#but also let’s not pretend that actually abstaining will do what people seem to think it will.

[raraeavesmoriendi]

“I’m not going to vote for the guy who does things I can’t condone” understandable, in this system that just leaves [checks notes] …the guy who will do those things and more things we really don’t want to happen, who also can’t be trusted not to find/bullshit a way to somehow keep himself in power forever.

…well. that’s… a choice you can certainly make, and that is your right to make it.

[political-sideblog-dont-at-me]

As we get closer to election day, I'm going to need people to be normal about Palestinians complaining about Kamala Harris.

Don't reply to their posts with "But Trump would be worse!" (They also hate him, criticizing Harris is not an endorsement of Trump [And if they don't name a candidate they want you to vote for it's not an endorsement of anyone]. They're fully aware of how bad Trump is, the thing is that with the, you know, genocide going on they're already going through hell now under someone who's not Trump.)

Don't reply to their posts talking about how hard you hope their lives will be under Trump because they're a minority (I've seen people do this, seriously what is wrong with you? First that's not how you act when you want to convince people. Second many of them are already suffering under the Biden administration. Third, you're just being bigoted when you do that "You're a minority who doesn't agree with me so I hope [Terrible thing] happens to you if my politician doesn't win" is just showing that you don't care about minorities unless they agree with you. You're not "warning" them or whatever you think you're doing, you'rejust being a prick. And you're showing every other member of a minority group that your opinions are worth listening to.)

Don't call them a psyop for having a negative opinion of Harris (Yes there is election interference going on. But that's more "Elon Musk is putting targeted ads on Twitter telling different voting blocks completely opposite things about the same candidate" and not "This one person told me they don't want to vote for Kamala Harris because their [Friend/Family member] died from the Biden administration's actions". Instead of harassing them and telling them that Gaza is a single issue, just let them be.)

Lastly, if Harris loses on Tuesday, we are not blaming Palestinians, got it? Even if the number abstaining or voting 3rd party would have won her the election. Nobody should be forced to vote for an administration that is actively taking part in killing their families, and nobody should be criticized for choosing another option under those circumstances. The Biden administration could've already started an arms embargo on Israel, or even just sent them less money and fewer weapons, or stopped vetoing UN resolutions, or actually used that dock they built for humanitarian aid (Like they pretended they would) instead of sending in more military forces, etc.

They could've actually done something to make Palestinians genuinely want to vote for Harris, but instead the Biden administration has thrown itself full force behind the genocide. Has Harris said better things about Palestine than Trump has? Sure, but those are all words until something actually happens (Technically the Vice President doesn't have much political power, but she is in a position to put pressure on Biden and be more vocally supportive of any policies that would actually make Israel stop. And she hasn't).

Basically, just don't harrass the people who are currently direct victims of genocide. It's incredibly simple and easy, just don't reply to or report their posts.

(Side note: Yes there are articles about some Palestinians either supporting Harris or saying anyone is better than Trump. Try to remember that Palestinians have varying opinions and if you're responding to a Palestinian who's mad at Harris by saying "But this other Palestinian isn't so you shouldn't be!" you are indeed the bad guy. Additionally it seems like in Gaza the current general opinion is "This election doesn't affect us because neither candidate will stop the genocide." That's not an endorsement of Harris, that's telling you you still need to protest after the election. And if Harris does get elected and she continues Biden's policies then you will see me shift to advocating for 3rd party candidates instead of simply telling you to not harrass people over their voting decisions. If she actually helps Palestine I would be pleasantly surprisedbut as of now I don't expect her to do anythingbut uphold the status quo [Which is really bad])

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Not gonna get into it on the post because discourse™ but I too enjoy Shaun's YouTube videos but find his views on voting etc a bit iffy. I didn't actually come across them on his twitter but I watch his streams sometimes and it comes up there too.

Like to be clear my own plan here is like. Lie to my local Labour MP about not voting for them if they don't get their shit together, but when it comes to it vote for them anyway because what else can you do. Like there's a very real additional human cost to the least awful guy not getting in so I can't really morally justify actually witholding my vote. But I CAN justify pretending (to them) that I'm considering it. And it seems like he's one step further than me on the extremity scale in that he advocates for actually witholding your vote and it's like. Look I get all your reasons. Labour in the UK/Democrats in the US are complicit in some truly awful things right now and I'm absolutely furious about it. But what could you achieve by witholding your vote that you cannot achieve simply by lying about it?

To be clear I'm absolutely one of the most truthful (honesty is a different matter and I don't feel qualified to comment on my own, but in terms of literal truth-telling I CAN claim this) people I know. But this is one of the few situations where I'm like. I think the most ethical thing to do is to lie actually?

Yeah no I'm in total agreement with you there.

At the end of the day, actually withholding your voting or voting for the Green Party as a protest vote are the most useless political actions you can take. Your intention with it doesn't matter when the outcome is the Tories or Republicans getting more power and enacting more of their policies that are going to hurt the vulnerable people that you care about.

It's very LARPy. You insist you're doing something principled and meaningful and acting like a "good leftist", but you're not. Intentions don't automatically equate to outcomes and in this case, we know that they are not synonymous.

Meanwhile, things like directly threatening to withhold your vote can do something, especially at a local level where the candidates are much more likely to actually hear that threat.

I mean, in general, there's a lot more you can do politically at a local level. Local politicians can better hear your demands and are much more likely to meet them. You can often communicate with them one on one and because a lot of people are barely bothered to get involved when the Big Election rolls around, you can get shit done because no one else is there to oppose you.

It's one of the things that really irks me about the withdraw-your-vote crowd because they act is if electoral politics is useless, and completely ignore the very existence of local politics.

Also one of the things I find very frustrating is the way critiques of the labour party or of the democrats are almost never followed up with any action. Like if you want to shift these parties further left, get involved with them. Starting your own party is not gonna work because you won't be able to get the votes or the seats or whatever to have any real power as a party. Good thing there's two nominally left-wing, already existing parties that you can very easily get involved with and push for more leftist policies within them.

When people like Shaun talk about genuinely abstaining from voting and from electoral politics in general, I feel the exhaustion seep into my bones. They're basically advocating for us to hand political power over to the right wing on a silver platter because well, the platter itself wasn't of perfect quality so let's just give the whole thing away, ay?

[meggannn]

i'm interested in hearing your thoughts on garrus being shoe-horned into the best friend role if you want to talk about it!

I may not be able to talk about it as much as some people who are super Garrus-critical, but yes I can try!

this really becomes a problem in ME3 more than the other games. basically my understanding of Garrus’s writing in ME3 is that they were well aware that of the fact that he was a fan-favorite, and didn’t want to threaten that, so they made it his crux. they took most of the fandom’s feelings for Garrus and decided to reflect that in Shepard’s relationship with Garrus, but by doing this, they basically ended up pretending a relationship had been there throughout ME1-2 that existed in some player’s heads. of course, Mass Effect is an RPG (well, sort of) so in theory... your best friend could be whoever you want to be, so with that in mind, it’s a little strange for a dev team to go “your best friend is this one character and we will write all of his scenes around that assumption.” unless they really want to play up the fanservice, I guess.

when he’s introduced in ME1, people joke about how they would never not recruit him, but it is a possibility—you could run through the entire game having only met Garrus in the Citadel Tower and never spoken to him again—in which case by meeting him again in ME2, it is a little strange to see that guy you barely remember from the Citadel in the last game show up, but not entirely unwelcome, because at least you, like, recognize him. it’s a little odd how you banter like old friends by making fun of his scars, but what is straight-up bizarre is how in the next game, ME3, Garrus talks about how he was there with you fighting Reapers from the beginning. of course, not a lot of people would specifically go out of their way to avoid recruiting Garrus in ME1, and very few people probably naturally avoided him standing by the elevator in ME1 (which is the only way to not recruit him if you don’t find him in Dr. Michele’s clinic), so the odds of someone not recruiting him in ME1 are low unless they intended to, but it’s still possible.

come ME2, I think they chose to forget that. a few lines have changed in 2 if you don’t recruit him in 1, but not many. remember in ME1, Garrus was an optional squaddie, who had an optional side quest, and his relationship with Shepard there was very much superior/subordinate, or as some people interpret it, more mentor-like. the most personal they get is when they talk about their jobs, the difficulties they face making moral choices, a bit about their families, and Spectrehood. it’s a nice introduction to Garrus’s character but the lines are drawn pretty clear between their roles; by the end of ME1, given the canon dialogue, the closest I’m personally willing to believe of their relationship from helping him deal with Saleon is “subordinate I am fond of,” or post-Saren after Garrus leaves the Normandy, “ally I can call on later.”

and then Shepard dies and is gone for two years. by ME2, when you meet up with him again, I actually find this jump from “subordinate” to “ally/friend” works for my Shepard, but it might not for people who never really engaged with Garrus or even liked him on the SR-1, or those who weren’t thrilled with the idea of him... basically running off to kill as many people as he could on Omega after Shepard got themselves spaced. if you don’t romance him in ME2, he has so little content in ME2: his recruitment mission, post-recruitment convo, loyalty convo trigger, loyalty quest, and post-loyalty convo. if you romance him, you get several more scenes, but compared to other romanceable companions like Miranda or Jack—whose attitudes toward you change the more you talk to them—or even Samara, who you can just chat with while looking out at the stars, Garrus’s platonic relationship with Shepard seems to stall after the Sidonis quest: you gain his loyalty for the suicide mission and then you’re assumed to be all cool. realistically, they could’ve given us a lot of reasons why Garrus might not want to talk—he’s probably still reeling from getting his face blown off and confronting his betrayer again, or if you don’t let him kill Sidonis, maybe he could’ve gotten pissed at Shepard and confronted them—but that’s me trying to justify a lack of content. truthfully there’s very little non-romanceable Garrus content in ME2 to build up that “best friends” angle they want to sell in ME3.

in ME3, you DO get more content that shows how naturally “at ease” he feels working with Shepard: his recruitment mission, longer conversation trees when he joins, more banter from squaddies—including Garrus—on missions, him inviting you to go bottle-shooting, a scene with him after every main mission where he asks you how you’re doing, if you miss Ash/Kaidan, mutual struggles over the burden of leadership, worrying over his family, etc. by this point though, if you didn’t romance him, he’s treating you like his best friend even though he basically ignored you all of ME2. again, you could rationalize that time as his social awkwardness on a Cerberus ship, or him dealing with trauma, but in my friend’s words, it’s really more of bioware telling-but-not-showing that they really wanted you to like this guy but waiting until the last game to give him consistent scenes with the player that reflected that closeness.

on paper, Garrus makes a lot of sense to be close to Shepard, because assuming you recruit him in ME1, he’s been fighting Reapers with Shepard in every game, but also... so has Joker or Chakwas or Tali, for the same reason; so does Ash or Kaidan, for being the only Alliance teammate who was there at the beginning and end (assuming they didn’t both die); so does Liara, for being there every game and only abstaining in ME2 because she was still dealing with the fallout of saving your life (there’s lots of criticism of her being “forced” on the player too and while I agree with some of it, that’s a topic for another time lol). Bioware does introduce Garrus early in each game—I don’t know if this was intentional, because they knew he was so popular so they wanted to give him to the player early—but then he has so little to say in ME2, the game about building relationships, that introducing him early just means he stands around for half game talking about calibrations. a lot of fandom, especially shakarian fans, end up filling the gaps of ME2 with their own headcanons, myself included, to make the relationship development feel a little smoother, but the trouble there is when we start treating it like it was always canon for everybody.

I know it seems weird to complain that such a popular character should’ve had even more content—there are lots of other characters just as or more deserving who got really screwed over (coughs Ashley)—but in my ideal world, they all would’ve had more content lmfao.

[izziegs]

Okay so TMA 187 analysis here, a bit more “Jon’s judgment of Helen was not entirely correct” from another Spiral fan

1. I think Jon’s analysis of Helen is (ha ha) distorted by A) his desire to justify her death despite her friendliness, and B) automatically made untrustworthy by the fact that Jon has never understood the Distortion. Helen has expressed before that him Knowing things about her is not the same as Understanding things, and he’s made it very clear before that he does not Understand (MD and HD are fusions, essentially. Combinations of the Spiral’s manifestation: the Distortion, and a human. In the same way Garnet is a combo of Ruby and Sapphire but not truly either of them, Helen Distortion has Helen Richardson in her, but is not actually Helen Richardson. She is both Helen and not, and was never Michael, though the Distortion was. Honestly, Jon, it’s not complicated)

2. We even saw this with Michael - I can’t forget that Jon assumed the Distortion was just a manifestation of the Spiral, not an avatar, and he seemed to take the revelation that Michael Shelley was an assistant as a sort of...betrayal, almost? Something that definitely threw off his idea of good-bad, where even though avatars could be bad their humanity kept them from becoming as monstrous as Michael, and the sudden shock of hearing otherwise, of seeing what he could become...I don’t think he ever bounced back from that.

3. Jon has always seen the worst in Helen. In 115, she came back to him for emotional help/venting/advice/connection and he lashed out at her, scared of seeing her become like Michael, still sore from betrayal from the Stranger, etc. From the get-go he decided this was just a Thing using Helen’s face, and even when she immediately told him otherwise, he rejected it. (“I don’t believe you” - “I have never told you a lie”) He chalked her vulnerability up to manipulation, and has never truly turned his view of her away from that initial assessment

4. 131 shows a lot of the same (“You’re still wearing her face” - “I’m not ‘wearing’ anything”) This episode Helen deliberately pushes against Jon’s desire to neatly separate them into bad and good, something Melanie pulls them away from to refocus on Jared

5. 143 doesn’t have them fight quite as much, though Jon does still seem very suspicious. Helen just shows up to eat Manuela and give Jon and Basira a door home

6. 157 - aka the day Jon uses as justification he was right Helen was never on his side even though it is One Thing. They’ve met four times prior to this and he’s been mean to her every time. I can understand her abstaining from helping him, especially when she thinks the end result will help her, and double especially when helping Jon would put her directly on the bad side of two very powerful avatars (Also, as Helen said, “If that makes it my fault, then surely this is Georgie’s fault as well, and Melanie’s-”. AFAIK, he’s not upholding that as proof those two are bad and against him)

7. Post-apocalypse, Helen tries to give Jon the advice he refused to give her. When she was fully accepting her avatar status, she just wanted someone she thought could help her, and now she’s trying to be that person for Jon. Hearing her later desire to keep the world as is, it would also make sense that she might’ve been trying to get him to agree with her, however, unlikely, so they could continue “helping” each other/wouldn’t have to have that inevitable fight. Something else notable about her in the Eye’s world: she forces Jon to stop withholding info from Martin. She forces them to talk about difficult topics (Smiting powers, where’s Basira/how is she, Martin’s domain) and had essentially become a more reliable source of info than Jon is. While her popping up was beneficial to Martin, it was annoying to Jon, and possibly also part of why he continued not liking her.

8. Now all of that, looking at 187: Again, Jon very quickly establishes that he doesn’t understand how Helen works (“I am not [Michael], and never have been. Surely you know all this by now”) and then explicitly says he is currently making judgments based on feeling instead of logic (which is not a new development, looking at his choices since The Eye Opens). 

Here I’m going to go over a few of his specific lines from 187:

“Now you use her form, see her mind, but they’re just… tools.” - If that were true, there’d be no reason Helen would act completely differently than Michael did. If this were just a monster using a human’s mind for manipulation advice, why have a totally new personality? Helen is Helen, but Jon’s still stuck in his season 3 mindset

“Michael had nothing you could use but a razor-straight desire for vengeance, but you saw something in Helen that would work on me much more subtly. So you took her” - Bold of Jon to assume Helen taking over the Distortion was that influenced by him, lol. If the Distortion wanted you done for Jonathan, they’d have just kept Michael and let him eat you like he planned. Not everything’s about you.

“How long have you been working with Elias?” - This one is interesting because if he knows everything, he should’ve known whether or not Helen knew Elias (unless he assumed she could get into the Panopticon where he can’t see). Michael knew Elias, pre-Distortion, but Helen’s not talked to him. Jon didn’t think Jude Perry was working for Elias, despite her clear revelry in the new world. I think it’s weird he assumed that about Helen (unless he was also using that to justify her death)

Her commentary during his statement is funny, but interesting. The perfect time to attack him if she really wanted to, if she really had been building up to that like he thought she was, and she spends the time joking about him and Martin living in a Honeymoon Suite in her apocalypse hotel

“Is a friendship true, or is it reaching out with hands that cut you?” - Another interesting line to me because when Michael told Sasha he wanted to be her friend he deliberately manipulated his hand so that he could hold her hand without cutting her

“You worked to hurt us and help us, all with the same smile, until we can barely tell one from the other” - I think Jon is talking about Michael and Helen as one person in this part, but specifically with Helen she literally didn’t hurt you Jon she had one time she didn’t help 

“Never quite crossing a line we could never forgive, but never putting yourself on the line either.” - Yeah, Jon, that’s what most people would do, tbh. It’s not unforgivable that she didn’t put her life on the line to help someone who has only ever been mean to her. Actually, she helped him more than most people would if treated that way

“It’s not me I’m worried about” - Another interesting line because even as he’s killing her, Helen’s final threat is to hold him in the halls until the End eventually gets his friends. She never threatens to harm any of them (because they’re her friends) - Edit: I can see how it could be interpreted as her threatening them buttt idk if she can kill them in the new world so I assumed it was End related. Still no empty threats, no real lies from her yet - Also, I think she genuinely does not want to kill Martin or Jon, she wants them to turn so they can all be friends without those messy ~moral hangups~

“If you do this, everyone inside me is dead!” - I wonder if this is true. I can’t tell if Jon was the only one that fell out of the halls in front of Martin. It’s not like the other domains, where taking the avatar in charge may usher in a new one. The Distortion was Helen. If this sentence is true, then Jon just murdered that mom and very possibly orphaned that five-year-old. Not just gonna brush that one off there

“Its hidden teeth and the ones it wears so proudly.” - Even in the end Jon still Doesn’t Get It. He still thinks the Distortion is pretending to be Helen. Was pretending to be Michael. As much as he should be an all-knowing being, he clearly still rejects what he doesn’t like

I don’t have a specific quote but Jon acting like the Distortion has had a constant motivation or like, consistent desire (outside of “cause problems for fun”) is wild because Michael explicitly told Jon he didn’t want the Watcher’s Crown to happen. Michael was going to kill Jon to stop it. He was on the exact side Jon is on right now. But I guess it’s easy for Jon to paint him as evil when the roles were revered, huh?

If you’re still reading this, uh. Hi. I really really like the Distortion (Michael and Helen) and I am Very Upset with Jon right now

Edit: This is not an argument on whether or not Helen was evil or if Jon was right to kill her too to save the world. She was absolutely evil and I can see why Jon felt her death was necessary I'm just saying he was wrong about her lying to him

[greycappedjester]

Tiny Daichi is so cute! Poor tiny OiSuga, what a bad year for them. If they became friends during the first year, who knows what would have happened. But Oikawa had Iwaizumi while Suga was alone for the first two years. Was Daichi so shy that he couldn't talk to him? And about betting pool for the ball... I read your answer: "Oikawa/Suga vs. Suga/Daichi: who's dating who" and "there's definitely more than a professor betting on polyamory" Who ships OiSugaDai (or whatever it's)? Ukai Jr? Irihata?

Tiny!Daichi definitely did talk to him (they were often partnered up in Charms and Herbology, actually). A large part of Suga’s isolation during the first few years actually didn’t come entirely from outside forces (as in people bullying him, though there were definitely whispers), it largely came from Suga not feeling comfortable getting close to people because he was so very cautious of them thinking he was like his family. Really, Suga opening up (or well, eavesdropping) in the first book/his third year was him consciously taking a stand to be less shy and face his fear of rejection...and it might’ve helped that the task in question was purposefully opposed to his family’s former actions (investigating a teacher who seemed to be prejudiced against muggleborns).

Oh, gosh, let me pull up my professors list. Okay, so a note just because I’ve been a teaching assistant before and think it’s weird (to beyond weird, given the case) for teachers to get overly involved in their student’s love life.Most of the professors are here are doing this for fun/ as a joke and are not in anyway actually involved in this. It’s more like teacher lounge talk/ complaints that they made a pool for fun on.

Irihata (Potions/Slytherin House Head): Abstaining from this specific pool since 2 out of 3 are students in his House (...there might’ve been some discussion on whether that gave him an unfair advantage). Interestingly enough, if I was going to do something like the second task, I think the other headmasters would let Irihata chose who Oikawa’s person should be.

Shimada (Herbology): all his Galleons on Suga/Daichi because he has seen Oikawa nearly poison himself way, way too many times in Herbology (only to be saved last minute by Iwaizumi) and Suga not even stop talking to Daichi--he knows Suga and Oiakwa are deinitely not dating.

Oiwake (Quidditch): Abstaining because he doesn’t know any of them well enough

Takinoue (Magical Creatures): Technically has only ever had a class with Daichi but loves some petty drama (also runs the pool in conjunction with Professor Yamiji). His moneys on Oikawa/Suga after a messy, heartbreaking breakup of Suga/Daichi (not going to happen fyi), specifically he’s betting on this for their graduation. He’s been watching waaaaaay too many wizard dramas lately.

Nekomata (Healing): In it for the sheer amusement and as a joint action with Headmaster Ukai to annoy Keishin Ukai. Oikawa/Dacihi...he doesn’t believe this but he enjoys how frustrated Keishin looked about the whole thing.

