#any of that matter in the grand scheme of things? no- i will be happily enjoying my tall weird lanky man

[blizzardfluffykpop]

i hope losing your mind in a good way lol

I am ebhbha- I always mean it in a good way but esp rn with the monkees (mike nesmith 😌🫠💖)

[hungnitan]

Penacony TB 2.1 Impression

Contains heavy spoiler and mostly a rant so don't read it if you still not finish the story (lol)

Before unto the stories, I must say I kinda get the reasons why hoyo put Acheron in first banner and Aventurine in second half after read TB 2.1. For Acheron, I think her identity as emenator nihility is the key lore to expose before 2.1 began so there's need to expose it at trailer (despite her reasoning coming to Penacony still unknown somehow lol). While for Aventurine, this is kinda delulu on my side but there's possibility we might know the things happened to him after 2.1 from his daily message.

Onto stories, I only say one line... IT'S VERY HONKAI VIBE ! Telling one person stories from they born into the one we know now with angsty vibe of course lol. You know, the things I scare when hoyo release Acheron trailer and myriad celestial is how Aventurine past can beat that honkai queen and (un)fortunately I was wrong (lol)

IT'S FULL BLOW OF AVENTURINE DARK PAST and yeah hoyo score a full mark with it !

For composition I think it's 80% Aventurine PoV and 20% others which is unsuprisingly since I'm pretty sure he will not appear again for future Penacony chapter but what I'm suprise is so far Astral Express basically can't do anything much in Penacony so yeah Xianzhou Luofu TB back again.

Despite that, I'm very happy with TB 2.1 like this is what Honkai story should do ! Up until now, I always thought HSR still not show their full equipment and pretty weak with their story, Tingyun only snapping some head isn't near those previous Honkai heels you know (lol).

I'm going to talk a long rant on 80% since hoyo decided to love him with his so well written stories and I love him too (XD)

The things with Aventurine and Ratio, I guess this what we would called "same mind don't need talk much". They're bickering so well, even acted betray each others without any communication and smooth enough to fool Sunday

But sorry I'm not getting fool (I know they're soulmate lol), the reason is I found one hole in Sunday Ratio convo here

Ratio saying about cornerstone is so precious to ten stonehearts but the box contain can be opened by other than them ? If that's true, I can't believe someone like Aventurine would risk someone like that participate in his grand scheme without reasons... plus Ratio doesn't strike me as someone who sells his teammate or what he called him lol no matter how iritatting he is especially only for pursuing knowledge, since it sounds so idiocy.

Suprising fact, he even try kill himself few times at dreamscape ! Like is that something you can try out of fun even If knowing you can't die ? Well yeah, in first place he doesn't mind to die anytime but doing it yourself and passive talk are two different things you know...

two question I thought Aventurine never answer directly which is pretty related. First of all, different than Sunday which I think he's type of "I will kill everyone and then myself if they hurt my sister" but he's already at own limit to think for his own survival + he doesn't have anyone to get revenge for. Elation still have some excitement when saw someone in despair but I don't think Aventurine (at that time) could feels same, well we don't know things after 2.1 since his past chains severed by Acheron, maybe he will open a new leaf (I hope so, let him live happily ever after with Ratio or Elation or even Trailblazing with us sounds good too lol)

It stabilize the fact that Aventurine and Ratio are good friends despite their talk, voiceline, and teammate voiceline at least from Ratio side which is the vital point Aventurine still alive as now. I really skeptic on his dead or alive status at 2.1 livestream, well mostly I can't believe any Shaoji said that time (plus the fact Gallagher is just a normal bartender lol)

TB 2.1 conclude with opening a new terrain with dreamscape's secrets, the Family and Watchmaker aren't same side, IPC will added another ten stonehearts member to game, a mysterious voice will join the fray. Penacony story so far so good, even their newest branch stories execute nicely but I don't have any excitement anymore now knowing Aventurine not gonna show up anymore (XD).

Now with Aventurine closed his screentime, I think Acheron (her past and purpose coming to Penacony still not reveal much), Firefly Sam (SH motive and she need to pursuading TB), Jade and/or Topaz (replacing Aventurine role) will play a bigger parts for future version

Put aside that, my 220 pull still on waiting for Aven banner ! I kinda had bad feelings about his banner pull, even my relics planar farming still not done even after I started doing it from BlackSwan banner...

[melancholymirth]

❛ i would let you rip me apart if it meant loving you. ❛ gary again... !!!!!!

prompt

If only that were possible, and if only Garrett would allow him to offer the same—but he'd never want V to hurt himself, much less to be hurt by another. By him. But, perhaps more than anything, V wanted to prove his heart true, and he wanted to prove the depth of those emotions; he wanted to prove how full, how complete, how devastating it all was, beneath flesh and muscle and bone where he harbored the most of his pain, his joys and his love, where he had Garrett and where he'd kept him safest.

The words were breathy, hot, moist on his skin as Garrett spoke them between kisses. He made a trail from V's collarbones to the base of his sternum, and onward from there. Lips would stray to his ribs, reminding him of how little meat he had on his bones. However meager his flesh, he had forgiveness in him in spades. He wished Garrett to know it; he wished that Garrett would make love with him now not because of the principle, but because of why they always would. Simple whimsy, hearts gone too far, urges immutable; but something about it now, when it came like this, was deliberate beyond making love.

It almost felt like proving it.

Fingers came upon his thighs and held them apart, and when Garrett mouthed down, down, V sucked in a sharp breath. Hips twitched, hands were brief fists beside him. He'd almost forgotten that he had cried. He wasn't sore or brokenhearted anymore. Garrett made it up to him before they'd gotten here, starved for each other's faith; he had simply been there and breathed, and supported V's weight, and held him like nothing else existed, and kissed his brow and made promises about hearts never failing and things never changing. It was enough to comfort V, but not enough in the grand scheme—for either of them. And, now, here they were, moved on from words to action, to touch and feeling and instinct. They needed this, just to fill whatever cracks remained. And if V could make a good man feel whole again, forgiven and valued and loved, he was only happy to be here, seated on the sofa without a lick of clothing on in the middle of the day, for the sake of mending hearts. Kissing and petting, groping and nipping, Garrett on his knees before him, like a sinner in the throes of repentance.

It ultimately didn't matter what Garrett had said to him; and bless that man's heart for wanting to make up for it at all. He had done no real wrong, intended no harm, and only because V crumbled in front of him with childish tears moments ago, he felt the need to fix and heal, and to remind all over again that his love was worse than any plague, any wildfire, any god-awful, stupid thing he could say. And when words of devotion weren't sufficient, his body did the talking.

My love. Shallow, fast breaths and a pounding heart were nothing V felt ashamed for. Lust-fogged eyes were torn between a steady gaze that was fiery, hungry, and a tongue that was deliberate, teasing, making his hips squirm and his voice small with little gasps and moans.

V listened, always. Always ready to forgive because he didn't have the heart to bear a grudge, no matter how petty, against the man he loved like nothing else. He might have been driven to foolish tears before, but they were dry now. Now, he was the one who wanted to tear himself asunder for the benefit of his husband and himself. But perhaps this—letting Garrett pore over him, wash the hurt away with kisses, worship every pale inch he so much liked to—would satisfy them both, for today. V quieted down when Garrett pulled away to kiss a hot trail up his chest, more words of ardor and fealty burning through V's ears, until teeth nibbled on collarbones and hands came to his sides to squeeze. The biting, the swearing of sacred oaths; Garrett's mouth was hot on his throat, fixed over the pulse point while his mate whimpered beneath him, vocal again, brows tight, a flame in his belly, happily at his mercy. Were he any more a wild, carnivorous, unbidden beast, he may have begun his feast there—and V would have allowed it if it meant all of his soul would be bared and made plain to a man hungry for affirmations he'd never spoken for. But here was the insatiable demon, wanting to be the one ripped open instead! And V would only be happy to dive right in. Peel the flesh, bust through the ribcage and—

Ah, but that is a ghastly thought. To love another so strongly that a hellacious appetite digs itself out of the recesses of every scruple known to man was a dangerous thing to evoke, to even imagine, even on a playful, teasing whim. And the desperate devotion V and Garrett had shared was anything but a playful, teasing whim. V might have feared it, a little; but he feared worse a fracturing of ties, and so he both allowed and gave himself up more than willingly to the demonstrations before him now, enduring every heated breath, kiss, caress and tease that gave him gooseflesh, made his hips buck and his back arch and his legs squirm with indecision.

As though it'd been too long, too necessary, starved lips crashed and bit and sucked, obsessed with one another and only getting greedier. No space for even an amorous word here or there; wet, swollen gates allowed none to pass. V's heart beat against its bony cage, calling on a heat from deep within to make him flush and his belly roar with emptiness. Desperately, he hooked his arms around Garrett's neck, begging without voice to be consumed, or set ablaze, or redeemed, or saved from his own foolish mind. But he found a precious moment for words, speaking without breath. "I wish... I wish you could see inside, how rich and thick my blood, how hot my heart." He reached out to Garrett's cheek, a simple, fond touch, thumb rolling over moistened lips. "But, if you can feel it, when...our roots together join..."

Hungrily, he claimed his mate's face with both hands and pulled himself in for a another bout of kisses that were abyssal. His mind wasn't so fogged that he didn't know he was standing himself up, arms around his waist helping, eager to meet Garrett at full height without an ounce of shame about him. His fingernails caught on the fabric of Garrett's shirt, clutching like it didn't belong. He'd do away with it yet. To bite at the flesh there, hard enough to mark like he meant to eat his way through—

Most he did was slide his wanton hands under the garment, feeling up tight muscles and then lingering over hardened nipples.

A part of this, maybe a lot of this, was plain insatiable hunger. Mouths heatedly broke away, only for V to fix him with knitted brows and eyes that wanted to mist for the second time that day. But, he shook his head, denying that and any more gloom to breach his safe haven.

"Oh, please, let have me a chance. If you want to be torn apart, devoured, then let me." A flicker of light in sweet, green eyes. He had forgiven; now he wanted to give. Gently, he pressed his lips to Garrett's jaw, starting a trail of his own that took him down his throat. "I love you enough for this," he whispered between kisses, breathy and warm on ink lines both bold and fine. "And never any less." And then you can try me. As if in response, he felt larger hands reach for generous handfuls of his derriere, pulling him impossibly close as though there remained any room. V whined dryly when he felt fingers reaching between, and for that little bit of encouragement he dragged his own nails down wonderful, delectable abs. Ah, Garrett—a feast of a man.

Fuck, they had appetites.

[ssaalexblake]

I made a comment about Tecteun being kind of like the evil stepmother trope but not the other week, and how it bucks trends usually seen in this type of story. But thinking about it, there’s a reason Why it bucks trends. 

It’s because in the evil stepmother stories, the child involved escapes When they’re important. it doesn’t matter why or how they’re important. Cinderella wasn’t a super important figure destined to save the world, she was merely important to her step family because she provided free labour and therefore gave her stepmother and sisters free reign to be free themselves and not waste time on chores. The loss of Cinderella hurt nobody but the people exploiting her, her being free did not make the world a better place. It was just one less child being exploited. Cinderella was not important in the grand scheme of things in general, but she was to Them. 

The timeless child is, actually, Cinderella. Wanted for nothing but aiding the advancement of Tecteun, the evil stepmother. Even before the regeneration discovery, the child was merely a curiosity to research for her. First the child’s usefulness comes as a hobby, then as a science experiment lacking all morals, and finally as an agent for division. They have no choice in this as Cinderella had no choice but to do her chores. 

But Cinderella’s a fairy tale. A poor used and abused child meets a prince and secures a way to escape her evil abusive family, she lives happily ever after and They don’t. 

This story with Tecteun and the child isn’t a fairy tale. It has the broad notes, you recognise the players as those in a fairy tale, but the narrative veers off into a sad story, one without the rescuing prince or any agent of liberation. You are witnessing a tragedy. By the time Tecteun dies, the damage was done So long ago it is not cathartic, it’s merely infuriating she got off so easy. 

If this were a story of happily ever after, if this were the usual evil stepmother narrative then somebody, Anybody, would have swooped in and rescued that child. Yes, they’d have suffered first, but they’d have gotten help from a person who was Kind. Maybe even somebody who bothers to remember their name. Because sometimes fairy tales are just a reminder that kind people exist and are out there even when you don’t know them. And Tecteun would have been left beaten, her research unfinished because the child she took ran away and escaped! Even after All she did for them (sarcasm). 

But no, the child didn’t escape When they were important to the antagonist, so the antagonist wins. This story happened a long long time ago, in a land far far away, and the child did not get a fairy tale ending, they were used, abused and dumped, their memory erased, left to fend alone for themselves and nobody even knew it happened for millennia and the architect of this evil barely gets any comeuppance.  

The child Does escape, eventually. But they never achieve full autonomy until the society that did this to them is in ash and ruin. 

This story Really plays into familiar tropes but then does not lean into the endings we think it will. There is no happily ever after. The doctor escapes the machinations of the society that did this and it leaves her traumatized and reeling because the escape was a genocide committed against them. 

The timings are all Off for this story to feel anything more than just Slightly familiar. There’s only an almost. 

This story isn’t a fairy tale, it doesn’t have the happily ever after. The wrongs were committed and they’re horrifying. 

But somewhere in there, the doctor saved themselves and made themselves a better person just because they wanted to. It’s not a story about everything being negative. The classic tale may be absent from the narrative, but it has a more complex vein of positivity spun through it in that Eventually this child Did escape and live and Thrive. Even if they don’t totally manage to erase their ties to this society, they came So far. 

This story kind of bucks what narrative you think it maybe should have through popular storytelling. There isn’t actually anything fundamentally wrong with that. This story is when Cinderella escapes her evil family because, maybe the mother dies of old age, maybe some accident befalls the sisters, and Cinderella is left free without them. Maybe they find a better person to serve them and just ditch her. Maybe she has had enough and just runs away and never looks back. Either way, It’s Sad she did not escape earlier, but it’s still good she did eventually. Her freedom matters no matter how late it happens. 

[hailmary-forgiveme]

i know its not impossible to live a normal, happy life as a person with mental issues, but sometimes it seems like such a foreign idea. i dont think i can ever be loved because there is js something wrong with me n im not pretty or thin. i understand why i barely have friends, i understand why no one would ever like me romantically. i think my friends barely tolerate me. i js wish is could be better and perfect, or as close to perfect. i dont want to feel fucked up. sure, i know nothing i do as a teenager really matters (at least when it comes to the relationships n friendships i have) in the grand scheme of things, and that everything is temporary. in a few years, i wont remember all of these thoughts i had right now, in this exact moment, but im still feeling the emotions, and it affects me greatly, no matter how much i try to say it doesnt matter, its a temporary. but thats whats terrifying; its all temporary. i wont be remembered. i will probably just be the kid who was quiet and barely had friends in many ppl's memory. i have done nothing to make sure i leave a mark on this world. i dont think i have even left a lasting impression on someone. i just want to know that i will be remembered and loved. maybe i just have to wait until i do something noteworthy, maybe then i could be loved, but honestly, i dont know. i js feel like i will be alone forever. i wont have friends or a family or anyone. i feel like im so difficult to love and/or befriend. i just wish i was better. i wish i was like my best friend. she is perfect, so many ppl love her, and reasonably so. shes beautiful n fun n a great person all around. i wish i could be like that. i hate myself so much. i miss being a stupid child who didnt know anything and thought i was gonna live a happily-ever-after, disney princess story. im sure kid me would be disappointed in current me. not last year me tho, last year me would be proud. but me from 10 yrs old n before, yea, she would be disappointed. i was supposed to be better than this. what happened? i was supposed to be a happy teenage kid. i wasnt supposed to be this. im sorry. im so sorry. i wish i could fix myself. i wish i could become what i truly wanted to be. i dont want to be like this. i swear i can be the good little kid again, i want to be her, please. i dont want to be me. please, i js want to be okay again. i wish i had go thru with my suicide plan last year, or the year prior to that. i didnt mean to live this long. i dont want to live any longer. i need to rest.

[joseopher]

Great poll! One note: The Atlas Six is not a romance, at all. It is literally my FAVOURITE BOOK EVER but if you read it thinking it's a romance you will be so devastated.

There aren't even any what I would consider romance "subplots". There are characters with messy and complicated relationships but a) it doesn't follow the beats of a romance at all b) the book isn't focused on the romance c) most of the relationships aren't really romantic, a lot are purely sexual and almost all of them cannot be described without going into a rant on the characters because they can't be summed up with words such as "platonic" or "romantic". Plus romances require HEA and this book is SUPPOSED to be tragic (that doesn't mean all of the interconnected relationships end badly just that it's certainly not a "happily ever after" so to speak).

The thing about The Atlas Six is that it's a philosophical exploration. It's about how those in power abuse every privilege they have inadvertently causing harm to others and sometimes purposefully ignoring horrific acts for the sake of profit. By the end of the series, it will make you feel like NOTHING matters, especially not you and you will feel hopeless that you can't change how awful the world is. But it will give you hope in the end. Maybe you can't fix the world and maybe in the grand scheme of the universe you don't matter but you can matter to others, they will weep for you when you die or if you are suffering or if you accomplish something great. Sure the world doesn't care if another cog in the machine is killed off, but if you can build relationships with others, friends, family, hook-ups, even lovers, then it will matter to them. You matter to others, therefore you matter.

None of this is a spoiler btw just the themes. I 100% recommend it as it is so amazing, but if you go in expecting a romance you'll feel let down.

these are just the books on my tbr and other random ones I found on booktok. If your rec isn't on this list, please drop it in the comments!

[tellerluna-stories]

a lover’s oath (valentine's 2022!!)

