#anyway does anyone else imagine being put before a room of judgemental people as if on trial?

[owladaptive]

Sometimes while I'm spacing out I imagine a room of people asking me questions through microphones - as if I'm on a panel at a con or some such thing.

And the questions the imaginary crowd comes up with often pertain to why I don't exhibit amatonormativity. I say to the crowd: I'm aroace. And they're like: sounds fake. Wouldn't you be happier if you were in a relationship/having sex? Wouldn't that make you feel fulfilled?

And so I (in my head, whilst in the middle of performing a deep tissue massage) reply: Well... it's like everyone on my street is connected to the power grid. And every month they get their electricity bills, and sometimes it costs a little too much and they grumble about it, but they still pay it every time because they're connected to the grid. And they like having lights on in their homes. And if they don't feel like paying as much, they simply use less power.

: But my house, on this metaphorical street, my house is powered by a solar panel that was already built into the roof. I'm not connected to the other houses and I don't want to be.

And the imaginary crowd of questioners asks: hurr durr but why don't you just connect your house anyway? IT'S EASY

And I say: why would I do that??? it's pointless?? when I already have what I need and everyone else has what they need it literally doesn't matter?? I'm living the perfect scenario where I'm perfectly self-sufficient. Connecting my house to the other houses does nothing!! I'm saving energy AND money!!

[sincerelystranger]

read on AO3

---

Nie Huaisang fans his face nervously as Xichen watches quietly from across the room.

He’s not quite turned away from Xichen, but he doesn’t seem to be able to look at Xichen either. His eyes keep flickering back and forth from the wall behind Xichen to the floor.

Every single one of Huaisang’s actions seems to scream discomfort, maybe even fear. It occurs to Xichen that it’s strange behavior for someone who invited themselves over. It also occurs to him that at one point in his life, he wouldn’t even have noticed the behavior as strange.

At one point in Xichen’s life, he would have readily believed Huaisang’s act.

He doesn’t now.

He doesn’t know what to believe anymore.

And he thinks maybe that’s what hurts the most.

He thinks that maybe that inability to trust his own judgement is what keeps him locked in seclusion, torturing himself over the things he missed and the things he once believed.

Maybe.

He sits in silence, just watching Nie Huaisang. He’s not sure if he’s surprised by Nie Huaisang’s visit, or if a part of him expected him all this time. The only thing he knows is this:

Nie Huaisang somehow looks altogether too much and not enough like da-ge and Xichen can’t tell whether he hates him for that or not.

Nie Huaisang clears his throat suddenly, the sound is almost deafening in the heavy silence of Xichen’s room.

“Ah… You look… well, er-ge,” he says weakly, still not meeting Xichen’s eyes, “Wei-Xiong made it seem as if… well…” He trails off, briefly making eye contact with Xichen before dropping his gaze back to the floor.

Xichen isn’t surprised by the mention of Wei Wuxian.  

Of course Wei Wuxian would have something to do with this. Of course.

“Wei-Xiong said that you weren’t well – that you didn’t want visitors… I mean… of course… you’re still in seclusion…” Nie Huaisang stumbles over his words. Xichen can see his hand shaking slightly as he continues to fan his face.

That does surprise him though – the fact that Wei Wuxian advised against Nie Huaisang visiting Xichen.

With how nosy Wei Wuxian has been throughout Xichen’s time in seclusion, he would have thought that Wei Wuxian had had a hand in Nie Huaisang’s visit.

“Wei Wuxian advised against your visit?” Xichen asks, curiosity opening his mouth.

Nie Huaisang seems surprised by Xichen’s voice. The fan goes still in his hands. “He… did,” he nods, “Wei-Xiong… He… Well I don’t think he trusts me… anymore.” There’s a small self-deprecating smile on his face as he admits this. He looks to the ground again before slowly bringing his gaze up to meet Xichen’s eyes. He gives Xichen a weak smile. “I guess you don’t either, do you, er-ge?”

Xichen guesses he should have expected it, but it still catches him off-guard to be confronted so openly.

Somehow it seems… out of character for Huaisang.

But then…

What does Xichen know of Huaisang’s character anyway?

“I… I just don’t know why you did what you did,” Xichen admits. And it’s the closest thing to the truth that he can stomach to say. Because… because even after everything. Even after the manipulation and betrayal and years of being lied to. He still…

Well he’s still Nie Huaisang’s er-ge, isn’t he?

It’s one of the only things he’s been able to come to terms with in his time in seclusion: The people Xichen loves may do monstrous things, but Xichen will love them anyway. He can’t help himself. Once he loves, he doesn’t know how to stop.

Nie Huaisang is quiet for a while. He slowly lowers his fan to his lap. He looks more vulnerable, sat there without the fan covering part of his face.

Even after everything, it makes Xichen’s heart ache for him. Even after everything, Xichen wants to call him close, ask him how he can help wipe that sadness from his face.

He doesn’t though.

He stays quiet.

“It’s already been eight years since da-ge died,” Huaisang says slowly, “Next year, I’ll be older than he ever got to be.”

Logically it’s something Xichen has known for a while. He’s been older than da-ge for years now. But it still churns his stomach to hear those words come out of Huaisang’s lips. To be hit with the realization that da-ge has truly been dead for so long. It seems… so impossible. Da-ge is still so fresh in Xichen’s memory.

“It’s strange,” Huaisang continues quietly, “In my memory da-ge is always so much older than me. Always such an… adult. When father died and da-ge became the sect leader, I remember thinking, ‘of course.’ Because da-ge already seemed so grown up at the time. So sure of himself.” Huaisang wipes absently at the floor and huffs a small laugh. “Now I wonder how the elders could have been so cruel as to put all that responsibility onto such a young boy.”

A lump forms in Xichen’s throat.

“Da-ge was always… good,” Xichen says stupidly, “He never shied from responsibility… he always gave everything his… best.”

Nie Huaisang huffs another small laugh. “Da-ge was always good,” he agrees. “If the world could have been as good as he was – if I could have been as good as he was – everything might be different now.”

The room goes quiet again at Huaisang’s small confession.

Xichen can’t find it in himself to disagree or to comfort, because he thinks the same. Maybe if he could have been as good as da-ge, everything might’ve ended differently. Maybe if Xichen hadn’t questioned da-ge’s judgement… Maybe if Xichen had just trusted da-ge…

Maybe…

“He… loved you er-ge. Did you know?”

“Of course,” Xichen answers, a little taken aback by Huaisang’s question.

“No,” Huaisang says with a shake of his head. “He loved you… as a man. Did you know?”

The center of gravity seems to have changed in the room. Xichen feels… tilted. Unmoored.

“He – da-ge… he didn’t,” Xichen tries to explain slowly, a slow panic crawling up his spine. Da-ge didn’t – he couldn’t. Da-ge never saw Xichen like that…

Never…

“He did,” Huaisang says, something stubborn bleeding into his voice.

Xichen shakes his head. He doesn’t know where Huaisang got this idea but…

“He didn’t, Huaisang,” Xichen says, “I… I…” It’s humiliating to have to own to it. How does Huaisang always manage to put him into this situations? Situations where he has to cut his heart open with his own hand. “I confessed to him when we were… younger.”

Da-ge had been kind when he refused Xichen.

His hand had been gentle and warm on Xichen’s shoulder and his eyes had been deep and kind. “I can’t be that for you. I’m sorry.”

But he still stayed Xichen’s friend.

Still stayed Xichen’s… da-ge.

“He refused you because he thought….” Huaisang stammers, “He… he said…”

Xichen’s heart drops to his stomach. Something cold makes its way towards his chest. He said? Da-ge had… He had talked about Xichen’s confession to Huaisang?

“What,” Xichen asks, a nervous hunger gnawing at his throat. “What did da-ge say?”

“He said you deserved better than a man destined for madness,” Huaisang says finally.

It feels like a cruel joke.

Another manufactured cruelty from Huaisang. Another upturned grave that Xichen will have to cover with his hands.

“You… Don’t lie to me, Huaisang,” Xichen says, and he’s ashamed by the way his voice trembles. “Da-ge… He never…”

“He was always doing these foolish things,” Huaisang says, his voice cracking, as tears spill from his eyes. “Always giving up parts of his happiness for the people he loved.”

A sob escapes from Xichen’s lips. He hurries to cover his mouth so more don’t shamefully spill out but it’s no use. Da-ge couldn’t… He…

But of course he would.

“He did it for me too,” Huaisang continues, his lips trembling, his whole body taut as he tries to control his sobs. “And I didn’t know either, er-ge. I never realized until it was too late. All the things—“ Huaisang folds in on himself, his hand coming up to cover his eyes as he cries. “—All the things he gave up for me. All the things he turned a blind eye to because he knew I loved them.”

The room dissolves into quiet sobs.

And it’s a little funny, Xichen thinks, even though Huaisang is tearing out the seams in Xichen’s heart that Xichen just barely put in. Even though Huaisang has brought with him so much hurt and anger and confusion. It’s still… comforting to cry with someone who Xichen knows misses da-ge as much as Xichen does. There’s still a twisted sense of camaraderie there.

When the wave passes and the sobs quiet, Huaisang straightens back up. He wipes gingerly at his face with his sleeve. Xichen is reminded of all the times he watched Huaisang do the same action when he was just a child. Da-ge would have reprimanded him, Xichen thinks. Da-ge would have tossed Huaisang his handkerchief.

Because as wild and brutish as da-ge was reputed to be… he was… proper like that. Gentler than anyone imagined he could ever be.

That was one of the things Xichen had loved about him.

Huaisang lets out a shaky exhale. He’s twisting his sleeves between his fingers nervously. Even now, it seems impossible to Xichen that Huaisang – sweet and spoiled Huaisang – could have lied to him for so long. It seems impossible that the Huaisang he knows – the Huaisang sitting in front of him – could have orchestrated the downfall of Mengyao.

It seems impossible, and yet…

“You say that you don’t know why I did the things I did,” Huaisang says, his voice soft and scratchy from his tears, “And if I’m honest, I didn’t understand myself either.” He looks up and Xichen then and gives a helpless shrug. “It’s so unlike me. Right, er-ge? All this planning and scheming and… and just all this work to destroy someone I love. It was torturous for me – it really was, er-ge. But...”

Xichen doesn’t move. He doesn’t make a sound. It feels like he’s at the edge of a cliff. What Huaisang says next will most certainly push him over but he’s still waiting… He doesn’t know how to do anything else.

“I think… I think I was punishing myself,” Huaisang says, “I think I was punishing myself for loving san-ge – for letting my love blind me to his evil deeds.”

Xichen’s heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. He feels slightly nauseous.

Huaisang drops his gaze from Xichen’s eyes to the ground just in front of Xichen. “And for what I did to you at Guanyin Temple… I… I think in a way… I wanted to punish you too.”

He’s falling. He’s been pushed off the cliff and he’s falling.

It’s a lot more freeing than he thought it would be. It almost feels like flying.

Punishment.

Was that all it was?

All this confusion and loss and pain and confusion and loss and loss and pain…

Just punishment?

A strange laughter bubbles from Xichen’s lips before he can even control it.

“Sorry,” he says, quickly bringing his hand to cover his mouth. Shamefully enough, the laughter spills over again. “Sorry.” But it’s not enough. The laughter forces itself out of his body. He can’t help himself. He feels insane, but he’s laughing and it won’t stop. “Sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

Xichen can almost feel Huaisang’s surprise but he can’t help himself. The laughter won’t stop. And strangely, after a few moments of his unhinged laughter, he hears…

He looks up, his vision clouded slightly by the strange tears his strange laughter has created and to his surprise… Huaisang is laughing too.

Seeing Huaisang laugh plants more seeds of laughter in Xichen. He can’t stop now – even if he tried. The laughter bubbles over. Huaisang’s laughter waters Xichen’s laughter and it grows and grows and…

Punishment.

That was all it was.

All this pain and loss and confusion and it was just… punishment.

How ridiculous.

---

The night of Huaisang’s visit, Xichen steps outside for the first time since he started his seclusion.

In the dark of night, the world seems all at once strange and inviting.

Cloud Recesses, of course, is quiet. All the disciples having gone to sleep long ago.

Xichen feels safer, with that knowledge that he’s alone. That he won’t run into anyone who—

“Xichen-ge!” a voice surprises him from his thoughts. He turns towards the voice and sees Wei Wuxian and…. Wangji.

Wei Wuxian visits him often enough that it shouldn’t be such a surprise to see him, but it feels different seeing him outside the confines of his room. Xichen feels self-conscious suddenly. Like his arms are too long and maybe his hair is untidy.

“Wei… gongzi,” he nods after a shocked moment, “Wangji.”

Wei Wuxian waves him over as Wangji nods back. “We’re taking a walk,” Wei Wuxian exclaims, “The night is cool and the stars are bright. Come join us, Xichen-ge!”

It’s all so ridiculous, Xichen thinks as he takes a heavy step forward, out of the gate and towards the path.

How ridiculously easy it is to leave the jail he created for himself. How ridiculously normal it feels for Wei Wuxian to ask him to join him on a night walk – as if Xichen hasn’t trapped himself between four walls for years.

Wei Wuxian and Wangji separate to make room for him. It’s a small act of kindness, Xichen realizes, and he takes it because it does feel a little safer to walk between them.

Such a childishness, he thinks, still too bare to the world to feel any embarrassment from it. But he does feel safe. Wangji feels… taller… and sturdier than Xichen remembers him being. And Wei Wuxian… Well is there anyone more reliable to walk the dark night with than Wei Wuxian?  

“Look!” Wei Wuxian says, pointing up at the sky. “Isn’t the moon beautiful tonight?”

Xichen follows Wei Wuxian’s finger up.

The moon is round and heavy. It looks so close that it feels like Xichen might be able to touch it if he just reaches up.

“It’s beautiful,” he agrees softly.

“It’s like it knew you would come out to see it today, Xichen-ge,” Wei Wuxian nods happily. “Don’t you think so, Lan Zhan?”

Wangji hums his agreement as they keep walking.

Happiness sits hot and heavy in Xichen’s chest. He feels safe and free and…

“I think we’ve had enough punishment,” Huaisang had said before he left. “You and… me too, er-ge.” He had looked at Xichen then and had given him a smile – a real smile. No hint of sadness in his face at all. “Da-ge always wanted the people he loved to be happy… so I think it’s time to do that. Don’t you think so, er-ge?”

He hadn’t answered Huaisang as he left but he agrees quietly in his heart now.

He’s lost and lost and lost and he’s sat in that loss for years. Yearning and searching and looking for an answer that wasn’t there – ignoring the world outside his room for years and choosing punishment day after day because… because maybe he thought he deserved it.

And still…

The moon is beautiful.

And still, his family welcomes him back.

[witcher-and-his-bard-archive]

Geralt in 21 with partner of your choice for the lingerie prompts!!

I hope we’re feeling Geralt X Eskel tonight bc I wanted to write Eskel v badly.

"Maybe it's a bad idea," Geralt mumbles, twisting to look at his ass in the mirror. Objectively, he looks good, but fear and self-doubt creep into his mind anyway. Outside the bedroom door, Eskel sighs.

"Can I just see it so I can give you an honest opinion? Not one tainted by your horrific self-loathing."

Geralt takes another look at himself, resists the urge to sigh, and steps away from the mirror. If it was anyone else but Eskel, he'd lock the door and undress before going back out, but he trusts Eskel. And tonight, he's hoping Eskel is a better judge than he. He takes a deep breath as he steps out into the living room and as soon as Eskel's eyes are on him, he deflates. He feels stupid.

"I'm just gonna change," he mumbles, but Eskel reaches out to stop him.

"Don't. He'll love it."

"Are you sure?"

Eskel nods slowly, a faint smile pulling at his lips. "You look… incredible. Only an idiot wouldn't love you in this."

Geralt doesn't believe him, but he trusts Eskel's judgement. He slips back into his room, closing the door behind him (although there's not much left that Eskel hasn't seen tonight) and turns to his closet to pick out what to wear.

Lingerie aside, he's looking forward to tonight. Vernon is… something. But it's not like Geralt is going to marry him or anything. He wants to fuck him, though and tonight is the fourth time they've been out, so he's optimistic - hence the wardrobe choice.

He leaves the house just after five with enough time to get to the restaurant before their 5:30 reservation.

By six, he's sat in the underground parking with his head on the steering wheel.

He feels like an idiot to have assumed this was going anywhere. And yeah, maybe he wasn't as into the guy as he should have been, but being turned down outright still fucking sucks. And to make matters worse, all he can feel is the press of the straps digging into his skin. It's irritating, maddeningly so, and only serves to remind him of how fucking stupid he was to think someone might want him. But he can't go upstairs because Eskel will be there and he'll ask why he's home so early and Geralt will have to tell him. And the only thing worse than being stood up and having to come home and take off the lingerie he bought specifically for tonight (an already embarrassing experience) is having to admit to your best friend that it happened.

Geralt groans and squeezes his eyes shut, banging his head against the steering wheel. If he just stays down here long enough, Eskel will never know. He'll think he went out and had a great time and came home. It's what he usually does. But factoring time for dinner, sex, and potential conversation afterwards? He'll be stuck down here for hours. Which is not at all how he intended to spend his night.

He picks his phone up off the passenger seat and makes to get out of the car, but there's one unread message that catches his eye and he opens it quickly, hoping it's Roche. It's Eskel, because of course, it is, hoping that his night goes well. Geralt just groans at the screen before locking it and shoving his phone in his pocket where it can't taunt him.

When he gets up to their shared apartment, he waits again before letting himself in. Only for a few minutes, only to try and hear if Eskel is in the living room. But there's no sound coming from within, so he pushes the door open and sneaks to his bedroom. But as the door is clicking shut, Eskel calls out.

"Geralt?"

Fuck.

"Geralt, is that you? What are you doing home?"

"Uh- change of plans," he mumbles. He wants to make up an excuse, to say he's not feeling well or something came up, but he can't form the words. Instead, he flops onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling, which is where Eskel finds him a moment later.

"What happened?" he asks gently. Geralt shrugs and sighs.

"Don't know." He does know. It's the same thing that happens every time, but he knows Eskel doesn't like when he talks badly about himself, so Geralt keeps quiet. "Just didn't show."

His skin prickles and he shuts his eyes. Just for once, he'd like to be good enough for someone. For someone to want to be with him. He's always the one setting the dates or reaching out to start with and he doesn't know why he bothers because it never goes well for him. The best he gets is Eskel's sympathy and a bottle of gin to come home to.

"Asshole," Eskel mutters, "doesn't deserve you anyway. You can do better." Geralt scoffs, but Eskel persists and eventually, Geralt just tunes it out because one day Eskel will realize that he is inherently unlovable, that he's not worth the time to text and say hey I'm not showing up tonight.

"Thanks," he mumbles, but it's false.

"You wanna watch tv and drink vodka?"

For the first time in hours, Geralt smiles.

"You know I do."

Watching tv and drinking vodka turns into watching Jeopardy and drinking if you get the answer wrong. And the longer it goes on, the fewer answers either of them gets right. It's not until late that Geralt realizes he never got changed when he came home. He peels off his shirt, having spilled his drink on it, and the black straps are there, crisscrossing across his chest and reminding him he's an idiot. Which is a shame really because the piece itself is nice and now he'll never get a chance to enjoy it properly.

"S nice," Eskel mumbles next to him. Geralt looks up to see what he's talking about and finds Eskel looking back at him. "Vernon's a fuckin' idiot turning you down in that." Geralt huffs a humourless laugh.

"You're drunk," he shrugs, "and you're s'posed to say shit like that when I'm having a bad day."

"True though. Wish you didn't think so badly of yourself all the time. You're hot, Geralt, simple as that. You're the only one who doesn't see it." Geralt pauses for a second, decides he's misheard, and shrugs it off. He picks the bottle up off the table, takes a large drink, and passes it to Eskel who sighs, but takes it anyway.

But over the next half hour, he catches Eskel looking at him. And not just glancing over at him, but really looking at him in a way that makes the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

"What?" he asks finally, his anxiety getting the better of him. "What's wrong?"

"Just thought you'd have taken it off by now, thought you'd wanna be comfortable."

"It is?" Geralt says simply and Eskel purses his lips and nods.

"Can I touch it?" Eskel looks up at him earnestly and Geralt would be an idiot to say no to him now. He nods slowly and Eskel reaches out, tracing the lines of the leather. His fingers slip, brushing against his skin, Geralt pretends not to notice.

He shifts to get more comfortable, turning to face Eskel and leaning into the couch cushions. And Eskel grows bolder, slipping his fingers into the rings joining the straps and tugging gently, letting the leather lift from his skin before releasing it. Geralt shudders the first time he does it and that only seems to encourage Eskel.

One warm hand presses against his chest, slipping down to the button on his jeans. Eskel turns it between his fingers for a moment before looking up at him.

"Should take these off," he hums, "let me see the rest."

"You saw the rest earlier."

"Not like this."

To Geralt's drunk mind, it seems like sensible reasoning, so he quickly unbuttons his jeans and pushes them to the floor. He feels suddenly exposed in only leather straps and a lacy thong, but Eskel is transfixed. He runs a hand up Geralt's thigh and Geralt shudders under the warmth of it. The room is cold, his skin breaking out in goosebumps now that he's mostly bare, but Eskel's palm is warm where it slides against his skin and Geralt closes his eyes at the feeling.

He stops where the leather digs into Geralt's thighs, pressing his thumb beneath it and following the line along. Geralt is only partially aware of the way his pulse spikes, the way his skin prickles under Eskel's touch, but he knows that he likes it, so he doesn't tell him to stop.

"Geralt." Geralt opens his eyes and looks up to find Eskel looking back at him, his expression soft. "Can I kiss you?"

Geralt's mind whirls to try and catch up with what it's evidently missed. He doesn't even realize he's nodding, and then Eskel's mouth is on his own, soft and warm, and he can't think about anything else. His fingers slip instinctively into Eskel's hair and Geralt finds himself laid back against the arm of the couch as Eskel fits himself between his thighs.

He's wearing sweatpants and the softness of the fabric feels amazing in contrast to the leather wrapped around his thighs. Geralt nearly groans when Eskel shifts forward, but then his attention is refocused to where Eskel's hand settles on his pec, fingers slipping under the leather straps. Eskel breaks the kiss just long enough to mumble fuck, before pressing into his neck and kissing under his jaw.

"D'you have any fucking idea how you look in this?" he mumbles, "christ Geralt, you're stupid beautiful." Geralt starts at that. No one has ever called him beautiful before. On occasion, he's been called hot, but he knows it's just his body they're interested in. When Eskel calls him beautiful, it feels like something more.

"You're drunk," he accuses and Eskel laughs against his skin.

"But so are you. Drunk and beautiful." Eskel shifts down the couch, pressing soft kisses down Geralt's chest until he reaches his nipples. "Fuck. You just put 'em on display like this?" he groans, "what's a man supposed to do with himself, Geralt?"

Geralt squirms under the praise, but he shuts his eyes, focusing instead of the brush of Eskel's lips, the warm wetness where his tongue peeks out from between his lips. He'd be lying if he said he'd never thought about Eskel this way, but Eskel was always just one more in a long line of people who would rather just be friends. So Geralt doesn't think about it. Much. On occasion, he'll imagine what might have been if they'd met at a different time, or on nights when nothing else is going right, he'll picture him above him as he jerks off, inevitably falling asleep guilty and ashamed.

But he never expected anything like this.

Eskel sucks a nipple between his lips, flicking his tongue at the numb and Geralt lets out a shaky moan, shifting his hips beneath him. The sensation goes straight to his cock and he realizes belatedly that he's half hard. It's not until Eskel readjusts himself that Geralt realizes he's also only wearing a tiny, lacy thong and that it was barely covering him to begin with.

His worries go unnoticed by Eskel who is now sitting sideways, one arm under Geralt's back and the other slipping slowly down his chest, catching on each of the straps as it goes. He stops abruptly and Geralt hears a little hum before Eskel's leaning back up to him, nosing under his jaw.

"You're already so hard," he groans, "can I touch you?"

"Please," Geralt whispers.

There's no hesitation as Eskel's palm cups his cock, first over the lace, then quickly pushing beneath it to wrap a hand around him. He strokes him slowly, working him up to full hardness in no time at all and then he's ducking down and wrapping his lips around the head of his cock. Geralt whispers and bucks and when he looks down, the hand that was on his cock is now shoved down Eskel's sweatpants.

"Let me see," he breathes and Eskel shoves the pants down without so much as wavering in his ministrations.

Once he catches sight of Eskel's cock, he can't look away. He watches the way it slips between his fingers with fascination, imagining his own hand around him, his mouth around him.

"Fuck me," he says and Eskel pulls off his cock to stare at him.

"You want me?"

Geralt nods and leans in to kiss him again, sighing softly against Eskel's lips before pulling away. "Yes. Always, please."

Eskel doesn't hesitate, wrapping his arms around Geralt's waist and kissing him soundly as he pulls him up into his lap. When he shifts his hips, Geralt can feel the thick length of Eskel's erection through the lace and it only makes him want him more. He nips at his lips, kisses him hard and Eskel laughs softly against his mouth.

"Fuck, you're really somethin' aren't you."

"Lube," Geralt grumbles. He shifts to move, but Eskel stops him. When Geralt looks up, he looks embarrassed then he shoves a hand down the side of the couch and Geralt realizes why.

For whatever reason, there's a bottle of lube stashed between the cushions and he offers Eskel a questioning look.

"Full disclosure?" Eskel shrugs, "I couldn't get the thought of you all wrapped up in that out of my head. I was gonna jerk off while you were gone to try and get it out of my system but then you came home."

"Mm," Geralt hums, "good thing I did."

He kisses him again, slow and deep, taking the bottle from Eskel's hands and flicking it open. He pours probably more than he needs to into Eskel's hand then drops the bottle again, uncaring as Eskel's fingers press back between his cheeks. Eskel makes no attempt to remove the thong, just slips his fingers beneath it and presses against him.

Eskel makes quick work of opening him up, fucking into him with thick fingers and kissing the moans from Geralt's lips. When he fucks him, it's quick and hard and neither of them is sober enough to have much finesse, but it's good. It's the first time in maybe years that Geralt remembers genuinely enjoying himself during sex and when they're finished, he collapses against Eskel's chest and just stays there.

Warm arms wrap around him and Eskel kisses his shoulders and slowly, they both drift off to sleep.

In the morning, Geralt wakes up alone with a pounding headache and something digging into his skin. As he looks down at himself, at the straps barely covering his skin, everything rushes back to him and he feels sick. Fuck.

He shouldn't have given in, should have said no to Eskel's advances. But he was in a bad place and he wanted. He still wants him, but evidently, Eskel was just horny and drunk. Mark him down as another who doesn't want to stay. Geralt wants to go back to bed, to call Yen and ask her to drag him out to do anything but stay at home in the apartment, but he supposes this is something that should be dealt with sooner rather than later.

He barely makes it to his feet before Eskel comes downstairs. He's dressed in only his sweatpants, hung low on his hips, and Geralt groans internally.

"I'm sorry," he blurts and at the exact same time, Eskel says "I've got the bath running." To which, Geralt doesn't have a response.

"You first," Eskel says tentatively. Geralt sighs.

"I'm sorry about last night, I shouldn't have-" he cuts himself off, failing to put his thoughts into words.

"Oh. Right. Yeah. It's just… I've been up for half an hour making breakfast and running a bath and I didn't account for regretting what happened last night." Eskel smiles up at him and Geralt's shoulders slump. Sometimes he hates how well Eskel knows him, but this morning he's glad for it.

Eskel steps up close, reaching around to undo the clasps at the back of Geralt's neck and gently tugging the lingerie down until it falls in a pile on the floor. The thong goes next and Geralt doesn't say a word as Eskel's hands settle on his hips.

"Bath, breakfast, and then we're going to sit down and talk about this," he breathes, "but don't think for a second that I'm gonna let you worry yourself out of this. Last night was good. You were- you are beautiful. Go upstairs and I'll be up in a minute if you want?"

Geralt isn't sure exactly how Eskel thinks he's going to fit the both of them into their bathtub, but he isn't going to let that stop him from trying.

"Okay," he whispers. Eskel smiles and tips forward, stopping at the last moment, but Geralt leans in to close the space, kissing him softly. He loses himself for a moment in the slide of Eskel's lips against his own and he doesn't realize he's being pulled forward until he shifts his hips and presses against Eskel's cock, hard in his sweats.

"Bath, breakfast, talk," Eskel repeats, breathless, "after that I'd like to keep you in my bed for a week."

