#at least. presumably. maybe it was Longer

[raayllum]

So S4 starts in July (specifically July 15th, Callum's birthday). The end of 5x09 is explicitly 30 days after. Then we know about a month passes in S6, since it was a full moon in 5x09 and it's a full moon again in 6x09 in order to use the Moon Nexus.

I'm assuming S7 is also around a month until the finale (since Callum and Rayla had to travel from Katolis to the Banther Lodge to the Silvergrove, and then spent another two weeks there before the finale). So I'd wager S7 is likely over a month, maybe 1.5 months long? We know the moon phases are at least close to what they should be to each other in 7x05 and 7x06, respectively:

However, there's just one week between a full moon and a waning gibbus (the first picture) and we know it's been longer than that, even though we know it doesn't take a month to go from Katolis to the Silvergrove. It could be more in reality that Rayla and Callum reach the Silvergrove after 3 weeks (they're not taking the same detours, but Runaan is slower) and the full moon happens while they're there / TDP's moon phases in general are never 100% consistent.

Then we know more time passes (albeit a week / a few days) until 7x07 and the finale, with 7x07 encompassing a whole day and night.

So yeah, about 1.5 months, maybe 2, max in S7? S5 takes us to mid-August, S6 to mid-September, with S7 taking place from September and into October minimum, possibly into November.

Then we have Miyana, who has a baby bump when she visits Karim, and since it is (presumably) her first pregnancy, you typically only start showing between 4-5 months. She shows up a few weeks into the season (if we're using Rayllum's timeline as the primary tracker), which means we still have roughly a month before the end of the season.

In the S7 epilogue, she has her twins in her arms. They seem to still be quite young (newborn-ish to the first 3-5 months of life) as they're entirely swaddled.

If she was 4 months pregnant in early S7, then this would be about 9 months later, taking us from early October to early June. The Rayllum Banther Lodge scene on the bridge could even later, taking us to fully July.

[levemetal]

Day 2: Timeloop / Xiao Qi and Jiu Ge

I am cringe and I am not even free

Feel free to reuse this idea but 24 hours are not enough for me to finish an entire comic. I could have taken the simpler prompt but nOOOOOO timeloop is too tempting. Past me why are we like this

[charminglygrouped]

For the past several years (and perhaps longer) in the P&P fandom I've seen a lot of people who want to rehabilitate Mrs. Bennet: like, sure, she's uncouth and seems greedy, but it's because she cares so much about her daughters' futures; her situation is actually really stressful and uncertain and she's powerless to change it and her husband makes fun of her, and so it's natural that it would cause her to be anxious all the time; maybe she doesn't have the intelligence or social awareness to understand that her behaviour is actually harming her daughters' prospects, but at least her heart is in the right place.

I'm usually not the type of person who argues that fandom is actually being too nice to a female character, but in this case I don't buy the counter-narrative (which I think is popular enough at this point to be fanon / a narrative in itself) about Mrs. Bennet.

For one thing, she was never really powerless in this situation. These people are rich even for gentry. Mr. Bennet's income was always good, at 2,000 pounds per annum (even though I can't believe he isn't neglecting some practices that could raise it higher). Mrs. Bennet had 4,000 pounds from her parents and a further 1,000 from Mr. Bennet. Invested in the 4 per cents (for example), this is 200 pounds per year in pin money that Mrs. Bennet could spend without touching the principle of her dowry, and without affecting Mr. Bennet's income. This is more than some people's entire yearly incomes.

The picture of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet that we get in P&P is not of people who are helpless against their circumstances, but of people who are extraordinarily neglectful. We're told that:

Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. [...] When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son. This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy; and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.

We also know that the "continual presents in money which passed to [Lydia] through her mother’s hands," plus her allowance and food, amount to about 90 pounds per year. Rather than saving up from the beginning in case the entail is not broken, rather than beginning to save once it's clear a son will not arrive, rather than making Jane's dowry the full 5,000 from her mother (which would be something) and saving up for the younger girls' dowries thereafter—which is what would be typical, and that's why Lady Catherine was so shocked that all the girls were out at once—Mrs. Bennet's housekeeping, dress, the girls' allowance, presents of money over and above their allowance, plus whatever Mr. Bennet is spending money on (and other expenses relating to servants, carriages, maintenance &c. which are unavoidable), add up to their entire income. The only reason why Mrs. Bennet doesn't overspend even that is that that's where Mr. Bennet puts his foot down.

Mrs. Bennet is actively harming her daughters' prospects, not even of marriage, but of living respectably if they don't marry, because she doesn't have the temperance not to spend all of the income that is allotted to her. It is the role of the woman in a marriage to take charge of the housekeeping, servants, cooking, furniture, and all expenses relating thereto (plus certain attentions to her tenants and any living in genteel poverty in the area, though presumably this will depend on her income and whether there's a parish church with a parson's wife who's doing some of these things). She's an adult who should be competent to manage these things in a reasoned way without needing to be dictated to.

It is supposed to be the role of the woman in a marriage to take charge of her daughters' education—and yet Mrs. Bennet did not hire a governess, and Elizabeth says that she didn't spend much time teaching her daughters anything (it's not clear to what degree she's educated herself). Granted, the girls did have masters—but, from the sounds of things, that was only if they requested them. No one was required to learn much of anything, which will probably further harm the marriage prospects of the girls who "chose to be idle."

I think the "point" of Mrs. Bennet is that she is one half of one type of bad marriage which the novel illustrates, in contrast with the Gardiners' marriage. These marriages are two possible models for the Bennet daughters to look to. At one point, Elizabeth's prospective marriage is explicitly compared to her parents', with her in the role of her father: Mr. Bennet says "My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life" (emphasis original).

We might wonder whether Elizabeth saw herself potentially in the role of her father, in a marriage that was very intellectually unequal, when she rejected Mr. Collins; or whether she also saw herself in the role of her mother, married to a man who insults and doesn't respect her, when she rejected Mr. Darcy. Ultimately, she accepts Mr. Darcy after she realises that he is nothing like her father; that he is diligent in attending to his responsibilities, and that he does evidently respect her mind.

This isn't me defending Mr. Bennet, who is also a bad parent and a bad spouse. I do, however, find it a little disturbing when people suggest that Mr. Bennet is at fault for not controlling or curtailing his wife. His wife is a grown woman. Surely we don't actually believe that a situation where a man is legally in complete control over his wife, merely because he is a man and she is a woman, is in any way natural, moral, or just? (This also goes for people who suggest that Mr. Bingley needs to get his sister 'in line' 😬😬😬.)

Mrs. Bennet should be competent to manage her household and her daughters. Given that she's not, yes, Mr. Bennet, according to Georgian and Victorian ideas of the role of a man in a marriage, "should" have stepped in and started dictating to her. But I don't really think that's what Austen is suggesting went wrong here. The models of good marriages we have—the Gardiners, the Bingleys and Darcys after their weddings—are all ones in which the women were basically sensible people to begin with. In the latter two cases, we are told of particular ways in which the men stand to benefit from some mental quality of their future spouse (Elizabeth's good humour and ease in company; Jane's steadiness and determination).

The ideal which some Georgians had of a husband's role being to shape his wife's intellect doesn't seem to be what's being advocated here. If Mr. Bennet made a mistake, it was in marrying a silly, selfish, ill-tempered woman to begin with, not in failing to browbeat her into submission once he found out that she was silly, selfish, and ill-tempered. The idea is that you should choose your spouse carefully. But that message doesn't work if Mrs. Bennet is just a woman in a difficult situation who has her heart in the right place.

[tossawary]

Admittedly, I don't tend to read much fanfic in fandoms I write for, because I don't want to get my canon and fanon mixed, so my selection is limited, but I've never seen anyone mention the fact that Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu (Shen Jiu) had a big sister.

One of the children in their "group", presumably numbered between "1" and "6", was a girl, and when he remembers her, Shen Jiu directly associates this lost person with safety and comfort. He thinks of her as the equivalent to Qiu Haitang before Qiu Haitang: someone who provided a place to "hide" from the rest of the world. It's not just that there happened to be an older girl in their group, but this was a girl whom Shen Jiu apparently liked and trusted.

Here's the relevant quote from Part 4 of the Qijiu Extras in SVSSS Volume 4 (the one where Yue Qingyuan finds Shen Qingqiu fighting with Liu Qingge in the brothel):

"All those years, whenever one of his beatings from Qiu Jianluo was over, or whenever he had a premonition of another beating, he had crawled to Qiu Haitang’s room and remained there, quivering. As Qiu Jianluo was unwilling to let his sister see the side of him that was perverse and lunatic, that had been the only place where Shen Jiu could hide.

And even longer ago, there had been some girl in their group, their big sis. But after she reached a certain age, that big sis had been sold to a withered old man to be his second wife. Afterward, they’d left that city, so they’d never seen her again.

Liking women wasn’t the least bit shameful, but treating women like saviors, cowering within their embrace and seeking courage from them… even without anyone saying it, Shen Qingqiu knew that was horrendously shameful. So even if it meant his death, he would never tell anyone, least of all Yue Qingyuan."

So, on the very short list of people that the original Shen Qingqiu actually liked even a little bit, there's: 1) Yue Qi before he became Yue Qingyuan, 2) Qiu Haitang, 3) Ning Yingying, 4) "the tender young lady carrying the pipa" who "had long since thrown on her thin robes and dashed out in terror" when Liu Qingge and Shen Qingqiu were fighting, maybe, and 5) this unnamed big sister who was sold off and never seen again.

I've seen plenty of fics and fic ideas where Shen Yuan transmigrates in as a twin to Shen Jiu or a biologically unrelated sibling to SJ and YQ by being a part of their group, but not as this barely canon big sister character. He could give both Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu so, so many more Jiejie issues, I'm sure.

[redflagshipwriter]

Ghost Driver Chapter One

masterpost

Four hours passed with no news or contact: it was time to see what had happened to his date. Danny sighed and tried to be philosophical about it. “Starting shit with Gotham PD and Batman is sort of a step up from fighting with the US government,” he told himself. “That’s just one city and one guy.” He jammed his feet into sneakers, grimly determined to find Jay. “And I’m a sneaky dude,” he pumped himself up. “They might never know I exist!”

At least Batman didn’t kill guys, so Danny didn’t have to check the morgue. Not like that would get Jay out of a date! He had kissed the back of Danny’s hand. They absolutely had to meet up again.

So, yeah. He had to find the bastard. Presumably Batman had arrested him. He was going to give Jay shit for that.

His first tactic paid off: there was clearly a ton of stuff going on at the main police headquarters, including a prison transport van with a frankly ludicrous amount of armed guards on it. Danny squinted at it. “...Alla that, for Jason?” He cocked his head to the side. “Am I impressed, or…” He screwed his face up into a frown. He didn’t know how else to feel about it. Impressed it was.

He was actually sort of grateful for his timing. Danny hunkered down and avoided being sighted by any cops or Batman. The prison van took off, escorted by a convoy of four flashing police cars. Danny felt his eyebrows crawl up his face.

What the fuck, Jay. What did you do, Jay. This sucks, Jay.

There wasn’t any rush to follow it, given that it had the name of the prison written on it. Danny googled “arhham”, “arhham prison,” and learned that he had misread it and that also, it was not a prison. 

“They need to invest in a graphic designer,” Danny kvetched. He went back to the car that Jay had said he could use. He continued not thinking about the registration and how it was probably stolen or something. “H and K don’t have to look alike. We could live in a better world.” He turned the engine on aggressively and smacked the wheel for emphasis. He put on directions to the asylum and some top 40s pop music channel. Charli XXL burst into the night air cheerfully.

He hit the gas. 

He drove too fast. He would admit it. Danny indulged a bit on the way to the militarized treatment facility. It soothed his nerves to hook sharp corners and drift a bit, to go intangible and invisible for a couple of blocks to subtly blast though a red light at 120 mph. 

“Cool,” Danny muttered. He dropped the invisibility and watched a driver startle. He snickered as he passed them on the left. Maybe it was a little mean, but it was harmless and frankly, it was important ghostly enrichment to give a little spook now and then. Speaking of which, he let blinding rings of light travel up and down his body to switch to Phantom. Danny Fenton definitely couldn’t get caught breaking into a building.

Arkham was extremely inconvenient. He left his car in the employee parking lot and floated around until he found the loading bay where the police transport van was currently unloading one dumbass.

Ugh. The shit he put up with. Danny groused to himself and bobbed in the air outside the building as he waited, watching through windows. Mist welled up in his lungs as he got close. Danny felt himself wake up, looking out for danger. Figures that a place like this was haunted. 

They wheeled a stretcher into a cell. Danny kicked his feet and waited. People went in and out. Then the stretcher came out, empty. Everyone but Jay left.

He waited a while longer before slipping down the hallway and into the cell. He ghosted directly through the door to avoid any issues with locks or alarms and then stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh,” Danny said, openly disappointed.

“Who is this?” purred the stranger. He had a weird habit of holding his eyes just a little too open. Looked like they were getting dry and itchy, they were red. To be fair, maybe they were irritated by the makeup the guy had on.

“Nothing, sorry for barging in,” Danny sighed. He raked his hand through his hair. “Sorry to bother you, dude.” He indicated the whole set up going on with a straightjacket and a chair with leather straps. “Seems like you are already busy. I thought you were my date.”

“I could be.” 

Danny laughed. Then he blinked. “Oh, you’re serious. Sorry, you’re too old for me.” Now that he was really paying attention to the guy, there was something wrong about him. Not just the eye thing— something about the way he moved registered him as a possible threat. He wasn’t a ghost. Right? There was something about him that was familiar… 

“Oh, I don’t suppose you were looking for Batsy.” The stranger came off weirdly coy. “No, no, he’s old too, to a whippersnapper like you. Oh.” He sounded delighted. “I know! I know!” He burst out into laughter.

“Uh…” Danny tried not to let how weirded out he was onto his face. “You alright, my guy?” 

“Joker,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m not your guy, boyo. Why, if my hands were free I would teach you some respect for your elders. Take you over my knee for a spanking like I gave your pretty boy date!” He laughed again, pitch getting higher and higher with each ha, ha, ha.

“...I don’t think you could do that.” Danny snorted. His hackles were up. He inserted a little more disdain into his tone. Man, what a creep. “He’s twice your size.” He started trying to rationalize this bizarro conversation away.

‘He’s probably lying, right? Or imagining things. He’s in that restraint for a reason. On the other hand… he’s probably genuinely dangerous to the average human. He wouldn’t be locked up like this if he wasn’t violent.’

“Oh, he grew up big,” Joker agreed. “Which is a shocker, after the spanking I gave him when he was this high!” He jerked as if he was trying to indicate a height with an arm. He was still bound. It could have been funny, but something was starting to read as seriously malicious.

“...Are you seriously telling me right now that you predated on my date when he was a kid?” Danny asked. It… Well, fuck, it was motivation for Jay to do something that involved this guy and Batman. Danny didn’t know Jay that well, but he could identify a motherfucker who liked tragic irony at a dozen paces.

‘I think this might be real. And I’m not imagining this: I think this motherfucker is in my jurisdiction. I don’t know what he is, but he is undeathly as hell.’

Joker blew a raspberry. “Poor dead little Jason Wayne,” he crooned. The hairs stood up on the back of Danny’s neck. He didn’t know that last name, but the first one matched. “All he wants is Daddy to love him, you know?” The sugary tone he used was outright gross. “If Daddy Bats really cared, surely he’d get rid of the things that go bump in the night!” He let his expression drop, blank. Then slowly a rictus smile spread over his face. “But he won’t.”

“...Right.” Danny stared. “And you don’t know where he went, right?” He checked.

‘He’s a creep for sure. I don’t like him being this close to Jason. Why was he out today? And why is he on full name terms before me? I don’t think Jason like, told him that personal information.’

Joker giggled. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know what hole he crawled into”, he crooned. “But when I get out of here again- and I will, I always do!— I’ll be sure to toss a nice little grenade into it.”

“Huh.” Danny frowned. Not very helpful. But the bragging that he always got out…. It didn’t sit well with him. And no wonder. If Joker was some flavor of undead, a regular human facility might never be able to hold him long term. 

After a moment’s deliberation Danny dug his phone out of his pocket and turned away for some privacy.

“Excuse me?” said the Joker.

Danny did the ‘quiet’ gesture with a finger to his lips. “Shh.” He hit two on his speed dial and kicked his toes against the floor as he waited for the call to connect.

“Hi, sweetie!” Mom gushed as soon as sound came across. “How are you, everything ok?”

“Yeah, hi Mom.” Danny went up onto his toes and bounced a few times. “Could you turn the portal on and poke your head in? I need to talk to Wulf.”

“Oh- yes, of course. Just a minute,” she sang out. Machinery roared so loudly that he winced and pulled the phone away from his face. 

“Is that really your Mummy?” said the Joker loudly, because he was rude and couldn’t tolerate ceding conversational ground for a minute, jeeze.

Danny ignored him. “Actually if you could tell him that I’m hoping he could help me take… take out a…” he glanced at Joker. “A themed villain, I guess. He needs to go somewhere safer than the locals can manage.”

“Oh, that would be good enrichment for Mr. Walker,” Mom said generously. The sound quality changed as she put him on speakerphone.

“Fuck the police,” Danny said reflexively. “But I was thinking, like…” He frowned. 

There were a lot of options. He could literally just toss the dude into the Ghost Zone and come back for him later without fear he would keep getting out. But it might be really annoying to hunt him down if he like, wandered around.

Oh. Hunt. 

“Skulker!” Danny said brightly. “This would be really good enrichment for Skulker.” He could take the guy over to Skulker’s lair and let him play catch and release. Skulker loved those games.

“I’ll pass on the message.” The portal unlocked on the other end of the call, an unmistakable sound. “Bye, honey!”

Danny hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. He turned around to see the Joker was trying to wriggle out of his restraints. Was that possible? Probably, he decided. The guy kept getting out of here. He pursed his lips. “You’re safer from me if you stay in there,” he decided to warn.

Joker let out a hysterical cackle.

It went on too long.

Like, it went on and on. Danny crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, lifting his eyebrows as he waited for it to end. Jeeze. 

“You’re funny,” Joker said. He licked his lips. It was uncomfortably loud in the cell. “A real jokester. A guy could get a little offended, you know? You’re stealing my schtick. Just like your little sweetie, come to think of it. I didn’t bring you together, did I?”

Danny rolled his eyes. “No, you gigantic loser. I’ve never even heard of you.” He ignored the affronted silence that garnered and opened up a gaming app to kill time.

‘I need to get Wulf a phone somehow,’ Danny thought idly. He matched two chocolate donuts and they disappeared in a cloud of sprinkles. 

“Hey. I am talking to you.”

Danny gave Joker a thumbs down without bothering to look at him. 

He stepped to the left. Then he shoved his phone back in his pocket and looked up in time for the ripple of interdimensional energy to coalescence into a vivid tear in the fabric of the universe.

Wulf bounded into sight and snatched him up in a hug. “Mia amiko!” (My friend!)

Danny hugged back hard enough to crack Wulf’s back and picked him up off the floor. “Amikinoooo,” he crooned. (Bestieeeeee)

Wulf kicked playfully at him. He caught himself with a scuttle of claws on the floor when Danny let go. “Mia panjo diris nenion embarasan, ĉu ne?” (My Mom didn't say anything embarrassing, did she?) It was mostly a formality. Of course Mom had done something embarrassing. 

“ŝi montris al mi la bildojn, kiuj pruvas, ke vi rifuzis blovi vian nazon ĉe Disneyland kiam vi estis sep, ĉar vi sentis, ke ĝi estas embarasa.” Wulf grinned back. (“She showed me the pictures that prove you refused to blow your nose at Disneyland when you were seven because you felt it was embarrassing.”)

Danny sighed. “Why does she take those photos everywhere she goes?” He groused. Then he pushed his hair back off of his face and decided to ask if Wulf wanted a phone, before he forgot about it. “ĉu vi ŝatus havi poŝtelefonon?” (Do you want a phone?)

Wulf brightened. “Jes.” He shook out his ruff. “mi uzus ĝin por verki retmesaĝojn kaj fari Linkedin-konton.” (Yes, I would use it to write emails and create a Linkedin account.)

