#anyway i made this on the roadtrip back home. he means so much to me. always always. always. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

goodlucktai · 3 years ago

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(I feel like I should finish your prompt first but. These ones are so good....feel free to ignore if you have too many asks but 29 or 33 with chocobros...?

PROMPTS LIST

33. “Are you SURE I can’t punch him in the face?” “Yes.” “What if I just break his nose a little?”

ik i just did this one for natsuyuu but...........chocobros

They're somewhere in Duscae, near enough to the coast that each breeze carries a hint of the sea, on another errand for another stranger to scrape together enough gil to eat tonight.

They've stopped at the last little roadside cluster of shops before the countryside stretches far and wide and wild, stocking up on what meager supplies they can afford.

Noctis has never lived this way before. He's never gone to bed hungry before. Neither has Gladio or Ignis, for all their world-weariness and the general practical knowledge and common sense they walk around with that far surpasses Noctis' own.

Ignis can budget with the best of them, and Gladio is willing to eat literally anything at any time, but Prompto is the one who gets it.

He chats at length about all the times he's had to get creative with pasta or rice because it was all that was left in his pantry. Back in high school, when he could only work part-time. When someone should have been taking care of him, and instead he was left to figure out how to stretch a tiny budget much farther than made sense.

"Come on, Iggy," he said once when they were out shopping, half-laughing. Like he thought Ignis was joking. "Fresh produce? We've got like a hundred gil between the four of us and we're totally out of restoratives."

And Ignis paused, and glanced sidelong at him. He put back the crisp, flowery vegetables and pulled out his little notebook and asked for suggestions instead. It took Prompto a few minutes to convince himsef that Ignis was taking him seriously, but now they like, bond over canned fruit.

"I'm gonna kill this catoblepas with my bare hands," Gladio says with feeling, leaning against the car. "I'm so godsdamned sick of pasta. Don't tell Iggy I said that."

Noctis rolls an energy drink between his hands absently, brow furrowed. It's tricky business, and he's not very good at it just yet, but home-made elixirs save them a ton of gil. He feels guilty when they have to spend their money on something he should be able to do himself.

"I'm telling him," he says without missing a beat. "He'll never forget, and he'll give you shit every single time you make cup noodles from now on, forever."

"I can't stand you," Gladio tells him seriously.

The bell above the door of the convenience store rings brightly, and Noctis glances up to see Ignis and Prompto walking out looking a lot more cheerful than they did going in.

Gladio's face does something very subtle and specific when he sees them, there and gone in a second, before Noctis can pin it down and figure it out.

"What are you two chucklefucks up to?" he calls over. Ignis immediately narrows a disapproving stare at him, but Prompto beams.

"I got a commission, sort of!" he says.

"A commission?" Noctis parrots, sending the energy drink back to the Armiger.

"Sort of?" Gladio adds.

"While we were checking out, the store-owner saw my camera, and seemed really into it," Prompto says. "Since, you know. It's unique."

Noctis does know. The digital camera hanging at Prompto's side has been with him since Noctis first bought it for him three years ago. He would rebuild it every so often, bowed over a collection of impossibly tiny parts spread out carefully across a dish towel at the kitchen table in Noctis' apartment. To call it unique is a bit of an understatement.

Gladio frowns, sensing where this is going a split-second before Noctis does. "And?"

"And he offered me money for it! Like, more than it's worth probably. A lot more."

"I don't see how that could be possible," Ignis says smoothly, leaning through the open window of the Regalia to put the shopping bag in the backseat. "Since your camera is clearly priceless. Which is what I explained to the man."

Noctis relaxes, glad that Ignis and Prompto have bonded over shopping to the point that neither of them want to do it unless they can go together-- because if Prompto had been in there by himself, he 100% would have sold his camera. He would have hated to do it, but he would have done it. It's like he thinks he owes his friends something just for letting him exist.

"Good looking out, Specs," Gladio says gruffly. Prompto waffles a bit, looking torn between pleased and embarrassed. Noctis decides to rescue him.

"What commission, though?" he asks.

"Oh, right. Well, he was kind of bummed about the camera, but he asked if he could see some of my photos, and Ignis said we had time-- "

If it were literally anyone else, Noctis thinks, up to and including and especially the Actual Crown Prince, Ignis would have said they were in a hurry and not to show off.

"--and he seemed really impressed! With the photos! I told him we were going to take down a catoblepas, and he asked why, and I said for some cash, I mean, clearly," Prompto adds, gesturing at the four of them and their general road grime. "So he, ah-- well he's never seen a catoblepas up close before, and he said if I could get some good pictures of it, he'd pay me for them. He gave me a figure, and it's, like, better than some of the jobs I've done for Vyv."

He's delighted, clearly. He likes feeling like he's pulling his own weight. Noctis is always so relieved when Vyv calls, not because of the inherent payday, but more because it puts this light in Prompto's eyes that Noctis would easily climb a hundred volcanic mountains for.

"Damn, Prompto, at this rate you'll have funded our whole trip," Gladio says. He doesn't ruffle his hair anymore, because Prompto actually hates that, just sort of scrunches his fingers through it instead. Prompto doesn't hate that at all. It's adorable.

Sometimes in the early morning, when he and Noctis are the last to drag themselves out of the tiny camper, they'll do their affirmations together:

"Gotta be our best today," Noctis will say, and Prompto will put on this absurdly determined expression, bed hair hanging into his eyes and cheek still creased pink from the pillow.

"Gotta get those hair scrunches," he'll reply gravely.

"What else did he say, Prompto?" Ignis says in a pleasant tone of voice that Noctis hasn't trusted since he was seven years old.

"Um! Nothing. Nothing worth repeating, anyway, you know." He is looking completely away from them now, an avoidance tactic if Noctis has ever seen one. "Woah, is that really the time? We better get going if we wanna catch that cow before it gets dark!"

He turns toward the car and runs into Gladio's arm instead.

"He suggested that Prompto's talents would be put to better use in different company," Ignis says, his voice carrying clearly over Prompto's whine of 'nooo, Iggy, let it go.' "He said that if Prompto ever got tired of our lifestyle, his door would be open."

Ah, Noctis thinks, followed by, ouch?

"Oh, fuck that guy," Gladio blurts. "Let me go talk to him."

"No!" Prompto clings to his arm, throwing all his weight into keeping Gladio in place. The Shield, who could bench Prom's entire body weight in one hand, lets himself be detained anyway and pretends to be annoyed about it. "Ignis, why are you causing trouble right now?" Prompto says frantically.

"Transparency is important in a relationship," Ignis replies.

"There's transparency and then there's causing trouble. Noct, tell them."

"I think Gladio should go talk to him," Noctis says immediately. But then Prompto looks betrayed, and it makes Noctis feel awful. "Ugh, okay. Okay. We're leaving. Ignis, Gladio, that's an executive order."

"Are you sure I can't punch him in the face?" Gladio grumbles.

"Am I-- yes, dude!" Prompto half-laughs nervously. "Very sure!"

"What if I just broke his nose a little?"

"Then that would be treason, I guess, cause Noct just said no."

It's with the standard amount of bickering and noise that they climb into the car, the top rolling up over their heads as it starts to drizzle. Ignis pulls smoothly back onto the cracked asphalt road and reaches over to turn the radio on; a peace offering. From the backseat, Noctis can see the corner of Prompto's smile, framed by a flyaway piece of yellow hair.

They live this way now, but they didn't always. Noctis used to have the run of the whole Citadel, had his own penthouse apartment, grew up dodging banquets and lavish dinners. It's not like he likes sleeping on the ground and having nothing to eat. It's not like he chose to lose his home.

But it could be worse. It's not a bad way to live, just Noctis and the people he loves best and these countless hours together. There's a lot of hard work and sometimes he goes to bed hungry but he knows he'll remember these days forever. He knows he'll miss them.

"Hey," he says, over the quiet sound of rain on the windows and the catchy synth-pop crooning out of the speakers. "Don't ever sell your camera, okay?"

Prompto says, "I mean, I wouldn't ever want to."

"Seriously," Noctis presses. He doesn't want to let it go. It feels important. "Your pictures are-- they mean the world to me, Prom. I can't even tell you."

His friend looks bewildered. He's half-turned in his seat, and his eyes stray to Gladio, then jump to Ignis, then settle back on Noctis. Whatever he's looking for, he seems to find it, because he smiles.

"Okay, weirdo," he says, "one fully-documented roadtrip, coming up. I won't leave anything out."

Noctis is counting on it.

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #chocobros #polyship roadtrip #prompto argentum #ignis scientia #gladiolus amicitia #noctis lucis caelum #my writing #prompt #owletstarlet #ffxv fic #irrelevant but i listened to willow by twsift on repeat while writing this so thats like. the vibe

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blood-teeth · 3 years ago

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I really like your writing! It reminds me of some of my favorite works - KR0, for example😉. You don't have to share if you don't want to - but do you have any writing tips on capturing that Americana liminal space stuff? (Or any tips in general, really.) I took a lot of road trips as a kid, and this story/that genre is the closest it feels to that - but I can't exactly put my finger on it.

YEAHHHH KR0

thank you so much this ask made my day <3

hmmm... as for the tips, i think maybe for you put yourself back into that space of your roadtrips as a kid. did you ever see things nobody else did? how did the night look you in the face? whose teeth glimmered on those dark roads.

something else i've invested a lot in ARE those purely american folk tales. for whatever reason we've got a lot of stories about hitchhikers. there was one radio play i heard about a guy that decided to take a cross country trip. there's a hitch hiker in the rain under a bridge and this driver decides not to pull over. over the next few days the driver keeps seeing this same man, the same hitch hiker over the next few days in differing areas of the country. it scares him. finally, he enters Oklahoma - a state i was born and raised in, so this was super close to home for me - and he's lonely. in texas he picks up a different hitchhiker - a woman. they drive and he sees that man again, the one that had been following him. the driver tries to run him over but suddenly he isn't there. anyway, the hitchhiker finally catches him napping in his car. he's friendly, bright wide smile and flickering teeth that dance in the night. the driver runs away and finds a payphone to call his mother back home. his mother doesn't answer, it's a different voice that tells him his mother was hospitalized because her son died driving while he was doing a cross country road trip...

he had been dead this whole time.

anyway, obviously the hitchhiker was death, trying to bring him home. i always think back to that when i write these weird liminal spaces. this endless road with no where to go. picking up an inevitability on the side of the road. i think consuming media like that can bring those memories you have into a different light.

something else i would recommend is think about folk tales you've heard. the weirdness of it. the melancholy of it all. why do we create these monsters, there's forlorn ghosts wandering roads. make your own folk tales and make sure they resonate with you. who cares if someone thinks its weird. it will be because it wasn't made for them. but if it doesn't mean anything to you you won't be able to capture the feeling and experience you're looking for.

#i hope this makes sense #thank you ! <3

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tennessoui · 3 years ago

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i really am just so excited for part two of the roadtrip au and knowing it might be from obi-wan's perspective??? seeing obi-wan fawn over anakin while anakin dotes on him?? i'm losing my mind.

hey!!! bless!!!! i know i said it would be part 1, part 2, part 3, but i started writing part 2 and it's like already 2.2k long and they're just in Pennsylvania so i think we should all start thinking of this story as part 1 (finished, posted), ARC 2 (very long, is in segments, depending on what people wanna see and what road trip shenanigans i can think up), and part 3 (tbd)

anyway here's the 2.2k (squick: a/b/o, mpreg)

“Uh, sir? Are you...alright?”

That’s the gas station attendant. Obi-Wan barely resists the urge to thunk his head on the side of the bathroom stall. The only thing stopping him is how absolutely unsanitary it would be, and he already feels dirty enough. He pulls a few more squares of toilet paper from the dispenser and wipes at his mouth.

Of all the pregnancy symptoms he hates, he thinks morning sickness is the one he hates the most. And it’s the one that seems to be, for some reason, sticking around the longest.

He’d never even known how much of a misnomer morning sickness is, but it’s not like it’s only happening in the morning. He’ll feel nauseous halfway through the day, mid-afternoon, early evening.

His doctor and close friend at the hospital, Bant, had assured him this was normal and nothing to worry about. But it’s hard not to worry about it, especially when he lives with an Alpha who worries about everything.

“Just fine, thank you,” Obi-Wan says politely as he flushes the toilet and leaves before he can watch his breakfast spiral down and disappear. That’ll only make him feel even more sick.

The girl wrings her hands as she watches him wash his, and he has to take pity on her. She can’t be older than eighteen. “Morning sickness,” he tells her, placing a hand on the virtually unnoticeable swell of his belly.

“Oh!” she says. Obi-Wan fights the urge to grimace when he sees her eyes dart down to his unmarked neck. He knows how it looks. He knows how it sounds. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to--”

“It’s quite alright,” he says. It’s not, but it is. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to have this conversation, doesn’t want to talk to this girl anymore. They’re passing through a small town in central Pennsylvania. He’s a pregnant, unmated, thirty-eight year old male omega. A rarity. A talking point. He doesn’t want to talk to her, he wants--

There’s a loud knock on the door to the bathroom. “Obi-Wan? Are you alright? Is there someone in there with you? I thought I heard voices. Obi-Wan? I’m coming in, Obi-Wan.”

Anakin.

Obi-Wan gets halfway through drying his hands before Anakin’s there, crowding him against the sink and nosing at his face and neck.

“Sir, this is a bathroom for omegas only!” the gas station attendant protests, but Anakin growls at her.

As much as the pregnancy has made Obi-Wan lose parts of himself to his Omegan side, it’s been ten times worse for Anakin for some reason. As far as Alphas go, Anakin’s always been a thoughtful, respectful one. Quick to anger, perhaps, but never violent or suspicious.

Now it’s like everyone in the world has done something to personally offend Anakin. Everyone but Obi-Wan.

If he didn’t feel such a burning, unignorable need to get to Seattle, Obi-Wan would have called the whole trip off weeks ago.

But he couldn’t then and he definitely can’t now, not when they’ve both taken the time off of work and Obi-Wan’s let his doctor know he’ll be out of the state and they’re already in Pennsylvania.

He’ll just let Anakin do whatever he needs to do to feel alright with taking a pregnant, unmated omega across the country. It’s not as if it’s a hardship to put up with all the scentings and hugs and looming and protectiveness.

Quite the opposite, actually.

Which just makes Obi-Wan feel even more guilty, the way he’s using Anakin like this. His dearest, closest friend, who is helping him in such an amazing way, and every time he touches him, it’s all Obi-Wan can do to not arch up into the touch.

He wishes he could blame it on the pregnancy hormones, the way his instincts are going haywire to keep an alpha--any alpha--close. But it’s not. It’s Anakin. It’s the fact that Obi-Wan is hopelessly, irreversibly in love with the alpha.

The touches and the scenting don’t mean what he wants them to. It doesn’t mean anything, the way Anakin pushes his shirts and sweaters to Obi-Wan’s chest and watches him put them on. He’s an observant man, his alpha. He knows Obi-Wan likes wearing his scent now that he’s pregnant. It’s comforting.

So even though it doesn’t mean anything at all, the way Anakin’s hands roam over his waist and stomach and hips as he growls at the poor gas station attendant, Obi-Wan has to fight to not push back into the touches, to not scent him in return.

He’s afraid once he does, he won’t be able to stop. The thought of it, of marking the beautiful, strong, virile alpha with his smell, is too addicting to ever risk trying.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. It’s just a bit of morning sickness,” he says lightly, touching Anakin’s chest gently. “She was just checking up on me.”

Anakin glares at the girl and starts to herd Obi-Wan out of the bathroom. “Not hers to check up on,” he mutters, hands latching onto Anakin’s hips and guiding him through the aisles of brightly colored chips and candy.

Obi-Wan thinks that for both of their sakes he should remind Anakin that he’s not his to check up on either, but he doesn’t want to, not when he can pretend for a little bit longer.

“I think I would like to lie down in the back for a bit,” he says, holding his stomach. “Just until we get out of this state.”

Anakin agrees immediately, like he knew he would. “Okay, Obi,” he murmurs, opening the car door for him. They’d laid down their suitcases in the wells behind the two front seats, and Anakin had thrown a couple of blankets over the entire area to make a sort of makeshift nest for Obi-Wan to sleep in should he want to.

They’ve only been driving for four hours, but Obi-Wan already wants to. He’s painfully on edge.

He hadn’t understood how hard it would be to convince his hindbrain and body to leave the safety of their apartment, but all he wants now is to nest somewhere safe for him and the baby. It would have been impossible to do this without Anakin.

“Alright,” the alpha says. “Um. Wait. Here.”

He shucks off his sweatshirt, a faded college one that Obi-Wan’s been coveting with his eyes since Anakin had put it on this morning. “Oh, dear one, no,” he forces himself to say anyway. “It’s December. You need a sweatshirt.”

“I’ll turn up the heat,” Anakin holds it out insistently, stubbornly. “Take it, come on.”

Obi-wan can only make himself hesitate for a second more before he’s snatching the soft fabric that smells like sunlight linen honeydew out of his hands and holding it greedily to his chest. “Alright.”

Under the weight of the alpha’s watchful eyes, Obi-Wan crawls into the backseat and curls up with his head diagonal from the driver’s seat. He thinks it’ll be nice to wake up and see Anakin’s profile whenever he wants to without additional shifting.

“Oh shit,” Anakin curses suddenly. “I was going to buy a coffee.” The alpha pauses, clearly torn between going back inside and not wanting to leave the omega alone in the car. But Obi-Wan knows Anakin, and he needs his coffee.

“Oh,” he says as if he’s just remembering something himself, “can you get me one of those bananas on the counter? I think they’re good for babies.”

That, obviously, changes everything for Anakin who straightens instantly. “Bananas are good for babies,” he declares, nodding his head before narrowing his eyes. “Would you...can I lock the door? I won’t be long. Just for safety.”

Obi-Wan blinks and purses his lips to stop his little smile. His alpha can be so silly. Safety. In the middle of the afternoon in rural Pennsylvania. “Okay, alpha,” he agrees before he even realizes that he really shouldn’t be calling Anakin alpha. Especially not when the other man always reacts so strongly to it.

Case in point, he thinks to himself sadly as Anakin’s hand spasms on the car door handle before he slams it and hustles away, almost at a run.

With a long sigh, he flops back down into his nest and squirms until he gets comfortable. There’s a pillow close to his hand that he hugs to his chest when he realizes it’s Anakin’s pillow from his bed at home. It smells amazing, a mix of both of them together.

Ever since he’d told the alpha he was pregnant, Obi-Wan’s fallen asleep in Anakin’s bed more often than not. It’s a comfort thing, one that Obi-Wan feels intensely guilty about. Surely if he keeps being so clingy and whiny and Omegan, Anakin will get sick of him.

And this is just the beginning of the pregnancy. He knows rationally that Anakin loves him as a friend, a brother, but how long is that love going to last if Obi-Wan can’t get a handle on his goddamn hormones? Anakin hadn’t signed up for any of this. It’s not even his pup. How much is Obi-Wan willing to put him through just because he can’t imagine a life without the alpha in it?

Wouldn’t it be the best thing for the both of them to cut their losses now? Bail and Breha had told Obi-Wan he could move in with them for the duration of the pregnancy if he needed to. The only thing that stopped him from saying yes immediately had been the hope that Anakin would be willing to stay with him, keep living with him even after he’d fucked up so much.

And the alpha, by some miracle, hadn’t left, hadn’t moved out. But Obi-Wan can’t shake the thought that he will soon, that this will all get to be too much. Obi-Wan’s omega whimpers at the back of his mind at the idea that one day the alpha will be gone.

