#fic: older or two brothers and a train station

[uefb]

Specifically writing the missing 1k words to get me to the next chapter for the person who added my fic to their —

list.

Because y’all —

I WILL NEVER GIVE UP ON TEEN!THESEUS & BB!NEWT. The absolute audacity to suggest it🥺😭😭

I love them your honor

[bratbarzal]

On Your Side (NH13) / Prologue

Pairing: Nico Hischier x Fem!OC Poppy Jensen

WC: 13k

Chapter Warnings: angst, miscommunication, ghosting? maybe, some cursing, mentions of OC having nephews (gross), being broken up with over a text, allusions to anxiety, my oc being argumentative and avoidant (she's me), and nico also being avoidant and a poor communicator (he's a man) (he's also a capricorn) (sorry capricorns)

Summary: Poppy Jensen’s job with the New Jersey Devils was supposed to be her first big step into adulthood - a way to prove to herself and her overbearing parents that she could make her own way in life. She was never supposed to become involved with any of the players. Becoming best friends with their captain was stupid. Getting her heart broken by him was tragic. Getting knocked up with his child was just plain��messy.

Series Masterlist

A/N: is a 13k prologue excessive? probably. is the mixture of tenses in this part going to grind your gears? most definitely. am I going to do anything about it? no.

I've never actually published any writing before so go easy on the girl. if I need to tag any warnings just let me know. if you like the fic let me know. if you don't like the fic I beg you I'm having a bad month spare meeeeee.

TW for british english spellings because shock horror I am unfortunately british, get used to u's and s's where you least expect them, I will change my spell check settings for no one!! nico's facebook aunt shenanigans have lit a fire within me today and I was writing a later chapter for this fic and thinking if I don't actually put this out into the world I never will so here we are hi my name is maggie I hope you enjoy

Poppy

New Years has always been Poppy Jensen’s favourite holiday. The dwindling aftermath of Christmas - lights and decorations still hung throughout the city, everyone decked in the hats, scarves and ugly sweaters gifted by distant relatives over the Christmas period, and the six days of limbo usually spent drinking and eating copious amounts of leftovers before the new year, new me resolutions kick in - and experiencing it all in her hometown surrounded by the people she loves the most, there is no other time like it.

This year, she feels like the festive period has been one, long, strung-out horror show. 

Self-inflicted, of course, like all the other tragedies of her life, she does know she only has herself to blame for how pathetic it has turned out.

She had prepared herself for Christmas to be a dud. The one time of the year that she and her family put aside their differences, and this year she had opted out - or, so her mother had dramatically concluded; she actually just had work commitments. But, this would be her first spent alone due to the fact her parents had decided to go and visit her older brother, Oliver, and his family in San Francisco.

They didn’t have to fly across the country - Oliver has more than enough money to book his clan on a flight back to his home state, but obviously as the golden child, the Jensen’s must bend to his every whim. Of course, Poppy had been invited. Her relationship with her brother wasn’t mutually acrimonious, but the aforementioned work commitments got her out of that bore-fest. 

She does love her brother. Sometimes. Christmas, especially - he’s a great and expensive gift-giver. And she loves his wife, Kimberley, and their two sons - her nephews, James and Lucas - but spending the holidays with them would have been a lot. Her family is hard work on the best of days, and the only reason Christmas is ever bearable is because her mother hires help, and it’s impossible for the stress train to leave the station if Priscilla Jensen is given enough wine early enough in the day to dull her usual wicked demeanour. 

Kimberley, God bless her soul, maintains a sober house, and Poppy, as much as she respects this, would not go anywhere near that train wreck if you paid her a million dollars.

There’s also the fact that the holidays were invented to unwind, and Poppy somehow always gets lumped on nephew duty. She had long grown out of her boys are gross phase, but lord, do those two try everything in their power to bring it back. She has lost count of the amount of their bodily fluids she has had wiped all over her best clothes over the years. If she had agreed to fly out, she no doubt would have ended up being the one to watch the kids while everyone else had their version of a good time, and so she’d successfully managed to avoid all that with a half-assed promise of visiting at Easter, instead.

Her brother hadn’t been too upset - one less place setting at the table for him to worry about - but her mother had been livid, and there was no chance Poppy would live it down without owing her.

God forbid she, as an adult, actually got to choose how to spend her time.

She hadn’t actually been completely alone on Christmas, not all day, at least. Her best friend Nia had invited her to eat with her and her dad, but they were hardly putting her in the festive spirit with their constant snipes at each other, and so she’d given herself stomach ache stuffing herself full of corn bread and roasted carrots and dipped out to make it home for the Giants game - because there’s no better tradition than watching your team lose on Christmas Day. At least she wasn’t there to watch her dad and brother yell at the TV and get all grumpy for hours after the fact. 

She’d watched Love Actually with mulled wine in hand and fallen asleep on the couch - waking up in the middle of the night to the muffled sound of her neighbours screaming at each other through the walls. 

Poppy had the 26th off, and spent the day preparing her apartment for New Years, knowing she wouldn’t have any other opportunity to get her big clean done. She’d cleared out half her wardrobe - done several loads of laundry so that she could donate clean clothes to the women’s shelter a few blocks over - rid her kitchen of all the outdated tinned foods in the backs of her cupboards, dusted every surface, vacuumed every floor, colour-coded her bookshelf to look more aesthetically pleasing and then within an hour put it back in alphabetical order - all in a day’s work. 

By the time the 27th rolled around, and she had to return to work, she had tired herself out completely. She had been drained, and the worst part of it all, she didn’t even actually need to be there.

Sure, December was a crazy time to work in the NHL, their schedule unrelenting when the season got into full-swing, and the holiday events that Poppy’s team had to organise seemed never ending, but she had technically been given limbo-week off. Not that her mother had to know.

The Youth Foundation team had all wrapped up work for the year on the 23rd, and if Poppy was a truly good daughter/sibling/aunt, she would have booked herself on a red-eye after the home win that evening, but the second the opportunity to accept an actual real excuse not to change her plans arose, she took it with open arms. Her guilt of lying to her family diminished, along with her will to live at the fact she had - self-inflicted, as always - put herself down to work her favourite time of the year.

Her career with the New Jersey Devils had started with an internship in her final year of college. She had worked with the digital content department for her first year, quickly being sniped by the Foundation in the middle of her second year and working her way past content creation to helping co-ordinate and run some of the community events.

When her friend Jessica had approached Poppy and begged for her to cover her spot in the department they had started out together in for limbo-week, spending it with the team at their games, she had jumped at the bit. She knew no one else would agree to work last minute after having their time off approved, and was pleased to relay to her mom that she had to prove herself as a team player if she wanted more responsibility at work. It was all in the name of bumping up her performance and getting her name out there, and definitely not avoiding her family and that whole shit-show.

Poppy loves her job, and is more than happy with her career, but she could sing about it until the cows come home and her parents could not care less. They rarely ever acknowledged her successes because her life didn’t fit the mould they had set out for her - another reason she hadn’t wanted to spend this Christmas hounded with questions of why don’t you come work for your dad? Or why didn’t you accept the interview Ollie so kindly got for you? She doesn’t want a non-sensical, nothing job made up to keep her under her family’s influence. She has forged her own path, one that many dream of in one of the biggest industries in the country, and no matter how much she disappointed her parents in comparison to her lackey brother, she is content with where she is.

She had completely forgotten, however, that the devils played away on the 29th and 30th, and if she was going to be tagging along with the bare-bones limbo week media crew, there was no way in hell she was getting out of joining the team’s New Years celebrations. 

She had done her fair share of dodging team events already this year, and despite the fact she could appease most of her friends within the organisation, there was one person who would not let her off so easy.

This year is Jack Hughes’ first year hosting the big Devils New Years party - he’d, in her opinion, stupidly volunteered pretty much last minute after the venue the team had booked flooded in November and cancelled their reservation - and he would not let Poppy get out of coming, even if that meant scuppering her own annual tradition of getting shit-faced with her girls in their perfectly planned New Jersey bar crawl.

She’d done her best work to convince him - had almost sold him on the dream - she and her best friend, Nia, always start at the bar below Nia’s apartment in Hoboken, and then dot to the bars closest to their other friends apartments until they end up by Poppy’s, which has the perfect little rooftop set up where they get to watch all the fireworks across the Hudson. It’s how she’s spent the holiday every year since she and all her girls turned 21, and it was her favourite day, her favourite way to ring in a new year with her best friends in her favourite place in the world. 

Jack’s argument was that he also had a great view across the Hudson from his Jersey City apartment, and that she was less likely to catch hypothermia this year because his view came through floor to ceiling windows and the luxury of central heating.

She’d tried to argue that she had all intentions of meeting her future husband on her adventures through New Jersey, and he gave the quick rebuttal that he had plenty of single friends she was yet to meet. 

There was no excuse she could give that he couldn’t counteract, and so she’d eventually given up with the resolution that when he is 3 drinks deep, Jack Hughes can barely remember his own name, let alone keep tabs on where Poppy is, or if she ever showed up in the first place. She can always just say she’s running late until he stops asking.

And then she’d somehow gotten roped into helping him set up. 

Jack had cornered her on their flight home from Boston, where they had just lost to the Bruins and, all of a sudden, no one was in any kind of mood to party.

“I swear,” he had said, throwing himself down into the vacant seat beside her as she attempted to clear her inbox on the short journey, swiping away messages and storing others to review when work started back up in the next week, “If I mess up this party, and my name goes down in Devils history tied to the biggest depression session this team have ever seen, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

“How the hell would that be my fault?” She had scoffed, kicking at his feet when he had tried to man-spread next to her and they had quite abruptly knocked knees. The staff seats toward the front of the plane weren’t quite as spacious as the player seats further back.

“You brought some serious negative energy with you on this trip,” he shrugged, reaching for the bag of skittles she had stashed in the pocket on the seat in front of her and stealing a handful, “And I can’t blame you for us losing, so I’m gonna blame you for constantly trying to abandon my event and making me feel so insecure about it that it turned into a complete bore-fest because I didn’t have my literal professional event planner friend to help me set it all up.”

Jack Hughes had joined the New Jersey Devils at the same time Poppy had started her internship. There had been some corny ice breaker session for everyone new to the organisation that season, and they’d bonded over their shared love for country music. He’d become dependent on her as a local to the area for recommendations for everything - food, sports bars, coffee, grocery shopping, running routes - and they’d quickly developed a friendship that had lasted them thus far. No fallouts, no drama, no issues. Being friends with Jack is easy. 

Poppy is older by near enough 18 months, and considers him as close to a little brother as she will ever find - annoying, teasing, loud and somewhat of a know-it-all, but he cares deeply, and he’s loyal, honest and open with her, and she loves him for it.

“I’ve done my part even helping you plan the thing,” she had to snatch the bag back from him before he finished the skittles off, needing the sugar to keep her awake for the quick drive home when they landed. Jack had been on her back about this party since he had first put his name in the hat to host, and she had been gracious, helping him arrange food, drinks, decorations and DJ equipment in the hopes it would lessen the blow that she didn’t want to attend. “I didn’t bring negative energy.”

“Do I have to kidnap you when we deplane or are you gonna come around tomorrow morning and help me?”

“Kidnap me?” she couldn’t help but laugh, casting a quick measured glance over his figure. “Real cute, Jack, you’re nothing without your stick.”

“I could take you.” He attempted to throw a skittle up into the air and catch it in his mouth, not accounting for the fact they were on a moving, somewhat turbulent plane, and he barely had enough finesse to pull that off on the ground. The candy landed and bounced off his cheekbone, and he watched it fall to the floor with a child-like pout. 

“It’s fighting talk like that that would lose you another tooth, Hughesy,” she had threatened in jest. 

“I’m a middle child, I don’t start fights I can’t finish, Popcorn.” He also has a track record of giving Poppy the worst nicknames she has ever heard in her entire 24 years on this Earth. “Luke’s already said he’ll help me on the kidnapping front, we have a plan.”

“Your plan is nothing without incentive, Jack. You come at me with weak threats when you could just offer me something in return.”

“Like what?” His eyes narrowed toward her, shuffling in the seat until he was facing her fully. 

“I want to bring Nia.” If she was going to be subjected to this, she was bringing back up - and she had thought this would be a good trade, knowing how protective the boys were of their private events, especially those thrown in their own homes.

Poppy hadn’t liked the way his lips curved up immediately, like she had fallen straight into his trap. “Done.” She should have known better. He stood up, edging back into the aisle and sending her a wink. “I’ll text you details on when and where I need you. Your hot friend is more than welcome to offer a hand, too.”

And that is how Poppy has ended up spending the day of New Years Eve, her favourite day of the year, rushing to set up Jack Hughes’ apartment. 

Her first task had been to go round to Jack’s and accept the deliveries that came while he and Luke were out picking up the decks for the DJ. Drinks arrived by the crateful, the boxes of paper plates, cups and other table wears took her several trips up and down from Jack’s apartment to the building lobby until she broke out in a sweat, and she had done her best to hang all the decorations, her last call being to pick up the bigger decoration delivery from downstairs.  

Poppy, with the help of Lionel, the building’s concierge, loads the elevator full of decor, ranging from golden helium balloons that spell out ‘Happy New Year’ and ‘2024’, a large roll that should hopefully unravel to reveal a backdrop for a makeshift photo-booth, as well as a deconstructed balloon arch that gave her PTSD from the amount of events at the Rock she’d had to put them together.

Lionel offers to come up with her to help unload everything upstairs, but the thought of cramming another person in there with all the stuff makes her feel claustrophobic, so she politely declines - though, when the elevator doors open and she bumps face first into a firm chest, her nose smushing against a khaki t-shirt she wishes she had someone else with her to buffer the tension that stiffens her spine. 

A large, calloused hand wraps around her upper arm to steady her, and another reaches out to keep the doors of the elevator from closing in on where she stands. She looks up into eyes swirled with the colour of warm, melted chocolate, and her throat feels just the slightest bit drier than it had 5 seconds ago.

“Hey,” Nico Hischier’s voice is deep, scratchy like he’s just woken up - he probably has given how late the team got in last night - and trickles down in static currents from her ears to the base of Poppy’s back. 

She takes a short, startled step back, and gulps down the dryness in her throat before she gives a quick, “Hey,” in response. “Sorry, I’ll just take a second to unload all of this then the elevator is yours.”

“I’ll help,” Nico doesn’t phrase it as a question, as if knowing she would immediately decline. Not, let me help, or do you need help? He’ll just do it. “You get everything out and I’ll take it inside?”

She nods, despite the voice in the back of her head telling her that he’s only helping to get the job done quicker, and be able to get downstairs. She makes a conscious mental effort to drown it out while the two of them work in a silent tandem, her lifting the decorations into the hallway and him towing them down and into Jack’s apartment. 

She makes another conscious effort not to watch when he lifts things, the flex of his arms, the rippling muscles of his shoulders.

“Is that the last of it?” He asks, gesturing to the rolled up backdrop leaning on the side of the elevator and propping it open. 

“Yeah, but I got it,” Poppy gives a tight smile, lifting the roll but staying in place so the doors don’t close behind her and she doesn’t get stuck any longer in Nico’s presence on her own. “Thanks for helping.”

There used to be a time she couldn’t get enough of being around Nico, but those days are long gone.There is a permanent frigidity between them now - it’s been there since the summer just gone - and she’s overstimulated enough having spent her morning being Jack’s lackey while he no doubt slacks off with his brother grabbing brunch out. Her patience is beyond wearing thin, and so the last thing she needs is prolonged contact with the Devils captain where she will no doubt end up blowing up and making everything worse.

No one wants to ring in the new year with an almighty fallout.

She can’t help the frown that befalls her features when he makes no effort to occupy the elevator. He makes no effort to do anything, only looking at Poppy with a pensive pout. “Jack said I should come help you out.”

Of course he did, she thinks.

For the past four months, Jack Hughes has been acting like it’s his greater purpose in life to bring Nico and Poppy back together - like the demise of their friendship was the greatest personal inconvenience he has ever faced in his life. 

He has orchestrated one too many ‘accidental’ run-ins just like this one, and Poppy isn’t going to entertain his childish games any longer.

Nico doesn’t want to be her friend - she knows this for a fact - so Jack’s schemes are becoming a waste of everyone’s time.

“I’m alright, Nia’s on her way, you don’t have to hang around.”

Nia was due at Jack’s apartment two hours ago, but is no doubt still asleep after she was out last night for her pre-New Years celebrations. She’ll come over soon enough, though, and so Poppy doesn’t feel entirely deflated to turn down help she actually might currently need.

“I don’t mind waiting until she gets here.” Nico shrugs, again not giving her a natural opportunity to say no. He nods towards the apartment, gesturing for Poppy to start making her way over. “We both know she won’t take the stairs.”

Something about the way he so casually recalls information about her best friend plucks at her nerves, just a little, reflective of the part of their lives they had once shared with each other like it was nothing, but she shrugs it off, beginning to head towards the apartment with the roll tucked under her arm.

“I thought New Years was your favourite holiday?” He asks once they’re both inside, the sound of the door clicking shut behind him and somewhat trapping her in his presence echoing throughout the room. He doesn’t allow for any kind of prolonged silence between the two of them. If Nico Hischier is good at anything, it’s getting people to talk to him.

It’s not entirely that she doesn’t want to talk to him.

She does.

She’s wanted to talk to him every day for the past 4 months that they hadn’t talked - has been craving even mundane, casual conversation about the weather or traffic on the way into work, but now, as he yet again indifferently recollects such personal details about her as if they have remained close, she begins to feel uneasy.

“It is,” she gives a half-hearted, dismissive response. 

“Then why are you all grumpy?”

“I’m not.” She frowns, eyebrows furrowing and arms crossing as she turns to face him, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue.  

She’s not trying to be difficult. Or maybe she is. She is in a particularly bad mood, but she had thought she’d done a good job at masking it. He’d been around her all of 2 minutes and saw right through her. 

“Jack said you’ve been off all morning.”

Like he cares, she thinks, her mood souring further at the fact he doesn’t see through her or even care at all, he’s here at the request of someone else. Following up on his duties as a captain and fulfilling a favour for one of his actual friends.

Embarrassment floods the pit of her stomach, and rears its ugly head in the form of her biting tone when she replies, “Jack’s been out all morning, how would he know?”

“He left you to do all this on your own?” Nico frowns, gesturing around to the half-way set up apartment. All that’s left to do aside from put up the decorations she’s just lugged up is set up the food and drinks, and Poppy figured she could leave that task to Jack so that it all remained fresher for longer. 

“I do this kind of thing for a living, remember?”

She cringes inwardly at the venom in her voice, turning away from him with a huff and missing the way his posture deflates. 

“You run events, Poppy, you’re not an assistant.” She can hear his heavy footsteps follow as she moves to set up the photo-booth area. “If I’d known he had you running after him all morning, I’d have-,”

“Called someone else to come help me so you could carry on avoiding me?”

She really is wound up now. Jack bailing on her to do God-knows what while she sets up his party had been one thing - there was a rational part of her brain that would tell her there would no doubt be hiccups in trying to source a bunch of DJ equipment in New Jersey on New Years Eve and he hadn’t actually bailed - and she could write off Nia’s disappearance due to the fact Poppy had sprung the plans on her last minute when she got home and called her last night, and she was bound to show up at some point. But Nico implying she is letting Jack walk all over her and needs anyone’s help to get through setting up a basic party is downright offensive. At least, in her stressed out state, it is - and so she can’t find it within herself to bite her tongue about their situation any longer.

If it drives him away and brings back her solitude to finish setting up without him occupying any precious mind space, so be it.

She almost forgets a key fact about the man before her. He doesn’t give up so easily.

“I’m not avoiding you.” He bites back, stepping into her space and helping her lift the backdrop roll to fit into the brackets she had set up earlier when the structure for the booth had arrived. “I would have come to help you, myself, Poppy.”

She wishes he would stop saying her name. 

4 months of radio silence and he’s thrown it at her like a dagger twice in the span of 30 seconds, the way his it rolls of his tongue in a low, smooth rasp scratching an itch she didn’t know she had, and now she can’t shake it. 

“I’m fine,” she huffs, reaching as far as she can and pressing until she hears the brackets click into place. At the brief noise, Nico catches on to what he needs to do at his side and manages to click it into place, barely lifting his arms. She moves into the middle of the structure, pulling at the velcro tab holding the roll together until it cascades to the floor and unveils the backdrop in its entirety. 

“What else needs doing?” He asks, his tone gentler this time.

“Nothing,” she mutters, winding the velcro in between her fingers to occupy them, before moving to pass him and make her way to the next task on her list. It’s only small things now. Arranging the balloons, setting up the arch, clearing table space for the equipment when Jack finally arrives home. “You can go, I’ve got it.”

“Mohn,” Nico sighs lowly, warm hand clasping around her forearm as she attempts to pass, holding her in place beside him. 

She really wishes he wouldn’t call her that.

If Jack is the prince of childish monikers that make her insides curl, Nico is the king of making her melt.

The nickname takes her straight back to the days before the waves of the summer break washed their friendship away. The times where he’d give her a ride home from the Prudential Center after work, whispering a, “Goodnight, Mohn,” in her ear as they hugged goodbye over the centre console in the front of his car. The times she’d meet up with the team to celebrate a win at their favourite bar, and he’d throw a never-casual, “Looking good, Mohn,” her way with an appreciative once-over. 

And it takes her even further back to when they had met, and she’d first offered her name.

“I’ll be interning with the content team, my name is Poppy,” she had offered a bright smile, reaching her hand out for him to shake, and making sure to keep a firm grip, just like her father had taught her, when he places his hand in hers. As she had done since she was a child, it was instinctual to follow up with, “Like the flower.”

“Mohnblume,” he had uttered, a smile so deep his cheeks dimpled into deep valleys.

“Huh?” She had been only a little bit caught out by the way his eyes shone, forgetting her manners as her head tilted to the side in confusion.

“Poppy flower, that’s what it is in my language.”

“Oh,” she had exclaimed, furrowed brows raising, a soft flush warming her cheeks, “Pretty!”

“Very.”

She had convinced herself for a long time that it was just his way of remembering - an aid in blurring the lines between the two languages that, especially back then, he often found himself mixed up in. And then, after a while, using it seemed to bring a protected familiarity between them - like an inside joke - and he’d use it less in front of others and more in the times it was just the two of them.

Years down the line from hearing it for the first time, and months down the line from hearing it for the last, her heart still thumps the same erratic beat at the sound.

Nico’s eyes still shine the same way when he looks down at her, and she fights every fibre of her being not to think too much about it. Or not to think about the touch of his hand on her arm, still holding her in place, the two of them closer than they have been in a long time, now.

It’s painfully easy to forget the months of distance after only seconds in his immediate company - to wipe from her memory the reason for her reticence and to push down the stubborn desire to push him away.

Her lips part to speak, and she doesn’t know if she’s about to turn him down or take him in, because another voice fills the apartment before any words get the chance to spill out.

“I come bearing gifts!” A sing-song lull breaks the silence as her best friend makes her presence known, entering the apartment with a drinks carrier in one hand, and a to-go back over the other wrist. 

Poppy steps away, shaking Nico’s grip from her arm, and turns to give Nia her full attention, hoping that she is either too hungover or too focused on herself to see or care about the obvious tension between her and the captain. She manages to bite her tongue from letting a Thank God slip out, and makes her way over to retrieve a much needed drink.

“They were out of chai so I got you an iced tea,” Nia holds out the drink to Poppy, and then the to go bag, “And half a cinnamon roll.”

“Half?”

“What? I was hungry too.” Nia scoffs, turning her attention to the brooding presence on the other side of the room. “Sorry, Nico, I didn’t know you’d be here.”

“Would you have only eaten a third if you did?” He trials a joke, and when Poppy sneaks a peak back toward him, he looks apprehensive - scratching at the nape of his neck as if anticipating a bad reaction to his attempt at lighthearted humour.

“I’m sure Poppy doesn’t mind sharing if you’re starving,” Nia makes her way to the bar set up by the kitchen, placing her own cup down and shrugging off her purse beside it. 

“I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of half a cinnamon roll.” While his words are directed to her best friend, Nico looks at Poppy with a wistful smile, and she can practically see the memory of an old shared routine wash over his eyes. 

A weekly ritual of meeting by the PATH station close to both of their apartments on a free morning for a run, and then catching breakfast to go and grab a juice or a smoothie for the walk home - abandoned just like all the other little traditions they once had together.

Nico and Poppy had been close, before. Closer than she is to Jack, now - closer than she’s been to anyone else on the team, ever. So close that Nico knows her best friend enough to joke around with a familiar ease; so close that they’d even hung out as a three before, back when the girls shared an apartment in Poppy’s first year with the Devils, and he had been the only person that Nia had ever been happy to share her childhood friend with. 

And now, Poppy stands between them in a silence so uncomfortable she feels like the room is shaking.

