#anyway listen to Our Light again. happy holidays

[beyondplusultra]

—you gently covered the mouth that said a false happiness would be enough.

[thedensworld]

Is It New Year, Yet? | Y.Jh

Pairing: Jeonghan x reader

Genre: fluff, parents au

Summary: Every year, twins will make a new year list contained with everything they want to do.

Author note: hello everyone🧚‍♀️🧚‍♀️ How's your 2024 so far? I hope you have a very warm heart this year and let's close the year with fluffy Jeonghan��🙈 (bcs i miss him sm???) However, i'll be back in 2025, stronger, wilder, angstier(?). Anyway, happy new year everyone!🎉🎊🎇

It was the day after Christmas, and Jeonghan was savoring the last moments of his holiday before the whirlwind of another tour swept him away to a different country the next day. He lounged on the couch, phone in hand, scrolling through video apps and occasionally sending funny clips to Seungkwan. His twin daughters, Nabi and Nabin, were sprawled on the floor, completely absorbed in their drawings. Every so often, Jeonghan glanced at their work, smiling softly and murmuring words of encouragement at their earnest efforts.

"Appa, look!" Nabin exclaimed, holding up her masterpiece—a family portrait with a brightly decorated Christmas tree in the background. Beside her, Nabi proudly showed off her drawing of a vibrant fireworks display.

"Appa, is it New Year's yet?" Nabin asked curiously, her big eyes filled with anticipation as she remembered how close it was to the end of the year.

"Let’s check our New Year list, Nabin!" Nabi suggested, her excitement bubbling over as she scrambled to their room to grab their special book.

Jeonghan’s smile widened as he listened to their conversation. Sitting up from the couch, he watched the twins return with their "New Year Book List" clutched tightly in their small hands. The tradition had been his idea—a way to encourage the girls to dream big and set goals. Since they learned to write, he had urged them to jot down all the things they wanted to do in the coming year and reflect on them at the end of it. Over time, this simple activity had become a cherished family routine.

"We didn’t go to the zoo with Dad this year!" Nabi’s voice broke through the quiet, tinged with disappointment. Her little face was scrunched up in a pout as she flipped through the pages of the book.

Jeonghan’s chest tightened with guilt. “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice warm but tinged with regret. “I really wanted to take you, but things got so busy.”

"Promise us we'll go to the zoo next year," the twins demanded in unison, standing before him with their arms crossed, their tiny frames exuding an almost comical seriousness.

Jeonghan chuckled softly, brushing their hair lovingly with his hands. “I can’t promise for sure, but I’ll do my best, okay?”

Though his tone was light, the weight of his words pressed heavily on him. The truth was, his packed schedule often robbed him of precious moments with his daughters. He loved them deeply—they were his entire world—but between concerts, tours, and promotional events, it was you who attended their school programs, ballet recitals, and parent-teacher events. Every missed moment gnawed at his heart, a constant reminder of what he was sacrificing.

But the New Year list was different. It was their request, a tangible hope etched in crayon and ink. This year, he hadn’t managed to take them to the zoo despite their enthusiasm for animals. Urgent commitments had forced him to reschedule, and the thought of letting them down again made his chest ache.

“I’ll work on it, I promise,” Jeonghan said earnestly, pulling the twins into a gentle hug. They giggled, their earlier disappointment melting away as they leaned into their father’s embrace.

"Next year, Appa will definitely come with us!" Nabin declared confidently, as if her words alone could make it happen.

Jeonghan smiled, a mix of hope and determination flickering in his eyes. He might not always be able to keep his promises, but for his daughters, he would always try.

"I wrote about having a brother this year," Nabi said, her tiny finger tracing over her list.

Jeonghan’s ears perked up. "Huh?" he said, raising an eyebrow.

Nabin leaned over to peek at her sister’s list. "Oh, right! We talked about that. Yes, Dad! We want a brother!"

Jeonghan chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. “Having a brother isn’t as simple as writing it down on a list, sweeties. It’s a big responsibility.”

The twins pouted, clearly not satisfied with his response.

"And also," Jeonghan continued, moving to sit cross-legged on the floor with them, "it’s up to Mom. She’d be the one carrying him for nine months, you know."

Nabin’s eyes narrowed in confusion, her little hands on her hips. “Why not you, appa?”

"Yeah!" Nabi immediately echoed, mimicking her twin’s expression.

Jeonghan let out a hearty laugh, patting their heads. “We’ve talked about this before, remember? Only girls can carry babies.”

Nabin scratched her head, looking sheepish. “Oh, yeah… I forgot. Hehe.”

Nabi, however, climbed onto Jeonghan’s lap, her determination unwavering. “But don’t you do something about it, appa? I really want a brother.”

Jeonghan grinned and pulled Nabin onto his lap as well, wrapping his arms around both of them. “Hmm... I’ll talk to Mom about it, okay? But there’s a lot of other exciting things to do next year besides having a brother.”

The twins groaned in unison, clearly unimpressed with his answer. “But we want a brother!”

Jeonghan was about to respond when he heard the familiar sound of the door’s passcode being entered. Relief flooded him as he realized you were home. The twins immediately scrambled off his lap and ran to the door, their excitement bubbling over as they greeted you.

You stepped inside, a little pale but smiling warmly at your children. You’d been feeling under the weather since yesterday, likely from something you’d eaten during a Christmas gathering at a friend’s house. Still, seeing your family instantly lifted your spirits.

“Hi, babies! How was your day with Dad?” you asked, crouching down to let their little fingers curl around yours as they clamored to show you their New Year list.

“Mommy, look! Look at our lists! We had so much fun this year!” Nabi exclaimed, holding the book up to you.

"Did you?" you replied with a soft laugh, glancing at Jeonghan as you walked into the living room. “How’s the New Year list looking this year? We had a lot of fun this year, didn’t we?”

You sat beside Jeonghan, leaning into him slightly as he gently touched your forehead to check your temperature. “How are you feeling? Did the doctor say anything new?” he asked, his tone laced with concern.

“I’m fine,” you reassured him, though your voice was a bit weak. “Just some food poisoning, probably. I’ll be good as new tomorrow.”

"But it would’ve been more fun with Dad!" Nabin piped up suddenly, standing in front of you with her hands on her hips. “Daddy is a fun man!”

Both you and Jeonghan burst out laughing at her declaration. Nabin always had a knack for turning serious moments into comedic gold.

“Fun guy?” Nabi asked, tilting her head curiously.

“No,” Nabin corrected with a huff. “Fun man! Daddy is a man, not a guy or a boy!”

Jeonghan nodded in agreement, his chest puffing out playfully. “That’s right, baby. Daddy’s a man.”

You stood from your seat and made your way to the kitchen, brushing off the fatigue that still lingered. “What do you guys want for dinner?” you asked, your voice light and cheerful.

Nabi and Nabin immediately chimed in with their favorite meals, their excitement filling the air. Jeonghan, however, frowned slightly, his protective nature kicking in. “We can always order takeout, love,” he suggested, concern evident in his tone.

You shook your head, offering him a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. The doctor gave me a shot, and I feel much better now.”

As the four of you gathered around the dining table, Jeonghan took it upon himself to help by setting up the twins’ plates while you prepped dinner for the two of you. It was a simple routine, but moments like these felt special—a reminder of the quiet joys of family life.

"Jihyun talked about Santa this morning,” Nabi began, her voice thoughtful. “I don’t believe in Santa. It was her mom who gave her the present, right, Mom?”

Jeonghan stifled a laugh. “Did you tell Jihyun that?” he asked, glancing at his daughter with amusement.

Nabi shook her head firmly. “Nope, I kept it in my head. But Mom said it, didn’t you, Mom?”

You let out a soft chuckle, nodding. “I did. But it’s okay if someone believes in Santa. It’s part of the fun.”

Nabin tapped her chin with a finger, clearly deep in thought. “Hmm... I think Mom told us that because she didn’t want to give us Christmas gifts.”

Jeonghan burst into laughter at Nabin’s clever deduction, while you quickly defended yourself. “Hey! I got you two the plushies you wanted last week, remember?”

The twins giggled as the memory resurfaced, but Nabin wasn’t done yet. “But why does Santa give free gifts?”

Jeonghan set the twins’ plates down in front of them—Japanese curry tonight, a meal they loved. “Because Mom’s cooking tonight, we’re eating whatever she wants. That’s the rule,” he joked, winking at you.

Nabi, still fixated on the Santa topic, tilted her head. “Is Santa a god or something, Mom?”

Jeonghan shot you a look, his lips twitching in amusement. “Wow, babe, you’re raising a philosopher,” he murmured under his breath.

You laughed softly and addressed your daughter. “No, sweetie, he’s not a god. Santa’s just a figure—someone who gives gifts to kids who’ve been good all year. That’s why your Santa could be me, your dad, or even your friend’s mom.”

Nabi let out a relieved sigh. “Good. I can’t imagine you with a beard and a red suit, Mom.”

You burst out laughing, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, I think we’re all glad I’m not Santa.”

Later that night, after tucking Nabi and Nabin into bed, you quietly slipped into the master bedroom. Jeonghan was sitting on the floor, surrounded by neatly folded clothes and travel essentials as he packed for his upcoming tour.

“I don’t want to go,” he muttered, his voice heavy with reluctance as he opened his arms to pull you into his embrace.

You nestled against him, your head resting on his shoulder. “I know, baby,” you whispered, your hand gently stroking his back.

“The twins mentioned how many events I missed this year,” he confessed, his voice tinged with guilt. “It hurts. My heart aches every time I think about it.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, offering him the comfort he needed. “Don’t let it weigh you down. They were sad at the time, sure, but they also know how hard you work to give them the life they have. They’re proud of you, Jeonghan, even if they don’t say it.”

For a moment, silence enveloped the room, heavy with unspoken thoughts. Then Jeonghan spoke again, his tone quieter this time. “They said they want a brother next year.”

You hummed, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “They’ve been talking about that all year, actually.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? I thought today was the first time they ever brought it up. I told them it was up to you.”

You let out a slow sigh, your gaze distant. “I don’t know if I’ll be ready. The twins are growing up so fast, and it’s already a challenge to keep up with them. I know you’re here to help, but… I’m scared, Jeonghan.”

He immediately tightened his hold on you, sensing the vulnerability in your voice. “Hey,” he murmured softly, “it’s okay to feel that way. We all get scared sometimes. I do, too. But we’ve got each other, right?”

You nodded, but the words still caught in your throat. “I know, but… you’ll leave again. Like before. And I’ll be alone.”

The whispered admission broke something inside him. He hadn’t realized how deeply his absences had affected you, not just as a mother but as his partner.

“I’m sorry, love,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Should I take a leave? A hiatus? I’d do it for you and the twins in a heartbeat.”

You shook your head quickly, your hands clutching his shirt. “No. I can’t ask you to do that. What about the band?”

Jeonghan chuckled softly, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “There are thirteen of us, love. Missing one person for a little while won’t hurt anyone.”

You let out a small huff, burying your face in his chest. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to do that. I think I’m just being a little too sensitive tonight.”

He kissed the top of your head, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. “Don’t apologize, love. It’s okay to feel this way. We’ll figure it out together, like we always do.”

*

Right before the concert started, Jeonghan decided to squeeze in a quick video call with his daughters. As soon as the screen lit up with their familiar faces, everyone in the room perked up, eagerly crowding around Jeonghan to wave at the twins.

“Hi, Nabi! Hi, Nabin!” came a chorus of greetings from the members.

The twins squealed in delight, and their eyes lit up when they spotted Seungcheol. They had a soft spot for him—unsurprising, given his habit of spoiling them with everything from Lego sets and plushies to clothes and candy.

“Uncle Seungcheol! Hi!” Nabin called out, her voice full of excitement.

Seungcheol grinned and waved back. “Hi, my favorite little humans! How are my girls?”

Before Nabin could answer, she turned to you, her voice suddenly secretive. “Mom, can we tell Uncle Seungcheol?”

The room erupted in laughter at her cheerful yet mischievous tone.

“What do you want to tell me?” Seungcheol asked curiously, leaning closer to the screen.

But the twins immediately shook their heads in unison, giggling. “Oh no, Mom said it’s a secret!”

“Tell me instead, baby,” Jeonghan coaxed, his voice playful as he tried to get in on the secret.

But Nabin was quick to deny him, shaking her head furiously. “No! It’s a secret to you too!”

Jeonghan gasped in mock betrayal, placing a hand over his chest dramatically. “We promised there wouldn’t be secrets between us!”

The twins giggled harder, clearly enjoying his reaction. The room was filled with laughter, as the members, seated around Jeonghan on the couch, watched the interaction with amused expressions.

“Cute,” Wonwoo mumbled, glancing over at the screen. His quiet comment caught the twins' attention immediately.

“Uncle Wonwoo!” Nabi and Nabin exclaimed in unison, their excitement palpable.

Wonwoo chuckled, waving at the camera. “Happy New Year, Nabi and Nabin! What are you two up to today?”

“We’re going to bake!” Nabin said enthusiastically. But then, as if struck by a sudden thought, she turned to you. “Mom, can our brother look like Uncle Wonwoo?”

The room went silent for a beat, and Wonwoo blinked in confusion. “What? A brother? Are you… going to have a son, hyung?” he asked, turning to Jeonghan with wide eyes.

Jeonghan froze, his face a mixture of shock and panic as the other members whipped their heads toward him in curiosity. He immediately shook his head, his hands waving frantically in denial.

“No, no, no! That’s not it—” he stammered, but before he could explain, Nabi turned to you with an innocent question. “Mom, how does Uncle Wonwoo know? Did you tell him about our brother?”

Jeonghan’s jaw dropped, and his phone nearly slipped from his grasp. Seungcheol, quick on reflexes, caught it before it could hit the floor.

“What is going on?” Seungcheol asked, his eyes wide as he processed the conversation. He turned to Jeonghan, his expression one of barely-contained amusement. “Are you hiding something?”

The rest of the members, sensing the commotion, crowded closer, their curiosity piqued.

“What’s happening?”

“Jeonghan hyung, do we need to congratulate you?”

Jeonghan’s ears turned red as he scrambled to retrieve his phone from Seungcheol. “Nothing is happening! Stop making things up!” he exclaimed, flustered.

Without waiting for more teasing, he hastily stepped out of the room, putting the call on a private line. The laughter and teasing from the other members echoed behind him as he closed the door.

“Hello?” you answered, your tone light, though you sounded curious about the sudden call.

“Love,” Jeonghan began, his voice low and urgent. “Why do the twins think they’re getting a brother? And why do they want him to look like Wonwoo?”

You couldn’t hold back your laughter, the sound making his heart soften despite his panic. “Oh, they’ve been on about this for weeks. I thought they’d mentioned it to you already. As for Wonwoo… well, I guess they just think he’s handsome!”

Jeonghan groaned, leaning against the wall as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “They’ve got the entire group thinking we’re planning something, love.”

You chuckled again, clearly amused by his predicament. “Relax, Jeonghan. Just tell them the truth. Or… you could let them squirm a little.”

Jeonghan sighed, a reluctant smile tugging at his lips. “You’re too calm about this,” he muttered, though the warmth in his tone betrayed his affection.

“Because it’s funny,” you replied, your laughter ringing in his ears again.

And just like that, Jeonghan found himself smiling despite the chaos. You always had a way of putting him at ease.

At home, you sat on the couch, trying your best to look stern while the twins stood in front of the wall with their little arms raised in the air. Their small figures looked so comically guilty that you had to fight hard to suppress your smile.

“Not done yet?” Nabin asked, her voice tinged with a mix of guilt and curiosity.

“Not even two minutes,” you replied with a hum, glancing at the timer on your phone.

“We’re sorry…” Nabin mumbled, her pout making her look even more adorable.

You crossed your arms and raised an eyebrow, trying to maintain your composure. “What did I tell you about secrets? It was supposed to stay a secret until Daddy’s home.”

“We were just excited!” Nabi exclaimed in defense, her hands starting to drop. But the moment you let out a soft warning sound, she quickly pushed them back up with a small huff.

The timer finally beeped, signaling the end of their two-minute punishment. The twins immediately lowered their arms and turned to face you, heads bowed like little penitents.

“Mommy, we’re sorry,” Nabi said earnestly, her small hands clasped together. “We promise we won’t say anything about the secret until Daddy’s home.”

You let out a small chuckle, unable to stay stern anymore. Opening your arms, you pulled them into a warm hug. “Thank you for apologizing, sweeties. I forgive you. But remember, no more talking about this, okay? It’s just between us until Dad comes home.”

The twins nodded solemnly, their little faces glowing with relief. But just as the moment of seriousness seemed to pass, Nabi piped up in her usual curious tone, “I just want my brother to look like Uncle Wonwoo…”

Her words caught you off guard, and you laughed softly, brushing her hair back. “Is that so?”

Nabin chimed in, nodding eagerly. “Yeah! Is it possible, Mom?”

You crouched down to meet their eyes, your voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Let’s see in seven months, okay?”

Their eyes widened, and Nabi’s little mouth fell open in surprise. “Seven months? Really?”

You smiled mysteriously, tapping your finger gently on her nose. “We’ll see.”

The twins squealed in excitement before bursting into giggles, their earlier punishment already forgotten as they began whispering about their potential “brother.” You watched them with a fond smile, marveling at how their innocent enthusiasm could brighten even the quietest days.

A week later, when Jeonghan finally stepped through the door after his long trip, the twins wasted no time. The moment they spotted him, they ran at full speed, their excited voices echoing through the house.

“Dad! We’re having a brother!” they announced in unison, their high-pitched voices practically bouncing off the walls.

Jeonghan froze mid-step, his suitcase still in hand, not even given a second to rest. He blinked at the two beaming faces before him, his exhaustion momentarily forgotten. “A... brother?” he asked, his tone filled with a mix of surprise and confusion.

“Yes! Mom said so!” Nabin chimed in, her hands on her hips as if to emphasize the gravity of the news.

“We’re so excited, Daddy!”

The end. See you in 2025!

[lumienyx]

happy to surrender

Pairing: Astarion/m!Tav | Rating: T | Words: 1,208 | Tags: Established Relationship, Romance, Banter, Fluff, Humor, sorcery as a replacement for the tadpole mindlink, no beta we die like Dribbles

Summary: A snowflake lands on Tav’s lips, and Astarion melts it with a kiss.  “My love.” Astarion’s gaze is so tender, his voice so fragile Tav fears that it may break. “These last six months of happy memories are a counterweight to two hundred years of misery.”

A/N: inspired by a bunch of things: Astarion's epilogue confession ofc, @snowyarts' post contrasting it with his earlier much more grim dialogue, and when I finally started on the New Beginnings prompt for the BG3 Winter Holiday Challenge, I ended up with this🥺 Hope you enjoy💙

Read on AO3 or continue under the cut ↓

The canvas of the night stretches wide above them. Astarion watches it, entranced, ever in awe of each new starscape of Faerûn they uncover during their travels. 

Tav is mesmerized in turn by the subtle play of moonlight on Astarion’s skin, in his eyes. The light snowfall grazes his hair, the flakes lingering just a bit longer than usual before melting away. Tav leans closer into the one-armed embrace, pressing his lips against Astarion's neck.

“Any new constellations you can show me?” Tav follows his lover’s gaze to a messy cluster of stars.

Astarion chuckles. “Of course, my sweet. If you remember all the ones from before.”

“All of them?” Tav frowns, doubtful. “You have a lot of faith in my memory.”

“If you can quote that bawdy poor excuse of a romance novel we stole from Gale, then surely—”

“Anyway.” Tav ignores Astarion’s smirk, pointing to where he spots a familiar, blade-like pattern, tracing it with his finger. “That one. Jassa’s Dagger?”

“Wrong.”

“Oh, well, the Sword and the Dagg—”

Astarion cuts him off with an exasperated kiss, reaching out to run his hand through Tav's hair, a pleasant shiver tingling in its wake. “Try again. No daggers there, I’m afraid.”

“Ah.” Tav skips through a couple more guesses. “Well… Esetar?”

“That isn’t even visible right now, darling.” Astarion caresses his cheek then, gentle and almost placating. “Not that I don’t find this positively adorable, but do you even listen when I tell you about them?”

“I remember most of our stargazing lessons ending in me seeing stars for a very different reason.”

Astarion groans. “And I remember how I’ve told you repeatedly that your questionable attempts at wordplay leave much to be desired.”

“This one was good,” Tav insists, “one might even say stellar—”

“Stop—”

Astarion struggles out of the embrace only half-heartedly, and Tav doesn’t catch any trace of tension on his face, so he doesn’t break the hold. “Made you smile,” he says, with no small measure of satisfaction.

“I am not,” Astarion says, “smiling,” he tries and fails to suppress it.

“But there it is.” 

Tav presses his lips to Astarion’s, feeling the grin widen. He relishes the soft, languid movement of his lover’s lips as they fall deeper into a kiss that warms Tav even more than the sphere of heat he’s keeping up around them. There’s only a hair’s breadth between them as they pull away, and Tav finds himself lost in Astarion’s eyes all over again.

“There.” Tav points to another patch in the sky, not even looking. “Mystra’s Circle.”

“Why,” Astarion gasps in mock surprise, “truly a remarkable catch! The only circular constellation out there—how did you guess?”

Tav weaves a few spheres from the heaps of snow behind Astarion, all ready to strike. They all miss, of course; Astarion leaps out of his arms to dodge them just in time, and Tav barely manages to halt the spell before the projectiles end up hitting him instead.

“Ugh.” Tav lets the spell dissipate ina burst of snowflakes. Gone is his only chance to catch Astarion off guard. “I’ll get you one of these days.”

“Darling,” Astarion laughs, “do I have to remind you of the score of our snowball fights?” He rushes back into the radius of the heating spell and into Tav's begrudging embrace, though Tav probably doesn’t look as annoyed as he’s pretending to be.

“You may win the battles,” Tav grumbles, “but you won't win the war.”

“If you ask me really nicely, I doubt I would have any choice but to concede defeat.”

“Ha! Since when are you happy to surrender?”

“I am happy with you always,” Astarion says.

And it’s those simple words that give Tav pause. 

There is no hint of jest or deceit in Astarion’s eyes. Only warmth and tenderness that Tav is still getting used to seeing there, in place of the once constant fear and pain. The bright specks of light reflected in them form constellations of their own against the ruby red. So beautiful, impossible to look away from, even as Tav feels heat rushing to his cheeks and his heart rattling his chest at an alarming rate. A reaction he hasn’t quite grown out of, even after all these months by Astarion’s side.

“I—well.” Tav blinks. A nervous chuckle follows a bashful smile. “Really?”

A snowflake lands on Tav’s lips, and Astarion steals it with a kiss before it melts. 

“My love.” Astarion’s gaze is so tender, his voice so fragile Tav fears that it may break. “These last six months of happy memories are a counterweight to two hundred years of misery.”

Tav’s heart skips a beat, perhaps a couple. He doesn’t know what to answer, doesn’t know how. He can’t quite believe it, still. The pain yet rings sharp from the words Astarion had said a longer while back—that not even Cazador’s death would make up for the all-consuming darkness, that never-ending pain.

But Astarion slides into his mind now, magic weaving itself in the familiar spell Tav spent months developing so they could both have this—mind-to-mind emotions and wordless connection—once their tadpoles were gone. Astarion’s feelings are clear as day there, somewhere in the in-between of Tav’s own tangled thoughts and emotions—

—it's as if there's a bright, simmering hearth in his chest, and it feels like home, you are home—

—Tav’s own face obscures his vision, one memory that mirrors thousands more like it, and when he sees that face smile, he feels—Astarion feels like it lights up everything around him, bringing to life something deep inside him that he thought long forgotten, and he feels his lips follow suit to mirror mine—

—touch is less like small bursts of electricity, like it used to be when they barely knew each other but knew enough to want one another and every touch sparked desire—

—now, the touch of my hand is grounding, your embrace feels like a warding spell, a Sanctuary that keeps at bay whatever danger and harm the world yet harbors, kissing you completes me like two split pieces of a whole finally joining—

There’s waves upon waves of joy radiating from Astarion’s thoughts, there's the shadow of his embrace that Tav can feel even as he’s lost in the connection—and all of a sudden, it’s too much to bear being parted, and so he closes the distance between them. They kiss deeply, softly, it’s all kinds of perfection Tav doesn’t ever want to let go. 

Tav is quite happy to surrender to Astarion, too.

Astarion’s lips are cool and yet the kiss spreads warmth all over Tav’s body. Like the familiar surge of sorcery running through his veins, only better, because Astarion’s touch is more magical than any spell Tav could ever hope to invoke. It’s all the elation of a life bound closely to his, of their life began anew. A life they get to live, against all odds, together. Their minds are still entwined, and Astarion’s coalesces into the single thought,

I love you.

