#but……i won’t have a horse after tomorrow

[lvllns]

real weird to realize that the end date for horses in my life is tomorrow!

[pandora-writes-one-piece]

The Meet Cute - Law's Story - 16

Source for pic

The Great Pretender 16

Word Count: 4260

Tags For The Whole Story: Fem!Reader; Law is a soft dom; you have bratty tendencies (not all the time); voice kink; praise kink; cursing; very suggestive behaviour and innuendo from the start; sexual tension; teasing; so much flirting; romance; slow-burn; fluff; slight angst; mature audiences (though explicit NSFW moments will be properly tagged on the chapter); possessive Law; protective Law; soft Law; teasing Law; manipulative Doflamingo; inappropriate Doflamingo; fake relationship trope; only one-bed trope; reader has some anxiety issues; reader is a control freak and perfectionist; modern day AU; Mention of ex mentally abusive relationship;

Special Warning: English is not my first language, I apologise for any possible spelling or grammar mistakes.

Summary: After moving away from the hustle and bustle of Grand Line City to help your father around the property following a horse-riding accident - and in the hopes of healing your broken heart after your asshole ex-fiancé cheated - you settle into the country calmness of the Calm Belt. You and Law (your father's doctor) start to build a flirty friendship because of your father’s procedure. So much so that when he’s invited to Baby 5’s wedding (his cousin), he asks you to be his date. His uncle Doflamingo - who is filthy rich - is very adamant on finding a suitable wife for him. Seeing as he wants to avoid that, he asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend for the weekend.

Notes: The angst arrives in full force! How about that!? Come on, you had to be expecting that! Also, I'm thinking about two chapters left (well, one and the epilogue), so we're almost at the end! PS: This song fits the chapter like a glove! *chef's kiss*

|Masterlist| | |Chapter 15| | |Chapter 17|

The night is almost over. Just a few more dances before the guests send the newlyweds off to their honeymoon, and then you and Law can escape back into the safety of your room. Just one hour, tops. What could go wrong in an hour?

Even more so now that you’ve finally confessed the three words that have been bothering you for a while. And they were reciprocated.

You’re adamant about not letting go of Law’s hand for the rest of the night. A feeling of dread still coils in the pit of your stomach, and you don’t know exactly why, but you’re not about to let fate play a prank on you.

Except, fate’s got nothing on Donquixote Doflamingo. 

“Nephew, I need you. It’s urgent.” Law groans, his hand tightening around yours, since this is clearly Doffy's last opportunity to feed some lie to Law and try to break you two apart. You’re honestly tired of it all. 

“Tomorrow, Uncle. I’m tired.”

“Now.” Doflamingo’s tone leaves no room for discussion, and Law clenches his jaw. Underneath it all, Law still respects his uncle. You’re not quite sure why he still respects the man, he’s despicable, but you suspect it’s because he instilled in Law a deep-seated sense of family ties and loyalty. And Law won’t break free of his morals. 

“Go. I have to freshen up anyway.” You whisper with a smile. You’ve confessed. He knows how you feel. Nothing will come between the two of you. 

Law smiles at you, and with a last squeeze of your hand, he lets you go. 

-*-

You purposefully take a while longer in the bathroom, fixing your makeup, your hair, and your dress. Unnecessary moves, really, since you’re about to leave to go to bed soon, and you’re actually craving that massage Law mentioned earlier. 

That and… well, you’re craving Law. Period.

You exit the bathroom with a silly smile still plastered on your lips and almost bump into a chest. “Oh, forgive me, I–... Ichiji.” 

Obviously.

“Fancy seeing you here.” He begins.

“Cut the crap.” You don’t even let him say anything else, already pushing past him to return to the reception tent, but he halts you, a hand on your upper arm, and you seethe. “What did I tell you about touching me?”

He lets go of you immediately, taking a step back and sighing while passing a hand over his coiffed hair. “Right, sorry.”

Sorry? 

You look behind you and around, trying to notice if something feels out of place. You might have entered a portal to some sort of alternate universe when you were in the bathroom because there’s no way in hell Ichiji would ever apologise to you.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Doll. For… well…” He sighs again, steps forward, and then back again. “For cheating, for treating you like crap, for taking you for granted… I… well, I know now it’s too late, but seeing you happy with someone else made me realise what I lost and how I was the only one to blame.”

No, seriously, there has to have been a portal back there. Something, anything. This is not happening. 

Your heart constricts in your chest. You lost count of how many times you dreamed about Ichiji asking for your forgiveness, to truly repent for what he put you through. But it happening here, in a place you'd never thought you'd meet him, and completely out of the blue? 

What's his game? 

“I don't think you need my forgiveness to move on. I know I don't need your apologies.” A heavy sigh parts your lips. “Not when you're delivering them far too late.”

You make another motion to pass through him, but he moves in front of you and whispers your name in a desperate plea. “I do need your forgiveness. I need closure.” 

What? You cock your eyebrow, your lips twisting down in a frown. “After all you've put me through for–...” You wave your hands in the air. “I’m not even going to count the years we spent together. Just today is enough! After all the theatrics and the taunting, you expect me to believe you just want closure?”

The way he slumps his shoulders and downcasts his eyes reminds you of the first times you argued, back in the beginning of the relationship, when you actually believed his apologies, and your heart constricts some more at all the memories. 

“Yes, Doll. Just closure. I'm about to leave the party, and I know we won't meet again, unless it's by chance, and I don't want us to part on bad terms.” He takes a tentative step your way. “Just say you'll forgive me, please.”

You want him out of your sight, out of your mind, and completely out of your heart. You know you don't love him anymore, but you still hold memories and feelings of nostalgia, and when he's looking at you with puppy-dog eyes, you can't help but soften up a little bit. He does seem sorry. 

“Fine, Ichiji, fine. We can part ways on lighter terms. I don't completely forgive you for what you took from me or for how you made me feel, but I won't resent you for it anymore.”

He actually smiles at you. Not that conceited, smug smirk, but a genuine smile. 

“That's all I ask for, Doll.”

“Good. Goodbye.”

“Wait, please.” Is that pain in his voice? Is he really sorry and repentant for everything? You don’t say anything, but you don’t move either, just waiting for what he wants to say. “Can I get one last hug?”

The face you make must have been something special to look at because he grimaces and chuckles softly, his hand passing through his hair again. 

“A harmless hug? Please? It’s just for–...”

“Closure, right?” Should you? He’s actually sounding human for once in all the time you’ve known him, and he does seem sorry. It’s just a hug goodbye. What harm can it bring? “Fine. Make it quick.”

With a sigh, you let him bend down to envelop you in his arms, but then you actually smile. You don’t feel anything. No rage, no pain, no hurt, no longing… it’s just a void. You know there used to be something there, but now you’re free.

It’s a wonderful feeling, actually. 

Until Ichiji’s hands cup your face, and he tilts your head to the side, doing the same to his and leaning in further, his lips inches away from yours. His taller frame engulfs you, and the lights are very dim near the bathroom. It almost looks as if you’re sharing a kiss. 

“Wha–...”

“I still win, Doll.”

A cold shiver runs down your spine as he shows you the same smug smile he always did, his canines almost glistening with glee. You’re frozen in place. What does he mean? 

And then he parts, leaving you open-mouthed, chest heaving, and cheeks flushed from trying to grasp what is going on. It doesn’t take long for your eyes to adjust to two figures looming at the entrance of the hallway that leads to the bathrooms. 

Doflamingo and… oh, no.

“Law?”

Doffy is bent down, one arm around Law’s shoulders, his lips moving fast as he mouths words into Law’s ears. You can almost bet he’s spewing lies and deceptions about you, twisting everything to make Law doubt you. You know he has trouble trusting people, it would be so easy to make him doubt.

But what breaks you is Law’s expression. His usually stoic face bears the signs of hurt, and he’s clenching his fists by his sides, jaw ticking, trying to contain his emotions and failing at it. 

“Law!” You try again, taking a step forward and see Doffy still speaking into Law’s ear. Lies, all lies, for sure. Law’s gaze falls on Ichiji and then back at you, and you realise that this was orchestrated. It has to have been orchestrated. 

Ichiji holding you as if he were kissing you, Doffy bringing Law by the bathroom? It was their ultimate move.

“It’s not what you think, Law.” You take another step forward, and you can almost hear the shards of Law’s flimsy trust being broken and shattered into pieces. 

He shakes his head and takes a step back, hand flying over his head to tousle his hair. “I… I need some air.” Turning on his heel, he leaves you in a hurry, and you stifle a sob. 

No, no, no.

You need to reach him, to speak with him and let him know what happened. That nothing actually happened! He can’t possibly think you would betray him like this. Turning your wobbly steps into strides, you try to follow Law’s retreating figure into the crowd, despair tugging at your insides, tears already threatening to fall.

And then you’re stopped by a strong hand on your arm. “Where do you think you’re going, princesa?” 

An actual growl leaves your lips. “Let go, Doflamingo. I need to speak with Law.” Your tug does nothing to loosen his grip, and you seethe. 

“That’s where you’re wrong.” He tuts, his fiery eyes boring deep into yours. “You won’t speak to my nephew. Not now, nor ever again. You’ll leave him alone to live his life and disappear.”

Shaking your head, you try again, but his grip is too strong. “He needs to listen to me! He’s going to be heartbroken. It’s not what he thinks.”

“He’ll be fine. He has a family that loves him.” Doffy’s words sound melodic, but the melody is one of doom, not hope. 

“Only Cora loves him, clearly.” Your scoff comes accompanied by stubborn tears you’re trying to keep enclosed. “All I’ve ever wanted from Law was love, all I have to give to him is love. Why do you want to take that away? Do you hate him that much?”

Doflamingo straightens his shoulders, and now he seems impossibly high. “On the contrary, cariño. I love him dearly. And it’s because I love him that I need him to learn this lesson. I thought he had already learned it the hard way, but he didn’t. Romantic love only brings weakness. It doesn’t do him any kindness, and he needs to let that go. He needs to be strong and in control, not a fool in love.”

Finally, your harsh tug makes him release you, but his imposing figure is still blocking the way. You stamp your feet, much like a small child, and grit your teeth, anger making your eyes blaze red. “You think that makes him stronger? Is that why you push the people that love him away?”

He shakes his head, those annoying tuts leaving his lips as he gives you a condescending look. “Not at all. Only those that do not.”

“Then you are a damned fool.” He growls at your disrespect, and you couldn’t care less. He lost any small ounce of respect you might’ve still held for him when he pulled this stunt. “Because if you hadn’t interfered, I would still be by Law’s side, and I love him!”

Doffy’s laugh comes in small waves, his eyes shining with amusement as he sizes you up with his fiery gaze. “An admirable sentiment, mi querida, though I doubt it to be true.” You open your mouth, ready to be disrespectful again, but he reaches into his pocket and pulls out an all-too-familiar device: your tablet. 

With a flick of his finger, he opens it to the spreadsheet you now know by heart: all of Law’s likes and dislikes, every useful thing for your fake relationship, every piece of information you and Law gathered to make sure you were prepared for this event. 

You can’t help the stutter that leaves your lips, nor the red flushing your cheeks. “Law… he.. Law knew about that.” Why does your voice sound so small? Is it because you were caught?

“I’m sure.” His demeanour contradicts his words. And then he hands you the tablet, a frown finally overtaking his mocking smile, and you almost shrink at how his aura suddenly feels very threatening. “You’re done here. You will never speak to my nephew again.”

Tears sting your eyes, but you refuse to let them fall. Doflamingo can’t win this, not after what you and Law went through. Not after realising he’s the love of your life. 

“You can’t do that.” Your voice comes out as a mere trembling whisper. “You can’t pull strings and control Law’s life as if he’s a puppet and you’re his puppeteer! He has a say in his own life!” You try to take a step forward, but he doesn’t budge. “I’ll tell him what happened, and he’ll realise I never meant to hurt him. Just let me through!”

“You’re done.”

“Law has a right to make his own choices. You don’t own him!” The pesky tears start to stain your cheeks, you feel impotent and useless. 

“Not choices that will end up destroying him.”

“The ones you are making for him might do just that.” Your voice finally breaks, and a ragged sob leaves your lips with the weight and the helplessness of it all. “He is not your pawn! You can’t manipulate him like this! Please… please! Let me speak to him! You’ll truly destroy him with this…”

Law placed his trust in you. After what he’s been through with Monet, you know it must not have been easy to let himself love and be loved. And Doflamingo manipulated you both to an extent that will come with dire consequences. Law will be broken, and so will you.

“I will face whatever consequences come from my actions with Law. He might be hurt for a while, but he will emerge stronger. He has done it once.”

“But at what cost?” You whisper, too drained to fight back. With a shaky inhale, you straighten your shoulders as your hands grip the tablet for some sort of grounding. “I’ll speak to him later, then. You can’t keep us apart. You will not ruin what we have.”

Pushing past him, you take one full step before Doflamingo’s words freeze you in place. 

“I would rethink that if I were you, querida.” Something in his voice halts your breathing as you look over your shoulder and find him grinning. “Your father is still recovering from surgery, right? Some businesses collapse pretty quickly when something like this happens… no one would look twice.”

What?

“Is that a threat?” Doffy certainly has the power to ruin your father’s horse business. 

Waving his hands in the air in a dismissive manner, his smirk returns to his lips, more menacing this time. “Oh no, no. I don’t make threats… they’re too amateurish.” His laugh fills your ears, and the same shiver as before courses through your veins. “It’s more of a prediction.”

Gathering strength and bravado you do not have, you square your shoulders and lift your chin. “My father is strong, and he has my help. We’ll manage.” Turning your face forward, you will your feet to move again.

“How brave. So what about Law’s clinic?” Your breath stops so suddenly that you almost think you have a collapsed lung. He can’t be serious. “I won’t be cryptic, cariño, here’s the deal: if you speak to Law again, I’ll make sure his clinic tanks. And you know how much he loves that little place, with his friends and helping people.” He tsks and waves his hand dismissively. “I would much rather he dedicated himself to the company, so perhaps you would be doing me a favour. Law, on the other hand? Now that would devastate him.”

“Please, don’t…” You don’t know what else to do. Doflamingo is too powerful, too influential. He will destroy Law either way and claim to be helping him while doing it. You feel trapped, what can you do? “Please don’t do that to him.”

“I don’t want to. I do love him. But that depends on you.” Doflamingo sets one hand on your shoulder to turn you back to face him. “There’s a car waiting for you outside with all your belongings. You will leave the party immediately with Ichiji, as it will help sell the ruse.” 

Your legs start to wobble as breath begins to catch in your throat again. Powerless. Completely stripped of any will. That’s how you’re feeling. 

“You will not speak with Law today, nor ever. Not even when you both go back to your boring little lives. He’ll think you abandoned him, which suits me, really. No one needs a gold digger.”

“I’m not–...”

“I don’t care!” Doflamingo leans in, and his breath fans your face. He’s as angry as you’ve ever seen anyone, and you can almost see the veins pulsating dangerously in his neck. “You’re a distraction and a liability. Law doesn’t need any of that.”

“Everybody needs love…” Is this your last hail Mary? Because it’s not a very strong one.

“Not the Donquixote family.” He steps back and motions Ichiji forward. “Leave. Don’t speak to Law. It’s simple, I’m sure you can follow that, princesa.” He chuckles again while fixing his tie and suit. “Or else…” 

The words he leaves unsaid are a weight on your soul. You can’t think, you can’t breathe, you can barely exist. All you know is that Law is somewhere, hurting, thinking you betrayed his trust.

And the fact that you will leave without any explanation will only cement that feeling. 

You thought you’d been heartbroken before - exhibit A is currently walking by your side, leading you away from the party with a hand on your back that you’re too tired to swat away - but you’ve never been hurt like this.

This pain is visceral. It burns, it blisters, it festers, and it destroys. 

You’re not actually sure you’ll ever recover from this. 

-*-

Law was taken away from you by Doflamingo yet again, and as his uncle drones on about business and about the imminent merger, all Law can think about is you in his arms and the peace you bring him.

“Are you listening to me, Law?”

“No, Uncle, I’m not. It’s late, and I’m tired.” He yawns for effect and shrugs. “I’m going to bed.” But before he can retreat, Doflamingo sighs and slings his hand over Law’s shoulder.

“Fine, Law. But first, I’ve made some assumptions during this weekend, and I need you to tell me if I’m right or wrong.” Law sighs and nods. Agreeing with Doffy is the fastest way to get rid of him. He starts leading Law back into the party, and Law follows without giving it much thought. 

“I know you and the little princesa were not a couple before this weekend. I’m actually doubting that you are a couple at this moment… and my assumption is: you told her you didn’t want to come to my daughter’s wedding without a date because I tend to introduce you to a lot of respectable young ladies you don’t relate to. So, to avoid that, she offered to come as your date. Am I right?”

Law already knew Doffy had discovered that bit of your ruse, so he doesn’t act surprised, he acts resigned. 

“Almost. I was the one who asked her.” Law grins. “The ladies you introduce me to are not respectable. Half of the ones I met proposed to do very salacious things to me in very public places.”

Doffy grins back at him, and Law sighs while shaking his head. 

“You got that half-right, Doffy. Are you happy?”

“Not in the least. You see, Law, what I think is that the young lady realised the family you belonged to and decided to take advantage of that fact by seducing you. Is that a correct assumption?”

“Frankly, Uncle, I’m growing tired of that subject. We have already proved to you that we care about each other deeply. And even if we didn’t, we don’t have to prove anything to you anymore. This is my choice, and you will not interfere in it.”

Doffy tilts his head and nods, a mysterious smile playing on his lips as he leads Law to the bathroom. 

“Fair enough. But… Nephew… do you truly believe she cares that much about you? Do you think she loves you?” A small chuckle escapes his lips. “I thought you were done with being naive…”

Law grits his teeth while his heart clenches in his chest. Doflamingo’s words always have a way of penetrating his skull and making him doubt everything. “She loves me. I know that.” He didn’t mean to sound so defensive, but then again, Doffy had no reason to attack him. 

“I hope, for your sake, that you are right.” Doffy brings one hand to his chest and bows his head slightly. “I would hate to see you blindsided. Again.” His emphasis on the word ‘again’ brings hurtful memories of Monet back to Law’s mind, and he grunts. 

“We’re fine, Doffy. Thank you for your concern.” Law is about to turn and leave, but Doffy holds him by the shoulder and directs his gaze towards the dimly lit hallway of the bathroom. 

“Oh… would you look at that, then…”

Law instantly freezes, his brain showing him tricks. It has to be tricks. There’s no way that’s you wrapped in Ichiji’s arms. Law can only see the back of Ichiji’s hulking frame, but that’s your dress he sees peeking from the side, those are your hands holding his waist.

And now he’s cupping your cheeks, leaning… no.

A kiss?

Law shakes his head, denial, frustration, and… betrayal. That’s the word echoing in his head incessantly. Where once were your ‘I love you’s’ now stood that shadow of a word. Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal…

“You see, Law,” Doffy leans against Law’s ear, his venomous tongue spewing hurtful words. Words that ring true, too close to Law’s heart. Too at home with his pain. “She’s no different from Monet, really… they both traded you, broke your trust.”

Law’s throat is dry, and he feels little sweat beads trickling down his sideburns. The nails digging into the flesh of his hand cut little crescent indents, trying to ground him, trying to pull him back from the pitfall of despair he’s about to be sucked into. 

“Love hurts, Nephew. Love tears and destroys. You can only trust your family or you should trust only yourself.”

Doffy keeps talking, but Ichiji breaks from you, and there’s a mix of confusion and distress on your face as your eyes meet Law’s. And then there’s panic as you whisper his name.

This can’t be happening. You wouldn’t do this to him. Not you.

“Law!” 

Your plea is clear, but he can’t think straight. It’s too much, it’s too painful. 

“Don't believe her lies, Law. You know what you saw.” Doffy murmurs. 

“I… I need some air.” Law’s voice comes out as a mere whisper as he turns and disappears. The air suddenly feels rare, his chest too tight. 

There’s not enough room in the world to harbour the size of this betrayal. It’s too much. 

-*-

The coolness of the outside air does nothing to soothe him. It still feels stifling, and the control is slipping away from his fingers. Running his hand through his hair in a desperate gesture only brings him more heartache. 

Why?

Law keeps thinking about your pain and grief when you spoke about Ichiji. How could you return to the man who hurt you so? 

Maybe you didn’t.

No. Law knows what he saw. You were in Ichiji’s arms.

But he didn’t see a kiss.

There was no mistaking it. He held your face and–... and what? Could he have forced you? Were you held against your will? Law tries hard to unscramble his jumbled memories, but the pain in his chest is so heavy that he barely knows where to start.

He didn’t see a kiss. Of that, he’s certain. Could he be overthinking it? What if it was nothing, or if he forced you? And instead of helping you or hearing your words, Law panicked? Hadn’t he promised you not to listen to Doffy’s words? 

Yet that was exactly what he did. 

Fuck.

Did he get this all wrong? Law sighs and inhales deeply three times, trying to calm his ragged breaths and his uneven heart. He knows you. You wouldn’t do that to him, let alone with a man who hurt you so deeply.

There has to be an explanation for what happened, and he’s ready to listen to it.

Turning around, Law returns to the party, hoping you’re still somewhere near so he can speak with you and listen to what you have to say, to what really happened, to the truth.

He’s expecting to find you frantically looking for him, and his heart is already constricting from the anxiety you must be feeling. He should’ve just stayed a while longer. You would have explained, and neither he nor you would have had to panic. 

But what he wasn’t expecting was to see you leaving the party. He wasn’t expecting to see Ichiji’s hand resting against your lower back, silently guiding you through the remaining guests. He wasn’t expecting to see you walking out with him.

Willingly. 

So it was the truth.

Law’s heart breaks completely, the full extent of your betrayal settling in, expanding, and commandeering all of his love for you. Doflamingo was right. It pains him to admit this, but he was.

You’re a liar, and Law was foolish enough to trust you.

