#because he ‘didn’t hold a hose mate’

[whereimnotme]

Photo taken during climate action protest in Canberra, January 2020, featuring another of ScoMo’s tone deaf quotes - ‘thankfully we’ve had no loss of life’ - from that ill-fated small town PR tour.

"Yes, two, that's quite right. I was thinking about firefighters really," said Morrison, before expressing his "sincere condolences" for the 27 lives lost during the ongoing disaster.

Officially, 33 people were ultimately killed directly by fires that summer with another estimated 445 people dying from smoke inhalation.

Meanwhile the PM fucked off to Hawaii on holiday.

I am still incandescent with rage.

I just spent some time scrolling through this blog and am suffering from sever laughter. Thanks so much for collating the countries craziest moments. One of my favourites is when Scott Morrison was in Hawaii while the bushfires where burning.

December 2019: As Australia's east coast is engulfed in the worst bushfires in living memory, rumours begin to circulate that Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison may have secretly fucked off for a holiday in Hawaii.

Keep in mind, this is what is going down in Australia at the time:

The Hawaii rumour is initially written off as a fringe conspiracy, because surely nobody could be that fuckin tonedeaf, and it was quickly forgotten about... until an Australian man visiting Hawaii UPLOADED A SELFIE ON THE BEACH WITH THE PM THROWING A SHAKA.

At which point all hell broke loose.

Overnight the formerly popular "Scomo" became the most despised man in all of Australia. Think "firefighters shouting out of their windows to news cameras" level of despised.

After about two days of radio silence and pretending like he was still at home running the country, the Prime Minister's handlers finally dragged him onto call with an Australian radio station, where he pinky promised to return to Australia as fast as he could in an attempt to calm things down.

Unfortunately Scott's empathy consultant (a real job) then had to watch Scott pour more gasoline on the dumpster fire by uttering the now famous phrase "Look I don't hold a hose mate" when asked by the radio interviewer why the fucking fuck the fuckhead wasn't fucking in Australia doing his fucking job during a massive fucking crisis.

Testing just how much worse things could get, Scomo then proceeded to NOT rush back to Australia as promised, instead attempting to complete the rest of his holiday, a fact that was exposed when a passerby snapped a picture of him still lounging on the beach two days later.

Eventually, holiday complete, Morrison did reluctantly slink back to Australia, and in an attempt to calm things down, he decided to pay a visit to a small town that had been destroyed by the fires.

Which was a big mistake.

Scomo still had not registered how absolutely and totally he had screwed the poodle with his Hawaiian beach vacation, and he walks into what is now taught in PR classes as one of the greatest examples of "what not do do in a crisis" in all of history.

Scotty from Marketing, as he is now dubbed by the nation, spends a painfully cringe-inducing hour wandering around a burned down town with TV news cameras in tow, having to FORCE PEOPLE TO SHAKE HIS HAND in what is some of the most awkward footage you will ever see.

At this point it's probably also worth mentioning that, before becoming Prime Minister, Scott Morrison's biggest claim to fame in politics was being the guy that was so far up the coal lobby's arse that he literally brought coal into parliament and waved it around, claiming it doesn't hurt people.

So when a protest was organised it turned out to be one big national fuck you to the Prime Minister, the likes of which the world has never seen before or since.

Needless to say, at this point Scomo's career was dead in the water, but thanks to the rules brought in to stop Australian political parties from knifing their leader every two weeks (a popular Aussie passtime) Morrison basically couldn't get fired until after the next election.

And so, when the election rolled around in 2022, we decided that was an opportune time to travel over to Hawaii to erect this bad boy tribute to the Prime Minister, on the very beach where Scomo had sat and drank margaritas that one fateful week in December as Australia burned (thanks to @chaser for funding the ticket)

[rhaenyratargayen]

dance, baby // f.w.

summary — fred weasley is feeling sappy a month before his big brother gets married, so he takes his girlfriend out to ask the big question.

word count — 2.7k

warnings — marriage, proposing, cursing.

a/n — hi loves! this is for my bby kai’s @rcwenaclaw 1.5k followers writing challenge! congratulations my love <3 my prompt is “care to dance?” “there’s no music playing!” “so?” 

Fred held your hand tightly in his as he led you through the tall grass behind the Burrow. It was just after sundown, the air cooling as the stars appeared in the sky. You tugged Fred’s old flannel you were wearing tightly around you, squeezing Fred’s hand in the process. He looked back at you, chuckling softly when he realized his long legs were practically leaving you in the dust behind him.

“Sorry, love.” He laughed, slowing his pace.

He lifted his hand still in yours and wrapped it around your waist, pulling you close to him in the process. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and one to your lips before he continued on.

“Where are we even going, Freddie?” You asked, squinting your eyes as you looked out into the empty field.

“Patience, darling.” He chuckled, “It’ll be worth it.”

While all the other Weasleys had gone to bed after a long day, Fred was outside your door and ushering you outside before you could protest or ask why. It was June, the weather was warm and days were filled with playing quidditch and water fights with the garden hose. Even as an adult, summers spent at the Burrow were anything but uneventful.

Still, your mind often wandered to the place it was so many summers ago, reading a book with Hermione in the shade while the others played quidditch, or helping Molly cook dinner in the kitchen. Those memories were fond as they held the warmth of the burrow and the peacefulness in mind – no anxious thoughts of the Dark Lord or fear of the next war.

Your most prominent memories included your current boyfriend, although he wasn’t so fortunate to hold that title years ago.

“Fred. You prick, give me back my book.”

You were sixteen years old, hot from the beating sun, and absolutely furious at the lanky redhead before you.

Fred laughed at your harsh tone, always proud to get a rise out of you. He began running around the yard, tauntingly, with your book held high over his head and completely out of your reach.

George, Ginny, Harry and Ron all stood on the ground with their brooms, waiting impatiently for Fred to return to their game. Hermione rolled her eyes at Fred’s antics from where she sat under the shade tree, clutching her book tighter as if he would return to steal hers as well.

But you stood firm in your place, heels dug into the ground and arms crossed over your chest. You clenched your jaw, exhaling a heavy breath like a bull preparing to charge. Fred turned when he realized you weren’t after your book and looked to you with a confused frown.

“I’m not going to chase you, you git, give it back.” You scoffed, holding your hand out expectedly.

“Y/N,” Fred whined, “You’re always under that shade tree reading, come play a game with us.”

“You mean come play a game with you?” You quipped.

Fred tilted his head and scratched the back of his neck, “I mean yeah… I’ll be there too.”

“You’re unbelievable.” You huffed out a laugh.

You turned on your heel, without your book, and began stomping back to the shade tree. But a gasp left your lips as you felt a hand grab at your wrist, you whipped around to see Fred’s larger hand holding your wrist. It was one of the moments you hated Fred Weasley most; when he made you feel light as a feather with him as your only tether to the ground.

“One game,” He pleaded, “Please?”

“Oi!” Ginny’s booming voice was heard behind Fred, “Didn’t Mum ever tell you stealing isn’t a good way of flirting?”

Fred sighed dramatically as soon as he heard the cackles from his brothers at Ginny’s comment.

“Sod off!” He scoffed.

“Let’s go mate, we wanna play again.” George huffed, standing with his hands on his hips.

“‘M trying to get Y/N to play with us, then we’ll have an even six.”

Y/N sighed as the others perked up at his suggestion, suddenly in on his plan if that meant a fair game for them.

“Come on, Y/N, what do you say?” Ginny grinned.

“It’s too hot,” You protested, “I was just about to head inside, anyway.”

“Too hot? I’ve got a solution for that.”

It took you too many seconds to realize what George meant, and before a scream of protest could leave your lips you were being soaked from head to foot as George raised his wand in the air, the garden hose raining over you and Fred like a downpour.

All were silent as the water stopped, revealing your absolute furious expression and clenched fists.

“This is your fault, Weasley.” You spoke dangerously quiet to Fred.

He bit his lip to contain the bark of laughter he so desperately wanted to let out, and he couldn’t help but find you absolutely adorable in that moment.

“And you’re gonna pay for it.”

You began chasing Fred just as he had wanted in the beginning. He laughed loudly as he weaved through the tall grass, slowing his speed to allow you almost close enough to catch him before he ran off again. Soon enough your screams of fury were cut up by laughter and Fred finally let you catch him, laughing uncontrollably when you knocked him to the ground.

Memories like that kept you feeling afloat, kept the light burning when things became too hard to handle. Any memory you had with Fred you held close to your heart, treasuring them all individually, afraid to lose them.

It wasn’t long after that you had become Fred’s official girlfriend. After years of mutual pining and immaturely making each other jealous as teenagers, all it took was one insufferable Dolores Umbridge to bring the two of you together ultimately on the day of the twin’s escape from Hogwarts.

Your boots clicked rapidly against the floor as you rushed to the top of the stairs where the boys were waiting. You desperately hoped you weren’t too late.

The thought of not having Fred in your life overcame any pride you had. Not having him scared you, and with the clock ticking down on your realization, you rushed to find Fred to let him know how you felt before he was gone.

“Fred.” You sighed in relief as you spotted two redheads looking over the balcony of the staircase. Below you could see the hall filled with students taking their exams as Fred and George waited for their opportune moment.

“Y/N?” Fred turned back with a surprised grin.

He wasn’t sure he would see you before he left, after all you two didn’t get along. He worried that the banter you two had wasn’t a cover up for your feelings for one another, he worried maybe you truly didn’t like him, but all of his anxious worries washed away the moment he saw the adoration on your face as you saw him.

He rushed towards you and wrapped his arms around you, digging his face into the crook of your neck and inhaling your scent as your arms wrapped around his neck. He felt his stomach fill with the familiar flutters he felt around you, but it was different this time because he knew you were feeling them too.

“I was afraid I was too late.” You sighed as you pulled back.

Fred kept his arms around you, keeping you close to him and savoring the moment he longed for before he was off and out of this school forever.

“I would’ve waited ages for you, darling.” The sincerity in his tone stole your breath, your vision now only filled with everything Fred Weasley.

“I’m gonna miss you, Freddie.” You muttered, afraid if you spoke up you might break under the thought of him leaving after you finally confessed.

“Hey,” He cooed, petting your hair, “It’s only two months before you're out of here for good too, and when you are I’ll be waiting for you to get off the train and we can pick up where we left off, yeah?”

You nodded, holding on to the promise of his words and the love you felt for him. With a confident inhale, you put on a smile as you blinked up at him. You fell for the mischief in his eyes in that moment, the mischief that couldn’t wait to go out with a bang and start up a joke shop with George.

“I’ll see you soon, then?” You giggled softly.

“Sooner than you think.”

Suddenly you felt his hands cupping your face as he stared down at you in adoration, like he was holding his entire world in his hands. He waited for you to nod slightly at him before he dipped down and connected his lips with yours.

It was euphoric, to finally kiss him after so long. The kiss held a thousand meanings; a hello and a goodbye. You clung to him at the thought, sucking lightly on his bottom lip and feeling him tug you closer in return. You chased his lips as he pulled back, and he indulged you with one last kiss before he was off on his broom.

“I’ve been patient long enough, Freddie,” You laughed, “Are we almost there now?”

Fred smiled back at you but didn’t answer, he only continued with your hand in his until the two of you reached the peak of a small hill. You gasped as you reached the top, his question suddenly answered as you caught a glimpse of floating lights circling around a picnic blanket laid out in the grass.

“Oh, Freddie.” You sighed happily, taking the lead as you rushed towards the comfortable spot.

“I told you it’d be worth it.”

Fred placed his hand on your waist and spun you to face him, his lips colliding with yours before you could even comprehend his actions. You smiled instantly, pausing the kiss to giggle softly before you wrapped your arms around his neck and sunk to the ground over the blanket.

“I love you.” You sighed against his lips.

Fred hummed in return, moving to hover over you. His thumb ran softly over your hip as his lips peppered kisses along your cheek and the corner of your mouth.

“Trust me, not as much as I love you.”

You scoffed, playfully, fighting back wordlessly as you caught his lips again in a kiss. He exhaled a breathy laugh at your actions, pecking your lips several times before he pulled away and sat up.

“Merlin, you’re perfect.” He muttered to himself as he watched you sit up to face him, pure innocence on your face as he knew you had no idea of the events to come for the night.

A smile rose to your lips, along with growing affection in your chest as you moved to sit beside him, tucking your face in his chest as he wrapped his arms around you once again.

“You’re rather needy tonight, aren't’ you love?” He teased.

“Well you’re being awfully romantic.” You quipped back.

He chuckled to himself, “You have no idea.”

You sat there for a moment, enjoying being in each other’s arms under a starry night sky. His scent filled your senses, lulling you to a state of uteral peace, a state your mind brought you to everytime you thought of him. Fred was where you always wanted to be, not only was he the love of your life but he was your home as well.

“Care to dance?” He spoke up, suddenly.

Your brows furrowed as your head shot up to face him. He had an obnoxiously adorable smile on his face, one that could unknowingly make you do absolutely anything. The air had started to cool and you were much warmer cuddled up beside him, but his smile was far too adorable to immediately shut down his offer.

“Fred,” You laughed, softly, “There’s no music playing.”

Fred scoffed playfully, immediately standing to his feet confidently.

“So?” He shrugged, holding his hand out to you, “When has something like that ever stopped me before?”

You bit your lip as your eyes met his, sharing the mischievous glint you used to hate so much. It had grown on you in the best possible way, becoming one of the things you loved about your boyfriend most.

With a knowing head tilt from Fred, you playfully rolled your eyes in protest before you slapped your hand in his, snickering as you heard his laughter roar as he pulled you to your feet.

He pressed a kiss to your forehead before he twirled you around and into his chest. His hand fell at your waist, the other holding yours delicately in the air beside you. You hadn’t even thought about the absence of music, instead finding yourself getting lost in how he held you.

Being near Fred was simultaneously dizzying and grounding. Your overwhelming love for him sometimes had you feeling like you were floating on cloud nine, slipping out of this reality and into one where you could be with him forever, but the tenderness in his voice as he spoke to you, the firmness in the way he held you; grounded you to the point where you didn’t feel like you needed to drift away to another reality, this one was just fine as long as he was in it.

“What’re you thinking about, princess?” Fred rested his head on yours, not even needing to look at you to know what your silence meant.

“You,” You sighed, honestly, “I love you.”

Fred stopped swaying and pulled back to look at you, cupping your face in his hand the instant you raised your head.

“I know you’re scared, Merlin, I am too,” He sighed, “But it doesn’t seem so scary when I look at you. It doesn’t seem like some mountain to overcome, it just seems like an obstacle to face, and we will face it. When I look at you, I don’t worry about the fear because I know when we come out on the other side you’ll still love me like you do now.”

Your eyes flitted between his, holding on to every word he said. You sank into the feeling of his hold on you, your own hands clasping together around his neck. He bit his lip as he paused, tearing his gaze from the landscape behind you to look you in the eyes.

There it was, that mischievous glint. And before you could question the suspicious romantic actions of your boyfriend, he had lowered himself on one knee before you. You gasped as he took your hands in his, running his thumb along your knuckles comfortingly, like he knew how rapid your heart was racing as his was too.

“I’m scared, fuckin’ hell I am,” Fred nodded rapidly, “But Bill and Fleur are getting married in two months. They aren’t letting the fear stop them from being with each other and that’s how I feel with you, Y/N. Whatever happens is worth it to me if you and I are together in the end.”

Your hands shook in his, silent tears streaming down your face as you longed to jump into his arms. You knew your answer, he knew your answer, but you awaited the moment and welcomed it graciously.

“You are the love of my life,” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet box, opening it to you to reveal a stunning ring, “Love, will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

Your tears fell as the words left his lips, and you were nodding before you could choke out a coherent, ‘yes’. Fred cried as well, his tears falling rapidly as he slid the ring on your finger, he took a moment to admire it, capturing the image in his mind.

He held you tightly as you jumped into his arms once he stood, your lips finding his immediately. You kissed Fred Weasley with a passion you hadn’t felt before, melting into his embrace as the weight of the ring on your finger sunk in. You were to be his and he was to be yours, fully and officially.

“I love you.” Fred mumbled against your lips as he pulled away, breathless.

As your eyes searched the face of your fiance, no trace of fear settled in either of your minds. You were joined in a love much deeper than any dark magic or fear could penetrate.

“I love you, Fred Weasley.”

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[greaterawarness]

Brothers ch. 1 The Farm Life For Me

(This is a story based on if the Clone Wars ended on Geonosis during the first battle. There is no age acceleration so each clone ages normally. This follows Fives and his brothers as they try to find their place in the galaxy.)

It seemed like the war ended as quickly as it began. At first glance the Clone Wars appeared to be set up to be fought over the span of years. Instead, it died with Count Dooku on Geonosis. Before being beheaded by the Chosen One and his Jedi Master, he revealed the true Sith Lord to be Chancellor Palpatine. The Jedi lost many of their own in the battle against the Sith but in the end the Jedi were triumphant. The galaxy shared a collective sigh knowing there could be peace once more. That is until a question was asked by the Senator from Naboo. What will become of the clones now that the war has ended? Everyone looked to the Jedi for the answer. Afterall it was a Jedi who requested for the clone army. That question would divide the Jedi Temple and shake it to its very core.

Half of the Jedi believed that having a clone army to begin with was wrong and that they should take responsibility for the clones. The other half claim the Jedi should have no further dealings with the clone army. Even with the war ending so quickly they could sense the attachments the Jedi had with their clone commanders. They suggested the Senate take responsibility instead. A civil war broke out between both the Jedi and the clone army. Most clones went along with their own Jedi General when deciding on which side to fight in. Some clones defected all together and disappeared deciding that no one will ever have power over their lives again.

In the aftermath of the civil war the Jedi that fought for the clones left the Temple for good. With the Jedi numbers dwindled down so low it felt like a shadow was cast over the Temple. The people lost faith in the Jedi after that. With the Jedi seen as incompetent this left the Senate to decide the fate of the clones. Most clones who fought in the war were given a small payment to start a life. Most went on the become bounty hunters or mercenaries. Others who were unable to adapt to civilian life became homeless and forgotten. And then there were the clones that hadn’t yet grown from adolescence. The Senate chose to put the young clones in foster care and in orphanages in hopes they would live a normal life.

***

Fives trips over a rock and manages to land in what he hoped was just mud. After a groan and whiff of the sludge he gags. Definitely not mud. A laugh pulls his attention to his brother.

“Should’ve named you clutz!” Hevy snorts with his laughs shaking the bundle of wheat above his shoulder. Fives climbs to his feat while trying to shake the manure off. Hevy grabs another bundle of wheat and starts walking back towards the barn. Fives carefully picks up two bundles for himself and follows after his brother, being more careful where he stepped this time. When he reaches the barn, his other brothers are already done with their chores.

“Oof!” Cutup winces while pinching his nose. “Someone go rolling around in shit again?”

“Shut up Cutup.” Fives throws his bundles on the pile they’ve created from working all day. Echo hands him a towel.

“I’d hose off before coming back inside if I were you.” Echo says after taking a few steps away from him. Fives starts for the hose before leaning over and rubbing his shoulder against Cutup making sure to spread the manure on his shirt. Fives dashes for the hose before Cutup can catch him. While Fives tries to wash to filth off, he notices a ship leaving the planets atmosphere. He stares after the ship even when it’s out of sight. Fives still remembers life on Kamino. He and his batchmates were young when the war ended but he still remembered what it was like to be trained as a soldier. You live and die for the Republic! Is what they told them. He remembers staying up late to clean the training blasters with his brothers.

“I’m going to be an ARC Trooper one day!” Hevy had said so eagerly.

“Oh yeah? After what I saw today, I don’t think you’ll be fit enough to mop the training rooms floor!” Cutup had laughed.

“I just want to see all the different planets out there.” Echo had added. “Worlds not just made of water and clean pristine buildings. Can you imagine?”

It may be odd, but they were excited for battle. Battle meant leaving Kamino. It meant doing something worth doing. Now look at them. They’ve been working on this farm ever since the war ended. Fives can’t complain though. They had it good compared to what some clones got stuck with. Not everyone was happy about military trained soldiers being let loose into civilization.

“Fives, dinner!” Droidbait calls from the kitchen window. Fives finishes up and heads inside. The smell of stew and the soft glow of candles made the small house feel warm. Cutup and Hevy set the table while Droidbait and Echo finished preparing dinner. Fives starts for the table when a frail hand lands on his shoulder.

“Go on and wash up. I’ll make them wait for ya.” 99 says with a soft smile. 99 is a clone just like them. Except he didn’t come out normal. His back is hunched, and he walks with a limp. Unfit for battle the Kaminoans put 99 to work in sanitation. But he always looked after the younger cadets. Their batch especially. When the war ended 99 was the only who had any real talents that could move on to civilian work. He decided to take their batch in and has raised them since they were boys.

“Thanks, 99.” Fives says before heading for the one bathroom. He showered quickly but scrubbed at his skin being sure to wash all the manure off. When he’s dried off and dressed, he walks back to the main room to find everyone waiting on him. He takes his seat beside Echo.

“Alright everyone, dig in!” 99 says. The house is filled with the sounds of slurping and chewing.

“I got word that the seeds for next harvest came in. Do you want us to pick it up tonight?” Hevy asks. Cutup reaches for the bread on Droidbait’s plate before Droidbait stabs his fork at Cutup’s hand.

“No, that can wait till tomorrow.” 99 says before eating a spoonful.

“We can’t pick it up tomorrow. The post office will be closed and won’t open again for another week.” Echo says while getting another bowl of stew. 99 leans back in his chair thinking.

“I suppose you should go tonight. One of you has to stay here and help do the dishes though.” 99 says while waving his spoon at them.

“Rancor, Jedi, blaster for it?” Hevy asks. Droidbait ends up losing to all four of them and gets stuck with the dishes.

“You have the worst luck, mate.” Cutup nudges him once everyone’s done eating. They pull on their coats and boots preparing for the long walk to town. 99 hands Hevy a pouch of credits.

“Now, don’t forget to tip the postman.” 99 says as they begin walking out the door. “And don’t go down into the canyon!”

“Don’t worry 99!” Fives calls back while they walk down their long drive. Hevy leads the group while Echo messes with his datapad and Cutup hums a song to himself. Fives can’t keep his eyes from looking up at the stars. The sun is setting and it’s easier to make out the starships. While watching one ship go lightspeed he walks right into Hevy’s back.

“Looks like we’re going the long way boys.” Hevy says while staring at the destroyed bridge. They start for the path leading down into the canyon.

“99 specifically said not…” Echo starts before Cutup gives him a shove.

“We know what 99 said. Don’t worry. I’ll hold your hand if you’re scared.” Cutup grins. Echo only walks ahead of him. “You think they did that just because of us?”

“We’re not the only ones living on this side of the bridge, Cutup.” Fives says as they walk deeper into the canyon.

“True but we are the only ones who can’t afford a speeder. Most people can just fly over the canyon.” Echo says not bothering to look up from his datapad.

“Hey, cut the chatter! I thought I heard something.” Hevy says stopping again. They look out at the dark canyon. The sound of air whooshing echoes around them.

“What is that?” Fives asks.

“Don’t forget about those giant eels.” Hevy warns. Fives rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I’ve never seen one…” Fives starts but stops when a loud growl turns his blood cold. Cutup screams as a giant blur knocks him off the ledge.

“Cutup!” Fives yells. Cutup lands on what he hopes is soft dirt.

“What the hell was that?” Hevy yells.

“Uh, that was an eel.” Echo says plainly. “Now that’s why 99 has the rule not to go down in the canyon.”

“We have to get Cutup!” Fives says before they start running down the path. When they reach Cutup, Fives lowers his ear to his chest. “He’s alive!”

“Good, we have to get him back home.” Hevy starts while helping Fives pull the unconscious Cutup off the canyon floor.

“Great,” Fives grumbles. “Can’t wait to explain this to 99.”

Fives carries Cutup on his back with Hevy in the front and Echo keeping watch at the rear. Cutup gives a groan.

“Hevy, I think Cutup needs a doctor.” Fives says. Hevy stops and stares at him worriedly.

“I think you’re right.” He says after a pause. Hevy starts walking towards the path leading out of the canyon towards town. While walking Fives begins to get an uneasy feeling. He glances over at Echo who seems to feel the same. He starts to say something to Hevy when movement ahead stops them. A group of trandoshans walk out from behind the large boulders scattered about the canyon floor. A short yellow trandoshan walks out appearing to be the leader.

“You thought you could get away from us huh?” he asks as his goons surround them.

“What are you talking about?” Hevy asks. They stand closer together.

“You can’t think I’m that stupid?” The trandoshan snorts. “You think you can take your helmets and armor off and think I’ll fall for this act?”

“Again, what are you talking about?” Fives yells. He stares at the blasters pointed at them. His heart rings in his ears. He struggles to remember what little training he had from Kamino.

“You’ve got the wrong clones!” Hevy yells with his arms outstretched to try and shield Fives and Echo as much as possible.

“Oh, I think we do.” The trandoshan laughs to himself. Fives feels his legs go limp when they raise their blasters. They were going to die.

“Ready, aim, fi—” the trandoshan starts before a canister falls on his head. He winces making his men hesitate. They watch the leader bend down to examine the silver cylinder. “Huh?”

Electricity bursts from one end stunning the leader just as a Mandalorian swings from a wire taking out one of the goons pointing a blaster at Fives and his brothers. Three more Mandalorians drop from the sky firing at the trandoshans. One lands in front of Fives and his brothers shooting with two blaster pistols.

“Take cover!” he yells over his shoulder. Hevy shoves Fives and the Echo towards a boulder. Fives carefully puts Cutup down before popping his head out from the side along with Hevy and Echo to watch the Mandalorians kick the trandoshan asses.

Blaster fire lights up the dark canyon. The first Mando is a solid hitter. His shots hit their mark and when two trandoshans charge at him he’s able to subdue them with ease. The second is quick on his feet and is hard to keep up with. He moves so fast that one trandoshan didn’t even notice the Mando tying a wire around his wrist before it was to late. The Mando shoots into the air with his jetpack stringing the trandoshan with him. He knocks him into the side of the canyon before cutting him loose when he is above the canyon mouth. The third Mando is loud and liked a fight. He throws grenades and fires relentlessly before ultimately getting bored and charging right into a trandoshan and throwing him at one of his buddies. They were all impressive, but nothing compared to the last one. The last one stood calm and confident in front of a group of five trandoshans. He drew his two blasters and hit each of their weapons but leaving the trandoshans unscathed. He moved his left foot back before motioning for them to come at him.

Fives leaned forward completely entranced by the Mando’s fighting skills. The trandoshans let out loud roars before charging. The Mando dodged each of their attacks with small simple movements. He was making taking down five trandoshans at once look easy. When he did start to hit back, he hit back hard. Hevy, Fives, and Echo all winced and went “Ooo!” in sync while watching the Mando break limbs and give punches so hard teeth flew. While he was occupied with his five, Fives notices a stray trandoshan creeping up behind him from the dark. Fives feels his body freeze. A blaster that one of the trandoshans dropped wasn’t to far from him. He stares from the blaster to the sneaking trandoshan.

Move Fives!

He swallows, mustering his courage before starting to step towards the dropped blaster, but not before Hevy runs past him making him freeze again. Hevy grabs the blaster and fires at the trandoshan. The Mando looks back at him before delivering the final blow to the last trandoshan left.

“Report.” He says. The three other Mandalorians walk up to him.

“Hardcase may have lost a few of his last remaining braincells but other then that we’re unscathed.” One says making another Mando start walking towards him before the last one grabs his collar keeping him still.

“Good.” The one that seems to be the leader says. He starts to turn towards Hevy when rumbling shakes the ground. A giant eel shoots out from one of their holes. Fives feels his body freeze up again. In a split second the Mando leader draws one of his blasters and fires a single shot taking the eel down.

“Nice shot.” Hevy says while watching the Mando kneel down to inspect the beast. Fives and Echo slowly walk out from their hiding place. The other Mandos lift their helmets up showing their faces for the first time.