PAIRINGS: childe, kaeya, diluc, gorou, n thoma x reader (separate). totally not biased at all!!!! //hides simp list discreetly

DESCRIPTION: scenarios depicting how they would show their sincerest affections for you. pure fluff for the most part, hurt/comfort + fluff for kaeya and gorou.

TW/CW: teensy mention of blood in childe's scenario, implied ptsd in gorou's.

A/N: hAPPY (belated) valentine's day! this is the first time I've written something for a holiday that more or less happens to be on time for said holiday. these days I've been really stressed out bc THESIS so I wrote these lil scenarios for myself as a treat <3 special thanks to my beta reader for coming up w the title!!

if you enjoy reading my work, pls consider taking this survey or sending in a ko-fi! it'd mean the world to me （*´▽｀*）

tartaglia:

there is nothing that childe would rather do than to give you the world at your feet; why, he’d even give you his very soul if you would allow him. but you had reprimanded him sharply when he brought it up for the first and the last time, saying that you’d much rather have his soul in his physical body, alive and well, than offered up to you as if he were a human sacrifice. a particular emphasis on the words alive and well.

you aren’t like teucer, whose youthful heart is easily cheered with new toys and adventurous stories. so instead childe gives you another gift, one that he knows hold more value in your heart than any gaudy trinket bought with the wealth he has accumulated. he gives you himself.

he gives you his time— no matter how short his visits are, he always makes sure to stop by your home to check on you. he gives you peace of mind on his well-being; childe no longer cares to rip into the battlefield without minding his own safety, for he knows how many sleepless nights you’ve spent dressing his wounds and worrying about him. mind, heart, a listening ear or a shoulder to cry on— whatever he can give, he gives freely, for his heart is his present to you, something that is meant to be yours and yours alone.

oh, but do not be mistaken here; he still longs to conquer the world for you, to make it a kingdom that he and you can reign over and live in happily ever after, like something straight out of a fairy tale. but the harbinger knows that the source of your happiness is not found in grand schemes of fame and fortune, no— your happiness comes from the simple joy of being in a world where you and he are alive at the same time, a happy existence where your loved ones can rejoice with you in peace and harmony. childe’s greatest wish is for you to have what your heart desires, and if he must give mind, body, soul and spirit to grant it, then so be it.

so he chooses to protect that simple, dream-like world of yours, much like how he protects the childhood dreams of his siblings. it is a far cry from the usual sort of striving he does, the one that requires his hands to be stained with bloodshed and misery— but the smile on your face is more than enough reward for childe’s efforts, worth more than any spoils of battle that he’s won in the past. if little gifts such as these are what gives this idyllic world to you, then childe is only too willing to surrender himself wholly to such a cause.

kaeya:

honesty is a rare luxury for kaeya to have— all last shreds of that trait had seemingly withered away long ago, unable to withstand the poison of hollow words and empty promises. for one whose entire life is built upon a foundation of falsehoods, the truth is the most terrifying thing a liar could ever face.

to kaeya, words are many things; weaponry, armour, and a way of getting by in life. lies are nothing but a means to an end, a way to getting the things he wants like the greedy sinner he is— but he doesn’t use them on you. he cannot bear to curse you with the weight of his lies, no matter how desperate kaeya is for your love; that, and he’s afraid of facing his truth, of whatever ill-omened burden he may become to you.

but then again… the truth terrifies him, yes, but what is far more terrifying is a future where you slip through his fingers, all because he was too paralyzed by fear. it is this new, greater terror that pushes him into a slow, tedious crawl as kaeya seeks to discard his cloak of lies; this fear pushes him to become a better man, to win your heart without a single honeyed word from his lips. you were the one to give him your complete honesty and trust, and to break it would break him too.

at first, it feels as if he’s tied one arm behind his back. without his reinforced armour of facades he feels awkward and clumsy, and kaeya admittedly fumbles more than once when he crosses paths with you. there is no-one for him to ask about these things, and to admit that he was lacking in knowledge would be a blow to his pride. but love makes fools out of the wisest men, as the poets say— and kaeya would rather be a courageous fool than a coward. making a fool of himself would make you laugh more anyway, and his dignity was a fair price to pay for a little piece of heaven.

eventually he learns to laugh with you, at the sheer absurdity of it all; no-one could’ve ever imagined the silver-tongued cavalry captain of the knights of favonius quaking like a leaf when he holds the door open for you. nor could anyone have pictured him tucking a cecilia behind your ear, immediately hiding his trembling hands behind his back afterwards like a shy school-boy. straightening your collar right before you attend an important event, giving you the pieces of food that you liked best while stealing the food you hated from off of your plate… these were all silent, domestic gestures that he was certain he was unworthy of, but they tasted like freedom all the same. even if you laughed at him and called him cheesy after.

it was in this manner that kaeya found a way to be honest with you; there was no need to worry about the sincerity behind his words if they remained unspoken. perhaps someday… someday he would be redeemed, and that day he might muster enough courage to become a truly honest man. but for now, kaeya was content with things as they were.

diluc:

diluc is not a man of many words. he prefers to act rather than to waste time talking— in his eyes, there is no point in using up precious minutes to chatter away about senseless formalities when one could be taking action and doing something. in that sense, he is an impatient man; but when occasion comes to rise, he will speak directly from his heart. sincerity is not something to be hidden away like gold in a miser’s safe, and diluc does not wish to be miserly when it comes to his relationship with you.

simple phrases such as ‘your outfit suits you well’ or a sincere ‘you’ve done a good job today’ are the most he can vocalise, for he doesn’t have the courage to spin sugar-coated compliments like a certain cavalry captain; it’s simply not diluc’s style, and whatever part of his brain that is responsible for forming words freezes stiff when he tries to come up with something to say. as a result, he sounds gruff and terse when conversing with you, leading many to the absurd misunderstanding that he harboured some sort of secret grudge against you.

it is only too fortunate for him that you are familiar with the language of awkward shyness; it’s almost impossible for him to fathom how it’s mere child’s play for you to understand the intentions behind his faltering words. he feels safe in the knowledge that you understand what he means, but he longs for a way to speak his truths, his testimonies to you— ah, if only his tongue did not betray him so.

but where diluc’s voice fails him, his pen compensates for the gap; it strikes him like a bolt of the blue one day, while he fills out paperwork. letters, letters, letters.

they are a heaven-sent miracle for one as tongue-tied as diluc, flying down to earth with wings of pale parchment to give a voice to his deepest thoughts. his writing-desk is soon crowded with stacks of the finest paper that money can buy, while quills, ink-pots and the like become an even larger part of the daily expenses of his household; for with each page he writes, he grows more sure of what he wants to say, and each letter he sends is even longer than the last. inked with pure sincerity and sealed with goodwill (and perhaps a loving kiss or two), your mail-box never fails to overflow with his affections for you. now that diluc has found his voice, he decides to use it— and what better use has a voice than to speak to the one you care for most?

gorou:

when one is entangled deep within the horrors of the battlefield, things such as safety and warmth are scarce to be found. touch is the last thing that comforts you, for the most physical contact you will find in a warzone is in harsh blows to your face and body, or the deadly kiss of a blade held to your neck. all soldiers sleep lightly because they fear the sharp sting of enemy steel on their bare skin; it is this fear that propels them to fight for a safer land for both themselves and their people.

for a while, gorou was incredibly wary of being touched after the end of the feud between watatsumi and narukami island— any unnecessary contact would send him in high alert, his teeth baring into a half-growl by instinct. even the slightest nudge in his sleep awakened him immediately, his entire body stiff and tense till he realised that it was just you; it takes time before he allows himself to lean into your touch without flinching, to indulge in the safety he felt only around you. it feels almost too good to be true, and he half-expects to wake up from what feels like a faraway dream.

but it isn’t. the sensation of your hands gently brushing his tail is heavenly, an almost out-of-body experience for gorou, but it is anything but a dream. he wants nothing more but to fall asleep in the warm sunshine as you pet his ears, dreaming of catching butterflies to put in your hair— ahem. the point here was that he felt warm and safe with you by his side.

nothing feels more secure to him than having your fingers intertwined in his as you wander the streets of inazuma together, or having you lean against his shoulder to rest. although he usually tries to keep his demeanor as an intimidating war-general who has braved a thousand battles, gorou is the one who initiates crossing his ankles with yours while waiting for your food to arrive. his tail wags most conspicuously— but who would care about such a thing in a moment like this? plus, the more his tail wagged, the more likely chance of you wanting to pet it.

(in the distance, a certain kitsune smiles conspiratorially at the oblivious couple— with this new development, it would appear that miss hina would have better love advice for her readers in the future. well, all the better for her investments, yae miko supposes.)

thoma:

thoma is a busy man; working for the yashiro commission is no easy task, especially if one is a vassal of the kamisato clan. time is a commodity that he does not always have the luxury of spending as he pleases, which brings him quite a problem on his hands: how is he to spend time with you when there is so little of his own to spare?

however, he is not one to be easily deterred by such obstacles. many days and sleepless nights were spent rearranging thoma’s to-do list to keep at least one day free for you, but alas! just as he would adjust his schedule, new tasks would crop up like pesky weeds. honestly, it was as if the whole world were against him spending time with you.

but his problems were solved when you showed up at the yashiro commission one day, declaring yourself as a new member of the staff (and with a document bearing the official seal of commissioner kamisato to prove it, no less!) after due verification from furuta, thoma was delegated with the task of being your supervisor.

“are you sure about this?” he asked hesitantly, for thoma was all too familiar with the stigma that surrounded the idea of doing house-work; though it was not an issue that necessarily bothered him, it was not something that he wanted you to experience. but you merely brushed his concerns aside with a toothy grin and dove into the chores head-first, forcing him to follow after you; thoma had always spoke of his passion for house-keeping with pride, so why should you be ashamed of something that he enjoyed so much?

that is an argument that he cannot disagree with, and eventually thoma accepts that this is going to be a new part of his work-life now. the two of you fall into a comfortable rhythm as you become accustomed to the other’s work-pace; you methodically wipe the dishes dry as thoma washes them. he scrubs the laundry, you hang them on the wash-line to dry in the sun. he sweeps, you mop— you dust the shelves and he wipes them down with a damp rag right after.

it certainly isn’t a fancy date at uyuu restaurant, but it is something more valuable to thoma. spending time with your loved ones doing something you enjoy is always an enjoyable experience, and the fact that you had gone out of your way to spend time with him made his heart flutter in odd ways. and perhaps… doing housework with you made his mind wander off to faraway places, to a hazy daydream with the two of you in a house of your very own. but thoma was too embarrassed to admit it now— he’d tell you later on, once he had found a proper ring.

[demadogs]

Hi,i have this doubt. The duffers said the ending of st5 will be emotional,that some co producers cried knowing the ending and they can’t satisfy everyone with the ending.. what do you think this means? This statements scream to me that someone is gonna die,what do you think?

i think no matter what, the ending will be very emotional so they might not be referring to a main character death but that does sound like someones gonna die. i think the “not everyone will be satisfied” part could be referring to the endgame couples. not even just byler but jancy too.

also i forget her direct quote but millie said that the duffers are too attached to their characters to kill any of them and honestly shes right thats why they keep adding new characters that are written to die from the start instead of killing the og gang. maybe it’ll be different this time since its the last season and its not like theyre killing off an actor and wont be able to work with them again but idk. heres what i think:

will dying honestly just wouldnt make sense at all. they need the satisfaction of this character whos been suffering from the very first episode to get his happy ending or honestly just ANY ending/closure thats not death. i cant see them having this character suffer alone in the upside down, be possessed, be ignored by his friends and feel behind in growing up, fall in love with someone he assumes could never love him back, and then DIE???!! that’d be insane. it would be a very incomplete character arc. i unfortunately think he would be more likely to die than any of the other kids just because he has such a big role next season and killing say lucas or dustin would be so random but i do think it would just not be great writing if they killed him. for so many reasons. like there are deaths that i absolutely did not want but do make sense and are well written in the grand scheme of things, eddie being one of them. i think every death in the show so far abides to that actually, whether i wanted them to die or not but that just wouldnt be the case for will at all.

theres also the fact that every single death in the show has played a big role in the next season so if someone were to die in s5 we’d never see how that affects the characters they were closest to making THEIR character arc incomplete as well. so because of that i dont think it would be jonathan or joyce because we’d never see will cope with that, i dont think it’d be any of the og party kids for the same reason (and i honestly just dont think the duffers would kill the og boys), i dont think itd be hopper bc we wouldnt see el cope, plus she just got him back so thatd just be plain mean. and i dont think mike or will would die bc byler will happen. they wouldnt have SO much queercoding for both of them only to have them kiss maybe once and then one of them dies. itd be a waste of all the time they spent building them up. but i do believe mike will have a near death experience.

i dont think it will be el at all because like millie said, theyd never have the balls to do that, but also this would almost completely ruin byler for me. it objectively wouldnt be wrong because mike has had feelings for will this whole time but i would actually understand those who would be mad at mike for just dating will “out of nowhere” after his gf dies. it’d look so bad and like will, we need to see el truly happy to satisfyingly finish her character arc and that involves being happily single and have a very healthy wholesome friendship with mike. she and will probably would be willing to sacrifice themselves but i dont think anyone would let them go through with it.

i also think a lot of characters are just too random to die. robin, nancy, argyle, murray, lucas, dustin, erica, these are all characters that do play a big role but not one big enough that i think they may die.

then theres max. i dont think she’d die but im not as confident in this one. im not saying she wont wake up. they would have just killed her this season if they werent planning on having her wake up. she will definitely play a part in next season and i think a lot of it may be related to the state shes in. like if shes blind, she will notice things the other characters dont because theyre focusing on what theyve seen whereas max would pay more attention to what theyve heard or touched. it could be a really interesting point of view if shes blind. but it could be a situation where shes still very weak and her body hasnt fully recovered yet so shes more at risk than the others but the reason im hesitant to say she could die is the same reason i dont think hopper would die. like el, lucas is currently mourning the loss of her. she’s not dead but he did lose her and to bring her back only to lose her again for good would just be so brutal.

yall are gonna hate me for this.

this leaves one last person and believe me i am just as upset as you are but fuck i really think it might be steve. every season he is seen as a hero to these kids, hes always putting himself first before any of them and protecting them in every way he can, he always ends up getting his shit rocked, he is a fan favorite. it would be a very impactful death, much more than any of the random characters i mentioned earlier like dustin or erica. it’d have such an impact on people that i think a big reason why it hasnt happened already is because there are people who would literally stop watching if he died. ive NEVER seen a fictional character so universally loved like this so if they were ever going to kill him it’d definitely be the last season. and if they want a super emotional death that gets everyone talking, he is 100% the one to go with.

going back to how we would never see the characters cope with the loss, i think they could get away with it for this one. it would be fucking devastating for dustin especially bc he just lost eddie but steve might have helped him a lot with his death and he could take his advice for steve’s as well. and for robin it would also be so sad but i think she and dustin could find comfort in each other about it.

like i said earlier there are deaths that i really really wish didnt happen, but from a narrative perspective are well written and do make sense. steve makes sense because of how much of an impact hes had on EVERY other character. even if we dont see much interactions with some of them theres still little things that show us how close their relationship is with steve, the kids especially. we know hes closest with dustin, but mike, will, lucas, and max all still have a wholesome relationship with him and one way they showed us that was him regularly letting them into free movies through the back door of scoops ahoy. another one was him giving max and el ice cream and knowing el shouldnt be out. he also was the only one who went to lucas’ game even tho he didnt seem thrilled about his date and couldnt even sit with robin cuz she was in band. also the fact that max wrote him a letter. she didnt write any of the other older kids a letter which shows that she had a closer relationship with him than any of the older kids and one that goes beyond just being with them whenever the worlds going to shit again.

since most people would be on the same page with how close they were with him, this avoids the problem i mentioned earlier of a single character having an unresolved character arc because we never see them mourn. theres not another character i can think of that has this big of a relationship with almost everyone on the show. like robin dying would be so sad for steve but mike wouldnt be that affected. nancy dying would be so sad for mike but lucas wouldnt be that affected. erica dying would be so sad for lucas but will wouldnt be that affected, you get the gist. steve’s death would affect everyone.

i HATE to say it but it checks so many boxes on why it would objectively be a well written death for both the characters and the audience. BUT ID LOVE TO PROVEN WRONG!!!!!

[retphienix]

Persona 5 Royal.

Hm.

I think even with the newform of post shortening I'll read-more this, so let me get a gist out of the way.

This easily became one of my favorite games. It's on the list, it's embedded in my mind, it's granted me interesting plot lines and characters and it's quickly given me something I'm happy to love.

There's the gist; And the elephant in the room is that I got a smile out of the mysterious glance at what appears to be Akechi in the background, that's fun.

Now to say.

Much.

I'll try to separate different thoughts with a header of sorts because this is gonna be a mess.

This game is honestly pretty incredible.

I feel like this is a weird way to start this out but, I didn't expect to so quickly play an RPG that so enraptured my mind and heart after DQ11.

I've played a ton of games that have touched me in various ways, but it's rare for me to play one that so thoroughly entrenches itself in the miasma of experiences that make up who I am; Just finds my core and sets up shop. Offers a mirror, offers challenges, offers a shoulder, and plenty more.

Playing a game like that isn't common; It's a matter of having something to say, or do, or show, and it's a big matter of personal bias.

It's just how art can hit ya, or miss entirely. Sometimes you find one that stops you in your tracks and you dwell on it for years after.

Despite playing a lot of games, I, and I assume most others, don't play games that hit that note too often.

It's rare.

I've played so many games I would happily recommend for being phenomenal in their own ways, but that list isn't fully comprised of titles like that.

When I played DQ11 I found myself with a story so dense with things I appreciate that it took over my mind for months. It's still left quite the impact, being a title that can easily bring a happy tear to my eye if I dwell on it too long as I find what they've told to be such a beautiful heroes' tale.