As far as ideas go, Geralt thinks it's a damn good one.

lingerie prompts~

[pointnumbersixteen]

How do you see The Captain's coming out, and growth in confidence and self acceptance thereafter taking place?

I like this question! …and I’m probably going to elaborate on it a bit more than many people will want to read (I noticed back when I was regularly writing essay length posts that they did not get a lot of love) and it’s probably going to get even more ramble-y than usual (brain has not been braining as cooperatively as it should recently and the decision to drink half a bottle of wine right before answering this- sorry- probably does not help), but here we are.  

 About coming out scenarios, none of mine are particularly elaborate. While I do think he needs to come out for his story line to progress, I can’t imagine him making a big thing out of it (long or elaborate announcements, heart-to-hearts, emotional displays of bearing his authentic self or any of the like), either with the group, or person-by-person, for several reasons:

First off, that sort of a coming-out to-do is a more modern notion, and I doubt he was a particularly modern person even when he was alive, seventy-five years ago. His notions of privacy and propriety are probably much more conservative than ours, and I feel like that makes it unlikely that he’d go into any sort of detail, at least at early in this process, about his feelings/emotions or the specificities of his attractions. We’re talking about a man who doesn’t even use his own name. It’s difficult to picture him going into depth about his desires and love life.

Secondly, he’s a bit of a social coward. (He’s not a physical coward, of course, he jumped on that bomb in the garden without hesitation, and acknowledged after the fact that he gotten caught up in the moment, and therefore hadn’t really thought about how a bomb couldn’t hurt him.) And I get it, I’m a bit of a social coward, too, so no judgement. He probably faced a lot of ridicule in his life. Being a social coward is totally fair. But he doesn’t put himself into situations that might involve awkward interpersonal interactions if he can help it, and legs it whenever interactions he’s already in become to awkward for him. I feel like he’s probably quite desperate (although he’d never admit to it) to save face and protect what bits of his ego remain unscathed.

Think about it: he could have spoken to Fanny on his own about her nightly screaming disturbing him in s1e1, they have a clear association established at the outset of the show, they leave Heather’s room together at the end of the very first scene, but he doesn’t do so until he has the weight of the whole group to back him up about the screaming at their meeting. He had to buck up his courage and give himself his little ‘over the top we go’ pep talk before going to speak to Alison in Gorilla War. Also, if there was actually something wrong with his soldiers’ horseplay after hours in Reddy Weddy- if it was breaking regulations or even his own orders for quiet hours- and he heard it, he could have gone down directly when he heard it, confronted whoever was involved and order them to stop or put them on report. But no, instead he addressed the entire group of soldiers in a sixteen point morning brief. He even dispatched Pat to confront Alison about the party in s2e2, instead doing it himself… and spit out his apology/reconciliation with Pat at the end as fast as possible. And as for legging it when things get awkward, see his retreats following the group confronting him in Getting Out and after Alison telling him he wasn’t needed in the Grey Lady- and on a more figurative than literal level, but most relevantly, his quick turn from ‘I’ll miss you’ to ‘we’ll miss you’ with Havers in Reddy Weddy.

This is not a man who wants to be in awkward or embarrassing situations. And I think that coming out, at least at first, will probably be a bit embarrassing for him- it was scandalous in his time, and I think it will take him longer to get over that feeling and come to terms with himself than it will to finally acknowledge that he’s gay. So I doubt he’d make more of it than he utterly feels he has to, at least at first. And of course, he’d have to be a bit afraid that people would judge him or stop associating with him over it, as sadly, in his own time many people would have done, and most of the ghosts are from even earlier times than he was. So that might add more hesitation…

And thirdly, he doesn’t like and/or respect many of his house mates. The other twentieth century ghosts are the only ones he spends much time with. I doubt he’d go out of his way to communicate much of anything to the rest if it wasn’t “mission related” much less discuss his sexuality with them. He mostly disregards Humphrey. See his, “Oh, it’s you.” Mary obviously doesn’t like him and he only associates with her when it might be useful for his ‘missions.’ He clearly doesn’t think much of Thomas and doesn’t really even bother including him in his plans. These aren’t people he’s going to have heart-to-hearts with.

With those constraints in place, here’s a non-exhaustive list of possibilities by which I might see his coming out finally happening. They’re really just scenarios I made for myself on how I might see him coming out and I like to keep my options open (the first three are strategies he might go for, the last is an alternate scenario, presented in decreasing levels of directness on his part):

1) The ‘pull the bandage off quickly and hope it doesn’t sting too much’ strategy.

The Captain waits for the end of one of their various group activities or meetings, where all announcements seem to be made, gets up, clears his throat, stammers a bit, announces it tersely, using the most proper popular word for homosexuality that existed in his time (think: “Heh-hem. Er. Um. Well. It has recently come to my attention that I am- er- well- as it happens- gay. I, uh, thought it should be noted. That is all.”), and then beats a hasty retreat, so he doesn’t have to try to cope with the potentially negative aftermath. Of course, there isn’t a negative aftermath, because many of the ghosts already have guessed and the rest don’t really care. Someone, probably Pat, because he does the bulk of the emotional labor in the group, and more importantly, he’s Cap’s closest friend, would have to go after him. He would of course be initially defensive, and Pat would have to sooth his feathers a bit- or maybe just spit it out over his defensiveness- that he guessed a long time ago and so had plenty of other people, and they were just waiting for him to be ready, and really, it’s fine, and no one’s going to disown him for it.  

2) The ‘well maybe I should tell my friends with the hope they support me’ strategy.

He gets together with a small group, the people whose company he actually values, definitely Fanny and Pat, maybe Julian, probably Alison either at the same time or after he finishes with his ghosts pals, and says it in much the same way as the previous scenario, but waiting for their reactions rather than retreating straight away. Pat and Alison, I expect, would answer with something like ‘yeah, we figured that one out a long time ago, actually, and it’s completely fine’ and Julian’s reaction would probably be something like, ‘well, obviously.’ Fanny’s had a lot of character growth since season one, when I expect her reaction would have been very shrill and judgmental, probably still would be a touch less warm and/or nonchalant, but I picture it as something like a sigh, followed by a pat on the arm and something like, ‘well, I still like you better than everyone else here, anyway.’ Word would eventually trickle to everyone else by way of social osmosis. Or not. No one seems to care if Humphrey or the plague ghosts are well informed.  

3) The ‘I’m not brave enough to actually go through the process of actually telling anyone anything about me so let’s just drop hints and hope everyone figures it out without making a big deal about it’ strategy.  

The indirect approach (I’m rather fond of this one, but mostly because it was my own primary coming out approach)… he first sends out feelers to certain people on the topic of homosexuality, probably Alison, since she’s modern, hosted a lesbian wedding, and very much implied that she’d be ready to keep scandalous secrets for him in Reddy Weddy, and  possibly maybe also Julian, as he’s the most sexually experienced/knowledgeable, and after Alison spent a while inundating him with ‘it’s okay to be gay’ messages (along with a sudden and entirely unexplained influx of LGBT media) as she’s socially clever enough to see that’s what he’s looking for and after Julian spent a while telling him probably far more than he ever actually wanted to know about the potentialities of gay sex, that might boost the Captain’s confidence enough to let him start dropping hints to people, instead of telling them outright (consciously commenting on the attractiveness of men they see rather than occasionally accidentally blurting it out- see ‘the handsome one’- occasionally putting forth an opinion or stance on the LGBT world ‘it would have been nice if gay marriage was acceptable when I was alive,’ maybe occasionally mentioning how certain men would make cute couple), expecting them to meet him in the middle and figure out the point on their own… of course, many of them have already realized, so this isn’t a problem. It’s entirely possible, though, that Mary (world view not terribly grounded in reality) and Kitty (lack of life experience and/or instruction about life, see the how are babies made subplot) never pick up the hints on their own and someone else eventually has to tell them.

4) The ‘someone puts him out of his misery’ scenario.

Cap acknowledges to himself that he’s gay first and then, wishing to avoid embarrassment or lack of acceptance, obviously, awkwardly, painfully tries to disguise it and in doing so draws attention to it, until a third party decides to put him out of his misery and tell him that many of them figured it out ages ago and that everyone is fine with it. Maybe Pat. Maybe Alison. I kind of like the idea of it being Fanny (with her lovely character growth and her couple of suspicious glances his way in the Perfect Day), actually, by way of something like ‘You know, I was entirely prepared to continue on living with my husband, George, keeping his secrets, about the, uh, sort of person he was, and you’re at least one better than him, given that you at least never murdered me- or, for that matter, never married some poor woman you had no interest in to shield yourself from scrutiny… and so, what I’m saying is, I wouldn’t turn my back on you for being the, uh, sort of person you are, either, and maybe things have progressed enough that you don’t actually have to keep secrets at all.’ Cap would take all of this in with a mixture of mortification and relief. I’m rather fond of this scenario, too.  

 As for the second bit of the question, once his sexuality is out there, though, and no one judges him or hates him for it- and some are quite supportive- I do see him becoming more self-accepting. If no one’s judging him, does he need to judge himself so harshly? And also more confident. Because some of those things that he’s always felt different about and in the past has probably been ridiculed about in the past (even if he’s in denial about being gay, he and quite a few other people had to at the very least note that he’s not particularly interested in women), are, apparently just fine now. So he’s a bit more just fine now himself. And that weight of always trying to be someone else, someone who’s just right, can lift and he can relax a bit more. And that would probably help him a lot, too. I see it as a slow sort of thawing process. No matter what way he comes out, I still see Alison as very helpfully providing a variety of LGBT media to help this process along. And maybe he’d eventually get to the point where he processed enough and warmed up enough to be able to talk more in depth, at least with his friends, about what it was like being him in repressed pre-war Britain, and what sort of men he’s attracted to (I enjoy the idea of him and Fanny- gradually overcoming her own repression- scoping out hot men together). Maybe he’ll even luck out one of his male housemates will decide (or has already decided) that bisexuality is a valid option and he’ll get a date (insert whichever ghost y’all ship him with here). I bet Alison would totally help him set up a nice date, too, with her convenient still-functional-in-the-mortal-realm hands. And it would be nice to maybe see him get a taste of actual happiness.    

[adhd-ahamilton]

I got to see Hamilton in Sydney!!

It was a seriously, seriously amazing time – I was always worried that by the time I finally got to see Hamilton on stage (I was even supposed to see it in America last year lmfao) it wouldn’t mean the same anymore. And like, obviously it’s not my hyperfixation anymore. But even like this, it was still an incredible experience! I always figured that the recording would focus more on close-ups and the like because you can’t really see that on stage, but you really can see so much of what’s going on when you see it live and the whole stage is full of things to notice!

I have a lot of thoughts about it (mainly about the Australian cast, though some of these things could just be live performance things)!

Firstly, only two lines had their wordings changed:

* ‘John Adams doesn’t have a real job, anyway’ → ‘Vice president is not a real job, anyway.’ This got a good laugh from the audience; obviously it was changed to preserve the joke, since most Aussies wouldn’t have a good idea of who John Adams was. (I explained the joke when I watched the recording with my parents.)

* ‘Weehawken. Dawn.’ → ‘Jersey. Dawn.’ This was a bit of a surprise, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Aussies also wouldn’t know Weehawken (I didn’t even get that he was referring to a place when I first heard it), while Jersey is very clear because they already made a joke about it. (That one didn’t get much of a laugh though, ofc lol) And it’s actually more consistent because later they do say ‘we were near the same spot my son died, is that why’ so they drive that connection even deeper.

I don’t think there were any other music/staging/choreography differences from the recording – just the acting. But ooh, this really was differently-acted!

Hamilton

I love Lin-Manuel Miranda. I love his energy and enthusiasm and intelligence and his optimism. But while I loved his dorky version of Hamiton, I have to admit, I didn’t always think it matched up with even the musical’s script, let alone the real person. This Hamilton, though? I kept thinking about all the ways he felt different from the original, and almost every time, it was like ‘yeah, this feels more like what I know of the real Hamilton.’ (Or at least, the Hamilton we wrote about in fic.)

This Hamilton is aggressive and prickly. Up until Helpless, we don’t really see him smile – which makes sense, y’know, with ‘talk less, smile more.’ When he confronts Burr at the beginning of the play, he doesn’t have Miranda’s overly energetic and talkative air, he’s more pushy and too intense. You really feel like, oh, yeah, he’s just walking up to someone on the street and badgering them into telling him about their life story. When he says ‘God, I wish there was a war’ he’s less naive and more so hyperfocused on his goal he doesn’t notice he’s said something super insensitive. When Burr says ‘You wanna get ahead?’ his ‘Yes’ isn’t quiet and firm, it’s more ‘yes obviously, nobody would not want to get ahead, so just hurry up and tell me already.’

And that’s just in the first couple of songs! He continues on like this, with that kind of burning intensity and hot temper, through the musical, though ofc it softens at important times. Importantly, his relationship with Burr is largely based in frustration. When he does ‘My Shot’, it honestly feels less like he’s singing to impress the guys and more like he’s challenging Burr and everything he just told him; I’m sure I saw him glancing back at Burr several times. Likewise, when he tells Burr to go get Theodosia, it’s not questioning – he’s outright saying that if he really loved her, he’d take any risk for her. And in Schuyler Defeated, his ‘Burr?’ isn’t questioning there, either – he’s already angry, he’s just demanding his attention. He genuinely seems to like Burr in a weird way that even he might not understand at times, but for the most part he just seems to find him really frustrating and is always trying to incite him to do more.

This Hamilton also feels very independent, and even aloof. In The Story of Tonight, while the other guys are totally sincere and moved by it all, Hamilton feels sorta… distant. At one point he half walks off until Laurens brings him back, which I think happens in the recording as well, but here I especially felt like that was how he was ‘really’ feeling. Not that he was being manipulative or lying in any way, just that he couldn’t be in the moment because he was still stuck in his head thinking about the future. And the whole way through, he very rarely seems to properly open up – my friend said afterwards that Hurricane hits so much harder when it’s the first time he’s really vulnerable in the entire musical. Which is basically how it happens.

It’s funny – you think of Hamilton and Burr as being contrasting this way, with Burr keeping his cards close to his chest and not revealing what he really wants until The Room Where It Happens, but this Hamilton doesn’t feel far off. But rather than keeping a secret per se, it’s more… he has such an incredibly strong, intense drive, and you’re never super certain where it comes from. And in Hurricane, it suddenly becomes clear – all this time, he’s still caught up in that trauma, and still feels like he needs to fight and scrape just to survive, even when it turns into this self-destructive impulse. Honestly, Hurricane has always been kind of a weird song – he’s been corrupted and is not the most sympathetic beforehand, but then you get this grand slow inspiring song talking about how he suffered in the past and overcame it, but THEN you cut to an almost comedic number about how he fucked everything up for himself and his family. In Miranda’s version, that mood up-and-down always felt a little too jarring. Here it made perfect sense – it was so shocking to see how vulnerable he was at the beginning, and then the song isn’t just repeating what we learned in the beginning, it’s explaining what he’s been keeping deep down all along, but also making it clear that this is manic and awful and destructive.

Part of that is the singing, too. This Hamilton can rap really well, but his singing voice is startlingly gentle and beautiful. It really helps to get across the sincerity of his feelings in Helpless, Dear Theodosia, and as I said Hurricane. On the other hand, there are also times his voice just goes flat, like there are so many emotions he can’t process them – you see that a bit in My Shot when he gets worried (‘I never had a group of friends before’), but it REALLY stings when he says ‘I have so much work to do.’ That hit me way harder than Miranda’s version :(

However, when you combine this Hamilton’s aloofness with that certainty and intelligence, you also get a version of him that is particularly… ironic? He’s always crossing his arms (when he’s not rubbing his face with a palm; those two gestures repeat constantly through the play), and kinda stepping back and Watching people, with a bit of a sense of self-important and even patronising judgement. This is very much ‘So quick-witted!’ ‘Alas, I admit it.’ He definitely does come across like a dude who thinks he is ‘smartest in the room,’ and puts way too much stock in his own opinion. Particularly with Burr whenever they were getting along there was a distinct sense of ‘You know what? I actually think you’re pretty interesting. And my positive judgement is hard to come by, so that’s a big compliment.’ (Burr does not seem to get this weirdly condescending vibe though, lol.) Honestly…. I gotta admit: I really don’t like people like that, haha – though I can’t say it’s entirely inappropriate for Hamilton characterisation. This Hamilton genuinely feels difficult, and that matches up to what happens in the script.

But, the consequence is that after Hurricane, some of the later songs didn’t have quite as much of an impact on me as in the original. In It’s Quite Uptown, I could somehow never quite lose that vision of Hamilton as a bit sarcastic and superior – the way he rubs at his face in grief still just felt a little… put-on and theatrical, like you can hear the frustrated sigh underneath. And this is a song that demands complete, total, unrelenting vulnerability – Miranda’s Hamilton sounds like he’s dying the whole time and that makes the emotional stakes really felt. Maybe it’s that his voice was TOO gentle in this song – Miranda’s more awkward voice actually adds to the exhausted brokenness of the situation?

And finally, when we got to The World Was Wide Enough… Miranda’s speech there in the silence might just be my favourite sequence in the entire musical, so I think anyone else would have struggled to match up to that. It doesn’t help that I was distracted trying to figure out Burr in this scene (which I’ll get to later). It was still beautiful, of course, but ‘What is a legacy?’ just feels so so very Lin-Manuel Miranda and anyone else singing that just doesn’t feel the same.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this version of Alexander Hamilton – as I said, he felt much closer to the actual characterisation I always imagined for him. And this one showed some really fascinating vulnerability in unexpected places, even if the ending didn’t quite land as well for me.

Burr

This Burr was really, really fascinating as well – an interpretation that feels different all the way through, but really pays off at the end with something very striking.

So, something the group of us all agreed was that this Burr felt a lot more like the ‘trust fund baby’ he calls himself. There’s something elegant and refined about him, a rich person who is used to moving through the world as a person to be admired. He’s actually quite graceful, somehow, even though he barely dances? But that also really brings to the fore one particular element – entitlement. (Seriously, my mum is physically incapable of bringing up Burr without mentioning the word ‘entitled’, lol.)

This is a Burr who is used to not having to work for things. He just sort of expects things to fall into his lap, eventually, in contrast to Hamilton. The world will eventually shape to match his desires – that’s how things work. Even in the latter part of the musical, it doesn’t so much feel like he needs to fight and scrape like Hamilton to get ahead, but more like… getting ahead is his birthright, and he just needs to effect that inevitable change into the world. But I’ll get to all that later.

The other thing my friend said was that this Burr feels very much like a preacher’s son, and the more I thought about that the more I agree. There’s something almost… toxically positive about him – the smiles don’t feel two-faced and manipulative so much as maybe like, wilfully ignorant? There’s a very ‘Don’t fret, God will work things out in the end :)’ feel about him, actually. But there’s also something deeply naive in him. Leslie Odom Junior’s version also had some of that genuine lack of understanding – when he muses in confusion over Hamilton in Wait For It, or when his face scrunches in confusion when he says ‘I don’t see why that has to end’ in Schuyler Defeated, and this one does all that, but it feels like an even more inescapable part of his character.

Like, there’s something about this Burr that is just a bit… lame. A bit ‘Hello Fellow Kids.’ But, intentionally!! As I said, he’s a preacher’s son. When he tries to act kinda cool or badass, it just doesn’t quite work. When he interacts with the other guys, even as he smiles wanly and shakes it off when they insult him, you feel like he does still want to be – or even think he is? - part of that group of cool young men. He’s just too… nice, almost. I felt a little more bad during The Story Of Tonight (Reprise) and all. And he seems to take it really earnestly that Hamilton likes him, even if, like I said, there’s a sorta superior quality coming from Hamilton.

He just comes across more naive. Rather than a manipulator, this Burr comes across as more of a shameless Yes Man, who doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what he’s doing. But I also sort of felt like other characters easily saw through him, and Burr didn’t quite realise that. Like with Jefferson, it sorta felt like he thought he was being really strategic but Jefferson was just like ‘sure, this guy works as an ally, even if he’s kinda annoying.’

And when it comes to Wait For It… the song makes it clear that bad things have happened to him – he hasn’t gone through life without suffering – but he hasn’t had the same reaction Hamilton has had. While Hamilton learned nothing will come to him unless he takes it, it feels like Burr learned that things will just… happen to him, good or bad, and he can’t control it. Nothing that has ever really affected Burr has been of his choice – he inherited his position, and then his parents died, and  all of that was just the uncontrollable whim of the universe. Leslie Odom Junior’s version emphasised the ‘I am the one thing I can control’ aspect a bit more – you feel that that version really had worked hard and struggled for the sake of his studies and job, but this Wait For It gave me a very uncomfortable feeling of being trapped. It’s as though everything about him is already decided, and even his efforts aren’t personal decisions so much as just what was natural and expected of him to do.

And that makes the second half of the story feel very different for him. In Leslie Odom Junior’s version, we see him take that self-control to new levels – that realisation that there is something that means as much to him as all of that drive and intensity Hamilton puts out, and it’s his own ambition. That he does want that, and he will have to fight and get his hand dirty to make it happen. As the story goes on, he becomes increasingly desperate and fearful, understanding more and more what it was to be that kid in the hurricane, becoming viscerally aware that terrible things can and will happen to him unless he stops them.

This Burr doesn’t feel like that. His downfall isn’t frantic. It’s very very cold.

In The Room Where It Happens, yes, his ambition crystallises and he changes strategy. But it feels less like an electric jolt, or an earthquake, and more of an epiphany. It’s okay for him to do these things. It’s right. He belongs in the room where it happens. Whatever he does to bring him there is by definition right and good.

He honestly seems to be feeling good through much of it. He’s so smiley when he comes up to Jefferson. He seems even more confused than Leslie’s Burr when Hamilton is actually mad at him for unseating Schuyler. And in The Election of 1800, there’s nothing of the original’s tired, manic energy, like he’s pushing himself to the brink and plastering on a smile to get through it. When this Burr campaigns, he’s energized and charismatic and friendly and filled with almost a kind of serenity. Like this is what he was born to do. His future is almost here – he just needs to reach out a little and it will be in his grasp.

Which, brief aside here while I analyse this haha – so, in Australia, a big part of our culture is what is called Tall Poppy Syndrome. i.e., an instinctive bitterness and hostility towards those who are perceived to stand above others. It’s often described as an aggression towards successful people, but I think that’s only part of it. Australians would describe their culture as breezy and casual and relaxed, but there’s also something disaffected about it, IMO. You’re not meant to ever take anything too seriously. Yes, we all take the piss out of politicians, but it’s sorta ‘lame’ to really seriously oppose them, too. It’s like our culture is stuck in the mindset of a self-conscious fifteen year old, where we’re all sorta lazily cynical and ‘bluntly honest’, but you’re not supposed to ever actually do anything about it all. Caring too much is kinda embarrassing. You’re just supposed to make fun of people and keep living your life. We don’t get the same fundamentalist groups intent on forcing their viewpoint on society like America does, but we also don’t get the same idealists who fervently believe that if we work hard we can make things better. They exist, for sure. But… well, it’s hard for me to imagine an Australian Leslie Knope, you know? (Who, btw, is one of my favourite fictional characters of all time, for reference.)

Watching Burr in The Election of 1800, I was struck by a memory. It was an Australian season of The Amazing Race, and on top of all of the typical relaxed Australian reality show contenders (seriously, I don’t know what the fuck Drag Race Down Under is on, that is the most un-Australian reality show I have ever SEEN), there was one couple that were I suppose Go-Getters. The type who eat healthily (probably vegan) and get up every morning in their athleisure to work out at the gym or go for runs. They were peppy and enthusiastic and they announced with huge smiles that they were going to WIN this! And the other contestants absolutely despised them. At one point, they did something to attract specific ire – honestly, it was probably nothing more than just not helping another duo who were going the wrong way, because in Australian reality shows everyone helps. But after that, multiple groups all ganged up to sabotage them. They took such delight in watching these two cheery people’s optimism flag, so very self-assured in having taught them to ‘not take yourself too seriously.’ Burr, as he was campaigning, reminded me of them.

It’s really telling, I think, that Burr is the one who reminded me a little of Leslie Knope, here – albeit obviously a much darker version. The kind of person who dorkily believes in the system and puts himself out there unselfconsciously, whose wide smiles are unironic and unmocking. In the original, Lin Manuel Miranda actually compared Hamilton to Leslie Knope at one point, with Hamilton’s ‘thirty years of disagreements.’ It’s a very Australian thing, to make Hamilton less earnest and more aloof and sarcastic, to make his anger as much about frustration with other people as about believing in something himself, and to make Burr, by comparison, sincere. Australians don’t really trust sincerity. Honesty is to be framed as an insulting joke, and Burr is just too polite to do that.

When the results come, Burr’s serene smile only very very slowly fades. Before his expression really drops, he turns away. When Your Obedient Servant starts, he’s quiet. The whole time he sings, he’s measured and controlled and entirely certain of himself. He doesn’t have LOJ’s grit or spikes in volume on ‘just to keep me from winning.’ He’s unnervingly quiet.

Even into The World Was Wide Enough this continues. In the original, Burr is outright frantic. He’s desperate and shaking with anger and fear, and when he points at Hamilton’s glasses and the like, you can feel that he actually isn’t sure of himself – that he’s trying to justify this to himself and knows he sounds crazy, but he just can’t pull back now. His voice shakes and goes up and down. When he says ‘we were near the same spot his son died, is that way?’ it rises and when he says ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’ he cracks in real tears, like the mention of Philip reminded him of what’s at stake here, like that really is the reason he’ll kill him. This Burr stays quiet and cold. He doesn’t waver.

If that Burr was desperate, this one feels… and I hope this doesn’t sound like a joke: like a thwarted rich nice guy. The other Burr learned from Hamilton too well, and is replicating his self-destructive energy. This Burr hasn’t learned anything at all. Winning is still his birthright, and Hamilton has stolen that from him. Burr deserves it, and he deserves to punish Hamilton for this. It’s not an explosion of shock, a scrabbling for purchase in this new chaotic world that will doom them both. It’s vindictive. Burr knows what he is doing and he wants to hurt Hamilton for all Hamilton has hurt him.

After the shot, I was surprised to find myself not tearing up as I expected (usually, these two last songs always get me). With the original Burr, his singing is laced with pain as much as regret. When he repeats ‘death doesn’t discriminate’, we feel his sorrow as he fits Hamilton into the same kind of category as his parents and wife, as someone important to him who died. When he says ‘he may have been the first one who died, but I’m the one who paid for it,’ we understand that he’s referring to the depth of his grief. That having to live with knowing he killed Hamilton feels, in this moment, worse than death.

This Burr is still cold. And when he finally gets to it, and says ‘I’m the one who paid for it,’ he looks away. He almost spits. His face is contorted in bitterness. It’s rough and gritty, for the first time in the entire musical.

I can remember it vividly – it was shocking to see, and sends shivers through me to remember. I’d been waiting for that cathartic sadness, but it wasn’t here. This Burr, deep down, didn’t feel for Hamilton, at least in the end. He was pissed off because for once in his life his actions had consequences. Because of Hamilton, he had fucked up his life forever. His worldview had been shattered. And at that moment, that was all he could think about – that resignation and bitterness and anger. All along, maybe, he had been nice only because he’d had no reason not to be. Once it didn’t benefit him, and his pride and entitlement were damaged, he showed who he truly was.

It… was an experience, lol. Honestly I think it was partly lost on me because I so loved the original version and was like working myself up ready for a good cry here, so I didn’t get to just sit and take the full impact – I kept searching for a grief or fear that wasn’t there. But I don’t think this version is bad! It’s a very valid interpretation of Burr, and it was extremely fascinating to see unfold.

If I have one critique, it’s that one kind of problem with the whole Australian show is that the performances lacked grit. I really wanted more edge, more aggression, more intensity of those emotions – something more sharp and shocking. Hamilton delivers this kind of thing at times, especially early on, but ofc it fades away in the end. Jefferson, as I’ll get to, is too smooth-talking while also having that cold serene kind of anger. When we lack both Hamilton’s broken It’s Quiet Uptown and Burr’s frantic ‘this man will not make an orphan of my daughter’, we don’t get those life and death stakes quite as highly. By focusing all of Burr’s anger in one line, I think the rest of the songs didn’t have as much of an impact as I’d like.

But!! I really enjoyed this interpretation, and I’d love to see it again knowing what’s coming!

Eliza

OKAY nobody else is going to get those huge walls of text lmaoooo

Anyway this Eliza wasn’t a super different interpretation than Phillipa Soo’s, but I think she pulled it off at least as well, if not even better?

