#because I found a baby pumpkin on the vine

[eekitseve]

Sarah from yolo crystal fantasy is right. Gardening really really does help

[pinkpastelcalesti]

0.5 PHOTOS || Todoroki Shouto x Reader

SUMMARY -> You discover the power of .5 photos, and your boyfriend is no longer immune to the absolute atrocity of these pictures. In which, you decide to take photos of your boyfriend for blackmail fun to show your friends on his birthday.

CONTENT/WARNINGS -> Fem reader, clueless Sho, crack fic.

AUTHOR NOTES -> I’m typing this on my phone because I had the greatest idea of all time and I cannot let it go to waste LMFAO, if you don’t know what 0.5 photos look like, feel free to search “.5 selfies” on Google! These are my favorite types of photos and are absolute chaos <3 forgive me if some of the story is gibberish, I just need to get this post out of my system bc I love the idea of heinous .5 selfies that include Shouto and his perpetual “quarter life crisis” face

Shouto really shouldn’t have trusted you for pictures after the first time it happened.

With the new iPhones, Apple had decided to include 0.5, which allowed expandable, wide range photos that looked immaculate when used correctly. The only issue? People quickly found out this lens size made foreheads, noses, and god knows what else within its lens massively disproportionate and warped.

Some people found the photos to be stupid, but anyone with a sense of humor knew these photos were prime meme material, especially in a group of friends and loved ones when you wanted the most outrageous photos of them for future birthday posts.

At least that’s what your mind went to first when you found out the power you held with this new discovery. Especially with your deadpan, coolheaded pro-hero boyfriend that the public had a hard time accepting knew anything beyond sparse vine references. He wasn’t that well versed in current social media trends, but Shouto was far from out of the loop. He was kept up to date with trends mostly by his friends, including you, who would send him a god awful amount of tiktoks through iMessage since he didn’t have a tiktok account himself.

You almost felt bad, taking these photos without him really knowing the absolute power they held. The first time you did it was a time you wish you had on video so you could remember it moment-by-moment forever.

You were both out doing some holiday shopping for Halloween, picking up candies, decorations, and even some costume props when the idea popped in your head after Shouto had decided to try on a pumpkin-themed beret that was on the sale rack. Turning to him, you smiled sweetly, looking as innocent as possible as you reveled in the adorableness of your boyfriend before taking what would be the first of many, and I mean many, .5 photos. “You look so cute in that beret, Sho! Could I get a picture?” You asked him as he was peering into a little compact spider mirror to adjust the hat on his head. “Sure, I don’t mind,” he murmured softly. You positioned the camera as least-suspicious as possible, quickly grabbing two or three .5 photos before taking a normal looking one so that he could look at it. You beamed up at him after you took the photos, kissing his cheek and laughing softly as he made no apparent move to take the beret off just yet.

“May I see?” He glanced over your shoulder, a hand lazily wrapped around your waist as you presented the normal photo to him. “I’m beginning to think my fans were wrong when they said I could ‘slay’ just about anything that I wore,” Shouto remarked with a smirk. You nudged him gently, “You slay absolutely every piece of clothing baby.”

He held a soft gaze towards you as you placed the pumpkin beret in the cart, claiming it was a necessity and making your way around the store, eventually getting all you needed.

The next time it happened, Shouto began to wonder why you cackled after getting so many strange photos of him even though the photos you took seemed normal to him. You were both out enjoying the annual Halloween party that Mina and Kaminari were in charge of every year, always finding a way to have the most chaotic decorations and yet somehow making the parties unforgettable when it came to letting loose and having fun.

You were dressed as watergirl, with a light, silky blue dress on and a pair of white fishnet leggings that had blue crystals on them, paired with your “going out” shoes. Your makeup also matched the light blue/water theme perfectly, and Shouto was dressed as fireboy, dawning a pair of red slacks, black dress shoes, and a silky red button up shirt that perfectly complimented him.

His hair was also fully red, with you having put some temporary hair color gel on his white hair to make the look seamless. You were both standing on one side of a beer pong table, going against Ochako and Izuku as the party lights provided a shitty but doable amount of lighting so that you could see the cups slightly. After Shouto threw in your winning shot, cheers and hollers erupted from the crowd watching you guys as you wrapped your hands around Shouto’s neck and pulling him down for a kiss attack, leaving gloss marks along his face as he laughed slightly at your tipsy state.

Gasping suddenly, you took two of the beer pong cups and placed them in his hands, instructing Shouto to pose for a winner’s picture. Your giggles soon turned to full blown laughter as you couldn’t hide the disproportionate .5 photo you’d gotten, with your boyfriend’s forehead taking up almost half the screen, his eyes slightly looking two different directions with his signature polite-cat smile he did for photos.

You quickly took a normal photo to hide your building treasure trove of photos. Shouto looked at the photo after you took it, chuckling at the way the flash on your camera picked up the slight color difference of red hues in his hair from his natural color on his left side and the temporarily dyed right side.

You continued to snap photos of him over the next couple months, including thanksgiving where Shouto was devouring the fuck out of some American-made pecan pie that you’d had specially ordered for the occasion, crumbs evident on the corners of his mouth making him look like when a dog gets caught eating something they shouldn’t be and then bolting all around the house to get away from you.

Your favorite .5 photos had to be during Christmas when Kirishima had somehow convinced Izuku and Shouto to dress as elves for the annual hero Christmas party, and the photos contained Shouto looking miserable but coping in the janky-looking stockings and t shirt, with the elf hat and ears being hastily placed on his head.

He was glancing up at the camera with a deadpan “what was the reason” look, his hair going in different directions, his eyes borderline bugging out of his head, and his hands coming up by his chest to give a thumbs up. You wanted to scream laugh after taking the photos but managed to pull yourself together. There was a reason for these photos being taken, after all.

Your most recent photo before Shouto discovered your secret stash of .5s was of New Year’s when everyone had gotten together once again to celebrate another year of being alive and doing what they loved.

Kaminari had managed to fuck up the decoration order from Amazon, resulting in misspelled party hats and cheap plastic necklaces reading “happy newer years” with the incorrect year on them, resulting in hilarious group photos with everyone that even included Bakugou grinning as he tilted his party hat towards the camera, making sure the photo caught the misspelled words.

Shouto of course had his fair share of photos taken, especially by you who took them from your height, making your boyfriend look gigantic with his hat, new years glasses, and stack of plastic necklaces on as he threw up a peace sign.

Your journey of .5 photos didn’t exclude everyone else from your chaos, as you had albums dedicated to all your friends with the most breathtakingly awful pictures from parties, galas, and public events.

Eventually, Shouto’s birthday rolled around, and this was when he discovered the hard way why you’d been kicking your feet and laughing at random times during the day when you were scrolling on your phone but not on tiktok since there was no audio coming from your device.

The day was a small celebration, with you and the birthday boy himself having a birthday breakfast in your shared apartment and then going to a small lunch spot to celebrate with his family before dinner rolled around and you would be meeting up with your friends to have a celebratory meal together to celebrate the big 22 for Shouto.

Once the dinner was under way and a few cocktails were had, everyone was lively and was sharing memorable moments during their time at UA and after graduation with the number 3 pro hero. Bakugou could barely get through the retelling of Glamouroki because he kept laughing so hard that it was hard for anybody to get words out without doubling over.

Even Shouto himself couldn’t help but laugh loudly out of embarrassment when the time he’d ripped his pants during an interview discussing citizen search and rescue methods came up, with the interview being broadcast live on television. Twitter had an absolute field day, trending the hashtag “greatglacierasscheeks” as a play on the name of one of his ultimate moves.

During the story recounting, the alcohol was creeping up on you and making you way more loose-lipped than you’d like to admit. After Izuku had mentioned something about unflattering press photos with Shouto at the start of his hero career, Kirishima let out a gasp and popped the question that would expose your little secret.

“Does anyone actually have funny ass blackmail-worthy photos of Shouto? This man is perfect in every single magazine shoot, even when he’s rescuing people he looks flawless!” The redhead exclaimed, pointing a lighthearted accusatory finger towards your side of the long booth.

Everyone then turned their attention towards you, realizing that with you being Shouto’s partner of nearly 3 years, you were bound to have some photos, right? “C’mon (y/n), you’ve gotta have some!” Sero shouted across the table. “Yeah! There’s no way you don’t have a photo or two of icyhot in a Scrooge nightgown or something!” Exclaimed Mina, throwing her arms around your shoulders as you let out a loud laugh. “I would be a terrible excuse if a partner if I didn’t have some blackmail-worthy photos of my dear boyfriend, wouldn’t I?” You soon started laughing uncontrollably with tears springing in your eyes as everyone started chanting for you to share them.

Shouto himself looked perplexed, trying to recall any time he saw you sneaking photos of him during rather ungrateful moments like the time he struggled opening one of those little fruit cups and ended up getting squirted in the face with the syrup. You clumsily grabbed your phone, unlocking it and opening up an album before leaning over the table to lock eyes with everyone. “Listen, Sho never realized but sometimes when I took photos of him being cute or when we were out together, I used the .5 lens,” you giggled, and as soon as those words came out of your mouth, everything turned to chaos.

“No fucking way you got candy cane in one of the shittiest camera modes,” Bakugou barked out, a shit eating grin being evidence that he was far too invested in seeing the endless possibilities of wide angle lens Shouto. Endless shouts of “show us!” filled the private bar room you were in, with the bartender on the other side of the restaurant glancing curiously at the predicament across from him.

You put a finger to your lips as you stood up, with your loving boyfriend putting his hand on your hip to steady you as you clicked on the first of many photos. “I present to you, my stash of wide lens Shouto photos!” Your phone was then subsequently passed around the table as howls of laughter and cackling consumed your friend group.

When the phone finally got back around to Shouto, his eyebrows shot up in surprise and he cringed slightly as the angles were anything but flattering. He scrolled through the photos you had collected and then put the pieces together that you weren’t just getting regular photos all those times before. “Please tell me I’m not the only one who got these types of photos taken,” he remarked with a chuckle as you leaned into him. “Gods no! I’ve got hoards of them for everyone else too!” You exclaimed proudly, causing the group to reach for your phone the nth time as everyone roared in more laughter at everyone else’s photos.

There was even a .5 photo of Kirishima when he was getting his hair dyed by Mina at her place and the angle showed him glancing up at the camera with a toothy smile which made him look like a goofy but hilarious version of the shark from Nemo.

The afternoon after Shouto’s birthday, you asked his permission to include some of the .5 photos in an obligatory social media post, because what kind of partner would you be if you didn’t get every single photo type of your boyfriend imaginable? Soon after your post, Twitter quickly trended “wideshouto” and thus began the shitstorm of memes that refused to die down even months after Shouto’s birthday.

[foodandfolklore]

Tale of Three Magic Pumpkins

I find this story interesting because this folk tale comes from India. Pumpkins are native to North America. So is this just a newer story? Not necessarily. It seems India has been growing and eating Pumpkins or "Kaddu" since 645 AD. Almost 1000 years before the North Atlantic Trade routes were set up between Europe/Asia and the New World. So how did India get Pumpkins? Well, the story is the gourd and it's seeds just washed up on shore one day. But that's not the story being told today. I've heard this story a few different times, so this is my own retelling.

Three Magic Pumpkins Once, there were two brothers. The first brother always thought about the long term and married a woman with a big family and lots of money. The other brother wore his heart on his sleeve and married for love, even though she was an orphan with no wealth. The two lived their lives, but life was not easy on the poorer brother. Though the brothers grew up as equals and friends, they eventually parted ways after a big fight. The richer brother became so angry that he told his poorer brother to never step foot in his house again. One spring came, and the poorer brother did not have any seeds to plant. Not a single crop. He feared for him and his wife and the hardship of winter. His wife suggested he go ask his brother for help. She was optimistic he would be kind and help. But when the poorer brother went to the Richer brother and explained his situation, the Rich brother just reiterated that he did not want him in his house ever again. Sad and defeated, the poorer brother went home. His wife comforted and assured him things will get better. The next morning, as he was making his rounds, a large gust of wind knocked a nest out of place. All of the birds in the nest died, except one. This bird had a broken wing and could not fly. Feeling pity for the bird, he took it with him and started to nurse it back to health. He splint the wing to help it heal, gave it water and kept it warm. After it was healed, the poorer brother let the bird go and it flew away. However, to his surprise, it soon came back to deliver three seeds. He and his wife were overjoyed at these three seeds. Now they can plant them and be real farmers! They planted the seeds in their vegetable garden and soon, vines and leaves started to grow. Before the fall, three massive pumpkins had grown. The pumpkins were so big, the Brother needed his wife's help to carry just one. She suggested they eat one then sell the other two. He agreed and grabbed an axe to cut the massive pumpkin open. But when the pumpkin opened, food of all different types poured out. Enough to last for years to come. His wife then suggested they try opening the other two pumpkins. So, he again took his axe and split the second pumpkin. From there, many silk and embroidered garments burst out. Enough to dress the entire village. Finally they opened the third pumpkin; silver and gold coins rained out. So many it was impossible to count. The poor brother was no longer poor. He no longer needed to ask his Rich brother for anything. But when the Rich brother found out, he became extremely jealous, and wanted to learn how his brother came into such good fortune. So he sent his wife to talk with his brother's wife. She was all too happy to tell the story of the hurt bird who left them three seeds and the treasures that were in them. In the following spring, the rich brother found a nest of baby birds. He knocked the nest down himself with a stick, and killed all but one bird. He took that one bird, broke it's wing, then took it back home to care for it. He made sure to take very good care of this bird, letting it rest on the softest pillows and giving it the clearest water to drink.

Finally, the bird was able to fly and the rich brother let it go. After some time it came back with a single seed. Excited, the rich brother planted the seed. From it sprang a large vine with many flowers; but only one pumpkin grew. Still the brother could hardly wait for autumn to come, as he stood guard each night to prevent someone steeling his pumpkin. At last, the pumpkin was ripe. He and his wife brought the pumpkin inside. But as soon as he struck the pumpkin with an axe, it exploded with fire and flames. The house they were in burned down, as did the barn and any other crops. The entire property was scorched black, and everything they owned was gone.

The rich brother was no longer rich. He was too ashamed to ask his brother for help. He instead succumb to a life as a beggar, roaming the world hoping for a kind gesture.

[rooklinensinker]

My Work Space

One of my friends helped me finally work today so I thought I could show my working space. I'm really proud of how it turned out and since I'm moving out when my semester ends, I thought it helpful to keep a memory of it somewhere.

I know my pictures aren't the most aesthetically pleasing to look at, but I just wanted to keep a record as best as I could.

This is all I make a point of having in my workstation:

My computer and it's accessories. I got one of those mechanical ones that make sounds every time I'm working (bonus points for the colour model being called "chocolate"). Gives me an incentive to type more. I also got a mouse because my laptop's doesn't work very well. And whenever I draw, I can use my drawing tablet instead. Also a microphone because my laptop is absolutely shitting itself going through multiple organ failures and I'm surprised a senior like it still works well. I love my baby 🥰

My Laptop Stand™ by me because I made it out of a cardboard box and decorated it to look pretty. I may have a problem with aesthetics... But! It was essentially free and it does the job well. I also keep notepads, my pencil case, and fidget toys under there.

Pens in a handy spot. Selected to go with the colour scheme because, again, I have a problem. They're all in an old candle cup I filled with fake leaves because recycling is good and I may be a hoarder too but don't quote me on that. I try to keep a variety although I've been mostly using the same orange and gold glitter pens.

Water and drinks in general. I might show a full room tour later but one of the things that made my life 100x easier was having a hot chocolate/ oatmeal station in my room. For those days where it's hard to eat but I still need to take my meds. I just have a nice small portable kettle, some cups, a bowl and spoons that I sometimes have to force myself to wash downstairs because for some reason my brain thinks walking out my bedroom door is not a valid option. Also I like drinking hot chocolate while I work so that's a plus.

Google Speaker. It wakes me up and a̶n̶n̶o̶y̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶ helps me stay on track. I usually just play music in the background and put a video essay playing alongside it so I can feel less bored. I taught it to help me with routines, pomodoro timers, and getting ready to go out and time tracking when I dissociate. Some times are more effective than others but I like to hear the Family Bell jingles. And whenever I get random thoughts, instead of browsing on my phone and getting lost in the scrolling hell, I ask and it sometimes gives me my answer.

Candles. I need candles. It's one of those things that make me feel cozy no matter the weather. And I may have too many I collect so I better use them. My favourite smells are pumpkin spice and apple and very autumnal sweet ones because they remind me of the holiday season. I also tried cake scented but those just make me hungry and craving food I don't have. I have wax melts but restrict myself to only one candle so I make sure to economise their use. Also they make great lights!

Last but not least: Lights! I used to work during the night when quarantine struck and I found my optimal work times were from 4am to 9am. Which meant, coloured lights helped my brain suddenly decide to focus. Too bad I have to stick to a functional routine now. I still try to wake up at least at 6am but it's not the same. Though the sunrise is good enough to watch.

Other things that I add for fun are decorations like vines and leaves. Also practically stuff like a coaster for the hot drinks and a kitchen rag that I use to both elevate my keyboard but also to cover it so it doesn't get any mess when I eat.

Other than that I'm not sure what else. Hopefully future me gets to decorate their own place with knick-knacks and pretty shiny things too. And if you're reading this from that future, know that I'm proud we got this far. We can do it!✨

[imagining-in-the-margins]

Here to Misbehave (Finale | S.R.)

Series Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Finale |

Summary: It’s Halloween, and there are a lot of things on Spencer’s mind.

A/N: Here it is, everyone: the end of the story. Thank you so much to everyone who’s read this far. I greatly appreciate all of you, and I hope you enjoy it!   Couple: Spencer Reid/Fem!Reader Category: Fluff/Smut (NSFW, 18+) Content Warning: Penetrative sex, light D/s, mostly fluff! Word Count: 7.5k

—————————————————

Autumn has widely been considered the season of change. It is an understandable characterization; from the shifting hues of the leaves to the wildly fluctuating temperatures, few things stayed consistent in the fall. Perhaps that’s why someone who loathes change, someone like me, finds the season so thrilling.

It’s like the Earth and the Sun made a pact to make changes more predictable in their own unique, chaotic way. The breeze becomes biting and the days become shorter, but for these downfalls, we are granted a beauty and calmness that can’t be rivaled by any other season.

But she wasn’t a season, and when it came to my attention and appreciation, there were few choices that were easier to make.

“Spencer. You’ve got to be kidding me.”

(Y/n)’s face was half covered by the cup she held tightly with both hands, but I could picture the hidden expression perfectly, regardless.

“What? We don’t have to agree on everything.”

The truce was received poorly, her response a heavy scoff and a shake of her head. I tried to follow along with her suddenly heated words but couldn’t contain the stars in my eyes that often accompanied my daydreams. If she did notice, she stubbornly ignored the adoration to continue, “I understand you’re a genius or whatever, but I think your opinions on cider and cocoa are... wrong. They are wrong.”

It was my turn to feign displeasure (I hoped hers wasn’t real, anyway), clutching tighter to my own drink that I found myself defending on a park bench with dozens of strangers as an audience.

“An opinion can’t be wrong!” I chirped, only hating the way my voice jumped a little bit. After all, it was hard to hate it when it made her giggle. But despite how much sweeter the liquid seemed when I drank it in the presence of her smile, I also knew that she wouldn’t appreciate my immediate agreement. So, I pushed back just a little, “It can be misguided or ignorant but not outright wrong.”

“Unless it’s yours, on this topic,” she shot back without hesitation.

I tried to flash her a pout, hoping that maybe it would work for me like it did for her. It did not. Her eyebrows shot up and her jaw dropped open with another laugh, and I decided that I preferred that outcome, anyway. The longer my bottom lip stuck out, the wider her smile got. I waited to stop until her eyes closed and turned away, just long enough for me to let the full force of my affection show before she noticed.

She saw it, anyway, in the form of a similar smile spread over my face when I softly admitted, “Fine. You’re right.”

“Oh, I know.”

Her tongue peeked between her lips, and I found myself thinking less of cider and cocoa and more about how unbelievably lucky I was to find someone that I never felt the need to prove anything to. A person that didn’t care if I held all the answers.

I might’ve continued down that sappy train of thought, but it was hard to do while she had hoisted herself halfway over the table to try and grab hold of my cup right as I went to drink from it. Of course, she had failed to take into account just how big the table was, and just how close I was willing to come to falling before I let her drink from my cup right after she’d criticized my preference of fall flavors.

For a second, I really thought she might climb onto the table to win, but the judgmental looks from the parents in the park must have beaten her desire to win. As forlorn as humanly possible, she fell back into her seat with a loud “Hmph!” which really only managed to elicit an equally immature giggle from me.

“Shut up,” she laughed before shoving my paper plate further into my chest, “And eat your stupid pie.”

All I could think as she grabbed my fork and stabbed the middle of the piece to try to lift the entire thing at once, was that I was right about one thing: Autumn, in all its vitality and beauty, could still never compare to her.

That thought persisted through the pumpkin patch, growing in intensity as she skipped through the vine-laden path like a regular fall fairy. It was much easier to get lost in her there, crouched and inspecting foliage. Her arguments regarding gourds were much less spirited, with her watching me wide-eyed and curious as I explained the stages of pumpkin growth and all the different uses for the fruit.

I still let her make the final choices, opting to analyze her selections and tease her for them later, instead. That was the plan, anyway, to continue the competitiveness lest she gets bored with me before the day was over. When she walked past me holding open the passenger side door, I thought it might’ve already happened.

But then she just placed the pumpkin into my hands so she could open the back door. Before I could even move, she carefully removed it from my arms again and placed it in the seat.

“What are you doing?” I said through a very amused chuckle.

She was decidedly not entertained by my confusion, stopping to turn to me with a bored, frustrated expression. “I’m buckling him in,” she explained slowly, like I might need the help. Then, to add insult to silly injury, she added, “Duh.”

I was too distracted by the details to tackle the absurdity of it all.

“Him? It’s a boy pumpkin?”

“Obviously. Look at him,” she snorted, finally clicking the seatbelt in before tenderly petting the top of the lucky little gourd. Once she was convinced it would be as safe as she could make it, she allowed me to begin to escort her into her proper seat.

“You know it’s safer on the floor, right?” I asked before she’d slipped past me. I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her away from the car so I could enjoy the warmth of her before it was replaced with the dry air of the engine.

“How dare you,” she balked with an open mouth that was just begging to be kissed. By the time I got close enough to try, though, her hand fervently shoved my cheek away. I tried to laugh, but she used the same hand to cover the noise, trying and failing to convince me she was being serious.

“Why don’t you just hold him?” I mumbled against her palm.

That was enough for her to abandon my embrace altogether. With a scoff and a roll of her eyes, she pried my arms off of her and finally made her way to my passenger seat. I didn’t fight her too hard, even taking the time to shut her door like my mother always insisted.

The mercy was not returned, with her eyes narrowed into a playful disbelieving glare that I hadn’t seen in some time. My mind was brought back to the first time she ever let me know she was jealous, bickering over blondes and preferences while she sat in the very same place. And, just as before, she was still wearing the same raggedy old sweatshirt of mine.

“If this is any indication of how you’ll be with a human baby, I have dramatically overestimated your competence,” she droned, obviously unaffected by the stars that appeared in my eyes every time I looked at her.

“The one and only time you’ll ever be able to say those words. I hope you enjoyed it,” I joked. A funny enough joke that she couldn’t help but smile through her facade.

“Don’t worry,” she chuckled, “I did.”

The day could have ended there, and it would have been enough. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a single thing that wouldn’t be better with her there. In a way, I think we were trying to prolong the high of ‘hooky,’ finding even the faintest interest in an activity as enough of an excuse for a detour.

… Which was probably how we found ourselves in our third park of the day. After all, I loved any autumnal vision, so how could I decline an opportunity to let them serve as a backdrop for watching her? And that was an accurate description of how I spent the day. It might sound boring, and if it were anyone else, it probably would have been. But no matter how often I saw her, I found myself learning new things about her every single time. Each freckle and scar became a part of the high-definition collection of memories that I would never let myself forget. The most beautiful images that kept me sane in the face of evil and filth.

“Do you see that?”

For a moment, I thought she might have read my mind. But then I realized that her eyes were still fixed forward, stuck on the horizon ahead of us.

“See what?”

“That,” she pointed, “Right there.”

My eyes followed the line, finding nothing but an area of carefully manicured, yellow grass and trees already set to rest for the season. It must have been clear to her that I was lost, because her pointing became more animated and her voice rose as she shouted, “Right there!”

“The giant pile of leaves?”

“Uh-huh.”

Then, in all of my obliviousness, I just sort of stared. Even when her hand grew tighter around mine and her feet started to move faster, I didn’t put two and two together until it was too late.

“What about— No! (Y/n)!” I shouted, cutting off my own train of thought and only barely letting go of her in time to watch her jump straight into the collection of fallen foliage that some poor landscaper had obviously worked hard to gather.

I have to believe that even if that unlucky, underappreciated individual saw what she’d done to their hours of work, that they would forgive her. It was hard to feel anything but joy at the sounds that came from the pile. Yet I approached her cautiously, with both hands in my pockets to avoid the urge to throw myself into danger with her.

“You’re a terror,” I said, settling for a crouched position in front of her. Still able to see her but far enough from her grasp that she had to crawl through a wall of leaves to come nose to nose with me. “This is literally the scariest thing you’ve done all season.”

“Come on in, the water’s fine,” she purred.

As enticing as the offer was, my mind was too preoccupied with statistics of spider and snake bites, not to mention the possibility of ticks still scouring the landscape for any last second hosts. The answer was easy.

“Absolutely not.”

With another exhale of pure displeasure, she threw her body back into the leaves, burying herself into a mess of yellows and reds that somehow only made her look even more beautiful. The chaotic scene matched her energy well, and the harm she was doing was minimal considering I was absolutely going to search every inch of skin for any marks later.

The only thing that was more appealing to me than watching her make an absolute fool out of herself in a pile of leaves was the intense urge to tease her about it. So, taking a regrettable seat on the grass, I sighed, “I think I’m going to have to arrest you for trespassing.”

There was a loud gasp from the center of the pile, followed by a scuffle of flailing limbs among the foliage.

“You don’t own this leaf pile! I do! I am queen of the leaf pile!” she screeched.

“Alright Princess,” I subtly corrected, “whatever you say.”

As promised, I didn’t put up a fight. Even when she finally got a hold of my hands and dragged me into the madness with her. I followed her no matter what nonsense she demanded, just as she had with me so many times. Granted, my desires weren’t nearly as dangerous or strange. They were pretty much just a collection of foreign films and reading that always lulled her to sleep.

But that day there was no sign of her energy waning. The early sun faded and we kept going. I’m not sure how, but she managed to enjoy herself in the D.C. landscape of bars and blaring car horns despite not being able to indulge in anything herself. Although she did half-heartedly attempt to trick me into buying her drinks in several different establishments, I think she was honestly proud that I avoided the drinks altogether. It was a nice reminder that sobriety could be something enjoyed between the two of us, regardless of the environment. However, we didn’t let that stop us from jumping into a crowd of very drunk women who had insisted we join their haunted tour of the city.

“Are you scared?” she whispered into my ear. The feeling of her warm breath against my skin caused a shiver to run down my spine, ruining any credibility I had in my response.

“No. Why would I be scared? It’s just history.”

“Are you sure?” she asked again.

“Yes!” I insisted with the worst possible timing. Because just as soon as the word had left my lips, I felt the distinct sensation of fingers running down my neck and arm opposite to her. I was so convinced that’s what it was that I even spun around with a yelp, crashing into at least three different people just to find a very startled woman with the worst hung scarf I’d ever seen.

(Y/n) had already put two and two together and was lost in an absolute fit of laughter. There were already tears forming in the corners of her eyes as she doubled over, barely able to stand through it all. Because there I was, her 31-year-old FBI agent boyfriend, screaming over a scarf.

“Laugh it up,” I droned. And she did. She kept laughing through any attempts at a response, and after the initial embarrassment wore off, I couldn’t help but join her.

“I hope you know you chose me. You chose this man!” I shouted, gesturing to the people around us who had already forgotten about our shenanigans, “And everyone knows it!”

“I’m sorry I can’t—” she wheezed, pausing to take a necessary breath that was all lost with another bunch of giggles “—You’re a fucking FBI Agent!”

“Well I can’t shoot a ghost, can I?” I mumbled through the hit to my ego. But any suffering was quickly dealt with as she threw dramatic arms around my waist, pulling me close and protecting me from any other errant scarves that might show up.

“I love you so much,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” I returned with a quick kiss on her forehead. And even if I implied otherwise, I think she knew that I was having just as good of a time as she was. In fact, it was one of the most relaxing days of my life, which was saying something, considering how much walking was involved.

But no matter how tired we both were, I still had one last place to take her. It took her a while to figure out why the route felt so familiar, but I wasn’t ready to ruin the surprise. I wanted to watch the realization dawn on her. She didn’t disappoint.

“The Mayflower?” she asked with a bit of a bashful laugh before looking up at me through narrowed eyes, “Feeling nostalgic, Dr. Reid?”

“Yeah, a little bit. Thought it was more romantic than the club,” I offered, trying to shrug off the nervous butterflies that burst through my stomach. “Not by much, mind you.”