Danny opened his mouth to ask why Wulf wanted to have a Linked -In account. Then he shut it and nodded. Great. He’d try to get Wulf a phone, then. For his emails. Were you supposed to email on a phone? Was Danny using his phone wrong?

“Či tiu viro estas tre malbonodora.” Wulf gestured at Joker. (This man is very smelly.)

“Hey!” Joker said loudly. “I resent that remark, you know. I do not smell of anything except flowers. Daisies. Roses.”

“Jes, malbonodora,” Danny agreed. (Yeah, stinky.) He didn’t smell whatever Wulf did, but he was willing to assume the other guy was right. “Li estas fripono. Mi pensas, ke li vundis mian amikon.” ("He's a creep. I think he hurt my friend.")

Wulf growled. 

Joker shut up for once. Danny shot him a little smirk. Wulf had no chill. He was a good bro like that. If Joker really had hurt one of Danny’s friends, then Wulf was gonna be his opp for life. 

“Kion ni faru? eble ni povus peti Desiree certigi ke li neniam vundas mortonton denove.” Wulf struck a contemplative pose, claws stroking at his jawline.  ("What should we do? Maybe we could ask Desiree to make sure he never hurts a mortal again.")

Danny nearly choked. Get help from Desiree? Like, make a wish that Joker would be incapable of hurting people again? Danny burst out into giggles. It seemed a little extreme. “Ne, ne,” he demurred. “Mi pensis doni lin al Skulker.” (No, no. I was thinking about giving him to Skulker.)

Wulf laughed. “Jes,” he agreed. “Tio estos amuza.” (Yes, that is funny.)

Danny gave him double thumbs up. “Mi vere dankus helpon pri transportado. Mi nuntempe rompas kaj eniras.” ("I would really appreciate some help with transportation. I'm currently breaking and entering.") He tried not to look too sheepish at that last bit, but it was relevant. Since he wasn’t supposed to be here, he really should keep a hustle on. 

His friend tossed off a crisp salute. Wulf picked Joker up with one hand and leapt back through the portal while Joker was still saying, “What?”

“Neat,” Danny said, alone in a mental health treatment cell that looked a lot like a high security prison. He glanced up at the camera that had probably recorded his whole visit. Had there been enough ecto to ruin the feed? He didn’t know, and it was too late now. “Hmm.” He let his eyes glow green. They’d reflect light like a cat’s would. Then he went invisible. 

If his ecto hadn’t shifted out the camera, that would at least give anyone who saw it the creeps. Danny snickered to himself as he tiptoed out of the not-prison to regroup. 

That had been a total deadend. But it meant that Jay probably hadn’t gotten arrested. 

Optimistically, he got out his phone to check if Jay had responded to his “You alive?” message. No dice. Blegh.

So. Batman. Danny grimaced. He had to talk to Batman. Right? Was there anything else? Not that Danny could think of.

Danny shuddered, feeling a bad case of the creepy eepies walking up his back. He still wanted to avoid Batman like he avoided parvo. But that ship had sailed, right? Batman knew who he was and where he lived. So he might as well meet the guy to get his information. “He’s probably chill,” Danny lied to himself. “And hey, he might be happy that I helped him out with Joker. Maybe he’ll be in a good mood.”

[leafzu]

Il Capitano, the First of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers.

The man you were betrothed to, well sold to to be precise by your parents. In order to gain the Tsaritsa's favor.

The man before you frightened you to say the least. He did not speak a word to you upon his arrival 'till now. Tall, dressed in dark clothes, face hidden, he was a mystery.

The chandelier above you sparkled, moonlight dancing across it as you walked towards him slowly. The man before you, dressed in black as always.

The wedding was nothing fancy. By the blessings of her majesty the Tsaritsa, you were wedded under the moonlight in a dark cathedral. The only white being the the moon and your moon bathed white wedding dress. Veil sparkling, the pain hidden underneath. Such a sorrowful face.

Weddings are supposed to be happy and full of love.

Love? You were a fool to think that love was written in the stars for you. How could you ever love the man in front. You were anything but a bride. A caged bird.

“This is where you will be staying.” A room bigger than your own. The moon can be seen clearly from the large windows. It was a beautiful room but a soulless one. “I presume you are going to be alright from here?” The first time he was talking to you. You nodded silently not wanting to talk. “If there's anything you're in need of, do not hesitate to ask. This is your home now.”

Home. Home was lost to you a long time ago.

The Captain was a man of very few words, but he wasn't ignorant. You were his wife, it was his responsibility to tend to you. And much to your surprise he never held you back from anything. You were free to do as you wish. Suddenly it didn't seem so bad being married to The Captain.

The Mansion became more livelier each day with your presence. It wasn't dark and empty as it was before. A little light was let in, flowers grew in the gardens, lively chatter could be heard.

The Captain was not ignorant. He was very evident of the changes around him, but paid no heed to it. He did not seem to mind and let you do as you wished to. Though, he would be lying if he said he didn't like the liveliness.

The relationship between you took time and effort to bloom. You didn't find him as intimidating as before and he started to see more than just someone to look after as a responsibility.

The Captain was emotionally distant to say the least. Attachments were something he strongly avoided. Being stripped of everything from the cataclysm 500 years ago made him into who he is today. His past appearance and self long gone.

Still, you manage to bring out a side to him he never thought he had before. Your smile, your presence, to him they bring a sense of...comfort? Not realizing it completely, he was starting to long for something more. And it could be said the same on your part.

The Captain was a mystery to you. From his appearance to him as a person, you didn't know anything about him.

Small conversations shared in the gardens was the only thing you had with him. Though it was mostly you who conversed. The Captain was a man of few words but he enjoyed listening to you. He became fond of it and slowly your time in the gardens only became longer.

“Red roses are meant to symbolize true love.” You looked up at The Captain sitting beside you in your garden. The Captain let you do as you wished with the gardens from your arrival. It was something that soothed the ache in your heart and brought happiness to you. The Gardens became more beautiful and full of life with your touch.

“And lilies are meant to symbolize innocence and purity.”

He saw you in the lilies, planted in a small area beside the garden pavilion. White lilies, very few of them planted.

His hand close to yours while you told him about the language of flowers. You wanted to touch his hands, a little part of it. Maybe a finger? But as you inched your hands closer to his, The Captain took notice of it and quickly retreated his hands.

“Ahem, I have a meeting to attend to. I will see you at dinner.” Left alone in the garden, the rejection of your touch hit deep within your heart. Maybe he did not like you after all. Maybe he's just letting you stay, an act of pity because you have nowhere else to go.

Unbeknownst to you, it hurt him just as much to reject you. It pained him to see the hurt on your face as you slowly drifted away into the gardens, away from his sight. But he cannot risk it. What if he tainted you with his rotten flesh? You would think of him as a monster.

Meetings with him in the garden became a daily in your agenda. You once put some blue orchid's on the back of his coat. Later when one of the fatui members pointed it out, he just let the flower be. He never threw the flowers given by you, instead he kept them preserved with his cryo delusion.

Unspoken confessions. He let you in slowly, and your heart also warming up to him.

“May I see your face?,” you asked one night, out in to the garden pavilion with him. Not a wink of sleep in your eyes so he offered to be your company. Your curiosity wasn't surprising to him. He knew this day would come, and he did not intend to hide anything. Truth can be hard to face.

“It's not a pleasant sight. My real appearance is long gone. All that remains are the decaying of flesh underneath.” It did not matter to you. You wanted to see what was underneath that mask. You wanted to see the real him. “I do not care. I want to see.”

The beat of your heart began to get faster as his hands reached for the mask. He had nothing to hide and so he took it off.

Maybe you were going to be disgusted with him or maybe you will keep your distance from him after this, were his thoughts. But as he saw your face, he could not quite read what you were thinking. “Your eyes.. they are like sapphire.”

“You are very unique."

The curse of immortality left him scarred for life. There are times he wished he was dead already, having lost his family and his comrades. His decaying flesh was his constant reminder of the curse put upon him.

But you, you saw the beauty in him. The beauty in his decaying nature. When you reached out to touch his face, he gently caught it and held it within his.

Unspoken confessions. Days went by, your affection towards each other grew more and more. He let you doze off on his shoulders in the garden pavilion while he read to you.

The Captain noticed your tiredness more frequent than usual. You would eat less at dinner and get tired after a few walks. It wasn't long before your body was caught up in a fever.

“Haven't you heard? The sickness has been discovered in Sumeru as well,” one of the fatui agents spoke. “The Akademiya is currently trying to discover what it could be.” “I heard there's no cure for it and that your body slowly weakens until you completely collapse.”

“How is she doing now?,” The Captain asked as he made way to your chamber. “Her state has not shown any improvement sir, the fever subsided a little but the body is getting weaker.” “Do everything that must be done to cure her.”

The doors to your chamber slowly opened. His footsteps quiet as to not wake you. He approached your bed. The slow rise and fall of your chest, mouth slight agape. You looked so peaceful in your sleep. He removed the glove from one of his hands and slowly reached out for your face. He wanted to touch your cheeks. The loose strands of hair were gently pushed aside by his rough calloused hands. He still had his human body form. Mostly the face and some parts were burdened with the curse.

The fever caught up again, your body kept getting weaker. And The Captain was starting to feel restless. The gardens became less lively, your visits less than frequent. Thick snow covered every part of the mansion.

Your current state was quite vulnerable to the ruthless cold of Snezhnaya. Still the garden looked ethereal and your mental state wasn't getting any better staying inside.

The snow made it quite difficult for you to move. Crystals formed around the pavilion which made it look like a little ice palace. The flowers.

You haven't tended to them in a while. But The Captain took care of your lilies. Fresh and white just the newly fallen snow. He was there, standing in front of the lilies. The lilies reminded him of you. Your purity and innocence. The Captain's eyes met yours. You looked just like a lily in that white dress coat.

And that innocent smile. A smile meant towards him.

Thick dark red covered the snow beneath your feet. You couldn't bear the pain in your throat and fell to your knees. Everything became cold, your fragile body fallen on the snow.

Your body was cold, shivering. It felt light as a feather in his arms. Your hands covered with blood, sticky clung to his feather coat as he carried you back. Your head against his chest. You felt safe in his arms. You wanted to stay like this, in his arms, always.

The Captain's heart dropped seeing the sight before him. Your body hitting the ground, the sight of blood. Your body fragile and weak in his arms. The heavy rise and fall of your chest. How much has the sickness spread for you to fall like this?

The doctors were called immediately. He put you from his arms onto the comfort of your bedchambers and stepped outside as doctors and maids rushed in. Blood still fresh on your hands.

If only he knew that was the last time you would be around, he would've held you longer.

Snow fell from the now dull sky of Snezhnaya. The gardens lost their color. The manor was stripped of light.

“She was a beautiful girl. It's a pity her time was so little,” were the Tsaritsa's words of comfort. The Harbingers all paid their respects to you. One by everyone but only The Captain was left standing in front of your grave. 500 years of cataclysm and only a few years with you.

The Captain visited your chambers one last time. Walking past things you once laid your fingers on. Only to come across a book on the table. A book of flowers. He took it in his hands and flipped through the pages where your touch once lingered. He noticed there was a little box beside where the book was

Something about it caught his eye and so he opened it. Inside was a letter.

‘To My Dearest Captain.’

Thank you for looking after me all this time. Your company has been a form of comfort to me. There are so many things I wished to say to you. You set me free and for that I will always be grateful. I wanted to travel the whole of Teyvat. Maybe if I get a little better, we can start by visiting The City of Freedom, Mondstadt.

Yours Truly.

A dried red rose bud was also inside the box along with the letter. It was meant for him. Red roses symbolize true love.

As the years went by, the lilies in the garden grew in number. In the little garden of white lilies, he saw you. Each and every lily was a reminder of you. The Captain visited your grave each year, leaving red roses and white lilies. He preserved the rose bud with his cryo delusion. And when there's a new spring without you, the newly planted red roses around the pavilion where you once listened to him read and shared the love of flowers with, bloom brightly and sway with the light breeze.

A new rose is planted each year by The Captain himself.

Red roses symbolize true love.

divider by @/animatedglittergraphics-n-more

[taiyaakii]

⋆. 𐙚 ˚ Stages of a petty dispute ! . . . ( 西村力 )

01. Style 운명 . Story 02. CONTAINS: Angst, angst, fluff, crack if you squint so exponentially hard, talks of dieting/body image issues, ni-ki‘s dumb and oblivious, fighting, pettiness, think that’s it ! 03. wc ! 1,710

The cause

Getting your hair and makeup done was boring, but Riki came along every time (wether you asked him to or not) so at least he was there to keep you company

Riki and Jake both sat on the couch showing each other stupid things on there phones and play fighting

At one point you and Riki had gotten into a conversation Mainly complaints from you about how unfair the manager was to you about dieting, Riki being Riki took this as a chance to make a joke. "Well maybe you should stop eating so much and he wouldn’t be so tough on you" He laughed, pretty loudly despite the joke not being funny, you looked at him through the mirror, almost disgustedly, just to see Jake not laughing either.

If anything he looked just as confused as you, but despite that Riki smoothly changed the subject and started joking around with Jake again. You turned back to the mirror, not looking at anything in it, simply spacing out. Riki had never made those types of jokes about you, he always talked about your body in such a sweet way, it was shocking to say the least.

2. The start

Workday was done, you were back at the dorms, and Riki was nowhere in sight.

He was probably in his room playing video games, as you could tell from the loud gun noises. Meanwhile, you sat in your room, confused and slightly heartbroken he would say something like that.

It had been hours since the incident and it’s all you’ve thought about. Riki, out of all people should know that wasn’t funny. Joke or not. Out of all people, HE would know about your image issues HE would be the one to know about your eating habits, The phone chimed, pulling you out of thought, it was Riki

"Babbbbyyyyyy can i come lay with you

i’m tired and i want to hold you" You wanted to say no fuck off but you didn’t, that would’ve been too straight forward and you wanted to be petty and drag it out. Make sure he felt realllllyyyy bad so you texted back "Not rn, i’m studying" Dry and assertive. Not at all how you text him usually, it was perfect !! "mmm okay :("

"can i come in after?? pretty plsss" You just ignored this one

It made you feel a litttlee guilty but he deserved it for being an ass

3. The rising emotions / tension

It had been 2 days since you've started ignoring Riki (kinda)

You were only answering his texts here and there and you hadn't let him sleep with you not even once.

Sure it was only 2 days but it was too much for him, he got used to sleeping with you, and he struggles to fall asleep without you now! You even locked the door just in case he tried to come in after being ignored over the phone

Riki started to get suspicious

He presumed the worst, you fell out of love, you were cheating, he did something wrong without realizing it, he didn't know what he did, but he intended to find out

But it's kinda hard when you won't stop dodging him

Night 3 of being ignored, and it got increasingly harder for him to sleep

It was 1am and he hadn't been able to properly keep his eyes shut for longer than 5 mins so he decided to get some water

When he walked out to the kitchen he saw you, wearing only his t-shirt, some shorts and a jacket

He loved seeing you in his clothes so it was like a jab to the heart

he almost got on his knees and started begging for forgiveness for whatever he did right then and there

"What are you doing up so late baby?" You looked up to see him walking towards you "Just getting some water"

"Ohh me too" It came out kind of shaky sounding, like he was trying to make small talk with a stranger

"Here have mine" Putting the glass down you started to walk off, not noticing Riki's hand reaching out for your wrist, just barely missing you.

While you went back to your room Riki sat in the kitchen kind of hurt.

He pondered on going after you but the last thing he wanted to do was annoy you or upset you more so despite the need for physical connection, he drank the water and went back to his room.

He laid in bed for another hour before giving up and playing some video games to pass the time

Riki got a solid 3 hours of sleep that night

Riki is dying and is determined to figure out what he did

4. The climax

Day 4 of being ignored, he felt like he was going to pull all his hair out

During dance practice he thought of every thing he did that could warrent this type of reaction and every way he could fix it

After thinking for a while he came to the conclusion that he must've made you jealous, probably from talking to Danielle for 0.2 seconds regarding work things

How? He had zero clue but that didn't matter.

After practice while everyone else went to lunch, he booked back home to shower and head out. He ran to your favorite cafe, and your favorite boba shop.

By the time he got back home, everyone else, including you, were back home, and he already thought about what he was going to say when he got back; sure you had gotten jealous before but it never seem to make you this upset so he had to go all out this time.

He knocked on your bedroom door, hoping you'd actually let him in this time, "who is it?"

"Riki" There was a moment of silence that made Riki worry even more but you told him to come in so he was relieved but, you were confused when he walked in with boba and bags.

You thought maybe he was finally apologizing, perhaps he finally realized what he did and wanted to own up to it.

You put down your phone and walked over to him, as he put the boba and bags on your desk. He seemed a little more nervous the closer you got but he took a deep breath in and started talking

"I know I messed up, and you don't have to forgive me but I want to make it right." Good start good start

"I don't want anyone but you baby, I mean I barely even talk to her. It was purely for work I promise." Huh

"But I completely understand your upset, and you have every"

"What" You cut him off mid-sentence, mainly just cause you were confused

"uhh what?" Riki though, seemed more confused than you

"What are you on about Nishimura"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh, you're mad at me?"

"Obviously."

"And I'm trying to apologize?" He seemed unsure of himself

"Okay... for what?" He thought long and hard about his answer "Talking to Danielle the other day?..." DUMBFOUNDED

You couldn't believe that's what he genuinely thought you were upset about

"Bro I do not care about Danielle." emphasizing the "not"

Riki's eyes widened with confusion "Haha what."

"You didn't seriously think I was upset about you talking to Danielle? About work?" He gave a sheepish smile

"I'm sorry baby I really don't know what I did but I can NOT handle being ignored like this."

"The eating joke Riki. How do you not understand that, that wasn't okay." It's like the gears started turning in his head "OHHHHH"

You rolled your eyes "Oh my god baby I am so sorry."

"You laughed when other people make those jokes so I assumed it was okay..."

"No it's not okay Riki?? I only laugh because they're my bosses, I'm not allowed to be upset about it"

It took Riki a second to process and think, "I know I know, I'm realizing that now. Seriously I am so sorry baby... I clearly wasn't thinking it through and it was a horrible joke to make."

You nodded, verbally telling him to go on

"You don't have to forgive me, I know it was shitty but just know that I didn't mean it, baby."

He walked closer to you, putting his hands on your face, "You are the prettiest girl in the entire world, and I mean that. I never meant to hurt you that much baby, and I promise I won't ever make a joke like that again. And I'll think more thoroughly about the things I say, the last thing I want to do is upset you pretty."

You looked up at him, your eyes glossed over slightly.

What Riki did was wrong, but deep down a part of you knew he didn't mean it.

And he was so good at making you feel better.

You got on your tippy toes and kissed him.

It was deeper than usual, the lack of time together made it sweeter

Riki pressing into your lips and savoring every last second.

"I love you so so so so much."

"I love you too Ki. And I'm not mad at you, it just... was shocking? To say the least, I didn't expect it from you of all people, nor did I expect you to take 4 days to apologize" You smiled slightly

"But in the end, you did apologize and you took accountability so that's all that matters. Next time I'll come to you first without ignoring you for days, it was petty."

"No no it wasn't petty" He rubbed your cheek "But please don't do it again, iv got like a solid 10 hours of sleep the past few days and I almost threw myself off the HYBE building." You giggled at that, happy to hold him again

Riki went back in for another kiss which led to a long night of catching up.

Kissing, cuddling, "I love you"s, ect ect, gross couple stuff.

Riki was dumb sometimes and wasn't the best at using his words, but he always tried for you and even showed it in his own way and that's all that matters.

@taiyaakii

[jawllines]

So on a Tuesday, Y/N wakes up from a fitful rest and leaves Harry’s bed to find him in the kitchen. Leaf is cradled to his chest while he speaks to someone on the phone – a designer, she thinks, they’re talking about a pattern of something, but Y/N isn’t sure. She doesn’t get to know either because as soon as Harry sees that she’s awake, he smiles, then hovers his finger over the end button, “Mael, I’ll call you a little later, yeah?” He hangs up without a second thought, and Y/N’s eyes go wide. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand. 