So, the really big obvious thing about this Eliza is her smile. Her actress has this amazing, big toothy grin that feels so lacking in guile, but also still so comforting. It’s so attention-grabbing and almost impossible not to be affected by. It just screams ‘hey, things will turn out okay, so cheer up! :)’ And it’s something that just comes out on Eliza as if on instinct – she’s wearing it through most of That Would Be Enough, and at the end of Take A Break when she escorts Angelica away, and even in Blow You All Away when she’s comforting Phillip or in flickers when describing Hamilton’s old letters in Burn.

The thing about Eliza as a character is that she’s basically defined by her emotional intelligence. She feels as strongly as Hamilton, but where he is uncontrolled and reckless and both self and other destructive, she is the opposite of all of those things. She’s measured and practical and knows exactly who she is and what she wants at all times. She will sacrifice for others, but it’s because she decides to, and if she is hurt, she will not keep herself in harm’s way. It’s an interesting kind of competence and I can understand in theory why it’s cool to have a female character like that even if I, as a neurodivergent mentally ill woman cannot relate in the slightest and feel sorta awkward to be judged against.

This Eliza nails all of that perfectly. She’s effortlessly charming and soothing whenever she wants to be – in That Would Be Enough, when Hamilton is turned away and putting up all of his sharpest bristles, you can feel her become something soft and liquid and find her way up against him regardless without getting hurt. It’s that strength of character that makes their relationship really work – it’s not necessarily that she completely understands him or is good at ‘handling’ him, but that her certainty of purpose and deliberate, skilful compassion make her perfectly suited to calm Hamilton’s deep down insecurities. She loves him entirely and makes him believe that. And when Hamilton responds with his own intensity, she loves that, and believes in that.

And all of that makes it mean so much more when she steps out of that natural mediator role for a moment. In Helpless she’s adorable, so giddy and excited and so clearly crushing on Hamilton with a youthful energy that somehow doesn’t feel all that naive. As she sings she’s constantly glancing back over at him, it’s really cute haha. But she does feel a bit more vulnerable here – it does feel like she’s silently asking for help from Angelica when they talk. More startlingly, there’s Non-Stop – when she calls out ‘Alexander’, it is SHARP. It’s the same kind of tone Hamilton takes when he calls out to Burr in Schuyler Defeated. It’s a bit startling actually, but in a good way.

That tone, I think, foreshadows Burn. Again, I think this Eliza takes the same tone as Philippa Soo, but this version (maybe just because I saw it live!) embodied it even more – she talks about her own desperation to understand, re-reading their old letters, and cites Angelica as back-up, but when she reaches the mid-point, she stops and seems to think. She weighs up the situation and her emotions. And when she says ‘I’m erasing myself from the narrative,’ it is very deliberate and conscious. She is in control of her fate and she can see herself objectively and this is what is just. Her moral core is impenetrable. She sees long arc of the future that Hamilton and Burr are so obsessed with and she says, yes, this is what should be done.

And then in It’s Quiet Uptown, that same self-certainty is there from the very first word. This whole musical, even at her lowest, Eliza has instinctively brought out that comforting, wide smile. Here, her face is expressionless. If Hamilton’s acting here didn’t quite hit my mark, Eliza’s was spot on. The withdrawal of that earlier warmth is all the colder when there is no doubt within her about it, and nobody can argue she’s wrong in that. When she takes Hamilton’s hand, she still doesn’t smile. It’s sad :(

Of all of the final songs, Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story hit me closest to the original. It’s actually almost jarring to see Eliza ask ‘have I done enough?’ This whole song, we hear a hasty energy to her she’s lacked all musical – the first sign that Hamilton has rubbed off on her, too. But when she asks ‘Will they tell your story?’ it’s still Eliza – this isn’t about a legacy, it’s because she’s still that giddy girl from Helpless who loves him and wants to do everything she can for the people she loves.

(Whenever she and Hamilton see each other but appear to walk past one another, only to circle around and meet in the middle again, I cry lmao;;)

Her gasp at the end is soft and quiet and delighted, as though she just spotted someone in the crowd who she hasn’t seen in years and can’t wait to catch up.

If I have one critique, it’s the lack of grit again. Her scream at Philip’s death wasn’t as wild and destroyed as Phillipa Soo’s, and while I like her gasp, I prefer the original’s shocked, overwhelming joy.

Overall though, she was extremely good! Her charisma was just blinding, but it was in that perfectly ‘mundane’ way you’d expect from Eliza. But that solid, immovable core always shone through. They really sold her relationship with Hamilton, too!

Angelica

This is the one I feel like I have the least to say about. My mum said she was the only character who just couldn’t quite match up to the original, and I don’t really agree, but I don’t have a huge amount to say, either.

This Angelica felt a bit older and more mature than Goldsberry. The original Angelica has a bit of brashness and vivid emotion to her – a bit more out there and exaggerated in her actions and expressions. More bold but also more chaotic. This one was a bit more quiet and considering. Diplomatic, maybe?

I actually worried when I first saw her that she wouldn’t be able to carry Satisfied because she was too confident and capable I wouldn’t be able to believe her vulnerability, but no, she pulled that off perfectly. When she was standing in the dark there in the end, the sadness radiated from her.

I actually got a lot more chemistry between her and Hamilton this time; I always thought I disliked the relationship in that canon because of my grudge against how LMM wrote it, but maybe it’s just that LMM was too old for her lmao. You’d think her quietness would contrast with Hamilton’s pushiness, but if anything it feels like she can just eyebrow-arch off his usual way of getting under people’s skin – when she says ‘you forget yourself’ it’s subtly disapproving, then when he delivers the punchline, it’s like he proves himself enough to earn her respect. Indeed, their mutual aloofness actually suits them both really well. You can just imagine them working together, quietly sharing their judgements on everyone else in the room around them. They’d be a terrifying power couple, and that really connects up to her advice in Take a Break.

I don’t have as much to say about the rest of the musical though. (actually IDK if that’s all partly just because by the end my ADHD brain had to work a lot harder to keep up, lol.) Her piece in The Reynalds Pamphlet did the job, and her singing in It’s Quiet Uptown was beautiful.

I guess, if I had to contrast them, the original Angelica felt more spirited and aggressive – very ‘you want a revolution? I want a revelation!’ - while this one felt more like the settled head of the family who already had her place but understood the world perfectly and knew she’d have to pick and choose what she wanted most. (...spoken like that she sounds like a big contrast to Burr, funnily enough?)

Lafayette/Jefferson

So not too much to say about Lafayette – the guy pretty much did him the same as Daveed Diggs, and pulling that off is very impressive but there isn’t too much to analyse here. If anything the Lafayette felt slightly less bright and cheery than the original, which may have been done to contrast with Jefferson.

Jefferson, on the other hand, was quite different. Diggs’ version is very loud and kinda abrasive and arrogant – always smiling and bouncing but with something clearly malicious lying behind all of that. He’s got a harshness to him, deliberately intimidating and surprisingly authentic in what he reveals of himself. He’s a villain character who’s fun to watch because he’s having fun himself and you gotta admire his balls.

This Jefferson is much more smooth and manipulative – maybe taking over from what Burr sometimes delves into? When he first appears, he plays to the crowd, encouraging the cheers, but it’s less arrogance and more like, he’s a celebrity putting on a show. He’s friendly and cheerful all through What’d I Miss?, disarmingly enjoyable to watch. He’s someone who knows the crowd and likes the crowd and is very very good and getting what he wants from the crowd without making it obvious he’s doing that. He’s definitely the type of #relatable celebrity fans would really want to defend.

But Hamilton represents a very clear change to his status quo. He starts off singing What’d I Miss? just in a fun, conversation-starting way as a rhetorical question, but after Hamilton introduces himself, he seems genuinely taken-aback. His last ‘What’d I miss?’ sounds like a genuine question, like, ‘wait wtf what’s going on here all of a sudden?’

And then we get the Cabinet Battles. Despite the above, Jefferson starts off his argument oozing with relaxed confidence. He doesn’t need to take any of this seriously – it’s already in the bag! Everyone loves him and as long as he makes some nice jokes and smiles disarmingly enough, he’ll always get what he want. And then Hamilton starts talking. And he’s pushy and hostile and sarcastic and mocking and angry and superior. And the whole time, Jefferson stands straight and Stares at him. We get none of Diggs’ ‘Haha, this guy is a riot! :D’ type of energy – this Jefferson is deeply displeased, and he is watching very, very carefully to take stock of the situation so he can put an end to it.

It’s actually really well done IMO – when the crowd oohed and ahhed, it felt like a 50/50 of ‘what the hell, people aren’t supposed to DISAGREE with Jefferson!’ and also ‘holy shit this guy is acting like an actual obnoxious child who needs to stfu right now.’ Both Jefferson’s easy entitlement and Hamilton’s unhelpful abrasiveness really got across.

In the second battle, Jefferson is much more careful. Whether it’s because he isn’t underestimating Hamilton anymore or because he cares much more about this, there’s an unamused urgency underlying everything he says. He still tries to be friendly and charming and diplomatic, but his smile drops often. This issue is important and he is not going to back down on it. It’s actually still not quite as immaturely insulting as Hamilton – more like, ‘can we stop humoring this asshole kid already and do something we very much need to be doing?’

(Also fun fact: in The Room Where It Happens, when we get to Jefferson’s version of events, Hamilton’s ‘I had nowhere else to turn’ is SO fake and sarcastic it was really funny, like even the Hamilton in Jefferson’s head can’t bring himself to actually say that sincerely.)

So, when we get to Washington On Your Side, he’s cold. At the time, he contrasts well with Burr, who is all smiles and surprisingly relaxed. This Jefferson is more like Angelica, quietly analysing the situation and slowly coming to a plan. The difference between cold, planning Jefferson and smooth-talking Jefferson is also great.

Because of all this, he has less of the really comedic stuff the original Jefferson got, with the exaggerated expressions and movements – in We Know, he’s more struck dumb by everything than the more over the top reactions Diggs did. But the controlled coldness contrasts with Hamilton better – it makes sense that he was the one who successfully connived himself to the top. And we get much more of that contrast between public and private Jefferson that is one of the interesting real-world meta statements, where who is was to the people and who he actually was were very different.

…….I think I had some kind of impression of ‘because I’m the president’ but I can’t remember what it was anymore. Hrm.

Anyway: enjoyed!!

Mulligan/Madison

So, how I’ve been saying the show lacked grit? I honestly think it might’ve all just collected in Hercules Mulligan lmao – obviously his parts are meant to be bold and brash and powerful, but these ones hit even harder than usual. His part in The World Turned Upside Down was just so Loud I could feel it in my chest! Great performance, I loved it!

Madison was very very different naturally, but also very different from the original version? While the original Madison felt tired and a bit disgruntled, like he was exhausted by Jefferson’s in-your-faceness and just wanted to get this done so he could get back to his work, his one felt much happier to be there. This Madison felt like he actually saw himself as Jefferson’s teammate, like he considered himself part of the show and was happy (even smug) to be helping out. When Jefferson passes him the microphone, rather than say ‘France’ with an irritated expression as if to say ‘everyone already knows this, just get on with it already’, it feels more like this Madison already rehearsed this with Jefferson deliberately. He calls out ‘France,’ as though it is some incredible zinger, like he’s been given the mic drop here. It’s pretty cute haha!

Overall this Madison felt a lot younger. Talking afterwards my mum mentioned that Mulligan’s role is hard because he has to switch to playing ‘an old man’, and was pretty surprised when I said Madison was actually the same age as Hamilton. This version felt a lot more age-appropriate. He still gets sick and starts coughing (and it feels a lot meaner when Hamilton makes fun of him! The dude was just so happy to be here – let him have his zingers!!), but aside from that he thrums with nervous energy behind Jefferson, like he’s ready to help out anytime he’s needed.

In all, he kinda feels like he fulfils that certain comedic henchman trope a bit? It really comes together with the ‘Can we get back to politics?’ ‘:’( please!!’ exchange. Madison isn’t made fun of, per se – it’s not like he really does enough in the script to get that kind of attention. But he’s just a bit funnier and more sympathetic, while also strangely feeling more like he and Jefferson are an actual team. (I mean, Jefferson hands him the mic as though he’s setting up a zinger, too. They’re both a bit ridiculous!)

Laurens/Phillip

Okay, this was one I was really curious about, for obvious reasons – LMM always sorta made it out that since he never included any of the Hamilton/Laurens stuff in the script, he kinda tried to act it in there more. In Story of Tonight or Ten Duel Commandments, or even briefly in the opening song, there’s meant to be a closeness that hints, however subtle, at that relationship.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get that at all here.

Laurens’ casting surprised me at first – he’s super short and extremely baby-faced, to the point that I wondered if he wasn’t played by a cis man. (His actor is a man, though, though ofc I wouldn’t know if he’s cis or not.) I was kinda confused about that all through the first act… until I got to the second act and, uh, remembered. But despite this – perhaps because of it? - he is an absolute firecracker. He’s hot-headed and rough and determined and every bit the young impassioned soldier.

He’s a bit more naive in the early songs – he seems genuinely friendly with Hamilton in The Story of Tonight, and you feel like he really does just like him from the moment he hears Non-Stop – but like I said, Hamilton is still pretty closed-off through all of that, so… it doesn’t really feel mutual. Hamilton likes him fine, but it doesn’t feel like he cares as much as Laurens does.

In Satisfied, he indeed seems super drunk, but it’s more like he’s just too young and drinking too much at a party than anything. The only time I really felt any particular chemistry between him and Hamilton actually comes from Story of Tonight Reprise – when Hamilton wanders off to speak with Burr, in sincere friendship, and Laurens comes over and starts ribbing Burr about his girl with almost malicious energy, it did sort of feel a little like he was jealous, if only that Hamilton and he had been talking so easily.

Finally, we get to Stay Alive. There, Hamilton and Laurens are just so angry and disgusted with Lee that they don’t really have room for anything else. It’s all very focused and determined and Manly, without any time for something softer or close between them. And I’m not sure how to feel about that. Laurens’ revulsion for Lee is historical record, and it says a lot about him and his values that that was so important to him. But there are other important parts of Laurens – that worry and fear and insecurity inside him, that ended up being so damaging to him. In such a limited script for him, ‘Alexander, you’re the closest friend I’ve got’ is really his one chance to show some of those emotions before he dies. Instead, Laurens never really gets to show that vulnerability, and I worry that it makes him feel too much like a ‘generic soldier character.’

I wonder if it’s because this Laurens looked so youthful that they sort of overcompensated, and felt the need to make him extra manly to make it clear he belonged there despite his appearance. But it sort of felt a bit too… macho for me. Nowhere to be found is that 18th century romantic friendship. Instead, it’s been replaced by a more WWI era Comrade and Comrade type deal. They’d die for each other, but would they write romantic letters to one another? And I think this is also unfortunately pretty Australian – real emotion is lame!! The only acceptable emotion is fucking hating your boss, and challenging him to a duel with your squadmate to get him what he deserves.

Well, I’m reading too much into it all, lol. But I always felt like the original Laurens barely got to show much of himself as it was, and this one felt even less so, unfortunately.

His final scene – is it We May Not Live To See Your Glory? - is done well, though. Again, Laurens just sorta feels like a generic young soldier, but ‘idealistic soldier who died too young’ is moving enough on its own. And in one of those rare moments, Hamilton really does feel shaken and vulnerable. ‘I have so much work to do,’ as I said, hurts – so lifeless and unlike him. Like nothing could process those emotions in him now, or express them.

Philip, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. First of all, yeah – having a shorter, younger-looking actor makes that Take a Break scene WAY less awkward, haha. It wasn’t even funny, it was just like ‘oh huh this just kinda looks all right?’ And the actor did really well playing a kid! He looked like a completely different person there, which is really good.

And then we get to Blow You All Away, and hoo boyy. If Laurens had been excessively confident, Phillip oozes uncertainty with everything he does. When he flirts with the girls ‘when I come back we’ll all strip down to our socks’ he manages to pull off the cocky act but in basically every other line you can see and hear the ‘a-am I doing this right? I’m not screwing this up, am I?’ radiating off of him. He definitely believes he’s doing the right thing – when he says ‘you talk about my father I will not let it slide’ there’s no hesitation – it’s just that he very clearly isn’t sure if he’s up to the task of doing it.

It was sorta interesting, actually – I think the original Phillip was more naively overconfident and reckless, and only had an attack of the nerves after he got himself into the duel. But – and this might just be me projecting here, lol – when this Philip confronts Eacker in the theatre, I got a real sense of like… ‘??? can I do this here? Where are you meant to threaten duels???’ and when Eacker is like ‘piss off, I’m watching this show now’ he seemed to wilt a lot, and straight up froze for a second or two, like he really didn’t know what to do at that point. And then of course when he talks to Hamilton he’s really worried…

And then his death. Somehow, I never used to cry much when this happened – it’s obviously very sad, but it didn’t manage to hit the right heartstrings to make crying, even in the recording. But oh god, this one was just awful… Even as he’s dying, Philip is still just so desperate for approval, like he’s so scared his parents will be mad at him for screwing it up, and Eliza is trying so hard to reassure him before he dies… I cried a lot :(

So overall, I really liked this Phillip, even if I don’t necessarily think it’s an improvement to the original. Laurens I kinda preferred the original, though this was still an interesting interpretation that gave me a lot to think about!

Washington

The guy did well! He has what Washington needs, and that’s a stature. When he’s on stage, your eyes are just naturally drawn to him. Even when he’s not doing much, he’s still a little intimidating. He has presence!

And in fact, this actor had an interesting quirk where the whites of his eyes could be seen easily? In Right-Hand Man, as he’s striding around at the center of the stage, his eyes just looked white, and it drilled in that slightly manic, crazed intensity underlying his strict, rigid rapping and self-control. It have the whole thing a really great effect.

But this Washington also had a sort of almost… slight fem-ness to him, that I didn’t get as much from the initial? It’s funny how during One Last Time, I suddenly got this vivid though, ‘oh, it’s like he’s a cool supportive teacher.’ Which… obviously?? Haha. Like he’s clearly a mentor to Hamilton all the way through! But it’s that specifically teacher description I really felt all of a sudden, that he was warm and approachable and gentle at heart, despite everything I said above lol.

Like, I feel like this Washington was just a bit less stoic than the original? Slightly more expressive and less stern. When he says ‘I’m from Virginia, so watch your mouth,’ in the original, it sounded like he was genuinely kinda offended? It was ‘watch your mouth’ as in ‘don’t disrespect my home state.’ But in this one, Washington sorta grimaces a little theatrically and says it more incredulously, like he’s actually saying ‘you wanna maybe try thinking about who you’re talking to before you say that shit, son?’ It’s more of a warning – less that he’s upset and more that other people would be, so he should really try thinking before he speaks.

He also still does the part in Who Lives Who Dies Who Tells Your Story when Eliza says she spoke out against slavery and he kinda stumbles and stares and then looks down in shame, given the real Washington’s actions.

I liked him! I felt a little more warmly to him in the end than the original, but that might just be a product of seeing it live.

Peggy/Maria

Okay so I don’t really have anything to say about Peggy, which had basically always been the case, hah. :’) I mean, I think this version made the transformation between her initial wariness vs her later excitement more clear? But that is very likely a live show thing.

Maria, though!! Honestly? I was never really a fan of the original Maria’s performance. She just feels too much like a cliched seductress archetype, and while you can argue that that’s the role she plays in the story, especially since there’s the uncertainty over whether or not she was deliberately setting Hamilton up, it just feels too on the nose. It makes it harder to believe Hamilton didn’t know what was up the moment he saw her, which I don’t think is intentional. And it makes me feel bad for the real Maria Reynolds.

But this one was very different – much more vulnerable. When she first talks to Hamilton, she’s not doing a sexy pout and throaty singing, she’s just sorta… quiet and monotone and lost, much like Hamilton gets when he’s too emotional as well. Like she’s in shock and truly has nowhere to go is just sort of crumpling as a person. And when she propositions Hamilton, again it feels sincere – she just wants him to stay.

And after he talks to James Reynolds (just as perfectly, theatrically assholish as in the original), that continues. When he confronts her, she genuinely seems desperate and scared and upset. I felt so, so sorry for her that I was yelling in my head right then ‘you can’t just leave her now!’ at Hamilton – and then immediately remembered what that’d mean… it’s a much more gripping situation.

And then in the end, James Reynolds walks off and claps, and Maria just stops, face and body entirely stoic, and follows after him in silence… Is that an indication it was all an act from her? Or is it that she’s so scared of him that she totally closes up and can’t cry, can’t show any kind of emotion or weakness around him, and just has to try and be a silent and flawless wife? No matter how you interpret it, it’s chilling.

Oh, and IDK if this is done in the recording, but in The Reynolds Pamphlet, she gets given one, too, and her look of just… upset/disgust is also really painful. At the end they say ‘his poor wife’, but who thinks about poor Maria?? :(

I still wouldn’t say that this is an accurate adaptation of the real events, since I think that gets right into the script and structure of Hamilton in ways that a regional performance just can’t really make better. But this version is at least better. It plays Maria with more dignity, I think, than making her into a sexy bombshell, even if that bombshell act does get subverted in the original as well. This one feels significantly more sympathetic.

King George

He was great!! He was played by an older actor who seems to have done a lot of serious Shakespearian plays, which of course makes him absolutely perfect – both in that he could flawlessly depict that pompous old privileged Brit, but also in that he probably has a good backing in comedy and political satire :P He was clearly having the time of his life playing to the crowd – throughout all his time on stage he was constantly alternating between doing one or two lines very serious and mostly straight, before doing something absolutely hilarious. That back and forth worked extremely well!

Also I never saw it properly on the recording but when he gets up and dances in the middle of the stage during the Reynolds Pamphlet?? AMAZING.

Obviously, Johnathon Groff is his own personality and is friends with LMM and brings all of that unique stuff to the table that nobody could replicate. But this actor was just as much fun to watch, and does have the added benefit of really looking and sounding the part.

Final Thoughts

I’d really love to hear other people’s thoughts on this run, especially from the perspective of it being an Australian cast/audience – I really hoped the booklet would include at least a piece or two from someone who worked on this run, but it did not. (In fact, it was one of the scantest musical books I’ve seen? I don’t regret buying it as a souvenir of course but usually they have at least one or two interesting pieces of new content aside from just backstage pics…)

What really sticks out to me is the structure of it all. Hamilton is definitely the central character that brings everything together through the first ¾, but around The Room Where it Happens Burr starts to take over bit by bit, allowing him to keep up the energy as Hamilton falls back further and further into becoming both less of a hero but also more quiet and passive. By The Election of 1800, Burr is giving us all the energy – until the end of The World Was Wide Enough, when he too falls back and Eliza takes over.

Given this, this Hamilton did an incredible job throughout most of the performance – he had amazing chemistry with every other character and really exemplified that scrappy, intelligent, driven, but aggressive and difficult character that never quite shined through in LMM’s performance for me. Burr’s more subtle performance complements that well, and he even arguably outdoes Leslie Odom Junior in The Election of 1800. However, after that I think his quieter acting and singing sort of fails to fill the hole Hamilton left behind, reducing the climax a bit of its energy. Thankfully, Eliza was able to bring that all back for her final number.

It also strikes me that this performance is a bit less teary, at least from the men. Eliza, Angelica, and Maria all bring out that vulnerability and the sadness of their positions wonderfully – a great improvement in Maria’s case, for me. However, Burr’s The World Was Wide Enough severely downplays the sincere regret angle, while Hamilton never quite hits the right notes on It’s Quiet Uptown. However, Hurricane and Phillip’s performance in Blow You All Away definitely hit that fear and panic leading to self-destruction. (Interesting I guess that Burr doesn’t also seem more fearful in The World Was Wide Enough?) Is that also a gendered expectations thing, perhaps?

Either way, I’m extremely glad I was able to see it if only for Hamilton’s performance – honestly, maybe the reason it seemed to lose a lil steam was just that Hurricane was so good everything else failed to follow it, haha. Burr also absolutely fascinated me here, too, and that was so much fun to see play out in real time!

Hamilton will be coming to Melbourne next, and I’m not sure yet if I’ll be able to go there but I’d really like to! It’d be really fun to test out these expectations/conclusions of mine with a fresh viewing, as well as see any other new cast changes/interpretations…!

[starshipsofstarlord]

Vargulf |Roman Godfrey

Summary: There have been another set of murders in Hemlock Grove and all the evidence is pointing to it being another vargulf. Your brother Peter, your boyfriend Roman and yourself are all on the hunt for it so that the deaths come to a stop.

-

You listened quietly, sat on the sofa in your little old caravan as Peter and Roman spoke. There had been deaths, a dozen or so. They were murders, of boys and men. None of them seemed to have a strong link that connected them. Death wasn’t unusual in Hemlock Grove, but most of this evidence wasn’t adding up.

“It’s a fucking vargulf, I'm telling you man." Roman was clearly stressed about the situation, they had already dealt with one sick werewolf. And now another was ripping male anatomy off, letting them bleed to death. It couldn’t have been more inhumane. 

"Shee-it, I think you're right." Peter raked his hands through his hair. Christina had became a werewolf because of him, and now someone else decided to proceed with the transformation. It was always a risk for a newcomer into wolf territory, they had already been sick enough to turn themselves into a monster.

You frowned. Christina had been a nice girl, and it made you think that this new Vargulf could be disguised as anyone. "How are we supposed to find it?" You hated the thought of having to search for a blood thirsty monster, but it would be the only way to stop it.

“Bait.” Roman answered, coming to sit down beside you. Peter only shook his head in thought.

“We can’t do that, at least not yet. We don’t know why it’s targeting these guys.” Roman only smirked, and then commented.

“Then we’ll just have to find a way to piss it off.” That would be difficult, seeing as none of you knew who it was, but Roman did a pretty good job naturally at annoying people. His rich boy attitude got to everyone.

“Great idea, and then you’ll get killed.” You said, rolling your eyes at his stupidity. “Maybe it’s after revenge of some sort, it might know the victims.”

“Well there’s a wide gap between all of them, so we can’t be certain.”

…..

Destiny stiffened from where she stood leaning over the table that held a newspaper. The paper detailed all of the recent deaths, the ones the assumed vargulf had committed. She looked at Roman in particular. 

"Can you clear your mind Godfrey, your thoughts are distracting." This only built confusion in Peter's mind. How could ones thoughts be that loud. "

“What's he thinking about?" Your brother asked, opening his blue eyes to look at Destiny. It was bugging her enough to implement her magic.

“You don’t want to know.” As she said that she looked in between of you and Roman.  His imagination was very vivid, too much for her liking. It was creating a barrier in the room so that she couldn't access the things that the pair of boys had missed in their freaky dreams.

 "Is it relevant?" Peter held out hope. They couldn't miss a trick, even if it was of the mind. There could be a clue, a detail of aid, something that could point them in the right direction to search.

 "No." Destiny cringed, not being able to help seeing Roman's desire to have his hands all over your body. You were her cousin, she didn't want to see the intimacy that was strung between you and your boyfriend. That was for you too alone, but it was Godfrey's fault for keeping it replaying in his mind.

 She knew she'd regret it, but she searched as Peter had wanted her to. And then she saw it, on your naked body. Roman clearly hadn't noticed it, his mind was too preoccupied with the thought of fucking you. But there was a scratch, running down your side. It looked as though it was given by another wolf, a viscous one that had turned on its own kind. 

“Maybe.” Then your cousin turned, looking at you. “Lift your shirt.” When you hesitated, she did it for you, seeing the mark against your skin.

As she looked, so did you and the others. It was a wound, thinly dug into the skin but still there.

"What happened?" Roman asked quietly. He really hadn't even noticed it when he had been thinking about the nudeness of your body bit now his eyes were trained on it.

"I don't remember." You frowned.

Peter came closer, inspecting gashes in your skin. They weren't just cuts, they were claw marks.

The vargulf did this. It had to be it.

…..

It was a dead end. It all was. The pattern was broken for there was another body, and it was a girl. The first girl to have fallen victim to the vargulf.

Peter throws the newspaper onto the coffee table, Roman staring at it with beady eyes.

It held no answers, it only threw you all further off track. Perhaps there were no answers. Maybe it just wanted to drain the blood from the humans by clawing at their necks.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Your boyfriend exclaimed, reaching into his coat pocket for a cigarette and a lighter.

He lit it, taking a deep drag to calm himself. You wished it was that easy for you, but it really wasn't.

"When does anything make sense in this town?" You asked rhetorically.

Although you werent seeking a counter response, you received one from your brother anyway.

"Go on." He gestured with both his voice and hand, taking a cigarette from Roman.

