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butlersbabe · 2 years

Text

Austin Butler x Reader— Party of Three

words: 2.6k

warning: uh not sure there’s any.

Part Two ❤️

“Elvis Movie’s Leading Man; Austin Butler and Girlfriend, y/n l/n, Announce New Addition via Instagram”

It wasn’t the best timing, as one could guess. Not paying enough attention to protection got people into these types of things all the time. You knew that. Austin knew that. But god forbid you two actually take that precaution. You were on the pill, but you must’ve missed one, and bothering with condoms felt kinda extra. Especially when you two never got a second to yourselves, when you eventually did it landed you in bed, tearing each other’s clothes off. But here you both were, back home, the home office quickly converted into a cute nursery for the child whose gender you both decided would be best if you just waited to find out about. The Instagram post came about 10 weeks prior, nothing but a cute picture of you in the mirror, Austin cradling your growing bump with the caption, “Butler, party of 3” and a red heart emoji following.

After throwing on an oversized shirt, a pair of underwear and finishing your nightly routine, your boyfriend was waiting for you on the king sized bed the two of you shared. Moments like this made all the long times away from each other, 3 hour facetime calls, the tears and amazing reunions all worth it. Just Austin, you, and your tiny human in the middle. Luckily, he was home for three days. You get him all to yourself for three whole days. Plopping down lazily, you cover up with the nice forest green comforter. Austin pulls you in close, now seated within his arms. Being pregnant, you were exhausted and it was only 8:48pm. That made going to bed such a blessing at the end of your long days. You began to slip into a trance while scrolling on your phone once you’d got comfy in a different position than before. More stuff about Elvis, the baby, politics, and whatever your great aunt posted on facebook last night. You felt the side of Austin near you. He slept on his back, you were stuck side sleeping for now until further notice. The baby got active right before bed then settled once they knew you were ready to sleep. What a blessing that is.

Austin was good about not falling asleep on his phone. The nightlife outside of your apartment building was the real kicker for him. He had a bit of trouble when the bright lights, neon signs and nocturnal people got restless. He woke up after about four hours of sleeping. 1:19am the clock read. He turned towards you and felt you shiver. “Baby.” Austin whispered, rubbing your side. You shouldn’t have been cold, you had three layers covering your body. You wake up to him looking at you with worried puppy dog eyes. He hasn’t been able to be involved in much of the pregnancy so he doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t know why you’re trembling, why you’re whining in your sleep. You sat up and felt the cool wet spot under you, your water broke. You’re having a baby. “Austin…Don’t worry.” You hushed him. You didn’t want him worrying. “I’m in labor, my water is broken. But we don’t need to rush.”

Austin jumps up and gets the hospital bag, laid it on the bed. You watched as he hustled around the room. Grabbing you a new pair of underwear, a shirt from his closet and some sweats then laid that right next to you. “Here, mama. We gotta go. I’ll help you change.” He said helping you sit on the edge of the bed. He lifts your shirt and slips the other on, grabbing the sweatpants right after, trying to strip you of the other damp clothes.

“Austin,” you stop your boyfriend in his tracks. “Calm down, you don’t need to stress about anything else right now.”

He stops, your eyes locked together.

His face cracks, tears slowly starting to flood his eyes and spill over his cheeks. He felt bad, you had to go through this pregnancy almost fully on your own. He felt guilty. So many emotions were built up and he let them go in that moment. But he wasn’t at fault for that, it was his job to travel and film and promote and do everything that involved being out and about for crazy amounts of time. And you never blamed him for such things.

“Austin, honey.”

“No, I’m sorry. I haven’t been here for you.” He sniffles, laying his head in your lap just below your belly. “I wanna be here for you, I really wanna be here for you but I’ve been so busy. I’m so busy and I can’t even be there for my girl and our baby.”

Austin didn’t understand that you understood the situation.

“Austin, listen. It’s okay,” You lift up his puffy, red eyes to lock with yours. “We love you, I’m excited to be on this journey with you, and it’s okay that you didn’t get as much time with this belly as you wanted but, honey, we get to spend forever with this baby.”

His smile peeks out for a second, until you feel a sharp contraction shoot through your back and you make a face. Now he’s worried again, you tell him not to.

“Okay, I’ll change. Go turn on the car and we’ll head to the hospital.”

You both make your way to the hospital, security not far behind, not sparing much time. Walking in, the receptionist, a sweet middle aged lady, smiles at the two of you, expecting what you were about to tell her.

“Hi,” Austin said, “We’re having a baby.” He smiled proudly. yea

“Congratulations, you two! First one?” She asks, tapping at the keyboard and you two nod. “Great! Okay, let me have you fill this out,” She has you a clipboard and some papers with a pen shoved in the clamp. “And how far apart are contraction?”

“About 15 minutes.” You sigh, feeling another mild pain shoot through you.

“Exciting! Well, seems like labor is going smooth. After you bring that back up here, I’ll bracelet you up, and get a room for you.”

After about 20 minutes, you’re taken to a room, hooked up to everything, and given some ice chips. You crunch on those until it was time to get check by the doctor. A nice woman, Dr. Love. She wasn’t your regular OB which worried you but knew you were in good hands when she held your hands and introduced herself to you both.

“Y/n L/n?” She asked. “Yes, that’s me!” You chirped. “And you’re the boy from the new Elvis movie! My kids are huge fans!” Austin thanked her and she said that the pleasure was all hers. Even working at a good hospital, she didn’t see movie stars everyday. “I’m so excited for you both, babies are such a huge step and if anyone is ready to take that step, you should be proud of yourself.”

She had put your legs up in the stirrups and checked your dilation, 2 centimeters. Damn, you had a while to go. It’s 1:56am. Exhausted was an understatement. You couldn’t be sleepier. But the baby had other plans.

After Dr. Love left, you and Austin laid in the bed. Your body enveloped in his. This was another one of those totally worth it moments.

3:21am—

The first contraction of whatever centimeter you were on was one of the worst. You and Austin stood in the middle of the room, IV pole just a couple feet away. Your arms around his neck, head laid on his shoulders, his hands resting on your swaying waist. You felt the pain begin to flow down her back and to the middle of your hips. It grew as the minute crept along, and you couldn’t help but let out a guttural moan. It sounded like a cow in distress but you didn’t feel far from it.

As the pain ended, you almost go limp in the sweet blonde’s arms. It kind of took it out of you to feel such pain but not give up and crying over the pain that felt endless. “I’m so sorry, baby.” Your boy whispered. You could feel tears falling from his cheeks again. Both of you were so tired and emotional.

He sits you down on the yoga ball, you begin bouncing as soon as you sat down. “I’m gonna go get you some more ice.” He said, wiping his cheeks. It was tough to see you like this for him. When he was loving on you during your sweet little reunions, he didn’t think he’d cause you so much pain in the following forty weeks. But he was doing so good with you in this situation. He never slept, he didn’t eat, he waited on you, hand and foot, making sure the mother of his child was taken care of.

While he was off to get you ice, you felt another contraction kicked your ass. It was an awful feeling. Alone and hurting. But you weren’t alone, you had Austin, he wanted to be here. He was excited to be here. You were so lucky to have him.