“Nah, s’boring shit anyway. Chevron is a thing of the fucking past and it’s not coming back any time soon on my watch.” He turned on his stool, stretching out his legs and waving her forward, and when she got close enough, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, until she was standing between his thighs, “You take forever to get up. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were still a human.” 

or

Harry and Y/N like being around each other maybe too much

part 1

part 2

part 3

iv.

Y/N wondered how many vampires she’d seen in her lifetime. 

Unlike the stories and movies, they didn’t lurk in the night and meld into the shadows all of the time. Their skin was pale, but no more pale than someone living in the mountains with very little sun. Their eyes weren’t red, or golden brown, or pools of black – they were just normal irises, no different than humans, the color encrypted in their DNA from conception. They were gorgeous, sometimes eerily so, but not in a way that you could easily group them by their features. It was comparable to being backstage on a runway – the people surrounding you were models, you knew that, and they were all beautiful in their own way with their own unique features. The difference is that instead of only finding them pretty in passing, it’s mesmerizing, almost hard to fathom, alluring in an almost unignorable way. 

But Y/N can’t remember ever being out in public and seeing a vampire, even if she didn’t know what they were called at the time. Clearly she didn’t, if one was able to ask her on a date and she’d just presumed she’d lucked out with an attractive man who didn’t mind dating below his league. Otherwise, they were masters of camouflage, or Y/N was just less observant than she thought. 

Because right now, even to the untrained eye, Y/N is almost positive that she looks like a vampire. Or at least that something is off with her. It’s in the way her posture is almost too correct, ramrod straight like someone straightened out her back and put her in a brace to keep her unmoving. Her chest did not rise and fall with each breath – not because the need to use her lungs had not been completely eradicated yet, but for the fact she’s taking a ton of shallow breaths through her mouth to avoid smelling anything, or anyone.  The way she holds her fork looks weird to her – she hadn’t held a fork in so long it was an unfamiliar weight between her fingers. She gave terse replies to questions, and could barely hold a conversation longer than small talk. 

To anyone looking or interacting with her, they must think she’d grown up in a basement and just recently ventured out into the world. To Harry, who sits across from her with an amused look dancing across his features, he knew she was just attempting to reacclimate into society. 

They had been out before, but normally that was at night, or early during cloudy weekdays when most of the city population is stuck in their stuffy office buildings. When the amount of humans is sparse and Y/N could amble away if being around them became too much. She’d never been forced to sit among them for longer than a couple minutes at a time, maybe waiting in a long line, or patiently off to the side when a human woman was interested in the same earrings that she was. 

That had been her toeing the water; Harry held her hand at the edge of a dock while she dipped her feet into the pool of being a productive member of society again. She would have to return to work at some point, and she would need to be able to attend social events or see her family, or her friends back home without wanting to eat them. Harry was surrounded by humans all day nearly every day and he hasn’t lashed out and ended up in a tabloid for sinking his teeth into a designer. It was possible, though it would take time, and a lot of practice – at some point she would be able to integrate seamlessly back into the human world. 

At some point – right now, it was fucking hard. 

Harry took her out for lunch, at a small deli a couple blocks from his flat. It was a day when the sky was heavy with clouds and would be for the majority of the afternoon, so they were able to venture out with no fear that Y/N would get all rashy again. All of Y/N’s fear lay within being in closed quarters with humans and pretending that the scent of their blood doesn’t affect her in the slightest. Or that the leaves of the salad she was stuffing into her mouth tasted more than just bland, rubbery nothing to a palate now keen on something metallic and sweet. And in that fear, and her overexerting her effort trying to look normal, she thinks she’s making herself look uncanny, unapproachable, and too much like she doesn’t belong. Like someone clipped her out of a comic book and pasted her in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. 

“Relax your shoulders,” Harry spoke from across the table, having already eaten half his sandwich, tucking the straw of his soda at the corner of his lips and sipping, “It looks like I just brought you out of a boarding school.” 

“Shut up.” Y/N had been saying that a lot to him today because it was two simple words that didn’t require as much effort as trying not to eat someone. 

Harry smiled, all too relaxed for what Y/N would think are pretty serious circumstances but she guesses he’s been through this so often he isn’t worried about a thing. Harry never seemed worried when they did something new, always promising her that he would know if she was going to do something stupid, because he knows her. And if the need to subdue her were to arise, then he could do so easily, or so he tells her every time she’s stressed about it. 

“You had plenty to eat before we came,” he murmured, voice just a touch lower, his brows raising slightly, “Even if you take a small little breath through your nose, you won’t feel like you need to do anything.” 

It’s difficult to talk inconspicuously about it, in case someone nosy was listening into their conversation (because Y/N is fucking nosy, so she knows someone else is bound to match her), but Harry does it easily. Y/N did eat a considerable amount before they did this, from the baggies, and even a little treat from Harry just before they’d left the flat. She was full, blood-drunk, and hazy up to the point that they were about to walk inside the shop and she’d worked herself up. 

“Mind over matter,” Harry slid his leg to her and locked their ankles together – he was resting his chin and cheek in his palm, watching her carefully, drinking her in, “Just take a small little breath through your nose, hm? You’ll see it’s not as bad as you think.” 

Y/N blinks at him, gripping her fork a little too hard, and she feels the stainless steel give beneath her grip, “I – okay,” she nodded, slow, steady – the whole point of this excursion was to start working on being able to smell humans without wanting to desperately sink her teeth into them. Before she could start utilizing feeders, she needed to be completely in control of how her body responds and reacts to stimuli like this. At least that’s what Harry tells her, and she’s inclined to believe him since there isn’t anyone to bounce off of his ideas anymore. She isn’t sure if they’re still on the pathway he used for all the new vampires he mentored or if he’d toggled it based on their situation. She could message Christopher and Naomi about it but every time she messages them, her heart yearns and aches in her chest.

“You’ll stop me if anything happens?” She knows he will, but she feels better when he’s all cocky and sure of himself. One of them needed complete faith in the situation, and it usually was Harry. 

Harry, who had been treating her all soft and tender lately. His words could still be harsh and he rolls his eyes and rumples his lips at her when she says something he thinks is stupid, and he’s patient, but even that patience runs out relatively quickly – but every interaction has a much softer edge to it. With every harsh critique of her technique or skill, (“How many times are you going to listen to the neighbor’s conversation and not me outside, downstairs, when you’re on the balcony? It shouldn’t matter how many flights up you are, this is baby stuff we’re trying to accomplish now!”) there is a gentle caress of her skin. His fingers will dance along her wrist, and he’ll slide his fingers between the slots of hers, and squeeze, before murmuring, “Let’s try again.” 

They are much closer now – Y/N doesn’t know if they’re dating, or if vampires even date, but she knows that Harry treats her like they might be. Harry pushes his nose into her neck and breathes in deeply like she’s the best thing he’s ever smelled. He entertains her musings about code and work despite not having a clue what she’s talking about or saying. At the end of the night (early in the morning) when she is thinking about lying down, Harry offers his room to her, his bed. 

“You can always sleep in here,” he’d told her, “Even if I’m not here, yeah? Just don’t stain the sheets or anything, because to keep them this pristine even with a kitten has been hell.” 

Shit, he’s even referred to Leaf as their baby a couple of times, whereas previously he’s only called her his own. “What are you doing to my baby?” Is what he would say before when Leaf is playing with one of the many feathered string toys that Harry bought her and Y/N accidentally makes her jump right into the wall. Now it’s things like, “Our baby is so happy,” when she comes up to them on the sofa, purring and kneading at Y/N’s thighs before snuggling in her lap and falling asleep. 

Things with him were soft. This certainly felt like a relationship, sometimes, but Y/N knew better than to get ahead of herself. Last time she did that she ran away from her hometown and then got bitten by a fucking vampire, so it was better to just take things a step at a time. 

“What, you think I’m g’na let you eat someone and make me look bad?” He speaks low enough that only she could hear, helped by the loud chatter of voices around them, and stretches one arm across the table, looping his fingers around her forearm, and dragging the blunt tip of his nail along her skin, “Of course I’ll stop you, dummy.” 

Y/N shivers but feels safe; he’s got a leg wrapped around hers, and a hand on her. If she tried to move, he would stop her immediately. Harry doesn’t say aloud that that’s what he’s doing, but they both know it makes her feel better when he’s got his hands on her in some way. She’d told him as much in the past when she’d looped her arm in the gap between his and his body when they first went into the grocery store. 

“Hm, is this a ploy to make me touch you in public? You’re a filthy exhibitionist.” He’d teased her at the time, but now he keeps his hand on her when they’re out. An arm wrapped around her shoulder, a hand at the nape of her neck, his fingers looped around her wrist. 

She lets herself breathe in, just a little bit, a tiny inhale through her nose. The scents weren’t overwhelming like she’d thought – there’s plenty to sift through, it wasn’t just an onslaught of the blood pumping through the veins surrounding them. Fresh bread, the fabric softener on people’s clothes, the cleaner used to wipe down tables when they were emptied – she smelled all of that too. All a mix, like when she was a human, only she could smell and separate them just a note better than she could before. And the blood – she couldn’t smell blood before, but with a belly full, it wasn’t as hard. It still made her mouth water, and there was an itch beneath her skin that wanted to be plucked at, but nothing she couldn’t handle. 

Harry drags his nails back and forth on her forearm lazily, “See?” His relaxed posture stays, leaning on his palm, “You’re not a monster, are you, baby?” 

She swallowed thickly, shaking her head, “No, I’m not,” she cleared her throat a little, “We need to –  um – we need to get Leaf chicken treats, she likes those best.” Y/N wanted to practice being normal, talking about normal things, and thinking about something else than how she’s trying not to breathe in too deeply. She didn’t necessarily explain this to Harry beforehand but he doesn’t seem confused either, just goes along with it. 

“Really? I kind of thought she liked the shrimp ones better.” 

Y/N focuses more on Harry’s scent – he smells good. He always smells so good, that whenever she does sleep in his bed, she dips her nose into the blankets and stuffs her face into the pillows (obviously when he’s not there, she would never live that down).  If she could shove her nose in the base of his throat and not stuff her teeth into his neck then she would do it all of the time. Harry does it to her, unprovoked and unannounced, burrowing the cold tip of his nose against her carotid. She used to squirm, her ear meeting her shoulder as she pulled away from him, but now she’s gotten used to it – now, she almost expects it when he comes home from work, and if he doesn’t, she’s a little disappointed. 

It’s easy to forget why she’s at Harry’s in the first place if she’s just focusing on her and Harry’s dynamic. It’s also easy to forget that she would eventually face the music when she has to confront her feelings – Niall. There was a heavy weight on her shoulders like she wore a helmet of cast iron everywhere she went; sometimes she would forget about it, it’d been so long that it was easy to let it slip her mind, but then her shoulders would feel the pressure of it periodically. 

Like when you wear glasses for the first time. At first, it is all you can think about, how it rests on the bridge of your nose, the way the frames outline your field of view. But a couple of hours in they’re merely an extension of you, you forget they’re on your face until you reach up to rub your eye and something is in the way. 

The helmet was heavy, the look in Niall’s eyes as he told her, the cold feeling that had flushed through her veins when he’d admitted it. She wondered if it felt like his own helmet had been lifted, the weight of his guilt eased by the admission. Did he know he was going to transfer it to her? Take the helmet off and plop it onto her head? 

Her heart was torn in two. Y/N wanted to hate him for it, she really did – want to cuss him out, scratch him, and spit on him – how did vampires fight? Did they bite each other? Do they punch each other? Kick, slap? Was it still below the belt to kick him in the balls or was that an appropriate fighting tactic? Harry had never taught her how to fight – she thought maybe some sort of combat training would be important down the line, but vampires don’t usually do that. Movies and books make it seem like it was a constant battle, always something going on that they needed to defeat. Vampires typically coexist peacefully, is the thing, and their only true threat are hunters but it’s often better to avoid them or flee the situation than to fight, at least when you’re new. As long as she doesn’t act recklessly then she wouldn’t have to worry. 

And in the same breath that she hated him, she owed him her life. It was a new one – a flawed one, no more flawed than her old life, but still a new life. She would have to change how she lives, eats, exists, and it’s scary – it’s so scary! But she was alive. She was still walking around, she could still work toward goals she’d set for herself, and she could find a place for herself in this world instead of bleeding out in an alley, still feeling lost and alone. 

Would she have walked away from someone in need how she expected Niall to? If she’d stumbled upon the same scene, would she have been able to ignore it? She couldn’t even ignore a fucking kitten meowing! So it was hard – her feelings were difficult to work through and that was only worsened by her not seeing him. Playing house at Harry’s flat and ignoring what happened. 

“Where’d you go?” Harry pulls her out of her reverie, and she realizes she’d been digging her fingers into the croissant she was holding, her eyes dazed. He drags his fingers along her skin again, tenderly, gently, “Hmm? Where’d my girl go?” 

Y/N feels warm and bubbly and allows herself to revel in the giddiness that comes with Harry treating her like something special. If there was one single benefit from this whole mess, it would be Harry – experiencing this homely side of him. Whether it be the connection through their blood, or their time spent together, she felt at complete, and total ease in Harry’s presence. If she was starting to spiral, he pulled her out of it just as quickly. 

“Sorry,” she murmured, swallowing, ripping a piece of the flaky pastry and laying it on her tongue – it tasted like nothing, chalky and bland, “I. . .need to figure things out with Niall soon. I can’t keep burdening you.” 

“You’re no burden,” he answered without a second thought, “Not even a little bit, but I understand needing to sort things out for your peace of mind.” He reaches forward, thumbing at the apple of her cheek, and pinching playfully, “But you don’t need to leave just for that, hm? You’re no burden to me.” 

Y/N rests on the palm of his cheek, sighing, and the smell of all the other humans in the place pales in comparison to Harry, “Mm,” she nuzzles – it’s embarrassing, how easy she is for him, but he doesn’t tease her like he probably could, “I just. . .I think, how I’m seeing it, is I would have done the same.” She explained, “If I’d seen someone, I would have done the same, you know?” Her gaze flickered toward him, “Would you?” 

“I have,” he shrugged, “You know, it’s something that you never really know what you’ll do at the moment but when it’s presented in front of you – that’s when you’ll know. You act off instinct,” he squeezes her shoulder, slipping down to her bicep, “Just how you ran to go save Leaf with no concern of the sun. This isn’t me trying to sway you either,” he shook his head, “If you decided you fucking hated him and never wanted to see him again, I would endorse it. If you decide that you’ll forgive him, then I’ll accept that – whatever you want to do.” 

Y/N nodded, “Yeah,” she ripped another piece of croissant, “Yeah, okay.”

                                                                   .                          .                         .

Despite coming to terms with what she wanted to do, it still took her a week to gain the courage to see him. Harry doesn’t push the issue, merely enjoys his time with her and Leaf until she tells him she is ready. Honestly, there were a couple of times when Y/N wondered if she should just start ignoring it again and live life peacefully with Harry, or as peacefully as she could. But still, it weighed on her, like a Niall-shaped force that stretched himself over her and smothered her in her sleep. She had dreams of confronting him, some heartwarming and with a good outcome, some horrible that left her with tears bearding her eyes. 

She needed to do it. If she did, then she could better focus on whatever the hell is going on between her and Harry. And being a vampire. . .big, important things like that. 

So on a Tuesday, Y/N wakes up from a fitful rest and leaves Harry’s bed to find him in the kitchen. Leaf is cradled to his chest while he speaks to someone on the phone – a designer, she thinks, they’re talking about a pattern of something, but Y/N isn’t sure. She doesn’t get to know either because as soon as Harry sees that she’s awake, he smiles, then hovers his finger over the end button, “Mael, I’ll call you a little later, yeah?” He hangs up without a second thought, and Y/N’s eyes go wide. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” she frowned and Harry waved his hand. 

“Nah, s’boring shit anyway. Chevron is a thing of the fucking past and it’s not coming back any time soon on my watch.” He turned on his stool, stretching out his legs and waving her forward, and when she got close enough, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, until she was standing between his thighs, “You take forever to get up. If I didn’t know any better, I would think you were still a human.” 

She laid her hands on his thighs, “I need to do it today,” she told him, and she didn’t have to be descriptive for Harry to know what she was talking about, “It’s gotta be today or I won’t.” 

His gaze softened, the pale skin of his face smoothed over into something contemplative and understanding. There’s a soft sound that pulls from his throat, and his legs squeeze around her as he nods, “Okay,” he answered easily, “Do you want to ambush him or should I give him a heads up?” 

“Will he run away if he knows I’m coming?” 

Harry pursed his lips in thought, “You know, Niall isn’t one to run away,” he started, “But he also isn’t one to admit when he’s in the wrong either, and he’s done that, so I reckon some of the things I knew about him fundamentally might be wrong. He may flee from guilt alone or he’ll respect you enough to want to hear what you have to say.” 

“Then you can let him know,” she took Leaf, scratching the soft, short furs beneath her chin, “If this is a friendship worth salvaging, then he’ll wait for me.” 

The drive, which typically felt like an hour-long adventure out to the secluded space in which Mitch’s house resided, felt far quicker than it ever had before. Y/N thought it was because this time, she actually wanted it to go by slowly so that she had the chance to collect her thoughts and plan out exactly what she was going to say, and how she was going to say it. She needed the full forty-ish minutes (accounting rush hour) to develop her script, but Harry must be pressing the gas pedal right down to the floorboards because they zip through the roads in record time. 

There’s a hazy, orange glow casting over the trees while the sun sank beyond the horizon, the other half of the sky blotching the inky black sky of a winter night. She wondered if there would be stars later on – there hadn’t been for the last couple of days because of clouds heavy with snow, that’s now freckling the earth and freezing up the soil. Y/N missed them – she feels like she hasn’t seen them in a while. 

They roll up in front of the house, and Y/N thinks all of three seconds go by before a pouting Naomi rips the passenger door open, “Shame on Harry for keeping you all to himself,” she whined, and she unbuckling Y/N before Y/N could even gather her bearings, pulling her out of the car and into her arms. Naomi looks a bit frail but she’s got the strength of someone who’s prepared for war, and she gives Y/N a bone-crushing hug. “I’ve missed you!” 

Y/N laughed lightly, squeezing her arms out from where they’d been trapped between their bodies so she could reciprocate the show of affection, “I missed you too,” she replied. 

“Oi,” he grumbled, “I wasn’t keeping her to myself, I gave her a haven in a rough time.” 

“You never let any of us come over besides Christopher!” 

Harry crossed his arms, after pushing his sunglasses up into his hair, “Why would I want you heathens in my flat? The lot of you would trash the place or steal from me.” 

“You’re just no good at sharing, you –” 

Their voices fade into the background as Y/N leaves them to bicker, a tiny quirk at her lips like the muscles in her face want to smile but are thinking better than to. It was nice, sort of, to be back; to smell all the familiar scents, like she was returning home. This felt more like home than her flat did now, just from the sheer amount of time she’d spent here. She walked the familiar map from the front door, to her room, and nearly made a pitstop to give herself more time but muscled through the desire to. Y/N took the four more steps she needed to before knocking on Niall’s door – she could smell him in there. 

“Come in.” His voice sounds stiff, and when she opens the door, the position he’s sitting in matches it. He must have heard her coming because he isn’t in the lax state he normally is – his legs are off the end of the mattress, feet firm on the floor. He sits straight, his face serious, stern. She’s so used to the nonchalant way he goes about that this is the most uncanny and makes her feel like an agent sent to question him, or a judge to sentence him. Y/N hated that, she doesn’t want it to be like that – she wants it to be normal between them. Or, normal-ish, at least. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her cat paw chair sitting at the foot of his bed. Niall followed her gaze and answered before she could even question it, “I – um – promise I wasn’t stealing that,” he replied, “I missed. . .you know – having it in here made me feel a little better. Which I know, I don’t deserve to feel good about what happened.” 

Y/N ignored him, closed the door behind her, and then plopped down in the chair, resting her back on the pink, plush toe beans, “Get on the floor,” she ordered, patting the empty spot in front of her with her foot, “Please stop sitting so straight, it’s freaking me out.” 

