#and I’m pretty sure the replies were earnestly arguing

[boysnberriespie]

Came to the conclusion that Goncharov jokes on TikTok stress me out because looking someone in the eyes as they just lie is way too stressful 💀

[idontplaytrack]

MY CHARMED ONE [4]

Capri Donahue x Harper Sibling!fem reader

Warnings: mentions & descriptions of sickness, coarse language and fluff

In which reader wakes up sick and Capri takes care of her. In other words, this story is done with smut for a minute💀

“Hey, why didn’t you wake me up? Did I sleep through the alarm? I was supposed to go to the library to study.”

“Studying can wait. You’d better stay home.” Capri told you, pouring hot water into two mugs.

“I-” You’d barely opened your mouth to speak when one look out the window caused some squeezing pain in your head and your eyes screwed shut, “Fine.”

“I thought you felt a little warm to the touch.” Capri gestured for you to walk over to the kitchen to get your mug. “I don’t know why I’m sick, but I do know why I have a headache.”

“Of course, you’ve been sobbing all night last night.” Capri sighed, “I literally went to spoon you and you were sniffling.”

“Shit!”

Capri laughs, “It’s okay, I’ll take care of you.”

“We’ve gone on one date.” You glanced at her as you took a swig of the orange rooibos tea.

“And what is your point?” She squinted at you, “We’ve reached a whole other level of our relationship already.”

“Capri, I can’t argue with you right now.”

“I’m not asking you to argue with me, what I’m trying to say is that I don’t care how many dates we’ve been on. I care about you, you’re my girlfriend. End of discussion.”

You nearly dropped your mug, eyes looking at her like she had three heads all of a sudden. “Why so surprised?”

“I just- never mind.”

“I mean it.” Capri answered earnestly. Your response was a silent nod as you carried on drinking your tea. “I’ll go get the thermometer to make sure your temperature isn’t too high.”

“I don’t care- I already feel like shit.”

“I care.” Capri glares at you, offended as she got up to retrieve the thermometer.

You avoided her statements, asking, “Do you ever cry so much you feel like spewing your guts afterwards? Or is that just me?” As she was walking back from the bathroom, she stops in her tracks, “What?”

“I dunno. The headache seems to be making me nauseous.”

“Oh, that. Yeah, I’ve been through that before.” She scoffs, sticking the thermometer under your tongue.

The doorbell rings, she goes to answer it. “Keep still, and stay put.” She instructed, “Oh- Darby.”

Your body tenses up.

“She’s having a little fever.” Capri says.

“Oh, crap.” You heard your sister at the door. Your head whipped around. “Don’t move or the reading will be off.” Capri huffs. Defeated, you did as she said.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I wanted to talk to her, and apologise. But it seems now’s not a good time.”

“You’re here already- just come in.” Capri told her decisively. The thermometer beeps and you took it out.

“Alright then.” Darby shrugs, walking into the house. Capri quickly shut the door and took the thermometer from you. “102.” She reads off the tiny screen. “What?” Darby exclaimed. “It’s not a big deal.” You got up to pour another mugful of hot water.

“I don’t know how you got sick and you’re acting like you have seasonal allergies instead of a 102 fever?”

“It’s because of me. She’s been very stressed out lately and it’s just not good- I’m sorry.” Darby spoke up.

“Just don’t ever tell me how I should be acting about Mom’s passing. We both have our own way of coping- you may not realise it but the way you respond to how I would talk about it, about her…actually freaking hurts, Darby. I know you love me, but it just hasn’t seem like it in years.”

“I really am sorry, and I hear you. I’ll stop acting that way - I’ll be mindful of it.”

“Okay, take medication.” Capri hands a pill to you, along with a glass of water.

“You’re gonna half to split that in half.” Darby says.

“Alright.” Capri shrugs, making use of her telekinesis to put the pill down and get a knife all the way from the kitchen.

“Dude, are you serious? How well can you even control your power?!” Darby asks, alarmed.

“Pretty well. Besides, nothing’s in the way.” Capri replies, grabbing ahold of the knife and then cutting the pill into two for you. Darby looks at you, worried. You just shrugged.

“What’d you bring?”

“Brownies from the bakery we like.” Darby informs you. “But you probably shouldn’t because chocolate is ‘heaty’ and all.”

“Who’s gonna know if I do eat some? Dad’s not here.” You laugh, grabbing a piece from the box, handing it to Capri first before grabbing one for yourself.

“Just eat.” Capri scoffs, “No one’s gonna tell on you. Darby, truce?”

“Did you forget what I told you that night when you saved her from the car? We’re starting fresh.”

“Just needed to be sure. That night was a bit of a mess.” Capri admits, “Your Dad still doesn’t know that-”

“If he doesn’t ask, we’re not telling. It’ll spare us a lot of nagging and restrictions because he’d be scared to let us go out alone.” Darby says.

“Right.” You stifle a laugh.

“Also, if you need to throw up.” Capri began, you all see a plastic trash can levitating, “Here’s the trash can.”

“I’m uh, not gonna stay long because I have date, but you two enjoy your little day in. y/n, I will see you whenever you get back home.”

“Bye, Harper.” Capri smiled slightly.

“See ya, Darby.”

Darby smiled in return, “Feel better soon, y/n. Rest up.” Well, Darby leaves. So it was just you and Capri alone, again.

“Can I get some cuddles, Capri?”

“Of course you can.” She smiled at you affectionately, which ordinarily would freak you the hell out, but you being sick and sleepy, happy sunk into her arms without much thought. “Are you cold?”

“A little.”

The room instantly became a bit warmer, thanks to Capri and her newfound power. She didn’t even have to get up to grab things anymore- well, at home at least.

“Thanks.”

“I swear, you, your sister and your Dad are the only ones not afraid of me.” She laughs at the memory.

“I am definitely not afraid of you. But then the thought of you- you being my girlfriend? I shock myself sometimes.”

“Baby.” Capri said back, “I’m lucky to have you. You’re quickly making me soft, but I’m so fucking lucky to have you in my life the way that I do now.”

[duckymcdoorknob]

can i get a box with a bow, milk chocolate (Gon and Killua), shaped like a square, and filled with half vanilla creme and half strawberry jam?

Yes you may!!

On another episode of the two best friends who love each other but don’t realize it:

I hope you like this!!

CW BELOW THE CUT: None!

𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑜𝑥 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝑟𝑢𝑙𝑦❤︎

The day that the two hunters finally had a day of rest was unheard of. Gon and Killua were always busy with some sort of training, or fighting in the arena, so they never really had any leisure time. On the fated day that they did receive off, the skies yawned cerulean and were decorated with puffy white clouds.

“Killua!” Gon chirped, face squished on their hotel room window, “Let’s go watch the clouds!”

“What? What’s the point of that?” The white-haired boy asked with a furrowed brow.

“There isn’t really, but you can look for shapes and pictures in the clouds.”

The ex-assassin’s interest was piqued, to say the least. He nodded with a smile, “Sure. Let’s go.”

The two boys grabbed some snacks, a few bottles of water, and a blanket. Then, they were out the door in only socks, no shoes desired.

The two hunters settled down in the soft grass of the hotel’s back lawn. While Gon set all of their snacks and drinks in a protected area, Killua wasted no time placing the blanket down and settling upon it.

“Hey! Leave some room for me, the grass is so itchy!” The green-haired boy whined.

“Fine. Let’s share the blanket.” Killua suggested, scooting over and placing his arms behind his head. The white-haired Hunter watched the slow-moving clouds whizz past him dreamily.

Gon settled down next to Killua, watching his best friend earnestly enjoy the activity. “So. What do you see so far?”

“I’ve seen a few things. Cats, baskets, a person walking a dog. Nothing too special.” The boy replied with a yawn.

“Falling asleep already? We just got out here!” Gon teased, sitting up and hugging one of his knees.

“Can you blame me? It’s nice out here, and there’s barely any heat today.” Killua grumbled, placing his head against his friend’s upright knee.

“Killua-“ Gon argued. Knowing he was defeated, the boy sighed. “Here.”

The green-haired Hunter moved his leg down slowly and placed his best friend’s head in his lap. “Any better? That looked pretty uncomfortable.”

“You forget I’m used to uncomfortable.” The ex-assassin muttered in reply.

“Well, you won’t be uncomfortable anymore, not with me around.” Gon said gently, slowly running his fingers through his friend’s fluffy and soft hair.

“Mmmm. I’ll definitely fall asleep if you keep doing that.” Killua said with another yawn, features falling limp.

Gon looked upon his friend in fondness, cheeks glowing a lovely crimson in admiration. He was thankful. A moment like this, on a day like this. Nothing could quite possibly top the bliss that he felt on this day-

“Are you blushing?”

“Wh-“ the white-haired boy’s soft voice caught his attention.

“Your face is awfully red, and there’s no heat out here.” Killua teased with heavy-lidded eyes.

“I think you’re just sleepy.” Gon replied, gently massaging his friend’s temples.

As Killua slowly drifted off into a blissful sleep, Gon was faced with a harsh, but not surprising, realization:

He was in love with his best friend. There was no doubts in his mind.

❣︎𝑉𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒’𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑜𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝐸𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡❣︎

—————♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎✞♡︎—————

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 64: Shower

There were a lot of benefits to living in a muggle flat in London.

Draco never had to worry about being recognized, it was delightfully noisy (always an added bonus when you woke up from a nightmare, it was very grounding), and one of his neighbors was always leaving him baked goods just outside his door.

But there were definite downsides as well. Mostly that when things broke (which pretty much seemed to be always) he couldn't use magic to fix it and had to wait for the muggle repair man.

"You're sure you can't get here any sooner than Friday to fix the shower?" he asked the maintenance man over the muggle mobile he'd purchased shortly before moving in.

"I'll get there as soon as I can but it's Friday at the earliest," the man replied, "right now I have a busted toilet, a broken garbage disposal, a kitchen light repair, a cabinet door replacement, a window that won't open, a door knob that the lock sticks on, and an ac unit that is pumping in hot air."

Draco resisted the urge to tell him to hire some help and sighed, "Right. Thank you."

The man grunted in response and hung up.

After a moment of contemplating his options, he gathered up his bath supplies and marched down the hall. When he'd moved in a girl named Amelia had told him if he ever needed anything just to come knock on her door. She'd said that she and her boyfriend would be happy to help, and she had even mentioned a shower breaking specifically.

Steeling himself he knocked, "Amelia?" he called. "It's Thomas from 116," he added, he'd almost gotten used to calling himself that. "I'm so sorry to bother you, but my shower is broken and-"

"Just a minute!" a distinctly male voice called back.

And he waited, feeling more embarrassed since couldn't recall having ever met Amelia's boyfriend. He hoped that he wouldn't think that Draco was a creep.

"Sorry," the man called, and Draco heard the locks being slid from their places, "Amelia and I broke up but I'd be glad to help wi-"

The door opened and Draco felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. "Potter?" he spluttered

(Read more below the cut)

"Draco Malfoy, what the actual fuck?"

"What are you doing here?" Draco hissed.

Potter drew back like Draco had slapped him, "What am I doing here? What are you doing here?"

Before Draco could respond, Delores from the room between their rooms emerged and Potter grabbed him by the front of his tshirt and dragged him inside of his flat.

Draco barely had a moment to notice that his flat was surprisingly cozy before Potter was standing in front of him once more, arms crossed over his chest. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here!" Draco exclaimed. "I've lived here for six months!"

"Well I have lived here for almost a year!" Potter replied. "How did you find this place?"

"Do you know how hard it is to find a flat to rent in London?" Draco asked.

Potter paused, "Actually, yes," he replied. "And this place is enough of a shit-hole that there is a rotating tenant-base."

"Where's Amelia?"

Potter's brow furrowed, "How do you know Amelia?"

"I don't," he said with a shrug, "I met her when I was moving in and she told me if my shower ever broke I should just come knock on her door."

Potter sighed, "Damn."

"What?" Draco asked, feeling like he'd missed something.

"Oh nothing," Potter said, waving him off, "I'd just really been hoping that the guy I caught her cheating on me with was the only one."

Draco spluttered, "I was not romantically involved with your girlfriend."

"No," Potter replied, "No, I know. Just we worked opposite shifts so she was home in the day and I was home at night, and," he shrugged, "Well, you know how it goes."

Draco pinched his arm, he must be dreaming.

Potter turned and wandered toward his kitchen and Draco couldn't help but wonder if he was meant to follow him. "Tea?" Potter called over his shoulder.

And really, Draco had just meant to beg to use the shower but that little part of him that desperately loved gossip decided tea was a better plan. "Please."

The other man sent a smile at him over his shoulder, dimple popping up and Merlin, when had Potter gotten this attractive?

"So," he said as he put the kettle on, "What do you do?"

"I'm going to a muggle university, actually," Draco replied as he found a seat on a stool at the island, "studying to be a solicitor."

"Huh," Potter said, pushing his glasses up higher on his nose, "That suits you."

"I don't know what that's supposed to mean," he said, brow furrowed.

"Oh, nothing," Potter assured, "Just you're clever, good at arguing, and good at finding loop holes, I imagine."

At the earnest look on Potter's face, he decided not to take offense. "What is it that you do?"

Potter smiled at him, "I work at an animal shelter."

Draco blinked, he'd never expected that answer.

"I know," Potter laughed, "It's not what anyone expected but it makes me happy and it feels like good work."

The kettle whistled and Potter turned around to fetch down a couple of mugs and make them tea. "How long have you been living out of the wizarding world?"

"A little over a year," he replied. "It was just too difficult," Draco said, "I was mobbed everywhere I went, sent death threats," he added, "Not that I don't deserve them-"

"You don't," Potter said sharply, spinning around to face him. "Godric, Draco, you were just a kid. We all were."

He swallowed and looked down at the island, "Be that as it may," he said carefully, "I think it's easier for people." He made a vague gesture, "Not to have to see me."

"The pressure in the wizarding community is unreal," Potter said, setting a cup of tea along with the sugar bowl in front of Draco before he made his way to his refrigerator, "You still don't take cream, do you?"

"No," he replied with a little smile, pleased that he wasn't the only one to still remember oddities about the other.

"Why don't we go into the living room?" he suggested. "My furniture in there is much more comfortable."

Draco followed along behind him and settled onto what appeared to be the least squishy piece of furniture, a beige chair. Potter seemed to have no such qualms and sunk into a cozy rocking chair. Draco cleared his throat, "You've been gone for how long now?" he asked.

"Almost two and a half years," Potter replied before taking a sip of tea.

"Do you miss it?" Draco asked.

Shrugging one shoulder he answered, "Sometimes. I still go to the Weasley's most Sundays and I go for birthday parties and holidays. It's enough." He took another sip of tea, his eyes glued to Draco in that piercing way of his and it felt like it had been ages since someone had actually seen him. "What about you? Do you miss it?"

"At the beginning," he confessed, "But less now."

Potter hummed, seemingly waiting for Draco to continue

"Did you go to-"

Potter waved him off, "My life is exceptionally boring, I assure you. Tell me about you," he said. "Tell me about school, about what you want to do with your degree, tell me about acclimating to Muggle life," he chuckled, "tell me everything."

And so Draco did. He talked about his classes, talked about how difficult certain parts of living like a muggle were, talked about doing work with children, talked about doing a double major in law and in psychology. Draco talked, and talked, and talked while Harry listened; and he realized it had been a really long time since someone had done this with him.

He was in the middle of a story about how he hadn't understood how pens worked when Harry's mobile rang. With a wince he pulled it out of his pocket, "Sorry," he said, silencing it only for it to start ringing again a minute later. He huffed, "Sorry," he repeated. "It's Hermione and Ron. They'll just keep calling if I don't answer, give me just a minute."

"Of course," he said.

Harry gave him a little smile, "I'll get some more tea," he added before picking up.

Over the tiny little speaker Draco could hear cheering and hollering before a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday was sung and Draco felt the blood drain from his face. He pulled out his own mobile and clicked the wake button. July 31

He felt like such an arse, here he was blabbering away at the other man when Potter probably had a million things he'd rather be doing.

"Thank you," Potter said over the phone from the kitchen. "I'm a bit busy just now," he broke off to listen to some chatter. "Yes. I'll be by on Sunday to celebrate." Another pause, "Yes. Love you all, too. Kisses to Rosie and Teddy."

When he returned he said, "Sorry, you were saying about the pens?"

"I feel like an absolute clot," Draco said.

"What? Why?"

"It's your birthday!" he exclaimed, "and here I've sat for the past two hours talking your ear off about..." he trailed off, "Complete nonsense!"

"Oh, it's fine," he said, waving Draco off, "This is way better than the way I was planning to spend my birthday."

"Oh? Why don't I believe you?" he asked.

"No really," Potter said earnestly. "I was just going to go for a walk and then hang out around the house."

"But why? Don't your friends want to see you?"

"Oh, the Weasleys are away. They went on a trip to Spain; when they made the plans, I'd planned to be on a beach in the Galapagos with Amelia."

"I'm taking you to dinner," he said firmly.

"I couldn't impo-"

"I insist," he interrupted. "I'm not taking no for an answer."

"Well if you insist," Harry said with a laugh.

"Good. I'm going to use your shower and then go get dressed and we're leaving in twenty minutes."

He chuckled, "It's a date."

--------

And it really had felt like a date, Draco reflected as they strolled back toward their apartment building after a long dinner with multiple courses and dessert.

"Thank you, by the way," Harry said, his shoulder bumping lightly into Draco's when they were just outside of their building.

"Don't mention it," he replied. "It's the least I could do."

Harry stopped and looked over at him, so Draco stopped next to him, "It's not, though," he said. "You didn't have to do any of this."

"I wanted to," he huffed.

He started to lean in closer, "Tell me if I'm reading this wrong," he whispered.

"What?"

"This," he murmured before his fingers cupped Draco's cheek and his lips pressed, soft and dry, against Draco's lips.

Harry drew back, "Alright?" he whispered.

Draco's fingers clenched in the front of Harry's shirt and he tugged him back in, slotting their lips together once more. The fingers on Harry's right hand slid through Draco's hair and his other slipped around Draco's back, drawing their bodies flush against one another as Harry's tongue brushed over Draco's bottom lip.

They stood on the sidewalk and kissed for a long moment before Harry pulled back and murmured, "Come home with me?"

"Are you sure?" Draco asked, brow furrowing.

"Never been more sure of anything in my life," he replied, pecking Draco's lips again.

He couldn't help but smile as he nodded his consent and Harry grabbed his hand and dragged him inside and straight to his bedroom.

------

Later, when they were still lying in bed talking about whatever nonsense came into the heads, Harry said, "Draco?"

"Mmmh?"

"This was probably the best birthday I've ever had."

He rolled onto his side so he could see Harry's face illuminated by the moonlight. Harry reached up and brushed his forefinger over Draco's cheekbone and Draco responded, "You've not had many good birthdays, then, have you?"

Harry laughed, "I've had some good birthdays."

"Next year," Draco said before he could think through what he was about to say, "Next year I will give you the best birthday you've ever had."

"Oh?" Harry said, grinning widely at him.

At the sweet, innocent look on Harry's face, he let himself dream, let himself imagine what life could turn out like. He nodded, "I'll wake you up with lazy morning sex, you seem like the type to really enjoy that."

"I am," Harry affirmed, his dimples showing.

Draco leaned in and pressed a kiss to the nearest dimple and said, "Then, I'll take you to Paris for breakfast."

"Ooh, Paris?"

He nodded, "I'll get you strawberry crepes with mounds of whipped cream."

"Sounds delicious," Harry said.

"Then I'll take you to a beach somewhere, Bora Bora maybe," he added, enthralled by the pleased crinkle around Potter's eyes.

He hummed, "I've never been to Bora Bora."

"No?"

Harry shook his head.

"Right, then we'll spend the whole day there, I'll sit under an umbrella all day and pretend to get annoyed when you come to kiss me and get sand and ocean water all over me."

He laughed, "As long as it's pretend."

"Then," Draco said, "I'll bring you back to a little villa that you can see the ocean through the floor and I'll cook you dinner. We'll eat together, then go swimming in the dark."

"Sounds lovely," Harry sighed.

"And then we'll come back and try out the bed that's under the stars," he said, brushing a hand over Harry's waist.

"That sounds really nice," he murmured.

"It's a date, then," Draco said.

He smiled back and echoed, "It's a date."

-------

And, true to his word, one year later Draco took Harry to Paris for breakfast and then to Bora Bora for the rest of the weekend. Harry proposed to Draco the very next morning.

--------

Day 63: Hair | Day 65: Question

[the-al-chemist]

When Stars Ignite - Chapter 62

HPHM Rockstar AU

A/N: Artemis’ final chapter. NGL, I cried and I sort of hope that you do, too.

David Willows and Amelia Booth (in mention) belong to @that-scouse-wizard and Katriona Cassiopeia belongs to @kc-and-co

General Warning: This whole fic has a general warning of being NSFW / 18+. We will give specific warnings for every chapter in itself, but several adult themes will be more or less present in every chapter, may it be explicitly or in mention. These include sexual topics, drug abuse, (ab)use of alcohol, smoking and a whole lot of cursing.

Specific Warning: mentions of alcohol, language, brief references to NSFW topics, feelings.

~~~

Find the masterpost here, the previous chapter here and the next one here. The songs featured before every chapter can be found on this pretty badass playlist here.

~~~

This work is a collaboration with @lifeofkaze

Taglist: @slytherindisaster @night-rhea @carewyncromwell @thatravenpuffwitch @ammathogwarts @whatwouldvalerydo

And high up above, or down below

When you're too in love to let it go

But if you never try, you'll never know just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

~ Coldplay - Fix You ~

There was a quiet knock on the door of the yurt.

“Artemis,” Lizzie’s voice called on the other side of the wood and canvas. “Is it okay if I come in?”

“Sure,” Artemis replied, and Lizzie entered the yurt, where Artemis was sitting, all alone. “May I help you?”

“There’s no need to be so formal,” Lizzie laughed, and walked over to Artemis’ bed. Artemis shuffled over to make room for Lizzie to sit next to her, which she did. “I just came to sit and chat with you, that’s all.”

“Why?”

“Well, partly because I’m trying to avoid being photographed,” Lizzie admitted with a wry chuckle.

“This is what happens when you get off with one of the world’s most successful singer-songwriters in front of a million people.”

“True, that is my own fault. But mainly I’m just worried about you. You kicked off at Ethan yesterday, and have barely spoken a word to anyone since. Charlie said you seemed upset, and that you’ve been avoiding him, and I just wanted to see what was wrong, really.”

Artemis shook her head. She could hardly tell Lizzie what was wrong, of all people.