You call Dr. Love and she comes to administer your epidural. It was a quick process and after about 10 minutes, you were feeling great. She also let you know you were at 6 centimeters. You were kind of on cloud nine. The baby was almost here. You and Austin were about to be not just y/n and Austin.

You and your boyfriend were asleep for most of the next hour. After feeling contractions start back up, you try to get out of bed but not without startling Austin awake. “What’s wrong, baby?” His deep voice boomed through the dimly lit room. “Nothing is wrong, lover. Please go back to sleep.”

“I can’t go to sleep-“

“I’m just calling the nurse. My epidural wore off.”

After getting told you were only 7 centimeters, so close yet so far. You felt a bit defeated, you wanted to get this baby out. Nurse Retmund said walking up and down the hallways would help. You were desperate at this point.

So you and your boyfriend make your way through the corridor. Slowly but surely. He pushed the IV pole next to you.

“What are we gonna name this kid?” You huff, having the kid was hard enough, now you’ve gotta name it?

“I was thinking Dallas?”

You liked it.

“And a girl?”

“Ivory.”

You like those. And if Austin likes those, you were using them. You wanted him to have this piece of the pregnancy.

“Let’s use them, I like them. We’ll come up with middle names later.”

“What about their last name?” He asked. “Yours, definitely.” You answered without hesitation. “You want them to have mine?” Austin wasn’t shocked, just checking. “Of course. I’m so happy to have you in my life and I want our kids to have your last name.”

“Do you want it?”

“Want what?”

“My last name. Can I give you my last name?”

Austin never failed to amaze you in these kinds of situations.

“Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Yeah, I was gonna ask a while ago but we both got busy and I guess now is as good as any time.” He says. “The ring is in the room. I’ll formally propose when we get back.”

Needless to say you agreed to let him give you an unconventional proposal. It was more of a promise ring than anything, a promise to you and the baby that he’d always be there and you’d share a last name someday.

Back in the room, your contractions are nearly unbearable. You’ve become nearly naked, untying the back of your gown. Austin sits in a chair, holding your squatting body. Elbows draped over his knees. He presses a damp cloth to your forehead hoping to cool you off. You swore and groaned. “Call the nurse, Austin. Now.”

So, your boyfriend called the nurse and she came in asking all kinds of questions and taking some vitals. Austin stood by watching closely, making sure the nurse was doing everything to keep you comfortable.

When it came time to check dilation, she checked, the pressure making you want to pass out. She smiled as she peeled off the glove.

“Baby time.” She beamed, going to the computer and phone, typing and pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder.

“What?”

You were confused. The both of you. This seemed to be happening so fast. Too fast.

“You’re fully dilated. We can call Dr. Love now.”

You look at Austin with worried eyes and he assures you that everything was going to be okay. “I’m not ready.” You tell him even though you were shouting for someone to “pull this effing baby out” of you just minutes earlier.

Dr. Love came in a few minutes after in her birthing equipment. It scared her to see everything happening at once. “Okay, baby. Let’s get you settled.” At this point you can’t really say no.

“Alrighty, Dad, you’re gonna hold her right leg back and we’ll have Nurse Kemper hold your the other.”

Austin was whispering sweet nothings the whole time and was being amazingly supportive.

“Okay, sweet girl, you ready?” You nod to her words and suck in a sharp breath. “Okay, I’m gonna say push, you push for 10 seconds, and then we’ll take a break.”

She says the word and you bear down. You’re crushing Austin’s hand and you know it.

“You’re doing so good, mama.”

And he’s constantly assuring your and affirming the job you’re doing is a job well done. “This sucks so much.” You pant out, between pushes.

It takes you 8 more pushes to get your baby all the way down to her legs. One more and you’re done. Your chin presses against your chest, eyes closed, using all the power you had. Your vision was blurred and everything felt unreal. Suddenly, the pressure was gone, you fall back and go limp.

The squeals of this tiny thing fill the room, and it’s not the only one crying. Austin is already in tears and you’re becoming emotional.

“It’s a girl!”

A girl.

You and Austin had a daughter…Ivory. Ivory Butler.

They laid her on your chest and you cooed as they clamped her cord, handing your boy the scissors. Next, they take her to get vitals done, certificate, and whatever else. You did it, you had a fucking kid.

“I’m so proud of you.” He sniffs, kissing you and the baby on her head. His girls.

The morning just a few hours later, you wake up with the sun spilling through the blinds. A subtle “shh, shh, shh-“ was being repeated on the other side of you. Turning, you see your sweet boy and your little girl.

This is one of those moments.

#austin butler #austin butler x reader #austin butler fic #pregnancy fic #elvis 2022 #austin butler imagine #austin butler elvis #elvis movie #austin butler fanfiction #austin butler fanfic #elvis

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maximillien · 2 years

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Hiii!!I'm a big fan of your Cale x reader fan fics. You're plot are seriously so great I love it so much💓💓 I always reread ur fanfics especially the dominitus one and by the way I've been meaning to ask this but can you please make Cale x reader Enemies to lover NSWF Cale pov PLEASE 🥺🥺🥺💖😭😭😭

Pembohong

Pairing: Cale Henituse x reader (she/her)

Type: Angst, NSFW, Enemies to One-sided Lovers to Enemies

Warnings: reader is actually an asshole 😭 (I'm not saying you're an asshole nonny I just wanted to make reader like that), sex, angst!

Cale was confused.

Befuddled.

'How did her attitude change so quickly?'

(Y/n), the woman whose business and life he had unknowingly ruined.

Why was she suddenly demanding to follow him around, striking a deal with him?

He had to admit, having somebody who was the head and leader of the underworld in the Whipper Kingdom on his side would be...profitable. She was smart, cunning, always one step ahead and on the same train of thoughts as him. She could keep up with not only him, but also his plans.

However he also disliked her. She stirred up an uncomfortable, irritable feeling in his solar plexus. One he sadly could not ignore this time around.

He couldn't understand the hatred she emitted towards him in their first meeting.

Then, courtesy of Ron- who did a background check on (Y/n) to make sure she was at the very least somewhat safe enough to follow his puppy young master- Cale discovered that she was an abandoned child, who grew up with another group of orphans, and lived on the streets.

The report said that she loathed the state of her country. The people were 'stupid' and 'ignorant'. The mages were too busy being 'high and mighty', leaving the non-magicians penniless, starving, and homeless.

She and her friends swore to build an empire for themselves and for all non-mages. A safe place where they could coax and manipulate the mages into deals, to steal their wealth, power and status.

As hard as it was, they succeeded and were somewhat happy altogether.

And then the war happened. Closely followed through with her friends unfortunate deaths.

Her family.

When she found Cale, she snapped at him, creating quite a negative first impression.

After having received the report, Cale could then say that he understood her anger, not only was the underworld her business, her income and means to live, it had also been the place she spent her whole life in with her chosen family.

So, why did she want to follow him now?

The very man who had destroyed her everything.

Cale was confused.

Disinterested.

That was one way to describe him.

