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wowsoboring · 4 years ago

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Deconstructing baseless Harry Potter arguments #1: Harmony Edition

There’s a very helpful account on instagram (this instagram page merely gathers toxic harmony shippers, they don’t ship Harmione or hate all Harmione shippers, please don’t send them hate, show them love and support) where you can essentially find stupid fucking bashers who make baseless arguments. I’m all for Harmione shippers, as long as they don’t denounce Romione, bash Ron and just peacefully co-exist. To my pleasure, such people are out there: they just dont seem to be seen as often as the ones that are not nice. Maybe all I see is the mean people and the majority is nice, but in this post, I am attacking those who make baseless claims and bash Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny. I don’t myself hate all Harmione shippers. On top of that, as a Romione/Ron fan, i do acknowledge Ron’s character flaws along with Hermione’s and I hold them on the same pedestal.

This is copied directly from my own instagram page, granger.weasley_ on ig.

Anyways let's get deconstructing

rebuttal:

Yeah okay mf; maybe don’t compare real-life relationships with fucking fictional ones. Your relationship going wrong has nothing to do with Ron/Hermione. It has everything to do with you and your ex: the *real life* people involved in it.

rebuttal:

The weird subreddits and discord servers also seem to have a lot of die-hard Harmione “non-canon” shippers. They bash Ron and Romione (along with Ginny and Hinny) with a burning passion without any objective sense of remorse. They ignore all the merits of Ron’s character and bash him to push their agenda. They can’t even do so much as fucking acknowledge any of Hermione’s character flaws but still somehow manage to fixate on that one time when 11 year old Ron just shit-talked one line while Hermione had just publicly humiliated him in front of the Charms class and practically shouted at him for doing the spell wrong just before. I personally don’t because Hermione was 11 too and wasn’t that good at social cues that early on, which is more than okay. Neither am I.

Only a few people in the Romione fandom bash Hermione. And it’s not like Harmione shippers (most, not all!) don’t bash Ron and Ginny remorselessly, right? The fucking hypocrisy.

If someone considers Ron as the best member of the trio, it is their own opinion and not a fact. I do that. If you consider Harry and Hermione as the best member of the trio or in the whole wizarding world, most people don’t give a flying fuck and probably won’t argue with you because it is simply an opinion. That will only happen when you pass that off as a fact.

Statistically speaking, most (not FUCKING all) Harmione moments are in the movies. The weird dance scene especially. The passionate kiss that happens in Ron’s vision, shit like that. Ron is pushed to the sidelines in the last set of movies while Harry and Hermione show each other endless love and support. “I’ll go with you”. The books on the other hand, describe Harry and Hermione as siblings multiple times, with very little Harmione references.

rebuttal:

So you don't want us to fixate on the large majority of Harmione shippers who do the exact same thing, just kissing Hermione's and Harry's ass and hating on Ron. However you will fixate on people who are most likely not EVEN bashing or hating but pointing out a few character flaws in Hermione in a fair and unbiased way. I would know, I'm a huge fan of Hermione as an individual character (in the books). The only criticism I've seen of Hermione to this day has not been bashing. In the comment section of my own fics (shameless plug) I've seen some Hermione bashing. On an ao3 comment section. And I've seen so damn fucking many people bashing Ron, Ginny, the Weasleys etc. and garner tens and thousands of upvotes on quora.

What does Ron even need excusing for? The running away incident and Krum. What does Hermione need excusing for? Canaries, contributing to Ron's insecurities by making him jealous through Cormac and Krum even though she didn't even like them (especially not Cormac, she fucking hated him). Ron wore a locket that literally highlighted his fatal flaw (insecurity) in an echo chamber. Harry kept getting annoyed when Ron wanted to check in on his family. Harry asked Ron to leave; Ron didn't say that shit in the books about Harry's parents being dead: that was plain shock value.

And sorry for repeating myself but I have seen quite a few Harmione shippers bash Ron and Ginny and excuse every single thing Harry and Hermione have done.

37 upvotes on this weird comment that makes no sense? Echo chamber alert! You know what us Romione/Ron fans all have in common? We have never experienced such an echo chamber. I made a pro Ron/Romione post on reddit and got a considerable amount of people who bashed Ron and Romione in the comments.

The amount of Hermione haters is very few compared to Ron bashers. Nobody hates Hermione for being independent, determined, etc. We dislike perfect movie Hermione who’s an unrealistic image of females and seems like some sort of agenda than a real woman. Most Romione shippers/Ron fans and book fans in general (except for you apparently) dislike movie Hermione and still are fans of realistic book Hermione. Most, not all. In general, we do not claim anyone who does the exact same thing to Harry and Hermione that these sorts of Harmione shippers do to Ron, Romione, Hinny and Ginny. I say this on the behalf of all Romione shippers and Ron fans.

Ron's not a bitchy lay-about drama causing loser. That's Steve Kloves's movie Ron. In the books Ron is realistic and simplistic and apologizes whenever he causes problems. He acts up substantially twice in a span of 7 years where he is also a hormone-fuelled teenager.

This is so contradictory and juxtaposed to the point of near delusion. First you talk about how Romione shippers bash Hermione and then you bash Ron as a Harmione shipper. Mate, fighting fire with fire will get you called a hypocrite. Fix yourself.

So the movies are fine when they work according to your agenda? And yes how dare he add such a (fake) chemistry fuelled moment between Harry and Hermione while defeating the entire purpose and groundwork for Romione, the sadness caused by Ron leaving and so many more things? Those Harmione moments you mention seem friendship -esque more than anything else.

Steve Kloves's moments ruined many things while just paying fan service to the Harmione fans he'd birthed through years in the course of 6 movies where he showed Ron as a, how you so eloquently describe it, lay - about drama causing bitchy loser, Harry as one dimensional and Hermione as a zero - dimensional Mary Sue who might as well be the main titular character. Obviously Harmione fans such as yourself don't see the problem with it as it fits your narrative

We do care about Harry and Hermione at large. Most Romione shippers rightfully bash Draco, Pansy, etc. not particularly Harry and Hermione, that's quite rare. Harry and Hermione can get along without Ron as friends. Ron and Harry can also get along without. Hermione as friend. So can Hermione and Ron without Harry as friends or more. I don't understand your point and how what you said is any different than Romione or Ronarry’s friendship.

Constant arguing is not what they do. They bicker, they apologize, and sometimes they just do it for the heck of it. They are argumentative teenager. Opposites attract doesn't work in the sense of fire and ice, it works in the case of Brownie and ice-cream. Ron is passionate, laid back and insecure. Hermione's passionate, a workaholic and not as insecure. Ron can help her get calm and composed and get her to give herself a break. Hermione can motivate Ron and re - enforce his confidence.

It wouldn't be step incest. Harry and Ginny do not regard each other as siblings. They do not look similar whatsoever. And a Harmione shipper also bashes Hinny and Ginny along with Ron and Romione? Checks out

" that fucked up Harmony" hahaha. What?

Are you literally going to date someone on the basis of what Harry Potter ships they prefer? That is so shallow end depraved. Your Harry Potter ship preferences should not be the groundwork for your dating life. Please understand that. Harry Potter is a fictional world which is not real. Hogwarts doesn't exist. Magic doesn't exist. I sound like a Dursley but that's what it is: a fictional realm with fictional character. I would personally not give a fuck if my best friend or significant other was a Harmione shipper. In the case of them being a Ron basher, I would ignore it as if it was just a minor inconvenience and something we wouldn't be discussing and that's how it should be with you. Fuck BuzzFeed, your opinion on what Harry Potter ship / character is your favorite says squat about your personality and relationship with others in a romantic or platonic context. But who cares? Live your life however you want. I'll be stoic.

It's not opposites attract rubbish or high school opposites attract. Ron and Hermione aren't polar opposites like I said, they are a bit different but similar too in many ways. They have a lot more in common than Harry and Hermione. Ron and Harry have the most in common. Both Ron and Hermione are passionate, loving, argumentative, caring, etc. Your argument lacks substance. It's biased trash. And what does “obhwf " mean?

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at the end of the day, i’m just an annoyed teenager. I try my best to be open-minded to people but only as long as they are too. I tried to use my brain more than my feelings for this post.

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Initiative pt 2 - ao3 or tumblr pt 1

It was just typical of his brother, Nie Huaisang thought. He finally, finally, finally found a girl that might suit him, agreed to marry her, and then he spent all his time worrying about…saber.

Typical.

Nie Huaisang volunteered himself to act as the family representative in negotiations with the Jiang sect, seeing as his brother would undoubtedly get them fleeced if he were trying to do it himself – “Try not to be too mercenary, Huaisang. We are the ones in the stronger position, through no fault of theirs.” – and with one thing or another he arrived at the Lotus Pier less than a week after Jiang Yanli did.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian seemed rather surprised to see him.

“I haven’t had a moment to tell them,” Jiang Yanli said, pressing her head to her forehead and looking a little tired. “They’d just completed the memorial hall, when I arrived.”

“And it’s been nothing but keeping them from fighting ever since?” Nie Huaisang said, not without some sympathy.

Only some, though. If Jiang Yanli couldn’t handle Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, even the grieved and tragic versions of them, what was she going to do the first time his brother went into a rage?

Maybe he was being too cold-blooded. After all, they’d been her parents, too.

“Your arrival is a good thing,” she said, narrowing her eyes a little in satisfaction. “Now they have no excuse to run away from me.”

Nie Huaisang couldn’t help but smile a little at that.

She summoned a few sect disciples, divided them neatly into two groups – one larger than the other – and instructed them to go bring her two recalcitrant brothers to the main hall. “You may use force,” she informed the larger group. “I would advise you that A-Xian is especially weak to tickling around his ribs, and don’t let him scare you off with that Yiling Patriarch stuff. And as for the group going to get A-Cheng – may I suggest looking especially pathetic when you convey the message that his sister, who he left alone for almost the entire war, would really like to see him if he has a moment to spare for her?”

Nie Huaisang’s smile broadened. “Tears,” he added solemnly. “Tears are very good. He hates tears.”

“Just so. Thank you all.”

“My brother is already planning out your saber,” he told her once the disciples had left, and she brightened visibly. “If there’s anything you want to contribute in terms of design, now’s the time – I brought mine in case you want to have a look later on.”

Aituan was in his luggage. Somewhere. His brother had refused to let him leave the Unclean Realm before he’d produced proof of saber, and he hadn’t unpacked since then, so surely it was somewhere.

“I’m sure whatever your brother comes up with will be fine,” she said. “I don’t know anything about weapons.”

A brief hesitation.

“Although, perhaps not – so large…?”

Nie Huaisang decided to be daring. He opened his fan in front of his face and looked at her over it, allowing his eyes to curve up in a smile. “Don’t worry about that – though if all goes well, you’re going to have to accustom yourself to dealing with a large saber at some point in the process.”

She burst out laughing, which was good.

“Nie Huaisang!” Oh, look, Jiang Cheng was here. “What are you saying to my sister? You’d better not be harassing her!”

“What would you do if I was?” Nie Huaisang wondered. “I mean, I’m not, I don’t think, but –”

“Just don’t.”

“A-Cheng,” Jiang Yanli said. “Be polite. Where’s A-Xian? I have something to tell you both.”

Wei Wuxian came in a few moments later, grumbling and rubbing his ribs but brightening when he saw them all gathered up there, and he slid into place by Jiang Cheng’s side easy as anything even if they did sort of stare awkwardly with quasi-glares, quasi-grimaces at each other first.

And then Jiang Yanli told them why Nie Huaisang was there, and all awkwardness fell away at once so that they could unite in glaring at Nie Huaisang.

“Why are you looking at me for?” he asked. “I’m not the one marrying her, that’s my brother.”

“If you had anything to do with this –” Wei Wuxian started, doing his whole looming-with-the-subtonal-wailing-of-dark-forces Yiling Patriarch thing, but ticklish around the ribs and a summer of nonsense didn’t really do much to encourage fear in Nie Huaisang, who’d never had as much common sense as a regular person ought.

“Oh, no, I objected to it,” Nie Huaisang said breezily. “Your sister doesn’t deserve my brother.”

And that, of course, got them both up in arms even more.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s wrong with my sister?” Jiang Cheng shouted, and Wei Wuxian’s aura-of-darkness got even more out of hand as he crossed his arms and glared death. “She’d be a great bride for anyone! Give me one reason –”

“I’m glad to have your support, didi,” Jiang Yanli said, calmly ladling out the soup she’d promised Nie Huaisang as if they were sitting in the midst of a nice breeze instead of a hurricane, and okay, fine, maybe his brother had a point about the importance of things like backbone and patience. “Don’t worry so much. If Nie-er-gongzi is here as his brother’s representative, that must mean he’s accepted the match.”

Or that he was here to sabotage it, but he appreciated her good faith interpretation.

“Please, just Huaisang is fine,” he said, smiling at her. “You’ll be my sister-in-law soon enough, won’t you?”

“We haven’t agreed yet!” Wei Wuxian exclaimed.

“Oh, like your opinion matters,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “You know how many people have put good money down on you leaving the Jiang sect in the next three-to-six months?”

That got all of them looking like they’d just been unexpectedly stabbed in the chest, Jiang Yanli included.

“What?” he asked, batting his eyelashes innocently at them. “Did I say something wrong? Everyone knows you aren’t doing anything for the Jiang sect anymore, Wei-xiong. All the rumors says so, and the only reason for that is if you were planning on ditching now that you don’t need them anymore.”

“That’s enough,” Jiang Yanli said, and there was a bit of steel in her voice. “A-Xian isn’t leaving, and even if he was, his opinion on my marriage would still matter to me.”

“That’s one of the reasons I objected,” Nie Huaisang said to her, deciding that she was clearly the only one mature enough to have this extremely necessary discussion with. “Meaning no offense, but in every possible respect, you’re a bad match. If you marry my brother, will you be expecting him to run around defending everything the Yiling Patriarch does whenever he’s in the mood to thumb his nose at the cultivation world? Or paying for the Lotus Pier’s reconstruction costs, even though Jiang-xiong hasn’t made a single overture to our Nie sect in terms of reestablishing trade routes or even just swapping craftsmen for mutual benefit?”

Both Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were positively black in the face.

“Of course, even if you weren’t going to anchor him down with even more political obligations, there’s your personal value,” Nie Huaisang continued, tapping his finger against his cheek. “Word has it that you’re weak and sickly. Who’s to say that you won’t die along with the first child you bear –”

“How dare you talk about my shijie like that!” Wei Wuxian shouted, slamming his hand down on the table, while Jiang Cheng’s Zidian crackled lightning like an overactive firework. “How dare you –”

“And do you still support the marriage, even with all of these disadvantages?” Jiang Yanli asked, holding up her hands to hold her brothers back. Her eyes were a bit wet, but she was otherwise unperturbed, at least on the surface.

“I do, actually,” Nie Huaisang said, pleased. Even if she went to go cry later, which he didn’t think she would, she’d done well enough to pass his personal test of what constituted backbone. “My brother doesn’t care about politics, we have plenty of money, and there’s doctors for the rest of it. If you’re really willing to put in the effort, I’d be happy to call you my sister-in-law.”

Jiang Cheng was hissing like a pot of water on the boil. Wei Wuxian was grinding his teeth.

“I appreciate that,” Jiang Yanli said, disregarding them entirely. “I can promise you that I’ll do my best.”

“Good, good,” Nie Huaisang said, and grinned at her. “There’s only enough room for one useless flower vase in the Nie household, and the position is taken. By me, if that’s not clear. I brought my brother’s eight characters – do you have yours at hand? We can calculate the auspicious date immediately.”

“I still haven’t agreed!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, and Jiang Yanli reached out to touch his arm lightly. “I haven’t! Jiejie, you don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to, no matter what good things you think it’d bring to the sect, okay? You should marry for love!”

“Jiang Cheng’s right, shijie,” Wei Wuxian said at once. “You should get anyone you like. Even if you still want that stupid Jin sect peacock, we’d find a way to get him for you.”

Nie Huaisang looked at Jiang Yanli carefully at that one. It was even odds if his brother minded her having some vestigial affections, especially in the beginning, but he himself wouldn’t be having any of that – least of all with a Jin, no matter how much better Jin Zixuan seemed to be than his father.

His brother deserved someone who would put him first, this time.

“No, thank you,” she said without the slightest hesitation, and Nie Huaisang nodded in approval. “Young Master Jin has made his opinion about me clear enough, and not just once. I’m not going to run after him like I think that’s all I’m good for. And anyway, Chifeng-zun is a good man, who you both greatly admire – why can’t I marry him?”

“You can marry anyone you want,” Jiang Cheng said at once.

“And I want to marry him,” she said, and smiled. “At first, yes, it was primarily because he seemed to offer the most advantages for our sect, but…I don’t know. He’s very nice.”

Nie Huaisang mouthed the word ‘nice’ to himself, rolling it around in his mouth like a fine wine. It might be the first time anyone had ever described his brother that way.

“I think I would be happy being married to him,” she concluded. “Even very happy. Will you approve?”

They folded like a stack of cards.

“Oh, I like you,” Nie Huaisang told her, finally but now wholly delighted. “It’ll be good for my brother.”

And it’ll be interesting to see how the Jin sect takes it, he thought with a smirk half-hidden behind his fan. Since you bring the power and influence of whole Jiang sect with you, and the Yiling Patriarch too.

He wouldn’t mention that, of course.

Only an idiot would negotiate against themselves.

#mdzs #jiang yanli #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #initative

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amyscascadingtabs · 3 years ago

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don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you [chapter 1]

“Actually, I want to add one more rule.” “Yeah?” Jake leans back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head and flexing his biceps through the green shirt with a smug grin. “You’re not allowed to fall in love with me.” "Won't be a problem."

Amy Santiago doesn't date cops. Jake Peralta's sworn never to date a lawyer again. When a couple of drinks and the returning of a borrowed shirt ends with the two of them in bed together, Amy decides to take control of the situation the best way she knows how: a comprehensive set of rules. There's just one little thing she hadn't anticipated – Jake Peralta is full of surprises.

Written for the B99 Summer 2021 Fic Exchange.

AO3 link // playlist

My contribution to this year’s fic exchange, for @fezzle! @b99fandomevents 💛

1. i never saw you coming (and i’ll never be the same)

He gets out of the car, and before Amy can gather the courage to shout after him, he’s disappeared from her sight.

She leans her forehead against the steering wheel, squeezing her fist and punching it in frustration. It doesn’t feel better, just makes her hand hurt. Amy pretends that’s what’s making her eyes tear up, and not the thought that she just screwed up her chances of ever seeing Jake Peralta again.

five months earlier.

The cop is five minutes late entering the courtroom, and Amy vows to dislike him from that point onward.

What's worse is that he doesn't seem ashamed. He simply gives Judge Stewart an apologetic grin, runs a hand through his already messy hair, and sits down on the bench next to the sergeant Amy recognizes as Terry Jeffords. Amy gives him a polite faked smile to tell him she's noted this presence and she's going to win this case, but the cop doesn't seem to notice the toxicity in her facial expression, because she gets another wide grin back. Judging from the colorful marks on his teeth, it looks like he had candy for breakfast – could it be gummy bears? Either way, Amy's respect for the man sinks even lower.

At least she won't have to worry about him, she tells herself. She already knows this case is about to be a win.

That is until it turns out this man has a reply for everything. She’d been certain the evidence against her client was circumstantial at best, nowhere near enough to get him convicted on, and the notes she’d gone through from the initial police questioning had lacked significant information. It had been nothing short of sloppy, and she’d entered the courthouse this morning filled with glowing confidence. That same confidence is now seeping away, dripping onto the polished floors of the courtroom in exchange for heated frustration as it turns out the detective – Jake Peralta, she learns – was present at the scene earlier than Amy had gathered, and from the vantage point he had, saw her client running from the corner store at full speed.

“Would you say it’s possible my client was running for a different reason?” She asks, staring coldly into the detective’s eyes as she speaks. “Such as exercising, perhaps?”

“Well, he was carrying a huge green backpack, identical to the one he was wearing when my partner Charles caught him ten minutes later. So, no,” he says, meeting her look with a smug smile of his own. “I would say that’s unlikely.”

“But not impossible?”

“Considering we also found the stolen goods in that same backpack, I’d say the chance is pretty solid it was him.”

“The bags couldn’t have been switched? Or, as my client claims, the goods couldn’t have been dropped in there by someone who wanted to get rid of them?”

“With all due respect,” says Jake Peralta, and the self-assuredness in his voice is enough for her to know the case is lost. “The streets were more crowded than a Taylor Swift concert, your honor. Someone would have seen something.”

It’s late Friday afternoon by the time Amy returns to the office of Newsom & Associates, but there’s still plenty of her coworkers left to watch as she throws her briefcase on top of the chair before closing the door to her office and digging out her pack of shame cigarettes from the bottom drawer of her desk. The only window in the room opens out to a back alley with trash cans and forgotten bikes, which is a drab view most of the time but comes in handy for secret shame-smoking. She closes her eyes and leans back against the wall, trying to savor the first inhale. She hates the habit and always tells herself she’s going to quit soon, but at times when work stresses her out like this, there’s no better fix. It’s all Jake Peralta’s fault, anyway. He’d waved at her when they’d left the courtroom, looking genuinely pleased to see her, and that had only worsened her frustration. It’s one thing being defeated – it’s worse when the winner acts like it wasn’t even a big deal.

“You should stop that.” The sound of Rosa’s voice appearing in the doorway to Amy’s office causes her to inhale too much smoke, coughing and tearing up as she hurries to extinguish the cigarette butt on the windowsill. “It’s gross.”

“I needed it,” Amy coughs again before drying her eyes with the sleeve of her blazer. “You should’ve been there. That fucking detective ruined my defense.”

“So? It happens. Doesn’t make you a bad lawyer. Stop pitying yourself.”

“You’re just saying that because you win nearly all your cases,” Amy mumbles. “And everyone’s terrified of you.”

Rosa does a little shrug, but Amy thinks she can spot the hint of a smile on her lips. She can’t be certain, though. Rosa almost never smiles, but that’s not nearly the most terrifying thing about her. She also rides her motorcycle to court and wears leather jackets and skin-tight black jeans to trials, and somehow no one's ever dared to police her on it. Amy once asked her out of curiosity if putting on a blazer would really hurt that much, and the stare she got back told her she’d be a fool to make that mistake again.

“Either way, it's not that. It was that cop who ruined everything. I mean, he showed up late, for god’s sake, with candy in his teeth and a wrinkled suit! But he somehow had an answer and explanation for everything,” Amy snorts. “And he smiled the whole time like he’d already won. And he referenced Taylor Swift! During the trial! Who does that?”

Rosa lets out a laugh. “You're a Swift hater? God, please don't tell me you took Kanye’s side too.”

“I didn't – that's beside the point!”

“Which is?”

“That he has zero respect for the sacred rules of a courtroom, and gets away with it all because of that super-charm smile.”

“Yeah, you mentioned the smile. Twice.”

“It was just so…” She clenches her fist until her red nails press into her palm to the point of pain, then releases it. “It's fine. I’ll win my next case, and there are lots of cops in New York. I probably won't ever see him again.”

Amy can barely hide her frustration in court the next week when she hears the doors open and looks up from the papers she was sorting, only to see Jake Peralta for the second time in her life. He’s on time today, which she supposes is progress, but there are stains on his shirt that seem to be coming from the can of orange soda he’s holding in his hand. She wonders if it's his breakfast. If that's his diet, he looks surprisingly fit in a grey suit for it.

He grins again when he sees her, raising his hand in a lazy wave. Amy gives him a forced smile, then returns to her papers. She’ll have to make sure to win this time.

But despite her confidence and very best efforts, she loses to Jake Peralta yet another time.

And another.

It's not that she's suddenly magically unlucky, because she still manages to win several other cases, but every time Jake Peralta shows up to testify, without fault, Amy loses.

It infuriates her.

The worst part is that Jake seems oblivious to her anger. He smiles at her every time they leave the courtroom, even though she returns them with little to no genuineness at all. She once spots him doing a childish victory gesture outside the courthouse, but he never once takes the opportunity to brag about his win to her face.

Aside from his surprisingly good manners when it comes to bragging, though, he's a mess. There's always some kind of stain on his shirt or his cheek that he seems unaware of, his ways of describing things involve one too many pop culture references for Amy’s liking, and she starts preparing to meet him every time a detective is five minutes late. She wonders if no one's ever told him how one is supposed to behave in a courtroom, but he’s usually accompanied by the precinct’s sergeant, so that seems unlikely. The more likely option, Amy figures, is that he just doesn't seem to find it that important; especially considering he seems to get away with it every single time.

She swears it's all because of that stupid infectious smile.

It pleases Amy to no end when she learns that Jake Peralta is going to be the witness in one of the strongest cases she’s had in a long while. The client was clearly acting in self-defense, she has a witness of her own who can testify to that, and although she knows that nothing is for certain until the verdict falls, she’s got a good feeling about this one. Finally, the day has come for Jake Peralta to watch her win.