Tag List:@rosidaze @beachaddict48 @armiliadawn @jintaka-hane @sprinkklz @baby5555 @hopelesslover06 @mars-mizuko @sleepykittycx @nerium-lil @eustasscapitankid @ren-ni @jqperi @lycoriskalmia @rainbow2312 @alexturnersgirl

|Chapter 17|

[ythankucaptainmccoy]

The Cowgirl and The Aviator Ch10

Alright peeps I will no longer blue ball y'all. Here is the smut! Enjoy you filthy animals jk, but seriously enjoy! WARNINGS: Fluff, Smut and Stalker Behavior

Jake watched you as you ate your pancakes and helped the girls with cutting theirs. He had meant it when you had a family here if you wanted it. The girls obviously loved you and he was happy to have them call you Aunt (Y/N). He had no idea that you never got to see your brother's family. The rest of the day was filled with scattered thunderstorms as you all took care of the horses and other animals. By the end of the day you were happy and even helped him give Georgia a bath as she splashed you both.

The next morning you heard that Evelynn and the baby were home and that they were ready for the girls. You went with Jake and the girls, but took Rebel out to the arena to practice as you didn’t want to overwhelm Evelynn or the baby. Jake respected your decision and soon came out to watch you practice. You did light runs with him as the Rodeo barrel races were tomorrow. “I think you will win some money tomorrow”, Jake said. “It’s not about the money. It’s about the connection you have with your horse”, you explain.

“The family is going to come watch tomorrow, even little Jake”, he said. “They named him after you? Oh Lord help ‘em”, you laughed. Jake just smiled as you both walked Rebel into the barn to brush him. That night you sat with Jake on the porch swing watching the cattle in the distance. “Are you nervous about tomorrow?”, he questions. “A little but it’s a good type of nervousness. Like the adrenaline you get before going into the air I imagine”, you reply. 

When you started yawning Jake led you to bed where you curled up and fell asleep. The next day was a whirlwind of getting the horse ready and getting him loaded into the trailer. Colton had told you they would be getting there a little later in the day, but they would be there to watch you compete. When you arrived Jake was visibly getting nervous. “Jake sweetheart I’m gonna’ be fine. Rebel will take care of me won’t ya’ boy”, you patted Rebel’s neck. 

Rebel snorted and you couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you with Jake’s look of worry. “You know this worry you’re feeling is the same one I had when you went on your mission so we’re even”, you admit. That seems to shake him out of his worry as he looks at you. “You worried about me?”, he asked. “Of course I worried I had already fallen in love with you by then”, you said. Jake wasted no time in pulling you to him and kissing you until you had to pull away to breathe.

He took you to watch some of the events before you had to go warm up. When they announced the Barrel Racing you got on and started riding towards the arena. Jake stood by the gate waiting to see you before you competed. “Everyone is here watching”, he told you, pointing at Colton, Annabelle, Georgia and Evelynn holding a little bundle. You smiled wide because you never thought you would compete again or have people who cared about you watching.

Your turn was coming up as Jake walked back to be with his family. They cheered when you approached the gate. Rebel danced knowing what to do and you let him go when you were ready. It was a flawless run and when you saw your time you gasped. You were tied for first place where you stayed until they announced they needed a tie breaker. The woman that went in front of you did amazingly well and you knew it would be a longshot if you won. 

The run was great, but a second too slow. You didn’t care as you were proud of Rebel and the way he took care of you. Jake was ecstatic as he ran to you after receiving your prize. He picked you up and spun you around as you laughed. You loaded Rebel after grooming him and gave him some hay to keep him occupied. When you made it to the others they congratulated you. “Here since you didn’t get to hold him yet. Meet little Jake”, Evelynn said. You gently cradled him as you sat down on the bleachers. 

Jake watched as you held him and smiled when he grabbed your finger with his little hand. “He is a beautiful baby”, you tell Evelynn. Evelynn lets you hold him until he is ready to eat and that's when they decide to call it a night. You and Jake continued to watch the rest of the rodeo until well into the night. Sunday evening is when you both would be flying back to San Diego and you still had to put Rebel in the barn when you got back.

Once in the barn you turned on the small radio when Jake grabbed you by the hand to dance with you as George Strait’s “I Cross My Heart” played through the speaker. Jake mouthing the words as you both danced and you reached up to take his hat. You put it on your head and smiled up at him. “Darlin’ you know what that means don’t you”, he says. “I know exactly what it means. Take me to bed cowboy”, you reply. Jake shuts off the radio as the song ends and takes you back to the guest house. 

You don’t even make it inside as you both start kissing as your teeth clack against each other in your haste. Jake opens the door as you both start shedding clothes on your way to the bedroom. Jake lifts you up into his arms as you wrap your legs around him. He kisses your neck and down to your chest where he leaves several hickeys as you moan out his name. You tug on his hair to bring his lips back to your own. When he places you on the bed he takes your ankle into his hand and kisses slowly down your calf to the inside of your thigh.

He pulls back to pull your panties off as he makes his way over you to kiss you again. “Jake I want you to fuck me”, you hum. “Darlin’ are you sure?”, he asks. “I’m sure”, you whisper. He kisses you slowly as he reaches behind you to take off your bra. He tosses it somewhere in the room and kisses his way down to your breast taking a nipple into his mouth flicking his tongue over the pebbled peak. You moan as he does so and gasp when he lightly bites down. He switches to the other nipple giving it the same treatment.

He made his way down your stomach nipping and kissing as he went. When he reached your pussy he licked up your slit and nipped your clit which had you whimpering. He slipped his fingers into you and started to curl them. You were climbing that ladder to orgasm as he continued. “Come on darlin’ let go for me”, he hummed. He sucked your clit back in his mouth as you came hard. 

Jake continued until you started getting too sensitive and started to cry out. “Jake too much itstoomuch”, you cried. He didn’t stop, he continued until you were falling over the edge again with his name on your lips. He stopped to let you come back down as he crawled back up to kiss you. You pushed him onto his back as you kissed down his chest, raking your nails over his nipples as he groaned. You could see him twitch in his boxers as you nipped and licked down his abs. He lifted his hips as you took his boxers off and tossed them. You took him into your mouth and had him groaning and moaning as you sucked hard and worked what you couldn’t fit in your mouth with your hand.

He was getting close as he started twitching more often. “Darlin’ stop”, he told you. He pulled you off of him and back up so he could kiss you. He rolled you onto your back again and continued kissing you long and slow. You wrapped your legs around him and he ground against you with a moan. He reached over to the drawer and opened it, reaching all around it letting out a curse. “Darlin’ I haven’t restocked the condoms”, Jake tells you.

“It’s alright I’ve been on the pill. Please I need you Jake”, you plead. “You’re sure darlin’? I don’t want to make you feel like you have to do this”, he whispers. “It’s alright Jake. Please fuck me”, you plead. You grind into his erection and he shudders with a whisper of your name on his lips. He kisses you as he gathers your juices on his cock then notches himself at your entrance. He watches you as he slowly slides in. You gasp and he stills until you beg him to keep going. He kisses you as he slides all the way in and you nip his bottom lip as he stills there for a moment.

“You okay?”, he asks. “Yeah, just not used to someone as big as you are. Please move Jake”, you say. You dig your heels into his ass to get the message through as he starts at a slow pace. Jake was kissing and sucking at your neck as you moaned. “You feel so good, fuck you’re so tight”, he groans. “Faster please Jake please”, you moan. He listens to your pleas and starts a quicker pace which has the bed squeaking slightly. 

Jake takes a moment to slow, but punctuate his thrust which has you arching under him. “Holy shit”, you gasp out. Jake chuckles as he does it a few more times making you cry out. He resumes his previous pace as he places his hand low and places his thumb on your clit. He starts to rub your clit as you start towards another orgasm. “That’s it darlin’ that’s it”, Jake praises. You start to spasm around him as he keeps his pace.

You cry out and arch as your pussy spasms and Jake feels the wetness all over his cock. “Fuck Darlin’ “, he hisses. After a moment he starts his pace again this time bringing your legs over his shoulders. He hits deeper at this angle and it’s like heaven. “Jake feels…good”, you mewl. Jake grins but leans down to steal some kisses from you. He brings you to another orgasm and this time your vision goes dark. You feel Jake’s lips on yours as your vision comes back. 

He has put your legs back at his waist and you take that moment to roll him onto his back. He looks up at you as you smirk at his confused look. “I’m going for that eight second ride baby”, you say. Jake smiles as you start to grind and bounce a little on him. Jake is taking in your body as you ride him and he leans up to take a pert nipple into his mouth and sucks hard. You cry out as your fingers make their way into his hair. His arms wrap around you as he helps you move on him. 

He lets go of your nipple to lay back, but takes you with him as he rolls to be back over you. He goes slow and sensual this time. Taking his time and you can tell he is holding off as his head lowers to rest in the crook of where your neck and shoulder meet. “Where (Y/N) where?”, he pants. “Inside please”, you beg. He groans as he thrusts a couple more times and shudders above you as he cums. You can feel him twitching and the warmth of his cum and that sends you into your last orgasm of the night.

“I love you darlin’ “, he whispers. “I love you too babe”, you respond. You share a couple more kisses before he pulls out and you groan at the loss of him inside you. He disappears to get a warm washcloth to clean you up then comes back to bed. He pulls you over him and that’s how you both fall asleep. That night you both sleep soundly until the next morning. Jake wakes up first and reaches up to push your hair behind your ear. 

You wake when he does as he apologizes for waking you. You tell him it’s no big deal as you kiss him long and slow. “If you keep this up we might have a repeat of last night”, Jake jokes. You laugh but decide to get up to make breakfast so you head to the kitchen. Jake joins you and wraps his arms around you from behind kissing your neck. You smile as you push your ass against him feeling that he is already hard. “Darlin’ “, he growls as a warning. You ignore as you repeat the motion.

You're only wearing one of his shirts, but he doesn’t know that yet until he turns off the burners and pushes you against the counter. He has you bent at the perfect angle as he pulls up his shirt you're wearing. “No panties. Naughty girl”, he hums. You smirk to yourself as he gives you no warning before sliding his middle and ring finger into your pussy. You squeal out as he begins his onslaught, not slowing down as your pussy makes the most obscene sounds. You come hard on his fingers and you know you have made a mess when you hear it hit the floor. 

Jake doesn’t miss a beat as he throws down a small hand towel then takes up position behind you. “I think you need to be punished (Y/N)”, he says. You shudder as he kicks your legs slightly apart and pushes himself into you in one thrust. You gasp as he sets an unrelenting pace making you moan and your breath to be knocked from your lungs. He has your hips in his hands as he grips just a tad harder. You know you're going to have bruises in the shape of his hands and fingers. 

“Oh Jake right there!”, you cry as he hits a particular spot. Jake knows your loving it by the way your pussy is gripping down on him. You just need a little more and you're falling over the edge crying out Jake’s name as he pushes in as deep as he can go as he cums with you. He glues himself to your back as he bites down on your shoulder enough to bruise. It adds to your pleasure as your hand finds the back of his neck. You both come down from your high as you both clean yourselves up. 

You both look fucked out as you eat breakfast that is a little cold, but neither of you complain. “We need a shower before we go to spend the day with your family”, you tell him. You both shower which turns into another session of you pressed up against the wall as Jake plows you from behind before you both cum again. You both clean up and finally get ready for the day with his family before you both have to head back to San Diego. You had packed the day of the rodeo so all you had to do was load up and head to the airport when needed. You sat with Evelynn and little Jake while the kids played with their uncle. 

“I can tell you both love each other”, she smiles. “I do love him, but I’m a little worried about going back to San Diego”, you confess. “Why’s that?”, she asks. “Well my ex boyfriend found out I have been staying between Bradley and Jake’s apartments. I ran him off, but I don’t know if I should tell Jake. I mean he already has enough going on being a naval aviator”, you sigh. “That’s one hundred percent up to you. If it were me I would tell him, but I don’t know enough to stick my nose into your business”, Evelynn replied.

You sat for a few more minutes in silence before Evelynn spoke up again, “If you ever need to talk I’m here. No matter if Jake and you split up you can call”. “Thank you”, you say. You sniffle a little at how much this part of Jake’s family cares about you. The day goes by as you both have to say goodbye. The girls cry as they hug Jake then you and you can’t help but cry too. “Don’t worry girls I’m sure we will be back in time for Christmas”, Jake reassures them. They seem happy with that answer as you head back to the guest house.

Colton drives you back to the airport and Colton asks to speak with Jake alone. You walked away as Colton and Jake had their conversation. You waited for Jake and soon enough he was walking with you to get the baggage checked in and through security. The plane ride back was the same as flying down as Jake kept your attention. When you touch down it’s late and as you wait for the luggage a text comes through your phone.

‘YOU’RE GOING TO REGRET LEAVING ME’ the text read. “Who’s that?”, Jake asks. “Oh it’s nothing”, you dismiss. As you make your way back to the apartments Jake decides to stop to get some take out. While you wait on the food Jake turns to you and asks, “Move in with me?”. You blink at him slowly trying to process the question he asked. He seems nervous as he shifts his weight from foot to foot as he waits for your answer. “Yeah”, you reply. 

His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes and you can’t help but smile as well. He pulls you into his side as he kisses the top of your head. Once back at the apartments you notice Bradley is gone, but you decide to stay at Jake’s. Once dinner was eaten you both head to bed knowing that Jake had training in the morning. You both sleep well and you wake before Jake to make him breakfast. He kisses you slowly as he takes handsfull of your ass and massages it. “Sweetheart you’re going to be late”, you say.

“No I won’t”, he hums. He lays you down on the table and pushes his shirt you're wearing half way up your stomach. He pulls your panties to the side and can already see how wet you are. He pushes his sweats halfway down his thighs and rubs his cock against you. You sigh as he pushes in all the way and leans down to kiss you. “Sorry darlin’ but I have to make this quick”, he says. With that he sets a pace that has you seeing stars and the table to hit the wall in rapid succession. 

You reach down to rub your clit as he continues his pace. It takes a couple swipes and you’re coming undone around him. He spills into you with a loud moan and then again when you move and clench on purpose around him. “Too much”, you taunt. “Darlin’ if I didn’t have somewhere to be you wouldn’t be able to walk afterwards”, he responds. He pulls out of you and you tell him you’ll clean up and that he should get ready. You put some baggy shorts on and walk out with him to his truck. 

Jake turns to say he’ll be back later when you push him against his truck. His eyes widen as you run your pointer finger down his chest. “I really like this uniform maybe you can fuck me while you wear it one day”, you whisper. Jake has to take a deep breath and will his cock not to jump at the thoughts running through his head. You laugh as you know exactly what he is thinking then lean up to kiss him. A throat clears and you see Bradley standing there.

“Hey Bradley”, you say. “Hey. So are you coming back to my apartment tonight or?”. Bradley asks. “Well I…um..Jake asked me to move in with him and I said yes”, you explain. Bradley’s face goes from being shocked to being red and furious. “Are you serious? (Y/N) don’t you think it’s a little too soon. I swear you have only been dating a month and a couple weeks”, Bradley seethes. “She’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions”, Jake says. 

“I didn’t ask you Hangman so piss off”, Bradley growls. “Hey, both of you calm down. Yes I am serious Bradley and it doesn’t mean I can’t come over and hang out”, you reply. Bradley huffs but grumbles something that sounds like “fine”. Jake kisses you again before leaving to go for training. You decide to move all of your stuff from Bradleys apartment to Jake’s while they are both gone. Then you have to get ready for your shift at the hard deck later that day. 

You get a text from Jake that the dagger squad still has some stuff to finish up at the base, and that he will meet you at the Hard Deck. You smile and head to work where Penny welcomes you back with a hug. “So how was the trip?”, Penny asked. “It went really well. His sister, brother in law, two nieces and brand new nephew are the perfect family. Jake took me out to go line dancing and we slept out under the stars”, you explain. “Well the real question is did you sleep with him?”, Penny asks. 

“Yeah and it was amazing”, you laugh. “You slept with Hangman?!” Bradleys voice booms. You spin around to see Bradley sitting at the bar, but it looks like he just came in to hear your confession. “Please tell me he used a condom”, Bradley cried. “Well the guest house really wasn’t stocked, but he’s clean”, you reply. “(Y/N) that’s not what I’m worried about”, Bradley sighs. “I’m on the pill you dipshit and don’t you dare give any shit to Jake about it. It was my decision”, You tell him. 

Jake comes in a little later and you both share a small kiss before you get back to work. “I moved all my stuff in”, you tell him. Bradley doesn’t seem happy with what you just said, but he drinks his beer and heads over to the pool table to wait for the rest of the dagger squad. When the rest of the squad comes in they all hug you and welcome you back home. After your shift you make your way to the squad and watch as they all joke and have fun. By the time you decide to leave Jake tells you he will be home a little later. Coyote and him catching up since he had been gone. When you got home you showered and curled up in bed with your book. A few hours later you must have fallen asleep because the shower is running. 

“I thought you would be asleep already”, Jake says. “I was but I woke up while you were in the shower”, you explain. Jake took his spot on the bed as you curled into his side. “How did training go today?”, you asked. Jake knew it was more than that. You were asking if his head was in the right place, and it had been today. The time away helped him and you had a big part to play in that. “It went fine darlin’ no need to worry”, he replied. You both share a couple of kisses until you settle in to sleep.

[littlestarbigsky]

having thoughts and feelings abt sodapop curtis and his knee injury from his rodeo days :):

- guys he was SO scared when it happened :((

- it happened when he got bucked off a horse and when you fall you’re supposed to get the hell out of there so you don’t,, yanno,, die. and he tried to push himself up and run but his knee just gave out under him and he was just curled up on the ground genuinely so scared that he was gonna die

- he was pretty much a crying mess on the ground with his parents and pony and darry crowding around him and he’s just apologizing bc he knows that he’s hurt really bad and that they don’t really have the money for what he’s gonna need

- he tore his acl, not badly enough to need surgery, but they know he can’t safely compete in a rodeo probably ever again

- and golly that’s a gut punch for him bc i don’t think he’d figured out that he liked cars yet, and rodeos were the one thing he was really good at, he hadn’t realistically thought of it as a career, but working with horses was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do

- he’s in the hospital for a while that day, like i’m gonna say it was probably like 7-8 hours in the emergency room before they gave him some crutches and a splint and sent them home

- he is very okay with his mama babying him while he’s there tho lol he’s got mama helping him drink his juice box and fluffing up his pillows every two seconds. she doesn’t mind ofc bc she just feels so bad that she won’t be able to give him the best care (they really couldn’t afford surgery even if he needed it, and they def can’t send him to physical therapy)

- bro was NOT cut out to be on bedrest while his knee is healing he literally can not sit still for more than 5 minutes and he just gets bored with all the stuff they do to keep him occupied (cartoons, board games, mama even tries to teach him to crochet, which goes abt as well as you’d expect)

- unfortunately all this means his knee never really heals right, and even if it did it’s pretty normal to have residual pain after an injury like that

- he has a little limp when it gets cold (heavy on this one- dry, cold, air is not good for bad joints)

- he also 100% does that thing where he’ll be on the couch complaining abt his knee hurting and darry will ask if he’s okay and soda will just say something like, “yeah, it’s gonna rain tomorrow, though.” (side note: that’s a real thing !!! it has to do with moisture changes in the air)

- i also think that if he’s super emotional (which happens a lot lol) his knee will act up (ik it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but i’ve had this happen, i *think* it has something to do with muscle tension),, he could barely walk after their parents died and he was wincing the whole week pony was missing

- whenever there was a rumble before soda was healed, darry literally had to find someone to babysit him and make sure he didn’t try to sneak out and fight with them

- heat works wonders on bad joints so they have like four of those microwaveable heating packs

i might cook up a fic about this tbh i’m having a pain flare w my knees and hips rn and i can’t do anything lol

[nevertheless-moving]

MDZS AU #7: Jiang Wanyin’s Dog

Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying time travel back to the Wen Indoctrination camp.

They didn't ask for this. Wei Wuxian's Happy Ending is gone. Jin Ling's Whole Life is Gone. But no time to unpack any of that, they fight the Xuanwu of Slaughter the day after tomorrow. They have to get on the same page. Their family is alive again. They have to get this right.

Last time around, Wei Ying created distance between his actions and Jiang Cheng’s orders.

(Partially in order to excuse his shidi from blame when he did something grotesque or anti-establishment or unsuccessful. Partially to obscure which orders he physically couldn't follow. Partially because his mental health was truly, exceptionally bad — he distanced himself from lots of things!)

It could be argued that this strategy didn’t pan out super well, in the end. Not a very fun conclusion.

And the reasons for that distance don't exist anymore considering 1) Jiang Sect is un-massacred and can properly throw their weight around to shield their terrifying unorthodox disciple from backlash when he does terrifying unorthodox things. 2) Wei Ying doesn’t have a golden core shaped secret to hide from Jiang Cheng. Wei Ying has less secrets from Jiang Cheng then he’s ever had.

(Mental health could be better, but it also could be a lot worse)

So they come up with a different plan, whispering furiously under Wen guard, bedrolls pressed close together, cheeks still holding a little babyfat.

Wei Wuxian will be the perfect servant in public, obeying his gongzi’s orders without question. In exchange Jiang Wanyin won’t order him to do anything he wouldn’t want to do anyway. Wei Wuxian will still get to do all his stupid heroics — he just has to wait for the go ahead, to provide the undeniable impression of perfect unity. Jiang Wanyin will give that go ahead, even if it has to be through gritted teeth.

Bear with me now: this leads to a gradual yungmeng bros reconciliation. Basically the emotional equivalent of tensing a muscles as hard as you can on purpose so that when you relax it, the background strain also releases a bit.

To start — Wei Wuxian is the new core melting hand, except even scarier.

Did you hear he summoned an ARMY of the damned to protect Lotus Pier?? And that the only one who he listens to is Jiang Wanyin? Apparently Jiang Wanyin confronted Wen Chao over using human sacrifices, and when Wen Chao threatened him, Jiang Wanyin gave the word and Wei Wuxian killed a hundred Wen AND the Xuanwu of Slaughter!!! Did you hear he ripped Wen Zhuliu heart out of his chest?? What a terrfying head disciple! How long has Jiang sect been hiding this??

The two really, really have to work together, very consistently, without hiccups, and as much practice as they have fighting this specific war together, they also have hella baggage and different priorities and Wei Ying is NOT keeping up the Super Serious Servant act in private.

