#death row romeo

[richardsletters]

"Dear Mary

Hi long time! I did write you last but never heard back from you. Maybe someone stole my letter at your place? I got your letter. Thank you for the 2 pics. You look great as usual! :P No I dont write to that many people! Certainty not females as beautiful + fine as you! Yes your pictures did arouse me ! :P Nope can't recieve panties here, but sure wish I could get yours though! For Xmas I'd like some sexy pictures of you. On all 4's with the back of your feet showing + your butt in the air. Then some close ups of your feet. Can you do that for me? Happy Holiday's to you babe! <3 How's your roomie doing? I bet its cold there now? Did the hurricane miss your area? Seen any good movies lately? Been to any concerts? Are you working? Had any great adventures you care to tell me about? Write soon I know Im thinking of you and so is me dick. :P <3

Richard "

[frogyjones-art]

My Death Row Romeo <3

[nelkcats]

The Phantom of the Opera

Jason had hobbies, despite what his siblings believed. One of them was as simple as reading while the other was a bit more...private. It wasn't that he was embarrassed, he just wasn't used to sharing it.

The crime lord loved musicals and theaters, he liked going to plays often, escaping patrols just to see a novice actor perform the life of Mr. Darcy, or the death of Romeo. It was such a simple thing, but one that filled him with joy.

So, when he was invited to a "new" and "unique" play he went immediately. The bright green paper on the ticket didn't seem so strange to him, even though he had never heard of "Amity Park" before.

Unlike Jason, Danny hated musicals, plays and so. But his friends were convinced that it was the best way to introduce "ghosts" to society, a way to counter the GIW and make it look like they were harmless (and had feelings). Danny rolled his eyes, but agreed that having a ghost playing "Phantom of the Opera" was hilarious.

What wasn't so funny, was being forced to play the lead in the play, as Phantom was the only one willing to risk such a thing, but he managed it somehow. The grin Clockwork kept sending him didn't give him a very good feeling, but he ignored it.

Most of the people in Amity seemed to be thrilled to see their hero doing something other than fighting after years. Some of them weren't so pleased, though.

Jason had been to a million plays before, but none in such a strange theater, the lead actor also seemed to be stealing his breath away. He frowned as he felt the pits stir after seeing him, but he was determined not to let that ruin his night.

Of course, when they were halfway through the play something had to go wrong: someone in the audience shot the lead actor (What the fuck?), and Jason got to watch in the front row as the boy watched the attackers in pain as he pressed on his wound, which was bleeding the same green as the Lazarus pits.

Well, that's definitely not how he expected his night to go.

[crueltyserpent]

It was thirty minutes into the start of the English class when Cassidy Roswell stood up from her seat, grabbed Bianca Lee by the hair, and began to slam her hear into her desk repeatedly. At the front of the room, Miss Perlie stifled a frown and continued to drone on about the meaning of the biblical illusions in Frankenstein as if anyone could hear them over Bianca’s panicked screams.  Sitting in the seat behind Bianca, Penelope King doodled idly in her journal, occasionally looking up at the whiteboard full of notes and the murder happening in front of her. It was going to be a long one, she knew, this type of blunt force trauma could take twenty minutes to make the poor girl go quiet.  Penelope didn’t know Bianca too well, they had a few classes together, been in a group project with her in eleventh grade to put on a version of Romeo and Juliet styled on the X-files (Penelope idly mused that now that Bianca was going to die only one other member of the group was still alive), but Penelope had nothing but good things to say about her. Maybe other than her screams for help were among the more annoying she had heard- Penelope knew by this point that calling for desperate help wasn’t something that someone could suppress just because they knew nobody would listen if they could help it, but it was still frustrating to hear a dying girl scream your name as her skull began to fracture. Penelope redoubled her attention to her doodle, adding another level of detail, and not really able to add to her notes much over the noise.  Bianca wasn’t the first person Penelope has seen die that day- some tenth grader had been drowning in the janitors mop bucket as she had gotten her books from her locker, but that at least had shut the victim up. Specks of blood occasionally splashed onto Penelope’s notebook over the next few minutes, thankfully as Bianca’s murmurs began to die, the front of her face caving in. Penelope wished she could wipe the blood away, but it seemed like too big a risk, and with Bianca dying soon, it seemed like this might be a somewhat uneventful death. 

              Penelope immediately cursed having the audacity to think this as Cassidy got up, pulling the limp Bianca to her feet, slid a pair of fingers into the dying girl’s mouth, and, with a single, violent motion, tore her jaw clean off. Blood sprayed, thankfully not hitting Penelope’s eyes but splattering all over her notebook, chest, and lower face, a coppery taste immediately in her mouth. It was a miracle she didn’t flinch, but the girl to her left, Francine, wasn’t so lucky, letting out a small gasp.  Cassidy turned, and Francine swore. Cassidy gently put Bianca’s jawbone down next to Penelope’s notebook, and lunged. Penelope couldn’t afford to look, acknowledging she was noticing anything was wrong would just make her next, so she merely doodled over bloodsoaked pages as she heard Francine’s muffled screams, clothes being torn, and the sound of a pencil being jabbed through soft flesh. A few short minutes later, Cassidy uttered a guttural growl that ended in a sigh.

              “I’m good. It’s over. I’m good.” She said in a raspy voice, catching her breath.  Penelope turned, seeing the girl sitting exhausted on top of Francine’s mutilated body, soaked in ichor with a wild look still in her eyes. 

              “Thank god. Christopher, go call the janitor, will you?” Miss Perlie said, and a boy in the front row nodded and walked out. Penelope turned, picked up her phone, and took a picture of her blood splattered desk- her friend Helen loved this shit, and would be so excited to see the jawbone. She texted it over, then lifted the jawbone up for Cassidy to see.

              “You sure went wild, Cass.” She joked.  Cassidy shrugged tiredly, but looked at the jaw with a hungry expression.  When coming down from a possession, it was still hard to view what one had done as anything but a pleasant indulgence. Penelope had been possessed twice- one in tenth grade, killing her chemistry teacher, and one earlier that year, killing three girls in the changeroom during gym, and was familiar enough with the feeling to try and offer Cassidy some help.

              “Don’t play with corpses, Penelope. You and Cassidy head to the showers, you’re soaked.” Miss Perlie ordered. Cass nodded slowly, looking at Penelope, no doubt thinking of the sight of Penelope killing a girl in those showers. 

              “Yeah.” She said slowly. “Let’s go.”

[heartbreakgrill]

‘violent delights…’: elijah mikaelson pt. 1.

a/n: forced to make this into two parts cuz i broke tumblr…and the second will be up tomorrow :)

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description: take romeo and juliet, but romeo is elijah mikaelson, juliet is a lounge singer, and the thing dividing them is the sexist owner named fred. playlist.

request: @theoriginalariamonroe ty for letting me have creative freedom xoxo

warnings: lots of blood, violence, injuries, cursing, misogyny, cringey romeo and juliet references. allusions to an ab*sive relationship, mentions of death, etc.

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"ladies, gentleman, creatures of the night-"

a soft roll of laughter rumbled through the crowd as the club announcer's voice dropped low, with the tease of horror.

then, the renowned owner, fred lavigne, continued, his figure outlined in the dim, lavender stage lights, "please put your hands together for the one and only...juliette dupont!"

every body filling the walls of the club jumped to their feet, whoops and hollers filling the space between  the music. it sung out from the speakers surrounding the stage, curling into the air sweetly, soulfully.

juliette dupont, dressed in her infamous purple evening gown, stepped into the same-shade spot light, the smoky air around her creating a hazey vision of beauty. she reached a gloved hand out before her, and wrapped it around the microphone displayed on its stand. the lights grew brighter as the music raised in volume. the club attendees were still glued on their feet, though their cheering quieted slightly. they anticipated her voice to cut through the night, ears practically perked like dog's.

then, she started singing...

"he left no time to regret-"

juliette's hip popped, hand poised perfectly on her waist, as the band intruded the rhythm of the song with a rehearsed beat, loud, teasing. the band held the note, juliette sayed still. the crowd cheered again in the intermittent silence.

juliette's lips curled into a smirk, anticipating her next phrase- "kept his dick wet-"

another pop from the drums. another pose. another cheer.

the tease continued, until they reached the 4th line of the song, "me and my head high...and my tears dry...get on without my guy!" by that line, the band was in full swing. juliette was commanding the entire room, swaying and swooning with ease, like she was the director of the room. everyone moved to her accord. she said jump, and they flung themselves.

juliette couldn't see much beyond the front row, due to the stage lights blinding her from above. but, the door to the establishment opened, drawing her gaze for a split second from the blaze of streetlights through the threshold. a figure stood in the door, emblazoned by the street lights. then, as the door shut, she lost sight of the tall, slender man. she continued on with her song, moving her eyes over the blackened crowd, gracefully. others came, but very few left the building- they were all entranced.

said man stood just inside the building for a moment, taking in the smokey club before him. he'd never been here before. he usually frequented his own part of town- but his family was starting to find him in even the tiniest nooks and crannies, so he was adventuring out, looking for a night cap.

he was happy he had picked this establishment. because, standing here, with this angelic voice singing softly through the speakers, he felt somewhat peaceful. though the music banged in his ear drums, and bodies pushed past him, the singer made the environment heavenly. his eyes lingered on her face, watching her glossy lips caress the crowd with gentle notes, words so carefully falling from her throat. she was absolutely beautiful.

and, her name was in big, purple LED lights beside the stage. juliette dupont. in all his years on this earth, he'd never met a juliette before. it was almost shakespearean, literally and figuratively. he was encapsulated by the singer, like romeo. may these violent delights have but violent ends.

the man took a seat at the end of the bar. he ordered one bourbon, on the rocks. and he curled into the dark corner, like a practiced star fixated in the night sky, like he belonged to the darkness. he planted a palm against his chin, and continued watching intently at the performance before him. he examined juliette's curves, shortly, before focusing on her face. she had soft, delicate features, but they were cut somewhat sharply by the makeup she wore.

juliette's eyes, a color the stranger could not recognize beneath the lights, scanned the audience. the dark figure was there, sitting just at the edge of the glowing round of the splot light. she swore they met eyes, and she played into it. that was her job- demand the audience, seduce them with her voice. she leaned forward slightly, one heeled foot dug into the stage before her. her manicured fingers wrapped around the mic, shoulders wriggling rhythmically. draw in the customers, rig their money. she was the siren, the club was a vast ocean. and she sung.

he smiled lightly at her, pleased at their interaction. she sent a wink towards the handsome stranger. he tipped his glass towards her, before she averted her attention again. it was nothing special for her, though he was attractive as he was. but, she couldn't focus on one person.

elijah reveled in the moment.

fred had moved back to his alloted seat behind the bar, slouched on a stool, coaxing back a glass of whiskey. he didn't pay attention as his employee sang- he never really did. he concerned himself, mostly, with alcohol, and bills. green ones. within the next few moments, like a hamster on a wheel, he'd start counting the drawers again, hastily checking to ensure every single penny was correct- only to end up in his pocket later that night.

but, before he could greedily count his coins, a fist rapped on the counter, just once, loud enough to make fred flinch. he glanced over his shoulder. the server was at the other end of the bar, mixing some drinks. so, fred turned back to his money. he licked his pointer finger and went to flip through some bills. but the same knock resounded.

"bar tender'll help you out, buddy," fred's real voice, not his practiced stage-play one, was gruff, southern drawled, and slurred. he tossed it over his shoulder.

the figure shook his head, a curt no. "no, thank you, sir. i'm not looking for a drink."

the club owner stood and faced the man. fred, many feet shorter than his overly-confident presence, shuffled about. he planted his hands on his hips, jutted out his beer belly, as if it made him taller. stiffly, "what are you looking for, huh?"

elijah mikaelson stepped forward, splayed his palms against the counter, looming, "a name."

fred's eyes searched the man's face, sharp edges and all. he thought elijah was scary looking. off-putting. "whose?"

elijah turned his head, locking his eyes on juliette dupont, who was now finishing up that opening song. she stood, breathing heavily in the bright spotlight, one hand poised against her waist, the other straight in the air, with the wrist limp and fingers curved up at the tips. powerfully feminine.

elijah beamed at her pose and, as the music for the next song wound up, he switched his eyes back to fred. "hers."

the club owner scoffed, lifted his depleting cigarette butt to his lips. "yeah, right, buddy. get in line."

fred turned back to his whiskey and went to take a drink of it, when that same fist knocked the counter again. he turned around, examined elijah's annoying smile. he knew his intentions. they were all the same. besides, fred didn't like trouble- and this creature of the night reeked of cautionary tales.

because he didn't like elijah's demeanor, he rambled off, growly, "listen, buddy, i know you're looking for more than just a name. i'm here to tell you to get in line. it'll never happen. and before you ask, she's not up for sale. we're a professional establishment, thank you very much." that was  a lie. fred sold- somewhat innocently- her and the other's singer's companies constantly. the crowd work frequently extended beyond the stage. any regular at the establishment knew that. but, fred knew this man wasn't a regular.

elijah lowered his gaze as he laughed, "i don't want to buy her company." silly suggestion on fred's part.

he couldn't help but feel slightly relieved. elijah was good looking. attractive men always disrupted business with fred's singers. the club owner flicked his cigarette onto the counter carelessly. a fleck of ash landed on elijah's wrist. fred watched it burn his skin with a satisfied smirk. elijah, whose eyes were still downcast, slowly looked up. fred's eyes lingered on the burn that disappeared within seconds.

fred, off-put, met the man's eyes. they were dark, stormy. fred took a step back, fearful. elijah smirked, "i just want to buy her a drink."

the club-owner waved two frivolous hands, denying any and all possibilities. another lie. and his hands were shaking  a little bit. "that's not going to happen, buddy. this ain't no strip club-" it had been, before fred was shut down, and he evolved the terms of his establishment under legal circumstances, just over 4 years ago.

elijah tilted his chin, smoldering down at the powerless man. "no?"

"no," fred took his turn to smolder. he slammed his palms onto the counter, "if you keep bugging me, i'll get security to throw you out. so you either sit down and shut up, or we can handle this outside."

elijah was, slightly, taken aback by the little man. fred was full of anger, and it amused elijah, to a point. he worried, though, for her- juliette. for her, and the other women who worked with her. for their safety. surely an angry little boss like fred caused problems quite freqeutnly. especially when he doesn't get what he wants.

elijah moved back to his seat at the end of the bar, frowning now. he ordered another drink and sipped infrequently as her set continued. when it came to a slow-burning end, elijah rose to his feet, clapping his palms together with everyone else. the lights rose slightly, allowing juliette to get a better look at the crowd. she blew kisses, red lips smudging on her fingers. a few people tossed flowers onto the stage.

fred eyed elijah, suspiciously, wandering if the creep would try anything. fred downed his liquor, and braced himself. he looked away for a moment, back towards his money. when he looked up, elijah was gone, his empty glass the only sign he'd ever been there. the owner looked around, wide eyed, and freaked out by the man's quick departure. he looked around the building, but didn't see him anywhere. fred shook his head of the worry thoughts. he had more important things to concern himself with, like his money, and his bourbon.

juliette continued thanking the crowd, joyous from the praise. she delighted as roses were thrown on the stage. the singer reached down to grab one, eyes still burning from the bright stage lights. her hand landed on another. she drug her gaze up from the ground, meeting the deep, midnight glance of the man before her. he held a purple rose between his pointer finger and thumb, a sweet smile on his face. elijah offered the flower to the singer. she smiled- a real, genuine grin- and took it from him. he quickly caught her other hand in his, holding her gaze as he placed a single, butterfly-awakening kiss against the back of juliette's hand.

and elijah thought to himself– "what's in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

-

a few weeks passed sine elijah's first appearance. since then, he'd only frequented the club once or twice. he knew fred was suspicious of him. so he needed to keep some distance.

the performer looked for him every night. it was a pleasant surprise each time she spotted him at the end of the bar, in his self-proclaimed 'spot.' she would toss him a wink, a sweet smile. he would bring a single purple rose, kiss her hand, swoon her at the end of her set.

but he never tried for a conversation.

until tonight.

"thank you all for being so kind. all my love, new orleans! goodnight!" juliette sunk into her practiced bow, and she picked up a bouquet of red roses from the edge of the stage.

as she departed the stage, she stuck her nose into their silky embrace, inhaling the scent gratefully. it was one of her favorite parts about performing- soaking in the applause, the adoration. and the crowd's praise. the validation made her heart alight with valuation.

she thanked her band members in passing, on her way to her dressing room. and, when she finally shut the door behind her, her grin dropped. she was stone-faced. the singer slipped off her heels, shimmied out of her evening gown. she changed into a sweatshirt, leggings, fuzzy, socks. next, she sat before her vanity and began washing her face free from the makeup caked there. when she was finally finished getting undone, she tugged her bag over her shoulder, headed out the door.

the singer didn't have to stay tonight, didn't have to continue her painted smile. it was a rotated schedule between her and the other girls and tonight, luckily- if that's what luck was- she got to go home to the comfort of her bed and her cat. though she loved the crowd, she didn't like the individuals within it. many tourists saw the club as an attraction. but, maybe half of the club-goers were regulars- slimy, creepy men, with too much, time, and hormones on their hands.

fred was behind the counter, pouring over his money, as per usual. she pushed the divider up and back down to reach him. she splayed an empty palm in his line of vision once she was stopped at his side.

fred grunted in greeting, "next time, doll."

she took a deep breath, urging patience to find her. her fingers clasped shut, empty hand falling beside her. "you promised i'd get it tonight. i need groceries, fred."

he stood from his stool, barely an inch taller than her.. but, his attitude made him a dark tower, a controlling presence above her. "next time. we're short tonight."

she crossed her arms over her chest, "whatever." she pushed her way out from behind the counter and headed for the door. just as she exited the building, out onto the bustling streets of new orleans, she met eyes with a familiar figure.

elijah pushed off of the wall where he had been waiting, smile poised so sweetly on his face. if fred wouldn't tell him, he would find out for himself. "good evening."

she shifted slightly, arms loosening around her stomach. "hello." those dark eyes met hers again. they shone slightly under the streetlights, but the crevices of his pupils were dark. it was sweetly enticing- these stormy clouds he carried around. familiar butterflies tickled the girl's stomach. and she smiled.

he stepped towards her and held out his hand hand, "we haven't had a chance to meet. my name is elijah."

she lay her hand in his, watching as he bent forwards by his waist and kissed her knuckles. she liked when he did that; a responsive blush heated her face, "i'm y/n." 

