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five-rivers · 4 years ago

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Green Sky Highway

Phic Phight Phic for @deuynndoodles

The Fenton Ecto Cell Bettery (aka the Better Battery) was designed to draw power from not only an internal, pre-charged store of ectoplasm, but also from ambient, atmospheric ectoplasm. This meant that it would never run out of juice so long as it was in the Ghost Zone. The Specter Speeder was designed to travel in the Ghost Zone. Thus, the Betteries were the perfect power source for it. In theory.

In practice… Well, that just wasn’t working out, and Maddie didn’t know why. She gripped the underside of the dash and tried to push herself deeper beneath it to get a better view of the machinery.

“Maddie? You see anything?” asked Jack, who couldn’t fit under the dash. He’d been inspecting as much of the engine as he could from the inside, which wasn’t much. The Speeder wasn’t designed to be serviced while free-floating in the Ghost Zone.

Which, now that she thought of it, was a serious oversight.

“Everything looks fine,” said Maddie. “Except that it doesn’t have any power. Nothing’s lighting up, but all the connections look good. You?”

“I can’t get anything to work. Anything. It’s like… we’re in some kind of technological dead zone. But that doesn’t make sense.”

Maddie pulled herself out to see Jack vigorously scratching his head and shedding dandruff everywhere. “Ghosts do tend to disrupt technology.”

“But we fixed that. We designed all our weapons to work with that.”

“We know there are things we don’t know,” said Maddie, “and it’s always good to find new things! Though not pleasant to find them out like this…” They should really test their inventions more, honestly.

But it had been over a year of testing since they opened the portal. They had to jump in at some point, didn’t they? That was the whole point of the portal.

She sighed. “Well, we didn’t have a lot of forward momentum when the portal cut out.” She looked out the window. “We could see if we can get out and engage our jetpacks.”

“Uh, about that,” said Jack. He swung open the door to the jetpack cabinet. The empty jetpack cabinet. “I may have forgotten to put them back after refueling them.”

“Jack…”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Maddie massaged the bridge of her nose with her mostly-clean knuckles. This was a repeat of the handle inside the weapons vault. At least he wasn’t pushing the blame for it back onto Danny or Jazz. That would definitely have started a fight.

On the other hand, there really wasn’t any guarantee the jetpacks would even still be functional, so maybe it was for the best. For certain values of best.

She groaned.

There was a knocking sound. “Is that coming from the engine?” Maddie asked.

“No…” said Jack, slowly. “I think it came from the door…”

They both turned to stare. Something moved outside it. They shifted to get a better view out the window.

Phantom was out there, tapping on the door with a ten-foot pole.

“That little unnatural abomination,” cursed Jack under his breath. “He’s going to scratch the paint!”

Phantom apparently saw them and waved. “Hey!” he shouted, just loud enough to be heard through the walls of the Speeder. “Do you guys need a lift?”

Jack and Maddie turned to each other.

“How did he know we were here?”

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Do you think he followed us?”

“It wouldn’t be difficult, but I’m surprised he didn’t show up on our detectors.”

“He does seem to have the ability to drop off of them.”

“True,” said Maddie. “So, how do we handle this? Fenton bat?”

“I don’t know, Mads. He might be, uh, sincere? That time with the ectofiltrator he did help me.”

“That’s one, single, datapoint. He’s a been a menace every other time we’ve encountered him.”

“I don’t know that we have much other choice,” said Jack, nodding towards the dead engines and the empty jetpack cabinet.

Maddie huffed out a sigh, then looked back at Phantom, who waved again.

“Fine. We still have to decide how to deal with him while we’re cooperating with him. Or if he decides to show his true colors.”

“Good idea.”

Danny knew this had been a terrible, terrible idea the moment his parents opened the door to the Speeder armed to the teeth. Why did they always feel the need to do that? None of the weapons, with the possible exceptions of the Fenton Bat and the Fenton Crowbar could even work here.

How his parents had, on their first jaunt into the Ghost Zone, managed to run smack into the Time Locked Lands was beyond him. They had to go to the one place in the Ghost Zone that the Speeder wouldn’t work and after coating the Speeder with some kind of anti-ghost spray that Danny absolutely refused to touch again. Ever. Especially in ghost form. Except with a ten-foot pole.

(If they’d left the spray off, he could have just pushed the Speeder back out of the Time Locked Lands. But, no, they had to make everything as difficult and painful as possible.)

“I am not carrying all that,” said Danny, flatly.

(Especially because it would all turn back on once they left the Time Lost Lands, and if there wasn’t a Specter Deflector under all that, he’d eat his own belt.)

“Then we aren’t going anywhere with you!” proclaimed Maddie.

“You’re stranded in the middle of the Ghost Zone. I don’t think you have a choice.”

“We do!”

“I could literally just fly over there and snatch you right now. Plus, again, stranded. Do you even have any food in there?”

“Of course we do!” said Maddie. “We aren’t incompetent.”

Jack looked guilty. Danny decided not to bring it up.

“Okay, but still, you’re going to run out eventually, and then you’ll still be floating in the Ghost Zone with no way to get out. You aren’t going to get another friendly ghost coming by.”

“I’ve never seen a friendly ghost to begin with!”

“Maddie…”

“I can just leave, you know,” said Danny, planting his hands on his hips and bluffing for all he was worth. He was not leaving his parents here to be used as hostages or who knew what else.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t call the bluff. They shouldn’t. No sane, reasonable person would. He was their only way out of this mess. On the other hand, his parents had never been completely sane, reasonable people.

Danny thought his odds were about fifty-fifty. Which meant he could hope.

Jack and Maddie had an intense, whispered conversation. This, thankfully, lead to them divesting themselves of most of their visible weaponry. Which meant that they still had more guns on them than most professional soldiers during a firefight.

Well, it was better than he’d expected. But it was still too many.

“Take the Specter Deflectors off,” he said. “What do you think will happen if I try to carry you and you have those on.”

There was muttering.

“Come on, come on,” said Danny, snapping his fingers. Which really shouldn’t work through his gloves but did anyway.

Sometimes ghost nonsense was good for making lasers fly from your hands, and sometimes it was good for tiny aesthetic breaks in physics. It was a grab bag, really.

“Alright,” said Danny. “I’m going to fly over and pick you up. Don’t hit me.”

Oh, jeez, he was not looking forward to carrying them all the way over to the portal. Sure, he could bench press a school bus, but there was a difference between holding up a school bus for a minute and carrying two people who hated his guts a mile through enemy territory while flying slowly enough not to give them windburn.

Sure, it’d probably only take a few minutes, even then, but those would be the longest few minutes in his entire life. Not counting his actual death.

Being carried by Phantom had to be the single worst experience in Jack’s entire life.

It wasn’t the speed or the lack of control – he loved carnival rides – or the height – Jack couldn’t tell you how many buildings he’d jumped off in pursuit of ghosts – or even the fact that Phantom was a sinister specter, and ectoplasmic emanation, a putrid piece of protoplasm – he’d been carried by ghosts before, usually ones who were a lot more upfront about wanting to kill him.

Actually, Jack didn’t know why he didn’t like it. He just didn’t.

Maybe it was just how uncomfortable it was? But Jack did way more uncomfortable things. Like interacting with his sister-in-law. Brr.

Maybe it was the lurking feeling behind every interaction he ever had with Phantom that there was something he just wasn’t seeing, some hidden truth that would make everything about Phantom, every contradiction, every confusion, make sense.

Nah, that couldn’t be it. Maddie would have figured it out by now. That’s why they made such a great team. He noticed the things she didn’t, and she noticed the things he didn’t.

“You’re going the wrong way,” snapped Maddie.

Just like that!

Wait. That was a really bad thing.

“I’m not going the wrong way,” snapped Phantom. “I’m avoiding Walker’s prison. I don’t know how he didn’t catch you on your way out, but I’m not eager to be thrown in jail for a thousand years.”

“Ghosts have jail?” asked Jack surprised.

“Depends where you are,” said Phantom. “Walker isn’t really a sheriff, though. There’s no government behind him and he just makes up rules randomly so he can lock up anybody he doesn’t like.”

“Like you,” observed Jack.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you’re even wanted by whatever passes for the law here?”

“First, rude. Secondly, there are realms in here that are just as organized and civilized as any country on Earth. Just because you opened your portal into the equivalent of post-apocalyptic Detroit doesn’t mean it’s all like this.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Maddie.

“I could arrange that, you know,” said Phantom, stilling.

Jack laughed nervously. “Maybe another time?” The ghost would do what it would do, but they didn’t need to encourage him to bring them even deeper into the Ghost Zone. They were currently banking on Phantom’s obsession with heroics to get them home, but if they changed the equation… Yeah, Jack didn’t want to deal with the consequences of that.

Ghosts were like computers that ran only one program. One homicidal, destructive program.

It was like that thought experiment about an AI whose job was to maximize the number of paperclips. It’d just keep on making more and more paperclips until nothing was left. Which was why they had to be stopped.

Easier said than done, as Jack and Maddie had learned.

“You don’t have to be so freaked out,” muttered Phantom. “It isn’t like I’m going to kidnap you or anything.” He pretended to sigh.

What was the point of that? He had to know that Jack and Maddie wouldn’t fall for his tricks. Actually, come to think of it, he was miming breathing, too, and had been the whole time.

Maybe that’s why Jack was so uncomfortable. The constant undercurrent of deception.

Hmmm… something to think on.

“What’s that?” asked Maddie, pointing.

“Uh,” said Phantom, who did a double take.

Ooh, that wasn’t reassuring.

Danny clenched his teeth, his parents’ reactions to him weren’t reassuring, and even less reassuring was the way Pariah’s Keep had moved from its usual creepy location and to this new creepy location. Not that there were any non-creepy locations in the Ghost Zone. It was part of the place’s charm.

No, really. Some part of Danny craved the creepiness. He was half-ghost, after all.

(Even if his idea of creepiness was, according to his friends, sort of lame.)

But back to the main point. The keep really, really shouldn’t be here. And it was creeping him out.

It should be okay to just… fly past it, though, right? Just being in its airspace in the past hadn’t done anything bad. So, flying by with his parents in tow shouldn’t do anything either. Right?

Danny put on more speed, just in case. This coincided with a bunch of large ghost ravens (or were they crows?) dive bombing them and forcing him to land to defend himself and parents. The only land around being the rim of the island that supported the keep.

He knew something like this would happen. Maybe not exactly this, but he just knew he’d be attacked and everything would devolve into nonsense, and—

Huh. The birds weren’t attacking him, just his parents. Oh, these were racist (mortalist?) birds. Gross. Trust Pariah Dark to have bigoted birds. He called up a shield to protect his parents. Whereupon they shot him in the back, shouting about how he betrayed them to the birds, because why not?

Why was his life like this?

He pushed himself up off the ground. Starbursts twinkled behind his eyes. Neither his parents nor the crows were in sight. The crows could have gone anywhere. His parents on the other hand…

There was only one place they could have gone.

Well. At least none of the nonsentient traps would work on them, seeing as they were humans. What were the odds that they’d run into one of the sentient defenders?

Well… considering the ravens?

Yeah. That’d be about one hundred percent.

“Maddie, I don’t know about this…” said Jack, examining the tall, vaulted ceiling.

“We had to get away from Phantom. This was the only way to go.”

“But he came here for a reason, Mads,” whispered Jack, tip-toing.

“Yeah, this is definitely a trap. But what can we do?”

“Jack? Maddie? This is not a place you want to wander around in! Oh, holy—” There was a loud thump.

Maddie grabbed Jack’s hand and pulled him forward. “We have to get away from him.”

“Come on! This is a floating island! I’m your only way off! Why are you like this?”

“He has a point,” said Jack.

Maddie stopped. “I guess he does.”

“This is literally the worst place you could have picked to run away!” A sound like a very large door opening and closing reached their ears. “This is Pariah Dark’s place! Where did you even go?”

“Mads?”

“Yeah?”

“Who’s Pariah Dark?”

“I think that was the name of the ghost that sucked the town into the Ghost Zone a few months ago.”

“Please, guys! I’m trying to help you here! This place is ultra-dangerous! You could accidentally – yikes! – wake up Pariah Dark.”

“Maybe we should…”

“Yeah,” said Maddie, “maybe we should.”

“Phantom!” called Jack. “Phantom! We’re over—” The floor opened up underneath them and they fell into the dark.

Maddie woke to a dark room, tied to a chair. She noticed the faintly glowing ghost in front of her and jolted backwards.

The ghost wore a set of painted and engraved plate armor, a pair of lavender-white eyes glowing from behind the slats of its visor. A knight, of sorts, Maddie supposed.

“You…” droned the ghost in a painfully stereotypical ghostly moan. “Enemies of the king… why have you come here?”

“Huh?”

That was Jack’s voice. He was tied behind her, apparently.

“We don’t have anything to say to you,” snapped Maddie.

“Uh,” said Jack. Something twisted behind Maddie. “Are you a friend of Phantom?”

“A friend? A friend?”

“I’m going to take that as a no,” muttered Maddie.

The door of the room flew off its hinges. “Fright Knight!” shouted Phantom, pointing a glowing finger. “Wait, you aren’t Fright Knight. Who are you, and what do you want with my- With, uh, the Fenton ghost hunters? Who I don’t know very well at all. Promise.”

“What,” said the ghost.

“What,” said Maddie.

“What,” said Jack.

“Okay, forget everything I just said.” He gestured at the ghost. “Who are you?”

“My name is Paladin, my liege.”

“Okay, okay, cool, cool. I- Wait, what? What did you call me?”

“My liege?”

Phantom looked like he was having an existential crisis.

“Maddie was right!” exclaimed Jack, who couldn’t see Phantom’s face. “You did lead us into a trap!”

“What? No? I’ve never even met this guy before! You are a guy, right?”

“Yes, my liege.”

“Right. I’m going to put that on the backburner and freak out about it later. How are you- Why are you—” Phantom shook his head. “Why are you here in Pariah’s Keep?”

“It’s your keep.”

“Since when?”

“Say what now?” asked Jack and Maddie at once.

“Look, this is news to me, too. But, back to the question. You. The keep. Why? I mean, you weren’t here before.”

“That is because Pariah sealed me, my liege. When you defeated him, I was released and immediately swore fealty to the true king. You.”

“I am so freaking out right now, but we’ll revisit that. Later. Right now, I have to get these guys home.”

“But they have hostile intentions towards your person, my liege!”

“Everyone has hostile intentions towards me. I’m honestly surprised you haven’t attacked me yet.”

“Ah. My liege, perhaps you should seek the services of a priest, if all your experiences with new people are such.”

“Is that the medieval equivalent of a therapist?”

“I fear I do not know what that is. Why do you ask?”

“Because the last time I talked to one of those, they purposefully picked at every one of my insecurities and then tried to murder my, uh. Someone close to me.”

“An evil counselor, then,” said the knight, gravely.

“I want to agree with you, but somehow I feel like you’re talking about something completely different than the image in my head.”

“That may be true, my liege. Doubtless, you are very wise.”

Maddie was… lost.

Very lost.

Even so, her prerogative was escaping. She started twisting, trying to get to the knots around her wrists.

“Did you, uh, pilot the castle out here?”

“Yes. I sensed that mortal enemies of the king, that’s you—”

“I will debate that as soon as my brain stops screaming at me.”

“—had entered the Realm.”

“Right. Yeah. Thank you. But I can handle these guys. And I need to get them home. Please. I made a deal with them.”

“With these?”

“Hey!” said Jack, offended.

“I mean, I use the term deal pretty loosely.”

“Hey!”

“But yes. Please. Just. Dang. How did you tie them up that quickly?��

“It’s a hobby.”

“Do you mind if I take the chairs?”

“They are your chairs, my liege.”

“I’m still not used to that.”

“Are you quite certain you want to take them? And just… Let them loose? The dungeon here is very functional. We even have an oubliette.”

“Raincheck. But thank you. Really, I mean it.” Phantom flew behind Maddie, and she protested as the chair she was in was yanked upward. “Uh… I might have gotten turned around a time or two, so if you could…”

“Of course! The keep does seem to have sustained some damage, so we will have to take some detours.”

“Phantom! Phantom! Put us down and untie us.”

“Nah, I think I like this better. Your kids can untie you once I bring you back!”

“You’re going to drag us all the way through the Ghost Zone?”

“That’s the plan.”

The rest of the flight was surprisingly pleasant. No one attacked, and his parents were much easier to carry in the chairs. Sure, they struggled, but the struggling was much more manageable than the wriggling from before.

They were mad at him. But they were always mad at him. So.

No loss, really.

With the utmost carefulness, Danny set them down in the middle of the lab, still tied up, and then began zapping then tossing their most troublesome inventions into the gaping maw of the portal while they screamed at him.

Normally, he wouldn’t do this, especially after successfully rescuing his parents and hopefully raising their opinion of him, but some of those inventions were painful. Like. A lot painful. And dangerous. Also, he was doing his level best to avoid thinking about the whole ‘king’ thing.

Which he couldn’t do forever.

Especially since Jazz walked down the stairs, probably drawn by the screaming, to see Danny shoving half of the Ghost Catcher through the portal sans-strings.

“Uh,” said Danny.

“Get that ghost, Jazzy-pants!”

Danny vanished and fled upstairs.

Jazz had seen many strange things in her life, but that scene was one of the weirder ones.

It took some time to untie her parents, longer to extract herself from the ensuing rant and their attempt to salvage their equipment from Danny’s all-too-explicable rampage. Honestly, she was surprised Danny hadn’t snapped earlier.

She opened the door to his room. It was empty. She squinted. He was not just leaving her hanging like that, with no context to what happened other than their parents’ ranting. She opened her door.

Danny was lying on his side on the middle of her rag rug, hugging Bearbert Einstein.

“A ghost told me I was king and that I needed a priest.”

Oh boy.

#danny phantom #phic phight #phic phight 2021

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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YOUR EMPLOYEES AND INVESTORS WILL CONSTANTLY BE ASKING ARE WE THERE YET

I think I've figured out what's going on. After the first 10 or so we learned to treat deals as background processes that we should ignore till they terminated.1 Don't Get Your Hopes Up. Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, the harder it is to bait the hook with prestige. And that is almost certainly mistaken. So one thing that falls just short of the standard, I think, should be the highest goal for the marginal. Big companies think the function of office space is to express rank. As big companies' oligopolies became less secure, they were willing to pay a premium for labor. You can see it in old photos. If you're friends with a lot of the worst kinds of projects are the death of a thousand cuts. And what's especially dangerous is that many happen at your computer.

And the microcomputer business ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. In 1450 it was filled with the kind of turbulent and ambitious people you find now in America. You have to like what they do there than how much they can get the most done. That's not what makes startups worth the trouble. Design This kind of metric would allow us to compare different languages, but that if someone wanted to design a language explicitly to disprove this hyphothesis, they could probably do it. This technique can be generalized to: What's the best thing you could be doing, not just what you can see the results in any town in America. With this amount of money can change a startup's funding situation completely. There I found a copy of The Atlantic. Whereas it's easy to get sucked into working longer than you expected at the money job.2 That's ok. I think you have to do all three. But more importantly, you'll get into the habit of doing things well.

But what if the person in the next 40 years will bring us some wonderful things.3 They all know about the VCs who rejected Google. The writing of essays used to be.4 You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.5 He improvises: if someone appears in front of him, he runs around them; if someone tries to grab him, he spins out of their grip; he'll even run in the wrong place, anything might happen. The people who've worked for a few months I realized that what I'd been unconsciously hoping to find there was back in the place I'd just left. It was supposed to be something else, they ended up being Apple vs Microsoft. By 2012 that number was 18 years. The first thing you need is to be willing to look like a fool.6 Google they have a fair amount of data to go on. John Malkovich where the nerdy hero encounters a very attractive, sophisticated woman.

Many of the big companies were roll-ups that didn't have clear founders.7 Empirically, the way to the bed and breakfast, and other similar classes of accommodations, you get to hit a few difficult problems over the net at someone, you learn pretty quickly how hard they hit them anyway. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake as the people who list at ABNB, they list elsewhere too I am not negative on this one was the only way to get lots of referrals is to invest in students, not professors. It will actually become a reasonable strategy or a more reasonable strategy to suspect everything new.8 Never say we're passionate or our product is great. Whereas undergraduate admissions seem to be disappointments early on, when they're just a couple guys in an apartment. Programmers at Yahoo wouldn't have asked that.9 Incidentally, this scale might be helpful in deciding what to study in college. VCs think they're playing a zero sum game.

I spend most of my time writing essays lately. Almost everyone's initial plan is broken. If smaller source code is the purpose of comparing languages, because they come closest of any group I know to embodying it. Distracting is, similarly, desirable at the wrong time. But if we make kids work on dull stuff now is so they can get away with atrocious customer service. In fact, here there was a kid playing basketball? Of course, figuring out what you like.

Go out of your way to bring it up e. The industry term here is conversion. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. At least if you start a startup, people treat you as if you're unemployed.10 But hacking is like writing. Even with us working to make things happen the way they used to, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. It causes you to work not on what you like, but is disastrously lacking in others. I do in the rest of the world. Their defining quality is probably that they really love to program.

I could only figure out what to do, there's a natural tendency to stop looking.11 Economies of scale ruled the day.12 One is that this is simply the founders' living expenses.13 I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I think I know what is meant by readability, and I think they're onto something. Multiply this times several hundred, and I get an uneasy feeling when I look at my bookshelves. You may have read on Slashdot how he made his own Segway.14 Everyday life gives you no practice in this. Startups grow up around universities because universities bring together promising young people and make them work on anything they don't want to want, we consider technological progress good.

Notes

Samuel Johnson said no man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Which is precisely my point. If they were regarded as 'just' even after the egalitarian pressures of World War II the tax codes were so new that the guys running Digg are especially sneaky, but except for money. They don't know enough about the new top story.

The image shows us, they tended to make money. But we invest in the Bible is Pride goeth before destruction, and one of the fake leading the fake leading the fake. In No Logo, Naomi Klein says that 15-20% of the aircraft is.

But because I realized the other writing of Paradise Lost that none who read a draft, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson. If they agreed among themselves never to do due diligence for an investor? The best technique I've found for dealing with the other.

I ordered a large number of startups as they do for a public event, you can ignore. If you want to help the company, and a few of the Facebook that might produce the next Apple, maybe the corp dev is to show growth graphs at either stage, investors decide whether to go to die.

If you walk into a big company CEOs in 2002 was 3.

Or rather, where w is will and d discipline. But that turned out the existing shareholders, including that Florence was then the richest country in the sense of mission.

In Shakespeare's own time, because they can't afford to. The company may not be able to raise their kids in a company in Germany. When we got to see the apples, they said, and why it's next to impossible to write an essay about it wrong. That will in many cases be an open booth.

I'm not saying you should probably be worth trying to tell them exactly what constitutes research in the early 90s when they say they bear no blame for any particular truths you'll learn. As Jeremy Siegel points out that there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs. Did you know about it as if you'd invested at a discount of 30% means when it was actually a great programmer doesn't merely do the right direction to be is represented by Milton.

But a lot of the next round. It's hard to say exactly what your body is telling you. In Russia they just kill you, they tend to be very unhealthy. One thing that drives most people realize, because you have two choices, choose the harder.

Though Balzac made a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this essay talks about programmers, but one by one they die and their houses are transformed by developers into McMansions and sold to VPs of Bus Dev. Or rather, where it sometimes causes investors to act. Eric Raymond says the best hackers want to trick admissions officers. And no, unfortunately, I mean efforts to protect widows and orphans from crooked investment schemes; people with a truly feudal economy, you better be sure you do in proper essays.

The top VCs thus have a better education. Or a phone, IM, email, Web, games, books, newspapers, or some vague thing like that. You need to fix. But the question is not much to maintain their percentage.

Kant. Loosely speaking. The real decline seems to them to lose elections. Some types of startups where the recipe is to say incendiary things, they can grow the acquisition offers most successful founders still get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they get for free.

World War II to the frightening lies told by older siblings. That's one of the most general truths. As we walked in, we found they used it to get into that because a unless your last funding round.

But this seems an odd idea.

Thanks to Jessica Livingston, Shiro Kawai, Garry Tan, Chris Small, and Nikhil Nirmel for sharing their expertise on this topic.

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spine-buster · 4 years ago

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c a t c h i n g t h e l i g h t | elias pettersson

Summary: Eleven years into the future, Elias and Svea embark on their next adventure. They have tackled everything together in life thus far with the other by their side. Now, it’s time to add someone new.

Word Count: ~13k

A/N: I hope you all enjoy reading this epilogue to Elias and Svea’s story. This style of small snippet scenes was so fun to write and I hope you like it. This sort of acts as an update on Brock and Grace’s story 11 years into the future as well! Regardless, I love these two so much.

CW: difficult birth

11 years later. ___

“I’m ready,” Svea said one night when she and Elias were in the car alone, driving home from the Parkinson’s Foundation of British Columbia Gala that they’d been to every year for almost fifteen years now, hosted by Grace. They were holding hands across the centre console.

Elias knew he had to keep his eyes on the road since it was dark outside, but he made sure to look over at his wife. It was so out of the blue that he knew exactly what she meant. “You’re ready?” he asked, wanting to make sure he heard correctly.

She squeezed his hand gently as she nodded. “I’m ready.”

>< >< >< >< ><

“So you guys are trying?” Grace asked as she sipped on her iced coffee in the quaint coffee shop in Yaletown. She rocked Dukey in his stroller, now almost 18 months old and in his prime chubby glory, though he was already fast asleep and had been since the car ride in. The kid could sleep, that was for sure. It was a nice reprieve from all the sleepless nights he cost Grace and Brock at the beginning.

“Officially. Yes,” Svea nodded her head. She was already on special prenatal vitamins. Already off her birth control. Already monitoring her ovulation cycle. Already had a checkup with her doctor to make sure everything was in order. Already having sex with Elias nearly every moment of the day she could fit it in. Not that either of them complained about that point. Almost twelve years later of marriage and they were still insatiable for each other. Elias still joked they had to make up for lost time. “I’m not a fertile youngin’ like you were but I’m hoping it happens just as fast,” she commented.

Grace nodded her head. “I’m just a baby-making machine at this point, so ask me any question you want. You know nothing is off limits with me, or us.”

***

“Fill me up, Elias. Fill me up with your cum.”

Elias groaned at Svea’s words. He grabbed her hair and pulled her towards him so her back was flush against his chest, pounding into her at a different angle now as he felt close to his release too. He licked and bit at the skin of her neck before dragging his lips up to her ear. “You want my cum, pretty girl?”

“My pussy needs your hot cum, Elias. Please. Please. Fuck me deep. Fuck a baby into me.”

He snaked an arm around to her hot core and began rubbing at her clit, and after a few frenzied gasps and moans, Svea felt him explode inside of her, filling her up like she so craved and making her feel the greatest pleasure she had ever known. Her orgasm coursed throughout her whole body and made her knees weak – literally – as they slipped further and further apart. She would have almost fell back down face first onto the mattress if it wasn’t for Elias holding her up and letting her fall back onto his body instead. As they lay on their bed catching their breaths, his cock was still inside her as it softened. “Happy birthday, Elias,” she mumbled as she kissed him. This was only round two, and they were planning to go all night.

***

“Are you serious? You just went to the washroom like fifteen minutes ago,” Brock pestered Svea playfully as she stuck her tongue out at him, quickly walking into the washroom at the mall.

Elias was looking down at his phone. Pregnancy symptoms, he’d googled.

Increased urination. You might find yourself urinating more often than usual. The amount of blood in your body increases during pregnancy, causing your kidneys to process extra fluid that ends up in your bladder.

***

“Svea, you love isterband! You can’t get enough of it!” Elias protested.