“You’re all clones!” Echo says shocked. The Mando clones grin at each other while the leader stands rubbing the blue blood of the eel between his fingers.

“The names Rex,” The leader Mando says as he takes his helmet off. He has short blonde dyed hair. He was an older clone. Probably actually fought in the war. He walks over and places the hand covered in blue eel blood on Echo’s chest leaving a blue handprint. “Sorry to get you boys mixed up in all this.”

“Are you kidding? This was the most action we’ve ever seen!” Hevy says gesturing to the bodies of the trandoshans.

“That’s a good thing.” The clone with the Republic symbol tattooed on the side of his head says.

“Speak for yourself.” The one next to him chuckles making the last clone with detailed tattoos around his head roll his eyes.

“Are you boys alright?” Rex asks. Fives dashes to Cutup’s side remembering his wounded brother.

“Cutup!” He says checking to make sure he was still alive. One of the Mando clones walks over and sets a bag down next to him.

“Easy, kid. I was a medic in the war.” The clone says. Fives gets out of his way so he can treat Cutup.

“So, what are your names?” Rex asks while they wait.

“I’m Hevy. We call him Fives, and this is Echo.” Hevy says gesturing to each of them. Rex gives a small smile.

“I’m surprised to see a whole batch of you this far out in the system.” He says.

“We got lucky.” Echo shrugs. “We have another brother, Droidbait. But he’s back at the house.”

“Droidbait? You must really hate him.” The clone with the Republic tattoo snorts.

“This is Jesse and Hardcase. Our medic is Kix.” Rex says moving the subject right along. When Kix stands Fives, Echo, and Hevy hold their breath.

“He’ll be fine. No serious injuries. Just needs so rest but he’ll be sore for a couple of days.” Kix explains. Fives and his brothers share a sigh of relief.

“You boys need help getting home?” Rex asks while crossing his arms.

“We got it from here.” Hevy says. Fives starts to pull Cutup on his back again. Hardcase and Jesse walk towards the stunned trandoshan leader.

“Then we’ll be off.” Rex says before putting his helmet back on. This close Fives can make out jaig eyes drawn on the helmet. Once Hardcase and Jesse have a hold of the stunned trandoshan they shoot up out of the canyon on their jetpacks.

They stare after them for a long time before finally starting home. Adrenaline was running through their veins. They couldn’t believe what they just witnessed. When they get back to the farm, they burst through the door startling 99 and Droidbait.

“What’s going on? What happened to Cutup?” 99 asks as Fives sets his brother down on the couch. They tell them everything.

By the time their done talking about the clone Mandos they watch 99 stare at the floor in deep thought. Fives exchanges a look with Echo.

“Are you boys… happy here?” 99 asks throwing them off guard.

“Of course, 99!” Echo says but even as he says it, they all knew it was a lie. It wasn’t that they weren’t grateful for 99 taking them in, it was more of a longing to see more. Do more. 99 looks over at the unconscious Cutup and pats his leg.

“You were bred for war after all. I can’t expect you to be happy with a life of farming.” He sighs. Fives felt a weird pang of guilt. 99 stands and shuffles towards his room. They all exchange looks with each other before 99 returns with a large pouch.

“What’s this?” Hevy asks when 99 hands it to him.

“Credits.” 99 grunts when he takes his seat on the couch across from them.

“99, this is a lot of credits! How did you…?” Fives trails off.

“Call it a trust fund. I knew one day you would all want to leave the farm to start a life for yourself. Like all kids when they grow up. I can see it in each of your eyes. It’s time to go and find what type of life you want to live.” 99 starts. “Seeing those clones in action… it called to you. I know it did because it did to me too all those years ago. Except… well I wasn’t really cut out to be a fighter. You boys are lucky enough to have a choice. I want to make sure you have a chance to make that choice.”

“99…” Hevy starts but stops when 99 holds up a hand.

“Go to Coruscant. A lot of clones chose to stay there after the war. There you might be able to find a clan of your own.” He says giving them smiles. “And if you ever decide that that’s not the life for you then I’ll be here with open arms!”

“99, how can we repay you?” Hevy asks.

“You already have.” 99 says. All at once Fives, Hevy, Echo, and Droidbait leap forward to wrap their arms around 99. 99 lets out a laugh and pats their back. “Go on and get some sleep. You’ll have a lot to tell Cutup when he wakes up in the morning.”

Fives, Echo, Droidbait, and Hevy wouldn’t sleep that night. Each would lie awake staring out their window up at the stars imagining what their life would be like. In a way it was like their life was just starting.

[timextoxhajima]

Grounded: Level 0

Level 1

Member: Minho (Lee Know)

Genre: idol minho x idol trainee reader, angst cause is it a dana fic if there is no angst

Taglist: @valeriee-h​

A/N: Thank you for 400 followers. You all have been nothing but exceptional. 

[F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6]

The metallic taste seeping into your mouth was starting to annoy you, and on top of that, the tears that were running down your cheeks and between your lips were stinging the wounds you managed to inflict on yourself with your teeth.

You can hear the laughter and the sound of the bass against the flooring from where you were, though you were a good distance away from the practicing hall. The room smelled like dust and must due to the hose reel box being unused for such a long time, you wouldn't know. Your hands were probably messed up from all the accidental touching of the walls and the floor -- and great, now you've gone ahead and wiped away your tears with your hands.

Your teeth are gritted so hard against each other that you can feel your temples tightening, and all you want to do was to pack up and go home and call it quits--

"I know you're in there."

Silence. Then a shadow comes to block the bars of light coming through the slits of the door.

Choosing to keep quiet, you don't know why you thought he'd go away. He was the vice-captain of the dance crew and he obviously wasn't going to let you go without getting you out of the hose reel storeroom.

"I'm not going to force you out. But I need to know just one thing."

A pause.

"Do you still like dancing?"

Out of shame, you look down to your knees, now curled up into your chest. The tears continue to fall because you both know your answer. It’s just the physical pain and lack of resistance that’s keeping you from going further.

You can hear him sigh when he leans against the door, the wood creaking just the slightest with his weight against it. It was almost completely dark, now that he’s covered most of the slits in the door. The sweat trailing down the sides of your forehead and down your cheek gets mistaken for tears, urging you to wipe them away with the back of your hand. 

“I know you’re tired, but if you stop here, then there’s no way you can improve.”

You gulp, your throat feeling dry from the continuous days of air-conditioned practice hall and then the crying did nothing but further aggravate it. 

“...What makes you think I can still improve? What if this is the furthest I can go?”

“I thought like that once,” A small thud. He probably leaned his head backwards. “But I signed up for this because I like it. And frankly, I don’t know what else I’d do if I don’t do this for myself. So, now my question is: who are you doing this for, and if you’re willing to continue doing it for yourself?”

Your head is empty. There’s nothing but the want to start moving again, it’s the reflection in the mirror you’re afraid to see. 

The music from the practise hall starts again. By now, the song is more than annoying, but the adrenaline always manages to push you through anyway. The door creaks and more light floods in when he shifts away. 

“Come talk to me if you need to after practise. But for now, just come back and finish for today, okay? I’ll see you inside.”

He stays still for a few moments, before the sound of his shoes shuffle away from the storage room. Leaning your head back against the wall, you let the humidity coat your face like a layer of warmth. 

Why’d he have to give me that stupid pep-talk?

Shutting your eyes tightly, you recall the amount of effort you took to audition for this. A stage where BTS would perform on, and they were looking for a small group of girls in the back-up dancers’ team. The chances were ten to... hundreds. 

You shuffle to your feet, eyelids heavy from the physical activity but heart still full of hope. Your fingers wrap around the cold handle of the door and push it open, greeting the bright lights that illuminate the corridor down to the practice hall.

“Where is-- Oh! There you are!” The choreographer nearly yells into the mic when you rush through the door, some of your other dance crew mates jokingly yells at you for taking your own sweet time. 

“Sorry, bathroom.”

“Okay, okay. GIve us a head up if you’re going to do a number 2 next time, would you?”

Some of the dancers chuckle at the choreographer’s teasing, nudging you or ruffling your hair before they return to their positions. And as you do, you cannot help but to lock eyes with the vice-captain in the front row. He had the tiniest smile you’ve ever seen, the kind that if you didn’t stare hard enough... or if you didn’t pay enough attention... you’d miss it. 

A small nods finds you, eyes of encouragement welling up in his brown orbs under the lighting, and then the choreographer asks for the music. It thrums through you like an Earthquake, but instead of conjuring magma and ash and gas, it sucks the passion out of you and motivates you to move your feet again. 

The practise session ends fast, only because you realised you had been enjoying it. So when the choreographer thanks the dance crew and jumps off to speak to the captain, you take your time to grab a drink for yourself and let some other crew members chat you up. 

That is, until you noticed the vice-captain strutting out of the practise hall quietly. Excusing yourself, you grab your belongings and rush out behind him, just missing the lift that he was in. 

He’s about twenty metres ahead when you run out of the stairs lobby, the cool end-of-winter wind kissing your sweaty skin.

“Minho!” 

The boy stops in his tracks, taking awhile to look up from his phone as he slowly turns his head around. He watches with intent eyes as you catch up to him, gently huffing from the hurrying after he quietly left the practice hall.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t disappoint me,” Minho looks back down at his phone before locking it. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come back.” 

Once you’ve aligned your footing with him, he shoves his phone into his pocket and waits for you to calm your breathing. The sky was dark now, but the streets were still bustling from all the night market activities - fried seafood, crackers, cotton candy. 

Minho turns his head back to the streets where waves of people were walking past, taking a first step to tell you he’s going to start walking. 

“I just wanted to thank you for that little pep-talk.”

“Pep-talk?” Minho chuckles under his breath. “Oh, you don’t know what a pep-talk sounds like.”

The crowd washes the both of you in some direction, the scent of food wafting in the air coupled with the overlapping conversations and loud music from some stands made you feel like you’ve just entered some amusement park. Smoke was prancing in the air against the night sky and people chewing loudly on food brought you some strange sense of nostalgia -- though you’ve walked this exact road for some months now. It just so happened that the night market only came round every Lunar New Year. 

“I just... I hope you know how much that means to me. It’s the first time I’ve done something of this scale so... it seems easier for me to lose faith.”

Minho stops at a particular store selling some honey-glazed apples and orders two. It’s like he didn’t hear you. 

Standing awkwardly next to him, the store owner carelessly hands Minho the two sticks with the stabbed apple on the top, and he doesn’t hesitate to hand her a five dollar bill. Just enough.

“Thank you,” He turns around, the store owner barely acknowledging his business. “People lose faith all the time. You just need to know when to force yourself to have it again.” 

Handing you one stick, Minho doesn’t wait for you to process the offer and his words simultaneously before he’s off again. By the time you’ve walked the length of the night market and reach the main streets of the city, Minho has cleared every drop of honey and apple on the stick, and you were just busy finishing up the last one-eighth of it, the bite nearly touching your fingers. 

At the bus stop, Minho drops himself on the bench, scrolling through his phone as you are occupied with licking the honey off your fingers while you find the nearest trashcan. Ironically, out here along the main road, there were fewer people. More traffic on the road, definitely. But it’s like everybody was so busy living their lives, you’ve forgotten to live yours. 

You’ve spent more than half your time in the last three months coming to this same practise hall, dancing the same steps over and over and over again until every cell in your blood and body knows it by heart. 

But what worth is it? For a performance that you wouldn’t even be seen?

You sigh, eyes darting downwards naturally to see what he’s been staring at on his phone-- then you see it. 

NEW EMAIL: CUBE AUDITION RESULTS

Your eyes widen, lips somehow still stuck together despite the overwhelming excitement in your lungs. Sucking your lips in between your teeth, you watch in anticipation as he clicks the notification and it directs him to his email. Poor boy doesn’t know you’re watching, but it’s a good thing, because the first two sentences were enough to tell you what his reaction could be. 

Dear Lee Minho, we’ve received your audition tape and reviewed it carefully. Unfortunately, we are unable to accept you as a trainee. We wish you the best in all your future endeavors. 

Regards,

Cube Audition Management

Biting down on your bottom lip, your eyes quickly flit away when he closes the app and keeps his phone. Standing next to him, it’s a wonder how he’s managed to hold himself together. If it had been you who was rejected, you’d be on the floor bawling by now. But Minho’s strength is subtly concrete when he only watches his bus arrive, standing up and only turning around to ask, “Are you taking the same bus?”

“Um, yeah but my dad’s coming to get me, so I’m waiting here.”

Minho nods, the bus stopping right at the foot of the bus stop. Other passengers waiting for the bus start to crowd, but Minho doesn’t bust an inch just yet. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

You hum in response. They’ve started boarding, so Minho’s taking small steps towards the vehicle. 

“If you don’t come, believe me when I say I’ll whoop your ass.”

You can’t help the small scoff that bursts through your lips when he says it, that tiny smile of his emerging shyly on his face for a split second. Reducing the amount of time you get to admire that strength in him, he turns and gets on the bus. 

[D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6]

At this point, half the dance crew was probably crying their hearts out back stage. BTS’ Fire and Not Today performance at the KBS Song Festival was the last official time you would be performing as one unit with this dance crew. Any Fire or Not Today performances in the future would call for a renewed or changed dance crew line-up, which meant you’ll never see the same group of people on stage again. 

Heck, even your captain was sobbing his eyes out, mercilessly pulling everybody he could find into a hug and muttering some incoherent words of gratitude in their ears. You were laughing and wiping away the droplets on your face, unsure if they were tears or sweat, when he came to you and pulled you into a bear hug. 

Everybody hears the heavy backstage door close and BTS shows up just steps from you, and the group of idols know very well that this was the last performance with the current line-up of crew members. 

“Dul, set, Bang! Tan!” More people are crying now, and Namjoon just looks prouder than he was sad. “Annyeong haseyo, Bangtansonyeondan ibnida.”

The captain literally starts wining, not hesitating to go up and hug Hoseok tightly. The members embrace him in the hug, offering him words of praise and compliment as Namjoon urges them to keep their volume down. The leader thanks the crew for the enduring hardwork for the past year - from when the track was first released, to the first choreography reviewing and then the constant performances on all kinds of stages. 

Blinking away your tears, you manage to catch Minho standing at the far end of the first row, and if you weren’t mistaken, you could catch Jimin showing him two thumbs up. 

“I hope to see all of you around, and once again, BTS thanks you for your hardwork for the last year. Take care everybody!” 

Everybody erupts into loud yells of ‘thanks’ and ‘bye’s, but before you can the other crew members in shaking their hands as they return to their dressing room, one of BTS’ assistant managers approach you.

“Hi, can I check if you’re y/n?”

“Uh--” Minho catches your frantic glancing behind the assistant manager. “Yes.”

“Great, so...” The assistant manager fumbles in his back pocket, your eyes darting down to notice him pulling out a name card. Your peripheral vision presents you with Minho looking at you from behind the assistant manager, eyes and ears peeled. “We’ve been monitoring the dance unit and... we think you might have potential.”

He hands you the name card, and your hands are trembling when you process the carbon printing on it.

BIGHIT CASTING

Anxious, you look back up at the assistant manager. Yet, he offers you a mere smile before walking away, leaving you and Minho behind as the rest of the crew pushes themselves nearer to the back of the staff area. 

The restaurant had been booked for the sole purpose of the dance unit celebrating your final performance there, and while the card was being bent in all sorts of different ways in your back pocket, all you cared about was being in a moment.

BigHit casting? Why would you even subject yourself to that kind of torment? A solid 7 to 8 years of no privacy, probably no dating, and if you were caught outside with someone of the opposite gender, you’d be royally screwed over.

“You’re going to get drunk.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re not even legal to drink, and it sucks, honestly.”

“Pfft,” Rolling your eyes, you collect the shot of Soju from one of the older crew members. “I’ll take like five shots. I’ll be fine.”

Minho glares at his captain, thoughtlessly pushing the shot across the smooth surface of the table to you. 

“You know she’s like, 16 right?”

“I know, but it wouldn’t hurt to let her try some. Besides, we all did a great job this past year. I think we all deserve a little break.”

Minho huffs, the air pushing his fringe upwards for a split second. He watches you down the shot, the burning alcohol forcing a look of slight disgust on your face. 

“Told you you wouldn’t like it.”

“Ugh,” Sticking your tongue out, you reach for your glass of water and take a huge gulp. “I’ll get used to it.”

Nah.

“My God, why are you so heavy?” Minho grunts, struggling to keep your arm over his shoulders. He looks behind him, busking in some slight satisfaction when he had managed to get the captain completely wasted by playing some stupid game with him, the kind that he would never win. The other vice-captain and another crew member were channeling all that effort into keeping the big-sized boy on his feet. You remember hearing Minho’s hearty (or evil) laughter when the captain plops to the floor, completely blacking out. 

“Okay, he’s your responsibility now!” He yells at the top of his lungs, dragging you towards the nearest bus stop in his knowledge.

“Go fuck yourself, Minho! Have some mercy next time, would you?!” HIs co-vice captain shouts back.

“I’ll think about it!” Minho laughs, trying really hard not to drop you as he waves back. 

“Bye, see you soon!”

Minho returns his attention to you, half your body already leaning a good ninety degrees towards the floor. 

“Free bows for the floor, huh?” He grunts as he gives up on holding just one of your arms. Afraid that he was going to dislocate something, he pulls you onto his back. Your head is pressed into his shoulder when he turns round the corner, eyes looking up to gauge the distance to the bus stop. “Oi.”

“Hmm?” Your head of messy hair perks up from his shoulder, your eyelids feeling too heavy to keep open. 

“Are you going for it? The audition I mean.”

You groan, throwing your head back into his shoulder. Tightening your arms around his collar, you grit your teeth and swallow the burning sensation of alcohol in your throat. 

“I don’t think I want to think about that now. I have school to worry about.”

“You’ll just be put into SOPA.”

“What about university?”

“That’s like 3 years away for you. And studying can wait if you’re chasing your dream,” A pause as he sets you down at the bus stop, grabbing your bag and searching for your wallet to take out your bus card. “Of course, only if you want it.”

Your head hangs low, the Soju zipping through your blood like hamsters do in their tunnels. Minho turns, spotting the bus nearing.

“Do me a favour and swallow your vomit if you need to, don’t make a mess in the bus.”

[O C T O B E R 2 0 1 7]

Do you know the feeling of your lungs collapsing in on themselves when you can’t breathe? When your heart is palpitating so fast, it feels like it’s stopped? 

“I don’t know why you guys are treating it like it’s a huge thing-- I might not even make it.”

“Shut the fuck up, would you? You signed up for it, shouldn’t you put your 100% and go as far as you can?”

The words can’t find their way out of your mouth. Minho was sitting in his sofa, petting Soon-ie, with a huge duffel bag at his feet. You were sitting in Minho’s living room, with Doongie curled up in your lap and the dance captain from BTS’ Fire and Not Today performance dance unit about to swing a fist in Minho’s face. 

An awkward silence fell upon the three of you, knowing that this could be the start of a friendship with a changed dynamic. You were one foot into BigHit because you’ve passed the first audition, Minho was going on JYP’s Stray Kids survival show and your dance-captain was being scouted into Yuehua’s waters.

The morning sun gushes down onto your faces when Minho’s father rushes to get the car ready, leaving the three of you at the entrance of the carpark. Your dance captain had an audition appointment with Yuehua soon, so he pulls Minho into a tight hug and provides him a harsh pat on the back.

“Make us proud.”

Minho doesn’t respond, only nodding subtly before sending him off. 

But you? You are reluctant to even look at him. If he wins that show, he’d be gone for more days and months than you can count. No longer would he spend his Christmases and New Years with you, but with his group members. His cats wouldn’t be meowing for his attention, because he’s not at home anymore.

What’s worse, if you get through BigHit’s third audition, you’ll be thrown into a girl group. 

And Godforsake a girl group member being seen with a boy group member, right?

“You could be a little more enthusiastic, y’know.”

“How can I be enthusiastic when I’m watching you strut your ass off into unchartered territory?”

Minho smiles, his bunny teeth unafraid to expose themselves. You can see his father’s car coming out, the ache in your heart getting harder and harder to ignore. 

“I’ll come back to find you, or maybe BigHit, I don’t know,” Minho gently pulls you into a hug, careful to keep his hands on your upper back and shoulders. “But I will always come back to you.”

[mush-dooms]

harry x ginny, 13 (if you’re actually taking prompts from that list haha. if not, ignore me)

13) This wasn’t meant to be a date, but we’ve had such a good time and now it’s 2 a.m. and I should really go home…

“Arthur! Arthur! ARTHUR!” Molly boomed from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes, love?” a frazzled Arthur answered, attempting to tie his tie with one hand as he combed through what little hair he had left with the other.

“You are GOING to be LATE!” Molly flung a dishtowel in his general direction and turned, finally noticing Harry standing in the doorway. She instantly smiled.

“Harry, love, did you sleep well? Bloody goblin was making quite the ruckus last night, I keep telling the boys to do something about the thing. Breakfast?”

Molly piled eggs and sausage high on Harry’s plate. Ron and Ginny soon wandered in, guided by their noses. “Ron, darling, I need you to take care of the gnomes today. Your father got bit quite badly the other day, far too feisty they are.”

“I’ll help,” Harry volunteered.

“Merhfoo,” Ginny sputtered through a mouthful of eggs, choked, and finally coughed, her face turning beet red. “I, uh, I can help too.” Ginny usually preferred to spend time with Hermione or visiting Luna instead of helping with the chores, but Harry wasn’t complaining. There was something about the way her hair shined in the morning light, how her brown eyes has little specks of gold in them, how she throws her head back when she laughs...

“HARRY!” Harry started, realizing he had been staring. “Where you at, mate? I said, want to do it straight after breakfast?” Ron half smiled, clearly amused.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, after breakfast sounds good.” Harry felt his cheeks turning red and he suddenly found his eggs very interesting.

. . .

“Right Harry, you remember how this is done?” Ron asked as they watched a gnome stick its tongue out at them from under a bush.

“You’ve got to swing ‘em around real good--oof -- before you let go-- hold STILL you little-- or else they come back,” he continued as he tackled a large gnome. Ron grabbed the potato-shaped creature by the legs and swung it around his head like a lasso, flinging it over the garden wall. The gnome landed with a grunt and confusedly stumbled around in circles, disoriented.

Harry leapt onto the nearest gnome and copied Ron’s motions, swinging it around his head.

“Shit!” He yelled as he let go of the gnome prematurely, sending it flying at Ron where it promptly latched its teeth around his arm.

“OW, FUCK!” Ron shook his arm wildly trying to dislodge the gnome.

“GET OFF OF ME YOU LITTLE FUCK, THAT BLOODY HURTS!” Ginny grabbed onto the creature’s legs and gave it a hard yank, sending it flying into the Burrow’s back wall and knocking it unconscious.

“Shit, ow, Harry, why’d you have to do that,” Ron frowned at his best friend. Ginny grabbed Ron’s arm, taking a closer look at the bite marks.

“Better go inside and let Mum look at it, gnome bites can get nasty.”

“Bloody hell, that fucker,” Ron muttered as he turned and headed back inside.

Harry couldn’t help but notice he was alone with Ginny now.

. . .

The morning passed in a blur of sunlight and dew melting away and brown eyes and the sound of Ginny’s laugh. The gnomes were long gone, stumbling outside the garden, but still Ginny remained. Harry felt himself glowing, a soft smile on his lips. He had never been so entranced by someone before.

“Hey dumbass!” Harry shook out of his thoughts and turned to be greeted with a bucket of water splashing over his head. He sputtered, shocked, flinging water out of his eyes.

“You’re gonna pay for that one, Gin!” She laughed and dodged the spray as Harry shook his hair at her.

Harry and Ginny’s eyes met as they both locked eyes on the garden hose on the other end of the garden.

“Oh no you won’t!” Harry sprinted for the hose right as Ginny took off from beside him. Faster, faster, almost there-- whoomph. Harry felt the air leave his lungs as Ginny tackled him from behind and they rolled down the small incline. Harry found himself with Ginny leaning over him, their faces nearly touching, her hands in the grass next to his shoulders. He could feel her breath on his damp skin, her hair grazing his neck.

“Hey Harry,” Ginny growled, a mischievous look in her eyes as she pulled the hose off the wall above them and squirted him in the face. Harry couldn’t seem to catch his breath, and he didn’t think it was because of the fall.

. . .

“Wanna go for a walk?” Ginny asked later that afternoon. “We can bring food for dinner, play some quidditch, you know.”

“Hmfurgh,” Harry stumbled over his words. “Sorry, I mean, uh, sure, I’d like that,” Harry said, his heart skipping a beat and his face flushing pink. Why did Ron’s sister turn him into a blubbering idiot? He must just be shy around her, which made little sense considering they practically grew up together. He needed to work on that.

. . .

The afternoon was bright and warm, a cool breeze floating through the hills bringing welcome relief from the summer heat. The hills rolled on for miles, covered in a blanket of green grass and wildflowers, patches of trees speckled along the horizon. They made their way towards one of the wooded areas where a small but worn path led to a grassy clearing.

“The boys used to play quidditch over there. Never invited me, those dickheads, but I learned on my own. Luna would come over and throw the quaffle for me.”

Harry smiled, picturing a tiny Ginny wooshing around the clearing as little Luna tossed the ball up at her.

They played for a while, not keeping score, just tossing the beat-up quaffle around and trying to get the other to miss. If anyone had been listening, they would only have heard the sounds of laughter and taunts ringing out across the trees.

Time flew by, and soon the sun began dropping lower in the sky, painting the clouds orange and red.

“I’m starving, why don’t we have dinner? I know a spot,” Ginny finally suggested, wiping the sweat from her brow. Merlin, even drenched in sweat she was beautiful. Harry followed her into the woods along a path only visible to her.

Harry heard the brook before he saw it, the water gurgling as it tumbled over worn stones and the silencing of frogs signaling their arrival. A willow tree draped its branches low, covering a ring of logs on that sat on the mossy ground.

“We got mum to charm it ages ago against the bugs, hopefully its still holding up. Haven’t been back here in ages.” Ginny pushed the drooping branches out of her way, stepping through the leafy curtain. “Shame neither of us are seventeen.”

Ginny sat on the end of the log, clearly leaving space for Harry to sit next to her. How odd; there were plenty of other places to sit. Harry shrugged to himself and settled next to her, their legs brushing together. The leaves cast shadows over her freckled face that seemed to radiate light when she smiled. Her hair was messy and tangled from their game earlier, but it still shined in the evening’s remaining light. And her lips, pink and smooth, were probably so soft...

Ginny’s laughter jolted him back to the present. “Never mind then, guess you’re too busy checking me out,” she gave him a smile and elbowed him in the ribs. Harry felt himself blushing again. What was it about her that had him making a fool of himself? She reached around him for the basket of food, and he felt a chill rise where her arm brushed against his back.

. . .

“What time do you think it is?” Ginny yawned and placed her head on Harry’s shoulder. They were still sitting under the willow tree, having been talking and laughing for hours.

“I’m not sure,” Harry answered, and he found himself running his fingers through her hair. Ginny wrapped an arm around his shoulders, leaning into him. He could feel her warmth through his t-shirt.

“I’ve always loved when people played with my hair,” she said quietly. “It’s so ro...” she caught herself and left the word hanging in the air. A pause.

It was all making sense now. With Cho, things felt so different. It was more sudden, unmistakable for what it was. But with her... it was gentle, yearning, a subtle need for closeness.

Harry took a deep breath. “I think so, too.”

He turned so that their faces were inches apart. He could count every one of her freckles.

Harry wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but suddenly their lips were meeting and it felt like nothing Harry had ever experienced. Like lighting a bonfire, or striking a match, like summer sunshine and breathless running and the moment before a dive toward the snitch on his broom. Adrenaline coursed through him, and they were passionate, desperate now. He never expected his day would have led to this.

“This wasn’t meant to be a date, you know,” Harry said, finally breaking free.

“Oh, bullshit,” Ginny replied, their lips smashing together again. “What else could it have possibly been.” It was a statement more than a question, and she smiled, slowly pulling away.

