#but it crosses a line when they start @'ing the people in question claiming they don't deserve to meet them and shit

[pseudophan]

Is it bad that I feel really, really upset seeing that someone has 6 m&g tickets for TIT meanwhile dnp aren't even coming anywhere near my continent, so I can't go to the tour no matter what and I have to save up for or a kidney transplant soon so I can't recklessly spend money on a booking a flight :((

I'm happy for them, and I'm happy dnp are getting the love they deserve, and I feel awful for feeling this way but I really feel bad :((

it's not bad, it's a very natural reaction and you have all the right to feel that way. i think that's the thing a lot of people are missing, your emotions about it are completely valid and understandable, it's just when people then start being really mean to those lucky people who are going to all the m&gs that it gets shitty. no one can expect you to just not be upset that someone is meeting them a bunch of times and you aren't, especially if you can't go to a show at all. it's all about how you navigate it, you know?

allow yourself to feel things, it's good for you

[absurdthirst]

Hi Keri! Please feel no pressure to answer this or anything but I know you sometimes do real life kinda advice for people? I guess I’m new to the general Pedro fandom (I’ve known who he is for ages and also been on tumblr for ages but somehow my idiot brain never thought about searching him on here) and it sounds silly but I’m a little lowkey terrified about being here. I know the fandom got a lot of new people recently/since tlou and some people aren’t thrilled with that, which I can understand, and I don’t want to make anything worse (even though my anxious ass can barely make myself watch his interviews—which he obviously agreed to have public as part of his job—because I start worrying if I’m not being respectful of his privacy). I’ve been silently lurking for a while and can’t bring myself to interact or post anything (even though my writing is probably shit anyway ha) because I don’t want to contribute to a problem or make anything worse for anybody and maybe the fandom was sort of “full up” before everything got big this year and I should just leave well enough alone?

Hello love!

Thank you for interacting with me and I hope that you don't decide to disengage from the fandom.

Writing fanfics about characters isn't intrusive. Loving a kind and sweet man who happens to be a very talented and attractive actor isn't intrusive. Wanting to participate in a fandom and scream over those things isn't intrusive.

What's intrusive? Trying to 'out' his sexuality when he has never publicly stated anything. Trying to 'prove' he's with this person or was with that person. POSTING HIS PERSONAL WRITING BLOG. @'ing him rude and disgusting things that shouldn't be said in public. Trying to get close to people who are close to him to get the 'scoop'. DM'ing anyone who happens to meet him in order to try to gain information. STALKING HIS LOCATION. Interrupting friends/family live feeds on IG to ask question about him. Any kind of basic harassing behavior.

That is most definitely intrusive and disgusting. Being a fan isn't being privy to everything that happens in his life and demanding his time. It's about celebrating a talented man's work. At the end of the day, it IS work for him and his private life - unless he offers information - should be off the table.

You don't seem to be guilty of doing this. So please don't leave. The fandom isn't "full up", it's just at times full of people who claim to be fans, but have parasocial relationships with a celebrity and cross the line. We could do with less of those.

Love Pedro. Celebrate him. Scream over him. Go gaga over all this characters and just love him to pieces. Interact with your faves and perhaps post some of those stories you've been squirreling away (I bet it's not shit)

Fans who respect his privacy and still want to love him are exactly the kind of fans that are needed.

[darkshrimpemotions]

@valleyg0th Like I said, answering this in a separate post because it's too long-winded for a reply and sort of off the topic of the original post. My comments and yours from that post above for reference.

Also, I'd like to preface this by saying that the ethical and moral considerations around RPS/RPF are massively nuanced and complicated, and something that I'm still working through myself. That being said, I do have some pretty hard and fast ideas about what ISN'T okay, which inform a lot of what I'm getting into below.

But first, I'd like to clarify my statement as it seems from your reply that it did not come across the way I intended. When I say "something Taylor has made it clear she doesn't want to be super public about" I'm not talking about her sexuality. I'm talking about her relationships in general.

She has made it very clear, repeatedly, over the years that she does not appreciate uninvited intrusions into her personal life. That's not really debatable at this point. She wants to be the one to choose what and when and how her personal life is shared with the world. If she has ever asked for anything, anything at all, it's that.

That's part one of why I find the constant spreading and debate and speculation over these still-unconfirmed break-up rumors so distasteful, particularly from people who claim to love Taylor.

Part two of why I find it so distasteful is the way so many people are celebrating this breakup rumor because it validates their theories about Taylor's sexuality, rejoicing that she's "gotten rid of her beard" and such. That's gross regardless of what you think her sexuality is. If people were on here going "oh yay she broke up with Joe this is how Haylor can still win" I would find that despicable, too.

I'm not particularly invested in any of Taylor's relationships beyond being happy that she's happy, but I do participate and get invested heavily in RPS/RPF in other fandoms, and the keys to respectful RPS/RPF are pretty clear, whether the ship in question is het or queer.

1. You do not demonize, villainize, or harass the real life significant others of the people your ship concerns. (It's also generally considered distasteful to float or perpetuate rumors or conspiracy theories about the relationship being fake or forced, but the bare minimum is you don't make whatever you think about the relationship that SO's problem.)

2. You do not involve or bother the children of the people your ship concerns in any way, ever.

3. You do not ever, ever, EVER put your shipping or associated material (i.e. fics, fanart, theorizing, tinhatting) where the real people it concerns are likely to see it.

And that third one is where Swifties, Gaylors in particular, are really fucking failing right now. Now, if a famous person goes onto AO3 and searches for their name, that's one thing. Or they come into any fandom space where they aren't a known presence and start poking around...they went looking for it. But bringing it up at live events or putting it on social media platforms that said celebrity openly frequents in a way they're likely to see it (i.e. by @ing them or putting it under their name's hashtag) is crossing a line.

And yet what is the Taylor Swift tag FULL OF, on tumblr where we all know Taylor has had an account for years and lurks occasionally? People calling Joe an ex-beard, celebrating the end of their relationship, and analyzing her every move and facial expression and song choice in the context of these unconfirmed break-up rumors.

This shit is gross, full stop. And on top of everything else, far too many of the fans in the Gaylor camp are quick to call anyone who has a problem with their behavior in this regard a homophobe, trivializing the very real dangers and struggles faced by queer people to win their stupid little fandom arguments. That's disgusting. It disgusts me as a queer person.

Part three of why I find all the breakup rumor speculation so distasteful is that once again, Taylor is doing the absolute most and completely killing it at her career, but many of her so-called fans only want to focus on her relationship status with some guy. It's all "she's doing so great on tour in spite of the Joe breakup!" or "she's doing so great on tour because of the Joe breakup!" How about we stop attributing anything in this woman's career to the men she's involved with? Are we capable of that? Have we fucking evolved past 2015 yet?

As for Taylor's habit of leaving clues in her albums, I find it wild that people assume because she has left fairly obvious little puzzles and easter eggs for us throughout her career ABOUT her career, i.e. background info about the music on an album or foreshadowing around what's coming next, that means that she's constantly sending us secret coded messages about her private life.

Like...capitalized letters in liner notes that spell out a detail about that song or album that you wouldn't otherwise know, or a numerical code on her instagram that reveals the vault tracks on her next TV re-recording, or even easter eggs in a music video related to very public knowledge that inspired the song and album...are all a pretty far cry from "Taylor has been sending secret, unconfirmed signals that only we can see for over a decade to tell us that she's actually queer and being forced to stay in the closet and have PR relationships with men she doesn't care about."

And finally, I actually don't have a problem with interpreting Ivy or any of Taylor's music as queer. Interpreting art is not the same thing as speculating on the artist's sexuality, and it sure as hell isn't the same thing as celebrating a breakup rumor because it validates that speculation. I myself interpret a LOT of Taylor's music as queer. But I also understand that how I interpret art is just as much about me as it is about the art.

Me finding something in Taylor's music that I resonate with as a queer person doesn't necessarily mean Taylor herself is queer. And even if she is, she hasn't chosen to share that with us, so it's simply none of my goddamn business. "A lot of Taylor Swift's music resonates with me and my queer experiences" and "Taylor Swift's sexuality is none of my business" are ideas that can and should coexist.

As are "I think she might be" and "but that's none of my business" for that matter! Hell, I can even admit that based on my own experiences of being closeted and coming out, I wouldn't be surprised at all if one day Taylor comes out as bi. But that doesn't mean she OWES me or anyone else that disclosure, or that it's okay to be on the internet endlessly speculating on unsubstantiated rumors concerning something we know she specifically likes to be private about in a place we KNOW she's likely to see it! Especially when that speculation gives way to actively celebrating the end of her relationship without knowing a) if it has actually ended, and b) how she feels about it if it has.

[childishfluff]

Angel Milk and Bargaining Naps- [Little!Ranboo/CG!Tubbo CGLRE Oneshot]

Summary:

Ranboo flies all the way to Britain to meet one of his friends, Tubbo. The trip is tiring, but he jumps straight into a stream alongside his friend. He's tired and needs a nap, and a joke from the stream causes him to slip. Immediately following the stream, he falls into littlespace and just wants to play, despite his sleepiness. Luckily, Tubbo is understanding and prepared, with a sippy cup of angel milk and a cookie for the little. And lots of determination that goes towards getting the boy to rest, even if it's only for a bit. Some warm angel milk and a few convincing deals should do the trick. -- This is non-sexual, sfw age regression, dni if you're nsfw/abdl/ageplay/cgl/ect. If any of the creators included in this work say *anything* about being uncomfy with fan fiction/of agere content including them, I will take this down and/or modify it appropriately. If they have already said something that I'm unaware of, please let me know.

A/N: I'm gonna be honest, I didn't know if Ranboo lived with his mom or dad or whatever so I just assumed and made his parent figure (who literally doesn't have any lines she's just there) his mom. Anyways, this is just a soft fic that explores the friendship dynamic between Tubbo and Ranboo, because I really like it. This is about 3500-ish words, which is longer then some of my other oneshots, which is cool! I really hope that I wrote Ranboo well, I haven't seen much of anything for little!Ranboo yet and wanted to try it, y'know? I don't think there's any trigger warnings that I need to put, but lmk if there is something I missed. Enjoy the fic!

--

"Ranboo?"

"Tubbo!"

Tubbo ran up to the boy in the black and white mask, the other youtuber decked out in a simple outfit. The only thing signifying the presence of his online persona was the mask. Besides that little detail, just one thing so that Tubbo could spot him easily, he looked like any other person.

"You're taller then I thought you'd be," Tubbo muttered, looking him up and down as he came to stand in front of him. Ranboo stood in front of a car, his mother climbing out of the driver's side and going to the back.

"And you're shorter." Ranboo replied, flinching just a bit at the slam of the car door. He was going to be staying with Tubbo for a week, this was his first meet up. And face reveal. Even now, with his mask on, Tubbo had still seen more of his face then anyone else on the internet.

"Oh, how kind of you," Tubbo joked, rolling his eyes a bit and taking

"Shut up and hug me, you idiot," Ranboo said, opening his arms. "I flew in from America, I get hug." he repeated, almost sounding whiny.

Tubbo laughed, jumping into the embrace and melting into the hug. Ranboo gives good hugs, he decided mentally, not pulling away from the affection for a few long seconds. "It's so nice to finally meet you, This week is gonna be great." Tubbo said, pulling away and going to the back of the car, where Ranboo's mom was unloading luggage.

It was gonna be great, for sure.

--

Ranboo sat just off camera, his mask now off but sitting on his lap, as Tubbo rambled to the chat.  "He's gonna be here for a whole week! Isn't that cool?"

Both boys had been pretty excited for the meet up, they had a lot planned. Tommy was supposed to come by for two days, the second one being a big event with Wilbur and Niki too, all later in the week. This was Ranboo's big trip to meet some of the people he made content with regularly, and he was pretty excited.  

"Put on your mask and shit on and come here, Ranboob." Everyone in chat was asking to see Ranboo. This whole trip was kept secret from the internet and anyone not involved in it, it was a huge surprise to everyone.

"I'm not going to if you're gonna be mean," he said defiantly, crossing his arms and giving him a look. He did not appreciate the 'Ranboob' nickname, not at all.

"I'm not being mean!" Tubbo screeched, basically pouting at him. "Come onnnn." he whined.

The childish traits they were displaying were somewhat just played up for the camera, but they were both littles. They knew about one another, but they had managed to avoid talking about it so far, moving from bring Ranboo's stuff inside, straight into a stream.

"Okay, okay, hold on," Ranboo took a few moments to pull on his mask and sunglasses, before standing up. "Move my chair for me, I wanna make a dramatic entrance." he ordered.

"I'm not your maid," Tubbo declined.

"Dramatic entrance or I'm not moving."

"Fine."

Once Tubbo had moved his chair, Ranboo made his silly enterance, strutting over and taking his seat next to Tubbo. "Hello, chat. You can see me, that's different," he laughed a bit. "I don't usually use a facecam."

"Well, get used to it. We're gonna be doing lots of stuff with cameras this week."

They continued talking about some plans they had, videos to make, streams to do. They hopped on the Minecraft and Discord servers, jumping between voice chats and talking to everyone. Eventually, though, Ranboo started to get tired and whiny. He literally took a whole trip from America, the car ride from the airport, and then jumped right into a stream. He was sleepy, goddammit.

Maybe it was being sleepy, and also excited, but he seemed to be falling into littlespace unknowingly. Acting childish, even just for a joke, usually led to feeling childish.

"Tubboooo," He held out his words, interrupting whatever Tubbo was doing on the SMP. He leaned close to him as he spoke.

"Ranbooooo," his friend mimicked him in a teasing voice, not looking away from the screen as he made his avatar run around the minecraft server.

"End stream, nap." he requested, causing the other boy to laugh. "Please?" he added.

"You can nap, my bed's over there," Tubbo told him, pointing off camera.  "But I'm not done."

Ranboo pouted under his mask. "You're mean, y'know." he claimed, earning a chuckle from Tubbo.

There was a lot of messages in the chat claiming that they were fighting like children, with all their whining and pouting. Neither of them took it in a mean way though, that's what they were going for. It was funny.

"Sure I am." Tubbo said, looking to him for a moment. He quickly paused to say, "We'll end the stream soon, promise. You can sleep after that." He spoke in a much softer voice then before, signifying that he wasn't joking or anything. He was catching on to Ranboo's little behaviors, past the bit.

Ranboo hummed, before looking back to the screen. Tubbo returned to whatever he was doing, and the chat was 'aww'-ing. Ranboo tried to focus on not completely slipping on stream, making sure that any childlike behaviors he exhibited could be passed off as a joke.

He didn't fidget with any sort of toy, or hold a stuffed animal, he just swung his feet under the table, which the viewers couldn't see. Tubbo noticed it, though.

Eventually, Tubbo said goodbye to chat, and ended the stream. Once he logged off of the minecraft server and turned off his computer, he turned his seat to look at Ranboo. He smiled softly, "Hi, buddy."

He re-greeted him, as if talking to a new person. He wasn't, but it was a way to show that he was welcoming Little Ranboo in a kind way. "Hello, Tubbo." he giggled at the nickname, smiling wide.

"How little are you right now?"

Ranboo thought for a moment, not replying at first. He was old enough to be talking, so far, not having many issues pronouncing things. He wasn't really that small, he regressed to this age by himself regularly. It was fun, and he could play, while still being just old enough to take care of himself.

"I'm five." he decided aloud, "For now."

"But that might change?" Tubbo asked in a questioning, curious tone. Unlike Ranboo, he was just pretending and acting childish on stream, now fading in to a very caregivery demeanor. His friend was obviously small, and he was there to help.

"I dunno."

"Hmm," Tubbo noted that that probably meant he would be slipping younger, even if Ranboo didn't want to admit that. Most of the time, if Ranboo had someone to watch him that he trusted, usually Tubbo or Tommy, he'd slip a lot younger. Because he didn't need to take care of himself, he didn't need to worry about staying big enough to care for himself.

"You said you were sleepy, right? You needed a nap."

"No, no, no," Ranboo denied, shaking his head. "Not sleepy anymore." he claimed, contradicting his previous request. He was sleepy, very much so, but now he wanted to play. Now that he didn't have any viewers to worry about, he just wanted to have fun.

"Oh, really?" Tubbo said, standing up from his seat and stretching.

"Mhm," Ranboo hummed, distracted with the task of stealing Tubbo's much more comfortable chair the moment he moved. He also got distracted with spinning around almost right away. Tubbo didn't stop him, a little amused with how easy it was to entertain him.

"You're not sleepy anymore, not at all?" Tubbo sounded disbelieving.

"Nope."

"Alright. Where'd you put your littlegear? Do you have a sippy cup?" Tubbo asked.

"Black bag," Ranboo replied, not even bother to stop the chair, spinning around and around. He giggled at the motion, stopping when he started to get dizzy. While he was distracted, Tubbo had managed to locate the little bag, pull out a sippy cup, and leave the room.

"Tubs?" he pouted, not liking being left alone. "Tubboooo," he whined, getting up from the seat. "Whoa!" he almost tripped and tumbled, realizing he was still dizzy, and therefore, more clumsy. Once he was standing more stably, he heard Tubbo.

"I'm in the kitchen, buddy!" he heard his friend's voice call out, immediately following it. He ran out of the room, making his way to the

He suddenly got shy when he passed his mom and Tubbo's at the table, talking to each other. He slowed down, walking straighter and trying to act 'big'. "They know, you're okay," Tubbo assured, giving him a soft look from his spot by the microwave.

Ranboo still didn't face the adults, going quiet as he went over to Tubbo, now walking instead of running clumsily. He knew that his mom was always supportive, but he still wasn't the most comfortable regressing around her, or adults in general. The only real exceptions to this was his youtube friends who were older then him, because he didn't exactly see them as 'adults'.

It wasn't like any of them were mature.

The two women seemed to notice his discomfort, simply continuing to talk to one another and not bothering him. If they didn't bring any attention to his childlike behavior, or pretend they didn't notice it, then maybe Ranboo wouldn't mind being childish around them. They didn't want to interrupt or make him feel invalid while he was having fun.

"What're you doin'? You left me." he pouted, suddenly realizing that he had yet to take off his mask and sunglasses when his jutted-out lip was met with fabric. He had spoke quietly, so only Tubbo could hear how little his voice was.

He pulled them off, stuffing them into his pocket and rubbing at his eyes. "I'm making you angel milk, I'm sure you'll like it." Tubbo replied, opening the microwave before it went off and pulling the sippy cup out. Ranboo immediately went to reach for it, curious about the new drink he hadn't tried, but Tubbo pushed his hands away.

He didn't usually drink milk, feeling like it was something for babies, not bigger boys like him. But he didn't reject the babying, Tubbo treating him like he was a little younger then he had claimed to be. He really didn't mind it.

"It's to hot for you, bud. Let's just wait a bit, yeah?"

"Oh." Ranboo seemed a little confused, and embarrassed. He should've known that it'd be to hot, it was just heated up. Simple forgetfulness like this made him feel so kiddish, and not in the good way. This was forgotten when Tubbo ruffled his hair, making him giggle a little louder then he would've liked.

"Do you wanna make a snack while we wait?" Tubbo tightened the lid of the cup onto it, before shaking the bottle and setting it on the counter for the time being.

"Please?" Ranboo confirmed, fiddling with the bottom of his shirt as he asked.

"Yeah, let's see what we have." Tubbo said, opening up cupboards and looking into the fridge, Ranboo simply following him around. Ranboo stopped him from closing a cupboard right before he did by pulling on his shirt, pointing to cookies that sat up in it. Tubbo chuckled, "I should've known you would've asked for cookies. You can have one, but only after eating something else, okay?"

Tubbo agreed to these rules, happy he was getting any at all. He watched Tubbo pull out a plastic plate for him, setting the promised cookie on the side of it. "We have fruit? Do you like grapes?"

Ranboo eagerly nodded, "The green ones?"

"Yep," Tubbo smiled, pulling them out. The next few minutes consisted of Tubbo washing the fruit, putting it on the plate, grabbing the milk, and leading them back to his bedroom.

"Can I sit in your chair, p'ease?" Ranboo asked politely as he shut the door behind them, Tubbo's hands to full to do so.

"Go ahead," Tubbo confirmed. "Good job on asking nicely," he added, earning a smile from the boy. Ranboo immediately ran over to the chair, sitting in it and spinning again.

"Be careful, sweetie. I heard you almost fall because you were dizzy," Tubbo reminded. Ranboo's face flushed as Tubbo continued, "I know you're a bit clumsy when you're small, I wouldn't want you to get hurt."

Ranboo didn't know Tubbo could hear that. He wasn't that clumsy, he thought. The stupid chair just made him dizzy.

Tubbo went over and sat in the chair Ranboo was originally in, not commenting on his blushing. "Have you ever tried Angel Milk before?" Tubbo questioned, changing the subject to avoid embarrassing him more, shaking the bottle again once setting the plate of snacks on the desk in front of the computer.

"Nuh-uh," Ranboo shook his head. "Is it yummy?"

"Mhm, it's warm milk with sugar and vanilla and cinnamon in it. It's really yummy," Tubbo confirmed. He tried feeling the outside of the cup, not being able to tell exactly how hot it was. He tipped it over once putting the tip against his finger, letting out just enough of the milk to know the temperature. "I think this has cooled off enough for you, buddy. Here."

Ranboo took the royal blue sippy cup in both hands. The cup part was clear, so you could see the liquid inside, and the lid was his favorite color. The cup was a little smaller then a normal cup, but it was shaped like one, so if there ever came a time where he had to hide that he was using a sippy cup, he could just take the lid off and probably get away with it.

He sipped it, liking the feeling of the warm, but not too hot liquid on his tongue. He drank a bit of it before saying anything. "Yummy," he decided, in just one word, speaking with a soft smile. He leaned back into the chair, continuing to drink it. He seemed calmer, softer, even.

"I'm glad you like it, little one. Maybe don't drink it all before you even start eating, though."

"Oh," Ranboo said, pulling the cup away from his mouth. "Mkay." he agreed, wiping at his lips with his hand.

"You eat while I get some more of your little stuff out, okay?"

"mhm." Ranboo only hummed, swinging his feet under him like he had done earlier. After a minute or so of eating and looking around the room mindlessly, he felt something get set on his head. He looked up, causing the item to fall. The stuffed toy fell into his lap as Tubbo came around the chair, sitting down, holding a few things. He set the stuff in his lap.

"Boo!" he giggled, holding the toy bear close to his chest. 'Boo the Bear' was his favorite stuffed animal, and it was the only on he brought with him, and he was glad he did. To some extent, he knew he'd slip during this trip at some point, that's why he brought all the little stuff. He just didn't expect it to be so quickly.

"I found him hiding in your bag," Tubbo joked, picking up something from his lap. Pajamas.

"No!" Ranboo immediately said, without Tubbo getting the chance to say anything. "Don' need a nap." he huffed.

"I think you do. Just for a bit, so you have more energy to play later!" Tubbo spoke in a mock-excited tone, trying to paint the idea of napping in a more positive light for the little.

Spoiler alert, it didn't work well.

"Noooo," Ranboo whined.

"Doesn't cuddling up with Boo in comfy pajamas sound nice, sweetie?" He tried again.

Ranboo thought for a moment, shrugging. He casted his eyes downward, taking another drink from his cup, suddenly realizing how sleepy the warm liquid made him. Of course, he didn't catch onto the fact that Tubbo did that on purpose, but he didn't really need to know that.

"I'll nap with you, if you want. I promise, I won't have any fun without you."

Ranboo looked up, "Just for a bit?" he asked, in his now babyish voice. Tubbo was doing a fairly good job of convincing him.

"I'll wake you up in an hour or two, promise." Tubbo confirmed.

Ranboo thought again, glancing at the cookie on his plate before coming up with another question. "Can I have more cookies when I wake up? And more milk?"

Tubbo was slightly amused by the fact that he was treating this like some soft of business deal, but he was gonna take what he could get. "Sure thing."

"Okay," Ranboo agreed, hesitancy seemingly gone. "You have to cuddle with me and Boo, though! An- and play with me when I wake up!"

"Deal." Tubbo chuckled, ruffling his hair. "Now, let's finish your food and then get ready for your nap."

Ranboo was able to finish his grapes and his cookie in just a few minutes, sipping the last of his milk before setting it on the desk with the plate. "All gone," he said, yawning a bit. He rubbed a his eyes, leaning back into the seat. He was a lot sleepier then he thought he was.

"Yep, good job. Now, what do we do next?" Tubbo asked.

Ranboo sat up a bit, tilting his head, "Comfy clothes?" he offered, earning and approving hum from Tubbo.

"Are you big enough to do this yourself?" Tubbo handed him a stack of clothes, Ranboo nodding as he took it. Yeah, he was a little younger then five, but he could pull himself a little older to get dressed.