Niall is quick to crawl down on the floor in front of her, he relaxes his shoulders so they slump just a little, and he kicks his left leg out how he usually did when he was sprawled out on the floor of her room and they were talking. It brings some normalcy to the situation that Y/N desperately needs. She bites the inside of her bottom lip for a second before giving an unneeded clear of her throat (it was just a habit at this point, she wondered how long it would take for it to break). 

“I’m just gonna come right out with it because I don’t want to beat around the bush, and if I do, I’ll just talk myself in circles until I don’t make any sense,” she started, “At first I was so mad at you I could have slapped you and spit on you and called you names. I was pretty sure that I never wanted to see you again and that I would be fine if you were completely wiped from my life,” he grimaces at the description but does nothing to refute it, “But you couldn’t have been wiped from my life, if I wasn’t living to begin with, which – I know, it gets a little confusing and convoluted. This life I have now is. . .odd, and different, and I’m not human anymore, and maybe by all technicalities I’m not alive, but I feel like I am.” She runs her thumbnail along the inside of her other palm, following the lines in them she’s had since birth, “I feel the world around me, and I can love, and I can talk, and laugh, and work, and cry. I can do all the things that I did before and then some, so even if it is different. . .I’m still alive. And I wouldn’t be had it not been for you.” 

Niall is following along, motionless, soaking in every word, “I’m more upset that you kept it from me. It would have just been nice to know, right? What exactly had happened that night, it’d been plaguing my mind and you would ask every so often, and now I’m realizing it was less from a place of care and more you covering your tail.” She shrugged her shoulders when Niall’s face scrunched with shame, “But I can’t sit here and act like I would do something different. I don’t know what I would do, in a situation like that – I think, if I came across someone in my position, then I would have changed them too. I don’t really know how at this point, but I would have tried to figure it out. And I would have been scared, afterward, I don’t know if I would have told anyone either. But I thought we were close enough. . .at least a month in, I feel like you could have told me,” she sighed, “That’s what makes me angriest. I thought we were friends but you were just being nice to me because you felt bad.” 

“That’s not true.” It was the first time he’d uttered a word since she began, “You – maybe at the start, I was a little more protective of you because I felt bad, but the rest of it – I truly felt friendship with you. Not all of it was a lie,” he shook his head, “I wanted to tell you, I did, but it never seemed like an opportune time to. And the one chance I did get, I chickened out. But I get it, if – if you need to be angry, be angry, I honestly wish you would just slap me or hit me or something, so it felt like I was getting punished for it.” 

“I wanted to, believe me, but Harry was pretty convinced that you were punishing yourself enough for it. Listen, what I’m saying is,” she crawled off the cat paw, and took his hands in her own – they were smooth and ice cold – he probably hasn’t been eating well, “My feelings are very conflicted and confusing, and I don’t know if I forgive you entirely, but forgiveness isn’t out of the question. Do you get what I mean?” Niall hums his assent, “I know things can’t go back to the way they were entirely, but I’d like it if we could get somewhere close to it. And – and if you think about it, we’ll probably be around for decades, won’t we? I’m bound to get over it eventually.” 

Niall and Y/N don’t really hug – Naomi is the touchy-feely type, and Y/N can be when she wants to be, but Niall is much more reserved with his affections. So that’s why she is tentative and a little hesitant in embracing him, slowly wrapping her arms around his neck, but she’s pleasantly surprised to feel him hug her back tightly, “I’m sorry,” he murmured, and his words vibrated through her throat, “I’m so sorry, thank you for even coming back to talk to me. I thought surely with Harry at your side, you would’ve hated my guts.” 

“You would be surprised by this, but Harry went to bat for you pretty hard,” she peeled back just a little bit, “I mean, he didn’t try to change my opinion but his of you never faltered.” 

Niall frowned, “Ugh, it’s so hard to keep up with hating him sometimes,” Y/N laughed, “Seriously, he’ll be the worst prick alive and then he does something unreasonably kind and it’s like. . .either be a dick, or be nice, I hate the mix-up.” He gently let his arms slip away from her but he remained close, “Speaking of, I’ve been eavesdropping on him and Mitch – they never hear me coming so I can always get away with knowing shite I shouldn’t – has he told you yet? About the whole blood thing?” 

Y/N shook her head, and part of her was worried that Niall would save it for Harry to tell her, but she forgot that Niall is Niall, and through and through, he loved causing trouble for Harry at any given notice, “After Mitch’s initial displeasure that he’d been keeping it from him, he said there was something called ‘fated pairs’ or something like that. Your bodies call out to each other on a molecular level, something that was – predetermined the day you were both born. There was a lot of vampiric folklore nonsense that he spouted off, but he seemed pretty convinced. I don’t know why it affects you both in the way that it would make you horny, but, yeah. He said that it would’ve been the same if you were human – even if you were both humans, actually. That it was like a soul bond.” 

It was a lot to take in; Y/N is relieved of one stress and then immediately another is placed on top of her. Was it stress though? She doesn’t feel stressed at the thought of them being bonded together by their souls – she doesn’t mind that – but she is stressed that maybe he minded that. Because as far as Harry was concerned, there was no rhyme or reason for their reaction to one another’s blood. Y/N hadn’t even known he’d spoken to Mitch about it, and so to find out he has and he didn’t even express the findings to her. . .worries her, a bit. Did he not like it? Was the thought of being tied to her horrible? But if it was then he wouldn’t have been so doting and cuddly these last few weeks, right? 

“You look stressed,” he noted, “I would be too if I was bonded to that fucker, so I understand.” 

Breathlessly, she laughs again, “He’s not so bad.” 

                                                                .                           .                        . 

Harry gets pretty clingy when Y/N goes back. 

Though he’d promised that she wasn’t a bother, she still felt guilty to be inhabiting his home when he was at work. She’d been hearing him postpone different trips too, a couple of days in Italy, a fashion show in France – things that he always went to before, and she had a feeling it was because he didn’t want to leave her alone. It was sweet, but it made her feel guilty, so she decided it was okay to go back for a little while and reacclimate to the house. 

It wasn’t so bad – going from Harry’s modern, high-tech flat to Mitch’s Victorian-style mansion was different but it isn’t horrible. Y/N liked being surrounded by people when Harry was at work or attending some smarmy event, instead of being alone. The only downside was there was a little Leaf-shaped hollow in her heart, but Harry describes shared custody and drops her off with Y/N when he knows he’s going to be out all day or if he does have to leave for one of those week-long trips. 

The others act like she never left. She goes to the movie nights and nobody mentions what happened. Christopher gives her a big, long hug when he sees that she’s returned, then promptly warms her two mugs of “the sweetest blood” as a welcome home present. Naomi comes to inhabit Y/N’s bed and talks about pop culture and how Samuel is fucking someone who isn’t Theodore so that had been a lot of drama while she was away. Delphine starts to visit her room for Leaf – apparently, she’d grown up with a lot of barn cats, so she was very fond of them, and they find their shared love for animals as a link to start speaking more comfortably with each other. And wherever Delphine was, Saskia was close behind. Her past with cats was checkered because she had an allergy to them before, but being a vampire meant eradicating all allergies, so she hesitantly gave Leaf a pet or two. 

Leaf, all tiny and soft, loves the extra attention. 

Niall still comes to her room but not without being invited first. Y/N thinks eventually this will change, but it seems like he doesn’t want to smother her with his presence, though Y/N wouldn’t find it smothering at all. He’s still hesitant, and she gets it – Y/N liked that he respected her enough to let her decide if she was in the right headspace to see him that day or not. 

The only person who takes it hard and acts like it is the worst thing in the world is Harry. He never goes three days without coming to see her, and when he isn’t with her, he’s messaging her and calling her, asking if she wants to FaceTime in between flights. When he does come, he poses a strict, “Nobody bothers us” rule where he threatens to move her dresser in front of the door to ward off “unwanted” intruders (though they could all probably move the dresser anyway, they’re very strong). He crawled into her bed and pulled her into his body, dragging the blankets over them, “You smell too much like the others,” he’d grumble, resting his chin on the top of her head, “Hate it.” 

“You’re silly,” she’d respond but soaked in the snuggling happily — it used to be something they merely indulged in while she was asleep; before, Harry would only ever kind of curl around her or pet her or hold her when she was all blood drunk and full, seconds from slumber. Now he’s much more open and willing to do it whenever – when they were watching the telly, when they were on the ground and Y/N was painting her nails (“I should sit behind you, yeah? You can sit between my legs, and when you’re done with one hand, I’ll blow on your fingers to dry them,”) if they were outside on the deck, practicing whatever Harry had come up with for the day.He crowds her space like he was made to. If Harry was there, they’re glued at the hip, and that was just normal now. 

Y/N wondered if he would ever bring up the whole bond thing, but he seemed content not to. Still, it didn’t seem to deter him from letting her snack on his blood, which she sure only furthers the whole thing. So maybe he wasn’t concerned with it – maybe he was just seeing where it went. Y/N isn’t sure, but she’s usually good at ignoring things. If the other party didn’t want to talk about it then she wouldn’t either, it was never in her nature to press for answers. 

. . .when she was a human, at least. Being a vampire hasn’t changed her at a fundamental level, she doesn’t believe, but it has given her a new outlook on life, and a different perspective on some things. It was better to ask and get an answer that she didn’t want rather than continue not knowing something for sure. If she’d lived by that rule in the past it would have probably saved her a lot of trouble. 

So Y/N asks him outright, Leaf curled in her lap in a tiny furry heap, and Harry with his arms curled around Y/N’s body protectively. Nobody else was in the den – they were either in their rooms or out and about (with a strict curfew now, because of the whole thing between her and Niall – Mitch blamed himself for giving them a little too much freedom being newly presented). Harry suggested they utilize the tv then, instead of trying to watch it on her laptop screen. Harry tells her they should be at his flat, but since he was supposed to go three hours away for a photoshoot tomorrow, he didn’t want to leave her alone (it turns out he’d been postponing more than she had initially thought so now he was playing catch up – something about Spring deadlines and all of that). 

The screen clears as the next episode of the show they’re watching loads up, and maybe it isn’t the best timing or the best place to do it, but she has to ask before she loses her nerve. 

“Are we a. . .fated pair? Is that what it’s called?” 

She feels Harry stiffen behind her, his hold around her arms tightening only slightly as he processes what she’d just inquired. There aren’t a lot of things that could stun Harry, as long as he’s been around he normally has a response to anything and everything within a couple of seconds – but he sits with this for a little longer. His fingers, where they’d rested on her waist, began to play with the fabric of her shirt, plucking at the hem and fiddling with the stitches. The tension in the air is palpable, but it isn’t a horrible tension. Not something she wanted to run away from, at least. 

“Niall,” Harry finally muttered, like he’d been spending half of the time he was silent, trying to figure out how Y/N would have heard that, “That fucker is too good at masking his presence.” 

“Harry –” 

“I know,” he exhales, and Y/N thinks it’s funny that he does things like this not because he’s releasing a breath, but to express how he’s feeling. He nudges the side of her head with his own and dips his nose into the curve of her throat, his favorite spot, “With you at my flat, and with how you’d been eating from me still, the – how I felt for you was becoming concerning and a little obsessive. Not in like an obsessive “I’m going to kill her so nobody else can have her” way, more like a “I want to be near her and I’m forgoing responsibilities to spend time with her” kind of way. I don’t do that, for people, I’m not. . .so giving with my time, which makes me sound like a dick, but it’s the truth. I have my time and they have theirs, even if it’s someone that I’m interested in,” he slides his fingers beneath her shirt’s fabric, his nails tracing circles into her skin, “But with you, I just. . .wanted to be around you. To be with you makes me feel calm; it soothes me like putting ice on a sprain. And for you to drink from my vein and our bodies react so intensely to it. . .well, it had to be something.” 

“I was glad to ignore it and just continue enjoying myself with you, but I was getting curious. And I knew you and Niall would make up soon, and you’re so concerned about being a burden all of the time, I knew you wouldn’t take me up on my offer to stay with me. This meant I was going to be coming around her, and being way more possessive and clingy than I ever have before and Mitch always knows what’s going on in the house. He would ask me about it eventually, so I just beat him to it.” He lifted his head, and his words were less muffled when he coaxes her to lean back against his chest more, “He went into the most intricate, convoluted discussion about molecules, and vampiric folklore, and I’ll be honest most of it went right over my fucking head, except for him saying that we were bound together by our souls. That whether we had met like this, or centuries ago in my village, while I was running from war, or had I just been some random UNI student sitting beside you in class – we would always have this kind of connection. It’s rare,” he squeezes her hips, “It’s a rare thing, a really rare thing, and it used to happen more often back in the 1600s but that doesn’t mean it never happens now.” 

Y/N cranes her neck to face him, “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her brows pinched toward the center, and Harry reached out, using his thumb to press at the crinkle in her skin and smooth it out. 

“I wanted to, but – I don’t know. I kind of wanted you to conclude for yourself, if you liked me or not. I didn’t want it to feel forced because you knew about this. Other than my blood making you a filthy, horny little thing, I don’t know exactly what your feelings are for me. And I know – you told me you feel whole after you drink from me, but again, outside of that – outside of the blood, I don’t know how you feel.” 

Y/N thinks, that if she’d eaten recently, blood would be roaring in her ears and her heart would be thudding something fierce in her chest. It was one thing to have Niall tell her on a whim, it was another thing for Harry to admit it to her, all shy, avoiding her gaze and pressing tight and close to her body. It was another thing to hear him feel insecure about not knowing how she felt about him.

Because for Y/N, she’d thought she’d been incredibly obvious. She wanted to be around him always, she recognized his scent out of everyone anywhere, she felt safe when his hands were on her in some way, or even when he was just nearby. Even when he was short with her, or grumpy, Y/N had felt endlessly at ease. After what happened at the club, he was the only person she wanted to be around. The way her heart lights up when he calls her sweet names, or when she sees him for the first time in a while. How her whole mind swam at the prospect of him rather hurting his hands than letting anyone else see her vulnerable when she’d been in the sun. No matter when he lost his patience, or when he seemed upset, or even when he swore up and down that he shouldn’t be a mentor  – he was supportive, tender, and made her head feel melty and her insides gossamer soft. 

“I have plenty of reason to like you, outside of some bond,” she finally replied, wiggling in his arms to face him again – Leaf got up, stumbled out of her lap, then stretched with a silent yawn, “And it wasn’t just after eating. Just being with you makes me feel. . .complete, just as I said before. I thought it was just the blood, but when you leave for work and we’re separated, there’s a – it’s noticeable, the gape I feel in your absence.” Y/N curled her fingers up in his shirt, “I mean, how I feel for you, surpasses how I ever felt for Daniel, my old friend. As dramatic as it is, I’d thought I would never be able to love again –” 

“Oh, you humans and your theatrics,” he murmured with a laugh and Y/N smiled shyly, looking away. 

“-- but the way I’ve felt about you lately, I just don’t think whatever puppy love crush I had on him scratches the surface. Sorry, I wasn’t clear about it. I’d been so focused on trying to figure out my place in this world again and how to live life like this, that I hadn’t given myself a chance to sit and sort through my emotions. But they’re there – they’re real and scary.” 

Harry kisses her – she wasn’t expecting it, but she’d completely turned around in his lap by then so at least the angle wasn’t horrible. His lips are soft, and without the preface of something lewd, it is saccharine and chaste. Y/N shivered, her eyes fluttered closed as she leaned into him, practically molding herself into the shape of his body. It was good – Harry’s been treating her delicately for a while now, but this was different. Like he was kissing something important to him. Something that he wanted to handle with softhearted gloves. 

When they part, Harry kisses the corner of her mouth, then her right cheek, her temple, over her forehead, and down the other side of her face. They’re feather-light and ticklish but his arms cage her in so she couldn’t wiggle away, helpless but to giggle. Once he finishes, he hums low and their eyes meet. 

“I’ll be keeping you, so get used to this.” He admitted, and if he’d eaten recently, then his cheeks would have flushed pink the way they do anytime he’s sentimental.

Y/N nodded and hid herself in his chest. 

She didn’t mind that at all. 

                                                              .                        .                       .

Harry couldn’t wait to see her. 

He used to take great pleasure in his week to two-week-long trips out of the country for work, whether he was going to Dubai, Milan, Paris, or other places like it. Harry would gorge on international feeders and sex and all the adoration from people who question his otherworldly beauty and get lost in his sharp gaze. It was nice to be sought after, admired, to get his fill of all the blood he wanted. He thought it was a fair trade, for all those years ago, when he’d been scrawny and worthless to everyone. 

However, now? He just can’t wait to get home. Without the sex and the gorging, there actually wasn’t a whole lot to do in any of those spots that he hadn’t done thousands and thousands of times before. It was work, strictly work, and there was no sort of pleasure, apart from the gratification of seeing one of his looks trek down the runway. Besides that, there was only one person he wanted to sleep with now, one person he wanted to be adored by, and only one person he wished to get lost in his gaze. 

And she was thousands of kilometers away from him, probably coding some program that made no sense to his brain, in his sweatshirt that he made her promise to wear and those horrific (and endearingly cute) slippers shaped like cats that she picked up from the store in honor of Leaf (who liked to chew on them when Y/N wiggled her toes). Even on the plane ride back home, he wondered how he could make it quicker – if there was a way to travel even faster than a plane. He supposes he could run, his legs are quite fast, but if someone spotted him going a little too fast to be human, then that would be a whole other list of shit to deal with instead of just tucking himself into Y/N’s side. 

So as soon as he was finished up, the models had gone home, he’d given his statement for editorials, and he’d shared one glass of wine with a designer he really couldn’t be arsed to learn the name of (he’d drank with types like Chanel and Dior in the past, so the glitz and glamor of it now are easily lost on him) – Harry was on a plane and headed home. He used the in-flight wifi to watch a movie Y/N had suggested to him, but he was barely paying attention. How could he, when he was so excited to get home to her? 

It was crazy to think this was where their relationship had ended up. She used to be nothing but an obnoxious little thorn in his side and now all he wants to do is smother her with affection and give her his blood. Y/N was so important to him, it made his heart feel heavy and full for the first time in. . .well, he isn’t sure it’s ever felt this heavy and full before. The weight in his chest is unfamiliar, and at first, it had been unwelcomed, but he likes it now. It’s as if she’d curled her body around it and took residence there. She’s always with him, in that sense of it. 

The others had gotten used to it far quicker than he’d imagined they would. He expected more teasing as well, but they all like Y/N a lot, so he guesses to tease him is to tease her indirectly and they don’t want to. The most he gets is scolded that he isn’t good at sharing, and why should he be? Harry feels like he’d spent centuries waiting for her, now that he has her – doesn’t he deserve to be a little selfish? Especially after a week of not seeing her, Harry just wants her all to himself. That’s why he suggested that she come to his flat the first day he’s back, so they could be alone. 

So he’s more than happy, after the flight, after getting his shit from baggage claim and finding his car in the mass of other vehicles parked for overnight trips, and the 30-minute long drive from the airport to his flat – to see her just as he’d envisioned her. Only with a few additions; she wore the sweatshirt, and she had on these little shorts that were filthy (but she swore up and down she wore them because they were comfortable and not to taunt him with how little it would take before her bum was out), but tucked under her thigh was Leaf’s feather toy. Whenever Y/N was working, Leaf could go from sleeping peacefully at her side to the zoomies in all of three seconds, so this was her way of keeping her preoccupied – the stick was placed just precisely so that the feather and the string hung off the side of the couch for Leaf to jump and pull at. Y/N has pretty decent thigh muscles so she’s able to keep it in place without letting it move around too much. 

She has those horrible little booties on,  but she’s wrapped up in the throw blanket that Harry usually has wrapped around him – not for warmth, of course, but the way soft fibers feel against his skin is nice. He knows Y/N is not using it for that purpose because it touches nowhere that her skin shows, besides a little bit of her face. Y/N has it so close to her so that she can smell him, and Harry is just. . .so endeared by that he could scream. 

When he walked through the door, Y/N turned to face him with a big grin. She slid her computer out of her lap, and Leaf’s toy fell to the ground once she stood, carefully stepping over the kitten, and getting up on the other sofa so she could climb over it. She gets to him quicker this way, and her arms slink around his neck, and she holds him close, “Finally,” she murmured, “A week is too long.”