"ah?" he begrudgingly dropped her hand. her skin was warm, soft. "no juliette?"

y/n shook her head as she shrugged. "juliette's my stage name."

elijah's head nodded curtly, "ah, of course. well, y/n, i wanted to tell you that i thoroughly enjoyed your performance tonight. you are a fantastic singer."

y/n was used to compliments. when she'd go into the audience after shows, drinking with strangers, faux flirts dripping off her cherry lips, that's all she'd here. and she had to pretend like everyone's words were original. then, they tipped her- fred would take most of the money- and it drew back their business. she was more than used to people shoving their adoration down her throat with repetitive phrases.

for some reason, some strange twist of fate, those words on elijah's tongue sounded like a unique penmanship, like he was the first man to create words, syllables. he was the first human to see her standing there.

additionally, she'd never even told anybody her name before. she was never supposed to- it took away the appeal of her stage persona. and fred would have a cow if he knew she was talking to a  customer, sharing explicit details of her life. she felt that elijah deserved to know, like he was worthy.

besides- she couldn't think about fred when elijah was talking to her, looking at her like he was.

"thank you," she brushed her hair behind her ear, perfectly done curls that were patted down with hair spray beginning to loosen on her shoulders, "it's nice to meet you, elijah." 

a crowd of tourists pushed between them. y/n laughed loudly as she and elijah locked eyes, forced to back away to make room for the stomping escapade of people. she waved slightly, an assurance that she was good, and she wanted to come back in front of him once the group passed. elijah tilted his chin, grinning. y/n then glanced around and spotted an open spot against the wall to the shop next door, free of bodies. she met elijah's eyes again and pointed towards the gap. he nodded.

"sometimes i forget how busy it gets," y/n laughed as she pressed her back into the wall.

elijah stood beside her, shoving his hands into his pockets. "it's a busy city."

"yeah," she breathed out. the moment made her dizzy.

y/n looked up at the man, still chewing on her lip. she was sheepish, especially when elijah tilted his chin back down to take her in. "how long have you been performing?" his dark orbs searched her vision.

y/n blew out a raspberry, cheeks puffing out cutely from the expression. elijah beamed as her personality started to shine through. she thought, "'bout 4 or 5 years now. since i was 18."

he nodded encouragingly, intrigued, "that's a long time to be doing this. especially so young. you must be exhausted."

"oh, you wouldn't believe," she rolled her eyes with a short laugh, "but it can be rewarding." plus, i don't have a choice, y/n thought to herself. she bit back the notions- she couldn't go trauma dumping on this stranger just because he was attractive. and kind.

beats passed, as elijah ventured through her eyes again. he noticed a hesitation there, a loneliness, twisted within the exhaustion. she was lying, just a bit. so pushed past her uncomforted feelings and boldly asked, "i know this is...sudden, but may i take you out for something to eat? you must be famished after such a night. and i want to continue our conversation."

y/n glanced behind her shoulder, lips parted in a wanted response. she bit down on her bottom lip, pained, as she spotted fred through the window in the front door. his face made her remember her place. "i'm sorry," y/n  turned back to elijah, "i can't. i've gotta get home. feed my cat."

elijah smiled, tight-lipped, "that's alright. another time." he couldn't lie- the rejection stung. but, he wondered if her look towards fred was the actual reason.

she couldn't help but grin at the handsome man before her. "another time."

elijah's smile opened up. so, it was because of fred. he was going to have be careful. more than he already was being.

after y/n bid farewell to her new friend, she watched him walk away, moving carefully, elegantly, through the crowded streets. her chest pattered, heart skipping a beat, her stomach whirling. elijah heard the rhythm of her navel, he nearly laughed at himself. don't get too hopeful, he thought.

y/n knew it would never happen. it couldn't. fred had eyes everywhere, all over new orleans. and fred liked to think that y/n- juliette, whomever- belonged to him. it was a star-crossed affair, and she should jsut let it go before it grew into conflictual belonging.

y/n made herself remember on her walk home what was at stake. a singular, fleeting moment couldn't be worth all the money she owed fred. no, it was probably worth her life.

–

another night, another crowd.

y/n stood backstage, feet aching in her 4 inch heels, toes crushed by the pressure of the deep arch. she swayed from foot to foot, the length of her dress balled up in her fist. she fanned herself generously, as sweat formed on her upper lip, between her armpits.

fred stood in front of y/n, peering around the curtain of the small stage, like a giddy child. "i think this is our biggest night, yet, baby."

she stood beside him, nearly coughing in the air of his cheap cologne, and followed his gaze to the crowd. the club was full to the brim, bodies lining every chair, every inch of wall. a small smile painted her cherry lips. the nerves vanished. this was what really made her stay- her debts be damned. this was what kept her alive sometimes. the rush of the room, the spike of adrenaline in her veins.

"that's so exc-"

"listen," fred turned back to her, grabbing either of her biceps as an interruption of her excitement, "you better give your best tonight, kay? stick to the music and the script. no funny business between sets."

y/n's face fell slightly. she tugged herself out of his hands, let her dress fall back around the dirty floor. last night, she had ad-libbed a few lines, told a joke to the crowd. she had forgotten she was juliette, and laughed a little too loudly. like y/n did. fred chewed her out after the show, threatened to hit her with a raised hand. she was a cog in his frivulous machine.

"okay."

fred patted her cheek with his palm. she flinched hard at the familiar positon. he ignored it. "alright, dolly," he flashed a thumbs up, and stepped out onto the stage.

she listened intently as he spoke to the audience, her heart aching from the interaction. ee never wished her good luck anymore- so she should just get over it. but, she missed when the magic was shared with someone- when she had support, a fan who knew her heart beyond the stage. fred used to be that person for her. he really did used to be more loving towards her, too. things changed, she supposed. stress, money, owning clubs like he did- it changed him. or perhaps the more obvious excuse she tried not to focus too much on was that he was just a manipulative ass-

"juliette dupont!"

she painted on her smile, strutting onto to the stage and into the lights. her body went numb with presence, dissociating from any nerves she could've felt, any sense of identity she had offstage. she shed her old skin and filled out the mannequin onstage. juliette began singing her signature song, moving along to the beat of the band.

towards the end of her song, the front door popped open, and in moved a tall, familiar figure. y/n's heart skipped a beat, and she missed a pose as the song moved faster. she caught herself, smile never faltering as she performed the song. nobody even noticed the mistake.

she couldn't see elijah anymore, as the spotlight arched over her body, binding her vision. but her eyes wandered the shadowy, smokey figures of the crowd, trying to find him. to find his comforting presence.

it was no use.

by the end of the set, y/n was feeling jittery. she wanted to speak to this familiar stranger again. she wanted him to be outside the club, leaning against the wall, with kind words lingering in the fleeting air between them. the way he looked at her- the way his brown shimmered in the moonlight. it all made her giddy with anticipation.

but she knew she couldn't.

so, she stopped herself in her tracks. y/n had gotten in her head. she took deep breaths, eyes fluttered close, caged her thoughts back to work, her job, her money, and fred.

y/n bee-lined for her dressing room, peeling off her heels. fred appeared through the stage door, though, cigarette in the corner of his lips, whiskey glass spilling as he hobbled to her. "uhuh, doll," he wiggled a finger. "you're on the floor tonight." he was wasted.

she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, brows furrowed, disappointed. did she read the schedule wrong? "i thought it was fiona and delaney."

"delaney did last night. it's your turn, baby. get out there and make daddy some money," fred moved closer, and wrapped an arm around her waist.

y/n shuddered a deep breath, trying not to focus too much on his grip, his reek of cologne and alcohol. "okay."

fred squeezed her hip, "that's my girl."

y/n slipped her heels back on, raising her nearly half a foot taller than fred. he really was weak- tiny. yet he made her feel so small. he winked, finally took his hand from her waist. fred hobbled, back out the door to the club. y/n rolled her shoulders back, taking a deep breath, before following his blazoned path.

a few club-goers cheered as she stepped out of the door, painted grin greeting them. juliette blew kisses and waved delicately. a few men crowded around her, drinks offers being thrown around like paper confetti; careless, insubstantial offerings. she let them touch her, her waist, caress her cheek. juliette took pictures with a few tourists, signed some of the photos fred sold up at the bar. he was right there beside her, plucking cash from people's hands like a bird pecking at seeds on the ground. juliette let two men guide her to the bar.regulars. fred shambled after them, demanding sums of moneyto touch her.

elijah was watching from the other end of the bar. "ironic," he mumbled to himself. so, fred did like to sell juliette's time when the men weren't 6'0 tall and intimidating like elijah was.

elijah coaxed some bourbon down his throat, and as he swallowed, his eyes focused in on juliette. y/n. he didn't care about the men showering her, or fred. just her. she slid upon a stool, tilted her head back to laugh at something one of the slimy men said. she carried herself so wonderfully- like a gust of wind, controlled yet somehow free-flowing. her hair shone under the dim lights of the club, ringlets caressing the curve of her neck like a kiss. he couldn't see her eyes very well, but he knew they were probably still full of life, so wondrously bright and warm.

god, she was beautiful.

he turned his head forward and waved a finger at the bar tender. the server strutted over, leaned upon the counter, "another bourbon, sir?"

elijah curtly shook his head, pressing his chin into the palm of his hand. "no, thank you. would you send a cosmopolitan, for the beauty at the end of the bar. and, could you somehow make it purple?"

the bar tender followed elijah's gaze as it focused on y/n. he chortled, and pointed to fred, "the owner charges $10 extra on drinks for the performers."

elijah leaned back in his stool, and tapped his fingers against the counter. "purple cosmo, please."

so, the bar tender went to work, mixing the lavender-hued drink quickly. elijah continued to watch juliette. who grinned, accepting a drink offered to her from the man on her left. it was a shot of tequila. she cheers-ed with the club goers, before tapping the shot glass onto the counter, and tilted her head back to slide it down her throat- no! she tossed it over her shoulder, emptying the liquid onto the floor behind her. elijah saw fred roll his eyes at her antics. the former man bit both his lips, holding in a pleased laugh. that was y/n.

then, the bar tender moved down the counter, setting the drink before juliette. she pressed a hand over her heart, thanking him graciously. elijah watched her cherry lips form the question, "who's it from?"

the bar tender pointed to elijah. then, fred, the two men, and juliette followed his finger. elijah dipped his chin, raised his glass in a short wave, grinning. fred rolled his eyes, again, and the two men beside juliette looked between each other grimly. oh, did elijah feel pleased with himself.

y/n's smile brightened, her hand raising and waving wildly with excitement. fred reached a hand forward and pinched her side. she seemed to remember herself and her hand dropped to her lap. her smile stayed.

elijah watched as the two men went back to stuffing her ears with their voices. his face was a little warm with anger at fred's balls.

but, as she admired her drink, absentmindedly nodding along to the men, elijah could care less about anybody but her. she wrapped her pretty red lips around the straw, and took a sip of the liquor. it left a red lip print on the straw.

she looked over, again, towards elijah, and her heart sunk when she saw his seat was empty.

fred followed her gaze, glaring. he added this second disappearance to the list of reasons why he ought to watch out for the strange customer.

he had suspicions- and god forbid he be right. elijah would have more to worry about then catching y/n's affections.

–

elijah was there every night from then on. he watched from the same stool, nursing the same glass of whiskey, wearing the same, glowing grin. almost every night, too, he gifted y/n with a purple cosmopolitan. she was always grateful for the drink. it was just enough alcohol to get her through the conversations with the men who crowded her. and it was beautiful. purple was her favorite color. that was the only part of her character that was true to y/n- the color scheme. lavender, the hazey color of tender romance.

and she couldn't help but admit that she enjoyed his presence. it was growing ever-friendlier. comforting. consistent. when she felt anxious on stage, rigid during her visitations, she simply found his gaze. and his sweet smile would coax her down. she barely knew anything about him- but you could always tell the type of person based on their eyes.

and his were like a golden-brow ray of sunshine, piercing her with homeliness.

elijah always left after sending her the drink, though. she would look for him, down at the end of the bar, after taking a sip. and his seat would be empty. it was touch and go- a gentle routine, one that tickled y/n. he wasn't demanding her attention, her time. he wasn't flashing his money and stealing her company with dollar bills.

elijah was just there- a fixture. a fly on the wall.

it was strange, to say the least. but she enjoyed their game of cat and mouse. y/n anticipated the day they would speak against, the day she'd walk out of the club, and he'd be waiting for her, leant against the wall. to hear his voice was to be seen. she wanted him to ask her out- even if she'd have to reject him. she wanted to know that elijah craved her like y/n yearned for him.

she'd catch these lights before they flew away from her. at night, she'd scribble them all down in the journal. try to be mindful throughout the day, and and ignore them as they pecked at her skull. 

however, one night, when he ordered her drink, he slipped a note to the bartender. a napkin, filled with messy, scrawled handwriting. elijah knew he was on thin ice. he knew fred was watching him carefully. he kept telling himself he would lay off, stop coming around so much. but, then he'd see on that stage, sitting at that bar. and he'd forget danger. forget about anything but her.

the bartender, a friendly coworker to y/n, made sure fred was looking away when he slipped it to her. "parting is such sweet sorrow that i shall say goodnight till it be morrow."

y/n grinned wider than she ever thought possible. it was a passage from romeo and juliet. so, elijah seemed to be a hopeless romantic. it only made the thoughts stronger, her affection fonder. it made it much more difficult for her.

fred peered over shoulder. luckily, y/n heard his breathing before he could peek a glance at the note. she stuffed it down her bra. when she got home, she pinned it on the white board stuck to the front of her fridge.

the next day, before the show, she started rereading romeo and juliet.

-

a month had passed since he first introduced himself. since he first began viewing her shows. and that day, that non-existent, yet treasured anniversary, was going to prove to be the day y/n had been waiting for.

y/n walked out of the club, a little giddy because fred had given her a bigger pay out than usual. she had planned on it using it to buy a new book she'd been eyeing. and tomorrow was her day. her focus was pointed down, at her purse, as she shoved the wad of cash into her wallet. the door pushed open at impact to her shoulder, and it swung shut with a soft click.

a throat cleared to her left, and y/n flinched harshly at the sound. she looked up from her bag, jaw clenched with fear. her gaze met elijah's, warm from his smile, and her shoulders relaxed.

"you scared me," she grinned, busy hands dropping to her sides.

elijah stepped forward, arms crossed behind his back, suit pristine and sharp. "my apologies, y/n."

her name, her actual name- not some stupid stage-name- sounded so beautiful. it shivered her heart. "it's okay."

elijah hesitated before continuing, "how are you?"

y/n thought for a second or two. it wasn't often that anybody asked how she was. club goers wanted to know only a handful of things- if she would do a shot, what she was wearing beneath her evening gown, or if she would sing their favorite song. nobody ever asked how she was. not fred, not the other girls, who were jealous of her spotlight. her cat couldn't speak much. and the cashier at the super market didn't count.

nobody but elijah had asked her this in weeks. maybe months.

"i'm...okay," she answered, honestly. a deep breath trembled off her elbows. "you?"

"i am doing well, thank you," elijah dipped chin. "i don't mean to be rude, and pester you...but i was wondering..."

y/n's smile widened as he trailed off. she'd been thinking about him for weeks, about this specific possibility. the fact that he was standing here, asking her out again- she just had to say yes. fred be damned. she wanted to be known, to know him. so what if fred cursed her out, if he hit her. the good was always worth the bad.

"im starving," y/n admitted. "there's a diner down the road. do you like breakfast food?"

elijah furrowed his brows, "i love waffles." y/n giggled in response. he was so...serious. stiff. the fact that he loved waffles was extremely adorable.

elijah stepped to the side and gestured with his hand, "after you."

they fell into step on the sidewalk, pushing through the crowds carefully. each time someone bumped into y/n, he pressed a steady hand onto her back, ensuring her steps weren't interrupted. she'd look up at him, skin scorching under his touch. and they would share this adoring smile. it was indescribable. you just had to be there.

when they finally reached the diner, y/n's stomach was growling. she was grateful he couldn't hear it. and he tried not to laugh out loud each time his super hearing picked up on it.

she chose a booth towards the back of the diner, one where the light bulb above was nearly burnt out. she ordered a water and an oreo milkshake. elijah asked for a coffee.

y/n laughed after he ordered his drink. he looked to her and rose a brow, "what?"

y/n tucked her hair behind her ears, "a coffee? this late? are you going to be able to sleep?"

elijah shrugged, "i don't sleep very often."

y/n crinkled her nose, "insomnia?"

elijah shook his head. "i just...don't like to."

she giggled again, "o...kay. well, tomorrows monday. so, don't you have work? you need sleep to work."

elijah shook his head again. "i don't work."

"you're very strange. and cryptic. you're not a serial killer, are you?" she pointed to him accusingly, a smile on her face. she knew he had to be rich, rich if he could afford those drinks he bought her every night and not work. not that she cared much about money- she was just trying to know him better.

elijah swallowed another laugh, "no, no. i promise i'm not. and; i know i'm strange. i apologize for that."

"you don't have to apologize. im strange, too."

the waitress set their drinks down upon the table. y/n reached for a straw, opened it, and took a big swig of her milkshake. her real personality was forming, tried and true before him. it was so pleasant.

elijah stirred some creamer into his coffee as the waitress asked, "y'all ready to order?"

y/n laughed, quickly opening her menu. "i forgot to even look."

elijah watched her face as she scanned her eyes down the pages of the menu. she felt his gaze and glanced up, "look at your menu, weirdo. she's waiting."

elijah looked to the waitress, who popped a hip and crossed her arms. she was very annoyed, even though the diner wasn't busy. elijah quickly dipped his head and flickered his eyes across the menu's pages. he sneakily peeked over the top at y/n, whose menu was already folded in front of her. she blushed as they met eyes.