Although I got the feeling that she didn’t know, or perhaps just didn’t remember, that wonderful night from almost a year ago was one of the most important days of my life. I knew it then, too. From the second I set my eyes on her from my pitiful place against the bar, I knew that she would ruin me.

“Nothing screams high end romance like an alley and a little light law breaking,” she sighed. I almost missed it, too preoccupied with the way her arm tugged me tighter so she could rest her head against my shoulder.

“I can take you home if you’d rather.”

“Hmmm. Depends,” she hummed. Then, turning her head up to me with that playful look that always turned me to putty in her hands, she purred, “How much longer do you think you can wait before you just have to have me?”

I sucked in a sharp, sarcastic breath, eyeing her just long enough for her to start to fume, I let out all the air with a defeated sigh, “I guess we’re staying.”

That serene sort of teasing continued past the reception desk and all the way up the elevator. If there were other people there, we didn’t bother noticing. We were too busy watching one another to even look away long enough to find our room. Doubling back through the dizzying hallways until we found the elusive number, we finally settled into the only vaguely familiar layout of beige and tan.

She was much quicker at it than I was. Before I’d even finished washing my hands and checking exposed skin for bugs that I was convinced had hitched a ride from the leaf pile, she was already stretched out on the bed in nothing but a tiny piece of lacy cotton and her favorite sweatshirt. The sight made me stop, lost for breath and logic of how I was lucky enough to be there with her again.

“See something you like, Dr. Reid?” she teased through giggles, no doubt recalling the same memory as me.

My answer didn’t need to be said, but I said it, anyway. She deserved to hear it.

“Yes.”

With arms outstretched, she sleepily begged, “Come here.”

But I couldn’t.

“Not yet… I just… I want to look at you like this a little bit longer.”

How could I move on from this moment, when it was the best I’d ever felt? So overwhelmingly safe and at home despite being in a strange, sterile room. I had no desire to move any inch of me if it meant that this image would persist for the rest of my days.

“You getting all romantic on me?”

“Always,” I chuckled. Her usual disgust for my sappy behavior didn’t show itself, overpowered by the gentle curve of her lips and hands that were becoming more and more insistent to be held. Eventually, I had to move, knowing that it was the only way to hold her.

My body reacted the way it always did when it found her. All of the tension dropped from tired shoulders, desperate to touch her more. To feel the imprint of her body pressed against mine, a mess of heat and need and love.

She was the one to kiss me first, and for a moment I let her do it without reciprocation. I wanted to feel how her touch became softer and shier as she realized what I was doing. That I was spending all of my energy memorizing the way her lips parted as she tried to hold back a giggle against my almost-still lips.

“What’s happening in that big genius brain of yours?” she murmured with eyes half open but still containing universes.

“I’m just thinking of all the things you’ve done to make me fall in love with you.”

I thanked all of the gods in every pantheon that made her too tired to tease. Instead, she just laughed, playing her part in bringing us back to that night we met.

“Like quote Picard?”

“We still haven’t watched Star Trek together,” I whined.

The sound must have stirred something new in her, because she rolled us over to take her seat on my lap. She hung over me, looking down at me, hopeless and breathless at the feel of her thighs under my hands. My heart started to race, but I didn’t know why.

It wasn’t until she spoke the words that were already running through my mind, “We’ve got time. Picard can wait.”

Everything about it was effortless. Our bodies had fallen together and mouths found each other exactly like every romance novel has ever tried to tackle the metaphor of gravity.

But if we were an orbit, it was not a binary like the traditional notion of two equal souls. Despite the nickname I’d chosen for her, nothing about her soul was small. And even though she burned bright, she wasn’t anything like the fiery combustion of a star.

She was a home. A thing so full of vitality and life that I would love to watch for whatever time I had left. I was just a moon, loyally following her and trying my best to shield her from whatever might try to harm her. To protect her when she needed rest and to lead the tides to kiss her when she wished. I would be her shadow, shining a light onto her even in the darkest time. All that I asked for in return was a spot beside her.

‘One day,’ she had said before, ‘if you will have me.’

But it was never a question. Not for me. And if she really needed me to answer it for her, I was happy to give her that. I hadn’t been waiting for even a year, but it felt like a lifetime.

“Yeah, he can,” I repeated, quiet and with such a heavy waver that I’m surprised she could understand the shifting inflections. Even if she didn’t, she knew that something had changed in those few seconds of silence.

“What’s up, Spencer?”

I didn’t know how to answer. How to explain what I was feeling. But I grabbed hold of one hand, clinging desperately to her and guiding her to the heart that felt dangerously light. The rapid pace of its beating still not enough to alert her of the true cacophony of my thoughts.

“Are you okay?”

The answer was yes. Because no matter how loud and chaotic the sounds inside my head were, they all lead me to the same conclusion.

“Picard can wait, and we have a lot of time,” I tried to explain through a dry throat that was only growing tighter with the unwieldy weight of the feeling.

“Yes…” she mumbled back, just as trepidatious and nervous as I was.  

Just like I was. Because we were. We were connected by some force, whatever you want to call it. Whether it was a chemical or psychological or heavenly connection, I didn’t care. I wanted her to know how I felt. To know that there was nothing that would ever tear me away from her.

“But I don’t… I don’t think I want to wait.”

After a couple more seconds of silence, she answered with a knowing stare, “… What?”

From my position underneath her, I was able to reach over just enough to grab my jacket. Of course, it helped that she moved with me, clearly curious and terrified of the possibilities. But a good kind of terror… I hoped.

My confidence grew as her legs gripped tighter around my hips and her hands shot up to cover her chest with balled fists pressed against one another. I heard the friction of her skin as her body started to shake in a different way, with an adrenaline that I hadn’t seen from her in even the most dangerous situations.

But when I pulled a small velvet box from the internal pocket, everything stopped. She became completely still. Her eyes were wide and frozen on the object in my hands, only to look away when she heard my voice.

“(Y/n).”

“Where did you get that?” she asked like she hadn’t just seen me pull it from my jacket. The same jacket that I wore every time that I was with her. The wool fabric that she’d swaddled herself in on a number of occasions, none the wiser of how much heavier it was for me when I wore it.

“I know this is really random, a-and to be fair, I wasn’t expecting it, either,” I said through the most awkward laughs I’d ever produced (which was saying something), “I mean, I knew I wanted to marry you, I’ve known that for quite some time, hence the ring.”

I paused, but got nothing in response. Nothing except her lips quivering from their parted position, and her nose twitching as she tried to settle on just one expression. But it didn’t matter how she contorted her face; they were all exactly as they should be. Because they were all her.

“But today, with you… I-I’ve never been that happy in my life. Jumping in leaves and fighting over fall flavors and I—“

Her eyes stopped bouncing, settling with my gaze and robbing my lungs of all air. She made up her mind, deciding to leave everything exactly as it was. The honest truth of the overwhelming storm of every emotion that had been experienced in the little time we had shared together.

The knowing that everything had happened exactly as it should have to bring us here.

“I love you so much,” I whispered, careful to make every word as genuine as they were, “And I know that we have all the time in the world left with one another… but I don’t want to wait any longer for you to be my wife.”

“Ask me,” she answered immediately and abruptly.  


“Okay,” I laughed, endlessly entertained by how she could sound so aggressive even when we were both at our most vulnerable, caught in the nexus of our love.

“Um… Will you… marry me?”

There was no hesitation. No worry, no fear, and no doubt.

“Yes, you stupid old man!” she outright screamed, throwing arms around me even when it meant we both slammed against pillows and the headboard. She didn’t stop squealing even when she kissed me, struggling to find more of me to hold onto.

After she decided that tugging on my hair was the best way to express her affection, I managed to break away just long enough to shout, “Wait! I have to put the ring on you!”

“Then put it on!” she yelled, thrusting her hand in front of my face and practically slapping me in the process. But none of the pain mattered. Nothing was even recognizable outside of the feeling of her sweaty, shaking palm resting against my fingers.

I noticed for the first time that I was also trembling. I took the time to focus, slipping the ring over her finger. But once it started to safely slide into place, my eyes returned to watch what I knew to be happy tears fall over her cheeks. I wiped them away, but they were replaced with the wetness from my face when she brought us together again with a long, gentle kiss.

A calmness came over the room like the feeling following a storm. A clean slate with soil enriched for growth. A hope for a future forever changed.

“What do we do now?” she asked, biting her bottom lip and holding tight to my hands.

The answer seemed clear enough.

“Whatever we want.”

 ��————————————————

 Is this really happening?

I stared at the diamond shining back at me with a clarity that had to be a metaphor for my heart. In the vague reflection of yellow light and us, I felt a warmth that doesn’t normally accompany metal. My finger’s new companion felt so comfortable in its new resting place. A constant reminder of the man I called home.

Then I turned back to him, unsure how I was supposed to move on from this moment. I never wanted to leave, but I also needed to move. I compromised and settled with my face against his chest, listening to the heartbeat he’d just dedicated to me. In that peaceful quiet, I heard him speak so softly I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it.

But I did.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said with fingers dancing through the ends of my hair, “I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And for once, the thought didn’t feel like a burden. In fact, it felt like freedom. I was finally free to be who I was without worry that I would be alone. Without worrying that I would be too much or too little to please him.

I was enough.

Enough.

“I love you,” I said, tasting salt from tears I hadn’t even noticed were falling.

Curiously, and in a rare role switch, Spencer was the one who took a blatantly affectionate display and turned it into something else. Pulling me away from his chest, he dragged me up until he could drag his lips over my jaw.

“Don’t cry, little girl,” he cooed with what I could only imagine was a wicked grin, “I haven’t given you a reason to yet.”

Something about that gruff rumble in his throat caused my skin to ripple with goosebumps. Every inch of me burned with flames that could only be put out by his touch. I chased after his lips with my own, but he was insistent on trailing down my throat. He knew I would be powerless to him. I wouldn’t be able to argue when my hands were knotted in his hair and my hips were already rocking helplessly against his erection.

“I want you to fuck me,” I seethed. My blood was boiling from the heat I felt within, and before he could even answer I was already working at the buttons on his shirt.

“Oh? You don’t want me to make love to you?” Spencer laughed. As if that had ever been our style.

“No, I want you to take what’s yours.”

He responded to the demand by pushing me from my seat, forcing me onto my back on the other end of the bed. I wasn’t going to complain, either. The new position allowed me access to his belt, which I unbuckled before he even had time to laugh.  

“Are you really challenging me right now, little girl?”

But despite the taunt, he did nothing to stop me. His hands were also busy removing my clothes. And just like before, our nakedness was reciprocated. With each lost layer, I should have felt lighter, but I didn’t. I felt so powerful, so aware of how our bare bodies twined together.

“Here, of all places? Do you remember what I did to you that night?”

How could I ever forget?

“I’m not the same girl you had in your bed then,” I purred. We both knew it was true, although not in the way I was implying.

Because Spencer had changed me. Irrevocably. He taught me so much — not just about physics, literature, or criminology, either. He taught me about kindness, softness, and vulnerability. He taught me how to trust that someone could hold me without the intention of letting me go. More than anything, he taught me that I didn’t have to learn these things alone. Even the smartest man I’d ever met needed help with them sometimes.

Then again, something told me that Spencer wasn’t in a very humble mood. Perhaps it was the fact he’d pinned me down again, with his hands clumsily gripping hard enough to leave crescent moons in my forearms.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” he growled with a small, chaste kiss, “You’re still just a fucking brat.”

I wasn’t feeling bratty then, though. Especially not as I felt the head of his cock pressed against me, just hard enough to feel the resistance of my body. He waited there, no doubt taking pleasure in the way my whole body squirmed underneath him. My hips bucked, but he managed to keep a cruelly steady distance.

“You’re so precious when you’re needy,” he mumbled. And although I stubbornly avoided looking him in the eyes out of protest, he forced my face towards him again, anyway. “Go on. Say please.”

“Fuck off,” I whined through a prominent pout that did me no favors.

“Say it.”

“Please!”

I managed to make eye contact, but it was fleeting. As soon as he thrust forward into me, my back arched and I lost myself in the pillows. My hands found him, though, leaving angry red welts over heated skin. If Spencer was at all affected by the pain, he made no showing of it. His pace continued, steadily forcing our bodies together until I trembled in his hands.

He would hold me there, at my limit but not pleading for him to do anything different. With tender hands, he would fuck me until I swore bruises would follow. But I never felt unsafe; I felt cared for and cherished in a way I’d never known. I trusted him to know my limits better than myself.

I trusted him with all of me because I had already seen that when given the chance, he would do whatever he could to protect me.

The love I felt must have shone through my eyes because his hips got slower, drawing out each movement. My hips rose in tandem with his, allowing me to feel every inch of him inside of me.

“This body belongs to me now and forever,” he whispered.

It always has.

“You belong to me.”

And I felt it. The undeniable string of fate that tied us to each other. I could feel his every emotion as his fingers brushed over my throat. I melted under his touch, completely consumed by the love he felt for me. The kind of love that people spent their whole lives searching for only to come up empty. That powerful thing that drove gods to war and men to madness.

The only feeling that could tear down every wall that had been carefully crafted to protect myself. Because I didn’t need them anymore. Spencer’s arms would take their place, holding me through the storms that might follow the same way he had carried me through the ones that led us here.

“Yes,” I breathed, “I’m yours.”

For forever and whatever comes after.

The words were truer than they’d ever been before, and Spencer took it as permission to let go of any remaining hesitation. The slow, gentle thrusts became faster and our moans echoed in the small room without a second thought to the poor patrons in the rooms surrounding us. Because if they felt what we did, they would understand. Spencer still tried to hush the sounds, crashing his lips over mine in a sloppy, frenzied kiss.

I was suddenly reminded of every romantic story I’d ever heard. They all spoke of feeling so close to someone that they felt like an extension of yourself. I wasn’t sure if it was completely true, but there was no denying how at home our bodies were. The way our tongues wrapped around one another and how our noses bumped so gently in the chaos was unmatched by any meeting driven by lust or need.

His hips met mine over and over again, no matter how hard I tried to keep him closer. Even when my hips chased his to be held longer, Spencer was persistent in the ruthless pace. Because like me, he was lost in the euphoria. I knew it from the sound of his whimpers and the way he bit my lip just a little bit harder.

“Tell me what you want, little girl,” he begged. Not ordered. Begged.

“You,” I answered without any doubt, “I just want you.”

His response came even faster, even more desperate and scratchy as it came through his lips into mine.

“You have me. For the rest of my life and whatever comes after, I will take care of you.”

There was nothing left to say. I could feel the truth and force behind the words as he fucked me harder, eliciting one more quiet cry from me in the sound of his name.

“Spencer...”

When he returned the call, though, it wasn’t with any name I’d heard from him before.

“So you better get used to this feeling,” he said through a smile that I felt on my lips before he drew back. He looked me in the eye as he buried himself in me, tensing to hold himself back just a few seconds longer. To see the look on my face and let that be the feeling of us giving in to each other for the first time in our new story.

“Because I’m never going to grow tired of this, Mrs. Reid.”

Mrs. Reid.

That was going to be my name.

Mrs. Reid.

That was the only thought running through my mind as I felt the coil in my gut snap and all of my muscles tense around him. There were no whorish sounds left in my lungs, only little whimpers and whines as I tried to claw him closer. Spencer gave up his visual in exchange for kissing me while he finished. My walls held him so tightly that I felt each pulse and every place where his release filled me. But nothing was more compelling than feeling the way his lip quivered between mine as his body fell onto mine with no grace required.

Spencer could act hard all he wanted, but I felt the way he craved softness. Safety. Love. All things I was happy to give… for a price.

“Say it again.”

“Say what again?” he replied sleepily but animated enough to have a healthy dose of snark. Snark that earned him a rough nudge of my elbow into his ribs.

“You know!”

But naturally, the genius had to play dumb. With a happy little hum, he snuggled closer to me, burying his face into my neck so he could mumble against the skin, “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Please,” I sighed, “for me?”

He seemed to contemplate the plea for a little while longer, with wiggling toes I felt against my shins and a happy sigh that breezed over my neck. I tried to take in those small things while I waited, knowing that while I had a lifetime to learn them, this moment would never come again.

“Fine,” he finally settled, propping himself up to give another soft kiss followed by the most beautiful sound in the world.

“Only for you, Mrs. Reid.”

 ——  The Next Morning ——

 Waking up next to Spencer with a ring on my finger was literally waking up to find my dream come to life. And sure, his light snoring and constant wriggling under the sheets he continued to pull off of me weren’t perfect or picturesque, but they were real. The same way that he chirped when he felt my legs wrap around him in his sleep and only woke when he heard me giggling.

His eyes fluttered open, taken aback by something that he saw. Although I would blame it on the sunlight filtering through the curtains, I was sure that he would give me all the credit.

“Good morning,” he slurred.  

“Hi,” I answered with a smile and an attempt to pull him closer. But my hand was stopped by his, squeezing my palm between his fingers before dragging my knuckles to his lips. From there, he laid a gentle kiss over the diamond he’d placed there the night before. Although it was strange to be outshone by a rock, I let it go for now.

“I know you shouldn’t sleep with it on, but it’s so nice to see it’s still there,” he said with a heavy breath before lowering our still joined hands to rest against his heart. I could feel the way it beat a little bit quicker as I came closer, and I wondered if this was really what it would be like forever.

“I couldn’t resist wearing it.”

“You know you can still change your mind, right? We haven’t told anyone.”

“I haven’t changed my mind,” I replied unlike every time before. There was no teasing, no joke or anger or sadness. Just a pure, unadulterated joy.

… Of course, the question did bring up an entirely new anxiety. It did feel a bit silly, but it needs to be expressed.

“Have you?”

“God, no,” he laughed. Like he’d only asked the question to see the way I might panic. But as soon as I heard his assurance, I knew it was the truth.

My mind started to drift back to that first morning we spent together. It felt like a lifetime ago, but everything still felt so very much the same. I wondered if there were things I would change if given the chance. It wasn’t until after I ran through the laundry list of things that we would have been better off without that I realized I’d asked the wrong question.

It wasn’t a matter of what I would have changed, but what I would have kept the same. And the answer was simple. No matter what I would face in my life, I just wanted it to be with him. Everything would be okay as long as I had him.

However, when I tried to kiss him, Spencer still seemed hung up on the things he would have changed. Our lips didn’t connect for even ten seconds before he broke apart, happily laughing through the words, “This is so much better when I’m not hungover.”

“Old man.”

He didn’t argue back, wiggling under the sheets until our chests were pressed together. I took it as a very poor attempt at a power play, because instead of craning my neck to look up at him from my spot, I simply climbed his lanky figure until our noses were pressed together.

“Your old man now,” he corrected, followed by my own clarification of, “You were always mine, Dr. Reid.”

“But now you get to show everyone.” He grinned, letting go of my hand to roam over the curves of my body. His daily attempts to memorize each version of me he held. After a few more moments of silent reverence, I asked the question we’d have to face eventually, lest we face even more awkward, embarrassing moments with the team.

“Who’s gonna tell everyone?”

He barely even considered the options before he shrugged.

“Let’s just… wing it.”

I paused, certain that I’d heard it wrong. “You, Spencer Reid, would like to ‘wing it?’” I repeated, barely able to get the words out without laughing from the absurdity of it all.

But he was quick to assure me, “Yeah, I do.”

“Alright. Whatever you say,” I sighed. I figured that it wouldn’t be worth it to plan right now, anyway. It wasn’t exactly our style. If anything, we would find the perfect time completely by accident.

“You know what we should do first though?” I excitedly announced to the best audience a girl could ever ask for.

“What?”

“Coffee,” I drawled. To which he quickly answered, “I love you an ungodly amount.”

Taking full advantage of that admission, I shoved the poor soul who’d shackled himself to me forever away as I ordered, “Go turn it on. I am craving shitty hotel coffee in bed with my fiancé.”

“Fine,” he resigned with a smile while rolling out of the bed, “Spoiled brat.”

“Your spoiled brat!” I shouted back from safe under the covers that I could finally get back in his absence. They weren’t as good as him, but they would be enough for now. I buried my face into his pillow, snickering as I heard a very tired Spencer call from the bathroom, “Forever mine!”

Just as the sounds of running water filled the room, I lifted my head at the distant sound of familiar chiming beside me.

“Is that my phone?”

I didn’t answer, paralyzed in my place as I felt the most intense sensation of deja vu I’d ever experienced. Right there on the nightstand, I saw the name Hotchner.

Spencer was quicker this time to leave the bathroom, but just as he turned the corner, a thought must have stopped him. Because he paused, staring at me with hotel sheets gathered around me and his phone against my ear.  

He didn’t try to fight me for the device. In fact, he didn’t move at all, watching from a few feet away with a smile I’d never seen before. The kind that I felt so deep inside of me that I realized this was what they meant to share a soul with someone.

 “Hello,” I spoke softly and filled with love, “this is Mrs. Reid.”

 The End.

—————————————————

Epilogue

[thisisgonnafuxkinkillme]

Pro Heros Find You Crying

Warnings: tw for body image, mentions of death of pets

Yagi Toshinori/All Might

You were home, alone, when you found out. It wasn’t a particularly big issue, and it wasn’t something that someone else would necessarily care about, but to you, this was the final straw. 

An actor from your childhood, someone who you watched constantly as a child, someone who, albeit from a screen, saw you grow up, passed away. You never got to even meet him in person. The closest you’ve ever gotten was him noticing your comment on a livestream of 12 other people, and smiling.

You never got to thank him. For everything he’d done for you. 

Tears fell from your eyes uncontrollably, dripping from your eyelashes and dropping onto the floor, your clothes, the keyboard. 

Soon, though, you felt dreaded sobs making their way from your core all the way through your vocal cords. They shook your body like an earthquake. Sobs don’t care what they break inside you. They just need to get out.

What no one else would understand about this, though, was that your tears weren’t just being spilled for the actor you never got to thank. No, these represent so much more.

Your childhood is officially gone.

Just as that actor will be grieved, buried, and will rot in the ground with dusty fake flowers above his grave, your childhood will be filled with maggots and worms.

The thing about childhoods, though, is that they still live inside you, even when they’re over.

You always found this fact a cruel one. Even now, you could feel the worms burrowing into your childhood, eating away and destroying all the memories you’ve tried so hard to keep in tact for all these years. 

You sobbed for him, yes. But you were still grieving your loss as well.

Cold, bony fingers met your shoulder. You jumped, yelping at the sudden touch.

“What?! What do you want?!” you screamed. You aren’t usually this ornery, but the embarrasment of being this upset over something so menial, plus the shock of someone else being home with you, caused you to snap.

"What happened?" He gently asked. He met your seemingly angry tone with nothing but pure kindness and sympathy.

"I-I'm so sorry, Toshi...I didn't mean-"

"I know, pumpkin. I know."

He took you in his arms, pulling you towards him.

In between sobs, you explained what happened.

"oh...I see... That does sound like a lot for you to be dealing with."

He stroked your tear stained cheek.

“But...I hope you know that just because you’re older, it doesn’t mean that you’re not allowed to be a kid sometimes. You can still get excited over stuff, and cry over things that seem silly, and have wonder about new things. As long as you keep a piece of your childhood with you, you never have to say goodbye.”

Once you calmed down, he took you out for ice cream: something you haven’t done since you were barely 10 years old. 

Aizawa Shouta/Eraserhead

You quickly clicked your heels into the staff restroom, closing the door behind you and shakily letting out a sigh of relief. You knew you didn’t have much time left before the tears started coming once you got that text, so you decided it’d be best for you to go ahead and have another teacher deal with your class for a few minutes while you let yourself deal with this, alone.

You re-read the text one more time. Maybe it wasn’t what you thought it was.

Y/n... I’m so sorry, but your dog was put to sleep today. 

You shook your head. No, maybe she meant to say that he was taking a nap. Maybe he was still waiting for you, at home, in his little bed...

A sob escaped before you had the chance to control it as you pictured his little black and white face peacefully sleeping on his doggie bed. 

You had that dog for years. He’d been there for you when no one else had, and though he couldn’t speak, you always knew he silently understood what you needed when you needed it.

Now, he was gone.

You covered your mouth, trying your best to supress the sounds of sorrow escaping your lips. Maybe, you thought, if I don’t acknowledge it, it’s not real.

But deep down, you know that’s not true. 

The door to the staff bathroom begins to creak open. 

“Hey, someone’s in here!” you croak out, the tears were even audible in your voice.

“Yeah, and now I’m in here too,” the teacher replied, shutting and locking the door behind him. Something you had forgotten to do.

It was Aizawa, the very teacher you had just asked to watch your students ‘for a moment���.

Before you could ask about them, he mentioned, “They’re fine. I put on a movie for em... but you, on the other hand, are certainly not.”

He took his place next to you on the dirty tile floor of the school restroom, against one wall. He handed you a tissue, noting but not mentioning the fact that you were a mess of tears, ruined makeup, and snot. You gladly accepted, blowing your nose.

Neither of you said much for a good five minutes. You forced yourself to calm down, as to not embarrass yourself in front of him, but the tears were still there, festering below the surface.

“So, what’s got you so upset?” 

That little question was all it took for you to break. You tried, unsuccessfully, to say it. The three little words, “My dog died,” but no matter how much you strained, all that came out was a mess of choked up sobs.

You shakily handed him your phone. His eyes darted to the text, and he instantly understood. 

Aizawa was not one for any physical touching, ever. Even though you had been dating him, he still never really enjoyed holding hands, hugging, or anything like that. 

Today, however, was a totally different situation. He turned to you, opening his arms wide, gesturing for you to ‘come here’.

But you didn’t need anything more. 

You did, and he silently cradled you, rubbing your hair. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know exactly what to say. What could you say? 

Once you began to calm down, he stroked your jaw lightly.

“What was his name?”

“...Theo.” you answered plainly. 

“You loved Theo a lot, didn’t you?” 

You nodded.

“You know, what’s so funny about losing a pet is that...it’s incredibly hard,” he sighed, “Even harder than losing humans.”

Aizawa continued, “It’s because we don’t have anything to gain from lying about loving them. We just do. Animals love their owners completely unconditionally, never needing any reassurance that you love them back a hundred times over. That’s not something that many humans have.”

You nodded.

“ I just hope you know that...you did your best for him. He couldn’t have ever asked for a better owner to share his life with. You did good, y/n,” he whispered. You shot him a shaky smile. Really, your heart was aching more now than ever. 

“You don’t have to do all that. I know you’re not doing well, still. Please, go ahead and go home for the day. I can take on your class, no problem,” he assured.

“...can you...come over after work?” you asked. He nodded.

Taishiro Toyomitsu/Fatgum

It’s been almost a year since this pandemic began. You wonder to yourself, how long can that be an excuse for you? 

You had gained weight. A lot of it. You suffer from secret binge eating, indulging yourself greedily in all your favorite comfort foods. Usually, you did this at night, which worked out even better for you, since your boyfriend usually had night watch and was not at home. 

Stretch marks were always a normal sight for you, ever since you hit puberty, but the ones on your stomach have started to move upwards, like vines trying to find the sun. They stared back at you in shades of purples, pinks, and browns. 

You ran your fingers over your now bumpy skin.

Other girls don’t look like this. Other girls are happy with a miniature bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, a granola bar for lunch, and maybe a tiny serving of pasta for dinner. They are the beautiful ones. They must be happy, right?

Your fingers unrelentlessly pinch and pull at your stomach, your thighs, your love handles. All fat.

Each tiny action reminded your body that you hated it. 

Did you even ever love your body? Even when you were ‘skinny’? 

Your eyes met with your face, staring back at you in your mirror. You saw flashes of the girl you once were, tiny memories of a once happy girl.

You couldn’t hold back the wail of grief that racked your whole body. You turned away from the mirror, curling up on your floor. 

That wasn’t any better.

The remanants of last night’s binge surrounded you. Wrappers from your favorite ice cream bar, discarded chip bags, and candy containers scattered your floor.

You suddenly remembered that he’d be home soon, and scrambled to collect all the evidence through your blurry eyes.

Each piece of trash reminded you of your failure, your lack of self control. Your uselessness.

You sobbed harder. 

“Y/n, darling, I’m home!” that peppy, familiar voice announced from the entranceway. You took a deep breath, scooting all the trash under your bed and wiping your face.

You greeted him, a faux smile plastered on your face.

He began to speak, but when he got a good look at you, he paused.

“What happened here, sweetie?” he asked, touching your face. His hand was chilled from the outside air.

“N-nothing. I’m fine,” you lied, forcing the smile a little more.

He squinted his eyes, sitting down at the kitchen table. 

“Go ahead an’ tell me what’s going on with ya,” he offered, patting one knee.

“Baby, it’s nothing. You need to go to bed, I know you’re probably exhausted.”

“The only thing exhausting me right now is you. I’ll go to the bedroom if that’s whatcha want, but I’m not goin to bed until you tell me what’s wrong.” 

Fatgum made his way into the bedroom, quickly slipping into his house clothes before sliding into the bed you both shared.

Before you could join him, he paused, adjusting himself.

He then pulled out a popsicle stick that you neglected to remove from the bed when you made it this morning. At the sight of it, you turned away from him and covered your face.

He was now wholly confused, but ready to deal with whatever it was that was upsetting you. He reached out, pulling you to him. You wanted to protest, but you couldn’t find the strength to anymore.

He rubbed your back in small circles, cooing, “let it out, babydoll...that’s it, good...”

Once you had calmed down quite a bit, he tilted your chin up towards his face, making you make eye contact.