“It’s nothing, really,” she said. Lizzie raised her eyebrows in disbelief, and Artemis sighed. Maybe she could let Lizzie in, just a little. They were friends now, after all. “It’s just that everything is ending. That’s all.”

“Yeah, I always feel a bit down whenever a tour ends,” Lizzie said, sympathetically. “I understand.”

“No,” Artemis muttered. “You don’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you get to go back to your nice flat and your family, and you have Orion. And everyone else is the same, they all have these lives outside the tour and things to go back for, and people to go back to. I don’t have any of that. I have no one.”

“That’s not true,” Lizzie said, earnestly.

“It is.”

“You have Charlie” - at Lizzie’s words, Artemis nodded, willing herself to keep her face passive - “and me. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but-”

“There you go then.”

There was no point arguing.

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen now,” Artemis whispered.

“Me neither,” Lizzie replied. “I mean, obviously, I’m really happy about what happened with Orion last night, but I don’t know what that means for my future professionally. You just have to hope for the best, that things will all turn out okay eventually.”

Artemis pursed her lips. Somehow, she was doubtful about that.

“Besides, you can never know what’s going to happen, really,” Lizzie continued. “I mean, I’d never have expected that Ev would have turned out to be as much of a prick as he did, or that David would have come along and managed to bring Merula out of her shell the way he has. I never would have imagined in a million years that I’d be so lucky as to fall in love with my best friend.”

If Lizzie had noticed that Artemis’ entire body had stiffened, she didn’t show it. Instead, she grinned and nudged Artemis with her elbow.

“I definitely did not think that Charlie would ever be happy to let go of his precious fireworks, but then you came along and now here we are.”

“Here we are,” Artemis repeated, forcing herself to smile.

“And what about you? Did you ever think when you started in London that you’d actually be sad to leave us all behind?”

“No, I guess not. I thought you were all massive dickheads, to be honest.”

“Well, we didn’t really make the best impression,” Lizzie smiled sheepishly. “But, see? You’ve got plenty of things to go back for, you just don’t realise it yet. None of us know what obstacles we’re going to encounter on our paths. We just have to keep walking until we find out.”

Artemis blinked.

“You sound like you’re fucking Orion Amari,” she said. “Oh, wait. You literally are.”

Both of them started to laugh, and Artemis felt the tightness in her chest ease ever so slightly.

“Oh, good,” Lizzie sniggered. “For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to buy you another tray of tequila shots to get you to cheer up.”

“I’m never drinking tequila again.”

“No, me neither. But if you want to go out some time, that would be fun. I think I’m going to need to spend more time with someone straight-talking if I don’t want to keep sounding like I’m fucking Orion Amari.”

“We can’t have that,” said Artemis, with a small smile. “Yeah, I’d like to go out sometime. I know a good bar in Camden that does live music.”

“That sounds amazing. Text me when and where, and I’ll be there,” Lizzie nodded. “Oh, there was another reason I came to get you.”

“What’s that?”

“Ethan has some big announcement to make, apparently. I thought you might want to come and hear what he has to say. Maybe just try not to call him a you-know-what this time.”

“I can’t promise anything,” Artemis said, and they went out to join the rest of the band and crew.

They found everyone gathered in the same bar tent they had gone to just a couple of nights previously, though in some ways, it felt like a lifetime ago. Artemis and Lizzie joined Orion by the bar, and Artemis averted her eyes as the two friends-turned-lovers shared a kiss by way of greeting. She cast her eyes around the bar, feeling a swell of affection at the sight of so many familiar faces.

“Is everyone here?” Ethan asked, not even waiting for the answer before continuing. “Excellent. Excellent. Now, I just wanted to congratulate you all on a spectacular show last night. I know that emotions were running high yesterday,” he cast a sceptical look over to the bar where Artemis was standing with Lizzie and Orion, “but the performance went down a storm. I received a call from the label yesterday, and they were so pleased with the new set up, the dynamics with young David over here, and Orion’s new song, they’re increasing the budget for the new album. Which means the champagne is on me tonight!”

Artemis rolled her eyes. She may have been reluctant to leave the tour behind, but she was not sad to see the last of Ethan Parkin. At least she’d had the chance to tell him what she really thought of him before she left.

Everyone else, though, she was going to miss. Skye and Erika, both so tough individually, and yet secretly soft when it came to each other. KC and Murphy, who managed to never make her feel stupid, despite being more intelligent than she could ever hope to be. The new kid David Willows and his sister Amelia, who had chosen the life that Artemis had been lumbered with and loved it. Andre, his make-up and purple suit immaculate as always. Lizzie and Orion, who had tried so hard not to fall in love despite having always trusted and loved one another; and Merula, still learning how to trust and love at all. And Charlie…

Suddenly, Artemis felt the need to get out of the bar, to get away from every single one of them. She had to leave. Maybe Amelia had the right idea, after all. Go it alone, don’t get attached, explore the big wide world with nothing holding her back, and enjoy being free. Because that’s what she was, wasn’t it? She was free. It just so happened that freedom felt a lot like loneliness, that was all. But that was fine, she didn’t mind that. She was used to it, or at least she had been. She could get used to it again. And she would.

That was what she was going to do. Run away. Travel. See the world. Adventure.

Alone.

“Artemis,” a voice broke into her thoughts. Artemis turned around to see KC and Murphy, both smiling. “Can we have a word?”

Artemis nodded, and followed her bosses - for the next few hours, anyway - into the corner of the bar tent.

“We want to quickly float an idea with you,” KC told her. “It’s not official yet, of course, but with there being a new album, there’ll be another tour either next year or the year after. And, with discussions going the way they are at the moment, it’s very likely that it’ll be a world tour.”

“It’s almost certain that there will be,” Murphy agreed. “And I’d say the chances of Ethan using us to manage it stand at ninety percent, probably more.”

“Which means we will need to sign a pyrotechnician,” KC continued. It was funny, how people could know each other so well that they could do that, Artemis thought. “We’ve talked about it, and both of us - and Charlie, of course, not that his opinion on the matter really counts anymore - think that you’re the best person for the job.”

“Wait. You want to keep me on? For good?”

“We do. You’re already a well-respected and appreciated member of the team, and you’ve got great instincts for what will work on stage. Not to mention that you don’t put up with Ethan’s bullshit. You’d be a really valuable asset.”

“You really think so?”

“We wouldn’t say that if we didn’t.”

Artemis frowned. She’d never been well-respected or appreciated before. It was a new feeling, and one she found herself liking immensely.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” said KC.

“No, it won’t be until this time next year at the very earliest, and legally we have to advertise the job.”

“We just didn’t want you to see the advert and think it was because we weren’t happy with you or your work,” KC smiled. “Trust me, if you apply, the job will be yours. So, consider it.”

“I will,” Artemis nodded. “Consider it, I mean. Thank you.”

“No; thank you.”

Both KC and Murphy shook hands with Artemis, and they went back to mingling with the others. Artemis watched them return, no longer sure of what she should do. For now, though, she could have one small glass of champagne. She had an hour before she had to return to her tent to change into her black backstage clothes  for the big display. She deserved to celebrate with her friends. Friends. Orange sofa and a chick and a duck type of friends. She smiled, and went to join them.

All too soon, though, it was time for her to go. Andre kissed her on both cheeks, and Lizzie hugged her tightly. Orion bowed his head, Murphy nodded his, and KC raised her glass of white wine to her. David and Amelia waved, and Merula raised her eyebrows, the slightest trace of a smirk on her lips.

Artemis shook her head at her, before taking a deep breath. She had to go and say something to Charlie. She just didn’t know exactly what she should say anymore.

In the end, she said nothing at all. How could she say anything, when he was so captivated by his conversation with Ava? How could she interrupt them, when they looked so happy together? How could she be the one to make his smile fade? She couldn’t.

Instead, she turned around, and slipped silently away. The yurt wasn’t far away at all, but the walk was long enough that she had just enough time for a cigarette. She lit one, and watched the end sparking as she inhaled, the smoke billowing away from her as she exhaled. Normally, the sight would have relaxed her, but right now, it wasn’t working.

She felt as if she were being pulled in two directions. She could take the job Murphy and KC were offering her, continue with the band, the crew, the fireworks, and do what she’d always wanted to do. Or she could go back to how she was before: alone, and wild, and free to find a new path entirely. She knew what she wanted to do, and she knew what would probably hurt her the most. Unfortunately for her, both were the same thing.

“ARTEMIS!”

Of course. He’d come to find her. He always did. She froze, steeling herself before she turned around. Pushing through the small crowd was Charlie. Her heart lifted at the sight of him, then sank again as she saw that he was no longer smiling at all.

“I can’t believe you left without saying anything,” he said as he caught up to her. Artemis shrugged.

“I didn’t want to be late,” she said, lowering her head and carrying on walking, Charlie trailing along beside her. “Besides, you were busy.”

“I’m never that busy.”

“You were yesterday morning.”

She hadn’t meant to say it. She wished she hadn’t said it, because to her right, she heard Charlie sigh.

“Is that why you’re angry with me? Because-”

“I’m not angry with you.”

“- I said I was sorry, and I-”

“I know you did.”

“- meant it. And I promised I’ll make it up to you, and I will,” Charlie paused. “I actually came to see if you wanted me to come with you now.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. It’s a big deal, and I want to be there, for… I dunno, emotional support, I guess. I can give you a hand, too, if you want. How about it?”

Artemis exhaled before shaking her head.

“No,” she said. “I can do it alone.”

“I know you can, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“What about Ava? Won’t she mind?”

“She’s a big girl. She will cope,” Charlie laughed, not unkindly. He nudged Artemis gently with his elbow. “Hey. Look at me.” Artemis did, and had to fight not to look away as Charlie smiled at her, only a little, “I mean it. If you want me to come with you, I’ll come with you. End of.”

It took every ounce of Artemis’ limited self-control to keep looking Charlie in the eye and tell him:

“No. I want to do this alone.”

“Alright,” Charlie shrugged, and Artemis looked ahead once more. “But, you know, you won’t really be alone. I’ll be watching, we all will. I mean, you’re one of us now.”

For now, anyway. Artemis blinked back the tears that were threatening to form in her eyes and shook her head.

Charlie must have noticed this, because he added: “You are.”

“I know,” Artemis said, quietly. She could tell she was being stared at, so she made herself smile. “I know I am.”

“Have KC and Murphy spoken to you about signing on for the next tour?” Artemis nodded and made a humming noise in response to Charlie’s question. He stopped walking, putting himself slightly in front of her, so she had to face him. “Hang on. You are signing on for the next tour, aren’t you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“What is there to think about?”

“Just stuff. It’s kind of personal.”

“Right. Do you want to talk about-”

“No.”

Charlie looked questioningly at Artemis. She raised her eyebrows and pretended to take a drink from an invisible bottle of beer, and Charlie laughed.

“Yeah. Yeah, alright,” he said. He stepped away from her, and they carried on walking in a solemn but companionable silence, broken by Charlie exhaling and swearing: “Well, fuck.”

“What?”

“I just… I assumed you’d be staying on, that’s all. I’m actually really going to fucking miss you if you don’t.”

“You too.”

“I know it’s not my place to tell you what to do, but whatever this personal shit is, it had better be a really fucking good reason for you to even think about throwing this all away.”

“It is. It’s the best reason,” Artemis smiled to herself, in spite of everything. “Like I said, I’m kind of undecided.”

“Good. Well, I hope you do decide to stay. I just think you’re too good not to, and I was actually looking forward to watching you do the tour solo. It’s pathetic, but as much as it breaks my heart watching you light those fireworks, it would break it more not to watch.”

Artemis said nothing. Maybe she had got it wrong. Maybe it would hurt more to walk away, after all. She really wasn’t sure anymore, but maybe if Charlie could live with being happy for her but sad for himself, she could do the same for him.

“Yeah, well,” she said, trying to keep the emotion from her voice. “Someone has to show you how it’s really done.”

“There she is.”

“And here I am,” Artemis said, pointing at her and Andre’s yurt. “So.”

“So,” Charlie grinned. “Last chance. You sure you don’t want me to come with you?”

“I’m sure. I mean, I do want you to come with me, but I don’t need you to come with me. Not really. I actually think that I need to do this by myself. For myself.”

“Yeah. I get that.”

“If I can do this, I can do anything.”

“I’ve never doubted that.”

“Thank you, Charlie. For everything.”

Artemis held out her hand for Charlie to shake, but he didn’t take it.

“Oh, no. Fuck that,” he said. “Come here.”

He wrapped both his arms around Artemis and pulled her into a hug that felt like coming home. She tensed slightly, before slipping her own arms around his waist. She had no idea how long they stayed like that, her forehead resting against his chest, his chin on the crown of her head, but it felt both too long and not long enough.

“This is it,” Charlie said, releasing her at last. “Make me proud, yeah?”

“Don’t I always?”

“You do.”

With that, he mock-saluted her and turned away. Artemis watched him run the fingers of his left hand through his red hair, pushing it back from his face and shaking his head as he walked away from her into the night.

She entered the yurt, and caught sight of herself in Andre’s mirror. She looked a little lost. She didn’t like that. She didn’t want to be lost anymore.

“That’s enough now,” she told her reflection, whose expression turned fiercer. “Just get a grip.”

She took out her black work clothes, and started to change into them. Maybe that’s why Andre liked clothes so much, she thought. They could be changed. Some things couldn’t be changed, you just had to accept them as they were. Of course, you could wish that things were different, but what was the point? Wishing never changed anything, it just made you feel sad about the ways things might have been if… Well, there was no if, was there? There was only here and now.

And right now, Artemis was going to be late. Another thing that never changed.

Grabbing her pass from the little table next to her bed, she left the yurt and set off for the Pyramid Stage at a run, zigzagging her way through the crowds, twinkling lights and music turning into a blur as she sprinted through Glastonbury Festival. The wind whipped through her hair and reddened her cheeks, and she found herself laughing.

It was funny; this was the last night, the end of the tour, and yet somehow, it felt like the beginning. All her life, she had been running, not knowing where she was going next, and now she felt like maybe she had an idea. She had a sort of home, and people who cared about her, and who she loved fiercely. She wasn’t alone, not really, and she wasn’t lonely either. But she was still free. In this moment, running through the night towards the fireworks so fast that she felt as if she might take flight, she felt more free than ever before.

She was fierce. She was free. And she was going to set the sky aflame.

[not-me-simping-for-blasty]

I Melt With You - Bakugou Katsuki

All Parts:

Part 2:

You never end up getting a text from Kirishima.

The following night, when you return from your shift at the hospital, what you find waiting for you instead is a gift basket. It’s filled to the brim with boxes of food, and packets of tea, a few dishtowels, and, surprisingly enough? A job offer.

Thank you for saving one of our own. The attached note reads. Due to your impressive quirk and quick thinking, we’d like to offer you a spot on our medical team. The Hero Public Safety Commission would love to utilize your talents. Call at the number listed for more information. We’ll be waiting.

You think the note sounds a little ominous, if you’re being completely honest. While it’s a nice offer, and one you’ll probably at least ask a few questions about, was the ‘We’ll be waiting’ really a necessary addition to the note? It makes the whole message read as an order, not a suggestion, and that makes your stomach uneasy. 

The knowledge that they know about your quirk sits a little heavy too. You’d always tried to keep a tight lid on your power; only using it when absolutely necessary for as long as you could remember. You didn’t like digging into people’s brains, and you knew that it was an easy power to exploit if left in the wrong hands.

People felt pain for a reason. You knew that better than anybody.

Still, you did end up calling the number, and you did end up accepting the offer. As uncomfortable a reason as it was, the money was undeniable. The local hospital’s salaries just couldn’t compete.

You were quickly reassigned to a hospital in the center of Musutafu, and it was a bit of a culture shock. You’d always lived on the outskirts, and the villian presence there was laughable in comparison to the inner city. Suddenly, you were extremely busy, nearly constantly drowning in work and people who needed your help, but you didn’t mind. You’d always been passionate about being a nurse, and now you felt fulfilled in ways you hadn’t before.

All in all, you considered Bakugou a strange blessing. He might’ve been rude, and violent, and just generally pretty unpleasant when you first met him, but you didn’t hold it against him. If you really thought about it, you were nothing but grateful- well, as grateful as you could be to a guy who bled all over your apartment and then never talked to you again. 

Still, you always wondered if he was alright. As much as you tried to forget about it entirely, you couldn’t wipe that night from your mind. When you took his pain, you were nearly winded by the anger and terror he felt. It was more than just shock, more than just fear over his injuries- it was something lasting, developed, something he’d been struggling with for a long time. A feeling that intense was hard to forget.

It was nearly three months before you saw him again.

Your day had been hectic, as it nearly always was. There had been a villian attack near a residential subdivision, and while the casualties were few, there were innumerous injured civilians. The entire day had been spent rushing between rooms, splinting broken limbs, applying casts, and evaluating for concussions. You were exhausted, nearly dead on your feet, when one of your superiors pulled you away.

“We need your quirk.” She says, tapping her foot impatiently.

“Excuse me?”

“We need your quirk. We’ve got a special guest, and we need it as painless an experience for him as possible. It’s the least we could do for him.” 

“Oh? Um, okay? Who is it?”

She doesn’t answer, just spins on her heels and motions for you to follow. Your superior walks fast, leading you down winding hallways and past operating rooms, all the way down to the small luxury wing. You know what you’re in for now- a hero. 

Your hospital had treated a lot of injured pro-heroes in the past, but you’d never been chosen to help before. You mostly stayed in the general part, assisting with the civilians heroes saved instead of the pro’s themselves. You briefly wondered why you were chosen- you figured whoever it was had to be pretty important if they wanted you to take away his pain entirely.

“Take your time with him, he’s your last patient. I know your shift’s not over, but, trust me, all you’ll want to do is go home after treating him. So be grateful for the time off.” Is all your superior says, pushing you through a door. “ Alright. Good luck.”

Then she shuts the door behind her, leaving you with whatever problem-child she was mentioning- and what a problem-child he is.

One look at blonde hair and red eyes and you realize your earlier assumption was wrong. You weren’t chosen to make his experience as painless as possible- you were chosen to make the hospital’s experience as painless as possible. 

Still, you’ll push through it. You’re tired, but that doesn’t mean Bakugou’s injuries should be ignored. Upon first look, you notice gauze around his forearm and one of his knees. When he turns his head, he’s got a shallow cut spanning across his temple, and of his fingers looks oddly blue and swollen. All things considered, at least it’ll be a quick visit. You’re fairly confident it’s not gonna be anything more than stitches and maybe a finger splint for him.

“Alright, first things first, any other injuries I should know about? Besides the obvious ones, I mean.” You say, pulling over a cart and taking the blood pressure cuff from it. You start taking his vitals, smiling up at him from where he’s sat on top the hospital bed. “Secondly, it’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you’re not unconscious this time.”

“Excuse me? The hell are you on about?”

“Wait, do you not remember me?”

“Nah, ‘m fuckin’ supposed to?” He bristles, his shoulders tensing up. “You a fan of mine or some shit?”

You roll your eyes- you’d always sort of naively hoped he was more pleasant when not gravely injured, but you’re quickly realizing that not’s the case. Bakugou is prickly. Prickly, prickly, prickly.

“No. Not exactly a fan.” You answer him coyly, moving to rinse your hands clean at the sink. You slip on a pair of latex gloves, gather some antiseptic, some gauze, and your stitching kit, and then you turn back to him. “You might not remember it, especially considering your head wound that night, but three months ago you crash landed on my balcony.”

Bakugou blinks, once, twice, and then he’s red in the face and screaming.

“You! Fuckin’ you!” He roars, lips pulled back over his sharp canines. “You were in my goddamn head! Fuckin’ witch.”

“Okay. Well, yeah, you’re technically correct- but that’s not a very nice way to thank me for saving you. And it’s a quirk, not witchcraft.” You reiterate, nearing him with the antiseptic wipes. Bakugou recoils back, slapping your hand away lightly. You’re entirely unimpressed at his actions. “Calm down, I’m not going to use my quirk on you; at least, not without your explicit permission. I’m just here to stitch you up.”

He just huffs, nostrils flaring as he glares down at you.

“Have you ever gotten stitches before?” You ask. 

A part of you is aware the question is kind of dumb, especially considering his career, but you figure you should ask anyway. In your experience, patients generally receive treatment a lot better if you talk them through it.

“Yeah.” He answers. “Not while fuckin’ lucid though.”

 “Alright, that’s fine. We can work with that. But, that means you must not get hurt a lot then, huh?”

“Nah. Never.” 

Bakugou’s voice is proud, and when you look up at him, he’s smirking. You think that expression is only mildly less irritating then his grimace- but, maybe he’ll finally let you take a look at his arm now. You decide to try, your hands nearing the bandages around his forearm, but he smacks you away again.

“Bakugou. Stop. I need to take a look, alright? That’s what you’re here for, so let me do my job. I won’t use my quirk on you, I promise.” You tell him earnestly, holding his gaze steadfastly. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, alright? I’ve got gloves on and it doesn’t work without skin-to-skin contact. So, could you please calm down for me?”

Bakugou’s eye twitches.

“Fine. But I’m fuckin’ watching you.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I am.”

“I know. I’m not arguing with you.” You retort calmly.

You point at the cart, sighing in relief when he finally complies to your wishes. He sets his forearm flat on top of it, and you watch him wince slightly. There’s cloth and gauze wrapped around it, blood soaking through the makeshift bandage. You peel the material away gently, revealing a fairly large cut. The wound’s not very deep, thankfully, but it slices almost to the inside of his elbow. It is going to need a fair amount of stitches, but luckily most of the active bleeding seems to have stopped.

“Alright,” You start, catching his gaze. “This doesn’t look too bad, but it might scar.”

“No fuckin’ shit. Dumbass.”

“Bakugou, take a breath for me. I didn’t mean any harm by the comment, okay? I’m just doing my job and being honest with you.”

“I don’t need your fuckin’ honesty.”

“No, maybe not, but you do need me to stitch you up.” You try to keep your voice level, treat him delicately even as he fights you with every breath. It’s challenging work, but no more strenuous than any other difficult patient you’ve ever dealt with. “Alright, so I’m gonna clean around the wound, apply some local anesthetic, and then stitch you up. Sound good?”

“I don’t need the goddamn step by step, I’m not a fuckin’ kid. So just get on with it already.”

“I’m just trying to be accomodating.” You reply with a sigh. You take his forearm gently, working around the wound with an antiseptic wipe. You hear him suck in a breath. “Sorry. I’m sure it probably stings.” 

“Don’t pity me.”

“It’s- I’m not.” You can’t help but sigh in slight frustration. It’s normally a reaction you’d try to cut short, but Bakugou’s being needlessly rude- you think he deserves to hear it. “Look, I was trying to be professional, and normally I’d never say this, but I’m- I’m not being paid to argue with you, alright? I’m just here to fix you up. So, if you’d rather me just stay silent while I do that, that’s perfectly fine. Just say so. I won’t be offended.”