At first, the state attorney’s case seems solid. Jake is assisted by a short, round-faced man with dark brown hair and an expression that looks like he’s seconds away from apologizing for taking up everyone’s time, but his suit is matched and perfectly straight and he gets right to the point without any odd references, so Amy still earns a fair amount of respect for detective Charles Boyle. He and Jake had entered the subway car after hearing about a fight taking place, and stepped on just in time to watch her client aim a closed-fist punch at the face of the man on top of him. It’s clear and convincing, but Amy knows that after the recess, it will be her time to shine. She loves these moments, when it’s obvious the other side thinks they have it in the bag but she knows something they don’t, and they have no idea what’s coming. She knows trials are about justice and not personal victories – but she’s only human. Winning is always a thrill.

She’s thinking about how she’s going to be celebrating her win later this evening when Jake Peralta bumps into her at the coffee shop neighboring the courthouse. As in, literally bumps into her, with his elbow when he hurries forward to grab a plastic cup with whipped cream and so much caramel syrup on top of the coffee that Amy pities his dentist.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry… wait, it's you!” He shines up as if he’d just seen a past good friend, and Amy’s once more taken aback by how polite he is. A lot of cops she meets during trials either tend to make fun of her profession or glare bitterly at her from a distance, but Jake's doing neither. He even reaches out his free hand to shake hers, so she accepts. “Jake Peralta – wow, you have a very firm handshake.”

“I took a seminar. Amy Santiago.”

“Where?” He asks, but she ignores him and moves forward in line to order her coffee with milk.

“Nothing for your client? Wow. I’d expected you to have better manners than that, Santiago.”

“I offered, but he wanted to spend recess with his partner for moral support. See?” She raises a brow at him. “I do have manners.”

There's that smile again, up close this time, and Amy's relieved when the barista hands her the coffee so she can hide the involuntary blush in her cheeks. She never noticed he had dimples before.

“So, how are you feeling about the rest of the trial, then? Ready to go defend the guilty guy?”

“Innocent until proven guilty, Peralta. Famously one of the most sacred principles in the American justice system. And I was born ready.”

“And lose. The whole question was, are you ready to go defend the guilty guy and lose, and you said you were born that way.” Jake grins in a way that makes him look like an overgrown mischievous school kid. Maybe not that far off, Amy thinks.

“Twist my words all you want, I am winning this case.” She hesitates for a moment, noticing Jake's detective partner looking at the two of them from a table in the corner of the room. Not normally something she'd be that creeped out by, if it hadn't been for the fact that the man isn’t tearing his eyes away from them, and he looks weirdly overjoyed. “Uhm, is detective Boyle okay? He's staring at us pretty intensely.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, he has… an eye condition.” Jake turns around and mouths something that looks to be BOYLE, and the man rolls his eyes before stalking away. “Ignore him. Anyway… so what do you think about the judge?”

Amy's about to launch into a description of her good experience with judge Myers when someone brushes past her with their iced coffee in a hurry, losing control of the plastic cup. The unsecured lid wobbles, and before Amy realizes what’s about to happen, cold coffee splashes onto her earlier pristine white blouse. “Fuck!” She reaches for a bunch of paper napkins and tries to dab the worst away with them, but the milky coffee is already seeping through the fabric and leaving an obvious stain that her blazer can’t hide.

“What a jerk,” Jake mutters, glaring in the direction of where the stranger disappeared.

“Never mind that! I don’t have another shirt! I can’t go into a courtroom looking like this! Unlike you, I actually care about whether my clothes have giant stains on them!”

“First of all, rude, and second of all, they’re not giant.”

“I don’t care. I’m screwed. Fuck, I don’t have time to run back home before the trial starts – I guess I could call Rosa –”

“Hey, hey.” Jake holds up his hands as if trying to calm her down, which only makes Amy more frustrated. “I know this is kind of crazy, but, I have a shirt in my car that I was planning to return to my ex. But emphasis on ex, so…” He shrugs. “You could borrow it?”

Amy considers her options. On the one hand, she figures there’s about an eighty percent chance that whatever Jake has in his car also has some kind of mysterious stain on it, but on the other hand, she took the subway today and there's no way she’ll make it to her apartment and back before the court is back in session. Asking for a longer recess is an option, but making everyone wait simply because she needs a change of clothes makes her too uncomfortable to even consider.

“Fine,” she relents. “Where's your car?”

Jake's car turns out to be an old Mustang, which Amy can tell even from her strictly limited car-knowledge is pretty impressive, but she doesn't understand how he can find anything in there. The backseat is a mess of empty orange soda bottles, a couple of frisbees, candy wrappers, what looks to be cartoons and old CDs, and the cup holders have shaving foam next to another can of orange soda. She's equally surprised and impressed when he pulls out a clean, dark blue charmeuse blouse. Whoever Jake's ex-girlfriend was, she seems to have both taste and money.

“You're totally saving my day today,” she says as he gives it to her. “You really didn't have to.”

“Prove that cops aren't all bad?” Amy rolls her eyes, and Jake laughs. “Just kidding. You have to give it back, though.”

“As soon as I’ve washed it. Wait, we have to be able to get in touch.” She digs in the inside pocket of her briefcase and pulls out two of her business cards. “I’m assuming you don't have any, so write your number on the back of that one.”

“Rude, but correct.” He scribbles down something on one of the cards before giving it back. “I’ll see you up there, then… Amy Santiago.”

Something about the way he says her name, slowly and with perfect pronunciation, makes her want to hear it again. She hurries back into the building and toward the bathrooms, hopefully before he can tell that she's blushing.

“The defense may call the next witness.”

“The defense calls Elinor Simons.” Amy can feel everyone's eyes on her as well as the witness as a young girl, no more than eighteen, walks up to the stand. She's pale, but she looks determined, and Amy gives her a comforting smile as she swears the oath.

Elinor’s voice trembles at her first words, but Amy keeps steady eye contact with her, and soon she’s speaking louder and less hesitant. She had been on her way to her friend’s house when she entered the same subway car as the two young men, and had overheard the two of them fighting over something. Sitting only a few seats away from them in the near-empty car, she’d noticed the defendant looking scared, and out of curiosity, had turned off her music. She’d heard the man who’d later gotten attacked – Mr. Lorentz – scream that the defendant was an asshole, and then she’d seen him push him to the floor, much unlike the way the prosecution had described a course of events in which both men had slipped. It had scared her, so she’d gotten up to walk away, but before she could move she’d seen Mr. Lorentz leaning down.

“It looked like he was about to hit the defendant,” she says without wavering, and Amy can see a few of the jury members nodding in understanding. “And even if they were about the same size, Mr. Lorentz looked really strong. The defendant tried, but it seemed to me like he was unable to get up. I remember thinking this wasn’t going to end well, so I headed for the end of the car before they noticed me.”

“And you’re sure of what you saw?”

“Completely sure. I only found out later that the defendant was a cousin of my sister’s boyfriend, which is how I learned about the trial.”

Amy nods and clasps her hands together, trying to assume a confident stance as she keeps her eyes focused on the witness stand. “Elinor, in the position he was in, do you believe that the defendant would have been scared?”

“I think anyone would have been.”

“So the punch witnesses watched the defendant throw, could it have been in self-defense?”

“Yes. Yes, I think so.”

Amy smiles. “Thank you. No further questions.”

The prosecution’s closing arguments are short and precise, sticking entirely to the part of the events that took part after the police walked in. The district attorney, a balding man in his fifties, as good as overlooks Elinor’s testimony in favor of focusing in on detailed descriptions of the headaches Mr. Lorentz had experienced after the event, and that alone is enough to make Amy’s blood boil; but instead she just sits there, waiting with a polite smile on her lips.

Finally, the other attorney sits down, and the judge nods at Amy to stand up. During her very first trials, this moment used to freak her out – everyone’s eyes on her and waiting expectantly – but with time she’s come to love this. It reminds her of the thrill of getting the last word in a heated fight with her siblings when she was younger, only now, she doesn’t have to shout to be heard. Everyone’s already listening.

“Your Honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury: it’s correct that the defendant hit Mr. Lorentz on that train. He admits to doing so himself.” Amy nods to the young man sitting next to her, fidgeting nervously with the cuffs on his shirt. “But there is one key aspect which the prosecution has so conveniently chosen to ignore, and that is the events which led up to Mr. Petersen’s actions. A background which he not only has explained clearly himself, but which is also backed up by Ms. Simmons’ testimony.” She gestures with her hand to Elinor.

“You see, Mr. Petersen wasn’t acting unprovoked. When the incident happened, he had been pushed to the floor, and like both my client and the witness described, he was unable to get up. Mr. Lorentz himself admits to practicing weightlifting; he’s not a weak man, and in the moment, he was clearly upset with the defendant. As Ms. Simmons put it… “ She takes a break to gather the attention of everyone in the room. “Anyone in that position would have been terrified.”

“Under New York Law, Penal Law paragraph thirty-five point fifteen, a person is justified in using physical force against another, when that person is under the reasonable belief that the physical force is necessary to defend the person from what they reasonably believe to be the illegal imminent use of force or the illegal use of force. Mr. Petersen was stuck, and under the reasonable belief that Mr. Lorentz could hurt him unless he managed to free himself. He acted in self-defense, which I remind you that the prosecution has not been able to disprove. In fact, the case against Mr. Petersen cannot be proved against reasonable doubt, which means that you must find him… not guilty.”

From the other side of the room, she swears she can feel Jake’s eyes on her. When she looks up, she sees him mouthing nice job.

“What did you say he looked like, now again? Except for crazy hot and adorable?” Kylie takes another sip of her mojito, spying over the crowded bar.

“Okay, I said neither of those things.”

Kylie shrugs. “Didn’t have to.”

“Ugh. Whatever. Brown hair, brown eyes, medium height, I guess kind of a bigger nose… and I don’t know what he wears outside of court, but there was a leather jacket in the front seat of his car, so maybe that?” She strains her neck to try and see through the Friday night crowd. She’s never been to this particular Brooklyn bar before, but Jake had suggested it when Amy asked about a good place to give him back the shirt, and she’d figured after a long week, she might as well treat herself to a couple of after-work drinks with a friend. After being asked about the so-called mystery hottie five times, though, she’s starting to regret bringing Kylie along.

“Mm, that’s like, all the guys in here… oh, wait, that one’s waving to you!” Kylie points to a figure near the door, elbowing Amy in the side and causing her to nearly choke on her wine. She’s still coughing when Jake walks up to them, trying to offer him a smile while drying her eyes. Jake looks politely confused, but shakes Kylie’s hand in the meantime.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she says with a meaning wink to Amy before sliding off the leather barstool, leaving it for Jake. “Have a good night!”

“Ignore her.” Amy sighs. “Sorry, I…”

“No, no worries,” Jake says, and the honest care in his expression makes her feel oddly warm. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sorry.” She waves a dismissive hand and picks up the dry-cleaning bag hanging on the back of her chair. “Well, here’s the shirt. Thank you for the loan. Or thank your ex, I suppose.”

“Dry-cleaned, really? You truly are type A.”

“What about it?”

“Nothing, it makes sense.” He nods to the glass in her hand. “Celebrating Tuesday’s win?”

“Something like that. It was Monday, though,” she can’t stop herself from correcting him. “I don’t get a lot of time off. Gotta make the best out of it.”

“Yeah, me neither. Do you mind if I join you for another drink? Or maybe you should do water, in case you choke again?”

Something about the way he poses it like a challenge makes her take the glass, put it to her lips, and swallow the rest of the wine in one gulp. “I think I can handle it.”

They pay for their own drinks, because whatever this meeting is, it’s definitely not a date, and it makes Amy relieved that Jake doesn’t seem to think so either.

“A toast,” he suggests. “To your win this week. I gotta give it to you, those closing statements were solid.”

“To justice,” Amy says, and they raise their beer bottles in unison. “And my win. Finally.”

“Yeah, what has it been, like, five wins for me?”

“Four, but dream on, Peralta.”

Jake laughs. The dimples in his cheeks become even more prominent when he laughs, Amy notes. “Have you always been this intense about winning cases, then? Or is it something that comes with law school? Like there’s a class in being petty about this stuff?”

You’re intense too, she thinks, but doesn’t say it out loud. “Maybe. I have seven brothers, and I was the only girl. I got pretty good at winning fights using other things than physical strength when I was a kid. Actually, sometimes physical strength, too.”

“I feel like you could beat someone up if you wanted to. You could surprise them.”

“Oh, I could most definitely beat someone up if I wanted to. But I stuck to arguing. I got good at it. And I always had good grades, so I ended up at Columbia, and I’ve never really regretted it.” She takes a swig of her beer. “Not even when cops call me the devil.”

“I wouldn’t call you the devil,” Jake says. “I mean, do I think you lack a bit of a moral compass? Probably. But each to their own.”

She leans her head a little bit to the side, eyeing him closely. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, you have to defend people that you know did awful things, right? Doesn’t that make you feel sick sometimes?”

“I don’t have to defend their actions. Most times, it’s not even about that. It’s about making sure the trial is fair, the evidence is sufficient and their rights are respected, so that if there’s a conviction, it’s actually beyond any reasonable doubt. I like to believe most people are better than their worst moments. I see it as my job to make sure they’re treated that way.”

“Huh.” Jake nods slowly. “Guess I never thought of it that way.”

“Plus,” she winks, “someone’s gotta hold you guys accountable, right?”

“Fine.” He shakes his head. “Hey, did you say you went to Columbia? My captain’s husband teaches law there. Did you ever have a Kevin Cozner?”

“No way! Your captain is Raymond Holt?” She’s speaking way too loudly, she can tell from the way other people are glancing at her, but Jake looks entertained. “Sorry, it’s just – Professor Cozner was my favorite constitutional law teacher. I still send him and Raymond Christmas cards every year!”

“That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.” Jake grins. “But, how weird is that? Almost like the universe is bringing us together or something.”

Amy thinks that it’s not that weird, since Kevin must teach hundreds of students every year that g on to become lawyers, but she kind of wants to keep seeing that smile on Jake’s face forever, so she nods. “So weird.”

They order another drink, plus some chips and nuts when Jake realizes he forgot to eat dinner, and move to another table in the back of the room. Amy’s surprised how comfortable she feels in his presence. It’s like she can’t wipe the smile off her face but doesn’t want to, and with time and a little more alcohol, jokes that she barely would have noticed on any other day become laugh-out-loud funny. It feels natural, even though she’s not sure how, and she tries not to glance at the clock on the wall when he doesn’t either. She’s got work to do tomorrow and she can’t stay out forever, but she doesn’t want to be reminded that this evening has to end at some point.

“So what made you become a cop, then?” She asks when she realizes she’s the only one who’s shared her origin story tonight. “Childhood superhero dreams?”

Jake shines up like he’s been waiting for the question all night. “Oh, that’s easy. Die Hard.”

“Really?”

“For sure. Actually, my mom said I was always good at protecting people, so I ended up doing it for a job. But I think that’s bullshit. It was definitely Die Hard.”

“I’ve never seen it,” Amy confesses, and Jake stares at her like she just insulted his entire being. “But if you want a cop movie, my top three’s Training Day, Lethal Weapon, and Fargo.”

“Wrong, wrong, and wrong! How can you not have seen Die Hard? It’s classic, man!”

“I just never did! How many lawyer movies have you seen, then?”

“Uhm…” Jake squints. “Charles made me watch Legally Blonde once? It was pretty good, honestly.”

“Well, duh, that movie is a cinematic masterpiece and a feminist work of art. How feminist is Die Hard, from a scale of one to ten?”

“Hey! Holly Gennaro does plenty of cool stuff throughout the movies! You’re just going to have to watch them yourself.”

“I can almost guarantee you I won’t.”

“Fine, but you’re missing out.” He grabs a couple of peanuts from the jar between them, throwing them in the air and catching them in his mouth. “Cool trick, right?”

Amy raises an eyebrow. “Is this what you do at work all day?”

“I did teach myself that during stakeouts, but no. Whatever. Throw me another one.” She does, and he catches it again, this time almost sliding off the barstool in the process. She laughs a bubbling laugh as he does it another time. “Now you.”

“Fine. Try me.” The peanut flies through the air between them, and she tries to dive for it, but it just ends up landing at her feet. “Okay, another one.” She misses that one too. “Okay, there must be something wrong with these nuts.”

“Title of your sextape.”

“Title of my what?”

“Nevermind.” Jake laughs. “You just need some practice. Maybe at work? It could liven up a trial.”

“Nuh-uh, don’t need practice. Just need a better tactic.” Without thinking, she grabs a handful of them this time, throwing them in the air. This time, she catches a few of them in her mouth, while the rest end up spread over the couch and floor. “The key is volume!”

“Yeah, and the bartender is looking at you like he wants to kill you, so maybe don’t do it again or we’ll get thrown out.”

“It’s fine, I’m a lawyer.”

“That phrase works well to get out of trouble?”

“If you know what you’re doing. We could order more drinks to keep him happy?”

“Shots?”

“I’m down if you’re down.”

Jake orders a Kamikaze shot for each of them, and as she reaches forward to take the second glass, her hand brushes against the top of his for a moment longer than necessary, resting there. It’s warm, and it feels calloused but somehow soft at the same time. They look at each other, his light brown eyes staring into hers, and she feels instantly hyper-aware that they’re around far, far, too many people.

She lets go of his hand, taking the shot and swallowing it before anyone can notice what’s happening. It smells like sour hand sanitizer and burns going down, and she laughs at Jake’s grimace when he drinks his.

“God, every time.” He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “Hey, I know this is crazy, but… do you maybe want to get out of here? We could have another drink at my place… watch Die Hard… whatever.”

“Mm, yeah. Maybe I should check that the shirt gets back to your place properly?”

“Shirt? What shirt? Oh, right, fuck, the shirt!” Jake spins in place, rushing back to the table where they were just sat. “Shit, I probably spilled beer on it, Sophia’s going to be pissed now...”

“It’s still in the bag, smartass.” Amy shows him. “Ta-da. Shirt’s still clean. Comes in handy being type A sometimes, huh?”

Jake sighs. “I know you're making fun of me, but I could seriously kiss you right now.”

Maybe it’s the four drinks, maybe it’s the thrill that comes with how rarely she does this, or maybe it’s just sheer and wild impulse, but Amy finds herself whispering,

“Maybe we should get out of here, then.”

Amy learns a lot of things that night.

She learns that Jake Peralta is a seriously good kisser, tasting faintly of orange soda beneath the alcohol and salt, and that being pressed against his front door with his hands protecting her head strikes the perfect balance between feeling adventurous and safe. She learns that he’s never really quiet, soft moans and sighs filling the room in the breaks between their kisses, but that the sound only makes her want more.

She learns that he wears even more layers than her. Beneath the leather jacket and hoodie is a checkered blue flannel that has way too many buttons for her liking right now, and she curses her slight tipsiness while working at them one by one. When she's finally done, Jake pulls the grey t-shirt over his head, and she barely has time to pause to admire how he somehow can look fit despite that catastrophic diet, or the curls on his chest that are begging for her to run her fingers through them, before he's asking “my turn?”. She learns that Jake Peralta is impatient, that his hands work fast on the buttons of her cerise shirt, and that he gets adorably confused when he can't find the button on her suit pants.

“It's on the side,” she tells him and shows him the zipper, and then they're both giggling until she kisses him like that and it's back on again.

She learns that his hands feel good, sliding slowly up the sides of her stomach and back and rubbing against her shoulder blades. She unclasps the white t-shirt bra for him, smiling to herself as he swallows quickly.

“God, you’re hot,” he whispers, and the soft bites he trails down her chest and stomach make her feel that way, too.

They move to his bed, leaving a trail of clothes behind them, and then she’s underneath him and breathing hard as his mouth moves lower, closer. The anticipation of it all is driving her mad, but then he looks up at her and asks “okay?” with the most sincere and caring expression, and Amy’s had very, very few one-night-stands in her life, but she’s certainly never had one like this.

“Okay,” she nods, and there’s that familiar grin again, but this time it makes her feel warm in a very specific place.

She learns that Jake Peralta can do a whole lot more with his mouth than talking people’s ears off. His breath ghosts over her through her underwear at first, warming her up even though it’s barely even necessary, and then he’s finally pulling down the black material and helping her kick them off. His tongue is careful at first, just tasting her as if to gauge her expression, but then she nods at him to continue and the next second, her head is thrown back as she lets out a gasp.

She learns that he likes it when she pulls his hair. At first, her hands are just lightly tangling in it for practicality, but then she holds on tighter as a means of control when her legs begin to tense up and the familiar pressure is starting to rise. She’s raising her hips slightly only to lower them again, helping him get her there, and the curls of his hair are just begging to be pulled.

“Do that again,” he pauses to say, so she tugs his hair harder and he straight-up moans.

She learns that he can make her scream, which she wasn’t expecting, and she rocks through the euphoric waves and pants and practically melts into the bed as she comes down from it.

“That good?” He winks, and she wants to roll her eyes, but he did just make her come harder than she remembers doing in a long time, so she kisses the smile off of him instead, tasting her arousal on his lips.

She learns that he's respectful and a gentleman, telling her that they can stop this here if she'd rather, but she doesn’t want to, and they don’t. He has to rifle through the drawer in his bedside table for a while before he finds a condom – maybe he doesn’t do this as often as she’d thought, maybe it’s another sign of his poor organization skills, but he finds one soon enough so she’s not sure she cares – and then it’s a little bit of a blur, but she rolls it on him with precise strokes and lowers herself on top of him and oh my god.

She learns that when he looks at her, when he touches her, it makes her feel powerful and special all at once. He plays with her boobs as she sets the pace, his thumbs rolling against her nipples in a way she didn’t realize she liked, and she picks up her rhythm, clenching around him and leaning back on his raised thighs.

She learns just how enjoyable it is to watch him fall apart underneath her. His pace stutters and he curses, groaning a confession of how close he is, and she could almost come again from watching him alone but she brings two fingers to her clit and touches herself anyway. He finishes before her, spilling out inside the condom with a moan that she can only imitate, collapsing against his chest as she brings herself to orgasm again right after him.

When they're done learning, they collapse together in his bed. For a moment, Amy considers turning around and calling a cab home, because that would be the most responsible thing to do, but then Jake throws an arm around her to pull her closer, and after all, she's still a little tipsy.

What harm could it possibly do, anyway?

Sharp, unforgiving morning light wakes Amy up before her alarm the next morning. She must have forgotten to close the blinds last night, she thinks, and rolls over on the other side so the light doesn't hurt her eyes. She expects the usual greeting of a sea of pillows, and has to stop herself from letting out a yelp of surprise when instead, she's hit with a wall of Jake sleeping with his back to her. A vague memory of them falling asleep like this hits her. He’d wanted to be the little spoon, she remembers.

At first, knowing that intimate fact about him makes her feel proud. Then it makes her panic.

She jumps out of bed, throwing off her part of the comforter in search of her clothes. She finds her underwear and bra together with her shirt, trying to dress as quietly as possible, quick before Jake wakes up and discovers that she's half-naked in his apartment and they have to have a very, very awkward talk –

“Amy? What are you doing?”

Too late.

She freezes on the spot, chewing on her lip as she fumbles for an explanation. Jake’s eyes rake over her with curiosity, which somehow feels a lot more exposing today than it did last night, and it's making her lose track of her words. His bed head curls and disoriented smile is decidedly not helping her focus.

“We slept together last night,” she manages.

Jake’s smile grows wider and prouder as he sits up fully in bed. Amy blushes as she notices the shadow of two hickeys way too close to his neck to be professional.

“Yeah, I was there.”

“Very funny.” She sees her pants thrown across the back of a massage chair and quickly reaches for them. “But this… You know this can’t be a thing, right? Just so we're on the same page about it.”

Jake frowns. “What do you mean with a thing?”

“This – us – we can't date, Jake. I know that. You know that.”

He’s silent for a moment before he fakes a shudder. “Yeah, yeah, no. I’ve dated lawyers before. Never ends well.”

“You have?” The reveal surprises her. “It doesn't matter. This can’t happen.”

“I know.”

“Good,” she exhales. “I’m just going to find my clothes, then, and then I’m going to leave.”

“Hey, wait.” He twists his hands together, bringing them to his chin with a smile. “This is going to sound weird, but… even if nothing can happen between us, I’m still glad we had sex last night.”

The confession takes her by surprise, and Amy wonders again if she just doesn't know anything about one-night-stands. Sleep together, have fun, sneak out in the morning before anything can go deeper – isn't that how it's supposed to go? If so, she's majorly failing, because she can't stop herself from giving him another shy smile in return.

“Me too. Just because, we were like… really good at it.”

“Stupid good!” Jake exclaims. “It makes no sense!”

“We still can't date, though,” she reminds him. “So how do we work this out?”

“Well, it sort of looked like you were planning to just leave, and I’m not going to stop you if that's your choice, but… there is one more option.”

“What are you thinking?”

“We could be friends with benefits,” he shrugs. “None of the commitment, none of the weird incompatibilities between a cop and a lawyer, just us and some stupid good sex.”

“Friends with benefits? Do the kids really say that, still?”

“I’m saying you could consider it.”

Amy's first instinct is to protest, to say absolutely not and leave on the spot. Her relationship history may not contain that many names, but at least they’ve all been fairly straightforward and conventional. She's never done something like this before, and the mere idea of jumping into something so unknown with someone like Jake scares her shitless.

Then again, she's also never been with someone like Jake. Yesterday hadn't been a date, but it had still been better than all the awkward dinners and half-hearted walks she's been at since she broke up with Teddy a year ago. And the sex – well, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't already thinking of doing that again.