Onikobe (Divination): NOT ALLOWED TO BET ANYMORE! Suga/Daichi, adamant about this, others are still pissed because they think he has an edge because of the whole divination thing (which he does, he’s right 4 out of 5 times which is incredibly impressive for divination...if you’re not Akaashi)

Naoi (History of Magic): Suga/Oikawa but they can’t admit it from pressure from Suga’s family and Daichi’s knowingly being a frontman for them...this is entirely Suga and Oikawa’s fault because they got really bored in this class one time and made it up in notes they were passing back and forth (Suga’s Muggle Studies class happened to be reading Romeo and Juliet at the time). The notes got intercepted by Naoi...they tried to explain later it was a joke and he didn’t believe them (but he also felt so sympathetic for their “tragic love” that he let them out of detention)

Mizoguchi (Astronomy): Oikawa/Iwaizumi--the rest of the teachers think he’s crazy.

Oomizu (Runes): Oikawa/Kuroo and Suga/Daichi. To be fair, he did have Oikawa and Kuroo in the height of their school grades bet in their fifth year where Suga was highkey pretending he didn’t know them while they were in classes together because they were both insane

Yamiji (Arithmancy): Suga/Daichi/Oikawa because mathematically it means he’s at least slightly right however it turns out.

Anabara (Muggle Studies): Daichi/Suga, he has seen them flirt in his class, he knows things he already wishes he didn’t so he’d at least like some money out of this whole betting pool thing.

Keishin Ukai (Charms): Thinks the pool is dumb and unprofessional and is so dang annoyed that his old man grandfather and Nekomata are in on it! Ugh, he should’ve taken that job at Mahoutokoro School of Magic, he swears!

Ikkei Ukai (Headmaster): Suga/Daichi/Oikawa...because it will annoy the shit out of Keishin.

Takeda (Transfiguration): oh, um, he just wants all of them to be happy :)

Bonus: Matsu and Makki (Keishin Ukai: Why are they even in this pool?! They’re students! Takeda: *sigh* they blackmailed Takinoue to let them in. Ukai: THEY WHAT?!): Are so glad they have the privilege of getting in on this pool. See, what actually happened is that Oikawa was in love with Suga meanwhile Daichi had been pining after Suga for years. Then, the year that Daichi was going to ask him out, a giant monster attacked the school trying to defend Suga from romantic advances, Suga tried to protect his friends but then Oikawa got petrified trying to save him (they sell this as a big dramatic act of love), then the monster kidnapped Daichi and hid him deep within the walls so, Suga using Oikawa’s last piece of advice before he died (er, we mean was petrified) found and defeated the monster and singlehandedly saved Daichi before they had a very passionate and romantic moment in a hidden chamber made by the founder Slytherin himself. By the time Oikawa woke up, he realized his beloved had moved on and decided he only wanted to see him happy. And that’s totally and completely the real epic tale of Suga/Daichi/Oikawa, trust us, we’d know!

*Matsu and Makki have been kicked out of the betting pool with prejudice*

On a related note, Suga occasionally talks in his sleep and Matsu and Makki are very good at putting together the pieces.

[halothenthehorns]

TLTNL- THE LION AND THE SERPENT

Lily wished she had a whistle herself to get the boys attention sometimes, but finally she'd wrangled them all around one table which did nothing to cease their desire to talk about that room.

She even engaged in a few of their more reasonable questions, like speculation of what would happen if more than one person asked for different things of the room for something at the same time. Harry and his friends were all asking for a similar request, but would the room have two doors appear, combine the two requests as it did for the trio, or remain empty until one more solid thing was asked of. While no one had an actual answer for any of this, it was still fun to speculate. When the meal was over Lily happily nursed baby Harry and laid him down for a proper nap, and when she finally settled down to continue it took the boys a moment to realize she was reading without their even paying attention. It took James pleading with her to start over so they could all hear.

Harry felt as though he were carrying some kind of talisman inside his chest over the following two weeks.

"A worthy secret then," Sirius grinned for his old memories of feeling the same.

A secret that kept him smiling through Umbridge's useless lessons as he easily met her bulging eyes.

"A miracle I'm not sure I could share," Remus crinkled his nose.

The DA's magical ability only grew from their first meeting, Harry often reflecting on their progress while pretending to read the assigned text for his Defence class.

Lily was watching Harry preen with more pride than she'd yet seen, and it was for others accomplishments. She'd loved her son the moment he was born, and seeing him glow with pride at seeing others accomplishments after just a little bit of help from himself truly made her realize he may have found his own calling in this field.

  It became nearly impossible for their group to have a fixed schedule what with accompanying three separate Quidditch team practices and the paralleling weather, but this Harry supposed as a good thing. If anyone was watching them, it would be impossible to pin down a non existent schedule for their meetings.

"Indeed, unpredictability is always better," Sirius agreed enthusiastically.

Hermione even came up with a better method of communicating when these would occur by handing out fake Galleons at the end of their third meeting, causing Ron some excitement at first.

"Did he think she'd come into inheritance and was being generous, donating to a worthy cause?" James chuckled.

Lily shushed him and kept going curiously how a coin helped with this.

Hermione explained to the whole group about the numbers around the edge, normally just a serial number, but she'd designed them to all be exactly the same. When Harry changed his numbers, that would be the corresponding date of the next meeting, and the Protean charm she'd placed on them would make all of them change with his.

Lily finished with utter exasperation at herself for still being so impressed with Hermione. Doing a sixth year potion in her second year had been impressive enough, now Hermione was showing how advanced she was in Charms as well, was there any subject, anything she couldn't do without putting her mind to it?

The Marauders were just as impressed. They'd never thought they'd find anything more impressive than fifth years being able to pull off becoming animagus', but it was clear enough to them Hermione would have already been able to do this as well if she'd set her mind to it, and that meant far more to them than any grade she'd ever get.

Hermione was met with stunned silence from the DA, Terry Boot from Ravenclaw demanding how she could perform a Protean Charm, that was NEWT level magic, how come she wasn't in his house.

"We've all been wondering that since her first year," Remus rolled his eye.

"I suppose she asked the hat for Gryffindor, or Ravenclaw and got Gryffindor anyways?" Harry recalled a previous conversation about how the Marauders guessed people got put into houses.

"That would be our guess," Sirius agreed. "As far as I can tell, even after everything we've seen of her, she still seems to value intelligence over, well everything."

Harry said back in defense of his friend, "After the rules she's broken? The laws? I know Hermione puts much more value into our friendship than her grades ever could."

"That's not just a Gryffindor trait though, Ravenclaw's have strong bonds of friendship as well," Remus shrugged. "It's what the hat perceives as the way you'd learn best, and being brave enough to put up your opinion put her in with her lot."

James and Sirius exchanged an amused look but stopped arguing the point. Lily had kept her mouth shut because she'd never liked the idea of sorting at all. One particular Gryffindor coming to mind who most anyone would have called a Slytherin if they knew what he'd done, Lockhart was a blithering idiot, Zacharias Smith had already proven to be an arrogant little thing from the humble house, and her favorite teacher in school had been all the qualities Slytherin house prided itself on without turning into a Death Eater. She would never think of anyone as something just because of what house they were in.

Hermione agreed the Sorting Hat had seriously considered putting her into Ravenclaw,

"Why would she call me the Sorting Hat?" Sirius asked while ducking on instinct, though Remus only rolled his eyes that time.

but obviously she'd been put in Gryffindor instead. Then she kept focus, asking if everyone agreed on using the coins. There was no argument, and as they each took one and Harry examined his own, he told Hermione these reminded him of the Death Eater's marks, how Voldemort touched one and they all reacted.

"Maybe the Order should invest in something like this," James said as he thought it through. "These really can come in handy, so long as you don't lose them."

"Or accidentally sell them," Sirius chuckled.

"How do you know about meetings now?" Harry asked.

"Fawkes appears to us when we're alone with a note," Remus grinned. "How he always knows when to appear away from everyone I've only been able to guess at."

Hermione agreed she'd gotten the idea from that, but she'd seen this better than branding members.

"So much more deniability if you get caught with it," Lily said grimly.

Harry agreed he liked this better, only danger in these was a chance of spending them.

Ron said sullenly he wasn't worried about that, he didn't have another one to mix it up with.

They all winced hard for that line, wishing there was something they could say, knowing there wasn't.

DA meetings were put on hold two weeks before the first match as Angelina was demanding nightly practices. Tension between Gryffindor and Slytherin was always high, but was now turning into daily scuffles as well between the two houses. The teachers were trying to show they weren't taking sides, but Harry realized how much McGonagall cared about this game when she abstained from giving them homework in the week leading up to the match.

Sirius and James whooped with laughter at Harry's face as he got to partake in their old head of house's favor for her Quidditch team. Both of them were giddy with such excitement for finally getting another game they'd yet to complain about the fact they hadn't gotten this chapter.

When this announcement was met with stunned faces in class, she turned grim eyes to Harry and Ron and told them to use this extra time to train hard, she'd grown too accustomed to seeing the Cup in her office.

The other three joined in the laughter as well, all imagining how many times McGonagall had looked to that Cup and smirked.

Snape was no less obviously partisan;

"But that part's not unusual," James grumbled less harsh than normal because he was still grinning for his own head of house.

he had booked the Quidditch pitch for Slytherin practice so often that the Gryffindor's had difficulty getting on it to play.

"Wait, I thought you said the staff couldn't book the pitch for the team!" Harry yelped furiously.

"I, thought they couldn't," James's euphoria was instantly wiped clean in frustration. "At least, they used to not be able to, I can't imagine why Madam Hooch is letting him."

"I wouldn't even be that surprised if he was doing it around her noticing," Sirius grumbled in disgust.

He was also the worst in pretending no such fights ever took place, such as when Alicia Spinnet got put in the hospital wing because her hair was growing so thick and fast it was obscuring her eyes and mouth. Snape refused to punish the Slytherin who'd done it, despite the fourteen witnesses saying Bletchley had. He instead insisted the girl must have put a hair-thickening charm on herself and messed up.

Harry scowled in agitation that McGonagall hadn't been able to do anything either because the complaint had been set to Snape, though he didn't know why Alicia had done such a thing.

Lily saw red for a moment, hating this vile creature who continued to act like the very thing he'd hated as a child.

Harry still felt optimistic about their chances, as he'd never lost to Malfoy. Ron still wasn't up to Wood's old standards, but he performed very well when not under pressure. The problem turning out to be when he blundered once, he was far more likely to continue doing so.

"That is a really, really bad start," James muttered, bouncing in place as he tried to work on some advice in his head he'd offer Ron for that.

When he was on point though, Ron had shown off some spectacular saves, such as one memorable practice where he'd swung free from his broom and kicked the Quaffle so far away it went into the other team's hoop instead.

"Wow, sounds like Ron pulled off a Starfish and Stick," Sirius grinned for the talent.

The whole team had praised this, comparing it to the Irish International Keeper who'd performed this move. Fred and George had been so proud, they'd even seriously considered admitting Ron was related to them,

"I would never deny my relation to the Weasley's, it's one I'm actually proud of," Sirius grinned.

something they assured him they had been trying to deny for four years.

Lily tisked while the boys chuckled at the jab.

The closer the game approached though, the worse Ron continued to get. As Harry had been on the team for years now, he was well used to the buildup and resulting snide comments in the corridors, such as Pansy's whispered threat that Warrington was promising to knock Potter clear from his broom. Harry responded by laughing that Warrington's aim was so bad, he'd be more worried for the person next to him.

Harry grinned as it caused those around him to laugh as well, nothing pleased him more than watching them laugh, at least when he was in on the joke.

Ron however had yet to respond in kind, instead turning green at every insult, or else shaking so bad he'd likely drop whatever he was holding.

"And here I thought Ron always wanted attention," Remus sighed.

"Clearly not this kind," Sirius rolled his eyes.

"Well then this is a good lesson for him to learn, you don't just get one kind of attention," James said a little sourly.

The morning of the match dawned bright and cold.

James and Sirius groaned in unison they'd missed out on a Quidditch chapter, but both kept their mouths silent from complaint, for now.

Harry awoke to find Ron in bed, knees pressed to his chest, his eyes gazing at nothing. Harry insisted he'd loosen up as soon as he ate some breakfast.

"Food does seem to make him feel better usually," Remus agreed.

The Great Hall seemed noisier than usual with so many talking excitedly about one thing. As they passed the Slytherin table, they all jeered as usual, but many of them waved at Ron while pointing at tiny little silver crown badges they were wearing and then laughing.

"More scare tactics," James scoffed.

Harry could tell there was something written on the badges, but was walking too fast to get Ron away from them to read what.

"Maybe Umbridge approved some new club," Lily said without much care, though she'd already rather hear about that than spend another chapter on a game where her son was likely to be injured, so she supposed she should enjoy the boredom while it lasted.

They received a much more welcoming arrival by fellow Gryffindor's, but if possible Ron found the cheer more depressing as he sank into his seat as if it were his last meal.

"And all he's going to get is cereal, what a disappointment," Sirius chuckled.

Whispering hoarsely to Harry he'd been mental to think he could do this.

"He's being too hard on himself, the first game is always the hardest," James said with honest sympathy this time.

Harry said he'd be great, it was normal to be nervous, and reminded him of his brilliant save even Fred and George had admired.

"The highest praise that can be offered," Sirius grinned.

Ron turned miserable eyes on his best mate as he admitted that had been an accident, he'd almost fallen off and hadn't even realized the Quaffle had been coming towards him.

Remus couldn't help snorting in surprise even while the other three boys huffed in disappointment, James and Sirius at least thinking they never would have admitted that and instead Ron should have learned how he'd done that and practiced more.

Harry had to scramble a moment to recover from shock before saying a few more accidents like that and the game was made.

Remus and Lily started giggling this time while the old players chose to ignore them.

Ginny and Hermione arrived as Harry finished his own bowl of cereal, Ron watching the dregs as if seriously considering drowning himself in them.

"I've never considered drowning myself in milk," Sirius said with his head cocked to the side, this time ignoring altogether as Remus smacked him upside the head as he continued, "but that one's original at least."

They asked how he was doing, and when he didn't answer, Harry assured he was just nervous. Hermione said that was normal, she was always anxious before exams.

"Because bringing up homework right now is really the way to make him feel better," James scoffed.

They were called from behind, and turned to see Luna smiling at them with a peculiar item on her head, a life size lion's head hat.

Lily paused for a moment to take that one in while Sirius immediately clapped his hand to his forehead and cried, "how could I never have thought of that?!"

"Because you were on the team with me," James was grinning even as he rolled his eyes at Sirius, "why would you ever think to make something like that?"

"Because it's brilliant!" Sirius' grin kept stretching wider by the second the more he thought about this, before swatting Remus on the arm and demanding, "Moony, why didn't you ever think of this?!"

"I apologize," Remus said, and Harry couldn't tell how much sarcasm was in that.

She gestured to the hat as if they'd missed it while informing them she was supporting Gryffindor for this match.

"You think she has one for Ravenclaw?" James chuckled.

"I think Harry would have noticed before now if he'd ever played against Ravenclaw and a student was wearing an eagle on their head," Lily smiled.

She'd even magicked it to roar like a lion, demonstrating as much when she tapped her wand against it and the whole hall jumped from the noise.*

Sirius gave an exaggerated yawn at the idea as he watched Lily's cat lick itself, he'd never been afraid of a cat in his life. The lion head had been a cool idea to support his team, but the sound effect would have just made him laugh.

Luna asked if they liked it.

"Yes," Remus agreed at once. "I'm curious what she made it out of."

"I'm sorry I didn't ask," Harry said honestly.

Then continued on saying she'd wanted to recreate a serpent tail being eaten to represent Slytherin, but she hadn't the time.

"Now there's an excellent use of crafts!" James beamed, "I think I finally see why some kids wanted an art class."

"Well when Harry beats Slytherin and they have a slight chance at a rematch, Luna can put it on in the meantime," Sirius chuckled, both boys missing the pained look Harry got for imagining himself in the next game...

Then she gave Ron a good luck wave as she walked off.

The three Chasers came over to collect the boys, but Harry assured they'd be down soon, he still wanted Ron to have some breakfast.

"Remember your first match and how you were too nervous to eat," Lily reminded him, "I don't think it's going to work dear."

"Well we finally found the way to make Ron not want food," Remus muttered to Sirius.

After ten more minutes though, it was clear Ron wasn't having it, so Harry moved to get him out of the Great Hall. Hermione gave him a hurried whisper before he left not to let Ron see those Slytherin badges.

"Why?" All five muttered to themselves, trying to figure out what that had to do with anything.

Then she wished both boys good luck, before standing on tiptoe and giving Ron a kiss on the cheek. Ron now looked more bewildered than ever as he touched the place as they left the Great Hall.

"Oh, so she didn't kiss you on the cheek as well?" Sirius switched to snickering about this now.

"Here's hoping that puts Ron in a better mood," Remus said cheerfully.

"Or it might just distract him," James scolded much to his friends amusement, now remembering how he'd reacted when Lily kissed him before his last game.

He was now so distracted Harry had the chance to read a badge as he passed the table even while getting Ron outside quickly as possible, and saw the tiny words Weasley is our King.

"I'm confused," Sirius said slowly, knowing he was supposed to be angry but not sure at what yet.

Lily however kept reading while beaming, and it took the boys a minute to guess what she thought those were. Lily was probably hoping some of the Slytherin's were finally starting to show some equal support for both houses, and none of them were going to be the one to burst her bubble, though they were all thinking if it was anything like that Hermione wouldn't have told Harry not to let Ron see them. Lily was probably just discounting what Hermione thought they were though like she was to them.

Harry at once knew they weren't anything good as he led Ron outside. The frost covered grass crunched under their feet, the weak sun above making all visible without being cumbersome, and there was no wind.

"Sounds like perfect conditions," James said wistfully, he really was looking forward to a game soon that he could play in again.

Even when Harry pointed all these things out, Ron still seemed more distracted than anything, and this kept up even as they went into the locker rooms to change and Ron tried to put his uniform on backwards for several minutes before Alicia took pity on him.

"I don't see why they couldn't have been left like that," Remus couldn't help but poke fun just as he always did to his friends when they needed it whether Ron was here or not.

The crowd outside was already thundering into the stadiums as Angelina began telling them she'd only just gotten the final line-up for the Slytherin team.

"Typical of any team to hand that over last minute," James rolled his eyes.

Last year's Beaters had graduated, but the two new guys didn't look much different than the old gorillas, named Crabbe and Goyle.

"Wow, wondering if Malfoy got them the latest Nimbus models again to let his friends on the team," Sirius scoffed.

Harry said he knew them well enough, and they were of the same mold as the old dunces.

Angelina nodded, and then called them all to line up to head outside, wishing them all one last good luck.

"It sounds like they're going to need it," Remus couldn't help mutter.

A roar of noise greeted them from the cheering and booing of both sides, also what sounded oddly like singing.

James was starting to get a nervous feeling about that song the more it was mentioned, if it had anything to do with the Slytherin's he just couldn't hold out hope it would be a good thing.

The Slytherin's were lined up and waiting, Malfoy at once catching sight of Ron and tapping his badge while smirking.

Lily sighed deeply, any hope for her idea gone already if Malfoy was wearing one. Now she read on grimly, somehow looking forward to getting through this less every line.

Hooch instructed both captains to shake hands, and if Montague's tense frame was any indication, he was trying to crush Angelina's fingers, who never winced.

"Tough girl, it's not hard to see why Fred likes her," Sirius grinned. "Hey Harry, did her and Fred keep together after the Yule Ball?"

"I never asked them," Harry shrugged, "but I had seen George hanging around with Lee once or twice without Fred around, so maybe."

The fourteen players mounted their brooms, and the game began. Harry and Malfoy at once streaking to opposite ends of the field to find the lone gold snitch.

"Is he not going to try following you around with lame insults anymore?" James chuckled.

Commentation at once began with Johnson with the Quaffle,

"Honestly Lily, how can you read that sounding so bored," Sirius groaned as she read out for the commentator as if reading the morning paper.

Lily simply shrugged, but Remus suddenly wished Sirius hadn't said anything, as Lily continued if possible in an even more flat voice, much to both his friends annoyance.

he'd been saying for years how good she was and she should go out with him-

"Maybe I was wrong about Angelina and Fred though," Harry said good naturedly.

"Or the friends messing with one of the twins," Sirius brushed off, still glaring at Lily more every second as she tried to make her voice as monotone as possible.

but McGonagall finally cut in on Jordan and told him to focus. Lee agreed at once and went back to more details on the game, the Quaffle passing between Montague, then hit with a Bludger by a Weasley twin, then to Katie, Alicia and she was off for the Slytherin post-

"Alright, that's it," James made a lunge for the book, which Lily neatly dodged and kept the book close to her chest, now full blown grinning at her husband.

"What, I'm not allowed to have a bit of fun?"

"This is the opposite of fun woman!" Sirius groaned. "I've never heard someone be so dull about a sport in my life."

Lily's giggling increased while James kept muttering at her side and eyeing the book with longing, he'd clearly  been out of practice to long, but when she kept going it was clearly getting harder by the moment to hold a blank face as her own amusement kept rising.

Harry was listening intently to Lee's commentary as he continued his own search, only hearing about Alicia avoiding a Bludger and Warrington, but pausing in confusion when he heard singing.

While Harry had been enjoying the show, both his mum messing with the two and his old Quidditch memories, he could already feel a stirring of unease for whatever was fixing to come. Lily clearly felt it as well as she couldn't quite keep up a bored tone anymore, wondering at who could be singing during the game.

Lee paused so that the lyrics could ring out, insert Slytherin version of Weasley is our King.

Lily had blanched in shock upon the first line, but she'd managed to stutter the whole thing out in the thick, heavy silence before coming to a screeching halt when she'd finally run out of insults.

"I-that is the lowest-" Remus looked too disgusted for words at what they were doing to Ron.

"Wow, I have seen a lot of backhanded things to mess with a player, but never a song dedicated to them," James's face was scrunched up with derision even as a very tiny part of him vaguely admired the dedication that went into something so elaborate.

"Really makes you wonder what Malfoy does with the rest of his free time, sings ballads to Hermione's parents, or poems to Harry's fame." Sirius snapped, his face twisted with dislike as he knew he'd have cursed Malfoy out of the air if he'd been there.