Oh, how nonchalant he was.

Oh, how she hateful he was.

The hero of the nation, the one who showed no care that he destroyed her home, her family.

The one who emptily stared at her as she shouted at him, spewing insults in his face, poking her index finger in his chest continuously, threatening to ruin him as he ruined her.

The one who merely brushed past her after all those previous things happened, to go and talk to his ally- whom had been watching the scene from behind with amusement.

Her body shook with anger, with rage at his continued blatant ignorance.

Oh, how she would make him pay for his sins.

But how could she go about it?

The man was ridiculously overprotected by super humane monsters. Not only that, he was much smarter than he let on, duping and coaxing his enemies into corners.

How could she exact revenge on this indifferent, powerful man?

So,

She demanded to travel with him.

He was wary at first- understandably so, since she had left quite the first impression- however having read the report spurred him on to shake her outstretched hand. Perhaps Cale saw himself in her, when he had lost his friends, his family too.

Yet, he was unknowledgeable to her crossed fingers hiding behind her back. A little silent promise to herself as she pushed her violent, raging emotions deep down inside.

Shut up. Be patient. I will make him pay.

She watched him, silently, quietly.

From afar, where nobody would notice her.

She picked up on his small habits.

To the way he would unknowingly care for the cat children and the dragon toddler, sneaking some of his cookies to them at dinner time, advising and encouraging them.

To the way he would flinch whenever his butler Ron handed him his morning lemonade, and the way his forehead would crease up into a frown when he sipped it, badly hiding his obvious distaste to the beverage.

To the way he sacrificed himself for others constantly, but never took the gratitude for it, waving off his friends worries with a shake of the hand and a 'don't worry about me'.

To the way he isolated himself from everybody, staying in his tent all day long, either napping in bed, reading or staring into space for hours on end.

To the lies he told. Not only to others, but to himself.

It was as if he was desperately trying to preserve himself from something.

She found him disgusting.

Vile.

However, she pressed herself further, her goal, her anger keeping her going.

Living in the underworld for so long- and growing up in it- (Y/n) could comprehend things others couldn't.

That the way he lied to himself continuously was to suppress his emotions, shoving them down and numbing himself.

That his loneliness was his comforting instinct, immediately seeking a quiet area from people.

So, she decided from observations to get closer to him.

She connected with him mentally, keeping up with his schemes and plans, always one step ahead with him in front of the others, sometimes outsmarting him, earning herself a surprised look from the man, as for once his face showed an emotion outside of boredom.

She surprised him with her extended knowledge and smart insight on any and every situation, proving herself to be a valuable member to the team but to the kingdom in presence of the crown prince.

She softened herself, burying her deep seated hatred for him, focusing on her goal.

To ruin him as he ruined her.

To humiliate him as he humiliated her.

As time passed, her efforts payed off, as he allowed her to become an acquaintance.

But that was not enough. No, not anywhere near it. This was not plentiful towards her goal.

She needed more. Far more.

So she connected with him emotionally.

She made herself seem kinder, gentler with him.

She made herself care for him, scolding him whenever his self-sacrificing tendencies would peak, checking him for wounds as she asked Raon to call for Saint Jack, Pendrick or anybody who could heal him.

She stood by him through everything, as an 'ally' and then, she stood by him finally as a 'friend'.

It took (Y/n) over a year and a half to get to that point, her hatred slowly and quietly raging within the deepest part of herself, growing bigger and stronger every day, every second, begging for revenge.

But it was still not enough.

She needed more trust, more friendship.

Perhaps something such as love. Or lust. Either one of them would do the trick.

And so it started small.

Lingering touches when passing a document.

A light hand placed on his upper biceps when she wanted his attention.

At first he was confused, Cale would look at her with a questioning look, but would then brush it off.

On the outside, he seemed unbothered by her touches, but (Y/n) knew, she saw the conflict raging inside of his eyes. To accept or repel her grazes.

She saw his hesitation, and that was when she understood.

He was scared to trust people. Perhaps he had lost loved ones like her. Either way that information had (Y/n) barely suppressing a smirk.

From then on she became more confident in her advances.

Sometimes they were not physical, but verbal.

She would reassure him when he would be stressed- even when he did not show it, gently affirming that he was doing a good job and could always rely on her and their family.

She would help him with his paperwork, which had doubled- no, tripled- when he became a Commander.

They both equally drowned in it, but she never complained, giving him a tired smile as she encouraged him to finish soon so they could go out for some drinks.

Sometimes she would crack a small joke, and a tiny, inconspicuous smirk would appear from a corner of his lips.

Her stomach churned in those moments.

No, not in love, adoration or even lust.

But in disgust.

The feeling would be rapidly pushed back down, as she would smile sweetly at him, offering to go get a cup of tea- 'not lemonade' she would reassure him.

And he unknowingly keened towards her attentions.

She was stubborn, much more so than anybody else in the group.

She stuck by his side forcibly, like glue.

And he grew to appreciate and enjoy her presence.

So much so that Cale slowly fell for her.

At first he did not recognise the feeling, simply deeming it as the same protective instinct he felt towards the children- towards his people.

But that feeling kept growing and thriving on her attentions, on her kindness and sweetness towards him.

On her skill and smartness in every situation they found themselves in.

And he finally admitted it to himself.

That he loved her.

From then on, he quietly, silently loved her as he felt he did not deserve to verbalise it after having destroyed her previous family.

So, his hushed affections ranged from taking an extra stack of paperwork, to sending her a gift that she had been eyeing in a shop.

And she knew.

She realised when he started his silent affectionate ways towards her.

That she had won.

That night,

The first night where Cale had sent her a gift- a dagger she had seen in a store with Choi Han and had eyed- who had most likely reported back to Cale, she left in a carriage under the guise of 'needing a long, well deserved walk after heaps of paperwork'.

And after arriving miles away from the Henituse Duchy, she ran into a forest nearby.

Stopping in an open circle surrounded by any trees, she tilted her head upwards towards the sky filled with stars, to the moon lying above her head.

And laughed,

Cackled,

Chortled.

As loudly as she could. She allowed herself to express her emotions, which had been pushed down for a long time now.

She could finally feed that horrible, disgusting feeling she had been ignoring for the past year and a half.

But yet, her greed kept consuming her.

'It's still not enough.'

She thought to herself.

If she enacted her revenge at this time, he would be hurt, correct, but she could hurt him more.

She knew she could. She had it in her.

And so her physical advances doubled.

She tried twice as hard, a last, final effort.

When he would be overtired from the heaps of paperwork, she would put his head in her lap, and comb through his hair with her fingers.

And no matter how much he attempted to complain and get up off her lap, (Y/n) wouldn't relent.

Sometimes she would hum a tune quietly, a well-known lullaby sang to children, to ease them to sleep.

If she felt the atmosphere of the situation allowed it, she would boldly stroke his face, fingers gently leaving feather-light touches.

He seemed to welcome her touch.

And finally, the last straw broke.

That day, she cupped his face in 'worry' after he had thrown up blood. He had nuzzled her hand, seeking more comfort, warmth, that she seemingly provided.