“There would need to be rules,” she says.

“Sure, we can come up with some.”

“I’ll write a contract.”

“We need a contract?”

“Yeah,” she decides. “If this is going to work, we need a comprehensive set of rules, and they need to be written down, because I don't trust you not to adjust them in your head last minute.”

“How am I attracted to you? But, fine.”

Amy shakes her head, closing the last button on the shirt that had been left unbuttoned until now. “So… I’ll put together a draft and bring it over tonight? Your place?”

Jake gapes at her for a moment like he can't believe what he hears, but then he nods. “I’m free.”

“Cool. I’ll see you tonight, then.” With that, she pulls on her socks and shoes, leaving before she can freak out again.

“Cool, cool,” she hears just before closing the door. “Friends with benefits. Cool, cool, cool, cool… cool.”

#b99fandomevents #b99 summer 2021 fic exchange #my writing #b99 #peraltiago #jake x amy #b99 fic #b99 fanfiction #jake x amy fanfiction #peraltiago fanfiction #MY FIRST AU PLEASE ENJOY #three more parts to come hahah but i'm only going to post one before the deadline #read on ao3 if you want line breaks since tumblr has ruined those

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liesoverthec · 3 years ago

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Hi y’all!

I recently reached ????????? followers (😂) which normally I probs wouldn’t do anything for, but I’ve wanted to spread a little love lately and this seemed like a good time!

While I feel like I don’t really have anything I could give y’all on command like the amazing gif makers and authors of the fandom can for their follower celebrations (I DO feel like I contribute to fandom but screen time is not really something I can just do whenever lol!) so instead:

If you’d like, send me an ask with your: AO3 username or your Tumblr edit tag, and I’ll queue, at least 3 gifsets, if not more, and at least one piece of writing if you’re an author (and I’m happy to do both for you if you yourself do both!). And then I’ll answer the ask you sent with a compliment, just for you! (Open to anyone - not just mutuals!)

In addition, I’m gonna do what I’m calling professional promotions, cuz this is my professional fandom opinion™️ lol- I’m just gonna make a post once a day, shouting out a blog/blogger I absolutely ADORE and why I love them, as a way to spread love myself! (Can’t guarantee anyone will want me to reblog their stuff so gotta have something to celebrate anyways 😂) It’s not gonna be everyone I follow, just a select few who have well and truly made my day, every day!

I’ll be putting everything under “#b celebrates ??????? followers” so you can look for it there!

Lots of love and thank you for letting me take up space on your dashes! Starting screen time has been probably one of the best things I’ve done this year just for me personally, so thank you all for being here! 🥰

-💛🐝

#b celebrates ??????? followers #b says personal shit #for now we'll add that tag since it's not something directly 911 related lol #seriously though thanks yall for the love #i made this graphic in under 5 mins so I hope it’s not terrible and makes you all cry

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teacupfulofstarshine · 4 years ago

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living in the real world (ain’t it fun) CHAPTER 10

CW: panic attacks, shouting, cursing, touch starvation, threats of bodily harm, self-deprecation, self-hatred, negative thought spirals, unsympathetic actions, unhealthy handling of emotions, unhealthy work habits, unhealthy emotional coping mechanisms

are you prepared for the roman/anxiety confrontation? i promise you are not >:3

huge thank you to @flamingfawkes for beta’ing!

wordcount: ~4.6k

chapter 1 // chapter 2 // chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 5 // chapter 6 // chapter 7 // chapter 8 // chapter 9 // read it on ao3!!

Anxiety stays in Logan’s lap for almost ten minutes. No one speaks while he sits there, hugging Logan tightly. Logan tries to shift, but Anxiety whines and presses closer. “Is - can we stay?” he whispers. “I feel like if you let go of me, I’m going to float away.”

“You are likely touch-starved, to a fairly extreme degree,” Logan says.

“If you don’t want to touch me, you can let me go.”

“I will do no such thing.” Logan sounds almost offended at Anxiety’s implications. “You are hurting, Anxiety. I will not allow you to continue hurting if I can alleviate your suffering in any way. You are not hurting me by touching me.”

“You hate being touched,” Roman says. Anxiety presses his face further into Logan’s shoulder, hiding, and Logan turns to stare straight through Roman.

“I have a low tolerance for touch, Roman, much lower than you and Patton. But I require it to subsist, as we all do. Thomas is a human, and all humans need touch and social connections to survive. We represent his desires, his wants, his needs - we share them. I am not opposed to providing and receiving touch, but I am easily overwhelmed.”

“Lemme know when you gotta stop,” Anxiety says.

“I assure you that I will, Anxiety. However, I am alright, so there is no reason for you to move.”

Patton slides off the bed, kneeling next to Logan. “Anxiety? Kiddo, can I touch you?”

Anxiety turns to look at him, and Patton lifts one hand. “Just your shoulder. I wanna put my hand on it, maybe squeeze it a little. Is that alright with you?”

“Yeah,” Anxiety says, pulling his face out of Logan’s shoulder. Patton gently rests his hand on Anxiety’s shoulder, squeezing, and rubbing his thumb back and forth. Patton takes a deep breath, like he’s gathering his courage for something, and then he winces. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m just old,” Patton laughs. “As old as Thomas is, anyway. And that means I can’t sit on my feet for too long without them falling asleep. Gotta move around a little!” He shifts to sit cross-legged, wincing with Thomas when his knees crack audibly, and then he puts his hand back on Anxiety’s shoulder.

“Kiddo,” Patton says, and then, "Anxiety. It's my turn to apologize, okay?"

"You - you don't have to," Anxiety says. "You were trying your best, weren’t you? Just like Logan? I just misinterpreted your intentions, like I did with his, so -"

"No. I do need to apologize," Patton insists. "Is it alright if I apologize to you?"

Anxiety blinks. “You . . . if you think you need to, Patton.”

Patton looks serious, unusually so. “I do. I do need to.”

“Do you want to stay where you are?” Logan asks Anxiety. “You can move, if you like.”

“If you’re comfortable, I’m okay staying.” Logan nods, and Anxiety turns his eyes back to Patton. Thomas takes a deep breath, and Patton smiles gratefully as his chest swells with fresh air. He curls his free hand into a fist, squeezes it so Thomas can feel the indents of his nails in his palm, and then he relaxes it.

"Anxiety, I’m sorry," Patton says. "I - I'm at the core of Thomas’s emotions, and the stronger they are, the more affected I am. I experience all of them, but I try to only express the happy ones, because the negative emotions . . . I don’t really like them that much. I mean, does anyone? They make me feel all icky inside." Anxiety visibly deflates at that. "Wait - no, Anxiety, I didn’t mean - I wasn’t talking about you, I -”

Anxiety sighs, patting Logan’s shoulder before shifting out of his lap and sitting across from Patton. "You're not wrong, though. I am a negative emotion. I'm just - I bring Thomas down, I know that. And I bring everyone else down with me. I'm -"

"Stop!" Patton cries, and his face shines bright blue as tears pour down all of their faces yet again.

"Patton?"

"Anxiety, you - I - just listen, please? Listen to me? I can't - I want to tell you that the emotion you represent doesn’t have negative repercussions more often than not. I want to tell you that anxiety like Thomas’s is inherently a good thing, and negative effects are few and far between. I want to tell you that, but I can't because - because that would be a lie. But that's - that doesn’t mean - you are not a bad person, Anxiety."

Anxiety’s mouth hangs open in shock. “I’m -”

"- Not a bad person," Patton repeats. "Anxiety can be really difficult to handle sometimes. I know you know that better than any of us. But that doesn't mean that you are a bad person! When I told you that you were being silly it - it was because I - because you - I -”

Patton drags a hand down his face. “Anxiety, I was afraid to handle my own negative emotions. I pushed you away because - because - I was afraid that having you around would make it harder to conceal my negative emotions. I’ve been hiding them for so long that I’ve forgotten how to feel them in a healthy way, how to deal with them in a healthy way. I didn't want to admit that I had emotions that were anything less than the happy-pappy-Patton-pending sunshine that I project. And that was wrong of me. Just because emotions aren't happy doesn't mean that they're bad. And I never meant to make you feel invalid. I never wanted you to think that - that I don't value you or your contributions to Thomas, because you do contribute to Thomas. You’re more than the monochrome villain that we painted you as, and we - I - have done a truly abhorrent job of making you feel welcome or accepted or validated and -"

Thomas swipes the back of his hand across his eyes; Logan puts his fingers to his face and frowns when they come away wet; Anxiety scrubs his sleeve across his eyes. Patton pulls away from Anxiety’s shoulder, folding both hands in his lap before lowering his head. "I am so sorry that I tried to ignore the emotions that you bring to the table because I - I was afraid to feel them. You are not a bad person, Anxiety, and I made you feel like you were when you were just doing your job. And I - I will always hate myself for that. I'm - you don't have to, but if - if you can find it in you - I - I'm so sorry, Anxiety, I promise that I am, I -"

Anxiety surprises all of them by leaning forward and hugging Patton; Patton holds him back like he thinks Anxiety will shatter if he loosens his grip. “Pat,” Anxiety says. “You - you made mistakes, mistakes that hurt me. And it’s going to take a while for me to be okay with that. But you - you sound like you’re really sorry for hurting me.”

“I am,” Patton whispers.

“I forgive you,” Anxiety says. “I believe that you’re going to try and do better, and that’s - that means a lot, Patton. I forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“And Pat?”

“Yeah?”

Anxiety leans back, staring directly into Patton’s eyes. "You don't have to hate yourself forever."

"What?"

"You said you would always hate yourself for making me feel like I was a bad person, but it wasn't just you. You know that, right? And I - you were doing your best, Patton. I mean, I don't know about Princey over there, but you and Logan appear to have been trying, at the very least, and I can respect that. I forgive you, Patton, and that means you don't have to hate yourself, right?" He looks anxious about the idea of Patton hating himself forever, and Patton smiles through his tears.

"Oh, kiddo." Thomas feels something warm swelling in his chest as Patton and Anxiety hug, again, and then Anxiety slides out of Patton’s lap. Patton stands up, pulling Anxiety and then Logan to their feet, and then Thomas turns to look at Roman, still sitting in the corner by the closet. There’s a strange look in his eyes, and Thomas tries to match it with the tangle of negative emotions sitting heavily in his stomach. It’s jealousy, he thinks, but there’s something else mixed up in it - sadness, he thinks.

“Roman?” Thomas asks. Roman flinches a little, looking up at him. “Are you okay?”

Roman looks away from Thomas, staring resolutely out the window. “Fine.”

“Roman, you also have to apologize to Anxiety,” Thomas says firmly.

"What's the point? I suck at it, and he's not gonna accept it anyway! He already said so. Yell at me all you want, I don't fucking care."

"Language," Patton says. Roman rolls his eyes and turns his back to them. Anxiety stands up, taking one, two, three careful steps towards him.

“Princey, I never said I wouldn’t accept your apology.”

“I tried! I already tried apologizing to you, and you rejected it!”

“It wasn’t a real apology,” Logan says calmly. “You apologized because you felt obligated to, not because you felt genuine remorse.

“Yeah,” Anxiety says, kicking the carpet. “I dunno what you think I am, Roman, but it’s - it’s probably not right.”

Roman, who has been fidgeting a little, sits perfectly, ramrod still. “What I think you are?” His voice is quiet, flat, and Thomas is a little bit scared of the sudden lack of emotion in his chest. “You want to know what I think you are, Anxiety?”

He stands up, curling his hands into fists, and when he turns around his eyes are furious. “What you are,” he spits, and Thomas is honestly surprised that fire doesn’t spew from his mouth, “is a menace. What you are is a disgrace! Every single time I come up with something beautiful, something wonderful, something amazing, every single time I push Thomas towards an opportunity that would only catapult him upwards, it is you who drags me down!”

He gestures to Patton and Logan, and the fire Thomas expected out of Roman’s mouth is now blazing through his chest. “Specs squared over there is at least capable of pretending to support my ambitions! But oh, no, not you, Anxiety! You just appear out of the shadows, like a villain, like a god damn demon, and you tear me to ribbons!”

Anxiety stands his ground as Roman gets closer, balling his fists. He’s putting on a brave face, but Thomas can feel his heart beating so fast it’s vibrating. As Roman gets closer, Thomas suddenly becomes acutely aware of the height difference between Roman, a young adult, and Anxiety, a child.

“You offer nothing!” Roman’s voice is venomous, and Anxiety isn’t the only one whose hands are shaking. “You don’t do anything useful! All you do is look for the darkness in a situation, and you refuse to see the light! Hell, you could be looking at the purest sunbeam there ever was - you could be looking at Patton himself and you would still find something wrong!”

“I’m not perfect, Roman,” Patton starts, but Roman is on a roll and he’s not stopping now.

“You’re pathetic! If you can’t find the darkness, you’ll create some just to ruin everything for everyone else! You refuse to believe in anything happy! All you do is look for flaws!”

“That’s my job!” Anxiety bites back.

“It’s a shitty job, and no one needs you to do it! We’d all be better off without you! Thomas, especially, would be better off without you! Your job is meaningless to me, and - and so are you!”

Anxiety’s whole body is shaking, but he steps closer to Roman, pushing his shoulders back. “Did you ever consider that maybe -”

“No! I don’t want to hear any more negativity out of you! Do you have any idea how happy I was when we woke up and I thought you hadn’t manifested?” Roman laughs, bitterly, dragging his hands through his hair and tugging it so tightly everyone else winces. “I thought I could finally create freely, finally help Thomas achieve his ambitions! And now here you are to ruin my life, yet again!”

“I don’t ruin your life on purpose, you know!”

“Oh, really? You coulda fooled me! We were all getting along just fine, and then you showed up, and we almost crashed the car! That could have killed Thomas, who you claim to be protecting! Then you ran away, which hurt Thomas, and then you bit me, which hurt Thomas even more! All you do is hurt Thomas! We were better off without you!”

Thomas isn’t sure when he stood up, but he’s on his feet, and so are Patton and Logan. Outrage is searing through all of them, but Anxiety stares up at Roman, face setting like flint. Before anyone else can speak, Anxiety leans forward, and sneers, “Got it all out of your system, Princey?”

Oh, this is going to be a disaster.

"Did it ever occur to you, in the midst of your little pity party, that what you wanted wasn't best for Thomas either?"

Roman bristles. "How dare you -"

"How dare I?! You think you know me? Well, I know you too, buddy! You run yourself ragged trying to come up with ideas constantly - if Thomas listened to you all the time he'd never get anything done in the real world! He'd stretch himself too thin doing too much and he'd kill himself, Roman! The only reason you haven't died yet is because you aren't fucking real!"

Anxiety lifts his chin, glaring directly into Roman’s eyes. He’s not backing down. "There's nothing wrong with being creative, Roman. But you push so hard that if I wasn't around to reign you in, Thomas would burn out! If that happened, he'd lose you completely! Do you even know what that feels like?"

"I - wh -"

"No! You don't! Do you know why you don’t? Because I keep it from happening! You like to play the big hero, the prince, the knight in shining armor, but I know the truth! You may swan around acting like you’re some grand protector of Thomas’s psyche, but the only one who actually does any protecting around here is me!"

Anxiety’s voice is starting to distort, to double and layer and twist the way it had when he’d first appeared and made Thomas pull over, and Thomas sits down, hard, nearly floored by the terror running through him.

“You think that I don’t know what you really think? I am Thomas’s anxiety! I am his negativity! I am self-loathing and hatred and fear and doubt and all the dark and dirty little secrets you hate about yourself, which means that I know EXACTLY what you think about me, because it’s what you think about YOURSELF!”

Roman’s face loses all color instantly. “Wh -”

“Roman?” Patton asks, soft and feather-light, and Thomas feels like he’s about to break.

“You HATE yourself! You think you’re not good enough for Thomas, so you consistently push yourself past your limits so that you can maybe, finally, prove yourself worthy of being his creativity! So that you can maybe, finally live up to this princely persona you’ve built for yourself to camouflage your massive insecurities! But you don’t want to DEAL with those insecurities, so you project all your fears and self-hatred onto me! It’s the perfect solution - I’m already a villain, right? Already the bad guy? Newsflash, asshole - YOU CAN’T JUST SHUNT YOUR SHIT OFF ONTO ME SO THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO DEAL WITH YOUR PROBLEMS, ROMAN!”

Roman’s entire body is shaking. Patton has his hands pressed over his mouth; Logan is running his hands up and down his tie repeatedly, rocking back and forth. Thomas looks between them rapidly. “Roman?” Thomas whispers.

Roman drops to his knees, presses a hand over his mouth, and the freshly-ended tears spill over again.

Before anyone else can react, Anxiety kneels in front of Roman and hugs him. Roman sits perfectly still for a moment before his face breaks and his shoulders shake and he crumples against Anxiety like wet paper. Thomas’s chest heaves with his sobs.

“Roman -”

“I’m sorry!” Roman chokes. “I’m sorry, is that what you want me to say? I’m sorry, Anxiety, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”

“Roman, you’re panicking -”

“Oh, well spotted, Panic at the Everywhere!”

“Roman, stop!”

“Why?! I thought you wanted an apology from me? Well, here you go!” Roman pulls out of Anxiety’s hug and does a mocking bow before tugging at his hair again. “The great Prince Roman, reduced to an undignified, snivelling mess at your feet, admitting to all his faults and flaws and -”

“Jesus, Princey, BREATHE.” Roman’s chest is heaving, and he’s choking on his sobs, meaning the rest of them are as well. “Come on, you have to breathe, you’re gonna suffocate at this rate - Thomas, I need you to help me, please!”

“Wh - how can I -” Thomas is struggling to get air in, and he’s starting to get a little bit lightheaded.

“Listen to me, Thomas. Breathe in for four seconds. Logan, help him count?”

Logan nods, counting the seconds aloud and pressing two fingers against his carotid artery. Thomas, Anxiety, and Patton breathe along to Logan’s counts as Anxiety takes Roman’s hands and holds them tightly to keep them out of his hair. “You too, Princey, come on. In for four, hold for seven . . ."

They all sit and breathe together while Logan counts, in-for-four hold-for-seven out-for-eight. Eventually, Roman’s breathing evens to almost normal, and Anxiety squeezes his hands tightly.

“Prin - Roman.” Anxiety’s voice is still distorted, but it’s a little less harsh on the ears.

“What,” Roman says miserably.

“We need to talk about that."

“We really don’t.” Anxiety sighs.

“Roman -”

“Roman,” Patton says. Anxiety turns to look at Patton, whose face is shining blue and purple, and he shifts out of the way, letting Patton kneel in front of Roman. Roman flinches when Patton takes his hands, but he looks up at him anyway. "It's - it's okay to have negative feelings. And I know I’m the biggest hypocrite in the world for saying this, but you can't bottle them up or pretend that they don't exist. You have to acknowledge them and talk about them if you want to feel better. Ignoring them feels good in the moment, feels like you’re handling it, but . . . it just hurts everyone when it explodes. Because it will explode.”

Patton gestures to the room at large. “It did explode."

“I know,” Roman whispers miserably. He looks down at Patton’s hands around his. “I just - I hate this! I hate talking about the negative stuff. I’m the dreamy fantasy guy! I'm not supposed to feel like this! I’m not supposed to feel sad or unimportant or worthless or - or - or broken.”

"Fuck that noise," Anxiety says. "Not - not your feelings, but your feelings about your feelings. That came out weird - um - geez, I - Roman, what you feel . . . it's . . . it's not wrong. You aren't broken for having feelings that aren't good. Nobody feels good all the time."

"But - but I feel this way so much," Roman protests. "I - I should be better than that. And half the time there's nothing actually wrong with me anyway! The thoughts just show up, unwanted, and I just - I - it's stupid. I’m stupid, for feeling this way."

“Roman,” Patton and Thomas say.

"Roman," Anxiety says. "Whatever you feel isn't stupid. No matter how long you're feeling like that - hell, even if you always feel this way - it's still valid. It's not stupid or bad or wrong. You're not stupid or bad or wrong."

“But - but I don’t want to feel this way.”

“I don’t want to feel this way either, most of the time,” Anxiety admits. “I know my job is important, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its downsides. It has a lot of downsides, I’m not gonna lie. And it sucks, it sucks so much, Roman, but - but it’s - it’s okay.”

“How is any of this okay?”

“It’s okay to not be okay, Roman,” Anxiety says quietly. “It’s okay to say ‘I’m not okay right now’ out loud.” Roman stays silent, and Anxiety exhales. “Roman, you have to say it."

"Say what?" Roman mutters. He glares at Anxiety, but the words and the glare are both completely devoid of venom.

"That you're not okay. If you wanna feel better, you . . . you have to admit that you aren't feeling great right now. It's gonna suck, but you have to. It's important. And no one’s gonna think you’re stupid for saying it. I'm not gonna think you're stupid for saying it. Hell, I say it all the time. You have to say it, Roman, so you can start feeling better."

Roman looks to Thomas. “I’m not going to think you’re stupid, Roman.” Roman squeezes his eyes shut and stays silent for a long time, but Anxiety just waits, patiently. Finally, Roman breathes the words out.

"I'm - I'm not okay."

"And that's okay," Anxiety says softly. "It's okay to not be okay, Roman."

Roman looks up like Anxiety’s just grown a second head ". . . Say that again?"

"It's okay for you to not be okay right now, because you will be okay. You aren't right now, and that’s okay, because you will be."

Roman pulls his hands out of Patton’s, stands up, and offers a hand to Anxiety, Anxiety eyes it for a second before letting Roman pull him to his feet. “I am sorry,” Roman says - quiet, sincere, lacking all of the bluster and force of his earlier apology. "I - you're right. I was projecting onto you. And I said some - some truly unforgivable things, back there. Some truly ungallant things, things that any real knight or prince would never say. And I - I didn't - well, I meant them at the time, but now I recognize the error of my ways. I’m - Anxiety, I’m -”

“Virgil,” Anxiety says.

Everyone in the room does a double-take. Anxiety’s face turns from pale to pink to red, and he won’t meet anyone’s eyes. “My name. It’s Virgil. I just - you know everyone else’s, and I’m not hiding from you guys anymore, so - I figure you might as well -”

“Virgil,” Roman says, and Thomas’s heart aches at the tenderness in his voice. "Virgil, you - if you never forgave me, I would understand. But I want you to know that I am so, so sorry, Virgil. I - I tied you up, I dropped you, I told you all of the horrible things I think about myself because I hoped it would make me feel better. But now I just feel guilty, and horrible, and - and I am so, so sorry.”

"I forgive you, Princey.” Roman looks shell-shocked, but Virgil continues. “And for what it's worth . . . I’m sorry too. I know I can be harsher than I have to, sometimes, and I usually feel pretty bad about it afterwards. But I admit that I was a lot less careful with you because you always acted so above-it-all, and you so clearly hated me that it was easy to overreact and get carried away. We fueled each other’s fires, so . . . yeah. 'M sorry, too."

Roman opens his arms, and Virgil only hesitates a moment before stepping into them. They hug, Roman pressing his face into Virgil’s hair, and Thomas swears he hears Virgil’s shoulders crack with the force of Roman’s hug. Patton’s face is shining yellow, and Logan has shifted from rubbing his tie to flapping one hand.

Thomas feels his chest lighten, like some of the steel bands have snapped, but he knows that there’s one last apology that has to be made. “Virgil,” he says. Roman gives Virgil one last squeeze before letting go, and then Virgil takes a step back, looking at Thomas.

“Yes?” He still sounds hesitant, nervous, and Thomas wants to destroy that tone forever.

“Come over here, please?”

Virgil shuffles over, feet dragging against the carpet, and Thomas exhales. “It’s my turn now.” He gently takes Virgil’s hands in his own, and for the first time he notices how small and fragile they are. They’ve been building Virgil - no, not Virgil, Anxiety - up into a monster for so long, but his hands feel like bird bones in Thomas’s. He looks up at Thomas with wide eyes, and Thomas feels his heart break a little at the vulnerability he sees there.

He takes a deep breath, takes a moment to compose himself. He looks past Virgil and sees Patton smiling encouragingly, Logan nodding, Roman giving him a thumbs up. He thinks about what they’d all said, and then looks back at Virgil.

"Virgil, I'm sorry. Earlier, you said I treated you like you were something foreign, and you - you were right. People always talked about my anxiety like it was nothing more than a disorder, and I thought that way too. I was convinced that if I could just manage my anxiety, all the problems in my life would magically disappear. I . . . I think a lot of your villainization came from me. I looked at my anxiety and I saw nothing more than a flaw. But here, now, looking at you, I don't see a flaw. I see a strong, selfless person who constantly sacrifices everything to protect the people he loves - people who up until today have done a really shitty job of appreciating everything he does for them."

"Thomas . . ." Virgil whispers. His eyes are wet, but Thomas’s are finally dry.

"Virgil, you are important," Thomas says firmly. "You - you are so important to me. Sometimes you can be a little excessive, but I can see why you felt you had to be, given the way we all reacted to you. We can work on that together, we can work on all of this together. I'm sorry that I made you feel like I didn't want you here. And - and maybe I didn't want plain old anxiety, but I definitely want Virgil. You're not bad, you're just . . . you were just trying to do your job. You just wanted to keep me safe.”