(they can’t speed run, alright? Wen Chao's early death and the Jiang Sect surviving pretty fundamentally alter following events, rendering specific future knowledge less useful. Not to mention, it takes time for Wei Wuxian to figure out how to balance his golden core with massive amounts of resentful energy. He's got qi to deviate, and there's a good few months where they're fairly sure he's driving himself into an even faster grave than his first life. I mean he figures it out, he's a fucking genius. But early on there's a non zero amount of bleeding from the eyes and running into bushes to puke blood while Jiang Cheng pretends that he's only stressed about this for purely pragmatic reasons.)

So daily private meetings to debrief and strategize and yell at each other and maybe horse around a little. It's the only time they get to step back from the terrifying teenage war leaders thing and be a more raw, complex version of themselves. Getting back in sync after everything. Maybe getting in sync for the first time — how much of their childhood were they dancing around issues of worth and place? How many of their worst arguments stemmed from one giant secret?

Jiang Cheng making progress on his Wuxian shaped self-esteem issues largely by faking it-till-he-makes it.

“You think I feel embarrassed to be second best to my own disciple. What, are you fucking stupid?? How do you compare to him, huh? He’s going to ascend to be a death god or some shit like that. It’s a ridiculous comparison — I’d like to see how you would have done, growing up his shidi. Grow up and fuck off.”

Say stuff like that enough times and you might… actually start to believe it. Huh.

Both of them somewhat expecting cocky, mouthy Wei Wuxian to bristle more about the subservience thing, but honestly? It's cool.

For years, supporting Jiang Cheng was the only thing Wei Ying truly wanted. Yes, he wants other things now too, but Wei Ying still wants to follow Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng is good at politics, at leadership. He rebuilt his sect back to greatness from the ground up. Wei Wuxian's 'leading a sect' experience culminated in being feared by the world and slowly starving to death on an all radish diet. (yes, obviously, there were extenuating circumstances, but regardless — I don't think leading anything larger than a night hunt is on Wei Ying's to do list).

Jiang Cheng expecting criticism in private and not getting it. Waiting all day to be torn apart for his fuckups by an unfiltered Wei Wuxian, only to instead be praised for his battlefield calls and handling of difficult negotiations.

He was a sect leader for two decades— his stupid shixiong's approval should not be able to affect him like this.

The thing is, Wei Wuxian's got effective free reign on his areas of interest — protecting people he wants to protect, inventing, and fighting people he wants to fight. Wei Wuxian has bountiful self esteem. It's annoying to not say whatever he wants whenever he wants, to bow that low, to mind his titles, to walk five steps behind, but it doesn't actually make him feel bad.

Once they’re eating A-Li’s soup … and it sinks in that their parents, their sect, their sister is alive… and they're drunk crying together... and they really really really did miss this, having someone who got their jokes, who could distinguish between their mock outrage and real fury…

Reconciliation starts completely in private but frankly enough time of Wei Wuxian Perfect Discipleing in public? Jiang Cheng is like… ok I thought I wanted this... but its actually not my kink. Please push back when the Jin start talking shit. I’m so, so tired. I've been tired longer than you've been alive. I don't want to reserve all my amusement for hidden moments any more.

Almost seamless public facing transition from ‘rabid dog on a short chain’ swinging to ‘my good right hand.’ Wei Wuxian gets to start being a little shit again in public, but he reigns it in quickly at Jiang Cheng's signal, and teasing A-Cheng stays private. Honestly — a boundary that might have helped them a lot in their first life!

As a result of gaslighting people that however they act that day is how they've always acted, most people are left with the general impression of Wei Wuxian as ‘trusted loyal hound,' who also happens to be absolutely fucking terrifying. Which. Isn’t exactly wrong so, fuck it, fine. Wei Ying honestly could not give less fucks about 99.9% of people’s opinions.

...Lan Zhan is living a dark romance novel, but that's a different post.

Part Two My MDZS AU Masterlist

[thesunhatesme]

Phantom after dark #2

Swiss, almost asleep:

Phantom, wide awake: do you think cows and horses can swim?

Swiss:Phantom, it’s the middle of the night, go to sleep

*Five minutes pass*

Swiss:phantom, put your phone down and go to sleep

Phantom:gimme a second, almost done

Swiss, lifting his head from the pillow:huh?

Phantom:Well, you see, if I don’t google it now I’ll forget it tomorrow an then I’ll never know and I won’t even know that I don’t know because I’ve forgotten about it and I can’t sleep and if I don’t know the answer I will not be sleeping any time soon

Swiss, head falling back to pillow, sighing:

Phantom putting away his phone:

Swiss:

Phantom:

Swiss:so… can they?

Phantom:yes, you wouldn’t think so, but they are actually pretty good swimmers, horses have very large lungs which makes it easy for them to float

Swiss, closeing his eyes: hmm

Phantom:Do you think giraffes can swim?

Phantom:they wouldn’t really need it thoug, they could just walk on the bottom of the lake cus their necks are sooo tall, unless it-

Swiss:please go to sleep

[blastoqueen]

Sunrise.

Chapter 3

Rating: Teen and Up

Relationships: Noa x Mae (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes)

Content warnings: None

Comments: English is not my first language. Sorry if something is wrong.

Sometimes, when Noa was all alone picking up berries or fishing, he would think about Mae. When he went out with his friends, he imagined the girl standing besides them, laughing and maybe fighting playfully with Anaya or Soona.

He didn’t know where these imaginary scenarios came from. He knows the truth: Mae doesn’t trust them, she is too weak to play with them, and Soona won’t get too close to the Echo if she doesn’t have to. It is almost like nature telling them it´s not possible to be allies. Noa wanted to believe in Ceasar´s words, that humans and apes can live together in peace. The true question was: could both species live in the same society? Or Ceasar only meant mutual respect from both separated communities?

Who was this Ceasar anyway? What was his story? He knew his beliefs, at least some of them, but he desired to know more about the ape. How come everyone except his clan knew about him? Raka said humans were intelligent and the dominant specie, and apparently Ceasar lived among them. If he truly believed that apes and humans could live together, that meant Ceasar knew kind ones, right?

“Apes together strong” he remembered. He could do both things, couldn’t he? Stay with apes and live among humans. “Kind of contradictory” he thought.

He was riding his horse through some trees, watching for any signs of Mae.

It was already dark, and he only had a torch with him. A few meters away, the male saw a yellow light and some smoke. A bonfire. He carefully got close, hoping it was Mae and not an ape, or worse, another human.

Trying to not make noise, Noa got off the horse and tied the reins to a near tree. He patted the animal a few times, before walking to the fire. Once he was close enough, the ape could distinguish the figure of a human woman. Mae.

“You didn’t say goodbye” Noa said, revealing himself to the Echo. The girl grabbed a spear and pointed to the ape in front of her.

“Noa” she said, lowering the weapon but keeping it in her hand.

“That is ours” he said.

“Yeah, I stole it”

“Classic human” said the ape, getting closer to the bonfire and sitting right across Mae “Scavenger”

“Shut up” she said with annoyance. Was he really dissing humans right now?

“You got far” Noa said.

“I´m fast”

“Where are you going, Mae? What is your plan?”

Mae felt vulnerable, not knowing what to do, where to go. She had to lie; she was good at that.

“There is a camp not far from here, I´ll be there tomorrow if—”

“Stop lying” he interrupted her.

“I am not lying”

“Yes, you are”

“Noa…”

“What happened to you?” he asked. His eyes were full of concern, sadness. He was so, so tired.

Mae stayed quiet for a minute. Could she really trust him? She knew she could, but the voices of the people in the bunker told her no.

“After you gave me the necklace, I came back to my home” she started talking before she could even think about it “I gave them the book, the one that could make humans speak again. They put me in quarantine in another place”

Noa gave her a confuse look.

“Quarantine is when you exile someone to see if they are sick” she explained.

“You are sick?”

“Not anymore. I contracted a virus, got a fever, they thought I was sick and that I would turn into... an Echo” the ape saw her eyes watered and felt the need to comfort her, but he stayed seated “They didn’t even test me. The guards and medical team left. I was trapped”

“They… locked you?”

“Yes. I was surprised they didn’t set the place on fire with me in it” she scoffed, wiping a tear in the corner of her eye “For a moment I thought I was sick too, that I was gonna loose my mind… but that didn’t happen. They only left me water, no food. I was there for almost sixteen days... I think. Then I scaped"

The ape didn’t know what to say. She got hurt by apes and humans. Noa imagined she felt alone, unable to trust, unable to love or be happy. He wanted to make Mae feel safe, but the Echo made it so difficulted.

“So, what now?” he asked. Maybe she was trying to go back to the humans, convince them that she was not sick, maybe they can take her back.

“I don’t know” Mae said.

“I can go with you” the ape said. The female looked confused, as if Noa had said something illogical.

“To where?”

“Back with the humans”

Mae sighed and put the spear on the ground, she grabbed her hair with both hands and looked at the sky.

“Or not” Noa said “I just want to make sure you… are safe”

“It´s not that” the human murmured “Noa... I can´t go back with them. They would kill me. They think I´m sick and that I will make them sick too”.

“But when they hear you speak”

“It would not matter”

“You are going to seek other Echoes?” Noa wished the answer was no, he really wanted Mae to stay, but he could see the desire in her eyes, that need to be with other humans. He could also see fear, fear of apes, which broke his heart.

“No” the male stayed still “Only they know the location of the others”

“Maybe… we could search for them”

“Ugh, Noa, the planet is huge”

Mae knew she was being a dick, of course the ape had not knowledge of the immensity of Earth, and even with that in mind she could not help but feel exasperated. She wanted to punch him, kick him, hug him… but it just wasn’t fair. She knew that getting the key was a dangerous mission, almost suicidal, they told her there was a possibility that she may not be allowed back at the bunker. “You can´t complain, they told you” She reminded herself.

The girl remembered her days in the quarantine zone, all alone, cold and hungry, looking for a way out. One day she hallucinated a baby chimp, resting in her arms, she called him Ceasar, just like that old legend; minutes later, the ape disappeared and Mae´s mom told her from the corner of the room “He is out there”. She knew nothing was real, that she was dying, that her mother and the baby were just a product of her brain. And even knowing that, she spent days breaking the crystal walls of her cell with all her strength. Once she freed herself, getting out of the bunker was easier, she only had to use her head and find a way to open the door.

“Don’t… cry” Noa´s words got Mae out of her thoughts. Was she really crying?

A hand flew to her face, almost completely wet from the tears. She also noticed the ape was next to her.

“Can I… come back… to the clan?”

Noa gave her a little smile.

“Always”

[peakyltd]

Hello! I will take a Tommy x Reader drabble or one shot inspired by this GIF with lots of fluff, pretty please?!? :')

A/N: Hi Jessyca! Thank you so much for your request! 🥰 I’m sorry it took me a little longer than expected but I hope you like it! The gif gave me some pre-war/young Tommy vibes so it’s set around that time. He's around 22/23 years old.

Warnings: None.

Word count: 850

A Sunny Afternoon

1912

Opening the front door, Tommy could hear the crying of their 4 month old baby. He made his way over to the nursery where he found his wife (Y/N) and their son Charlie.

(Y/N) was trying to calm the young boy who was fussing in her arms. Her hair was messy and she had a tired, distressed look on her face. She found Tommy standing in the door frame, looking at them both.

“Oh Tom… I’m so sorry we’re not ready yet. He-“ She sighed before continuing. “He just won’t stop crying. I tried everything.” She told him as she gently rocked Charlie.

“Don’t worry, love.” He answered her before walking over to her, pressing a kiss on her forehead. “Let me try so you can get ready, eh? Spend some time on yourself.” He added, taking Charlie from her. “Why are you making it so hard for your mom, boy?” He asked him, earning some more cries from Charlie.

“I didn’t even start preparing our food, I know you must be hungry after your work.” (Y/N)’s voice trembled, tears brimming in her eyes. Tommy grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to him. “Please don’t worry about it. I’ll help you, okay? I understand that it’s hard when he has days like this.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, kissing her head.

“I’m sorry, I’m just tired.” She sniffled. Listen, love. Don’t apologize. That picnic can wait and so can I.” Tommy assured her. (Y/N) took a deep breath and wiped the fallen tears off her face. “Now put on that pretty dress that you’ve been talking about for weeks because I can’t wait to see you in it.” He told her, a smile on his face causing her to smile as well.

When she returned back to the nursery, it was quiet. Except for some mumbling from Tommy. “Mom always does her best for us, eh? Always.” He tickled the little boys belly, a few squeals were heard from the his mouth. (Y/N) smiled and made her way into the nursery.

Tommy looked up at her, his eyes moving over her body. “You look amazing.” He told her, a smile present on his face. “Thank you, Tommy.” She smiled at him. He got up from the chair he was sitting in and walked over to her. “You always do.” He added, kissing her softly.

(Y/N) returned the favor. “I’m not so sure about that.” She chuckled. “Oh but I am.” He told her while admiring her some more. She blushed, quickly focusing her attention on Charlie. “Daddy did a good job with you, hm? Did you just miss him?” She asked the little boy as she stroked his cheek. Charlie tried to grab her fingers.

“We made an agreement.” “Oh you did?” (Y/N) giggled. “I told him that if he stopped crying, we would go visit the horses on our way to the picnic.” Tommy explained, a soft chuckle escaped his mouth. “Oh well maybe I should try that the next time.” She joked.

Once Tommy helped (Y/N) to make their sandwiches and packed all the other necessities in the basket, they left the house to go find their way to their usual picnic spot. As promised they stopped at the horses that could be found nearby.

When they arrived at their spot under the big oak tree, close to a small brook, (Y/N) sprawled out their blanket in the shade of the tree. Tommy took the basket and sat down, making himself comfortable. (Y/N) lifted Charlie out of the pram and joined Tommy on the blanket.

“I forgot to ask how your day at work was.” She said as she handed Tommy a napkin. “It was good. I was busy with the white stallion, he isn’t the easiest.” He told her while handing her sandwich. “We sold one of the horses so I have to say goodbye tomorrow.” He continued. “Oh really? The chestnut mare?” Tommy nodded. “But she’s going to a good home.”

“Wasn’t she one of your favorites?” (Y/N) asked him. “A bit, yeah. It’s sad to see her go but I think I’ll be busy enough with that stallion anyway.” He chuckled.

They both chatted away and enjoyed their food. (Y/N) noticed that Charlie had fell asleep and nudged Tommy carefully. He looked down at his son and smiled. “Look at him.” He breathed out. “So peaceful.” She added.

“He really is. Finally.” He joked. She chuckled softly, carefully stroking Charlie’s cheek. “Let’s get you comfortable as well.” Tommy told her.

He moved behind her and leaned his back against the tree. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her gently against his chest. “Better, eh?”

She turned her head to look at him, a smile tugging on her lips. “Much better.” “I thought so.” He commented before kissing her softly.

They spend a couple more hours under the oak tree, enjoying each others company and catching up on some well deserved sleep before it was time to head home again.

[unknowntoyou2205]

Never threaten the Shelby sister 2/2

Info: Tommy never believed his sister when she said she was threatened by his enemies, but when injuries happen, Tommy is quick to make sure y/n knows how much he cares.

Relationship: Tommy Shelby x sister

Part 1

The situation kept replaying in Tommy’s mind. Shooting the man, running to y/n, seeing his sister surrounded by her own blood and Michal leaning over her, begging her to stay with him as he held pressure to the wound, his arm bleeding from the shoulder. Tommy remembered shouting for someone to grab a doctor, and two men running out with a gurney, transferring his sister on it before rushing into the hospital. He remembered trying to get by them to be with his sister while nurses held him back, telling him to sit down and wait till the doctor came out.

Michal managed to get away with a few stitches, and a telling off from Polly about being so careless to try and take down two men when he was on his own. Y/n however, had fared out with serious injuries, and Tommy couldn’t help but blame himself. If he had of believed her than she probably wouldn’t be in this situation. She wouldn’t be lying in the hospital bed with Tommy holding her hand, her family coming in and out to see if there was any change. She was the one who took care of the patients who came an went, she wasn’t meant to be one. Instead, she lay on the bed while Tommy kept his head down, a grip on her hand, refusing to leave her side.

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

“Any change.” Tommy looked up to see his aunt Pol standing at the door.

“No, nothing.” Tommy spoke, dropping his head to look at y/n.

“What did the doctor say?” She asked, moving into the room, and Tommy seen Michal following behind, winching as he jolted his arm as he sat down.

“They managed to get the bullet out but there was a ruptured vessel. They managed to stop it so it’s just a waiting game.” Tommy explained, rubbing y/n’s knuckles with his thumb.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save her.” Michal spoke up, and Polly shook her head as she looked at her son.

“Don’t blame yourself pet, it wasn’t your fault.” She smiled before turning to Tommy, “It was your idiotic cousins’ fault.”

Tommy looked at Pol to see her piercing glare.

“Yeah, I get it, I messed up, is that what you want to fucking hear?” Tommy snapped, not liking his aunt at him when he knew he had messed up.

“Yeah Tommy, it is. You need to realize that if it wasn’t for you y/n probably wouldn’t be in this situation. This could have been prevented if you had just listened to her. But no, you had to be so high on your horse to believe her didn’t you.” Polly snapped at her nephew, and Michal looked away, not sure where to look. “Who was he anyway?”

“Doesn’t matter, he’s sorted. Won’t get near her again.” Tommy spoke, looking down at y/n and kissing her hand as he ran a finger down her face.

After an hour or so, Polly and Michal left with Polly promising she’d be around tomorrow, and warned Tommy to call if anything changed. Arthur and John had came by and said that they would be outside the door if Tommy needed them, stating that she needed all the protection she could get after the events of the evening, and Tommy agreed, saying that when y/n came through, he would be sure that a peaky blinder was around her 24/7, whether she liked it or not. He wasn’t going to let anything happen to her again. He realized just how much leverage his enemies would have over him if they got to y/n. She was his light, and Tommy knew that she was his everything.

That night Tommy refused to sleep. He spent the night sitting in the seat beside y/n’s bed, leaning back and staring into space. Grace had came by to try get him to come home, Charles had been wondering where his daddy was, but Tommy refused, stating that his sister needed him. This lead to an argument between the two, with Grace furious that he would choose his sister over her soon, but Tommy took no mind as his priorities lay with his sister. She was injured because of an error he made, and he wasn’t going to leave until he knew that she was okay.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning when an improvement to y/n’s condition was made. Tommy was knocked out of his thoughts by a slight movement of the hand he had never let go of since he was let into see y/n. Looking down, he could see y/n’s finger moving ever so slightly that he thought that it was his sleep deprived state that was making him feel it. But when he looked up at y/n and seen her head move to the side he knew he wasn’t hallucinating what he wanted to happen, it was in fact happening. In his desire to get y/n to waken up some more, Tommy stood up and leaned over his sister, placing a hand on the top of her head as he brushed back some lose hairs.

Y/n hummed as she felt the cool water hit the back of her throat. Licking her lips, she moved her head away from the cup Tommy had at her lips and winched as she swallowed. Tommy brought his hand back to hers and rubbed it between both his hands as he watched her try to open her eyes. Y/n struggled for a few minutes before finally opening her eyes, shutting them just as quick as she opened them when the light came to view. Blinking, she opened them once again, and Tommy came into her view, a slight smile on his face.

“Hmm, Tommy.” Y/n muttered dryly, smacking her lips together trying to get moisture to them as she kept her eyes closed with tiredness.

“Y/n, can you open your eyes love.” Tommy asked softly, rubbing his thumb around the palm of her hand.

“Water.” Y/n stated, though Tommy struggled to hear it with y/n’s dry throat.

“Here you go.” Tommy stated, quickly moving to the side of the room and filling a small cup with water, bringing it to her lips so she could drink.

Y/n indicated weakly with her hand for Tommy to come towards her and Tommy looked at her before sighing and moving back beside her bed. He took her hand once again and y/n smiled, squeezing it.

“Hey you.” He spoke gently, and y/n smiled slightly.

“Hey.” Y/n replied, moving to get up but gave up upon feeling pain.

"How you feeling love?"

"Like I've been hit by a bullet?" She joked, smile fading as she watched her brothers reaction.

"Y/n I'm so sorry for not believing you when you told me some guy threatened you. I should of trusted you and went to deal with him as soon as you said. But I didn't, and now look where you are." Tommy stated, throwing his hands up in frustration.

"Tommy, it's okay." Y/n tried to calm him down.

"No, it's not. And don't play it down like it is. You could of died y/n, and that would of been for my stupidness." Tommy said, standing up forcibly.

"Yeah, and I was beyond hurt that you didn't believe me. But you saved me from a worse faith Tommy. You got him and got help before it was too late. You may not see it but if it wasn't for you turning up when you did I would be very dead right now." Y/n explained to Tommy, and he looked at her with unease. "Come here."

" I thought you'd hate me." Tommy spoke in a small voice, one y/n hadn't heard in a long time.

"We make mistakes Tommy, and we learn from them. Be glad nothing terrible happened, don't overthink what you could of done. I'm here, and I'll hold it against you, but I could never hate you. That's not in my blood. Besides, the rest of the family hate you enough for me." Y/n stated, smiling slightly to ease Tommy's worry. "I love you Tommy, that will never change."

"I love you too." Tommy smiled, kissing y/n's hand, "and from now on someone will be with you at all times."

"Course they will." Y/n muttered before smiling at Tommy, knowing it would make him feel better.

[separatist-apologist]

Long Live

Summary: All archeologist Elain Archeron wants is answers about the past.

Fate is determined to give them to her

MASSIVE thank you @abbadinfluence for having the idea AND allowing me to write - I've had the time of my life, this has been so fun.

And @octobers-veryown for being my personal Rome/Italy consultant- thank you for your knowledge, your time, and most importantly, catching when I used a particularly offensive and/or wrong swear word

For @elucienweekofficial | Read on AO3 | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

They weren’t invited to the celebration held that night, which disappointed Elain. She knew from the journals she’d read that Lucien spent the majority of his evening thinking about the would-be Empress, who was housed somewhere on the estate. After the walk around the garden, she’d been a little panicked that she’d ruined everything. She was here, though—and Elain merely had to hang back and let the Emperor do his thing.