The scent of distressed omega fills the car as Obi-Wan feels his bottom lip start to wobble.

Alright, the influx of hormones that are wreaking havoc on his emotions is probably the pregnancy symptom he hates the most. But morning sickness is still up there, too.

He sniffs into Anakin’s college sweatshirt and tries to think happy thoughts. He shouldn’t make Anakin worry about his emotions when he’s already spending so much time worried about his physical health.

How much is Obi-Wan going to take advantage of Anakin’s kindness?

The doors unlock with a beep, signaling his alpha’s return to the car.

It doesn’t take Anakin even a second to catch onto Obi-Wan’s recent spiral of emotion, but at least he won’t know why unless Obi-Wan tells him.

“Obi?” he asks frantically, as soon as he opens the car door. “Obi, are you alright? Did something happen? Did someone see you--?”

“Put the coffee down before you spill it,” Obi-Wan instructs after peeking out of his sweatshirt haven. “I’m alright, Anakin. It’s just the hormones. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Anakin shakes his head. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

The statement pulls a wry smile from Obi-Wan. “Oh, I can think of a few things,” he murmurs, touching his belly with a pointed, gentle hand. Before Anakin can say anything about that, he continues quickly. “I was just wondering about something, I’m fine, really. Really.”

And then, knowing he shouldn’t but also knowing it’ll distract Anakin enough from this line of questioning, he tilts his head back to expose his neck and says, “Can we drive, alpha?”

The coffee cup still clutched in Anakin’s hands bursts open under the force of his grip. He really should have put it down.

Anakin curses up a storm as he shakes the hot liquid off of his skin, and Obi-Wan sits up worriedly. Anakin was bothered so much by Obi-Wan calling him that that he accidentally hurt himself. No more, the omega resolves. He can take a hint.

“Are you alright?” he asks, grabbing at Anakin’s hand to examine the red skin.

“I’m fine!” Anakin yelps, jumping away. “I just--I’m just going to go wash this off. Um. And get more coffee.”

He slams the door shut, and Obi-Wan wilts as he watches him go. He can’t even follow after him because Anakin’s locked the doors with his car key. He’s done enough already.

“Oh baby,” he tells his stomach. “I don’t think I’m ever going to have that alpha figured out.”

The baby is still and, of course, silent, but Obi-Wan takes comfort in their presence anyway. They can’t leave him. Not yet, at least.

Gingerly, he maneuvers his way out of his nest so he can reach his messenger bag he’d left in the foot of his passenger seat. It takes some finangling, but finally he’s able to fish out his headphones. As he resettles into his nest, surrounded on all sides by Anakin’s scent, he notices the bunch of bananas thrown in the driver’s seat.

Obi-Wan snorts at his silly alpha, but can’t deny that he’s touched at the same time.

It’s extremely easy to find the track he wants to listen to, what with how often he listens to it these days. Sometimes, it’s the only thing that can get him to fall asleep.

He pulls up the downloaded homemade album Anakin had given him for Christmas four years back. When he presses play, his alpha’s deep melodic voice spills into his ears.

“Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, the droghte of March hath perced to the roote…”

Of course he can’t be sure, but he’s fairly certain he’s asleep by the time Anakin comes back to the car.

#asks #squick tag: a/b/o #squick tag: mpreg #prompt fill #roadtrip au #oh?? its somehow MORE angsty now that obi-wan's POV is being explored???#is ANYONE surprised??? lmao #(no)#also yes at the end obi-wan is listening to anakin recite the general prologue of the canterbury tales with the original english #that anakin learned how to pronounce correctly so he could make obi-wan the best christmas present ever #was it going to be a love confession too but he chickened out at the last second??? yah #will anakin get jealous obi-wan's always lsitening to something on his phone and demand to know what it is??? yah #poor dumb men

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mintugiyuu · 3 years ago

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Hi pepper ! (omg such a cute name) 💓 can I pls request modern au bf giyuu headcanons? I was just watching the valentine's day special and he seems so (unexpectedly) romantic? 🥺 I really wanna read your take on modern giyuu bc I loved the way you wrote him on the roadtrip hcs !

Tbh I think he'd still be quiet and awkward a bit but he'd be such an attentive and doting sweetheart, literally the perfect gentleman if he was raised by his sister because that's what tsutako taught him 💓 basically the same as the og giyuu from the taisho era but without the trauma and inferiority complex that prevents him from getting closer to others LOL anyway I hope this makes sense ! Sorry for rambling and thank you in advance 💓💓💓

> you have no idea how excited I was to see this request; I love writing my soft giyuu head-canons, and in modern day?? the possibilities are endless, thank you anon 🙏

> aw thank you hun! you’re v sweet! <3 I’m so so happy you liked my characterization of him, he’s one of my favorite characters and I love to write him soft ;3; no need to apologize, ramble away my friend!

> thank you again for requesting and I hope you enjoyed! this made my day to write! <3

༄ modern au! boyfriend giyuu head-canons.

sfw head-canons:

➥ pairing || tomioka giyuu x reader

➥ warnings || mentions of food and eating

giyuu would still be very awkward and silent, but in a less gloomy way. he is naturally an introvert, so he tends to keep to himself; but once comfortable, he’s surprisingly open and a bit talkative.

he is the definition of chivalrous, because of course tsutako nee-san wouldn’t raise him any other way. plus, as I’ve mentioned, giyuu shows his love through actions, not so much words.

holding open doors for you, pulling out chairs for you, lending his never-ending collection of hoodies to you for when you’re cold; the list goes on.

giyuu’s favorite out of that list is lending you his hoodies.

if you’re smaller than him, then he finds it absolutely adorable how the hoodie swallows you whole.

if you’re taller, then he purposely upsizes his hoodie wardrobe so you fit into them. most people will then assume that he’s wearing your hoodies, since he now looks small in his own.

being a quiet, more introverted man, he enjoys quieter dates.

stargazing is a favorite; laying side by side on your roof with blankets draped over the both of you; your head resting against his chest as he lets you point out constellations and other brighter stars.

other date ideas include: movie dates (theater or creating a pillow fort at home and watching it in there); beach dates or walks along the beach; car rides to nowhere, hearing you sing your head off to music; sitting in the corner of the empty cafe, watching your favorite shows on his laptop with headphones in.

he also enjoys going to the pet store with you and playing with the kittens that the store keeps.

it wouldn’t take long for you and giyuu to adopt a kitten and name them “tuffy”, a nickname you have for giyuu in the morning because of how bad his bed head gets.

giyuu is not a morning person in the slightest; so if you were trying to get out of bed to get ready for the day, he’d sleepily grip your arm, gently pulling you back into bed and hugging you from behind, mumbling “5 more minutes”.

five minutes turns to two hours if you’re not careful or persistent enough.

even after you get him out of bed, he’s falling asleep in his cereal.

in another post I mentioned the two tap system; even if you’re not so shy, he’d still use that system for himself because he is.

giyuu would be holding your hand in public and suddenly tap the top of your hand with his thumb, giving it a gentle squeeze.

if you were to say “I love you, too” and kiss him on the cheek, he’d blink a bit in surprise before averting his eyes.

the amount of times you’d successfully fluster him is too much to count.

he loves to send you random pictures throughout the day since he’s such a dry texter (not purposely, he just doesn’t have a way with words).

most come out blurry because he sucks at taking photos, but you’d appreciate the shaky video of a baby duck following giyuu around the park he was at.

don’t get me started with selfies. most times you wouldn’t be able to help yourself from laughing at how terribly awkward and out of his element he looks in the picture.

not a selfie guy.

but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an album on his phone dedicated for selfies of you as well as photos of you both.

he likes to look through them time to time, smiling to himself in secret as he remembers the memory from the photo fondly.

giyuu will visit you at work if you don’t work from home, bringing you your favorite snack/treat/drink to make your day a bit better.

he’ll even stay as you consume it to listen to you rant about the latest drama or gossip in your work place.

the way giyuu normally gives affection is hidden, in a way; kisses on the back of your head, hugging you from the back, things such as that.

you’ll probably be the one to initiate things face to face; he’ll happily oblige, if not a bit slowly.

the ravenette also loves to take you over to dinner at his sister’s place; she refers to you as family by now, always thanking you for taking care of her “little giyuu” and welcomes you with open arms.

overall, he’s just one big awkward, dorky, quiet sweetheart that’s very happy to have someone like you to come home to.

#🎣.requests #sfw #head canons #kny #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny x reader #demon slayer x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #kny reader insert #demon slayer reader insert #kimetsu no yaiba reader insert #tomioka giyuu #tomioka giyuu x reader

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laurenairay · 4 years ago

Note

Number 3 with Nolan 😊😊

Here you go @chicagoblackhawkslover96 - a little angstier that I was anticipating, but I hope you enjoy this Kayla! 💖

Tagging @texanstarslove too, because you gave me a boost earlier today to write this!

“I just want to make you happy”

From: Nolan

What time will you be home?

You smiled at the text from your boyfriend, waiting until you were at a stop at the next traffic light to reply.

To: Nolan

In about 10/15 minutes. See you soon!

You didn’t get a message back by the time you parked your car, making you frown a little as you headed up to your house. What was Nolan up to?

The moment you unlocked the door, you got your answer. The lights were dimmed, Nolan standing by the dining table with a nervous smile, and the open plan room was full.

Flowers, at least a dozen bouquets, covering most of the spare spaces in the living room and kitchen. Balloons in silver and gold, tied up with curled ribbons. Three boxes of chocolates, the fancy ones from the boutique you know that Ryanne got from Claude on their anniversary. And how many candles had he lit?!

What the hell, Nolan?

He’d even laid the dining table with the nice plates that your mom had bought the two of you when you moved in with him, with the good wine glasses as well. It wasn’t your birthday, his birthday, or an anniversary at all…so why was he going overboard like this?

“Welcome home?” he said hesitantly, noticing your trepidation as you hung up your coat.

“What’s going on, Nol? What is all of this?” you asked softly, walking into the room, confused beyond measure.

“I just want to make you happy. I thought this might be...nice for you,” he said softly, barely more than a mumble.

Oh.

Oh Nolan.

“Baby I don’t need all this fancy stuff to make me happy. You make me happy, just as you are,” you said, smiling.

Nolan’s cheeks flushed with that beautiful pink shade you loved so much, and he bit his bottom lip, as if unsure.

“I just…I…you deserve it,” he said awkwardly.

But it was the way he said it that made you hesitate, a frown spreading across your lips.

“Why do you think I deserve fancy things, Nol?” you asked softly, crossing your arms over your chest.

He flushed a little deeper, one hand moving to rub the back of his neck, like it did when he was about to say something self-deprecating. Damn it Nolan.

“I know it isn’t easy, being with me. The weird schedules, the roadtrips, mean people on social media…and that’s not even mentioning the migraine shit. I just…you put up with a lot, because of me,”

Oh Nolan. How did he not know how this would break your heart?

The sadness must’ve been showing on your face, because his eyes went wide and his lips pressed together as his eyebrows pinched.

“I fucked it up, didn’t I?” he sighed.

“No!” you said, shaking your head, although tears sprung to your eyes.

“You’re about to cry!” he retorted, his eyes narrowing.

Hey.

“Because you seem to think that being with you is a chore that needs rewarding!” you snapped back.

Nolan flinched backwards, like your words had given him a virtual slap. Shit. Shit. You exhaled shakily, running a hand that was just as shaky through your hair. Damn it.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, looking down at the ground.

You couldn’t help the wounded noise that tore from your throat, a couple of tears trickling down your cheeks. Nolan snapped his head back up to look at you, his face shifting into something just as devastating, which only made your heart break a little bit more. No, no you had to fix this now. He’d put in a lot of effort...even if it was completely misguided.

So you took a slow deep breath, wiping your cheeks dry even if all you wanted to do was curl up in a ball.

“I don’t know if you’ve been listening to the wrong advice, or this is genuinely what you think, or if it’s just a random low mental health thing, but I don’t need or want you to buy me things to ‘make up’ for being with you,” you said softly, fingers making air quotes around make up.

“Babe…”

“No, Nolan, I’m not done,” you interrupted, holding your hand up. Nolan shut his jaw with a click, lips pressed together in a thin line, as if trying to control himself, “I knew what being with you was going to be like when we made things official. I knew it then and I know it now and I haven’t changed my mind. You don’t need to buy me things to get my attention or affection,”

You paused, sighing, before sending him a sad smile. Nolan tried to smile back, but it still looked too sad to feel genuine.

“I don’t know where this all came from, Nolan. And I hate that you think so little of yourself. But I love you, and I don’t need any of the frills to make me love you more,”

“I love you too,” he choked out, eyes desperate, “So much. I guess I just got lost in my head about all of this,”

You reached your hands out to where Nolan was clenching and unclenching his fists, and he quickly stepped forward to take your hands in his, making you smile.

“I’m not saying don’t buy me things. I wouldn’t say no to a nice dinner sometimes, or some flowers every now and again, or even a surprise gift here and there,” you said softly, trying to choose your words right, “but not in a crazy overboard like this And not to ‘make things up’ to me. That…that doesn’t feel right,”

Because it doesn’t. You loved him just as he was.

Nolan just nodded, smiling sadly, before he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of your head. “I know I need to work on that, about working on the mental stuff. But I am trying. Maybe I just overdid things a little tonight?”

“Just a little overdone,” you giggled, squeezing his hands as he laughed too, “just know that you can talk to me, yeah? I’d rather talk things out with you than have you try to buy things to smother your feelings,”

“I hate talking about my feelings,” he grumbled, although you could see he was trying not to smile.

“I know,” you mused, “But we’re going to do it anyway,”

Nolan groaned, making you laugh, even more so as he tugged you towards him to pull you into a hug. You wrapped your arms around him willingly, burying your face in his chest as he held you tightly. This wasn’t where you’d seen your evening going, but you were glad it happened, if for no other reason than to get all of this self-deprecation out of Nolan’s mind.

Eventually he let you go with a kiss to the top of your head, and then another gentle kiss to your lips.

“Have a glass of wine with me?” he asked hopefully, tilting his head to indicate the bottle chilling in the ice bucket on the dining table.

“Sure baby, that sounds nice,” you nodded.

You watched him fondly as he poured you a glass of wine each, accepting it from him with a smile.

“To us?” he toasted, his voice tilting up in hope.

“To us,” you nodded.

With any luck, things could only get better from here.

#my writing #prompt list blurb #nolan patrick #well this was angstier than i originally intended #he's an overthinker i can just tell #nolan patrick blurb #nolan patrick fic #nolan patrick x reader #prompt lists #nhl writing #nhl fic #nhl blurb #hockey writing #hockey blurb #hockey fic

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crystaljins · 4 years ago

Text

River lead me home | 08

Characters: Kim Seokjin x reader

Word count: 8.5k

Synopsis: Ever since coming to the human realm when you were child, nothing seems to fit, and this was just supposed to be a simple roadtrip to help you find yourself.

Is that too much to ask for?

Spin-off to A long journey home

Rating: Teens

Genre: Adventure, fluff, angst

Notes: WOw. Second last chapter! Who knew we’d get this far.... I said last chapter was the emotional climax and now I’m looking at the word count of this chapter and I’m a bit like... wow... ok... you had a lot to say, didn’t you?

Anyway, please enjoy!!

Tags: @blue1928 @veeparkersstuff

Masterlist

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 FINAL

The three of you decide to make camp in the ravine that night with only minor hiccups. The Psittanurans had kindly provided you with two extra bedrolls, both far more comfortable than your own, and since the three of you hadn’t anticipated the addition of a third human-sized traveller, you had foolishly left your old bedroll behind in favour of travelling lighter. Of course, Jungkook, used to the comfort of sleeping curled up in your pocket, refuses to sleep without a bedroll. You cheerfully offer to just sleep on the soft, slightly damp sand that comprises the riverbank, but you’re quickly met with protests from both of your male companions.

“Just share with me.” Jin mutters, only slightly grumbly. The two of you had shared the single bedroll multiple times throughout this journey, and he doesn’t enjoy the idea of you attempting to rest uncomfortably with the state you’re in. Particularly because you’re only in that state because of him.

You’re about to nod your agreement when you are yanked back several steps into Jungkook’s torso. He throws a heavy arm across your shoulders and grins at Jin in a way that lets Jin know that Jungkook is fishing for a reaction.

“Oh no, no, no, loverboy.” Jungkook scolds. “We can’t have you taking advantage of our dear, naive (Y/N). She can share with me!”

You yank at his forearm more out of annoyance than an attempt to dislodge his arm.

“It’s not taking advantage.” Jin grits out between clenched teeth. He’s not even sure why Jungkook’s insinuation irritates him so much, but it does. And with the way Jungkook’s grin widens, Jin realises it was the exact reaction Jungkook was hoping for.

“If you insist.” Jungkook gives in. But then his expression turns faux-innocent. He drops his gaze to the top of your head and you tilt your chin back so you can gaze back up at him. “I can only assume that means that (Y/N) wants to share with you as much as you do with her and well, no judgement but I-“

“I’ll share with you!” You cut in, and Jin doesn’t need good lighting to know your cheeks are aflame.

Jin’s jaw drops. Jungkook just completely played the two of you. And he knows it- he shoots Jin a smug look as you clamber into the luxurious Psittanuran bedroll alongside him.

Jin is utterly floored by the red-hot flash of irritation he feels at the sight. He glares for a moment longer, as if it will change the outcome of the situation, but when it becomes clear that it won’t, he sighs and resigns himself to attempting to sleep for the night. It doesn’t take long for you and Jungkook to settle into a slow, steady rhythm of breathing that tells Jin you are both asleep.

Unsurprisingly, sleep doesn’t come easily to him that night. It’s not even that you’re lying a metre away wrapped in Jungkook’s annoyingly bulky arms, something Jin didn’t even know was irritating until now. No, what keeps him awake is the way his mind absolutely refuses to stop replaying the way you had looked at him when the arrow had hit you.

It was easy, in the adrenaline rush that had pushed him through the events of today, to ignore any pesky emotions. He didn’t have time to process or understand his emotions in the onslaught of disasters. But now he has nothing but time as the night slowly passes and he’s lost. He’s so, so lost.

It’s been a common topic on this journey- how you make him feel. Initially the answer was easy. You’re annoying and pesky, like an untrained Labrador puppy, but you’re also family, like an untrained Labrador puppy. Someone he cares for greatly, but is also annoyed by beyond belief.

But for some reason, the longer this trip has gone on, the harder the answer has become. Does he still care for you? Absolutely. Do you still annoy him? Beyond belief. So if that hasn’t changed, why does that answer feel so incomplete?

He sits up with a groan, realising he’s not going to get any sleep any time soon. The shore of the riverbank is cold and damp and the sand gives way beneath his bare feet. On the edge of the river like this, he can gaze straight upwards and glimpse the jagged strip of starlight visible between the imposing walls of the ravine. The stars in this realm really are something else- bright, sparkling pinpricks on an indigo canvas, high overhead. So much brighter and more intense than the muted, dusky black of the sky in the human realm. When he’d first moved, he’d actually missed the brilliant glow of the stars above, and he’d bought little glow in the dark stickers to attach to his ceiling. It had been during the time where you used spend a lot of time with him and his parents because your mother was working a late shift. He’d come home, overjoyed at the little stickers he brandished, and then he’d noticed the way you’d eyed them. You’ve never been very good at voicing your thoughts- every admission of yours has to be coaxed out of you. But he’d known straight away that you wanted the stars. He hadn’t hesitated, that night, to grab a ladder and spend the evening attaching the stars to your bedroom ceiling in a pathetic imitation of the constellations of Magregnum.