“Good. Shut the fuck up then.”

Irritation flares in your chest, but you do your best to breathe through it. He’s far from the most difficult patient you’ve ever had, but something about his clipped words and guarded expression has you just as annoyed. You think it might be his eyes- the way they seem to always be tracking you, zeroing in on any and all possible flaws. 

Still, you try to ignore his attitude anyways, and it becomes a little easier as you focus back on dressing the wound, finishing up with the antiseptic wipes and moving on to the anesthetic. You almost consider lathering the numbing gel on while it’s still freezing cold, but you quickly decide against letting his bad attitude interfere with your job performance. You don’t want to sink to his idiotic level. 

You’re warming the gel packet in your palm, rubbing to create friction and heat, when he speaks again.

“You can skip that.”

“Yeah. I could. But I won’t- it generally makes the whole process a lot smoother if you can’t feel every stitch.” You say simply, tearing the gel packet open. “Sorry in advance if it’s still cold, I tried to warm it up a bit.”

“I’ll be fuckin’ fine.”

“I’m sure you will. Still though, most people flinch, so I figured I’d warn you anyways.”

Bakugou doesn’t say anything in response, just flares his nostrils as you spread the anesthetic over his arm. True to your words, he does flinch at first, and that only seems to piss him off more. You can’t really see his face from where you’re hunched over his forearm, but you’re sure he’s probably scowling. You wait a few moments for the gel to activate, and then you’re opening your kit and lacing thread through your needle. Thankfully your arm feels steady today, and it’s easy work as you begin stitching up his wound. 

Bakugou’s a pretty good patient. Surprisingly. He breathes quietly through his teeth, fist clenched as he tries so very hard not to admit his discomfort. He actually reminds you a lot of the children you so often treat. 

You find an easy rhythm sewing him up, your fingers gently prodding his arm as you work. You do your best to be delicate, treating him just as gently as you would any other patient- even if he irritated you. When you look up at him, Bakugou just traps his bottom lip between his teeth and creases his eyebrows. Those same red eyes study you again, almost looking right through you. You hold eye contact for as long as you can stand, but under his intense gaze it’s less than a few seconds.

“Alright. Almost done.” You mutter softly, dropping your eyes back down to his arm. You resume your stitching, eyebrows drawn together in concentration. “Thanks for keeping still for me.”

“Yeah. Whatever.” He grumbles, but his voice is a little softer now. He seems almost calmer, none of the bite from earlier coating his words. “Nothin’ special.”

“No, really. I mean it. You wouldn’t believe how much harder it is to treat somebody who’s panicking.”

“It wouldn’t be difficult if you weren’t such a shitty nurse.”

“If you didn’t want to be treated by me, you could’ve asked for somebody else. But you didn’t.” You comment easily, taking the kit’s scissors and cutting the thread. “You really missed your chance- could’ve caused a whole scene, Bakugou.”

“No thanks.”

“Wow, and here I thought you actively enjoyed making as big a scene as possible. Guess not.” You can’t help but tease, smiling slightly. “Or did you just want an excuse to come and bleed all over me again?”

“That’s- no. Shut up. You’re annoying.” Bakugou barks, blushing slightly as he turns his head away. “Fuckin’ witch.” 

“You really shouldn’t call me names when I’m the one treating your wounds.”

“I’ll do whatever the hell I want. And you started it, fuckin’ pryin’ around in my head.” 

“I wasn’t prying.” You tell him, turning away as you grab new gauze and bandages. “I was bringing you out of shock. I’m sure you don’t remember, but you were threatening to blow my entire apartment up.”

“No! I wasn’t! You just wanted to fuckin’-”

“Wanted to what? Help you? Stabilize your condition? Make sure you didn’t die out on my balcony?” You press the gauze carefully over his stitches, making sure none of the sutures catch on the cloth. “Yeah. Guess I did want to do that.” 

“Still shouldn’t a fuckin’ done it.”

“Okay, well I did, and I’m still sorry if it felt invasive. Believe me, I wouldn’t have done it unless it was absolutely necessary.”  You tell him honestly, trying to catch his gaze even as he avoids looking at you. “And, it was months ago, you know? So no point holding a grudge. Especially since I’ll probably be seeing a lot more of you from now on.”

“What, you think I’m gonna get myself killed again? Fat fuckin’ chance. I’m not that fucking weak.”

“Are you always this defensive?” You ask him, wrapping the bandages gently around his arm. “I meant, this hospital’s the main center for relief efforts, alright; so even if you try to avoid me, we’re bound to see each other if you ever end up back here for whatever reason. I wasn’t insinuating that you’d definitely get hurt again.”

“Fuckin’ sounded like it.”

“I didn’t mean for it to.”

“Yeah whatever. Pick up the goddamn pace.” He rolls his eyes, dramatically swinging his hurt leg up onto the table. You’re sure it has to hurt, but Bakugou keeps his pride. He doesn’t even wince. “My leg’s not gonna fix itself. Get the fuck to it already.”

“Okay, alright. You got it.”

Luckily, you don’t have to cut the material of his hero costume away just yet. His pants are already torn, thin, scattered slices exposing his leg all the way to the tops of his thighs. When you take a look at his knee, you’re not pleased with what you find.

Removing the gauze unearths a strange web of metal shards sticking out of his skin. They don’t seem to be stuck worryingly deep, but there’s a lot of them and some of them are quite large. You’re gonna need to pluck them all out, and give stitches for the big ones. Your short visit with Bakugou just got a lot longer.

“Alright. So this is gonna take some time, but the good news is, nothing is actively bleeding on your knee.” You tell him. “So, I’m thinking I’m gonna sew up the cut on your forehead first, alright? Head wounds bleed a lot more. That should be taken care of first.”

“Fuck are you tellin’ me, for? Your job, you do it.”

“Oh- yeah. Sorry.” You apologize. “Guess I’m used to treating kids. Lots of mom’s hanging around and asking questions, you know?”

“No. ‘m not a fuckin’ nurse.”

“No, you are not.” You breathe out, hardly able to keep the sarcastic tone out of your voice. “Okay, I’m gonna need you to lie back for me.”

He grumbles, but falls back anyways. You sigh in relief, grateful for his acquiescence. You honestly thought you’d have to fight with him about that.

You begin the process all over again- cleaning, applying gel, and then stitching the wound close. Bakugou doesn’t say anything while you work, but he does let his eyes flutter shut. He kept them open at first, staring you down relentlessly, but eventually he doesn’t seem to like all the unintentional eye-contact as you lean over him. You think it’s strange- the way he seems to melt into the hospital bed even as you’re sewing up his forehead. You begin to realize that his day was probably just as long as yours, if not longer.

You fall into an easy rhythm again, and time passes peacefully before you know it.

“You almost done?” He peeks an eye open, voice gravelly when he speaks.

“Yep. Almost. Just one more up here and then we can move on to your knee.”

“You can move on to my knee. I’m not doin’ shit.”

“Oh my,” You mutter under your breath, cutting the thread with your scissors. You clear your throat before speaking again. “So are you always this difficult with the other nurses?”

“No. Only the dipshits who go diggin’ around in my fuckin’ head.”

“Well, I only have to dig when people threaten to blow up my apartment.”

Bakugou doesn’t seem to have a response to that. He just closes his eyes and huffs through his nose, ending the conversation entirely.

That’s fine with you- if he wants to stay quiet, you’re not complaining.

It’s quiet as you begin working on his knee, nothing but the soft metallic clink of your tools and Bakugou’s own breaths. You think it’s a strange sort of calm, but also a little nice too. You’d been worked to the bone all day, rushing and scrambling and giving instructions- it was nice to just sit back and focus on one thing at a time.

You think Bakugou must feel it too, because when you look up at him he’s still lying back. He’s got his head pressed back into the pillow, his uninjured arm thrown over his eyes while the injured one lies across his stomach. His index finger is still blue, but not any more blue than it was when he walked in. You’re not sure how he’s managing to look so relaxed, despite being in what you guessed was a fair amount of pain.

You wonder what kind of day he had that made his hospital visit out to be the most relaxing part. You try not to think about it too long- try not to fit that anger and terror you felt into a make-believe narrative.

“Alright. That around does it for that.” You say softly, wrapping a bandage around his knee. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened? With the metal- it doesn’t look like any shrapnel I’ve ever seen before.”

“It’s not.” He drops his hand from across his face, voice deeper and slower than before. Groggy almost. “Fucker had a metal quirk. Shattered a car right next to me.”

“Oh. That really doesn’t sound fun. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Don’t apologize for stupid shit.”

You find that oddly ironic- pretty much your entire job was apologizing and showing understanding for things that weren’t your fault. You decide there and then, without a single shadow of a doubt, Bakugou would make the worst nurse in the world. Far shittier than you, no matter what he said.

“All that’s left now is your finger.” You say, grabbing at his hand gently. “Sorry if this hurts, but I’ve gotta feel and see if it’s broken. I’m fairly sure it’s sprained, but just in case.”

“Whatever.”

“Wow, no fight? None at all?” You joke, applying as gentle pressure as you could to his finger. “You tired or something?”

Bakugou just nods, letting his eyes shut once more.

Up close again, you notice the circles under his eyes, the paleness of his skin. His face doesn’t even contort as you prod at his finger, and it almost breaks your heart when you realize how high his pain tolerance must be. The only way he’d be able to be even half as calm as he currently was, was if he was getting hurt like that on the regular. Which, you figure, probably comes with the job description in his case- but the thought still flooded you with sympathy anyway.

“All good, just a pretty severe sprain.” You tell him. “Now, metal splint or dressings? Your choice.”

“Dressings.”

You squint a little bit, at him. You’re pretty sure a metal splint would be easier, and more convenient, but he looks pretty sure in his choice. You shrug, figuring that you did give him the choice for a reason. Maybe he just finds dressings more comfortable.

You dig out an ace bandage from your medical cart, setting it on the hospital bed as Bakugou sits up. He still looks a little tired, breaths slow and even as he looks at you through half-lidded eyes. You figure he must suffering a pretty serious adrenaline crash- if he’s not, then you’re not sure what the attitude change is about. He just looks so calm, so quiet that you almost can’t place him as the same angry guy you’d been faced with earlier. 

You unwind the bandage, taking his hand into yours. His palms are strange, calloused and tough, unnatural heat radiating off of them. It’s a little hard to ignore, but you figure it’s just his quirk, so you press on without comment. You’re pressing his index and middle fingers together, half-way through wrapping the bandage around them when he speaks.

“Too lose. Do it again.”

“It’s not loose, I promise. I know what I’m doing.”

“It’s loose.” He says again, more insistently this time. “Do it again.”

“Okay.” You sigh, figuring that starting over entirely would still somehow take less time than fighting with him. “But just this once, alright? As an apology for ‘digging around’ in your head.” 

Bakugou just nods tightly. 

When you start again, you try a different approach. You’d been trying to avoid touching him earlier, to soothe his worries about your quirk, but you start to think that maybe it caused your splinting to suffer. You decide to just go about it normally this time, grabbing his wrist and flipping it upwards just like you usually would. Bakugou seems to stiffen for a moment, but then he’s huffing a breath and lolling his head forward to his chest. You watch his eyes flutter shut.

You think that’s a strange reaction. You really expected him to put up more of a fuss about your touching him- he doesn’t though, and you take the little win. Chalk it up to just how tired he seems to be.

“There- you’re all done now.” You say quietly, pressing the adhesive side of the bandage into place. “Everything feel good? Need anything else?”

He shakes his head, blinking his eyes open blearily. If you didn’t know any better, you really would’ve thought he’d fallen asleep while you were caring for him. Well, you figure, guess that makes twice now that’s nearly passed out beneath your fingers.

You think that’s pretty funny, but you keep it to yourself. Bakugou seems to be feeling relatively pleasant, and you don’t want to jinx it.

“Alright, so concerning the splint, wear it for at least a few weeks, and then take it from there, alright? And all the stitches are dissolvable except for the ones in your arm. Those ones will need to come out in about a week or so, but that’s a super simple procedure. You could probably get them removed in the med-wing at your complex. No need for a follow-up her-”

“No. I’ll be here.”

“You don’t have to. I can just write up some instructions and send you back, no problem. Really, it’s-’

“I said I’d be here, so I’ll fuckin’ be here.” He grumbles, clearing his throat. Bakugou averts his gaze, turning towards the window to avoid your eyes. “You did the stitches so you take them out. You’re not gonna fuckin’ get away with cuttin’ corners on me.” 

“Yeah. Okay. Whatever you want, I guess.” You say, a bit unsurely. “So I’ll see you in a week or so, alright? Somebody’ll give you a call.”

“Whatever.”

Bakugou then hops down from the bed, and you wince at the sound of his impact. You’d seen his knee first-hand, and you imagined that it probably hurt a lot to walk on it. He seemed unaffected though, shouldering his weight without fuss and hardly even limping as he walks out. The only sign he’s even slightly in pain, is the grunt that leaves him when he accidentally tries the door handle with his injured hand. 

He’s so quick that you can’t even ask him if he wants crutches or not. The thought hardly even enters your head before he slams the door shut behind him.

--/--

taglist:  @fluffyviciousbunny @definitelynottrin @imsuperawkward @i-need-air @ahbeautifulexistence @brennabooz @jazzylove @flattykawadoorusmilkbread @katsuki-bakubabe @sorrythatspussynal @bakugouswh0r3

[melzula]

Could you write a Fire Lilies blurb about Princess! Reader and Zuko 's date night in their tale of Ba Sing Se?

a/n: you have no idea how excited I was when I got this request!!!

~ part of the fire lilies series ~

It’s a quiet day in Ba Sing Se as the Princess sweeps the floor of the tea shop and prepares for the morning rush of customers. She doesn’t get paid nearly as much as Zuko and Iroh due to only working part time, but she makes up for it by working in the dress shop across the street. It’s easy work and her employer is very kind so she can’t complain. Besides, this was the kind of simple life she had been longing for ever since her departure from home. The transition hadn’t been easy, especially not for Zuko, and she knew it would take some time to get used to, but now that they were in Ba Sing Se they had all the time in the world to settle down and finally begin a life together.

Across the way at the front counter Zuko watches y/n work silently, an unreadable expression on his face as he does so. He’s doing his best to at least try to make a life here despite how adamant he feels about the city being nothing but a prison, if not for him then for her, because she deserves it after all. It was something he had promised her long ago, and though their relationship had become worn and strained it was still there altogether, and the knots that had formed along the way were finally beginning to loosen now that they were here in Ba Sing Se.

“You know, it has been a very long time since the two of you last had the chance to be alone,” Iroh points out. “Perhaps the Princess would appreciate a romantic night out with her boyfriend.”

“There’s nothing to do here,” Zuko complains. “Where could we possibly go?”

“I’ve heard they have a beautiful fountain here,” Iroh suggests.

“I have to work.”

“Nonsense. I can cover your shift for you so that the two of you may go out together,” his Uncle offers, and before he has the chance to protest y/n approaches the counter with her dustpan and apron in hand.

“The shop is ready for customers,” she says with a small smile. “I should get going. Miss Tai asked me to open up the store today.”

“Of course. Zuko, is there anything you’d like to say to the Princess before she leaves?” Iroh asks, giving his nephew a gentle nudge to the ribs. Zuko scowls before clearing his throat and attempting a gentler approach to the question as you stand there expectantly.

“Would you like to go out on a date tonight?” He asks in a strained voice, obviously uncomfortable and out of his element. He’d never really had to ask her on a date before, she’d always just kind of been there, by his side and ready to spend time with him. Since when did a simple bowl of ramen together not count as a real date?

“I’d love to,” she giggles, obviously appreciative of his efforts, “you can pick me up from work.”