She hasn’t talked to Nico in months, and hasn’t talked about him in just as long, but she knows Nia can read her like a book. 

The girls had grown up together - been through everything side by side, pinky fingers intertwined with an eternal promise of friendship and understanding. The demise of relationships, friendship group implosions, familial hardships, Nia’s goth phase, the time Poppy wrecked her hair dying it a vibrant cherry-red because her high school crush said Ariana Grande was hot - she still shudders thinking of how her hair glowed red in any direct light for years in the aftermath. Through middle school, high school, college, and all the way up until now, the pair know each other inside out.

So Poppy knows that Nia knows something happened.

Nia knows that Poppy hadn’t been able to go a day without bringing up the Swiss Captain before the summer, and then all of a sudden, she didn’t mention him at all. But she also knows her friend well enough and loves her too much not to have pressed on an open wound.

“It looks insane in here, Pop,” Nia gawks at the set up around her, every corner of the open plan layout of Jack’s large apartment decked out with decor and party amenities. “Do you guys go this hard every year?”

“Depends who’s hosting,” Nico shrugs, knowing when it had been his turn the year before, his event had been much more lowkey. Poppy had seen the pictures, had been sent an abundance of wish you were here snapchats around midnight from the Captain himself. Jack has a thing about his reputation that won’t let him even consider doing anything lowkey. “I forgot this would be your first year coming.”

“Oh, we’re not coming.” Poppy covers her mouth as she speaks around a bite of her food, unable to wait until she’d finished her mouthful due to the immediate urge to shut him down once again.

“You’re not?” He almost sounds disappointed. She doesn’t dare check for the furrow of his thick eyebrows or the pout of his lips. “Jack said he’d convinced you.”

A flash of anxiety shoots across her chest at the thought of him considering her attendance. Had he asked Jack? Had he mentioned her specifically - pushed him to convince her? Or had Jack just brought it up in an offhanded comment?

“I just agreed to get him off my back about it.” Her choice of words is only slightly intended to hurt. She and Nico were no longer friends - she hadn’t been the one to make that decision. Despite that fact, she tries to suppress the guilt clawing at the base of her throat at the wash of understanding that passes over his features. A solemn nod, gaze bouncing to the floor, lips pressed together. “We have plans with our friends.”

“Actually,” Nia’s voice captures both their attention swiftly - Poppy’s head whipping around in subtle alarm and Nico’s in anticipation. “Blake’s flight back from Arizona got cancelled, and Kelsey bailed on me last night because she got Covid of all things over Christmas.”

“What about Emma?” Poppy asks, hoping and praying their hermit friend has all of a sudden grown some stellar social skills and agreed to carry on their tradition for the sake of Poppy’s sanity.

“She double booked with her boyfriend, and he’s a huge drip I don’t really wanna hang out with those two all night.” God damn Emma and her tool of a boyfriend, Poppy thinks. “At least if we come here, we’re still close enough to your place we can make it back for fireworks on the roof.”

“We get a great view of them from this building,” Nico makes his presence known again, attempting to offer a solution. “If you didn’t want to walk back home so late.”

“See, Pop,” Nia claps her hands together with a grin, “We get to come to a cool party, don’t have to worry about creeps following us around all night, and still get to hold on to tradition. Win, win, win if you ask me!”

“Right,” Poppy sighs, knowing now that Nia has her heart set on the plan, there’s nothing she can do about it. Any persistence on her part would be too obvious. “Fine.”

“Awesome! What’s left to do?”

Poppy eyes Nico, knowing she’d told him only a few minutes ago that there was nothing left. “Just need to clear a table for the equipment Jack’s getting,”

“Which one?” Nia asks, making her way over with her iced tea in hand once Poppy points toward the table in the corner by the wall-to-wall window. “Are you helping or just standing around looking pretty?” 

Nico’s cheeks flush, a subtle warmth arising to his skin, and he gives a bashful chuckle.

Poppy feels a little nauseous, and it’s not from the sickly sweet half of a pastry she’s just forced down.

Nia’s eyes flicker between the two of them like she’s at a grand slam, and her lips twist to hide a smile.

“I actually need to head out,” he says, gaze darting quickly to Poppy before turning to her best friend, “I have some things I need to do before tonight. It was good to see you, though, Nia.”

Nia hums around the straw of her drink, giving a dismissive wave. “You too, see you later!”

Nico begins towards the door to the apartment, and just before he passes Poppy, he stops. He doesn’t reach for her this time, doesn’t step too close, but she can feel his presence regardless. And every hair on her body stands to attention like she’s been shocked by static when he says, lowly, “I’ll see you tonight, Mohn.”

She can only nod in response, not trusting her voice to speak, not trusting her eyes to look into his and be able to look away. 

After he departs, there are a few minutes of an ear-piercing silence. Poppy can hear every movement Nia makes, from the slurp of her drink, to the manner in which she throws things around with little care for where they end up. And louder than anything, she hears the violent thud of her heartbeat in her own ears.

“So,” Nia drags out when Poppy joins her at the almost empty table. “What the fuck was that?”

“What was what?” Poppy and Nia have known each other fifteen years, she doesn’t know why she hopelessly thought that would work.

“Don’t play dumb,” Nia scoffs, “You and Captain Sexy,”

“There is no me and Nico,”

“But you know who I’m asking about,” she scoffs like she’s caught her best friend out, and then adds, with a suggestive wiggle of her brows, “So you do think he’s sexy?”

“What are you, twelve?” Poppy rolls her eyes, “He’s the only captain we’ve been in a room with, pretty obvious who you were referring to.”

“Admit it, Poppy, I saw the two of you when I came in, you totally wanna jump his bones, you have for as long as you’ve known him.”

“We’re not having this conversation, Ni.”

“The hell we aren’t!” Nia grabs her best friend by the shoulders, “I’ve bitten my tongue for months, Pop, watching you mope around and get all glum whenever work is brought up. I couldn’t get you to shut up about the guy before, what the hell happened between you two?”

“Nothing happened!”

“It totally did!” Nia can spy the aversion Poppy is attempting from miles off. “Don’t tell me you two finally hooked up and you didn’t fill me in,”

“He has a girlfriend, Nia.”

The way Poppy says it is like a period to a sentence. End of conversation. End of speculation. It doesn’t matter what they had been before, or what they are now. It doesn’t matter what she feels. There is no her and Nico because he is someone else’s. That’s the crux of it.

“Since when?” Nia frowns. 

“Since the summer just gone.”

And there it is. Understanding washes over the face of her best friend, and Poppy has to force herself to look away. 

He’d maybe been with her before that, too, but Poppy doesn’t actually know the entire timeline of it.

All she does know is that he’d come back from Switzerland with a drop dead gorgeous model hanging off of his arm, and he no longer had a use for Poppy in his life.

She knows other little bits, that she’d sourced from parts of conversations with others, or potential social media sleuthing that she will never admit to even with a gun to her head.

Talia, a model from somewhere close to home back in Europe, and Nico had hit it off at some festival when he’d gone back to Switzerland for his break. He’d very quickly and very clearly become smitten with her. Poppy had seen as much with her plastered all over his private stories and even posted on his private instagram feed.

By the time he came back to New Jersey for pre-season training camp, she was tagging along to team gatherings, he’d take her on his morning runs, grabbing breakfast together, he’d pick her up every day after work so he could no longer drive Poppy home, not that he’d ever attempted to explain any of that to her. She was at every home game, was his plus one to every event, and Poppy and Nico’s friendship had fizzled out so much that she sometimes feels like the whole thing had been a fantasy, or a figment of her imagination. Something she’d misunderstood, miscalculating every interaction they had ever shared and assuming they meant the same to him as they did to her.

They didn’t.

She doesn’t think any of it would have hurt her so much if he’d have let her down easy. A sorry for bailing on you the first time she’d text him if he wanted to meet up for their weekly run and he’d left her on read would have lessened the blow. He could have been straight up with an I just want to focus on my relationship right now. That would have been the decent thing to do, but he’d just dropped her, instead. Didn’t come around her office for lunch, didn’t text her after training when one of the guys said something stupid and he thought it might make her laugh. He’d cut her off from the intimate parts of his life - ghosted her, even - and all she could find it in herself to do anymore was miss him.

She’d made attempts to bring him around, at first. Tried speaking to him at work, tried texting, but after a few weeks of staring at the delivered sign at the bottom of their message thread, she had given up. It still taunts her every time she opens it up to delete the entire thing and move on like he clearly has - erasing all the inside jokes and times they had confided in one another like they meant ever meant anything in the first place.

She can count on her hand the amount of times they had spoken since the summer. Work related, entirely. A good game here and a have you seen whoever? there. Today is the first indication in months that they had ever been anything more than two people who worked in the same organisation. Friends of friends, co-workers, barely acquaintances.

Not people who know each other’s favourite holidays and are chummy with each other’s friends.

“I’m sorry, Poppy,” Nia frowns, “I didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she shrugs, attempting nonchalance despite the stinging in the back of her throat. “Let’s finish here so we can go get ready.”

Nico

Nico Hischier isn’t the biggest fan of New Years Eve. He isn’t really a fan of the festive period, at all. He isn’t a scrooge by any means. He can appreciate the coming together of people and the celebration of the year just gone, and the one starting fresh - but ever since he moved from Switzerland and started his career in the NHL, the holiday period has felt unnecessarily long.

His schedule is jam packed - games up until the 23rd, starting again after Christmas on the 27th, and again after New Years on the 3rd - and there aren’t enough consecutive days together to celebrate in the way others get to do this time of year. 

He knows he has to make do with the fact - a small price to pay for living his dream - and his teammates help, all sharing in their sacrifices and trying to make the best out of a bad deal. But he can’t help but feel a lack. A lack of tradition, a lack of family being around, a lack of normalcy.

He remembers the holidays as a child, spending time at home with his parents and his siblings, having two weeks at home for his winter break and getting to spend his days doing whatever he pleased. As someone who moved overseas at such a young age, he looks back on those times fondly. 

But now, living at least 8 hours away from the rest of his family, this time of year only serves to remind him of the isolation that creeps up on him like a bad cold.

It starts at the beginning of the month, the sniffly nose period of the bug, when chatter starts around who’s doing what for Christmas. Decorations go up, parties are planned, names are passed around in a hat for Secret Santa, and discussions begin around who is managing to go where. 

Next comes the tickle in his throat - the last game before Christmas, where the team all depart and separate with temporary goodbyes as those who have family nearby all get to go home - their parents arranging home cooked extravaganza meals, reuniting with their siblings, exchanging gifts - and Nico, for the 5th year running, feels like a bit part in someone else’s festivities as he and a few of the other European guys all bustle into the dining room of whoever is willing to accommodate them for the day. 

Then comes the rest, the sneezing, the coughing, the lethargy, in the period between Christmas and New Years, when everyone is reeling off the back of their celebrations and looking forward to ringing in the next year with a big party. 

Nico had thought this year might have been better. He had been in a relationship, there were parts of the holidays he could tweak and adopt into his circumstances - exchanging gifts with a loved one, bringing her along to Christmas dinner at Jesper and Nicole’s place, and not having to feel like a third wheel or like he had to shrink to fit at the kiddie’s table. 

He’d even tried to start his own holiday traditions with Talia, his girlfriend. He’d booked an overnight stay at a fancy hotel on the Upper East Side in the middle in the month on one of the rare occasions he’d had two consecutive days with no game or other commitments - despite how hectic his schedule had been. He’d taken her Christmas shopping down Fifth Avenue like she’d talked so much about how she’d wanted to do ever since she came out to New Jersey with him after the summer. He’d taken her ice skating, away from the Rock so that it didn’t feel like work, they had bought and decorated the tree in his apartment together, he’d brought her along to every team holiday event.

And on the day of their home game against Anaheim on the 17th, just a few days after their trip into Manhattan, in the middle of the third period, she had unceremoniously dumped him with an I’m just not feeling this anymore. Over text. As she was already at the airport preparing to fly back to Munich to spend the holidays with her family. He had slumped into his locker after their brutal 5-1 defeat and couldn’t believe what he was reading.

Nico wanted to be angry. As he read the text, he could picture any other person throwing and smashing things. Calling her up and demanding an explanation - because it was clear she hadn’t been feeling it for longer than she let on, considering she was about to board a no doubt fully booked flight across the Atlantic in the eleventh hour. 

But there was too large of a part of him that just felt relieved.

Talia was great.

He had met her properly in the summer when he had gone home to Switzerland, but they’d had mutual friends long before. He’d liked a couple of her instagram pictures here, she had responded to a few of his stories there, and then they had been formally introduced at a friend’s party.

Things with her were easy, at first. Nico wasn’t looking for anything serious, and she had ticked all of the right boxes. She was good company, always down to do whatever he was doing with whoever he wanted to do it with. She recognised that summer was the only time of the year he truly had to himself, and she let him take the reins on how he wanted to spend it.

She would go on hikes with him, would lounge around in the sun if wanted, go to parties, go to festivals, join him on little weekend trips to Ibiza or Mallorca. And she was a great release when his training had picked up. She would work around his schedule. He’d invite her round to his apartment and he had enjoyed spending time doing nothing with her after a long day at the gym or at the rink.

She had slotted so perfectly into that version of his life that he gave very little thought into inviting her into the rest of it. 

She was beautiful, sociable, charismatic - and then she became hard work.

When summer was over, and he invited her to spend some time back in New Jersey, she didn’t quite grasp how much things would need to change. She constantly wanted to have plans. Wanted to go to parties, wanted to go out, be around other people, take little trips - and he had tried to accommodate her the best he could, but he didn’t have the time for himself, let alone for another person, to be doing things all the time. He had tried to tell her as much, and she said she was okay with it, said as long as he was present with her, she could settle for not doing the things they had in the summer, but she expected too much from him. 

She wanted Nico’s attention at all hours of the day, weaving herself into every aspect of his routine. He wanted to run? She would go with him, could really use the fresh air. He wanted to do some solo training at the gym? She had been meaning to work on her lifting. He couldn’t go to the grocery store - could barely even go to work without her wanting to be there. His phone would blow up whenever they were apart, and if he didn’t text her back straight away, she’d become cold - making him feel guilty and grovel for her forgiveness.

Talia was fun, until she wasn’t. Until she was exhausting, and Nico couldn’t keep up with her any longer. 

She didn’t give him the grace to have an off day. He was tired, he was struggling, and when the season kicked into full swing, and the team’s schedule was packed, he became unable to juggle it all.

His work was suffering, his star was dimming, his body ached and his performance dipped - both in his professional and personal life. 

And so, after the detonation of their relationship, a break up text felt a little like a wake up call.

Talia had contributed so much to the deterioration of normalcy in his life, that Nico was still trying to piece back together his routine 2 weeks later. 

His holiday period this year had been spent in a haze - and it wasn’t for the reason everyone thought. He had caught the pitiful glances sent his way over the dinner table at Christmas, had seen the way the couples in the room tried to spare him of their PDA whenever he was around, and he could have told them it was okay. He was okay. But there was a large part of him that was trying to figure that out, still.

He had known he wasn’t heartbroken. He wasn’t shooting off texts to Talia and begging for her to come back. He’d already boxed up what little belongings she had left behind and was going to ship them internationally after the New Year had passed. He had deleted, not archived, all their photos on his private socials, and had even deleted most of them from his phone. He wasn’t in pieces over the fact she had ended things.

But he knew something still wasn’t right.

At first, he had thought it was work related. Their worst week of the season had happened just before Christmas - 3 losses at home in the span of 5 days - and he thought that could be the reason for his slump. Then, they won against Detroit and he still felt off.

Then, he thought he had been anxious about Christmas - about showing up on his own, having to explain his breakup to everyone not quite caught up on the news yet, and he would have to wallow in that same old feeling of watching everyone else enjoy the holidays. But Jesper and Nicole had thrown together a pretty nice day for the guys. The food was great, the company was great, and he’d gone back to his apartment that night with a feeling of relief - like he’d been dreading something for so long only for him to have genuinely enjoyed himself.

And finally, as if being thrust into a freezing cold ice bath, realisation had washed over him on the morning of the team’s final home game of the year against Columbus. 

He had been walking through the back offices of the Prudential Centre when he had stumbled upon a conversation, and had heard Poppy Jensen’s voice for the first time in what felt like forever.

“I’m just kinda beat, to be honest, J,” she had said in response to a question Nico hadn’t caught. He had thought no one would be around, most of the Foundation staff having the week off, and hadn’t expected to come across anyone on his venture to the best vending machine in the building. The Foundation offices were often frequented by kids, and had an assortment of candies throughout their machines instead of the protein bars or rice cakes elsewhere in the staff areas. At the sound of her voice, he had come to an immediate halt, peaking around the corner where he could see into her office. She was moving some things into a box on her desk and Jack Hughes was reclining in the chair in front of it that once had been claimed by Nico as his own. “I’m all social interaction-ed out, the holidays have kinda beat me to a pulp, I don’t think I could keep up with you guys, I’m sorry.”

Nico watches as she swats at his feet when he tries to kick them up onto her desk, and can’t quite see the crease between her brows as she frowns at their mutual friend, but can remember how it used to form all the same. “You’re such a bullshitter,” Jack had scoffed, clearly pre-empting the stapler Poppy would throw at him, managing to catch it with ease. 

“You can’t call me a bullshitter in my own office,” she gawked, “You don’t see me marching out onto the ice and calling you an attention whore.”

Jack had thrown the stapler straight back. She caught it all the same, and dropped it into the box.

“You haven’t hung out with us in forever!”

“We hung out at the Toy Drive like 2 weeks ago!” There had been two toy drive events organised by the Foundation in different parts of town, and, as he had long become accustomed to, Nico had been put on the one separate to the event Poppy was working. It had been fun, but when he’d checked the social posts the next day and seen the pictures posted of the other team - all smiles between them, a slightly blurry Poppy in the near background of all of Jack’s pictures to indicate how close they had been throughout the event - he had felt like he’d missed out on something.

“That was work, it doesn’t count, Popsicle.” Nico could hear the roll of Jack’s eyes.

“Yeah, well some of us don’t consider helping underprivileged children and spreading Christmas spirit ‘work’, Jack.” Poppy had used air quotes to emphasise her sarcasm, and a fond warmth had spread throughout Nico’s chest at hearing her hold her own against someone as brazenly wise as Jack Hughes. “I thought we were hanging out, having fun, improving our community together. You should really check your ego!”

“I sh-,” Jack had managed to cut himself off, no doubt realising how loud he had gotten. “You’re the one who’s been avoiding the whole team all year, ‘cause you’re hung up on-,”

The door to Poppy’s office had slammed closed before Nico had a chance to hear the end of his teammate’s sentence. Their voices had been muffled after that, and shame had started to creep up on Nico at the fact he’d been eavesdropping on a private conversation.

He’d foregone the snacks he originally snuck off in search of, and returned back to the locker room to get ready for his practice skate. 

For the first time in a long time, when Jack arrived and threw himself down on the bench beside him, Nico had wanted him to bring her up.

In the months prior, he would freeze up at the mention of Poppy Jensen, not wanting to face the reality of his dwindling connection to someone who had once been such a huge part of his life. He had other focuses - namely, Talia - and reflecting on what had once been between the two of them did not serve any kind of good purpose. It opened him up to uncomfortable conversations that he wasn’t willing to have, uncomfortable realisations he couldn’t quite come to terms with, and he had been too comfortable avoiding any kind of confrontation around it.

But in the short time between witnessing the conversation between Jack and Poppy, and getting ready for the team’s morning practice, too many questions had been swirling around his mind, and he needed answers.

Why was Poppy packing up her desk?

Why was she avoiding hanging out with the team?

What was she so hung up on? Had something happened?

He’d spent so long avoiding even thinking about her, that he all of a sudden felt like he’d missed everything.

Luckily for him, Jack Hughes needed little to no prompting for his blabbermouth nature to prevail.

“You know, for someone who’s literal job it is to lead us as a Captain, you’ve done terribly at warning me just how stressful this whole New Years thing is,” Jack had huffed as he began changing into his practice gear.

“I did nothing but warn you,” Nico responded, “You called me Mr Grumpy Pants and told me I was just afraid your party was gonna be better than mine.”

“Yeah, well, you should have insisted, it’s stressing me out.”

“You’ll be fine,” Nico scoffed, running a hand through the mess of his hair and leaning back into his locker. He watched Jack’s jittery movements as he shrugged on his pads, and felt the need to reassure his friend. “Everyone’s looking forward to it. As long as there’s plenty to drink and decent music, people will have a good time.”

“Not everyone,” Jack grumbled, “I can’t even get Poppy to come and she loves parties.”

So that’s what they had been talking about. 

Poppy did love parties, but Nico couldn’t remember the last time he had seen her at one. 

“Poppy has a New Years ritual, she didn’t come to mine, either, I wouldn’t beat yourself up about it.” Nico shrugged, despite the wave of a memory that washed over him of him doing exactly that when she hadn’t showed up last year. He’d had to restrain himself from leaving his own party - spent the night texting her updates on what everyone had been doing, snap-chatting her pictures in the hopes it would entice her the few blocks over from her apartment building. He’d only been consoled by the text he’d received just after the clock had struck midnight, settling for the pride in knowing he had been one of the first to get a Happy New Years message from her - knowing it wasn’t just a mass text she would have copy-and-pasted to everyone else, and had been personalised to him with a bunch of perfectly curated emojis and exclamation marks after his name.

Nico didn’t see Jack’s stiffened posture at the way he had so nonchalantly mentioned her for the first time in forever. Didn’t see the side eye, or the pensive twist of his mouth as he carefully considered his next words like he was about to step through a minefield.

“I’m gonna keep trying,” he had sat back down on the bench beside Nico to put on his skates, “I’m definitely her favourite, she’s been helping me organise the whole thing, I don’t think it will take much to convince her.”

Nico tried not to show any kind of reaction to Jack being Poppy’s favourite, or at the thought of how much time they must be spending together to organise such an event. A part of him knew he was only saying it to rattle him. “Cutting it a little fine, aren’t you? New Years is in a couple days, and the guys from the Foundation aren’t even around this week, are they?”

“She’s covering someone on content until January, I said I’d drive her home after the game and me and Lukey can double down on it. And if we can’t get it done tonight, she’s coming on the road with us at the end of the week. I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Oh,” Nico was thankful for how Jack had leaned over to tie his skates up, because he wasn’t entirely sure he’d been able to mask whatever had flooded over him at the revelation that his teammate would be driving Poppy home.

That was his thing. He was pretty sure his passenger seat was still positioned to her liking despite how long it had been since she’d sat in it. He was still working his way through the stash of smiley face air fresheners she had stashed in his glove compartment. He still felt like he was forgetting something every time he left the parking lot and she wasn’t sat beside him, chatting his ear off about some of the kids she had worked with in the day.

“Maybe you should ask her?”

Nico’s eyes shot over to meet Jack’s in alarm. “Me?”

“Yeah, the more people that ask, the more she might feel like she’s missing out. Flash her those cute dimples, how could she possibly say no?”

“I think I’m the last person that’s gonna convince Poppy to come, Jack.” Nico had tried to be nonchalant about it, but he had come across so painfully uncomfortable that he could feel the hair on his arms stand, not liking the ache that spread through his chest at the statement. 

There was once upon a time that cheering Poppy Jensen up had been a large part of his routine. Even small acts, like bringing her a coffee on a busy day, where he knew she wouldn’t take a break to go get one herself, and knew how much she disliked the stuff from the pot in her office. Sending her texts from across the room when there were big organisation meetings and he could see her chewing at her fingernails at the vast amounts of information being spewed about. Tagging her in cute animal videos he’d come across on TikTok when he was across the country on a roadie and on a different timezone - she’d wake up to them sometimes, and he’d wake up to her response.

“Right, I forgot you two aren’t friends anymore.”

“Is that what she said?” Nico had swallowed down the hurt at the thought of her coming to that conclusion - vocalising it to someone and finalising the decision before he had any chance to do anything about it.

He couldn’t really blame her, though - he’d had plenty of chances.

Nico could feel himself beginning to spiral, words swirling around his head like a tornado of realisation and guilt. 

Aren’t friends anymore.

Avoiding the whole team all year.

Jack is driving her home.

He’s her favourite.

Aren’t friends anymore.

Shit.

He didn’t even take in Jack’s response to his question. As much as he wanted to know the answer, he couldn’t bear to hear it. 

Nico couldn’t face up to what he had truly lost.

It wasn’t his girlfriend of five months, who had dumped him over text during the most wonderful time of the year. It wasn’t a few games, that, sure, it had sucked that they had been beat, but in retrospect, the team had had a pretty decent start to the season, and shouldn’t have had his back up that much. 

Nico had lost someone who had, at one point, been the most important person in his life. 

The person he would usually have gone to to help him through the other stuff - the breakups, the losses, the stress, the anxiety - the crushing weight that had been pressing down on his chest since he had left for Switzerland at the beginning of summer. 