And the emotion of it is strong enough, overwhelming enough to make Tav weak in the knees with how good it makes him feel, how completely it overtakes him. And Tav—

~~~

thank you for the read! I’d appreciate any comments and feedback💙

Tag list (lmk if you'd like to be added):

@spacebarbarianweird @satanicspinosaurus @tallymonster @tragedybunny @ellekhen

[misty-moth]

I wanted to join in on the @cy-inky challenge, so I wrote a thing! This is the second fic I’ve posted in my life, but let’s gooo ҉*\( ‘ ω ’ )/*҉

Clavis x reader fluff, 500 words, prompt: “You are legally obligated to keep holding me.”

The day of our date had finally arrived, and I set out to meet with Clavis. With the newly established Kingdom of Lelouch, it had been quite a while since we’d had uninterrupted time together.

As I stepped into the parlor, Clavis immediately greeted me with a dazzling smile.

“Ahh, the day has finally come where I can properly smother you in adoration again.” He reached out, bringing my hand to his lips and a blush to my cheeks.

Maneuvering my hand to interlock our fingers, he escorted me out to begin our date.

We were walking through our little town, perusing its wares while noting its growth. Every few minutes, I’d feel a light peck on my head, my cheek, my hand. Each time, the pink in my face grew about 5% deeper. Our interlaced fingers soon became interlaced arms… which eventually progressed into a strange half-hug while still attempting to walk in a straight line.

“Clavis… just checking here, but you know we’re in public, yes? And every single citizen knows both of us? And we will continue seeing them regularly for the rest of our lives?” At this point, I considered just burying my reddened face in his chest as it was a mere 3 inches away anyway.

“I certainly do know! And everyone appears to be smiling just as brightly as I am today. It seems our joy is practically contagious. I almost want to make today… a national holi—“

My hands slapped over his mouth as soon as I registered what was happening… but it was far too late. Clavis’ eyes sparked at his newly realized power.

“Clavis… you don’t have to do this…” I softly murmured, eyes pleading. “I really don’t think the town needs to care about a random Wednesday in autumn…”

“Haha! My dear, the entire point of a holiday is to bring recognition to important events. And if the entire town is smiling, how can I not ensure that such happiness is recurring? If the public needs me to take you on a lovely date like this to build morale, then I must humbly accept that task!” He tilted my chin up before peppering tiny kisses all over my face.

Dammit Clavis, now I’m smiling too! My heart melted into a little puddle, and I only slightly listened as Clavis started muttering the logistics of creating a national holiday. As we started to turn toward a restaurant, I began loosening our hold.

Clavis looked down in faux shock. “Dearie me! You’ve made me realize I need to add an important clause to this holiday!” His hand reached down to hold mine. “You are legally obligated to keep holding me.” He smiled at me mischievously. “The minimum being today, but you may absolutely tether yourself to me any other time as well. My arms are strong, and my body is ready.”

Both bodies stuck in an unrelenting vertical snuggle, I planted my fiery face into him as we entered the diner.

Writing Masterlist

[livsoulsecrets]

Yai/Sand Fic - I kept my love for you, the one I never knew how to give

Summary:

Sand and Yai comfort each other in the aftermath of Yai’s parents disapproving their weeding.

Trigger warning: light discussion of transphobia.

-

Sand heard the door slamming from upstairs, announcing Yai had returned from his parents’ house.

It was very unlike him to release his anger like that, so Sand braced for the worst.

She had been apprehensive about this trip back to his hometown from the start, but Yai insisted he needed to tell his parents in person about their engagement.

The first holiday Yai had managed to get discharged from work, they traveled to his hometown and rented a place near Tharn’s grandma to stay in for a few days.

She slowly made her way down the stairs and found Yai settled on the couch with his head between his hands.

Sand sat down by his side and placed a hand on his shoulder, sliding it over the taunt muscle there to smooth it over.

They said nothing for some minutes as Yai took one deep breath after the other and Sand continued her slow undoing of the tension locked into Yai’s frame.

“That feels good,” Yai mumbled underneath his breath when he looked up again. He nuzzled her exposed neck, his breath warm against her pulse point. It took all of her restraint to remember her concerns and not get lost in the feeling.

“Yai,” she reprimanded, pulling him away softly by the nape of his neck.

“Sand,” he retorted, smiling innocently at her.

His eyes were still rimmed red, though, which didn’t help the grin look too sincere.

Sand gave him a stern look to show she was being serious, and the playfulness slowly died down in Yai’s gaze.

“How was it?” She asked, even though the answer seemed quite obvious.

Yai had a tendency to divert any crisis with humor and nonchalance. The only way to steer him toward his true feelings was to ask the right questions.

“I think we can cross two names off our guest list.”

He smiled weakly at her, but her stomach fell anyway.

“Oh, Yai,” she murmured, “I’m so sorry-”

“No, no, it’s not your fault,” he protested immediately, reaching for her hands.

“It’s because of me,” Sand countered, but Yai was shaking his head already.

“It’s their own fault, and you know it,” Yai interrupted. “They like to act as if they’re perfect, like they just want the best for me, but they can’t even see how happy you make me?”

He shook his head in an answer to his own rhetorical question. “I don’t want anyone like that at my wedding, even if they’re my parents. I don’t even want to speak to them again after today.”

“You can’t just never speak to them again, Yai. They’re your parents! They’re too important,” Sand argued, her voice already breaking. She felt Yai’s pain as if it were her own.

“You’re important too,” Yai countered, and his voice was so earnest Sand felt her resolve crumble almost immediately.

She smiled at him, caressing his face with one hand, the other rising to his neck. “And you’re important to me too, more than anything. That’s why I don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret.”

Yai shook his head firmly and said, “I’m not a kid anymore, Sand. The only thing I’d regret doing is giving up on you to please my parents.”

He took her hand off his face to bring it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against it.

“I just don’t want you to resent me.” Yai’s eyes widened with hurt.

“I would never-”

“I know you don’t feel this now, but what if you do in the future? What if you wake up some day and realize you lost your family because of me?” Sand pushed back, desperate to make him understand her fears.

“You’re my family too. And so is Tharn. And his grandma, and our friends. I’m not losing anything that really matters.”

He straightened up against the couch, his thumb catching a stray tear on her cheek.

“Sand, listen to me. This is not some split-second decision. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s hard, but I knew this could happen. I already spend more time avoiding them than talking to them anyway. This is just the last straw.”

Yai took her face in his hands, and his voice softened as he continued, “I knew I was going to marry you since the day we met. And I also knew my parents might never accept it. I made my choice, and they can either respect it and realize they have the most perfect daughter-in-law in the world or miss out on you.”

His voice caught in his throat, but Yai was firm when he told her, “I love you, Sand, but this choice is purely selfish. I’m giving up on them because I want to be happy with you. And I can’t do that if they’re holding me back. How could I resent you for something I chose for myself?”

Yai didn’t wait for Sand to wipe off the tears trailing down her face or to answer. He drew her in and kissed her.

Sand wrapped her arms around her fiancée’s shoulders and kissed him back fiercely.

“I love you too, Yai,” she whispered between one kiss and the next, pressed the words against his lips, his neck, his cheeks, until they had burned away all the pain his family caused him.

“Always,” he mumbled back, and she couldn’t tell if it was a question or a promise.

“Always,” she replied, because it didn’t truly matter which one it was.

Her answer would be the same.

[what-if-queen-camilla]

A little secret - chapter 8

25th January 1987

The days at Highgrove had been absolute heaven. Camilla hadn’t realised just how badly she’d been in the need for a break before but the three days of rest had changed everything. It had been wonderful to spend time with Charles, the world’s most devoted father-to-be, having him look after her and the baby and dreaming together of what might be one day… He had kept his word and not only instruct the chef to align the menu to the special needs and requirements of a pregnant woman but in fact directed everybody to look after her and even sent some members of staff over to her house to look after the horses and dogs so that she could stay and relax for as long as she wanted to. With Andrew being in London and Tom and Laura having returned to their respective boarding schools, nobody was missing her anyway and though she didn’t like to admit it, it felt good to be looked after instead of being the one looking after others for once. By the end of the next week, her sickness had almost faded, as had her dizziness and she felt recharged enough to undertake a few short walks around the estate and the clear, frosty winter air seemed to revive her. Charles came back for another joint weekend and was delighted to see the love of his life in such good spirits when he returned compared to how poorly she had been when he had left earlier that week. Together, they went for a proper walk, enjoyed a heavenly, roses scented, candle light bubble bath to warm themselves up and later, in the romantic glow of the fireplace, they even made love again. It felt a bit different and Charles was wonderful, tender, sweet and extremely careful though she had assured him at least a hundred times that it wouldn’t hurt  the baby or do it any bad. And though Camilla didn't want to ruin the situation, as she laid in his arms, she felt that they really couldn't avoid a certain topic anymore… "Darling, we still haven't decided anything. You know, the last few days were wonderful. Like a much needed holiday really and I'm feeling much better but our problem hasn't solved itself, has it? We have to talk about it… we need to make a plan." Charles had been gently stroking her naked body while she was talking and though he also wished they could just stay in this carefree dream forever, he knew in his heart that it wasn't possible and that it strained her immensely. In fact, he had been thinking about some things over the last couple of days as well but he didn't mention anything to her as he wanted to be entirely sure first. But now that she had started the topic… "You're right, darling. Listen, I've been thinking about something…" 

"You can't be serious!", Camilla stuttered after having listened to Charles' insane suggestion that they'd both get divorced from their spouses, marry in the Church of Scotland, move to the country together and just be a normal, happy family with their little one. Of course, it sounded like a dream - a dream with many catches though: "You can't do this to the country, Charles. It's your destiny to be King one day and I know you'll be a bloody good one. I will not allow you to give up the throne, for nothing in this world!" That'd have been the price and she was not going to pay this. She'd rather be dead than the reason why he'd have to abdicate. "Have you even thought about what that would mean for our child? Growing up knowing he or she was the reason why their daddy can't be King? You can't put such a burden on an innocent child!", she said. She couldn't believe that he'd actually made this absolutely idiotic suggestion. "And what about your sons? Your abdication would make William heir apparent immediately. He is only five years old!" "I was three when I became heir apparent!", he countered but she immediately contradicted: "That was different! Charles, you can't do that to him! Imagine something happens to your mother next week, next month, next year… Yes, she is fit and blessed with good health but you never know what might happen in the future! Also, what about me? I'm not going to end up like a ‘Mrs Simpson 2.0’! I have two other children, just like you, and I'm worried about them! I don't want Tom and Laura to be a part of that, to grow up in such a mess, I want them to have a happy childhood and a loving family, just what I want for our baby! No, Charles, we're certainly not gonna do that!" "So what's your brilliant alternative then?", he asked sarcastically and looked at her in anticipation. "You sound like you've got just the plan!" Camilla sighed. She didn't want this, she didn't want to argue and fight, she didn't have the energy for this sort of drama at the moment. She loved her Prince dearly but sometimes he could be so bloody stubborn… Carefully she took his hand and led it to her belly. "Darling, listen. This is not about us or what we want. This is about an innocent little baby, our baby, that we love so dearly, and that needs to be protected. This is our responsibility and must be our highest priority. Always.”, while speaking, her eyes had filled with tears and she cuddled up to him a bit closer as she added: “The decisions we’ll have to make will be painful and heartbreaking, yes, but we have to stay strong. It’ll be for the greater good: for our baby’s safety.”

London, two days later

“Your Royal Highness!”, Andrew gasped in surprise and jumped up from his desk as none other than The Prince of Wales entered his office at the Wellington Barracks. Damn, what did he want from him? He hadn’t forgotten an appointment, had he? “No, Lieutenant Colonel, no haven’t”, Charles declined, sitting down at the front side of Andrew’s desk without waiting to be offered a seat. “I’m actually here to discuss… a private matter today.”, he added and Andrew sighed. Of course Milla had told him. Silly girl. He had almost been a bit worried as he hadn’t heard from her in over a week but luckily she had phoned him the other day, just to let him know that everything was fine and that she hadn’t made her final decision regarding her little “problem” yet but that she’d let him know as soon as possible. He hadn’t expected her to be that much of a coward that she’d actually send her lover over though. “Milla doesn’t know that I’m here.”, the Prince started and looked at him somewhat conspiratorially. Andrew sighed and went over to the sideboard, quickly grabbing the bottle of Scotch and two glasses. “Drink?”, he asked and handed one to the Prince without waiting for him to respond - just as His Royal Highness had taken a seat without waiting for him to invite him. Of course, he was the Prince of Wales and he, Andrew, was just a Lieutenant Colonel of the Household Cavalry, so in fact, he was more or less his boss and being the loyal serviceman he was, he wasn’t going to turn this into some sort of an authority competition - but what he was doing with his wife was a different story. It had a direct effect on his children and he was not going to kowtow and let him ruin his family. “Andrew, listen, I… I actually have some great news for you today!” “Oh?” “Yes. The thing is… How long have you been serving us now?” Andrew frowned his forehead and took a huge sip of his Scotch. What on earth was he up to? “Since 1960, when I first joined the Royal Horse Guards, Sir.”, he said, looking at the Prince with a sharp glance. “Exactly.”, Charles confirmed and nodded appreciatively. “And weren’t you first appointed as a lieutenant exactly 25 years ago last week?” Andrew gulped. Yes, that was true. He had, indeed, received his first ever military rank exactly 25 years and 3 days ago today. Whatever the Prince was up to - he had definitely done his homework. “Since then, you have been one of our most loyal and devoted servicemen - both here in the United Kingdom, as well as in our overseas territories, especially during the horrible bombings in Hyde Park and Regents’s Park back in the day - and I know that you will continue your most appreciated service for Crown and Country in the years to come. Therefore, it would be my greatest pleasure to appoint you to be a Colonel of the Household Cavalry and  a  Silver Stick in Waiting for my dear Mama, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. My sister tells me this is something you've been dreaming of for a long time. I understand the two of you have a close… friendship, which is wonderful of course...” Andrew emptied his glass in one go. So that was the way the wind blew. That lousy little wannabe King… He had never really expected anything good from his wife’s lover anyway, knowing very well about his moods and temper but he wouldn’t have expected him to be that manipulative. Especially that remark about Anne… How low could anyone possibly sink? Anyway; he was and had always been a careerist - and the future monarch was right: He absolutely wanted to be a Silver Stick in Waiting - and if that meant to… take care of his… bastard, then he was happy to do that. “Well, Sir, I’m feeling incredibly honoured…”

[yuumenouta]

Somewhere only we Know,

19th April, 2023.

Dear Minnion,

I love letters. That's why I like to write you one every year. Wish I could write one like you read in the novels. Words can only go so far to convey my affection for you. Then again, I am not so good with words.

A lot has happened over the past year. I've gone to college and I keep coming back and I want to tell you how I wished college would be like. You met someone new. I want to talk to you about so many things. What is life like where you live? What is life like anyway? Can we ever find what we are looking for? Everyday I see so many faces. I don't like college. I hate it. I wish living wasn't an ordeal we had to compete for. I want to see new things. And I want to share them with you. I sometimes feel like I will go stark raving mad if I don't speak to somebody. But I don't. Our early years are blurring together. I want to be a better sister to you. I want you to know that I'm always there. Always.

I have been living away from you for so long now. Yet I never really learned how to get used to it. I still feel so sad when you leave after the holidays. :"( Did growing up feel the same for you?

You are such a beautiful person. It makes me so happy when I see you happy, when you tell me how you found the excitement, the joy of experiencing something new. The sheer happiness on your face fills up my heart. I love to see it. Seeing you have fun somehow soothes my wish to do the same.

Go new places. Keep on wandering around the world. New journeys, new people, new memories await us. We will be alright. You will be alright. There's a long way to go. And down the road, we just might find what we are looking for.

Happy Birthday my dearest. Stay safe. I wish 28th treats you better. Let's go Japan next year onee. Please. (〃´ω`〃)

I love you very much.

" 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴. "

~ 𝗩𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗩𝗮𝗻 𝗚𝗼𝗴𝗵

I can't wait to see you again. :)

-With love

Yours,

A

This is for every time you talk to me from your poos. ( ˘ ³˘)♥︎

P.S. I'm sorry I could not make you a playlist this year. I'll get to it soon. This is not much, but for now, please listen to this Ricky Montgomery playlist that keeps me going.

[avilionea]

Send 👩‍🦲 or 'baby' for receiver to learn sender is pregnant with their (receiver's) baby

@arturiusrex ASKED: 👩‍🦲 + reverse (ARTHUR)

"Birthdays are important. Especially when it comes to nobles." Elspeth said with a light huff. She'd been pestering him about it all morning, " It's like a holiday."

Her experience had been that noble people made large celebrations of the anniversaries of their birth. It was different than the lives of simple people.

"Yours has never been celebrated." Amhar replied, taking her hand. " so they must not be so important."

" that is entirely different." She was sure of it. " I don't even know when it was to begin with. But, if I did, I should find a way to make a cake or a tarte for the occasion And should be happy enough to share it."

"A cake or a tarte?" He smirked, "surely a birthday is not needed for something as simple as that."

"But it is!" She protested with layered joy, "tell me. When is yours? Surely, that is worth celebrating."

" No." He shook his head, " I've no need to celebrate. "

" There is always need for that surely, for your father is a king, surely he must send you something. "

"Something, yes. But my mother, I think, in recent years, upheld that more."

"Have you heard from her?"

"Some..." he started but placed his other hand atop hers as if those worries were ones she shouldn't burden herself with. "But she used to love to find any reason to tell me stories . She had a story for everything."

"Even your birthday?"

"Even that. "

"Tell me." She spoke softly

"I'm not a story teller."

"Tell me anyway. "

Amhar cautioned he could not tell it the way he was told it. For her, however, he would try.

"It all starts with Artorius-- that's mother's hero y'see. She dreamed him up. Artorius was the youngest of seven. He went on many adventures and had six sons to his name. That at one point would have been the happy ending. Artorius, however, would always travel far and wide. He helped as many people as he hurt, so his sons were cursed and taken from him. Two were turned into fish and still live somewhere down deep in the sea. Three were enchanted into wild swans and still are circling the earth, chasing the seasons for a cure to their affliction.

One simply became lost in the shuffle. No one looked nor listened when he said he'd return someday. Artorius still mourns him and probably thinks him dead. The last went down deep into the earth, to contend with his own adventures.

As it was, Artorius, for all his greatness, was alone. Loneliness is a terrible thing. It eats away at you, breaks you down until you are nothing but dust.

Before he could blink he began to disintegrate. The dust blew through the air, and settled in a stream. The stream did as streams must. It babbled. It was the babbling that brought Artorius back together. He sat up, gasped and demanded to know how the stream had managed such a thing.

' because we have joy.' Said the stream, " thousands of us reside and flow within. We return the air and rain back down again. we continue. That is our joy.'

Artorius rose from the stream and decided to find his joy. If he did he would not be lonely. He would not turn to dust.

So he went along and loneliness followed. It began to pick at his head --wearing it away. The slugs that crawled low and near to the ground came upon the headless man and found each particle of the dust that had settled around him. The slime of the slugs began to slide quietly up the body. Once again Artorius was whole. Again he asked how this is possible.

'We think. ' said the slugs 'we crawl along the earth, we eat the leaves and the dirt. We watch and we think and we rise again.' So Artorius was left to his thoughts.

Again, Artorius went along when the wind blew through him. He felt the loneliness rip through him and watched as his chest began to blow away.

With that wind came a great flock of birds. In their beaks they caught each fleck and flew it back to Artorius. Again, Artorius demanded how.

"We persist." They responded. " we sore through the air, we dive down to the earth. We eat, we kill, and we fly . Our eggs touch the trees and we fly again. Always, we are part of the sky. Always we persist."

But now, Artorius was at a loss. Surely loneliness would come again and he would become dust. He became afraid. He feared loneliness. he feared the nothingness of dust. Off he went again until he came across a rock overlooking the side of a cliff and many great valleys. He sat and addressed the problem.

How was it that the creatures he encountered never turned to dust? What did they have that he did not? He looked down over the valley and then up to the sky. Truly, the birds were swifter than him. He imagined wild horses were down below and they were far stronger. The butterflies amid the flowers were more beautiful. the slugs were more durable! Still, none of them turned to dust. Loneliness did not come for them.

What set him apart? he sat there and wondered. He wondered so hard that the colors of the sun lent him their vigor to keep him warm. then, he realized. He thought. He awarded himself the same privlige as the slugs. He thought in the fashion that only men can think, capable of comprehension-- capable of understanding what he lacked. He laughed loud and long. He knew where his joy lied, for it rested in his chest, the louder he laughed, the more he felt it. With a strong hand he reached inside his chest and pulled out that joy, he held it close and marveled at it. He reached down to the earth a placed his joy in the dirt. He used his ability to think to give it shape. He persisted.

And from all that, he was left with a son, a very lucky child in deed. He was the seventh son of a seventh son and given his father's greatest gift-- the ability to think and to continue to live." Amhar concluded, " that's the end."

"And that's you?" Elspeth asked.

"So I'm told." Amhar replied with a shrug.

"He should have taken that son to help him find his other sons. That's why he was lonely."

"Mother never told it that way." Amhar clearly hadn't thought that part through, " I don't think she thought that was Artorius nature."

"Why not? Did he try and fail?"

"I don't think they come back. He tried, maybe, and they still end up the way they do." he paused, "They still die in their own time."

"Well we should change that. he goes with the seventh son-- the lucky one-- and they save everyone."

"Alright." he nodded, "They save everyone."

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

Indeg had been curled up next to Arthur beneath the bedding on the rug on the ground in the tent. Her arm was beneath his head, and she couldn't help but softly smile to herself at the slack in Arthur's jaw and the bit of drool that was dripping down onto her arm. He looked like a child when he slept like that.

But the sensation of his sleep spun spit kept her awake. She tried very gently to free her arm from beneath his head, but perhaps she had not been careful enough. It had roused him, caused his own body to jerk and kick a cup that had been left full of water near the bedding over. In the dark it looked like a stream.

Indeg only responded with a simple shh, shh, shh. She tried her best to wipe that drool from her arm before settling down again beside him. He mumbled something about his dream. He was hard to understand when only half awake. It had something to do with birds.

"Arthur..." she whispered, now that she knew he was awake. Now, she had reasoned, was as good a time as any to tell him of her suspicions. if he was awake enough to hear it, then they might talk about it as equals. In sleep, he was just a man and not a King at all. In the morning he wouldn't even be hers. She doubted she could hide this much longer. If he thought it a dream, then he could not throw her away. a man did not throw away his wife, but kings could throw away their things.

She knew she was being silly in thinking that Arthur could be anything greater than he was now and capable of terrible things. But, when awake, the King outshone the sun.

"We're going to have a baby." she whispered through the dark. " They will be ours. Just ours. How lucky, to be born to us? a luck child is a very rare thing... and they are ours." Her freed hand came to gently brush along his forehead. She wondered if their child would look like him. She hoped so. " All ours."

[bigmouthlass]

Title:  Walk Right In, It's Around The Back

Author:  BJ

Fandom:  Big Sky

Rating:  Explicit

Pairing:  Beau Arlen/Reader, Beau Arlen/Reader

Synopsis: Spending the holiday alone? Not if the Deputy can help it. For the sake of argument, let's say this takes place pre-introduction, when Our Hero's working as a sheriff's deputy in a small town somewhere in Texas, and You are an administrative grunt who works in the same sheriff's office.

Tags:  Beau Arlen, AU, Really Just Smut, Written Before Watching The Show So Excuse Plot Whoopsies Please

AN:  Title is from the song "Alice's Restaurant," by Woodie Guthrie. Listening to the concert version is a Thanksgiving tradition. No I haven't watched the show yet. It's on my list. Purely speculative porn based on wishful thinking on what the character might or might not be like. Blame the actor for being so goshdarn cute. All recognizable intellectual properties are owned by their respective creators and holders of any trademarks or copyrights. This is a not-for-profit work of fan art and is protected by Fair Use.

---

The County Sheriff’s office is tomb-silent as you swipe yourself in.  There’s a deputy up front in case of emergency but the back office where you work driving a desk is dark and quiet.  You’re not sneaking-- you cleared this with the office manager last week and again yesterday.  Still feels like sneaking.  You can’t help but tippity-toe.

Booting up your work computer and setting up Skype’s the work of a few minutes.  You wait, and eventually your family’s faces tile the screen. “Happy Thanksgiving sweetie-bird!” your mom chirps, and the ever-present ache of homesickness simultaneously eases and intensifies.  Been almost a year since you moved five states and a thousand miles away from everybody and everything you ever knew.  Shit, you thought a hundred and ten degree heat was a myth until you moved here.  You're still not used to how bright the light is, and how everything's out in the open.  You're a trog, you like hiding places.

Anyway.  You wave hi to your sister and brother-in-law and the stepfamily in Kalamazoo and your mom in Ypsilanti and your cousins in Hillsdale.  "So what're your plans for the day?" your mom asks.

"Oh, I'm gonna go home, watch TV, hide out at my apartment tomorrow because of course some idiot's gonna start a riot at the WalMart over the last big screen TV," you say.  "Bask in the irony of people trampling each other for stuff the day after a holiday dedicated to being grateful for what they already have."

Your mom makes a face.  "I'm sorry I couldn't fly down--"

"It's okay," you brush off, "I'll be up in January even if I have to hitchhike.  So far the boss here's been pretty reasonable and I promised I'd work over Christmas.  No sense in spending money on a plane ticket when I'm just gonna see you in a couple months anyway.  What're you doing for the day Mom?"

"The usual.  Going out with your aunt to the Seoul Garden and catching a movie," your mom shrugs.

“We got the pit going out back.  Uncle Jake scored a whole pig.  The guys from the VFW’ve been taking shifts all night,” the chief of The Cousins, Daniel, reports.

"We're gonna go out and see Dad after dinner and then go visit the stepmother in the hospital," your sister says.  "He couldn't make it today."