“He’s looking forward to it!” Iroh grins, and Zuko blushes with embarrassment at the delicate laughter that escapes y/n as she exits the shop and heads to work. Spirits, help him.

~~~

Zuko waits impatiently outside of Miss Tai’s shop, a permanent scowl on his lips and the urge to fuss with his hair stronger than anything he’s ever felt. He isn’t sure why he allowed his Uncle to do his hair or why he’s putting so much work into a date with his longtime girlfriend, but he knew Iroh had been right about the fact that it had been much too long since they’d last went out like this. But it wasn’t Zuko’s fault, at least not in his eyes, because he had been busy and couldn’t tend to y/n right away like she had hoped he would. The pair had been so close together yet so far apart in his years of hunting the Avatar, and when it was quiet enough his thoughts were often loud with doubt over whether or not she still loved him as much, if at all, as she did when they’d last met in their secret tunnel.

A muffled giggle is what catches his attention, y/n’s hand held over her mouth as she tries to stifle her laughter for Zuko’s sake. He wants to complain but the words die in his throat at the sight of her. Dressed in Miss Tai’s finest silk dress, the Princess looks absolutely radiant and quite literally takes Zuko’s breath away.

“Do you like it?” She muses with a sweet smile. “Miss Tai let me borrow it for our date.”

“You look... really pretty,” he finally says with a small smile of his own.

“And you look absolutely adorable!” y/n squeals, prompting Zuko’s smile to immediately morph into a scowl. She gives his cheeks a light pinch and laughs when he gently swats her hand away. “You should do your hair like that more often.”

“It took Uncle ten minutes to do my hair,” Zuko sulks as the Princess finally puts him out of his misery and ruffles the awful hairdo away.

“I’ll have to thank him when we get back,” she giggles before taking his hand and dragging him off to venture out into the city. “So what should we do?”

“I don’t know,” Zuko grumbles. “This city is nothing but dirt, I don’t know how I can possibly enjoy it.”

“Well you can’t enjoy it with an attitude like that,” the Princess argues. “There’s a cake stand over there. You like cake, don’t you?”

“I’m not in the mood for cake.”

“Then what are you in the mood for?”

“Nothing,” he grumbles, and the Princess’s once cheerful demeanor dwindles into one of disappointment. He doesn’t want to be here, she knows that better than anybody, but she had hoped that maybe by going out together he’d at least warm up to the idea of living in the city. Y/n loved Zuko more than anything in the world, but she was starting to doubt whether or not he still felt the same way about her. Their flame was beginning to dwindle and though she was desperate to keep the fire going it seemed that wouldn’t be possible without his help.

“Maybe you should just go home,” she offers quietly, releasing his hand and turning her back towards him in order to hide her growing tears. “That way you won’t have to be here when you don’t want to, a-and I can just explore the city by myself.”

Guilt weighs heavily upon Zuko’s shoulders at the sound of her trembling voice as he yet again manages to disappoint her. He wants to apologize but the words are stuck in his throat, so instead he lets out a small, awkward cough before coming up and gently resting a hand on her shoulder.

“That fortune teller booth looks kind of fun,” he suggests, and when she gives him a pointed look he says, “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior.”

“Okay,” y/n sniffles quietly, a weak smile present upon her features as Zuko intertwines his fingers with her own and guides her towards the booth. He doesn’t miss the manor in which she tightly holds his hand, almost as if she’s afraid she’ll lose him if he lets her go, and it urges the Prince to increase his pace as he guides her towards their destination.

“Yes, step right up, lovebirds!” The eccentrically dressed man encourages, immediately taking the Princess’s hand and yanking her forward to read her palm. Zuko bites back the threat that rises up his throat, and y/n watches with childlike excitement as the fortune teller scans the grooves and lines of her hand. “Ah, this is very interesting.”

“What is it?”

“I see that you’ve lived a very happy life, though it hasn’t been easy as of late. The love you have in your heart is strong, but this love will be put to the test when the time comes.”

“Sounds like a bunch of nonsense,” Zuko mumbles only to earn a glare from the Princess in return. Put to the test? Hadn’t they already been through the hardest parts of their relationship already? What else could possibly make things worse?

“You will live a content and comfortable life and die a peaceful death. Oh, and you’ll most definitely be having twins!”

“Twins!” Y/n repeats delightedly, but all color drains from Zuko’s face at the idea and suddenly he feels very lightheaded.

“Okay, thank you, that’s enough,” he finally interjects, making sure to pay the man before dragging you off to your next destination.

“We’re going to have twins!” The Princess squeal delightedly.

“How do you know he’s not just some crazy old man?” Zuko retorts.

“He could be,” she admits with a shrug, “but it’s nice to have something to hope for even if it isn’t real.”

He says nothing in response to her wishful thinking, but he must admit that he does enjoy the idea of settling down with the Princess, starting their own family, creating a new legacy. Maybe staying in one place wouldn’t be so bad after all.

After a few minutes of aimless walking the two stumble upon the famous fountain of Ba Sing Se, though it doesn’t look like much to either of them due to the fact that the lanterns aren’t lit.

“This is the fountain everyone always talks about?” The Princess retorts with obvious disappointment. “I thought it would be prettier.”

“Hold on,” Zuko says, and before y/n can question him the Prince begins to use his bending to light the lanterns around the fountain. It’s dangerous and absolutely foolish to use his bending out in the open like that, but he’d rather be thrown in jail by the Dai Lee than have his Princess be upset. Her eyes sparkle with complete and utter awe at the sight of his fire bending, recognizing the flow of his movements and admiring the beauty of the flames that dance among the lanterns.

Now lit in all of its glory, the two stand side by side and admire the shimmering water that flows from the fountain. Zuko wraps an arm around the Princess’s waist, and she happily rests her head upon his shoulder once she’s safely nestled into his side.

“Thank you for taking me out tonight,” she murmurs quietly. “I’ve missed spending time with you like this.”

“Me too... I know I’ve been difficult with the transition into our new life here, and it’s going to take some time for me to get used to. But I also know that this should have happened a long time ago, and I’m sorry it took me this long to fulfill my promise to you.”

“I don’t care about how long it took us to get here,” y/n replies earnestly. “All that matters is that we’re finally together in Ba Sing Se just like we planned all those years ago. We can be happy now, but only if you allow yourself the chance to enjoy it.”

“I want to,” Zuko utters, turning to face her and gently cupping her cheek with his hand, “and I know with your help I can.”

The Princess smiles faintly at his proclamation, and when he leans down to kiss her she meets him halfway to seal their lips together in a tender kiss. It isn’t very long or very passionate, Zuko still not used to the idea of public displays of affection due to the fact that he’d refrained from act during his time on the ship with the crew, but it’s special and beautiful all the same.

Ba Sing Se is the start of a new beginning for the a coupe, a second chance at happiness and a place where they can start over. It won’t be easy, and the transition won’t happen over night, but at the two kiss underneath the ember glow of the fountain’s lanterns, the Princess knows that they’re finally going to get their chance at happiness, and so she savors the feeling for all it’s worth.

Because the spirits know it won’t last for very long.

| tags: @rainteslerrrr @oddment-niwit-blubber-tweak @thebluelcdy @royahllty @the-firebender-girl @coldlilheart @ilovespideyyy @yiyibetch @eridanuswave @lammello @a-monsters-love @knaite-solo @zukh03s @titaniafire @dekahg @emberislandplayers @kikaninchen-2 @lozzybowe @izzieserra @melacholy @music-geek19 @thia-aep @thyunnamed @haylaansmi @nataliahaslosthershit @idkdude776 @aangsupremacy @thirstyforsometea @ihaveaproblem98 @brown-eyed-thang @djskfkdkkf @xapham @yeetletzgetitjae @misnmatchedsox |

[writing-gifts]

Finding Home (merman!Elliott x gn!reader)

A/N: Me and a friend, @hideyoosh, worked on this stardew valley reader insert fic together. There should be more chapters in the future hopefully. 

-------

The tree branches sway as the fallen leaves are carried in the gentle wind.

Today was a perfect day for fishing. You had been so caught up in tending to your autumn crops that you hadn't taken the time to focus on your hobbies. It wasn’t like you didn't enjoy farming though, it was just nice to take a break every once in a while.

Unfortunately, the lake in the forest south of your farm seemed to be quiet today. Nothing was biting, even with the bait you had hooked on. This was extremely peculiar since every time you came here multiple fish would bite throughout the day. You'd even throw some back. But now it was well into the afternoon and you hadn't caught a single thing.

You sigh and lean back in your seat you placed on the dock. Good thing you brought one with you.

While you contemplate whether you should call it day or not, your rod jerks forward. You finally had hooked something!

You scramble to try to reel it in hoping, praying, that it wasn't trash that got caught. However you cross that off quickly. Whatever you had at the end of the line was fighting back hard.

You put up your best fight, set on making this fish yours and it seems like neither of you will let up. But then your line suddenly snaps.

The release of tension sends you and your chair falling backwards. Your mouth gawks at the destroyed line on your iridium fishing rod. This wasn’t any cheap rod either. In fact, it was brand new!

What could have been strong enough to do this?

You pout at the loss of an incredible catch and your line that you would now have to fix.

"Dammit…"

Suddenly, you hear splashing from the lake and look up to see a man in the water not too far away from you. You had never seen this man in town before so you're immediately alarmed.

How long had he even been in the water?

"I’m sorry, I didn't mean to scare you!" he called out.

Your mouth hangs open and you’re at a loss for words.

The man had long ginger hair, and deep green eyes. Along with his defined cheekbones and sharp jawline, he might as well be physically flawless. Part of you couldn't believe he was even human.

He holds out your hook, the broken off piece of your line hanging from it, and begins making his way closer to the dock.

"I apologize for breaking it, but I couldn't get it out otherwise so…."

You finally manage to somewhat collect yourself back onto your chair and try to make sense of what was happening. Surely you would have noticed someone out in the lake before you cast out your line, so how did he get hooked?

He stares at you, and you stare right back. His gaze was warm and honest, almost naive.

Breaking the momentary silence, you utter a very eloquent, "What?"

"This hook. I believe it belongs to you seeing as we’re the only ones here. Thought I would return it since my arm has no better use for it."

You give a breathy laugh and reach for the outstretched hook. “Yeah I suppose you’ve got a good point there. Thanks.”

You take the hook from his hand, your fingers just brushing up against his. The small bit of contact has your face heating up unexpectedly and you look away.

What's wrong with you?Just an ounce of human contact and you're on fire! Touch starved much?

The other equally reasonable part of you argues otherwise though.

The man is a living, breathing deity of grace and beauty! Anyone with eyes can argue that. How am I still conscious?

And somehow you agree with both.

Once you take the hook, you notice the blood on his left arm.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to hook you. I’d be a sorry excuse for a fisherman if I could only fish men."

He offers a short laugh and replies, "That's quite alright. You were just trying to catch a meal.”

Oh, I caught a meal alright...

“I assure you it appears much more garish than it actually is." He pokes around the wound to demonstrate no reaction. “See?”

"Please, it's my fault you’re hurt so I can at least help you clean the wound. My farm’s not too far, I’ll grab a first aid kit and be back.”

You get up from your chair quickly and give him no time to argue. If you were fast enough you could be back within an hour, so you half-sprint the trip back to your farm.

As you look through your medicine cabinet for anything else you might need, you remember the times you hurt yourself with fishing hooks. Sure, they can be annoying to deal with, but that’s really all. You can't really say much for experiencing getting hooked and reeled though.

Catching yourself zoning out, you quickly gather what you need before heading to the dock once more.

You run down the old wooden planks to your chair and pole, but you don’t find the injured stranger there with them.

Confused, you look around in the distance to see if he got out of the water somewhere. As soon as you turn to look behind yourself, you feel something grip your ankle. You shriek and frantically try to kick it off.

“WHAT THE F-”

"Shh! Please don’t scream! It’s me!"

Your ankle is released and you fall backwards onto the dock. Again. You scoot closer to the edge and meet an apologetic gaze. The man was still in the water after all. You give a sigh of utter relief.

“I’m so glad it’s you and not a murderous mythical fish monster...Where did you go?”

“I was diving a bit while you were gone. I’m sorry. It was ill mannered of me to grab you so suddenly,” he said earnestly.

Part of you wonders why he didn't just call out to you but you shrug.

“All is forgiven.”

You place a towel and first aid kit on your fish cooler and motion to the chair next to it.

"Can you get out of the water for me? You can sit on this seat so I can clean you up."

"Um…"

"What’s up?"

He visibly tenses at the question and musters out, "I just don't think I can get up into that seat."

He moves closer to the pier and places his hands on the worn wood before trying to lift himself up and falling back in the water.

“Not a problem man! I’ll help you up.”

“Wait!”

You take a good grip on his arm, muster all the strength you used trying to reel him in the first time, and heave him onto the dock. Your eyes widen when you see that his bottom half isn't human at all. His hips were completely covered in burgundy scales and as he sits himself on the edge of the pier, you realize that his lower body tapers off into a giant tail.

For the second time today you find yourself struggling to find words.

The man--no merman realizes your shock and gives an empty chuckle. "I've scared you again…"

Immediately, you blink and shake your head. "I--I'm just a little surprised, but not scared. You’d be surprised yourself that this doesn’t even top the list!"

Supernatural beings in this town aren’t exactly few and far between, are they?

“Anyways, tail or not, your arm still needs attention. Lift it up for me?”

The man gapes back at you but does as you say. It seems he’s the one left speechless this time.

You grab the disinfectant spray off the cooler and move the bandages to the seat before approaching him.

"This might sting a little."

You spray where the hook had got him and you realize that the gash goes down further than you thought originally. It begins near his shoulder and fades out around the middle of his bicep due to you trying to reel him in. The guilt starts to set in pretty fast as you inspect the wound.

As you try to take your mind off the damage you caused you notice the merman seems lost in thought.

"What's your name?" you ask.

He seems surprised yet relieved by the break in the silence. He slips into a relaxed and elegant smile and says, “Elliott. Might I ask you yours?"

"I’m ____, but most people just call me the farmer around here."

"Then it's very nice to meet you, farmer."

You grab the bandages but then remember that the Elliott would eventually have to go back in the water. So you fiddle with the packaged roll in your hands instead.

"Well, I think I'm done. I can't wrap the wound cause it would be bad if the bandages got wet. Will you be okay?"

"You needn’t worry! It will heal in no time at all and even more so since you helped me." He gives you a very charming smile and you can't help returning it.

He’s really different from everyone else in town, you think to yourself, and not just because of the whole merman situation. Elliott had a mature and sophisticated manner of speaking which was a welcome change of pace. And speaking with him was effortless as it was enchanting. You hoped it wouldn’t be the last time.

"Do you live here?"

The merman frowns slightly before shaking his head. "Unfortunately, I appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of my home.”

"Oh, are you lost?"

"Not necessarily. I ended up here because I had nowhere else to go. The humans in blue along the coast have closed off any underwater entrance back into the ocean from here."

You tilt your head wondering what he means before it hits you.

Joja.

"The dam--They must have shut it off completely. But they said that they wouldn't!"

Your brow furrows as you try to figure out how this happened. Earlier in the year, Joja had finished the construction of their dam running along the outlet of the river bank to the sea. All you knew about it was bits of information you overheard in the saloon, really, and that helped you remember two things. That the dam was unfortunately an energy powerhouse in Stardew Valley and Joja was only allowed to build the dam under the condition that they could not mess with the river bank’s environment.

Cutting off the sea from the river is a huge interjection! They couldn't even do it without the proper authorization! What could they possibly be hoping to gain from a severed connection between the river and ocean?

Your thoughts come to a halt when you see Elliott giving you a concerned look. The last thing you want to do is give him more reason to worry, so instead you inhale deeply and do your best to comfort him.

"I'm sorry that happened to you. I wish I could help you get back."

He smiles weakly, "Your kindness and concern are enough."

The sentiment was nice but you shake your head. "No, I'm going to help you get back home. I've just decided."

The merman's eyes widen. "But how?"

"...That is a good question." You think for a moment but nothing is really coming to mind.

"I don't know yet but I'm sure we can come up with something eventually!"

Fortunately, that's enough to raise Elliott's spirits. "Perhaps you're right. They do say two heads are better than one."

You smile, but maybe you need to recruit some assistance though.

[wouldduskwood]

Descendants of Despair Part 53

As I lay beside Jake, my breathing returned to normal and the crawling feeling had been replaced with the warmth of his touch. I thought about just how much I had changed. Dan had hit a raw spot when he had hinted at my weakness. I had been strong for so long, so long I couldn’t even remember a time where resilience and survival wasn’t a driving force in my life. Jake had helped tame that to an extent. I could rely on him to pick up on the things that I may miss otherwise. I had wondered if it meant I was getting weak. Dan’s words reiterated those concerns. But now I saw my behaviour for what it really was. Allowing someone into my world had not made me weak, instead it had made me stronger. His strength became my strength. Relying on him wasn’t weak, it was right. I didn’t have to manipulate him to get him to do what I needed. I didn’t have to question whether he was manipulating me. He had seen me at my worst and still loved me. I could be my true self, and that was something I don’t think I had ever really seen before. The true self that allowed myself to feel, to trust, to love...to be vulnerable. As I drifted off to sleep, I contented myself with the thought that I had been strong enough to lay Dan on his ass without hesitation. My instincts were still there, as strong as always.

I startled awake relatively early to the light from the dimly lit lamp. The softness of the bed and comfort of the room was unnerving. I felt as though it was lowering my defenses. Jake was already awake as well, holding me lightly but staring at the ceiling in quiet contemplation. “It’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked quietly. Jake nodded thoughtfully. “I guess discomfort has become comfortable to us?” he questioned and sighed. “I should be happy, we had an amazing night...I slept in more comfort than I have in a long time, yet somehow it just doesn’t feel right.” “Check your laptop,” I murmured, sitting myself up on the comfortable bed, noting vaguely that my muscles didn’t hurt as much as they did when I slept on the floor, or the sidewalk, or the riverbank. It should have felt great, instead it just increased my level of unease. I got up with Jake and we got dressed, then I began pacing back and forth. I was hungry, we hadn’t eaten since yesterday before meeting up with Dan. Glancing around the room, I picked up my backpack and looked inside for anything of substance. As I scavenged, Jake appeared beside me and handed me an energy bar. “I grabbed a couple of these from the car last night. Thought we might need something. We can get some proper breakfast after I have checked where we are at,” he said as he opened his own bar and began chewing on it.

I accepted Jake’s offer thankfully, and began eating, sitting close to him, watching what he was doing on the laptop screen. Because his laptop was so limited, he flicked from screen to screen at near lightning speed. I wasn’t sure how he was keeping up with everything that was going on, but he seemed pretty sure of himself so I just sat and watched in admiration, trying to pick up strings of code that I could recognise. “Hm,” I mumbled quietly. “Yes?” Jake asked, pausing briefly in his screen flicking and typing. “Nothing, just...you’re still keeping track of Richy?” I asked. “You saw that, huh?” Jake replied. I was about to apologise for intruding into his private world when he continued speaking. “Well done, I am impressed. You know a fair bit about programming to pick up on that from the small strings you must have seen.” I shrugged in embarrassment. I was hardly a hacker of his calibre. “You don’t mind me watching?” I asked in wonder. Jake’s response shocked me as he began to laugh.

I glared at him as he turned to face me, shaking his head to try and gain control of himself. “Here’s the thing,” he replied soothingly. “I love you and I trust you. Usually my trust in people is based on what I have been able to dig up about them online. Not with you, you are a blank entity online. Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is, my reaction to you hadn’t made sense until I decided that you were made for me, as dumb as that sounds, I think of you as a soulmate...if they were to exist. Because you are truly part of me, I have made everything I do part of you as well. You have full access to my set up remember? You also have full access to my phone through yours. Everything I am, it is you.”

Jake’s response made me happy. I was thinking and feeling along the same lines as him. I still wasn’t as comfortable at admitting it as he was, so turned away from his gaze and then pouted as he giggled at my reaction. “It’s okay, you don’t have to say it, I know how much you love me,” he replied smugly. I growled under my breath then leaped on him, but he was already expecting my response and caught me with a grin. “Okay, maybe we should get you some proper food eh?” he asked, trying to stifle his giggles. “Urgh,” I groaned. Jake closed his laptop and packed it in a bag then motioned for me to gather my gear as well. I knew he was doing this just so that he could save me from further embarrassment, but I appreciated it nonetheless. If we stayed here much longer, I knew the walls would begin to close in around me. This often happened when I was stuck in small spaces for long periods of time. There were very few escape routes from enclosed spaces.

Once we had cleared out the motel room of our personal belongings, we dropped the key on the table then put our hoods up and left. It was too early to head to meet up with Dan, so we had a little time to fill in before we would need to head back to the prison. “Let’s go through a drive thru,” Jake suggested. “Then we can decide on our next steps.” I nodded in relief. The prospect of food, even takeaway food, was appealing and being able to stay with Jake and hash out future moves was even better.

The first drive thru we saw, Jake pulled in and we argued briefly over the least disgusting options from the menu before both deciding on our breakfast. Jake pulled up to the window with his head down, we paid, got our order and left. I picked up my bag and sniffed it in mild disgust. Jake glanced at me and grinned. “Okay, I know, not the best but at least it's something.” I raised an eyebrow as I pulled my breakfast muffin from the bag. “...is it though?...” I asked. Jake laughed as he pulled the car over near a deserted park. “Okay, gross food is still food,” he grinned as he dug into his bag and began to eat. I had to admit, gross take away food certainly was better than no food at all. I had gotten accustomed to healthier eating since leaving the street. I was sick of always getting sick and I wanted to maintain my physical health...it is far easier to run when you aren’t ill or unfit.

“So, the plan?” Jake asked. “I take it there is a bit more to it than the simple stuff you gave the buffoon.” I snickered in response then became angry at myself so nudged Jake with my elbow. “Sorry,” he responded with a sly grin, no doubt relishing in my slip up. “Yeah, you need to have the cameras going, follow everything outside. If something happens, you need to get a signal to me without digital means. I can’t take my phone in with me, they will confiscate it until I leave and I would rather they had no access to it at all. I’m assuming Dan will have his, but again we won’t have access to it while in there.” I paused to take a breath and have a sip of water. Jake was thoughtful for a moment.

“Okay, the programme you installed that gave me access to their system also gave me access to their alarms. If something happens, I will set off some form of alarm, nothing major that would cause a lockdown, but enough of a distraction that you can get out and hopefully it will draw the man without a face away.”

“Wow…” I gasped, suddenly impressed. He had solved the issue so quickly. I guessed when he had seen his chance to take control of their security, he had made sure he had as much control as he could. “Fuck Jake, you’re incredible!” I declared earnestly. “Uh...there is one other thing I want to do before we go. I may not get time after...I want to take down the traps on the roofs, in case an unsuspecting person gets hurt. I also want to look at whether the trap was tampered with on the roof the man without a face was waiting on.” I requested hesitantly. I knew I’d be by myself up there and Jake wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea. “I can’t stop it from happening can I?” Jake asked sadly. “No, not this time. It’s important to me.” I replied bluntly. We didn’t need someone harmed because of us. If the Police found any trace of it, it would just be another reason for them to be chasing us. Not something I was willing to risk. The main drive though was because I was frustrated with not being able to understand how the man without a face had gotten past our defenses. The more I knew about him the better. “Okay, but this time I’m coming too. We will park as far away as we can, where there is access to the roofing around that area. Do you agree?” I thought for a moment, glaring at him intently. “Ugh, fine. But you keep your face hidden the entire time. You dismantle any cameras around the area first and if there is anybody looking at you, you go!” I replied in an attempt at compromise. Jake nodded solemnly and started the car.