“What have you been hiding from me, love?” he delicately questioned.

You said nothing, but slid out the pile of trash from the night before.

“This...is from last night,” you stated plainly.

You tensed your body, ready for the ridicule, the mocking, the ‘i’m just concerned for your health’ comments. 

You looked up, to see if he could actually see what you’d just shown him. He did. His eyes were dewy yet understanding.

He stood up, placing his arm around you and pulling you towards him.

“I understand,” he whispered into your ear. You clenched your fist.

“No. You can’t understand.” 

You looked up at him, with now angered eyes.

“You’ll never understand, Tai. Never.”

“What do you-”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO STAY FAT FOREVER! I DO!” you screeched, covering your face. You never yelled at him before, or anyone else for that matter. But this issue you’ve been dealing with was one that no one ever saw from you. It was a raw, bleeding subject, one that you felt as if you’ve just poured a great deal of salt on.

“Darling...” he whispered, pulling you close to him, “What’s wrong with being fat, honey?” 

“Are you kidding?” you spat, “I don’t look good like this, Tai. I don’t fit into my clothes anymore, I-”

“Number one, you most certainly do look good like anything. Number two, I will buy you new clothes.”

You were starting to get frustrated.

“Tai! I’m telling you, I fucking hate myself, okay? I hate my body! And, sometimes, I hate you for pretending to love something that I know you hate, too!”

He pulled you away from him, looking you in the eye. He was serious now.

“Don’t you be puttin words in my mouth. I have never ever, not even once thought about hating you or your body,”

“That’s a lie, Tai! How could you ever love me when I look like this?”

“How could you ever love me when I look like this?” he retorted, gesturing to his fat form. 

You gasped. You didn’t really have an answer.

He knew you wouldn’t, either.

“So, now tell me, y/n... what’s so wrong about being fat?”

You clung to him, apologizing in between sobs.

He hushed you, cooing,” There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, it’s okay. I love you, sweetie.”

You sniffed, “I love you, too.”

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Twelve Months - Good Omens fanfic

Happy 31st Anniversary of Good Omens! :D

To celebrate this momentous occasion, I have posted a slightly-sad, slightly-sweet Wake the Snake fic on AO3, because our demon has been napping for a whole Twelve Months, and sometimes Angel gets a little lonely!

Thank you all for another fantastic year in this fandom!

--

Twelve months.

Aziraphale pushed open the door to Crowley’s flat, a simple shopping bag tucked under his arm.

The lights were still off, the curtains drawn in the awful empty room he called a study. Nothing had changed.

He passed through the enormous, rotating section of wall and into the solarium. This was still bright—many of the plants flourishing despite being unattended so long, despite clearly not having enough water. A few had started flowering. They waved their branches at him as he entered, perking up eagerly.

The angel waved back, but first he peeked into Crowley’s bedroom.

He was still where Aziraphale had left him, on his last visit a month before. Bright red hair spilled across black pillows, grown into a stringy mop. Duvet pulled up to his messily-bearded chin. One hand curled up beside him on the bed.

Still asleep.

With a sigh, Aziraphale crossed over to the plants, who greeted him excitedly, unfurling their newest leaves, a few vines hanging down to brush his face.

“Hello, my lovelies. How are you all doing? Look at you, grown at least a foot since I saw you, I’m sure. And you! What beautiful pink buds. Very impressive.”

He didn’t think Crowley would approve of how he spoke to the plants, but the poor things had been so distraught on his first visit, straining to keep upright, trying to hide their yellowing leaves. So much healthier now, much happier for just a bit of attention. He picked up the watering can and gave them all a quick splash. He didn’t know how much water each needed, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“You keep it up, dears. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Picking up his shopping bag again, Aziraphale headed down the hall to the kitchen. The kettle sat on the island where he’d left it, and he quickly refilled it and set it to boil. While he waited, he pulled his latest creations from the bag: a small pumpkin spice cake from a recipe he’d been perfecting since fall, a lemon coconut cake, and a few apple cinnamon muffins.

Two plates—a muffin for each, a slice of the coconut cake for himself and the pumpkin spice for Crowley.[1] The rest went into the refrigerator, where they would never go bad or stale.

Aziraphale put the plates onto a tray, along with forks and napkins. Next he found two mugs and pulled the little tin of his second-favorite tea out of the bag just as the kettle boiled.

For himself, a teaspoon of the expertly blended leaves, steeped for exactly three minutes, resulting in a pale brown tea with a slightly spicy aroma. For Crowley, he dropped a tea bag into boiling water and let it sit until it was almost black.[2]

He carried the tray back to the solarium and selected a bright red-and-gold tulip that was nearly vibrating in its eagerness to be noticed. A moment to assure the other plants that they were still doing fabulously—particularly a self-conscious little succulent that had rather drooped over the winter but was making a fine recovery—and he once more headed into Crowley’s bedroom.

Crowley had rolled over, and now sprawled on his back, sleeping soundly. He’d apparently kicked a bit, too, as the blanket had slid down past his stomach. Aziraphale smiled as he set the tray on the chair he’d brought in some months ago and got to work.

“It’s wonderful to see you again, dear,” he started cheerfully, carefully rearranging the objects on the little bedside table. “I have a few things for you again, I hope you don’t mind.” Just enough space to slide the mug and the little plate. Perfect.

“I received a package from Tadfield again. Everyone wrote a note and then gathered them all together, really quite clever. They’re all doing well, if a bit bored.” The table was nearly overflowing with little items now, brought in by Aziraphale to cheer the place up. Framed pictures of their human friends, quarantining with their families, clustered in one corner so tightly you could hardly see them anymore.

He pulled the latest out of the shopping bag. “Anathema has started a garden,” he explained, pausing to show the photograph to Crowley’s sleeping form. It showed the witch, kneeling outside her little cottage, working on growing several rows of herbs. “I got the impression she was off to a rough start, but she hopes to send us some mint in the next package. Although Newt warned me not to expect too much, as they’d already forgotten which patch is mint and which is oregano.” He set the picture with the others, and slid the potted tulip alongside it. “I’m sure she could use some advice from you, when you’re ready to share.”

“Nnnnh.” Aziraphale spun eagerly, but no, just Crowley shifting in his sleep again, rolling onto his side.

The angel paused to pull the duvet back up to Crowley’s chin, tugging it straight and smoothing a hand down his back. In a way, his friend was nearly unrecognizable, with that hair and ridiculous beard, but in another way looked the same as ever. That was always Crowley’s way, of course, constantly changing yet somehow always the same.

He lingered, taking in the shape of that face, leaning close, lips hovering above his cheekbone—

Aziraphale pulled back, quickly digging into his bag again. “Oh! Ah, the, um, the children have been making projects for their art class. This past month was sculpture, and they sent us some. Look!” He pulled out four little figures of oven-baked clay. “Ah, young Wensleydale has made a very clever model of a train car. Brian’s is…abstract.” He turned the next a few different ways. “And Pepper’s is, ah, either a very complex symbolic representation of the Patriarchy, or…a troll, I think.” They just fit on the edge of the table, all in a line, a very mismatched tableau. The fourth, on the end, was the best, in Aziraphale’s opinion. “Adam made a little Dog, and it’s very well done, don’t you think?” The canine figure posed with one leg raised and head cocked, ready to play, but the shadow it cast was just a little too large, too ominous, for such a small creature.

With a sigh, Aziraphale shifted the row this way and that. “I sent a letter to Warlock, over in America, but haven’t heard back since Christmas. I believe they’re very busy with something. Politics. You know how it is.” When the Dowlings had left England, they’d planned to return for a visit the following summer. A global pandemic had had other ideas.

“In any case, that just leaves Tracy and Shadwell. I understand he’s decided to hate the concept of literacy this month, so no word on how his war with the squirrels is going. And Tracy has declared she will spend the summer making a fairy garden. I thought her sketches looked very promising, and she promised to send us an update in June. I’m sure you’ll find it charming.”

“Hrrrrm.” Crowley sank under the duvet, nestling down a little deeper. Aziraphale smiled, settling into the chair with his plate and mug.

“Things are loosening up again,” he explained, taking a bite of cake. Delicious, if he said so himself. Sharp and not too sweet. “People are getting vaccinated, shops opening up. It’s really a lovely breath of fresh air, at least when you’re not wearing a mask.” A long sip from his mug, then he held it, fingers tapping. “It’s been nice walking through the park again, just in time for the baby ducks. And that record shop at the corner, they’ve had some wonderful new additions. Which reminds me.”

Putting aside his mug, Aziraphale dug through the bag again and pulled out a handful of square plastic cases. “They had a whole shipment of those little records the Bentley likes. Modern music. I picked out the ones with the rudest names. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.” He pulled out the first disc and placed it atop Crowley’s phone. The device blinked in confusion a few times, then obediently copied all the music.

“Of course, it’s not all good news.” He stacked the rest of the discs atop the phone and returned to his tea. “Reopening means the customers are coming back. Yesterday, this one individual spent almost an hour browsing the same three shelves. And then he tried to make off with one of my books.” Another long sip. “Granted, he offered to pay, but still. What sort of establishment does he think I’m running?”

Aziraphale paused, waiting for Crowley to respond, not that he ever did. The demon’s eyelids moved a little, but no more.

Sighing, Aziraphale turned to his muffin. “You know, many times in the last year, I’ve wished you were there. Particularly during reopening phases. You could have posed as a customer, and then I’d be able to tell people I was at the capacity limit. Oh, and the people who would call to try and buy my rarest books. Collectors, or so they claimed, but then they just turn around and sell to anyone for twice the price! I’m sure you’d have some biting things to say about such people.” He smiled at Crowley’s sleeping face. “I’ve missed that, and your jokes. Rather more than I expected to.”

When his plate and tea were finished, Aziraphale set them on the floor and reached again into the bag. “Now, I have been attempting to teach my computer how to use the internet. I think it’s going quite well. Adam and his friends gave me a ‘homework assignment’ to find articles on recent news events, and I made the most wonderful discovery. Did you know that humans now share their news through humorous pictures? I printed out my favorites to show you.”[3]

He flicked through a few. “Ah, to start with, a few months ago there was this American politician with amusing mittens who showed up everywhere for a few days. It was extremely droll.” He leaned closer, holding them up for Crowley to see. “Ah, a few more from America. The murder hornets arrived, though by that point everyone had forgotten them. The election became increasingly confusing, and it all ended in a parking lot. For a little while everything was ‘This-or-That Total Landscaping,’ and before that everything was cake.” He showed a few extremely clever illusions. “I did try to make my own, but couldn’t manage it without miracles, which I felt was cheating.”

Really, leaning like this was starting to strain his back. Aziraphale shifted to sit on the edge of the bed, the better to share his pictures. “Ahhh. Also for a time everyone’s calendars were stuck on ‘March.’ And then earlier this year, a group of people learned how the stock market works, but sadly not how to spell it. The whole situation seemed very much like the sort of thing you’d be involved in. And…Oh, this angel from a television show was sent to Hell for…reasons.” He glanced at the shape beside him. Crowley had curled in slightly, pressing against Aziraphale’s back. “Yes. Various reasons. And then this musician, I suppose, went on his own. Both had many people extraordinarily upset.”

The next few images would really tickle Crowley, if he could actually see them. “The biggest news is that a large ship got stuck sideways in that canal in Egypt. Stopped half the world’s shipping for a few days while they dug it out! I’m sure you would have liked that very much. Exactly your sort of trouble. The humans were all very excited.”

The final photo was another of the ship, an image Aziraphale had made himself, printing out a blank version and writing on it in felt-tip pen. The hull of the enormous ship was labeled, “An eternity putting up with the tedious bureaucracy and frequently conflicting commands of my superiors until I begin to doubt my own judgement and sanity,”[4] while the small digger working steadily beside it was “Crowley.”

Aziraphale watched the demon beside him, not really expecting a reaction, certainly not getting one. He reached over, brushing brilliant hair back from Crowley’s forehead. “I think you’d have had rather a lot of fun last year. Or perhaps you’d have been upset you could only watch from a distance. Or…”

He’d leaned much closer than he’d intended, hovering just above Crowley’s forehead.

“Well!” Aziraphale stumbled to his feet. “I suppose that’s just about everything.” He picked up the tray from where he’d rested it on the floor, starting to re-load it with everything he’d brought in. Crowley’s cake and tea sat untouched, as always, but Aziraphale wouldn’t dream of skipping them. “We’re all very optimistic for the summer. Two months and everything should be just…just tickety-boo. Perhaps we can go for that picnic soon, if…yes…”

They’d made such plans for 2020. All the things they would do now they were free. Plans, and other thoughts carried in their minds, possibilities that would play out in their own time. Not too fast, just a slow, steady exploration of everything they could be…

“Well. Pleasant as that idea is, best not to—to plan too much, as the previous year made fools of us all. I just…” He turned away from the tray and watched Crowley sleep, hands clasped before him. “I miss you terribly. And I wish…very much…”

He picked up his shopping bag. One item still inside. The same one he’d been carrying for months, trying to find the courage to bring it out.

With a shaking hand, he reached in and drew forth a soft hand-made doll. He’d spent much of the winter on it. Simple white cotton for the head and body, wooly curls for the hair, and stiff white lace for the wings. Dressed in waistcoat and bowtie made from Aziraphale’s favorite tartan.

He still wasn’t sure why he brought it. He’d stitched several little toys, particularly a lovely black-and-red serpent with gold button eyes that had watched him from the sofa since November. But this, for reasons he couldn’t articulate, this one was for Crowley.

“I, ah…” He shuffled closer, doll clutched in both hands. “I made, um…” Back to the edge of the bed, one hand fumbling across the duvet. “…thought you might like…”

Crowley’s face stood out in stark contrast to the pillow, pale skin and bright hair. Aziraphale wanted to drink it in, memorize every detail, to hold him over until next month. The curve of his nose, the sharp angle of his cheekbones. His lashes flickering as his eyes moved. His lips, pursed ever so slightly…

“Bless it, Angel, are you going to kiss me or not?”

Aziraphale gasped, pulling back from the bright gaze of slit-pupil eyes. “You—you’re awake!”

“Nnnh. Half.” Crowley shifted, head moving across the pillow, eyes threatening to shut again. “Wouldn’t miss your visit.” One hand reached out, plucked the doll from Aziraphale’s unresisting fingers. “For me?”

The angel nodded. “If…if…you like it…or I could—I could just…”

Without a word, Crowley pulled the doll under the duvet and curled up, tucking it under his chin, a faint smile on his lips.

“If you were awake you—you should have said something! I’ve been going—going off like a fool all this—oh!” Aziraphale could feel his face turning hot as he recalled a few times his tongue had been a bit too loose for propriety.

“Mmmmmh.” The golden eyes were shut again.

“Crowley?” No response. “Crowley!” Aziraphale scowled. “Anthony J. Crowley, if you’ve fallen asleep again, I swear, I’ll—”

He’d do what? The angel fumed, but what could he really threaten? To stay away? Never.

“Alright then, I suppose I’ll see you in June. I’ve had several new requests for extremely rare manuscripts and I need to go pen some responses reprimanding these vultures for their cheek. I can—”

“You can stay.”

He spun around. Crowley had one eye barely cracked open. Gently, he pulled back the duvet, showing there was just enough space for Aziraphale beside him.

“I…I couldn’t.” But he stepped forward, not back. “I have business tomorrow, things to—”

“Just tonight then.”

His fingers brushed the mattress and pulled back as if burned. “You—you don’t really mean this, you’re just talking in your sleep.”

“Nah.” Crowley settled the doll by his pillow, making space. “Why else would I give you my key?”

“I…to…water the plants?”

“They take care of themselves.” Crowley held open his arms, eyes shut once more. “I missed you, too.”

Well. What could he say to that?

Aziraphale took off his shoes and slid into bed, into Crowley's arms. They wrapped around him gently as Crowley wriggled closer. “Mmmm. Y’r softer than the doll.”

“Oh.” He’d been called soft many times, generally as a way to imply he was a failure as an angel. But just this once, it made him feel rather pleased. “Soft is good?”

“Verrrry good.” Crowley twisted a bit, trying to find a comfortable way to rest his long limbs, and finally settled curled up against Aziraphale’s chest, tucked below the angel’s chin with a leg hooked over his knees.

The angel smiled. “And you’re…you’re noodlier than a stuffed snake. Err…”

A chuckle, just a stirring of breath across his throat. “Can’t wait to hear the story behind that.” Crowley nuzzled against his shoulder with a sigh. “Good night, Angel.”

Aziraphale swept the brilliant hair back again and bent down, pressing his lips to Crowley’s forehead. A soft, gentle kiss that made his friend smile a little more broadly. “Good night, my dear.”

Crowley drifted off again, burrowing close, as the angel continued to gently tease the back of his hair. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps tomorrow's work wasn't so very urgent. Perhaps a bit of rest would do him good. And perhaps...

Well. Don't plan too much. But for the first time, Aziraphale felt a bit of optimism about the coming summer and its possibilities.

“Sleep well, Crowley.”

[1] Crowley had invented pumpkin spice, and Aziraphale assumed he must like it. In truth, Crowley despised it, and regretted every autumn how it took over the entire world. He missed apple cider season. [2] Aziraphale had suspected since the early 1950s that Crowley secretly took his tea with several lumps of sugar, but would continue to pretend he didn’t know until Crowley confessed. Considering current circumstances, that was unlikely to be any time soon. [3] Aziraphale’s fax machine, revived after over three decades of disuse, had been somewhat confused to be asked to perform any task at all, much less to print memes onto photo paper with perfectly balanced color; but like the plants and Crowley’s phone, it couldn’t stand to disappoint the angel. [4] It was possible he hadn’t quite mastered this new form of communication.

[echo-of-sounds]

halloween pt.2

Small Halloween drabbles with Fatgum and Gang Orca.

Gang Orca’s focuses more on his anxiety but it’s still in the spirit of Halloween!

Toyomitsu Taishiro - Pumpkin Carving

“Tai!” you shouted, getting his attention from down the dirt path. He glanced back. “This one’s perfect for you! Come here!”

He hurried over, unhindered by the three large pumpkins in his arms. But the one you found was monstrous. It was perfectly round, beautifully orange, and came up past your knee. It was practically screaming his name. 

“Need some help?” he laughed at your attempts to move it.

“Yeah, but can you carry it with all those?”

“It’s no problem.” He easily picked it up and turned around. “Hope on.”

You jumped onto his back. He carried you to the pumpkin patch worker whom you paid. Then he brought you to the car, loaded the pumpkins in, and drove home.

An hour later, the carving kits were open, the supplies laid out for the taking, and the seeds were spread between you on the table, drying for cooking later. Tai placed the timer down, paused at forty minutes. “You ready?”

You popped the cap off your Sharpie. “Are you ready?”

He took the cap in his teeth, blowing it to the floor. “I’m ready to beat you.”

“Then start the timer, big boy.”

At the push of a button, the numbers counted down. 

Tai’s pumpkin was turned from you, hiding his design. You did the same but eyed his smile. He was too positive, too confident. You needed to win for no other reason than to say you won.

After quickly and carefully sketching the design, you took the saw and began carving. He was still happily drawing which gave you some assurance. It didn’t last long though. Carving the creepy cat eyes was a breeze. Shaping each fang in the jutting, high-cheeked Glasgow smile was absolutely terrible. Your fingers cramped, your knuckles stiffened, and your wrist strength dwindled. The last one-fourth might not get done.

But Tai just smiled on, easily carving his pumpkin with his stupid enhanced strength. He winked at you, probably knowing how much you were struggling. It invigorated your hand to keep working.  

You scarcely finished the final touches when the timer beeped. You shook your hand, trying to get some sensations back into your fingers.

“You alright?”

“I’m good. Ready?”

He nodded. “One, two, three.” 

At the count, you both revealed your designs. He carved a cute little owl into his. A few vines and leaves floated around its head. It was really adorable.

“Aww,” you smiled and went over to feel it. The edges were clean and the lines were sharp, flawlessly shaped and cut.

He patted your back. “Does that mean I won?”

“No.” You pulled away. “Mine's scarier. It fits the Halloween theme better.”

“But mine’s cuter and it fits the autumn theme better. I’m pretty sure I won.”

“I don’t think so. My vote’s going to mine.”

“And mine’s for mine.”

“Well…” 

Tai hummed, moving his pumpkin next to yours. The size difference made yours look like a baby, much like when he stood beside you, towering feet above your head, making you feel hobbit-like.

He asked, “If you’re not gonna back down, how're we gonna settle this?”

You leaned on the table, thinking, “Um… sex?”

“Gingerbread houses.” He snapped his fingers. “The store was selling kits beside the pumpkin carving kits. I grabbed some.” 

“People seriously can’t wait until after Halloween?”

“I guess not. Whoever makes the best, most elaborate gingerbread house wins.”

“Deal… then sex?” you smiled.

“Then sex,” he agreed, kissing you.

Gang Orca - Costume Party

The crowd was impressive. As hard as you looked, no orca fin or huge shoulders were insight. Best Jeanist was the next best thing. You went over to him, asking before he picked up a cupcake, “Hey. Have you seen Kugo?”

“I haven’t seen him in awhile. I believe he went upstairs.”

“Thanks,” you sighed and hurried to the stairs, already knowing why he disappeared.

The men’s bathroom door was shut. You lightly knocked, trying to urge Kugo to talk. He seemed to enjoy himself when you first arrived. The work party was filled with friends. You hoped his first Halloween party where he actually dressed up would be fun, casual, and brimming with laughter. But thirty minutes in, his demeanor changed, shifting awkwardly, glancing around at every pair of eyes, every small chuckle. His anxiety ramped up. That was easy to see. Yet he wasn’t responding.

You knocked again. “Kugo, can you open the door? I’m worried.” It cracked open just enough to let you slip inside. Water dripped from his face. “What’s going on?”

He shook his head. You gently touched his cheek, not wanting to be overwhelming, and whispered, “Kugo, please…” 

“I look ridiculous.”

“No, you don’t.” You embraced his side, watching him in the mirror. The vampire costume was standard and simple but also a classic. Plus, the Victorian gothic suit looked beyond attractive on him, highlighting his broad shoulders, hugging his strong waist. “Why do you think that?”

He only stared at his hands, no doubt repeating the self-deprecation in his mind. The judgment in his eyes was sad and obvious.

You softly grasped his fingers, kissing his knuckles, speaking just as softly, “Kugo, honey, talk to me. You were excited about this the other day. You said you were looking forward to dressing up. Can you tell me what changed?”

“They were laughing at me.” He withdrew his hands and felt his face- his nonhuman face. “I should have stayed home. You should be out there having fun, not in here worrying about me.”

“They weren’t laughing at you. They were just laughing. And you certainly don’t look ridiculous because of your mutation.” You held his cheeks, bringing him down so you could kiss his nose.

“I feel foolish.”

“You know you’re allowed to have fun, giant orca man or not? You’re so handsome and your smile when you were talking with everyone was even more handsome. You deserve to dress up and eat sweets and joke around.”

He affectionately nudged your forehead. 

“You missed so much fun and playing around when you were a kid. So let yourself be a kid again, even if it’s just for tonight.”

His tongue graced your nose. You kissed him back. He muttered, “Will you stay beside me for a while?”

“Of course I will.” You took his hand as you opened the door, leading him back out to the party. Out of everyone, he’s earned the right to relax. And you were going to do everything in your power to make sure he enjoyed himself.

[theplaguedoctorturnedmegay]

Main 6 and their fav date spots? 😍

Favorite Date Spots With The Main 6

Julian 🌹

Julian always does something different, but he loves to got to the beach more then anything

You spend the day before your date to gather food and supplies

Julian stands beside you while you dice the watermelon and his eyes never leave you. Not even for a second, he's terribly scared you'd cut your fingers.

The morning you leave he's terribly troublesome and hard to poke awake.

You have to shake him for ten minutes before Mazelinka gets her pots out.

The ride to the beach is filled with giggles because Julian LOVES the sea and he's excited.

"Y/N, I have to show you where the best seashells are!"

"Y/N I can't wait to get in the water, I bet it feels nice.."

" Its such a beautiful day outside"

His excitement doesn't stop when you finally get there

Julian wants to do EVERYTHING right away, which tires you and him out a little.

The water did feel nice, Julian was right.

He forgot to put the sunblock on again so his pale skinned is burned and you'll have to take care of him for a week.

He doesn't stop complaining about it, even after its healed.

Muriel 🌿

Your dates are never very big unless it's something special, or something you had been talking about for awhile.

Normally you do little things together

Walks through the forest, he hovers close by and makes sure you cant get hurt.

He picks flowers throughout the walk to braid into a flower crown once you sat down.

Muriel takes you to the same little patch beside water that he always does and you get to enjoy it together happily.

You dip your feet in the water together and lay against each others body.

He's timid but he's getting comfortable with you so the little touch's aren't as scary anymore.

Muriel builds the courage to compare your hands and intertwines your fingers once he's done giggling about how small you are compared to him

" You have little baby hands, Y/N"

All you can do is blush because his voice is so soft

After awhile of peaceful and silent snuggling, you walk back to the hut with brand new flower crowns.

Inanna is happy to see you

Nadia 🎀

Nadia's love language is acts of service.

She takes the day to tend to you, and you enjoy it thoroughly but she needs it to.

She bakes you your favorite treats, sends the guards to get that pumpkin bread you love so much.

She rubs your back and gives you kisses

Nadia holds you close and tells you how lucky she is to have you

" What do you want to do next, Y/N? The day is yours!"

You tell her you just want to hold her, and kiss her.

She suggests a bubble bath and you can't say no to it because the oils she uses always hit the spot

Its nice and warm and you love havi g her close to you

Nadia watches you close at dinner to see how you feel about her favorite meal and how well she did.

You're at a loss for words, this woman is extrodinary.

Asra 🔮

They like to take you on adventures if it's a big date

Low-key dates are usually just sitting together with tea and books as you sip tea in the shop, or mornings in cuddling each other for hours.

Vesuvia holds a lot of secrets and their determined to find all of them just to see the excitement on your face

They've recently found a little pocket behind the palace with a untamed garden. Its wild and beautiful.

The intricate vines and flowers hang around you two like walls, giving more privacy to the special place

" Do you like it, Y/N?" They coo

What was there not to like? The scene was beautiful, they even went out of their way to set up a picnic.

A small, knitted picnic blanket under you and pillows scattered around for more comfort.

They packed all of your favorites and they have really outdone themselves

Portia ✨

She's really busy with the castle so its hard to get a real date

Nadia gave her a day off so you know you needed to do something amazing for her.

You saved up money to rent a boat so she can live out her pirate dreams for a couple hours.

She's in pure glee

Her captains hat is too big and it covers her bright blue eyes. All you want to do is lunch her cheeks and kiss her lips.

Pepi had to come with to greet the crew she once knew

Portia is very orderly and even a little cocky, she wants to show you everything you need to know

" Oh Y/N You're doing it wrong, here let me show you.."

" That knot is all wrong! Let me give you a hand."

In the middle of the day you go swimming

Its cool and peaceful until Potia starts splashing you

You're a mess of giggles when you've both finally had enough

The sun is going down on vesuvia and you have one last suprise on your sleeve

A nice, romantic dinner on the ship.

You got her favorite whine, Mazelinka helped you make her favorite dinner, and Muriel happily made her a flower crown of her favorite flowers.

Lucio 👑

Lucio insists you need to learn how to defend yourself, and he, of course is the perfect teacher.

He wants to teach you how to spar and you hesitantly agree to it

This morning he's oddly enthusiastic

He's constantly getting close to you to "correct your form"

Its an excuse for him to get close to you and you know it, but he won't admit it.

He kisses your knuckles once you finished and hour of sparing and he explains he has a suprise

The suprise is a God awful painting of you two but you don't want to hurt hid feelings

He also explains he had the maids bring food to your room so you could have a quiet night of cuddling

The food is good, the cuddling is better.

[agustdomain]

October Ink | #3

Fall isn’t all fun and games. With your chemistry class weighing down on you, Chan knows just the right remedies to lift your spirits.

“So Coraline and pumpkin spice lattes. That’s our Saturday date?” Chan asked, ignoring his friends chattering in the background. It was funny how you could hear Felix’s screeches and Jisung’s swearing through two devices. 

Changing into more comfortable clothes, you confirmed his words. “Yup. It’s tradition. I usually do it myself, just to get into fall spirit. But now that you’re around,” You teased, smiling when he laughed in response.

“Yeah, I guess I can be pencilled in,” You could hear the humor in his voice, easing the nerves rattling your breathing since you’d checked your phone around twenty minutes ago. With that thought, you crawled onto your bed and opened your laptop.

“Okay. I’m logging in,” You let your voice drag out as you typed in your password, neck aching with the strain of holding up your phone. “Ugh, hold on. I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Okay, baby,” You smiled at Chan’s stuffy voice, familiar with the way he sounded with a full mouth (trail mix was your guess). Jisung was always yelling at him to stop doing it through his headset, but you found it kinda cute. “Just breathe, okay?”

You clenched and unclenched your fist as the screen loaded, letting you into your school website. Specifically, for your grades. On your way home from work, you’d gotten an email letting you know your professor had posted your grades for your chem midterm. If it was any other class, you wouldn’t have been struck with a wave of nausea like you did when you saw it. 

This chemistry class, in short, had been kicking your ass since day one. 