You swear.  Your Dad's been down with a bad back for months and your stepmother's in the hospital recovering from gallbladder surgery.  "When you see them give them my love."

A big warm hand lands on your shoulder and you hop halfway to Heaven.  "Easy!" the owner says, that million-dollar smile shining out from a neatly barbered beard.

"Deputy!" you squeak.  On the computer monitor both your sister and your mother have gone quiet and buggy-eyed.  Not exactly a unique reaction to the sight of Sheriff’s Deputy Beau Arlen, who is by far the most gorgeous man you've ever seen in the flesh.  All reddish brown hair and big jade-over-amber eyes, sensuous lips in a neatly barbered beard, and a body built for sin.

"What're you doing here?  I thought you drew the short straw for Christmas," he says.

"I did.  I don't have high-speed at my apartment, so I asked if I could come in and use my work computer to talk to my family back in Michigan."  You scootch to the side a little so he can see the screen.  You introduce your family as he takes off his uniform hat like a gentleman, "This is Beau Arlen.  He's one of the deputies here."

Thank God for your mom's faultless sense of etiquette.  She greets him warmly with best wishes for the holiday.  "Taxpayers working you hard Deputy?"

"Something like that," he says.

“Shit-- sorry sir,” Daniel says, “Uncle Jake needs help out back.  Catch ya later!” and signs off.

"I should--" Deputy Arlen says.

"Of course of course," you stutter, waving him away.  "Happy Thanksgiving!"

"Happy Thanksgiving," he replies and heads for the offices up-front.

Your sister cusses.  "You didn't tell me he was fucking hot!"

"Yes I did," you hiss in a whisper.  Small town, everybody's got ears like satellite dishes.  "He is also married."  At least he wears a ring.  You've never heard anyone mention a wife.  Widower?  Divorcée?  You have no idea and you haven't been working here long enough to get plugged into the gossip mill.  God knows if you had any claim to those six-odd feet of divine manufacture you'd never let them out of your sight.

"Of course he is," your mother sighs.  "C'est la vie."

"Yeah."  In the background somebody calls your sister's name.  "I gotta go.  We're sitting down to dinner."

"Love you kiddo," you tell your sister and she signs off with a smile.  Your mother hangs on the line a little longer, mostly the two of you exchanging bitches about traffic and the weather.  Then your aunt arrives and your mother signs off, leaving you in the dark back office alone and facing a long stretch of holiday to kill.  And you can tell, today the time's gonna die hard.  All by yourself, and with none of the comforting touchstones of the familiar around you.  You'd get drunk and have a good cry but you're out of booze.

"Hey."

You damn near jump out of your skin.  God damn, the man can be quiet when he wants to be.  "Jesus Deputy, don't sneak up on me like that!"

"I'm sorry, I thought you heard me."  A mild Texas accent makes his words soft and round.  He smiles a little, ducks his head.  Is he nervous?  Nah, can't be.  Man's got brains, bravery, and beauty crammed into a set of uniform khakis.  He's got no reason to be nervous about anything, ever.  "I was just wondering if you had a ride home, is all."

"It's okay, it's only a few blocks and it's not that cold out."  You were even robbed of a nice day to go walking in; it's been overcast and chilly, threatening autumn drizzle.

"It's no trouble.  I don't have anywhere I have to be today."

That's a surprise.  "What?  Why are you even here come to think of it?  It's Thanksgiving."

"My parents are somewhere in the Gulf on the Princess Katrina and my sister's spending the day with her in-laws in Montana."

"Shit I'm sorry, Deputy--" you say.

"Beau.  I'm off-duty-- my name's Beau," he corrects you.  "It's not a big deal.  We all get together for Christmas at my grandparents' place."

"Sounds like my folks," you say.  "For the longest time my aunt'n'uncle were the only ones who had a house big enough to host everybody, so that's where we all gathered for the holidays."  Deputy-- Beau pulls up a chair and the two of you exchange stories about holiday gatherings.  You giggle when he tells you about his twin cousins climbing on the roof playing Truth Or Dare and by some miracle coming down without a scratch.  His chuckle when you make a schluping noise describing the way your cousin eats the mashed potatoes makes you all puddly inside.  God even his laugh is sexy.

"Well," he says, slapping his legs and standing.  You check your watch and to your surprise it's well into the afternoon.  "I'm so hungry I could eat a dead shark without stopping to skin him first.  You hungry?"

"Starving, actually," you admit.

Beau clears his throat.  "I got a couple of good ribeyes at home.  We could have dinner, watch the game."

"Oh no, I couldn't," you protest, a lifetime of never assuming you're wanted because you're probably not driving your words.

"Why not?" he asks.  "Wouldn't be right, letting a lady spend Thanksgiving alone."

"I mean--" you force the words out, "don't you have to clear it with your wife?"

"My what?"  He glances down at the gold band on his left hand.  "Oh that.  We've been divorced for years.  She left for the West Coast as soon as the papers were signed."  He holds out his hand.  "Come on.  You're gonna make me spend the whole day by myself?  It won't feel right, cooking up steak for just me, and all I got besides is leftovers.  You'll be doing me a favor."

---

When you get to Beau's place, you do a quick inventory of his kitchen and throw together a cobbler from frozen blueberries, as he excuses himself to change out of his uniform and into some jeans and a dark green workshirt with shiny copper buttons.  The color brings out the red in his hair and the green in his eyes and makes him almost too beautiful to fucking look at.  The steaks are wonderful, cooked perfectly and served with baked potatoes and a side salad.  He pretty much inhales the cobbler, mumbling compliments the whole time.  It's the best Thanksgiving you've had in years, honestly.

Stuffed full, you lounge on the couch watching the Thanksgiving day game.  Cowboys versus Lions.  "The overrated versus the damnéd," you say.

"Hey," Beau chides you, handing you a beer.  "Them's fightin words round here ma’am."

"I am obliged by sport law to root for the Detroit fucking Lions.  Honey you don't know what pain is," you growl.

"Yet there you are repping the Mavericks," he points at your Number 77 T-shirt.

"Basketball wasn't a declared loyalty before I moved to Texas," you counter.  Beau cocks an eyebrow at you.  "Besides I have a crush on Doncic," you admit.  "He's cute."  There it is again, that laugh.  Beau really needs to dial back the harmless flirting, your libido’s taking it the wrong way.  Like sit on your lap and suck out your fillings, like go to your bedroom and audition as your mattress, like tie me up and make me beg-- that wrong way.  "You play ball in school?"

"Yeah," he says, "baseball and football."  He shrugs.  "It's expected."  As he relaxes, his accent thickens.  The words melt over you, like butter.  "Was baseball a dee-clared loyalty?"

"Yep," you say, finishing your bottle.  "Ti-GRRS!"  Like a considerate host, Beau gets up and fetches more beers.  This time though, he doesn't sit in the recliner.  He sits with you on the couch.  At the other end of it, leaves plenty of space between you . . . but there.  With you.

Two more beers and an epic Cowboys collapse later you are definitely feeling no pain.  "That's my cat Peggy, rest in peace," you say, pointing to the tuxedo point Maine Coon tattooed on your bicep.  Beau's sitting on the coffee table, his knee touching your knee.  He's so close, you can feel his heat and smell his cologne.  It's all making you feel a bit giddy, over and above the buzz from the beer.  You're gonna be having some very warm and wet dreams about this man tonight.  Thank God you've got fresh batteries in Mr. Shakes.

Beau unbuttons the cuff of his shirt and rolls up his sleeve to show a fleur-de-lis design on his forearm.  "It's medieval," he says.

"I know," you say, taking his wrist in one hand and touching the tattoo with the other.  "The petals stand for purity, chastity, and virtue.  The anchor is for strength and the crown is for courage."

"Exactly right," he says, smiling.

"Beautiful color work," you note, taking a closer look at the delicate shades of gold and gray.  Beau's skin makes a good canvas, pale under a fading workman's suntan.  "Appropriate design for a cop."

Beau's smile's faded a little, shifted into something . . . else.  He tucks a strand of your hair behind your ear, revealing a glyph inked on your neck in deep blue.  "This here?"

"It's the Chinese character for water.  I'm an Aquarius.  Feels weird," you say, "not having a bigass lake somewhere nearby."  You're rambling, like you do when you get tipsy.  "There's a limit to how lost you can get-- go east or west in Michigan, eventually you'll trip over a lake.  There's nothing like that in Texas.  You can go a thousand miles in any direction and it's still Texas."

"Not quite so far," Beau rebuts.

"You know what I mean.  Everything's so . . . out in the open."

Beau thinks a moment.  "I think I see what you mean.  I lived in Maine some years ago.  Bangor was beautiful but it felt . . . I dunno, claustrophobic?  If Texas feels weird to you why do you stay?  You're not homesick?"

"Of course I'm homesick.  I love Michigan and I miss it, but the job market really sucks and I really hate snow.  I feel betrayed," you say, waving at the window as raindrops run down the glass, "I was told it never got cold in Texas."

"They did lie, whoever told you that," Beau confirms with a smile.  "Still, Texas does have its good points.  Best barbecue, prettiest skies.  Friendliest people."

"I'll grant you those," you say.  You clear your throat, suddenly aware of how little personal space is left between you and him.  And you're aware that he's aware.  His thumb rubs the hollow behind your ear and all your hair stands on end.  His eyes have darkened to the color of Isle Royale greenstone, the same color as the stone in your pendant.  Strong white teeth clench his full lower lip.

You stand up.  "I . . . I'm a terrible guest, I'll help--" empty bottles clink as you gather them up in shaking hands.

"I got it darlin--" Beau says, getting to his feet with a grunt and gathering empty bottles and dirty dishes.

"No it's okay, I'm sorry, I was raised better, promise," you stutter, fleeing to the kitchen with your hands full.  You drop the dead soldiers into the trash.  Okay, you need to remove yourself from the scene before you do something dumb and embarrassing and biohazardous and potentially litigation-worthy.

Beau’s asking for you, and his voice turns your name into something soft and beautiful.  “Did I say something wrong?  I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No!  No, you didn’t, I’m just-- I have a bad habit of taking things the wrong way.”

“Well let’s talk about that way-- just what’s wrong with it?” he asks.

“You’re just being nice.  I’m the one turning it into something sleazy.”

If this were a comic book, there'd be an Ah-HA! thought bubble over Beau’s head.  He ticks up a finger.  “I should clarify.  I was hoping dinner would count as a first date.”

And a giant flaming question mark would get inked over yours.  “Huh?”

“I mean,” he says, coming in close, “you don’t give a man a chance, do you?  You’re just-- there, with those eyes, and those legs, and that laugh.  I’ve been trying to get up the nerve to ask you out for months but things kept coming up.”

Oh God is he serious?  Offers for rides home even though your apartment’s within walking distance and his shift ends an hour before yours does, raiding the candy dish on your desk every day around lunchtime, complimenting the coffee when you pass out the cups.  That smile first thing in the morning has become a reason to live.

And how did he get so close?

Slowly, giving you time to cry foul, Beau cups your jaw.  “I mean,” his throat works as he clears it, “I can take you home if you want.  That’d be the proper thing to do, iffn I was bein a gentleman.”

And you make a decision.  “Yeah it would,” you say, standing up straight and into his personal space.  In your sock feet you barely top his collarbone.  “If I were a lady,” you say peering almost straight up into his ex-fucking-squisite face, “I’d be thanking you for a lovely time and going home to a hot bubble bath and a Harlequin romance.”

“If I was a gentleman,” Beau says, lifting your glasses off your face and setting them carefully on the kitchen counter, “I’d be taking a shower and getting ready for bed.  I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about you though.”

“I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about you either,” you tell him, blinking your eyes back into focus.  You’re nearsighted, it makes Beau stand out like he’s the only thing that exists in three dimensions.  “I mean, you cooked for me-- how hot is that?  I’d be very ladylike though.  Drying off, moisturizing.  I wouldn’t get into my regular jammies though.”  Beau’s smile’s turning salacious and he’s stroking down your back, firm and possessive and not gentlemanly at all.  “I’d be thinking about you, and I’d wanna feel pretty.  So I’d get out my silk nightie.”

With a sigh that’s just this side of a groan, Beau says, “I’d get into bed and try to go to sleep.  I’d be making plans to ask you out to this barbecue place I know.  But I’d keep thinking about how goddamn sexy you look when you laugh.”

“Me too.  I’d get into bed in my silk nightie-- it’s this periwinkle blue, and it’s so light I can see my fingers through it.”

“I don’t wear anything to bed usually,” Beau tells you and you blush.  “I work out in the morning so I’d really need to go to sleep.  But . . .” his arm goes around your back and pulls your body tight to his.  His knees bend and you shiver when you feel something that is not a cell phone under his zipper.  “Well.  Gentlemen never let on how damn hard a lady’s makin him.”

“A lady’d never ever write a dirty story about you in her journal,” you say.  “Again.”

His eyes spark and his gaze has gone from warm to downright hungry.  “Again?  So you think about me a lot?”

“A lady can’t admit to that,” you tell him, low and soft.  “A gentleman wouldn’t ask.”

“Mmm.  Good thing I’m not a gentleman.”

“Thank God I’m not a lady,” you confirm, putting your arms around his neck and stretching up to kiss him.

Oh hell, the Deputy knows how to kiss.  Soft lips and a broad tongue, his beard a delightfully soft-scratchy counterpoint.  Beau doesn’t just use his face; he treats kissing like a full contact sport, holding you tight and working his whole body against yours.  Makes you very very aware how big he is compared to you, how strong.

“Is this okay darlin?” Beau asks between kisses, his low voice rumbling through you like sliding rocks.

“Very okay,” you pant, squirming to get him closer.  God damn pants.  All of you feels warm and tender.  Even the weight and texture of your clothes is sweet, the pressure of Beau’s hands exquisite.  The thought of that touch on your bare skin makes you shake.

Beau squats and locks his arms around your butt.  “Up.”  You hop and wrap your legs around his waist.  “You want I should take you to bed and do ungentlemanly things with you?”

“Only if I can be really,” you kiss his neck, down where his beard doesn’t cover, “really unladylike.”

“Honey,” he says, carrying you down the hall as easily as anything, “I mean to be downright barbaric.”

“Rude even?” you tease.

“Oh no, never, my mama raised me better,” he teases back, and good Lord that look would melt the panties off a nun.

Beau's bedroom is tidy for a bachelor.  The bed's a big walnut-bedsteaded rig neatly made with a quilt you're pretty sure is handmade.  You giggle as Beau gently lays the two of you down, settling himself with his waist in between your knees and his head tucked under your chin.  "Comfy.  What is this, a pillowtop?"

"Mmm.  My daddy always told me you spend a third of your life in bed and the other two-thirds in your shoes, so they should both be as comfortable as possible," Beau tells you as he pulls off your T-shirt.  You cringe a bit; laundry day was last Saturday and you're wearing your worn-out minimizer bra and rag-bag ready polka-dotted cotton briefs.  It's not like you were planning to go to bed with Deputy Sex-In-A Stetson.  If you had been, you'd've worn the black satin-- the thong that lets your ass hang out and the bra that gives you cleavage for days.

"Goodgod," Beau says, all in one word, “look at what you've been hidin from me.  What else we got under these?"

"Well what've you got under these?" you ask, working the buttons on Beau's shirt.  You shuck him out of a white cotton T-shirt and gulp at the sight of a body that's mostly ropy muscle covered in soft skin, hair sprinkled across the chest and trailing down his stomach.  You slide your hand over the front of his jeans and goodness gracious that’s a handful.  You feel a thrill of nerves-- it’s been a while and Beau’s a big guy.  “Stupid uniform,” you say.  “Covering up all this.”

Beau chuckles, deep and dark.  Big, clever fingers work the button on your jeans and pull them off.  Light as feathers, they trail back up your legs.  Thank all the Heavenly blessings you shaved a couple nights ago.  “Pretty girl all soft and warm,” he says to himself.

“You said something about barbaric things?” you ask, your voice shaking.

“I did say.”  Beau reaches behind you and works the clasp of your bra.  “But politely.  May I,” he kisses you, trails lips and beard down your neck, “please,” curls a warm tongue around your nipple, “pretty please,” you squeak at the feel of rough whiskers and rough fingers and pulling at your tits, just strong enough to take your breath away, “take these panties off and eat you out until you beg for mercy?”

“Oh!  Um . . . you don’t have to--” Beau scoots down the bed to give himself room and slips your undies off, “I, um, you don’t-- I’m plenty turned on, believe me.”

“I’ll be the judge of that darlin,” Beau says, putting one big hand low on your belly and massaging.  It feels good, way deep down there.  You’re self-aware enough to know you’re not nearly as worldly as you pretend, and you’ve never . . . your last boyfriend seemed grossed-out by the idea so you didn’t--

“There we go,” Beau says to himself, staring down at your pussy like Christmas came early.  “All pink and purty-like.”

You damn near swallow your own tongue as Beau pins you to the bed and sucks your pulsing clit into his mouth.  Electric shocks leap through your body and you cry out, “Fuck!” as he sets your legs in the bend of his arms, crosses his hands over your tummy, and fastens you to his face.

“Patience darlin we’ll get there,” Beau mumbles into you, the baritone rumble against your softest parts a sensation all its own.  “We’ll get there,” he repeats, before doing something with his beard that lights you up like a fucking Christmas tree.  You slide your fingers into his hair, all soft and fine.  Beau’s eyes roll up to meet yours and the cocky bastard tips you a wink.

Your body arcs and your legs almost cramp as you try to close them but Beau’s right there, his head wedged firm against you and his whole face engaged in making you insane.  You slap your hands over your mouth to keep from embarrassing yourself.  Jesus God you hope this apartment’s got good soundproofing.  “Easy there grasshopper,” Beau laughs as you practically bounce off the bed.  “Easy.”

Beau’s hands go up from your stomach to your tits.  Desperate for an anchorpoint as he keeps doing things you didn’t think were possible in the real world, you grip his fingers as they squeeze.  Oh, mistake.  Now you can hear yourself, all shrill and pleading and nowhere near ladylike.  “Oh my God, don’t stop, please don’t stop, please don’t stop doing that--” you plead.  The world’s falling away, like it does sometimes when it’s good.

“You’re gonna come?  Not yet you’re not,” he growls.  Fucking growls.

“Okay!” you laugh as he unwinds your legs from his head.  Ache, that’s what you are, from the breastbone to your knees, denied need digging into you with barbed claws.  “Okay, mercy!  This is me, begging.”

“I can see that,” Beau laughs, kissing up to your mouth with the smell of you thick in his beard.  Your hands are shaking, but they’re steady enough to work Beau’s jeans open.  Every cell in your body needs him.  Inside you.  Now.  Right fucking now.

Then his pants hit the floor and, “Whoof.”

“Oh, hold on a minute,” Beau says, rolling and stretching to get at a box on the nightstand.  You can’t take your eyes off his very, very, very . . . well.  Thick, curved a little bit, iron-hard, fucking throbbing as it stands bold as love out of a tangle of wiry hair.  Your mouth waters at the thought of getting to know it and know it well but the owner clearly has other plans.  Smooth as Copperfield doing card tricks Beau takes care of protection.

You throat opens on a gasp as Beau grabs you and rolls you underneath him.  Good Lord, he’s big.  Heavy over you and thick inside you and hot everywhere.

“Shit baby,” he groans, “that’s tight.  You want more?  I got more.”

“You got more?  Gimme more.  God Beau, please, gimme more,” you beg, and if you were joking around before you’re not now, you need to come on this cock.

“Well I dunno darlin.”

No.

“I mean, givin you what you want.”

Oh hell no.

“That’s . . . kinda gentleman-like, hmm?”

He wouldn’t.

“Please fuck me.  Please.  Please.”  You squirm under him, trying to get him closer.  Make him move.  Make him fuck you like a barbarian.  But God damn him, he won’t move.  Just . . . stays put, tension turning all his muscles to stone.

“Oh hey now,” he says as you start to cry.  You can’t help it, the ache’s becoming unbearable, the denial too heavy, it’s all too damn much.  “Don’t be carryin on like that sweetheart.”  Beau kisses you, and there’s an edge to his smile that makes your inner switch flop over and show belly.

“Please sir,” you say as clearly as you can, hiccuping back tears.  Beau’s eyes spark, dark and dangerous.  The wide head of him lodged between your inner petals . . . it twitches.  “Please give me your big cock.”

He does.  Oh God he does.

Thick and heavy and so fucking deep.  You’re so wet and ready the stretch and burn feels good.  Something deep in your guts goes pop! and you shrill out a noise you might get embarrassed about later.  You throw your hands up desperately seeking something to hang onto as Beau rocks into you all hot and thick.  But there’s nothing to grab, the bedstead’s solid wood.  Beau grabs your wrists in one hand and you clutch.  There’s nowhere that isn’t Beau; sight and sound and sensation, inside and outside. 

Beau’s panting, pleasure twisting up his face.  “You gonna come for me darlin?  Come all over my cock like a good girl?”

“Yes,” you pant right back, barely able to put words together but doing it anyway because he expects to be listened to and answered and you’re a good girl.  Good girls get to fly.  “Gonna come for you, God I’m so close, gonna fucking come for you.”  Jesus, he’s fucking you so good it’s damn near an out-of-body experience.  The earth is falling away, you’re fucking flying, higher and faster than you’ve ever felt.

Escape velocity reached and you gulp air around screams as you come so hard you turn inside out.  Beau buries himself in you to the balls and just holds still, moaning as he feels every clench and pulse and wave.  His arms go around your back and pull you tight to him so he can feel as much of your pleasure as he can.  “Good girl,” he tells you as you slump to the sheets, a mess of goo clinging to a jellied skeleton.  “Put your hands up by your head.”

Weakly you obey, and Beau weaves his fingers with yours, holding you down.  He’s keeping control and you are so okay with that, you’re out in space floating weightless and free.  Except here in Beau’s bed he’s fucking you so hard he’s damn close to breaking the bed and to your shock you feel the fire building again.  “Please,” you beg and you don’t even know what you’re begging for, it’s just important that you beg.

“Come for me again pretty girl, you can do it, we can do it together, come for me, come on and come for me sweetheart, God I’m so damn close . . . so close--" his voice spikes up in pitch and your bodies arch together.  Your cunt clamps down and squeezes as his cock kicks and jerks.

Groaning, Beau slumps on top of you.  He’s squashing you and you don’t care, the squash makes you grounded again, puts you gently back on planet Earth.  He’s still holding your wrists and that’s good too, you’re so . . . blown apart, it’s going to take a minute to pull back together, Beau’s grip is keeping you from drifting away.  A snatch of the song drifts across your awareness and you pant out a laugh.

“What?” Beau slurs.

“You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant -- excepting Alice --" Beau starts laughing, and joins you on the next line.  His singing voice is surprisingly sweet, “You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.  Walk right in, it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad tracks . . .”

---

Later, you cuddle up close, nestled under Beau’s arm and feeling warm and absolutely blissed out.  “That was . . .” you grope for a word that fits, not easy when you’re recovering from the sex of a lifetime, “nice.”

Beau looks down at you, as he plays a fingertip down your arm.  “’Nice,’ sweepea?”

“Sweepy?” you lisp, confused.

“Sweet.  Pea,” Beau enunciates.    “And don’t change the subject.  ‘Nice’?  I mean, speakin personally-- the sky caved in.”  You catch the corners of his lips jittering and burst into giggles.  “Thunderbolts’n’lighting.”

“Very very frighten-ning!” you sing the next line.

“Oh if you’re gonna mock me you can get the hell outta my bed, you minx--"

“No, no no no no!” you cry out through your giggles as Beau push-tickles you across the sheets.

“The earth moved,” he switches from shoving to pulling, “the angels wept, the demons down in Hell gave us a standing ovation,” as he speaks, Beau wrestles you closer and pins you more securely to the rumpled sheets, “I think I might’ve glimpsed the face of God the Father Almighty--”

“What’d He look like?” you ask, curious.

“Ever seen Holy Grail?  Anyway, all that, and the best you can do is nice?”

You think a minute.  “Really nice?”

Beau glares down at you.  “I’ll get you for that.”

“Yes please,” you say, sliding your hands into his hair and pulling him down for a kiss.

As you spread your legs to cradle his body properly, a muscle twinges and you hiss in pain.  In an instant Beau’s off you.  He looks you over and sees bruises starting to set on your arms and between your thighs.  “Jesus Christ-- did I hurt you?  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine Beau, it’s just been a while.  And believe me, I’m not flattering you at all when I say you lack in neither equipment nor technique.”

Beau doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just strokes your belly with that catcher’s mitt of a hand.  “You called me sir.”

“You called me a good girl.  I think we’re even.”

“Not what I meant.  I mean-- that’s not the kind of rough you do first time you go to bed with someone.  Not without talking about it first.”

You cover his hand with yours.  “Dude.  You just gave me the absolute best fuck of my life.  Don’t ruin the moment.  Besides . . .” you hesitate.

Oh well.  God hates a coward.

“This doesn’t have to be a one-off, you know.  I mean, yeah, it was nice--”

“Really nice,” Beau interjects.

“Really nice gives us a good baseline.  I’m sure with some dedicated practice we could work our way up.”

Beau’s expression’s unreadable.  His hand on your belly turns and his fingers close over yours.  “Wouldn’t blame you if you left right now and never looked at me again.”

“Hey,” you tell him, “look at me a sec.”  When you have his undivided attention, you say, “We got mutually a little carried away but nothing happened I wasn’t on board with.  You?”

“You can be assured ma’am I was an enthusiastic participant in all activities.”  Beau’s smile is as much wry as cheerful and with that he slips under your skin.

“Okay.  So . . .” you think a minute, “how about we get a nap, have a mature conversation about boundaries, and get to work topping Nice.”

---

Several hours later your throat burns around shrieks.  Beau’s broad body pins you to the shower tile and his broad cock pulls against every fucking nerve you got.  Beau’s got his hand buried in your hair, holding your head fast as he kisses you, deep and frantic.

Swearing, Beau lets go of your hair and slaps the wall by your head, coming with a gasp.  Without missing a beat he pulls out and drops to his knees.  Two fingers slick up into you, a hot mouth lands on your clit, and you cry out as you come.

You slide down to the shower floor as Beau gets rid of the condom.  Panting, he slumps next to you.  “Well?”

You think.  “Super-duper nice?”

---

[avintagekiss24]

one cup sugar, one cup spice | a. barber

→ pairing: andy barber x black!reader

→ word count: 7074

→ warnings: age gap, corruption kink, innocent reader, daddy kink, pain kink, smut, sex, loss of virginity, vaginal fingering, hand job (male receiving)

→ author note: happy holidays my dudes! what i would do to have andy barber standing in my kitchen... anyway, reader is i n n o c e n t, but totally of age, and in college. as always, line breaks by @firefly-graphics​, gif by @evansensations​

There’s a light dust of white covering the green lawns and black asphalt of the street. You shiver as you follow your parents out towards their car, pulling your beanie down over your ears before you shove your hands into your navy blue Dartmouth hoodie.

“Honey,” your mom coos, turning back towards you as your dad loads the car, “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? Your aunt has plenty of room.”

“I’m positive,” you laugh, “Aunt Sohpie and I don’t get along that great anyway.”

“Well, you could try a little harder.”

Your mouth drops open, eyes wide as you stare at her, “She called me a stuck up, yuppie bitch when I told her I wasn’t going to stop using deodorant.”

Your dad chuckles, prompting a swift slap to the shoulder from your mother before she turns back towards you, “Sophie is a free spirit. She doesn’t believe in putting chemicals in or on her body. One week of trying to get along won’t hurt you.”

“Oh, it’ll hurt,” you answer, pulling her into a hug, “Smelling her B.O. for a week would actually kill me.”

Your mother tuts, pulling back and slumping her shoulders a little as she squeezes your sides gently, “I don’t want to leave you here alone for Christmas.”

“Oh, stop badgering the girl. She’ll be fine,” your dad cuts in, kissing your forehead when he approaches, “She had a tough semester, she’s allowed some alone time. Be good, baby. I left a credit card on my desk for any emergencies.”

You smile warmly, “Thanks daddy.”

There’s a sound of a door opening, then closing, heavy footsteps against the old wood of the porch next door, “Oh, Andy,” your mom calls towards the neighbor, “You got a minute?”

Your face scrunches as you glance over at your father, who sighs heavy, “Don’t get mad, baby.”

“Why would I get mad?”