The young teenager who had cheerfully attached glow-in-the-dark stickers to the ceiling of his friend’s room seems so distant and far away now. So much has happened since then- so much has gone wrong and so much has gone right. Briefly, he wonders if you’d liked him back then as well. Maybe he’d mistaken the longing glow in your eyes as being for the stickers when it had actually been for him. Jungkook had made fun of him for never noticing your feelings until now, but it’s not like anything has ever changed between the two of you. You’ve always gazed at him like he’s someone amazing and special. He’s always given up everything for you without a moment’s hesitation. If anything, the only difference between then and now is that you keep drifting further and further away no matter what efforts he does or doesn’t make. What can he do? How can he solve the problem of you slipping through his fingers like water?

“Can’t sleep?” A voice sounds, and to Jin’s credit, he doesn’t scream. He does start so violently that he nearly tumbles forward into the water lapping at his feet, though.

Jungkook settles beside him, hugging his knees to his chest and gazing up at the stars above.

“Something like that.” Jin manages, when his heart rate finally settles back into something that is conducive to life. Jungkook snorts and folds his arms across his knees, resting his cheek on his folded arms so he can peer sleepily at Jin.

“I can’t either.” Jungkook admits. “The bedding isn’t as comfortable as I thought it’d be.” Jin glances at Jungkook, arching an eyebrow at him.

“Not as fun sharing as you thought?” Jin questions, unable to keep the slight sneer from his voice. Jungkook grins, a flash of white in the darkness.

“On the contrary, I’m very comfortable.” He asserts, and something about the way Jungkook says it has Jin bristling in irritation. He’s about to snap a retort, when Jungkook drops the cheeky front he has on, quite rapidly. Like a balloon deflating. “It’s just... I thought that as a human, everything would seem smaller. Less big and threatening. Everything was huge to me as a pixie. But for some reason...” he trails away before swallowing. It’s the most vulnerable Jin has ever seen him- he actually looks like a young boy, lost and afraid. “Instead everything seems bigger.”

Jin is silent for a moment, mostly shocked by this side of Jungkook. He should know better than to be surprised that Jungkook is more than a pesky troublemaker, after all the revelations of this journey. There’s always more to Jungkook.

The thought makes him smile for whatever reason. Jungkook, fearless, pesky Jungkook, is afraid of the future. Who’d have thought it? In response to the sudden fond feeling in his chest, Jin reaches out a hand to affectionately ruffle Jungkook’s hair.

Jungkook makes a noise of protest, pushing Jin’s hair away.

“Hey!” He cries. “I open up to you and this is how you treat me?”

“I can’t help it.” Jin teases. “You’re surprisingly cute.”

Jungkook huffs for a moment, clearly outraged at the sentiment, before the fight slowly drains out of him.

“I’m serious.” He mutters. Jin shakes his head and mirror’s Jungkook’s pose, hugging his knees in close to his chest.

“That’s how everyone feels.” He informs the former pixie. “The world is surprisingly big and huge, and life can sometimes feel like a puddle and sometimes like an ocean. Welcome to being a human.”

Jungkook is silent for a moment, contemplating what Jin is saying.

“I... never imagined this would happen. There are all these things I wanted to do, if I were human, but I never thought I’d actually get to do them. And now, I finally have everything I wanted, right at my fingertips and I’m... I’m scared.” Jungkook confesses.

“I get that.” Jin offers in sympathy. “I was scared when we first came to the human realm too. And then I was scared when I first got into med school. And I was scared when I first got to this realm again. The things we don’t know are scary.” He confesses. “But hey. Sometimes the best things to happen to us are the scariest things to start. Look at you- if you’d never overcome your fear of granting the wish, you’d never have become human, right?”

That silences Jungkook for so long that Jin begins to think he’s fallen asleep. But when he glances at Jungkook, he’s wide awake. The stars overhead reflect in his round eyes as he gazes thoughtfully upwards.

“The best things... are the scariest things to start.” Jungkook echoes at last. He frowns and squints at Jin. “I think you’re a hypocrite.” He accuses suddenly. For a moment, Jin merely smiles stupidly, not fully comprehending the sudden turnaround. But gradually Jungkook’s words register and his jaw drops.

“I’m sorry?” Jin answers in offence. Jungkook stares evenly back at Jin and even tilts his chin defiantly upwards.

“You heard me. You talk all big and wise like that, and yet you’re too scared to start the most important thing to you.” He reminds Jin. “Why else are you sitting out here, glaring at the sky instead of sleeping?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jin mutters, digging his fingers into the sand. It’s kind of satisfying, the way it gives way and crumbles beneath his palm.

“I’m talking about her.” Jungkook says, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to where you are currently snoozing peacefully. “And how you’re in love with her but you’re too scared to tell her.”

The words seem oddly loud and booming around Jin. For a second, he can’t seem to form words- like his tongue has frozen to the roof of his mouth.

“I...” he tries, but he doesn’t really have any follow up. “I...” he tries again. The air suddenly feels warm and his shirt feels uncomfortably tight around his throat.

“Ok, wow.” Jungkook says, releasing a low whistle for good measure. “So, you’re still doing the whole “in denial” thing? Really? Even after that whole desperate “what would I be supposed to do?” anguished kdrama lead monologue you had in that burrow?” Jungkook tsk’s and shakes his head and Jin feels his face flush with heat when he realises Jungkook had been eavesdropping on that particular conversation. “Girl takes an arrow for you and you’re still gonna deny you love her? Dang.”

Jin swallows past the dryness in his throat. But Jungkook cuts him off before he can offer any words.

“Save your denial for someone who might believe you. I’m not even going to force you to say it out loud because it sounds like (Y/N) is going to have to do something more impressive than taking an arrow for you and jumping into a ravine with you to finally admit it out loud. I’m just going to say that I get it. I didn’t before, but now I do.” He offers Jin a weak smile. “The things we don’t know are scary. And starting anything with her is probably terrifying given all your history. But maybe when you start to believe the whole “the best things are the scariest things to start” spiel, then I’ll follow your lead. But for now, I’m cold and tired.”

He gets to his feet and dusts sand off the back of his trousers, before padding over to where you’re fast asleep.

Jin is rarely speechless. He prides himself on often having lots to say- to some of his friends he’s famous for the speed at which he can spit out words. He’s even heard you refer to them as “jants” when you think he isn’t listening.

But he’s speechless now. Jungkook’s good at that- taking impossible, scary, confusing feelings and making them seem so simple that Jin feels like a fool.

The best things in life are the scariest to start.

The words echo in his head as Jin comes to a realisation, in that moment. Why he’s been feeling so lost... why every moment with you feels like sand slipping through an hourglass...

It’s because he’s absolutely terrified. Terrified of what you mean to him, of the risks he would have to take to keep you in his life... and terrified of the cost if he doesn’t take those risks.

But at the same time... the best things in life are the scariest to start. And Jin is more scared than he’s ever been.

This time when he settles into sleep, the soft, steady sound of your breathing and the gentle lap of the river against the sandy banks is enough to lull his stormy mind into a surprisingly restful sleep.

When you awaken the next morning, it isn’t hard to tell that there is something bothering your two travel companions. There’s a multitude of things that could be the reason behind their stormy moods. The three of you are still trapped in a ravine together. There is still the long journey back home. The Saishtas likely think you are dead, but they still linger out there and if you aren’t careful, you could expose your presence to them. So, you don’t blame them for being quiet and a little standoffish, but you wish you knew the exact reason for it. After all, you had kind of expected a more festive atmosphere after Jungkook became human. You certainly feel lighter and more joyous- why do your companions not mirror the sentiment?

“Is everything ok?” You finally ask Jin as he assists you with packing up the bedrolls. He looks at you, a little startled like he has been lost in thought.

“Yeah.” He says, just a beat too quickly. “Everything’s... fine.”

Funnily enough, you aren’t convinced. But you decide you won’t push your luck. After all, there’s a long walk back to the portal, if you can even escape this ravine. They’ll come to you when they’re ready. There’s lots for you to sort through yourself, anyway. You still have to work things out with your mother, and you’re still unemployed, and now you know you’re in love with Jin as an added bonus. If they’re feeling even a quarter of the nerves you are, then it’s no wonder that they’re subdued.

It takes most of the morning to find a path out of the ravine. Jungkook is confident there is definitely one, but he’s just unaware of where. When he had been born here, he had just flown up and out. But since guardians used to come in and out for these journeys, there must be something.

It’s Jin who finds it, albeit accidentally. He’s lost in a haze, thinking deeply about whatever it is that’s bothering him, and the sand crumbles beneath his feet. He cries out, grabbing your and Jungkook’s attention from where you had been scrutinising the various carvings from past guardians.

It all happens so quickly- Jin flails, stumbling a few steps. He reaches out, grabbing onto the side of the ravine to stabilise himself.

But he just keeps going. He crumples into the wall. And it folds around him. And just like that, he’s gone from view.

It takes a moment of you and Jungkook staring stupidly at each other before you both realise what has happened. Crying out in horror, you stumble over to the section of cliff where he vanished. You reach out your hand to press against the wall and find that rather than firm rock, it has an unusual spongy texture that gives way.

You wave Jungkook over, who mirrors your action and digs his hand into the wall. It seems to suck his arm in slightly, and you both nod at each other before pressing your way through the odd, spongey section of rock wall. It spreads around you and clings like quicksand. For a moment you feel a flash of fear, but then the rock springs away from you like an elastic snapping back into place and you and Jungkook are standing in a darkened, open cavern. You can still make out the darkened path, but you doubt a human would be able to make out a thing.

“Ow!” You hear a voice cry when something warm but firm catches your leg and you lurch forward, landing flat on the cavern ground. Whipping your gaze over your shoulder, you find Jin sprawled across the ground.

“Well...” Jungkook observes, gazing around the tunnel. His new, human body did not have the enhanced abilities that you and Jin do (as they had arm wrestled the night before to check) and so likely he is completely blind in this tunnel. “I’m just going to assume this is the way out. Are you gonna get a torch out, (Y/N) or are we going to hold hands the whole time?”

“She’s getting the torch out!” Jin snaps, scrambling over to you and snatching the bag off your uninjured shoulder before you can do anything.

He plunges his arm all the way in and pulls out the familiar yellow torch. It lights up the tunnel, highlighting the long, winding route ahead of you.

And then the light stutters and blinks out, leaving you in the once more in darkness. Jin whacks the bottom of the torch a few more times and plays with the switch, but no light returns. The three of you remain silent for a moment, perhaps a shared moment of memory for your torch, who had fought long and hard for you on this journey. And then Jungkook breaks it.

“Well, hope your hands aren’t sweaty.” He sighs, and his fingers barely brush yours before he’s yanked away with surprising force.

“I have better eyesight.” Jin explains, perhaps a little too sweetly. It’s in contrast with the way he squeezes Jungkook’s hand perhaps a bit too tightly. “I’ll make sure you don’t fall over, Jungkook.”

Jungkook whines in protest.

“You’re hurting me!” He complains.

Jin doesn’t dignify him with a response, and instead sets a rapid pace forward, strolling confidently through the cavern despite the meagre lighting.

It doesn’t take long for the sombre mood that had plagued them that morning to return. This time, you’re a little less willing to let it slide- Jin has proven himself prone to these strange, moody fits on this journey and you know he’s eventually forced to admit what’s bothering him, but for Jungkook to be just as quiet has you stressing. What’s wrong? Why are they like this? You’d gone to bed joyous and content and had awoken ready to face the world and the multitude of challenges ahead. But for some reason, Jin and Jungkook don’t share in your eagerness, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t hurt a little.

It’s not like you expected things to be easy, or simple after reaching the river. You hadn’t even known that message from your dad existed prior to this, so it’s not like everything would just click into place and you’d ride off into the sunset. It’s just... you’d thought you were all on the same page, after everything. You and Jin had plummeted off a bridge together, for goodness’ sake! And it’s stupid, but the way he’d held you, cradled your head protectively as you fell, you’d thought...

Well, you hadn’t thought he was in love with you, or anything. You’d just thought it was something, at least. Yet here you are- for every step forward you take with Jin, there seems to be another three steps you take backwards. And now Jungkook is joining in on the whole brooding-confusing act too.

You haven’t even realised you’ve stopped walking until Jin stops to look at you over his shoulder. Jungkook, still completely blind in the dark tunnel, stops when Jin tugs on his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Jin questions, gently. As if he hasn’t been ignoring you all morning.

“That’s what I want to ask you.” You’re surprised at the soft, tentative way the words come out. They echo slightly in the cabin, and there’s a clear, confused waver in your voice. “What’s going on? Why are you...” you trail away, searching for the words, but you come up empty. “Like this?” is what you finally settle on. “Why aren’t you telling me what’s the matter? Why the silence and the brooding? Haven’t we had enough of that?”

Even though your eyesight is better than Jungkook’s, it’s still difficult to make out Jin’s silhouette. It’s impossible to make out his expression, which makes the tense silence that follows all the more nerve-wracking.

“There’s nothing wrong.” Jin finally says. “It’s just something stupid.”

His words aren’t meant to be hurtful. He’s trying to be dismissive so that you don’t worry. You know this, and understand his reasoning perfectly, but it still feels like a slap in the face after everything the two of you have been together. You’re so sick of this endless, perpetual cycle. If it’s not him, it’s you- someone is always holding back, too afraid to say the truth. To crush the fragile eggshells that you’re tip-toeing on.

“Friends are supposed to share the stupid things.” You say softly. You can’t see his expression, but you watch the way his shoulders stiffen. “Did you know that Jungkook’s biggest fear is the washing machine? He’s afraid he’ll be asleep in one of my pockets and my mum will throw my clothes for the wash.”

“That was private information-“ Jungkook protests, but you cut him off.

“I know that sort of thing about him.” You tell Jin. “Because Jungkook and I are friends. When I went through that phase where I wanted to be a warrior and started enrolling in all those different self-defence class, I told Jungkook. It was a stupid phase, but I still told him. Do you know why? Because I trusted him. Yeah, we make fun of each other, and we fight, and we call each other names, but I still tell him everything because that’s what friendship is. It’s trusting each other to stick it out through the ugly.” You don’t know where all this is coming from. All you know is this- you just trusted Jin enough to follow him over the edge of a bridge, but he doesn’t reciprocate. And that’s been the problem from the start. It’s always been uneven between you. You shared all your ugly, all your insecurities. You went to him when things were hard. But he hid it- he masked his insecurities and he held back the things he wanted to say and now the two of you are here. Two strangers in a dark cave.

“I trust you-“ Jin protests but the words are empty and ugly.

“You don’t.” You finally say. “And I can-” you voice cracks, so you clear your throat and try again. “I can try until I’m blue in the face to be the sort of person who never needs you and never makes you worry and it still won’t fix whatever this is between us because the truth is, you don’t want me.”

Your words hang in the darkness between the three of you. You’re pretty sure Jungkook is even holding his breath.

“You don’t want me, Jin.” You say again. “You just feel like you’re obligated to be with me. And I... I don’t want that. I don’t want you doing anything out of obligation for me. Not anymore.”

Despite the fact that your throat feels raw and painful after your tirade, you feel oddly lighter. You take a deep breath and move to push past Jin, but a hand shoots out and grabs your wrist.

“That’s not true.” Jin protests, and his voice wobbles. “Don’t... You’re not an obligation.” He asserts.

And you want to believe him. You do. But you just can’t. You’ve had a whole trip- no, a whole friendship of him treating you like the most inconvenient creature in existence.

“I sure feel like one.” You say softly, and Jin’s grip on you goes lax enough that you’re able to start walking forward. “It’s fine. Let’s just get out of here already. The sooner we get back home, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”

The sun stings your eyes when you finally reach the end of the tunnel- a similar spongey wall conceals the exit. You tell yourself it’s the sudden influx of light that causes your eyes seem to water as you enter the last phase of your long journey.

Jin has an ugly, gurgly sensation in his chest. It’s close to guilt, but worse- darker, and more painful. He watches your back from where you walk, maybe ten metres in front of him. Jungkook walks close to you, clearly mumbling something. But since it’s Jungkook, it’s just as likely that he is comforting you as it is that he’s pointing at random lumps of dirt and noting the resemblance to your face.

You haven’t spoken a word to him since stepping out of the tunnel. The exit had brought the three of you out at the northern edge of the Golden Plains- a direct walk east through the forest would bring you to a village where you could stock up on supplies for the journey home since the Psittanurans hadn’t given you enough for three human-sized beings, and buy a third bedroll for Jungkook.

It’s an easy fix, really. All Jin has to do is apologise. Assert that you are not an obligation to him and that he does trust you. But every time he plucks up the courage to cross the few metres you walk ahead of him, something stops him. Because, if he tells you that, that you’re not an obligation, then that begs the question: what are you? As much as he loathes to admit it, he’s beginning to see the truth in Jungkook’s words; he’s a hypocrite. A cowardly, pathetic hypocrite who isn’t even brave enough to admit to himself what he’s feeling.

An unholy screech interrupts his commiserating and he has just enough time to think here we go again to himself before he is greeted by the sight of a terrified Jungkook held bridal style in your arms. You look equally shocked, as if you hadn’t expected Jungkook to leap into your arms like that. Jin rushes forward, ready to offer aid should disaster come but he cannot locate any immediate threats.

It is only once Jungkook stops screeching and cowering in your arms like a distressed puppy that Jin is able to see what has him so terrified- a small group of mice, standing up on their hindlimbs and wielding tiny little swords.

It takes a few incredulous blinks and a good rub of his eyes to convince himself that the scene before him is real and not something’s he’s hallucinating after watching too much Ratatouille.

The little grey mouse, whose tiny nose twitches in fear as he edges forward, is the first to speak.

“You are guardians, are you not?” The little mouse demands. You and Jin exchange a concerned glance across Jungkook’s hulking figure. It’s the first time you’ve acknowledged him for hours.

“Not!” Jungkook squeaks, still terrified. You, to your credit, have not dropped him, but you are starting to look impatient with having to carry him. “Just leave us in peace!”

“Jungkook!” You snap. “You could literally squash them with your boots please stop being ridiculous.”

“You know I have a phobia! They always bully me back home!” Jungkook grumbles, but reluctantly drops from your arms onto the ground. Only for one of the mice to brandish its sword. Jungkook screams and leaps onto Jin’s back.

With a resigned sigh, Jin doesn’t even bother to throw Jungkook off. He just lets him hang there, like a terrified koala.

“You fit the legends! Hulking beasts with terrifying aura!” A little soft brown mouse declares, though the tip of its sword shakes as it squeaks. “Giants who offer aid to all who demand it of them!”

Jin closes his eyes and inhales deeply, willing himself to be calm.

“I think you have the wrong-“ Jin begins, ready to brush aside the little troupe of mice and continue with the seven day hike home, but the smallest mouse, a little grey and white one with a soft pink nose, stumbles forward.

“Please!” It begs. “You are our last hope! You must help us! Forgive us if we startled you- we have been following you since you came to this realm and we are running out of time.”

This gives Jin pause. He’s not sure why- it’s not like he knows how to read the expressions on their tiny faces but something about the desperation in the little mouse’s words makes him unable to leave them.

“Our people are suffering from a plague.” It admits. “And there is only one cure for the illness.”

“A good mousetrap?” Jungkook suggests from over Jin’s shoulder. Jin glares at him just to make sure he knows the comment is unwelcome.