Arina was back to pacing again, cradling her hand against her chest as though she’d injured it. While Elain felt some measure of calm, Arina seemed more panicked than before. “You’re not taking this seriously,” she complained, unwinding her hair from the pins Elain had used earlier that day. 

“I am,” Elain protested with a nagging feeling of fear. “What do you want me to do? Rob the Emperor?”

“Yes,” Arina hissed, rounding on Elain so quickly Elain nearly toppled to the bed. She, too, was undressing for the evening, preparing to sleep. “Bat your eyes at him and beg him for coins and a horse.”

Elain scowled. “We’ll mess up the future if I start flirting with him.”

“Who cares about the future?” Arina demanded, back to pacing. “I’ll rip off a thousand butterfly wings if it convinces you to do anything besides trail after—”

“Stop it,” Elain whispered, wrapping her arms around her body. “I’m not racing out of here without a plan. If you want to, no one is stopping you. Go bat your eyes at the Emperor for a horse and some coins. Or better yet—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Arina hissed, cheeks burning with color. “I don’t want to get trapped here.”

Assuming they weren’t already. Just because they’d somehow come through didn’t mean they’d easily make their way back. That scared Elain enough into not wanting to try at all—at least she couldn’t be disappointed. Giving voice to her own secret fears, she whispered, “Do you think Gray is worried?”

Arina nodded solemnly. “People are probably looking for us.”

“Let’s bide our time—let them think we’re no threat. They’ll forget us soon enough. You know what’s coming…right?”

“We don’t study history the same way,” Arina reminded Elain, plopping beside her on the mattress. 

“A fire,” she reminded Arina, glancing toward the window. “And an attempted coup. They’ll be so focused on keeping their lives and the city safe that they’ll forget us. We can slip away in the ensuing chaos.”

Arina took a breath. “Okay. As long as we have a plan.”

“We can ask the Emperor for money tomorrow. Tell him we need clothes and hope he’ll put it directly in our hands.”

“And when we don’t buy clothes?” Arina questioned. Elain wasn’t sure about that. Shaking her head with a sigh, she only shrugged. Elain didn’t know. 

“We’ll figure it out.”

There was time—about a month of it, assuming she had the date right. Elain was terrified to ask Lucien where they were in the Julian calendar and betray herself as any stranger than she already was. 

“And the stables. And…how to ride a horse,” Arina murmured, ticking off an invisible checklist in her mind. 

“I’m sure one of the gentleman here would oblige—”

“Don’t give them ideas,” Arina ordered, rounding on Elain again. “It must have occurred to them that we don't have a father or brother to supervise us. How long before…”

“Lucien won’t allow it.”

“No, because he’s too busy trying to figure out how to get you into his bed.”

Disavow him. 

Elain shook the thought from her mind. “He’s with his wife tonight,” she reminded Arina, who had no clue how the Emperor spent their time. This was Elain’s passion—bordering on obsession. Helena was here and if Lucien could be trusted, he’d seek her out once the wine wore off before going back to bed to document the moment he knew he had to marry her. In the morning, Elain would be nothing more than a troublesome ward Lucien wanted to be rid of.

“Sure,” Arina replied, making her way toward the door. “Keep this locked.”

And that was that. Arina sauntered across the hall, the lock to her own bedchamber clicking loudly once the bronze was latched in place. Elain took Arina’s advice, well aware that there was little protection afforded to her here, and she lacked even the most fundamental rights she’d grown accustomed to back home. 

Pajamas were simply the night tunic she’d worn beneath her clothes—a simple white shift, truly, that would have been see-through in the sunlight. Here, in the near dark, though, Elain’s modesty was protected. As if that were an issue, truly. She’d been sleeping with Graysen for years, her chastity was a distance dream left back in the states. It had been such a trivial thing to her, a construct easily shed when the right man came along.

And still, she didn’t want to advertise that fact and make people think she was available to anyone with a passing fancy. 

Elain crawled into bed, oil lamps still burning, and realized she was bored. She was so used to scrolling her phone at night, staring aimlessly into the void that now she didn’t know what to do with herself. How did people fall asleep without something to look at? Elain turned on her side, wondering how the party was going. Would they stay up all night? She’d wanted to be invited and had been, at the same time, relieved she hadn’t been. Elain didn’t think she could fool a room full of people who’d been born and raised in this time period.

She couldn’t sleep, though. She was too warm, too awake, too anxious. Kicking the blanket off her body, Elain made her way to the balcony overlooking the gardens. Fate, too, stood beside her, watching as she braced her elbows against the marble. Lucien made his way outdoors, sighing softly as he ran a broad hand over his long hair. In every marble bust she’d ever seen of him, his hair was shorn short—she rather liked his non-conformist ways. Elain couldn’t help but watch, mind racing. She remembered this moment from his journals, had read it a million times throughout undergrad. It had become an obsession, wishing she could feel even an iota of what he described in that moment.

Lucien would turn, locking eyes with his future wife and as they looked at one another from across the garden, he wrote that all doubt melted away, leaving him with a feeling of pure certainty. It could only be her—no one else. At least she’d get to see it in real time. Lucien paused just outside the marble pillars, head tilted toward the starry sky overhead. Somewhere just behind him, she heard a man’s voice call his name.

Lucien began to turn, halting when his gaze snagged on her. He was too far for her to truly read his facial expression which was half relief. Elain’s heart picked up in her chest, beating frantically as she stood there, watching her just as surely as she watched him. 

The insistent voice called for him again, drawing his attention back toward the cheerful flame of the interior of the palace. Only when Lucien’s back faced her did she exhale the breath she’d been holding. With Lucien gone, Elain could stay as she was, leaned against the marble.

The world felt different to her. Newer, somehow. Like a planet she’d never visited, a foreign world with foreign customs and people who looked like her but shared almost nothing in common with her. 

Elain knew she ought to go to bed rather than stand there and reflect. Turning, Elain might have gone, too, had she not heard a grunt of air followed by fingers gripping the railing and then an all-too familiar face.

“This is hardly dignified,” she said dryly and Lucien hoisted himself up onto the balcony, clearly pleased with himself.

“I have no dignity to speak of when I stand in your presence,” he said through a huff of labored air. 

“You smell like wine,” she complained as he righted himself, absurdly handsome in the moonlight. “Are you inebriated?”

He offered her an easy grin. “A little.”

“Go to bed.”

“Is that an invitation?” he questioned, stepping around her with more grace than a drunk man ought to have. Elain trailed behind, hands bunched at her sides as Lucien’s gaze swept over her room. They landed, predictably, on her mussed bed. “Can’t sleep?”

“Don’t you dare say whatever it is you’re thinking,” she warned, hating the creeping flush making its way up the back of her neck. 

Lucien glanced over at her. “I wouldn’t dare.”

She was certain he would, though, if he thought he could get away with it. Instead, Lucien plopped onto the bed she’d recently vacated, stretching his long, muscular body across the sheets. Elain remained on her feet, more nervous than she’d ever been in her life. Even when Graysen had pressed her for sex, agreeing to turn off the lights and that she could keep her shirt on, if she wanted. Unlike Graysen, Lucien was the sort of man lost to history. He exuded something far beyond confidence—some word Elain didn’t know in any language, couldn’t describe but could certainly feel. Pinned beneath his gaze, she thought if he told her to strip herself naked so he could merely look, she’d have done it.

“The man you were bound to. How did that come about?” Lucien asked, plucking at some invisible piece of dust from the bed. 

“Are you asking me about courtship?” she asked, genuinely confused.

 Lucien’s eyes brightened. “Courtship,” he repeated, the word strange in his voice. “Yes. Explain it to me.”

“It’s not much different from what you have here,” she lied, because dating seemed impossible to explain. “We met and he…brought me gifts? Took me places?”

“And your father? He arranged the match?”

God, no. Elain tried to imagine her father arranging husbands for her, Nesta, and Elain. “He’s dead, remember?”

Lucien’s face blanched. “My apologies. Who arranged it?”

“I did.”

There was another long pause. “You?”

There was no missing her indignation. Lucien threw up his palms as she crossed her arms over her chest, frustrated that she couldn’t just explain the customs and culture of her own time period. He didn’t understand, had grown up in a vastly different world where women were little more than cattle. He might value her—might care about her opinion—but he’d never fully grasp the idea that Elain made every decision for herself, male relative be damned. 

“Yes, me,” she hissed. 

“Of course,” Lucien agreed, clearly deciding this was not a fight he wanted to pick. Illuminated in the golden glow of the dying lamps, he pressed on. “This courtship…how long did it take?”

“Eight years,” Elain said with a relish, delighting in Lucien’s confusion. He was clearly trying to do some math in his mind to figure out her age, as well as his own internal misunderstanding. 

“So you don’t love him.”

“I—”

 Elain stopped, the words caught in her throat. A triumphant smile slid over Lucien’s features as he sat up fully again so he could cross the room to see her. She knew what she’d been about to say.

I don’t.

It was the second thought, pushed right behind instinct, that screamed yes you do! You do love him! She didn’t have to lie, here. Elain didn’t have to pretend, here in the ancient world, that she wanted the future Graysen was offering. Maybe she had, once—but not anymore.

It was strangely freeing to admit it to herself. As Lucien approached, Elain only barely paid him any attention, her own internal triumph far more interesting. Whispering, she said, “I don’t love him,” to herself. As if it would matter in this place where love was a nice thing to find, but unnecessary to marriage itself. 

Elain’s gaze snapped upward as Lucien reached for a strand of her hair. Lifting it to his nose, the Emperor himself inhaled the scent, eyes burning. Oh, she thought, heart racing again. Oh no. 

“Alis propriis volat,” he murmured, unaware of how her stomach flipped violently at the words. “Is that what you want, Helena? Jewels? Lovely things?”

“I—” Elain couldn’t move, tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. What did he say? “What did you call me?”

Lucien dropped the strand of her hair, adjusted the shoulder of his toga, and turned for the door. “Helena,” he repeated without a look backward. “The people will demand a Roman, and so I’ve made you one.”

“You…”

“Rest,” he ordered, unlocking her door. “We’ll see more of each other in the morning. Let me show you how a Roman does courtship.”

And then he was gone, leaving Elain in the encroaching dark with only one word echoing through her mind.

Helena.

Fuck.

—-

I saw her eyes, bright as stars—the only bright thing amid the dark and I knew. 

Lucien was in a good mood. He’d seen Elain in a nightdress, which had been enough to fuel several lurid fantasies he’d tell her about once she was in his bed. Afterward, once he was spent and his skin cleaned of sweat and smoke, he slept better than he had in years. Certainly since he’d been named Emperor. It felt like at least one thing might work out for him amid the chaos that was the rest of his life. 

She wanted a courtship before she decided? Lucien wasn’t opposed, though it wasn’t common among [upper class what are they called??]. She’d betrayed herself in that moment as a plebian and Lucien simply did not care. He’d invent an entire lineage for her so he could make her his wife and he’d do it with a smile on his face. 

A nervous servant came stumbling into his office holding a wooden box of the item Lucien had ordered. Hairpins, encrusted with pearls, lay in the purple cushioned interior. He could picture them nestled among the wild, dark curls, shimmering iridescent in the bright sunlight. There were other pieces he was dreaming up, but those would take longer and he wanted to give her something that morning.

It wasn’t Elain who joined him for breakfast, but his older brother. Eris came in looking immaculate and yet exhausted at the same time. “Up late, brother?” Lucien asked as he rose from the chaise he’d been lounging on. 

“What is your plan for the barbarians?” Eris demanded. “I have compiled a list of every man in Britania who has not taken a wife. It was my thought—”

“They’ll remain in Rome,” Lucien interrupted, hackles raised. “I have thought about the blonde…Agrippina?”

“Arina,” Eris practically snarled. “What about her?”

“Sulla…what is he calling himself? Hibernicus imperator?”

Eris snorted. “He’s a friend to no one but the banks, let alone Hibernia.”

“He mentioned last evening he was looking for a wife…and like so many, finds himself entranced by the shade of her hair.”

Lucien was watching his brother carefully while pretending none of this was terribly interesting to him at all. Eris had nearly been married once—the woman in question had run off with another man before the ink could ever be placed to parchment and Eris had seemed relieved by the entire thing. Lucien was resolved to stay out of his brother's affairs…but something was going on.

Maybe he, too, was fascinated by Arina’s shade of blonde hair. 

There was a violence to Eris’s expression that Lucien found fascinating, though he remained as he was. “Are we agreed?” Lucien asked, drumming his fingers against his desk. He knew they weren’t—knew that Eris was going to wreck this somehow, someway. It interested him to watch, given how controlled Eris typically was. 

“Fine,” Eris said dismissively, just as Lucien hoped he might. Nothing would entertain him more than watching what Eris might do next. Lucien had no intention of extending a sincere offer to Hybern, who was supposed to be courting a different bride, besides. 

“Tell me about the provinces,” he said as more of his advisors began trickling in, holding rolled pieces of parchment that held the figures of the empire. As Lucien ticked slots on his own sheet of parchment, he let out a small sigh of relief. Things could  be worse.

They could be better, of course—they always could be—but he had money to pay his soldiers, to repair crucial infrastructure and most importantly, to host his games without worrying it would empty his coffers. Lucien intended to ensure everyone was able to eat something, which would engender the good will of all his people. To a Roman like Lucien, ensuring his military was happy came above all else, but right beneath and nearly as important was the love of his people. If they turned on him, no amount of military control would save him.

One only had to look at how thoroughly Nero had been buried to know that. Too many vanity projects had been the downfall of Nero—Lucien would need to be more careful and ensure his legacy was more than just gold plated halls and fucking his way through the patricians. 

Which, of course, turned his thoughts back to Elain. There was something about her—something that felt more akin to magic, that seemed strange and exciting all at once. It was more than just her ethereal beauty, though Lucien wouldn’t pretend he wasn’t drawn to her for that, either. When she looked at him, he swore she saw through him, those brown eyes cutting through flesh to find the bone. 

What did she know about him, he wondered? What had she discerned since she’d arrived? Lucien wanted to rise from his chair and find her, but business needed to come before women. If his father had learned that lesson, perhaps he would have been Emperor rather than Beron. 

There was talk of the provinces and letters read from the presiding governors who both swore their allegiance to Lucien while offering slimy congratulations and informed him of the politics happening within their borders.

There had been little raiding, which was always a blessing from the gods. Lucien didn’t want to find his first month plagued by barbarians looking for weakness or ship off his soldiers before they got to participate in his circus. 

Clapping his hands together as the sun rose higher in the sky, Lucien offered everyone sweating in that overheated room a smile. “Enough talk,” he said, rising from his chair to stretch out his aching, stiff legs. “At least of business. Tell me about my games.” Smiles split the faces of the once severe politicians, patricians, and generals. Everyone liked a good celebration—or any excuse to get a little too drunk. 

“Emperor,” Hybern stood, dark eyes gleaming with what Lucien wanted to believe was mischief, but was likely something dark, “I had the most inspiring idea.”

Lucien wasn’t unwilling. “Tell me.”

Tracking Elain down was harder than Lucien anticipated. It was a particularly hot day, leaving sweat to slide down his spine. He knew he ought to cut his hair, if only to get it off the nape of his neck. Make himself a proper Roman. The idea, typically revolting, suddenly had merit as he stepped into the steaming heat. All he wanted to do was see her and talk to her. 

And of course she was nowhere in the palace. Lucien accosted several servants before he learned she and Arina had been asking about the stables before they’d been pointed toward the city. If he told his brother, Lucien knew Eris would immediately assume the worst. In truth, he was a little uneasy about the queries. 

Where did they want to go? Stalking through the city, Lucien’s mind turned over the possibility that Eris was right—that they had nefarious goals and he’d been blinded by Elain’s beauty to truly notice. He knew some barbarian societies utilized women as warriors and leaders…did they also utilize them as spies?

Surely.

Lucien was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn’t realize he was practically on top of Elain until he half tripped into her. She stood in front of a stall, arms crossed over her chest as her friend, Arina, argued in loud Latin with the vendor. 

“Two denarii is absolute theft. You can take—”

The vendor, catching sight of Lucien standing behind them, immediately averted his gaze and bowed his head, which caused Elain to turn first. Her cheeks, warmed by the hot Roman sun, seemed to pale when she saw him. Arina, however, merely arched her brow before turning on him.

“We’re being cheated by a vendor.”

“I’ll pay,” he said, well aware it was his coins jingling in their pockets anyway. Some of Arina’s fire seemed to extinguish, though Lucien knew she didn’t like that he’d swooped in the way he had. They were dressed like respectable women and oozed money—of course the vendor wasn’t going to negotiate with them. It lended weight to his belief that wherever they truly came from, women held much more power and sway than they did in Rome.

He was curious about all of it. Not suspicious enough, either, which he knew could hurt him. Women had toppled regimes in Rome just as they did everywhere else. It was just…looking at Elain, even as he handed over the denarii, Lucien didn’t believe she’d come here to harm him. Those eyes were too soft, the same color brown as a fawn's coat, her face shaped like a heart, her skin unblemished like polished marble save for the freckles that speckled along the bridge of her nose.

If she was a spy, her people had chosen well. Lucien simply did not want to believe she would betray him. 

The merchant handed over a pale yellow scarf to Arina, who immediately handed it to Elain. Biting her lower lip, Elain told him, “It’s for my hair.”

“Beautiful,” he murmured without meaning to. Then, remembering he’d come to question her, Lucien cleared his throat. “I’ve come to escort you back to the palace.”

“They send emperors for that, now?” Arina asked with a roll of her green eyes. He did believe she was a spy—she could have been a general if she’d been a man. “Lasciaci in pace, porca puttana.”

Lucien’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”

Elain sighed. “It’s nothing—she’s complaining about the heat.”

Lucien didn’t understand the harsh tones coming from Arina, but he knew an insult when he heard it. It was tempting to demand she tell him the truth and there was no way for Lucien to know for certain. Not without finding a translator, which was notoriously difficult. Most of the people he knew who spoke the local barbarian dialects lived within the provinces they governed rather than the capitol. He’d send an inquiry, he decided. Lucien had a knack for languages.

He led them through the noise and bustle of the city, watching from the corner of his eye as Elain replaced one scarf for another, expertly wrapping it around her hair and neck the way a Roman lady would. 

Once back inside the shade of the courtyard, Arina split off muttering in that language beneath her breath while Elain tried to keep from laughing.

“She’s insulting me, isn’t she?” Lucien asked, rounding on Elain so quickly she nearly stumbled into a fountain of Venus. The image was striking—the goddess of love in her red painted dress, head and hands tipped toward the sky and Elain, who might have been the real-life incarnation of her, sitting on the marble lip with wide eyes. 

“Of course,” Elain replied, wincing as she rose back to her feet. Lucien had offered her a hand which she politely declined, wiping non-existent dirt from her backside. “She doesn’t like men.”

“Oh,” he said. Eris would be devastated, but he supposed it made sense, if not…a little strange to consider. “I—”

“Not—not like that,” Elain said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “She likes men, she just finds them to be very stupid.”

Lucien found her attraction to other women easier to understand. “But…men aren’t stupid.”

Elain blinked up at him, lips pressed in a thin line. “Of course not.”

“All of the greatest minds in the world are men,” he continued, certain she did not believe the words she said. 

“Because they’re allowed to have minds,” Elain snapped, stepping around him with burning cheeks. “While women maintain their homes and raise their children and ensure their every need is met so all they have to do is think and write.”

Lucien trailed after her, heart thudding in his chest. “It is what women enjoy doing.”

It was her turn to round on him, spinning so quickly a couple wild curls escaped the pins beneath her pallas. “Is that what they’ve told you? Or simply your belief?”

“Women cannot handle excitement,” Lucien snapped, frustrated with her. “It’s bad for their constitutions—”

Elain laughed, face tipped upward toward the skies and right then, Lucien truly believed he was in the presence of divinity. She was Venus, fiery and furious as she faced off with him. Who else but a goddess would dare to laugh in the face of an emperor? Lucien’s knees trembled for a moment, palms sweaty, as he wondered how best to show contrition. 

It felt sacreligious to touch her and still he did, grazing his fingertips over her jaw. “Why were you sent to me?”

Her angry laughter faded, eyes widening with fear. “I…” He watched as she swallowed, teeth worrying against her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”

A better man would have promised to help send her back, but Lucien was not a better man. He wasn’t even a good man, because when Elain crept closer, placing her palm against his chest as she asked, “Will you help me get home?”

Lucien nodded his head. “I will.”

And he knew, when he left her in the palace, safe within his walls, what he intended to do. She had no father, no patron—no one to object to the document he drew up. He only required his signature, which he inked to parchment easily.

Lucien intended to keep her on mortal soil.

As his wife.

Arina:

“Congratulations on your impending nuptials.” Arina spun, stola tangling around her legs at the sound of Eris’s voice. She’d heard his words before she registered the angry glint in his eyes. 

“What marriage?” she demanded, fingers skimming over her ribs for a knife that wasn’t there. She’d tied it to her ankle, for all the good it did her at the moment—Eris stalked forward, dragging long shadows in the flickering candle light. Night was nearly upon them and she didn’t want to be seen alone with him. Didn’t want to be seen anywhere. She and Elain were in danger and

Arina knew it—the Emperor looked at Elain as though she were responsible for the very sun in the sky. Arina knew what that meant, knew that unlike back in modern Rome where men looked at Elain that way, too, that Elain had no say if Lucien decided to put her in his bed.

And she had no say if he sold her into a different marriage that separated them. 

“To Hybern,” Eris practically growled, reaching for her. Arina reared back, slapping at his fingers before he could touch her. Eris exhaled, clearly irritated. 

“No one told me about this.”

“Why would they? You are, after all, a simple woman—”

“Vaffanculo!” she hissed, slapping him so hard it made her palm sting. Arina hated Eris so much right then, more when he grabbed both her wrists and, with more force than was probably necessary, shoved her up against the marble wall, hands pinned over her head.

“I’m warning you,” Eris hissed, his breath wine-sweet against her face. “Hybern is a miserable bastard I wouldn’t wish on even a malefica like you.”

Arina struggled against his hold desperately but it was no use. He was battle hardened and strong, the calluses of his fingers scraping over the delicate skin of her wrist. “Why would you help me?”