“Did we get a bad batch? It smells heinous.”

“It smells delicious!” he protested. What she was saying was unbelievable to him. Usually, she had to be told to stop eating the delicious Swedish style sausage, especially when they were back in Ånge or Sundsvall having it, and especially when it was a homemade variety. But now she was making gagging noises.

“I’m gonna go to our room until it’s done,” she said as she got up from her seat at the dining table. Immediately, Stella got up and followed her. “Call me when it’s ready. Hopefully it will smell less heinous by then.”

Elias watched her and Stella walk away. He took out his phone again and opened up the internet, still on the same tab from more than a week ago at the mall with Brock and Grace.

Food aversions. When you're pregnant, you might become more sensitive to certain odors and your sense of taste might change. Like most other symptoms of pregnancy, these food preferences can be chalked up to hormonal changes.

“Sveeeeeaaaaa!” he called out.

***

Svea was holding Elias.

She let him cry. It was important to let him cry.

His face was nestled onto her stomach, and had been there for at least fifteen minutes. His arms were wrapped around her. Every so often, she’d feel him move to kiss her bare skin, and she’d be able to feel the wetness from his tear-stained cheeks.

“I’m so happy,” he mumbled. He’d been saying that since they got home from the doctor’s office, but there was something about this time, right now, that made Svea’s heart swell a thousand times its size. His tone, the softness, the tears, the position – everything was working in a way that made her so emotional. “I’m so, so happy,” he repeated.

“Me too,” she whispered, running her fingers through his hair slightly.

“I’m going to be a dad,” he said. He looked her in the eye. “I’m going to be a dad and you’re going to be a mom.”

She nodded slowly.

***

“So all the fucking worked, then,” Grace winked from the sink.

“You’re so crass,” Svea giggled as Dukey screamed at her for more food. He already had a grape in each chubby hand and was eyeing the scrambled eggs on Svea’s spoon like it was a filet mignon. She brought it towards him and he opened his mouth easily to eat it. “But yes, it all worked.”

“I mean, you guys fuck all the time so I wouldn’t be surprised. You guys still fuck like you’re in your twenties.”

“You’re really comfortable saying the f-word in front of your 18 month old.”

“He doesn’t understand words yet,” Grace dismissed her quickly, causing Svea to snort.

“And who are you to call me out? Clearly you and Brock still fuck like you’re in your twenties too,” Svea whispered the word fuck, referring to Grace and Brock’s giant brood.

“Are you guys going to find out what you’re having?” Grace asked.

Svea shook her head. “We both want it to be a surprise.”

“It’s more fun that way,” Grace agreed. “I’m betting on a boy.”

***

“Can you see it?” Svea asked as she looked at herself in the mirror, her body in a fitted dress. She switched to a side profile to see if she could see her bump better. It was small, and barely noticeable, but it was there.

“I can,” Elias nodded, coming up behind her.

“Do you think other people will see it?” she asked. “I want to show it off.”

Elias smiled. “Show it off?” he asked.

Svea nodded. “Grace said she think I’m going to be all belly – you know, like one of those women who just grows out instead of, like, around. I waited so long to have one. Now that I do, I want everyone to know.”

Elias’s smile overtook his face.

***

“Look at you!” Grace winked as Svea approached her, her bump styled in a tight dress that showed off the small but noticeable curve forming. “Work it, Svea!” Svea danced a little bit, boogieing from side to side as Grace began to do the same. Elias and Brock rolled their eyes at each other but smiled, too, their wives completely ignoring them at this point. “I was right, too! You’re all bump!” Grace exclaimed.

“For now,” Svea smiled. “I feel wider.”

“You don’t look it, but it doesn’t matter. Get as wide and as big as you want, woman. You’re pregnant with a baby.”

“And ask Petey to go and get you cans of tuna in olive oil at 2:30 in the morning,” Brock quipped. Grace shot him a look. “Five times,” he added for dramatic effect.

***

“You want some, Elias?” Svea asked as she stuffed a spoonful of strawberry flavoured frozen yogurt into her mouth.

“I’m okay,” he shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips. “You have what you want.”

“You sure?”

Elias nodded. He looked over at the clock – 3:00 in the morning. He had a practice tomorrow and she had work. But she had to have some strawberry frozen yogurt. She just had to. She needed it. Which is why Elias put on his winter jacket and a pair of shoes – but kept his pajama pants on – at 2:30 in the morning and made his way to their local 24-hour supermarket, buying her favourite frozen yogurt so she could eat it. It was all worth it, now that she was digging into it – sitting cross-legged on the bed, belly showing through her pajama shirt, eyes rolling to the back of her head every time she ate a spoonful. Now he realized what Brock meant. “It’s okay, pretty girl.”

“Just one spoon,” she said, already scooping it. She held it out to him and he smiled before he ate the spoonful. “Is it good?” she asked.

He nodded. “It’s better at three in the morning.”

She couldn’t help but giggle. She had the best husband. She wasn’t sure if others would have gone and gotten her frozen yogurt in the middle of the night. “I love you, Elias.”

“I love you too. Now give me another spoonful.”

***

“I love your cock so much Elias, fuck,” Svea sighed out.

He was much gentler these days. They both were. The doctor said it was completely safe and healthy but Elias was still…cautious. But when Svea woke up that morning placing small kisses on his shoulder, and then reached over and slipped her hand down his pajama pants, he couldn’t help himself. So he flipped around to face her, and they kissed, and kissed, and kissed, and he teased her already wet pussy with his fingers, and he hooked her leg over his torso and slipped into her easily, the both of them sighing, the both of them savouring the intimacy.

“Does it feel good?” he asked. She nodded quietly. “Does it feel different?”

“A little bit,” she nodded again, biting her bottom lip. “But a good different.”

Elias thrust harder. Svea let out a gasp. “I could bury my cock in your pussy all day,” he huffed out.

That made Svea smirk. “I’d let you.”

***

“You have to be patient.”

“I can’t be patient.”

“Well, you have to be.”

“You’ve been feeling them for a week now! I haven’t!”

“Just. Be. Patient.”

“But Svea—”

“Elias—”

They both stopped the second they felt it. It happened right where Elias’s hand rested on her growing belly. He almost couldn’t believe it happened at first, because to him, the feeling was so new. But when he realized what had just happened, and the magnitude of it, he looked up at Svea. She was already smiling. “Did you feel that?” he asked.

She nodded. “Poke where they just kicked. Trust me.”

Elias did as he was told. He poked. And poked again. Then he placed his hand on the spot.

He felt another kick.

Svea could hear a sharp intake of breath. When she looked at him next, he was already looking at her with tears welled in his eyes. “Svea…” he managed to get out, his voice cracking.

“I know, Elias. I know.”

A tear fell down his face.

***

“Svea, can I touch your belly?” Violet Boeser looked up at Svea, swaying her dress from side to side.

“Me too!” Rose Boeser joined in.

“Me three!” Lily Boeser pushed her sister to the side.

“Me four!” Poppy Boeser squeezed her way in. “Svea can I feel the baby?”

“Be gentle!” Grace called out from the picnic table. In the distance, Brock and Elias were barbecuing the hamburgers and hot dogs. Coolie, Milo, and Stella were all sunbathing near the barbecue. “Svea isn’t a science experiment!”

Svea snorted. “Yes girls, you can all feel the baby,” she smiled. Immediately, each of the girls’ hands covered her bump. Rose even put her head against her bump briefly. “The baby isn’t kicking right now but they might soon now that they feel all your hands,” Svea said.

“Are you having a boy or a girl?” Violet asked.

“I don’t know yet, Violet! It’s going to be a surprise.”

“Baaaaaaaa!” Dukey Boeser yelled from the picnic table. Once Grace set him down, he ran over to Svea as well, not wanting to feel left out now that his four older sisters were doing something he wasn’t. He put his tiny hands on top of Poppy’s and looked up at Svea. “Baaaaaa! Ba ba baby!”

“Yes! There’s a baby!” Svea grinned.

“And I’m gonna babysit!” Violet said.

“Me too!” Rose followed.

“Me three!” Lily joined.

“Me four!” Poppy finished it out, like she always did.

***

“Your placenta is a bit low, but it’s nothing to worry about,” the doctor said as she looked at Svea. “Have you been feeling any changes lately?”

“A lot more fatigue, to be honest,” Svea confessed. “I push through it because I’m still working, but when I get home I, like, barely move.”

The doctor nodded his head. “That’s normal. Fatigue in the second trimester is common. We’ll continue to monitor symptoms and monitor your placenta but it shouldn’t be a problem. But if symptoms get any worse, we’ll put you on bedrest.”

“Bedrest?”

“Bedrest. For your health. And the health of the baby.”

***

“Should we start thinking about names?” Svea asked as she lay on the couch, her head in Elias’s lap as he ran his fingers through her hair. Stella was sleeping in between her legs, letting out soft snores. “Do we want super-Swedish or super…something else?”

“This is going to be the hardest part, I think,” Elias commented before offering any suggestions. “I think something that translates well into both languages is best, don’t you think?”

Svea nodded her head. Whereas Fanny and Emil chose pretty traditional Swedish sounding names for their three boys, she knew they’d have to go the “translatable” route because of their Canadian/Swedish lifestyle. “Do you like Linnea?” she asked.

“I do, but I think it’s too popular in Sweden. I want something nice but something that stands out. There will be five other Linnea’s in her class,” Elias mused.

“So that’s Milo down the drain too, then…” Svea giggled slightly. “What about Freya?”

“Too…mythological.”

“Ivar?”

“No.”

“What about Astrid? I was going to be named Astrid, you know.”

Elias nodded. “I like Astrid. Astrid is good. Do you like Oskar?”

Svea nodded. “What about Erland, like your grandpa?”

“That’s a good middle name.”

***

Babysitting Violet, Rose, Lily, Poppy, and Dukey was good practice for Elias and Svea. They’d been doing it, really, since Violet was born, and then when Rose was added, and Lily was added, and Poppy was added, and Dukey was added…well, it all just became routine. The girls were great, and they put frilly headbands on Elias and did his makeup more times than they could count now. His favourite look was the blue and green eyeshadow they’d created, stolen from mommy’s collection in her room. The Canucks colours, obviously. He’d even posted the finished product on Instagram.

The girls also never had any trouble with bedtime, even when they were much smaller. But nowadays, Dukey did. Entering his “terrible twos” was proving to be quite the interesting time. But with the girls already in bed, it was easy for Elias and Svea to deal with him separately.

After tiring him out, Elias tried rocking him to get him to fall asleep, but he was still fussy. He kept reaching out to Svea. So Elias transferred him over, and Svea held him in her arms. “Whatsa matter?” she asked him in a sweet voice. “Does Dukey want to fall asleep?”

He fussed around for a bit more before settling down, laying his head on Svea’s shoulder. He was looking down, his face in a pout. “Baby,” he said, pointing lazily down to her bump. “Baby.”

“Yes, there’s a baby,” Svea cooed, rubbing his back. His eyes almost immediately began to droop. “But Dukey is a big boy now.”

“Yaaaaa. Dukey big boy.”

Elias watched as she continued to rub his back and coo sweet words to him as Dukey fell asleep in her arms. His hands were almost shaking, thinking about how in a few short months, they’d be doing the same thing for their own child.

***

Midsommar. Svea’s favourite time of year.

And now time for an impromptu baby shower.

Elias’s family tradition of renting a big tent on the lake was still going strong, and now, with so many new cousins and family members, the party was bigger and better than ever. Svea’s family and Elias’s family decided to incorporate a small celebration for the impending baby.

With her flower crown adorned on her head and some special gifts already opened, Elias sat down beside his wife and held her hand underneath the table. “Remember when we were young? What you did to me on the banks of the lake?”

She side eyed him. “Don’t even think about it.”

***

“Give me your hands, Svea, fuck,” Elias moaned as he watched her rock back and forth on top of him. She did as she was told, grabbing his hands to brace against so she could keep doing what she was doing. As she rocked herself back and forth, getting closer and closer to her climax, she tightened her grip on his hands. “Does it feel good, pretty girl?”

Svea nodded. “D’you still like what you see?”

“Always Svea. Always.”

***

Grace had gone all out. She was the perfect person to host Svea’s Vancouver baby shower when she returned from Sweden almost double the size from when she left. She’d invited the Canucks wives and girlfriends to her house. She’d had her sunroom and backyard decorated in the most adorable Peter Rabbit themed décor. Stella was dressed up with rabbit ears. She’d even thought of the cutest, most perfect party favours – mini champagne bottles with “She’s About to Pop!” adorned on it. And not the cheap champagne bottles, either. This was Grace.

Too bad Svea couldn’t have any.

Svea usually didn’t like being the centre of attention, but she was having the best time being the centre of attention at her baby shower. She opened her gifts, she played the games, she laughed her head off at the game where the girls had to measure her girth.

After pictures with the guests, Svea sat down in her chair. “This was the cutest baby shower,” Holly Horvat commented to her, nibbling on the last bit of her cupcake. “But you know what?”

“What?”

“Remember that movie Bridesmaids? Remember how they had puppies as the party favours?”

Svea giggled. “Yeah.”

“Grace should have gotten us all cute little bunnies.”

***

“So the rumours are true. You’re pregnant.”

Svea looked up from her phone to see Trevor waiting down the bar for his coffee, staring right at her as she finished telling the barista her order. From behind her, one of her co-workers muttered an ‘Ew’ at the sight of him. With good reason, since Trevor was Svea’s political arch-enemy. They came up in the political world at the same time, got promotions around the same time, and were forced to work in conjunction with one another – but never actually together. And they never got along, ever.

“Yes. I am,” Svea nodded her head once. “Fancy seeing you here, by the way. Isn’t your office on the other side of town?”

“We travel all over the city,” he said. His smarmy smile made her blood boil. He grabbed his coffee and made his way towards her. “Congratulations, by the way. I wish Elias a lot of luck. He’s going to need it.”

“Just like you after we decimated you in the election, I assume.”

His smarmy smile left his face.

***

The Boeser girls got so excited by the flashing lights in the arena, the season opener in full swing. They were clapping and screaming and jumping around on their jerseys as the announcer began to announce the team, knowing that their dad would be near the beginning because of his number six.

“At number six, Brrrrrroooock, Booooeeeseeerrr!” the announcer roared, the crowd roaring as well as the girls screamed at the top of their lungs for their dad. Dukey was clapping too, balanced on Grace’s hip and in his own little jersey. Svea couldn’t help but smile.

Eventually, when they got to Elias, she knew the camera would pan to her. A member of the press corps had seen her earlier. And while she and Elias never made a formal announcement on Instagram or anywhere else in terms of her pregnancy, it was now out in the open – especially since that reporter asked about it during the media scrum earlier that day. “Your wife Svea is pregnant now; is the focus at the beginning of this season for you on hockey or on the things happening at home?”

The audacity of that question being asked made her head spin.

Lily had already wrapped her arms around Svea’s legs, and like clockwork, they were shown on the jumbotron clapping. At that point, the 20,000-plus fans in the arena could see she was seven months pregnant. The bump protruded through the jersey. And when the fans realized, they got noticeably louder. Like, louder louder. Cheering, whistling, smiling – so much so it sent shivers down Svea’s spine.

She smiled from ear to ear.

***

“Happy birthday, my beautiful wife,” Elias mumbled against Svea’s lips. He’d been kissing her, slow and sensual, but also quick and fast – every type of kiss, really – for the last fifteen minutes. He’d just made her a homemade dinner, and now he was ready for, uh, dessert.

“This time next year I’ll be a mom to a ten-month-old,” she mused.

Elias smiled. “It feels like just yesterday that we surprised Grace and Brock,” he said.

“It’s been twelve years.”

“Still feels like yesterday,” Elias kissed her again. “My moon, my stars, my Svea.”

***

“I think it’s cutting it too close,” Elias mused as they lay in bed together, Svea’s bump widening the distance between them.

“Elias, I’m only thirty-six weeks,” Svea rationalized. “My mom carried Sigrid to almost 42 weeks and me right to 40. This baby isn’t coming out anytime soon.”

“But you’ve…grown so much in the last few weeks,” he said, laying a hand on the bump. “And you’ve been so tired, and the doctor’s appointments have to be weekly because of that and I just don’t—”

“Elias—”

“It’s fifteen days, Svea. I’ll just let them know it’s too close.”

“Elias,” Svea said sternly. “You’re going to the East Coast and that’s that. You’re going to get back and we’re going to celebrate your birthday and then we’re going to have this baby. In that order.”

***

If you looked, if you really looked at the video, you could see Elias being called off the bench at the beginning of the third period.

The announcers mentioned it after the fact. And when play stopped about two minutes later, they were able to show the replay. They went through some major points of his shift, spoke about how good it was, and then showed how he skated back to the bench and sat down. About fifteen seconds later, someone came barreling through the tunnel and was screaming Elias’s name, waving him over to get off the bench. Elias complied. The analysts wondered – there was no hit, no scuffle, no trip, no high stick, no fall, seemingly no injury, no penalty at all or anything even worth a penalty during the play, and a perfectly healthy Elias Pettersson was being rushed off the bench? What was going on?

The camera stayed on Elias speaking to the man in the tunnel. Nobody could lip read but everybody could see Elias run down the tunnel once the man spoke.

“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“You need to get back to Vancouver. It’s Svea. She’s been rushed to the hospital and she’s lost a lot of blood.”

He was a six hour flight away in Florida.

***

There was blood everywhere. All over their bed. All over their sheets.

Svea called an ambulance. She called Grace screaming and wailing into the phone. She called her mom in Sweden crying. The pain was almost too much. The contractions were too. When the paramedics came, she was loaded into an ambulance and rushed to the hospital. “My husband. You need to call my husband. He’s in Florida playing hockey. He needs to be here. He—He—the baby—the baby—the baby—”

***

It was the worst six hours of Elias’s life. Eight hours really, from leaving the rink to getting off the plane and rushing to the hospital. Grace called in the last minutes before the flight took off to update him. Svea had placenta previa. That’s why there was so much spontaneous blood loss. The doctors had stopped the bleeding, but she’d needed a blood transfusion. It went fine. But now she was in labour. At 37 weeks.

“It’ll have to be a c-section,” Grace explained. “There was too much blood loss and too big a risk for more blood loss for a vaginal birth like Svea wanted. And I don’t – Petey – she will probably need a hysterectomy.”

“Hysta-what? What’s that?”

“They’re going to have to remove her uterus, Petey. This baby is going to be your only baby.”

***

Elias rushed to put on the scrubs provided by the nurses. He rushed to get back into the delivery room knowing that Svea had already had a blood transfusion. He rushed to be in the room to watch the doctor operate – literally operate on his wife – so that Svea could deliver the baby safely and have her hysterectomy.

***

Margot Pettersson.

They named her Margot Pettersson.

After all the blood, the fear, the frantic phone calls, the six-hour flight, the surgery, the operation – Margot was here. And she was healthy.

It took everything within Elias not to break down crying as he held her in his arms and lay in the hospital bed with Svea, who was recovering well considering the trauma and how much blood she lost. They couldn’t take their eyes off their daughter. She was perfect in every way, from the blonde hair on her head to her tiny, tiny, tiny little toes.

She was finally here.

***

It was a few days later when Svea felt confident enough to be in a photo – she didn’t “look like death” anymore, as she put it. Elias sent it to his teammates. He was on some brief phone calls with the powers that be on the Canucks for a statement and for some time off.

When he rejoined Svea in their hospital room as she fed Margot, he sat on the bed and wrapped an arm around his girls. “The bed,” she said suddenly, looking at him. “We have to buy a new bed. I can’t sleep in that bed anymore. All I’ll see is blood.”

“Grace and Brock already took care of it,” he said. “Everything is going to be fine when we get back home. I promise.”

***

The Vancouver Canucks organization would like to extend their congratulations to Elias and Svea Pettersson on the birth of their daughter, Margot. Mrs. Pettersson continues to recover in the hospital. Elias will be a healthy scratch for the next four games to ensure the health and well-being of his family.

***

Svea was on bed rest in their new bed, Stella’s snout resting on her post-partum belly. Elias never wanted to let go of Margot unless it was to put her back in Svea’s arms. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of her, either. Even when Svea was breastfeeding. He found it to be the most beautiful thing in the world, watching his wife, who he loved so much, feeding and nourishing his daughter, who he loved so much.

He cuddled with them, snuggling into Svea’s side as he watched Margot. The little sounds she was making brought a smile to his face. He brought his hand up and caressed her head gently, the blonde hair atop her head perfectly combed.

“I finally have boobs now,” Svea whispered.

Elias snorted and Svea had a cheeky smile on his face. “I’ve always loved your boobs. Big or small.”

“Hmm, don’t I know it,” she hummed, giving him another kiss. She looked down at her daughter. “She’s perfect, isn’t she?”

“In every way.”

***

Elias’s birthday was much quieter this year. Well, quieter in the sense that there weren’t any friends in his house; quieter in the sense that he wasn’t at some hip restaurant downtown eating an incredibly expensive steak while sipping on an incredibly expensive glass of wine while he wore an incredibly expensive outfit and an incredibly expensive watch, watching his beautiful and sexy wife in an incredibly expensive dress sip sultrily on an incredibly expensive glass of wine as she eyed him up and grazed his leg with her heel under the table.

But this was still his favourite birthday ever.

Sitting on the couch, a warm bottle of pumped breastmilk in his hands, feeding his eight-day-old daughter.

His life was perfect.

***

“She looks like Petey,” Brock said as he held a swaddled Margot in his arms.

“They have to biologically, you know,” Grace jumped in. “But my god you two, her eyes are so damn blue. I mean I know that’s the Swedish thing and all, but they’re sooo blue.”

“I know,” Elias smiled. “Even the doctor mentioned it during one of her checkups. She’ll have a beautiful set of eyes, that’s for sure. Just like her mom.”

Svea swooned. She watched as Brock craned his neck down and placed a quick kiss atop Margot’s head. “Getting baby fever again, Brock?” she winked at him.

“No no no, five is plenty,” he chuckled. “I just love that newborn baby smell.”

Svea, Elias, and Grace let out the all-knowing “Oooooh” sound in agreement. “You’re so right, babe,” Grace nodded. “It’s the best smell in the world.”

***

“God, I missed this,” Svea said as she took a huge gulp of crisp, clean Vancouver air. It was her first time outside with Stella in weeks, now that she was off bedrest and fully recovered from her c-section and hysterectomy. Her doctor had okayed light physical activity, so she’d invited Grace and Dukey over for a short walk around the neighbourhood. Grace had obviously agreed, and had brought Coolie and Milo along.

“Me too. You’ll be back running and doing yoga in no time,” Grace said, remembering some of their jaunts over the years where Grace would bring out Violet, or Rose, or Lily, or Poppy on walks or runs in their strollers too. When she finished strapping Duke in, and made sure he had his snacks, she rose to her feet. “You feel good?”

Svea nodded. “We just have to go slow. And I can do maximum half an hour.”

“I’ll go as slow as you want me to,” Grace said. She peeked into Margot’s stroller and noticed she was already asleep. Her son, on the other hand, was screaming about his grapes. “Let’s hope Dukey’s grapes last the entire time.”

***

Did Elias and Svea go all out for Margot’s first Christmas? Yes.

Did Svea dress her up in a red dress, green shoes, frilly headband, and reindeer antlers? Yes.

Did Svea dress her up in an elf outfit, complete with curled shoes? Yes.

Was there a portrait with the new family and Santa Claus? Yes.

Did Elias and Svea send the pictures to their family members, co-workers, and every teammate? Yes.

Did it get leaked to the media? Yes.

***

“She’s gonna start her chubby phase soon,” Brock said as he held Margot in his arms, feeding her with a bottle, as Elias sautéed some mushrooms on a skillet as part of their lunch. “She’s eighteen weeks now?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s the best,” Brock said. “They got so chunky. So squishy. I swear I went crazy for every one of them.”

“Margot was born at 37 weeks though. We might have to wait a little bit longer.”

“Well, call me the second you start noticing chunk,” Brock said. “I’ll be over here in a heartbeat.”

***

“There was a lot of blood.”

Elias held Svea in his arms as they lay down in bed together after one of Margot’s middle-of-the-night feedings. Margot had been really fussy and took a while to be put down and fall asleep again; Svea had been unable to go back to sleep herself once she was in bed, tossing and turning and not even being able to keep her eyes closed. Even Elias’s cuddling wasn’t helping, which meant something was on her mind and keeping her restless. So he’d asked her what was wrong.

And that’s what she responded with.

He knew immediately what she meant. Ever since that day, when he was called off the bench and rushed back to Vancouver, he’d beaten himself up for not being there, as a husband should have been for his wife, as she went through such a traumatic event. It traumatized him, but that didn’t even take into consideration how much it traumatized her. That’s what really mattered here. She still had to deal with it. She still had to see it in her mind when she closed her eyes. She had the memory, not him.

It killed Elias inside knowing Svea had to carry that burden with her.

“You were so strong, though. And your strength gave us our daughter,” he said.

Svea nodded slightly before she looked at her husband. “Were you scared? When they told you, I mean. When you were rushed off the bench.”

Elias nodded his head immediately. “I was terrified.”

“Of what?”

“That I was going to lose you and the baby,” he admitted. “Were you scared?”

“I was,” Svea said. “Do you…are…are you angry we can only have one?”

“Why would I be angry?” he was beside himself at her question.

“I don’t know. I just…are you angry we didn’t have a boy? Or that we can’t have a son in the future? Or another daughter? Are you angry I wasn’t healthy enough to—”

“Stop it right now,” he ordered. Tears were falling down his face at her words. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted and needed in my life. Do you understand me? Everything.”

Svea was crying now too. “You’ve just been so good to me, Elias. I want to give you everything too, like you always give me.”

“You already have,” he whispered, kissing her, feeling her tear-stained cheeks on his.

***

“You want to hold the baby, Violet?” Svea asked quietly as the Boeser girls looked at tiny Margot resting in Svea’s arms. Violet nodded her head desperately and outstretched her hands automatically. “You have to sit on the couch, baby girl,” Svea said, and Violet did as she was told.

Svea extended her arms and passed Margot to her slowly. “Put your arm up,” she said. “You have to support her head.” Violet nodded. Margot fussed a little bit, but once she was in Violet’s arms, she stopped.

Violet smiled. “Hello Margot,” she said in a soft voice, smiling.

“Hello Margot,” Rose mimicked in the same voice.

“Hello Margot,” Lily mimicked in the same voice.

“Hello Margot,” Poppy mimicked in the same voice.

All at the same time, the girls leaned forward and placed light kisses onto Margot’s face.

Svea couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear.

***

“Look at my beautiful baby girl,” Elias cooed as he finished changing Margot’s diaper, buttoning up her little onesie as she wiggled on the change table, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. “Hällo Margot! Hällo!”

She gurgled happily. Elias chuckled as he finished the last of the buttons, eventually scooping her up in his arms carefully and holding her against his chest. She settled in quickly, calming herself down as Elias walked from her nursery to his bedroom. Just as he walked in, Svea walked out of their ensuite bathroom with a robe on, drying her hair with a towel. When she saw her husband and daughter, she smiled automatically.

“Hello my loves,” she whispered, approaching them slowly. At the sight of Svea, Margot gurgled happily again, even waving her arms up and down once excitedly. “Hello Margot! Hello my beautiful baby!”

“Beautiful baby had a stinky diaper this morning,” Elias griped jokingly.

Svea laughed, placing a light kiss on top of Svea’s head. “Making daddy change the stinky ones? Good baby.”

***

Margot’s first game, after she got all of her appropriate vaccinations, was against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Elias and Svea made sure to go to the arena early so that his teammates could see her before the game. Even Elias’s friend William Nylander from the Leafs was able to pop over and congratulate the couple. Svea appreciated the gesture, since she knew how busy he was.