She nearly let her mask slip in surprise.

But she held back and simply scolded him.

'You absolute idiot! Would it kill you to be careful for once in your life?'

He'd smiled, oh so sweetly at her.

Perhaps because he had lost a great amount of blood, or he felt overly lethargic, his lips found the pulse on her inner wrist-

-and pressed a light kiss there.

Before fainting in her arms, face pressed into her neck, left hand lightly holding her own.

(Y/n) could not help but thank whatever God out there that he had fainted.

Lest he see the disgust etched onto her features.

Time passed slowly afterwards.

It was excruciatingly agonizing.

The world seemed to not take kindly to (Y/n) and her plan. What was a mere week of standing by him felt like centuries- millenia to her.

She waited days by his bed for him to wake up.

To finally, finally enact her revenge. To finally drown herself in her hatred and greed.

And he woke up. He awoke in the latest hours of the night, in the earliest hours of the morning.

At first he attempted to brush off his lapse in affections, trying to ignore the fact that he had somehow confessed, albeit in a non-verbal fashion. He wouldn't allow himself, not after what he'd done. He couldn't hurt her more.

But, (Y/n) would not allow him to run. Not right now.

And she willed herself, promised herself. Truly, for a final, last time.

Her body surged forward, knees pressing into the bed he was sat in, one hand grabbing his shoulder, the other gripping a handful of the hair on his nape.

Crashing their lips together.

It felt like a cacophony to her, oh so wrong.

But a symphony to him, oh so perfect.

He limply sat there at first, brain not processing the current events unfolding before him, hands shaking awake to hover above her waist.

His lack of response made her pull her hands away, at an agonisingly slow pace, repeating a mantra in her brain.

Please please please, please just hold my hands back. Just do something. Please let me finish this.

And he did.

He grabbed her arms as they pulled away. His gut screamed at him that something was desperately, horribly wrong but he pushed the warnings back down and away from his mind, focusing on (Y/n).

They made eye contact.

Her eyes softened, right hand going back to the hair on his nape, gently twirling a strand, for hopefully the last time.

Her mouth opened to whisper his name, willing herself to say it as tenderly as she could.

Perhaps the tone of her voice, the blood loss or his overflowing affections- or all of the above- willed him.

Next thing he knew, he'd pulled her back towards him, swallowing a gasp of surprise, planting their lips onto each other once more.

(Y/n) wiggled her way into his lap, grabbing a bigger fistful of hair, pressing their bodies so deliciously, impossibly close.

She could feel all of him.

And he could feel all of her.

His hands went straight to her hips, lips still interlocked with one another.

Her head moved away from his, breath heavy with lust, with want.

Maybe her fiery hatred, her strong emotions came out that night disguised as lust.

In that moment- even if she would never admit to it- she truly did want him.

She observed him for mere seconds before nudging his head to the side, kissing his neck with gentle, feathery, light kisses.

The hand that wasn't holding, stroking his face, went down towards her hips and grabbed his much larger ones.

And she moved it sideways, towards her inner thigh, then inched it closer towards where she made it seem she most wanted him to touch her.

He got the hint- he always did.

His hand languidly stroked circles into her thigh, slowly inching his way towards her underwear.

Cale's fingers- oh god his fingers. Long, smooth and swift. They took their time pushing her undergarments to the side.

He experimentally stroked her upwards and around, mapping out the area, soaking his fingers in her wetness.

He swore he felt her breath hitch, lips halting their ministrations upon his neck.

Cale took that as his sign to continue, a finger entered her first, oh so slowly and gently, till it bottomed out in her.

His thumb then found her clit and rubbed tender, sweet circles.

Her back arched into him, hips rutting into his, quiet moans escaping her mouth.

The sounds spurred him on, finger bending upwards, feeling around for something.

She squeezed his shoulder, mouth next to his ear whispering for another.

He complied, adding another finger, as gently and slowly as the first, to make sure that the stretch wouldn't be painful.

Her begs filled the air, demanding him to increase in speed and vigor.

He obeyed.

He couldn't help it, watching the woman he loved become undone on his lap like this, at a god-forsaken hour seemed like a dream.

(Y/n)'s eyes rolled back into her head as his fingers hit her sensitive spot.

Her mouth bit into his neck, desperately trying to silence her moans.

Her brain clouded, eyes hazed over, whilst her sweet spot was hit multiple times in a row.

And then, she saw stars. Bright, luminous stars invaded her vision, her senses, urging her to let go of everything.

The orgasm hit her violently, sending her body into a spasm that Cale held her through.

He hugged her, shushed her, and stroked her hair with his free hand, the other riding her through the orgasm.

Heavy breathing filled the room, her body slumping further into his.

Her hands dropped behind him gripping the fabric of his shirt.

The anger, which had somehow surfaced into lust demanded more.

More,

more,

more.

And he complied.

Heavy moans, burning bodies, nails latching onto his back, scratching down filled the silence of that night.

And then-

-the sun woke him up.

Bright, yellow rays reigning down into his room and onto his face.

His red hair sprawled out onto the sheets, naked back drawn on with scratches, slightly throbbing, which made him more aware of his surroundings.

And that was also how he noticed the empty presence on the other side of true bed.

Cale spurred his eyes to open, greeted with empty sheets.

'Maybe she had something to do.'

How he wished he could've kept being as clueless as he was in that short moment.

He forced his body into a sitting position, slowly adjusting to his surroundings.

And then he noticed the piece of paper on his side table.

That goddamned piece of paper.

He picked it up, eyes still having not adjusted to the light. Cale put it down and rubbed his eyes, then blinked, testing the waters of his current vision.

Then he picked the paper up sluggishly and read it.

'I hope it hurts.'

Confusion was the first thing he felt.

Was this perhaps another joke? A mere jest on her part? Or a riddle?

His gut seized again, like it had previously the night before.

So he got up, got dressed and looked around for her.

He asked and asked to everybody he could.

But there was no sign of her.

As if she had disappeared into thin air.

And his memory clicked back into place, back from the first day they met.

He felt his world shatter in front of him.

Duped.

She had duped him.

Taken his heart and ripped it out, bare for everybody to see.

And that ugly feeling that had been extinguished in Cale's chest, for so long, suddenly resurfaced, stronger, roaring and fiery with hatred.

A/n: yo thank you nonny that's so cute 😭

My tumblr is violently glitching I can see the letters being typed in slow mo god help me.

#trash of the count's family #cale henituse #tcf x reader #cale henituse x reader #cale tcf

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archies-litterbox · 3 years

Text

what’s the greater good worth? (definitely not this)

Summary: Merlin rescues Douxie from some lowlife gang of bandits, and he's devastated by what's already happened to his apprentice before he found him - by what he was too late to prevent happening to his son. But there's more to what happened than simply what lay before him.

Words: ~8.5k

A/N: Finally got this oneshot done! It’s actually based on this post I made a while back, but the idea of fleshing it out into a full-lenth oneshot just wouldn’t leave me alone! (Just like I can’t leave the poor moppet alone 😔) Hope you like it!