The little grey and white mouse ignores Jungkook and focuses its attention on Jin.

“The starshine fungus.” It explains. “It grows in abundance on the riverbanks just on the other side of this forest. But few of our people are well enough to gather and transport it back home. We need as many as we can gather, and yet we were the only ones healthy enough to make the journey. But the demand for it far outweighs the ability of just the four of us to transport it alone. We are too small, and too weak.”

Jungkook has gone eerily quiet at those last words- even his breathing has seemed to cease. That almost never bodes well.

“I’m really sorry, but we-“ you begin, on the verge of rejecting them.

“We’ll help.” Jungkook says, cutting you off. He pushes his way off Jin’s back and drops back onto the ground. He crouches before the four little mice and smiles. The expression on his face is almost gentle. “You guys don’t know what it’s like, to be small and helpless. We can’t leave a whole colony to die just because Jin wants to make it back in time for his dinner date with that cool engineer guy.” He says to Jin and you. Jin bites his lip, and you look momentarily guilty. But then your expression clears, and you nod your head. Jungkook’s expression brightens and he shifts his gaze to Jin, clearly waiting for approval.

With a sigh, Jin offers a nod. Why did he become a doctor if he’s just going to let an entire village die? As much as he loathes to admit it, Jungkook is right.

“So, you’ll help?” The grey and white mouse asks. Jungkook nods.

“Show us the way and we’ll carry the fungus back for you.” Jungkook promises.

On cue, all four of the mice bow deeply.

“You have our deepest gratitude.” The largest mouse, the grey one that had spoken first, says.

Jin swallows deeply. He has no interest on yet another detour on this ridiculous journey. He just wants to go home. At home, he can fix his Apple watch. He can have dinner with Joon. Maybe, in the safety of home and what he knows, he can even work things out with you, and himself. Here, in this realm, there is nothing but danger and the choked knot around his heart that he can’t seem to untangle in your presence.

Still, it’s a pleasant walk. You let the little mice perch on your shoulders since Jungkook hasn’t fully shaken off his fear of them. They direct the three of you on a march southwest, towards the seaside. It takes nearly the whole day to get there. The lazy afternoon is warm but not sweltering although the air is heavy with the promise of rain later on.

You all reach the river before the rain comes. The forest opens up into a wide river. Northwards, the river extends towards impressive cliffsides where the fabled dragon kingdom is said to be, and southwards it rushes out to meet the sea on the southern coastline. Here, though, it is a lazy flow. Dragonflies dance on the banks and the river reflects the silvery clouds back up into the sky.

“They grow along the banks.” The oldest of the mice, the soft brown one, explains. Her name is Phrosia, and she has lost all her children to the plague. She has no family and the only thing keeping her going is the thought that she can’t let anyone else face what she had. She points at where the bank meets the river edge. Small plants and reeds grow along the edges. “They are bright blue and quite large. They’ll grow just inside the water. They should be easy to spot.”

“Well,” Jungkook says, sighing as he sheds his jacket. “Let’s get looking.” He rolls up the edges of his jeans and sheds his shoes and socks before wading into the mouth of the river and sifting through the grassy tufts on the banks.

Jin meets your gaze, which is a surprise because he didn’t realise you were looking at him. He offers you a tentative, awkward smile which has you looking away quickly. The action has that ugly, gurgly sensation from earlier returning. He sighs to himself before rolling up his sleeves and following Jungkook’s lead, wading into the river.

Sure enough, as the afternoon settles into a thick, muggy heat that signifies an oncoming storm, Jin begins to spot patches of bright blue amongst the reeds that line the riverbank. It’s mindless work- sort of soothing against his stormy mind. At least while he’s focused on adding to his growing pile of fungus, he’s not thinking about you, a few metres away, and the weird ache in his chest.

He’s so engrossed in his task that when he feels the delicate tap on his shoulder, he nearly has a heart attack. The handful of mushrooms in his hand goes flying, catching the current and zooming away. He stares in horror at his lost fungus, before turning to the perpetrator.

He’s expecting Jungkook to be standing there, looking smug from a prank well done, so when he sees you before him, looking uncomfortable and strangely guilty, he’s reduced to staring dumbly. The silence draws out for an uncomfortably long moment before you clear your throat awkwardly.

“Can... can we talk?” You ask hesitantly. “Jungkook offered to keep looking for more.” You gesture down the river to where Jungkook and the mice are working together- He plucks a mushroom and they carry it over to his pile for him.

Jin feels a nervous and uncomfortable sensation clog the back of his throat, but he nods nonetheless. You smile weakly and lead him away from the riverbank and back past the tree line. When you’re out of earshot but still within sight of Jungkook, you stop and turn.

This is it- the moment Jin had been waiting for. A chance to set things straight, to clear things up, to make it right.

“I’m sorry.” He blurts, at the same moment that you blurt the exact same words as him.

For a moment, the two of you stare blankly at each other in the ringing silence that follows.

You’re quicker to recover.

“I went overboard.” You explain. “You don’t owe me an explanation for when you’re upset. I shouldn’t get mad over that. And even... even if you see me as just an obligation, I’m grateful you’re in my life at all. So, I’m sorry for getting upset and I don’t want to ruin the rest of this trip home.”

It’s certainly a heartfelt apology. You wring your hands in distress and you won’t meet his gaze. He can tell you’re genuinely sorry for what happened.

Maybe that’s why he’s so angry in response to your words. Because, even if he lets this happen, accepts your ridiculous apology, the original problem still remains.

“Obligation?” Jin tests the word and even just the shape of the word in his mouth is annoying. “Obligation?” He tries again and he feels his blood pressure skyrocket.

“You serious think after all this time that you’re just an ‘obligation’ to me?” Even Jin is surprised by the volume of his own voice. The area around you is deadly silent in response to his outburst, but now that it’s out in the open, he can’t help but keep going. “What kind of idiot would risk his life on a ridiculous trip like this, just because of an obligation? Why would I give up dinner dates and drive to your place late at night to make sure you’ve eaten? What, you think your mother slips me a little allowance for babysitting you? Newsflash, (Y/N), I’m a literal doctor!!! I don’t need an allowance! I own my own apartment! I’m thinking of buying a maserati! You don’t have anything I need and I don’t have any obligation towards you! You’re minimising everything I’ve done for you and for what? So that you can play poor pathetic victim? How dare you belittle my feelings like that!” He’s out of breath by the time he finishes his rant and to be honest he’s not one hundred percent sure of the furious words which had poured out.

“Well what am I supposed to think?! It’s not like you ever explain yourself! You just sit there, and stew and I have to find out how you really feel by overhearing conversations you have with friends behind my back!” You explode in response. If Jin weren’t so angry himself, perhaps he would have felt alarmed by the vehemence of your answer. Instead, he just sees red, because here you go again! Making assumptions about him and not letting him get a word in edgewise!

“When have I ever done that?” He demands. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so angry in his life, not even when Jungkook filled his shoes with pudding because he had nothing better to do.

“You always do that!” You cry. “I know how all your friends speak about me! There goes (Y/N), the leech! And you just agree with them- after all, aren’t I just like an untrained Labrador puppy?”

Jin falls silent at that. He doesn’t have a comeback for that. After all, for the longest time, that is what you were to him. He doesn’t even know why he’s so upset that you would think otherwise.

“No answer?” You accuse. “If I’m not an obligation to you, what am I supposed to think?”

“You’re supposed to think about how I feel!” He shouts back. His throat feels raw with the shout.

You fall silent. You stare at him like’s he’s grown a second head.

And then, in the ringing silence that bears down on the two of you, you ask softly “How do you feel?”

There’s that question. That terrifying, loaded question. The one that makes him feel like he’s dangling on the edge of a cliff by his fingertips. He feels the fight drain out of him as he opens his mouth to struggle through a half-assed excuse. Anything to escape that question.

This realm apparently reciprocates his feelings of hatred, however, for he never gets the chance to respond. The muggy heat that had plagued the afternoon transitions into stormy humidity; overhead the stormy clouds that had gathered burst and immediately rain begins to pour down.

The two of you flinch in the sudden onslaught, and a loud peal of thunder has you both skittering for shelter.

There’s a small, hill like structure where the soil between the roots of an imposing tree has been flushed away; what remains in a shallow alcove that has just enough room for you and Jin to squeeze beneath the roots and shelter from the rain. He doesn’t know what Jungkook or the mice have done but hopefully the large pile of starshine fungus is being managed and not washed away in the onslaught of rain.

You rummage in your tattered hello kitty bag and produce a small, dry towel. Who knows what enchantments are cast on that stupid bag that the towel is still dry, but Jin isn’t complaining when you wordlessly hand it to him.

He towels off his hair, and an almost comfortable silence follows, in stark contrast to the prior conversation. Only the background of rain falling and the occasional rumble of thunder hangs between you. In the silence, Jin registers your proximity. You crouch beside him, with your thighs pressed to his. The dampness of the rain makes hairs along your hairline curl and droplets of water cling to your lashes. His eyes catch the movement of one droplet as it traces a line down your cheek, across your jawline and down your throat until it vanishes beneath the collar of your shirt. Glancing away quickly, he’s suddenly aware of the muggy heat in the air and the way the space beside you just seems to radiate warmth.

“You didn’t answer my question.” You comment. It’s so soft that the words are almost lost to the steady sound of rain breaking through the canopy overhead. “How do you feel?”

But he hears the words, and he knows in that moment that this is it. There’s no time or room for running or pushing it down. He can’t keep avoiding that question forever.

“I feel overwhelmed. When you look at me.” He admits. You turn to look at him, awaiting an explanation. Something about the look in your eyes makes that weird gurgly sensation from earlier return. But this time, it’s less ugly- it’s actually almost pleasant. Like the fizz of champagne in the back of his throat or the tickle of butterfly wings against his skin. New, delicate, effervescent. His heart swells as he finally gathers his courage. “Did you know you always look at me in a certain way?”

He turns to look at you, and he doesn’t see that look now, but it’s not hard to recall. Eyes, sparkling with admiration and hope. In spite of all the ways you’ve changed over the years, that look has never changed.

“How?” You question. When you’re facing him like this, the tail end of your breath catches against his skin. The fizzy feeling escalates to a nervous rumble in his chest.

“Like I’m your hero.” He admits. “It’s a little scary- it’s so much to live up to. But it’s kind of exhilarating too. It makes me want to be the person you think I am.”

You stare at him in confusion.

“But you are-“ you protest.

“I’m not. I’m no hero. I’m a coward.” He admits. “I mess things up all the time and I always say the wrong thing when it comes to you. And I’ve been trying so hard to be that guy. The one who has it all together and knows exactly what to say when you’re upset and can fix problems with a flick of his fingers.” It’s weird to finally be voicing this all aloud. He’s thought it a lot- that the real him doesn’t live up to expectations. But he doesn’t think he’s ever had the courage to tell you. Perhaps this is what you meant- if you are his friend, he should have told you all of this long ago. “But I’m not that guy. No matter how hard I try I can’t seem to be that guy. And if I open up… If I tell you all those things… don’t I seem so much less than that cool hero?” He confesses. “And I guess this whole trip has made it worse. Every time I think I have a handle on things, we get kidnapped or shot at or have to jump off a bridge. I haven’t had a spare moment to even pretend to be that guy.” He looks at you. “And then you come along, and you’re sneaking into enemy camps and taking arrows to the shoulder and defeating evil forest spirits. How am I even supposed to compare? And if you can do all of that on your own, what am I meant to be? What am I supposed to be to you? How can I be your hero?” He wonders.

You stare at him in confusion. The rain starts to clear and a blade of sunlight cuts through the forest, catching the side of your face. It highlights the slope of your nose, the line of your cheekbones, the brightness of your eyes. In that moment, you aren’t his friend. You’re some ethereal, mystic being that feels a thousand miles out of reach.

“I... I don’t want any of that from you, Jin. I don’t want or need a hero.” You finally confess. Your gaze softens as you shuffle forward, and the mood between the two of you shifts a little bit. Something intangible thickens the air and Jin feels strangely short of breath. “I just want... I just want...” you trail away, breaking your gaze but the tension in the air doesn’t dissipate. Instead, it seems to thicken when Jin realises that he desperately wants to know what you’re going to say. What do you want from him? What is he to you? What do you want him to be to you?

“You.” The word is barely above a breath and Jin feels like he’s been punched in the stomach.

“M-me?” He stutters and he feels like a teenager with a crush with the way the tips of his ears go red and his face flushes hot.

“Yeah.” You say, nodding shyly, before meeting his gaze with determination. “I want my friend back, Jin. I like the guy who stuck glow in the dark stickers on my ceiling when I was homesick but I also like the guy who gets scared of bugs and can fit an entire slice of cake in his mouth in one go. That guy is better than any hero because he’s here with me. And that’s what you do, Jin. You’re always here with me, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted from you.” You admit.

The space between you is minuscule now- if Jin tilted his head just slightly forward, your noses would brush. This close, he can make out each individual lash framing your eyes. Every contour of your face is both familiar and unfamiliar; the air is electric. He recalls the way you had looked at him what feels like a lifetime ago, when he had realised your feelings. Are they still the same? Do you still like him even after seeing the pathetic person he is throughout this trip? If he tilted in and up and closed the gap between your lips, would you pull away or press forward? “I don’t want the guy who can fix things with a flick of his fingers. And I don’t want a hero. I want Kim Seokjin. It’s more fun to work things out together anyway.” You promise.

It’s weird that those words are so liberating. Like a huge weight he didn’t know he’s been carrying all these years has been lifted. He’s fought and run and panicked for so long. Perhaps even longer than this trip. Long before you started avoiding him. Because all this time, he’s been trying to live up to an image he doesn’t fit into. He thought that’s what he had to be, for your sake. If you were struggling, he’d have to be strong enough to pull you out. But, with the words that hover between you, he realises he doesn’t have to be all that. He just has to be himself. Here the two of you are, after facing every imaginable danger, and yet you think no less of him. You’re looking at him with that same, admiring look. The brightness has not dimmed despite your awareness of his vulnerability, of his weakness.

And in that moment, Jin knows. There’s no more denying or running. He can’t keep it up- you’ve meticulously dismantled every stone in the fortress he built against you. He stands alone in the battlefield of his heart- you’ve conquered and won. He remembers earlier, when he’d tried to assert that he’d only ever see you as family, and the thought is laughable now. A pathetic, desperate excuse to avoid admitting the very thing that terrifies him to the bone. But, now he’s ready to admit it- ready to acknowledge what you are to him.

“You’re not an obligation to me.” He blurts. “You’re not a duty and you’re not just some un-trained puppy. You’re so much more than that, (Y/N), and everything I do is because I care about you so much. I’m sorry if it didn’t come across that way. I’m just..” He pauses and swallows. “I.. I lo-“

“There you are!” Jungkook’s voice sings out, and Jin winces. “I was starting to think you’d left me! Don’t worry guys, I’ve saved the fungus.”

You blink over Jin’s shoulder to where Jungkook has gathered the small little mushrooms into his jacket, which he’s folded into a little makeshift sack, the mice trailing behind. And then your gaze shifts back to Jin and you smile.

“Guess it’s back to work.” You say, and your words are awfully cheerful considering Jin is currently considering murder. Jungkook doesn’t have a human identity yet- he could bury him in this realm, and no one would ever know. “Shall we work together?”

It’s a loaded question, Jin knows, and despite everything, he finds himself smiling as well.

“What other choice do I have?” He grumbles. “Let’s get home already.”

#castlebangtan #thebtswritersclub #kim seokjin x reader #jin x reader #seokjin x reader #writing

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mishastoesies · 4 years ago

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Tell me about your Cassie and dean comeback au!!!

OKAY SO

it’s 1996, dean winchester is 17 years old, and he, his father, and his little brother roll into Cape Girardeau, Missouri on a normal hunt, but become delayed when the impala starts experiencing problems. john takes the car to a local shop, and they need replacement parts that’ll have to be ordered in, and the local automotive parts factory closed down a few years back. their four-day stay becomes a four-month one. john is livid, but he checks them into the motel.

john’s sour mood drives dean to take sam out often - they go everywhere: the mall, local schools’ games, the skatepark. that last one is where he meets cassie robinson, who does a SICK skate trick right in front of him and makes him trip over himself. she laughs at him when she sees him staring, and introduces herself and her 5 best friends. dean is lovestruck as hell.

cassie and dean begin hanging out often - she drives a new baby blue BMW and picks dean up for dates in front of the motel. cassie’s friends all think she’s dating this bad boy loner type and warn her not to get hurt, but dean is legit the opposite; he’s completely disarmed by her, all of his artifices melt away and he becomes this quiet, sensitive guy who reads vonnegut in his spare time and carries her bags when they go shopping together.

and dean doesn’t treat cassie as just a fun summer fling or like The Party Girl either! he knows that she’s ambitious, angling for her chance to change the world. he knows about her love of b-list horror movies and sci-fi. they go to drive-ins together and dean tells her that he could totally beat up the Swamp Man if he ever saw one in real life, and cassie rolls her eyes at his tough guy act.

dean and cassie see each other as Kindred Spirits - cassie knows she’s meant for more than her small town, and she makes dean feel like he could be meant for more than hunting; he may not have sammy’s (very obvious, even at 13) brains, but he’s smart, and capable, and cassie calls him handsome in a tone that says she really means beautiful (and trust dean, there’s a difference), so... fuck it. that summer he gets his GED. cassie and sam throw him a little party in celebration while john’s out at a bar.

eventually, though, the impala does get fixed up, and dean tells cassie that he has to leave, and that he probably won’t be back. cassie, never a quitter, tells him that he doesn’t have to; he’s 17, she’s 18, they can run away together! she committed to Tulane, they can get out, be free! and dean honest-to-god wants to, he wants to so bad, but... then he remembers john’s drunken rages and how sam may be a teenager now but he’s still his baby brother... and he says no. and cassie calls him a coward, says that they’re over, and he knows she’s right. and he hops in the impala with his dad and his brother and leaves.

(they see each other once more, when they’re both nine years more world-weary and that much more trapped by the expectations of those around them, and they resign themselves to thinking that it was a coincidence, and that it really was the last time)

but then!! but THEN!! YEARS LATER when dean has gone to hell and come back and stopped more apocalypses than most!! and cassie has gone on to get her PhD and is happily married to someone who’s stable and safe and everything dean isn’t, they meet AGAIN.

it’s even MORE of a freak chance - dean, cas, and jack are on a family roadtrip together, and cassie just happens to be in the same diner as them that day; dean sees her first - “cassie?” “dean?” “you look... really good.” “wish i could say the same” “shut up” “so who’s your friend? and who’s the kid?” and they catch up, and they realize that... they both got what they wanted. cassie got out and made something of herself, dean got out and had a home, and they’re... happy for each other! they really are! their summer together will always be a good memory, but seeing each other all grown up and finally fulfilled in life, that’s something they can treasure in the present day.

of course they keep in touch - duh - and jack becomes friends with cassie’s daughter because of course he does, and cas and cassie get along so well it’s scary. they are at the exact same level of Indulging Dean Because He’s A Dork. also cassie absolutely calls dean out. “really? we break up and then you find someone named cas?” “well it’s more like he found me...” “uh huh, sure. just say you have a type”

and anyways these are only a fraction of my thoughts on deancassie’s doomed summer romance i could get into so many more specific moments but this is already so long

#asks #queenofmoons

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sierice · 3 years ago

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Hi. I’m not sure if you still do song analysis stuff, but what do you think of “All I Know So Far” and “Walk Me Home” by P!nk for Apollo after his trials?