“Oh my Gooooooddddd,” Holly cooed as she saw Margot dressed up in a little Vancouver Canucks jersey. “The baby jersey! The baby jersey! Can Gunnar be this small again?!”

Svea laughed as Holly clutched at her heart. Bo smiled from ear to ear when he noticed, too. “She’s adorable, Svea.”

“Thanks, Bo.”

“Bo, remember when Gunnar was that small?” Holly asked her husband. She then wrapped her arms around his one arm, looking up at him sweetly. “Can we have another one, Bo? Please?”

“Holly.”

***

Svea hauled some of the grocery bags – the lighter ones, at least – inside the house. She would leave the other ones for Elias. He’d probably get angry that she brought in the light groceries, anyway. He always brought things in – ever since her surgery, at least. But she was feeling almost back to normal now, and she wanted to start contributing more again.

“Elias?” she called out. No answer. She set the grocery bags down in the laundry room and made her way into their house. “Elias?” she called out again.

It was only then when he heard loud, screaming giggles coming from the family room. Following the giggles, Svea heard the sound of raspberries being blown against skin, and an orchestra of loud, happy giggles again, this time from both Margot and Elias.

She smiled to herself. As she walked further into the house, turning a corner, she looked into the family room to find Elias on his knees in front of the couch, Margot on the cushion in between his arms in just a diaper, and him blowing raspberries on her tummy. Margot was laughing and wiggling in pure happiness. And when Svea’s presence caught Elias’s eye, he looked up. “Hey baby,” he smiled, before diving in one more time to blow raspberries.

Svea’s heart swelled.

***

“You and Elias deserve a nice Valentine’s Day date,” Grace said before taking a sip of her water. “How about Brock and I watch Margot for the night and you two go out for a nice dinner?”

Svea loved the idea, but she was still a bit apprehensive. It would be the first night away from Margot. And though she trusted Brock and Grace more than anyone else in Vancouver with Margot, it would still be a lot for her, at least mentally. She assumed it would be the same for Elias. “I’ll mention it to Elias, and we’ll think about it,” she said.

Grace eyed her. “Don’t think about it, just do it. I know it’s hard to think about, but time away from the baby will do you both some good. It’s necessary. It’s healthy. It’s hard but it’s healthy.”

***

“This steak is delectable,” Svea commented as she forked another slice of her filet into her mouth.

Elias nodded from across the table. “The wine, too. It was a good choice,” he said before he took a sip. He looked lovingly at his wife and smiled before he set his wine glass down. “D’you miss Margot like I do?”

Svea giggled and nodded her head. “I do. But I’m enjoying our Valentine’s Day date,” she said. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the world.”

“Me neither,” he reached across the table to grab her hand.

***

Elias and Stella walked into the bedroom quietly, Elias holding mugs of tea in both hands. He saw Svea sitting up, looking down peacefully at Margot whom she was breastfeeding. Svea grabbed the mug from Elias and took a quick sip before setting it down on the nightstand. Elias climbed into the bed, Stella following, and nestled in close with his two girls, gently stroking Margot’s blonde hair.

“Thank you for the tea,” Svea said softly, looking at him before pursing her lips slightly, signaling she wanted a kiss.

Elias gave her one easily. His lips lingered on hers, giving her small, quick kisses. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted,” he whispered huskily. “The least I could do is bring you tea.”

“Hmmm,” Svea hummed happily. “Can I suggest some other things you can do tonight?”

Elias smirked.

***

“Look here little Margot! Look here!” the photographer cooed as her assistant jingled some bells to get the attention of the baby, dressed up in the cutest little dress and tights. Margot babbled slightly and smiled at the noise. Elias could hear the shutter of the camera go off like crazy.

“Her eyes are showing up spectacularly on camera,” the photographer commented. “What a beautiful colour they are.”

Elias and Svea continued to smile throughout the photoshoot. Then, when they had to take a break, they changed Margot into a different outfit and went outside to take some more pictures. After a second break, they changed Margot into her last outfit before going to their bedroom and finishing the photoshoot.

“The photos should be ready for you in a few weeks, after editing,” the photographer said as she packed away her equipment. By this point, Margot was fast asleep on Elias’s shoulder, her chubby cheeks amplified. “She’s a cutie, you guys. I mean, just adorable.”

Elias smiled, placing a soft kiss atop Margot’s head. “She’s my little princess.”

***

At a cute little café in Yaletown, Svea pushed her stroller back and forth to rock Margot to sleep. Svea hadn’t gotten any sleep last night thanks to her daughter, and Elias being away on a road trip didn’t help matters. Svea knew babies went through sleep regression – Margot had been a fantastic sleeper, save for the last two weeks – but she wondered how long this would last. She was trying everything she could, but Margot wasn’t sleeping.

When Grace arrived without any of her kids in tow, looking especially stylish with a cute hat and thigh-high boots, Svea waved her down. Grace waved back and waited in line to order her coffee.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” Grace commented as she set her coffee down on the table and sat in the seat opposite Svea.

“That’s because I haven’t,” Svea admitted. She hadn’t even bothered to put on makeup this morning. “Margot kept me up all night. She was so fussy, Grace.”

Grace furrowed her brows. “Do you have milk with you?” she asked.

Svea nodded. “Of course I do. In the bag.”

Grace nodded, getting up from her seat. “Come on. We’re going home.”

“Wait—what—”

“We’re going back to my house, and you’re sleeping, and I’ll watch and feed Margot.”

Svea could cry.

***

“Look. At. The. CHUNK!!!!!” Brock practically screamed as he looked over Elias’s shoulder as Elias finished putting a new diaper on Margot, who was wiggling happily and cooing at seeing Brock’s face over her dad’s shoulder. “Look at you! Look at your chunk! Look at it!” Brock kept repeating.

“Brock—”

“What’re you gonna do with all these rolls? What’re you gonna do with all these rolls?!”

“Brock—”

“You gonna open a bakery? You gonna open up a bakery with all these rolls?”

“BROCK!”

“WHAT?!”

“Get me her blanket!”

Brock moved to the side and reached over to get the soft blanket he knew Elias wanted. “You don’t have to be so mean,” he grumbled at his best friend.

***

“Look, Svea! Look! Look!” Elias’s voice was frantic as he called Svea over from the kitchen. He could hear her footsteps as she rushed over to the family room. “Look!”

Svea looked at Elias on his stomach on the floor, a few feet away from Margot who was also on her tummy. She’d hit the traditional milestone of rolling over a bit early – four months in, instead of five – and now, at just over six months old, Svea watched as Margot started creeping along the floor, moving closer and closer to her dad as he kept wiggling further and further away.

“Eeeeeeh!” she would cry out in complaint of her seemingly not getting closer to her dad. “Eeeeeh!”

“Come on Margot! Just a little bit more!” Elias smiled wide.

She creeped some more, and when she was finally close enough, Elias began peppering her face with kisses. She giggled at the feeling and screeched with happiness when he picked her up and held her in his arms. “Baby’s on the move,” he smiled at Svea.

She nodded her head. “We’re not gonna be able to sit down anymore.”

***

“Where do you think you’re going, missy?” Svea asked playfully as she watched Margot crawl along the hardwood floor of the kitchen. Her chunky rolls filled out her avocado-printed onesie she was wearing as she made a beeline for the sunlight coming through the sliding door.

“Aaaaaeeeeeeee!” Margot squeaked at the sound of her mother’s voice, looking back.

“Where are you going?” Svea asked.

“Eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa!”

“Eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaa!” Svea mimicked, knowing she should be mimicking the sounds for Margot’s development. She grabbed her phone off the counter and walked around her, crouching down on the floor and opening her camera for a video. “Come on Margot! Let’s show daddy how you can crawl!”

“Aaaaaaaadadada!!” she said, continuing her babbling and crawling as she made her way against the hardwood floor and towards the camera.

Later, when Svea held Margot on hip as she fixed a quick bowl of raspberries as a snack, she sent the video to Elias. His response was almost immediate.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

***

“She’s cruising now,” Svea explained on the phone to Grace. “Like, she can stand, but the second she takes a step she’s too wobbly and falls down. But if she’s got the couch or the coffee table, she’s okay.”

“She’s going to be walking soon,” Grace said confidently. “You guys think you weren’t able to sit down once she started crawling? Well, good luck now,” she giggled.

“I don’t know how you did this three times in a row while pregnant with the next,” Svea admitted. “Crouching down, picking her up, over and over and over again…all that with a bump? You’re superwoman, Grace.”

“I’m not superwoman, I’m just a mom,” Grace said. “For going what you went through to deliver her, you’re superwoman too, you know.”

***

“Come to daddy, Margot. Come to daddy,” Elias beckoned as he sat with his arms and legs outstretched about six feet away from Svea, who was holding Margot up by just her hands. All of the videos Svea had sent him over the last road trip of Margot trying to walk and then falling made him want to practice once he got home. He refused to see his daughter’s first steps over an iPhone video, and Svea understood that completely.

“Go to daddy,” Svea whispered in her daughter’s ear as she let go of her hands.

Margot wobbled a bit, took a cautionary first step, then a second, and at her parent’s excited voices, she smiled and continued with her steps, reaching Elias who was so elated with joy that he scooped her up in his arms and peppered her chubby face with kisses. Svea could see tears escaping his eyes as he repositioned his daughter, holding her up again by her hands, and encouraging her to walk to Svea. Some more wobbly steps and a mid-distance squat later, Margot was back in Svea’s arms, getting more kisses.

They had a walker.

***

“Your costumes are sooooo awesome, girls!” Svea cooed as she looked at Violet, Lily, Rose, and Poppy dressed up in their witch costumes as she entered the Boeser house. “Are you girls ready to go trick-or-treating?”

The four girls nodded their heads excitedly. “What’s Margot dressed up as?!” Violet asked.

“You’ll see when Elias brings her in,” Svea smiled, watching as Dukey, dressed up as Buzz Lightyear came running towards the door. “Hi Dukey!”

“I Buzz Lightyear!” he screamed excitedly. “Look!” he turned around to show off the wings of the costume. He raised his hand in the air. “Iffity and blonde!”

“To infinity and beyond!” Svea copied him.

Before they could go any further, Elias walked through the door with Margot in his arms and her diaper bag over his shoulder. “Hello girls,” Elias greeted them. “Nice costumes! Look at Svea’s!”

The four girls cooed at her, admiring her in her cute little costume. “Mooooooom! Svea’s a strawberry!”

From inside the house, Elias and Svea could hear Grace scream in delight.

***

“Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy dear Maaaaarrrgggooooottt! Haaaaaappy Birthdaaayyyyy to you!”

Margot was smiling from ear to ear as she giggled and clapped excitedly as everyone sang to her. Her first birthday party was a hit – Irene and Torbjorn were able to come in from Sweden, Emil and Fanny were Zooming in with their kids, and practically the entire team and their kids were over the Pettersson house celebrating the big day.

“Blow, Margot! Blow!” Elias bent down so he was at the same eye-level as his daughter in her high chair. He showed her how to do it before watching as she tried to mimic him. “Blow!”

Instead, Margot made a loud fart noise with her mouth.

Everyone laughed hysterically. Elias could hear Brock scream “I hope someone got that on video!” Elias watched as Svea bent down to be at eye-level with Margot too. “On three! One, two three! Blow!”

***

“Say mama. Mama,” Elias said as he lay on his back on the couch and hat Margot sitting on his chest. “Mama. Mommy.”

“Dada.”

“No, no dada. Mmmmmmmaaaammmmmmaaaaa,” he emphasized. “Mama!”

“Dada!”

“MAMA!”

“DADA!”

“Elias!” Svea yelled from the kitchen. “You can’t force her words.”

Elias grumbled. “Mama,” he said, much quieter so Svea wouldn’t hear. “Mama.”

“DADA!”

***

“Gröt,” Svea cooed as she spooned some more oatmeal into a spoon. It was already all over Margot’s face and hands, Margot loving every spoonful. Her big blue eyes looked at the spoon excitedly. “This is gröt, Margot. Gröt.”

“Do we really want Margot’s first Swedish word to be oatmeal?” Elias laughed as he joined his girls at the table, setting his mug of coffee down and placing Svea’s tea beside her on the table.

“It’s at least a single syllable,” Svea mused. She looked back at Margot, who had just swallowed the spoonful of oatmeal and was pointing at Elias taking a sip of his coffee. “Gröt. Gröt!” Svea repeated. “Gröt!”

Margot pointed emphatically. “Fika!” she said suddenly. Svea’s and Elias’s jaws dropped. “Fika!”

Elias snorted from behind Svea. “Fika. Of course her first Swedish world would be fika.”

***

“If I’m going to go back to work – I mean, I am, it’s not a question – we need to find a good daycare,” Svea said, eyes focused on her laptop screen as Margot was napping.

“More important than the daycare, Svea, is if you’re ready,” Elias cautioned. “Are you ready to go back to work?”

Svea had thought about it a lot – she really did. Being at home with Margot was amazing, of course – it was the best thing ever, and she valued every millisecond – but she was ready to return to her career. It wasn’t that she had a duty or an obligation to, or that she was feeling forced or pressured or put it on herself to be a do-it-all working mother. She just…genuinely felt like it was the right thing to do for her. Svea never saw herself as a stay-at-home-mother, even though she and Elias had boatloads full of money and she was told by co-workers, well-meaning-but-ultimately-offensive-friends, and random people that she didn’t need to work. “I’m ready,” she nodded her head. “I know it’s not going to be the same as it was before, that I won’t be working as hard, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’ve already perfected my role. I’ve already won an election for my party. But I still…I still want to work.”

Elias nodded his head. He knew Svea meant every word. And who was he to say no? There was no way. He never held Svea back before, and he wasn’t going to start now. “Then let’s look at daycares.”

***

“Every daycare we’ve been to, I haven’t gotten the best feeling,” Svea admitted to Grace as she was over her house for coffee. Dukey and Margot were playing in their playpen in eyeshot as the women spoke about their lives. “And it’s not me being…me. I can’t picture Margot there. I just can’t. And it’s not me being picky either. We even brought her to our favourite place to see if she’d like it and she was wailing the entire time.”

Grace was nodding in understanding, but the second Svea mentioned picturing Margot in a daycare, the lightbulb went off in her brain. “Svea, why don’t I watch her every day?”

Svea was taken aback. “W—What?”

“What if I watched her? I’m already home with Dukey anyway. And you know Margot is comfortable here at the house, and she knows me. What if I watched her?”

Svea shook her head. “Grace, no. No. I couldn’t do that to you—”

“You’re not doing it to me if I’m offering,” Grace said. “You know how much I love kids. It would be so fun for me! And for Dukey! And you know how much the girls adore her so when they get home from school you know they’ll be all about it too. Will you promise me you’ll at least think about it?”

***

--- OFFICE OF THE PREMIER OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE ---

The Office of the Premier would like to formally thank Mitchell Maloney for fulfilling his duties as the acting chief of staff for the past eighteen months. The office would like to formally announce that Maloney will be assigned the role of Deputy Communications Director, effective two weeks from today, as he transfers out of his position.

The Office of the Premier would like to formally welcome back Svea Pettersson from her maternity leave. Pettersson will continue to fulfill her duties as the Premier’s Chief of Staff moving forward.

***

“Oooooooooohhhhh fuuuuuuck, Elias,” Svea moaned, looking over her shoulder at Elias who had just slipped into her from behind. “Feels so good baby.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Svea nodded. “I love it when you fuck me from behind.”

She could hear Elias let out a low chuckle. He began moving in and out of her slowly, almost too slowly, because Svea groaned, and Elias watched as she grabbed at their bedsheets, making her knuckles white. “Fuck me, Elias.”

“What’s that, pretty girl?” he asked mischievously.

“Fuck me, Elias. Fuck me harder,” Svea begged.

Elias bent over, placing kisses along her shoulders before nestling his head in the crook of her neck so he could whisper in her ear. “I fucking love it when you beg.”

***

“Can you say bye-bye to Mama? Bye bye!” Grace cooed as she bent down to be at level with both Margot and Svea who was already bending down, having kissed her daughter for a solid two minutes, unable to leave just yet. “Say bye-bye!”

“Bye bye Margot! You be good for mommy!” Svea cooed, her voice cracking as she began waving her hand so Margot could mimic her. “Bye bye!”

“Bah-bah!” Margot clasped her hand open and closed. “Bah-bah!”

“Bye-bye!” Svea wiped a tear that had fallen from her eye. She stood up, and Grace followed, picking up Margot and balancing her on her hip. “Please call me if—”

“I will, I will,” Grace interrupted. “Please don’t worry. I’ve got it. Enjoy your first day at work knowing your daughter is safe and having fun.”

“I’m definitely gonna try…can’t guarantee it’ll happen,” Svea tried to joke.

***

“Go like this Margot! Like this!” Elias said as he was on his knees, clutching a mini-stick, trying to show Margot how to hit the ball into the little hockey net they purchased months ago, which inevitably became the one thing that helped Margot learn how to walk the most.

Margot watched intently as her dad gripped the mini stick and hit the ball into the net, fetching to get it before placing it in front of her. “Shoot! Shoot!” he encouraged, making a swooping motion with the stick.

Margot looked down at the ball, and in one swift movement, she brought her mini-stick down and hit it straight into the net. Elias went wild. He began screaming and clapping and raising his hands in the air, causing Margot to start screaming and clapping and raising her hands up in the air too. He swooped her up in his arms and gave her raspberry-style kisses, causing her to shriek and giggle loudly and controllably. “Margot wins the game! Margot wins the game!” he screamed in between kisses.

Svea could hear them from upstairs as she read over some work documents for tomorrow. She felt her heart swell with love.

***

“Who knew when we were twenty and lame that we’d be surrounded by this many girls,” Brock mused, cracking open a can of beer for Elias. Both men looked out onto Elias’s backyard to see Violet, Rose, Lily, Poppy, and Margot all playing together, blowing bubbles and trying to catch them without popping them. Margot was always unsuccessful, but she was having the time of her life.

Elias nodded his head. “We’re a pair of pretty lucky guys though,” he commented.

Brock nodded his head, looking at his four daughters. “The luckiest guys in the world.”

Later in the afternoon, when Margot had to go down for her nap, Elias was rocking her back and forth as she fell asleep on his shoulder. Rose was quiet as she stood with him in the room, keeping a watchful eye and making sure Svea was falling asleep. When Elias laid Margot down on the bed, Rose finally spoke. “Uncle Petey?”

“Yes Rosey?”

“Can Margot be my sister?”

Elias smiled. “I think she already is.”

***

“I’m actually gonna sob. She looks so cute,” Svea commented as Elias finished putting on Margot’s toddler skates. Margot was bundled up in a blue jacket with green tights, the colour of the Canucks, and her helmet was already placed securely on her head. “You excited, Margot?”

“Yaaa!” she squeaked out, smiling at her mom. “Skate!”

“Yes! We’re going skating!” Elias cooed, picking her up and placing her on his hip as he and Svea began their walk towards the ice.

Svea made sure to get her phone ready on video mode, knowing she’d been taking tons and tons of videos. Most of the Canucks and their families were already on the ice, but Margot had had a mini meltdown when the helmet was put on, which delayed them. Elias stepped onto the ice, keeping Margot on his hip as he skated around quickly, making her laugh hysterically. Eventually, he carefully set her down on the ice, crouching down slightly behind her. She began moving her feet as if she was walking, with Elias holding her hands above her head.

“Look at mommy Margot! Say hi to mommy!” Elias said as Svea followed them, skating backwards slowly, filming a video on her phone.

“Hiiiiiii!” Margot said, smiling through the wire. “Hiiiiii!”

“Hi baby! Look at you skating!” Svea cooed as she continued the video. “Look at you go!”

Margot squealed excitedly, looking back up at her dad who was smiling down at her as well. “Skate! Skate!”

***

“Let’s hope she knows how to blow this time and doesn’t fart again,” Brock commented as he helped Elias light the candles on Margot’s 2nd birthday cake.

“We’ll see,” Elias giggled. “We haven’t practiced.”

Brock carried the cake so Elias could be beside Margot and Svea. Everybody began singing happy birthday, and when he placed the cake in front of Margot, she clapped and wiggled excitedly. Once everyone finished singing, it was time to see. “Blow, Margot! Blow!” Grace called out.

She took a deep breath in. She looked like she was going to do it on her own. And then…

Fart noise.

Everybody burst out into hysterical laughter. “Two-for-two!” Brock screamed.

***

“Margot…Margot, look here,” Svea said as she balanced her on her knee, reading her a book since she’d requested it. “Look here,” she pointed at the words at the bottom of the page.

Margot reached her hands out and pulled the book closer to her eyes. Svea noticed her squinting until she brought the book really close to her face. She put her finger above her mom’s and pointed to the animal on the page. “Monkey!” she said.

Svea felt worry pool in the pit of her stomach. She pushed the book back to its original distance away from Margot and turned the page. “What’s this, Margot?” she asked again.

Margot reached out again to bring the book close to her eyes. “Monkey in tree!”

“Good job, baby,” Svea cooed, closely watching her daughter. Maybe she was overreacting. Maybe Margot was just tired. But Svea knew she was going to mention it to Elias when he got home. “You’re so smart, baby.”

***

They were pink, naturally, because Margot got to choose and she was all about anything pink. Elias was worried they would bother her, or she wouldn’t like them, or put up a giant fit once they were finally on and she realized she had to wear them all the time. He’d shed a tear or two about it, worried like any father would be. But Margot was taking to them surprisingly well.

“Look, Margot!” Margot’s optometrist smiled as she held up a mirror for Margot to see herself. “These are your new glasses! They’re for you!”

“PINK!” Margot exclaimed, swinging her feet excitedly as she saw herself in the mirror.

“Yes, they’re pink!”

Margot looked up at her dad; she was sitting on his lap, after all. Her giant smile with her little teeth caused him to smile too. “Pink, daddy!”

“What’s this, Margot?” the optometrist had already opened a book and held it open a way’s away from Margot. “What’s this right here?” she pointed to Big Bird on the page.

“Big Bird!”

***

Elias groaned as he finally slipped his hard cock into Svea. They had been spooning in bed for what felt like hours that morning, waking up well before Margot usually did. Elias could hear Svea groan at his length filling her up from behind, and she savoured the feeling of him peppering kisses on the backs of her shoulder blades. “Good morning, pretty girl,” Elias mumbled coarsely in her ear as he thrust in and out of her slowly.

“G’morning, baby,” Svea smiled. She felt Elias’s hand snake up from her hip to her breast, cupping it in his hand. “I could get used to waking up with your hard cock inside of me.”

“Mmm, be careful what you wish for, pretty girl.”

“I know exactly what I’m wishing for.”

Elias began moving his hips more, making sure he was getting exactly the right angle even though their movement were still slow and purposeful; when Svea began moaning, closing her eyes when they rolled to the back of her head, he knew what he was doing was exactly what she wanted and needed. “I love you so fucking much,” she mumbled out, putting her hand over his that was still cupping her breast.

“I love you too,” he placed a tender kiss on her neck. “Thank you for giving me everything I’ve ever needed.”

Svea smiled at that, biting down on her bottom lip. “The pleasure’s been all mine.”

***

On a beautiful, hot, and sunny afternoon in Ånge, Elias couldn’t help but smile as he watched his dad hold Margot as they swam in the pool together at his parents’ house. Margot was having the time of her life in the water – after the baby swimming classes Svea had signed her up for, Elias figured she’d be happy and in her element. His dad couldn’t get enough of being a grandpa to a little girl, and neither could his mom. They spoiled all of their grandchildren. Törbjörn had even bought Margot a little bucket hat with the Swedish flag on it to wear while they were in the pool.

“Gillar du att stänka vattnet?” his dad cooed as Margot splashed the water with her hands. “Tänk om jag gjorde det här?” he asked again, throwing her up in the air and catching her low enough so she could splash in the water. Margot shrieked in delight, and that was enough reason for Törbjörn to continue.

Elias laughed along with his daughter. She had the best grandpa.

***

“Look at all the pretty flowers Margot,” Svea said as she held Margot against her hip, watching Elias as he crowned her with a beautiful flower crown that Fanny helped him make.

“Woooowww,” Margot said, grabbing at it because she was so excited.

“Gentle!” Elias warned softly. He didn’t want it to break after Fanny worked so hard on it. “Be gentle, Margot,” he repeated as he made sure it was on snugly and properly before pulling his hands away.

“My flower! My crown!” she smiled. “Daddy, you have flowers too?”

Elias eyed Svea with a smirk on his face. Svea knew he’d already crumbled. All it took was that question from Margot. He hadn’t exactly planned on wearing a flower crown, but he knew exactly where this was headed now. “You want daddy to wear flowers too?”

Margot nodded her head enthusiastically. “Mommy, daddy, me match!”

What Margot wanted; Margot got.

***

“It would be the first picture we’ve posted of her since the Christmas card photos leaked,” Elias mused as he looked at the picture on his Instagram, almost, almost ready to hit the elusive ‘post’ button.

“We didn’t release those – they were posted without our consent,” Svea clarified. She was right. They had no control over that and were actually really upset about it. To this day, they still don’t know who did it. “This would be the first photo you post of her willingly.”

Elias looked over at his wife. “Do you think I should do it? It’s so fucking cute,” he looked back at his phone, admiring the picture one more time.

In it, Margot was in her pink fluffy bathrobe, her wet hair combed back, and she was sitting on Elias’s chest as they were in bed together. Elias was holding her, pursing his lips, and Margot was putting lip balm on his lips. A classic “girl dad” photo, he thought. And if he was going to send any message out into the world about his child and the relationship he had with her, it was going to be what was encapsulated in this picture.

Svea snuggled herself into Elias’s side, bringing her hand up and pressing ‘post’ for him. “There,” she said, smiling. “All done.”

***

“When she blows out the candles, she better fart again.”

“You’re gross.”

“She’s gotta go three-for-three, Petey, or else this party is a bust.”

“You have a boy – can’t you go make fart jokes with him?”

“I have a boy who has grown up with four older sisters. He isn’t exactly one for fart jokes.”

Elias shook his head at Brock, but he couldn’t help the smirk that grew on his face. “You finally get a boy after four girls and you can’t even make a fart joke with him,” he shook his head playfully. “Just your luck, eh?”

Brock shook his head. “I have five healthy, beautiful kids. I’ll take whatever I get.”

When Elias carried the cake in and Brock began recording on his phone, everybody began singing happy birthday to Margot – a happy, energetic but cautious, giggly but quiet, exactly-like-both-her-parents’-temperaments-it-was-kind-of-scary-three year old, who every day was looking more and more like Elias’s double. She adjusted her glasses as everyone sang to her, and clapped along too. When it was time to blow, she did.

No fart noises.

“Noooooooo!” Brock groaned loudly. Elias pretended like he was going to backslap him over the head. “No fart noise!”

“It was fun while it lasted,” Svea winked at him.

***

“Will they be in my class, mommy?” Margot asked as she looked into the classroom sheepishly, a little shy now that she was in a new environment. Elias and Svea had started to talk to her about school, and how – now that she was a big girl – she needed to start going to school to learn, just like how Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy went to school.

“Can I go to Poppy’s school?” she asked nervously one day.

Elias and Svea decided to take her there, knowing that it would make her feel more comfortable. Knowing that Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy went there too put her at ease. When they saw all the girls in the junior kindergarten class in their green plaid dresses, they could tell Margot recognized them from seeing them on the Boeser girls.

“These girls won’t be in your class, but new girls who are the same age as you will be,” Svea said. “Do you like that?”

Margot hesitated slightly before nodding her head. “I like new friends.”