“I wanted to keep you all safe,” Virgil says. “Even though you never thought of me that way, I have always considered you four to be my family. And I take the job of protecting my family very seriously.” He glances down at his body and snorts. “I mean, generally I don’t look like a fuckin’ twelve-year-old when I’m performing that job, but I’m still capable.” He looks back at Thomas. “I know I hindered you too much on more than one occasion, and I’m really sorry about that. Protecting you is all I’ve ever wanted to do.”

"I know that now," Thomas says. "We can work on being a better family together, all of us, but honestly? There’s nothing wrong with who you are. I'm sorry I made you feel unwanted just for doing your job - just for being who you are. But I promise, I do want you here. I want you here exactly the way you are, because there's nothing wrong with the way you are."

Virgil smiles at him, a shy, genuine smile. Thomas lets go of his hands and opens his arms. “You don’t have to, Virgil, but if you want to, I -”

Virgil is in his arms before he knows what’s happening. “I forgive you, Thomas, of course I do, I was never mad at you, I just wanted to keep you safe I - I’m so sorry that I hurt you, I -”

“Stop apologizing, Anx - Virgil,” Roman says. “That’s gonna take some getting used to, but I’m happy to make the adjustment.”

Virgil twists in Thomas’s embrace to look at Roman. “I mean, I should probably apologize for biting you in the woods.”

“I mean, I was behaving like a jackass at the time, and I did hogtie you in said woods. So . . . call it even?” Virgil laughs, and it’s watery and weak but it’s enough to set off everyone else.

“Yeah, Princey. Call it even.”

#starshinewrites #living in the real world (ain't it fun)#ain't it fun!au #platonic TLAMP

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elizabeethan · 4 years ago

Text

Steal Away: 2 / 5

When a bank robbery with his brother goes horribly wrong, Killian Jones learns to heal with the help of a fiery blonde who happened to get caught in the crosshairs.

A Modern AU

Based loosely on the movie Hell Or High Water (and so I tag @captainswanmoviemarathon)

Read on Ao3

Read The Rest

Read my Other Stuff

A/N: So this was supposed to be a one shot, but it’s, like, 24k words so I thought it would be best to split it up. I’m probably going to post one part a night for the next week or so, though.

This part is rated T as well, mostly for language and car sickness :) (I’ll let you know when we get to M hehehe)

thank you as usual to @the-darkdragonfly, @donteattheappleshook and @xhookswenchx for letting me ramble about this for weeks, and to Kay for beta-ing <3

~~~~

It happens quickly.

Her sense of humor, her taste in music, the adorable way she snorts when he hits a pothole while she’s sleeping… it’s impossible for him to avoid the feelings that stir in him. It’s almost embarrassing, the speed at which he begins to recognize his feelings, but it’s not as if he plans on sharing them at any point.

The fact is… he likes her. She’s cute, and funny, and undeniably sexy, and he knows that if she wasn’t here, he probably wouldn’t be either. He would’ve been arrested right off the bat, or shot in the bank himself, or drowning in a bottle of rum beside his brother’s grave. If it wasn’t for Emma Swan and her insistence to stay in his life, he wouldn’t be on his way to Maine to pick up the only remaining person in his life who means something.

Although, perhaps that isn’t true, because after a day on the road, he’s discovered that she’s starting to mean something, too.

He doesn’t know enough about her to dignify a crush, but he also isn’t stupid. He knows that he’s infatuated with her. He knows that he’s finding it hard to keep his gaze off of her. He knows that her stunning green eyes play off of the gold of her skin and her hair in such a way that makes his heart race. He knows that, based solely on what she’s told him so far, he’s desperate to know more.

She doesn't have a family. She spent much of her childhood homeless and running away from abusive foster placements. She was abandoned as an infant, left in the woods at only a few hours old. She’s been through hell and back, and she still manages a blinding smile.

Her ex boyfriend is the reason she’s here with him, he thinks. She says that he screwed her over and that she wants nothing more than to get away from him and from the place that reminds her of him, and Killian thinks this all happened at a rather convenient time for her. She told him yesterday, when he was panicking over his brother’s demise, that she could tell that he was there in that bank for a good reason, and he’s taken to assuming that she has a good reason to assume that.

They hardly know each other, and yet he feels as though he’s known her his whole life. He knows so little about her, and yet, he can read her like she’s an open book. The term kindred spirits feels naive, and yet, that’s exactly what they are.

“Are we gonna stop in Chicago?” she asks excitedly as she watches the Welcome to Illinois sign pass them by.

“Definitely not,” he laughs. “It’s far too north for where we’re headed.”

“What, and Maine isn’t?” she snorts, shaking her head and pointing out a bird that flies by. “What’s up there, anyway?”

Immediately, his heart starts racing and his palms start sweating at the thought of telling her the true reason for their trip. It dawns on him that, when they arrive, he would have to tell her anyway, lest he abandon her in town before he arrives at the lawyer’s office.

Of course, Emma has experienced her fair share of abandonment at this point in her life, and while he hardly knows her and shouldn’t care, he wouldn’t dare contribute to the trauma that comes with the feeling of being left behind and forgotten.

Bloody hell.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says after a long moment of silence.

He clears his throat, drawing his focus back to the highway before him. “It’s alright, love. I just… it’s a sore subject, I suppose.”

“We share a lot of those,” she jokes, smirking at him and making his heart race. More gently, she reasons, “which means you should know by now that I won’t judge you.”

“Aye,” he agrees immediately, because he does know that. “Aye, you’re right. It’s, um… my child.”

He catches her balking, her jaw dropping and then snapping shut in quick succession before he needs to focus back on the road. “You have a kid?”

With a nod, his grip on the steering wheel tightens. This vehicle is better than the last, the clutch not sticking like the one in the truck had, but it’s so small and cramped that he doubts they’ll be able to sleep comfortably in these seats tonight. He’d best pull over soon so that they can find a place to sleep. “I do,” he confirms. “A daughter. She’s eight.”

“How old are you?” she asks in shock.

He narrows his eyes, shifting his gaze to her briefly and suspiciously asking, “how old are you?”

“I asked you first,” she says seriously, as if she truly doesn't want to disclose her age, and he begins to panic. She looks old enough, but the potential that he’s just kidnapped a minor on top of everything else begins to assault his thoughts.

“Please just tell me I didn’t kidnap you,” he begs, his heart racing.

“No,” she rolls her eyes. “I’m 23, and much more mature than you.”

With a sound that’s somewhere between a snort and a sigh of relief, he nods. “Aye, love. I’m sure you are.”

She sits in silence, staring at him expectantly, and he knows that it drives her mad when he smirks and begins to laugh. “Don’t be stupid! Just tell me how old you are!”

“I’m… I’m 31.”

“Oh,” she says, chuckling beside him. “So you’re not that much of a cradle robber. Just a regular old bank robber.”

“Oy!” he shouts in offense, staring at her in shock. “Sensitive subject. And what makes you think I’m trying to rob your... cradle?”

She snorts and shakes her head. “Please. I saw the way you were staring at my ass at that last rest stop.”

She could’ve chosen a more opportune time to say that, perhaps when he wasn’t taking a sip of coffee. It’s rather uncomfortable coming up his nose. “Love,” he says through a cough. “I’m not— that is, I meant not to—”

“It’s fine, Killian,” she tells him, giggling softly and playfully. “A girl likes to feel flattered, especially a girl who feels like a—”

Her jaw snaps shut and her eyes grow wide, the emerald catching the rays of the sun and throwing glints of gold. “Like a what, darling?”

“Like… um, like I could eat everything on the menu at McDonalds. Is it time to stop yet?”

“No,” he laughs, although he finds that he struggles to say no to her and mean it, even after such little time, and he indicates his intent to change lanes and moves towards an exit. “We only stopped for breakfast a few hours ago.”

“Well, I’m starving,” she tells him, shooting him a soft smile. “And if I don’t stretch my legs in a minute, they’re gonna fall off.”

“You need to stretch your legs? Your feet are currently on top of my dashboard. Is that not enough of a stretch?”

“Your dashboard? I’m pretty sure I witnessed you stealing this car.”

“From a scrapyard,” he mumbles, giving her a shy smile as he exits the highway. “What do you want for lunch? Or should I say brunch? It’s barely eleven.”

“We crossed time zones, you ass.”

“What do you want?” he laughs.

She hums playfully, pretending to ponder his question seriously and says, “a prime rib, cooked medium rare, with a side of garlic mashed potatoes. Caramelized onion and mushroom sauce on the steak. And some green beans, for balance.”

Shaking his head and laughing along with her, he says, “chicken nuggets and fries it is, darling.”

~~~~

“You need to pull over,” she says suddenly, breaking almost an hour of silence between them during which he was certain she was asleep. After their early lunch, he decided to keep driving, anticipating that she would take over in a few hours.

“Emma,” he sighs, “we only just stopped two hours ago.”

“I’m not asking,” she demands. “I’m telling you that if you don’t pull over,” she puts her hand over her mouth, her retching and gagging preventing her from saying anything more.

“Jesus,” he mumbles as he pulls into the breakdown lane, barely stopped and still in gear when she thrusts the door open and loses her lunch all over the ground. He can’t ask her if she’s alright because she hasn’t stopped vomiting, so he checks his side mirror and opens his door, walking around the front of the car to meet her. He stands behind the door and places his hand in her hair, massaging her scalp as she shudders violently. “I didn’t realize you were prone to car sickness.”

She groans, shaking her head and resting it against the window at her side. “I think your driving has gotten worse.”

He hums, continuing his ministrations on her scalp as she catches her breath. “Was it the chicken, love? I knew that stuff was crap.”

“No, it’s your crap driving.”

“Do you want to take over, then?”

“No, I want to sleep.”

“Come on out and get some fresh air, would you?” She whimpers as he pulls the door open a bit more, and he takes her hand to help her out and around her sick. “It’s alright, love, come here.”

She breathes deeply as she stands, and only remains in front of him for a moment before she falls forward against his chest and into his arms. “Sorry,” she whispers into his sweatshirts wrapping her arms around his waist and holding herself close to him. “For delaying the trip.”

“You needn’t worry about that, love,” he soothes, and he focuses on moving his hands along her back and hair in the same way she had his. “A few moments while you find your bearings won’t hurt. Are you alright?”

She nods against him, a sound coming from her throat that makes him squeeze her tighter. He can’t stop himself from pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, the need to comfort her interrupting any reasonable thoughts in his head. She whispers, “yeah,” so softly that he kisses her again.

“During lunch I found a small campground that takes cash. It’s only another few hours; can you make it that far? We can use the tent and the camping mat instead of sleeping in the car.”

“Luxurious,” she jokes softly, maintaining her firm embrace around his middle. “That sounds perfect.”

~~~~

She’s relentless in her jokes at his expense as he struggles with the tent. It’s dusk, and there’s a decent canopy of trees above him, and, as she points out often, he’s getting old. He struggles to see the small pieces and determine what goes where, and she’s hardly any help as she sits in the car laughing at him as she claims to be recovering from another spell of car sickness.

“You could try helping me, you know,” he finally mumbles as the structure collapses again and he’s met with her symphonic laughter.

“Need a newer pair of eyes, Captain?” she asks in good humor, standing and bounding towards him confidently. It’s almost miraculous how quickly she’s recovered, and yet her nausea seems to keep coming back.

“Very funny, love. Come and tell me where E connects to G.”

It’s impossible to ignore the way the full moon shines against her hair, almost white in the dim light of the night sky. The gentle waves flow freely as she releases the tie from around her locks, rubbing her palms over her face as she settles into the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. She gives him a soft, gentle smile as he zips the tent’s opening securely shut, taking his place upon the ground between her and the door. “Where’s yours?” she asks, gesturing down at her sleeping bag and camping mat.

He shrugs and then nods towards her. “Someone stole it.”

Her eyes widen in surprised embarrassment and she asks, “this is yours? What about-- weren’t you and… I mean…”

Smiling as he lies down on his back, he turns his head to face her and says, “I was meant to travel alone, actually.”

Just as he thinks she’s about to match his position and lie back herself, she stirs and begins tugging on the sleeping bag until she’s out of it. She shakes it out in front of herself to straighten it and then feels around in the dark for the zipper, pulling it around the puffy fabric until it’s fully open before her. Turning towards him, she gives him another soft smile and dramatically opens it like a parachute, draping it over the both of them. “There you go,” she says with finality. “We can share.”

“You don’t have to do that, love. It’s summer anyway.”

“We’re sleeping outside, and you're taking a second, unexpected person on your trip across the country, who also happens to frequently demand pit stops. The least I can do is share your sleeping bag with you.”

“Well… thank you, lass. That’s very kind of you.”

“I just can’t part with the mat, sorry. The ground is way too hard.”

He laughs as he turns to his side, silently agreeing with her that the ground is mighty firm as he grimaces. “You can’t spare it for an old man with old bones?”

She shrugs, laughing softly as well as she rolls to her side to face him head on. “You're not that old.”

“So I'm only young when it suits you?”

“I didn’t say you were young.”

He hasn’t laughed this much in years. Before he met her, he hadn’t been so close to a woman in almost a decade. He’s forgotten how soothing the gentle touch of another can be, and he’s been hard pressed to ignore how especially soothing she is, in particular. “You do have quite the sense of humor, love.”

“All in good fun,” she smiles. He catches her gaze shooting down at the hem of the old sleeping bag, her fingers fiddling with some thread that has pulled away from its place. “Will you tell me something?” she asks in a whisper.

“What is it?”

She clears her throat nervously, continuing to avert her eyes from his, and asks, “will you tell me about your daughter?”

With a hum and a sad smile, he bites his bottom lip and nods, the memories of his love flooding back into his mind, as if he’s ever been able to prevent them. “Alice,” he says. “She’s just turned eight a few months ago. I missed her birthday.”

“Why? What happened?”

He notes the way that her fingers continue to play at the loose threads, and he matches her actions just beside her. “I was with my mother; she was dying and had no one else while Liam was in jail. I wanted to bring Alice with me, but… her mother wouldn’t allow it.”

“I’m sorry,” she says immediately. He hears a rustle against the mat her head lies on and lifts his own gaze to meet hers.

“Thank you.”

“When did you see her last, then?”

He gulps over the lump in his throat. “It’s been well over a year.”

She sighs, and he doesn’t think he imagines the minute amount of space that she closes between them. “You must miss her terribly.”

“Aye, I do. Everyday.”

“Is there… I mean, is there a reason it’s been so long? I’m not trying to judge you, I’m sorry, I just—“

“It’s alright, love,” he interrupts, noting the sudden shift in her demeanor as she realizes the nature of her question. “Her mother was rather… controlling, I suppose. I believe she used drugs and alcohol for much of Alice’s early life. I don’t have any reason to believe she used during her pregnancy, but I cared for Alice from birth when Eloise fell off the wagon. I even named her, after my ailing mother. But a few years later, she got clean and started to take over. She took Alice to live with her; became upset when I came around. And eventually, the way she would scream at me when I tried to visit made Alice upset, so I stopped coming around as much.”

She’s quiet for a moment, and he wonders if he’s taken things a bit too far. If he’s opened up to her too much. He fears this for what feels like an eternity as she lies beside him, her warm breath washing over his nose as he thinks the worst. That he’s upset her, that he’s offended her, that he’s made her think of the trauma of being abandoned herself as he describes the way he abandoned his own daughter. And his fears are confirmed when she sniffles softly before him and moves her fingers from the frayed threads to her eyes, wiping tears away.

“Emma,” he whispers into the darkness, “I’m sor--”

“That’s so terrible,” she interrupts sadly, and he bows his head in shame, knowing already that his actions are deplorable. Until she whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry… for what?” he asks in shock, speaking almost at full volume, a contrast to their whispering tones.

“You just--” she sniffs once more, “--it’s obvious how badly you want to be in your daughter’s life, and you haven’t been able to. That’s got to be the worst feeling… I can’t even imagine not being allowed to…”

Clearing his throat, he takes a risk by reaching before himself to wipe a tear from her soft cheek with his thumb, almost desperate to comfort her as she has him the entire time he’s known her. “It’s alright, love,” he whispers. “I’m going to get her back, with your help. I wouldn’t be here, on my way to her, if it weren’t for you.”

She sniffles and laughs at the same time, adorably embarrassed at the sound that escapes her, and asks, “what’s changed now? With you and her mom?”

“She died,” he answers simply. If she had begun to relax slightly into his hand, she stiffens at his words. “She relapsed, mixed drugs and alcohol… her body couldn’t handle it.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That must’ve been hard, too.”

“Not much,” he answers too quickly. She draws her brows together in question and he continues, “I’m sad for Alice; she’s lost her mother. But she never really had her much. Eloise was never a very devout mother. It always seemed like she was in it for the image, or only when it suited her. I don’t think she ever really wanted a child.”

Emma nods gently, the small gap between them getting smaller when a gust of wind shakes the tent and she slides closer to him. “Was she, I mean, was Alice a surprise?”

“Oh, aye, very much so,” he laughs softly. “El and I weren’t ever a couple, we just met at a bar and… well, we were only together once. It was sort of a low point for me.”

“I get that,” she nods again. “Sleeping with the wrong person, I mean. Not that… I mean, not that Alice was a mistake or anything, of course.”

“I know what you mean,” he consoles in a whisper as she again worries that she’s offended him. She should know that she couldn’t possibly say the wrong thing, because despite how short of a time he’s known her, he knows that she can do no wrong in his eyes.

“Will you tell me about her? Like… What was it like when she was a baby? Was it very hard?”

He hums and nods, agreeing, “it was hard, yes; I was mostly alone. But it was so worth it.”

“It was?” she asks softly, almost insecurely and making him narrow his eyes in thought.

She hasn’t told him anything, but he isn’t a fool. He means every word of what he says to her next, and says it in hopes that he can give her solace. “Aye. As hard as life has been, I wouldn't change anything because it’s how I got Alice.”

In a move that surprises him almost as much as it doesn’t, she moves as close to him as she can and tucks her head into his chest, just below his chin, and wraps her arm around his waist. “That’s a good point,” she murmurs into his sweatshirt.

“Are you alright, love?” he asks, accepting her into his embrace and letting his hand run along the length of her spine over her own sweatshirt. He reminds himself that he doesn’t truly know her, so he can’t assume that this isn’t like her, but it feels profound.

She nods against his chest, pulling herself impossibly closer as she seems to seek more warmth and a firmer embrace. “It’s weird,” she starts, her voice muffled. “I barely know you, but it feels like you're my friend.”

“I am your friend,” he agrees with a smile. “And you’re mine. I told you I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“I wouldn’t either.”

“Of course not. I’ve been driving most of the way.”

She snorts, nuzzling her nose into the crook between his neck and his shoulder and squeezing around his waist. “Yeah, that’s why I’ve been puking nonstop.”

“Would you like to drive tomorrow, then?” he laughs.

“Sure.”

“Alright. We’ll need to leave quite early. Just another two days to go, I think.”

“Okay,” she yawns, falling asleep in his arms feeling, he hopes, as safe as he does.

~~~~

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#captain swan #captain swan fanfic #cs ff #captain swan au #modern au #cs ff au #Steal Away #steal away ff #cs fluff #cs angst #eventual smut #hurt/comfort

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shiteatinggrin · 4 years ago

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Hi, so this is my contribution to my first jilytober, I wrote some canon fic, it is kinda sad so I guess you could call this angst? I don’t know, I’m not that good at categorizing fic. Anyways, here is a love letter to James Potter from Lily Evans because he just died under her eyes. Wrote this fast, so I can’t vouch for the quality of this. This is almost 3k of Lily being a sap, so enjoy! Find it here on Ao3.

Bastard with a shit eating grin

Do you remember our first kiss? I can still feel the cold air of winter seeping through the walls of Greenhouse Number Three and you and I laughing together. It was not an unusual thing anymore, but some people could have been surprised, because we had had some big feuds over the years, the Dormitories Dashing and Destroying Disagreement, the Inflating Inner Ear Incident, the Flying Fiona Fight and the Severus Snape Saga consisting of the big highlights. However frustrating it was, we always had fun together, didn’t we?

Now we were falling in love dutifully without realising we had always been meant for each other in some way. I was all colors: glorious red hair, pink cheeks, pale green eyes and horrendously yellow socks. You were all teeth: shining smiles, arrogant smirking, belly-laughing in a silent room or grinding them in concentration for the task you were committing to (hyper-focusing on) at the moment.

‘Oi, Evans, can I copy your homework?’ You would say that practically every day.

‘How about a please, Potter? Might do you some good.’ You watched me smear some soil on my neck when I scratched it and said nothing. I discovered it in Transfiguration two hours later. Crazy how we can only remember the smallest details years later and the big things just go right over our heads. I could only ever remember the small details with you, because whatever we said to each other was never important, only the talking to you part was.

‘Oh Lily, dearest flower to my heart that I worship beyond any rainbow, might I please please please see your diligently done homework so that I can rewrite it because, being the idiot that I am, I was off gallivanting with Sirius yesterday instead of being a good student.’ You added pouts and made doe eyes for good measure as if I wouldn’t already have grabbed the moon from the sky’s grubby hands every night if you had asked it.

I would stifle a smile and put some piece of parchment in your extended hand without even looking, sometimes it was the homework if I was feeling generous, if I were more in a creative mood I might give you a stupid doodle or some kind of letter that would say something like: ‘Dear Prongs, you are an asshat. Looking forward to our rounds tonight so I can kick your ass in Gobstones. Now listen to Sprout, will you? Lily’ with a stupid heart over the i that basically meant PS: I love you. Finally, I’d say something like:

‘I would have laughed, but your head might inflate so much you’d have neck pain for a week.’

You let yourself smile then and continued to jest me, hoping to wrench a smile out of the beast (you always did it literally two minutes later, it is funny how easy it is to win when you give yourself such small tasks).

But that day, amazingly, we broke out of our routine.

At night we would always hang out together in the common room with our friends and slowly the people would fizzle out, having gone up to their dormitories and I would stay on the couch with the urge to kiss you with some dumb excuse not to leave on the tip of my tongue. I painted my nails or read some book or talked to you extensively about something I’d learned recently and you would listen with concentrated eyes and a much too easy smile.

Then you would start talking and when you started some story it would never finish, even now you can’t even recall something as simple as Harry’s first smile without going on for five full minutes without stopping. In these nights I would try to look like I wasn’t paying too much attention to you, like I was detached from everything pertaining to your person, but being young and in love doesn’t exactly give you the best skills in subtlety and so you would ask me if I was paying attention and I would blush and you would make some quip about redheads and their skins and everything would go back to normal.

And out of the blue, when I was talking about getting some sugar quills next time we were in Hogsmeade and how difficult the Ancient Runes paper was, you kissed me. Your hands flew to my hair and mine to cup your face and you pressed your body hard against mine. I’d never seen you so hungry for anything before, it seemed like you had been starving for a thousand years before our lips found each other. I had kissed three boys before you, and none of them could compare to the feeling of ecstasy of your mouth against mine. No one will ever compare to James Potter, right? That’s what you used to say in fourth year when you made a particular lucky goal in Quidditch or when you caught the Snitch in mid-air even though you were a Chaser and we were in Potions classf. Is it weird that I miss that?

I don’t think there ever was a time when I didn’t love you, all electric hair and much too quick brain and hundred stupid nicknames that didn’t mean anything unless you explained them in excruciating detail and you would smile too much and talk too loud and walk too fast and I wouldn’t feel so out of place with you because I did the exact same things. Petunia was always prim and proper and I always tried to be like her and please everyone but you taught me how to be myself and how to blossom into my personality without even knowing it. With you I’ve never been too much, I was always just enough.

Everything always came so easy to you, and I’ve always hated you for it. Now I think that I can’t appreciate enough how you could always share that with everyone around you, that incredible luck that could get you out of the worst of predicaments. I guess it all caught up to us today, but I don’t mind now. I’ll love you forever, come what may.

My heart is full of wanted posters of you: dead or alive.

I can’t remember the first time I’ve really noticed you, because you were always in the periphery, doing stupid things and getting in trouble and beaming for no reason at all and the memory of your presence was impossible to shake, but I still remember the first time we really became friends. We were fifteen by the lake and my best friend betrayed me under the glistening sun, the following day I had the worst grade in Transfiguration I’d ever gotten. You found me crying by a window on the fifth floor and apologized a hundred times (which I couldn’t have cared less at the moment), but you still went and talked to McGonagall and she agreed to let me retake the test in the afternoon and offered me a biscuit.

In seventh year, a girl told me that she was so jealous of the fact that I was the only one that could make James Potter change and mature. As if your life revolved around me. I thought of your sick father and the fact that Sirius had appeared on your front door one day and never left your house and with a twinge in my heart thought of the war coming and I couldn’t believe my ears. With all this going on, and she still thought you’d only change for a girl?