“You could always come with me.” He smiled into her hair, letting his eyes close – it was good to have her in his arms again, “I don’t think they’d mind a puppy backstage.” 

Y/N peeled away from him, flicking him in the center of his chest, “Shut up,” she threw at him, but it held no real spite, and her eyes were dripping in mirth, “Should I dress myself then show up?” 

“Oh, baby, please don’t – let me be the one to dress you.” 

It was nice, that back and forth, and had Harry not felt so keyed up then he probably would have started a load of laundry, showered, gotten in more comfortable clothes and they could have just hung out for the night. 

But Harry was keyed up – a week away from Y/N meant a week away from not only her beautiful brain, but her beautiful body as well, and he was missing the sounds she’d make when his fingers slid against her. How easy she was to rile up, the way she tasted on his tongue, how dripping wet she got from even just a little bit of Harry’s blood in her. It’s precisely why he’d eaten so much before leaving, and he’s sure she could tell he’d just eaten recently, with how warm his cheeks felt they must be rosy. And that flush on his pale skin is clear as day, especially how it slithers down his throat, and if he’s really worked up, it might splotch his chest. 

“When’s the last time you ate, Sweetheart?” He inquired – the icy little tip of her nose was enough to tell him it had been a while.

“Mm, I had some earlier, when I woke up,” she explained, “But I got distracted with work, so I haven’t since.” 

Normally, Harry might chide her for that, but he’s all too excited to offer his throat, “I have a treat for you then,” he placed his hands on her hips, walking her backward, “Get on the couch.” 

Where Y/N used to start on the side of his body and eventually make her way into his lap while she ate, she just crawled into his lap now to cut out the unnecessary jostling around. The weight of her in his lap is familiar, nice, and something he didn’t realize that he missed until he was away from her. She stretches her thighs on either side of him and scoots in very close; Harry is already half hard, and he isn’t sure if he’d been like this since he saw her, or on the plane when he’d even just thought about her. Whatever it was and whenever it was, he was definitely already getting hard just from the anticipation of her teeth in his neck. It felt like young adulthood all over again, when it wasn’t “mind over matter”, and Harry couldn’t help but get hard in three seconds from one thought. 

“I missed you,” she tells him, pressing her chest up against his, her nipples were already hard and Harry felt dizzy with the want burgeoning up from deep in his belly, “So much, and you were only gone for a week. It’s a little embarrassing.” 

“I miss you when I leave you alone for an hour,” he slides his hand on the nape of her neck and brings her closer, “Isn’t embarrassing. I’m flattered that you like me enough to miss me, even. Now take what you need, baby, I ate enough to fill you up.” 

The slide of her teeth into his skin never gets old, especially when it’s his throat. There’s a bite of pain, immediately soothed over by the euphoric feeling of it not only being a vampire bite, but a Y/N bite. The way she goes about it is still so tentative to start, and unsure, like she’s worried about hurting him – but the moment she tastes his blood on her tongue, all that vanishes. She moaned against his neck like she’d been starving for months and he’d finally come to save her, her fingers digging into his body wherever her hands lie. Harry can feel her inhibitions leave her, the way she gulps, drinks him down, and takes her fill how he wants her to. 

It’s always after a minute that Y/N’s body starts to move out of tandem with her. She hates that she starts rutting against him like an overexcited puppy, but that doesn’t stop the way her hips twitch and push closer to him while she’s eating. Harry’s hand slid from her neck, to meet his other at her hips, holding her still as she rolled her hips into him greedily. “Mm, it feels good, doesn’t it, baby? Especially after not having it for so long,” Harry shuddered, closing his eyes as he melted into the feeling, “I bet your pussy is already soaked.” 

Y/N whines, and he can only imagine how debauched the scene must look from an outsider's perspective. Her hands slip under his shirt, fingers tracing along his stomach and when the muscles in his abdomen tense up, his cock throbs to match. Harry’s fully hard now, and he thinks he’s already leaking, dripping into the inside of his trousers because he was always one to forgo underwear when it caused lines in his pants. Y/N lines herself up with him, tucking him into the folds because her pussy just swallows these shorts up, and rolls into him, “That’s it,” he whispered, “Such a good girl, you can have anything you want.”

The times she bites his throat aren’t always for pleasure. Harry still tries to prepare her for the first time she will meet with a feeder, so each time Y/N eats she gets better and better. She’s learned to stop when she’s full and to not overstuff herself just because it tastes good. She also has learned to read the queues of the other person, that she might have had too much – it’d be different for a human, but she can tell by the way Harry might start feeling even a degree less warm than he began as. 

He isn’t sure what coaxes her to stop today. She pulled away from his neck and lulled her tongue over the little puncture wounds in his skin, before moving so she faced him. Y/N made a pretty sight with her hazy eyes and her mouth stained red. Before he could spend too much time admiring her, she fixes her lips against his, slips her tongue into his mouth, and oh fuck. 

She’d kept some of his blood in her mouth, so it filled his own when she kissed him, and his eyes all but rolled up to the back of his head. Who had taught her something so filthy? His cock throbs so hard in his pants and he’s leaking so much precum he’s wondered if he’s cum already – he’s sure it’s sticky and webby beyond belief around the head of his cock, and Y/N isn’t helping the matter, she’s just making it worse. 

Harry takes her by the chin, parts her lips, and makes sure they stay open. Without having to instruct her, she presses the tip of her tongue to her bottom lip, waiting patiently – normally Harry places a couple of fingers on her tongue for her to suck and bite at, so he presumes that’s what she was expecting. But Harry couldn’t help himself, and if Y/N was going to be filthy, then he was going to be filthier, so he encased her tongue and her bottom lip with his mouth and suckled at it. When Y/N mewls, he takes more of her in, sucking the taste of him off her tongue while he pries at her little shorts. He was in no mood for her to get off his lap to wiggle them down, so he tore them, shredding the fabric. 

She makes a startled sound, mixed with a moan when Harry slips his tongue back into her mouth to kiss her properly again. Harry’s head spins when he backs away from her – they could kiss forever without needing to take a single breath (or they would be able to one day when Y/N really didn’t need to use her lungs anymore), but Harry wanted to look at her. Want to see her with lips bitten red and swollen, filled with blood that Harry kind of wants to knick with his tooth and drink from. He presses at her chest just a little so she stretches back, and he gathers the fabric at the bottom of her shirt in between his thumb and index finger, pressing it up her quivering belly. 

Her pussy is puffy and swollen and soaking wet, he would’ve thought she’d been touching herself before he’d come home. He can’t tell if he wants to bury his face or his cock into it more, but another hard throb suggests he’d better do the latter or he would cum hard in his pants. He uses his fingers to spread her open, showing off the engorged bud of her clit, chuckling brightly when it pulses beneath his attention. Harry is unsure what drives him to sink his fingers lower, get three of them wet then return to her clit to slap it, but he does, and the payoff is Y/N trying to close her legs around him with the most wanton of sounds. He does it again, a little harder, and Y/N’s hand comes to grab his wrist, “I’ll cum,” she whines like that was supposed to deter him, “I’ll cum if you keep going.” 

“Isn’t that the point?” He murmured, sliding his fingers through her juices and tucking them up inside of her, petting at her g-spot for a second before slipping them back out and licking her off his hand, “Want you to cum.” 

“I wanna cum with you in me,” she sounded like she was pleading with him, and Harry had always been a sucker for pretty girls begging, “Please?” 

Harry’s quick to work the button of his trousers open, pulling the zip and removing his cock from the oppressive confines of it. He’s harder than he’d even thought, but he was right to assume that he’d leaked so much precum it looked like he’d cum. The clear fluid oozes from the tip in a long, sticky line, filling up the dip of his hip bone. Y/N ogles him with awe-filled eyes, “Whoa,” she swallowed thickly, her fingers tracing up the underside from his balls to the tip, in a move he doesn’t think she means to be as teasing as it is, “You’re really hard.” 

“I know,” he bites down hard on his bottom lip as he throbs again, under her attention, in the coolness of the air. 

“Like, harder than I’ve ever seen you,” she states, and now her palm slides against his shaft, and she squeezes experimentally, looking between him and his cock, “And you’re so wet –” 

“Y/N,” he just barely holds back from whimpering, “No teasing, Darling, I need to fuck this into you or I’ll cum all over myself. You don’t want to waste it, do you?” He inquired, and Y/N shook her head, scooting closer, “Yeah, let me fill you up, Baby, want to watch it fucking drip out of you when we’re done.” 

She visibly shivered again, and Harry helped her lift and slide his cock inside of her. Y/N moans, her face pinches up from the pressure of him against her walls but she slips right on down like he belonged inside of her. Harry thinks Y/N likes the stretch – the burn of it, as long as it doesn’t border on too painful. She bottoms out, her arms wrapped around his neck, and she smushes their lips together. The kiss is brief before she nips at his plush bottom lip and sucks it into her mouth. While she does that, Harry presses his upper lip just above hers, his fingers digging into her thighs as she squeezes around him, accommodating his size. Her walls were velvety soft and smooth as they contract around him, the ridges and bumps something he’s set on memorizing. 

Her ministrations with her mouth go to his chin, she kisses then bites her way down his jaw, to his ear, laving her tongue over the little wounds that were no doubt closing and healing over by now. Harry offers her his hand when he realizes that she must want to bite something, and he’d made the right assumption when she fits his knuckles between her teeth and chews on him. Harry laughs as she starts to lift her hips, then drops back down onto him, “You’re so fucking cute,” he chuckled, “Should we get you a chew toy? A little bone for a puppy like you?” 

“Shut up,” her words are muffled around his fingers in her mouth but she’s riding him well. It feels so fucking good, Harry is holding onto every last bit of strength not to cum before her. A damning feat to accomplish when she finds the angle that hits that bundle of nerves inside of her just right – she clamps down on him, her eyes bead with tears as she fucks down onto him, and nibbles at his fingers. 

“Do you feel good, Baby? S’my cock stretching you out nice?” Y/N nodded, whining, “You can cum for me. Don’t you want that? Cum on me and I’ll fill this little pussy right up.” 

Harry shoves the sweatshirt up so it rests just above her bare tits, or at least enough that he can visualize them and then get one into his mouth. Her nipples are still hard, so pert and sensitive for him when he pulls them between his teeth and lulls his tongue in big circles around them. Harry alternates between sucking hard and flicking his tongue, and Y/N goes from chewing on his knuckles to holding them uselessly in her mouth and moaning around them. Harry feels her start to cum before she can even tell him through these breathy little whines. 

He isn’t ashamed to say he starts cumming before she could finish – he makes sure to work her through it still, fucking through the point of overstimulation, his thumb lulling on her clit when he raised his feet onto the coffee table and started to fuck into her. Harry fills her up, his orgasm splinters through him so intensely that he thinks his vision whites out for a second. He’s throbbing so hard inside of her, he knows she could feel it each time, and in response to each one, she mewls and sighs as she finally starts to come down from her own high. 

Harry untucks his face from her chest just as Y/N drops his fingers from her mouth. He’s still tucked inside of her but his cum slicks out from around where his cock is plugging her up, too much of it to even keep inside. The feeling is a little atrocious as it cools, but the thought of what it must look like almost has him stiffening up again. 

Y/N all but collapsed onto him, and Harry oofs! dramatically, before wrapping her up in his arms. Her arms moved to hug around his waist this time, and she murmured something on his shoulder that he couldn’t quite make out. She turns her head, so her cheek rests against his shoulder instead, “I said I really missed you,” she repeated, “I’m happy you’re back home.” 

A lot of responses run through Harry’s head, including, but not limited to I’m happy you’re here with me, I’m happy you’re in my life, I’m happy my cum is dripping out of you right now, I’m happy that our fates matched in this way, I’m happy that we have a kitten name Leaf, I’m happy our souls are bound together. 

Harry doesn’t though. He thinks them, and he smiles to himself when he replies with something that he’s pretty sure covers all of that. 

“I’m happy too.” 

[fazedlight]

Emerald

“So, Supergirl,” Clark Kent’s voice said from the television screen, adjusting his glasses as his gaze shifted from the camera to the caped superhero beside him, “What’s your favorite food?”

“Oh, that’s a tough one. Potstickers, chocolate pecan pie-”

Alex crossed her arms and sighed. “This is going to take forever.”

Alex, Kelly, Lena, Nia, and Brainy sat on Kara’s couches, watching as the super was interviewed by her cousin across the country in Metropolis. It was mostly a puff piece, to help Kara ease back into normalcy as a public figure after returning from the phantom zone.

Lena smiled to herself as she watched her best friend on screen. After all this time - their fallout, Kara’s disappearance into the phantom zone, growing closer with the superfriends in her absence - everything finally felt like it was clicking into place. In a strange and wonderful way, these people had become family, and she had Kara back.

Maybe there was a piece still missing. But she’d keep her pining to herself.

“How much longer is this interview?” Nia asked.

“Just a few more minutes,” Kelly responded. “Kara said we’ll start movie night at the normal time, the flight back isn’t long.”

“Least favorite food?” Clark asked.

“Kale.”

“Simple answer,” he joked.

“Simple question.”

Alex sighed again. “We really shouldn’t let her do interviews.”

Kelly smiled, nudging her girlfriend lovingly. “It’s good for people to see her,” she reminded Alex, “And it’s good for Kara to keep herself occupied.”

Alex smiled back. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Favorite color?” Clark asked.

“Green,” Kara responded immediately.

And that’s when everyone’s heads snapped back up to the television.

“Green?” Clark said, eyebrows raising wide above his brow. The public might see a normal reporter doing his job, but those in the know might realize that the other kryptonian was caught off guard by the answer. “Surprising choice, with kryptonite.”

“Uh, I-” Kara stuttered, shuffling back, “Sorry, I think I gotta go, bird stuck in a tree-”

“That’s usually where birds are-”

Lena tilted her head curiously as her best friend launched upwards, off camera and presumably into the sky. That was weird, Lena mulled, turning to find most of the superfriends eyeing her carefully.

With the exception of Alex, whose head was in her hands.

---

Oh, Rao, why did I say that?, Kara thought, as she sped across the sky. Alex is going to tease me for weeks-

The cool breeze blasted in her face as she panicked, and it wasn’t until she was somewhere over Nebraska that she finally calmed down. Not that Alex knew, not that anyone knew. Unless I’m being too obvious…

With a whoosh and a double tap, she landed in her apartment, watching as her friends on the couch turned to see her. “Hey everyone,” she said shakily, trying to move on as quickly as possible, “Ready for Jumanji?”

“We’re ready,” Alex started.

“Actually,” Nia said, tapping away at her phone, “I think we’ve got a problem.”

“With my interview?” Kara deflated.

“Social media is, uh…” Nia said, “Well, I think you’ve upset the kale lobby.”

“The kale lobby?!”

“Possibly farmers in general…” Nia said, leading to Alex once again putting her face in her hands.

“What do we do?” Kara asked.

“You could do a healthy food PSA,” Lena suggested helpfully. “First rule of the publicity playbook. Create something to erase your mistake. I’m sure Andrea would air it instantly.”

“I will stay up all night devising this PSA,” Brainy vowed.

“Thanks,” Kara sighed. “Movie, then?”

---

It was a normal movie night. Mostly.

Kara seemed to avoid Lena’s eyes throughout. Normally they curled up next to each other, but Kara was more distant - physically and emotionally. It made Lena’s stomach flop. What’s going on?

But over the course of the evening - Lena was glad they picked a funny movie - Kara seemed to soften again to her normal melodic laughter. At some point, there was a small touch to Lena’s arm to invite her to curl up against the blonde, which she gladly took.

After the movie, the other couples filtered their way out. Kara nudged Lena to go home too, but Lena offered to help with dishes as she usually did, and they found themselves side-by-side at the sink.

“How long has green been your favorite color?” Lena asked, as she set down a rinsed wine glass. “I’m guessing not on Krypton.”

Kara glanced sideways, not quite meeting Lena’s gaze. “A few years. I didn’t really have one before.”

“A few years,” Lena said, her brow scrunching in confusion, “How on earth did kryptonite not repel that?”

Kara stayed silent for a moment, placing the last cleaned plate in the drying rack, rinsing her hands and turning off the faucet. Lena watched her, curious, wondering why the blonde seemed to be mulling her answer, or if she would ever answer.

She did. “It’s your eyes,” Kara confessed. “They’re beautiful.”

Lena’s heart skipped a beat. “My eyes,” she asked softly.

“In the phantom zone, I kept trying to imagine your face,” Kara murmured, “I didn’t want to forget the color of your eyes.”

“Kara…”

“You’re my home, Lena,” Kara said, biting at her lip as she turned to meet Lena’s gaze. “All I wanted was to come back to you.”

Lena smiled softly, placing a hand on Kara’s, feeling the release of the breath the kryptonian had nervously been holding. Lena tilted up on her toes, placing a small kiss on Kara’s cheek. “Can I stay the night?” she asked shyly.

Kara’s eyes shifted between her own, as a warm smile formed on the kryptonian’s face. “Yeah.”

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

Perhaps a slightly different origin story for that superfriends PSA.

[audliminal]

Survivability Bias Pt 5

Masterpost Ao3

“So hypothetically,” Superboy begins, glancing over at Robin. “Say I met another meta, and they, like, needed a civilian identity...” He trails off, listening intently. Trying to get anything from Robin's expression is pointless - between his skill at maintaining his composure, and the expression obscuring mask, there's not a lot to be read on his face. Instead Superboy focuses on his heartbeat, which speeds up the smallest amount as Robin turns away from the tablet he'd been working with, and settles his full attention directly onto Superboy.

“Hypothetically,” Robin repeats.

“Yeah. You know, in theory, if that ever happened.” Robin stares at Superboy for a moment, presumably reading everything that's missing from his own face in Superboy's.

“Well. In theory, the Justice League has the means to grant any meta hero a full identity. Is this about you? Because honestly it's insane that they haven't bothered yet, and I will straight up make you one right now if you-”

“No, it's not about me,” Superboy interrupts. “But like, you could do that? Without the Justice League’s support, I mean?. Like, say if this hypothetical person really didn't want the Justice League knowing about them?”

“You met a meta who doesn't like the Justice League.”

“I don't think it's really about the Justice League specifically. I mean, they definitely don't exist, but if they did, then I would say that the second I showed up they were bracing for a fight. Like before they even saw who I was.” Robin sets his tablet to the side without looking, and leans just a touch towards Superboy as he talks. It's honestly wild, he thinks, how the other boy can manage such intense eye contact through white lenses, but, well, that's the bats for you.

“Theoretically, I could absolutely make this person an identity, if they did exist. But I would want to meet them first.”

“Cool, cool,” Superboy says leaning back into the couch. “I offered to introduce you and they said they'd consider it. I think, maybe they don't trust adults very much, bc they asked if you were our age.”

“Theoretically?”

“Exactly.”

* * *

Though the specific details as to when the founding member first became acquainted, it was only after multiple incidents of near-worldwide devastation that they realized the necessity of an organized front.

The details of the forming of the Justice League should be fascinating, if only for the revelation that world-ending disasters are, apparently, relatively common in this universe. In a way, it’s a comforting thought. Memories of Dan sit as heavily as ever in Danny’s mind, especially now that he’s effectively lost his family, just like in Dan’s timeline. Of course, here there’s presumably no risk of him getting fused with Vlad, so probably that specific threat isn’t likely, but - well, if it comes to the worst and Danny does go mad, there’s at least a reasonably good chance that the heroes here will be able to stop him.

On the other hand, this also means that if the heroes turn out to actually be evil or whatever, he has less chance of getting away. Of course, Superboy hadn’t really seemed evil, but Danny really has no clue if he would even be able to tell. Sure he’d known Vlad was a nightmare from a mile away, but Vlad wasn’t exactly subtle about his obsession with Danny. Evil steeped in calculation would surely be harder to spot, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” someone says from behind Danny. “But are you going to be using that computer for much longer?” Danny blinks, staring back at the teen who’s looking at him nervously. Danny glances over at the clock, but it’s now reading 2:30, which means that he’s been here for like three hours already,and he really hasn’t read much of anything in all that time.