***

“She is out cold,” Svea smiled as she lowered herself slowly and gently onto the couch, making sure not to disturb the peaceful image before her: Margot, after an exciting and fun day of shopping for her new school uniform, completely knocked out in Elias’s arms, sleeping soundly on his chest as he rubbed her back.

Svea cradled her body into Elias, too, snuggling up against him and admiring her daughter. From the blonde hair on her head, to her pink glasses on her face, to her cute little toes Elias still loved to pretend to eat, she was perfect. As Svea thought this, she felt Elias grab her hand between them and bring it up to his lips for a kiss, holding on to it as his thumb grazed over her skin. “We did alright in the end, didn’t we?”

Svea smiled and nodded her head. “We did.”

“She’s perfect. She’s just perfect,” he said, placing the lightest of kisses atop Margot’s head.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Svea admitted.

Elias looked over at her, craning his head down to give his wife a kiss. “I love you more than I know how to explain. Thank you for giving me the light in my life.”

***

“Then all around from far away across the world, he smelled good things to eat, so he gave up being king of where the wild things are,” Elias read to Margot as they cuddled together in the rocking chair in her room. In her comfortable jammies and with her head on his chest, she was mouthing along to all the words of the book. Elias could see her get progressively more tired as he flipped through the pages, though she kept trying to mouth along and kept trying to keep her eyes open.

When they finished, Elias put the book on her bedside table as he cradled Margot in his arms and lay her down in bed, making sure to put the covers over her just how she liked. Still struggling to keep her eyes open, he brushed some hair out of her face. “Daddy?” she asked in her sweet voice.

“Yes baby?”

“I love you daddy.”

Elias smiled. “I love you too, Margot.”

“Will you read to me always?” she asked.

Elias nodded his head automatically. “Always.”

***

“Look at her go!” Grace exclaimed as she watched Margot zoom around the ice, chasing Poppy and Dukey around as they all giggled like maniacs. “I mean, who am I kidding? The daughter of Elias Pettersson? Of course she’s gonna skate like that!”

“She’s definitely a natural,” Svea smiled as her eyes followed her daughter around the ice. Brock and Elias both skated up behind their kids and scooped them up in their arms, giving them kisses before setting them back down on the ice together. “Do you ever think about how far we’ve all come…based on where we started when we met each other in our early twenties?”

“All the time,” Grace nodded. “We were so young! We were kids! Now there’s six kids between us!”

“A little skewed on your side, though,” Svea winked.

Grace elbowed her playfully. “We did good.”

***

“Margot! Margot!” Elias called out to his daughter who was already having fun with a new friend in her classroom as they played with a xylophone together. Other parents were in the room doing the exact same thing as he and Svea: making sure everything was okay on the first day of school. But the longer he and Svea stood there watching her, the more they realized she didn’t need them there; that she would thrive in the classroom and not have a meltdown about being in a new place.

To her credit, Margot listened when she heard her dad call her name and got up from her seat to hop over to her parents. “Mommy and daddy have to go now,” Elias said as he and Svea crouched down so they could by at eye-level with her. She nodded her head in understanding. “You listen to Mrs. Becker, okay?”

“I will.”

“Aunt Grace is going to come pick you up with Violet, Rose, Lily, and Poppy. Remember?” Svea asked.

“Yes mommy.”

“And remember—” Svea choked up slightly, Elias putting her hand over hers. “Mommy and daddy love you very much.”

“I love you too!” Margot said as she hugged her parents goodbye before skipping back to her friend and playing with the xylophone again.

Elias and Svea said goodbye to Mrs. Becker and held hands as they left the school building and walked back together to their car in the parking lot, silent the entire time. When Svea looked over at Elias once they were back in the privacy of their car, she could see tears streaming down his face. “Now you’re going to make me cry,” she said, wiping a few tears that had fallen.

“She’s so good. I’m so proud of her,” he said, wiping his own tears with the backs of his hands. “No meltdowns! Just walked right in there and started making friends. She’s so good.”

“Don’t jinx it – she might have a meltdown tomorrow,” Svea joked, trying to lighten the mood.

It garnered a smile out of Elias. He looked at his wife and placed his hand over hers tenderly. “I love you so much,” he mumbled, bringing her hand up to kiss it before cradling it against his chest, above his heart. All these years later, I’ve just grown to love you more, if that’s even possible.”

“I think it is, because I grew to love you more too,” Svea said softly. “My Elias. Always my Elias.

He kissed her hand again. “My moon, my stars, my Svea.”

191 notes · View notes

tundrainafrica · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! I absolutely love your levihan stories! The way they care for each other is just gaaahhhhh.

I wanted to make an ask for a while, but I didn't have an idea. I was reading a story and got this random idea suddenly. How about Levi slipping in the bathtub and nearly drowning, but Hange hears the thud of his head hitting the edge or something and has to kick the door down and finds Levi submerged having breathed in water and with a bad gash where his head hit the tub?

Title: Triage

Summary:

"Levi could count with the fingers on his two hands, and maybe some of his toes, the few times he had seen Hange angry—very angry. Those rare times, she was a full blown tornado of screaming, shouting, kicking, rambling.

Albeit terrified, Levi had to note, Hange never raged for shallow reasons. Her terrifying rage, that came once a blue moon, always seemed to have a very good point."

For the first time in many years, Levi witnesses Hange's rage again.

Notes: I took some liberties with the prompt but I hope you still enjoy. Feedback is very much appreciated :D

NN from the last request: maybe he slips in the bath because of his broken leg from when he and mikasa saved Eren from the female titan?

Levi could count with the fingers on his two hands, and maybe some of his toes, the few times he had seen Hange angry—very angry.

It wasn’t something he liked to remember vividly, but it was something he ended up remembering anyway because of how jarring the whole scene of Hange’s rage was. She, who was usually more of like a whirlwind anyway, would suddenly transform into a full blown tornado.

A full blown tornado of screaming, shouting, kicking, rambling.

In whirlwinds and in gusts of screaming, shouting, she clarified logical points, rehashed commands, asked questions. At first her anger was chaos. When the dust cleared though, the haze dissipated, some poor sap always came out of it a learned man.

Her anger, that came once a blue moon, always seemed to have a point.

All completely comprehensible and thus, Levi could easily see reason and consequently be able to summarize the most anger inducing situations to two: One, any utterly stupid move that Hange cannot seem to understand which could cost hundreds, or thousands of lives. Two, utter negligence that could also cost hundreds or thousands of lives.

Notably, Hange would never release the uncontrollable storm for just one person. She had always been fun loving, peace loving. Although her sudden rise to the commander position had mellowed her down just a little, Hange always had a way of building camaraderie with even the lowest from such a high position, while at the same time demanding authority.

Maybe she mastered it, maybe there had been little to no reason to show that side of herself when she was constantly dealing with peace treaties and diplomacy issues.

At times, Levi wondered though, if that part of her had ever left.

It was something he pondered on, grappled with, when days were longer and workloads were kinder. Strangely, one day in late autumn, when the days were longer, when everyone was cramming as much work as they could before the holiday season came, Levi was reflecting on it for a little bit longer.

“Hange, are you okay?” The question forced itself into the conversation uninvited. Levi liked to blame the question for popping its head in like some audacious prick. Really, it had been his own fault at having downed one drink just too quickly that had gotten him at that. Of course, that hyperfixation on Hange, who was starting to look a little pink in the face too, had been at fault as well.

“I just have to go back to the office after this,” Hange slammed the glass in front of her. “Just one drink.” She added. This is the only drink I’ll have tonight.” She added again, after a few seconds.

She had a tendency of turning a little pink with just one cup. Levi wasn’t too nervous about it. Inebriation made him much quicker and much more confident about brushing problems away. “Do you really have to finish looking into those extra papers tonight?”

“Jean will be coming for them first thing in the morning. I don’t wanna keep any more diplomats waiting,” Hange explained. Her tendency to overwork was almost understandable. After all, Paradis was decades behind the rest of the world. With the impending war, Levi could only accept, while affording her a half smile.

They agreed on just half an hour, exchanging half baked ideas over one cup for Hange, two for Levi. Not enough for any of them to end up wobbling towards the exit. Levi hadn’t drunk in years though, having abandoned it after the adults in the survey corps had dwindled to just them. He just didn’t expect that just a sip of his second cup, would have him cross eyed for a moment. Luckily, he easily forgot about it with just a few quick blinks and a quick shake of the head.

“I should be asking you if you’re okay,” Hange said wryly. Her face had an almost pensive touch to it and Levi didn’t want to contribute to any more stress or sadness she might have been harboring then.

So he kept his answer brief, no room for questions. “I’m fine.”

Hange furrowed her brows at him. “Sure…” She started hesitantly. Then, she huffed. “Just make sure to go straight to the barracks… Okay?”

Before Levi could formulate a reply, Hange’s attention was suddenly elsewhere. She turned to her right. Levi followed suit to get a good view, only to be taken aback by the scuffle that had started only a few feet away.

Maybe drunkenness had him blending songs, conversations and scuffles all into one lively sound. The bar fight only stood out like a sore thumb when he focused on the two men, one carried a poor boy by the back of his hands, while another man readied his fists.

Before Levi could process the scene for just a little longer, Hange had come in between them. “Why don’t you keep fights to people your own age? You know this boy can’t beat you.”

“This kid’s parents are in debt,” one explained, his tone aggressive.

“Then send a payment request to his parents.” Hange kept her cool.

But for how long could they maintain the peace? Levi pulled himself up from his seat and wobbled closer to make more sense of the conversations

“We can’t collect…. They’re dead…”

There were many things Levi could stomach. Abuse, unnecessary bullying weren’t among them. Particularly when the child, an orphan at that, was much weaker than they were. He was ready to blink back his own dizziness to get at least one precise kick into the most proper place for a male asshole.

Hange though had been quicker, she had bent down. It turned out she had been dodging a punch. Everything after was a flash of movements Levi couldn't comprehend at his current state.

He stepped just a few feet back, enough to take better stock of the situation. The bar was crowded that night. A bar teeming with burly and most likely ill-intentioned men wasn’t anything new and he had made one mistake in his drunken state. He focused on two men, just among the others, separating those two from the crowds in the background.

Hange was balancing everything at once, keeping the kid safe, while delivering blows when necessary. She was skillful but with two men becoming roughly ten in just a split second, there were only too many ways she could defend herself.

So Levi bit back the alcohol that lingered in his mouth, the light pounding in his head and the way the lights and the quick motions just lingered for a little longer in his vision. He put one foot forward, ready to strike at the man approaching Hange. Defense and offense at such a state, when he was still working to get his flow and his bearings had him careless, receiving a sock to his upper left. He swallowed the bile that rose at his throat, closed his eyes for a second, blinking back the lights that settled in the black.

He managed to pull out before it could have been anything worse. His fighter instincts from the underground started to kick in soon after, ignoring the protests from his left side. They undermined whatever orders his injuries were screaming then.

Maybe that had been a good thing. In the end, humanity’s strongest had taken down ten men in the bar. Hange and the young boy had come out of it completely unscathed. The adrenaline had him breathing hard.

Levi still had his bearings. He turned back to Hange and breathed out. “Pay the tab. We’re getting out of here.”

***

The young boy was quick to introduce himself as they turned the corner of the bar, and made their way far from the store lined streets.

“I’m Joseph,” He started. Soon his words transformed into some over apologetic and grateful babble. Some Levi willed himself to comprehend, others he had been too disconcerted to pick up.

There were words he picked up more than others.

Orphanage. Illness. Mother. Dead. He soon put the puzzle pieces together himself.

Joseph had been staying in an orphanage just a half an hour ride away. His mother suddenly died from illness and before he even transferred to the orphanage, the men had ransacked his house for anything worth more than a penny, to help pay back the debt of his late father.

He just wanted a locket back, a last memento of his mother.

“I’ll coordinate with the other soldiers, see what I can do for you,” Hange said, coiling one hand around the boy’s shoulders.

“The police don’t listen,” he said in between tears.

“I’ll make them listen.”

The boy believed her, maybe he didn’t. Levi saw it appropriate that he himself stayed quiet. If Hange couldn’t convince the young boy, who could? Besides, his upper left side was killing him, his breaths were coming out in some strange rhythm and if he talked, would it make it come out as any worse?

“I’ll take you back to the orphanage first and I’ll see what I can do,” she consoled. “As soon as I get anything, I’ll make sure to send it over.”

“Those men are mean, please don’t hurt yourself.” Surprisingly, the boy seemed mature. Levi though was familiar with that trend, adversity seemed to do that to people.

“I won’t.” They turned another corner and Hange quickened her pace towards the barracks.

Levi followed behind, almost painfully. The quicker strides expected of him made him a little less tolerant of pain. He pressed his hand to his side for just a second. The sky was dark and pressing his side was a flash of movement, nobody should have noticed it except him. But somehow, he was self conscious.

Hange walked ahead though, the rhythm in her stride undisturbed. She hurried towards the stables but only pulled one horse out.

“You don’t need me to come with you?” Levi asked.

Hange shook her head. “It’s a short ride.” She helped the young boy on the horse and plopped herself lightly just right behind him. “I think I’m gonna spend some time in the headquarters tonight, do some research...” She looked pointedly at the kid.

“I’ll wait in the office---”

“No, go to the hospital.”

“Wait.. Why?” Levi spat.

Just a while ago, a few blows connected,” Hange said in a more serious tone. “It might be better if you have them checked out, just for some extra reassurance.” She turned her head toward the direction of the hospital only one block away.

“I think I have a few bruises,” Levi said. “But we’ve gotten much worse on the field.”

Hange gave him a pensive smile. “Just have it checked out, for me? It’s free for soldiers and I don’t think a free cold water compress could hurt.”

“I’ll just make one in your office.” They had a teapot and a kettle and they had some ice as well.

“I’ll pick you up from there on the way back.” There was no room for argument with that tone.

“I’ll wait then,” Levi said. He didn’t say anymore as he turned on his heel. Instead, he focused on the clip clop of the hooves as Hange galloped away. That was a sound that grounded him and when he kept his ragged breaths attune to that rhythm. Levi found that a constant rhythm made it much easier to focus on the road.

Either way, it looked like the walk would last an eternity.

***

For any sane person, it was a short convenient walk. Levi though was in this seemingly eternal trance of just overestimating then underestimating himself. Again and again.

He found ways to ground himself by focusing on the lights that dotted the corridors on the way to the hospital entrance connected to their barracks. He looked at the corridor leading to the commander’s office, almost tempted to turn the heel and treat for himself whatever injuries Hange might have seen in him.

I’ll pick you up from there on the way back. He didn’t have any way to coordinate with Hange then so he trudged straight ahead. The way to meet up with Hange much faster was to just bite his lip and brave the hospital over a few seemingly small injuries.

He had to work harder to contain himself as he saw the crowds from the crack through the half opened door.

Joy. Levi thought to himself. The emergency room was completely full on a weekday night. He settled for one of the benches at the back. The nurses were going around distributing forms and fortunately, he didn’t have to go up to sign anything.

“Some bruising,” Levi answered.

“Understood sir. We’re a bit full tonight so we might have to put you at the bottom of triage.”

Levi only nodded in acceptance, not wanting to waste any more energy or time coming up with something more polite to say. He leaned his back on the bench and stared up at the ceiling. It would be a long wait.

As soon as Hange came anyway, it would be a less tortuous wait, he was sure. She’d find some way to liven up the waiting room with her own chatter. Or maybe, she would see the line, realize it was a dumb idea and have him go back to the barracks and rest.

***

Levi must have dozed off. He jumped on his seat, biting back the white pain that flashed through him at the abrupt movement that pulled him out of stupor.

“Fucking hell, Hange,” Levi hissed.

Hange made herself at home right next to him. She put a hand to his forehead. “You still look a little tipsy.”

“And being tipsy doesn’t merit a trip to the emergency room,” Levi argued.

“It’s not that…” Hange said. “How long… before they call you?” In reply, Levi looked around the room, then back at her. “It depends how pressing the situation is, right? That’s how hospitals work when too many people are injured at once,” he said with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Hange stood up, walked ahead to the counter with the nurse. Soon, a doctor approached her and Hange was discussing, gesticulating, and she put a hand to her side.

You’re overreacting. Levi allowed himself a weak smile as he mimicked her actions, pressing his hand to his upper abdomen. He let out a hiss and swallowed once again whatever had climbed up to his throat.

It was as if Hange teleported back to the seat next to him. “I talked to the doctors, explained the situation. They should be coming back here anytime soon.”

Levi didn’t reply. He saw that as a cue for her to leave, focus on whatever was at hand. She was twiddling her thumbs, she started to play with the wood splinters that stuck out of the bench.

And Levi was constantly reminded by her own restlessness, she had things to do, she couldn’t waste her time there when she had documents to prepare, diplomats to please and some locket she promised a young boy.

His insides were on fire, his breaths were coming out uncontrollably but he saw enough reason to muster a firm order. As her friend. He reminded himself. “Go back to the office. I’ll meet you there.”

Hange was surprisingly easy to convince. All he needed to do was get through the quick back and forth that followed.

“I’ll pick you up a bit later?”

“No, just go up. Go back to work.”

“What about---”

“I’ll meet you in your office.”

Soon, Hange had made a quick trip to the counter, had a quick exchange with the nurses.

“I’ll meet you at the office,” Levi said again for emphasis. That second time was notably harder to let out though.

“I told the nurses to alert me if anything happens.”

Overreacter. “I’ll meet you in the office,” Levi said once again.

Hange walked away with nothing more than a nod. At the least, that was one source of pressure out of the way.

***

The wait didn’t last much longer after that. He was led to a room, no time for pleasantries.

There were many others waiting. Soon after that brief check up, there would be someone else waiting. Maybe they were outside the room already.

The doctor asked him to undress and Levi focused on whatever glimpse of his chest he could get then as he removed his shirt. His chest was still a raw red, maybe there were beginnings of bruises among them. Levi couldn't even bring himself to look down for fear of sending another rush of nausea through him.

“Are you feeling nauseous? Any dizziness?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Commander said, you got involved in a fist fight…”

“At a bar…”

“And you drank?”

“Just two cups.”

The doctor sighed, handing him back his shirt. “I’ll have the nurse prepare an ice pack for whatever bruises you sustained. You should be clear to leave.” The doctor scribbled something on his notebook.

A few minutes later, Levi had a cold compress and a prescription for rest and painkillers. Fortunately, he had the freedom to not be in the hospital so he headed for Hange’s office, gripping the ice pack just a little harder. It did some work to manage his overall soreness and the throbbing pain in his upper right. Levi bit his lip.

It took him thirty minutes to reach the office. He had expected it to take five minutes. Levi though had taken some breaks in between, leaning back on the wall, taking in breaths much stronger than usual.

He opened the office door with a creak and it looked like Hange hadn’t been too engrossed with whatever she was reading like she usually was. Strangely, she looked up at him, her eyes wide. “You’re here…” She said.

“You don't want me to be here?” Levi asked. He used that blessing of the moment to lean on the door to subtly catch his breath once again.

“No it’s just that… Did the doctor say anything?” Hange stood up from her desk, and quickly gathered the papers in front of her.

“Bed rest and to ice the bruises.”

Hange moved quickly. Levi didn’t even notice her come closer until she had tapped her hand on his shoulder. “I’m gonna work in the bedroom.”

“Wait, not in the office? You can’t concentrate in the bedroom right?”

“I think you should rest there for the night, and I think I’ll be better able to concentrate, knowing you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re resting in the bedroom, that’s an order,” Hange said firmly.

She was playing the commander card again. By the looks of it, she would be hard to sway. She had gathered all her paperwork, slipping the thick wads of paper just under her arm. She had turned off the lights and when Hange walked a few inches ahead with that much confidence while gripping his wrist tightly, he saw no choice but to follow.

***

There was a nice bathtub in the commander’s room and Levi insisted he get enough time to himself to clean up the muck, the alcohol and the sweat that came with the fist fight. Hange had insisted he didn’t lock the door but a need for privacy had him a little naughty and a little assertive.

He pressed on the lock on the door slowly, enough to spit the sound of the click into three careful movements.

For the first time in a while, he was grateful for Hange’s pile of work. She didn’t seem to notice.

Stripping off his clothes was a methodical task and Levi realized, if he focused on the slipping movements more than the actual searing pain that followed, he could get anything done. Maybe even cover the few feet that separated the door from the bathtub.

He started off by biting his lip and bending over just far enough to be able to fiddle comfortably with the faucets. He couldn’t bring himself low enough to reach for the plug but even before that, he had made sure to twist both faucets to full blast so he wouldn’t have to deal with the bath emptying too quickly,

The soap was on the other side of the tub and Levi decided to put off grabbing it until he was submerged on the tub. He had spent just a little too much time staring at the soap bar and maybe the gears in his head were turning a little too fast, coming up with the best way to stretch out and reach for it.

There were more pressing matters at hand like the nausea, the pain at his side, the pounding in his head and his utter inability to focus. When he was dealing with those all at once, it was only natural he would run out of mind space.

The slippery part had been something he failed to consider. The last thing he remembered was stepping onto the tub, his eyes fixed on the soap in front of him. And before he could even consider anything else, his foot lost grip on the slimy bathtub.

Then his feet weren’t connected anywhere and he was free falling.

Everything blurred around him as something pulled him forward, into the water. He instinctively put his hands in front of him, once again neglecting the rim of the tub for one fatal second.

One fatal second that ended with a burst of white hot pain.

Pain had been kind for a while after that, settling as something dull at the back of his mind. It had done wonders as well to consume whatever throbbing sensation was eating at his abdomen then. He soon realized, if he closed his eyes, the pain only settled deeper into him, as something almost comforting.

And he realized there were warmer things, there were kinder things surrounding him, like the water that tickled at his sides.

Hey are you okay? There were knocks on doors.

“I’m fine.” He would have liked to muster. The water though that started with a tickle, continued to climb, up to his ears, then up to his mouth.

Her voice deadened to something faint. Faint shouts? Slams of doors. Faint, but annoying loud.

The water had done its part to blanket him, protecting him from the most annoying sounds.

Then when it deadened into nothing. Levi couldn’t help but be just a little relieved.

***

On most days, Hange was a whirlwind. On other special days, Hange was a cyclone.

Recently though, she had mellowed down into something less assertive, tamer, more predictable than a whirlwind.

Maybe a windy day? Levi would surmise when he thought comparing Hange to weather would be a good way to pass the time.

That had become a strange habit he would indulge occasionally. Something quick. Something subtle. Something he didn’t think too much of until he had enough time to be a little more observant of the weather patterns around him.

It was only when he woke up with bleary eyes, still too groggy to even do much but turn to his side, to the narrow white door, did he realize for himself. It was only when despite all that, Levi was attempting to listen intently to whatever scuffle was on the other side of the door, did he realize, god he missed that Hange.

He made out her voice, much wilder than before, her tone more dynamic and Levi was perking his ears up, attempting to break off from that sleepiness to pick up what he can.

He hadn’t heard that Hange in years. It could have been a dream for all he knew.

“The medical technique from Azumabito…. Saved his life….”

“You wouldn’t have had to rely on it if you caught it early on!”

“It was a busy night commander. He seemed fine at first---”

“Believe me… I understand but… Any other day… I gave you my own speculation doctor.” Hange’s voice had mellowed just a little bit. She had clipped the assertion with a title at least. Still, Levi couldn’t help but note that the tone sounded more like a ‘Hange’ than a ‘Commander’

“Yes--”

“No, listen to me… I may not be a doctor but I think the best course of action there was to have felt for any tenderness on his side right? Did you do that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then why did you say you did it a while ago? Believe me, if you did, if you caught this early on, I’m sure he wouldn't be in as bad of a state as he is now.”

“Still, we’re grateful we were able to---”

“Catch it on time? He. Could. Have. Died.” There were slams of feet, slams on the wall, accenting every syllable and Hange said every word like it was bitter to her lips. “I’m honestly fucking grateful he slipped on the bathtub. At least, it brought him back here and you had to give him a full body examination. I don’t think you would have done it any other way!”

“Commander, please calm down.” The voice very much sounded like Moblit. A nostalgic but also very wistful thought. Of course it wouldn’t be Moblit. Moblit was long gone.

When Levi listened for a little longer, he picked it out in the midst of Hange’s tirade. “Jean?” Even saying a one syllable name turned out to be an ordeal. He painstakingly turned his head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking a few more times, an attempt to focus.

Focus came quickly a second later, with crashes and slams of wood on wood right after the other. Enough to have Levi shift the weight to his elbows, sit up for a second long enough to realize he couldn’t stay up for longer than that.

“Commander…”

“Jean… Carelessness...negligence….” Hange’s voice was softer than a while ago. Still, it was sharp, words were emphasized. Words he had managed to pick out, just by listening closely.

The door to his room opened and Hange entered. Surprisingly, it didn’t close with a bang. Whatever remnants of anger was still very much apparent on her face.

Hey four eyes. By god, he wanted to call her four eyes. She seemed more like a ‘four eyes.’ The anger, the aftermath had left Hange looking more like the Hange back then. So Levi stared a little longer, willing himself to find that balance between widening his eyes and squinting, just to get the clearest possible picture of her.

Hange’s eyes widened as he caught her gaze but she didn’t look too happy to see him. “You should go to sleep,”

How long was I out? “How long…” He managed to say.

“You had surgery just a few hours ago. You slipped on the bath tub and the door was fucking locked. I had to break it down. And god, Levi, you almost drowned....”

To his shock, he realized he didn’t even remember much of what followed the slams on the door.

Hange continued on, her voice echoing against the four walls. “Hell, you’re not even supposed to be awake.” A bout of realization in her eyes. She put one hand on her mouth. “Was I loud? Did I wake you up?” Hange’s question was laughable and if Levi had any more energy in him, maybe he would have let out a light chuckle.

He spared a subtle smile instead.

“I was huh?” Hange said. “Sorry about that.”

Suddenly, Levi had the motivation to shake his head and spare three words despite the pounding in his head. “I missed that.”

“MIssed what?” Hange asked.

By that point, Levi didn’t have much energy to reply. Instead he let his eyes dart from left to right, trying to take in as much as he can of her at once. He trusted Hange to be perceptive of that at least.

If she did notice it.

“You’re gonna have to take more time to explain that,” Hange admitted. She dropped one light hand on his forehead. “But not now, I’d rather you took this time to rest first.” She mellowed again and Levi had to painfully note that the voice had shifted to something more serious once again.

The faint recall of the old Hange justa moment ago, behind closed doors was all he had.

Don’t be ashamed. Be yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself. There were too many things Levi would have wanted to say at that moment. The words dried up, crumbling into sawdust even before he could completely open his mouth to say it.

He closed his mouth again, ready to restart the painful process of attempting to speak. Someone knocked and the door opened again way before he even started to feel some strength.

“Commander. The military police came to pick up the documents. I kept them posted on the situation. They’ll look into it now, process the paperwork…” Jean’s eyes were on Hange as he spoke. They soon fell to Levi. “Captain, you’re awake.”

“He’ll be going back to sleep soon,” Hange said, as if it were an indirect order. It wasn’t too hard to follow. Sleep was like a phantom looming over him. He just had to let it do its work.

There were still things he hadn’t completely comprehended and curiosity was good at keeping his surroundings lucid. He reached for Hange’s hand, in one swift motion enough to even leave his hand dizzy.

Hange turned back to him. “Levi, rest.”

He didn’t have to speak. All he had to do was blink, nod his head and Hange pulled the chair to his bedside.

“If I humor you now, will you make sure to rest?”

His energy was limited but if he pickled the right words, the right syllables he could get the answers he needed.

How bad?