"Maybe it isn't supposed to make sense." You suggested, snagging a cigarette. You refrained from lighting it until your point got a cross. "I mean Christina killed because of different emotions. She was sick, and angry at her so called friends, and jealous of Letha. Perhaps this is the same."

The mention of Letha Godfrey dulled the room, but opened a chance for some optimism in the case.

For all any of you knew, you were right. There was a murderer, but it's intentions were not clear yet.

…..

Shelley aimlessly wandered her family's grounds, admiring the beauty in nature. The roses were just beginning to bloom from the bushes, their frames hardened by the sight of protective thorns.

Out here, away from the world, it was quiet. Peaceful. There was no one to make judgements about her, or a reason to feel insecure. Like the roses, Shelley's appearance was toughened by thorns. No one liked the spiteful pricks but they tolerated them for the flower.

The girl continued to walk, but stopped once she had a twig snap. The sound was not the doing of either of her large feet.

Looking up, she saw a beast she had ran from before. A white wolf, watching her with its yellow eyes.

It was truly beautiful, but danger poisoned its aura. The animal tilted its furred head, licking its black lips before trotting through the hedges, presumably returning to its den in the woods.

Once it was gone, she went inside of her imprisoning home, rushing to the kitchen, the private one where her mother was smoking a cigarette.

"There was a wolf in the garden." She typed out, allowing the machine to talk for her.

Olivia hummed in reply, flicking the ash from the tip of the fag.

"It is a wild animal dear." Her voice was clear. "Let it do what it must to survive, even if it means crossing out land in the meanwhile."

This confused Shelley. Any other time, her mother would have called in a hunter to shoot the pest dead.

But not this time.

…..

A man rapped his fingers against the door of Godfrey manor, well aware of the badge that was tucked in his pocket. In response to his knocking a woman came to the door,slinking her slim and long frame upon the case of the doorway.

Olivia Godfrey. He had heard of this woman. Fierce. Beautiful. Enticing. Extremely wealthy. Dangerous.

There had been whispers in the woodwork of the town of her being the cause of missing persons. It seemed absurd to suspect a widow of such horrors, but she was not just a mourning wife.

She was a mother, not only to her children but to an extraordinarily large company. It was known as the white tower, but it held no purity in its blank walls. Only secrets in hidden rooms and a whole team serving away at her whim of command.

The front door opened, revealing a middle aged woman, glorified in a lacy black dress, unashamed of how she appeared to the stranger. Olivia could see his badge that was attached to his belt. It was clear that she had glanced at it, but she brushed her hair away from down the front of her shoulder and focused back on his face.

“What can I do you for officer?” She was suspicious of his presence, she leant against the door, making sure he was unable to peak inside of her home. But at the same time, she could not be seen as the villain. She had done nothing wrong anyway, or had Olivia had some involvement?

“As I’m sure, you have heard of the recent deaths.” Olivia’s cheeks hollowed and her arm trailed down her body and pulled the skirt of her dress down.

“Such a shame.” She admitted she had, shaking her head in pity. The investigator nodded his head in agreement, having felt the loss of the young lives when going over each piece of evidence of the victims.

“There has been word of people seeing a white wolf - again. You haven’t happened to see it prowling your grounds by chance, have you?”

Olivia furrowed her brow, thinking tentatively. “I can’t say that I have.” She answered, watching as hope fell from the stranger’s face.

“Would you call the station if you hear anything? As soon as we get a sighting, we’re going to put a bullet through the beast.” It almost sounded like a threat in Olivia’s eyes, but she knew it wasn’t. This man was scared of the dangers that hunted in nature, and was now creeping into the town and murdering humans.

“Of course I will.” She smiled at him, Once he turned and began walking away from her house, she shut the door, peaking through a window before returning to her guest, “Where were we?”

She discarded of her robe, as Norman sat on the couch, with a glass of scotch in his condemning hands.

Shelley lightly stepped back up the stairs, confused by her mother’s truth. Only mere hours prior she had told her mother of what she had seen in their large garden. A wolf had been looking at her, and then ran back off into whence it came. The woods.

Olivia had lied. But why?

….

A young man lay on the metal table, with ambient lights reflecting down onto his fatal wounds. Price took note of the individual teeth marks that were visible in his skin. He had heard of werewolves, via Olivia, who had told him of the pest that Peter was.

He was fine, examining the body in complete silence, other than his recorded points, but he shouldn’t have expected it to last. At least not in the Godfrey Tower.

The door to the private space was slammed open, by none other than the heir of the company himself. Roman. He had no regard for manners, Price thought. He did as he pleased, although he wasn't inherently to blame for that, he was raised under a roof where he was taught that was acceptable. 

“Is that the last victim?” Roman had to ask, he could never be sure with Price’s experiments. 

“You shouldn’t be here Roman.” His voice was monotone, unsurprised from the boy’s intrusion. It definitely wasn’t the first time that he had just waltzed into his workspace, that was for sure. Price sighed, looking at the teenager who was peering at the large bitemarks in the corpse. “Why are you here, did your mother send you?”

“No, I need answers.” He only earnt a shake of the head from the scientist.

“This matter is confidential Roman, I can’t tell you anything.” It was a part of the code that he had taken. This was business elevated in the roles of silence, and he wasn’t supposed to share the details that he had found or would find.

“Please.” It was a foreign word for him. “If that thing is out there, and it is a vargulf, the cops aren’t going to know how to stop it. But me and Peter can, so if you discover anything that could remotely help, you have my number.”

A knock came on the door. “Sir, there’s an officer here to see you.”

Price turned to Roman, looking at him with nervous eyes. “It’d be best if you left Roman, we don’t want you getting yourself into any further trouble.”

Huffing, Roman took one more glance at the body, sporting a disgusted expression as he did so. He was eager to find this mutated, sick werewolf and end it, not only for his family’s safety, but for the creature’s own mercy.

…..

Roman walked through his door way into his bedroom, throwing his black coat to the floor. But when he looked up his bed wasn’t empty, you were seated on it, sporting one of his shirts and a worried expression.

“Where were you?” You stood, slowly gliding over to him, reaching up to cup his face. He was visibly tense, it was easy to see that his back wasn’t completely straight and his cheeks were puffed out from his vigorous breathing.

“Went to see Price, who is fucking useless like usual.” He went and sat on his bed, which you joined him on, stroking his tense shoulders. “He’s not even paying mind that it's a vargulf, how fucking dumb can one person be?”

“Maybe he doesn’t want you involved, because if you go headfirst into this mess, there’s a chance that Shelley will be pulled into it eventually as well. He cares about her, and in his own, silent way, about you too.”

Roman let the corners of his plump lips turn up at your words. “You really do know how to cheer a guy up, don’t you?”

At that you smirked, leaning closer to his porcelain ear, whispering into the suggestive canal. “Honey, there’s plenty of ways that I can cheer you up.” You tugged his earlobe between your teeth, prompting a growl to spark from his mouth.

“Get to it then Romaneck.” You shoved his shoulders from the front so that you had room to straddle the tall boy.

“Gladly.”

…..

When you awoke, Roman was still asleep, softly snoring into the pillow whilst his nude body was covered by the white duvet. It brought a smile to your face to see him so relaxed, with the vargulf on the loose, he was stressing again. He thought he had to find it, that it was his responsibility to keep the whole town safe from any mythical threats.

But it wasn’t. He deserved to be a teenager, have no worries about the fact that you lived in a mobile home in the middle of the woods, or the fact that one day someone would try to hurt you or use you for what you were.

Groggily, you got up, making sure that Roman was still covered so that the cold wouldn’t wake him up. You went to the bathroom attached to his bedroom to brush your teeth, but you paused that thought as you  looked into the mirror to see a part of you had somewhat aged.

A streak of white was in front of your face, it was a large section of your hair. This needn’t have worried Roman, and so you manoeuvred yourself out of his room quietly as to not wake him, and hurried down to the kitchen where you were met with the woman of the household sat, stirring her tea.

“Sweetie.” She gasped dramatically at seeing the strands. She stood walking towards you and taking the hair between her fingers. “We can fix this before anyone sees.” She reassures you, guiding you to the bathroom, grabbing a gold box from under the sink.

“Were you anticipating this?” You asked warily, watching as she emptied the (Y/H/C) dye into a small bowl.

“Of course I was, we have to delay this. You know what, after we sort this mess, I will arrange an appointment with Norman for you. He’ll help.”

She got a dye brush, and began combing the colour through your blank piece of hair.

To the both of your dismays, neither of you had heard Shelley coming down the stairs and into the kitchen. It was untimely, and unknown to the pair of you.

…..

The scientist gripped his tweezers, plucking the ounce of evidence from the body. From initial sight, he could tell that the lost hair that he had discovered was human, and the complete opposite colour from the dead boy’s. His actions were glorified through speech as he recorded his process, ending with a full stop to complete his sentence.

He would have to get it analysed, so that the owner could be uncovered, and the monster behind the murders revealed. Once he removed his gloves, he took a hold of his cell phone, and called someone that he felt indebted to.

“Roman, it’s Price.” That was his opener, quite simple for the information that he was about to reveal. “I found a human hair on the body, belonging to another that is not the victim. I’m getting it tested, I will let you know the result later, once it has been processed.”

As he put the phone down, the door to the room was opened, by none other than the wolf that walked upon the sheep. “Yohan.” She greeted him broadly, and so he replied just as dryly.

“Olivia.” His voice drawled out her name, unimpressed with her timing. A Godfrey always managed to show themselves at the worst times, perhaps it was on purpose. It was in the majority's nature to be filled with the thrill of darkness and deceit. 

“A little birdy told me that you found something on the body...” She didn’t clarify whom said snitch was, but she dragged her manicured hand along the counter, until she came to the see through bag that contained the single (Y/H/C) hair.

“Olivia, I cannot let you take that, it’s evidence.” He tried to reason with the woman, but he should have realised that that would have little to no affect.

Instead, she rose thin eyebrows at the man, and put her foot down with her ample excuse. “Is this not my company Price?” She used the power spell of control, and before he could divulge that her ownership only came through marriage, and that Norman and Roman were the true heirs, she was gone.

The evidence went with her.

…..

The site of the caravan was an alienated space to Olivia, yet she still walked through the dead leaves and mud in her heels, until she reached the hammock, which you so happened to be seated in.

“It is done (Y/N), and now you can continue working for me, and earn yourself a little money.” She sat beside you on it, making it sway. “This was never my intention, to get you sick, I told you that you could stop anytime little one.”

She stroked your hair, resting her head upon it stoically. It was a strange exchange of contact for her, but she found herself not minding it. “We can try and get treatment for you though, to either delay or erase the aftermath of your  forced transformations.”

At that you finally spoke up. “I don’t trust Price.” Yet somehow you trusted Olivia herself... “And that would be unnatural. Running off into the woods as a completely wild animal doesn’t sound so bad anyways, it would be like starting a new life and leaving this one behind.”

Your confession saddened her just a little. “If that is what you want, but I will tell you this now. I liked you the second that my son brought you in that door, you were better than any of those other girls that he dragged in for pleasure. He was enamoured with just the sight of you, sitting there at the kitchen table, thanking the butler and laughing with his sister.” 

That would be one thing that you knew that you would miss. Roman. And then also your brother, Peter. But they could survive without you, they were both strong. They had moved on from Letha, so they could do the same with you.

…..

Roman frowned when his phone call with Price ended. “It’s gone, our lead is no more.”

At his statement, Peter spoke up from where he was seated at Roman’s bedroom desk. “Surely it couldn’t just disappear.”

“It didn’t.” Was all Roman said before he stormed out of his room and began rushing down the stairs, to see his mother just walking in the front door. “You.” He accused her.

“Me?” She acted offended, placing a hand above her heart.

“You took the evidence of the vargulf.” Price had told him as much. The man had seen it with his own eyes, she couldn’t lie her way out of this one. Nothing said that she couldn’t dodge it though.

“It’s been pleasant to chat boys, but I have an appointment with your uncle.” And with that, she had retreated back through the front door.

Roman turned as he heard Shelley walking down the stairs, closest to Peter.

“Go back to your room Shells.” He sighed, annoyed with the fact that they had hit a dead end. But Shelley made no attempt to move, instead she took the tablet out in front of her.

“I’ve heard mother speak, I know who the vargulf is.” Both of their eyes went wide. Maybe they didn’t need to interrogate Olivia after all.

…..

The man in uniform, that had started his career on a peculiar case rapped his knuckles against the gypsy’s door. This far out into the woods, someone would have been bound to see something.

The line was still faded to whether it was a person or an animal. But he was determined to find the truth, because no matter what was at fault, people were still dying.

The door opened, revealing a teenager with stark white hair. “Can I help?” Your legs bounced as you leant against the door frame. Your body was itching to transform again.

“Are your parents in?” At that you shook your head, thinking about the fact that your father was no longer in the picture. That made Peter the man of the house, the dominant one. You’d show him...

“No, but is there anything I can do to help?”

The inspector got out his notepad, preparing to scribble on it with any information that he could extract from you. “Do you know anything about the deaths? Like, have you seen a wild animal lurking around or such?”

With that, you stepped away from the door, allowing him space to enter, to which he did. “I’ll tell you everything that I know.” You smiled.

Or maybe you could show him.

…..

Peter ran to his home after getting out of Roman’s car, seeing the inspector’s body mauled in the doorway, blood falling down the steps. But the body wasn’t alone, the wolf - you, were growling from inside the caravan, your newly white fur smeared with marks of red.

“(Y/N)?” Peter cautiously spoke. They had wanted to find the vargulf, but not like this. It was supposed to be someone else, not his sister.

You had no response to the name, but your head perked up at the sound of your boyfriend’s voice.

“Baby, it’s me. Roman.” He took a couple of strides forward, even though Peter had tried to pull him back. You tilted your furry head, slowly leaving the caravan and walking towards Roman. “Hey, it’s okay.” He told you, and you sniffed his hand, nudging it with your wet nose. “We can get you help, fix you.”

Roman pretended that he wasn’t crying, and went to kneel down in front of you, but Peter stopped him, triggering backlash from you. He had grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him up, and in a quick motion, you bit Peter’s hand.

Blood was drawn, and you were spooked, and so you did the only thing your wild mind though to do. Run, deep into the forest, away from the pests that thought that they could treat you like a domesticated animal.

[hysterialevi]

Hjarta | Chapter 11

Fanfic summary: In an AU where Eivor was adopted by Randvi’s family instead, he ends up falling in love with the man his sister has been promised to despite the arranged marriage between their clans.

Point of view: third-person

Pairing: Sigurd Styrbjornson x Male Eivor

This story is also on AO3 | Previous chapter | Next chapter

A WHILE LATER

BJORNHEIMR, THE LONGHOUSE

Pain. That was all he could see.

As Sigurd walked side-by-side with Ulfar through the longhouse’s doors, he heard nothing but the agonized groans of fallen warriors, and the devastated cries of survivors who were now mourning their loved ones.

The horrid stench of smoke and death clung stubbornly onto the wooden walls, and with so many fresh corpses now littering the village, they had what looked like a battlefield sitting on their very doorstep.

It was a nightmare come to life. Even though Sigurd was no stranger to the morbidity of war -- he had grown up in the midst of one, after all -- it was still enough to make his stomach churn, and his heart ache.

How could this have happened? And during such a joyous event as well? Today was meant to be a day for their clans to celebrate; to enjoy themselves. But instead, they were now taking shelter in the longhouse, and being forced to isolate themselves from the mayhem that lurked outside. 

It looked like Muspelheim itself had razed Bjornheimr’s streets, and frankly, Sigurd didn’t know how they were going to recover from this.

“Poor woman...” Ulfar said, gazing in Ingrida’s direction. At the moment, the seeress was holding Eirik’s body in her arms and gently stroking his forehead, comforting him as if he had contracted a simple ailment. Not a single word was being uttered from her lips, and yet, the lifelessness of her expression was enough to say everything.

“No parent should have to lose their child,” Ulfar remarked, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I can’t imagine what that woman is going through right now.”

The prince followed his line of sight. “What happened to Eirik? How did he die?”

“I have no idea. He approached me and Eivor at the temple just before the assault was launched... with three arrows in his back. He wanted me to tell Ingrida something, but... he slipped away before he could get the words out.”

The older man’s brow crinkled with anger. “Those bastards. Kjotve’s men didn’t even have the honor of giving Eirik a warrior’s death. They shot him down like a dog.”

Sigurd sighed in frustration, crossing his arms in a stern manner. “...How did this even happen? You and I spent so much time planning the defenses of this village. We cleared the forest of Kjotve’s camps. How is it that his people overwhelmed us so easily?”

Ulfar’s eyes narrowed with skepticism. “I have the same question. It’s possible that Kjotve’s been planning this for a while, but... still. I’d be lying if I said the efficiency of this attack wasn’t suspicious.”

Bringing their conversation to a halt, a nearby series of footsteps suddenly made its way into the building, drawing both the men’s attention to the doorway.

In the distance, Sigurd saw Eivor dragging himself into the longhouse with his father’s axe in hand, still as bleak as before. His head sank with a profound sense of melancholy, and his feet lingered behind him in a manner that made it seem as if chains holding him down.

At first, the prince expected Eivor to say something to Ulfar upon entry, but instead, he simply drifted past the two of them without a single word, and headed out into the training yard adjacent to the longhouse.

“...Do you think he’ll be alright?” Sigurd asked, watching as the man slipped away.

Ulfar shrugged. “I cannot say. Eivor has always been strong, but even the strongest of men have their weaknesses. Kjotve has caused him much pain ever since he was a child. It will take him time to recover from this battle.”

The prince’s voice softened at the thought of a recent memory. “...Eivor told me about his parents a while ago, you know. About how Kjotve killed them.”

“Then you understand the gravity of what happened today. Kjotve trying to kill Eivor in the same way he murdered Varin -- it’s an insult deserving of an axe to the chest. I’ll be surprised if the boy lets this go.”

Sigurd paused for a moment, allowing the realization to settle in. “...Eivor nearly gave up Valhalla in exchange for my survival. He was willing to die without a fight... just to ensure that I lived.”

Ulfar nodded, recalling his conversation with Eivor all those years ago. “Yes. Because in the end, you were more important to him than anything Valhalla could’ve offered. He spent the past thirteen years dreaming of the day he’d finally get revenge, and he sacrificed it for you. I hope you understand that, Sigurd.”

“Of course. I owe him my life.”

“Indeed.”

Sigurd decided to follow Eivor and began making his way out of the longhouse, hoping to catch the young man before he disappeared. 

“Wait here,” he told Ulfar. “I’ll go speak with him. I want to see how he’s doing.”

“Hold a moment.” The raider said, stopping Sigurd in his tracks.

“Yes? What is it?”

The older man fell silent for a second, pondering how to broach the subject.

“Before you go, Sigurd, there’s something else you should be aware of.” Ulfar lowered his voice, ensuring that no one else could hear him. “...I know about your relationship with Eivor.”

Sigurd’s heart skipped a beat, and the color drained from his face. “You-- what?”

“Eivor confided in me during the wedding,” Ulfar explained. “He had quite a lot on his mind, and was willing to tell me about your affair. Have no fear, though. I won’t expose your secret. He entrusted me with this matter, and I have no intentions of betraying that trust. However, there is something I need to make clear.”

The prince listened intently, worried about where this was going. “...Alright, then. Speak your mind.”

The raider crossed his arms. “It pains me to separate Eivor from someone who makes him happy, but for the sake of this alliance, I must insist that you keep things at a platonic level if you wish to console him. I realize it’s not always that easy, but our clans need each other to win this war. If your marriage with Randvi falls apart, so does our bond.”

Sigurd took his words to heart, regardless of how reluctant he may have been to accept reality.

“I understand, Ulfar. You have nothing to fear. I wouldn’t jeopardize this marriage.”

Ulfar didn’t look entirely convinced. “I hope so. You have my trust for now, Sigurd, but just remember -- I don’t give it blindly.” He turned away from the prince, dismissing him with a wave of the hand. “Anyway, go and see Eivor. I imagine he’s somewhere in the training yard. If the two of you wish to join me later, I’ll be speaking with the jarl and your father in the war room. We have much to discuss.”

“I will.”