He ran off to the bathroom, leaving Tubbo with the important job of watching Boo. While he was gone, Tubbo moved around the pillows and blankets on his bed so that he'd be more comfortable. Ranboo came back, standing at the door shyly, clad in pajama pants and a matching slight-oversized soft cotton shirt.

"Look at how cute you look! You're so adorable." Tubbo cheered immediately, once picking up on his nervousness.

He was complimenting the boy because he seemed to be nervous about wearing more 'little' clothes around him, because until now, he was wearing 'big kid' clothes and just feeling small. Now, he looked it too. The pattern on the clothes was a bunch of little gold crowns, on a black backdrop.

"T'ank you," Ranboo shut the door behind him again, coming over to the bed and climbing onto it. He took Boo from Tubbo when he offered him the toy, coming up by the pillows and trying to position himself. As he did that, Tubbo shut off the light, glad it was the middle of the day so he didn't have to worry about any 'scared of the dark' issues. "Tubs?"

"Hmm?" The mentally-older boy replied, grabbing one last thing from the bedside table and climbing into bed beside Ranboo, facing him. Ranboo was curled up, stuffed bear cuddled to his chest, content with Tubbo just being close to him. They weren't cuddling, but he was willing to settle with just knowing that he was right there.

"m' feelin' smaller," he admitted after a moment, shy about the confession, yawning again as he sunk into the comfort on the soft pillows.

"Yeah?" Tubbo asked, looking at him softly. "How small?"

"lots an' lots."

"That's so small!" Tubbo, again, was amused by his childish actions. "Do you need a pacifier, sweetie?"

Ranboo, if any bigger, would've protested against the idea of using a pacifier and being called a baby, but he just nodded a bit. His demeanor was softer, and shyier. And it was easy to tell that he had trouble talking now.

"Good thing I already pulled one out for you," Tubbo laughed, revealing the last item he grabbed. A white pacifier, simple and plain, stuffed into his bag just in case he needed it. Tubbo lifted it to Ranboo's lips, the little taking it in his mouth and suckling on it a bit before letting his eyes drift shut.

Later on, he'd be embarrassed about using a pacifier in front of Tubbo, but right now, he was to small and sleepy to even care. The rest of the day, along with the rest of the meet up, would be great. Ranboo would wake up big, and they'd record a video with Tommy and then they'd watch movies. It'd all be great.

But right now, neither of them were worried about the rest of the day, because Ranboo was small and sleepy. Before falling asleep, he mumbled his last words before his nap.

"Ni' ni', Tubs." Tubbo has to stop himself from cooing at his adorable sleepy mumbling. Tubbo was glad that this was something they could support each other with, that this was something Ranboo trusted him with. He was so lucky. He replied, in the simple soft tone that he'd been using all day,

"Night, buddy."

--

A/N: okay so they meet up for a week, and I also mentioned tommy, wilbur, and niki, so there's room for me to write another oneshot in this universe. So if that's something you want, then go ahead and request in the comments! I imagine that tubbo and tommy are also littles, while wilbur and niki are cgs. 

You can also request in-the-smp fics or just another oneshot for anyone! I might not write it, but please, still request, because the worst that can happen is that I say no.

also someone recently tried to request a fic involving an abusive cg and I just wanna say, I will never write anything like that, so don't request it. The farthest I will go is a caregiver yelling a bit, *NOTHING MORE*.

anyways, please leave feedback in the replies/reblogs/my ask box, on what you thought about this oneshot. Your favorite scene, cutest moments, things that you'd like to see within this universe. Whatever you want, feedback helps! Thanks for reading!

[fericita-s]

Mating Season (Chapter 1)

This is a Kristoff/Anna story that takes place in an AU where Anna grew up Northuldra in the Enchanted Forest with her family.  Kristoff is from a nearby tribe and comes to the forest for a reindeer exchange. It’s the same universe as All is Found, which @the-spastic-fantastic and I wrote together, and a big thanks to her for helping me develop this and for beta-ing. This is part one of three; I’ll post the next tomorrow and the next Wednesday.

Chapter 2 Chapter 3

***

It was no surprise to Elsa that Anna saw Kristoff and immediately claimed him.  Wanting an epic love story was something Anna was always dreaming about and talking about and sighing about. Elsa suspected it was more for entertainment than an actual need for love, because Anna quickly tired of the men she spotted and cooed over.  Sometimes before ever even talking to them. 

She  had ruled out every man in their Northuldra tribe.  “Yuck! They’re all like brothers or uncles or cousins or feel that way even if they’re not.  It’s alright for you; it was very romantic that you surprised everyone including Honeymaren by liking girls.  Maybe I’m like Papa.  I’ll have to go somewhere else to find it.”

But on their trip to Arendelle when Anna was sixteen, she dismissed the entire kingdom by saying “I do like how tall most of them are, but wow are they obsessed with saunas.  It would never work.”

Elsa had laughed to hear that the one trait that made Anna, a daughter of Northuldra, incompatible with Arendellian men was sauna usage and not, say, living entirely indoors or leaving the magical enchantments of their forest behind.

Once a young man with red hair had stumbled into their lands, asking for help and claiming to be escaping the ire of his brothers.  Yelana had turned him out immediately, though Anna had said he seemed handsome enough to warrant a hearing before the elders.

Yelana had refused. “There’s something wrong with him.  I can just tell.”

At first, Anna’s parents had worried about this obsession she seemed to have with love, but when it didn’t manifest into her doing anything crazy, they relaxed about it.  Her mother even intimated that she should be more patient with the men who were clearly interested in her.  Anna had wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“No! I want a story like you and Papa.  It’s so romantic.  You almost died for each other! I’d get too bored loving a man from here.”

Iduna had stroked Anna’s hair, pulling her close before she spoke. “How could love between two people ever be boring? The person you most admire admires you the most.  That's a miracle.” Iduna stroked her hair again, grateful that even at twenty, Anna still enjoyed cuddling with her.  “Like boska keeping sickness away or reindeer all calving within ten days of each other.  It’s common, but that doesn't make it less beautiful.    It’s a daily sacrifice, sometimes of small things and sometimes big.”

So when Anna had seen Kristoff shake Yelana’s hand and told Elsa that he was hers, Elsa had laughed and rolled her eyes.  Walking back towards the village, she and Honeymaren had talked about how long it would be until Anna found him “too something” as well.

***

Gathered around the fire, the people of the Black Mountain huddled in small groups.  Anna noticed they seemed tense, the lines of their mouth not turning into smiles even when Bruni showed off by lighting torches that had been set in a pattern honoring the tribe’s antler symbol.  The ones holding walking staffs gripped them tightly and their eyes were alert and sharp as they watched the festivities. They stayed at the edge of everything, rather than joining in with the singing.

“They probably don’t know the songs. Not everyone knows Northuldra chants,” Elsa said when Anna pointed this out. “Besides, don’t pretend you’re watching more than just their leader.  Kristoff.  He’s more dour than them all. Some of the others are having fun.”

She pointed at one young boy who Ryder lifted onto a reindeer, showing him how this particular one liked to be scratched behind his left ear. “See?  He’s having a good time.”

Anna looked at Kristoff.  She had been doing so most of the evening and had stopped bothering trying to hide her glances.  He wasn’t paying attention.  He was glowering into the fire, eyebrows knit together, arms crossed. “He’s sad, not dour.  And I’m going to find out why.”

Elsa linked her arm through Anna’s. “He’s not a wounded ptarmigan or lame fox you can nurse back to health.  He’s a grown man. He seems to be doing just fine leading his people.  He might just have a different way of doing it than we do here.”

“So that’s a ‘no’ from you on extracting ice memories from him?”

“They’ll be here for several months. I’m sure you can get him to talk to you at some point.  Taking his memories seems a bit rushed.  And unethical.  And possibly crazy.”

Anna pulled her arm away from Elsa’s.  She crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her tongue out at her sister.  “I’m not crazy.  I’m curious.  Aren’t you?”

Elsa looked to where Honeymaren was showing a group of children how she could toss a crowberry in the air and catch it in her mouth.  Anna followed her gaze.

“Oh fine.  Go join her and leave me to my skulking.”

Elsa laughed. “Good luck.”

As Anna watched Elsa sidle up to Honeymaren and hold her hand, her mind wandered to her earlier attempts to talk to Kristoff.  He had given two word answers to all of her questions about the Black Mountain (“It’s beautiful.”) and their reindeer (“They’re strong.”) and their strangely shaped saws (“Harvesting ice.”).  Even telling him about her sister’s ability to make ice from nothingness just elicited a raised eyebrow in reply, no marveling wonder or eagerness to see it happen.  And when she had offered him some dried elk, he had refused, saying that his people had brought their own supplies and wouldn’t start their time together by taking from the food stores of the Northuldra.

Perhaps that was why he was sitting alone now. The Northuldra had been preparing food and drink for the welcome celebration for weeks, but Kristoff was not partaking at all. He sat on a log by the fire.  He had his pack resting next to him and there was a reindeer nearby with its head tucked into its side, looking sleepy. There, Anna thought.  If a reindeer thought he was kind, he must be. Reindeer were very good judges of character. Anna cleared her throat and walked over to him.

 “Would you like to lead the next round of singing? I’ve noticed Black Mountain voices haven’t been joining in with ours.  But if you started a song your people knew…we could join in.”  Anna smiled at him and he looked up. The reindeer did too and nudged something out of Kristoff’s pack, pushing it forward. Anna saw what it was, clasped her hands together and sat down next to him, thinking that his reindeer seemed friendlier than he did.

“A lute! Do you play? Oh you should play for us! That will be just the thing to make this party seem even more like a party.”

Kristoff picked up the lute and shoved it back into his pack, giving the reindeer a reproachful look. “No , I don’t think I’ll play tonight.” He scratched his reindeer under its muzzle and Anna thought it seemed like an apology for his earlier glare. What a strange man, to be so polite to reindeer and so rude to humans.

“He seems like a special reindeer. Does he always sit next to you during celebrations?”

Kristoff didn’t answer, but she continued talking, looking at the reindeer and extending her hand for him to sniff. “My parents used to let me sleep with the baby reindeer, especially the calves who needed extra care after a birthing where the mother was lost. They would joke about the smell, but I always liked it. Kind of a homey smell, like smoke and sun and dirt and cold. But they never let us keep any as a pet, really. Too hard when we use them for meat and furs. I was six when I realized that herding reindeer meant occasionally slaughtering reindeer and I cried so hard about it that my mother took me on a gathering trip to let me cry without bothering everyone else.  Just the two of us. She showed me where she and my father had their first house, or cave, really, and where the best cloudberries are, and how we depend on plants and animals to make us strong, and that we should be grateful for the gift they give us of their strength. It was thrilling to be with only her and not share her with my sister. Sleeping out in the open under the stars with someone you love – I don’t think there’s anything better.” She fell silent, beginning to stroke Sven’s velvety ears, and remembering those baby reindeer she had cuddled through spring nights that had a sharp edge of cold to them despite the hint of summer in the daytime.

“Sven is more of a friend than a pet.”

Anna almost continued talking without realizing he had spoken. She had started to feel like she was telling a fussy toddler a bedtime story, not trying to have a conversation. She tilted her head and looked at Kristoff. “Sven?”

“Sven.  Yes.  My reindeer.  This reindeer.”

Anna put her hands on Sven’s ears, stroking the soft skin.  “Sven.  I’m very pleased to meet you. Thank you for coming all this way, and I hope you enjoy your time here with the Northuldra.”

Sven grunted and tucked his head back into his side, once more looking like he was ready to sleep.

“Thank you.” Kristoff was looking at her and she was so surprised by his words she couldn’t think of anything to say in return. He didn’t seem to know what to do with the silence either and reached a hand to scratch at his beard, repeating himself. “Thank you.”

Anna thought about asking what he was thanking her for – talking to his reindeer? Not thinking it weird that he named his reindeer and called it his friend? The celebration? The welcome into the Forest? Not minding that he’d refused all hospitality and wouldn’t sing? For sitting next to him? But she stilled those questions, saving them to consider with Elsa later.

Instead, she smiled and said “You’re welcome,” rose, and left him at the fire, still wondering why he was so alone even surrounded by his people and why he was so sad even surrounded by a celebration. 

***

“So, Anna.  Is she…” Kristoff scratched the back of his neck as he crouched down next to Ryder, both of them feeling the lichen to see if it was wet enough for the reindeer to graze there later.

Anna talking to him over the past few days always happened suddenly, went in a direction that surprised him, and left him feeling slightly out of breath and confused when it was over. Sometimes that was because of the fantastical things she told him, like her sister being able to make ice and the very mountains moving at their request. Sometimes it was because of the way she looked at him, with a curiosity and compassion that was as disorienting as the Northuldra Wind Spirit. He lost his bearings whenever he looked at her.  

Also, she was beautiful.  Her hair and eyes were bright. Her animated demeanour seemed to make her whole body vibrate, all the time.  She was captivating.  His eyes hurt from making himself stare at the fire instead of at her during those first few days.

“Is she always so…”

“Friendly? Funny? Good with reindeer and telling stories? Yeah. She’s the best.” Ryder stood and wiped his hands on his sleeves. “Let’s go get the herd.”

***

Yelana had noticed Anna’s interest in the leader of the Black Mountain, and had given her a word of warning about it. “Most men are too emotional and he certainly seems to be ruled by his, sour as he comes across. There is enough to keep us busy these next few months as we mix the herds; I need you tending to the reindeer and not the men.”

Anna gave a dismissive wave, continuing with her work with the mortar and pestle.  “Oh I’m not interested in him anymore.  He’s too irritable.”

***

The next few weeks were a flurry of movement. Teams of Northuldra and Black Mountain took the reindeer to different lichen meadows and streams every day. 

Preparing meals for so many, while not a strain on their resources, did create more work than normal. When her work with her mother was done, Anna was often sent to gather or harvest or catch something to add to the night’s meal. 

Ryder and Honeymaren stayed with the reindeer.  Elsa circled the herd on Nokk, able to quickly spot and rescue those that were losing in the mating dances and clashes.  As the new animals were introduced to each other, there were some injuries that needed tending – both on people and on the reindeer. 

Anna helped her mother as she prepared salves and wrapped bandages and directed others in gathering the boska necessary to supplement the diet of reindeer who were expending lots of extra energy during this season.

“Should helping reindeer find mates be this – difficult? And bloody? A lot of them seem to be getting injured.”

Iduna laughed. “Ask your father about that.  I think he would tell you that finding a mate is sometimes very dangerous.”

Anna smiled as she smoothed balm on a cut near a tired looking reindeer’s antler. Most of the reindeer were too skittish to be touched by anyone right now, but they had always loved Anna.  Her father had said it was because the reindeer could tell Anna loved them. 

Anna hummed and sang as she worked, making up silly stories about reindeer who flew all over the world, looking for carrots. At the end of one such tale, she wiped her hands on her work apron and saw Kristoff nearby.

“Nice story. Did you make it up?”

“Not really.  Parts of it are from a poem our father read to us as children.” She gave the reindeer a final pat and stood up.  She was surprised that he had come to talk to her, but tried to keep her amazement out of her voice. It seemed so out of character for him.  He had never initiated a conversation before.

“Ryder told me you were the one to ask.  Sven has been acting strange and I can’t figure it out.  Could you come?”

Anna looked to her mother who nodded her assent. “We’re fine here for now.  No new injuries other than the one you just tended.”  They hugged and Anna reached for her bag, checking to be sure it had some of the medical supplies she was likely to need.

As they drew close to the Black Mountain encampment, Anna could hear distressed grunting noises.

“Is that Sven?”

“It is.  He hasn’t stopped making that sound.  It’s like he’s scared of something, but I can’t figure out what. I tied him up over here so he wouldn’t run off.  He’s not as hardy as the other reindeer, he depends on me to help him out.”

Anna reached for the length of rope and began to unwind it from the tree. “Let’s get him to show us what’s bothering him.”

Kristoff reached for the rope, but she moved it out of his grasp. He frowned at her, speaking in low tones that wouldn’t startle Sven. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

She had already unwrapped the rope and as soon as he was no longer tied to the tree, Sven bolted. Kristoff and Anna looked at each other and then ran after him.

“I told you not to do that! He’ll hurt himself for sure now!”

She shouted as they sprinted through the undergrowth. “Well good thing you have me then, I’ll know how to fix him up!”   Kristoff stayed silent as they ran. Thankfully, Sven’s path of broken branches and trampled leaves were easy to follow.

They both spotted Sven at the same time. He was at the edge of a stream, looking towards a curve in its path.  Sven grunted, stretched his neck towards the unseen spot, and then shuddered.

Kristoff reached him first and put his arms around the reindeer’s middle, murmuring calming words into his ear.  Anna walked past them both, ignoring Kristoff’s glare which was sharper than any of his ice saws, to reach the bend in the stream.  As she looked toward the place that seemed to be equally terrifying and intriguing to Sven, Kristoff watched as she visibly relaxed, leaned back with a breathy laugh and said “Oh! It’s just you!”

Walking out from the hidden spot, a very round, very white, and very alive snowman came into view. Sven was now shuddering and grunting even louder and Kristoff’s first instinct was to kick at the snowman, which he did, right in the head. The head flew into the water, and Anna ran for it, scooping it up and walking back towards Olaf.

“Oh no! Olaf! Are you alright?” Anna gently put the head back on the snowman’s body and adjusted his carrot nose, giving it a light tap.

Kristoff recoiled and, in doing so, lost his grip on Sven, who ran off in a new direction.

Kristoff drew back again and then began to run after Sven as the snowman said “I’m fine! But goodness.  It sure is hard to make new friends.  I’ve been following that one for a while and he just won’t say hello to me to matter what I do.”

Anna looked to where Kristoff was disappearing into the woods after Sven and gave Olaf a quick kiss on the head. She turned and ran, and shouted over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry Olaf, but I better go help.  Let my parents know, please?”

Olaf adjusted his head as he watched Anna run into the trees, the leaves and and branches parting to show her the way.

***

Anna found Kristoff easily enough, but not Sven.

From the welcome Kristoff gave her, it seemed he would have preferred it if she hadn’t come after them.

“Just leave.  I don’t need your help.  Your help is what created this problem to begin with.” He was looking at the ground, crouching low and searching for footprints and other signs of Sven.

She rolled her eyes and crouched down next to him. “I know these woods better than you. You’ll probably throw a grappling hook into an Earth Giant’s eye or insult Bruni with your flint so your fire never lights.  You need me.”

He rocked back on his heels and looked at her, mystified. “I have no idea what any of that means.”       

“Exactly. And I bet you don’t know that the Wind Spirit helped me find you just now, opening up paths that I wouldn’t have noticed except for her guidance.”

“I still have no idea what you’re talking about.” He stood and kept searching for any sign of Sven’s path, turning over leaves and looking at trees for scratch marks.

Anna cupped her hands around her mouth and sang a series of notes. “Wind Spirit? Can you show us?”

Kristoff felt a gust of wind ruffle his hair and he looked up to see a new path open in the forest. A bit of Sven’s harness lay on the ground. Kristoff ran to it and picked it up. “It’s his!”

“I know.  So trust me that I know these woods and if you want to find Sven, you need me.”

Kristoff looked at her, sighed, and nodded. They began walking on the path that the Wind Spirit cleared for them. Anna watched as his hands clenched the harness.

***

It was dark and they still hadn’t found Sven.  Anna spoke to Bruni and got a fire going. At Kristoff’s questioning look,  she explained that the light might attract Sven.

“I’m sure he’s fine.  I’ve asked Bruni and the Wind Spirit to look out for him and they’ll let the Earth Giants and Nokk know as well.  We’ll find him. But for now, rest.  It’s too far and too dark to go home tonight.”

Kristoff had been leaning on a tree, tired from the chase through the woods and worried about his friend. He walked closer to the fire and sat down with a sigh, rubbing his hands over his eyes. 

“Olaf can sometimes be over eager to make new friends.”  She looked at Kristoff and felt a heat rise in her face. “Olaf and I can both be over eager to make friends.  I’m sorry that Sven was frightened.  And that he ran when I untied him. And I’m sorry that you’re stuck with me when you clearly don’t want to be.“

Kristoff looked at her as she opened her bag and searched through its contents. “I’m not sorry.”

Anna looked up from her bag and gave a small laugh. “I know.  You seem very happy to be rude and angry. Not that I don’t understand your worry or anger, but try to remember that I am helping you.”

Kristoff rubbed his hands over his eyes again and shook his head. “No, no, I mean I’m not sorry you’re here, helping me.  I’d be lost in these woods without you.  It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” He opened the small bag that had been strapped to his back and pulled out some pieces of thinbread, offering her some.  Anna reached for it, staying quiet.  After her continuous monologues during their search and his silence, he finally seemed willing to talk.

“So much of this year has been like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

He paused, and Anna hazarded a small “Oh?” hoping he would say more.  After a bite of the thinbread and a wipe of his mouth on his sleeve, he continued.

“I wanted to expand our trading routes. We get great ice near the Back Mountain and I had the idea that we could bring it further south to towns and villages we've never traded with. We're so far north - we've traded reindeer with Northuldra before and some with the tribe that used to be near the North Mountain, but never Arendelle.  Never on the coast.” He reached into his bag again and pulled out a skin of water, offering it to her. She took a sip and then handed it back.

“I’ve been there, it was such a bustling port with so much to see. It was my father’s home once. Did you like it?”

He shook his head, and took another bite, chewing a bit before he continued.  “Well no, not exactly.  Too many people.  But I did show my father that ice was as big of a business as reindeer. Reindeer herding has good years and bad, but the ice is more dependable. We sold what we had and brought back a lot in trade.”

Anna stayed silent, hoping he would say more to fill the empty space around the fire, the absence of Sven and both of their tribes making the forest seem larger and quieter than she was used to.  She also wondered at his reference to his father – the father that would be the leader of the Black Mountain if he was still alive.  Her heart thudded as she realized what that meant.

“We brought back a lot, including a sickness we'd never seen before. Our healer died while treating people. Almost every family lost someone. My parents both died and suddenly I was the leader. The leader who had caused the problem in the first place.  And now we’re at the mercy of others.  And asking for help all the time, and…” He trailed off, and shook his head again.

Anna covered his hand with hers and squeezed. “Kristoff, a sickness like that, it's unpredictable. Maybe you would have spared your people from it that year without trading.  But coming to trade with us could have been as big of a risk.  Someone could have brought it to the Black Mountain without you ever leaving. It's devastating, but that doesn't make it your fault.” He looked at their joined hands, but not at her. She could see the steady rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathed, but she couldn’t see his eyes.

“And asking for help isn’t a weakness.  It’s a strength.  My father says that all the time.” He still wouldn’t look up at her, but the silence felt comfortable.  The sounds of the fire crackled and Anna thought about how so many people, like her Uncle Lemek, seemed angry when really they were just sad.  And Kristoff had a lot to be sad about.  She wished there was a way she could comfort him and distract him from his worries before she realized she had just the thing. She rummaged through her bag again and pulled out a book.

Kristoff looked up to the sound of pages being turned. “A book? You rushed after me and Sven, but took the time to pack a book?” He sounded amused, and Anna was glad her distraction was already working.

“I always have a book. This is the one I keep in my medical bag in case I get bored during a long vigil.  My father usually has several on him at all times. It’s like always having a friend nearby.”

“A book.”  He laughed a little, surprising her with the sound.  “Well, I supposed a book is no stranger than a reindeer for a friend.”

Anna smiled, accepting this kindness. “Yes! And don’t you like stories? Here I’ll read one, let me know if you like it.”

She began the story, using all of her best voices and right as she got to the ending, they heard the low grunting of Sven. 

If reindeer could look abashed, this one did, bending his antlers low and pawing at the ground. 

Kristoff ran to him and hugged him around the middle. The sight of it made Anna smile. She walked slowly towards Sven, not wanting him to startle again, and checked his hooves and fur for signs of injury.  Aside from a few scratches that she rubbed ointment on, she declared him to be in perfect health. 

“Thank you!” Kristoff sounded happier than she had ever heard him, the pinch of worry between his eyebrows was gone and she smiled in response to his happy grin. He grabbed her hand in both of his and she felt a rush of pride and a thrill at the touch of his hands, so broad and warm as they held hers. She looked into his eyes, then down at his hands, and pulled away abruptly.

“Your knuckles! They’re bleeding!”

Kristoff opened and closed his hands, suddenly empty. “Oh. I didn’t notice.  It’s not bad, probably just from the scrub and underbrush.”

“Still, anything that breaks the skin can draw in poison if you don’t treat it soon enough. That’s why I checked Sven, you don’t want a small cut to become a big problem later.”

Anna pulled out the same jar of ointment and used a cloth to scoop out a small amount. She picked up one of his hands and began to smooth the salve over the bleeding knuckles, and then switched to the other.

“Isn’t that...for reindeer?” She couldn’t tell if he was really worried, or just complaining about the fuss, so she smiled reassurance in case he needed it. 