"i'll just have two chocolate chip pancakes. and a couple chicken strips. please?" y/n handed her menu to the waitress, averting her eyes from elijah's. "thanks."

the two women looked back to elijah, who was still flicking through the menu. he looked a little stressed by the pressure their gaze enforced. y/n reached forward, tugging the menu out from beneath his gaze. he looked at her, a little stunned. she handed it off to the waitress, "he'll just have three waffles. yeah?"

elijah stared blankly, "s-sure."

"cool. thank you, ma'am," y/n called after the waitress, her southern accent bleeding through more noticeably. the latter woman flicked her wrist back at them.

y/n crossed her arms over the table in front of her. she propped a chin up on her fists, gazing curiously, "so...elijah."

he tilted his head, a grin creeping up on his face. she looked so beautiful in this faded lighting. "y/n?"

"tell me about yourself!" she raised her hands. "you're, like...my stalker. and i don't know anything about you."

elijah chortled, "there's not much to know."

"don't be cryptic or else i'll leave," y/n warned with a pointed finger.

elijah sat back, leaning his wrists on the edge of the table. "might i ask why you agreed to this?"

y/n shrugged, resting her arms again. "i'm intrigued by you. you come in every single night, and you never speak to me. you just buy me a drink...like what kinda game is that?"

he replied, "i enjoy your singing. and...i don't want to be non-gentlemanly by hovering like those people do."

y/n drug her eyes over his face, squinting slightly. "...are you, like, one of those self-proclaimed nice guys?"

elijah furrowed his brows, taking a sip of coffee despite his confusion. "a...what?"

"you know," y/n crossed her arms, "guys who think basic social expectations deserve to be rewarded with sexual favors. like, if you're nice to be during this conversation, and you pay for dinner, you're gonna expect me to send you a picture of my boobs later."

elijah's bottom lip fell from his top, brows drawing tighter together, wink king his forehead. "people like that exist?"

y/n widened her eyes, smiling at the exchange. "what century are you from?"

she scanned his face as his eyes flickered. her smile faltered- wait- why did he look like he was actually from a different century?

"are you- nevermind." y/n began to sarcastically inquire before cutting herself off with a laugh. he was weird, and she loved it.  "just look it up online."

"what is the online?" he cleared his throat, hoping she would move past her suspicious looks.

y/n simply burst out laughing, bent forward over the table, her shoulders shaking. elijah couldn't help but grin. her laugh was ridiculously cute.

"the online?" y/n emphasized. "no, it's just online. the internet. the web. you can look stuff up there."

elijah oh'ed, pink lips parted. then, the waitress interrupted the moment by placing their before them. hungry silence filled the space between them as they settled in with their food. y/n took a big bite, and elijah started cutting up his waffles."

"so...anyways-" y/n started,

elijah matched her words, "anyways-"

their eyes latched onto one another. they laughed.

"go ahead," elijah waved at her with his fork.

y/n chewed, covering her mouth with her hand, and swallowed before continuing, "so...now that i know you're a time traveler, i'm completely sold. tell me about yourself. full name, age, why you are weirdly rich but don't go to work...go!"

elijah looked thoughtful. he wiped the corner of his mouth with a napkin, and answered, "my full name is elijah mikaelson. i am 30 years old. i have...investments that don't require my full attention. so, i spend my time trying to live a fulfilling life. literature, film, music. i enjoy it all. plus, this city is full of culture. and i am but a consumer."

y/n smiled, watching him speak. he was just...ethereal. interesting. then, elijah motioned to her with his coffee cup before taking a sip.

"oh," y/n cleared her throat, "mine's not as fun; i'm y/n y/l/n...uh, i'm 22. i unfortunately do not have the luxury to explore the city. in fact, since i moved here four years ago, i've not once stepped outside of my district. i go to work, sometimes the bookshop below my apartment, and home. that's all. though, i'd like to use your time travel powers sometime to slow the world down for me. i need a day to myself, ha."

elijah frowned as she finished rambling. "so, you've never explored the city?"

y/n shrugged, "nope. i don't have the time. or money."

"do you get any days off from the club?" elijah inquired.

"usually sundays. just that one day, though."

elijah set his fork down, wiped his mouth with the napkin again, and dropped his hands to his laps. he looked...annoyed? "how much do you even get paid?"

conventionally, that was a rude question. but elijah wasn't offensive. y/n could tell. "enough for rent. fred takes the rest," y/n's throat tightened a little. she looked down at her plate.

"and why does he do that? that's money that you obviously work very hard to earn. he can't just...take it," elijah demanded. he was starting to hate this fred guy.

y/n clutched her fork, "uh, he can, actually. it's just...complicated." she went silent.

elijah didn't press. he could tell that y/n was uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. so he laid off. he asked her a question about this bookshop, and enjoyed the shift as her face lightened up with a bright, beautiful grin.

but, he couldn't help but feel uneasy. he wondered if he should actually start hanging around more, and make sure that this fred character wouldn't lay a finger on her.

he would simply not be able to live with himself if anything happened to y/n, he decided within that moment. his own safety didn't matter anymore.

–

they were risking everything.

fred would not be happy with her for going to a diner with a customer- a man, someone who wasn't him. and he definitely would not be happy to learn that their friendship did not stop there. he would be furious to know that she saw him again and again.

but they couldn't stop it, the snowball.

the second of many was on another night like before. he asked her on another diner date. y/n, rightfully worried about fred, told him no.

"but you can walk me home?" she counter-offered, after an anxious glance over her shoulder. fred's body guards were littered by the door, the bar, and the stage. fred himself was counting money furiously.

they could stick to the edge of the sidewalk, against the buildings, in the dark. no one could see them if they kept moving. yeah, that could work. she could have her cake and eat it, too. this could be okay.

elijah pursed his lips, the small smile on his face tugging one onto y/n's. "as long as you'll let me carry your bag."

y/n giggled, holding up her purse. "you can handle the strange looks from tourists?"

oh, if only she knew what elijah had been through. carrying a woman's purse was nothing compared to all he'd done and all he'd seen. it was a walk in the park, almost literally.

and, so he walked her home, carrying her pink purse confidently over his shoulder.

they talked and talked and talked. so much so, that, at certain points, y/n would run out of breath. elijah would chuckle as she'd interrupt herself with an, "oh, my gosh, hang on-" and take deep breaths. and, then, she'd jump back into a story from her childhood.elijah chimed in, here and there, but she devoured the conversation.

and he could not mind it. becauae elijah was qucikly convinced she could read him the bible and he would become a devout christian just because she had religion on her lips.

"this is me," y/n interrupted herself once she noticed her apartment was right there in front of them.

she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her jacket, a blush rolling over her face. she always hated saying goodbye- it was corny, and awkward.

elijah stood, holding onto the strap of her purse, admiring the bookstore before him. "this is a beautiful building."

y/n grinned. he appreciated ordinary things. "i think so, too. im very lucky to have landed it."

elijah turned to her, handing off her purse. "i'll have to stop by sometime and meander the bookstore."

y/n nodded, "you should! it's a hole in the wall. but, they are closed on sundays. and that's usually my day off- not that you were at all suggesting you wanted to come with me. sorry, that was-" y/n blushed deeper, annoyed at her own suggestive thoughts.

"i was," elijah interrupted. of course that's what he meant.

she looked to the cheeky smile on his face. "well, maybe i'll talk to fred and see if he'll let me get a different day off."

"you should. he really should give you more days off anyways. it's unethical," elijah replied, letting his own thoughtful opinions spill. he noticed that comment made y/n uncomfortable. she bit her lips and looked, uncomfortably, down at the sidewalk. elijah made a note to never mention fred, and picked back up the conversation's original subject, "i am interested in knowing what books you enjoy."

"you can always tell the type of person by the type of book they like," y/n finished his probable thought. "well, i know you like romeo and juliet. but, what is your favorite book?"

elijah appreciated that she was dragging this out. he stepped to the side as a person came running down the sidewalk, bright neon pants suggesting he was exercising. he touched y/n's shoulder, reflexively protecting her. his fingers lingered for a second, basking in the warmth bleeding through her jacket from her skin.

he sheepishly dropped his hand, "the stand. stephen king."

"you're so hot," y/n slipped out. she shocked herself, and her jaw fell open for a moment. then she saw the blush paint over elijah's cheeks, and the goofy smile he wore in response. she grinned widely, giggling at her own foolishness. "sorry. that is just a really good choice."

elijah chuckled, too, shaking his head. he rubbed a hand against his cheek, willing away the red there. "thank you?"

they continued to laugh for a moment or so, before y/n continued, "mine is little women."

elijah nodded approvingly, "a classic. so are you of the belief that jo and laurie should have ended up together?"

y/n frowned deeply, scrunching her nose, and shaking her head slowly. "if they ended up together, it would have ruined the entire premise of the story."

then, she watched his eyes for a moment, and her face slowly fell as she recognized the shame swimming within his dark pupils. "no...elijah- no!"

he grinned cheekily and shrugged. "what can i say? im a sucker for friends who become lovers!"

"yeah, me, too- but- but- no! no, you can't!"

their argument didn't end there, not by a longshot. they spent a minutes- probably closer to about 20- just countering each other's points for their personal beliefs. though he thought she beautiful, she just could not sway him.

then, y/n happened to look down at her phone screen and she was shocked by the time. they bid farewell. she rushed upstairs after closing the door to her steps. he had waited until he heard the lock to her door click to. she watched him from the window. he lingered on the sidewalk with that handsome grin on his face. he kicked a rock across the concrete, before shoving his hands in his pockets, and beginning to walk away.

y/n smiled brightly, and let out a soft sigh. elijah's ears pricked up at the sound. he turned back towards her apartment, and spotted her in the window. y/n gasped as he met her eyes. she fell to her knees, praying to whatever god that he hadn't seen her.

he simply bit back a wider smile, and continued on his way home.

–

a week had passed since the walk home. elijah, begrudingly, stayed away from the club. he didn't want to risk y/n's safety too much. it pained him to not see her face, though.

so, he finally started coming back. the week without his face was awful for her. she was hopeful each time she went on stage, and that hope got diminsihed by his absence. when she spotted him there, in his spot, she couldn't help but grin.

he beamed back, raising his glass to her.

then, they saw each other throughout the week, at the club. elijah continued to buy her drinks, and y/n continued to exchange longing gazes across the bar. he'd always leave too soon, and although y/n wished he would stay, she knew that it was for the best. fred would grumble in annoyance elijah's deserted seat every night. he was suspicious of elijah, though she didn't know why. probably because he was handsome and made y/n shine through juliette's demeanor. y/n just hoped nothing would happen to elijah. though it would be her fault if it did. fred was...territorial. and she was practically dangling meat in front of the dog.

on saturday evening, after y/n was finished entertaining club-goers, she retired to her dressing room. she changed her clothes, washed off her makeup, and was ready to leave, go home, and enjoy her day off. elijah had not shown that night, which was probably for the best. fred was in a particularly bad mood.

a knock came from her dressing room door just as y/n was tugging her purse strap over her shoulder. her posture slumped when she turned her head and saw fred pushing through the door frame. "you're coming in tomorrow," he stated, matter of factly, with his pudgy hands on his hips.

y/n frowned, already sunken stomach even more panged, "what? no, tomorrow is my day off."

fred raised a pointed finger, and y/n flinched, taking a step back. he squinted his eyes at her, angry at her defiance, "you're coming in tomorrow. 9pm. i won't make you stay after, but i need you to perform. delaney's sick."

"well-" y/n stuttered, face red hot, "well, can i get monday off or something? i can't work this many days in a row. i-i'll get sick, too."

fred lowered his hand and thought for a moment. he sighed, as if he actually felt guilty. "fine. monday. but, you better come in tomorrow with a better attitude."

y/n tried to smile sweetly at him, though there were exhausted tears brimming her eyes. "thank you so much, freddie."

she stepped past him, ready to go home and pass out before she had to be back here. fred grabbed her wrist, halting her to a firm stop. "cmon, baby, give me some sugar."

y/n trembled under his hand, as it snaked around her waist, pulling her firmly against his side. she took a deep, shaky breath, before leaning her head over towards his and kissing his cheek.

fred hummed as she displayed the forced affection. he squeezed her hip and said, "alright, doll. get outta here."

how gracious of him.

she rushed out of the club, nearly running home, with tears streaming down her face. y/n was just so, so tired. and fred was pushing her to a limit she didn't want to reach. she wouldn't be able to come back from that.

y/n jammed her key into the door knob that opened to her stairwell, shaking still. a voice appeared over her shoulder, calm, yet laced with gentle worry.

"are you alright?"

y/n twisted her head, hair whipping across her shoulder in a frenzied fear. she let out a huff when she met elijah's eyes, relieved, "you scared me."

he flashed a small smile, "my apologies. a-are you alright? you're shaking."

y/n looked down at her hands and saw them doing exactly as he said. she laughed at herself, sniffling, "oh, god. i just- i'm tired. i'm okay. just-just tired, yeah."

elijah nodded, though a piercing in his eyes showed he didn't fully believe her. "i was going to wait outside the club, but...i think i should stay away from that place for a while. fred doesn't particularly seem to like me. i hope it's okay, i've met you here."

y/n nodded and tried to smile, "yeah, yeah, it's fine. i was actually...looking forward to see you. i-i have some decent news." a breeze whipped through the street, and y/n shivered. she tugged her jacket tighter across her body.

elijah stepped forward, waving towards the apartment, "would you like to go inside?"

she turned back to the door, where the key was hanging from the lock. "uh, no. i'm sorry. you're a friend, but i still don't know you so well. it's probably best we stay out here."

lie. her apartment was messy, and she was afraid if they were alone, within a closed confinement, she may do something she'd regret. in public it was fine, easy to remind herself that he was a million miles out of reach. but behind closed doors- there would be no way to keep her thoughts from racing, to keep her fingers still at her side.

elijah tilted his head down as if to say he understood. "no apology is necessary. so, what's this good news?"

"oh, yes!" y/n grinned and clasped her hands together excitedly, "so, unfortunately, i now have to work tomorrow-"

"what?" elijah scoffed. "but it is supposed to be your off-day."

"i know, i know," y/n waved him away, her incessant positivity bleeding through any complaints she could have, "i'm not happy about it. but, i'm gonna have monday off. so, i was thinking- maybe we could go to the bookstore. you could show me around the city a little, all the stuff i've been missing out on? o-only if you'd want to."

elijah nodded encouragingly, brushing off her hesitance, "that sounds absolutely lovely! i am very excited for monday, then. in the meantime, would you like me to stop by the club tomorrow? maybe seeing a warm face will make the unexpected night less terrible for you."

"that's okay," she replied. "fred probably knows you don't go there on sundays, so if he sees you, he might get suspicious about whether or not we see each other outside of the club..."

"remind me again why it matters what he thinks?" elijah bluntly let spill. hands sunk into his pockets.

y/n swallowed thickly, averting her eyes from elijah to her manicured nails. it was a distraction so she didn't have to let him see her shame. "elijah, you have to understand something. fred is...very powerful. and dangerous. he can do things..." she gulped and she finally looked to him, hoping it would be impactful enough for him to lay off, "just, trust me when i tell you. you don't want to screw around and find out what might happen. okay?'

elijah didn't press. his eyes lingered on her fearful expression for a moment, before he sighed and said, "okay. i won't come." he had to give this up right now so that she wouldn't feel uncomfortable. stick it in the back of his mind and pick it up later. later, when he'd earn more of her trust, and figure out a way around this bridge between what he knew they both really, truly wanted.

"so, what are you gonna show me monday?" y/n wrapped her arms around her stomach, still shivering.

elijah stared at the goosebumps on her arms. he wanted to give her his jacket, but he didn't. "the french quarter, maybe. i know you're stage name is french, so you must be intrigued by the culture."

"oh, yes!" she scrunched up her nose, "oh, i can't wait! i'm going to buy some macarons, some cheese. ooooo, wine! ugh!"

elijah was delighted by her excitement, "it pleases me very much how much joy just discussing this brings you."

y/n simply grinned back, "i'm just happy to finally have a friend, despite the circumstances."

oh, ouch. elijah couldn't deny that the word stung a bit. obviously, he knew they weren't explicitly seeing each other. but he knew it was more romantic than acquaintances. and he knew she felt it, too. her heart rate, her pheromones, her longing gazes and lost-smiles; all signs led to a sure-fire mystique. though he felt a little self-conscious by the words, he tried not to linger on it too much. but his heightened emotions made him sensitive.

"you know what i want to see?" y/n continued on.

elijah looked up from the dirty ground, met her eyes. "what's that?"

"your house," she flicked her brows up, a devious smirk on her face. "i wanna see just how wealthy you actually are."

elijah made a humourously surprised face, "really? out of everything in this city, my house? you're a strange girl."

"says you! the old weirdo with inexplicable amounts of random money." she giggled, waving her hands wildly, "besides, i always love seeing people's houses. especially in this city. the architectures really cool."

elijah nodded yes, "alright. we can do that. so long as you let me buy you dinner."

y/n rolled her eyes playfully, "are you gonna pretty woman me?"

he furrowed his brows, pursing his lips i. a confused frown. "pretty what?"

"pretty woman me..." she quirked a brow as if he should know, "oh...right. forgot you're like a thousand years old and modern references don't connect. think of it, like...cinderella. in the movie, a wealthy guy helps out a poor stripper and makes her an established members of society. are you gonna make me go from rags to riches?"

elijah shook his head, head tilted downwards. then, he peered up through his lashes, a boyish grin on his face, "my dear, i think you'd look just as beautiful to me in a ball gown as in a garbage bag."

y/n sucked both lips in between her teeth, biting back the biggest grin she'd ever felt prickling at her cheeks. a swell rose in her chest and her heart sped off. "well...i don't either of us could say anything better than that, so...goodnight, elijah."

prideful shoulders rolled back, he bid adieu. he watched her walk inside, and waited to hear the lock click on her door before leaving. y/n let out the breath she was holding.

nothing can come of nothing. but, god, this was becoming everything.