“I’ve had a crush on you since your first year,” she finally admitted. “Well, not the entire time. But a lot of it.” She hadn’t let go of his shoulders.

Harry struggled to find words, finally settling on “I think I’ve liked you for ages, too.”

Ginny snorted. “Seems we’re both idiots, then.” Harry laughed, and Ginny rested her head on his shoulder again. This time, Harry turned and kissed the top of her head, running one hand down her back.

“Harry?”

“Mmm.”

“Let’s stay out here forever.”

[blue-lions-baby]

Operation Confession (Dimitri x F!Reader) [Ch. 2]

ah! i felt like i should specify that this is a f!reader. sorry about that. all of my stories have been f!reader and i (waking up in a cold sweat) realized it would prob be better for me to specify that from now on. i’m so sorry for not putting it earlier! from now on, i will specify if it is f!reader or not.

this has got to be one of the longest fics i have ever written (this chapter alone pushing slightly past 5000 words). i am *so* glad i split it up into different chapters. imagine if this was just one big oneshot oh my g

also, i found some loose inspiration for dimitri’s wardrobe change from be my princess 2′s ivan chernenkov!

okay, that’s about it. sorry for the long intro! now, please enjoy chapter 2!

~*~

“Sylvain...”

“Yeah?”

“Was it truly necessary to tell everyone about my... predicament?”

“I-If I may, Your Highness,” Ashe piped up, “we were already aware of your feelings towards (F/N). You’re not exactly... subtle.”

Everyone-- including Byleth who was grading papers at their desk-- all nodded their head in agreement.

“See?! C’mon, even the Professor noticed the sparks between you two!”

“That’s because they’re Professor Byleth, Sylvain.” Ingrid informed with a sigh.

“Oh yeah. Fair point.”

“Where is (F/N)?” Dimitri queried, not seeing your radiant face among the crowd.

“Well, Mercie and I...” Annette began, her cheeks spreading into a grin. “We pulled a little... prank, on our dear (F/N).”

“A-A prank?”

“Nothing too serious. We just did something that will slow her down.” Mercedes assured sweetly. Sylvain clicked his tongue loudly.

“Don’t worry about her! Remember why we’re all gathered here.”

Murmurs bounced around the attendees; before Dimitri could ask what kind of scheme the redhead roped them into, his loyal retainer announced,

“Your Highness, do you require assistance in confessing to (F/N)?”

Dimitri’s alabaster cheeks were hosed into an assortment of rubies and reds; dismay and horror and dread were all that filled his pretty azure eyes. The veins outlined in his neck and forehead grew sharper and sharper with each uncomfortable squeak that left the prince’s throat.

“Ridiculous. The boar actually has feelings?” Felix spat.

“Yeah. He needs help.” Sylvain answered, ignoring his scowling classmate.

“I-- You-- Sylvain, was this--?”

“My plan? Yeah.”

Dimitri would have killed Sylvain right then and there if it weren’t for the presence of several witnesses.

That didn’t mean he didn’t entertain the idea, though. Sylvain’s cool facade was pierced by the murderously sharp glow in the prince’s eyes.

“Not to worry, Your Highness!” Ashe cheerily interrupted Dimitri’s elaborate scheme of how to grind Sylvain’s kneecaps into a fine powder. “While on our way here, several of us have come up with ideas on how to get you two together!”

“Instead of us all working as one big group, we thought it would be wiser if we split up into smaller groups.” Ingrid mentioned.

“Mercie and I are together of course!” Annette’s eyes glowed excitedly. “After class, we’re gonna stop by the florist to buy (F/N)’s favorite flowers!”

“Why flowers, may I ask?”

“So you can give them to her later tonight!”

“T-Tonight?”

“This is where Ashe and I will lend you our aid.” Dedue stepped forward. “We will help you cook the perfect meal for (F/N).”

“Me? Cook?”

“(F/N) will surely be pleased that you put in the effort to cook her something! No matter the outcome, at least...” Ashe rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“And I suppose this is where we come in.” Ingrid said, motioning to herself, Sylvain, and Felix. “We will be making sure that everything goes smoothly, and will assist each group however way we can.”

“I’ll teach you everything I know when it comes to wooing the ladies.” Sylvain winked.

“I suppose I can serve as the ‘distraction.’ After class, I’ll ask (F/N) to spar with me so that should give you all some time to prepare.” Felix huffed.

“Well, I wouldn’t mind taste-testing the dishes that you prepare... J-Just to make sure (F/N) will like it! We do have similar tastes, so...” Ingrid blushed.

“I myself have devised a way to get you two together,” Byleth stated flatly, “and that starts with a brand new seating chart. I have separated you all into your different squadrons.”

Everyone crowded around the parcel of paper that Byleth spread on the table.

“Dimitri, you sit by (F/N) in the back of the room there. Mercedes and Annette, you sit together towards the front. Ashe, Dedue, in the row beside them. Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix will be sitting in this row, behind Mercedes and Annette. Understood?”

“N-No--”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Good. In your seats, everyone. If my calculations are correct, (F/N) should be coming in any minute now.”

Dimitri watched in plain confusion as everyone scrambled to their new seats. He automatically looked to Dedue for help, but only saw Ashe taking Dimitri’s usual spot beside the Duscur man. The sounds of curses haphazardly strewn about the vicinity along with an unsettling squelching sound echoed closer and closer to the classroom.

“Quickly now. Dimitri, in your seat.”

BANG!!!

The doors of the classroom smashed the stone wall with a thundering clap, rattling the slabs of wood on their hinges. You stumbled in, holding a dripping wet boot with one hand and your collection of study materials hastily bundled together in the other. The tousled blob of tangled tresses on the left side of your head starkly contrasted the sorry attempt of brushing on your right. Little leaves stuck out of the collar of your shirt and brown, crackly twigs pinned themselves onto your skirt.

“Good morning, Ms. (L/N). Turned rather... experimental this morning, have we?”

“P-Professor Byleth!” You bowed deeply, jumping when your books tumbled out of your grasp. “I am so, so sorry for being late! I’ve had the most horrendous morning...”

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, when I woke up, i found my boots filled to the brim with water.” You chucked the boot you were holding towards the door and yanked off the one you were wearing; about a quarter bootful of water came cascading out of the shoe.

“Then my uniform-- which was folded neatly and placed on my desk the night before-- was thrown! Outside! Into some shrubs by my window!” You picked and plucked at the bits of foliage that accessorized your uniform with exasperation.

“And to top it all off, my hairbrush was missing! So I’ve been trying to comb my hair with my fingers, but that’s really hard to do when you’re holding a soggy boot in one hand and books in the other!”

You keeled over, wheezing, while the rest of the Blue Lions slowly turned their gaze to the two smiling girls in the front.

“That is... quite a tale.”

“Professor, I can not make this up. I feel like somebody is targeting me. But why? What could I have possibly done to deserve this?!”

“Nothing, (F/N). You’re right. What you went through was severe.” Byleth glanced down at two specific students sharply. “I will excuse your tardiness for today. Dimitri, please go help your new desk mate. I must start class immediately if we are to stay on schedule.”

“Of course, Professor...”

Oh no... Of all the... Since when did your class get a new seating chart? And why, of all people, were you placed beside Dreamy Dimi Dimitri?! Why was the Goddess punishing you? And for what?! You didn’t do anything! And now he has to see you looking like this for the rest of class? Why was life acting so cruel towards you?

“(F/N)?”

“Ah! D-Dimitri! Yes, hello!”

“Allow me to take your books to our desk.” He muttered politely, refusing to meet your gaze. Unable to say anything else without babbling like an idiot, you bowed gratefully to the prince as he scooped up your notes and books in his arms. Great! You were so disgusting, he couldn’t even look at you! Today was gonna be a long, long day...

Dimitri smoothed out the crinkled notes on your side of the row and his pupils happened upon a little scribble faintly scratched into the corner of the paper. The tips of his gloved fingers grazed the marking subconsciously, his brain not quite registering the ‘D’ drawn in the middle of a heart.

Color flooded your cheeks as you nabbed the paper away from Dimitri’s ‘prying’ eyes.

“Excuse me! I need that!”

“A-Ah. Of course. Forgive me.” Dimitri’s cognitive abilities had completely shut down, his entire being running solely on the etiquette lessons that were drilled into his head as a child.

Minutes ticked by, and Professor Byleth’s voice slowly joined the symphony of background noise. Neither you nor Dimitri processed a single word in class that day-- you huddling yourself into the closest semblance of a ball while Dimitri busied himself counting the specks on the floor in a vain, vain attempt to distract himself from the delightfully crisp apple notes that came from your hair (despite its... frazzled appearance).

The words that did process, however, was Byleth’s resounding ‘Class dismissed’ and you had never been happier to leave a lecture. Without casting a glance at anyone, you shoveled your studies into your arms and sped-walked out the classroom and towards the safe confines of your room to cry yourself to sleep.

But in your rush, a certain paper that was half-wedged between two books spiraled down, down, and further down. Dimitri’s watchful eye and skillful hand caught the piece of paper before it touched the ground and recognized the small, minimalist script as your handwriting. He looked up, eager to hand you your belonging, but...

“Er, Felix, have you seen (F/N)?”

“What? Did you not see her leave the classroom? I didn’t even get a chance to ask her to spar with me...”

“Well, she--” Dimitri choked on his own spit. “F-Felix--”

“What?”

Short, blubbering stammers made up a majority of Dimitri’s vernacular; Felix, growing impatient at the royal’s inability to form coherent thoughts, snapped the paper from Dimitri’s hand and read the contents.

“These are just notes on that battle formation we learned the other day.”

“No, there’s something on the corner up there...”

Felix’s sharp gaze followed Dimitri’s quivering finger.

“... Oh.”

“Fel, what’s up? You’re supposed to be training with (F/N) right now.”

“Sylvain. You take care of this.” Felix slapped the note into the redhead’s chest. “I’ll be by her quarters. When she finally decides to come out, I’ll ask her then.”

Then he was gone.

Sylvain, brows furrowed, unraveled the piece of paper that was so roughly shoved into him; his nose crinkled slightly.

“These are just notes.”

“The top...”

“Huh? What--... Ohhh. I see.” Sylvain’s light, angelic chortle didn’t mesh with the devilish smirk on his lips. “Your Highness, by any chance... Have you got an extra suit on you?”

“Hm? Well, yes, but it’s reserved for very special occasions.”

“Does a date with the girl of your dreams not fit that category?”

“... Allow me to show you where I keep it.”

♠ ♥ ♣ ----------------------------------------------------------- ♣ ♥ ♠

Like a sailor heaving up a heavy sail battered by the ocean’s rageful tempest, you slowly hoisted your eyelids open with unimaginable difficulty. It felt like a bag of lead was tied to your eyelashes, keeping your eyes at a constant state of half-opened. You padded the soft, swollen flesh around your eyes and already knew the puffiness was there to stay-- at least for the rest of the day.

Two short knocks peppered your door and you very nearly chucked the closest item in your vicinity at it. You caught yourself, however, and face-planted into your damp pillow.

Two short knocks peppered your door as you sunk your face further into your cushion.

Two short knocks peppered your door as your anguish turned to ire.

Two short knocks--

“WHAT?!”

You had no memory of the actual journey from your bed to your door, but that didn’t matter much to you as you swung it open to face your grievance personified.

You caught Felix mid-knock and would have snapped his wrist if his knuckles dared to make contact with your door.

“What is it.” You croaked disdainfully.

“Wow. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“Shut up. Just leave me alone.”

Your door was caught by your visitor’s firm yet gentle hold.

“Hang on. I... I’m sorry.” Felix swallowed thickly. “Today has been a pretty tough day for you.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Goodbye.”

“So,” Felix interjected, “spar with me.”

“What?”

“Let all your anger out on me. It’s not good to keep it inside.”

“That sounds strange, coming from you.”

“Trust me, it feels stranger saying it.” Felix grimaced. “Just... Please. Spar with me. Don’t let this fester inside you.”

He sounded almost pleadingly. A tiny portion of your heart swelled in gratitude towards the male; you stiffly wedged the door open.

“... Fine.”

The corners of Felix’s lips twitched upwards as you both headed for the training grounds.

♠ ♥ ♣ ----------------------------------------------------------- ♣ ♥ ♠

“We got the flowers!” Annette burst into the dining hall, waving the bouquet with glee. Mercedes shortly followed.

“I saw Felix and (F/N) head for the training grounds. He’ll keep her occupied for at least an hour or two.”

“Just enough time to roast a Faerhgus fowl.” Dedue commented, smiling slightly.

“Great! Well, I guess I’ll keep watch, so if you need me...” Sylvain slipped out of the dining hall and leaned his frame by the entrance, smiling and waving at passing females.

“Oh, and remember Your Highness,” a spike of red popped back in, “don’t forget you still need to get changed.”

“Got it. Thank you, Sylvain.”

“(F/N) and I were on kitchen duty last week, and she mentioned she loves (Favorite Soup)! We can cook that as well.” Ashe’s eyes shone brightly.

“I can bake some sweets!” Mercedes chimed in.

“E-Everyone, I’m afraid my skills in the kitchen are... less than spectacular. I’m afraid I will only hinder your progress...” Dimitri took a hesitant step out of the kitchen as he watched his classmates get to work.

“Nonsense, Your Highness.” Dedue reassured as he picked out a fowl. “We will guide you. May you please wash and cut the potatoes?”

“O-Of course!” Dimitri dunked a handful of the starchy tubers into a bowl of cool water and made sure no speck of impurity remained on its surface. With Ashe’s saint-like patience and Dedue’s constant monitoring, the royal succeeded in cutting the lumpy veggie into nice, even cubes.

“Great job, Your Highness! Now, can you peel the carrots while I prepare the soup?”

“With pleasure, Ashe.”

Dimitri took the small blade in his hand and carefully skinned the carrots’ rough exterior away, revealing the healthy shade of orange underneath. Dimitri’s confidence grew with each slightly whittled but clean carrot he handed to Ashe and Dedue, and he was silently celebrating the fact that he hadn’t--

... Crack!

All eyes flashed to the source of the sound.

Dimitri stared at the large, compromising splinter running down the length of the knife’s wooden handle; he looked up slowly.

“Er... Is there, perhaps, another one that I can use?”

“A-Actually Your Highness,” Ashe laughed awkwardly, gently taking the ruined blade from his hand and leading him to the bowl of soup, “can you watch the soup and make sure it doesn’t burn or anything?”

“Y-Yes... Um, I apologize for--”

“Do not worry, Your Highness.” Dedue’s monotone voice rang clearly. “It was an accident.”

“Yes, but now the kitchen staff has one less knife to work with...”

“A problem that we can fix the next time we go to town.” Ingrid assured, finally breaking from her food-induced stupor. The savory scents of roasted duck interwove with the hearty notes of (Favorite Soup), creating a mouthwatering song that entranced the gourmand; the delicate, feathery hint of sweets that Mercedes was concocting complemented the deep, earthy tones set by the three males.

“Would you like some, Ingrid?” Mercedes queried sweetly, holding up a small assortment of freshly baked goods. “I know how patiently you’ve been waiting for a sample.”

Ingrid almost lunged at the plate in the cleric’s hand.

“Y-Yes. Thank you, Mercedes. I am excited to taste your sweets.” Ingrid proceeded to not-so-graciously inhale half of the plate’s colorful contents.

“Ah! Ingrid, that was for everyone!”

“Oh!” Ingrid, mouth half-full with sweets, slammed the plate down on the table. “I-I am so sorry! I just, I got super excited and--”

“It is quite all right, Ingrid.” Dimitri replied, his eyes not leaving the softly boiling pot of liquid for a second.

“Please do not look so upset, Ingrid. I can always bake more!” Mercedes gave the aspiring blonde knight a light squeeze. “When we’re done, I can bake you a whole tray of sweets!”

“That would be lovely.” Ingrid smiled, still slightly chewing. “Thank you, Mercedes.”

“Ah, Ashe, it’s boiling quite a lot now. I think the soup is done.”

“Not yet! I haven’t added any seasoning.” Ashe hummed thoughtfully. “Actually... Would you like to add them, Your Highness?”

“I believe a sense of taste would be necessary to accomplish such a task... I, unfortunately, have none.”

“Ah, well,” Ashe looked at the row of spices neatly spread out, “you can still try though! Ingrid can taste test the dish, and she can tell you what you need to add.”

“I suppose that can work... Ingrid--”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

Dimitri and Ashe almost jumped at the closeness of her voice. Turning around, they saw the lass mere inches away from them with a childlike glow in her eyes.

“Ingrid, how did you--”

“I heard I was taste testing, so I came as soon as I could.”

The prince and archer shared glances with each other before the latter was called to assist Dedue. With a quick bow and a ‘good luck,’ Dimitri was left all alone save for a bubbling pot of soup and an overly-enthusiastic assistant.

“I think it would be wise for me to have a taste now so we can see what we still need to add.” Reported Ingrid dutifully.

“Ah, establishing a baseline. That’s a great idea.” Dimitri stepped out of the foodie’s way.

Ingrid grabbed a ladle and scooped a humble amount in its trough before pouring it into a small bowl. Her lips caught the edge of the bowl and she slurped its contents. She hummed thoughtfully, taking another sip.

“It’s all right, but painfully average... We need more of everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes. Its flavors need to be boosted drastically. It’s not bland, just... underwhelming.”

“I see...” Dimitri cast a nervous glance at the row of spices. “I’m assuming these are the seasonings used to flavor the dish?”

“That is correct!” Piped Ashe from the oven.

“Let’s see here...” His hands danced over the vessels of flavor hesitantly. A bottle of fine, onyx-colored powder caught his eye and he checked the label-- black pepper. He popped open the cap and tapped a careful amount in. Ingrid stirred the pot and poured some more soup in her bowl.

“Mm, that added some much-needed flavor. Try salt this time.”

Dimitri gingerly set the pepper down and scoured the row of spices for the condiment. After he found the small bottle tucked away in the back, he unscrewed the lid and sprinkled in some salt.

“Add more. I can barely taste a difference.” Ingrid critiqued.

Dimitri did as he was told and sprinkled in some more, unsure of the intensity of the granulated whites.

“More, Your Highness. You can be a bit liberal with the salt here.”

“Got it.” Dimitri tilted the bottle and gently tapped its side.

Only for half of the bottle’s contents to fall in.

Dimitri blankly stared at the visible pile of salt floating on the surface of the soup, slowly disintegrating as it drifted further and further down to the bottom of the pot.

Then he was tossed into the five stages of grief all at once-- Ingrid riding that emotionally tumultuous ride with him.

“Your Highness!”

“Ashe!”

“W-What?! What happened?!”

“The salt!” The blondes screamed in terror.

“S-Salt?! What do you--” Then he saw the bottle of salt, previously filled to the brim, staring back at him half-empty. Without a moment to lose, he broke through the two and beelined for the pot. He seized the ladle, scooped up its murky contents, and gave it a large swig.

His eyes shot open in horror and his face paled several sheets of white. He dropped the ladle, wetting the surrounding area with the toxic liquid, and stumbled back onto the counter. Gripping his pants until his knuckles turned as pasty as his cheeks, he forced down the soup with a gag.

“Water...” He flung himself onto the mortified prince, his eyes tearing up. “Water...!!!”

“I got you, Ashe!” Ingrid came swooping in with a cup of the aqua panacea; the archer snagged the cup from Ingrid and chugged it all, not letting a single drop go to waste.

“What happened?” Dedue finally arrived, his head absolutely spinning from the pandemonium that ensued from across the kitchen. Mercedes came running as well, almost dropping the tray of freshly baked desserts from her hands.

“W-Well, His Highness--”

“It’s all my fault,” Dimitri stepped forward, head hung low, “I was only trying to add a little bit more salt, but then I ended up pouring half the bottle. Then Ashe went to taste it, and, well...”

All eyes went to Ashe, who was still recovering from that whole... experience.

“It,” he sputtered,”it tastes like sea water.”

“Ashe, I am so, so sorry. Is there any way I can make this up to you?”

“Get out of my kitchen I-It’s all right, Your Highness... But um... I really don’t think we can serve this to (F/N). It tastes... unpleasant. Very unpleasant.”

“I understand...” Dimitri sighed, forlornly looking at the pot of failure. “Curses! I’m sure (F/N) would have loved it, if only I--”

“Your Highness. There is no need to linger on what has come to pass. We can still cook up a wonderful meal.” Dedue’s even voice steadied the prince. “We do not have much time left. Let us make haste.”

It was all hands on-deck from thereon. While Ashe was temporarily out of commission, the rest of the Lions present did everything in their power to compensate for lost time and dish. As Dimitri busied himself with dicing and rinsing vegetables for a simple salad, everyone else was bouncing around ideas that could possibly substitute the soup.

“I was in town the other day, and I heard one of the merchants talk about this pastry called ‘garlic bread.’“ Annette remarked.

“‘Garlic bread?’“ The Duscur man repeated questioningly.

“Yeah! From what I remember it sounds very easy to make, and we seem to have all the ingredients.”

“And those are?”

“Hmm... Adrestian Butter, bread, powdered Gautier Cheese, powdered garlic, and dried parsley.”

As Annette recounted the recipe to the best of her abilities, Ashe wobbled back to the kitchen with a few of Mercedes’ samples popped in his mouth.

“If you need an extra hand, I’d be happy to help!” He turned to the healer. “And Mercedes, these taste absolutely delightful! Eating them makes me feel all re-energized.”

“I’m always happy to help!” She smiled sweetly, dunking and scrubbing away the dirt on some pots and pans. Dimitri’s eyes widened.

“Ashe, are you certain you’re okay? I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard...”

“I’ll be fine, Your Highness! And besides, Mercedes’ sweets completely washed away the taste of your soup! ... Er, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“... And then we just pop them in the oven, and wait until the edges turn brown.”

“How convenient.” Dedue’s mouth turned up slightly. “I’m sure (F/N) and His Highness will like these.”

“They look quite scrumptious in there...” Ingrid licked her lips greedily. “Hopefully they don’t take too long... Hey, has anyone seen Sylvain? Last I heard he was on guard duty, but he could have run off with some girl at any time.”

“I’m still here,” called a voice from outside, “Ingrid, your lack of faith in me stings! Do you really think I’d be that calloused towards His Highness’s cause?”

“Yes.” Ingrid answered plainly.

“Yowch. That hurt.” Sylvain grimaced. “By the way Your Highness, we--”

. . .

“Sylvain?”

“You guys!” Sylvain came tumbling in, hysteria marring his smug features. “They’re coming!”

An unintelligible gurgle of surprise left the Lions’ throats and they drove to plate and add last minute details to their dishes. Dedue whipped out the duck and Ingrid the garlic bread, followed by a whole parade line of baked treats brought out by Annette and Ashe. Poor Mercedes, finishing up the last spoon in the sudsy basin, was suddenly bombarded with every plate, bowl, utensil, and pan in the kitchen-- not to mention The Pot of Poison. Dimitri set the wooden bowl that carried his salad on the table and he was instantly teleported away to a secluded section outside the dining hall. Sylvain carefully pulled out Dimitri’s finely decorated suit from under a brush, swatting away the little pebbles and specks of dirt that happened upon the fabric.

“It’s a good thing I kept the suit here. Imagine us running back to your quarters to change.”

“Thank you for thinking ahead, Sylvain.” Dimitri’s eyes flitted about him nervously. “I feel rather embarrassed changing out here in the open though...”

“We’re running out of time, Your Highness! Don’t worry, I’ll, uh, cover you.”

Dimitri shot him a grateful look and threw off his cape, which Sylvain caught and held up in a weak attempt to cover his friend. Dimitri chucked off his gloves and shimmied out of his boots; he then lifted the hem of his shirt past his neck and made quick work of his pants, shuffling and kicking the fabric away from him.

“Oh Goddess, they’re coming down this way! Quick, hide!”

“What?! Where?!”

“Uhh...!!!” Dimitri and Sylvain looked to and fro, their heart rate and cortisol levels reaching new heights. Behind the tree? No, the tree is hardly thick enough to cover the prince. The brush? Nah, it’s too small for a full grown man. No, no, he can’t run to the other side of the building, everyone will see his... parts. Sylvain pushed the bewildered Dimitri onto his knees, threw the tarp over him, and sat squarely on his back.

“Sylvain--?!”

“Hey hey hey, Fel and (Your Nickname)! Sooo, how was training?”

“Ah, well, y’know,” you answered back weakly, “tough.”

“Ah-hah! I see, I see!”

“Sylvain... What are you sitting on?” Felix’s eyes rested severely on the... quivering? quivering why was it quivering lump holding the male up. Sylvain looked down, then up, then down, then up, and chuckled nervously.

“Oh, y’know! It’s uh... It’s uh, a rock.”

“... A rock?”

“Yeah! Good ol’ rock here. Conveniently shaped too, y’know.” He patted something that felt a bit too round to just be Dimitri’s back; the two men quietly let out screams of the damned and Sylvain made a mental note to burn his hand off later.

“Huh... It does look quite comfy.” You mumbled, eyeing the spot where Sylvain just patted.

Please don’t sit here please don’t sit here please don’t sit here plea--

“Would you mind if I sat down for a bit?”

“Not at all.” Sylvain answered automatically, winking. It was in that moment that he truly regretted his playboy tendencies, and actually seriously considered change for a split second.  

“Great!” You skipped (more like limped) over to the silently screaming male(s). With a huff from you, Dimitri promptly felt something soft nestle into his rump; a portion of his soul disconnected from the mortal plane, never to be seen again.

“This... rock... feels kinda...” You shuffled in your ‘seat’ a bit. “soft.”

“A-A rock?! Soft?! Ha ha ha, don’t be silly, (F/N)!”

“And... This looks like Dimitri’s cape, does it not?”

“W-Why in the world would I have His Highness’s cape?”

“Well, that’s true... But, why would you put a piece of cloth on a rock like this?”

Sylvain just stopped working.

A good five seconds of silence ensued before the male finally found his tongue.

“Why wouldn’t you put a piece of cloth on a rock?”

“Well, if it’s an attempt to make the rock more comfortable, wouldn’t it make more sense to just... sit on the grass instead?”

“I mean, you’re right, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spread a blanket on a rock for my own personal comfort, right?”

The throbbing in your head only worsened as you tried to comprehend this man’s logic.

“Um... sure.” You stood up. “I’m gonna go freshen myself up a bit before I head to dinner. See you later, Sylvain.”

“Y-Yeah! Of course! Catch ya later!”

Sylvain waved you and the very confused Felix goodbye and eagerly watched you leave. After making sure that you two left and no one else was nearby, Sylvain slowly leaned over.

“Your Highness--”

Dimitri shot up like a man reborn, shocking the redhead off him and wheezing for air.

“I couldn’t... B-Breathe...”

“Sorry about that, Your Highness...” Sylvain accidentally made eye contact with The Hand and he immediately gagged. “Let’s not... talk about what happened here. Ever.”

“Agreed.”

Both men sighed deeply.

“Well, you heard her. She’s gonna freshen up a bit before she goes to dinner so there’s no rush now. ... Well, you’d still probably like to rush a bit, since you’re currently in your briefs.”

“Thanks, Sylvain.” Dimitri grumbled, slipping his achy legs into the high-quality fabric and buttoning up his shirt. He readjusted the crooked pins and small medals that adorned his breast and smoothed away any wrinkles.

“You’re lookin’ snazzy, Your Highness.” Sylvain chuckled. “Now we just gotta fix up your hair a bit.”

“My hair? It looks fine though, does it not?”

“Yeah, sure, it looks fine but that’s about it. C’mon, think about it! You wear the exact same hairstyle day in and day out. We gotta give it more of a ‘wow’ factor.” Sylvain’s brows furrowed deeply as he studied Dimitri’s face closely. “... Y’know, this might just work.”

“Huh? S-Sylvain, what are you--?”

“Trust me, Your Highness. (F/N)’s gonna love it!”

With a quick swipe of his hand, Sylvain flipped Dimitri’s bangs onto one side of his face. Sylvain took a step back and crossed his arms, satisfied.