I’m not proud of this, but I might have shouted at her and maybe, perhaps I was the one that sent a silencing charm her way, but who could really tell? Not her, because her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

I wonder if I ever told you that. Probably, because you know everything interesting there is to know about me. You even know the most boring facts about me, because they amuse you just the same. You know I like peonies the best in spite of my name and that my first kiss was with Snape when I was eight, you know that I wiped my mouth right after and didn’t know yet what love was. You know that my favourite band is Hate Potion and that my guilty pleasure is Celestina Warbeck. You know that I wanted to name our son Harry because of a muggle TV show I used to watch with Petunia when I was seven on Saturday mornings and that when I fight my favorite charm is Expelliarmus. You were at my side when I killed my first (and last) Death Eater and that I cried for a week afterward. You comforted me for five hours when Marlene and her entire family were massacred in their own home, the same one where I had spent a good chunk of my summers to avoid Petunia. You know that I only ever paint my toenails blue and that my favorite flavour of ice cream is mint chocolate chip. You know all about my relationship with my sister and how she used to be my best friend and that we used to dance in bathing suits around the sprinkler and fake being witches to make potions out of mud and flowers and how she never forgave when this dream became true for me but not for her. You know all about my failed relationships, with Tuney, Sev and my ex-boyfriend who left me because he didn’t want to be associated with a muggleborn. You know I’m absolute shite at drawing and that I can’t dance to save my life and you laugh at me when I’m drunk and try to follow Peter’s choreography to some dumb song I don’t know. Last year, you helped paint flowers all over my bookcase because I wanted it to be unique and just mine.

When Harry was born, you refused to sleep for two days because he was so cute when he slept against your chest, but you finally fell asleep while cutting onions for dinner and I had to intervene.

One of my favourite things about you is that I have never seen anyone so full of life. You smile like nothing has ever gone wrong in your entire life and you are more loyal than any Hufflepuff I’ve ever seen, you would die for any of us in a heartbeat and we would do the same for you anytime. My love for you is so big I wonder how it even fits in our little house in Godric’s Hollow. You painted our walls burnt orange because you said it reminded you of my hair and I wonder if it is weird to fall in love with you even more over some colour choices. You complete me because as much as you are a complete idiot, you still recommend the best books and are smart enough to plan the best pranks, but too smug to make anyone else take the blame. You had always been my favourite person in the whole universe until Harry arrived, but he is so much like you that it is like meeting you at a much earlier age. He has the same laugh as you, you know?

I cannot believe how brave you are, because traditional courage requires you to go into battle and protect everyone you love like a lioness does her cubs, but you have found the energy to keep going even trapped in this house with an infant without being able to help your friends outside. You go everyday against your most basic instincts and you manage to have so much fun with us, but I see the tired bags under your eyes and the fact that you lose your train of thoughts sometimes and I know that you’re thinking about the war and the security of the boys, I know they are your family and it would kill you if one of them ever fell into battle, yet you never complain, yet you never lose hope. I love you so much my feeble heart can’t contain it all. My love for you is as inevitable as the blue of the sky, as the oxygen in our lungs, as the passage of time, I love you so much that when I see you it is like coming home, your wild hair and round glasses and mischievous eyes and soft voice and much too long limbs and wide chest and calloused hands and smile like an answer to all my problems.

No one has ever made me feel as secure as you and now I know I have to be strong for you, because you are the one that’s fallen, like a marionnette whose strings were cut. The coffee stain on the right arm of your shirt is the last thing I will see of you, or maybe it is a bit of your wild inky hair. I will never be able to look at the night sky the same.

I can hear him in the stairs, and all I can think about is you and Harry this morning, my two favourite people in the world, sat on the carpet and puffs of colour coming out of your wand, your laugh coming out of his mouth, one single tooth poking out, little chubby legs shaking from laughter, the wand you stupidly left on the carpet (the wand you didn’t care wasn’t in your hands because you didn’t care if you died, you just wanted us to live). Your last gift to me was the most precious of all: you gave me the time to say goodbye to Harry.

‘Mama loves you. Dada loves you, Harry.’ That is the only thing I find to say, because it is true and my heart is breaking, I can hear it thundering, collapsing like a dying star, you are dead, I will die, Harry has to live. I cannot withstand the thought.

I have never loved anyone better than the two of you. Apparently I never will, but at least I have known real love, the one that comes from daily life, that never dies because it is kept alive by stupid little things that make us who we are. Crazy how we only remember the little things and the big ones just go right over our heads.

I will remember the smallest things about you, like the little scar in your left eyebrow, the weird placement of your thumb on your wand, the feel of your skin against mine and the way it tanned in the summer while mine just became redder and redder, the sound of your laugh when Sirius said something funny and the way you always pushed your glasses up your nose with your middle finger, the way you sit in any chair like it’s a throne, the way you answered questions in class without raising your hand, the way you held a book open when you were reading it, your last day where you wanted to make pasta and I wanted steak, the way you would mess with your hair not because you thought it would make you look like you just stepped off your broom, but because you were nervous or restless. On your good days it would stand flatter on your head and I had to pass my hand through it because otherwise it just didn’t feel like you. You laughed too much when Sirius decided to read Crime and Punishment to Harry as a bedtime story and your son wouldn’t go to sleep. You would tell him stories of your childhood disguised as muggle magical adventures and I became a knight, Sirius a prince and Snape a dragon. You would call my cat Fiona the ginger cat, as if Fiona wasn’t enough and she needed an extra title. I guess she was royalty after all. You always tried to make me believe that she loved you more than me, even though I’d had her since I was eleven and you once made her fly across the common room just to annoy me.

Do you remember this morning? The last time you ever kissed me? You made me eggs and tea for breakfast and sang some Beatle song for me in the most off-key voice. You stole the bacon from my plate, laughing from across the dinner table. I was so happy because you were in a good mood today, you didn’t seem to feel so trapped and it was Halloween and you were trying to convince me to dress Harry up as a muggle magician, which I thought was the worst joke you’d ever made. You kissed me on the mouth and we settled on a pumpkin costume. Your lips tasted of stolen bacon and orange juice (you’ve never been much of a morning tea person).

I have never loved anyone better, and apparently I never will.

The house is so silent now that you are gone. All I can hear are my own ragged breaths. Harry seems to think this is some kind of game. He is all that we have left now. All that will ever be left of us. To love is to create, right? We have created the most beautiful person in the world, it should be the only thing that counts.

I love you. I could try to make this poetic, the love thing, but I think the most poetic way it can be is on its own. I don’t know any words more powerful than I love you. I love you and you are dead. I love you and I will die soon. I love our son and he will live. Life is as simple as that. I love you and soon we’ll be together again. Miss you already.

#jilytober 2020 #lily evans #james potter #jily fic #canon ending #sad #evey writes #james x lily fanfiction #hp fanfiction #hp #jily

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searchingwardrobes · 4 years ago

Text

Not the Type: 1/7

Here it is, my contribution to the @captainswanmoviemarathon ! Aka, the Bring it On AU no one asked for. I have a love/hate relationship with this movie. On the one hand, I love it as a rom com. On the other hand, as a sports movie, it’s awful. I was a cheerleader myself, and did a brief stint coaching, so I have some issues with this movie. First of all, where is the coach?!? Can you imagine a male driven sports movie without a coach? Remember the Titans with no coach? Glory Road with no coach? Miracle with no coach? I mean, come on! And do you really think a high school is gonna let their students do stunts that can potentially cause paralysis or death without adult supervision? And while they do portray the cheerleaders as athletes, in my opinion, they still hyper-sexualize them. The girls are also way too catty with each other. I can tell you from personal experience, that you need massive trust to do those stunts. Just sayin. Anyway, this whole soap box is to say that this is a LOOSE adaptation of Bring it On written by someone who loves the sport it portrays. But don’t worry, this modern day Lieutenant Duckling AU will have plenty of fluff, feels, flirty banter, and epic kisses. I would like to say this is the cheerleading version of @welllpthisishappening ‘s Blue Line universe, but I don’t pretend to be that brilliant. Laura’s writing did inspire me as I wrote this “sports fic,” however, so massive props to her: the queen of sports writing!

Massive thanks to the mods of the Captain Swan Movie Marathon event as well as all of the other writers. The discord chats have been a blast - especially when you all helped me brainstorm a title for this. Thanks to @hookedonapirate for being an awesome beta and to @rumdrum91 for giving the first chapter a quick once over even while you are insanely busy.

This fic is about . . . 85% complete? It will be updated every Saturday. I’ll shut up now and get to the point . . .

Summary: Emma Swan first notices him in the stands at the Friday night football game. She can tell right away Killian Jones is not the football type. Then again, she's not the cheerleader type either, but here she is with pom poms. Life hasn't ever gone the way Emma planned. Lately, that's actually been a good thing. Maybe Killian Jones is a good thing, too.

Rated: T

Also on Ao3

Tagging: @snowbellewells @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kmomof4 @let-it-raines @teamhook @bethacaciakay @xhookswenchx @tiganasummertree @shireness-says @stahlop @scientificapricot @welllpthisishappening @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @ilovemesomekillianjones @kday426 @ekr032-blog-blog @lfh1226-linda @ultraluckycatnd @nikkiemms @optomisticgirl @profdanglaisstuff @carpedzem @ohmakemeahercules @branlovestowrite @superchocovian @sherlockianwhovian @vvbooklady1256 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615 @snidgetsafan @spartanguard @itsfabianadocarmo

Bounce left, bounce right. Two hip shakes. Roger rabbit, Roger Rabbit. Bobby Brown, Bobby Brown. Cabbage patch. Electric slide. Repeat.

Emma repeated the steps to the dance like a mantra in her head. A cheerleader was supposed to smile all the time, but she couldn’t conjure one up as she bounced through the choreography that dated back to 1989. Okay, maybe they threw in the cabbage patch in 1994, but still. This shit was old.

The band sped up as they played through another round of “Louie, Louie,” and the cheerleading squad was racing through the dance like a tape on fast forward. The band thought it was hilarious and never ceased to tire of the schtick.

Emma was doing what felt like her hundredth Roger Rabbit when she caught sight of him. A large book half covered his face, so she could still see his arched brow and smirk. She held his gaze as she went into her Bobby Browns, and he lowered his book, still staring openly, a crooked grin filling his face. Was he mocking her? She stared him down as she did the cabbage patch, and his eyes widened. She tilted her chin as she went into the electric slide, and his tongue swiped his lips.

“Louie, Louie” finally, mercifully, ended. Emma whipped her ponytail as she broke the guy’s stare. She bounced up and down, waving her pom poms and shouting “Go Knights!” Mary Margaret had finally gotten her to stop rolling her eyes.

“Well look at you, Emma Swan,” Ruby said as they all turned to watch the game and cheer the offense.

“What?” Emma stood at attention, just like all the other girls, her poms on her hips.

“Don’t play dumb, Emma,” Ashley quipped on her other side. “We’re better at it than you.”

“That guy,” Ruby explained. “You were having cheer sex with him.”

“Cheer sex? Seriously?”

Emma tossed her poms down to the ground and tightened her ponytail angrily. She hated football season.

🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Emma whirled around to find herself face to face with the guy she was definitely not having cheer sex with. Whatever the hell that was. She rolled her eyes. Mary Margaret couldn’t do anything about it during half time.

“Just because I’m baring my midriff and my skirt barely covers my hips doesn’t give you permission to ogle me.”

His blue eyes widened. Very blue, actually. No! It didn’t matter if his eyes were pretty; he was a creep.

“You misunderstand me, love.”

“Not your love.” Though he did have a hot accent. What? No! Nothing about him was hot.

He sighed. “Look, I couldn’t help watching you. All the other girls had fake smiles, but you . . . “ he shrugged. “You looked like you hated being here as much as I do.”

Emma blinked in surprise, and her gaze darted to the hardback copy of The Two Towers clutched in his hand. She also took in his slightly disheveled hair, slender build, and Pink Floyd t-shirt. Clearly not the football type.

The students in line behind them for the concession stand grumbled for them to move, so they both shuffled forward.

Emma smiled apologetically and extended her hand. “Emma Swan.”

“Killian Jones.”

“So, what are doing here, hipster?”

He chuckled and ducked his head. He looked a lot more bashful than he had in the stands.

“Granny insisted I put down my guitar, stop singing depressing songs, and get my ass here to support my foster siblings. Her words exactly.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “You’re Ruby’s new foster brother!”

He leaned closer and winked. “Guilty as charged.”

******************************************************

“Cheer sex, Ruby!” Emma snapped as she returned from the concession stand with her bottle of water and bag of pretzels. She lifted the items up on auto-pilot for Coach Ava’s approval, which she received. The Coach insisted on healthy snacks during games and practice. Some of the girls chafed at the rule, but Emma had no problem with it. The last thing she wanted was someone hurling from the top of a pyramid because they had just wolfed down chili cheese fries or something.

“What?” Ruby asked before taking a bite of the apple in her hand.

“Cheer sex,” Emma repeated, “with your foster brother? Ew!”

Ruby rolled her eyes as she chewed and swallowed. “Let me emphasize the foster part. If you wanna bang Killian, I won’t stop you.”

Emma let out a groan of frustration as several of the other girls giggled. “I’m not banging anyone.”

“Exactly! And why is that, Emma?”

“Leave her alone,” Mary Margaret admonished. “Just banging someone isn’t what she needs.”

Emma appreciated Mary Margaret’s positivity - usually - but she wasn’t in the mood for another speech on true love. “I’d actually prefer a complete change of topic.”

“Good,” the girls jumped at the sound of Coach Ava’s voice behind them, “because you only have five minutes left of half time to finish those snacks. Which is kind of hard to do when you’re yapping.”

“Okay, coach,” the girls grumbled good-naturedly. They all loved Ava, and not just because she was Mary Margaret’s mom. She really cared about all of them and was both tough and fair as a coach. Better even than some of the gymnastics coaches Emma had had. Emma had never planned on being a cheerleader, but Emma was used to things in her life not going according to plan. That was usually for the worst, but lately she had to admit it had been for the better. She hadn’t planned on being adopted by the Nolans, either, and that had been the best thing to ever happen to her. When the social worker brought her to her new foster mother, Ruth, and foster brother, David, she had fully expected it to be nothing more than yet another brief stay. She hadn’t expected to be loved.

She hadn’t expected to love in return.

Emma tossed her empty pretzel bag into the trash can near the stadium stairs. She took another swig of her water, then tossed the bottle into her cheer bag that was monogrammed with her name and a megaphone. It was cheesy and matched the bags of all the other girls.

She hadn’t expected to like this group of girls, either. Hadn’t expected to find a group of athletes, but she did. Yes, since age thirteen, life had been surprising her rather than throwing her curveballs. Maybe thirteen was actually her lucky number. Now she was seventeen and had an actual family in addition to fifteen sisters.

With pom poms.

🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈 🏈

Emma crammed her first and second period books into her locker, grabbed the stuff she needed for third, then slammed the door shut. She took off down the hall at almost a sprint. TV and movies were shit in portraying high school. Kids hanging out by their lockers chatting at any and all times of the day. Complete and utter lies. Storybrooke High gave kids five minutes - five minutes! - to get to each class. There were some breaks where she didn’t have time to stop at her locker, but her American History book weighed about three tons and she refused to lug it around all day. She didn’t care if it was completely out of her way. She was chucking that book, damn it, before she threw her back out. Three weeks into the year, and she had it timed down to the second.

She did not have time to be slammed into and knocked to her rear end. “Hey!” she shouted at the jerk who’d plowed into her.

A hand reached down and hauled her to her feet. “Apologies lass.”

She knew that accent before she looked into those blue eyes. She suddenly realized she was still clutching Killian’s hand in hers. She yanked her hand away.

“Yeah, well watch where you’re going next time.”

He grinned in a way that was three-fourths charming and one-fourth roguish. “A pleasure as always, Swan.”

Then the ridiculous boy bowed over her hand and kissed it! She rolled her eyes. He arched his brow.

“Advanced Trigonometry?”

He was offering her a pad of graph paper that had her homework scrawled all over it. She snatched it from him and stuffed it into her bag. It was then she realized the zipper was broken. Great. Just great.

“Why are you so interested in my class schedule?”

He shrugged as he rocked back on his heels. “I’m impressed is all.”

She lifted one shoulder, then dropped it as she attempted to balance her busted backpack in both arms. “My mom insisted on one advanced course this year, and math’s the one subject I don’t suck at.”

He tilted his head. “Intriguing.”

“Why?” she snapped. “Because you assume cheerleaders are moronic sluts?” The bell rang, and she dropped her head back with a groan. “Great! Now you’ve made me late.”

She shouldered past him, and her hackles raised when she heard his low chuckle. He laid a hand on her arm before she could move away and lowered his head to her ear.

“Most guys would find your attitude off-putting, but I love a challenge.”

“Sure you do,” she muttered as she stalked away.

At practice that afternoon, she was informing Ruby that her brother was an absolute pain in the ass.

#cs ff #cs movie marathon #captain swan movie marathon #cs bring it on au #high school au #lieutenant duckling

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elderbwrry · 4 years ago

Text

Even if he doesn't say so

A little darkgingerpilot Witcher AU I discussed months ago with @cleversturmhond I have no concept of how time passes anymore

Summary: The Witcher meets a bard, the bard meets a mage, and they travel the continent. Kylo knows what he feels, but he can't seem to act. Hux acts without talking about things. And Poe... well, what does Poe feel?

Tags: Witcher AU, Inspired by The Witcher, Slow Burn, if you count 13k as slow burn i guess, within the story its slow burn, fantasy medieval setting, Self-Indulgent, Mage Hux, witcher kylo, Bard Poe, scenic, They're oblivious, sex references, Yearning, i guess, im slapping a mature on it for sex references and some minor violence but honestly ehhh idk, darkgingerpilot

Chapter 1/2/3/?, wordcount 5012

also on Ao3

Whenever someone asked Kylo, he always said he preferred to keep to himself and the company of Silence, his horse and his best companion for the very fact of her name; she didn't talk, she didn't disturb the meditative quiet of his lonely rides, and, most importantly, he wasn't unsure how to curry her favour. An apple would do it. His current companions, on the other hand...

For some gods-forsaken reason, Poe and Hux were quarrelling about a composer who had been dead for over a century. When the three of them had first started travelling together years ago, and in the short time since they'd reunited, such discussion had been endearing; both of them were opinionated about certain things, and their conversations often turned into little debates over whatever topic arose while they were travelling. This was one of those occasions, Kylo enjoying listening to their thoughts and voices filling up the worn country roads. A throwaway comment had become interesting; Kylo didn't actually know much about this particular composer, whereas Hux and Poe both did, and, though Kylo didn't often contribute to these discussions in any great detail since the other two were both so much better with words, he did like to learn something new occasionally. But now, several hours into their journey and still on the same subject, it was just getting fucking annoying.

“I literally studied her work. You can't just turn around and say she wasn't revolutionary,” Poe objected, trotting along between Silence and Hux's own horse on the wide bridleway, looking up at Hux indignantly.

Poe's lowered position made it seem slightly laughable when Hux looked down at him and countered, “Since I actually met the woman, I think you'll find I can,” before prompting his horse to walk on ahead of them.

Poe picked up his pace a little and continued the argument, making some musical point Kylo didn't understand either. He tried to tune them out a bit as he let Silence drop back a short distance behind the them.

Considering how much time the three of them spent around each other in recent years, Kylo supposed he should be glad disagreements as lengthy as these were relatively few. And, certainly, they were fewer even than when it had only been Kylo and Poe on the path together.

[break]

Kylo had met Poe many years ago – at least a decade, if he thought about it – when he'd been compelled by his work to go through the city he'd been born in. Not only was the place particularly unfriendly to Witchers, but also had relations of his – distant now, yet he wanted to avoid them nonetheless – in positions of authority. Kylo had used a fake name, a low hood to hide his eyes, his scar, and stuck to the dingiest taverns, but a curly-haired, high-born young man had recognised him anyway, sitting himself down confidently at Kylo's corner table, offering his name, and saying, “I know you. You're that famous Witcher.”

Kylo had eyed his unwelcome acquaintance – Poewas what he introduced himself as – guessing that he couldn't yet be twenty summers old. Of course, Kylo was no good with ages – his own longevity had corroded his sense for them until everyone seemed either old or young in confusing measures – but Poe's next request had practically confirmed his suspicion.

“Would you let me come with you?” Poe had asked the second the bar-wench had placed down Kylo's ale.

“Come with me where?” Kylo grunted. He wasn't in the mood to bodyguard some noble, out for the first time in a world without castle walls.

“Well, where are you going?” Poe's eyes had glinted as he offered Kylo a charming smile.

Kylo had appraised him again, taking in his youth, his rich clothes, his courage, and summarily said, “No.”

Poe's smile didn't drop, even though Kylo could see his only half-amused chuckle for the frustration it was. “Come on, I just wanna see a bit of the world. Get away from my guardian's expectations.”

“The Queen?” Kylo had asked, an imprudently displayed gold ring on the youth's finger catching the light.

Poe had shrugged a yes.

It only made Kylo refuse all the more. The Queen was one of the people Kylo was known to by unfortunate fact of his heritage, someone he never wanted to anger, in case of her having some cause to meet with him personally. Poe, while not her blood family, would surely be missed, as her ward, were he to make off with a Witcher, especially with the one so primarily known for the massacre at Crait.

Poe's gaze went steely at Kylo's final dismissal, and he'd left the tavern quickly after that. It couldn't have been two years later when Kylo encountered the young man again, fine doublet swapped for something a little more incognito in orange and brown tones, a lute slung over his back and all the more determination to see everything.

Kylo hadn't refused him a second time, and he wouldn't have been able to, since Poe no longer had any qualms about following him uninvited. Thus, he had a new travelling companion.

Just as he suspected, Poe was a liability in some aspects of the job where monsters were concerned, but Poe had also dragged him, limping, back to camp before, bandaged his wounds, fetched his potions. His life had undeniably turned for the better with the bard around; Poe was a talented musician, it turned out, and the extra income and incentive to stay at inns meant Kylo was now more acquainted with feather pillows than he'd ever hoped to be. The positive company had made Kylo better as well, at talking to people, at putting up with them, at giving life nuance. His path was lighter with Poe on it.

They became comfortable around each other. They began to argue, about the silly things people who know each other well and cared for each other deeply argue about, about which direction to head in, which inn to stop at, about the jacket Kylo had left to get trampled by the last monster he'd fought. Barely a day went by without some kind of silly quibble to that effect, but it never truly changed the form of their relationship.

Then, they'd met Hux.

[break]

Kylo had been around long enough that he'd thought he'd heard of most of the other powerful, non-mortal beings on the continent, so randomly running into an evidently strong mage like Hux, who he'd never heard of, was a bit surprising. Kylo had been employed to go and rid a keep up on the hill of whatever it was that was plaguing it. He was expecting to take a while to figure it out, but when he arrived, the malevolent spirits were revealed easily by the mage already locked in battle with them.

The fight the man was putting up was impressive, given the sheer number of foes. He was spewing fire everywhere, manipulating the elements to his will, his bright hair and swan-white robe whipped around by the wind he was creating, but eventually Kylo could see he was losing, and so joined him in the fight. It was fortuitous that they were both there, as Kylo certainly couldn't have defeated them all on his own either. When the last spirit was destroyed, however, Hux had spun round, announced that he had decidedly notrequired the help of some filthy Witcher, and flounced off. He'd gotten about ten paces when he collapsed from the sheer exertion of having used his magic in such a manner.

So Kylo had carried the mage back to camp and laid him down on his bedroll to recuperate.

Poe was travelling with Kylo at that time, and, though he was surprised to see Hux, he seemed very glad to see Kylo back from the fight, juiced up on potions but otherwise unharmed. His smile had made Kylo's heart do something he didn't really understand, the same thing it did when Poe met his gaze during a performance at whatever tavern they were staying at, the same when Kylo said something complimentary to him. Indeed, it was becoming more and more of a common feeling, and Kylo was finding that he rather liked it.

When Kylo suggested he should probably go find a rabbit or something for dinner, Poe seemed happy enough to watch over the mage until he returned, and Kylo had picked his way into the forest they were camping on the edge of with his head full of thoughts of Poe. His distraction had meant he took longer than usual to catch something, and when he got back, it was to find Poe backed against a tree, Hux threatening him using a dagger Kylo hadn't realised he'd had on him.

“Kylo!” Poe had shouted when he saw him – and again, the weird thing Kylo's heart did around Poe – equal parts relieved and pissed off.

Hux relaxed only slightly at knowing whose camp it was he had been brought to, and, once Kylo had convinced him to lower the weapon, he protested strongly that he didn't want anyone's help or charity, and that he was offended to have been carried around like some damsel. Poe told him he was very welcome to fuck off, but it soon became clear that Hux wasn't in any shape to be going off on his own, so he stayed with them that night.

Kylo was settling in to sleep on the opposite side of the fire to Hux when Poe dumped his bedroll down next to him, closer than usual – cue the weird heart thing again – and lay down. All Kylo had managed to ask was, “What are you doing?”

Huffing, Poe leaned up to peer over Kylo's arm at where Hux was lying, turned away from them on the far side of their little camp. “He tried to kill me today. I don't wanna wake up with my throat cut for some magey shit.”

Kylo considered pointing out that Poe wouldn't wake up at all if his throat had been slit, but he was more struck by the implication that Poe was trusting him to protect him. Usually, people were more likely to fear that Kylo would be the one killing them after whatever monster he'd been hired to dispatch, but Poe was different, and always had been, really. He insisted that Kylo had good in him, that he wasn't all the darkness that Witchers were supposed to be. He wasn't entirely right, of course, but it was nice to have someone hope in him.

So instead of making the bard move away, all Kylo had said was, “You'll get cold, so far from the fire,” and offered Poe an extra side of his own blanket.

