brow scrunched, and he shook his head.

Willow didn’t want to think about it either.

“The point is, we may not get to play flyer derby anymore, but we’re still a team, right? We’re gonna do this together. All of us.” He straightened, and suddenly that proud soldier was back, looking her squarely in the eye. “You’re not my captain because you know what you’re doing. You’re my captain because you know who you are. And if you ever forget, I’ll be here to remind you. Okay?”

It should’ve been hard to take him seriously in this outfit, with half his scraggly hair falling out of that tiny ponytail, but all his words were bleeding with sincerity. She felt them sink into her skin and bolster up her bones—make her stand a little taller, feel a little stronger. There was a song inside her ribcage and a sun behind her eyes, and she felt her garden blooming, loud and lush and wild.

“Thanks, Hunter,” she whispered.

-------

When they got back to the house, the others seemed to be in good spirits, despite their recent failure. While they talked and laughed at the kitchen table, Willow went to the sink and scrubbed her hands, watching the blue seep out until her skin was clean again.

“Captain?” Hunter appeared at her elbow, holding two glasses of yellow juice. “I brought you some, uh, lemonade.”

“Thanks.” She took one and clinked it against the edge of his. “Cheers!”

“Huh? Oh. Um, cheers.”

They both took a sip. The drink was acidic and sugary, leaving a tangy aftertaste on her tongue.

“Oh, it’s sweeter than I thought!” Hunter wrinkled his nose. “And also … sour?”

His face twisted, eyebrows scrunching, and it was such a ridiculous, over-the-top Hunter face that she had to laugh.

“Hey, don’t judge,” she teased. “You started out as kind of sour yourself when we first met.”

He flushed. “Right.”

“But don’t worry.” She raised her glass to her lips again, hiding her smile behind its rim. “I knew you’d turn out sweet.”

He blinked down at her, liked he’d been temporarily stunned, and then a smile stole across his blushing face.

“Willow, come look at this video.” Gus snickered. “This cat looks just like Hunter.”

Hunter’s head snapped toward the table, where the others were crowded around Luz’s phone. “What? No, it doesn’t.”

“How would you know?” Gus said. “You haven’t even seen it.”

“Let me see.” Hunter lunged toward the table, nearly spilling his drink, while Luz held the phone out of his reach. Willow lingered back for just a minute, laughing softly while she watched.

(As it turned out, the cat did look a lot like Hunter.)

(It was pretty cute, honestly.)

----

That night, Willow plopped her new scrapbook on the kitchen table, opening to the first page. Camila had given it to her the other day, to fill with all the photos she’d been taking. She sorted through the pile, filing away each memory.

There were … a lot more photos of Hunter than she remembered.

“Hey.”

Willow jumped, swiveling around to find Hunter himself, clutching a potted flower in his hands.

“Hunter! Um, hi!” She quickly swept the photos into a stack, realizing too late that the one one top was a potentially incriminating picture of him attempting to twirl spaghetti on his fork.

“I, uh—I brought you this.” He held up the flower—the starfire lily, newly planted in a terra cotta pot. “I noticed that its petals had regrown, and I thought you should keep it.”

She grinned. “You brought me a flower? How sweet. Now I’m embarrassed. I should’ve brought one for you too.”

His face reddened. “No! I’m, um—technically this is already yours, so I’m just … returning it to you. I just didn’t think the middle of the clubhouse floor was the safest spot for it. But I knew you’d take good care of it.”

Willow stared. “You … you were worried about the lily?”

“Um, well, I just know that you like plants a lot. I mean, of course—you’re a plant witch. Like, the best there is. And, I don’t know, I just thought you’d probably want to look after it. Since its petals came back, you know?”

“That’s—yeah. That’s really thoughtful of you. Thanks.” She took the pot from him and placed it on the table.

“I hope I didn’t hurt it,” he said. “I tried to be extra careful when I was digging it up. Like you taught me in the garden the other day. I didn’t want to make it cry again.”

She smiled. “You did a good job. It seems pretty happy to me.”

“Um, good.” He smiled back nervously. “I’m glad.”

Willow ran a thumb along the smooth edge of a newly born petal. “I totally forgot that their petals regrow. Pretty cool, huh?”

Hunter nodded. “When I saw that they’d come back, I remembered that I’ve read about these flowers before. I used to do a lot of research about potions and stuff, to help my—” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Anyway, when the petals regrow, the starfire juice replenishes too. And its stronger every time. The lily may be vain, but it’s really resilient. It’ll regrow every time it’s plucked. It’s very coveted by potioneers, because if you have one it can keep producing starfire juice for years.”

“Wow,” Willow said. “I don’t remember learning about that in class. That’s pretty amazing.”

“Yeah! Apparently they’re also very difficult to conjure, which is partially why they’re in such high demand. Not many witches have the magical skill to summon one that actually has the same properties as a real one. Except for you, I guess.”

He flashed her a smile, and something fluttered in her stomach.

“We don’t know if this one even works with potions. Maybe it just looks pretty.” She turned back to the flower to hide her face. “And you are very pretty! Your petals grew back so nicely,” she cooed down at it.

“Well, you managed to make one that has starfire juice,” he pointed out. “And that regrows its petals.”

“That doesn’t mean it works in potions.” She glanced up from the lily with a smile. “We’d have to test it to be sure, wouldn’t we? Just like your theory.”