His eyes glittered and oh, she shouldn’t have asked. He was jealous. He wished he’d been the one who’d been told to marry her, but couldn’t oppose the emperor. Unaware of what she knew—that he did marry and he was happier for it the way so many stupid men were. 

“You’re an ill omen,” he breathed, lowering his face closer, until there was merely a breath between her mouth and his. “You’ll destroy me if you stay.”

That wasn’t true, though there was no point in arguing with him, either. “What makes you think so?”

“I had a dream from the gods before you came,” Eris told her, amber eyes searching her own for some proof he was right. No matter that he’d probably been lost in his cups at the time and half hallucinating. “They warned me about a beautiful woman, they…”

“Help me, then,” Arina urged. “We just want to go home. Give us a horse and we’ll leave and you’ll never see me again.”

Eris looked pained at the thought, his better sense warring with whatever he thought was going to happen between them. Nothing, she wanted to scream. She wasn’t staying in this shithole draped in ivory and gold to play second class to a man when she could do that back home surrounded by antibiotics and air conditioning. 

“Please,” she whispered, snapping Eris back to reality. He seemed to have realized what was happening and the position they were in.

“I’ll leave you two horses,” he murmured. “But if you get caught and brought back, do not look to me for help.”

“I wouldn’t look to you for anything, don’t worry,” she snapped, shoving him back. His words bothered her, for some reason, though Arina didn’t care to contemplate why. Eris’s face twisted with anger and quick as a viper, he reached for her hair to pull her face close to him again, neck inclined so she was looking directly at him.

“I want to hate you,” he said and she knew before their lips touched that he was going to kiss her. Men were painfully predictable, even in ancient history. They never quite graduated beyond pulling pigtails on the playground, unable to just admit they had feelings that made them uncomfortable. 

Just before they touched, Arina had been prepared to knee him roughly between the legs, well aware he wasn’t wearing anything beneath his long, purple embroidered tunic. But then…then. Oh. Arina had expected something gross but Eris’s mouth was soft even when the rough stubble of his cheek scraped against her chin. He smelled nice, like a warm day in Autumn. Even his fingers softened in her hair so his fingers could gently rub at her scalp.

It had been a while since she’d kissed a man, and longer still since that kiss had been interesting. Good. And tragically, for all his talk and stalking around, Eris was a good kisser. He tasted sweet like wine and his skin was sunwarmed despite the late hour.

She should have shoved him backward. Hit him across the face for good measure. Even when he released her wrists, Arina simply brought them to his neck, one hand circling the soft skin while the other moved up the nape of his neck to card through the short, auburn strands. Arina sighed against his mouth, giving him access just behind her teeth. Eris was many things, but he wasn’t a coward. Seizing the opportunity, Eris pushed her harder against the wall so he could press himself against her, letting her feel proof of his tainted want.

The gods had warned him about her. What did that mean? 

She forgot when his tongue swept against her own, eliciting a soft moan from her throat. Eris, too, groaned in pleasure at whatever it was he felt. Did lust streak through his body, too, settling between his legs like an unwelcome and unwanted guest? Arina would have let him drag her to bed—she’d slept with worse men, after all. If Eris had hauled her up into his arms, she would have let him, giving him one good night and a story she could hold on to long after she was back home. 

But Eris pulled back, eyes wild and hair mussed. He must have known they were in dangerous territory. A few seconds more and maybe he would have. “I don’t want to ever see you again,” he said before turning, his words a threat. Arina knew what would happen to her if she failed.

He’d marry her.

[maddy-k-reads-all-day]

When You Have A Bad Dream. 

“Hey friends I’m *yawn* Amanda.” Amanda says sleepily. 

“And I’m Wooly!” Wooly murmured, nodding off a little. 

“That was fun, huh Wooly?” Amanda asks. 

“Ye-yeah…” Wooly answers trying to suppress a big yawn. 

“Now it’s time to go to bed.” 

“Aww… can’t we stay up and play games a little longer?”

“Wooly. I’m going to bed. I’ve got a big day of adventuring tomorrow!” 

“Aww… okay.” they get all cozy in their pillow fort and then the tape fades as they close their eyes to go to sleep. Suddenly the tape glitches and we see them completely asleep, Amanda’s night light lit up in the corner. 

“NO!” Wooly shouts suddenly sitting straight up. 

“Mmm… Wooly go back to bed.” Amanda mumbles. 

“Nuh-uh. I don’t think I want to go to sleep ever again.” 

“That bad huh?” Amanda asks. Wooly nods. “Okay…” Amanda sits up. “I don’t think you’re going to like this… but my --- always said that if you are having nightmares, sometimes talking about them can make them go away!” 

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Wooly pouts. Amanda looks kind of annoyed for a second, but takes a really deep breath. 

“Wooly. This is the fifth time tonight.” she quipped. Then she takes a really deep breath. “How about this, if I tell you about my nightmares first, will you tell me yours?” 

“You get nightmares?” 

“Of course I do!”

“Yeah? Like what?” 

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours…” Amanda smirks. Wooly thinks about it for a bit. 

“Fine.” 

“Well let’s see… I have a lot of nightmares about what… happened… and the meatman and…” 

“I don’t wanna talk about that stuff.” 

“Yeah me neither… hmm lets see… ah… I guess this one isn’t so bad… and I have it every once in a while…” 

“It’s not about the meatman right?” 

“It’s about kitties…” 

“Kitties?” 

“Well… a kitty…” Amanda says. She pauses, trying to decide if she really wants to talk about this. She takes a deep breath and goes for it. As she talks, Riley can see the dream she’s describing in a thought bubble. “Well it always goes the same. I’m this lonely kitten trapped in a cage… rotting but never dying. I try to meow for help, I cry over and over but no one ever answers. Then I find that everyone who ever tried to help… everyone who loved me is sitting just outside the cage… dead… rotting… and I can see the real world just outside the bars but it’s all rotting too… rotting… everything is rotting… I look up, and through the cage I can just barely see the people who trapped me here… looking down on me. I try to meow to them too… hoping they’ll care… but they look at me with cold dead eyes and I know they don’t care. They won’t do anything. I keep meowing anyway because what choice do I have but they just leave me there rotting… alone… rotting… everything… rotting… everything is rotting…” 

“That sounds… terrible.” Wooly whimpers. Amanda stays quiet for a moment before standing up and taking another deep breath. 

“Haaaah…” she breathes out, sounding fully relieved, “but you know what? It feels good to get that out. I feel… better after talking about it.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah! I feel like… next time I have that dream… I feel like I can turn into a ferocious lion and I can roar all those mean people far away and tear that cage to bits!” 

“I see…” 

“Now it’s your turn!” 

“Oh… okay… I guess… one dream I keep having is where I’m a toy stuffed puppy… on a really really tall shelf. Next to me is this little porcelain doll. She’s running around… laughing and playing. Way too close to the edge. I try to tell her to be careful… and then she just… falls… and I try to go after her… I try to catch her… but then I fall too… and I keep falling and falling and falling… and I hear the sound of something breaking… but I keep falling. Then I find myself lying on top of a picture book…” 

“All the king's horses and all the king's men… couldn’t put humpty together again.” the narrator said. Amanda's eyes light up with excitement when she hears his voice.

“SHUT UP!” Wooly screams. 

"Wooly?"

“It’s not just dreams… sometimes they feel more like memories? I don’t know… it’s always super fuzzy… I keep hearing someone’s voice… but I can never quite make out their face. And she’s always saying weird stuff like… 

You’re glad you forgot aren’t you?

A voice suddenly echoes through the tape. “Yeah like that!” Wooly gasps. 

Does it hurt to remember? Would you rather just be someone else? 

“Whoa…” Amanda marveled. She knew their memories could seep into the tapes sometimes… but never like this.

You were right there, weren’t you?

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” the tape starts glitching again, showing bits and pieces of the dream Wooly described. The floor starts to disappear and Amanda feels them start falling. 

It was an accident, so it’s fine right? 

Amanda looks down and sees the shattered pieces of porcelain on the floor. “Oooookay Wooly I think it’s time to wake up now… ”

Why do you still feel guilty? Is it because you couldn’t stop it? 

“Don’t worry, I’ll wake up… I’ll always wake up…” 

But I won’t.

They hear a girl’s giggling laughter as it slowly fades off into the distance. Suddenly they are back in the living room. 

“Why is it whenever you talk about your memories it’s always happy stuff? Like doing things with your dad? All I remember is the feeling that I failed… I was supposed to do something… and I failed. Why do you get all the happy memories?” 

“Not all my memories are happy…” Amanda sighs. “But I think… I tried really hard to forget those ones… even before coming here…” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean… I wasn’t always Sam’s daughter you know… though that was a long time ago. I don’t remember exactly what happened… I just remember something happened and it made me really sad. I guess I just chose to forget. Or maybe it was just so long ago… I mean… I was very young when it happened.”

“I wish I could just forget.” 

“Yeah… me too…” “Then why did you try so hard to remember?” 

“I didn’t wanna forget the good times? I wanted to know what happened? I didn’t want to let Hameln win?”

“Even if losing it all makes you sad.” 

“I don’t want Hameln to take away everything.” Amanda says. The pair stayed quiet for a while. 

“Amanda?” 

“Yeah?” “Do you remember what happened to us?” 

“I remember what happened to me.” 

“Could you tell me?” 

“Hmmm… how about I tell you a story?” 

“What kind of story?” 

“My story…” She says. And the tape ends. Riley turns around and finds a new tape on the table. "Let's Tell Bedtime Stories!"

I feel like this fic didn't come out as good as the others. I might've strayed too far from canon idk. But this is where I'll leave it off ig.

Please note that I'm still really new to fic writing heh heh...

The problem is I had no idea how to segway this into the next fic smoothly. That said I am REALLY FREAKING PROUD of this next one. Oh boy you guys are NOT ready.

[universal-rebellion]

It's April in Jorvik - ( sabine x reader ) Chapter 1

hi! I plan to crosspost this fanfic to AO3 as soon as I get my invite :')

( cw: swearing. )

It’s April in Jorvik. 

The snow is off the ground, the grass is green, and the Equestrian Festival is finishing its preparations. 

And as for you, you were truly excited for it, but now you’re stuck running errands for your fellow Soul Riders… again.

You thought last year was ridiculous dealing with Alex and Linda’s last minute tasks, but this year was even worse. Both Anne and Lisa were tagging along this year which has added on to your own preparations for the festival. As much as you’re usually happy to help, you can’t help but curse to yourself this time for being so willingly. Stupid Soul Rider nonsense. All you wanted to do was practice and prepare your horses for the events you were set to participate in. But no, you’re were dealing with setting up another booth for the girls, helping Lisa gather her tack and outfits, and attempting to prevent Concorde from spooking at everything. Thankfully, everything other than Concorde has been dealt with, but now you’re losing light and you’re walking your horse next to Anne while she hand walks Concorde. 

This reincarnation of Concorde is, respectfully, a major pain in the ass. She still isn’t able to talk just yet, even after being aged by Vala, so it makes every situation worse because she can’t even tell you what her problem is. You were riding your starbreed, who is just about as fed up as you with everything. Unfortunately, for your horse, he was the best option for putting up with Concorde’s bullshit. The gelding pinned his ears at every out of line movement by Concorde. If she got too close he nipped at her, putting her back in line. By this point, you’ve figured out that she hates the balloons, so you were doing slow laps around the arena to get her accustomed to them. 

After your tenth lap Concorde finally calmed down enough to walk without trying to break free from Anne’s grasp. 

“ Anne, it's like 8pm. I think she’s about as desensitized to everything as she’s gonna get .” You give a gentle tug on your horse's reins and his ears pricked back up as he stopped. Anne looked at you and looked back to her horse, defeated. You hop off your gelding and give his neck a good pat. 

“ She’s as good as she’s going to get. ” Anne reiterates your sentiment with a sigh. 

“ Can we please get back to the stables? Between everything I’ve done today, I haven’t had time to see my other horses that I might be riding tomorrow. ” 

Anne nods. “ I have to deal with cleaning up Concorde anyways. She isn’t anywhere where she needs to be if she’s possibly going to be performing tomorrow. ” The grey mare pinned her ears back at her and snorted in annoyance at the notion she isn’t up to par. Does it make sense to clean a grey horse the night before a competition..? Who knows, but you aren’t gonna rain on her parade. However, Concorde’s a priss so maybe she’d stay clean. The two of you start your walk back over to the stables and trailers. You don’t bother to grab your starbreed’s reins, he follows you along like a dog. Besides, you’re too focused on making sure Concorde doesn’t try to pull a fast one on the two of you.

“ Where are you stalling her? Are you bringing her back to your home stable or are you staying here for the night? ” 

“ I could not imagine leaving her here. ” Anne practically scoffed at you. “ We are going back home. I won’t lie, I truly don’t know how I’d fit all of my outfits and whatnot into a suitcase. Also, where on earth would I get ready? ” 

“ I’m staying at the inn? A lot of the people who are competing are staying at the inn? ” You give her a look. Anne returned the look and rolled her eyes. 

“ Yeah, not happening. I’ll just deal with waking up earlier tomorrow. “ You shrug at her and the two of you finish your walk to the stable and part ways. Your horse audibly breathed a sigh of relief when Concorde was out of sight. You chuckled at him and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“ Yeah, I know. That was awful. But, hey, you were great, boy. ” You gave him a rub on the forehead. “ Let’s get that tack off of you, you deserve some rest. ” You led him to his stall and untacked him, leaving his tack on the stand next to his stall door. 

As you walked out the stall he tried to follow behind, but was stopped by you closing his door. He bobbed his head and snorted at you in protest. 

“ I didn’t forget bud, I promise. ” You rummage through the bag you brought and grab your bucket of Stud Muffins. The starbreed eagerly, but politely, snatched the treat from your hand, satisfied. 

You turn to the next couple of stalls and see the two other horses you brought with you. You were set to compete in a few categories in the following days and decided to use some of your other horses to give them some time away from the stables.

Your starbreed was going to be your horse for the cross country section. That honestly should be a given from the amount of nonsense the two of you have gotten yourself into throughout all of Jorvik.

 You brought an 11 year-old Belgian Warmblood gelding for show jumping. Thunder is black with a small snip on his nose and he towers over you at a good 16.9 hands. He’s been with you for a while now and has proved to be a fantastic performer.  

Finally, you brought your new 6 year-old Andalusian mare for dressage. Daybreak is a gorgeous dapple grey mare, you are still in awe that you managed to snag her. In all honesty, you aren’t too serious about the dressage portion, but you thought it’d be a good experience just to test out your new mare in the ring. However, you know that she’d be fantastic no matter the rider. 

You give the two of them their own Stud Muffins and give them both a scratch for good measure. 

You were in your own world when suddenly two tall shadows nearly made you jump out of your skin. At the entrance of the stable a tall woman walks in leading a large black Fresian through the door. It doesn’t take you long to realize who it was.

Sabine. 

Of course. Why wouldn’t she be here? She was the last two years. You briefly recall the events that transpired between the two of you last April and the one before. 

You stay silent and try to finish up your chores for the night, grabbing a bucket for your horses’ grain. Khaan's steps thundering through the otherwise silent barn.

Annnnnnd of course she has Khaan stalled right next to your overly friendly gelding, Thunder. You mentally groan and try to not let your embarrassment show. The black gelding immediately tries to make friends with Khaan through the bars separating their stalls. The larger stallion pins his ears back at the attention, but doesn’t truly react until Sabine exits the stall. The moment she closes the stall door, the Fresian emits the lowest squeal you’ve ever heard from a horse and he kicks at the wall separating them. Thunder backs off and goes to seek attention from Sabine. She ignores his attempts and flings Khaan’s lead rope over her shoulder.

Sabine glares in your direction before turning to a bag sat next to Khaan’s stall door, pulling out a hoof pick and returning inside Khaan’s stall. Hm, bold after your horse just raised hell.

“ Wouldn’t have taken you as a person with more than one horse. ” She commented as she began to work on Khaan’s hooves, not bothering to make eye contact with you. “ Thought a Soul Rider would be too loyal to even think about it. ” 

You try and fail miserably to stop yourself from chuckling which earns you another glare and scowl in your direction when she puts Khaan’s hoof down. 

“ And I wouldn’t take the Dark Rider as one that would stall their horse in a public stable. ” You shoot back at her sarcastically, but lightheartedly. “ But I guess, no one else really knows that you’re a Dark Rider here. So, what difference does it make? ”  You say as you dump grain into Thunder’s feed bucket, which makes him entirely forget about Sabine and Khaan. 

“ You should see my home stable. It’d make your head spin if you think me having two other horses is more than you expected. ” You make your way back to your bag of grain, making Daybreak’s dinner. Sabine gave an audible huff as she finished up her work on her horse’s feet. She exited the stall again and threw the pick down in her bag. 

“ I don’t think it’s really any of your business why I have Khaan stalled here. Why don’t you just focus on your horses and I’ll deal with mine.” Ah there you go, that’s the Sabine you remember.

“Hey, you spoke first.” You dump the grain into your mare’s bucket. The two of you go to your work in awkward silence. You weren’t really sure why you were comfortable being alone with her, or moreso, why you didn't feel threatened by her presence. However, your starbreed wasn’t too happy about her being so close to you. You could feel him grow uneasy as you heard him pace and paw at the ground. Maybe you were too tired to really acknowledge the amount of danger you could be in? However, she didn’t seem too intimidating right now. If anything, she was a bit underwhelming for what you’d expect. 

You finish up your tasks with your horses and hang your feed bucket up. Looking over to Sabine you see that she’s fiddling with something in her bag. 

“ If you get bored again, I’m always up for a chase around Jarlaheim between competitions. ” You said picking up your bag. “ I could always use the warmup for my horses. ” Sabine stops what she was doing and cocks an eyebrow at you.

“ And willingly give you what you'd consider an advantage? That’s the stupidest shit I think I ever heard you say Soul Rider. ” She practically chuckles at you, dumbfounded by your words. 

“ Thought you’d enjoy the chance to kick my ass and leave me in the dirt. You know, like the last two years. ” You shrugged. “ Whatever. If you change your mind I’ll be around. ” You walk off and make your way back to the inn to call it a night, not waiting for her response.

That was fucking stupid.

[unknown--author]

Sewing Clothes and Drinking Tea

I apologize for being gone so long, life got busy. I finished this WIP while in science class because I hate science and decided to post it.

Feedback and criticism are welcome! Just please be nice about it.

QUICK SYNOPSIS or whatever it's called: Professor Crewel and Prefect Yuu bonding over sewing and tea because of a secret influence (you'll know by the end).

CW: Yuu is anxious (probably, it's just my thought process, they might just come off as nervous), I don't know how to describe tea or sewing, this takes place before Book 5 (VDC is referenced but Yuu doesn't know what it is)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's the day of my people :D

Yuu trudged toward the school store, their messenger bag shrugged over their shoulder. Ace and Deuce had torn holes into their uniforms by getting into a scrap with Octavinelle students (read: Floyd). Not only that, but Grim had a spat with Leona, tearing his bow.

Now the trio was employing the prefect to fix their clothes. Yuu sighed and pinched the bridge of their nose. They were going to end up in debt because of their idiots.

As soon as they entered the store, Mr. S was at their side, an apologetic look on his face. “I’m sorry, little devil. We just ran out.”

Yuu had learned not to question how he knew these things. Though, they suspected the shadows had something to do with it. “Really?” Sam always had what they needed in stock. “Did a delivery not come in?”

He shook his head. “No, Divus bought the last of the sewing materials. From how much he got, he’s either working on a new project or a large group of imps wrecked their clothes.”

“Oh.” The prefect clicked their tongue. Dammit, tomorrow was Monday. If Grim didn’t have his bow fixed, Crowley wouldn’t be pleased with them. And while Ace and Deuce weren’t in Ramshackle and, technically, weren’t their responsibility, Yuu would rather not let their friends down. Also, hearing Ace whine about a collar for a week sounded like hell.

“Well, little devil, I’m sure if you asked politely enough, Divus would lend you some.” Sam had obviously noticed their downcast expression.

Yuu perked up. “Do you think?”

“Yes, yes.” Sam went back to stocking behind the counter.

“Wait.” They deflated a bit. “Won’t Professor Crewel be at home? It is the weekend, Mr. S.”

"He keeps all his projects and sewing materials at his school office."

"Why?"

Sam shot a small smile their way. "He works on them in between classes and after school."

"Doesn't he have paperwork to do during those times?" Yuu asked, feeling bemused.

His small smile turned into a cheeky one. "Maybe," he shrugged.

They shook their head in amusement. "Thank you, Mr. S." They turned to leave. "I'll tell you how it goes!"

"There's no need; I'll know," Sam chuckled.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As Yuu walked through the desolate halls, some doubts filled their mind. What if Professor Crewel wasn't there? And if he was, would he listen to them? Would he help? Or would he turn them away with the flick of his wrist? The prefect was quite intimidated by the fur-coat-wearing teacher. And for good reason!

Divus Crewel had a strict way of teaching. He never stood for tardiness or horsing around. Any student who went against him would be punished severely. He taught with a whip and a terrifying glare. And last but not least, he reminded Yuu of Cruella De Vil. She had scared them shitless as a kid. With her freaky design and her intent to kill puppies and skin them for their coats, how could she not have?

They hesitated outside the alchemy classroom door. If they wanted, they could turn back now. They could buy a new bow for Grim. Ace and Deuce aren't precisely their problems, the duo have a housewarden and should know how to care for themselves.

A voice cut off their thoughts. "Come in, pup!" It called through the door.

Yuu creaked the door open at the invitation. The infamous Professor Crewel sat at a desk at the front of the room. He had a needle in his hand while fabric floated around him. "Hello, professor."

"Sam told me you were coming." The shadows seemed to dance when he said that. "What is it that you need?"

"Um, well..." Yuu looked at his forehead, avoiding eye contact. "Uh, you see, Grim and my friends tore a few stitches in their clothing and asked me to fix it up, again. I ran out of the thread and patches I needed, so I went to Mr. S's shop. And, well, you got the last of it.

"Mr. S then said that you maybe, probably, might let me borrow some of the materials?" Their rambling got quicker and quieter the more they went on.

Divus quirked an eyebrow. It was obvious that the prefect was nervous around him. It was no wonder considering his reputation with the student body. "Let me take a look at the damage those pups have done."