Nico and Poppy used to work around each other like a beautifully choreographed, well-rehearsed dance. She always knew when he was overwhelmed or exhausted, he always knew when she was stressed or upset, and they both knew how to pick the other back up. 

They hadn’t even fallen out of sync when they’d stopped talking to each other, only this time, they were moving around each other. If Nico entered a room, Poppy would leave. If she knew he was going to be at a team party, she’d make up an excuse not to go. If someone mentioned Poppy in casual conversation, Nico would quickly change the subject. All of it had been subconscious, on his part, at least.

It had been so easy after such a prolonged distance between the two of them to move when she pushed, to watch when she ran, like he had grown into his part in their relationship akin to repelling magnets, always moving away from one another.

It had been so easy that he hadn’t even really realised what was happening - lost and handicapped by a thick fog clouding his thoughts and his judgement. He’d let their once blooming friendship wither and die, and for what?

As he had watched Jack waddle out of the locker room for their practice session, muttering a dismissive, “Whatever, I’ll figure it out,” to his Captain, it was like he had been awakened into full consciousness. 

Nico had thought that his turmoil had started with the holiday period. Had thought the ache of homesickness had swirled in with the grief that came with the loss of his relationship, and the shame his poor performances on the ice had thrown upon him. But it had started long before that. He hadn’t been himself since he’d returned from his summer break. Before that, even.

Without realising that he had lost her, Nico had spent the last few months subconsciously mourning his friendship with Poppy - the crushing weight of that grief consuming him to a point that he felt lost with no way out, and had expressed it in a bunch of misguided ways.

He reached into his bag to retrieve where he had stashed his cellphone, scrolling through his Messages app until he stumbled across Poppy’s name. The last text had been sent in September, by her, and he had never responded - had never even opened it, the blue dot to the left of their message thread taunting him with chirps of how awful he had been to ignore it.

Poppy: Hey, can we talk? I miss you.

How late is too late to reply to a text like that? He could only hope she still felt the same way.

Turns out, 4 months might be too late.

Nico has drafted an embarrassing amount of messages to Poppy over the days since that conversation in the locker room.

His notes app has a whole folder dedicated to her. Bullet pointed lists, random memories that made him think of her, structured essays that laid out a timeline of their friendship, and all the mistakes he would need to beg for her forgiveness for. 

He’d tried sending a message when he had got back to his apartment after the game against Columbus, feeling a rush of confidence from the adrenaline of their OT win, his high had soon dwindled when he was alone. He sat staring at all the different iterations of an apology he could offer, and had even chickened out of the final draft of a very simple but hopefully effective, ‘Hey.’

He knew he was overthinking it. A conversation starter would at the very least open the door for the apology, and all he needed to do was talk to her in some way - but that turned out to be easier said than done.

She wasn’t in her office when he’d gone to seek her out at work the next day, and when he realised she was probably in the content and media offices, he felt like he would be cornering her if he sought her out in front of anyone else. When the weight of how far removed they now were from each other’s lives dawned on him, a text felt too informal, and so the paragraphs sat untouched in his notes. The weather hadn’t been too great, so he couldn’t try and intercept her on the running route he knew all too well, and even attempting to orchestrate a seemingly random encounter outside of work seemed too creepy so stopping by the cafe around the corner from her apartment in the hopes she’d be there grabbing a latte was off the cards. 

He’d seen her on the plane to Ottawa, having to pass her seat to get to the team section at the back, but he had a few people boarding behind him, and she had her eyes cast toward her cell, headphones on and typing intently to somebody, he couldn’t even offer her a friendly smile to try and warm her up to the possibility of a conversation.

Between their win against the Senators, and their loss against the Bruins the next day, there wasn’t much time, or energy, really, to seek her out, and so he’d had to press the breaks, but as they flew back to New Jersey from Boston, a panic had started to swirl within his chest.

Nico knew he couldn’t enter a new year without clearing the air, and so time was well and truly running out. He again had seen her on the plane, and when he had plucked up the courage to get up and go sit with her, Jack had beaten him to it. When the plane had landed, and the team bus had driven them all back to the Rock, the Hughes brothers had both walked her to her car to see her off for the evening. 

For someone who had been not-so-subtly trying to initiate a reunion between Nico and Poppy for so long, Jack Hughes sure knew how to get in the way. But, he was easy to forgive - especially when Nico had woken up to his texts late this morning.

Jack: need ur help

Jack: urgently

Jack: wake up dude

Nico: I’m not driving anywhere for you

Jack: not asking u to

Jack: u will like this I promise 😌

Nico: what do you want?

Jack: need u to keep Poppy company

Jack: she’s in my apartment and she seemed off when she got here

Jack: been on her own for a few hours

Jack: so she’s grumpy 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻 👹👹

Nico: doubt I can change the grumpy part

Nico: especially if you’ve left her alone for hours

Jack: don’t need to

Jack: ur a grump too

Jack: will cancel each other out 👍🏻👍🏻😇😇

Jack: u going down or no?

Nico: fine

Jack: I’ll be back in 1 hr :)

Jack: love u cap 😚

Nico: 🙄

And that was how Nico had found himself trudging down to Jack’s apartment, hopeful at the dream of a bridged gap between him and Poppy, and quickly disappointed by the reality.

She had been cold, rightfully so, and had made it clear as day she didn’t want anything to do with him. She had shrunk into herself, backing away from him any time he got too close,  defecting to a state of avoidance - gaze dropping to the floor, declining his offers to help her, making assumptions she was in his way, as if the thought of him seeking her out had become an entirely alien concept.

He couldn’t blame her for how she was being with him. It had been his fault things had collapsed between them - he’d come to that conclusion with the vast amounts of evidence piled up in his phone storage the past couple of days, but it didn’t make it hurt any less to see her like this - or to feel an actual, tangible resistance when he had tried to insist on being around. She didn’t want him around, that much was obvious, and it was starting to feel like it was to late to fix what he had so royally screwed up between the two of them. 

The once well-oiled machine that was their friendship was now clunky, clattering, dying a slow death with parts that were now obsolete.

But that didn’t change how much he wanted it to work. His parents had once told him when he was growing up that nothing was beyond repair, and if he wanted something fixed enough, he would figure out a way.

They had been talking about a model train he, his father and his brother had made when he was very young. The company that made the sets had gone bust, and they no longer sold the individual parts anymore - so when his sister had stumbled over something in the garage back home, knocked a box, and the once pristine collectable train had tumbled out and ended up cracked and chipped, he had been heartbroken. He and Nina had filled in the chips with wood filler, and touched it up with her nail polish, and it wasn’t the same but in a way it was better - a new sentiment attached with a memory of bonding with his sibling. 

The same thing could apply to his friendship with Poppy. Maybe they couldn’t go back to what they were - maybe they could be better.

And, when Poppy had made one too many attempts to push him away - when he had taken a hold of her after she had tried to move past him, dismissing him and his desire to help her, once again - a fire reignited within him. A spark of hope flickered at the familiarity that had flashed across her face as he referred to her in an endearment he hadn’t let himself use in so long.

In that moment - hand wrapped around her arm, just above her elbow, the skin soft and warm, close enough to smell the all too familiar cloud of vanilla-coconut scent that followed her, and her eyes locked on his - he had seen a crack in her armour.

He had seen an element of want - wanting to reconcile, wanting to fix things, wanting him in her life in the way he had been those months ago - and in a mirror of his own emotions, he had seen trepidation.

They wanted the same things, had the same fears, had the same end goal.

And when the unforeseen interruption of her best friend arriving startled her back into her withdrawn persona, he had realised something else.

Nia’s contrasting attitude toward Nico - open, friendly, familiar - had opened his eyes to the fact that Poppy hadn’t told her best friend about the demise of her friendship with Nico. 

And that, as much as it needed unpacking entirely, was Nico’s backdoor entry into the high security vault of Poppy’s good graces. 

Thankfully for him, Nia’s obliviousness to their tension had worked entirely in his favour. He tried not to look too much into Poppy’s attempted avoidance of spending the evening in his presence, despite her other plans falling apart. Tried to shoulder the blows of her sly digs at them not being friends anymore. Tried to ignore the pang in his heart at Poppy’s best friend being the one to throw flirty jibes his way, and not her. 

A determination had begun to brew within him - swirling, bubbling, steaming - and it was going to push him to finally bridge the gap he had forced between them.

His first success was her agreeing to come to the party, and he could easily build on that momentum.

Nico and Poppy were going to be friends again by midnight, he would figure out a way.

> Chapter One

[ell0ra-br3kk3r-writes]

Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?

pairing: (future) james potter x black sister!reader

genre: angst with like maybe a little fluff?

el's thoughts: this is part one! hope yall enjoy! i'm thinking this is a two part fic... we'll see haha

main masterlist | regulus masterlist

The summer before their sixth year would be one to be put in the books. 

The whole off-season was spent traveling back and forth between 12 Grimmauld and Malfoy Manor. At first, Y/N didn’t mind since she got to see her beloved older cousin, Narssica. Evenings, after dinner, were spent gossiping with Bella and Cissa. It reminded her of when they were young and it brought her a new sense of comfort until even that was gone once again. Like everything good in her life, it slipped away like a bottle of wine and shattered on the floor. Evening gossip sessions turned to meetings at the large dining table with people she had only heard of before. She clung to Regulus for as long as she could before he too was dragged into the meetings and not long after she followed him. Both of them were initiated into the Deatheaters much against their will but no one would know that. 

~

Platform 9 ¾ was crowded and suffocating and the Black siblings made their way to the train. Their parents decided against escorting them to the station this year in favor of attending an important meeting. Regulus and Y/N truly didn’t mind if it meant not having to hear another lecture before the school year. The only other difference this year was the matching tattoos they had hidden under their black sleeves. 

The familiar mop of raven-black curls caught her attention and made her freeze in her steps and her trunk slam into her heels. She saw James Potter jump onto Sirius’ back, both of them shouting in celebration of making it to their seventh year. Remus Lupin stood beside them laughing at their antics with Mr. and Mrs. Potter. Lupin met her eyes and gave her a smile out of sympathy only causing her to roll her eyes and quickly catch up with Regulus. 

“The prince of Slytherin and Little Black herself grace us with their presence!”

The sound of the familiar voice pulled a small smile out of Y/N as she made it to their compartment. “Evan.” She nodded politely and sat down next to her designated seat by the window. “Shut up.”

Regulus smirked and sat across the compartment from her, next to Pandora. Barty and Evan sat to the right of Y/N, trying not to bother her since they sensed her sour mood. 

The loud commotion of shuffling feet and shoving shoulders could be heard through the glass sliding door of their compartment. No one needed to be told who was making all the noise since the train had taken off already and the Marauders were making their way down the hall to their own compartment. Regulus completely ignored them as they walked by but Y/N felt her heart clench when Sirius came into view, but only for a few fleeting seconds. Pandora gave her a small smile to which she smiled back. 

~

The Great Hall was buzzing with new year excitement and fresh energy from the first-year students. Y/N sat on the left side of the Slytherin table with Regulus by her side and Pandora on her other. While Dumbledore gave his typical speech, Y/N rested her head in the palm of her hand with her elbow on the table. She felt a pair of eyes on her and tried her hardest to ignore them but when she noticed them not leaving her she finally turned her head to look and met eyes that mirror her brother’s next to her. Sirius was whispering into James’ ear while staring at Y/N. She rolled her eyes and flipped him off before directing her attention back to Dumbledore. 

“Let the feast begin!”

“About damn time, I’d say,” Barty muttered from across the table causing Y/N to laugh, bringing a smile to her friends’ faces at the sound. 

The group ate their meal with a light conversation floating around. All of them avoided the events that occurred over the last few months. Once they all finished they decided to call it an early night and all started heading back to their common room. 

In the corridor outside the Great Hall, the marauders stood in a huddle with some of the Gryffindor girls Y/N recognized from some of her classes. 

“Reggie!” Sirius’ voice echoed down the hall causing both younger Black siblings to cringe. “How was your summer with Mummy and Daddy?”

“Yes, a pleasure to see you as well, Sirius.”

The older Black seemed to ignore Y/N until Regulus tried to usher her down the hall in the direction of their common room. “Y/N/N, how was your summer coddling up to Mummy Dearest?” 

“Sod off, Sirius.”

“Oooh, looks like you found your voice, 

“Black…” Evan spoke up from behind in a warning tone. “I’ll give you a fair warning. Stay in your lane.”

Sirius smirked in response, loving the rise he was getting out of the group of younger Slytherins. All the kids he grew up with and was told he should be friends with. “Stay out of it, Rosier.”

“Y/N/N, let’s go.” Regulus placed his hands on her shoulders from behind and guided her away from their brother and his friends. 

Sirius scoffed and turned around, “Cowards.”

Y/N’s head snapped up and her fists clenched at her sides as she stepped out of Regulus’ hold. Two years of Sirius living at the Potters. Two years of Y/N hurting from the loss of her older brother. Two years of being looked down upon*. “You would know all about cowardice wouldn’t you, Sirius? Takes one to know one, I’d say.”

Sirius clenched his fist and opened his mouth to speak but Y/N didn’t give him the chance. 

“Running away from home? From the consequences of your birthright and last name. Left your younger siblings to deal with the aftermath of it all, didn’t you?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I had to leave.”

“Maybe you did, but if that’s true then don’t you think we needed to leave as well?”

Sirius stared at her with wide eyes as hurt coursed through his heart at her words. 

“That’s what I thought.”

Y/N spun on her heel and walked back to the common room with the others behind her.  

~

Y/N and Regulus Black. The pride and jewels of the Black family. They were nearly school royalty and most would be jealous of the pair. They had everything they could ever wish for coming from one of the most prestigious pureblood families. No one would dare say a word to their faces. But behind their backs? That was a different story.

James had heard so many different stories about the pair from other students and his best mate. Gossip about the Black family constantly flew through the halls and corridors of Hogwarts. He knew Sirius came from a stuck-up pureblood family, his parents told him that when he was young. He knew of all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families. He was also aware that his family could’ve been a part of it had his father chosen so. 

He always viewed the Black family as picture-perfect but had learned it was far from the truth. When Sirius shared what his family was like at home, his heart ached for all three Black children. It wasn’t fair for any of them, and they didn’t deserve that life. James knew that. But who was he to overstep the lines of his brotherhood with Sirius and tell him his siblings needed the same help he did? He tried to once and only got into an argument with him. From that moment on, James promised himself he wouldn’t cross that line again. But James had too kind of a heart to follow through with that promise.

~

Sniffles were heard through the otherwise silent corridor as James froze at the entrance. “Hello?”

A small hiccup sounded followed by muttered cursing. 

“Hello? Are you okay?” James treaded slowly down the stone hallway, looking in each of the large alcoves as he passed them. 

“I’m fine, go away.”

James’ head tilted at the sound of the slightly familiar voice. “Y/N?”

It wasn’t often that she could be found alone, but then again, it wasn’t often James was alone either. 

“I’m fine. Piss off.” Y/N cursed right before James came to the window she was seated at.

James looked her over and noticed her bloodshot eyes and the tear streaks that stained her cheeks. Her right hand tugged at her left sleeve almost begging it to stretch longer over her hand. “What… What happened?”

Y/N laughed humorlessly as she tried to quickly blink away her tears. “You can’t take a hint can you, Potter?” 

“I just asked a simple question, Black. No need to be snippy with me.” 

Y/N stared at him for a moment too long before forcing her gaze to the window beside her. “I said I’m fine.” Her voice sounded weak and she cursed herself for it. 

James lowered himself to the seat across from her. “Is it… is everything at home alright?”

Her eyes snapped back to his, cold and glaring. “Bugger off, won’t you? Don’t ask questions about things you know nothing about and have no right to know about.”

He held his hands up in defense. “Alright, alright. Sorry.”

Y/N’s eyes flooded with confusion at his words. “Wh-why are you sorry?”

“I overstepped a line. Didn’t mean to pry.” He explained gently. 

She huffed but didn’t respond for a moment. She avoided eye contact and wrung her fingers together. “I’m fine really.”

“So you said.”

She sniffled quietly, clearing her throat. “So why are you still here?”

“Why are you still here?” James shot back with a quirk of his lips, not at all put off by her nearly bashful behavior.

“I-” Y/N scoffed in frustration. “I was here first, minding my business before you came along to bother me.”

“What if I was just going for a stroll before I decided to take a seat? Not everything is about you, Black.”

“What if it is?” She shot back, her lips settling into a small teasing smile of her own. It’s been so long since she had carried on a normal, light-hearted conversation with someone who hardly knew anything about her. Sure James knew more about her than most, but he was just as much a stranger to her as the next Gryffindor. 

‘Beautiful.’ James smiled at the girl across from him as she relaxed and allowed herself a moment to breathe. He can’t remember ever hearing Y/N jest with her friends or seeing her truly smile at anyone other than Pandora or Regulus. He scolded himself for his train of thought. He can’t be thinking of his best friend’s sister as beautiful.

After a beat of silence, Y/N smiled shyly at James. “Thanks.”

“For what?” He smirked.

She rolled her eyes and glared at him playfully causing him to chuckle.

“You’re welcome.”

The pair went their separate ways, not bringing up the encounter to any of their friends. Keeping the moment for themselves, both deciding it was too precious to share.

[lixiesfreckless]

Early | l. m.

➸ synopsis: God, you want him so bad it's almost pathetic.

➸ starring: lee minho x female reader

➸ word count: 2.5k

➸ general content: acquaintance!minho, reader is horrendously down bad, insane amounts of pining, like- this entire fic is just the reader pining for him lmao

➸ warnings: mentions of alcohol, mild swearing

➸ rating: teen+

➸ author’s note: I'd like to thank @ashonheavenscloud for the ending idea. sorry for the readers I'm about to blueball

♫ early- junny, soulbysel(THIS IS LITERALLY THE INSPO FOR THE FIC)

“Yeah, I can take her home.”

Ryujin claps a little too loudly, courtesy of the several drinks she had shotgunned an hour before.

“Thank you bestest older brother in the universe,” she slurs, wrapping her arms around the older man, who was furrowing his eyebrows in mild discomfort. You stand there awkwardly, already feeling like you were inconveniencing him as well.

As bad as you felt about it though, you couldn't help the nervousness creeping through your veins at the thought of being alone with Minho.

It's not as if you've never been alone with him. You have; just in transitional spaces. Waiting for the rest of the friend group to show up. Waiting for different trains at the metro station. Waiting for the closer mutual friend to come back from the restroom. Hell, him dropping you off wasn’t really any different.

You really don't talk to him much at all, which makes it all the more ridiculous that you even have a crush on him.

And yet, you just let it fester, held back by the classic best-friend’s-older-brother unofficial rulebook. But you think even if he wasn't related to Ryujin, you still wouldn't make a move, simply too shy to find out what was under his impenetrable blank stare and trademark doc martens.

After snatching up your purse, you quickly say goodbye to your friends before catching Minho at the door.

“Sorry about all this again–”

“I was already on my way out, don't sweat it.”

Minho holds the door to the club open for you, and you step out into the crisp coolness of night, trying to appear as collected as the man walking beside you.

“My car is just around the corner, I'm just gonna grab some water for you from the store, okay?”

You find yourself nodding, although you're barely paying attention; you are focusing on averting your gaze from his face, careful as to not give yourself any more daydreaming material.

His car has one of those proximity keys, so there's no cheerful chirp letting the block know that he's about to open the passenger side door for you. Which is how it should be, because that is not a monumental occasion.

Except oh my god, Lee Minho just opened the door for you to get into his car, you might as well be married at this point.

You watch as he disappears into the little corner convenience store, and returns in record time, barely giving you any time to rehearse any cool sounding conversation starters. Then again, it's not like there would be a long line at well past three in the morning.

Shit. You're in Lee Minho’s car going to your house at three in the morning.

Your thoughts are cut off by Minho jumping into the driver’s side, swiftly starting the car and dropping two bottles of water into the cupholders.

“You live right in front of the memorial park right?”

You settle on a hum, not trusting your voice to sound calm in the slightest as his hand reaches for the gear shift. Coincidentally, that's the same time you choose to take your bottle of water from the center console.

And this is how you learn that Minho’s hands are softer than they look.

You don't stand a chance against the tidal wave of thoughts that flood your mind immediately after the accidental contact, your mind suddenly reeling with images of his hands cradling your face, sliding behind your neck, around your waist, through your hair–

“Sorry,” you squeak out, immediately seizing the bottle and twisting it open, desperate for something to lower your rising body temperature. He actually chuckles in response, and the sound has you focusing on the cool leather seat against your bare back in an attempt to round up your remaining brain cells.

He pulls the car away from the curb, beginning what will probably be the longest ten minutes of your life.

There are some things you pick up on immediately.

For one, Minho predominantly drives with one hand.

You honestly don't get how he looks so relaxed doing it either, side profile completely at ease as his right hand absentmindedly taps on the gear shift. If you were in the driver's seat, both hands would be at 10 and 2 o’ clock, just like your driving instructor taught you. Which is exactly why you take the metro; you feel like a stressed suburban mom when you drive, but don't have the time to rewire your brain to make your hands sit at 8 and 4 o’ clock like everyone else.

But he looks like he's shooting a Hyundai commercial, hand resting comfortably on the top of the wheel as the soft orange glow of the dash illuminates his perfect nose bridge and perfect eyelashes–

“Are you cold?” 

“No, I’m good,” you reply, trying and failing to keep the questioning tone out of your voice.

“Sorry- thought I saw you shiver just now,” he chuckles, glancing at you and letting his eyes drop to your legs for a split second.

Honestly, you probably did shiver; just not from the cold.

Also, why on earth did you decide to wear this dress of all dresses tonight?

Backless and short with a halter neckline, one could call this a revenge dress if you had an ex. Except it’s starting to feel like revenge on yourself, because as fleeting as Minho’s glances towards you are, they never go unnoticed, and each one makes the hem feel an inch shorter.

Granted, the slope of the seat makes the skirt ride up anyways, so it was inevitable, but you can't pull it down—he would immediately think you lied to him about being cold. Or get the idea that you didn't want him to look at your legs. Which would be ridiculous; he's practically the whole reason you wore this dress in the first place. 

You're stretching your legs out before you can give it a second thought, and you don't miss the way Minho’s jaw sets, or how his finger stops drumming against the gear shift.

Now that made you more than a little curious.

The second thing you notice is Minho’s excellent taste in music.

You assume his phone automatically connected to the car once he turned it on, because no radio station you can list off the top of your head has beats this smooth. You've never considered what kind of music he would listen to, mostly because you were worried about what he would think of your music taste. 

But this? 

These are exactly the kinds of songs you would play if you wanted to set the mood. They sound like what the world looks like after the last hues of purple leave the horizon. Indigo. Whatever that means.

You can't help but wonder if he was trying to set the mood.

Oh god, you're almost to your apartment and you haven't said anything interesting since you left the club.

You steal a glance at his side profile, once again reminded that Minho can rock any hair color he chooses as the street lights reflect blue off of his jet black hair. It gives him a darker aura, one that stops most lingering gazes on him from ever getting closer. Sure, it's not much different from the color he had before, which was dark brown, but the change makes a difference. To you at least. 

You saw its effects in action, watching all night as girls at the club try to approach him to only end up shooting their shot with his companion, who was always eager to down tequila shots with bright eyes and cheeky smiles.

“The new hair looks good.”

“Didn't catch that,” he quickly says, turning down the volume of the music with his steering wheel and slowing to a stop at a red light.

“I like what you did with your hair.”

“Really? I honestly didn’t think anyone would notice.”

“The girls at the club sure did,” you half-laugh, and he turns to look at you in bewilderment.

“You think so?”

“You could have filled a swimming pool with how much they were drooling.”

Minho laughs. He actually laughs at something you said. The sound makes you so dizzy you think someone slipped something into your drink.

The feeling of the car sliding in next to the curb pulls you back down to reality in an instant.

He puts the car into park and you slump into your seat, not at all trying to hide how disappointed you are at your performance tonight.

“Thanks for driving me home,” you whisper, not daring  to look him in the eyes as you unbuckle your seatbelt.

“Anytime,” he says so casually, and maybe a bolder you would take him up on that offer.

Instead you nod and smile, and reach for the door handle.

“Y/n.”

You hum and look back at him, trying your best to ignore the turmoil in your stomach once your eyes meet.

“I…this might sound a bit odd, but can I use your bathroom?” He smiles crookedly. “My place is still a ways away–”

“Sure,” you say without thinking, and he nods and jumps out of the car. You definitely can't read into that. Maybe he really can't wait until he gets home. Maybe he doesn't want an excuse to be in your apartment past midnight.

Still, your hands tremble as you twist your keys in the doorknob.

You kick your heels off upon entering, and Minho follows suit, ditching his combat boots by the door as he awaits your instruction.

Looking up, you catch him watching you expectantly, and you indulge the attention before realization dawns on you.