One night of Hux staying with them turned into two, into three, into a week's travel to the neighbouring city. In fact, Kylo was almost sad to see the severe mage leave, as it meant he and Poe went back to their usual sleeping arrangements, instead of curling up together with Kylo as his shield.

[break]

Months later, to Kylo's surprise, Hux sought him out. He was after a gem of something something and he needed hired muscle that he could trust would actually get the job done. Hux had found them by the coast, and the first thing he said as he took Poe in was, “You're still travelling with him, are you?” Kylo wasn't sure whether the question was meant for him or Poe, but they'd both answered definitively.

The month and a half of travel it took to reach the mountain cave system in which the gem was kept saw Poe and Hux grow accustomed to each other, if not strictly friendly. Poe didn't resume his habit of sleeping next to Kylo, Hux didn't try to kill Poe again, and eventually they stopped speaking to each other in jibes and barbs.

Hux and Kylo also ended up bonding; they would sit together in taverns while Poe was performing and talk, about things that they remembered from when they were young, things Poe had learned only from his history professors. It was nice to have someone who related, who had experienced similar things to him, who understood what it was to be not-quite human and tied to a duty they didn't quite want. Hux had been raised in magic, it turned out, and, as they talked, Kylo realised it wasn't so different to being raised into killing as he had been. The small, commiserating smiles Hux offered struck Kylo deeply, and one day he realised that Hux, bathed in the yellow, glowing tavern light, was beautiful.

When they reached the cave systems that were their destination, Poe had to stay in the local town while Hux and Kylo went in search of the gem, since the place was too unknown and dangerous to risk him coming. And it did turn out to be dangerous; Hux and Kylo each saved each others' life a few times, had several close calls, and, once all the stress and danger of the adventure had turned into the satisfaction of success, they translated that pent-up tension into a vigorous fuck on the way out.

“I don't know why you keep him around,” Hux commented as they trudged back to the town to meet Poe, gem firmly in his grasp. “He can't help you with your work like I could.”

Kylo supposed that was true. “He helps me be better,” Kylo replied, which was also true.

Hux made a derisive sound. “Does he, now.”

Kylo shook his head at Hux's tone. “Why don't you like him? You have plenty in common.”

“It's not that I don't like him,” Hux said, tossing his head to get a strand of hair which had slipped in front of his eyes out of the way. Considering Kylo was grimy and dishevelled from the fighting, Hux's deep crimson tunic still looked remarkably put together, and it gave him a haughty air as he said, “I know his type. I've served them in courts all over the continent for centuries. They think they're entitled to everything without working for it and without thanking the people who actually make it possible. He's just another ungrateful, mortal noble.”

Kylo thought about what he said for a good minute. “You're wrong,” he said.

[break]

Back at the inn, Poe had the entire town in the palm of his hand thanks to his songs. He looked charming as ever, flashing smiles to all the ladies who were fawning over him, but Kylo was happy to see that, when Poe spotted them enter, his smile softened and a new light entered his eyes. This time, the flip in Kylo's heart felt more natural than ever.

When Kylo emerged from the bathhouse, Poe was already waiting in his room for a full account of the adventure so he could turn it into his latest ballad. Kylo related what happened as he usually did, keeping to the bare facts and trusting Poe to make them into pretty wordplay later, until he got to the end, at which point he decided that Poe didn't strictly need to know that Hux had pushed him up against the wall of the cave and kissed him with a ferocity he wasn't likely to forget any time soon.

But Poe noticed the brief hesitation and looked up from his little book where he'd been scribbling notes. “What?” he asked.

Kylo shrugged. “Nothing. We left to come back here,” he said, pulling the shirt he was wearing off and reaching for a different one.

“Did something bite you?”

Kylo could hear the frown in Poe's voice, and he turned back to see Poe's eyes locked on a slightly bruised, reddish ring low on his neck. A vague recollection surfaced in Kylo's mind of Hux tugging down his collar, once his outer layer of armour was off, and digging his teeth hard into the flesh over that spot. He hummed, reaching up to rub at it and thus hide it from Poe's sight. “Must have.”

Poe stood up and approached, batting Kylo's hand out of the way, which he couldn't find the motivation to resist. When Poe ran his thumb over the bruise, he was so warm Kylo pushed into the touch. If Poe noticed, he didn't comment, his brow was deeply furrowed. “What kind of monster even has teeth like that?”

A knock came on the door. “Kylo,” Hux called from outside, “we need to talk about payment.”

“I'm...” Kylo hesitated, feeling strangely and suddenly like he'd betrayed Poe. “I'm coming.”

Kylo wasn't sure what about him looked guilty, but Poe seemed to realise at that moment where the mark came from. “Oh,” he said, stepping away and back to his book.

Not long after that, Poe announced his intention to head back to his home kingdom. Kylo's mouth went dry. It was Hux who had to ask the platitudes – did he have some business to attend to? How long did he think he would stay? - which Poe replied to blandly, something about responsibility to his mentors. Kylo wanted to ask him to stop, to stay, but all he managed to get out was, “I'll miss you.”

[break]

Time passed.

Poe left for home, taking his light and song with him.

Kylo spent one winter with Hux, back in the keep where they'd first met, which Hux had appropriated for himself, but it was all wrong; there was a grounding influence missing, without which the two of them spent more time treating each other angrily than well. The sex was amazing, but eventually, it felt hollow. The day it became clear that the harshest weather had blown over, Kylo was back on Silence, looking for the next contract out on a monster, something he could hack into pieces without thinking.

The seasons changed, fled and returned until it had been another year. Kylo was firmly back in the blank swing of contract, monster, payment, move along, but the campfire felt lonely after dark, when he had nothing to occupy his mind. He started talking to Silence; she never replied.

Sometimes, Kylo found himself wondering how long it would be until he ran into Hux again, and if he would even want to see him. Maybe he could make the way they left things up to him. They'd had something, after all, and, though it hadn't been perfect, he missed that feeling of love and understanding and protection which Hux provided. Kylo didn't hold out much hope of seeing Poe; he never went near his home city, and why would Poe venture out again? He'd seen his share of the world. He was back in his real life, now.

But eventually, those nights of wondering wore Kylo down, and, quite without intending to, he found himself directing Silence down the path to the kingdoms neighbouring Poe's.

There, Kylo found himself invited to the royal tourney of Queen Phasma, as a guest of honour. She was a renowned warrior, and Kylo reasoned that it would be rude to decline the request of such an esteemed ruler. He reasoned that perhaps she would even have some work for him. He reasoned a lot of things, in his attempt to deny to himself that the real reason was hope that a tourney would be more than enough cause for a neighbouring noble to be in the area, or even just a bard...

The festivities were festivities. It was strange, to watch others fight instead of having to do it himself, and for performance rather than necessity. Though sometimes the rush of people grated on him, Phasma was a gracious host and Kylo enjoyed the good food well enough, always keeping an eye out for some shock of red hair, or those cheerful, dark curls he so hoped for.

His vigilance yielded one of those prizes.

A tall, beautiful, severe looking man entered the great hall one evening for the feast, walking directly up to the main table at which Phasma and Kylo were seated, and didn't even falter when he recognised Kylo's distinctive scar, yellow eyes, dark garb.

“Hux!” Phasma exclaimed standing and marching around the table to pull the man into a hug, which he returned with surprising readiness, “My dear friend, it has been too long!”

Hux gave a half-bow. “I'm sorry I'm late, I was caught up with business.”

“Ah, yes, business,” Phasma said knowingly, “and where is Lord Dameron?”

Hux's eyes flitted over to Kylo's for the briefest of seconds. “Altogether too caught up with his teaching to bother with a tournament, I'm afraid.”

“Well you must tell him I want him at the next one.” With that, she made to retake her seat again, gesturing at Kylo. “Kylo, this is Hux, currently an advisor to court in the neighbouring kingdom and the most talented mage in all the continent. Hux, Kylo, the Witcher.”

“Yes, we've met,” Hux understated, settling his gaze on Kylo fully, now, and extending his hand to Kylo over the table. Not sure what he was expected to do, Kylo gave Hux his hand, and Hux took it, raising it to his lips and kissing Kylo's knuckles.

Kylo wasn't entirely certain if he could blush any more, since the mutations which had turned him into a Witcher, but if he could, he was sure he was, what with so many people around to witness a display of affection which Kylo was unused to at the best of times. Along with that, relief, because it made him feel suddenly like all was forgiven without him having to wrangle the words around an apology.

“Hux, stop that and sit down!” Phasma reprimanded, “The players will begin soon.”

It was only as Hux sat down that Kylo realised the empty chair on his right had likely always been for Hux. No sooner had he settled than the players flooded the floor, dancing into their performance of an old, famous play, something about two supernatural kings vying for the affection of a mortal with all sorts of fanciful gifts.

“This version is better than the original,” Hux remarked a short while in, and Kylo hummed out an assent, though he had never seen it when it first was performed. He was probably too busy wading through drowner guts, or something similarly uncouth.

“So, you're in Poe's court, now?” Kylo asked instead. “Is he king?”

“No,” Hux remarked, picking up his goblet of wine and keeping his gaze on the players. “Nor does he want to be. The Queen has plenty of other worthy successors, and Poe would much rather go back to spending his days as a bard.” He tutted. “Even if he doesn't say so.”

“Why are you there?”

He sighed. “I wanted to see what you meant about him not being like the others, so I offered my services to the Queen.” Kylo hummed again, and this time, Hux turned to look at him. “You were quite right. He's different. I find myself rather taken with him.”

Kylo reached for his own wine now, his mouth suddenly dry. “Oh. Have you..?”

“No. Kylo...” Hux placed his cup down and leaned to the side so his shoulder was brushing Kylo's, even as Kylo was resolutely not looking at him. “He misses you. And I know you miss him.”

As if by design, the lutist started to play, and both their eyes went to the young woman performing in the corner. Kylo found himself thinking, perhaps uncharitably, that she wasn't as talented as Poe, her song wasn't as sweet.

Hux didn't fail to notice this. “I think we should travel together again,” he said.

“We?”

“You and I and Poe,” Hux said, as though it were obvious. “Like we did those few months travelling in from the coast. I've found myself thinking about them a lot.”

Kylo shrugged. “It was only a few months. Things have changed since then.”

“Which is why we should give it another try.” Kylo jolted in slight surprise when he felt Hux's cool hand lay over his own on the arm of the chair. He turned to find Hux looking directly into his eyes. “Stay here for a week after the tourney is over, and I'll have convinced him to come. Kylo.” A tacit command from Hux, as usual, instead of a request.

Kylo nodded.

[break]

So Kylo waited by the city gates, where Hux had sent a messenger bird that he should meet them. He was nervous, when he first spotted the black dot on the distant path that he was sure was them, shuffling from one foot to the other and gripping Silence's reins tight, like that would do anything. He was wondering how he should greet Poe; hello, certainly, and he didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from smiling, but he found that he also wanted to give him a hug, press their lips together, feel that he was really thereagain, after the nearly two years they'd spent apart.

It turned out he needn't have worried, since Poe sprang forward and clasped him into a hug without prompting, talking immediately about where they would be going and how good it would be to be back on the road.

Hux had merely given him a look that said I told you so, and followed after the excitable bard.

That had been nearly two weeks ago.

It turned out that Hux was entirely right; things were different than before, and they were better. The things that had changed were these:

Hux had brought a horse with him, this time, and several other magical items, such as a tent which was far larger inside than it appeared. Poe hadn't bothered with a horse, since he hadn't needed one before, and had thus left the money with which to pay for its upkeep back at home, planning instead to sing for his money like he used to. Kylo rather liked this; it reminded him of old times, when he steadfastly refused to let Poe ride Silence, in case it tired her out too much. The tent, on the other hand, felt annoyingly like Hux was living in style while the two of them were stuck outside, since Hux had never invited them in and Kylo, for one, wasn't about to invite himself.

It seemed Hux and Poe had also developed a much closer friendship, in the time Hux had spent at court. It made Kylo feel a little like he had missed out, like he had time to catch up on, like there was something impenetrable he couldn't access. Kylo supposed it must be similar for Hux, since he and Poe had known each other for so long before he met them, and again for Poe, given that winter when it was only him and Hux, but times like these – Poe and Hux discussing something so academic that Kylo knew so little about – could be daunting as much as interesting.

Mostly, Kylo felt like he still had to make something up to Poe, and he wasn't sure how to do it. He should probably just have a conversation with him about it, but the words never came, and bringing it up when nobody was thinking about it would, he was sure, just sour the mood. And if he just left it, the tension would have to break eventually.

[break]

Ahead of him on the road, Hux and Poe's little argument seemed to have reached a peak point. Kylo had been too lost in his thoughts to pay attention to what they were saying, but now Poe had stopped walking, raising open arms in that way of his that was almost defeated, but actually said he still thought he was right. It was very cute, like he was a turtle with a lute for a shell, and Kylo couldn't help but think his annoyed expression was charming as well.

When Silence reached the spot where Poe was standing, watching Hux ride on with his usual haughty confidence, Kylo hummed. “Did he win?”

Poe huffed, moving again to keep up with Silence's ambling pace. “No, but he's acting like he did. He always thinks he's right.”

Kylo thought about it for a beat; Hux did indeed always think that he was right. It was one of the things that had caused friction in their attempt at a relationship that one winter. It wasn't that all three of them couldn't be stubborn, more that Kylo and Poe had much more ability to hold out against each other's pestering than either of them seemed to have against Hux. One narrowing twitch of those steely-grey eyes, and anyone with even half a sense of self-preservation would surrender. So Kylo could sympathise with Poe's little pout.

They came to the edge of the forest, the village where they planned to stop a short way before them across a few fields. Kylo drew Silence to a halt and put out a hand to Poe, who looked at it first with surprise and then joy. He quickly allowed Kylo to help him up, settling just behind the Witcher, his chest pressed to his back, their thighs brushing against each other with every movement. Kylo could feel it all, and he tried not to let his stomach flip too much when Poe's arms snaked around his sides, hands locking at his front. He cursed inwardly that today he'd chosen to forgo some layers in favour of his cooler shirt.

But then Poe was saying to him over his shoulder – though it felt more like murmuring in his ear - “Come on, I wanna see Hux's face.”

Kylo prodded Silence to walk on, closing the distance on Hux. As they passed, Kylo felt Poe remove one hand to wave at the mage. Looking around, it was in almost slow motion that Hux's expression went from one of mild astonishment to annoyance to jealousy.

“See you there, Hugs!” Poe said, and Kylo smiled to himself.

#darkgingerpilot #armitage hux #poe dameron #kylo ren #kylo/hux/poe #kylux #darkpilot #gingerpilot #my writing #fanfiction #witcher au #fantasy medieval au #even if he doesn't say so

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bearsinpotatosacks · 4 years ago

Text

There is a War On

This is also on AO3!

Night was clear around him, everything was silent apart from the gentle swishing of the trees. He tucked his hands under his armpits and wished he'd brought his gloves in his fit of minute rage. His body felt weary but his mind was active, there was far too much to think about to warrant rest.

"I know you have high standards, but I never took you for a hypocrite, Arthur," William said into the inky black sky.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Replied the Captain in a hushed tone. "And lower your voice, who knows who could be listening,"

"Who? I doubt any Jerry have wandered here so quickly,"

"Well, you never know, there is a war on" The Captain took a sneaky glance to his left and took in the slightly disheveled appearance of his Lieutenant.

William's hair wasn't as sleek and molded into place, his uniform less pristine but his face brighter, more open now they were officially meant to be sleeping.

"But perhaps you weren't alluding to the Jerry, then,"

Arthur raised an eyebrow and shook his head, despite William obviously being correct in his speculation. "Nonsense, who on earth could I be talking about apart from our enemies,"

"I think we both know what you're talking about," William quickly changed the subject and moved from his lent position in the doorway to stand next to the Captain. "Anyway, why are you not following your own advice and getting a good night's sleep?"

Arthur crinkled the printed card in his hand and turned his head away, immediately raising Williams' attention to said paper and foolishly allowing him to grab it from his hand. He made no effort to stop him from reading it, perhaps with someone else, but everything was different around William, part of him was willing to say that the normal rules didn't apply.

No, of course the rules still applied, there are no exceptions to rules. That was a fact.

It didn't matter if a part of him wanted to hold hands with him, purely for warmth, he'd learnt that men do not hold hands, under any circumstances. Nor did it matter that he wanted to run away from all this and spend the rest of his days alone with him, one must contribute to society, not even when said society went against everything he held secret. It simply didn't matter how much he wanted to break them, the rules still apply.

"Ah, your brother's getting married, congratulations!"

"I'm not the one getting married, there's no need to congratulate me," The Captain started. "Besides, I won't enjoy going,"

"Why? Weddings are fun events, aren't they?"

"Not for me, they're loud, rambunctious, no one respects personal space, they go on for far too long in the night until you're just tired and miserable and everybody drinks until they're silly. No, no, they are definitely not for me," He answered, adding more bite to his voice as the hairs on his arms stood on end and his hands clenched.

William scoffed a laugh and smiled, raising a worn cigarette to his lips and extending the matchbox to Arthur. The glow of the flame shone in his eyes as it reached closer to his face, the flickering wavering the light along his cheekbones as silence surrounded them once more. Part of him longed to reach out and stroke his face, he wanted to see if his skin was as smooth as it looked. He buried that desire, it was far too dangerous to even think about.

"It does say you're allowed to bring a guest, and it doesn't specify a romantic one," William sucked on the cigarette, Arthur was so close he could hear the crackling burning sound. "That does mean that I could accompany you, purely for security,"

"That would be a beneficial option for both parties, the parties being us," He lit his own cigarette, something he hadn't done in a while since he found the satisfaction a pipe or a cigar could fulfill. "You get to enjoy a night full of ridiculous dancing and I won't have to spend the entire evening regretting my decision,"

"Good, I'll write to the higher ups then, I'll say it's of great familial urgency," He said, smiling again as they fell back into silence.

They shuffled closer to each other as wind blustered through the fields and past the gravel. For a moment, Arthur allowed himself to wonder about a life he could live, in a different world where he was allowed to be himself. Perhaps he would be holding hands with William, maybe they would embrace and laugh and smile and kiss and love. He hoped some far off day that someone like him could do that, that maybe there will be people like him who could do all of that, and more.

The Captain stood in the bathroom of the pub, it was small and beige, a single amber light lit up his face as he combed his moustache and hair. William emerged from the other cubicle and cleared his throat, his dress uniform was clean and crisp, hair all in place and a glint of excitement in his eyes.

The train ride had been long back to his hometown, families talking, children crying and staring at their uniforms, elderly ladies looking at them and whispering among themselves. At one point, William had to carefully place his hand on Arthur's arm just to calm him down, distracting him with talk of new plans for the allotment back at Button House.

It was only an hour until the wedding, after dropping their belongings off at the old, worn hotel, giving William a tour and relaxing in the pub for a short while, and Arthur was struggling to hide his bubbling anxiety. He'd adjusted his coat buttons, combed his hair, corrected his tie a million times.

"Will you stop that?" Havers snapped. "Your hair can't get any neater, are you really dreading this wedding so much?"

"Yes, yes I am,"

"Why?"

"Well, let's just say, my family and I aren't on very good terms,"

William raised an eyebrow and asked," Why did they send you an invitation then?" as they left the bathroom and made their way across the cobbles of the street towards the church.

"My brother's been called for national service, he is quite a few years younger than me, you see, and wants to get married before he is sent off into the unknown," Arthur stopped before the church and gulped.

A large crowd of people were mingling near the door, all dressed in their best clothes with styled hair and smiles. These were people he hadn't spoke to, or even thought about, in years and now he was arriving in full military dress with his colleague accompanying him.

"This was a terrible decision, we should go, they will not want me her-" Arthur started, almost fully turned around before a bellowing voice echoed across the street.

"Well, I'll be blessed, he actually came!" The shout came from his brother, drawing the family's eyes on them, a woman, hunched over a walking stick with thin white hair emerged from her conversation with the Priest, calling Arthur's name.

"It looks like we're staying," William mumbled as they were dragged into the crowd.

Finally the night was over, they were frazzled despite staying sober for the night and were standing against the reception desk, dinging the bell impatiently before the main staff member emerged from the back room. She turned to hand the key to them and hesitated.

"I think I've been mistaken," She said.

"Mistaken?" They replied in unison.

"Well, we were told that you, Arthur, were allowed to bring a date and, well, we assumed when you booked a room that you were including your date in the booking," She gave an awkward smile and continued. "Which means that there's only one double bed in the room, and we're fully booked,"

The Captain and Havers slowly turned to look at each other, then at the woman behind the desk, and back to each other. Arthur's stomach flipped. He took a deep, whistling breath inwards and closed his eyes. 'Bury that instinct, it's illegal, you'll be killed and what good can you do for your country after that?' he thought to himself just as William said.

"We're army men, trained for worse situations, we'll manage,"

The woman handed him the key and directed them to their room, right at the back with a perfect overview of the rolling fields that Arthur vaguely recalled playing war games in as a child.

Their worn cases were lying under the bed, William was turned around, changing into his pyjamas as Arthur brushed his teeth and prepared for bed in the bathroom. His hands hadn't stopped shaking since they'd stepped into the room. An entire night spent with Havers, the little rebel inside him was ecstatic.

On the outside however he was terrified. Any of the staff could walk in, any of the staff could report them. Two men willing to share a bed? They were practically begging to be killed.

He went back into the main room just as William was putting his nightshirt on, his back looked just as smooth as his face, freckles revealed themselves under the yellow glow of the old lighting and his muscles rippled as he flicked the shirt on. Havers turned around just slowly enough for Arthur to break himself from his ludicrous staring and smooth out of sheets.

"Well, your family certainly knows how to throw a good party," William said, trying to ease the tension.

The Captain scoffed. "Yes, well, I'm glad you enjoyed yourself at least," He shook his head. "This entire ordeal was a complete waste of time,"

William stopped and let his face run through confusion, annoyance and curiosity. "How was it a waste of time? You got to see your family after years, we're at war and they could die, if it were me, I would've made up with them far before this,"

"Well, you're not me, are you?"

"Evidently not, because if it were me, I wouldn't be calling the last possible time I could see my brother alive a waste of time," He raised his voice slightly, not wanting to alert the attention of any of their neighbours. Despite his anger at Arthur for disgracing his family, he wouldn't risk their lives over it.

"We haven't contacted me for years when I was off in the army before the war, why should it change now?"

"Oh, I don't know, perhaps because they could actually be hurt in this war, or maybe because they genuinely seem to care for you and you aren't giving them anything!"

The Captain squinted and rubbed his forehead, "See, if we hadn't have come, if we had just stayed at our posts, we wouldn't be fighting,"

This was apparently the wrong thing to say as Havers only angered more, "This is your entire life, isn't it?"

"Yes,"

"You have no other wishes or desires outside the army and the war?"

"No," He said, 'Yes,' his mind corrected. 'I seem to be infatuated with you,'

"How? How can there be nothing else in the world you want that doesn't involve the military?"

"There just isn't, now can we drop the matter?" He said, about to climb into the bed just as Havers grabbed his wrist to stop him.

"No." He said lowly. "You keep saying your entire life is the army but why, you're not telling me why, you may not answer this question if someone else had asked it, but you always answer me,"

He looked him in the eye, "Why?"

"Because I want to, it's the proper thing an Army Captain should do," For a moment he considered telling him the truth, but his integrity, his survival instincts got the better of him.

"You're the Captain of a remote Army Base, Arthur," William let go of his arm and began to wave his hands around as he paced. "You're speaking as though you're a general when you're actually stationed at a remote base and haven't been promoted since I've known you,"

He stopped and just breathed for a second, listening to the creeks of the hallway before climbing into the bed and saying, "I give up, all I want is for you to be happy but you give me nothing," He turned away from him. "Goodnight, Captain,"

Arthur climbed into the bed, feeling the scratchy duvet on his feet as he took regular glances at William. He didn't want to annoy him, he just knew that if he told him anything true and personal that whatever they were would become even more dangerous.

"I do wish to play cricket more, that is one thing, away from the army that I want," He whispered, William didn't respond, didn't even shuffle under the covers. "And I've always had a certain quality that the higher ups didn't like, it meant they didn't want to promote me, didn't want to leave me in charge, and certainly wouldn't trust me with anything a general does, that's why you're so special, you're one of the few military men who can put up with me,"

William began to turn over and eventually was facing Arthur head on, his brown eyes were almost black now he had his back to the lamp. He reached out with a small smile and stroked his face. Arthur didn't dare breathe.

"I don't just put up with you, I like you," He watched as the Captain let out a shuddering breath. "I like you a lot, and I'm glad you're acknowledging that we understand each other,"

He waited for a response, but after realising he wasn't getting one, continued. "All I want is for you to have more balance in your life, all of this work, without relaxing, will make you ill,"

"We wouldn't want that," The Captain managed.

"No, there is a war on,"

"There is,"

William sat up and turned the light off, then lay down and pulled the thin layers of bed sheets over both their heads. They were so close now, were being so risky, but this flutter in Arthur's stomach and pounding of his heart were too intense for him to care. For the first time in his life he didn't care about the rules, rules aren't applicable to these sorts of situations, especially because they weren't made with this sort of situation in mind.

"So, because of our current situation, the threat of death and all that," William's voice was barely louder than his breath, he moved his hand across the mattress. "You won't report me for doing this, then,"

He clasped Arthur's clammy hand in his and stared gently in his eyes. His thumb ran over his knuckles as they listened anxiously to every sound of the corridor.