“She kinda, you know,” he shrugs, knocking his head back and forth, “Asked the neighbor to look in on you while we’re gone,” when your face drops, he throws up his hands, “I didn’t do it, she did.”

“Mom!” You hiss, flipping your eyes to the tall, dark haired man cutting across his front lawn, “I don’t need a babysitter! I’m twenty years old!”

“Hush,” she whispers, plastering a smile on her face as she wraps her arm around your waist, “Sorry to bother you, Andy.”

“Oh, no, no, no. It’s okay, I was just checking the mail.”

You’re angry and embarrassed as the tall, older man approaches, but a sudden heat blooms across your chilled brown skin. Pushing your glasses up your nose, you take a heavy breath, expelling it hard as you eye him. You’ve only really seen him in passing, throwing your hand up in a friendly wave as you jogged into your childhood home during a long weekend away from school. You only vaguely remember him moving in about a year or two before. Hell, you don’t even think the two of you have uttered anything more than just a neighborly ‘hey’, and now, thanks to your mother, he’s going to be keeping an eye on you.

Just wonderful.

She smiles proudly, “You remember our daughter, right?”

“I do,” he smiles slowly, an intense pair of blue-green eyes bouncing between yours, “We’ve run into each other a few times over the years. How you doin’ kiddo?”

He reaches out, extending a large palm and long fingers. You take it gently, smiling soft as you drop your eyes from his, nerves suddenly pooling in your stomach, “Um, good. Thanks for asking. How um,” you swallow, glancing back up at him, finding his eyes still centered on you, “How are you?”

He shrugs, but keeps your much smaller hand in his, “Can’t complain.”

“Listen, honey,” your mom starts, “I asked Mr. Barber to pop over and check on you every now and again while we’re gone.”

“Mother,” fake laughter filling the air, your face hot from being annoyed to all hell, “I’m not a child, and I’m sure Mr. Barber has better things to do with his time than to check on me constantly.”

“It’s no problem,” he shrugs again, those eyes of his now roaming, down your body, then up again, slowly, “I have the next couple of weeks off myself.”

“Congrats on the promotion, by the way.” Your father smiles, finally drawing Andy’s attention away from you. He nudges your side with his elbow, “Andy’s the new District Attorney.”

You keep your eyes on the tall Andy, sliding them the length of his body. He’s sturdy. Broad shoulders not so hidden underneath his zip up hoodie, clinging to thick biceps. Dark jeans accentuate long legs and a little waist. A perfect, full beard lines his strong jaw and chin. Two enormous hands are shoved into the pockets of his pants, so large that they don’t even fit right… You inhale deep, drawing your bottom lip into your mouth, sinking your teeth into the flesh as a tiny moan slips through.

Blue eyes snap to you again as it sounds. God. Your lips part, eyes widen as they stare back at him in embarrassment. He just smiles again, slow and seemingly knowing; his eyes falling down your frame again.

“We better go if we’re gonna miss traffic, hun.” Your dad’s voice suddenly breaks into your conscience, snapping you out of the small trance that Andy Barber has leveled over you, “Andy, thanks for watching over our baby while we’re gone.”

Andy winks at you, “I won’t hover, I promise. If you need anything, at any time, I’m right next door, okay? Better yet, let me give you my number.”

You nod quick, clearing your throat as you fumble around with your phone, pulling it out of your hoodie and handing it over to him, “Sure, yeah. Th-thank you, Mr. Barber.”

“Andy,” he corrects, reaching out and cupping your elbow gently, “Please.”

Another warmth spreads through you, emanating from the contact, making you giggle and smile nervously like a stupid girl before you get a hold of yourself and blink away. You all exchange another round of pleasantries, Andy wishing your parents a safe trip before he locks eyes with you again— biting his lip as he blinks and hands your phone back before turning away and heading towards his mailbox.

Almost frozen in place, you blink as you watch him move across his grass, forcefully swallowing. You really need to get out more.

One last hug from your mom and dad and you wave as they pull out of the driveway, your mom waving excitedly at you through the windshield. Rolling your eyes, but smiling wide, you return a wave before heading back inside, locking the door behind you before making a brisk b-line to the front door.

Andy’s still outside, pushing the green trash cans up against his garage as you peek out at him from behind the thin, white, door curtains. He throws open one of the lids before dipping his head, eyeing the mail in his hand as he flips through it slowly, tossing the junk into the open can. A pink blush piques on his cheeks and the tip of his nose, lips red with the chill. He looks up suddenly— out of nowhere— and cocks his head, letting another smile curl onto his lips when the two of you make eye contact again.

You gasp and jump back, instantly turning on your heel to run up the stairs towards your bedroom, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The smell of fresh baked cookies fills the house as you pull a pan from the oven. You hum in satisfaction, a small smile on your face as you scoop the sugar cookies onto the cooling rack before pulling your mom’s Santa Claus mittens off your hands and tossing them to the counter. Last Christmas by Wham plays from the small bluetooth speaker in the corner of the kitchen, A Charlie Brown Christmas on mute playing from the ipad leaning against the utensil holder.

There’s a random crackling from the fire you started in the living room as you move around, a whir from the mixer as it beats the eggs, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and corn syrup together. You dip your finger into the mixture, popping it into your mouth and groaning as the sweetness explodes on your tongue before you pull the beaters out, slipping your finger down the stainless steel to collect the icing still stuck to them.

A knock sounds from the front door, permeating through the rather quiet house. You lean to the side, blinking at the door as a shadow shifts through the windows on either side. Shoving the icing laden finger into your mouth, you jog towards the door, bare feet heavy against the wood floor.

“One second, one second,” you mumble, wiping your hands on your pale pink cotton shorts before you tug at your hoodie and unlock the door. A sharp inhale of cold air fills your chest when you pull open the door to find one Andy fucking Barber standing on the opposite side, “Oh,” is all you can manage.

“Hey,” he smiles, “It’s been a few days, just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Being a biomedical engineering student, you can rattle off some of the most difficult, obscure words known to man with exactly zero problems. When it comes to social interaction with the hot, forty-something, lawyer next door? Your tongue is heavy, your brain… dumb.

His smile widens as you blink like a moron, his eyebrows climbing up his forehead as he waits for you to talk. Here’s the part where you speak, dumbass! “Um,” you stutter, “Sorry, I, uh, yeah, I’m okay. I’m good, sorry.”

“Smells good in here.”

Nodding, you bite your lip, your eyes everywhere but on his face— his stare just too much, “I’m making cookies.” you glance over your shoulder before you point, “Do you want to make some? I mean,” you slam your eyes closed, “Do you want to try some? Not, some, one, do you— do you want to try one? Or some… I guess… whatever.”

Idiot. You’re a bumbling, stumbling, idiot.

He chuckles, the rumble low and deep as he runs one of those big ass hands through his dark, soft looking hair, “That is the best offer I’ve had all day.”

He steps over the threshold, his fingers brushing over yours as he reaches to close the door. You snatch your hand from it quickly, wringing it within the other as you turn awkwardly and move towards the kitchen, swallowing hard, suddenly hyper aware of how bare your legs are.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Andy starts from behind you, “I’m surprised to find you here and not out with some friends.”

You move behind the marble topped island in the center of the kitchen as Andy walks around the opposite side. His eyes are on you again, staring as you fumble with the spatula, your fingers going as dumb as your brain, dropping it with a loud clang. You don’t even know why— okay, you know why, but this is something deeper, something you haven’t experienced before.

“Oh,” you shrug, “No, I uh, I just kinda like to stay around the house.”

He nods slowly, “A homebody, huh? Me too.”

He makes you dizzy; his masculinity is intimidating. It fills up every little space in the room. His intelligence— worldly, experienced—  oozes from him. He looks like you could ask him anything, anything, and he’d have the right answer for you. He could teach you a thing or two, that’s for sure.

A shudder creeps through your body, heat blooming across your skin, having to shift on your feet as your stomach flutters while you focus on icing this stupid cookie. The physical space he takes up unnerves you too. That wide, towering frame looming over you. Deft, thick fingers tapping gently against the countertop as you stumble around, your hands shaky.

There’s a stickiness. A warm, little wet spot in the center of your panties as stupid thoughts run through your stupid brain. You’re being ridiculous. Like this grown man would be interested in an inexperienced, socially awkward, in bed by eight thirty, little girl. Get a grip.

You slather some icing over the warm cookie and cautiously hand it towards him, clearing your throat and forcing a smile. Wringing your hands again, you find a little courage to lift your eyes just as he pops the small cookie into his mouth, closing his eyes as he chews slowly, a grunt sounding from deep in his throat.

Every muscle in your body clenches at the sound. It’s gorgeous— and if there’s anything your body appreciates, it’s a gorgeous man with a gorgeous grunt.

“It’s okay?” You squeak, timid and small before you nervously clear your throat.

“Shit, girl,” he moans again, licking his lips as he extends his hand again, “I could eat every single one of these.”

Nervous fingers clutch another cookie, adding a dollop of icing before you hand it over to him, eyes drifting up his chest and to his face as he devours the second treat. Your curious eyes watch with a longing. Pretty, thick, dark eyelashes closing again, splashing across smooth, slightly reddened cheeks. A pink tongue darts out of a wet mouth to slip along an inviting— too inviting— bottom lip, and you zero in on it. Chest rising and falling a little harder as you blink, in your own little world as you imagine just how much experience those lips, that tongue has.

There’s a hint of blue suddenly, his eyes no longer closed, now set squarely on you as those sickenly perfect white teeth emerge with another sly smile.

Another wave of embarrassment pushes through your veins, but you can’t look away from him this time. Locked in a heated stare, mind racing, palms sweaty as you watch Andy dip his index finger into the bowl of icing, scooping the sugary mix onto the pad of his digit.

“You like watching me, huh?”

Your mouth parts to answer, but nothing comes out, mouth and throat suddenly dry. He laughs at you, standing there, dumb and nervous, unable to form a coherent sentence as he pushes the tip of his finger into his mouth, sucking the icing from it slowly.

He’s moving, that much your brain can comprehend. Moving around the island, sliding the bowl of icing right to the edge where he dips his finger again, curling it to collect another glob.

Shallow, shaky breaths escape the small part in your lips, your chest and stomach so tight you’re surprised you can breathe at all. As it is, you have to rest your palm against the marble island, just to keep from falling over.

A long arm slips around your waist, nudging you forward— closer— so close that when one of those shallow, little breaths pushes out, your chest, well, your tits, brush against his. You picked a fine day to go without a bra. He drops his free hand to your waist, pushing it underneath your oversized hoodie to feel your skin as he wraps those long fingers around your hip, giving it a squeeze before he cups your chin.

“You have a boyfriend back at that fancy ass school?” He asks, eyes hooded as he tilts your head upward.

A hum vibrates through your chest before there’s a quick shake of your head as he pushes the icing over your bottom lip, smearing the sugary mix along it. He keeps your chin anchored in his hand as he stares down at you through slits, his own mouth dropping open as he coaxes yours.

“No, a smart girl like you doesn’t have time for boys, does she?” He purrs, “You probably haven’t even been touched by a boy.”

A squeak chokes in your throat as he teases you, pushing that finger back and forth, the tip pushing ever so gently into your mouth. He chuckles again, real low, menacing almost as he knows he has you right where he wants you.

“Ya know,” he starts, thumbs stroking your chin and jaw, “This Christmas cookie frosting would taste a hundred times better on you than my finger.” He smiles again, tilting his head, “Can I see?”

You mewl, pitiful and small as emotion pools in your eyes. You’re overwhelmed— nervous and unsure, wanting to be perfect. Womanly— but surely falling flat.

“Oh, baby,” he laughs, sweeping his thumbs underneath your eyes to catch the hot streaks, “Awww, it’s okay.”

Andy pushes in close, his lips brushing yours as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of yours, a low sound thrumming in his throat. He presses his cheek against your face, the soft hair of his beard pushing along your skin, goosebumps popping up all over. Your bodies start to sway in a slow rhythm, side to side, his warm breath washing over you as he smiles.

He pulls away, eyes traveling your face, “You haven’t even been kissed before?” When you don’t answer, he closes his eyes, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, “No? Oh, my sweet girl. That is just,” he groans, eyes twinkling with an emotion you don’t even understand, “You are so perfect— so good.”

His forehead comes to rest on yours, his hands still corralling your face, fingers sticky. His tongue darts out quick, licking at your lips, dragging up to the tip of your nose. You shudder, bleating as the rough velvet passes over your mouth.

Andy moans again, sucking the icing into his mouth and swallows slow, “Yum.”

You’re jittery— clammy, as labored breaths push out of your mouth, a murky fog clouding your brain. Shaky whirs tremble through your chest as you shift on your feet, your panties sticking to your now throbbing pussy. Andy closes the distance between your mouths again, his eyes hooded as he nips at you.

Your eyes flutter, closing instinctively— waiting for the claim. It doesn’t come, not right away, making your eyes pop open, a childish whine squeaking out. You even stomp your foot a little. Twenty years is a long enough wait.

“Kiss me,” you breathe, not wasting a second, “Please, Andy—”

The words are barely out of your mouth before he grabs your lips, inhaling deep. His tongue fucks into your mouth, slipping along the roof before massaging yours, sucking lightly. You go limp against him, trying to keep up with the fervent kiss, but soon just let him take full control.

Andy pushes his hips into yours, pressing his hard cock against you, forcing you to break the kiss, gasping deep. He rests his forehead on yours again, tittering as he bites his bottom lip, “Never felt that before, huh? Mmmm,” he groans again, “I bet you feel good. So tight and warm— umph, I’m probably not even going to be able to fit my cock all in.”

You shudder at the thought.

He brushes the tip of his nose against yours, “I gotta open you up a bit, don’t I? Hmm? This sweet little cunt needs to get used to being stuffed full.” He turns you in his hands, presses his burly chest into your back, his lips to your ear, “I want you to finish icing these cookies like a good girl, okay? You do as daddy says.”

You don’t move, you can’t really, as you try to comprehend what’s going on. It takes Andy pushing his crotch into your ass, grinding your hips against the island and literally grabbing your wrists, making your hands grab the butter knife and a cookie before your brain catches up. With shaky fingers, you push the knife through the icing and slather it on one of the small, round, golden brown cookies.

“Good girl,” he praises, pecking your cheek, nuzzling into the side of your face, “Daddy wants you to focus.”

He drags his warm palms up your forearms, stroking gently before they fall to your sides. They push up into your hoodie, fingertips glancing across sensitive, untouched skin. Small laughter vibrates through his chest as you jump and gasp, huffing and keening as he explores.

Little kisses are pressed to your temple and side of your face as his hands venture up your sides, curling around your rib cage until he’s grasping your bare tits in both hands, squeezing and kneading— hissing as he grinds his rigidly hard cock into your ass.

You freeze, body going stiff as nimble fingers play with your thick, piqued nipples. Warm lips nip at your neck as you push back into his hips, wiggling slowly, the thin cotton of your shorts not proving to be much of a barrier at all.

Andy reaches around, plucking the cookie out of your hand and pops it into his mouth just as his free hand skips down your stomach— right into your shorts. You jut your hips forward as his fingers plunge through your folds, massaging your clit slowly as he murmurs in your ear.

“That’s what I love about virgins. The slightest little touch gets you all worked up.” He pulls his hand from your shorts, holding it out for you to see your slick coating his fingers— a string connecting from his index finger to the middle. He brings his wet fingers to your lips, steel eyes peering at you as he waits, “Clean ‘em up.”

He slides his free hand back into your sweatshirt, pushing it up over your tits before he tweaks your left nipple, rolling it slow as he pushes the tips of his fingers into your mouth. Sweet, tiny little whines sound from you as you accept his long fingers into your mouth, starting to suck gently, the taste of your arousal exploding on your tongue.

“That’s right, just like that baby.” He reassures, slipping a hand back into your panties.

Your mouth goes slack around his fingers as he toys with you, rubbing your achy clit as your hips start to move with his rhythm. Resting your weight against his sturdy body, you moan loud, pushing out hard breaths, eyes slipping closed, head rolling on his shoulder as his wet fingers slip from your mouth back to your left nipple.

His fingers start to tease your slit, pushing gently, slowly, until… a sharp yelp fills the kitchen as two fingers stuff you full. Andy wraps his arm around your waist, holding you to him, cooing in your ear as he continues to push in, “You’re okay baby. I know, I know sweet girl, we’re almost there. Just a bit more.”

Tears sting your eyes as your face strains from the pressure and pain of being spread for the first time. Once his fingers have disappeared, the heel of his palm pressing against your folds and clit, he pulls your chin towards him and licks at your mouth, sucking air in between his teeth.

“I can’t wait to fuck this sweet pussy,” he kisses you quick and hard, sucking your bottom lip into his mouth before he releases you with a loud smack, “I love a virgin cunt. It’s been a while since I’ve had one.”

You squeak when his fingers start to move, slow, deep, a squelch sounding as his fingers push into your muscles. It hurts, but there’s a twinge of good, something inside of you being pleasured once you push past the pain. The sweet taste of pleasure doesn’t stop the tears from rolling down your cheeks as his fingers pick up a brisk pace.

Andy growls in your ear, the sound scratching at the back of his throat, kind of hollow and breathy as he grinds his cock into your ass, “You havent fucked yourself like this before? I didn’t think I’d hurt you this bad with just my fingers, baby.”

A hot, rough wetness slides along your cheek, his tongue, lapping at you. You grab onto his forearm, feeling his muscles tense and flex as he fingers your innocence, digging your nails into the thick Shetland wool sweater covering his torso. He pushes deep, suddenly, making you cry out again.

He grunts, snaking his hand up into your hoodie to take a firm hold of your tit. Resting his forehead to the back of your head, he quickens his fingers, his hot breath on the back of your neck, quick swipes of his tongue and lips against your hypersensitive skin— making the miniscule hairs on your body stand on end.

His palm presses against your clit with each shove of his fingers. Strapping, hard chest flattened to your back, loud, husky moans in your ear. His hips roll and push, writhe into yours as his fingers start to thrash. Teeth sink into your shoulder, his tongue sliding and sweeping.

“Andy—” you cry, whimpering like a child, “It hurts. I— I can’t,”

“Oh, sweetheart.” His fingers slow and then stop, pulling out of you to rub your clit, soothing the balmy flesh. He turns you around in his arms as you cry, lifting you right from your feet, “I’m sorry. Shh, shh, I’m sorry, baby.”

The instant warmth of his mammoth chest and arms soothe the tumultuous pangs of anxiety coursing through you. Nuzzling in, the softness of his beard helps ease your nerves as you wrap two jelly arms around his neck. Andy’s big hands push up and down your back as he murmurs sweet nothings. Stomach tight, heart fluttering, face hot and wet with tears— you’re properly overwhelmed and overstimulated, and Andy could just eat it all up.

“You are so pretty when you cry, you know that? You did so good, baby. You took my fingers so well.”

You huff, disappointed, pushing your face deeper into his neck, “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, don’t do that,” he whispers, “It’s okay to not be ready.” He sits you back on your feet, pulling and adjusting your sweatshirt back over your chest. He pecks your lips quick before cupping your face in his hands, “It’s gonna make our first time together so much better.”

He pushes in to kiss you again, but stops, just as his lips brush yours. You get up on your tiptoes, wanting to meet his mouth but he’s quick, pulling away and stealing another cookie as he takes a step back.

“Thanks for the cookies, sweetheart.”

And just like that, with a wink and a smile, he’s moving out of the kitchen, the front door slamming behind him.

It might as well be the middle of a Texas summer heatwave in your bedroom. Exasperated, you throw the covers away from your body, skin slick with sweat as you wipe at your forehead. You’ve been like this all day— hot and irritated, stomach and mind jumbled, unable to focus on much of anything but thoughts of depravity. Pissed off at yourself more than anything; that you couldn’t take it all.

You sit up in the dark room, a sliver of moonlight spilling in from behind the thin curtains over your window. Snow flakes float down from the sky, glimmering, basking in the soft, natural light of the moon. Thoughts of Andy return. Reddened, full lips on your face, his soft, velvety, pink tongue forging its own path in the uncharted territory that is your mouth. His hands, big and warm, pinching and grabbing, pushing in deep.

Every muscle in your body clenches; achy cunt squeezing around nothing.

A soft light illuminates from the nightstand, followed by a buzz, a random alert from your twitter. But then, oh but then— Andy’s words come floating back to you. Better yet, let me give you my number. The sleek iphone is in your hand within seconds, fingers sliding over the keyboard, shooting off a text.

You 1:15am

You up?

Andy B. 1:17am

What’s a smart girl like you doing up so late on Christmas Eve?

An influx of air fills your lungs as your heart leaps.

You 1:17am

I can’t sleep…

Andy B. 1:18am

Want me to help with that?

You won’t be getting much sleep tho…

You 1:18am

That’s what I’m hoping…

Andy B. 1:19am

LOL, okay smarty pants, come wait for Santa with me, front door’s open

You’re already halfway down the stairs by the time his invite slides across the screen. You shove your feet into your Ugg boots at the bottom of the staircase and grab your jacket from the coat rack, pushing into it as you throw open the front door. Crossing your arms over your chest, you jog down the steps of the porch and start for Andy’s, an instant chill rattling right down to your bones.

Footprints in the snow follow you as you cross the lawn, a light crunch sounding underneath your feet, adding to the whoosh of a breeze that rips through the sleepy street. Once you’re on Andy’s porch, you reach for the door, pushing through the threshold and closing it softly with a click.

The house is dark, and quiet, a tiny point of light coming from the kitchen and the random ticks of a clock somewhere deep. Your jacket hits the floor, ugg boots thump against the wall as you kick them off, hand slides along the banister as you climb the stairs slow. Wide eyes adjust to the dark as you pad slowly down the long hall, passing by one closed door, and then another until you reach one that’s slightly ajar. Light spills out of it, splashing over your bare toes as you step right up to it, fingertips pushing against the door.

You find Andy propped up against his headboard, chest bare, legs spread— hard, pink cock sticking out of his boxers, gripped tight in his hand. He flips his eyes to yours as he strokes himself slow, pushing his hips into it, groaning at the sight of you.

The air in your body— the room— is sucked right out as you lock eyes. With a blink, your greedy eyes are on the move, down his hair smattered chest and chiseled stomach, over the dark blue boxer briefs, down his meaty thighs and toned calves, right to his curled toes and back up again.

You have to bite your lip to keep quiet.

“I’ve been,” the words out of his mouth come to a halt being replaced by a low grunt as he squeezes his cock, precum dribbling out of his slit, “Shit sweetheart, I’ve been thinking about you all day. Haven’t been able to cum since you left me all worked up.”

You bleat softly, blinking wild and nervous as you watch his hand slide up and down, palm and fingers sweeping over his mushroom head to collect the droplets of his arousal to push it down his shaft.

“Well, come on. Come touch me.”

It’s a good thing your feet aren’t as stupid as your brain, or else you’d still be standing in place. Before you can get your mind to catch up, you're pulling yourself towards the edge of the bed, falling forward, catching yourself with your hands. Crawling between his legs, your tank top hangs low, Andy’s eyes peering down your cleavage before you sit on your knees— hands trembling.

He reaches for you, grabbing your wrist gently, pulling your hand towards his towering cock. Guiding you slow, he wraps your hand around him, his hips jerking soft at the warmth of your palm and pushes your hand down to his base, before dragging it up to the tip. He helps you for a few more strokes, twisting your hand around him, guiding your fingers up over his cock head and then back down, squeezing your hand to apply a gentle pressure.

“That’s right, baby—ah—” he hisses, jutting his hips up into your hand, “Shit.”

You continue to pump him after his hand falls away, relishing in the small noises that sound from him— sending your heart soaring. His hips pulse into your hand, eyes fluttering as more cum bubbles out, slipping and sliding over your fingers. Andy reaches for the lamp on the nightstand, turning it out, covering the room in darkness except for the moon.

He’s beautiful like this. Chest tight and shuddering with each breath, dark eyelashes splayed over fair skin, a chorus of sweet, small little whines and praise pouring from him. A soft pink blush unfurling over his broad chest, creeping up his neck.

“Fuck baby,” breathless and strained, “You’re a fuckin’ pro already. My smart little girl.” You suck your bottom lip into your mouth but still can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners, “Oh, you like that?” Andy smiles lazily, “You like being my smart little girl?”

Hot lips are on yours before you can even form your mouth to answer. Flipped onto your back, strong hips digging into yours, his cock pushing against your covered clit and slit as he kisses you hard. It takes your breath away.

You’d always thought you’d be awkward, stiff and unknowing, once you finally reached this moment— nothing but teeth and elbows and knees in all the wrong places— but, there’s a natural instinct coming into play. You’re lost, but somehow intricately aware. Fingers creep up his biceps and curl around his shoulder blades, digging in as your hips push back into his. Mouth leans into the feverish kisses, tongue sliding with his.

Colossal hands push into your shorts, pushing them down before his feet knock them off the rest of the way. Your top is rucked up, up over your breasts, exposing more brown skin, two soft, jiggling mounds, two piqued nipples soon sucked into a warm, wet mouth. A long middle finger toys with your clit, rubbing circles before more fingers join, slipping through slick and skin as they play.

“Tell me,” hot, whispered words sting in your ear, “Tell me you like being my smart girl.”

Hips dig into yours once more, hard cock pushing against your sensitive nub, then pressing at your opening. You grab the back of his neck, moaning hard and loud as electricity bounces through your veins, “Andy—” you squeak, “I like—”

A sharp cry breaks through the words as Andy pushes hard, spearing you for the very first time. Pressure and pain courses through you, body going tight and stiff as he sinks deeper and deeper, large palms on your cheeks, forehead to yours, warm breaths and ragged, choked grunts washing over your face.

Hard kisses— one, two, three— on your lips as he holds your face, his eyes closed, mouth hanging as he sinks, sinks, sinks until you’ve taken him all. Your head is empty. Devoid of any real, coherent thoughts, unable to focus on any one thing; well, nothing other than the fullness.

“Tell me you like being my smart girl.” Andy rasps, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to keep himself together. He shifts, hips pulling away from yours, cock dragging out, “Come on baby, tell me you like it.”

Andy pushes his hips, pushes back into you, but real gentle and smooth, knowing you’re teetering— overwhelmed in more ways than one, a feeling that can turn south on a dime. So, he keeps his hands on your face, thumbs rubbing soft circles. He opens his eyes, giving you something to focus on as he moves gently— so, so gently. Keeping you present.

“Use those words, sweet girl. Talk to me.”

Water fills your eyes as you grip, nails biting into the meat of his sides as he fucks you slow and sweet. Heat burns through you, tiny sounds, choked sobs scratch at the back of your throat, but it’s good— feels so good. Your legs push up and around his waist, hands start to snake up his sinewy back, feeling the muscles flex and tighten as he makes you a woman— makes you his.