[CW: Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Temporary Muteness]

Merlin sent Hisirdoux on a short errand: go out to the marketplace, buy some ingredient he’d needed, and come straight back. No dawdling, no distraction, and no stopping to make lovesick puppy eyes at that maiden who frequented the market at the same time Hisirdoux himself did.

He couldn’t remember the exact thing he’d told his apprentice to fetch, for the memory was soon overtaken by worry when the boy hadn’t come back by late afternoon. He’d only sent Hisirdoux out that morning, and even if he had forsaken his instructions and tried to muster up the courage to ask that girl her name…

“I, er… don’t exactly know her name yet,” the moppet had said, “But I think it’s something with a Z! At least, that’s what I heard the person she was talking to call her. I haven’t, er… actually spoken to her yet.”

“Focus on your studies,” Merlin had said, “before distracting yourself with thoughts of courting this girl from the shops, and-”

“But Master-”

“Don’t “But Master” me.”

...He still should have been back at this point. Hisirdoux wasn’t one to wander off when he was out on errands. He knew the dangers of that - of being caught alone by the wrong person, prejudiced against users of magic, without anyone knowing where he really was.

The boy’s familiar shared Merlin’s worry, so Archie kept his form as a mostly-inconspicuous black cat (save for his glasses, for he figured he should have the best sight as he could at this moment) and slinked through the town beyond the castle, following the young wizard’s scent, unmistakably that of burnt cloves.

Sure enough, Hisirdoux had gone to the shops he’d needed to visit, but the scent trail made a sharp turn into an alley - one that he’d been dragged into, Archie had feared, if the signs of struggle and kicking feet in the cobble were any indication.

It was then that Archie resolved to fly back to the castle and tell Merlin to follow him, warning the Master Wizard that it was overwhelmingly likely that Hisirdoux didn’t disappear of his own volition.

To say that worried Merlin, or even terrified him, would’ve been the understatement of the past twelve centuries.

It only took a few hours to track down Hisirdoux’s trail to some cabin in a patch of forest, but every second was too long - far too long for Merlin to wait to find his son.

The thugs looked rudimentary from where Merlin stood unnoticed outside the clearing. One or two - three at the most - stood lazily outside, near the doors. Merlin tapped his staff against the forest ground, and it was enough to send a little spell through the soil and right under their feet, shooting up their bodies like a reverse lightning rod and knocking them to the ground, unconscious. It didn’t kill them, but that wasn’t a mercy; really, the wizard still hadn’t known the condition of his apprentice, and if something had been done to him that only these men could reverse, ending their lives would've been an unwise choice, to say the least.

But the sound of the men hitting the ground was enough to draw out the last two of Hisirdoux captors, who spotted Merlin in the woods. Fine - he hadn’t been keen on hiding for much longer anyway. Stealth was for wizards whose apprentices hadn’t been snatched up by lowly bandits; who weren’t using a headstrong facade to hide their fear for their sons’ lives.

And right now, while he rendered the last of the bandits unconscious, Merlin Ambrosius was no such wizard.

The door was still open, as Merlin dealt with the last of those men before they could even come five steps out of the shack, so the wizard ran to the opening with Archie flying next to him, stepping over the idiots until he was close enough to see into the dark interior, lit only by rays of light that shone in-between boards nailed into the windows.

Merlin hit his staff against the ground and cast a spell with enough to break the boards and let more light into the hovel - light that shined on his apprentice that lay trembling on the ground, unresponsive on his side, not even fighting the restraints that bound him. With his back turned to his mentor and his familiar, he seemed barely aware of their presence at all.

Merlin never ran faster in his life.

Thankful for his armor’s plating, one of his knees slammed against the ground as he knelt down behind Hisirdoux, looking over his bonds and feeling like, for once in his long, long life, he could barely breathe at the sight before him, even though it wasn’t nearly as bad as what could have been - it was more at the audacity than anything else.

His apprentice had been bound with rope at the ankles and knees, with another few winds of it pinning his arms to his back and metal shackles binding his wrists behind him. Of course, the shackles must have been cast with a magic nullifier infused in the cruel metal, so the boy couldn’t use spells or enchantments to break his other restraints; as if to add insult to injury, the boy was also missing his magic bracelet, which had been thrown across the hovel.

(Again, the audacity.)

Merlin knew one of the bandits must have had the key, so he got back up, telling Archie to stay with him before he went back to the cluster of idiots that lay outside the door.

The wizard watched the boy’s shackled hands grasp at the air as he reached for him in vain, and the weak twinge in his pale, thin fingers made something in Merlin’s cold aged heart ache . He wished he’d been a hundredfold more brutal with those bandits than simply knocking them out.

Anyway, it took only moments for him to get the key, and by the time he came back, picking up the boy’s charm bracelet on the way, Archie had broken the rest of Hisirdoux’s bonds.

The boy still hadn’t said a word, or even made a sound.

Confound it, Merlin loathed this.

Once he’d finally uncuffed Hisirdoux, he helped the boy, now entirely free of his bonds, into a sitting position. He was, indeed, quite conscious, his eyes following Archie as the familiar stepped onto his lap. Hisirdoux started petting the black cat before wrapping his gangly arms around the cat in a desperate hug, still as silent as he’d been when Merlin stormed in. He wouldn’t have any more of this… this vexing silence from his apprentice - not if it could’ve been helped.

(...If only he knew how little it could’ve been helped at that moment.)

“Hisirdoux, say something!”

The boy looked up at Merlin with wide, glistening eyes and a trembling lower lip.

He shook his head.

His lips contorted into a grimace, and he mouthed the words…

“I can’t.”

Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks as he put his hand on his throat, the skin on his wrist raw from the cruelty of those shackles, and shook his head. Those teary hazel eyes that looked at Merlin were exactly those of a terrified child - his terrified child, and Merlin could see the desperation in those eyes, like he was wordlessly begging him to do something.

...But for the first time in his long, long life, Merlin felt utterly and entirely unsure of a way to fix this. He knew how much his apprentice adored singing, humming, blathering incessantly - his voice almost seemed more central to his character than his magic.

And it was…

No, no, no. It couldn’t be - it couldn’t be gone. Those bandits couldn’t have taken this from him - not from his apprentice - not from that innocent moppet who almost always had a tune about him as he bumbled around the castle. No, Merlin couldn’t accept it - he - he wouldn’t accept it -

The old man was pulled from his shock when Hisirdoux sobbed, a heart-wrenching noise even without any vocal influence, and mouthed three words - a desperate plea from a terrified little Wizard, silent but understandable - silent but utterly heart-wrenching .

“Take me home.”

...And how could Merlin put that off?

With a sigh, he raised a hand and mumbled…

“Interminus Nocti Somburso.”

A jolt went through Hisirdoux’s already shaking body as green light popped out from his widened eyes - but only for a fleeting second before sleep claimed the boy. He fell backward, but Merlin caught him by putting his arm behind the boy’s back.

The spell not only made him fall sound asleep in seconds, but it also conjured a green, velvety blanket that draped over the boy. The velvety cloth, brought forth from Merlin’s will when he’d cast the spell, helped to keep the boy warm through means of a rather cozy enchantment that would never let him get cold as long as the blanket lay on him, as well as it would quell his unconscious trembling.