“It’s for anything that bleeds.” She finished her ministrations and lightly rubbed her thumb along his palm, and he gripped her hand once again.

“Thank you.” 

She laughed, turning away from him. “You know you seem very ungrateful most of the time, but you’ve said ‘thank you’ four times since we’ve met.  I might need to start reconsidering my opinion of you.” She found herself surprisingly short of breath when she walked back to her pack, putting the jar and cloth away.  The rapid beat of her heart didn’t still even as she sat down by the fire; if anything it was getting faster.

Now, looking at him from this vantage point, she could see that he was smiling, the slight curve of his lips higher on the right than the left. “Oh? What else do you think about me?” He and Sven came closer to the fire and settled down, Kristoff leaning onto one side of Sven, and Anna the other.  She could hear Kristoff but not see him as he spoke.  Not seeing him, she felt bolder.

“You obviously care a lot about your people, but you don’t seem to enjoy them at all. You’re too serious, too irritable, too sad.  You should have fun sometimes.  When you can celebrate and laugh and smile again, that’s when the hard year you’ve had will start to recede. When everyone will start to be joyful again. You might have to fake it for a bit first, but then you really will feel it. And your people will too.”

She could hear Kristoff breathing.  It sounded steady, like he was considering her words instead of being angered by them.  She began to pet Sven on the ears as she waited for his reply, enjoying the soft feel.  Sven seemed to like it too, and gave a soft grunt of appreciation.

“So I should plan a celebration and then everyone will forget about the people we lost?”

She shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “No, of course not. But give them something joyful so they have new memories too.”

It was quiet again, and Anna was getting used to these pauses he took during conversation. The quiet he needed to hear before he could fill it with words.

“We didn’t do the ice games this year.”

“Ice games?” 

“Competitions to carve and cut as quickly as possible. Sometimes there’s even ice racing.” She could hear him adjust his position and Sven lifted his head and huffed a bit before settling back down.

“That sounds great! We should do that!” She sat up, looking over Sven at Kristoff, who now had his hat over his eyes, one hand on the hat, and one hand on his stomach.  She was glad to see the ointment still shiny on his knuckles; he hadn’t wiped it off.

He spoke, eyes still covered and sounding slower and sleepier as he did, even though this idea was making Anna feel wide awake. “How? You don’t have a lake here. Definitely not a frozen one.”

“That’s true.  But we do have my sister.”

“I-” he yawned. “I don’t know what that means.”

Anna watched as his breathing steadied and he slept.  And though she thought about ice games, and what she would need Elsa to do, and what she would need Kristoff to agree to, her last thought before falling asleep was how it had felt when Kristoff had held her hand.

***

“Elsa, please, just drink something.” Honeymaren was extending a guksi, brimming with water, but Elsa waved it away.

“I’m fine.  I’m almost done. Just a few more layers.” Elsa pushed both of her hands down and away from her body as the ice she was standing on slowly rose.  

Ryder cheered. “Why did we never think to do this? A whole field covered in  ice - this is great!” He was sliding around on the top layer, hitting his boot against a pinecone towards Anna who was also trying to skate in her regular boots. She kicked it back towards him and did a clumsy spin.

Honeymaren sighed and shook her head. “We never do this because it’s completely impractical and it freezes up  good grazing ground that the reindeer would otherwise use.  And even if she’s telling me she’s fine, this woman needs to drink more water.  For the Spirits’ sake, Elsa, you can’t shoot that much ice out of you and not need to drink something!”

Elsa, satisfied with her work, walked over to Honeymaren and took the guksi, looking at her with eyebrows raised as she drank. Honeymaren sighed again.  “Thank you.”

“Oh Elsa!”  Anna clapped her hands together.  “It looks perfect! I think this is exactly what he was talking about; just wait until the Black Mountain folks see it!”

***

Anna had been right.  Anna had been right, and Kristoff told her so, which made her feel proud and satisfied in a way that surprised her. 

The People of the Black Mountain unpacked their saws and picks and sang chanteys and cut for speed and sculpted for beauty and challenged the Northuldra to races along the length of the field, which often ended in piles of collapsed runners with no clear winner, all laughing and scrambling to try again. 

Anna stayed on the outskirts of the ice, ready to tend to any injury. She scanned the ice field, but often stopped to watch Kristoff, who was lifting massive blocks of ice with tongs and then throwing them into perfect piles several feet away. He grunted as he worked, and she could see the lines of sweat running down his face, the pleased nods and smiles he gave as others complimented his harvesting. 

After doing most of the harvesting in leathers and boots and furs, he stripped to the waist for the last round. Anna watched as the cords of muscle in his back tensed and constricted as he lifted ice out of the field and into the sled for storage.  She swallowed, feeling tense as well, like her muscles were also pulled tight. 

As the day grew dark, Elsa magicked the ice away except for the winning ice sculptures and a few perfectly formed cubes that were taken to a storehouse for preserving food.  The two tribes continued to laugh and talk and occasionally sing around the bonfire, now roaring and blazing into a dark sky.

“Thank you for that.  Thank you for making that happen.” Kristoff walked up to Anna, pulling his loose shirt back over his head.   She reached for his hands. 

“Just making sure you didn’t reopen old wounds.”  She smoothed her fingers over his knuckles as he startled at her touch.  “And you’re welcome.  That’s two more ‘thank yous’ from you.  I believe I’ve lost count now.” She smiled and dropped his hand, and for a second she thought he might reach for her hand to hold it, just hold it and look at the fire together. She wondered if she wanted that.

 “We, uh, we leave in a few days’ time.  And I thought….”

He stopped talking, and Anna watched as he took a breath and tried again. “We lost our best calver. Ryder said you’re good at it – small hands, patient heart. Would you consider coming with us? Back to the Black Mountain? Through the end of the birthing season?”

She should have thought about it more, perhaps.  She could have talked to Yelana or her parents or Elsa. She could have asked more questions. Instead, she looked at him, smiled and answered the way she wanted to in that moment, with the fire pulling out sparks of yellow in his eyes and his breath still heavy from his earlier exertions.  The dampened hair on his head and the way his shirt opened at the throat to show his chest and the way her hands still mourned the loss of his touch.  She had to admit that was part of why she answered the way she did.

“I’d love to.”  

Chapter 2 Chapter 3

[thecuriouskit]

Where and how do I fit in?

To whom it may concern.

As I get older, I’m starting to realise the limitations caused by my autism, and I’m struggling to accept that because of facing a society that does not like it when adults are not self-sufficient, or when they have to deal with a “man-child”.  Economically, I am a net loss - I take more than I give financially, and that makes me selfish, both in the eyes of the person on the street as well as bankers and politicians.  I struggle to keep my flat clean and make ends meet financially.  “Get a job”, “earn a f***ing living” I hear a lot, and I have tried, but my ‘design’ is just terrible because I’m very introverted (and people try to force me into very social situations to be a 'healthy introvert’… in other words, an extravert) and don’t do well in open-plan office environments, which are really the only options today because it allows managers to keep an eye on everyone and, from a practical perspective, is easier when it comes to laying network cables and power conduits, for example.  But I get very anxious whenever people are walking around behind me and there’s so much uncontained noise.

Truthfully, I’ve found in the UK, and maybe other countries, that many people really don’t like those who are more intelligent than them.  They may say the opposite, but behind their backs (or sometimes in plain sight), they mock specialist interests.  Once I was even threatened with outright violence by a so-called friend if I talked about mathematics in front of her, and my own mother agrees that i keep my mouth shut to preserve the status quo and not make people 'uncomfortable’.  My father says those on the spectrum are the future, but are we really?  To reach our full potential we need the right environment and support group, but who would want to be our caretakers?  It’s not fair on them, and I would not want someone to sacrifice their life to look after me like they were a housewife, valet or a servant.

I’m ashamed to say that I generally don’t get on with others on the spectrum because we all have our different interests and quirks, but also our feelings and how we react to things, and what may be fine or beneficial for one person is sensual overload for another.  I unfortunately have also experienced situations where the other party doesn’t realise and doesn’t understand that they might have hurt my feelings with something they’ve said or done, and either 'congratulate’ me for identifying past trauma as the reason (which I find incredibly patronising as well as the implication that it invalidates my feelings) or criticise me because, in their eyes, there’s no logical reason for me to feel that way.  One person even, in a monotone voice, said “You’re having a panic attack; do you want a beta blocker?” (which was actually illegally obtained).  I of course sceamed “no”, which only worsened the situation because now they felt attacked.

As painful as it is, what I once saw as a curse, then saw as a gift, I now see as a curse again.  I cannot survive by myself in this modern world, but I’m not friendship nor relationship material because, put simply, I make people uncomfortable and I’m not healthy for them (those were the words one person used).  Facebook and other social media tell people to cut out the negativity in their lives, and I fall into that definition.  My interests, my quirks… they are abnormal.  The whole thing of “be yourself” and “don’t worry about what others think” is a complete farce, because you do that, and you get sectioned, fired, ostracised or just plain ridiculed.

Part of me needs a regimented structure and a person who can be an emotional anchor for me, but even today, emotion is seen as weakness and attention-seeking, but I don’t need so much structure to the point that my very feelings are dictated and I can’t practise being creative (one person I know cannot build Lego without instructions… even when it comes to making their own things, they have to draw plans first and cannot do anything on the fly, which can cause a conflict if I want to experiment, for example).

In a way, I need to be treated like a child, or at least allowed to be a child, but I say that and that will just encourage condescending attitudes towards me and infantilisation like the in-your-face sing-song “hello” or a high-pitched voice that people do with babies all too frequently.

I don’t konw where I’m going with this.  I’m just ranting and splurging, spilling out everything that’s on my mind.  On Monday I was actually close to suicide because I was asked to drive to my father, who lives about 45 minutes away, and even though I gave myself 70 minutes, I was very late anyway (which meant I couldn’t see a representitive at an insurance company since I’m being ripped off by my current provider) bnecause of three separate traffic jams, one of which was caused by a horserace that crosses a main road (which is closed during that time).  I just feel I’m unreliable and poor at planning and organiseation because whenever someone asks me to do something, I either forget something (if not the appointment itself) or fate works against me.  My father has taken the view of “it is what it is”, but I cannot abide by that because while accepting there are some things in life you can’t control or predict, just accepting things as they are is what allows corruption to run rampant, whether it’s a manager or director denying the employees promised bonuses during a good company year while buying themselves a new Porsche with the profits, to insurance companies happily charging you three times what you should be paying because they know most people won’t shop around for other quotes or want to go through the hassle of changing (and I easily freak out on the telephone because it’s just a dismembered voice to me) to simply lying and manipulating people for their own benefit.  It’s worse with me because I can’t see deceit unless it’s a claim that’s easily disproven.  I briefly wanted to end it all because I am a net loss to the economy, I’m friendless and I can’t be relied on.  If I die, I’ll be forgotten in a few years as the world goes on like I never existed.  It begs the question… what’s the point?  I’m not allowed to just live because of monetary concerns and 'considering other people’.  Right now, I just survive.

I’m not sure what I need and what I should change about myself.  All I know is that trying to fight against my true self just ends up destroying me.  I may want to be neurotypical and more extraverted, but I can’t just become those, and “not wanting it enough” doesn’t work in this case because you’re constantly fighting yourself, draining yourself of energy and spoons, and sooner or later, you’ll melt down, and then the police get called and you’re taken to hospital, while neighbours or whoever witnesses the meltdown will ensure you can’t bother them again by collaborating to get you evicted, dismissed from work because you’re creating a 'hostile work environment’ or 'threatening violence’ (I was sacked for that once when I tried to warn people not to manhandle me during a particularly triggering confrontation because then I don’t know what I’ll do… and this was from a company that was meant to specialise in autism).

Where’s the line drawn? When should those on the spectrum learn to adapt to and tolerate, and when should society change for them? When should I be expected to meet the standards and when should the standards change?  I don’t have the answer, and through a mixture of my own actions and those of others, I am very much alone where I live… no true friends, no emotional anchor, no personal interaction, nothing (even if I’m in a city around many people, I still feel alone).  I’m scared of joining clubs because of past experience with meltdowns and expecting to meet up at set times when my own sleep cycle is chaotic, or I may just not have the energy to go but I’m expected to.  Also, one club became psychologically abusive for me, but once again, past trauma that invalidates how I feel.

Speaking of how I feel, I do wish I was more like Mr. Spock where everything is pure logic and I don’t feel anything, but then again, Vulcans and half-Vulcans DO feel, and I just don’t have the strength to suppress my emotions=.  Where does that leave me?  A group home with no freedom or autonomy? Evidently I can’t hold down a job, and I’ve been out of work forso long that I’ve had employment agents pretty much tell me to stop wasting their time, becaase no company is going to risk paying a finder’s fee for me no matter how good my skills are (albeit very niche nowadays).

The thing is, when somoene enters my house to offer help cleaning it or go through my financial statements to identify unnecessary expenditures, or just go through my stuff in general, I feel violated and incredibly anxious, but I feel I have no right to protest or resist.  Besides, as my mother keeps saying… if you’re doing nothing wrong, what have you got to hide?  The fear of being judged (and the consequences of that) or the right to privacy don’t seem to be valid answers.

What do I need? I don’t know… sometimes I just want a mother figure, but my actual mother is not an option.  What do I want?  I want to be useful.  I want to belong.  I want to be myself.  I want to be… free.

[kentuckyanarchist]

There are few albums as bipolar as Boys and Girls in America—few that combine euphoria and aching nostalgic sadness in the same way, and fewer still that do it both masterfully and in absolute earnest. The Hold Steady’s third record greets you right from the start with a double motion: the album cover, all kids with hands in the air, hot pink with confetti flying (“up to yr neck in the sweat and wet confetti” as “Most People Are DJs,” from Almost Killed Me, had it), cuts against the very first line, where Craig Finn riffs on Jack Kerouac to affirm: “boys and girls in America have such a sad time together.” Kerouac evinced the same bipolarity in On the Road, and Hemingway too, Steinbeck too, not to mention Dylan, not to mention Springsteen—it’s part and parcel of a particular kind of American lyrical masculinity that likes to bellow and wail about its sensitive seriousness. Writers in this tradition—and Finn, whose first four Hold Steady albums approach flawlessness, is among the very best of them—plumb the unchartable depths of sorrow that provide everyday hedonism with its uneasy foundation. They give voice to a pain that can’t be outrun no matter how hard their characters try, one that catches them up in solitary moments and/or comes to suffuse whole segments of lives.

It was a feature, no doubt, of Almost Killed Me, the Hold Steady’s debut from 2004; it was unavoidably present in Separation Sunday (2005), their high-concept dramatisation of that line from “Thunder Road” about waiting “for a saviour to rise from these streets”. But on Boys and Girls songs like “Hot Soft Light” pummel you with it: the drunken reassurances and unsubtle heavy metal references of the verses cascade into the nightlife typology of the chorus, where all possible encounters are reducible to ideal types, “the guys / with the wild eyes when they ask to get you high” and “the girls / that’ll come to you with comfort in the night.” “Hot” and “soft”, such a simple pair of monosyllables, do all sorts of work here: they’re a mellow high before it becomes a problem (“it came on hot and soft / and then it tightened up its tentacles”); they’re a callback to the summing-up of human existence as just “hot soft spots on a hard rock planet” (“Most People Are DJs” again); and, when the title drops in the final line, they’re the body and the blood, Christ himself at the centre of the cross. In other hands counterposing religious ecstasy with drug-induced euphoria might seem pat, or at least like a failed attempt to shock; in Finn’s it seems entirely sincere.

Songs like “First Night” trade in a kind of nostalgia that’s not without its darkness and drama. More than almost any other Hold Steady song “First Night” runs off of Franz Nicolay’s keyboards, but there’s vastly more there too, in the strings and backing vocals especially. In the quadrumvirate of characters (not forgetting the narrator), Holly aka Hallelujah aka the central character of Separation Sunday is central, and she’s still in rough shape. The flashforward from that first night, when Holly “slept like she’d never been scared”, to last night, with Holly disconsolate and trembling, echoes in the shaking keyboards, over which the album title becomes a mantra in falsetto. At which point Finn, who from Lifter Puller days is well-acquainted with the art of the sneer and the snarl, intercedes: “don’t bother talking to the guys with their hot soft eyes”—those two adjectives for the last time—“you know they’re already taken.” All of which is not to forget that in the phrase “she was golden with barlight and beer”, “First Night” also coins the most beautiful ever way of saying “she looked hot when I was drunk.”

Songs like “Party Pit” take up the mantle of ceaseless mobility from Kerouac (the tradition Deleuze describes in which “everything is departure, becoming, passage, leap, daemon, relationship with the outside”) and run with it, juxtaposing a wayward narrator with an old friend who never escaped the vicissitudes of the teen scene. (As a 16-year-old I cycled home most nights across the Carter Bridge, over the railway just north of Cambridge railway station, and the line about crossing “that Grain Belt Bridge / into bright new Minneapolis” became wrapped up with that quotidian experience. I don’t know if “bright new Minneapolis” is a joke or just a conscious bit of mythmaking—I’ve never been to Minneapolis but I don’t see it as a city with lights so bright they can be seen glittering from above—but the image resonates nonetheless. And for the record: you’ll find lyrics sites saying the line’s “brand new Minneapolis,” but it’s not. Listen to this version.) Finn’s narrator’s been away to school and come back (“to start a band, of course”) but the heroine’s stayed put, “pinned down at the party pit,” stuck going round and round in circles, “gonna walk around, gonna walk around, gonna walk around and drink.” The party’s the site and source of sadness here and getting away’s jinxed too: coming home’s a bittersweet endeavour as much because of what’s stayed the same as what’s different.

And “Stuck Between Stations”, with its unpromising source material, its dated central metaphor, its shoehorning of a guilty-pleasure or problematic-fave author (as John Darnielle’s said—Darnielle being a man who knows his Berryman and knows his Hold Steady—the “sometimes in blackface” of Berryman’s Henry worries away at any too-friendly reading of that sad Minneapolis bard). It might not be the best Hold Steady song but it might be the one that most overtly strives for grandiosity in a Springsteenian mould, it might be the one that succeeds most evidently at making a bold statement that finds a way to hit home regardless of one’s circumstances. And the album’s clearest statement of ambivalence and bittersweetness is in the “buts” of its chorus: Berryman, at the time he took flight, we learn, “was drunk and exhausted but he was critically acclaimed and respected / he loved the Golden Gophers but he hated all the drawn out winters / he likes the warm feeling but he’s tired of all the dehydration / most nights were kind of fuzzy but that last night he had total retention.” Strung out but at least having made something of oneself—at home but not all year round—finding the booze sometimes a chore—and sometimes somehow glorious! It’s all there.

Lyrically, I wonder if this is achieved through a sort of wilful mythologisation. Berryman, after all, probably didn’t really love the Golden Gophers, but why not flesh out his story with the claim that he did? “How a Resurrection Really Feels,” from Separation Sunday, delves into its heroine’s despair but also zooms out to describe the graffiti tributes made to her by other unnamed characters—to show her story’s a legendary one in its own universe too. Once again Springsteen got there first, this time in “Highway Patrolman,” which invents a whole fictional town and county, and a slow dance for the characters to wax nostalgic about, all in order to build a world in the song and thereby make something somehow universal. Across all the Hold Steady albums the same characters recur in different (not always that different) predicaments, but their stories never totally cohere. They have the feel, at times, of characters in your peripheral vision or even on the edge of a dream, cohering to make certain points then splintering once more. The stuff of strange, half-true legends.

And then there’s the god question. Finn doesn’t just see love, or hope, or beauty, or tenacity “in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers” (in “Citrus”), he feels Jesus there—and in so doing captures a sort of lowdown American pantheism found from Emerson to the Beats, not to mention in the final scene of Bruce Almighty. The particular form that the mystical takes in “Chips Ahoy” is not the same form it took in most of Separation Sunday, but in the narrative of the girl with a sixth sense for winning racehorses it’s there nonetheless. Even the stuttering puh-puh-puh assonance of “pinned down at the party pit” conceals a deification metaphor, its martyress fastened tight to the scene—as Lifter Puller more bluntly put it, she’s “nailed to the nightlife like Christ on the cross.” (As a disbelieving teenager I had a disproportionate number of Christian friends, I guess I was drawn to people who believed in things. It’s possible I thought I had something similar in certain bands, certain songs.) God, in America today, is as fiercely contested signifier as everything else, but it’s clear that the omnipresent God of Boys and Girls is also a personal God, not to mention a lenient, ecumenical one.

Boys and Girls met me at a particular time in my life, a couple of years after it was released, in summer 2008, which is probably the biggest part of the reason it’s stuck with me (other texts are sepia-shaded for the same reason: Bob Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, the first Conor Oberst solo album). The rest of the first four Hold Steady albums are probably just as good, but this one works in certain ways that set it apart. It’s less cynical than Almost Killed Me, less weary than Separation Sunday, less nostalgic than Stay Positive, and more holistic than all of them. It turns out that the holism and the bipolarity amount to the same thing.

[balmacedapascal-archive]

kissed by fire | osferth & astrid | 3/?

summary: osferth had looked forward to join uhtred and his men at coccham. what he hadn’t anticipated was to be so taken by lady gisela’s right hand woman. a/n: okay here’s a little more osferth and astrid. i’ve realized that i kind of screwed up a bit with how he arrived at coccham and everything we’re just claiming canon divergence for now because it’s easier that way. i’ve also gone ahead and made a page for this story where you can find links to all the parts and any other content for it if anyone is interested. you can find it here. hope you guys like this still. 

It’s been a week and a half since he first managed to get a moment of her time and every day since Osferth has been taking whatever small opportunities he has to have a conversation with Astrid. But today is the first she found him rather than the other way around. He’s just come down from the small room he’s been given as his own to start the day when she walks by, her hand reaching out to grab his sleeve and pull him along. An apple and piece of bread are shoved into his hands as she says, “Come on, priest. You can help with the cows today.” He doesn’t even care that Finan is shouting taunts from where he and Sihtric are sat, breaking their own fast before starting the day. He gladly follows along behind her, taking a bite of the apple as he keeps pace through the village. Her hair’s wild today, blowing behind her in the morning wind with waves from the braid she’d worn the day before, and when they reach the pen where the cattle have been over night she calls out something in Danish that has them meandering over to her. 

There isn’t much actual conversation at first. Mostly, she’s talking to the animals, some of it in English, some Danish, all of it coming out in a soothing tone he’s only heard her use with animals and children. It does the trick because the cow she leads over to the small barn goes willingly to be milked. The barns quiet for the most part as he finishes off the food she’d handed to him and whether she realizes it or not she’s humming a tune he isn’t familiar with as she works. He listens to the melody, moving to stand in front of the animal and watch her curiously. He’s still trying to figure out what’s changed that had her inviting him along rather than him finding her on his own when she finishes. 

“Ask your questions, priest, you always seem to have new ones.”

Osferth can feel his cheeks flush a bit though she’s not wrong. He keeps quiet for a minute, watching as she sets the pail aside and grabs a brush off the ground. “That song you were humming - I’ve never heard it before.” 

“No, you wouldn’t have. It’s a lullaby my mother used to hum at night. I wouldn’t suppose something like that would be popular with you Saxons.” She doesn’t look at him when she speaks, running the brush along the cow’s side at a steady pace. 

“It sounds lovely,” he comments, ignoring the Saxon remark. It’s no secret that she’s not particularly fond of his people but from what little he’s heard of her life from Sihtric, he doesn’t blame her. People still turn their noses up at Lord Uhtred. He can’t imagine they’re any politer to a young woman who prefers to follow gods that are foreign to them. “What was she like? Your mother, I mean.”

Her hand stops at his question, a tension obvious in her jaw that has him immediately regretting asking in the first place. Each day has been a test of what she’s willing to discuss with him and what crosses some invisible line that he doesn’t know about until it’s too late. He’s avoided too many problems so far, only unintentionally halting the conversation when he had asked about how she had come to Coccham originally. That particular memory had her storming off a cold look in her eyes. Sihtric had told him at dinner that it wasn’t an overly pleasant tale and one that she most likely wouldn’t want to discuss. He’d tried to keep to lighter topics in hopes of avoiding a repeat of that reaction. Now, he’s afraid he may have stepped into something else that she’ll refuse to discuss. But then she’s taking a deep breath and resuming her work as she speaks in a quieter voice. 

“She was beautiful,” she tells him, the brush moving in long strokes across the cow’s back repeating over and over. “Her name was Inge. She came here after my father, looking for a good place to settle. She had me a year after the journey.  She was fierce, had to be for the times when my father would be off with Gisela’s father looking to bring new wealth home. He always said she was twice kissed by fire - once for her hair and once for her temper.”

“Sounds like you favor her in that regard.” His words are quiet, like he’s doing his best not to scare her off which is honestly an accurate description. He wants her to keep talking, wants to know more if she’ll let him. 