“I don’t have to test it to know you did it right. You—you’re an amazing witch, Willow.” He rubbed the back of his neck, ears pink, and Willow felt heat rise to her cheeks.

“I think—I think you’re kind of like a starfire lily,” he said in a rush. “’Cause hard things have happened to you, but you always come back stronger. And you make all of us stronger too. Amplify our effects … or whatever. ’Cause you’re the captain, and you make the team better.”

Willow’s face felt like it was glowing now, and so did her chest. Hunter finally lifted his eyes to meet hers, and she blinked back at him, at a loss for what to say.

You make me feel stronger too, Hunter.

“Thanks,” she said at last. “That means a lot.”

He fingers found the hem of his oversized pajama shirt, fiddling with the fabric. “Also, um, just so you know … it’s okay to cry when your petals are plucked. It’s—it’s not vain. It sucks. Even if you come back stronger, it’s okay to feel hurt first. Or—or angry. Or lost.”

She stared at him, heart pounding, feeling, once again, that he was seeing straight through her—to the vines and trees and blossoms, to the weeds and bitter seeds. He saw it, she knew. He saw it all.

“Sorry!” he said quickly, waving his hands in front of his face. “Was that—? That was weird. Or, like, I didn’t mean—I was just—”

“No,” she said, “it was really nice.”

Without thinking, she stepped closer, and she could almost hear his heartbeat pick up (or maybe that was just an echo of her own).

Hunter cleared his throat. “Well, Gus and I were gonna watch a movie. If you want to join.”

“I was gonna work on this.” She gestured to the scrapbook. “Maybe next time?”

“Sure. Of course.” For a second he just stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides, like he wasn’t sure what to do next. Then he blinked into motion with a jerk. “Uh, bye!”

He was halfway to the stairs when she stopped him. “Hunter.”

He turned back. “Yeah?”

She let the pattern fill her mind—blinding beams and and blooming spots and gentle dappled gold.

Her spell circle glowed in the air, and a flower fell into Hunter’s hands.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“A thank-you,” she said. “For the lily. And for helping me today.”

“Oh.” He stared down at it, gripping the stem in his fist. “What kind is it?”

“It’s called a sunflower. It’s from the human realm. It, um, kind of reminds me of you.”

He looked up. “It does? Why?”

Her fingers were tingling, and she wasn’t sure if it was residual magic or something else.

“I don’t know. It’s bright. And happy.” She paused. “It makes me smile.”

He blinked, lips parting to give her a glimpse of the gap between his teeth. Then he smiled softly, bright and warm to match the flower in his hands. “Me too.”

“Hunter!” Gus called up the stairs. “Are you coming? The movie’s getting cold, dude.”

“That doesn’t—what does that even mean?” Hunter called back.

“It means get your butt down here or I’m gonna find out what happened to Shrek and Fiona without you!”

“No—wait! I’ll be right there!” Hunter stumbled toward the stairs. “Um, good night, Captain! Thanks for the sunflower.”

“Night, Hunter.”

Willow sank onto a chair at the table, listening to the sounds of the movie drifting up from the basement. She pulled the scrapbook toward her and ran a hand over its smooth, empty pages.

They’d been busy in the human realm for these last few weeks. When they weren’t working on the portal door, they were exploring their new world, trying to make memories to distract them from home. Already Willow had dozens of photos, enough to fill half the scrapbook, probably. But where to start?

She picked up the photo on the top of the stack—the one of Hunter gracelessly eating a bowl of spaghetti. She laughed softly. Maybe not this one (but it was definitely a keeper).

The next one was a group shot, all of them standing in front of the newly refurbished clubhouse. Hunter stood at her side, with Flapjack on his shoulder, wearing a smile so bright that it rivaled the sun.

Carefully, Willow taped the photo into the scrapbook. Not too shabby! she wrote underneath.

She flipped through the book of stickers Camila had gotten her, and one of them caught her eye. A smiling sunflower, lifting a leaf like it was waving hello. She peeled it off and stuck it in the scrapbook, right next to Hunter.

Beside her, a leftover drop of starfire juice was clinging to the lily’s stem. Willow wiped it up with a finger and then pressed it to the scrapbook next to the sticker, stamping the paper with a blue fingerprint.

“To remember today,” she told the lily. “You have to remember the hard things too. Because the hard stuff leads to the good stuff, you know?”

She stared at the tip of her finger, stained once again with blue. “It was nice, to talk with him like that,” she whispered. “I hope we get to talk like that again.”

When they got home—when all of this was over—she hoped they’d get to play flyer derby. She hoped she’d get to be the captain again. (It was nice that at least to Hunter, she still was.)

One day, she decided, they’d leave practice together and have a long talk, like they did today, and she’d repay the favor and tell him everything that made him wonderful.

But for now, it was nice to talk like that here, with sap-sticky hands and thorn-bitten ankles and a heartbeat that wouldn’t stand still. It would be nice like that, she thought, no matter where they were.

Willow glued another photo to the page.

One day they would all make it home. But until then, she was here with a scrapbook, so she would fill it up with long talks, and lemonade, and starfire lilies.

#huntlow #toh #the owl house #willow park #hunter toh #hunter noceda #toh fic #my fics #mine

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