Merlin wrapped the boy up in a blanket-cocoon of sorts and stood up, letting Archie curl up on his human’s abdomen and start purring to soothe the sleeping boy whose head lolled against Merlin’s shoulder, his cheek pressed against an edge on his armor that couldn’t have been very comfortable.

Merlin glanced at the unconscious bandits and cast an immobilization spell as a quick preventative measure in the event that they woke up and tried getting away while Merlin took the boy back to the castle. There was no way in all the realms that these monsters - more monstrous than any troll or goblin - would get away with what they’d done, and the Master Wizard was absolutely sure of that.

So, with that settled, he started back to the castle with Hisirdoux sleeping in his arms. The bandits could wait, for getting his apprentice - his son home safe was his first and foremost priority, and beyond that was finding out how to get his boy’s voice back, even if he’d had to rip the answer from the bandits themselves.

But Hisirdoux, of course, was his priority.

---

Douxie felt more or less dragged back into consciousness by an ache in his… well, it was everywhere. It was low, barely noticeable - a residual soreness from… from…

Right.

He sighed - a hollow, quiet thing - and trailed his fingers down his throat, still not opening his eyes yet. Douxie’s throat was free of any tightness or pain, but, as he expected, his attempts to mumble out vocal sounds were fruitless.

Beyond the ache, he felt warmth around him. Yes, he felt the familiarity of his bed, his quarters, his -

A weight he didn’t even know he was still bearing came off of him, and he sighed a shaky sigh.

- his home.

But he also felt something soft and velvety draped around him. It was a blanket, he realized - a new one, and a rather nice one too. He realized Merlin must have conjured it with that sleep spell he put on him right after he found him. That must have been why it felt like it had been magically heated, and it had a uniquely soothing, almost sedative effect that none of his normal blankets had.

Master…

Douxie finally opened his eyes. Even though he knew his master probably had more pressing matters, he hoped that Merlin might have been sitting at his bedside.

Alas, all he saw was empty space in front of him.

The little apprentice wasn’t wearing his vest anymore, he realized when he couldn’t feel the leather that usually weighed on his torso, but he did feel a little purring mass curled up against his abdomen.

Archie…

The boy turned his head a little and saw a black mound of fluff nestled up against him, laying curled up on the green blanket with round little glasses reflecting sunset light from the window.

Douxie bent down and scratched Archie’s little head, right between his triangular ears, causing his familiar to open his eyes and look at him.

“Douxie, you’re awake.”

The boy smiled - a little, shaky thing. Archie got up and stretched before walking closer to his human’s face.

“It’s over now, what you went through today.” he said as he put his paw on Douxie’s cheek in assurance, “Those bandits are in the dungeons now.”

Douxie’s eyebrows furrowed a little. Sure, he was thankful that they’d been apprehended, but if there was a dungeon break, they could come right through the castle, and...

Archie nuzzled Douxie’s head, sensing his human’s worries.

“You’re completely safe.” he said, “You’ll never have to see them again, I promise.”

Douxie only petted the cat again with a nod. He trusted Archie, and if Archie said he didn’t have to worry about them again, then that’s exactly what he didn’t have to do.

Besides, he had a more pressing worry.

With what would have been a grunt if his throat could’ve made the noise, Douxie pushed himself up, despite his grogginess, into an upright position. He could see his vest folded at the foot of his bed, along with his two belts laying on top of it that had his little pouches and a small green journal he liked to keep on hand for little notes.

He might have to use it for more than that now, though. Perhaps if he’d started studying sign, or learned spells to communicate visually...

The boy was pulled from his thoughts by a very light knock on the door. He couldn’t exactly say it was open, so he turned to Archie, eyeing the door with a nod.

“Come in.” the cat said, understanding the nonverbal message.

The door creaked open, and Douxie hoped it would be Merlin standing there. After everything he’d gone through today… he just wanted to see his father.

But it was Morgana, smiling softly as she walked in and closed the door behind her.

But really, the boy wasn’t disappointed with this - the sorceress had been like a big sister to him ever since he’d been brought here, and her presence was comforting, regardless of whether or not she was the person he hoped to see the most. So, Douxie raised a hand and waved to her as she walked in.

“Hello, Little Douxie.” she said softly as she came to stand in front of him, “When I heard your familiar talking, I assumed you’d awoken. Are you feeling alright?”

Although it was a hesitant response, Douxie nodded, thankful that she’d stuck to a yes-or-no question. Merlin had probably told her about his voice’s condition, then.

What he knew about it, anyway.

“You’ve been asleep for about four hours - a long rest to help accelerate your healing.” she explained, “You hadn’t gotten any broken bones, but you did have some nasty bruises when you were brought back here.”

Douxie winced, a little hiss whistling through his teeth as he traced his hand over his hip, where he distinctly remembered getting kicked by a rather angry bandit with a rather hard boot.

Ouch.

He brought that same hand to his chin and stroked an invisible beard, glancing around the room as if looking for someone.

Morgana laughed a soft little laugh, amused by the moppet’s charade.

“Merlin’s down in the dungeons, interrogating your former captors.” she answered, “He’s mostly putting the screws to those bandits about how to reverse what’s happened to your voice more than anything else.”

Douxie nodded in understanding, but he knew the truth; he knew those bandits didn’t know anything about what had been done to his voice.

“He hasn’t gotten anywhere.” she said, putting her hands on her hips, “It’s of a magical nature, and none of those bandits were wizards. They’re sticking to some ridiculous testimony that you casted a silencing spell on yourself.”

Douxie cast his gaze to the floor. All of a sudden, the lint and strands of black cat fur on the floor looked rather interesting. Indeed, very interesting.

“...They are making that up, right?” Morgana asked.

Douxie shrunk in on himself, hugging himself as if caught in a lie, even though he hadn’t actually lied about anything. How could he have? At most, all he’d done was hesitate. Besides, his body language was apparently enough of an answer for Morgana, whose eyebrows furrowed in confusion, Douxie saw as his gaze flickered back up to her, as she realized they hadn’t made that up at all.

Archie’s eyebrows, indicated by the grey patches in his fur above his eyes, raised a bit as that realization dawned on him as well.

“Douxie…?”

The boy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“...Merlin doesn’t know, does he?” Morgana asked.

Douxie shook his head.

After a moment, she sighed.

“Well, he probably should.” she said, “Not that the way he’s treating those men isn’t undeserved, but he shouldn’t waste his time.”

So, Douxie stood up to go down to the dungeons, his balance just a little askew from his legs’ time out of use. Archie got up with a stretch and stood next to Douxie’s feet, deciding not to sit on his shoulders due to his already imperfect balance.

“I’ll go down with you.” Morgana said, sounding like it was more of an insistence than an offer. But Douxie didn’t want to be a burden; surely, Morgana le Fay had much better - certainly, more important uses of her time than using it to accompany him to the dungeons.

“I know the way.” he mouthed, hoping it was understandable just by reading his lips, but Morgana shook her head all the same.