“Oh– the bathroom, yes. Last door on the left, sorry,” you hastily choke out, shaking your head in embarrassment. He chuckles out thanks before sliding past you and disappearing around the corner.

Water. You need water.

The coolness of the marble counter feels good against your bare back as you lean against it, trying to get a grip as cold water rushes down your throat. Maybe you should just attempt to make a move on a different night, when you have a little more liquid courage running through your veins and he’s as hazy as he is handsome. Your mind wanders back to that blissful moment in the car, when he threw his head back in a fit of laughter. That felt so natural, so easy. Why couldn’t you make him do that all the time?

Well, maybe you could, but that requires talking to him regularly, which is something you only do in your daydreams.

Minho suddenly steps out of the bathroom and you fight the urge to choke on your water, setting the glass down on the counter as he approaches you.

“I take it you like jasmine?

“The flower?” The random trivia throws you off guard. “Yeah, it’s my favorite flower…how did you–”

“Everything in your bathroom is jasmine scented,” Minho chuckles, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets.

“Ah, well…I found it helps to match everything to your perfume so it seems to last longer.”

“So you’re saying my car should smell like jasmine when I go back?”

“Only one way to find out,” you say with a smile, internally crying over how you just created a seamless segue for him to leave.

He turns to go find his combat boots, and you punch the air, frantically looking for an excuse for him to stay. But he’s standing by the door too soon, running a hand through his silky black hair before giving you a wave goodbye.

“Goodnight Y/n.”

“Get home safe, Minho.”

The door opens, then closes, and you exhale a sigh of relief, or frustration. Most likely equal parts both.

Perhaps baby steps would be the way to go. You haven’t even texted him, and you want him to make a move? Maybe he thinks you aren’t interested because you haven’t exactly been forward.

Sighing, you move towards your kitchen table, and then you freeze. The universe has never given you a second chance so pointedly before. 

Minho left his keys.

You reach for your phone, deciding that calling him would be faster than chasing after him, but stop halfway through your contacts once you hear him knocking on the door.

“It’s open!”

He steps inside to see you twirling the key ring around your index finger, and you hold it out for him to take as you walk up to the door.

“I didn’t take you as the forgetful type,” you giggle.

“Let’s just say I was distracted.” He slides the metal ring off your finger, and you know the dip his eyes make isn't a trick of the light.

He turns to leave, even opening the door, but when he takes a step out and turns to look back at you, something shifts in his eyes. Like a cat that’s seen something move in its periphery.

And in your mind, it all happens so unbearably slowly. 

He would step back in without a word, moving slowly and soundlessly as he’d break eye contact just to watch the door click shut. You’d find yourself backing into the wall next to him, hands pressed flat by your sides as you’d try to make sense of his approaching silhouette under the dim lighting. 

It would feel all too real, his hands sliding around to the small of your back, his chest pressing into yours, his breath fanning across your face. Your breath would catch in your throat, and the first touch of his lips would be cautious, before diving in with unrestrained desire.

You’ve imagined what it would be like to kiss Minho a million times, and with your ever-descriptive reveries, it almost feels real as you ponder the different ways he could pin you against this wall, mouth hard against yours, or light and teasing with feathery brushes of his lips.

God, you want him so bad it’s almost pathetic.

So bad, in fact, that once he lifts the corner of his lips in a smile and turns to leave for the night, it takes everything in you not to throw caution to the wind, and spin him back around. Find out what Lee Minho tastes like for yourself.

But you don’t.

You watch him walk down your hall until he leaves your sight, and even after you’re gone, you spend at least another minute replaying the few moments you had with him tonight.

Next time, you think, chewing your bottom lip as images of kissing Minho resurface against your will. 

I’ll do something about him next time.

‧⋆ ✧˚₊‧⋆. ✧˚₊‧⋆‧

[teecupangel]

i read this fic where bayek becomes desmond's father and it got me thinking that he'd make such a great father for our stabby bois with daddy-issues hahahaha best founding father ever

Bayek found them by accident.

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Senu found them while he was connected to her. He felt her take over and Bayek had been surprised.

The only time Senu had ever taken over when Bayek was connected to her was when she noticed that Khemu had been a babe and had gotten out of the house without anyone realizing it.

That was the reason why Bayek knew that it was important to let Senu take control.

And she showed them to him.

Four children, the oldest being perhaps ten or nine years old while the youngest could have only been a few months old.

They all wore simple white robes, the whiteness having been dulled by dirt. The oldest held the small baby in his arms, glaring at Bayek with golden eyes.

They all looked quite similar to one another, especially the two oldest boys so Bayek had assumed they were brothers.

… and orphans.

The oldest boy was the one to answer all his questions but he only gave out his name.

Altaïr.

They were staying in a rickety house that looked abandoned and Bayek couldn’t help but be worried. He had been in the area to help build the bureau so he had asked the two Hidden Ones stationed there if they could keep an eye on the children.

“What children are you talking about, Amun?”

.

What children?

That questioned plagued Bayek.

They have not seen any orphans around the area, they said.

And Bayek believed them.

No.

It was more accurate to say…

He believed that they didn’t see any children.

Which meant that these children were able to stay out of their way for many months now.

Perhaps even years.

Bayek visited them once more, bringing a basket filled with fresh baked bread.

But they weren’t in the house.

Connecting with Senu proved to be the right call.

Bayek could not find them but he knew Senu saw them when she took over their connection once more.

They had moved into another abandoned house…

And it seemed that they were not surprised when Bayek entered their new home.

The oldest of them simply looked annoyed.

Bayek knew that his intrusion was not welcomed so he simply left after placing the basket in the middle of the room.

The following day, he checked with Senu once more.

And, as he had guessed, the children had changed home once more.

It truly says a lot about the current situation here that there were many abandoned buildings and homes that four small children could use without anyone knowing.

He brought them food once more.

But this time, he also brought fresh goat milk.

And left with the feeling of those golden eyes glaring at his back.

.

This went on for weeks.

Bayek always made time to bring the children food wherever they go.

At some point, they started to return to their previous locations but never in the same pattern…

It was always random.

And Bayek found himself smiling when he saw them wearing the clothes he had bought for them. Just as simple as their white robes but cleaner.

The baby that was usually in one of the older children’s arms would even wave his hand at him as if to greet him.

And he finally learned the other boys’ names.

Ezio was the second oldest and was the one who talked to Bayek with a lighter tone than his older brother. His name and his smile made Bayek remember Esio but that boy was in Rome right now, being trained to be a Hidden One by Aya.

The third oldest boy was named Ratonhnhaké:ton and he was usually quiet. The first few times Bayek had problem saying his name, he had suggested to just call him Connor but Bayek could see the annoyance in Altaïr’s eyes and the frown decorating Ezio’s face. As well as the understanding and resignation in Ratonhnhaké:ton’s face. So Bayek never called him Connor. The first time he was able to say Ratonhnhaké:ton’s name without messing up, Ratonhnhaké:ton looked surprised for a brief moment before he smiled at Bayek for the very first time.

The youngest of them was Desmond and he’s always being carried by one of his brothers. They were protective of the child, perhaps a bit too overprotective in Bayek’s eyes, to be honest. But Desmond was a quiet baby and Bayek had wondered if perhaps the baby could not talk but he would make cooing sounds and babble softly at times.

It was like…

Desmond was taught to be quiet.

They all were.

.

“Altaïr…”

Altaïr turned to look at the entrance of their 16th safehouse and nodded as he greeted back, “Bayek.”

The old man who had continually followed them no matter how many times they changed safehouses stayed at the other side of the small hole, crouching so he could see inside.

“Ba! Ba!” Desmond waved his hands at Bayek and Altaïr kept his hold on the baby firmly, knowing that, given a chance, Desmond would crawl towards the old man. Desmond had been crawling all over and all of them had been worried that he’d hit his head on something.

“Where’s Ezio and Ratonhnhaké:ton?”

“Out.” Altaïr replied vaguely. He knew the old man knew how they would steal food and other items they need from the richer part of the city and always had that small frown whenever Altaïr made vague comments concerning their lifestyle.

It wasn’t like the daily food would be enough for them, after all.

And Desmond needed more than just goat milk.

“I will be leaving tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“If it’s alright with you four, I-”

“We’re not joining your cult.” Altaïr cut him off as he dangled a bell in front of Desmond.

Desmond giggled and grabbed the bell, successfully getting distracted from crawling towards Bayek.

“It’s not a cult.” Bayek sighed and Altaïr didn’t bother to tell him they knew that. They just enjoyed calling it a cult even if it wasn’t true.

“And I know you four have been playing tricks on them.” Bayek said, trying to not sound like he was scolding Altaïr. The two Hidden Ones had been the target of harmless pranks for months now, including a very memorable incident where Ezio had actually managed to steal their coin purses that he returned to them… in the bureau after he and Ratonhnhaké:ton had sneaked in.

But Bayek could not afford himself to get distracted.

He was here on an important mission after all.

“I wasn’t going to suggest that you stayed in the bureau. I was going to ask…” Bayek stared at Altaïr as he asked, “… would you four like to join me in my travels?”

Altaïr stared at him for a moment before he looked away as he said, “I’ll talk to my brothers about it.”

Bayek’s lips curved into a small smile, already knowing that would be Altaïr’s answer, “Then… I will be leaving at dawn. I will wait in the east gate.”

He pushed the basket of food into the hole before leaving, knowing Altaïr would simply find it annoying if he was to try and plead his case.

All he could was hope.

And wait for tomorrow.

.

I think the fic nonny is talking about is Haris by CherShare. Do give it a try if you’re interested.

[emeritusemeritus]

Hey Little Train 2 [Fred Weasley x Reader]

Series Masterlist

Title: Hey Little Train 2/5 (5 part mini series)

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader {Established Relationship/ Engaged}

Timeline: Set immediately after the war up to 4 years later.

Summary: The memoirs of a broken woman after the death of her beloved.

Warnings: SAD FIC. This one will hurt. Mentions of death, grief, depression, suidical thoughts. Suicide. Loss and pain, a lot of crying. Smut, sexual references, graphic sex. Dreams. Female reader.

Word count: 1.5k

Heavily inspired by Nick Cave & the bad seeds’ O Children’, the unofficial song of Harry Potter.

Hey little train! We are all jumping on

The train that goes to the Kingdom

We're happy, Ma, we're having fun

And the train ain't even left the station

"Oi that's mine! See, FG! You're GF, prat."

The sound of a boys voice pulled you out of your anxious thoughts as you sat on one of the platforms of King's Cross preparing for your first journey to Hogwarts. You watched in amusement as the boy, or rather two boys that looked eerily similar squabbled over a singular trunk on a trolley. They were accompanied by another three boys, some older and some younger, and a little girl, all with matching red hair that seemed to glow under the lights like a burning fire. They were followed, herded would be a more apt description, by a small but mighty woman who shared their hair colour and urged them along like a sheepdog herding the flock. You couldn't help but giggle as you watched the two identical boys quarrel, slightly pushing eachother before getting a warming tap to the back of the head in perfect synchronisation from who you assumed to be their mother. They both seemed entirely unfazed by the physical warning and chuckled amongst each other before taking hold of the trolley and from the look of it, trying to run over one of their older brothers. You giggled again when the slightly older boy let out a yelp of surprise but apparently it wasn't as quiet as you'd hoped and one of them turned to you, hearing your laugh and gave you a wide smile. He then nudged his identical brother, who you assumed to be a twin, and they both have a slight but comical bow which you found hilarious.

It was then that your mother returned with the drinks from the little cafe on the next platform, a little hot chocolate for you and a coffee for her. You thanked her and turned to look again for the boys but couldn't see them anymore, leaving you feeling a little disgruntled. At least their little show had distracted you from the anxious thoughts of leaving home and starting a new school.

You wiped a falling tear on your sleeve as you walked down the train to find a welcoming carriage, having just said goodbye to your mum on the platform as the train prepared to depart.

"Hey! You were at the station!" A voice called out, catching you off guard as you spun around to find one of the boys before, who stuck his head back into the carriage and called out. "Fred!"

The assumed identical twin also poked his head out and you saw his lips pull into a smile when he noticed you.

"Got anywhere to sit?" He asked and smiled when you shook your head. "Come sit with us!"

If you asked most of the students of Hogwarts, they would say that the journey from Kings Cross on the Hogwarts express was one of their greatest memories and the start of their magical journeys. For you, it started everything.

From the moment you chose to sit in that carriage with Fred, George and later Lee Jordan, you found friends for life. You were sorted into your house, something your mum was very proud of, and then met even more friends throughout the year group who had become great friends of yours, though no one could ever come close to the Weasley Twins.

Around your third year, things began to change between you and Fred. You started noticing him more, cheering a little louder for him on the Quidditch pitch and most notably, you noticed him noticing you more. You danced around each other for most of the next school year, a cycle of flirting and shying away until just before their trip to Egypt, when he finally asked you to be his girlfriend. At first it was kept a secret, though of course George was always included in these secrets, but as soon as you met up after the long summer in the leaky cauldron just before school started with a tight hug and a meaningful kiss, your relationship was quickly made public.

You signed up together to serve in Dumbledore's army and though Fred and George had left earlier in the year to begin their business, you'd stayed and completed your education before following them. You moved into the little apartment above the shop with both twins and it was easily the best time in your life.

Fred had proposed to you almost as soon as the shop was doing well, buying a beautiful ring that made your heart soar each and every time you looked down at your hand. You were young but assured that there was no one else you'd want to spend your life with. He'd be the greatest husband, best father and more than anything your best friend for the rest of your life, you were certain of it. No man had ever come close to turning your head away from Fred's brilliant but mischievous smile and you were more excited than anything to finally be called Mrs Weasley after years of being called it teasingly by your friends.

"Mrs y/n Weasley," Fred said with a smirk one winter evening as you both lay in bed, hands loosely entwined as he fidgeted with your fingers and your engagement ring, stroking his thumb over your smooth skin. "Think we should set a date?"

You turned your head towards him, having been resting on his bare chest, the sparse hairs subtly tickling your cheek. Your eyes met his and you catch his little devilish smile as he pulled you further into his chest, both entangled in each other and amongst the duvet.

It's nearly Christmas and you're holed up in your shared bedroom, bathing in the glow of the warm twinkling lights from the string lights and the Christmas tree in the corner. You'd put it up whilst Fred was at work and surprised him after close with Christmas cookies, the decoration and a muggle Christmas film that was ready to play, not that you'd seen much of it since. 

"What are you thinking?" You asked, throwing your leg around his own long legs. He lets out a little boyish chuckle and raises his eyebrow at you as he gazes down softly.

"This is hardly about my ideas, I'm pretty sure between you, Ginny and Granger, you've got moodboards, folders, clippings, the whole shebang. Probably already got your dress haven't you?"

You nudged him in reply, the smile beaming across your face as he over dramatises his reply, though proving that he knew you too well.

"No I don't!" You giggle, nudging him again as he captures you in his arms playfully, forcing you to stay still almost lying completely on top of him.

"Well... clippings yes but dress no."

He chuckles again, knowing that you'd be prepared.

"How old are the clippings exactly? Seeing as you've been obsessed with me since we were 12," he jokes.

"I think you'll find it was you obsessed with me! 'Ooh y/n do you want to come and test some whizzbangs? No George isn't coming, let's get a butterbeer, be a shame to waste that pretty skirt'."

He tackles you at the end of your little speech, most probably for the very high voice you'd used to mock his younger teenage voice, the slightly squeaky tone that you remembered so well.

"That was a very nice skirt," he flirts, now leaning above you with his face only inches away from yours.

"Well what a shame you ripped it," you taunt in a soft voice, getting closer to his lips, almost beckoning him to kiss you. His eyes flick down to your lips and his smirk increases.

"I feel no shame," he says before attacking your lips with a dangerously sultry kiss that seems to instinctively make you wrap your bare legs around his waist, keeping him anchored to you, just where you need him.

"You're so beautiful," he says softly, eyes gazing at yours with a look of pure love. His hair is damp at the hair line, short spiky hair messed up in every direction as you attempt to tame it with your fingers. He's wearing his characteristic cheeky smile but it's the specific one that seems reserved just for you, the softness in it enough to have your heart clenching.

"Not sure it's so much of a compliment when your cocks inside me," you tease, running your hands over the bulging muscles of his strong arms. You clench your muscles around him, revelling in his reaction to your pussy clenching around him.

"I'd say it's more of a compliment," he smirks, angling his hips so that he slips even deeper inside of you with his next thrust, nearly taking your breath away.

"I love you," you both say at exactly the same time, completely unprompted as he thrust languidly in and out of you.

"Jinx, can't moan for 5 minutes," you lean up to softly whisper in his ear, getting a devilishly brilliant idea. He laughs and you gasp, feeling the movement of his cock within you at his giggle and you use the moment to your advantage, taking control and flipping him over.

He looks shocked for a moment before his eyes widen at the new position, his eyes greedily scanning over your completely nude and exposed body just for him. You rub your pussy over his rigid length with just enough force that his eyes close tight, hands instinctively grabbing your hips in a strong hold. You reach down and give him an encouraging but teasing stroke and smirk as you watch him burn beneath your touch. You slip him inside of you, crying out at the new sensation as he hits deep, just the right spot that you needed. Your hips undulate, circling, riding in a perfect rhythm, breasts bouncing as you lean back, exposing yourself to him, knowing he wouldn't be able to resist watching. You ride him hard and fast, at least for a few moments before you slip back into a slow and teasing rhythms that had his quietly gasping and biting his lip, eyes squeezing shut and his grip on your hips almost bruising as he fights not to moan, knowing that he'd lose.

You bite your lip to hold back the smirk threatening to spread across your face and know the final nail in the coffin that would make him fold.

"Freddie," you moan out, reaching for his chest as you buck your hips quickly, feeling him in the deepest parts of you. "Freddie, my tits! Please need to feel you."

He desperately holds back his moans, his eyes barely staying shut at the mention of your breasts, his Achilles heel. His eyes peak open and you can't resist putting on a show, moving your left hand up to cup and squeeze your breasts, knowing how much he'd want to replace your hand with his.

"Please baby I'm so close," you plead, hardly lifting off of him now as you fight to chase your climax. His hand twitches on your hip, squeezing and hesitating before his hand reached up and cups your bouncing breasts, immediately making you cry out as his thumb rubs against your hardened nipple.

"Fuck!" He cries out, breaking his silence as you grind harder on him, both of you approaching your peaks.

"Yes Freddie, yes!" You cry out as you cum, overwhelmed by the feeling of him and the victory of winning. His whines as he cums, following you into bliss not a moment later as his hips rock up into you, pounding hard as he fights to keep you in place.

"Godric woman," he breathlessly gasps, head falling back onto the pillow as he comes down from his high. "You're dangerous."

"Only to you," you smile, climbing off him and flopping down into the space beside him on the bed, his arm outstretched ready to welcome you. You're both a sweaty mess, damp limbs holding on to eachother as your chests heave trying to regain your breath. You feel complete, happy. His arms entangle around you, keeping you tight to him and you feel him press a kiss to your hairline from the side, his nose poking you just above your crown.

Your eyes fight to close, feeling a wave of exhaustion slipping over you in a stark contrast to the energy and motivation you'd had just moments before. You're comforted now, even with the slight leaking of his seed that begins to slip out but you don't care, you'll deal with it later. All you can think of is Fred, his scent, his strong arms, him.

You wake with a start, gasping and fighting off the covers as you stare into the darkness, confused and dazed. You panic, expecting to find Fred in the dimly lit room, his arms stretched over you protectively, the feel of his breath on your neck. You look around for the desk in the corner of the room, the twinkling lights that were no longer working, the familiar sight of your clothes and his on the chair in the corner of the room. It's winter, almost Christmas, where's the Christmas tree that you sneakily put up in the corner of the room? Where's Fred?

It hits you like a tonne of bricks, the realisation that it was all just a dream, memories playing out in your unconscious mind like an old video recording of your life. The room is dark, cold and bare around you, with only the hideous gothic decorations that lined the walls, though you could barely see in the dark. You were alone, and always would be. You were cold, no longer warmed by the familiar body that lay beside you each night, their strong arms wrapped over you like an additional comfort blanket. No more would you wake happy and protected, no more would you wish to awaken.

The sobs that wracked your body were vicious and unyielding, the pain of the realisation too much to bear. You cried for Fred, for your lost love who had died a most horrible death, you cried for your future and for all the things you'd never achieve with him, for George and the pain he must be enduring too and you cried for you, feeling more alone than you'd ever been.

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[somepsychopomp]

Come Home To Me pt. 1

i still feel so fucking insane right now. Today I drafted the first chapter of my Edling royal marriage fic where Ling is down insanely badly and wants to have Ed all to himself. i'd make up a better summary if my brain wasn't a withered husk rn but i did my best. This and future updates will probs be posted to my ao3.

Excerpt:

“Edward Elric,” Shen repeated, stroking his beard, “For what purpose must we seek him out?”

The Emperor’s smile widened. “I’m going to make him my Empress, of course.”

(word count: 4,442)

+++

Edward was glad to be returning to Resembool. 

The day was beautiful, the sky clear and brilliant blue. The rolling fields passed by his train window as he ached for a hot meal at Granny’s table. 

He was tired after a long stint of nonstop field world, and in heavy need of some deep cleaning on his automail, but couldn’t be happier. He had a suitcase stuffed full of research notes and plenty of good anecdotes to share. He didn’t yet know if he’d publish his findings, but he had someone looking forward to seeing them. 

Ed had spent the last four months in the northeasternmost fringes of Amestris, basically living out in the desert with minimal contact with civilization. He wasn’t opposed to the hard work, though. Not when the potential knowledge was so tantalizing. 

He functioned as the alchemical expert for a group of archaeologists from Central. They found fragments of Xerxesian architecture buried in the desert and with them, signs of alchemy. When Ed arrived at the site, it was little more than a bunch of holes dug into the heavy sand and some scraps of stone the archaeologists and their students found.

Ed turned an archaeological graveyard into an oasis. He found the proof that approximately nine centuries ago, Xerxes had a small outpost near what was now the border of Amestris. The older researchers on the team proposed it was a trading hub or colony. Ed had reason to believe it was some kind of remote lab, so experimental alchemy could be conducted safely away from the main populace of Xerxes. 

He wasn’t going to stick around long enough to fight for his point, though. He’d seen what he’d wanted to see and learned what he set out to learn. He was going to be proven right, eventually. So it didn’t matter if he stuck around or not. Even though Ed had done his part and even though the majority team begged him to stay on, promising him additional pay, he knew it was time to come home.  

Alphonse would already be waiting for him, after all. And it’d been almost ten months since they'd last seen each other. 

Ed felt the little warm flurry in his chest grow with excitement. Yeah, they were both adults now, it felt natural for them to want to do their own things. And they did, planning their own trips in pursuit of their individual interests. But they were still brothers and he couldn’t wait to see Alphonse again. 

Not that he’d ever admit it to Al’s face, but Ed still kept a beaten up copy of Alphonse’s first published research paper in the lining of his suitcase, ready to shove it into the face of anyone who dared to not call Alphonse Elric the greatest alchemist currently alive. 

And admittedly, doing so made Ed feel painfully like the late Maes Hughes. Maybe he finally understood why a man would be possessed to carry documentation of his family everywhere he went. 

But that was all behind him now. As all things came to an end, so did his voyage. The train pulled into the station and Ed jumped off the very second he was able to, hauling his heft suitcase in one arm as he ran for the waiting figure on the platform. 

“Brother!” 

Ed smiled. The two of them embraced and it really did feel like coming home. 

“I didn’t keep you waiting long, did I?”

Alphonse laughed. He looked about the same as before their split. Still so tall, still so strongly built. A happy far cry from the emaciated body Ed pulled out of the gate. It was insane, how Alphonse looked so much like their dad now. And he imagined that when Al looked at him, he saw Hohenheim in Ed’s face, too. As much as Ed was loath to imagine it. 

Al kept his hair short as well, while Ed’s had only gotten longer and longer. Alphonse noticed, of course he did, and waved around the end of Ed’s braid. 

“Are you ever going to cut this thing?”

“Never.”

Trisha Elric had long hair, so Edward Elric had long hair. Though maybe at this point, his was longer than even hers had been. It was getting hard to remember now. In his faint and watercolored childhood memories, it didn’t matter how long his hair was because hers always seemed longer. He was sure if he looked at one of Granny’s old photos of her, he’d see differently. 

Funny, how the mind played tricks like that. 

Alphonse tried and failed to take Ed’s suitcase as they walked to the Rockbell household. Ed swatted his hand away. 

“Just let me carry it, Al. It’s heavy.” 

“That’s more reason why I should take it. You’ve lugged it across the countryside, why don’t you let yourself rest for once?”

Ed blew the stray hairs from his eyes. Maybe his bangs could do with a trim, at least. He’d have to see if Granny or Al would be willing to take up the scissors for him, Ed didn’t trust himself enough to make it look halfway decent. 