Hello Anon!!

So I don’t quite see how “Walk Me Home” fits Apollo- I mean, it does fit him, but not much.

BUT OMG- ALL I KNOW SO FAR WORKS SO GOOD???? WTF???? HOW THE F*CK IS IT SO ACCURATE SADFHSLDJFHASDFLJKSDF-

To be honest,,,,literally every line in “All I Know So Far” fits Apollo 🤣🤣🤣And the vibes??? The tired-but-happy-but-determined vibe??? It just fits SO well with Apollo I c a n n o t-

I felt alone, still feel afraid I stumble through it anyway

kgkldujdlkgjf the way that this works SO WELL I’M- Honestly it just- it works for literally the whole series tbh. Everything was going bad, he and Meg had to fight and trick their way through the whole of 6 months, and I think this captures it painfully well nvbdflkbgj:

Meg and I had blundered our way across the United States and back again. We’d freed ancient Oracles, defeated legions of monsters, and suffered the untold horrors of the American public transportation system. Finally, after many tragedies, we had triumphed over two of the Triumvirate’s evil emperors, Commodus and Caligula, at Camp Jupiter.

See? Painfully accurate :’)

When they dress you up in lies and you're left naked with the truth

AHHHHHH THE PARALLEL BETWEEN THIS AND HOW APOLLO HAD TO REALIZE AND COME TO TERMS WITH THE FACT THAT THE GODS WERE BLIND TO THEIR FAULTS AND THAT THE OLYMPIAN COUNCIL WAS A TYRANNY, AN- Anyways, it’s so accurate 😭😭😭I love it gkmdfobmdsfgndfg

You throw your head back, and you spit in the wind Let the walls crack, 'cause it lets the light in

The way the second line works so well with Apollo’s entire character development,,,, the idea that he realizes how all these experiences helped him heal,,,, the way the first line shows how he no longer cares for the praise and for staying blind to the faults of the Olympians,,,, brb sobbing

Stay unfiltered and loud, you'll be proud of that skin full of scars

My muscular arms bore no scars or fiery lines glowing beneath the surface. I was gorgeous, which made me feel melancholy. I had worked hard for those scars and bruises. All the suffering my friends and I had been through…

After complaining for so many months about my flabby, acne spotted Lester meat sack, I now found that I felt at home in that form. When I’d first met Meg, she had assured me that Lester’s appearance was perfectly normal. At the time, the notion had horrified me. Now I found it reassuring.

IT’S SO- AHHHHHHHHHHHH OMGG I LOVE THAT LINE WTFFF

So you might give yourself away, yeah And pay full price for each mistake

The way this part shows how yeah, Apollo suffered for his past mistakes, his past regrets, and he had to dig up centuries of trauma and fears, so he could face them- hooooh boy I just-

But when the candy-coating hides the razor blade You can cut yourself loose and use that rage

The first line talking about how Apollo repressed all his emotions and trauma and how he used that to his advantage???? The way Apollo used the memories of his friends as motivation to go on, the way he constanly reminded himself of the promise he made to Jason as a reason to not give up yet- and don’t even get me STARTED on how MEG WAS THE ONLY REASON THAT HE WAS ABLE TO HANG ON IN THE STYX- IT’S TOO MUCH I’M CRYING-

Also the rest of the song tbh,,, kinda reminds me of Meg, ya know? Tbf it’s mostly because of that one fic by Curioser on Ao3 sksks- Meg & Apollo's Highly Limited Roadtrip Playlist- Just the idea that Meg overcomes her abuse from Nero and learns to get through the hardships, and how she destroys the Beast and officially cuts all ties with that- ghnkfgkfhhg I love it <3333

In conclusion, YES “All I Know So Far” is THE perfect for post-ToA Apollo, and a lil bit of post-Toa Meg too tbh, absolutely love it, thank you so much for showing this anon 💛💛💛💛

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mooncustafer · 3 years ago

Text

Recover, Regroup, Roadtrip

Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in March 1989. The case is still open. Agent Dale Cooper disappeared in October 2016. The case is still open.

for @laughingpinecone /

/ @countdowntotwinpeaks‘ WONDERFULXSTRANGE 2021

“Diane, I am uncertain of the date and time, or indeed if such concepts have any meaning in this place. Nor do I have my recorder, but I find verbalizing my thoughts helps me to resist the confusion and lethargy. As for addressing my words to you, even though you’ll never hear them— well, old habits die hard.”

It pleased Wally Brando on a profound level to discover that a few pay-phones remained in Philadelphia, that reaching out was not yet the prerogative only of those who could afford a landline or a mobile. He could also have checked his email on a terminal at one of the city’s Public Libraries, and indeed, made a note to do so within the day so that he might catch up on the news of parents and former school friends. The pay phone was also blessed with both the yellow and the white pages, and the number he sought appeared under “F.” Getting transferred to Dr. Albert Rosenfield was a more complex quest, but he was persistent as well as polite, and after a few minutes he was able to speak to Dr. Rosenfield’s voice mail, if not the man himself.

He introduced himself with salutations, and was about the explain the nature of his request when a beep signalled that the allotted time had run out.

“To listen to your message, press one. To re-record your message, press two,” said the voice of the machine.

Silently cursing his volubility, Wally pressed two. This time he simplified the introduction, and asked if Dr. Rosenfield would be good enough to meet him that evening at the Morimoto Japanese restaurant not far from the FBI offices, to discuss a matter of deep concern connected, he believed, with the little town of Twin Peaks. When the beep came this time, he listened to his message and then, satisfied, hung up. The restaurant he’d named was slightly above his means, but he was meeting a friend of his godfather, and wanted to do justice to the occasion, even if the reason for it was one of peculiar anxiety to himself.

“Diane, I have tried so many times to escape— on the last attempt I really did get out into the world, but my plans, I fear, had dire repercussions for you, and to no end— my course still led me back to the Black Lodge. Some flaw in my own nature keeps trapping me in this loop; perhaps it’s what they sometimes call Saṃsāra.”

It was Agent Tammy Preston’s custom, when scraping the internet for information relevant to one or more recent cases, to check her email inbox every seven minutes— to do so every five minutes would disrupt the flow of her work, but ten-minute gaps might let something important go unanswered for too long. Just now the inbox was due another glance, and switching tabs she saw that two minutes earlier Director Bryson had replied to Tammy’s email of that morning with an invitation to come by her desk at her earliest possible convenience.

Tammy locked her screen, paused ‘Soft Fuzzy Man’ on her playlist and removed her headphones. Picking up the folder marked Missing Persons, 1989– Palmer, she slipped back into her pumps and made for Bryson’s office. The door was open but Tammy stopped at the threshold and rapped on the wall.

“Come in,” said Director Bryson, looking up from a folder. Bossa nova music played softly in the background as Tammy entered and pulled up a chair. It sometimes puzzled Tammy that apart from herself and Director Gordon Cole, no one in this particular division of the FBI seemed to have any interest in music recorded after 1979. (The first few times she’d heard ‘Du Hast’ pounding through the walls of Cole’s office, she’d wondered if this taste for metal was the result, or perhaps the cause, of his hearing loss; but after he’d joked to an unamused Agent Rosenfield about how these were difficult times and difficult times called for Dave Brubeck, she’d looked up the reference in case it was a coded message, and then the next day had overheard Gordon whistling ‘Mister Sandman,’ a song she knew primarily from an internet meme, at which point she concluded that the ear wants what it wants, regardless of demographic.)

“You told me you’d found some serious inconsistencies in the records surrounding Twin Peaks and the Palmer case?”

Tammy nodded, hesitated:

“I believe there may be inconsistencies as well in my own perceptions of the case.”

“Well now, that I find a little harder to believe.” Bryson smiled, but then her voice grew serious: “I’ve looked over the notes you made, and it confirms my own doubts about events.”

“Worse yet— the fact that I truly left the Lodge and then returned to it, will enable the beings that inhabit this place to take another twenty-five year turn in my likeness, unleashing even more evil on the world. The only thing stalling them is the doppelgänger I had MIKE make for the Jones family, but I don’t know if he’s still under the White Lodge’s protection.”

After all these months it still surprised Harry Truman there was so little physical pain, and so much boredom, to dying. Oh there’d been pain at the beginning, when he’d started treatment and had had to stop drinking; the memory of detoxing still made him shudder. But now he only felt a tiredness too huge for sleep to make any dent in it; and since he couldn’t sleep all the time, there were a great many hours during which all he could do was lie in the hospice bed or sit in one of the hospice chairs, and think.

At this point dying didn’t even sound so bad— it wasn’t like the past three decades had been all that great. He imagined going to sleep, just filling up a big bowl of silence and darkness and sinking into it, and then he felt bad for thinking that because Frank had already lost enough people without Harry lighting out too. Anyways, with the things he’d seen over the years he’d be a damn fool to think there was anything peaceful about death and whatever came after. So he’d lie awake trying to find some other topic to ponder, and that’s generally when the boredom set in.

Right now, courtesy of the nap he’d had in the afternoon after today’s treatment had left him especially exhausted, he was lying awake in the wee small hours. 3:52 am, said the clock on his bedside table beside the stack of paperbacks Frank had brought him on his visits— Harry wasn’t afraid of e-readers the way Lucy was of cellular phones, but he found the smell of paper comforting. It reminded him of the Bookhouse. The hospice tended to smell of disinfectants and sweat and soup. The food actually wasn’t as bad as the food at the hospital in Twin Peaks used to be, not that any food could be as bad as the hospital food in Twin Peaks used to be, but it made no difference to Harry, whose appetite had been gone for months. Frank always brought a slice of Norma’s pie too, carefully sealed in an old cookie tin to keep it fresh, but Harry could never manage more than a couple of bites, and they didn’t always stay down.

Being awake in the middle of the night in a hospice wasn’t as bad as being awake in the middle of the night when you were alone at home— the occasional voices or footsteps from the corridors beyond were reminders that whatever might be happening to Harry, life went on for the staff; and the lights from the city outside showed that life went on for others outside the hospice walls. When he’d first arrived, those city lights had made it hard to sleep, but now they substituted for the starry sky above Twin Peaks. There were fewer birds to watch in the city, though sparrows, pigeons or a starling sometimes lit on the ledge outside his window and peered in at him, or maybe at their own reflections. The frequent rain pattering against the glass— well, that sounded the same here as it did in a cabin.

Frank had called to tell him about Margaret Lanterman. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have stayed in Twin Peaks and died in his own home like her, instead of lingering in this hospice like the doomed heroine of some nineteenth-century novel. Or like Annie Blackburn. Or Audrey Horne.

The rain was spattering now against Harry’s window, bending the light from the Japanese stone lantern in the pocket-sized garden below. Harry couldn’t remember what the hospice building looked like from the outside, but he guessed it was similar in style to the mid-century one next door where the day-patients came for their treatments. A flash silhouetted the roofline; five seconds later came the thunder-crack. Harry settled back and closed his eyes.

Sleep pulled him into dreams of an espresso machine, like the one in the coffee place down in the lobby next to the gift shop for visitors. This machine filled a whole room, metal pipes feeding back on themselves like some kind of espressouroboros, neither steam nor coffee escaping from the grotesque contraption. Agent Cooper stood wearily before it with two empty coffee-cups. Harry was just wondering who the second cup was for, when Coop looked up and met his eyes:

“What year is this?!”

Harry sat up in bed, listened intently for two full minutes, but he didn’t hear Coop’s voice again. He sighed. Sometimes the mind pulls imaginary sounds out of the background noise. False pattern recognition or something— Coop would have known a word for it. Harry had little hope left they’d ever find Cooper, or if they did, that he’d still be the man he’d known. Yet he’d carried on, more (he told himself) out of habit than any real hope. He’d kept in touch with Agent Rosenfield, even when it meant letting him know about the cancer— not that Albert would blab the secret to anyone in Twin Peaks.

“Hello?”

“Good, you’re still alive.” Albert’s personality hadn’t mellowed with the years, exactly, but familiarity had worn the edges off his jibes.

“Shut up, Albert. So what have you found?” Albert’s calls generally came every three months, but never at nine in the morning, and he’d last spoken to Harry only two weeks back. Something important must have happened.

“Actually, Sheriff Truman, I’m the one coming to you for information.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, it’s not easy to do investigations from a hospital bed. What can I tell you that you can’t get from other sources?”

“I need you to summarize the Laura Palmer case back in 1989, and the actions of Agent Cooper in Twin Peaks at that time.”

“Albert, is this one of your damn cognitive tests? You already know—”

“We’re both too tired to argue, just humor me.”

“How detailed do you want?”

“An outline will suffice.”

Harry took a deep breath and briefly listed the finding of Laura’s body, and the living but dazed and injured Ronnette, and the arrival of Agent Dale Cooper to lead the investigation. He skimmed over the crimes of Jacques Reneault and some of the other peripheral drama that had occurred in the town around that time, noted that Leland Palmer had murdered his own daughter, albeit while not fully himself, and was beginning to recount Cooper’s temporary suspension and Windom Earle’s campaign of terror, when Albert interrupted:

“You’ve still got the unofficial version, then.”

“Unofficial?”

“According to FBI records and your colleagues at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Office, Laura Palmer is an unsolved missing-person case.”

Harry began to feel sick.

“Goddammit, Albert, you did the autopsy. I punched you and you fell across her body. You found a broken poker chip in her stomach—” Albert broke in:

“I hadn’t disclosed that detail to anybody I’ve questioned about this.” His voice was a little shaky. “Listen, Harry,” he continued. “Last Friday I was contacted by a young man wearing motorcycle leathers and talking like Jack Kerouac on quaaludes.”

“Wally.”

“Naturally I supposed him to be from your iodine-deficient neck of the woods even before he introduced himself as your godson and the offspring of those lieutenants of yours. He told me he’d come because he wasn’t sure where else to turn. Apparently he keeps in touch with his parents as he rides across the continent, but in their most recent conversation he’d noticed their memories of certain events had become confused. I was about to tell him I wasn’t the least bit surprised, when he added that he’d checked with other townsfolk, including your brother, and they all seemed to have had the same— how’d he put it? ‘The walls of their memory painted over like a childhood bedroom converted to a study.’”

”That sounds like Wally, all right.”

”Eventually he got round to explaining why he’d come to me. The message that had prompted him to call home was from Lucy; she said she’d shot a suspect who was attacking your brother Frank. She’d also mentioned some FBI agents arriving a few minutes later.”

Harry swallowed. He tried to imagine Lucy shooting anyone:

“Frank never said anything about this.”

“And when Wally called home, Andy and Lucy not only denied it had happened, they had no idea what he was talking about, not that I’d guess that to be an unusual state of affairs. Anyway, after I sent your godson away, I began to have contradictory memories myself of what Cooper had told me about the case. I remembered the poker chip after waking in the middle of the night from the worst dreams I’d had since medical school. I’ve been telling myself it was a false memory, maybe a composite of all the young female murder victims I’ve had to examine in my career, but I told myself I’d make one more phone call, just to check. And now you confirm it. Also, in my recall you knocked me across Leo Johnson’s body. Thanks for the correction. Are you still there?”

“Yes,” Harry answered, glad he was already sitting on his bed.

“Now that that’s established,” said Albert’s voice on the other end of the phone: “here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: when do you remember Agent Cooper disappearing?”

“March 1989.” Harry tried to keep his voice steady, as though he was giving evidence in court. He briefly explained about the Black Lodge and Coop’s reappearance and unsettling behaviour and how he’d checked himself out of the hospital and was never heard from again. There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Are you still there, Albert?”

“According to FBI records and, up until two days ago, my own memories: Coop disappeared this past October while driving to Odessa, Texas for a case. The last record of him was a credit-card charge at a motel just outside the city.”

“What was he investigating in Odessa?”

“Missing person. I’ve tried looking into that case, but it seems to be a dead end, especially since Coop never seems to have arrived at the diner where the man he was looking for had allegedly been running drugs.”

“Sounds like the kind of establishment where nobody’d admit anything. Maybe Coop did get to the diner.”

“Gee, you’ve cracked it Sheriff, we would never have thought of that. The diner was old-school, but not so old-school they didn’t have a security camera trained on the front counter. We went over three days worth of footage. I admit we can’t be sure he didn’t slip in through the back for some reason; but you knew Coop— can you honestly picture him entering a diner and not ordering a coffee?”

“Not the Coop I knew, but— I already told you he was acting pretty erratically just before he took off.”

Harry heard Albert sigh.

“I’ve been checking with a few of my colleagues who were involved in the original Palmer investigation. I think Gordon knows something, but being Gordon he’s saying nothing, and as loudly as possible. Denise— Director Bryson, now— remembers the unofficial version, and according to her so does Agent Preston— oh right, you never met Agent Tammy Preston, the poker-faced glamazon computer hacker— I’m not sure she was even born yet in 1989, but she was on a case in Twin Peaks in October 2016, and during the course of the subsequent paperwork, she started noticing a lot of records and statements didn’t match up, and then she realized her own memories didn’t match up. Which brings up another problem with trying to reason this out by conventional methods: something in that Salem’s Pacific-Northwest Lot of yours is rewriting memories, documents, maybe the facts themselves. But so far it’s predominantly affected the people who were on the spot this past October.” Albert’s voice rasped a little from the long phone call, and he paused to clear his throat. “Unfortunately, that also means the people most likely to remember the original version of events are people who weren’t in the Sheriff’s Office during the incident that seems to have triggered the change. At the risk of sounding like one of those bullshit shows on the History Channel, we may never know exactly what happened that night.”

“Wait, what even was the case that brought you all back in 2016?”

“That’s the problem— I’m one of the people who was there, and I only have vague and disconnected memories of a British man with a gardening glove, the chorus of Guys and Dolls, Agent Cooper leaving the room with Diane, his secretary who quit the FBI decades ago, and Gordon, and only Gordon coming back.” Albert paused again. “It goes against my personal feelings and medical opinions, but would you be willing to let me visit you in person? I’ve some vacation time and enough frequent-flyer miles that the trip will probably cost less than the long-distance charges if we continue this conversation.”

Harry opened the drawer of his bedside table and took out the key to Coop’s old hotel room:

“Yeah, come by.”

“Diane, I am currently alone. I realize that statement implies that I’m not always alone here, and indeed I sometimes have a companion, who I still think of as Laura Palmer, though I don’t know if that’s her identity anymore; I’d hoped, after my last attempt, that Laura would no longer be in this place at all. She comes and goes, or perhaps we both come and go and our orbits occasionally intersect. I’ve tried to find some pattern to it, but with no reliable way to measure time, I’ve had little success.

The last time we met she told me about a room she hadn’t seen before, all white walls, in which a dark-haired woman was contemplating a mirror with a puzzled look. I can’t help but feel this parallels my own situation.”

“Frank sent me this last month. But when I thanked him the next time he called, he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about.” Albert hesitated before taking the room key:

“Great Northern Hotel,” he read, turning it over. “Twin Peaks. Isn’t the front desk going to want this back?”

“Unless I miss my guess, it’s from 1989 when Coop was staying there.”

Albert’s ears stuck out more noticeably, or perhaps it was his face that was thinner. He’d spent the first part of his visit scrutinizing Harry and questioning him about his case and what the doctors were doing for it, until Harry told him to quit it or he’d run out of time to discuss Coop’s disappearance before visiting hours ended, and anyway weren’t Albert’s patients usually dead to begin with?