Safe. Warm. Cocooned between his heavy body and the light mattress. Hips rolling, pushing and pulling. Hot breath over hot skin. Quick, jumbled words, thick and ripe with a heady lust. You like being his smart girl. Gripping fingers, around your face, your wrists, your tits, hips, thighs, ankles— everywhere you could possibly imagine.

Andy flips you over suddenly, his back now pressed into the mattress as you lay on top of him. He positions you right where he wants you— sitting you up straight, positioning your hands against his brawny chest. He encases your waist with those massive hands, squeezing tight before the pads of his fingers drag along your thighs as you wiggle, getting used to the new position.

“Push up— that’s right, sweetheart,” he sighs softly as you follow his direction, “Now sit back down— slowly, baby, go slow.” His head falls back on the pillows as he exhales, a groan trembling through his chest, “God, yeah babe. Good girl. Up and down, up and down.”

Your fingers push through the tuft of soft, dark hair covering his chest as you ride him, lifting and sitting, rolling and bucking as you get a hang of it— catch a feel— your clit rubbing against his taut skin. You feel Andy trying to keep his composure, feel him trying to restrain himself, his hips. Watch his eyes flutter and close as his mouth goes slack again as he pushes up into you, meeting your increasingly greedy thrusts downward.

“I’m your smart girl,” you whisper, heart beating hard and fast in your chest as your confidence grows, “I’ve always wanted to be your smart girl.”

He jams up into you, much harder than anything you’ve felt so far.

A sharp yelp cracks into the silence and he grabs your wrists, runs his hands up your arms, before he cups your face, “Shhh, shhh, shhh, I’m sorry baby. I didn’t know it was gonna sound so sweet,” he laughs, “God, I fucking love hearing you say that.”

He drops a hand back to your chest, grabbing a handful of your tit, toying with your nipple, pinching and pulling. His other hand wraps around your hip again, helping to pull you forward, as he thrusts soft. You don’t move; you just let him fuck up into you, grab his hands and thread your fingers with his as you bounce.

Thrusts get faster; hips hurried, jabbing. Wet rasps fill the room, octaves soaring. You fall forward a little, unclasping his hands to catch yourself against his chest. Andy’s hands are back around your waist and hips as you fuck down onto him, chasing that little, dull ache in the pit of your stomach that grows with each push of his hips.

Andy has two full handfuls of your ass, growling loud, hips faltering— losing control as he forces you down on him. You take each hard thrust, tears spilling down your cheeks, pleasure and pain all wrapped up into one. Sweat and heat crawls along your skin, stomach goes tight, throat dries. You dig your fingers into his chest as your toes curl, whimpering and crying out, choking as the pressure builds.

You tighten— freeze quick, gasp hard as a white hot orgasm floods your veins, like a molten lava, oozing, spreading. Flattening yourself to Andy’s chest, you let him wrap his arms around your back and hold you tight as he fucks you through it. The meat of his thighs slapping against yours, your cunt sounding wet and filthy, squelching and convulsing as you come.

There’s another heat, quick and dense, filling you as Andy’s grunts grow deeper. His grip on your ass tightens as he spurts— your used cunt coaxing long, hot ribbons of white silk from his sensitive, red cock head. He falls out of you, dick wet and hard, pushing through your ass cheeks as his hips still churn out of habit and inherent instinct.

Hands are on your head, fingers wiping at your face and forehead, pushing hair away. You’re embarrassed— not sure why— and nuzzle into his neck, hiding your face as you tuck your hands into your chest protectively. Another laugh sounds from him, vibrates through you, as he kisses your forehead and rubs his bearded cheek against your face.

“You’re a sweet girl,” honeyed, his voice, smooth and sweet, slow drags of his hands up and down your back lulling you, calming you, suddenly nervous, “My sweet, smart little baby. You okay?” you nod, but it isn’t good enough, “Tell me.”

“I’m okay.” You sniffle, eyelashes clumped, cheeks wet, lips swollen and red.

You nuzzle into him more, taking a deep breath as you listen to his heartbeat. Another silence fills the room, Andy’s breaths soon turn deep, slow and rhythmic, his hands and fingers coming to a slow stop but still splayed out over your back. A quick press of your lips against his neck makes him shift, but doesn’t wake him. You press another on his chin before you settle down into him once more, watching as snow starts to fall again.

There’s a Christmas present sitting at the edge of the bed when you wake the next morning, your name scrawled out on the name tag. You tear into it, pulling out a small white box, the name LELO embossed over the top. Eyebrows firmly furrowed, you turn it over in your hand, mouth falling open as you read the description and eye the two twenty karat gold Ben Wa beads.

Andy appears in the doorway, a steaming cup in his hand, a smile on his face, “Merry Christmas. Santa came for you, huh?”

“Merry Christmas,” you glance away, “I don’t have anything for you.”

“That’s okay,” he shrugs, “I was a bit presumptuous after our little rendezvous in the kitchen— ordered those from Amazon yesterday.” He pads towards you, leaning down to kiss you quick before he hands you the hot mug, “Are you okay?”

A nervous giggle escapes through your lips, your head falling as you cover your mouth with your hand, “Mmhmm.”

Andy tips your head back upwards, pushing his index finger underneath your chin, smiling again before he kisses you all sweet and soft and slow, making you go all stupid and gooey again.

“What are these for?” You ask after he pulls away a few moments later.

His eyes twinkle in the sunlight as he winks, “Training. Now, lay back and spread your legs for daddy, little one.”

[myelocin]

Postcards From: Kanazawa | Tsukishima Kei

Synopsis: The fear that comes with love is the realization that it isn't always just light. Love, rediscovered as both the fear and the drive that depicts the push and pull of whether it's worth it to say "I do," if the unknown is what's to come beyond the vow. In which it's a week until the wedding, and the both of you return to Kanazawa--to day one--as strangers.

Characters: Tsukishima Kei

Genre/Tags: Engagement!AU, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with Happy Ending | WC: 10,200+

A/N: this is a piece commed by @tsukishumai​ ;w; tq for trusting me w u and ur bb boi ily to the moon n back

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commissions | ko-fi

The illusion of the soul is the false belief that love must always—always—be just light.

The truth is, it’s not. Love is many things. Primarily, love begins from desire. Then, that desire seeps into a drive that pushes you to keep wanting. Then finally, when it’s seeped in through the skin deep enough, love pools in the soul.

Love is bound to be raw at the very core. A desire. To say, “I want you,” and think it holds as much credibility as “I love you.”  To look at what you know is only the tendrils of something at the very most, and trick yourself into thinking that it’s enough. A beating heart—bloody red. The line just barely hanging in-between what’s selfish and selfless, before it ultimately sways and becomes selfish sometimes.

Sometimes, being right now, Tsukishima thinks.  

Sandwiched in-between you to the left, and Yamaguchi to his right, he finds his eyes flickering towards the clock a lot more often than he would have liked. Akaashi, who sat across from his seat on the table, was the first to catch on.  

He quirked a brow, presumably in question earlier, and mouthed the question if he was in a rush. Tsukishima’s never been known for having too many words, but because Akaashi pauses and insists to relieve his question with an answer, he shrugs, waving him off and mouthing back that he’s alright.  

“So,” Bokuto starts, his voice already slipping into somewhat of a slur. “How’s it feel to be the first to pop the question?”

You laugh, finding amusement in the man’s enthusiasm. Turning to Tsukishima, you sit and wait, expectant of a reaction.  

In response, he just shrugs, but a smile breaks through and redefines the nonchalance of his expression anyway. Raising the glass to his lips, he takes a quick sip before answering smugly, “It’s nice to finally settle down. You should try it sometimes.”

Bokuto waves him off, cheeks flushed and eyes already drooping from the inebriation. “Nah,” he slurs, shaking his head. The exaggeration warrants a quick laugh from Sugawara, who sits on the other side, nursing his own drink. Continuing, Bokuto huffs and takes a slight pause before he connects the last of what he says with, “—getting married is nice and all, but I don’t know, man,” he laughs. “Just feels like I’ll end up hitting a fucking blank space after I do or whatever. Not my vibe.”

Visibly, Tsukishima shifts a little, the smile on his face maintained but the lighthearted energy that earlier fueled it just slightly more drained now.  

From the corner of your eye, you notice it. Though, Akaashi’s the one who gives him a pointed stare, to which the former simply ignores.  

“But—“ Bokuto continues, as if trying to remedy the cracked part of the atmosphere that isn’t even visible in the first place—“If that’s your thing, then I’m obviously not going to judge you for that.”

Tsukishima responds by his silence. Bokuto, with his head still warped around the heavy state of his inebriation, doesn’t do so much other than sip a little more of his barely filled glass of beer, Tsukishima’s apathetic expression just a blur in his eyes now.  

“You seem happy, though,” Bokuto notes, then raises his glass towards you.

Blinking at being the sudden subject of his interest, you raise your own glass of water. The ice inside shifts, clinking against the sides of the glass, and slowly, Tsukishima watches. There’s familiarity in the way it moves down: trickling slow like the patience inside him that’s suddenly running by the clock. His palms just barely gripping the utensils, clammy. While his head, still whirs at Bokuto’s halfhearted words.  

It’s halfhearted, he reminds himself.

The thought of hitting a plateau after “I do,” in a way is terrifying.  

But he is happy, right?

The way his palms respond solely through tensing suddenly spikes the fear that maybe his ring will slip. So he looks at you, trying to find an anchor to keep the love he pushes to stay intertwined with his truth afloat as he responds, “Of course I am. I’m happy.”

You look back at him, eye to eye, though you find something waver just for a split second— wondering if there’s credibility in the saying that gold will always deliver truth.

-

The rest of the night flows easy.  

Almost naturally, he’s quick to wave off Bokuto’s invite for more drinks at the bar just down the street, tugging your interlaced hands towards the parking lot as soon as the group found its way to the exit.  

“You know he probably just wanted more company,” you laugh. Thirty minutes after making it back home, instead of jumping straight into the shower and getting ready for the night routine, you instead take out the suitcase and take your place, seated on the floor in the living room.  

“We needed to pack,” you hear him respond, his voice a little distant from the bedroom down the hall.  

You shrug. “Yeah, but we could have made time.”

“Sometimes we can’t just make things, if we don’t have any to make it with in the first place,” he sighs.

You chuckle. Perhaps it’s just one of those nights again. In the ten years you’ve known Tsukishima Kei, you found that he had a tendency to become a multitude of things.  

A stranger, at the start, because that’s where every connection begins. The neighbor who lived with his grandfather across the street from your childhood home. Kanazawa was a long way from Sendai, but before his parents had whisked him off to Miyagi some years later, he had been the friend that oftentimes spent his afternoons with you.  

Strawberry cake and tiny sips of boxed juice from the convenient store down the street, and not much conversation exchanged between the both of you. He’d tell you about the things on his grandfather’s old encyclopedia, and you’d listen with rapt attention, finding it nice how he seemed to carry a little bit of the stars the more his eyes gleamed. He just talked about dinosaurs, you remember. At ten, Tsukishima had always been a wonderer.  

Then he moved.  

From the friend who told you stories and shared his juice boxes with you under that tree, to the occasional email that would pop up on your phone, when you were in highschool and weaving your way in and out of pathways and dead-ends. Miyagi was a little like Kanazawa, he said. There was a lot of quiet in the two cities. His email would come once a week, then twice when you reckon he felt a little lonely.  

You’d reply with the same kind of enthusiasm as he had established, though you still couldn’t deny the fact that the notification with his name on it never failed to have you smiling—at least just a little bit. At fifteen, Tsukishima was far from a stranger, but he was also falling just a little short in making it to the halfway mark of being a friend too.  

The once-a-week emails were welcome, none the less. It stayed like that, until once a week turned into twice. Though most were just the customary how-are-yous and obligatory holiday greetings once the seasons came and went, one year it turned into emails about the little nothings.  

‘I had strawberry cake today,’ it once read. ‘The one we used to share tasted sweeter.’

‘I joined the volleyball team.’

‘Winter here is a little colder. I remember your puffy green jacket.’

‘I don’t know if you want to know…or if I should tell you...but our team won, and we’re going to nationals.’

Somehow, you were managed to be convinced by one of your friends that same week to travel with your own highschool’s volleyball team to assist in the preparation for nationals in Tokyo. It was just a coincidence, you used to reason. You were there, and so was he. There was a hundred other courts his team could have played at, and your priority was assisting your own team in what they needed.  

But still, you couldn’t help but wave back and cheer the loudest from your stands when he perfected the block and scored the winning point for the first set.

It was then, where you realized that perhaps Tsukishima Kei wouldn’t just be a stranger.  

Kanazawa to Miyagi, but somehow Tokyo became the in-between. Childhood friends to the sort-of friends from the other ends of the country sharing a few scattered memories in slices of strawberry shortcake and random dinosaur trivia from an old man’s outdated encyclopedia.  

He was the first to approach you after that match. A hand held out to shake, perhaps to commemorate the evident shift between strangers to friends—but it was nice.  

Because after that, friends turned into something more.  

Maybe Tokyo really was the middle ground. After you graduated and moved out of your respective cities, Tokyo became the third place of hello.  

Then things just slipped into place. He was here, and so were you. He had plans to stay, and you just signed the contract that bound you to the city for the next two and a half years. The apartment right down the hall from yours was recently vacated, and he was looking for a place to stay.  

His new work place, coincidentally enough, was just a stop away from the train station closest to your place.  

You had always doubted the presence of serendipity and everything that had to dictate with the celestial control of fate, but the ease that came with the relief of him signing the lease the very next week almost seemed to validate what had been just a farfetched something.  

From strangers, to friends, to lovers, then to this:

Ten years later, a ring on your finger, and an I do, bound to be said just a little over seven days from now.  

Tokyo was kind to the both of you. His mother’s close enough to visit on the weekends, while Kanazawa was just a shinkansen away from Tokyo station. A new apartment with enough space for two, plus maybe an extra, and a bakery right down the street with the best strawberry shortcake made fresh every day.  

The wedding’s just a week away. His grandfather, still living in Kanazawa was meant to travel with Akiteru to Tokyo last week, but because plans changed, the both of you were instead tasked with going there yourselves to travel with him. While Tsukishima hesitated, you didn’t. Yes was easy to say in a situation like this. Though your parents had moved to Tokyo some years ago, you were aware that his grandfather didn’t.  

The house across the street was still his, while the one you grew up in just now became a summer home your family would frequent to when Tokyo became too swarmed with tourists.  

You look at the half-filled contents of the suit case on the floor in front of you. The right side’s meant to hold your clothes, while the left was left bare for Tsukishima’s. You turn and look at him.  

“You can just grab the stuff you need me to bring for you and I’ll fold it in. We should probably catch the first train tomorrow if we wanna get there before sundown.”

What comes as a reply is only prolonged silence.  

You let what he started stay for a little, but because you had never been the type to be fond in gouging out answers from the blank spaces, you sigh, and break the impending silence before it could get a chance to even settle. “You’re quiet again, Kei.”

When he makes it to the living room, instead of coming back out with a stack of clothes, he stands by the wall with his hands in his pocket. His eyes shift from wall to wall, but skip over you.  

Knowing that you’ll just prompt another conversation again the more he keeps his silence, he sighs, swallowing the hesitation and clinging onto the bits of courage that floats by him in the moment. Grasping at the very tips of it, he forces the words out of his mouth. “Are you really coming with me?”

You raise a brow. “Back to Kanazawa? Of course. I’m from there too, you know. Plus I haven’t seen Grandpa in a while.”

He shifts his gaze to the side, thankful for the blur that came with forgetting to slip on his glasses. He’s always had a tendency to give in the moment he looks at you, so the vagueness in the blur was a welcome change. “It’s just for a week,” he mutters. “I think I’ll handle the trip just fine.”

“Plus,” he adds, the hike in the tone of his voice giving away his panic. “—I heard there was a problem with the florists? Maybe one of us needs to go in and fix it ourselves just in case.”  

In the ten years you’ve known him, you’ve always considered it a given that you’ve well perceived him by now. In front of you, he’s stammering. While Tsukishima has never been the face to poise and perfection—because at the end of the day he still is just a boy—you knew he only stammered when he was nervous.  

Perhaps trying to manipulate the situation through a wordless exchange was his way of doing so. In your head, you chuckle. Tsukishima Kei is many things, and is witty when it counts—but he could never be blunt when it came to the things he was unsure of.  

You try to gouge out his truth. Speaking straight to the point, you let him know that there’s no purpose in trying to skirt around. You turn to him, his sweater half folded on your lap. “You know I could have believed what you just said, but,” you pause, giving him a pointed look, “—you’re not even looking at me.”

“Is this about what Bokuto said earlier?”

The way he shifts his weight from one foot to the other awkwardly, confirms your suspicions that that it is about that, before he can muster up the courage to even say it. “Tell me,” you initiate. You’ve never been afraid to speak what needs to be said. “What’s got you so afraid?”

Once more, he hopes for the silence to speak for him. And like before—it doesn’t. Silence was never meant to fill in the blanks. What it did, rather, is add three seconds more on the clock that’s ticking regardless. Tsukishima bets on a timed clock to speak for him, and because you’ve never been the type to shrink at the presence of raw truth, you huff and poke into what obviously hits for him just a little deeper.  

“You’re afraid we’ll hit a blank space after we get married, aren’t you?”

He doesn’t look away, but little by little, his body language starts slipping bits and pieces of the truth you’ve already long sensed. “I think I just need to think this through.”

“What?” you scoff. “You planned to go to Kanazawa by yourself for a week to what? Soul search? To decide if you even wanna marry me?”

“I’m sor—“

“That’s what you’re not supposed to say,” you interrupt him. “You don’t say you’re sorry for how you’re feeling, because you’re allowed to feel it how it is, but shit, Kei,” you exhale, pausing to suck in a quick breath. “You couldn’t have just said this earlier?”

He looks away again, the guilt evident on his features. “You’re mad.”

“Do you blame me?”

This time, he turns to you. “No,” he murmurs. “I don’t, but I’m gonna be blunt here—“

“—first time—“

He gives you a pointed look, but in the moment, you don’t really have much in you to care too much.  

“I think I need space to clear my head.”

“Sounds like you’re contemplating on whether you wanna stay with me or not,” you respond. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about that.”

Tsukishima’s steady, this time. “Of course I wanna stay with you.”

“But,” you counter. “You aren’t sure if you want to marry me.”

He looks away. “What if—we hit a plateau after.”

“That’s still not an excuse to back out before we even try, Kei,” comes your reasoning.  

“You’re right,” he sighs. “It’s not.”

Then it’s you, who shrugs this time, giving in a little and throwing him what you hope he doesn’t see as a lifeline. There’s no comfort found in knowing that an out is a means of mercy when it comes to love. Why should there even be an out?

You settle for just cracking the door open instead. Though it was never locked, the fact that it remained close must have been understood differently by him.

“Let’s go back to Kanazawa separately, then,” you propose. The open suitcase in front of you still has the right half filled with his half folded clothes, so you reach in, taking it out one by one. “You stay with your grandfather and I’ll stay at my parent’s house.”

Tsukishima raises a concern. “He’ll wonder why we aren’t staying together.”

In response, you shrug. “Just make something up then.”

“Is this just a passive aggressive way to say you’re mad at me?”

You scoff. “When have I ever been passive aggressive, Kei? I’ve said shit as it is since day one.”  

He flinches, maybe because of what you said or the tone of the deliverance, but either way, you decide you can’t give much of a shit. It’s a given that you’re angry, but because being hurt just paves the path to silence more than lashing out, it’s not much of a surprise that you probably look deflated in front of him.  

“What I’m saying is,” you explain. “Let’s go back to Kanazawa as strangers. Do what you gotta do, however you’ve gotta do it to get your head sorted out, and then we’ll talk. I’m not dancing around in circles with you on this. Either we get married next week, or we don’t.”

He panics. “I don’t want to lose you—“

“You’re already talking like you’ve decided that you won’t be at the other end of that aisle, Kei.”

Words feel lacking all of a sudden, so you pause. The absence of the split second brevity has Tsukishima standing still, his breath held, throat dry.

But like always, clarity seems to weave its way through the cracks in the room and find you first. “Yes or no isn’t easy to decide between,” you finally mutter. Eyes to the half folded sweaters you meant to tuck into the other half of the suitcase, you realize that you’ll need to switch to a smaller trolley now because you won’t be needing this much space anyway. “I don’t know what I should tell you, because I don’t know that we’d be having a possible fallout a week before the wedding. But at the same time—I don’t want to say you’re despicable for feeling like that, Kei. It just—“

“—fucking sucks,” you sigh.  

“If you feel like you need a week to figure whatever this shit is, then okay,” you nod. “Okay. Let’s be strangers for a week and by the time we’re back in Tokyo, you give me a yes or no and be fucking blunt with it.”

-

Later that night when you turn your back against him and face the wall, his whisper breaks through the quiet. “Why are you still patient with me about this? You could have just left me.”

You shift, laying on your back and sighing to the makeshift glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling of your room. “Because I love you,” you sigh. “Loving someone just means you have to exhaust every other option before even thinking of throwing in the towel.”

He sleeps that night, feeling heavy.

-

He woke up later that morning, feeling the same too.  

In a sense, things admittedly started weird. You woke up before he did this time, when he usually would be the one trying to be quiet when he slipped out of bed. Even though early mornings had never been a thing for the both of you, there was still something unpleasant in waking up to an empty bed.

The sheets on your side were done, and your phone that usually would be pinging with email notifications by now wasn’t there.  

It’s odd, he thinks. While he agreed to be strangers for a week, the walk to the train station was the same. Silence was normal, but the five extra inches that added to the distance between the both of you wasn’t. You nodded his way when he pointed at the shinkansen’s direction, and wordlessly would hand him his usual brew when you stopped at the coffee shop just before going in.  

Seated beside you in the train, he tries to ignore the urge to poke you on the side and make conversation. Words have always come easy when it came to moments with you, he noticed.

Tsukishima’s aware that he’s always been dubbed as the kind of person who never preferred to say too much, and while that was true—to an extent—he realizes that there is some truth to the saying that silence kills.  

You’re seated beside him on the train, eyes to your phone, and earbuds in place. He resorts to just staring at you through his peripherals, caught in between wanting to satiate the want to talk to you by breaking the silence, or keeping it as is.  

This is where fear grips him a little tighter. The deal was, as you had pointed out just last night, that the both of you would move through the week pretending to be strangers again. You’d stay on your side of the street, while he stayed in his.  

It’s a given that his grandfather’s bound to ask about you, and so in the event that it does happen, you would just spend a few hours with them and pretend like everything was fine.  

You made it clear that you’d try to exhaust all the options before resorting to that, though. And it’s easy, he thinks, doing so. It doesn’t take much to fake a phone call from work or a last minute meeting with an old friend that wouldn’t be able to make it to the city for the supposed wedding.  

The lines were drawn, and the outline of what was to be expected in the next week was made clear.  

He thinks of what you said before you slept. Love, as that one drive that has you exhausting all your options before even thinking of quitting. It’s fair, he thinks. You’ve always been the rational thinker in the relationship.  

But then again, he doesn’t doubt your hurt either. A week was lengthy, he realizes, and to act as strangers again just a week before the wedding was a different kind of test when it came to your patience.  

Still, he owes you truth.

You’ve always told him to lay things bare, and even though what’s bare is ugly, because love always pushes to try—he stays, doing just that.  

Undoubtedly, this is a jump. There’s no question in the fact that the possibility of reaching the peak and coming face to face with a plateau scares him. But still, his thoughts counter, to face a drop that doesn’t guarantee a landing somehow terrifies him even more.

The sound of your phone vibrating snaps him out of his thoughts. Before you answer it, he snags a look of the name written on the screen—Akiteru’s.  

Tsukishima sighs, shooting you a cautious stare as you pick up the phone and turn to him.  

The tone of your voice is easy, though you look at him, unbothered. “Hey,” you answer. “Just got in the train, so Kei should be calling you in about three hours when we’re there.”

In comes a pause, before you chuckle a little. Unconsciously, Tsukishima scooches in, curious. But before he could get a chance to lean in too close, you pull away a little, looking at him curiously, an eyebrow raised. “I meant to tell you,” he hears you say, and as you look at him, he chooses to hold your stare.

“Kei and I will be staying separately for the week.”

Beside you, he shifts, fighting the urge to turn away and face forward.  

Assuming that your flinch afterwards was only a response to what he’s only certain is Akiteru’s sudden outburst, the prior nervousness of his stare shifts into concern. Understanding the are-you-okay that he mouths, you wave him off. “We’re fine,” you laugh. “I just miss staying at the house that’s all, and I’m pretty sure Kei wants to spend quality time with his grandfather.”

You stay silent after that, which truth be told, doesn’t exactly help with his nerves.  

“He’s right next to me,” you add. “We’re fine, I swear. Just wanna enjoy Kanazawa in different ways that’s all.”

-

To put it bluntly, the first day is awkward.  

His grandfather’s waiting from outside the gate the second you make it to that familiar street. Nothing much has changed, the two of you notice. The gate’s rusted a little by the edges, and the door’s still got the same chip on the left side he always said he’d take a look at.  

“Heard they were cutting down that tree,” his grandfather says, when it’s a little over three hours later and you’re all seated at a local restaurant for dinner. His old friend owned the place, he explained. Low lights, home cooked meals, and a family run business you vaguely remember your father talking about when you were young.  

Tsukishima pauses, eyebrows rising in question. “What do you mean that tree?”

“The one you used to run off to,” he laughs.  

Elbowing him, you nod towards his grandfather before pointing out, “We met by that tree, you know.”

His grandfather’s quick to responding, laughing at Tsukishima’s perplexed expression. “Seems like your grandfather’s memory is doing better these days than you, boy.”

You suppose that at the end of the day, it shouldn’t have been a big deal that he forgot. You’ve never been one to dwell too deep within the symbolic little nothings that’s bound to come with life. Rationally speaking, maybe you’re just a little miffed because of what he said the night before. And maybe that’s the reason why you’re taking this a little harsher than you would have on a normal day.  

But strangers, you remember. Strangers wouldn’t care if the other forgot.  

So with that, you shrug. You take another spoonful of the food in front of you and shift your body just slightly to the left—to which Tsukishima took noticed—and leaned forward. Without even saying much, his grandfather already has his attention on you, the smile on his face kind.