The only person who knew the extent of your stress was your boyfriend, Chan. Loving, supportive, always cheering you on. He had his own worries, so you tried your best not to dump your concerns all over him. However, he knew how freaked out you were over this. Your skin flushed at the memory of a few nights ago, calling him and crying about your fear of failing. 

No matter what you did or how hard you tried, you just couldn’t do well in this class. He constantly reassured you, tried to give you pep talks, but at this point there was nothing you could do but hope for the best. 

As you hovered over the class name, the sound of Chan talking to his friends on his game faded away. If you bombed this test, you weren’t sure if you’d be able to recover. Gnawing at your lip, you clicked the class, your breath hitching at the little notification on the grades tab. 

“You alright, baby?” Chan whispered. His voice released the breath you were holding, eased the tension in your shoulders. As long as you’ve known him, he tended to everyone. Everyday, you worked to make sure he was seen and loved. 

“I’m- I’m about to see.”

“Whatever happens, I’m here.”

“Thank you.” You clicked on the tab, waited for it to load. It loaded too quickly, so you purposefully scrolled down as slow as possible. Chris wasn’t talking to his friends anymore, but you could hear his fingers tapping away at his PC. 

When your eyes found the number, you wondered if your heart actually cracked. Pushing your laptop away, you fell back on your bed, covering your eyes with your hands. You breathed out, tried to tell yourself not to cry but only made the urge worse. Like a sudden storm that you should’ve known was coming, the tears fell. 

“Y/N? Baby, you there?” His voice was coated in concern, as if he sensed the shift in your silence. Swallowing thickly, you raised your tone, tried to come off nonchalant.

“I’m here. I’m fine... Don’t worry.”

There was a brief moment of silence, and you squeezed your eyes shut as you prayed that you fooled him. 

“Hey guys, I gotta go,” You heaved a sigh, hearing him say his goodbyes to his friends somehow making things worse. You were such a failure. “No, no everything’s fine. I’ll just catch up with you guys later.” 

He waited, and even without saying anything, you knew he meant it. There was a purpose to his silence, patient like he was reaching through the phone and holding you. 

You couldn’t take it, not right now. 

“I gotta go,” You whispered, eyes trailing to your laptop as you reached over and shut it. 

“Y/N…”

“I just need some time, baby. Just play with your friends okay? I’ll call you back in a while.”

“Okay,” You moved to hang up, distracted, but he called your name again.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

                                                              ~

A few hours later, you were feeling a little better. You had The Office and Chan’s sweater to thank for that. Cozying up on the couch, you forced yourself not to think as you let the episodes start and end, not touching the remote and turning off your mind. If you didn’t, you were sure you’d cry again. 

You didn’t feel good about being so short with Chan, but the two of you learned healthy communication over time. He was aware of how you got sometimes, and gave you space when he knew you needed it. You still felt guilty, because you knew he was worried. 

The doorbell rang. With a sigh, you got off the couch and dragged your feet to the door. Furrowing your eyebrows, you stared out the peephole, wondering why no one was there. 

Nervous, you unlocked the door and opened it a crack, peeking out. Eyes trailing down, your heart warmed at the latte on your welcome mat, a sticky note pasted on the lid. Looking out into the hall, searching for Chan, you picked up the drink and read the note.

I’m here when you’re ready. Pumpkin spice doesn’t need to wait until Saturday. Love, C.

Sipping at the drink, the sweetness filled your tongue, the tension in your body faded away- just like it did when Chan was near. 

He knew how to make you feel better even when he wasn’t here. 

Running your fingers over his handwriting, you closed the front door, a smile poking at your lips. 

                                                             ~

The next morning, you woke up to your phone going off. Blinking away your drowsiness, you tapped at your phone, seeing a new text from Chan. 

New surprise at your door. Hint: it’s not me. 

Suddenly awake, you threw your blanket off of you as you raced to the door, throwing it open. The smile bloomed on your face as you crouched down, picked up the pumpkin spice latte and stuffed black cat. 

You sipped at your drink, double checked to see if Chan wasn’t hiding around the corner. The note said, I figured you’d want your own Charlie. Three days until Coraline! <3

Snapping a picture of the cat snuggled up against the drink, you sent it to Chan. 

You’re the best, you know that?

Second best. 

No.

Yes.

I love you…

I love you too, Y/N.

                                                             ~

When you woke up the next day to the doorbell ringing, you were prepared. Jumping out of bed, you slid on your slippers and raced to the door. Throwing it open, your heart jumped, Chan nowhere in sight. Was he really that fast? Scooping up his gifts for the day (your favorite candies and another latte), you ran down the hallway, ignoring the elevator as you headed for the stairs. 

Just as you started heading down, you heard the door on the first floor slam closed. He was close!

You ran, pretty sure you looked terrifying as the smile on your lips grow bigger. Bursting out of the door, you headed to the front of the complex, looking both ways before racing down the sidewalk toward where he usually parked. 

When you made it around the corner, your heart jumped in your chest, ever excited whenever you spotted its owner. 

Chan hadn’t noticed you yet, and you sighed when his long strides relaxed into his normal pace, his hands in his pockets. His hair was messy like he just rolled out of bed himself, sporting his favorite red hoodie and sweatpants. 

Running up behind him, you yelled his name as your arms went around him. He jumped, reeling to look at you with wide and scared eyes. It only took a split second before a laugh broke out of his lips, his arms going around you. Looking at you with raised eyebrows, he said, “You ruined my surprise.”

“I was ready for you today.”

He hummed, trying to bite back a smile. “Were you now?”

“Mhm.” He pressed a kiss onto your lips, distracting you as his hands reached and snatched the drink out of your hands. “Chan!”

“Well, since you ruined my surprise, I might as well take this,” He twisted his body as you tried grabbing it back from him, crying out as he guzzled the latte. He stopped, exaggerating a sound of praise before handing it over.

Cradling the drink, you narrowed your eyes at him. “Latte thief.”

“Surprise ruiner.”

Dropping the act, you intertwined your fingers with his, swinging them between you two. His face softened, and it made you shy because… well, everyone said it. You could feel his love for you whenever he looked at you like that. The dimples helped.

“Thank you, Chan. I… I know I’ve been really down and not really as enthusiastic as I’ve always been.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about that. You can’t be happy all the time. None of us can. I just wanted to make sure you had something to lift your spirits, even when you need your space.”

“I loved it. These lattes? I need to learn to make them because wow. And Charlie? You almost made me cry.”

“Lattes huh?” You saw the idea forming in his face, knowing that he was concocting some plan to probably learn how to make them himself. Patting his chest, you leaned forward and pecked his cheek. 

“You are an angel.”

“Just like you, love. And I hope you know that this class? The one that’s making my girl so unhappy? It’s temporary. You are going to go on and do incredible things. You just don’t know it yet.”

Even with the doubt and disappointment squeezing your heart, the conviction in his voice broke apart those vines, planted a precious seed called hope. One that you knew he’d help in guarding.

“Well,” You looked off to the side, acting casual, “I’m kinda free today. I decided to call in to work. I feel like I deserved a day off. If someone isn’t busy… maybe we can watch Coraline?”

Chan tilted his head, humming as he feigned consideration. A big smile broke out as he wrapped his arms around you, picking you up and then setting you down. “Sounds perfect.”

“Like you?”

“Ohhhh,” He pointed at you as you both started heading back to the complex, “That was smooth.”

Throwing his arm across your shoulder, pulling you close, there was no negative thought that could creep into the oasis that you and him had worked so hard to build. 

Chemistry? You’re important, necessary for your major. But with Chan by your side, you’re not so scary anymore.

[hyucksong]

come on saturday afternoons, when it’s golden hour.| lee donghyuck

summary: Falling in love for a decade with a boy who’s as confusing as could be may be a mistake, but you’re too distracted by his nimble fingers making poisonous flower crowns and his golden honey-like skin to care. He seems too busy looking bitterly at the moon to forget to stop leading you on, too. So all is fair. 

word count: 10.0k words

warnings: angsty and talks about insecurity and lowkey obsession with a person

a/n: by the way; haechan is called two different names in this. he’s called “donghyuck” when he’s thinking about himself and when y/n talks, thinks, or references him. he’s called “haechan” when it’s one of his other friends interacting with him, and also by y/n towards the end. it’s meant to signify the distance she puts between him and herself. 

///

   Donghyuck is the son of the golden hour. He has to be, you think, because there is no one that embodies the epitome of sun-kissed beauty as well as he does. You are a witness to this ethereal beauty because you’ve spent your whole life living next to him. 

   It’s funny, his house emits the same beauty he does. The way the vines are overgrown in the prettiest way, running over the window sills and growing into the muted yellow-painted wooden paneling. The way the cracks on the sidewalk leading up to his humble abode are filled with yearning budding flowers instead of cement and milkweed. Even the sculptures on the pathway to his house are covered in beautiful vines that wrap themselves around the bodies of the solid stone art, silently suffocating their inanimate figures. To most, that may seem dull, but nothing related to Lee Donghyuck could be dull to you. In some strange way, you saw the beauty in his beat-down and poorly taken-care-of yard. 

   You remember the first time you met him, a decade ago, when you walked past your chatting parents into his yard. It was golden hour then, too, you recall, because you remember the orange light soaking your memory’s walls. You walked up to the kneeling boy with caramel skin; he was picking flowers from the ground in the farthest corner of the house lot, the only place the ugly flowers sprouted. It was a corner shrouded in dark shadow and it was noticeably a few degrees cooler there. Every once in a while, before he moved in, you’d pass by the old house and stare at the corner, feeling a somber feeling come over you. But somehow the boy lit the area up, warms streams of light flooding the previously cold patch. 

   He was picking weeds, lacing them together into a wicked flower crown. He paid no mind to your mud-stained sneakers stopping in front of him, he only continued on with his actions. 

   “You know those are bad for you, right?” The young boy stopped his movements, looking up at you for the first time. You immediately took note of his dark brown eyes with flecks of amber in them, almost getting mesmerized by their still gaze. 

   His eyes scanned you, not really caring. He automatically went back to his poisonous flower crown, causing an uneasy feeling to stir within you. “I know.” 

   Silence ensued, making the air feel suffocating. Despite his cold shoulder, you sat down next to him in the patch of mud by his side, not daring to cross onto the patch of grass he sad comfortable on. He seemed surprised but quickly went back to his indifferent facade, scooting away from you. 

   Hours passed as he made more and more flower crowns, and you simply watched. There was no conversation between you both, only a mutually appreciated quietness. It was when there was no warmth left of the sun, and instead, there was only the biting chilly air of the moon that nipped at your skin, did he finally speak again. 

   “Don’t you think the flower crowns are pretty?” He asked, his head tilted to the side as he held one out to you. You saw the intricate interweaving of the milkweed stems with one another, not even the hairy peach fuzz took away from the delicate-looking crown. You nodded vigorously, hoping to please him. And you did, because he offered you one of the many he made before getting up and looking at the sky. 

   “The moon is kind of ugly, don’t you think?” You looked up at him, surprised at his randomness. But, you paid no mind to it, opting to simply stare at how his nose scrunched at the sight of the glowing orb in the sky. 

   “Yeah.” No, you didn’t. You loved the moon, the way it shone beautifully. The moon was subtle beauty. Donghyuck (his parents told you his name) was obvious, infinite beauty. But you wanted to please him. 

   He smiled a little, “Cool. We agree.” You awkwardly shifted on your feet, only giving him a tight-lipped smile. He didn’t even show you out of his yard, and he walked up the steps to his house that had warm orange lights illuminating the bushes in front of the windows softly. Not knowing what to do, you stood in place, watching him walked gracefully closer to the door. 

   Before he fully stepped in, he looked back at you with an emotion that you could never fully recall, speaking in a strangely authoritative voice, “Come back tomorrow and actually help me make some flower crowns. At golden hour.”

   You went back the next day. And the day after that, and the week after that, and the month after that. Years passed and you’d still regularly meet with him in the back of his yard on warm Saturday afternoons. You never interacted with him outside of those times, and you were content with that. As you passed him in the school halls, only you would know the sacred time you spent together. You loved it because it was like having a little piece of him just to yourself.

   You were eight then. You still had the milkweed flower crown, just now it was pressed into a glass frame that hung across from the foot of your bed.

///

  When your legs started growing a little longer, and you noticed changes to your body that hadn’t been apparent before, you were eleven. You only realized you were going through puberty because the little patch of hair that started to grow under your arms, and the way you crinkled your nose when you sweated, the smell unfamiliar.

  Some would call you a late bloomer, but you’d disagree. Late bloomers didn’t fall in love early. Late bloomers didn’t spend their days counting the freckles on Donghyuck’s nose -- late bloomers didn’t love so strongly. You told your friend that you thought Donghyuck was cute, and she laughed at you, muttering how he looked like a pumpkin with his chubby face. You frowned, reminding yourself to get new friends who were nicer. (She was the same friend who told you years later that he was light-years out of your league.) 

  Donghyuck still seemed to be stuck in his elementary school days, his baby fat still sticking to him cutely. You found it endearing, the way you had to look down at him when you talked with him in the cool corner of his backyard. You didn’t mind being taller than him, it gave you the perfect view of his eyelashes casting shadows against his golden skin.

  “Can you stop staring at me and actually do something?” He sneered playfully, sighing dramatically and placing his nearly-finished flower crown on his knee. The surface layer skin was broken, little pellets of blood pooling. He had fallen at school, the mulch on the school playground rather unforgiving.

  “Geez, sorry.” You muttered back, a small smile spreading across your face. You pick back up your flowers, interweaving the leave with delicate motions, careful not to break the bonds. It was silent again, the only sounds the ones of the leaves rustling as the sun dove under the horizon.

   These were the moments you treasured with him. The ones where neither of you spoke and the sun would quietly dip under the horizon. The moments where you could stare freely as he paid no mind to you, off in his own little world.

   “Haechan!” A voice called from inside. You both looked up, stopping your ministrations. His mom walked out of the backyard door, a bright smile taking your attention. “Your friends are here!” With the mention of those words, the temperature dropped. You tilted your head in question and glanced at him, confused. “It’s Saturday? I thought we were hanging out today?” The words seemed to swim past his ears. Hastily, he stood up, his hand reaching for yours. The burn of his skin on yours was enjoyable but it didn’t last, because he suddenly started to shove you out of the back fence. You watched as his pearl white sneakers stepped on the flower crown you were working on, the white blood of the flower spilling out, soaking the dirt beneath it. 

   The image of him stepping on your hard work caused your eyes to well up, your bottom lip started to quiver. 

   “Hurry and -- What? Why are you crying?” You wish you could say you heard care in his voice, but it felt more like you were an annoyance, like you were a problem to be dealt with. You shook your head, not giving him an answer. He groaned, quickly looking back at the silhouettes of his ‘friends’ in the window. His eyes analyzed the yard, grabbing the first thing laying next to your shoe on the ground and shoving it into your chest. 

   “Here, have this. I got to go. See you later.” And like that, Lee Donghyuck shoved an enormous hoodie in your hands that still hung in your closet. It was so big back then that you could wear it as a dress, but now it fits like a large sweatshirt. Even after all these years, it still smells like the freshly cut grass from back then. 

///

   Donghyuck always had a habit of flicking his thumb and pointer finger against each other when he was nervous. You didn’t notice it until you were in your Freshmen year of high school, age fourteen, and he got called by the teacher to stay after class and talk to her. 

   He nodded, and for the whole hour, his leg was bouncing up and down. You decided to stay after and take a little longer to pack your things up before school let out for the day. After the bell rang and the students poured out the single door, rushing to get to the buses, he got up shakily from his spot behind you. 

   You didn’t know why he didn’t sit next to you, you distinctly remember patting the seat next to you on the first day of class, but he just moved past your seat to the row behind you. He sat down with Jeno, a boy you recall was on the swim team. At least he sat behind you, you thought.

   “Did you cheat on your test, Mr.Lee?” 

   Your eyes snapped up to look at the expression on his face. You frowned at his stuttering lip. “N-No.” 

   She raised an unconvinced brow, “Oh, really? Then why does your short answer look exactly like Ms. L/n Y/n?” 

   You saw his fingers start to move, anxiously flicking each other as he thought up a lie. You felt bad because you had told him he could cheat off of you before class; you knew he didn’t get much sleep the night before due to the soccer team practicing late that day.

   Shoving your binder into your bag, you quickly zipped up the large pocket and headed over to the teacher's desk, a shy smile on your lips. She was unimpressed by your interruption, opting to glare at you. “Yes, Ms. L/n?”

   “I’m sorry Mrs.Kim, but I heard you accusing Donghyuck of cheating,” she frowned at your choice of words, “and I’d just like to say, that it wasn’t him who cheated.” 

   A scoff left her red lips, and you couldn’t help but notice the wearing of the cherry red lipstick in the middle of her mouth. “That’s very cute of you, Ms. L/n. But he cheated off of you, I graded the papers.” 

   Donghyuck’s wide eyes stared at you, waiting for your next move. His fingers were still flicking each other rapidly, but his gaze was different. It looked like he was depending on you. Like he needed you.

   “Sorry Mrs.Kim, but I was the one who cheated off of him.”

   She didn’t buy it for a minute, “How? He sits behind you.”

   Your eyes did a quick scan of the room, hoping to find something, anything, that could prove your lie. That’s when your eyes found a mirror hanging in the wall buy your seat. You fought your smile, “Well, I looked through the mirror next to me.” The teacher’s head snapped to the reflection of you three standing at her desk. “I learned to read backward in seventh grade for a science project.” It was true. 

   With a huff, she quickly grabbed a red pen and wrote a big ‘0′ on your paper before dismissing you both to go home. She left after mumbling things to herself, something about “bratty kids”. 

   The classroom was completely empty, the sun was dipping under the horizon again, a little early this time. It was daylight savings time, you remembered. 

   “Hey,” A smooth voice let out. You looked behind you, tearing your attention away from the golden light pouring in through the windows and at the handsome smile on Donghyuck’s face. His baby fat disappeared, his shoulders got wider, and his legs grew longer. But he still had that same breath-taking smile he always did. 

   “Yes?” 

   “Thanks. I’ll be more careful next time.” You recognized a playful tone, you nodded and giggled at him. “Please do that. I don’t think my mom will be very happy about the zero for a test grade.” He flung his black backpack over his shoulder and stuck one of his hands in the front pocket of his jeans. 

   “See you on Saturday.” He let his hand gently grab your shoulder, before letting it fall and trail down to your hand. He gave it one squeeze before walking away, not sparing you a single glance. Your hand burned at his warm, golden touch. 

   You didn’t mind taking the blame, because he let you see a little part of him no one else noticed. It was an eye for an eye, you told yourself. 

///

   You were sixteen and hated parties. They always reminded you of some bad teen movie where the girl’s heart gets broken and the boy watches as she goes to someone else to console herself from his memory. But Donghyuck’s strange persistence was new to you, and you happily obliged to go. 

   “Y/n, are you going to the party at Jaemin’s tonight?” You quirked a brow playfully at the busy boy, smiling. “What do you think? Hyuck, I’ve never talked to the guy. I don’t know anyone who’s going to be there.”

   “Errnt. Wrong -- you know me.” He replied, a smile adorning his features as he tilted his head and closed his eyes childishly. You rolled your eyes, sitting back in your place on the white table set his mom had recently bought, stating, “You two are too old to be sitting on the grass and getting your pants dirty.” 

   “And you want me to go this time, why?” Donghyuck proceeded to put down his fifth flower crown and place his chin between his thumb and forefinger, thinking. “Hmmm, Oh, I don’t know -- because you’re my best friend and I want to take you places?” 

   Your fingers stopped moving, the plant temporarily forgotten as you stared, shocked, at an unnoticing Donghyuck. “W-What?” He had never called you his best friend before. Hell, he’d never called you his friend before. Some may have taken that as strange, but you considered it a weird aspect of your friendship. But hearing the words leave his pretty pink heart-shaped lips wasn’t good for your heart rate. 

   “What?” He shrugged, reaching over the table to push your forehead back with his pointer finger. “You didn’t think we were friends? After eight years?” You shook your head, a smile breaking onto your face. “No, it’s nothing. When do you need me to be there?”

   “On second thought, can you pick me up with you? At eight tonight? Oh, and bring your polaroid -- I wanna take pictures.” 

   That was how you were standing outside, your yellow polaroid around your neck as the flies buzzed around your red solo-cupped drink. From the smell, you were sure it was vodka. You crinkled your nose and dumped it on the owner’s lawn. Sorry, not sorry.

   Donghyuck said he’d meet you out on the barren back patio at nine, reassuring you that you could manage on your own for an hour and that he just wanted to say hi to some people and get a little alcohol in his system. You didn’t have the strength to tell him you didn’t care about his need for some illegal product -- you just wanted to go home -- so you nodded and agreed to wait.

   But considering the weather forecast stated that it was supposed to reach forty degrees by nine, your decision wasn’t the best. You sat on the concrete ledge, butt cold and snuggling into your hoodie that Haechan had given you so long ago. 

   When your lungs got sore from the cold air, you buried your nose in the warm hoodie. It still smelled like him even after all this time. 

   “Ditched, I’m guessing?” A pair of vans with black straight-legged jeans appeared next to you, and you couldn't help the jolt that left your body. A laugh sounded, “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” A boy you recognized as Jaemin, the host, sat next to you, a half-full red solo cup in his ring-covered hand. 

   “Oh, It’s...okay. You didn’t scare me. I was just thinking.” You shifted away from him, not too familiar with Donghyuck’s friends. His latter words popped into your head again, “and no, I didn’t get ditched. I’m here with...someone”. He noticed your pause and grinned, letting his gaze drop to the grass blades beneath his feet. “Relax, I’m not going to try anything.” He rested his arms and head on his knees that were near his chest. 

   “I didn’t think you were.” You assured. A silence that made your skin crawl ensued, but the attractive boy didn’t leave. “So,” he bobbed his head and looked around the yard, “who did you come with?” 

   “Donghyuck.” You answered, lifting the red cup to your lips, only to find that there was nothing there and awkwardly placing it down by your feet. “Donghyuck?” He questioned, “You mean Haechan, right? Lee?” You nodded, rolling your eyes slightly. “His real name is Donghyuck.” You scolded yourself for giving him any sass, poor guy probably just wanted to talk to someone. Though, you thought, there were plenty more interesting people inside the house where the heat was on rather than outside in the biting weather. 

   “...Yeah...” Jaemin mused, his eyes narrowing, “I know. I’ve known him since we were eleven.” This surprised you, and you whipped your head around to him. “Oh?” 

   “Yeah, I still remember going over to his house once and going into his backyard and there were a bunch of flower crowns everywhere. Not gonna lie, we poked fun at him for it -- ‘we’ being me, Jeno and Renjun -- it was light-hearted, though. But, turns out they were made by some ‘freak that lived next door that sneaked into the yeard.’ He quoted with his fingers, not paying any mind to the look that crossed your features. 

   Freak? Did he think you were a freak? 

   “How long have you known him?” He broke you out of your racing thoughts. “Oh, um, since we were eight. I’m his, uh, neighbor.” A startled wince appeared on his face as he muttered out an ‘oh’ and scratched his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t know.” 

   “It’s fine, I’m sure he was just playing.” Another round of silence and you were sure that the cinnamon-haired boy was going to leave, but he stayed. He was warm, probably from being inside, and it radiated off him onto you. It was nice, having someone sit next to you, for once. You supposed Na Jaemin wasn’t too annoying. 

   “So, how do you know Haechan? Like did you date or...?” His shoulders bumped into yours playfully and you avoided eye contact, hoping he didn’t see your blush from his prying. “No, we never dated, I’m his...” You stopped. 

   “I’m his...” you trailed off again, not really knowing what to call it. But, recalling his words from earlier, a giddy grin lifted the corners of your lips upwards. “Best friend. I’m his best friend.” Jaemin rose a brow and laughed, “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard about you...?”

   “Y/n.” You gave him a tight smile, not knowing what else to say. 

   “Y/n.” He repeated, smiling. “That’s a beautiful name.” A hand came down to pat your arm, and it felt strangely comforting. “Thanks,” you glanced at him one last time, “Jaemin.” A breathtaking smile erupted from you saying his name, and it made you a little happier, too.

   The atmosphere was idyllic, unusually so, because you honestly thought that you’d be spending most of the night alone. Looking at Jaemin, he was more of a cool boy, opposite of Donghyuck. Jaemin was like the night, in a sense. Cool, mysterious, yet open like the black sky. There was nothing to be afraid of with him. He wasn’t quite as smooth as honey and he wasn’t quite as enrapturing as the love of your life. But, he was warm in a way Donghyuck wasn’t. 

   But before your mind could wander more, a familiar silhouette of Donghyuck was cast onto the green backyard. It belonged to the drunken boy who stood in the doorway, a suave smile on his lips. Jaemin hesitated before ruffling the hair on your head and whispering, “Be careful.” in your ear before getting up to leave, grabbing Haechan’s shoulder and sharing a look with him briefly before heading inside. One last pitiful look and he was gone. 

   “What was that about?” You asked, leaning back on your arms to gaze at the glowing boy standing above you. He looked down at you and smiled. “Nothing, just reminding me to do something...or not to do something, I guess.”

   “Let me guess, you’re not going to listen to him?” The boy’s expected nod made you laugh and shake your head, “You know me so well.”

   “I know I do. I had to deal with you for eight years.” 

   “You deal with me? Isn’t it the other way around?” You were about to quip back when you remembered what Jaemin had said earlier about Donghyuck calling you a freak, and your voice died in your throat. Carelessly, he sat next to you, one beautiful hand threading through his hair. Donghyuck wasn’t looking at you, instead, he seemed to be glancing at his watch and swirling the smelly drink around in his cup. You could tell because you heard the sloshing. 

   “Anyway,” you cleared your throat, “why did you want me to bring my camera?” The boy’s eyes lit up and he smiled that heart smile of his that created daylight even in the middle of the darkest of nights.

   “I realized that we didn’t have any pictures together, and I kind of wanted to take some.” You scoffed, he was never one for sentimentality. “Uh-huh, that’s totally the reason why.” 

   “Fine, you got me,” He giggled, “Mom wants to make a scrapbook for your mom’s birthday coming up. She thought it’d only make sense to have both of us in it, but I had no pictures to give her when she asked for them, so.” He shrugged, “I’m killing one bird with one stone.” 

   “That’s not how the saying goes, Hyuck.”

   “I know, I’m not dumb.” 

   “Whatever, let’s just take the pictures so I can take us both back home.” This elicited a whine from Haechan and he plopped his head on your shoulder, making you go stiff. “I don’t wanna go yet~!” It was probably just you feeling guilty, or maybe it was his breath on your neck, but you agreed to take him home later. You could stay outside. 

   “Let’s take the pictures now! I’m keeping people waiting inside.” 

   “O-Okay.” You stuttered out, scooting closer to him. You still stopped a few inches apart from him and angled your polaroid to snatch a picture, but the boy chuckled and encircled his arm around your waist. He moved closer and placed his other hand on your face to squish your cheeks together, making a silly fish face. “Let’s make them cute for our moms.”

   He posed you three other times, one with his legs over your lap and your laughter showing through the overexposed pictures, one with you both stroking your chins in 1940s detective style, and one where you two were playfully staring into each other’s eyes, in a staring contest. After that last one, you shyly told Hyuck that you couldn’t take any more because you didn’t want to waste your film, but really it was because you weren’t sure how much more your heart could take with all his golden goodness.

   “Yeah, yeah -- one more.” He pouted, “Please?” You sighed and nodded slowly, secretly loving the way he giggled and clung to your loose arm like an excited kid. 

   “Okay, pose me, pose-master.” You dropped your arm to your sides, waiting for him to work his magic. He nodded and took your camera. “Hey -- ”

   “Oh, hush, I’m taking the picture this time.” You glanced nervously at his carefree hand holding the polaroid but nodded again. “Okay, please don’t drop it.” 

   It was his turn to roll his eyes, “Of course, your highness.” A giggle escaped your mouth and you motioned for him to continue, but he simply moved even closer to you than before. Your heart rate was through the roof but you remained still and let him do his thing; but, after all the shuffling, he made no move to move you, instead, he put his face right in front of yours.

   Wide-eyed, your eyes shot down to his lips before stuttering out, “W-What’re you doing?” 

   He put his finger against your mouth, effectively shushing you as you weren’t used to his warm honey skin touching yours. “This picture isn’t for mom. It’s for us.” You could practically feel his whisper on your lips. His slender fingers brushed back a piece of your hair, slowly tucking it behind your red ears. “Wow, your ears are so red,” he whispered, letting his palm completely cup your face. 

   Before you could ask what he was doing, his lips pushed onto yours.  His metal rings burned your hot skin as they slid past your face and he cradled your neck, pushing your lips deeper into his. It was feverish. Deliciously so. 

   Words couldn’t describe your feelings. It felt like a dream -- a dream you’ve had since you were eight. His honey-sweet lips on yours, stealing your first kiss. One hand moving from your neck to resting beside your leg as he leans in to caress you with his kiss. His warm breath fanning against your lips, you breathing in his scent that wafted off his clothes in the cold moonlit night. It was beautiful. It was saccharine. It was like candy. 

   It was addicting. 