“It’s not about whether or not you know the way.” she crossed her arms, “You still don’t have all your strength back, and I can tell you’re off balance. What if you fall?”

She didn’t say it, but Douxie could tell what her biggest concern was: if he got hurt, he’d have no way of crying out, and Archie might not be enough to keep him balanced.

Morgana was just worried, and Douxie knew that. It was sort of nice - better than Merlin’s scolding, anyway - so he took the gesture with a nod, and he started down the corridors and stairwells to the dungeons with Archie stepping alongside him and Morgana hovering a hand close to his shoulder in the event that his balance wavered.

Douxie always hated the dungeons - so dark, so damp and dingy, so utterly miserable. But making sure Merlin knew the truth was worth it, and he was glad to be accompanied down. Yes, it was even worth sidestepping puddles of questionable liquids as he stayed next to Morgana. He kept his gaze down and avoided looking into the cells, tuning out the jeers of imprisoned trolls and “waka-chakas” of goblins as Morgana guided Douxie and Archie to the corridor where that gang of bandits was being kept.

It turned out that they were imprisoned in a far emptier corridor of the dungeon, which made sense, considering any sort of interrogation would’ve done well not to involve the taunting and interjecting of other prisoners. As the halls got quieter, it got easier to hear his master’s voice as he got closer, until he finally stood at the end of an almost empty corridor of cells, where Merlin stood listening to one of the bandits - the leader, Douxie realized.

Whoever he was, and whatever he was saying, Merlin looked more than fed up with it; he hadn’t even looked as angry as he did right now when the moppet had slipped and accidentally sent one of Merlin’s favorite books soaring into his fireplace.

“I tol’ ya already, dust-fer-brains,” the bandit said, speaking in a voice that unsettled Douxie to his core, even though he was safe on the opposite side of a barred cell door and on the opposite end of the hall, “He put a spell on ‘imself. Shut ‘imself up.”

Morgana was only a moment away from shouting to the end of the hall in an attempt to get Merlin’s attention. If Douxie had his voice, Merlin most certainly would have known he was here by now; he probably would have mumbled to himself about nonsense, or hummed a tune, or squeaked when something scared him. As it was, Merlin had no idea that Douxie was standing just a handful of metres away from him.

And maybe if he did know, he wouldn’t have shouted…

“Again, with that ridiculous lie! Hisirdoux may be an idiot, but even that level of incompetence is beyond him!”

Those words were a punch to the gut, worse than every time those bandits kicked him this afternoon. At least he expected that from them, but hearing that…

His breaths got shaky. His eyes stung. His feet felt rooted to the dungeon floor, like he was more trapped here than the prisoners.

He was no stranger to Merlin’s harshness, and he knew his master thought he was an idiot, but hearing that this was something of a new level of incompetence…

Was it really that much of a stupid idea?

His lip trembled.

What was he thinking, of course it was stupid. Of course he was stupid. A stupid, incompetent numbskull of an apprent-

“MERLIN!” Morgana yelled.

The Master Wizard whipped his head around. When he laid eyes on the shaking moppet at Morgana’s side, his face fell, as if he wished more than anything that he could’ve pulled his words back into his mouth and made them unheard again.

But it was too late.

In an instant, Douxie didn’t feel rooted to the ground anymore. No. Now it felt like hot coals lay burning under his feet, and he needed to run. Fuzzbuckets, he needed to run.

“Hisirdoux…”

Douxie’s tears fell.

He needed to run, run, runrunrunrun RUN.

So, he ran.

Pivoting on his heel so fast he scraped the heel of his boot against the dungeon ground, he ran away from the corridor.

“Hisirdoux!”

“Douxie!”

His eyes stung so badly with tears that he couldn’t open them, but he knew the dungeon corridors well enough that he didn’t need to see to get out of there. He could tell Archie was at his side, but that was okay. He knew his familiar wasn’t trying to stop him, but only to catch up to him.

By the time he got to the stairwell back into the non-dungeony part of the castle, he’d gotten winded, and just barely in earshot, he could hear Merlin and Morgana getting in a shouting match.

It sounded like Morgana was winning.

Once he’d caught his breath, he ran up the stairwell and half-ran-half-stumbled to his room, making sure Archie slipped through the door before slamming it. His legs shook as he sat on his bed, curling his legs up so his knees almost touched his chest, which felt so tight that he could barely breathe without gasping.

It was too much. All of it, everything that happened - it was too much for one day, and he -

He could feel Archie drape that blanket from earlier over his shoulders - the green velvety one. The warm one. The one from -

Douxie shook his head and wrapped the fabric around himself. It was fine, he didn’t care who it was from. He just needed warmth; he needed heat that didn’t come from his face feeling like it was on fire and hot tears streaming down his cheeks.

After a few moments, keeping his legs curled up like that started to ache, so he stretched them out and let his feet lay on the floor while he sat at the edge of the bed, leaving a perfect spot in his lap for Archie to sit and start purring in that way that always calmed him down after his nightmares.

Maybe, Douxie thought as he stroked the cat in his lap while his torso rocked back and forth, Archie could calm him down from this nightmare, too - one he couldn’t seem to wake up from.

There was a tightness in his throat now, an awful one - not from the spell, but from being overwhelmed by all of this.

Today was one of the most terrifying days of his life.

He’d been ripped off the streets by bandits and taken where he wasn’t sure if he’d be found, or even be looked for. He’d been bound and chained and beaten and terrified. He didn’t even have his voice, and of course, Merlin thought he was more stupid for doing what he did than usual, even though he only did it because - because -

Douxie hugged the cat in his lap and let more tears stream down his face, and he realized there was one upside to not having his voice after all.

He didn’t need to stifle his cries.

---

Merlin was no stranger to guilt, to shame. He didn’t often make mistakes, but when he did, they were horrendous ones, and despite his sense of pride being strong enough that it could power a whole trollmarket, he’d had many opportunities to find himself well acquainted with the feeling that he’d done something horribly wrong.

But when he saw his apprentice’s wide eyes shine with tears at the end of that hall, shame didn’t feel like a mere acquaintance, but an inseparable companion.

He’d barely gotten the boy’s name out of his mouth before he turned on his heel and ran out of the corridor, his familiar running behind him. Merlin shouted the boy’s name again and started after him, but since he wasn’t weighed down by any armor, the gangly little moppet ran off rather fast, despite how exhausted he must have been.

Stopping at the corner of the dungeon corridor, Merlin put his hand to his forehead and groaned.

“Look what you’ve done, old man!” he heard Morgana shout next to him.

“It’s not as if I knew he’d be down here.” he brought his hand away from his face, “I thought he was still resting. How was I supposed to know you’d taken him down here?”

Morgana’s eyes widened, seemingly at his absurdity.

“So you’re saying that’s a fine thing to say about him when he isn’t around? That there’s nothing wrong with calling that boy - your apprentice - an idiot and making clear just how stupid you think he is, as long as he’s out of earshot?”

“You’ve seen the way that boy bungles every task he’s given. Really, it would be especially idiotic if he’d put a-”

“What do you think he came down here to tell you, old man?!”