Astrid hums a sound of agreement, the corner of her mouth quirking up into the hint of a smile as she sets the brush aside and simply letting her hand stroke behind the animal’s ear gently. “I suppose... She died when I was seven. Sickness came to our village and took two dozen men and women in a week. After that I lived with Gisela and her family.” 

The encouraging smile he’s been sporting in hopes that she’ll keep talking falls in a heartbeat, feeling a tightness in his throat that pairs perfectly with the guilt he feels in his stomach. Without even meaning to, an image of his own mother, feverish and speaking of her dead brother, comes to mind. “I - I’m so - Astrid, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”

That’s when she finally looks at him, oceans of emotion in her blue eyes that threaten to drown him and anyone else that gets caught. Her brows knit together for a moment in confusion and then she turns, leading the cow back to the field now that she’s done with it. “You didn’t kill her, priest. There’s nothing for you to apologize for.” 

He doesn’t know what to say to that, choosing simply to follow her out to the field in silence. The sun’s hidden behind clouds for now, the morning cool as they stand in the middle of the field. A bit of noise from the village reaches them but for the most part, it’s just them. Well, them and the cows but only one is paying Astrid any mind at the moment. Slowly, he comes to stand next to her, arms brushing as he reaches to run a hand along the back of the cow in front of her. “I know for - for your people, there is Valhalla. Is that - would your mother be there?”

Her head tilts at his question, the wind catching her hair and playing with till she reaches to push it back. “Valhalla is for the warriors, to feast with Odin after dying with your sword in hand. She’s with Freyja in Folkvangr.” He watches her and waits for her continue, their hands close as she brushes some dirt off the animal’s back. “It’s a beautiful field where those worthy feast with the goddess. That’s where she’ll be waiting for me when my time comes.” 

“Hopefully that time won’t come for quite a while,” he mumbles without hesitating, his face flushing when she hears his words and turns to him, that little quirk at the corner of her lips returning. “I just mean - well, I just -”

“We’ll just have to wait and see, priest,” she cuts him off, the hint of a smile directed at him for moment before her hand is pulling at his arm again. “Come on. There’s more to be done before Finan drags you off for that training of yours.”

[hawkbucks]

Bucky and Steve’s entire friendship starts when Bucky spots Steve reading a Captain America comic on the playground, promptly sits down next to him, and goes: “You like Captain America? He’s cool, but I think Winter Soldier is better.” Steve, of course, is offended that this kid has the audacity to imply someone is better than his beloved Captain, so they argue about the finer points of the Captain and the Soldier, discussing their actions at such depth that you’d forget they’re just a couple of 3rd graders with scraped knees and wild hair. At the end, they agree to come to the conclusion that the Captain and the Soldier are equally as cool. Whenever they’re able–a.k.a when Bucky saves up enough of his allowance to afford a few issues for him and Steve (because, as much as Steve protests against Bucky buying him things, Bucky knows he wants that Falcon issue)–they head down to the comic store around the corner from their school run by a kindly man named Abraham. Abraham slips them snacks sometimes: bags of chips, candy bars, etc. If they prove they’re doing good at school, they also get free books. Tables and chairs are scattered around the store, usually reserved for the game nights that the store hosts, but Abraham allows them to do their schoolwork on those tables. They try to draw out their visits as long as they can, because they just love exploring the store, and Abraham is such a good guy, you know? One day, when Steve is over at Bucky’s house and they’re watching cartoons, Steve gets an idea. He turns to Bucky and proclaims that they should open up a store together. It’ll be the best store ever! Bucky sagely nods before he runs off to grab a notebook and pencils to plan it. Their store looks as follows: 3 stories at the minimum, and there’ll be a slide leading from each floor to the one below. They’ll have cool statues to put on display, a gigantic collection to sale, and a pyrotechnics display at the cash register at Bucky’s suggestion. And they’ll make a lot of money. It’ll be the best store ever.

Unfortunately, said best store ever ends up being pushed to the back burner once they realize that opening and managing a business isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially for a couple of kids. “We’ll just do it later, when we’re grown ups,” Steve says, and Bucky agrees. They grow older. Steve turns from the shortest kid on the playground to the guy that people have to crane their necks up to talk to (Bucky teases him and says that he’s become the real life Captain America. Steve retorts that that makes Bucky the Winter Soldier), and Bucky grows his hair out, looking more and more like a hipster everyday (which he vehemently denies. “Where’s your manbun?” “I will smack you.”). Interests come and go, but they still find themselves stepping into Abraham’s shop. Abraham’s older now, grayer, but he still slides them Snickers every once in a while.   Bucky ends up enlisting in the army to help pay for his tuition while Steve goes to art school to get a degree in illustration. An incident with an IED later, and Bucky comes home with an honorable discharge and an empty left sleeve. Steve visits him as often as he can, usually filling in the gaps when Bucky’s own family isn’t over. Sometimes Natasha (a girl they befriended in middle school after she came dressed as Black Widow for Halloween) and Sam (a boy they got to know during freshman year of high school when he complimented Bucky on his prime taste in superheroes because of the Falcon button pinned to his backpack) drop in, with Natasha keeping him company by watching trashy reality TV with him and Sam listening to him vent and offering a shoulder if he ever needs one. Hell, Abraham sends him a card through Steve when he heard about what happened. (He ends up getting all of them gift baskets as thanks for being there. Sam tries to decline his at first, but the lure of raspberry tarts was too strong.) One day, Steve comes over with Indian takeout and turns on some good ol’ History Channel. “Speaking of history,” Steve says in between bites of naan, “do you remember that store we wanted to open when we were younger?” Hit with that blast from the past, Bucky nods. He doesn’t have the notebook that they used when they first came up with the idea, but he stills remembers the basics of what they put down. Like the pyrotechnics display that he wanted. Steve asks if he’s still open to the idea, and Bucky replies, around a mouthful of rogan josh, that he is. It’s… been a while since he’s gotten out of his apartment to do something other than shop for groceries, pop into the Chinese restaurant right next to the building, or visit the doctor for those couple of appointments about him possibly getting a prosthetic, courtesy of some company that’s looking to do test runs of their new line. A whole bunch of Googling and Binging and Yahoo Answers-ing and they think they might have a slight idea of how to start a business. Slight is the operative word here. Like with many things, they end up going to Abraham for help. Abraham is a godsend, answering all of their questions and offering to point his customer base their way once he closes up shop for good (Steve may or may not have gotten a bit misty-eyed hearing about Abraham’s inevitable retirement). Fast forward, and their shop is open. Steve drew up the logo (gotta put that degree to use somehow), while Bucky was the one who came up with the interior design (and no pyrotechnics displays). Natasha and Sam are hired, with both of them helping to run their social media presence. They get a decent amount of people at their grand opening despite their location being slightly out of the way, and apparently those people liked their experience because they end up getting a handful of regulars, most notably some guy named Clint that Natasha claims to know, a pair of Norwegian brothers named Thor and Loki that Sam swears are actual gods, a timid PhD student named Bruce, and a woman named Carol and her girlfriend, Maria who are the biggest Captain Marvel fangirls that they’ve ever met. Their popularity grows–especially after Abraham closes–and they soon find themselves making a healthy bit of profit. Healthy enough that they’re able to decorate their shop more (Natasha insists that they place a life-sized statute of Black Widow near the front doors) and they tack-on other things, like shirts and posters and snacks to sell. Bucky gets his prosthetic somewhere around the first month that they’ve been open. It’s a wickedly shiny silver, and Steve suggested that he place a red star sticker on his wrist (because his shoulder isn’t visible 99.9% of the time) to represent Bucky’s favorite hero, and Bucky actually does that. Sometimes people ask to touch it. He lets them. Sometimes people ask what happened. He deflects them. At some point, a guy walks in with ruffled hair and glasses and Bucky nearly chokes on the soda that he’s drinking. Sure, they’ve had their fair share of cute customers, but that guy’s cute, and he’s gonna end up making a fool of himself. It’s not like he can ask Steve to talk instead because Steve just went out on his damn lunch break. He tries not to stare at the guy as he peruses the shelves and rifles through the boxes of back issues they have set out in the middle of the floor. He tries really, really hard, taking his phone out and scrolling through whatever social media website and liking the replies to their posts. Every once in a while, he glances at the door, half-expecting Steve to walk in at any time.

Then the guy (now dubbed Cutie in Bucky’s mind) comes up and he smiles at Bucky in greeting and Bucky would probably sob if that wouldn’t make him come off as a complete weirdo. Cutie hauls up a veritable stack and places it on the counter. Despair courses through Bucky’s veins when he sees the Captain America comic on top, because he could do so much better. “Mmm, I’m just getting those because my friend likes Captain America,” Cutie says and oh, shit, did he say that out loud? “I’m partial to Iron Man myself.” “Iron Man’s cool an’ all,” Bucky replies, somehow managing to keep himself from running out the front door and never looking back, “but he’s not my favorite.” Cutie’s eyes flick down to the red star sticker on his wrist. “Let me guess: Winter Soldier?” Bucky clicks his tongue. “Yup.” Cutie laughs, and it’s a really nice sound that Bucky wouldn’t mind hearing again. When he’s finished ringing Cutie up, he mentions the membership that they have going and how members have a pull list and would he like to sign up?  Mentally, he crosses his fingers that Cutie says yes because it would be a shame if he only got to see him once in his life. A damn, damn shame.

So, he should be thankful that Cutie says yes and he finds out that Cutie’s name is actually Tony and Tony just moved from Malibu and it was his friend James–whom he calls Rhodey–that recommended this place to him. (He goes through a list of James in his head, and figures that it most likely is James Rhodes, who also happens to be a member. He should send him a gift basket.)

Tony ends up leaving around the same time Steve comes back from his lunch break, and Steve must have this sort of sixth sense because he sends Bucky a knowing, amused look.

Tony drops by every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, and it’s always at 12:40 PM, give or take a few minutes. His pull list isn’t particularly long–or at least, it isn’t something that he needs to drop in twice a month for, but Bucky’s not going to complain, not when he’s able to see the way Tony’s eyes sparkle when the topic crosses over to a story arc that he’s passionate about or the way the tip of his tongue pokes out between his lips when he becomes engrossed in what he’s reading. They swap stories, with Bucky finding out that Tony used to be in the robotics club when he was in high school and how his father used to tell him that comics were all “bullshit,” so that threw him off of them for a bit. He always asks Bucky if he recommends something before he leaves, if he saw that episode of Game of Thrones, or if he’s simply feeling okay.

Tony’s visits last longer and longer and longer, until it’s basically just him and Bucky talking for hours on end, their topics ranging from comic cons to what they had for dinner last night. (Steve laments how he’s always the one stuck helping customers because he doesn’t have the heart to interrupt him and Tony when they look so concentrated on each other. He begs Bucky to just ask Tony out already because he can’t take it anymore.)

Bucky ends up asking Tony out on accident. Y’see, Tony was excitedly talking about the movie adaption of Iron Man that’s supposed to be coming out soon, and Bucky blurted out that he wouldn’t mind taking Tony out to see it, just the two of ‘em and some popcorn.

Tony says that he’d love to, and Bucky wonders if he should thank Steve for going out to lunch those few months ago.

[chyrstis]

You won’t be the one (1/2)

I’ve had part of this written since late July/August, but it’s time to get it finished up. And also to start writing some John again too. I don’t think there’s such thing as a harmless conversation with him, and Hana’s going to figure that out firsthand.

Here’s hoping part two won’t take too long to complete, but it’s not going to be the 5K monsters I’ve been lobbing out.

Rating: T Word Count: 1.7K (much shorter for once!)

Link to AO3!

___

A conversation in two parts. (Part 2)

______________

It was strange being back here in the valley.

It wasn’t quite where she’d started, but close enough to it that Hana wondered just what she’d feel crossing the border. Moving from the Henbane, and Faith’s chosen territory, back to where she’d left this place before.

She’d been a mess. A furious mess in need of an outlet. It had come in the form of work from Tracey, after reconnecting with Earl and finding some sense of balance, but she’d nearly blown it coming in. Had come dangerously close to crashing her helicopter both flying it and landing it, because her nerves were frayed bringing it down. She'd felt it shake around her, and flashed back to that night, just for a second, but that was all it took.

Sleep hadn’t come easily that night either, thinking back to how she had floated in place. Been held down below, left only to look up.

Up at the lights. Up through the water, as it surrounded her.

That did draw an actual response, recalling it like that, but it wasn’t as strong. It didn’t bring the same degree of fear or panic, but the chill remained, sticking around long enough for her to want to feel the sun on her skin. To get in whatever warmth she could back as they sped along in their beaten to hell SUV.

Then there was John.

John. The Baptist, who’d had a turn holding her down himself. She still hadn’t forgiven or forgotten that little detail, but that was beside the point.

John was tangible, present.

He made his presence known in every decision made, and wasn’t much of the cloak and dagger type. He wasn’t going to be hiding out in the trees waiting to shoot her senseless in the middle of a souvenir store. He wasn’t going to risk sending her straight to an early grave on the off chance she could catch a glimpse of just what Joseph was warning them all of.  

No, he seemed to enjoy announcing his intentions first. Giving her just enough time to hear him brag about it, before sending his men along to find her.

That it was reassuring at all to have that to rely on, was seriously fucked up.

Which was why calling him out of the blue like this on her first day back was questionable at best. She’d been greeted by his face on the way in. Had seen one too many posters as they passed by more than a few of the properties taken, with YES painted haphazardly everywhere, stamping and claiming it for the cult, so he was on her mind whether she liked it or not.

The least he deserved was the courtesy of knowing just what that would earn him.

“Hey, John. Pick up, I know you’re out there somewhere…” As to where, she had a few ideas, but odds were good he wasn’t anywhere near his region’s edge at the moment. Not where they had decided to camp out at the moment. “John?”

Seconds ticked by as Hana stared down at the radio, rocking back and forth on her feet as she waited. She figured either he’d pick up, Dutch would ask her what the hell she was doing, or both would happen simultaneously and she’d have no choice but to juggle them.

That or the billboard behind her would catch fire, but Sharky had promised her that he and Hurk weren’t going that route with their proposed plan for it. No fire at all was suspicious, but she’d taken his word for it, even if she wasn’t allowed to peek.

“…Oh, John?”

Static crackled over the line, but he soon spoke up, using the same tone he’d addressed her with when he’d first called her back at the Woodson’s.

“Well, well. Is that the Deputy’s voice I hear? I was beginning to wonder when you would find your way back to me. However, I see your curious tendency to carve a fiery path through all that you touch hasn’t been limited to my region only.”

“Disappointed? I didn’t want your siblings thinking I was playing favorites. Spending all of my time with you tearing things up while they were left alone. Figured I’d share the love a little.” She let go of the call button, then pressed it again. “Even though I’m a bit biased.”

That actually drew a laugh from him, but hardly a warm one.

“I can’t say they would have the same…appreciation for your stubborn persistence as I do. How you keep on insisting that this is the right path to follow, when all that we’ve shown you is to the contrary. Do you delight in knowing just what you’re doing to bring about the most destruction to your home?”

“I’m certainly delighting in breaking any of your shiny new toys, while also reclaiming every last little thing you’ve taken from us.”

“Must you make things so difficult for those under your watch? These supplies, these items, are taken to serve a greater purpose. To help us ensure that when it comes, we will be able to survive the Collapse, to thrive,” he urged. “What you are doing right now is only pushing us closer to it, and for every soul that you liberate, there’s another spot left vacant. One that you personally denied entrance to Eden. You want to help them, don’t you?”

“I am.”

“That’s what you have to believe. Because you can’t afford to be wrong here. Knowing full well that if you did make a mistake, that if this is coming – and it is – that what you are doing, is gambling with their lives. Hoping to see who will be right, you, or the Father. He can’t possibly be right, can he?”

“You’re still trying to tell me there’s no prophetic wiggle room in those visions of his?”

“Yes, or no, Deputy. There is no gray area here for you to choose or consider, not when it means saving them.”

Two days ago she would’ve told him no outright. She’d grown silent as he went on, feeling like most digs would’ve fallen flat in the face of what he was throwing at her. And worse yet, what she had felt while all but OD-ing in the bliss.

Because she had felt it. The flames and the force as it blew her back. Could recall almost perfectly the heat of the winds as they tore by, the sky going white. When Joseph drew her near, to show her the ashes and the fires left behind.

But it was the bliss that helped make it real.

Not Faith, lingering nearby, and not Joseph, as much as he wanted her to see what he’d seen. To catch a glimpse of what he insisted was coming. It was a trick of the mind, and how they bent people to them. Got them to listen, to consider.

That was how they won. By getting her to say maybe.

Denial was not the best means of coping. Still, it’s how she dealt with some of the shit she preferred to bury or avoid, and if she gave John an inch, he’d take a mile.

“John. Don’t get all heavy on me here. One silo’s not going to bring the sky down on our heads, and the explosion’s just so damn pretty to watch.” He went silent, long enough for her to think he’d disconnected, and Hana held her ear up to the radio. “John?”

“…Am I a joke to you? Some petty amusement?”

She sighed dramatically. “Well-”

“Come to me then. Sit with me, challenge me like I know you want to - like I want you to - and I will open you up,” he said, drawing out each word slowly. Deliberately. “Peeling away those layers, spilling all of those thoughts, desires, and secrets you keep close and hidden, tucked away from everyone, out in the open for all to see. And if you still challenge me then, I’ll peel away another layer. And another. By then you might even beg me to. Would I be more than a fucking joke to you then?”

Her eyes were locked on the radio, every part of her dumbstruck. John didn’t wait for a response to that on her end either, deciding to keep on going.

“Because you continue to play at this and laugh. Like it’s a game meant to entertain you. With every action you take, you only make things worse for them.” He was close enough to the radio on his end now for her to catch every shift in every word. “You hurt them, you bring this pain upon them, every last bit of their suffering when all they want is to be saved. You know what to do to end this! To confess, to give me the one answer I seek. Will you?”

He’d thrown her, had actually done it, but that still didn’t change her answer. “No.”

There was a hissing intake of breath, and she imagined his teeth were clenched. “How many times do you think I’ll let you reject this? My brother asks for mercy, and that I will grant you, but my generosity has a limit, one that you’re rapidly reaching.”

“And you need to understand that we don’t need saving,” she shot, her grip on her radio tight. “Saving from you, absolutely, but from guilt, sin, and any and all of the above? I think we’ll manage. And you can shove any and all current and future offers to dodge damnation right up your own ass.”

A loud whistle caught her attention, and Hana turned towards it. She could just see Sharky waving her down in the distance, and all it took was one look at the billboard for all of the anger to drain right out of her.

“Oh my God. “The peal of laughter that left her actually went through over the radio due to her thumb holding the call button down. “Gotta go,” she said, wishing just for a second that John could see the shit-eating grin gracing her face. “Hope you like what I’ve done with the sign. You know, the one you see right when you head west from the Henbane?”

“…Deputy.” His tone was downright venomous. “What have you done?”

She looked at the job that Sharky and Hurk were finishing up with his sign, the white spray-painted dick very visible, and sizable next to his smiling face. “You’ll love it. Trust me on that.”

[atlas-of-a-human-soul]

Non disclosure agreements pt.2

Summary: Shawn is desperate to talk to Y/N and fix things.

Warnings: mostly angst, some fluff

Word count: ~ 2.3k

Part 1

I moved my fingers around an almost empty bowl, grabbing a few popcorn and popped them in my mouth.

“This is a future memory.” Stefan begins the same line Shawn used and I frown, glaring at the television as if it’s the source of all evil.

“BOOO!” I couldn’t hold myself back, throwing the rest of my popcorn at the screen in frustration.

A weekend inside with The Vampire Diaries while the outside turned into winter wonderland was not ideal, but I needed it.

Shawn liked snow. He adored every damn snowflake, but I hated it. It was cold and wet, slippery and a hazard for clumsy people like me. Although Shawn fell on daily bases once ice rolled into town, he still enjoyed the weather...despite my Bambi jokes.

Shawn...

I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t on my mind all the time. I couldn’t sleep, finding him in my dreams every time I close my eyes. Watching his favorite TV show only to point out every time he used their lines on me wasn’t helping the situation and yet, I found it therapeutic. Not the words, but me boo-ing each line. Food? Well, I couldn’t get enough of food.

I scroll through my Twitter and Instagram, finding he didn’t post anything new since our break up.

Was he suffering too?

Good.

I know it’s childish and silly, but I wanted him to be hurt as I am. I was stuck in limbo, half of me loving him and the other one hating him. The part who clung to him had turned desperate and hateful toward the one who resented that NDA he presented me with. The hateful part...well, it simply despised him in every way.

I never thought he’d be the one to break my heart.

His sexiest quality by far is emotional warmth, nothing else comes close. Yet, I find myself freezing since the moment he pulled out those papers.

That sane part of me understood him, empathized with him. People always come and go in his life, all of them in search of something he could give them. Once they receive it, they disappear and take a part of him with them.

Shawn is the type to give his all to anyone he meets and regardless how difficult it is, he never showed to be disappointed when they leave. I guess it finally took its toll on him and I had to pay the price.

A soft knock on my door brings me out of this particular thought and I stand up, wrapping myself into a blanket. Trudging my way to the door, I quickly rub my eyes to make myself seem happier.

Forgetting to check who’s on the other side, I open the door and gasp unintentionally.

“Hear me out, okay?” Shawn stands with his palms pressed together, pleading. His eyes are tired, dark circles surrounding them. His usually styled curls are a mess, sticking out in different directions, unruly and wild like they turned only behind closed bedroom doors.

“Think I made myself clear.” With a heavy heart, I push the door closed. But Shawn had a different idea.

Shawn’s quick to push his way in, despite my attempt to keep him out.

I narrow my eyes at him, crossing my arms over my chest. I stay rooted to the spot, a breeze from the hallway moving my hair softly away from my face. Shawn keeps his eyes steady, remaining on my face as if they’re finally home again, just briefly before the sorrow in them starts to build up.

“Remember how happy we were! I’m begging you!” His voice is laced in desperation and it pricks at my heart like thorns of a red rose, a flower he frequently gifted me with.

I bite my lower lip, sucking on the soft flesh nervously, looking anywhere but at him with uncertainty. Should I let him speak, my resolve might waver. Should he break my resolve, it will chip away a piece of who I am and it will be lost to me forever. My features buckle just slightly before I speak, the only betrayal of my grief. 

“I think you should leave, Shawn.” I try and push back at all those happy memories we’ve made so far, finding they’re agonizing now.

“Hey! This is going to sound really stupid, but I saw you from across the street and I really wanted to kiss you. What do you say, eh?” Starting with the first words he ever spoke to me.

I recognized him instantly, thinking it was a prank of some sorts. Yet, I didn’t complain when he pressed his lips against mine and took the very breath from my lungs.

For a guy who claimed he has no game, he certainly proved otherwise that day.

“Now that we’re acquainted, what do you say about having a cup of coffee with me?” And he was smooth, charming...a perfect combination of sexy and fluff and I couldn’t resist him.

“Is this where we say goodbye? The end of the road?” He steps closer, looking down on me just like he did the first time we met. Just like he did every damn day after that; softly, gently, longingly. It’s the kind of a look that makes you sure love is visible, tangible and real.

“God, the way you look at me. Stop looking at me like that.” I speak through gritted teeth, running a hand through my hair as my emotions run wild.

I want to kiss him and slap him at the same time. I want to run my fingers through his hair and pull at it, caress him and push him away...I’m a walking contradiction when he’s in question and it’s driving me insane. Absolutely insane.

Shawn chuckles and I know he’s got a bad habit of laughing at the worst possible time. He shakes his head to wipe that adorable smile from his face, knowing I might be insulted by the gesture, but I’m not. I know he meant nothing malicious by that burst of energy he couldn’t contain. I know his anxiety is at an all time high right now and I can’t hold it against him.

“I’ll always look at you like you’re the only one for me. Because you are.” Shawn takes a step closer, reaching toward me with his hands.

I follow them closely, closing my eyes once they make contact with my hips and the hold he has on me tightens.

“If I give you a chance to explain why you want that NDA right now, will you please be honest with me?” The words leaving my lips make no sense, but my mouth seems to be faster than my brain right now. He’s in my head and I keep on forgetting he’s taken over my heart and he’s at the very seams of my being. He became a vital, out of body organ I needed to function. I know it’s wrong, but everything changed when we met. He became the blood that runs through my veins, but I’d survive without him either way. I’d move on, however, he’d always be somewhere inside, forever stuck with me.

Being infected by Shawn Mendes is an incurable disease and I know all I can do is manage the symptoms as they come along.

“I never lied to you.” Shawn says quietly, leaning down to rest his lips on my forehead. They’re warm,...far too warm for someone who just came in from a blizzard. And that’s when I know...He’s been standing in front of my door for God knows how long in hopes of talking things through and I feel my heart soften ever so slightly.

“So talk to me. Shawn, why?” I press the palms of my hands on his chest, feeling his heart beat is fast, but in perfect rhythm with my own.