   Then the camera flashed. And you awoke out of your dreamlike state as he parted from you, not noticing as you trailed after him, wiping your mouth as a thin string of spit connected you both. He didn’t look at you as it came out of the camera, he simply gently shook the picture and stared as it developed, sucking on his bottom lip in impatience. Once it did, you managed to catch a look; and it was ethereal. The light captured your red ears and softly interlocked lips, and Donghyuck’s collarbones, somehow, caught the camera light. His cheeks were red, and so were his ears, but they were so faint you’d have to squint.

   “Donghyuck --” You started, eyes shimmering as you turned towards him, about to ask him about the sweet kiss. There was a pool of hope growing in your stomach, bubbling like boiling sugar -- but it all drained as you saw his expression. Indifference. He looked at you like he always did, and his red flush was gone, the only evidence of your doings left on his lips as they swelled. The magical atmosphere seemed to diminish in thin air, and suddenly the cold was very apparent again. The wind picked up. 

   “It looks too blurry...but it’ll do.” With that, he half-shrugged and pocketed the picture, ignoring your shocked eyes as a corner of the picture began to dog-ear from being nonchalantly shoved into his jeans. 

   “I’m going to get some more vodka, I’m not drunk enough.” And he got up and left, just like that. No explanation. Nothing. But you didn’t need his words to understand that he didn’t mean the kiss like you wanted him to mean it. You just didn’t know what he meant by it.

   Not knowing his exact reason was what acted as bait, your heart was getting tugged by his hook. You were still ensnared by this glowing boy. 

   Even with the tears welling in your eyes and your heart pounding painfully against your ribcage, you still smiled. It was a painful smile, but it was a smile. 

   Donghyuck had kissed you. You. That had to mean something, hadn’t it? You pocketed that shred of hope, holding it close to your heart as tears fell from your eyes. They were happy tears. They had to be. The love of your life had just kissed you, no one else. You. 

   Your tears seemed to shimmer in the patio light: they were a golden color as they rolled down your face and off your chin. They fell into a grass blade beneath you and caused a blade of yellowing grass to droop.

   You thought it was beautiful.

   He gave the picture back to you the following Monday, ignoring your questioning state and simply stating that ‘He didn’t need it anymore’. You were about to ask him what he meant by that but his friend, Jaemin you remembered, grumpily waved him over from across the hall. You were too overjoyed by having the picture in your grasp to remind yourself to ask again. You two never did talk about that kiss, though, or about the pitiful gaze Jaemin gave you as Haechan walked towards him. 

///

   Donghyuck was not the type to ‘like’ anyone.

   It wasn’t that he thought he was too cool to do so, it wasn’t that he thought there was no one good enough for him, it wasn’t even that he was afraid of the love of his life falling for someone else. That’s not what he was afraid of.

   He was afraid of the sunspots, the imperfections of himself. He was afraid of being open about his insecurities. He was afraid of someone not seeing him for who he was, but at the same time, all he wanted people to see was his perfection. People thought he was good-looking anyway, why let that all be ruined by his emotional trauma?

   So when he turned eighteen and he started to look at your long lashes casting shadows on your face, and those luscious lips glistening from your tongue in a whole new light, he was scared. He didn’t like you, no, no, no. Surely not. You were just getting pretty, that was all. Your eyes were just getting bigger, that’s why it was so easy for him to get lost in them. Your body temperature must’ve been getting higher, that’s why the casual brush of your skin against his was burning him. You were just...changing. So was he, that was all. Man, was he going through puberty late, or what? All these unfamiliar emotions annoyed him. They made his nostrils flare; because for once, he wasn’t in control of his own emotions. 

   Not that it mattered too much, anyway. He wasn’t in love with you -- that was for sure. Love was much too strong of a word. He couldn’t -- not with all the things he’s done to you in the past, at least.

   (That’s what he told himself.) 

///

   When you were eighteen, around Christmas time, Donghyuck asked you to spend the night at his house for the first time. Yeah, you’ve been to his house before, but you’ve never stayed the night. He’s probably seen your room more times than you’ve seen his parents, both of them, combined. But now that you were half a year away from graduation, you weren’t as focused on having fun. Surprising yourself, you’d called a raincheck on the past three flower crown sessions. 

   And even more surprising, he turned up to your doorstep on Friday at eight at night asking you to stay the night at his house, a red glow to his face. Without thinking, you nodded and quickly grabbed your things before leaving your mom a note and rushing out your door to his house. 

   “Why’re you inviting me over, anyway? I’ve known you for ten years and you’ve never asked me to do this.” You were closing the door to his house behind you, making sure it didn’t slam shut. “Oh, please,” he threw his hat on a coat hanger, “I’ve seen your place plenty of times.”

   “Yeah, but I’ve never spent the night at yours. This is like a level up in friendship.”

   He sneered, “Never say that again. God.” You rolled your eyes, muttering a playful ‘whatever’ as you bumped his shoulder walking past him into the kitchen.  He faced the marble counters in an attempt to hide his smile, but you could see the corner of his lips quirk upwards.

   He dug through the cabinets, grabbing out ingredients to make pancakes -- or at least, that’s what it looked like -- and you were left to trail your eyes over his broad shoulders. His smooth skin disappeared underneath his graphic t-shirt that lifted up to reveal the pastier skin of his hip whenever he reached up. This boy had you entranced, and you loved it. 

   He hummed a tune that was barely audible over the clamor of the metal pots and pans he took out, but your keen ear could tell his voice was just as beautiful as it was as an awkward middle school choir boy, probably even better. 

   The silence was broken by him clearing his throat, “Neither of my parents will be home for the weekend. And...I felt alone so...” he shrugged, “I wanted someone over. And, you’re the closest, so...” 

   You could tell his face was red without even looking at him. You bit your lip, hiding your smile. You moved from his island to right behind him, peering over his shoulder. Summoning all the courage in your nervous body, you rested your chin on his shoulder by standing on your tippy-toes. 

   Donghyuck stopped, his shoulder stiffening as he looked down at you with wide doe-like eyes. 

   It was his turn to admire you. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, you were the most beautiful you’ve ever been. With your dimples and rosy cheeks, crescent eyes -- all of it. You were cute, he couldn’t lie. And he couldn’t lie about his shock and loneliness from not seeing you for three weeks. Normally it was you sending him longing looks in the hallway, but this time around it was him watching your joyous figure hop around in festive spirit.  

   The one thing he noticed most of all, was the fact that you were on the balls of your feet to reach his shoulder. He beamed at you, shaking his head playfully before ducking down to, ‘be at your inferior level’. You laughed, shoving him away from you. His melodious laugh rang out, making your mind spin. Even his laugh was priceless. 

   The hours passed by as you both ate your chocolate pancakes and watched countless movies from your childhood. Donghyuck was never particularly touchy with you, but this time his arm fell into place behind your neck and his legs were pressed against yours. You could feel his warmth through his black fuzzy sweats. If he couldn’t see your red ears, you’d be shocked. 

   “Can we go to bed now? I’m tired of watching these lame chick-flicks.” The yawning boy complained, stretching out his limbs and pushing the coffee table with his feet in the process. “Oh, please, you act like you didn’t cry for the whole movie.” You retorted, flicking him on the forehead before getting up yourself, reaching your arms to the popcorn ceilings, stretching. 

   Donghyuck watched your pajama shirt ride up your sides, your smooth skin breaching his sight. The boy couldn’t help but rub the shell of his ear in embarrassment: since when did he get so flustered over a little piece of skin? He’s kissed you before for god’s sake. 

   He’s kissed you. The kiss that he thought about over and over again these past few months, even though it’s been two whole years since the kiss. For some reason, he’d dream of your shimmering eyes and moist lips. He smiled to himself when he could tell that you didn’t drink any alcohol that night; you didn’t taste like rum. Donghyuck was sure he did, though. 

   As you turned off the TV and took the popcorn bowl to the kitchen, he pondered about what had changed about you to elicit such a shift in his own heart. Was it because you were no longer awkward around him? Was it because your eyes focused on your work, even when he sat next to you? Was it because you no longer looked at him like he was the most important thing in your life? Or, Donghyuck shuddered at the thought, maybe I like her now. That was a thought he scrapped immediately. There was nothing special about you. You may have been in love with him, but it was not the other way around. 

   “Hyuck, what’re you waiting for? Let’s go to your room. Oh, and can you help me set up the air mattress?” You bounded up his carpeted stairs as you called out, knocking him out of his trance. “Oh, wait!” He yelled, switching off the lights in the living room quickly before copying your earlier actions. At the top of the stairs, you were rummaging through his linen closet, muttering about the dust. “Y/n, I said wait.” “Why? I want to get it set up now so I don’t have to do it when I’m tired.” 

   “Because we’re going to sleep together? Like I did when I slept over at your house?” The blood in your body must’ve all simultaneously stopped flowing because your fingers went cold and you became rigid. “W-What? Donghyuck, we’re not eight anymore. We’re eighteen.” But the aforementioned boy didn’t pay attention to your words as he plopped onto his bed, mocking you. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m eighteen seconds from forcing you to sleep on the ground if you don’t climb in here right now.” His sass covered up his pounding heart. 

   One glance at his side profile, and you were convinced. You slid into the blanket that was he cuddled in, wincing every time your skin brushed his. He had to have noticed your awkwardness. 

   But, if he did, he didn’t say anything. It was quiet. His room was dimly lit and the moon danced outside the window as the cicadas hummed their enchanting tunes. It was official, you noticed, Donghyuck was out of his prime time. It was no longer a golden honey paste painted across the skies, but instead a cool dark-toned black and blue painting, splotches of white catching your attention. Despite the change of environment, you had never felt more tranquil than laying next to the love of your life. 

   Donghyuck was freaking out. He hoped you couldn’t hear the songs his heart was singing. He hated it. He hated this feeling. He didn’t want to feel this way for you. He didn’t want to love you. Love meant vulnerability. It meant communication and working things out when they got hard. It meant being honest with your flaws. 

   After a few more minutes of surprisingly comfortable silence, you reached behind you and turned off your light, ready to sleep. But at that moment, Donghyuck opened his mouth. Internally, he cursed himself. Was it the haze of sleepiness the moon cast over him that caused his heart to feel so pliable? He’d think about it later because right now he was finally letting go. Finally being himself. 

   “You know, I hate the moon?” The piece of information was familiar to you, so you nodded, hoping he could tell through his closed eyes. All of a sudden. he looked up, his eyes staring straight at yours like gorgeous ebony daggers. How ironic that he hated night, when his eyes looked like all the stars were twinkling within them. “Do you know why I hate it?” You kept silent, the look in your eyes urging him on.

   He turned back onto his back, staring up at his empty ceiling. He loathes this vulnerable and open feeling. Why was he talking to you right now? Why were you scooting closer and placing your head on his chest? Why was he allowing it? Why does he like it? “The moon is really barren. It’s just a gray surface littered with scars. Looking at it, I feel sick. The moon is... it’s vulnerable. If an asteroid crashes on the moon, it leaves a scar on the surface forever. It can never be healed or erased, even with time. But,” You heard him swallow, “The sun isn’t like that. The sun,” He sounded in awe, his indifferent and even disgusted voice he had when talking about the moon dissipating into wonder. “is strong. Nothing can hurt the sun. It commands attention and even mocks you as it does so because you can’t stare directly at it. You can’t get to close without getting hurt. It’s protecting itself.” His eyes were glimmering, and you couldn’t help but listen and stare.

   “If an asteroid hit the sun; it wouldn't make a dent. The sun would just swallow it -- unbothered. Plus, the sun is so beautiful. It’s a marble of strength with reds, yellows, and oranges dancing only for the sun. The explosions put on little shows for the sun’s eyes only.” He stops talking for a minute, seemingly collecting his thoughts.

   “The sun is like honey. It captures you; it captivates you. Once it has you in its grasp, you can never leave. It’s,” A smile broke out onto his face, one you had never seen before in all your years of knowing the boy. “enchanting. I want to be just like the sun.” 

   You didn’t say anything after that, because he dozed off. Little breaths left his mouth, and you laid there, thinking. If there was any Lee Donghyuck that you were in love with, it was the perfect golden sun version he described. Not the gloomy barren one who barely gave you glanced in the hallways in school.

   Maybe the sun was better than the moon. The moon has so many imperfections; the sun is perfect. It’s warm and inviting. Donghyuck is just like the sun. He’s perfect.

   He’s perfect. Was all you thought as you drifted off into dreamland yourself, satisfied with your conclusion that there was no imperfection on Donghyuck’s existence. You wouldn’t accept otherwise. It didn’t make sense otherwise.

(Could you not see his sunspots, Y/n? Because you’re about to.) 

///

   DOnghyuck had stopped talking to you the second you stepped out of the doorway to his house. That morning had been sweet, he told you good morning in a quiet voice and made you pancakes with cinnamon in them, he knew they were your favorite. 

   Your heart had pounded the whole weekend, anticipating Monday. Would he walk with you to school? Maybe even wait for you after school? Would he finally introduce you to his friend group? You didn’t know, but your smile was etched onto your face like plaster. Saturday was canceled, though, because he had to pick his parents up from the airport, but that was okay. You’d get to see him Monday.

   And when the morning came, he wasn’t home. Apparently, he left early for the club, his mom had told you. You nodded and frowned at her words, turning on your heels and walking to school with a slightly downtrodden face. You still have the afternoon! Don’t worry! The angel in the back of your head assured you, replacing that frown with a toothy grin before you entered your classroom doors.

   Yet, here was the end of the day, and here you were at your locker, taking books out to bring home with you, sighing. You hadn’t seen him at all. Maybe he was just slipping your slight, but a scary feeling in your stomach rose. Was he avoiding you? 

   “Hey, Y/n.” 

   The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end and you turned around, “Jaemin, you scared me.” A chuckle left the boy's lips, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to. Just wanted to say hi.” You closed your locker, turning your body to fully face him. “Sure you did; nice to see you again, Jaemin. Is there something you need?” 

   The pretty boy’s brows furrowed, “Ah, yes, actually. Um, did you say something to Haechan recently? He’s been acting weird all day.”

   “He’s here today! I didn’t see him at all! Is he okay? The last time I saw him was Saturday morning when I left his house.” Jaemin’s face looked shocked, “I stayed over for a sleepover, nothing else.” You laughed, shaking your head at the boy. “O-Oh, I knew that.” He tried. 

   “I just thought you said something to him because he’s had a dazed look in his eyes all day. His responses in the group chat are really dry, too.” You pursed your lips, “He doesn’t text me, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. He was fine when I left Saturday morning.” 

   “Alright then. Anyway, I was wondering if--”

   “Hey, Y/n. Jaemin?” The voice that melted your heart for ten years appeared beside you, scaring the daylights out of Jaemin, who clutched his heart before sighing out loud. “Dude, you could’ve said something.”

   “I did, though?” Donghyuck smirked, one hand gripping the straps of his backpack before looking at you. 

   “Y/n.”

   “Hyuck.” You both spoke at the same time, Haechan’s eyes glimmered, and he ushered you to speak first, something he’d never done before. “Donghyuck,” your eyes traced his subtle features, landing back at his eyes. “What you said on Friday...you’re like the sun, you really are. Honey-like skin and all. You’re perfect, Donghyuck. ” 

   Donghyuck swore that his blood stopped flowing in his body. He felt his smile fall and his facial muscles tense, his fingers tightened around his bag before he scoffed, blinking a few times to make sure he was processing your words properly. You thought he was perfect? Did you not even listen to him on Friday? 

   One look back at your shining eyes, he knew the answer. You didn’t. Of fucking course, you didn’t. How could he ever expect you to understand him when all you’ve proven is that you’re blindly and stupidly in love with him? How could you understand him when he never let down his walls for you? Hell, even when he did, you never understood.

   “You're pathetic.” The unfamiliarly venomous words leave his mouth before he can think them over in his head. You blink back in shock, confused. Hurt. “Excuse me? W-What?”

   “I said -- you’re pathetic. You must be a fucking mole rat to be that blind. You don’t know shit about me.” His insults kept spilling out of his mouth, both you and Jaemin sitting there shocked. When he was finally done, you were still standing there, in front of your locker, processing his hurtful words.

   What the hell? You were mad. Scratch that, you were livid. You had been by his side for so long, yet he had the nerve to call you pathetic? But you were so confused too because he had spilled his guts to you on Friday. He had called you his best friend, he had made flower crowns with you for almost every Saturday for the past decade. He had kissed you. He had fucking kissed you. 

   Your state of mind was still frozen, but you managed a few words to get out while you dwelled on his hatred. Your gaze was still trained on the ground, unfocused and blurry. “Why did you kiss me, Donghyuck?” Donghyuck thought your voice sounded strangely calm, but one look at your face and he knew what was going on in your head was anything but. 

   Glazed-over wet eyes, a tense jaw, red cheeks (from embarrassment and hurt, he guessed), erratic breathing, nervously fingering the straps on your bag. You weren’t calm. Were you hurt? Shocked? Pensive, rethinking every moment you’ve ever known him? Donghyuck didn’t know what effect his words had on you this time. Part of him wanted to break out into a blinding smile and tell you he was joking, and then go back to never talking to you again. Cancel the Saturdays. Move out of the house. Move to another country. Another continent. Pretend like he never knew you. His words hurt you, yes, he knew that much, but your words dug into his heart like the daggers dragging on a stone wall, forever etching a scar. 

   Why did Donghyuck kiss you? The answer was simple in your mind -- he had been drunk that day. He had been drinking vodka, anyway, he had reeked of illegal drinking. But drunk actions were truthful thoughts, you believed. So you held onto that frayed string of hope, clutching on for dear life, praying -- that he liked you like you loved him. 

   Why did Donghyuck kiss you? The answer was complicated in his mind -- he had never loved you before. Hell, he had never loved anyone before. He just wanted to kiss you to win a bet and, like the stupid highschool boy he was, he did just that. Stole your first kiss. At some point after that, probably when you stopped spending as much time with him, he realized that you had left a mark on his heart. He hated it; he hated the thought of liking you. But absence had made his heart grow fonder. A year and a half after the kiss, he was ‘in like’ with you, maybe even in love. He spilled his guts to you that Friday night, hoping you’d get him. Hoping you’d nurse his wounds, his scars of insecurity. Hoping that you’d accept him, moon and all. He held onto that frayed string of hope, clutching on for dear life, praying - that you’d get him like he hoped you did. 

   But alas, even after a decade of golden Saturdays spent together, you didn’t get him like he had hoped. And he didn’t like you the way you loved him. Then again, he never really let you in to meet the real him. But you never really knocked on the door to his heart either. 

   He didn’t know how to respond. But one look at the stance Jaemin was taking -- crossing his arms with raised brows behind you, your own tears pooling at your waterline -- he decided.

   He decided anger. “God, I don’t know! Can you stop asking me such dumb questions? I was just curious Y/n! God, fuck! I don’t know!” Donghyuck ruffled his hair, irritated. 

   “Haechan,” Jamin’s nostrils flared, breath hot with hatred, “you know. You know, Haechan.” Your eyes darted over to Jaemin, dazed, then back to Donghyuck, weary. “Fine!” He exasperated, “there was a bet that I couldn’t kiss a random girl at the party. No one knew that I knew you, so I asked you to come with. I was drunk, okay. I- I wasn’t thinking straight.” The truth scraped his tongue on the way out; he felt guilty, taking your first kiss, taking a picture for proof, and then acting like nothing ever happened. He was sure he had broken your heart then. But he didn’t care at that time. 

   “Some random girl? You--” You paused, a painful and breathy laugh leaving your mouth, “You’ve never thought of me as anything more than a freak, have you Donghyuck? I was your embarrassment, wasn’t I? I was your dirty little secret you used for your fucking insecurities, wasn’t I?” The words attacked Donghyuck, and he hated it. He hated them because they were true. 

   “You’re overreacting! It was just a kiss!” He yelled, trying to defend what was left of his shriveling dignity. The devil on his shoulder urged him on -- that you really were overreacting. That you should’ve never fallen in love with him in the first place; that it was all your fault for not understanding him. 

   “It wasn’t just a kiss Donghyuck! I’ve loved you for years! Can’t you tell?” Salty tears dripped down your face, leaving cold tracks of water in their wake. The boy in front of you clenched his fists. “Actually, don’t answer that. You knew. You just used me. You always kept just enough hope to keep me going. Just enough. Well, Haechan. Fuck you, hope you’ve got what you’ve wanted.” The name his other friends called him felt weird coming from you, and he visibly winced at the way you spat out a distant name. There was a swell of pride deep in your soul, that he was getting a taste of his own medicine.

   “YOU CAN’T JUST BLAME ME! You never tried to understand me either! I was just a perfect boy with no flaws to you! Do you know how that feels?” No, you didn’t. He was right in that sense. You had never really noticed his flaws, he was a blurred photo to you. He was beautifully perfect in the still moment, but in real life, he was just like any other person. You had to admit, your obsession with his love had blinded you. And that wasn’t fair to him.

   But neither was leading you on for years.

   “THAT DOESN’T MEAN YOU LEAD SOMEONE ON FOR A DECADE!” Silence fell over you two, Jaemin shifting in discomfort behind you. You’d forgotten he was there. 

   “I--” He started to yell, stopping. “But I liked you too.” He thought to himself, digging his nails in his palm to stop the words. “I don’t get you.” Calmly, he fixed his bag on his shoulder, turning to leave. His feet kept going. One. Two. One. Two. Walk straight ahead, don’t look back. 

   He heard you scoff behind him, “Likewise, you bastard.” 

   The sun, look at it. Be like the sun, consume what hurts you, and move on. Donghyuck gulped, your words exploding against his heart like sun flares blazing against the surface of the star. Tears finally fell on his honey face. Donghyuck was sweaty, hot, and emotional. He felt sticky, he felt disgusting. He just wanted to get home and take a shower, wash off the memories of the decade he had known you. Watch them whirl around the drain, never to be seen again. He wanted to forget ever knowing you. 

///

   Months had passed, the school year ended, giving way to summer. Graduation went smoother than expected. You walked the stage with confidence, you personalized cap and gown making people marvel. There was a moon on your hat, and on your heart. You had always preferred the moon to the sun, anyway. 

   Saturdays took a while to get used to. It was lonely for a while. That was, until Jaemin had invited you to hang out. You had thought about declining, but in a moment of disregard for your moping self, you had accepted. You asked if he was still friends with Haechan, and he smiled. 

   “Yeah, it’s a little tense though. But it’ll make you happy to know that he’s changing for the better.” It did make you happy. Bitterly so, though, because it took breaking your heart for a decade to teach him a lesson. 

   Then, later, you declined Jaemin’s date. He was bouncing his knee, timidly asking to take you out, and not as friends. You bit your lip, apologizing, you weren’t ready. He understood. He walked you home, and you gave him a smile in return. 

///

   Walking into your room, you sighed. You had spent little time in your room since your fight with Haechan, everything reminded you of him in here. Most of your time spent was in the living room, lounging on the couch, working on college applications at the dining table. 

   You glanced at the boxes in the corner of your room, they were begging you to hurry and pack up your things for college next week. You decided to listen to them and not procrastinate, picking a box up and opening your drawers, folding clothes neatly in the small space.

   Daylight was shifting into a golden spray, your room turning hues of orange and yellow. Suddenly, the barrenness of your room became apparent. The clutter was less now, and few things caught your eye.

   One of the things was the glass-framed milkweed flower crown hanging across from your bed. You sighed, it slipped your mind that milkweed was poisonous. 

   Your heart squeezed as you stood on your bed to take it down, holding it in your hands for a few seconds, admiring how the plant was still clinging onto green when it hadn’t touched water in years. Softly, you threw the flower on your bed. Taping up the last of the boxes you were taking with you, you picked up one last small box.

///

   “Tell me if you need anything, sweetie!” Your mom called out, she had always been jolly. Donghyuck loved your family. He loved how blissfully unaware they were of your and his relationship, or friendship, if you could call it that anymore. Donghyuck felt strange standing in your empty room. Apparently, you had left that morning for college, wanting to drive on your own. Your parents were going to meet you up there with the rest of your stuff. 

   Donghyuck had visited your house under the disguise that he had left something in your room that he was wanting to take to college with him. There wasn’t, he just wanted to see your room (and possibly, you) one last time before he left. Disappointment had flushed through him when he was told you were gone already, but there was also relief. What would he have said to you, anyway? Sorry? That was like putting a bandaid on a gaping wound. 

   It felt like it was missing something. He took notice of the missing frame that used to hang above your bed. He huffed, not focusing on the pinch his heart was experiencing. His gaze landed on a brown box that sat on your sheet-less bed. Curiosity got the best of him, and he made his way towards the middle of the room. His hand hesitated before taking the lid off the box.

   Donghyuck saw the hoodie he gave you that one day when you were eleven when you started to cry about him asking you to go home early because his friends were coming over. He had given you the hoodie to stop your loud ugly sobbing, and to keep the other boy’s attention from seeing the evidence of you and him making flower crowns. 

   Donghyuck saw the polaroid of you and him kissing during on that cold night that one day when you were sixteen. He could make out the smile behind the kiss and his red ears that blended into the monochromatic red and orange splotches, though it could've been easily mistaken for a drunken hue. 

   Donghyuck saw the glass frame with the flower crown he gave you that one day ten years ago. His heart tightened before bursting with emotions he didn’t know he had. Regret. Sorrow. Desperation.

   Finally, his gaze landed on an orange sticky note stuck to the very bottom of the box with messy words scribbled onto it that read, ‘golden hour doesn’t last forever.’ His tears fell onto the glass frame, the wetness slowly slipping off the edge of the clear crystal like honey and onto the dusty and scuffed wooden floors.

   ’Why am I crying?’ He thought. He fiddled with the glass frame one last time before rushing out the memory-filled house. Dashing back into his own abode, he ignored the corner of his yard that stared back at him like a bitter ex-lover. It was overgrown now, having not been touched for months. Green vines growing onto the white table you two used to sit at, the milkweeds prospering in the dingy corner that was always a few degrees cooler than the rest of the grassy yard. 

   Oh Donghyuck, it’s because you loved her. 

///

[eternalstrigoii]

Salt of the Sea - I

Part of the U.W. ‘verse Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Desert Warrior Dark Fey Reader; Maleficent x Diaval; Shrike x General Percival; Philip x Aurora; King John adopted everyone

                       A great battle warred in the courtyards of Ulstead.

Iron armor fended off fey wing, though gouged deeply from talon-claws. Those fighting were not unarmed this time – you wore a chest plate made of bronze over one of the spider-silk shirts Queen Aurora had woven for you. It was equally resistant to penetration, and for that, you were grateful.

Because Percival was a terrible shot.

King John’s – or, rather, Queen Aurora and Prince Philip’s – royal guard trained with your people on as frequent of an occasion as time allowed. They were nothing like you; they relied too heavily on their weapons and their armor. They had yet to learn to move like limbs of the same beast.

You and Borra did not have that problem.

You had fought for so long with him at your back that he knew when to hold out his hand so you could hook your arm through his and splay your massive wings. You threw your weight over his back, slamming your bare feet into the iron shields of the men that sought to overtake you. He righted immediately, blocking the sweep of Percival’s shield.

Aurora watched intently from one of the palace’s grand balconies with a child in either arm.

Your new, bronze gauntlets deflected blows much better than the leather ones. You hadn’t noticed the deep gash someone’s sword had cut when you’d crossed them before you the last time you play-fought. You’d felt the bite of iron on your skin and smiled with far too many teeth, but, still, John insisted upon the upgrade. (It delighted you far too much to watch the blood drain from their faces.)

One sword deflected from them, then another; your fist connected with someone’s face, and the whole three guardsmen training with you took a collective step backward. You pursued them anyway, kicking the dazed center one’s shield.

You heard the sizzle of iron in contact with Borra’s skin, and you knew he’d disarmed Percival again. He held the tip of Percival’s blade under his chin with a wild, wicked smile before tossing it down in the loose stone just as Philip had nearly a year before.

“You need to trust them,” he said, much more patiently than you’d thought he would. “If you don’t trust your men, you’ll die in battle.”

“He doesn’t have that problem with his faerie wife,” the man whose nose you’d broken said, and you smelled the flush that immediately took hold of Percival’s skin.

“Then Shrike will fight with you next time.” He turned, his eyes skimming over you before lifting to the others, “Next time, there will be more of us and more of you. You’ll learn to fight together.”

“Ain’t she about ready to pop?” one of the swordsmen asked.

You were a warrior, trained nearly from birth. The swell of your belly didn’t slow you down, not even when the child inside started to squirm and writhe – just as he did then, like he knew he’d been acknowledged.

“Not until harvest,” you replied, with no lacking measure of irritation.

Aurora, particularly, worried for you, though John and Philip had never seen a warrior of your caliber continue to fight. Your child was strong, this time; there was no poison in the water that fell in the moors’ peaks where you’d relocated. To be closer to Maleficent, you’d joked.

Borra rested his hand on your belly at one of your child’s favorite kicking spots, and their persistent movement made you sigh with theatrical exasperation. You dropped your head against his shoulder. “They’re trying to fight their way out.”

“Borra’s child already has an appetite for war,’ Percival joked.

He grinned so largely that the sun glinted off his sharp teeth, and the swell of pleasure in your heart became a tidal wave. “They can’t wait to meet you,” he murmured in your ear, then pressed a kiss to the apple of your cheekbone.

“They’re hungry,” you replied, deadpan-teasing. “So am I.”

“Come dine with us!” Aurora called from the balcony. You were starting to suspect some of Maleficent’s magic was rubbing off on her, the way she listened in.