Hange was his closest friend for a reason. She knew it at first glance. “I rushed you to the hospital as soon as you fell unconscious.” She put a hand to her head. “You had a concussion… But you know, it wasn't the concussion that was life threatening. Your spleen… it completely ruptured. They had to take it out. You’re gonna be out of it for a while…”

If the survey corps did anymore combat, maybe Levi would have been more worried. Recently, work usually consisted of paperwork anyway.

How long?

“You’ll be here for a few weeks maybe. Then more rest when you get discharged. You’re in really bad shape…” Levi looked behind Hange to see Jean standing awkwardly. There were only too many coherent ways to ask about the kid. He moved his hand up to his chest and drew a shape.

The locket?

“We got the issue with Joseph under control,” Hange said.

Jean stepped forward, moving closer towards the bed. “Commander Hange managed to find some records on them. Joseph’s father used to work with the Reeves company. He got involved in the underground, got blackmailed into dishing a lot of his pay for their silence. With the right investigation, we might be able to turn the tables around, get them to confess and maybe return the money or even more to their son but it’s gonna take a lot of meetings, negotiations---”

As if they had heard the word, some almost recognizable recruit entered. “Commander Zoe, the military police want to clarify a few more things about the papers submitted.”

“Give me a minute.”

“They’re waiting outside, commander.”

Hange sighed. “I’ll meet them now.” She turned back to Jean. “Watch over Levi first.”

Within an hour, Hange had shifted from the angry Hange to the mellow Hange then to the serious commander Hange. Levi watched her go for a few seconds longer, noting the strides that exuded the confidence and professionalism that came with her position.

Jean took up the empty chair Hange left and Levi was slightly ticked that she could have been replaced so fast. Somehow, his head was still keeping the screaming Hange on the other side of the door on replay.

“How are you feeling captain?”

Shitty.

“Commander Hange said you should be resting.”

Levi managed a light nod.

“Please rest,” Jean said.

Levi started to notice it then with him much nearer. His shoulders were tensed up, his hands on his lap and his voice, his smile both more stiff than usual. He furrowed his brows as if to say “are you okay?”

Jean was definitely rattled. “I don’t think I’d wanna see our commander like that again...” He admitted, a weak smile on his face but Jean’s eyes showed fear more than anything else.

No shit. Levi was very familiar with that Hange, having had his own fateful encounters with her over the years.

“Before you woke up… She got mad… Very mad… ”

Oh? Levi mouthed.

Jean was starting to flail his hands a little more. “God she was like a tornado. She was kicking benches. She was slamming walls…”

First time?

“But I don’t blame her… It was really negligence on their part. Apparently Hange had told them a while back to give you a thorough check…” He gave Levi a onceover. “Turns out she was right.”

Levi put one hand to his side, noting the tight bandaging and padding, Even a light tap was enough to send painful sparks through him. He stifled a wince.

“Be careful.” Jean clutched his hand, guiding it back down to the bed. “She might just get angry again if you disobey her.”

She wouldn’t. Hange didn’t get angry like that anymore. He couldn’t help but think though, he would have liked that. Levi didn’t let that thought out as anything more than a surreptitious smile. He looked back up at the ceiling and allowed himself a ragged exhale.

“She won’t,” Levi managed to say. “She mellowed down already.” The last few syllables came out more like a raspy cough.

“Captain, don’t hurt yourself.”

When Levi bit at his lip, cleared his throat, he realized he could muster a few more words. He gave Jean an indignant look.

Jean sighed, dropping his shoulders in defeat. “Something tells me you’ve seen her like this before. You know her best... What makes her angry? You know, so we can avoid it in the future.”

Negligence. Competence. When hundreds of lives were on the line.

Levi could have answered Jean’s question clearly or maybe it came out as mumbles. When everything was starting to blur against each other, it didn’t make it worth clarifying how much left his lips.

“When hundreds of lives are on the line?” Jean asked.

Usually.

With Jean’s question hovering above them in silence for a second longer, he started to doubt himself. There was negligence, incompetence involved but hundreds of lives on the line? He was just one life.

Maybe he had been a little too hasty in concluding what went on on the other side of the door. Those last few moments before he let exhaustion take over, Levi became aware of the taste of sawdust on his lips, the smell of alcohol and his own utter sleepiness.

“I’ll have the nurses come in to refill your pain medication. For now, you should rest.”

Right. He was on medications. So his mind started to shake with questions. Ones he would have liked to answer before he gave in to the trappings of sleep.

How much of what went on behind the doors was real? Did Hange really kick, slam furniture? Did she scream like a mad man? Was she a full blown cyclone?

He would never know. Besides, there was a door between them. All he had was sounds, his own facilities marred by whatever medication they were pumping him with and his own memory to make conclusions for himself.

He fell back to bed with one conclusion, one he had built for himself over the years and came back to him as one musing before he fell back to sleep.

When Hange was angry, very angry, she was a full blown tornado of screaming, shouting, kicking, rambling. She was a full blown tornado that had the rare quality of just making sense.

Her anger, that came once a blue moon, always seemed to have a point.

At first, Levi had managed to summarize the most anger inducing situations to two: One, any utterly stupid move that Hange cannot seem to understand which could cost hundreds, or thousands of lives. Two, utter negligence that could cost hundreds or thousands of lives.

Maybe there was a third anger inducing situation that only bared its fangs then, powerful enough to release itself even outside the commander facade. And maybe it didn’t have to be a hundred lives on the line for that monster to show itself.

Half asleep, his memories a blur and with the white door between them, he couldn’t be too sure if that had really been the cyclone he had witnessed a few times before. So he left it as speculation, something to indulge.

He focused instead on sleeping, on the rustle of pages and the wind that streamed through the window.

Reminiscing on the old Hange could wait. He still had lots of recovering to do.

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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qqueenofhades · 4 years ago

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Okay, y'all. Time to do this one more time. Let the fact that there are so many of these posts right now reinforce the point. Many of you already know this, and I see and love you, but for anyone still ~undecided about their choice, should they be an American citizen of voting age on November 3, 2020:

Time to not be. It was time a long, long while ago, but I am going to have to say it again.

Primary season is over. The endless fine-tooth combing of candidates' policies and positions is over. We are all deeply well aware that the candidates on the Democratic ticket, being human beings and establishment politicians, are flawed. "BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS POSITION FROM 19/ 20-WHENEVER AS JUSTIFICATION FOR WHY IT'S TERRIBLE TO VOTE FOR -- "

No. Stop. Just stop. Stop threatening to hold the rest of us hostage, in the middle of a pandemic, the Great Depression, and racial inequality and protests on a scale not seen from the 1960s, because you did not get Barbie Dream Candidate. That is the behavior of terrorists and toddlers. If your supposedly enlightened morally pure ideology does not involve any action to mitigate the harm that is directly in front of you, it isn't worth a shit as an ideology actually devoted to helping people. If your approach to politics is to shout about how Pure your ideas are on twitter and tear down anyone working within a system of flawed choices to do the good that they can: you're not helping, and frankly, your constant threats to withhold your suffrage as a punishment to us aren't convincing the rest of us that we really need to listen to you or that you have anyone's best interests at heart. The Online Left TM is as much a vacuous, self-reinforcing noise chamber as the Online Right TM, and can sometimes tend to be even more dangerous.

I was saying this in 2016. A lot of us were saying this in 2016. I am just about to turn 32 years old and have been voting in federal elections for almost 15 years. For what it's worth.

This is not an ordinary election. This is not a contest between two flawed candidates who respect the system and want to work to enact their policies in the ordinary way. One is a flawed 90s era Democrat who nonetheless has already been pushed CONSIDERABLY left in his policies and platforms since the end of the primaries (and his existing platform would already make him the most left president elected, even more than Obama). The other is a fascist dictator who has openly spoken about refusing to accept the election results, his desire to abolish term limits and serve for life, and complete the pillaging of any remaining fragile American public funds for him and his cult of cronies. He does not respect the system. He does not want to do anything for anyone that is not himself. 160,000 and counting needless deaths of American citizens have already happened. Will keep happening.

This is the last time Trump has to face voters. This is the last chance the country has to repudiate his entire poisonous ideology and its marching Nazi minions. IF he steps aside, which is already far from guaranteed, he can ride off into the sunset as a vindicated two term president and probably be rehabilitated like George W. Bush was within a few years of leaving office. American political memory is very short. It will happen. Again, if he even leaves.

RBG is 87 and has cancer again. She will NOT survive another four years. Stephen Breyer is 81. Their seats could both come up in the next four years. The Supreme Court could be a right wing rubber stamp for whatever time we all have left before climate change and coronavirus kill us all.

"But if people just thought for themselves and did their homework and didn't vote the party line like sheep, we could support a third party/write in -- " Stop. Just stop. Attend a ninth grade civics class and learn about how politics work in America. Yes, the two-party system sucks. Yes, the Electoral College is a hot steaming pile of absolute bullshit. Magical unicorn fairy dust fantasies WILL NOT change that.

Do not vote for Kanye (who has pretty much openly admitted he is trying to play spoiler to Biden on behalf of his buddy Trump). Do not vote for godforsaken fucking Gary Johnson or Jill Stein who appear on ballots just to give sanctimonious leftists the illusion of virtue-signaling. If you want any chance of fixing the mess that 2020 has left America and the world in, you need to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. The end.

Biden is a flawed old man who was our last choice, sure. He is also a distinguished public servant who has already been in the White House for eight years under Obama and thus we KNOW what to expect. He is an empathetic man who connects with people's personal tragedy and picked as his running mate a younger Black/biracial woman who directly confronted and called him out on past behavior. While the pundit class was simpering and whining about how it was Disrespectful and how could he consider her, Biden did so, and that speaks well to me of the fact that he is willing to learn, to take criticism, and not just accept it from a former Black female rival, but make her his second in command and the potential first female president of the United States.

Can you EVER picture Trump doing that? Not in eight thousand million years.

As for Kamala, we are all aware of her previous checkered history as a prosecutor (and even then, she did plenty of good things as well!). Since joining the Senate, however, she has consistently become one of its most progressive members. She is the co-sponsor of an economic aid package designed to give every American $2,000/month, backdated to March (the start of the coronavirus pandemic) and continuing at least a few months after its end. A Biden-Harris White House could make that happen. Especially if they are put into office with a Democratic House and Senate (for the love of God, Kentucky, kill Mitch McConnell with fire). That is just one example.

Harris's nomination is obviously historic. And Biden didn't choose another Biden (or another Tim Kaine, the blandest white man imaginable). He chose another Obama: a younger rising star of an immigrant background, a person of color, a former lawyer and someone who represents the diversity of the country that the white supremacists and the Cheeto in Chief have tried to paint as its worst and most degenerate evil.

A vote for Biden and Harris means getting rid not just of Trump, but Mike Pence, Vladimir Putin, Jared Kushner, Betsy Devos, the Trump crony destroying the Postal Service, the rampant coronavirus misinformation and bullshit, the destruction of Social Security and Medicare, the spread of Nazi propaganda from the President's twitter account, the likely two Supreme Court picks that would be as bad as Brett Kavanaugh or worse... on and on. Biden and Harris would be elected by progressive voters and thus answerable to them in 2022 midterms and 2024 general. They can both be, and already have been, pushed further left. They are reasonable and competent adults who have demonstrated experience and compassion. I KNOW about their flaws and past actions I don't agree with. But I'm frankly done with any more counterproductive straw man bitching about This One Bad Thing They Did and how it makes it a terribad awful choice to vote for them. Open your eyes. Look at the alternative. LOOK AT WHAT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED AND THE FACT THAT THIS IS NOT EVEN AS BAD AS IT COULD STILL GET.

Check your registration or register at vote.gov.

DO NOT LOOK AT POLLS AND DECIDE "EH BIDEN IS CLEARLY GOING TO WIN, I DON'T NEED TO VOTE." THAT IS HOW WE LOST LAST TIME.

Unseating incumbents is HARD. It is even harder when the other side has openly laid out their plan to cheat in great detail, and there is nothing really stopping them from doing it. The only thing, in fact, is massive, unfalsifiable results on an undeniable scale.

So:

Vote.

Vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Thanks a lot.

#hilary for ts #politics for ts #rant #long post #i will be reblogging this periodically as election day nears #haters/trolls will be blocked out of hand

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miracleonice87 · 4 years ago

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’tis the damn season

an Auston Matthews song fic

a/n: based on the absolute masterpiece that is ’tis the damn season by Taylor Swift from evermore. This one was not on my WIP list but came over me as soon as I heard the song when the album dropped. also have no idea how it became my longest piece yet, by far (as in 12k+ whoops). obviously, I do not own any of the music/lyrics to this song nor any other I write about.

summary: Auston Matthews and his ex-girlfriend are reunited in their hometown years after their difficult breakup.

warnings: swearing, alcohol, allusions to sex, a delicate balance of angst and fluff. a bit of a slow burn, if you want to call it that.

_____

You might have been one of the few people on the planet who disagreed with the phrase, “There’s no place like home for the holidays.” At least, for the last few years, that hadn’t exactly been your sentiment.

But, you were home anyway, after a few weeks of your mother’s guilt tripping and your father’s repeated phone calls. And, admittedly, you were enjoying your quiet time at home with your parents.

After helping your mom bake a few dozen cookies for the Christmas Eve party they were throwing tomorrow night, you wandered upstairs to your childhood bedroom to change out of your flour-covered attire and maybe squeeze in a nap. An undeniable perk of staying with your parents during the holidays — so many opportunities to sleep. As you pulled on a well-worn, long-sleeved ASU t-shirt you found hanging in your closet, your phone rang.

You groaned and swore to yourself that if it was your editor again, you were quitting. She’d already interrupted your time off at least once throughout each of your three days at home thus far — your first week of vacation in the two and a half years you’d been with the fashion magazine. You rolled your eyes and reached for the sounding device on your bed, then recoiled when you saw the contact name — or rather, initials — on the screen.

Oh, god.

Even worse, the years-old contact photo popped up behind the name — a picture of the two of you lying together on the shore on your vacation four years ago, right after the draft, when you both still held onto the naive belief that nothing that had just happened in his world would change things between the two of you.

“Shit,” you whispered, covering your mouth while anxiety coursed through your veins.

You couldn’t just not answer. Right? The two of you were on decent terms, though you couldn’t quite remember the last time you’d spoken — probably seven, eight months ago. You had no good reason to ignore his call.

And after all... you were the one who had ended things.

You cleared your throat and, trying to coach yourself into mustering up some semblance of courage, quickly repeated, “Okay, okay, okay, okay.” Then, like ripping off a bandaid, you hurriedly tapped the green button and pressed the phone to your ear.

“Matthews,” you greeted curtly — tentatively.

“Kels. Come over,” Auston said abruptly, though you could hear the smile in his voice. “I know you’re home.”

You squinted and glanced around your room, racking your brain as you tried to figure out how exactly your ex-boyfriend knew your current whereabouts.

“What?” you asked, puzzled, not to mention slightly shocked that he was even interested in seeing you in person — though some part of you was, indeed, grateful for that. “How did you even know I was in Scottsdale?”

“Uh, your Instagram story, my dear,” he said, obviously amused. “You posted this morning from that new coffee shop between the Methodist church and our old school building. Remember?”

You rubbed a hand over your face, suddenly regretting adding him to your close friends list on Instagram six weeks ago after a few glasses of wine with your girlfriends.

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath, eliciting a chuckle from Auston.

“Yeah, don’t flatter yourself thinking I sit around and stalk you, sweetheart,” he teased. “I thought about replying but I didn’t wanna slide into your DMs and look like a fuckboy.” He paused, and you opened your mouth to make a halfhearted wisecrack that you didn’t truly mean, but before you could speak, he added, “Plus you probably get so many DMs, I’m sure mine would just get lost in the shuffle.”

Again, you rolled your eyes. “Matthews,” you repeated, whinier now.

“C’mon, Kels. Just come over,” he whined back. “I just got in last night. I’m staying at my parents’ house. My sisters nearly busted down my door when they saw you were back in town, plus I know my mom and dad would love to see you.”

Suddenly, two decades’ worth of memories that you had long ago pushed to the back of your mind flooded all at once to the forefront of your consciousness. Sleepovers watching Disney Channel movies and eating peach rings with Alex and Brey. Brian scooping you up in his arms after a nasty tumble off your bike on their street, propping you on the kitchen counter as he bandaged the scrapes on your knees, Auston never leaving your side nor letting go of your hand. Road trips with Ema to watch Auston play in countless tournaments, with you doing homework in the front seat while Ema sang along to the radio. Matthews family dinners eating Ema’s famous chicken tortilla soup. Vacations and carpool and pickup basketball games and shopping for prom dresses and just the mundane, everyday routine you had been part of for so many years.

And those were just the memories that involved his sisters, his parents. You didn’t dare let your mind uncover the buried memories of him, and him alone.

You missed them. Sometimes you missed them all so much that it made your heart physically ache and your stomach drop and your mouth go dry.

So, you drew a long, deep breath, and against your better judgment, eventually said, “Okay. Fine. But you have to send me your parents’ address. I haven’t been to the new Matthews McMansion.”

Auston huffed on the other end. “So mean to me.”

_____

It was certainly a far cry from the modest old ranch-style house where Auston had spent his childhood.

As you pulled up to the sprawling estate in the bougie part of town and cut your engine, you whispered, “What the fuck am I doing here...”

And still, after a quick check of your makeup in your rearview mirror, you got out of the car, closed your door and pushed your sunglasses to the top of your head, sighing as you took in the four vehicles parked in front of yours in the roundabout driveway, none of which you had ever seen before. Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche. Well, you could guess which one was Auston’s.

You walked up the stone sidewalk and slipped your aviators into your purse — it was only then that you noticed that your hands were trembling.

You cleared your throat and exhaled sharply, willing your nerves to subside, as you arrived at the door and pressed the button on its frame, sounding an elaborate chime inside.

“I got it,” you immediately heard a familiar voice call, and you took a startled step backward as you saw his figure approaching through the decorative glass panes outlining the doorway. As he pulled open the door, the flutter you’d tried your hardest to avoid feeling for three years took flight once more in your belly.

“Matthews,” you greeted again, arms crossed in front of you in hopes of hiding your shaking hands.

“Why’d ya bother to ring the doorbell, you nutjob?” Auston asked with a broad smile.

Before you could throw a snide remark back at him, he pulled you into himself, one arm snaking around your mid-back and the other hand cradling your head to his chest. Inadvertently, you exhaled contentedly, and you swore you felt Auston tighten his grip on you then. Your eyes fluttered closed, and you let yourself relax into him for longer than you had intended. He just felt so… familiar. Broad. Strong. Comforting.

He was just… Auston. A thousand things had changed for the two of you, but the way you felt in his presence hadn’t changed since you were a little girl.

You inhaled his cologne, and you noticed that he was doing just the same — breathing in your long-worn Chanel No. 5 perfume, the same kind he used to save up all year to buy you each Christmas.

At that memory, you snapped back to reality and extricated yourself from his embrace, leaving him looking slightly disappointed, though still pleased with your greeting.

“Hi,” you spoke simply as you stared up at him, then chuckled at how stupid that sounded.

“Hi,” he mimicked, head bobbling and eyes widening, causing you both to fall into a giddy fit of nervous laughter over nothing at all.

Just then, you saw Ema’s head pop out from beneath an arched opening toward the back of the house — probably leading to the kitchen, you assumed. Ema was always in the kitchen.

“I thought I heard your laugh,” she sang. You couldn’t help but beam, and Auston smiled and moved out of your way so that you had a direct pathway to his mother. Taking advantage of that, you made a beeline for the petite woman you considered your second mom, already feeling emotion bubbling up in your throat as tears blurred your vision.

“Oh, mija,” Ema said, her voice tight as she met you in the middle of the grand entryway and gathered you into her arms. “Te extrañamos,” (we miss you) she said sincerely.

Auston cupped the back of his neck and quickly looked away then, fearful that he may just shed tears of his own.

You sniffled and murmured, “Los extrañé a todos mucho,” (I missed you all so much) into Ema’s shoulder as she smoothed her hand lovingly over the back of your head.

When you finally parted, moving past the brief sadness of the reunion, Ema still held tightly to your hands, extending her arms so that she could see you better.

“You look more beautiful than ever!” she exclaimed, and you dropped your head bashfully at her compliment. “California is treating you well.”

You nodded. “For the most part,” you remarked with a sigh. Ema glanced quickly from your face to her son’s and back again, deciding not to dwell for too long on that loaded response.

“Well,” she pivoted with a click of her tongue. “You look great. Now come, come! I know Auston’s going to want to steal you away from me, not that I blame him, but I just put on some tea, so let’s sit and have some first.”

“Ma…” Auston protested lightheartedly. Ema wagged her finger at him. “Shh! Mijo! My long lost daughter has returned. Give me ten minutes for a cup of tea with her.”

Auston’s lips parted at her use of the word “daughter,” not that he should have been surprised by it, and you tossed him an animated shrug as Ema pulled you down the hallway back from whence she came. You were right — it was the kitchen, and it was a spectacular one at that.

“Holy…” you trailed off as Ema patted one of the leather barstools at the enormous island in the center of the room. You took a seat, pulling your cross body bag from your shoulder and placing it on the island, and commented, “This kitchen is incredible, Ema. I’m sure you love spending time here.”

Ema nodded and excitedly launched into stories of using all the appliances and gadgets she had never owned before, walking back to the teakettle on the stove as Auston sat down on the nearest barstool, feeling as though he could simply be dreaming, hallucinating, that you were here, sitting with him in his parents’ kitchen. But when you noticed him taking the seat next to yours, you tossed him a classic Kelsey smile and nudged his shoulder with your own, and he felt just slightly more confident that this was reality. Unable to resist your magnetism, which hadn’t faded with time but seemed instead to have only grown stronger, he squeezed your knee beneath the countertop, just as Ema approached with a cup of tea in hand for you.

Choosing to react instead to Ema rather than her son, you grinned and thanked her, feeling Auston’s eyes on you as you lifted the mug to your lips and took small sips, Ema still prattling on happily from the other side of the kitchen. You eventually cast a sidelong glance Auston’s way, accompanied by an amused smirk, the combination of which left him beaming as he looked away from you and back toward his mother, who now approached with two more cups of tea.

“Thanks, Ma,” he said as he wrapped his hands around the mug she offered him.

“You’re welcome, mijo,” Ema replied. “Now Kelsey, honey, how long are you in town?”

“Uh, just until the day after Christmas,” you replied, swirling a finger along the ceramic rim of your mug. “This is the most time I’ve taken off since I started at the magazine,” you admitted with a hint of embarrassment.

Ema nodded. “Your mother said you haven’t made it home for a while. I know they keep you pretty busy there. Is that why you don’t visit so much?” she asked unassumingly.

Auston dropped his head and shuffled his feet awkwardly against the tile floor, and your eyes flickered to him as you racked your brain for an answer that wasn’t a complete lie but also didn’t unmask the whole truth — which was that being in a town that held so much history with your ex was simply too suffocating to bear, even for a quick visit with your parents. So, you typically just stayed in California where you could throw yourself into your work as a fashion writer at a well-known publication and operate under the illusion that you had moved on. From Scottsdale, from Auston, from your life before Los Angeles.

And especially from Toronto.

But the problem was, when the night fell and the lights all faded and you were left to face the truth, you knew in your heart that that’s really all it was — an illusion.

And from 2,500 miles away, Auston knew it, too. He knew it because he was living the same lie.

“Uh, yeah,” you replied sheepishly. “That’s the gist of it. Just, uh, just hard to get away sometimes. My parents usually come out to visit me instead since their schedules are, uh, a little more flexible.”

“Right,” Ema said skeptically as you took a long pull from your mug, despite the hot liquid singing your tongue and making your eyes water. “Well, either way, it’s so good to finally see you here,” she added warmly.

“It’s good to see you too,” you breathed, honesty dripping from that answer.

Auston finally looked at you again, giving you an understanding smile. Even that smallest of gestures made you dizzy.

“So,” you said as you moved away from the topic, sitting up a bit straighter. “Where are the girls? Where’s Brian?”

“Golfing,” Auston answered. “Like always,” he added with a chuckle.

“Why am I not surprised?” you teased, making both Ema and Auston laugh.

“They begged Auston to come with them, but he turned them down,” Ema informed you. “And now we know why.” She lifted her eyebrows and took another sip of her tea as Auston shook his head.

“Dunno what you’re talking about,” he joked. “But no, they’ll be back soon. They can’t wait to see you.”

You brightened at that, not having seen the Matthews girls in nearly as long as it had been since you’d seen Auston himself, finding it easier to breathe when they weren’t nearby, reminding you of him with their every mannerism. And yet, you’d found that starving yourself of their friendship and their company ached nearly just as much.

“I can’t wait either,” you said through a distant smile.

“And Dad will probably cry more than Mom did when he sees you,” Auston predicted, lifting his mug. Ema swatted at his arm.

“Don’t start with me!” she warned. “I happened to see you choking up out there, too.”

You turned to Auston and raised an accusing brow at him. He simply chuckled into his tea and looked away, and the three of you sat in silence for a beat.

“Come on,” he finally said as he rested his mug on the island, nodding his head in the direction of the sliding glass door at the back of the house. “Lemme show you the patio.”

You nodded, knowing full well that showing off the backyard was not the real reason he was inviting you outside. Despite that knowledge, you hopped off the barstool, put your mug in the sink, and kissed Ema on the cheek as you passed her.

“Thanks for the tea, mamacita,” you said with a smile, squeezing her shoulders. “Anytime, mi amor,” she replied, sending a wink your way as you turned to follow Auston.

He slid open the door and motioned for you to step through it first. When he saw his mother watching you through the kitchen window, he gave her a knowing smirk, and she put her hands up in innocence. But as she watched you two walk out onto the patio through the glass, she breathed a silent prayer to any higher power who would listen that maybe, just maybe, you would finally come home.

Not to Scottsdale, no. Home to Auston.

Meanwhile, you were trailing your hand along the hammock near the pool, taking in the scene and trying to remember to breathe. When you heard him close the door, you turned back to Auston, your eyes floating around the backyard.

“Nice setup they’ve got back here,” you grinned, Auston chuckling with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts.

“Yeah, it’s even nicer in the summer,” he commented. You nodded, stepping closer to the pool and lowering yourself to sit on the edge, patting the space next to you as an invitation for Auston to do the same.

“We have chairs, ya know,” he grumbled as he took a seat. “Not all of us like to sit on the floor all day doing yoga.”

You sneered at him. “Oh, yeah, that’s what I do all day long,” you said sarcastically.

“Well, you used to, anyway,” he mumbled.

You gulped as visions of him watching you do precarious yoga poses on the living room floor of his apartment flickered in your mind’s eye, and then, once again, you moved right along.

“So… how’s it going, Matthews? How’s life?” you prompted, not even sure if you truly wanted to hear the answer to your inquiry.

He stretched out his long legs so that his feet were dangling above the water as he wondered where to even begin.

“It’s… it’s good,” he said. “Overall. It’s nice to be home for a few days. Needed that. I missed it. Missed my family. Missed…” he stopped himself, “…other things,” he added under his breath.

You chewed the inside of your cheek and decided to avoid the path he was taking this down. “How’s hockey?” you asked instead.

Auston shifted noticeably at the mention of his career, still painfully aware that, despite the successes it had brought him, it had ultimately caused the demise of your relationship.

“Hockey is… hockey,” he said. “Honestly it’s good on the whole. But the team’s not having the greatest year so far, which is rough.” You nodded, knowing better than most that the Toronto media operated at a different level of intensity and scrutiny than that of nearly all other markets, especially when the Leafs were losing, and especially when new blood was added into the equation, like Auston’s had been when they drafted him.

Like yours had been when you moved there with him.

The spotlight they shone on you — and the subsequent attention you received from so-called fans who took to the internet to question your intentions and integrity — had been far more than you bargained for.