He’s always been kind, you remember. With a smile, you choose to keep the peace in the room at bay, willing yourself to ignore Tsukishima’s stare boring holes into the side of your head from beside you.  

“Now that I think about it, I don’t remember a lot of people stop by that tree,” you comment, as you take a step into nostalgia.  

His grandfather shrugs, absentmindedly nodding his head as he mulls over your word through a spoonful of broth. “It was in the middle of a residential area. Bound to get taken down if you ask me. People nowadays need a place to park.”

This time, you really feel his stare beside you almost intensify. Truth is, you can make sense of what you know he only fears. The point in life was to brave through the unfamiliar to establish a consistency in familiar grounds. To continuously rise from day one, only to hit the peak and possibly come face to face with a plateau instead of something greater than even the height of all highs—you admit that it’s terrifying.  

The plateau, that perhaps works sort of like that tree.  

It’s been there, so here it still is.  

You’ve both been at that tree—at the start—so here you both still are. Side by side back in Kanazawa, sharing a meal like I do, isn’t hanging on the line.

His grandfather’s voice snaps you out of your thoughts. “You’re not wearing your ring.”

Tsukishima’s voice is quick to cut into the conversation, his voice smooth. “She just doesn’t wanna lose it.”  

You nod along to his lie, undecided with how to feel in regards to how smooth he seemed to have delivered his lie.  

“You know, now that I think about it, it’s good that they’re cutting down that tree.”

Tsukishima speaks his mind this time. “Last week, you said you were looking forward to coming back home so you could visit that tree again.”

You don’t look at him when you answer. “I know, but your grandfather has a point. When things change, what else can you do but get rid of it?”  

“Oh nothing’s changed,” he laughs across you. “Even before the two of you were born, people would always talk about how it’s just there when the space could have been used for parking.”

“Then why put off cutting it down this long?”

“Who knows,” he laughs. There’s an unfound wisdom in his eyes that read through your soul when he looks at you. “Maybe cutting down what people already see as a permanent fixture will do more harm than good in the long run.”

“Even if it doesn’t contribute anything?”

Tsukishima thinks of his fear, then of the plateau.  

Through the rim of the glass, he keeps a steady eye on his grandfather, breath held as the anticipation for his words begin to really settle.  

“People these days just see what’s the most obvious from the surface and consider it as the only fault then run with it. Maybe it’s not the tree,” he laughs. “Maybe it’s just the people. They want convenience so they cut off everything around them instead of adjusting to it.”

The food tastes bland in his mouth, suddenly.

“Goes to show how selfish people can get sometimes,” his grandfather finishes, as an afterthought. “A shame, really. That old tree’s done nothing but give people shade.”

-

At the end of the day, you really had to give his grandfather a lot more credit than what was due.  

The second and third day was awkward. Even though you tried to stay inside for most of your day, venturing outside and meeting up with old friends was inevitable. And really, you should have remembered that he often started his day with a couple laps walked around the block.  

On day two, he hinted that he could sense something was off. Tsukishima had been a lot more silent lately, he pointed out. First, as just a passing comment, then by the third time he’d bring it up and wouldn’t get too much of a response out of you, there came more emphasis to what he says.  

He passed by the tree every time you’d round the street too. It occurs to you that passing through it was a shortcut, and contradicted his prior statements to having a route that catered towards the long way home, but you chose to not comment much about it.  

The second day was curiosity, and you figured that you could live at least just a week with it.  

The third day, on the other hand, gave you a little more trouble than you had bargained for.  

You’re on your way home from an old friend’s house, and ironically enough, both Tsukishima and his grandfather are out by their front door, tending to the weeds of a garden that doesn’t even look remotely grown.  

Tsukishima’s the first to look at you.  

Stubborn, and frankly intent on upholding your end of the deal in staying strangers, you attempt to wave them off with a passing greeting as you look through your bag, feeling around for the keys to the gate.  

“You don’t have to think of an excuse,” you hear him say. “He’s back inside now. It’s just you and me here.”

It’s funny how ever since you’ve made it back to Kanazawa, he’s been the one to break the silence a lot more lately.  

You don’t turn. Strangers, you think. The deal was to pretend the other was a stranger.  

“Cam,” he calls out again, the desperation in his voice inching more and more out of its shell. “I’m really sorry.”

You turn around, the buried anger getting the best of you in the moment. “You know the more you say that, the more convinced I am that I should just give you back your ring right now and go back to Tokyo alone. You talk like the only thing you’re sure of is the fact that you won’t be marrying me next week, Kei.”

The moment you shift your gaze from the ground to his eyes, a part of you aches at the idea that you may have to bid farewell to gold. Swallowing down the mass of emotions you hope isn’t entirely just made of anger, you steady yourself and sigh.  

It hits you that it’s been a long day.  

“It’s just you and me here,” you repeat, slowly. There’s a flutter in your heart that tells you it’s still love that stares back when you look at him. “Then why do you feel so far away, Kei?”

-

He doesn’t sleep that night.  

Day three of being strangers, but he hasn’t had anything figured out. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but what only grew was the silence. The distance is really just a few feet away—across the street and through the leaves of that tree that your father would always say he’d get to.  

The light from your room is still turned on, though the curtains are drawn.

8PM and it’s early. 8PM, and on a usual day, you’d usually be seated beside him in your Tokyo apartment’s living room, mulling over the nothings that went on in your day.  

It’s nice to talk about the rest of the world as if all they’re meant to be is just a passing blur in the background, he thinks. He’s never been much for words, but you were.  

Then again, you had always been one for truth.  

Reality is, he knows he could always swallow his doubts, walk across the street, cover the distance, and apologize to you with an I’m sorry, that covers all that needs to be addressed in a standard apology. Life can be lived as easy as that. You swallow your own thoughts, adhere to what they say needs to be done in the way they tell you how to do so, and be done with it.  

But he knows you just as well as he knows himself.  

You’d call him a coward—and truth be told, he’ll think the same.  

Present wise—he does think he is a coward.

Tsukishima sighs, knowing that blinking at your closed curtain visible from his window won’t do much of a difference. Begrudgingly, he sits up, grabbing his glasses from the bedside table.  

The streets around the neighborhood are quiet this time of night. The perks about living away from the city was the silence, he thinks. As soon as he tugs on a sweater, he makes his way downstairs, carefully, so he doesn’t stir his grandfather he presumes is sleeping on the room across the hall.  

He exhales, relieved at the barely audible creak the door clicks to as soon as he shuts it and turns the lock from the outside. The keys, jingling in his pockets, is the only sound that rings in the quiet.  

It isn’t lonely, but it isn’t comfortable either.  

Kanazawa has always been a town he’s considered as a piece of constant that’s meant to drift inbetween.  

Neither like Tokyo or the towns by the outskirts of Okinawa, it stays as is. Twenty years ago, the crack on the sidewalk was there, and now, twenty years later, it remains.  

There’s comfort in recognizing constants, Tsukishima admits. The tree just down this road, the crack on the asphalt, and the fact that your room is still the second window to the left visible from his on the second floor.  

When he was younger, he remembers he often would stand under your window, caught in between wanting to knock on your door and ask permission from your parents if you could accompany him for the afternoon, or just wait around until you’d come down yourself.  

While he left a lot of things on chance, the conscious choice to stay rooted in the spot by your window remained constant.  

The gravel under his feet crackle everytime he’d take a step. The moon’s hazy behind the clouds tonight, he muses. While you’d wish for the stars, he found a temporary safety in the midnight clouds. A timelessness felt when it’s midnight, stays.  

Before he turns to the corner that would lead home, he stops midway—recognizing the tree from a good few meters away.  

There’s a sense of feeling an urgency to let something go, the more he stares at it. Nearing autumn, the colors start to change, and just like that, he’s reminded of the impermanence in life.  

As the earth eventually changes throughout the years, he fears that perhaps in love—it would too.

-

“You’re out late,” is the first thing Tsukishima hears as soon as he enters the room.  

From the genkan, he peers over the shelf, noticing the lights from the kitchen is what floods into the dim living room. Slipping on his house slippers and making his way around the corner, Tsukishima gets a feel of the warmth that’s radiating from the familiarity of the space.  

After his grandmother had passed, his grandfather stayed in Kanazawa. Though his mother often expressed her desire for him to move with the rest of the family in Tokyo, every time, he’d only wave them off and say that there’s too much rooted here for him to just up and leave.  

Walking into the kitchen, his grandfather’s the first to raise a mug his way and offer a smile. “I’d ask you if everything’s fine, but I think I’ll just wait around and see if you’re even willing to tell me.”

Tsukishima chuckles airily. “Sounds like you wanna ask anyway.”

He takes a slow sip. “Okay then,” he nods, smiling like he’s just struck a deal. “First question is—are you okay?”

In response, Tsukishima smiles, pulling the chair and taking the seat across his. He nods. “’Course I am.”

His grandfather’s eyes don’t leave him. “You’re not wearing the ring, and neither is Cam.”

Suddenly feeling like he’s caught in between a blocked exit and the spotlight, Tsukishima freezes, but wills himself not to look away. “Just needed some space, that’s all.”

“To think?”

He sighs. “To reconsider.”

“Ahh,” the older man sighs. “Cold feet. Pretty normal, if you ask me.”

He raises a brow in question. “It’s normal?”

“To be nervous, yeah,” his grandfather laughs. “But looks like it’s a different case for you.”

Tsukishima doesn’t respond, his eyes fixated towards a spot on the wall that feeds more into the blank space of his thoughts than anything more.  

“You’re afraid,” Tsukishima hears, and as soon as the retaliation he tries to string together at the very last minute don’t come—he realizes the core of all the chaos in his head is meant to be just like that—

Blank.

“What are you so afraid of, boy?”

In the silence, he lets the rawness of his truth slowly spill. “What if I hit a plateau after this?”  

His grandfather wastes no second in countering.  “How is it life if we just keep climbing? What’s the point in doing all that work if we never get rest?”

Tsukishima laughs. “You know, by that logic it can just go the other way around too.”

He settles in his seat, trying to appreciate the silence instead of looking for company in the noise, before he adds, “What if we decide we don’t love each other anymore?”  

“That’s not all there is to a plateau,” he laughs. “It’s a valid fear, but being afraid isn’t all there is after you marry someone.”

“Then what’s there?”

With a smile, his grandfather leans back, raises the mug to his lips, and relaxes—his eyes looking fondly at a faded photograph hung beside the wall clock. “Everyday,” he answers. “What’s there after I do is just everyday.”

Sensing that his grandfather means to say more, he chooses to retain his silence. Sighing softly, his grandfather keeps his smile steady as he continues to speak. “Everyday you wake up. You roll over in bed, you think about the checklist you do to consider a day done, then you come home, eat a meal, rest a little and start the whole day over the next day. Everyday’s like that.”

He shifts, leaning forward with his arms crossed supporting his weight on the table as he eyes his grandson with a smile. “Best part is, you can do all that with someone you love. Makes the boring part of the plateau a lot more bearable.”

“You wake up with them and complain about how boring the rest of your day will be, then come home and eat a meal with them. Wash the dishes, share the silence, and just go to bed knowing you’ll wake up with somebody.”

The smile on his face is honest, then he shrugs. “It’s nice, though. The plateau after you hit a certain point in life is just inevitable, Kei. You can either complain about life alone or complain about it with somebody. At least there will be two pairs of slippers by the genkan waiting for you everytime you come home. You’ll say you’ve made it home and someone will greet you. You’ll roll over in bed at 2am and someone will be there with you. The point of climbing in life is to get somewhere, not ascend past the norm.”

Tsukishima stays quiet, pondering over the truth in his grandfather’s words. “So life’s just meant to stay in the middle?” he asks, slowly coming into terms with his grandfather’s redefinition of the plateau.  “Life’s meant to find a consistency in everyday,” he corrects.

A few moments pass before he stands back up, pointing to the counter with a thermos. He knows it’s yours. The old one that your mother refused to throw away, because there’s a crack by the lid and a couple faded sailor moon stickers stuck by the side.  

“Look at that,” Tsukishima hears. He turns his head just in time to see the old man offer him a patient smile, the message in his eyes delivered without a hitch. “That old thing’s seen a couple of decades, but it still gets to you when you need it, right?”

It’s not so bad to have an old thing be your constant, right?

-

Twenty minutes after his grandfather climbs back to his room upstairs, Tsukishima’s seated on the side of the table beside the window. Peeking through the half-opened blinds, he can still see that the light from your room is still flicked on.  

Without mulling over the decision, he takes his phone out, scrolling through the contacts until he taps your name. A swipe without too much pressure, because even his thumb’s memorized where your name is by now. Kind of like muscle memory, he supposes.  

Bypassing the unannounced rules about what to do as the strangers you had claimed from the start of this week, it results to the lack of hesitation as he types a quick text and presses send without a thought that would counter it.  

I love you, it reads.  

From his spot in the kitchen, he leans back and smiles, pouring himself a cup of the tea he knows you brewed yourself on the nights where he can’t sleep.

The lights from your room stay on for a few more moments before it dims, but before the metaphoric silence could take root, the screen of his phone lights up.

Stop walking around at night. Drink the tea and try to get some sleep.

Exhaling almost in relief, it’s the slow beating of his heart that resettles him back into the love he’s known everyday.  

It’s not quite the end, but it isn’t exactly somewhere unpleasant either.

-

Two days before you’re meant to return to the city, instead of spending the day in your room—like you had initially planned—you somehow found yourself in the passenger seat of his grandfather’s old car, with a grocery list in hand.  

You sigh, understanding what his grandfather’s trying to do.  

As you look down, there’s nothing much written in the grocery list. He had complained about some back pain earlier, followed up by his insistent request of desperately needing his groceries done so when Akiteru was to arrive later on, dinner would be taken care of.

Beside you, with his hands on the wheel, Tsukishima sighs. “We could have just ordered in food for dinner. It’s just Akiteru coming,” he mumbles.  

Keeping your eyes to the window to your left, you shrug. “He likes making the ordinary special, I guess.”

Tsukishima stays silent after that, mentally thankful for the green light and the empty roads. The more stops, the longer silence would stay. And even after the sort of middle ground from the night before, he doesn’t know what to say to you.  

After making a quick turn, he pulls up into the parking lot and kills the engine. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he turns to you, with an expectant look. “You can just stay here if you don’t wanna go in with me,” he offers. “It’s a short list, I can be in and out in a bit.”

You wave him off, already slinging on your bag and opening the car door—the list on your hand. “It’s alright. I think I’m more familiar with this area than you are, so we can just meet back in the car in thirty minutes if that’s okay with you.”

“You don’t need me to come with you?” he raises a brow.

You shake your head no, but upkeep the smile on your face anyway as you exit the car and close the door.  

-

Something about what you say sticks with him, the more he thinks about it.

He can distinguish the hesitation laced each of your decisions. You look past him, but not exactly at him. You speak to him, but keep the conversations short. Though conversation was rare between the both of you this past week, the times that you did speak to him, your words often were clipped short.  

It’s your means of upkeeping your end of the deal, he realizes.  

You’ve always been one for communication, but then again, patience can only stretch so much.  

He respects your wish for distance and walks the opposite way from the grocery store, towards a building he doesn’t really known. It’s a gallery, he realizes. Three steps past the entrance, he notices that he’s one of the few that’s in the room.  

Traditional artwork line the wall, hung in frames that have rusted throughout time.  

Tsukishima stares, eyes drawn to the pieces of art he recognizes from the few scattered memories in his childhood that relate to his time in the city.

A fieldtrip, when he was seven. He remembers leaving the house upset over the yellow hat he had to wear, and the rain boots his teacher wouldn’t let him change out of. Unlike the present, rain was present that day. He stood beside you in line, and had to tilt his head up at the piece of art he always thought was the prettiest out of the bunch.  

And now, almost two decades later, he still thinks the same.  

He smiles at the memory, finding the comfort of returning to what’s familiar, pleasant.  

As if caught by an epiphany, and suddenly enveloped in a sense of a rediscovered home, here, within a room that’s familiar, he finds purpose in the permanence of love.

Love, that’s never meant to be stretched into the likeness of what the poets declare as the absolute form of love after “I do.”

Staring at the piece of art with the rusting frames, the strokes within the canvas still depict the same story. It still is beautiful.  

It’s doesn’t become more—but it stays as is.

And maybe that’s what his grandfather was trying to convey.

To fear a certain phase in love is something that comes and goes, but it often never stays. It can linger, but eventually, it too, fades.  

What stays is what’s rooted.  

Primarily, just you. Truly, just love.

That tree in that old street, these paintings on the walls, and the kind of serenity that washes over him at the thought of you.  

The fear in life comes in the form of thinking that beyond the peak lays a plateau. Beyond “I do,” what’s next to come is love, dwindling until “I don’t love you anymore,” is the only thing left to be said.  

It’s fear, that spoke to him the past few weeks, so this time, as he gives in, he listens to love.  

It’s quiet.

But through the smoke in the room, the message that’s meant to deliver truth comes in full clarity. Illuminated, it appears before him as it is. A painting that’s struck him as beautiful then and now, and the thought of you as the face that’s always been the first to greet him every morning for more than just a few years now.  

An old man stands not too far from him, hands clasped behind his back as he stares—with a smile on his face—at a similar painting on the wall. Sensing Tsukishima’s presence, he looks over and redirects the smile his way. “Been coming here for years, and looking at this still feels the same.”

Poking at the doubts, Tsukishima responds, “Are you afraid that it won’t get old?”

The gentleman laughs, though soft enough so it doesn’t echo too much in the halls. The joy lingers around Tsukishima, on the other hand. “To have something grow old with you isn’t a bad thing. Day one, this piece was beautiful, and now, almost forty years later, I look at it and think the same too.”

A beat of silence passes, but the man speaks once more.  

“My wife, when she was alive, showed me this piece. Maybe I look at this and still find it beautiful after all these years because I think of her, but I don’t think trying to focus on that matters much. The feeling’s the same, even if it grew old.”

Reciprocating the older man’s goodbye with a nod to the head, it’s then where he laughs, a little bit more of the truth unraveling as each moment comes and goes. Thinking of his words, he dwells on its meaning.  

Standing there, alone in the museum hall, the smoke clears, and he presents himself his words of blended truth and patience.  

Love is timeless, his thoughts say. The plateau after the peak is as possible as the drop, but life’s meant to be lived in the lows and in betweens as much as the highs. Time moves in waves, and perhaps love doesn’t always grow stagnant. It can be timeless, even though the frames rust. His hair will grey, and maybe you’ll stop linking your pinky with him beneath the sheets during the rainy season’s thunderstorms, but the root of love stays.  

Within the plateau, time will move, and you’ll both grow old, but the taste of the tea you’ll brew for him will remain the same.  

And thirty minutes later, when he makes it back to the parking lot with you waiting by the door, the love that steadies his beating heart will be the same too.  

Steady, present, and timeless.  

-

Eyeing the dashboard, you’re the first to break the silence. “Why’d you buy a postcard?”

Rolling into a stoplight, he eases on the brakes and shrugs. “Lived here for so long, and I don’t even own a postcard from here.”

“Me neither,” you blink.

A couple minutes pass, and the car’s rolling again, but he misses a turn. Assuming that he’s just not used to the usual route, you stay quiet—until about he pulls up to a familiar street.  

Parked to the side, through the windshield, you find yourself face to face with a familiar tree. “Kei.” He hums.  

The coming autumn has a few leaves beginning to change its colors, you notice. The summer hues, unbalanced, as bits of red begins to bleed through the green. “You were supposed to turn there, not here.”

He shifts the gear into park, then takes his hands off the wheel, leaning back. “I know.”

It’s quiet after that, but it isn’t all that unpleasant either.  

This is the part where the questions begin to poke at you, the what-ifs in love let out in the open as you voice a little bit of your vulnerability. And because the truth is daunting, you hope he understands you through the metaphors. “Do you really think they’ll cut it down?”

He doesn’t allow the silence to take more than a moment. “I think so,” he nods his head.

“It’ll be good though, I think,” you add, nodding your head.  

It’s quiet in the room even though the words of your truth coaxes the unhealed wound to resurface. As it comes into light, it doesn’t sting.  

Sitting shoulder to shoulder beside him in the car, the tree that witnessed the first hello stays rooted, and watches.  

He doesn’t turn to you as he speaks, but in a way, you feel as if a farewell was the finale that was meant to be delivered somehow. “It’s good,” he starts. “Letting go of something that needs to be let go of.”

-

Tokyo

-

Tsukishima’s the first to speak.  

“I’m not good with words,” he starts.  

There’s a hush in the crowd, so you stay with it, knowing you’ll only add to the silence should you choose to respond. It wasn’t your turn anyway, so you will yourself to be still and listen.  

“Hey Cam,” Tsukishima continues, choosing to begin his vow with a hello. “I think a lot about what love’s supposed to have meant, mean, or eventually mean in the long run. I thought too much about it to the point where it…” he trails off, blinking at the piece of paper before flicking his eyes up to you with a slight shrug. “—to the point where love began to scare me.”

For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, confident in the fact that when he opens them, he knows he’ll see the world in clarity this time. With the smoke cleared and the scattered pieces of all his doubts set in order, the words of his truth may not speak of the most tender poem of love—but within the lines lies his truth.

As he lays his truth on you, he holds a breath and lets it all go. “I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life,” he laughs, exhaling softly, his shoulders shaking a little. “Never occurred to me how much of a liar the downside of your thoughts are when you listen to everything that isn’t love,” he continues.  

Your shoulders relax, and even through the blur of the veil, you can tell his eyes are steadily watering.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, the microphone just barely picking up what he says. You nod your head anyway, wishing you were holding his hands instead of the bouquet. Reassurance comes in many forms, but you know he’s always been the type to receive it well through physical touch.  

A kiss on the cheek, your head on his shoulder, or your hands squeezing his. But the smile you give him suffices for now, you think.  

“I wanna wash the dishes with you for the rest of my life. I’ll wash, and you dry. Nothing much happens in our day usually, but nothing has to. I’ll listen to you talk about how shit the traffic is in the city, because I know you’ll listen to me talk about the same complaints I have from Monday to Friday anyway.”

You realize he’s written his vows in the back of a postcard—the one you saw on his dashboard a few days ago, from Kanazawa.  

He sniffles a little then looks up, laughing to himself at how emotional he’s getting. Allowing more than just truth to trickle out slow is a part of love too, he realizes, so with a soft laugh, he lets the tears be and speaks again. “What needed to be let go of was let go of,” he exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for this long.  

In a sense, maybe he has. Sometimes fear grips you tightly enough that it shifts your point of view from one thing to another. What’s love, becomes fear. Then what’s fear, becomes the smoke that buries the core of truth too deep within the haze.  

“I let go of the thought the thought that after marriage, if nothing great would come then that would be the end of love,” he breathes. “I stared at that tree and thought of Grandpa’s words again and again then wrote my apology and I love you on the back of a postcard that only had one a couple of blank lines at most.”

He waves it for you, then to the crowd, to see. The words, jumbled up together look almost incomprehensible written so closely together, but in a way, you have a feeling that he’s just speaking the rest of his truth as it comes in the moment.  

The truth in love, you realize, is that its truth comes, fully unraveled the moment the initial plan falls apart.  

He puts down the postcard, and just looks at you.  

“There’s a lot I don’t think I will ever understand when it comes to love, but maybe I’m here to just feel it and not try to decipher it.” He pauses, ignores the few tears that roll down, and shrugs his shoulders, admitting to himself that the truth in his love is the first thought that comes.

“Love doesn’t have to the greatest,” he tells you. “I just wanna wash dishes with you for the rest of my life and hear about how traffic was unbearable.”

You smile, and your assurance reaches him.  

“I think that counts as love too,” he finishes, the smile on his face tender.

-

As he leans in after I do, he murmurs a question in your ear that you’ve been expecting since the start.

You could have just left, he said. How did you deal with me and still choose to stay?

Your answer was said without a hint of hesitation. With a shrug, and an honest smile, you told him, “Because I love you.”

“I think we both had to let go of the thought that to love always means to have the biggest reasoning behind it. We do things for love, and because of love. That’s just how it is,” you shrugged.

Oddly enough, it’s in that same exact moment where he remembers Bokuto’s question from that dinner a week and some days ago.  

How does it feel? he recalls, and even though words have never found him first nor met him in the middle easy, he gathers what he can and just settles on the conclusion that it just feels like love.

Wherein love, is this.

An identical band on his and your finger, and the taste of I do pleasant on the tongue. I love you, as a truth that’s easy to fathom and healing to hold, and the fear of what comes next just a passing thought that goes as soon as it comes.  

Later that evening his grandfather sits him down and asks him what he really thinks about why people have been putting off cutting down that tree for a few decades now.  

With a laugh, the hesitation that often turns decisions is made clear to him. “You know I think that people would decide things and think they’re so solid on it before even being face to face with it. The second they get to that tree with a chainsaw, I promise you they changed their minds. You think you go there and cut off or let go of one thing, then realize you’re cutting off something else in the end. They go back to what’s been there and realize that it’s not the problem at all.”

Tsukishima sighs, and his grandfather watches, the smile on his face easy. It’s like watching some emerge from a smoked out room, he thinks. Clarity’s always been a blessing, and he’s glad his grandson’s finally found it.  

“Sometimes going back to the start is the one thing you need to be reminded that it’s worth it to keep going.”

“Sounds like you’re not talking about the tree,” his grandfather comments.  Looking at you, Tsukishima smiles. “You could say that too.”

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 2: I PLAY DODGEBALL WITH CANNIBALS

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it. For everybody else, here's my gift to you for the time off I had for this holiday I was supposed to spend listening to my family arguing. I found this a much better use of my time. Recurring updates will proceed very soon in December, promise!