–

y/n managed to get out of the club by 3am. she raced home, showered quickly, and popped a melatonin. usually, she'd settle in for the night, let sleep overcome here. but she knew she wouldn't be able to do so. her veins rattled with excitement. at 10am, she woke up, a little groggy and very sore from the night before, as per usual. but she was too anticipation-ridden to worry about her messed up sleep schedule.

she quickly made her bed- a rarity- fed flo, and brewed a cup of coffee. as it finished it's slow drips into her favorite mug, y/n turned on some music. it was the first time in a very long time that she had woken up in such a good mood. she usually cursed the sunlight since she'd become a forced night- inhabitant.

when she was done getting ready, it was nearing 11:00. they agreed, during their sidewalk-lingering conversation the other night, that that time was perfect. the bookstore opened at that time, too. so they'd manage to get there before rush hour. and most other tourist locations opened up late, too. new orleans was a star-studded city meant for nocturnal animals.

elijah knocked on her door at exactly 11:00am. she had left the bottom door unlocked just for him. she wanted him to be able to look into her apartment, know he couldn't come in. he'd see her couch, her fridge- her things. and he wouldn't be able to touch. silly as it was, the thought of what he might be conceiving made her skin crawl.

y/n was anxiously waiting on the edge of her couch. flo perked up at the sound of the knocks and hopped down. the cat approached the door with a curious curl in her ears. y/n followed the swift cat, at a much slower pace, and lay a nervous hand on the door knob. she took a gut-deep breath, prior to opening the door.

elijah stood there, smiling brightly, in yet another suit of his. y/n noticed his tie was a different shade, though still deep and dark in color. it was a plum- an intentional purple. she bit her lip as a grin grew across her face.

"good morning," y/n spoke.

"good morning. it's lovely to see you in the daylight," he poked fun.

y/n rolled her eyes with a breathy laugh as she took her purse from the hook on the wall behind her. "oh, i know. sometimes i wonder if i'm becoming a vampire because of how little i see the sun."

elijah's face flickered, and y/n raised a brow at him. he forced a laugh, lightening her features. she blew air through her nose, as if to say, "ooookay, then. elijah pushed off the prickly feeling, the worry that she might find out, and stepped aside so y/n could join him on the landing.

still with that curious expression, y/n locked her apartment door. she turned back to him, an smile easily converting her gaze. "ready?"

he simply nodded. they trotted down the steps, and stepped out into the busy streets of new orleans. y/n sometimes forgot that new orleans was still crowded during the day. sometimes, it felt like everyone waited to come out until the night, when it was the busiest. and, oh, my gosh, was it warm! the sun felt cleansing on her face. she loved the moon, but solar power did wonders for the humab body, which was like a flower in the dirt.

elijah noticed her close her eyes, tilt her chin towards the sunlight, like a plant, and bask in it's embrace. he looked away when she opened her eyes, matching his pupils with her own. he was sheepish.

"i love the sun," y/n remarked, leading him towards the bookstore. when she caught him staring, she got giddy. it felt good to be known.

the entrance was but 50 feet from her apartment and he held the door open. "i couldn't tell," elijah sarcastically replied. she laughed over her shoulder at him.

the door jingled above them, and the cashier looked up from some papers she was shuffling. "y/n?" that lady behind the counter questioned, a surprised smile encasing her wrinkled features.

"hi, trudy!" y/n cheered, taking a few quick steps to go behind the counter and hug the older woman.

"oh, it's wonderful to see you finally! it's been months!" trudy's accent was thick, thicker than y/n's. she was shorter than either of the visitors, with silvery hair and piercing blue eyes.

so, they were close, he thought to himself. elijah easily fell into the back ground, something he was used to. he wanted to give them space. looking around at the display at the front of the store, an autobiography about some local figurine caught his eye. he flicked through it's smooth pages.

y/n and trudy continued their greetings, "i know! i'm sorry. i've been working a lot."

trudy tsked, "you know how i feel about that."

"oh, come on," y/n lowered her voice slightly, whispering to trudy. she didn't want elijah to hear. but he could, of course. "you know there's nothing i can do."

"i still don't like it, y/n," trudy scolded.

this gained more of his attention. at first, he was hesitant to eavesdrop- but, now, his senses perked up. trudy was angry, "that fred needs be locked up-"

"trudy, you know that's not gonna happen. best thing i can do is just deal with it until it's over-"

"what if it never ends? you know i still think he's lying to you..." trudy trailed off, accent deepened by her annoyance and accusations.

"i know, i know," y/n agreed, patting the woman's hand, "but i can't think like that. i have to try to be positive about my situation."

elijah held is breath. he was angrier now. these were details that y/n had never given him. he only thought the man was a misconceived threat, an overly confident gremlin with no actual power. but, this changed his opinion. he held over fear over more than just y/n. besides, he had already had bad feelings about fred- and his intuition was rarely wrong. that was a gift enhanced by his vampirism. he was a good guesser at how many candies were in a jar. he knew there was more to fred than y/n let on. maybe he should look further into the man...

he took slow, deep breaths as his hands started to shake. anger overcame his emotions, but he needed to be mindful. then, her voice broke through his focus, like a beam of sunlight on a rainy day, "that's my friend, elijah! lijah, come here and meet trudy!"

he set the book down, knuckles white from gripping its pages. as he stepped towards the women, trudy grinned brightly and rounded the counter to hug him. he held her tiny frame gently in his hands, exchanging a cheeky smile with y/n over trudy's shoulders.

"sorry," y/n mouthed, laughing.

elijah shook his head and pulled back from the lady. trudy pinched his cheeks in her fingers, admiring his... "handsome face! did you say friend, y/n? gosh, if you don't snatch him up i think i will!"

the poke at the nature of their relationship made elijah and y/n blush. they avoided each other's eyes. and trudy's. the older lady made a sigh, as if she knew something they didn't. "okay, okay. i'll lay off. what are you kids doing today?"

elijah looked to y/n, who was always more talkative than he. "we're going to do some shopping here- actual shopping, trudes. no discounts, no freebies, okay? and, then, we're going to do some exploring."

"how'd you manage the day off?" trudy inquired. she took a seat on her stool behind the counter. "was fred actually nice for once?"

y/n made a face, wide eyes with bitten lips, as if to say, 'stop it, trudy.' the older lady raised her hands defensively. y/n replied, still frowning, "he needed me to switch shifts with someone."

"i wish you worked someone else," trudy bluntly said.

y/n huffed, and began pacing the aisle behind the counter, sarcasm on her tongue, "and why's that?"

"i want to watch you sing, lovie," trudy busied herself with some paperwork on the counter.

elijah took his cue and followed y/n down the aisle. the girl hesitated on a random section, fingers rested gently on the spines of a shelf of novels. her look was downcast, like trudy's wish made her question her existence. elijah, minding his business though he had many opinions, found a world war 2 section and peered through of books lined before his fingertips.

"you can come to the club, trudes. i'll get you a little section, roped off in the corner. elijah could chaperone you, so you don't get tied up with all those younger fellas," y/n tossed her head back to wink at elijah, sinking any negative feelings she'd had.

he grinned back at her.

trudy groaned, "you know i go to bed at 8pm, y/n. that'll never happen. i wish you worked somewhere else where you could sing songs you actually want to sing, at a time of day where more respectable people can watch."

elijah hummed in agreement. he didn't notice, but y/n shot him an exasperated look. she sighed, "i'll let you know if it ever happens, trudy."

the older lady grumbled, but y/n ignored it. she got lost in the aisles of the bookstore. and they both continued wandering the aisles for an hour or so. they didn't speak to each other much, just once or twice when y/n would find something she thought elijah would like, or vice versa. it was peaceful. even when trudy would shoot them knowing, devious looks from the counter.

when they were done, they each plopped their piles of books on the counter. y/n had a stack of three, and elijah found 7 novels he liked.

"i cannot stand here and believe that you are willingly leaving this bookstore with three books. there is no way that you walked through these aisles for an hour and only picked three," elijah stuffed his hands in his pockets, peering down at her.

y/n, sheepishly, tugged at the spines of one of the books. she avoided his eyes. it was innocuous. "i-i did. i have so many books already, and money is-"

"y/n," elijah interrupted, with the shake of his head, "go get them." she stared up at him with these doe eyes, affection pouring from her gaze, radiating off her shoulders. he nodded his head once. she simply turned on her heel and went to collect the other books she'd put back. trudy started scanning the stacks on the counter while y/n ventured to the back of the store.

"i like you," trudy remarked.

elijah chuckled in response, "thank you."

"you're good for her, i think," she continued and bagged some of the books. "from what i saw today."

he didn't respond. he didn't know what to say. y/n, thankfully, came back, a stack of 7 other books in her hands. elijah took them from her since she struggled to put them on the counter. y/n thanked elijah breathily.

"i'll pay you back," y/n said once elijah pulled his credit card from his wallet.

"no, you won't," he disagreed.

she went to interrupt, but trudy cleared her throat. the two looked up at her. trudy had her arms crossed over her chest, pursed lips, raised brows. "when a man, when a handsome man, offers to buy you something, you never say you'll pay him back."

trudy went back to scanning and bagging books. elijah and y/n looked at each other, smiles and wide eyes soon turning into busted out laughter. trudy didn't mind them, bent at their waists, faces red from the breathless humor.

when they left the bookstore, elijah carrying their bags, y/n had this bright grin on her face. they were both filled to the brim with joy. she held open the door for him this time, since his hands were full. he thanked her with a smile. she watched the back of his head as he stepped into the street. the dark curls looping throughout his hair made her stomach flutter.

then, a voice pricked at elijah's ears, whispering his name out into the stale air.

he turned his head, trying to find a face amongst the crowds. that's when he noticed trudy at the counter, an innocently intended smile on her face. "come here, please."

elijah's lips parted slightly, shock glazing over his smile. he carefully looked to y/n, who was reaching for one of the bags in his hands. "i am just so excited, elijah. thank you so-"

"i left my wallet."

y/n looked up, brows furrowed, as she slipped her wrists through the bags. he let her take them from him. "oh?"

elijah relaxed his stiff shoulders, trying to look natural. "on the counter. i'll be right back."

y/n replied before he could walk back inside, "well, i'll run these up real quick, yeah?"

elijah hesitated feeling guilty for his white lies, before matching her eyes. "okay."

he rushed into the store. trudy was leaned forward, splaying her hands on the counter. she pursed her lips, tilted her head. elijah stopped a few feet before her, confusion written all over his face.

"how did you know i would hear you?" he cautiously spoke.

trudy replied with a shrug, "i know of your family. i once knew your brother, klaus."

elijah licked his bottom lip, as if answers would bleed onto his tongue, "how?"

"i've been in this city for 70 years, elijah mikaelson. i know things. i know things most people don't. i know about you."

anxiety coursed through his veins. usually, when people knew his family, it meant his life was threatened. surely this little old lady wouldn't harm him...

"help her," trudy blankly continued, confusing the fear he felt. "protect y/n."

elijah stuffed his hands in his pockets, almost humorously relieved, "from what?"

"from who," she corrected him. "from fred. i know she's tried to convince you, like she's tried to convince me, that he's too powerful, that we can't do anything about it. that she's somehow safe. just...protect her, please. i know you can."

elijah nodded once, stern, "with my life." he meant it.

trudy finally smiled again. "okay. thank you. go enjoy yourself."

that was it? asking him to protect y/n was like asking a seed to root.

he hesitated before smiling. he turned towards the door and took a few steps. then, trudy's voice cut through the stale air. "oh, and elijah?"

he looked over his shoulder, "yes?"

"tell her," trudy flicked her brows at him.

"i'm going to, i'm just worried she'll look at me differently."

"no," trudy rolled her eyes, "tell her how you feel. i think she feels the same."

–

by the end of the day, they'd travelled across half of the city.

elijah showed her the st. louis cemetery, told her of its history, and some of the people buried there. he pretended, while they walked through and y/n admired the coping grave buildings, that he didn't recognize any of the names beyond the stone.

they went to the french market, an immediate and obvious favorite for y/n, who spent loads of money on cheeses, wine, and a loaf of bread. not to mention about a billion macarons. she'd made him try one, considering, though he'd been alive for a thousand years, he'd never tasted the pastry. he quickly fell in love with the taste, while she fell in love with him. the way he walked, the way he talked her through the history. he used his hands a lot, kept his head stiff, his expressions minimal. mostly he just let his words speak for themselves. his charisma held her on the tips of her toes.

they even walked past his house, as promised. she wanted to go inside, but elijah could hear his siblings fighting about something within the compound. he made an excuse that they were running out of time to see the buckner mansion- they weren't- and drug her away.

they ended the evening with dinner from a food truck. he had planned to take her to a fancier dinner, at a sit-down restaurant, with candlelight. but, when y/n learned where he was taking her, she insisted they not go because she was underdressed. the real reason was that fred frequented the french restaurant. they were already risking so much of their skin just walking out in the daylight. if they ran into the man...hell fire would rain down in them.

they grabbed ice cream on the way back to y/n's apartment, taking slow, full steps. neither wanted the night to end.

y/n licked her tongue along the edge of her cone as the frozen treat began to melt. "thank you so much for today," she gratuitously nudged him with her elbow.

elijah spooned some of his ice cream between his lips. when he swallowed, her replied, "no thanks needed."

"no, seriously," she rejected, "i am so grateful. i haven't a day so full of...life and fun and joy since i was a little girl. this was just...i'm happy."

he felt really good. moving the conversation along, he asked, humorously, "what did you do as a little girl that my wonderfully planned day has to compete with?"

she chuckled, and thought for a moment. "my mom used to take me out to local performances. concerts, plays, musicals, talent showcases, whatever it was, we were there. she didn't have much money, but she knew it made me happy. she was...thoughtful. reminds me of you."

the underhanded compliment caused elijah's heart rate to spike. though, he wondered, from her use of language and sad smile, "what happened to here?"

their voices hushed lightly, in the way that people's tones always did when they discussed something that was sad. "she died when i was 18. liver infection."

"oh," he didn't know what to say. "i'm so sorry."

"that's okay," y/n shrugged, "i mourned her. it's over. i live with it."

"mourning is not something you just live with. it's something you live through. you will always carry the grief in a small corner of your heart. and that's okay. you don't just have to let it go, and move on. it's not black and white like that. it's...true blue."

y/n stopped in her tracks, nearly dropping her ice cream from the way her body slowed. "who did you lose?"

elijah smiled briefly, a frown growing from his breathy chortle. "how can you tell?"

"just the way you talked about it," she bit her lip. "you know what it feels like. who was it?"

elijah had lost so many people. over and over again. like the only true twist of fate for his life was that he was to know and lose, a practiced game, a true blue clockwork. "my father. mother.

my sister, a girlfriend, friends, my brothers more time than i could count...he thought to himself.

y/n took his hand. she slid her soft fingers through his, squeezed his palm against hers. "i'm sorry."

they held eyes for a moment. just staring at each other. then, elijah stepped forward, head tilting down towards hers. y/n hesitated, nearly taking a step away from him. but, then he came closer, and she could see the depths of his eyes, the edge of his soul. she stepped off the cliff.

y/n let her body arch forward towards him, let her arms go slack at her sides. she dropped her ice cream cone on the ground and she didn't care.

elijah wrapped an arm around her back, fingers spread across her spine. his touch was warm, shooting sparks off in y/n's stomach. she knew this was wrong, dangerous. no good could come of it and she needed to refocus her thoughts, step away, but...

he was kissing her.

when two people, different in mind and body, who share fragments of a soul scattered across the universe happen to find each other amongst thousands of years, in one small moment, on one sidewalk, during one arbitrary night and seek solace in the other's arms...something in the earth's core shifts, something in the stars.

something in their fates.

–

"juliette!"

y/n flinched, striking a thick black line of mascara across her cheek. she groaned and quickly reached for a q-tip to clean it off. the door to her dressing room was thrown open, and fred appeared in her vanity mirror. of course. she could recognize his villainous voice from anywhere. his reflection was angry, hands popped on hips, mustache pushed into a deep, dark frown.

"yes?" y/n rose a perfectly arched brow at his reflection. remain calm. pretend to be somebody else- his muse. his idol. his juliet.

fred crossed his arms, "you're a stupid fucking bitch!" his chest heaved up and down, anger bleeding off his red hot skin.

he had done some questionable things. but he had never called her that. y/n lowered her mascara wand, the shaking in her body lighting afire in her core, and eating away the rest of her stability.

"wh-what?" maybe she had heard him wrong. his voice was deep, gruff, and he slurred sometimes-

fred planted a hand on the vanity beside her, and closed a fist around the back of her chair. she was trapped between his arms, her back to the wall of her dressing room. she had nowhere to go. he lowered his body, hovering his face directly in front of hers. her lips were parted, wobbling in fear. she had never seen his eyes to stormy. his breath fanned across her cheeks, cigars and bourbon.

"you heard me."

y/n felt a tear slide down her cheek, like she had been pinched in the gut. "i-i'm sor-sorry."

"remember a few years ago, when you were stuck in that hostel, infested with rats and lice? remember when you used to collect trash off the streets, and drag your feet to the recycling center, 8 miles away, everyday, just for a few quarters? remember when you used to go weeks without a shower? when you wore the same underwear everyday and wore one shoe for a week straight because the other was ripped through? remember that?" he held her eyes in his own, his voice a trepidation between them.

if he was going to hit her, she just wished he would do it already.

"i said, remember that?!" he spat into her face because she took too long to reply.

y/n flinched harshly, eyes squeezed shut. "y-yes. yes. i do. i remember."