Persona 5 has hit that same deep place in my mind, and, in the grand scheme of things, so quickly after I just found a different title that did the same.

And this isn't by any means a ramble on how P5 is perfect; Far from it because that doesn't exist and because it was created by people- people aren't perfect- people don't make perfect things.

Just in the way of cultural differences and personal morals there are things in P5 that I simply believe weren't handled as well as they could have been, be that gay characters, flip flopping on whether sexual assault as a subject deserves respect or laughs, or the ways in which relationships with minors and adults are presented and treated.

While conversely at least some of these faults could be argued for by virtue of life itself not being perfect, but then it becomes a matter of what is your art's morality; What is it trying to say, and is it being presented because it's true to life, or because it's titillating, silly, or something a creator believes to be right.

I digress.

This is a ramble on how what P5 is is something extremely special to me. And an incomplete one at that, as I couldn't possibly revisit every important moment in this 236 hour (inaccurate*) long story on a post made at a whim at the end of said playthrough.

*= I was AFK a lot, and my gameplay included a lot of rendering video, it wasn't this long but my save sure was lol.

I don't (currently, maybe I should) keep notes of my playthroughs- the posts themselves are catalogues of my thoughts at each time. The finale post is more to sum up where my heart lands me, not to substitute a well rehearsed and scripted video essay.

I guess that makes this even less than an essay- it's just a ramble, lmao.

Let's start with the end because it's so fresh.

I'd say what I understand to be the base game ending (I'm assuming it's just the previous god going) was bombastic, exciting, and even had the bite of the metaverse disappearing and Mona potentially dying. I fucking adore that.

The ending of Royal is a lot more clean... and reminds me of something I already mentioned lmao.

Spoilers for DQ11 skip to next red text:

but both include a Perfect ending and a Broken But Hope Filled ending but inversely placed in the story.

DQ11 ends on the Perfect ending, with the weight of knowing you created the Broken But Hope Filled ending and effectively killed yourself out of that ending to create the perfect ending.

The point of it all being that you did the best you could for the world, then found a way to try to do even better for another cursed world (parallel timeline shenanigans), so you sacrificed the life you've fought for, and the relationships you've forged to 'try again'. The Perfect ending in this case IS perfect, just not for the Hero. They gave everything up for this as a sort of ultimate sacrifice.

P5R ends on the Broken But Hope Filled ending and you spent the last dungeon literally killing the Perfect ending because you refuse to give up the relationships you've forged and the meaning you find in the struggles you're lives have experienced.

I find that interesting. (continued but not spoilers anymore)

Royal's ending is bittersweet. We're saying goodbye (THAT SUCKS), the metaverse is (I believe) gone again- but that sting isn't as bad since it's already done that before, Akechi is 'dead' but he simply doesn't compare to Morgana who was a true friend through the entire game, and we gave up a utopia to get this.

The entire moral that lead us here is literally golden in my book- I appreciate the insistence that our experiences hold value, including the negative ones as we grow from them. But I think as far as ending on a bang or whimper it's a lot less flashy than the base ending seems to have been assuming assumptions assumingly on what that is lol.

Basically, I think base had a better ending, but Royal had more to say and what it had to say was very good in my book, it just then had to end and kinda went "Uh, then we ended, shit."

I still teared the hell up multiple times doing my Earthbound walk about in the post game. And I still wish desperately that I got to get closer with Yusuke and Haru.

AH I love all the damn characters so much.

I feel I've said it all on these fuckers, I love these dunces and they are the best. The party is one of the absolute best out there- it's truly a crew you WANT to be in, you want to go hang with these guys at a ramen place, you want to go hang at a library because one of them needs help with something, you want to go wander the shops with them, you just want to be friends with absolutely all of the party members (maybe not Akechi in the later game when he actually joins the party but that's a whole other complicated goof).

It's an accomplishment to go and create so many likable and befriendable characters- I love em.

And the side characters and confidants are just a fantastic eclectic group- I'm being so vague simply because due to how P5 is formatted, I'd argue 99% of my posts are just me talking about the characters because you GET to do all these things with them. You GET to go to the movies and study and hang at the baths- so I've said all there is, I'm sure.

But I love them. <3

Another thing I've talked plenty on already but is worth mentioning in this finale post is that fantastic gameplay

I literally can't expand on it much in one post so I'll leave it simple.

It's flashy, it's EXTREMELY involved, it's combo heavy in a fantastic way (and with multiple avenues for combos!), and the worst I can say about it is that on Normal difficulty it became exploitable pretty early on and didn't really challenge directly much until the end, but, difficulty is not the end all of the gameplay's quality.

You want to feel involved and challenged in *some* way (if not direct difficulty), and I felt both of those things- just without much risk of failure. Arguably- ARGUABLY- that's damn near perfect. But for preference, I'd have preferred a slightly harder time- more HP on enemies and more risk of losing- but this isn't a complaint- it's a recognition that I will probably highly enjoy replaying on a harder difficulty :)

Simplifying the entirety of the gameplay to combat would be a crime though because this game was also half life sim, and quite an enthralling one at that. Hell, half isn't enough, MOST of this game was life sim, and I loved it so much more than I thought I would.

It also kinda screwed me a bit because I LOVE reading everything I have access to at any given moment.... and this meant a metric ton of reading every day, sometimes accomplishing next to nothing.

You could easily do all the things I did in this game in like 10 hours of gameplay, but it took me 23 times that because I would regularly take trips EVERYWHERE to seek out new NPC dialogue that added nothing to the game itself but was quintessential to my experience.

Loved it.

And before I close for good on this playthrough, I want to just speak some appreciation towards some of the morals and themes in here.

Not all, I'm stupid (for one), and tired (another), and some fucked up third thing as well so just a couple that I feel like talking about.

For one, RIDICULOUSLY big fan of the personal justice angle. It lent itself to so many narratives about the problems with the world from the angle of these things being normalized, expected, or accepted by society at large- but that doesn't mean we should accept them and stop trying to make things better.

It's just a solid theme to build around and it tied itself to the motivations of our characters so damn well with many of them being upset at how Adults handle the world or mistreat others and seeking to make things better.

Also, if the like 8 times I brought it up didn't make it clear, a big fan of the strength of kindness in the Akechi - Joker storyline. It's really a show of how Joker's refusal to turn his back on others, even people as, to be frank, shit as Akechi with his murder fun time nonsense, is literally what grants Akechi his moment of redemption.

That murder kid really tried to turn self sacrifice into a selfish move for personal revenge, and Joker's refusal to be insincere to him left Akechi stunned as his motivations were changed in real time right before he died- that's just a fun narrative, man.

And while I think it made the stakes feel less "scary" than the prior chapter, I really do enjoy how Maruki was our final baddie since he's quite literally a goodie.

It offered a completely different angle to challenge the PT's morals and allowed us to end on a narrative about the worth of our whole life experience rather than a narrative on defeating evil, it was honestly a really good choice in my book.

And I suppose that wraps up this mindless ramble.

To close I just want to say, I fuckin' love this game. It's a favorite now, as I've said.

I'd also like to say I'm surprised that getting to the post game wasn't as demanding as I was initially lead to believe.

I had been lead to believe, since launch of Royal, that this game was some weird "Do it perfectly or you're fucked" kind of game.

I avoided playing Royal for YEARS, because I thought I'd HAVE to shove a guide down my throat in order to experience half the game.

But as it turns out the Royal content is rather short, all things considered. And the requirements are MILES less intense than I was lead to believe- like- MILES. I thought you needed all confidants or else, like, it's not that hard lol.

Getting a perfect run on a blind run is a bit rough, but even that isn't remotely out of the cards if my playthrough is anything to go by.

And on whether / when I'll play more; Now that I've seen the credits, I'm not sure.

This playthrough was.... strange for me. When I pick a game up for the blog I usually stay pretty consistent with it. I've had flubs here and there over the years, but this might be the single most disjointed playthrough I've ever done- with months of no updates multiple times throughout just because of where I was outside of playing.

But because of this, I've basically been playing this game for 8 months. That's a long time to be on one single player game that I think a few weeks coulda done.

Kinda want something else. But my desire to play through on a harder difficulty, on NG+, and to get a perfect end to my playthrough with all confidants maxed remain.

Part of me wants to just jump right back in- especially since very very little of it would "need" (I do this for fun lol) to be blogged about in the first place, but a lot of me wants to sit this on the shelf and come back later in life.

And a lot of me also worries that doing that might table it too long, as I table many things and then decide new experiences trump them.

This game has the benefit of being one of my all time favorites now, so it's less likely, but I mean. FFT is an all time favorite. Doing modded runs of that for the blog has been backlogged for years. I don't want to put replaying P5R off that long at all.

But enough idle worrying in my game diary.

I am going to play something else for a while. That's my current plan. Mostly because that whole mishap with myself that caused this playthrough to be so disjointed is very much still a struggle- so I don't want to dive into a full new playthrough that's just as disjointed.

I might set a date for myself; Come back in a year's time perhaps. I have nothing set in stone. But I want to replay this. Harder difficulty, NG+, perfect confidants. I want that.

We'll find out when.

In the mean time I'm going to bask in the post-game joy of this phenomenal title.

I'm grateful for the opportunity.

And thank you to all who saw fit to interact through this playthrough- I doubt many would get this far into this nonsense post to see said thanks, but I'm sending that out there into the world all the same.

This was a ridiculously positive gaming experience in terms of the game, and a pleasure to chat with some fans.

Everyone, have a good one :)

[oumaheroes]

Do you think North ever tries to brush off stuff that's bothering him because his brothers have had a worse time of it or whatever, and they have to be all 'Mate it's not a competition, just tell me why you're upset.' I feel like the others would be old enough to understand that breaking your leg doesn't make your dog dying hurt any less, so all hurts may not quite be "equal" in intensity, but they are all still painful.

Okay so I sat on this ask for a long time because I have two conflicting thoughts about it.

The first take is that of my more general nationverse headcanons:

North always tries to brush off stuff that he, by comparison to his brothers and their problems, doesn’t think is a big deal.

This person won’t message him back. That joint or bone in his leg keeps hurting when he runs on it. He’s got really bad food poisoning from eating uncooked chicken that may or may not have been out of date and now even water makes him want to vomit- all, in the grand scheme of things, not big problems.

When he was younger, he might have been happily vocal about such things but sadly, although they’re all trying to do better these days, his brothers have sort of fed into this habit.

One because they too are all, even Wales, incapable of expressing themselves properly and admitting illness or hurt or any sort of ~vulnerability~ just Isn’t DoneTM . North has learnt by example and now represses these things himself, only letting on that something’s the matter when it is practically falling off or he can’t move. It is customary for the siblings to offer help him (especially more than they ((bar Wales)) offer to help each other) but it is very rare that this help is accepted and, although as the baby of the family North is more likely to accept help than anyone else, he feels guilty when he does.

Secondly, they all sort of agree with this mindset. Can North really complain that Scotland is treating him unfairly by forcing him to cut his grass in the summer, when the things Scotland had to do just to survive are what North would consider to be child abuse/ neglect/ torture? Can England sympathise when North stays over and England accidentally hoovers up one of his air buds that he left lying about? England once saw hot water and glass windows as decedent- just buy some bloody new ones and stop complaining. Will Ireland stand to hear North moaning about not being allowed to drive a car, when the only mode of transport Ireland had for years were horses and shit scary country roads?

Not being allowed to go to a club? Not being allowed to order a take away every night? Being forced to attend democratic international talks rather than go camping with his friends? He’s lucky! Lucky to be given the chance of having a democracy, let alone attending such a talk on an international scale! Lucky to be able to cook healthy food for himself and need never go hungry, lucky that he has laws in place to protect children from alcohol and drugs.

His brothers went through wars, both foreign and civil for the barest of what he considers to be essentials- there are some things they refuse to listen to him complain about because in their minds these problems are below trivial.

They’re more sympathetic to modern problems than maybe they would have been 50 years ago, and although they understand it’s all relative and they try to sympathise, there is still this belief of ‘You wouldn’t know a real problem if it came up and bit you on the arse, now shut up and get on with it.’

Wales is probably the only one to really sit down with North and try to relate or get him to open up by encouraging him that his problems are still problems, despite how different his siblings consider ‘real’ problems to be. But even Wales struggles to understand some of North’s issues sometimes and North often feels very misunderstood and out of place, and then guilty for feeling this. It’s a bit of a mess.

Now, however, for my own goblin headcanon:

If anyone has read Reset, then they know that I have an old and ancient obsession with getting around this problem.

To live a human life on occasion, to be amongst their people and live as they do with all the modern problems and grievances and struggles as well as the joys forces long living nations to remain current. How can they understand their people and identify what a problem is for them if the nation themselves is so dismissive of them?

‘Resetting for good for nations. It allowed them to get in tune with their people and culture and offered a fresh perspective about a human's life. What good would a nation be if they grew up as a child through the Middle Ages, or learnt to be polite and speak as an adult during the Renaissance? To be rich, when all being rich once meant was that you ate meat more than once a month? Ideas of behaviour, of society, of thought and feeling changed so often that the nation could grow at risk of not understanding the human condition, or not empathising quite as well as they should do.

How can a now grand, rich country know what it feels like to grow up in poverty in the 1800's, when the country himself suffered constant starvation in the 1200's? How are the two the same, one with constant war and disease and civil war and low infant mortality, when the other has, in comparison, better living conditions? How easily a nation could be unfeeling, unempathetic, to a notably better existence.

By being given the chance to experience a whole life again, from birth to death, every few centuries a nation could once again comprehend that yes, though easier, life was still difficult. Hardships changed appearance but there were always obstacles for a human to overcome. Suffering was suffering and was not comparable, human life was felt now and their suffering was still just as impactful, just as raw as it had ever been.’

If I take this into account, in my own personal headcanons I see the brothers and all older nations as much more sympathetic. Not to a perfect extend- the modern age has changed too much so quickly for any of them to be able to keep up with, but far more than they would have been able to otherwise. They’re thus a little bit more understanding of North’s more ‘mundane’ struggles and although he still feels guilty and odd for complaining, the feeling is lessened.

[knivesareout]

take on the world - chapter one

Pairing: Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, bad jokes, flirting idiots and Tom doesn’t exist.

Summary: A whirlwind romance takes you by surprise when Frankie rescues you.

A/N: Well, here is the beginning of what is going to be a BEAST of a fic. There will probably be around 8-10 chapters in total and I’m already working on the next one (aka where the smut is). I will warn you all that this is going to deal with some heavy subject matter as we go along but I’ll put up proper warnings when they come. I hope you all enjoy and you can read it on AO3 here.

INSPO TAG | CHAPTER TWO

___________

There was a special place in hell for people who set their friends up on blind dates.

This wasn’t your first, or even your fifth, blind date in the last year that you’d agreed to go on to appease a happily married friend. This time it was Jessica’s husband’s co-worker who she’d shown you a picture of and you had wearily agreed, nodding as she told you how great he was.

He was in fact, not great, as he was now 30 minutes late and counting despite the numerous texts you’d sent him.

Thankfully the bar you were currently at was only a quick 10 minute walk from your apartment, a small miracle you were glad for. Surely you could stumble back the couple of blocks to your place if you decided to drown your sorrows in shots of tequila, a couple beers, and maybe a fruity drink or two if you were feeling spendy or particularly sad.

The bar was loud and, of course, overly crowded. It was a Saturday night after all.

Most tvs around the room were playing various baseball games at top volume with the season having only started a couple weeks prior. It wasn’t your favorite sport but you knew enough to keep up, eyes fixated on the Red Sox game just to the left of you.

“Need a refill?”

A cough sounds in your ear and you turn, realizing the question was meant for you. The man who’s taken up residence on the bar stool next to you is waiting for an answer, a distressed ball cap tugged low over his face and you wish you could see him better.

“Oh,” you laugh awkwardly, glancing down at the empty pint glass and back up again. When did you finish that? “Yeah, I mean. I need one.”

The man just nods, motioning the bartender over and he wordlessly clears your glass and sets a new one in front of you as well as one in front of the man next to you.

Muttering a quiet thanks to the bartender, you turn to the man in the cap and smile. “Thanks. Didn’t even realize I’d gone through it so fast.”

The man nods with a shrug of his shoulders, a slight smile on his face. “No worries. You looked like you were sucked into the game and figured I could help. I’m Frankie, by the way.”

Giving him your name, you reach a hand for him to shake- which he does. Rough, calloused hands envelope yours in a tight squeeze before he drops them with a cough.

You realize he must’ve been watching you before, if he knew you were with an empty cup.

Normally that was something you would find creepy because you were clearly alone, or at the very least weird but for some reason it’s endearing on this guy. Frankie. Out of the corner of your eye, you try to take in his features without being obvious, his attention now turned to the same game you’d been watching only moments before.

Dark hair curls outside of his baseball cap, a dimple embedded into his cheek on the right as he smiles. Patchy facial hair covers his jawline, bits of grey catching the light as he tilts his head back to take a swig of his beer and you wonder how old he is. At first you would’ve pegged him around your age, but now getting a somewhat better look he might have several years on you.

“Were you waiting on someone?” He asks, turning to you with his voice raised. A group of men are shouting in the back of the bar near the pool table and you wince.

You nod, downing half of your beer and swiping at your mouth. “Yeah. Blind date. I should know better but I can’t tell people no and he was cute.”

Frankie just laughs at your honesty, “So he just didn’t show?”

“Yep. Never had one that just didn’t show up. Figured I might as well get drunk to commemorate the occasion. Or commiserate. Either one.” You bring your glass up to his and cheers, shaking your head incredulously.

“His loss.”

You turn to Frankie with a raised brow, lowering your glass to watch him slowly check you out. You feel hot all over and clear your throat, teeth tugging on your bottom lip.

“What about you then? Here alone or did you ditch someone?”