Part 54

[goth-surana]

Scars of the Past

Anders/M!Hawke, read on AO3

Written for the prompt “kiss on a scar” from @pinkfadespirit 

(Also pssst if anyone wants to give me some hurt/comfort handers prompts from this angst list I’m all ears)

Garrett Hawke was a humorous man, a man many accused of being irreverent and unable to take anything seriously. He was always ready with a joke, some witty comment to alleviate the situation. 

The one man who stopped Hawke in his tracks, however, was Anders. Anders was passionate, took things perhaps too seriously. He spoke with fire in his eyes and fury in his heart, and that set Hawke’s own heart ablaze. 

The two men had been dancing around each other for years now, and finally Hawke was waiting anxiously in his estate. He had left the door open, set the fire in his room, even groomed his beard somewhat and washed up. He had no idea how far Anders might want to go tonight, but Hawke would be ready for anything. Really, he just wanted the other man desperately. 

Anders did arrive, nervously confessed to some kind of “obsession” with him, which made Hawke grin and definitely stroked his ego a bit. 

Anders smiled back nervously, adorably. Hawke was giddy, had been waiting for this moment for so long. Had flirted badly for so long, and finally convinced Anders that he was serious. 

Anders kissed as passionately as he spoke, driven by some deep hunger inside. Hawke grasped the other man as he returned the kiss, wrapping his large arms around the man’s small frame. 

As the kissing grew more intense, as heat pooled inside Hawke’s body, as his own hunger grew, Hawke began to push Anders’ feathered coat from his shoulders. Anders let him, and the coat and all its ridiculous buckles eventually fell to the ground. Hawke sneaked a hand up Anders’ side, untucked the hem on his shirt and slid a hand alongside warm skin. 

Anders shivered under Hawke’s touch, and Hawke somehow wanted him even more. Even if all they did was fumble around tonight, Hawke just wanted to touch him. To feel the man he had admired for so long and to see him laid bare without the layers he kept around himself. Those layers were needed, Hawke knew the world was cruel to Anders and he had to protect himself, but Hawke wanted to create a place where Anders did not need protective walls. 

Or clothes, ideally. 

Hawke put another arm inside Anders’ shirt, began to lift, but then felt Anders go stiff under him. And not the kind of stiff he had been hoping for. 

“Anders?” Hawke asked, pulling back slightly. He still held on, but kept his touch light so that Anders knew he could get away if he wanted. Maker, Hawke hoped he didn’t want to.

Anders stayed, but looked worried. “Uh, I’m not…I’m not much to look at.”

“I beg to differ,” Hawke grinned, trying to boost Anders’ self esteem. 

“I mean I’m not...I don’t want to disappoint you,” Anders said, not meeting Hawke’s eyes. “I haven’t been with anyone for a while, and not since...uh...since Justice.”

“Is he not okay with this?” Hawke asked, heart sinking.

“He’s fine with me being with you, although it took some arguing. I’m just not as pretty under my clothes, that’s all.”

“Anders, I assure you I very much want to see what’s under your clothes,” Hawke said, again trying for levity. 

“I know,” Anders said quietly. “I want to be with you too. I just...you’re so handsome, and I’m...Well, you’ll see.”

“If you don’t want to do anything else tonight, that’s fine,” Hawke said earnestly. Sure, he would be disappointed, but Hawke would respect Anders’ boundaries. Anders shook his head, steeling himself. 

“No, I want to do this. I just...I’m just nervous.”

“It’s okay,” whispered Hawke.

Anders took a breath, then began to remove his shirt. Hawke watched inches of skin revealed slowly, and then understood. 

First off, Anders was skinny, too skinny. But that wasn’t as noticeable as the multiple scars that were scattered across the man’s chest. Most prominent was a large patch of scar tissue stretched over his heart. The wound must have been gaping, Hawke realized with a sinking feeling. 

The other scars were small things, no doubt scrapes from his time in the Wardens. Battle marks that were low priority on a battlefield when he needed his mana for other uses.

After casting his shirt aside, Anders looked around the room nervously. Hawke tried not to openly stare at the chest wound, but he probably failed. 

“What…” Hawke couldn’t stop himself from asking. “What did that?”

Anders let out a low chuckle. “See, it ruined the mood. That was from Rolan, one of the Wardens. Former Templar.”

Hawke placed a broad hand over the mark, marveling at it. “How did you...survive this?,” he whispered into the room. Hawke knew Anders led a dangerous life, but it was another thing to know something had almost taken the man from him before they even met. 

Anders took a moment to reply. “Justice,” he said. “It was after we merged. Rolan tried to kill us, but Justice saved me. The sword...it went through us.”

“Maker…” Hawke breathed out, running a thumb along the edge of the scar. 

“Ugly, isn’t it?” Anders asked, smiling sardonically. 

“No,” Hawke answered, stronger than he meant to. “It means you survived. You’re beautiful, all of you.” 

Anders looked like he didn’t know how to respond, only looking into Hawke’s eyes. Hawke placed a hand on his elbow and gently led him to the bed, guiding him to lie down. Anders settled back against the pillows, still looking at Hawke in awe and confusion. Hawke lay on his side, peering over Anders. Again, he touched the gnarled flesh, stroking it. 

Anders took a sharp breath. He covered Hawke’s hand with his, still unsure. 

Hawke leaned down, slowly, questioning. Anders let him kiss him again, this time more gentle and less frenzied. More of a slow press of lips. Hawke liked kissing Anders this way just as much. As the two men kissed, Hawke ran his hand over Anders’ chest some more, feeling for all the small scars along the way. He caressed them, almost, wanting no doubt in Anders’ mind that they were just as beautiful as the rest of him. 

Anders tensed under him again when Hawke ran a hand over his shoulder, slightly behind him, and Hawke felt why immediately. There were scars there too. Hawke pulled back, and looked at Anders. 

“May I see?” Hawke asked. If Anders still wanted some part of him hidden, Hawke was fine with that. After all, Hawke had felt from the shape what kinds of marks these were. What had caused them. Hawke’s heart ached for the man in his bed, but he didn’t want to get emotional. Anders might view that as his own fault. 

Anders nodded, then sat up and turned around, baring his back to Hawke. All across his back were the unmistakable marks of a whip, slow and methodical. Hawke thought he could handle seeing what he knew was there, but the image of Anders being brutalized sent a fury through his veins. He took a deep breath. 

“From my fourth escape,” Anders said, somewhat distantly. “The Templars that caught me weren’t too happy. The circle didn’t, uh...sanction this, but it happened all the same.”

Hawke touched these scars too, soothing his hand up and down. “I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say. He also didn’t want to think about how something must have stopped Anders from healing the damage, how it would have been deliberate. A disgusting act of violence and vitriol. 

Boldly, unthinkingly, Hawke leaned down to kiss the place between Anders’ shoulder blades. The man shivered under him, let out a small breath. 

Hawke couldn’t quite form the words, but he wanted Anders to know that these were beautiful too. They too meant he had survived. Every mark on his body was a testament to how Anders had looked a cruel world in the face and said no. Said he would live, despite it all. 

Hawke moved up, kissing a scar that ran across his shoulder, hoping his actions could convey the words that were caught in his throat. 

“You’re being very serious right now,” Anders commented. “No jokes this time?”

“Nothing here to joke about,” Hawke said, his voice thick. “Just...turn around, okay?” 

Anders complied, facing Hawke. Hawke guided him back down, and situated himself over the other man. He leaned down and placed a kiss over the scar on Anders’ heart. 

“You’re beautiful,” Hawke said. 

“That’s sometimes hard to believe,” Anders admitted. 

“Well,” Hawke replied, smiling somewhat. “I have all night to convince you, if you’ll let me.”

Anders also smiled, a smile that lit a fire in Hawke’s heart. A smile that could rival a sunset. 

“I would like that very much.” 

[freddiesaysalright]

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes - Chapter 2

Gwilym!Prince Charming x Reader

Summary: After losing your parents, your step-family makes your life impossible. That is, until Prince Gwilym holds a ball. It’s your one chance for everything to change.

Word Count: 3.2k

Tag List: @psychosupernatural​, @someone-get-a-medic​, @bensrhapsody​, @deakyclicks​, @crazylittlethingcalledobsession​, @minigranger​, @crazyweirdocalledfriday​, @the-moving-finger-writes​, @assembledherethevolunteers​, @rose-writes-prose​, @queenlover05​, @26-7-49​, @drowsebaby, @im-an-adult-ish​, @queen-paladin​, @rogerina-owns-me, @mirkwoodshewolf​, @namelesslosers​, @headl0ng​, @captvianswaan, @xviiarez​, @baltimoresweethearts​, @killer-queen-87​, @haileymoreolikestupid, @itsametaphorgwil​ If you’d like to be added, let me know!

A/N: Once again, I apologize this update took so long. As y’all know, I’ve been going through it with my break up and sad. But! My motivation has returned enough for me to continue and I hope y’all enjoy!

Warning(s): None!

Moodboard

Prologue  Chapter 1

Chapter 2 here we go!!!

No one else seemed to notice him walk in, but to you, it was as if time had stopped. He started toward a table, moving in slow motion, followed by two other men apparently in his class, and he took a seat at a corner table. You were frozen to the spot as you watched him. 

“Earth to Y/N,” Zelda snapped. “Are you going to just stand there or go greet our customers?”

“Right, sorry,” you said, shaking your head to pull yourself out of the reverie.

“And turn on the charm,” she instructed under her breath. “Those men have clearly got money.” 

You straightened yourself and headed over. You began to hear their conversation as you approached. 

“So, your father didn’t say what it is he has?” questioned the blonde one to Gwilym’s left. 

“No,” Gwilym said with a shake of his head. “Just that he’s ill. He really didn’t talk about it.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the dark-haired one across from Gwilym. “Your father is a good man. You’re lucky you still have him to guide you.”

“I’m more than ready to take on my role,” Gwilym said. “It’s just all this marriage talk that’s got me worried. Say I do marry and start a family, what then? Will he think it’s okay to just give up?”

“Believe me, once he has grandchildren, he’ll have all the more reason to fight,” the blonde one said. “My parents can’t get enough of the twins.”

“It’s still hard to believe you’re the father of twins, Ben,” Gwilym said with a smirk. 

Gwilym’s back was to you when you reached the table. 

“Good evening,” you began shakily, but then cleared your throat. “What can I get for you, gentlemen?”

The blonde one, Ben, addressed you first. 

“A pitcher of ale is fine,” he said. “I’ve got this round, and Rami will get the next. We’re treating the birthday boy.”

He clapped Gwilym on the shoulder. 

“That’s not for another two days!” Gwilym insisted. “You’re the guests, I should treat.”

“Yes, but we’re guests to your birthday ball,” Rami replied, as Ben was already handing you some coins. 

“How exciting,” you said, trying to contain your curiosity. 

A ball? With rich out of town guests? Gwilym must really be somebody. 

“Aren’t you going to wish him a happy birthday?” Rami asked. 

You shook your head. “Sorry, but it’s bad luck to say it before the day.”

Gwilym finally looked at you. You saw his brow crease as he searched your eyes for recognition, but you quickly cut your gaze away. You didn’t want him to know you. Not truly. 

“Well, you can’t argue with superstitions,” Ben said.

“You just say that because you’re friends with pirates,” Rami teased. 

You smiled, and allowed yourself to look at Gwilym once more. He was paying no mind to his friends, and was still gazing at you. His eyes were so clear and blue. 

“I will wish you good luck,” you said sweetly. 

Gwilym felt his heart skip a beat. “I...well, thank you.”

You looked away and at his friends. “I’ll be right back with that ale.”

You turned on your heel and swept away from the table, taking deep breaths to steady yourself. Your heart was hammering against your ribcage. 

“Y/N, are you alright?” Zelda asked as you came into the back, her face drawn with concern. “You look pale, child.”

“I...I think you should take that table, Zelda,” you said. 

“Why?” she demanded. “Were they being disrespectful? Because I don’t care how rich they are, I’ll kick every one of their sorry -”

“No, nothing like that,” you cut across her with a small laugh. “They’re perfectly polite, I just am a bit intimidated.”

“Intimidated?” she questioned. 

You couldn’t really make her understand. There was something about Gwilym that made you want him to see you as elegant and refined. Not a helpless orphan and waitress.  

“Well, I’m sorry,” she said. “But as your friend, I’ve got to make you face your fears.”

“But, Zelda, I -” 

“No buts,” she cut across you, handing you a pitcher on a tray with three pints. “You’ll be just fine.”

She gave you a little push and you stumbled out of the kitchen. Zelda watched you make your way back to the table with a sigh. The truth was, she saw how lovely and charming you were, and she hoped that one of those men was your ticket out of this life. 

“Here we are,” you said cheerfully, donning the mask you usually wore, and placing the drinks down in front of each of the men. “Anything else for you gentlemen just now?”

“We’re alright, thank you,” Rami told you. 

“Perfect, just shout if you need anything,” you said quickly.

Again, you scurried away, but still felt Gwilym’s eyes on your back.

“Did she give us her name?” Ben asked. 

Gwilym didn’t answer. He was watching the door you’d disappeared behind. 

“Hello?” Ben said to his friend, exchanging a concerned look with Rami.

“Gwil!” Rami barked.

Gwilym started and looked at his friends, straightening his shirt. “Sorry. What?”

“What’s got you so hung up on her?” Ben asked, jerking his chin toward the kitchen door.

“I swear I saw that girl earlier today,” Gwilym answered. “While Father and I were out riding. She looks different, but something about her face, I just…”

“Oh, no,” Ben said grimly.

Gwilym’s brows came together. “What?”

“He’s got it,” Rami added.

“Got what?” Gwilym demanded. 

“The love stare,” Ben answered.

“I beg your pardon?” Gwilym questioned. “Love? I don’t even know her name.”

“Doesn’t matter, you’ve got the stare,” Ben said. “I’ve had it, Rami’s had it, and once you’ve got it, it’s the end of your life as you know it.”

Gwilym frowned. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

“The first time I saw my wife - well, the second time actually since the first time I was barely conscious - I looked at her and nothing else mattered,” Ben said. “I couldn’t stop looking at her. Tell him, Rami.”

“It’s true,” Rami agreed. “With my wife, it only took our first meeting for me to become sort of obsessed with her. All I wanted was to be close to her.”

Gwilym rolled his eyes. “You’re both being absurd. I was just trying to place her from earlier, nothing more.”

“And I was just trying to find the girl who rescued me,” Ben said. “You tell yourself whatever you want.”

A beat passed as Gwilym considered this. He did find you rather attractive earlier. Your pretty eyes - so sad, but so beautiful - shining in the sunlight. The way your cloak framed your delicate face. Sure, you were pretty, but that didn’t mean he was in love, did it?

“Do you want to see her again?” Rami asked. 

“I don’t know,” Gwilym said. “She’s probably a perfectly lovely girl, I just -”

“Invite her to the ball,” Ben said. 

“My father is planning on introducing me to dozens of ladies that night, I can’t show up with a date,” Gwilym said. 

“Then invite everyone,” Rami suggested. “The whole town. That way, she’ll turn up if she’s available, and you can be introduced to her as well.”

“I’m not sure my father would approve,” Gwilym said. 

“Listen, mate,” Ben replied. “If there’s anything Rami and I have learned, it’s that you’ve got to bend the rules a little to get what you want. And let’s say that’s not the girl of your dreams, some other girl might be. But you can’t know that if your only options are other nobility.”

“I did tell Father I wanted to give everyone a chance,” Gwilym conceded. “I think that’s a brilliant idea. The castle should not be off limits to the townspeople. Everyone will be invited to my ball.”

The three princes grinned and clinked glasses.

Meanwhile, you were busy running food and more drinks. You found yourself constantly glancing over at Gwilym and his friends, and they eventually waved you over to order another round, which you handled just as briefly as the first time. Although they were so pleasant, a large part of you wanted nothing more than to sit down and join them. 

They left after about two hours, and you watched them go, feeling heavier somehow. You sighed as the door began to close, casting one last glance Gwilym’s way. The night wore on, you continued in your work, and then closing time came, and you and Zelda began to clean up. It was well after midnight. 

You were wiping some clean mugs when Zelda approached you. She put all the earnings for the night into the safe and then she stretched backward and groaned. 

“Better take it easy soon, Y/N, or you’ll end up with a back as bad as mine,” she joked.

You half smiled. “I’m afraid Frank allows me no time for taking it easy.”

Zelda paused, looking long and hard at you. You stopped your cleaning and met her eyes.

“What?” you asked.

“Y/N, don’t you think it’s about time you got away from Frank?” she wondered earnestly.

“Of course I do, but I haven’t any money,” you replied. “Or a place to go.”

She bit her lip and looked at the ground, hesitating on what she wanted to say. You wrinkled your nose and fixed your gaze on her face. 

“Zelda, what is it?” you pressed.

She looked at you again. “You’d have those things if you got married.”

You blinked, as shocked as if she’d slapped you. 

“Married?” you questioned. 

She nodded. “Yeah. I mean, goodness knows, you’ve gathered the heart of almost every single man who comes into this place. Any of them would make a fine and loyal husband.”

Your heart sank at the mere thought. True, the men you served here were sweet and fun, but you had no real attraction to them. At least, nothing beyond a friendship. You had your heart set on falling in love, and being as passionate as your parents were. What else made a marriage worth having?

“I don’t love them,” you replied plainly. 

Zelda struggled not to roll her eyes. “Romantic as the notion is, most people are not as lucky as your parents were. Most people find a good person and settle down, and make it enough.”

“I’m not most people,” you returned. “I could never promise myself to just anybody to get out from under Frank.”

She heaved a sigh. “I’m asking you to be realistic, Y/N. It might be the only way out.”

“But that’s a horrible foundation for a marriage!” you argued. “Besides, if the whole point is for me to get my freedom, then what good would it do to go from my stepfather to a husband?”

“Y/N, think!” she cried. “Any of the men here would be much kinder to you! It’s true, you wouldn’t have complete independence, but at least you would no longer suffer this abuse!”

You paused, heart cracking at the idea. She wasn’t wrong. Your life would be fairly pleasant as the wife of a farmer or a merchant. But love…

“I can’t, Zelda,” you said levelly. “I just can’t. I’ve clung to the hope of love for too long. If I give up on it now, I...I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed each day. I can’t compromise.”

She sighed again. “At least think about it, Y/N. Please.”

You gave her a curt nod. She walked away and you watched her go, mind reeling with her suggestion. 

***

The next day, Gwilym sat at the breakfast table with his father. As he spread some butter on a fresh piece of toast, the prince looked at the king, debating how to tell him of his idea to invite the townspeople.

“Father,” he began. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh, here we go,” the king grumbled. “What is it?”

“I’d like to invite the whole town to my birthday ball,” Gwilym said, pushing down the urge to snap at the insult. “And I mean everyone, from the gentry to the servants.”

The king shot a glare down the table at Rami and Ben, who were looking pointedly at their own plates.

“Is that so?” the king questioned. “You do realize how much more work we’ll have to do in order to accommodate that amount of guests?”

“You’re the king, surely you can make it happen,” Gwilym said. “It would mean a lot to me, Father. Please?”

He held Gwilym’s gaze, and he softened. As gruff as he was, the king lived to make his son happy. And if the prince wanted it, he was almost always granted it.

“Very well,” he sighed. “We will send out the invitations this afternoon.” 

“Thank you, Father!” Gwilym exclaimed, standing up to hug the king. “You are a most gracious monarch.”

The king squirmed away from his son’s grasp and mumbled irritably under his breath. Gwilym chuckled and looked at his friends. 

“Shall we head out?” he asked. 

“Absolutely,” they agreed. 

The three of them were going hunting today to get out of the palace while the ball was being put together. Ben clapped Gwilym on the back as they exited the palace and walked toward the stables.

“Well done, mate,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad.”

“He did agree surprisingly quickly,” Gwilym remarked.

“Well, it is your birthday,” Rami joked. “You should have whoever you want at your party. I invited the whole village to my wedding, and it was great!”

“I do want to be more involved with my people,” Gwilym agreed. “And who knows? This may be my best birthday yet!”

They laughed together as a footman brought them their horses.

***

You spent the morning cooking with Elise before going up to get your step sisters dressed. Part of you hoped they’d soon get married. That way they could have breakfast in bed and give you some reprieve in the mornings. Your step sisters were okay enough women, and you were certain Frank was plotting some advantageous marriage for them as soon as possible. And it seemed they were also eager to be away from their father.

You walked with Eleanor down the stairs, but parted ways to go to the kitchen. You brought them fresh tea and poured it into their cups.

“Y/N, I need you to mend my coat that’s hanging in my room today,” Frank said as he took a sip.

You were on edge this morning, especially after the events of the previous day. And you were nervous about your conversation with Zelda. You felt that somehow Frank knew how badly you desired to leave now.

“Yes, sir,” you said quietly. 

“And I won’t be going into town,” he said. “I’ve got to update the books of the estate today, so I’ll be in my office all day.”

You nodded. It was always a disappointment when Frank had to stay home during the day. He seemed to find random, pointless tasks for you, lest you find yourself with time to read or eat. But, if it was to balance the books, then he likely would be cooped up in his office.

“Would you like me to bring you your lunch when it’s ready?” you asked. 

“Yes,” he said. “The girls have their music teacher coming so take theirs to the music room. Other than that, we are not to be disturbed.”

The only exceptions to the “do not disturb” rule were fires and injury. You nodded again, understanding.

After breakfast, you cleaned up and did the dishes. Then you headed to the fireplace in the parlor. It was in desperate need of cleaning, so you agreed to take it on. Elsie’s knees just wouldn’t be able to bear it. Before you began, you looked at the chair that your father used to use. When you were a little girl, and your parents hosted parties, the men gathered in this parlor after dinner for brandy and cigars. But your father always told you goodnight before you went to sleep, so you’d slip into the room, to find him in that chair every time. He’d smile, scoop you up, and put you on his knee to give you a big good night kiss. You could still feel the little scratches from his facial hair. 

With a sad smile, you got to work. 

The fireplace turned out to be a bear of a project. It had not been cleaned in years, apparently, and the soot had really built up. After hours of sweeping and scrubbing, you finally got to your feet and admired the clean brick. You were covered in ashes now, and smeared a little on your forehead when you wiped your sweat away. You decided you’d better change and rinse off before mending Frank’s coat. 

You walked out into the entrance hall with surprising timing. Just then, there was a knock at the door. You glanced around, but Robert wasn’t close by. With a shrug, you went to answer it.

The door creaked open when you turned the knob. There stood a young man in a handsome suit, with a huge bag slung over his shoulder. In it, appeared to be hundreds of matching envelopes. 

“How can I help you?” you asked politely.

“Good afternoon, madam,” the man replied, grabbing a letter and holding it out to you. “An invitation from the king.”

You gasped. “The king?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “The whole town has been invited.”

“Invited to what?” you wondered, taking the letter.

The man offered a short bow, which you returned, and then walked back to his horse. You closed the door and looked at the envelope. It was addressed only to “Residents” and then the address, so it wasn’t technically wrong for you to open it. On the other hand, Frank was particular about things like this. You had no desire to set him off again. 

In another remarkable moment, Elsie was coming with Frank’s lunch tray. She offered to take it since you’d taken on the fireplace. 

“Elsie,” you said as you approached. “This letter arrived from the palace. I’m sure Frank will want to open it.”

“Right you are, Y/N,” she agreed.

You placed the letter next to his plate and offered her a little smile. Whatever it was - if it was royal business - likely had nothing to do with you. Still, you were a little curious.

You forgot about the letter while you changed your dress and washed your face. When you came back down from your room and opened the door to Frank’s chambers, he burst out of his office so suddenly, it startled you. His eyes were crazed, a strange burning behind his irises. 

“Y/N, fetch my daughters!” he demanded. “This instant!”

You didn’t hesitate to hurry down the stairs to the music room. You opened the door without knocking.

“Y/N!” Eleanor cried, hands on her hips. “We’re in the middle of a lesson!”

“Your father says to come quick!” you urged her.

The two of them picked up their skirts and ran with you all the way back up to Frank’s office, leaving their music teacher stricken at the piano. Your heart was thumping with excitement. What could this be?

“Father?” Miranda questioned as the three of you entered the study. “What’s the matter?”

He held up the letter. 

“There is a ball at the palace tomorrow night,” he said slowly. “And we’ve received an invitation.” 

[snowdice]

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 26]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. Chapters 3-8 and what I have of Chapter 9 are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

It has been a busy weekend. I will answer asks not related to this at a later day. For now I have to study.

Chapter 7