“Look after that boy, Sigurd,” Ulfar said, striding to the front of the longhouse. “He cares about you more than you realize.”

~~~~~~~~~~

THE TRAINING YARD

Stepping back out into the open, Sigurd welcomed himself into the deserted training yard as he scanned the area for Eivor, admittedly reluctant to wander through the aftermath of the recent battle. The thick scent of smoke and ash immediately smacked him across the face once he was outside, and even now, he could still feel the heat of the raging fires consuming their entire village.

He imagined Eivor’s state of mind must’ve been dire, if he was willing to take solace in an environment like this. Bjornheimr was hardly recognizable after the chaos Kjotve wreaked, and yet, the young man found it preferable to staying within the confines of the longhouse.

Sigurd supposed it was understandable, considering his exchange with the enemy. Kjotve could’ve cut Eivor down in the midst of a proper holmgang, but instead, he decided to do something worse. He took away his honor.

He degraded the Wolf-Kissed with the same impossible dilemma he once thrust upon Varin, and now, the nightmare would only haunt Eivor again. The gods would know of his swift surrender and declare it as an action of cowardice, and he would likely receive judgement from his fellow clan members.

In Sigurd’s eyes though, the man was a hero. He sacrificed one of the greatest honors known to Midgard in exchange for his family’s safety, and he did so with barely any hesitation. He displayed more courage than Sigurd had ever seen from anyone else in his life, and yet, he would have to reclaim his honor simply because he was willing to put down his axe.

It was a series of events laden with unfairness in Sigurd’s opinion, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to change it nonetheless.

Roaming closer to the training yard, Sigurd’s head perked up in interest when the sound of metal scraping against wood suddenly reached his ears, drawing his focus to a nearby tree. There, he saw Eivor himself fervently slashing his axe against the trunk, letting out occasional shouts of anger.

His movements were erratic and driven by rage, and at certain points, the prince even feared he might chop down the whole tree. Eivor seemed to be trapped in a tempest of fury that Sigurd had never witnessed in the past, and frankly, he was concerned about the man’s well-being.

“Eivor?” He called out. The younger man swung his axe one more time before coming to a halt, giving Sigurd no more than a brief glance.

“...What?” He replied sharply, speaking through rapid breaths.

The prince approached his friend, careful not to provoke him any further.

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he said gently, “but... I was worried. You disappeared from the longhouse so quick. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

Eivor turned around, revealing the glower that had been branded into his face.

“How do you think I’m doing?” He snapped, lodging the weapon’s blade into the wood. “The gods granted me the chance to kill Kjotve after thirteen years... and I wasted it! He was right there. He was right in front of me. I could’ve done something -- anything! Even if it killed me, it would’ve been better than surrendering!”

He stormed away from the tree and began pacing around the yard, attempting to recompose himself.

“By Odin, I’m such an idiot. I’ve spent my entire life preparing for this moment. Waiting for it. I’ve endured countless days of training, planning -- everything you can think of. I’ve placed offer after offer at the feet of the gods, just begging them for the chance to bury my axe in Kjotve’s chest. And what do I do when they finally give it to me?” Eivor kicked a rock resting by his feet. “I walk away.”

Sigurd gazed at the man in sympathy, wishing he could comfort him somehow.

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss yourself, Eivor. You may have let Kjotve slip from your grasp for now, but remember why you did it. You did it to save your family. You did it to save me. I... I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t shown up. I owe you my life.”

Eivor plopped himself on the ground and sat against the longhouse’s walls, staring upwards at the smoke-riddled sky.

“Perhaps I should be proud of myself, then,” he said, “but I’m not. If anything, I just feel like a fool. I feel like... like I’ve failed my father. Like I’ve wasted everything he did for me.”

Sigurd took a seat next to the Wolf-Kissed, allowing his feet to rest for the moment. “You’re too hard on yourself, drengr. Your father would understand. He was once in the same position as you, after all. Not only that, but he also made the same choice. He would be proud of your sacrifice.”

Contrary to what the older man expected, Eivor only seemed to grow more bitter.

“I guess. But-- why are you even here? I thought you’d be in the longhouse, looking after the villagers with Randvi. What are you doing out here talking to me?”

“Randvi has her own duties to take care of, and so do I. But I wanted to see you first. Just because I’m married now doesn’t mean I don’t care about you anymore, Eivor.”

The man shook his head. “Well, you shouldn’t. You can’t afford to care about me, Sigurd. You have a wife now. A future queen. She’s the one you need to be focused on. Not me.”

Sigurd was admittedly taken aback by the coldness in his tone, but brushed it off nonetheless. He knew Eivor was hurting at the moment, and it felt wrong for him to hold that against him.

“Eivor...” he said softly, “listen to me. Kjotve may have escaped from our grasp today, but we are not letting him go. Ulfar is devising a plan in the war room as we speak. We will find him again. You will get your chance.”

The young man sighed out of exhaustion, causing his shoulders to slouch. “...I hope so. I’ve fought too hard for this war to end now. I can’t let Kjotve get away. Not when I’m so close. I just pray that the gods will deem me worthy of a second chance.”

Sigurd gave him a reassuring nod. “They will. This fight isn’t over yet, Eivor. In fact, it’s hardly begun. We haven’t seen the last of Kjotve. I know it.”

Eivor dragged a hand down his face and drifted off into silence, staring at the clouds of smoke forming in the distance. By now, they had completely blotted out the sapphire embrace of the sky above, and darkened the land beneath with a looming shadow.

Particles of ash fluttered through the air like autumn leaves twirling in the wind, and in the distance, Eivor saw nothing but a shroud of fire obscuring the horizon beyond.

As for the man himself, he seemed to have calmed down somewhat compared to when Sigurd first arrived. A glimmer of hope had returned to the blankness of his empty gaze, but a grim veil of despair still clung onto his expression. He had lost every shred of the motivation that once fueled him, and even now, the pain of losing a loved one to an arranged marriage continued to pester him.

“...Kjotve ruined my life that night, you know.” Eivor said, devoid of any emotion. “He took away my family, my home -- everything that I loved. The only life I ever knew was stolen from me in an instant, and the whole world shifted into something that I no longer recognized.” The young man peered at his companion, still leaning against the wall. “...He must die, Sigurd. Not just for me, but for everyone he’s hurt.”

The prince rested an elbow on his knee. “Kjotve’s judgement will come. The gods know of his cruelty just as we do. The Nornir will cut his thread soon enough.”

“Then let’s pray that I live long enough to witness that day.”

Taking a second to gather himself, Eivor broke free from the cage barring his mind for just a moment and looked Sigurd in the eye, returning to the same man the prince knew so well.

“...Anyway. Thank you for coming to check on me, Sigurd.” He whispered. “I appreciate it. I apologize if I was somewhat... harsh earlier. I’m just so lost right now.”

Sigurd wasn’t bothered. “I understand. We all have a breaking point. Even you. What’s important is that you don’t let it hold you down forever.”

“I know,” he acknowledged. “But sometimes, the temptation to give up is almost irresistible. The idea of being able to forget about all this, and live my life without fear or conflict -- it’s something that grows more alluring by the day. But I know I can’t let myself fall prey to these thoughts. I need to stay focused. I need to keep fighting. Even if it leads me into the Valkyries’ arms.”

Sigurd leaned closer to Eivor and placed a hand over his, mindlessly stroking it as if it were second nature.

“Well, wherever this path takes us, just remember that I’m here for you. You’ve saved my life multiple times already. It’s the least I can do.”

Suddenly realizing what he was doing, the prince came to an abrupt pause and instantly retreated his hand, silently cursing himself for not putting a leash on his affections. He backed away from Eivor and averted his eyes, stumbling over his next words.

“...F-Forgive me. I didn’t mean to--”

“--It’s alright.” Eivor interrupted. “You don’t have to explain.”

A deep sigh escaped Sigurd’s lips. “I just don’t understand why it’s so difficult to ignore the way I feel. I’m a married man now. Shouldn’t that be enough to hinder my fondness for you? Why does this always happen?”

The younger man offered some advice. “The best thing you can do right now, Sigurd, is to avoid me entirely. We both know how challenging it is to conceal our true thoughts. Perhaps we shouldn’t give them the chance to cross our minds at all.”

“But I can’t just pretend like you don’t exist. I still want you in my life, Eivor. I still want to be near you. We may not have the option of being together like before, but you’re not somebody I want to forget.”

Eivor’s face dimmed with sorrow. “Well, you may have to. For the sake of this alliance. Things are precarious enough as it is. We can’t risk anyone else finding out about our previous encounters.”

Sigurd disagreed. “You’re important to me. Nothing’s going to change that, no matter how much I may have to restrain myself. I just wish things were easier.”

The older man decided to put this conversation to an early end and rose from the ground, not wanting to let his emotions fester any longer.

“Anyway... I should get going. I imagine Ulfar’s still speaking with the jarl, and I’d like to join him. Do you want to come with me?”

Eivor refused the offer. “I’d rather be alone right now. I’ve had enough of discussing war and politics for one day.”

“Of course, I understand. You must be exhausted. Take this time to get some rest. I’ll tell you the outcome of our discussions later.” Sigurd took a few steps away from the Wolf-Kissed, leaving him alone on the ground. “Well then, I guess I’ll see you around, Eivor. Please, stay safe. Now that we know Kjotve is merely a stone’s throw away from Bjornheimr, I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

The young man remained seated on the grass. “The same goes for you, Sigurd. Be careful out there. You’re the last person I want to lose.”

“Oh, believe me,” Sigurd replied, “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”

[tangledinmdzs]

you belong to me, junior quartet hcs

junior quartet soulmate headcanons (modern au)

these are a bit long, but i hope you all don’t mind (also i hope you won’t mind the little formatting things i’m working on hehe)

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Lan Sizhui

the timer

the moment that Lan Sizhui met you, he knew that you would be someone important to him

when his parents had become friendly with the family down the street and had introduced him to your smiling face, there was no turning back from there

he’d always adored you, long before the timer appeared on your 12th birthdays

and even after that, when the craze of estimates and soulmate countdowns swept through your school he still felt the same lingering ease of being beside you

Sizhui was fine with the mystery of the very big digits on his timer but you had been curious and had dragged him along on the estimation and soulmate guiding journeys that all the kids were crazy about

with some math, he figured out that his timer was set for only 6 more years from now, when he would turn 18.

you were more than jealous, because you had to wait a whole 4 years after him, destined to meet your soulmate at 22

“ahh that means it could be anyone in high school! you’re going to have your first love be your soulmate! that’s so romantic” and you would go on and on and on about all of that, young love and such things

he’d just laugh at you but let you immerse yourself in whatever you wanted to your heart’s content

high school years pass and go like a short rainstorm. 

you and Sizhui grow up together, laughter together, stay together despite all the world’s turbulences

Sizhui doesn’t meet anyone that stays longer than a week, even as his time drops day by day

the years pass by faster than you would imagine and on a wintery January morning, Sizhui wakes up on his 18th birthday to notice that his timer is counting down hours instead of days.

he’s a little shocked, a little scared

what if he met/was destined with a complete stranger

could that happen?

the smallest part of him hopes that isn’t the case

and then that small part of him is reassured by the fact that he would at least be spending some part of the day with you

out of the many traditions that you both have made, you always promised to celebrate each other’s birthday together

the little cute gifs and texts won’t cut it

just the thought of you eases his anxiousness and he anticipates the night that you guys have together

but as the evening gets later and you show no sign of showing up he begins to get worried, then fearful, then anxious

and even though it’s his birthday he ends up pacing by the front door when every call and text that he sends to you is left unanswered

his dads are worried too, you’re not usually like this and they hate seeing their only son so worried

they end up calling your parents only for them to be confused on your whereabouts and now everyone is worried

Sizhui can’t imagine anything happening to you and his fear is heightened by the late hours that’s approaching

he’s too worried about your well being to really notice that the timer on his wrist only has minutes left instead of hours

it is nearing 11:47PM and Sizhui is hurriedly shrugs on a winter coat and scarf, ready to just go looking for you himself

his dads are against it, one lost kid is already a enough of a worry 

but he doesn’t listen, can’t listen 

you’re his best friend for god’s sakes it’s not like he could just leave you

and he’s ignoring his parents commands and pulling the front door open just as the timer on his wrist runs out

in the snowy backdrop of early January five minutes to midnight, you stand with rosy cheeks and a bright smile with a big bag in your arms and a warmth in your eyes

“i was waiting on line for the release of this and i didn’t realize people took so long to wrap things and then the creators ended up being there so i had to fight some people for their signatures... but i’m here! i didn’t miss Sizhui day!” you explain in tumble of words and shove the bag unceremoniously into his shellshocked arms

“i know they’re your favorite game series! so this is all for you” you tell him, smiling widely at his face

he blinks at you, the incessant ticking at the back of his mind finally silent after so many years

Sizhui puts the bag down without even opening it 

without another word he pulls you close to him, holding you tight

his timer has finally ended

but your countdown steadily ticks on | || ||| [pt 2]

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

Lan Jingyi

writing on skin

you didn’t know who your soulmate was, but whoever they were must be the biggest cheater you’d ever meet

almost as early as you could have been able to contact your soulmate, your skin had been littered with writings of all different kinds

it had started off as little occurrences that slowly got heavier as you both continued on your academic careers

at one point the notes had gotten so bad that you had to resort to wearing long sleeves just to cover up the array of words that were on every inch of your arms  (even the occasional stomach)

all your friends always wondered why you never contacted this soulmate of yours

some acquaintances recommended the idea to you like you couldn’t have thought of it yourself.

of course you wanted to contact this person; tell them to lighten up on the writing a little bit

but was there even any room to write? would they even be able to tell the difference between your handwriting amidst all of the chaos of their notes?

besides this person also seems incredibly sly to be able to get away with such methods of learning for a long time

so you go along with it until you can’t

in your final year of college, the sleeve of words that don’t belong to you almost cost you your diploma

you’d been accused of cheating from your professor and had to go through a deep and painful trial to plead your innocence

it was something that lasted nearly a week, since plagiarism and lack of academic integrity were the highest of offenses at your college

your truth was finally realized when the higher ups on the board realized they couldn’t wash the writing off your arms and you provided the evidence of different handwritings

the trial had been so demanding and draining and it wasn’t even your fault!

and in your anger after the whole ordeal, you don’t think

you return to your dorm room, take out your big blue sharpie and retaliated to your soulmate for the first time by writing STOP on your left arm and  CHEATING on your right. 

you leave the large letters on for a the rest of the night, even when you get weird looks from your roommate for it

that night goes on normally until you’re about to go to sleep and you look down at your arms to realize that the sleeve of tiny scribbles are scrubbed clean from your skin

al that’s left aside from your blue sharpie is a single answer on your right arm, written in the handwriting that you had come to know better than your own for the past few years

i don’t cheat

you huff a disbelieving laugh at that and seeing that your arms are mostly clear go and wash off the blue sharpie

when your soulmate’s answer still remains, you answer them even though the night is late

what does a person do with so much notes on their arms if not to cheat?

your response is written in dark black, neat handwriting despite the fact that you’re writing at an awkward angle and place on your arm

after a few moments, words begin to appear

it’s so weird seeing words appear randomly on your skin, especially when they happen before your eyes

taking notes on the body saves paper

the answer truly makes you have a loss for words and knowing that you were awake, your soulmate probably felt the awkwardness from the silence that lapses for a bit afterwards

it just helps me concentrate better

but i’m assuming you’re not a big fan

and from that you guys start a conversation long overdue, years overdue

you learn that his name is Lan Jingyi and despite the unconventionalities of his work ethic, he had a bit of a charm when he was writing to someone with an answer

morning comes to both of you before you realize

and this time when your arms are filled, it is with many answers, instead of just questions

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

Jin Ling

with one touch

you had never gotten a bruise in your life

which was a kind of funny considering that you were had been training in your father’s dojo since you could walk

then again in your world, only when you touched your soulmate would that purple greenish ugly color come up 

and since you were the star pupil of your father’s martial arts dojo, it’s not like it was ever easy to land a punch on you anyways

anyone that ever did never was you soulmate

and they’d be dead meat ‘immobilized’ (if not by your retaliation or your sibling’s overprotectiveness or your father’s judgement, the possibilities were endless)

but the point was, you had never gotten a bruise in your entire life, so you definitely didn’t know what it even looked like until you were changing out of your gi and your older sister pointed out the large bruise on your shoulder

you’re surprised

you hadn’t even felt any pain from it

but as you stand with your back to the mirror looking at it back and forth you wrack you brain for every person that you had come into contact within the last few days

the only person that comes to mind is one of the newest recruits to your father’s dojo, an aggressive punk by the name of Jin Ling

he’s not a good fighter as much as he just fights a lot

but you vividly remember being pushed hard when you had to break a fight between him and another student the other day

you hadn’t realized that he had actually pushed your shoulder then

you figure that you’ll know for sure when he comes to the dojo for practice tomorrow

the next day arrives and when you’re setting up the mats for everyone else, Jin Ling ends up being one of the earlier arrivals

and since no one’s there yet, you end up asking him to do something that you don’t usually ask people

but it feels like the only way to know for sure if he is your soulmate or not

“spar with me” you invite him when he returns to the main room with his uniform on

he’s more than surprised; he’s the new kid on the block, you’re the seasoned veteran and the sensei’s kid

when you sense his hesitation, you egg him on with “nothing to be scared of; i’ll go easy on you”

and when you look at him, you notice how his eyes darken at your jab

even though you’re a brown belt and he’s just teetering around yellow

the dojo ends up welcoming the next batch of students that come in with a very bruised up Jin Ling

you’re a little bit better off, though your hands are a little battered up

there’s no pain, luckily, just the ugly color of the bruise of a soulmate touch

and even when Jin Ling glares at you as your father goes through the forms for the day’s lessons, you know that he can’t deny the marks on him can only be made by you

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

Ouyang Zizhen

first words tattooed on your wrist

Zizhen’s always been a bit of a romantic 

living in a society where all the movies play out picture perfect scenes of confessions has given Zizhen all of the back up that he needs in order to be prepared for his soulmate

he’s one of those people that make you read a specific quote he’s set out before initiating conversation (he’s just that prepared)

but what he isn’t prepared for is what he’d be saying to his soulmate

so one dreary autumn morning, when he walks into the cafe you’re working at bleary eyed and sleep deprived

 Zizhen is not in the state of mind to be meeting his soul mate

when he comes up to the register, he begins ordering his usual chai tea latte with all the specific condiments as you listen in

as he’s talking you feel a little tingling on your wrist and don’t think much about it, not even asking him anything else when he quietly hands you his credit card to swipe

you’d always been a quiet person, and your boss was always on your back for not going through all of the employee procedures but you don’t pay that any mind

but anyways, only when you’re in the middle of making his order do you finally realize

you sleeve slips up a little bit as you’re making the tea and you notice a little paragraph written in beautiful swirling script on your wrist

you’d almost burned yourself at the fact and put one and one together

some dude just placed a whole order as your soulmate quote

and you’re angry

when you’ve finished making the chai latte you hold onto the drink tight as the guy from before comes back for his order

but just before he gets it, you snatch the drink far from his grasp and pull down your sleeve showcase your newest soulmate quote

‘i’ll have a medium chai tea latte, light on on the cream with two pumps of vanilla, no water and switch out normal milk with soy milk. also with extra cinnamon”

when Zizhen realizes that you’re his soulmate his very actual soul wants to leave his body because:

the moment that he’s been waiting for has finally come

also you’re so cute!!!

but you face looks stormy and sullen... i mean who wouldn’t be, you just got an starbucks order as your soulmate quote  (and only a very very specific group of people would find a blessing in that and you were not one of them)

you wanna just call him ‘dickhead’ and make it even, but even that seems light in comparison to the entire chai tea latte order that he places on your wrist   

f o r e v e r

but you’re in for a treat, because, Zizhen’s always been a too much of a romantic

you take some time off from your shift to make a plan with this dude, because there was no way that you were gonna read the cheesy soulmate quote that he wanted and have everything be dandy

you learn that Zizhen is his name and that he’s much too romantic; so romantic in fact that he proposes a solution in comparison to your soulmate quote right away

“do you have a favorite recipe or something that you like to eat? you can read the recipe to me so that i’ll have it on my wrist, and i’ll know how to make it!”

he sounds so excited that it lightens the order on your wrist a little

the gesture softens you a bit (read a lot)

but you’re also mildly peeved that every time you look at your wrist its a beautiful beautiful calligraphy of a specific order of chai tea latte

so when you guys begin dating, you give him the silent treatment on your first few outings together

but through every date together, from movies to restaurant, you learn that Zizhen is a very easy going and compassionate guy, easily filling in for the empty space that would have been your voice

similarly, Zizhen wonders and lingers on the sound of your voice, but also finds himself falling deeply for your laugh

it’s amazing the vibe that you guys create together and this is without you talking yet!

after a few weeks of going out together, you’re sat across from him in a small homey cafe when you say your first words to him

in the end, there is no big recipe written on his wrist; you read the exact quote that he wants to have

because you know how much it means to him to have that on his skin

when you’re finished, Zizhen realizes that what he was searching for wasn’t even the perfect quote to be said

it was the fact that the person he had grown to love had said it to him

and even though there’s no recipe etched onto his skin, he has the rest of eternity to remember all of your favorite recipes to the depths of his heart

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[masterjedilenawrites]

The Helmeted Hunter: Chapter 8

Boba Fett x Reader

Chapter Warnings: A “sudden sound” at the end

AO3 Link (In case you like it better over there, it’s okay, no judgement)

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Chapter 8: You’ll See

You'd thought by Boba's tone the planet he was taking you to would be a lot more... well, just more than this. If anything, it was more dirty and more barren and more boring than any you'd seen so far, and that included the several other desert planets now on your have-seen list.

"Where are we?" you called back up the ramp to where Boba was making final preparations before disembarking.

"Jakku."

He walked up alongside you, pausing with a hand hovering over the opposite wrist, where he usually shot out a fiber-cord to tie you up.

"I'm not going anywhere," you assured him with a smirk. "Promise."

He still seemed hesitant, but you started walking anyway. You weren't sure where to go, or why you were even on this planet, but you needed to stretch your legs and do something. You felt restless. There were so many questions without answers and potentially a whole galaxy to go through to find them. You wanted to get started right away. You wanted to come across something to help start making sense of things.

Boba fell into step beside you. There looked to be an outpost just ahead, though it wasn't the bustling station common in other places. Scraggly looking humans and other creatures that seemed rough-around-the-edges milled about here and there. They all eyed you and your companion as you made your way through them. Eventually Boba took the lead and guided you around a watering hole and back into an expanse of rolling dunes and sand.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"Well what are we even doing here?"

"You'll see."

You huffed in frustration but continued to follow the helmeted man before you. You were finding it annoying how he flip-flopped between being silent and chatty. It was almost like he just remembered he was supposed to be an intimidating bounty hunter and decided to ignore the fact he could be relaxed and friendly with you.

If traipsing through the forest terrain of Takodana had been miserable, the sand dunes you now found yourself navigating was surely hell. Once the piddly outpost had disappeared in the distance behind you, and you realized it would probably be awhile before you reached whatever destination ahead, your focus became surviving the unpredictable nature of the dunes. Stray breezes would come at random, disturbing the sand around you, causing your eyes to water and your throat to feel a perpetual tickle.

At one point you ended up tumbling down a hill and got stuck, much to your embarrassment. Boba had to slide down and help you up with a shake of his helmeted head. Sand grated uncomfortably in your clothes for the rest of the journey.

Eventually, and thankfully, said journey ended. The dunes leveled out into more of a dirt plateau, with a little tent rising up in the middle of it. Boba led you straight for it, and the man that was standing watch just outside it.

The man's skin reminded you of a mummy, shriveled and wrinkled but with a hardened look about it. He wore goggles over his eyes and protective armor on his shoulders. His fingers were decorated with various gold rings. He was stoic as the two of you approached.

"I figured you'd be the one to come for me," he said.

Boba stopped just before him, hands on his hips. You lingered behind, unsure what to make of this meeting yet.

"I don't know what you mean," Boba replied. "I'm here to see an old friend."

There was a moment of silence and then the other man burst out laughing. He clapped a hand on Boba's shoulder and pulled him in for a hug.

"Oh Fett, you haven't changed a bit!" he cackled. "Trying to pull one over on me. I'll be damned."

Boba awkwardly wiggled out of the embrace, as stiff as you'd ever seen him. You imagined he didn't experience a lot of friendly physical contact in his line of work.

"Come, come, inside before the winds pick up."

The man motioned for both of you to follow him into the tent. It really, truly was little. Once the three of you were inside, there wasn't room for much else. A cot lay rolled out in one corner, a small fire pit lay dormant in another, and the rest of the available space was littered with tarnished cups, jewels, and other items that seemed like they had once been valuable but were now just junk. You stepped among them gingerly, not sure where to position yourself in the cramped chaos.

"Do you live here?" you found yourself compelled to ask.

"Don't mind her," Boba commented as he took a seat on the cot. "She's a bit high maintenance."

Your eyebrows shot up, incredulous. What had you done that was considered "high maintenance?" You were about to ask when the other man scolded him for you.

"No, no. She is a woman of good taste."

You nodded. "Yes, thank you."

He smiled at you and extended a hand. "Hondo Ohnaka. And don't worry, my dear, this is only a temporary arrangement."

You took his offered hand and introduced yourself in return. He gave you a knowing look once he heard your name.

"So the rumors of the Empire's bounty are true." He turned to face Boba. "I would've thought if you were the one to find her, you'd have no need to come after an old pirate like me."

"As I said, I'm only here to see a friend."

Hondo seemed to be considering something, though you weren't sure what. All you knew was that a guy like Boba Fett didn't have friends, not in the true sense of the word, so whatever connection he had with this man was complicated.

"What do you mean by pirate?" you asked, hoping to gain some insight into who this man was and why you were visiting him.

"I used to lead many smugglers and thieves around the galaxy, back before the war," he explained with a wistful look in his eyes. "I'm all that's left now. I do what I can to keep the old ways alive. But it's never really the same."

His voice held a certain kind of sadness you'd heard before, by your grandparents and other elderly folk, people who'd come to realize the best part of their lives was already behind them. It broke your heart to hear such loss of hope.

"The past has a way of coming back around," Boba spoke up. "A man of your experience and expertise will always be in demand. I could use some of that myself."

Hondo stroked his chin again in contemplation. He then turned back around to face you.

"Well for starters, you can treat your bounty here with a little more respect. Poor girl doesn't even have a scarf to protect her pretty face on this mess of a planet."

He started rummaging around his piles of junk, eventually pulling up a helmet that looked a lot like the ones the Imperial soldiers had been wearing.

"For you, my dear. Go on and try it outside, make sure all the filters still work properly."

You weren't sure you knew how to do such a check, but you got the feeling Hondo was subtly asking you to give him and Boba some privacy. So you took the helmet and made your way back outside the tent, but not before stopping just outside the door to catch some of their conversation.

She's certainly the prettiest bounty you've collected, if not the most valuable. I hope you've at least acknowledged that.

What difference does that make?

What's wrong with appreciating beauty when you find it? Makes the job easier, no? Unless you find it distracting?

What's distracting is you talking about anything other than what I'm here for.

All I'm saying is you can't be all-business all the time. A bounty hunter like you, you've got to take what little joy you can get.

Which is what I'm here for. The joy of finishing a job and getting my reward.

You forced yourself to turn away. This man would certainly have information for Boba about your situation. And if he'd come up with an excuse to get you to leave for the moment, he must be shy about sharing it with anyone other than his purported friend. So you respected their privacy and settled your focus on the stormtrooper helmet now in your possession.

You played around with it for a while, first enjoying the basic safety from the elements it provided simply by putting it on, and then exploring the more specialized features. You were able to change the filtration power of the air supply, pull up environmental readings and terrain maps in your eyesight, and tap into nearby comms frequencies. You would've been content with continuing your experiments for a while longer, if it weren't for the sudden sound of a blaster firing from within Hondo's tent.

You sprinted the short distance over and threw the door open. For a split second, right before you registered what had happened inside, you considered the fact it probably wasn't a good idea to rush into a potentially dangerous situation with no weapon like this. But it was your fear that something had happened to Boba, the one somewhat-trustworthy person you could more-or-less rely on, that spurned you forward without thinking.

But you should've known it would never be Boba who would end up stunned and unconscious on the ground.

[lilyharvord]

ever since you mentioned coriane and ptolemus and wren’s son dating i’ve never been the same... IMAGINE THE ANGST, YEARNING AND THE SECRET DATING

Listen.... I had to ((: 

Me? Writing a fic about Coriane Barrow Calore and my Samos baby OC? Me finally putting my Post Broken Throne headcanons on paper?! And taking canon into my own hands? Not ME! WRONG BITCH?! I MADE A HEADER AND EVERYTHING which means I am too invested now 😭

           For the longest time Coriane had wondered why people always looked at her and Nik when they were together, and why as they got older people started to whisper. She couldn’t help that her mother had taken her to same park that Nik’s aunts took him when she was little. It wasn’t her fault that they had met one day and played a very intense game of tag before deciding to be friends. It wasn’t her fault that he happened to be in her classes through all the years she had been in school. It certainly wasn’t her fault that she lived on the path he always took when walking to and from school either.

           Those were all a bunch of coincidences! Which was why she hated when people used to make kissing noises when they were on the playground together. Nik was too nice to punch people, but Coriane learned early how to ball her hand into a fist and hit the soft part of someone’s stomach. She’d seen the mistress of the school plenty of times because of that and every time her mom or dad had to pull her out of school, she got the same lecture on the way home.

           Stop losing your temper. People will say nasty things your whole life. Learn to let those things roll off your back.