“Because I got hurt. Hailey, she...kind of betrayed my trust while I swore up and down she’d never do that. And the worst part is, she worked with the studio for that. By the time I was included, I had already invested time and feelings and it all went to waste. It’s why I kept us a secret for so long.” Shawn sighs against my skin, moving back to look at my face properly.

I couldn’t look him in the eye, staring at his perfectly plump lips instead as he spoke.

“I was scared they’d ask the same of you. And I know! I know you’re not her, but there’s this quiet voice in my mind that annoys the shit out of me. It questions me and it questions my ability to know who to trust and I know in my heart I can trust you. I do.” Shawn keeps rambling, most of it becoming unrecognizable as his thoughts come out jumbled and I know his anxiety is getting to him. I know he needs emotional stability and yet, I need to put my foot down. Should I let this slide every time he feels any anxiety, I’d sacrifice my own needs for him all the time and instead of a loving relationship, we’d turn toxic.

I press my index finger against his lips, finally looking up at his eyes.

“That’s irrational and you know it.”

Then he turns to go, shoulders sunken and his hands in his pockets. Before I know what I'm doing I'm standing in his way and we lock eyes, the perfect distance for a kiss, but he shakes his head. I can see my pain mirrored in his dark eyes. 

“Shawn...You said you think I’m the only one for you. If that’s the case, is that NDA seriously more important than I am? Are you willing to let your fears hold you back from having happiness in your life? Will you let the label tell you who to date or will you make your own rules? Because that’s the Shawn I know and love.”

Shawn averts his eyes to the floor, looking at the fluffy black carpet he surprised me with on my birthday. He knew I loved anything soft that resembled  animal fur without it actually being fur and he got this as a present. I loved him for it. I still love him for it.

“Shawn?” He always said he'd persuade his label when the time came that we weren’t a threat to his career. I guess they won after all.

He looks back up at me, following the sound of my voice on instinct. He always said he’d know my whisper in a screaming crowd.

We have a silent conversation as we stared into each others eyes. I finally look away, tears threatening to blur my vision, when a hand encircles mine. It’s soft and warm, reassuring almost, as If the owner of that hand sensed my desperation. 

“You’re more important. I don’t really care for the NDA, I swear. I would place my life in your hands and trust you to keep it safe, let alone anything else. I was just angry that you didn’t even entertain the idea of signing. Like it was ridiculous. It felt like you didn’t understand me or the pressure they applied for a month until I caved to bring it before you.” He sighs and I blink fast, a tear slipping past my defenses.

He did fight for me.

He did.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Shawn? I wasn’t upset about the contract itself, but by the thought of you just letting them dictate our lives without a fight.” My bottom lip quivers and I notice his do the same as he looks up in exasperation.

“It’s not easy telling your girl you failed in something. Unfortunately, they wore me down and I really didn’t think you’d mind. I thought you’d laugh it off and sign it, throw it on some shelf to collect dust while we live our lives together.” Shawn admits, making eye contact once more.

I place a hand on either side of his face and observe him cautiously.

“You fought for me.” I pause, silently staring into my favorite whiskey colored eyes with adoration I’ve always had for him.

“It’s all I needed to know.” I smile, running my thumb across his cheek slowly.

“Of course. It always comes down to love of a girl and for me that was your love.” His lips turn up into a tiny smile, as he holds me tightly to his chest.

“That was a Damon line!” I exclaim, slapping his chest playfully.

“Founder’s party in season one, I think.” Shawn squints in an attempt to remember and I shake my head slightly.

“Sounds about right.” I add, confirming his thoughts since I basically watched the entire season yesterday.

“You’re not signing that contract.” Shawn leans down, kissing the top of my nose and I crinkle it in response.

“I’m grateful that you’re saying that now...but I’m gonna sign it.” I state, using the fact that his face is so close to me to leave a quick peck on his cheek.

“No, you’re not.” Shawn frowns, moving away from my face and I take in a deep breath.

“Are we going to fight about me wanting to sign it now? Because I’ll sign it to get them off your back. I don’t want you having anxiety over this anymore. You proved you love me, trust me...it’s enough for me. And I love you for it.” I whisper the last bit, capturing his lips into a kiss that feels just right.

“But tomorrow.” I break the kiss to look at him properly, my fingers wandering around the curls at the back of his head.

“I want to spend some quality naked time with my boyfriend tonight.” I smile cheekily and he grunts, connecting our lips hungrily once more.

Tags: @accalialionheart @xalayx @ourlittleshawnie @esoltis280

[theinsanecrayonbox]

Anyone remember ParaDorks, the spooky comic/story by @twisted-persona and myself from a few years ago about a West Coast kid inheriting a haunted library in New England and  learning he can see the dead and must collect the volumes of the Necronomicon before the end of the world? Did you now it had two spin-offs that were plot relevant too? Welp, it’s the spooky time of year, so what better time to remind y’all then now XDD

So much writing below a cut

Paranormicle/ParaDorks

As said, it’s the story about how Norman Brocough, a Hollywood brat, inherits a library in New England from his estranged grandfather. Once there, he learns that the place is haunted, he can see ghosts, and that his grandfather had spent most of his life trying to track down the volumes of the Necronomicon before this cabal of evil witches does who wants to bring about the end of the world with the books. He makes friends with the ghost in the library, and begrudgingly accepts the help of a witch-boy that keeps coming around who claims to have been helping his grandfather...despite everything in his grandfather’s notes saying otherwise. Eventually the two decide that if they’re going to find all the volumes, they’re gonna have to leave the library and go on a spooky antiquing road trip across the country (and possibly the world).

Norman Brocough: He’s our main-main character. Wanting to get away from his controlling parents (primarily his reality show producer father), he moves to New England after inheriting his grandfather’s library/book store...a grandfather he’d never (remembered) meet(ing) before, since his father cut off all ties with him a long log time ago. Once he gets there he learns he’s a Necromancer, though more specifically a Necromancer known as the Watcher (meaning he has the ability to see and communicate with the dead). At first he doesn’t really want to buy into the end of the world stuff (he’s perfectly ok with the ghosts though), but after the store’s attacked one too many times, he really can’t avoid it anymore. At first he’s wary and distrustful (even down right hates) Cas, but as more spooky and magic stuff happens, he realizes that he’s woefully inadequately informed/equipped to deal with the situation, so he begrudgingly agrees to team up...and then it just develops into something more the farther the go along.

Margaret May-Anne: Maggie is the resident ghost in the Brocough library. She doesn’t recall anything from her life; in fact Margaret May-Anne might not even be her real name, it’s just the name that Norm’s grandfather gave her. Grandpa was trying to help her crossover, but with little info to go on...Maggie doesn’t mind though, she likes the library, and often helps Norm with the upkeep. She too doesn’t like or trust Cas, and is pretty much an angry/unhappy cat when it comes to him and misbehaves. She’s unable to leave the library at first too...

Caspian Morrigan: He’s our other main-main character. The mysterious witch-boy that just showed up in the New England town in the middle of nowhere that has a haunted library in it. Cas is over the top, cocky, and flamboyant, always flashing magic...magic that at times van be fritzy. Cas acts over the top though to help cover the fact that he has n memory of who he was before waking up in the backseat of his car in town about 3 months before Norm’s grandfather died. He isn’t lying when he says he was trying to help grandpa look for the books...but he doesn’t exactly know why he was. He has strange markings on his back that become affected each time they come into contact with another volume of the Necromonicon, which seems to unlock a new elemental force in him. He’s also very openly gay, and is often flirting with Norm (especially at the most inappropriate of times) which really gets on the other’s nerves. It was his idea to take the road trip, mainly because he has the car. He’s also afraid of rabbits.

ParaDorks: Graveyard Shift

The first spin-off. Norm and Cas first meet Sam and Tristan when they take their first road trip (a test of sorts) to North/South Carolina, following a lead in Norm’s grandfather’s notes about spooky stuff down there. They find Sam’s graveyard, and her great-aunt helps fills in some details about grandpa’s business since the two of them used to work together many years ago.

Sam’s whole story alone though is about how she’s forced to move from Chicago go live in the spooky South with her only remaining relative after her parents die in a car crash, a weird old great-aunt she’s never met. Once there she learns about her family heritage, how they’ve lived there since the Civil War, and have been care takers of the local cemetery...because it’s a point of converging ley lines, and Sam is a Necromancer too. So not only does she have to juggle high school dramas, but dead people free roaming, and other spooky stuff popping up at random now too.

Sam Devine: Sam’s a 16 year old transgirl from Chicago who’s parents were killed in a car crash, and as said, she had to move to the Carolinas to go live with her great-aunt Muriel who was seen as a crazy swamp lady. So on top of adjusting to small town life from the city, she learns that her family has this ability to make the dead rose again; she’s a Necromancer known as the Waker (meaning she has the ability to put/draw souls back into dead bodies). The local graveyard would always let the dead rise on the equinoxes, thanks to the natural convergence of ley lines, but with her being there now, the dead are all awake constantly. So yeah, trying to juggle high school and dead people in a completely new environment; good times.

Why didn’t the dead free roam all these years with Muriel being the graveyard keeper? Because Necromancers are only born male.

Tristian Delamonte: He’s one of the resident dead of the local cemetery, and was actually a friend of the Devine family back in the Civil War. He’s a bit outdated, and would constantly follow Sam around if she let him to help “guard her”. He’s the only undead that’s kind of allowed out of the graveyard (because Muriel thinks it’s cute how he wants to safe guard Sam); but he’s also the only one allowed out, because without the ley line battery in the graveyard, or being in close proximity to Same herself, the dead loose their ability to function. Turns out, he was actually engaged to Sam’s great-great-whatever grandmother/-aunt, whom she bares a resemblance to, but he doesn’t love her just for that; he’s a man bound by honor, even after death.

ParaDorks: West Coast Ghosts

The second spin-off. Norm first strikes up an online friendship with Ami, while searching messages boards and forums for occult stuff and clues about where the volumes of the books could be. Eventually, during their road trip, he gets Cas to head out west where they go to Roanoke’s Pawns, where we meet Lukas...or should we say Ami...

This story is about a normal girl who gets pulled into all this spooky stuff by accident. Ami was a regular girl, trying to do good as she studied in college with er boyfriend, volunteered at the community center where she mentored a young girl, and ultimately was kidnapped and possibly killed. What she didn’t know was that the girl she mentored was trying to dabble in magic, and tried a spell to find her missing friend...which somehow went wrong so much so that Ami woke up in the body of a strange man in the hospital. Now it’s a story about adjusting to this new life she has, learning what happened to her real body, what happened to land the guy she’s wearing (and what exactly he was doing with his life; spoiler, it’s spooky stuff) helping Tarcy navigate life, trying to keep her boyfriend, and on top of it all, she now has to run a Pawn Shop, with...questionable merchandise.

Ami Corozon: Our typical nice girl, she’s super small and super sweet. She’s a local beach girl, and always made time to volunteer in her community. She was going to school to do social work. She just honestly wanted to make the world a better place. And then she was kidnapped out of the blue.

Lukas Roanoke: Explaining Lukas is tricky, since the “Lukas” we mainly follow is really Ami. As Ami: He wakes up in the hospital as a Jon Doe and frantically escapes and immediately goes looking for Tarcy, since Ami was going to go meet her before she went missing. Luckily, Tarcy puts things together about how her spell went wrong, s they go back to the hospital, where they find out...yeah, they don’t know who the giant red headed guy is. Tarcy fills in Ami about what’s happened since she went missing, they go back to Ami’s apartment, and they try to figure out what happened. Ami goes to volunteer as normal, because sitting around doing nothing is driving her nuts; it’s that type of thing that gets the attention of her boyfriend, who starts questioning what’s going on (because a stranger is doing/acting like his girlfriend) so the two let him in on what’s going on and...it’s awkward sure. They eventually learn that the guy’s name is Lukas Roanoke, and that he owns a Pawn Shop. So Ami goes there to try to find more clues, but it turns out that the shop has a lot of cursed and haunted artifacts. As Lukas: Lukas, as he really is, is a Necromancer known as the Walker (meaning he has the ability to astral project/walk amongst the dead), and he knows this from birth. His family has always been on the darker side of things, and traffics in occult black magic artifacts. Norm’s grandfather actually had altercations with Roanokes in the past (he lost at least 1 volume of the Necronomicon to one of them). Lukas was a broker and dealer for dark artifacts; his last attempt to procure an item though left him incapacitated, thus how he wound up in the hospital. His should wasn’t in his body, thus how Ami was able to take up residency. But Lukas was not a great guy, and he has several enemies, that Ami and her friends will have to deal with now.

Ami, in Lukas’ body does not have his astral projection ability, but due to her crossing the veils of life and death, she can hear ghosts.

Tarcy Dane: She’s a high school kid who decides “hey witch craft looks cool, let’s try it”, leading to her making emoji spells on her phone, and googling spooky stuff, etc. She lives with her uncle in the not-so-best of conditions, which led her to hanging out at the community center, and also with Ami and Ryan at her place. Thus when Ami went missing, she tried to cast a spell to find her friend...but it really just called her soul to her which made it get stuck in the closest available vessel (Lukas). She’s all in for researching the spooky stuff, even past the point of self preservation at times. Ami and Ryan really do become her surrogate parents to a degree.

Ryan Noble: Poor guy, he’s completely normal and just gets his whole life turned upside down. He’s Ami’s boyfriend, studying something at college too, woudl sometimes volunteer with her at the community center; sure everything wasn’t perfect, seeing as he kept putting off introducing Ami to his family even though he was considering purposing her, out of fear of them rejecting her. But then Ami disappears and he’s a wreck; then Lukas shows up being a creeper (from his point of view) only to find out after he confronts the red head that he’s actually Ami?? Ryan is very confused and freaked out, but he agrees to help Ami and Tarcy try to figure out things and a way to fix this. Things continually get awkward at moments though wen Ryan somehow easily forgets that the giant red headed man isn’t his tiny girlfriend...but is.

[imogenmeehan]

‘Joker’ Review

For our last blog we’ve been given the choice to review a film or television show of our choice. I’ve chosen to review Joker (2019) directed by Todd Phillips, which I assume many others have chosen… but there is no other film I’d rather talk about! This film absolutely blew me away and affected me in a way very few other films have done in the past.

Right off the bat, I anticipated that the film would be great simply because Joaquin Phoenix had the lead role. Joaquin Phoenix is an incredible actor and I’ve always admired his work and his dedication to the craft of acting. I was unsure how he would make such an iconic character his own, but God almighty did he succeed! It was almost as if he originated this character himself, I often forgot that I was watching a film about an iconic villain from the DC universe. As we mention all the time in class, the best performances come from those who internalize their emotions and Joaquin is a perfect example of this. You can literally see and hear the thoughts running through his mind and the emotions radiating from within. He just has to give a simple look and we know what he wants to say and what he’s feeling.

I’ve researched this film quite a bit and have watched many of Joaquin’s interviews in which he explains how he prepared for the role and how he approached the character. Joaquin lost around 24kg for the role and had a very restricted diet which he claims added to his performance as he was literally and figuratively starving. Apart from that, he did an immense amount of research leading up to production and refined his skills in terms of voice and physicality. He watched old films, worked with a choreographer, kept a journal and studied the character inside and out. This was very inspiring to hear, and it’s help light the fire more for myself as an aspiring actress. I admire his passion and dedication and truly believe that he is a fantastic example of an actor who lives and breathes for their work.

Aside from Joaquin’s amazing performance, I believe that the direction of the themes is what made this film so great. There is still unfortunately a large stigma attached to mental illness and we as a society are often afraid to confront it or discuss it. We forget that how we treat one another affects people, especially those who are battling with inner demons. The film was uncensored and unfiltered in terms of showing just how selfish and unforgiving society can be and the character of Arthur absolutely broke my heart. He was just so real that it was difficult to remind myself that he was becoming a villain. The whole story begged the question of whether or not people are born evil and after watching this film, I don’t think anyone is. This film made me realize that everyone is born innocent and pure, it is only when they become poisoned by society that they find outlets such as drinking, drugs and murder. Mental illness is something that needs society’s full attention as it can become dangerous and unsteady when it is ignored or shamed. 

A favourite line of mine was: “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you f***ing deserve.” The entire film is full of brilliant quotes which is evidently a huge nod to the writers and their genius ability to tell a story. The quote that had the biggest impact on me was: “I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.” At first I (and I assume most people) took it as Arthur misspelling the word “sense” due to his lack of education however, I now truly understand it. Arthur didn’t misspell the word but rather was talking about the connection of money with death. He talks about a corrupt society that is selfish and full of greed and so all that he hopes for is that his death will result in financial support for his mother that he couldn’t give her while he was alive. 

The scene with Murray in which Arthur appears as a guest made an imprint in my mind that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. It was one of the most shocking and confronting scenes I’d ever seen and although many have disagreed with Todd Phillip’s choice of explicit visuals and themes, especially within this scene, I believe it was a remarkable moment. The entire audience gasped, including myself, during the pivotal ending to the scene and I was completely in awe. Another scene which impacted me was the scene on the bus where Arthur playfully makes faces at a young boy in front of him. When he started laughing, I was initially confused however, when he gave the lady a card which explained his medical condition, I became very emotional. There was absolutely nothing funny about the scene anymore and you could feel his pain and embarrassment. There were moments where I felt like reaching through the screen and hugging him because I felt so incredibly awful for him – but then I found myself feeling conflicted because he’s a villain… right? We’re suppose to hate villains. We’re suppose to think they’re evil and deserve nothing. This was a strange realization for me, but it all came back to the incredible message of the film.

The entire film was shot beautifully and looked visually stunning. The use of colour was brilliant and I found an article which summed its use up very well. Cathy Whitlock of The Hollywood Reporter commented on the building of the character of Arthur through the use of various colour palettes. In the beginning of the film, we see him dressed in worn-out, dull and inexpensive clothing that reflects his lifestyle, financial status and the culture he has grown up in. The transformation into the Joker then showed him wearing brighter colours such as reds, blues, greens and so on which juxtaposed Arthur’s previous appearance. The costuming and sets were also true to the time period of the early 80s and I genuinely believed that the whole film was taking place within this era. Not a detail was out of place. 

The entire cast were remarkable with their performances and Todd Phillip’s genius direction gave the film a significant purpose. I would highly recommend this film to everyone… over the age of 18 (sorry kids, your parents will thank me later).

REFERENCES

Whitlock, C. (2019). The Style Transformation of Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. Retrieved from The Hollywood Reporter website: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/joker-style-transformation-joaquin-phoenix-1243670

[dylan-stableford-blog]

Lance Armstrong opens up about his comeback — as a podcaster

Armstrong talks with golfer Rickie Fowler in the former pro cyclist’s studio in Austin in April. (Photo courtesy Mark Higgins)

Lance Armstrong is a year into his comeback — but not exactly the kind he envisioned.

Last year, the former competitive cyclist started a podcast and interview show called “The Forward,” a weekly long-form interview show hosted by Armstrong featuring a mix of athletes (Brett Favre, Rickie Fowler, Becky Hammon and Bo Jackson), actors (Ben Foster), authors (Malcolm Gladwell), entrepreneurs (Gary Vaynerchuk), musicians (the Avett Brothers) and politicians (Wendy Davis and Rahm Emanuel) as well as local celebrities from in and around his hometown of Austin, Texas. (Tim League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse, was Armstrong’s first guest.)

At the time of its launch, Armstrong called the podcast “a gentle step out” into the public eye after several years of self-imposed exile following his admission of cheating during each of his seven Tour de France titles.

But Armstrong’s name will be back in the headlines soon. He’s the defendant in an upcoming $100 million federal lawsuit brought against him by the U.S. Postal Service, which claims it was defrauded in its sponsorship of Armstrong’s U.S. Postal Team as a result of the scandal. In 2012, an investigation by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency concluded Armstrong had spearheaded “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen.” He was subsequently banned for life from professional cycling.

And this summer, Armstrong will be doing something he hasn’t done in any substantive way since receiving his lifetime ban: He’s going to be talking about the Tour on a new daily podcast called “Stages” which he plans to post within an hour of the finish of each stage of the three-week race, which begins July 1.

The move is, in part, a response to what Armstrong believes has been a concerted effort to whitewash his legacy.

In a wide-ranging interview, the 45-year-old father of five opened up about sports, doping, parenting, politics, music and much more from Carson City, Nev., where he was competing in a nonsanctioned mountain-bike race.

Armstrong arrives prior to the start of the third stage of the 2010 Tour de France. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, FIle)

Yahoo News: Did you ever imagine you’d be doing an interview pegged to your podcast? When you started it, you called it a “gentle step out.” Do you still feel that way?

Lance Armstrong: Yeah, I didn’t know what to expect, to be honest. I didn’t try to get too far out of my lane when I started, not knowing actually what to do. I’ve been surprised at how it’s gone, how it’s been received.

So, 50-something podcasts in, what have you learned, now being on the other side of interviewing?

You know, yeah, I mean, the tables are completely turned. I was interviewed for 30 years. So it’s a totally different dynamic. Mainly I guess my biggest surprise is how the guests have been really open about a lot of things. I think that’s surprised people. And I don’t know why that is, but to me, that’s been the most rewarding part — to just get people to give it up in these conversations.

Did you listen to podcasts before you started yours? And if so, who did you listen to?

No, I didn’t, and I never did and I still don’t. I wish that I did, and every day I tell myself I need to start doing that, but if I’m in my car I listen to music.

I understand you’re going to do a podcast during the Tour. What’s the idea behind it?

Yeah. It’ll essentially be a spinoff of “The Forward.” It’s tough to call it live, almost impossible, but it’ll be a short, concise recap show of the day.

Is it something you’ve been itching to do, to get your voice into cycling analysis?

I wouldn’t say I’ve been itching or dying to do it. The last four years I really haven’t followed much cycling, and literally to this day I don’t follow a ton. But last year, I found myself watching more of the Tour. And so the idea behind the Forward was that it was a forward discussion. It wasn’t a cycling discussion. It wasn’t to talk about the past, rehashing things that have already been extensively published. But any time I touch on cycling, whether it was the podcast with all my old teammates or any kind of cycling discussion, the reaction is pretty overwhelming. And so, I thought, “What if the fans, the Tour fans, what if they had another option for a recap show?” I don’t love the NBC coverage. I think there’s a lot that can be improved there. So I decided to go for it this summer and we’ll see, well, most importantly we’ll see if I’m good at it or if I suck at it. And then secondly we’ll see how it’s received.

You mentioned the NBC coverage. Do you feel like your name is being intentionally omitted from their broadcasts?

That’s a fair question. We’ll see what happens this summer. I don’t have to speculate, none of us need to speculate on the last [four] summers. I mean it’s pretty well known that my name is not allowed to be mentioned. Period.

Is that anecdotal or have you heard that from someone at NBC?

Yeah. That’s a fact. Which, whatever. That seems a little odd but that’s the position NBC Sports has taken.

[Editor’s note: An NBC Sports spokesman refuted Armstrong’s claims. “This is completely false,” the spokesman said. “Lance Armstrong has been mentioned on our telecasts over the past four years and likely will be moving forward if the context is appropriate.”]

How about in general? Do you feel like your history in the sport is being erased?

Honestly, I think that was the intention, right? I mean, I’m not taking the position that it was all unfair and I got screwed, but the statement that I’m making is, certainly [the] intention [of UCI, cycling’s governing body] at the time was to erase everything. The trick for them has proven to be and will continue to prove to be is that you can’t. You have a few things happening. One, you have a very, very iconic event [in the Tour de France] that has to have a winner. Has to. You can’t erase something and not. You can’t turn the pencil around and write something — you can’t do that for that event. So, and then where it really gets tested is with the people. So the people, you can’t erase their memories. Not to say that they excuse it or that they forgive it or they understand it — none of that. It’s just they have memories. And so, long term, you just can’t erase it. You can try, but over time history corrects itself. And just my own — I’m not the right person to take a view on this, but my sense is that we are already starting to see that.

History correcting itself.

Yeah, the hysteria dies down, the screaming dies down and then people look at it and rational adults go, “OK.” When everybody’s done screaming — look it happens everywhere. Look at politics. Look at the situation we’re in now where everybody is screaming. At some point that’ll stop and they’ll go, “All right. Now what do we do?”

Armstrong raises his arms as he crosses the finish line to win the 17th stage of the 2004 Tour de France. (Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters/File)

Do you miss the sport of cycling?

I don’t miss being in the grind, I don’t miss being in Europe and that nomadic lifestyle — I don’t miss that at all. And I’m not unhappy with where I sit today. I mean, look at the reality. I’m in Carson City, Nev., and I’m gonna race my bike tomorrow against thousands of people. I feel like I’m ingrained in cycling. I mean, I’m not in Germany at the start of the Tour de France, but I still own multiple bike shops [Austin-based Mellow Johnny’s], I’m still a factor in this industry. I don’t feel like I’m not involved.