For a moment, Arthur was satisfied, content and felt exactly where he was meant to be, here under a scratchy bed sheet, breaking the law with his Lieutenant. He'd heard about this feeling, read about it, and could never have prepared for how intensely warm it was. If he was a poet, he might say it was similar to sunshine, a warm cup of tea or a good bit of tobacco in his pipe. But he wasn't a poet, so he let himself bask in the innocent glory of it all, let his mind think of alternate universes where he could do this in public, and forget that they were returning back to normal life tomorrow.

But there is a war on, so perhaps there would be more moments like this, purely because of the circumstances.

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justabrazilianwriter · 4 years ago

Text

The Party (SHIKATEMAWEEK 2020 - Day 4).

Another day, another chance to write shikatema fics, another oneshot to contribute to the week of the best Naruto couple! This is also published on Ao3. Hope you guys enjoy it!

DAY 4: Roomates. SUMMARY: It was common knowledge that Shikamaru Nara was not a party person. Because of that, it's obvious that he is in a bad mood when he is forced to attend one made by a new friend of Kiba. He doesn't want to be there. Everything sucks. But when the host's older sister shows up, maybe going to that party wasn't such a bad idea. CONTENT NOTICE: use of alcoholic drinks and drugs. They are all adults. (3987 WORDS).

English is not my first language, so I translated this story through the google translator. If you find any grammatical or concordance errors, please let me know!

It was well known that Shikamaru Nara was not a party person.

Not that he hated parties with all his might, but he just didn't understand why everyone adored it. Shikamaru liked to drink here and there, but getting completely drunk only gave him the worst hangovers the next day. Weed left him dying from sleep and he was not a person who needed help with that. When the clock passed midnight he was ready to leave and sleep, but none of his friends allowed it and he had to stay, listening to Ino's terrible musical taste exploding on the speaker for long three hours.

Not to mention that parties usually never had a measly place to sit and Shikamaru had to spend hours leaning against the walls. What did people have against chairs or sofas? Some people needed a moment to rest for God's sake!

So, when Kiba invited him to a small party at the home of a new friend of his (some foreign kid who recently moved in to town and ended up saving him from an assault), Shikamaru's first thought is to deny. He does not want to go. Making new friends is a lot of work and he doesn't understand why he would need it. He already has enough friends, thank you very much.

But Naruto knows the younger brother of Kiba’s friend and Naruto, much to Shikamaru's despair, never gives up. He wants everyone to know each other, which means he doesn't leave Shikamaru alone. He sends messages, addresses him whenever he can, knocks on his damn door until he answers and, in the end, Shikamaru give up only so Naruto can leave him in peace.

Which brings him to that moment, when he stumbles down the sidewalk with Chouji by his side, sighing and moaning sadly.

"Why do we need to go?" he asked sadly to the heavens. Chouji laughed beside him, enjoying his mood.

"Look on the bright side," he said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "The sooner we arrive, the sooner you can leave."

Shikamaru laughed, wrapping his arm around Chouji's shoulders.

"That's why," he said, giving him a smile. "You are my best friend".

Chouji laughed with pleasure.

"Don't let Ino hear that," he joked. "She hasn't gotten over the last time she heard you say that and it's been years."

"Ino has no morals to say anything" replied Shikamaru as he put his arms behind his head. "Since she started dating Sai, she hardly spends time with us."

Chouji shrugged and smiled warmly.

“Who can blame her? She's in love". He looked at Shikamaru and raised an eyebrow. "Not that you know much about it."

An indignant exclamation came from his lips.

"What are you talking about?" He asked. "I dated Shiho for almost a year!".

"And look what happened".

Shikamaru didn't have an answer to that because he knew that Chouji was right. Shiho was a nice girl he met in an eccentric code-cracking class in college. She was cute, smart, kind and liked him, so Shikamaru asked her out. They dated for months and never fought, never fell out, never had any problems.

It was very boring.

There was no stimulus, there was no sparks, there were no emotions at all.

And when he realized he was absolutely bored in that relationship, he ended it all. And it should have hurt a lot more than it hurt, he should have suffered a lot more than he suffered. But in spite of everything, what hurt him most was seeing Shiho cry because she was a very nice girl and a good friend. Just it.

"You never fell in love either," he murmured to Chouji, seeing him roll his eyes. "You are not in the position of pointing fingers."

"I'm an incurable romantic, you know that" defended Chouji looking good-natured. “And I will find love someday. It's just that, unlike you, I don't go around denying the sadness of my love life and being all resentful about it”.

Shikamaru pouted and crossed his arms, listening to him laugh beside him. Feeling the words of his best friend entering his chest, he tried to change the subject.

"What's the name of this new Kiba friend, anyway?".

"Kankuro" said Chouji looking at his cell phone and checking the address. “And his younger brother, who knows Naruto, is called Gaara. I think they have an older sister, but nobody seems to know her ”.

The two finally arrived at the house, ringing the bell. From the inside, Shikamaru could already hear Lee's joyful screams and Ino's music bursting through the speakers. It would be a long night.

The door opened and a tall boy with brown hair and lots of makeup on his face appeared. He smiled at them, raising his eyebrows.

"Hello," he said. "And who are you guys?".

"I am Chouji" he said before pointing to Shikamaru. “And this is Shikamaru. We are friends with Kiba ”.

"Oh yeah! He commented that you would come. Friends of the blonde who speaks loudly and took over my sound, right? ” joked the boy. "I am Kankuro".

"It's a pleasure," muttered Shikamaru as he entered the house. "And I'm sorry for Ino."

Kankuro laughed and shrugged.

"Don’t be. I'm used to blonde women who like to yell at me. My sister got me used well ”.

The rest of the group, who were scattered around the room, looked at Chouji and Shikamaru and shouted in celebration. Naruto left where he was sitting and pulled Shikamaru into a bear hug.

"I knew you would come," he said with a huge smile on his lips. "You say you don't like it, but I know you can't resist a party."

"What I can't resist is how insistent you can be" replied Shikamaru while rolling his eyes. "You literally started showing up in my nightmares."

Naruto laughed heartily and Chouji rolled his eyes fondly. Kankuro appeared behind them, pointing around.

“Beers can be left in the kitchen, over there. There's a bathroom up the stairs and please, cigarettes just near the windows or outside. Gaara hates the smell ”. He then pointed to a red-haired boy with eye makeup who was listening to something Lee was saying. “That's him, my little brother. I don't think you need me to introduce anyone else ”.

"I didn't want to be the person to warn you about this, but calling this group of people into your home was probably the biggest mistake of your life," muttered Shikamaru. Kankuro laughed before taking a sip of his beer.

“Kiba's friend, that quiet guy with the sunglasses, said the same thing, but we moved out a little while ago and haven't met anyone yet. Kiba said that we would get along with his friends, so why not? As long as no one pukes on the carpet, I think we'll be fine. Temari would make me clean the dirt with my own tongue”.

The party continued for the next hour. Shikamaru found a comfortable place to lean against the wall and drank a beer while watching his friends around. Ino and Sakura talked to each other non-stop, while Sai and Sasuke listened to them in silence as usual. Naruto tried his best to convince Neji to compete with him on ‘who could drink the most’, but Shikamaru knew it was a lost cause. Hinata watched them with a resigned look and Tenten laughed so hard that she looked like she was about to cry. Lee was talking non-stop, his cheeks slightly red, sitting on the sofa very close to Gaara, who was listening to him with all his attention. Shino, Kiba and Kankuro talked and laughed about something. Shikamaru also noticed that Kiba and Kankuro seemed to be leaning a little to close to each other.

Chouji tried to start conversations with him, but while he was drinking, Shikamaru couldn't help repeating the conversation they had in his mind.

He wasn't that bad when it came to love. He had his share of relationships here and there since puberty and he considered himself a handsome and intelligent guy, thank you very much. Okay, Ino was his first kiss and it was so absurdly weird that they just looked at each other afterwards and burst out laughing, agreeing never to do that again. He and Sakura also tried to date when they were younger, but Shikamaru was not in the mood to be with someone who was clearly in love with other guy.

They grew up, he had his dates, he lost his virginity, he dated Shiho. So, yes, maybe he never fell in love so deeply that he lost his mind and became as stupid as Naruto with Hinata, but that didn't mean he didn't understand anything about love or was hopeless.

Right?

And it was with these thoughts in mind that he heard her voice for the first time.

Key noises could be heard, but no one seemed to pay attention. The front door opened, someone entered, at the same moment that the music faded and, before anyone could do anything, a voice came up saying:

"Why is there a bunch of strangers in my house?".

Shikamaru's eyebrows furrowed and he turned his head, the beer can still on his lips, while he drank. His eyes sought the owner of that voice, going to his right, until he fell into...

Holy fucking shit.

The personification of his wet dreams was standing there, at the entrance to the room, looking at everyone with a raised eyebrow. Shikamaru almost let the beer can slip from his fingers, too impacted by the sight of her to be able to put strength in his own hand. His mouth was slightly open and he sure looked like an idiot, but at that moment, who cares?

His eyes followed beautiful tanned legs, covered with fishnet tights, to the smallest skirt in the universe. Then they head up, where he tried not to focus because he was educated to be a gentleman, but Shikamaru's brain melted. A stomach line, tight T-shirt, a long and elegant neck that led him to a beautiful and dangerous face. Sand-blond hair tied in two ponytails, expressive eyebrows, delicious lips contorted in a grimace. Her eyes swept the room and fell on him for just a second. The world caught on fire.

He has never seen a woman like her in his life. He had never felt such an overwhelming urge to be trampled by someone like in that moment. He would let her step on him like a rug and then he would say thank you.

The music was paused. Everyone looked in her direction. And Shikamaru realized that she was clearly older than them, because all her energy screamed maturity. She seemed to dominate the entire room with just a look and he was certainly included in it, like an insect hypnotized by a light trap.

"Temari!" exclaimed Kankuro, looking slightly paler. "Shit. What are you doing here?".

She looked at him for long seconds without an expression on her face.

"I live here" replied simply and Shikamaru controlled himself not to laugh. She seemed to be a smartass like him.

"I know" replied Kankuro, looking indignant. "But I thought you were going to spend the night at your boyfriend's house."

"Oh, yes, me and Daimaru broke up" Temari replied, not looking shaken by it. Something in Shikamaru's chest hummed, happy that she was single.

"Are you alright?" asked Gaara, looking slightly concerned and speaking for the first time since Shikamaru arrived. She shrugged.

"Yes. He cried, but meh, it's okay” she replied. Then she put her hands on her waist and Shikamaru had a flashback from his own mother when his father was in trouble. "Now, can you tell me why there are a bunch of strangers in my house?".

"Well, you always say that we should make more friends, so I met some people and thought about making a social with them".

"In our house?".

"Yes".

"In the middle of the week?".

"Yes?".

"Without telling anyone?".

"I told Gaara!" exclaimed Kankuro, trying to defend himself. Temari's eyebrow went up even more and she looked so dangerous and powerful that Shikamaru lost his breath.

"Gaara is not the one who pays the bills" she countered and the silence followed for a few seconds. Everyone's eyes passed between them, as if watching a game of ping-pong. Shikamaru's chin was still slightly dropped.

"Kankuro...?" Temari started saying.

"Yes?" he asked.

"You are the worst roomate I have ever had in my life."

"I'm the only roomate you've ever had," he countered. Temari crossed her arms, indicating the sofa with her head.

"This is not true. I have Gaara”.

"Gaara is so quiet that sometimes I spend days without seeing him".

"And he couldn't be more perfect" she returned and a little smile appeared on her beautiful lips, because she knew she was winning the argument. The sight of that smile sent a delicious shiver down Shikamaru's spine. Suddenly, he was no longer tired. On the other way, he was full of energy.

In a quick movement, Temari took the beer can out of Kankuro's hands and drank.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "That's mine!".

"Yours?" she asked.

"Yes, I paid with my money".

"Oh, so do you have money now?" Temari murmured, smiling in an almost feline way. Shikamaru's heart exploded in his chest at the thought of what it would be like to have that smile directed at him. "So how about you start helping with the rent then?".

She and Kankuro faced each other in a silent battle. He was the first to look away and she smiled victoriously.

"That's what I thought," she said, before taking a second sip. Then she pursed her lips, pretending to think and sighed. "Okay, I'm not going to ruin your party."

"Oh God, thank you" sighed Kankuro. "Tem, you are the best big sister in the world-".

"But I have some conditions."

Kankuro groaned. Gaara laughed, clearly enjoying the situation. He was not the only one. All the women present looked at Temari as if she were a powerful example to be followed. Shikamaru also couldn't take his eyes off her, but for other reasons.

“First, don’t break anything. Any mess or dirt has to be clean tomorrow morning”.

"Deal," said Kankuro automatically.

“Second,” continued Temari, looking amused by her brother's bad mood. She moved closer to him, with her long bare legs moving slowly and Shikamaru's hands were sweating so hard that he thought he would pass out from dehydration. “No weed in the back area. The neighbor will complain and I hate to deal with her”.

"There's no weed," lied Kankuro, making both Shikamaru and Temari roll their eyes. The smell was literally everywhere.

"Tell that to your friend who's eating mustard with pickles and peanuts," she argued, pointing at Chouji a few feet away, with his eyes a little red. Everyone turned to him and he flinched, his mouth still full of that culinary crime.

A loud laugh escaped Shikamaru's lips before he could stop himself. Temari turned, looking at him and her eyebrows rose slightly. Her eyes slowly studied him from top to bottom and the temperature in the room seemed to be so hot that everything would start to melt. Her lips lifted in a smile, still staring at Shikamaru and he can't stop himself from smiling back.

"You are not funny, Tem" groaned Kankuro.

"The cute one over there thinks I'm funny," she countered, indicating Shikamaru with her head and making him almost choke on his own saliva. “Well, rule number three: no loud music for the same reason as before. The neighbor is a bitch and she'll probably call the police. I am the eldest, everything will fall on my back and I swear to God, Kankuro, if I get arrested because of you, I will kill you”.

"Nobody's going to be arrested," he said in a groan. "Anything else?".

Temari took a long drink of beer, her eyes on her brother, just to torture him a little. Then she sighed and smiled.

"No” she said. “You can continue."

And the party continued.

Shikamaru's eyes seemed to be drawn to her figure like magnets. He tried not to look, but it seemed like a completely impossible task. He saw how Ino and Sakura approached Temari right after, monopolizing their attention for a long time. He saw her drink more, saw her smile, saw her laugh, saw her cross those damn legs together, thick thighs showing and making him shiver.

Worse, he saw her look at him. With her beautiful and mysterious eyes, Temari turned to him once in a while, sometimes without expression, sometimes evaluating him again, sometimes with that feline smile appearing on her lips and Shikamaru drank so much without realizing it, completely distracted by her, that his mind was completely blurred.

When she moved again, laughing at something Ino had said and her skirt went up a few more inches, Shikamaru stood up, desperate for a cigarette.

He went to the kitchen, opening a door to the back and stayed there, smoking, trying to distract his own head and ease his heartbeat.

Completely useless, because a few minutes later he heard footsteps and her voice haunted him again.

"Cigarettes are very bad for you, you know."

Shikamaru turned, seeing her leaning against the doorframe with her shoulder. His hands started to sweat again, but a mischievous smile appeared on his lips.

"Your brother is smoking weed less than ten meters away," he argued. Temari's eyebrow rose and she walked closer to him, looking amused.

"Kankuro is a hopeless case since I dropped his head on the ground when we were kids," she said. She leaned her elbows on the center counter of the kitchen, projecting her back slightly forward and making his mind go blank. "Are you a hopeless case?".

"I like to think not," he replied, taking a drag on his cigarette. "Some would say that I am very smart."

"Oh, so I heard" replied Temari with a raised eyebrow. “Your friends were telling me everything. A genius, huh? ”.

Shikamaru's cheeks burned.

"The title can be a bit over the top," he said, scratching the back of the neck. Temari laughed, raising her hand.

“Temari” introduced herself. He squeezed her hand and her skin was warm under his fingers.

"Shikamaru" replied.

"Well, it's a pleasure, Shikamaru," Temari said, letting go and leaning back against the counter. His name on her lips was music to his ears. "So, which one of my idiot little brothers brought you here today?".

Shikamaru laughed, finishing his cigarette.

"None" replied, throwing it in the trash and taking a few steps towards her. “I am friends with Kiba, the make-up boy who is not your brother. But I came because Naruto insisted”.

"The blond who doesn't know how to speak softly?" asked Temari and Shikamaru laughed.

"The one nd only" replied. Both she and he looked through the kitchen door, watching Naruto and Lee talking animatedly with Gaara, on the living room sofa.

"He and Gaara seem to get along," she murmured. Shikamaru smiled, finally standing next to her and realizing that he was taller by long centimeters. It was surprising, because her energy screamed that she would be able to put him on the floor in a few seconds.

"Naruto likes him," he said. "He convinced everyone to come so we could get to know him."

A loving smile broke out on her lips.

"I'm happy" she said and the tone of her voice was so gentle and soft that Shikamaru's heart beat again. He didn't know which Temari he liked best: the seductive and mysterious or the gentle and smooth. In the end, it didn't really matter. He would accept whatever she wanted to show. “Gaara is very shy. It is difficult for him to make friends. I'm glad that the blonde and the boy with the strange haircut adopted him “.

Shikamaru laughed again and she looked at him. The silence followed for a few seconds, before he tried to break it, not wanting their interaction to end there.

"So, difficult day?" He asked. Temari looked confused.

"No, why?". Shikamaru's cheeks burned and he was slightly lost.

"Well, you told about your breakup and these things are usually complicated ..."

"Oh, yes," said Temari before giving a dry chuckle and shrugging her shoulders. “I wouldn't say it was that difficult. My relationship was about to end for a long time, but it seems that only I saw it. I think I should be sadder than I really am, but I can't explain it”.

"Actually, I completely understand" Shikamaru said and she looked at him with surprised eyes. "I just broke up and was more sad to make her sad than the break up itself."

"Yes, exactly," muttered Temari and they continued to stare at each other with surprise. “It is difficult to explain, but it is as if Daimaru and I were just great friends. There was no...”.

“Spark” completed Shikamaru. Her eyes widened slightly.

"Yes! Chemistry, ” she said. "Everything was so normal, so monotonous, so ...".

"Boring".

And they looked at each other in even more surprise, with a strange and delicious energy pulsing between them. Temari's eyes assessed him again and a smile appeared on her lips. Suddenly, she looked like a predator ready to take a victim. And Shikamaru couldn't be happier to be her prey.

"... Yes" she murmured. "That's exactly it."

Shikamaru found himself completely lost in the deadly beauty of her face. He had, in five minutes of conversation, more chemistry with Temari than in his entire relationship with Shiho. She was beautiful and sharp, smart as hell, ready to give back in equal measure everything that anyone threw at her. Temari dominated the environment only with her presence, everyone around seemed to be under her command. She seemed to be someone who didn't bow her head at all. She looked like someone who would eat Shikamaru alive if he had the honor of being involved with her.

She looked like the most troublesome woman he had ever met.

And it was absolutely addictive.

The sound of an alarm broke their trance. Temari closed her eyes, cursing under her breath and took her cell phone out of her skirt pocket.

"I have to go" she said and Shikamaru's shoulders fell in disappointment.

"I thought you lived here," he said and she raised an eyebrow like he was an idiot.

"I meant to leave the party, genius" she countered with a smile in the corner of her mouth. "Some people work early in the morning."

She walked away from him, walking on her back, her eyes still on him. He saw her beautiful thighs move away, her beautiful silhouette move away, the idea that maybe he would never be able to see her again appear and Shikamaru tried to think of something to say, to prevent her from leaving, but his brilliant brain, for the first time time, didn't have a plan.

"Wait! Temari ”exclaimed on instinct. She stopped, looking expectantly at the doorframe.

Shikamaru swallowed, praying that he wouldn't ruin it.

"Why don't you give me your phone number?" he asked, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "You know, so I can let you know if your brother wants to throw a party behind your back again."

She looked at him for what seemed like hours, probably loving to see him sweat like she did with Kankuro earlier. In the end, her eyes sparkled and her smile became excitingly feline. Shikamaru felt an impulse to run and thank Naruto for being a stubborn idiot.

"I thought you would never ask."

#shikamaru #shikatemaweek2020 #shikatemaweek #day 4 #shikamaru nara #temari #Temari of the Sand #temari nara #modern au #shikatema fic #shikatema au #kankuro of the sand #sand siblings #Gaara of the Sand #Gaara

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orchidbreezefc · 5 years ago

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OKAY COOL I WAS ON THE FENCE ABOUT POSTING MY OWN EXPERIENCES IN THE KFAM DISCORD BECAUSE A POST ABOUT People Being Mean To Sage Specifically SEEMED KIND OF MASTURBATORY OR SELF-PITYING OR WHATEVER BUT IF WE REALLY ARE GOING TO STILL BE OUT HERE PUSHING THE This Server Is A Lovely Familial Community And Dissenters Are The Problem NARRATIVE EVEN NOW? HELL NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.

obviously this is hard to be objective about. this stuff is a lot less concrete than my first post, a lot more based on vibes i got, which, yknow, is why it’s not in my first post. but if anyone identifies with this, if anyone sees their own experiences in this discord reflected in mine, then it’s going to be worth the worry i’m reading too much into things, or others thinking the same of me. if i can help anyone who felt like THEY were mistreated there and weren’t sure if they were reading too much into things, then. it’s worth it. especially since the M.O. in there was ‘everything’s fine and if not we’re going to MAKE IT FINE by silencing anyone who disagrees’.

a lot of talk has been done about the censorship (word used loosely, first amendment protects from the government not from the mods etc, definitely a specific suppression of dissenting ideas though) the mods have been doing--once more i suggest @kfam-tea for receipts and screenshots. not something i feel great about, but not something i have personal experience with, so i won't speak to it. see also my first post about my interactions with the creators. it touches on the dogpiling, which i'll go into more depth on in this post. you can find it [link: here].

so. the first thing in the official discord that tipped me off about the hivemind samethink phenomenon is that the whole place is distinctly frosty on the subject of samben. that’s a post all its own, one that follows through to numbers on ao3 and whatever, but i’m not here to make a ship manifesto. suffice it to say i got attached to the ship upon listening, inhaled the (suspiciously small) ao3 tag, and was stopped in my tracks at the discord server where any implication of such ship inclinations were met with silence and pointed changes of subject.

distinctly weird. distinctly unusual fandom behavior, that i couldnt even hint around shipping the two men whose incredibly profound relationship is literally the crux of the show, who have exchanged ‘i love you’s, one of whom is confirmed gay--all other romantic entanglements aside, because when have those stopped shippers? that was weird. i realize that's maybe a bit tinfoil hat of me. it could have been the goldfish-bowl big-brother-is-watching vibe from having creators in there, except, as i said, it carries to other sites.

anyway, much more concrete was when i spoke out about my thoughts on ben’s actions in ep68. again, enough there for another post, so tl;dr: he was doing his best, he’s a good guy and a good friend, but his actions DIRECTLY outed sammy to the WHOLE town, without allowing sammy to say the words himself. it was an accident, yes, but it had tangible, harmful consequences, and even accidental harm warrants apology. it should at least be... acknowledged. at some point. by the show OR the fandom. it's a disservice to ben himself to never get the chance to own up to it.

this was an unacceptable take. i tried breaching this topic and making my case twice, and got THOROUGHLY dogpiled both times. a dozen fans crawled out of the woodwork to argue heatedly, sometimes getting quite aggressive, sometimes toeing the line of outright hostility toward me personally. definitely some downright rude messages. not once did anybody speak up to defend my right to put forward my dissenting opinion, let alone SUPPORT my argument, god forbid. ben’s were the actions of a good friend, i was told. outing someone to their whole town without giving them the chance to say it on their own terms didn't qualify as harm at all, i was told, on account of ben's heart being in the right place.

still, the opinions being argued matter less than the attitudes and behaviors. people don't have to agree with me about that ep, i don't care. i do care about being given the right to, as a single person on my own, have space to make an argument without being shouted down by a dozen people. i do care about how it fit into a greater pattern of forbidding any criticism of the show, and ben in particular, who is a good friend and therefore all of his actions are good and harmless, who is our resident heterosexual unassailable paragon of purity. which might explain the samben problem--sammy/ron[/jack] was perfectly fine, even popular, but there was never a whisper of shipping ben with anyone but emily. they're Official. theyre The Perfect Couple. don't you dare challenge that (and for the most part, i didn’t dare. i quickly learned not to).

my [link: previous post] details kyle's response to these fun events, where he specifically went out of the way to follow me being shouted into silence (a result of me being driven to literal tears and shutting down rather than invite more argument) with a warm congratulations to everybody for their conduct in this discussion. because that's the kind of conversation kyle wants to specifically and explicitly praise and encourage, i guess.

anyway. this contributed to the growing sense over my time in the discord that people held a certain distaste for me but didn’t want to say anything direct. instead they talked around me, ignored me, immediately changed the subject from my messages, the whole while bestowing constant glowing compliments on each other and endlessly repeating saccharine sentiments about what a nice family type community they were, how grateful they were for the discord being such a positive space. i suppose that’s an easy impression to get when negativity is ruthlessly suppressed (and apparently outright censored nowadays) and instead of insults or, god forbid, communication with people with whom folks might take issue, they just (more or less) silently stonewall and cold shoulder them.

again, i could be misreading cues, being egocentric or tinfoil hat by reading this pattern into how i in particular was treated. either way, the fact that i was given the fandom friday shout out the week after KFAM live was definitely... strange. fishy, even. i was already mostly out the door at that point, had been for weeks--it was actually in my last few days speaking there period. i felt strangely guilty that they would dedicate a day to me when i didn’t like being there much and hardly spoke any longer. one thing’s for sure: my congratulations were fewer and more impersonal, perfunctory, and/or generic than other fans got (i kept a screenshot). i still have no idea what to make of that one, but there you have it.

p.s.: since vagues are in vogue now apparently, i might as well mention the person who's been accused of being A Problem In The Discord For A While Now, among nastier things, which definitely is not an effort to justify kyle's passive aggressive response to their untagged post which used the phrase 'death of the author', or kyle subsequently crying on twitter about death threats because apparently he couldn't be bothered to google a basic literary analysis term and thought if he was vague enough nobody would look into what was actually said. i guess he was right, if the hundreds of asspats and outcries against The Evils Of Podcast Fan Meanies were any indication.

i digress. i just wanted to testify that the fan in question was one of maybe three or four people on the server who consistently treated me nicely and acted like they liked me. and that another fan who claimed to be uncomfortable around death-of-the-author-person was the person who came the closest to being outright nasty to me when i expressed a critical opinion. make of that what you will i guess!

p.p.s.: if i never say anything more about this whole thing or the creators’ part in it, i do want to say for the record: noah james is fully exempt from all of this and remains absolutely wonderful and a whole treasure. like dont pedestalize male creators and assume them incapable of wrongdoing etc etc but i had an hour long midnight denny’s breakfast sitting across from him and he was nothing short of an angel the whole time. sweetest guy i’ve ever met. he hasn’t breathed a word about any of this drama. he may not even know it’s going on because he’s too busy being the most beautiful and talented man in america or something. i love you noah

#sage speaks #sage original post #kfam #king falls am #kfam drama #kfam critical #kfam negative #kfam hate #long post #kfam tea #ok to reblog

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yellowmagicalgirl · 5 years ago

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A Different Sort of Rage

“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.“ – Anne Carson

Toby grieves Claire. He also helps to save the world, again.