           Between her and her brother, Shade was better at that. But he wasn’t afraid to swing his fist either. He had a nastier right hook than her anyway. Florence Dephiam might disagree, but her nose had stuck itself so far into Coriane’s business and she had been tired of it being there.

            Now she understood why people whispered though. It started about a few years ago, when she and Nik went swimming in the icy creek behind the park. She had seen Nik without his shirt plenty of times when they were younger and they used to run around his backyard, when it was sweltering during the height of summer. But for some reason that day her stomach had fluttered, and her heart had pounded while she flushed. He’d teased her mercilessly about being afraid of getting a little cold. She’d showered him in a wave of water while jumping in to shut him up. At least, that’s what she told herself she did it for. Not to hide how flustered she was by that fluttering in her stomach.

           She kept that flutter to herself, shoved it deep, deep, deep down where sometimes she forgot it existed. But Nik always did something that pulled it back to the surface. Yesterday, he’d grabbed her arm to pull her out of the way of an obstacle during training. He’d grabbed her arm plenty of times growing up, and held her hand often enough that it shouldn’t have bothered her. But for some reason, her entire body had heated up to the point that she’d started to turn the rain on her skin to vapor. She really, really didn’t want to think about what that meant.

           That fluttering was going to ruin everything.

           Nik was her friend. Her best friend if she really thought about it. He was one of the only people outside of her immediate family to see her cry. Her knew her deepest, darkest fears. He knew all the details about her life. He could probably guess her breakfast down to how much milk she poured on her cereal.

           She would not let some stupid feelings ruin that.

           “Are you just going to keep glaring at my ceiling like it offends you?” Nik’s chest rose and fell under her head with his laugh. She’d brought the new record she got for her birthday to his house so he could listen to it with her. She liked listening to music in his room. His player was better than hers anyway. Or maybe it was the fact, that laying on his floor with him made the music sound better. Again, she shoved that thought down.

           “It’s ugly just like you.” She teased before letting her head roll to the side. He was looking up at the ceiling too, which meant she could see him swallow before he replied. She could hear and feel his heart beating as he breathed under her too. It sent a thrill through her that she was allowed this close to Nikolas Samos.

He wasn’t a very touchy-feely person. He said it was because most of his family wasn’t either. His mom and his aunt Elane were the warmest people in his family, but they could only hold him so much as a child. Coriane on the other hand was very used to expressing her feelings that way. From a young age, she learned the importance of hugs. Her grandma Ruth gives the best ones after all. She used to think they were magic when she was little.

           “Because you’re so much better looking Cori.” He lifted his head off the carpet to look at her. Those iron colored eyes were very nice in the lightning, Coriane thought to herself. Only to quickly shove that thought into the same box she kept the fluttering and any other thoughts of Nik that weren’t in regrades to his general well-being.  

           “Still better looking than you.” She huffed before facing the ceiling again and closing her eyes. Anything to avoid looking at him. How was she going to keep hanging out with him like this if she couldn’t even control her thoughts around him? She was bound to blurt something out at some point. Her family always said that she inherited her mom’s mouth. She knew it was true though. She was not afraid to say what she thought. It sometimes drove her mom insane though, and they used to butt heads more when she was younger because of it.

           She decided to focus on the music to avoid thinking about Nik. It was a newly recovered Old Era song. Her uncle Kilorn had gifted it to her this year. She didn’t tell anyone, but his gifts were her favorites. He always knew exactly what she liked.

           “We should walk and get dinner soon. It’s getting late.”

           “After the song.” Coriane murmured, letting herself get lulled by the cords and the feeling of Nik’s breathing. She had no problem with staying late at Nik’s house, even when it used to make her mom nervous that she spent so much time around Nik. As the years went by though, she stopped getting warnings before leaving, and instead started being told to mind her mouth and say thank you to his parents. And when Nik came over, her mom didn’t walk on egg shells around him. Maybe she was just used to his presence now. It probably helped that Nik took after his mom a little more than his dad. If it were the other way, Coriane knew her mom might have put her foot down about them being friends a long time ago.

“Did you think about what I told you… about Addie a few days ago?” Nik asked quietly, but Coriane heard it anyway. Addie was another girl in their year who had been flirting with Nik for weeks. He’d asked Cori what she thought about her a few days ago. Coriane had changed the subject very fast as soon as he asked.  

The thought of her long chocolate colored hair and pretty almond eyes sent a bolt of panic through Coriane. It was probably what Shade felt every time he channeled a bolt of electricity during training, something she would never really understand.

It was selfish, but she didn’t want Addie around Nik. It wasn’t that Addie was bad or anything. She was actually really nice. But if he started hanging out with her or… dating her, that meant Cori couldn’t do things like this anymore. She told herself that was the problem, instead of what really was chewing at her mind.

           “Why do you care what I think?”

           “Because you’re my friend, and I trust your judgement.”

           Coriane expelled a sigh through her nose before rolling to sit up. There was no avoiding this stupid conversation anymore. Besides, she didn’t know what she was so afraid of. If Nik started seeing Addie, maybe the fluttering would finally die, and she could stop feeling so weird around him.

She could feel Nik’s eyes on her as she fixed her shirt that had fallen off her shoulder. Better to take this slow and steady, even though ripping off the bandage might be easier. “She’s pretty, and she obviously likes you.”

           “But do you like her?”

           “Why does that matter Nik? It should just matter if you like her.”

           “I don’t.”

           Coriane glared at him over her shoulder, before shoving her fingers into her curls to push them out of her face. “Then why are you even bothering to ask me?”

           “I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out what you’re thinking.”

           “You always know what I’m thinking.” Coriane argued back before getting up to pad across the room and turn the record off. It wasn’t an exaggeration. Nik knew her inside and out, just like she knew him in the same way. He was just being stupid. If he didn’t like Addie why was he bothering to ask about her?

           “Actually I don’t.” With a little flick of his hand, he moved the needle off the record. It was such a subtle move that it made Coriane’s hand pause mid-reach. Sometimes she forgot how powerful Nik was. And sometimes he forgot how powerful she was. They had learned the hard way about each other in that capacity while sparring. He may be a very strong Magnetron with the training and the pedigree to back it up, but she was something else. She was a mix of Silver and Ardent that had made her deadly from the moment she created her first little candle sized flame.

           The floor creaked as Nik propped himself on his elbows, and with a sigh he said, “I don’t like Addie because… I like someone else.”

           “You should tell her that before she gets more invested.” Coriane tried to ignore the bitter sting of jealousy that went through her. So not only was Addie a problem, there was another person. Great. Grimacing, at that thought and the burn in her cheeks, she tried to shove that feeling in the box and lock it. If tonight kept going like this, she was going to run out of space in there.

           She lifted the record off the player before dragging her backpack towards her to put it away. When she tried to pull the zipper though, it refused to budge.

“Stop Nik,” she grumbled as she pulled on it again, but it stayed in place. The metal began to heat up between her forefinger and thumb as the silence continued and the metal tab refused to move under her urging.

           “Usually you’re the one trying to get me to talk.” He teased, making her look over her shoulder at him with a frown. He quirked a brow at her expression before reaching up to scratch at his dark hair. With the lights dimmed in his room like this, he looked like one of the paintings her aunt made, complete with slightly blurred edges that made it seem like a dream. She was grateful for that blissful darkness though. It saved her from having to explain the blush in her cheeks.

           Now she wished she left the record playing. The silence was starting to make the whole thing worse. Looking back down at her hands she said, “I’m hungry. I get moody when I’m hungry.”

           “Don’t I know that.” Nik poked at her heel with his toes. Pushing his leg away with one hand, Coriane glowered at him.

           “I mean it, don’t make me beat your ass like I did yesterday.” She warned, but the threat lost most of its influence with her smile. Nik was the only one besides her brother and parents who could really pull her out of a bad mood. They knew all the ways to push that darkness back.

           “I was winning for almost the whole fight. You cheated.” Nik reasoned with a little shrug before releasing his hold on her zipper.

           Smirking at getting her way, Coriane pulled out the case and put her record away. It gave her something to think about other than the way the muscles underneath Nik’s thin shirt moved when he shrugged. Had he always looked like that? No definitely not. He’d only started putting on muscle a year or two ago. Or maybe it was three? He had always been thin as a pole from what she could remember. His mom always bemoaned that if he turned sideways and stuck his tongue out he could be a zipper. It used to make Coriane giggle.

           He certainly didn’t look like that anymore. Just like Coriane knew she didn’t look like the girl with a bow in her hair anymore. They stopped looking like kids a long time ago.

           “Have you—are you still talking to Xander?” Nik asked her back, his voice strangely quiet.

           “No. He wanted one thing and one thing only… plus his nose was crooked.” Coriane added the last part with a smile in Nik’s direction, hoping it would soothe the strange hurt he had just shown her. But his brow stayed furrowed, and his eyes remained dark. “My dad hated him anyways.” She added when the shadow that crossed his expression refused to leave.

           “Your dad hates every guy that talks to you.” She didn’t have to look at him to know he rolled his eyes.

           “He doesn’t hate you.” Coriane said with shrugged before pushing her backpack away and sitting to face Nik again. He looked down at his legs, his expression loosening a bit. It wasn’t much but it was something. The last thing she wanted was for her earlier mood to rub off on him.

           “I guess.” He murmured, obviously uncertain still.

           They were quiet for a long time. Coriane couldn’t remember the last time they were this uncomfortable around each other. Actually, it might have been after the really bad fight they had years ago. Nik had said something to her—she couldn’t remember what it was anymore—just that it had hurt more than anything. She had left his house immediately, telling him she hated him and didn’t want to see him ever again. When she got home, she stayed curled up with her head in mom’s lap for hours crying about it that night. They didn’t talk for a week after, and when he finally came around and apologized, they had a hard time figuring out their new boundaries.  

           Coriane glanced down at her hands, tracing the lines with her eyes to avoid looking up and breaking the silence. It would have to get broken eventually. That bitter thought from earlier reared its ugly head again, and Coriane squeezed her eyes shut in preparation before asking, “if you don’t like Addie, who do you like?”

           “It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t like me like that.”

           “How do you know?”

           Nik was quiet again, and Coriane opened her eyes to look at her hands again. In her eighteen years, she’s collected a couple little scares on her forehands. One or two from sparring, and a few from helping her dad in their garage. But they were easier to think about right now than Nik, and the little flare of hope in her chest that came with his confession.

           “Do you really not like Xander because his nose is crooked?”

           Well, if they were going down that road, she might as well just tell the truth. There was no point in hiding it from Nik anymore. “No, but… I like some other guy.”

           “Oh.” Nik’s exclamation floated into the darkness, a strange cord of hope to it that made Coriane glance up through her lashes. He was sitting up now too, his legs crossed under him while he watched her. They stared at each other like that for a moment before Nik scooted a little closer and their knees almost bumped. He kept a special inch of space between them to prevent that from happening though.

“Can I ask you something?” He was so close when he spoke, she could smell the shaving cream he started using a few weeks ago. It smelled like mint. She decided she liked it. Especially when it mixed with the perfume she wore. “Is it… weird that I think about you a lot?”

           “We’re friends Nik, I think about you too.” Coriane tried to keep her voice from going into the breathy octave that Clara called the flirty octave. She usually punctuated that title with a wink when Coriane balked at it. The last thing she wanted in this moment was for Nik to get the wrong idea. Or get any idea really. This was so confusing. She couldn’t decide if she wanted him to know what she was feeing or not. Admitting her feelings to him felt like covering her eyes and stepping off a cliff. It made her nauseous just thinking about it. But continuing to sit on them like a chicken would an egg made her hate herself. Which was the worse evil? She tossed back and forth between the two minds like a boat in a storm.

           “Can I put the record back on?” Nik asked quickly. His voice cracked halfway through though and made him pull back with wide eyes. The tension shattered like a glass bowl and Coriane blinked in surprise before laughing at the pure horror on his face. He joined in a moment later, rubbing the back of his neck and looking away from her while his dark skin flushed pale.

           She fished the record out and gave it to him, trying to stifle her laugh the whole time. His voice hadn’t cracked in a long time, but it had provided such a needed relief that she couldn’t help but be grateful for it.

Still blushing, Nik srambled to his feet to put it on, letting the music fill the silence of his room. When he sat down again, his knee brushed hers. Coriane’s entire focus zeroed to that point of contact, and her heart began to beat staccato in her chest. It was stupid. She and Nik had brushed knees all the time as kids. They had even made a game of trying to bruise the other’s when they were younger. Nik’s mom probably spent too much time healing aching knees when they were kids, but no one stopped them. Her own mother always grumbled about letting them pummel each other, that a little rough housing was good for them.

           “Does the guy know that you like him?”

           “I don’t think so.” Coriane watched his face for his reaction, but he gave nothing away with the slight tilt of his head. He was so close she could see the splash of charcoal grey in his irises.

           “Are you going to tell him?”

           “I don’t know. Are you going to tell whoever it is that you like?”

           “I want to.”

           “Why don’t you?” She forced herself to keep watching him, to try and put the observation skills her mom had taught her to use. Nik had always been such a closed book though. He was the only person she could never figure out. It had taken her forever to figure out all his little ticks, and even then, he always made new ones like his emotions were a code he was trying to keep safe.

           In the end, he ignored her question with a shrug. But as he rested his forearms on his knees, his fingers brushed her shin, and sent bolts of electricity up to her brain. Finally, she saw the skin between his brows crinkle as he tried to keep from making a face at whatever thought crossed his mind.

           “Do you remember a few weeks ago after training when you went over to get your ribs looked at?”

           “Yeah. You helped them cut my jacket off.”

           He blushed again, and his eyes darted down to his hands and his fingers curled into fists to avoid touching her. “I’ve… been thinking about that a lot.”

           Nothing had happened. It wasn’t even his fault that she had fallen. They had been racing to the top of the obstacle, her foot had gotten tangled in the netting, and she had lost her grip on the platform above her head trying to get loose. She’d fallen ten feet to the ground and landed on her back. The crack had one hundred percent been ribs, and while the trainer had rushed to her, Nik had been the first one down to check on her. He’d helped the trainer lift her to her feet and had practically carried her to the healer off to the side.

           A quick inspection had confirmed broken ribs, and rather than make the pain worse by taking her training jacket off normally, Nik had helped the healer by cutting it open at the back to give the woman access to her skin. She hadn’t been thinking about him at all though in that moment, just that her right side felt like it was on fire, and her lungs felt like they were filling with water.

           Thinking back on it now, she had felt his hands lingering on her lower back and side a little longer than was probably necessary. It could have been that he was just supporting her so that she didn’t have to hold her own weight while the healer snapped bones back into place and healed her torn lung. But they’re trailed off her skin as the healer shooed him out of her way. And he had coddled her a stupid amount afterward, taking her home and dropping her off and making her explain to her parents what happened and why she needed a new training jacket. It had just been Nik being Nik though. He may not be the most sentimental person, but when he cared about someone he was willing to step in front of a firing squad for them.

           “I keep thinking about you. And not just the ribs incident. Whenever you’re around, I can’t stop thinking about how your arms look when you pull your hair up before training, and how you always put your right boot on before your left even if that’s the stupidest superstition I’ve ever heard.” He inhaled sharply, and tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, his throat bobbing rapidly. “I keep thinking about how happy it makes me when you pick me first for things, and how you always smile while I talk about whatever I’m doing, even if I know you think it’s boring.”

           Coriane opened her mouth to speak, but he dropped his chin and grabbed her wrist to keep her quiet. “I’m always thinking about how you can pick up any instrument and play it like you’ve know how forever. And when I think about the guys who try to flirt with you, I hate them. I hate them so much I want to punch their teeth in so they stop talking to you.”

           “Nik,” Coriane tried not to pull her wrist away. This was a lot, too much to unload when she wasn’t expecting it.

           “I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want to make it awkward. I didn’t want to ruin this,” he gestured between them, his voice breaking as he shook his head.

           “Nikolas,” She insisted a little more forcefully. But he wasn’t listening. He kept shaking his head and rambling. This was infuriating. He wasn’t going to let her say a word, was he? That meant she was going to have to take a desperate measure, damn him.

           Grabbing his face, she pressed her lips against his. Her dad always did this when her mom wouldn’t stop talking. She’d seen him do it plenty of times to know it was effective. When she was little it used to gross her out, but as she got older, she realized it was a very reliable way to make someone she loved shut up. This kiss wasn’t exactly like that kiss though. That kiss always left her mom breathless and standing there dumbfound, no matter how many times it happened. This was a little more hesitant, a little more like a curiosity she was exploring.

It certainly wasn’t her first either, she’d had that kiss two years ago when her friend Willow had kissed her in the changing room before training. It had sent a thrill through her and she had kissed back before the two of them had pulled back in surprise at the other’s ferocity. Willow had moved to a smaller Montfort city a week later though, and taken that fling with her. They’d only kissed once, but it had confirmed a few things for Coriane. One, that she was perfectly happy kissing girls, the other being that she wanted to kiss everyone like that.

This kiss wasn’t like that one either though. While that one had sent a bolt of lightning coursing through her so that her hands were shaking, this one was like a slow burning fire in her chest. It started there and slowly began to spread to every one of her fingers and toes. She wondered if Nik could feel that heat, and knew what it meant.

It certainly shut him up though. When they pulled away from it, they stared at each other for a long second. During that eternal second Coriane registered that her heart was beating so hard it hurt, and her stomach was hanging out somewhere in her pelvis, and that it was a very weird feeling. When the silence got to be too long, and she felt a little uncomfortable staring into his eyes, she said, “You wouldn’t let me say that I’ve been feeling the same things.”

Nik didn’t say anything when he grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her close to smash his lips against hers again. She gasped a little at the feeling, only to slowly unfurl from her seated position. Crawling to close the distance between them, she draped one arm and then the other over his shoulders, letting her hands dangled behind his back and brush against the track of his spine. She wanted to dig her nails into his skin though, and press her fingers into the muscles of his back to feel how they moved when he did. It seemed a tad much in the moment though, so she settled for dragging her fingers up through the hair on the back of his head.

           Craning his neck to prolong the kiss, he grabbed her waist with both hands, and squeezed. She made a sound in the back of her throat that surprised even her. But her skin felt like it was on fire, and she couldn’t stop thinking about how embarrassing it would be if she burned him right now.

Her body had a mind of its own though, and she slipped one knee around his waist and then the other before trailing her fingers down to cup his jaw and keep his head tilted up. He tasted like mint, she hadn’t been expecting that. She wasn’t sure what she expected though. Maybe that he would taste like iron, or like every memory she had of him.

His fingers grabbed fistfuls of her shirt, untucking it from her pants as he shifted and rolled to the side to lower her onto his carpet. Crossing her ankles behind his hips in response, Coriane arched her back to keep the kiss from breaking. He pulled away to breathe though, and left her breathless as he did so.

They watched each other until Coriane realized that most of her hair was in her mouth and she was panting like she just ran five miles. Clearing her throat and reaching up with a shaking hand, she pushed the loose strands behind her shoulder. “I guess that clears that up.”

Nik laughed lightly, and that sound was probably the most wonderful thing Coriane had ever heard him make.

[zigsexual]

What sort of love drama takes place in your HP AU (specifically all of the juicy Maxwell/Riley drama)?

me? writing an entire fic in response to this question? putting all the brewing love drama in one single scene? yes bitch i said it !

• • •

“I don’t see why we have to waste our Hogsmede trip just because —“

“Shh!” Riley waves a hand in his face, frowning. “I’m trying to listen to what they’re saying.”

Drake sighs, taking another sip of his butterbeer. They’ve been in this booth for over an hour now, and Riley still refuses to let him leave. Says it’ll ‘look suspicious’ if she’s here by herself.

“Why will it look suspicious?” he’d asked her, but she’d only shushed him, eyes flashing with an intensity he didn’t dare cross.

He’s convinced now that they might never leave, what with Riley attentively focused on the table only a few feet away, where Penelope from Hufflepuff is gazing fondly at Maxwell. She’s leaning forward, her chin resting demurely on her hand, in direct contrast to the way Maxwell is animately telling her some story several decibels above an acceptable volume.

“Really, though,” Drake tries again, “It looks like he’s doing fine, maybe we can just meet him at Honeydukes after like we planned?”

“I have to make sure she isn’t trying to use him,” Riley says, eyes still intently focused on the other table. “He’s too nice, you know. People take advantage of that.”

“I highly doubt anyone is taking advantage of Maxwell.”

She shoots him a glare.

“What? I mean, honestly, what would anyone be using him for?”

“His connections,” Riley says. “You know how his family is.”

“Yeah, I know that they’ve essentially disowned him and there’s no way he’s getting access to any of those ‘connections.’” Drake frowns, surveying her. “Seriously, Riley, why are we here? Can you at least —“

The door to the pub swings open, letting in a gust of freezing air and a slew of Ravenclaws, led at the front by Hana Lee. It doesn’t take her long to spot the two of them, and she waves excitedly, already crossing the room even as Riley ducks her head and hisses, “Shit, she’s gonna blow our cover.”

Drake rolls his eyes at her. “What cover?” 

Hana stops just in front of their booth, pink-cheeked and smiling. She’s still got her scarf wrapped around her neck, all the way up past her chin, Prefect badge neatly affixed as always. “Hi Riley! Drake!”

She pulls off her hat, shaking out her hair, which falls down neatly around her shoulders without so much as a single flyaway. Normally, Drake would chalk it up to magic, but these sorts of things come naturally to Hana. 

Everything comes naturally to Hana.

“We’re —“ Riley starts, but Drake cuts her off: “We’re spying on Maxwell and his date.”

Riley kicks him under the table, but Hana doesn’t seem to notice. She glances over her shoulder, eyes falling on Penelope. “Oh!” She turns back, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know they were together.”

“They’re not,” Riley says, tone a bit too harsh for her feigned indifference.

“Well, that’s sweet,” Hana smiles. “I’m glad I ran into you guys, actually. Did you know Liam’s staying for holiday this year? He just told me this week, so I promised I’d invite him to all our little traditions. Won’t that be fun?”

“Oh god,” Riley groans dramatically, “Double the Prefects? We won’t be able to get into any shenanigans.”

“There’s plenty we can do without shenanigans —“

“Yeah, plenty of boring things, like reading or studying or reading about studying —”

“You said Liam is staying?” Drake interrupts. Because there’s only one Liam. Hana’s Ravenclaw counterpart, son of the Minister of Magic.

Hana seems grateful from the reprieve from Riley’s teasing. “Yes. He hasn’t mentioned why, but from what I can imagine…”

She’s still talking, but he’s already tuned her out upon hearing the affirmation. He can tell the exact moment Riley does, too, because she suddenly turns towards him with a funny look on her face, the realization beginning to set in.

Her eyes widen, and she whispers, “Oh my god. Hot Prefect.”

“What?” Hana says.

“Nothing. Carry on.” Now it’s Drake’s turn to kick her under the table, because yes — Liam also happens to be the very same boy Maxwell and Riley have spent the better part of two years calling ‘Hot Prefect’ in a continuous effort to embarrass Drake and ultimately drive him to murder them.

(Which, really, there had only been the one time he’d actually said those words, and it was in a moment of weakness after too much stolen firewhiskey, and they truly had no business continuing to bring it up the way they did. It’s not he gives them half as much shit about anything they’ve done.)

“I should have him come say hi,” Hana stands on her tiptoes, surveying the crowded room . “Don’t tell anyone, but I think he’s a bit shy about it all, he could use a chance to get familiar with you.”

“We’d love to get familiar with him,” Riley grins, “Wouldn’t we, Drake?”

He checks to make sure Hana is sufficiently distracted before leaning in close and hissing, “I will crucio your ass, Brooks, don’t think I won’t.”

She sticks her tongue out at him. “As if. You’re like, failing Charms.”

Hana finally spots Liam amongst a group of other Ravenclaws and begins waving at him excitedly, gesturing towards the booth with a smile once she catches his attention. “Liam! Over here!”

Drake’s mouth goes completely dry at his approach.

It’s honestly unfair to just call him hot. He’s devastatingly handsome, like the protagonist of one of Savannah’s regency romance movies (which Drake has definitely not watched): cheeks flushed from the cold, hair a little windblown, dressed in a perfectly fitted navy sweater. When he reaches Hana’s side, he nods to each of them, smiling shyly, and he’s so pretty it hurts — like being hit with a bludger. A love bludger. Fuck.

“Nice to meet you,” Liam says, polite as ever. Riley returns the greeting, but Drake can only stare. 

“Hana tells us you’re joining the motley crew, then?”

“So it seems,” Liam answers. “What should I expect?”

“Hmm.” Riley glances at Drake out of the corner of her eye. “Incredibly sexy singles. Loads of hookups. Maybe an orgy or two.”

Hana laughs nervously, turning to look at Liam with wide eyes. “She’s kidding, obviously. Riley, tell Liam you’re kidding.”

Riley merely raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of her butterbeer. Hana looks mortified, but Liam only laughs, although he’s definitely a bit more flushed than he was before.

There are so few of them who stay over break; the misfits with fucked up families or no families at all. They’ve grown accustomed to each other over the years, a silent acknowledgement of their particular lot in life, and it’s rare anyone adds to the group. 

Especially someone like Liam. 

Hana’s been part of the crew since day one. Her parents aren’t dead, but they are terrible, and she always seemed to relish the chance to be away from them a few weeks more. Each year, she comes up with a new elaborate research project that requires her to stay, an excuse her parents will not only accept, but be proud of. 

“Anyway,” Riley says, finishing off her drink, “If it’s not obvious, I’m Riley. And that’s Drake.” She gestures in his direction, mischief all over her face. “He’s the keeper on Gryffindor’s team. Highly sought after, in case you didn’t know.”

God, he’s going to hex her into next Tuesday when they get back to the castle.

“Liam never goes to the Quidditch games,” Hana says. “I keep trying to convince him.”

Drake and Riley must both look horrified at this admission, because Liam rubs at his neck awkwardly upon seeing their faces. “It’s not that I don’t want to go. I’m just… busy.”

“Too busy for Quidditch?” Riley scoffs.

“Too busy for most things, really,” Liam says. “I’m afraid I’m not much fun.”

Riley leans back in her seat. “Well, we can’t have that if you’re going to be spending Christmas with us.”

“You could come to the match next Friday.” Drake blurts out, before his better judgement can stop him. “We’re playing Slytherin, so you can cheer for us.”

There’s a hint of a smile on Liam’s face. “And what if I only root for Ravenclaw?”

“Well, cheer for me — er, me and Riley — then,” Drake says, suddenly bold. Must be all the butterbeer. “We can be a neutral third party.”

Riley is kicking him under the table again, but he ignores her.

“I’ll think about it,” Liam answers, his shy smile back on his face. This time, however, it’s fully directed at Drake, and the unrelenting focus renders him completely useless.

“Cool,” he manages to reply, voice a little higher than it should be. Riley kicks him harder.

Liam runs a hand through his hair, and the gesture makes Drake’s cheeks go hot. “Maybe we could —“

Before he can say anything else, an unwelcome voice breaks into their conversation, light and airy with a hint of an untraceable (and perhaps manufactured) accent: “We’re about to order, so if either of you want food…”

The girl behind said voice pops into view between Hana and Liam, pausing when her eyes fall on the booth, only for her face to instantly break into a smile so wide it threatens to overtake her whole face. “Hi Drake.”

He avoids eye contact, even though he can feel her gaze boring into him. “…Hi Kiara.”

“And hello to you, too,” Riley quips, rolling her eyes. “Such a warm welcome, as always.”

“Are you joining us?” Kiara asks, ignoring Riley completely. “It’s a house outing, technically, but I’m sure we can make an exception.”

“Oh, no,” Hana says, “We just stopped to say hi, I’m fairly certain they were about to —“

Kiara puts her hand firmly on Hana’s shoulder, effectively shutting down her dismissal. “Again, I’m sure we can make an exception.”

It’s a blessed coincidence that, at the same moment, Penelope and Maxwell finish up and stand to leave, putting Kiara directly in Penelope’s field of vision. Upon seeing her best friend, Penelope squeals loud enough to break through the din of the pub and scurries over to fling her arms around Kiara, sending the other girl stumbling backwards.

“I didn’t know you’d be here!” Penelope says gleefully. “And you brought so many friends!”

Maxwell is close behind her, investigating as well, and his face lights up when he sees Riley and Drake. “Oh, hey! Perfect timing, I was just about to head to Honeydukes.”

He pushes past Hana and slides into the booth alongside Riley, slinging his arm around her shoulder with a grin. “You didn’t say anything about being here too. You should’ve come over and said hi, there was plenty of room.”

Riley rolls her eyes. “You were otherwise occupied.”

Kiara, who has finally put two and two together, looks at Penelope with renewed interest. “You’re here with Maxwell? You didn’t tell me you two were dating.”

“That’s because they’re not,” Riley mutters under her breath.

“We were getting drinks,” Penelope says, smiling vacantly as she often does. It’s a wonder she’s so close with a Ravenclaw; half the time Drake’s convinced there isn’t anything going on in her head. The very idea that she’s somehow capable of ‘taking advantage’ of anyone, let alone Maxwell, should be laughable.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Kiara claps her hands together excitedly. “Maxwell, we should do a double date sometime! Wouldn’t that be fun? You, me, Pen, and Drake.”

“No,” Drake says. 

Kiara just swats at his shoulder, laughing. “You’re so funny! Isn’t he funny?”

“Well,” Hana interjects, looking decidedly uncomfortable at the new influx of people, “I suppose we should get going. The food’s probably ready.”

“It was nice to meet you both,” Liam adds, clearly taking the opportunity to bow out as well. Fucking Kiara.

“Maybe we’ll see you at the match?” Riley shoots him an expectant smile. 

It’s always hard to argue with her enthusiasm, and Liam relents a bit. “Maybe,” he answers, and then Hana is tugging him back towards the bar, Kiara and Penelope — thankfully — following in her wake.

[writes-in-skies]

That day at the pond

“Growing up, I have always been told I should marry well. But I also know deep in my heart that I would marry for love above all else. My Great Aunt Lorraine told me it was wishful thinking on my part,” said Astoria Greengrass, as she was working on a charcoal drawing on her drawing book in her lap. When she was satisfied, she started using colours which she always looked forward to when she started drawing. 

“Why do you supposed she would say such a thing?” questioned the person who was the subject of her drawing. 

Astoria shrugged, her eyes still on her drawing. It is important to her that she got every detail right. “Perhaps she knows what she’s talking about,” she replied. 

“Do you always believe what she tells you?” the subject asked again with interest. 