You sighed fondly, your eyes still locked with Borra’s.

He grinned and tilted back his head. The sun glinted off the gold freckles in his skin and summoned your fingers to trace their path from his temple to his jaw. “Is that an order, daughter of Maleficent?”

“It’s a please,” she replied.

“Goat and turnips?” Percival asked, drawing the sharpness of your gaze.

He grinned. He’d eaten with you enough to know what sort of habits you’d fallen into. But, yes – goat, turnips and agave were your child’s favorite things (although with the variety of food in the palace, you truly could’ve fixated upon anything). It was in your best interest, and the best interest of your people, to decline lest you find a new and even less appealing vegetable to enjoy.

Shrike already had words for you about the turnips.

“Come.” He grinned at the both of you. “There’s a region in the East that’s already grown large pumpkins. Have you ever had one before?”

You’d found that, sometimes, they called things you were familiar with something different – like roast duck and herbed fish. You shrugged, and pretended not to notice Aurora’s retreat into the palace to join you.

“Must it be inside?” you asked.

“Nah, we’ll move the party out onto the veranda.”

You gave him another frustrated look. He knew you had no idea what in stars he was saying, and he did this only to you. He was kind to Shrike and too afraid of Borra (not that Borra didn’t laugh at your response from time to time).

“The balcony,” he clarified. “The one next to the dining hall.”

You growled at him just because you could, and it did nothing to faze him.

His men followed, one limping, one still holding his bloody nose.

“They aren’t wrong.” Borra kissed your jaw, his hands remaining in the cradle he’d made under your belly. “We’ve fought hard for them. You deserve peace as much as the rest of us.”

“I won’t be shelved because I’m carrying our child. I’m not Aurora.” Not fragile and delicate like she was. Your skin was like stone, and you wore stronger armor now – armor with bands that adjusted so even your growing child was safe.

“I haven’t asked you to be.” He kissed you again. “Just be careful. Hm? I love you.” Yet another kiss to your lips made them quirk with a smile. You kissed him in return. “You’re always at my side, Suren. That will never change.”

“If I don’t fight with you, Aurora will start making flower crowns and expecting me to wear them,” you said with exceptional gravity, as though it was the worst possible punishment you could think of. “She’ll have her pixies tailor gowns for me.”

He gave you a playful little growl. “Spider-silk wedding dress. Crown of roses in your hair.”

You swatted his armored shoulder. “You’re not supposed to like it!”

He had no reason to gather you into his arms, but he did, and you had half a mind to put on an act and pretend to be his damsel princess. You linked your fingers behind his neck and fluttered your wings with false helplessness, and fresh, warm laughter bubbled from him. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“I am careful.”

He quirked a brow.

“I promise.”

There was no changing the way he felt. You knew what manner of man you loved well before he lobbied for Maleficent – before you heard the fury in his voice when he told the others of the council that she’d been shot, that humans would find her, that if Conall hadn’t found her, she would be dead.

You hadn’t trusted her then. Almost none of you had. But Borra was right, and he always was – she was what would save you. She had saved you all. And the child she raised brought justice with your peace.

You let him carry you to the veranda (a word you thought with an internal sneer), the great, pale balcony choked with white rose-vines leftover from the young queen’s wedding. Some of the flower sprites borne from it had to have contained the spirits of your people, though that hardly mattered when it came to the endurance of your dying race.

“Truthfully,” he pressed, sitting on the ledge with his massive wings draped over the many blooms. “How do you feel?”

Truthfully? You were growing more and more certain that your child would not wait until harvest. You’d been awoken overnight by their shifting, as though they were already trying to stretch their under-developed wings. How stifling your body must’ve been to them; you doubted they’d know the womb of the earth from which you’d come.

“I feel,” you righted yourself somewhat to gently bunt horns with him, “like you have no reason to worry. I know you will anyway, but I promise – they’re strong. They’re healthy, and they love you as much as I do.”

“And you?” the softness in his gaze when he brushed his fingers over your neck was unfair, he knew what his eyes did to you.

“I’m heavy, Borra. I’m always hungry, and I’m unused to being tired. As far as suffering goes, I’m not far gone.”

“I’m glad.” Aurora joined you on the balcony, then, with her little boys on either of her sides. The young princes were rapidly approaching their first birthdays, and you knew it was only a matter of time before your people started trying to convince her to celebrate on the moors with them and her mother.

She spent much too much time among humans these days.

“I have something to ask of you, if it wouldn’t be too much.” She’d prefaced many things in the last year that way, by handing you your favorite baby (the one you’d first held and given your blessing, though you loved his brother much the same) and preparing an unnecessary speech.

Borra claimed the other child without being asked, as though you and two more weren’t draped across his lap.

“I’d like you to be there, at the christening.” She twirled and twisted her fingers as though toying with invisible rings. You thought she had the nerve to look up at you, but, this time it wasn’t the case. “Maleficent and Diaval won’t be the only magical beings there, but they would be the only…” Dark fey. Dark fey, as though she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “Not-little ones. People will be afraid.”

“And you think we’ll make them any less?” you responded.

She glanced at you, and you nearly crawled out of your skin. The gentle innocence in her eyes was a lie; her eyes flickered down to the swell of your belly before rising back to your face, and she had the nerve to bite at the skin of her lower lip as though she had shame in giving herself away.

“You’re their godparents. And defender of the moors. You lead your people—”

“On a council,” you replied, damn near asking her out loud why Shrike and Percival weren’t their token interspecies romance.

“And I love you. You’re my family. All of you are. I’m not asking the others not to come, but out of everyone who will, I’d like you both to be there.”

But especially you, with the child inside of you disarming the terrified nobility. A symbol of peace and prosperity, the first of your kind born outside the cradle of isolation in centuries.

You owed her, you supposed. You didn’t, but every time she asked for something, that little part of you cropped back up. She’d done the right thing, and you were grateful, and though you should be insulted, you weren’t, because you were fond of her and her children and her silly young husband and her father-in-law, and, especially, her mother.

You looked to Borra. Let it be his call.

The baby in his arms could stand, now, which surprised you considering how rarely he was put down. He’d grabbed hold of one of Borra’s horns and stood on two feet in the safety of your mate’s curled wing. “When is it?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully. It’s….” Aurora’s hesitation melted away with a laugh. “It needed to be perfect.” Because it wouldn’t be like hers. King John of Ulstead was no King Stefan, whose exploits you’d been told in detail long after Diaval had begun to trust you, and though you had still hardly known Maleficent then, you’d taken wing to join her in her perch high in the peaks and embraced her as though she was your sister. You had known you hadn’t needed to, but you had, and something like a distant friendship formed afterward. You had grown, in some way, at least mildly fond of one another, primarily connected by your men as you were.

He met your eyes, and you gave a falsely-irritated sigh. “Couldn’t convince them to bring it to the moors?”

“No,” she said, and the obvious frustration in her voice satisfied your suspicion. The people of Ulstead still did not want you there, and for that reason alone, you quirked your head in approval.

“We’ll be there,” Borra replied.

“Good, I’m glad!” John exclaimed, leading the procession of food onto the balcony’s newly-set table. There were wooden plates and cutlery, though he must’ve known you wouldn’t use hardly any of it. “How is the armor we’ve designed working?”

You took your cue to gather the children and separate from your place on his lap, though you’d committed to not being ornamental. Aurora took hers back one at a time, lingering beside you as Borra closed the space between them.

“I’m not a fan of the plating.” They were all business again, strategy fresh in their minds. “We have to fly with it on. The way it’s designed now is too heavy. There’s too much stress on the joints.”

“You have to have something,” John pressed. About that, he wasn’t wrong.

“Yes, but they’re muscular. The bones are hollow. We need them to move a certain way, and if you reinforce plating with too much banding -- if you plate over whole sections of the wing at all—”

Philip joined you and his wife, pressing a kiss to Aurora’s temple. He was listening, just as you were, though his attention made up for the lapse in yours when one of the many servants got to work assembling a platter of a thick orange squash.

“Pumpkin,” you said to yourself, tasting the word on your tongue.

You never would’ve called it that, but humans were strange creatures.

                You awoke again that night with a jolt, startling at the force of your fledgling’s thrashing.

Borra’s arm tightened around you gently. He’d taken to holding you in the cradle of his wing, folded around your body like a blanket as though you’d ever want for warmth at his side. You shifted your hips, sighing in frustration when the movement didn’t cease.

You weren’t at all surprised to find him awake beside you. He always was quick to rouse, even without the potential for attack on the horizon.

“He’s restless,” you whispered.

Still, he watched you with an excess of caution. When you stood to stretch, he was slow to fully withdraw his wing from around your body. You fanned yours, beat them in the air, rolled your neck, and wandered the nest with equal restlessness.

Maybe your child did yearn for freedom as you had.

“Calm down,” you whispered to them, your hands running over the curve of your belly time and time again. “Let me rest. You’ll be here in no time, and then you can keep me up all night.”

All your movement worried him. It worried you, too, though you said nothing of it. As sacred and necessary every child was to rebuilding your people, the elders said the process would be uncomfortable. It required patience and resolve, commitment to your undertaking. There was little difference between pregnancy and the preparation for war.

But they’d said nothing about the little monster never sitting still. Maybe that was your fault. Maybe you’d given them an agave flower too many.

“Suren.” His voice was low as he shifted, drawing his great wings in.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been like this almost every night.”

You felt like there was a weight between your hips. You’d felt it every night for nearly the last week – your child made you painfully aware of its presence. You’d thought, the first handful of times, their arrival might come with little warning.

He rose, intending to join you – to stop you from pacing, perhaps, though you thought you might completely lose your mind if you did. Though, almost as soon as he rose, you saw something in the distance.

Not a meteor, for it didn’t travel. Not a bonfire, for it wasn’t fixed. A strange glow bobbed along the other side of the moors – high above the ruined castle and the village still preserved. The people who still lived within it.

And you were torn back to Ulstead, to the explosion of red bombs. Men you’d known your whole life crumbling around you, reduced to nothing. Vaporized. Most of them didn’t have the time to scream.

It wasn’t the first time either of you were stolen by those vivid dreams, memories replayed in the darkness of your closed eyes. Iron nets. The fire of crossbows. Bolts, bullets, and arrows. The sting of pain at a shield’s contact, the bite of a sword into your leather, the hiss as a blade made contact with your skin. Sometimes you didn’t even have to be asleep.

But Borra interrupted them, with your face in his hands. He drew you back as though breaking a spell. His flared wings met yours, and his voice was gentle. “It’s alright. It’s over. It’s alright now.”

You hated that he understood. You hated that he shared it all with you, though some part of you was also grateful. The burns iron left on his skin, the mark on his arm where Percival pierced. It was all so much, and you had the nerve to bring a child into this world – a world where even you still felt hatred for what you most feared.

“It’s alright.” His forehead rested against yours, your horns practically one. “Come back to bed.”

“There was a fire,” you whispered, “over the wall of thorns.”

He drew you close to him. You almost thought it wouldn’t be there when his wings folded back, but, no – there it was, lingering above the wall of thorns.

A torch.

You felt him stiffen. You knew what he wanted to do, and yet he looked to you for your approval first.

“Go,” you whispered. “But take her with you.”

He kissed you, sudden and firm. You pretended not to feel its gravity as he ran, as he launched himself from your nest on his powerful wings.

You pretended you didn’t feel as though you’d been shelved, though that was exactly how you did.

         You scrubbed the tired from your eyes and stared into the breakfast fire.

The thick, juicy flesh of some large animal made your stomach growl. It was nearly done. Percival brought it with his arrival at dawn, and all the moors called out to him in welcome.

They woke you, curled in your mate’s wing. He had gone with Maleficent in the night, and they claimed to have found nothing (though you were still waiting to ambush Diaval to make sure).

“How do you feel?” Shrike slung her legs over one of the large, fallen logs that had begun to serve as perch for your people when the earth was too damp to be comfortable.

“Almost too heavy to fly,” you responded. “They keep me up at night.”

“It’ll come soon enough.” She ripped a generous portion of meat from the bone and offered it to you.

“I hate being taken care of.”

“Good, I’m the last person you want taking care of you.”

You conceded and took the meat from her, and she responded by pressing a hand to your belly. “Percy tells me you’ve got quite an appetite for war.”

The kicking started. You growled quietly, though you definitely preferred it when they moved to when they were silent. They. He. Whatever it was. Whatever it turned out to be, it was yours, and you loved it, no matter how tired and frustrated it left you.

“We’ll celebrate you next, little thing.” She drummed her talons lightly on the spot in response. “Once we’re done with Aurora.”

You couldn’t hide the face you pulled. Lovely, more celebrations.

“You’re bearing the first child born outside the nest in centuries. If you didn’t want fanfare, you should’ve taken them home.”

Percival rescued you from telling her that you believed that option to be fast-fading, though you weren’t particularly pleased with how. “King John sends his regards.” He set down a thick parcel of nesting cloth – blankets, they called them, and several thick, warm furs.

As difficult as you were about their fussing, you didn’t extend the same to the king. John was a good man, and surprisingly fond of you all despite what you’d done to his kingdom, his people, and his wife. He was the first human you’d allowed to touch your belly (besides Aurora, as though she could be stopped), and the first of his many gifts had been a set of mutilated (“altered”) shirts that fit comfortably over your growing belly when your leather chest-plate grew too tight. They laced behind the neck and left plenty of room for your wings. You wore them often, especially in Ulstead.

You still remembered his delight when your fledgling learned to squirm. It was as though he’d never felt anything like it. He loved children, his grandsons and the young fey especially. You’d thought of the heartless shrew he’d married, and you imagined that she regarded Philip as more of an obligation than a child, and the thought hadn’t surprised you at all.

You could’ve wept for him.

“What in skies are you doing?” Ini asked, drawing your attention from the parcel of furs.

General Percival retreated back toward the fire with a small, glass container of crystals that he sprinkled over the flesh of a raw beet. “Sugared beets. They’re delicious.”

“He eats like moor-folk!” she exclaimed with open delight.

“He is moor-folk,” you reminded, still holding tightly to your gift, “He’s made an alliance.”

Still, she laughed as he took another bite, and you paused to stare at him with new gravity. “You didn’t forget what I’ve asked of you, did you?”

He practically startled, leaving the beet in his mouth to go into his satchel. “Not at all.”

Your friends watched curiously as he passed you a smaller parcel wrapped in ornamental paper, the likes of which you were exceedingly eager to open. It was the second-best part of prolonged peace, your new fascination.

“What is that?” Shrike asked, rather distastefully.

“Candy,” Percival replied, trying to give you a measure of dignity. As though its proximity to the fire hadn’t warmed it enough to be soft and linger on your tongue and your fingers.

You motioned Ini to you, the excitement in the gesture unabashed, and she came to your side. You broke off a generous piece and whispered into her ear, “John calls it Chocolate.”

She nodded, mouthing the word to herself in retreat.

“It’s candy,” Percy repeated, “made of milk, sugar, and crushed beans.”

Shrike raised her brows at you. You licked your fingers and wiped the corners of your mouth. “Beans. Sugared beans.”

You extended some to her as well, and the face she made at you when you licked the smear from your fingers was worth every royal string pulled to acquire more.

“It’s good,” Percy offered, and it was his praise alone that got her to taste some.

“You little beast!” she exclaimed after a moment. “We grew these in the trees!”

“Not like this,” Ini rose to your defense.

Had it not been for the warmth of his gaze upon you (or the fact that Percy looked up and some of the joy still drained from his face), Borra might’ve been able to join you without warning.

“No wonder it keeps you up all night,” the disapproval was plain in Shrike’s voice. “It’s good for energy.”

Borra kneaded your shoulders lightly, and you tipped your head back to feed him a piece. His mouth quirked, and the glint of challenge in his eyes when he snatched the ornamental paper from you gave you no motivation to resist.

Not yet, anyway. Not in front of them.

“What’s over there?” he spoke to Percy, removing chocolate from the equation. He gestured out beyond the peaks, toward the wall of thorns.

He frowned, and you thought he was about to be deliberately literal. “Perceforest. King Stefan’s kingdom. Aurora liberated it.”

“Are they an ally?”

He shrugged. “There hasn’t been much communication with Ulstead since Stefan’s death. Aurora handled most everything – or, so we thought.”

Your wings sagged with the anticipation of relief.

“Ingrith presumed Maleficent had control over the region. To what degree, or whether or not she did, we never found out.”

And then they didn’t.

“Then there’s a chance they might still be our enemy.”

Percy shifted toward him, as did Ini and Shrike. You were glad Udo was still assembling the children to come join you; they didn’t need to hear this, even if he deserved to.

“Suren and I saw a torch along the wall of thorns last night. Someone walked along it.”

“I don’t have plans for the city,” Percy admitted, “I can see if there may still be guard towers.”

“There was no battlement on the other side. It was as though they’d climbed.”

A flutter of distrust ran through you all, for obvious reasons. And the flutter in your belly reminded you to eat regardless.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

Borra rested his elbows on his knees and leaned deliberately close to him. “Tell me the odds that it was nothing.”

You watched him. You, Ini, Borra and Shrike. Though he wasn’t unshakable by any standard, Percival was careful with his response. “You know I can’t.”

“I won’t go,” Ini immediately replied. “Tonight, to Ulstead. If they know we’re leaving, they can attack.”

“If they know we’re leaving, they may anticipate some of us will stay,” Shrike responded. “We have to consider how well armed they may be.”

“Would they be so bold? To show themselves before attacking?”

“They may not have planned on being seen.”

“No one is attacking,” Percival interjected. “We can go to Perceforest if need be. Talk to them. Ask questions. For all you know, you saw a child trying to catch a glimpse of the faeries.”

You said nothing, and Borra noticed.

He wasn’t the only one.

Their eyes landed upon you, and you ate a generous strip of flesh from between your talons like carrion swallowed whole. You considered the things you wanted to leave out against the ones they deserved to know.

“Every night for the last several,” you began, “I awake with a feeling. I thought, at first, they might be coming,” as much as you hated the thought that your human companions found you fragile just for carrying a child, your hand went to the baby’s kicking-spot anyway. It comforted you to feel them move. “But they haven’t. It’s like a weight inside me. It makes us both restless. It’s like they want me to leave.”

“Who?” Ini asked.

“The baby,” you admitted.

The gravity of their collective stare – sans Percival, who rarely knew what to make of your council – nearly made you flinch.

“It’s like whatever they’re doing, the child can feel. Like the child’s telling me to leave for higher ground.” Like they anticipated another slaughter and wanted to escape themselves, with or without you. A warrior’s spirit. Their father’s sense.

Borra was the first to straighten. You hadn’t wanted to tell him how right he was – how well fear gripped you for their safety and all of yours.

“They’re not going to wait until harvest,” you told him, then. You might as well, since you were revealing all of your not-secrets at once.

His eyes locked with yours.

“I know they won’t. We’ll have to over-winter in the peaks. I won’t take them that far when the winds are shifting. They’ll still be too small.”

“When?” he asked in a low, frustrated hiss. You weren’t entirely sure if he meant when did you know or when are they coming, so you gave your best guess for both.

“When he squirms. It’s like he’s fighting to be loose. He’s strong, much stronger than either of Aurora’s children.” It wasn’t as though you’d had much practice with children of your own kind before you carried one; your war had been your child, Borra the subject of your devotion. “I’ve only suspected these last few days. He gets stronger every day, more active. I’d like to believe it’s wishful thinking, but after last night, I’m not sure.”

“Or they’re doing something,” he agreed, but the ferocity in his voice reminded you of the iron bullet he’d rolled between his fingers in the council-hall. The sizzle of flesh and the sear of his voice. He would protect you with his life, but that would never be the first resort – the first resort would be retaliation.

“I’ll go to Perceforest,” Percival said suddenly, rising before Borra could. “I’ll speak with them. And if they’re doing anything that could harm any fey,” you pretended not to notice the way his eyes lingered on you, as though reminding your mate that no harm would come to your child, “I’ll stop it.”

“You’re not going alone.” Shrike stood, and he turned to her.

“And if they are planning something?” he lowered his voice. “If, by some chance, I walk in and uncover a plot, you need to be here to lead them.” He rested his hands on her arms, let them slide down to hold the gauntlets around her wrists. “Protect your people. I’ll take the guard. It’ll be an official matter of Ulstead, with John’s seal and signature.”

She looked to Borra. He, to you.

“Go,” you said. “Better him than us.”

You hoped your tone said that his punishment would be just where yours would involve teeth and talon. You were not entirely convinced that it did.

       You tilted your head back in pleasure at the feeling of cold water beading on your hot skin.

Borra knelt behind you, washing the dust from your hair. The sweat from your skin. You groomed and preened one another with increasing frequency in preparation for the child that would take both of your attention, their presence an inescapable constant.

“Are you upset?” It was the first thing you’d said since breakfast, not that Percival’s decision hadn’t left you all feeling strangely fractured. Humans operated independently; if they wanted to hold union with you all, they needed to learn to function as a unit.

He made a sound not too far from a jungle cat’s purr. “With you? No. Though no good comes from trying to spare my feelings.”

“I never want you to worry.”

He gathered your hair off your neck and pressed a kiss to his favorite biting-spot, where you were almost certain to have a lingering mark from how frequently the skin there had been pierced. “I don’t worry, I plan. You can’t tell me much that I haven’t planned for.”

Gone were the days of battle strategy held in council around the fire. The plans were all his now, your people willing to embrace peace as long as they knew there was a contingent option.

“I’m afraid,” you admitted in a whisper. “Not for them or me. For all of us. We should leave, Borra. I can’t tell you why I feel that way…” You hesitated. But he was patient, with you above any other. “I feel it. Like they’re lurking in the shadows, waiting for us to sleep. Waiting to kill them on the moors and shoot the rest of us from the sky.”

It frightened you how well you could imagine that, and you temporarily took leave of your senses toward why; humans slaughtered the moor-folk before. Ulstead ripped your people from the sky, as had countless other kingdoms. Your nerves were drawn and quartered with little sleep, and the child inside you, though dearly beloved, had the habit of literally dancing on your last measure of sanity.

“I won’t let that happen.” He pressed his horns against yours, though, for once, the gesture offered little comfort. Your fingers laced with his, and you gave his hand a desperate squeeze.

“I don’t like these odds,” you whispered. “I don’t like variables. I don’t like not knowing.”

“I know.” He held the back of your head. “Trust me. If nothing else, trust that I will never let you be taken from me.”

You wanted to protest, and he pressed horns with you a bit harder, encouraging you to sink back into the safety of his wings. “I did not fall to Ulstead’s queen, and I will not fall now. Trust me, Suren.”

You did. His certainty had always been the shore in a turbulent storm, and it was for you then, also.

“I do,” you whispered. “I always have. That doesn’t stop me from being afraid.”

He drew in a slow breath, let it warm in his lungs before it fanned your skin like the kiss of summer. “We’ve been afraid nearly every moment of our lives. That cannot stop us.”

It wouldn’t. Nothing could be stopped now; your child was strong enough that they could be torn from your dying body if need be. All your plans had been put into action, now their variables shifted. All the parts in play were slowly becoming revealed.

“Do you want to go back to the nest?” he asked, with a deliberate softness that eased your nerves.

“No.” You liked it here. You liked your little cave, the flighty little people who lived on the moors and the cast of humans who’d worked their way into your heart. To return to the nest would be to abandon your people, and that wasn’t something you would ever allow. “Fear isn’t worth our freedom.”

Not after all you’d given to secure it.

“Though you have more patience with me than you should.” You shifted onto your knees, intent upon reciprocating. You weren’t the only one preparing for the christening, though you wondered, faintly, if you should’ve also tended your armor.

“I don’t make decisions without you,” he replied, thumbs brushing your knuckles.

“You should.”

He made a sharp sound of disgust. You’d had this conversation before, but now, more than ever, did you squeeze his hands when he tried to soothe you. “I’m not their leader. They didn’t choose me.”

“We are a council of equals. You are at my side, and I’m at yours.” It’d been a long time since you saw defiance in the set of his jaw, and you couldn’t recall if you’d ever seen it directed at you. “Always.”

“And if I lead you back to war on suspicion and fear? If my hatred kills us, you’ll have only me to blame.”

He searched your eyes. You’d never come so close to speaking out loud that he was your greatest weakness. You were a warrior, and your skill in that you took immense and well-earned pride in, but you weren’t him. You would never lead them. You could separate the forest from the trees, but you could never see the way they intermingled. He assessed the danger, he planned, he gave the orders. You carried them out, and for the bulk of your life, it was sufficient.

And then Conall went and died, and peace and reason left the council on shifting sands, and you never regained your balance.

“That won’t happen,” he said, and you took solace in his certainty – if for no better reason than that he had never wronged you. “You’re not the only one entrusting your life. Your instincts never fail.”

You said nothing. You told him nothing of how you felt that they would now. Your sleeplessness, your restlessness, your peace – you feared that it dulled you. That you’d acclimated to the scent of human on your hair so well that you wouldn’t be able to tell if one was coming through the brush.

“Suren.” He took your face in his hands, and you soaked in their warmth. You basked in the press of his forehead to yours, in the way your noses touched as though the brush of your lips would be quick to follow. “I love you. For reasons I can name and ones I can’t. I hoped you knew most of them.”

A few of them, you did. Loyalty. Strength. Devotion. The fact that you had been willing to give peace a chance when you truly shouldn’t have.

“Trust yourself as you trust me. I do.”

A part of you had always thought that when Conall begged for peace, he had thought it would be Borra that would undo you. You’d known that you would’ve followed him into battle even if his plans weren’t fully formed, even if he didn’t know the odds and acted only out of vengeance. You’d assumed they had, also.

These days, you understood what Udo must’ve meant when you’d declared that you would die for him. If you did, if you gave in to your hatred and your fear, it would undo you all.

         It was a strange christening.

You had never been to one, of course, but it still struck you as exceptionally odd. The chapel in which it should’ve taken place contained the still-living bodies of fallen tree-folk, whose branches had finally overtaken the roof. You saw it buckling, the green of emerging leaves splitting the roof-seam.

It was strangely appropriate against the décor of the ruthless former queen that her captive nature would, at last, fight back. Even in death.

The doors to the great hall stood open for whoever elected to come. It was a grand affair, brimming over with dancing and food. Children flitted through the rafters and scurried through the legs of earthbound adults, playing the same game at different altitudes. Udo watched them fondly with his great, snowy wings folded at his sides. Aurora was thrilled to have him, and, of his plumage, her children were equally fond.

You were restless. The current of distrust ran from you into the mortals like the scent of fired gunpowder.

Percival’s absence didn’t help.

“Ini’s got men on every turret,” Shrike whispered to Borra when she joined you. “The king’s guard is out in full.”

“They’re expecting trouble,” you agreed.

Borra’s eyes traveled to Maleficent at the dais with John and their children. His wife’s throne was gone, you realized – replaced with something else, one made from the very earth. Woven branches and blooming flower vines. No cushion. Its roots breeched the stone floor and leaves slipped between the window panes – a living, breathing throne for a young, not-wholly-mortal queen.

It was as though her gaze had been summoned. She looked to you, and Borra waited for the nod that followed. Diaval flashed you a warm, reassuring smile.

“She’s told John of last night,” the fold of his wing drew you closer. “They’re prepared.”

“I don’t like this.” Shrike shifted, the streams over her leather leg-plating rustling like willow boughs.

“Then tell him to open the windows,” was Borra’s only reply. The glass wouldn’t hurt, but it would be an inconvenience.

She did, stalking across the open floor at a clip that made even those who knew her leave her path.

Aurora had not asked you not to wear armor, and for that you were grateful; you had, as had he, as had Shrike and Ini. Udo could not be convinced, though you imagined it was mostly because even in war, he preferred to act in defense. You were her tokens, evidence of a great and ever-growing peace, and yet you openly distrusted them.

Few of them noticed. You were as grand of winged fixtures as the queen’s statues. Most of which, you noticed, were no longer there.

“What’s wrong?” Aurora joined you much later than you imagined she would, reaching for your hands. Udo still held her children, which freed her to be the young and noble queen once more.

You pretended not to notice the eyes that followed her every move, though you certainly flared your wings. Her frown withheld no disapproval.

“Perceforest climbed the wall of thorns,” Borra said, his eyes as keen as yours. Fixed on them rather than her. “They’ve been looking out over the moors at night.”

“Has anyone gone missing?” she whispered, as though poachers were the only problem.

“No. But no one has tried to make contact, either. We don’t know what they want, and we can’t safely assume.”

She wanted to reassure you. You saw it in her round, open face, the soft set of her shell-pink mouth and the gentle wetness of her doe-eyes. Instead, she squeezed both of your hands and straightened her spine, and she looked more like her mother in that moment than you’d ever seen her.

“I won’t let any harm come to you. You are my family,” another squeeze, tighter.

“The queen’s guard isn’t properly trained,” Borra replied to her, quietly. “They’ll never withstand another attack.”

“Then I won’t let there be one.” She was ambitious, and you had to give her credit – her ambition rarely failed. “Please, enjoy the party. This isn’t just a happy time for me, I want it to be for you, too.”

“You want a lot of things, Aurora,” you said. The reservation in your voice almost sounded like sorrow.

“What’s wrong?” Philip joined your group, wrapping his arms around the waist of Aurora’s frilly gown. She smiled, though you considered asking him out loud if anyone knew another phrase of greeting.