“Him,” was the only thing Janus said before taking off after the figure who had just disappeared into the game area.

“What?” Remus’s voice followed after him. “Janus! What?!”

Janus did not pause, just continuing to run after Pat, hopping over two barricades as a shortcut. Janus cursed when he lost sight of the man for just a moment near the prize table filled with colorful goldfish, but he was able to spot him once again walking into one of the tents. Janus blasted into the tent. It was a game where they raced rats, and when Janus entered, Pat was cooing at one of them.

 “Who’s a tiny little squishy precious baby?” he was asking one of them, wiggling his pointer finger at it.

“You,” Janus growled stepping up to him.

He turned and tilted his head at Janus with a frown. “Um, me?” he asked, pointing to his chest, all sorts of innocent, but Janus could see a spot of hidden amusement in his eyes.

“Where is it?”

His eyebrows drew together, but it was an act. It was clearly an act! “Where is what?”

“The…” he glanced around them at the people surrounding them. “Thing you just took.”

“I didn’t take anything,” Pat said with a frown.

 “Oh, no,” Janus said. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fooling me twice is not an option.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Pat said. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull. Shit.”

Just then, Remus jogged into the tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s him,” Janus said pointing. “He took it. He has it.”

“I… don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pat said. He looked over to Remus with a confused frown.

Remus looked at Janus. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “It’s him. It has to be him. He’s the mask guy.”

Remus squinted at Pat. “He is?”

“Whoever you think I am, I’m not. I haven’t worn a mask all night. I just did the face paint,” he pointed to his cheeks.

 Remus raised his wrist and his timepiece lit up green. He looked at Janus.

“I lost sight of him for five seconds. He must have stashed it somewhere,” Janus said. He turned on Pat. “Where did you put it?”

“…Are you,” Pat asked, his eyes going back and forth between Janus and Remus, “… the police?”

“We are, actually,” Khalid said as she stepped into the tent. Remus must have called her. She inserted herself between Janus and Pat. “Agent Khalid,” she said, offering a hand with a smile. Pat looked at it in surprise and then smiled back hesitantly as he took it. “Apologizes, one of the big game prizes was stolen by someone matching your description. Would you mind coming down to security for questioning? Just to clear it up.”

 “Oh,” Pat said, hesitant. Janus expected him to refuse outright, but then he said. “Uh, sure.”

“Thank you very much, Mr…”

“Jonas,” Pat told her earnestly. “Do I need to be handcuffed?”

“No,” Khalid said. Janus frowned at her, but she ignored him. “It’s just a talk for now.” She gestured to the tent entrance. “Come with us.”

He did without argument, and Remus and Janus followed behind the both of them. Khalid did not lead them back to the base, but to a little spot that said “security” near the center of the event. Remy was already there waiting for them at a desk.

 “Remy, would you please take Mr. Jonas to go sit down?” she asked.

“Sure, boss,” Remy said, standing up. He led Pat away.

Khalid turned to Janus and Remus once they were out of earshot. “What is going on?”

“It’s the mask man,” Janus said, “the one from 1923, and my scanner said the time bomb was on the Millenia Bird outside the games entrance, but then it was gone the next second, and I saw him, and then he ran away.”

“So, does he have it on him?”

“No. I lost sight of him, and he must have stored it somewhere, but I know he took it.”

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“He’s the man from 1923?” she asked.

“Yes! Remus, that’s him, right? You recognize him.”

“Well,” Remus said thoughtfully. “He was in a mask, and it was dark in the room with the necklace. Other than that, I only really saw his back, and he was wearing pants. Mr. Jonas is wearing a dress, so I can’t really tell if their asses match.”

“Okay, but I was with him for hours. I swear it’s him, and I swear he took it,” Janus just about shouted.

“We’ll question him,” Khalid placated, “and Fred and Lena will keep looking in the meantime.”

 “He knows where it is,” Janus insisted. “I swear.”

“Okay,” Khalid said, before leaving to follow where Remy and Pat had gone. She stopped Janus with a hand on his shoulder. “I think Remus and I will do the interrogation.” He opened his mouth to argue. “You know the most about him, so observe from the sidelines and see if he makes any mistakes that indicate you’re right.”

“That’s just to placate me and you know it.”

“Observation’s over there,” she said pointing.

He got a thumbs up from Remus as he walked by, and Janus glared at his back before walking off to the indicated location.

 He watched as Remus and Khalid entered the room, and Remy left it. Remy joined him in the observation room after leaving and leaned against the wall.

Pat was sitting at a table and watched Remus and Khalid with that same rubbish placid confusion that he had before. “So,” Khalid said, “Mr. Jonas.”

“You can call me Nick,” Pat interrupted.

“Lia,” Khalid replied. He smiled at her happily. “So, are you enjoying your day?” she asked.

“I am!” he replied. “It’s a big day. You only get to see the turn of a millennia once in your life.”

“Ah, yes,” Khalid said. “Doing anything special for it?”

 “Um, not really,” he said. “Other than the party. I’m going to meet up with my roommates after dinner. Kevin doesn’t like this sort of thing, and Joe couldn’t come.”

“Your roommates,” Khalid said, considering him. “Do you live around here?”

“Uh huh,” Pat replied.

“Do you have any ID?”

“I do, want me to get it?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

Pat unzipped one of the bubbles on his waist and handed her a chip. “Remus, would you mind going out and getting the ID scanner?” she asked, even though her timepiece would be able to read it.

“Ah, shit,” Remy said. “Props. What do those things even look like?”

 As Remy scrambled to find something that would pass for an ID reader so “Nick” didn’t get suspicious of Khalid using her timepiece, Janus watched the two alone in the room like a hawk.

“I see you’re wearing a dress inspired by the 2770s,” Khalid noted, as Remus came to stand next to him.

“Yeah!” Pat replied. “Joe made it for me. He’s really good at fashion design!”

“Can I see?” she asked.

With a happy smile, he reached over the table to let her get a look of the sleeves. Janus saw her subtly scan the fabric, probably to make sure it was from the 2990s and not actually from the 2770s. Considering she didn’t mention it, Janus assumed it checked out.

 Remy came back with some sort of device then and handed it to Remus who saluted and wandered back into the interrogation room. Khalid pretended to scan the ID in her hand. She handed it back to him without comment. “So, you said you live with your roommates: Joe and Kevin?” she asked.

“Yep!” he replied. “We’re practically like brothers.”

“Would you mind calling them?”

“Erm,” he titled his head like he was confused by the question. “Well, like I said, Joe is a bit busy, but I could definitely call Kevin.

“Here,” Khalid said, “use my phone.”

“I have my own,” he said with a frown.

“Humor me,” she requested.

“Uh, okay,” Pat agreed. He took the offered 2999 phone and dialed a number on it. Khalid reached over to put it on speaker.

“Hello?” a voice asked after a few seconds.

“Um, hey Kevin, it’s Nick.”

There was a sigh on the other end. “Hello Nick, is something wrong? Why are you calling me from someone else’s phone?”

“I’m fine, I think.” He looked up at Khalid. “Why am I calling him exactly?”

“Hello, I’m Officer Khalid,” Khalid said. “I just wanted to confirm that you are Nick Jonas’s roommate, and he does live in Manaus.”

“Yes, we live together with our other roommate,” the man replied flippantly. “Officer? Is something wrong?”

“I believe there was just a case of mistaken identity,” Khalid said.

“Bullshit there was!” Janus hissed, though she could not hear him.

“No need to worry,” Khalid continued.

“I’m good Kevin,” Pat said.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Kevin asked.

“Don’t be Paranoid, Kevin. I’ll see you Tonight for the New Years Celebration. You know I Live to Party.”

“I am hanging up now,” Kevin said.

“No! Comeback.” The line went dead. Pat handed the device back to Khalid.

She took it and smiled at him. “Give us just a couple of minutes,” she requested. He nodded easily, and she and Remus exited the interrogation room. “I… think we’re done here,” Khalid said.

“No, he’s lying,” Janus insisted, and got a dubious look in return. “I know he is! Remus!”

“The alibi is pretty solid…” Remus said, “and he doesn’t have the bomb on him.”

“Oh, come on,” Janus said. “You can’t say there is nothing fishy going on here.”

Khalid and Remus shared a look. “Janus,” Khalid said. “I respect your intuition. It is usually very good, but you have been a bit intense about the man from the 1920s, and I think that may be blinding you a bit...”

“I am not imagining this!” Janus said. “That’s him and he took it.”

“You only met him once while he was wearing a mask,” Khalid pointed out with a frown, “and you didn’t see him take the bomb, did you?”

“No, but he looked at me and I knew,” Janus argued. They both gave him a skeptical look. “Oh, come on!”

“You know that’s a little weak, Jan,” Remus said.

“Let me talk to him,” Janus requested. “Just give me five minutes to talk with him.”

Khalid raised one eyebrow. “Fine,” she agreed. “You have five minutes, but after that, you have to let it go. We can’t waste any more time.”

 Chapter 8

Pat looked up as Janus stepped into the interrogation room. “Hi,” he said with an innocent smile that could cut steal.

Janus didn’t say a word as he took a seat; he just watched him intently. He leaned slightly over the table and steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “So, your name is Nick this time?” Janus asked.

“Nicholas Jonas,” he said. “Always has been.”

“Stop it,” Janus said.

“Stop what?”

“Cut the crap. I know.”

Pat leaned forward, mirroring Janus as he leaned closer, interlocking his fingers and laying his chin on top of his knuckles. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked, pleasantly.

 “Janus,” Janus replied.

“No, I’m Jonas,” he said, pointing to his chest.

“Not Jonas,” Janus spat. “Janus.”

“Um,” Pat said, eyes alight with amusement. The bastard. “Those are the same words.”

“No, they’re not. It’s Janus. J-A-N-U.-S.”

“Well, that’s confusing,” Pat said with a frown, but his nose was crinkling. “It’s close to my name. You should go by a nickname instead.”

“What?” Janus said. “No.”

Pat hummed. “How about Love Bug?”

“What! No!” Janus sputtered, almost flipping the table, as Pat winked at him.

“BB Good?”

“What does that even mean?!”

“Mandy.”

“No!”

“Okay, okay, how about Macy Misa.”

11594

Janus stared at him for a moment. “Fine. Whatever. What was I even talking about?”

“Hmm. I Believe we were talking about my name and how you think it’s not my name.”

“Right,” Janus said. “So, Nick. That was your roommate, Kevin on the phone, right? He seemed a bit unhappy with you. Any reason?”

“Nah, we’re Cool” said Pat. “That’s Just the Way We Roll.”

“Not because you’re messing up a mission right now?”

Pat’s eyes crinkled together. “A mission?” he parroted. “I’m not messing up a mission.”

“Oh, really?” Janus growled. “Because you’ve been captured by the TPI, and I know who you are and what you’ve been doing.”

“I have no idea what the TPI is,” he claimed.

“Yes, you do!” Janus said, standing up. “You obviously do! Or you wouldn’t be playing this game!”

 “Game?” Pat asked. “Macy I ask you what you’re talking about.”

“This is all just a game to you isn’t it!” Janus said, slamming his hands down on the table in front of them.

“Whoa,” Pat said, putting his hands up. “Calm down. Your face is getting all red. You must be Burnin’ Up.”

“I’m not sure what, but something about what you just said pisses me off.”

“And that is five minutes,” Khalid said, bursting into the room. He felt a tug on the back of his shirt and glared back at Remus who was putting his own body between Janus and Pat.

 “There was no way that was five minutes,” Janus growled.

“It was five minutes,” Khalid gritted out. “Remus, get him out of here.”

“Come on Jay,” Remus said, dragging him back towards the door.

“Remus, I swear to god.”

“Just chill, Janus,” Remus said, slamming the door closed behind them.

Janus shrugged him off. “You chill!” he snapped. “He’s playing you all for the fool.”

“Wow, Macy,” Remy drawled like an asshole. “I’ve never seen you so fired up.”

“Oh, my gosh. No one is going to believe me, and he’s going to get away with this.”

“You’re not really helping your case, babe,” Remy said.

 Remus grabbed him by the shoulders again. “Here, let’s go get some water.”

“I don’t want water,” he said even as he let Remus lead him to another room to get a glass of water.

“Look,” Remus said. “I know the Mask Guy thing really sucked, but you have to look at the facts.

“I am looking at the facts,” Janus insisted, “and the facts are, he’s fucking with me.”

“You don’t know what mask guy looks like,” Remus said. “You didn’t see Nick take the time bomb, he has an ID from this time period and a roommate in this time he called on the phone, and he legitimately seems to not know what any of us are talking about.”

 “Did you even listen to our conversation?” Janus asked. “He was screwing with me the entire time!”

“Janus…” Remus said.

“What?” Janus said, narrowing his eyes at Remus’s tone.

“I know you recently had a bad experience, but not everyone who flirts with you is doing it out of evil.”

Janus’s mouth hung open for a few seconds. “That’s what you got out of our conversation?”

“He called you Love Bug.”

Janus felt his face heat a bit at the reminder. “That’s not… I. I’m stealing your cat and then never speaking to you again.”

Remus laughed. “Ah,” he said. “Young lust.”

Janus elbowed him roughly in the side. “No!”

“Yes!” he crooned, pleased.

 “You are the worst partner,” Janus hissed. “When I’m right you owe me 10 loafs of your fresh bread.”

“Branching out from poptarts?” Remus asked.

Janus shook his head. He still wasn’t happy about the state of things, but he could feel himself cooling down a bit.

Khalid came out of the integration room after a few minutes, leaving Pat with Remy. “What was that?” she asked him.

“He got under my skin,” Janus said.

“We’ll talk about it later,” she said. “For now, we’re letting him go and then going back to looking for the bomb like we’re meant to be.”

 “Fine,” Janus relented. “Just do me the favor of tagging him before he leaves. Just that. I beg of you.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “If it will calm you down.”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go,” she said. When they met back up with Remy and Pat, he saw Khalid make the subtle gesture that would tag Pat like they would have for the Millennium Birds. Pat sent him what could pass as a sweet smile if Janus didn’t know better. Then, they walked him outside, leaving Remy on clean-up duty for the make-shift security office.

“So, I’m free to go?” Pat asked. His bemused expression edged far too much on the side of amused verses confused for Janus’s taste.

 “You are,” Khalid said. “Have fun at the festivities.”

His hands went flapping about. “Oh, you too!” he said. “Well, I guess you’re working, but you can have fun anyway, I’m sure.”

“We’ll do our best,” she said.

He gave her a blinding smile and reached forward to shake her hand enthusiastically. Janus rolled his eyes and looked up at the heavens. “It was nice to meet you!” he said, “and you too, Remus!” He turned to meet Janus’s eyes. “Macy Misa.”

Janus pressed his lips together.

Then, Pat turned and walked away.

“Well, now that we’re done with that,” Khalid said, turning to them. “We have only a few more hours before midnight and we really need to find the time bomb.

 “Oh,” Pat called. He’d paused a few yards away and turned back to them. “Thanks for letting me go so easily by the way,” he said, “and just in the Nick,” he winked, “of time too.” Janus narrowed his eyes at him. He smiled back. “Wrist check,” he said holding up his arm to show off the timepiece there. Khalid immediately looked down at her own wrist just to see that the one timepiece that could move through the time lock was no longer there. Pat made a gesture and disappeared.

All three of them stared at the spot he’d been for a long moment.

Janus was the one to speak first. “I want. The yellow. To be erased. From my record.”

 Chapter 9

Khalid immediately called everyone back to base.

“What happened?” asked Fred when he and Lena arrived. The tech people were already scrambling to get through to the TPI and get the time lock broken from the outside.

“Remus, Remy, and Khalid got played by Pat or whatever his name is. It certainly isn’t Nick. He was just setting up a joke,” Janus told him.

“Stop being smug,” Remy said. “It’s not a good look for you.”

“Pat is…?” Lena asked.

“They guy who fucked me over in 1923,” Janus said, “and is currently in the middle of fucking us all over because he stole the pin timepiece, and by extrapolation, probably the time bomb too.”

 “It will be fine,” said Khalid, “because what he doesn’t know is that timepiece has a tracker on it. Wherever and whenever he went, we’ll have his coordinates.”

“Speaking of,” one of the techies said. “It’s about to break. You might want to hold onto something.” Janus grabbed for a support beam next to him as the techie put a device on the ground in the center of the base. It blinked once, twice, and on the third blink the ground rumbled. There were sounds of panicked yelps outside. The fail safe for the time lock was not nearly as gentle as ending it correctly.

 Everything settled after a few moments, and they all straightened themselves out. Janus’s timepiece buzzed to indicate it was now functioning normally. Khalid had returned her usual timepiece to her wrist and now used it to open a display they could all see. “The pin timepiece’s closest time/space coordinates are…” she trailed off. “Right outside?” She frowned. “That’s strange. Why would he still be here?” She turned to march outside, following the coordinates to a trash can. She pulled the pin timepiece out and stared at it. “Fuck,” she said.

“What just happened?” Remy asked.

“He ticked us,” Janus said. “Again.”

 “He was stuck in the time lock,” Khalid said. “That’s why he got our attention. He couldn’t leave with the time bomb unless he had the pin timepiece or we broke the time lock. Apparently, he’s smart enough to know that if he took the pin timepiece away from here, we’d probably be able to find him, but he knew we’d break the lock as soon as the pin went missing. So, he must have stashed his own timepiece and went back in time within the time lock to grab it while we were distracted with the past version of him. As soon as the time lock went down, I imagine he left.”

 “Probably with the time bomb,” Janus said.

“Probably with the time bomb,” she confirmed.

And everyone knew the only thing worse than a time bomb was a time bomb you didn’t know the location of.

They evacuated after that, of course, and time locked the location once they were out just in case they were wrong, but midnight 3000 struck without thousands of people dying in Brazil, so the time bomb had defiantly been removed from then.

The, they initiated a time travel lockdown for all nonessentials, not willing to let random history students get caught up in an explosion if Pat decided to set the thing off somewhere.

 Then, it was a matter of figuring out everything they could about ‘Pat.’ First, they checked the tracker data as Khalid had tagged him with one of the Millennium Bird trackers. It wouldn’t work outside of the zone they’d set up that day, but the record would show his behavior during the time lock after he’d escaped with the pin timepiece.

There had been many little green dots on the map that day as Fred and Lena had actually been doing the job they’d set out to do, but most of those were running around in the south. There had been one green dot, however, that appeared suddenly in the game area about 10 minutes before the time bomb had been stolen.

 They could see Janus’s yellow dot almost brush his when he’d been chasing the earlier Pat down, around when he’d lost him briefly. The earlier Pat must have all but handed it off to his future self.

“He doubled back,” Remus commented when they watched the recorded data. It was a ballsy move and one that most people balked at, because there were inherent dangers any time you interacted with yourself from a different point in the timestream. It was ripe for paradoxes. It made everyone at the agency even more worried, because if he was willing to risk that, then what else was he willing to do?

 Because of the lockdown of all nonessential time travel, people working for the TPI were not allowed to go home for the night. They were allowed to pick up anyone or anything dependent on them for care like kids and pets if there wasn’t someone in their home time to care for them, but other than that, they were unfortunately all sleeping in their offices for the foreseeable future.

“You are the only tolerable one,” Janus told the cat who upon being let loose in the office by Remus, immediately jumped on Janus’s lap.

“I have literally done nothing to you,” Lena said, but then added. “Yet.”

 “You exist. In my space.”

“Can’t we just all get along?” asked Fred. “It’s only been an hour past when we’d usually go home. I went and grabbed milk and I have my giant thing of different flavored hot chocolate under my desk. We can try them all and vote on which is better.”

“Fuck your hot chocolate, Fred,” Janus growled, having been one of the three who had chipped in to buy it for him on his last birthday.

“Don’t go after Fred, jackass,” Lena spat.

“He’s just testy because his boyfriend escaped,” Remus contributed.

Janus’s lips turned down into a frown and he cupped Diesel Fuel’s face. “We agree we’re eating him first, right?” he asked her.

 She purred her agreement.

“I’d have it no other way,” Remus replied.

“There is plenty of food,” Fred said, sounding stressed. “In fact, I was thinking we should all chip in on ordering take-out soon. “What does everyone like on pizza?”

“This is not a slumber party, Fred,” Janus pointed out.

“Shut it,” Lena snapped and turned to Fred. “I’m fine with almost everything, except…”

“Bananas and tuna salad!” Remus interrupted.

“…whatever Remus is about to say.”

Janus rolled his eyes as that started a debate about whether or not fruit and/or fish belonged on pizza. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, which was when there was a knock on the door.

 He froze when he heard the familiar voice. “Hello, hello,” said Emile, cheerfully. Janus looked up to see Emile standing at the open office door. Shit. Apparently, the man had decided to give up on sending lackeys to come fetch him and had decided to track him down himself when Janus couldn’t even escape without breaking a time lockdown. They met eyes briefly and Janus could see irritation if not anger in his eyes despite his otherwise cheerful expression and tone.

“Janus,” he said when he’d gotten their attention. “I’d like to have dinner with you.” The word choice told Janus everything he needed to know. Usually Emile was careful with how he said things to make sure people knew they had a choice. Typically he’d say something like, “I was wondering if you’d have time to have dinner with me tonight,” or “I’m about to go get food, would you like to come?” Today, there was no choice in the statement.

 Janus still dried to dodge anyway. “Uh,” he said. “We were actually about to order pizza.”

“Go ahead,” said Fred kindly. Janus wanted to strangle him. “We can order pizza with olives if you’re not here.”

“I…” said Janus. “Guess, I’ll be going with you.”

“Great!” Emile said. “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” Janus said. “Uh, now?”

“Now,” Emile said a bit of uncharacteristic steel to his tone.

 Well, Janus was screwed. He swallowed his nervousness and got to his feet, taking Diesel Fuel with him. He turned to hand her off to Remus with a plea in his eye, but he just got an eyebrow raise in return. Traitor.

Then, he followed Emile out of the office door. “What would you like to eat?” asked Emile.

“Uh,” Janus said. “I don’t know. You asked me to eat, don’t you have any ideas?”

“I don’t actually,” Emile replied. Right.

“…Noddle Bar?” Janus threw out the nearest restaurant he knew.

“The one noodle restaurant? Sure,” Emile answered simply. They walked side by side out of the front doors of the TPI building. Janus actually couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken these stairs. He usually used his timepiece to get in and out.

 The noodle bar was only moderately busy at this time. They were quickly able to find a table near the back and Emile pulled his menu up in front of him. Emile hummed as he flipped through the different displays. “What are you having?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said, only then pulling up the menu himself, but still not quite looking at it.

“What about the fortune noodles,” Emile suggested.

Janus shook his head. “I don’t like those,” he said.

Emile glanced at him through the menu displays. “You used to.” Fortune noodles were a bit cheekily named. They didn’t actually indicate anything about your future. They were just supposed to taste like what you wanted from your future. A grad student might experience a feeling like they’d just aced a paper. A child that they got to stay up an hour later that night. Janus had liked the experience when he was younger, but in recent years, he’d begun to taste the underlying chemicals in the dish until that’s all he could.

 “Well,” Emile said lightly, eyes on his menu. “That makes me even more worried for your mental health than I already was because of the almost three years of you avoiding talking to me.”

“No small talk, huh?” Janus asked.

“Forgive me,” Emile said, eyes now focused on Janus, and tone much darker. “How has your life been since I last saw your face 5 months ago during a business meeting and you refused to look me in the eye? Anything interesting happen? Shave your head and let it all regrow? Develop an allergy to peanuts? Join a convent and take an oath of silence that you only just broke today?”

“No,” said Janus quietly into the table.

 “Great,” Emile said clipped. “Small talk over. Order your food.” Janus reached up blindly to select the first thing that came up on the food and drink menu as Emile punched something into his own and both menu displays disappeared, meaning there was nothing between their faces anymore. “You know, I was willing to give you a year,” Emile said. “I was willing to let you deal with it on your own because I thought eventually, you’d come talk to me about it, but apparently I was mistaken. The next year, I thought maybe you thought I didn’t want to talk to you, so I subtly made myself available, and you never took me up on the offer. I thought maybe I was just not being clear, and I should make my desire to talk to you more explicit, but as you have been routinely, clearly avoiding me at every single turn, I’ve decided I’ve had enough. So, let’s lay it all on the table. Is it me or do you need help?”

 Janus closed his eyes. “It’s not you.”

“Then you need help,” Emile concluded.

Janus shook his head.

“Yes,” Emile snapped. “Whatever this is has gone on far too long.”

Janus stood up and slammed his hand down on the table. “And it’s going to keep going on!” he said. The food popped up at that moment. It appeared Janus had ordered lasagna and bubble tea, and Emile had ordered something with spaghetti and a fizzy drink.

“So, you’re just planning to go on being miserable then?” Emile asked, and Janus wasn’t sure if it was worse or better that he didn’t sound angry anymore.

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Janus slapped his hand down on the “To Go” button and his dinner was insta-wrapped by the table. “Yes,” he said.

“What exactly do you think you’re paying penance for, Janus?” Emile asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Janus said, paying for both of their meals with his fingerprint.