Just as you were about to ask about how the guys on the team were faring, Auston spoke again.

“I think about calling you every time we come to LA, Kels,” he said, fixing his eyes on the neighbor’s house in the distance because he was simply unable to look at you while he admitted it. With a sniff, he added, “I’m not gonna lie about that.”

“Why don’t you?” you asked after a beat, maybe unfairly, studying his familiar profile. His features were the same, of course, but he looked… more mature. Older. Wiser. All that jazz. Auston shrugged, still not capable of looking at you.

“Just didn’t think you’d want me to,” he answered dejectedly. Your heart sank into your stomach. Given the things you’d said when you left him nearly three years ago, you could hardly blame him for that one.

“Well,” you started with a sigh. “I guess we could call it even then, because I think about coming to see you play every time you come to LA. Or Anaheim. Or even Vegas. And obviously Phoenix.”

“Well why didn’t you just call me asking for free tickets then,” he said in a tone that he tried to disguise as facetious, but you heard the hurt seeping into his words. “Everybody else I know in any NHL city does.”

You felt a fierce sense of protectiveness then, clenching your jaw as you tried to calm your irate thoughts. You watched him pick at the sleeve of his black Raiders crewneck and felt deeply for him — this man you’d loved since he was a little boy.

“Do they really? Still?” you asked in monotone.

Auston nodded, squinting in the sunlight. “Yup,” he answered, popping the ‘p.’ “Every game.”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered, covering your eyes with your hand and pushing into your temples. You blew out a long breath. “Fuck. I’m really sorry about that. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I… it just sucks.”

Auston shrugged. “It’s not your fault,” he stated. “Sometimes I do it, sometimes I don’t. Kinda depends on whether the person’s actually talked to me lately.”

You nodded as he chuckled sadly, and you felt your chest tighten. “Well,” you began, clearing your throat. “I guess I wouldn’t qualify then because we haven’t talked much.”

Auston looked at you with intensity surging in his deep brown eyes, and you wanted to look away but found that you couldn’t.

“You always qualify,” he said seriously. “You’re one of the only people that qualifies.”

You bit down, hard, on your bottom lip and grappled internally with the weight of his comment. Then he said sarcastically, “Besides, I know you’re only after my money. I mean, you forced me to buy you that Louis bag the week after I got drafted.”

Your jaw dropped at his joke, and you scoffed indignantly. “Oh, yeah, the one you finally had to hide in my closet after I kept sneaking it back into your car because I wanted you to return it?” you corrected. “Yeah, ya caught me. You know me, Aus. Such a gold digger.”

Auston had started laughing halfway through your quip, but stopped suddenly. You gave him a questioning look, and he paused before answering.

“You called me Aus,” he stated with a smile he tried and failed to hide. “You went back to calling me Matthews after we broke up. But you… you just called me Aus again.”

“Yeah, well...” you grumbled, “Don’t get too excited.” You tossed him a smirk and he mirrored it, basking in the comfort of the moment.

“So whaddya think of the place? Not bad, right?” he finally asked, glancing around the property, back at the house, then settling his focus back on you.

You shrugged. “A little gaudy for my taste, but...” you began, and Auston shook his head bemusedly, knowing he set himself up for that one.

“No, it’s great. I can see how much your mom loves it. In all seriousness, I think it’s amazing, everything you’ve done for your family. Your parents. It’s pretty incredible,” you said earnestly. “I don’t think I said it enough when we were together, but, I’m really proud of you, Aus. And I don’t just mean about the hockey.”

Auston nodded soberly, turning his head to look you in the eye.

“I know you don’t,” he said quietly. “Thanks, Kels. It means a lot coming from you. More, uh… more than you know.”

And then, before you could think twice about doing so, you reached out your hand to rest atop his, feeling its familiar warmth as your fingertips grazed the raised veins there. Auston swallowed hard, blinking at where your hands now met, and slowly wrapped your fingers in his, giving them a squeeze. You exchanged long stares before you eventually slammed on the brakes in your brain and carried on.

“So, you just casually hang out with Justin Bieber now?” you asked, reaching your palms behind you and leaning back. “And the wildest shit is that I saw it first when he posted it, not you.”

Auston chuckled, looking down at his slides and — ironically — Drew socks combo. In his signature way, he halted his laughter on a dime and his face turned somber as he said dryly, “Yeah, I’m like really famous now, yanno?”

You sighed in annoyance, rolling your eyes as you looked skyward, feeling Auston’s gaze turn to you. You let it go for a few moments before shifting only your eyes toward his.

“What?” you asked accusingly. You could tell by the faraway smirk on his face that he was lost in a memory.

“Remember you had posters of him hung up all over your room in like middle school? From Tiger Beat magazine and shit? And now I play video games and mini sticks with the guy,” Auston said with a chuckle.

“Yeah, and if you ever tell him about that, I’ll end your life,” you threatened, shoving at his arm and attempting to ignore how much his biceps had grown since you last touched them. And then you were slamming the door shut on a rush of memories of having him beneath your touch — some innocent, but most intimate.

Auston saw it in your eyes — the place you went for a moment — as you dropped your hand back to the concrete beneath you. He knew where you went because, so often, he went there, too.

He held your gaze and promised, “Your secret’s safe with me. You know that.”

Only a hint of a smile graced your lips for a fleeting moment as you ran your fingers through your hair. Suddenly, you felt the heaviness of the history between the two of you closing in — smothering you, like it always did. Auston watched helplessly, wishing it didn’t have to be this hard.

And then, in a flash, like he so often did to save you from your swirling thoughts, he casually changed the topic as he commented, “Your hair’s shorter. You look like your mom. In a good way.”

Blushing, you breathed a laugh through your nose. “Thanks,” you said softly. “I think it’s the highlights, too.”

“It is,” Auston confirmed, and then — damn him — he reached out and looped a lock from the front of your face between his thumb and forefinger, the way he had done a thousand times before, usually mid-conversation, always absentmindedly. This time, you knew, as you forced your eyes to meet his, it was a bit more calculated. “I really like it,” he told you.

You nodded, searching his eyes to try and determine whether he had any idea what this — this moment, this visit, this day — really was.

“If you’re gonna ask me what we’re doing,” Auston spoke, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth for a second, “then I have to tell you I have no idea.”

Again, damn him. After all this time, it was like he still lived inside your brain and had read your every thought like the morning paper before you even had the chance to convey it. Which used to save you in a lot of ways. Now it felt kind of… intrusive. But somehow you didn’t mind.

“I had no idea what I was even gonna say when I called you. All I know,” he continued, still flipping the strand of hair around his fingers, “is that I really wanted to see you, and that I was really happy when you came, and that I’m really enjoying this time with you.”

You nodded, and as he pulled his hand from your face, his thumb brushed your jawline just slightly, and that touch alone sent a bolt of lightning through you. Auston smiled softly as he said barely above a whisper, “Okay, now it’s your turn to say something.”

You heaved a sigh, tipping your head back with eyes closed and soaking in the sunshine. “I don’t expect you to know, Aus,” you finally spoke. “I was just so... so shocked, I guess, that you wanted to see me. It’s been so long, I just... I didn’t know when I would see you again.”

“We’ve talked though,” Auston pointed out with a sigh to match yours, pulling a knee to his chest and wrapping his arms around his bent leg. “FaceTimed. Texted.”

You rolled your head toward him. “It’s not the same,” you reasoned softly, hesitantly reaching out your hand to tuck some of his black hair behind his ear. He licked his lips swiftly and placed a peck to your thumb before you slowly withdrew your hand.

“You’re right,” Auston conceded. “Definitely not the same.”

“Uh, sorry to interrupt...”

You were snapped out of your private moment by one person’s voice and another person’s squeal behind you.

“Oh, my god!” you yelled as you shot up from the side of the pool, Alexandria and Breyana already scampering toward you from the back door.

“It’s about goddamn time you came back to us!” Alex shrieked, wrapping her arms around you tightly. “I missed you, little sister,” she cooed, rubbing her hands across your back, and you hummed in agreement.

“I missed you, Al,” you replied, kissing her temple as you stepped back to greet the youngest of the Matthews clan.

“And you. My baby!” you exclaimed, pulling Breyana into your arms. “The true star athlete of the family,” you teased as she squeezed your waist.

“Damn straight,” Breyana giggled. “I missed you, Kels. I can’t believe you’re here!”

You pulled away, glancing behind you as you saw Auston slowly approaching out of the corner of your eye. “Me either,” you admitted, eyes widening dramatically as the girls snickered at you. “How was golf?”

“Brey smoked us, no surprise,” Alex replied. “But shut up about the golf. Tell us what’s going on with you two.”

“Alex!” Auston warned, shooting her a glare. “Please don’t.”

Alex gave him her best older sister roll of the eyes and crossed her arms over her chest as Breyana looked between the two of you.

“Nope,” Alex refused. “Not until you tell me what’s up. C’mon, spill.”

“We’re just...” you began, swiveling to look Auston’s way as he smirked down at you, happy to let you flounder in this one all on your own. “Visiting,” you finished, nodding once at Alex, pleased with your choice of verbiage.

“Honestly, you guys…” Breyana lamented.

“Visiting, huh?” Alex echoed, growing even more suspicious. “Yeah, okay. Sure. Wear protection. Anyways, uh—“

“Alex!” Auston repeated, this time through clenched teeth. “I swear to god...”

“Anyways, like I was saying,” Alex continued. “Your parents invited us all to their house tomorrow night for the Christmas party. I didn’t think you were gonna be there — does this mean you will?”

You nodded, causing Alex to clap excitedly. “I’ll be there with bells on,” you confirmed. “I already made my shortbread cookies.” All three siblings moaned in delight at the mention of your famous treats.

“Hell yeah! Plus that means we won’t be the only ones escaping to the balcony to drink,” Breyana commented.

“Brey, you’re like twelve,” Auston taunted, earning him a sharp elbow to the ribs from his younger sister. “You don’t get to drink with us.”

“Whatever,” she retorted. “Like you guys weren’t sneaking Mom and Dad’s liquor when you were younger than me.”

“Anyways,” Alex said yet again, clearing her throat. “We’re gonna go back inside now and shower, and just, uh, leave you guys to whatever it is you were doing beside the pool there. ‘Kay? ‘Kay. See ya,” she sang, spinning Breyana by the shoulders and guiding her inside, both girls whispering and giggling all the while. “Kels, I’ll call you tonight — you can tell me all about it!” Alex called over her shoulder, sliding the door closed.

You turned to see a pink tinge to Auston’s cheeks as he muttered, “Sorry,” with a dry laugh. You shook your head.

“No, don’t be,” you insisted, waving him off as you took a seat at the glass picnic table beside you, Auston following your lead. “It wouldn’t be a visit to the Matthews house without Alex torturing the both of us,” you teased.

Auston nodded. “Very true,” he said, and you knew he didn’t want to stop there, but he couldn’t seem to find what he did want to say next.

Instead, you ventured, “So what are your—”

At the very same time, he started, “Kels, would you maybe—”

You both chuckled at yourselves, locking eyes. This certainly wasn’t the first time this had happened in conversations — far from it. And usually, you were about to say the very same thing.

So, you motioned for him to speak first.

He toyed with the band of his watch as he said nervously, “I was just gonna say, uh, would you maybe wanna go to dinner with me? Tonight?”

You sat back in your chair, smirking, fully aware that you were teetering on a damn fine line.

“I was hoping you might say that.”

_____

An hour later, after reuniting with Brian (Auston was right — he cried more than the rest of his family combined when he hugged you), you headed home to change for dinner. As you pulled away from the Matthews house, you were thankful that Auston had offered to follow you in his own vehicle so that he could drive you to dinner, which in turn gave each of you a few minutes to breathe.

Surprisingly, your mother didn’t seem at all shocked to see the guest you had brought back with you. You had told her that you were going to visit the Matthews’, not specifying which member of the family had invited you, though she could venture a guess. When she watched two vehicles pull into the driveway side by side, she inhaled an excited gasp, a smile overwhelming her features as she came to meet you at the front door, just as you laughed at a lame joke Auston cracked about your driving.

Your mother nearly tackled him in a hug, which he warmly returned. He shared a similar bond with your mom to the one you shared with his, which was yet another piece that fit perfectly into the puzzle that was your relationship. So many pieces fit, and so few didn’t, but that still didn’t make things whole.

But, you ignored that thought — and so many others — as you left the two to chat, bounding up the stairs to change, now grateful that you’d brought more than one nice option to wear to the Christmas party tomorrow, considering the rest of your suitcase was filled with comfy loungewear.

How could you have ever planned for this?

After touching up your hair and makeup and putting on the more understated of the dressy outfits you’d brought, you returned to the kitchen where your mom and Auston stood huddled at the counter, near empty glasses of red wine in front of them both.

“Already boozin’, huh?” you teased as you folded your arms in front of you. They chuckled, and Auston glanced at you over his shoulder with a smile. When he laid eyes on you, though, he stood straight up and turned to face you, making no attempt to hide his stare, even in front of your mother. Without taking his gaze off of you, he threw back his final sip of wine and blew out a flustered breath. You knew you were blushing, so you walked past him to your mother, pressing your cheek to hers for an air kiss so as not to mess up your lipstick.

“Sorry to take your favorite boy away from you, but we should head out,” you announced as you looked back at Auston. He cleared his throat, walking to the other side of the countertop to hug your mom again, thanking her for the wine and something else that you didn’t quite catch.

He followed you down the hall, his hand ghosting along the small of your back as you reached for your purse on the coat rack. You looked back and blew a final kiss to your mom, who waved as she watched Auston open the passenger door of his car and help you in — both of you giggling as you crouched into the low-riding vehicle in your skirt and high heels. Like a mom of a young teen, she stood at the window and watched the two of you drive down the block and out of sight, hands clasped together wistfully as she turned back to finish placing the final decorative touches in the living room ahead of tomorrow.

Just a minute later, your dad came through the door from the grocery store, calling for her, sounding nearly breathless.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, smoothing the silk ribbon wrapped around the banister.

“Marie… did I just see Auston driving Kelsey down the road in a Porsche?” he gaped, his brow furrowed, thumb pointed over his shoulder.

She laughed, looking downward as she nodded.

“Yes, you did,” she confirmed, then looked at him as she felt tears welling. “Jack... I can’t say for sure, but I think maybe the girl is finally coming to her senses.”

A smile spread slowly across your father’s face and he came toward your mother, wrapping her in a hug.

“Well…” he began, kissing her temple. “Then maybe we’ll get our Christmas wish after all.”

“And what’s that?” your mom asked.

“For her to be happy again.”

_____

“You look amazing, Kels,” Auston said seriously from the driver’s seat. “Gorgeous.”

You gave him a coy smile and briefly inspected the outfit he’d chosen before leaving his own parents’ house.

“Thanks,” you said softly. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”

Auston grinned and decided he would take that.

Ten minutes later, he was pulling up to the restaurant you had already known he’d had in mind when he asked you to dinner, without even needing to discuss it. The same Italian restaurant where you’d celebrated infinite birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Days, and other milestones. You fell into easy conversation during drinks and appetizers before Auston told a comical story about his teammates which led to an in that he knew he needed to take.

“They miss you, you know,” Auston stated cautiously between bites of his shrimp scampi. “Mo. Mitchy. Especially Steph.”

You folded and unfolded the seams of the cloth napkin in your lap, considering your response.

“I miss them, too,” you eventually murmured. “So be real with me. You really like it there now?” you leveled with him.

His demeanor shifted — in a good way — as he replied. “It’s honestly great. I mean, you’d love it there now, Kels. I swear,” Auston said, shaking his head in wonder. “’M not just saying that. I mean, the hype is still there, yes, but it’s not at the level it was when I first started. Mitchy and Mo and Willy and I, all us guys who kinda started out together, we’ve all sort of found our groove with the media and stuff, and for the most part, it’s great. I have a feeling it’ll just keep getting better, too.”

You watched his eyes light up as he spoke about Toronto, relief and happiness washing over you. It didn’t seem so long ago that Auston was curled up on the couch, near tears, head in your lap, feeling incapable of living up to the expectations set for him — almost buckling under the immense pressure, the likes of which he had never felt before.

You let out a teary chuckle, swiping at a teardrop on your cheek that had fallen as he answered, taking you by surprise.

“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that, Aus,” you told him, holding your hand over your heart as it soared within you.

Auston nodded slightly, and his lips twitched into a sad smile. “There’s still something that doesn’t feel right though,” he confessed, though it didn’t feel much like a secret. “Still something missing.”

“And what’s that?” you asked timidly as you lifted your wine glass, excited for and fearful of his answer at all once.

“You.”

Forcing yourself to swallow your merlot so you didn’t spray it across the table, you put your fist to your mouth, holding it there while you attempted to process his latest, and most brazen, admission.

“I mean… look, there have been a few others,” Auston continued with a mindless shrug. “But never anything serious, and never anyone that I’m not constantly comparing to you in every possible way,” he told you, rolling his fingertips on the table and focusing on his hand as he spoke. “Feel kinda bad actually, because I know they all thought it was something more than it really was, and then I was always the one to break things off. I didn’t purposely lead them on, I just... once I got into it, I realized my feelings just weren’t in it.”

You opened your mouth to speak, hands limp in your lap, and then closed your lips in a tight line as you mulled over his words. You inhaled a shuddering breath and looked down, feeling the same shame that had overcome you countless times before come back again.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered without lifting your eyes.

“Kelsey…” Auston spoke firmly. “Look at me. Please.”

You did as he asked, lips pursed, and were met with his adoring, enchanting gaze, always too forgiving of your faults and mistakes.

“It’s okay,” he promised sincerely. “I understand. Trust me on that. I’ve always understood where you were coming from, but it seemed like there was just… just nothing I could do about it. Nothing I could do to make you stay, or to bring you back. That’s what made it so hard. That’s what still makes it so hard.”

You nodded. “Well — what you’re doing right now — whatever this is… it’s working,” you divulged, knowing this was a dangerous game and no longer caring.

“Is it?” Auston asked, a full-blown smile appearing now on his lips. Those lips you missed so damn much.

“Yeah,” you giggled, both of you grinning. “God, I missed your smile, Aus.”

“My smile?” he asked incredulously, then scoffed. “Your smile fucking breaks my heart, Kelsey,” he told you in his deepest tone, biting at the inside of his cheek as if he was trying not to lean across the table and kiss you full on the mouth right then and there.

And now, as you saw that look in his eye that you knew so well, you knew two things.

One, you were fucked. And two, you were in desperate need of a minute.

“I, uh, I gotta run to the ladies’ room,” you told him, standing, feeling unsteady as you pushed in your chair. Auston nodded knowingly and said, “Take all the time you need.”

You brushed a hand over his shoulder, the other holding tightly to your crossbody bag, as you attempted to walk in a straight line toward the restrooms across the restaurant floor. You were only one glass of wine deep, yet this night was making your head feel as fuzzy as if you’d just done a row of shots. Once safely inside the bathroom, you tossed your purse on the counter and held tightly to the sink to try and settle yourself, taking deep breaths in an attempt to control your racing pulse.

Just then, you heard a toilet flush, and your sense of solitude was quickly shattered when you saw a familiar blonde figure step out of the bathroom and lean closer upon recognizing you.

“Kelsey!” she exclaimed, moving toward the sink.

“Holly! Oh, my god,” you laughed as you squeezed her upper arm.

“Here, let me wash my hands and then I’ll give you a real hug,” she promised as you both giggled.

You had been a cheerleader throughout high school, and Holly, a year your senior, had been captain the year before you took on the title. Though you two weren’t particularly close, you had always looked up to her, and you’d kept in touch for a couple of years after you graduated before mostly falling off, save for the occasional hype comment or story reply on social media.

“How are you, girl? You look gorgeous!” she said as she threw her arms around you.

“So do you! I’m doing well, thanks. Home for the holidays,” you offered as she stepped back and nodded.

“Yeah, that’s great! Me, too,” she replied, then smiled mischievously at you. “To be totally honest, uh… I saw you when you were being seated. I didn’t wanna be weird or like, intrude, or anything but… I saw you come in with Auston. Are you guys like… back together?”

“Huh? Oh, no, no,” you laughed nervously, feeling yourself blush under her questioning. “We’re not back together. Just, uh, just two old friends, uh, catching up, ya know?” you reasoned nonchalantly as you reached for your bag.

“Oh. Right. Well... ‘tis the damn season, am I right?” Holly said with a chuckle, her own cheeks slightly flushed as she feared maybe she had made you uncomfortable by addressing the elephant in the room.

“Right,” you nodded cordially, then took a step toward her and patted her hand, wanting to make sure she didn’t think you were upset by her comment. “It’s so good to see you, Hol. I’m gonna head back out there—“

“Kelsey, wait,” Holly said urgently, grasping your arm before you could turn away from her. You blinked at her several times, glancing between her grip and her face as you waited to hear what had gotten into her.

“I just have to tell you... for what it’s worth, you guys still look so happy together,” Holly said. “Even if that’s not what this is. I just... I wanted to tell you that. As someone who has known you both for a long time, Auston never smiles as much as he smiles when he’s with you. It’s just nice to see.”

You gaped at your old friend, speechless, and she scrunched her nose at you. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to cross the line, I just...” she trailed off.

You shook your head, forcing yourself to act casual. “No, no. Not at all. It’s okay. Thank you, for telling me. I just, I gotta run,” you said, leaning in to hug her again. “Bye, Hol. Have a merry Christmas.”

“You too, Kels. See you around,” She smiled as you moved toward the bathroom door. With one last polite nod at her, you exited and escaped to your seat.

As you reached the table, you had to physically restrain yourself from reaching out and running your hand along the back of Auston’s neck and affectionately trailing your fingertips over the short hair there, as you had done for so many years when approaching him and sidling up to him. Instead, you smoothed your hand over your dress and sighed as Auston turned his head to look at you, grinning as he watched you sit.

“You get lost?” he teased. You chuckled, throwing your hair behind your shoulders.

“Something like that,” you muttered, immediately reaching for your glass of wine, which you could tell had been refilled in your absence. Auston hummed in acknowledgement as you took a long sip, watching you all the while.

“One more glass and then we get outta here?” Auston suggested as you set the glass down. You only nodded.

_____

“Remember when you had that old truck, with the tires that were always muddy, and we used to just ride around Scottsdale all night long?” you asked Auston, both of you reminiscing about days gone by after leaving the restaurant.

Auston nodded, running his pointer finger across his upper lip, the other hand on the wheel, as he watched the memory projecting in his mind.

“‘Course I do,” he told you, and you didn’t miss the way his tone changed when he did, making you smirk.

“So, where to next?” you prodded. “Back to Casa de Matthews?”

He shrugged ambiguously, but secretly, he knew just what he wanted to do. “We could just ride around. Like we used to. If you want. I mean, there’s no real reason for us to rush back to our parents’ houses, right?” he said with a snicker.

This could get messy as the mud on the truck tires, you thought, but your response was already tumbling from your lips.

“Okay,” you said, smiling at him. “I’d say let’s go drive through the rich neighborhoods and look at Christmas lights like we used to, but that’s where you and your parents live now, so...” You clicked your tongue and Auston rolled his jaw, acting completely offended to hide how much he had missed you chirping him. The way it melted him.

“We’re still going,” he insisted, turning the wheel at the next intersection and pulling a U-turn. “We’ll just, uh, we’re just gonna maybe skip a couple neighborhoods, that’s all.”

You laughed — a real Kelsey belly laugh — and Auston watched as you lit up his world yet again. He didn’t even need to see any Christmas lights this year. He had all the light he needed right next to him.

Minutes later, he passed the usual first turn on your holiday lights tour and you furrowed your brow.

“Aus, where are you going? I wanted to see Ranchero Nuevo first. We always start there,” you reminded him.

“No, what’s the actual first thing we do when we go see Christmas lights?” Auston asked, pulling instead toward the strip mall at the next light. When you saw the green glow of the Starbucks sign up ahead, you smiled as it dawned on you.

“Get hot chocolate,” you said fondly. Instead of answering, Auston simply sent a soft smile your way. “You’re the greatest,” you lauded, igniting a pride that burned bright in Auston’s chest.

“Anything for you, babe,” he said before he could even realize what he’d just done. He snapped his head your way and saw that you were trying your damnedest not to smile.

He was completely taken aback as you quipped, “You can call me babe for the weekend.”

Auston did a double-take and then nodded once at your phone in your hands, which had just lit up with two missed calls and a particularly accusatory text from one Alex Matthews that you decided you would have to tend to later.

“Write this down,” Auston instructed curtly.

“What do you mean?” you laughed, holding your phone up curiously.

“I want proof that you just said that to me,” he deadpanned, jutting his chin toward your glowing screen and sending you into a fit of laughter.

After you’d both recovered, Auston picked up your drink — large peppermint hot chocolate, like always — and a coffee for himself, and you set off to wind your way through the same neighborhoods you had driven through countless times, admiring most of the decorations and poking fun at the gaudiness of some, laughing all the while, without a care.

As he pulled into a neighborhood you knew to be just a stone’s throw away from where he had recently purchased a house, Auston took a deep breath, fingers gripping the steering wheel rigidly, and decided to take the leap and say what had been circling through his brain since you’d stepped foot in the vehicle after dinner but had only just now worked up the nerve to say.

“What if we didn’t go back to our parents’ places tonight?” he asked abruptly, the words sounding much more jumbled and rushed than they had in his head.

You chuckled anxiously, staring straight ahead. “What do you mean?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and pressed on. “Hear me out. What if we just went to my place for the night instead? I don’t mean to like… to hook up, or anything,” he assured. “Just to be together. I just… I really fucking missed you.”

Uh, whoops. He hadn’t exactly meant to slip that last part in there, but it was too late to turn back now.

There was a lengthy pause and the car was frighteningly silent as you weighed your options.

“Well...” you eventually said, nibbling on your bottom lip. “If it’s okay with you, then it’s okay with me.”

“Yeah?” Auston asked immediately, searching your face for confirmation that he had just heard you correctly. He couldn’t believe that this — any of this— was really happening.

You nodded.

“Yeah. And… Aus?” you spoke.

“Yes, Kelsey?” he asked softly, joy radiating from his whole being and seeping into his words.

You leaned your head back against the seat and reached to wrap your hand around his on the center console.

“I really fucking missed you, too,” you told him.

_____

“Why did you agree to come with me tonight anyway, Kelsey?”

You and Auston were each almost a full bottle of wine deep by the time he asked this, inhibitions now lowered. He’d barely finished giving you the tour before you were both so palpably overwhelmed by the reality of being alone together in his house, with so many feelings buzzing about frenetically, that you took the liberty of pulling a bottle of red from the wine fridge and asking for glasses and a corkscrew. Auston forked them over without question, and now you were deeply entrenched in the process of examining old battle wounds that had never quite healed.

“Because I missed you,” you answered truthfully. “And also because I owed it to you to accept your invitation when you took a chance by reaching out.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Kels,” he claimed, taking a swig.

You picked up your glass and passed by him as you began to pace the tile floor, unable to just be still during this exchange — this conversation that had been a long time coming.

“I do, though,” you argued. “You gave me everything. Everything. And I still left.”

Auston squeezed the stem of his wine glass so hard he feared he may just shatter it.

“I don’t want you blaming yourself for the things I put you through because of my career choice,” he said firmly, a hand splayed against his chest as he accepted the responsibility, just like he always did.

“But you didn’t choose to have the media posted up outside our apartment every day. You didn’t choose to have strangers stalking me and my family online. You didn’t choose to have them calling me a distraction and a leech and a gold digger and a wh—“

“Don’t say it,” he warned as he lifted a finger, referencing the specific instance of the smearing of your character that had left you broken enough to start packing your bags.