The trouble with the subsequent discussion was that it went in a circle— the people who’d been present for the 2016 Unknown Event had uncertain memories of what had actually happened; and the people who clearly recalled the 1989 Palmer case as a murder hadn’t been present for the Unknown Event. The one thing that seemed likely was that there was some connection between the 1989 case and the 2016 case, particularly since both had been followed by the unsolved disappearance of one Agent Dale Cooper.

“I hate to say it, Albert, but I’ve given up hope on ever finding Coop.”

“What’s hope got to do with it?” Albert asked. His tone was not sarcastic.

“Diane, I’ve decided that, if only to keep my mind occupied, I will go looking for the white room and the woman with the mirror. I’d feel happier if I had a ball of twine or some breadcrumbs to leave as a trail back to the waiting room, but I’m coming to terms with the idea that’s there’s no advantage to remaining or returning here— it’s not as if I need food or drink in this place, and I cannot be any more lost than I already am.

So far, I believe I’ve walked down five identical red-curtained hallways, and turned left five times. It therefore seems likely that I’m following a counterclockwise, roughly spiral path, although I’m uncertain if I’m proceeding inwards or outwards.”

“If this search is going to require juggling two sets of memories, then I’d better come along so you don’t get brainwashed again.”

“Sheriff Truman, if you haven’t noticed by now, you’re in a cancer hospice.”

“I just finished a round of treatments, I’ve got a couple of weeks free.” Albert snorted and Harry added: “You can monitor my health while we’re on the road.”

“I’m already thinking of your health. You’re immunocompromised, travel is too risky.”

“We’re crossing a few state lines, not going to the other side of the world.”

Albert pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. I’m driving. Which also means I get to choose the music.”

In fact, they went most of the way by plane, after Albert weighed the odds and decided five hours in a tube of recycled air would still be easier on Harry than a two-day road trip. Some of the passengers threw suspicious looks at Harry’s N95 mask, but they’d cleared it in advance with the airline, and Harry had briefly removed it when he went through TSA, and Albert was prepared to flash his FBI badge, but the flight crew were understanding.

They picked up a car at Midland International. Someone, presumably an employee of the car-rental company, had left a bundle of tourist-attraction pamphlets on the front passenger seat.

“According to these, Odessa has replicas of the Globe Theatre and Stonehenge,” Harry observed once he’d got himself settled.

“Why?” Albert asked.

“Got me there. The pamphlets don’t explain the motivation.”

Albert reached up and pulled down the car’s sunshade on Harry’s side, though the Sheriff insisted his cowboy hat was protection enough for his pale scalp:

“We’re not in the northwest where it rains every fifteen minutes,” he muttered, “and I’ve been looking up the side effects of your meds— you sunburn easily now.” Albert’s driving skirted the city, and they did not pass the Globe or Stonehenge.

The Pearblossom Motel, last recorded location of Agent Cooper, proved to be closed down. They’d noticed the papered-over windows as they pulled up, the sign unlit, not even to say NO VACANCY, but Albert got out to knock anyway. Harry watched him from the car; eventually he clambered out and slowly walked over to join him.

Albert was peering through a spot where the paper had torn away behind the window-glass. He stepped aside for Harry, and the sheriff took a look into the motel’s dim interior. He saw an ordinary, rather old-fashioned registration office, wood-grain panelling on the walls along with a few faded posters for local attractions. Rows of keys still hung on a board behind the desk, and a daily calendar read October 15, presumably the date the motel had closed, or the approximate date— Harry could imagine a concierge might not bother to keep tearing off the pages if they knew it was their last week on the job.

“I now realize that despite everything, I’ve still been harbouring hopes of finding my way back to the waiting room, hence my continual choosing of left-hand turns, as if attempting to mathematically navigate a maze. I must make a true leap of faith if intuition is to guide me, so I’ve closed my eyes and spun around several times in this corridor, first clockwise and then counterclockwise.

Now that I no longer can tell which direction I’ve come from… Diane, can you hear that? Of course you can’t, I don’t really have my tape recorder. I’m going to fall silent and listen for a bit.”

There seemed little else of interest at the motel (Harry, feeling a bit silly, had even tried the Great Northern’s room key on all the doors), so they turned back towards Odessa to look for the diner Cooper had been investigating. The motel was only a mile behind when they saw, ahead of them, a tall woman walking along the highway, her fire-engine-red hair, black t-shirt and pencil skirt out of place in a locale that was rural to the point of emptiness. Albert swore under his breath.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” he told Harry. “Roll down your window, I’m pulling over.” But the woman only threw a glance at the car as it slowed, flipped them the bird, and kept walking, though she stepped gingerly and Harry noticed she was barefoot on the asphalt. Albert leant across him and stuck his head out the window:

“Diane!”

“Fuck off, guys. I’m not Diane, and whoever she is I bet she’d tell you the same.” Harry gently pushed Albert back and leant out the window himself:

“Sorry, ma’am, mistaken identity. Are you all right though? I see you’ve mislaid your shoes.”

“Looks like somebody ran off with them,” the woman answered, her tone mocking despite the tired set of her shoulders. “I haven’t been up to anything illegal, officer. Just a bit of fooling around.”

“We can give you a ride into town,” Harry offered. “If it helps, you’ll be alone in the back seat— means you can get the drop on us if you start to feel nervous.”

The woman narrowed her eyes at the offer, then abruptly barked out a laugh and opened the back door of the car, took a seat and folded her long legs in after her. “Only because I need a lift,” she insisted, rubbing her bare feet. “I knew office romances were a bad idea, but he didn’t have to be a dick about it. Nothing to do now but go home and drown my sorrows in Hallowe’en candy.”

“You’ve still got candy left over from Hallowe’en?” In the mirror above the dashboard, Harry saw Albert raise an eyebrow and the woman in the back seat frowned, insulted:

“No! I may not have a maternal bone in my body, but I’m not going to give the trick-or-treaters candy that’s a year old.”

“Ma’am,” Harry asked, thinking about the calendar back in the Pearblossom Motel office, “what date d’you think it is?”

“Mid-October,” she began. Harry saw her reach into her purse with her black-and-white nails and pull out a mobile phone. Her eyes widened at the date: “No, it’s March. The fuck?—” She ran a hand through her scarlet hair. Harry wondered if it was dyed or a wig. Perhaps she was bald too. “Must be losing it. I was so sure it was October. And it’s not like I’ve could’ve been wandering around this desert for five months.” She tapped her phone screen. “5,230 messages?!” She looked frightened now, raising her head to meet their gaze in the mirror. “Where the hell have I been? And you guys— you’re feds, aren’t you?”

“No,” Harry began.

“I am,” said Albert. “He’s not.”

“Well, can you tell me what’s going on? Or is it classified? God, it’s not aliens, is it? I always assumed alien conspiracies were bullshit to cover up real conspiracies.”

“It’s probably not aliens,” Harry answered, unable to keep doubt from his voice as he remembered Major Briggs, “but I afraid it’s not going to sound any less weird.”

“To start with, we’re in the area investigating a colleague who disappeared in October,” began Albert, “and then you turn up, apparently amnesiac since that date.”

“And with my messages unchecked since then.”

“Yes, but there’s another detail— you look exactly like a former colleague of mine who was close to our missing man. That’s why I called you Diane when I slowed down.”

“I need a smoke.”

“No.”

“Albert,” Harry interrupted, “I’ve already got cancer, what’s the worst that can happen?”

“Do you want me to answer that in detail?”

“No I don’t.” Harry turned to look over his shoulder at the woman in the back: “Just roll down your window first.”

“We’ll pull over and she can step away from the car,” said Albert.

He stopped on a shoulder, and their passenger got out and lit a cigarette. Examining the packet, she called to them:

“Three left. That’s fewer than I remember having on me in October, but not by much.” Albert, meanwhile, had pulled a shopping bag from the back seat:

“You should eat something,” he said to Harry, producing a sealed cup of applesauce and a box of plastic spoons. Between rounds of treatment, Harry’s nausea receded, but his appetite was still pretty weak. “There’s saltine crackers, too.” Harry chuckled in spite of himself as he tore the foil off the applesauce:

“This all makes me feel like I’m home from school with the ‘flu.”

“You’ll have to watch Roadrunner cartoons on your own phone, I’m not paying for the data,” Albert snapped.

“I’m surprised we even get reception out here.” The red-haired woman had strolled back to the car with her cigarette, though she took care to stay downwind from Harry’s rolled-down window. “Guys, is it just me or is this highway really deserted— like, Rod-Serling-voiceover deserted?”

“We were just thinking Roadrunner cartoons.”

“Can’t be, there’s no weird rocks.” She flicked ash onto the pavement, “Though it does feel like if someone painted a tunnel entrance on a wall around here, you might be able to drive into it. If you weren’t a coyote.” She took another drag and glanced at the power lines humming above their heads. “Maybe it’s the hum from those wires that’s giving us brain cancer— oh sorry, dude.” She broke off and looked at Harry in apology.

“It’s all right, ma’am,” he said when he’d finished swallowing his mouthful of applesauce. “I’ve got leukaemia, not brain cancer. And the sound from those lines is unpleasant. Like the whine of mosquitoes in the woods.” As he spoke the hum intensified, becoming a loud crackle. Albert glanced up as a shadow fell over the three travellers and their car.

In the sky a dark, nebulous shape twisted, circled, formed a comma or an apostrophe, and dove towards them.

The first few grackles, out of thousands, came down on the roof and hood of the car. Harry could see one pecking at the windscreen and glaring at him with hard yellow eyes. He suddenly remembered Coop had been afraid of birds; until now, he’d never been able to imagine why. He turned and pushed open the back door as the woman dove inside the vehicle. Around them, the flock blotted out the landscape.

“Hope they don’t scratch up the finish,” Albert shouted over the sound of wing-beats, “or I’m not getting my deposit back.”

“Is this nesting season? I mean, are the grackles round here normally this—”

“Oh fuck, one got in!” came a yell from the back seat. Eardrums ringing, Harry turned to see a small black shape ricocheting around the car’s interior as the woman flailed her long, bare arms. The grackle made for the gap between Albert’s seat and headrest.

And got stuck, its beak not quite touching the back of Albert’s neck.

Harry reached for the little feathered body, thinking of how to pin the wings against the bird’s sides to avoid injury to it or the surrounding humans, but the moment his fingers touched it, it crumbled. At the same time the din outside the car ceased.

“That— that’s not natural.” Their passenger was covering her mouth with her hand. Even Albert looked shocked. Harry stared at the palmful of ash that was all that was left of the grackle.

“Let me get a sample bag,” Albert muttered. He pulled out a small clear plastic bag, and held it out while Harry poured the remains in. Then he handed him a packet of wet wipes. “You all right, Diane?” The woman in the back seat did not correct him on the name this time.

“Couple of scratches,” she said, examining her right arm. Albert passed her a mini first-aid kit. Got to give him his dues, he prepares for everything, thought Harry, adjusting the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Y’know,” he said, “This could be a good sign. In that it’s any kind of sign. There’s nothing worse than working in the dark, waiting for some hint you’re getting warmer or colder— that’s the kind of thing makes you wonder if the thing you’re looking for is even out there at all. But this—”

“Someone tipped their hand, you mean, when they tried throwing a Hitchcock movie in our faces,” Albert cut in. “But what exactly did we do to worry them?” His glance, and Harry’s, moved to the dashboard mirror’s reflection of their passenger.

“You think the birds were after me, or wanted to break up our merry band?” She raised an eyebrow. “Trouble is I know a token effort when I see one.”

“Or a warning.”

“We found the Pearblossom Motel;” Harry thought he saw the woman flinch at the name. “And then left it, to head for Odessa.”

“Are you suggesting we drive around in circles and see if they attack again?” Albert muttered.

“I think that’d be a little unfair to our passenger.” Harry turned to her: “Ma’am, I believe Albert when he says he knows you; but I also believe you when you say you don’t remember him. We can drop you anywhere you like— your call.”

“Give me a few minutes, fellas. Given all the weird shit I’ve just been through, I’ve got to think about whether I’m safer away from you two, or sticking close by. Plus I’ve got messages to check.” She took her phone out again. Without taking his eyes off the road, Albert pulled his own phone from his suit jacket, passing it to Harry:

“You’d better check mine. Maybe Tammy’s got some news—she’s been looking up everyone connected with events in Twin Peaks, but not living in the area. She even emailed some couple in Japan, though I’m still not sure what they’ve got to do with this.”

Harry peered at Albert’s phone screen, occasionally commenting if something looked to be of interest:

“Gordon’s sent a grudging OK, tells you to be careful. Also tells you to look after me. I’d always imagined he’d type in uppercase— didn’t realize it was him at first. Hm. Do you know a coroner?”

“I know lots of coroners, we get together for an annual poker tournament and lucky draw. And when I say draw…”

“Do you know a Dr. Talbot in Buckhorn?” Harry interrupted. “Autopsied a headless body last September that turned out to be Major— wait, he— is this one of those revised timeline things?”

“Not exactly.” Albert brought Harry up to date as best he could on Major Briggs’ disappearance and decades-later reappearance. “I certainly remember meeting Constance,” he added, after a pause, and cleared his throat again. “According to Tammy, I made a favourable impression on her, which is… unusual among my acquaintances, even those who share my profession. So what does she have to say?”

“Something about a wedding ring and Schrödinger’s Cat?” Harry looked at the message again. “She says Tammy spoke to her, and was going to contact you too… a gold ring they found on Briggs… sorry, in Briggs… keeps disappearing from her office’s records and the FBI’s evidence files, then coming back again?”

Albert frowned in thought as he drove: “Does it have anything engraved on it?” Harry tapped a message on the phone screen, CC-ing Constance and Tammy.

Outside the car, suburbs, or at least car dealerships and big-box stores, were beginning to sprout up along the highway.

Albert’s phone pinged and Harry read the message from Constance:

“Yes, scribbled it down last time I could find the record. This ring any (wedding) bells? TO DOUGIE, WITH LOVE, JANEY-E”

“Janey-E,” said Diane from the back seat, and Harry heard her drop her phone. Turning around he saw her wringing her hands, the nails now robin’s-egg blue. “Albert,” she gasped, “Oh, Albert, I was almost lost again.”

“I believe the change in method may have led to a breakthrough: I haven’t found any rooms leading off of the corridor I’m following, but the decor has gradually changed from black-and-white flooring and red curtains, to dark brown linoleum flooring and institutional green walls hung with large relief maps of different parts of the world. The maps appear to have been manufactured some time between 1954 and 1965, as they show North and South Vietnam as separate nations. I’m just passing the continent of Antarctica, now, and… oh. I think there might be…

Diane, I found the white room, and when I call it that, I’m not simply echoing Laura’s name for it. It was like a cross between a sanatorium and a snow cave, if a snow cave had furniture. There was a bed with white blankets and a white metal frame like a hospital bed. Audrey was sitting on one end of it, wrapped in a white bathrobe and looking at a round mirror that stood on a little white table. She turned as I entered, and her face was older, drawn and, for a moment, frightened. Then she looked at me again and relaxed, saying ‘Oh, it’s really you.’ I fear she must have met one of my nastier doppelgängers at some point.”

At Diane’s request, they stopped to eat at a fast-food chain before approaching the diner Coop had been investigating in at least one timeline.

“I’m hungry, but I’d be too nervous to eat at the place where Dale might have… well, if they’re a front for something, then the food’s either spectacular or terrible, and I’m not feeling lucky right now. I want to be someplace as bland and mundane as possible for a while, so I can regroup.”

“Well this place has a twenty-minute limit.” Albert jerked his thumb at the sign.

“That’ll do.” Diane curled up beside Harry in the booth as Albert went up to the counter to place their orders. She still wore her pencil skirt, but on on of their stops she’d purchased tennis shoes and a couple of fresh t-shirts— the one she was wearing at the moment read NOT TODAY in flowery letters. “Now he’s got two of us to worry about,” she said under her breath. Harry decided to reply:

“Someone needs to worry about him.” Diane nodded, and Harry offered his hand: “Sorry, we never did the proper introductions did we? Harry S. Truman.”

“I know.” Her expression relaxed slightly. “I see why he likes you.”

“Not sure Albert likes anybody, exactly—”

“That’s not who I was talking about.”

Albert returned with a eye-searingly-orange plastic tray:

“Mushroom burger, cheeseburger, buttered biscuit for you, Harry, because they can’t just serve toast like a real restaurant and those things they claim are bagels are made out of lies.”

“Don’t worry Albert, I’ll survive a biscuit.” Harry picked up one half of the baked item and took a bite. It wasn’t too bad, actually.

“Diane, the ring that jogged your memory—”

“My half-sister and her husband. Don’t ask me how they’d be mixed up in this though, Janey-E’s aggressively normal.”

“And her husband?”

“Never actually met him. Janey-E and I don’t talk much,” she explained. “But from her comments he’s… passively normal. Works for an insurance company, drinks too much sometimes, the whole man-in-the-gray-flannel-suit thing.”

“I’ve been talking with Audrey, or the version of her that existed in the white room. You’ll notice I use the past tense. Still sitting on the bed, she raised a finger and pointed to the mirror in front of her, saying:

‘The other me— she ran away from home, like she thought Laura had done. I’m amazed she survived her first year in the big city, but look:’

Diane, I saw Audrey searching records online, tailing suspects, testifying in civil and sometimes criminal courts. It’s a life that can make a cynic of the kindest soul, but there are situations the police don’t or can’t investigate, and those were— are, I suppose— Audrey’s bread and butter, in that mirror world. And they seem to pay well enough she can afford to do some pro bono cases.

‘I wish I were out there,’ she said, and the mirror clouded and shifted. She patted the bedspread, and I sat down beside her. ‘You know how,’ she began, ‘when you’re a kid, and you’re reading your favourite book, and a little after the halfway point, you start to think ‘I’m getting near the end of the book?’ And really, you’re not— there are pages and pages left of scenes and pictures. You’re always surprised just how much more there is. But it’s not enough to shake the feeling it’s putting off the inevitable. Dawdling before bedtime.’ She stood up suddenly, bent and kissed me on the brow. ‘Say hello to the other me, if you ever run into her.’ And then she was gone, Diane. Not in flame or fadeout, just gone.”

I look up, and Laura is beside me.

The diner, when they found it, was not what Harry’d pictured. Instead of a lonely Edward Hopper tableau, or a grimy spoon where toughs whispered to each other along the lunch counter and cast knowing glances in the direction of the men’s room, “Wispy Dreams Cafe” was a blandly cheerful donut shop, the logo rather obviously altered from that of a national chain.

“Looks like they’re under new management.” Diane observed as they got out of the car. “Or else they got tired of paying for the franchise?” The three of them made their way across the parking lot the cafe shared with the landscaping company next door. Inside, the sound of chattering customers and a hum from the coffee machine both soothed and overwhelmed. Harry steadied himself against a gleaming, cream-colored formica counter. The woman on the other side— not a fresh-faced high-school senior or a kindly-faced matron, just a woman with her hair in a ponytail and circles under her eyes, doing her best to smile— threw him a glance and Harry nodded.

“I’m ok. Albert, Diane, what do you two want?”

A couple of minutes later, they sat by the window, feigning interest in their donuts and coffee.

“Well, we’re living the cop cliché,” whispered Albert. “So, what do you think? Soulless suburban hangout, or den of villainy?”

Harry gingerly sipped the brew in his cardboard cup and eyed the other customers. You couldn’t say the place wasn’t busy; the woman at the counter had already served a family of four in the time it had taken Harry, Albert and Diane to seat themselves with their coffees, and another customer had just come in the door.