You mentioned the political environment, and right now we have a president who has been accused by many people of lying. What are your thoughts on President Trump?

[long pause] I mean, there’s no upside for me to comment on — I don’t need to add to the noise, for lack of a better word. And obviously I’m in the middle of a significant legal situation with the Department of Justice. I’ve always tried to stay somewhat apolitical. I mean, privately I have my views and people that know me know my views, but … all I’ll say is it’s a messy situation and I’m not, you know, I don’t think our counterparts around the world view us too kindly right now, which is unfortunate.

I wanted to ask you about Maria Sharapova, who recently returned to tennis after being suspended for two years for doping, only to have the French Open not give her the chance to qualify. Have you followed her case? How do you think she’s been treated?

I can see it from all sides. I can understand, I mean, I’ve watched her reaction. I’ve watched some of the other players’ reactions that have been negative towards her, which you could expect. And then you’ve got the reactions of these event organizers. And they get to decide — whether it’s the French Open, I don’t know, it could be Indian Wells, it could be the f***ing Backyard Open, I don’t care. It’s [their] event, they get to decide. You can’t fault them for that either. It didn’t surprise me that the French Open took that position. Just knowing the organizers of the Tour De France as well as I do, that’s a position they love to take. But I suspect she’ll get more invitations down the road. The biggest issue for her is going to be how well she plays. I think she’s injured now, or had gotten injured. If you don’t come back to the highest level, everything goes away. The invitations go away, the sponsors go away, that’s just the nature of professional sport.

You’ve said before that during the scandal, your kids started getting teased at school, and how that was a poignant moment for you, when you spoke with them about it. I know you’ve talked about that, but what do you tell your children about drug use in general?

You know, I don’t know where you’re trying to go with this, but what I say to my kids is up to me, and what I choose to share is up to me and nobody else.

I was going to ask you about your son, who I understand plays football, and what, as a parent, you think about the safety of that sport, given the national debate over head injuries. It seems to be a conversation that every family with a child playing football is having.

As a parent, you want your kids to be as safe as they can. If my son plays football or if my 8-year-old goes and rides a bike — you have to wear a helmet and stay out of the street. Luke has chosen to play football. You know, I had this conversation with somebody yesterday. I mean, he’s never had, to date — knock on wood — a head injury. And I don’t know that he’ll play past the high school level. So as a parent, you’re sitting there saying, “OK, he’s playing a sport, he’s focused on it, it’s keeping him” — you know, I think sports are good for kids to keep ’em focused on something besides getting in trouble. And so, I’m happy for him now. And I think he’s not one of these unrealistic kids. He doesn’t think he deserves a scholarship to the University of Alabama or anything. He knows where he fits in and where that’s going to take him.

Armstrong chats with fellow cyclists in Auckland, New Zealand, late last year. (Fiona Goodall/Getty Images)

How about you — you’re biking a lot, obviously. How do you as a 45-year-old stay in shape? Do you still run regularly?

No, not anymore. I got hurt running, so I’m back to just riding my bike basically.

You’ve been doing this podcast for a year, had a lot of interesting guests. Who’s on your wish list? Who would be the one living person you’d love to have on your podcast?

That’s a good question. Because there’s obviously a lot of people you’d like to have on. And then there are the conversations that I have in my head. Like, for example, and this is not on the top of my wish list, but you’ve probably followed this Megyn Kelly–Alex Jones drama, right?

Yep, we covered it.

I can only imagine. And you’ve seen the furor over that, which I think NBC deserves, by the way. If you’re a parent at Sandy Hook and someone says … as a parent, I would go crazy. I mean, you wouldn’t be able to … yeah. A guy like that saying those things, you better bring it. I’m getting a little off the subject here but those are not the types of interview I’ve done, where there’s been any intensity. All of them have been pretty friendly. Yeah, I totally, I’m getting a little off the subject. Sorry.

No problem.

You know who I’ve tried to get and I’ve had multiple conversations with and she just didn’t want to do it — and by the way, I don’t blame her at all — is Amanda Knox. Because I’d love to have that interview. I’d even want to interview George W. Bush, who I consider a friend. I think he’d probably want to do it. But why would he do it? Like, that’s, a lot of people in this world get to a place where [they say] “Why? Why do I this? What’s in my interest to do it?” And a lot of times it just falls to a place where it’s like, there’s just no need. “Yes, we’re friends, yes, we’re homies, but there’s no upside for me.”

Armstrong takes part in a special session on cancer research during the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, Sept. 22, 2010. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters/File)

Who would be the non-living person you’d like to interview if you could?

Hmm. [long pause]

These are classic interview questions, by the way. “Who would you want to go back and meet if you could?” I haven’t listened to all your podcasts so I’m not sure you’ve asked questions like that.

No, I haven’t but I’m getting some good ideas. I’m going to steal your ideas.

Feel free. Please do.

Um, well, if I could talk to Kurt Cobain, that’d be pretty great.

That’s a good one. I stole that question from an interview New York magazine did with David Letterman, and he said the person he’d love to interview — if it wasn’t Trump — was Bob Marley. So you’re kind of on the same wavelength.

That’s an interesting answer for him. Well, he’d be a great interview. More than anything, I love just the images of him. He looks like Santa Claus now.

Right, he looks like he’s having a great time being retired.

As he should!

OK, so this is the last question, another from the classic interview playbook. If you could map out the next 10 years, what would they look like?

Well, I say it all the time. The most important part is the kids. Taking care of them. You know, my son — 10 years from now, I could be a grandparent. You know, 27-year-old son, 25-year-old girl, 10 years from now I have young kids that are getting out of high school, so making sure that all navigates is the most important part. And then, for the first time ever in my life, I have a completely blank canvas. I can really do whatever I want to do. I can continue to do the podcast or start a new business or — it’ll look very, very different. If I look back five years ago to today, the world looks very different. And so, um, 10 years from now, the world is going to look drastically different than it is today. But, I guess I have an open mind towards that, where in the past I had a very rigid view of where I wanted to be, what I wanted to happen. And at this point, I’m pretty laid back about it and understand it’s not so much about what I want to do it’s more about what the world will allow me to do. And that’s just a very different mindset from what it used to be.

[edmundlover]

Nothing Between (Edmund x OC)

Edmund Lover “ANarnianMaiden” Amy Ing

Warnings: Kissing?

Word Count: 3,644 words

My name is Crystal. I’m 15 years old. My evil mother Jadis has captured the Just King Edmund.

I don’t know how she did it as he knows of her evil ways. From what she told me, he arrived just two days ago. Apparently, she wants to spell him and use him in her greatest war yet.

What she doesn’t know is that for some time now I have been reading many books about the past and my history. I studied the Kings and Queens of Old, and I have found they are good and just people. I guess the only reason my mother hated them is because they threatened her power. She really did need to be brought down a notch.

Another thing, I now have powers. Powers stronger than my mother. Powers stronger than she could ever imagine.

So, I started distancing myself more than usual. I voiced that I didn’t feel right about going against Aslan, the Great Lion.

Unhappy with my outburst, she threw me into her icy prison. With the Just King.

I guess you could say it was Fate. I have decided to protect him from my mother and help the cause to rid Narnia of her.

He was so much more handsome than I thought he would be and my cold heart skipped a beat when he helped me up.

“Who are you?” He asked me lifting me to my feet.

“My name is Crystal.” I gave him a small smile.

“No doubt one of Jadis’ innocent victims?”

“I put myself here.” Edmund gave me a quizzical look.

“Well, sort of. It’s a long story.” I gave a small laugh.

“I have plenty of time.” He grinned, motioning to the icy walls around us.

“Just promise you won’t interrupt until I done?” He nodded in consent.

“I am the only daughter and child of Jadis so called Queen of Narnia. My mother wants to spell you and use you against your siblings. I am more powerful than her, but she doesn’t know it. I’m going to protect you and shield you from her spell.” I took a deep and long breath after my speech. Edmund just looked at me with his mouth wide open.

“Close your mouth, Ed.” I laughed a small blush covering my cheeks, but he seemed to overlook it.

“So what powers do you exactly have?” He eagerly asked me.

“Whatever my emotions are, they turn into element control. If I cry, it will rain. If I’m angry I can control fire. I can control any power opposite my mother.” I explained in a hushed voice.

“Wow, you are one powerful girl.” Edmund said in awe.

I was about to seat myself next to him, but stopped.

“Quick! She’s coming!” I shoved myself across the room. He shot me a worried glance.

The gate opened with a bang and in walked my mother.

“Well, seems you have been acquainted with the king?” Her words were dripping with sarcasm.

“It’s too bad you were born with none of my powers and magic.” I kept my eyes down as not to make eye contact.

“Come, Edmund. I await your royal presence.” He growled as she dragged him away. With my tracking powers, I followed him. She was taking him to her private meeting room in which even I have never entered. I used my fire powers to melt a hole in the prison wall. Hiding behind an icy pillar, I set of an attack alarm. I knew she would rush to the other side of the castle to get to the watch tower. Like I predicted, she quickly left the room and disappeared down the hallway.

I burst into the room and found an unconscious Edmund. I gently slapped his cheek.

“Edmund! Wake up!” His beautiful brown eyes flashed open and met mine.

“Are you ok?” I asked

“Only a minor gash. She didn’t quite get to me yet.” He weekly smiled at me. I ripped a piece of cool cloth from my icy dress and wrapped it around his arm.

“Ok, we gotta get out of here.” I melted the wall with my hand. I raised my voice in a silent call to my horse, Luna. Faithfully, she came to me and we mounted her.

“Where do I take you?” I asked as he warily wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Aslan’s How.”

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Many hours of riding later, I could feel Edmund’s head falling off my back.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep on me Ed, we still have a ways to go.” I chuckled. He gave me a sleepy laugh in return.

“Should we stop for the night? You must be tired.”

“I suppose we should, I just don’t want my mum catching up with us.” Edmund hopped down and raised his arms to help me.

“Would her sleigh get this far in a forest?” I jumped down and gave him a thanking smile.

“I suppose not.” I shrugged “We can stay here and star before Dawn in the morning.”

“Ok, sure.” He nodded “Bu we can’t light a fire or Jadis will see the smoke and find us.” He scowled at her name.

I shivered and wrapped arms around myself.

“Are you cold” I only nodded

“When you live in a frozen castle with an extremely cold mother and get treated like an invisible icicle your whole life, it kinda takes you over.”

“I can’t even imagine what it would be like to even live in the same house as her” He said to me in sympathy.

“Don’t even try.” I mumbled as I plonked myself on the ground.

“Sorry.” He sat next to me, but looked away. I sighed.

“No, it’s not your fault. It’s just been a really bad day.” He turned to me.

“Aside from meeting you.” I too quickly continued. He laughed. A good strong laugh. Like a rumble of thunder in the mountains. How I loved that sound. We smiled at each other.

Edmund lay down and looked up at the stars.

“I used to watch the stars with my father when I was younger.” He sadly whispered

I lay down next to him and gazed up into the Celestial Lights.

“At least you have those memories. I have always watched them alone.”

“Not anymore.” He whispered into my ear as he pulled me close.

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Goodness he was drop dead cute in daylight, but when he sleeps he is ten times better! He just looks so peaceful.

“I know your staring at me.” He muttered in a husky morning voice.

I laughed “Am not!” I claimed, but just as I was about to admire his cuteness, he caught me.

“Told you!” he smirked. Oh, how would I explain why I fainted!

“No fair.” I pouted “You were peeking!” The look of mock horror was too much for me. I collapsed on the ground in fits of laughter.

But all to soon I felt the coolness of my mother’s evil spirit, approaching.

“Edmund! She’s found us!”

“How do you know? I don’t see or hear anything.” He started to panic.

“I can sense her. Get behind me. It’s you she wants.”

Then we saw her. Jadis alone revealed herself. Still clueless about my powers. Fingers crossed. Seeing us both, she laughed.

“Do you really think you can actually save him? Give it up. Think about it for a second. What do you have to offer him?” Sneering in her ice cold tone, she glared at me. “Give him to me, and I may just spare you both. Stay where you are, and die.”

“Never!” Clenching my fists, I yelled back with a force that made her wince and I grinned to myself.

“My dear daughter.” He tone changed for the faked better. “How could anyone but your mother love you? Surly back on Earth, this “king” has a beautiful, talented girl waiting for him.” With that said, she chuckled darkly at my pain, but I hid it well. I slowly raised my arms and started to summon strong powers within me.

“Then if not for love, then for Aslan and what is right!” I yelled as I sent her flying back with my magic.

“Come, Edmund. We have to get out of here.” He nodded.

“I’ll take it from here. Hop on the back.” I gladly did as I was told.

“Rest now. From the force you just used, I’m pretty sure you would be dead tired.” He chuckled. I only nodded as my head drooped on his warm back. as I rested, I realised what I said. Love? Really? Why did I pick up the first line that came into my head?

Whilst mentally face-palming, I fell asleep.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Waking with a start, I sensed something was wrong, but what was it?

“Edmund, where are we?” I quickly questioned. He must have picked up the panic in my voice.

“Aslan’s How. Why?”

“Something’s not right here. I can feel it.” As he urged Luna forward, I started to test my limits with magic by imagining a sword. Into my hands, a beautiful sword began to form.

“Wow!” I whispered. I was entering a new world.

“Here, Edmund, take this. You’ll need it.” His mouth gaped open and nearly hit the floor.

Take it, Ed, we gotta get in there.”  I urged running to the entrance in the lead.

The site that befell me was one that I did not want to see. There was a blonde guy with his sword drawn, but faltering and before them was my mother.

“Really?!? Does she have to be everywhere?” Edmund growled.

“Ed, take the sword and drive it through the ice. I got your back.” Taking my hand, we jumped over a small stone wall and ran to where she was.

Holding the sword in both hands, Edmund tried to drive it through the ice.

“Crystal, it won’t go in! What do I do?” Taking my small, cold hands, I placed them over his. In an instant, the ice shattered, falling to the ground.

I shielded my face from the ice, and wondered how the heck so much could happen in one day.

“I know. You had it sorted.” Edmund muttered to the blonde haired boy as he took my elbow and followed a dark haired girl.

“Susan!” He called out to her. She quickly turned at his voice.

“Edmund!” She cried, running into his opened arms.

“We thought you were dead!” Tears were streaming down her fair face.

“How did you escape?” She held him tight. I guess you could say I felt a slight twinge of jealousy.

“It was all Crystal. She rescued me. It’s such a long story. Where is Lucy? I don’t want to tell it twice.” He grasped my hand and I felt slightly confused.

“This is Crystal.” He was smiling that melt of a smile.

“Welcome to the family!” She seemed, pulling me into a hug. “Thank you for saving my little bro.” At this I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Don’t forget Caspian, Ed, I’m sure he will want to hear your tales and meet Crystal.” When Susan said this, I felt Edmund tighten his grip around my hand.

“Edmund?” A small voice called hopefully. At this, we both turned.

“Lucy!” Edmund smiled as she happily ran to him. Picking her up, he twirled her around.

“Oh how I missed you!” She laughed. I could see this was a tight nit family.

“Edmund? Who is this? What beautiful hair she has.”

Behind her was the blonde boy and  a boy with dark, kinda long hair.

“Don’t tell me you were saved by a girl, Ed.”

“Guys, let Edmund introduce her and us, or we’ll never know who she is.”

“Well, this is Crystal, the girl that helped me escape from Jadis’ castle.”

“Hi.” I blushed, and gave them a wave. What was wrong with me? Nobody had ever made me blush before.

“Crystal, this is my older brother, Peter.” He motioned to the blonde one.

“My older sister, who you met, my younger sister Lucy and Prince Caspian the heir to the throne.” He smiled at me.

“But who is she really? How could she break the ice when you couldn’t and how could you rescue Edmund?” Lucy asked, still trying to piece together my complicated puzzle of a life.

“I am the only daughter of Jadis, hence why I’m wearing this rotten dress, the reason I’m always cold and why I could defeat her. I have powerful magic. But it’s for the Good. I’m here to help you all.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

As I lay in my bed that night, I couldn’t help but think about Edmund. I was really falling for him. I’d never been in love before-my mother forbad it. It was all a new feeling for me.

Then I began to think about what my mother did to him. How could he fancy me?

Making an effort to stay quiet and not wake Susan and Lucy, I hopped out of bed and slipped to the ledge that hung over the entrance of the How.

I guess I always knew, nobody could love me. Being the daughter of Jadis would forever be a curse over my head. Why did it have to be me.

“Crystal? Is that you?” My head turned abruptly to face the dark-haired boy.

“Oh, Edmund. It’s you.” I sighed in relief. I don’t know what I would do if it was Caspian.

“Of course, who has the same handsome voice as me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” I softly laughed.

“Why are you out here at this time of night?” “I could ask you the same.” I didn’t know why I was being short with him, my mood changes so fast. He had only been nice to me.

“Sorry I’m being snappy, I was just thinking about my future, that’s all.”

“But you’ll stay with us won’t you?” Edmund asked, sitting down next to me.  “We could sure use your help.”

“I don’t belong here. I can sense that Peter finds me a threat and all Caspian does is check me out. It unnerves me.”

“Peter just feels the need to protect you and he’s getting used to that, but I know you can look after yourself.” Ed grinned at me as my heart fluttered inside.

“As for Caspian, he probably hasn’t laid eyes on a girl as beautiful as you.” My face turned a dreadful shade of red and he covered his mouth.

“I..I mean..” Edmund stuttering? Never.

“It’s alright, friends give compliments.”

“Yes. Friends.” He said quietly. I just rested my head on his shoulder and drifted off to sleep.

When it was Peter’s turn to take watch, he was met by Edmund and I in a tangle of limbs.

We were partially awake, and shot away from each other.

“It’s not what it looks like Pete!” I shook my head in confirmation.

“I’m sure it’s not.” Peter smirked.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“You’re lucky you know. To have seen Him.” I was going to sit at the Stone Table, but Peter and Lucy sounded like they were deep in conversation.

“Crystal?” I turned to face Edmund.

“I was going to talk with Peter…” Was that jealousy? “But he’s kinda busy. What’s wrong?” The look on his face was one of worry and slight anger. I reached out and took his hand. His face relaxed at my touch.

“They’re here.”

“What?” I whispered. “So soon?”

“It would seem that your mother has joined forces with Miraz.” I gasped in alarm and fear.

“Come. We have to tell Peter.” He squeezed my hand reassuringly and led me towards his brother.

“Maybe, we’re the ones that need to prove ourselves to Him.” I heard Lucy wisely tell her older brother.

“Pete, you’d better come quickly.” Lucy eyed our intwined hands and gave me a knowing smile. I just blushed-something I seemed to be doing a lot lately. She was way to wise for her age.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“We have to hold them off until Lucy and Susan get back.”

“If I may,” Caspian rose to Peter, glancing in my direction in the process. Edmund saw this and  growled.

“Miraz may be a tyrant and a murderer, but as king he is subject to the traditions and expectations of his people. There is one in particular that may buy us some time.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“I, Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election and by conquest, High King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands, in order to prevent the abominable effusion of blood, do hereby challenge the usurper Miraz to single combat upon the field of battle. The fight shall be to the death. The reward shall be total surrender.”

“Tell me Prince Edmund,”

“King.” I shot at Miraz, like messing up an important title was a normal thing to do.

“Pardon me?”

“It’s King Edmund actually, just king though, Peter’s the High King.” Edmund continued, casually as I looked on trying to stifle my laughter at the row of shocked and confused Nobles and Lords.

“I know, it’s confusing.”

Edmund really did have a way with words that got me laughing.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

“I’m glad I came back.” I heard Susan say to Caspian. I just tuned out. I began to shut my senses down as I pleadingly looked at Aslan.

No one had warned me. They were all leaving. They were like family to me. Real family, now that my mother was gone. Not that she treated me like family.

I hadn’t even voiced my feelings for Edmund. I mentally face palmed and inwardly groaned.

I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, that I didn’t notice Edmund trying to get my attention.

“Earth to Crystal.” He naturally smirked at my startled face.

“So…so…sorry” I stuttered “I was deep in thought, that’s all.”

“So I saw. You were frowning pretty bad. I thought you might be stuck like that.” I laughed softly at his attempt to lighten the mood.

“Ed?” I asked, hoping to get up the courage to ask him what he thought of me.

“Are you sad to leave?”

“No, I think I’m ready to go home, but I am sad to leave you.”

“Why would you be sad to leave me? How could you be? I’m half witch, Edmund. Witch that tried to kill you. I was born evil. There’s no escaping it.” I now had my face buried in my hands.I was always good at making a spectacle of myself, even with nobody watching.

Small drops of rain began to fall as I cried.

“Hey, hey, you know that’s not true. You know I would never think of you like that. You’re more than a friend to me. I…I love you Crystal.” He whispered, cupping my face and wiping my tears away as the sun began to return. My blue eyes melted from their icy state.

“You…you do? You really do?” I could see in his eyes he wasn’t lying.

“I do. Very much, and it pains me to leave you. To come back and find you with someone else.”

“No. Either I have you, or I die unmarried.” He laughed softly.

“So you’ll wait for me?”

“I will. I promise, with all my heart.” He then leaned down and sealed my lips with his own. The moment I dreamed of for so long, was happening.

“Nothing will ever come between us. Nothing.”

“I’m sure when I’m older, I’ll understand.” Lucy grimaced, watching us.

I leaned up and kissed Edmund again. Probably my last for a long time.

“Crystal.” Aslan’s deep voice called to me. I grasped Edmund’s hand and turned to face Him.

“My Child. Now is the time I must reveal your true past.”

“What do you mean?” I timidly asked.

“You are not the daughter of Jadis nor are you part witch. When Jadis invaded Earth, she took you because she knew you were special. By stealing you, she erased your history on Earth. By having you, she was more powerful and stayed younger. She lied about your past and gave you potions to keep you young. The powers you have, were given by Me. You are fully human.

“It can’t be?” I shockingly looked at all the Pevensies and we were all sharing the same look.

“How did I not meet the Pevensies before? When they first came to Narnia? When Edmund was in my mothers possession?”

“In fear, Jadis put you into hibernation to keep you hidden.”

“Where is my true home. My parents on Earth don’t remember me, do they?”

“No, they do not remember you. Your home can be wherever you wish it to be. If you chose to go with Edmund, I will make sure you are provided for and that you have a family. If you stay here, Caspian will look after you.” With no hesitation I gave my answer.

“I will go back to Earth with the Pevensies.” I looked to Caspian and he smiled and nodded.

“Aslan, thank you so much for everything.” I bowed to Him and He smiled.

“It is time.” He nodded to all of us.

Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy and I walked through the Door in the Air and into a place that looked somewhat familiar.

Lucy turned and looked back, as did I. As I gave her a hug I told myself No Regrets.

“Arn’t you coming, Phyllis?” We all looked at each other in confusion, but boarded the train.

Edmund began to look through his bag, then groaned.

“What is it?” I asked, while I slipped my arm through his.

“Do you think there’s a way to get back?”

“What?” He earned confused looks from us all.

“I left my new torch in Narnia!”

[words-are-like-colors]

Title: Stuck Together {1} “Where did we go? What did we do? I think we made something entirely new.” AO3 Word Count: 11,389 words Rating:T Relationship: M/M Chapter: 1/? Tags: Edward Elric/Envy, Edvy, Edward Elric, Envy, AU, Modern AU, fake boyfriends, slow burn Summary:Airports are the bane of his existence– arriving late, TSA, canceled flight, baggage claim, etc. It was just another Christmas for Ed. Just another day when he forget the time for his flight and arrived late, or at least would've been late unless the flight was previously canceled. This is how he reached this predicament of tripping and falling at a stunning man's feet. Notes: Hello! If the title of this chapter seems familiar, you’re right. It comes from the song Something Entirely New by Rebecca Sugar. I’ll be using lyrics from that song for upcoming chapters as well. Also, thank you so much Magnosaurus for beta-ing my fic! It means a lot to me. THANK YOU!! Enjoy!

Additional notes at end due to spoilers

My thick soled boots pounded loudly on the sleek white tiles of the terminal floor as I weaved through the crowd of waiting passengers, my messenger bag and leather jacket bouncing against my body at each stride. So close! I zoomed around a group of people when I finally spotted my gate– E18. People surrounded the area around the sign and door. So I wasn’t late! Thank god! Just one more step… one more step onto my shoelace, sending me tumbling to the floor. THUMP!

“I made it!” I cheered still on the ground, ignoring the obvious glances and questioning looks from the crowd around me but what I didn’t expect was one to click their tongue at me and nudge me with their shoe.

“Get up. You are late. We all are.” The neon purple toe of the man’s sneaker poked at my side. “The floor is already dirty, even without an ant like you laying on it.”

“Eh? You callin’ me short?” I flashed a warning glare up in the man’s direction as I clambered onto my feet, straightening out my shirt before going back down to lace up my boots and tuck the jeans in.