Something warm and soft wound around your ankles. Without thinking, Borra bent and lifted the last queen’s cat into his arm. The angry little creature looked up at you both, large eyes dilated…and gently cast itself against his side, purring in contentment at his warmth.

That made Aurora glow. “If you like her, you can keep her.”

“And not because she terrorizes Pinto,” Philip was quick to add. “She also terrorizes Diaval.”

You felt your mate’s gaze and intentionally didn’t meet it, though a smile overspread your mouth whether or not you wanted it there. “Is that your blessing to me, Philip? An attack-beast?”

The prince grinned. “Oh, no, there’ll be no fey blood on my hands.”

You sighed, fondly this time, and reached out to touch the little creature.

It hissed sharply and swatted at your approaching hand.

You hissed back for posterity. “Give it to Udo.” He would be patient enough to teach it manners. You couldn’t guarantee your inability to eat it if it bothered you.

“Your highnesses?” one of their footmen approached, their eyes deliberately avoiding the both of you. “It’s time.”

Aurora beamed. Philip, ever the diplomat, bowed to you both before retreating with her in tow – leaving the bastard cat tucked in the crook of your mate’s arm like it was a pleasant distraction.

“We could call it Pipistrelle,” he said to you, sidelong. “Or Parodia.”

Bat or cactus. You might add Philip to your list of people whose lives were no longer guaranteed before the night was over.

The royal horns bleated like frightened animals, and those of you already gathered in the hall flinched. Aurora reclaimed her children from your friend, giving your favorite to their father, and rejoined her parents in front of her throne.

Maleficent rested a hand on her shoulder, the love in her eyes unparalleled.

There was an official declaration. Very official, you would’ve thought if you had truly been paying attention. Beyond the open doors, you heard the clink-drag of armor – bronze rather than iron. There were no wing beats, no even rhythm to the steps. You searched the faces of the royalty, the nobility, the gentry, and the people of Ulstead, mortal and fey.

Percival staggered into the door frame, bloodied and half-limp. You wordlessly gripped the crisp leather securing Borra’s bronze gauntlet. His eyes lifted, some of the first.

Percy looked your mate in the eyes, his breathing heavy, and nodded once. His voice was low enough that only those of you who knew it knew to listen.

“Run.”

Udo’s great wings beat. He gathered the children quickly, sweeping them out through the open windows. The amusement and delight the mortals expressed at the sight of them, their rainbow of plumage taking flight, fell away as quickly as Shrike ran to join Percival in the door, shifting his weight from it to around her neck with her folded left wing.

“Percy?” Philip asked, much too late.

“The kingdom of Perceforest is in revolt,” he said, and you thought it was much too loudly. “They’ve moved against the Midlands. They seek separation from Ulstead.”

“Why?” Aurora asked, her doe-eyes widening.

Maleficent’s fingers curled around her daughter’s shoulder. Your eyes snapped to Borra, your banded wings at the ready.

“You know why,” someone in the crowd declared. “Because of them.”

He held you. Not yet. Wait until they act. Leave no doubt as to their reason.

But they had given you no doubt the first time peace was broken. You had no doubt then, though you stayed where you were, tense at his side. You could’ve ground the points off your sharp teeth.

A dark-robed man emerged from the crowd, a peasant you’d seen in the streets. You’d disliked the way he looked at the little moor-folk, and your children when they played with theirs. There was nothing you could’ve done, then, but this was a different occasion.

“It is the same reason,” the dark-robed man continued, “that no priest is willing to christen the princes. What you bring to this land is unholy.”

“I’ve heard enough,” Philip moved to stand, placing his child in his wife’s awaiting grasp.

John held up his hand. “You don’t speak for everyone when you speak, father, though your role in our community does not go without respect.”

Of course. The bloody priest. A loyalist to that puritanical monster if you’d ever considered one. This was what happened when humans allowed any charlatan peddling promises to carry on tradition.

“Does it?” the robed man lifted his head, and you could’ve swept the quiet arrogance off his face with your talons had Borra not kept hold of you. “I recall telling you when you asked me that no priest in Ulstead, Perceforest, or the Midlands would bless this unholy union. As though these foul, grunting things—”

Now it was Percy’s turn to take hold of Shrike, as though the entirety of his weight didn’t rest upon her.

“—offer us anything but strife.”

“We’ve lost many to your kind,” Borra said, and the strength of his voice reminded you, for a moment, of Conall. “People who’ve done no more than spare your children from starvation over winter.”

“Is that what you call killing peasants on the riverbank?” the dark-robed man had turned on you, and you knew he saw the violence brewing in your eyes. “They should’ve dispatched a bounty on the lot of you.”

“You killed your share in return,” you snapped.

“Suren,” Aurora interjected. “Stand down.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” you hissed, your gaze unwavering.

“I’m not giving them.” She kept her voice soft, trying her best to speak only to you. “Please. For your child and mine.”

Borra’s wings flared. Many of the villagers didn’t know of what she spoke, but the offending priest did. “Sacrilege. Your queen brings a thing of the devil into your palace!”

Your felt your fury rising. You took an involuntary step toward him, talons poised as if to call branches up from the earth.

“That’s enough,” John thundered.

You paused, as did the priest. Your mate drew closer to you, parts of his wing extending before you in defense.

“Do you think this is Stefan’s kingdom?” the good king’s voice was harder than you could ever recall having heard before. “Do you believe I, or my family, will tolerate men like you undermining the treaties we’ve made? The laws we enforce?”

Your eyes darted to where Shrike and Percival stood together. They were like you and Borra, hovering close to the other, prepared for the moment at which their action, or their flight, be necessary.

“You ask for us to bless a curse!”

Borra had to extend his wing in full to stop you. You were not Aurora’s godmother, but you were her sons’, and you’d grown to agree with Maleficent as you’d watched them grow and fatten – they were defenseless, helpless, and small.

And you would have killed anyone, man or fey, who laid a hand on her child.

“You deny your people the truth, king.” The priest was emboldened, turning to address the crowd, “There will be no christening, unless it is by the witch who raised her.”

One of the guards gripped his shoulder suddenly, jaw clenched. “I would be very careful with what you choose to say.”

“You see!” He turned on them, gesturing, “Their corruption’s reached even the lowest of the palace! No one is safe from their unholy sway.”

The ravings of a madman, you thought, not that it soothed you. Ingrith was a madman too, and that worked out just fine for her. Until you picked the meat from her goat-carcass.

“Cease, or you will be arrested,” John exclaimed. The queen’s guard began to gather, and your attention suddenly diverted to Percival.

“Where in skies is your horse?”

A great commotion arose beyond the palace walls. The priest went for one of the guards’ swords. By no means should it have been noteworthy – they should’ve been able to stop him.

But that would’ve meant he acted alone. You knew how well frightened mortals rose together.

“Run!” Aurora cried to the moor-folk, and much of the faeries did. They fled in colorful streaks just as they had from the poor girl’s wedding.

Maleficent’s eyes fell upon you. As deeply as you loathed the thought of withdrawal, you had an obligation to protect your own. She could handle it. If anyone could squash a simple peasant revolt (and how earnestly you hated that you thought those words), it would be her.

You pulled the young queen and her children with you.

The stone steps under your feet were unpleasant. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d run without the pleasure of launching soon afterward, but the palace’s halls were too narrow – especially the ascending ones. You pushed Aurora ahead of you, tearing the hem of her gown when it started to make her steps falter.

Borra was right behind you, the bronze bands around his wings not enough to shield him from fire should it come.

“Wait,” Aurora started to cry when you’d reached a wider hall, “Wait! Philip! And John! My mother!”

“They’ll follow us!” You took one of the children from her arms and pressed them close to you. “Hold tight to him, Aurora.”

You didn’t know if she’d ever flown before. Being Maleficent’s daughter, you imagined she must have, though it was hardly the time to ask.

She trembled, but obeyed.

Shrike and Percy were fast on your heels. She practically carried him up the steps, his arm around her neck and his weight on her side. She nodded to Borra quickly and cast them both over the window ledge, giving her mortal no warning.

The prince came next with Maleficent and Diaval. You breathed out relief at the sight of the raven beside his mate, the way he placed himself between her and the ascending footfalls.

“Take her,” Maleficent said to Borra, and a fraction of the pressure in your chest released. She waited until Philip was nearly up the stairs to make the thick vines grow in his wake. To buy you time.

“Go!” Philip called ahead. His shirt was torn and his sword bloodied.

“Philip!” she cried, clinging to the child in her arms.

“Go!” he spared a glance back to her and faltered. “I love you.”

Borra wrapped his arm around her, trapping her and her child against new bronze, and leapt as Aurora screamed.

“Suren!” Philip called, and you paused with your foot on the ledge. “Tell them of me.”

“Tell them yourself, Philip of Ulstead. I’ll see you again.”

And you dove.

It was as it had been the first time your wings flattened to soar above the walls of Ulstead. Your people flew in chaotic, indecipherable patterns, drawing fire so the both of you might pass unharmed. There were no bombs this time; by all intents, you and your warriors had the upper hand.

But there was peace. No one gave the order to retaliate, and so you didn’t.

“Withdraw!” Borra called to the others as you neared the river. “Withdraw! Fall in behind me!”

They did, crying the order to one another in your wake.

You flattened your wings. Picked up altitude. Once you cleared the wall, you turned. Shrike didn’t, and you didn’t blame her – he was the first wounded mortal any of you tended. It wasn’t as though you knew whether or not he would give his life for her.

A horse broke free from the palace stable. Aurora’s white one, carrying still-king John. He was not trying to cause harm to his people; he rode quickly, snatching a torch from the hand of an otherwise unarmed man.

The thorns Maleficent called began to close around the entrance to the bridge.

You waited. You had to see her. You had to know you were all coming.

John’s torch lowered.

The enchanted wood began to recoil at the touch of flame, seeking the safety of magical ground. His horse was as fast as the bridge’s recession into the moors, and you tried not to notice the proximity near to him that Ini flew, as though prepared to pick him and his horse up by the saddle and carry them across if he failed to move quickly enough.

“Maleficent!” Borra called for her, though your retreat was swift and the thorn-branches that grew along Ulstead’s banks were thick and high.

“Maleficent!” Aurora chorused, the terror in her voice plain.

Your eyes were fixed upon her as she lifted off on massive wings, the raven Diaval at her side. Philip held tight to her, so poorly armed that you thought, for a moment, that this battle had to be a joke. There was no way they hadn’t anticipated…they couldn’t have been fools enough not to suspect.

You almost didn’t see the priest notch an arrow.

“Dive!”

Her head perked.

Diaval dove.

And the iron arrow pierced the raven cleanly through.

You shrieked. Changed course. But Borra caught your arm, pulled you hard.

She dove for him, as you knew she would. As deeply as you hated it, as passionately as you yearned not to withdraw, you did. There had been enough sacrificing for a thousand lifetimes without involving those children.

She was begging, you realized once you both had cleared the walls of Ulstead and were back over the open air of the moors. Aurora was begging, crying, screaming at the top of her lungs. She’d heard you call to her mother and nothing else, heard the fury of your shriek, and must’ve thought…

“Can we make it to the nest?” you yelled over the winds.

“Not if we want everyone to live.”

Sometimes you hated how closely to your thoughts his ventured. Mortal or fey, Percival was one of you. John was one of you, and the moor-folk. There were too many of you to flee the moors. You had no other option.

You gave no protest as you circled, the moors’ sharp peaks emerging from the mist as though unveiled by magic. The weather would be kind to you tonight; they may not know you’d stayed until dawn, provided not many of you took the same route.

It was in your nest you landed with Aurora and her young. Your mate set her down in your nest-bed and joined Shrike with Percival, prying the young man’s armor off. Summoning the draping moss to grow more quickly on the chilly rocks so it might be used to staunch his bleeding. Your heart was pounding, and you held too tightly to Aurora’s son – you nearly forgot to give him over until her reaching for him reminded you.

She was pink-faced, her sobs raw and filled with terror.

And the pressure in your hips returned.

“Oh, skies,” you whispered. Not the time, offspring.

“Percy,” Shrike said, more softly than you thought she was capable. The roughness of her voice had grown warm, and you wondered, faintly, if she would be spared this fresh hell by her choice in mate.

Ini landed behind you, with King John clutching her armor for his very life. His fear was, even then, interlocked with fascination – exhilaration even, though inappropriate.

Oh, skies. The shifting got worse. You fought to remove your chest-plate before the heat of it got too stifling. That was all, you reasoned. Just the warmth. The activity was too much. You had to be mindful of them, of their presence inside you. They had no control over your temperature, their natural endurance against inclimate weather and how inhospitable a host it must’ve made you.

“Let me.” Ini joined them, leaving Aurora to the comfort of the king.

“My mother?” She asked them anyway, clutching her fledglings to her chest. “John, did you see my mother?”

“Your mother’s coming,” he replied, “Last I saw, she had Philip with her.”

“Diaval?” you managed.

The roughness of your voice drew Borra’s eyes.

And John’s. He went to you as though he was your kinsman, helped you pry away the bronze and free your banded wings. You flared them in hopes it might help you breathe, but the pressure only built. The pressure became pain, and you gripped John as he pressed a hand to your lower back like he knew the source of your discomfort.

“This may turn out to be a happy occasion yet,” he said, and you snarled openly at the half-jovial tone he managed.

“They’re coming,” Borra said, searching your eyes for confirmation.

The pressure gave way suddenly, and a pain much like the ones you’d felt before (though much, much stronger) overtook you. You knew your talons had to bite through the king’s robes, and yet he helped you to your knees.

“Tend her,” Ini said to your mate, too quickly. As though she could feel the urgency that had suddenly taken hold of you.

“Diaval!” you repeated. “He was shot!”

Aurora could’ve swooned. Damned skies, there weren’t enough of you. And how many of your men had fallen? What were your casualties? Aurora’s husband, her mother--?

“Horrible timing!” you hissed, shifting your talons to bite into the bronze at Borra’s shoulder.

He made a low sound of agreement. “We should name them after Conall.”

You listened for the beat of other wings, tried to separate the distinct pitch of the tundra and the forest, the fledglings and Udo. Skies and stars, you hoped there were no archers on the wall of thorns. You hoped the fog was thick enough. You hoped your people would run for the nest, go back into hiding, regroup and prepare all on their own.

It was to be a cause for celebration, the first child born outside the nest.

Instead, it seemed the whole of the moors echoed with your screams.

[mischiefandspirits]

Doppelgänger (5/?)

Previously on Doppelgänger ~ Masterlist ~ Next time on Doppelgänger

Danny, Sam, and Tucker were just 14 when they took a look inside the portal Danny’s parents had built. From there, everything changed. They woke up with white hair, green skin, and powers they could learn to control. They were hybrids, halfas.

They were the hero Doppelgänger.

{Fright Night}

“So a trio of ghosts need to create a haunted house room,” Danny said, smirking at his partners as he dropped down on his bed.

“Think we could just stick Audrey II in there and call it a day?” Tucker asked and sat backwards on the desk chair.

Sam shrugged and sat next to Danny so she could put his head in her lap. “If I stopped pruning her, she should be big enough to give someone a scare by then. I don’t think just one thing will cut it though.”

“We could bring in some more plants for you to move around and have it be a haunted jungle,” Tucker said.

“Oh, so Danny makes a stupid bet and I have to do all the work.”

“Hey, I’m the one who gave Twoey sentience and unless you force her with your powers, she only listens to me. I think that counts for something,” Danny pointed out.

“You know, what is it with you and the non-sapient ghosts and ecto-beings?” Tucker asked. “Twoey, Cujo, those will-o'-wisp blob things that follow you around when we’re in the zone. You’d think Sam would be the one they're attracted to with her nature thing.”

Danny hummed and pressed into Sam’s hand so she’d start carding her fingers through his hair. “Well, like I said, I brought Twoey to life, so maybe she imprinted on me. And Cujo might just be able to sense that you guys hate dogs.”

“We don’t hate dogs. They're just loud and annoying,” Sam said.

“And Cujo is literally as demonic as his namesake,” Tucker added.

“He’s a good boy and this is why he doesn’t like you.”

“He trashed a lab for a toy!” Tucker said.

“And they put him down. Fair's fair.”

“Can’t disagree with you there,” Sam said with narrowed eyes. She’d launched quite the internet scandal when she’d dug up why, exactly, the old kennels she’d found the toy in were abandoned. “Back to the matter at hand though, you still haven’t explained the blobs.”

Danny blushed. “I, uh, might feed them chips sometimes when they show up while I’m cleaning the lab.”

There was a moment of silence before both his partners started snickering.

“Don’t feed the wildlife, Danny,” Sam said mockingly.

“All this time, they’ve been the ghost equivalent of pigeons.”

“Not pigeons! They're actually really sweet. Like… hummingbirds!”

“Sure, dude.”

“Whatever you say, Danny.”

“Can we just get back on topic? Sam, you’re goth, shouldn’t that make you our resident creepy person. What would go good with a living jungle and a literal man-eating plant?”

Sam patted his cheek condescendingly, but leaned back to plot. “I had something else planned, but if you guys insist on the jungle idea…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This has to beat whatever Dash has,” Danny said as the trio looked over the room.

Audrey II’s pot had been attached to the ceiling so her stalks could hang down, dripping -- thankfully only harmful to ectoplasm -- acid. Once the haunted house was open, she’d been instructed to snap at anyone who came near. She luckily didn’t like the taste of humans so there wasn’t any worry about her going overboard.

Sam had brought in some crawling vines and tropical plants to cover the walls and floor so she could have them tug at or trip people as they moved through the room and make it harder for people to find their way through.

Danny’s herd of blobs were drifting around the makeshift jungle, making soft lights flicker through the semi-darkness.

Tucker had set up electric field generators to give the room an eerie feeling.

The pièce de résistance, however…

“Did you get it set up?” Sam asked.

“Try it out,” Danny said.

The boys watched as she walked over to an archway on one side of the room. She walked through it, only to come out an archway on the opposite side a second later.

“Yes!” Tucker cheered, high-fiving Danny. “Thank you, Space Fold!”

Sam tested out all the other archways to be sure they had a similar effect then came over to join the boys. “Congratulations, you’ve built a cartoon hallway.”

“You’re just mad you didn’t think of it,” Danny said and she ruffled his hair.

“Well, my work here is done. Now if you’ll excuse me,” Tucker grabbed the empty pumpkin-shaped candy bucket waiting by the door, “I’m a little late to start scamming some free candy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Danny flinched when Sam pinched him for squirming.

“I’m almost done, you big baby.”

“Sorry if I’m a little creeped out by you sticking sharp things very close to my eyes.”

“Just be glad you don’t need contacts. There, perfect.”

Danny smiled when Sam held up a mirror. His hair was covered by a long, braided black wig that a crown of thorns sat atop. His face had been given a slight green tint while his lips were a deep forest. His smile showed off fangs that were just as long and sharp as their ghost form’s and prosthetic ears gave him the same points. Dark makeup made his eyes look sunken, which highlighted his eyes when he let the red of his ghost form glow through. His hands had been given claw-like fake nails before being dipped into blood-red paint while he’d been dressed in black and dark green princely clothes. It all came together to make him look like a ghastly elfin prince.

He stood up and turned to Sam. “Thanks, Sam. This is great.”

She frowned and shook her head. “No, more brooding.”

“I really don-”

She pointed a finger in his face. “You wanted my help. This is me helping. More brooding. Imagine all the light draining from your soul.”

Danny pushed her hand away. “You’re just using this as an excuse to make me goth for a night.”

“Only for a night, but yeah. It’s a good look on you. Now brood or I’ll leave and you can do without my plants.”

Danny rolled his eyes, then tried to channel his angstiest self.

Christmas Danny.

Sam blinked at his scowl. “Wow, I didn’t think you could even get that dark. You’re usually our resident prep.”

Jingle Bells. Gingerbread. SANTA.

Danny shoved it all down, but the scowl only lessened slightly. “That’s because your family always goes away for the holidays.”

Sam looked confused, but didn’t get a chance to ask before they heard footsteps approaching. She transformed, saying, “Showtime. Maybe lose the anger a little.”

“I’ll try.”

She disappeared and all the plants except Audrey II started to sway and glow slightly. They seemed to thicken, making it impossible to see more than a few feet into the room.

Danny shooed the flytrap’s stalks up towards the roof. “Alright, Twoey, just like we practiced. Remember, be a good girl and you get a nice big bottle of ectoplasm as a treat.”

One of the lobes nuzzled him then they all retreated into the darkness Tucker had carefully maneuvered the lights to create on the ceiling.

“This is why she likes us. We spoil her,” a voice whispered in his ear.

“I don’t… I only spoil her a little.”

Sam chuckled and he felt her drift off.

“Mr. Fenton, it’s time,” William Lancer said as he arrived at the door to the room Daniel had taken. It was painted with toxic green glowing runes and vines as well as the words, The Kingdom of Thorns.

The door creaked open slowly to reveal Daniel standing a few feet away.

Automatic door, nice touch, William noted. The boy was also in a more elaborate costume than Dashiell’s. His contacts were actually a bit disconcerting with how the light made them appear to glow. It wasn’t helped either that the normally cheerful, if downtrodden, boy had on a scowl that looked rather resentful and fell.

The boy gave a graceful bow. In an empty voice, he announced, “Welcome. May your stay be eternal.”

A shiver went up William’s spine. The boy’s voice sounded off. Echoey-perhaps, except it didn’t sound like Daniel’s voice echoing back. More like multiple someones were whispering his words alongside him. Some sort of speaker setup, maybe? But the teacher swore the voices were coming from Daniel.

Pushing down the emotions, William pointed to the door. “I hope that’s not permanent.”

“What?” The eerie expression and voice were gone in a blink. “Oh, yes. I mean no, it’s not permanent. It’s just a little ectoplasm from my parent’s lab. I have the dissolving agent.”

That… was not as comforting as Daniel seemed to think it should be. “Is that safe?”

“Yeah, sure. Pure ectoplasm is harmless to humans in small doses. You could eat the amount on there and still be perfectly fine. It’s the charged stuff that’s dangerous.”

Still not as comforting as the boy’s smile made it out to be. “Right. Shall we begin?”

Daniel gave a toothy -- fangy? -- grin and stepped to the side, gesturing William forward.

The door slammed closed once the teacher started walking, not close enough to hit, but enough that he could feel the breeze of it passing on the back of his neck. He glanced back and was surprised to see vines covering the door. He made note of it.

“You’re free to roam, but I would stick to the path,” Daniel said as William passed him, his show voice back on and just as creepy as the first time. “And I wouldn’t recommend eating anything. Or being eaten.”

William glanced back, only to see the boy was gone. But he had just heard him right behind him.

He shook his head and continued forward.

So far the room itself didn’t look particularly scary. It mostly looked like a poorly lit and abandoned greenhouse without the glass walls and ceiling. Though there was the odd lights flying about, like fireflies the size of softballs. The plants almost seemed to be moving as well, like in the wind though William couldn’t feel anything, and he swore they were glowing a bit. Some sort of paint?

“You didn’t put anything harmful on these plants, right?”

“Of course not,” whispered something in his ear and he jerked away. He looked around, but couldn’t see anything.

“No, they’re Sam’s. She’d kill me if I hurt her plants,” came Daniel’s normal voice from somewhere across the room.

“G-Good.”

“Are you alright, Mr. Lancer? You’re not lost are you?”

“No, Mr. Fenton.” He shook himself. He must have been hearing things. He took a step forward and immediately felt like he’d stepped into something, or through something. He rubbed his arms as goosebumps began to crawl up them. He made a note and quickly moved on.

After a few moments more of the random goosebumps and the feeling of vines or leaves brushing him despite being sure he wasn’t getting close to any of the plants, he reached an archway. The teacher frowned and he pulled aside the curtain to look in. He swore the passage was supposed to lead directly into the next room, but instead he found a short hallway. It appeared to be a pitch-black void littered in stars that went on forever, but directly ahead, perhaps two feet in, was another doorway with a curtain. Some sort of mirror trick?

He made another note and walked carefully through the hall. Perhaps it was the star pattern, but he almost felt weightless as he passed through. He pulled the curtain aside… and found himself in the room he’d started in? But that was impossible! And yet, the windows were on the archway’s left, just as they had been for the arch he’d come from. The chandelier hanging above, original to the house though Daniel had wrapped it in vines, was also the same one that had been in the previous room. He must have curved around, except he was sure he’d gone in a straight line.

“Something wrong, Mr. Lancer?”

The teacher jumped and spun around to find Daniel standing right next to him, staring up at him through half-lidded eyes. His head was tilted almost unnaturally to the side and he was giving his usual smile, though the sharp fangs made it feel like he was baring his teeth instead. Some of the flying lights were perched on his crown, but their shapes were indistinct which made it appear the crown was alight with swirling green flames.

“Just-just taking in your creativity, Mr. Fenton. I wish you would put such effort into your schoolwork.”

His grin grew and his eyes glowed brighter. “What can I say, I guess I have an affinity for all things ghostly and dead.” He turned on his heel and disappeared into the foliage. “I’ll leave you to it.”

If William was shaking as he moved through the room, there was no one around to tell. He kept a careful eye out, but even still it felt like more plants were brushing against him and he was in a constant state of goosebumps. Then, just as he reached the center of the room, a hand grabbed his shoulder.

He shrieked and spun around, dropping his clipboard in the process. There was no one there. He looked all around him, but couldn’t find any sign of a person.

Something creaked above him.

He slowly looked up and saw something moving in the shadows, multiple long necks and wide heads with gaping maws.

“Mr. Lancer?”

“The Iliad and the Odyssey!” William shouted, looking down to see Daniel standing right in front of him, looking worried.

Aside from his glowing crown, none of his showman’s grace was on him anymore. Not even in his voice as he glanced down and said, “Oh, you dropped your stuff.”

William’s eyes widened as he spotted the three long stalks that had lowered down from the ceiling, each carrying the heads of a horror-movie approximation of a venus flytrap. The flat lobes were all around a foot long and would have looked normal, if not huge, except for the toxic green acid dripping from their centers.

At the same time that Daniel leaned down, one of them shot forward to strike like a snake, its jaws closing around the space his head had been not a moment before. They all darted back to the ceiling as Daniel stood up, appearing his normal awkward and helpful self.

He held out William’s pen and clipboard. “Here you go.”

The teacher’s hands were shaking as he took his things from his student.

Daniel rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, I guess we might have gone a little overboard. Was it the halls? I can take those out.”

Something grabbed William’s ankle. “No! No, it was wonderful. Leave it as is. I just remembered I have somewhere to be.”

“So… does that mean…”

“Yes, Mr. Fenton. You win. Now how do I get out of here?”

Daniel pointed to the side.

There was a straight path to the door that most definitely had not been there before.

William shook the vine off his leg and walked quickly out of the open door.

Danny threw his hands up and cheered as soon as the door shut behind Lancer. He turned and gave Sam a high-five. “That was great! He didn’t even stay long enough to see Twoey in action.”

“We’re an oblivious idiot,” she said as she turned visible.

“What do you mean?”

She plucked off one of the blob ghosts nuzzling his head and shook her own. “Nevermind. Come on, we’ve got a few new ideas from that test run.”

“Cool.”

“By the way, that line about eating ectoplasm. We haven’t actually done that, right?”

“Well, not on purpose, but you’ve seen my house. Sometimes a bit of ectoplasm ends up in the food.”

“We’re never eating at our house again.”

“Hey, it’s okay. I never let you guys stay for dinner when my parents or I cook and Jazz sterilizes everything so she never gets ectoplasm in anything.”

“Never again.”

“And besides, we’re ghosts now. Ghost food is made of ecto-”

Sam put her hand over his mouth. “Never.”

He nodded. Once she’d removed her hand and floated off, he muttered, “It’s not even bad as long as the food doesn’t come to life. Just kind of citrusy.”

“We’re going to throw up!”

[danyka-fendyr]

Don’t Call Me Pumpkin

Hey everyone! So, I’m determined to put out my promised 3 Spencer Reid Halloween fics, but also I’m a lazy hoe. Which brings us to where we are now. Me, watching The Haunting of Hill House, writing a Spencer Reid Halloween fic that takes place on a pumpkin farm. Because I desperately want to go to a pumpkin farm even though there is not one even anywhere remotely near me because I live in one of the sunniest places in the world now and pumpkins would DIE here. This has not been edited. Fight me.

Wordcount: 1681

Permanent Taglist: @dreamwritesimagines @rhabakoli

Warnings: None. All fluff. A little bit of innuendo.

“Spence, seriously, where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere fun,” he promised.

“C’mon. At least give me a vague statistic for a hint baby.” 

You fussed with the blindfold Spencer had reluctantly put on you. He hadn’t wanted to, but you had been more than up for it since you loved a good surprise. Spencer rarely surprised you, so you knew the surprise factor had to be important to him. Hence one of his purple ties currently being on your face.

“Okay.” You could hear him blushing from being called baby. “Over 800 million of what we’re going to see are currently available in the U.S.”

“Oh my gosh you’re taking me to a strip club?”

“No!” Spencer frantically objected.

You laughed. “I was kidding, Spence. I know that’s not your thing. You prefer blindfolds, right?”

You wiggled your partially obscured eyebrows.

“Sweetheart,” he whined.

“Hey, you know there’s no judgment from me. I hate handcuffs, so we’re even. But seriously, are we almost there?” 

“Yeah, we are. Just a couple more minutes.”