“She is a credible woman. Great Aunt Lorraine always advised to protect the heart because it is the most important thing anyone can own and the easiest thing to lose. She even once said to not expect growing up with the satisfaction for being loved unconditionally. I had to hear that in my childhood. Can you imagine someone stomping on your hopes and dreams that young?”

“Your Great Aunt might be onto something. What if you give everything to this person and you do not get the happy ending you wanted? It would be a mistake.”

Astoria finally looked up at her subject, “Why are people so afraid of making mistakes? Mistakes of part of learning. How do I know if it is a mistake if I don’t even try?” she challenged. 

“The price you pay for your mistakes takes so much out of you. And all that is left is an empty shell of a person you once were.”

Astoria scoffed in disbelief and focused her attention back to her drawing, “Still pondering about your childhood mistakes, are we, Draco? Your shoulder must be heavy carrying all that baggage with you even after 4 years.”

Draco Malfoy shifted uncomfortably in his sitting position. He knew he would ruin Astoria’s drawing but this has always been a difficult topic for him. Never has he talked about his experience with anyone else other than his close friend, Blaise Zabini. Even then, he was not entirely an opened book. His mother suggest getting a therapist but he does not believe it would help all the things he went through. He knew Astoria is willing to be his confidant but he does not want to burden her with his past. It would be too risky. 

“Hasn’t your Great Aunt Lorraine refrained you from sarcasm in the presence of an eligible bachelor? It is deemed inappropriate, yes?” Draco teased while hoping it would change the subject away from him and back to her. 

Astoria rolled her eyes and sighed, “What she does not know won’t hurt her. Or are you a tattletale, Draco Malfoy?” 

Draco scoffed while picking a clover from the grass he sat on. “Anyways,” she spoke again, luckily for him. “Even when I had to hear her say things like true love doesn’t exist, never have I ever wavered. As human beings, we have the ability to choose whom we love.” 

“But we are not simply human beings, are we?”

“That’s true,” she replied quietly. “Have you ever wondered how different our lives be if we were not born as Purebloods or wealthy? Just normal people?” 

“I cannot say I have not.”

Astoria nodded absentmindedly at his response. “I can never imagine myself living...humbly if I am being completely honest. I always knew I would be well off for the rest of my life,” Astoria answered, looking at Draco earnestly. “I am not ashamed of that,” she added. 

“You shouldn’t.”

“I always imagined I would live in this big house with a spiral staircase where vines and flowers cover the handles. Every room would be bright and cheerful, filled with souvenirs from all over the world so that when I enter that room, I can always think of the happy times I had in my travels. There would be a two-storey library with loads of books that you would have to use a ladder to read every single one of them. There would be a nook area with comfortable silk pillows. And paintings! There would be beautiful expensive paintings on the walls that tell a new story when you pass by and you can’t help but stare at it all day long.” 

Draco unconsciously widened his eyes at her  detailed description of her future home. Astoria, perceived his actions as judgemental and blushed, “You’re probably thinking, ‘Merlin, this girl is crazy’, aren’t you?” 

He chuckled at the sight of her growing red cheeks as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He had been tempted to do that himself for some time now, but continued with the safer option of fidgeting with the plucked clover between his fingers to keep his hands busy in her presence,  “I would never think that,” he replied honestly.  

Astoria laughed as she put down her drawing materials and wiped her hands on a cloth. “I always knew what I wanted in life. I knew I would be well off. I knew for a fact that I would get a career that I am passionate about. I knew that I would live in a beautiful house filled with things that I love. I knew that I would have the bestest friends whom I love dearly. Lastly, I knew I would be married for love...have a husband who would be crazy for me as much as I will be for him. We would have children and we would make our house filled with happiness, love and laughter...But, I am not sure I could have that anymore.”

“And why would you say that?” he asked curiously.

She paused to figure out what the right thing to say is without giving anything away. “I have no control over the ticking clock," she said.

“What does that mean?” he asked again, wrinkling his forehead. He did not understand what clock she was talking about.

Astoria clears her throat and gathers her things. It was not the right moment to talk about that matter, “I should be off now before my Great Aunt Lorraine wonders where I have gone to.”

“Wait, I don't even get to see how you drew me?”

“No,” Astoria smirked as she got on her feet and placed her belongings in her satchel. The sun was scorching that afternoon so she conjured a parasol with her wand. “There is enough room in this parasol for two,” she offered Draco. 

“Would it be wise? Your Great Aunt would have a fit if she sees,” Draco replied with his hands in his pockets. He had to control the urge to grab her and to kiss her. He could not do that. He could never. 

“That is true,” she remarked and began her walk back to join her Great Aunt Lorraine who had been attending a social event taking place. Draco followed behind, leaving space between them so as to not draw suspicion that they have been hanging out. 

Lately, this has become a routine between them. It had been for almost 2 years now. Since she was 18, Astoria would attend social events with her Great Aunt as her companion. Great Aunt Lorraine is a widow and childless but often travels. She offered Astoria a chance to stay with her in an estate on Monaco while she pursues apprenticeship in Magical Arts and History. Astoria had a passion for both arts and history and had always wanted to pursue a career in it. By day, she would attend to her studies, and refine her art skills at Great Aunt Lorraine’s request, and after a long day she would retire to the parlour where her Great Aunt awaits for her to read a book and they would talk about current events. Occasionally, Great Aunt Lorraine wishes to travel overseas and Astoria would follow as her loyal companion. 

Draco, at age 22, had to be practically dragged out of Malfoy Manor by his dear friend, Blaise Zabini. Blaise told him enough was enough and brought him showed him the world of their twenties outside the gloom of the manor. Together, they jumped from one place to the next and made a dent in their newly acquired trust fund they both were entitled to at age 18. Most of the time they would be seen partying in clubs. On occasions, they had to play the role as the new heirs of their families and be present at social events of the high society. 

It was the chance encounters of those high society social events that brought Astoria Greengrass and Draco Malfoy to be in each other's peripheral vision even more, thus sparking their friendship. 

Draco cannot help but be drawn to Astoria whenever he sees her. They have known each other for years. They were even in the same House at Hogwarts but never saw each other as friends, let alone held a conversation. 

It all started with a simple friendly nod. An exchanged "Oh, you're here too" type of look. It then became a longing stare while the other was looking away, and then the inevitable eye contact. The thing that sealed their fate was the friendly smile Astoria gave him one day when she was drowning in a boring conversation but had to stay by her Great Aunt's side pretending to be interested. She remembers spotting Draco at a corner and thanked the Gods that there was someone familiar at the party. 

Draco was intrigued by her. He wondered why Daphne Greengrass' little sister was seen around with an old lady all across the world. She was different than he remembered too. He remembered a brash girl who was stubborn and always spoke her mind. Now she is this high society lady in training who spoke only when spoken to and nods politely.

It was Blaise' push, literally, that helped them to start a conversation. However, it never lasted long as they both hoped. Astoria will always be dragged away by her Great Aunt who made it clear to her to stay away from young men much like Draco and Blaise. It did not help matters that both young men always show up to parties with a string of lady friends in their arms. 

Even so, Draco usually separates himself away from Blaise and waits for when Astoria is by herself, away from the prying eyes of her scary relative. It was an unspoken arrangement between them. 

Astoria detests their situation. Hiding and pretending not to know one another. Why should she have to hide her feelings? Why did she have feelings for someone so...difficult? She wonders if Draco had genuine feelings for her or that he saw her as a potential conquest. 

Draco did not mind their situation. It was the only way he could talk to Astoria even if it was in hiding.  He figured it was better than not spending time with her at all. He put up an act. He made it seem like he's doing his family a favour by representing them at parties to repair the Malfoy name. 

While some bought the act, there were some skeptics towards the Malfoy heir. Especially Great Aunt Lorraine Greengrass who warns Astoria from getting close to Draco. 

“Astoria, darling, there you are. I was beginning to send a search party for you,” Great Aunt Lorraine remarked as she saw Astoria approaching. "Thanks to you I had to listen to Seraphina De Lourd going on and on about how her granddaughter has been swarming with dozens of marriage proposals. No one likes a bragger."

“Apologies, Auntie Lorraine. I was by the pond working on a drawing. I guess I was feeling inspired and lost track of time,” Astoria replied. 

Great Aunt Lorraine noticed the figure who was walking behind her and sent him a warning look. She may be old but she is not stupid. She knew where Astoria had been running off with during social events. That troubled Malfoy boy was always close by. “We must be off now,” she commanded. 

“Of course, Auntie,” Astoria obeyed as she offered her arm for her great aunt to hold on to. 

“Do say goodbye to Lady De Lourd, dear. Remember, it is impolite to leave without informing the host,” Lorraine reminded her. “And do say hello at least to their son, Gerald. He has been asking about you. Playing hard to get is fun but don’t be too good at the game, darling.”

Astoria nodded obediently, “Of course, Auntie. I will be right back.”

As soon as Astoria is out of sight, Lorraine approaches an unsuspecting Draco who had since re-joined his mate, Blaise and their gaggle of women. 

"You are not getting anywhere with my niece if you condone these escapades with her," she said to Draco.

"Pardon?"

"I sure wished one of you would end this immediately. You two aren't a good match anyways. She is far out of your league. Why Astoria decided to give you the time of day I will never understand," Lorraine continued. She knew Draco was squirming and enjoyed the sight of it. "If you think I am being too harsh on you, you will have another thing coming. My nephew, Hyperion Greengrass - Astoria's father - will eat you alive if he even finds out you and his precious youngest daughter even exchanged greetings. So why don't you save yourself the trouble and just leave her alone, yes?" 

She then gestured to where Astoria was standing with Gerald De Lourde who had taken her hand and kissed her palm. There wasn't anything between the two but Lorraine wanted to make the message clear to Draco that Astoria is not available to him. The message did reach Draco. He did not like it. He never liked seeing any guy trying to get with Astoria. But he did not have a say in the matter. He couldn't go up there and tell him to back off. 

Lorraine pulled Draco by his arm so he would have to bend down in order to whisper to his ear, "We both know you are a smart cookie. Sooner or later she will choose who gets to be her husband, and I will assure that it will not be you."

"Are they together?" Draco asked bravely. 

"No. Not yet at least."

"I see," he smirked.

"It may not be this guy, but she has been swarming with marriage proposals. Perks of having me as a mentor," Lorraine remarked. 

"Then why hasn't she accepted any of those proposals, Lady Lorraine?" He asked. 

She rolled her eyes and turned her back, "I think you may already know the answer to that." 

[arknights-imagines]

Hello! The world has blessed me with and Arknights imagines blog! Your written prompts were all really cute (as Flameboy’s fan, I can say that even if you hadn’t written for Flamebringer, it was perfectly on character). So, as we know, Doc can have an assistant (that players actually put on Home depending on who they like), so I was wondering if I could get HCs about Doc with Executor, Flamebringer and Hibiscus respectively as their personal assistant?

Hi anon! 🌸 You definitely can! Thank you for this request, I was actually planning on writing something with Flamebringer as the Doctor's assistant but wasn't sure how to go about it, so I got super excited when I saw this was sent in loll 💞 And thank you for your nice comments, it definitely means a lot (I'm glad a Flamebringer fan thinks I did him justice 🥺)! Anyways, that's enough of me rambling, happy reading!

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Executor, Flamebringer as Hibiscus - each as the Doctor's personal assistant

Headcanon format; I decided to try something new and write this in second person since I think it suited the scenario more! 🌸

Contains: Executor, Flamebringer, Hibiscus, the reader as the Doctor, and a few background characters

Word count: 3k in total

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Executor

･ When you had asked Executor if he would be your personal assistant, you were prepared for him to decline. There was no doubt he was a perfect fit for the job, as punctilious and diligent as he was, but you knew he had things to attend to outside of his contract with Rhodes Island, and you couldn't imagine he had much free time between his duties at the Notarial Hall and his missions at Rhodes Island.

･ You and Executor were closer than it appeared on the surface, but you didn't expect him to drop everything just so he could assist you with your duties as the Doctor of Rhodes Island; especially when what you were offering wasn't a promotion or another important role in a mission.

･ Though, to your surprise, he had replied to your offer with a small thoughtful noise. "So long as it does not interfere with my work at the Notarial Hall, I see no reason to be against it."

･ Taken back but thankful, you had quickly made sure to complete any paperwork needed to have him moved to the position.

･ "Great! Just sign here and you'll officially be on the job."

･ With that, his work as your assistant began.

･ You had started with smaller tasks first, like assigning him to help go through documents or Operator applications. Though, you quickly came to realize that such work was too straightforward for him; Executor went through the papers in the blink of an eye.

･ "Doctor. I completed sorting the documents you assigned to me today, and also took the liberty of creating notes on the Operator files you had planned for me to read through tomorrow." He handed you a neatly stacked pile of papers, not a single one out of order, "Should you need anything else, please don't hesitate to let me know."

･ Stacks of papers that would've taken you hours and hours to get through - divided and sorted within a single day.

･ You didn't want him to feel like he was wasting his time doing work you could've assigned anyone to do, and so, you began tasking him with more complicated jobs.

･ When he had arrived at your office one morning ready to receive another stack of paper, you gave him a small smile before promptly standing. "Good morning, Executor! Follow me, I have new work for you today."

･ Together, you planned battle formations, scouted out groups of Operator candidates, and went through everything that had to do with Rhodes Islands forces.

･ This set of tasks seemed to engage Executor much more. His input and observations were well thought out and made valid points; his experience definitely showed and proved helpful when you weren't sure about your own judgement.

･ He was good at judging potential Operators, as the Sankta only paid attention to skill set and statistics. Executor's mind worked in interesting ways; his comments were analytical, and it was useful to see information from the viewpoint of someone as enigmatic as him. Someone's slight behavioural cues, the way they held their weapon, and even the way they dressed were things you hadn't considered taking time to look at before reading the notes Executor had written detailing smaller things like such.

･ Beyond that, you two were spending more time around one another with every day he spent on the job.

･ Every morning, he arrived at your office, and then you two would be off. You would both hurry around Rhodes Island, intent on attending to everything on that days' schedule. The Sankta shared your paperwork load with you, he helped hire and chose new Operators, he assisted in the creation of battle strategies; If Executor wasn't on a mission or completing work for the Notarial Hall, he was helping you as your assistant.

･ As more time passed, nights spent in your office with Executor sitting doing work nearby became a usual part of your evening.

･ He didn't seem to mind staying in your office; it was quiet enough, and you had moved a small desk into the room to give him a workplace.

･ You two would work without breaks for hours and hours. There was never much talking, just comfortable silence between both you and him. Your focus only broke when Executor would stand to stretch or bring you a drink.

･ Occasionally, the Sankta interrupted your work with a gentle call of your name or tap on your shoulder. You looked up to see him taking the papers from your hands and setting them aside, speaking in a cool tone, "Rest is required Doctor. It is late at night; you should have something to eat, then a good night's sleep is in order."

･ You protested sometimes, insisting on completing your work, but no matter what, he made sure you got something to eat and a night of rest. Executor never let you come to a compromise with him, and was unaffected by your sleepy protests and the word 'hardass' being thrown at him - unsurprisingly.

･ He would never say it outright, but from you, he found the behaviour pleasantly amusing.

･ Sometimes, you fell asleep in the midst of completing your paperwork. When you awoke, it would be to a fully complete pile of documents, a warm blanket around your shoulders, and an empty room. On one particular day, a small sticky note was left on the desk in front of you, 'Call me a 'hardass' for not waking you if you'd like, Doctor, but rest is of utmost importance. On some occasions sleep must be prioritized before work.' Almost in disbelief, you laughed lightly - It looked like even Executor could poke fun at others.

･ During moments like those, you found it hard to view Executor as a cold, mechanically person like most people did. All that came to your mind was that you didn't at all regret asking him to be your personal assistant the day you did; and that thought brought a warm smile to your face.

･ You greeted Executor with that same warm smile and a thank you when he arrived at your office to begin the day.

･ "Thank you for last night, Executor. But if you're going to be concerned about my wellbeing, you should look after yours too."

･ His face softened just slightly, and he shook his head. "Making sure you are properly rested is simply part of my duties as your assistant. Still, even if I was under no obligation to do so," Executor paused, eyes thoughtful before returning to yours with a rare warmth, "Your wellbeing would be of importance to me regardless."

･ And that brought an even wider smile to your face.

･ To say the least, you never regretted asking Executor to be your assistant - not in the slightest.

Flamebringer

･ When Silence had suggested you get a personal assistant while you were speaking to her about how deluged you were in files, documents, and battle formations, she hadn't expected you to thoughtfully reply by saying that Flamebringer would be your ideal first choice.

･ Despite this, soon enough, you were opening the doors to the greenhouse, calling out Flamebringers name.

･ "Ahh. Do you need me somewhere?" He replied, his usual smirk playing his lips. You were a little unsure on how he would reply, but you figured there was no harm in trying.

･ "Sorry to bother you, Flame. I just came to ask….How does being my assistant sound?"

･ Flamebringer blinked a little, lifting a brow up just slightly before answering with a small sigh. "I'm not interested. I can only imagine it would be time wasted on reading documents and paperwork."

･ You wrapped a hand around his wrist to catch his attention again, shaking your head dismissively, "Hey, just wait a second. I know you well enough to know that things like doing paperwork that aren't worth your time."

･ The Sarkaz quirked a brow again, looking at you with an interested glint in his eyes. "Just what use are you planning to put me to?"

･ You explained briefly, trying to appeal to him; he would assist you with the tasks you did while out of your office, which happened more than one might think. You were able to handle your duties on your own, so if he refused, you wouldn't have dropped to your knees in desperation. Still, having him close by would have its benefits - you were sure of that.

･ "Oh? So that's what you have in mind." His smirk returned, "I'm sure you don't need any reminder, but I'm not someone who you'd describe as subservient, even when it comes to you. Still, I did tell you to use me however you saw fit when we had met." Looking back at you, his eyes still carried their intrigued glint. "So, do what you must - as long as it doesn't interfere with my own priorities."

･ You were satisfied with that answer, very much so, in fact. Smiling, you nodded, "It sounds like a deal, I'll be back with papers for you to sign tomorrow." He flashed another small smirk before letting you take your leave.

･ Once the papers were signed, Flamebringer was officially your personal assistant.

･ He didn't come to you actively searching for work to do, which was expected, but when you needed him, he was easy to find and compliant with helping you so long as the task wasn't mundane.

･ You brought him to help you plan battles first. Considering his battle experience, his insight on battle plans and combat formations was incredibly helpful. He wasn't always direct with his input, but you understood them regardless.

･ Though it came as a shock to some, having Flamebringer as your assistant was very convenient. His disinterest in strict schedules made it easy for him to find the time to train, take care of his flowers and assist you no matter what.

･ Additionally, he was helpful when you needed to move things in and out of your office, especially when they were too heavy. Anything you had trouble carrying he lifted with ease, cutting the time you would've spent moving equipment and boxes in half.

･ And on top of all of that, being around him often meant you could keep an eye on his Oripathy condition.

･ Though of course, Flamebringer clicked his tongue and shook his head a little whenever you asked about it, "I'm not interested in having my Infection treated." Though he didn't enjoy it, every now and then you'd squeeze out useful information on how his Infection was treating him, and that was enough for you.

･ As Flamebringer became more comfortable with his new position, he was seen more often at your side.

･ In fact, he had become so accustomed to being in and out of your office that he began bringing his plants and flowers there so he could look after them while talking with you about operations.

･ You asked about it at some point, "Flamebringer? Are you okay with keeping your flowers in here?" He shrugged just slightly, "The flowers are worthy of my time just as you are. They can provide you company should you need it, don't you think?"

･ He brought in more flowers as time passed, and soon they were the only real decor around your office. You even grew to become a little protective over them, tending for them if Flamebringer wasn't around.

･ The Operators quickly became used to being careful of the flowers whenever they entered your office.

･ "Careful of the plants please. They're Flamebringers'."

"O-oh, of course, Doctor."

･ As your assistant, Flamebringer was less of someone you assigned tasks to to help alleviate your workload, and more of another opinion you trusted in that was available when you needed him - when you weren't sure, you looked for him and he would assist. The comfortable relationship you had created with him was pleasant, it didn't feel hierarchical and he didn't help you out of obligation, but more so because he deemed you worthy of his time. In fact, the Sarkaz seemed to find aspects in the way you worked interesting. On rare occasions, he made a remark about how you hadn't changed at all.

･ You enjoyed having him around - very much so, in fact.

･ If he had declined the day you asked him, you wouldn't have ever been able to develop new battle strategies, the equipment in your office wouldn't be moved yet, and the flowers you had grown fond of that sat in the desk and the window cell would be absent.

･ Eyes moving around your office, you smiled. Flamebringer was an interesting man; someone racing toward death, though someone who still took time out of their day to carry out duties as your personal assistant - something that was so simple and small. You weren't sure what made him believe you were worthy of his time, and you weren't sure if he'd ever tell you, but you were grateful regardless.

･ With a small sigh, you returned to your paperwork. You would have to start thinking of ways to thank him.

･Though he perhaps wasn't the most ideal person assistant in the eyes of others, you wouldn't have changed him out for anyone else no matter the circumstance.

Hibiscus

･ Though just an intern, Hibiscus was a hardworking young woman - the type of person who came to mind first when you thought about having an assistant.

･ Amiya had talked about how you should've gotten yourself an assistant before, someone who would help you keep organized and made sure you looked after your health while you regained your bearings after losing your memory.

･ It was a little late, but you figured it wouldn't hurt to try. After all, if you overworked yourself it would be problematic for those you had to command.

･ Hibiscus was easy enough to find and approach, and greeted you with a smile when you asked to see her.

･ "Hi, Doctor! I hope you ate a healthy breakfast this morning." Her bright attitude brought a grin to your face, "Hibiscus, if you aren't too busy, I wanted to ask; how would you feel about becoming my personal assistant?"

･ The way her eyes lit up and her grin widened just made your heart swell even more. She was beyond elated that you asked her, and replied with quick, vehement nods and multiple variations of 'yes!! I'd love to'!!

･ "Really, Doctor? You want to have me as your assistant? I'd feel so happy to spend more time around you!!"

･ At first, you were prepared for her to decline; even as an Intern, she was probably very busy. But, after hearing her reply and seeing the look on her face, there was nothing to be negotiated - Hibiscus was ready to start her job on the spot.

･ So, once the paperwork was signed, her duties began.

･ She was assigned to help you create balanced schedules first, ones where your day was orderly divided and there was time to eat and rest interspersed among your work hours.

･ The Sarkaz did this job exceptionally well, she would plan out the whole week with nothing feeling repetitive.

･ Additionally, Hibiscus was also very punctual; she came to your office as early in the morning as possible - the same time everyday. Her energy helped wake you from your usual still sleepy state.

･ "Doctor! Good morning! I hope you rested well!!"

"Thank you, Hibiscus. Let's get going, we have a busy day ahead of us."

･ You two were busy from morning to evening - the Sarkaz would follow you around attentively and help as much as she could.

･ Hibiscus wasn't very experienced in combat quite yet, so while she couldn't provide much input on your battle formations, she actively looked for ways to make herself useful no matter what.

･ Despite her lack of experience, she was good at helping you create plans for retreat and gave suggestions on how to make sure everyone stayed safe even on the battlefield.

･ "If we retreat though here, I'm sure we can ensure everyone's safety, Doctor!!"

･ Her optimistic nature made it easier to go through your day. You found yourself worrying less about what would happen if you failed, and focusing more on working your hardest.

･ As expected, Hibiscus paid a lot of attention to your health - she made it her responsibility to ensure you got the right amount of rest and ate properly.

･ "Doctor! It's time for your lunch! I know you may be busy, but proper meals are important!"

･ Her enthusiastic grins were just something you couldn't refuse, and the Sarkaz was pleased everytime you complied and took a break, replying with a happy "Thank you for your cooperation!".

･ Hibiscus' meals weren't exactly delicious, but you couldn't complain. They were better than the snacks you would take from the kitchen at midnight.

･ While you knew she was the one meant to be looking after you, you checked on how her Oripathy was progressing every now and then, even if she was dismissive and told you not to worry.

･ "My Infection? Say Doctor, I should be the one looking after you!!"

"That's true, but you can't look after me if you're not feeling well yourself."

･ She couldn't argue with that, so she was always cooperative.

･ Hibiscus always had things to ask and stories to tell, mostly about her and Lava. You enjoyed being able to talk to her while you did your duties. While it may have seemed annoying to others, you were glad she was doing her best to help Rhodes Island to 100% of her ability and keeping you company.

･ "I see, so that's how the strategy will work!"

"Thank you Doctor, I hope my questions don't bother you!"

"Tell me about your day, Doctor! I do hope it's been well so far!!"

･ When it came to paperwork, she was helpful as well, which was expected. While, like when it came to combat formations, Hibiscus couldn't offer much insight when it came to the evaluation of Operators - but she made up for this by making notes on each of their health, which made looking through them more efficient for you.

･ You two did paperwork in your office some afternoons. Before she became your assistant, you did this on your own and didn't move until midnight, but with the Sarkaz nearby, she made sure you got up, stretched and took breaks between working.

･ "Doctor! Come on, it's time to take a break! How about we take a short walk? The work will still be here when we get back, I assure you!"

･ She was just an Intern, but she never let that discourage her from striving to help you as best she could. Nothing seemed to break her spirits, even when she heard whispers about how she wasn't suited to be your assistant. Both of you knew better, and that was all that mattered.

･ You were grateful that Hibiscus was trying her absolute best every day - it made you feel more optimistic about everything happening around Terra when worries came over you.

･ With Hibiscus around, you became more efficient than ever. Without her at your side, you weren't sure if you'd be going though your days eating enough or rest enough. You knew that if you never asked her to be your assistant, you would've still been eating snacks at midnight and working through the night into the day.

･ Though she worked hard, there were some days where she expressed concern that her assistance didn't help you enough; and that someday she would have to give up her job to someone better suited.

･ One afternoon while you both were taking a break from paperwork, she looked at you with a bit of a frown and spoke, "Doctor, if you ever feel like someone would be better suited than me to help you, promise me you'll at least look after yourself when I'm no longer around!"

･ She had done so well that you were a little shocked that part of her believed in the fact that she just wasn't enough to help you. But, with a smile and a pat on her shoulder, you shook your head.

･"That won't happen, Hibiscus. I don't think we'll be apart like that any time soon."

[love-killed-the-superstar]

yay its day 2!! uhh this one’s very dialogue heavy lol

CASSUNZEL WEEK DAY 2 - SECRETS AND PROMISES

“Hey... Cass?”

“Mhm?”

“The Day of Hearts is coming up. Think you’ll stick around for it this time?”

“Eugh. You know there’s a reason I don’t like to come back this time of year, right?”

Cassandra rolls her eyes so spectacularly far back Rapunzel can’t help but laugh despite the gesture being directed at her.

“Well, since you returned I’ve been thinking about the first Day of Hearts we spent together.”

“Oh, geez, this again? Can’t we just put that whole incident in the past?” Cass grumbles.

She’s posing – stiffly as a whistle, mind – for one of Rapunzel’s signature portraits. Rapunzel knows that Cass gets restless whenever she paints her, but the request is a way she can keep her in one place for a while. (That, and Cass is one of her favourite muses; something about the sharpness of her eyes draws her in, and the delight she takes in trying to paint hints of her toned muscles under her formless clothing is unparalleled.)

Cassandra hasn’t been back for… over six months now. She’s missed her.

“You just seemed so… annoyed about the whole affair, even before that guy Andrew arrived in Corona,” Rapunzel continues, mixing up a creamy paint for the base of Cassandra’s skin. “Was it really because you were only pretending to date him?”

“No, no, it had nothing to do with him at the core of it, I just… don’t care for romance and hearts, and Shorty dressing as whatever the hell kind of messed up cherub he’s going for.”

“Sure, the sight isn’t for everybody,” Rapunzel laughs. “You still believe you don’t care for romance and hearts though, after all this time?”

“You’re an exception to the rule, all right? Besides, Corona has way too many public holidays for my liking.”

“All right, noted. I’ve just always wondered if there was something more to it. I know we don’t share everything, and I know you have boundaries. If you really don’t want to talk about it, I’ll drop the subject. Princess’s Honour.”

She holds up her hand in a scout-like salute, almost dropping her paintbrush in the process, and Cass laughs.

“As a rogue traveller, Princess’s Honour only goes so far these days.”

“Well, what about Girlfriend’s Honour?”

“Now that, I can work with.” Cass hums in thought. “To tell you the truth, Raps, I just don’t have a great experience with romance. Besides you, of course.”

“I have no experience with romance besides you and Eugene,” Rapunzel remarks. “Does that make us about even?”

Cass grins, shaking her head in exasperation. “Uh, maybe, I guess. Besides, even if I was looking for love – which I’m not, just to clarify – it’s not so straightforward as that.”

“What?! Why? I know you, er, don’t warm up to people so easily, but you’re smart and funny and strong, and you’re beautiful! Any man would-”

“Well that’s one of the bigger hurdles, to start with,” Cass interrupts. Her mouth pulls into a line as she contemplates her next words, her eyes darting between Rapunzel and the door as if calculating her odds of being able to make a hasty exit if things get too personal for her liking. “I don’t date men, Rapunzel. At all. I thought that would be obvious, since I’m in love with you, but...”

Rapunzel stares, brush suspended midway to the canvas as she processes that last statement.

“What, at all? But, I thought – even if you were pretending with Andrew, you still…”

“Seriously?! After all that happened you thought I would actually be attracted to that whiny, pig-headed-”

“Ah-ah-ah!” Rapunzel holds out her hand, and Cass stops her arm-waving tirade to glare at Rapunzel. “Please, Cass, I’m still painting you.”

Cass pulls a face and reluctantly moves back into her original pose, before starting again. “Rapunzel, did you listen to that ridiculous story about the sheepskin jacket? I had to hear it three times. And the preaching on and on about being a bibliophile, while I had to sit there knowing perfectly well he couldn’t even spell the word… Any shred of curiosity I might have had for how the other half lives – it left long before that last retelling, believe me.”

“He had a nice face,” Rapunzel offers.

“A nice face is just a nice face, it doesn’t mean anything. Don’t forget he’s tried to invade Corona twice already.”

“Hmm. Good point. Well, you have me now, so we can forget about that guy.”

“I honestly haven’t given that clown a passing thought in years.” She stands patiently as Rapunzel holds up a tube of paint against her tunic to judge how much warm blue to mix with the yellow in her palette. “Besides, you’re telling me our extremely brief sham relationship felt believable to you? I’m surprised. Romance isn’t something you can just… force.”