“Woo, now that’s a prince!” Sylvain whistled.

“D-Do I really look... princely?”

“Always have, buddy.” Sylvain threw an arm around Dimitri’s shoulder. “But right now? The princeliest of princes.”

Dimitri’s eyes crinkled happily and he bowed deeply to his dear friend.

“I thank you, Sylvain. From the bottom of my heart... thank you.”

“H-Hey now.” Sylvain laughed, cheeks reddening. “No need for all that! I’m just doing what I can to help you with this. You deserve to be happy, Deems.”

Dimitri smiled in response and ran his fingers through his hair.

“Ready, Your Highness?”

“Ready.”

[girlofmanyfandoms]

A/n: Next chapter is out! This one has a lot of setting up of the future plot points, it’ll be fun if y’all can pinpoint it. If the next chapter takes too long, I’ll post more of “The Plot out of context,” if it’s wanted!

Key:

Tater - @a-lonely-tatertot

Lynn - @lesbilynnette

Gray - @silver-snow

Lilah - @tribblemakingalicorn

Cadence - me

Ivy - @imaramennoodle

Molly - @molly-sencen

Farris - @everyonehasthoughts

Speens - @an-absolute-travesty

Holes - @holesinmyfalseconfidence

Connor - @linhammon-roll-bromance101

Panda - @worldwidepandamonium

Meg - @ultralazycreatorfan

Word count: 2,740

Warnings: Nothing makes sense.

“Lynn, can you have the next shipment of the Gatorade sent to my address in Peru?”

“Farris, what did you do now?”

“Nothing!” They grinned nervously.

“I swear if you moved to Peru just so you could buy an alpaca, I will-”

“It’s not that, I swear! Well, not just that. Boss called and said I have to be at the excavation site by tomorrow, that it might be a big break.” Farris scoffed. “As if. Last time, the only thing I found with my metal detector was someone’s Betty Boop keychain.”

“Yeah, I can ship them there,” Lynn sighed, exhausted from a night of getting a deal with the investor and setting prices for the products. “And that’s crazy.”

“I know right?” Farris answered. “Betty Boop? When was this person born, the 1950s?”

“That’s not- yeah, you’re right, Farris.” Lynn changed her sentence halfway through. “Any word back from Panda?”

“Yeah, Panda got back to me. Said that her sign is a Scorpio.”

“What?”

“Exactly, who would’ve thought Panda was-”

“Farris, you were supposed to ask about the chain restaurant idea!” Lynn massaged her forehead. “Why did we agree to be partners?”

“Because I threatened to blackmail you,” they responded, taking a bite out of an apple. “And I did ask about that. The zodiac sign was probably the question I wrote on my arm so I wouldn’t forget.”

“And?”

“She said the chain restaurant idea is a good thing to look into, as soon as we can make a good menu, hire some staff, good prices, nice locations, accessibility, y’know, all that jazz.”

“Because that’s so simple.” Lynn sighed, shuffling through the paperwork that had accumulated within the past week. “Alright, tell you what, I’ll get an artist to make an ad, maybe a social networker, I’ll set up a blog and we get the word out. As soon as you get back from the gig, you call me, alright?”

“Yup,” they agreed. “Oh, and Connor just texted saying he needs your help. I told him to wait ‘til I got back so I could teach him how to properly rollerblade, but the kid’s a madlad.”

“Anything broken?”

“His sanity.”

“Farris.”

“And a lot of furniture.”

“Guess I’ll have to find out for myself, huh?”

“You sure will.”

“Alright, I’m checking in with the supplier. Talk later?”

“Cheerio, mate,” Farris grinned, saluting her before ending the call.

Lynn opened her laptop and emailed her supplier, who had requested to remain anonymous. This was fine though, identities shouldn’t be known when dealing with the black market and pyramid schemes. Lynn was fine with using her real name because of her position as co-founder of Forbidden Incorporated. If she was going to go deviant, she’ll be damned if she didn’t do it with style.

_________

Cadence’s phone buzzed, as an email from a client had just arrived.

“Forks do not work with ice cream,” Tater yelled for the umpteenth time.

Holes clutched their head in a mixture of disappointment and annoyance. “Why would you use a spoon? It’s not soup, you can’t just spoon it out!”

“Then pop it in the microwave for a few seconds, for fu-”

“Crank it down 12 notches,” Molly suggested.

“-for Pete’s sake,” Tater acknowledged Molly. “And didn’t you just eat an entire bag of flamin’ hot Cheetos in one sitting?”

“They were good! And I’m fine,” Molly insisted. “Sure, we’re out of milk, and I have strep throat, but I just took a shower and I don’t think I’m gonna pass out just yet.”

Tater and Holes pulled out a Lysol can, masks, gloves, and a plexiglass barricade within seconds, clearly getting flashbacks from 2020. Cadence wasn’t paying attention, as usual, and kept writing her response to the email.

“Relax,” Molly laughed, clearly not finding it strange that they had those on hand at least a decade later. “I got my antibiotics, it’s not contagious anymore. And hey, good news: I made a questionable decision, and that’s also not contagious.”

They threw the equipment behind them, seemingly into the abyss, and relaxed a bit.

“Ok, now to address the real problem,” Holes started. “Who is Pete and why are we doing everything for his sake?”

“Oh my gods, it’s an expression, Holes,” Tater sighed.

“No, no, Holes, is onto something,” Molly said, grabbing the detective hat Lynn had designed for her and putting it on. “And I intend to find out.”

“Cadence, please make it two against two,” Tater pleaded.

Cadence glanced up from her phone. “What’s happening?”

“Oh my- you know what, I should’ve expected that, considering the Paint Water incident.”

“Ok, the Paint Water Incident was ONE TIME!”

“The what?” Holes looked interested.

“We don’t talk about it,” Cadence chimed in. “Think of it as the Great Gulon Incident of our group.”

“Great,” Holes sighed. “Another mystery. You’re all high.”

“I was fully aware of what I was doing in that incident.”

“Even better,” Holes commented dryly. “Nevermind, I don’t need to know.”

“Besides, there are great puzzles to be solved,” Molly continued enthusiastically. “Onward! We must scavenge for our first clue of Pete’s identity.”

Tater closed her eyes, telling her conscience to shove it for a moment. “Where do we start, Detective?”

Holes raised their eyebrows.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” Tater shrugged.

Molly looked at Holes in expectation. “Alright, fine,” Holes caved. “But I’m taking Cadence with us, I’m not going crazy alone.”

“That ship has sailed for both of us,” Cadence commented, not looking up from her phone.

“Yeah, haha, very funny. Let’s check out the corner opposite of the one they’re searching.” Holes paused, waiting for them to be out of earshot. “We don’t have to do anything, just pretend to search, I’ll be watching to make sure they don’t get killed.”

Cadence looked down at the email from her client. A shipping of 500 bottles, and 3,000 containers of newer products. And to Peru? Why had they changed the shipping address? She sighed. It was going to be a long day.

________

Connor’s house was on fire. Connor’s house was on fire. Why was Connor’s house on fire, you ask? Well, if you need to ask, you clearly haven’t met him. Lynn gazed at the sight in front of her tiredly, not knowing how she hadn’t expected this to happen.

Speens was calmly watering the bushes surrounding the house, not giving a second thought about putting out the fire with the water they had.

Lilah appeared beside Lynn, startling her. “Oh, good, you came. Gray has been trying to help Connor stand up for the past 30 minutes, but he’s way too drunk and he keeps refusing to ditch the rollerblades. Oh yeah, and his house is on fire.”

“About that, how’d it happen?”

“He was rollerblading on the stair railings when he fell onto their lamp, which tilted over and fell onto the seance that he was holding earlier in the day so the candles fell onto the hardwood floor, and then he spilled vodka everywhere, and then the flames turned blue, so here we are,” Lilah recounted all in one breath. “It’s kinda beautiful to be honest.”

“Beautiful isn't the word I would use to describe it,” Speens called. “It’s interfering with the plants. Well, except for Suzy, she’s a stubborn one. She wouldn’t burn, and believe me, I tried to make her.”

“I believe you,” Lynn said, quite understandingly. She had seen Speens around on the Deep Web, but had respected their secret. They all had secrets, after all.

Lynn walked inside where the hose was already uncoiled and ready to be used. Connor, however, was clinging to Gray’s leg. “NO, DON’T USE A HOSE, THE HOUSE DOESN’T LIKE SHOWERS.”

“Connor, the house is an inanimate object, it does not care,” Gray told him, trying to get control of the fire in the kitchen.

Connor gasped. “How DARE you talk to Cynthia like that?! She deserves better!” He crawled over to a wall that was, inevitably, about to burn down, and he stroked it. “You’re gonna be okay, sweetie. Don’t listen to the mean person, they’re just a hater.”

Gray shook their head and sighed. “Hey, Lynn. Can you increase the water pressure?”

Lynn did so, much to Connor’s dismay. To make up for it, Lynn handed Connor a piece of a floorboard that had undoubtedly been broken into pieces when they fell off of the stairs. He hugged the floorboard close to his face, crying happy tears, not thinking about the possibility of splinters. Lynn was confused, but had a feeling she would need him as an ally soon, and this was the best way to start.

Lynn babysat Connor as Gray put out the fire. When they had finished, none of the house had fallen down. It was weaker, and very charred, but somehow it hadn’t fallen.

Gray reached behind them and pulled out a ladder and a blueprint covering the new design of Connor’s structurally damaged home. Everyone had become acquainted with such things being summoned when needed. “Alright, I got the materials in the car, but we need to fix this house, er, Cynthia, up.”

“Renovating a house, huh,” Lynn muttered. “Better than spending all day dealing with paperwork. But if I’m going to help you and Connor, I’m going to need both of your help. So, how about an offer?”

Gray narrowed their eyes. “What would that offer entail?”

“Well, for you, Gray, I’d need help renovating a certain building. We’re talking about new elevators, knocking down walls, putting up new ones, new furniture, everything businessy. As for you, Connor,” Lynn paused, waiting for him to look at her. “I need a spy. You don’t have to be sober, but you have to keep them talking alright?”

“I’m feelin’ woozy,” Connor giggled.

“Can you overhear what people say and report back to me when you hear something important despite the wooziness?”

“Yup, and I can be a skater dude, too,” he grinned goofily. “We can all live our dReAmS.”

“Well, I’m in,” Gray said, helping Connor lay down. “I’ll certainly need a team for that building of yours, but I’m in. I can’t repair a house on my own anyway.”

Lynn nodded. A team, huh? For that she needed customers, crazy, loyal, and determined enough to support her products. She had a few people in mind who might be able to deliver.

______

“Meg, you got the snacks?” Ivy called over her shoulder, setting up the gaming consoles. They had finally stopped procrastinating and organized a group hangout between Speens, Ivy, and Meg, making it a game night. Ivy brought the video games, Speens brought the hands-on games, and Meg was in charge of snacks.

“Yup,” she smiled, wheeling in a wagon of junk food. “Anything you could want, it’s here. What games you got?”

“Rocket League, Mario Kart, only the best of the best. How about you, Speens?”

“Uno, Jenga, Connect Four, Scrabble, Twister, Monopoly, you name it, I got it. Where do you want to start? Virtual or hands on?”

“Virtual, I guess,” Meg decided. “Haven’t played in a while, ever since a pigeon yeeted my controller out of a window.”

Ivy tilted her head, asking for an explanation.

“T’was like a message from an angry god,” Meg said wistfully, resting her head in her hands. “A god who preached ‘live, laugh, yeehaw, and stop playing The Last of Us 2 because it’s a trash game.’”

“Are you on drugs?” Ivy looked sincere.

“I mean, I wrote ‘gay’ and ‘yeehaw’ all over my dad’s truck, and later that night I had a dream about falling in love with the sister of this prince that I had to stop from destroying everything at exactly 12 AM, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.”

“No, that answered my question,” Ivy said, setting up the board out while the sunset shined brightly onto their faces in the cool evening light.

Meg chose the monster truck token. “Refresh my memory, how do you play again?”

“It’s literally just capitalism for kids, and I am above you mere mortals,” Speens helped, choosing the rubber duck token, and taking a Snickers and KitKat from Meg’s snack wagon. What happened next was ungodly. Speens opened the KitKat bar and ate it. Without. Separating. The Bars.

Ivy reeled back in horror, and Meg hid behind her, terrified of the scene going on before their eyes.

“What?” Speens finished the chocolate and wiped their hands with a tissue. “Are we going to play this game or not?”

“Oh no,” Ivy said, pulling her hair slightly. “You don’t get to gloss over that. The Forbidden Spicy Gatorade is for all of us to share and enjoy once we get our hands on it, but you never, never, disrespect the KitKat bar.”

Speens scoffed. “You’re really going to dwell on that?”

“Going to dwell- I can’t even-“ Ivy took a deep breath to steady herself.  “I will not allow this in my house. So you know what? Let’s raise the stakes. We need this Monopoly game to be a game-changer.”

Speens narrowed their eyes. “What are you saying? You’re betting something?”

“Yup. If I win, you have to wear a hoodie that says “I love Holes” and you have to help me with a plan of mine. If you win, I’ll help you get revenge on someone.”

“And if I win,” Meg continued. “Y’all owe me a lifetime’s supply of fro-yo and you both have to agree to each other’s bet deals.”

“Deal from my end,” Ivy pitched in, selecting the top hat token. The other two agreed, and the game commenced.

By 3 o’clock in the morning, Ivy had been in jail 17 times, and Speens had one hotel left. With a few lucky turns, Speens was bankrupt.

Ivy smirked, having a good feeling about this. “I call upon the power of the almighty Top Hat!”

“Oh, don’t look so smug, Ives,” Speens scowled, opening their suitcase of vodka and pouring their version of two shots. “You can still lose to Meg, and she bet a lot.”

“True, but in reality, would you rather lose to Meg or me?” Ivy flashed a grin. “The hoodie’s in my room, by the way. Don’t worry- it’s washed!”

Sighing, Speens went to retrieve the hoodie. A deal’s a deal, after all. When they returned, they looked ready to kill someone. They wore a baggy bright pink hoodie with “I Love Holes!” spelled in purple glitter. “You better win this, Meg.”

Meg stuffed a hand in her bag of snacks and nodded. Ivy’s turn was next, and it brought Meg down to $100. Speens muttered something under her breath and waved her hand in an elaborate motion. Seconds later, a loud crash was heard, followed by the breaking of glass and the sound of spraying water.

Ivy frowned. “What was that?”

“Go check,” Speens suggested.

Ivy looked out of the kitchen window to see… no window. The top of a fire hydrant had come bursting off of its mounted position and had crashed through her window. “No!” She frantically ran to the street to assess the damage from outside.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Speens stirred their beverage casually. “She’s not looking, you can win this.”

“Even if it means you always have to pay for my fro-yo?”

Speens shrugged. “Beats having her win. Besides, I’ll eat just as much fro-yo as you do if I’m paying for it.”

Meg went through the cards quickly, ignored whatever magic just went on. With a lifetime supply of such an other-worldly snack, who wouldn’t? Meg found her card just in time, as Ivy came back in, looking surprisingly calm.

“I boarded up the window, insurance will cover it,” she explained. “Your turn, Meg.”

Meg pulled the card she had placed on top of the pile and made her move. She had done it. Ivy was bankrupt. Not only that, but she was going insane. She flipped the board, sending everything tumbling into the depths of her house.

“How did you- you had no chance-”

“Breath, princess,” Speens joked. “I know what’ll take your mind off of this: some good old fashioned revenge on an old rival of mine. Whaddaya say, pal?”

“This day could not get any worse,” Ivy whined.

Except it could. And it did.

The electricity cut out and Ivy let out an ear-piercing screech.

__________

A/n: Not my favorite chapter, but I have some freaking PLANS for the next ones. Stay tuned! And if I made any errors, let me know because I can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes, so I only corrected a few things.

[penaltybox14]

DecoFiremen: The House in the Bronx

@squad51goals @its-skadi ​@darknight-brightstar @zeitheist At home in the Bronx or: Silky receives a letter.

Your foolish and misguided friend.

Birchy.

Thomas had thought the letter from Wynantskill was for Captain Hastings.  Sure some new lad would be coming down - it was a regular thing, after all.  New boys arriving at their houses, certain as the seasons, like the surprise of snowflakes on a late autumn day - what you knowed to be coming, but found a new liking in every time.  

But Flip had handed it to him instead, with a shrug to Captain Hastings. 

Of course, just then, the bells had dropped and they were off, tearing down the avenue.  Flip at the wheel and Captain Hastings beside him, and Thomas and Jimmy on one side and Bruno Spack and Ten-Cats Johnson on the other, the engine a great roaring thing, the lights - new electrics, run off the engine itself - and in all the commotion and the going and the coming (it was only a pot boiled over on a stove, frightening a slim, nervous young maid) - he had just - forgot it there, on the table.  Forgot it, tending the truck, forgot it, checking his turnouts, forgot it, reading the paper.  Forgot it right through dinner when Flip tossed it back on his lap in the midst of clean-up.  

"Might ought be important," Bruno said.  

"From Wynantskill?" Ten-Cats laughed.  "Might ought be they found out Silky cheated on his exams.  It would take them so long."

"Oh sure," Thomas says, wagging the letter, "I cheated.  I duped the oakbellies into thinking I was a ten-score dumber, so they'd send me off to work with you lot."

"Ah, fuck off, son."

"Fuck off and dry off, both of you, finish the dishes," Flip shouts from elbow-deep in hot suds.  

So it is not til late, and lamp-light, that Thomas sets to read the letter, which is sort of roughly pinched into the envelope, and the return-address stamped on the back is half-smudged.  The handwriting on the front is smooth and confident, the writ of someone who learned his letters early.  His own hand, guided by the sisters and the Jesuits, carries the same measured strokes.

Practice, Thomas, practice.  You will not get better if you do not practice, my son.  Now, again, on the lines.

But as soon as he opens the letter, he puts it down again.  And he puts it under his pillow and closes his eyes and clenches his fists and breathes.  He tries to settle on the voices of his house-mates, Bruno's blue-chambray laughter, Ten-Cats' whiskey-amber stories, Captain Hastings a blooming, booming scarlet like the truck itself in a blur.  He could find any man of his at twenty paces in the black, on the stair, in the smoke.  His sear passes over them like the hand of God, finds them good and gracious, and settles in his chest again.  He could, for sure, find any one of them beneath the bull-hide of the fire, hot and reeking and blind.

The letter under his pillow hisses and sighs, like a room before you bust the door, like a quiet room waiting patient to take the breath of fire.  How funny: how still and warm the room is, how safe it seems, before you bust the door and let all that air in for the fire to gobble up.  It shatters windows.  It swallows up the life inside and turns it out in light.  

It is only a letter.

Like the dozens he wrote.

Birchy boy, I haven't seen you since the ceremony.  You showed the oakbellies.  I knew you would.

Birchy, I hope you are well at Wynantskill.  It is not the same here without you.  

Birchy, my bell-ringer, my board-rider, how are you?  I miss you so.

Josiah, have my letters reached you?  It is different, here, in the city.

Pal, are you still sore I once nearly ran you over with a horse?  Please say not.

Some days, Birchy, I look down at the patch on my coat and I wonder how it got there.  Do you feel the same?

The seasons changed, the horses retired, the kerodiesels came in service, the lamp lights became electrics, the faces of men lined and their hair greyed, their mustaches drooped longer, but they still played cards, and they still sang songs, and the city still caught fire.  No letters came.

New boys came.  Thomas left his first house the first hot day of the year the kerodiesels became standard, took his gear and his brass and his coat and belts, and came to Captain Hastings and Engine 27.  It was like a new start, he was told.  Perhaps there were too many bad memories.  Perhaps he would be happier with a Captain who didn't know -

Him.  

Josiah.

It is only a letter.

Bruno's brawling blue and Flip's crisp sizzle find their way to the edge of his being.  He knows they are close, and listening out.  He wishes they would not.  Cap, perhaps, has the sense or kindness not to.

It is not as if half the department didn't know.  

He lies on his bed, in the low lamp-light, which flutters as if it is concerned - the way the sisters would fuss over his work, hovering, correcting, murmuring amongst themselves.  He holds the letter a little ways distant, struggling to reach just one line at a time, afraid of what he'll find when he reaches the next.  Each word is a single stair step in the dark - one foot up, a boot-kick, the next foot up, slow and sure with the hose heavy on his shoulder, one hand on his brother, another hand on his back.  

It was Josiah, for so long.  Josiah, who was to his hand like shine to brass, who was to his arm like the ardent voice of church bells in the morning, who was in his lungs like far-off daylight, who rested in his sear like he had never been an orphan.  It was Josiah, moving into the room, Josiah, beneath the beam, Josiah, beyond his reach.

It is only a letter.  It is only words that happen to tell him a story.  It is only a story about a boy without a family or a house, but - between the ink-spots, the smudging as if hastily folded without a secret read - a child with a long hallway, stretched between the dark and the day, the near and the now.  How, on an avenue in the Bronx, on a chill evening with the window's shut, does he hear the voices of children?

It is only a letter, after all.  He could put it away in his locker and never think of it again.

Josiah could always write him again.  And again.  

And again.

In a white ward at Bellevue, full of stern and stoic doctors who seemed to cut through time as surely as scalpels, beset by flocks of earnest sisters who thought that they were only bodies fraught with fire, only the sad and lonely flesh of God - he had bent his head over his first and last friend and prayed again, and again.  

And again.

The doctors wanted him away.  The surgeons wanted him gone.  His Captain, the Battalion Chief, the District Chief, said to rest, to come on now, he's in their care now.  

But he would not rest, would he?  He would not, he would grab Josiah's sear by its scruff and bear its claws and drag it shrieking back, he would clench the sheets until his own bandages split, until his own tears stung his burns, again and again.  He would have bent time backwards at the knuckles, he would have broken his own arm to make the last half-inch and hit Josiah's back before the beam.  

Last he saw Josiah, it was at the promotion at Saint Florian's Hall, mid-town.  And the rest of them, up for belts, for commendation, for their brass, they saw the steel and leather and looked away from the man, who stood stubborn as the first horse in the ashes.  Last he saw Josiah, his Birchy grit his teeth and took his coat with both hands, though it must have cost him dear to do it.  Those were the fever-bright eyes he had laid out in the Sear-dark with, those were the wide shoulders he had rested against between shifts on a five-alarm warehouse blaze, for sure, that was the same old Birchy.  

Last he saw Josiah, the Sear had no words for him, and he choked it up like ash.

You pulled me back, Silky.

They gave me the captain's coat because they did not know what else to do.

Thomas puts the letter in his pocket and tromps down the stairs to the watch-room, where Cap is listing over in his chair like a fishing boat bobbing in its berth at the piers.  He pulls paper from the desk drawer, and a pen from the rack beside the blotter.

It's for the boy's sake, he thinks.  

But it is not.

It is only a letter, and for the boy's sake.

But it is not - by the lamplight, it's for him.  For the fever and the Sear.  For the breath, and that damned beam, and everything it broke and pinned beneath it.  

Thomas scrambles to write before he can swallow the words again.

Birchy, you bastard, you bright and sear-blown bastard, I wrote to you a hundred times, and so you say you're sorry, you better be sorry one-damn-hundred times, the sisters would tell me to forgive you because God would want it, but you never believed in God, you just believed in fire and fists well, Birchy, you bastard.  I'm the sorry one.  I never said it to you at Saint Florian's and I never said it to you at Bellevue and I never said it to you on Ward Avenue.  I'm sorry.  I wasn't fast enough, and now there you are and here I am.

When I was an orphan with the sisters I never knew what being an orphan was because somebody dropped me off in a basket at the Foundlings Hospital.  Your boy is nowhere near so lucky.  I tell you I was an orphan, past-tense, Birchy, because even though I was elbow deep in other kids and raised by sisters and taught by brothers, when Kidder Parson came and took me out I found out I had a family so fast my eyes almost spun out of my head.  The day I hit the dirt at Wynantskill I knowed that.  Why do you think we call them houses?  It isn't by God because they're churches.  

Birchy I do not know any more than you do.  I do not know how to be a captain I do not know how to be a lieutenant, I've only ever been a brother.  I think, my first-and-last friend, that's all we've ever got.  A house burns down you build another.  You got to build the boy a house, Birchy, you got to furnish him a home.  

Your forgiving bastard,

(Truly)

Silky

[littlebitoffanfic]

I’ll Return

Fandom: The Hills Have Eyes (1977) Characters: Mars, Ruby, Fred, Jupiter Relationship: Mars/reader Request: What about a soulmate AU for some of the HHE characters? Like when you have your soulmate's name or first words to you on your wrist? For any character(s) you feel like, maybe some you haven't written for yet? A/N: I wrote this for Mars from the original. His character was then changed to Lizard in the remake, however he seems a lot more docile and afraid when around the father figure. Let me know if you’d like to see this with any other character 😊

 You were thankful to find the gas station. Not because you were low on gas, although you could top up, but because you wanted to stretch your legs. As you pulled up, the gas attendant as there in a moment, unhooking the nozzle. “Morning, Miss.” He greeted with a nod. “Good morning. Could you fill it up?” You ask as you climb out of the drivers seat, rolling your head to stretch the kink in your neck. Reaching up, you rubbed the back of your neck, trying to help your discomfort. You didn’t notice the attendant freeze up upon seeing the black ink on your wrist. “Quite a name there.” He nods to your arm. “Yes, very unique. You’d think it would make it easy to find him, but no.” You looked down at the name that was scrawled across your wrist in black ink. Everyone had a name, but some people never meet who it belonged to. Like so many others, you searched for the owner of the name, which read Mars, but had little success. They were meant to be your soul mate, the person you’re meant to spend the rest of your life with. “What about you? You got a name?” The attendant asked. “[y/n].” You gave your name with a smile, your thoughts running back to the black ink. You were too wrapped in your thoughts that you didn’t notice the man with curly black hair sneaking up behind you until you were dragged, kicking and screaming into the house.   You looked to the attendant in shock and horror as he put the hose back. He stood for a moment, rubbing his face with his hands before following. “Put her in the back room.” He gestured through the house and you kicked and screamed, but whoever was dragging you was far too strong. You were pushed into the room, stumbling and falling to the ground with a cry of pain. The shadow who had grabbed you was beside you, crouched over you as if making sure you were okay. But you didn’t move, keeping your gaze strictly on the ground but prepared to pounce if he touched you again. “Leave her be. Frightening the girl like that?” The attendant snapped at the man, who backed away from you. “Now get going! I’ll help yah but no point you staying round here for HIM to come looking for yah.” The man was gone from your sight, but you didn’t dare move straight away, instead looking to the door. He stood beside the attendant, but the darkness of the hallway masked his features. “Don’t tell ‘er.” He grumbled before taking off. The attendant watched him go, so you scrambled up onto your feet, running for the door but it was blocked by the attendant. And he had a gun. You stared at the weapon with wide eyes backing into the room till your back hit the wall. “take a seat.” He gestured to the sofa that sat in the corner of the room, facing an old style TV. You edged to the sofa, sitting rigidly as the man sighs, collapsing into a small single seater that was on the other side of the room, the gun on his lap. “Look, I aint normally involved in this. I know you got a lot of questions, and I cant answer them all. But what I can tell you is if you leave his house, you’ll be killed.” The attendant paused, allowing the words to sink in. “You stay here, I’ll keep yah safe. I promise. But you cant leave. Alright?” You paused before nodding which satisfied him. “I got a spare room you can use upstairs. It’s got its own bathroom attached and all. Come on.” He stood up, the gun still in his hand as he walked to the door. You didn’t move immediately so he looked back at you. “Come on.” You jumped from your seat, following him in silence. He let out another sigh. “I aint gonna make this hard on you. No offense, but I don’t want you to be here anymore than you do. Wish there was another way.” He spoke more to himself as he climbed the stairs and showed you to a room. True to form, there was a bathroom attached, with a small double bed in the main room, a desk and some old books. The room itself didn’t look like it had been touched in years. “You gotta promise you wont run. If he find out you’re here, there will be hell to pay.” The man tries to get an answer from you as you step into the room to look around. “Him?” You ask, your voice shaking. “Yeah. Bloody devil. He wont think twice about killing yah, trust me. You’re safe in these walls. Now, you got any family who’ll come looking for yah?” He asked, and seemed to immediately regret the question as tears welled in your eyes. “No.” You shake your head as tears run down your cheeks. “Right, good. No, not good. Didn’t mean that.” He huffed, rubbing the back of his neck. Just as he was about to leave, he paused. “Sorry, love. I really am.” He came up, placing a hand on your back. “You need anything, ask me, alright? The names Fred.” You nodded, and he left without another word. The situation finally broke you as you collapsed on the bed, crying.