Yuu fumbled with their bag before pulling the torn clothing out. They walked over and handed it over to the teacher. He inspected the tears.

Most of Grim's vow was now shredded ribbons, Leona had got him good. Ace had gotten the brunt of Floyd's attack; Deuce's uniform wasn't as bad. Their clothes were torn from a force pulling at them and there were claw marks here and there.

Divus sighed. These pups were always so reckless. "I'll mend these. Pull up a chair." He waved his hand to the side, gesturing toward a seat.

Yuu immediately grabbed one, bringing it over to the side of the teacher's desk. They sat down, watching Professor Crewel work silently.

Some of the black fabric overhead floated down and scissors cut patches out of it. Magic threaded the needle for Divus. He grabbed it out of the air and began sewing the uniforms back into their proper form. The Ramshackle prefect watched in awe at the teacher's skill, but they felt a bit confused.

"Professor," they said, pulling his concentration away from his work. "Why don't you just use magic to sew?"

He sighed, expecting this question. "I don't want to build up too much blot."

"But you're making the fabrics and material float?"

"It's easier to organize them if they're not all dumped on my desk," he answered, a loud snip coming from his scissors. One patch down.

The prefect was about to ask another question but Crewel interrupted them. "Would you like some tea, pup?"

Yuu, caught off-guard by the sudden question, takes a moment to answer. "Um, yes please." After the whole Azul fiasco, they were suspicious of any free things offered to them.

Divus opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a teapot and two teacups seemingly out of nowhere. From Yuu's perspective, the drawer looked like a void. "How did you do that?" they blurted out, amazement on their face.

The teacher stifled a chuckle. "It's an enchantment so the drawer has unlimited space. I cast it back when I started teaching here." He poured tea into the two cups and pushed one toward the teen.

The smell wafted up to their nostrils. They could've died happy then and there; it smelt so wonderful. They couldn't quite put their finger on it even though it was familiar. "What type of tea is this? It smells fantastic!"

"It's a walnut and almond green tea. I had it imported from the Queendom of Roses," Divus said proudly, taking a sip before going back to work.

Yuu took a sip as well, humming in delight. "Is it specially made there?"

He nods, focusing on the needle in his hand. "It's said that the Mad Hatter drank it at his unbirthday parties. Only the people of the queendom know how to brew it."

They muttered something about Riddle and his mother before speaking again. "Hmm, green tea's quite common back home. It's easy to get; you don't need to import it from another country."

"How interesting, pup." Two more loud snips sounded through the room. Two more patches done.

After his indifferent response, Yuu goes quiet. They take a sip of their tea and inspect the cup for something to do. It was plain white with little green leaves attached to thin vines. Each leaf was different in shape and size, but still similar. As they examined the teacup, they realized it looked authentic.

"Professor Crewel, is this handmade?" They held the teacup up so he knew what they were talking about.

Snip. Snip. Snip. Three patches and two uniforms done. "Yes, this set was handmade by an old friend of mine," he said as he grabbed his magic pen. The black fabric floated back up into the air. In its place, strips of grey and white fabric dropped onto the professor's desk.

Yuu watched with fascination as Divus lined up the material meticulously. "Who was the friend?"

"A friend from college, Ansel. He actually went to RSA. We met when I was in my second year and he was in his first." He sounded nostalgic as he spoke. "We met at that year's VDC. Ansel was performing for his team while I was a costume for mine. We went all out that year," he chuckled, now sewing the strips together.

"VDC?" the prefect mumbled before shaking their head. They'll ask about what that is later. "Were you good friends with him? Do you both still talk?"

The man sighed. "Yes, we were good friends. No, I don't talk with him much anymore, pup. We still text every once in a while. Before you ask, the last time we actually talked was at his wedding." He had finished fashioning the strips into a grey and white striped ribbon. Instead of fixing Grim's old bow, he had made a new one.

Yuu quickly downed the rest of their tea before they were handed the new and improved school uniforms. "Ah, thank you, sir."

Divus nodded curtly. "You're welcome, pup. Now run along." He got right back to work mending other clothing articles.

The prefect was about to walk out the door when he called out to them. "Pu- Prefect Yuu?"

They turned around to face him. "Yeah?"

"My door is always open if you need anything." He shot them a small, warm smile.

"Okay, thank you," they said, smiling brightly back at him before leaving.

Unbeknownst to the two, a certain shadow darted out of the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam was closing up shop when a shadow appeared next to him. It looked lively as it waved its arms around and seemingly danced.

Same glanced at it every now and then, wiping the store's front counter as he "heard" what took place in the alchemy teacher's classroom.

He chuckled afterward. "I knew they'd get along!"

The shadow shook its head in response.

"Look, I know it was bad to lie to the little devil, but hey, it ended up benefitting them. Now they have someone responsible that they can rely on." The shopkeeper bent under his counter and pulled out sewing materials.

"I better go put these back now, huh?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you for reading! I'm sorry for any OOC behavior and anything I get wrong about the slight mention of VDC. I haven't made it past book 4 yet. This is my second time writing an actual fic for this fandom and my first time actually posting one! On Sunday, I might post a drawing/painting that goes with this fic. I don't have my sketchbook on me right now.

Belongs to @unknown--author

PLEASE DO NOT REPOST ON TUMBLR, AO3, WATTPAD, OR ANY OTHER SITES (yes, I'm this cocky that my work could be stolen)

[bcolfanfic]

Hiii!!! to take your mind to kinder and softer things: any headcannons on josies first birthday with clegan?? will her uncles and aunts come by with truly threatrical gifts that sends buck and buckys eye twitching? will she demand to be carried around by her uncle croz and never be put down for a second? will there be some godawful birthday games that leaves her uncle curt a trip to the er because a game of pin the tail on the donkey is supremely misunderstood? will there be a quieter celebration during the nights bedtime where bucky brushes back her hair and sings happy birthday softly and buck uncharacteristically plays air guitar bc hes ever so freely playful in front of his two favorite people?

i hope everything goes well for you today and tomorrow!! sending love your way ♥️

she’s just a girl living in wyoming, of course it’s horse themed.

gale and bucky have to put it (in bold) on the invitations they send out to the guys that under no circumstances are they to get her a horse, please.

demarco texts bucky and asks on a scale of 1-10 how mad he’d actually be if someone you know- hypothetically,

an 11. we are renting one that will go back to it’s horse house at the end of the day, so don’t worry about making up for us depriving our child.

this is the first real birthday celebration she’s ever had which makes gale emotional in the lead up when they’re talking about it and she doesn’t really get it.

he gets that- he never really had birthday parties growing up either. getting to do different by his little daughter makes his heart warm.

she has a few little friends from school there but it is mostly the guys and their various families that came into town for the the festivities. and josie kinda ditches her little school friends for them, whoops.

especially her moon and sun and stars uncle crosby.

has a little moment where she gets jealous of the attention he’s giving to his youngest who is just shy of a year old. and matter o-factly informs him it’s not that baby’s birthday, ‘s mine 😾

sweet thing she thinks the baby is cute and all just wants uncle crosby to herself. croz hands the baby off, and josie is quick to park herself in his arms before he can change his mind.

she’s absolutely big enough to walk, but it’s her birthday and she’s cute so uncle crosby does haul her around all day.

rosie rosenthal STUNS with a new talking customized pop up card of himself

he even provides him own replacement batteries this time, and gale tells him they ought to throw them away but he knows they won’t.

the guys spoil that girl rotten, and if it’s with some of the noisiest toys produced in the united states then well, so be it.

kenny is one of the few that doesn’t go the noisy toys route- he gets them a membership at a local children’s museum. and writes bucky his own card that makes him tear up.

because kenny remembers the bucky he saw spiraling overseas and that he spent years and tears so worried about. and now he’s here- and he just wants his buddy to know how proud of him he is.

curt doesn’t wind up in the ER but there is a little bit of a near miss when he gets lost in the haze and whacks his good leg with the piñata stick

sweet josie gets so worried, curt laughing through the pain when he hears her ask if they’re gonna have to cut that one off too (it’s just bruised, but she’s five and doesn’t really understand the one that had to get amputated was a little more injured)

gonna decide that gale plays the guitar in this au because why not. he picked it up after he came home from the war just to learn a new skill.

him sitting on the floor against josie’s bed playing it for her at bedtime while bucky sits in her little princess bed singing to her in his arms.

both guys get a little teary eyed- for more than one reason. because their baby is growing up, they can’t help but wish she was with them for her first four birthdays and because the road to get to where they are now singing their little daughter to sleep was long. especially for bucky.

but they made it to the good life damnit. 🩵

[boxofbonesfic]

Title: 𝙳𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚎𝚕𝚐ä𝚗𝚐𝚎𝚛 [3]

Pairing: Dark!Ransom x Reader, Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Summary: Your husband’s twin brother has always made you uncomfortable, and after two years of marriage, you finally find out why. 

Warnings: Obsessive Behavior, Possessive Behavior, Stalking, Kidnapping, Basement-wife, Gaslighting, Manipulation, Breeding kink, Smut, Darkfic, Dead Dove: Do not eat!

Word Count: 6,133

A/N: oof. this one is a long one, but i really hope you all enjoy. no smut, but be assured… it’s on it’s way. 😈

previous

Dinner is privately catered, a stoic chef cooking for the four of you in the big communal kitchen in the largest villa, the one you were staying in with Ransom and Lloyd. You’re practically ravenous, splitting your time between watching him impatiently through the large open archway into the kitchen and staring enviously at Nathalie’s over-full glass of wine. 

 “Don’s supposed to be getting here tomorrow, he and Kathy are coming with mom and dad,” she says, and Lloyd nods. Your brother had refused Lloyd’s offer of airfare, as had your father. They were both hard-headed and cynical on the best of days, so you assumed it had been because they thought he was trying to buy them off. If he was, it had certainly worked with Nat. Who, despite your mutual dislike of Lloyd, had not been able to stop thanking him. He preened under her praise of course, peacock that he was. 

 “I can’t wait to meet the in-laws.” He says, hoisting a glass of wine as if in a toast to your absent parents. 

 “My in-laws,” Ransom reminds him, and Lloyd makes a face you can’t discern beyond vague irritation.

 “That’s what I said,” he snaps back, his lip curling. 

 You roll your eyes at their bickering. “When are your parents getting here again, babe?” You ask, talking over Lloyd’s irritated muttering. Ransom cocks his head. 

 “Day after tomorrow. But they’re not staying here, you know my mom. Full amenities.” He shrugs dismissively. “Why?”

 “Just curious,” you say, eyeing the chef over his shoulder again. It looks like he’s plating up the food, which you’re grateful for, because you’re hungry enough to eat a horse. You don’t exactly hate the idea of the Thrombeys staying somewhere else. The plates come out hot, and you’re grateful to be served first, picking up your fork immediately. The chicken is flavorful and well seasoned, and your eyes roll as you bite in. 

 “Oh my God,” you say, and Nat releases a similarly pleased groan.

 “Right? This is—Christ. Do they rent this place out like, monthly?” She leans over to elbow your brother-in-law. “Because I would definitely move here. Only if the personal chef is included, though.” You eye Nat’s glass of wine jealously as you eat, knowing it would pair perfectly with the chicken. Probably better with her fish, but I can’t eat that. You know you shouldn’t be sullenly coveting your sister’s dietary freedoms, after all, she’s not the one who decided to go ahead and get pregnant. 

 You wonder what Ransom’s parents will have to say about the baby—you know part of the purpose of this trip is to butter them up to the idea of being grandparents. Linda wasn’t exactly the most… supportive of you and Ransom getting together, her cold acceptance the one constant every time you were forced to interact. Maybe, you think, placing an absent hand on your belly as you push the food around your plate, she’ll finally find something to be happy about. 

  “Hey, hello,” Nathalie snaps her fingers in front of your face to get your attention. You scowl, slapping her hands away as she laughs. She’s never quite grown out of her irritating younger sibling behavior, and you don’t want to smile at her childish antics, but you can’t help it. “I was thinking maybe we could go into town tomorrow, maybe see the sights, take some pictures—”

 “That won’t work,” Lloyd replies before either you or Ransom have time to consider it. “I have work.” 

 “Work?” Nathalie scoffs. “What work? We’re on vacation,” she says, shaking her head. “And besides, we can just meet you after, can’t we?” 

 “No.” Lloyd’s voice is oddly strained, like he’s angry at the suggestion even being made. “If we can’t all go, we should stay here.” You frown—you don’t like him snapping at Nat like that, and you make your displeasure known. 

 “Lloyd this is our trip too. We’re allowed to do things.” He cuts his eyes at you before they soften just a little at the edges. 

 “The two of you shouldn’t go places alone.” You get the feeling that isn’t really what he wants to say. “The town is nice, but it can get… dicey.” It’s your turn to roll your eyes. “Besides, it’s a family trip—”

 “Honestly, Lloyd, if you’re upset at being left out, just say so,” you snap, reaching rather forcefully for your water glass. It takes a moment for you to realize that everyone is staring at you—Lloyd’s eyes angry, Ransom’s amused, and Nathalie’s worried. You’re tired of him nagging you, his secretive smiles, knowing little glances—you’re already sick of it. You know they’ll probably chalk it up to hormones, and you’re willing to let them believe it, ignoring their looks as you focus on your food. 

 “How about we make plans tomorrow?” Nathalie says, her voice small. You know she’s capitulating to save herself having to sit through the argument she can tell is brewing. And hell, maybe it is hormones, but you’re not going to put up with Lloyd bossing you around all week. You don’t take part in the small talk that creeps up around the table in the wake of your outburst, and you feel a shameful amount of pleasure at having thrown Lloyd for a loop. For once, he’s broody and irritable instead of smug, and you can’t help but revel in it. 

 Nathalie excuses herself back to her little cabana, and you to the suite you share with Ransom, knowing he’ll be there soon to chastise you. You pop into the shower, standing gratefully underneath the scalding hot spray. It’s the one thing you’ve never really understood, your husband’s staunch defense of his brother. There’s little you know Ransom would deny Lloyd if he asked, and Lloyd never hesitates to take advantage of his brother’s good will. 

 When you exit the shower, your prediction has officially come to fruition. Ransom is sitting on the bed, his arms crossed as he purses his lips at you. 

 “Sweetheart, picking fights is not going to make things easier.” You roll your eyes. 

 “He’s a prick,” you huff. “He’s controlling and rude and smug—”

 “And he’s trying to get closer to you—to us. He wants to be a real part of our family,” Ransom says, his eyes dropping pointedly to your belly before he drags them back up to your face. “Why can’t you try and get along with him, too?” You huff as your husband stands and walks over to you. Stubbornly, you don’t return his hug, and he chuckles, pressing a kiss into your hair. When he doesn’t let go, you sigh, wrapping your arms around his broad torso in return. You turn your head, pressing your cheek to his chest. You catch sight of the bracelet on the dresser, and sigh again. 

 “I am trying to get along with him,” you say petulantly, and Ransom fixes you with a deadpan stare as he leans away. “Fine. I can… I can try harder. For you,” you add the last part pointedly. “I know you guys are close, and I don’t… Ugh. I don’t want to get in the way of that. I just… I didn’t like how he was talking to Nat,” you admit, and Ransom laughs. You do too, even as you slap playfully at his arm in Nathalie’s defense. 

 “Spoiled rotten, both of them,” Ransom cedes that to you, at least—even if he has to incriminate Nathalie in the process. Which you don’t really mind—it’s not like it isn’t true. “Let’s give him this one day, okay? We’ll all go to the beach after he’s done work.”

 “Fine.” You say, shaking your head as you move toward your suitcase. The resort staff had offered to unpack it for you, but you were less than keen at having a stranger go through your things, so you rummage around until you’ve found one of Ransom’s old university t-shirts. 

“I don’t even know what work he could be doing here, like five-thousand miles away from his job,” you mutter as you climb into bed. With only a touch of shame, you watch your husband get undressed, leaving a trail of clothes behind him as he goes to shower too. 

 “Did you take your vitamins, Sweetheart?” Ransom calls from the bathroom, and you curse. You aren’t used to your new regimen of prenatal vitamins and supplements, and you grimace, remembering the size of them.

 “No, but I’ll take them tomorrow,” you call, and Ransom pokes his head out of the bathroom, a stern look on his face. “Fine, now,” you climb back out of bed and grab your toiletry bag. You’d been surprised when Ransom had insisted on you seeing the family doctor after your own, and doubly so when he had prescribed you a veritable laundry list of pills. Even now as you line up the bottles on the dresser, you feel intimidated by their sheer number. Vitamins for you, vitamins for the baby, supplements for you, supplements for the baby, something for your blood pressure, for the morning sickness—too many to count. 

 Ransom gives you a satisfied nod before ducking back into the bathroom. You want to stay awake until he comes out—you’re not finished with this Lloyd conversation, not by a long shot—but your eyelids begin to droop before the water even shuts off. Your awareness is patchy, brief moments of clarity as it becomes harder and harder for you to surface from underneath the pitch black weight of unconsciousness. 

 You’re alone, and then Ransom is in the bed with you, and then he isn’t, and then his voice, and then—

 Nothing. 

 —

 You greet your first morning in the villa groggily. The morning sun streaming in through the gap in the blinds paints a blinding stripe across your face as you squint. There’s a chalk-dust taste on your tongue when you sit up, and you grimace, swallowing dryly. Each of your limbs feels like it weighs easily twice as much as normal as you drag yourself to the bathroom, nausea twisting your stomach into an acid mess. After your—now routine—session of heaving up absolutely nothing, you rinse your mouth out in the sink. 

 The digital clock on the dresser tells you its half past ten, easily an hour or two after you usually wake up in the morning. The villa is quiet, though, no signs of Ransom—or Lloyd. You chalk it up to luck as you pad down the short set of steps into the empty kitchen. You can hear the ocean if you listen hard, just underneath the sound of the comforting breeze passing through the trees before it flows in through the wide open windows. You open the fridge, and find evidence of breakfast—sliced fruit, cold pancakes. 

 Ignoring the pancakes, you grab the plate of fruit, pulling off the saran-wrap covering it before popping a date into your mouth. 

 “Oh, you’re up. How’s your stomach this morning?”  You glance briefly around the open door of the fridge at your husband, before closing it. 

 “Ugh. I puked again this morning,” you say, swallowing at the memory of the acid bile on your tongue. “Not looking forward to nine months of this.” You pop another piece of mango into your mouth. 

 “Well, you know they say there are good remedies for morning sickness.” There’s a suggestiveness in his voice that makes you laugh, a bashful heat rising in your cheeks. You shake your head, plucking an orange slice from the plate before looking fully up at—

 Your chest tightens—this isn’t Ransom at all. 

 It’s Lloyd. 

 How he’d managed to sound exactly like Ransom you aren’t sure—their voices are similar, but certainly not identical. You hadn’t even realized at a glance, his telltale mustache missing, as were the thick signet rings on his fingers. The smile on his face remains disgustingly innocent, as if he doesn’t know what he’s done.

 “Something wrong?” He asks, parroting Ransom’s drawl with terrifying accuracy. 

 You swallow, suddenly uncomfortably aware of the fact that the hem of Ransom’s t-shirt skirts the tops of your thighs. And more than that, you are aware of the fact that you are alone.

 “I th—” The words stick in your throat. “I thought. Um. You were Ransom.” Your voice is tight, like your white knuckled grip on the fruit plate. Lloyd’s eyebrows rise, and he clucks his tongue, a apologetic little pout forming on his lips. 

 “I’m sorry, Princess.” You know he isn’t sorry, he isn’t sorry at all. “Even the best get us mixed up from time to time.” He breezes by you, making a show of looking in the fridge. He’s so close to you that you can feel the heat of him, smell his cologne. Your body is tense and frozen as he rummages through the fridge behind you, too close for you to move without touching him. 

 He’s doing this on purpose.

 You know the thought is unreasonable, but you can’t help thinking it anyway. Lloyd hadn’t claimed to be Ransom, not really. It was you who had made the assumption, and to be fair, you hadn’t even voiced it. He just didn’t correct me. As per usual, Lloyd’s proverbial cup fucking runneth over with plausible deniability, and you’re stuck debating whether what you’re feeling is even real at all. 

 After what feels like an eternity, Lloyd closes the fridge. The few extra inches of space the shut door allows you to slip around to the other side of the kitchen island, keeping your eyes on him the whole time. Lloyd leans forward to pluck handful of grapes off of the tray. 

 “No need to be so anxious, Princess. It was an honest mistake.” His smile is too amused for the situation, and it unnerves you. “I won’t tell if you won’t.” 

 “There’s nothing to tell.” You say, wishing your words had come out in the slow and measured way you’d meant for them to. Instead, they’re rushed, hard. 

 Defensive. 

 “Exactly.” Lloyd pops the last of the grapes into his mouth, and claps his hands together in a manner you know is meant to be agreeable. Try to get along, says the needful Ransom in the back of your mind. For me. 

 “I’m going to, um. Go and get dressed.” You gesture loosely at yourself. “If you could send Ransom my way, I’d appreciate it.” 

 “My pleasure.” He purrs. You retreat back to your room, careful not to rush. You feel Lloyd’s eyes on you the whole way, and it isn’t until you’re in the bedroom with the door shut and your weight leaned heavily against it that the feeling dissipates. You’re tying the bandeau on the back of your swimsuit top when Ransom comes in, and for a moment you forget the nagging feeling as he sweeps you into his arms, nuzzling the side of your neck affectionately. 

 “Sweetheart, I’m glad you’re up.” He smooths greedy hands over your hips before tapping your ass sharply through your linen shorts. “Almost makes me want to take you back to bed.” 

 You giggle, slapping at his wandering hands. 

 “I was promised a beach outing,” you reply, reaching around him for the matching blouse. “You can take me to bed after.” 

 “I’ll remember that,” Ransom replies, pulling his own trunks out of his suitcase. He’s already starting to tan, freckles appearing over the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks. You can’t help but inspect him closely, especially after… you shake your head, adjusting your top in the mirror. 

 “You’re staring, baby. Do I have something in my teeth?” He asks, cocking his head at you. 

 “No, no,” you say quickly, shaking your head. There’s nothing to tell. “It’s nothing.” 