Frankie presses a hand to his heart, fake wounded at your jab. “You already think so little of me? I was here with friends but they bailed on me,” he explains. “Saw you by yourself and thought we could both use the company.”

His answer puts you more at ease and you finish off your second beer of the night.

“So, figure I gotta ask. How old are you?” It really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things but if things are heading in the direction you hope they are, you don’t want to make him uncomfortable if you’re too young.

He seems startled by your question, like it’d never occurred to him to ask and he falters before answering. Did it make him uncomfortable?

“You know,” Frankie starts with a chuckle. “Normally, I’d be offended but I’m not. ‘M 42.”

Nodding, you blow out a breath that you didn’t realize you’d be holding. “Newly 30,” you tell him, bringing your refilled drink up to click against his own.

The age reveal doesn’t seem to bother him, at least from what you can tell. You’d never cursed your age before until now, hoping it hadn’t put him off.

You turn on the barstool to face Frankie, hoping to break the tension.

“So I have just one question for you, Frankie.”

He nods, turning to face you and waiting for you to continue.

You hold up a finger and place it on his jaw near his mouth, the one spot not filled up by wiry grey and black hair. His eyes are wide at your touch and he’s tense.

It was something you’d noticed right away when he sat next to you, your attention drawn to it for whatever reason. His terribly patchy facial hair was endearing.

“Why is this the perfect place for a kiss?”

The way Frankie looks when he laughs makes your heart ache in the best way. He tosses his head back, mouth wide as he tries to contain his laughter. His dark eyes crinkle, nose scrunched up at your blunt question and you retract your hand, satisfied with his response.

“How much have you had to drink?” He manages to get out between wheezing while he catches his breath.

“Couple shots of tequila while I stupidly waited. Two beers now, thanks to you,” you nod at the empty glass. “I might be drunk? It’s hard to tell, honestly. I think I’m fine.”

“So you’re just normally like this?” Frankie laughs, tilting his head. His fingers drum on the side of his almost empty pint glass, something you wonder is a nervous tick.

You push your empty glass away, hoping it’ll get the bartender’s attention and it does. Ordering Frankie another beer and a vodka cranberry for you, you turn back to him. “Guess so. If it’s too much though, I can pretend you never came over here and finish the game by myself.”

“Not what I meant,” he’s quick to tell you. “Just wanted to know what I’m getting myself into is all.”

Silently your lips tick up in a smirk and you start on your drink, turning your attention back to the game.

Over the next hour, you get to know Frankie and vice versa. He’s ex-Army; out for the last couple of years and he’s slowly getting back into the real world. Explains how he doesn’t have any family in North Carolina but all of his buddies live here, so he moved.

Frankie’s a helicopter pilot, giving city flyover tours to people coming in from out of town. He doesn’t love it but he loves flying so it’s enough for him, he tells you. You can see it in his eyes how passionate he is about flying and it makes you grin.

In turn, he asks about you. Normally you wouldn’t give up so much information about yourself to someone you don’t know all that well but Frankie has slowly started to feel like anything but and you feel guilty letting him give you so much only to get nothing in return- so you tell him. Maybe too much. About how your job working at a law firm is the most boring thing, especially when you had no interest in law. Which in turn sparks up his question- what do you want to do? That ends up setting you off on a tangent about your love of photography but how hard the industry is to break into to do it professionally or at the least get paid for it.

“Here, hang on.” You tell him, sliding your phone out of your back pocket and pulling up your Instagram. Social media was, normally, the bane of your existence but you used the app for your photos and nothing else, you tell him. He nods like he understands, telling you he isn’t much better technology wise.

Frankie’s quiet as he scrolls through your feed. He’s slow about it too, clicking on a few to see them bigger, and you bite your lip in anticipation at what he might be thinking. It’s nerve wracking to show anyone your passion and you manage to finish off your drink while he’s still scrolling, waving off the bartender as he asks if you want another.

“You’re fucking talented as shit, you know that?”

His response catches you off guard and you can instantly feel yourself getting warm at his compliment. It feels different, coming from him. A stranger who’s slowly becoming something more.

“You’ll have to let me take your picture some day,” you shoot back, kicking your dangling foot against his.

“You don’t have pictures of people on there though,” he’s quick to point out, handing you back your phone.

“Well no, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s hard convincing people to hike with me is all.” Nature photography was your niche but you could already envision photographing a portrait of Frankie on a mountain with the sun illuminated behind him.

Frankie finishes off his beer and sighs loudly, turning to you with his brows raised. “Well, we’ll have to plan something then won’t we?”

You’d known that was coming and still, your stomach fills with butterflies as he all but asks you out. To see you again beyond this dark, crowded bar that smells like smoke and sweat.

“Definitely.”

Frankie asks if he can walk you home once the bar tab has been paid an hour later- he’s even covered yours too, in apology of your ruined date and unintentionally crashing your plan to wallow in self-pity afterwards.

“I’m just a couple blocks down,” you tell him, pulling your jacket tighter around your shoulders to combat the cool, spring breeze.

“No worries. Can’t complain about getting to spend a little more time with you,” he says cooly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

The line is smooth and cheesy but it still puts a smile on your face, which you’re sure was its intended effect.

You chuckle, turning to him so he can see the roll of your eyes. “Smooth, Casanova.”

Frankie puts his hands out in front of him in defense, scoffing at your jab.

“Cut me some slack, alright. Haven’t even dated a woman in years, let alone spent hours interrupted and talking with one,” he explains, knocking his shoulder with yours.

The little touch is something weirdly intimate and you cough, looking at him with a skeptical eye.

“I find that hard to believe, Frankie,” you chuckle, “You’re a good looking guy. Can even hold a decent conversation. No dates? Really?”

He shakes his head, shrugging. “Wasn’t in the right headspace for it. And now that I am, I just so happen to meet you and who knows. Was it fate?”

You spot the teasing tone of his voice immediately and you shove him lightly as you start to approach your apartment building. “You’re an ass,” you tell him, giggling as you try and pull your keys from your pocket, fingers fumbling and they drop to the ground with a clang.

You both reach down at the same time, heads knocking together and you can’t stop yourself from laughing. Laughing so much your chest aches with it and you can’t breathe, tears pricking the corner of your eyes and you glance over and Frankie’s no better, clutching his stomach as you both sit on the ground around your fallen keys.

“We’re a fucking mess,” you manage to get out between left over laughter and catching your breath.

Frankie lets out a loud breath, trying to calm himself and he nods in agreement. Picking up the keys, he hands them to you and stands, offering you a hand that you gladly take and try to steady yourself once you’re safely back on your feet.

“You alright?” He asks, running his hands over your hair and brushing at the crown of your head. As if he’s inspecting you for any injuries and you hold your breath.

The best you can manage is a nod, eyes flicking to meet his and you search them for any sign that he’s feeling exactly what you are.

He is. Expressive brown eyes that tell you everything you need to know.

Frankie sighs, pulling his hands back from your face and groans. Kicking at the pavement and mumbling quietly to himself.

Has the moment passed? Did you not react how he was expecting?

Turning back to you, he gives you a self-deprecating smile. “We’re drunk,” he explains. His tone is apologetic and you wonder why he’s saying the words if he feels bad about them in the first place.

“Maybe a little,” you agree. “Doesn’t mean I haven’t had, what I’m sure is, a much better date than I would’ve if that guy had shown up.”

You can tell your words mean something to him. It’s like he’s got this loose energy that he doesn’t know what to do with. Like he wants to shout and scream and run down the street. It makes you want to know more about him- what he’s thinking, how he’s feeling.

Bouncing on his toes, Frankie hurriedly pulls out his phone from his front pocket and hands it to you. “I wanna see you again. Put your number in there?”

The phone is old. Flip-phone old and you laugh as you figure out how to program your number in there, adding your name along with a smiley face at the end before handing it back over to him.

“I had a really great time tonight, Frankie,” you promise him, fiddling with your keys. “Thank you for saving me from what was probably going to be a terrible night.”

“Me too,” he agrees, pursing his lips.

It’s like he’s deciding his next move and it catches you off guard when he leans in to press a kiss to your cheek.

Once there’s a fair amount of distance between you, Frankie heads down the sidewalk and waves. “I’ll call you,” he tells you, calling over his shoulder.

“You better,” you yell back.

Your grin is huge and you’re sure he can see it, even as he continues to walk backwards, watching you, and he disappears into the night.

---

Frankie calls the next day.

Phone numbers that weren’t saved in your address book were usually sent straight to voicemail but there was a nagging feeling deep in your gut to just answer it so you move to the edge of the sidewalk and out of the crowd and pick up.

“Hello?”

You catch a sigh and Frankie’s voice sounds over the speaker, bringing a smile to your face instantly. “Hey, it’s uh. Frankie. From the bar last night?”

Laughing a little, you nod to yourself. “Yeah. I remember you. Almost knocked me out when we bumped heads trying to pick up my keys.”

“Oh good,” he sounds relieved and you glance around as you wait for him to speak again, hoping the conversation was more than just chit-chat. “I know we just saw each other yesterday but I was wondering if I could see you again. Tonight maybe? If you don’t have plans. It’s fine if you do, I just thought I’d ask.”

He’s rushing through his words and you can tell instantly that he’s had to psych himself up to call you from his nervous tone through the receiver.

You don’t have plans and you’re more than eager to see Frankie again. Wondering if last night was a fluke and hoping that it wasn’t. Relationships weren’t your forte but maybe this was the exceptiontion. He was the exception.

“Yeah, I’d really like that Frankie. Just wanna meet me outside of my building around 7?” You chew on your lip nervously.

“Yeah,” he tells you. “That- that would be great. I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” you chuckle. “Bye Frankie.”

“Bye.”

Suddenly thankful that you were done running your errands for the day, you headed back home with a grin on your face that didn’t seem like it wanted to leave. Cheeks aching, you wondered what and if he had anything planned.

It had been too long since you’d gone on any sort of date. A real date; something planned and thought out unlike the blind dates you were used to. Frankie didn’t seem the type for a typical dinner and a movie, and something about that idea had you even more excited to see him. Everything about the situation with him was unpredictable: the chance meeting at the bar, to the walk home where you laughed harder than you could remember. There was clearly something there between the two of you and it was exhilarating.

The rest of your day was spent cleaning and daydreaming about the night you might have with Frankie. You wondered if this was how it was supposed to feel when you liked someone. The concept was foreign to you, your relationship history basically nonexistent. Was it possible that he was just as nervous as you were?

As 7pm rolled around, a text sounded over your phone and you leaned over on the counter to see Frankie telling you he was outside. Grabbing a light coat on your way out, you took a deep breath and locked the door behind you. No turning back now.

Frankie was dressed similarly to last night. Jeans, a t-shirt and a tan jacket that looked like it’d seen better days. His hat was missing and his hair looked soft, the ends curling around his ears. You greeted him with a smile as you walked out of your building and he nodded, rocking back on his feet.

“This isn’t weird, is it?” He asks, nodding his head as you both started to walk left down the sidewalk. “The fact that we met last night and we’re seeing each other again?”

You chuckled, “It’s weird in the sense that I’ve never done this before. Any of it. But no, to answer your question. I wanted to see you again and I am, so.” Shrugging, you turn to listen to him as you both continue to walk, keeping to the side.

“Yeah, me too. I mean, I’ve met people in bars. Women. But it’s usually a one night kind of thing-,” Frankie stops himself and groans, running a hand down his face in embarrassment. “That sounds bad. Fuck.”

“Ain’t no shame in the game, Frankie. I’m not here to judge you,” you promise, pausing as you wait for the crosswalk sign to turn white so you can cross the street. “Where are we going, by the way?”

Frankie waits to answer until you’re both safely across the street and heading further into downtown, the crowds getting thicker and you push yourself against his side so as not to lose him. His arm finds its way across your shoulders to keep you close and he answers, leaning his head down closer to your ear. “There’s this bar and arcade thing down a couple more blocks that I figured we could spend some time at. Maybe head to the park after that and walk around. See where the night takes us?”

It’s easy to tell he hasn’t quite planned this out and something about that makes your heart race. He really had just wanted to see you, planning this as he goes only so you can spend more time together.

“The park can get a little murder-like late at night,” you point out with a laugh,

“That’s true. Well, we can always just see where the night takes us after we play a couple of games then if that’s alright?”

“That’s the part where you’re supposed to tell me you’ll protect me,” you poke a finger into his side and laugh. “But yeah of course, Frankie. Whatever you wanna do,” you reassure him. “I’m just along for the ride.”

The bar slash arcade was… something. You weren’t sure what you were expecting but it wasn’t what you walked into. The building was packed to the brim; loud noises, slots and different game noises sounding from every corner, and a small bar was tucked in the left corner with a tv playing what looked like The Shining above it.

“Have you been here before?” You raise your voice, balancing yourself on his shoulder to get closer to his ear.

He nods shouting back, “Yeah, once. Came with a couple of buddies of mine. They’ve got some cool retro games in the back that we used to play as a kid. Everyone loves air hockey too, right?”

You can see the air hockey table he’s referring to. The black light makes everything under the table glow and it reminds you of the arcades off of food courts that most malls used to have. The skeptical feeling you had when walking in seems to fade away and suddenly you’re excited, wondering why you hadn’t been here before when it was so close to your apartment to begin with.

“Once the table clears, I wanna play,” you say, tugging Frankie towards the back where you see a racing game that looks familiar.

Frankie exchanges a few bills for tokens while you hold the two racing games and once he’s slid in the appropriate amount, it’s immediately turned into a competition.

As the screen starts to countdown to your race, you turn to him quickly with a proposition. “If I win, you buy me a beer.”

“I was gonna buy you one anyway,” he tells you, shaking his head as if he’d do anything less. “But alright. If I win, you have to give me a kiss right here.”

He annoyingly points to the empty spot on his jaw where his facial hair didn’t seem to grow, that you had drunkenly pointed out the night before, and you can’t help the loud bark of laughter that escapes your lips as you quickly nod. “Deal.”

You’re almost tempted to lose once the race starts, just so you can kiss him there. But deep in your gut you feel like there’ll be plenty of opportunities to kiss him there in the future so you don’t hold back. The routes feel familiar as you and Frankie virtually drive through them and you’re sure you’ve played this game before, years ago.

As you both reach the last lap and the finish line, you just barely win and pump your fists as you cross. The screen declares you the winner in big font, a trophy spinning in circles and you turn to Frankie. “So, about that beer.”

You two end up at the bar for a little over an hour. The barstools surrounding the area are a hot commodity and once you and Frankie are sat down, you’re reluctant to give them up, especially with the bartender keeping your drinks filled without having to ask.

Frankie tells you about his friends. Benny, Will, and Santiago. How they’ve kept him going since returning back to civilian life. He says they’re all one big support group to each other, knowing that even if it feels like there’s no one you could count on, one of them is always around. There’s a tightness to his voice when he talks about them, like he can’t believe his luck that he has such supportive friends. The clear despair on his face has your chest aching, and you squeeze his hand in comfort.

It makes you yearn for a friendship like that. Most of your friends are married and it’s harder to relate to them when you’re single and living in the city while they’re still living in your hometown with a couple of kids. You tell Frankie as much and he sympathizes and points out that you have at least one friend in the city now, shaking off the emotions of such a heavy conversation.

“Looks like the air hockey table is free,” you nod, seeing the table free for the first time that night.

Frankie nods, standing up to grab his wallet. “You grab the table, I’m gonna close out the tab.”

You quickly walk over, grabbing the two handles and knock a few tokens into the machine when the lime green puck pops out. Frankie joins you a few seconds later, grabbing his handle and standing opposite you.

“So, what are we competing for this time?”

You think for a moment, “Well, I don’t think I need another drink. What about if I win, you have to cook me dinner sometime this week? Maybe Wednesday?”

Frankie seems taken aback by your suggestion but readily agrees. “I can do that. And if I win, you have to cook me breakfast Thursday morning.”

His offer isn’t lost on you and you toss the puck onto the table with a smirk as the air starts to push it around. “You’re on.”

The match is filled with trash talk as you two play. You even manage to gather a small crowd of people around you, cheering you both on. It’s close. For every point you get, Frankie’s one step behind you. Your wrist is starting to ache and the countdown starts on the side, signaling the end of your game in the next 30 seconds.

“You’re gonna lose, Frankie,” you taunt, scoring another point and he tosses the puck back on the table and shoots it towards you as you block it, sending it back across the table.

Except you lose. By a point.

There are cheers for Frankie and slaps on the back as another couple takes over the table and you both move to the side to watch.

“I can’t say I’m all that mad that I lost,” you tell him honestly, glancing up and locking your eyes with his own deep, brown ones.

“It was kind of a win-win for both of us either way,” he agrees, nudging his arm with yours. “So, another date Wednesday night?”

You nod quickly, “Sounds perfect.”

--- Frankie walks you home a few hours later.

After the arcade, you both grab slices of pizza from a small place down the block and walk around, grease staining your fingers and tongues burnt from being so hungry.

Most people are tucking themselves back into their beds at the late hour, your watch showing it was coming up on 2am as you both approach your building.

“A successful first date, I think,” you turn to him, arms wrapped around yourself as the wind turns cold around you. You sniff as your nose starts to drip, scrunching it up and Frankie laughs.

“I think you’re right,” he agrees, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you against chest in a hug.

You savor the warmth as you press your cheek against him, then turn your head. “I should go inside. And you should head home, it’s so fucking late.”

Untangling yourselves, Frankie shoves his hands into his pockets and knocks his arm against yours. “I’ll see you Wednesday?”

Nodding quickly, Frankie shoots you a smile and turns, jogging across the street to where his truck is parked.

It’s like seeing him walk away pushes something inside you, itching to see him just once more and you call out to him quickly before he can get in his truck, “Frankie! Wait! I forgot something!”

He turns to watch you run across the street as he stands in front of the driver’s side door, looking at you curiously once you’re stood in front of him.