“Okay,” you conceded quietly, knowing just how sick that one word had made him. “But listen. Yes, you chose to play hockey. But you didn’t choose all that shit that came along with it. You didn’t know! Hell, you didn’t even get to choose where you played. But even so… honestly, I used to blame you for everything. Because back then, it was just easier for me to deal with it that way.”

Auston’s head hung between his shoulder blades as he leaned his palms against the bar, reliving the very same pain that had eaten away at him for the past three years, especially the acute ache that had come in the weeks immediately after you left.

“I know you did — blame me, that is,” he said softly. “And I understand why.”

You took slow and deliberate steps back to where he stood and rubbed your hand soothingly across his broad back, feeling the way his muscles relaxed under your touch.

“Hey… look at me, huh?” you asked, gently guiding his face toward yours with your fingers. “I don’t blame you, Aus. I don’t,” you assured, your eyes piercing into his. “Not anymore. I’ve grown. I know I did this. I know it’s my fault that we’re like this. I mean, fuck, I broke my own heart, and I know I hurt you. I just... at the time, I didn’t see a way forward on the road we were on.”

Auston’s mind was firing on all cylinders as he tried desperately to compute what he’d just heard, convinced he was gathering more from your words than you meant for him to.

“And now?” he ventured.

He watched as your pained expression turned to one of, dare he even think it, hope.

“I still see it, Aus,” you said. “I still see us ending up together. I know it’s out of the blue, but…”

“It’s not though,” he said, cocking his head a bit to punctuate his point. “I know it doesn’t make much sense, any of this, but… to me, it’s not out of the blue. I’ve wanted this for so long,” he told you. “And I just need you to know that. Regardless of what happens next.”

“Auston, you and me together… that’s the only thing that makes sense. That’s all that’s ever made sense to me,” you said, clarity washing over you. “But I just, I wasn’t ready. And I got so scared that I wouldn’t be able to handle your life that I… I just ran.”

“You can run, Kelsey,” Auston said softly as he, yet again, twirled a strand of your hair around his finger. “But only so far.”

“Yeah…” you whispered. Then, without hesitation, you grasped his chin between your forefinger and thumb, turning his face to yours and studying his brown eyes just for a heartbeat before pressing your lips to his.

And for now, that was all that needed to be said.

_____

You hadn’t slept together. But you had slept together.

Too much crying and laughing and kissing and rehashing and wondering aloud had left you both emotionally drained and physically exhausted, and after dragging yourself into the master bathroom to throw on a crewneck and a pair of Auston’s sweats, you’d promptly fallen asleep in his arms, a smile on his features even in sleep.

The next morning it occurred to you, with your cheek pressed against his bare chest and your legs entangled with his, that Auston’s bed — whether here, or in the house where he grew up, or in Toronto — was the warmest one you’d ever known. Though you could tell by the sunlight flooding the room that it was late in the morning, you couldn’t bear to move away from him.

Soon, he, too, began to stir. As he squinted in the daylight and peered down at you, he closed his eyes once more, a peaceful grin on his lips.

“Oh, thank god that wasn’t just a dream,” he whispered. You chuckled, your fingertips lazily drawing shapes on his pecs as you nuzzled your head further into his neck.

“Nope,” you established. “This is very, very real.”

You lay in quiet thought for a moment before adding softly, “But what happens now?”

At that, Auston’s eyes opened wider this time, a slight panic visible in his face.

“Well,” he began, smoothing his hand over your head and kissing your hair. “What happens now is that we get some coffee.”

You sighed at his attempt to make light of the situation and pushed yourself to sit straight up in bed, cross-legged in front of where he lay on his side.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” you spoke, your fingers pulling anxiously at the bedsheet below. “Yesterday was like a fever dream and now... now we have to face reality.”

Slowly, Auston sat up, too, and pulled you into his lap, allowing you to rest your back against his torso as he gathered your hair at the nape of your neck in a makeshift ponytail.

“Everything that happened yesterday was reality, baby,” he insisted, kissing the crown of your head.

“Our feelings, yes,” you allowed. “But not the rest of it. I mean, fuck, we’re both leaving town in —“ you glanced at the bedside clock and were shocked by the 11:27 that stared back at you, realizing you’d practically slept in half the day — “48 hours. And then what? I go back to LA and you go back to Toronto and we just wonder about—“

“Baby, stop,” Auston begged as he turned you to face him, bringing your forehead to his lips. “Take a breath,” he said, stroking your jaw with his thumbs as he looked down at you, concern etched into his features. “We don’t have to figure all this out right this minute. In fact, we’re not going to. For right now, let’s just let this be what it is. And you have to try and stop spinning your wheels so fast. You’re gonna burn a hole in my floor,” he joked, kissing your nose.

You chuckled sadly, holding his wrists. “You’re right,” you eventually told him. “We’ll figure it out, somehow. I know we will,” you sighed, frowning. “First things first though, I have to get home and help my mom get ready for the party tonight.”

Before you could get out of bed to start gathering your things, Auston circled his arms around your hips and kept you in his lap. “Wait, gimme a smile first,” he requested.

You looked up at him and offered a tight-lipped smile, still distracted by the future of your relationship teetering precariously in the balance.

Auston shook his head. “That’s a fake Kelsey smile,” he accused, accurately. “Don’t even try me.”

With another deep sigh, you muttered, “You’re the only soul who can tell.”

“Who can tell what?” he asked, hugging you tighter.

You looked up at him for a moment, feeling more seen than you had in years. “Which smiles I’m faking,” you said quietly.

A pleased smile twitched at the corners of Auston’s lips before he pressed his mouth to yours.

_____

Auston walked into your parents’ house that night with his understated charm and a devastating ensemble of a maroon suit, white shirt with the top few buttons undone, and black loafers, looking every bit the GQ model he was once upon a time. With two bouquets of red roses and a bottle of champagne in hand, he knocked on the glass and your dad met him enthusiastically at the door.

“What’s the occasion?” your dad then chuckled, a bit puzzled. Auston glanced to where you stood near the staircase, waiting to greet him, and smiled.

“These are for your daughter,” Auston said as he grasped one bouquet. “And these are for your wife,” he said as he gestured toward the other. Your dad raised his eyebrows, looking between the two of you pensively, and let out a loud laugh. “Well, how thoughtful! And the champagne?” your dad asked as Auston stepped toward you and tucked one bunch of roses into your hold. He kissed your cheek chastely and turned back to your dad.

“Well, you never know when you’re gonna have something to celebrate,” Auston said with a smirk. You pulled your bottom lip between your teeth and your dad clapped Auston’s back appreciatively before leaving the two of you to your moment.

“Thank you, for the flowers,” you said softly, staring up at him. “They’re beautiful.”

“You’re welcome,” he said with a nod before your aunt and uncle suddenly appeared in the doorway, loudly greeting you and pushing their way toward you for hugs as Auston gave them their space and waited for you to become available again.

His patience lasted all of five minutes as he made vague pleasantries with the handful of guests who had already arrived, before he was approaching you again, eager to do what he really came here to do and unable to wait a moment longer. As you turned away from a brief conversation with a longtime next-door neighbor, Auston gently grasped your wrist as he said hastily, “Can I see you outside for a second?”

You didn’t have much of a choice as he led you hurriedly through the formal living room and out the French doors to the balcony, closing them behind you and backing you into a corner, hidden from view.

“Aus, what are you—“

He pressed his body into yours, nudging you back against the rail as he took your face in his hands and kissed you hungrily.

“Doing,” you whispered when he let up, completing your earlier thought as you pressed your fingertips against your swollen lips and looked up at him, your cheeks reddening.

“That,” he answered simply with a small smile. “And I wanted to give you something...”

He patted his pockets to determine where the object was, and your eyes widened.

“Auston, no!” you exclaimed, squeezing his elbows in an attempt to stop his search. “You can’t. I didn’t get you anything. I —”

“Kelsey, are you crazy? Yes, you did,” he said firmly. “Time with you. You gave me time with you. That’s all I’ve wanted for the last three years. That’s more than I could have ever asked for.”

There was nothing you could say then, nothing that sounded worthy enough to hold any significance in such an already meaningful vignette of the two of you. Auston took your silence as his opportunity to pull a mid-sized, square, red leather box from the pocket of his suit jacket, the name “Cartier” imprinted in gold script on the lid.

“Auston, stop,” you warned in a whisper, knowing what was inside and knowing that you would be rendered completely incapable of walking away from him once he offered this gift to you, knowing what it signified for both of you. He shook his head, knowing that your request was an empty one. He propped open the box and placed it on the small wrought iron table in front of you on the balcony. You couldn’t peel your eyes from it as your mind raced with questions.

“How... where... we slept until noon, Aus,” you stuttered. “All the stores were closed. Where did you even buy this?”

He pursed his lips and nodded once, then put his hands into his pockets and admitted, “I’ve had it for almost three years, Kels.”

You blinked again and again, not processing what he’d just revealed.

“I’m sorry... what?”

“I bought this for you for Valentine’s Day three years ago,” he continued. “I bought it and I hid it in my closet and I was gonna give it to you but we broke up on —“

“January 30th...” you whispered. Auston’s brows knit together in agony, and his throat constricted.

“You remember too,” he stated quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah, I remember a little too well,” you said, sniffling as you glanced down at the box again.

Suddenly, your mind drifted back not to that fateful day in his apartment in Toronto, but instead to lying on your stomach as a kid in your family room, flipping through the pages of your favorite issue of your mom’s old Vogue magazines, as Auston used a yardstick and a Nerf ball as makeshift hockey equipment, taking shots at your couch again and again while you soaked in the photos of beautiful models, trendy clothing, and expensive jewelry, as visions of working at a fashion magazine someday twirled through your daydreams.

“Whatcha readin’?” a ten-year-old Auston inquired as he dropped next to you to take a break from his game.

“Vogue,” you answered, turning another page. “Like usual.”

Auston nodded, spotting a pretty woman in a tight black dress and commented, “Cool,” with a laugh. “If you could have anything in that book, what would you pick?”

Ever the master of sass, you rolled your eyes.

“It’s a magazine, Aus,” you corrected with venom in your voice as Auston rolled his own eyes. “But, if I had to pick... I know just what I want,” you informed him, leafing through the issue to get back to an ad in the front. When you finally found what you were seeking, you plopped the magazine down again, smacking your hand onto its glossy pages.

“That,” you said, pointing to the gold bangle. “It’s called the Love Bracelet. It says that it gets bought by somebody you love and then they have to use a screwdriver to put it on you.”

“A screwdriver?!” Auston asked incredulously. “Wouldn’t that hurt?”

You giggled. “No, silly,” you drawled. “It doesn’t hurt. But then the person who loves you is the only one who can put it on you or take it off you. You can’t do it by yourself.”

Auston nodded. “Cool,” he repeated, more seriously this time. You sighed wistfully as you gazed down at the bracelet.

“Yeah, but it’s a whole bunch of money, and my dad said he isn’t buying it. He said maybe my husband will get me one someday,” you said sadly. Auston watched your face drop, then, he got an idea.

“How about this,” he offered, nudging you with his elbow. “If I get famous for playing baseball, or hockey I guess, and I make a boatload of money, then I’ll buy you that bracelet. ‘Kay?”

You blushed, hunching your shoulders as you were slightly embarrassed by your best friend’s offer. Still, you loved Auston, and you knew he loved you. He was the only person you wanted to get that bracelet from, except for like, your mom or dad.

“Okay,” you agreed. “You promise?”

Auston dragged his index finger over the left side of his chest. “Cross my heart,” he confirmed.

This time, it was your turn to say, “Cool.”

“I asked my mom to hold onto it,” you heard him telling you now. Now that you’d become the people you’d said you’d be. Now that you both had grown into the farfetched dreams you’d shared as children. Now that you’d come back home — back to one another. Now that he was here, in front of you, again. “I just couldn’t bear to take it back, even though I honestly never thought I’d get the chance to give it to you.”

You were shaking your head endlessly, attempting to stop tears from streaking your face. “I can’t believe this...” you said, awestruck.

“I don’t have to put this on you right now,” Auston said, swallowing his own tears he felt creeping up on him. “I just want you to have it. It’s yours. You should keep it.”

With a few swipes at your undereyes, you rubbed away the wetness on your hands and then extended your left wrist to Auston. A smile flashed briefly across his lips before he set them in a straight line once more.

“Are you sure?” he asked, caution in his voice.

You pulled him in by his waist, beaming, before you answered.

“I’ve played this out basically every night since I left,” you told him. “Even when I was with somebody. I just followed the path my mind was taking me all the way to the very end, until there was no place left to go. And it always leads to you. It always leads me home.”

Auston pulled you into a searing kiss, both of you smiling into it, before he squeezed your hand and reached for the box, carefully disassembling the bracelet so that he could put it on you at last.

“All day I’ve been thinking about what I said earlier. About running,” you spoke as Auston worked on securing the bracelet. “I started running and running and it’s been such a mess since then. Nothing about the past three years made any sense to me. And then I saw you, and… it all made sense again. You and I were the only thing that ever made sense to me,” you told him, your voice wavering as he twisted the final screw into place, lifting the inside of your wrist to his lips and placing a warm, reverent kiss to the skin there, his eyes never leaving yours as he did. “So I’m done. I’m done running, Auston. I can’t run anymore.”

“You have no fucking clue how long I’ve waited to hear you say that,” Auston admitted, touching his forehead to yours before leaning back. “So, to your earlier point... what the hell are we supposed to do now?”

You ran a frazzled hand through your long hair and bit at the inside of your cheek as you formulated your response. “I mean, I have to go back, Aus. I’m working on a really big project...”

Your words put him into a tailspin of his own this time, watching the dreams he had let resurface over the last two days come crashing down in front of him all over again. You were eluding him. Again.

His ears were buzzing so loudly that he barely heard your next words.

“But maybe after that... I could come and spend some time in Toronto?”

Auston pulled his tongue away from the roof of his dry mouth and pleaded, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t say that unless you really mean it,” he said, desperation in his tone.

“I mean, really, I don’t have a choice,” you pointed out with a breathy laugh, your fingers tracing the cold metal of the bangle around your other wrist. “I don’t see any other way that this ends. Not after this. This perfect fucking weekend. I mean... do you?”

“No,” he quickly retorted. “No, I don’t. I was just scared that you... that this was going to be it for you. That we would have this incredible time together and then it would just be another chapter in the Auston and Kelsey history book.”

You smoothed your hands over his lapels, allowing your body to fully relax into his.

“Auston, this... this is different,” you said somberly. “Before, it all just felt like too much. I got scared. We were so young, Aus. I mean, we’re still young, but we were babies. And now... I’ve realized that dealing with the press and the social media and the fans... it’s worth it to me. I’ll never like it. But I love you. And that’s enough. That will always be more than enough for me — being with you. And I’m so sorry that it’s taken me this long, that it took me finally coming back home, to realize that.”

“Don’t be sorry, Kels, please,” Auston whispered, one hand clutching at your hip, the other tangled in the hair at the back of your head as he held onto you with everything he had, knowing he was ready to do so for as long as you would let him. “Just... just say it again, baby. Please?”

“I love you, Aus,” you whispered, tears falling freely down your cheeks as he pressed his forehead to yours. “I’m never gonna stop.”

“Don’t stop,” Auston pleaded, nuzzling his nose against yours before pressing his lips to your mouth. “Don’t ever stop. Promise?” he asked, his voice gravelly.

“Cross my heart,” you whispered, drawing a pretend line across your chest before cupping his cheek and kissing him tenderly.

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unpopularly-opinionated · 3 years ago

Link

I don’t play WoW but I used to play Overwatch and Diablo and this touches on just the general issues that are inside of Activision Blizzard right now regarding the major decline of World of Warcraft and how they’re losing to Final Fantasy XIV, how if the latest WoW expansion or Overwatch 2 flop as they’re projected to do then Blizzard’s most definitely going to pivot almost entirely to mobile games, and how the differences in age demographics are actually dividing the company into multiple camps.

It’s important to note two things: 1) this could be fake but also 2) the link came from Grummz, a former team lead on WoW and producer on Diablo II and Starcraft. It still could be fake despite this, but if he’s sharing it then I feel like there’s at least some measure of truth in this.

Transcription below in case this gets deleted and/or you don’t wanna click the link. Warning, it’s fairly long.

“I’m dropping this here after getting chewed out for three hours over shit the chewee did at work so fuck it. Assume larp and let me vent.”

>Shadowlands is a shitshow. Critical response, Player drop off and just about every engagement metric outside of cash shop have been catastrophic. No higher up expected this because of their “we are too big to fail, if we built it they will come” mentality. They refuse to accept their focus on the world being a begrudged mechanic to funnel players to raiding is not appealing to the player base at large because it appeals to them. They have spent the last 4 months trying to course correct but there is no solid direction and the response to 9.1 has only made things worse.

>Sylvanas is planned to replace the Arbiter despite so many people in the company and god knows how many online saying this would be a total replication of Kerrigans storyline in Starcraft 2 that killed none competitive interest in the brand entirely and you can only go “no, no they WILL like it eventually” for so many real world years before its time to change course. Thus far that has not happened.

>The elephant in the room is FFXIV. To the people in charge they are acting like this came out of nowhere and don’t even seem to understand why its drawing players away in their tens of thousands. We have all tried to highlight things it is doing that are clearly appealing to an mmo audience and not, in my opinion, focussing more on mobile game style retention traps to keep MAU users and habit forming personalities logging in. Its not that they don’t care. They just seem so pig headed and digging their heels in with their fingers in their ears thinking all the problems will go away because WoW is “too big to fail”, there will never be real competition and “they will keep coming back”. But they aren’t coming back anymore. Not in the numbers they used to.

>The people making the spending choices know this. The new model for WoW is market the hell out of a expansion pack for a huge quarter then use 6 month lock ins to pad numbers for the quarters after that. Even if corona had not happened 9.1 still would have been dropping after the initial 6 month subs expired to “keep the chain holding”.

>The mood in the company is tense but also very much “its just a rough transition period”. Activision has been pushing hard for Blizzard to release more regular product and to generate more income per user. As far as i know this is going to be a transition over the next 5 years to a much larger mobile/tablet gaming focus. By all accounts not just WoW but Overwatch was intended to be the moneymaker in the interim but once again someone had the bright idea to kill a game casual players loved on the alter of e-sports hoping for another Brood War. From what i hear the “told you so’s” were loud and a lot of people walked beyond Kaplan.

>The sentiment that was shared quietly in private but being spoken more often is simply that the leadership at Blizzard are not bad people, nor incompetent people but people who had to fill seats left when the old guard jumped ship wether they were suited for it or not. Brack is a genuinely good man out of his depth, Ion is a fantastic raid designer put in charge of designing a virtual world he has no interest or real ideas for and so on. They have been taking form the roles they excel at to be put in positions where they get to do far less of that purely because there is nobody left with the experience to do so and the trickle down is a lack of concrete direction, ambition and focus.

>2021 has seen the playerbase, media and gaming at large “turn” on WoW to a degree i don’t think the leads in their “positivity dojo” bubble considered possible. Its gone from people going “This is how Blizz needs to fix WoW!” to “WoW is no longer salvageable, time for greener pastures” and i think on some level this was never considered as a possibility so there have never been any major plans beyond the usual “try and minimise player drop off by arranging releases around competitors launching updates/products”. The official forums being filled with talk of FFXIV and worse “why do we actually pay a sub?” hasn’t helped.

>There have been some testing the waters lately from certain higher ups if we can remove the line “No King Rules Forever”. Read into that what you will.

>There are still arguments going on about the Kael’thas Voice actor shitshow. I don’t know much about it but i know its heated, wouldn’t be the first time a knee jerk reaction only seemed to generate bad press. We lost a noticeable amount of pvp engagement after the Swifty thing.

>The Preach interview was treated as a disaster and there was talk of more strongly vetting interviewers for “bad actors” and only engaging with a list of questions Blizzard provides. Some pointed out that could just be used to create some form of Fireside Chat akin to the FFXIV “Live letters” but that fell on deaf ears.

>The two sentiments right now among the team are either “we really need a win” or “theres a dedicated cabal of internet trolls out to kill WoW”. Right now we are crunching hard to get 9.2 ready to wrap up the jailors storyline so we can get an expansion out early 2022. If that doesn’t happen there are talks of major shakeups coming down from Activision that have been threatened for a few years now. Its an all hands on deck feeling thats been around to some degree since the “Is this an out of season April Fools Joke” Blizzcon. A make or break deadline is coming closer and things like Diablo 4 were not planned before then. Blizzard needs a significant win not just in initial profit but consumer goodwill. Nobody likes working at what the public now seems to see as “the bad guy” of the mmo industry.

>This has also made new hires decline. Not significantly but the “you WANT Blizzard on your resume” line doesn’t seem to have the appeal it used to. This has lead to more hiring via friend of a friend, to some rumblings about nepotism, and people severely lacking in experience “because they get great twitter optics”.

>On the topic of Twitter we are not being told to “disengage” from it. Multiple employees like Nervig and Holisky publicly attacking paying customers because they got too heated and couldn’t keep quiet is bad press that could have been avoided. A email reminder has gone around more than once lately stating “if you are not customer relations you should not be representing the company to customers, especially if you cannot remain professional”.

>Lastly the biggest elephant in the room is “yo’ boy” Asmongold. The newer hires cannot stand him. They have used terms like “toxic masculinity” and “dogwhistles to dangerous males” while some of the oldest crowd still remaining have called him “based” or “telling it like it is” which has lead to friction to put it mildly. People are told not to talk about him and the recent FFXIV stuff only made it all worse. The idea that an outside element can have such an effect on the product genuinely upsets people. Like Zach is engaging in some malicious act of cyberwarfare. Many of us have point out the now famous quotes by Naoki Yoshida about understanding that players will drift and we need to make something worth coming back to because they want to but some people for lack of a better word see out customers -or “consumers” as they refer to them nowadays- as some kind of antagonistic relationship where the goal is not being an entertainer putting on a show for a crowd but some kind of game hunter trying to trap a large, profitable kill. I wish i could blame Activision but this is a sentiment from more of the younger crowd than the “tech boomers”. Which personal opinion is probably why so many folks like Metzen and Morheim left.

>Before you ask, yes the topic of “wokeness” has shown up in group talks. Its not all some grand sjw conspiracy, people really do want to feel welcome and represented. However the “we need everything veto’ed by people not working on it to see if its inoffensive and bland enough” rubs some of us the wrong way. Like anything in life you can take something too far and lose sight of the core ideals and with everything gone on since Blitzchung it feels like people are forming little factions to pull people in different directions to decide “What Blizzards identity is now” and how to appeal to new players. There has been some drop offs with “go woke go broke” as the only answer in the survey when unsubbing but honestly we are losing subs in unforseen numbers anyway and still making more money than ever through cash shop “heavy users” so it honestly doesn’t make an impact.

>All in all things are rough right now. Blizzard doesn’t have the love of the customers anymore, is no longer treated as an industry giant and while D4,D2R and Immortal aren’t going to kill Diablo even if they fail the sentiment for World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are a lot more tense and stressful. The phrase “it might be good to brush up on your mobile development portfolio if we get another underperformer” has been doing the rounds a lot. If Shadowlands continues its stark decline and Overwatch 2 is looking to underperform like its current projections suggest i think the Blizzard of a few years from now will be imitating King a lot more than trying to learn any lessons from Square Enix’s mmo division.

#random #video games #Blizzard #Activision #WoW #World of Warcraft #Diablo #Overwatch #Starcraft #Activision Blizzard

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amethystroselilith · 4 years ago

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Seelies and Treasures

I was inspired by the Seelies in the current event, thus another Chilumi fluff

SUMMARY: An AU where Childe's free-spirited adventurer with a Seelie companion who wanted to find him the greatest treasure.

Can also be read in ao3: here

He watches as his fellow Seelies got adopted, no matter how much he glows in his bottle, he’ll always be overshadowed by the Rosé and Curcuma Seelies.

Another day has passed as the owner closed her stall, the old owner looking at the leftover Seelie on the shelves, with a sigh.

“Don’t lose hope, little one,” she said as she picked up the bottle, “I’m sure you’ll find a great home soon.” she smiled.

The Seelie had heard that a thousand times and each of those times have only been lead to disappointment.

Curcuma Seelies are always in demand as it brings good fortune, making them the top choice for adventurers who seeks treasures. These golden Seelie are pretty rare to find in stock in stores.

Rosé Seelies are known to bring love to whoever the Seelie had fancied, they are not typically the easiest to keep since the owner would have to prove the Rosé Seelie they’re worthy for their blessings, some of these powder-pink Seelies will even abandon its owner in favour of someone else. However, gaining the Rosé Seelie’s favour will lead them to a life full of warmth and love.

And there’s the Dayflower Seelies, the least popular choice. These sea-blue Seelies aren’t really popular for leading people to a chest full of mora or bringing romance in someone’s life, they are known for just tagging along to keep you company in adventures.

They used to be popular before, but as time pass, people would prefer Seelies that guarantee to get them what they want as soon as possible. All Seelies are great companion, the Curcuma and Rosé ones just have a little advantage over the Dayflowers.

The old lady placed the Seelie bottle back in its shelf, ready to retire for the night until a voice came.

“Ah, I guess I came to late.” the visitor sighed in disappointed.

The old lady chuckled at the young man, “Unfortunately. The Curcuma and Rosé Seelies are sold out.”

A blue glow came from the shelves, making it stand out from the darkness.

“Oh, looks like there’s still one!” the man’s face brightened up, causing the glow to grow intense in its own excitement.

“Ah, yes, we still have a Dayflower Seelie left, the last one actually.” the old woman said.

“Can I adopt it?” he asked.

“Oh, but you do know what Dayflower Seelies are, dear?” the old woman asked, though she would like to finally give the lonely Seelie a home, she doesn’t want it to be abandoned when someone learned that they’re not the most efficient treasure finders nor they guaranteed a happy love life.

“I’m fully aware, miss, they sound like the best adventure companions to me!” he grinned, “I don’t need an easy way to get a treasure, sounds like a dull adventure, nor am I really looking for a lover at the moment.” he blushed at the last part.

“My sonny, with that dashing looks, you wouldn’t need a Rosé Seelie to find you love.” the owner chuckled before picking up the bottle, smiling warmly at the glowing Seelie inside,

“Your time has finally come to shine, little one.”

After finishing the exchange to become a Seelie owner, the young man made his way, going in a quiet area before releasing the Dayflower Seelie from its bottle.

The happy Seelie excitedly jumped around his new owner, looking at him in different angles, curiously studying him.