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Thalia read out in legitimate concern what on earth Percy had gotten up to Annabeth would have only given a passing mention to.

"Do they play dodgeball with you and the winner eats you?" Alex asked with something far to close to excitement.

"Are the balls made of human flesh?" Will demanded in disgust.

"You guys have some really twisted minds, and that part is not my fault!" Percy frowned at them.

My day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep.

See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert T-shirts to work.

"That sounds awesome," Will smiled, he hadn't been to a normal school since he was single digits, but this sounded exactly what he'd have in mind for it.

"It was better than most," Percy agreed.

  That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't always ... well, bright.

"It's no wonder Percy approves of this place, he seems to fit right in," Thalia said innocently.

"Coming from someone who can't light up a Christmas tree," he rolled his eyes.

"Refusing to do it for your stupidity isn't the same as being unable to," she huffed.

Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord of the Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen.

"That's not an encouraged takeaway from that book," Alex frowned.

"I'm starting to wonder if the teachers are any brighter than the students," Magnus agreed. School wasn't for everyone, but that didn't mean they shouldn't be taught at all.

What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of those activities.

Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.

"Oh he's a joy of society," Will frowned, feeling personally affronted if he had stayed in the public school system, he probably would have ended up at places like this too. Being ADHD and dealing with monsters all your life was a very different kind of trouble than this fart knocker.

Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friend Tyson.

Percy frowned noticeably this time as his friend was mentioned again. He was sure of it, a stirring in his mind of something he was missing, more attachment to this name than just a passing friend, the same feeling he'd had about Luke...but not quite right. Just a gap where knowledge should be.

He waved Thalia on before anyone could ask, his headache was already returning and he'd rather just get to the answer than torment himself.

Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep.

"Whoa," Magnus muttered in fascination. He'd missed school a lot, but fear of the system dragging him away from Boston had been what made him try living it rough on the streets first. Meeting Blitz and Hearth very soon after and helping him adjust made it bearable.

He still wanted to go find Annabeth when this was over, but had no real desire to live in New York, and only vague confidence he could stay at this camp. Maybe there was someplace in his hometown with this kind of program?

As near as my mom and I could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so ... different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and was scared of just about everything, including his own reflection. His face was kind of misshapen and brutal-looking. I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth.

The Mist had fooled Percy before, Jason remembered, and there was no way after a description like that Tyson wasn't something. Perhaps another kind of monster luring him into a trap, one that was taking an oddly long time? He still couldn't get out of his head how no attacks had happened to him.

His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tattered jeans, grimy size-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flannel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York City alleyway, because that's where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.

Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a community service project so all the students could feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn't stand Tyson. Once they discovered he was a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good by picking on him. I was pretty much his only friend, which meant he was my only friend.

This wasn't a real surprise to anyone after he'd done the same thing last year in Grover. Percy was very handsome, he had a sharp wit but a laid back attitude and could have easily blended in with any popular kids at these fancy schools with skateboard tricks, at the very least if he couldn't tolerate their differences, fly somewhere in the middle.

He chose to be this person, again and again.

My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren't doing enough to help him. She'd called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen.

Unlike Alex, Magnus felt uneasy about the idea of meeting Percy's mom, he didn't need any ignorant concerned citizen getting him onto social services radar thank you. He was doing just fine on his own sleeping in the park...but the gesture she'd been kicking up a fuss at all surprised him in a way he wasn't used to, considering so many people looked right through him rather than caring at all.

 The social workers claimed Tyson didn't exist. They swore up and down that they'd visited the alley we described and couldn't find him, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don't know.

Now Percy was just as convinced as all the other suspicious looks and frowns he was missing something too, and no stubborn headache urging him to drop it was going to change his mind this time, not after Luke. He was glaring at the book in Thalia's hands and wondering if he'd befriended a cannibal for a whole school year, but the feeling still wasn't right, even if he was now confident he was on the right track connecting one to the other.

Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. He swatted Sloan away a little too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.

"You freak!" Sloan yelled. "Why don't you go back to your cardboard box!"

Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his head in his hands.

Anger blossomed so clearly to Percy's face they all expected Sloan to never find his underwear again.

Whatever he couldn't remember about Tyson, one thing he did know of right now was the guy was his friend and he wouldn't let anyone talk that way about him!

"Take it back, Sloan!" I shouted.

Sloan just sneered at me. "Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have friends if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."

I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. "He's not a freak. He's just..."

I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn't listening. He and his big ugly friends were too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hanging around him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozen more, and I was pretty sure I'd never seen them before.

"Just wait till PE, Jackson," Sloan called. "You are so dead."

When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage. He pronounced that we'd understood Lord of the Flies perfectly. We all passed his course, and we should never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chip-toothed grin.

I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.

"I ... I am a freak?" he asked me.

"No," I promised, gritting my teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."

Tyson sniffled. "You are a good friend. Miss you next year if ... if I can't ..."

His voice trembled. I realized he didn't know if he'd be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.

They were pretty sure the headmaster didn't know Tyson existed until the Mist manipulated his mind into it, but Percy was still frustrated at the injustice of the situation.

"Don't worry, big guy," I managed. "Everything's going to be fine."

Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him that anything would be fine?

"False hope makes a great placebo?" Will offered. At least he knew everything would be fine so he could say it with real confidence. Percy still looked uncertain but nodded a thanks at him.

Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeeded in making something explode,

"That's a joke, right?" Magnus was looking more appalled by the moment at this school. There had to be a better program for homeless kids than this!

"I didn't ask, it was definitely the only exam I ever entered with an actual hope of passing," Percy shrugged.

Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tiny vials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and made an orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.

After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who'd ever aced her exam in under thirty seconds.

"I am now officially calling this school a hazard waste zone," Jason frowned.

I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. I couldn't stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn't shake the memory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.

In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps,

Alex gasped theatrically. "Something actually school related?"

"We used crayons and I'm pretty sure some kid just drew a penis and still passed," Percy denied any such learning had been going on. No he hadn't tried to cheat off that idiot's test before realizing that...

I opened my notebook and stared at the photo inside—my friend Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed,

"She didn't blow that one up without you did she?" Thalia grinned.

"I'd never forgive her," Percy scoffed.

looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place. See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way.

Percy wasn't even blushing as the others chuckled lightly his little twelve-year-old crush was on display right there, he was smiling to fondly at the photo and wishing he had one of her now no matter how many more memories he collected of her, or better the real thing already! She likely would have already speed read through all of this assigned reading without them and helped figure out how to get them out of here by now.

She'd e-mailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I'd look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn't just been my imagination.

I wished Annabeth were here. She'd know what to make of my dream. I'd never admit it to her, but she was smarter than me, even if she was annoying sometimes.

Percy joined in the laugh that time, he was sure he'd still claim that while she was saving his life.

I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.

"I hope he's the victim of the cannibals," Nico grumbled, even if he didn't mean it, this guy deserved a good scare.

"Unless he's secretly the cannibal," Will frowned oddly at him.

"Hey!" I protested.

Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is not your—"

"Give it back!" My ears felt hot.

Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.

'I either found the cannibals, or some very strange southerners,' Hearth signed.

'I told you TV stereotyped that stuff,' Magnus scolded.

"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare me. "I bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."

"He's not retarded." I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.

"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."

His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict orders from Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were. I had to save my fighting for monsters.

"So it was Chiron who really deserved that blue breakfast for finally giving you advice you'd follow," Alex said.

"I might split my waffles with him," he huffed, man was that advice hard to follow even in a flashback instead of letting his imagination make another chipped tooth.

Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was ...

The bell rang.

As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"

I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any attention. Like any girl at Meriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.

The invisible presence Percy had felt this morning on top of this unknown female voice had them all pretty convinced now it might be Annabeth running from cannibals, and Percy was fidgeting nervously in his seat as he waited to hear what was coming already. Matt Sloan could throw all the spit wads he wanted and could never come close to being a real threat.

Before I had time to consider whether or not I'd been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us a free-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.

"So did Hades, I don't like his odds," Nico scoffed.

The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.

"How dare you deny anybody that treat," Alex looked wounded at him.

"I will buy you those gym clothes so you can run around New York as an oxymoron," Percy scoffed.

"Thank you," Alex nodded, clearly finding this fair compensation that Percy still wouldn't be joining.

I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn't want to deal with Sloan. I was about to leave when Tyson called, "Percy?"

He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.

"Will you ... uh ..."

"Oh. Yeah." I tried not to sound aggravated about it. "Yeah, sure, man."

Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it's because he's completely hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that I've never had the courage to ask him about.

Percy felt such a high surge of protection it surprised him, but it  was why he still wouldn't hesitate to guard whatever door Tyson asked him to no matter how annoying it was. The guy needed someone, and even if he got stabbed in the back for it again, he would do what he could to help until then.

Anyway, I'd learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing out, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.

When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading Sports Illustrated. Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. 

"This school breaks all the traditions, even the overweight gym teacher," Alex snorted.

"This is not better," Percy sighed.

He reminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood—which was a shriveled-up mummy—except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I'd observed.

"Maybe he does it in the weight room too and he and Tyson are conspiring against you," Jason grinned.

"Someone needs to check to make sure he's getting enough oxygen," Percy rolled his eyes.

Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"

"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."

Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side. So did the big group of visitors.

On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and a half dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half a team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.

Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.

"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."

"Is he the world's biggest satyr?" Magnus asked, but he already knew that made no sense. That was just the only other person who had mentioned smells before.

Just because Tyson had waited so long to do anything to Percy didn't rule him out as some monster yet, but their concern was starting to shift away from the idea as he'd just warned Percy about something. Luke had played nice too, who's to say Tyson wasn't about to throw Percy to the cannibals, or was one himself scouting him out.

I looked at him. "What smells funny?" Because I didn't figure he was talking about himself.

"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."

The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn't help wondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them with sticks.

"I didn't know you've been to a circus," Alex chuckled.

"The hell?" Magnus asked in concern.

"Don't tell me you've never snuck into the back of a circus tent while trying to run away with them," he frowned.

"Never was a dream of mine, and now it won't be," Magnus responded, fighting back the urge more every moment to ask for every detail of Alex's strange life.

Sloan blew the coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the center line. On my side, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably "I have to go potty!" and ran for the exit. Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets.

"Tyson," I said. "Let's g—"

A ball slammed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.

"I always knew it was only cannibals and idiots who watched those stupid shows," Thalia scowled why that would be funny to anyone while Percy rubbed his gut, a rather concerning gesture as he had the power to kill them all.

My eyesight was fuzzy. I felt like I'd just gotten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla.

"Can you teach them that too?" Alex asked in fasciation as she watched Magnus, like he'd know just because they also knew sign language.

"If I meet one I'll ask," he promised.

I couldn't believe anybody could throw that hard.

Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"

"First gorilla's, now ducks, somebody's definitely been to the zoo," Will frowned.

I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.

Whooom!

It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.

"Hey!" I yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"

The visitor named Joe Bob grinned at me evilly.

"Wait, you mean the monsters have actual names instead of just...their names, shit, wait," Magnus looked really embarrassed now as he wondered if Medusa's name had been Molly or something.

"Some do, some have nicknames," Nico waved off, "depends on how specific you want to get here. Pretty sure you could call this guy Bob Joe and he'd still eat you, so I wouldn't worry about it to much."

 Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now ... even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"

"Percy, I think you have a fan club," Jason said as he wondered how these monsters knew his name.

"I'll file harassment charges as soon as the police believe me," Percy groaned.

The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except those who knew my true identity. Friends ... and enemies.

What had Tyson said? They smell funny.

Monsters.

"You know, I started to believe that when they magically threw rubber balls to hard, but sure, the smell might have been a tip off too," Nico rolled his eyes. He was still getting used to the idea Percy hadn't simply slain them all the moment he realized something was wrong.

All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.

Matt Sloan dropped his ball. "Whoa! You're not from Detroit! Who ..."

The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant named Marrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was about to leave and hit the door, slamming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on it desperately but it wouldn't budge.

'Why do monsters get all the cool magic,' Hearth frowned.

'We've been locked in enough rooms for a lifetime already, you'll live without,' Magnus needlessly waved his hand about at the end to emphasis his point.

"Let them go!" I yelled at the giants.

The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tattoo on his biceps that said: JB luvs Babycakes. "And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren't just playing for your death. We want lunch!"

"Is Laistrygonian Greek for cannibal?" Jason asked with intrigue.

"I'm just glad I'm not the one reading," Percy checked over Thalia's shoulder to see that for himself, "because I can't even pronounce that."

He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line—but these balls weren't made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.

"So the proper chapter title should have been I Play Fire Wielding Dodgeball with Cannibals," Will sighed.

"That didn't help at all," Percy reminded.

"Coach!" I yelled.

"What did you want him to do?" Thalia demanded as if asking for his sanity.

"Take them to the locker rooms, I couldn't do both at once," Percy said in a deadly calm voice.

Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. That's the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual. Maybe the other kids saw Matt Sloan's thugs getting ready to toss Molotov cock-tails around. (It wouldn't have been the first time.)

"When was the first time?" Alex asked casually, as if anybody would have doubts by this point he'd thrown one of his own around.

"I'm sure he's done it on a few street corners," Percy reminded.

At any rate, I was pretty sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eating bloodthirsty monsters.

"Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice."

And he went back to his magazine.

The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past my shoulder.

"Corey!" I screamed.

Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.

"Run!" I told my teammates. "The other exit!"

They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob's hand, that door also slammed shut.

"No one leaves unless you're out!" Joe Bob roared. "And you're not out until we eat you!"

"These guys bring new meaning to the word takeout I never wanted," Will shivered.

"Food, killing, sounds like an all purpose date," Thalia chuckled.

"So that's why you don't date anymore," Percy frowned.

He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor.

I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gym shorts. I had no pockets.

"Here's a suggestion," Alex began in what he clearly thought was a helpful tone of voice, "see if you can rebind the magic to always appear behind your ear."

"I'm sure Chiron will get right on that," Percy resisted the urge to stick his pen into Alex's ear now to show just how wrong that could go. Chiron's advice pays off again, dammit.

Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. I was completely defenseless.

"Percy, you are never defenseless," Thalia told him bracingly, this guy could make hurricanes appear in the middle of the desert if he tried hard enough. She had to follow that up with a healthy reminder to his ego though, "your face scares them plenty."

"How did I get this far without your help Thalia," he rolled his eyes.

Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosion still blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at me.

"Flesh!" they bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.

"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.

"Tyson!" I screamed, but it was too late.

Both balls slammed into him ... but no ... he'd caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.

"You weren't kidding when you said he was the most useful guy on your team," Magnus still felt like he was playing catch up in comparison to the others, struggling to imagine Tyson catching them by the time they'd been vaporized by their own weapons.

The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame—a sure sign they were monsters, all right.

Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.

"A shame, bet you could make a good business model off that necessity otherwise," Jason smirked.

"I'm more disappointed realizing they didn't leave a spoil of war behind," Alex grumbled.

"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"

"Tyson!" I said. "Look out!"

Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM!

Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.

Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine.

"I finally understand what people mean about crazy in New York," Magnus said, "if this is the gym, what happens at the bus stops?"

"You still wouldn't believe me if I told you," Percy promised.

Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The head-master, the police, somebody would come help us.

"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"

I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously,

"Annabeth used you as bait in that capture the flag game," Thalia reminded, "I think you just don't take these games seriously enough."

"Yes, I'm the problem here," Percy scowled.

but before I could, he hefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.

I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn't deflect all those balls at once. His hands had to be seriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword ...

I had a crazy idea.

"There's that sentence we all know and loath," Will groaned.

"It's only the second book," Nico unhelpfully agreed, "how many times can he say that before it wears off?"

"I'm thinking never," Thalia already promised.

I ran toward the locker room.

"Move!" I told my teammates. "Away from the door."

Explosions behind me. Tyson had batted two of the balls back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.

That left two giants still standing.

A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door.

Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys' locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion, so I wasn't surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge WHOOOOOOOM!

"That pyro thing may not have been a joke," Magnus said, "we can now add school to the list of things you've blown up."

"I will burn that list if you keep adding to it," Percy assured.

"I think this one might even count as an atomic bomb more than that lightning bolt," Alex was waving his hand in front of his face at just the idea.

The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym.

I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him.

"No!" I yelled.

The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street.

"Does that count as an out?" Jason asked. "You're out if you catch it, right?"

"I'm sure he'll head home thanks to the rules," Percy mock agreed.

"Does that mean Tyson successfully defeated all of them without your help at all," Nico added, seeming just as bewildered as everyone else what was up with this guy even though he knew better.

"Hey, I-" but Percy stopped himself as he realized Nico was right and instead turned in concern back to the book to see if Tyson was okay.

I didn't see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

The last giant clearly disagreed with Jason's ruling and wasn't going anywhere, and Percy was tossing his pen from hand to hand in frustration of just sitting here remembering this happening to him.

"Well!" Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"

"Easy money says that dog is a fluff butt that prefers tenderloins," Alex offered his hand out for their imaginary bets.

"No Alex, you may not bring a dog in here when Percy kills its owner," Thalia sighed in exhaustion.

"You guys are no fun," he grumbled.

He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.

"Stop!" I yelled. "It's me you want!"

The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"

I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.

Then I spotted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant's feet. If I could only get there... I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.

"That's going to be on your gravestone one day," Thalia said to the ceiling.

"Hopefully I'll at least be wearing my own pants and die with some dignity," Percy didn't seem concerned about the right part there as far as she was concerned.

The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.

Suddenly the giant's body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should've been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn—no, not a horn—the glowing tip of a blade.

"I have found your invisible friend," Thalia smiled in relief.

"At least I only had the one to worry about today," Percy said with the exact same expression.

The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.

He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.

Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she'd just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.

Percy thought she'd never looked more beautiful in his mind as he ached to find out what had happened and launch a million questions at her. What had happened with her father, did she know what was going on at camp, how stupid had those shorts made him look?

Matt Sloan, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture.

"That's the girl ... That's the girl—"

Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. "And you," she told him, "lay off my friend."

"I'm in love," Percy fanned his face dramatically for that entrance.

"She does know how to make an impact," Thalia agreed fondly.

The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.

"Annabeth ..." I stammered. "How did you ... how long have you ..."

"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronze knife. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."

"The shadow I saw this morning—that was—" My face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bed-room window?"

"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to—"

"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.

"Meet me outside," Annabeth told me. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn't quite understand.

"You'd better bring him."

"What?"

"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"

She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantly vanished.

"Girl swoops in, solves every problem you were currently having, and vanishes right back away," Will laughed. "She might be an angel."

"Hands off Solace," Percy still had a bemused smile on his face as he agreed with all of that.

Nico watched the exchange with an annoyed little frown, did everybody on the planet besides him have a crush on Annabeth?

That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.

"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What ... how ..."

Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."

Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"

Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck—he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."

"Annabeth needs to come back and dish out a few more punches," Alex blustered for Percy getting the blame saving all of their lives.

"I'm just hoping she explains what she's doing there before the half-point of the book this time," Magnus frowned anxiously what his cousin was really up to, and why she'd been so testy with Tyson when he'd just saved Percy's life. What else was there to be worried about now the cannibals were gone?

The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell them the truth.

I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.

"You always know how to make an exit," Thalia smiled without concern as she tossed the book to Nico without asking this time.

"Between me and Annabeth's grand entrances, where could we go wrong from there?" Percy agreed.

[jimlingss]

(sorry my tumblr app glitched so im not sure if this was sent twice) taking a chance for the requests! how about a seokjin or namjoon arranged marriage au with this: “Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.” 🎄 happy holidays!!

↳ Playground Promises

1.9k || 100% Light Fluff || Kim Seokjin

The bell rings.

Moments later, children are sprinting from the doors and flooding the playground. You watch in fondness as some climb the monkey bars while others sit and dig into the sandbox. All of them were forging their first friendships they’ll remember forever and you were their witness.