----

You heard your window crack open and someone climb through. You had been at the house for 3 weeks now, and you didn’t leave the room. As if to show you why you should stay, the first night you heard screaming coming from outside somewhere. When you scrambled to the window, you saw someone running in the distance. They were being chased and were caught. You couldn’t see exactly what happened, but they stopped screaming, and whoever was chasing them had to drag them back, limp. So you stayed in the room. You sat up in your bed, turning on your light to find the familiar stranger was back. He never hurt you, never even came near you. He just sat in the corner, trying to talk to you but you gave him the bare minimum. The older man who kept you wasn’t the one who ordered your imprisonment. It was this one. He never told you his name. Never told you what happened when he disappeared or who was around or what was going on. He just tried to get you to talk. At first, you didn’t scream because you didn’t see what good it would do. Fred, the attendant, obviously knew him. But you had kept a pen handy in case you needed to defend yourself. “Found this.” He suddenly said, seeming more perky tonight as he stood in the middle of your bedroom and holding something out. Hesitantly, you stepped closer, looking into his outstretched hand to see a necklace. “Found it?” You glared at him, knowing fine well that he hadn’t found it. A man and woman had passed through here 2 days ago. You saw the smile faulter, then drop away as he turns away, throwing it on the desk before going to sit in the corner as always. You walked up to the necklace, taking it in your hand. You saw him perk up, smiling slightly, until you took the necklace and dropped it out the open window. “Why’d yah do that?” he scrambles across the room, so quickly you thought he’d drive out the window but you went back to the bed to sit on the floor by it. “I don’t want anything from you.” You snap. He glares at you, pointedly before going back to his spot as the two of you glare at each other until its nearly sunrise, and he disappears again. But the problem started to come when you realized that you actually looked forward to his visits. He seemed so genuinely interested in you and your life, and between his and Freds company, you preferred his. But you didn’t even know your name. You wondered if that was what he meant when telling Fred not to say anything. Or about what happened deeper in the hills. You had asked his name a few times, to which he shrugged it off, saying it doesn’t matter. You knew there were others, his brothers and sisters as well as a father and mother. Fred had said that the sister was harmless, and so were the brothers if they were controlled right. But the mother and father were the worse. They were the ones who would kill you on sight. Ruby had been the only one to find out about you. She had been trying to bargain with Fred to get her out of here when she stumbled upon you in the kitchen (the only other place in the house you could go). From then on, she came to see you, much to her brothers annoyance. Tonight, you had heard them arguing outside your window. “if Pa notices we’re both sneaking out, he’ll come.” The man hissed, grabbing the girls arm and pushing her back to the direction the normally come from. “Fine, fine.” She hissed, stumbling back towards the hills then pausing and running back. “Can you give her this.” From the light of the moon, you saw a small handmade bracelet from thread. You felt a little bad for her, and she just wanted some company. But the man felt uneasy with her around you. Maybe he thought she’d slip up and tell you something he didn’t want you to know. Before you could step back to let him climb up the side of the house, there was a new voice. “Mars!” An angry voice screamed out, breaking the two siblings apart with a jump. You ducked completely out of range of the window. That voice didn’t sound like the type you wanted to get on the wrong side of. There was only one person it could belong to. mars? You kneeled up, glancing out the window as you saw a man with a horrific scar running down his face storming up to the house. You were grateful that you had kept the bedroom light off so you were hidden. “Why you both sneaking around? Huh?” The man demanded and you could see the switch in the two siblings. They wouldn’t look him in the eyes, shrinking into himself. “We were just-“ Mars was about to try lie, when the back door flew open and light poured out of it. “I asked them here. Needed help, and why shouldn’t I ask that of my own flesh and blood, Jupiter?” Fred called out into the yard, but didn’t leave his house. the man, Jupiter, snarled a little. “Fine, keep the boy. But shes coming back. Mama wants a word.” Jupiter sneered at Ruby who huffed. Jupiter grabbed her wrist and started to pull her back to the hills. She didn’t struggle, instead following like a child in trouble. You don’t know what happened next as you slid down the wall, the information sinking in. Footsteps approached your door, which opened and Mars stepped in. He didn’t turn on the light straight away, instead walking to the window and closing the curtains. When the lights on, you push yourself up off the wall. “Whats your name?” You breath, your eyes filling with tears as you pray it isn’t true. Anything but that. He didn’t answer, his sharp teeth stayed wired shut as if he couldn’t. But you had heard it clear as day. Storming up to him, you grab his right arm and pull it out. You ripped the sleeve of the top to reveal your name in black ink on his wrist. He stood there, limp and almost numb as you dropped his arm. Shaking your head, you back away from him, breaking down into tears. “That’s why you kept me here. Because im you…” You couldn’t finish the sentence, it hurt too much. The realization that you had been spared death because your name as etched onto Mars’ wrist made you sick to your stomach. It explained everything. He would come to see you to try get you use to him first because he knew you would reject him. You all to your knees on the floor, sobbing into your palms as the full weight of the situation suffocated you. Mars stood there for a moment, apparently unsure with what to do before cautiously approaching you and kneeling by your side. “I could be a good mate.” He whispered to you. “I’ll keep you real safe. Make sure you don’t get hurt, and bring you things to eat.” You heard the desperation in his voice as he tried to list off reasons for you to be with him. In truth, you could see yourself with him. But not here. Not with that man so close. “I want to go home.” You look up at him with eyes filled with tears. Mars opened his mouth to speak, and you could see the anger filling his eyes. He stood, shaking slightly as your words broke him. “But I want you to come with me.” You stood up, cautiously approaching him from behind as he froze. “Bring your sister, and brothers if they’d want to come.” Mars lingers for a moment, hesitantly glancing over his shoulder at you as if in disbelief. When he sees no deception in your eyes, he turns fully to you. The way he was with that man showed you way more than anything he had ever said. He wasn’t happy here, he was living in fear. He kept you, hid you in a desperate attempt not to lose his soul mate. You don’t know what drove you to step closer to him. He looked so confused and lost at your offer. You reached forward and touched his chest, running your fingers up his shoulder to the back of his neck and into his curls. He shivered at the contact, his eyes falling shut. You took the moment to go up on your tiptoes and press a soft kiss to his lips. You lingered there for a moment, giving him a chance to kiss you back. Once he gets over the initial shock, you feel arms wrap around your waist and you’re pulled closer as Mars kisses you. While inexperienced and a little clumsy, you felt your heart race at the kiss. “Run away with me.” You whisper to him as you pull back. Mars opened his eyes, his gaze finding your own. He stared at you for a solid few moments, and you couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. “I wont survive on the outside.” He suddenly mumbled, his body slouching as his hands dropped from your waist as he backed away from you. Your hands fell to your side, the devastation obvious in your face. he turns away from you, seemingly unable to keep your gaze as he struggled to find words. “You’ll take Ruby?” Mars suddenly asks, glancing over his shoulder at you. “When you go, take her?” Any vocal ability you had was lost as you realized what he was saying. He wouldn’t come with you, but he wasn’t stopping you any more. And he was willing to send Ruby with you. You could only nod. Your offer still stood to take her with you. You knew she desperately wanted out, and if you had the chance, you would help her as much as you could. “I’ll get her up here tomorrow morning, just after sunrise. Be ready to leave.” He speaks with an air of authority that you had never heard before from him as he heads to the window, disappearing into the night.

-------------time skip ----------------

You stood by the side of the house in the shadows as the sun rose in the distance. You debated if you should have waited in your room, but you hadn’t slept much and you were going stir crazy. “Mars? Why did we sneak out? Papa will be angry.” Rubys hushed voice filled the calm air as you glanced around the corner and saw her trailing behind Mars, a bag thrown over her shoulder. “Shut up. You’re gonna get us caught.” He huffed at her, glancing behind them. The mention of ‘Papa’ made a shiver run through your veins. You hated the man, and you dreaded to think what would happen when you were gone. you were sure Fred knew. He had left out a few items in a bag, some drinks and snack-ish things. They were now in your bag. you noticed his fist was closed around something which he was holding tightly. Rubys eyes fell on you, instantly smiling in greeting as they walked up to you. “Here.” He held out a key in his hand and you took it, unsure what it unlocked. “Its to that car.” He pointed behind you to the family carrier on the court of the gas station. You tapped the ‘unlock’ button and the hazards flashed a couple of times before stopping. “Now get going. Papa will wake up soon. Aint any point hanging around.” Mars gave Rubys shoulder a little shove, making her stumble a little. She was in a daze, the realization spreading across her face as she beamed at the car. Her one wish was coming true. Ruby grabbed the bag off your shoulder, wanting to help as much as possible. She ran to the car, throwing her own bag and yours in the back and clambering into the front passenger seat as she admired the inside. You turned your attention back to mars. “You still wont come?” You asked, hoping against hope he might change his mind. “No. I belong here. Will always be here.” He looked over his shoulder to the hills, that look stunning in the growing morning lightly. He seemed to jump and remember something, digging into his pocket. “Here.” You held out your hand and two small bracelets fell into it. One was the threat bracelet Ruby had given to Mars to give to you. The second was the bracelet he had tried to give you a while ago. “You kept it?” You asked, looking at the metal one. Mars shrugged, seemingly not wanting to answer as he looked away. “Mars?” You spoke his name, drawing his attention back to you. “I… im going to miss you.” Perhaps it was the warped ideology you had been fed all your life that the name on your wrist was so important, or some Stockholm syndrome, but you didn’t wan to leave without him. You see a smile tug at his lips, but his eyes were filled with a deep desperateness that was unignorable as he looks at you. “Don’t. I aint worth it.” He smirked, the joke playing way too close for comfort. “Now, get.” he nods to the car, taking a step back and you were at a loss. Turning, you walk to the car, twiddling the key and bracelets in your palm, tears welling in your eyes. Something inside you broke as you twisted back around and ran to Mars. Throwing your arms around his neck, you kissed him. This wasn’t soft or sweet, it was needy and desperate as a growl left Mars’ throat. He grabbed your waist, his fingers digging into your side in a painful way as he keep you as close as he could while kissing you back. After a moment, you pull back, panting and with rosy cheek. “Go.” Mars growls, panting a little from the kiss. He pushed you and you stumbled back, nodding as you turned and ran for the car. Climbing into the drivers side, you took a deep breath before starting the car and flooring it. The bracelets were put in the centre console the second you got in. Looking out the rear view mirror, you saw Mars watching after the car before disappearing in the hills. Ruby asked some questions, but you didn’t answer them. You honestly didn’t know the answer, or what lay ahead for you both in the future. After about 50 miles, you reached a small town. Pulling into a small layby near a café which wasn’t open yet, you put your head on the steering wheel and started to sob. Ruby cuddled into you, her arms wrapping around your shaking shoulders as you finally allowed yourself to feel the impact of your farewell. after a few minutes, you felt a weight on your wrist. Looking up, you saw Ruby tying her own bracelet around your wrist before putting the other one on. You hiccupped slightly as you leaned back in the seat, looking at the two items. “Maybe, once we’re settled, we could… go back for him?” Ruby suggested with a shrug. “You think he’ll come?” You ask, extremely doubtful. “I think he’ll last a day without you, then wish he’d came.” She looked at you. “I asked him to come with us. Twice.” You confess, not wanting her to think you had just left him there. “Mars is stubborn. I think he didn’t think you’d want to be his soul mate. But if you went back, it would prove it to him, and he’d come.” She shrugged, looking out the window. “But we could probably overpower him if hes stubborn.” You laughed, wholeheartedly. You could almost see Mars struggling as the two of you threw him in the boot. Ruby joined in with your laughter, seeming a lot happier that you weren’t crying. “Okay, it’s a deal. Once we’re settled somewhere close by, we’ll come back.” You nod. Ruby twists in her seat, sticking out her pinkie finger and offering it to you. Linking your own with hers, she seemed satisfied with the promise as the two of you glanced back down the road you had came from. “I’ll return.” You nod, a silent promise to Mars.

[aty-altiria]

In the Hands of the Goblins

Whumptober 2020: No.2

“Pick Who Dies” | Collars | Kidnapped

Word count: 2221 Universe: Yona Of the Dawn, Harry Potter Pairings: Fem!Harry/Zeno Rating: T Themes: Fem!Harry, Collars, imprisoned character, cave ins, implied/referenced self inflicted injuries, memory issues

Summary: Trapped deep within Gringott’s Holly is less than surprised to discover the dragon - it’s not the first she’d come across either. Zeno is however the first one that communicates with her in English, and though his memories are shot, Zeno has no trouble deciding Holly is the regeneration of his dead mate. Nor does Zeno have any trouble in decided he’s going to follow Holly around like a lost puppy, even though he’s a full sized dragon.

For this one I picked a rather lesser known character from an anime I rather enjoyed a few years ago. Zeno! From Yona of the dawn. In the anime Zeno wasn’t shown much but he’s quite present in the Manga and I adored him!

------

Gringott's was ridiculous. It was an endless maze of traps, caves, and chaos, and it put the 'maze' of Holly's fourth year to utter shame. Clearly, the goblins knew how to build a maze where Hagrid did not, a shame really, considering she was trapped in it.

Holly had been previously with Ron and Hermione. They'd been running blindly from the goblins with the cup in hand, and an imperio'd goblin leading them from his kin. And then the floor dropped out from underneath them all. Holly had been thrown onto a near-endless slide, separated from her friends, and dumped into pitch-black darkness. While she'd managed to keep hold of the cup in the fall, Holly also quickly realized she was utterly, completely, wholly… lost. Now, hours later, she was left wandering and hoping for the best.

On the upside, as a witch, Holly wouldn't starve or die of dehydration; she could conjure the latter and had a bottomless bag of the former. Oxygen likewise was permeating the cave system so she couldn't suffocate either. But that was the end to her advantages. Because whatever the goblins did, they made any scrying or location spells utterly useless. So, it was wander and hope for the best… for the rest of eternity, while holding a Horcrux that she couldn't destroy since Ron had the sword.

"Argh!"

Holly stomped her foot as she rounded around a corner as she saw the same thing she'd been for the last hours. Identical walls, stalagmites, stalactites, endless darkness pierced by a light-charm, and bones. Holly suspected the bones were people who'd gotten lost. Well, Holly suspected the legend of the minotaur within Gringott's wasn't really a myth. Merlin, she hoped she didn't run into it, but with her luck…

"I'll probably find both the minotaur and a cave troll," she stomped on, wondering if she was going to die with the blood cup in hand. Voldemort would be thrilled. He'd lose her as a Horcrux, but the cup would be eternally lost within Gringott's caves; he'd be utterly immortal. Holly rounded another corner, grumbling to herself- and froze when she spotted a golden glitter at the end of her line of sight. Standing still, barely allowing herself to breathe, Holly directed her light upward slightly and saw a clawed foot scrape across the rocks.

"No. No. No." Holly took a step back because she'd been wrong; she hadn't found a minotaur, she'd found a dragon!

The foot shifted; it scraped across the ground. Holly watched it turn, move to follow her light- she nearly doused the spell, only to realize she'd be left in the dark, and she was certain the dragon could see better than her. Instead, Holly lifted the light higher and revealed the creature in its entirety.

It resembled a Chinese fireball, an elongated body without the wings Holly knew existed on the European version of dragons. It had four smaller clawed legs, all four were limp at its sides, unused. It had a set of wavy horns that stretched out beyond its head and equally long whiskers at the side of its head. And as the light hit its body, Holly watched the scales beneath its body shine oddly. The thing was filthy, coated in a layer of dirt and blood, so think that she could scarcely make out its colourings. It was only as it scraped its arms across the ground that Holly really realized the dragon was actually gold, rather than brown.

Bleary golden eyes blinked at Holly as the dragon fully turned toward her and the light. Its eyes were squinted, unused to the light, but it was trying to focus regardless. From a distance, it seemed fascinated with her, and even as it looked to her, the dragon made no move to attack. It was quite unlike the pale white version outside Bellatrix's vault. But then, this one was imprisoned much deeper than the other. And… it was a Chinese fireball, that meant it was more serpentine than the other dragon's Holly had met. Which meant… she may be able to reason with this one.

This could be her key to escaping the prison. If she could work with the dragon, she could find a method of escape for them both.

She just had to get it to agree.

Holly took a step forward, sured up her spine and clutched tight to her Gryffindor courage. Getting a bit closer had Holly realizing the dragon was more of a prisoner than she was, thick shackles were attached to its legs. A collar was wrapped tight around its neck. Chains were attached to each of those and reached up into the roof system pinning the beast in place. Holly followed the chains with her eyes; they were firmly attached by thick metal poles though she could make out great groves in the wall, done with claws. The dragon must have tried to escape on occasion.

Okay.

Holly stopped nearby the dragon as it continued to observe her with an odd amount of emotion in its eyes. It looked almost… stunned, mixed with a surprising amount of fondness? Holly avoided eye-contact a moment to scan its body again; it was oddly free of injuries, quite unlike the pale dragon from floors above. Holly paid that little mind.

"Hello… no." She made a face, snake, she had to think like a snake. She'd need parseltongue for this-

"Ka…ya?"

That was not parseltongue. Holly shot the dragon a surprised look even as the name resonated oddly within her. "Err, no. I'm Holly." She moved closer, wary of its snapping jaws, but the thing didn't move. "and I… I'd like your help, so we can both escape here."

The eye closed, and its body shifted. Holly gasped in slight horror as the movement cause it to impale itself on one of the rocks poking out from the roof. She gasped, grabbing for its snout to stop it. "Don't move! You'll hurt yourself-"

"…Z… e?" It froze, looking desperate, "forgot… what's name?" it looked at her like she should know. She gasped a bit, and her hesitation caused something frantic to enter it as it twisted violently, blood spewing everywhere.

"Calm down!" she begged.

"Forgot… forgot… lost name… lost it!" It shrieked. The dragon thrashed even as Holly clutched its snout. The dragon kept its head still with her grip, but it moved the rest of its body like a fireman's hose, swinging brutally and causing its body to crack against the walls. Holly winced as it impaled itself on protruding rocks and blood splattered.

Desperate, Holly yelled: "I'll help you find it!" she rushed to say, and it stilled, "I'll help you find your name again, but you have to calm down, you'll hurt yourself!"

It tilted eyes staring her down before saying clearly: "can't be hurt… heals too fast." At that, Holly made a face and shot a look at its body drenched in blood… but no wounds… what?!

"You healed." She realized, then shook her head, "but it still hurts, doesn't it!? So let's get you out without hurting yourself, and then we can escape together, okay?"

Holly stared him down until he nodded with an odd amount of fondness in his eyes. The dragon's body settled, it stilled no longer hurting itself on the rocks and allowed Holly to regain her breath. "…okay." He agreed, and Holly relaxed further.

With hands secure on the dragon's snout, she no longer feared getting eaten. Holly debated her options as the dragon observed her. "I've been wandering for days, so that won't work." Holly bit her lip, "maybe we could blast out from the ceiling if I used magic to break it out, and you flew… or we could try a path." She eyed the small caves that she alone could walk freely through, "I'd have to shrink you though… how'd they even get you in here?"

"Was human then," he answered for her, "made to change back into a dragon."

Holly made a face tilting her head as she tried to picture the dragon as a human. She hadn't known dragons could do that… did Charlie? "can you change back?"

He shook his head and twisted it so she could see and reach his neck. The collar that sat there was much clearer with how close she'd gotten. Holly was able to make out runes into the metal. Holly hummed and leaned forward, wanting to see if there was an opening. The dragon sensed her intentions and twisted more to grant her better access. When she was still a bit too far, the dragon moved his front leg and gave her a bit of boost, trusting her an odd amount with access to his vulnerable neck. Holly shot him a thankful and surprised look, then she refocused, inspecting the collar for a key-hole or break.

"Must be goblin made," Holly ran her fingers along the metal, moved all around his neck while avoiding his horns, "there's no opening…" How was she supposed to get him free? Holly leaned back, and he returned her safely to the ground. "I can try and shrink you, then we can try the tunnels. Or, we can try going up and chance getting buried alive." By this point, she was leaning for the latter; wandering the halls had gotten her nowhere.

"This one has already been buried alive. This one thinks Kaya should try the roof,"

"It's Holly." She corrected again and looked upward. He seemed to agree with her then. Up, straight through the next level floor, was probably their best bet. It was definitely hers with the dragon to cover her from falling rocks—especially a dragon who could heal that quickly. A straight path upward would have to be better than helplessly wandering.

"Up, we should go up." The dragon repeated, and Holly decided she agreed.

"Alright then, can I see your legs?" The dragon shifted, offering her his front leg again. Holly inspected the shackles nodding to herself; they were runic like the collar. She could break these. "Okay, hold still, I'm breaking you free, Zeno."

"Zeno…?"

Holly directed her wand to the metal at his front paw and nodded, "you said it when trying to remember your name, so… it probably starts with a 'Z,' so… I'll call you that for now." She flicked her wand firmly, and a spell shot out, causing the metal to shatter. The brittle and rather old shackles crumbled under her magic and freed Zeno's first leg. "And Zeno… fits, in a strange way. Other leg, please."

Zeno shifted and presented her with his left leg, and Holly repeated the process for all his limbs. She broken him free, then asked him to boost her back toward his neck. There, she attempted to break the collar as well… and the spell rebounded violently. Zeno was quick to react; he twisted on the spot, twirled his body despite the chain still attached to his neck to yank her out of the rebounding spell path. Holly ended up cradled in his claws as her spell struck the walls with an almighty boom.

Rocks fell from the sound, and Zeno shifted her until she was under him. His body jerked several times at rocks dropped onto his body, but Zeno seemed unperturbed. He was relatively unbothered as he slowly released her when the chaos ended.

"Okay, so, I'll need to check the runes before I try that again." Holly figured, "I'll just break the chain instead for now."

"Be careful," Zeno requested as he boosted her up once more to give her access to his neck and the chain attached to his collar. Holly shattered it easily, thankful runes hadn't been placed along the entire line. If it had, she would have had to remain for an unknown amount of time to figure out the runes. It would have taken a while, she knew nothing about runes beyond how to recognize them.

"Okay, now… up." She looked at the roof, "are you ready?"

"Zeno is ready," he tilted his head oddly, then a grin stretched across his maw, "Zeno's name is Zeno, Ka- Holly is most smart."

She frowned at him, then nodded: "I'm glad then," in Zeno's claws, Holly pointed her wand up, "if you get buried… just wait, okay? I'll get you out, I promise."

Zeno's eyes lit on hers, and he nodded once, his whole body shifting with the force of it, "Zeno will wait for Holly to save him."

Holly grinned with false confidence, then, she looked up, breathed deep, and cast a powerful blasting curse.

And the roof collapsed toward them.

@whumptober2020

[thedeeperlayer]

I was fourteen when I first tasted the sweet, aromatic blend of tobacco, sugars, and ammonia compounds. It was 1998. The year of Clinton and Lewinsky. The year the guy from Die Hard was saving the Aerosmith-adjacent Earth from a Michael Bay Meteorite. 

I was fourteen. Instead of navigating the intolerable 3D world of Hyrule in Ocarina of Time, I was out making an imprudent moron out of myself with an RCA Solid State Image Sensor VHS Camcorder. My idiotic entourage and myself thought we were the uproarious epitome of cool. In actuality, we were ridiculous, annoying fuckwits. I was an absolute pain in the ass.

I'm not going to cock and bull with excuses. I started smoking because I thought I was fucking cool. I had older friends that did it and I dated girls that did it. When my mum found out I was flicking the Bic on the cancer stick, she was both disappointed and somewhat content. Her contentment for my lung corruption behavior was only because it meant she now had a smoking mate.

Mum and Pops didn't always have a harmonious relationship. They would cross swords and oppose each other's views a lot. Mum would complain about Pops never being home. Pops would bewail mum's smoking habit. It was always constant repetition down the same path. Dad never knew I smoked. He would of berated mum and blamed her if he ever found out.

Because of our shared toxic pastime, my mum and I became very close. We discussed all things life. Everything from grace and elegance to the septic shithole bottom. We talked about atrocious dislikes and stupefying satisfactions. We told mindless jokes and gave deep-thought opinions. 

For the sake of storytelling length, let's just say we always had each other's back. 

Unfortunately, the clock ticks, and the hours pass. In a blink of an eye, things are different. I grew up. I got married. I moved. Mum was downhearted and sad. I was the first of her children to leave from beneath her roof. 

I've worked lousey, shit jobs just to make ends. It is indeed accordance with fact, smoking does alleviate stress. I didn't think it was cool to smoke anymore, instead I smoked because my shitty job was an emotional mindfuck. Pounding the coffin nails down my throat made me feel better. 

I didn't want to poison my saclike respiratory organs anymore. I tried quitting. I tried the gum that supposedly calms cravings. I tried the rubber band wrist snap when I had the desire. I tried the ridiculous electronic substitutes. Nothing worked. I thought, fuck it. I didn't want to grow old and become one of the dust bags that retire in Florida anyway.

It was October, 2015. I was just finishing a much needed break from my mediocre job. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was mum calling. I contentedly answered it. 

She said she had a mass on her lungs. She told me not to be worried, it could be pneumonia. She said she would let me know more tomorrow. 

I instantly broke down and wailed. I could feel that something was extraordinarily wrong. My heart was in excruciating pain. It was exceedingly difficult to finish my shift that night. Every time I was alone, my eyes would swell. It was a long, tedious night.

The following day, I anxiously waited for mum to call. 

Haplessly, she called right before I had to go to work. She said it was stage 4 lung cancer. She told me not to worry. She said she was going to get help. I knew stage 4 was the inevitable. It's treatable, but not curable.

I was so heartsick.

I lit cigarette after cigarette.

My family was devastated. Mum is the support beam that holds my lunatic family's structure together. My brother and sister were in severe shock. Pops was completely shattered. 

The following week, my wife and I picked mum up from the hospital. She was being fitted for a radiotherapy mask. Mum was spiritless. She lacked vigor and enthusiasm. She looked defeated. This was the one time I convulsively, and uncontrollably sobbed in front of her. If you knew mum, she was always resilient and enduring. She was wholehearted, and a matriarch to many. It was challenging to see her in that frail condition. 

I lit cigarette after cigarette.

Mum had sort of a short fringe hairstyle with spiky bangs. She would ornament it with a decorative headband. Often she would dye it golden or honey blonde to hide the off-putting grays. 

The days passed. Weeks. My wife and I made frequent visits. Mum was sitting in her recently purchased stationary style comfy chair. She was wearing a sun-style flat brim cap. Mum never wore hats. “I'm losing my hair,” she said. She lifted a grocery sac where she was accumulating a large cache of her hair. 

Eventually Pops shaved her head. 

My wife and I purchased her a collection of hats.

The holidays came. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Mum always took pride in cooking the meals. She couldn't anymore. She was too weak. She could hardly walk. It was now Pop's responsibility to  prepare the brown sugar glazed ham. She shouted out the recipe to him in the kitchen. “Heat the honey and sugar until it dissolves!” Pops would earnestly urge her not to yell. She was always short-winded and depended on oxygen gas to breathe.  

Christmas morning was grim. Mum kept saying she wanted to have a nice Christmas. “This might be my last Christmas. I want it to be nice,” she despairingly would say. 

We wore smiles but they were fraudulent. Inside we were somber. Cheerless. Gift exchange was dispiriting. We were appreciative, but it was hard to express it. The only audio in the room was the pulling and shredding of novelty wrapping paper. We played unintellectual board games while Mum sat in the living room and stared at the TV. The Hallmark holiday collection was on but Mum wasn't interested. She was disconnected, absent of response. 