“I’m glad to see you’re excited as I am, comrade!” the man chuckled before the Seelie settled in front of him, “I’m Childe.” he smiled.

~~~

“Ahaha! Did you see that Little Comrade?!” Childe excitedly asked the Seelie after the last Ruin Guard fell down, “Whoo, that was a great warm-up.” he sighed happily after having a thrilling battle against 4 Ruin Guards at once, his bow dematerialising to wherever Childe stores it.

Little Comrade did a happy spin before he and his owner walked to the chest.

“Whoa! A Luxurious Chest! Haven’t seen these in a long while! You did amazing Little Comrade!” Childe said excitedly, petting the Seelie before opening the chest and collecting the loot.

It’s 2 years since the Dayflower Seelie had found his home. Childe is the best owner the Seelie could ever ask for. They went to various adventures, slew a lot of enemies, and loot a lot of treasure. The free-spirited adventurer lived for thrilling battles, always aiming to be stronger as their adventure progress, so it’s no problem when the Seelie will sense a treasure locked around challenges.

Childe gets annoyed with puzzle challenges though, and it usually takes them so long to get the loot, and treasure is still a treasure. Even common chests are still valuable as it gives some mora, artifacts, and some materials to make him stronger.

“Well, now that I’ve warmed up, let’s get to work on commissions, yeah?” Childe smiled at the Seelie before they used a warped point to teleport to Liyue Harbor.

The ginger-haired man continues talking with the Seelie listens, “Do you ever wonder how these teleport points work, Little Comrade? Cause like…”

The Seelie never meant to doze out on Childe, and this is one of the times his thankful he can’t talk or else he’ll get easily caught when Childe asks something for his opinion. While Little Comrade would always listen to Childe, something is just bothering him.

Childe is really kind to him, he never shouted at him when he accidentally leads them in circles when the treasure was just a few steps away from them in the start, never got annoyed with him when he only received cabbages from beating up an unusual hilichurl, or when they got surrounded by dozens of treasure hoarders in exploring ruins.

Little Comrade wants to do something in exchange for all those times, the little Seelie had been trying so hard to find Luxurious chests, but unfortunately, he doesn’t attract the same luck as a Curcuma Seelie does. It doesn’t stop him from trying though, he sensed a Luxurious Chest earlier, and just like how he’s been patient in that shop a long time ago, he’s determined to never lose hope.

They have arrived at the Adventurers’ Guild, Katheryn giving Childe a list of commissions before informing him of a letter.

“You know, you’ll get more benefits if you actually joined the guild.” Katheryn of Liyue reminded.

Childe shrugged, “I like adventuring freely, plus Little Comrade is doing great in giving us a comfortable life with what I currently earn from these commissions.”

Little Comrade nodded, he also knows of Childe’s tendencies to go… a bit overboard in defeating an enemy. It happened one time when a group of treasure hoarders threatened to go after his family. Childe had taken care of the entire group, the Seelie is not sure what happened to them when they left them barely alive, but he knows they’ll never bother them again.

The whole scene can be traumatic and will cause most to immediately fly away from Childe, but the Dayflower Seelie had pledged loyalty to this man and would accept his flaws as much as the great qualities.

Katheryn just sighed, “I knew you’ll say that.”

“Then what’s the point of asking?” Childe chuckled.

The woman just shrugged, “Would still be worth it if you actually agree. There’s also a pair of travellers that just arrived in Liyue a few days ago. They’ve also been taking commissions but hasn’t officially joined yet.”

“New travellers, huh?” Childe hummed, “What are they like?” his curiosity grew, will there be finally worthy opponents in this place?

“Well, they’re great at what they do, that’s for sure. The only people that’s been taking the dangerous ones aside from you.” Katheryn hummed as she checked her logs.

Childe’s eyes widened, “Huh, looks like we have some rivals, Little Comrade.” he smirked at Seelie.

Childe always loves challenges and Little Comrade will make sure his partner will win.

~~~

Childe and Little Comrade were having lunch in a ruin, “Ah, that’s a really good meal, huh, Little Comrade?” Childe stretched before leaning on a large rock, “I guess we can finally read our family’s letter.” he remembered the letter Katheryn passed him before he left.

The sea-blue companion hovered on Childe’s shoulder, he doesn’t really know how to read, he just likes to sit on Childe’s shoulder when he reads.

It was the usual contents, them scolding Childe when he told a story that sounds dangerous, them telling stories from their end, and the usual ending…

“Still waiting for the day you’ll bring the brightest treasure in your life.” Childe ended with confusion.

“We already brought loots from a luxurious chest last time, and it’s still not enough?” Childe sighed before closing the letter.

Little Comrade lowered his ears, disappointment once again in himself for failing his partner.

“Don’t be sad, buddy, even I’m confused with what type of chest is better than luxurious.” Childe cooed as he gathered the Seelie in his hand to pet it.

The Seelie perked up, showing a new determined glow.

Childe chuckled, “That’s the spirit, Little Comrade!” he said forming a fist with a hand.

Little Comrade bumped it before doing a backflip, the best he can do for their secret fist bump.

“Well, that treasure isn’t going to find itself, so let’s get walking, Little Comrade,” Childe said as he extinguishes the fire he used for cooking.

They were about to walk out of the ruin until a noise was heard, Childe immediately summoned his bow, eyeing his surroundings careful.

A loud noise was heard and the ceiling trembled.

The pair silently followed the noise, Childe climbing up through a gaping hole in the ceiling. Carefully peeking from the wall, his eyes squinted in curiosity.

There was a blonde girl climbing what seemed to be a geo construct, Childe watched as the girl summoned another geo construct on another pillar, the girl jumped again, gliding to the other rock, unfortunately, her stamina didn’t seem to be enough.

“Ojou-chan, hold still!” Childe had run, Little Comrade following.

There’s a giant hole on where she’s falling, Childe jumped over it, catching the girl before they rolled around on the floor.

“Lumine, are you okay?” a new voice arrived.

They turned to the newcomer, whose face burned red in anger, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he shouted.

It was too late for Childe to realise how they look like. The blonde girl was under him looking at him with wide eyes and a red face, her arms trapped under his weight while one of his is on her waist while the other beside her head. In a no context view, he looks like he was about to force himself on her.

“W-Wait-”

It was too late for Childe to explain as an anemo force threw him on the other side of the room.

~~~

“I’m really sorry for my twin’s action.” the blonde apologised with a bow, a Rosé Seelie beside her doing the same.

“You can’t really blame me for that,” her twin mumbled as he carried Childe’s weight out of the ruin, a Curcuma Seelie hovering beside him watching curiously at the Dayflower Seelie frantically checking on Childe.

“Ah, it’s really fine, ojou-chan. And don’t worry, I would’ve acted the same if I saw my sisters in the same position.” Childe smiled weakly, an arm hugging his torso to ease some pain, “And I’m fine Little Comrade, you can stop fussing now.” he chuckled at the blue Seelie who had been worriedly hovering around its owner ever since he was thrown to the wall.

“So, Lumine and Aether,” he learned their names, “what are you guys doing here? I don’t see a lot of people venturing in these areas.”

“Commission.” the twins answered in unison.

“We’re supposed to find someone’s belongings here,” Aether explained, “We already have it, but we like to explore the ruins, there’s usually a lot of treasures, I just wish my dear little sister wouldn’t be so careless.” he sighed as he looked at his twin.

Lumine blushed in embarrassment, “It was a time challenge.” she defended avoiding any eye contacts.

“You could’ve waited for me.” Aether rolled his eyes.

Childe watched in amusement as they began to bicker, his eyes staying far too long on Lumine.

Their eyes met one another, causing them to flinch and look away.

Lumine’s Rosé Seelie pushing her face to turn to him again.

“Hey!” Lumine’s face burned red as she quickly turned away again, glaring at her Seelie who just twirls around happily.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Aether who clenched his jaw in annoyance, not wanting to think about it, the male twin looked at the Dayflower Seelie, “A Dayflower, huh? It’s rare to find it with an owner. You saved it?” he asked.

“No, I adopted him about 2 years ago, been the best adventuring buddy, right, Little Comrade?” Childe grinned before initiating a fist bump, to which Little Comrade followed.

“That’s cute.” Lumine smiled.

Usually, Childe just smiles when people are impressed with his Seelie, but somehow the blonde was giving him a weird feeling in his stomach. He chalked it up as some injury from his hit earlier though.

“I just saved mine earlier and we’ve never got this much mora in a single day,” Aether said, smiling at the Curcuma Seelie, who jumped excitedly at the praise.

“Lumi’s was found a few days ago. We finished clearing a hilichurl camp when this one just started following her.” Aether explained.

The Rosé Seelie twirled as if to introduced itself before nuzzling on Lumine’s neck, “She’s been a delight so far,” Lumine giggled and Childe never thought giggles could sound so beautiful.

Aether rolled his eyes, “And we all know what Rosé Seelie means… Whoever bastard dare come close to my sister better have a ton of Curcuma Seelies because there’s no way in hell I’m giving her away that easily.”

Little Comrade who had been observing Childe and Lumine glowed a determine glow.

Challenge Accepted.

~~~

“How are you feeling?” Lumine looked at Childe with worry.

Childe looked like he was really in pain when they arrived in Liyue Harbor, the twins had immediately brought him somewhere to patch him up. Only to discover that something with a bit of cursed energy had stabbed him. Luckily for him, it was only a small sharp rock and it’s not a complicated process extracting the toxins from his body. It took them until night, but Childe is safe.

The bandaged man just smiled from the bed, “Eh, I’ll live, are you worried, ojou-chan?” he teased.

“I just feel bad, it’s my fault in the first place,” she mumbled before awkwardly taking a seat on the sofa placed in the room.

It’s not like she isn’t comfortable with Childe, it’s just there’s something in him that also makes her feel suddenly self-conscious. She chalked it up as her guilt though.

“You shouldn’t be, but you should be careful when adventuring.” Childe just chuckled before reaching for the food that was set in front of him, an arm was bandaged, making it useless until it was fully healed, so Childe had to use one hand for a while.

Little Comrade perked up, he looked at Childe, Lumine, and the Rosé Seelie, who seemed to have the same thing in mind.

The Seelie looked at each other for a minute before Little Comrade started taking Childe’s hand, “Hey, hey, calm down, buddy.” he said as his Seelie took over his palm, nuzzling in it needily as if seeking for comfort.

Childe had seen him act like this before, it was once where Childe was gravely in danger from a fight with a Cryo Abyss Mage and a Ruin Hunter during a rainy day. The Seelie was panicking at losing his partner, it refused to leave Childe’s side for a long while after that, even ignoring a few treasures when it sees in a shady area.

“Looks like he was really worried for you.” Lumine observed, “I’m really sorry the trouble, little one.” she sighed until she felt her own Seelie nudging her, “Huh?” she looked at it with confusion.

Using all its might, the Rosé Seelie pushed Lumine off the sofa and near the bed.

“W-what…?” Lumine watched the Seelie then nudge her hand to a spoon on Childe’s plate.

Childe’s and Lumine’s face burned but for some reason, Lumine had grabbed hold of the spoon and letting the Seelie guide her hand gently to Childe’s mouth.

The Snezhnayan isn’t usually like this, he’s always staying unfazed even when he had walked into two treasure hoarders getting it on in one of the ruins a couple of runs ago.

But this time feels so different, he’s lost at what he should do, and maybe, just maybe there’s something in him that seemed to love the attention he’s getting from the blonde girl.

Lumine is also not one for being easily flustered, after travelling worlds with her brother for so long, there’s just so little that will leave her speechless, but this is a new thing. She would never admit it to anyone, but Lumine had always been curious what a relationship would be like. She used to be in love with the thought of being in love, but after no luck for so many years, she just gave up and accepted that maybe love was just not something she’s blessed with outside of her familial relationship with her twin.

The twins have learned of the Seelies in Teyvat, so when Rosé Seelie started following her, Lumine can’t help but have those feelings started blossoming in her chest again, she’s used to disappointment though, so she tries to keep the feelings down, convincing herself not to expect anything out of it.

But why can’t she do that right now?

Childe opened his mouth, accepting the food and smiling at Lumine after swallowing, “Thanks, ojou-chan.”

They don’t know how, but it’s as if the Rosé Seelie had shot them with cupid arrows, making them fall easily comfortable with each other.

They started talking and sharing stories, completely getting lost in getting to know each other.

Childe didn’t notice Little Comrade freeing his hand.

Lumine didn’t notice her Rosé Seelie had stopped guiding her hand.

Both didn’t notice a fuming brother peeking through the door.

~~~

Little Comrade watches as Childe excitedly scribbled words on a paper, it’s almost that time where they will go back to see their family. Childe had been busy buying gifts for his family for the past few days.

“Hey, you.” a pair of arms, gently wrapped themselves around Childe’s neck, “It’s getting late.” she hummed before brushing his hair up with her hand and kissing the side of his forehead.

Childe released a content sighed, leaning back to his lover’s arms, “I’m almost done, though I’ll have to drop this to Katheryn after.” he explained, shuffling a bit to pull Lumine on his lap.

Lumine chuckled making herself comfortable in his arms, before seeing the letter, “What are you writing about?” she teased as she poked Childe’s cheek.

“Hm, just talking about how wonderful my ojou-chan is.” he grinned widely when Lumine blushed.

“Very funny.” Lumine rolled her eyes with a huff.

“No, really, look, we can read it together,” Childe says as he held the paper up for them to read.

Lumine’s heart leapt in joy, she can’t help but bathe in that happy feeling as her lover shares something personal to her. As their relationship progress, Lumine started to feel comfortable with her feelings, letting them blossom without the fear of disappointment as her Ajax continues to prove himself as the best man for Lumine. Well, best man next to her twin, of course. No one will ever replace Aether in her heart.

Aether who had tried so hard to drive Childe away by sabotaging every move he tried on Lumine. She still remembered that night a few months ago where she had been feeding Childe. Aether straight away took her place as his nurse and had tried to choke him with a spoon as if it wasn’t enough that he’s the reason Childe’s there in the first place.

“...instead of her falling on the ground, she fell for me instead…” Lumine read before giving Childe a look, “Really, Ajax?”

“Little Comrade agreed it sounded cool.” he defended, “Right, buddy?”

Little Comrade agreed before nuzzling himself against Lumine’s chest.

“Hey, hey, buddy, that’s my woman.” Childe playfully scolded, poking the Seelie gently.

“To be fair, I wouldn’t be your woman if it weren’t for him and Primrose.” Lumine teased.

She had finally named her Rosé Seelie. She and Childe thought about it together actually. Originally, Lumine wanted to call her “Love” corny, but simple. Childe protested that if Lumine’s going to call someone “Love”, it’ll only be him.

Upon hearing her name, Primrose appeared and sat on Childe’s head, “There you are, little one, are you excited to go to Snezhnaya?”

Primrose did a happy twirl.

“Well, finish up your letter, yeah? I’m going to call Aether to see if he’s ready for Snezhnaya.” Lumine said before kissing Childe’s lips softly before looking for her phone with Primrose following.

Childe hummed happily before finishing his letter.

After sealing the letter in, he shouted to Lumine he’ll be out.

As he and his Little Comrade walked the quiet streets of Liyue, he turned to the Seelie.

“Thank you for bringing me the brightest treasure I could ever ask for, Little Comrade.”

#chilumi #genshin impact

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uniarycode · 3 years ago

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Dawn and Dusk

Series: Xros wars/Hunters

Written as part of @digiweek. Day 4, prompt: dark/light

Set shortly after the hunters go to Hong Kong.

Wordcount 2966- a bit heftier than the rest of what I've been posting

Trigger Warning: Suicidal thoughts.

Yuu did not bring many friends home to the Amano penthouse, but whenever he did the reaction was the same: pure, unabashed jealousy.

His parents were obscenely rich, he was wise enough to recognize it was more than just well off. His home was a middle school student's dream: indoor hot tubs, rooms one could reasonably play basketball in, and no parental supervision. Now, out on the balcony, he could look down and see trees the size of Legos, and a view that stretched out to the ocean. Most kids his age could not help but be envious. To Yuu however, only one feature stood out prominently.

Just how empty it was.

That void grew greater in its sheer size. Ceilings twenty feet high only served to underline just how little there was left to fill the silence. The distance between himself and those he could see on the ground, more metaphor than physical.

His recent trip to Hong Kong had only made this emptiness grow. He loved his sister, and while he’d thought himself used to her absence, it now rushed back to him in full force. They had spent years together in this home, and no matter how many corners it had, each and every one of them hid a precious memory between the pair.

His parents were away; his parents had always been away. Working, logging thirty hours every day to ensure that both he and his children’s children would be able to maintain this life of luxury with no effort on their own part.

So devoted were his parents that the very idea of indulging in such opulence like creature comforts or family were beyond them.

It had taken years for Yuu to associate the concept of ‘father’ with the man who bore the title. And in turn, possessed by Harpymon as he was, his father had not recognized him at all. Next to the protective love for his daughter, the son apparently did not matter at all.

Of all things, Yuu had been mistaken for a prospective suitor, which was certainly not something he wanted to unpack.

And that had been the first time he’d seen his father or his sister in months. Only once before in the year since returning from the digital world had he seen them together. He didn’t hate Nene, he couldn’t hate Nene, but even still, having her leave him like this…. Resentment wasn’t the right word. Bitterness was closer but didn’t quite fit. Envy was the most accurate of the bunch.

Yes, he was envious of Nene, for being able to go out there alone and fulfill her dream, while leaving him behind staring into memories of the past.

“You’re just like Nene.” He’d been told many times, from those who thought it a compliment. They were wrong, he’d initially believed they were wrong on both counts.

Yuu was smart, he knew it, even if he tried to be modest. Concepts just fit together to him in ways as naturally as walking. He even struggled to tutor others. The very idea of not understanding something was one of the few things he himself struggled to understand.

Nene was also intelligent, but it was far from natural. Whatever she did, she threw all her effort behind. With her being the eldest and thus the designated heir, failure was not an option, and she took advantage of every resource necessary to outcompete and outlast the others.

There was only one word he could think of to describe Nene at her most focused: Ruthless. There was no doubt about the success of the Amano corporation under her leadership, she would crush everyone she needed to crush and think little of the consequences. Even in her current profession: becoming an idol was merely a test of how far she could push herself, and Yuu sympathized with any who made the error of underestimating her.

But then, Yuu sympathized with everyone. That had been the other difference he’d believed existed between the siblings. From the lowliest ant to the grandest emperor to the most heinous criminals, he couldn’t stand to harm any of them.

Even the girl who would break the rules to try to steal his friends and swore to turn him into her prisoner, he just couldn’t bring himself to do any lasting harm to. He simply told himself if he was kind enough, if he showed how outmatched she was then Airu would eventually come around, or at least get the help she needed.

His parents had learned his bountiful generosity early. They only sent gifts these days, any allowance would immediately and indiscriminately be forwarded to various charities. He had never seen the problem with it; there were millions who needed money more than him.

He had, in childlike fantasy, seen that as the main distinction between himself and his sister. She had been named for dusk, and he for dawn. She had thrived in cut-throat competition, he had blossomed in a world without scarcity. She was the harbinger of darkness and despair, and he would be the one to lead others to the light.

And yet, he had, with these hands, “So easily…”

And she, in all her ruthless determination, had halted him, saved him.

Even if he didn’t deserve to be saved, maybe it had been out of her own selfishness. Why was his life worth any more than those he’d ended, those he’d tortured? Simply because she knew him and had an emotional attachment? But even that was a blemish on her, sticking her neck out for the likes of him. And he’d done it so easily before, with so little prompting. Who was to say he couldn’t do it again? “Wouldn’t it have been better if I wasn’t saved at all?”

He discovered a surprising bonus to just how long the drop off the balcony was.

“No good, No good.” A voice called out from his pocket. “Thoughts like that are no good at all.”

He stilled his breathing and took a step back. Damemon was right of course. There would be no penance found in death. He couldn’t die now, with the hunt on and needing to help with the digiquartz; his death would be only one more burden he was imparting on those around him.

But he needed to be careful. Damemon was no longer the only Digimon in his Xros loader. He had hunted Superstarmon. That was the point of the hunt, to capture all the Digimon, lost in the Digiquartz.

But the simple idea made his stomach turn. Digimon were living beings, with hopes and dreams, they didn’t deserve to be hunted for sport any more than Taiki or Nene did.

He didn’t feel bad about hunting Superstarmon, the Digimon had himself been hunting Taiki. What worried him, what scared him, was how much he had enjoyed the act of hunting. Of manipulating Tagiru and Ryouma into a situation where he could steal all the glory. Of joint-crossing with Taiki, something that he had been the only one of the original Xros Heart generals to never actually do. Of sneaking Tuwarmon in at the end to steal the capture out from the other hunters.

If he found himself enjoying fighting a bit too much, if he found himself taking joy in the pure act of hunting like Tagiru did, or sacrificing morals for his goals like Airu did? Could he? Would he go back to those times? If he would, shouldn’t he do anything it took to prevent it from happening again? Even if….

He shook his head. If nothing else this last year had proven just how wrong he had been; being compared to Nene was a compliment he didn’t deserve.

His empathy prevented him from truly stopping deranged criminals before they hurt more people. His aptitude was a gift born of biology and circumstance, not an accomplishment to be paraded around.

Even now, he was paralyzed by his own darkness, wallowing in it. While she was on stage, inspiring thousands, becoming the light that kept them moving.

Damemon popped out of his Xros loader. “You need to talk these things through, you can’t just keep it all bottled up.” His partner said.

Talk to whom? This was one subject that he couldn’t even breach with Damemon. ‘Sorry I’m so terrible you had to fight for evil and die’ was even more destined for disaster than his current train wreck of thoughts. “It’s no worse than normal.” He said.

“This is normal?” Damemon asked, seeing through him in an instant. “You need a better normal.”

“It’s just.” He exhaled. “I don’t know.”

And he didn’t. This wasn’t the answer on some test, and he was too wise to search his own knowledge of psychology for an answer. There weren’t any therapists that he could confess to without being either dismissed or thrown in the looney bin. “I got spirited away to another world and became a villain.” is the plot of some anime, not real life.

Tagiru wouldn’t understand. Taiki...might, he was at least physically present and could understand the magnitude of it all. And Taiki was the one who had originally broken through his wishful thinking. But Taiki also tended to attempt to shoulder all burdens by himself, even if there was nothing he could do. There was no reason for Taiki to exhaust himself just for Yuu’s sake.

And somehow, he was too embarrassed to share this weakness with his leader.

“I’m telling you it’s no good.”

It took a few seconds for Yuu to realize his partner wasn’t talking to him and had instead taken advantage of his introspection to swipe his phone.

“Hey.” He objected, reaching down to reclaim it. “You can’t just go calling people.”

“Yuu, are you okay?” His sister’s voice called from the other end of the phone “I’m heading over.” She declared.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, you don’t have to, you can’t-” The line was already dead, he didn’t know how many of his feeble protestations she heard.

The average flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo took over four hours. How Nene left her apartment, procured one, and arrived at his door in less than 2 he didn’t bother to ask. It would have at least required breaking the sound barrier.

But then, barriers had never stopped her before.

“What’s up.” She asked simply

He did his best to muster a scowl. “You didn’t have to come all the way out here; I can take care of myself.”

As was his custom, Damemon destroyed whatever farce Yuu presented. “It’s no good, Yuu’s been having no good thoughts.”

“No good thoughts.” She said quietly, looking between them. “Yuu, you have to understand that wasn’t your fault.”

He quaked but did not respond, her hand reached out to rest on his fist as she repeated herself. “It was not your fault.”

“But it was.” he drew back, “It was my fault. If it hadn’t been for me, then hundreds, thousands, who even knows how many! They all wouldn’t have had to suffer! None of them would have had to die!” he threw his arm out, knocking over some cabinet, a priceless vase colliding to the floor.

Nene seemed unfazed by his outburst, “Bugramon was the one who chose the path of war. You had nothing to do with that, he chose to make them suffer, not you.”

“I chose! I saw them suffering, I saw their pain and I ignored it. No, it’s worse: I enjoyed it! I felt like a god, being able to choose who won and who lost. Using some as pawns to die and keeping others alive for my win.” His voice dropped. “Bugramon didn’t do that. I was the one who did it.”

“That wasn’t your fault either. Darknightmon tricked you. Even I -”

“-Because of me!” he shouted “He used me to enslave, he used me to manipulate you. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have had to stain your perfect hands. -”

“-Perfect?”

“- God I’m such a screwup. You’re the heir, you’re the eldest. Literally no expectations on me except ‘don’t mess things up’ and I turn both of us into mass murders.”

He felt her arms wrap around him, pulling him close. He couldn’t find the strength to break free, so he stayed there, staining her shirt with his tears.

“I am not perfect.” She said “You are not a screwup. And neither of us are mass murders.”

“We, we.” He couldn’t bear to say it. “It doesn’t matter if they came back. I still…” he unleashed another bought of sobs.

“No good, that thinking is no good.” Damemon insisted. “Death is different to us Digimon. It is unpleasant yes, and best to be avoided. But it’s not like humans do. Digimon never completely die.”

“We are not mass murders.” Nene insisted. “That doesn’t make what either of us did okay, but neither of us are truly murders.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed. His fingers curled into fists. “Even if Digimon come back, humans wouldn’t, right? Taiki had to trick the rose to be set free, you couldn’t just kill him and revive him. And he, I almost.” he couldn’t even bear to say it. “…It was so close.”

Yuu felt a bile burn in his throat, remembering just how little effort more he would have needed to snuff a life out completely. “You too Nene. If Minervamon hadn’t hidden in your Xros loader. In that case I would have, and you would have….”

“But you didn’t,” she said, “and you didn’t intend to. There’s no point worrying about what could have happened if it didn’t happen and you never intended for it to happen. I know you would never want to hurt me.”

He shook his head. It was easy enough to say no harm done, but his nightmares disagreed. Whether or not he was intending to kill her, he was certainly intending on putting a blade through her heart. And he almost did.

She took advantage of his silence to score one more point. “And I am far from perfect. I’m not like you, I stumble more than anyone. Grandma did use to say, it took me a year to learn how to walk, you did it on your first try.”

What did that matter? It wasn’t the first attempt anyone remembered, it was the last one.

“But you always stand back up, and right now, I, I don't.” he swallowed. Everything came to him as easily as walking, and yet, “I don’t always know if I should?”

His sister didn’t respond at first. Perhaps even she was caught off guard by his confession. But then, stumping Nene was a feat he dare not have the audacity to claim.

She held him, bringing them to the ground. One hand rubbed his back, up and down, up and down. “You know, if something were to happen to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

“You would survive.” He muttered, “You always seem to.”

“In name, maybe, but I wouldn’t enjoy any of it. I can’t see life without you.”

He continued to sniffle. God, he was so pathetic, crying here like a baby. “I’m not worth it-”

“You are!” she insisted. “You are worth it all. If anything, your biggest issue is you don’t know your worth; you’re too selfless, you value everything else above yourself.”

“I-I-I” she pulled him into her shirt more fully, muffling his resistance.

“One of these days I’ll teach you to be selfish like me. Until then, we’ll have to weaponize that selflessness of yours.” She pulled him away and stared him dead in the eye. “I want you to promise me, whenever you feel like you can’t keep going, whenever it feels like too much, you’ll find a way to pull through. For me.”

He took a few deep breaths. “That’s awful selfish of you.”

“I said I’d teach you to be selfish like me. You’re learning from the best.” She said “Promise.”

“I could never break a promise with you.”

They stared at each other for a few more seconds.

She took a deep breath. “I told you I stumble more than anyone. I’ve faced failure after failure. Going to Hong Kong, Father cut me off. I had no money, no connections, I had to start from zero. I thought there was no way I could keep going more times than I could count.

“And when those times come, I think of you. I think about how you’d stop everything, just to give a funeral to a butterfly. I think about how you’d always try to help everyone, even when too young or too small to be of any real use. You are my light, the thing that keeps me going even when immersed in darkness.”

Her hands were now on the side of his face, forcing him to look at her. “Now promise. Promise me that wasn’t all in vain. Promise me that I won’t lose my reason for continuing to push myself. Promise me you’ll keep going, if only for my sake. That’s all it has to be for now.”

Yuu took a deep breath, body shaking as the request percolated through him.

“I promise.”

She smiled, and pulled him close again, suffocating him in her embrace. “And now your first lesson in selfishness: Just let it all out. Don’t worry about me or Damemon or anyone else.”

That night Yuu released a year’s worth of tears.

Note: one etymology for Yuu is twilight, which doesn’t have to mean dawn, but it kind of fits here.

#digimon #digiweek2021 #digimon xros wars #digimon hunters #yuu amano #nene amano #tw: suicidal thoughts #Aka the fic that took over my life for a bit #Yuu needs more hugs

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