A small chuckle came from the man. ��I ain’t lying, just pointing out the truth.”

Rolling my eyes, I stood back up and looked at the man, and what I was met with was something I didn’t expect. The said man had an agitated look on his face. His sharp purple eyes matched his sneakers while his palm tree like green hair matched his… tight tank top, and a black cropped jacket stood out against the dark green. My eyes traced where his earbuds were feed up under the tank top; the top stuck to him perfectly, all the way down to his jeans where it was slightly bunched up by the blockage of his black belt. He looked kinda… good looking? In an odd way… wait what?

“A picture would last longer you know.” His snippy voice pulled me out of the trace. A blush instantly bounced up onto my cheeks at his words.

“N-no thank you.” I stuttered out. Shit shit shit! Not again! Last time I met a guy who was remotely hot (not saying that this guy is hot or anything… okay. I’m lying but that’s not my point) it turned into a mess in a quick few days. Roy was my ex’s name. We were together for a whole solid year, a year of happy smiles and kisses. I was about to move into a new apartment with him when I found him sucking a chick’s face off. A damn girl , yet he was dating me, a guy . After that, I had turned into a pile of crap. I skipped class, drank and even tried to hit it off with a few douchebags before I got over him.

The man smirked and shook his head. “Anyways. The flight was delayed for who knows how long. If you haven’t noticed, it’s pouring out and it’s snowing in Boston.” He stuck an earbud into his ear before I could reply and pressed the buttons on the earbuds, presumingly changing the song. I sighed as I watched him bend over and pick something off of the floor. “Hm? So your name is Edward Elric… pathetic.”

My wallet was tossed at me. Frowning, I noticed that a few of my things had fallen out of my pockets during the fall. Oops. I shoved everything into my bag and grimaced at my ticket; I had apparently crumpled it up when I had rushed during the TSA scanning, which explains why my boots were untied. “Well, what’s your name then? You got mine, so I should have yours.”

“I don’t hand my name out like candy, shrimp. I don’t need the whole world knowing it.” He huffed, fixing his backpack on his shoulder before wandering over to some empty seats farthest from the crowd of people demanding why they couldn’t leave for Boston now. He tossed his bag underneath the seat and flopped down. “Still following me?”

“Want do I need to do to get your name? And DON’T call me ‘shrimp’.” I put my hands on my hips in a definite manner to try and show that I hated being called that but that didn’t seem to work.

“Okay, shrimp . I guessing that you also want my number as well– seeing that you were staring at me for a minute and a half. Buy me something good to eat then we can talk. I’m starvin’.” The jerk stretched his arms out over his head before dropped down them into his lap while he crossed legs. A slick smirk appeared on his lips, it oddly made my heart flutter like a school girl’s would.

“Fine!” I pushed my golden hair out of my face as I started my quest to find this guy– no, I’ll call him Palm Tree because of his hair– a decent meal.

After looking around for a cheap but decent place to get food, I found Starbucks. Palm Tree must like Starbucks right? I cringed at the mile long line before stepping into it.

The ten minute wait soon ended and I bounced up to the counter. “Uh. Hi. Can I have a regular latte– cream and sugar–,” Hopefully Palm Tree will like the coffee. I don’t know his preference. After scanning the menu, I spotted my slice of heaven. Hot Cocoa and Chocolate Chunk Muffins. I don’t usually take pride in this but I’m a major chocoholic. “a large hot chocolate and two of those chocolate muffins.” I rambled off to the clerk without bothering to even look at them as I gave them my credit card; I was too obsessed with the thought of getting this hot guy's– not hot! Just a stinking palm tree– name.

Once I got the coffee and muffins, and after juggling the items for a minute, I managed to get back to Palm Tree without spilling either drink. “Hey. I’m back.” I announced as I stood in front of the guy. Palm Tree didn’t look up from his phone so I tried again. “Hey! I got you a coffee!”

No response.

So I kicked him, which turned out not to be a good idea. Due to not being able to keep my balance while kicking him and carrying the coffee and muffins, I ended up falling (once again) at this guy’s feet. Luckily, Palm Tree came out of his phone induced trance to catch a muffin and his coffee in the air. I, myself, managed to keep a hand on my hot chocolate but my poor beautiful muffin met its demise on the floor, chocolate chip side down.

Palm Tree laughed at my pain as I picked up my poor muffin. I sat down in the seat next to him and started to nibble on my muffin. “I hope you don’t mind the coffee choice, I didn’t know what you liked.”

“It’s fine.” He hummed and sipped at the coffee before unwrapping the Christmas themed paper from the muffin and taking a bite. “Although I was expecting a meal more than just a muffin.”

“I wasn’t hungry so I didn’t think of that. Sorry.” I mumbled into my muffin, nibbling off the chocolate chunks before the muffin part. I looked up to see Palm Tree laughing and grinned at me. “What?”

“Wow. You’re precise with your muffins eating skills.” He chuckled, his hand over his mouth to stop from laughing too hard.

“Oh come on. It’s not that funny– what’s your name?”

“Envy Alister, the man who eats muffins normally.” He stifled his laughs until they turned into light giggles.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Envy? Isn’t that one of the seven deadly sins?” I hissed under my breath, normally you wouldn’t speak of these things out in public.

The grin vanished from his face at the hiss. “That’s exactly why I don’t hand my name out like candy. People ask questions. Will it make you feel better if I had a different name?” Envy brushed a loose strand of hair out of his face, huffing and sliding down into his seat more.

I quickly shook my head. The name was oddly appealing, it was strange yet interesting. Fuck it if his name is Envy, one of the ugliest sins, I liked it! “No! Envy is good.” A smile crawled up onto my face. “It's… cool.”

“Cool? Cool is what you think it is?! I think it’s a damn liability to carry such a name. You would be surprised how many speeches I get a day about how evil I am.” Envy angrily ate his muffin. I felt guilty for giving that poor chocolate chip muffin to him, the muffin doesn’t deserve to be eaten so harshly.

“S-sorry. I didn’t mean to anger you.” I mumbled, looking away. I really didn’t mean to upset him. I just thought the name was cool and unique, unlike my common boring one.

Envy just rolled his eyes and finished off his muffin before taking a sip of his coffee. “It’s fine.” He muttered into the cup.

I relaxed, relieved, and pulled my phone out of my pocket when it buzzed. “So… Why are you going to Boston?” I said, trying to make easy conversation. A message from Alphonse popped up on the screen.

Envy flicked out an earbud when he realized that I wanted to talk. “Family. They wanted me to go up there to help host a business Christmas ball or whatever.”

“Your family is rich?” I asked innocently, it makes sense; typically where you hear about fancy balls, it’s usually it’s hosted by rich families or businesses.

Envy raised an eyebrow at me. “Is that what’s you’re interested in? How rich I am?”

“N-no! I was just wondering.”

He shrugged with a light chuckle at my apology. “Yeah, my parents are. I went to college down here in Dallas to get away from them. Is that why you’re in Dallas too, shrimp?”

I bit my tongue from telling him off for calling me that so I answered. “No. I promised my brother I would go to the college I wanted to go to so I just chose a random art college and went there.”

“The Art Institute of Dallas?”

“How did you know?!” I exclaimed which received a few looks but I could care less.

“I go there too, for graphic design mostly.” Envy smirked at my enthusiasm.

“I go for photography.” I piped up but he seemed to ignore that when he asked. “Is that your brother there?” I followed Envy’s finger down where it was pointing at my phone screen.

“Huh?” I glanced down at the message I had opened but never actually looked at because Envy distracted him.

Al:

Envy smirked and sat back in his seat. “Ha! I can tell, you practically flew across the whole airport trying not to be late– then end up being late– to a cancelled flight.”

I shot a soft glare at him. “Last time I wanted to go up to them I was late for… reasons… and Al gave me hell for it.” The last time he had went to go up was when he was having trouble coping with Roy cheating and bad memories had resurfaced.

“Call him.”

“Huh?”

“He is your brother, is he not? Can’t he just come down here?” Envy asked, pulling off his black headband, letting his hair fall in front of his face for a moment before taking the hair tie off of his wrist. I knew it wasn’t the best moment to stop and stare while we were talking about my brother but wow, he’s beautiful. The dyed hair drifted in his face in long beautiful strands just before a few were quickly pulled back; his nimble fingers doing quick work of the hair band to put it up into a messy, but elegant bun.

What snapped me out of this mini trance of staring was Envy quickly snatching my phone out of my lap and taking a picture of himself. When I protested, he just rolled his brilliant eyes and said that I was staring too much.

“Hmm…” he hummed softly under his breath as he typed something onto my phone and plugged in his earbuds. He kept one for himself before tossing the phone back at me.

I shot him a weird look before glancing down at my phone to see that Envy had clicked the call button on the phone. Before I could cancel the call and tell Envy off for calling Al, said man answered. I quickly snatched up the earbud that was deposited into my lap and put it in my ear to hear.

“ Ed. You skipped your flight again. ” It was clear that Al was disappointed, his usual happy greeting of hello did come but it was instead replaced by a motherlike scolding. “I’ve told you many times to get ready the next day so this wouldn’t happen! You were probably messing around with your friends again.”

The palm tree shot me a slick smirk, hearing word for word what Al was saying. “Hi Al. I actually didn’t miss the flight this time, the flight missed me! It apparently got cancelled.” I tried to sound more optimistic than what I was really feeling. Personally, I’d rather miss the flight for some stupid reason than be sitting here in an airport full of waiting passengers, next to an annoying… hot person. “So I did good this time–”

Envy cut me off, pulling the phone closer to him so he could talk into it. “Little shrimpy here was a bit late to a flight that got cancel. We would’ve been already in the plane if it wasn’t for the weather.”

“ Ed, who’s that? ” Alphonse asked hesitatingly at first but then the questions started to barge in, eager to meet someone new. “ Is that your new friend? Boyfriend? Your last one was an ass so hopefully this one is better. You should’ve told me you were bring your new boyfriend. ”

I literally facepalmed– face, palm, and all, plus a deep blush. Why the hell does he have to embarrass me?! Envy isn’t even close to being a boyfriend– not even close enough to be considered an acquaintance.

I was about to retort when Envy stole the phone again. “Yep! We’re together. Your little bro and I are just smitten!” I nearly leapt into Envy’s lap to take to phone away from him, ignoring Al’s happy gasp and a new batch of questions. Envy managed to keep me at bay and talk at the same time. “Now, I assume Edward here hasn’t told you who I am yet so I’m open to any questions.”

“ Name? ”

“Envy Alister at your service.” He winked at me, making me pause for a moment from where I was trying to grab for the phone; Envy held it high over his head teasingly so I couldn’t reach it and stop the embarrassing call.

“ Whoa. That’s a cool name! Where did you two meet? ”

Envy laughed when I attempted to slap him and he dodged. The earbud in my ear slipped out so I couldn’t hear Al.

“ Oh, you know~ ” Envy ducked under my swinging arm. “He was just doing his thing and saw me. He thought it was a swell idea to take a picture of me and he was right. We turned out to be boyfriends!”

I couldn’t hear Al’s response but it probably mostly cooing of some kind on how that was just adorable or something sappy like that. “Envy! Stop. You ain’t my boyfriend!” I growled, ignoring the stares completely. I grabbed onto Envy’s arm and started to pull roughly, trying with all my might. “Come on, stop it already.”

“Nope! I won’t stop until you stop.” He said to me, jumping up from his seat and backing a few feet away from me. He spoke into the phone, “He’s embarrassed that I’m talkin’ to you. It’s so adorable!” Another devilish smirk crossed his face, purposefully teasing me.

I gave up at that point, hopeful that Envy would be true to his words and hand me the phone once I had calmed down. I ripped off my leather jacket and tossed it into the chair before flopping down on top of it. The small adrenaline rush still made me a little fidgety as I waited for Envy to come back over to the chairs.

The palm tree sighed and said to Al, “Aw, I have to give your pouty brother the phone. Can’t wait to see you~.”

I snatched the phone from Envy’s outstretched hand, failing to notice his painted black nails before ripping out and throwing the earbuds at the man. Huffing, I raised the phone to my ear only to hear loud squealing. “ Oh my god! Ed! He invited me up to his parent’s ball. He invited me because he felt bad for me having you as my brother. Haha! He’s a lot better than that Roy guy right? ”

I shot a glare at Envy before answering with a sigh. “Al, you know people are going to ask questions and stuff. You don’t want that happening do–”

“ I don’t care anymore, Ed. I’m not 10, I’m 18 ” Al said exasperatedly, annoyed that I worried over him. “ If the Alisters kick me out, they kick me out. I won’t blame them. ” I went to say something but Al continued. “ Brother, it’s fine. I’m used to people looking at me weirdly and such. I have automail, even I would stop and stare if someone else had it. You don’t see it everyday. I’m fine, Ed, I can explain for myself. ”

I frowned for a moment then spoke. “Oh, okay, Al. I understand. And by the way, Envy is not my boyfriend. He’s just lying to you to make fun.”

“ Oh, come on brother. You’re just embarrassed. ” Al giggled from the other side. His giggles were interrupted by a loud calling and a clang. “ Ah. I have to go Ed. Winry wants me to go eat dinner now. Please send me a picture of him. See ya later Ed! ”

“Wait! Al! He’s not my–” Al hung up the phone before I could even finish my sentence. Gritting my teeth, I shoved the phone into my pocket before half growling at Envy. “What the hell was that for?! You are not my boyfriend and will never be.”

Envy was still standing in front of me with a wide smirk across his face and hands on his hips. “Oh~ Ed~ you’ll never understand.” He jutted out a hip in sort of mocking manner which, obviously, annoyed me.

“I won’t understand until you tell me”

This seemed to peak the man’s interests which was clear from glitter that entered his striking eyes. “I’ll tell you somewhere else.” He grabbed my arm and tried to pull only for me yank it out of his grip with a small snarl.

“Whatever you want to say, tell it to me here.” I crossed my arms over my chest defiantly.

The palm tree sighed and rolled his eyes, “Do you really want other people to overhear this and get jealous? I’m freaking Envy, I know what people would get jealous over.”

Well, I couldn’t argue about that so I stood up and grabbed my things before letting Envy drag me away. He pulled me over to an empty corner by the big windows. The windows spanned from the clinging to the floor, making the already large room seem even larger. Normally when it was sunny outside, passengers can watch as their plane pulls up to the pick up stations; today, it was dark, windy, and pouring making this sight an impossible one to witness.

“Okay Envy, what do you so dearly want to tell me than you had to pull me away from our seats?” I rolled my eyes, still pissed off. Why couldn’t he just have told me when we were sitting?! Someone could take them!

The palm tree chuckled and grinned at me, flashing his bright white teeth. “You’re cute when pissed.”

“Shut up and get to the point!” I hissed, unable to beat down the faint blush that hovered over my cheeks at his words.

“Hm… this really should be obvious but I’ll outline it for you because your little bitty shrimpy brain can’t handle it.” He raised a hand to defect from my incoming outburst. “My o-so-rich family put a sine qua non on me saying that I have to get a boyfriend or girlfriend– thank god they don’t mind that I’m gay– while I’m in college or they’ll stop supporting me. So I’m asking you to–”

“But–”

“No buts Eddy boy (he ignored my growl of warning), you are coming as my boyfriend whether you like it or not. I know I could be a jerk about it and just force you to be my boyfriend but this comes with benefits. First, since this is a ball, you get everything for free from my parents; second, important people are going to be there so I can help get you a job or something, seeing that you’re a photographer, people will be pouring all over you; third, you can invite anyone you want, and we invited your brother already; and fourth, you can keep me as your boyfriend if you end up liking me.” He finished his monologue with a proud grin, brushing some loose hairs out of his face.

I huffed and crossed my arms, frowning down at the floor so not to met his eager eyes. It’s not like it was a bad offer, it was actually an amazing offer but… but what? There was no but. I had nothing else to combat with. Yes, it would be difficult getting used to being a boyfriend to some rich yet dark looking stranger but it’s not like he was disgusting or anything… “ Fine , but you have to keep up your offer and I’ll be the most goddamn perfect boyfriend you’ll ever have.”

I looked back up at him to see a wide, happy smile. “Thanks Ed.” Envy said gently, surprising me.

“W-welcome.” I blushed softly and pulled out my phone. As I tossed it to him, I said, “Text Al a picture of yourself. He’ll annoy me until he gets it.” The phone had already erupted into a texting mess from both Al and Winry asking about Envy – Al must have already told Winry that I have a “boyfriend”.

While the walking palm tree messed with my phone, I folded up my leather jacket and put it into my bag. After I slipped the messenger bag strap over my head and positioned it so it wouldn’t bounce around awkwardly, I checked on Envy who was staring at my phone with a weird look. “What’s up?”

“This?” He flipped the phone around so I could see what he was looking at. It was the contact photo for Al; the picture was from the time we went to D.C. to visit monuments and such. In the picture, Alphonse had his automail arm wrapped around my shoulders and was smiling at the camera, his green eyes were bright and happy, joyous even when this trip was so hard for him. It was hot that day, so Al had rolled up his sleeves, not caring that passersby looked at him. I can’t remember exactly where we had just came from before Winry had taken that picture but I can only assume that it was from a place with security because I looked disgruntled from telling the guys off for bothering Al.

I quickly explained that it was when we were on a trip when Envy interrupted me and told me to clarify why Al had automail.

“Oh…” I frowned and sighed. “We got into a car crash when I was 11– so Al was 7– which resulted in a dead mother, chopped-off-limbs brother, and a runaway father.” I said hotly, still bothered by the subject even when it was almost twelve years ago.

Envy have me an apologetic look then nodded. “So why did your dad run away?”

“He ‘couldn’t take that my mom died and went to find serenity’ or whatever the child services douche said. Father dumped me and a broken Alphonse at a friend’s house and took off.” I muttered out, not even knowing if Envy had heard me until he spoke up.

“Wow, he is an ass.” Envy smirked slightly yet it looked like it help a sad look behind it. “At least you have your beloved brother with you.”

I send him a confused look while asking cautiously incase this was a difficult subject for him. “Did something happen to your brother?”

I watched as he shrugged and turned to face the dark windows. Rain still battered heavily upon it, yet the sound of rain did not reach them like it normally would have. These windows were reinforced enough to keep out the sound of rain, and more importantly the deafening sound of aircraft engines. I glanced at him before taking my place next to his side to face the said windows. Envy spoke,

“I have six siblings. Yes, you could say that they are dead but they’re not. Its…” He sighed heavily and stuck his hands into his jean pockets. “They are sick– not ill, per say but money and power have taken over their minds and corrupt them. My one of my sisters, Lust, and my younger brother, Wrath, are not that bad. They are nice and considerate but it seems like they are still far away. You could probably guess which ones of us are the most sick, even their names reveals how hungry they are. Greed, Pride, and Gluttony are the worst. Sloth is… well, like a sloth, she could really care less.”

I nodded, understanding to the best of my abilities. It’s understandable on how someone can be so caught up in their riches that they can’t even see what right in front of them. “So, why aren’t you like them? Normally people are jealous of the rich aren’t they? Just saying.” I added the ending hurriedly.

Envy laughed slightly. “Very true little shrimpy. But have you ever thought about how the rich feel looking down upon the ones who aren’t as fortunate? Like, even when you have money and the resources to go do things with your friends, it’s still not the same as…” He paused, as if he couldn’t find the words to explain himself before continuing. “It’s not the same experience. I got jealous of other people’s relationships to each other and how strong they are. So, I decided not to just throw money around and to settle down in a college, get a job, and to do things the way I want to do them, not what other people want you to.”

“Oh…” I turned my gaze from the window and onto him. Envy was looking back at me but quickly looked away when our gaze met.

“So whatever. Don’t pity me and shit.” Envy said abruptly while grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the windows. I pleaded from him to let go of but it was all in vain because Envy ignored me and pulled me over to one of those mini airport gift shops.

“Stop doing that.” I huffed and brushed my golden bangs out of my face once he had let go of me. When I looked up to tell him off for constantly dragging me, he wasn’t there. “Envy?”

The few people in the shop mingled around the stands and around the cash register; unfortunately, they were all taller than me save for the little kid that bumped into my leg. I rose to my toes to try to see where Envy had run off to when I felt something wrap around my neck.

“Get the fuck off of– oh.” It was Envy who had apparently ran off, found something, and ran back in the matter of seconds. I hesitantly reached up to touch what Envy had put around my neck. “A flight pillow?” I shot him a confused look but he only grinned more and pulled my phone out of his pocket. “Hey! Give that back–”

One of his delicate fingers leapt up onto my lips to silence me. “Shh. You wanted me to send a photo to your brother right?” I raised an eyebrow so he continued. “So let’s make this believable right?”

“Uh… yes?”

Envy get this joyous look in his eyes which could only mean the worst as he draped an arm around my waist and pulled me close. “Envy?!” I yelped-whispered, not expecting him to pull me close like that so we were pressed up against each other’s sides.

“Don’t blush my little shrimpy~” he whispered into my ear before raising the phone and pressing a chaste kiss to my cheek.

Despite Envy’s small warning, I blushed a bright pink and pushed the man away but he kept a secure arm around me. “Get off of me.” I hissed darkly yet my heart was racing from that one small peck on the cheek. It wasn’t from surprise nor shock but from the closeness to the man– a few loose strands of his hair had prickled the side of my face for a fleeting moment.

“Aw~ I told you not to blush. Oh well, you’re cute blushing.” He cooed, a playful smirk on his lips.

“Shut up.” I managed to wriggle out of his grip, snatch up my phone, and rip the flight pillow off of my neck in a matter of seconds, not bothering to look at the photo nor pillow. The phone started to buzz as the expected texts from Al and Win started to pour in so I silenced it and shoved it into my pocket. “I said I would pretend to be your boyfriend, not be a tease toy.”

Envy’s arm that was stretched out from holding me dropped back down to his side. “But aren’t boyfriends suppose to take pictures like that?” He forged a sad pout at my obvious displeasure in the idea.

I relaxed once I was safe from his arm span. “I…” Well, he was right. Couples usually do that kind of stuff and me, myself, use to do that too; I liked keeping each picture like a memory, I treasured every one because it was proof I liked my partner. “Whatever, just don’t act weird or anything alright? We are just faking it.”

“Aw. But to fake it, something needs to be true to make it believable right?” He tipped his head to the side like he was thinking. “You have to make the lie a new truth if you want people to believe.”

There was no retort to his statement that I could think off so I just scuffed under my breath and crossed my arms. “Think what you want to think.” I swiftly turned on my heels and went to look around at the rest of the store.

Envy followed me as I looked about the small shop. He was mostly quiet except for the few comments about what things he thought were cool, pretty, or down right ugly. I completely ignored him except when he put his hand on my shoulder to direct me from a Popular Science magazine I was holding to something he was pulling off of a shelf. “What?”

The palm tree carefully lifted two delicate bracelets into the air to show me. “Friendship bracelets.” Before I could push him away, he had caught my wrist and snapped a bracelet onto me. The silver band glinted in the light, the crescent moon shaped charm dangled. The bracelet that Envy was wearing had an charm for the rest of the moon.

I groaned. “Really? Friendship bracelets .” I was about to rip it off of my wrist and throw it at the palm tree, but instead, he had grabbed my hand to keep it steady as he clicked the moons together. My hard expression couldn’t help but soften a bit as Envy clicked them together; the two moon swayed between our two hands like it showed that we are one.

A small chuckle make me look up from the whole moon and onto Envy. “Doesn’t look like you don’t like this, do you?” At this moment as the words left his grinning mouth, I suddenly became hyper-aware that I was pulled close to the man and that our hands were joined together. My eyes darted from his face and onto our holding hands then back onto his face as Envy spoke again, “Well, I take that as that you like it. I’ll buy it for you.”

“O-ok, Envy.” I had suddenly shelled out when he put the moon together. There was no real reason why I had stalled and just stared in disbelief but, like Envy just said, it looked like I liked it– at least I wasn’t pushing him off and accusing him of teasing me again.

Envy dropped my hand, my fingers had instinctively tried to pull his hand back but he unclipped the bracket from my wrist and pulled back. “You can stop blushing, ya know.” A smirk sprung up on his face as I clicked my tongue and looked away. I didn’t notice that I was blushing until he had pointed it out.

After buying a few items such as the bracelets, magazines, and quick snacks (Envy had darted back inside to get something but never let me see what it was) from the shop, we proceeded to go back to our seats only to find that they were taken by a sweet looking couple. Envy grumbled under his breath and turned to me only to point out the obvious. “I guess we have to find somewhere else to sit.”

See why I didn’t want to move?! I silently huffed while rolling my eyes. “And I doubt that there are any more open. Looks like everyone decided today was the right day to go out flying.”

“Well, it is almost Christmas. What else did you expect?”