My wife and I went home. I lit cigarette after cigarette.

January came and went. February came. Mum had gotten worse. We went to visit her on my birthday. She was without emotion. Unresponsive. Pops struggled to make her recognize my company. She was comatose-like. Pops was in a panic. We rushed her to the ICU. She now had malignant brain tumors. Her recent actions were symptoms. The drowsiness. The constant agitation. 

She was given enough treatment to restore her moral senses. She asked to see me and my wife. Mum was stretched out on a hospital cot. She was buried beneath intravenous lines and hoses. She saw us and smiled. “Watch this,” she gently said. She proceeded with plucking the pulse oximeter from her finger to mortify the doctors. She still had her sense of humor. 

Later, Nurse Ratched impertinently pulled my family away from Mum. She disrespectfully spoke of Mum's unavoidable fate. Ratched told us that Mum will die. She told us to make sure we make the correct decision when the time comes. 

No one in my family wanted to hear that. 

The hospital discharged Mum.

My wife and I went home. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag, hardly inhaling. I breathed in a few more. 

I delve into searches about the great demise on Google. I’m not one who appreciates surprises, so I wanted to be hauntingly prepared. 

As the end approaches, your role is to be present, provide passionate comfort, and remove doubts from your loved one with soothing words and loving actions that help maintain their mental ease and dignity.

The entire evening I fixedly scrutinized my phone screen. It made me overwhelmed with grief. It put me in an unsettling place. It was that night that I accepted that my Mum was actually going to be gone.

Her condition continued to worsen.

It was difficult for her to digest food. She no longer could intake any solids. Pops couldn’t accept the harshness of the situation. He was in rack and ruin. Blatantly, he would hurry to the nearest fast-food establishment and order her a strawberry milkshake. In double time he would speed home to give her the malted treat. She would fiercely vacuum in the strawberry drink through a straw. Clearly she was hungry, but her gasping, pain and abnormal breathing patterns made it difficult for her to swallow. 

Pops told me, the prior evening, he strenuously got Mum into the loo. He proceeded to aid her, however she immediately denied his assistance. “Let me help you,” he despairingly said. “But you're a boy and I'm a girl,” she woefully baffled. 

Delirium. One of the common symptoms observed near death. 

Pops was hysterical. This unforeseen responsibility was so unfamiliar to him. He was terrified. He was frightened to lose the one person he spent his entire life with. 

Again he rushed her to intensive care.

My wife and I were at home. I lit a cigarette. I took a drag and quickly put it out.

Mum was denied anymore treatment. She was recommended hospice care and medically necessary equipment for at-home use. 

Pops thought hospice may not only be valuable to Mum, but also beneficial to him because the workers could assist him through the inexperience and unexpected. We all knew what misery and despair would come next, but Pops was in a idiosyncratic denial. 

Hospice was fucking useless, but more on that a little later.

My wife and I visited her everyday. 

Each day she worsened and disintegrating. 

She was often confused. She would appear asleep, but her breathing would be noisy, congested. She would appear peaceful and at rest, and within seconds she would begin screaming. She would holler agonizing cries. Dad would have to pump her with morphine to tranquilise her treacherous pain.

Day after day, her conditioned intensified. Her skin's pigment distorted to a grayish tone. Her face had depressed and sunken below her eyes. Her lips dried up and shriveled. 

The drainage bag connected to the catheter began to fill with a rust color. 

She had abnormal growths swell in unusual parts of her body.

Day after day we visited. She no longer would move. The congested breathing was the remaining sign of life. We attentively watched over her like this for days. She didn't want to go. She dearly loved her family. The Oncologist asked her, “what do you live for?” Her response was so straightforward and emotionally rewarding. She said, “my family”. Mum was uncomplicated. She lived to be a loving mum and caring wife. She always put her family first. That's who she was. 

She died on August 22, 2016. She battled cancer for seven months. She spent nearly four weeks in hospice care. Only four short instances was Hospice workers available for aid, one of the times being immediately after death. The available nurse plucked an orange Marigold from the neighbors’ garden and lied it in my Mum's cold hands. She called the Funeral Home to coordinate arrangements for pickup and hastily left. 

It was a horrifying experience for my family. Not only for us observing every nightmarish minute, but for Mum too. I can't imagine how afraid she was and how she felt. I just hope it wasn't guilt that resonated with her in her final days. She was the reason my family was so profound and passionate about things. The reason we were all there, again and again, expressing our sorrow and love together.

I haven't smoked a cigarette since her later days in hospice care. 

She was a beautiful, loving person, and we watched her severely weaken and diminish largely because of a lifelong bad habit. I never want to put anyone I love through that, ever again.

[hiskillingjar]

Gagging for It

Relationship: Strade/Reader Rating: Explicit Contains: Emetophilia, Drunk Sex, Vaginal Sex, DFAB Reader, Gender Neutral Pronouns, Canon-Typical Violence. Length: 5000+ words

Summary: Strade’s always wanted a drinking buddy.  AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101672

You wandered down to the basement out of boredom and a desire for attention that you weren’t going to receive from anyone else, shivering from the cold and trying to ignore the faint smell of aged, coppery blood that had yet to be hosed away. The door to the study (well, what else were you going to call it?) was slightly ajar, and you could hear the faint sound of the television and Strade's gruff laughter from the other room.

You nudged the door open with the tip of your foot and peered inside curiously.

Strade was watching one of his previous stream recordings, depicting a young male victim that you didn't recognize who seemed to be getting a knife to the eye. The scrape and crunch of the knife's edge hitting bone, followed by a piercing scream, made you grimace and quickly look away. Unsurprisingly, Strade was just laughing to himself though, a dark brown bottle in his hand, the rim gently resting on his smiling lips. A dense smell of cheap, greasy takeaway filled the study and a couple of beer bottles littered the coffee table in front of him, which meant he was probably drunk, or at least quickly on his way to it.

"Hey, buddy!" Strade called over to you, and you jumped at the sudden, unexpected sound of his voice. He seemed happy to see you, though he was always happy to see you, and he patted the space on the sofa next to him. "You wanna watch the rest of this with me? We haven't even gotten to the good parts yet."

You frowned a little at his morbid suggestion, though that didn't stop you from taking him up on his offer and sitting with him, legs crossed and bored eyes blinking at the television screen. The man's face was damp with tears, blood and intraocular fluid, the mess of shredded skin and eyeball taking up the majority of the screen, and the screaming was a bit off-putting, but you couldn't help but detach a little, seeing the brutal torture as if it were just a scene in a grindhouse flick or something, at least like the ones Strade showed you. That detachment made it a little easier to stomach, you supposed.

It made it easier to deal with.

"You got anything other than beer?" You asked him as he took another swig from his bottle.

"You liked beer the first night we met." He replied with a wry smile and a curious tilt of his head that you scoffed and rolled your eyes at.

"I liked you more." You said with a shrug.

"Cute." He chuckled, turning his attention back to the television screen. The knife in the man’s eye was now being used to drag his face closer to an erect, blood slicked cock, and you couldn’t help but be vaguely intrigued at where this would go. "But no, just beer. Got plenty of it, though you might struggle to keep up~" He finished the end of the sentence with a sing-song quality to his voice, and perhaps that might have unnerved you at the beginning of your captivity, but however many months in, it just made you grin at the concept of a challenge.

"Fuck you, old man, I can drink you under the table." You insisted, sitting up a little.

"Oh really?" He raised an eyebrow at you, and the look on his face is attractive in a way that set a shameful fire in the pit of your stomach. You nodded, attempting to swallow past the sudden spell of dry mouth and his easy smile split into a sharp-toothed grin. "Alright, you're on. Just have to grab some more bottles from the basement fridge." He stood to his feet, giving you the rest of his bottle. "But I'll give you the chance to catch up a little first, ja?"

The bastard knew how much him speaking German got to you.

You nodded again, a little dumbly, and he gave you a friendly pat on the shoulder with an easy smile before leaving the study to get more promised bottles.

Maybe he was just glad to have someone to drink with.

You can’t imagine that Ren would be a very good drinking buddy.

You curiously eyed the dark liquid in the bottle for a second, swilling it around, wondering for a second if he was using this opportunity just to roofie you, before you thought “fuck it” and threw it back like a shot. You immediately grimaced at the bitter taste and tried to fight back the desire to retch.

Even during your rowdier university years, where you must have been drunk most nights, you had hated beer because of the awful, bitte taste and how weak it often was. And while this particular brand was just as foul as any other, right now, you were desperate and you probably weren't going to find any other kind of alcohol in this house.

So you would take what you could get.

You opened another one of his bottles and drank from it while you waited for him to come back. Idly watching the torture-porn (though more porn than torture at this point) on the screen like you would a horror movie at a party.

It's halfway into the second bottle that you remember you hadn't touched alcohol in nearly four months.

Fuck.

-

You’re about six drinks in when you finally stop complaining about how bad the beer tasted.

“Eins, zwei, drei! Getränk!”

You tipped your head back and threw half of your (now) seventh drink down your gulping throat like it was barely any effort, using the one skill that you had perfected during university for its true purpose, while Strade drunkenly and loudly cheered you on in a slurred mixture of English and German.

You had no idea how many drinks he was on at that point, but the flush on his cheeks and his enthusiasm and affection towards you had grown exponentially within the last hour or so.

So you could only guess he was about as drunk as you were.

You kept chugging at your drink for about twenty more seconds before finally slamming the empty bottle on the coffee table and holding your arms up in victory, unbothered by the trickle of warm beer down your chin.

“What was that, forty seconds?” Strade said with a low whistle, patting you on the back as you hacked uncomfortably at the taste. “That’s pretty impressive, buddy!”

“Mate, your taste in beer is absolute shit.” You mumbled, wiping your chin with the back of your hand and falling back into the soft cushions of the sofa. The alcohol had put a pleasantly familiar haze on your brain, and you couldn’t help but let a delirious string of giggles fall from your lips between each sentence. “Next time we do this, we’re getting something decent, alright?”

“Ja, ja, of course.” Strade agreed with a nod, taking a heavy gulp from his own drink, though he seemed to enjoy it for more than you did. You liked that he agreed there would be a next time. That, at least, meant he wasn’t planning on killing you any time soon. “I just get what I can also find in Germany.”

“Well, Germany has shit taste in beer too then.” You replied with another giggle.  

“What would you recommend?” He asked with a drunken smile, giving your shoulder a gentle nudge and affectionately pulling your heavy body to rest against his. He’s a lot more comfortable to lie against when he’s drunk, you thought.  

“I dunno.” You mumbled, letting your head loll back against his soft stomach. “When I was in uni, I just drank everything I could get my hands on. If it had alcohol, I was there.”

“Mm, I’ll keep that in mind.” He said softly, resting his bottle near your head.  

Even being as drunk as you were, you could still understand just how strange, if not disturbing this was. If someone saw you doing this, getting drunk, playing drinking games and singing songs, cuddling up to your captor, they'd think you were insane. And maybe you were a little, especially when you took such pleasure in being so close to him.

You let your head turn to face the television screen. His free hand drifted up to your ear and he gave your scalp a little scratch. It felt nice, and you keened against his touch with a sigh of pleasure.

In between the drinking chants and meaningless conversations, Strade had put another one of his tapes on in the background. This victim was a young woman, probably younger than you, with red hair and glasses. She was a little skinny but pretty looking in a subtle kind of way that you envied. A ring gag kept her mouth open while an off-camera Strade held an industrial-looking wood clamp to keep her tongue out. A familiar-looking drill whirred threateningly near her head, and she mumbled panicked pleas as it inched closer and closer to her drooling tongue.

You didn't look away. You didn't even blink.

"Were you going to do that to me?" You asked casually watching as blood and shredded muscle bubbled from the bloody wound and down her chin. The only off-putting thing was her sobbing, her screaming.

"I thought about it." He replied, just as casually and still scratching your scalp. Fingers subtly stroking through your hair. "But you made me feel something I hadn't before. It was..." He paused for a moment, looking for the right word.

"Interesting?" You offered.

"Compelling." He said instead as he took another drink from his bottle. "You intrigued me, and I wanted to see what else you could make me feel."

"Hm. Makes sense." You mumbled softly, letting your eyes drift shut as he kept petting your hair. The drunken haze on your brain made you enjoy his soft touches more than usual and filtered the screaming on-screen to be little more than background noise. A white fuzz in your fucked-up brain.

“But for what it’s worth.” He continued, and when you felt the brush of his lips against your ear, your body prickled with excitement, and the faintest hint of arousal burned a fire in the pit of your stomach. “Ich bin froh, dass ich dich behalten habe.”

You didn’t have the time to ask him what he said before you threw your arms around his neck and dragged him into a kiss.  

And though his body stiffened with surprise for the first few seconds of your intense affection, he quickly acclimated to the kiss. Pressing his fingers into your hair and effortlessly shifting both of your bodies so that he was straddling your hips and looming over the top of you.  

He tasted like the shitty beer you had been drinking all evening and an unidentifiable smoke flavour when his tongue pressed against yours, though you didn’t have the time to properly appreciate it when he was on top of you, pinning you down to the sofa, straddling your hips and pressing your groins together. Your clit was erect and aching underneath your thin shorts and had been for at least half the time you had been drinking with him, and even through the multiple barriers of fabric, you could feel how hard his cock was too.

Your mouth watered for it.

His level of intoxication made his kisses sloppy, too much saliva practically pooling down your chin, but for some sick reason, that just turned you on even more. His typical groping hands travelled up the front of your loose shirt, which had now been pushed up to your chin, kneading at your shuddering chest and toying with your piercings as he did it.

You managed to pull away from him for a breath which quickly turned into a sharp cry as he dipped his head and tongued at your nipples, taking the pert nub between his teeth and biting, hard. His hands went down to your hips and firmly groped your ass, pulling your body closer to his, trying to align your crotches together so he might give himself the stimulation he seemed so desperate for. His teeth teased the metal hoops as he took full advantage of just how sensitive the new piercings made you.

The rush of intense sensations, the pain and the pleasure, made you dizzy. All you could do was writhe underneath him, buck your hips and cry out as he kept biting, leaving more and more bites across your chest, claiming you for his own.

“Oh god, fuck!” You drawled with a needy whine. “Please-AH!” A bite on your collar bone made you cry out again. “Please, Strade, please…” Your begging words fell apart into a string of desperate whimpers. “Please, fuck me, I need it so fucking bad, please.”

“How can I refuse when you ask so nicely?~” He purred with a sick smirk, dragging his tongue over an especially bloody bruise that marked your skin.

He knelt up over you and roughly grabbed your hips, dragging your body down the sofa. He pushed a hand into his greasy hair with a breathless chuckle, looking down at you with an intense hunger burning in his amber eyes.

It’s so fucking attractive; you almost couldn’t stand it.  

You hurriedly pulled down your shorts and flung them to the side of your tangled bodies. You parted your thighs with a subtle but desperate jut of your hips. Wordlessly offering your body to him to do with as he pleased, begging for it in body language alone. He looked at you like a piece of meat, a wolf about to descend on his prey, and you were the rabbit who was foolish enough to consent to their capture. You could see his mouth water as he gazed at your body, and it offered you a faint sense of power over him, though you know that won’t last long.

“Köstlich.” He mumbled, just loud enough for you to hear (and you knew what that one meant), licking his lips hungrily as his hands descended to your thighs. He ran an almost affectionate touch over the myriad of healing scars which drifted upwards with a harsh, red scratch towards the pre-cum smearing the inside of your thighs.  

You tipped your head back with a hiss of pain, clenching your teeth and your eyes shut, but they quickly snapped open again with a wordless gasp when he easily pressed two fingers inside of you.

“Already so wet.” He said, his voice somewhat soft but deeply arousing, though that softness was counteracted by the rough grip he had on your thighs and a punishingly deep thrust with his thick fingers that made your cunt clench tightly around him and a desperate groan lurch out your throat. “So easy for me to take, liebling.”

“So take me.” You replied, a drunken and deeply aroused edge to your voice as you looked at him, eyes half-lidded and glazed over with pleasure. “I’m yours, so just...take me. Please.” Your own shaking breaths of pleasure matched up with the shuddering sobs of the girl on the television screen, and you couldn’t help but feel smug that you were alive and she was dead.  

Because you were his, and he would never take someone else the way he did you.

He grinned fervently as he pressed a third finger inside of you, easily thrusting them in and out as the pad of his thumb teased your twinging clit. The burning pleasure made your brain race even more than the alcohol had, and you sat up to desperately fist his shirt, pulling it open and dragging it down his freckled shoulders as you caught his lips in a hungry kiss.  

Strade accepted the kiss with an eager groan against your lips, deep and dangerous and so perfectly masculine, and he removed his fingers roughly, wiping them on his trouser leg to hurriedly yank his shirt off.  

His black undershirt was sleeveless and showed off his muscled arms, perfectly defined from years of physical labour and strenuous activity. Your hands descended down his arms, indulgently relishing in his warm, tan skin and every swell of muscle, delicately tracing the tattoo on his left bicep. You allowed yourself some moments to marvel at his body, to properly enjoy just how handsome he was, as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his trousers, tugging them down with his boxers and exposing his hard, weeping cock as it grazed against your thigh.

He bit your lower lip and tugged at it, letting out an eager growl before he pressed his tongue between your lips and pushed himself deep inside your tight heat.  

Drunk sex was different from sober sex in a myriad of ways.

Already you could tell that drunk sex was faster, more erratic and less thoughtful, but surprisingly, a lot less painful. Drunk sex was for a single satisfaction, after all, while sober sex had to scratch every one of Strade's itches. And if one of those itches was sadistically inclined, that would have to be thoroughly scratched.

It’s very similar too, of course.

He was as rough with you as ever, forcing your legs to your chest as he pushed deeper into you, barely giving you room to think about each sensation. One strong hand drifting to your neck so he could see you struggle to breathe, could watch you gasp on his name, your begs and pleas for more. Mumbling slurred praise and violent dirty talk in between thrusts and drunken hiccups.

But there wasn't a knife waiting to be pulled out, no video cameras blinking in the corner, no twisted mind games or broken promises.

It was just the two of you, taking advantage of one another, in a frenzy of arousal and desperation.

You thought that idea fit you both perfectly.

With a particularly ruthless thrust, he had buried himself deep inside you when a barely-there heave slipped from his lips, between the drunken hiccups and slurs of English and German. You opened your eyes to see that his thrusting had stilled and he had allowed his head to hang slightly, his long, tangling hair covering his sweating face.

"Strade..." You managed to say. "You okay?"

"'S just gas escaping..." He mumbled though he didn't sound very sure of himself.

Then he heaved again, which was followed by a retch and a barely suppressed burp that made his entire body shudder. A hand quickly went up to his face as he retched again, a strange noise of nervous apprehension at the back of his throat falling from his lips before he had the chance to notice. It’s a weirdly vulnerable gesture and sound from him and you can’t deny that it’s appealing in a sadistic kind of way. It was at that point that you attempted to sit up, and ask what was wrong again.

You couldn't even blink before he vomited down your front.

You managed a disgusted shout of outrage as you attempted to wriggle away from him, though his hold on your body was as firm as ever. The vomit was thick and almost heavy, both in sensation and scent, since it smelled of fowl beer and half-digested take out. The greasy feel of it clung to your skin and despite how still you were trying to be, it dripped down every sensitive area of your body and each of your shuddering curves.

You cringed, looking down at your shaking stomach now painted in puke, trying to suppress the urge to vomit yourself.

"Ha!" Strade's bark-like laugh snapped you out of your disgust momentarily, and you looked up to see a typical sharp-toothed grin spread on his face, any kind of vulnerability he’d had before quickly shaken off. Though this grin was smeared with vomit, and a vile string of bile and thick saliva trailed down his stubbly chin and to his hairy chest. You had no idea how he could stand something so disgusting. "Can't say I've ever done that before."

“Let me up." You said firmly, glaring at him, though all he did was smirk at your anger and rock his hips a little, pressing himself deeper inside of you, since he was still as hard as he was before, for whatever reason. It felt good, of course it did, but that didn't get rid of the fact that you were still absolutely covered in his vomit. "S-Strade, I mean it." Your voice had lost a bit of its edge though, and your quivering lip wasn’t going to be intimidating anyone soon.

"Ah, liebling~" Strade drawled drunkenly in an almost affectionate way, bringing his flushed face close to yours. You could smell the sour scent of sick on his breath and it made your stomach clench. "All the things I've done to you. All the times I’ve made you scream, made you bleed...and this is where you draw the line?" He grinned again and the vomit-saliva mix on his chin dripped down your chest, making your body lurch underneath his. He chuckled at the outraged look you gave him, and the hand now slick with vomit and drool came up to roughly cup your chin, squeezing your cheeks and keeping your head still as he brought his face closer. "No, I don't think so."

He kissed you hard, his tongue immediately pressing between your lips, and you're forced to taste the vile, acidic remnants of bile and vomit on his lips, his tongue. You squirmed and wriggled underneath him, trying to shove him away, but your refusal and the way you fought back against him seemed to only excite him more, as he started to thrust in and out of you again, with a new kind of vigour.

The combined sensation of the crushing kiss and his tongue in your mouth, and the aching stretch of your cunt around his thick cock made you moan involuntarily against his lips. You could hear every one of his pleased sounds too, as he fucked into you harder, pressing your chests together and coating himself in his own vomit.

It’s fucked up. It’s so fucked up, but you can’t deny how arousing it is knowing that he’d fuck you, even when you were covered in vomit and when you smelled like shit.

You could feel your cunt clench tight around him as the burning shame in the pit of your stomach made you moan even louder against his kiss. Your eyes rolled back into your skull, and, dizzy with sickening pleasure, you allowed yourself to press your fingers into his tangling hair and let him fuck you as he wanted.

It’s sick. He’s sick. But you’re so much worse for wanting it so bad that it ached.

You wrapped your legs around his waist, digging your clenching toes into his back, and his hands go down to roughly grope your hips. He scratched deep, red lines down your skin as he bit at your lips, so hard that you could taste the blood from your split lip coating both of your tongues. You wonder, for maybe a second, if Strade had plans to cover you in any more of his fluids, but the shameful twinge that idea gave to your clit quickly puts it out of your mind.

One fucked up fetish at a time.

The sickly, sour smell of Strade’s vomit now permeated the room, so much so that it was almost tangible, much like the continued screams of the stranger on the television that seemed to perfectly align with both of your shuddering moans and gasps. You’re sure that the Pavlovian link between sex and violence for you had its roots in something fucked up and Freudian, but when you were half-drunk, stuffed with cock and covered in the vomit of a man you should have hated but probably loved, you couldn’t really examine why you were so aroused that it was causing you actual, physical pain.  

Strade pulled away from the kiss momentarily, drooling a vile mixture of blood, bile and saliva over your gasping lips with a slack tongue and a dangerously eager look in his eyes. Just looking at him do it was enough for you to clench tighter around him, your greedy cunt taking his cock like it was what you were born to do, but seeing his eyes roll back in pleasure, his jaw drop and the shaking moan fall from his lips is what pushed you even closer towards your edge.

You dug your sharp nails into his shoulders and dragged them down his back, underneath his undershirt, listening to his hiss of pain. His skin was so warm, even slightly damp with sweat, and the reminder that he was there, that you could touch him, that he chose you over everyone else was so overwhelming that you had to bury your face into his shoulder to stop yourself from drunken admissions of love.  

The pain you inflicted seemed to have only encourage to fuck you harder, faster, and deeper. He groped your ass hard, digging his fingers into the soft flesh, before he effortlessly pulled you into his lap so that you were kneeling over him, riding his cock as he fucked into you. You matched his jutting hips by pressing down on him, gasping and swearing into the crook of his shoulder as you got closer and closer to climax. Coagulating vomit dripped down your stomach and into his lap, staining his trousers, and you couldn’t help but be a little satisfied that he was now as messy as you were.  

“So good, so good…” You mumbled like a mantra against Strade’s lips. He brought your foreheads together, a sticky hand reaching up to cup your cheek.

“Open your mouth.” He ordered you with a slick smirk.

You did as you were told, and he immediately pressed two fingers down your throat, with a roughness that immediatly makes you heave. When you tried to pull back from him, he gripped your hair with his free hand and keeps your head still with a (frankly) arousing amount of strength. He pressed his fingers further, against your tongue, the back of your throat, your bobbing tonsils, and whispered words of encouragement through a kind smile.

You tried, desperately, to swallow around his fingers, blinking streaming tears out of your eyes, and filling the room with disgusting heaves and retches. But it’s only another minute or so of uncomfortable gagging before you’re vomiting down his front, staining his skin like he had done to you. A thick string of saliva and bile hung from your lips, and the sight of it was enough to make you puke again.

“Ah…wunderschönen~” A manic smile came to his face as he continued to breathlessly fuck into your shaking, sweating body, his smile only getting wider as he listened to your heaving sobs, your whimpers and whines for a moment to adjust and breath that he wasn’t going to give you. But for some reason, neither your discomfort or the sudden wave of nausea and dizziness that washed over your brain did anything to diminish your own aching arousal, and you felt yourself clench even tighter around his pounding cock.

“Finish inside me.” You mumbled feverishly, letting your head droop down and rest your forehead against his, and it feels even better when he lets you have that ounce of affection. “Please. Want it. Want it so fucking bad...”

“So filthy, liebling.” He crooned, in a way that’s almost comforting, and you couldn’t help the delirious little giggle that slipped from your lips as a response. If he thought that was filthy, what did he think about the two of you spewing your guts all over each other? Maybe that’s what affection was to him. “But if that’s what you want…”

He gripped your thighs roughly, pressing himself deeper inside of you and filling you with a few final rough thrusts that you attempted to move in time with, though to little success. Your drunken body seemed to have finally caught up with your mind, so you could mostly just cling onto him as he fucked you sloppily like a well-used sex doll, using your aching, stretched hole however he pleased.

Shit, even that fucked up train of thought was making your clit twinge. You doubted that you would need any help getting off when your brain was still so active.

He tensed up a little underneath you, enough that it was noticeable, but he quickly buried his face into your shoulder before you questioned it. Harshly biting down on the flesh in an attempt to suppress a throaty (and incredibly attractive) groan as he came inside of you, claiming your insides like he had claimed your outside. The feeling of him filling you so beautifully distracted you from the burning pain of the bleeding bite on your shoulder.

Funnily, it’s when he slowly pulled out of you, running a teasing finger over your burning clit and so easily sliding it inside of your cunt, plugging you full of the cum that was already leaking out of you, that you finally reach climax yourself. An arched back, a gasp of his name, your nails dug deep into his shoulders and back.  

And then the entire fucked-up affair was over.

The two of you inelegantly detangle from each other and fall back onto the sofa together, mostly naked, sweaty and covered in more of each other’s bodily fluids than you ever wanted to be.

“I knew you were interesting,” Strade mumbled breathlessly with a low chuckle, stroking through your hair affectionately.

“I thought I was compelling.” You replied with your own huffed laugh, keening up against his touch.

“Intriguing.” He offered instead with a smirk. “At least I know why I kept you now.”

You’d take that.  

You curled up against him, desperate for his attention, and he pulled you into his arms, resting his stubbly chin against your head and pressing his nose into your sweaty hair. It's almost a kiss. He mumbled sweet words to you, so quiet that you can barely hear him over your own heaving breaths, and you drifted off into an easy slumber to the sound of his voice, totally enveloped in him.  

You couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.  

[where2next]

Hiking the Salkantay Trail to Machu Picchu

The Salkantay Trail is a popular alternative to the Inca Trail to reach Machu Picchu.  It is roughly a 37 mile long trail which takes about 4 days to arrive at the famous ruins. This trail takes you through the rugged beauty of Peru from the snow capped mountains down through the rainforest below. However, those who want to follow in the footsteps of this ancient path should read on to ensure you are prepared for the challenges and that you don’t miss out on some of the greatest experiences this hike has to offer.

Why choose the Salkantay?