“You can have it,” Danny says, pulling back to shove his notebook into his backpack.

“You sure, man? I don’t wanna chase you off, but I really could use it. Physics project, you know?” 

“Yeah, I get it. Wasn’t really making much progress anyway. Might as well take a break.” Danny says. He never got to take physics in school, but he remembers struggling with lit class enough to understand the sentiment. And he really isn’t making any progress, if he’s been staring at the same Justice League page for multiple hours.

“You working on a history project or something?”

“Yeah.” It’s close enough to the truth.

“What teacher d’you have? It’s pretty cool that they’re letting you do it on the Justice League.”

“Oh, uh,” Danny quails for a moment, focusing on closing the tab so he doesn’t tell the kid he’s not going to school. After all it’s probably reasonable to assume the laws about delinquency are the same here. “It’s more about the meta protection acts than like, the Justice League itself. And I’m not really local, so...”

“Ah, that explains why I don’t recognize you,” the other teen grins.

“Yeah,” Danny says, stepping back so the other teen can take over the computer. “Well, good luck with your physics project.”

“Thanks, man, and good luck with your meta-acts essay.” The other teen turns his attention to the computer as Danny steps away, heading for the library exit. Clearly research isn’t going well today, and Jazz would definitely yell at him for trying to force his brain to focus when it clearly doesn’t want to. He pauses outside for a moment, trying to remember what Jazz said to when your focus was shot. Obviously part one was to take a break, but he’s certain that she’d had more to say than that.

He thinks he remembers her going on a rant about monotony, and boredom, but he doesn’t really feel bored. Actually more than anything he feels wired and anxious. And anxious means he should...

“Turn slow tigers into fast tigers,” Danny mutters, gaining a deeply confused look from the couple other patrons standing outside the library. He ignores them, though, and starts heading for the nearby park, so he can do some stretches. Fast tigers means he has to exercise, which he would usually complain about but- well, his routine has definitely been a lot less active since he got here. Other than the train crash the other week, Danny’s been spending most of his time sitting and reading, and while it’s been insanely nice to have nobody hunting him, honestly the idea of exercise sounds almost horrifyingly nice.

He does his best to run through the kind of stretches he remembers doing in PE, warming himself up as best he can before starting to jog the little looping path. The jeans make it a little more annoying than he remembers in PE, but luckily they’re kind of loose, so they’re not too terrible to run in, and Danny has no intention of going very fast. There’s too many people around even if he wanted to, and he does his best to be polite and not in the way as he jogs. it doesn’t take long for his breathing to go heavy with exertion, and as he finishes his second circuit, Dannyt relaxes into it, and just lets himself run.

Thirty minutes later, Danny is feeling markedly more tired, and he lets himself slow to a walk. His heart is thudding rhythmically in his chest, the occasional stutter only more prominent in the heightened pounding, and his legs feel a little wobbly, but he keeps walking, The sweat he’d worked up feels gross against his clothes, so probably he could’ve gone about it better, but Danny figures a whole thirty minutes without worrying about his existential situation is more than worth feeling gross for a bit. His usual tactic of sneaking into the local gym while it’s closed isn’t gonna cut it during the day, so he’ll have to wait to shower, but in the meantime, he can walk off the remaining adrenaline, and decide what to do for dinner.

* * *

“Hey, did you really mean what you said about me having a civilian identity?” Robin looks up as Superboy sits in the air beside his work desk.

“I have four different identities, ready for you to choose from,” Robin says.

“Wait do you just keep possible identities around in case anybody needs them? Is that, like, a Bat thing?” Superboy leans over to examine the tool Robin had been working on. Like everything else he uses, it’s emblazoned with a bat insignia, not that the marking does anything to help identify what the little machine even does. It’s ridiculously small, definitely not any kind of weapon, unless Robin’s been tinkering with the idea of murderous nanobots, which honestly wouldn’t be that shocking. Of any hero Superboy’s ever met, Robin seems uniquely predisposed towards mad scientist-type stuff.

“I keep exactly two emergency identities on hold, but those are separate. I was talking specifically about identities for you.” Superboy freezes, turning his eyes back to Robin, who looks at him like this is a perfectly normal thing to say. Superboy is at least ninety percent sure it isn’t, but what the hell.

“What the hell,” Superboy echoes his own thoughts. “Why would I ever need four identities?”

“You don’t need four, you need options. There’s no point in giving you an identity you hate.”

“Okay, but people don’t get to choose their names? So why would I care.”

“Most people don’t choose their names because most people receive them when they’re babies, but everyone has the ability to change it later if they decide they don’t like it. You have the unique advantage of being cognitively developed enough to have a say from the beginning, and you should have the opportunity to use it.”

“Huh...” That’s actually kind of sweet. “Do you like your name? I mean, like, that’s not why you don’t want to tell us, right?”

“My name is adequate,” Robin answers slowly. “It’s mine and I am... accustomed to it. The reason I haven’t told you my name is because it... implicates the other bats, and Batman considers that to be a significant security risk.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s fair. Could I see the names you were thinking of?”

“Certainly,” Robin says, pushing back from the desk. “Let me get my tablet.”

* * *

“Uh, Superboy?” Danny shouts, trying to ignore how fucking ridiculous this feels. “Are you, like, free to talk? I think I want to meet your friend.” He’s hovering in the sky about a mile out from his town, in as close to the middle of nowhere as he could manage. He’d done a bit of looking into Robin this morning, before making his decision, and what a wild discovery that Robin was a name that had been held by multiple individuals. It makes him think of Dani, and he almost hopes that wherever she ends up, she might use the name Phantom too. After all, if anyone else rights to it, it would be his genetic clone.

Danny has no clue if time is flowing the same here as back home, but with any luck his friends have managed to orchestrate Dani’s escape too. It was always going to be a little more dodgy than Danny himself- his death being inherently tied to the portal had meant it was a bit more responsive to him than it otherwise would be, and that detail had been pretty quintessential to the rewiring that had needed to be done in order to send him to an entirely different universe, but they’d been hoping that her nature as a post-portal clone would mean that she had a close enough tie to the portal to send her through as well. Not that Danny would likely ever get to know for sure.

The soft rush of air alerted Danny to someone’s arrival, and he just managed to keep himself from falling into a defensive posture as he turned to look at the newly arrived Superboy, and the other teen being carried in his arms. Danny recognized the other boys outfit as that of the current Robin, who was now staring at Danny through a pair of disconcerting white-lenses set into a domino mask.

“We were free so I figured we’d just come meet you?” Superboy says with a nervous grin.

“Yeah, that’s, um, kind of obvious. Should we land?” Danny’s pretty sure that none of the Bats have flight, and like, as much as flying is cool as hell, Robin doesn’t look particularly impressed by it.

“That would be preferable, please,” Robin says, confirming Danny’s thoughts. He nods, and heads for the ground. Superboy follows just as quickly, and a moment later they’re all gathered on a gravel road in farmland.

“So, uh,” Superboy begins, once he’s deposited Robin on his own two feet.

“You told him about me before,” Danny says. Superboy may have had plenty of time to fly over here, but there hadn’t been enough of a delay to have explained the situation to Robin just now.

“It was an entirely theoretical conversation,” Robin offers dryly, before Superboy can respond.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means that he was asking if I could theoretically help a meta acquire an identity if they were uncomfortable with the Justice League. Nothing of it was mentioned to anyone else and he told me no details about who any theoretical metas might be.” Danny blinks, taking a moment to process Robin’s explanation. In a way it makes sense, and he can see why Superboy would want to make sure that what he was offering was even possible.  Besides, it’s pretty obvious already that they both really trust each other.

“Okay, sure. I guess I get it.”

“I would like to know why you’re concerned about the Justice League, though, if you’re willing to share. If there’s anything illicit happening-”

“Oh, no, it’s not like that,” Danny cuts in as soon as he realizes where Robin’s going. He’s suddenly glad he’d already decided to explain his situation in more detail. “It’s like, I’m not from here so my shit is entirely unrelated? It’s just, they’re -you’re?- associated with the government, you know?”

“And your government is a threat to you.”

“Honestly, everything was. But they can’t get to me here. It’s why my friends- that’s why I’m here.”

“Okay, but are you sure you’re safe? Because like, space travel is a thing, and if you need protection...” Superboy trails off, looking concerned.

“I mean, it should be fine? Even if the GIW did manage to figure out inter-dimensional travel, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be able to figure out where specifically I went, so yeah.” Danny really doesn’t want to think about a GIW that’s gone inter-dimensional.

“Well if they did manage to make it here, they would be breaching the meta protection acts if they tried anything, so I hope if that does happen you inform myself or Superboy.”

“Yeah,” Danny laughs. “It’s honestly been kind of crazy trying to wrap my head around the idea I have protections here?”

“That’s understandable. Plenty of meta-individuals have complicated feelings about them, even if they grew up here.”

“Oh?”

“Well, just because it’s illegal to exploit or discriminate against someone doesn’t necessarily mean it doesn’t happen. And metas who have been treated poorly often have trouble trusting in the protection acts.”

“Or sometimes you just didn’t get that info programmed into you and then you have to adjust to your understanding of history being manufactured,” Superboy mutters under his breath. Robin doesn’t react at all and Danny’s pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to hear it either. The implications are a bit concerning, but Danny’s not about to press him on it.

“Yeah, I mean that’s kind of where I am, I guess. I think I’d like it if you’d be willing to make me a legal identity? I’m basically homeless at the moment, so I’d like to be able to get a job or something. But I’d really rather not end up on the Justice League’s radar yet. You guys seem nice, but databases are- a lot.”

“Easy enough. I can actually do it all with my personal resources, so the info never goes anywhere near the Justice League’s databases. We just need to determine what name history you want to have.”

“I mean, I’d like to keep my name, if possible?”

“Sure, What’s your name?” Robin tilts his head.

“Danny Fenton.”

[raayllum]

Damn, the Orphan Queen was just everywhere back in the day, huh?

[the-clock-of-the-time-dragon]

[Wicked: For Good speculation/predictions]

[obviously spoilers + wild conjecture + musings]

Okay so I have many thoughts about what we might get in the second film, and decided to put them all in one place; so here we are.

1.) I've heard a lot of people mentioning that the movie might choose not to jump straight into Thank Goodness, and instead opt for some sort of buffer opening to establish the time-skip and whatnot. I think it would be amazing to actually see Elphaba flying around Oz saving Animals and being harbored as a fugitive and stuff; maybe we could even get reintroduced to Brrr briefly! He's obviously able to speak, so maybe that implies Fiyero took him to an Animal resistance group or something for safety? The map of Oz shown in Something Bad does imply that there might be such groups around, plus of course Doctor Dillamond mentioning protests. Maybe we'll get to see some of that on-screen; I think that would be fascinating. Maybe as kind of a soft adaptation of Elphaba's domestic terrorist phase in the book. This is possibly all supported as well by the shots we've seen of the Yellow Brick Road under construction; presumably this will be early in the film, since obviously it must predate Dorothy's arrival, so I suspect these might be the opening scenes before we get to see how Oz is reacting to Elphaba's activities at the start of Thank Goodness.

2.) I suspect we'll find out that Madame Morrible is not only the one who brought Dorothy to Oz, but also the Wizard — and maybe even more interestingly, caused the Great Drought (which I think is quite heavily implied to be the Dust Bowl, based on the time period and a scrawling on one of the chalkboards in the background; which I think is meant to be Dillamond's research). (My current headcanon is that Morrible accidentally caused the formation of the Impassable Desert (since it is also mentioned on the same chalkboard), which caused a ripple effect out into Kansas and started the Dust Bowl.) If we do get more background on Morrible and her earlier magic experimentation (and maybe even the Grimmerie), I suspect we'll learn that her heart's desire was always to be the prophesied magical savior of Oz, and the Grimmerie based on those vibes (since it seems to read the hearts of the ones using it and flip to pages that will give them what they want, like how it heard "birds" and went straight to relevant pages) brought the Wizard (and by extension, Elphaba) and Dorothy into Oz. In a way it feels like the Grimmerie is sort of the dark magical inverse of what the Wizard does: they hear the desires of people's hearts, and "grant" it in a deceptive way. The Wizard "grants" wishes through bullshitery and spectacle (and the people who come to him for help always end up having to get what they wanted themselves), while the Grimmerie "grants" wishes using real magic (and so can actually give things that the wisher didn't already possess) but always in a fucked up way that they'll end up regretting. I've already made a post about the theme of "the heart's desire" and how it's explored in the original Wizard of Oz and in Wicked — and maybe at some point I'll do a longer analysis of that (for instance, the fact the Wizard was in possession of the book and got his heart's desire to be a father in the most catastrophic way imaginable) — but it's really interesting if we consider that Morrible's desire seems to be to essentially be the Witch of Oz, and the answer given by the Grimmerie might basically have been the giant magical backfire that brought all three of the most plot-important characters into Oz in the first place. It's possible this won't actually be explained and will remain in headcanon territory, but with the way they've been focusing more on Madame Morrible I think we'll probably get at least a little something exploring her background and connections with the Wizard (and it would be really interesting if we got more stuff relating to the Grimmerie in the process).

3.) In the frames we've seen of Dorothy, the slippers are still silver! Not ruby! We know from interviews that the production team read the original Wonderful Wizard of Oz and took heavy inspiration from it, so I assume keeping the shoes silver was an executive decision on their part. But it has some really interesting implications about what sort of changes might've been made to Part 2. We already knew that we're getting major alterations to Nessa's narrative — groundwork for that was already laid in the ways they changed her in the first movie, particularly surrounding her relationship to Elphaba and her agency regarding movement, which I think is great — but regarding this I've heard some people asking if this means we might not get Nessarose standing. Marissa Bode who plays her is capable of limited standing and walking, so I doubt that part will have been cut entirely; but I'm really curious about the ways in which Nessa's story might have been rewritten. The point of her independence has been emphasized a lot thus far, so I think we might get some tweaking (or outright cutting) of the "hideous chair with wheels" bit; and with how we got the lines about Nessa wanting to make a new start and Elphaba getting in the way of that, I think it's likely we'll get less of a focus on "why haven't you used your powers to help me walk Elphaba?" and more on "wow, you ruined my life again Elphaba". I am curious about whether Nessa will still be able to read the Grimmerie (which always felt a little like a plot hole/contrivance in the original show, so it would need a proper explanation at the very least), or if perhaps — since I believe it's being set up that the Grimmerie can "read" people around it and give them a fucked up version of what they think they want — Nessarose's dark desire at that moment is to not have a heart (kinda like that line from the 1939 movie: "As for you, my galvanized friend: you want a heart. You don't know how lucky you are not to have one. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable") and gets Elphaba to read it: but neither knows what it will actually do until Boq's heart starts shrinking away into nothingness. (Also I'm fairly positive that the still we got of Elphaba below is from the Colwen Grounds scene with Nessa and Boq: I've heard some people presuming it's from No Good Deed, but the background, her expression (which seems to me to be obviously her trying to get Nessa/Boq to calm tf down), and the fact she seems to be in the same costume as in the Yellow Brick Road scene, tells me it's almost certainly from Wicked Witch of the East.)

4.) We're told to expect two new songs from Stephen Schwartz! I'm extremely curious what these might be (and naturally, Gelphie simp as I am, would like at least one one of them to have some more good ol' gay goodness from our girls), but we don't have a whole lot to go on for clues yet other than (as far as I can tell, unconfirmed?) reports that one is an Elphaba solo and the other is a Glinda solo. This is very exciting of course, but until we have more insight it's still too early to make deep predictions. Although as for hopes, I'd obviously like for a new Glinda number to involve her grappling with her feelings more — a much-needed addition — and for Elphaba to perhaps get some of that as well (it would help the lead-up to Wonderful make a bit more narrative sense, if nothing else). And if it turns out they aren't Glinda or Elphaba songs, then I think Fiyero or Boq deserve to get a little bit more to sing. All Schwartz has said thus far is that the new music was made to meet the needs of the story: so (since the two songs DON'T seem to just be reworkings of existing ones, and are actually all-new, film-only material) that further supports the fact we'll be getting fairly major changes to the plot.

5.) The Glinda-Fiyero wedding seems to either happen or very nearly happen??? Extremely interesting expansion on the original material, I can't wait to see what they do with it. I've heard some people saying it might just be a fantasy sequence or something — and I suppose it could be — but I don't think so; the style of filmmaking and writing is deliberately "grounded" to make Oz feel real, and the first film didn't have any imaginary scenes. I think the wedding scene will happen at the same time as (or directly before) Wonderful, and will probably be interrupted: maybe by the release of the flying monkeys, the Wizard rallying the guards after Elphaba, or — scandal! — even by Elphaba herself! (No, I don't think we'll be getting the "I object!" sequence out of Shrek, even though it would be hilariously apropos, lol.) We've seen an image of what looks like Elphaba back in the Emerald City (maybe right before Wonderful, perhaps sneaking into the Wizard's palace to free the Animals; or perhaps just after Wonderful, after finding Doctor Dillamond and deciding to remain the Wizard's enemy?), and judging by when these events would have to line up based on the story of the musical, I think these are almost certainly within the same section. It seems like the wedding sequence might be a decent spot for some of the new music: or maybe a beefed-up version of Glinda's I'm Not That Girl, if she got left at the altar or something.

6.) We've seen this image of Glinda running up a staircase (with the Grimmerie in hand, and in her Bubble Dress): this seems very likely to be immediately after For Good and the Melting — I suspect Glinda is heading up the stairs to see the aftermath, recover Elphie's hat, and receive the green bottle from Chistery. OR, it could also be related to the Wizard — the wood reminds me of the tower in the Emerald City palace where all of Oscar Diggs' old stuff from Omaha was stored at the end of the first film, so I'm wondering if this is Glinda going up to confront him after realizing that he's Elphaba's father, maybe.

EDIT: I realized after reviewing a better quality image with higher contrast and saturation that the latter possibility I suggested is more likely than the former — behind the wooden beams are the emerald blocks we see in the Wizard's palace, so this frame seems almost certainly to be from the scene where Glinda confronts the Wizard in his tower after returning from Kiamo Ko. And what a brilliant way to do that scene, if indeed that's what this is: the Wizard isn't just sitting despondent in his throne room, he went up to wallow in his old mediocrity — and Glinda doesn't just fly up to him, she ascends the same path she once went up with Elphie, processing her grief the whole way up. The painnnnnnn. It makes her ordering him to fly away in the same balloon that he arrived in — and that Glinda and Elphaba NEARLY escaped in before everything — all the more bitter and ironic. Can't wait to see Jeff Goldblum sell the Wizard's descent into the mother of all midlife crises, fiddling with his old sideshow props in the attic as he comes to know the true despair wrought by his hand.

7.) Will the ending be changed?? It seems all but confirmed that the cloaked figure riding away out of Kiamo Ko at the start of Part 1 was Elphaba: this costume concept for the second film looks identical to what we saw the rider wearing. Add to that (as I've talked about in a prior post) the fact the Scarecrow is shown alongside Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, implies that at the very least the events of the last few minutes of the musical have been revised. My earlier post listed four different possible alterations (from Elphaba leaving Oz alone, to her still meeting with Fiyero somewhere else after everything, to her somehow letting Glinda and/or Fiyero know she's alive before leaving, or (hope against hope) that she takes Glinda with her), but it's still far too early to tell what they might've gone with. I just hope that at least wrote it better than it was originally. The image of Elphaba riding out of Oz on horseback across the desert would certainly be striking, no matter which option they chose.

[octuscle]

A Night at the Opera

Ernest and Jasper were both no friends of the big appearance. Their parents had taught them from an early age to always appear far less than they were. The two had come to the opera by subway. That Ernest's velvet loafers cost more than a month's salary of most people around them, probably no one suspected here. The red carpet was laid out for the premiere in front of the Royal Opera. As Ernst and Jasper approached, a rapidly fading flurry of flashbulbs began. The two looked like stars. Flawless. Beautiful. Cultivated. But no one had a clue who they were. So the photographers pounced on the C-list couple, who were getting out of a presumably leased Bentley right behind them. Ernest raised an eyebrow, barely noticeable. Jasper smiled knowingly. The two politely accepted the program and went to Jasper's family box. They had made a generous donation over 200 years ago that enabled the laying of the building's foundation stone. And together with Ernest's grandmother, Jasper's father now ruled over the opera's patrons' association. It was not a problem if they were not recognized here.