There was no longer any fun in Lily continuing with much less enthusiasm than anyone else, they all would have felt the same forcing themselves to read this bit no matter their love of the sport.

The moment Lee had realized what was being sung he'd tried to launch back into even louder and more detailed comments, but Alicia had passed to Angelina, who'd missed, making the ball Slytherin's as the song erupted again louder than ever.

James was practically vibrating in place, wanting to snap on a burst of speed and deck Malfoy where he flew, wanting to say something that would make Ron put that stupid song out of his head, but both were lost to him.

Warrington was heading back up the pitch with the Quaffle, finally putting a test to the new Keeper blood Ron Weasley, brother to Beaters Fred and George.

"The twins friend is doing a terrible job of helping them deny relation," Remus randomly muttered as anything else to think about, fighting back the impulse to press his hands to his ears in worry for this to come.

Even as Lee cheered on Ron, his wild dive saved nothing, it was ten zero to Slytherin.

All five of them cursed in sync for this misfortune, Lily denying doing any such thing by reading on loudly so as not to let the boys miserate for too long.

The singing burst through even louder, more people seeming to join in with every rendition.

"That can not be allowed!" Harry finally burst with frustration. "Can you put a whole house in detention! McGonagall, or someone shouldn't be letting them say that about him!"

The others remained completely silent with frustration, no one wanted to be the one to tell Harry what he already knew, there was nothing that could be done, it would be impossible to halt the whole game and kick those singing out of the stands.

Gryffindor continued the game with the ball in hand, as Harry continued more desperately now for the search of the Snitch, the chorus still thundering through the stadium.

Lily was forcing herself to keep reading this in a flat rage now, what she wouldn't give to put silencing charms on the lot of them for ever turning someone's life into such a cruel joke of a song.

The pattern continued as the ball continued passing hands, even out of the immediate action the song still being belted in the background.

Remus was twitching with unease in the tense room, wishing he could go back to laughing along with his friends about something as fun as a Quidditch game, why couldn't they ever go one of these without something terrible happening every time.

Harry refused to watch the actual action as he passed by the Slytherin Keeper, who was singing along with the lyrics.

"I'm going to imagine for a moment they skipped on some practices to all memorize this rubbish," James hissed under his breath.

Soon enough though, Ron was once again at bat, and the groan from his side of the crowd below was all Harry needed as answer. Still, twenty-nil was nothing, a few goals and they'd be back on even.

Sirius gave Harry an absent pat on the shoulder, absolutely agreeing with him this could all turn around any moment. The score wouldn't even feel as bad as it did if that wretched song would quit being passed around, but though Lily looked like she was considering skipping any more lines of it, that wasn't making it vanish.

After two more goals got through though, Harry really felt the beginnings of panic. He needed to finish the game quickly, and then no one would remember the rest of this mess. Angelina gave the Gryffindor's below something to cheer on soon, making the score forty-ten to Slytherin. Harry was ducking a Bludger sent his way

"Hooch didn't call that?" James snapped. "Could have used that penalty, Harry wasn't showing any signs of having seen the Snitch!"

"That's such an arguable call hardly anyone goes for it," Remus disagreed, James opening his mouth to argue the point but Lily ignored them both.

and keeping an eye on Malfoy as the game continued around them with those lines still being shouted.

Finally Harry saw the Snitch at the bottom of the Slytherin's goal posts, he dived, and in seconds Malfoy was on his tail, the two neck in neck,

Had Lily's joke at the start of this game not been interrupted she still wouldn't have had it in her to mime carelessness now, even with that horrid song echoing in the back of her mind she was edging in her seat with excitement.

It was over in one breathless swipe, Harry's fingers encasing the struggling, minute ball as Malfoy's fingers scrabbled at the back of his hand, and Harry stopped short to wave to the roaring approval of the Gryffindor crowd.

"YES!"

The echoing cheer of excitement could have woken neighbors. This was exactly what they needed to shove in those stupid Slytherin faces just how useless they were, how some hateful song wouldn't be enough to stop such a magnificent team!

Harry glowed for a moment in their praise, but the smile never quite reached his eyes as he watched them bounce with excitement for him. He wasn't sure he wanted to understand this feeling of dread, of something heavy just waiting to pounce on him for this win. Was it to do with Ron? Surely no one was really going to hold that against him, it was his first game after all...

WHAM.

Harry felt a Bludger punch the small of his back, flinging him off his broom.

Lily jerked in surprise as she read that, whatever victory she'd been holding before in that small moment blown away as effectively as a cannonball. The game was over, and Lily was hoping Ron got his revenge by clocking whichever Beater that was for pulling that stunt.

Harry was still only five feet off the ground, so the tumble forward merely winded him. Hooch at once flew up to begin shouting at the Slytherin Beater while Angelina landed near him, asking if he was alright.

Harry said of course he was while getting to his feet.**

"Oh yes, just a solid metal ball slamming into your spine, walk it off," Lily grumbled under her breath as she eyed her child, then turned sharp eyes on her husband who looked no more pleased but certainly not worried about injury.

Angelina explained it was Crabbe who'd done it. Then she began cheering they'd won!

A derisive snort from behind showed that Malfoy had not landed far away, now furiously telling Harry it was a miracle he'd saved Weasley's neck, but of course he'd be rubbish, he was born in a bin, then asked Harry if he liked the lyrics, he'd done them himself.

"He's wasting his talents as a slimeball," Sirius snarled, "he needs to pass on already and become a poltergeist."

"So long as he doesn't haunt Hogwarts," James agreed.

Harry refused to answer, turning away as the rest of the team landed around him except Ron, who landed over by his goals and was walking towards the changing room alone.

"I hope you go after him Harry," Lily couldn't help but urge, "you're only giving Malfoy what he wants by hanging back and listening to him."

Harry didn't answer, his face growing tighter by the minute as that feeling of anger continued to pound through him.

Malfoy kept going, pretending he had an audience as he explained he'd wanted to add some more in about being fat and ugly, for the Weasley's mother of course,

Harry's eyes flashed, he tensed and would have shot a curse at nothing if Sirius hadn't laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and whispered a calm reminder there was nothing for it now. It didn't make anyone feel any better, even though some of them held a dislike for Molly now they could never condone saying such a thing about her.

as well as loser for his father.

Lily was trying to read this quickly, so as to get the feel of sandpaper off her tongue from pure frustration. It never angered her any less when Malfoy continued using the same insults.

Fred and George tensed as they watched Malfoy with disgust, but even as Malfoy began backing away he was still talking about why this wouldn't bother Potter of course, the stank of the blood-traitors house must be similar to the Muggles who'd dragged him up.

No one ever appreciated any reminder of the Dursley's, but putting them in any kind of comparison which was the safe house of the Burrow like that truly was the most insulting thing they'd yet heard.

Harry grabbed hold of George to stop him doing anything, while the three Chasers were doing the same to Fred.

"I don't know why they're bothering," Sirius articulated through gritted teeth, "Malfoy's gone past where a detention would be worth it."

Malfoy clearly didn't care as he kept going, saying Potter must remember the stench from his own mother's house, she'd been even worse off being a-

James moved so fast Lily didn't realize the book had been wrenched away until she was staring at her empty hands, a slight burn in her palms from how tight she'd been holding the cover the only imprint of it. Maybe he'd just been going easy on her before then.

 She turned to snap at him, but he was too busy jabbing his wand at the offending page. "James!" She protested, trying to push her hand in the way to stop him before he did permanent damage.

"I am sick of that little scumbag insulting everyone, especially you," he said in a scary calm voice.

"Well doing whatever you're trying to do to that won't fix anything," she snapped as she pulled it back to her.

He gave in with a hateful scowl still in place, and Lily turned back to see the spell he'd managed to put in place, where Malfoy's name had been replaced with, well a colorful swear word Lily wasn't going to be saying. She fixed it and then kept going while James grumbled that hadn't been nearly enough payback.

Harry had no memory of releasing George, the two running side by side on their path to Malfoy, nor the shouts from his fellow teammates telling them to stop. All he knew was the fist drawn back, punching at Malfoy as hard as he could.

Lily stopped for a moment to look at her son, nibbling softly on her lip, but not a word could she find to speak against this. She couldn't claim to be much better if someone had been speaking of her mother.

The two only stopped when they fall off after the shout of the Impedimenta curse.

"I don't see why that was a reason to stop," Remus said quietly, "now's the time to go for the wand when the Muggle way stops working."

Sirius nodded in absolute agreement, his hand had long since been on his wand, just aching for something to curse.

Madam Hooch was in a towering temper above them, her wand out meaning she'd performed the jinx. Malfoy was still curled up in the grass, whimpering and nose bleeding.

"Clearly you didn't bash it into his skull, so I don't know what he's crying about," James snarled.

Hooch demanded the two go to McGonagall's office at once. They stormed off, Fred still being pinned beneath the Chasers and immune to anything else around them. It was only when they got to the office door did Harry start to feel something, and he glanced at his hand in surprise to see the one he'd been punching Malfoy with had still been holding the Snitch.

James struggled for a moment, but the compulsion to share his life with his son won out after his anger as he burst into speech, "I convinced our Seeker, Shilling, to keep the Snitch after every match and she passed it along to me. One of my favorite past times when I was bored was to pull it out and keep my reflexes up. Even I never thought of that though!"

"One of your very many annoying habits," Lily sniffed, her old angry bleeding tone giving James even more flashbacks. "You looked like such a show off."

"I was showing off," James agreed without remorse.

Harry couldn't marshal up much of a smile for the two, there was something about this day that promised to get even worse for him, and he had a feeling it wasn't about detention. There was also something else, a smaller memory that didn't align with this day, but promised he somehow had a first hand account of knowing those things his parents had just said, but that was ridiculous of course, how could he have known that?

They only stood there for a second when McGonagall came marching into view wearing a red and gold scarf, which she at once tore off as she pointed into the room looking livid.

"Damn, and I always loved it when she showed our house colors," Sirius winced.

"We're past flattery to make this better Padfoot," Remus rolled his eyes.

"Never stopped me from trying," Sirius shrugged.

She threw the scarf to the ground as she rounded the desk and on them.

"Now that was just uncalled for violence," James grumbled.

She demanded an explanation, and Harry quickly said they'd been provoked, which McGonagall did not find excusable as she pounded her fist on the desk, knocking over her tray of Ginger Newts.

"I think she needs to have one of her own biscuits and breathe for a moment," Lily said grimly, knowing Harry would get a chance to explain, but also knowing as well as anyone it wouldn't get him out of trouble no matter how much Malfoy had deserved it.

She snapped of course he had, he'd just lost, but nothing he could have said should have justified the two-

George cut in to say the insults, but McGonagall still said they should have gone to Hooch instead of displaying Muggle dueling.

"A very educational performance with splendid end results, really they should be getting thanks at least from Burbag," Sirius said flatly.

"There's that extra week we always got," Remus muttered.

Nothing further could be said before a hem, hem, entered the room.

"No!" Lily groaned as she gazed at that stupid little noise. "No, no, no-"

"Oh Lily, please tell me you're doing a terrible impression of a joke," James groaned into his fingers, he couldn't even look to her face for confirmation.

"What on earth is that roadkill doing there!" Sirius all but exploded. "She's nothing to do with any of this!"

Harry's horrible impression was growing more sickly by the moment. Somehow, this was all about to get terribly worse.

Harry and George turned in surprise to see Umbridge in the doorway wearing a green cloak, only further enhancing her resemblance to a toad as her pudgy eyes gleamed with a sickly ominous way Harry had come to associate with imminent misery.

"A face only my mother would love," Sirius groaned, digging his heels into his eyes so that he wouldn't have to keep watching Lily's face turn red from frustration of having to read about this woman in the same vicinity as her son again.

Umbridge offered McGonagall help in a poisonously sweet voice.

"You can help yourself off the astronomy tower," Remus snapped.

McGonagall actually grew more furious in the face of this, asking what help.

Umbridge insisted she'd thought McGonagall would be grateful for a little extra authority.

"I'd be more grateful if you dove headfirst into the black lake, meet the local population," Sirius promised.

Harry would not have been surprised to see sparks fly from Professor McGonagall's nostrils.

"Ah the twisted irony, Umbridge is actually doing more good than harm arriving then, because now McGonagall might go slightly easier on you in front of her," Lily sighed.

McGonagall snapped she'd thought wrong, trying to turn back to the two boys and giving them a week of detentions, but Umbridge would not be so easily deterred as she again made the hem, hem noise.

McGonagall closed her eyes as if praying for patience before slowly looking back to Umbridge.

"Merlin himself couldn't have offered any support for this except some toad-be-gone," James snipped.

Umbridge insisted she thought they deserved more than a detention for this display.

Harry was starting to twitch uncontrollably in his seat with unease, fighting the urge to either bury himself under the couch from a reaction he could sense coming, or tear the cushions in half from his own mounting anger. It helped nothing his family might just join in with McGonagall breathing fire soon, they all knew what Umbridge meant about her 'detentions.'

McGonagall's eyes flashed with outrage as she snapped that as these two were in her house, it was only her decision that mattered.

Umbridge oh so politely corrected that her decision did matter more while reaching for something.

"No..." Remus trailed off, too appalled to manage anything else in fear of where this was headed.

She pulled out something Cornelius had sent her, before correcting herself the Minister of course,

Lily only absently noted the lack and then use of the title as Umbridge's own self-importance in thinking she could be so informal, she was far more keyed into the new level of horror of where this could be going.

and unfurled a paper declaring it as Educational Decree Number Twenty-five-

though McGonagall interrupted in exasperation not another one!

"My sentiments exactly," James snarled.

Umbridge looked to her in surprise, saying McGonagall had given her the inspiration for this one as she'd overstepped and had Dumbledore intervene about putting the Gryffindor team back in play. Umbridge couldn't have that.

"No good deed goes unpunished," Remus said faintly, his two friends going bone white as they suddenly feared why this was being brought up again. Surely, no it wasn't possible, Umbridge couldn't have found a way to force the team to disband again, could she?!

Umbridge had contacted the Minister after this of course, the High Inquisitor couldn't be superseded like that or she'd have no more power than a common teacher.

"You shouldn't have any more authority than a sack of dung!" Lily screeched. She didn't want to keep going, was almost tempted to hand the book back over to James just so she wouldn't have to be the one to find out what this monster was going to do to her son next.

Then she went back to reading the amendment, that the High Inquisitor would henceforth have supreme authority over all punishments in school.

Lily had found it hard to believe the audacity of those first few amendments, and they somehow got worse every single time. This woman was creating these as she went along, and no one was stopping her!

She folded it back and put it away, before turning to the two boys and decided a life long ban on Quidditch for these two seemed sufficient enough punishment.

Harry's mind went blank. He heard shouting, he saw something get tossed across the room, but it was impossible to understand details as he struggled to wrap his mind around what he'd just heard.

Lily watched as the book thunked onto the mantel above the fireplace without regret, her fingers still twitching to throw something much bigger. She wasn't even a fan of her son being on the team and that was too far! She only held herself back from saying this by watching her husband work himself into a rampage with the only background thought being she should find a way to record this moment, otherwise there would be no record of Umbridge left when James was threw with her.

"-youngest Seeker in a century, she can't do that to him!"

Then again, what did they need a record of her for except an example of a transfiguration spell gone terribly wrong.

Sirius was too busy running scenarios in his head about something far too violent to be put into words, he needed action to get this one out of his system. Remus couldn't get his mind to act much better, as affronted as his friends and more than willing to enact whatever revenge they came up with.

Lily watched the lot of them try to find some way to work off their temper without destroying the house in vain, she really couldn't see a way to call their attention back even if she'd wanted to. So it was to her surprise when James finally found something resembling his normal voice and forced himself not to shout at his wife, "Lily would you keep going please. I'd like to get to the end of this book and find out how she's leaving this school." Then he trailed off into more hateful mutters about how that wasn't going to happen fast enough, and he couldn't believe his son was missing this sport for a whole year until that walking wart left.

"If it isn't Remus tearing her head off to replace her than it's not going to be as satisfactory," Sirius said grimly.

Lily silently agreed as she summoned the book back and pressed on for more horror.

Harry went numb in shock as he gazed at Umbridge telling herself this was for the best, terrible tempers the both of them, and for good measure Fred Weasley should be taken off as well as surely he'd have joined in the malay if he hadn't been restrained. She also wanted their brooms in her office, to make sure her ban was being enforced.

"She's gone from crossing the line into a whole new abyss!" Sirius howled in frustration. "She's, that's not, there's no-"

"She can't do that," Lily said in opposition. Quietly, a dangerous predator about to strike. "That's his private property, it's not against school rules to have."

"Well don't tell her that, or she'll ban brooms from the school next," Remus threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

Then she addressed McGonagall that she was not being unreasonable,

"You are something that I have only called one person, and you deserve the term far more than them," Remus growled.

she would allow the other members to continue playing, while McGonagall gazed at her as if carved from ice.

"I need McGonagall to understand that her life purpose now needs to be revenge for this," James pleaded with the universe. "Someone in that castle must understand this!"

"I'm worried there will be someone who does," Remus suddenly said with a touch of worry, looking to a still fuming Sirius. If he heard about Umbridge doing this, he may come up to the school and give her what he'd promised Harry Prongs and Padfoot would do in their own time.

With a look of satisfaction, Umbridge left the horrified room with silence in her wake.

Angelina was beside herself with anger when she heard there were no more Beaters or a Seeker on her team. Harry looked around the rest of the morose common room, it was as if they hadn't won at all.

"This woman is the physical embodiment of a mood killer," Lily groaned.

"I honestly believe she's a demon sent from hell at this point," Remus agreed.

Angelina was the only one with energy, shouting about the injustice of this. Fred didn't even deserve it, he hadn't done anything!

Fred snapped back in anger that was only because he was being held back from punching that scumbag to a pulp.

"Hey, the twins," Sirius suddenly snapped his fingers, giving Remus a pleased enough smirk. "Stop your worrying about me Moony, I can guarantee the twins won't be taking this one lying down."

Remus nodded grudgingly. It didn't make anyone's anger disappear by one level, but it did ease the misery of watching Harry's face as he relieved this moment.

Harry could only gaze out the dark window where snow was falling again. The Snitch had made its way back to the common room with him and was now flitting about chairs with Crookshanks chasing it.

James sighed as he imagined the old grin he could put on people's faces as he did this same thing nights in a row, of the party that should be going on, of simpler and fun times in his school, was it truly impossible for his son to enjoy that?

Angelina finally slumped off to bed, wishing this was all a bad dream and they hadn't even played yet.

"I don't ever want to relive this day, considering I'm struggling to come up with a worse outcome than this," Sirius huffed.

Remus gave a commiserating nod of agreement, Lily frowning pityingly at all of the boys in the room, but even she couldn't imagine how this could have gone a better way, the end results seemed inevitable by this point.

The common room slowly dispersed as well, only Harry and Hermione lingering because Ron had yet to make an appearance. When he finally did come edging in, he was covered in snow and just as pale as it.

Hermione quickly ushered him to the fireplace, asking where he'd been.

Ron just said on a walk, then told Harry he was going to resign first thing in the morning.

Lily truly pitied him, but couldn't help wondering if that wasn't for the best. Just because you were good at something didn't mean you could do it in front of a crowd, and that's clearly where Ron was sitting. She'd hate to see him ever feel so low again.

James absolutely disagreed, setting his shoulders and wishing he could drag Ron onto the pitch right now, already an idea forming in his head of how he'd help him to work through this. First he'd put one person in the stands until Ron could easily ignore that no matter what was said, and then keep adding people until Ron could block them all out. He didn't care how long it took, he'd find a way so that Ron would never let someone get the better of him like this. There was no such thing as quitting with dignity as far as he was concerned.

Harry snapped at him if he did that then there'd only be three players left. Ron looked at him in confusion,

"He hadn't heard of this!?" Remus said in surprise.

"I was wondering why he didn't question why the common room wasn't in party mode," Sirius grumbled, "clearly he hasn't heard much of anything."

before Hermione explained what had happened.

Ron looked even more anguished as he said this was all his fault.

"Oh it's nothing of the sort," Lily snapped, wondering if Hermione would whack Ron upside the head for his thinking something so stupid.

Harry said it was nothing of the sort, while Ron returned if he hadn't been so bad at Quidditch,

"Malfoy would have caused all this no matter how Ron played," Sirius snapped.

the two going back and forth like this until Harry burst loudest of all for Ron to stop blaming himself for everything.

Remus winced for Ron, sympathizing with him more than anyone else as he could really see why Ron did. People telling you you were something long enough tended to leave a mark.

Ron remained in a silent misery for a moment longer before saying this was the worst he'd ever felt in his life.

Remus had watched the exaggerations of his friends all his life long enough to know better than to pick on Ron for that statement. Though he was hard pressed to really not ask if this was worse than thinking his sister was dead.

Harry snapped he could join the club.

Hermione had gotten to her feet to stare at something out the window before telling them she'd found something to cheer them both up.

"Umbridge's tombstone," James snapped.

"His Firebolt back," Sirius sighed.

Harry asked what that could be skeptically, and Hermione said with a brilliant smile that Hagrid was back.

"He what?" Harry demanded, jumping to his feet in joy as Lily eagerly pressed the book into James' hands now so he could read more about that!

HPHPHPHPHP

The Lily reads a Quidditch game in a monotone voice idea was offered by, DjuulLOVEhp!

*Fun fact, most lion roars in movies are actually done by tigers. Ever heard a lion roar? You should, it sounds like their hacking up a hairball, not exactly intimidating to watch on a computer screen, more funny than anything, but I'm sure it's plenty scary in the wild. Now tigers, those guys will make you piss yourself through an enclosure.