For budget backpackers, there is no better option than the Salkantay to get to Machu Picchu.  While the Inca trail is the most famous, it is restricted due to high demand. Not only do you need a permit, but it must be obtained several months in advance and having a guide is required.  For the Salkantay, there are no permits required and no fees to use the trail. It is free to set up tents along the trail though if you wish, there are several houses along the way that will let you camp in their yards for a small fee. These places also offer food! You have much more freedom on the Salkantay to choose your own pace, stop at different spots along the way as you wish, and even take slightly different routes depending on your preferences. Perhaps the most important consideration for the Salkantay is that it is raw beauty like you haven’t seen before. You will be able to admire the marvel of the icy “Savage Mountain” and just a day later admire the wild flowers of the rainforest. 

Recommended Equipment

You can check out our recommendations on how to pack for a mutli-day hike.

The Trail

The trail itself is well marked and easy to follow.  There are a couple of points where you can choose different paths to go down, but either mapping your route beforehand or talking to other travelers should get you going in the right direction.  This trail also has several small villages and houses along it, making it easy to make pit stops for food or to camp for the night. All of the locals that we met along the way were extremely friendly people and they made delicious food for cheap. There are also several streams and waterfalls along the trail where you can refill your water bottles. Just make sure you always fill up where the water is running and make sure you have some sort of water treatment system like Aquatabs or a LifeStraw.

Things to remember if you hurt yourself on the trail

A hike is not without risks or challenges, but they are no reason to be discouraged. Our group happened to run into a scenario where one of our members twisted an ankle halfway through the hike, effectively making us progress slower than expected. From the small village of Chaullay (below) we managed to secure travel for our friend to capac nan; a coffee farm and our next destination. Throughout this whole process we trusted the Peruvian locals with the responsibility of our friend and they were more than hospitable, even providing first aid and refreshments! So don’t be afraid to befriend some locals while you are here!

Spots of Interest

Humantay Lagoon

Toward the start of the trip, just above all of the camps lies an offshoot of the trail that leads to the Humantay Lagoon. This is a small lake fed by the mountain runoff and is a beautiful spot for pictures. However, the trail up to it is quite steep and is longer than it looks. For our crew, this small hike was the litmus test for who was going to be affected by the altitude, as this is above 11,000 ft elevation. More on dealing with elevation later on.

Coffee Farms

While hiking the Salkantay, we noticed that several of the locals had huge piles of white beans drying out on tarps beside the trail. It wasn’t until our last full day of hiking that we realized these were coffee beans as they are plentiful in the area. During one of our stops, the owner of the property where we set up our tents also worked on a coffee farm.  He invited us to the farm when we got up the next morning, which was on our way up the trail. He showed us their entire process from harvesting the beans from the fruit to grinding the beans to brewing the coffee. We even scored some coffee liqueur at the end. This was a wonderful experience and also a small glimpse into the local lifestyle.

Hot Springs

There had been a silver lining to our friend who was injured earlier in the hike. We had to split up the group which resulted in two entirely different experiences. The first group continued on to Llactapata, a steep mountain, and the second group took a ride to the Aguas Termales de Cocalmayo hot springs in Santa Teresa. You can make a guess as to which group had the injured person in it. The hot springs were unlike anything else we had experienced on the trip. There were natural flowing waters, canopy tops, paved floors, it's as if we arrived at a tropical hideaway. (Photos above courtesy of google as we were too relaxed to lift a finger.)

Llactapata

After a high energy morning hike which brought us up and over another mountain, we arrived at Llactapata. This place has one of the most breathtaking views in the world. Situated in a clearing on the side of a mountain, it gives you a vantage point to see both green and snow capped peaks from miles around, a waterfall below, and with a good eye and a clear day, you can spot the ruins of Machu Picchu in the distance for the first time. Pictures do not do it justice, but it was a great morale booster for our group and a wonderful spot to stop and rest in the middle of the day.  Llactapata is also known for its own ruins which you can explore at your leisure or even camp at.

Things to Plan Head

As with any adventure, a little preparation will go a long way in making sure you have the best experience possible with minimal inconvenience.  Here are a few things to do ahead of time so that your Salkantay hike is the best it can be.

Purchase Machu Picchu Tickets - You need to purchase tickets ahead of time in order to get access to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu. These can go fast so you will need to do this part several months beforehand.  You can choose just exploring the ruins, the ruins and hiking Machu Picchu mountain, or the ruins and Hiking Huayana Picchu mountain (the one that is in all of the pictures). I found the cheapest way to get these tickets when booking as individuals and not a tour group, is directly from the government website. This website is quite dated and in Spanish, so we will soon be posting a step-by-step guide of how to book your tickets.  Make sure you give yourself at least 5 days between arriving in Cusco and going up Machu Picchu. You do not want to miss your day at the ruins because you didn’t get through the trail quickly enough!

Route & amount of distance per day - Make sure to plan out your exact route along the Salkantay. This can be done along the way, but is much easier to do before you are on the trail without cell service. There are several maps that can be printed off (we don’t spend money on tourist maps!) and many of them have recommendations of stopping points for each day to keep you on track and make the most of your experience.

Your fitness - Hiking the Salkantay is not an easy feat.  Our group consisted of experienced hikers and it was certainly challenging for each of us. You are hiking for roughly 9 hours a day several days in a row all while carrying a 30lb pack. This will test your body. Do practice hikes around your local area in the months leading up to the trip. Preferably with a pack to get used to the extra weight.

Get ready for the altitude - Altitude sickness sucks. In our group, half of us were affected by altitude sickness and half were not. It really varies and there is no way to guarantee that it will not affect you. In fact, with the highest point of the pass at 15,000 ft, it will likely affect you in some way.  The best thing you can do is try to acclimatize slowly. Cusco sits just over 11,000 ft and is usually the starting point for people doing the Salkantay Trail. If you can, give yourself a few days in Cusco before you start hiking. It is a beautiful little city to explore and it will give you some time to get used to the thin air before you start doing strenuous activities.  There are also medications that can be purchased or prescribed to help avert these affects. Finally, there is mate de coca, or coca tea, which is sold all around the area. For generations, the coca leaves have been used to ward off the effects of altitude sickness and they are still used today. I can personally vouch for this one, as I was hit hard by altitude sickness my first day on the trail. However, each morning I would have my coca tea, then would chew on the leaves as we started our hike for the day and it really did wonders for me.

Test your equipment - So you have made sure you have everything you need for this hike. But how do you know it will hold up during your adventure? You need to test your equipment before taking it on such a journey. 

1. Tent - Take out your tent and make sure it is waterproof. We used a sealer for the seams of our tent as well as Kiwi’s waterproof spray for the tent overall. We then tested it using a water hose to simulate a steady rain and the inside stayed perfectly dry. Also, remember to have a tarp underneath your tent. Getting wet from underneath is just as bad! 

2. Pack - You should also test out your hiking pack to not only make sure it has good comfort and utility, but most packs also have rain covers that should be tested beforehand. The same thing goes for rain jackets and water repellent hiking pants. 

3. Boots - Your boots are probably your most important equipment. You need to make sure they are form fitting. Too small will give you excess blisters and pain, too large let your feet slide around and greatly increase your chance of twisting an ankle. You also need to make sure your boots are broken in. While buying brand new boots for a hike sounds exciting, it is a quick way to destroy your feet. You need boots that have already formed to your foot shape and that are still comfortable and reliable after several wears.

Main things to remember on the trail

Rise with the sun - get up as soon as there is some light so that you can break down camp and get ready to hike. This way you make sure you have the most amount of daylight possible for hiking. Believe me when I tell you that it is vastly more difficult to hike in the dark even with good headlamps. There is a higher likelihood of straying off trail and getting lost. Get up early and this won’t be a concern.

Slow and steady - Like the proverbial tortoise, slow and steady really does win this race. Since you started first thing in the morning, relax and don’t push yourself too hard. Remember, the purpose is to enjoy your hike and take in the beauty around you. Keep a nice, steady pace and the miles will melt away. Keeping this pace will also help protect you from injury. Every single injury I have seen during a hike has come from a fatigued hiker who was trying to push their bodies too much. Make sure to take breaks when needed and drink plenty of water.

Drinking water - For multiple day hikes like the Salkantay, you need water and lots of it. However water is heavy. You can’t carry all that you need with you, so you will need to fill up along the way. The most important things to remember are not to get your water from stagnant pools and to treat the water. The Salkantay has a lot of waterfalls and rivers so finding a source of running water will not be hard. You could also ask to get water from the locals, but there is no guarantee that is any safer than getting it from the streams.

Hidroelectrica

The hike through the Salkantay eventually brings you to Hidroelectrica. This is really a train stop turned small village. Here people can continue to make the trek to Aguas Calientes at the base of Machu Picchu, or they can opt to take the train the rest of the way.  The train is pricey, however, and this is only a half day hike from Aguas Calientes. Besides, you want to be able to say you HIKED all the way to Machu Picchu! We decided to stop in Hidroelectrica for lunch, then trekked the rest of the way. We also knew we would only be at Augas Calientes/Machu Picchu for one day so we decided to leave our hiking packs with the owner of the restaurant where we had lunch and opted to take our day packs the rest of the way. The nice thing about the rest of the hike is that even though it’s about 12km it is almost completely FLAT. That combined with having almost no weight to carry meant a much faster hike.

Where to stay in Aguas Calientes

The town at the base of Machu Picchu is remote and picturesque.  However, because this is such a highly trafficked tourist destination, the town has prices to match. As you hike into Aguas Calientes, you come in from the downhill side. The very first hotels you come across are large and ornate, rivaling the fancy hotels of large cities. Here is where you will see the older tourists. Here is where you will be received with a welcome in English. And here is where you will spend several hundreds of dollars per night.  However, the farther up the hill you go, or if you go to the buildings behind the main street, the hotels and hostels get significantly cheaper.  You may need to brush up on your Spanish a little, but we were able to negotiate a deal for our crew for less than 1 tenth the cost of the hotels at the bottom. Especially after 4 days of hiking and camping, a clean bed and a hot shower was more than enough for us!

When you are at Machu Picchu

The entire trip has built to this moment. You climb the switchbacks to the top of the mountain and there you are...in front of the gates amidst a sea of people with no ruins in sight.  There are 3 things that I recommend you do first

Go to the bathroom - This will be your last chance until you come out of the site and it’s actually quite difficult to get back in once you come out. Get it done now and then enjoy Machu Picchu for as long as you can.

Get a Spanish speaking tour guide - This is one area where we splurged. To get the knowledge of someone who truly knows the site was well worth it. We were able to learn a lot of the history of this famous site with our guide and once the tour was done, we still had time to explore for ourselves. She also helped us get through the gate quicker and showed us some of the best spots to take pictures. Also, if you get a Spanish speaking guide, it is cheaper than getting an English speaking guide. Our guide actually spoke both which worked out great for us because she gave us a tour in English but at the lower price!

Get in line - It takes a little while to get through the gates and into the site. Make sure you are ready so you can get right in and enjoy your time at Machu Picchu. Your guide can help expedite this process.

Once you are inside, get as many pictures as you want, explore the ruins, watch the llamas, and marvel at the architecture built into this mountain.  One thing that I loved about Machu Picchu is that while it is quite touristic, each group has a set time slot.  It gives you plenty of time to explore while also giving you enough space to truly enjoy it and to get beautiful pictures without people constantly blocking your way.  On your way out of the site, remember to stop by the stand where they have the special Machu Picchu stamp for your passport! It is a wonderful memento to have.

[pumpkin-spice-whump-latte]

Whumptober #20: Trembling

I’m not sure what to say about this one. Tell me what you think, if you read it, since it’s the first time I’ve dipped my foot into something like this. It’s the precursor to a future thing I’m gonna do, eventually. Tillman tries to force our boys to do the nasty. Why? Because science, that’s why. Also Tillman may or may not just wanna see if they’ll do it because he’s a sick fuck.

content includes: defiant whumpees!!!! seriously I’m so proud of my sons, they’re so strong. I love them. attempted noncon? yeah, attempted.

__________________________________________________________

“Boundaries and sexuality of subjects B and C, test session 1.”

They’d been stripped down, hosed down, roughly dried, and stuck in this room together. Ben and Carlos stood there--trying not to be too obvious about looking at each other because they had to at least pretend they still had dignity--when the flat, passionless command came through the intercom.

“Subjects will now engage in mating.”

They both looked over at the two way mirror at the same time, knowing Dr. Tillman was behind it and watching them. They looked over together but both wore completely different expressions. Carlos was all insult and indignation. Muted, now that he’d been hurt enough to flinch at loud noises, but not entirely squelched.

“Are you crazy???”

Ben’s face was stricken. Scared. He didn’t have it in him to fight about it. He’d been hurt enough to understand that, no matter what they did, no matter what they said, it would eventually happen. A shiver started up in his shoulders and rattled it’s way down to his wrists and hands. Adrenaline rushed through him because, even though no one was touching him yet and it didn’t seem like Carlos even wanted to, he felt cornered and forced. Hopeless. His arms crossed in front of his chest in an effort to hide it.

“Subjects will engage in mating.”

“Why though???” Carlos practically screeched this, letting a half manic sound escape him that resembled laughter. “Go rent some porn or something, what the fuck!”

“Carlos–” Ben started in the same resigned tone he’d used to convince the other man to choke him, but the crackle of the intercom cut him off.

“We mean to gather data of the sexual limitations and boundaries of the subjects, how their previous proximity relates to their willingness to engage in sexual acts, and how self preservation may lower inhibitions. If the subjects do not comply, corrective action will be administered.”

“Corrective action??? Corrective–what are you gonna do? What the FUCK are you gonna do that you haven’t already done? You took my kidney you motherfucker! You took my tattoo! What are you gonna take next?”

“Carlos please.” Ben’s strained voice cut through his friend’s tirade, prompting him to look over. Ben was still shaking. Staring at the ground.

He was fucking terrified.

“Please. You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Are you kidding me? He ain’t gonna kill me! He wants you to FUCK me first!” Ben crumpled to the floor at that, face stretched in a rictus of pain. Carlos dropped to his knees in front of him, hand on his back, bravado immediately dissolving into concern.

“Wh-what’s wrong? What’s goin’ on dude? You okay?”

The intercom again. “Corrective action being administered to subject B via implant chip.”

“Implant chip…” Carlos whispered to himself, horrified realization flooding through him as Ben writhed in manufactured pain on the ground.

“Okay, stop. Stop! Okay! I’ll– uh. Fuck.” He stammered and looked toward the two way mirror, holding up his hands to try and buy some mercy for his friend. “Just stop, okay?” He didn’t mean to do what Tillman wanted but his immediate instinct was to make Ben stop hurting.

Ben gave a great shuddering sigh and lay still. His glasses had fallen off. He didn’t reach for them, just lay there like a dead thing, so Carlos did. Carefully set them back on Ben’s face.

“I don’t wanna do this, man. I mean no offense… Not like you ain’t a catch or whatever but… Not with him watchin’. Not like this.”

Ben sighed. “I know. Me neither. Hell, I’ve never even–” He cut himself off. Put a hand over his face.

“Wait. You’re sayin’… How old are you?”

“Shut up. I’ve done… Things. Just. Not that.”

“Oh my god… Yeah, no way.” Carlos didn’t want to see Ben in pain but somehow the knowledge that he’d never even been with someone like that before cemented his resolve. “Your first time ain’t goin’ down in a lab. Abso-fucking-lutely not dude.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to hurt you like that either.” Ben pushed himself into a sitting position. Watched his wrists tremble against his knees. “Eventually he’s gonna make us, but. I don’t want it to be because I was scared or you were guilted into it or–”

“Hey. He can’t– he can’t make us do nothin’. Okay? We can take pain. We both have before. It’s better than giving in and letting him get off on us. Right?” Carlos took one of Ben’s hands. Laced their fingers together.

Carlos was always so strong. And stupid. Ben soaked both the strength and stupidity in for a moment, met his friend’s eyes, and felt a little like a patched up roof. Then those fingers tightened around his in a bruising grip and Carlos hunched over into himself. Jaw clenched, eyes squeezed shut, free hand smacking against the floor, against the phantom pain dancing through his nerves.

“Easy, buddy.” Ben leaned in close until their foreheads bumped together. “It’ll stop soon. Ride it out. I’m here. It’s–it’s like you said. We can… We–we can do this. We can take it. Together.”

But then the pain was biting into him too, surging through him like lightning, and it was all he could do to grab Carlos’ other hand and hold on. It hurt so bad and now they were both shaking, naked and clinging to each other and feeling the frantic panting of breath on each other’s faces. But if Carlos could handle it… Ben decided he could too.

And if Ben could hang on for Carlos and not give into despair, if he could remember that they weren’t animals and didn’t deserve this, Carlos thought he could keep being strong for him.

Carlos forced his eyes to open and caught Ben’s pain-dizzy gaze. All the strength and all the stupid Welcome to Jackass level defiance shone through them, in spite of the way his body tried to scream at him that it was somehow dying. Because of it.

“T-together”

They passed out from the pain at almost the same time.

[fanficshiddles]

Need, One shot

Thank you both for the prompts! I thought they would go well together. I hope you like it! Was so excited to see the Alpha/omega request. I’ve been wanting to do one for a while, was nice to dabble into it again.

Anonymous said:

Loki/Tom cuddles? Maybe alpha/omega, or platonic just as friends cuddles, or after a hard day for oc type cuddles. Thank you!!!

And: Anonymous said:

Tom and kitchen sex??Like on the counter,then against the wall and on the dining table??

  Tom knocked on his friend’s door, but was a little worried when there was no answer. Especially because Anna was expecting him round.

He knocked again, but when there still wasn’t any answer, he lifted the letter box and had a look in. But he was hit with her scent, it was strong. Very strong compared to how it normally was. He had to bite back a groan. She was coming into heat.

He could also smell distress in the air too though. Frowning, he tried the handle and wasn’t overly surprised to find it was unlocked. He stepped inside and shut the door, locking it this time in-case any rogue Alphas caught her scent.

‘Anna, darling?’ He called out, but with no answer, his nose led him straight to her in her bedroom.

She was curled up in the fetal position on her bed, whimpering while she clutched her stomach. Tom knew that she used to be on suppressants to keep her heats away, but she had recently stopped taking them because it was damaging her body. The doctor had told her when she experienced a heat again, it would be really painful without an Alpha’s help.

‘Oh sweetheart.’ He rushed to her and when she locked eyes on him, she started shaking.

‘T…Tom.’ She whined. When he sat down on the bed, she crawled onto his lap instantly and clung to him.

On instinct, he wrapped his arms around her and cradled her head into his chest.

‘Shhh, shhh. It’s ok.’ He whispered.

He slid one hand under her top to stroke her back, the other hand slid up to the back of her neck where he strummed his fingers softly against her. He felt her trembling under his touch.

Anna’s pain started to subside almost instantly. An Alpha’s touch was often all an omega needed.

‘You’re safe, I’ve got you, sweet girl.’ He continued to whisper sweetly to her, his voice like silk for her ears.

She kept her face buried in his neck, taking in as much of his scent as possible. It was almost making her feel drugged, in a way. Calming her greatly.

‘Why… Why are you not affected?’ She asked quietly, her voice muffled against him.

‘Oh I am, Anna. But I learned a long time ago to control myself around omegas in heat. Growing up with many of them was good practice.’ He chuckled.

Tom held her tightly to him while he shimmied onto the bed properly and leaned back against the headboard. That was more comfortable for him. He made sure Anna was comfy too on his lap and continued to stroke her softly, slow circles around her back and every now and then he trailed his fingers through her hair, enjoying the small sighs of content and whimpers that came from her.

Her trembling soon stopped and was replaced with the odd shiver when he touched a spot she liked.

‘When did it start?’ He asked.

‘About an hour or so ago.’ She said quietly, turning her head enough to look at him.

Tom smoothed her hair back from her face and cupped her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch.

He frowned. ‘You should’ve called me, darling.’

‘I didn’t want to bug you.’

‘You could never bug me.’ He promised and kissed her forehead.

‘But you should’ve locked your door, Anna. How many times have I told you about that? You know there’s nasty Alphas out there that wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of you.’ He scolded.

Anna felt her stomach lurch in disappointment at herself that he was telling her off. Being best friends with an Alpha had its perks, but also its downsides too. She often wanted to please him, to do as he said. It was natural for an omega to follow an Alpha. But at the same time, because he wasn’t exactly her Alpha, part of her wanted to disobey him to prove that point.

But now, being in heat, all she wanted to do was please him and be with him.

‘I’m sorry.’ She said sadly.

Tom hummed and pulled her head back against him. He crooned deep in his chest, soothing her even more. The fire inside of her was going down, but it wouldn’t go down completely unless she was able to mate with an Alpha. Or until the heat passed, which could be days.

The two stayed cuddling for near an hour, then there was a knock at the door.

Tom rumbled in annoyance, but then he remembered. ‘Shit. I ordered takeaway for us. Are you hungry, sweet girl?’ He leaned back slightly to look at her.

She nodded.

‘Alright. I’ll go get it.’ He unwillingly slipped her off his lap and stood up, but as soon as the contact was broken between them both, she started whimpering again in pain and need.

She reached out for him and he clasped her hand in his large one, holding it tightly. She felt the pressure inside of her ease again slightly.

‘I’m sorry, darling. I forgot.’ He said gently. ‘Come here.’ He tugged her up to her feet on front of him. Then he crouched down and scooped her up into his arms.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. He contained a groan, with her core pressed snugly against his groin, it wasn’t going to be easy keeping control. Especially with the fact he could physically feel the heat down there radiating off of her onto him.

Tom had an arm around her middle and his other hand was supporting her bum. She couldn’t help but feel a rush of arousal flood her at where his powerful hand was.

He carried her in his arms through to the front door. When he opened it, with one hand still supporting her easily, it was another Alpha at the door with their takeaway. The Alpha’s eyes darkened instantly when he smelt the omega in heat.

‘She’s mine.’ Tom snarled, baring his teeth.

The Alpha snarled back, but didn’t make an attempt of anything. He threw the takeaway bag into Tom’s hand and ran off, before he started a fight with the larger Alpha.

Tom turned back into Anna’s flat and kicked the door shut with a slam. He was still growling while he carried her through to the kitchen and placed the bag on the counter.

Anna couldn’t stop wriggling against him, pressing herself into him as much as possible. The display of dominance over another Alpha had caused his testosterone to spike, the tone and aura of his body added to the factors and made her heat feel even worse.

She wanted him.

And he wanted her.

‘It still hurts.’ She cried.

Tom perched her on the counter and held her face in his hands, his thumbs stroked her cheeks. His brows furrowed as he looked at her, hunger clearly evident in his eyes.

‘I can make it go away, sweet girl. But once we start, I won’t be able to stop until your heat is finished. I won’t be able to control my rut… And nothing will be the same between us again. You will be mine, and only mine. I don’t share.’ He said in a gentle yet firm tone.

He felt her squeeze her thighs against his hips. ‘Take me… Please… Alpha.’

Tom crushed his lips against hers, his tongue forcing roughly into her mouth to taste her. He growled into her and grinded his bulge against her.

It was a blurry of clothes being pulled and torn off as quickly as possible, until they were both naked and skin on skin, giving Anna even more relief. But when Tom’s hand went down and pressed between her thighs, she almost came.

Tom couldn’t believe how wet she was, her slick was dripping out of her from her heat. She didn’t need any preparing, her body was ready for him. So he pulled her forwards enough on the counter and pushed into her in one smooth, deep, thrust.

Anna clung to him like a monkey again while Tom snapped his hips against her roughly. They fit together well, her body welcoming him in with ease. Her warmth and wetness made it difficult for Tom to keep control, he lost it completely.

He sank his teeth into her shoulder, marking her on the outside while he marked her on the inside at the same time. Coming quickly, deep into her. Feeling his sperm rush into her, it was like a hose dousing the fire out. She felt instant relief overcome her, mixing into an orgasm that had her screaming.

But Tom’s rut caused by her heat didn’t allow him to go soft. Instead he stayed hard and started moving again. She was sensitive, but more than ready for more.

He lifted her up, still impaled on his cock, and carried her to the nearest wall. She nearly banged her head from the force he pushed her against it with, but neither of them cared. He thrusts were rapid and rough, he couldn’t get deep enough. Feeling her own arousal gush continuously over him, the sloppy sounds that came from where their bodies were joined was lewd in comparison to the moaning, grunting and growling that came from their mouths.

‘Mine.’ Tom started repeating with every thrust, until he moved them over to the dining table and clambered on top of it with her.

He momentarily pulled out of her, his heart breaking at the sob she let out from lack of contact. But it didn’t last long, just long enough for the Alpha to turn his omega around onto all fours. Then he slipped smoothly back into her and folded himself against her back.

Anna started sobbing in pleasure with the new position, allowing Tom to really take control and go to town on her. She couldn’t keep herself up, her arms gave out on her but Tom was quick to slide an arm around her so he could hold her up against him.

Tom lost count how many times she came, but he knew that he was on his third load now. The mess beneath them was proof of that, their juices mixed together and still more was dripping out of her, down her thighs and onto the table.

Eventually, the two collapsed down in a sweaty, sticky heap. Both of them panting like wild animals, with Tom still throbbing hotly inside her, emptying the last of his load. Her body was squeezing him deliciously, but it was starting to ease. For now.

Tom held her tightly, turned her face towards him and kissed her sloppily.

‘My good girl. All mine.’ He purred. His praise made her heart soar sky high.

‘My Alpha.’ She cooed.  

[side-effect-of-the-meds]

Raven Girls AU!!!!

Okay so this turned out to be hella long and it’s only the intro :))))))) I’m going to put one of those little cuts on here but it never works on mobile for me so we’ll see how this goes.

Aglionby Academy’s Exy program exists to groom kids for Evermore. The weak are weeded out within a week. Anyone who survives is subjected to brutal abuse. Tetsuji Moriyama bought off Aglionby’s headmaster years ago and now the Raven Academy’s sole purpose is to provide kids for Evermore. They’re a small team, never more than 12 kids make the final cut, but they’ve dominated the nation since their exy program started up. Niall Lynch was the one who insisted on bringing Exy to Evermore. He had been in Japan selling his newest dream when he, quite literally, ran into Kayleigh Day. As much as he wanted to return to Henrietta, he really couldn’t drag himself from her. Kayleigh Day was a storm. She couldn’t sit still for the life of her. She was brimming with light and life and energy. She was Niall’s best friend. With a little of his Southern charm and a lot of dreams, Niall bought his way into university. He wasn’t keen on inventing a new sport but he’d played lacrosse at Aglionby so making the jump to Exy wasn’t hard. Tetsuji became what he called a ‘striker’ while Niall pouted as the team goalkeeper. 

“Aye, love” Kayleigh said, bounding up to him. “You’ve got a right puss on yer face. Is this about you being a goalkeep?” Niall’s scowl only intensified and she laughed. “Look, mate. Between you an me, Tetsuji ain’t the whole shilling. It’s best not to fret too much an leave him be.” Niall’s mood stubbornly refused to improve until Kayleigh offered to take him out drinking if he quit sulking. They drank until neither of them could walk right and Tetsuji and David had to haul them back to their dorms. 

Anyway, Niall moves back to Henrietta and creates Aurora and has Declan and Rose. He continues to travel around the world to sell his dreams. There’s a client up in Ireland so he stops by Kayleigh’s place to visit her. That’s when he finds out about Kevin. Kayleigh tells him who the father is but Niall keeps his mouth shut at her request. His blood is boiling. In the years he spent in Japan with her, Niall had begun to see Kayleigh as a sister. Once more, he finds himself extending his stay to be with her and help take care of Kevin, nevermind that he’s just ditched his own kids. David visits all the time and Niall softens a little. David doesn’t even know it’s his kid and he’s really out here looking after Kevin? That’s cute as hell. 