“What did you forget?”

“This.” And you lean over to press a kiss to the bare spot along his jaw, the sparse hair around it tickling your lips and you pull away with a grin.

Turning to glance both ways before crossing the street you call behind you, “Goodnight Frankie!”

NEXT CHAPTER

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Merlin and Arthur bond like never before, and war preparations are being made

Morgana sees something... worrying

Part 3 of Merlin’s angry outburst.

Part 1   Part 2   Part 4   Part 5

The next morning, everyone is up early. Merlin pays a quick trip to Gaius, to inform him of his and Arthur’s plan for that evening (earning a raised eyebrow and a concealed smirk) before meeting Morgana at the castle gates, and heading off.

Everyone is busy, and no one in the gang crosses paths for more than a few moments the whole day.

Merlin and Morgana spend almost the whole day at the Druid camp, learning what they can, and asking for healers. (Morgana gives her own raised eyebrow and smirk when Merlin requests the ingredients he’ll need to forge a mental link, but doesn’t say anything.)

Gaius is busy bustling around with the servants he was provided, instructing them on what herbs to collect, where they would be found, and how to harvest properly.

Leon has Elyan, Gwaine, and Lancelot, lead small groups of knights in opposite directions, tasked with heading to the outermost villages, and warning them of the potential danger. Leon himself and Percival stay behind, and continue to oversee training and organisation of extra patrols, and intelligence gathering.

Arthur has meetings throughout the day, mainly focused on the public announcement that would take place the next day, as well as letters to be sent to the lower town. News travelled fast in Camelot, but they wanted to make sure that everyone knew as soon as possible.

Gwen spent the day moving between the forgery, Arthur, and Gaius, making sure everyone had what they needed, and pointing out flaws or missed opportunities wherever she could.

The council may have hated her when Arthur was first crowned (”She’s just a serving girl, My Lord!”) but Arthur had shut that down quickly, and made sure everyone knew that Gwen was a trusted advisor, and was to be treated as such. And even if he hadn’t made that point, no one could deny that she was quick witted, and always made good suggestions.

The Gang gathers once again in the evening, dining together. A small hall off to the side of the throne room had become their sort of HQ, the place they congregated for meals and meetings for just the ten of them. There was only one door in, and they each had their own keys (the only ones made).

Each of them updates everyone on their progress, one by one.

Leon informs the group of when Elyan, Gwaine, and Lancelot are expected back (not for a while, it was a couple days ride to the furthest villages, and they had plenty of places to visit), and how the training is going.

Gaius happily reports that preparations for the infirmary were going quickly, even more so when he was joined by all the healers that M+M had brought back with them from the Druid camp.

Gwen tells that, whilst progress was slow at the moment, the forgery was expecting a large shipment of materials by the end of the week, and work would speed up drastically once it arrived.

Morgana reports that the Druids have only seen what she has, but they’ve promised to spread the word, and try to gather any extra information. They would be sending a few more healers once some more of the Clans had gathered together.

All in all, it’s been very successful. Despite the Kingdom only being one day into preparations for a full scale war, things are going smoothly, and none of them are feeling the pressure of panic in their skulls.

The meeting only lasts as long as dinner does, everyone still having important tasks to complete before it was time to sleep.

Other than Merlin and Arthur, Gaius is the last to leave the room, looking back and saying (with a raised eyebrow, of course):

“I’ve left everything you’ll need in The King’s chambers, do you wish for me to join you and oversee it, in case?”

Merlin replies first (not quite sure why he’s blushing):

“No, no it’s fine. Thank you Gaius. We can always send a guard for you if we need anything.” With that, Gaius heads off, and with a deep breath, Merlin stands, and gestures for Arthur to follow.

They make their way to Arthur’s chambers quickly, the silence just a little uncomfortable. Both of them wondering if they should ask the other if they’re sure one last time. Neither of them say anything.

They enter the rooms to see that Gaius has indeed placed everything neatly on the table, one of his old books lying open on a specific age, and two pain relief potions set to the side.

“Merlin are you-

“I’m fine with it, but are you-”

Both of them speak at the same time, before chuckling quietly and pausing. Merlin is the first to speak again:

“It’ll only take a few minutes to put everything together, but then there’s a spell to be said by both of us-”

Arthur widens his eyes in slight panic at that, but Merlin interrupts before he says anything:

“Don’t worry, you can just repeat after me. You’ll have to copy the symbol as well, I’ll need to paint something over your heart, and then you’ll have to paint the corresponding one over mine, you can copy from the book.”

Arthur takes a deep breath in an effort to calm his nerves (it doesn’t work) before replying to a now busy Merlin:

“I’m not magic and I... what if I get it wrong?”

Merlin looks up from the table, and smiles gently before responding:

“Nothing. I mean we’ll probably still get a headache, but other than that... we’d just have to try again tomorrow. No big deal.” He shrugs before looking back down at everything on the table.

Arthur watches him with interest and sits on the opposite side of the table, trying to get a peak at the words or symbols in the book.

After a few minutes, Merlin has a sweet smelling paste in a bowl and two paintbrushes in his hand. He walks round the side of the table, pulling the book towards him, still open. He grabs a stool and stands it in front of him, where he puts the bowl and paintbrushes.

He gestures for Arthur to stand opposite him, and unlaces the loose tunic he’s wearing. He pulls it to the side, exposing the space on his chest over his heart, indicating for Arthur to do the same.

“Right. Our left hands go on the back of each others head,-”

(Arthur struggles not to swallow at that, and nods, pushing the blush down)

“-and they need to stay there the whole time. Our right hands need to be holding a paintbrush each. They need to be over the bowl, crossed over one another, yours on top. I’ll say the spell, bit by bit, you repeat after me. When we speak we need to look at each other. Once the vocal spell has been cast, it’ll get a little glowy in here, but just ignore it, alright? After that, I’ll touch my brush to the paste. You don’t need lots, and the symbol needs to be painted in one motion, so don’t panic if you run out, it doesn’t matter, just keep going. I’ll paint the symbol at the top of the page on your chest, you need to hold still though, keep your hand in place over the bowl. Once I’ve done, I hold my paintbrush over the top of yours, you lower yours into the bowl, and then paint the symbol at the bottom of the page, onto my chest. We don’t have to hold eye contact for that, so you can look down as much as you need to, to copy it right. After it’s done, both paintbrushes can be put down, and we touch foreheads over the bowl. That’ll be the spell done, and we can move back, the pain will only start after all that has been done, and it’ll only last a few minutes, before it begins to lessen. Gaius left us some pain relief. We can practice actually talking to each other later on. Understand all of that?”

Arthur thinks for a just a second, before nodding. He’s very much grateful for all his knight and noble training at this point, he has a good memory for detailed instructions, good enough that not even his nerves could make him forget what to do.

Merlin seems completely unfazed, I suppose because A) in the grand scheme of things, it’s a very simple spell, and B) he’s focussing more on the magical aspect than the fact that basically every step of this spell, was increasingly intimate.

Arthur tries to force his mind to do the same, as Merlin receives his nod. The Sorcerer picks up his paintbrush, and cups the back of Arthur’s head, nodding at Arthur to do the same.

Arthur follows his instructions to the letter. He concentrates so much on repeating exactly what Merlin said, and painting the symbol exactly like it was drawn in the book, that he doesn’t notice Merlin’s fond smile on him.

Arthur has always pursed his lips slightly when focusing, and it’s one of the many small mannerisms that Merlin struggles to look away from.

It comes time for them to touch foreheads, and Arthur takes a deep breath as he feels Merlin pull him forward (and he does the same to Merlin).

They hold eye contact, and Arthur has to hold in a gasp at the feel of Merlin’s magic flowing through him from the moment their heads meet. Merlin holds them there for a few seconds, before letting go and stepping back, Arthur following suit.

Within seconds, both of them are doubled over and groaning, hands clutching their heads as the feeling of warm, gentle magic is replaced by a splitting headache.

Like Merlin had said, it only lasted for a couple minutes at that high intensity, but it feels like forever.

At long last, the stabbing agony turns into a dull ache. Still in a great deal of pain, but not so much that they can’t open their eyes and head over to the table to down their pain relief potions.

At Arthur’s vague gesture, the both of them head over to the two armchairs in front of the fire, and they collapse in their respective seat, each holding their heads in their hands.

(Arthur had the second comfy chair moved to his chambers after a year or so of Merlin always sitting in his, when he first stated working for him. Merlin noticed, but never mentioned it, and the new chair, though it was never said out loud, became his.)

Arthur speaks (more like groans) after a few minutes:

“I thought those potions were supposed to help?”

“Well, it’s magical pain. Curing it isn’t an exact science. Plus the pain is sort of part of the spell, it’ll have mostly faded by the morning. I can always put together something stronger if it stops us from sleeping.”

Arthur looks up at Merlin for the first time as he begins to speak again:

“So... did it work? I feel a little odd but I don’t know if that’s the headache, or whatever happened when we touched heads, or what?”

Merlin looks up, and raises his eyebrow, before saying, wordlessly:

“Yeah. It worked.”

Arthur widens his eyes at that, before scrunching his face up (Merlin just about manages to not laugh at him) in concentration, and staring at Merlin intensely:

“Am I doing it? Merlin can you hear thiiiiiiiis? Merliiiiiii-”

Merlin laughs, before actually saying:

“Yes. Gods shut up Arthur, yes you’re doing it. It’s not exactly difficult.”

Arthur joins in his laughter:

“Sorry sorry, I just wanted to make sure. What now, is that?”

“I mean, yeah, we should probably-” he huffs slightly:

“We should probably practice. You need to get used to doing it over longer distances, and whilst we’re concentrating on other things, so you don’t get caught off guard. We can just keep each other updated across the day tomorrow, that should be plenty of time for you to get used to it.”

Arthur puts his “concentration face” on again as:

“Yes you’re probably right. Just don’t say anything stupid whilst I’m in a meeting, can’t be distracted by your idiocy.”

Merlin smirks slightly, but Arthur sits up straighter, and interrupts him before he can say anything:

“Can we do the same with images? Like could we show each other what we were seeing? I imagine that would come in very handy.”

Merlin furrows his eyebrows slightly:

“It’s headache inducing, and takes a lot more energy and concentration, but we could, if it was an emergency. I’ve never done it before. We’ll have to practice at some point, if we get a quiet day.”

Arthur nods in thought, and waves around the room, focussing on the window and the laid, but cold, fireplace:

“Could you...?”

Merlin nods his head, his eyes flashing gold as the curtains draw themselves and the fireplace bursts in to roaring flames.

“Thank you.” is spoken is Merlin’s head as Arthur once again puts his head in his hands, grumbling as he rubs his temples. The conversation had helped distract for a moment, but both of them still had terrible headaches.

“Something tells me it won’t take long, you’re already using it like it’s second nature. Though you’ll have to keep an eye on that, remember we have to actually speak out loud to other people, still.”

Arthur hums, but doesn’t look up. Merlin takes that as a cue to end the conversation, and uses magic to wave over the book he was currently reading.

The Sorcerer pulls his feet up on the chair (his chair), and settles in to read another chapter, opposite from the King, who stares into the fire, deep in thought.

Arthur doesn’t take anything that the war declaration said to heart, he knows he’s done right by his people, and on good days, he’s even proud of his accomplishments, as opposed to feeling like he’s still atoning for his father’s evils.

But still. The fact that someone was this opposed to Camelot’s new found prosperity was disturbing, not only politically, but personally. What of the people under this neighbour-tyrant’s rule? Are they suffering? They will surely feel the fallout of this war more than Camelot’s people.

Arthur was caught between guilts. It would be far too dangerous to offer refuge from this tyrant’s rule, it would undoubtedly be taken advantage of by spies and usurpers. But could he, in good conscience, leave those people to suffer under whoever would replace him? When Camelot inevitably prevailed?

These thoughts plague Arthur for a while, and he’s only broken from his spiralling worries when a thump to his side, has him look up rapidly.

He lets out a quiet chuckle as he realises Merlin has fallen asleep in the other armchair (in Merlin’s chair), the heavy book dropping to the floor.

Arthur gets up quietly, stretching his back, and noting that while his head still hurts, it isn’t nearly as painful as it used to be.

He wonders over to his bed, dragging two blankets back to the chairs by the fire.

One, he drapes over Merlin. 

Arthur stands over him, and gently strokes the hair back from his face, smiling fondly as his former-manservant shuffles slightly, leaning into his hand, and mumbles unintelligibly in his sleep.

The other, he wraps around himself before settling back into his own chair, resuming the contemplative staring into the fire. Though this time, he’s thinking on the gap between him and Merlin, and how small it had gotten over the years.

You’d think that such a train of thought would be focused on the big things: the battles, the near death experiences, the emotional speeches... the outburst in the woods. But no. They barely crossed his mind. Rather, Arthur was thinking on the small things: the small smile Merlin saved for hurt children when he called them brave, the fire in his eyes when he challenged an arsehole councilman, the pride on his face when Morgana succeeded in her lessons.

Knowing of Merlin’s magic had been an important stepping stone, but a stepping stone nonetheless. Since then, in the time that had passed, he had learnt all the seemingly unimportant things that made Merlin, Merlin.

His favourite colour was blue (blue like the sky and blue like Avalon and blue like the cover of his favourite book (blue like Arthur’s eyes, not that Arthur knew that)).

His favourite season was spring (spring with flowers and baby animals and the world breathing around you. Arthur could almost see Merlin vibrating in time with the world at spring, which didn’t surprise him, once he learnt how tied to nature his magic was).

His favourite holiday was Yuletide (Yuletide with family and dancing and singing and true freedom, all ending in a new beginning, the world getting to start again, in a small way).

His birthday was the first day of the new year (truly, a new year, and a new beginning).

His favourite food is blueberries (but really, he loves any sweet fruit. Never one for actual candy though, maybe he just wasn’t used to such luxuries. Arthur found himself wanting to provide Merlin with every luxury he could ever want).

His childhood was full of mischief and fear (running around pranking people with Will all day, and going home in the evening to find nightmares filled with red cloaks and smoke and a pyre just for him).

Arthur had spent the last nine months making sure that Merlin would never have such nightmares again.  He came damn close to changing the Pendragon colours when Merlin told him of the Red Cloak detail.

Before long Arthur also finds himself nodding his head, but moving to his bed means waking Merlin up and sending him away, and honestly? Arthur would happily wake up with a crick in his neck, if it meant he could fall asleep to the sounds of Merlin, gently snoring through the night.

With that final thought, he finally drifts to sleep in his armchair, warmed by the fire, and Merlin’s presence.

~

The next morning, King Arthur, flanked by his Court Sorcerer, his Court Seer, and his First Knight, announces to a large crowd the news of the impending war.

The people are worried, but he speaks to them honestly, and they respect that. Arthur tells them of the preparations being made: the outer villages already being warned, the partnership with the Druids, the preparations of both medical supplies and the tools of war.

As they thought, word spreads quickly. The city is bustling with people. No matter the war declaration, work still has to be done, but the air is abuzz with gossip and chatter. Arthur is thankful, for the lack of panic, and sends a grateful smile to Merlin when:

“You did good. They respect, and trust you. Be proud.” echoes in his head.

~

Time passes

After a week or so, the first refugees from the outer villages start arriving, and a few days later, Elyan, Gwaine, and Lancelot make it back, having delivered the notice to all of the outlying settlements.

Like Gwen had said, work in the forgery greatly sped up, and the armoury was being stocked up.

With the help of all the Druid Healers, Gaius’ preparation of the infirmary was going quickly, and he was pleased with the progress.

Morgana was seeing bits and pieces of what The Magicians (M+M and the Druids, named by Gwaine) interpreted to be the big battle, but weren’t seeing how it would start, or how it would end.

It took the people of Camelot (including Arthur) a while to get used to it, but Merlin also had Kilgharrah and Aithusa doing daily fly overs of the whole kingdom. 

Magic wasn’t illegal in the opposing kingdom, but was taken advantage of by the crown, and Merlin didn’t want to risk them sneaking up on Camelot somehow, without anyone noticing until it was too late.

Merlin did indeed check on the tunnels like he wanted. He made doubly sure that he knew where all the exits were, and the best ways to defend them. As far as he knew, no one outside the castle knew they were there, so they could be used as an emergency evacuation plan, hopefully with the opposition taking a while to catch on.

Though Arthur liked to remind Merlin that that sort of action probably wouldn’t be necessary. The fighting would hopefully take place no where near the actual city, and even if they did, Camelot was still stronger than their opponent.

Over this time, Merlin and Arthur continued to take advantage of their mental link. Unless in the presence of other people, they spoke almost exclusively in their heads.

Arthur’s poker face was getting much better as well. Merlin's constant snarky comments during council meetings was definitely the main source of practice.

It was during such a meeting, that Morgana burst in, and looked between Merlin and Arthur frantically, before saying:

“I’ve seen it. It’s coming!” Arthur reacts first, yelling at the council:

“Everyone out, right now!-”

He then turns his attention to one of the guards:

“Go fetch Sirs Gwaine, Elyan, Percival, and Lancelot. They should be on the training ground, hurry!” (luckily, this was a rare meeting that everyone else in The Gang was already attending)

With that the guard rushes out, and the remaining members of the council (Arthur, Gwen, Gaius, Merlin, Leon, and now Morgana) rush to their side room.

As they enter, Merlin’s eyes flash gold, and he waves his hand, pushing the table and all but one of the chairs to the side of the room.

The last chair he moves to sit right in the middle, and Morgana quickly settles on it, closing her eyes.

A few minutes later, the knights come rushing in, Gwen murmuring quietly:

“Morgana has seen something, I think her and Merlin want to try and show us.”

Merlin nods to Leon, and he locks the door behind him.