"and do you remember what i did for you? i practically dug you out of the trash. no one wanted you- no clubs would hire you, and your own father hung up when you called him on my cellphone. i took you in. i gave you a roof over your head. i cleaned the dirt from your fingernails. and i made you into a fucking star! now, everyone in this goddamned city wants a piece of juliette dupont...AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME? BY WHORING AROUND BEHIND MY BACK?"

his spittle littered her face as his words cut deep beneath her skin. y/n was visibly trembling and fred got high off of that fear. he pushed in closer, moving his hand from the back of her chair to her shoulder. he squeezed, tightly, and she whimpered.

"i don't know what you're talking about..." she stammered out. it was probably not a good idea to lie, but stupid women were fred's ideal image of femininity. so she played into it.

fred brandished an envelope. he pushed it against her chest, and y/n's back hit the wall. "look..."

y/n managed to open the envelope's teeth, and tugged out a thick stack of photos from its confines. photographs of her and elijah...months and months worth of pictures. outside the club the first time he introduced himself, again when he asked her to dinner. a billion shots of them at the diner, laughing and chatting over pancakes. at the bookstore, outside her apartment, by the food truck.

kissing outside of her apartment.

"do you know what i'm talking about now?" fred pressed, seemingly satisfied with his cinema-reveal.

y/n's eyes were blurry as the tears streamed down her face. she ground her teeth together, willing words, miraculous, healing words to come to her memory. her mind was blank, yet simultaneously racing.

she drug her eyes up from the photos, to fred. "i-i'm so-"

"you disobeyed me. i saved your fucking life and asked one thing of you. one tiny, fucking request- to be mine. to give me your devotion, your loyalty. and you're so weak, so...fucking weak," his voice dropped in volume, as if he was simply disappointed by this. it was somehow scarier.

y/n went to speak again, and fred held up a hand. he closed his eyes, tight-lipped. he peeled his hands away from her and turned towards the door. y/n, in a haze, stood after him. she gripped his bicep, pleading through her sobs for forgiveness.

fred turned back around, adrenaline strengthening his fist as it landed on her cheek. he let out a guttural groan as he hit her, as if it took all of his energy. y/n landed in a heap on the floor, nearly knocking her head against the vanity counter. she was somehow grateful it hadn't been worse.

until,

"get up!" fred boomed, shaking out his pained fist. "get up, you stupid bitch!"

y/n lifted her head slowly, shoulders racked with her cries. fred didn't like how long it took her. so, he reached down, fisted her hair in his clutches, and drug her to her knees.

y/n screamed in pain. her scalp burned. her lip was bleeding, a tooth was probably broken inside her mouth. and her left eye was blurry from the ever-swelling bruise he left.

fred got in her face again, still fisting her hair. y/n grabbed at his wrist, trying to get his hold off of her. fred shook her side to side, "why do you make me hurt you?!"

y/n simply whimpered in response.

"beg! beg for my forgiveness, you stupid whore! beg for my mercy!" he demanded.

y/n couldn't get the words out, "i-i-i-i"

fred, annoyed by her stutters, threw her head to the ground. she fell into another ball, curling into herself. he reared back a leg and kicked her in the thigh. she screamed at the impact. he went to kick her again, when a knock came from the door.

fred grumbled about, "come in."

as if it were just another average day, one of the guards opened the door, peeping a head in to say, "we're starting."

fred planted his hands on his hips. he glanced to y/n, as did the guard. fred looked back to his man, "tell delaney she's starting. and call fiona. she's coming tonight."

the guard shut the door without any further words. y/n felt even more terrified knowing any help she could've gotten had completely abandoned her. fred leaned down to her. he gripped the back of her neck, pulling her head back to face him. he wrapped his other hand around her throat, squeezing both together palms towards each other.

y/n gurgled, her screams unable to come out. fred leaned into her ear, menacingly, "get the fuck out of my club. i don't want to see your ugly fucking face anymore. i don't want you here. jesus- your life was fucking perfect because of me, and you've thrown it all away now. you're dead without me."

fred slammed the door shut. y/n spluttered, trying to catch her disrupted breaths. she carefully touched her throat. her voice was surely hoarse by now. he had even taken that from her. he had taken everything from her. gave her nothing. made nothing perfect. he was the reason for every negative fucking thing that had happened to her since she moved to this damned city.

so, somehow, with dignity and grace, y/n lifted herself off the floor. she wrapped a coat around her robe, slid her sneakers on over her bare feet, and slung her purse over her aching shoulder. and she limped out of the club, deadpanned face staring straight ahead. she ignored every whisper, every look, every glare from fred.

she walked herself home.

elijah had been running late that night. he had problems to fix with his siblings back at home that required his unpaid attention. he glanced at his watch relentlessly, hoping for a break in the issue so he could escape and see her.

eventually, klaus stoppered accusing, rebekah stopped whining, finn stopped smoldering, and kol ceased his incessant comments. as soon as they all escaped to their bedrooms, elijah sped out of the house, vamping his way across town, to the club.

he stepped into the club, hopeful, only to see delaney on the stage. her peachy stagelights lit up her name, in place of where hers should have been. elijah furrowed his brows and glanced at his watch. y/n was supposed to be up there. it was saturday evening. and she was the main event. this was her stage.

elijah glanced around. he spotted fred by the cash register, whipping through stacks of bills. and the bartender, wiping down some spots by elijah's usual seat. he sped over, apathetic to any wandering eyes. the bartender jumped at elijah's quick appearance, and he humorously wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

"where is juliette this evening?" elijah pointed to the stage.

the bartender followed his finger, "oh. uh, i'm not sure. must be sick or something."

that wasn't good enough. elijah slammed a hand on the counter. the bartender met his eyes, raised a defensive posture with his palms. "woah, buddy. let's be cool, okay?"

elijah maintained eye contact and compelled a question out of him, "where is she?"

the bartender shrugged, "i don't know."

fred had heard elijah's outburst. he lifted his reluctant gaze from the money he counted, fingers slowly stopping, brows furrowing in response. he watched elijah stun the bartender, watched as he demanded a question from him.

he watched him compel the bartender. fred knew what that was.

and it all made sense.

the quick healing, the speedy departures. the menacingly dark facade. this stranger was a vampire. his name, which he had learned from his spy, was elijah. elijah mikaelson. of the family fred's ancestors had warned him of. he had probably been manipulating y/n, taking advantage of her. using her for their devilish affairs. how could he do that? it was evil. but he expected no less from a vampire.

fred stomped down the walkway, chest puffed out. he was mighty brave for being weaponless against an original.

the bartender moved away, sensing that fred would handle this. the owner stopped in front of elijah, who had to tilt his head down to match his eyes.

elijah and fred star at each other for a few moments. the originals eyes were squinted, threatening. fred just looked stupid.

"i know what you are..." the owner practically whispered.

elijah let himself smirk a little. oh, this was always fun. when they got cocky, like they could easily take him down by just saying what he was. "and what's that?" he challenged, anticipating the embarrassment when fred would fail.

"a vampire," fred seared.

"hm...interesting. and what are you going to do with this information?" elijah tilted his head to the side, like a curious child.

fred planted his hands on the counter, "i'm going to kill you."

elijah glanced down to his knuckles. he didn't pay any mind and looked back up to the little man below him. then, it registered in his mind, the black and blue bruises and red lines of blood lightening across fred's fist.

elijah's jaw clenched. he sucked in a deep breath. he needed to control his anger. fred would die- but it would have to wait.

because, somewhere out there, y/n was hurt. badly. and that's all that mattered right now.

elijah leaned across the counter, seething red hot anger, "you have made a grave mistake...one that will cost you your life. so, no, you will not kill me. i am going to kill you. it will be slow, and painful, and you will wish that you had never even spoke her name. so, enjoy your final hours on this earth, enjoy the fact that you are able to breathe right now, that you are able to look at me. sit down, have a drink, count your precious money. and wait for me to come knocking down your door."

elijah left a gust of wind in his absence. fred was silent, staring after his ghost. the bartender came back over, lay a comforting hand on his boss' shoulder. "you alright, dude? you're shaking."

fred couldn't speak.

he had pissed himself.

———————————————————————————

tagging some people hehe: @fitzs-trained-monkey @space-princess-charming @theoriginalariamonroe

[the-ninja-legacy-whip]

Imagine, their school does the Romeo & Juliette piece. And Imagine people vote for Kai being Romeo and Chad for Juliette as a way to force them to work together 😂 They don't know that in the script, the scenarist ( Maybe it could be Anthonia ) is a Kai x Chad shipper and she replaced the death of Romeo by Juliette kissing him and they're both alive in the end !

Kai: only agreed because he’s convinced he’s a great actor and wants to upstage Chad

Chad: absolutely forced against his will (would rather eat glass)

Nya: thinks this whole thing will be a disaster

Lloyd: also thinks this will be a disaster (and grabs popcorn)

Zane: somehow wound up as stage crew

Cole: already pulling up for a front row seat (and grabs popcorn)

Jesse: really wanted to be Juliet (for the prestige and is LIVID because he’s a WAY better choice than Chad)

Jay: also really wants to be Juliet (to “save” Kai from kissing Chad. And totally not any other reason.)

Meghan: is the actual Juliet understudy, is prepared to push Chad off stage if necessary

Maggie: trying to convince Zane to at least let her be Romeo instead (she’s a terrible actress, however)

Skylor: miraculously came to watch her cousin perform and thinks the dude playing Romeo is kinda hot

Sunni: also wound up as stage crew, is not sure whether to laugh or cry

Olivia: missed the play because she was laughing herself to death just at the thought of it

Antonia: recording the whole thing on three cameras

Miranda: chirping about the play to anyone and everyone within the city

Harumi: was the actual one that planned this (and grabs popcorn)

[creatress-corruption]

Some more headcanon type stuff... in a somewhat story-like way... Admin edition!

(I'm still alive!! I just lost my hyperfixation... but I've had this in my drafts since forever, so I decided to publish it now! ... very late)

As an Admin, there were some things one had to know.

When they had been chosen, there had come a day when their mentor, the previous Admin, sat the three of them down and told them a piece of their history. Something which they would inherit upon becoming Admins.

Before, they had not understood just why the previous Admin had been so… vehement about it, but upon becoming Admins, they learned why.

"All powerful it may be, but the Terminal is not perfect. It makes mistakes, miscalculates, makes… failed attempts, from time to time." 

Xara had been the first to see Him.

"We, as Admins, govern the Universe as the Terminal sees fit. We rule and create and destroy, are gifted and raised up by it, all because it deems it so." And the Terminal does not interfere, goes unsaid. For all that The Terminal is sentient and powerful and All, it does not feel like them, does not care like they do. When the Terminal makes mistakes, it-

Xara's hair stood on end, her blood pounding in her ear as a low static rang out; whether its cause was her or The Other was unknown, but Xara did know that whatever was there, wanted her dead.

"The first attempt at an Admin was… a failure. The form gifted to it became twisted, its power and mind corrupted, it's heart and soul shattered… the Terminal knew this being would not deal in equality, would only cause destruction and death and chaos, and so, it locked it away."

Xara turned slowly, eyes shining bright like an End Crystal's core. Her nails slid out further from her fingers,  lengthening until wicked blades formed similar to an Enderman's paws. Her teeth, layered in thin rows like an Endermites, glimmered faintly as her eyes emitted a powerful glow, lighting up the dark area.

"It was placed in an eternal sleep, as the Terminal could not bring itself to harm its first creation." (Romeo feels haunted by those words, and the ones that followed. "The Terminal is good, the Terminal is kind, the Terminal is-" The one who let him kill Fred and bury an entire world and stood by while Xara begged and pleaded for the release of death and Romeo suffered further and further until there was no going back and-)

A man watches her. His face is solemn, and Xara's hackles rise. White eyes, bright eyes, eyes of light, that is the first sign.

"But the Terminal misjudged how powerful it had made it. For all that the Terminal can give power, taking it is another thing. And after centuries of sleep, He began to wake."

The sudden all consuming Come MeMeMe To Me Now! That envelopes their minds has them freezing, but they snap out of it, and Fred and Romeo teleport and-

"Hatred filled his heart from birth, so when he found he'd been replaced? That there were others, more perfect than he?" (Romeo still remembers the haunted look on their face, as the Admin leaned closer) "He began to hunt."

Snarls, animalistic and beastly, showing just how inhuman Admins truly were, filled the air. Fred's was a deep snarling rumble that shook the earth, like a tsunami or earthquake; Romeo's a sharp noise, draconic and metallic, bird-like, even, a Creeper's hiss mixed with Wither's ghoulish cry; Xara's joined them, equally draconic yet higher pitched, screeching techno-glitch and static buzzing, a sound similar to a Phantom's edging the cry.

"We fought back, but the loses were… many. There were others, similar to… him. We know not why the Terminal made more, perhaps… nevermind, it's not for us to question the Terminal. But it has become custom to pass this tale along, as a warning, a tradition, our history."

The man, plain and dark skinned and wearing normal, human clothes, stares. He utters not a word. And yet the three can feel it, the malice, the hatred, the need to rip and tear and crush and claw and-

(As The Admin, Romeo has a lot of time to think. To reminisce. And his mentor's words haunt him. Because why. If it is so powerful, then why? Why why why whywhywhywhyw- but he knows why)

"So, if you ever come across him, do not hold back. The Terminal does not kill its creations, that is known, but we may carry out this act of justice. So, should there come a day when you are able, end him."

And then he leaves. And the air becomes empty when their snarls quiet. They never see him again (that's a lie).

Fred looks up at their mentor. "What… what is he called?" He whispers, as if afraid the monster will appear if he speaks too loud. The Admin smiles, "We have many names for him, but there is one he refers to himself by." Xara glances at them, "Which is?"

(Romeo knows why. He knows why the Terminal does not interfere, why it creates monsters and yet does nothing about them, knows why it created more and more "glitches", more failures, only for them to be culled and hunted and feared.)

"He calls himself-"

"Herobrine," Romeo tests the name, ears twitching at every minor sound, his eyes trained on the figure before him. The man- the glitch, the failure- nods once, but says nothing. "Why?" He asks the burning question because he doesn't get it. He doesn't understand how someone could be so… hateful and destructive. It doesn't… he doesn't get it.

(He does he does he understands now is that it?? Is that the grand joke the reveal the lesson??! He finally understands!)

Herobrine doesn't say anything. He never does, Romeo reads in the history books in the Terminal Library. And that is the last he sees. He doesn't mention the sighting to Fred or Xara, can't find it in himself to say anything. Not when things are… tense between them. Not when they're arguing. Not when he-

(And Romeo understands. He gets it. He finally finally gets it. Why did he create the Sunshine Institute? Why did he make his mob hybrids? Why imprison people and force them in his challenges and force and push and hurt-)

The Admin, Romeo, will admit he is cruel, needlessly so. As an Admin, in those days when nothing else mattered but him, he'd enjoyed it, feeling that thrill of having power over others, that dismissal of his people and those lower than him. He enjoyed it. Immensely so. Afterall, why not? Who'd stop him? Who could stand up to him? And finally, he understands. 

When Jesse lands the final blow with that Golden Gauntlet, Romeo thinks that is where he will die; it would be perfect, the last Admin, dying in the place- the being- that made him an admin. That raised him so high and yet ignored his pleading begs before it was too late. He expects it, waits for it, because The Terminal is cruel enough to make that his fate. 

And then he lives. That's the odd thing, because if Romeo had all the powers of the universe like The Terminal, then he'd let him die. He tries to figure it out, mind reeling, as they dodge giant prismarine fists, rush through a portal as lava drips from above and as the Terminal forces them out. It isn't until weeks later when it suddenly comes to him: The Terminal did not care.

If fate is predetermined, or The Terminal determines it or knows it, then did it know? Does it know, from the moment the three are chosen, what will happen? Does it see Romeo, day by day, fall deeper into madness and hatred and corruption? Does it see Fred, blood spilling from his mouth and nostrils and eyes and eyes, staring with petrified, terrified, betrayed eyes? Does it see Xara, crying and screaming and going mad as she fights one friend above another's corpse, only to lose everything that she'd become in one swift move? Did it watch as an entire world was buried?! As Xara and dozens, hundreds of others suffered in a sunless prison for thousands of years, unaging and frozen- as their people were frozen in time, staring up at the bedrock where once a brilliant star shined and coloured the sky a hundred different hues?! 

Romeo's life and sins and fate did not matter enough- The Terminal did not care enough to interfere. It watched, as it always did, as someone else decided, someone else cleaned up its mess. The Terminal made them, and it did. Not. Care.

As Romeo fixes up the damage he caused, his mind will go back to their predecessor's words, and he won't be able to stop thinking them over and over until the truth stares him in the face.

The Terminal could, in fact, take power, it just hadn't bothered to. Because if an Admin can take another Admins power, could make a Gauntlet capable of such action, then why couldn't it? But it could. It just… didn't. Just like how Romeo didn't just leave, like how he destroyed Champion City when he could've just left it be, just like things might've, could've been avoided between the three if they had just- if only-

He understands now. The Terminal created a being that swayed more towards destruction and saw possibilities and acted on them; The Terminal created more "failures" to join the first, to be hunted down and killed, created Admins to be their "betters", to do what The Terminal wouldn't. And obviously, the failures- the glitches caught on to that fact, something the Admins didn't. 

Romeo… isn't sure how to feel. He almost tells Xara his thoughts, his revelations, but- he can't bring himself to say it. What will it change? It would only make things worse, either by making her think he was lying or that Fred was always meant to die. That there was no other way, no happy ending. It would break her heart.

He sees him, once again alone, when he's at the cabin. Herobrine stares at him with that ever-bright stare of his. Romeo isn't sure what to say. There's always a chance he's wrong, that he actually is dangerous and- "No, you arrived at the right conclusion." 

His jaw falls open. The being had never talked before, as far as he was aware. And he- wha- Herobrine chuckled, a deep baritone, "I'm glad at least one of you has a brain. Do you know how many Admins over the millennia I've watched, how many ignored the signs right in front of their eyes?" The glitch tsk's. Romeo isn't sure what to say.