The two of them chatted about nothing in particular, saving their best stories for when they could put their feet up and enjoy a drink together. Or at least that’s what Ed thought was happening, but he couldn’t help but notice Al was relaying details about minute town gossip with more enthusiasm than expected. 

“Everything alright, Al?”

“Of course, why do you ask?”

Ed shot him a sideways grin. “You’re a shit liar. What’s up?”

Al huffed and puffed but eventually, Ed needled the truth out of him. 

“Well, we’ve got company, actually. They’ve been in town for a few days already. And once they found out I was picking you up from the train station, they insisted on seeing you today.”

“Huh?” Ed scoured his cramped head for any plan he might’ve missed. Did someone he know say they were coming to visit? He asked, “Who is it?”

Al smiled, mischievous in his own right. “You’ll see.”

That made Ed wonder if it was someone from the military. Probably not the newly-promoted Brigadier General Bastard, so maybe someone else?

When they arrived, he didn’t see an extra car outside. On the porch, Ed did his best to shake the sand out of his coat pockets and boots before stepping inside. Immediately, he was hit with the fusion scent of coffee and motor oil. Tension he didn’t even know he was carrying drained out of his body as Ed called out, “I’m back!” 

No click-clack of mismatched paws came running in response. It was still hard to remember that Den wasn’t around to greet them at the door anymore. 

Ed left his suitcase by the door as Al led him into the kitchen, where Granny was sitting at the table with a grouchy looking old man and a young woman with dark hair. They all turned to look at him and it felt like an electric current was sent through his entire body. No way… 

“Lan Fan!” 

She still had the same sharp, dark eyes that Ed remembered from when they were younger. She stood, her expression lighting up at the sight of Ed. 

“Edward Elric!” 

She bowed for him, which felt downright silly. They went so far back, after all. And if Lan Fan was here…

“What are you doing on this side of the desert? Where's Ling? Is he with you?”

The old man cleared his throat and stood. He looked like the kind of guy Ed could easily imagine in the upper echelons of the military or a Xingese court: gray hair and beard, humorless expression, one hand wrapped tight around the curved handle of an ornate, darkwood cane. He was wrapped in loose, emerald green robes while Lan Fan was dressed how Ed remembered her. All black. 

“It is my obligation to accept questions and negotiations on the Emperor’s behalf,” the old man said. He spoke in an extremely thick Xingese accent, but enunciated his words with care. He shot Lan Fan a look, “Is it not?”

Ed’s mood soured slightly. Whoever the old fart was, he wasn’t interested. 

And yet, the old man said, “I am His Majesty’s most senior adviser, Yao Shen. I was sent at His Majesty’s request to locate one Edward Elric and deliver a message.”

To me? Ed wondered. 

The last time he spoke to Ling was when they were teenagers. The idea of trying to contact him again crossed Ed’s mind over the years, admittedly much more than once. After all, Alphonse kept in contact with Mei. He’d even made several trips across the desert to see her and study alkahestry in Xing. 

But Ling just felt so different. He got crowned as Emperor when he was seventeen! And Ed remembered so well how news swept across Amestris of the child king in Xing, who apparently went on a sojourn through their country only a year prior to his coronation. Ed just had no idea how he could ever reach across the world to someone like that. 

So he never did, as cowardly as it was. And seven whole years had gone by since they were a pair of teenagers fighting to save the world. Ed was twenty-two now and thought his chance to see Ling again, no matter how slim, was gone. 

But now Ling’s closest and most loyal vassal was in his kitchen. With a weird old man to boot.  

“Yes, yes. We’re all here for one reason or another,” a new voice said. Ed looked over to see Granny stirring a big pot on the stove. She said, “But all of that can wait. It’s supper time and my boys must be hungry.”

Lan Fan didn’t seem to be in any rush. And if she wasn’t treating this like it was urgent, it probably wasn’t. The five of them sat down at the table, where Ed got to eat a heaping bowl of Granny’s famous beef stew with fresh bread. For a few glorious minutes, he forgot he was being a poor host by not participating in the conversation while he stuffed his mouth. 

Subsisting off of dry rations for four months left one starved for flavor.

Once he had some proper food in his belly, he finally took note of Lan Fan’s arm. It had the super polished look of someone who’d just seen a mechanic, not like Ed’s brushed metal limbs.

“You’ve been taking good care of your automail,” he said. 

Lan Fan smiled. She held out her hand to let it catch in the light. “Your grandmother has been generous enough to do some maintenance on my arm these past few days.”

“Is that right?” Ed asked. He didn’t even bother to correct her, that Granny wasn’t related by blood. It still surprised him. Ed knew Granny was partially retired these days; she didn’t take on new clients anymore, just did repairs and cleanings. 

He was glad she agreed to take a look at Lan Fan. Xing, as he was told, sorely lacked automail mechanics. Too bad Winry was up to her ears in work in Rush Valley, he knew she would’ve loved to ogle at a good arm. 

Granny said, “As someone who’s seen my fair share of automail in all sorts of shapes and states, it’s my professional recommendation that you have yours examined by a mechanic at least once a year.”

“That is simply not possible, given her immense obligations,” Shen said. 

Ed and Al shot each other a knowing look. Why on earth was Lan Fan traveling with this old fart? 

“The Emperor sends for an Amestrian mechanic whenever my arm becomes too damaged to operate,” Lan Fan said, as simple as if she was commenting on the weather. 

Ed stared at her, mouth agape. As someone who’d gotten into far too many fights to count over the course of his life, some of which ended up in his automail getting completely shattered, he wondered what kind of things Lan Fan had endured in recent years. 

And by extension, what all that meant for Ling. Ling, who was not here but felt the need to send Lan Fan in his stead. 

Lan Fan turned to Ed and Al. “Now, tales of your exploits have been reaching Xing for years, but it’s often impossible to tell what’s fiction and what’s fact. I would love to know what the Elric brothers have actually been doing since we last crossed paths.”

It was a little hard to tell if she was actually interested or just changing the subject. Ed didn’t press either way. Alphonse, either by using some secret telepathic power or just knowing how Ed operated, stopped him from running to get his copy of Al’s research. He instead gave a summarized version of his studies on combining alchemy and alkahestry. 

As their bowls ran empty, Ed figured it was time to broach the subject of why they had guests at all. 

“So what’s the message meant just for me?” he asked, bracing an elbow on the table. 

Shen seemed unphased. “Unfortunately, it directly involves the security of our Emperor and must be delivered in private.”

“Oh?”

Ed turned to Lan Fan. Up until now, she seemed warm and inviting, a huge difference from her stoic self he first met. But even she shook her head. 

“I must agree. It can only be given in complete secrecy.”

Ed resisted the urge to grin. Whatever it was, he could easily imagine Ling landed himself in some sort of trouble and needed help from the former Fullmetal Alchemist. Ed might’ve quit the military and lost his ability to do alchemy, but he was still a force to be reckoned with. 

“Fine, then. I know where we can talk.”

Bidding Al and Granny a temporary goodbye, Ed led his two guests out of the house and up a dirt path. The sun was starting to set now, just touching the horizon and bathing everything in blinding gold. The air here was warm but not dry like the desert. It was damp and full of life. 

Ed guided them up a hill as the ruins of his childhood home loomed ever larger. He didn’t stop when they reached the derelict structure, stepping over scorched wood beams and the old stone foundation, leading them into the heart of his family’s house. 

“What is this place?” Lan Fan asked. 

Ed stopped just short of the stone stairs that led to the basement. No one in Resembool came up here. Maybe they were too afraid to, maybe it was a sign of respect. He noticed that no signs of vandalism or graffiti cropped up over the years. 

He put his hands in his coat pockets and said, “This was my home when I was a child. Now why don’t you answer me this, what did you come all this way to tell me?”

+++

The order from her Emperor to travel to Amestris without him was quite a shock to Lan Fan when she first received it. Not to mention His Imperial Majesty wanted her to guide Advisor Shen. He was so old, she honestly thought this could’ve been a ploy to have him perish in the desert to finally be rid of him.

The old man wasn’t happy about it either, even though he did his best to conceal it. 

Alone in a private audience with the Emperor, he bowed profusely and repeatedly while asking, “A thousand pardons, my Emperor. But what exactly do you wish an old man like myself to achieve in Amestris?”

Shen was a spoiled member of the Yao clan’s lesser nobility who used to be a close personal friend of Ling’s father. He climbed considerable heights by constantly praising the last Emperor, only to now find himself serving a much younger man with no interest in keeping his father’s past friends wealthy. 

It was rare that Lan Fan was ever out in the open too, but as her Emperor specifically wanted an audience with her as well, she stood side by side with the old adviser. 

His Majesty smiled serenely at Shen. “Your task in Amestris is to seek out Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric. Lan Fan is to escort you, seeing as she’s one of the… maybe two or three Xingese citizens who actually knows what he looks like.”

If she could speak freely, Lan Fan might have protested as well. She could never leave her Lord vulnerable, even if he did have other guards and the entire Imperial army at his disposal now. 

He cast his gaze upon her, expectant. She knew precisely why he wanted to find Edward Elric. She was perhaps the only person in the world who knew, who he trusted to know.  

And she took that trust very seriously. It was not her place to approve or disapprove of his desires, only to see them fulfilled. 

“Edward Elric,” Shen repeated, stroking his beard, “For what purpose must we seek him out?”

The Emperor’s smile widened. “I’m going to make him my Empress, of course.”

Lan Fan was staring straight ahead when he said so, arms on her knees as she knelt and awaited further instructions. But she would have loved to see Shen’s face if his startled, haggard coughing fit was anything to go by. 

His Majesty’s smile grew terse. “Something the matter, Shen?”

“Oh, well… I- I cannot… my Lord…”

“You cannot what? Condone my decision? You object, is that it?”

“No, no! I would never, your Imperial Majesty!”

He grew silent as the Emperor stood, his silken robes falling around his powerful frame. He descended the steps of his throne and Shen once more pressed his forehead to the floor in subservience. 

“Stand up.”

They both did so. 

The Emperor produced his right hand from the length of his robes and pulled a golden ring from his finger. It was newly made, polished to a mirror shine.

“Shen, you will take this ring and guard it well. When you find Edward Elric, you will hold my ring up to his image. And when you do, remember which is more impressive.”

+++

Yao Shen only ever wanted to live comfortably. And for many decades, he did exactly that. He wore nice clothing of moderate detail, had multiple sons, kept his head low in court, and was rewarded with a lifetime of servility by being named a chief advisor in the imperial court. Now, however, he thought he might just reach his end. In a foreign land surrounded by alien peasants, no less. 

Because his Emperor was correct. Edward Elric was more splendid than gold. 

At first, he hadn’t been happy at all to make the trip across the desert. He bitterly cursed his ill fortune under his breath, knowing full well His Majesty’s dog was his sole traveling companion. Then it was a matter of locating the insignificant village that the famed Fullmetal Alchemist came from. And even then, they could not rest until they found Edward himself. 

And when they did finally see him in person, Shen had not been very impressed. Edward Elric was clothed like a simple traveler, in plain garments and a rugged red coat. No silk, no gold, no silver. His boots were caked in dirt and his gloves were stained a reddish brown from the desert. His complexion was less than fair, his face tanned by the sun to a degree that most matchmakers would deem unacceptable.

Not to mention the fact that the boy referred to His Imperial Majesty, the Son of Heaven, by his given name! Had that mistake slipped anyone’s lips within Xing, they’d be executed. 

But everything changed when he saw Edward Elric in the sunlight. 

In the glow of the setting sun, Edward Elric looked like a lion. His long blond hair framed his face and reached his lower back. Shen was aware that it was common in Amestris for men to keep their hair short, as preposterous as it was. One’s body was a gift from their parents and to cut any part of it was to disrespect them. Edward Elric had very respectable long hair. 

And his eyes. The palace menagerie kept a host of exotic animals, including actual lions. The Fullmetal Alchemist had the eyes of a fierce and unflinching warrior, so bright and piercing. It was clear he’d seen and won many battles, but he wasn’t a brute, either. No, his were a set of dangerously intelligent eyes. 

It wasn’t necessary, Shen knew when he’d been defeated, but he could never deny an order from his Emperor. So he reached into his pocket and produced a small bundle of cloth. With trembling fingers, he unwrapped the golden ring entrusted to him and held it up to Edward Elric.

Both shined with a sort of blinding brilliance, as if the sun itself wished to pour all its warmth over the boy’s shoulders. He perfectly matched the descriptions of the Great Sage of the West, the founder of alkahestry. Any dignitary worth their salt would know what an auspicious sign this was… and that the young Emperor tragically chose his future concubine well. Very well. 

+++

Ed blinked, going cross-eyed as something small was held in front of his face. He leaned back, seeing that it was a golden ring. Thick and heavy-looking, too. 

“Uh…”

He moved to reach for the ring, unsure if that was what they wanted, but the old man simply tucked it back into his pocket. He cleared his throat. “Thank you for humoring an old man. Lan Fan, tell him.”

Was it just his imagination, or was she smiling ever so faintly? 

She stepped forward and said, “His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Xing will be arriving in Amestris in three days for a diplomatic mission. He will be arriving in Central City to speak with your Fuhrer and parliament and is scheduled to remain in your country for fifteen days. While he is here, he wishes to see you again.”

Lan Fan produced a small package from a pouch in her belt and presented it with both hands. “He asked me to give you this gift as a token of his earnestness.”

Ling wanted to see him?

Lightheaded, Ed accepted the gift. It wasn’t heavy at all.

Lan Fan raised her brows. Open it. 

So he undid the twine wrapping. It wasn’t what he expected, not that he had any idea what it could be. Ed held up the length of silk to the light. It was a long, thin strip of crimson cloth embroidered with gold. It was beautiful. He didn’t know what it could possibly be for, but he appreciated it. After all, 

Ling remembers me…

“Tell me something,” Ed said, running his fingers over the cloth, amazing as how smooth it was, “How has he been, all these years?”

“He has been well, thank you for your concern,” Lan Fan said. “He is looking forward to having your company once more.”

+++

Once Shen was excused from the throne room and it was just the two of them, Ling didn’t feel like sending Lan Fan back to her post as his invisible hand. He needed a friend right now. 

Sighing, he said, “It’s been a long time, Lan Fan.”

She nodded. “It has.”

Almost a decade had gone by since they last saw Edward Elric. 

He thumbed at the hem of his robe, thinking. “What if I’m too late?”

“You must not lose hope, your Majesty. He is still not married. Even if there was someone standing in your way, what real threat could they pose to you?”

He nodded, thankful as ever for her steadfastness. Unlike his endless officials, servants, and his stupid siblings all vying for his favor, Lan Fan had earned it long ago. He respected her opinion far more than many of theirs, as well. And if she had faith in him, perhaps that was a good sign. 

He wandered over to the windows behind his throne, whose light reflected off his gilded ceiling and his crimson pillars. The imperial palace sprawled before him, more wealthy than any other country he knew of. 

What would Edward think of it all if he could see it now?

He was going to see it, Ling reminded himself. He’d waited long enough, now was the time to finally act. 

The last time they saw each other was as children at the tender age of fifteen. Ling’s father held onto his throne for little over a year by no small miracle, but of all his brothers and sisters, it was him who was crowned successor before he was even an adult. 

He spent the first few years of his reign cementing his rule and keeping his country stable as power changed hands. He protected the Chang clan from extinction, elevated his own, improved trade and relations to the east, and chose peace treaties over war declarations. Now he was turning his efforts into improving relations with the west. 

The common folk such as his farmers and merchants loved him too, he made sure of it. Edward was born of common blood, after all. And he was famous across the world for his efforts to help those that could not help themselves. 

If he could, he would send Lan Fan to seek out Edward alone. She’d do it in half the time if she didn’t have a bag of bones tethered to her. Even though Yao Shen was a member of their own clan, Ling never really liked him. He was slow to adapt and too haughty for his age. But he was also a valuable pawn. Given his seniority among palace staff, if Ling could convince him that Edward was worth more than his weight in gold, the rest of his courts would follow suit without any effort on Ling’s part at all. 

Yes, convincing his people was the easy part. The least predictable element in all his plans was Edward himself. Unsurprising, but Ling wouldn’t have it any other way. 

At the age of twenty-two, he felt so old yet still so impossibly young. He knew he had a whole life ahead of him yet, but could not find it in himself to wait a moment longer. 

He closed his eyes and made a promise to himself. No going back from this point, no more waiting. He was going to have an Empress, this he knew since he was fifteen. 

So no matter the cost, Yao Ling was going to have Edward Elric.

[bluestarjay]

Guys, I actually need Dad Ukai so bad, especially with Hinata 🙁🙁🙁 there are NO fics of Ukai being a dad, and istg I've read them all!! Theres I think like a 3 part series where Hinata's mom dies and Ukai takes him and Natsu in, and then there's a, like, 15 chapter fic in which Ukai acts like a dad to every member on the team, including Kiyoko and Yachi, and it's so sweet, but aside from those that's it!! Like Hinata is fr so fatherless!! Give him a dad please!! And make it Ukai!! Or Takeda!! Bc Takeda comforting Hinata after Komemadai (idk if I spelled it right) and saying "it's still volleyball" AHHHHHHHH. NO NO NO NO. I am ripping my hair out and violently sobbing. I am a sucker for found family tropes, and yes, Hinata has the Karasuno volleyball team as his family, but we're NOT including Ukai or Takeda????? I need them like fucking Irondad and spiderson. Like, tell me why there's only like 5 fics under the "Ukai Keishin and Hinata Shouyou" tag???? Not even dad Ukai or anything, just the two of them?? You're telling me /nobody/ uses that tag??? I saw a tiktok (@v3lleityy on tiktok) where Ukai tells Hinata he's proud of him and then Daddy Issues by The Neighborhood starts playing and IT SO REALLLLL Like this is what I need!!!!! Omg I also read this one fic, and it wasn't really Ukai or Takeda, but it was FUCKING TENMA UDAI TAKING CARE OF HINATA LIKE AN OLDER BROTHER AND ISTG IT WAS SO GOOD. Basically Hinata was jealous and upset when Kageyama was invited to the camp and he wasn't getting any better and he was just kinda stuck, so he punched out a window in Ukai's shop, and so he was taken to the police station, and when Ukai comes to take him home he's not angry, and when Hinata asks him why, he apologizes for not noticing his feelings earlier 🙁🙁, and then later he meets Tenma during a storm, and he begs Tenma to train him, so instead of sneaking in, he trains with Tenma. It's such a sweet fic and if anybody wants the names to any of the ones I mentioned just lmk and I'll see if I can find them!!

[gryffindormarveltwilight]

All We Need - Prologue

A/N: It has been a while since I have posted anything, I thought I would try my hand at a TopGun Maverick fic. As always any request or feedback is always welcomed x

Masterlist

Pairing: Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x fem!pilot!Benjamin Reader (referred to as Athena’

Warnings: mentions of the mission from the movie, angst, fluff (nothing much in this part)

Prologue: this chapter outlines the character and the connections she has!

Part 1

My name Y/N ‘Athena’ Benjamin. Being a pilot practically runs in the family, my grandfather was an Admiral, my dad also an Admiral his two best friends Admiral Tom ‘Iceman’ Kazinsky and Captain Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell also known as Uncle Ice and Uncle Mav.

My dad served at TopGun with them in ‘86 and have been inseparable since, that is where they all lost their other best-friend Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw. Since then all three pilots took it under their wing to look after Gooses son Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw, 6 years my senior and the closest thing I have to an older brother despite only seeing him on summer holidays when our mothers took it upon themselves to have a summer trip, just Carole, my Mum, Aunt Penny, Bradley and me. Mum and Carole were best friends before and while Dad and Goose were at TopGun having met when their husbands were still doing basic training, after Goose, Carole moved to Virginia and Dad was posted to Texas. Two years later I was born and Texas became Dad permanent station even to this day.

Growing up I was lucky to have my best friend grow up next door to me, our parents were close and therefore we were inseparable, my best friend none other than the infamous Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin, we were inseparable all through our child and teen years, all through basic and flight school. The only time they separated us was three years into our Naval career, when i became the youngest pilot to go through TopGun having only been out of flight school a year and finished top of my class, Jake was called back a few years later also finishing the top of his class.

It has long been said that I was the best pilot the Navy had seen since Iceman, Maverick and my dad, which makes sense when they are the ones who taught me to fly.

So here I am now on the way to the house Jake and I share in San Diego, I had been recalled in the middle of a six month deployment, on the flight home i had been handed a folder with the list of the best pilots that had been recalled and simple instructions on the front stating I had been recalled as team leader for a dangerous mission and was in charge of training the best of the best with Maverick. The only issue is someone is unlikely to come home.

[crowwriting]

Pleaseee write a Tristan fic where she is James’s sister coming to visit?? Xx

"Expectations" Tristan Farnon x Fem!Reader.

Warnings: None! Just fluff.

Word count: 2860

A/N: I am so SO sorry this took forever, I had a family member pass away recently, and just a lotta similar drama, so I haven't been able to make myself write lately. I was thinking a lot about Tristan from the books when I read this. I hope you enjoy, many apologies, I hope to get my next fic out promptly.

James Herriot, in all his infinite wisdom as your older brother, decided that you simply HAD to visit Darrowby. His two week stint back in Glasgow had come and went so quickly that you were most certain that he was getting home sick. You wouldn’t mention it though or your lovely, maybe slightly overbearing mother would never let him leave. 

You had agreed, of course, the flat you had grown up in had begun to feel stifling since James had left. The extra doting had really put a wrench in your new found freedom as an adult. 

James loved to point out that you could leave at any time, of course you didn’t believe him. Not now, when all you could do to keep the flat was work: same as your father. It was your little flat in Glasgow or the streets the way you saw it. Unless you decided to hop on a boat and disappear. Which had been a pleasant daydream you entertained yourself with. 

It was in fact a funny sensation as you stepped off the train at Darrowby station. The first thing that struck you was how quiet it was. The birds sang pleasantly, and a cool breeze blew calmingly against your cheeks. 

This was of course interrupted by the loud honking, and a cloud of dirt being blown in your face. 

‘Don’t worry Jim, Siegfried only forgot about you until,’ The boy behind the wheel of a well worn little car checked his wrist watch. ‘Fifteen minutes ago.’ 

James huffed. ‘Tristan! What are you doing driving my car!’ 

‘Oh calm down it’s not your car.’

‘Yes. It is.’ your brother was making those annoyed, slightly crazed eyes he was so practiced at. 

‘Just because my brother lets you use it doesn’t mean it’s yours.’ 

Tristan. Your brothers. . . best mate. Had certainly lived up to his name quite promptly too. 

‘By the way, did you know your break’s out? Barely made it down that last hill alive.’ Tristan leaned out the window, a roguish smile on his decidedly youthful face. 

You waved, giving him a smile. 

Tristan’s eyes went wide, ‘Who’re you?’ he directed the question to James.

‘My sister, Y/N.’ 

Tristan beamed, his head turning almost cartoonishly back to you; his hand flying out of the window to offer a shake. ‘So glad you came ‘round, I’m Tristan.’ 

‘Pleasure to meet you.’ You shook his hand, having to bend slightly at the knee to meet it. 

‘Hop in then. Gotta stop by Old Harris’ place.’ 

‘What did you say was wrong with the calf?’ James asked.

‘Broke it’s leg. Yeah.’ Tristan explained as you rounded the old stone building to look for the barn. 

‘And why exactly did we have to come out here right away. I’ve literally just got back.’ 

‘Oh you know Siegfried. 

‘Why aren’t you helping again,’ you leaned towards Tristan as you watched James’ operate. 

‘Siegfried doesn’t trust me,’ he nodded. His arms were crossed, and he was watching rather intently. 

‘Why?’ 

Tristan looked at you like he had just realized you had never met his brother before. ‘Oh he’s a lunatic.’ 

 He laughed, a broad infectious laugh you couldn’t help but join in. 

Skeldale house was undoubtedly one of your favorite places you had seen. Certainly the expansive scenery was lovely and you thought you could probably never get enough of it, this place took your breath away. You could hardly believe your brother had been living in such a nice home, so open and breathable. You were starting to resent him for hogging it all. 

‘Tristan!’ a sudden voice boomed just as you were hanging up your jacket. 

‘Aargh!’ Tristan groaned, dumping his jacket on the sofa with a little more force than strictly necessary. 

Through the main hall came who you quickly realized was Siegfried, holding a paper, and looking ready for a lecture.

‘What is it now? Did I lose the chloroform? Burn down the chicken coop? Botch a surgery you wouldn’t let me touch?’ 

‘What? No. No. I just wanted to give you this. From the bit you did last week.’ He handed his younger brother an envelope. 

Tristan’s eyes widened as Siegfried seemed to realize you were there. 

‘Hello, uh. Who is this?’ he asked James. 

‘Y.N Herriot. Nice to meet you.’ You interrupted before James could speak. 