The Sorcerer thrusts his arm towards the floor, and mutters a spell under his breath. His eyes flash gold, and soon enough, the room is filled with steam so thick, no one can see even a foot in front of them. They hear Merlin speak through the fog:

“Alright Morgana, just like we practiced. Focus on what you saw, and push it out of your mind, and onto the steam. Keep your breathing slow, and try to keep things chronological, clear your mind and think of nothing else.”

Morgana hums, and the group hear her take a deep breath (certainly calmed by the fact that Gwen and made her way to her, and had placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, receiving a grateful smile from Merlin).

Within moments, everyone begins to see shapes moving in the fog, and hear sounds echoing around the room.

It takes a minute or two for things to come into focus, and the fog seems to sharpen. The Gang find themselves stood in the middle of a field, all in grey. Everything is slightly blurry, and if they squint, they can see the walls of the room around them through the illusion. Arthur speaks:

“This is where the battle happens?-” 

A nod from Morgana, who still sits in a chair with closed eyes, prompts Arthur to continue:

“Does anyone recognise it?” Gwaine speaks first, snapping himself out of the shock at what was happening:

“Yeah, I do. I rode through it on the way back from handing out the notices. It’s a huge meadow maybe a three days ride to the North?”

Before anyone can reply, figures, also in grey, start to fade in around them, the first to come into focus being Merlin, closely followed by Arthur stood next to him. The real Arthur stares, obviously slightly disconcerted:

“Ok... that’s a bit weird...”

The fog!M+A look serious, glancing at each other quickly and nodding, before walking in opposite directions.

Fog!Arthur fades, the scene following fog!Merlin as he stalks across the field, before stopping suddenly. He frowns slightly, before seeming to look straight at real!Merlin, and saying:

“I’m sorry. But it’s coming. I can’t stop it, I tried. This is the only way. Just... relax... it’ll hurt less. Four days.”

Real!Merlin frowns, but gasps and takes step back as fog!Merlin looks at him meaningfully, before taking a deep breath and turns away, continuing to walk.

The weather changes, beginning to rain, and if everyone wasn’t so preoccupied by what had just happened, they would’ve laughed at fog(future?)!Merlin going “Oh for fucks sake, why am I always right?” under his breath.

Suddenly, the scene changes entirely. 

On the floor lies a body, on his side, but face down, a sword through his back, poking out through his chest. Whoever it was had been attacked from behind. Rain still pours.

If anyone had looked up, they would’ve noticed the meadow completely free of other bodies. A battlefield that had apparently held only one fight.

The Gang jumps, as they hear a yell, and turn to see fog!Arthur race towards a figure no one had noticed.

Fog!Arthur cuts them down quickly, barely paying attention, before falling to his knees next to the body:

“No.... no no no, Come on Merls, don’t do this to me.”

Everyone apart from Merlin gasps at this, watching as fog!Arthur turns the body over.

A vacant fog!Merlin stares up at the sky, unmoving, eyes glassy, blood trickling from his mouth, as fog!Arthur continues to mutter to himself unintelligibly.

Before anyone can react, the scene fades again, completely this time.

The fog melts into the floor, the room around them revealed again, as Morgana slumps in her seat, breathing deeply.

No one looks away from the spot where Merlin’s body had been until Merlin interrupts the tense silence:

“That’s not... good.” He doesn’t look scared, despite finding out that he would apparently die at some point in the near future.

Everyone looks up at him in shock, tears in Arthur’s eyes, and fear and sadness in Morgana’s, but before anyone can say anything, he speaks again:

“There’s a storm brewing at the moment, it should start in about four days, that’ll be what he... what I meant earlier. No armies. That would explain why Morgana hasn’t seen the original Bloody Battle visions in a while... no battle? Hmm.” He seems to be muttering to himself, but looks up as Arthur grabs his shoulders:

“You won’t be going. You can stay back and help at the main infirmary.”

Everyone nods in agreement, but Morgana shakes her head, before saying (obviously tired):

“That’s not how it works. The more.... solid, my visions are, the more likely they are to happen. I’ve never had a vision that clear. And you heard what Merlin... or Future Merlin, said. This is happening.” She looks to Merlin with fear in her eyes:

“You’re going to die. In four days.”

The room once again looks to Merlin, all very confused at why he looks more thoughtful than anything. He shrugs off Arthur’s hands  and paces slightly. He let’s out a thoughtful hum before looking at Morgana:

“I don’t suppose you can remember anything about that sword? Did it seem strange to you or... just a sword?” At Morgana’s confused expression, he points absentmindedly to his own chest.

Arthur interrupts:

“What does that matter? It was a sword, Merlin, through your chest. I don’t care what either of you say. We’re keeping you away from that meadow. I’ll lock you up if I have to, you’re not going.”

Merlin looks at him apologetically:

“Of course it matters. Depending on whether whoever that sword belongs to has done anything funky to it or not, I’ll just wake up again-”

He waves his hand casually:

“-and besides. You have nothing here that I couldn’t break out of, Arthur.  There really are only one or two things that can tie me down properly, and I’m sure as shit not gonna tell you what they are now. Morgana? The sword?”

She looks shocked at his casual approach before replying:

“Uhh... it didn’t feel evil or anything. It just felt like a sword, but I wouldn’t bet on it. You’ve seen how my meditations have been going recently, not everything is in focus, I could have missed an enchantment easily. I would tell you not to risk it but.... I know you. And that vision was clear. Nothing is going to stop you from... that.”

Merlin nods thoughtfully, but Arthur seems to be getting more panicked, but before he can speak, Leon interrupts:

“Wait... backtrack a minute. What do you mean “wake up again”? Merlin there was a sword through your chest. That was very much a... killing, blow.”

Merlin sighs and looks around the room, finally seeming to notice how horrified everyone looked:

“You guys... remember that I’m immortal right? Unless someone stole one of my dragons without me realizing, and made another Excalibur type weapon, again, without me realising... then I should be fine.”

Arthur bursts, grabbing Merlin once again:

“Merlin that... that was not fine! The future me was freaking out, and you weren’t waking up! There has to be another way. I won’t risk it.”

Merlin ignores him, looking instead to Gwaine:

“You said it was a three days ride away? To the North?” Gwaine nods hesitantly, and Merlin looks towards Leon:

“Have the army gather outside the city gates, but tell them that they’re not going anywhere. It looks like me and Arthur are going to be able to sort this out without any... or... you know... without any permanent bloodshed. But they should be ready just in case. Morgana, take tonight to rest, and build your strength. You’re going to be staying here, the last line of defence, if it comes to it.-”

He’s interrupted by Elyan:

“NO. Look I saw it as well as anyone in this room. But we are not leaving you. We are a family, we hold Camelot in our hands, and we won’t leave you to do this alone. We’ll all be there. You want us to stand back and watch? Fine. But you and Arthur are not doing this without us. Not this time.”

Morgana forces herself to stand, with Gwen’s support. Everyone in the room gives a decisive nod as she speaks:

“He’s right. Nothing you can do, Lord Emrys, will stop us from following you to that meadow.” Merlin looks about to argue, but she narrows her eyes at him, and he deflates.

He looks around the room, at his family, and sees their faces. All set in stone. They had just seen his body, and they weren’t going to let him do it alone, not this time.

He nods slightly, pretending that his eyes aren’t filling with tears. He reaches up and squeezes Arthur’s hand, still on his shoulder, as he sadly smiles:

“...Ok. I... thank you. If we want to get there in time, we’ll need to leave today.” 

“We need them all distracted so we can slip away.” echoes through Merlin’s head, but before he can respond, Gwen speaks up, her voice strong and determined:

“I’ll go tell the stables to get our horses ready immediately, and grab some supplies from the kitchen. Everyone meet in the courtyard in half an hour.”

Percival:

“I’ll go to the stables, you head straight for the kitchens and I’ll meet you there after and help.” Gwen gives a firm nod, and the two of them leave. Gaius speaks up next:

“I’ll gather some medical supplies, and fetch some things from my chambers, and then let the infirmary staff know what’s going on.” and he leaves without waiting for a response. Morgana speaks up next:

“I’m going to grab a change of clothes for everyone. You (gesturing to Arthur) need to grab your armour.”

She looks to Elyan questioningly:

“Yeah I’ll help. I’ll grab spares for the knights, you grab something for yourself, Merlin, The King, and Gwen.” The two of them leave, exiting the room and heading in different directions.

Arthur speaks next, but directs it to Leon:

“Have the armies gather around the city, the bulk of the force on the North side. Tell them what’s happening. Hopefully we won’t need them but... if we fail, they need to be ready.”

Leon says nothing, but gives a firm nod, and marches out of the room, heading to ring the emergency bell at the training grounds.

“Well that wasn’t too difficult. What about these two?” Is what manifests in Merlin’s head this time, and he replies quickly:

“I don’t know, but quickly. If you take too long, they’ll know you’re just coming up with excuses to get rid of them.”

Arthur looks to Lancelot and Gwaine, but before he can say anything, Gwaine laughs and interrupts him:

“Absolutely not, princess. There’s nothing left to be done, you two just want to sneak off without anyone noticing, and we won’t let you.”

Arthur huffs at that, and Merlin raises an eyebrow at him:

“I told you they wouldn’t fall for it.” Arthur gives his Sorcerer a withering glare:

“Shut up, Merlin.” Merlin just laughs in response, ignoring the confused looks on Gwaine and Lancelot’s faces.

Lancelot drops the look, and speaks:

“Ok I don’t know what that was, but Gwaine’s right. ALL of us, are going to your chambers so you can get your armour, and then ALL of us are heading down to the courtyard.”

Arthur huffs once again before marching from the room, his Sorcerer and two knights trailing closely behind him.

~

As agreed, 30 minutes later, all of them are gathered in the courtyard. Morgana and Elyan had packed each of the horses with spare clothes, and the food that Percival and Gwen had bought. 

It wasn’t much, but it would do them for the first night, they would definitely have to hunt whilst they travelled, but that’s not unfamiliar to them.

With one last look at each other, they ride out towards the Northern City Gates, Arthur leading the way. 

After Leon had informed the knights of what was going on, he had called an emergency council meeting, and informed them as well. They weren’t happy, but Leon put his “in-charge” voice on, and told them to deal with it.

They reached the gates, and Arthur nodded at a grave Gwaine to take the lead. Not a word has been spoken since they met up in the courtyard, and they ride out in silence. 

Merlin glances at Arthur next to him:

“Everything is going to be ok, Arthur.”

He gets no response.

I feel kinda bad leaving it there, but just like I thought it would, it was getting a tad too long. 

THIS IS COMPLETED!! Part 5 (final part) has been posted.

If y’all want my thoughts on anything specific, let me know :)

[iam93percentstardust]

A very happy birthday month to you! I’m a fan of your Stony fics. If you’re still taking prompts, could you do one with a Las Vegas backdrop? Maybe Steve’s first time there with Tony for some reason? I was supposed to have my first trip there ever but Covid cancelled it. Maybe at least they can have a happy ending there. 🙂

Thank you! I’m glad you’re enjoying the Stony fics!

So sorry your Las Vegas trip was cancelled, that’s really awful. I sort of went to Vegas once (it was a layover in the airport). The only thing I remember about the whole thing was the 5 bajillion slot machines in the airport terminals

Since I know so little about Vegas, I ended up going with the getting married in Vegas trope instead of something about the casinos. I also hope you don’t mind that I used this for my bingo square, but I saw the happy ending part in your ask and got inspired for my happily ever after square (details below the cut)

Here’s to Las Vegas

The day after Steve gets married, he wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel with a ring on his finger and Tony Stark snuggled up beside him.

Most days, Steve wakes up the second his alarm goes off, alert and ready for his run. This day, however, he drifts into wakefulness slowly, comfortably lying on his back. He’s warm and there’s a heavy weight on his stomach and chest, pressing him down into sheets that feel so much nicer on his bare skin than the ones he has at home. That’s the second thing he notices: he’s not wearing any clothes, not even the boxer-briefs he normally wears in lieu of pajamas. And the third thing he notices is that there’s something soft tickling his chin.

He slowly blinks his eyes open. He’s somewhere with high vaulted ceilings and an expensive-looking chandelier, which means it’s not Tony’s place (he thinks chandeliers are tacky) and it’s definitely not Steve’s (he can’t afford a chandelier). Whatever it is on his chest shifts and Steve looks down. Tony is draped across him, the top of his head tucked under Steve’s chin, their arms and legs tangled together. He’s breathing deep and even, still asleep even though sunlight is pouring through the window.

Steve smiles at the sight and raises his head enough to kiss Tony’s curls. He doesn’t often get to wake up with Tony. Steve lives in Brooklyn and Tony lives in Manhattan and they’re both so busy—Tony with SI’s R&D and Steve with his teaching—that they decided early on in their relationship that spending every single night together was a bad idea because one of them would always end up late to work. So this makes for a nice change.

Tony stirs, inhaling deeply. Steve brings his hand up to stroke over Tony’s hair, the way he likes it when they both have a rare day when neither of them have to be anywhere so they can spend the night. That’s when he sees it.

The ring.

The one that’s sitting on the ring finger of his left hand, exactly where it should be—except he’s not supposed to be wearing it for another week.

In the sleepy haze of waking up, he’d forgotten what they’d done last night but the memories are filtering in. Flashes of Tony excitedly talking him into finding a chapel and wrangling a couple witnesses from off the street and filing the marriage license a whole week early because both of them were more than tired of the wedding planning, the swell of emotions he’d felt at hearing Tony declared his husband and sweeping Tony off his feet and back to their hotel, kissing the whole way and probably scandalizing their Uber driver.

He groans and tips his head back against the pillows. Tony makes a low sound and yawns widely before slowly opening his eyes. He looks a little like an adorable kitten and Steve can’t resist kissing the top of his head again.

“Wuzzgoinon?” Tony mumbles sleepily.

“What’s going on,” Steve says, “is that your mother is going to kill us. No, she’s going to kill me, because you’re her darling angel who can do no wrong and she’s never once thought I’m good enough for you.”

“No, you’re better,” Tony says around another yawn. “Why is my mama going to kill you?”

Steve picks up Tony’s left hand and waves it in front of his face. Tony goes cross-eyed trying to make out what’s different about his hand. “Oh,” he says eventually and lays his head back down on Steve’s chest.

“Oh?” Steve asks. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“If Mama didn’t want us to elope, she shouldn’t have sent us to Vegas by ourselves to pick up the rings,” Tony says, as though he’s pointing out something reasonable, even though this is the most absurd thing that’s ever happened in Steve’s entire life—and his best friends are Bucky and Sam. Those two are the very definition of absurd. “Everyone knows what happens in Vegas.”

“This is your fault,” Steve informs him. “If you hadn’t insisted on this particular jeweler—”

“Hmm maybe I was planning this,” Tony hums, closing his eyes again.

And that’s… that’s actually entirely possible. Ever since they got engaged, Tony has been complaining about the big white wedding Mrs. Stark wants them to have and threatening to steal Steve away to the courthouse to elope. Steve had thought he’d calmed down about the whole affair after Mrs. Stark’s tearful outburst about her just wanting her baby to have the perfect wedding (Tony is nothing if not his mama’s boy), but maybe he’d been planning on this instead. He had thought it odd when Tony had insisted on a small-name jeweler in Las Vegas who wouldn’t ship to New York, thereby forcing them to travel to pick up the rings, but if Tony had been planning this all along…

“Did you?” he asks before he can stop himself.

Tony stares up at him for a long moment, blinking. Then he dryly says, “Yes, Steve. I, who has never made a decision that wasn’t impulsive even once in my entire life, somehow managed to both plan out a trip to Vegas to get married and keep it a secret from the love of my life who knows everything I’m thinking before even I know it.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Steve says, grinning at him. What they’ve just done hits him and he laughs giddily. He sits up, pulling Tony up with him to give him a closed-mouthed good morning kiss. “We’re married.”

Tony smiles happily and kisses him again. “Yeah, we are. Good morning, Mr. Stark-Rogers.”

He likes the sound of that. He really likes the sound of that. Another kiss. “What are we going to tell everyone?” he asks.

“Hmm. How about we got so caught up in the thrill of picking up the rings that we abandoned all reason and got married here? It’s not like the big white wedding my mama wants even really matters in the grand scheme of things. It’s the marriage license that counts.”

“She’s still going to want it.”

“Undoubtedly. And we’ll give it to her. But this is nice, isn’t it?” Tony peers up at him anxiously. “No fuss, no caterers with ten different meal plans for all the restrictions, no Great-Auntie Mildred who shouts for the minister to speak louder. No stress at all.”

Steve leans back against the headboard, thinking about it. Tony’s right. They dealt with a lot less stress by getting married this way. But it isn’t just Great-Auntie Mildred that they left behind, it’s their friends too. It’s hard to know how he feels about that.

But then he starts thinking about the wedding picture the photographer had handed them before they left the chapel last night. Steve had tucked it into his wallet for safekeeping, and he reaches over to the bedside table to grab it, pulling the photo out so he can look at it. It’s a picture of their kiss. They’re holding onto each other so tight he’s not sure a piece of paper would fit between them, smiling so broadly that it’s barely a kiss at all. And he thinks about the engagement pictures Mrs. Stark had sent out in the announcement and wedding invitations: poised and perfect and not a smile to be seen anywhere.

“Yeah,” he says eventually, pulling Tony against his chest. Tony snuggles in, warm and beautiful and all Steve’s. “This was pretty damn perfect.”

Tony sighs contentedly and presses a kiss right over Steve’s heart. “Good.”

“But your mother’s still going to kill me.”

“We just won’t tell her,” Tony replies dismissively. “We’ll get married again and we won’t have to worry about the wedding because we’ll know we’re already married.”

“She’s going to notice the rings.”

“Not if we spend the whole week here.”

Steve stills. He hadn’t thought of that. It would solve a lot of problems, not least that Mrs. Stark would finally have free reign to do whatever she wanted with the wedding without any input from either of them. She was doing anyway, but at least now, they don’t have to hear about how their small family affair has turned into the society event of the year.