During the first intermission, the two quickly agreed that it would be a wasted evening if they were to watch the opera to the end. The singers were mediocre, and the production tried to paper over logical gaps with crude, obscene provocation. Yes, Siegfried was certainly no easy opera. But they actually loved Wagner. But they wouldn't survive another three hours like that. Ending the evening with a glass of wine in front of the fireplace seemed considerably more appealing. They exchanged a few pleasantries with acquaintances of their parents, who were also waiting at the coat rack, and walked through the dusk towards the subway. And they were happy with their decision.

The subway wasn't particularly crowded: Jasper had bought a copy of the Times from a newspaper seller. Even though the premiere was still going on, there was already a scathing review of it in the arts section. Of course the critic was unfair and biased. But his style was delicious. Ernest hummed a bit of the overture's melody when a young man, who was the complete opposite of the two, stumbled over Ernest's legs on his way out the door. The boy was muscular, tattooed, and dressed to show off as much of the muscles and tattoos as possible. Definitely not their class. He swore and showed Ernest the middle finger. Ernest just smiled superiorly. And got the slime from the yob directly in the face. “Do you think you're better than me? Maybe. But not for much longer.” The yob laughed and jumped through the already closing doors onto the platform. Ernest wiped the slime from his cheek. Not all of it… A little bit had run into his mouth.

They got off at the next stop. Ernest's stomach growled. He asked if they could quickly get something from the supermarket on the way home. Jasper said that the fridge at home was well stocked, but he was happy to do it for me. Cumberland Food & Wine was really on the way and he could possibly get a bottle of red wine. While Jasper was scouring the shelves without finding anything he liked, Ernest filled his shopping basket with protein bars, chicken breasts, rice and eggs. When the two met at the checkout, Jasper looked at his husband questioningly. “I just felt like it,” answered Ernest. “Honey, anything you want!” answered Jasper.

Once they arrived home, Ernest immediately disappeared into the kitchen of their impressive apartment on Bryanston Square. By then, he had already eaten three protein bars. Jasper rolled his eyes and retreated to the library. He took a small glass of port and continued reading about the history of the Persian language. At least this way he would be able to end the evening with a little wit. He lost track of time and only woke up when he heard noises coming from the living room. Ernest had taken off his jacket and shirt and was eating a mountain of chicken breasts with egg rice at the coffee table, still wearing his trousers and undershirt. The TV was on. “What are you watching?” Jasper asked. With his mouth full, Ernest replied that it was the new season of “Made in Chelsea”. “You know, the stuff with Reza in it.” Jasper didn't know Reza. ‘The Reza from the gym. Reza Amiri-Garroussi!’ Ernest wiped his hands on his undershirt, pulled out his cell phone, opened Instagram and showed Jasper pictures of a young man. Jasper didn't even know Ernest had an Instagram account. ”Hot guy, honey! Do you know each other?” “Best bros!” Ernest smiled. Tonight had obviously not had a good influence on him. Whatever. Jasper was tired. He kissed his husband on the forehead and wished him good night.

The night had been wild. Ernest had come to bed at some point and had rammed his boner into Jasper's ass without much warning. This wasn't loving sex, it was fucking without any foreplay. Hot, animalistic. Uncharacteristic. But damn, once Ernest had filled his ass until the cum was dripping out of it, Jasper didn't care about any of that. He had never been fucked like that before. No wonder the rest of the night was full of wild dreams. When he woke up, Ernest was no longer in bed. The satin sheets needed urgent washing, with dried cum stains everywhere. Jasper went to the kitchen. Ernest had obviously already had breakfast; the pan for the omelette was in the sink, along with the dishes from dinner, and on the work surface was a thin layer of protein powder dust. Jasper felt somehow strange in the apartment. Something was weird. Did they always have such a monstrously large TV? And was that their furniture? It all looked so much like something from a furniture store. And not like design classics and antiques… “Bros, that's it for this morning! Good pump! Have a sick day!” The sound of the dumbbells hitting the floor showed that Ernie had finished his morning pump. According to the floor plan, their home gym was actually a children's room. What the hell would they need that for? Now it was the place where Ernie shot the videos for his YouTube channel.

Jasper was standing in the doorway. Ernie turned off the cameras and lights. Sweat glistened on his naked torso. Jasper's cock went up. Ernie turned around, saw the semi-erect cock and just grinned, “You dirty piece of shit! You know damn well we're out of time. Auditions are in an hour. And you should shower.” “Look who's talking!” Jasper replied. Ernie smelled his armpit. “That's the way it is, it's my trademark!” He put on a basketball jersey lying on the floor, grabbed Jasper's cock in passing and gave his friend a fleeting French kiss. Jasper knew that Ernie had rights. They had to leave in 20 minutes at the latest. Just enough time to jump in the shower and do a few pull-ups to pump up his muscles. He looked at himself in the mirror. Yes, he looked awesome!

“Love Island” could be Jaz's big breakthrough. At the audition, he was simply eye-catching as the incarnate bad boy. His snotty way of speaking and his arrogant, misogynistic macho appearance had convinced the producers that he could make it big in the trash reality soap. Sure, it sucked that his best buddy Ernie hadn't been taken on either. But Ernie was just already too popular. His fitness channel had tens of thousands of followers. And his appearance in the next season of “I'm a celebrity, get me out of here” was a done deal. If things went well for Jaz, he would follow in Ernie's footsteps next year.

Many bores from the educated middle class would probably look down on Ernie and Jaz with disgust and contempt. But hey, the two of them made good money, went to all the hot parties, and last weekend Bentley had even provided them with a shiny gold car for an Insta-story. The car had been pure porn. Surely everyone who stared at them with open eyes thought they were pop stars or something. It was only a matter of time before they became famous. They were young, sexy and camera-hungry. The future was wide open for guys like them.

[blairwaldcrf]

@lyinoptimist On why Louis is a better character with a richer story because of the way they brought race into the show:

[captioned: I agree with his Interview with the Vampire take, and it's not just that I care more that they're black, it's that I care more that they are black in a world where the creators know that they are black and write the story accordingly.

I remember when they cast Jacob Anderson to play Louis in this story a couple years ago and people were confused and nervous and a little bit angry as to why they cast this black man to play a character, who at least in the original story was a plantation owner that owned slaves & let them go I think eventually, but still it's like "what is this choice that you're making?" and the creators were like "no, no we know what we did".

And so now Louis like owns a brothel instead, and it's like Creole and like down in Louisiana 1920s, and you're like, "Oh, that's a pretty solid adaptational choice."

And I think ultimately the decision makes Louis look a lot more relatable, and also makes the story a lot more relatable because at least it would be harder for me to recommend this story if old Louis was the one I was telling you was in this really great show. It's like, "yeah... but he owned slaves...", you know what I mean?

It's just one of the things where it's not something I have to get into with other black fans who are really into like fantasy stuff who maybe don't want to engage in that sort of like problematic content.

Beyond Louis and Claudia being black and then Armand being like South Asian, it also gives us a really interesting look into different readings of the text now that the characters playing it are adapted in this way. This happens a lot in season one remember... like, because Lestat makes both Louis and Claudia he can no longer read their minds, but Louis and Claudia can still read each other's minds. And so in this kind of familial dynamic they've established for themselves, Louis and Claudia have this literal telepathic understanding that Lestat will just never be privy to and you can kind of read into that. It's like a metaphor for their relationship being with two black people in the household and then moving through the world and understanding the world in a way that is just different from Lestat. There's an underlying racial anxiety to Louis and Lestat's relationship that makes it, you know, more complex and like more fun to watch.

Season two there's less of it, but you have things like racialized trauma being used as the backbone for the trauma that the characters are experiencing to both highlight how horrific the things they're going through actually are.

Like Armand and his like, being sexually abused as a child in that specific way very much has the connotation of like, this happened to him because he was a vulnerable brown child and this very powerful white vampire came--presumably, i don't know who they're gonna cast but i was reading into it--came by and did this to him. And it's like, okay yeah, that complicates that dynamic a bit more.

Same thing with the execution that happens to Louis, Claudia, and Madeline at the very end of the season which is very reminiscent of, like-- Claudia even calls it a stoning but I would also argue that there's, like, elements of, like lynching to it, right?

Like, it's very horrific in a very relatable way to Black people, which I think it's drawing upon that but it's not necessarily like glorifying it in that way in order to like make the point that it wants about like, the tragedy that these characters are going through and I think it just makes the story that much richer and allows for a lot more interesting new perspectives because these characters are people of color now and that's what you can do with a good adaptation and like, these creators they understand that. ]

[reiderwriter]

can i request a fic of pining spencer reid and bau!reader who are brushing up on some hand to hand combat and reader is really invested on winning finally pins spencer down and reader is straddling spencer and they are both like 😳😳

the rest of the bau and other fbi agents are on the side making varies bets about who wins maybe too? (eg that miss congeniality scene)

A/N: Thank you for the request and omg thank you so much for this one specifically - I loved this idea. I had to make Spencer competitive too, because 😊 I wanted to.

Word count: 1.8k words

Warnings: none! Just fluff, however if anyone wanted to send a follow up request wanting a part two where there is some smut I'd be 100% okay with that... Just if you wanted to.

Part two

When Morgan told you that, after an unfortunate shoulder injury you received on the job, you’d have to take another training course to prove that you were up to being back in the field, you almost resigned on the spot. Passing the first time hadn’t been the easiest feat for you, and while you were confident in your skills in the field, you knew that you were, to put it kindly, athletically challenged. 

“There’s no way to get out of it? No exceptions they can make to allow me into the field?” You asked, desperate to avoid Morgan putting you through the ringer. 

“I’m sorry, sweet cheeks, but they’re worried about your ability to perform under pressure, so I gotta push you today, okay? You’re not alone, at least.” 

“I’m not?” you gave the man a questioning look as you followed him to the changing rooms reluctantly. 

“Nah, they pulled up Reid and Garcia as well, you’ll all be doing the work together today.” 

“What that’s ridiculous! Penelope isn’t even in the field and Reid has never passed one of these things.” You throw your bag down on a bench, and look ahead of you into the equipment room, and sure enough, there they are, looks of equal dissatisfaction spread across their faces. 

“You’re preaching to the choir here, sweet cheeks. You’re in good hands though, I’m not going to push you too hard today.” Somehow you didn’t believe that. 

–X–

An hour later you were flat on your back, panting harder than you had in months, dripping with sweat and feeling an ache in your bones that you hadn’t felt ever. Next to you on the ground, you could hear your fellow torturee’s moaning in pain, presumably doing their best to stay conscious. 

“You know, chocolate thunder, I love you, I really do, but you make it very, very hard sometimes,” Penelope squeaked out as the other man chuckled from above you. “God I’m not even asthmatic but I think I need an inhaler.” 

You chuckled at that and pushed yourself up to a seated position. 

“I think I am asthmatic.” Reid said form his position on your other side. You stole a glance at him quickly before blushing and looking away. You didn’t have a crush on him, or at least that was what you were telling yourself, but you did have a keen appreciation for how he looked in his button down shirts and FBI vests. His hair was shorter now than when you first met, and the longer parts stuck to his face with sweat. You were lucky that the strength had been all but zapped from your body because given the chance, you’d be pushing his hair out of his face for him and get lost in his eyes. 

“Come on, guys. You finished cardio, you finished weights, all you got left is some simple self defense drills. Think you can handle that?” Morgan laughed from above you. 

“No! I haven’t been able to handle any of this, what makes you think I can do more?” Reid moaned out on the floor next to you. You stood up, reluctantly, holding out a hand out to the man and helping to pull him to his feet. 

You underestimate the help he needed to get up, though and he has to catch you in his arms as soon as he’s up, as you stumble into him, legs too weak. You blush as the two of you stay uncomfortably close for a few seconds, only pulling apart when Morgan lets out a sharp cough. You jump back from each other then, and pray to god that no one else in the room saw the puppy dog eyes you were unintentionally shooting up at him. 

“Okay, so there’s three of you, so I’ll join in for these sparring drills. Any volunteers?” 

“To tangle my limbs with yours all hot and sweaty on the floor? Sweetie, I thought you’d never ask.” You hadn’t seen Penelope move so fast all day, though you knew she was only half joking. 

“Okay, so Y/L/N, Reid, you head over to that mat over there. You’re going to start a hand-to-hand combat simulation, whoever pins the other down first wins. We’ll do best of three, okay?” 

Reluctantly, you made your way to the mat he indicated to, knowing that you weren’t going to have as much fun as Penelope any time soon. 

“You’re going to start in a common self-defense scenario. Reid, you’re going to be the assailant, you’re going to come up on Y/L/N from behind, okay?” You nodded at Morgan’s words and turned yourself away from Reid, feeling his presence at your back already. 

“Is this really necessary?” He questioned from behind you, and you could practically feel Morgan’s answering look on your back. Finally, he rested a light hand on your shoulder, and your session started. 

You grabbed the hand on your shoulder and twisted it, and yourself, behind his back, gaining the upper hand quickly. 

“Y/N, come on. Take it easy, I’m exhausted. Just let me pin you and we can call it a day.” Reid said from in front of you and your ears burnt at his suggestion. 

“Wait, why would I let you pin me? I have the upper hand right now.” He huffed out a breath and twisted his body underneath your arm, catching you off-guard as he swept your legs from underneath you. Before you could fall all the way down, though, he grabbed you around your waist and held you in what you assumed looked like a ballroom dancing dip. 

“You were saying?” You desperately wanted to wipe that arrogant smirk off of his lips. “Actually, I have a few years more experience in the field than you, and I was probably beaten up a lot more in high school, so I wouldn’t be too upset about losing to me, okay?” 

You returned his smile sarcastically for a second, before lifting and swinging the heel of your foot into his knee, forcing him to hit the mat as you scrambled out of his grip and repositioned yourself behind him, pulling him arm behind his back a second time in an attempt to subdue him. 

“If you have so much experience getting your ass kicked, Spence, why don’t you just let me do it?” You enjoyed feeding his words back to him as he moaned out a little. 

“Because something tells me you’d enjoy it a little too much.” He somehow slips from your grip again, swiping your legs out from underneath you and climbing over you. The two of you struggle for a few seconds on the floor, but he has your legs pinned with his own, and he forces your hands above your head. Your heads are even with one another, and you’re both breathing heavily now. 

You decide to take another approach to get out of his hold this time. Rolling your hips up into his slightly, you let your eyes rake over his body above you. 

“You sure you’re not enjoying this just as much, Reid?” you shoot him an innocent enough smile, but you can see the flush staining his skin, and he loosens his hold on you just enough to allow you to wrap your legs around his waist and use your bosy weight as leverage to flip your positions. 

Now he’s on his back below you and you sit up in triumph, straddling his lap. His arms fight to get yours pinned to your side but you give back just as much as he is, and you can feel the crowd forming around you. He decides to fight dirty as well. 

“Thought you’d enjoy being under me more than you’d like being on top. I was being a gentleman,” he huffs out and manages to flip you over once more, pushing up and wrapping his legs up over your knees and forcing you onto your back. Your legs are now spread wide for him, his crotch pushed against yours, his arms gripping yours and pushing them firmly into the mat. You struggle a few more times but you know this is it. He’s got you. 

“What? Not even going to let my hands go to let me tap out?” you huff out, blowing a stray piece of hair out of your eyes. He pins both of your hands with one of his and gently tucks the hair behind your ear for you as you burn up under his touch, suddenly at a loss for words. 

“What, and let you try to tackle me again? Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll let you go.” 

“Y/L/N, Reid, if you’re finished over there, you can grab a drink and start over. I did say this was going to be best of three.” Both of you suddenly snap your eyes up to Morgan, who has one raised eyebrow pointed at you. You realise that you’ve also drawn the attention of the other gym-goers and scramble away from each other to the sound of chuckles and wolf whistles. 

“Shit,” you run a hand through your hair and get in position to go again, this time swapping with Reid so you take the position of the unsub. 

From a distance, you don’t realise that Penelope and Morgan have completely given up on their own drills. 

“Twenty bucks says Reid gives in and kisses her first,” she whispers to her companion. 

“The kid? No way, he’s being too cocky for that. I reckon Y/N will do it to try and distract him first.” 

“I’ll take that bet,” Garcia says, and they settle back into watching the two of you, completely oblivious to the fact that you’re both enjoying sparring a little bit more than you normally would be. 

“When do you think I should tell them that they never needed to do this training session in the first place?” 

“Derek Morgan, if you are admitting right now that you made me walk through hell and back just so you could force these two beautiful idiots whom I love to recognise their feelings for each other then I am going to murder you and then bring you back to life so I can kiss you for being so smart.” 

“So I shouldn’t tell them?” 

“Take it to the grave, baby.” 

They turned their attention back to you, suddenly way more invested in how this was going to turn out.

[elronds-meleth-nin]

Ancient Script

This is for my dear friend @bigblissandlove1! Thank you so much for putting up with me screaming about this brainrot! I hope you enjoy this fic, my friend.

I'm not tagging anyone else in this, because the taglist I set up was for a whole other fic outside of RoP. If anyone wants to be tagged in future fics from The Hobbit, LotR, or RoP, please let me know! This is an AU fic in 2 regards: 1.) Soulmate AU 2.) it's set in the early Third Age - Adar is presumed dead by Sauron who has taken control of the Uruks, and he's biding his time in a small village while he concocts a plan.

Cross-posted to AO3 here.

~*~

Adar (RoP) x Reader

[A/N: This is fluff with a couple of mentions of violence, but nothing graphic.]

Warnings: Soulmate AU, Uruk/Human romance, kissing, soulmarks are your soulmate's name in their handwriting, he falls first, he kills a man to protect her but it's not graphic.

~*~

The shop selling arms and armor had been around in our village longer than I'd been alive, and certainly longer than the seven years I'd lived there. The shop owner, a rather private Ellon, wasn't exactly outgoing, at least, not to most people in the village.

But me...he would actively ask how I was when I passed each morning on my delivery route from the baker's shop. Perhaps it was because the scent of freshly baked bread was irresistible. Or maybe his lack of conversation with the others had made him lonely and desperate enough to try and interact with the one person who had never been rude to him.

The others seemed to find it acceptable to be less courteous just because he was different. I never did, though. My parents had taught me to be kind to all, even before we'd picked up and moved from the next village over for an opportunity for my father's business to grow.

So, every morning as I made deliveries up and down the main road, I eagerly looked forward to the moment when he'd open the door to his shop and allow me a brief conversation - that was more than most people got when they weren't discussing the particulars of a transaction with him.

This morning was only slightly different. Usually, I delivered to his end of the road first, but today I needed to make sure I ended there, instead. So, in reverse order, I made my way steadily toward his shop, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw his door open as usual when I was only a few steps away.

"There you are," he rasped as a small smile stretched his lips. "I had begun to wonder if you had forgotten me this morning."

"Oh, no! Never, sir," I said as I pulled his usual weekly order out of my basket, neatly wrapped in baker's cloth and tied with a little string. His fingertips brushed mine as he took it, and I let out a huff of nervous laughter. "Actually, I had a reason to save you for last, today. Assuming that your shop is already open, of course. If not, I can always come back later."

"For you, my door is always open, my lady," he said taking a step back and gesturing for me to come inside. I'd never actually been in his shop before.

"Thank you, sir," I murmured slipping in and trying to stay out of his way.

The scent of leather and metal, polish and grit permeated the air within the store, giving the whole place the feeling of an army at rest. Gleaming plate armor, razor-sharp swords, knives of nearly-infinite variety, and bows that looked lethal even at a glance were all neatly arranged on shelves and wall hooks.

I should've come here sooner.

"Now, what was so important that you felt you must rearrange your entire morning?" The Ellon asked as he laid the wrapped loaf of bread on the desk where he changed coin and made trades.