** Reports say a Bludger weighs 149 pounds! I don't need to be a scientist to know that is more than enough to not only break a spine but go right through the human body if dropped on someone, let alone hit with force from a distance. In second year one of these was enough to break his elbow at a glancing blow! I'm not sure whether to call bull on inconsistency, or wonder if Harry died in this moment and the rest is all some twisted version of hell.

[normallee]

They Were Roommates || Notia and Norma

TIMING: Before Christmas LOCATION: Norma (and Notia’s) Apartment PARTIES: @humanmoodring and @normallee SUMMARY: How to be a Human 101

“Hello, roommate! I have arrived home!” Norma called out as she hung her pirate hat onto the coat rack inside the door. The entire apartment looked bare to her. Nadia had been pairing down her belongings and attempting to make it appear more human. She wasn’t convinced she was doing a very good job but the ghost in a mortal’s body was the authority on these matters. She supposed she’d have to trust them. She stepped inside and looked around some more. “Did you leave Tom on the porch again? That’s not very nice. We need to keep him until Christmas. I heard it, too, requires a turkey. And I cannot imagine having two of them running around.” She went to the sliding glass door and let the turkey back into the apartment. It was big and smelly but she had grown strangely fond of this large feathered creature. Maybe it was because it reminded her vaguely of a shriken. She wasn’t sure. “Are we going to have more lessons today?” she asked. “I have a pen and paper and everything this time. I’ve been told that is what students bring to classes. They also always have gum in order to make bribes of friendship and annoy teachers.” She reached in her back pocket and pulled out a pack, holding it towards her roommate. “Would you like some chewing gum?”

The lack of loud colors in the apartment meant nothing when there was a loud turkey and an equally loud Norma running around, but Nadia had been nursing a cup of coffee long enough that she only flinched a bit when Norma walked in. “Hi, Norma,” she said, a bit too tired for a proper greeting. She wasn’t sleeping much, these days, and… she wasn’t cold, she didn’t get cold, but her body sometimes reacted like it was, shivering for hours before she could get it to stop. She was fine, now, but it came and it went. “Tom?” The fucking turkey. “Oh, yeah! You know, it’s actually proper etiquette that, between the holidays, the holiday turkey is kept out of living spaces. Turkeys need plenty of fresh air, you know. And grass. Keep ‘em inside for too long and they get interior depression.” The turkey thing had been Norma’s idea, sure, but Nadia was rolling with it because, fuck, it was funny. Annoying as hell, but so, so funny. “Yeah, I’m down for more lessons.” They were pretty fun, especially when half the shit that came out of her mouth was made up. Sure, she gave Norma a few good pointers; she didn’t want the woman to get caught and end up killing this body because of some bad advice. “Yes, perfect. It’s always good to take notes. You’ll be quizzed on all of this, later.” She took a stick of gum. “Thank you. See, politeness. A very useful tool.” She popped the gum in her mouth and settled in for the inquisition. “So, what do you wanna know today?”

“Yes, Tom the Turkey. He informed me that was his name through a series of gobbles.” Norma started scribbling notes already as the turkey started to follow her around. “I think he also says that he much prefers the indoors, but we will take your advice into consideration.” She sat on the couch, sitting on the edge with rapt attention with her pen in hand, ready to learn. She would have to take good notes if there was going to be a quiz. Did she need a highlighter? She saw most people studying used one of those and they looked like fun. Oh, right. She had to pay attention. “Well you rearranged my apartment and I’m still not sure as to why. So more about that, please. And as well, I need to understand how a book of faces works. And why toks tik. And what a yeet is. And what humans shop for. There are so many shops and strange items to purchase, I don’t understand the value structure. Did you know that some rocks cost more than others? Why? They’re all rocks. It’s very odd.”

“You… understand the turkey.” It wasn’t a question, but Nadia still cast a doubtful glance towards the creature, looking into its beady eyes for a sign of intelligence. It, Tom, whatever, stared back. Even though the turkey blinked first, Nadia felt like she’d lost a battle of wills or some shit. “Well, thank you both so much for your consideration.” She looked around the apartment, grateful that it wasn’t in the same state that it’d been when she arrived, though it was still a bit odd. The flamingos had been allocated to outside, and she’d managed to get rid of most of those damn trophies. The furniture was better put together, though she didn’t have the patience to really build shit, and she’d short circuited the fucking apartment twice putting things together, but it looked less like an alien lived in the joint. Instead, it looked like an alien and their human roommate lived there. “Okay, so I rearranged things to look, like, more human. Yeah, yeah, all the shit here was very human, but too much human stuff makes you look… less human and more human impersonating. Also, some of that shit was old and obsolete. You don’t need it. Now it looks more liveable, you feel?”

Nadia chewed thoughtfully on her gum. “Okay, so a book with faces on it’s like one of those people from Game of Thrones that’ll steal your face and pretend to be you, but a Facebook is a website, like that town forum thing but with more videos of cats and babies. Uhhh, toks tik is, like, a clock metaphor, and to yeet is to projectile vomit, I think. Humans are dumb, but they typically make purchases for necessity and amusement, in that order if they’re smart.” This was something that she knew about. “Necessity’s like food, water, booze… Toilet paper and hygiene stuff. Amusement’s literally anything to keep them entertained for their short, short lives.” And she knew all about that, didn’t she? “Most of the stuff you’ve got here’s amusement purchases. You need more necessities. Some stores specialize in certain things, be it necessity things or amusement things. And the rock thing is all about rarity and aesthetic. Some rocks are more valuable because they’re prettier, shinier, or because they’re so damn hard to get a hold of. Then, of course, there’s paper money, where someone just wrote a number on a piece of paper and the rest of us are supposed to go along with it like chumps.” Nadia snorted. “Don’t get me wrong, I love money, but it’s fuckin’ useless.”

“Well I can’t be completely sure but he’s easier to understand than most humans, I will say that much,” Norma said. Tom gobbled in agreement before waddling off looking for seeds. The entire apartment felt oddly empty now that Nadia had rearranged it and had removed some of her belongings. They had all been meaningless but she had come to enjoy them and the sense of familiarity they brought. “Old? None of it was very old. All of it was from the last century at least. That is very recent, let me tell you. Nothing has even started to rust yet.” There was barely any dust, too. She had been very proud of this fact. Humans were always so dusty. As Nadia talked, Norma scribbled furiously, taking as many notes as she could. They were in a few different languages, mostly something that just amounted to furious scribbles. She wasn’t entirely sure what note taking actually entailed but it seemed like she was doing it the same way she had observed. It’s not like she needed to read these later anyway. “Food, water, booze. Booze? This is alcohol, correct? That is necessary? Interesting. I do find humans more tolerable when inebriated.” It made them drop their inhibitions and without those, they were far more prone to chaos. She did very much appreciate the improved hygiene over the years, she would say that much. Her face scrunched up in confusion again. “Wait, money is useless? Then why is it so often considered valuable and a thing that mortals will both risk and waste their lives on?”

“Seriously?” Nadia asked, marginally curious. “What does he say?” She watched the turkey, completely confused by the dynamic that he and Norma had going on but, really, it wasn’t the weirdest thing about her roommate. Norma was odd as hell, and that was saying something because some of the fuckers Nadia had worked with over the years had been strange. “Anything older than, like, twenty years is considered old. Some old things are good. Old might mean that it’s worth more, or is considered vintage. But, sometimes old is shitty.” She paused. “Phones older than, like, three years are very shitty.” She peaked at Norma’s notes, frowning at what looked like a mess of squiggly lines. What the fuck? Some of that couldn’t even be an actual language. “You gonna be able to study those later?” she teased. But then she sobered up. “Booze is alcohol, yes, and it’s absolutely a necessity. The drinking kind, not the medical kind. That kind’s not important. But it’s vital that humans have alcohol at least once a week, unless their lame and abstain from that kinda thing. But yeah, most people are way better to be around drunk.” It made them more fun and easier to manipulate. Nadia was a fan of doing business in bars. “Because people apply a fictitious value to slips of paper, and people think they’ve got to work themselves to death to get it, which is dumb. It’s just paper. Just, like, take it.”

Norma thought that Nadia’s question was very strange. “He gobbles a lot. And makes strange clucking noises. Your ears function, yes?” She shook her head. Did she think the turkey spoke in English? That was very silly. Tom made another gurgling noise and she nodded. “You’re right, Tom. Humans are simple minded.” She made a mental note (and a scribble in her notebook) to get Tom more grain. He seemed to enjoy it very much. “Twenty years?!” Norma shot up and practically dropped her pencil. “That’s so recent! Like a blink of an eye!” She let out a huge sigh and reached down for her writing utensil. “How am I supposed to remember what’s recent? That’s such a short time span, the next twenty years are almost here.” She broke the tip of the pencil at her next eplatantion. “Three years? Why do you bother having these gadgets if they are immediately outdated? Why bother? This is silly! That’s no time at all. Do you all really think a year is a long time? Like it matters? This is exhausting. How do you all live so slowly and quickly at the same time?” This felt hopeless. She threw her pencil away, behind the couch. It didn’t matter. “So all humans need alcohol to survive and I can just take their paper money. What about their plastic money? That one is mostly unlimited, right? The currency that is allowed on the small rectangular cards? I ran into some issues the other day but I think I resolved it.”

“Yes, my ears fucking function.” Nadia sighed. “I don’t think that the turkey speaks English. I was wondering if you spoke turkey. How the hell do you understand him?” Asshole. But she didn’t call Norma that, didn’t want to come off as too much of a jackass, even though Norma was the one to start the name calling with that simple minded shit. “Yeah, twenty years is pretty recent, I guess. In the grand scheme of things,” Nadia mused. “But not all of us live for… how long have you been around again?” She was hoping, maybe this time, Norma would say. She was beyond curious about her seemingly ancient roommate. “Technology upgrades at a rapid pace. New stuff comes out every few months, each thing better and more technologically advanced than the last. We’ve come a pretty long way from the invention of the wheel.” She laughed a bit bitterly. “Good question! I did the smart thing and just upgraded bodies when the old one expired.” She took a sip of coffee, glad that Norma was at least absorbing some information. “Yes, and you can, but you’ve got to be sneaky about it. It’s not taking so much as stealing. And you can steal the plastic money, credit cards, they’re called, too, but you gotta be especially sneaky, and you can’t use them for long, or you’ll be tracked. Credit cards are pretty simple: you use one, and they charge you for it. Not immediately, but eventually. I don’t use ‘em. I don’t trust banks.” They were only good for being robbed.

“I don’t speak turkey, I just understand the turkey. It’s very different.” Norma gave an exasperated sigh. It was far less complicated than being human was so it was strange to her to get such pushback about it. Tom agreed. She could tell by the ruffling of his feathers. “I lost track,” Norma said nonchalantly as she doodled severed heads and some intestines spilling on the floor, along with some nice bleeding hearts with knives through them. “Based on your current calendar, quite a few centuries, I believe. But there have been other calendars and other systems of time so it’s all rather subjective and silly.” She added some more blood splatters around the heart with a flourish of her pen. “The real solution would be to get a better, less human body,” she said, mostly to herself, with another sigh. “Can you upgrade bodies like technology? That’s only a ghost thing, correct?” She had a feeling if humans could, they would. They tried so hard as it was to appear less old and feeble as they progressively aged. “Stealing. That’s a thing that is against the human laws, right? Most of them seem to be very against that. I know there are many in different places but that one has always been frowned upon. Humans are very possessive despite the fact their goods and money does not go with them to death.” Her next doodle was a man dying by way of a small plastic rectangle. ‘What’s not to trust about banks, though? Is that not where the money lives? Which you need. Please explain.”

Nadia blinked at Norma, unsure if this was a topic she wanted to keep discussing. “Okay.” It wasn’t. She cocked her head a bit looking at Norma’s paper with raised eyebrows. Violent. She could get behind that. “Damn, okay. That’s, like, an impressively long time. And you don’t age or…” Norma didn’t look much older than Nadia Diaz’s body. At the most, Norma didn’t look any older than Nadia had been the first time she’d died. “Right, right. Super subjective. Very silly. Time’s an illusion, and all that.” She raised her eyebrows a bit. “I mean, you’re not wrong or anything, but less human bodies aren’t exactly easy to find, you know? Outside of this town, at least.” She kind of liked her humanness, too. It was familiar and useful. So what if she couldn’t light herself on fire or have supernatural strength? She could blend in, and humans were in an abundant supply. They trusted their own, even if they didn’t always realize that other species existed. “Yeah, it’s just a ghost thing. I kinda dig this body, though. She’s worked well for me for, like, over six years, now.” She wouldn’t give up this body without a fight, at this point. Besides, it’d literally die without her in it, now, since Nadia Diaz was gone. “Stealing, yeah. It’s definitely against human laws, but laws are subjective. What’s another person to tell me what I can and can’t do, you know?” She grinned lazily, leaning back. “Doesn’t matter. We like to look good, impressive, for the living. Nothing’s more exciting to most people than being better than everyone around them. Wealth makes them believe they’re better. And banks steal money. They all just work for big corporations and the government, and they’re fucking useless when people come along and take your money from you.” Like Nadia literally did all the time. “Why should a group of bureaucratic assholes be in charge of the value of pieces of paper? It’s fucking ridiculous.”

“Physically? No, not really,” Norma answered, eyes still glued to her paper and the hatch marks she was adding to the spleen sketch to add some shading. “For the most part I believe I look relatively the same as I did when I was last human.” The words always felt a bit like boiling water in her mouth. To admit she was ever anything so plain was shameful and never something she enjoyed advertising to her demonic cohorts. They all thought they were so much better than her because they had never once been mortal but it was not her fault that her near godhood was delayed a few years. It hardly mattered in the grand scheme of eternity anyway. “If you say so. You are right, however. There really is an overabundance of humans. I see why it would be much easier to acquire one of their bodies. But you should really consider a siren. I think it would suit you.” Norma tilted her head to get a better look at her work. She ripped the page out, crumpled it up and tossed it behind her before she started on her next set of illustrations. Norma was unsure if anything that Nadia was saying about these bureaucratic institutions were correct but she found herself nodding along in the appearance of understanding and solidarity, something they had gone over in the previous weeks. Questions were an indication of non human behavior, at least that was what she had been told by her current tutor. “So we steal money to be wealthy and toppled the banks. Very much noted,” she said, letting out a small sigh as she finally looked back up at her current roommate. “This is all very nice. Thank you. I appreciate you. But can you just show me how to find the cat videos in the world wide web again instead?”

“Huh.” Nadia took all of Norma’s information in with interest; it was the first time the other woman had admitted to once being just that, a woman. A human woman, in fact, who had somehow managed to become immortal in a way that seemed way better than any deal the undead got. “That’s pretty fucking cool.” Maybe she could check in to figuring out how Norma had become, well, Norma. It’d be pretty fucking funny if she made this body immortal. Then, if Nadia Diaz’s ghost really was still hanging around, there would be no doubt that she’d outlast it. She laughed, though, at Norma’s next remark. “A siren? Makes sense, I guess. I’ve been told I have a wicked good tongue, anyway. Imagine if it was supernaturally so.” Whether or not Norma actually took her words to heart was irrelevant. Half the time, Nadia was just fucking with her. It was fun. Norma seemed to genuinely believe whatever came out of Nadia’s mouth, as long as she said it in the right tone. And, besides, what harm could it do? It was fun, and, if Norma ended up robbing a bank or something, it’d be funny as hell. She could feel that Norma was losing interest, though, so the cat videos question didn’t come as a surprised. Nadia was only a little exasperated as she finished her coffee and went to grab her laptop. “Actually, this time, you are gonna show me how to find cat videos. Remember, it’s just like I taught you.”

[inspirationdivine]

Chance Encounters || Frank and Lydia

Timing: Current Parties: @frankmulloy @inspirationdivine Summary: Lydia and Frank meet during one of Lydia’s hunts Warnings: None!

Hunting humans occasionally meant coming to places like… this. It wasn’t true terrible, if she was honest, but it also wasn’t the Artesian. After some of the places she’d been to watch Todd perform, this human singer’s choice of venue was more than acceptable. Shortly after she walked in, Lydia’s chest began to ring, like wind chimes in a breeze. Somewhere in here was a fae, she knew it. “Darling, do you mind waiting here a moment?” Lydia asked, walking away from their booth and over to the bar, until she spotted him, an incredibly beautiful man who couldn’t be anything other than fae. He had to be. Lydia slipped to the front, thrilled to meet another fae, so she reached over the bar to offer her hand to shake him. “Hi! I’m Lydia, it’s ever such a pleasure to meet you!”

 Thus far into his shift Frank has abstained from engaging with any of the Pint’s patrons (not that he was overly chatty with any of them to begin with), he had instead isolated himself from them by cleaning the glass pints with a sort of silent determination, looking up only when an order was placed and back down again when it was satisfied. In true Mulloy manner, he had built his own space which few had ever dared to cross, that afternoon was one such exception. The introduction of one, Lydia, was like a plunged blade, spearing through his cocoon of isolated peace. Her beauty was undoubtedly singular, but it was her very being that sung to him. A moment of jarring silence lasted between them, and it only occurred to Frank then that he was holding his breath. Now Frank never shook anyone’s hand, a habit that he had carefully crafted for himself and yet he took hers. Wary flesh on a waiting one, and all at once it was like an electrical shock had been administered on a heart that was flatlining, and then Frank was breathing again. “Frank.” His voice sounded uncertain but that was most definitely his name. 

 "Frank! It's a genuine pleasure." Lydia replied with an effortless smile. When he took her hand, the bells rang loudest, like the bell tower had struck noon. He looked a little alarmed, but maybe most fae had better taste than here. Lydia looked around briefly, but there wasn’t anyone overhearing them. They were much too focused on getting the attention of whoever was actually serving them. Forgetting about the human she’d come here with altogether, Lydia smiled as she lifted herself onto a bar seat in front of him."This was the last piece I expected to meet someone like us. Have you been working here long?" Maybe he was just shy. 

 Frank’s eyes followed her every movement as she lifted herself up onto the bar seat, waiting perhaps for some sort of glamour to fall away and reveal that she was more or less exactly like the rest of them. That this sudden intensity was the subject of his own making, born from wishful thinking and helpless desperation. It did not. He wasn’t sure if relieved was quite the right word. This exact moment had transpired between him and the bar owner before, a man was also like him, like them, and yet even as history played out before him again, he was just as graceless with it the second time as he was the first. “Not that long--I’m sorry like us?” He’s heard of the existence of other subspecies of faes, though he could not name all of them even if you paid him. While she felt familiar, it still wasn’t exactly the same. Perhaps that was the source of his hesitation. Or perhaps it was the way she so obviously enjoyed herself. She carried with her an easy smile that he could not hope to imitate, and was still unsure of whether he even wanted to.

 He was watching her ever so keenly, Lydia felt like she was in a room with Regan again. He was trying to understand her, or perhaps, more vainly, he just couldn’t take his eyes off her. She had that effect on some people and most humans. Until he spoke, that was, and threw all her expectations out of the window. Lydia's smile dripped off her face in surprise and concern. Oh no. She was dealing with another Regan, wasn’t she? How were there so many lost fae in this town? “Do you not…. Feel a similarity? Oh, darling. I’m ever so sorry, I didn’t mean to alarm you.” She said, unsure how to approach this. “Do you really not know what I’m talking about?” He was supposed to be working, this was hardly the time to drop something so significant.

 Wait, what?—Frank shook his head, shaking off some of his initial surprise with it. Frank never liked surprises. Surprises either tried to kill him or rendered him stupid. Both were equally undesirable outcomes. The enchantment released its hold and slowly he began to find the functions of his brain again. Finally he regained the ability to put words and coherent thought together so he might be able to communicate with someone where no caution and distance were needed, because she was right, they were alike; the same. Was that not what Frank had always wanted? To be the same? “No, I mean, I know what you’re talking about,” he said, with perhaps the most articulacy he’s had in their entire short conversation, “I just mean you’re not…gancanagh. You’re like me but you’re not…like me. So what are you?”

 He took a moment to resettle himself. Lydia didn’t mind to wait, concern creasing her features. Eventually, when he did speak, Lydia breathed a soft sigh of relief. “Oh, I was worried!” She tilted her head in surprise. He was not wrong, of course, once he explained what it was that he was. All fae rang the bell chimes in her chest in the same way, but she might have been able to guess by his beauty. “Well, no, I couldn’t possibly be. I’m neither a man nor at all masculine in any way. No more than you could be a banshee.” She smiled, leaning in as if to tell him a secret - she was. “Although we are perhaps more similar than you might expect. I’m a Leanan Sidhe. A muse. I inspire art.” 

 Leannán Sídhe. The name was familiar to him, attached to an old, distant, memory of his childhood. Of his mother telling him stories about beasts and faeries from their Irish folklore. Not that any self-respecting eleven year old boy ever paid much attention to stories about faeries, that was of course, before the wings started growing in. But even at his tender age, he did not have the heart to tell her that her bedtime stories were true, least of all those that were not exactly complimentary of the faerie folk. “But it’s never as simple as just inspiring art though is it?” He held her eyes as he answered the cost of that inspiration with a silent gaze. At least she inspired art, Frank was too afraid to even shake a stranger’s hand. The destruction left behind by both were much the same, and Frank was not ignorant of the woman whose eyes kept an unwavering hold on Lydia’s back. “Is she one of your...artists?”

 Oh, he had merely been tongue tied. Lydia smiled, easing more comfortably into her seat now she wasn’t so worried of frightening him. The words meant something to him, and he was blunt in asking about her diet, which made Lydia smile. “No, but then again, no pain no gain, as the saying goes,” she replied, meeting his gaze unflinchingly.  Lydia looked back to Kelly, giving her a small wave. She was so young, yet ever so enthusiastic to share her songs. Lonely, too, but that was the nature of humans that age. She couldn’t quite work out whether Frank was asking out of judgement or plain curiosity, and considering how wide and varied fae morality could be, she decided to play it safe, if always entirely honest. “Her interest is currently natural, rather than cultivated, if that’s what you’re asking. We’re on a thirty day free trial, as it were. What about you? This is not a bad place to work and find a meal for the evening. The company on the other hand…” Lydia looked around the room, and while of course she could not truly tell what anyone was, she was very confident that practically everyone here bar the two of them had to be human. They just had to be. “I imagine it has its ups and downs.”