This is one of your favourite times of day. You enjoy seeing the kids have their fun, listening to their laughter and giggles, watching their games of tag to play pretend. But today, your enjoyment is interrupted by a certain male teacher that comes to stand behind you.

Tall. Dark. And handsome. His broad shoulders carry the weight of the third-grade class and practically the entire elementary school. But you’d never admit that out loud.

“It’s a bit chilly out today. You should’ve brought your coat with you.”

You hum.

Every staff member, married and single, swoons over Kim Seokjin. It’s hard not to. But if others knew what your relationship was with him, you’re sure you’d never hear the end of it. The kids would make a big fuss and so would all the staff and faculty, and you’d rather avoid that.

“I didn’t know you were on playground duty today.”

“I switched with Sana,” he says and leans over to smile. “Thought you could use some company.”

You scoff. “She’s perfectly fine company.”

The corner of his plump lip pulls. “If you want to talk about the mathletes program. And I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

Before you can respond, a boy approaches the two of you with pink cheeks and wind-swept hair. “Mr. Kim, can I go to the bathroom?” the third-grader asks in the midst of catching his breath and the older man nods.

“Go ahead. But don’t run in the hallway, Lucas.” 

Said boy grins and dashes off.

Seokjin turns to you and lowers his voice. “My mom’s been asking about the kids.”

Your brows furrow. “Why? They’re a good bunch.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t mean your class’ kids, I mean our kids.”

You blink owlishly. “There are no our kids.”

“That’s the problem.”

You sigh and roll your eyes. “Wasn’t getting married enough for them?”

Seokjin shrugs with a faint, mischievous smile. “They want to go out for brunch with your parents this Sunday. Are you free?”

“When am I not free?” you retort lightly, but slip your phone out of your pocket to check your calendar anyhow. Seokjin glances over to your screen and once you finish, you slip it back into your pocket. “I have some marking to do, but I’ll probably finish by then.”

“Okay.” The pair of you turn back to continue monitoring the children playing and you’re glad to revel in the silence that’s been created between you. But after a beat, Kim Seokjin pipes up again. You don’t know why you’re surprised. He’s quite the talkative guy. “Hey, Y/N.”

You look over and he meets your eye.

He asks, “Am I your lock screen?”

Your face heats. If you were once cold, now you were warm from head to toe. “You weren’t supposed to see that,” you mumble. It was just a picture from the other day and you wanted to change things up on your phone. You had nothing else to use. It was convenient. That’s it.

Your entire relationship with him is built on convenience. At least...on his side it is.

Still, Seokjin grins and fortunately, he doesn’t tease.

You rush to change the subject. “A-Anyway, yeah, Sunday works for me. But we should probably talk about this after work.”

“Why? No one’s around.” His smile is spread from ear to ear and he leans in, whispering, “Are you that scared of people finding out we’re married?”

Immediately, you whip your head in all directions. Luckily, there’s no kid or nosy faculty member. You turn back to him, glaring. “I already said, I like to keep my private life under wraps.”

“I remember. But if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were embarrassed of me.”

You scoff and a murmur unintentionally spills out of you, “That’s impossible.”

You don’t notice Seokjin’s smile.

It’s been three months since you got married. It was a summer wedding. More importantly, it was an arranged marriage. And not because you were both wealthy and needed to be wedded to get the inheritance under some arbitrary contract rule or because it was your grandmother’s dying wish. No. You live a much more mundane, normal life than the dramas, movies and books.

It was your mom who threw a fuss. She was scared you’d be alone and unmarried, an old maid like your aunt — you didn’t say it, she just heavily implied it. But following her practically senile meltdown, you agreed. Partly to appease her worries and partly just out of curiosity.

You always wanted to get married. And deep down, you always wanted your own kids. But at the rate you were going, you had a feeling you wouldn’t be able to meet someone on your own.

What you didn’t expect on that blind date was for the other person to be Kim Seokjin, third grade teacher. Down the hall from you at the school. Someone across the room every lunchtime. Your dads were apparently long time colleagues, but Jin was still as equally shocked as you were during that first meeting. Yet, he easily agreed to getting married when you brought it up. Even when it was only after two months of occasionally seeing one another outside of your workplaces.

You still don’t know why he said yes.

“Ms. L/N!”

You’re torn out of your trance by a little girl at your knees. 

She pouts. “Jennie won’t let me play on the slide!”

“Did you ask her to share?”

“Yes!”

Before any more can be said, she drags you over and Seokjin trails after you. There’s another girl with brown braided hair climbing on the slide, and she swivels her head over as the two of you approach, eyes the size of saucers. 

“Are you taking turns, Jennie?” you ask her, and she vigorously nods.

“I am!”

“Well, you’ve been on it for a while. How about Lisa takes a turn next.”

“Okay,” she draws out and gets off of the slide before turning to her friend. “Here you go.”

It’s always little problems you have to solve — from sharing to knee scrapes and monkey bar accidents. Sometimes it’s difficult for the children to compromise, difficult for them to apologize and difficult for you to find a good solution. But you undoubtedly wish your own issues were this simple.

While you’re stuck in your thoughts, you miss Jin watching you fondly. 

“You’re good with kids,” he says as you move out of the way of running children and walk back to the perimeter.

“I wouldn’t be doing this job if I wasn’t. But I deal with older kids much better.” There’s a reason you teach fifth graders and not any lower than that. Seokjin knows it too.

“Remember when we had to supervise that kindergarten class together?”

You shudder. “It was a nightmare.”

“You weren’t that bad,” he tries to say but then laughs. You feign a glare, and he adds on, “Okay. I’m sorry, but I still mean it. It’s not as terrible as you thought. You’d make a good mom.” 

At that, your glare vanishes in favour of furrowing brows. You really shouldn’t, but you can’t help it when curiosity pries — so you break your own rule against discussing private matters at work. 

“Do you want my kids?”

Seokjin is wide-eyed and he turns to you. “Why not? We’re married.”

“Yeah….but…”

“But? Do you not want kids?” 

“No! I definitely want them,” you declare, almost a bit too boldly. He nods and you explain, “It’s just...I don’t know if you’re serious.”

Seokjin blinks. “I’m being perfectly serious.”

“I mean I don’t know if we’re serious.” You add, “Enough to have kids.”

“What’s more serious than being married?” Jin has a genuinely inquisitive and amused expression, head quirked to the side. 

You inhale a sharp breath and his gaze coaxes you to go on, so you do. “It’s just that you agreed so quickly to be married to me. It doesn’t….feel real. I don’t know if you wanted to marry me, if you did it on a whim, if this is some kind of joke—”

He frowns. “This isn’t a joke, Y/N. I wanted to marry you.”

Your mouth hangs open. Your eyes are rounded.

“Wh—”

“Mrs. L/N!” You’re interrupted by your fifth-grader, Park Jimin. He sprints to you, huffing and puffing, before leaning his hands onto his knees to catch his breath. “Have you seen Taehyung?! We’re playing tag!”

“No, I haven’t.”

Jin suddenly points to the left. “He went that way.”

Jimin books it.

Silence fills the spaces between you and Seokjin again, but it isn’t like normal. It’s filled with unanswered questions and the suspenseful cliffhanger of an unfinished conversation. The laughter of kids on the playground and field resound around you, but for the first time, you don’t listen to it. 

It fades into the background as you turn to Seokjin, wanting to know more. “What did you just say?”

The man smiles softly. “You have to know.”

“I don’t,” you assert. “So tell me.”

“I’ve always liked you.”

You blink and he continues, “Since you substituted for the art teacher and I saw you squirt red paint all over yourself. It’s something I couldn’t forget. Plus, the way you draw those stick people.” Seokjin laughs heartily and you’re trapped in your spot, unsure of how to react or what to say. He reads your expression and softens. “Did you really think I would rush into a marriage if I didn’t have feelings for you?”

“I…” Your mouth is agape. “I don’t know. Why did we never talk about this?”

Seokjin shrugs. “You never asked and I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable if you didn’t feel the same way. I knew you married me for convenience.”

“That’s not true,” you retort within a beat. This whole time, you thought he married you for convenience sake. But it wasn’t entirely like that for you.

Seokjin’s eyes are big and you swallow down your embarrassment. “Isn’t it obvious every single breathing person loves you? It’s hard not to.”

Slowly but surely, a grin spreads into Seokjin’s puffy cheeks and he’s smiling from ear to ear again. “Well, you’re very good at hiding it then.”

Suddenly, the bell rings.

All the children reluctantly climb off the equipment, some dusting their hands while others grabbing their friends, and they rush into their lineups. There’s a few stranglers lugging their legs while groaning. But busy in their small playground worlds, no one turns around to notice you leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to Seokjin’s mouth. It’s shy and brief, like the first peck exchanged between two for the first time. And you pull away just as fast, lips left tingling.

“We can continue this later, Mr. Kim.”

You stride off while Seokjin’s left smiling. After a breathless moment, he chases after you like children who have just made promises of their first love on the playground.

[icharchivist]

Because the Granblue people are fine with giving us playable Lobelia (which nobody asked for) but not Belial (which everyone is asking for, especially me) (COWARDS), I just have to imagine what his holiday lines would be. What horrible totally-safe-for-work things do you think he would tell the captain on Christmas?

LITERALLY. LITERALLY. We have the choice between two garbage men and we get to get the only one who wears clothes. I think it's really mean and - wait why are you focusing on what i used as a reference point, this is not the point, also i'm right, so,

I definitely think Belial would try to give "gifts" while MC is extremely wary of every single one of them. With Belial laughing, y'know, his mocking laugh, about how there's no need to worry, he wouldn't hurt his preeecious Singularity like that <3 (bonus point if his lines culminate just as much as the Seraphic quests, with the first year seeming like an innocent gift, and each year it gets slightly more fucked up until you wonder if he tried to corrupt MC, AGAIN)

Anyway, i totally think he would also offer up Captain to "warm up" with him. Oh, silly us, he meant by the fireplace of course! that said if we want him to warm our bed of course he'd be happy to oblige... "ahah just kidding", you know the type.

how about looking at a pine tree and mentioning he tried to help with it but "your crew didn't see too kindly at me erecting the pine. :)." and "what do you think Singularity, would you like me to put you on top of my erected pine? [very long pause] i set up a tree in my room i mean, of course :)"

Eventually there would be a wholesome line near the end, completely overshadowed by him saying something fucked up. There'd probably be lines about how he wishes Lucilius was here to look at the lights too.

He'd probably offer a gift down the line. Probably make some winky wink comments at what's in the box.

Listen. I'll be honest. I've written this whole ask while stalling the fact this was the only thing in my mind: let's be real if granblue wasn't still censoring him this is what we would get:

... Maybe that's why Belial is not playable while Lobelia is. They can see this vision just like me and know it would be out of character to stop Belial from doing just that. And the censors would not look kindly to it, but somehow, "serial killer offering the sounds of people he tortured because he thinks it's a delightful gift" is passing through them.

We're being robbed, i say. Robbed!

[leossmoonn]

Real Artwork [Spencer Reid]

masterlist 

pairing - spencer reid x fem!reader 

type -  fluff

note / request - “first date fluff w spencer”. ok so i got this idea from @randomlimelightxxx​ (tsym btw). this museum is fictional bc there are no museums close to quantico or in quantico so lol bear with me pls. and this is pretty short, but sweet so enjoy!

summary - spencer takes you to the museum for your first date, but the painting aren’t the thing he’s really admiring 

warnings / includes - nothing really, just a little cussing and kissing lol

————

*gif isn’t mine*

You twiddled with your fingers, looking out the cab window. You couldn’t sit still for the life of you. You were beyond nervous. You were going on a date for the first time in a few months. Not only that, but you were going on a date with Doctor Spencer Reid. The Doctor Spencer Reid. The doctor that you had always stared at during the holiday parties you had been invited to that Penelope set up. The doctor that you were too shy to say hi to, even though you were all talk. 

You were surprised, to say the least, when Penelope said he had agreed to go on a date with you. Well, more like he basically timidly asked Penelope if you were single and when she said yes, he was jumping for joy and already planning your guys’s date. But you humbled yourself with the word ‘agree’. 

You couldn’t understand why he would want to go on a date with you. It’s not that you thought low of yourself - you thought quite the opposite, actually. It’s just that you two had never had an actual conversation before. The most you’ve said to each other were ‘hi’ and ‘thank you’ when he held the door open for you once. 

Nonetheless, you were very excited and ecstatic - again, to say the least - to go on this date. 

“Alright, this is your stop,” the driver interrupted your thoughts. 

You snapped your head to her, giving her a smile. “Thank you. Have a night night.” You said, opening the car door. 

“You, too, honey,” she smiled. You gave her one last goodbye smile before shutting the car door. 

You walked onto the sidewalk, standing still and staring at the museum in front of you. For your first date, Spencer had chosen it since he asked you out first. Technically Penelope had asked you, but you didn’t mind very much. You knew that he was a shy, reserved person. He had chosen the Quantico Art Museum as the location. Honestly, you were thankful he had chosen this place. You had never been there, but you always wanted to go. And now you were able to with Spencer. Plus, any date location/idea you would’ve had probably wouldn’t have been fun or interesting, anyways.

You made your way up the steps of the entrance, adjusting your purse and the straps your tank top. For you date, you had opted out for jeans and a shirt rather than a dress since you would be walking and standing the majority of the time. You had a silk, black tank top that was tucked into your jeans loosely. You wore two-inched shoes that you knew wouldn’t give you a hard time with all the standing, but still made you look dressed up. Your coat was light-weight and more like a cardigan, but it was insulated and had better pockets than a cardigan. You hoped Spencer would like your date attire.

You pulled out your phone, seeing if you had gotten any texts from Spencer to let you know that he was here. Luckily for you, he was. He had texted you that he was in the lobby with your tickets a few minutes ago. He had given you a description of his date attire, just in case you had trouble finding him. You knew that you wouldn’t have trouble with that, though. He would be the most handsome, best dressed man in the room. 

As you went to approach the door, your hands starting to get clammy. You wiped them on your coat several times before opening the door. You stepped into the museum, smiling at the few people that were exiting. Your eyes darted around the lobby as you went through the second set of doors. As you stepped inside, your eyes landing on Spencer immediately. 

And man, was he gorgeous. 

His hair was fluffy and curly around his face. He had a little bit of scruff on his face, but it shadowed his jawline well. He was wearing a plan white button-up with black slacks and a grey tie. He had his signature watch on his right wrist, and big, excited smile on face to tie his whole appearance together. You were right, he definitely was the most handsome man in the room.

Spencer’s gaze fell on you just a few moments after you found him. And let me tell you, he was stunned. No words could describe your beauty and how you made him feel. Before he saw you, he was on edge and doubts were running through his mind. But once he saw you, he relaxed immediately. His heart was still racing a mile a minute, for sure, but he felt relieved that you came and so very lucky, too.  

You smiled at you noticed his stare, biting your cheek from smiling too hard. You began to walk up to him, the muffled sound of your heels on the floor echoing with each step. As you got closer, your heart hammered in your chest. You couldn’t believe this was actually happening.  

You stopped in front of him, deciding to break the silence. 

“Hi.” You spoke. A shy, but also excited smile lighting up your features. 

His smile got impossibly bigger at the sight of yours. “Hey.” 

You two stared at each other for a few moments, admiring each other’s appearances. Spencer was the one to break the silence with a compliment. 

“You look beautiful… stunning.. um, amazing.” 

The heat rose to your neck and your gaze on him faltered. You began to find the floor a lot more interesting. “Thank you. You look handsome. Like um, really handsome.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “Are you uh, ready?” 

You looked back up and nodded in reply. 

“Great. Uh, let’s check in. Have you ever been here before?” He asked, getting out the tickets from his pocket. 

“No, but I’ve always wanted to go,” you answered. 

“This place is so cool. It's one of my favourite museums, besides the science museum,” he chuckled. 

You smiled at his little laugh. “Well, I’m glad I got to go here with you.”

The tips of his ears turned pink and he looked down shyly. You two walked up to the front desk. Spencer handed the man your tickets. The man scanned them, handing the tickets and two red-coloured paper bracelets. 

“Put these on so our staff know you’ve been checked in. Do you two need a map of the museum?” The man asked. 

Spencer looked to you for the answer. You glanced at him, then back at the man. 

“No, thank you. He’s been here a bunch of times, he can be the tour guide,” you answered, nudging Spencer slightly. 

The man and Spencer smiled at your reply. 

“Alright, sounds good. You two enjoy your visit,” the man said. 

You and Spencer said your ‘thank you’s’, walking away from the desk. You two stopped next to a pillar, putting on your bracelets. 

“Thank you for buying my ticket, by the way,” you said. 

“No problem. I uh, I heard that if a guy asks the girl on the first date, then he should pay,” he explained sheepishly. 

You grinned, “Ah. Well, very true.”

He smiled back at you for a few moments, admiring your features once more. You two began walking again, going to the first exhibit that housed contemporary paintings. You admired a painting of what looked like to be a crowd of people dancing when Spencer spoke. 

“This artist died when he was only 37.”

Your brows raised and you looked to him. “What happened?”

“Car accident,” he explained. “Wow,” you frowned. “How unfortunate.” “Yeah. He painted this when he was only 16.”

“Talented guy,” you remarked, looking back at the painting. 

Spencer nodded in agreement, looking back at the painting, but sneaking glances at you every other second. 

You two moved on to different sections, making conversation to get to know each other. Spencer listened to you as you talked about your childhood. As he listened, he tried to keep his staring to a normal amount, but he couldn’t. Something about you was so addicting to look at. He didn’t know if it was the way you talked with your hands, the way your lips would spread into a smile when describing a happy memory, the way your eyes would light up, too. You were just so enticing.   

You noticed his stares and tried to fight off the butterflies that were swarming in your stomach. No guy had ever paid this much attention to you before. Especially not a guy like Spencer. There were times where his stare was just burning into your side, and it caused you to stutter on your words a little. 

“S-So, um,” you spoke, trying to gather your train of thought. 

Spencer just kept staring, honestly completely oblivious to how he was making you feel. 

“So um, that’s me,” you finished off with a chuckle. Spencer smiled, “Very interesting stuff.”

“No,” you shook your head, lowering your head. “No, I’m serious. I mean, i’ve never heard of someone breaking that many bones in such a short span of time,” he teased. 

You let out a hearty laugh, nodding your head and looking back up. “Yeah, well, I was a routy kid.”

Spencer smiled at your response, turning his head back to the paintings. You let out a little breath of relief. It’s not that you didn't like him staring at you. No, you loved it, actually. It was just so unexpected and you at times you wondered if there was something on your face. You pushed your doubts away, knowing that if that was true, surely Spencer would have said something. 

You decided to make a little move of your own, though. You two went up to the second floor, stepping in the elevator. You two were the only ones in there and after Spencer pressed the number two button, you moved your hand so it touched his. 

Spencer froze once he felt your hand on his. You noticed his reaction, but didn’t pull away. Instead, you slipped your hand into his, intertwining your fingers together. You scooted closer to him so your shoulders were touching. You were looking down at the floor as Spencer was looked at you, surprise written all over his face. It hadn’t expected to be touched tonight. Especially not by you. He didn’t mind it, though, not at all. 

He felt himself relax into into your touch, leaning against your arm slightly. A big smile spread across his face as you lifted your head, looking at him. You noticed his smile and mirrored it. You two didn’t say anything, the looks in your eyes already speaking the words for yourselves.  

The elevator door opened and you two stepped out hand-in-hand. Content smiles rested on both of your faces as you went to the next exhibit. The rest of the night you two kept close like this. You were either holding hands or touching arms. You even rested your head on his shoulder once while admiring a painting of two lovers kissing and surrounded by nature. 

It was at this moment where Spencer couldn’t keep his eyes off of you. Not like he could before, but he literally couldn’t. His eyes were glued to you. You looked so cute with your cheek against his shoulder, your eyes bright and wide as you looked over the painting. Your body was warm and made him feel safe and secure in the big museum, something he rarely felt in his daily life. Not to mention, you looked great next to him. You two fit perfectly together. 

“Such a pretty piece of artwork,” you mumbled. 

Spencer nodded, still looking down at you. “Yeah. It’s beautiful.”

You looked up at, surprised to see him staring at you. Your eyes widened once you realised that he wasn’t talking about the painting, but that he was talking about you. You hoped, at least. You decided to ask him to confirm your beliefs. 

“W-What?” You squeaked. 

Spencer smiled at you, looking deep into your eyes. “I said… You’re beautiful.”

Your knees buckled and you began to fall, but Spencer was quick too catch you. His hands went around your waist and your heart started racing impossibly faster. You also caught yourself on his shoulders, your hands gripping his shirt as he pulled you back on your feet. Your gaze fell on his lips and you licked your own, imagining how it would be to kiss him. Your eyes trailed back up to his eyes, your whole body now getting warm in embarrassment. 

“Sorry. I can be pretty clumsy,” you chuckled. 

“It’s alright. Me, too,” he gave you a soft smile. 

You nodded, your eyes finding their way back to his lips. Spencer noticed and started to lean in. He had been wanting to kiss you all night and he found that now would be the prefect chance.  

You noticed him leaning in and you did the same, meeting him halfway. You pressed your lips to him gently. You kissed him, quietly moaning at the feeling. Spencer’s hands gripped your waist and your hands made their way to the back of his neck, entangling your fingers in his curl, soft hair. Kissing him felt so damn good.   

You were the first to pull away, opening your eyes and looking at his. A smile crept on your face as the realisation of what you had just done entered your mind.

“You’re a lot more forward than I thought,” you remarked. 

“Sometimes people can surprise you,” he grinned. You chuckled in agreement with his comment. “Is that why you’ve been staring at me this whole time?”

“Y-You noticed that?” Spencer asked, suddenly growing shy. 

“Well, it wasn’t very subtle,” you giggled. 

Spencer smiled softly at your laugh. “Yeah, I have been staring at you the whole night.”

“Any reason?” You hummed, running your hands through his locks. 

“Because…” his voice trailed off. He had a reason he just didn’t want it to seem corny. “Well, because you’re the real artwork here.”

You giggled at his answer, feeling your heart flutter 

“What? Was that cheesy?” He asked.  

“A little?” You nodded. “But cute, nonetheless. Thank you.”

“Well, it’s true,” he shrugged. 

You smiled brightly and leaned up to place a sweet kiss to his lips. “Well, wanna keep on admiring me while I admire the paintings, and possibly you?”

Spencer laughed, nodding his head. “I’d love to.”

————

bye bc this sucks lol

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[storiesforallfandoms]

actually excited ~ corpse husband

word count: 784

request?: no

description: after years of christmas being his least favorite holiday, corpse admits that having her in his life made him excited for the holidays for the first time 

pairing: corpse x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist

Christmas music filled the usually silent apartment, accompanied by (Y/N)’s voice singing along. When Corpse exited his recording room, he was met with what he could only describe as Christmas having thrown up over his apartment.

(Y/N) was in the process of putting up the Christmas tree as Corpse walked into the living room. She looked up at him and smiled.

“Hey! How was filming?” she asked.

“Long,” Corpse responded. “But I’ve recorded and edited enough stream highlights to last over Christmas.”

(Y/N) stood to wrap her arms around him. Corpse smiled and hugged her back. With her head nuzzled into his chest, she asked, “Want to help decorate the tree?”

Corpse chuckled and gave her a slight squeeze. She really knew how to get him to say yes.

He sat down on the floor next to her and watched as (Y/N) took ornaments out of the box and sorted them on the floor in front of them. She hummed along to the music as she began placing ornaments on the tree.

Corpse smiled absentmindedly as he watched her. (Y/N) brought a sort of light to the apartment when Corpse needed it most. As corny as it was to say, in the past year that they had been together, (Y/N) had made Corpse the happiest he had been in a long time. It was noticeable by everyone, especially his friends. When streaming together, they would often point out how much happier he sounded, or how he seemed like he was coming out of his shell more with everyone, and he knew that was all thanks to (Y/N).

As she turned back for another ornament, (Y/N)’s gaze met Corpse’s and she smiled back at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Corpse responded, passing her the ornament. “I’m just looking at you.”

“And smiling,” she pointed out.

“Am I not allowed to smile?”

“Of course you’re allowed to smile. In fact, I’d rather if you smiled. I love your smile.” She sat down on the floor in front of him again. “You just looked like you were thinking, too.”

“I was,” Corpse admitted. “I was thinking about you.”

“Sappy.”

Corpse chuckled and pulled (Y/N) into his arms. Although catching her off guard, (Y/N) giggled and settled comfortably into his arms.

“It is sappy,” he said. “But our relationship is just walking sappy-ness at this point.”

(Y/N) rested her head in the crook of Corpse’s neck. “What were you thinking about specifically? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind,” Corpse responded. “I was thinking...I was thinking about how I’ve never really liked Christmas.”

(Y/N) pulled away slightly to give Corpse a shocked look. “You don’t like Christmas?!”

“Let me finish!” he said, pulling her back to him. “No, I’ve never really been one for Christmas. Not since I’ve moved out on my own, anyways. It’s just...Christmas was never good for me. The more I was diagnosed with other illnesses, the more it seemed like Christmas became about making sure I could afford treatments and medication. I just started associating Christmas with being sick, not having money, putting on fake smiles even though my family was struggling to make ends meet.”

(Y/N) turned in his arms to look at him while he spoke. She was listening to intently, taking his hands in hers and running her thumbs along his knuckles, absentmindedly.

“I’ve never really had someone to celebrate Christmas like this with, either,” he continued. “My last girlfriend, we weren’t together for Christmas. We broke up just before Christmas, actually, which gave Christmas another negative connotation in my mind. Then I met you, and you’re so bright and bubbly in every way possible. You make me so happy, you light me up in my darkest times. You’ve made me genuinely excited for Christmas for the first time in a very long time.”

Tears were welling up in (Y/N)’s eyes as she quickly lunged forward and wrapped her arms around Corpse’s neck. He chuckled as he hugged her back, giving her another soft squeeze.

“You deserve endless happiness,” (Y/N) told him, her words slightly muffled in his shoulder.

“You give me that happiness,” he responded. “I’m so lucky to have you in my life, (Y/N).”

(Y/N) pulled away and kissed him. “You’re stuck with me, baby.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

After another quick squeeze, (Y/N) stood again, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Okay, enough of the emotional stuff. Grab an ornament, put it somewhere.”

Corpse chuckled and did as (Y/N) said, standing to join her by the tree and continuing to decorate.