Hours pass and Romeo is in a daze. The bookshelves are in disarray, Herobrine having gone through them as he talked. "I'm actually really glad for this meeting," he confessed, "It's been ages since I've last had a conversation." "What will happen?" Romeo butt's in, "Another Admin will be chosen, right?" Herobrine stares for a moment, before nodding. "Yes, soon enough. Terminal likes its little toys too much to not make more."

It's insulting to be compared to a toy, but hadn't he compared mortals to toys once?

Another book is placed haphazardly, Herobrine glancing through them. Romeo sits on his bed (he hasn't slept in so long, he's kinda missed it) and watches him. "So, what will you do?" The glitch glances at him, "Oh, that- well if I'm being honest… I'll probably stick by you, I've done the whole lone-wolf thing, and I already know all the others like me, so," he closed another book, pages falling out, "instead I'm going to try being an ex-Admin's friend."

It's with hope that Romeo leaves the cabin later on, the (annoying) glitch following him. It still haunts him, what he's realized about The Terminal, knowing it all is… it's something. Maybe he'll have a breakdown later on about it, but now he's… he needs to figure out an explanation, he supposes. He doubts Xara will just accept him, saying he's really good at making friends. Since that's. Not true. At all.

"So, do you have any ideas on who might be selected to become an Admin?" Herobrine hums, avoiding Romeo's eyes. "Well?" "Maybe, but for now I want to forget about potential future-killers and whatnot." It takes a moment for Romeo to remember that, oh yeah, Admins are kinda encouraged to hunt the glitch down. And by then he's being pressed up against said glitch who has thrown his arm around his shoulders, "For now, let's go bother that purple haired Endermin, shall we?"

[richardsletters]

" Hi Victoria What is your shoe size? Mine is 12. Ever wore costumes for sex? Which is your favorite erotic zone? What color do you paint your nails? Do you like wigs? Ever done a picture porfolio? Send pics of you wearing ruffle socks. Also in bathing suit with you butt up laying aroung the house. What do you think of skin tight costumes? Do you think people work too hard at finding a partner? How long do you wish an entire sex act to last? 20 minutes / 1 hour or two? How do you like your partners pubic hair trimmed wild and free or bare? Do you enjoy soft moans during sex heavy breathing porn talk like yeah suck it quiet or other? How far would you go on first date… Groping / Kissing / oral / or all the way? Which porn style sex move in a movie would be a turn off…cock slapping cumaxing on body or other? Ever had a threeesome? If so with who? Thats all for now. Write soon.Your friend <3 Richard"

[devoraqs]

With Love's Light Wings

Summary:

"With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out," - Romeo and Juliet, Act II scene ii Julian and Alexander make the most of a convenient gap in Julian's time onstage in the latest Goldgrave play (even if it means scaling too many flights of stairs)

Pairing: Ilyacha

Characters: Julian Devorak, Alexander MacRionnag

Word Count: 6,165 (full fic on AO3, link at the bottom)

Content Warnings: explicit smut

---

“ A plague o' both your houses! They have made worms' meat of me: I have it, And soundly too: your houses!”

His arm flung haphazardly around Mateusz, who was playing Benvolio’s neck, Julian staggered off stage into the stage left wing, his fist clenched around the reddening splotch in his shirt where Mercutio had been stabbed, and where Alexander knew was a little red pouch of reddened oil that burst on impact. Dryly he thought it didn’t look like what it actually looked like when one was stabbed, but for the purposes of the drama it worked well. Sitting in the aisle seat a few rows back from the stage, Alexander’s own fingers were curled round a scrap of paper that Julian had quickly pushed into his hands earlier, upon which was scribbled Meet me in the rafters after my death scene. Beside him, Caspian sniffed, completely engrossed and barely even noticing when Alexander quietly got to his feet and slipped away unnoticed through a series of doors, stairs, and ladders up to the fly loft.  

Continue on AO3

[montygatorguy]

okay i just ran my &j hunger games three times and here are some highlights

^ roster

game one

- portia won it with fucking ELEVEN KILLS. jesus girl

- when it got down to the final 3 she hunted down her remaining two opponents (lady cap and lucy) and just killed them with a sickle

- during the bloodbath at the beginning juliet decided to just kill herself

game two

- william won because in the final three, which was him juliet and benvolio, he set juliet on fire and stabbed benny with a branch

- the entire game william kept getting a bunch of different people to snuggle with him and hold his hand (none of them were like, anne or gregory but one was romeo)

- augustine rumour lucy and romeo hunted frankie down to kill him four on one

game three

- imogen won by just letting the other people around her kill each other, although towards the end i thought angelique would win because she stabbed like three people to death in a row

- frankie thomas viola lucy and judith went to go kill anne five on one

- my favorite moment from this entire thing was that may and romeo snuggled one night and then the next night may tracked him down and strangled him with a rope

[sabraeal]

Get On and Move Your Body

[Read on AO3]

Written for the irreplaceable (and irrepressible) @bubblesthemonsterartist, who officially becomes OLD(er than me) today! As she already has a few more golden tickets to keep me putting chapters on her favorite niche AU this year, she elected to instead ask for another piece of what we like to call the “Secret Subplot” in WFB. Which means...more Six Flags shenanigans >:3c

For as much as Chief’s planned this whole trip down to the breath, trouble finds them not even minute out the door. Unlike every other SUV His Highness has been carted around in, Big Guy’s Mazda is a mid-size, only enough seats for four grown adults and one guy with the same dimensions as a piece of paper.

“Aw, c’mon, Boss,” Obi cajoles, leaning a hip against the hood. “What’s the problem? We all love each other.”

The problem is that it doesn’t match Romeo’s vision of tucking into the back row and making eyes at each other over the bench seat. But that’s not something he can say, not when Doc is already bouncing on her heels eager to go. 

“There’s not enough room,” Chief grits out instead, glaring at him like he’s the one who made the specs. “There’s no way you can fit three people on that.”

Not without knocking elbows, sure. But Obi’s been in smaller places participating in more...athletic activities. “I dunno, some guy with an engineering degree sure thought you could.”

“It’s really not that bad,” Big Guy insists, like a person who’s never sat bitch in his life. “There’s lots of leg room back there!”

He and the Little Prince exchange looks. Both of them say, this man’s legs have never been anywhere behind the front row.

“We can take my car,” Obi floats; an imperfect solution, but since Danny Ocean here made an imperfect plan, it’s the best they got. “I just vacuumed it last week and everything.”

The correct answer here would be, wow, Obi, thanks, you’re a real one. Or maybe, I’ll name my firstborn after you. He’s not picky. But what he gets is a lip curl so aristocratic it would make guillotines in Paris salivate.

“Why would I go in that death trap?” he sneers, tossing it a gaze so scathing it nearly scratches the paint. “It’s got the same amount of seats.”

Same amount of seats, different driver. One that didn’t have a girlfriend to ride shotgun, which meant if Big Guy did some personal origami, he could fit himself there, and Princess could slide right into the back. And if they convinced Doc to be the cream in their golden oreo, well, maybe it wouldn’t be the pink-stained Wes Anderson aesthetic of pining, but at least his thigh would be all pressed up against hers. That would be like a whole ass base in their weird game of no-contact dating, wouldn’t it?

Alas, the bossguy doesn’t see his vision. So someone’s gotta take a dive.

“All right, all right.” Obi holds up his hands, all charming resignation. “Chief’s got a point. We can’t possibly all fit. So in the best interest of this whole posse, I will--”

Kiki grips his shoulder, hard enough to creak. “Don’t even try it.”

“A-ack!” he hiccups, knees weak under the pressure. “Miss Kiki, I was only trying to--”

“You have to come, Obi!” Oh, it’s not fair that Doc’s been pulled into this, all shining eyes and earnestly clasped hands. “There’s no point in going if we don’t all go!”

“Ah...” He scrapes a palm over the back of his neck, letting it settle over the ache in his shoulder. “Well, I suppose if you’re going to insist, Doc...”

Bossman’s sigh hisses through his teeth, the fight slipping right out of him. “So are we taking two cars, or...?”

It’s with a predator’s smile that Little Miss Shotgun slips past both of them, leaning right in to suggest, “I think you can just suck it up.”

His jaw drops. “But...ugh, fine. I call a window, though.”

Obi’s sure to be all smiles when Romeo throws himself into the rear seat, scowling. 

“No problem at all, Chief.” He waits until bossman’s buckled, committed, before he turns all the potential energy stored up in his limbs to kinetic, springing into the bitch seat with a smile that can only be called unhinged. “I’ve always wanted to be an Obi sandwich.”

Chief’s always had the prettiest eyes, but they’ve never looked more beautiful than this, all wide and wild and ready to wrap his hands around his throat. “But-- you-- I-- Shirayuki--”

“Don’t worry. I don’t mind.” Obi reaches out, giving his knee a nice pat as Doc tucks herself in beside him. “I wasn’t loved enough as a child.”

“Now isn’t this nice,” Big Guy says with a glance in the rearview. “You three look so cozy!”

Chief’s mouth works, a half-dozen complaints circling the runway before fizzling out at the tip of his tongue. With one last sigh, he manages, “Ugh.”

“You know what I like about you, Chief?” He casts him a dreamy look, chin-in-palm and all. “Your eloquence.”

“Obi?” His name sounds so nice grit between Young Master’s teeth. “Go fuck yourself.”

It’s strange, not being the one with the plan. Not that Shirayuki doesn’t appreciate the effort! It’s just...

They’d barely left the roundabout of their driveway before Zen had pulled up a park map, reaching over Obi’s lap to show her that it’s a straight shot from the entrance to the comic themed area. It’s just a smattering of numbers and symbols to her, but it’s clear that for as flat as this map is on his phone, it’s a real place in his head, one he knows well enough to walk in his sleep.

Kiki, for her part, snubs every Dunkins until the last exit. As soon as they’re off the highway, she directs Mitsuhide into a small strip mall parking lot-- just seven shops with the Dunkins sandwiched in between, not even enough room for a drive-through-- and has him walk in with their order.

What’s the deal? Obi had laughed, taking a sip from his iced mocha. They put solid gold in these or something?

Her cup sat in the holder, steaming. Timing.

It’s already warm this morning, but the moment Zen and Kiki step out of the car they both take the first sips from their cups and sigh.

“Perfect,” he sighs, eyes fluttering open to fix on her. “How about you, Shirayuki?”

Her iced hot chocolate has already melted, forgotten after the first sip, and there’s no way she can politely explain that there’s something lost in translation when it comes to taste. So instead she settles for, “Good!”

“Great.” His whole face softens, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way she wishes she could touch, but-- but that’s not a good idea. Not when there’s people behind them in line taking pictures, and someone else with their phone out in the next line over, trying to get their barcodes on the screen.  “Oh, here, I’m the one with the tickets, let me just--”

There’s too many people crushed close for him to comfortably shuffle through; even with Kiki and Mitsuhide stepping out of the way, he still has to stretch between them to reach the turnstile. The ticket taker-- er, guest service representative stares down at him, taking in the mirrored sunglasses and nondescript baseball cap, and a frown brews at the corners of her mouth.

“Ah, here, Boss.” Obi, close enough to rest his hip on the stile itself, plucks to phone out of his hand and offers one of his lop-sided smiles. “Sorry about that. There’s five of us.”

The gaze she sweeps up Obi is slower, dragging around his waist and again at his shoulders, but finally it settles right onto her reflection in his Aviators. It’s not quite a smile that she gives him, but there’s a definite lightness when she says, “I’m going to need you to flip through them.”

It’s nothing that should make her uncomfortable; Obi always jokes that he has a magnetism, that he really knows how to light a flame, and it’s not as if she doubted him, it’s just-- it’s strange to see it in action. To watch a complete stranger twirl her hair and lean close as she scans some barcodes, glancing up at him between each screen as if she’s hoping to catch his eye. And yet the only time he does is when she’s done, letting his smile pull a scooch wider as he says, “Thanks.”

Shirayuki doesn’t think she imagines the disappointment in the girl’s rote, “You can all go in now. Please enjoy your day at Six Flag’s New England.”

“Unbelievable,” Zen mutters as they walk out from under the turnstiles’ shade, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I smile and make nice, and she acts like I’m a felon. You go off and do the same thing and she practically trips over herself to help you.”

“What did I tell ya, Chief?” Obi lowers his Aviators to give him what Shirayuki can only call a saucy wink. “It’s the charisma. Raw animal--”

“It’s the height,” Kiki says with all the subtlety of smashed keys on a piano. “And the scar.”

Zen turns to him, assessing, and scowls. “You’re not that much taller than me.”

Obi’s all mirrored glass and teeth when he answers, “It’s not the size, Boss, it’s how you use it.”

“Three inches,” Kiki interjects, with all the interest of watching paint dry. “And Obi doesn’t skip his core workouts.”

“I’m not skipping, I’m just busy--”

“Don’t worry, Chief, she’s going to be kicking herself when she find out just which GQ motherfucker she snubbed in the ticket line--”

It’s not on purpose that Shirayuki lets them slip ahead; no, she simply gets to the welcome gate, a massive stretch of red brick and Greek columns that reminds her of nothing more than the State’s Pavilion at the Big E, and it hits her-- it’s been a long time since she’s been to a park like this.

She was supposed to go...two years ago now. The senior trip, an overnight to Dorney Park that had everyone buzzing about room assignments, about the last time they went in eighth grade, and ha ha, wasn’t a trip like this for kids? It hadn’t stopped them from getting excited, from spending every moment between periods making plans about which rides to go on, which times they might be able to sneak away and meet boyfriends on balconies or behind Staff Only signs.

Oma had already been sick, then. She’d been slipping between home and hospital every few months, and by March, it became weeks, the bills from previous stays stacking up on the sideboard. A trip to the other side of the state wouldn’t break the bank, but it was still money that they wouldn’t have, another hassle for Opa to handle. It’d been nothing to hide to permission form, to tear it to pieces the next time Opa was out of the house and bury it at the bottom of the kitchen trashcan. Two days in the school library had seemed a small price to pay to keep another worry off his plate. That’s what they did; look after each other.

Or rather, that was what Shirayuki thought they were supposed to be doing, anyway.

The school had been willing to take her even still; her homeroom teacher even taking her out of lunch the day before to explain they had a budget for situations like this, that she could still come and enjoy being a senior like everyone else in her class, but--

But she’d told them she got motion sick. A hard thing to argue with, so they left her alone instead. She’d been good at that. At getting people to look away. It helped that most people wanted to.

There’s a tap on her hand, long bone to long bone-- metacarpals, her textbook would say-- and it’s too firm to be a mistake. Not an accidental brush, but a solid reminder, and as she looks up into the furrow at Obi’s brow, she wonders where she lost the knack of going unseen. “You good, Doc?”

“Yeah.” It’s a struggle to bring her smile to the surface, to try to submerge those raw pieces of herself. “Just...been a while.”

Obi’s not one for extended eye contact outside of a threat, but when he looks at her now it’s like she’s made of puzzle pieces instead of physical features, trying to put them together in an expression that fits in the hard boundaries of her face. And then, with one slow blink, he turns away. Purposeful, even though he doesn’t once fall out of step beside her, and, oh-- he’s letting her compose herself. Letting her choose what she’d like him to see. “I get you.”

For the first time, Shirayuki’s beginning to suspect that might be true.

With a sigh, he adds, “Not long enough, though.”

There’s a small rise to get up to Main Street, and her feet stutter to a stop there, dying to ask why. In books the mysterious companion is always stoic, always silent, a fortress of secrets that no word escapes from. But Obi-- Obi never stops talking, to the point that she wonders when he breathes. And yet it’s never about himself, and she just-- she just wants to know him. To understand why somewhere designed down to the dishware to be one of the happiest places on earth makes his skin crawl. Why he chose to come here even when--

“Oh, there you are!”

Shirayuki can be the first to admit: she’s not paying attention. Even still, she gasps when Zen appears beside her, cupping a hand around her elbow. The cup becomes a catch, fingers latching firmly to tow her through the crowd. “Wait...”

“Come on.” He grins, all eagerness and excitement beneath polarized glass, and it’s infectious. “If we’re going to ride Superman, then we need to get there before the crowd.”

There’s no time to temper her expectations; the last time she walked into a park, it was with Oma on one side and Opa on the other, the buildings along the fairway towering over her, coasts nothing but a distant thunder rumbling deeper in the park, a monstrous set of snakes dueling just over the horizon. She’s taller now though, a grown adult, and for one breathless moment at the top of the hill, she wonders if it’s enough for time to have made places to make someplace like this small.

The worry lasts less than a blink; just a turn of the corner, and-- and--

Red tracks loom over the park, a bright blue car hurtling past with so much force behind it that the pavement rattles beneath her. It flies into a loop, screams trailing seconds behind, and oh, she doesn’t have to wonder why it’s called Superman when it’s got a rise like that, one big peak stretching high enough that the cart doesn’t so much ride up it as it is ratcheted up it, a click click clunk she can hear from the top of the stairs.

“We’re going on that?” The last coaster she went on was in the kiddie area, a little wooden thing that went click-clack beneath her sneakers and relied on centrifugal force to keep them in their seats. Still, it seems safer than this, five-point harnesses and all.

“It’s the biggest coaster in the park.” He hardly needs to tell her that; it’s heads and shoulders above every other ride in sight, save for the drop tower. “When you go down that peak, you experience the same amount of g forces as astronauts on reentry. More than any other coaster in the country until they built Kingda Ka.”

Obi lingers two steps back, hands hooked behind his head, and whistles. “Been studying up, eh, bossman?”

Kiki snorts, shouldering in beside him. “He sure knows a lot for someone’s whose last few experiences with coasters ended with--”

“I was fourteen,” Zen informs her primly. “And that wasn’t even a coaster, it was a tower, which is a much different motion that plenty of people have issues with, and--”

“Shouldn’t we work our way up to this?” Shirayuki would love to sound mild and casual, like she’s only thinking of the group, but instead she’s just...shrill. “Maybe start on, er, that one?”