“That’s a cop out and you know it,” Emile said. “All you’d have to do is talk to me. Or even just talk to someone else. Please.”

“Just…” Janus said, grabbing his bag of food to avoid looking at him. “Just, leave me be.” He walked out of the noodle shop without another word.

 Chapter 10

“And I thought Remus was going to be the most disgusting roommate in this equation,” Lena grumbled. Janus and Lena were apparently the earlier risers in the group as Fred was still curled up around a pillow and Remus was sprawled out under his desk.

Janus flipped her off.

“Protein infused Poptarts and caffeinated orange juice for breakfast?” she asked. “Just eat an energy bar and have a cup of coffee like a normal person.”

He took another pointed bite of his Poptart.

“You’re a horrible roommate. This is why they gave us different partners.”

“Yeah, well you snore, asshole,” Janus said after finishing off his meal.

 “I’d tell you to go eat shit, but you already did that once this morning.”

A pillow flew across the room and somehow managed to hit the both of them. “S’op fighting,” Fred mumbled. “It’s sleep time.”

“It’s morning Fred,” Lena said.

“No,” Fred mumbled.

Janus ignored them, turning back to his integration port to continue to keep plugging in phrases of interest, but he kept getting nothing.

“What are you doing?” Lena asked after a few moments of him huffing at his screen reader.

“Trying to do anything that may change our current living arrangements.”

She puffed out an amused breath. “Can I help?”

 “Can you see any connection between these words and phrases?” he asked, pulling away his screen reader and tapping at the words he’d typed out.

“Paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback, love Bug, BB good, Mandy, Macy Misa, I believe, cool, that’s just the way we roll, burnin’ up,” she said. “What are these?”

“They’re things Pat said when we interrogated that struck me funny,” Janus explained. “I feel like he was saying something more than what he said.”

“Hmm,” she said. “PTI for the first three?”

“Maybe,” Janus agreed, “but what about the rest of it? I feel like I’m missing something.”

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“Millennia,” Remus mumbled from under his desk. Janus hadn’t been aware he was awake. “He said something something about it being the only time he could see the change of the millennia.” He turned his head to look at Janus. “Considering he’s a time traveler, that’s definitely a weird thing to say.”

“Millennia,” Janus contemplated. “A different turn of the millennia. Oh no.”

“What?” Lena asked.

Janus sighed, and rubbed his temple. “I know someone who studied the 1700-2200s.”

“Isn’t that good?”

“No,” Janus groaned, “because now I have to go talk to him.” He stood with a sigh and then paused. “How do I even get to Silver Mountains University without my timepiece?”

 Luckily Sliver Mountains ended up only being about an hour away from the TPI by time adherent travel, but considering Janus was used to his travel being instantaneous, it was an aggravating trip. He had to show ID and be buzzed up to the fourth floor since it was usually locked to everyone not traveling by timepiece or who worked in the office.

The receptionist was the same man as before. “I’m here to speak to Professor Eran,” Janus said.

The receptionist nodded. “He mentioned you asked to meet him but didn’t know when you’d arrive. He’ll be done teaching his class in about 5 minutes. You can wait over there.”

 Janus nodded and sat, waiting for time to slowly tick by. Virgil arrived after a few minutes, lugging a giant bag with him. He caught sight of Janus and wordlessly jerked his head towards the hallway. Janus followed him.

“What’s in the bag?” Janus asked.

“Early 21st century cell phones,” Virgil said, dropping it on his desk. “I let my students mess around with them for their lab.”

“I see,” Janus said.

“What did you need?” Virgil asked. “You said it was official business.”

“You’ve heard about the lockdown, I presume,” Janus said.

“Yeah, it really screws up my research schedule for the summer,” Virgil said.

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“Do you know why the lockdown was instituted?” Janus asked. Virgil shook his head, so Janus explained briefly that they had been trying to find a timebomb on the eve of the year 3000, but it had been swiped by a free agent time traveler. “Some of the things seemed to be references to things that I couldn’t place, and I was wondering if you would recognize any.”

“Shoot,” Virgil requested, seeming intrigued by the prospect.

“Okay,” Janus said. “First, the alias he was using was Nick Jonas.” A weird expression crossed Virgil’s face immediately and Janus paused.

“You said the year 3000?” Virgil asked.

 “Er. Yes.”

“Nick Jonas. Year 3000,” Virgil repeated with a snort. “Were Joe and Kevin a part of this too?”

Janus blinked. “Yes, how did you know that?”

“Yo-you’re going to have,” his sentence was broken by a giggle, and actual full-fledged giggle, “have to give me a minute.” With that, he sort of listed to the side and seemed to purposefully fall off his chair onto the floor under his desk.

Janus blinked and when he didn’t surface after a moment, he stood up to lean over the desk and look down at him. Virgil had his arm thrown over his beat red face, as he shook from what Janus thought was suppressed laughter.

 “What?” Janus asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just…” Virgil said, sobbing through his laughter. “Just tell me the things he said.”

“Er, mostly he just had weird inflections on words and phrases. There was ‘paranoid, tonight, I live to party, comeback…’”

“Wait, stop,” Virgil said. “Let me guess a few. That’s Just the Way We Roll, Burnin’ Up, Sucker.”

“The first two were, but not the last one.”

Virgil laughed. “Maybe the last one was just implied.”

Janus frowned down. “What are you talking about? What does this all mean?”

Virgil pulled himself out from under his desk and grabbed his bag of phones. He dug through it for a few seconds before pulling one out and handing it to Janus. “I have a lab for my students where they get preloaded phones from the early 21st century and are supposed to guess the demographics of the person who owns it. This one is an iPhone 3 meant to belong to a pre-teen to teenage girl from the year 2009. Look under music artists starting with the letter ‘J.’”

15810

Confused, Janus scrolled through the old style phone, finding the music app and opening it easily. Upon getting to the ‘J’s, he immediately paused on an artist called the ‘Jonas Brothers.’ He clicked on it and read a few of the song titles. They weren’t all there, but…

“That rat bastard,” Janus said.

“Scroll to the bottom,” Virgil said. Janus did and found a song titled ‘Year 3000.’

“You’re kidding me.”

“Click on it,” Virgil requested.

Janus did, listening to the fairly standard pop like intro from the time period. It wasn’t until he got to the lyrics saying, ‘He told me he built a time machine’ that he cursed, understanding exactly what Pat had been doing. When the singer a few lines latter proclaimed that his neighbor said ‘I’ve been to the year 3000’ he almost smashed the artifact to pieces right then and there.

“I have no idea who this guy is,” Virgil said, “but he’s a comedic genius.”

 Chapter 11

Khalid caught him on his way back into the TPI building. “I heard you went to Silver Mountains to follow up on a lead,” she said.

“Yeah, but it was garbage,” he seethed. “All I learned was ‘Pat’ knows early 2000s popular culture and likes to fuck with us.”

She hummed. “I’d still like a report about whatever you found. Who knows what we might end up getting from seemingly inconsequential data.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Anyway,” she continued. “I have a mission for you.”

“We’re on lockdown,” Janus pointed out with a frown.

“For nonessentials,” she said. “This is essential.”

 “What happened?” Janus asked.

“We picked up a small time distortion in France 2027. At the moment, it is small enough not to cause any disruptions, but it is slowly growing, and we don’t know what caused it. Usually we’d just send surveillance agents at this stage, but considering what’s going on, I think it would be best to send a field agent. And it would just be you, because we don’t want to send too many people out at once.”

“Is this related to the time bomb?” Janus asked.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “At the very least, it’s not it being set off as it was in 2999, but if it’s been altered for some other purpose…”

 “I’ll go,” Janus said.

“I’ll send over the mission directive to everyone who needs it. You’ll go in around 3 hours.”

He nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he agreed.

In less then 3 hours, he was dressed for 2027 France and in decontamination. “Well,” he said out loud when he was given the all clear sign, “I hope I don’t explode.” He selected the coordinates on the timepiece and the next moment he was in a small alleyway in the city of Montpellier, France in 2027.

It was a little bit warm, but not stifling even in the mid-afternoon and he could faintly smell the sea on the breeze.

 After a moment to get his bearings, Janus made his way out of the alleyway and onto a small street. The street was lined with restaurants and shops as people went about their daily lives. He carefully integrated himself into the crowd and began weaving his way through them. He needed to find the source of the distortion but doing a quick scan with his timepiece told him there wasn’t any sign of it yet. He’d have to wait for it to act up.

For now, he decided to get slightly away from people by heading towards the river. He found a park that had benches along water.

 As he walked towards the river, he noticed a man on the bench, angled slightly away from Janus and looking out at the water. He immediately recognized the man. “You!” he exclaimed.

Pat’s head shot around to look at him, and he gave a slight head tilt. Then, he smiled, amused. “You are not the person I’m here for,” he said.

“Well, I am now,” Janus snapped. “Where’s the time bomb?”

“Time bomb?” Pat asked, eyebrows drawing together, but amusement on his lips. “Oh sweetie, the time bomb happened a long time ago for me.”

“What?” Janus asked.

“Oh, you’re just a baby,” Pat laughed. “Don’t you get it yet? The two of us are out of sync timeline wise. You’ve been apparently running around with a much younger version of me, but all of that happened quite a while ago for me. Don’t worry though, it gets better.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The time bomb has been long deactivated. Here,” he reached into his pocket and tossed him something. Janus caught it on instinct. “Proof. Don’t worry, we took all of the dangerous bits out years ago from my perspective.” It was the core of a time bomb, the time bomb Pat had stolen if he was to be believed. “You can tell your people it’s safe to remove the lockdown.”

Janus curled his fingers around it. “I don’t get it.”

Something on Pat’s wrist beeped and he looked at it curiously before he stood from the bench, “and I don’t have time to explain it.”

Janus jerked forward to grab his wrist. “Don’t you dare.”

Pat reached up to pat his face. “Don’t worry honey, you’ll be seeing me later.” He twisted his wrist and a small electric current sparked between them. Janus jerked his hand away, and Pat smiled at him. “Or… earlier.” He winked, and then he was gone.

Janus cursed, but he didn’t have more than a moment to be angry because in the next second there was a yelp, and something landed on top of him. He was bowled over into a tangle of limbs and pained noises.

“Oh my god, we need to figure out the height thing,” a familiar voice groaned, just as Janus managed to pull himself away. Pat blinked up at him and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he hissed.

“…What?”

 Pat jumped to his feet, leaving Janus on the ground in front of him. “What are you doing here?” he spat, his tone much different then the one he’d been using a moment earlier. His hair was longer than it had been before, and if Janus looked closely, he did seem like he was a couple of years younger suddenly. Out of sync timelines. I’ll see you earlier. Holy shit.

He was suddenly very glad he’d been forced to let the other Pat (the older Pat?) go, else they’d have a whole thing on their hands.

“What are you doing here?” was Janus’s retort as he stood up and dusted himself off.

 “It’s none of your business,” Pat told him.

“It is my business,” Janus said, “because for all I know, you are the cause of the time distortions I’m after. Considering that I doubt you have a license for that,” he waved at the odd looking timepiece of Pat’s wrist, “it’s very possible.”

“What are you?” Pat asked, “the time police.”

“Yes.”

Pat dared to roll his eyes, but then he tilted his head slightly. “Time distortions?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.”

He still had a confused frown on his face. Did… did he not know what a time distortion was?

 Just then there was a sudden flash of lightening through the sky despite the absolutely lack of clouds. He and Pat both looked up.

“Is that the time distortion?” Pat asked.

“It’s probably the beginning of it,” Janus said.

“That doesn’t look good,” Pat said as he squinted at the sky.

“Just wait,” Janus answered grimly. He looked at Pat. “Usually I’d arrest you on the spot,” he said, “but I’m alone for this one, and that is far more important at the moment. So, have a nice day doing whatever bullshit you are doing.” He glanced at his timepiece.

 Janus turned to walk away from him.

“Wait!” Pat exclaimed, and Janus turned back to him to see that his eyes were wide. Janus raised an eyebrow. “So, this time distortion thing is dangerous, right?”

“Depending on the severity, it could cause time to fracture around this place and time, basically erasing it from existence and killing everyone in it.”

“Well, in that case, I should go with you. To help.”

Janus looked him up and down. “You… have no idea what’s happening, do you? You’re an amateur.”

“I’m not,” he claimed. “I just. Pooling resources. You know?”

Janus sighed. “Well, you going around mucking about this time period without knowing what you’re doing could just exasperate the situation, so fine, you can tag along.”

“I know what I’m doing,” he grumbled even as he rushed to Janus’s side at the permission.

“Sure,” Janus said with an eyeroll. He guessed he was a babysitter now. “I believe you.”

 Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

 “You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

 Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

 “Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

 Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

 Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

 When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

 He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

 “What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

 “Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

 “Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

 Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

 Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

 He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

 He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

 He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

 “What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

 He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

 Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

 “Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

 Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

 Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Patton’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

 “Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

 Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

 Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

 For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

 Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Patton to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Patton protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

 It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

 Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

 “Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

 Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

 Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

21088

“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Patton giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

 Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

 Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

 He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

 He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

 “Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

 “I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

 Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

 “He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

[everything-withered]

Prompt "Flowers for a dead girl" Ichigo is SOFT, he did this literally since the beginning of the manga

I hope you don't mind an AU take on this!

Rukia knows for a fact that someone is stealing flowers out of her garden. She knew it had to happen some time. Her window opens almost directly into the pavement, and placing anything on the window sill is just asking for it to get stolen.

The grandmother that was staying at the apartment before Rukia had offered that warning lightly, before gifting her with the aforementioned flowers.

"You can't even keep cacti alive," Renji reminded her with a snort to which she'd pinched him and said, "Shut up, there's a first time for everything."

And while the flowers weren't anywhere near as healthy or full as when she'd received them, they were still in bloom! Which made their theft even more upsetting, and didn't get better once she'd realized that it probably wasn't the first time either.

I knew I wasn't imagining the flowers looking a little thin, she thinks both vindictive and resentful as she pets the leaves in apology. Whoever has been taking them plucks them straight from the stem, like a monster.

"I think it would be worse if they'd been clipped," Hisana tells her, "that would imply premeditation."

Rukia scowls. "So I should just be grateful that whoever's been kidnapping my violets is doing it because it's convenient?"

"Well," she trails, "maybe you shouldn't leave your flowers in a place where they can be easily kidnapped."

"That's victim blaming and I will not stand for it." Which is not the reason Rukia doesn't move the flower pots -- her apartment is a closet at most, and the window is the best place to keep plants anyway -- but that doesn't mean she'd refuse to move it out of spite. It's for the continued wellness of her flowers, Hisana, will you please be a good sister and just let me complain??

"Where's your sense of romance, Rukia-chan?"

She scoffs.

"Just picture it," Hisana continues, starry eyed, "a thoughtful lover on their way to be with their beau when they see your flowers and think, what a lovely gift to give their love!"

"I'm sure their love would appreciate it more if they didn't dig it out of someone else's garden," Rukia deadpans.

"It's the thought that counts."

"I think they're cheap."

"Rukia!"

Refusing to move the flowers from its perch, however, doesn't mean Rukia is taking the continued theft of her violets lying down, romantic reasons or not. No, sir. She borrows Renji's Go-Pro and points it at the window for a couple of days.

For awhile, there's no bite, and she gets several hours worth of footage of her window sill: people walking past as they carry on with their day as the violets in their planters giggle in the breeze and stretch in the sunshine before drowsily drooping off to sleep at dusk. It's pretty soothing to watch played back. But Rukia is not convinced. Her thief will be back.

Almost a full two weeks have passed before she's proven right.

The guy in the footage looks like trouble; unfriendly and scowling, Rukia isn't surprised at the appearance of her thief. While she wouldn't have pegged a guy with a leather jacket, too many rings and a leather cuff wrapped around his wrist to steal flowers, Rukia isn't going to judge him for that. Oh, no. She's too busy being incensed that this...this...asshole took way more violets than he did last time!

She has no idea if he's going to show up on the same day as before, but Rukia prepares for it. She sets up camp far enough from the window that she won't be seen, and waits.

Almost to the minute, a shadow lingers, and Rukia is ready! She throws the windows open with a dramatic flourish and shouts, "Gotcha!"

A white butterfly, having been innocently resting on the petals of the flowers, is startled by her sudden presence and almost flies into her face. Fortunately, the guy, to Rukia's satisfaction, recoils anyway, almost to the point of falling over as he yells back in surprise. "What the hell?"

"Caught you red handed, thief," she declares which he promptly doesn't approve of because the orange haired jerk is arguing, "I'm not a thief."

"Oh yeah, then how do you explain taking my flowers?"

At that, he splutters, "Your flowers?"

"Yes, my flowers," Rukia tells him, scowling. "I live here."

"No, you don't," he has the audacity to say. "Akiko-san lives here."

Realising it was the grandmother who'd been letting the apartment before her, Rukia's anger cools. "Not anymore. She moved out. She left me the flowers you keep stealing."

The guy's face goes through an impressive array of emotions before settling on a fine combination of disgruntled and embarrassed. "...ah..."

With a considering look, Rukia says, "I assume if you know the grandmother by name, you must've had an arrangement."

"In not so many words," is his vague reply, and though it should make her suspicious that he's lying for all that he's still blushing to his ears, Rukia decides that it's no real harm done. Just a misunderstanding.

Although, if this guy's been stealing flowers for his girl for as long as it would take to be acquainted to a grandmother he's not related to, he clearly needs help sealing the deal. Nodding to herself determinedly, course of action decided, Rukia tells him, "You can take the flowers."

That startles him, and to her relief he's not nearly as grumpy when he isn't frowning. In fact, now that she's actually looking a him, he's pretty handsome. High cheekbones, defined jaw, full lips, brown eyes. Yeah, this should be easy, she thinks with a huff. "But I'm meeting whoever you're giving them to."

"What."

Hmm, Rukia thinks. Maybe that's why he hasn't gotten a date yet...though, instead of telling him that, she poses, "Do you want the flowers or not?"

Which is how Rukia ends up meeting her thief on the sidewalk five minutes later.

"My name is Ichigo, not thief," he corrects.

"And I'd tell you it was nice to meet you, but one of us shouldn't be a liar," Rukia sniffs, and while this makes him scoff, he's also smirking a little the next time she glances at him.

"Who are you anyway?" he asks, and she thinks, rude.

Though that thought doesn't stop her from replying shortly in kind, "Rukia." Then, just for good measure, "And you could be a little less rude, I don't know how you expect to get a date with that kind of attitude."

He makes a noise of disbelief but flushes all the same.

As they walk, he eventually asks, "Why do you want to meet her anyway? The girl I give your flowers to."

"To make sure she's worth it," Rukia says. "Is she?"

There's no hesitation, "Yes."

She hums, and she could pry into Ichigo's relationship with this mystery girl, but instead she asks, "So you couldn't just buy her flowers?"

And at that he looks embarrassed, though he hides it with the same disgruntlement as before. "I always forget, and your window is on the way there. It was just...convenient."

"Nice," Rukia snorts. "I hope you don't tell her that, nothing makes a girl feel more special than stolen flowers."

After a thoughtful pause, he asks, "You're not from around here, are you?"

Her eyes narrows. "Not originally." Before, "Why?"

At that, Ichigo shoves his hands deeper into his pockets, gaze pointedly at some middle distance. "Because this is probably gonna get uncomfortable."

Rukia's brows are still furrowed in disbelief when she finally realizes where they're headed. "Oh."

Opening the gate, he lets her through first before following after.

He doesn't explain, and she doesn't ask as they walk together through the gardens. Despite his earlier decree, he seems uncomfortable too; shoulders drawn to his ears, frown deepening and eyes going distant.

Rukia almost wants to turn back around, but there's something volatile in his fragility, and she doesn't want to be the thing that shatters it. It isn't until they've come to a stop that he speaks, telling Rukia sardonically, "Well, you wanted to meet her."

And there's a lot of things a normal person could say when faced with a headstone, things like I'm sorry for your loss, and I can't believe I was a jerk to you. Along with other things like why would other people be so aware of the loss of your mom that you had to ask if I was from around here to know of it? and I'm sorry people think of you in relation to whatever tragedy caused your loss.

Except Ichigo looks like he's already preparing to block it out after too many years of too many people being too aware of his grief, "You're not from around here, are you?"

So what Rukia does instead is bow, and say, "Kurosaki-san, I'm sorry your son is cheap."

Ichigo is so surprised by her that he doesn't even think to be offended, instead spluttering in denial. His mask of nonchalance cracked, Rukia continues earnestly to his mother, "If I'd known he was relying on my subpar gardening skills, I'd have tried harder to make sure the flowers he got you were in better shape."

"Shut up, I don't know what you're talking about. Your flowers are fine," he argues.

Then, in a hiss out of respect for Kurosaki Masaki's final resting place, Rukia says, "They're for your mom, Ichigo, oh my god." Aloud, she tells his mother, "I'm so sorry, I know you raised him better. I'll make sure he gets you proper flowers next time."

"You'll make sure of that, huh?"

"If you insist on taking flowers from my window, yes, next time," Rukia tells him with crossed arms and a haughty look. "I can't believe you were stealing flowers for your mom."

"Hey," he defends, "you asked if she was worth it, was I lying?"

She rolls her eyes and persists, "Next time, we're bringing her something better."

"Fine, it's a date."

"Fine," Rukia huffs in return.

It's only after Ichigo's walked her home after a detour to a convenience store to replace her violets, and a reminder that he'll pick her up next week, does Rukia realize what she's agreed to.

To her newly purchased sunflowers, she shakes her head and says, "I can't believe he stole a date right from under me!"

[cocos-cocoapuffsarenotforsale]

Sectumsempra

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Potter 

Summary: Your boyfriend, Draco has been acting off most of the year. Your brother Harry thinks he's joined the Death Eaters and you refuse to believe it, leading to many fights. What happens when Draco finally confesses what he has been hiding to you in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and then Harry bursts in? 

Tags: Swearing, Canon-Typical Violence, Gryffindor!Reader, Potter!Reader, Harry’s Sister!Reader, Scared!Draco, Nice!Snape, Caring!Snape, Lil bit angsty but has a Happy/Hopeful Ending, Canon Divergence, Lil bit of an AU

Taglist: @chewymoustachio, @peachsnyder138 

A/N: Vulnera Santeur is the spell that repairs Sectumsempra (according to google lol)

————————————————————————

“Hey, babe!” You greet Draco. Pressing a quick kiss to his cheek, you quickly take a seat beside him at the Slytherin table. This earns you a few odd looks but you ignore them. You were used to being gawked at by now. You were the Chosen One’s sister, after all. 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, your brother and best friends, had not been happy when they found out about your relationship. But after he helped you guys (along with Luna, Ginny, and Neville) get away from Umbridge last year, allowing you to get to the Ministry, they had made their peace with it. At least until this year when Katie Bell was cursed. Harry immediately accused Draco, leading to many fights between Harry and yourself.