I shrugged and looked around. It was, in fact, Christmas. Little LED lights blinked from where they were strung around poles or railings. The small airport shop was also sporting Christmas normalities; small boxes of candy canes and cheap last minute ornaments were put on display for ridiculous prices. Even the Starbucks where I had gotten the muffins was all cheered with the addition of hot cocoa to the menu and the snowman plushies sitting on the counter for purchase. I had failed to notice all of this earlier with the distractions of getting to the plane on time, meeting Envy, and the unexpected phone call to Al.

He was right about the fact that it was Christmas and that the airport was packed. “Let’s find somewhere to sit.” I didn’t care to look for an empty seat, I already knew that they were all filled, so instead I looked for a patch of carpet that looked soft.

After finding a good spot, I gestured for Envy to follow me as I lead the way over to the corner between the wall and the soundproof windows. We tossed down our bags before plopping down with Envy sitting closer to the window.

We sat in silence for a while, Envy had plugged his earbuds into ears and stared out of the window. I watched him for a moment, studying his high cheekbones and the way the loose bangs swayed in front of his face. I only looked away when Envy caught me from the corner of his eye and smiled.

After another awkward silent moment, I cleared my throat. “So… this boyfriend thing. Do we have to, you know, kiss and stuff?” I pointedly looked away from the man next to me, knowing that I must be blushing or something because I always get embarrassed over this stuff for some reason; Al always teased me over it and even now I was running my fingers through my bangs to try to find something to do with my hands.

I could feel his gaze on me as he answered. “I wasn’t going to be picky or anything about but since you asked, I’ll answer: everything.”

“E-everything? Like we have been dating for a while everything?” I whipped my head around to look at him with wide eyes only to meet his crisp violet ones.

He shrugged, then lifted a finger to trace devilishly down my jaw. “Only if you want that, Edward. I wouldn’t mind it~”

“Shut up.” I squeaked out and batted his finger away. “Just nothing too big, I still don’t know you.” And I still don’t know what I’m going here pretending to be your boyfriend. I could just go home right to my brother and have a normal holiday.

Envy mocked a frown then sighed. “I see what you mean but don’t shy away from anything in front of my parents.”

“Why not?” I asked confused, why would they want something from me?

“Hm… maybe because they expect me to have a solid boyfriend and I can’t disappoint them?”

I nodded and thunked my head against the wall behind me before closing my eyes for a moment. “Whatever Envy, just don’t be weird about it.”

“I’ll try not to.” His response came but I swore I could heard his everlasting smirk through his voice. “But at least get use to being close to me.” I cracked an eye open to see Envy holding up an earbud, offering it to share.

“I’ll try.” I muttered, taking the earbud and relaxing slightly now knowing that Envy wasn’t going to be pushy about being boyfriends. Gently, I leaned against his shoulder and the wall before closing my eyes and concentrating on the rock music– consequently, my favorite song was playing.

The shoulder shifted from underneath me and a finger poked at my ribs. “Yo, shrimp. Wake up.”

“I’m up.” I mumbled, pulling back from off of his side where I had slumped in my sleep. “Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t realize I fell asleep.”

“Obviously.” He made sure that I was indeed awake before standing up and stretching by throwing his arms into the air to straighten out his back. I also got up but instead I clumsy throw my bag over my shoulder and rubbed at my eyes. Envy nudged me after also donning his own bag, “They are saying that the next flight is ready to take some of us, although it’s only a certain amount of people.” He gestured to the announcement desk with an agitated look on his face which could only mean that something was up.

“And?” He had started to walk over to the desk as I asked him to continue.

Envy flashed me a look from over his shoulder to respond. “ And only rows ten through twenty are allowed to get on. My ticket says that I’m row fifteen while yours is row twenty-two.”

“Eh? How did you…” I frantically searched my pockets for my ticket only to look up and see Envy holding it up.

“You’re a heavy sleeper.” He commented as I snatched the half crumbled ticket from his hands. “Let’s see if we can get your seat changed.”

We approached the counter where a kind looking lady stood at the computer. She looked up and asked, “Hi, can I help you?”

Envy grabbed my ticket from me again while I protested. “Is there any way to get his seat changed?” He jabbed his thumb in my direction and pushed the ticket over to her on the counter.

The lady frowned and looked over the information on the piece of paper. “Row twenty-two… I’m sorry, I don’t think we can…”

A voice sounded from behind me where a man had stepped in line. “Uh, excuse me?” The man stepped forward– he was one of the couple who had taken our seats. “We can trade tickets if you want. I came over to see if I can get the later flight so I could be with my wife.”

Envy and I exchanged a hopeful look. The desk lady sighed and shrugged. “I can’t say no. It’s not the best thing to do but if you truly want to, you can.” She left to call the first five rows onto the plane.

The kind man and I exchanged tickets before he bid farewell and headed back over to his wife. I turned back to Envy. “You know it would’ve been fine if we took separate planes.” I said yet it wasn’t fine with me. If we were going to pretend to be boyfriends, I would have to follow through with my half of the deal and anyways, it’s just easier to take the same plane so neither of us has to wait for the other.

The palm tree shook his head. “No it wouldn’t be, shrimpy . I want to be on the same flight as you.”

There was nothing to disagree about that so we waited by the front counter until our rows were called. Once called, both Envy and I were the first ones the scan our tickets and walk down the hallway to board. I watched out of the corner of my eye as Envy started to beam and skip down the hall. “Hm? You like flying.” I commented softly, I assumed that he didn’t hear me as he neared the airplane door but he turned around slightly and winked at me.

I caught up to him and took a step into the plane. An aircraft attendant smiled at the pair of us, her uniform looked untouched– there was no dust to be spotted on neither of her navy blue skirt or shirt, even her hair was put up in an elegant bun. This was all excepted however, aircraft attendants are suppose to look prim and proper, it’s their job to calm down any nervous passengers and to walk while flying. I would feel bad for her because this isn’t the most ideal job and that most would not want this job but she looked like she enjoyed it because her smile was genuine. She spoke up. “Welcome. You may take any seat that is available. Most people had canceled and changed flights early because of the weather.”

“Thank you!” Envy waved while I gave her a slight nod before starting down the aisle. I stuck to the palm tree’s back, not wanting to be separated and having to sit in a row next to some crying baby or smelly man. I looked up from where my eyes were fixated on his back when he let out a hum, then a small excited gasp. “I found two seats.”

We made our way to the midback of the plane. A teen, or it at least looked like a teen, was sitting on the outside of the row. She was jamming to some music, the sound was loud enough so that I could hear it. The girl looked up and slid off her headphones when I cleared my throat and waved. “Uh. Hi, is someone sitting there?”

She mutely shook her head and stood up for us. Envy took my messenger bag from me and put it up top in the storage bins for the beginning of the flight. He followed me into the row and sat between me and the girl. She slipped her cat eared headphones back on and went back to her music.

“You might want to check your messages, Alphonse might be having a fit that you haven’t replied yet.” Envy pointed out.

“Oh, yeah thanks.” I mumbled fishing my phone out of my back pocket and opening it up. Both Al and Winry had bombarded my phone with messages, thank god I’m on an unlimited plan or I would have run out of minutes.

Envy watched as I opened the messages.

Al: Holy shit Ed, he looked wild.

Al: I didn’t know that you were interested in people like that BUT JM SO HAPPY FOR YOU.

A few words were misspelled because of his excitement that just made me roll my eyes. Envy chuckled. He must be really happy because he even swore which he usually avoided doing.

Al: Good think I’m ot envious of you brother! Haha, sorry En.

Al: oh wow, Win looks like she’s about to destroy my phone. Lol.

Al: Brotherc she took out her wrench. WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE THOSE IN THE HOUSE?! I know why BUT ATILL.

Al: aw your not answering. Too shy brother?

I frowned at him and typed out. Me: I’ll text you on my computer once we get to altitude. They gave us free wifi. Then, I opened Winry’s.

Win: Alphonse just showed me the picture. Damn, good job Ed. I’m shocked you didn’t tell us.

Win: I’m gonna kill your brother. HE JUSR SAID YOUR BOYFRIEND IS HOT AND THAT HE WOULD KISS HIM TOO.

Win: Say Hi to Envy for me :)

Win: oh and, cute flight pillow by the way.

I texted her the same thing before sighing and turning my phone onto airplane mode.

“Oh. Am I that hot that even your little brother would kiss me?” Envy wriggled his eyebrows at me, causing me to look away and click my tongue in a mock defiant manner.

“He won’t. He’s not interested in guys for all that I know of. Al is just trying to mess with me.”

“Anyways, he sounds like a fun guy.” He stretched out his back before clicking his seat belt. “I’ll get out the bracelets once we get up in the air. I know you’re dying to put it back on.”

“Am not!” But yes, I was. I don’t know exactly why I liked wearing it so much, nor why I even more like the sight of seeing the moon full.

“Whatever you say, shrimpy.”

“It’s Edward, not shrimpy!”

Ding! The red seatbelt light flashed twice before going out, which was followed by several clicking of belts and rummaging as men and women got out of their seats. Envy and the cat eared girl followed in suit. My “boyfriend” carefully passed me my laptop before sitting back down with our bag of goodies.

While I quickly turned on my laptop and connected it to the wifi, Envy dug through the bag and pulled out the delicate bracelets and some snacks he bought. He stuffed the bag underneath the seat in front of him and lowered the tray table. He held up the bracelet and asked, “You want the smaller half right?”

I nodded and held my wrist for him. He went to clasp the bracelet on when I suddenly snapped back. He gave me a confused look then reached out for my hand again when I shook him head no. “Why?” He blatantly asked.

I stared at him for a second, trying to figure out exactly why I had pulled back when it tout de suite clicked. “Because it’s girly.” I muttered out, looking away.

I could feel his gaze on me as he let out a small laugh. “So? It’s just a bracelet. No one is going to make fun of you. If anyone was to, it would be me.”

Frowning, I held my hand out to him to where he joyously clicked it on. He did his as well before breaking out a snack to chew on.

The messages box popped up onto the screen with Al’s response on it. Since I had both an apple phone and laptop, I had it setup to receive and send messages from either device.

Al: When do you think you guys will be in Boston? I could come and pick you up.

Envy, who had been reading the question from over my shoulder, turned the laptop away from me and began to type.

Me: You don’t need to worry, metal boy. I already got someone picking us up. He’s spending the night at my place since we might be getting there late. He’ll see you tomorrow, don’t worry. ~ En

I read the message over then rolled my eyes. “Do I have to?” I whined, snatching the candy cane flavored gummies out of his hand and stole a few from his bag before tossing it back at him. I popped a few into my mouth as I watched Al’s message arrive.

Al: Aw, ok. TAKE CARE OF HIM. He has a hard time at sleeping in new places.

Me: NO I DON’T

Me: Yeah yeah, I got it. He’s going to be well rested when you see him. I’ll make sure that happens. ~En

I rolled my eyes and stuffed a few more candies into my mouth. It’s so annoying how it’s always difficult to get adjusted to a new place. I don’t know exactly why it bothers me so much– maybe because it’s such a new place and anything could happen?– but it does.

Envy was smirking at me which I pointedly ignored and opened up Pandora. “So…” He started when I pushed my earbuds into the computer and stuck the buds into my ears. “What do you want to do now?”

“I want to sleep.” I muttered, which was the truth. Now that we were above the storm clouds, it was clear as day that it was night. Stars were twinkling like little clear flakes of snow that were caught in the light as they fell.

“Then sleep, it’s not like there is much else to do.” Envy sighed and ate some of the candies, he gave me a few when I held my hand out. “ Or we can play a game.”

I raised an eyebrow as he turned the computer towards him again and typed in a web address. “Seriously?” He, a grown man, had typed in CoolMathGames.com.

“What? They have cool games.” He reasoned, which I couldn’t argue against, but…

“This website is for little kids.”

“Fine.” He grumbled and typed in a new web address: ArmorGames.com. Now that was better. I watched as he clicked through the website until he found the game that he wanted. “This Is The Only Level. I’m a champ at this.”

Basically, this game is about a blue elephant on one stage that is the only stage through the whole “level”. The only change is that the controls or path to get to the tunnel at the end of the stage is changed and the only hint you get at the change is by the title of the stage. I love this game. I’ve played or even completely nearly all of the creator’s of This Is The Only Level’s games.

“Let’s take turns. Whoever finishes the stage the fastest wins.” I quickly popped up another tab of the game so we could switch and play the same stage. “Whoever wins gets to make the other person do something of their likings or gets some of the candy.”

“Deal.”

He pushed the armrest between us up so we could sit closer together to reach the laptop. The lights above dimmed as if they were timed at when I unpaused the game to start.

Stage 1: Arrow Keys Required

This stage was pretty obvious, the first level of any game is always straightforward and easy. All I had to do was use the normal arrow keys configuration to jump onto the red button (that’s located in the middle of the stage which is used to open a little door leading to the ending tunnel) and go through the ending tunnel. I paused the game again and let Envy have a go.

He did the same as me but missed a ledge and fell; he had to get back up and waste a second of time.

I smiled triumphantly and stole a few more candy cane gummies.

Stage 2: Not Always Straightforward

At first, I tried the basic configuration of the arrow keys (up=jump, down=quicker descent down, right=go right, left=go left) but I found out quickly that they keys of right and left were switched; I began to run left into the wall while trying to go right. After falling and hitting spikes several times causing me to die, I finally got use to the controls and successfully made it to the end.

Envy’s turn was much more neat, no elephant bodies had laid upon the screen unlike mine were three had fallen on the same spike. He turned to me with a wide smirk.

I rolled my eyes. “You know you have an advantage, you get to see me figure it out before it’s your turn.”

“Oh well.” He shrugged then reached across me to pluck out an earbud. “I want to listen too, you know.”

Stage 3: Think Before Doing

This one was quite obvious by just looking at the map: the door that was needed to be opening the red button was already opened and all I had to do is run through the tunnel. And I did exactly that without faltering.

Envy though, he wasn’t as lucky. He had accidentally jumped onto the button out of pure habit and had to go back to start.

I teasingly poked him in the ribs which was returned with an exasperated eyeroll and smirk. “Hm… what should I make you do?” I glanced around before an idea struck me. “Give me your jacket, I want to try it on.”

He obeyed and peeled off the jacket, which ended up not being the best idea. While trying to take off the cropped jacket, his arm had flung out and hit me square in the face. Fortunately, Envy realized his fault quickly and decided to leave it on so not to hurt the Cat-Headphones next to us. I swore under my breath at him and started the next round.

Stage 4: Alternate Control Scheme

This stage wasn’t too bad and the both of us basically tied on this stage so I just went on to the next one.

Stage 5: FreeFloating

I have no idea why I continuously died on this stage. All I had to do was to click the right key at certain moments to land on the red button and platforms. The cause was probably the obvious presence of Envy sitting so close to me and practically breathing down my neck, whether he had scooched closer to me or not will be a mystery; it wasn’t like I didn’t like it, it was just distracting me.

Envy got to pick the prize at this level. I watched as he bit his lip and stared down at the laptop until his head popped up. A mischievous look entered his eyes as he turned to me and asked in a soft, impish whisper, “Can I have a kiss?”

“NO!” I squeaked out, loud enough that the person sitting in front of us had woken up from their nap and told us to shush. I pulled away from him slightly and sent a glare. “I still don’t know you,” I said quietly through my teeth.

He grimaced and looked away, deliberately not letting me see his face but not before I saw something that made my eyes widen. “I was only joking, don’t get mad at me. It’s too cramped in here to fight anyways.” He mumbled.

I opened my month to confront him but I took it back and looked at the laptop screen. The little blue elephant was dying over and over again, I had accidently left my hand on the keyboard.

Why did you look so eager?

We ended up continuing the game after the question. Envy had asked no other embarrassing or absurd things after Stage 5, yet what I saw during that stage still whirled around in my head, bumping and pushing each and every thought out of its way; why did his face soften, eyes widen, smirk slide into a smile after he asked that question and waited for my answer? So, I reasoned with that thought. There was obviously no way I could just push it into the back of my mind just for it to fester and grow into something dangerous.

“Ed, wake up.” Envy snapped his fingers in front of my face; I had unawarely zoned out into deep concentration while we waiting to get out of the plane.

“Uh.. yeah! I’m here.” Sighing, I inched forward in the line until we were able to reach the door. I gave the flight attendant a courteous nod before stepping out of the plane and onto the walkway which I went down at a quicken pace, Envy following closely behind.

I only stopped walking once we walked out of the hallway and got out of the way of the rest of the passengers. A great yawn and a stretch came from the palm tree which made me yawn as well no matter how much I wanted to suppress it. I quickly stole a glance at my phone for it to only make me feel more tired because it flashed 1:30 am up onto the screen.

After reporting the time to a writhing palm tree, I pulled on my leather jacket to hide from the cold. As we walked over to the escalators and climbed on, I asked, “Who’s picking us up? Al is probably still up and can pick us up. I don’t want to be waiting outside in the cold, especially when you’re not wearing much for a jacket.”

“Aw~ The shrimp cares about me.” He cooed which was only answered with a glare. “Anyways, we are getting a taxi. Unless you are so insistent on getting your brother to drive us.”

I did feel extremely guilty about asking Al to come pick us up but it was definitely a better alternative than taking a beat up taxi. “Yeah, I’ll tell him.” After quickly shooting a text to Al, we stepped off the escalator and started to make our way down to the drop off/pick up station.

We decided to stay inside while waiting. Envy had wandered off to get a drink while I yawned and flopped down onto a bench, gazing wearily at the ceiling as I listened to two soft thumps of cans dropping in the machine followed by a crack and fizzle of one of the drinks being opened.

“Is your brother close?” Envy asked as he walked over and tossed his bag onto the bench by my feet before dropping down by my head himself.

“Yeah, knowing him, he would’ve been waiting at the nearest cafe incase we needed a ride.” I took the drink he passed to me and broke the seal open. I had no energy left to sit up to drink without drowning myself so I put it onto the ground.

Envy nodded and rubbed his eyes. “Let’s hope he gets here quickly…” We lapsed into a silence, it was neither awkward nor comfortable, it was kinda like there was more that could be or needed to be talked about but both of us were too tired to talk any more. I dimly watched him stretch and cross his arms behind his head through my bangs, not bothering to brush them out of the way.

After maybe twenty minutes went by, not like we were counting, my pocket suddenly started buzzing, indicating that Al was outside. “Come’n Envy, time to go.” I groaned slightly, pulling myself out of the daze and off of the bench.

I glared at him as he gave a uncalled for comment that I sounded like an old man when getting up. We throw our bags over our shoulders before heading outside into the cold.

I hope I didn’t make the wrong decision.

Alphonse’s Extra:

“Envy! Stop pushing me. I know it’s cold outside,” was the first thing I heard my brother say as he tried to clamber into the car. Ed half launched himself into the back seats with his boyfriend following close behind and slamming the door close.

“We made it!” Ed’s boyfriend– Envy– said joyously before collapsing in both exhaustion and relief.

I couldn’t help but laugh and turn around in my seat to examine who I had just picked up. Edward, hair windswept and cheeks pink, was trying to nudge off a wild looking man off of him who had sprawled out across the whole back seat. Envy’s dark green dyed hair was slipping out of its bun and falling against Ed’s lap. I raised an eyebrow in Ed’s direction, although I really shouldn’t be questioning who he had found; Ed was always fond of those different and “darker” kinds of things. It’s not like I minded the painted black nails, dyed hair, or the crop jacket. They just weren’t the kind of things I were into.

“Hey Ed, Envy. You guys better buckle up if you want to go.” I said, smiling to myself absentmindedly as they muttered in agreement and buckled themselves up– I wasn’t about to be pulled over or have someone get hurt on my watch.

After introducing myself and getting the address from Envy, I turned back around in my seat and started to drive. Ed let out a soft complaint about how cold it was out so I raised the heat for him which was followed by a sleepy Envy muttering about that he was going to go to take a nap now. The car was mostly silent except of the lowered down music still humming throughout the car.

“Hey… Ed? You still up?” I hesitantly asked.

His response came, “Yeah, I’m here. Can’t we just go home? Isn’t that closer?”

“Come on Ed, he’s your boyfriend. At least stay the day at his place first. It isn’t Christmas yet so you can wait.”

“Ugh.” A soft thump sound, presumably he had hit his head on the window. I laughed slightly before he continued grumbling, “I don’t even have anything to change into in the morning. I assumed we would be going home.”

“Oh, I brought you stuff. I’m always prepared, brother, but you should’ve asked me.” I did, in fact, bring him a small duffle bag with a few essentials inside. It’s not surprising that he comes unprepared to important stuff like this. He really needs to make a list or calendar sometime.

“Thanks Al. Oh, on that note, I completely forgot to bring your present with me. It’s still in the dorm.”

“Of course you did.” I sighed out. If I wasn’t tired and trying to pay attention to the road, I would’ve probably smashed my automail hand into my face or lectured Ed on how to stop forgetting everything.

The back of the car went silent so I guessed that Ed had fell asleep as well. I couldn’t help but to sigh again as I flexed my automail fingers against the steering wheel. It’s been over ten years since I had lost my right arm and left leg. Luckily, one of my best friend’s grandmother and parents had helped in a project to develop a new kind of prosthetic– a prosthetic that sort of looked more real (as in the size and shape of a typically arm), can lift greater weights easily, and can operate directly from the nerves where the arm is also powered. The idea to set this new technology that was still in the making onto a child that had just lost some of the most important things he would ever had seemed cruel almost from an outsider’s perspective but I had chosen this on my own. Lucky, automail had already passed animal testing and had started testing on adults, children was all that was left to be tested on and I had stepped up. I’m not incredibly brave or anything, I was just acting out of selfishness to be honest, I had just lost my mother and father and was strained with my brother. At that age, I already knew the risks and was prepared to take them on. It wasn’t like getting the automail erased my memories, it was more or less of a reminder of what happened that day, but I can’t say I was disappointed with my decision.

My eyes widened as I pulled up to a gate. Just what did the Alisters do to get this money?! Just beyond the tall black gate was a huge black and white (or at least that’s the colors I could pick out between the snow and night sky) mansion. A few lights were on and two people’s silhouettes could be seen in the through on the the great windows.

I glanced back at Envy and Ed to check with either of them had woken up but both were still sleeping. I nervously rolled down the window and clicked the calling button on the mini number pad to open the gate. Before we had driven here, Envy had told me what to say but that doesn’t mean I’m still nervous about it.

A smooth feminine voice erupted from the speaker. “Hello?”

“Uh… Hi! I have Envy Alister and his boyfriend, Edward Elric here. I’m Alphonse, Ed’s brother.” I said, trying to keep my voice clear in case the speakers were bad at picking up noise.

“Oh. Okay, I’ll let you in. Just drive up to the front door.” The box let out a click as the woman’s voice vanished.

The gate clattered as it moved aside for me to pass through– which I did and drove up right up to the front door. By the time I parked, the two people I had seen in the windows had exited the mansion and walked up to the car.

“Ed, Envy. We’re here.” I called into the back of the car. The both of them seemed not to hear me and continued to sleep, Envy still sprawled out yet kept sitting up due to the seat beat and Ed looking dead against the window. I sighed and got out.

The woman approached me. “Thank you for bringing them here. They must have had a rough time if they were here so late.” The woman was dashing, her pitch black hair delectably rolled her purple scarf and coat. Her jacket looked like it was half rushed to be put on due to it being unbuttoned and accidentally revealing a stunning black dress. “I’m Lust by the way, the one annoying your brother over there is Wrath.”

The boy, Wrath, was tapping on the car window like the couple inside was a pair zoo animals.. He, I guess maybe 15 years old, let out a soft sound of glee as Ed snapped awake and looked around.

A small ruckus came from the car as Ed woke his boyfriend up and clambered out of the car. “Envy! Stop clinging onto me, you should’ve brought more clothes if it’s was going to be this cold out.” I could hear the grumbling of Ed as he half dragged, half lead, his boyfriend out of the car and into the snow.

“Aw~ If I hold onto you, you won’t be so cold either.” The two men walked around the car for all of us to see Envy with his arms wrapped around Ed’s waist. The man looked up. “Hey Lust, Wrath.”

Lust nodded and took the duffel bag from Ed because his hands were full from carrying his stuff and Envy’s bag. “Alphonse, you may stay the rest of the night if you want. It’s too late to go anywhere now.”

I raised a hand and shook my head. “No no, I can’t do that. My brother should enjoy his first day here without me.”

“Al! Don’t leave me.” Ed’s panicked whine came and he tried to pull away from Envy to get to me.

I laughed. “You’ll see me soon, you can survive.” Ed let out another whine but I disregarded that and thanked Lust again for the offer. “I’ll get going now. Goodnight.”

Additional Notes: This chapter is dedicated to Jester-Knyght. Thank you for being my partner for the Edvy-Alliance.

Disclosure: I do not own “This Is The Only Level” nor any other of the objects/games referenced by name.

The prompt: “It’s late, the airport’s closing, and our flight just got cancelled, I have never met you before but I guess we’re stuck together until the next flight”.