You know, at least once while writing this, I asked myself why I’d even bother. Claire doesn’t affect 3Below Season 2 at all, so why would that change because she’s dead? Well, Toby deserved better.

That’s right, almost a year later, the 3Below Interlude to Juliet Dies in This has been completed! That being said, you don’t need to have read Juliet Dies in This to understand this story; you just need to know it’s an au where Claire didn’t make it out of the Shadow Realm during the Eternal Night.

If you did read Juliet Dies in This, then this takes place between chapters 3 and 4.

Trigger/spoiler warning: there is drowning, mild body horror, and talk of suicide in this fic.

AO3

FFN

Toby clung to a set of wooden planks with one arm; the other was wrapped around Jim’s unconscious body. Saltwater slammed against his lower body, cold and angry. On the other side of the planks was Claire and a heavy anchor connected to a length of chain. With each moment that passed, the planks splintered just a bit more. Too much longer, and there wouldn’t be enough wood to hold on to.

“Can you keep the planks steady for me?” Claire asked. “Then I can shove the anchor into the ocean, and we won’t have to worry about it.”

“Be careful,” Toby said, adjusting his grip on the planks and Jim. Claire hoisted her entire body onto the planks. With a grunt she lifted the anchor and began to scoot it to the ocean.

She was about to drop it when the chain glowed gold and wrapped around her.

Toby didn’t let go of Jim, who would surely drown with no one holding onto him.

Toby didn’t let go of the planks, because he wasn’t a strong swimmer even without a friend to hold on to.

Toby didn’t grab Claire. Instead, he watched in horror as she fell into the cold ocean, her hair indistinguishable with the blackness that she was pulled into.

And then Toby woke up. It had been a while since he last had nightmares about drowning and sinking boats. He had had one or two back when Jim had been in the Darklands. Most of this species of nightmare had occurred before he started puberty but had been old enough to really understand just what had happened to his parents.

“Wingman okay?” AAARRGGHH!!! asked.

“Yeah,” Toby said. “It was just a dream.” He glanced at his clock. 12:51 am. He loved having a semi-normal sleep schedule again, but with most of his friends being nocturnal phone calls weren’t always easy. Oh, well. He was awake anyways; may as well call Jim and Claire.

Wait.

Claire didn’t go to Jim and Blinky to find a Heartstone in New Jersey. Claire had disappeared into a black void and Toby had been the one to lock her in.

So that was why he had that dream.

Toby put a reminder on his phone to look into what mental health options his nana’s health insurance had and then went back to sleep. Or at least, he tried to.

Sunshine streamed through the stained-glass windows of the Catholic church that Claire’s funeral was held in, which meant that even if trolls were allowed to go, they couldn’t have. Claire had family outside Arcadia, and to them she had died because she got trapped under rubble in the freak earthquake-and-tornado that had occurred. To them, Claire was inside the coffin, though badly mutilated by rocks that had slammed into her.

Her body was probably mutilated by Morgana, come to think of it.

Toby tugged at his tie. This felt so stupid. Claire was a hero, and her extended family wasn’t allowed to know. He understood, though. They didn’t want to get anyone from the government involved, at least, the non-local government, since obviously Claire’s mom and thus the rest of the city council involved. The trolls were weakened, and Toby didn’t know if they were bulletproof.

It was probably for the best that trolls weren’t allowed to attend the funeral, but that didn’t mean that Toby wasn’t angry with the situation. AAARRRGGGHHH!!! had been Claire’s friend, too. He should be here. Besides, he hadn’t been the one responsible for this mess.

The unsettling calm in the week-and-a-half since the Eternal Night had given Toby a lot to think about. Specifically, how everything had gone wrong.

He should have smacked Morgana into the Shadow Realm with his warhammer and then destroyed the staff. He should’ve been smarter. He had been fighting alongside Claire for months; surely, they could’ve come up with something so that she would be either in Arcadia or on the road to New Jersey.

There was one thing about this funeral that wasn’t a farce: Claire was dead. Toby didn’t think Morgana would be interested in keeping Claire alive. After Merlin cleared away the Eternal Night, Jim had proposed going to Trollmarket to see if there was anything in Blinky’s library to see if it could help them save Claire. Blinky had told them that he had had one book on constructing magic items, but it was among the first of Dictatious’s books he had burned. Strickler, for all the dark magical knowledge he had from the Book of Ga-Huel, had nothing on making a new Shadow Staff. Probably to keep the changelings from rebelling against their Lady Creator, the former history teacher had mused.

To Toby’s right, Darci and Mary and their families stood for a prayer. Toby’s eyes traveled upwards to the rafters. One troll, or rather, changeling, had made it despite the odds. NotEnrique would probably deny the fact that he had been crying later.

“Dude, you sent me a thousand texts, what is your data plan?” Toby asked as he crawled through Eli’s window. It was easier than he had expected, despite his gym pass not feeling as intense of a work-out as fighting trolls and sparring Jim and – sparring in the forge. That was, that was pretty good, actually, he wouldn’t be the reason for anyone else getting hurt or worse if he tried to keep getting stronger.

“Some of them might’ve been queued up,” Eli said, shrugging as he held up a flashlight under his chin. “I… this is important, but I thought I could’ve gathered more evidence and, well…” Eli frowned and dropped the self-important tone. “I wanted to give you some time, since the funeral was a couple days ago.”

The light returned to Eli’s eyes, or maybe it was just the flashlight glinting off his glasses. His voice once more took on an air of self-importance. “Now, Tobes, are you ready for me to rock. Your. World?”

Toby glanced over at his girlfriend and Mary, who was complaining about boredom. Toby’s hands curled into fists. They had been friends with Claire for longer than he had been, how could they be so, so normal?

“TP, come here! I wanna talk to you about something!” Steve called from where he was leaning against Aja and Krel’s house.

“Don’t call me that.”

“I mean, it means vaguely the same thing as buttsnack but nicer?” Steve said as Toby made his way over to the house.

Toby rolled his eyes. Well, at least one person realized why he hadn’t wanted that nickname. If only Claire had realized that, before she, before she, before she had spread it around the school.

Toby blinked several times, trying to get the stinging sensation out of his eyes. “What do you want?”

“Dude, relax,” Steve said quietly enough as to not let Mary and Darci hear from their spot by the pool.

“Relax? Relax?” he whisper-shouted. “How am I supposed to relax when we’re in the middle of a war that will decide the fate of not only Earth, like the one with Gunmar and Morgana, but also Aja and Krel’s planet too? I relax, people die. If I’m not alert, someone else has to take the hit for me. If I don’t pay enough attention, then I’m the one responsible for trapping someone in an alternate dimension!”

Steve just looked at Toby for what felt like five insufferably long minutes.

“Stop freaking out,” Steve said, pinching his brow. “Or else you’ll be so high strung that you’ll end up swinging your oversized mallet at the wrong thing.”

“Warhammer,” Toby corrected, even though Steve did have a point.

Toby’s therapist said that it was important to have hobbies. Between trollhunting and school, Toby was used to having to be constantly alert and vigilant, and that may have been helping to contribute to his restless mind. Granted, Toby hadn’t told his therapist about the ruthless Akiridion dictator trying to attack Earth because that probably fell into the “I will alert the authorities if you’re going to harm yourself or others” clause in the doctor-patient confidentiality forms he and his nana had signed. However, filmmaking was both a good way to bond with his friends as well as maybe destress.

Pretending that he was only interested in making a short film made him seem vapid, like less of a threat. He didn’t trust these military goons, but he also knew they probably underestimated him. What could a short, fat kid with a warhammer possibly do to them?

Rule One of Trollhunting was to always be afraid, with the caveat of goblins. If Area 49-B was unafraid of Toby, then they’d underestimate him.

Besides, these people wanted to capture all sorts of extraterrestrials. Who knew what they’d do to trolls?

Toby still didn’t know if trolls were bulletproof or not. He got the feeling they wouldn’t be laser-proof.

Angor Rot hadn’t been laser-proof, if that’s what Morgana’s magic had been.

Angor had been their enemy, but he had saved them, too.

Tronos had been their enemy, but he had just saved the entire world.

“Get in my phone!” Toby yelled at the armored extraterrestrial as the Area 49-B goons approached, clearly interested in his warhammer. It reminded him a little of the robbers who had kidnapped them.

“What?”

“You did it before! I’m not letting anyone else die.”

Toby and Tronos barely escaped with the others.

“Okay, so, just so that we're clear, by ‘Earthly forces’, you mean me, Eli, Steve…” Toby said, covering his mouth to hide the sound from Darci. He didn’t want to worry her.

“And the brute,” Zadra said. “Yes.”

“Technically, AAARRRGGHH!!!’s a troll.”

“I'm not confident about your chances, but these are desperate times.”

“Well, not even the word ‘hopeless’ is void of hope, I guess,” Toby said.

“What?”

“Trollish saying. I, we’ll do our best.” The call ended; Toby turned to his girlfriend. “Hey, babe, you seem like you got this stapling thing down pat.”

Darci crossed her arms, suspicion in her eyes. “Toby, what’s going on?”

“It’s… a long story.”

“Then start talking.”

Toby looked away from his girlfriend.

“Is it more troll stuff?” she asked.

“No…”

“Then what’s. Going. On?” Darci grabbed his hand. “Toby, I’ve been to enough funerals this year. I don’t want to go to any more of them, and I really don’t want to have to go to another funeral angry that the person I cared about lied to me about the supernatural battles they were fighting. Not when I could’ve maybe helped.”

Toby sighed. “Okay, to make a long story short, there is life on other planets, including a planet called Akiridion-V. That’s Aja and Krel’s home, but it was taken over.” Toby tugged his hand away from Darci’s, giving her an apologetic look. He grabbed his warhammer and expanded it. “And the guy who took it over is going to attack their house so I really gotta go make sure they’re safe so bye I promise I’ll tell you more later!”

Between all the other problems of his life, having a creative outlet was a great way to destress. Usually. Theoretically. Considering that Chompsky broke character on every take, this was really just another source of stress.

His film wasn’t as important as the Akiridions in orange pods.

“Are those your parents?” he asked Aja and Krel. “Do you want me to help?”

“No, we’ve got it!” Krel shouted, waving him off as he, Aja, Varvatos, and Stuart set up the daxial array.

“What are you doing?” Aja asked.

“Well, while I was holding down the fort, I thought I’d finish my director’s cut.” Toby scowled. “But then Chompsky started acting out.”

There was chattering that only one who had lived with a gnome for months would understand. He was almost surprised that Bagdwella never learned how.

“No, I can’t make you taller in post!” Toby had a realization as he walked away from the gnome. “Wait, does this mean you’re going home soon? Back to Akiridion-V?”

“Of course,” Krel said with a glance towards his parents. “That was always the plan.”

Right. The plan. Aja and Krel were going to leave him. They had more important things to do than live a life in Arcadia Oaks. They were royalty from another planet.

“But wait, not yet!” Toby protested. He wanted more time with his new friends, and maybe he had just the thing to get them to stay. “I’ve got good news! Captain Kleb is going to premiere before Gun Robot 7 at the local drive-in!”

“That’s amazing,” Krel said, sounding surprised. He gave an almost incredulous chuckle. “All our friends are going to be there!”

Not all of Toby’s friends, but a good portion of them.

“Yeah,” Toby said, less enthusiastic than he was a moment before. “We’ll be local celebrities.”

Maybe they city would dedicate a nice park bench to him, for all his combined work as a filmmaker, trollhunter, and crook-catcher. He didn’t deserve an entire street, even though Domzalski Drive had a nice ring to it. Besides, Jim Lake Lane and Claire Court sounded better, more fitting.

“Your moving picture party will be the perfect way to celebrate after we stop Morando,” Aja said, breaking Toby out of the beginnings of yet another depressive spiral.

Toby turned to Aja, Krel, AAARRRGGHH!!!, and Varvatos. Sure, the crystal staircase didn’t light up with each step, but they were about to see the most incredible place ever! It deserved every bit of gravitas that he, Jim, and Claire had been given. “Welcome,” he said in his best impression of Jim and Blinky, “to Heartstone Trollmarket!”

Toby gasped.

“This is ‘the most incredible place ever?’” Krel said.

“Was,” Toby sighed, “before the Eternal Night.”

It was probably a good thing, that Blinky and Jim went to New Jersey so they wouldn’t have to see it. That Claire, Draal, and Vendel would never have to see it. The darkened, broken heartstone and the rubble-strewn streets were horrible to see; this was a place that Toby had considered to be practically a second home. He could only imagine just how terrible his Wingman must have felt at the sight of it.

“I know what it’s like, to lose one’s home,” Aja said as they passed by Bagdwella’s old shop. She was better at comforting AAARRGGHH!!! than Toby himself was. Probably Krel and Varvatos, too. They had left behind their homeplanet, and their house was gone, too.

“Your friends, Jim, Blinky, and the trolls are safe, and that’s what matters the most,” Krel said. Toby was about to thank him for the reassurance – he had gotten good at dealing with human feelings – when rocks collapsed.

Varvatos was right. There was definitely an aura of death and decay. Stupid Morgana, ruining everything.

“That looks… deep.” Varvatos said.

“How do we get down there?” Aja asked.

“We don’t!” Toby said. Memories of watching Jim’s cage fall filled his mind. “If you go down there then you face your deepest fear!”

“Why would anyone want to do that?” Krel asked. The light from the Soothscryer came back up again insistently.

“It’s a long story,” Toby said as the light spiraled downwards once more. “Jim made it out alive, and unfortunately, he’s the only one who has.”

“We don’t have much choice,” Aja said. “We have to find Gaylen’s core before Morando.”

Krel held two of his arms in front of his sister. “I’ll go!”

“No, if we have to fight then it’s better to have safety in numbers. We’re stronger together,” Toby said.

“But you and Varvatos need to fight whatever’s coming,” Krel said as Aja pulled out her hoverboard.

“We will,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said. He raised his voice to a slightly higher pitch. “So, fight!” he imitated, before lowering his voice. “Make proud, Wingman.”

“Will do.” Toby pulled out his warhammer and followed the Tarron siblings down into the Deep.

Unfortunately, Toby followed them straight into a stony wall.

Toby stood on a dock, watching a cruise ship sail away. His nana waved good-bye to him, along with two relatively young adults. They were familiar, just like the ship was. They were familiar from blurry memories and from morbid curiosity because at age twelve, Toby wanted to know just how his parents died.

“Don’t go,” Toby pleaded softly, but he knew it was no use. He looked over his shoulder and caught Jim’s eyes.

“Well, bye, then,” Jim said flippantly. He began to walk away, and Toby realized that so did all the other trolls. Darci, and Dr. Lake, and pretty much everyone Toby knew walked with them.

Toby tried to catch up, but each step was a herculean effort. Eventually, everyone passed beyond the horizon. It started to rain, and Toby realized that he had managed to find his way to the bridge where everything always went down.

A dark sliver appeared in the thin air in front of him. It widened, and Claire stepped out of it. Except “stepped” wasn’t quite the write word, not with how her limbs and neck bent at all the wrong angles. Golden manacles with small lengths of broken-off chains were attached to her wrists and ankles. A noose connected her neck to the Shadow Realm, and when the portal closed Claire collapsed, almost like a puppet whose strings were cut. She caught herself at the last second, dust swirling off the bridge to reform the Shadow Staff in her hand. She stretched each of her limbs as they popped into place with the sound of crunching bones and scraping metal. She then rolled her neck, the noose catching on one of the spikes of her helmet. It didn’t seem to bother her, but it added a gruesome effect.

Claire’s brown eyes opened, going from blank to full of hatred in the span of an instant. “You,” she said. Her voice echoed above the sound of rain and distant thunder. “You let me die!”

She lunged for him, and Toby found that the sluggishness to his limbs was gone as he jumped out of the way.

“You killed me!” she screamed, disappearing through a portal. She came out from almost directly above him, staff pointed to skewer him.

Toby caught it with his warhammer, sending it away from himself. “You, you told me to. You told me to break the staff,” Toby said.

Claire attempted to stab him in the back. “And you didn’t think to wait, did you? You didn’t think that maybe you should have waited for Blinky to have saved me?”

“There was no time, and you know this.” Toby knocked the Shadow Staff out of her hands. It crumbled into ash. “It’s not my fault that you didn’t think of any other way to end Morgana. It’s… it’s not my fault that you’re dead!”

The rain stopped, and the clouds started to part. As Claire looked up to the sky, Toby realized that he was crying.

The sun was eclipsed by the moon and then by even darker clouds. Claire closed her eyes as it began to rain again, this time even harder than before.

“You want to know what’s the best part of being dead?” she asked in an eerily soft voice.

She opened her eyes. They were purple and black. “I don’t have to look at your stupid fucking face anymore.”

Claire lunged for him, knocking his warhammer out of his hands. She pinned him down with one hand. “No one wants to have to look at it. And I’m going to be the fucking martyr that makes sure no one will ever have to again.”

And then she began to punch his face, the edges of her clawed armor piercing him. With each punch more cracks began to grow on her face and hand, but Claire didn’t seem to notice them. She didn’t look like she was in pain like the last time she had grown those cracks. If anything, the lightning glinting in her eyes made her look sadistic.

And then Toby woke up.

“I did it,” Krel said, overjoyed. “I did it!”

“I’m proud of you, little brother,” Aja said, rubbing at her arms. She sounded spooked. “Congratulations, you probably beat me by half a mecron. What… what did you see?”

“Morando destroying Arcadia Oaks and everyone in it, which he’ll do if he gets Gaylen’s core,” Krel said with a slight frown. “And you?”

“The same, but with Akiridion-V,” Aja said. The two of them turned to Toby.

They were going to have to leave anyways; they didn’t need to know that Toby’s worst fear was a combination of Claire hating him in her dying moments and everyone he cared about leaving him.

“Oh, well…” Toby gave a slight chuckle, and hoped that they’d believe the fat stigma. “Dieting.”

They had no time to question his lie because Varvatos and AAARRRGGHH!!! came crashing in.

“Purple. Pretty,” AAARRRGGHH!!! said, gazing at the altar to Gaylen’s core.

“Claire would have loved to have seen this,” Toby sighed, and then startled with a realization. “Kanjigar, do you know if Draal and Claire are, you know, resting in peace?”

Unfortunately, the previous Trollhunter had gone back to the void.

Toby supposed it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, not with Aja and Krel being shot down. Still, closure that his friends were okay in the end would have been nice.

“Where’s Krel and Varvatos?” Toby asked as he dismantled yet another OMEN. “Would be nice to get a little more help.”

“Krel’s working on getting us some reinforcements,” Aja said, “and Varvatos is protecting my parents and Stuart. I trust him enough to not try to power the canon with my parents’ cores twice.”

“Wait, why would he do that? He’s not evil enough to power things up using unwilling people!”

“I thought that too, but since two royal cores are needed it’ll be Krel and I and not my parents.”

“No.” Toby brought his warhammer down enough that deep cracks were left in the concrete where the OMEN once stood. “Aja, you can’t. That’s suicide.”

“It’s not suicide, Toby. It’s sacrifice. Of all people, I thought you understood that.”

“Oh, trust me. I understand that. I also understand that those two look really similar sometimes. Aja, promise me that I won’t have to attend any more of my friend’s funerals this summer.”

“I can’t, but that’s why Krel’s working on reinforcements. I don’t want to do this, but I will if that’s what it takes.”

Toby would have argued had an OMEN not thrown a truck at a random kid. There had to be another way, one that wasn’t trying to fight a losing battle. One where all his friends made it out.

“He’s too strong,” Toby said. “He’s stronger than…”

No.

Morando was not stronger than Morgana. He couldn’t let himself believe that. They were all going to live, and no one was going to sacrifice their life for the good of everyone else, even if they were on the very same bridge where Angor and Claire died.

And Toby had legitimate hope when Zadra and various ships from Akiridion-V came through the wormhole.

Except they weren’t enough. Morando grew red wing-like appendages and created a massive explosion of red light.

“Morando is too powerful,” Krel said.

As the Tarron siblings hugged each other for what shouldn’t be the last time, Toby tried to think of another way to kill Morando.

“Go back to town,” Aja said. “Make sure everyone’s safe! And… I’m sorry, Toby. There’s a reason why I didn’t promise.”

“On it!” Steve said. “Please don’t get stepped on!”

“You too, my Palchuk!” Toby couldn’t tell if it was cruel or not for Aja not to say goodbye.

There had to be a third option.

“What are you waiting for, give me a ride!” Steve shouted. Toby fired up his warhammer.

Morando was at least as strong as Morgana. Maybe he was stronger. Two people would die. Someone’s hand would get cut off by a –

There was another way.

Toby set Steve down and began to fly off in the opposite direction.

“Where are you going, buttsnack?” Steve shouted.

“To save your girlfriend’s life!” Toby began searching through his phone to find the number for Akiridion-V. They could try to open a portal from within Morando’s body, and hopefully Akiridion anatomy was such that it would kill him.

It was probably a good idea that Toby had used his warhammer instead of the Shadow Staff. Too gruesome.

He was on the second ring when he watched Aja and Krel fire the canon.

He felt relief, and then guilt.

It was over.

Toby didn’t know what to say. Aja, Krel, and everyone else from Akiridion-V were leaving. So were the Foo-Foos and Eli.

“Do you have to leave?” It was selfish. Of course they had to leave. Toby closed his eyes and tried to drown out Deep-illusion-Claire’s words. They weren’t leaving because of him; Aja and Krel had to go and rule an entire planet.

“Thanks for keeping that promise about me not going to your funeral”? Too selfish. It put the focus too much on him.

“Being an orphan isn’t so bad, just look how I turned out”? Too insensitive, considering that he could barely remember his parents.

“Sorry about your parents, but I’m glad they’re dead instead of you”? That wouldn’t stop the guilt.

Except, Krel was staying.

Toby would figure out something comforting to say, eventually.

The world was going to end. Again. And this time, Toby’s new allies were a talking, bipedal cat and a pair of teenagers who were currently going through their emo phase. Said emo teens were about a year older than Toby, and supposedly they were wizards, but honestly? Aja and Krel seemed more competent than these two.

At the very least, Aja and Krel were better at lying. The minute after the cat had called them out on “experimenting unsupervised”, Zoe had started rambling about college apps, which had segwayed into summer homework, which somehow turned into how she and Douxie could make non-exploding potions without Archie’s supervision.

It was a little creepy, just how exasperated the cat looked.

Douxie stared at Toby quizzically before interrupting his friend’s rambling. “Your friend – the possessed one. Is she okay?”

A cold sort of rage crept into Toby’s bones, and with it, came the desire to scream at Douxie for having noticed that Claire wasn’t okay, and not having really done anything. Storm out of the apartment, telling Steve to tell Toby anything important, but refuse to work with the wizards.

But Claire made her decision. There was nothing that Toby could’ve done to change that, much less a guy who went to their rival school.

So instead of yelling, Toby took a breath, and said coldly, “Let’s just say that Claire’s at peace now.”

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