Tony continues in a wheedling voice, “Call out all our friends, treat it like an extended bachelor party—or our first honeymoon, take your pick.”

Steve stops him right there with another kiss, lingering this time. “And what are we going to do on our first honeymoon?”

“Blow all our money on slot machines. Count cards at the poker table. Go see some really truly ridiculous shows,” Tony says with a shrug. “What everyone does when they’re in Vegas.”

“Hmm somehow I don’t think counting cards is what everyone does.”

“I suppose everyone didn’t grow up with Ana Jarvis,” Tony muses. Steve laughs because it’s true. Howard might think that Tony is a troublemaker all on his own, but everyone knows that Tony learned it from the best.

He’s distracted out of his thoughts by Tony picking up his hand and gently kissing his wedding ring. “It’s the first day of the rest of our lives, darling,” Tony murmurs. “We can do whatever we want.”

Details for @tonystarkbingo

Title of Fill: Here's to Las Vegas Collaborator: iam93percentstardust Card Number: 4012 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29676711 Square Filled: A3 - Free Square Ship/Main Pairing: Stevetony Rating: T Major Tags/Warnings/Triggers: Established Relationship, Fluff, Marriage Summary: The day after Steve gets married, he wakes up in a Las Vegas hotel with a ring on his finger and Tony Stark snuggled up beside him. Word Count: 1558

[choosing-criminalminds]

One More Time

Summary: Their love was years and years in the making, and even when prison quickly builds back up the walls they worked so hard to break down, Spencer learns just how strong the foundation of their trust is.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!BAU!reader(ish) -> told mostly in the 3rd person, from Spencer’s POV

Category: angst (?)

Warnings: mentions of character death (Maeve, Gideon), mentions of blood (Maeve’s death), slight panic/anxiety, language -> let me know if there are any more to add!

Also, un-beta’d, we die like the trash we are.

Length: 5.6k

A/N: Okay yeah so first post. So…this turned out much longer than expected? This is for Ellie’s ( @spenciebabie ) writing contest/celebration and goodness I’m so nervous because I’ve barely written, much less posted, anything in years. Anyway, I guss I decided to challenge myself to write this? I hope you guys like it?

Also, if anyone wants a new friend, please hit me up because I’m too shy to say hello myself.

Prompt was: “Why don’t you make me?”

-*-*-*-

“Trust has to be earned, and should come only after the passage of time.”

—Arthur Ashe

-*-*-*-

For all his genius, Spencer didn’t know what to make of the fact that he found himself inexplicably drawn to her.

It wasn’t until years down the line that he realized he had been exceptionally aware of her since they met, carefully observing, cataloguing the way she so gently and kindly defied every expectation and pushed past every preconceived notion he had of her. By then, she had already settled in a little corner of his heart and helped seal the cracks in his life that he didn’t even know existed.

But when she first joined the team as an intern, he was more than a little reluctant to get to know her. It was during the summer between her college graduation and the start of her graduate studies, and she seemed too worldly, too perfect. She wasn’t like the girls from high school, or even college, for that matter, who were simply mean. On the contrary, she was wonderfully polite and incredibly ambitious, intelligent, and very much the type of girl that was far too out of his league, one that wouldn’t spare him a second glance before continuing down whatever focused path she was on.

That’s why he planned to avoid her as much as possible her first day in the office. She had, thankfully, spent the morning in Hotch’s office, since he was her official supervisor, but when he saw them about to emerge right before lunch, he panicked, muttered a random excuse, and shuffled out of the bullpen, leaving a bemused Derek and Elle in his wake.

It didn’t help that he was ducking out of rooms while JJ was giving her a quick tour and making introductions, and almost every member of the team had cornered him, encouraging him to talk to her, to befriend her due to their closeness in age. (“She’s only what? Two-ish years younger than you?” When he mumbled that exact date, Penelope had broken into a large, wicked grin, poking him teasingly in the cheek. Gratefully, she held back any further comment.)

Spencer had blinked, a little surprised, when Penelope Garcia, who generally disliked change, had only good things to say. Remarkably humble about her achievements, and not in the standoffish fake way, Penelope commented after admitting she had run a background check on her. Genuine, and quite sweet.

Polite, Derek had said, if a little quiet, trying to see where she fits in the team dynamic. You should reach out, be a friend, he suggested.(Spencer ignored the very pretty slipped somewhere in the comment, as well as the knowing smile shot his direction when he felt his cheeks flushing.)

A surprisingly wicked sense of humor, was all Elle said with a sly smile. (Spencer chose to ignore that too.)

And when Spencer tentatively asked the man, Jason Gideon, a man of generally few words, had spoken of her, however briefly, with surprising fondness, because of course Gideon had met her when she was a child, because of course her uncle now headed legal three floors up, and of course her uncle was the last third of the BAU’s Holy Trinity, of which Gideon and Rossi were a part of.

You’ll get along very nicely.

Spencer was incredibly intimidated, to say the least.

And then when he couldn’t avoid her anymore (because of course they were desked next to each other), all it took for her was noticeably catching herself from extending a hand, then offering a small little wave and a nervous smile to leave him breathless. (He pointedly ignored the look knowing look JJ shot him.)

He tried to stifle the little seed of hope—that she definitely wasn’t interested in him, and her saccharine smile was nothing more than a false front to make a positive impression during a lucrative FBI internship meant only to bolster her resume—but the resolve crumbled quickly. She turned out to be so genuinely kind and sweetly humble that Spencer cursed the fact that the internship lasted only through that summer.

It also certainly didn’t help, either, that the very first thought he had when meeting her was a single word.

Pretty.

-*-*-*-

It was almost ridiculous how well she got along with everyone in the office.

She clearly made it a mission to make the most of the time she had and was more than willing to put in the work and prove her worth. Although she was technically Hotch’s intern and her main role was to assist the core field team, Spencer watched as she managed to get on absolutely everyone’s good graces through a combination of unassuming charm, sharp wit, and willingness to learn and to help that was so uniquely her.

For Spencer, it meant that she happily listened to what he had to say, encouraging him to continue when appropriate or saving a quiet question for later when it wasn’t. When she told him that she enjoyed listening to him talk, Spencer was taken aback, stuttering as he tried to figure out if she was only saying that to be polite. She gave him a gracious smile, ensured that she “quite honestly enjoyed” listening to him, and proceeded to ask a few well-timed and well-pointed questions to smoothly nudge him back to their previous topic.

Spencer stared at her, slack-jawed, then smiled bashfully, and allowed himself to hope.

(He definitely didn’t know what to do with the fact that when she knowingly reached out to his hand resting on the table and lightly tapped the back of his hand, he didn’t have his typical knee-jerk desire to pull away. He also mostly certainly didn’t know what to do with the fact that when her thumb grazed over his knuckles to sooth the tension he didn’t even realize he had, he felt an inexplicable calm ease into his very bones.)

-*-*-*-

“It’ll take a good five, six years to finish my J.D./Ph.D., but Hotch offered me an open invitation to join the team when I do, and I’m more than inclined to take his offer when the time comes.”

Spencer peered at her, breathing out a sigh of relief that he didn’t realize he was holding. It was the last day of her internship, and she was making the rounds to say her thank you’s and goodbyes individually to the members of the team. He was the last one, and he had been dreading the conversation the entire day.

While he wouldn’t describe what he felt for her as anything beyond a genuine, platonic friendship—in the grand scheme of things, they’d only known each other for ten weeks—their easy companionship had become very dear to him. And he was terrified and nervous that her time with the BAU would be just a small chapter in her life before she moved on to the bigger and better things, leaving him behind as a fond but distant memory.

She laughed softly at his surprise, before it trailed off into a sigh. She then took a deep breath and asked. “Do you trust me?” Spencer looked at her, a bit dumbfounded. Did he trust her? Her gaze was heavy on him and the question weighty, a gentle demand for an honest answer. Did he trust her? Yes, he did, he supposed, they were friends. Right? He breathed in deeply, squared his shoulders just a bit, and answered in the affirmative.

As if she sensed his hesitance, his unease, she gave him a knowing look and took one of his hands into hers, fingers brushing over fingers, before hooking her pinky around his. “Because I promise you, Spencer Reid, I’ll be back, right here. You’ll be waiting for me, yeah?”

He looked at her in awe, the dim light of the nearly-empty office reflecting off her kind eyes. Warmth spread through his chest, and she smiled so brilliantly that he nearly forgot to breathe, to answer. To answer. He smiled back, twitchy, introspective, and considered the weight of her question. He nodded and responded simply.

“Always.”

-*-*-*-

She managed to remain on the Bureau’s consulting payroll over the next several years, though she was primarily based in the Bay Area as she finished her graduate studies at Stanford. The team as a whole still went to her for a fresh perspective when needed; she video called in to help on cases when necessary and met up in person if a case called them to California.

He knew that she kept in touch with JJ, Penelope, and Derek, and that Hotch and Emily (whom she met shortly after Emily joined the team and a case brought them to LA) were also friendly, if professional, contacts. Spencer himself was known to receive the odd phone call from her.

However, what had Spencer almost covetously pleased was that they had something they shared exclusively between the two of them, because she had steadfastly kept her promise to write to him.

-*-*-*-

Her letters were as beautiful as they were constant, and Spencer handled and read each one with care.

Her handwriting suited her; while it generally was neat and clear little scrawl, he knew it would get a little freer, and little loopier when she was tired, if she was particularly excited, or if she found herself a bit tipsy. (And yet she still managed to always write in an almost perfectly straight line even on a blank sheet of paper. He was envious, and when he told her as such, he could hear the laughter in her response as she wrote it a little more wobbly than usual.) And while he knew her to be tilted more on the quiet, introverted side of the scale, she had a way with the written word, each phrase poetic and thoughtful.

And they were remarkably therapeutic to write in return, Spencer found. Their initial letters mostly consisted of light banter about their mutual and individual interests, updates on the progress of her research (sprinkled amusing tidbits of her exasperation and frustration), bits and pieces about his cases and updates on and amusing anecdotes about the team.

However, over time, he slowly opened up to her, about his fears, his hopes, his dreams. And when he hesitantly divulged bits and pieces about the drugs, his mother, the headaches, he felt the relief in his entire body when she responded with empathy and grace. In turn, she did the same. She was vulnerable, she was open, and as wonderful and quite near perfect as he knew her to be, he was pleased to find her so incredibly human.

Those letters he slowed down to read, committing them to memory with more intention.

(He kept her letters in the drawer of his desk at his apartment, and eventually moved them to a specially designated box when he needed more room. When he learned that she did the same, he couldn’t help the tender warmth that fluttered in his chest. He still didn’t know what to do with the feeling.)

-*-*-*-

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

It took six years, and an additional five months at the Academy (and then another few weeks as she was introduced to the legal team, with whom she would also be working with in her role as legal liaison), but she kept her promise and found her way back to the BAU, and it was like she was never gone.

This time, in her re-introduction to the team, she was a breath of fresh air.

When she approached him individually with a nervous smile, she reached out, then hesitated, and a sense of déjà vu washed over Spencer. But then, she had placed a hand on his elbow, and when she smiled, he breathed in a sense of peace and familiarity, of comfort.

“You waited.”

He smiled back, and in a rather forward gesture on his part, he adjusted so he could take the hand on his arm into his.

“Always.”

-*-*-*-

She was too good for him.

Whatever relationship they had—Spencer didn’t know what to call it, though friendship seem too trivial of a word for it—he knew it was too good, too perfect to last.

Because in a cruel twist of fate, her first case back on the team, however unofficial it was, was Maeve.

He was hyperaware of the neutral expression on her face when he finally brought his fears to the team. To anyone else she would seem serene and put together, but to him the slight sag in her shoulders and the realization transitioning to acceptance were clear as day. Spencer never mentioned Maeve to her in their letters, but later, in retrospect, he believed she had an inkling, at the very least. You seem happier, she had written, once, not too long after he first became acquainted with Maeve, and that makes me happy.

Did it? Then he didn’t want to know what his misery would do to her because then, Maeve died, and in his grief over another woman, he fought desperately to push her away.

She could share his happiness, but he refused to let her share his pain, his brokenness. She did not deserve that, and he would not be the one to destroy the beauty and sunshine and hope she brought everywhere with her.

But when they finally took Maeve’s body away, and when the blurred commotion of sirens and law enforcement and emergency services and constant hammering of half-hearted condolences and check-ins finally died down, he felt the blanket around his shoulders be adjusted, and a now-familiar pair of hands take in his own, firm, and refusing to ever let go. Thumbs traced over his knuckles as soothingly as he remembered, and only then did he begin to vaguely process the fact those hands had been tucked into his almost the entire evening, anchoring him through the haze and the fog.

As if on cue, she squeezed his hand gently, like she knew exactly when he was slowly becoming aware of her presence, and he suddenly found he lacked the strength to do what he initially intended.

Still dazed, he felt her shift, and she was kneeling on the ground in front of him where he sat on the curb, and softly drew him into a hug. Any form of resistance he previously had dissolved; he clung to her, tears stinging his eyes once again.

It’s okay, I’m here, I’ll stay, she whispered, I’ll stay, always and always.

Just don’t push me away.

“I-” His voice cracked. “I loved her.”

He paused, his voice weakening.

“I love her...”

Hands ran soothingly through his hair.

“I know.”

She always did.

“…so much.”

He didn’t need to see her face to realize that she was crying with him, for him—he could feel her trying to contain the trembling in her chest, trying desperately to remain composed. He tried to do the same, but when she tilted her head and let him bury his face into her neck, Spencer finally felt fresh tears begin to flow, and he allowed her to take his face into her hands and chase the tears with her fingers.

And Spencer wept freely, first for death of the woman he loved, and then for the tears and the grief he caused the one person he could call his kindred spirit, his soulmate.

-*-*-*-

He healed, slowly.

There were good days, when the thought of Maeve did not stir up memories of blood and fear and gunshots but, rather, of auburn hair and admiration and hushed conversations on the phone. On those days, he felt like he was no longer haunted by a ghost and could finally begin to move on. On those days, he could slow down, appreciate the small things again, and focus on how a pair of familiar, steady hands pulled him out of the past, anchored him in the present, and allowed him to hope about the future.

But then there were the bad days when her touch scalded and burned his skin. The warmth and the pulse of blood rushing through her veins and the germs on her hands and her life was overwhelming because Maeve was dead and cold and gone. So, with every glare and with every sharp comment aimed at where he knew it would hurt, he finally made good on his desire to push her away.

It was on those days the bitter voice in the back of his mind whispered how it was supposed to be Maeve, not her, there alive with him, holding his hand as they faced the world.

It was also on those days he chose to disregard the regret that settled in the pit of his stomach each time he heard his own biting voice, and disregard the horror brought on by even thinking of wishing she were dead instead. He began to ignore the tremble in her hands when she reached out to him and brushed her fingers against his in concern, and he ignored how she gradually began pulling back, hesitant, nervous that her touch would be unwarranted, unwanted. He certainly ignored the unconscious flex in his hand, the ache for the reassurance and comfort he had become so accustomed to—

He ignored it all until he woke up, one night, to an empty bed, and a sudden surge of panic rushed through his body and bile rose in his throat. She was right there, when he fell asleep, giving him a small smile and nod when he asked if she could read to him, to stay the night. Now, without a word, she was gone, she was gone, shewasgone and Spencer could feel the tightness in his chest and tears sting his eyes when realized that the only one to blame was himself, himself, himself.

Why, he thought bitterly, why was he like this? Why must he try to push away every good thing in his life?

But then, there he stood, barely aware of the tears on his cheeks and ice running through his veins, as he found her curled up on his couch, franticly wiping away her own silent tears and exhaustion from her eyes. He stumbled forward, upset, upset at himself because he made her cry again. And when she flinched when he cradled her face in his hands, apologizing to him, he nearly choked back a sob, his hands trembling as he tried to wipe away the tears that did not belong on her face.

Neither of them went back to sleep that night, and Spencer began to realize just how strong she was, as she gently told him through her tears the hard truths of his situation and where she stood in relation to him.

I can’t fight with a ghost, she had murmured hoarsely, but I can work with her legacy and her memory.

And then, with a pinky wrapped around his, she promised that she would be there to help him through it, but the only way was if, and only if, he let her.

It was that night (or, rather, morning, as the sun rose) that he began to come to terms that, whether he deserved it or not, she—and her pure and unadulterated goodness—was more or less a permanent fixture in his life, and he felt more at peace than he had in ages. And when the early rays of sunlight filtered through his windows and caught her in a soft glow, he found himself once again in awe. He reached out, hesitantly, and his heart soared when he felt the familiar pressure of her hand slipping into his.

She was steadfast and loyal and strong. She was brave, she was patient, she was kind. Moreover, she was alive, she was breathing, and she was here, present, by his side. It took time, and more painful conversations and more painful realizations, but eventually, the good days were a bit more consistent, the sun just a bit brighter, and his breathing a just bit freer with her hand pressed firmly into his own, her pulse thrumming beneath his fingers until his heartbeat synced with hers.

And Spencer was finally learning, learning about what to do with the fact that with her by his side, he felt like he could truly face the world.

-*-*-*-

Face the world he did.

When Gideon died, he felt his hand twitch, and the compulsion to escape and hide tugged at the back of his mind, and an old, nearly forgotten itch made its way from the crook of his elbow, slowly ebbing into in his veins and nagging in the crevices of the back of the mind.

But when he felt her hand slip into his, he felt it abate, the tension in his muscles eased. When her lips twitched into a knowing, gentle smile, he could see the underlying grief and frustration. Of course. She had known Gideon just as well as he did, if not better.

He breathed deeply and smiled back. It was weak, it was twitchy, and it was sad, but it was a smile, nonetheless. He wasn’t in this alone.