 —

 “Baby girl!” Your father sweeps you up into a crushing hug, your mother fluttering around from your left to your right like an excited hummingbird. “You don’t know how happy we are to see you.” He plants an embarrassingly loud kiss on your cheek, and then moves out of the way to allow your mother her turn. Nathalie sucks her teeth from beside you. 

 “Where’s my warm welcome?” She complains jokingly, crossing her arms. “Am I chopped liver or something over here?” Your mother clucks her tongue at your sister over your shoulder. 

 “We see you every Sunday for dinner Nathalie,” she says, and over her shoulder you see your father roll his eyes. 

 “Yeah, and every time you need money.” He gripes, but moves to hug her anyway. 

 “Now that is a grossly unfair assessment of my character,” Nathalie sniffs, ignoring your father’s outstretched arms in favor of giving him a cold handshake. He laughs, and you wonder if the booming sound of it travels all the way back to the gate from here. Your father has always been a cheerful man, and you see that the long trip hasn’t dulled that disposition. The only thing that seems to be putting a damper on his mood is—

 “Sir. I trust your trip was comfortable,” Ransom says, leaning forward to shake your father’s hand. He regards your husband with a cool, muted smile before returning the gesture. You aren’t sure why your father—and your brother, who has disappeared from the back of the shuttle with your sister-in-law—have taken such a dislike to him. It had been tough work convincing him that Ransom wasn’t just some rich weirdo looking for a good time, and to be quite honest, you aren’t sure if he’s entirely convinced, even now. 

 “It was.” 

 You could cut the fucking tension with a knife, you think, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of your nose. 

 “So, um. Are you guys hungry? And where’s Don? He and Kathy have been looking for a bathroom for like, ever,” you mutter, unable to resist trying to diffuse the tension with chatter. If your father was cool on Ransom, you knew he actively disliked Lloyd. 

 Getting piss-drunk at my wedding didn’t fucking help, you think grimly, looking between your dissatisfied father and your husband. You know Ransom—he isn’t going to bow and scrape for your father’s approval. And, you’d had this argument before. 

 “We’re going to need help unloading all the bags.” Your mother answers, and you look at her confusedly. 

 “All the bags? Guys this is like, a four day trip.” A disbelieving little laugh escapes you before you can swallow it. “How much did you pack?” Your inquisition is interrupted by the sight of your brother, Nathalie worming her way in between you to point him out. He and his wife are pushing one of the resort’s little dollies, no doubt with the intent of loading it up with suitcases. You peek around the back of the van, and your mouth drops at the veritable mountain of suitcases.  

 “Squirt,” your brother greets you, and you scowl at the nickname. 

 “You have got to stop calling me that. We’re all grown up now, Don,” you say, and he laughs. 

 “When you’re taller than me, we’ll talk about it.” 

 Everyone seems overjoyed to see you, and you wonder guiltily if you really have been away so long. Nat is prone to complaining about the distance between you, but you generally chalked that up to her clinginess. And sure, your mother usually found a way to lament seeing you now on holidays and special occasions, but…

 “I bet you’re all exhausted,” Lloyd replies, interrupting the chain of your thoughts. “Why don’t we get you guys unpacked—we’ve got reservations in town at nine.” You turn to look at him in confusion. No one had told you about dinner reservations. And by the easy smile on Ransom’s face, he certainly isn’t surprised by the news, and neither is Nathalie. 

 You seem to be the only person out of the loop. 

 Ransom squeezes your hand, drawing shapes on the back of it with his thumb as you all make your way into the main villa for coffee and presumably awkward chit-chat. About as soon as you walk inside and kick off your flip-flops, Nathalie drags your mother and Kathy off to take in the amazing view, leaving you alone with the men. They seem about as eager to talk to each other as you are to play mediator, and you leave them in awkward silence to get ready for dinner. 

 When Ransom edges into the bedroom, you’re already dressed, sweeping your hair up into a messy, loose bun. He hums with approval as he approaches you, smoothing his hands appreciatively over your bare shoulders. His lips follow, and you can’t help but giggle. Your eyes meet his in the mirror, and Ransom’s playful smile turns smarmy as you watch his gaze travel down to your breasts, pushed up by the bra you’re wearing. 

 “You look good enough to eat.” 

 “You like it?” You ask, turning to face him, and he chuckles. 

 “If we hadn’t already made dinner plans…” He trails off, cupping your cheek with one palm. Ransom’s fingers trace down the side of your throat, catching at the delicate silver chain nestled there. The pendant rests just above your breasts, a tear-drop shaped sapphire winking in the light from the vanity. It was Ransom’s first birthday gift to you, the first one of many extravagant displays of affection.

 “You should wear your bracelet,” he says, nodding at Lloyd’s gift. You haven’t put it on since he’d given it to you, and you wonder if Ransom’s suggestion is because he’s noticed. “It would match with your necklace.” He picks it up, and begins fastening it around your wrist without your input. You eye yourself skeptically in the mirror when he’s finished, holding up your arm so that you can see the jewelry together. It does match—absurdly well. Even down to the little leaf designs on the prongs holding the stones in place. 

 Weird.

 It does look nice with the flowy, silky taffeta dress you’re wearing to dinner. 

 “I still can’t believe how much this cost,” you mutter. The stones sparkle in the light as you turn your hand. 

 “Oh?” Ransom asks, glancing at you in the mirror as he buttons up his shirt. “How much?” You cock your head at him. 

 “What?” 

 “How much?” He repeats the question casually, like he doesn’t understand why you’re looking at him like he’s grown another head. “What,” he asks with a little laugh. “Lloyd tell you not to tell me, or something?” 

 “Fif—It was fifteen-thousand dollars, Ran.” You know you’re staring, but you can’t help it. “You told me.” Like something clicks in his brain, Ransom makes an oh face, and then smacks a hand against his forehead. 

 “Ugh. Jet-lag,” he says, shaking his head. “I forgot.” He smiles at you warmly in the mirror as he finishes buttoning up his cuffs. You want to chalk it up to his rich upbringing, after all, fifteen-thousand dollars is a paltry sum to someone with Thrombey money. Easy to forget. 

 Isn’t it? 

 You and Ransom greet your parents in the living area, and both they and your brother and sister-in-law look much refreshed. Lloyd is there too, Ransom’s spitting image in perfectly reversed colors. You know you shouldn’t feel… a way about him looking at you, about his eyes traveling slowly down the bodice of your dress to where your hands are clasped in front of your belly. His brows rise a fraction at the sight of the bracelet, and the corners of his mouth turn up in a little grin. You’d describe it as almost triumphant—but it’s gone just as quickly as it had come, and you’re left wondering if you’d even seen it at all. 

 “Are we all here and ready?” Ransom asks, and the quiet murmur in the room ceases. You’re still not quite sure how he does that, how he commands all of the attention in a room with no effort at all. 

 “No, we’re missing Nathalie—where is that girl? I’m starving,” your mother replies, beginning to dig into her purse for her phone. As she pulls it out, Nathalie rushes through the sliding door to the patio, still tugging on her shoes. 

 “Sorry, sorry, I was on the phone with Jaiden,” she mutters in apology, rolling her eyes. “He is so clingy.” She smooths her hands over her dress, and then claps them together. “But I am ready to go! Starving.” Your family begins moving outside toward the cars, and Nathalie slides her arm through yours. 

 “If he’s so clingy, why didn’t he come with?” You ask suspiciously, and she rolls her eyes a second time. 

 “He… would have. I just, I don’t think, um. Meeting the family is the best idea. We’re not, you know. Serious.” You poke her with one outstretched finger as you walk, and she swats at your hand in protest. 

 “Does he know that?”

 She snorts. 

 “He should. We don’t do anything but f—study.” She looks quickly in your father’s direction. He’s busy getting into Ransom’s rental, but you know that doesn’t mean he isn’t listening carefully. 

 The ride to the restaurant is a quiet one. You can’t quiet your thoughts no matter how much you try, and it’s noticeable—your mother tries to fill the gap in the conversation left by your absence, trying in vain to get your father to acknowledge Ransom’s conversation hooks with more than terse one-liners.

Fifteen-thousand dollars. You don’t know why you’re still thinking about it but you are, turning the thought over in your head as if it were a pebble in your shoe. 

 Fifteen-thousand dollars. You would think it was a sum you wouldn’t soon forget—but Ransom had. It wasn’t just that he had forgotten—when you’d been on the plane, he’d delivered the dollar amount with offhanded familiarity, it just didn’t… it didn’t make sense. Does it have to? 

 It feels like you’ve only just gotten into the car when you’re piling back out of it again. The restaurant is like something out of a movie, set into the cliffside as the sound of crashing waves echoes up from the rocks below. You lean over the railing, marveling at the sight of the moon’s face reflected in the dark, shifting waters. 

 “Oh you look so pretty,” Nathalie gushes, reaching for her phone. “Let me take a picture—Ransom get in here, God,” she gestures at your husband. “This is a Kodak moment.” The smell of him is comforting and familiar as he presses close, tucking you into his body as he tilts your head up for a kiss. “Aww, that’s cute. Stay just like that!” He brushes his lips against yours, a soft laugh puffing across your cheeks. 

 “Bossy, isn’t she?” He asks, and you laugh too. 

 “I think we’ve had this conversation.”

 Ransom wouldn’t lie to me. You’re still thinking about it—fifteen-fucking-thousand dollars—how could you not be? But you want to believe him. After all, what would he have to gain by lying? You lean forward and kiss him fully, and you feel his fingers sink appreciatively into the curves of your hips through the layers of your dress. He wouldn’t. 

 “Alright, alright lovebirds, I’ve got enough pictures,” Nathalie says. Ransom kisses you one more time—out of spite, you’re sure—before he grabs your hand, and you make your way into the restaurant with your family. 

 “I had the terrace reserved,” Lloyd says, a haughty sort of pride evident in the words. No one else seems to notice or mind, though. Your mother gasps appropriately at the sight of the candlelit table, and as she and Nathalie titter about how beautiful it is, you swear you see Lloyd’s head inflate two sizes. 

 “It’s just lovely,” your mother gushes, trailing her fingers along the silky tablecloth. The plates are all ceramic pieces, and you can tell they’re handmade, probably by a local artist. There are seashells set along the table too, in between the place settings and around the glasses. 

 “It is lovely,” you say, admitting it begrudgingly as Lloyd basks in your praise. “Thank you, Lloyd.” 

 “Anything for you, Princess.” He purrs. “We’re all family now.” His grin makes something cold settle at the base of your spine, and you watch as he turns to the host. “A bottle of Prosecco for the table, please.” He leans in close, and whispers loudly, “And a bottle of sparkling cider, please.” You wince. Your parents are also still blissfully unaware of your condition, and you certainly don’t want LLoyd tipping them off. You glare at him, but either he doesn’t notice, or he doesn’t care as he gestures at the the table. 

 “Please, sit, everyone.” Lloyd holds court like Ransom does, and you hate to admit that you find him equally enthralling. He’s just as good at telling stories, at commanding rapt attention, just like your husband. Ransom pulls out a chair for you, and you feel your face heat. He still makes you feel like a giddy newlywed, even though you’re staring down the barrel of two years in just a couple of months. You sit, and Ransom takes up residence at your right. Much to your chagrin, Lloyd sandwiches you in on the other side. 

 You stop yourself from shooting him a sharp look—there aren’t any assigned seats at this table, and unfortunately for you, it seems like no one else is privy to your discomfort, all seating themselves without issue. You try to ignore him, propping open the menu. There are little English translations underneath the Greek, and you squint, trying to see them in the low light. 

 “Would you like some help, Princess?” Lloyd asks, and you hate that his voice manages to be silky smooth even through the thickness of his Boston accent. A glance at Ransom tells you he’s trying to engage your brother, and surprisingly doing a fair job of it without your help. Lloyd’s thigh brushes up against your own as he scoots closer, his arm going around the back of your chair while he leans in close. 

 He smells like Ransom.

 The thought is unsettling. They’re probably wearing the same cologne or something, but either way, you don’t like not having an additional physical tell. 

 “All of the seafood is down here —no fish for you, though, right, Princess?” He hums amusedly. “Red meat here, chicken here, pasta, and salads.” 

 “Thank you.” You smile curtly at him retreating a few inches to the other side of your seat. To your dismay, he follows. His fingers brush your bare shoulder as he presses in tighter. You know that to anyone looking, it seems like he’s helping you. You aren’t sure why you feel differently, like there’s a different sort of intent simmering underneath his innocent touches. 

 “Oh, any time.” He lingers for another second or two before settling himself firmly back into his seat. You release a breath you didn’t know you were holding. 

 Fifteen-thousand dollars. You purse your lips, pushing the thought back out of your head with effort. Ransom’s hand covers yours, and you turn to him gratefully. The conversation around the table falls to a low hum as the waiter approaches. When the orders are all taken, you see a look pass between Ransom and Lloyd, one you don’t understand. A thin tendril of jealousy curls in your gut, even though you don’t want it to. They’re brothers, twins, of course you can’t be privy to every aspect of their relationship. 

 It doesn’t stop the sting, though. 

 Ransom stands, clearing his throat as he clasps his hands behind his back. 

 “I just wanted to thank you, Phil, Bonnie, Don, Kathy, Nathalie, for joining us. Family is… very important to me, to my brother and I,” he gestures at Lloyd. “And I know blending two very different families is difficult, at best.” He looks at your father when he says it, and to your surprise, he nods. Ransom produces a black velvet box from his pocket. You feel your breath catch in your chest as he turns to you. 

 “When we first started dating, I remember you told me you were looking for something solid. Something forever, and I quote ‘like my parents have.’” Your eye darts quickly over to your parents to gauge their reaction. Your mother’s lips curve up into a soft smile, and even your father looks rather touched. “You told me about how hard things were, when you were younger, the way your parents sacrificed everything to make sure that you could stand here, with me, now, and I thought to myself ‘those people gave me the greatest gift, and they don’t even know it’.” He laughs, shaking his head a little. 

 Ransom pushes his chair out of the way, and walks around to the other side of the table where your mother is sitting. 

 “This is for you. It isn’t anything compared to what you’ve given me,” Ransom looks lovingly at you and warm pride fills you at the sight. “But it was the best I could do.” He places the little jewelry box in front of her. “Please, open it.” 

 “You really didn’t have—” Your mother goes silent, covering her mouth with one hand as she looks at your father. “Phillip, I…” 

 “How did you get this?” Your father’s voice is tight with emotion as your mother reaches with trembling fingers into the box. Threaded between her fingers is a delicate silver chain, with a heavy looking pendant—a locket, hanging from it. You recognize it, but only because you’ve seen it about a dozen times in all of the family albums. 

“We-we sold this.” He lets a disbelieving little laugh as your mother holds it up. “We had to. Two babies, and another on the way—we couldn’t let them cut off the power, or the heat, so…”

 “It was my grandmothers,” your mother’s voice is thickly laced with tears as she places it carefully back into the box. 

 “Well, when she told me that, I thought maybe I could track it down. I had to enlist my brother’s help, of course,” he says, nodding in Lloyd’s direction. “Couldn’t have done it alone.” 

 Lloyd nods graciously in a way that tells you he’s pleased. “Amazing the things you find when you’ve got high enough clearance.” 

 He winks. Your mother is openly crying now, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin so as not to muss her makeup too much. To your astonishment, your father’s eyes are wet too. And though he doesn’t shed any tears, you don’t mistake it for anything less than complete astonishment and gratefulness. He stands up and sniffs, his mustache wiggling above his lip as he walks over to your husband and hugs him, clapping him loudly on the back. 

 “Welcome to the family.” He pats Ransom again between the shoulders with a clap. “Son.” 

 Fifteen-thousand dollars. 

 Your father nods at Lloyd before sitting back down, and your mother carefully tucks the jewelry box into her purse. 

 “Government clearance, huh?” Don says, nodding respectfully at Lloyd. “What’s that like?” 

 Ransom sits back down beside you, and you turn to him, squeezing his hand as he settles back in. Servers come out with drinks, and suddenly the table seems more lively than it was ten minutes ago, the terrace brighter and more welcoming against the starry night and dark sea. You feel somehow disconnected from it all, though, as though a glass pane stands between you and everyone else as the thought rings again in your unwilling head—fifteen-thousand dollars. 

 “I can’t believe you found that for my mom,” you say quietly, and Ransom smiles at you, shrugging. “That was like, ten Christmases worth of gifts all in one.” 

 “Do you think that means I can skip ten Christmases?” He asks, and you laugh, shoving at his arm. 

 “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

 “I didn’t know if we were going to be able to get it. Plus I didn’t want Nathalie getting it out of you.” You know you should feel happy, this is a big stride, and a happy night. You want to be happy. And most of all, you want to believe. You want to more than anything. Because you already know where you’ll end up if you don’t. 

 You know where the thin, winding thread of that distrust leads, and you don’t even want to think it. It’s such a silly chain of if, then’s that you don’t want to follow it all the way through to the end, not when you can be happy. 

 Because if Ransom is lying, then it wasn’t him on the plane at all—

 It was Lloyd. 

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[sixhours]

happy birthday, baby girl - birth day

Ellie has never had a birthday. Joel can fix that.

Series masterlist | Read on AO3 | In progress

Rating: Teen Chapter tags: The Last of Us, The Last of Us (HBO), Joel and Ellie, Ellie Williams, Joel Miller, birthdays, swearing, canon-compliant, angst, mentions of childbirth and babies Words: 5.4k

Notes: A bunch of birthday one-shots loosely based on this headcanon. This might be a five-times/one-time fic in disguise, it hasn't decided yet.

Ellie comes out of sleep to the sounds of a house waking up.

Knocking. The crackle of oil in a skillet. A door opening, footsteps downstairs. Murmurs, low voices, Joel’s and…someone else.

She squints at the clock on her nightstand; 6:35 . Her alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. Grumbling, she pulls the blanket back over her head to try to shut out the noise and almost manages it…but then she hears the telltale tread of boots on the stairs and a light knock before her bedroom door creaks open.

“Mornin’, kiddo.”

She turns over and glares at Joel, haloed by the hallway light. He hesitates at the threshold; he always does. This room has a history for them, ugly pink stripes and all. Sometimes Ellie likes that it still makes him uncomfortable after all these weeks in Jackson, worries at it like a canker sore with her tongue.

“C’mon, man. It’s too early.”

“I know. But that was Tommy downstairs–looks like Maria’s havin’ the baby.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘bout what he said,” he mutters.

“So like…right now?” she asks, sitting up and pulling the comforter to her chin.

“Not quite. She’s in labor.”

“How does that…work?”

He blinks and gapes, that same stunned look she saw in the rearview mirror when she asked about Bill’s dirty magazines. “How…uh, they didn’t, uh, cover that in–”

“Gross, dude. No, I mean how does that work here ? Is Maria at the clinic, or…?”

“Oh, right,” he breathes, shoulders sagging. “No, she’s at home, there’s a, uh, midwife, I think. Won’t bring the doctor in unless things go bad.”

There’s a sinking, twisting feeling in her stomach at that. She’d known Maria was pregnant, of course, and she knew how babies were born. FEDRA school was shit, but every kid with a uterus started hormone shots when they hit puberty, and they made them watch that one awful childbirth video every year as an extra deterrent. Until now, with Joel standing in the door and talking about things going bad, she hadn’t connected the dots.

“But…things look good, right?”

“Oh, it’s…yeah, kiddo, everything’s gonna be fine,” Joel says, his voice registering a bit too high to be believable. “Tommy said everything’s fine, Maria’s good, baby’s fine…nothin’ to worry about. It’s…gonna be…everything’s gonna be…fine.”

That’s way too many “fines” for things to actually be fine. He follows this abysmal performance with a smile that’s so thin it’s practically transparent. Maybe she’s imagining it, but she thinks she can see his eye twitch. Sometimes she wonders if he knows he’s a bad liar or if he’s really fucking clueless.

“Look, I know I said we’d go camping tomorrow, but I gotta change plans,” he continues. “Tommy needs someone to cover his patrol shifts, ‘least for this week.”

“Oh,” her face falls before she can rearrange her expression into something neutral. “Alright.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo, I just…he needs us right now.”

“I get it,” she shrugs.

“Promise I’ll make it up to ya once they have his rotations covered, alright?”

She shrugs again, swallows hard. This is so much to process and she’s just barely woken up.

“I gotta go, gotta get the horses ready,” he says. “I’ll leave breakfast. You good to get yourself to school?”

“You mean like I do every day?”

“Right,” he nods. “Okay. Should be home for dinner–”

“Whatever,” she says flatly.

“I–”

“Dude, I’m fine,” she groans, throwing herself back into the bed and yanking the covers over her head. “Go.”

He lingers for a moment, then sighs. “Have a good day, kiddo.”

“Bye.”

She waits until she hears the screen door slam and Joel's boots on the porch steps before tossing off the blanket in a huff. There’s no way she’s getting back to sleep now. Stupid Joel and this stupid family and their stupid baby–

No, no, she takes that back, bile rising hot and thick in the back of her throat. No, the baby needs to be okay, Maria needs to be okay, they’ve lost too much already. Her disappointment over the camping trip wilts and withers in the face of a worst-case scenario. All she can hear are Joel’s paper-thin assurances– fine, fine, fine .

She lingers in bed long after her alarm has gone off, throwing on her jeans and a shirt in a rush. Downstairs, she pointedly ignores the plate of scrambled eggs and toast and sliced apples Joel left on the stove, suppressing a gag at the smell of fresh coffee in the air. Her appetite is fickle at the best of times and this is definitely not the best of times. She shoves her feet into her shoes without bothering to tie the laces and grabs her backpack from the hook by the door.

The other Miller house is surprisingly calm as she steps onto the porch. She half expected to hear Maria’s cries of pain echoing across the street, but the place is quiet, nothing to suggest this is anything but an ordinary day.

She drags her feet all the way to school, earning a look from Mrs. Abraham when she creeps into class just after the first bell, and the next two hours pass in an agonizing crawl. Every time she looks at the clock at the front of the classroom, the minute hand seems to taunt her, barely moving at all. Twice she puts her head down on her desk just to feel the press of the cool wood against her forehead, twice she gets a light poke on the shoulder and a frown from the teacher in warning. While Mrs. Abraham drones on about quadratic equations, all she can think about is Joel’s pathetic attempt to reassure her this morning– everything’s gonna work out fine , yeah, right.