 Lydia served her own brand of cool indifference, far from concerned by notions of shame or guilt, on how or whom they survived on, and Frank had to suppress a shudder. Her smile was all winter and he had always struggled in the cold, but oh did she wear it so well. Her every word stroked gently at the hungry thing that lived in the marrows of his bones and the pit of his stomach, one Frank kept carefully starved with cheap whiskey and cheaper cigarettes. “I don’t mind, I’m not much of a people person anyway,” he said mildly, and then added, “the shepherd’s pie isn’t so bad…and the stew tastes pretty decent on the nights they remember to season it right.” It was a truth well known that faes couldn’t tell a lie, although Frank had become very good at living one. To pretend to himself that his judgement was from a place of righteous morals, and not from a place of deeper, venomous, resentment that she was so free to do as she was ordained and without remorse for being exactly as she was. It was her nature, as it was his, but why was he the only one telling himself that it was wrong?

 "Really? Now that is a surprise." Lydia knew a fair few gancanagh, who she would have described as the definition of people persons, but there were exceptions to every rule. Horrifically, her mind turned to Jax, the Gancanagh who had worked at the ring, using his silver tongue to force Remmy to fight for his own personal gain. Frank seemed nothing like that man, and by all means, if Jax had been manipulating any other zombie, Lydia might not have minded so much. “I’ll keep the recommendations in mind if I ever bring someone who needs to eat around,” she chuckled, pushing her thoughts far away from Remmy. "By all means, let me know if I'm bothering you. I just… really like to introduce myself to fae when I run into them. It’s easier in this town than most, but still,  and I don’t think I’d seen you at Faetal Attraction."

 Frank answered Lydia’s surprise with his own, evident in the arch of his brow and the slight part of his lips, as if he wanted to say something but was unsure of the words. He was an oddity to her, it seemed, which begged the question of how many faes like him did she know? And then a small voice added most delicately: was his father among those acquaintances? He quickly guided his curiosity elsewhere, back to the present, to the name of a place he was not yet familiar with. He hasn’t been in White Crest all that long and much of his time was spent divided between tending the bar at the Pint and then at Soul, with little spared to himself, or anything else. A poor habit that needed amending, not that Frank was in any great rush to do that either. “Fatal attraction? Like the movie?”

 Lydia stared at him for a five-count, before laughing in her bewilderment. “No, like the bar,” she chuckled, pressing her hand against her chest. “I’m not laughing at you, I’m ever so sorry. This town has a propensity for puns which results in just this sort of confusion.  F-A-E Faetal.” Her chuckles had subsided, as she looked at him questioningly. “It’s a place for people like us to meet other fae. Oh, come on, now you have to let me take you sometime. Sometime when you aren’t working, we’ll make a night of it.” Better than this place, certainly, but who was she to judge? “I know you said you aren’t a people person, but there are quieter times that we could go, and it’s fun, even for a short while.”

Her pretty promise came with an even prettier smile, and Frank was immediately put ill at ease. He had developed an almost instinctual aversion toward charm, and charming people, and Lydia was practically dripping with it. A series of practiced excuses were laid out on his tongue (this was not the first time Frank had to talk his way out of doing something or going somewhere he did not want to), but underneath the coiling chain of dishonesty, a little presence at the back of his consciousness demanded his attention: curiosity. Frank has never been in a room with more than one fae at a time. People like us. He had always been intrigued by how many of them they were, how many species of faes existed beyond those he already knew of (which was not many at all), what was this community like that his ‘normal’ upbringing had deprived him of? Frank was practiced in denying himself a great many pleasures, but always failed at refusing his own curiosity. To curb any great display of enthusiasm, he resigned to her invitation with a measured, “I’ll think about it.”

 He hesitated. Lydia just couldn’t get a read on him, not yet, but she would. With every passing day, her loneliness threatened to suffocate her a little more. At least a gancanagh would understand that part of her. All the same, she smiled in relief at his measured response. “Alright. Well, when you make up your mind, please drop me a line.” Lydia pulled her business card from her wallet, and looked at the quickly accumulating pile of dirty glass ware that she was distracting him from. “As much as I’m enjoying meeting you, I should probably not get you in trouble with work.” And she ought to return to sweet young Kelly, and her hunt. 

 Lydia Griffin. Art Conservator. Her contact information craftily spelled out  beneath in fine print. He put it inside his jacket pocket with no great care. At the time, he didn’t think he would ever come to need it. It wasn’t as if they socialised in the same social circle. Frank wasn’t social at all! You need only look at their dress to realise their differences, which was stark. Outwardly, anyway. What stopped him from throwing the little rectangle of (probably expensive—it looked expensive) paper away altogether was a feeling. He wasn’t sure when, or under what circumstance but they would meet again, of this he had no doubt. Frank looked at the young woman at the table; still waiting. Evidence of impatience present in the increased frequency of glances she kept shooting in their direction. “Right, I should let you get back to your guest.” Frank took a moment, not as certain in his own pleasure at having met Lydia. He said instead, “I’ll see you around.” And he would, even if he didn’t know it yet.

[st-crylo]

Rebound

Part 8

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this part out! Thanks for your patience, new update day is Wednesday nights!!

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of drugs

Word Count: 4.5K

Tagging: @haylaansmi @nankstasty @thomasscresswell @maybe-your-left

Masterlist

You took a deep breath, looking between your mom’s car in the driveway, and the front door of your house. She had to know sooner or later, and you’d put it off a little too long. Of course, you weren’t going to tell the whole truth, after all even the half truth would be too much for your mother. Taking another deep breath, you opened the door, and crossed the threshold into your house. 

“Hey, sweetie, how was school today?” she asked almost the moment you closed the front door behind you. Ah yes, the dreaded question that would kick start your news. You supposed there was no time like the present.

“Really good! I actually got asked to homecoming today,” you said, walking into the living room where your mom was sitting with your dad. You watched as her face lit up, clearly excited for what was an obvious win in her book. Oh, this was going to be painful.

“Really? Who asked you?” She asked, excitement filling her voice, causing your heart to pound from within your chest. Now or never. Now or never, you repeated in your mind as you gave a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of your neck.

“Ben Solo.”

As you’d expected, your mom’s face changed from one of joy to pure shock. It wasn’t an angry shock, after all even she had to admit that someone asking you out after what happened was a good thing, it was simply the person who had asked you. After the shock wore off, her face faded into one of discomfort.

“Honey...are you sure you wanna go to homecoming with him?” she asked, looking to your dad, who simply raised his hands and looked away, abstaining from this conversation. You let out a sigh, your smile turning to a frown. 

“Yes, I’m sure. He’s a nice guy mom, and he is trying to be better. Besides, we were really good friends until seventh grade,” you pointed out. Your mom still had a frown on her face, and she was twiddling her thumbs, trying to think of a response. You knew there was really no way she was going to say no, after all, she was the one who wanted you to live the most fun senior year. There was no way something as trivial as the boy who asked you to homecoming would change that. Though, just because you knew the facts didn’t mean you weren’t anxious about what she was going to say next. 

“Okay,” she finally relented, causing you to let out a breath you’d been holding in. “But I want you to promise that you’re going to be safe, okay?”

“Of course, mom. Besides, we’re going with a group, so there really won’t be any way for us to get into trouble,” you assured her, though you knew your friends were more than capable of finding trouble to be in.

“Okay, that’s good. The dance is next Saturday, right?” your mom asked, and you simply nodded. “Alright. Well, I hope you two will let me take pictures here. Why don’t you ask all your friends to take pictures here?” 

Just like I thought, you mused to yourself. “Yeah, I can see if they’re down!”

Soon, you were retreating to your room, pulling out your phone and dialing Sami’s number. It took two rings before she picked up.

“Hey, what’s up?” she asked from the other end of the line.

“Told my mom about homecoming,” you said, plopping down on your bed, laying back against the headboard and staring up at the ceiling. 

“Oh, sick. What did she say?”

“I can tell she’s not happy about it, but she’s not gonna say no. Also, she wants us all to take pictures here at my place. This’ll probably work out for Kylo too, that way his grandparents can take pictures as well,” you informed her.

“I’m totally cool with that, Mom’s not gonna be here that weekend anyways, so I’ll just get pictures from you to show her. What are you gonna do about getting a dress?” Sami asked.

“Was probably gonna go shopping on Friday for one. Can’t go Saturday because I have dinner with the Solo’s, so that’s gonna take my whole day to mentally prepare for,” you said, frowning as you thought of the idea of sitting down at a table with Kylo’s parents. Sami laughed from the other side of the receiver. 

“Well, if you want, we can go together. After all, you should definitely wear something hot, if Avarez is gonna be there. That shit will drive him up the wall,” Sami responded. You could almost feel the coy in her voice, and you laughed as well. Any excuse to get Shawn heated was good for you, especially after what had happened earlier. 

“It’s gonna be weird, seeing Kylo in a tux,” you pointed out. You’d never really seen him dress formally, he usually just wore his black jeans and leather jacket. To see him dressed up would definitely be new.

“It’s weird, seeing men like Kylo dress formally. Last year, Milo rented this really nice tux for prom, the vest matched my dress and everything. It was wild, but weirdly hot,” Sami said, causing you to shake your head. 

“Alright, well, I’ll see you tomorrow then,” you said, hearing your mom’s voice call you downstairs for dinner.

“See ya!” Sami said before the line went dead. With that, you got up off your bed and headed down for dinner.

***

The rest of the week seemed to pass by quickly, Friday seeming to appear in a flash, and as you settled down beside Kylo in English, you could feel your excitement grow tremendously. You’d never been so excited to buy a homecoming dress, and you honestly felt that it was more about the fact that you’d get to go shopping with Sami and Phasma. 

Phasma would be driving you three to Coruscant, where you’d meet up with Jordan at one of the malls there. Your mom had given you her card and said you could get dinner in the city as well. You’d never gone shopping in Coruscant before, so needless to say, you were excited beyond belief. 

“Calm down, you’re practically bouncing off the walls,” Kylo joked as you quickly pulled out your finished paper for Beowulf. You were so ready to move on to the next book, you practically threw your paper at Mr. Skywalker when he passed by. 

“Alright class, we’re going to be reading Hard Times starting on Monday. So, let’s get into some background, shall we?” Mr. Skywalker said from the front of the class, turning a video on from the projector. You tried not to yawn as the incredibly monotonous British narrator began to talk about Dickens, and the period he wrote in. 

“Can’t fucking stand Dickens,” Kylo said from beside you, causing you to laugh. “He’s only so descriptive because he was getting paid per word.” A fact that the monotonous video would soon bring up. 

You couldn’t really help but drift off a couple of times during class, and you were almost fully asleep when the overhead lights were turned on after the third video. Blinking to help your eyes adjust to the lights, you stretched your arms out, trying to hold back a yawn as you reached over to put all your stuff away. In front of you, Sami was lightly snoring, and was being shaken awake by Phasma, who was trying hard not to laugh. Once Sami was awake, she looked confused, and a little grumpy, as she wiped a small amount of drool from her lip. 

“Alright, I’ll be handing out copies on Monday. Before you leave, don’t forget to drop off your copy of Beowulf in one of these bins. I will hunt you down if you don’t turn it back in,” Mr. Skywalker said as the whole class began shuffling around, fishing for their books in their backpacks and putting all their stuff away. Kylo took all of your copies up to the front, briefly nodding at his uncle as he placed them all in the bin before walking back to your group of desks. As soon as Kylo was back, the bell rang, and the biggest group of students hurried out the door, heading for their cars or however they were planning on getting back home. You slowly stood from your desk and grabbed your backpack, putting your arms through the straps as you waited for everyone else.

As usual, once the crowd had passed, the four of you walked out of the English room, heading towards the entrance of the school.

“It’s gonna be weird, not having you ride home with me today,” Kylo stated, looking down at you. “I’m gonna be so alone.” Kylo started pretending to pout and cry, to which you playfully punched him in the arm, causing him to laugh. He shook his head before running a hand through his black hair.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine, provided you don’t make any stops on the way home,” Phasma quipped as the four of you stepped out of the school, stepping into the September sun. Kylo looked around first, noticed that people were watching, and he drew you close, pressing his lips against your forehead before bringing you in for a hug. You wrapped your arms around him, also conscious of the eyes watching you, before looking up at Kylo, who had that same smirk on his face as always. You smiled at him before the two of you let go.

“Text me when you get home, okay?” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“I will. See ya later,” you said before turning towards Phasma and Sami, walking towards Phasma’s car. It was a quaint little car, just an old silver toyota, and you tried to keep up as Sami sprinted towards it.

“Shotgun!” she yelled as you and Phasma laughed when Sami reached the passenger door, desperately trying to open the door. Phasma used the key fob and unlocked the door, and Sami climbed in as fast as lightning. You laughed as you climbed in behind her, throwing your backpack on the other side of the back seat of Phasma’s car. Phasma climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, putting her phone on a mount as she pulled up the directions to the mall Jordan had suggested.

“Thank God we’re getting dresses in the city, I need to get away from this town for a bit,” Sami said, rolling down the window as Phasma pulled out of her parking spot. 

“What about you, Phasma? I can’t imagine you’re the dress type?” you asked from the back.

“Nah, I’m trying to find a tux instead. I saw this cool floral one online and I’m thinking about wearing that, if I can find it. Who wants the aux?” she said. She held up the aux cord and immediately Sami snatched it from her, plugging it into the headphone jack in her phone. She then pulled up a playlist of music you weren’t really familiar with, but it seemed the same style that Kylo listened to. You thought about how funny it was, this was the first time in over a month that you’d been in the car with someone who didn’t have a cassette player. 

The drive to Coruscant was fun. Occasionally, Sami would play a song that the three of you could sing to, and as you watched the suburbs go by as you rode on the interstate. It was interesting to see the landscape change from rows upon rows of houses to the city skyline, skyscrapers rising and putting a feeling of awe in your heart. 

Soon, Phasma was pulling off the interstate, driving along with the city’s traffic towards the mall. Soon, and to Phasma’s relief, the three of you were pulling off into the mall’s parking lot.

“How come no one in the city knows how to drive?” Phasma said with a frown as she pulled into a parking spot.

“Ya know, I’m pretty sure they feel the same way about you,” Sami mused before pulling the aux cord out of her phone. The three of you all got out of the car, and Phasma put her phone up to her ear as she called Jordan. You pulled out your phone and saw a text from Kylo.

You ladies make it to the city okay? Also Gran won’t stop asking me about you today.

You smiled as you read the message, glad that Mrs. Skywalker liked you so much. You quickly typed your response back.

We made it better than we would have if you were driving. I have a feeling you’re a scary interstate driver. Also, tell your Gran I said hi, you responded before putting your phone away.

“What’s the dirt?” Sami asked, catching you smiling at your phone.

“Nothing, just letting Kylo know we got here safely, while also making fun of him. You know, the usual,” you said as you slid your phone into your pocket. Though you’d stopped looking at your phone, the smile still remained.

Sami nodded her head sagely as a car pulled up besides Phasma’s. She couldn’t help but think that if she didn’t know any better, she too would think you and Kylo were dating. Phasma put down her phone as Jordan rolled down the window, smiling at the three of you.

“Hello ladies!” she said before turning off the car and climbing out. When she was out, she ambled over to Phasma, who placed a kiss on her cheek before wrapping an arm around her shoulder. After that, the four of you practically strutted into the mall together, you and Sami following behind Jordan and Phasma.

There was something about going to a fancy mall in the wealthy part of the city that was just different. Of course you’d been to malls before, but to go into a mall with all sorts of designer brands and expensive department stores, it was a little overwhelming. You were in absolute awe as you passed each of the different stores, window shopping all the expensive items and wishing you had money for them. 

Soon, the four of you were heading into a Bloomingdale’s, which was intimidating to say the least. You and Sami exchanged looks as you walked in, knowing the price was going to be a little bit more than you’d anticipated. However, you heaved a sigh as you accepted that this would be a better way to not have the same dress as everyone else.

“(y/n), I think you should wear red or black. It’s very on par with whatever Kylo would want to wear,” Jordan says as you approach the semi-formal dresses. 

“Idk, I think you should wear a midnight blue. It’ll get Kylo to step out of his comfort zone,” Sami added as you all started to search through the racks. You pushed aside bright pink dresses and some weird green shades, but you never really found anything you liked.

“What about you, Sami? I know Milo isn’t gonna have time to come down, so are you coordinating with anyone?” Jordan asked Sami before pulling out a dark green dress, and holding it up to Sami’s figure.

“Yeah, Pat is my ‘date.’ We thought it would be more convenient, since, like you said, Milo is busy being a college student hours away. Also, that’s cute, let me see,” Sami said as she reached for the dress in Jordan’s hand. You laughed as Sami inspected the dress, nodding her head in approval as she examined. She then searched for her size. 

You pushed through a different rack of dresses before coming across a gorgeous blue dress. It had an A-line skirt made of blue tulle with a blue satin interfacing that ended a little above the knees, and a sweetheart neckline with off-shoulder sleeves. The bodice was beaded with small silver beads, making the top of the dress almost look like a night sky. With a smile, you rummaged through the dresses until you found your size. 

“You find something, (y/n)?” Phasma asked as she watched you. You simply nodded before pulling out the dress in your size, and holding it up. 

“Ha, I win. Midnight blue forever,” Sami said, sticking her tongue out at Jordan, who reciprocated. 

“Let’s try them on,” you said excitedly, dragging Sami to the dressing room. The woman at the desk led you to separate fitting rooms, and as soon as you were in, you were undressing, ready to see if you liked the way the dress fit on your body. As soon as you put it on, you knew it was the one. It fit your body amazingly, and made you feel so confident in it. You loved it with every part of your being.

Stepping out of the fitting room, you were greeted by Jordan and Phasma, who both smiled when you stepped out.

“(y/n), that is absolutely gorgeous,” Jordan said.

Soon, Sami was also stepping out of her fitting room. Her dress was very similar to yours in shape, but made all with satin. The forest green color looked gorgeous on her tan skin, and really made the color of her eyes pop.

“I love that,” you told Sami, and Jordan and Phasma both nodded in agreement. 

After you and Sami had decided that you’d found the dresses you wanted, the four of you then moved to find a blazer for Phasma. She ended up settling on a black blazer with a floral pattern on it. You, Jordan, and Sami all agreed that it made her look very sophisticated. Jordan especially loved it, practically fawning over her girlfriend, even after you’d all made your purchases. 

The four of you headed for the food court, where you decided to split up for food. You and Sami decided on chinese food, contently carrying the styrofoam boxes back to the table that you’d all decided to meet at. Taking a seat, you began digging into your food as Phasma and Jordan approached, each with food in hand. As Jordan and Phasma sat down, they too began to dig into their food.

“So,” Jordan started after swallowing a bite, “what’s the tea? What’s been going on at good ole Mos Eisley High?”

“(y/n) finally called out Shawn. It was badass, based on what Kylo told me,” Sami said, looking at you and grinning mischievously. You rolled your eyes before shaking your head.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I just wasn’t gonna deal with his bullshit anymore, especially since he tried to call me a slut,” you explained. Jordan had that same look on her face as Sami, and you couldn’t help but laugh.

“Rich, coming from him. Anything else?” Jordan responded.

“Pat’s planning an after party for homecoming,” Phasma added, poking around at her food. “I figured I’d warn you guys that he’s planning to invite Hux.”

Sami’s fork dropped from her hand, and Jordan gasped loudly.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Sami asked, rage dripping from her voice. “I don’t understand why Pat still hangs out with that asshole, especially after all the shit he’s done.”

“I know. Also, was he planning to invite Kylo?” Jordan asked, her attention solely on Phasma. You couldn’t help but keep a keen attention on what she was saying either. After all, you only knew that Hux was the person Kylo’s ex had cheated on him with. You wanted to know more about him, though, to see why else everyone hated him. 

“That’s just the thing,” Phasma began, “he is planning to invite Kylo. When I asked him if he thought that was wise, he said that there would be so many people there, they probably wouldn’t even run into each other. I told him he’s being a dumbass.”

“Yeah, a dumbass is right. If Kylo sees Hux without first being warned that he’s there, Kylo will beat the shit out of him,” Sami said before taking another bite from her food.

“Maybe not. I don’t think Kylo wants little Armitage running off to his cop dad. That’s why he got put on house arrest in the first place,” Jordan remarked, causing you to become confused.

“Kylo told me that he was put on house arrest for vandalism,” you said. Everyone turned and looked at you, all of them heaving a collective sigh.

“Kylo would say something like that. Look, don’t tell him I told you, but Kylo was arrested because Armitage planted drugs on him. Luckily, he’s a minor, and on top of that, his mom has a lot of influence with the judges. They didn’t believe that the drugs had been planted, but they agreed on house arrest after his drug test came back negative,” Jordan explained.

“How did Kylo know the drugs were planted?” you asked.

“Because Armitage was at the park that day, trying to taunt Kylo into fighting him. Kylo told me that he went to the bathroom, but accidentally left his stuff outside, and Armitage must have planted them then. Also, the officer who happened to search Kylo was Brendol Hux not even ten minutes after Armitage had left,” Sami added. “None of us know all the details, so if you really want to know, you should ask Kylo. You should also warn Kylo about Hux coming to Pat’s after party.”