“That counter’s been installed recently. Deep-fat fryer’s been replaced too.”

“And they don’t know how to use it yet. You could wax skis with these donuts. That’s hardly a crime, though.” Diane looked around at the blue and yellow walls painted with large trompe l’oeil sprinkles. “Doesn’t seem to be anything else funny about the place— I hate to say it but this place might be legit.”

Harry watched the new customer lean in to the counter. Harry couldn’t quite make out what he was saying— presumably the man was placing his order, but it seemed to be taking a while and there was something tense in the woman’s expression. Beside him he heard Diane swear under her breath, and faster than he could turn his head, his peripheral vision took in that she was getting up. She strode towards the counter and Harry had a glimpse of the angry red scratch on her arm as he struggled to his feet.

Diane was leaning on the counter now, trying to insert herself between the customer and the worker.

“What did you just say to her?” she was asking.

“Look, I come in here all the time, we joke around. What makes you think it’s your fucking business?”

“What seems to be the trouble?” Harry loomed up behind the customer— he might have only half his usual strength but he was still a good six inches taller than the other man. Behind him, he guessed, Albert was approaching. Harry knew the agent was unwilling to use physical force and not exactly skilled at defusing situations through diplomacy, so he turned his gaze on the customer with all the quiet confidence he’d used as Sheriff. In his ear Diane hissed:

“It’s nothing to do with the case, this asshole’s just creeping on the staff.” She must’ve locked eyes with the man too, for he was staring at her now, his bland pink features shifting expression from anger to terrified fascination.

Rather an unimpressive face, thought Harry, and then, what’s Diane doing? He turned to look at her sharp, smiling profile, and saw a tear slide from her eye.

“No,” she said loudly and abruptly, and blinked hard. “Do you want us to escort him out?” she asked the woman behind the counter; but the man was already out the door and running for his car.

“Diane,” Harry whispered.

“Diane,” whispered Albert. Diane was passing one hand across her eyes.

“I could have fried him. Just now. Something wanted me to; but I just wanted him to back off.” She beamed at them as Albert held out an arm for her to steady herself. “I think I’m back to normal. Well, normal for me.”

“Are we the only two left here now?”

“I’m not even here anymore.”

“I don’t know how to get back to the waiting room.”

“It doesn’t matter, the coffee’s cold.”

Somehow, the white room has become even more featureless, despite that being both a logical and a grammatical impossibility. Only the bed, the table and Audrey’s mirror remain. A moment in the glass catches my eye, and I look to see— oh Diane, I’m so glad you escaped! I see you travelling with Albert, and… oh, Harry…

…the cafe’s fluorescent lights flickered as the background hum, noticeable since their arrival, now rose to an ear-splitting volume then died away just as suddenly. As the three of them looked on, an old-fashioned hospital bed, its steel frame painted white, materialized between the counter and the booths, replacing two unoccupied tables. At one end of it sat Agent Dale Cooper, fully dressed in his suit and tie, a look on his face of mild surprise that turned to the familiar joy as his gaze met theirs. Coop had grown older like the rest of them, sharper angles in his face, but he looked hale and well, and his eyes did not have the cruel gleam that chilled Harry’s memories of their last meeting.

“Harry,” he said, as though a quarter-century hadn’t passed. In response Harry silently doffed his cowboy hat, revealing his pallor, his naked scalp. Coop’s smiled wavered a little. “I’m sorry I was gone so long,” he whispered, and rose from the white bed. In the background, the cafe staff and patrons continued to chat and serve and drink and eat coffee and donuts as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on right in front of them. Albert made a hesitant noise in his throat and Coop raised his hand in that just a moment gesture he always used to make, and in that moment Harry knew his friend really was back from wherever he’d been all those years.

“Apologies for being brusque,” Coop said, “but there’s a family in Las Vegas who I’ve reason to believe are in danger right now—”

“Janey-E?” Diane asked.

“Right on the button. For personal reasons which I’ll explain later, I can’t get in touch with them myself. The Mitchell brothers might be able to help, but I don’t know how much they’ll be able to recall of our last meeting.”

“Tammy and Constance are already on it.”

“Good,” Coop looked relieved, and Harry stepped forward, shaking a little in spite of himself, and as if the motion had at last given him permission, Coop sailed forward and embraced him— very gently, as if he feared Harry might break. He’s gauging by touch how much weight I’ve lost, thought Harry, but it’s all right. He’d forgotten how warm Coop was. He became aware of Albert and Diane joining in, arms circling his shoulders and Coop’s. If I died right here and now, it’d be all right.

But this embrace was not an epitaph, or an epilogue. Outside, somewhere else in the city, was an imitation of an ancient stone monument; and a copy of an old theatre where real audiences watched real actors. Somewhere the forces that had sent the dark cloud of grackles prepared another attack, and somewhere Tammy Preston was moving to protect Janey-E and Dougie Jones. Elsewhere Audrey Horne walked the mean streets and was not herself mean. This was an interlude, but let them have it for a while.

A couple of patrons turned their heads to smile at the reunion going in their midst.

#wonderfulxstrange #@laughingpineapple #twin peaks #@laughingpinecone

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icarusinstatic · 3 years ago

Text

The Mobius & Sylvie Roadtrip Fic is done.

It’ll All Come Out in the Wash

Summary: Sylvie doesn’t know what she did to deserve this (yes she does), but she’s sorry, she promises (no she’s not). The obligatory episode 5 road trip fic featuring, jealous Mobius and completely done Sylvie Laufeydottir.

Notes: Took a little longer than expected, but the road trip fic that no one asked for. For those of you who are very pro Sylvie/Loki this fic is not for you, just a heads up.

Read below or here at AO3

“I really wanted to hate you, you know.”

Sylvie looked up at Mobius meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror while the other man drove them both back towards the giant matter-eating cloud.

“Why? Because I’ve killed your fellow brainwashed TVA friends?” Sylvie didn’t much care for the answer either way, though the thought that this man didn’t hate her was curious. This was the man who went off with her fellow variant, but who hadn’t been there when she came upon Loki at the elevator for their meeting with the so-called TimeKeepers and Sylvie couldn’t stop the feeling of impotent rage from swelling up in her chest every time she thought about the moment after she had beheaded the animatronic monstrosity. But she quelled that rage with a deep sigh and thought about the variant who was as close as a brother to her.

Loki. When she had come up to him at the elevator there had been something deeply wrong with him. At the time he couldn’t say what had transpired between their last meeting and then, but seeing Mobius, as he had asked to be called, in the void Sylvie could guess.

Loki had appeared more devastated than simple questioning by TVA grunts would warrant. He’d radiated an absolute devastation Sylvie hadn’t let herself feel since just after she had escaped the TVA as a child. When she realized that she would never, could never go back to her home and to her people.

Mobius held her stare for a moment before focusing his eyes back on the road. There was an anger there that Sylvie wasn’t sure how to interpret. Yes, she had killed people that this man had known, but this — this was something entirely different. Mobius, he looked like Sylvie had taken something from him personally.

It was quiet for a couple more minutes before, “No. I’m not happy about that, but that’s not why I wanted to hate you.” Mobius eyed her for a second before continuing. “But I can’t, because you're you and I’ve never been able to bring myself to hate a Loki variant in my life.” Mobius looked up at the rearview mirror again making sure to maintain eye contact with Sylvie before continuing, “I just want to know that you won’t hurt him.”

“Hurt who? Listen TVA flunky, I don’t know what the hell you're talking about, but make yourself clear before I throw you out of this car and find my way to whoever is behind the TVA myself.” Sylvie was quickly beginning to lose patience with the conversation. She had more important things to do than listen to whatever bullshit TVA flunky had to say about hurting people.

Sylvie had hurt more people in her life than she cared to think about and the way her day was going she would hurt more people before her mission was over.

Mobius sighed deeply, then looked as if he were steeling himself, a vein jumping in his temple, before answering. “Loki, I want to know that you won’t hurt him.”

“Oh, of all the idiotic things we don’t have time for, this is the worst.” Sylvie couldn’t believe that she was getting the don’t hurt him conversation from a damn TVA agent right now. “He’s probably already dead,” and didn’t that send a stab of pain through her heart, “Why do you even care flunky?”

Sylvie expected Mobius to give her some self-righteous bullshit answer about how of course he cared because he was a good person or some such nonsense about how the TVA cared about the well-being of everyone in the Sacred Timeline and they had all been part of that timeline at some point. Sylvie had heard it all from the minutemen she ran into, though they were more likely to go straight into attempting to prune her. The thing is, she was expecting a non-answer and for them to go on with the plan after a few minutes of one-sided awkward silence — she was never awkward about anything, but her traveling companion seemed to be made up of awkwardness if the previous few minutes of conversation held up.

What Sylvie wasn’t expecting was for Mobius to suddenly slam on the breaks.

Hard.

Before she could voice her objections to this new brand of idiocy Mobius turned around in his seat after bringing the car to a stop and held up his hand for silence, finger pointed right in front of Sylvie’s nose. She considered biting it off if the next words out his mouth proved irritating enough.

Hell she might do it anyways. This was taking too much time and she could probably make up a good enough lie about not seeing the TVA agent if she ran into Loki — not that she would admit to hoping to see the other variant of herself again.

She couldn’t afford to hope he was alive — couldn’t afford the disappointment.

“Three things.” Mobius’s pale face was slightly flushed his frustration with the situation so great. Sylvie wondered how he had dealt with Loki if he was this easily flustered. “One, Loki isn’t dead. I know it.”

“How” Great, Sylvie was riding with a hopeless optimist.

“I just do. After all of this, he can’t be dead. Okay?” Mobius barely gave her a chance to roll her eyes at him before continuing. “Two, of course I care. Loki is my friend and I know that he can be anything he wants to be, even if the things he chooses to do aren’t my favorite. And three, why wouldn’t you care? I thought you two were in love? I mean,” He paused seeming to pull himself together a hint of something flashing behind his eyes too quick for Sylvie to make out, “I just don’t want you to hurt him, okay. Can you promise me that?”

Sylvie didn’t say anything for a minute, her brain had shut down after Mobius had claimed that she was in love with Loki or that he may be in love with her because — “What are you talking about in love? Are you high Mobius? Or did you just hit your head too hard when you landed hear after being pruned?”

Annoyance clouded Mobius’s features, annoyance that turned into real anger the longer Sylvie spoke.

“You and Loki are in love! Don’t try to dodge the issue. It’s what caused the nexus event on Lamentis-1.” Mobius leveled her with a glower, his jaw tightening enough that Sylvie thought she could see a vein jumping in his neck.

Sylvie would be impressed by the other man’s glower if she wasn’t so busy being vaguely nauseous at the thought of being in love with a variant of herself. Loki wasn’t so bad to deal with, but god they were far to similar to ever have a chance at loving each other. Sylvie may be a hedonist, but even she had her limits.

“I have never heard someone be so wrong so fast about something in my life, and I just came from dealing with Judge Renslayer, so you know that’s saying something.”

Mobius looked like he was about to interrupt with something even more asinine than what he’d already said but Sylvie held up her hand to prematurely cut him off.

“No Mobius, you will let me finish. Now, hear me when I tell you this.” Sylvie took an unneeded breath before continuing, “I don’t know where you got the idea that Loki and I were ‘in love,’” and Sylvie couldn’t stop her self from using air quotes if she wanted to, which she didn’t. “But that’s definitely not a thing and I know that Loki wouldn’t think it’s a possibility either. I don’t know what caused the nexus event on Lamentis, but it definitely wasn’t that so your sources were wrong. Who did come up with that idea anyways?”

Instead of answering her, Mobius frowned to himself before seeming to come to a decision a hint of relief causing his features to lose some of the irritated fire behind his eyes. Sylvie wasn’t sure, but it looked like his eyes had lightened up a bit when she had denied being in love with Loki. Oh hello there.

“Well, okay then,” Mobius started, clearly trying to come to terms with what Sylvie had just told him, but before he could finish she cut him off.

“Wait, wait, wait, I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner,” This day just kept getting weirder and weirder. Never before would Sylvie have thought she’d be having this conversation with a mustachioed TVA agent in her life. “You like him don’t you?”

“Who?” Mobius asked, a frown making his eyebrows scrunch in confusion.

This man had some nerve to even pretend to be confused about this right now.

Sylvie was just about done with this whole situation.

“Who? Are you kidding me right now?” She couldn’t help but hiss out in irritation. Why was she surrounded by fools all the time. First Loki and now possibly one of his princes. Though why Loki would even choose to associate with this man was beyond her. The romantic fool had terrible taste in men and in plans.

Mobius just waited for Sylvie to come to terms with the situation, or perhaps he was wondering how best to ruin her day more. Sylvie couldn’t begin to care which option it really was though.

After this, Loki owed her one and Sylvie was going to collect.

“Listen to me TVA Flunky, and listen good. I’m going to ask you a question and you will tell me the truth,” Sylvie ground out between gritted teeth.

She waited until Mobius silently nodded, eyeing her apprehensively as he did.

Good. She was getting far too tired of these juvenile games as it was.

“Loki. Are you in love with him. Yes or no?”

Sylvie thought for a moment that she would have to get creative in getting answers out of the other man, but before she could do anything other than seriously consider maiming him Mobius nodded silently and waited for her reaction.

“Have you told him about how you feel?”

Another silent answer, but this time a shake of the head. Mobius pursed his lips in quiet agitation obviously unwilling to comment further.

Well too bad. Because Sylvie had had more than enough of this nonsense and she was putting a stop to it now.

“And why the hell not? Loki is the most romantic idiot I have ever come across.” Sylvie didn’t bother to raise her eyes at Mobius in irritation when the man had the nerve to start looking jealous again. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you, it’s never going to happen between Loki and I. I just mean that within 2 hours of meeting him I could tell that he was in love with someone already. Did you know that he had the nerve to tell me love was like a dagger? Of of the ridiculous metaphors I’ve heard that one takes the cake.”

“Love is like a what now?” Mobius had an amused almost fond look on his face, as if he were remembering something.

“Oh, finally he speaks. A dagger, you idiot. He said love was like a dagger.” Here she leveled her most fearsome glare at Mobius. “Now, why would Loki ever come up with something so stupid and trite as that I ask you.”

Mobius was full on grinning now, “It’s just, before we headed to Roxxcart I tried to give Loki his daggers back so that he wouldn’t be entirely defenseless if we ran into you.”

Oh he had it bad, didn’t he?

Sylvie couldn’t stop herself from laughing if she wanted to.

“Wait, you mean to tell me that you tried to give a Loki variant a weapon? Oh, I’m sure your superiors loved you for that. Tell me, how long did they let him keep them?”

“I didn’t want him to be unarmed, I know how dangerous you guys can be.” Mobius had the good grace to look abashed, and he really was sort of perfect for Loki wasn’t he? “Anyways, Hunter B-15 took the daggers off Loki just as soon as I handed them to him.”

“You do know that he has magic right? I mean that couldn’t have escaped your notice?” Sylvie wasn’t trying to beat a dead horse here, but the thought of anyone with the TVA wanting a Loki armed was just too much for her.

There was a beat of silence before Mobius nodded a light flush rising to his cheeks. “I may have... forgotten that fact in the moment.”

She couldn’t believe it, they really did deserve each other.

“Okay, okay, one last thing and then we can get on with things.” Sylvie didn’t stop herself from crowing with delight in her head when Mobius reared back at the sudden emergence of her short sword just inches from his neck. Loki wasn’t the only one good with a magic trick after all.

He shot her a not all surprised look, but there was definite disappointment lurking in his eyes.

“I really thought we were having a moment there, Sylvie.”

A moment, sure.

“Calm down, Flunky”

She ignored the muttered, “It’s Mobius actually,” from the other man.

“I want you to promise me that you’ll tell Loki how you feel when we find him again. And damn you for making me think we will, by the way.”

Mobius frowned, “But what if he doesn’t feel the same way? I don’t want to scare him off, and don’t tell me Loki’s don’t get scared. I’ve studied you all, I know that you do.”

Sylvie considered setting the other man straight, for her own piece of mind. Maybe other Loki’s got scared, but she had trained herself out feeling that over a long period of living in the midst of apocalypses.

Well, okay, mostly at least.

“If there’s one think I know about our Loki, it’s that he’s a lovesick idiot. I didn’t know exactly who he was infatuated with when I first met him, but seeing him after you were pruned really opened my eyes. I’ve never seen a Loki more devastated and I never want to again.” Sylvie paused and considered her words for a moment before plunging ahead. “You know how lucky we were that being pruned wasn’t our end? This may be your only chance to tell him, so promise me that when we find Loki you’ll let him know how you feel.”

Sylvie absently brought her short sword back into it’s place at her side waiting for his answer.

“This may be the first and only pep talk I’ve ever gotten from a Loki variant,” He paused at her murderous glare, “From a Sylvie at least. But yes, you didn’t even have to threaten me with that sword. I’ll tell him.

Thank goodness for that, it would make things infinitely easier for her if she didn’t need to worry about a jealous TVA agent after her. That was all this was, after all. Just looking after her own interests.

Liar.

“Good, now that that’s out of the way, can we please go find the giant cloud monster. Knowing Loki he’s already found his way there ahead of us, and the idiot needs all the help he can get.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” Mobius turned back towards the front of the car to start it up again, just before he started driving he flashed a thankful smile at the rear view mirror at her.

#Lokius #sylvie laufeydottir #mobius m mobius #Loki #my writing #I haven’t seen the finale #but I’ve spoiled myself all to hell #I don’t know how to feel about it #but I’m disappointed that Casey still doesn’t #know what a fish is #come on marvel

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maybedefinitely404 · 4 years ago

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American Dream

Genre: angst with a happy ending/fluff

Pairing: romantic Dukexiety

World: just-out-of-high-school AU

Content: homophobia, threatened abuse from parents (no actual violence), extreme cold, getting kicked out, minor religious talk, getting outed, AIDS and death mention, fluffy Dukexiety because my heart needs it.

Word count: 2.3k

Comments: She doesn’t have Tumblr, but I need to give a shout out to my kiddo for proof reading and beta-ing most of my fics. She pushes me to write more, and even if she won’t see this, I just need to say it.

This fic is inspired by the song American Dream by MKTO.

Please pick up, please pick up, please pick up…

The night coolness spread through Virgil like a sickness. It was unforgiving, toxic, seeped with the memories of the evening that curled through his stomach in dark tendrils. Below his bare feet, the sidewalk burned in the way that only ice does, small pebbles digging into his soles. He would do anything for socks. God, why hadn’t he grabbed socks?

Probably for the same reason he hadn’t grabbed shoes.

Please pick up, please pick up, c’mon, pick up already!

His eyes hurt. They already burned with unshed tears that he’d still been too scared to release, and the cool air didn’t help. Crying on the street was a vulnerability he wasn’t ready to face. His lungs burned. He’d been sprinting non-stop for who knows how long. His own panicked gulps for air and the all-too-loud hum of a blinking streetlight were the only sound on the silent street. Virgil had been watching the moths swarm at the fixture for who knows how long, finding odd solace in the fact that at least there was still some life in the darkness. They were still alive, untouched, same as they were yesterday and probably the same as they would be tomorrow, unfazed by the complete turmoil his life had become. And that was somewhat comforting.

“Virgie, you okay? It’s almost midnight!”

Thank fucking god. He opened his mouth to speak, to explain to Remus what had happened. Obviously, Remus would care. That wasn’t a doubt in his mind; that was the only reason he wasn’t anxious as all fuck right now… about the call, that is. He was anxious about approximately everything else. But as soon as the first noise made its way past his lips, the first utterance of a plea for help, everything that he’d been holding back burst forth like a broken dam. He clamped his hand over his mouth, trying to muffle the loud sobbing that he suddenly couldn’t contain.