‘How wonderful,’ he held out his hand. ‘Siegfried. Siegfried Farnon. What an absolute pleasure to meet you. Your brother has told us absolutely nothing about you.’ He smiled, and you could suddenly see the resemblance between him and Tristan. You chuckled and shook his hand. 

‘Now. I have a surgery to run. Tristan, if you wouldn’t mind showing the lady to her room.’ Siegfried waved absently at his little brother, and disappeared behind the shut curtain of the surgery room. 

The Drover’s Arms was a rather dark little pub right near Skeldale, really a comfortable homie place if not a little old fashioned. 

With a pleasant warmth you Tristan and James settled on a table near the window which let very little light through. Your drinks ordered and spirits high you settled in for a good long evening. It didn’t take long for an easy rhythm in your conversation, James catching you up on everything he had failed to mention back home, while you supplied Tristan with as many embarrassing stories of your dear brother as possible. You ran short fairly quickly, but it was satisfying to see how delighted it made him; and how embarrassed it made James. 

The car ride to the Alderson’s didn’t help to settle your headache, getting jostled around in the back seat of that old car was not the most pleasant after one too many bears, but the mood was light and James promised that there was no better way to see the sights than going on call with him. Tristan had accompanied you which pleased you. He was so much easier going than you were used to. A fondness was quickly growing between the two of you. 

‘Helen?’ James called when you arrived. 

Tristan was grabbing his own bag of instruments when he bellowed ‘Ms. Alderson!’ 

This seemed to work because a few moments later a woman appeared in quick fashion. 

‘Rowdy bunch you are. Keep it down won’t you?’ She beamed. 

You didn’t miss the blush that painted James’ cheek.

‘Who’s this?’ Helen held her hand out to you. 

‘Y/N Herriott.’ 

‘No wonder, you’re his sister. Think he mentioned you once or twice.’

You turned your brow towards your brother whose blush deepened. 

‘You’ve got a foal right?’ Tristan piped in. 

Helen nodded. ‘Right this way. Think he got into something he shouldn’t.’ 

James hopped to catch up to Helen, while Tristan and yourself fell into step behind them, exchanging a look as you silently put your heads together to make a plan. 

There was certainly nothing subtle about James’ fondness towards Helen, the way he stood nearer, the little glances he’d shoot as soon as she looked away. They stood in the middle of the barn looking over the foal, you and Tristan stood against a stack of hay. Far enough to whisper without being detected. 

‘Not very subtle is he?’ Tristan leaned in. 

‘Never has been.’ You chuckle. ‘Are you planning something?’ 

Tristan shrugged. ‘Maybe if I had a bit of backup I could be convinced.’ 

Turning up your nose you took a few dramatic moments to play at weighing your options. You nodded, offering a hand for him to shake. ‘Partners?’ 

It wouldn’t be until the next day when James Tristan and yourself came to a stop in Darrowby square. You had taken a day to visit the horse track. James had said that racing had grown on him since he had met Siegfried, though the horse enthusiast himself could not join you. 

Tristan had stepped out of the passenger seat, stretched, then immediately went to grab you by the arm; pointing excitedly across the street to a flash of fine brown hair and a green coat. 

‘Helen!’ He hissed excitedly, and took off with you in tow, jogging towards his target. 

She was talking with a pair of older ladies when you caught up with her. 

‘Helen! How are you? What’s this?’ He shook her hand. 

You nudged him, pointing up to the banner above the door reading 

“Darrowby Music Society.” 

‘Just what we were looking for I’d say. Huh Tris?’ You piped up. 

Tristan gasped proudly at you, giving a playful wink of encouragement, and that was when James appeared, looking a little frazzled and rather confused. 

‘Tristan what the hell?’ He came to a stop, and Tristan pulled him up, patting his back companionably. 

‘Excellent for you to join us old boy. We were just talking about finding some good music weren’t we?’ 

At this point Helen was rather bemused but seemed entertained enough by the scene unfolding before her. Her companions had long since gone inside and the scraping of instruments had begun to seep into the street. 

‘Right well we’ll miss it if we don’t go in so-’ Helen gestured at the door. 

‘Of course, of course. Let’s,’ Tristan and yourself pushed James through the door, and nearly into poor Helen Alderson. 

As quickly and quietly you took your seats, Helen and James at the front, while you and Tristan slinked off towards the back, to find a seat with a good view of the couple. 

Tristan leaned towards you as the band leader attempted to speak loudly enough for the whole room, which was admittedly on the small side. 

‘He can’t mess this up can he?’ Tristan whispered. 

‘We’ll see. He doesn’t much like to do things for himself,’ you shrugged.

The concert was over before you new it, and James had made little advancement in his relationship with Helen, offering only a ‘farewell’ and ‘jolly good day’ with his hands stuffed in his pockets. 

‘That turned out. . . less than ideal.’ Tristan sighed. 

You shrugged, almost smiling, ‘progress is progress I’d suppose. Got more comfortable after that second movement. Got a decent laugh too, wouldn’t you think?’ 

Scheming your brothers love life turned out more difficult than you had suspected. You and Tristan put your heads together often enough, but James’ almost self destructive devotion to his vocation made your planning very difficult. Still you and Tristan shuffled along, scheming as you might, with no thoughts of home. 

It must have been two weeks into your stay, but admittedly you had been too distracted to notice, when the Daffodil ball was announced. With a great impact Mrs. Bromptom had thrust herself upon Skeldale and thrown Siegfried into something of a mood. Though this was fascinating to watch, Tristan and yourself had been overjoyed with the opportunity for your brother to just take one very easy chance and ask Helen to join him. 

You had been certain he’d take the bait, and you had been proven correct, but how correct you weren’t sure. 

There was a general buzz about the place as James rushed his last few patients, you were sitting with Helen, rather companionably. Beginning to approve of his choice better with every moment. 

‘Nearly done,’ He had announced from the operating room as he ushered a dog inside. 

‘Where’s Tristan then?’ Helen asked as Mrs. Hall handed her a cup of tea. 

You opened your mouth to say but Mrs. Hall had beat you to it,

‘He’s found himself a date. Girl with a pig.’ Mrs. Hall chuckled, nestling herself comfortably on the couch next to you. 

‘Siegfried’s going with Ms. Brompton then?’ She asked 

‘Yes, confirmed it this morning.’ You answered.

Mrs. Hall hummed vaguely and sipped her tea. 

Maybe it was half an hour again before you actually departed, feeling giddy with the opportunity you had thrust upon your brother, maybe it would actually work this time. 

The dance hall was lively, and as crowded as it could be. The band played a peppy tune and smelled of cigarettes and perfume. It was almost suffocating, but as the door propped open and the air began to clear you could properly enjoy yourself. 

You were standing by the concessions table when Tristan practically ran into you, grabbing your shoulders and turning you towards the dance floor. 

‘There, there d’you see?’ he half whispered half yelled. 

You almost couldn’t see through the sea of bodies, only a flash of your brother's best sports coat, and Helen’s Scarlet dress. She looked like she knew what she was doing, but James tripped as he sped by. 

Tristan was patting your arm in excitement practically jumping up and down.

‘I’m so proud I could kiss you!’ he yipped. 

Your eyes went wide and he beamed. You nodded in permission and he pressed his warm lips to your cheek, excitedly exclaiming.

‘I think I’ve finally got something right for a change.’ 

You smiled back, grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the floor, where you took a celebratory dance.

The night had put you in a dream state, nothing felt quite real, in a deliriously pleasant sort of way. Tristan and yourself seemed to fill into your “roles” as simply and unexplained as possible. You spent all your time together, but that ticking clock of your time here started to ring loud. 

The night was in equal measure very successful and a dismal failure for your brother; but it was only part way through the day when he seemed jontier, nearly giddy. 

‘Now old boy, what’s gotten into you?’ Tristan asked, as he settled himself atop James’ desk. The surgery had just been evacuated, and James was cleaning up, humming. 

‘I think, and I don't know. But I THINK Helen just kissed me.’ 

Tristan jumped up, grabbing his friends shoulders. ‘Really? You’re absolutely positively sure that Helen Alderson kissed you?’ 

‘Yes.’ James chuckled. 

A tap at the door interrupted them, when you poked your head inside, ‘Tris, Siegfried’s been-’

Tristan pulled you inside, 

‘Well go on then tell her.’ He positioned you across the table from James.

‘Helen-’

‘Kissed him!’ Tristan yipped, startling you. ‘Sorry sorry, it just took him SO long,’ 

‘Ms. Herriott,’ Siegfried piped up from the hall. 

You swung open the door taking the letter he held out to you. 

It was a note from your parents. A month in Darrowby hadn't been your plan, necessarily, but there wasn’t ever an actual plan. It started with the usual pleasantries and how they missed you and hoped you were doing well, then with deft complaints about your time away.

You felt a sinking feeling. You dropped your hands to your sides huffing in anger. 

‘How about some celebratory lunch?’ Tristan pulled James along, arms interlocked. 

The train station was nearly crowded, you could hear Siegfried loudly talking from the telephone booth, and all your baggage was sitting next to you under the bench. Tristan was pacing around his hands in his pockets.

You had begun to chew the inside of your cheek. It had been three wonderful days. Those days had made you realize you didn’t want to leave. Not now, or ever. You had been sucked in.

The train whistle prompted you to stand, and Tristan was at your side, helping you with your bags. 

‘Are you alright?’ Tristan tilted his head..

‘What’s that? Yes, I suppose.’ You shrugged.

Tristan furrowed his brow. ‘You don’t look it.’

You sighed, and rubbed your temple. ‘I just. . . don’t want to go back. I know I should, and my parents are expecting me, but I can’t see the point in it. I think I  can finally breath here.’ You sighed.

Tristan’s jaw was loose, his head listing ever so slightly to the side, like he’d lost the ability to understand you. 

‘Dear god, we’ve got room. Close your bloody mouth Tristan, you look like a dead fish.’ 

You turned with surprise to Siegfried. ‘What’s that?’ 

‘We’ve got plenty of room at Skeldale, stay with us.’ Siegfried shrugged like it was the simplest thing.

‘Oh yes, please do.’ Mrs. Hall concurred 

‘But- my train,’ you gestured. 

‘For heaven sake, go home, get your things and we’ll have a feast when you get back!’ said Mrs. Hall. 

Tristan had picked up your bags, excitedly as the train whistle began to blow again. 

‘Come on then.’ He urged you. He looked as giddy as a child, like he was already anticipating your return. 

James opened the cabin door and your things were placed inside, Tristan urged you in, and the door shut. You turned around, urgently opening the compartment window, you leaned out. 

Tristan’s eyes met yours and you smiled, leaning out and kissing him as the last whistle blew. You were practically pulled away as the train began to move, and you waved until you could no longer seem then. 

There was a cool summer smell of grass, and cows. You sat down with a sigh, closing the window, and picked up your bag. Shuffling around in it for a moment before pulling out a pad of paper and pen, when you settled comfortably and started a list of things to pack.

[artiesredemptionarc]

That One Love (Remus x reader)

Can also be found on ao3 and wattpad with the same title

Desc: Y/N Potter was now in her fifth year, the Marauders now in their sixth, it was meant to be a calm year, what with the usual antics of James being in love with Lily and the boys playing pranks on the Slytherins as a whole. Lately however, Y/N has started to pay a little more attention to Remus, seeing as he had started to talk to her more this year, leaving to let her wonder if he was always this nice and attractive.

(A/N: A remake from a fic I wrote back on Wattpad when I was 11/12, it's an xreader for Remus cause I was unhealthily in love with him. Anyways enjoy!)

Chapter 1: The Express

Y/N sat in the empty train car, looking around for her brother and his friends. As usual, they were nowhere to be found, well, Y/N didn't really want to find them per se, she just didn't want them to be getting into trouble already when they hadn't even left the station yet. Once it was clear the boys were nowhere near her cart, she decided to close her door, choosing to invite the calmness instead of the chaos lurking somewhere in the train, feeling the tracks shift under her, knowing that they were now departing for Hogwarts as the whistle blew and the station began to pass from her window.

"Oi! Let us in, won't you?" A voice sounded from behind the compartment door, belonging to a long dark-haired boy, her brother's best friend, Sirius Black, three others stood behind him in the small walkway. Y/N groaned, having just settled with the silence before moving, opening the door, and allowing the boys in, sitting next to the one with round-rimmed glasses and unnaturally unruly hair, also known as her older brother James.

"What took you guys so long? I started hoping you had gotten left on the platform." She said, looking to her brother for an answer. It wasn't like she was impossible to find, in fact, they had all sat in that same compartment the entire time they had attended Hogwarts, Y/N only joining them one year after when she herself started attending Hogwarts.

"Sorry, your brother there had to go ogle Lily before the train left," The boy opposite her said, Remus, the only marauder she could even stand.

"Did you know she got her hair cut over the summer? It looks amazing." James said, now lost in his own thoughts of the poor red-haired girl that he had been in love with longer than Y/N had taken to get through her reading list. At the sound of his dreamy sigh, the rest of the car collectively groaned, having to put up with it the entire time.

"How is it that you are so in love with her when she barely gives you the time of day, and when she does it's with a scowl on her face," Y/N asked, her brother and his feelings remaining an enigma to her.

'Well, my dear sister, you don't know what it feels like to be in love." James pointed out, thinking that his argument had any ground.

"That doesn't matter even in the slightest, at least I can tell when someone doesn't like me." She contradicted, a small argument now beginning between the two siblings, the other inhabitants of the car just watching, Sirius having taken out his own little bag of chips and eating, enjoying the small show in front of him. After what seemed to be half the ride, the two settled down, Peter having been put between them so they wouldn't attack one another. Silence had settled amongst the car, a knock on the door drawing everyone's attention.

"Anything from the trolley?" The old witch pushing a trolley full of sweets asked, Sirius and James, being the first to stand and ask for something, Remus moving to also get something, his eyes meeting Y/N's as he did.

"You want anything?" He asked, his voice quiet so no one would hear them, knowing that he only had money to pay for her as well, Peter would have thrown a fit if he knew that his best friend paid for a girl he barely knew over the person he's known the entire time.

"Just some candy floss if you don't mind, I'll pay you back once we get off at Hogwarts." She replied, her money being up with the rest of her luggage, knowing it would be a pain to get now that everyone had put their own bags up there as well. Remus nodded at her request, grabbing a few pieces of chocolate for himself and the candy floss for her, sitting down and handing it over, earning a small smile of thanks from the girl as the other two boys settled in their seats for the rest of the ride now.

The rest of the ride was rather uneventful, Y/N sat with her head against the window as she listened to the boys plan their first prank back at Hogwarts, taking a bite of her candy floss every now and then, even offering some to Peter when she noticed he hadn't gotten anything from the trolley. Even if she couldn't stand him, she wasn't going to let him feel even more left out of the group.

Finally, after nearly three hours the train pulled into the Hogwarts station, coming to a slow stop as they all got out of the car, grabbed their bags, and heading out onto the platform.

"Alright, first years follow me! The rest of you off to the carriages!" Y/N heard the groundskeeper call, seeing the eager newcomers follow him off to the boats, Y/N surely not missing how cold the water felt during her first year, her partner having hit her with some as they moved. Moving from the platform she made her way up to the carriages, getting on an empty room and setting her beg beside her, hoping for some solitude before hearing a person sit next to her, looking over she saw Sirius, Remus and Peter following him to the carriage.

"Where's my oaf of a brother?" She asked, seeing as James wasn't with them. Sirius just groaned in response while Peter pointed off to a different carriage, James had chosen to sit with Lily, not by her own choice, instead of his friends. "Wow, the betrayal." Y/N joked, looking at the very distraught boy beside her.

"We should lock him out of the dorm tonight," Sirius suggested, looking at his other two friends, his body shifting against Y/N before correcting himself, the carriage now moving towards the castle.

"Right, and have him mope outside of it the entire night, as if," Remus replied, shooting the idea down almost as soon as it left Sirius' mouth.

"Also he could just use alohomora." Y/N mentioned, Sirius suddenly remembering that the spell exists.

"Right, that too." Remus agreed, his head nodding at the girl's mention.

"Well, still, he shouldn't just get away with leaving us behind." Sirius exclaimed, not wanting James' betrayal to go down without retaliation.

"He'll just do it again next year." Peter chimed in, the other two murmuring their agreements.

"Great help you lot are." Sirius groaned, his arms crossing over his chest as he now sulked over the loss of his best friend.

The rest of the carriage ride was silent, the occasional word from Peter or Remus, Y/N choosing to just watch the creatures in the forest as they passed, the castle looming overhead as they continued, the new school year and any secrets that might be revealed from it causing an almost uneasy feeling amongst the returning students.

[uefb]

A fic excerpt from 1914, half a year after Newt’s expulsion (ages 17 and 25)

I’ve spent my free time over the past month writing Theseus and Newt between 1897 and 1919, and oh my goodness did their relationship evolution give me fits 😅 35k words later and I’m almost ready to post it! But I must get closer to turning in my dissertation chapter drafts first or I will be thoroughly reprimanded/have a mental breakdown and my soft little heart can’t handle that rn lmao)

[smolvenger]

Miss Narracott and The Captain Part Six (Cpn. James Nicholls x fem! Reader Mini- Series)

Fandom: War Horse

Word Count: 7K

Chapter Warnings: LOTS of fluff, some angst. Mentions of sex and though parts get steamy, no smut.

Series Summary: It is 1914. You are Y/N Narracott, the older sister of Albert Narracott. You must do what you can so your family can keep their farm. And so your brother can keep his beloved horse. Under financial struggles, you never expect romance to come into your life...until you have a chance encounter with James Nicholls- a Captain with a knack for drawing. But the threat of war lingers in the air...

Part One//Part Two//Part Three//Part Four//Part Five//Part Six//Part Seven Coming Soon!

A/N: Comments, Reblogs, DMs, and Asks about my work are always appreciated! Y'all ready for a wedding chapter!!! Wahoo!!! *tosses confetti* Also, I know the above gif is of a white woman, which I used because the vibes. But I intend for the Reader or Y/N in my all of fics to be written as neutral in regards to their race. And if I ever mess up and make their physical appearance not neutral, please call me out. Feel free to ask to be tagged in this and/or my other stuff! Thank you!

Taglist: @evelyn-kingsley @jennyggggrrr @five-miles-over @fictive-sl0th @ladycamillewrites @villainousshakespeare @holdmytesseract

@eleniblue @twhxhck @lokisgoodgirl @lovelysizzlingbluebird @raqnarokr @holymultiplefandomsbatman @michelleleewise @wolfsmom1 @infinitystoner @12-pm-510

The church bells began to ring at six o clock. That used to be Albert’s job when he was a younger boy. He would run down every Sunday morning, reach up, and pull the bells to peel their beautiful sounds. They were clanging as you walked out to home. They didn’t stop when you arrived home. Their echoes used to make you smile at the picture of little Albert reaching for the tall ropes. Now…not so much. Though you heard they would not ring until the war had finished. Their last echo vanished into the air like a dying butterfly.

You had yet to hear from James. But you could not hold a grudge against him. This was the time he trained for.

The next morning, when you walked down to work, the townspeople were out and excited. It was like a holiday. People were waving flags out of windows. There were stations out there to recruit any able-bodied young man to join. Bands played music with loud trumpets in the square. Children got brooms and marched around in pretend parades about the square. “Shoot the Germans,” you noticed was a popular game among them. Even amidst your shift, it was hard not to notice.

But out the window of the shop for those two days, you saw him. James. You could even hear his voice as the army brought supplies and young men signed up. Any quiet minute you indulged in looking out. And you knew he would spy on you through the window as well from outside. So much unspoken. He would tip his hat at you and smile. And you would smile and nod at him. Then one hour, when no one else was watching you, you would take your hand to your lips and blow a small kiss at him. He would “catch” it. Placing his hand over the left pocket on his chest. Where your glove remained- a love token from you to him. Then you would return to work with a grin.

Though the second day became packed with customers shopping out of panic. You did not look out the window for James as much.

But you knew something happened when you returned home. Walking inside to greet your parents, you saw your mother staring out the windows, blankly. And Father with paper money in his hand, counting them out. But he frowned.

You heard a sob from outside.

Though once you walked out, you saw the horse area was empty except for Albert. He was sitting on the grass, hugging his legs, and crying. You rushed over, kneeling down and touching your brother’s arm.

“Albie…what…what is it? Did something happen?” you asked.

He wiped off his face with his sleeve, but still teary.

“Joey’s sold! Dad sold him off to the war for the rent!” he mourned.

“What! No! He didn’t!” you cried.

“He did, Y/N! He did!!”

You hugged your brother as he cried. Rubbing his back, he shook from the tears. And you found yourself crying as well.

“I can’t believe it…Joey…Poor Joey…” you murmured.

“How’s he gonna fare in the war!? How!” Albert wailed.

“I…I don’t know…oh, Albert…this is a nightmare!”

You looked at the empty fields where Joey once trotted. You would miss him. You would miss his neighing and gallops and “spirited” kicking. And how happy he made Albert.

Though, not long after, you saw a head walking up and going through the gate. And your heart stopped in place- Captain James Nicholls had arrived. Before you could say a word, Albert ran up in a sprint.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not here to return Joey. Not yet- I’m sorry,” James said.

“But why else would you come here, sir!?” Albert cried.

Return Joey? You thought.  So, it was James himself who bought him! Oh, thank goodness! Of all the people in the army Joey could have been purchased by, there was no one better! Yes, there was no one better than Nicholls. He looked over at you, taking off his cap.

“And how are you, Miss Narracott?” he asked with a warm smile.

“I’m better, thank you, sir,” you answered.

Nicholls knocked on the door. Your father opened it and greeted him. Then James took a step inside. You began clutching your skirt as the captain turned to your father, finally.

“Mr. Narracott…I’d like to speak to you in private, please. It’s not about Joey. No…I’d like to speak on something different…”

It felt as if the earth stopped on its axis. Your heart picked up though you stood still.  Mother’s eyes lit up as she turned over.

“Well, if it’s important for him, it’s important for me! I’d like to stay and speak with you too! Let’s just say I learned my lesson from last time!” Mum insisted, crossing her arms.

James smiled at her and nodded.

“Oh, there is no problem at all! Of course, you can, Mrs. Narracott,”

She looked out at you and Albert outside.

“Well, you two scurry along. We’ll call you when we’re done,” she dismissed.

Though there was a little smile as she closed the door. Once it clicked shut, Albert walked forward and pressed an ear to it.

You could feel yourself getting warmer. It was a giddiness from thrill, not from dread this time. You went over to the garden to look after the plants and flowers. As you took your water can, you watched Albert’s face. His eyes became big, and he dropped his jaw as he listened. Then he went over to you.

“Why…Y/N! You and Nicholls are-are-…Do you think he’s…. he’s here to…to…?”

You gave him a smile, a small laugh escaping you from excitement and nerves.

“Albert…I don’t want to keep this a secret from you anymore…” you started.

He put two hands on each of your shoulders.

“Do you love him?” he asked.

You began to well up a few tears as you nodded.

“And he loves me, Albie. He loves me!”

He hugged you again. You heard a small laugh in his voice.

“Why, who else but my sister could get two fellows asking for her hand in a month?” he teased.

 Finally, the door opened and both of you jumped. You even clutched his hand to keep your own from shaking. You wondered if you would burst at once. James walked forward; he kept his cap off.

“Could I please speak to your daughter in private?” asked James.

Your father nodded.

“Oh-of course!” he said.

Your mother took Albert and dragged him inside the house. 

"How long have we known each other, Y/N?"

"Two years," you replied.

"Sometimes it felt like last week you discovered my book."

"I feel the same. And with the war, you have to go there soon to fight,” you continued.

"I do," he said.

      The sun was setting, casting orange and pink across the sky, giving it a glow about the garden. A few tomatoes, carrots, peas, and other vegetables emerged from the storm. There were also your flowers. Summer roses, forget-me-nots, daisies, violets, and crocuses for your beloved rabbits. They grew about the space and filled the light air with their fresh scent. You felt the warmth of the leftover sun with the cool breeze of the coming night. He looked so beautiful by the flowers and glow of the peaceful hour.

"We know I will have to leave soon. And I do not look forward to it. I will miss many things about this place-you most of all. Y/N. Your presence is always there in my memory. My duty calls me over, yet you pull me like a string to you. And if this is a spell done by magic, I wish not to be freed of it. Not free from the beautiful, sweet, wonderful woman from Devon, no."

      There was only the clucking of the chickens in the back. He began to tap his foot; his own fingers were twitching. You clutched your skirt in a fistful, your breath tight in your chest. Though both of you were smiling. A few words. A few words more... you silently urged him.

      You walked out to the back- among the garden, the budding flowers, and plants.

“Y/N, I will tell you. Your feelings for me have not changed, have they?”

“They haven’t. I still love you, James.”

He took your hand. You could feel they were clammy. He began to stutter.

“Uh…Miss Y/N, I…I…I don’t even know what I can say to you…”

He looked up at you. And took a deep breath.