You nodded in agreement before going back to eating your food, thinking. It seemed like Armitage Hux had a personal vendetta against Kylo, and now you wanted to know why. Was it because of Hux and Stella, or was it something deeper? You would ask one of the girls, but this was something you wanted to hear from Kylo himself. You didn’t want to worry about speculation, and what might be truth or lie. 

On the way home, as you watched the city’s skyscrapers fade into the suburbs, you couldn’t help but continue to think, and you knew that you wanted to talk to Kylo as soon as you got home.

Hey, we just left the city. Is it okay if we talk when I get back? You texted, letting out a sigh as you waited for his reply.

Yeah, I have something I need to tell you, too. See ya when you get home, he responded. After that, you felt your shoulders tense up as you wondered what it was that Kylo needed to tell you. Deciding not to worry about it, you continued to look out the window as the three of you inched ever closer to home.

Phasma decided to drop you off first. As she pulled into the cul de sac where you lived, you noticed Kylo leaning against his car, smoking a cig and staring down at his phone. As Phasma slowed down in front of him, he looked up, waving at Phasma and Sami as you stepped out of the car. 

“Thanks for the ride, Phas,” you said as you waved goodbye.

“No problem. We should do it again some time!” She called out before she and Sami waved goodbye, driving away from the two of you. With a sigh, you turned to face Kylo, and you decided to lean against his car beside him. 

“So, what did you want to talk about?” he asked after taking a drag. 

“So, Phasma told me that Pat is throwing a homecoming after party-”

“I would expect no less.”

“And apparently he’s inviting Hux.”

You could almost feel Kylo’s jaw clench from beside you, and as you looked up into his eyes, you could see the fire of rage behind them. He was more contained than you expected, and as you watched him take another drag from his cigarette, you wondered if he were simply waiting to explode. However, when he sighed as he exhaled the smoke, he shook his head.

“Of fucking course. We’ll go, but if he tries to start something, we’re leaving,” he said. “Is that it?”

You thought for a moment if you wanted to ask him about his relationship with Hux, but you decided you would ask another time. You didn’t want to upset him more than he already was, so you decided to change the subject.

“Nope. I also wanted to tell you to get a dark blue tie,” you said, smiling up at him. He smiled back at you, but you noticed it didn’t reach his eyes. A part of you regretted telling him about Hux, but you knew it was for the best. “So, what did you wanna tell me?”

“Oh! Well, I talked to my mom earlier, and so, basically, the whole family is coming over for dinner,” he said, rubbing the nape of his neck and avoiding eye contact with you.

“Okay?” you asked, confused on why this was a bad thing.

“That means Rey is gonna be there, too,” he said in a murmur. Your body filled with cold after you heard that, and you couldn’t help but frown. First of all, this was about to be a very awkward dinner. Secondly, you hadn’t told Kylo about Rey, so you weren’t sure how he knew to warn you.

“Look, it doesn’t take a genius to know that my cousin judges anyone who’s dating me. You didn’t need to tell me that you and Rey had a fallout, I guessed it would happen eventually,” Kylo said, practically reading your mind. “I am curious why you didn’t tell me, though.”

With a sigh, you crossed your arms across your chest. “Because she said some things about you that weren’t okay. I didn’t want to reiterate those words to you because she’s still your family,” you explained. 

“Just because she’s my family doesn’t mean she always thinks highly of me, I accepted that a long time ago. Besides, if she’s thinking less of you because you and I are a thing, then maybe you need a break from her,” Kylo added before dropping the cigarette butt to the ground and stomping it out. He then reached over and picked it up, clenching it in his hand as he let out a sigh. “Look, my grandparents like you, and I’m pretty sure my parents will like you. That’s the goal, after all. I wouldn’t worry about what Rey thinks right now.”

You thought about his words for a moment before letting out yet another sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. Thanks, Kylo,” you said before turning to face him. He turned to face you as well, bringing you in for a hug. As he held you flush against his body, your arms wrapped around his waist, and his around your shoulders, you breathed in his scent, feeling a wave of calm overcome you.

“No problem, (y/n). I’ll see you tomorrow for dinner,” he said before letting you go. Once he did, you smiled up at him before turning around, heading for your house, ready to go to bed after your day of shopping.

[thinairlynn]

Plot bunny jumps down SPN hole

When you get an idea for an SPN fic and you start writing down your own prompt and it gets out of hand. I’m supposed to be working on a presentation but as a true procrastinator, I’ll find time for that later. So the dialogue needs to be worked out and refined, and the prompt needs to be turned into something of an intro. More details needs to be added instead of ‘this happens’ and then ‘that happens’, but quickly writing down the line of events as they come up in my head is something I need to do or I’ll quickly lose the plot. 

But while I do that, tiny stuff like pieces of dialogue, a look, a feeling, a glare, it comes bubbling up and I need to write that down too before it’s gone. It’s like someone is throwing me pieces of a puzzle. Sometimes it’s chunks of the puzzle border (plot) and sometime it’s intriguing details that I don’t know where to place yet but I can’t toss it back into the box or I won’t be able to find it again when I actually need it. And then it’s oh hey another piece of plot! Where shall I put YOU then...

I have no idea what the writing process is supposed to look like so if anyone would like to share theirs, or point me towards more consistent and productive ways, that would be appreciated. And yes I know that procrastinating says a lot about my belief in my ability and interest in the work I’m currently avoiding. Later on I’ll be under pressure and able to ignore these distracting insecurities.

Oh and it’s totally self-insert, I suspect all OC’s are, I mean COME ON Sam and Dean? Don’t tell me you wouldn’t want some of that energy directed at yourself. Eve is gonna fall so hard for one of them, unwillingly because I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers, the slow burn, the banter, the passion, all the stuff that I love but suck at writing. Let’s see if I can get it into words this time.

REMINDER: this is completely raw and unfinished and unedited. I’m posting it now because I’m curious to see how other people’s stuff looks when they’re halfway into developing a story. 

So here goes.

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

OC Eve has a sister Hazel, 2 years older. Hazel was accidentally turned into a vamp 2 years ago. With support of Eve, Hazel has learned to survive without killing humans. Makes do with preferably banked blood, and will take out a live animal if needed. Both sisters avoid contact with society as much as possible, to limit temptation for vamp sis.

Meanwhile the Winchesters are in the area, hunting down a vampire nest not far from the sisters’ place. These vamps know that something is going down. They are nervous and working frantically on increasing their numbers. One of their lieutenants runs into Hazel when she’s out hunting. He overpowers her and takes her to the nest. The captain is wary of this lone vampire and suspects that she is an ‘abstainer’, and too friendly with humans. Worried to betray her sister Eve, Hazel pretends to be a true and ruthless vamp. When presented with a fresh human, Hazel tries to hide her internal battle. Although thirsty, she doesn’t WANT to feed on a human but also has to keep up her cover to protect Eve. Ultimately, the temptation and pressure overwhelm her, and she gives in.

The moment she sinks her teeth in the human’s neck, all hell breaks loose. The Winchesters barge in and start shooting and hacking. In the flurry, Hazel drags the terrified human out of the fight and behind some storage racks. Rips a piece of her shirt to apply pressure to the wound which isn’t deep but bleeding steadily. It seems Hazel had just nicked the artery. They stay hidden behind the storage racks, the human too terrified to make a sound, Hazel holding up the human and continuing to apply pressure to the wound. She breathes through her mouth trying to ignore the smell of the human’s blood. The battle in the main area rages on and finally dies out. When the sounds of battle dissipate and only the Winchesters can be heard checking on each other, the human whimpers. Hazel shushes him and covers his mouth. Whispers in his ear that they might get killed too, and that she’ll let him go as soon as it’s quiet.

Too late though, as Sam steps behind the storage racks.

Hazel knows that it’s a rather condemning picture. The smell of blood has her fanged out fully, her lips feel sticky with blood, and the human lets out another pitiful whimper. Sam probably agrees with the assessment, because he raises his shotgun to eye level.

Let him go now, he says.

Hazel: Hey, I’m saving his life here, a little credit?!

Human: you were gonna eat me! Hazel: That was mostly for show, I’m so sorry.

Sam: Let him go now! Hazel: Allright! To human: put your hand here and press hard, or you’ll still bleed out. Mumbles: which would be a waste. The human scrambles and gets the hell out of there.

Hazel gets up slowly. With trembling hands she wipes the blood of her face and hands with her shirt. She does NOT want to get shot but she realizes her chances are slim if this guy is a hunter. She eyes Sam warily.

‘Well, whatcha gonna do?’

Sam blinks, then re-aims. ‘What was going on here? Where are the others?’

Hazel purses her lips. ‘That is a long story, and I don’t know if there are others to begin with. They brought me in right before you guys showed up.’

Dean comes into view, swinging his machete cheerfully.

‘Need a hand there, Sammy?’

Involuntarily, Hazel takes a step back. This one looks a bit psycho. She would have risked getting shot while trying to take down that big guy, but the machete is a whole other story. Sam: This one seemed to be trying to not kill that guy, and could be from another nest. Might be worth asking a few questions.

Dean: If you think it’s worth the time, allright.

He turns around and walks back to main area.

Sam opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, Dean is back with crossbow. He shoots Hazel straight in the stomach. Hazel staggers back a bit, and then gasps as excruciating pain starts to radiate from where she’s hit. She drops to her knees and curls in on herself, keening soundlessly.

‘Sorry about the dead man’s blood.’ Dean says casually. ‘Just evening out the playing field a bit.’

Sam and Dean pick up Hazel under her arms and drag her towards the main area. They put her on a chair, and it’s all she can do to stop herself from falling off. Her face is deathly pale, and she can only manage short shallow gasps for air.

Dean crouches in front of her chair. ‘You don’t really need to breathe, so you might as well stop the theatrics.

Hazel glares at him. ‘Go fuck yourself.’ She bites out in a whisper. Her upper body is on fire, but strangely enough she can’t feel her legs. That is going to be a problem. Even if these two don’t kill her, she won’t be able to get away before the other vamps come back. Unless Eve comes for her with a bag of O-… But her timing will have to be immaculate or they will both be in serious trouble.

Dean chuckles. ‘Yeah, well, maybe later. Where’s your nest, and how many are there?’

Hazel hesitates briefly. They are not likely to believe her if she tells the truth – not that she’d lead them to Eve anyway – but she won’t be very credible either if she just starts spitting locations and numbers.

_________

To be continued in a cleaned up version on AO3. But no promises when that will be, all depends on the plot bunny.

[mattygraygubler]

our campus: chapter 4 (tom holland fanfic)

summary: frat!tom and reader go to the same college and y/n is tasked with being his tutor, they don’t really get along at first (because i love reader and tom hating each other trope)

warnings: none ?????

word count: 2.1k

a/n: so many texts and so much dialogue fuckin kill me also texts are bold

for a list of characters click here

to be added to the tag list send me an ask !

masterlist

✰✰✰✰✰

“I don’t know what you did to get her to give you a second chance, but I need to warn you.” Ally said. Tom turned to look at her, they had only ever spoken when necessary for theater stuff. 

“Warn me?” He asked. 

“Y/N can make your life either very, very good or very, very bad. She has most of the professors in this school wrapped around her pinky. And she doesn’t make it obvious, but she’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. She can really help you if you let her.”

“Well, thanks.” He said awkwardly and turned back to his stuff. 

“One more thing.” Ally said. Tom turned again and raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you dare catch feelings.” “Seriously? No need to worry about that.” Ally scoffed. 

“I’m serious, Tom. Don’t. She doesn’t need that right now.” 

“Yeah, fine, I get it.” He said. 

“Alright guys let’s get started.” Gigi said, signaling rehearsal was about to start. 

* * * 

It was finally Friday, and your phone was blowing up as you walked to the library. Class had gotten out late, so you were walking as fast as possible so you wouldn’t be late to your meeting with Tom. 

Al

if Y/N is ok with it its fine with me

Iz

i still dont know how i feel about this

Em 

pretty pretty please guys i really like this guy and he really wants me to go

You

what are we talking about i was in class

Al

harrison invited em and all of us to the delt party tonight

Iz

and i said we shouldnt go bc of what happened

plus isnt tom a delt? wouldnt that be a bit awk?

You

honestly i couldnt care less. after the week ive had im gonna too blacked to even realize where we are

Em

lets take it to a vote

aye

Al

aye 

Iz

nay

You

im abstaining

Em

the ayes have it! delt BABEEEYYYY

ill have harrison put us all on the list

You 

glad we got that sorted ill see u guys at mine at 8

You walked into the library, checking your watch and seeing it was 4:02. You bit your lip. Hopefully he didn’t give you any crap for being late. 

You walked quickly into hlab, and you knew you looked like a crazy person. Your bag was falling off your shoulder, you had a coffee in your hand and your water bottle tucked under your arm, and your phone in your other hand. 

You scanned the room and saw Tom sitting across from Max, both of them had books out. 

“Hi,” you said breathlessly. Max slid over a seat so you could sit across from Tom. “So sorry I’m late, crazy day.” 

“No worries dar-” You heard him start to say darling, but stopped himself. “No worries. It’s only 2 minutes after.” 

“How long have you been waiting?” You asked.

“Max and I have been hanging out for a while, not a big deal.” 

“Speaking of, I’m on alc duty for tonight so I better go.” Max said, did his stupid handshake with Tom, and walked out. 

Hlab was almost empty except for some freshman. Most people don’t like studying on a Friday, who could blame them?

“So I got a copy of your lectures from this week. What do you want to start with?”

“I don’t care.” 

“Ok, what is currently confusing you the most?” He thought for a second before saying “Astronomy.” You nodded. 

“Great, grab your notes and your textbook.” He pulled out a notebook and his laptop, opening the online textbook. You pulled out your laptop and a pen and highlighter. 

“May I?” You asked and pulled his notebook to your side. You went through his notes, circling certain things with the pen and highlighting others. 

“These are really good, Tom. I like how you put question marks next to things that confused you.” He laughed. 

“Do I get a gold star?” He joked. You rolled your eyes. 

“So phases of the moon.” You started. 

“Wait a second,” he said after you had been talking for a while. “You’re telling me that the moon doesn’t actually, like, change?” 

“It’s all shadows.” You replied. He nodded and seemed to finally be getting it. 

“The phases will most definitely be on your next lab, which isn’t open note, so make sure you memorize them.” You said. “Let’s move onto stats.” He groaned. “What?” You asked. 

“Statistics is so stupid. Letters and numbers shouldn’t go together.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Stats is easy, I promise you. This is the first unit, all we’re doing is descriptive statistics and graphing. Let’s start with some vocab.” You said, highlighting certain words in his notes. 

Once you could see his brain was about to explode, you moved onto writing. 

“There’s not much to talk about, just email me your most recent paper so I can go through it and look for themes we need to discuss.” 

‘“Themes?” He asked. 

“You know, on going issues that need to be addressed.” He nodded and emailed you his paper, which you would read tomorrow. You heard your phone buzz and took a quick glance. 

Em

al dont be upset

Al

then dont give me a reason to get upset

what is it

Em

……….. It’s themed

Al

are you kidding? were not freshmen, i dont wanna go to a stupid themed frat party

Em

its blackout !!!! itll be fun i promise

You turned your phone back down and didn’t realize you had an upset look on your face. 

“Everything ok?” He asked. 

“Just arguing in the group chat.” 

“Do you need to go?” He asked. 

“No, no, just arguing about tonight.” 

“What’s tonight?” 

“Tonight is not related to political conflict, which is what we should be talking about.” He laughed. 

“Do you ever have fun?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I’m serious, do you ever have fun, or do you just go to sleep surrounded by planners and textbooks.” 

“That’s not funny. There’s a lot more about me that you don’t know.” 

“Clearly.” 

“So we’re starting off with socioeconomic issues over time and the class strugle. Did you read the Marx chapters?” 

“Yup. Didn’t understand a word of it.” 

“Ok, let’s get into it.” You said and began rambling about the bourgeoisie and the communist manifesto. Politics was your favorite subject, you could talk about it for hours. 

You were having a really good discussion with Tom. It was global political conflict, and he was able to connect the themes to both America and England, which made you really pleased. 

You were pulled out of your discussion when your phone vibrated. 

Iz

pickin up panera anyone want anything 

“Jeez it’s already past 6:30, I gotta go.” You said. 

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He said. 

“No it’s not your fault, I get so into politics I lose track of time.” “I can tell.” He said as you both packed up your stuff. 

“Wanna grab some food?” He asked. 

“Sorry, can’t,” you said. 

“Why, got a hot date?” He joked. 

“Maybe,” you said. 

“At least let me walk you to wherever you’re going.” 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

“Well where are you going?” 

“Congression Hall?” You replied. 

“Wait, you live there?” 

“Uhm, yes? Me along with practically every other junior.” 

“What floor?” 

“8.” You said. 

“Should’ve guessed.” He replied as you started walking across the quad. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Honors 8. I forgot you were in hc.” He was referring to the eighth and top floor of Congression Hall, which was reserved for the honors college juniors. 

“Yeah.” You said simply. 

“I’m on six, by the way.” He said. “That’s why I was curious. I’ve never seen you around there.” 

“I’m not usually, I only really use it for sleep.” 

“Of course,” he replied. 

“I assumed you lived in a frat house.” You commented. 

“Nah, next year.” He said with a wink. “Speaking of frat houses, there’s kind of this party going on at Delt tonight-” 

“I’m aware.” You said, cutting him off. 

“Ah, well, if you want I can get you on the list.” You smiled to yourself. 

“No need, I’m already on the list.” You said. 

“Oh?” He said, clearly embarrassed. “Because of delta nu?” 

“Nope.” You said, not offering any other information. 

“Well maybe I’ll see you there then.” 

“Even if you do see me there, I will be pretending I don’t know you.” 

“Why?” He asked, clearly offended. “I run that house.” He joked, trying to play off the embarrassment. 

“No offense, but your reputation would not be good for mine.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Well I have a certain reputation in the greek community, and if people see me with you they’ll get the wrong idea.” 

“The wrong idea?” He asked as you walked in the lobby of your building. 

“Well, see, the thing is,” you said, stepping into the elevator. He pressed the button for six and eight. “I have certain standards. If people see me with you, they’ll think I’ve…” 

“Wow, you are really uptight, aren’t you?” 

“Excuse me?” 

“Certain standards? Jesus christ, you’re not the queen, Y/N. And I don’t have a bad reputation. But god forbid I don’t live up to your ‘standards.’” He said, storming off the elevator without another word, clearly upset. You sighed. Good job, Y/N. 

Tom got to his room and threw his stuff on the floor, collapsing on his bed. His head hurt from all the tutoring, and trying to focus on not staring at your lips. 

delt juniors

Tom

aight important question guys

Cal

whats up tommy

Tom

do you guys know a girl called Y/N Y/L/N? shes a delta nu

Joey

dan knows her ;)

Cal

fuck, Y/N? what are you doing with her? 

Tom

shes tutoring me stop buggin 

Max

i know her which u know shes in hc with me 

Liam

oh danny DEFINITLY knows her 

Will

who doesnt know Y/N? shes a hot commodity

Tom

what do you mean? 

Cal

shes like the perfect girl next door, totally hot and so smart which just makes her hotter

Will

doesnt help that shes a huge fuckin flirt AND can hold her alc

Joey

dan is being suspiciously quiet……..

Dan

shut up joe

Liam

care to share with tommy your story with Y/N, daniel? 

Dan

i hate u all 

fine

i was like in love with her freshman year

and i thought she was into me too

and we made out a couple of times but nothing else

the second she found out i was in delt she stopped talking to me

like complete radio silence 

Tom

wtf? Why? 

Cal

she doesnt fuck with delts

thats like common greek knowledge

Will

maybe its because shes gonna be dchi sweetheart? 

Joey

nah theres gotta be something else

Harrison

well i just put her on the list for tonite

Tom

wait YOU put her on the list?! 

Harrison

yeah i invited her friend Emily Gold and she doesnt go anywhere without Y/N and these two other girls

Cal

Ally Park and Isabelle Miller

Harrison

yeah howd u know? 

Cal

theyre like those cool girls from high school everyones obsessed with that are just out of everyones league

Tom

wow american high schools are so weird

Dan

tom if u wanna get with her i wont be pissed

Tom

nah like you said she hates delts, and after three tutoring sessions with me i guarentee i am her least favorite delt ever

Liam

theres no fuckin way she shows up tonight

she wouldnt be caught dead at a delt party

Noah

wait you said Y/N Y/L/N may come tonight????

DIBS

DIBS DIBS DIBS

I CALL DIBS

Cal

noah u seriously show up just to call dibs?

Noah

yeah bro have u seen her? if she comes tonight and any of you try to cockblock me i stg ill deck you

Dan

pretty sure tommy has rightful dibs to this one

Tom

nah fam she hates me so fuckin much

let noah try his luck

i doubt she’ll even show

Max

she’ll show. 

Tom

what makes u say that? 

Liam

max does know her best

Max

she and ally and emily and isabelle are ride or die. they circulate who picks what party they go to and if its emilys turn and harrison somehow conviced her to go, Y/N wont miss it

Dan

she hasnt set foot in a delt house since freshman year, you seriously think she’ll show? 