And Rapunzel gets that – no, really, she does. While her relationship with Eugene has had its share of rough patches over the years, it’s something that happened organically. After all that she’s been through with Cassandra, it should have been obvious that she’d never had even an ounce of fondness towards the guy she had almost mercilessly swindled. Some small part of Rapunzel just wanted Cass to have felt happy and safe with someone in the days before they got together, she supposes.

“I guess back then I didn’t know you as well as I thought I did,” Rapunzel admits. She etches out Cassandra’s sturdy frame in shades of moss green, each stroke a little bolder than the last. “Maybe I still don’t. But I’d like to, you know! Has there ever been someone else you liked, as more than a friend?”

“...Once,” Cass begrudgingly admits. “It’s not exactly a happy story.”

“But it’s your story.” Rapunzel peers around the canvas to meet Cass’s reluctant gaze. “If you’re willing to share it, I’m here to listen.”

“God, I’ve never talked about this with anyone,” Cass sighs, folding her arms over her chest. This time, Rapunzel doesn’t bother asking her to move back into her original pose, out of fear of detracting from the story. “Well, anyone who doesn’t already know, anyway.”

“It won’t leave this room,” Rapunzel promises. She mixes a shade darker than the tunic and begins to fleck in little details. Stitches, tears, stains, anything to bring the girl on her canvas to life as the girl in front of her begins to recount her tale.

“...Her name was Alix. When I was turned fourteen my education was finished and I got indoctrinated into being a palace maid by my father. Alix was the same age as me but had been working there much longer, so she sort of took me under her wing and taught me the basics of, y'know, folding laundry properly! Making beds to the palace standards! All that stuff.”

“You've never mentioned an Alix before,” Rapunzel murmurs. She tries to conjure an image of this elusive Alix. Was she pretty? Did they understand each other on levels Rapunzel fears the two of them might never? Did she go charging in out of the goodness of her heart, blind to the consequences, like Rapunzel so often does when it comes to Cassandra’s wellbeing?

“There's a reason for that,” Cass sighs. She peeks over at Rapunzel doubtfully. “This... isn't going to paint me in a favourable light.”

“I can take it!” Rapunzel says, almost indignantly. She reaches over, standing on her tiptoes and stretching out her arm as far as it’ll reach past the canvas, to squeeze Cassandra's hand. “It’s me, Cass. You can tell me.”

Cassandra cracks a smile and hangs her head. “All right, all right! But you've been warned. Okay, so... just over a year after we first met, we started… I don’t know, being a couple, I guess. Iit wasn’t anything serious. Or maybe it was. I don't know, it was my first time just – just being with somebody, you know? It was all new to me – liking somebody, liking another girl.”

Rapunzel tries to picture an adolescent Cass, running arm-in-arm with this girl, whose features she just can’t seem to imagine. It’s pretty surreal, seeing as Cass was such a closed-off person when they first met, that she could ever be this giggly teenager smitten over a first crush. Then again, hasn’t Rapunzel been witness to moments like that, when she takes Cassandra’s hand unexpectedly, or hugs her from behind, or puts into words just how much she cares for her?

Against her better judgement, Rapunzel abandons detailing on the tunic and focuses on Cassandra’s face instead, wishing to capture a hint of that life in her eyes; memories of times she’s caught her unguarded, rather than the gloomy face of her girlfriend in front of her.

“So the Day of Hearts is approaching,” Cass continues, “and we’ve been together for a few months. It’s been great. But then one day Alix decides that when the day rolls around, the two of us are going to sign Herz Der Sonne’s journal together.”

“Wow, that’s… that’s a big step.” What else can she say? She and Eugene only signed their names last year, and they’d waited to get engaged before feeling ready to take that next step. She can only imagine the immense pressure someone like Cass, who has always been skittish about committing to anything in the department of romance, would feel when propositioned with something like that.

“Thank you, exactly! It felt like the biggest deal in the world! It was a big commitment, we were way too young, and I didn’t even think we were together long enough to do something like that.”

Rapunzel frowns. “So what happened?”

“We argued about it.” Cass snorts. “She called me chicken, like if she psyched me out enough I’d change my mind. Can you imagine that, saying it’s chicken for not wanting to commit to someone when you’re just barely fifteen?”

Rapunzel can’t imagine. At fifteen she’d never even met someone she could consider a romantic interest. Even the few books in the tower gave her a very limited view on what romance was.

“Anyway, I told her no. A firm no. I didn’t mind us spending the day together, but I didn’t want a written reminder that would show the whole world who we were. Of course, that turned into a fight about, you know, identity politics and pride in ourselves and stuff that as a kid I really didn’t think too much about. Well, she stormed off and I finished my shift as normal.”

Cass’s face changes a little, from this tired exasperation to… something of a stormy expression. “But I didn’t realise that she’d swiped my keys in the heat of our argument. That night, she snuck in and signed our names in the book after dark.”

Rapunzel’s jaw drops.

“But – but that’s against everything the ritual stands for! It’s something couples are meant to do together, with – with complete honesty!”

“Alix didn’t exactly care much about the rules, it’s what drew us together in the first place. Anyway, the next day she told me all about it, like it was something to be proud of. Really gloated that now we were serious and she’d done it because she wasn’t afraid of her feelings or what anybody thought about us.” Cassandra’s eyes narrow at the memory. “So I took a swing at her.”

“With a sword?!” Rapunzel frets.

“What? No, with the end of my broom. We were working. You think I’d still be working in the palace when we met if I’d struck another maid down with a sword?” Cass’s mouth draws into a grim line, and she suddenly finds herself incredibly interested in her own feet. “Well, that turned into the two of us physically fighting, so we were put on latrine duty as punishment and my dad was summoned. I was so distraught about what happened I couldn’t even think about explaining it to him, but somebody happened to overhear what we were fighting about and showed him the book.”

She falls quiet, and the silence stretches on. Rapunzel stops her almost frantic etching of facial features to peer past her canvas in concern, before Cass finally speaks up again. “That’s how he found out about me. About who I was.”

“Are you okay?” Rapunzel asks quietly.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s just kind of a horrible way for it all to go down, right?” She looks over at Rapunzel, eyes almost blazing, and utters, “My dad is a good man. He saw how furious and upset I was and marched right to the king to explain the situation. Hours later, our names were papered over and we pretty much never spoke of it again.”

Rapunzel thinks back to the times over the years that she’s spent flipping through the pages of the journal, recalling the one page with a simple square of embossed lilac paper neatly concealing the paper beneath, clearly a later edition. She had always wondered about it.

“And what happened to Alix?” Rapunzel ventures, as she mixes a deep raven for Cassandra’s hair.

“She was fired for breaking into the throne room after hours and desecrating royal property,” Cass recalls with a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “After all, your father is a stickler for tradition. Last I heard she took up a post in Pittsford, but I don’t keep tabs on her or anything.” She spreads her arms out in a theatrical gesture. “Anyway, there you have it. My very sad, very brief experience of love.”

“She sounds awful,” Rapunzel declares, shaking her head in disdain. Cass shrugs.

“She wasn’t. Misguided, inconsiderate and a horrible decision-maker, yes, but she wasn’t a bad person. We were kids. I like to think she’s embarrassed about what happened, but I guess we’ll never know.”

“...So that’s the real reason you hate the Day of Hearts.”

“Raps, we went through this already!” groans Cass. “It’s not to do with any one thing, I just… don’t care for commercial romance and public holidays, that’s all there is to it.” She pinches her brow tiredly. “But I hated the book for years after. Just knowing our names were in there, even if no one else could see, just made me mad.”

“I’m sorry that it happened to you,” Rapunzel says gently. “It wasn’t a fair situation.”

“Yeah, well, what’s done is done. Look, uh…” Cass folds her arms, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “Can you… not tell Eugene about any of that? Or anyone? Not like… that I’m a lesbian, you can tell anybody that. In fact, I’m pretty sure Eugene already knows that part. But… all the stuff about Alix. That whole chapter of my life is kind of embarrassing, and I just. I don’t like to bring it up, so.”

“Cassandra, I promised you,” Rapunzel says, setting down her paintbrush and moving over to her. She grabs her hand and squeezes tight. “This is between us. No matter what.”

Pinched expression melting into relief, Cass squeezes back and squares her shoulders. “Thanks. So, can I see this painting yet? Or move from this spot, at least?”

“Sure, come here.”

Rapunzel leads her over to admire the canvas. The painting is a little odd, compared to Rapunzel’s typical style; the pose is stiff and vacant, just as Cassandra had been stood herself, but the ferocious brush strokes and tiny details woven in amplify the tension radiating from her body language, almost to the point of appearing antagonistic. Likewise, her expression is bright, wide-eyed and challenging; just as it is when Rapunzel says something overtly romantic or daring that takes her away from her usual focused exterior.

The amalgamation of those characteristics creates a vision of Cass that looks ready to jump up and pick a fight at any moment. Rapunzel glances over at Cass, an apology on the tip of her tongue, only to find that her girlfriend looks somewhere between amused and enamoured by the final product.

“I, um, didn’t mean to paint you looking so confrontational,” Rapunzel begins.

“Are you kidding me? I love this! Look, Raps, as much as I love your usual paintings of the two of us smiling at each other and hugging in a meadow or the like, this… it’s unusual for you. It’s fierce. I really, really love it.”

She leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Rapunzel’s head, before pulling her into a side hug. Rapunzel leans into the hug, beaming up at her.

“I’m glad you like it. It makes the standing in one spot for too long worthwhile, doesn’t it?”

“Ehh, almost. I wouldn’t push it too hard, Raps.”

“...Hey, Cass?”

“Mhm?”

“Do you think you’ll ever write your name in Herz Der Sonne’s journal, after what happened?”

“Maybe. See, now that you mention it, there’s this girl who I really like…” Rapunzel cranes her neck to look up at her, unimpressed, and Cass’s mouth quirks into a grin. “I’m talking about you, Raps. Just so we’re clear.”

“No, no, by all means! If there’s someone you’d like me to meet…”

“Well, I’ll give you a hint, it’s definitely not Andrew.”

“Thank goodness for that.” Rapunzel reaches up to cup Cass’s face, gently pulling her in close. “And it’s definitely not that jerk Alix, right?”

Cassandra’s grin grows wider. “You’re not jealous of the girlfriend I briefly had when I was a teenager, are you, Rapunzel?”

“What? No! I just, y’know, wish she’d treated you better, that’s all,” Rapunzel grumbles. “You deserve better, Cass. You deserve the world and more.”

With a huff of laughter, Cass leans in and kisses Rapunzel softly. “Lucky for me, my current girlfriend knows how to treat me right.”

“You know, my magic girlfriend powers work best on the Day of Hearts,” Rapunzel trills, twirling a strand of Cassandra’s hair around her finger. “Just so you’re aware.”

Cass groans. “I better not regret it if I agree to stick around this year.”

“You won’t! We’ll keep it nice and lowkey. You’ll never even know it’s the most romantic day of the year!”

“Uh huh, keep talking…”

Maybe this year won’t be the year. In fact, after everything Cass has told her today, wouldn’t it be super insensitive to broach the topic of signing the book together in two days time? Still, as she glances back to the painting of the tough fighter of a woman staring back at her, warmth washes over her, settling comfortably in the pit of her stomach.

Some day, when the timing is right, wouldn’t it be wonderful?

[robotslenderman]

Still only partway through CP77.

Spoilers for the Death’s Head questline.

Warning: this involves my V ignoring canon, having a mental breakdown and expressing it by attacking poor, poor fucking Judy.

So like

My V was a complete fucking mess after the Heist and what happened there. Her best friend (and crush) was dead, she almost died, and she had a fucking terrorist in her head who could TOUCH HERRRR and had hijacked her body and hurt her, and she was going to die in a month and slowly lose control of her body to someone who wanted to hurt her.

She. Was fucking. Terrified. Even when Johnny offered an olive branch she didn’t trust him at all (something Judy would come to relate to, although my V hasn’t yet noticed the parallel).

So when Judy refused to give her any information on Evelyn?

V, who was absolutely scared for her life and having a mental breakdown after the death of her best friend, went to visit Judy.

With a baseball bat.

And used it.

I know this doesn’t make it better at all, but V did hold back a bit -- didn’t hit the head, pulled her punches on the body and spine, and mostly went for the legs. If any permanent damage was done, it wouldn’t be to Judy’s brain, it wouldn’t be to her hands or arms. Better she disabled Judy’s ability to walk if she went too far than fucking lobotomising her or fucking up her hands.

How fucking considerate of her, I know. V basically wanted to scare the shit out of her, made her think that other people were hunting down Evelyn (”if you don’t give me this information, I’ll just fucking kill you. I don’t need you. I can wait for someone else to find her first and drop in on them. So you better talk because otherwise you’re not getting out of here alive”), and made a big song and dance about how the only reason V wasn’t going to fucking annihilate Judy on the spot was because Jackie would never forgive her for turning into a complete monster.

Anyway. Poor Judy quickly blurted out the information about Clouds once she realised V was not fucking around. V threatened her again, then got the fuck out. And obviously hasn’t been back to Lizzie’s since.

When she calmed down she wrote Judy an apology letter. (I told my friend this. She was like “your V is fucking psycho.” Yeah.) She was like “look, I know an apology doesn’t mean jack fucking shit after what I did to you, but... idk man. send me what you owe the ripperdoc and I’ll square my debt to you.”

Yeah V, because contacting someone you fucking traumatised is a BRILLIANT FUCKING IDEA, I bet Judy wouldn’t be afraid AT ALL to send you a bill!

(Naturally, Judy didn’t reply and just sent some of the Mox. V gave them everything she could spare and told them to come back in a week for the rest. They roughed her up. She fought back enough to defend herself and eventually toss them out, but didn’t attack them because she knew that wouldn’t help Judy.)

Needless to say, when she ran into Judy at Fingers’ place Judy was NOT at all happy to see her and didn’t want to work with her at all. V basically gave her all the details she uncovered at Clouds -- by now she was actually pretty damn worried about Evelyn and she’d started coming to terms with the fact she was going to die, so she was far more concerned about finding Evelyn than getting anything from her, and was terrified Evelyn was dead.

But obviously Judy was still Mega Freaked Out and traumatised and wasn’t going to work with her. V didn’t offer, either. V didn’t try to scare Judy, but she was also a bit tetchy because Judy obviously didn’t want her looking for Evelyn still, and so V probably scared her a little still because V was like “look, I’m going to find her whether you like it or not, get out of my way. She is in big fucking trouble and I don’t have time for this.”

Judy followed her into Fingers’ room and watched her deal with Fingers. V was actually pretty calm when dealing with Fingers, then realised how fucked up it was that she beat up Judy but not this asshole, so she beat up Fingers too.

Nice, V. Way not to freak out Judy even more.

But obviously, Judy didn’t want to work with V like she did in canon. So V got the snuff film by herself. Unfortunately, she needed an editor, so this was the point where she reached out to Judy again. Sent her a text message that basically said, “This film could help me find Evelyn. Give me a time when you won’t be in and I’ll use your stuff to get into edit mode and track them down.”

V’s dumbass logic: “she probably doesn’t want to see me but I need this information, so I’ll just tell her to keep away from me.”

Judy’s response was “oh my god, even if you could do this without someone on the outside what the hell makes you think I’d let you on my tech unsupervised?!”

(V: “Oh. Right.”) “Do you want me to find Evelyn or not?”

“That’s not what I meant! Come in, but I’m operating the computer and I’m putting Mox in there with us, so don’t you dare try to intimidate me.”

“... Yeah that’s a much better idea. I just knew you wouldn’t want to be alone with me.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

(V, thinking a joke might put her at ease a bit, not realising it just makes her look like a psychopath anyway.) “It’s okay, I’ll leave the baseball bat at home.”

(Judy is not at all amused.)

So the questline continues the way it does in-game, except with a very jumpy Judy. It’s when they find Evelyn that Judy is freaked out enough to be distracted from V. V carries out Evelyn, speaking to her softly.

At this point V had totally come to terms with the fact she was going to die. And Evelyn was a complete fucking mess, and Evelyn was not going to talk even if V wanted her to. So my V didn’t even bother with that, just helped Judy get Evelyn the hell out of there.

Once Evelyn was settled in Judy’s apartment (it’s only later that Judy realises “oh shit, now V knows where I live”) Judy and V’s conversation went almost exactly as it did in canon, with the exception of the more trusting/loyal responses Judy gives you, which Judy simply omitted. V also elaborated on some of the stuff in her letter -- that V was dying because of the relic slowly overwriting her presonality, and she’d hunted down Evelyn because Evelyn could give her a lead to go on to reverse the process. But V still didn’t make any attempts to talk with Evelyn. V knew she was going to die. She wasn’t going to compound Evelyn’s trauma even more. When Judy expressed concern that other people were hunting Evelyn, V was like “oh, shit, no, actually, I was bluffing.”

“...”

“I wasn’t going to kill you. I just wanted to make you think I was. I don’t know of anyone actually trying to hunt her down, and I didn’t run into anyone at all while chasing up this information on her. So either she’s in the clear and nobody wants her, or they’re being damn subtle about it. Either way, since she’s in this condition she’ll be staying inside and lying low, so that’ll help her shake off any tail she might have.”

V gave Judy some more money, though not the full amount because she’s still scraping the eddies together -- told Judy she’d make sure she was fully reimbursed before she went. Told Judy if she or Evelyn needed anything more, call her.

...

By then, after seeing her with Evelyn, Judy is not sure about my V.

After the baseball bat incident, Judy thought that my V was an unhinged violent lunatic. I mean, V was an unhinged violent lunatic -- but she’d thought my V was that by default. But obviously my V showed Evelyn a lot of empathy and concern -- genuine empathy and concern, not V trying to go “LOOK HOW NICE I AM” to Judy. She knew V wasn’t trying to show false empathy to butter up Judy because V got pissed at her in Fingers’ office for getting in the way of her trying to find Evelyn to make sure Evelyn was okay. That is, pissed at her for that specific occasion of Judy getting in the way -- V was definitely not checking on Evelyn’s wellbeing when she visited Judy with the baseball bat, but Judy tried to discourage V from going after Evelyn again at Fingers’ office and V’s response was pretty much “oh fuck OFF, she’s in a really bad situation and needs help.”

So Judy was like, okay, there’s two possible judgements you can make about V:

V is one of those people who seems absolutely lovely until she gets in a bad mood, which is even more fucking terrifying because that makes her unpredictable.

V legitimately was in the middle of a mental breakdown and Judy just happened to be really fucking unlucky in that she was the convenient target. V had said this in her letter but obviously Judy was like “What the FUCK did you really send me an APOLOGY LETTER for almost BEATING ME TO DEATH” and hadn’t really taken it seriously, but now she’s starting to think V might have actually told the truth.

Judy is hoping it’s the latter but she’s not holding her breath, and also you have to remember that even if it was a mental breakdown... it showed her exactly what V was like when she was having a mental breakdown, and therefore meant V was perfectly fucking capable of doing it again.

(Meanwhile V was thinking “If she knows I was having a mental breakdown then she knows she doesn’t have to be scared of me doing it again.” No, V. You’re wrong.)

Judy is less spooked after seeing V in action with Evelyn, but she’s still very wary of her. But after V helped her with Evelyn, Judy told her not to worry about the rest of the eddies and just accepted what V gave her then and there. V almost pushed it, but realised Judy probably didn’t want to feel indebted to someone who beat her up with a baseball bat, so she dropped it.

V later sent Judy a weighted blanket for Evelyn to sleep under. “I’ve got one, it helps when I’m stressed. It won’t make her any better, but it might give her a little comfort.”

So right now, V and Judy have an uneasy truce. V keeps her distance from Judy unless she has to, except to occasionally ask after Evelyn, and Judy keeps her distance right back.

V is, however, not sucking up to Judy or grovelling to her. All she wanted was to let Judy know she didn’t have to be scared of her (although again, Judy is perfectly fucking aware that even if it was an actual mental breakdown then yes Judy should be scared of V having another one), that Judy didn’t have to worry about V going back to have another go at her.

V’s not going to make a huge deal about what a horrible person she was. She’s... well. Even if she thought it would help, she’s got a month to live unless the omega blockers give her more time. She’s not going to wear a hair shirt over this. She gave Judy some funds for the ripper doc, she’s apologised (even if an apology feels awfully pathetic), and she’s kept away from her.

Now she’s going to go back to chasing up leads, because Evelyn is in no condition to help. Because Judy released her, she’s been able to pay off her debt to Vik, and now she’s scraping up funds to pay Rogue for help and trying to talk Hakemura out of that fucking parade because that idiot keeps trying to get himself killed and she has to stand by to haul his ass out of the fire.

[anistarrose]

Missteps and Miscommunication (GF One-Shot)

Summary: Ford loses consciousness in the fight in the basement, and Stan knows exactly one thing: the being cheerfully offering to reconcile with him is not his brother.

Word Count: 2400

Warnings: Bill possession and some injuries (nothing graphic)

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/22059016

A Secret Santa gift for @usuallyherdragon! Despite the title, it’s actually fulfilling the request of hurt/comfort with a happy ending!

***

“You want me to get rid of this book? Fine! I'll get rid of it right now!”

“No! You don’t understand —”

Stan’s not even sure how it happens, but one moment Ford’s lunging for the journal like a starving wild animal, and the next, he has the book in his hands again but he’s lurching backwards as his legs collapse underneath him. His head hits a pipe half-buried in the ground, but he doesn’t even flinch from the pain. He just goes limp.

“FORD!” Is this my fault? Did I let go of the journal? Did I hurt him? “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay, I’m so fucking sorry —”

Ford’s body twitches, and a faint smile spreads across his face.

“No need to apologize!” he responds without opening his eyes. “We both got a little carried away — just like old times, eh?”

Stan’s heart pounds in his chest. All of his instincts are telling him to bolt.

“Uh… are you s-sure you’re okay?” he asks through chattering teeth. He buries his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, but they don’t feel any warmer.

“Of course! What’s a little head injury to me, Stanford Pines? I’ve got plenty of brain cells to spare!” His eyes still closed, Ford gets to his feet and turns around to face away from Stan. More quietly, he adds:

“If anything, I should be apologizing to you, my dear brother. I let my impulsiveness get the better of me and pushed you away, but really, I wouldn’t want to change the world with anyone else at my side.”

That brazen lie is all it takes to confirm Stan’s suspicions. This thing in front of him in the trenchcoat and glasses isn’t Ford, not anymore.

“Hitting my head gave me an epiphany,” Not-Ford prattles on, gesturing towards the portal. “I was so afraid of what my research could do if it was released into the world, and people with less noble intentions than I got their hands on it — but with your street smarts backing me up, I know we could change the world for the better! What do you say, Stanley?”

“I say you better turn around and face me right now,” Stan growls. “Open your goddamn eyes and turn around and look at me.”

Not-Ford’s limbs jerk unnaturally as he whirls around, blinking catlike yellow eyes as he shoots Stan a toothy grin.

“You caught on after all!” he exclaims. “Now we’ll get to have some real fun!”

Not-Ford feints to the left and Stan falls for it, raising his fists to block a punch that never comes as Not-Ford scampers towards the control panel instead.

“Get out of his body, you — you demon!” Stan shouts, giving chase.

“I’m just borrowing it!” Not-Ford whines. “He said I could!”

“Liar!” Stan makes a grab for the hem of Ford’s trenchcoat, but Not-Ford narrowly dodges out of the way, twisting one last key into the control panel as he darts across the basement.

“Careful, Stanley!” the demon jeers. “You wouldn’t want to hurt your brother! You might even push him into another dimension at this rate, if you’re not careful!”

He wants to turn the portal on, Stan realizes. And I can use that. I just have to find a way to make sure he can’t hurt Ford —

He twists the key back into its initial position and watches the light above it go out, then pulls the key out of the panel and waves it above his head. “Hey, body snatcher! Look what I’ve got!”

“What?! Put that back!”

“Try and catch me with it, sucker!”

Stan makes a break for the elevator room, and Not-Ford gives chase only to trip and fall on his face. Stan flinches, but takes a deep breath and throws open the door anyway, scouring the room for rope, electrical cords, anything that he could use to restrain Ford’s body while looking for a way to get rid of the demon.

His eyes come to rest on a mannequin stuffed in the corner to his left. It has a rope tied around its waist, and he kneels down to untangle the knots —

“Look what I found!” a too-cheery voice sings behind him, followed by the sound of a door being kicked open and a flame hissing to life.

Stan whirls around to find the demon wielding a blowtorch, its blue glow reflecting in Ford’s glasses and almost hiding those horrible slit-pupiled eyes.

“Let me strike a deal with you, Stanley! You help me turn the portal on, I’ll give you your brother back, and I’ll let the both of you live when I conquer this dimension! Heck, I’ll even give each of you your own continent to rule! I sure won’t need ‘em all when I’ve got the whole galaxy under my command!”

Back against the wall and staring down a grinning demon and a searing butane flame, Stan knows he’s cornered. But with a rope in one hand and a key in the other, he still has one last desperate idea.

“Well?” the demon asks. “Deal or no deal?”

“Go long!” Stan hurls the key over Not-Ford’s head and the demon dives backwards, dropping the blowtorch as he outstretches his arms —

Then the back of his shoulder slams into a red-hot sigil etched into the side of the desk, and his body spasms for several terrifying seconds before dual beams of yellow light fly out of his eyes and Ford slumps to the ground, unconscious.

***

The first thing Ford processes after waking up is the rope chafing around his wrists, restraining him as he attempts to bolt to his feet.

“Well, look who’s finally awake.”

“Go to hell, Bill!” Ford spits. “Why are you still —”

He blinks. “Stanley?”

“Oh, are you you again? I wasn’t sure.” Stan steps forward and puts a hand on Ford’s shoulder, stopping the chair Ford’s tied to from toppling over before leaning in close to take a look at Ford’s eyes. Then Stan nods, apparently satisfied.

“You know, actually telling me that you get possessed by a fucking demon when you’re unconscious would’ve been really helpful an hour ago.”

Ford allows himself one tiny sigh of relief. It’s good — better than Ford could’ve hoped for, really — that Stan has picked up on the nature of Ford’s predicament, but that doesn’t mean all is well. Far from it.

“Bill didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Nah, he was waving around a blowtorch for a minute or two, but I don’t think he really knew how to use the thing.” Noting what must’ve been a truly horrified expression on Ford’s face, Stan frowns. “Why do you care anyways?”

“Because — because you’re my brother?!” Ford splutters.

Stan looks away, and Ford can just sense that another argument is imminent, though he can’t imagine why. (Other than how he’d told Stan to get out of his house earlier, and how he’d certainly never given Stan any reasons over the past decade to believe that he did care, and… alright, he can imagine quite a few explanations why.)

“Look, Stanley, there are — there are a million more productive things we can, and should, be discussing right now. Did Bill do anything to the portal? If he did, I need you to untie me right this minute so I can get downstairs and make sure it doesn’t get activated —”

“He flipped a couple switches, but the thing didn’t look too active to me,” Stan answers quietly. “After I got you — er, your body — tied up, I went and switched back the settings to what I remembered them looking like when we first came downstairs. Half your damn diary was illegible, but one of the pages I could read helped with that.”

“Then — then I don’t know how you did it, but you probably just averted a universal apocalypse.” Ford takes a deep breath. “I really should still go down to double-check the portal’s status in the basement, but… I owe you an apology. I —”

“You really don’t,” Stan mumbles.

Ford tries several times to say something before finally managing: “Are you really still that determined to disagree with me about everything?!”

Stan slumps into the kitchen’s other chair, still not making eye contact. “You haven’t got the full story, Ford. How does your shoulder feel? Not great, I’m guessing.”

Ford grimaces. His shoulder admittedly feels horrible — he’d ignored it at first only because random injuries are a given whenever Bill is involved. “What happened?”

“It was an accident, I swear. I was just — just trying to distract the demon so he didn’t blowtorch my ass, but he backed up into this brand you had on the side of your desk, and —”

“A brand? You mean the protective sigil?!”

“You think I know what a protective sigil looks like? It had a circle, a diamond, some arrows —”

“And you said Bill backed into it on his own? You didn’t push him onto it?!”

“Yeah, but what difference does it make? It was still my fault —”

Ford tries and fails to hold in a delirious, sleep-deprived laugh. “Oh my god, Stan…”

Stan cringes. “Oh, just get it over with already! Tell me you never want to see my face again —”

“Are you kidding?” Ford asks. “Why would I say that after you just accomplished what I thought was impossible?!”

Stan’s jaw drops. “You’ve completely lost your mind, haven’t you.”

“Quite the opposite! My mind is safer than it’s ever been —” Ford pauses. “Although you wouldn’t have any way of knowing that, would you? I’m sorry. I should explain.”

“Yeah.” Stan buries his head in his hands. “You really should.”

“Let me start… near the beginning. I made a deal with a demon, which was incredibly foolhardy of me, even though he initially appeared to be more of a muse than a demon at the time, and… that deal allowed him to take over my body whenever I fell asleep.”

Ford waits for the mocking, the contempt, the ‘serves you right,’ but it never comes.

“Tough break,” is all Stan mutters, in a voice that doesn’t seem judgemental as much as it does numb.

“His ultimate goal was to use that portal, which he tricked me into creating, to open a rift to the dimension his physical form resides in,” Ford slowly goes on. “Such a rift would allow him to enter our world, and then do with it as he pleased. He’d be nigh-omnipotent here — hence my desperation to get rid of the journals that explained how to activate the portal. And that was why I called you here — but that was a mistake.”

Stan flinches, and Ford quickly adds: “I don’t mean asking for your help was a mistake! I mean it was a mistake to try and send you away — except it was that argument that led to Bill getting exorcised, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise, so — I don’t know. Maybe it was the right choice, but made for all the wrong reasons —”

“Exorcised?” Stan echoes. “That’s what the sigil did to Bill?”

“Exactly. Bill’s locked out of my body until the scars disappear… which might not ever happen, for all I know.” Momentarily forgetting he’s still tied up, Ford tries to rub his shoulder.

“Except I couldn’t just brand myself with it while I was awake,” he explains. “Bill had to come in contact with it of his own free will while possessing my body, or it wouldn’t work. At first, I’d planned to turn the house into a minefield of protective sigils in hope that Bill would stumble onto one of them, but it took so long to properly enchant the one on the desk that I gave up before preparing any others, and passed it off as a lost cause.”

“Holy shit.” Stan rubs his head. “…Well, guess you’ll want me to untie you now, huh.”

“That would be ideal, yes.”

Stan fumbles with the knots for a few moments of awkward silence before simply pulling out a pocketknife and cutting through the ropes. As Ford stretches his arms, Stan asks: “What are you going to do now?”

“Double-check the portal settings. Disassemble a few key components so they’re still repairable, but we can be sure we won’t have any more close calls. Then… god, I think I might actually be able to sleep after that. I can hardly believe it.”

“…Ford?” Stan asks, so quietly that Ford might not have heard it at all were the house not so silent otherwise.

“Yes?”

“Can I spend the night here? I mean, I don’t want to get in the way of your work saving the world and all that, but… it’s still snowing like crazy outside, and I don’t know how far the Stanmobile can make it —”

“You can stay as long as you need to,” Ford says, and instantly regrets it. Not because he doesn’t want Stanley to stay, but because need implies that the stay will only last a few nights at most. And as much as he’s tried to deny it for years, Ford is lonely.

“Okay. I’m gonna go grab some stuff from my car —”

“Actually, scratch that,” Ford interrupts, and Stan freezes like a deer in the headlights.

“What I meant to say was… you can stay as long as you like. And for all I know, that still may not be very long, because I haven’t been the best brother or even paid my goddamn heating bills, but… well, I’d like to catch up with you, if that’s — gah!”

The hug catches Ford off guard, leaving him gasping for breath

“I’d like that too, Sixer,” Stan whispers.

Ford hugs him back, and Stan finally manages a laugh. “Even if we have to tell stories while sitting around a goddamn bonfire so we don’t freeze to death. Seriously, why did you stop paying your heating bills?”

“It seemed like a good way to keep myself awake at the time…” Ford murmurs in the moments before drifting back to sleep right then and there, leaning on his brother’s shoulder in the middle of an empty kitchen.