“I don’t even know where to begin with this!”

“Then one thing at a time,” you prodded.

You looked into his eyes and he into yours. It seemed each second was growing. He then glanced down at the ground and then up. Butterflies fluttered in your stomach.

“I have my reasons for saying this. And saying this now. I’m not a wealthy man, but I promised your father you’d never go hungry. And I told your parents that should I die, you would have what fortune I possess. As well as the respect that is due to the wife of a captain…”

“The wife of a captain?” you repeated with a smile.

He relaxed, taking both your hands in his.

“Y/N, would you like to marry me?” he asked.

A small gasp went out of you, and you smiled. His jaw trembling, he added on.

"Your father gave me his permission. And your mother gave us her blessing."

 “Yes…. yes, I will!” you answered, happy tears welling up your eyelids.

You drew him into an embrace, and he hugged you back. Both of you breathed in. Feeling each other’s arms and the breath of each other. He took both your hands and kissed them again in complete reverence. Worship even.

 "I love you; Y/N. Would you like me to be your husband? Would you like to marry me?"

He hugged you again, both of you enjoying the feeling and presence of each other.

"Could I kiss you?" he asked.

"I've wanted to kiss you for ages! Of course!" you said.

He put one hand on your cheek and kissed you. He smelled of the day's sweat, but his lips felt light as a feather. You placed your hands on his arms to deepen it, to make it a kiss between lovers. It was released with a faint, wet click. Perhaps your whole family was watching now from the window. But now, you did not care. You both could not stop smiling.

“Let’s go back…” you suggested.

You returned arm in arm, smiling. Dad let out a small laugh at the sight.

“Well, Nicholls, in just a week you got my horse and my girl!”

Albert’s eyes widened at the point. But he smiled and you laughed.

“You will still have me for a while!” you assured him.

Engagement! You! Engaged! To James of all people.

“But everyone…let’s sit down. There’s one thing we must discuss now that you’ve said yes, dear,” Mum urged.

She let out a deep sigh, folding her hands.

“Should we wait until the time you are off duty, or the war is done for the wedding? Or…”

“Or…” you prodded.

“Or should we marry you off soon as we can?”

It made everything freeze except for the crickets outside. Your mother shrugged.

“That way, should something happen to James, you will be fit to inherit all that’s his as his widow…”

They looked at you. Your heart knew the right answer. The practical answer. The frightening answer. You wanted to have him. To call him yours. Even if it was for only a little time. You and James looked at each other. He offered his hand, and you took it.

“Then…then I don’t think we have time to lose. We’ll marry before he leaves.” You decided.

“I second it,” James agreed.

Your father shook James’s hand. And then your parents embraced him as their son-in-law. And Albert as his brother-in-law. He stayed for a simple supper, then kissed you goodnight, and left.

James and your father told you the next day that the church said were available in a week. And the court announced it would have documents and contracts to solidify the union. And that was that. Enough to plan a modest ceremony. Now there would be nothing legally or under the heavens that would deny you both as a couple.

You asked your work friends if they would be your bridesmaids. They all agreed and congratulated and embraced you. Even Mrs. Snow was delighted and said her congrats and wished you well, with a smile on her face. You promised to invite her to the wedding.

Each time you arrived home, there was much excitement. There were never as many visitors as you had before! It seemed any neighbor and family member in town had to stop by to say congrats. Or to lend a helping hand for decorating and cooking and donations for the ceremony. There was always a knock on the door and someone new for Harold to chase and nip at. Albert cried far less- for the whirlwind of a quick wedding kept him too occupied to mourn Joey.

One day there was a knock on the door and there James appeared with his family. Despite your nerves about impressing them, they were warm and friendly.

“He’s talked and written about you a hundred times. He went to us and said he wanted to marry you. And you’ve had our blessing since,” his mother recalled with a sweet smile.  

It was the second day James was there at your work. Your friends stood in the back, smiling, and enjoying your love by proxy.

“Would you like to walk with me a little today?” he asked.

“Yes, I would,” you agreed, taking his arm.

Now you and James could walk alone for as long as you wanted to discuss everything as you pleased. For now, no one was going to separate an engaged couple. And discuss ideas about your future together.

“We’re going to stay in a small cottage near the headquarters as I train. But when I’m in France...I’m not sure where you could go.  You could stay with your family, as always.”

“Then where will we be when you get back? I doubt my little bedroom is too full of my old dolls and stuffed toys when I was a girl! Hardy fitting for a captain!” you teased.

He had a little laugh at that.

 “I live in Somerset and that is only an hour’s drive away. Would you…would you like to stay there when I return? I will find us a home. Or perhaps…perhaps…would you like to stay with my mother? Even for a while? You can return to your parents whenever you’d like,” he reasoned.

“They’re my family too now, James.”

You took a pause on the cobbled streets of the town and squeezed his hand.

“I’d like to move to Somerset. Stay with your family until we can find a home of our own. If I decide I must return to my parents and brother, I can always do so…” you reasoned.

You were about to be a wife. You wanted to believe in yourself as such. Step into it, scary as it seemed.

Then while discussing things like ribbons and flowers and what food to eat you began to pack your bags. Your heart raced- the Narracott farm was all you knew. It had the hill you and Albert would sled on in the winter. The steps you loved for whoever’s steps were on it you could guess who was coming down. The old fireplace where you’d listen to each other and talk. Oh, and then it wouldn’t be your home! A different place with different people!

But you had to face it. You were not a child anymore. And as loved as it was- you would have a new space. You would always love your family. But you loved James too. And without your family- who were you, even? So much was built around them. Now once you left, you would find out more about who you were. It would be scary. But many people- women especially- faced it now. Getting married and leaving home. Something so common, but so extraordinary. Even though it was Somerset and not the other end of the earth, you would learn.

The two of you passed by the auctioning circle the next day. Another large group had gathered.  This time, a red Irish Hunter horse led by one young man was up for grabs. Both of you slowed to admire the creature prancing in a circle for the bidders. The auctioneer began to boast the benefits of the horse. His head turned towards James. Then a mischievous smile formed in his teeth.

“Why- look at him!” announced the auctioneer from his block. “He’s red and blushing brighter than Captain Nicholls on his wedding night!” he announced teasingly.

The crowd erupted in bawdy laughter and even clapped. James’s cheeks did turn pink, and he dipped his head down, saying nothing. You only laughed and kept a hand over your mouth- both embarrassed and delighted. In all honesty, you thought it was funny.

Though those conversations were for when both of you were alone. Where not even a passing stranger could overhear. Both of you walked by the river. Words only for the babbling waters to hear.

“I know what happens in a bed with a husband and wife but…James…I…uhm…”

“I won’t expect it of you. I won’t demand it of you. You can take your time, my dear. I’ll wait until you say yes. Until you know without doubt it’s what you want…”

Then kissed your hand.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

At church that Sunday, you did have some nerves facing Mr. Lyons, seeing you wrapped around the arm of the Captain. But the landlord only tipped his hat and said congratulations. Miss Corbyn too stifled any harsh words to offer congrats as well. Though her head turned and it seemed that she was talking a lot to other soldiers. Her voice was softer, and she did not speak with a secret venom. And it seemed many of them smiled flirtatiously at her company. Thank goodness!

You had a cousin from Mum’s side in town who was your size. She had a wedding dress to spare. And though it was a touch out of the current style, you liked it.

You wouldn’t believe it when you walked that Friday morning down to the shop, it would be your last day of work. Mary ran up and embraced you.

“I know there wasn’t time for a full party between us-so I made us all lunch together and a bridal party cake!” she announced with a chirrup.

It was a tradition for the bride and bridesmaids to eat lunch and have a cake full of little silver charms inside. As you got to the cake, all of you took your slice and dug with your spoons. As lovely as the vanilla smelled, you had to see what charm landed in your slices! And to not accidentally swallow one! And what a miracle it was- there was a charm in each of your slices.

Alice gasped when she spooned out a heart. Then she reached over to the booklet that explained their meanings.

“That means true love!” she bragged.

Ida uncovered a horseshoe.

“I got the good luck one!” she announced, peering over the booklet.

It was Mary who got out a ring.

“That’s odd- this one is blissful marriage! That should be yours, Y/N!” she said.

Though as you dug through your slice of cake, resisting the urge to eat it, you uncovered an anchor.

“What does it mean, Alice?” you asked.

She got out the booklet and flipped the page.

“That means adventure!” she explained.

“I guess it is an adventure- getting married and leaving home,” you reasoned.

But you uncovered a second charm. A key- a happy home. You hoped your new home would be a happy one. A new one. And even a brief one. But no! The home of happiness. A home shared by you and the man you loved.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The day of the wedding finally arrived. All of you were a running bunch about the house that day. The smells from the kitchen wafted up to your room. Your bridesmaids put on their nicest dresses, as did your mother. Bright colors of purple, yellow, pink, and light blues. Your father and brother were kept out as they fixed your hair as you wanted. Shutting the door as all of you burst into chuckling.  From nerves? Excitement? Very likely both.

Your teacup shook a little in its saucer when your wedding dress was brought out of its trunk and laid flat on the bed. They all flew around you like bees to share your excitement. It was Alice who had the honor of picking out your flowers to make a bouquet. All of them set their hats- large brimmed and decorated with flowers- on your bed. Your last day to sleep in it as a single woman. Your last day in your childhood home.

 You put on the gown with their help. It was a shade of white that fits you, and it was frothy and soft. A confectionary of lace.  It even had little white flowers sewn as decorations. For a final touch, you added long, white gloves.  You could hardly believe the reflection in the mirror. You saw lace on your sleeves. Then Mary secured the veil over your head. A headpiece with the long veil itself draping down behind your head to where it touched the skirt of the gown. You seemed ethereal- a being not of this world. Perhaps an angel or a fairy or a benign ghost even.

“Oh- how lovely you look, Y/N!” Ida sighed.

Your mother stood behind you, looking at the reflection too.

“I agree! There’s my girl…all grown up and ready…” she cooed as you both looked in the mirror.

You turned around and then her eyes softened.

“Be sure to talk to Albert, today. Yes, it’s your day, but have a heart for him- no horse and no sister. It’s a big change for him.”

“I will…Mum…but I…I can’t blame him. I will miss you! All of you!” you said, turning to your friends.

“I’ll miss you too, girl. But I thank the heavens you refused Lyons!” she said.

You burst into laughter. To think if you said yes by now, this wedding would be to that odious man! Then it would be nowhere near as happy!

 “James is a wonderful man. He’ll treat you well. You made the right choice…and remember. You’re not out of town yet. And when you’re over there… we’re only the next town away,” she consoled.

You hugged them tightly.

Then you walked down the steps. Down on the kitchen table were Father and Albert. Dressed up as they could be in their nicest suits. Though you saw Albert’s eyes remained puffy. They both stood up and their eyes widened at the sight of you in your dress.

 You went over to your brother. You took his hand.

“Albie. You don’t hate me, do you? Leaving you?” you questioned.

He shook his head.

“No, I couldn’t! It’s not that I want you to be happy, I do!” he said.

“And you don’t begrudge James about me or Joey?” you asked.

“No! It’s just…it will be quiet without you…” he sighed.

You wrapped him into a hug.

“I’ll write to you every week I can. I’m only a letter away…”

You pulled out from the hug, an idea making you smile.

“Albie…you do realize that I’m about to marry Joey’s temporary owner!” you reasoned.

He perked up.

“You have an excuse to visit the army base now. You can see both of us- Joey and me! You can still see him for a week after this!” you said.

He then put a hand on your shoulder.

“Then I’ll see him- but I’d go over to town if it meant just seeing my old sister!”

You hugged him again. Once you released, he began to grin.

“What’s that metaphor you like- ‘shiny as a smile at a wedding?’ Do you think we’ll all be shiny today?”

“You already are, Y/N,” he said.

Then your father adjusted your veil to be over your face as you fixed the flowers in his breast pocket. Alice handed you the bouquet. You heard the clock chime the time. Three-thirty in the afternoon. Only half an hour until the ceremony began. And outside, there you heard the rumble of a motorcar, driven by a young lieutenant to deliver you to church.

“Are you ready, my girl?” father asked.

“Ready as I can be,” you answered.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The birdsong was like flutes today outside. What had you for an orchestra of the finest musicians? They were there to sing. The hour of the ceremony began. Your heart raced and your bridesmaids all smiled at you. Your father squeezed your hand. Outside, the sun was bright and puffy clouds, white and frothy as your dress, glided across the blue sky.

The church was humbly decorated. You knew that from the hours you spent helping and planning and from your peeks between the doors. There was not much you could afford for a quick wedding. But many people piled in a few coins here and there and offered to decorate. It was filled with beautiful wildflowers among the windows. The candles stood tall. And there were a few spare ribbons for bows for the front pews. It was not grand, but pretty. Besides, you figured it was more important to marry the right man than have a lavish dress and ceremony.

Everyone stood in a line outside the church doors. Mary adjusted your veil. You clutched your bouquet. It had roses, blue violets, daisies, and forget me nots. Plucked out from your childhood home and now there had to be flowers regrown in your new homes. Your bridesmaids all put their tussie mussies, their smaller flower bouquets, in hand.

      "I don't know if I'm going to faint or become sick," you confessed.

Ida turned to you with a smile. She touched your arm, rubbing it in comfort.

"Oh, Y/N, you will be fine!" she consoled.

"He'll think this dress and veil are old-fashioned!" you fretted.

"No- he'll be so lovestruck that he will be the one fainting at the sight of you! And who cares if it's old-fashioned or not- it's a lovely dress! And-oh!-you almost dropped one flower from your own bouquet!"

With a little laugh, you thanked her. Ida got down and picked up the forget-me-not.

"Here. Do you remember what it's supposed to represent?" she asked.

"Is it true love?" you asked.

She smiled at you.

"Yes- I think you found your true love, Y/N. Not many people do. Yes, you're nervous- but that's normal to be!" she said.

"I don't want to do anything wrong!" you confessed, your shoulders rising to your ears.

"If James tripped and fell on his face before the altar, would you not want to marry him?" she asked.

"No! I'd...I'd laugh, of course. Then I'd pick him up!" you said.

Both of you laughed lightly to break the tension.

"So, why shouldn't he do the same for you?"

"You're...you're right. And I guess it's just nerves."

"Just take some breaths and enjoy it, Y/N. You'll miss it when it's over!"

 As your mother began to head in, she clutched your hand.

      Their gossip quieted as the organ began to play out some more cheerful music. Though their voices dimmed to whispers, their eyes kept returning to the doors. The flower girls and ring bearers were the niece and nephew of James. They waddled across, to their place. The pews cooed as they walked. Then it struck you- they were about to be your niece and nephew in an hour!

 The two bridesmaids-Ida and Mary- and your maid of honor-Alice, began to filter through. They each had an officer of their own to drape across. They walked down, clutching their tussie-mussies and smiling. They walked to the front. The guests had quit their own whispering. Perhaps the occasional giggle or something you heard that was a cough.

The song changed. The song of the bride’s entrance.

 But as you walked in, you saw all of them- smiling. Smiling at you. Eyes bright. True, genuine smiles as you gazed at them. You heard the shuffle of feet. The creaking of pews as each person in the church stood up right before you entered. Taking in a deep breath, you walked into the sanctuary on your father’s arm.

You glanced at the guests. Everyone had hats on to protect them from how the harsh summer sun would creep into the church. Ladies wore light dresses in bright colors and men in sharp suits. Many people were given pins of flowers to attach to the front of their clothes. Your own mother and brother sat at the front on one side. James’s parents and siblings sat on the other side. James stood at the altar and next to him was Stewart as the best man. Many of the guests were other officers in their pea-green uniforms. They craned their necks to watch you. You even heard some whispering among the guests with an admirable puff of air- "She looks so pretty!"

Then you looked up at James. Dressed in his uniform. Stewart was beside him as his best man.

Though you sweated beneath your wedding dress, you forgot the heat with the cool air of the church. And you chilled completely once you truly looked James in the eye.  He glowed. His eyes blinked a couple of times, and he placed his hands in front of him. But he did not mask his own joy for the sake of propriety on his face. James stood even taller. He blushed and even puffed out his chest slightly with every step you arrived closer to him. He only smiled wider with every step closer to him that you took.

A tenderness filled your heart. Yes, as simple as this ceremony was, the church was filled with those who loved and would do their best to support you. This moment was something you could only imagine would happen two years ago. Something you always doubted would ever happen was your reality. Now it was. You were about to be married to a man you loved. You dreamed of romance and now you found it. It finally happened.

   Every eye was on you. You felt that they were not judging you, looking for a mistake, a flaw. A wrong way to walk or a button was undone on your dress. No- they were enjoying you, sharing your happiness. The nerves became excitement and elation inside you. Arriving at the altar, your father then extended his arm. James extended his.

From Dad to James. Two men. Not that James saw you as his property- oh no. He saw you as the woman he wanted as his life partner. A love between equals, not stretches of power. You felt childhood melt from you as you reached forward. But it was this was no death- it was a beginning, a rebirth. A phase of your life had ended, and a new phase was beginning. You wrapped an arm around his- white on green. Then both of you kneeled on two elaborate cushions before the altar. Then you looked up at him and he down at you.

"You look beautiful, my dear," he whispered to you.

"Thank you,” you whispered back.

      You then let your father go. You knew the time would have to come. You didn't want to spend all your life on the farm until your hair was white and your bones turned brittle. And now here it was. You just had to let him go.

He smiled at you. Then he nodded at James. It seemed as if the world slipped away. You held onto him with both hands- he was warm and steady and inviting. It felt as if there were not your whole family and guests staring at your every move. It was only you two. The rector then stepped forward. He was an old man with white hair, a thin white beard, and glasses with bright green eyes. Though he was in his seventies, he spoke with a clear voice and much vivacity.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness this man and woman join together in holy matrimony."

   Then James turned to you. He took your hand in his. And he said the oath.

 "I, James Nicholls, I take you to be my wife, From this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, forsaking all others 'til death do us part. In the presence of God do I make this vow."

Yes...until only death would you part. And on the order of the King, he had to go. And perhaps he would...he would...

No, you could not think of that now. You could not yet mourn him. Here he was- alive. And however long you had to be married to him, you would enjoy it.

“I, Y/N Narracott, take you to be my husband, from this day forward…” you vowed.

James' little nephew brought the rings forth to his uncle. You removed your glove. With a gentle smile, James slipped the ring around your finger. It was a plain bronze band. Both of yours were hand-me-downs. But it fits you like it was crafted for your finger. You both went to the table with the marriage certificate on it near the altar. James signed it with a gentle touch and gave you the pen. You leaned down and signed your name. Your new name.

"Y/N Narracott Nicholls.”

You both returned to the altar for the last prayers and rites. James took your hand, and you wrapped it around his arm the whole time. You never wanted to let go of him. He beamed at you. Then the final “amen” rang. The rector gestured to you both to stand and turn to the congregation.

"With the power invested in me by the law and the Church of England, I now pronounce you man and wife."

 The guests all stood up clapping. After some time and after your photographs were taken, they rushed outside. You heard Albert whistle and James laughed at the sound. As you walked out, you saw a whole line of officers of the army standing outside. You paused as you were on the threshold as they stood. Stewart rushed to his place there to complete the missing piece.

"Stand hup!" he yelled.

The men got their swords from their hilts and lifted them up to make an arch over your heads. James gave a small nod of thanks to his men, and you both walked out. Smiling brightly as they regarded you both with as much importance as their own calvary. The guests threw flower petals like summer snow.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The guests followed you to the small reception and celebration at the Narracott farm. The congrats multiplied in the thousands. You often abandoned your plate of food to talk. So much embracing and handshaking you thought it would fall off. And though you smiled, it was natural. There were much dancing and happy faces. A violin picked up a tune. You danced with him- your husband, James. He moved as sweetly as he did at socials. He held you a little closer. Moving just as one-partners of a dream.

Then as you both sat down at your table, Major Stewart turned over to talk to you.

      "Well, Jim boy. I had a feeling you'd be the first among us two to get married. And of course, I was right. Joey should have been your best man instead! The horse practically was your matchmaker!"

James let out a little laugh. You went over and held his hand as it lay on the table.

"He was not! We met when she found my drawings!" he corrected.

"Hmm, if I recall correctly- she saw the one of Topthorn. Ah well- then he was the matchmaker and should have been your best man! He’d look handsome in a suit, wouldn’t he? If you can stand the risk of horse droppings in the church!" Stewart teased.

You smiled at the silly picture and thanked him for his involvement. Once he left, James then leaned down and kissed you. There was a small holler from the crowd at the display of intimacy. But it was your wedding day! And you were on a farm! Behavior could loosen a little. Your mother brought out then the cake and there was enough for everyone to have a little slice.

Albert went up to the table and shook his hand.

“Much congrats sir! Only- you’re no sir anymore-You’re about my brother now!” Albert said.

“Yes, I am,” James replied.

Albert’s hands dropped into fists at his side.

“Please let me in the army! If Joey’s going, I’m going too!”

“I told you before- No. You’re too young, Albert. And now I can’t let my own brother-in-law get into trouble, can I?”

James turned to you.

“I don’t think it would make the Missus very happy if I let you run out and get shot!”

“No, I wouldn’t!” you agreed, keeping your hand again intertwined with his.

 Albert made himself stand taller. Now that the authority figure was family.

“Then James- you better be good to Y/N!”

“Of course, I will!”

“If you ever sleep with some woman who’s not my sister and make her cry, I swear I’ll shoot you with father’s gun myself!”

“Albie!” you gasped.

Your eyes went wide, and your jaw lowered. Such talk on the wedding day to James’ face! And in your presence! But James only smiled and nodded with a little laugh.

“Well then! Defending her honor and protecting her? You already have a soldier’s spirit, Albert! But I promise I will do everything I can for your sister’s happiness. And you have my permission to take action to avenge her…if she does not shoot me first.” He turned to you.

You laughed a little. As Albert went away, James turned to you. He then took your hand. He spoke lowly.

“Y/N, I will never do anything I know would hurt you. I swear it…”

“Thank you…I…I know you’re a good man. I trust you. And I swear, I’ll be a good wife to you, James, I will…” you whispered only for him.

“You already are,” he said with a kiss on your forehead.

The guests said goodbye as the sun dipped down. The pink sunset became the early evening. Many threw leftover flower petals and cheered as James led you into the motorcar. You drove off, your farm vanishing over a hill. You stopped at a cottage outside of town.

“Here…this will be our home for the moment,” James announced.

Until you leave, you thought sadly. But no-no- you could not afford to mourn him. He was here, standing before you. He opened his hand. You accepted it.

“It’s bad luck for the bride to trip when she enters!” he prodded.

Squealing despite yourself, he scooped you in his arms and carried you over the threshold. It was a lovely, comfortable cottage. Nice and wooden with modest furnishings. It had white wallpaper with a floral pattern all over. He set you on your feet.

“How are you feeling, darling?” you asked him.

“If I am honest, tired,” he confessed.

“Goodness! Now it’s done!” you agreed.

Both of you laughed out loud about it. As it became dark, you settled to relax in the sitting room. The luggage already arrived there. You chatted over everything that happened today. Who arrived, what each guest said, what went right and wrong. He even brought out a small decanter of whiskey for the two of you. You noted his hands shook a little as he poured out a little for each of you.  

He brought a special device- a phonograph. Complete with music to play. As the sun set, you both were listening to a song. No, it was not just a song- it was music. By some fellow named Debussy from France. And it was music that sounded like a dream. As James relaxed on the couch you laid your head on his chest and he wrapped one of his large, soft hands around you. The music swelled.

“Today was wonderful. I love you, my husband.” You spoke. Relishing the word.

“I love you too.”

You both kissed again as the phonograph’s music continued. You embraced him and did not let go. Then he ended the kiss and looked down at you. But your body flooded. How warm he felt and handsome he looked. You wanted more. You wanted him. In the ultimate way you could have him. His eyes were at half-mast and his voice was husky.

“Y/N…I…I won’t push you…I’ll sleep on this couch if you want…”

Feeling the surge now tenfold, you took his hand and led him to your shared bedroom.

“James…yes.”

You felt his fingers on your back as he undid each button of your dress. Removing each last layer. And you did not cover or hide any part of yourself. You undid each button of his uniform and did not shy from that bed. Neither of you did. You knew James was a man of battles and blood. But you discovered in his body the pleasure and gentleness a man could give a woman. And for both of you, it was a perfect night.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The next morning, you awoke. Both of you knew he had duties to run the army’s recruiting and tend the items bought and sold for war.  You turned over and saw James was awakening. You gave him a kiss on the cheek and with a moan, he opened his eyes.

“Good morning, Mrs. Nicholls.” He greeted.

“Good morning, Mr. Nicholls,” you replied.

You had the honor of fixing his tie and making sure his buttons were right for work. He helped put on your own clothes- helping you button your shoes and step into your petticoat. He helped adjust your corset to how you liked it.