Max

five bucks says she does

Dan

youre on 

Noah

i just wanna make it clear

that if she does show

D I B S

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: September 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of September 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Remember how proven liar Boris Johnson said he had a world-beating oven-ready Britait deal, which was also the basis of his election slogan campaign of “Get Britait done” and the lack of support for the deal is the reason he sacked 21 of his own MPs?  Just asking, because he tore the whole thing up and said it was unworkable - which also led to Brandon Lewis saying in Parliament, so it is now forever enshrined in the Hansard, that De Pfeffel merely broke international law “in a very specific and limited way” - you know, sort of like how the Manson Family broke the law in a very specific and limited way

The bold vision of a new BBC shared by Tim Davie was revealed when he threatened comedy shows with the axe if they kept making jokes about Britait, the Tory Party or Donald Trump on his first day on the job, because as we all know the best form of comedy comes from punching down rather than up, which is why Little Britain definitely hasn’t aged appallingly

Master of decorum Donald Trump couldn’t even wait a few short hours after Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death before he started rallying the foot soldiers about cramming somebody more fitting with what he wanted into the Supreme Court

Mayor of Amity Island governor of Florida Ron DeSantis continued his bid to be recognised for having the worst response to the Covid pandemic in the congress of having the worst possible response to the Covid pandemic by deciding that, actually, the state of Florida needs to lessen its Covid restrictions at a time when cases of Covid have begun to rise alarmingly in the state

It’s no surprise that proven liar Boris Johnson lied in Parliament by referring to Serco’s failing test & trace app as “NHS Test & Trace” - however the biggest issue is that the BBC had been using the exact same phrase for at least two weeks before that

Nobody was surprised to hear smirking cretin Priti Patel personally using the term “activist lawyers” that the Home Office (headed by P. Patel) had previously used to dehumanise and demean people upholding those pesky immigration laws that the Tory Party really don’t like getting in the way

Tax dodging orange goblin Donald Trump was asked a simple question: Do you think that white supremacists are a problem?  We are still waiting for an answer to that question...

Okay, so now the Conservative Party are cracking down on people breaking lockdown, with threats of a £10,000 fine - rather than circling the wagons around them and throwing out one cock and bull excuse after another like they did when Dominic Cummings broke lockdown to nip off to Durham after testing positive for Covid on what just so happened to be his wife’s birthday

You know that Matt Hancock is good at his job when, having been sent out in front of the cameras to defend The Tory Party appointing ex-Australian PM and all-around arsehole Tony Abbott as a trade advisor in spite his history of misogynistic, homophobic and “Let’s kill the elderly so we can survive Covid” comments the best he could do was say he was a good negotiator...which promptly led to all manner of comments about Harold Shipman being a good GP and Fred West laying one hell of a patio 

According to Jacob Rees Mogg the public having a legitimate complaint about it being damn near impossible to have a Covid test is nothing more than “endless carping” and not, say, legitimate criticism of a woefully underprepared government trying to coast by on the bare minimum who have the gall to try and blame the public for their long list of catestrophic fuckups

It was no surprise to hear proven liar Boris Johnson hand-wringing about “the freedom of the press” after Extinction Rebellion finally realised that being annoying idiots is far more likely to gain support if you’re being annoying idiots with a purpose - just as it was no surprise to hear that proven liar Boris Johnson had no opinion whatsoever of Tim Davie telling BBC newsreaders to fall in line with the corporation (read: Tory) line or they’d be sacked

Once again there was a chance for Keir Starmer to show that his talk of being “true Opposition” is more than a soundbite and, once again, he wimped out on it when ordering Labour MPs to abstain from voting on the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill for fear of being accused of being “anti-British” by voting for a bill created to stop prosecution of British troops for using torture instead of voting against it - and then sacking Nadia Whittome, Beth Winter, and Olivia Blake from their junior ministerial positions when they were three of the 18 Labour MPs who voted against it

It clearly never occurred to Marsha Blackburn when she was browbeating people about the Constitution of the US never being rewritten that the Constitution of the US has been rewritten several times already.  There’s a reason they’re called “Amendments” and not “Footnotes” you know...

Smirking cretin Priti Patel proudly stated that, if she saw her neighbours, she’d gladly call the police due to them breaking the law.  This was around 14 hours after she’d voted to break international law in the Commons, or a few short years after she broke ministerial code by nipping over to Israel to have undisclosed meetings with israeli officials, which begs the question about whether her neighbours are just as willing, doesn’t it?

Judging by Alan Sugar tweeting out conspiracy theories about Covid being created in a Wuhan lab, I think it's safe to say that no Apprentice game show host is capable of not acting like a complete arse on Twitter.  Luckily for the UK, Sugar isn’t Prime Minister - he’s merely a member of the House of Lords...

It’s been a while since WWE acted like totalitarian dicks to the wrestlers employed independently contracted to them but they managed to find one by telling every single one of their employees independent contractors that they could no longer use Twitch or Cameo as it was decided this was being “detrimental” to the company...you know, the bunch of carnies who sign billion dollar deals with our journalist-murdering, woman-oppressing, Yemeni-slaughtering, 9/11-planning “allies” Saudi Arabia, don’t have any for of healthcare for their employees independent contractors, continued a pay per view even though one of their employees independent contractors died due to a stunt going wrong that was linked to the company cheaping out on a safety harness, and apparently not knowing that the term “independent contractor” doesn’t mean the company can sign them to five year deals but sack them at any point - and then prevent them from working anywhere else for 90 days

We had confirmation of Alison Pearson possessing a terrifying combination of pig ignorance and outright sociopathy when she began a Telegraph article with the following: “My son has Covid-19.  Good.”

Sour grapes from Lisa Nandy over people forgetting she was in the Labour leadership race judging by how she apparently didn’t listen to a party pledge to tax corporations and instead spout off a bunch of nonsensical gibberish that sounded uncannily like Britain First rhetoric under the belief that sounding like Britain First is guaranteed to win back working class Northern voters

Litigious TERF JK Rowling revealed her latest book is about a man who murders people while dressed as a woman, which definitely hasn’t drawn any form of comment whatsoever...

You would like to believe that reports of Limestone Games not only effectively stealing the game Aeon Must Die! from the actual dev team who were forced out of the company by a culture of abuse and harassment by a shady cabal who took over the studio would have eld to the game’s release being postponed, especially after it emerged that assets used in the game’s trailer were infringing on various copyrights - but instead Focus Home Entertainment responded by twiddling their thumbs and doing nothing

I’m sure there’s no connection between Alan Sugar demanding people go back to work as if the number of Covid cases has been rising to an alarming degree and how Alan Sugar is bemoaning that his commercial property portfolio is not making him “enough” money due to people staying at home.  None whatsoever...

The fact that those moron parents in California started a wildfire after setting off fireworks for their baby’s gender reveal party that led to over 20,000 people having to evacuate their homes is dickheaded enough - but the fact that it’s not the first case of this happening, as a similar incident happened in Arizona back in 2018, makes them look even more dickheaded

If you want to say you put Britain before anything else, like Andrea Jenkyns did in her latest Twitter tsunami of childishness and spite, it doesn't look good when you say you're pro-Trump before pre-De Pfeffel as it defeats your own argument almost as fast as being Andrea Jenkyns - or, you know, failing to spell the word “British” correctly when accusing people of being anti-British

It would have been wise if West Ham announced that manager David Moyes and two players had tested positive for Covid before their match with Hull - not after the match had kicked off, leading to Moyes legging it out of the stadium

Whatever it is in the mind of DeAnna Lorraine that snapped and had her babbling insane nonsense that The Masked Singer is part of a covert plot to have people wearing masks probably can’t be repaired, and appears to have also caused her to accuse anyone who thinks she does sound insane of being acolytes of George Soros

Professional victim Laurence Fox somehow believed that posting a chat log of a conversation between himself and Rebecca Front and then howling about being “cancelled” - and then a few hours later had to very publicly backtrack, no doubt because his agent had several dozen words with him

I have no idea why David Cameron convinced himself that showing himself helping out in the Chipping Norton food bank was a good idea, considering he’s the reason why food banks exist in the first place

How nice of Manchester Metropolitan University to tell the students who were confined to accomodation so unable to go out and buy food, who were paying £9000 tuition fees for face-to-face tutoring that was done via Zoom that makes such good value of the hundreds of pounds of rent they have to pay per month when they could have had those same lectures from home, that they’re not allowed to protest about this situation and had to take any signs posted on their windows critical of the government down immediately

In normal circumstances Mason Greenwood and Phil Foden sneaking girls into the England team hotel would look pretty stupid, especially in Foden’s case considering the odds of his live-in girlfriend not finding out about this are practically nil, but during a global pandemic it looked so incredibly boneheaded it’s lucky they play for the Manchester clubs otherwise the front pages would be calling them ignorant traitors or some such bullshit

Nothing sums up Premier League referees quite like them clearly not understanding the current definition of the handball rule, but rather than actually look it up they make it up as they go alone leading to more penalties being awarded for handball in the first four rounds of Premier League fixtures than in entire seasons - not helped by Premier League referees also operating VAR, where they seem to have a policy of “If you ignore my cock up, I’ll ignore yours”

And finally, inventing yet another terror atrocity, is Donald Trump and his batshit insane proclamations about cans of soup being a much bigger threat to American lives than, say, and AR-15.  But then again, it’s not like his support base has a habit of throwing cans of soup at crowds of people

[jimlingss]

Jungle Park [19]

Chapter 18 - Chapter 19 - Chapter 19.5 OR Chapter 20

➜ Words: 3.1k

➜ Genres: Fluff, Light Humour (?), Slice of Life, Workplace Romance!AU

➜ Summary: The equation is simple. Hoseok needs to hire someone. You need a job. Except like any actual equation, it’s not fucking simple at all! Not when you have to add the fact that he was forced to hire someone he doesn’t want in his office, he has little respect for your job in general, and oh yeah...once upon a time you might have—*CENSORED*.

“Thirty days.”   Your eyes are locked with his and he hangs on every word that falls from your lips. “Enter an agreement with me. If after thirty days, it doesn’t work, then we can break it off. If after thirty days, we aren’t happy, then we can both mutually walk away and never try again.”   Hoseok is a man of plans. Negotiating and establishing contracts between parties is a part of his job. So it doesn’t take much convincing, especially when he wants this as much as you do. “Okay.”   //   There’s a shift. A change. Yet, at the same time, nothing feels significantly different. Maybe it’s in the way your shoulders feel lighter, even if the worry is still there. You can smile when your eyes meet his now and he returns it meekly as if it’s a promise that everything will be okay, that he’ll follow through.   The rest of the office gathers together and no one asks any questions. But Jimin still pulls you aside, asking if there’s an issue he should know about. You reassure him things are fine — finding it funny how everyone automatically takes your side, including Hoseok’s own partner.   For so long, your life has felt chaotic. It’s a breath of relief to find the world normal and constant outside your bubble. And it’s not difficult to revert back and discover peace again. Between the bickering of Yoongi and Sunyi, Jin and Taehyung being noisy with the latter clinging onto Jungkook, everything has returned to its ordinary days. Just this time, you just have someone by your side.   The night market is bustling with people and crowds, lights twinkling in every direction. “Ooh, chicken skewers!” Like a hyperactive dog, Jin goes running off to a stand and Namjoon follows.   Jungkook is also infected with enthusiasm and quickly turns towards you. “Want some, Y/N?”   “I’m good, thanks.”   Sunyi takes a moment to stop at a stand, putting on a yellow sun hat with flowers decorated around the ribbon as the vendor watches with a smile. “What do you think of this hat?”   “You should pick one that covers up your face more,” Yoongi deadpans, causing the girl to scowl at him.   Eventually, the group splits off, either eating or shopping for souvenirs. You remain walking on the streets alongside Hoseok, stealing a few peeks at him when given the chance. His hand slips from his pants pocket casually and as you stroll, it grazes the back of yours.   “You can hold my hand if you want to,” you murmur, not sure if he hears you.   But then after a delayed moment, Hoseok hums a low note and takes it. He laces his fingers with yours and a tiny smile sneaks up your lips, matching Hoseok’s. You lean closer to him, no one else in the office turning around to notice. It’s a long way to go, but it’s just the beginning.

The quietness used to make you feel unsettled. There was something about being in the silence of your own head, stewing over numerous thoughts, aboard trains that you don’t know where they’ll lead, only to forget once you’ve snapped out of it. But no longer is that quietness unpleasant. While you’ve had enough time to become comfortable in your own presence, having him here beside you makes you all the more content. The silence is far too comfortable.   You stare out the window, smile stuck on your face, exhaling. The sceneries pass by, playing along to the tune of the soft radio. He’s singing quietly to any song he remembers and you don’t say anything, merely listening and being lulled.   “You know…” You break the quiet, craning your neck over to stare at his profile. “You don’t have to tiptoe around me.”   “Who says I am?” The lawyer steals a glimpse of you, a mischievous smirk pulling at his lips.   “Me,” you tease, having too much fun know that the tables have turned. You repeat the things he used to tell you, using his own words against him. “You’re stiff — I can tell.”   Hoseok snorts, a rush of air coming from his nose and his mouth curls. “I’m not just used to switching off my work mode. Plus, you’re too adorable and I’m not sure how to deal with that yet.”   You scoff. “Don’t act cute with me, Jung.”   “Why not?” He pouts, puffing out his cheeks and quirking his head to the side as if trying to appeal to you. “Don’t you like me cute?”   “Focus on the road before we crash and die.”   Hoseok laughs, hands moving along the steering wheel and turning it with the palm of his hand. He leans back in his seat, acting excessively casual and cool that it almost comes off as practiced. “You want to go to dinner afterwards? I still haven’t taken you out on our first official date yet.”   “Depends where.”   “How about Chinese?”   You consider it before recalling the lunch you shared with him a few months back and a sense of nostalgia brings a better idea. “How about curry?”   “Curry, it is! Yes, ma’am.”   A giggle spills from your throat and you give a firm nod of approval. “That’s right.”   “I know a good place. Leave it up to me.”   “Okay. But if we eat at my place, you’re going to leave after.”   “Of course.” Hoseok gasps, playing into his natural theatrics, and making you laugh when he pretends to take offense. “Who do you take me for?”   “I’m just putting it out there. It’s my personal first date rules.”   “Mine too.” He takes another peek before focusing on the road ahead. “Just letting you know, i have plans to abstain from any physical contact for the next decade.”   Hoseok smiles when you laugh, cheeks aching. It seems that lately, all you feel is giddy. You point off to the curb, trying your best to remain composed, but obviously failing. “You should park here.”   “Isn’t that too far away?”   “...I don’t want my mom to chase you again.”   “Fair enough.” Hoseok was helping you pick up your belongings that you left at your mom’s while staying there. It didn’t take an extra second for him to offer his driving services and you didn’t object either. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” He opens the door for you, ushering you out with the utmost courtesy. “How’s your shoulder and your neck?”   “I’m fine,” you insist. “I’m a lot better.”   Still, he remains unsure. “Call me if you need help.”   “I don’t know, Jung. You think you can handle my mom?” You’re bantering with him, all in good fun. But when his expression becomes blank, you realize he genuinely seems sad and sorry about it. You know Hoseok’s used to people not liking him in his line of work, but your mom was an important family member and it was clear he wanted her approval. You quickly jump in before his brain can implode with stress. “I’m fine. Don’t worry, alright? I’ll be out in five minutes.”   “Okay.”   You walk down the block, crossing the street before stepping up towards the front door. No one answers the doorbell. You ring again. Waiting. No one answers. With a sigh, you dig into your pockets for the key, wondering if she’s sleeping. The door opens and you slip off your shoes.   “Mom?”   “Y/N?” Her voice comes from upstairs and immediately, the ceiling trembles with her stomping steps making haste. “I thought I heard that doorbell!”   “I’m just grabbing—”   It happens too suddenly. Your mom’s hurrying down the stairs. And her foot — it slips. Her arm extends, grabbing onto the banister, but it’s not enough to hold her upright. Her feet lurch forward. Her body pulls away from her arms, going in different directions. There’s a terrible crash, and she tumbles down the stairs, hitting against the wall. You shout, paralyzed in shock.   And your mom curses, laying on the floor by your feet.   //   A conclusion in your mind has finally been reached — the hospital is a terrible place to be. You didn’t know you would return so soon and this time, it isn’t even for you. You’re holding your mother’s cold hand in yours, unable to stop crying and sobbing onto the sheets as you’re hunched over, sitting in the stool beside her bed. The heart monitor lurches every so often with a beat. And while the sound is eerie and unpleasant, looking at her is even more so.   The right side of her forehead is bruised, purple flowers blooming on her old skin wrinkled from age. You never noticed how tired she is, how it’s made her aged, and it makes you sob harder.   “Oh my god.” She finally speaks up. “You need to save this for the funeral.”   You wipe your eyes with your sleeve and she continues relentlessly, “I’m not dead yet and I won’t die so easily. God knows you’ve given me a heart attack enough times — if I’m not in the grave by now, I won’t be for a while.”   “I thought….I thought…”   “You’re just like your dad.” A softer smile pulls on her lips. “So concerned about everything. It gives me a headache.” You manage a small laugh at her absurdity. Honestly, you expect nothing less. “If you care this much, you’d visit more often or pick up your phone and call me. It wouldn’t kill you.”   “Sorry…”   The older woman nods, turning to face the plain ceiling and sighing. “My butt kind of hurts.”   You frown, looking over her and slightly hovering. “Do you need me to call someone?”   “I want liquids.”   “Water?”   “No. Tea.” She smiles. “Go look into the vending machines. As long as it’s not that iced tea, I’m fine with anything. If not, go to the cafeteria or find a coffee shop.”   You’re appalled. “You want….tea?”   “Yes. Will you get it for your dear mother?” Her request is more like a command. You’re not even sure if she’s allowed to have tea and you don’t know what’s wrong with her, but you abide your mother’s headstrong will, slowly getting up. “And leave that door open. I need some air in here. It’s suffocating me.”   You obey, leave it slightly ajar and your eyes straying off before you spin around on your heel, going on a quest for tea whilst feeling like a child navigating the hospital on an odd mission. It’s quiet for a long moment and the woman inside the room sighs once more and looks off at the door. Her voice is still strong despite her fall.   “Jung, get yourself in here. Don’t make me repeat myself twice.”   There’s ten seconds of silence. Then, a nose pokes through the gap of the door and there’s someone meekly shuffling inside, acting all too out of character. Hoseok’s head is downcasted, eyes pinned to the ground, practically bowing on the floor. “Hello.”   Your mother moves to sit upright, wincing in the process. The lawyer’s eyes widen and he rushes over, arms opening to help her, but then he retracts when she manages on her own. “Sit down, boy, and don’t touch me.”   He immediately plops down and she glares, detesting his very face. Eventually, she looks away, scanning the premise. It’s a small hospital room with a window off the left wall, but private nonetheless. “You must be doing well if you could afford a room like this.”   “I-uh...I’m doing okay.”   “Did you really think I wouldn’t know you were here? I was still conscious when you picked me up, threw me into the backseat, and shipped me here.”   “S-sorry…” Hoseok takes a deep breath, meeting her eyes. He hasn’t felt so nervous for something since his job interview at Wendy’s firm, but with years of being under strict authority and in stressful situations, he composes himself and speaks in a gentler tone. His hands are placed reverently on his thighs and he bows his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did to make you feel this way towards me. But I’m sorry for my actions. I was in accident—”   “Save it. I’ve already heard it from my daughter.” The woman exhales, locking her gaze onto his and boring her eyes into his skull. Hoseok never thought there would be someone more intimidating than his sister, but he swallows hard and shuts up, allowing her to talk. “You’re a cruel man, Hoseok.”   “To have the audacity to come back and court my daughter after you left her high and dry.” She half-scoffs and gives half a laugh of disbelief. The woman feels your humiliation, the shame of crawling back to someone who threw you away, the anger, the sadness, the helplessness. “You can’t even remember what you did to her. When I heard, I thought this was from a TV drama. I thought no way was this part of real life. I wouldn’t be surprised if you made it all up. But of course, it has to be real. You always find new ways to make my only daughter suffer. You can’t leave her alone, can you? Had I known back then, I would’ve thrown you out onto the streets right that instant.”   She looks away with a scoff, too tired to berate him further, insult him, or chuck the tissue box at her bedside table towards his figure. The woman has given up. She sighs. “Well...what can you do?” It’s almost as if she’s speaking to herself. “How am I supposed to stop you...or her? I’m an old lady. I can’t even chase you out the house properly without falling over.”   “But I hope that your intentions with my daughter are right or may god help you, Jung Hoseok, I will personally see you in hell.” It’s what her late husband would’ve said..maybe in less sharp terms. Still, she recites the words, reminding the lawyer who sits motionlessly beside her. “When I die, she won’t have any family left and no one to support her. I hope you will be the person she leans on.”   “I won’t disappoint you,” he reaffirms, earnest in his promise, keeping his head downcasted respectfully.   “I’m not giving you my blessing because of you, boy. I’m giving it because I know my daughter’s stupid and you’re stupid — it makes you both a good match. And if I didn’t accept you...well...I’d rather not make her suffer more.” Despite her cold words and insults, her arm extends, putting her hand over his like she did with you. She pats him once with a bit of reluctance.   “If you’re not serious, if you’re not committed to her, then tell me. I don’t want you to make a mistake and make her experience...that again.”   “I’m serious about Y/N,” Hoseok whispers, wholehearted and purposeful with how he punctuates the syllables. “I love your daughter very much.”   “Good.” She nods and allows herself to relax back into the soft bed. “That makes me feel a lot more at peace.”   Outside of the room, you’re leaning against the wall. You’re right by the door with a cup in hand, but never once are you seen from the inside. Patients, doctors, and nurses pass by you, the world moving around. They’re oblivious to your smile and the way your chest has eased with a bigger weight you didn’t even notice existing there.   //   “Did my mom say anything?” The door shuts to your apartment and your feet pad against the floorboards, making your way to the modest kitchen. “I was surprised to see you two chatting.”   “She said to say hi to my mom.” He follows after you, setting down the takeout. “Apparently, they were good friends or something.”   “Oh, I see.” You don’t push, but you shift around to face him, stopping Hoseok right in his tracks. “Are you alright? You’ve been quiet.”   “I’ve been thinking.”   “About?”   Jung Hoseok’s hair is slightly ruffled, not styled or curled into the common look he wears for work. He’s enveloped in a simple black hoodie and dark jeans, bringing you a sense of nostalgia as if no time has passed whatsoever. “That I don’t really….care anymore.”   You frown in confusion, not understanding where he’s getting at. “What?”    “I know it might be bad, but I don’t care what happened to us. I’ve just been thinking that this entire time, I’ve been hung up about the past and our history together and now I realize I don’t care.” There’s a pause, his brown irises gazing back into yours. “What I care about is now.”   You echo him, “Now?”   “What I should care about is the things I can remember. What I have is the power to control my future. And I want to spend that future with you.”   You scoff, stepping forward and encircling your arms around him. It’s odd to hug him like this, but it’s not necessarily foreign. “You’re such a sap, Hobi,” you murmur underneath your breath.   He smiles, leaning down until his chin is propped on your shoulder, returning your embrace and giving you a tight squeeze. “I know. I should’ve majored in literature, huh? With a concentration in poetry or something...”   “Imagine if the rest of the firm saw you now.”   “That would ruin my image,” he mumbles, shutting his eyes and enjoying the way you lean your head against him and how your fingers run through the black strands of his hair.   A wistful sigh leaves the seams of your lips, relaxing in his grasps. “Your image is already ruined.”   He pulls away with a slight pout. “What do you mean?”   “You’re a softie now.” You poke him, even when Hoseok sulks harder. “You’re not so scary anymore and they think you’re my best friend.”   “Me? Best friends with you?” The man grins, mouth pulled slightly in a heart shape as his eyes crinkle. He resists the urge to nuzzle into you. “I couldn’t think of a better position to be in.”   “Oh?” A single brow raises. “Want to go back to being friends then?”   “Excuse me?! Are you trying to friendzone me? I think it’s too late for that.”   “Nothing’s ever too late.” You giggle, placating him and slipping out from your best friend’s arms. “Let’s eat before the food gets cold, and I change my mind and you’re back to being my friend.”   He salutes you silently before opening the plastic bag, fiddling with the knot for a while. A smile pulls at your lips and while you didn’t say it out loud — you’re glad that he agrees with you.   Your past is filled with Jung Hoseok and so is your present. You hope your future will be too.