She flings out an arm, pointing to the track that curls around Superman’s struts like a cat. It’s green, built so low to the ground that it almost disappears into the trees studding the course, and it’s not until everyone looks that she realizes small children are standing in the line to wait with their parents.

“Catwoman’s Whip?” Kiki cocks her head. “That’s a kiddie coaster.”

“And the line never gets that long,” Zen assures her, as if that’s some argument against it. “If you don’t hit Superman at the start of the day, you’ll have to wait hours in line for a single ride.”

“Oh...right.” She swallows, smoothing her palms over her skirt. “Of course. Then I guess...why not?”

“What’s the matter, Doc?” Obi slinks up beside her, all slants and angles. “Throwing yourself out a window is fine but somehow coasters give you cold feet?”

“N-no! It’s just--” there’s a difference between spur of the moment heroics and planning to throw herself from a dozen stories up for fun, and all of it has to do with anticipation “--really big.”

“Ahhh, right. And you’re tiny.” An unnecessary observation, in Shirayuki’s opinion, but with the way has to stoop to make his smile even with hers, she can’t really say it’s wrong. “You know, I can always hold your hand if you get scared, Doc. I’m long enough I could even be a human seat belt, if you--”

“Hey.” Zen’s arm swings down between them, cleaving a space for him to slide into. “I’m the one that’s going to be holding her hand, thank you very much. Ah, that is, er--” he glances at her, a sheepish blush blooming across the flat of his cheeks “--if you actually want to go. We really don’t have to, I just though--”

“No, no!” Her fingers knit through his, palms close enough to kiss. He’s just the right size for it to be the perfect fit. “Holding hands will be nice.”

The thing is: Obi doesn’t really do friends. Or at least, he didn’t. Sure, he’d had kids he hung around in school to pass the time, or other fighters he’d be friendly with until the moment money-- or their girlfriends-- got between them, but not...this. He wasn’t the kind of guy who got six am smoothies at Starbucks after a spar, or who worried about if their roommate would catch them skipping leg day, or who anyone would notice if he missed a meal.

But then Richie Rich pluck him right out of the trash, and suddenly he can’t escape it. Big Guy piling extra fancy ham into a perfectly golden sandwich melt. Princess hunting him down to drink beers on the roof. Bossman cornering him about the state of his resume. And Doc...

Well, it’d be easier to list what Doc didn’t do. So he doesn’t mind getting dragged to some theme park, and he’s determined not to mind being the odd one out. He’d known the score when he agreed to come, known how this would all shake out no matter how many times they told him, it’s not a date--

But they still separate out into pairs without a thought when the lines split for loading. Doc and Chief in one, Princess and Big Guy in the other. One glance at the diagram posted on the wall tells him all he needs to know: two seats to a row, two rows to a car. Best he can do is slip in to the one right behind them and shout across the gap.

The carts roll up, and none of them even give it a second thought as they slide in, two cozy couples with eyes only for each other. It’s cute. Objectively.

The operator scuffs up beside him, giving him one long, measuring look before she calls out, “Singleton here! We need one more!”

His teeth grit down, wincing as Doc looks back, guilt written in broad strokes across her face. He may not be able to hear her over the crowd, but he can see her mouth, “Obi doesn’t have a partner!”

God, being fifth wheel sucks. Good thing they’re worth it.

Doc wiggles in her seat, head swinging frantically from side to side, but it’s not until she glances back, distressed gaze fixed on him, that he realizes she’s looking for the release. That she’s actually going to climb back here and--

“There’s five of us,” Kiki informs her mildly, both close enough and loud enough to be heard. “No matter what we do, someone is sitting alone.”

“But...” Doc stills, and all right, Princess might be the reasonable one here, but Obi still wishes they were in the same car, if only so he could kick the back of her seat. “We promised...”

“Oh, I-- I don’t have one!” A girl breaks free from the group behind him, scurrying up to the operator. “Can I take it?”

Objectively, she’s hot. Tan skin, dark eyes, and long legs framed by even shorter shorts, just the kind of girl he would have taken back to his place after a fight and forgotten about by morning.

She slips in next him, smile nervous as she tells him, “Sorry, my friends are behind us. They’re gonna be--”

“Julie, he’s hot,” one hoots from two rows back. Another adds from right behind them, so helpful, “Get it!”

“--Loud,” she sighs, flushed. “Sorry again.”

“Don’t be.” In another life he’d be interested-- hell, he probably should be in this one-- but all he can think of is red hair and a sweet smile. “They seem fun. This your first time?”

She casts a wary look up the rise. “I’ve done coasters, but...”

He grins. “Well, if you gotta grab on to someone, you won’t break me.”

The look she turns on him is speculative, and, ah, he might not be interested, but something tells him the feeling isn’t mutual. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

After being flung around a track like a hamster in a wheel, Zen doesn’t expect to find the exit ramp the hardest bit. The shaking legs don’t help, of course, sending him careening into a wall with all the grace of a drunk gazelle, but one or two more breaths gets him steady. Lets him find his sea legs, as it were. Just...on land.

Whatever it is, he’s just glad that handful of dramamine worked. Last thing he needs is for Shirayuki to see him hurl into a trashcan for twenty minutes. Especially when he’s got a dozen coasters to get through today, and that’s just the good ones.

“Oh, my...” Shirayuki stumbles up next to him, leaning into his side like a crutch. “Wow.”

It take a second for him to calm himself enough to manage, “Did you have fun?”

She beams up at him, eyes shining and cheeks flushed, and oh, he’s glad he brought more of those pills in his pocket, because he’ll ride a hundred of these to keep her looking at him like that. “So much. Are there more?”

“A ton,” he assures her. Her smile only gets brighter as she braces herself against the rail.

“So, Catwoman’s Whip next?”

“No, no. That’s fast but there’s not much to it.” He chucks his chin out across the park, toward the general direction of South End. “We’re going all the way across the park. The Dark Knight.”

“When’s Mind Eraser?” Kiki leans over his shoulder, squinting at the map he’s pulled from his pocket. “That one’s good. Lots of loops.”

“Right after.” He points to the red track sandwiched between the Superman and Batman’s peaks. “It’s just around the corner once we’re off. Then I thought we might run across to Goliath, and--”

“Hey.” Mitsuhide frowns up the ramp, hands on his hips. “Have any of you seen Obi?”

Zen blinks, folding the map back into his pocket. “I thought he was right behind you guys.”

That thoughtful frown deepens. “He was. But then I turned around and--”

“There.” Kiki nods up to the land landing. “Fashionably late, I see.”

Obi glances up, tucking something in his pocket. “Yeah, I like to keep up the suspense. So chief, where to?”

[firstprince-ao3feed]

It is the East and He is the Sun

by sweetmidnights “I bet you $100 that he’s the reason Pez is late. That stupid, entitled motherfucker with his perfect fucking hair,” Alex lamented, rolling his eyes and slouching indignantly in his seat. It was stupid how soft his hair looked and even worse how much Alex wanted to feel it for himself. “I really don’t think that Henry has control of the traffic patterns, Alex. You’re being ridiculous,” Nora chastised as Pez started to scoot down their row toward the seat next to her. “Maybe not but the Mountchristen Corporation sure seems to think they are God and he is not exempt from that. Eat the rich.” -- Or: Alex is a 3L Stanford Law student and Henry is the face of Mountchristen Tech, a division of the Mountchristen Corporation. They are cast as co-stars in a gender bent Romeo & Juliet at the local community theater. Both grappling with their own losses, anticipated and already experienced, can they come together to put on a great show and save the theater that means so much to them both? Words: 3819, Chapters: 1/22, Language: English Fandoms: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Nora Holleran, Beatrice Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Mr. Wobbles the Cat (Red White & Royal Blue), June Claremont-Diaz, Percy "Pez" Okonjo, Zahra Bankston, Shaan Srivastava, Rafael Luna, Original Male Character(s), Frankie Wright (OC), Queen Mary (Red White & Royal Blue), Jeffrey Richards, Philip Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Theater AU, Romeo and Juliet References, Gender Bent Theater, Alternate Universe, Law Student Alex Claremont-Diaz, Businessman Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Mountchristen Corporation AU, Stanford AU, Enemies to Lovers, Miscommunication, Original Character Death(s), alex and henry save the theater, The Grand Jupiter Theater, i will update tags as necessary, including for the eventual smut via https://ift.tt/6nw1PEM

[n0t-le4fy]

Rollo and Sebs silly little marriage

Credits: me, Seb for the prompt.

Genre: Twisted Wonderland.

Relationship(s): Rollo and Seb, Leafy and Epel, Azalea and Riddle, Basil and Felix, brief Grass and Ruggie.

By: LEAFY AYAKI THE BESTEST FIC WRITER IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD‼️‼️

For: Sebby Webby 

“You look so beautiful! Handsome? Pretty? I dunno..” Leafy, one of Seb's close friends, is helping him with wedding preparations. 

Currently, Seb is with Leafy, trying on various suits. His current suit consists of a white undershirt, a dark gray jacket, and an “I ❤️ Rollo” tie. Seb is stressing about it. 

Despite being in a relationship with Rollo for a while, Seb still thinks about impressing his soon-to-be husband. 

“You're too twinky for me to compliment you.. but you look good!” His appointed Flower Girl says, fixing his “I ❤️ Rollo” tie. “I wonder when Azalea’ll get here.. didn’t you say they were one of your Maids of Honors?..”

“If they don’t get here soon. I will commit mass genocide.” The amazingly-fashionable groom snaps back at Leafy. 

“WHAT’S UP YOU GUYS??!?!?!?!?” A well-known person bursts through the door with a party hat, streamers, and a sash that reads “Oh my cod! I'm getting married!” Their bright grin slowly fades as they see Seb on the verge of tears, about to lash out at Leafy for poking him. Leafy is also on the verge of tears. 

“Shut your flippity floppity dog garnit mouth before I make you shut it.” Seb, bipolar and death-glaring at Azalea, was making one of his usual threats. “I will shut you up using 37 aborted fetuses.”

“You wouldn’t talk to Rollo like that, would you? Naughty naughty..” 

“Your left kidney will make amazing biscuits.”

___ 

The day of the wedding came. Everyone was dressed up nicely, who wouldn’t be for such a special occasion? Azalea and her plus-one were sitting in the front row. Can you guess who their plus one is? Housewarden Riddle Rosehearts!!! 🙀How original. 

Like Azalea, some of Seb's other friends were there. Including Romeo, Cajit, Basil, Eric, Jasper, and Seb Doppelgänger. 

Why Grass is not there is unknown, they could be off stealing doughnuts or haggling at street vendors with Ruggie. 

Is Leafy there? Of course, they are. Why would she miss her friend's wedding? (and a potential chance to see her multiple husbands.) Who was she with, you may ask? Idia? No. He’s too busy grinding on a new goofy game, and even if he wasn’t he would have an anxiety attack before arriving at the wedding destination. So, who else would she have been able to go with? None other than the silly country boy, Epel Felmier!

“Sebby Webby!! You look amazing!!” Leafy says, leaving behind the feminine-looking boy that is her plus-one date. 

Seb was having a mini meltdown, he never thought the day would come that he would get married to the one and only Rollo Flamme. He felt so many feelings all at once- excitement, overstimulation (not that way, naughty boy.), joy, stress, anxiety, and maybe even a bit of anger. Bipolar disorder doesn’t go away at weddings, you know. 

“glfhvmcbhfsahrjrwkdhlhf- ARARARARARRA.” This is Seb's way of letting his emotions out, his twinky ahh mascara streaming down his face as he becomes more and more overwhelmed. “THIS CORSET IS MAKING IT HARD TO BREATHE. I'M DYING.” 

“You’re the one who chose to wear that goofy outfit. You goofy boy.” Leafy grabs hold of Seb's hand and leads him to a different room. 

“Let go of me this instant! Your hands are as cold as the pizza at school!” 

Leafy does not let him go. Leafy, instead, grips onto Seb's hand tighter. They enter the room, Leafy leads the way. She sits him down on a bench and wraps her arms around him, warmly embracing him. 

“Are you.. a giddy German boy?” 

__

“That’s crazy.” Basil, dressed up in a traditional wedding dress suit, stands hand-in-hand with his plus one, Felix. “Why aren’t you wearing the suit Azalea picked out for you?” 

Seb doesn’t answer, he’s too busy having a panic attack. Leafy answers for him. 

“He said it looked too professional. “Rollo won’t want to take me to bed!” was what he said when I asked him about it this morning, which is why I picked out-” 

“-We picked out a cute ‘lil outfit for Sebastian here!” A familiar voice comes from behind, happy and jolly. (I need to stop saying familiar so much. that’s kinda crazy.) 

“What the fart..” 

Standing in the doorway of the room filled with spectrum-induced queers lies the infamous Grass. For some reason, Ruggie isn’t there. Maybe they’re stealing gold from Professee Crewel or something.. who knows? 

“Yes, Seb asked me to get a new outfit for him, but he was too into his depression era to come with me.. so I asked Grass!!” Leafy explains while Seb sits, still halfway embraced by his friend, wide-eyed. “It’s beautiful, right?” 

“..sure..” Basil responds while scratching his cheek and awkwardly glancing around the mostly empty room. 

__

Rollo’s stance at the altar is rather worryful. Having a touch-starved and traumatized past would make you that way- the poor boy has anxiety. His eyes dart across the room, he begins to sweat. What if his soon-to-be-wed husband had abandoned him at the altar? What if they had run off with Sebek, Floyd, or Baul? What if they were eating all of the croissants at the croissant-exclusive food table in the other room? 

“Where is he.. where is he..?!” The poor, panicky student council president is going insane with thoughts of paranoia as his groom is in the other room, also losing his head. “Have I been... ditched?..” 

Much like Rollo, the other wedding attendees were wondering where the second groom was. It’s not very often that a groom is this late to their wedding. Seb was breaking down in the other room while the two queers, Basil and Felix, look away to avoid him becoming more uncomfortable than he already is. 

__

Seb, with fixed makeup and a wide but terrified smile, walks slowly up to the altar. The flower girl, Leafy, gently sprinkles brown and maroon chocolate-cosmos flower petals over the walkway as Seb’s dear friend, Sebek Zigvolt, walks him up to the altar. 

To Sebek, this is an amazing opportunity to both impress Malleus and bond with Seb. 

The fresh aroma of newly picked cosmos fills the air as more and more petals are spread by Leafy, the various shades were mesmerizing most- if not all guests. 

The scent fades into some fragrance one can not quite place exactly... it’s not a bad scent at all, though. 

Sebek, flashy light-green hair and lime-green eyes, has Seb’s arm hooked around his own as if they were going to see the wonderful Wizard of Oz.

__

Rollo patiently awaits at the top pedestal, (description on his clothes). His specially and carefully picked priest, Robert, remains as well, standing with a perfectly straight posture. Robert was a random man in a bible study group Rollo was also in.  When I say carefully picked, I mean carefully picked. 

Rollo gathered a group of about fifty Nobel Bell College student council members and multiple priests from various places around the world. 

He wanted this special occasion to be special-er than special. 

He wanted his wedding to be so special even Leona couldn’t snooze during it. 

He wanted his special day to be so fantastic, so remarkable, so wondrous, so staggering, so magnificent, so astonishing, so extraordinary, so marvelous, so astounding, so breathtaking, so splendid, so impressive, so fabulous, so stunning, so stupendous, so formidable, so unbelievable, so stupefying, so outstanding, so mind-blowing, that Vil would be jealous of its beauty. 

He wanted it to be so special, so glorious, that even Idia would force himself to show up. 

He wanted it to be perfect, as you can clearly see. 

__

The terror-struck but flusteredly-excited groom walks up to the altar as he and Sebek part ways, Sebek sits next to Malleus and Seb carefully steps up. 

Rollo lovingly gazes into his ‘husband’’s eyes, forest-green irises sparkling with admiration as his lips tug into a soft smile. You could’ve never guessed that this man, this man, was the one on top of the bell tower. His cheeks, pale rose colored, slowly warm up into a bright cherry red. 

“Do you, Rollo Flamme, take Sebastian here as your lawfully wedded husband?” Robert The Priest asks. 

“I do..” The poor, worried boy answers in a soft tone, the gentle smile never leaves his lips. 

“..and, do you, Sebastian Hartz, take this man, Rollo Flamme, as, also, your lawfully wedded husband?” 

Seb thinks for a moment, Rollo presumes it’s for rethinking their marriage, but it’s really because Seb is panicking so much he forgot how to speak. 

“I do.” 

“Alright, I now pronounce you.. husband and husband!!” The old man named Robert yells pridefully, despite being as homophobic as my parents. 

The two stare into each other's eyes, neither of them willing to be the dominant alpha male and start the kiss. Soft, powder blue eyes staring into deep, forest green eyes, both pupils show signs of nervousness.

Rollo takes a deep breath, and yes, he does lead the wedding kiss. He slowly leans close to Seb, his baby-blue hair flowing slightly as their lips meet. Seb gains courage and does his part into kissing his husband, leaning in as well. 

They eventually part, both smiling wider with each second that passes. 

“I love you.” 

__

After the wedding, everyone besides the two newlywed husbands were eating the diverse menu of food Rollo catered. All of Seb’s friends, Azalea, Leafy, Basil, Felix, Grass, Romeo, Adonis, Zoy, (ect.) were sitting at different tables. Azalea and Leafy were on a mini-double date with Riddle and Epel while Romeo and Jade were gobbling up some home-made rice pudding. 

Rollo made the rice pudding the day before in preparation, he wanted the day to be perfectly perfect. He pulled a few strings and had Kalim convince Jamil to do most of the cooking, but in the end had to order a few dishes from totally legal Fleur City websites. 

“Mmmm nom nom.” Romeo says as he ate his bowl of rice pudding, Jade stared admiringly at him as if he were one of Jade’s terrarium mushroom fungi friends. 

Riddle sits down professionally, his posture straightens as he catches himself lacking in the presence of his lovely Azalea. 