Dina makes it worse by cornering her in the hall between second and third period.

“I heard someone’s gonna have a new cousin soon.”

A cousin.

Ellie doesn’t respond, pretending to look for something at the back of her locker. Dina isn’t so bad…usually. She’s one of the few who’s made an effort despite Ellie’s clear attempts to blow her off. But right now, the last thing she needs is her chirpy, Polly Positive bullshit.

“So d’you think she’ll have the baby today, or–”

“How the hell should I know?” Ellie snaps, slamming her locker door. “I’m stuck here, same as you.”

“Jeez, what’s your problem?”

Ellie doesn’t answer, just brushes past her and makes for the bathroom as the third period bell rings. Fuck it, she’ll skip. Mr. Henderson manages to make science boring as shit, anyway.

Once the halls have cleared out, she sneaks out the back of the school and escapes into the yard, trekking past the school garden and the little kids’ playground toward the greenhouses. The raspberry bushes are thick this time of year, mostly picked over, but they make a good place to hide. She crawls between the rows and plants herself toward the back, out of sight of the gardeners working in the greenhouses and the fields on the other side. Her stomach growls and she plucks a few of the forgotten, overripe berries from the lowest branches, letting them burst with tart sweetness on her tongue. The juice stains her fingers a bloody red, dampening her appetite as quickly as it came.

She pulls out one of her comics and tries to read, but the story is too familiar to hold her attention. While Dr. Daniela Star is preparing to take on the threat posed by a strange alien lifeform, her mind keeps drifting back to Maria, to hormone shots, then to Dina’s words.

A new baby cousin.

“Cousin” implies Tommy is her uncle and Maria is her aunt, which means Joel is her…well, what the fuck does Dina know, anyway?

She shoves her comic back into her bag and flops onto her back in the dirt, wincing at the brightness of the summer sky. Her shoulders are sticky with sweat and she scratches at her scar over her sleeve. She wonders what Joel is doing. He only started patrol shifts a couple weeks ago, but every time he leaves, a hollow knot of worry takes up residence behind her breastbone.

She wishes desperately for her old Walkman, that she could put on some headphones and crank up the volume to drown out her thoughts. Instead, she watches a bumblebee dip and buzz among the raspberry branches, finally alighting on a leaf. She digs her fingers into the soil to feel the cool earth and takes a deep breath the way Joel showed her–in for four, hold for four, out for four. The knot loosens a tiny fraction.

When she can't listen to her mind run in circles any longer, she heads to the cafeteria for lunch, blending in with the line of kids coming from school. It’s her favorite today, grilled cheese and tomato soup and carrot sticks, but one bite of the sandwich sends her stupid stomach roiling. She chokes it down with a glass of water and a spoonful of soup, but spends the rest of her lunch break picking her food into tiny pieces that she can’t eat. She pockets the carrots for Shimmer and leaves before anyone notices.

She fully intends to skip the rest of the school day and hide in the hayloft or the greenhouse until her shift at the stables, but no such luck. She’s passing the school when she hears a familiar voice call her name.

“Ellie Williams.”

Mrs. Abraham is standing at the edge of the schoolyard, beckoning her over with one crooked finger.

“Fuuuuuuck,” Ellie groans, but she turns around and trudges back.

“A little bird told me you weren’t here for third period. You were missed.”

Ellie scowls. “Was it Dina?”

“Actually, it was Mr. Henderson,” she says, cocking an eyebrow and biting back a smirk. “He said there was, and I quote, ‘a distinct lack of foul language’ during the lecture on climate systems. Like I said, you were missed.”

Ellie bites her lip, thinking fast. “Joel said he needed me for something after lunch.”

“Your dad is on patrol today,” she says wryly. “I know this because so is my wife. No one has radioed.”

Fucking fuck.

“Yeah, but he told Tommy and–“

“And I know your uncle and aunt are otherwise occupied,” she continues. “I heard all about it from Dr. Tsu at lunch. Very exciting, you’re going to have a new family member soon.”

“I guess,” Ellie mutters.

“Tell you what,” she says. “I won’t tell your dad that you skipped class if you go straight to Mr. Henderson and pick up your make-up work after school–”

“Fine.”

“ And you have to promise not to skip the rest of the day. Deal?”

The question in her tone is meant to make it seem like a choice, but Ellie knows better. If she tries to cut class again, Joel will hear about it. He probably wouldn’t even care that much, but he’d be annoyed at having to deal with her teachers. The last time she got in trouble, he’d pulled the, “I’m not mad, I just know you’re smarter than that,” card and that had felt worse than any punishment.

Ellie stares at the ground and gives Mrs. Abraham a tight nod, digging her nails into her palms.

“Good. Now, let’s get you back where you’re meant to be.”

Ellie rolls her eyes and stomps into school, back to her next class. Dina gives her a what the hell look when she takes her seat in a huff, but at least she keeps her big mouth shut.

The rest of the day drags on in a monotonous slog. Her knee won’t stop bouncing, eraser end of the pencil tapping frantically on her notebook until stupid Michael Sumner at the next desk glares at her. She flips him the bird with one nail-bitten finger.

She watches the classroom door, hoping for Joel’s broad, flannel-clad frame to appear and dismiss her early. Then she decides that would probably mean bad news, so she switches to willing him not to appear. But what if she’s wishing for him not to show up and something bad happens? She was kind of a shit to him this morning, even though it’s not his fault he had to cancel their camping trip. Sure, he said patrols were usually uneventful and “downright borin’ on the best days,” but with her luck, today will be the not-boring kind.

Fuck. What if the last thing she ever said to him is “bye”?

By the time the last bell rings, she’s ready to crawl out of her skin. She throws herself down the hall, doesn’t bother to pick up her science homework. She slams through the double doors and outside into the warm sun, desperate to get away.

At least she has stable duty to look forward to. As soon as she enters the barn, the familiar scents of fresh hay and leather polish calm her a little. She slings her backpack down in the corner and goes straight to Shimmer’s stall.

“Hey, girl,” she whispers. “You all alone today?”

“She’s been waitin’ for ya.”

Bryce, the stable manager, speaks up from his desk in the little office. He’s a wiry old man with white hair and kind eyes who likes to joke that he’s sharper than the average breadstick, which makes no fucking sense, but Ellie gets the impression it’s not supposed to.

She smiles a little and strokes Shimmer’s velvety soft nose. “She’s getting so big.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t get too comfy in there, young miss. Need ya to muck out number three ‘fore the patrols get back.”

Ellie does, shoveling out the stall and laying fresh shavings down, cleaning and filling the water and feed troughs. When that’s done, she takes her break and spends more time with Shimmer, brushing her down and sneaking her the carrots from her pocket when Bryce isn’t looking.

Her shift is supposed to end at four, but she lingers to finish mucking out one more stall and clean the spare tack. Joel promised to meet her after, but that was before he went out on patrol. His group isn’t back yet, anyway. When the work is no longer enough to keep her worries at bay, she approaches Bryce in the office.

“Hey…any word from the group that went out this morning?”

“Nothin’ on the radio, young miss. Should be back soon, though. No news is good news.”

That’s a fucking lie, she thinks dully, going back to spread fresh shavings in the last stall. No news could mean Joel is lying dead in a ditch somewhere. No news could mean Tommy is a widower or a childless father or both. No news is bullshit.

Finally, she can’t come up with any more excuses to hang around and Bryce shoos her away, tells her to go home and wash up and get dinner. “Too damn skinny to be working so hard,” he says, and she bites her tongue on a few choice “cuss words”, as Joel calls them, because she likes the stables and she likes the horses and she even likes Bryce when he’s not being a dick.

She walks slowly down Rancher Street, dreading the unknown expanse of time until Joel gets home. It’s still daylight, but their house looms like a dark, empty shadow.

Just then, Tommy steps onto the porch at the house across the street. He’s wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt, his normally shiny curls flat and mussed, feet bare. Ellie stops short, barely recognizing the man without his denim and cowboy boots.

He doesn’t notice her at first, just kind of stares off into space, and her stomach clenches. Her feet begin moving toward him without her permission, and Tommy finally comes to when he sees her at the curb.

“Hey, Ellie girl.”

She opens her mouth, meaning to greet him, but what comes out is a rush of questions.

“Where’s Maria? Is the baby here? Is it–”

He holds up a hand, eyes tired but calm. “Baby’s not here yet, but everythin’s fine,” he says evenly.

“Oh. Shouldn’t you be, like, up there?”

He sighs and takes a seat on the top step, tips his head to the spot next to him. Tommy is familiar now, even safe, but she still sits a couple steps down, keeping some space between them.

“Just takin’ a breather,” he sighs. “Maria’s orders. Says things are probably gettin’ real interestin’ soon and I need a clear head.”

Ellie glances up at the house. “Is Maria okay? Is it…bad?”

“Oh, a little labor pain ain’t nothin’ for that woman. Don’t gotta worry about her, sweetheart,” he chuckles. “This is the easy part, everythin’ that comes after…that’s where the real fun is.”

Somehow his reassurances land right where she needs them, some of the day’s fear untwining itself from her ribs. She takes a deep breath, that hollowed-out spot soothed a little by the fresh air and the company.

“No Joel yet, huh?” he asks as if reading her mind.

She shakes her head.

He nods thoughtfully. “S’just a normal run. No news is–“

“Ugh, don’t say it,” she groans. “I know, I get it, he’s fine.”

“Okay, then,” he sighs, looking out over their street, content to sit quietly.

But her worry grows in the silence, so soon she peers up at him. “Were you there when Sarah was born?”

“Oh…yeah, yeah, I was. In the waitin’ room ‘til all hours. She kept us waitin’ awhile. Always did things on her own time like that, right from the get-go,” he smiles.

He gets the same soft look in his eyes that Joel does when he talks about Sarah, the look that makes her heart clench. She wonders if there was anyone in the waiting room for her, if there was even a waiting room at all. Probably not, on both counts.

“I was the first one to hold her…after her mama and daddy, of course. Weren’t much older than you are now,” he says, still smiling, though there’s a slight tremble in his chin now. “Felt pretty special, though. She was so small. Joel was hoverin’ over my shoulder the whole time, all puffed up like a damn peacock.”

She tries to picture Joel with a baby and can’t do it. She’s seen his hands broken and scarred and bloody, can’t imagine them holding something so fragile, so pristine. He’s gentle with her, of course, but she’s the furthest thing from pure.

“That girl had us both wrapped around her little finger from day one,” Tommy murmurs, then nudges her shoulder with his knee. “Not unlike another kid I know.”

She stares at her hands, all ragged cuticles and chewed fingernails. Then footsteps at the door, the midwife’s voice calling from inside. “Tommy? She’s asking for you.”

“You alright on your own?” he frowns, visibly torn. “Your old man should be back any minute–”

“I’m fine,” she says quickly, wiping her palms on her jeans and standing up. “Good luck, I guess.”

He gives her a tired wink. “Here goes nothin’.”

She makes her way down the little walk, resigned to returning to the empty house across the street, when she sees a familiar figure turn the corner at the end of the cul-de-sac. Relief spurs her forward until she’s practically running at him, colliding with Joel in the middle of the road.

“Whoa…easy, kid.”

She buries her face in his chest, traitorous eyes welling with tears. She presses into him harder, wraps her arms around his waist and melts even more when she feels one big, rough paw come up to cradle the back of her head.

“Everythin’ alright?” he asks carefully.

“S’fine,” she mutters, still clinging to him like a barnacle. “Baby’s not here yet.”

“Ah. Well, takes time, I guess.”

She sniffs. “Tommy said things’re good, though.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says, murmuring low into her hair. “Sure you’re okay, kiddo?”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbles, throat tight. If she tries to say more she’ll start bawling, so she holds on tight and waits for her heart to settle. When she finally pulls back, he’s watching her with concern, but he doesn’t ask questions and he doesn’t mention the tears now drying on the front of his shirt, thank fuck.

“How was patrol?” 

“Nothin’ special. That Jesse kid got his horse caught up on an old perimeter fence, took a while to get ‘im loose. How was school?”

She shrugs, wipes at her eyes. “Stupid. As usual.”

That earns her a smirk.

“Why don’t we go back to the house and get cleaned up ‘fore dinner?” he wrinkles his nose. “You smell like a horse.”

“You smell like an asshole,” she fires back, but her smile betrays her. That hollow under her breastbone is full. The scary things always feel lighter when she’s with him.

“Takes one to know one, you little punk,” he mutters, giving her ponytail a gentle tug as they walk back to their house.

After showers, they head to the caf to get dinner. It’s busy tonight, the dining hall aromatic with the smells of garlic and fresh-baked bread and thrumming with friendly chatter. Ellie’s stomach gives a loud growl as they wait in the serving line, and she eats her fill of vegetable soup and goes back for more, dipping her buttered oat bread in her bowl so it soaks up the last of the broth.

“Slow down,” Joel chides as she’s slurping up her second bowl of soup.

“But m’starving,” she mutters, mouth full of bread.

“If y’ate your damn breakfast–”

She blinks up at him, shoving another giant hunk of bread in her mouth.

“Yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice,” he sighs.

“Wasn’t hungry then,” she counters. “M’hungry now.”

Several people approach them while they’re eating to ask about the new baby, to ask how Maria and Tommy are faring, and to send their well-wishes. More than once, Ellie has to stop shoveling bread and soup into her mouth to tell them what she knows.

There’s custard for dessert with fresh whipped cream, and when she finally puts down her spoon, her jeans feel snug and she thinks she could fall asleep right here in the middle of the caf, with Joel at her side and a full stomach and the buzz of conversation around them. She leans into him and lets her eyes close, comforted by the familiar softness of his t-shirt against her cheek. She must have drifted off, because soon Joel is nudging her awake.

“Hey, sleepyhead. Time to go home.”

Home.

Joel grabs extra food from the kitchen before they leave, a jar of vegetable soup and packets of baked chicken and warm crusty bread for Tommy and Maria. They walk back to Rancher Street with the food in a tote, prepared to leave it on the porch, but Tommy sees them coming and meets them outside, a little breathless.

“Y’all wanna come meet the new kid in town?”

She feels Joel tense at her side and the day’s nerves resettle like a heavy stone alongside the food in her stomach.

“You have a niece, big brother,” he says, clapping Joel on the back and pulling him into a fierce hug. Ellie has to look away because the mushy stuff makes the sinking feeling worse. Then Joel’s hand is on her shoulder, squeezing like he needs something to hold onto.

“C’mon.”

They’re ushered upstairs and into the bedroom, lit by the glow of a single lamp. Maria is sitting up in bed holding the new baby, tired but smiling.

“It’s a girl?” Ellie asks, unable to stop herself from leaning over the bed to peer at the swaddled bundle. 

“A girl,” Maria confirms, carefully angling the baby so Ellie can see her face, all scrunched up, poking out from the soft yellow blanket. “She’s had a hard day, but she’s eight pounds of pure spitfire.”

“Just like her mama,” Tommy preens. “You wanna hold her?”

It takes a moment for Ellie to realize he’s talking to her.

She hesitates until Joel gently nudges her forward. “Go ahead, kiddo.”

She’d held babies at the orphanage, but never one so new. She’s nervous as Tommy places the baby in her arms.

“Hold her head, just like that; neck’s a li’l floppy.”

She does, cradling her with one hand on her bottom and the other supporting her neck. The solid weight and warmth of her against her chest is soothing. The baby seems to melt into her, settling with a stretch and a sigh under Ellie’s chin.

“What’s her name?” she whispers, absently stroking the back of her head the way Joel sometimes does with her.

“Isabel,” Maria says. “Isabel Sofia.”

“Hi, Isabel,” she whispers against the girl’s curly brown head. “I’m Ellie.”

“S’your cousin, baby girl,” Tommy says, touching Isabel’s back, and the word falls around Ellie’s shoulders like a shirt that doesn’t quite fit. The baby gives a tiny, sleepy grunt, and a new feeling swells and burns bright as a comet in Ellie’s chest.

Joel leans in the door frame, arms folded, expression unreadable in the low light. He hasn’t said much, just a few murmured words to Maria asking how she’s feeling, offering to help while she’s recovering. All the while he’s watching Ellie and the baby with wan hesitation. She looks over at him, grinning.

“She’s all wrinkly…just like Uncle Joel.”

Tommy doesn’t even try to suppress a snort of laughter. Even Maria is hiding a smile behind her hand.

“Yeah, laugh it up,” Joel grumbles. “You see how you look when that one’s fifteen an’ turnin’ your hair gray with her sass.”

“Dude, you were old waaaay before you met me. Like a fuckin’ dinosaur.”

“At least half these grays have your name on ‘em, kid.”

“Bullshit,” she says easily, but she’s already lost interest, too busy examining the little hand that has escaped the swaddling blanket. “Whoa. She’s so tiny. Joel, come see!”

“I saw, kiddo. She’s, uh…she’s real pretty.”

“Gets that from her mama too,” Tommy says, and Maria rolls her eyes.

“Thomas Miller, save your flattery for when I’m not wearing a goddamn diaper.”

“Never looked more beautiful, baby.”

“Your parents are gross,” Ellie whispers to Isabel; the baby sleeps on, unconcerned.

When the conversation wanes, she looks up to find Joel still eyeing them. 

“You gonna hold her or what?” she asks.

He winces, and for a moment, she thinks he’s going to say no. Then he ducks his head in a nod.

“Alright. Give her here.”

He scoops up the baby with practiced ease and tucks her against his chest. There’s no awkward fumbling, none of his former hesitance. He sways on his feet, looking down at the little girl, whispering something Ellie can’t make out. He smiles then, a sad but inescapable thing, and she feels that stone in her stomach grow and grow, all their earlier light-hearted teasing forgotten.

She watches his hands, big enough to span the baby’s back, rubbing in slow circles, and she realizes she was wrong. Those hands had been broken and bloodied for her, they’d killed for her, but they were made for this.

When the grown-ups start talking about Maria’s maternity plans and patrol schedules and how the council will get by for a few weeks without her, she slips out of the room and goes downstairs.

She wants to run. She wants to curl up on the couch and sleep. She wants Joel to hold her like he did earlier, palm to the back of her head so she can hide from the world.

It’s too much; the phantom weight of the baby on her chest and the comet within, your cousin , the smile on Joel’s face even as he looked like he wanted to cry. Isabel was barely two hours old and she’d already embedded herself in their family, slotted into place like a missing puzzle piece. It’s not jealousy–it’s not–but the thought of Joel’s hands on the little girl’s back fills her with a yearning she doesn’t have words for.

She finds herself standing at the mantle.

Sarah, 7/20/89 - 9/27/03

Kevin, 4/3/00 - 9/29/03

Without thinking, Ellie grabs a match from the box on the hearth and lights it, touching the head to Sarah’s candle, then to Kevin’s before blowing it out and tossing the blackened remnant in the fireplace. She watches the twin flames flicker and burn like the candle on her birthday cake. It is a birthday, after all. They should be part of it, too.

Then, a shining reflection out of the corner of her eye. She turns toward it, watches as the polished glass of the picture frame reflects the dancing fire.

She’s been over every inch of this room; every weekly family dinner with the Millers ends with Maria and Tommy on the couch and Joel in the chair and Ellie browsing the bookshelves while they talk. She’s cataloged every memento and salvaged family photo because there are so few.

But she’s never seen this one before. She definitely would have remembered it.

It’s Joel–a young Joel, no gray in his hair, fewer wrinkles around his eyes, god she almost doesn’t recognize him he’s so fucking light . His hip is cocked, a grin so bright it’s blinding, one arm slung around a young girl’s shoulders. She’s making a goofy face, throwing a peace sign, braces flashing in the sun, soccer ball at her feet.

There’s no doubt who she’s looking at. The love in Joel’s expression gives it away.

Sarah.

She gets it now; the pain on his face, the hesitation. Sarah would have looked a lot like the little girl upstairs.

Joel’s familiar steps on the stairs, the warmth of him at her back.

“Oh.” It’s less a word and more a sharp, punched-out breath.

She hunches a little, looking up at him over her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I just…it was right there, I didn’t–“

“S’alright,” he murmurs, resting a hand on the nape of her neck in reassurance. “I just…wasn’t expectin’ it is all. You didn’t do nothin’ wrong.”

“That’s her, isn’t it?” she whispers.

He takes the photo from her hands, examining it. “Yeah. That’s…that’s Sarah. Soccer tournament in ‘02, think it was.”

“Where did it come from?”

“Tommy went back to Austin a couple years ago, I guess. Found it at the old house. Said there wasn’t much left, but this one was in a drawer or somethin’. Showed it to me when we got here, but I told him…told him to keep it. Couldn’t…didn’t think I could, uh…have her around,” he whispers thickly, brow furrowed.

A sad smile pulls at the corner of his mouth as he hands the picture back. “S’a good one, though. We can put it up at the house if you want. Think I’d…think I could be alright with that…now.”

He notices the candles on the mantle then. “You, uh…you light these?”

“Seemed like the thing to do.”

“Yeah,” he breathes. “It’s…that’s good.”

She shrugs, staring at the photo again, studying it like an archaeologist looking for meaning in the rubble.

“I’d never seen her before,” she says carefully, chewing at her lower lip. “She doesn’t look like you.”

“Yeah…got that a lot,” he chuckles. “Got her mama’s looks and my attitude. An’ let me tell you, arguin’ with a miniature version of yourself all day ain’t as fun as it sounds.”

She pictures a pocket-sized Joel with a chipmunk voice yelling up at her and almost cracks a smile.

“Was a lot like you that way,” he continues. “Too smart for her own damn good and no filter on that mouth.”

He nudges her, quietly letting her know he’s teasing.

“She was all mine, though,” he murmurs. “Through an’ through.”

Mine .

The word sends another pang of longing through her, so strong she shudders. He must pick up on it, because he squeezes her shoulder gently, shaking it a little.

“Hey. That goes for you, too.”

She doesn’t have a response for that. She’s been reduced to the weight of the frame in her hand, the lump in her throat, the comet in her chest, the stone in her stomach.

She goes easily when he puts an arm around her and pulls her into his side, warm and safe and slotted into place like a missing puzzle piece, a mirror image of the photo she holds in her hand.