[neo-culture-taste]

Abeilles au Printemps - 2.5 🐝

Alternate Title: Bees in Spring  

Summary: You needed something real. A year and two months without sex and you just couldn’t take it any longer. You needed something real and you needed something to feel. And what you wanted to feel was Johnny.

Genre: AU, romance, drama, comedy, smut

Pairing: Johnny x Y/N (fem)

Rating: Mostly mature themes/ language. Sex (duh).

Word Count: 2500

For other chapters, see the masterlist.

A/N: THIS CAN BE READ AS A STAND ALONE LIKE  A ONESHOT. YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE READ THE OTHER CHAPTERS. But you might as well because it’s a good read in my opinion, lol.

Likewise, this chapter can be skipped since it is just some extra insight into Y/N’s relations with Johnny.

It was absolutely unfair. The way his back muscles rippled underneath his shirt as he tilted his head backwards to satiate his thirst. The way his fringe slowly cascaded down his forehead as he positioned his head upright and releasing a slight ahh. It was absolutely unfair and somewhat infuriating that he could make your body heat up with excitement by just drinking water from a fucking paper cup.

It had been fourteen long months since the last time you’d had sex with someone else, and he wasn’t making it easy for you. He wasn’t purposely baiting you—or then again, maybe he was. Whatever his intentions, he did enough that had you—and several paralegals—fantasizing about him. Going out of his way to stretch his body in a fashion that showed off his exquisite physique. The way he would lick and bite his lip whenever he was in deep concentration. The way you could feel his eyes undressing your body whenever he looked at you in passing. They were all his attempts of getting you back into his bed again, whether they were conscious or not.

As much as you wanted to let him throw you down onto his mattress and have his way with you over and over, you told yourself you couldn’t. You were in a committed relationship with your boyfriend of almost a year and a half, and had cut all ties with your previous sexual partners. But your boyfriend didn’t give you sex, and here this guy was practically offering it to you on a plate. It was easy to ignore him at first, you were almost a master at pretending people in your life didn’t exist. You were able to focus solely on your budding relationship with your boyfriend—until said relationship became stale, your sexual frustration becoming unbearable, and your boyfriend going away on a trip to another country for two months. All of those factors brought you to where you were now, sitting at your desk struggling not to get yourself off thinking about the guy that looked torturously good drinking from a damned paper cup.

You looked at the clock hanging on the wall above the door. It was a little bit after hours and you had stayed behind to finish up some of your paperwork. That meant a majority of your colleagues had already left the law firm for the day and you could quickly take care of yourself without anybody knowing. You got up from your chair to close the door, and as soon as your hand grasped the doorknob you remembered something... His office was down the hall and around the corner from yours. The entrance to the elevator was on the other end of the hallway and the only way he could get to it was if he passed by your office. You remembered you hadn’t seen him walk by your door yet that evening. He was still in the building.

Fuck it.

With your hand still on the doorknob, you gave it a tight squeeze before swinging the door shut. You had swung the door shut behind you as you were briskly making your way down the hall and around the corner. Having forsaken all of your manners, you forcefully pushed his door open and barged into his office without even a courtesy knock. The attorney looked up from stuffing folders into his briefcase to gaze at you in surprise, not expecting you to appear so suddenly and so urgently.

“Johnny, are you busy?” you asked, breathing heavily from your impromptu power walk.

“I have a deposition to get to on the other side of town.” He took in your heavy breathing and flushed cheeks with a bit of concern. “Why? What’s the matter?” He ran his hand through his long locks, the urge to run your own fingers through his hair causing you to pull your skirt down in anticipation.

You looked at the time once again on your watch. If he had a deposition this late, that meant it was a high profile client who was almost impossible to meet with during the day. You didn’t want to keep him from something like that. But you also couldn’t keep yourself from him any longer.

“Do you have ten minutes?” You bit your lip and crossed your legs tightly together, an attempt to contain your arousal and to get your point across.

His eyebrows raised in realization and he couldn’t stop the smile that played on his lips and the chuckle that escaped them. He locked his briefcase, the clicking seeming louder than it needed to be, picked it up from his desk, and walked over to you. You braced yourself against the door, your chest rising as you sucked in a breath and blocked him from his exit. “As much as I want to give you those ten minutes, I really have to go.” He rested his free arm above you on the door and lowered his head to lightly graze your ear with his nose. The chill that quickly traveled down your spine was enough to knock you back to your senses and briefly rethink the mistake you went there to make. That was until Johnny bored his eyes into yours, mouth slightly agape with his breath tickling your hairline.

Now knowing he was willing to reciprocate, and your boyfriend a long forgotten thought, you weren’t going to let him get away that easily. “That’s too bad.” You turned your body and twisted the doorknob, opening the door as if you were about to leave. “I’m not wearing any underwear today.”

The door slammed shut in front of you just like you knew it would, Johnny having closed it forcefully with the arm resting on it. “Ten minutes.”

Thank the stars for unsightly panty lines.

“Ten minutes…” you whispered, feeling the heat between your legs grow as hot as the fire you saw in his eyes. With the way he worked his magic, he could have easily made you cum in half that time, but you wanted to be a little greedy after having had abstained for so long.

Dropping his briefcase, he pinned your front to the door and grabbed your face before latching his mouth onto yours, not wasting a single second before shoving his tongue through your lips and grinding his growing erection against your backside. “Lock the door,” he whispered into your ear and you did as you were told.

Damn. How you had fucking missed that shit.

As the wet muscles in your mouths danced, he turned you by the hips to face him before lifting up your pencil skirt. “Mhm, fuck. You really weren’t lying about the no panties thing.” He grabbed you by the thighs and lifted you up prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist. The cold buckle of his belt pressed deliciously against your clit before he lowered you just a tad to be right where he needed you to be.

Holding you firm against him, he went straight to the spot on your neck that he knew made you drip with pleasure. You felt slight nipping at your skin, the sensation causing you to buck against him and grind on his dick straining against the confinement of his slacks. As expected, the both of you let out soft moans, mindful of your volume just in case there were any other leftover employees who decided to work late.

He finally pushed back from the door and made way towards his desk. Before he placed you down, with one swift motion he knocked a majority of the items in the middle to one side with a swipe of his arm. You found his action to be a bit excessive, but necessary once he laid you onto the flat surface.

“Wow. And I thought we would just do it on top of your fancy, giant calendar mat,” you said as you began unbuttoning your chiffon blouse.

He unbuckled his belt and undid his fly, your teeth trapping your lip in awe of your old, yet hard buddy from fourteen months ago. “Didn’t want to get my jizz anywhere near the 16th.”

“What’s on the 16th?” He helped you shimmy out of your skirt as you removed the sleeves from your arms.

“The two year anniversary with my girlfriend.” As he pushed down his pants and underwear to his ankles, you reached behind yourself to remove your bra. You could have sworn you saw Johnny’s legs give in as he stared at you like some sort of museum display—one he could actually touch and feel with his bare hands.

“Aw, congratulations,” you said with actual sincerity, moving to wrap your hand around his dick and pumping him a few times.

“Thanks.” He shuddered with the pleasure from your touch as he unbuttoned his own shirt. “When’s yours?”

“Which one?” He let out a laugh without much thought. Once he was done with his shirt, you grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled him down over you to kiss him as you leaned back flat onto the desk.

Grip on your hips, he pulled them abruptly to the edge of the desk to position himself at your entrance, did that sexy hair flip that drove you wild, then plunged in without any other warning. You gasped loudly as your body arched against him from the sudden wave of ecstasy. He also didn't waste time to start moving his dick inside you, aiming directly for and hitting the spot that had been terribly neglected for fourteen months.

Johnny was remarkable at sex. He was one of the best you had ever had and the reason why you could no longer abstain on your boyfriend’s behalf. He knew how to angle his hips so that every inch inside of you felt immeasurable pleasure as he thrusted deep inside you. You missed the way he would run his thumb over your clit ever so slightly as a means of teasing. And you had miss slapping his hand away in fear of coming too soon. You missed the way his head would fall back in pure bliss before saying, ‘Baby, you’re so fucking warm. Can I just...fuck...stay inside you all day and night?’ And then you would watch him take a brief pause and roll his shoulders back, refocusing and gathering himself before he too came too soon.

He continued his actions, medium speed just the way you both enjoyed it in the beginning, smirking as he grabbed your breasts and squeezed while still rocking into you. At some point your eyes fluttered closed and you placed your hands on top of his, the familiar coil winding in your stomach. When your breathing became more frantic, he abruptly pulled out and slapped the side of your thigh, ordering you to turn over. You wanted him back inside you as quickly as possible, so you placed your feet onto the floor, turned around and braced your upper body on the desk with your elbows. Now, Johnny was the perfect gentlemen so you weren’t surprised when he bent down to retrieve his slacks so he could slide them underneath your elbow for comfort. Aligning himself with your hips again and slipping himself back inside you at the new angle. You let out a string of curses, not entirely sure if they were coherent and not.

“Oh, fuck. I missed you so much,” you hissed as he rammed you into oblivion.

“So you missed me, huh? I knew you couldn’t go that long without wanting to be with me. I’m irresistible,” He answered between breaths.

“You got it wrong. I didn’t miss you, Johnny.” You clenched your walls around his cock and his hips jerked roughly as he lost his rhythm. “I missed him.”

“Fuck, Y/N!” He slowed down his pace as he tried to regain his composure. He hated when you did that. “You’re gonna make me cum too early.”

“We only have three minutes left,” you said as you backed your hips against him.”

He let out a low groan at your actions and slapped you on the ass for you to stop. “I don’t give a damn about being late anymore.”

Pushing his hands slightly into your lower back creating an arch in your posture, he began to pound at a more relentless pace. The movements caused his pen holder to fall off his desk, eliciting a mix of giggles and moans from you. You tried to match his pace, but you knew he was mentally far too gone for you to keep up and you were already battling the force of your impending release.

He snaked his hand to grab forcefully at your breasts once more, while you bit your lip and hung your head in response.

“Johnny! I’m...fuck! You know what I am!”

“Shhh.” He bent down and kissed your neck before moving his hand upwards, trading your breast for your mouth in preparation to mask the sounds that were soon to erupt. Without ceasing his actions, he found your clit with his free hand and massaged it just enough to where he had you coming undone.

Your orgasm hit you extremely hard, your body tensed and you felt the edge of the desk digging into your hip bones. You were thankful your cries of pleasure were muffled by his giant hand. That weird saying about seeing stars after cumming so hard was always corny to you, but after that long drought, bitch, you saw the fucking cosmos.

Still trying to come down from your high, you felt Johnny give a couple more thrusts before pulling out and releasing all over the back of your thighs. He had barely made it out in time, but you paid that no mind as your body sank onto his desk.

"Shit. I got it on the rug," he said. With whatever strength you could muster, you turned and saw the mess he had made.

“It’s an ugly rug. I always hated this rug. It doesn’t match the room nor your personality.”

“My girlfriend, the interior designer, gave me this rug.”

“Burn it and tell her to find a job she’s actually qualified for." You grabbed a tissue from a box on the floor that used to be on his desk and wiped down your legs. You threw his clothes at him and quickly dressed yourself.

“Don't be a bitch.”

“I’m just saying.” Once the two of you were fully clothed, you brought his head down for another kiss. “Thanks, Johnny.”

“Thank, you.” He kissed your lips again and stared into your eyes with a smile. “I’m guessing this means we can resume our regularly scheduled--“

“You know you shouldn’t keep your clients waiting.” And before he could protest you walked out his office and back to yours.

But you would definitely be back.

For other chapters, see the masterlist.

🐝 💚 🐝 💚 🐝

[rhysanoodle]

In My Blood

A/N: In which Cassian again participates in the Blood Rite and both he and Nesta must deal with the consequences, post-ACOFAS

Nessian angst

Word count: 1839

AO3

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Part 7

The night passed with little incident. At one point Nesta needed to shake Cassian awake again as she awoke to the noise of him thrashing around and sweaty with fever, but after helping him down another draught and changing his sheets, she was able to find a few hours of her own sleep before awakening at the crack of dawn.

Gods, she really needed more comfortable sleeping arrangements, she thought to herself as she brewed the strongest coffee she could muster but still struggled to stay awake as she cooked breakfast. For her, some eggs with sausage, but for Cassian, luckily, she just needed to reheat some stew from last night. She had some fairly strict orders about what she was allowed to serve him, which worked just fine for her. It made her job easier.

Thankfully, he’d managed to keep the meager amount he’d swallowed last night down, but she knew she’d have to force him to eat more today and drink more fluids. His healing would only be slower if he continued to deprive himself of the essentials.

As she carried the tray laden with stew and a glass of cold water on it into the bedroom, she was surprised to find Cassian already awake. He was staring at the bed roll on the floor with a pained expression, and Nesta was unsure if it was at the now-sober realization that she had indeed spent the night here or if he coincidentally needed a refresher for the pain draught.

He quickly glanced up at her as she entered, and held her gaze as she helped to prop him with some pillows and then set the tray on his lap.

“Is there anything else I can get you right now? I know it’s a little early for it, but I can grab some more pain medication from the kitchen. Or you can just wait until lunchtime and take it with the healing tonic. Whatever you want really.”

Why the hell was she babbling so much? She just needed to shut the hell up and go grab another cup of coffee. It was promising to be a long day already, full of trying to skirt around the unspoken issues between them as they were stuck together all day long. Six more days.

Cursing herself for the awkwardness, she turned to leave when he still hadn’t responded for a few moments, but he gently caught her wrist, wincing a bit at the motion, and Nesta spun back around.

Cassian awkwardly point toward his head and shallowly bit out, “My hair is in my face, and it’s kind of hard to eat. He mimicked the fact that he couldn’t really reach much farther than his mouth and slowly at that. Right. And after the thrashing of last night and the fact that he hadn’t bathed, it was a tangled mess around his head.

Nesta nodded and quickly went to go fetch some supplies. She came back with her hairbrush and a leather tie and got to work. Kneeling next to him on the bed, she gently coaxed the snarls free on one side of him and then the moved to the other, doing her best not to pull too hard or have to run her own fingers through it too much. The small shivers she felt anytime her hands made contact with his scalp were unnerving her, and she carefully avoided Cassian’s gaze, staring at the brush in front of her, not brave enough to want to find out if she had a similar effect on him.

After a few minutes of detangling, she neatly tied his hair back with the piece of leather and made her way back to the kitchen to eat her own breakfast without looking back or giving him a moment to respond.

By midday, the urge to crack open a bottle of wine was grating on Nesta. She had a few stashed away but knew she’d never live it down if Feyre showed up to find her drunk today. Maybe that would get her out of this responsibility though and she could just leave Windhaven… She was still warring with herself internally when a loud knock sounded at the door.

Thank the Mother.

Feyre and Azriel filed in followed by one of the town healers. Nesta gave them each a curt nod, told them Cassian was definitely still alive, and bolted out the front door. Let them have their privacy. She sure as hell needed some of her own right now.

She wandered aimlessly through Windhaven, having absolutely no clue where she was headed. It had been so important to her to get out that she hadn’t really considered what she would do with her free time. Ideally she would be alone at home with a good book and a glass of wine, but that wasn’t an option right now, and in her haste, she hadn’t thought to bring a book out with her.

After wandering the perimeter of the camp enough times that on any other day, she thought she might truly go insane, she found herself stumbling into Emerie’s shop.

The bell above the door emitted a soft tinkling noise, and Emerie glanced up from the book she always had stashed underneath the counter for slow days.

“You look…” Emerie clearly was trying to gauge Nesta’s mood, “...like absolute shit,” she laughed and gestured for Nesta to join her behind the counter.

“I’ve been trapped in that cabin all day, and honestly, I thought I was going to explode if I had to stay there a second longer,” Nesta admitted. “I don’t know why I offered to help him. It was a moment of weakness, and…” She was at a loss for words.

“What exactly happened?” Emerie nudged her for more information. “One day we’re all in camp waiting to see the results of the Rite, and the next pretty much all of the Rhysand’s Inner Circle has descended into town and are acting like they’ve got sticks shoved all the way up their asses.”

“Cassian made it to the peak of Ramiel. That’s all I know, but he almost died in the attempt. I assume they’re doing damage control while they wait for him to come back up to speed and he is able to attend his own coronation, but it could be days from now...at least a week? I don’t know.” Nesta fought back the tears that were threatening to burst out of her as she finally said the words she’d been thinking aloud, “I’m just here until he recovers. After that, I’ll probably go find another camp to live in.” The words were barely a whisper.

“What?” Emerie snapped back at her.

“I’ve promised to stay and help until he’s able to care for himself, but I think it’s time for me to move on from here. He’s about to hold a significant amount of power over me, and it’s clear that I’m unwelcome. I don’t want to go back to Velaris, but I can’t stay here either.”

Emerie was silent for a minute, before flatly saying, “You could try out Stormridge.” Nesta was grateful her friend had abstained from any other scathing commentary.

“What’s that?” Nesta asked, feeling hopeful for the first time all week.

“It’s another camp which isn’t terribly far from here, a few towns over to the east. You’d still be able to visit me occasionally, and I hear it’s going through some interesting changes as well. The bastard son of their lord was the only other contestant to make it to the summit. Some say he actually saved Cassian’s life. It’s all rumors at this point, but he’s likely to gain a position of power soon if it’s all true, and he seems like a good kid. He flies over here daily now, supposedly checking on how Cassian is doing,” she responded.

Nesta mulled it over, not liking how close this person supposedly was to Cassian but realizing that if he indeed end up leading this other camp, it still would be better than any of the other misogynistic lords she would’ve had to have put up with elsewhere.

“Thanks,” she said, offering Emerie a small smile and getting up to leave. She had a lot more to think about now and only a short while left before she knew she would have to relieve her houseguests.

“But I swear on the Cauldron, if you disappear without a trace, Nesta Archeron, I will hunt you down and haunt the shit out of you,” Emerie yelled at her as she was stepping through the door. With a laugh, Nesta turned and gave her a vulgar gesture before beginning the arduous walk back to the cabin.

Nesta was slowly, silently walking up to the house when she heard the voices pouring out of the open window. She froze in her tracks, noting that she was downwind of the cabin so they likely hadn’t sensed her approach.

“No, I don’t want to move somewhere larger. I like this cabin just fine, and besides, this is the camp I grew up in...for the most part.” Cassian.

“But don’t you want to start over somewhere new? I thought after everything these people had put you through and the last year you’ve spent in this house, you’d be amenable to us building you some sort of nicer estate.” Feyre.

“No, this is my home, and this bullshit isn’t going to change that.” Cassian.

“What are you going to do about Nesta?” Feyre.

“What do you mean what am I going to do about Nesta? What are you going to do about Nesta? What is Nesta going to do with herself?” Cassian.

“Cassian.” Feyre’s tone could be considered a warning. “I know it’s been a rough year or two, but she did volunteer to stay and help you. And she lives here too.”

“I’ve told you a thousand times already. Just because you know I’ve had feelings for Nesta in the past doesn’t mean I can live like this anymore. You’ve left me out here with her for over a year, Feyre. I’ve tried. I did everything I could think of to pull her out of that place she’s been trapped in in her head for months. Eventually, I just had to get used to pretending that I live alone. She’s been a ghost. I can’t just ignore her anymore, but I also can’t keep doing this.”

“Cassian.” Azriel. At that, the Shadowsinger quickly glanced out the window, catching Nesta’s gaze for a moment before averting it and continuing the conversation as if he hadn’t just been informed that she had heard a decent amount of the conversation happening in that room.

As she backed down the street again to pretend to find something to do for the next thirty minutes before innocently making her way back home, she hoped his shadows hadn’t also been able to sense how her already-fractured heart had somehow broken on those last words.

Tags: @porcelainart @theartfuldodgcr @tswaney17 @lordof-bloodshed @aelinashgalathynius @aedionashryver-wolfofthenorth @anyone-anything-canbetrayanyone @refreshtoexpress @mikaylamee @wolffrising @tiredbutstillreading @velarxs

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