“Shit. Virgil, what happened? I’m coming over. Are you at home?”

That’s the issue. “No,” he gasped, mildly surprised he hadn’t crushed the phone with the way his grip tightened, “I got kicked out.”

“What the fuck?!”

Virgil flinched. “Can… can you come p-pick me up? I’m at the corner of Jackson and Pullard. Please, please, come get me…”

“Yes. Absolutely. I’m on my way. Stay there, okay?”

Virgil hung up reluctantly after agreeing, not wanting his boyfriend to drive while on the phone, even if Remus gladly would have done it. In fact, he’d used to do it all the time; text, eat, do his makeup, all while cruising down the freeway. He’d only put a stop to it when he saw how much it affected Virgil.

He counted down the minutes on his phone, always having been nitpicky with times, knowing that it shouldn’t take Remus more than ten minutes to get there. If he remembered correctly where he was at the moment, that is. Remus had gotten kicked out of his parents’ house in his senior year of high school after a bad fight. They’d never really been great parents, always showing favoritism towards his brother (amongst other things), and he was more than willing to leave. Virgil had tried to beg his parents to let Remus stay with them, but they’d downright refused, calling him a bad influence and a string of other insults that Virgil didn’t even like to think about. God forbid what would happen if they found out the two were dating.

…Well, they did now. And God hadn’t exactly forbidden what they’d done.

But Remus hadn’t had a solid place to live since it had happened almost a year ago. He couch surfed for a while, bouncing between some old friends who had now gone off to college, or just lived in his car. He’d made it work, and had claimed to Virgil that he actually didn’t mind it that much. If he was telling the truth, Virgil wasn’t sure. He’d saved up some money and bought an inflatable mattress that filled up his back seat area, and Virgil was able to give him his family’s old camping stove by convincing them they lost it. It’s not like they’d gone camping since he was a kid, anyways. Last he’d checked, Janus was home for break and Remus was staying with him for the two weeks he was in town, but those two weeks were probably pretty close to done. Unfortunately, Virgil and Janus had never gotten along, so Remus didn’t bring him up. It was a mutual understanding.

As soon as Remus’ car pulled up to the curb, ten minutes on the dot, Virgil basically flung himself into the passenger seat. The car was warm, so so warm, he almost cried again, this time in relief. Remus pulled back onto the road as soon as he was buckled on.

“Vee, what happened?” It wasn’t hard to guess, there were only so many reasons his parents would have to kick him out. He’d narrowed it down to his parent’s finally having it with Virgil’s tattoo artist dream, or… well…

“Someone at my mom’s work found my Instagram. She went up to my mom, basically started gushing about ‘how handsome I was with my boyfriend’. Specifically the picture of us at Pride from a couple years ago.”

“Ah.” Remus knew the picture well. He’d printed it out and it was pinned to the inside of his sun visor.

“Yeah. Mom called my dad, they were both waiting when I got home. Had screenshots and everything. They grilled me about ‘dishonoring God’ and ‘throwing away my life’. Said I was gonna get AIDS. Die before twenty five. Ya know. The whole lecture.”

Remus didn’t. Surprisingly, him being gay was not a concern of his parent’s. His brother was gay too, and they didn’t give a rat’s ass about that. He nodded along anyways.

“They went on for so long. It was insane. Then they dropped the whole ‘you’re not our son’ thing-” Virgil’s voice cracked, but he swallowed around the lump in his throat and continued, “I figured this is where it was leading to, them kicking me out? I thought they’d give me time to pack, though. Except my dad started getting physical-”

“HE WHAT?!” Remus was tempted to turn the fucking car around and drive to Virgil’s house, just to give his parents a piece of his mind. He was fuming; fuck, he hadn’t been this mad in a while.

“Relax, Rem. I got out before he could actually land a hit. That’s why I don’t have anything with me. I had to run.”

“Doesn’t make it any better.”

“I know.” Virgil pulled his feet up onto the seat cross legged, trying to rub some feeling back into them. Luckily, they weren’t bleeding, just cold as hell. That was one less thing to worry about. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Of course, Vi,” Remus’ voice had taken on a softer edge that he rarely allowed anyone to see, and he reached over to take one of Virgil’s hands into his own, “Speaking of which, why were you on Jackson? That’s, what, three miles away from your house?”

“When I say I ran, I mean literally. I was scared they would follow me.” Virgil shrugged, as if the statement wasn’t the most heartbreaking thing Remus had ever heard. “I wasn’t thinking clearly, I just ran. That’s why it took me so long to realize I should call you.”

Remus sighed, letting his thumb run against Virgil’s knuckles. “You don’t have to act all brave, Vi.”

“I don’t think I ever saw you cry when you got kicked out.”

“That’s because I didn’t love my parents. I honestly didn’t. I know your parents mean a lot to you. And I’m sorry it went down like it did.”

It was the truth, but he honestly didn’t want to think about it right now. What kind of loving family kicks out their child? Virgil took a shaky breath in and mumbled, “Can we talk about it tomorrow?”

“Okay. Let’s talk about something else. What’s our plan?”

Virgil was quiet for a long moment, as if deep in thought. He watched the scenery fade from his suburban area of town to the darker, rural parts of the town’s edge, not knowing or caring where they were driving. The escape from street lights was nice. “Why do we need a plan?”

Remus’ eyebrows shot up at the sudden playful tone in Virgil’s words. “Oh?”

“I mean, is anything really holding us here?”

“My, my,” Remus crooned, pulling into an empty lot and parking in the furthest spot from the street, “I thought I was the impulsive one.”

“I’m serious, Rem!” Virgil laughed, swatting lightly at Remus’ hand. The happy sound was like music to his ears. “I’m dead serious! What’s keeping us here?”

“Patton? Logan?”

“Both across the country. And you know they’re considering staying there when they graduate.” Janus’ name was an understood thing. They both knew his school was barely an hour from the other two. Even if Virgil couldn’t stand the guy, he knew that Remus and Janus went far back. Judging by Remus’ slowly brightening expression, he could assume that Janus would probably be down to stay there as well.

“Work?”

“I work at Walmart. They won’t miss me. Try again.”

Remus scrunched his eyebrows almost thoughtfully, even though this was maybe the easiest decision he’d ever had to make. Plus, they both knew Remus didn’t really ‘think’ in general. “It almost sounds like you want to take a roadtrip, my little emo.”

Virgil scrunched his nose at the nickname, but let a wider smile spread across his tear stained cheeks. “I kind of do.”

Remus shut the car off, turning to his boyfriend with a shit eating grin. “I like this new side of you.”

“Well…” Virgil’s voice turned sheepish under the almost cheshire cat level expression, “Should we?”

“Let’s make up our minds tomorrow.” Remus stated, gesturing to the mattress behind him, “Sleep for tonight. You must be exhausted, coming up with ideas like this.”

Virgil grumbled under his breath, something about ‘not being a baby’, but clambered into the backseat after Remus, double checking the locks on the doors as he went. The air mattress was comfier than he thought it would be, and it was only made better when Remus pulled him in like a teddy bear, tugging a blanket over them. They both sighed in contentment, then promptly burst out laughing at the synchronicity.

“Oh my god, what have we become?” Remus gasped, pulling Virgil in closer nonetheless. Virgil snorted in response, looking up to meet Remus’ eyes through a haze of sudden exhaustion and amusement. The laughter died down slowly as they both gave in to their fatigue, finishing the day with a slow kiss that left them both breathless. Virgil fell asleep with plans forming and circulating through his mind, the rest of the evening almost forgotten.

--------------------------------------------

His parents were at work, and Virgil knew their kitchen window didn’t lock properly, which was what led to him stuffing everything he could into a black duffel bag while Remus kept watch from his car. He wasn’t too concerned about the parents coming home, but it gave him ample time to look over the map he’d bought from the gas station that morning and plan a route. He didn’t want to admit that his leg was shaking from pure excitement. This idea had been somewhere in the back of his mind for a long time, but he knew Virgil valued his relationship with his family and liked being near them, so he never brought it up. Granted, the situation wasn’t great, but he considered this ‘making the best of it’. A twisted paradise.

He barely flinched as his trunk was thrown open and Virgil threw his bag inside before hopping back into his seat.

“Okay, so how about we drive up to Maine, apparently the sea food is legendary! Then we cut back through Ohio. There’s literally nothing in Ohio, but we can cross it off the list at least! And then-”

Virgil laughed, cutting him off, “I thought we weren’t planning!”

“Well, we need at least a rough idea,” Remus said with a pout, “What we do there and how long we stay, that’s up to impulse. I was thinking we should try to get through all the states, wouldn’t that be cool?”

Virgil could only nod, leaning forward to kiss Remus again. “Sounds amazing,” he murmured, so close they were almost touching. They’d talked to Logan and Patton earlier that morning, and they were equally as excited for the two of them. Remus had called Janus while Virgil was packing, quickly explaining the situation (and also why Remus had disappeared in the middle of the night), and Janus supported it. Made sense, since he was almost as impulsive as Remus. Plus, he was going back to school in a couple days, so it didn’t make much of a difference. That said, they still didn’t have a time limit. Their friends were just starting second semester, meaning they could schedule themselves to arrive in California for summer break, or they could spend longer on the road. But schedules are for chumps.

As they rolled out of the quaint neighborhood Virgil had grown up in, Remus reached down and took his hand again. “Say goodbye to white picket fences.” And god, the joyful expression on Virgil’s face was enough to make him melt.

By the time they hit the freeway, they were both nearly shaking with anticipation. Virgil stuck his hands out the sunroof, the wind whipping through his hair, and let out a whoop that was almost contagious. This was the start of something amazing, they both felt it.

Cali, here we come.

#lywrites #sanderssidesfanfiction #sanderssides #dukexiety

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do-you-have-a-flag · 4 years ago

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Destiel shippers come get ya’ll juice!

SO @deadwright and I were inspired by Some Tumblr Posts and the twitter Roadhouse Wedding stuff and keep writing headcanons about Thee Destiel 2021 Married Ever After S16 SPN Romantic Event Of The Season, so here’s that.

Arranged in order of marital chronology and cutting out us keysmashing too much:

oh man imagine all the burgers they get catered for the reception dean got it done himself he would’ve been so particular about the catering bridezilla cas would probably be THEE bitchiest bridezilla

it's also definitely that trope where all the other hunters ect KNOW that that many of them and the wedding party are essentially a target for trouble so everyone spends the 24 hours leading up to the vows taking out every beastie who shows up on a revenge kick out of sight because they'll be damned if they let ANYTHING stop this wedding and Dean and cas are both having their marital jitters oh god im not good enough what if something goes wrong about mundane things while monsters are getting their ass kicked outside AWWWWWWWW for sure for sure, they’re hunter royalty this wedding is a big deal like half the attendees are nursing injuries but grinning widely

they don't do the can't see eachother before the wedding thing because you KNOW dean would be fixing cas' tie last minute

dean wears a blue pocket square to match cas' tie cas wears a FLANNEL SQUARE

I’m obsessed w the idea of cas giving dean a little bit of his grace in a small bottle on a chain for him to wear or like a wing feather or some part of him god the grace in a bottle breaks me every time in fic dean probably builds cas something but every time i try to think of something specific i choke up

i was thinking like what if trading grace is as close to a romantic gesture as angels have and he's like..... technically i left some grace behind in your mark when i dragged you from the pit and dean is like ARE YOU SAYING WE'VE BEEN MARRIED THIS WHOLE TIME?

they are so sweet i’m on the verge of tears the ability to do anything by halves in their relationship was burnt out by like the second return from the dead moment they are too insane to be anything less than All In And Then Some

at one point someone was like hey cas do you want to run your vows by someone as practice? and he started reading what he'd prepared and it devolved into Biblically Grand Statements Of The Power Of Love And The Redemption Of - ect ect ect and it's because unlike the confession scene he's had TOO much preparation and overshot into uncanny angelic vibes he makes some edits because he know the expressions he gets when he reads it aren't what he intended

dean writes page after page after page of unused drafts, none of them are particularly floral

he does the cliche of ripping up his vows and improvising at the altar, something he gets mercilessly teased for because he swore he wouldn't but it classifies as a chick flick moment

THAT’S SO PEAK HIM OH MY GOD and you knoooooow you just KNOW it’s beautiful and emotional and everyone is crying

god the NOVELTY of dean being emotionally honest in front of people......im gonna faint YEA yeah... ONE TIME ONLY DEAL he thinks loudly at Sam's smug expression

anyway, at the wedding dean is the one who spends the whole ceremony with like crying cat meme eyes after the confession scene i’m pretty sure the minute the vows start cas is in the same boat USELESS HUSBANDS dean gets passed a handkerchief for his tears and immediately goes to use it on cas' face and they both laugh sob love the idea that everyone individually thought they were too tough to cry but they all broke at various stages yeah sam definitely starts to choke up just standing up there with his brother sam chokes up before the ceremony even started, like probably when he was pinning on dean’s corsage

anyway, Jack dancing with his two dads at the reception CAS’ BEST MAN / FLOWER BOY FLOWER MAN let him heelie down the aisle with the flowers LITTLE MAN GO NYOOM who makes him a little flower crown he wears with a proud lil smile? claire ofc, with those hair braiding skills? she makes it BEAUTIFUL flower crown: on nails: painted dads: MARRIED!!!!

when they say i do and kiss and everyone is cheering you can't convince me that someone doesn't let off what is either a gun or a dubiously legal firework in celebration jack pops a few lightbulbs in his uncontrollable joy

Dean and Cas can't let go of each other, it's at LEAST one point of physical contact for the rest of the reception PERIODT

CAN YOU IMAGINE THEM DANCING TO AIR SUPPLY

they definitely didn't do the wedding gifts thing but a few mysteriously show up anyway; discuss waffle iron from sam bc he remembers the becky incident meanwhile claire gets them flavoured lube because she’s an insane little mean girl she gets them a sampler package with like novelty flavours, gotta spring extra for a wedding PIE FLAVOURED LUBE

it’s gonna be the party of the century omfg you KNOW it! that dancefloor going OFF the BAR is FLOWING

dean gets dragged up onto the bar to make a speech and there's a moment at the end where he drags cas up there too and they're being playfully yelled at not to scuff it and there's hooting and catcalls as dean and cas kiss and dean gestures rudely before almost falling backwards off the bar before cas grabs him and climbing down is less romantic or dignified but he couldn't care if he wanted to

meanwhile sam and claire are outside defacing the impala with silly string and lewd graffiti and tin cans tied to the bumper for the going-away oh it is one hundo percent a just married atrocity there's enough condoms hidden in the car that they're still finding them months later

anyway wanna hear my disgustingly soppy honeymoon roadtrip concept? YOU KNOW I DO OKAY SO

you know at some point dean must have said some sad thing like for the longest time he never thought he'd live long enough to get married and the only circumstances he could imagine was hooking up drunkenly with a stranger at some vegas wedding scenario like that's the best he would ever get and he thinks it's mostly forgotten but then during their cross country honeymoon roadtrip castiel does in fact navigate them to las vegas and quietly mutters that the legal veracity of the little chapel on the city limits is dubious at best and they're already married so it couldn't do any harm and they get officiated by an elvis impersonator and a woman wearing more sequins than fabric throws cheap confetti over them

and after that they stop into every venue they can find that would be friendly to them to pretend they're eloping and at one point dean even pulls out the fbi id badges and the officiant is under the impression he's facilitating some sort of covert workplace romance

one place is a kitchy little house that's clearly just the couple who run it opening their strange home to anyone who needs it and have been since the 70s and Castiel thinks for a moment when they're asked to pin something to the collection of stuff on the walls and ceiling before pulling the receipt for the pie they'd shared earlier in a dinner out and scrawling his and dean's name on it to be added to the clutter

and at one point they stand ankle deep in a pond while some old hippie lady wraps their clasped hands together with soft fabric and chants something that dean knows isn't real magic but hey he's not going to tell her that and after the ceremony they sit on the grass and feed each other sweet bread to complete the binding or whatever and it's nice but it doesn't compare to the ranch where they both tossed their cowboy hats in the air and were given a horse to ride to their camp site

i thought about riverboat gambling for point one seconds and now i know in my bones that one of their many weddings was on a riverboat, they made the captain officiate after cornering him on deck in like five minutes, the crew sent them complimentary champagne and they threw fries at the birds following the boat while sharing it straight out of the bottle

if destiel can go canon multiple times they can get married multiple times CHANGE MY MIND THEY GET MARRIED SO MUCH the MOST married i just want them to get gay cowboy married

eventually i want them to end up at the beach bc dean has canonically never been to the coast their road trip is to get to the other coast

they send just married postcards back to sam from every stop sam stops feeling hurt he was left out of their vegas elopement wedding by the third wedding postcard he recieves sam saves them ofc bc GOD can you imagine them looking at the postcards on their 30th anniversary or s/t 🥺 showing their grandkids and recounting the story of each wedding there's a seashell taped to the last one

cas gets a terrible sunglasses tan and dean gets burnt on the tips of his ears and there's sand on sand on sand in all their clothes and at one point dean is blinking away salt water and cas is gripping his arm and saying something about the coral by them in the water and dean thinks that he likes floating beside cas a lot better than flying

dean has cas pick ice cream for them from a truck and hustles at carnival games enough to win them both big novelty foam hats and they both go back to their room and pass out immediately post shower sprawled across the bed and still smelling like sunscreen and salt water

dean tucks a little cocktail umbrella behind cas’ ear

cas spends most of the next day in dean's zepplin shirt and a pair of shorts they only picked up once they got there because neither of them thought to bring beach clothes, they sit on the balcony and dean sips his beer and idly plays with the ring on cas' finger and they play a game of what fictional monsters could they beat in a fight

cas’ true form is the size of the chrysler building he can fight king kong easy that's what he says and dean's like okay but what about mothra and castiel is like how would YOU defeat mothra and dean just goes "bugspray." GDJSGSHSGSHDSJ DEAN WOULD

in honour of misha putting his whole pussy into the role, cas wears a dress in at least one of their weddings

it's at one of those theme parks that's just historical re-enactments and people get their vows renewed there and there's costumes for the photobooth and the staff are like how long have you been married? castiel says two weeks, three days, eighteen hours, and twenty five minutes................ approximately. and the photo is cas in a classical wedding gown and dean is wearing the veil with his old timey suit and there's a moose head on the wall behind them wearing the top hat he was given and they send that print with an arrow pointing at the moose with sam written next to it

i keep thinking bitch!!!! you KNOW WHAT!! you KNOW that dean is the type a guy who's heart races every time he feels his wedding ring/is always fiddling with it in the weeks after the wedding, like an anchor to remind him they really got married this is real he would NEED that physical reminder that he can have good things

he’s never ever going to take it off, the tan line will be permanent

how funny it would be if dean gets injured on a hunt and the monster guy is about to kill him and then the lights blow out and the monsters are like what was that and dean is just like "[spits blood] that's my husband." and nek minnit cas has just ripped through them thanks to teleporting in angel style and is just like Cas: [heals dean] "you're late for movie night" Dean: "Well if you'd gotten here earlier i would have been on time." Cas: >:| [kisses him]

cas is like i didn’t burn the popcorn this time you BETTER be alive to see it

#destiel #supernatural #long post #supernatural season 16 #twitter roadhouse wedding about to pop OFF #destiel wedding #deancas

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