“I loooooove you Riddle.” Azalea says before devouring their pupusa. Riddle reminds her of the Queen of Hearts’ 269th rule not to eat quickly at a wedding or something, Azalea ignores it and chomps down on another pupusa.

“Yum yum yum yum,” Leafy mumbles out with her mouth full of cake, red velvet crumbs all over her. Epel had taken the initiative to wipe up any mess his date makes, so nobody else would have to. 

“Leafy! Slow down, would’ya? Yer getting food all ov’r ya clothes!” Epel scolds Leafy as he, like Riddle, was giving ignored orders. 

“Where’s Seb?..” Azalea asks as they finish their 3rd pupusa. 

“I dunno.. dead I guess..” Was Leafy’s reply. 

Instantaneously, Seb bursts through the door, carrying his newlywed husband in old-fashioned bridal style. 

“HEYYY YOU GUYS!!! ROLLO LET ME CARRY HIM!!” Seb exclaims as he runs over to the groups of tables huddled near each other. “ISN’T THIS GREAT?!!?!?” 

“Oh my cod!! It’s amazing!!” Azalea smiles brightly as she places down a slightly eaten pupusa. 

Rollo blushes, either because of the embarrassment Seb is putting him through or how close he is to his husband. The christian man is canonically touch starved, remember? 

“Let me down! You’re supposed to be the one being carried! You’re the woman!” Rollo forgets he is married to a twinky trans man and brings out his 1950’s relationship sights. 

Rollo and Seb take turns carrying each other while the zest fest behind them watches. 

“Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!” Seb giggles as Rollo spins him around. “Poipiooioipipipopopopipo, I honestly expected you to be a skinny twink like me, but your stronger for eel.” 

Rollo is less athletic than a poor orphan German boy, so he can’t hold Seb for long. He collapses and takes his husband with him. They fall onto the ground on top of each other. Like how y/n fell over onto the bad boy alpha. Out of instinct Rollo  wrapped around Seb like a koala. 

After that.. incident, Seb helps himself to Rollos home-made rice pudding, gobbling it down faster than Seb getting doxxed after saying he’s trans to a 40 year old woman Facebook group. 

“Mmmmmm.. I love rice pudding.”

🙀🙀THE END🐙 

[lewis-winters]

Day 8: Graceful

part of my OC-tober 2022 (that's prolly going to bleed into 2023)! I took so long writing this prompt. I wrote three separate ones and hated all of them. This is the one I hated the least, so it's the one I'm going to post. I'm not happy with it tho 🫠🫠🫠

tw: period typical queer/transphobia

[AN EXCERPT FROM “BAND OF BROTHERS AND ONE SISTER: A QUEER HISTORY OF EASY COMPANY” BY ADAM NEWMANN

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF HISTORY]

The following is an essay found amongst the private papers of David Kenyon Webster, posthumously annotated and collated by his partner Joseph D. Liebgott during the years 1983 -1990, before being gifted to Arthur Benjamin Foster in June 1992 whereupon it was kept in his private collection until the day of his death in July 29, 2018.

xxx

I do believe I was the first to figure out.

Not about Foster, of course. That honor falls to one Eugene Roe, I think. I haven’t properly confirmed it, but who else would it have been? There isn’t a world in all of vast existence that I can manage to conjure where the company’s best combat medic would turn his back on another soldier in need. Unfamiliar am I in physiology dissimilar to my own[1], even I can tell that binding one’s chest for as long as Foster had been doing (while going through the same number of maneuvers for the same amount of time as the rest of us) is a health hazard Doc Roe would never allow amongst the men under his care. Not to mention dealing with monthlies[2], a feat already so difficult to go through, much less successfully hide on one’s own. In so far as I’ve known him, I could never pinpoint a time in which Foster had looked ill on account of breathlessness or dreaded muscle cramps. Either he was very good at hiding it—which I do not totally discount (out of all of us, Foster had always been one very comfortable with pain), but I might also venture to claim that Foster’s continued proper use of his lungs is a direct result of Doc Roe’s (and, additionally, Ralph Spina’s) nagging care. I doubt Foster would have made it through the war in one piece without it.

Though, I must admit, I might not have been the first to figure Arthur Benjamin Foster out, I very much could have been one of the first to figure him out, having been blindsided one night in the showers of our Aldbourne base camp; sure I had been alone to have another go at cleaning up after that afternoon’s accumulation of grime and sweat and completely unaware that the next thirty minutes would yield an enlightening argument from the two stooges that had decided bickering about Foster’s status as a, and I quote; “man with a bit missing[3], and two bits tacked on,”  was best done in the middle of the night in a shared shower located in the middle of a base camp, filled with soldiers trained to report any sign of queerness to higher-ups for extermination via blue-ticket.

In hindsight, I’m not entirely sure how I managed to keep as quiet as I had been that night, huddled in the stall in the far end of the row, terrified of discovery[4] just as Morse had been, so adamant was she that Foster be more mindful of the locks whenever he’d chanced a place to change.[5]

But I digress.[6]

Christmas in Aldbourne had been an odd affair—I chalk it up to the atmosphere our impending “great task” put us in. Contrary to popular belief, most of us were very aware that it could have been our very last happy celebration. There wasn’t much in terms of presents, food, or booze, but there was much laughter and cheer, most of which had been heralded by an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet some members of second platoon had put together under the direction of closet thespian Captain Nixon, then Lt. Nixon. Or at least, the first portion of it had done its job beautifully, with the image of clumsy, rough soldiers taking on the delicate poetry of the Bard’s works. I surely laughed some[7].

But perhaps the core of the subject matter of the play had been too somber for an audience with death constantly in the back of their minds. I remember distinctly how the end of the production brought in an oppressive hush over the audience. Our Romeo and Juliet were far too convincing, and by the end of it, in that awkward time between festivities and dinner, things had gotten a bit more solemn and quiet. The finality of death, even in the fictional sense, hadn’t been lost on us, and in an attempt to raise spirits, Nixon decided to secretly pass around his own, generously taking a bottle or two from his seemingly never-ending stash of the VAT 69 to share. I had been on my second helping of it (snuck to me by one Joe Liebgott, the gesture confusing me in the moment, but in hindsight was one of the first instants of recognition between the both of us, I think[8]) when I’d noticed that our unfortunate Juliet had yet to change out of her dress.

Morse had been our Juliet. Why, I’m not sure, though I always thought it was due to the relationship Nixon had with her. An almost brotherly one, with all its quiet concern disguised by teasing (that at times might have gone too far), but was often excused due to the undercurrent of tenderness that each stabbing jibe carried. Opposite her, he’d somehow managed to convince our resident rake Sgt. Talbert to take on the role of Romeo. It had all been a joke at their expense, no doubt. The reasons for the joke differ depending on who you ask, but for myself I knew Nixon had zeroed in on whatever budding, hot-and-cold relationship that had been brewing between them since the troop ship (or, if I’m not mistaken, since Pvt. Diedrich’s tragic death during the practice jumps in Toccoa)[9]. A rather cruel move, I had thought, especially toward her; though I was still too ambivalent toward Morse to bother saying anything.

Or perhaps ambivalent is not the right word.

I was apathetic. I didn’t know her—partly due to my own lack of trying, but aided, too, by her own reticence. She certainly never made it easy to know her in those first few months, and why would she? when everything about her until that very moment had been a lie? Though not the only one of us who was lying at this point, her silence on the matter of her identity was a result of a different kind of hiding. While some of us hid beneath cloaks of wool, sweltering beneath from the heat, sweating because of the promise of the sure ridicule and death, she had no cloak. All she had was an ill-fitting, sharp and painful skin, not her own and hurting her, with every step she took. I could never imagine that, the pain of looking in a mirror and being unable to recognize the entity staring back at you. No wonder she’d been the way she had, often hunched over, trying to make herself as small as possible in order to avoid as many eyes as possible. When you spoke to her, she was never fully present. Not in an absent-minded, manner, no. But in a carefully curated way. Like an impersonal room meant to appeal to everyone’s surface level of taste. Or one of those unremarkable hotel paintings, meant to be nothing more than to be a pretty image to look over. Even when she’d brought out the charm in those rare moments she deigned it necessary to smile at local girls in those little pubs we would find ourselves at, she was only ever able to achieve an approximation of a person. One that would last only a night with whatever pretty girl would fall for her charms, and then disappear in the morning, like some apparition.

Morse was a ghost, for me and for everyone else.

But in that dress, she’d transformed.

It should have struck me then and there, but I was too blown away by her sudden appearance, this human emerging from her cocoon, fully realized. In this cloth of cheap, emerald green and dirty white chiffon, crafted masterfully by Foster himself to fit and flatter her better than any commercial dress might—or any one-time-use, amateur theatre costume had any right to be—she was more than just a character on stage, or an actor of it. Nothing about her seemed out of place in that moment, despite it being all wrong theoretically. The comedy of it should have been derived from the mismatch of a man in a dress, but there was all rightness in her, then. A complete picture.

What happened then, reader, was what I could only describe to be a moment of True Recognition. It was then that I realized—looking at it in hindsight, I want to smack myself for such obliviousness. Truly, I say to you, it should have struck me earlier. The second she’d appeared on stage, in fact. The minute that secondary curtain had pulled back and she smiled, blooming beneath the lights like a flower to the sun—no one had laughed. They should have laughed. But none did. Not even when she’d simply sat, silent and lovely, smiling slightly with a hint of girlish excitement, like a blushing, young Juliet would have been in the face of a party being thrown solely for her. Nor when she’d gracefully recited half that sonnet, the words curling from her lips like tender leaves reaching out, out, out toward the surface to feel the sun. Not even when she lay, dying, her last breath a condemnation of hate, a celebration of love. There was no comedy to be found anywhere. There was no mismatch, and everyone could sense it. We were looking at a fully realized person.

She was just a girl in a dress.

It was lightning splitting through me, then. Striking me from between my eyes and pooling in searing heat just below my sternum, until it settled like molten metal in my stomach. Inexplicably, I ran through several emotions all at once. Elation, happiness, joy—I shudder to think of the faces I must have pulled in so little a time.[10] Then, recognition. Then, dread. Fear. A deep, deep sadness that made me turn away from her and back to thoughts that had brought us there, half-drunk and half-hysterical, reveling in the last moments of true freedom we knew we were ever going to get. Some, for a long time. Others, for the last.

All I could think was: God, let her live. If You had any grace left in this graceless world that allows war and famine and pain, spare some that she may live. So she can escape and go somewhere where she can wear dresses like these every day. Where she can live as she is, and not as what the military wants her to be. Where she can be more than government property, set up for slaughter and a tombstone that will do no justice to the inner life she currently lives.

And if she were to die, if this was going to be her last happy moment in a world of dark uncertainty, then I wished she had the chance to die in that dress. Be buried in it, as the person she really was, rather than the man everybody else saw her as. I didn’t want her to return to her uniform. To that cocoon that I knew, even without her insight, hurt her more than anything else did. She was meant for more. Butterfly wings.

I couldn’t stand it.

So, I left.

… This reads like a confession, Joe. Maybe it is. I have half the mind to send this to her. But what good will it do? She’s not going to stop running. I don’t even know where she is.

xxx

Though the nature of the piece, at first glance, is that of a personal diary entry, the researcher believes that it had been drafted earlier in Webster’s creative writing career and was intended as a practice piece or a personal essay. An assumption based on the last paragraph, keeping in mind how often it was said by those who knew them that Liebgott was often Webster’s sounding board for his writings. However, due to the subject matter, the heaviness of which seemed to have caught Webster off guard, the piece was derailed from its original purpose and thus kept instead of fixed up and published or, at the very least, circulated amongst their closest confidants within their Easy Company circle, as was his wont at the time.

Furthermore, unlike his own personal diary entries and his published articles dated in the latter years of his life, throughout this piece, Webster appears to be speaking to an audience separate from himself, through the vehicle of “reader” or, often, a singular “you.” Additionally, unlike his published articles, fellow Easy Company soldier, Natalie Morse is explicitly referred to as female in this piece, as opposed to only hinted at as female through specific choices in metaphor that establish a feminine-coded motif on her literary presence (i.e., always comparing her metaphorically to female figures, such as a sister or a mother and referring to her movements and physicality with gendered language skewing largely feminine), a literary style Webster often favors in his public works. His own respectful way of depicting Morse as he knew her while simultaneously avoiding outing her amongst unforgiving society at the time.

Despite the exact date of this piece being pure speculation at best, it is a widely shared belief amongst the Queer History community that this is the first ever attempt at capturing the existence of Natalie Morse as a transgender woman, pre-dating People Like Us, the written memoirs of Arthur Benjamin Foster, published in 2017 but which was written in the late 2000s.

Webster’s stylistic choices in referring to Morse in both this article and his published ones, as well as his blatant support of her, supplements the claims that most (if not all) Easy Company soldiers knew of the existence of not just Foster, but of Morse too, as transgender individuals, as well as their ready acceptance of them in a time when queerness was seen as a threat to be reported and eradicated within and between military men.

[1] That’s an understatement

[2] If Arthur had ever thought to kill us in this time, I would have let him, poor guy was suffering through enough

[3] I prefer when Able calls it a lack of inches

[4] You were always an eavesdropper, but not on purpose—or that’s what you claimed. Just always in the right place in the right time, my David

[5] If you were a Toccoa man, you knew about Foster; him and Morse weren’t quite as sneaky as they thought they were [RESEARCHER’S NOTE: In his memoirs People Like Us, Foster mentions how Liebgott was one of the few Easy soldiers who was in the dark about Foster’s existence as a transgender man. Webster later supplements this in a diary entry, where he mentions Liebgott’s rather comical reaction to finding out. This researcher is of the belief that this annotation was either an attempt at saving face or a case of memory failing Liebgott in later years.]

[6] Rambling, Web

[7] Pretentious bastard

[8] Hate to break it to you, buddy, but Hoob set that up. I think he was hoping to knock you out early and get you to bed so he could fuck around without having to worry about you passing out in some bar and missing curfew. Again. “Recognition” happened earlier. I’ll tell you next time.

[9] How the fuck do you know that? I never knew that! [RESEARCHER’S NOTE: It is often anecdotally mentioned by Easy Company men that while a notorious gossip, Liebgott was often times oblivious. In People Like Us, Foster often talks about how Liebgott would ask Webster for gossip he may have accidentally picked up.]

[10] Like a fish out of water, with your mouth half open and gasping for air

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the crow stigmata dark city disturbing behavior house of wax the cell carrie 2 feardotcom valentine cry_wolf the hole hellbent cabin fever hostel wolf creek hatchet the skulls strangeland faust (2000) silent hill the descent dead & breakfast dead end (2003) the haunting (1999) hellevator cube zero bulletproof monk the one queen of the damned resident evil ultraviolet spawn aeon flux the covenant the 13th floor dreamcatcher joy ride bone collector blade trinity seven panic room 3000 miles to graceland babylon ad jason x freddy vs jason final destination saw 2 gothika soul survivors butterfly effect the mist my bloody valentine (2009) when a stranger calls (2006) the hitcher (2007) the crazies (2010) rollerball (2002) death race (2008) three musketeers (2011) van helsing dracula 2000 underworld night watch blade 2 mimic event horizon alien resurrection alien vs predator bones identity pandorum house of the devil murder by numbers tomb raider romeo must die hansel & gretel witch hunters the collector scooby doo charlies angels doa dead or alive house of 1000 corpses ginger snaps back cradle of fear running scared the forsaken mindhunters splinter daybreakers gamer shoot em up smokin aces willard end of days the 6th day doomsday (2008) dog soldiers mortal kombat escape from la hard boiled nemesis (1992) death machine hackers cypher hellraiser inferno hellraiser deader hellraiser hellworld demonlover idle hands bride of chucky h20 little nicky american werewolf in paris house of the dead punisher war zone dredd constantine war of the worlds (2005) minority report vanilla sky stay 30 days of night from dusk till dawn tobe cursed dark ride youre next vacancy she creature (2001) they (2002) my little eye 2001 maniacs (2005) taking of pelham (2009) the mummy (1999) psycho (1998) teaching mrs tingle cherry falls sorority row all the boys love mandy lane cropsey laid to rest the watcher (2000) salems lot (2004) the grudge the ring 2 p2 the strangers rec let me in signs devils backbone the orphanage the loved ones titus andronicus dagon garrone drag me to hell evil dead boxing helena bound all about evil cure for wellness deathgasm the fanatic lords of chaos devils candy satanic panic masters of horror cube (2021) hellboy animated the amazing screw on head

[tr0ubl3d-tr4n53nd3r]

I love the forbidden romance trope but that might have something to do with my love for Shakespeare.

Like- I write a lot and every book has something like that

(1930's) (low-key forgot their new names but their old names were) Quincy and whatsherface. - royal family, Quincy is a commoner and his wife is the queen.

(1951) Simone Johnston and Ryan Östwald - Royal family, Simone and Ryan are the children of arch nemesis' essentially Romeo and Juliet, but they don't commit suicide one is murdered as an act of removing tyranny and the other is hung in prison

(1960) Marigold and someone Davis - Whatever the husbands name was was a guard for Simone and when she died he was put on death row, and he ran away with the maid and had a son in Canada.

(2009) Laura Davis and Her boyfriend - conventional couple. Rich girl and hot boy. Popular. But there's a twist, he's an accomplice to murder

(2010) Laura Davis and masked boy - they have a fun loving happy relationship, but Laura is still dating her boyfriend. Laura has to kill her boyfriend and watch masked boy sacrifice himself to save the rest of the characters in front of her.

Separate universe (really stupid fanfiction of rtc and td)

Ocean and Betsy - Ocean is competing for her life again, and as she is trying to get back to Penny to apologize for something she did while they were still alive, she starts to fall in love with an intern, who helps her in challenges. When it gets to final three Ocean is against Constance and this girl who also got beheaded and had nobody who remembered her and she told everyone she had been cheating and got herself voted out. The last thing she did was hug constance, wish her luck, and kiss Betsy.