"Ah, 'tis twofold," I said as I opened my bag and pulled out my small, sheathed dagger. The shimmering blue stone laid into the hilt glinted as brightly in the morning light as it did the day my grandfather had given it to me. "The lower priority of the two would be my dagger. I lent it to one of my neighbors, and, well..."

Carefully unsheathing it, I showed him the now-split blade.

"If it is beyond repair, I certainly understand, but..." I shrugged, and he lifted the blade, inspecting its surface with his experienced eye.

"Not at all. This is easily fixed. I can have it for you by tomorrow morning," he murmured, laying it gently - almost reverently - on his desk and looking at me curiously. "And the second of your needs, my lady?"

Subconsciously, I ran my thumb over the cloth that covered my illegible soulmark. I knew whoever it was likely couldn't be entirely certain that I truly existed or, like me, could not read my name where it was inked upon their skin, but touching it even indirectly was still a comfort.

"I need to find a gift for my father. His birthday is in a fortnight, and I was wondering if, perhaps, I could examine your bows?"

He smiled at that.

"Certainly. Come with me." The Ellon led me to one of the large displays at the side, adjusting the sleeve of his tunic as he did so. When we reached the long line of curved and carved wood, I felt an answering touch through my soulmark - something so delicate that I could never be certain if I was just imagining things or if it was real. "If you already have a particular style in mind, then pay me no attention, but I must admit I am familiar with your father's current - let us say 'well-loved' - weapon. This, perhaps, might suit his needs and accommodate his firing style."

Lifting an intricately-carved bow from the rack, he strung it in one much-too-smooth movement that made my breath hitch. Clearly Elvish in design, that bow was finer than any that either my father or I owned.

"I know that you are an archer yourself, my lady. Come, feel the flex," he said moving around me and coaxing the carved grip into my hand. His chest pressed lightly against my back as I gave the string a pull mimicking aiming an arrow. His breath fanned lightly over my scalp, and when he spoke again, I fought not to blush. "You have excellent form. Anyone who opposed you would be doomed from the beginning."

His voice was low and gentle...intimate, in a way. I tried not to think about how luxuriant it would be to hear that soft, raspy voice murmur my name on a cold winter's night when we were curled up in front of a crackling fire.

A familiar shard of guilt wound through me. What would my soulmate, whoever they were, think of me fantasizing about someone else?

Slowly releasing the bowstring, I tried to tamp down my thoughts.

"This will be perfect." Thankfully, my voice betrayed none of my internal conflict, and I was gifted a small, pleased smile as he led me back to his desk. I'd never seen him smile at anyone else. Solemn yet polite, the Ellon before me seemed rather detached from everything in the village save his work, as if he was waiting for something...as if we were a mere respite from a path he must sooner or later traverse.

Fifty years was a long time to wait, but to him, I supposed, it must be a mere blink. Lives like those around him in the village must be barely worthy of his attention.

I'd be forgotten as quickly as wind whispered through the trees.

What must it be like to be significant enough to warrant even half that recognition in the eyes of one as long-lived as he? I heard my father and one of his business associates discussing the topic over mugs of ale one night in the tavern. Each believed he was several hundreds of years old. My father with all his knowledge of Elves had mused aloud after his friend left that he would not be surprised to find that our resident Ellon merchant had accrued over a thousand years of life.

"Scars like that," he'd said, "are the kind one gets in great wars. The last of which was a very long time ago, indeed."

I was inclined to agree, but where others saw a fearsome, intimidating being not to be approached unless necessity demanded it, I'd found a kindred spirit. He might not be outgoing and overly cheerful, but he was kind. His strength was beyond that of a mortal's, yet he could hold freshly-baked bread so gently that his fingers left no impression.

Even as he wrapped my father's new bow, including a few extra neatly-coiled bowstrings, I couldn't help but wonder how many people had judged him so harshly over the years? How many had feared him so severely that nobody even knew his name? It was true that I knew it not, but that came rather from a sense of embarrassment than fear. After all, what is a tactful way of asking a person's name after years of trying to be respectful without prying into his business? Admitting that nobody in the village knew it would only emphasize how different he was...how lonesome and separate he appeared compared to everyone else.

Oh, damn my fears! I was going to ask him, even if it took all my courage. He deserved to be called by his name as was respectful. For the moment, though, I drew my attention back to the present.

"What do I owe you, sir?" I asked as I reached in my satchel for my little drawstring bag of coins. I'd saved up for long weeks. A quality bow like the one he'd shown me could easily cost fifteen gold pieces. Taking on extra work and small tasks outside of the bakery, I'd managed to save seventeen gold pieces and a few silvers - enough for the bow and repairs for my dagger.

As he tied the wrapping with thick twine, he glanced up at me and, with an entirely straight face, muttered "three gold pieces."

I froze. That couldn't be correct!

"Forgive me, sir, I...I believe I misheard you–" I stammered, but he cut me off.

"No, indeed, my lady. You heard correctly." He looked as serene as the morning dew, green eyes giving away nothing.

"B-But, sir, if I paid such a low price, that would be tantamount to theft! I could not possibly abuse you so!"

He lifted an eyebrow at my assertion.

"Have you, or have you not been instructing the baker to take half of the price of my regular order of bread out of your wages for the last seven years, my lady?"

I blinked, and words failed me for a long beat.

"How did you...?" He gave me a knowing look even as my tongue trailed uselessly off into silence.

"Did you think I would not notice that the price I'd been paying for years was cut in half after a mere week of your employment?"

As a matter of fact, I'd hoped he would assume it was a mere coincidence.

"I have been, but–"

"Then, my lady, please allow me this small liberty," he said walking around his desk to stand before me. "You surely have paid for this bow several times over by now."

My cheeks burned under the intensity of his gaze, but I persisted.

"I did not do so with the expectation of repayment–"

"Very well, then," he murmured, "two gold pieces."

My lips parted in surprise.

"Sir–" Silencing me with a raised hand, he smirked.

"The more you argue, the lower my price. I believe we are currently at one gold piece. Shall we descend into silvers?" Mischief danced in his eyes, but he was serious in his assertion.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked before I could think better of it.

"Because it pleases me," he said looking at me with a steady, constant expression. "Does one need a reason to be kind?"

I felt as though I'd been struck. I'd asked him the same question less than a month after beginning my job with the baker. He'd remembered! I'd thought it was a trivial sort of question at the time, but I suppose if he'd remembered it, I must've struck a chord within him.

"But I don't even know your name," I stammered in a last ditch effort to convince him I wasn't worth his losing so much money.

"Do you think I am unaware of that fact? I have not told it to anyone in decades. None here know it, yet you are the only one who cares that you do not know." He brushed an errant strand of hair behind my ear with the sort of delicacy that one would not expect a weapons merchant to possess. "You see me. That is why it pleases me to make this easier for you."

It took every ounce of self-control within me not to tilt my head and lean into his touch. His gaze dropped to my lips, and he licked his own - a barely-there flick of his tongue that I would've missed had I blinked but an instant earlier.

"If...you still wish to know my name when you retrieve your dagger in the morning, I shall tell it to you, my lady," he murmured even quieter than before.

"Surely you will allow me to pay the correct price for that, sir?" I asked, and a measure of mirth flickered across his expression as he lowered his hand.

"The correct price for you, my lady, would be absolutely nothing. In that regard, yes, I will be charging you the correct price," he stated in a tone that brooked no argument. "I look forward to seeing you come the morn. You may wish to take your father's gift home before he returns so that it might remain a secret."

Nodding silently, I laid three gold pieces on the desk and picked up the wrapped package. Thanking him, I made for the door, hoping that he would not notice the extra coins - surely he knew I couldn't allow him to undercharge me so severely? Before I'd made it more than two steps, however, one of his arms slid around my waist, stopping me in my tracks like a bar of steel.

"Not so fast, meleth," he breathed against the shell of my ear, and I heard the clinking of two coins as they dropped back into my bag. "A valiant attempt, I must admit. I shall see you on the morrow."

Throughout the long walk home, I could not rid myself of the sensation of his lips brushing against my ear nor his breath slightly stirring the hair upon my scalp. The ghostly memory of his arm catching my waist stayed with me until I fell asleep at nearly midnight.

--

Adar could remember the day her name appeared on his arm more clearly than almost any other - a feat for a being with many thousands of years under his belt. He'd been preparing to open his shop for the day when pain lanced across the inside of his forearm. His scars ached occasionally, but this pain was so sharp and different that he'd nearly dropped the newly-forged sword he was preparing to put on display.

Tugging his sleeve back, there it was: her name written in curling, shaky, yet careful font - the way her handwriting would look. He'd been so amazed that he had been given a soulmate after so long that he'd simply dropped onto a stool and stared at his arm for a time. Before her name appeared, he hadn't even been certain that his heavily scarred skin would allow him to see a name should one choose to appear, but now that he had his answer, he faced a new problem.

Should his soulmate have to face the burden of his existence when he was so twisted and broken? Morgoth's scars marred nearly every inch of his body, his face inspired fear in everyone he encountered, and he'd even failed his children. They'd fallen under Sauron's control again, and as they believed him dead, there was no chance they'd listen to him. They'd sooner believe he was a fraud than their father.

For several years, he'd covered the mark, barely daring to check if it was still there when he washed himself. Eventually though, as the years passed, he noticed that his soulmate would touch her own mark almost compulsively. Perhaps she was nervous and simply attempting to calm herself...

The first few times it happened, he ignored it, believing the gentle touch to be no more than a figment of his imagination, but after a while, he ached with the thought that she might believe that she was not wanted. He began following her caresses with a gentle one of his own. He hoped that it was enough that she would not give in to that fear.

Her existence was a miracle to him, even if she could not read his name. He knew she would be unable to, for the language to which he was accustomed had not been written in many thousands of years.

The day he first saw her, too, was vividly embedded in his mind.

A knock had sounded at the door to his shop. He'd ignored it the first time. The baker's delivery boy - unreliable as he was - typically knocked, leaving his wrapped bread upon the doorstep before scurrying away from his threshold as if it was diseased. Adar assumed that it was he who knocked that morning, so he went on as usual. After a few seconds, however, a second knock sounded, accompanied by a feminine voice.

"Delivery from the baker," came the call though the wooden door. Adar had been so surprised that he laid aside his work and opened the door without any further hesitation.

She was beautiful. The early morning sun illuminated her kind, smiling face in a manner befitting one of the Valar. Expecting her to flee upon her first glance at his face, the Uruk was stunned when her nervous smile widened a fraction.

"Good morning, sir," she chirped happily as she pulled his wrapped loaf of bread from her little basket. "I kept everything well-covered, so it should still be warm from the oven."

Accepting the bundle from her with a quiet, stunned rasp of 'thank you, my lady,' Adar couldn't help but watch as she gave a little curtsy and headed on toward the next shop. The cool, gentle breeze had teased her hair and skirt, and he wanted nothing more than to wrap her up in his softest blanket so that she would not feel the chill.

One as radiant and lovely as she did not deserve to live in anything less than the most luxurious sort of comfort. His heart had not stirred like that in...he could not remember the last time it had.

He'd heard someone call her name that afternoon - the same name that was etched indelibly on his forearm - and that had startled him more than anything ever had before. This warm ray of light was his soulmate? What had he done to deserve her? He, who was cracked and broken, scarred and burned...none could ever be worthy of her, most especially not him.

A servant of darkness, one marred and twisted by its shadows, should have nothing to do with such a being of light and joy.

Merely a week later, he'd placed his usual order with the baker, and he'd been asked for half of what he usually owed. At his own prodding confusion, the rotund little Man behind the counter had told him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that someone thought kindly of him. It was not difficult to guess who it was. With all of her smiles and kind words, her unfailingly cheerful greetings whenever she saw him, Adar knew at once that it was her.

She tried to keep it secret, never once bringing up the topic, but he tried to repay her kindness with conversation. He'd been rusty, at first - he still was - but he didn't know how else to show her his gratitude.

Then, one day, he was afforded an opportunity to do so. Traders came through periodically, both seeking and offering wares. Most were well-behaved, exhausted people who wanted no more than to earn a living, but occasionally, there was an outlier among them. A trouble-maker.

One such passed through barely a year hence, and Adar had not liked the way his gaze lingered upon his lady as she made her morning rounds. He watched her too intently and for too long a duration for one with innocent thoughts in mind. No, the Uruk had seen too many over the years with such a glint in their dark, soulless eyes.

When she reached Adar's shop that morning, he'd glared at her evil shadow before gently grasping her hand and suggesting in a low voice that she keep her dagger handy until that particular caravan had left. She'd given him a reassuring smile and pulled the edge of her shawl back just far enough to show him the hilt where it was already strapped at her waist.

He'd never been so proud in all his life, but that didn't stop him from keeping a close eye on her for the rest of the day. None had noticed that his shop was closed with freshly-scattered alfirin seeds before it that afternoon, nor had the filth watching her seen that he was being followed by death's ruined right hand. The trader had followed her halfway back to her home and had begun to catch up with her when a flash of black and silver tugged him silently behind a tree.

The only sound that heralded the scum's death was a snap. She'd turned to look for what had made the noise, believing it to be a branch, and when she found nothing, she made her way safely home.

Her Uruk protector had disposed of the body beside a field where wild horses grazed, laying an empty bottle of spirits beside him. The next morning when the corpse was found, it was obvious to all that he'd gotten drunk, tried to ride one of the beasts, and had been thrown to his death. Adar guarded her door each night until the caravan left. The alfirin seeds had sprouted within mere days, and if any in the village had known their true meaning, the white blooms would have screamed his deed to the world.

But none were the wiser, and his lady was safe. That was all that mattered to him.

Fixing her dagger now was nothing less than a privilege. He'd told her it was easily repaired. In truth, it needed to be reforged. He'd shut his shop for the day and rolled up his sleeves to begin the work.

In the morning, after sharpening the blade's edge, he unlocked his shop door and awaited her arrival. He'd told her that she'd have his name today if she was still interested, but...he was tempted to give her more than that...to show her his mark. His self-indulgent moments when he showed her the bow and when he'd returned her coins had carved themselves upon his heart, stirring within him the desire to hold her again and never let go.

He'd been alone for so long that he now felt like a drowning man each time her eyes met his. She was so close, yet just out of reach. Could she see how much she meant to him? Could she tell that he would save, burn, or change the world entirely at her behest?

The door creaked inward, drawing him out of his thoughts. She was back. He stood straighter as she approached.

"Good morning, my lady." The tentative smile she gave him showed him all that he needed to know. It was time that he told her everything. If she rejected him, well...he'd come to expect pain. It would not surprise him, though, it would be worse than anything he'd yet experienced.

--

"Good morning," I murmured in return. My heart raced in my chest, and I hoped that my voice didn't sound as nervous as I felt. Smoothing my dress a bit further, I approached his desk. "I hope I haven't put you to any trouble."

"Not at all," he answered with a small smile as he lifted my dagger from his desk. "Come, let me show you what I have done."

I did as he asked, moving closer and paying entirely too much attention to the way his large hands dwarfed my little blade. He pulled it carefully from the sheath, showing me his handiwork. He'd polished it, too. The scent floated through the air in a familiar curl.

"Oh, it looks as good as new!" I exclaimed as he handed it carefully to me. The leather grip on the hilt had been replaced and even the balance had improved! "I cannot thank you enough, sir, truly."

"It was my honor, my lady," he said as I passed the blade back. He slid it neatly into its sheath. "Do be cautious. I gave it a quick pass over the whetstone this morning. 'Tis sharper than before."

"Are you sure you won't accept at least some sort of payment?" I asked, and he gave me a mock-stern look. I raised my hands in surrender. "My apologies."

"Gladly accepted."

After a long pause, I finally asked what I'd wanted to.

"May I still ask your name, sir? If your mind has changed, or if you simply do not wish to reveal it, I swear I will not press you on the matter."

He was quiet for a long enough moment that I nearly began pouring forth apologies.

"You are the only one I have wished to tell," he admitted. "You may call me Adar."

Adar. I knew that word from somewhere, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Thank you, Adar. I shan't tell a soul without your permission," I promised, and with an appreciative nod, he held out my sheathed dagger.

"Tell me," he rasped, not relinquishing his hold on my weapon quite yet, "why do you keep your forearm covered?"

I gave a nervous laugh, unable to maintain eye contact with him.

"I...My soulmark is there. I can't read it. Never have I encountered a language quite like it...whatever it might be."

He gave a small smile.

"I can read it." Adar's assertion snapped my gaze up to meet his once more.

"Sir?"

"If you would prefer that I not, that is entirely your prerogative, but I can almost guarantee you that I will be able to read it." When I hesitated, he lowered his voice to a whisper. "Let me help you, my lady."

Quickly stowing my blade in my bag, I began to unwrap the fabric I kept tied over my arm. As I did so, the need to explain myself pulled a flood of words from me.

"I'm not ashamed of my soulmate, whoever they might be, but after a while, the looks I got when people glimpsed the writing...the pity, the confusion...the explanations became a bit tiresome. Besides, it is nobody's business save me and my soulmate," I murmured as the last bit of the cloth came free and fell away revealing the stark, black marks on my arm. Adar moved just a bit closer, a small smile stretching his lips as he caught my arm gently in his grasp. "Can...? Do you recognize it?"

For a moment, he was silent, only nodding his head in response, but that was enough to send my heart racing in my chest. That was more than anyone had told me about my mark in all my years.

"I have not seen this language written in an Age," he breathed, and after a long moment, his eyes met mine. "I am certain that if you knew the answer, you would regret inquiring about your soulmate's identity."

I couldn't hide my confusion.

"What do you mean? No matter who they are, if the marks are any indication, I can handle it. I have never known them to be wrong," I said, and he looked back down at my arm. "Please. You are the only hope I have of ever being able to read it."

His grip on my arm loosened somewhat, as if he was expecting me to tear myself from his grasp.

"I...have not used this name in thousands of years," he whispered tracing the first half of the dark runes, "but it was still mine. I prefer Adar, now, but...your mark seems to have taken that into account."

My lips parted in surprise, but I was frozen as he traced his fingertips lightly, carefully over the rest of the marks near my wrist.

"Just after that slight separation is the name you would now recognize as mine," he murmured, then he lifted my wrist and placed a kiss onto my mark, reverent and affectionate. The ancient writing tingled and sparked over and beneath my skin, sending a wave of pleasure through me.

He released my arm and tugged back his own sleeve, showing me my scrawled name on his scarred forearm. Carefully, afraid that he'd disappear, that this would turn out to have just been a dream, I touched him just as he'd done.

"For whole Ages, my arm was blank. There were others whose marks were slow to appear, but those whom I knew waited mere centuries. I was convinced that I was not destined for that fate," Adar admitted as I touched the first letter of my name. "I wondered...if I would even be able to read a name should it appear on my skin, or if it would appear as twisted as my scars."

As a tear slipped down my cheek, I kissed his arm as he'd done to mine. The slight gasp that escaped him was like ambrosia for my soul.

"I'm so sorry. You waited for so long, and all you got for your trouble was a mortal with terrible penmanship..." I trailed off with a sniffle, but he tilted my chin up with his free hand and shook his head.

"It is beautiful, because it is yours. It tethered me to you. This mark meant that I was no longer alone." His soft, rasping voice was filled with emotion. "Do not apologize for giving me hope when I'd dared not cling to it for such a long time. I should be begging your forgiveness, my lady. You do not deserve one as unworthy as I."

I shook my head in protest.

"Only I decide what I deserve. If anything, it is I who does not deserve you," I murmured. "You who have lived so many lives...having seen and experienced things I could scarcely imagine..."

I reached up slowly so that he could stop me if he wished, but he made no move to do so. My fingertips brushed his cheeks as lightly as was physically possible.

"I could want no other but you. I have felt guilt for so long. I could not read my mark, but I felt when my soulmate touched his. And yet, I knew that I had lost my heart to you the day we met." My confession felt like the sweetest relief. "If that name had belonged to any other, I would have been distraught."

Adar leaned into my touch, closing his eyes and drawing a slow breath. Twin tears escaped, dripping down his face in an asynchronous race.

"Now that I have you, I cannot give you back, meleth," he warned as he stepped closer and rested his forehead against mine.

"Then, keep me," I whispered, and his lips finally, finally met mine.

~*~

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