“Here- I will tie a bow in the back, does that sound nice?” he asked.

“Yes, it does- like your signature,” you replied.

It was a pleasant morning- cool for now, though the afternoon would heat up. And you enjoyed the food stored there- eggs, toast with jam and butter, and sausage. All compliments of the cottage owners.  

“If you need anything of me, I’ll be downtown. It’s not a long walk there. I’ll see you at lunch and when the day is done, my dear,” he said.

Before he had to leave, you gave him another kiss as a goodbye. Then he smiled and went out the door.

A quiet life. A domestic life. A peaceful life. No matter how brief it had to be, you had to savor it. But sitting on that couch, feeling the ghost of his weight, the worries rush over you. Then hot tears stung your eyes. You felt as if a corkscrew twisted your chest. You let yourself grieve. Grieve how short this time with him had to be. Grieve the worst that could happen. Grieve that this was short, and he had to go away to another country. Grieve that he might die for his. Grieve the husband and man you loved that wasn’t yet dead.

[dramaticvhs]

Hey! Hoping you could recommend any smut fics for me where it’s Stiles Stilinski x The Hales. It could be just a couple of the Hales, all the male Hales, or all the Hales. As long as there’s more than one hale.

hi! I don't remember getting this ask so I have no idea how long it's been sitting in my inbox. I'm terribly sorry.

I don't know a lot of fics (unfortunately, because I love them) but here are a few I do have bookmarked! :) Also unfortunately, I don't seem to have many Stiles x male Hale's that aren't just Derek and Peter.

if anyone has more please feel free to comment/reblog with fics, or send me an ask! I love finding new fics (:

as always remember to read tags !!

New Experiences by EmeraldTrident and mikkeltwink (Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski/Peter Hale)

Stiles Stilinski heads to a remote cabin in the woods for a one night stand with an older guy he met online. When he arrives, Stiles discovers the man brought a friend to join in on the fun. Stiles doesn't have a single complaint.

Live & Thrive by callunavulgari (Derek Hale/Laura Hale/Stiles Stilinski)

“Now, for your first assignment of the week, I would like you to tell me,” Laura Hale tells them, casting her eyes relentlessly around the room. Searching, meeting each of her student’s gazes, until those dark intelligent eyes finally come to rest on Stiles. “What would drive you to kill?” Stiles Stilinski, sixteen years old and new to the Future Agents in Training program, falls in love.

A Night of Morally-Questionable Decision Making by marguerite_26 (Cora Hale/Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski)

"He's perfect, Derek," Cora says, like she's asking permission. Her breath is hot against the back of Stiles' neck while her fingers toy with his belt buckle. Stiles squirms in her hold, confused and self-conscious. They're still in the apartment doorway, talking to her brother. He doesn't have a lot of experience, but he's pretty sure this isn't normal hookup procedure.

Filling the Void Within Me By demonkatgurl17 (Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski/Peter Hale)

Derek backed Stiles up against one of the steel girders in the abandoned station, stopping mere inches away from him. Stiles’s eyes were trained on the floor, staring at anything else but the warm body in front of him, nearly pressed against him. He didn’t know why he was here, what had driven him here, to Derek of all people. He was sure that if there was a shred of sanity coursing through him right now, then he would have never have left the relative safety of his room.

Virgin Territory by jujukittychick (Derek Hale/Laura Hale/Stiles Stilinski)

Stiles has a photo shoot for Hale’s Belles BDSM magazine where he’ll be subbing for Laura while Derek photographs. Things go quickly off script as the twins find themselves attracted to the cutie, and Stiles is completely flustered by the attention from the two smoking hot siblings

here's these as well that have several pairings:

Knotfest by Triangulum

"Remember," Peter says loudly to the audience, "that very few people come from penetration alone, so paying attention to your partner is key." Peter strokes Stiles, loving how it makes the boy tighten around his knot. Peter rolls his hips, nudging the boy's prostate and making him whimper. "Peter, I'm close," Stiles gasps. "Mmm, be a good boy and come for me," Peter growls in Stiles' ear. OR All year, Peter and Talia work to set up Knotfest, a three-day festival devoted completely to knotting. There are vendors, demonstrations, even a group play area. And finally, the time is here.

The Job Interview by Inell

Stiles is attending the third interview for the job he’s applied for at Hale Enterprise LTD. He has no idea that the third round of interviewing is going to require him to be the center of a Hale pack gangbang.

[themininthemoon]

A Color for Which There Is No Name

CHAPTER 1 - AO3

Min Yoongi/Park Jimin | trans jm | Historical AU | Mail-order bride JM | Kid Fic | Mpreg | Breastfeeding | Misgendering | Vaginal Sex | Hopeful Ending

Jimin’s mother had been beside herself when he told her that he had put an ad in the paper, that he was looking for a husband somewhere far away. Eventually, she gave up trying to dissuade him, realizing that he was decided, and when Jimin was decided on something he didn’t give up until he got his way.

OR: Jimin answers a desperate man's ad in the paper and lets the letters they exchanged lead him to a new life filled with new things.

Jimin keeps Min Yoongi’s last letter to him clutched tightly in his hand as the train pulls into the station. He’s not sure how he’ll know who the man is, since they hadn’t been able to exchange photographs, but he hopes he is as kind in real life as his words are in letters.

Jimin’s mother had been beside herself when he told her that he had put an ad in the paper, that he was looking for a husband somewhere far away. Eventually, she gave up trying to dissuade him, realizing that he was decided, and when Jimin was decided on something he didn’t give up until he got his way.

He has butterflies in his stomach as he steps off the train and onto the platform, holding the one suitcase he’d allowed himself in both hands. He goes on his tiptoes to see above the milling crowd, but he isn’t sure what he’s looking for. He adjusts the bluebonnet on the lapel of his cropped jacket, the sign they’d agreed upon to find each other at the station.

Minutes pass and the crowd is quickly thinning. Jimin’s hands are sweaty around the handle of his suitcase.

What if Yoongi doesn’t come? What if he changed his mind? What if he saw Jimin and didn’t approve of him? What if his mother was right and-

“Park Jimin?” A low voice asks.

Jimin’s head snaps up in surprise and he finds a man standing in front of him, looking cautious. There’s a bluebonnet pinned to the brim of his cap and he has a baby in a sling strapped to his chest. There are three other little ones in a gaggle around his legs.

Jimin has read their names in Yoongi’s letters, but he has no idea who is who.

“I’m sorry.” The man says and Jimin is confused. “I thought you were-”

“No, no!” Jimin breaks in, guilty. He took too long to respond. “I am. Park Jimin, that’s me.”

“Are you our new mama?” One of the older boys asks, peeking around Yoongi’s side to blink curiously up at Jimin.

Jimin flushes, panicked gaze going from the boy to Yoongi, looking for help. Yoongi turns his attention to his son, crouching down so they’re on the same level.

“Now, Haneul, we talked about this. Jimin is not replacing your Mama. Your Mama is your Mama even in heaven, remember?” Haneul nods very seriously, eyes flickering nervously to Jimin then back to his father. “Now what did we say about Jimin?”

Haneul swallows in a big gulp, turning his head to look at Jimin then back to Yoongi again.

“That she can pick what she wants to be called?” It comes out as a question.

Yoongi nods.

“That’s right, bud.” Yoongi’s gaze flicks to Jimin briefly then back to his son. He stands and surveys his brood. “Everyone understands, right?”

The two older boys nod resolutely, but the third - he looks to be two, maybe three - just babbles brightly, and Yoongi smiles. He leans down and kisses them each on the crown.

“Good boys.” He turns back to Jimin, cradling the baby strapped to his chest. “I’m sorry about that, Jimin. I talked to them before we came to get you, but they’re young.”

“That’s alright.” Jimin tells him softly. He crouches down the way Yoongi had before, not caring that his skirts hit the dirty platform. He uses the suitcase to balance himself. “Hello boys.”

“Hello!” Haneul and Eunho chorus. The third toddler screeches happily in time with his brothers.

Jimin smiles.

“Would you like to introduce yourselves? I can’t simply call you boys forever, can I?”

They shake their heads. The oldest is curling in on himself, shy.

“I’m Haneul. I’m six.” He mumbles.

“I’m Eunho!” The second tallest exclaims brightly, bouncing closer to Jimin and holding a tiny hand out to shake. “I’m four!”

Jimin takes his little hand and shakes it gently, smiling at the way the boy beams.

“It’s nice to meet you Eunho; I’m Park Jimin and I’m twenty.”

Eunho and Haneul both gasp.

“You’re old!” Haneul blurts.

“Haneul!” Yoongi admonishes him, eyes wide.

Jimin only laughs, throwing his head back, eyes crinkled up. He looks at Haneul with a big grin on his face and nods.

“That’s right; I am old, especially compared to you, but you wanna know who’s really old?” He asks, crooking a finger for the boys to come closer. Entranced, they do. “Your daddy is old old.”

The boys gasp, hands over their mouths. They turn to Yoongi.

“How old are you daddy?” Eunho asks, walking up to cling to Yoongi’s trousers.

Yoongi huffs, but he’s smiling, an amused tick of lips.

“Daddy is twenty-six.”

The two boys gasp theatrically.

Yoongi laughs and Jimin lets himself smile.

He thinks things are going well so far.

*

Jimin offers to take the baby as they walk toward the church and he’s pleased that the child is soon asleep, drooling on his bodice.

He knows the little one is named Byungwoo and if the eldest two are Haneul and Eunho, then the toddler walking on unsteady legs a few steps ahead of him must be Wonbin.

It's strange, he thinks. He just met them and soon he’ll be their stepmother. He tries not to flinch at the thought, looking over at Yoongi and his kind eyes.

Jimin hopes to prove his mother wrong, but he won’t know until after the deed is done.

It seems to take no time at all to go from saying hello for the first time to saying “I do.”

The preacher is practiced at officiating these types of events with two people from town pulled in as witnesses and an abbreviated ceremony, barely skimming the words before suddenly Yoongi’s hand is wrapped around his, sliding a ring onto his finger.

Jimin’s heart is beating fast as he does the same, Yoongi’s hands large and rough from working with his tools. He slides the ring onto Yoongi’s finger, pushing it down to the knuckle.

The preacher says “You may kiss the bride.” and suddenly they’re married, Jimin’s lips tingling from the brief moment of contact.

One of the strangers walks up to them with a smile.

He grasps Yoongi’s hand and says, “Congratulations, Yoongi. Are you going to introduce me to the new wife?”

Yoongi laughs awkwardly, shrugging and scratching at the back of his neck. His hand comes to rest at the small of Jimin’s back.

“This is Park Jimin.” He says, nodding between Jimin and the stranger. “Jimin, this is Kim Seokjin. He’s nosy as all get out, but his food’s the best around.”

Seokjin preens at the compliment, adjusting the lapels of his suit jacket primly.

It makes Jimin smile. He offers a hand.

“How do you do?” He smiles, demure.

“I’m quite well, beautiful.” Seokjin smiles right back, taking Jimin’s hand and bringing it up to his lips for a cheeky kiss.

It makes Jimin blush and giggle, pulling his hand back and curling it into a loose fist behind his back. He looks to Yoongi, worried for a moment, but the man is only rolling his eyes, fond.

Clearly Seokjin is simply like this all the time.

The baby starts crying before Jimin can be introduced to the other guest and Yoongi’s eyes go wide, reaching for his youngest son, but Jimin stays him with a dainty hand held up. He smiles reassuringly at Yoongi.

“Don’t worry, Yoongi. I can take care of him.”

Yoongi still looks concerned, hesitating before he puts his hands down. He nods.

“You’ll be alone with them often.” He tells Jimin, eyes stuck on Jimin’s hand rubbing soothing circles into the child’s back. He looks back up to meet Jimin’s gaze. “It’s important that you take good care of them.”

Jimin swallows hard. It hits him that Yoongi is entrusting his children to Jimin’s care, remembering that the first line of the ad he’d responded to was ‘Young Widower Seeking Wife, Must Be Good With Children.’

Suddenly it feels like too big a job for someone who’s never had children of his own, but the baby is calming down with Jimin’s shushing, falling back to sleep as he rocks on his feet.

“I’ll care for them as though I birthed them myself.” Jimin promises softly.

Yoongi reaches out and grabs Jimin’s small hand, giving it a firm squeeze.

“Thank you.” He says and Jimin hears: they mean the world to me.

“Of course.” Jimin says softly, squeezing back.

They let go of each other and Jimin misses the warmth of Yoongi’s hand around his.

*

It feels strange to walk into Yoongi’s home, trailing a step behind him with the weight of Byungwoo against his chest. It makes jimin a little lightheaded, looking around the rough hewn cabin with its lived-in decor, children’s blocks scattered in a corner, a knitted blanket on the back of a handmade chair.

He remembers Yoongi works as a carpenter and pauses to admire the craftsmanship of the furniture, the beautifully carved flowers that dance along the armrests of every seat. The delicacy of the work says something Jimin cannot articulate about his quiet new husband and his big, calloused hands. His skin tingles, goosebumps breaking out along his arms and down his chest.

The baby sighs in his sleep and shoves his face into Jimin’s ticklish neck, making him laugh and strain away. He pats Byungwoo’s back and gently turns his face toward his shoulder.

Jimin looks up and finds Yoongi watching him with an unreadable expression, but his eyes turn to his son when he notices Jimin looking back.

“He’s not bothering you?” Yoongi asks.

Jimin shakes his head.

“No, I’m quite comfortable.” He reassures his new husband. “I helped care for my niece back home. She’s not much older than this little one.”

“That’s good.” Yoongi nods. “You said you had experience with children.”

“Yes,” Jimin agrees. “My cousins are all married with families, and my older brother has two children of his own. I’ve spent a good amount of time with children of all ages.”

Yoongi nods again, eyeing Haneul and Eunho as they try to steal past him into the kitchen.

“Boys.”

They halt, nearly smacking into each other.

“Yes, daddy?” They chorus, blinking innocently.

Yoongi keeps a stern face.

“Those cookies are for after dinner.” He says firmly.

They droop and giggle, looking at each other with their heads bowed. Out of sight, Yoongi rolls his eyes, clearly fighting a smile.

“Come on into the sitting room.” He says, gesturing Jimin and the boys forward. “We’re gonna sit and talk a minute about this little family of ours, alright?”

Jimin follows nervously, taking the seat Yoongi offers beside him on the low sofa, careful not to jostle Byungwoo out of sleep.

Yoongi takes Wonbin into his lap and Haneul and Eunho sit on the carpet at Yoongi’s feet, looking up at their father with wide eyes, gazes darting between Yoongi and Jimin and each other.

“You’re not in trouble.” Yoongi starts and the boys sag. Yoongi huffs an amused little sigh, shaking his head. “Should you be in trouble?”

The two oldest boys shake their heads.

“No, Daddy.”

“Alright then, daddy isn’t here to scold you. He just wants to talk to you about Mrs. Jimin.”

“She’s not our mama, ‘cause mama is mama even in heaven.” Haneul recites, looking pleased with himself.

A shadow crosses Yoongi’s face, but it’s there and gone in a moment. He nods.

“That’s exactly right.” He says. “But that doesn’t mean you get to ignore Mrs. Jimin-”

“Mimi.” Jimin breaks in before he can think better of it

The attention of the room turns to him and he feels his cheeks go hot.

“I’m sorry.” He says softly, embarrassed. His heart is rabbiting in his chest. “I just- back home my nieces and nephews- they call me Mimi.”

Yoongi looks at him for a long, quiet moment.

“Mimi.” He repeats.

Jimin swallows hard and nods.

Yoongi nods back. He turns to the boys.

“You may call Mrs. Jimin “Mimi”, okay?”

The boys nod. Hanuel waves at Jimin shyly.

“Hi Mimi.” He whispers.

Jimin smiles and waves two fingers back. “Hi Haneul.”

They smile at each other until Yoongi clears his throat. It makes Jimin nervous until he realizes Yoongi is smiling too.

“As I was saying,” Yoongi begins again. “I expect the four of you to heed Mimi the same as you heed me, understand?”

Jimin’s heart flutters at hearing ‘Mimi’ in Yoongi’s low voice.

The boys nod.

“But she’s not mama?” Eunho says. He seems confused.

Yoongi looks at a loss.

“I’m your- your stepmama- your Mimi.” Jimin cuts in, hoping to help.

“Stepmama?”

Jimin nods, a knot in his chest. “That’s right, because your daddy and I got married, that makes me your stepmama. It’s like your Mama, but different.”

Eunho seems to think this information over very seriously. There’s a long, tense moment.

“Okay.” He chirps, easy.

Jimin feels ready to pass out from holding his breath, the way the tension suddenly leaks out of him all at once making him feel lightheaded.

“Okay.” Yoongi parrots back, blinking, a little bewildered. “Well. You all go on and go play then, alright? But don’t go too far.”

Eunho and Haneul nod and then they’re gone, door banging shut behind them. Wonbin has fallen asleep in Yoongi’s lap. The silence is awkward.

Jimin isn’t sure what to say.

Yoongi clears his throat and Jimin whips around to look at him, eyes wide.

Yoongi scratches awkwardly at the back of his neck.

“Would you like a tour? Or do you want to explore by yourself?”

“Oh, I-” Jimin pauses and takes a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “I think I’d like to explore a little on my own, if that’s alright?”

“Of course!” Yoongi says, nodding his head. He reaches toward Byungwoo. “Here I’ll take the little one so you can check everything out without worrying about him.”

“Oh, no! That’s okay, really.” Jimin assures him, cradling Byungwoo closer. “I like having my little companion.”

The words make Yoongi smile, eyes crinkled softly at the corners.

“Okay.” He says quietly. “Just let me know when you’re done.”

Jimin nods.

“I’ll do that.”

Yoongi stands with Wonbin, giving Jimin and the baby one last long look before he nods and heads out the front door where Jimin can hear the older boys laughing. He looks down at Byungwoo and smiles, softly brushing the wispy hairs on his little head.

“What do you think, Byungie? Should we explore a little?”

The baby lets out a soft snore in response and Jimin stifles a laugh. He heads out of the sitting room and down the hall, peeking through each doorway he passes.

There’s only five rooms total that make up the cabin, the living room, a modest kitchen, and 3 bedrooms.

It’s easy to tell which room belongs to Yoongi, and which two are for the children. The nursery has a crib in one corner and a small toddler’s bed on the opposite side. The walls are painted with nature scenes, soft pastel rabbits jumping through tall prairie grass. It’s charming and Jimin finds himself smiling.

“How sweet.” He murmurs.

“Jieun painted them.”

The unexpected voice startles Jimin, making him jump, jostling the baby. Byungwoo screws his face up to cry but Jimin shushes him gently, rubbing his back and swaying side to side.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Yoongi grimaces.

Jimin shakes his head. “It’s fine; I just wasn’t expecting it. You’re rather light on your feet.”

Yoongi shrugs, awkward.

Jimin licks his lips, nodding toward the paintings.

“Jieun painted them?” He says softly. Yoongi nods and jimin reaches out to brush his fingertips lightly along the ear of a rabbit. “Your wife was quite an artist.”

“Yes.” Yoongi agrees. “Painting was her first love.”

“Not her children?” Jimin asks before he can think better of it, immediately flushing a mortified red. “I’m so sorry! Don’t answer that! I d-“

“It’s okay.” Yoongi stops the flow of words with a hand held up.

Jimin snaps his teeth together, holding his tongue.

“You’re not wrong,” Yoongi admits. “She loved her children dearly, but motherhood never came easily to her.” Yoongi looks at Byungwoo fast asleep in Jimin’s hold. He reaches out to brush his knuckles across the baby’s soft cheek. “Each time she gave birth she hoped it would finally happen, that some mothering instinct would unlock in her, that something would finally click into place.”

“Did it?” Jimin asks, quiet and curious.

Yoongi shrugs. “I don’t know, but she was a good mother, regardless, she loved all her children very much - that’s what I know.”

“Of course.” Jimin nods. “I would never suggest otherwise.”

Yoongi eyes him for a quiet moment and then nods toward Byungwoo.

“He likes you.”

Jimin smiles a little, rubbing Byungwoo’s back.

“He’s a sweet baby.”

Yoongi smiles, nodding his head.

“He’s much easier to care for than his brothers were, but I worry about how feeding him cow's milk since Jieun passed will affect his development.”

Jimin goes still for a moment before going back to rocking in his feet.

“We discussed that.” He says. “In our letters.”

“Yes.” Yoongi looks awkward at the reminder, looking down at his feet then back up, meeting Jimin’s gaze with an assuredness that makes Jimin swallow hard. “I hope there’s no issues with what we discussed.”

Jimin shakes his head. “No, of course not - like I said in my letter, I understand the importance of a mother’s milk, and he’s so small - it’s not good for him to be feeding on cow’s milk.”

Yoongi nods. “Okay, so long as we understand each other.”

Jimin reaches out a hand, rubbing reassuringly at Yoongi’s bicep.

“Don’t worry, Yoongi. I know what promises I made and I stand by them.”

Yoongi nods, touching the hand on his arm briefly.

“I need to get back to the boys - make sure they’re not getting into any trouble.”

Jimin smiles and nods, jostling Byungwoo lightly, “We’ll be here.”

Yoongi's expression softens, eyes warm. He leans down to press a kiss to Byungwoo’s temple.

“I’ll bring the boys inside after a while - take your time looking around; this is your home now.”

Jimin nods. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Jimin smiles a little and the tips of Yoongi’s ears turn red. He nods and mutters “Okay.” again before heading out of the nursery and down the hall.

Jimin doesn’t watch him go, but he listens for Yoongi's footsteps as they fade away.

“Your father is a kind man.” Jimin whispers to Byungwoo. “I think we’ll get along just fine.”

>>> Ch. 2

[the-badger-mole]

AU Bot Plots: Aliens Part 2

I am fairly certain I've mentioned this idea before, but I can't find it (because Tumblr's archiving feature is trash). Also, I don't think it was a very fleshed out overview, so I'll do that here. Enjoy!

This fic is one of my more self-indulgent ideas (not quite at the level of self-indulgence as my CaptainMe OUAT fic, but almost). This story takes place in an alternate universe where we have figured out space travel already. The aliens are humans from our planet who are on an exploratory mission. They have a similar rule to Star Trek's Prime Directive, and just as in Star Trek, that rule is often broken. This time it's broken by a young boy on board.

The mission that this ship is on is years long because of the distances they have to cover, so the scientists and crew on board are also travelling with their families (like military families stationed abroad). This kid (let's call him Jamie, age 11) is the middle sibling of 5. He has two older sisters (Allora 23 and Daysia 16) and two younger siblings (Makayla and Brian both 2). They have been on the ship with their parents for years, (the youngest two were born on the ship). Their mother, Octavia, is an astronomer and their father, Jamal, is an engineer. Jamie is eager to follow in his parents' footsteps and work for the space program. His eagerness often gets him in trouble.

Jamie knew he wasn't supposed to mess with the transporter, but he couldn't help himself this time. Planets with life were exceedingly rare, and to find a planet that not only had life, but had sentient, technologically advanced (relatively) life was unheard of. Finding this planet had caused a stir throughout the ship and back on Earth (they can communicate with Earth, but messages take a few days to get there). There were talks of sending a small team of explorers covertly to the surface, after confirming that the air was, in fact, compatible with their lungs. Jamie would never have been allowed to go, but he thought this might be his only chance to ever get up close to a planet like this. So one day, while his parents are busy, and his older sisters are occupied, Jamie sneaks into the transporter room, with the intent of sneaking down to the surface for five minutes and coming right back. But something goes wrong. Instead of being transported to the surface of the planet, Jamie brings back a group of the planets inhabitants. To Jamie's shock, they look like Earth inhabitants. That's all he gets the chance to register before Something Terrible happens and the transporter breaks, trapping Katara, Sokka, Aang, Zuko, Toph and Suki on board the ship. And that is how Jamie got himself grounded for an entire summer.

That's the basic premise of the story. I'm toying around with the space family having super powers of their own (a holdover from my Marvel/ATLA crossover idea). Allora might be preparing to get married (the Gaang would be invited to the bachelor/bachelorette parties). Octavia and Jamal would become the parents the Gaang deserved. I think they'd be aged up a bit, though. Especially if there's wedding festivities for them to be pulled into.

Mostly, though, this story would be an excuse to have the Gaang interact with some of my favorite pop culture artifacts (which is also the main reason why this fic will stay with my CaptainMe fic...on a high shelf in a dark corner of my mind). I love the idea of Iroh encountering the Isley Brothers music, while Zuko and Toph fall in love with heavy metal and rap. Sokka would impress Octavia and/or Jamal and he'd be offered a spot in the training academy (not quite in keeping with the programs rules about not interfering with a planet's societies, but exceptions can be made). He probably won't accept it, ultimately, but it would be a tough call for him. If the family has super powers, there would absolutely be a showdown with Ozai and Azula.

Read the first version of this prompt here