You could hear gravel crunching under the wheels of the car, and you were forced to wonder once again where you were. Knowing your boyfriend, he could have taken you anywhere. He was almost never spontaneous, which only served to make his spontaneity more so. After a few moments, you felt the car come to a stop, and you couldn’t contain your grin.

“Are we here?”

“Your use of the present tense on the word here would indicate that you already know we are, in fact, here.”

“You’re right, I do. Now get me out of this car so we can do a dramatic blindfold removal!”

Spencer laughed before coming over to your side of the car and opening the door for you, taking your hand and helping you out. He placed his hands on your shoulders, steering you forward towards wherever he planned on taking off this blindfold, while you didn’t even bother trying to contain your smile. It smelled like dirt, and you had a few theories as to where you might be.

“Okay, are you ready?” He asked.

“No. There’s one more thing I want to do before you take off the blindfold. Can you turn me around?”

Confused, Spencer did as you asked, and you carefully placed your hands on his face so you had an idea of where you were going before you leaned forward and kissed him. Tasted like coffee and cinnamon, just like he always did. You could do this all day, but you had a surprise to get to, so you pulled back.

“What was that for?”

“So I could see if I liked it.” You shrugged.

“...Well? Did you?” He asked.

“Baby, I always like kissing you. Now let’s do this thing.”

“Okay pumpkin,” he said.

Every fiber in your body stiffened as it hit you. Spencer never called you pumpkin. You had to drive a while, certainly long enough to get out of the city. It smelled like fresh dirt.

At the same moment he removed the blindfold, you yelled, “Babe! Don’t call me pumpkin!”

You pouted, glaring over your shoulder at his handsome, handsome face.

“I waited until we were here!” He justified.

“Still ruined the whole surprise.” You sighed, staring out at the vast fields of pumpkins before you.

“Is it ruined if I say we can pick out any pumpkin you want?”

You gasped, suddenly giddy. “Can we get multiple pumpkins?”

“Whatever you want, love.”

“I love you!” You threw your arms around him, letting him catch you.

He laughed, setting you down again after a moment. “C’mon, let’s go.”

You two made your way through the pumpkin patches, and you both inspected every pumpkin that came your way. You had gone pumpkin hunting with Spencer before, so you knew how this worked. He was looking for a pumpkin that matched certain characteristics he had in mind, the most halloweeny pumpkin, the pumpkin to rule over all other pumpkins if you will. You, on the other hand, were looking for something a little bit less exact. You were on the hunt for your pumpkin.

You never knew what it was going to look like, but every year, you went in search of the pumpkin that was right for you. It called to you, in all of its sweet orange glory, a bright beacon in the midst of all of these other pedestrian pumpkins. It was somewhere in this field, waiting for you to find it. Your pumpkin soulmate, if you will, ready to be taken home with your more human soulmate.

“Do you see anything?” Spencer asked you.

Some years, you found your pumpkin in the first sweep of the fields. You would see it and you would just immediately know. Last year had been one of those years, and Spencer had come to dread them since they meant him wandering a pumpkin patch with a very heavy pumpkin in his arms that you insisted was your baby and that no one else could have. This year was not to be one of those years though.

“No. Not yet. Which is kind of a bummer since I was hoping to check you out. I didn’t get to stare at you in the car like I usually do. My day feels incomplete without a chance to drool over you. I’ve been deprived.”

Spencer blushed. He was so easily flustered. It was one of the things you had loved about him, even before you started dating. The cute little way his ears would turn red and he would stare down at his feet, fix his tie. Today he wasn’t wearing a tie though, instead, just a sweater that you knew was very, very soft from all the times you had stolen it from him. 

“C’mon silly. Let’s go look for your elusive pumpkin.”

“You’re deflecting Dr. Reid,” you sing-songed.

“I am not deflecting, I am prioritizing. Can you think of anything more important than pumpkins right now?”

“You.”

An easy answer, and it made him blush again. It was going to be a great day.

It was set to be a great day regardless though. The sky was the perfect shade of cloudless, washed-out blue, almost gray, and the air was perfectly crisp. The dirt in the pumpkin patch was exactly the right consistency between dry and muddy, and overall, conditions seemed to be perfect. Plus Spencer knew how cold you got and made sure you had dressed appropriately.

You two wandered through the pumpkin fields for hours. It took Spencer a long time to find his pumpkin. He was pretty hardcore about exactly how long the vine had to be. You put him to shame though.

“Seriously love? Nothing yet?” Spencer said around a rather rotund pumpkin.

“No. But we’re close. I can feel it.” 

You had been saying this for the past three hours since you had arrived.

“All I’m saying is, maybe we could take a break. I could take this guy back to the car, we could buy some apple cider...I hear it’s really good here.”

Your boyfriend’s persuasion meant nothing to you though, as you stopped dead in your tracks.

“That’s it.”

“What, the apple cider?”

“No, Spence, that’s it!” You said excitedly, pointing at one of the many orange gourds in the patch. “That’s the one!”

“Oh thank goodness,” Spencer huffed, adjusting the pumpkin already in his arms.

You beamed proudly at a rather large pumpkin. You might not be able to carry it, actually. You should have gotten a wheelbarrow, but you hadn’t exactly thought this through. It was incredibly round, but not too round, not quite preternaturally so. It’s vine was cut quite close, which you weren’t generally fond of, but you liked on this particular pumpkin. It looked a little dinged up, but you didn’t mind. It was the one.

“What are you going to name it?” Then, before you could answer. “Might I suggest Curbit?”

“Spence, my darling, I love you more than life itself, but that name sounds like Kermit the frog if he was a traffic cop.”

“It’s a shortening of Cucurbita Pepo, the technical name for pumpkin,” Spencer said, sounding slightly offended by your description of his name.

“Tell you what, next year I’ll name my pumpkin Curbit and you can name yours Pep, but this guy? This guy is a Gourdy.”

“Gourdy? You sure?”

“Yep. Positive.”

“Okay.” Spencer grinned at you over the top of his pumpkin.

“Now I just have to survive carrying him out of here.”

It wasn’t easy carrying Gourdy out of the pumpkin patch. It involved a lot of huffing and puffing from both of you since Spencer was still carrying his own pumpkin which he had named Peter. Eventually, though, you made it out and got yourself a wheelbarrow so that you could continue browsing your selection of gourds.

You and Spencer bought several different various other gourds, less picky in your pursuit of these. They would probably just end up eaten at the end of the day, so looks mattered less than potential taste. When you were finished though, you were more than satisfied with your selection.

“So, did you have fun today?” Spencer asked, wheeling your purchases back to the car.

“Um, heck yeah!”

“Good. I was hoping that would be a good surprise.” He smiled at you.

“It definitely was.” You picked up your pumpkin, setting it securely in the back of Spencer’s car before sticking your hand securely in Spencer’s back pocket. You absolutely adored the surprised look that crossed his face before fading into a very smug smirk. He leaned forward to kiss you, pulling you closer with one hand while the other tangled into your hair.

“Hey,” he said. “You know what I think we should do when we get home?”

You grinned, pulling your lower lip between your teeth. “Pumpkin carving?”

Spencer shook his head, laughing at you before detaching himself and putting his own pumpkin in the back of the car. “Yeah, pumpkin. That’s exactly what I think we should do.”

[tastefullynefarious]

Torment never looked so goddamn fine

Chapter 2 / 10 - Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

Sooooo, i was very disappointed that most of the songs in Billy inspired playlists are post 85, so I’m adding one per chapter, a little song that could have actually plaid in the background as the story unfolds.

Word count: 4,134 

Warnings: 18+, I have no shame!, Should have proof read this one more time, shameless smut in case I wasn’t clear

Last night a little dancer came dancin' to my door

Last night a little angel came pumping on the floor

She said, come on baby, I got a license for love

And if it expires, pray help from above

Because

In the midnight hour she cried, more, more, more

With a rebel yell she cried, more, more, more

In the midnight hour, babe, more, more, more

With a rebel yell, more, more, more

More, more, more

There was lots of shouting. Screaming actually, long pain-filled howls mixed with curses in a language she didn't yet fully understand. The scalpel was small, but she didn't need much to make them crumble beneath her power. She barely needed anything at all, the minuscule knife and the drawn blood were nothing more than visual aids. That was the beauty of the human brain, you could trick it into believing anything if determined enough, people did it to themselves often without even realizing. But she, oh she could do so much more.

Pain was a funny thing. It lifted some up, made them fight harder, while completely shattering the spirits of others. It was fuel, and its consequences were up to the mentality of whoever it was inflicted upon. But no matter who you were and how strong you thought yourself, there was a threshold, a limit of suffering the brain could handle before it sent signals to the heart to stop. And she could play with that limit as she saw fit, like a dial to turn up and down, making the smallest of cuts feel like the insides were being torn open or a bullet wound like a mere pinch. She could bring the prisoners from the depths of hell to the sweet bliss of nothingness with just her mind and they would spill all their secrets in broken shouts, in that rigid language, needless blood on her hands. And she would hear them long after she was sent back to her little square room and she would see their faces when she closed her eyes.

Sandy woke up in the midnight hour, cold sweat covering her entire body, the screams still rang in her ears. It took her several minutes to distinguish reality from dream, her body shaking uncontrollably. She was not in that room anymore, and she'll be damned if she ever went back. That was the whole reason she came to Hawkins after all.

She hopped in the shower, letting the steaming water soothe away some of the aches in her body and the itch under the skin of her left wrist. She scrubbed the spot relentlessly to no avail, before the pain made her stop. But pain was not a problem to her, never had been; she could just make it stop. Her eyes stared a hole into her wrist, the cover up tattoo faded just enough to make out the original underneath in bold black - 007. The tears came out of nowhere, the shame followed soon after.

How was she still so weak? So easily brought down by things so far in her past? It was pathetic. She punched the hard tile wall, shock spreading through her bones like ink on paper, but she didn't turn the dial down. Sometimes it was good to just feel the burning ache. Sometimes feeling nothing scared her more than the soreness of bruised bones and split open skin.

Sleep wasn't going to come again that night, not between her recurring nightmares and the new problems that arose. She was in her car in moments, hair still dripping wet and an oversized shirt haphazardly thrown on. Driving usually helped calm her nerves, but it was doing little in that moment. Coming to Hawkins must have been a mistake after all. It only brought more questions and none of the sweet release she had dreamed of.

She found the quarry easily despite not particularly looking for it, but it was a good a spot as any to ponder and make sense of her raging thoughts. She was tired. She had expected the nightmares not to fully disappear, but honestly she was hoping they would have at least changed to the new horrors she was exposed to. Apparently childhood trauma was stronger than finding out there was another dimension filled with mind controlling monsters and human eating dogs. It hadn't helped at all to find out that Dr. Brenner - papa - was killed by one of the creatures from the so called Upside Down. She felt somehow cheated. She hadn't particularly wanted to kill him herself, add more blood to her already dripping hands, but she wished she could have seen it, even if just to make sure the fucker had actually bitten the proverbial dust.

Passing her hand through her hair she spotted the blood on the sleeve and recalled the previous day and meeting police chief Hopper. Joining him in the tunnels beneath the pumpkin field, more or less with his knowledge and consent, and then the vines and the creature that attacked them. She was so accustomed to use her powers to get out of anything, but apparently those things - demodogs - felt pain differently. Or perhaps it was because of the hive mind. The pain was not dealt directly to the 'main' brain so it affected the host less. She let out an exasperated sigh, head resting backwards on the seat. It was insane, all of it!

Finding out about El had also been heartbreaking on its own, even if she never got to meet the girl before she had ran away. Hopper didn't, couldn't, understand what is was like to spend your life in a little square room and then being offered a glimpse of the world beyond. It was only a matter of time before the poor girl went to explore the glorious outside with all the restrictions he was putting up. His concern was understandable, his method not so much.

Eleven. There had been four more attempts after her. Four children kidnapped and their families destroyed. She didn't dare wonder too long on what those poor souls had been though, lest she'd be reminded of her own torment. But now that El was gone, Sandy thought her next move would be to find the girl, and maybe even the other three, if they were still alive. She knew for a fact that all the ones before her were long gone, but she hadn't been aware of the ones after. The MKUltra program hadn't died when she burned down the last lab, just redesigned itself. And apparently moved from torturing Soviet spies to opening portals to deadly dimensions of horrors. Fun!

She pressed her head to the steering wheel, exhaling slowly and closing her eyes. Which was a horrendous mistake. She jerked up the second after, her heart threatening to beat out of her chest. It was so dark and quiet, almost too quiet. Was that normal silence or the dead stillness that foretold of evils lurking just out of sight, the calm before the storm? Her drumming heart was the only sound for the longest time, so loud she was sure it could be heard all the way to the fucking Upside Down. She nearly jumped out of her skin when a flash of light darted at the edge of her vision.

It turned out to be a car, a blue Camaro in fact. She watched Billy park the car right beside hers and give her a small nod, not opening the window or giving any sign he was going to move from his seat. If anything, he looked like he wanted to be left alone, which was pretty obvious by the choice of place and time.

There was a moment of calmness, his presence there, the normality he brought, chasing away the shadows in her head. But as soon as he turned off the headlights and they were plunged in a seemingly deeper darkness than before, her eyes started again to frantically search for threats behind the treeline. She kept looking his way as well, wondering if he would send her away if she jumped in the passenger seat of his Camaro or be up to relieve some tension with her. She didn't want to be alone, it was selfish, she knew. But at the same time, he didn't seem like the kind of guy to mind a meaningless one time fling. How many girls he must have charmed with that car alone, not to mention that ass?

When she spied that he was having trouble with his lighter Sandy didn't think twice as she opened the door and slipped into his car in one fast, fluid motion, like the night air could have been toxic. She passed him her own lighter as an excuse, but the small smile on his lips and raised brow showed he saw right through her tough girl act.

"Scared of the dark, are we?" He took the lighter nevertheless and she was happy he was letting her stay, even if it was for a little while.

"Of what could be lurking in it." He gave her a weird look, like he had been expecting more of her, despite not knowing anything about her, probably not even her name if Max hadn't told him. "Don't laugh, there had been some weird animal attacks in this stupid town."

Billy just stared at her for another second before turning to look ahead and taking one long drag from his cigar. He was tired and didn't have the energy to mock her for the childlike fear or her disheveled look. He had hoped she would have left after he returned the lighter, but the girl took a cigar out of his pack as well and was now smoking besides him in an odd, but comforting silence. If he was completely honest with himself, he hadn't wanted to be alone, not after Neil's outburst and the pain in his ribs, but he had nowhere to run to, no friends to confide in and no one to tell him it will all be over soon, he just had to finish high-school. One more fucking year! In Cali at least he had his surfing and some 'friends' he could always count on to drink the pain away with without having to explain himself.

He eyed the girl again, trying to get his mind off of his home life. What was her deal? And more importantly, was she wearing no pants? His eyes trailed her exposed legs. They were barely visible in the moonlight, but the nasty looking burn mark on her thigh was standing out like a sore thumb. He had hoped he would have seen her in school, but Tommy H and Carol knew of no one with her description. It didn't help that he didn't even know her damn name. His brows furrowed, who was this stranger sitting in his car?

"Are you ever going to tell me your name?"

"Ask me nicely and maybe I will."

"It's only fair, you know mine."

"Ah, you're no fun..."

"I'm plenty of fun!"

"I bet you are." It was a half mock, half praise, the little smirk on her lips as she blew the smoke away as sinful as the glint in her eyes when she winked. It brought out his more flirtatious nature, the momentary anger turning into lust.

"Fine, don't tell me, doll." She scoffed, something between surprise and irritation, but she kept the playful demeanor, the smile never leaving her lips.

"Do I look like a doll to you?"

"It's all I got if you're not giving me your name." He raised his shoulders, the corners of his lips lifting into a smirk. He was quite proud of the nickname he gave the mystery girl. "Besides, it's on your registration plate, doll." He used it again, in hopes he'd make her give up her name. But the effect had been nothing of the sorts, her eves lighting up with mischief, eyebrows raised. He felt like she was in on some joke he had no clue about.

"Ah, so with just one 'L'?"

"Does it matter? It sounds all the same."

"But it doesn't mean the same!" She turned in her seat to fully face him, one leg carefully tucked beneath her. His eyes were drawn again to that burn mark, but her gleeful voice brought his attention back to her face. "Dol, D-O-L, is a unit measurement for pain. They use these instruments, dolorimeters - I know, funny name - to find out a person's pain sensitivity level when they apply steady pressure, or heat, or electrical stimulation to some areas of the body. Or even when they pop out a joint or break a bone. Crazy what scientist are doing these days."

Billy blinked a few times, slowly making sense of her word vomit. What the actual fuck? What kind of teenager knew these kind of things? And more importantly who on earth was so into it? He grimaced when his thoughts took him back to his father. Neil would have a field day with one of those dolori-something pain inducing instruments.

"You're weird."

"I'll take that as a compliment." She gave him a shit eating grin and for a moment he thought she was just messing with him. It was all an attempt at some lame joke, finding her there in the middle of the night, no pants, alone and flinching every time a sound came from outside the car, talking about torture devices. But her expression softened for a brief moment, the glee completely draining from her eyes before she turned her head to check the trees for what must have been the tenth time since she got in his Camaro. The question formed on his lips before he could decide if he even wanted to know or not.

"What are you doing out here?"

"Probably the same as you." She paused, and for a moment it didn't seem like she was going to continue. When she did though, her voice came out as more of a whisper. "Running away from my problems mostly. Trying to figure out what to do next. Things like that." Billy couldn't stop staring at her. Barely clothed, hair a wet mess. The little scar on her upper lip and burned flesh on her thigh. Skittish, her eyes checking for a threat to jump out of the trees. Was she in some kind of trouble? All he knew about her was the was 'just passing through'. His breath caught in his throat when he noticed the dark rusty spots on her sleeve, the evidence piecing itself together in his head like a tragic puzzle, one he knew so well. Someone had done all that to her.

"So what brought you to Hawkins from beautiful Florida?"

"What brought you here from sunny California?" His initial concern was dimming, the girl's evasive responses getting old and tiring. He was curious, sure, but he wasn't going to pry if she wasn't comfortable to tell him. He knew how crucial it was to hide the truth, to keep it all in, buried as far from the light of day. All it ever brought was pity or judgement, none pleasant to experience.

"You don't give straight answers, do you?" She poked her tongue out at him in a childish manner before turning back to look at the forest. There was just no winning with this girl. He wasn't sure why the next words left his mouth, but he felt the blood boiling in his veins with each syllable, his fingers curling tightly around the steering wheel as if bracing for an impact. "I'm here instead of on a beach, because of my shitty dad and his wonderful new family." That seemed to get her attention though, her head snapping back to him. She seemed to weight her reply carefully, before finally speaking.

"I'm just passing through. Might actually leave sooner than expected…" He was surprised she changed the subject. Most people would have asked him to elaborate or worse, insist his life couldn't be so bad, give a motivational, positivity dripping monlogue, as if they knew anything about him. But she brought the discussion back to her and it kept his mind off the fact that sooner or later he had to head back to his own home, if he could even call it that anymore. Maybe Neil, Susan and Max would all be happier if he just… disappeared, packed up a bag and head out into the world.

"Going back home?"

"Don't actually have a home, I guess." His brows furrowed, jaw clenching slightly. Again with the evasive half answers. How could she not have a home? Was she an orphan? But even so, she would have been put in the system. Had she ran away? Was it like his 'home', a place where he went to sleep and eat, but with little else of the qualities usually attached to the word?

Sandy watched him as the frown took over his pretty boy face. She could see the cogs working in his brain trying to piece together the meaning and implication of her last sentence, and perhaps even preparing to bombard her with questions. But how could she ever explain she was born in a lab and raised by a crazy scientist who made her torture people for information? And what was it with his sudden interest in her non existent home? She turned to look at him straight in the eyes for the first time that night. She stared long and hard into his blues and reached with her mind and felt the pain he was hiding just beneath the surface. Her eyes fell to his torso, hand sticking out to graze the tender spot hidden by his shirt. He flinched, but she knew the pain never hit him from that little touch, nor when she flung her leg over unceremoniously to straddle him. Good thing she forgot to put on pants when she left.

"You want to talk shitty pasts or fuck till we forget our problems? Dealers choice." But she already knew the answer, his hands burning on her cold skin, trailing up her thighs. If she surprised him with her sudden move, he didn't show it. Perhaps he didn't really care, her desperate need for a distraction mirrored by his own. Meaningless sex was always a great way to keep our mind off pressing matters. He seemed to know that well, perhaps they were not so different.

Their lips met in a furry, neither sure who closed the space between them first and neither caring. They kissed, hard and desperate, just like she liked it, the sheer force leaving her lips throbbing. Sandy's hands puled his shirt out of his jeans hasty, the need to feel his skin against hers paramount to her very existence and broke the kiss for the briefest moment as it came over his head. Had it really been that long since she'd been with anybody? She couldn't remember, not with Billy's hands squeegeeing her ass and pulling her closer to him, grinding up towards her. She wasted little time, taking off her own shirt, the size of it allowing her to leave to buttoned up, before bringing her mouth back to his, her hands snaking around his neck and chests pressed together. His hands roamed on her back, fingertips digging in her skin, occasionally stopping to feel the length of a scar or another.

He was so wonderfully warm she melted into him, moaning into the kiss as she slowly started grinding into him. She felt him smirking, lips never parting further than to allow him to leave a trail of soppy kisses on her jawline and down her neck. One of his hands wound tight in the hair at the base of her neck, as his teeth sunk in the flesh just beside her pulse and Sand found herself smiling.

"Shit, stop with the teasing!" But he said nothing, only letting out a huff of acknowledgement, his plump lips still attached to that sweet spot where the neck met the shoulder. His other hand, once done with exploring, found one of her breasts. She let out a straggled moan, the air caught in her throat. She was dizzy, his warmth seeping into her her, intoxicating like a new drug. And to think he'd barely touched her. She wet her lower lip with her tongue, the thought of what was to come maddening. In her drunken state she almost begged. Almost. Two could play that game and she wasn't know to be fair.

The button and zipper of his jeans flew open before he realized. Billy gasped when her hand pressed none too gently over his dick, rubbing it through the soft fabric of his boxers. A part of him relished in the small pleasures of teasing her raw. The other part made him lift his hips when she struggled to push his jeans and boxers aside. His head flew backwards hitting the headrest as her fingers wrapped tightly around his freed cock, thumb pressing into the tip to smudge some of the precum. She pumped him with a steady, merciless grip, but it was her expression that made him give in, eyes dark with lust and a grin that knew she was going to get exactly what she wanted out of him.

He gripped her wrist and pinned it to her lower back while his other hand pushed her black panties aside, not bothering to fully take them off. She lifted herself just enough, shuddering when his fingers made a straight line from her collarbone all the way between her folds. Her hands resting on his shoulders for support. She was dripping wet, not that he was surprised. He slipped into her fast with one powerful thrust, sheeting his dick completely. She arched her back with a lewd moan, like a coil falling back to place. Billy rested his forehead above her breast, the heat and tightness of her pussy making his head spin.

"Fuck."

"Me." Her breath was hot on his ear, the hairs on his neck standing. "Hard!" She needn't say it twice. Both his hands found her waist to guide her, but the vixen knew what she was doing, her body undulating in time with his violent thrusts. He found he couldn't quite take his eyes off of her, the moonlight emphasizing all the right places. The curve of her neck as her head lolled back, lips parted, the little scar almost invisible if he didn't already know where to look. Her breasts bouncing in a hypnotic rhythm, nipples perky as they occasionally grazed his chest in the cramped space. And that sweet mage of his cock disappearing into her, her vulgar moans and slapping skin the only sounds filling the car.

Sandy tried to keep her eyes open, the image of Billy's taunt muscles and fully blown eyes imprinted on her retinas, but failed miserably when his fingers wrapped around her neck. She relished in the feelings instead, her skin tingling wherever his caressed, fondled or dug into. She cursed his jeans for only being lowered to his thighs, precious territory left unexplored. The steering wheel was pressing hard into her back, the ache in perfect contrast to the pleasure shooting up from between her thighs as Billy rammed into her viciously. She came hard, pure bliss passing through her in wave after wave making her quiver uncontrollably. Strong arms encased around her, grounding her in reality, as he somehow picked up the pace, his rhythm erratic. He spilled into her while she was still coming down her high, his head buried into the crook of her neck. They stood there for a moment longer, breaths ragged and bodies slick with sweat, her fingers twisting his damp hair around.

Sandy was the first to speak.

"Well hot damn, should have jumped you in that paring lot." He chuckled against her skin, the vibrations pleasant to her still sensitive body.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, doll." The corners of her mouth twisted into a sly smile and she untangled herself from him, his hands lingering on her until the last second. She regarded the completely fogged windows as she found her shirt and put it back on, but she couldn't bring herself to worry about the world outside that Camaro. Not yet at lest. She turned toward him, his almost sheepish expression endearing.

"I'll be in town for a coupe more days. Motel 6, room 13. Don't be a stranger." She pushed the door open and stepped into to cool night air, but passed him a final wink before getting into her own car. "Oh and, you can call me Sandy."

[otobabe]

“I’d Spill My Latte For You” OC-tober 10.01.19 Kari (OC) x Heisuke [aka Karisuke] Key Words: Fluff, Autumn, Cozy Autumn Days Length: 844 words

A cool fall breeze tickled Kari’s flushed cheek as she pulled Heisuke along the gravel path. 

“K-Kari-chan! Hey, I’m going to spill my coffee at this pace!” Heisuke huffed, holding tightly to Kari’s hand amongst the large trees painted in reds and oranges. The familiar smell of coffee mixed with the earthy scents of fall, and all Kari could think about was showing Heisuke a beautiful October afternoon. He’d been feeling the gloom of shortened days and waning summer sunshine, but autumn was Kari’s favorite season and she craved to lift his spirits by showing him some of what fall had to offer. 

They’d begun the day by going to a local farm and picking out pumpkins. Heisuke had originally chosen a giant one before seeing Kari’s weary look as he hefted it up with surprising ease, and began to carry it over to her. She’d picked out two baby pumpkins, one of them had a large leaf wrapped near the stem. His look of gentle confusion over her adamance on keeping both the pumpkins she’d chosen made her blush. She knew that she was being uncharacteristically stubborn, and as soon as he’d quietly asked, ‘Kari-chan, those are really cute, but I thought we were picking our own pumpkins? I can’t really carve those for you…’ she’d known she had to come clean.

So, head turned away in utter embarrassment and secretly cursing Heisuke for being able to consistently peel off her confident exterior like a bandaid with his sincerity, she’d muttered out her reasonings. One of the little pumpkins, the one with the leaf, well, it’d been spiky enough and shaped just right to match his bangs. The other pumpkin had curled vines on it, and she’d humiliatingly thought it resembled her plaguingly consistent disheveled hair. Kari raised the latte she held up to her cheek thinking about how softly he touched her in that moment, that endearing look in his eyes, and she picked up the pace again. Their coffees sloshed inside the plastic cups as Heisuke still, thankfully, refrained from pulling them to a sudden stop and instead remained quite focused on trying to keep up.

After the pumpkins, they’d grabbed iced lattes, the weather crisp but still warm enough to enjoy a cold drink as long as it was paired with a spiced pumpkin muffin-- warmed to perfection, of course. They stayed at the cafe only long enough to enjoy their muffin, a good decision since Kari got to see the cute flush across Heisuke’s face when she held the muffin up to his lips for him to take a bite… and because she can still feel the way his soft lips caressed her fingers when he took the bite.

As they got closer and closer to their last stop of the day, Kari looked back toward Heisuke. She grinned with excitement, her wild hair flying erratically with the rushing wind. His look of concern quickly morphed into one of enthusiasm when he caught her gaze. His own ponytail whipped behind him and his large teal eyes sparkled at her. She had to look away again to catch her breath, wanting nothing more than to kiss him right then and there, with her heart skipping beats as frantically as their feet flying off the ground, but knowing this place was worth the wait. 

They finally arrived at the end of the hill to a stunning array of fall colors; sunflowers, orange chrysanthemums, rudbeckias, and trees with changing leaves now surrounded them. Kari’s hand slipped from Heisuke’s grip during his shock, and skillfully grabbed both coffees, setting them down amongst a small patch of soft grass. As she straightened up to face him again, Heisuke’s mouth was still wide open as he took in the sight, his chestnut hair and teal irises looked at home here in the autumn views, and his oft-thought ridiculous yellow hoodie was nothing unlike the sun peeking through the treeline, shining brightly amongst the flowers. A fitting metaphor for a man that made Kari smile and made her heart warm as much as he did. 

She carefully brought her hands up to his cheeks, grinning while his eyes found a way to grow wider even still. Her thumb leisurely stoked his cheek as she whispered her question, “How’s the view? Was it worth almost spilling your latte, Heisuke-kun?” 

A smile that could’ve dazzled anyone, from monarchs to gods, shined at Kari. With blush kissed cheeks burning warmly against her hands, she felt the winds whip around them as if they were urging her closer to him. He cautiously removed her hands from his face, leaving them to rest across his shoulders as he pulled her in his arms. 

Never the smoothest, Heisuke murmured, “I-I’d spill my latte on purpose if it meant I could see you like this again…” and slowly, like a leaf falling from a tree, Heisuke and Kari leaned into each other. And on this cool autumn day in October, their lips met and they lost themselves within the cozy passions of fall.