-*-*-*-

They were seated on a large blanket in a secluded park in D.C. on one of their rare days off when she pressed a gentle kiss on his lips, and suddenly it seemed like all the right pieces finally fell into place.

And when she whispered those three little words, and everything made sense. He looked up from where he laid, and again he was breathless at how the setting sun caught in her hair and reflected off her skin and her eyes. But then, when he opened his mouth to respond, the same three little words caught in his throat and his breath hitched, and he wanted to cry. He wanted to respond, to let her know that her feelings were returned, but the words failed him.

“It’s okay,” she murmured softly, and he trembled as he felt her hands cupping his face and fingers gracing over his cheekbones, “if you don’t reciprocate; I’ll live. But I just wanted to let you know–know that I’ll be by your side no matter what happens.”

It wasn’t until they were at the door of her apartment, when he found the strength to push past the nerves and respond.

“I do re-reciprocate, and I want–I want to say it, because I do,” he stuttered out, “but I just…don’t know how to say it yet.”

He suddenly felt like a prepubescent schoolboy, nervous and quaking and terrified. But then, magnetic as she was, she brought his gaze back to her face, and her knowing smile breathed air back into his lungs. His heart blossomed, and the fingers rubbing circles into his hand anchored his attention on her. “Then I’ll wait until you can. Always. Forever.” She paused. “Do you trust me?”

Spencer peered up at her, brows furrowed. Unbidden, the memory of the first time she asked him the same question floated to the front of his mind, and he couldn’t help the breath of amusement. The question caught him off guard, but this time, when he found his voice it was resolute, quick, and sure.

Yes.

He felt a pinky hook around his, and the now-familiar warmth bubbled in his chest.

“Good, because it’s a promise I intend to keep.”

This time, the tears her fingers caught were those of appreciation and relief.

-*-*-*-

And then, the sun set, and prison happened.

-*-*-*-

At first, it was easy to ignore.

Prison changed him. He knew it did, and he knew that she wasn’t naïve to the fact either. He was a bit harder, a bit more defensive, and while he tried his best not to show it, he knew she could see the darkness had just a little bit more of an edge. He was well aware of how she watched him just a bit more closely.

It seemed alright at first. It took a while for him to adjust; there were certainly bumps and bruises along the way, along with some admittedly choice words exchanged in frustration, but that was expected.

But he supposed it was the small things, and small things add up.

The first week her hand naturally slipped into his like nothing’d changed, but his grip was tighter and more desperate than normal, like she’d disappear or slip through his fingers if he didn’t. At the same time, he was also too terrified to touch her otherwise, as if she’d break like glass if his grip on her waist was just a bit too tight.

She never commented, gave him space, and allowed him to initiate physical contact.

She didn’t need to know, he rationalized, it wasn’t her burden to bear.

Then he began to hold her at arm’s length. She pushed, gently, and he pushed back, harder. He knew she was only trying to help, but he needed to figure it out for himself, lest he hurt her again. She only sighed, and relented. While her concern was apparent with how she watched him with just a little more unease, she gave him space.

However, while she was an exceptionally patient person, there was only so much distance and space one could handle. When she reached out, worried, and pressed just a little harder, he withdrew completely, and his rationalization slowly evolved. Stop hovering. Don’t need you treating me like I’m broken. Don’t need your pity.He ignored the pain that flashed in her eyes, the quiet desperation in her voice whenever she called after him after he refused to listen, and the increasingly familiar ache in his entire body when he began to avoid and refuse her touch.

It was the small things, because when the nightmares started, it wasn’t so easy to ignore.

-*-*-*-

“—eathe, Spencer. That’s good, breathe.”

The mumbled affirmations continued as he slowly processed his surroundings.

Queen-sized bed. Egyptian cotton sheets. Breathe in. Goose-feather down pillows. A firmer memory foam pillow that smelled of her shampoo. Breathe out.

Safety.

He was still bleary-eyed when he sunk back down, burying half his face in the pillows and ashamed as he mumbled a quiet apology. Her voice was kind, understanding, telling him it was alright as she tucked a stray lock of curls away from his face. When he seemed to settle back down, her hand gentle rested on his jaw, thumb absently tracing his cheekbone.

“Do you want to talk—”

“No.”

She frowned, sighed, took a moment to flick on the lamp light and collect her thoughts; he could see, through his lashes, the gears turning in her head about how to proceed. Meanwhile, he heaved a sighed, and sat up against the headboard. His eyes closed, doing the same as her. She then reached out, touched his hand, grazed her thumb over his knuckles and drew circles on the back. It started slow, hesitant—she was surprised that he didn’t recoil, and frankly, so was he—but the motion was familiar, grounding, so he let her continue. He knew it helped her focus as well.

“Spence, you’re…you need to talk to someone—it doesn’t have to be me! But bottling it up all inside, it’s clearly tearing you apart.”

“I agreed to start talking with my therapist, haven’t I?”

His voice was flat, defensive.

“But you haven’t, and…knowing you, you won’t be telling them the whole truth.” His jaw tightened and his lips pursed, his hand gripping the sheets flexed, and he looked away from her, intently staring at a random point in the room that wasn’t her. As always, she seemed to know him far too well.

She let out a breath of a sigh; she knew he was beginning to shut her out again. Her free hand lifted to his shoulder, rested in the crook of his neck.

“I’ve told you before, that you’ve started to shut people out. I know–I know you’re so, so strong, but you don’t have to face it alone. You don’t need to hold the weight of the world on your shoulders; we’re not as fragile as you seem to think we are.” She paused, contemplating. “If you need someone with distance that you can trust, call Derek, call Hotch, even, but remember, Spence, I made you a promise: I’ll always be here for you, no matter what.”

When he didn’t answer, still staring off into the mid-distance, she sighed.

“I’ll leave, give you some space. Think about it.”

She was at the bedroom door when he finally cleared his throat and responded. His voice was bitter as he bit out: “You’re going to have to do a lot better than that.”

A quiet ‘wha–’slipped from her lips as she angled toward him as he shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, hands gripping the sheets tightly.

“If you want to leave, fine. You seem to be doing that quite well recently. The door’s right there and you don’t have to come back until you want to make me a charity case again. But if you want me to talk, if you think you can handle it, then be my guest. Take a seat and why don’t you make me?”

He instantly regretted the words, but some dark part of his mind as pleased that he could see the anger and annoyance spark through her as she inhaled deeply and slowly turn around to face him in full. “I will if that’s what it will take.”

Spencer’s gaze hardened.

“You don’t have the fucking guts.”

A brief moment passed as she took him in full, eyes flashing. Spencer raised his gaze, challenging, daring her, and then, the same, shadowed part of his mind was savagely happy that he had finally gotten a rise out of her, because she bit back with venom.

“Fucking try me.”

And then, he watched her warily as she visibly froze, then deflate, her jaw tightening and eyes welling with unshed tears as she stumbled backward to the door.

“But–but not like this. Not like this. I’m–I’m so sorry you didn’t–you don’t deserve…” Her voice was quiet, but it was hitched with a swirl of emotions Spencer couldn’t pinpoint, and he was suddenly aware of the hot tears dripping down his cheeks. “I’m going–I’m going to go…” He heard the doorknob turn, and suddenly the sound of gunshots rang in his ears, and he could the taste the metallic bitterness as blood and dead brown eyes filled his vision.

Wait. Wai- She was halfway out the door when he called out, voice cracking, and through blurred tears he saw her shut the door and shuffled and stumbled back into the room toward him, kneeling in front of him. Through the ringing in his ears, he could hear the whispers of his name and the urgency of the apologies. And then his eyes fluttered closed when she reached up to brush the tears away, and the motion opened the floodgates. It was one of the many little touches they shared—thumbs wiping over cheeks and hands cupping faces—and he had half a mind to shove her aside, but dear God he hadn’t felt it in far too long; he leaned, almost desperately, into her touch and he could hear her sniffling back her own tears.

Fuck.

He was always like this.

His passive aggressiveness was his defense mechanism; he lashed out blindly whenever he felt vulnerable, not caring who he hurt and how much. It was something she had been helping him work through, and he thought he was getting better, but here he was, hurting her because of it again.

Not like this.

He barely noticed that she had pulled him into a tender hug, but now that he did process the warmth of her embrace seeping into his bones, he wanted to push it away. He didn’t – he didn’t deserve this but now she was pulling back, and it sent a brief course of panic through his body, a fear that she was pulling away, away from him, away from the darkness and shadows that loomed permanently over him. He wouldn’t blame her, but–but…oh.

Her eyes always spoke volumes for her, and now that she had firmly tilted his chin up, her gaze firm, resolved.

“I know you are feeling vulnerable, and I know that you believe you can do this on your own.” She breathed in deeply. In turn he gazed up at her through his tears, as evenly as he could, and she met it without wavering. “You are strong, Spencer Reid, so, so strong, been so for so long. But…but I made a promise that I would always be by your side, and I’m never going to break it. So please.” Her voice hitched, and his breath caught in his throat. “Please, trust in me, one more time. Just one more time.”

Moments ticked by to the time of his heartbeat before he finally nodded, and the relief and the elation in her eyes soothed the dull pain inside his heart. This time, he drew her into his arms and into his lap and sighed as he leaned into the crook of her neck.

Thank you.

I love you, too.

-*-*-*-

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”

—Maya Angelou

-*-*-*-

[echodrops]

First off, I love your noragmi content and how you analyze things and brings facts up.

I was wondering if you have any theories about how yatoa nd hiyori would be abel to be an actual couple because they have both admitted to having feelings for each other, but I don't think they would be abel to date as they are now wirh hiyori being a human and yato be a God (plus the age gap) so do you have any idea or theories about how this would possibly work out?

There’s a lot of possibilities for where Adachitoka might take the Yatori plotline from here on out, and they have a tendency to make surprising choices so I wouldn’t say that I can really predict where things might go, but based on what we know right now, I would say there’s several different possibilities, some where they could be a couple and some much sadder than others:

1) Hiyori dies and becomes a shinki, possibly one who is immune to god’s greatest gift and therefore gets to keep the memories of her past. Personally I hope this doesn’t happen because shinki are viewed so much as tools by others in the story that there’s a constant undertone of angst and “I’m not worthy!” to any god/shinki ship. I feel like Yato wouldn’t worry about that kind of thing at all, but I’m not sure how Hiyori would feel about it. Then again, I would love to see what kind of shinki Hiyori would become, soooo maybe this wouldn’t be that bad. Since her brother is spiritually aware as well, she could still also maintain some ties to her family.

2) Hiyori dies and is deified, becoming a goddess. This might feel a little bit more like a long shot than just becoming a shinki; however, I feel like the story has an opening for this. In Shinto tradition, it’s not that uncommon for a business or location to take on a “patron god/goddess” by enshrining someone meaningful at them (re: Tama, the cat who was enshrined as the goddess of a train station). If Hiyori did die, she might theoretically be able to be enshrined as the patron goddess of her family’s hospital, which would tie into the dream she mentioned earlier of wanting to become a doctor--although she might not be able to be an actual doctor, she’d be able to be the guardian spirit of the hospital and protect everyone within it, while also standing on equal or more popular footing than Yato as a goddess. Then, she could also take Nora as her own shinki, keeping her in the “family” as they say. And she’d continue to have access to her own family via the hospital and her brother.

3) Hiyori’s status as a half-phantom grants her some powers that haven’t been revealed yet that mean she won’t age past a certain point or that she will somehow be able to continue to interact with the supernatural world with a youthful appearance even without technically dying in the real world. Since we don’t really know what it means for someone to be a half-phantom, given that Hiyori is the only known one in the series (since Father is currently believed to be something else), Adachitoka could pretty much make up whatever weird powers they want for her and we, the audience, would probably just go along with them readily, since it would make Yatori possible. This is honestly probably the easiest route, since nothing special needs to happen to make this route possible, but it might also feel the least narratively sound.

4) Nothing happens to Hiyori, and she continues to age normally. She and Yato could be together for as long as they felt it would be appropriate, probably could have a family of little demigods, and Hiyori’s children and grandchildren would continue to be watched over by Yato, Yukine, and probably even Nora throughout time. This would be very bittersweet, as Yato and Hiyori’s time together would be so short in the grand scheme of his life, but bittersweet endings can still have their own kind of appeal for the audience, and the authors wouldn’t have to jump through any hoops to make this kind of ending possible. I’m not sure I’d really be happy to have this kind of ending, but as a reader, I don’t think I would be really “let down” by it either.

5) Instead of something happening to Hiyori, something happens to Yato--maybe his Father really is his last reliable lifeline, and he will only live as long as Hiyori does after defeating his Father, so it doesn’t matter that she’s going to age and die as well. Or maybe he gets reincarnated, basically ending the possibility of a relationship. Or maybe all along it’s going to turn out that Yato wasn’t a god of anything and his Father, as a dead spirit himself, didn’t have the ability to create a god in the first place, so Yato is some weird half-and-half being for whom the rules of the existing plot don’t even really apply. They could basically pull anything out of a hat regarding who Yato really is and what he really can or can’t do at this point, so it’s entirely possible that something could happen to Yato that would make it possible for him to be with Hiyori in a different capacity than immortal god and mortal human. Whatever might happen to Yato though, it would also require Yukine to get a happy end somehow too, so this alternative seems a little less likely to me than others.

6) The story just ends before the question of mortality/immortality ever comes up. We get something basic like “For as long as we can be together, I can’t wait keep sharing my life with Yato and Yukine!” and the story just cuts off there, leaving us to just assume whatever comes next in their relationship.

Overall, I am inclined to trust that we will get either a happy or at least a bittersweet ending out of Noragami. Nothing in the story up to this point in time has suggested that Adachitoka intend to delivery a horrid tragedy where no one gets their happily ever after. I’m very hopeful that Yato and Hiyori will manage to have a romance, even if it does end up being the sad-but-still-sweet variety where Hiyori’s time with Yato and Yukine will be limited. I don’t know that Adachitoka will deliver a pain-free Yatori ending, but I know that whatever they have planned will be good!

[xamassed]

⟬ @bucketfullofocs​ ⟭

[Aya @ Mammon, Demon Verse] About a week had passed since Aya's transformation and memory loss, and most of it Aya spent in her room looking through journals and anything else she could find among the bookshelves. She was trying to jog her memory, any memory. It didn't help that she was still stuck in her demon form, unable to return to the form she had seen in photos and drawings. So she really wasn't having much luck.

At least, until she finally spotted a picture frame along the back wall that was covered with a blanket. Curious, she creeped up to it, hands reaching up to pull the blanket down - what was it? Why was it covered? A portrait the others hadn't wanted her to see yet, maybe?

The answer she got left her speechless. A living portrait, a live image, of the ocean, fish swimming about and dolphins playfully flitting about. It was... This was...

Memories hit her like a truck, Aya letting out a yelp as suddenly she remembered - Christmas. Mammon - her brother - gave this to her. She had cried. Mammon had gloated for days that he 'won Christmas'.

She remembered him.

And she had something very important to do. In a flash she took off down the hall, her new speed helping her dash across the House, surely leaving some confused demons in her wake.

Even if she didn't remember any of the others, she remembered him - her brother, the one who had initially tried to just use her for money. The one who she had won over with kindness and a gentle heart. The one who she could always go to, no matter what.

When she finally found him, he didn't get much of a chance to ask her what was up. "I, um, I remember. You're, um, you're my brother!" And she flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, like she might forget again if she let go. She remembered, she remembered! It was small in the grand scheme of things, but so, so important to her.

She would find the second-born hunched over the edge of his pool table, though he was hardly in the middle of a solo game when she came tumbling through his bedroom door. Spread across its surface were text books, notebooks and loose sheets of homework, and on his face twisted a look of utter bewilderment. His mind had only just begun to spin and flutter, attention wanting so badly to dart elsewhere. His phone balanced within reach on a corner pocket, the gaming systems sitting behind him were calling his name, and the urge to walk around and forget his coursework had his foot tapping at the floor.

Without her and her encouragement during study sessions, all of what he read turned into runny soup inside his head. He knew he could understand it, she’d helped prove that, but he had become so reliant on her praise and the little treats she’d spoil him with that he couldn’t find it in his heart to encourage himself.

“Auugh, this sucks!” Mammon thunked his head down onto the edge of the pool table, not caring that it stung and left a red mark between his eyebrows. Half a second later, the sound of his door flying open startled him into standing upright. Irritation prickled along his spine, but it died in an instant seeing the faun standing at the bottom of his stairs. “What are ya——?!”

He didn’t like being interrupted, but just this once he would happily accept being spoken over.

“Ya remembered?” He held his breath because it was all he could do to keep himself from getting choked up. It had only been a week, but for the brothers, it felt so much longer. Every day, they had hoped for that familiar glint in her eye, the one that had let them all know just how fond of them she was. For a week, they waited, hoping they might hear her laugh, hear her say their name the way any sister might, with love and exasperation and pride.

Mammon knew that it was the roughest for Beelzebub, but when he was claimed again as her brother, he couldn’t contain himself.

“Hell yeah, I am!” Her arms were already around him, but he wiggled out of her embrace and pulled her into his. With purely demonic strength, he lifted her off her feet and spun her around. “I’m yer favorite brother, but I’mma let it slide for now ‘cause ya must be excited! It’s about damn time, though! What took ya so long? Wait, no. Don’t care. What made ya remember?”

Then, a gasp!

“We gotta tell everyone else! Ya got some’a yer memories back, so that must mean the others are gonna come back too!” Without warning, he scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder. Then, as expected from the brother with the biggest mouth, he began to shout. “GUYS!! SARAH!! GET YER ASSES TO THE COMMON ROOM!!”

And because he couldn’t wait, he cupped one hand around his mouth and shouted with as much glee as his physical form could muster. “AYA REMEMEBRED WHO I AM!!”