It’s during this trip that the accident occurs. Niall is the one driving the car. There hadn’t been a single car on the road as he turned the corner. Out of thin air, a jet black car had appeared, hurtling down the road towards them. Kayleigh only had time to say ‘car’ before it rammed into them, full-speed. Time seemed to slow. Niall could, in great detail, remember every second of it: the feel of Kay’s nails biting into his forearm as she braced herself. In the rearview mirror, Kevin’s face was as pale as a ghost. In his hands, he clutched a stuffed rabbit close to his chest as if it could protect him from all of this. All of this was slightly blurred by the tears swimming in Niall’s eyes. Sometimes, late at night, he could still hear the scrape of metal on asphalt as the car flipped over, sliding across the road on its side. 

Niall didn’t trust himself to drive for a long time after that. He didn’t trust himself to take care of Kevin either. Kayleigh’s will stated that she wanted Tetsuji to take Kevin. Niall is too wracked with guilt and sorrow to remember that Kay hadn’t thought Tetsuji was entirely sane. He lets Kevin leave with Tetsuji and takes the next flight back to Virginia. He calls a cab to take him home because he no longer trusts himself to drive. When he sees Declan and Rose again for the first time, he breaks down sobbing. What if they’d been in that car too? What if they were the ones that had died? Sad boi hours hit Niall. Depression results in a lot of his dreams being monsters and rain clouds. All of the things he dreams are tinged blue-gray. One night, he sees Rose in one of his dreams. In it she’s smiling brightly at him, sheltered by a dome of vines blooming with blood-red roses. The next morning he wakes to Rose screaming with delight. He rushes into her room to find it overrun by black vines studded in thorns. They filled the room and climbed the posts of her bed. Blood-red buds hung from the branches. At the center of it all, Rose was sitting up in her bed. A lopsided crown of roses hung from her brow. Rose turned to see her father and smiled. At once, the buds burst open, blooming before Niall’s very eyes. The thorns retracted into their branches. In their place, seaweed green leaves unfurled. The branches reconfigured themselves into an arch overhang over the length of Rose’s bed. Sunlight streamed into the room from the window, casting a halo around Rose’s form. All the weight falls off Niall’s shoulders and tears streamed down his face as a smile tugged at his lips. He collapsed into Rose’s bed and wrapped his arms around her. As her laughter rang in his ears, Niall finally started to believe that maybe everything really would be alright. He pulled her into his lap and listened to Rose prattle on and on about all the things she wanted to do that day. For once, Niall is content to keep his mouth shut and listen. Aurora comes in to find them curled up together and laughs before telling them that breakfast is ready. Niall ignored the implied invitation in favor of dragging her into bed with them. Declan only glares at his father as he passed by the open door. 

Declan is a very lonely little boy. Ever since he was old enough to understand, Niall has taught Declan that his only purpose in life is to take care of Rose. Rose is baby. She must be protected at all costs. He does his best but he does so with a bitter heart. Especially when he realizes that Rose is a dreamer too. Unlike their father, Rose doesn’t dream things for herself. She dreams things for Declan. Rose dreams little firetrucks and model cars and walkie talkies and basketballs. All of them for her brother. Niall never lets Declan keep these little presents. Instead, he snatches them all away to be stored in the attic in boxes labeled with his sister’s name. At some point, Declan starts refusing Rose’s gifts. There’s no point in taking them if their father is just going to pry them from him as soon as Rose’s back is turned. Rose takes this as a sign that she’s upset her brother. She starts offering him little prizes from the woods instead. Shiny pebbles she finds in rivers and baby mice from the barn. Niall doesn’t let Declan keep those either. Eventually, Rose gives up on him and dreams up a brother that loves her. That’s how they get Matthew. 

The Lynchs are Henrietta royalty so they all respect them but everyone genuinely loves Rose. She’s loud and kind and happy. She runs around giving people flowers that she accidentally dreamt up and making silly faces at sad people until they laugh. Rose Lynch is a literal ray of sunshine that’s trapped within the form of a little girl. Often times, people will see her racing around town with Matthew, who she totes around in a little red wagon. They’re only supervision is Declan who’s only a year older than her. Niall insists on putting her in frilly little dresses that Rose always destroys. At some point, Declan starts giving her his clothes so she can change into them before going out on her adventures. He’s taller than she is so he learns how to sew in order to hem the bottoms of the pants. He always neatly cuffs the sleeves on her shirts while she whines before he lets her out of the house too. Niall hates seeing Rose covered in mud so Declan always sits her down in one of those little plastic kiddie pools and hoses her off. He makes her change back into her dress and combs her hair before dinner so that Niall doesn’t find out that she’s been up to mischief. 

If Rose isn’t running around with her brothers, she’s with her father. Niall walks around Henrietta with his daughter clinging to his hand. Her hands are too small for his so she can only hold onto like two of his fingers at a time. At sunset, they head back to the Barns and sit with the cattle, watching the sun sink beneath the horizon. Niall dreams fireflies for Rose to chase late at night. Often, Rose gets carried away chasing them and will stumble into Cabeswater. The forest has slowly but surely been springing up. Every night, she dreams more and more trees into existence. By the time she’s eighteen, it’s a beautiful, sprawling forest that covers several hectares of what was once empty land. Each time baby Rose ventures too far in, the forest bends itself to send her right back home. They give her little trinkets too. Cabeswater has given her a lot of things but my favorites are the following: a little jar of light that glows as bright as the sun but only when she’s alone, a pouch of berries that taste the way hugs feel, an old cd player that plays whatever song she wants but only in the voice of a girl she’s yet to meet, and an anklet with little bells that only Declan can hear. 

Rose doesn’t have very many friends or see many kids her age. There is one though. Nathania Wesninski often accompanies her father on his trips down to Henrietta. Nathan and Niall have some form of agreement in which Niall dreams up forgeries for Nathan’s business. Nathan loves exactly two things in his life: his daughter: Nathania, and his best friend: Niall. So, of course, he brings Ania down to Henrietta with him. He knows the truth about Niall’s ability and Rose’s too. I’ll establish this now because it’s important down the road: Nathan would never actually harm a single hair on Rose’s head. She’s Niall’s favorite kid and he wouldn’t dare do anything to hurt him... would he? 

So, up until her escape, Nathania and Rose see each other once a month/ every two months. They’re p close. They play in the woods together while Niall and Nathan chill on the patio watching them. Everyone is soft for someone and Nathan is soft for Niall. Niall knows who Nathan is and what he does. He’s just learned to accept that part of him because he knows that there’s more to Nathan than just the Butcher of Baltimore. Nathan is still a monster. You’ll see why. 

After Nathania leaves, Nathan is a mess. He becomes far more cruel and cold and hateful. Niall doesn’t find out about it for a while though. When he does, he demands that Nathan return to Henrietta. He does. Nathan is in shambles. Niall spends months piecing him back together. Just as he’s getting better, Lola arrives to tell him that they’ve picked up Mary’s trail. All of Niall’s hard work crumbles to nothing. The Nathan Niall once knew is gone. He can’t stand the new one so he ends up cutting ties entirely. Nathan is enraged. First Mary stole his daughter and now Niall has abandoned him? In a fit of rage, Nathan kills Niall while Rose watches in horror from beneath his car. There’s nothing she can do but pick up her father’s broken corpse once Nathan leaves and call Declan. 

When Niall dies, Rose’s feelings are a whirlwind. Part of her is grateful to no longer be confined to those ridiculous dresses or listen to bullshit stories about her father’s life. Another part of her is kicking herself for thinking such things. How dare she try to find the silver lining in all this? Her father is dead. Rose loved her father but she can’t help but feel a certain weight has fallen off her shoulders. Since she’d started consciously dreaming things, her father had started expecting things of her. No matter what she did, it was never enough. Niall always smiles and accepted whatever she offered him, but Rose couldn’t shake the feeling that she was falling short of his expectations. Gansey wasn’t any help. She’d recently made friends with the eccentric Richard Campbell Gansey III and she didn’t really understand how she’d managed it. 

Rose and Gansey appeared polar opposites. He was all soft lines and a paragon of grace and elegance. Rose was all sharp edges and an apotheosis of all that a girl should not be. All the girls that attend the Ganseys’ parties were mild-mannered with sweet laughs and shy smiles. Rose always felt so out of place trying to talk to them. She heard them snickering amongst themselves as she tripped over her own feet and wobbled in her heels. One night, Rose kicked the shoes off and ran. Sharp rocks stabbed at her soles. Branches scratched at her feet. The wind dried her tears from her face but they couldn’t pry the scowl from her face. She collapsed by the side of the road in a ditch, smearing her new dress in mud. 

“Rose?” a voice called out. She whipped around to find Gansey sliding down into ditch she now knelt in. His clothes were destroyed. Tears in his blazer exposed his muck-covered shirt. He’d definitely fall into something while chasing her. Leaves and twigs were embedded in his hair and his glasses were askew. “Rose, what happened?” he asked as he knelt beside her. Rose was at a loss for words. 

“Why are you here?” she croaked. 

“Because you ran off,” Gansey said. He furrowed his brows. “Was I not supposed to follow you?” Rose didn’t say anything. Gansey interpreted her silence as an affirmation of his fears. “I’m sorry, he whispered. Retreating into his shoulders, Gansey looked a lot less like the coveted son of a congressman and a lot more like a sixteen-year-old kid. He took Rose’s hand in his. ”I’m sorry,” he repeated. “This is all a little bit new to me. I- I’ve never had a friend before,” he said with a meek smile. Haloed by moonlight, Rose was absolutely certain knelt before an angel. This was the Gansey no one else knew. This was Gansey the boy, uncertain and unabashedly so. Rose grabbed Gansey and pulled him into a fierce hug. He tensed at the sudden affection before relaxing enough to wrap his own arms around her. Rose heard his laughter ringing in her ears and smiled. This was Rose’s Gansey, the brother she’d always dreamt of having.

Aglionby Academy is a co-ed school where boys outnumber girls by an outrageous margin. It's like 12 or 13 male students to 1 female. Matthew is a striker. Rose is a backliner and with Declan in goal, they’re unstoppable.  There’s also only ever been 2 girls on the Aglionby Exy team: Rose Lynch and Juliet Kavinsky. Juliet is a striker as well. Declan is captain so he does his best to keep them apart but he can’t stop what happens in the locker room. They’re always throwing punches at each other, on the court, in the locker room, and even in the halls. Gansey usually has to break it up. 

Noah is Noah. Rose likes him a lot. She complains to him a lot about the pretty girl in her English class. Rose was always painfully aware of the quiet girl in the corner who’d once roasted Thaddeus within an inch of his life. She had a quiet intensity to her that forced most of the guys in their school away from her. If you got past that, you realized that she was actually really plain. Her hair was the color of dirt and her eyes were blue. Just blue. Not sky blue or ice blue or anything. Just blue. Her skin was a warm brown in the winter that tanned nicely every summer. Freckles danced across her face and over her arms. Rose wanted to kiss every single one of them. Adeline Parrish was as plain as they came but there was something so undeniably beautiful about her that Rose couldn’t help but stare. On the way up to Aglionby on the very first day of school, Rose had leaned out the window of Gansey’s car to feel the wind in her face. She’s nearly fallen out entirely when she’d caught sight of Adeline for the first time. 

Noah knows Rose’s gay before Rose does. It’s because she keeps waxing poetic about Adeline but he chooses to keep his mouth shut. Instead, he creeps around Aglionby with a little tape recorder. 

Log 247: Parrish curled her legs up to her chest, revealing the shorts she wears under her skirt. Lynch nearly fainted on the spot. She spent the remainder of the day, blushing red as a rose. Hahaha. I’d be a comedian if I weren’t fucking dead.

Blue is Blue. She never dates Adeline but Addy crushes on her… hard. Orla hits on Addy bc she thinks it’s fun. Addy’s suffering is never-ending. Orla tries it on Rose but it has to affect. Rose has eyes for Addy and Addy alone.

Juliet hates Addy bc she spends a lot of time with Rose in their last two years. Jealousy thy name is Juliet and you need to chill tf out. 

Like I’ve said, Evermore takes all the kids from Aglionby and Declan is a year older than Rose. The two of them haven’t resolved their issues by the time he graduates. Instead, he marches bravely into the belly of Evermore, fully prepared to face Tetsuji’s torture. The Moriyamas want the Grey Warren and they will have it if they have to kill for it. They know it’s a person, just not who. 

Why do they want the Grey Warren? Well, who could stand against the head of a mafia that could dream up troops on a whim? They intend to breed more dreamers and harness their abilities to take over all of North America. Declan would rather die than let his sister fall into the hands of the Moriyamas so he suffers through eighteen-hour days on the court and then nightly torture to protect her. On his bedside is a glass of water with a single rose. Every night he changes out the water and measures out a little food for it. He talks to it too. He tells it about how well he’s doing in school and out on the court. He tells it how proud he is of it and cries himself to sleep because he’s going to die here at Evermore without a chance to tell the real Rose all of these things. 

While he’s there, he discovers Cleo bc everyone at Evermore knows that the child exists. His ‘Dad’ instincts activate immediately. He raised Rose and she turned out fine… more or less. So, yeah, in this AU Jeanie isn’t quite as alone as she was in the og one. He also helps Jeanie escape Evermore with Cleo and Ania. There’s Hell to pay for it but he has no regrets. Tetsuji finds the rose and plucks each of the petals off and lets them fall to the floor as Declan screams. Logically, Declan knows it isn’t his sister but it’s the only thing he’d got left of her. After that, he kind of starts drifting, dissociating through most of his days. What’s the point? Jeanie and Cleo have left and now even his rose is gone. 

Alright, so timeline, all of this is occurring during Ania’s first year. While Ania is running from Riko, Tetsuji is mostly preoccupied with Declan and the Grey Warren. And then Nathan is a thing. I’ll get to this in a minute. 

Anyway, the Gangsy is formed and they’re having their adventures while Addy falls in love with Blue and Rose suffers. Rose wants to hate Blue for stealing her woman but Blue is oddly charming. She’s loud and fearless and actually really admirable. Rose has a begrudging respect for her. They’ve got a game called Blue’s Clues bc Rose is a nerd. She’ll nick things from Blue’s house and leave clues on how to find it. Blue always goes bc Rose always picks things that are incredibly important to her. While Blue is out there tracking down whatever it is Rose has taken from her, Rose has Addy all to herself. They do all the stupid antics that Ronan and Adam did in. They go couch surfing a lot. Not that one. I’m talking about the one where they tie a couch to the back of a truck and drag it behind them as the truck hurtles down the road. Addy has almost died on several occasions because of this. Noah loves going with them. He fears nothing bc he’s already dead :(

So in their senior year, after Addy leaves her father’s home to live at the church, the tuition rate goes up. Fuck. Addy’s working three jobs and is barely able to make ends meet. So she goes down to talk to the Headmaster to see if she can cut a deal. He’s a ho about it. Just as Addy is giving up hope he says, “You know, there’s another way you could pay off your tuition.” He smiles at her. It’s a cruel and sharp thing. He doesn’t have to say anything else. Addy already knows what he means. She excuses herself from the room and he calls after her, telling her it was just an offer and she was going to need another job anyway. 

Henrietta is a small town. If she loaned her body out to the Headmaster, others would start trying to put a price on her body as well. In no time, she’d be infamous. No, she told herself. There’s got to be another way. So she goes home with all these thoughts swirling in her head. Rose is laying in Addy’s bed when Addy gets home. “Oh, looks like Her Majesty’s got something on her mind,” Rose says as she rolls onto her stomach. “Care to share, Queenie?” Addy doesn’t respond and Rose starts to worry. It takes a lot of prodding but Addy eventually tells Rose about the Headmaster’s offer. Rose’s blood is boiling. 

Instead of dreaming it up, the girls actually go in and break into the Headmaster’s residence. To their horror, they find evidence that Addy isn’t the first girl he’s made the offer to. It isn’t just girls either. They find hundreds of photos of girls and boys far too young to have consented to any of this bound to a bed, beaten and bruised all over. It’s the same bed in the room next door. The Headmaster has a scar running the length of his forearm. In more than one of the photos, the scar is visible as it pins the kids down. They copy the files and find videos too. Both of them are scarred for life by the time they stumble out of the Headmaster’s office but they’ve got what they needed. This isn’t just about Addy anymore. It’s about all of those kids they’d just seen. 

Due to the indisputable evidence they’ve presented, the Headmaster is fired and is to be sent to a max. security prison but he offers info on a major mob family: The Moriyamas. They kill him before he gets a word out but they’re screwed now. They can no longer feed kids from Aglionby into Evermore. They’re also about to lose their one link to the Grey Warren. The Moriyamas descend on Henrietta like a murder of ravens. Juliet finds about their nefarious plot and, being the lovesick fool she is, offers herself in place of Rose. The Moriyamas don’t know what there’s more than one dreamer so they take Juliet and they leave. Rose is concerned at the disappearance of Juliet but she doesn’t read super far into it until she gets the phone call. I’ll get to that in a minute. Now we’re getting to the really bad part. Time for Nathan to be a disgusting excuse for a human being. 

Juliet is brought to Baltimore and chucked into the basement of the Wesninski House. She’s left there for about a week. Food is thrown down once a day but at no discernable interval. There’s no way for Juliet to tell time. She’s just a sobbing mess. Finally, Nathan descends the steps. Juliet tries to fight him but his men arrive and hold her down. 

“Juliet,” he said with a soft voice. “Hush, my dear.” Nathan brushed the hair from her face and Juliet bit at him. “Feisty,” he chuckled. Juliet snarled. “Oh, I’d put that attitude away if I were you.” 

“Or what?” Juliet snapped. 

“You know, flowers don’t do well without sunlight. I wonder what might happen if I trapped a little rose down here.” Juliet felt the blood drain from her face. She opened her mouth but no words came out. “I’m glad you’ve decided to see things my way, Juliet,” Nathan chirped. Suddenly, he sobered. His smile fell away and his shoulders sagged. “You know why you’re here, Kavinsky. Master had plans for you but I’ve managed to persuade him to… alter them. You still have to bear an heir but they aren’t going to touch you.” Nathan took a deep breath. From behind him, a woman came out. A wicked smile twisted her face as she offered him what looked like a turkey baster. “I’m going to make this as painless as possible, alright?” Juliet screamed and the men tightened their grip on her. They anchored her down to the floor and she felt a hand slip under her skirt. The woman’s manic laughter echoed through the basement, mingling with the screams and sobs of Juliet. 

After that, Juliet is taken out of the basement. She spends the remainder of her time in the lap of luxury. She’s moved to a beautiful room on the third floor of the house but Juliet knows a cage when she sees one. 

Nathan doesn’t really bother her bc he feels bad. To be clear, he did argue that she shouldn’t be raped by this is an equally traumatic experience so… Anyway, he can’t stand seeing Juliet and it’s because she’s around Ania’s age. 

Physically, Ania takes after her father for the most part, but personality-wise she takes after her mother (except for her temper. That’s pure Wesninski). Nathan and Mary loved their daughter more than anything in the world but they’re both such broken people that they don’t really know how to show her this. That’s the origin of the Kiss, Kiss game I talked about a thousand years ago. Nathan is so fucking pissed when Mary runs away with Ania. That’s his baby. She was the light of his miserable life and now she’s gone. He didn’t want to send Ania to the Moriyamas either but in his head, it was for the best. At least, he would get to visit her when he came to Evermore for… business. So he sets out to track her down. His anger overwhelms him when he catches up to Mary. He kills her for taking his daughter and Ania escapes while he’s thrown in jail. When he comes home to find Juliet in his basement, all he can think of is Ania. If anything like this were to happen to his daughter? There wouldn’t be any goddamn survivors is what. He knows what he’s done is wrong and he can’t face Juliet bc all he can see is his own daughter. He shreds all the photos of her and burns all of her things. He had all the mirrors in his house covered and can barely even stand the tiny, warped reflection of himself that he sees in his spoons. 

Over the course of his eight-year hunt, Nathan’s grief costs many people their lives. Niall is almost successful in his attempt to patch Nathan back up but we know how that ends. Rose Lynch is the last remaining piece of Niall. Nathan doesn’t dare return to Henrietta, not because he’s afraid of her but because he’s afraid of himself. He doesn’t want to hurt her too. However, he doesn’t have any qualms with threatening her safety to get Juliet to comply. Disgusting little man. 

Juliet can hear the tortured screams of people in the basement and it stresses her out to the point that she has a miscarriage. This occurs the day Ania is supposed to return home. Nathan goes ballistic. He drags Juliet down to the basement by her hair and is just tirading.

“Juliet, do you comprehend what you’ve just done?” he asked her as he flung things across the room. “We’re fucked. We are so fucking fucked. Do you think I enjoy this?” he screamed. Juliet is sobbing. She’s covered in the blood of her child and bound to a chair with so escape. 

He’s in absolute hysterics by the time Lola arrives with Ania. Seeing Ania, he suddenly remembers that she isn’t just his daughter. She’s Mary’s. Mary Hatford who stole his child away from him in the middle of the night. Mary Hatford who incurred the wrath of the Moriyamas and left him to pick up the pieces. Mary Hatford who’s made his life a misery for the last eight years. In his hysterics, he goes after Ania. He’s going to slit her tendons and skin her alive. He’s going to destroy the one thing Mary Hatford loved.

Fortunately, Stuart shows up and saves the day bc he’s literally the best. When he finds Ania, he finds Juliet too. He unbinds her and tells her that the FBI are coming. She’s too much of a mess to really understand anything at this point so she just kinda lets things happen.

Juliet wakes in a hospital bed to the sound of a girl’s voice arguing with a man. Prying her eyes open, Juliet finds herself in a bed across from a girl who looks very much like the man who impregnated her. She’s screaming and kicking and crying. They nurses inject her with something and she falls asleep. The next time Juliet wakes, the girl is gone. The FBI ask her if she’s got a family and she says she does. They ask her to call them. She calls Gansey. 

Rose is laying in Gansey’s bed, messing with a Rubik’s cube while he paces the floor talking about something or the other when the call comes. Gansey’s face pales and Rose knows something is wrong. 

“That was Kavinsky,” he said as he hung up. “Get the girls. I’ll call Henry and Declan. We’re leaving. Now.” There was a note of finality to his voice that silenced Rose. She got up and grabbed her jacket as she raced out to find Addy and Blue. The four of them pile into one car with the Lynchs in the other. They make the drive up to Baltimore in silence, swinging by Evermore to grab Declan.

Juliet is empty. There are no tears when the Gangsy and the Lynchs arrive. She doesn’t say anything either. She just extends her arms out to Rose who collapses into them. Rose doesn’t leave Juliet’s side for a long time. Declan and Gansey go to sort things out with the Feds. Addy, Blue, and Henry all stay with Rose and Juliet. No one really knows what to do. 

Long story short, Gansey turns up his Southern Charm to a 12 so Juliet can come home with them. Noah doesn’t need a bedroom so he offers it up and Juliet stays at Monmouth for the remainder of the year. She also doesn’t go to school.

Rose wants to help but after their reunion in Baltimore, Juliet refuses to see her. Juliet was tortured because she offered herself in Rose’s place. It’s not that she regrets it, it’s just that seeing Rose reminds her of everything. Henry is the first person Juliet lets in. He’s mastered the art of appearing non-threatening to girls bc he is a kind, considerate young man. Fight me. He also wasn’t a part of the Gangsy when she was taken. He distracts her with the little bee and flowers he finds on the way back from school. Juliet likes letting him drive her around the town at night too. They go out to the mountains and Juliet will scream and curse Nathan’s name until she breaks down. Henry always puts her back together and brings her home. Little by little, he brings her out of her shell and gets her to open up to the other girls too. 

It’s a joint effort between Declan and Gansey to set up Juliet’s new living arrangements. With Addy getting into Yale and Blue, Henry, and Gansey’s road trip plans, they don’t want to leave Juliet alone. So Declan calls Jeanie and Gansey calls Rhemann. They arrange for Juliet to move to Cali with Jeanie and join the Trojans. With some gentle coaxing from Henry, Juliet agrees. 

Wymack drives Jeanie out to meet Juliet so that the two can fly out together. He meets Rose then. Up until then, Rose was supposed to head to Evermore like every other Aglionby kid. When the headmaster was fired, all plans for college fell through. Rose didn’t want to go to college but she wouldn’t have minded getting to play exy just a little longer. Wymack’s already seen Rose’s file and Gansey pulls him aside after he leaves Jeanie to meet Juliet. It doesn’t take much for Wymack to realize that Rose is prime fox material. She’s seen her father get murdered and watched her mother die. Her elder brother was a violent drunk and was known for raising his fists at her. That’s a Fox if Wymack had ever seen one. He offers Rose a place on the Palmetto line. She’s hesitant but Matt thinks it’s a good idea. Wymack tells her to sleep on it so Rose takes the packet and goes home. 

Declan is waiting for her when she arrives. He tells her the truth about Evermore and about the Moriyamas plan. There’s a lot of tears and screaming from Rose. Declan just grabs her and holds her close until most of her rage passes. Declan is getting sent to intense therapy with the rest of the Ravens. Matt is moving up north to be closer to Declan. Even Kavinsky is moving away. What’s Rose going to do? Stay at the Barnes? By herself? 

"It's awful lonely out here," Declan said. "Dad had to dream up Mom so he wouldn't be all alone. What are you going to do? Dream a new Parrish? That wouldn't be fair. You'd never love her as much as the real Addy.”

“Maybe I dreamt the first one,” Rose said as she kicked her dangling legs. The two of them were sitting on the roof. Despite the setting sun, it was still unbearably hot. That didn’t stop her from sitting pressed up against her brother. Declan didn’t seem inclined to move away anyway. 

Declan snorted and turned a wry smile at her. “No offense, Rosie, but even you couldn’t dream someone as perfect as Adeline Parrish.” 

“No. I guess I couldn’t,” Rose replied. She felt the blush creeping down her neck. To Rose, Adeline Parrish was proof that God was real. No one else could have crafted a human so perfect. Or maybe Addy wasn’t human at all. Whatever she might be, Rose loved her with her whole heart. Declan was right. Rose wasn’t going to survive here without Addy. Exy would make a good distraction. Maybe she’d even get to play against Yale and Addy would come watch. Rose had her coach fax the signed papers to Wymack the very next morning. 

On the last day of Rose’s summer break, she spent the day beneath Addy, savoring the feel of her calloused hands on every inch of her own exposed skin. She moaned softly as she felt the press of Addy’s lips on her inner thighs. Her hands clawed desperately at her sheets. 

“No touching,” Addy murmured.

“I’m not,” Rose whined. She screwed her shut as she felt Addy’s teeth nipping at the area she’s just kissed over. It was too much and too little all at once. “Addy,” she begged. “Addy, please.” Rose could barely form a coherent thought, let alone speak. Fortunately, Addy got the message. A gasp slipped past Rose’s lips as she felt Addy’s fingers slip beneath the material of Rose’s boxers. 

“You've been such a good girl for me, Rose,” Addy crooned as she trailed lazy kisses up Rose’s body. “I guess you’ve earned the right to touch.” Rose immediately wound her hands in Addy’s hair. “Someone’s desperate.” Rose kissed Addy soundly on the mouth to stop her from talking. If she heard one more word from that damned mouth, she was sure she’d implode. 

The next morning, Rose woke to the smell of breakfast. She dragged herself downstairs and assaulted Addy’s face with sleepy kisses. Rose let her feed her breakfast and tugged on a bra and tank top as the screen door banged shut. Today is the day Gansey and the others are leaving for their road trip. Addy is going to stay with Matt, Declan, and Opal until school starts. Rose is going to drive out to Palmetto by herself. After a thousand hugs and a whole twenty minutes of goodbyes, the three cars take off in different directions. 

It’s not a long drive out to Palmetto but it’s a lonely one. It’s only been half an hour and Rose already misses everyone. She turns up the murder squash song to drown her thoughts out and makes her way to South Carolina. 

She pulls up to the Foxhole Court and finds a girl with hair as red as blood and ices like frozen lakes waiting for her on the hood of a car far more expensive than Rose’s. The sight of her knocks the breath out of Rose’s lungs. Nathania Wesninski, Nathan’s daughter, is here. Shit. 

God, that was long! The Raven Girls ask will pick up from here... eventually.