While you acknowledge that there was something going on with Draco, you couldn’t believe that he would intentionally hurt Katie. That was part of the reason you were sitting with Draco this morning, last night you and Harry had gotten into a particularly nasty fight regarding Draco’s involvement in the strange occurrences this year. 

“Morning love,” Draco replies with his typical greeting. But it’s different, he’s different. His normal cockiness is missing from his voice and his plate is completely bare. No remnants of food. Normally by now, Draco would be loading up his plate with seconds. This was something you have been noticing more and more often lately.

“Are you feeling alright, Draco?” You ask, watching him fidget with his hands nervously as he refuses to meet your eyes.

“Yeah, I’m fine love,” he replies earnestly but you can hear the emptiness in his words.

“You sure?” He just nods in reply still refusing to meet your eyes. 

“Did you hear? Katie Bell’s back.” Blaise announces sitting down across from you and Draco.

“Really?!” You ask, unable to hide your excitement. Katie and you had been friends for years, the two of you had grown especially close after you joined the Quidditch team in third year.

“Yeah, it looks like your brother is talking with her already,” Blaise replies motioning towards the Gryffindor table. You turn to see Harry in deep conversation with Katie and you have a feeling you know what they’re talking about. Harry had been trying to prove Draco was up to something pretty much since you all came back to Hogwarts this fall but after Katie’s attack, he had become obsessed with proving he was right.

Draco stands abruptly and storms out of the hall after seeing Harry talking with Katie. You rush off after him knowing something was really wrong. Draco had always been a bit of a drama queen but you could tell this was serious. 

When you finally catch up with Draco you find yourself in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Shit, Myrtle. You despised the ghost, when you had first met her you felt bad for her, but after dealing with her for six years, you were over her shit.

“Draco?” You call looking around for him. You are answered by a quiet sniffle and you walk over to the stall where noise had come from.

“Alohomora,” you whisper before gently pushing the door open. Draco is standing with his back to the door and his shoulders are all hunched over.

“Oh baby,” you croon, you walk over to him and wrap yourself around him from behind. 

“C’mon,” you murmur after a couple of minutes. You grab one of his hands and tug him out of the stall and over towards the sinks.

“You gonna finally tell me what’s been going on?” You ask as you conjure a towel and wet it down with cool water. You proceed to dab his eyes and cheeks, trying to erase the evidence of his tears.

“I’m one of them, Y/n,” he croaked looking away from you.

“One of who baby?” You ask though you were pretty sure you already knew the answer.

“I’m a bloody Death Eater!” He shouts pushing you away and roughly pulling up his left sleeve to show you his mark.

“Oh, Merlin,” you breathe, you had suspected he was being pressured by Death Eaters or even Voldemort to accomplish some mission. But you hadn’t expected him to have joined up. Harry was right.

“What are they making you do?”

“He-he wants me to k-kill Dumbledore,” Draco sobs, dropping his head to his hands. Holy shit.

“The necklace, the mead, it was you,” you mutter, finally putting it all together. He hadn’t been targeting Katie or Ron or even Slughorn but Dumbledore. Of course, Voldemort would want Dumbledore dead and of course, he wouldn’t want to do it himself. He was such a coward he would send a sixteen-year-old to do his dirty work.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. He said he’d kill her, he said he’d kill my mum. And-and,” Draco takes a shaky breath before continuing. “And he said he’d kill you too. I had to. I couldn’t let either of you get hurt.”

“Draco-” you start but are soon cut off by the slamming of a door. Harry bursts in looking enraged before shooting a spell off at Malfoy. 

“Harry wait-” you try to defuse the situation but it’s too late and before you know it they are shooting hexes and curses at each other.

“Cruci-” Draco starts and that’s when you step in. You jump in front of Harry making Draco pause. Unfortunately, Harry was too quick.

“Sectumsempra!” Harry roared just as you stepped in front of him. He freezes when he sees the blood, so much blood. You crumpled to the ground, blood rushing from your pale form.

“NO!” Draco shouts rushing over to you, eyes full of terror. Harry stands there in shock before he is pushed aside by Snape.

“Vulnera Santeur, Vulnera Santeur,” Snape whispers over your unconscious and bloody form. Harry and Draco both looking on in horror.

“We need to get her to the hospital wing. She is stable for now but she will need tending to. Both of you follow me.” Snape orders, both boys were so mortified they followed his command without a second thought. Once you arrive in the Hospital Wing you awake to find yourself surrounded by Harry, Draco, and Professor Snape. While he always hated Harry, Snape always was fond of you, you were so much like your mother, Snape felt a tremendous sense of responsibility for you. While everyone else always fawned over the Boy Who Lived, Snape focused on you.

“Y/n, can you tell me what happened? Or at least what you remember?” Snape asks in the kindest voice you had ever heard from him.

“Katie came back today, Harry was talking to her, Draco got upset. I followed him to Myrtle’s bathroom, we were talking and then Harry burst in. They started throwing spells at each other. Then when I heard Draco-when I heard Draco start to cast an unforgivable I stepped in, Draco stopped before he finished casting but Harry had already sent his off. That’s all I remember,” you reply truthfully, not having the energy to make up a lie to protect both boys.

“Mr. Malfoy attempted to cast an unforgivable?” Snape asks and you reluctantly nod deciding the truth was your best option right now. “And Mr. Potter cast a dark spell as well?” Again you nod in confirmation.

“Detention, both of you, the rest of the year and I shall be speaking to the Headmaster regarding your actions,” Snape growled, sending nasty glares at both boys before turning back to you.

“Rest up Ms. Potter. Madam Pomfrey wishes to keep you overnight for observation but you should be released tomorrow morning. You should be mostly healed but it’s best to be cautious when dealing with dark magic,” Snape says, shooting the boys another death glare. “If you need me do not hesitate to ask. And try not to intervene in any more fights.” Snape sends you a small smile and then he’s gone.

“Y/n, I’m so sor-” 

“Don’t you dare speak to her!” Draco hisses, his voice like venom.

“Draco-” you try to intervene but Harry cuts you off.

“She’s my sister!” Harry growled, his hands curling into fists.

“ENOUGH!” You shout, making both boys turn and look at you in shock.

“I’m sick of it! Just stop fighting! Harry, I know you didn’t mean to. It’s ok. Both of you are in the wrong. Draco just because you stopped sooner doesn’t mean much. You were both casting dark spells. You both were wrong. Now can we please move on?” You plead, tired of all the arguing and fighting.

“Y/n, he could’ve killed you,” Draco protests.

“And you could’ve hurt me and potentially killed me too. You both were trying to severely injure the other. Draco you almost cast an unforgivable don’t forget that.” You remind him and he winces at the memory.

“She’s right,” Harry mutters. “We need to stop this petty feud we have. We were both wrong. We need to grow up.” Harry walks over to Draco and offers him his hand. Draco glances back at you before accepting Harry’s hand and shaking it.

Harry walks over to you and presses a soft kiss onto your forehead after, whispering, “I’ll give you guys some time.” And then he leaves you and Draco alone.

“I’m sorry, I failed you. First I fucking join up, trying to protect you and now I can’t even do that right. And from your own brother!” Draco exclaims, throwing his hands in the hair.

“Draco, I’m fine. You can’t protect me from everything. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself.” You say trying to soothe him but instead, his eyes darken at your words, his muscles tensing.

“You shouldn’t have to. I should be able to keep you safe! And now I’m one of them!” His voice cracks at the end and his rant.

“We will fix it. We can go to Dumbledore, he’ll know what to do. I promise I will help you. I will get you out. We can run away together if it comes to that. I will not abandon you.” You vow, grabbing his hands that were currently fisting his hair and placing them in your lap.

“I love you.” You say bringing his hands to your lips and softly kissing them.

“I love you too Y/n/n,” he replies as he sits down next to you on the bed. You readjust yourself so you are resting against Draco’s chest rather than the pillow.

“We’ll figure it out.” You assure him once you settle in.

“Together?”

“Together.”

[justkindaoverhereobsessing]

lord, help

After a little playground drama, Tony has to deal with the fact that Tali really is Ziva’s daughter—through and through.

For @why-did-you-just-lie-to-mcgee and @indestinatus, with whom I’m always getting into trouble. Also on ff and AO3

________________________

“Before I start talking, do you three have anything to say for yourselves?”

Arms crossed, Tony paces the short length of the dining room, watched closely by three dirty, nervous children. They’re sitting side by side at the table, chairs scooted close together as they huddle in solidarity, and they remain determinedly quiet.

“Alright then. Go ahead and tell me what you’ve done.”

None of them respond to this, either. 

Frowning, Tony pulls out a chair opposite his daughter and sits down. “Sweetheart,” he tries again, “I happen to know that you speak no fewer than three languages. I also know that you know I spent a lot of time in law enforcement… I’m pretty good at getting information out of people. You’re smart and you’re very eloquent when you want to be, so when I ask again, I expect a reply this time: what happened?”

Tali’s expression turns at once from anxious to defiant, and she matches her father’s earlier posture by crossing her arms. Then she looks away, silent as ever. 

“Well, Tali?” Tony prompts, feeling distinctly Gibbs-ish as he leans in and narrows his eyes.

Finally, Tali gives an answer, but it’s muttered mutinously under her breath and Tony doesn’t catch any of her words.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” she growls back, looking distinctly Ziva-ish, “that it wasn’t my fault.”

“Whose fault was it, then?”

“Gabriel’s. He started it.”

“What did he start? This would all be so much easier if you would just start from the beginning, baby girl.”

Tali huffs, glancing between her friends—neither girl looks particularly eager to jump in. As always, she has to do every dang thing herself! “Fine. We went to the park to practice, and—”

“Practice what?”

“Dad, you said it’s rude to interrupt! Ugh. We went to the park to practice krav maga. Gabriel saw us, and he asked what we were doing. I told him. Then he said we had to stop—we couldn’t do it ‘cause girls are weak!”

Tony files the ‘krav maga’ thing away to circle back to in a moment and focuses on the rest of the story. “And that started a fight?”

“Sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

“Well, I said ‘maybe someday you can work your way up to “weak,” too,’ and that started a fight.”

Tony has to look away for a moment to compose himself, certain that he’ll laugh if he keeps looking at her. “I see,” he manages after a moment, his lips twitching dangerously but his face otherwise kept carefully blank. “Who threw the first punch?”

“Gabriel did!” Tali’s friend Geneviève pipes up, looking braver now that it seems for the moment that they’re not going to be yelled at. 

“And how did you three respond to that, ladies?”

“We just did what Tali has been teaching us, all the krav maga stuff!” This one comes from the third girl, Dina. 

Tony glances back at his daughter, who suddenly looks a little shifty-eyed again. “How long has that been going on?”

Tali shrugs uncomfortably.

“Are you qualified to teach krav maga, Tals?”

“No, but—”

“Do you know how to do it safely so no one gets injured?”

“No, but—”

“Wouldn’t you feel bad if Geneviève or Dina was hurt because you didn’t know what you were doing?”

“Yes! But—”

“But you think it’s still okay to hold krav maga lessons in the park?”

Frustrated, Tali bangs her palm suddenly on the table top, making both of her friends jump. “Yes!” she cries. “Because Ima said that every girl should know how to fight! She’s been teaching me!”

Well, that’s news to Tony. “She has, has she?”

“I just said so, didn’t I!?”

It’s a pretty common consensus around the David-DiNozzos that Tali takes after her father in most things, but… every so often, on days like this, she proves that she’s most certainly her mother’s child. Her temper is usually the thing that gives it away. 

“Don’t snap at me, young lady,” Tony responds sternly, but honestly, he wants to laugh again. 

“Hmph.” Tali makes her displeasure known with a glower, and she thumps back in her seat. 

Letting her stew for a moment, Tony glances back and forth between the other girls. “Did she tell the whole story?”

There appears to be a little silent communication that happens between the two, and then they turn back to him and nod in unison. 

“You sure about that?” he questions, his tone warning them not to lie. “You had to think about it for a little too long before you answered.”

Geneviève frowns, considering. “It’s just…” She pauses. “Gabriel plays in the park a lot. He doesn’t play like the other kids, though. He’s mean.”

“Yeah, he’s a bully!” Dina concurs earnestly. 

A few feet away, the lock on the front door slides free and the door opens, but the girls have their backs to it and don’t notice. Dina keeps talking. “He pulls my hair sometimes. Gabriel, he…” she wrinkles her nose and says something else that’s definitely not in French, which is what they’ve been speaking from the beginning of this “meeting.” 

Over the girls’ heads, Tony sees Ziva’s eyes widen as she walks in, and he knows that she must have understood whatever Dina just said. “Do you say words like that to your own parents, Dina?” his wife asks pointedly.

All three girls jump and turn around guiltily. 

“I, um…” Dina stammers. Like Tali, she’s a multilingual daughter of immigrants, and she seems to have forgotten that Ziva speaks many languages—including Russian. 

Ziva holds her reproachful expression in place for a beat before relaxing into a small, almost conspiratorial smile. “I will not tell… because I am sure that you are right. I think he did.”

Dina smiles shyly back, surprised, and Ziva joins Tony on his side of the table. It seems that she somehow knows the basics of what went down in the park, so he doesn’t bother to bring her up to speed. 

“Well,” Tony continues, drawing the attention of all three ten-year-olds back to himself, “I’m glad that none of you are hurt—and I’m glad Gabriel isn’t, either,” he adds. “But while knowing how to defend yourself is a good thing, you should never resort to violence unless you have no other choice, okay? Three people against one really isn’t a fair fight.”

Dina and Geneviève nod seriously, but Tali just snorts and mutters something under her breath in Hebrew. Whatever it is makes Ziva let out a strangled noise—Tony’s pretty sure that the noise is an aborted laugh. This entire series of events has him feeling the same way, but someone has to be the bad cop here…

So he nudges Tali’s foot under the table with his own. “Okay, Tali-Tee?”

She sighs. “Okay, Dad.”

Feeling like his fatherly duty has been fulfilled, Tony relaxes a little. “Alright. Now that that’s cleared up, you can go play again, but please, Jackie Chan and co., at least try not to start any more wars.”

Tali perks up slightly. “We’re not in trouble?”

“Not this time. But if I ever hear about you initiating any fights, I’m shipping you off to live with Grandpa Gibbs. He’ll set you straight.”

Tali is well aware that Grandpa Gibbs is wrapped around her little finger, so she grins. “Okay! We won’t!”

“Yeah, no fights for us!” Geneviève agrees.

“We won’t punch anyone!” Dina finishes, and without another thought, all three girls have flounced back out the door to return to the park.

Left alone with just Ziva, Tony starts to laugh, scrubbing his face with both hands. “God... and to think I used to hate the fact that I never got to see what you were like as a kid! Now I not only know a baby Ziva, I have to parent her, too!”

Ziva chuckles as well, laying a hand on her husband’s back and drifting it up to squeeze his shoulder fondly. “You handled it well, do not worry.”

Tony lifts his head to look at her, amused. “I wouldn’t have had to handle anything if you hadn’t decided to teach her Israeli martial arts.”

Ziva shrugs, entirely unrepentant. “I think she should be able to protect herself, and besides… it runs in her blood.”

“I guess it does… Lord help me, the only mere mortal in the middle of two born-and-bred ninjas. If Tali’s already picking fights with bullies at ten, I’m not going to survive her growing up.” He rolls his eyes, but he catches Ziva’s hand from his shoulder and squeezes it comfortably. “Anyway, how’d you find out what happened?”

“I ran into Gabriel’s mother on my way into the building.”

“Bet she wasn’t too pleased, was she?”

“No, she was not. But I told her that if my daughter hit her son, she almost certainly had an excellent reason for doing so.”

“You’ve never liked that kid, have you?”

“Not at all.”

Tony snorts. “Well, maybe he’ll stay away from the girls now.”

“It will be to his own detriment if he does not!”

“I’ll say. Tali can be fierce when she puts her mind to it, and Dina and Geneviève… Those three have always egged each other on. You know they get a little crazy when they’re all together—it’s total chaos, more often than not.”

“I am glad that Tali has them.”

“Me, too. They’re good friends to her, even if they’re always getting each other into trouble.” Tony pauses for a second, remembering something. “Hey, what did Dina say?”

Ziva laughs. “To translate it delicately, she said something like ‘that reproductive-organ-of-a-male-walrus deserved to be hit.’”

“I like the creativity… very Russian. And what did Tali say, right there at the end?”

“She was arguing with you… you said that three-against-one is not a fair fight, but she said that is not true here because Gabriel is stupid enough for three people all by himself.”

That really makes Tony laugh, and in the end, all he can think to reply is a thought that he’s already expressed today: “Lord, help... that girl is going to be the death of me.”

He really doesn’t mind, though. 

[oveliagirlhaditright]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25092943/chapters/60786085

SoKai Week Day 1. Prompt: One Heart.

So… Sora and Kairi’s entire conversation at the start of this is based on one that Buffy and Angel had in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, that I felt was too perfect to pass up for this.

Enjoy!

Also… it should hopefully be clear in the story, but Kairi—who is the PoV here—is definitely being an unreliable narrator in this fic, and being WAY too hard on herself.

Have Heart

It was a hideous day outside: rain was falling in torrents, the wind was howling, and there was an eclipse keeping anyone from seeing the sun.

But even though the weather conditions were bleak, the past hours hadn't been a complete loss for the Guardians of Light. While Ava had, unfortunately, gone back to the Master of Master's side after he'd told her how he loved her like a dad would, they'd gotten Aced to their side when they'd explained to him that even they thought he'd had good intentions—even if his father and siblings couldn’t see that—but had just gone about things the wrong way…

And maybe that was why Kairi and Sora were having a heart-to-heart themselves right now, in Merlin's Study, while everyone else was outside trying to fix Radiant Garden’s claymores...

"I saw you on the day you became the most popular girl at school, y'know,” Sora said now, as he held onto Kairi’s hand and looked earnestly into her eyes. “It was a beautiful day, where the sun was actually shining unlike now... and you had a lollipop in your mouth, and walked down the stairs to the courtyard… and I fell in love with you then.”

"Why?" Kairi couldn't keep herself from asking. Because it was beyond her how Sora had ever cared for the weak girl who had led to his death, let alone cared for the horrible creature she’d been even before that.

"Because... I could see your heart,” Sora assured her with a smile, as he ran a hand through her hair. And Kairi supposed he must have been serious about this… since Sora always took matters of the heart so seriously. It made her feel even more in love, even if she wasn’t sure she deserved it. "…And I was worried that your heart would be bruised or broken. And more than anything else in the world, I wanted to warm it with my own."

Kairi hugged Sora for these words—as how could she not? Especially since she wanted to revel in this feeling a little while longer, if  she was going to selflessly give it up… if she couldn’t change—and replied, "That's so sweet, Sora." And it was.

But for some reason, Kairi also couldn't help thinking of their blood pumping organs being pushed together, instead of their figurative hearts that Sora had really been speaking about, "Or, taken literally… really gross." (1)

“Y’know… I was just thinking the same thing,” Sora muttered, seeming suddenly ashamed of himself if the tone in his voice was anything to go by.

And Kairi laughed uproariously, as she pulled away from Sora and smiled at him widely… and then he was grinning at her, too, before he was twirling her around and they were dancing in the midst of their ridiculous life.

And Kairi held onto the moment, in thinking that it could be her last moment with Sora… for so many reasons.

...

In the end… Kairi was selfish. She always had been, and knew this well. Wasn’t this why she’d always wanted Sora to stay home with her, rather than go on his quests? …Or why she’d forced herself into battles she wasn’t ready for—endangering everyone that way—just so she could stay by Sora’s side? And then… after Sora had died, she’d become the worst possible version of herself. That old popular girl with the bad attitude again, but also someone who’d been grieving for trauma that had happened to her on one, two, three fronts… and she’d been so cold to Riku because of it… someone who was Sora’s best friend.

And after everything they’d been through… maybe she should have just let Sora and herself be together, like they so desperately wanted, but after Sora’s heartfelt declaration the other day—where he’d told her he’d loved her when she’d only been at the first stage of unlovable—she couldn’t help thinking he deserved so much better than her.

But Kairi was too awful to let Sora go completely… So she stopped touching him or being around him if she could help it, without explaining anything, as she tried to become a better (or lesser?) version of herself, so she could hopefully be comfortable in his arms again, sooner rather than later?

Where her enemies were concerned… Kairi stopped talking to them—in not being able to get over just how annoying she was when she spoke—but she also hated that she was doing this… because it reminded her of the girl who hadn’t gotten to speak to her abuser until he was already dead, and she couldn’t get much relief that way, and it was causing the Foretellers to just think she was the simple girlfriend of Sora again, and nothing more.

But if it somehow made Kairi’s heart… truer, she would continue on this path.

So when Ursula's family were making a big deal of her being in love with George from the Jungle, when Kairi was helping out in that world, she said nothing... She also didn't even question why Alice seemed older than she should have been, when she went to Wonderland herself for the first time, and why it seemed different than Sora described it as... She even ignored telling her new friends who she thought framed Roger Rabbit, when she'd figured the answer out herself. And even when it was revealed to her that Master Ava was somehow her grandmother… Kairi didn’t react. But that was more from shock than anything else.

But it was after that had transpired, that Sora seemed to have enough of the silent treatment and began questioning her. "Kairi... I thought you wanted to be more active on our journeys… so why are you being less so now? Are you okay?"

They were back home on Destiny Islands now, after having defeated the Master of Master’s plans and most of the Foretellers, unfortunately. And Kairi had decided to just deal with all of her grief here, and not ruin the party that was going on outside, but she should have known that Sora would never leave her alone when her heart was clearly in distress… that was what she loved about him.

The Kairi of old, who had been pretty good at bottling up her emotions, wouldn't have told Sora the truth here… But the one who remembered how doing such a thing had destroyed Terra, Ventus, and Aqua’s friendship for a while, knew that she had to finally speak.

"...What's wrong is that I'm supposed to be Light, Sora…. But you're kinder and truer than I could ever be… and I’m not saying that to insult you or anything… I just find that no matter what I do, I’m a mean girl—even though I'm trying to fight some of that now… and be less me—so what can you possibly see in me? And what did the universe see, in order to gift me with this power?"

And Kairi assumed that Sora would give her some massive speech here… perhaps something like his “my friends are my power” speech, or when he’d told Riku he didn’t have a conscience… or something along the lines of what he’d said to get her to want to stay in Traverse Town so many years ago…

But instead, Sora just admitted with much simplicity and heart: "Kairi, I love you because you're you... for all the times you've saved me, and how you poke fun at me, and how we've grown up together. How could I not? So stop trying to be anyone other than yourself. And, I mean, Mister Arrogant over here isn't exactly perfect. Our flaws make us good for each other, too, believe it or not."

And Kairi wanted to argue this, she really did. Because how could the hero of the worlds be comparing himself to her?

But if Kairi was being honest with herself, she loved Sora for pretty similar reasons to what he’d just said about her, didn't she? Even when she was put off by how conceited he could be, for example, in thinking he could just magically go to the next school year—despite his grades—just because his teachers loved him so much.

And Kairi held Sora in her arms again… probably something she should’ve been doing every second and every day since he’d first spilled his guts to her, instead of pushing him away, and Kairi asked Sora the question that perhaps the universe had laid on her mind to try and comfort her. "I guess I really do need you to warm my heart, huh?"

And the words "you bet" were whispered against Kairi's head, as Sora kissed her forehead and brought her even closer to him.

Author’s Note: (1) I struggled with whether I wanted to give Kairi this Buffy line or not. On one hand… I didn’t want to, because Sora was spilling his heart out to Kairi here, and it didn’t seem like she would somewhat shoot that in the foot by saying this. But at the same time… I want Kairi to have her personality, tbh… The snarky one that we really saw in KHI and KHII, that allowed her to banter with Sora: as I think that’s one of the reasons they’re good and fun together and have chemistry. So, in the end, I decided to keep it for that reason. And perhaps Kairi later thought of her saying that, and it’s part of the reason she’s hating on herself in this story. -shrugs-