...Oh.

Oh, confound it all.

Morgana pinched the bridge of her nose, “Honestly, and you wonder why his magic backfires whenever you’re around! How can he grow his confidence when you-”

“Why would he do that, Morgana?”

“Why would I know ?” she answered his question with one of her own, “As soon as I found out, I figured you should know. Better to stop wasting your time grilling these numbskulls over nothing. If you want to know so bad, go and ask him.”

But facing the most fierce of trolls had been less jarring a task.

His other apprentice crossed her arms, “You owe him an apology, old man. We both know that.”

And, as frustrating as it was, Merlin knew that indeed.

The wizard figured that Hisirdoux ran to his room, and when he got to the door, he found he was right; he could hear the boy’s hiccups and voiceless sobs from the other side, far more heartbreaking in their quietness than if they had been loud.

Merlin knocked on the door.

“Hisirdoux…”

He honestly wasn’t expecting to be let in at all, so he was surprised to see the door glow blue as Hisirdoux opened it with a spell. If this was a lighter time, he would have scolded the boy for using a spell so needlessly. But this obviously wasn’t a lighter time, and he was just glad to be allowed in.

Hisirdoux sat on the edge of his bed with the blanket he’d been given draped over his shoulders and a contemptuous black cat in his lap. His hair was still unkempt from his ordeal, completely loose from the bun he usually wore, and tears streaked his cheeks. His big hazel eyes, puffy and ringed with tears, stared down at the ground.

He couldn’t even look Merlin in the eye, and perhaps that was fair.

As Merlin stepped into the room, Hisirdoux shrunk in on himself, pulling more of the blanket around him as if it would shield him from… well, everything.

“I hope you’re here to apologize.” Archie said coldly, but the feline-dragon obviously meant something else, an unspoken message: If you’re not here to apologize, then leave. The boy’s had enough turmoil today.

But he was here to apologize.

After years of trying to prepare for everything he could as a Master Wizard, he knew as he stood there that he was unprepared for what to say, standing here in front of Hisirdoux. He had no speech prepared, no ageless wisdom or proverbs. He wasn’t ready.

...But he knew that his apprentice sitting on the edge of the bed, staring glassy eyed at the floor with tears streaking his cheeks - tears of the old man’s own doing - had gone through too much today that he wasn’t ready for, that he could never be ready for. Far too much.

And he deserved better than to have to wait for an apology.

“Hisirdoux, I’m sorry.”

His apprentice lifted his head and looked up at him, eyes widened and eyebrows raised as if he never in a million years expected to hear an apology of all things from him. But what did he expect, then? A scolding? A lecture on how dangerous what he did was?

A moment later, Merlin realized that was probably exactly what the boy expected, and on all levels except physical, the wizard was whacking himself in the head with his staff right now.

He knelt down on one knee in front of Hisirdoux, both because he wanted to be on eye level with the boy and because he couldn’t stand the thought of him feeling looked down upon any longer.

“The things I said to those men in the dungeons were products of anger, fabrications of desperation.” Merlin said, “I’d been furious at those lowlifes and their audacity, and I said things that weren’t true. It wasn’t fair to say that, especially not after all you’ve gone through today. Forgive me, Hisirdoux.”

But the boy looked like he didn’t know what to say, even if he could’ve spoken. He looked at the old Wizard with wide eyes that still glistened with tears - tears that seemed to have been there ever since Merlin first found Hisirdoux in that shack. Even his familiar seemed surprised by his apology, and to be completely honest, Merlin didn’t blame either of them.

Hisirdoux broke his gaze away and looked down, to his left.

Patting around, the boy’s hand landed on his little green journal and a charcoal stick he kept with it, both clipped to his belt that lay on top of his folded vest. When Hisirdoux opened the book and started to write in the first blank piece of parchment he could flip to, Merlin looked away. He didn’t want to pry - he’d done enough as it was.

After a few seconds of scribbling, Archie stepped on the parchment.

“That’s not true, Douxie.” he said about whatever the boy had written, “You shouldn’t say that about yourself, especially not now.”

But the boy just sighed and started writing again, the motion in his hand leaving Archie no choice but to take his paw off.

After a few more moments, Douxie flipped the book around to show Merlin.

“It’s alright, Master. I know I’m an idiot.” he’d written in that shoddy penmanship of his.

Right, that must’ve been what Archie denied.

“I know there’s a lot I mess up and don’t think through, and I know that most of the time, I can be awfully incompetent, but using that spell is one of the few times where I know that did something smart.”

Merlin sighed.

“But why did you do it, Hisirdoux?”

Hisirdoux hesitated, but Archie looked up at the boy with the same question in mind, and that seemed to be what convinced him to answer.

But this time, he set the journal and charcoal aside. Instead of using those tools to communicate, he brought his hands out in front of him. With the way his hands started to tremble, he was obviously about to cast a nonverbal spell.

Archie stepped back a few paces, “It seems he’d rather show than tell.”

Merlin didn’t think Hisirdoux was in the right state to carry out any sort of spells right now, weakened as he was, but nonetheless, he didn’t stop the boy.

In the future, Hisirdoux would become capable of more powerful spells as his experience grew, and one such spell would be able to create vivid - albeit ghostly - life-size apparitions that replay events of the past in to-scale space. But this wasn’t the future, and he was nowhere near that strong or experienced yet. All he could manage was a little phantom-ish playthrough of events in the little space in front of him, like he was holding in his hands a hazy, blue-tinted window into the past.

Even then, “hazy” was an understatement. The several figures that seemed to be huddled a bit away from where Hisirdoux must’ve been (Merlin rightly assumed the vision in front of him was from the boy’s point of view) looked distorted and grainy, barely distinguishable as those bandits from before. What else, their voices were fuzzy, dreadful murmurs overlapping on top of each other until they were almost indistinguishable.

Merlin couldn’t tell if this haziness in memory reflected how much of a blur the events were in the boy’s mind, or if this was just the best Hisirdoux could manage.

It seemed not to be the latter though, because he squeezed his eyes shut and curled his fingers a little, obviously trying to use more of his strength to make the events more clear. His efforts actually worked, much to a worried Merlin’s surprise and worry, and the bandits’ voices became much easier to hear, their awful words far more enunciated.

“This was probably a stupid move.” one of them said, “How’re we s’posed to know that wizard gives a rat’s tail about ‘is errand boy, anyway?”

“If he does, imagine the coin we could get ou’o it.” said another voice Merlin knew was the leader.

“An’ if not, we’re stuck wit’ a brat from the castle.” yet another said, followed by a thwack sound that must have been the leader smacking him in the head, if the distorted movement of the figures was any indication.

“If not , we’ve got a vault o’ information on all those wizard-y secrets they keep in th’ castle. Maybe stuff abou’ the king, too.” the insidious leader corrected, “We can beat it ou’a ‘im if we ‘ave to.”

“Not much to beat though, is there?” another bandit joked, “Gangly little brat.”

Then the view changed, and Hisirdoux’s own trembling hands came into focus. Through the phantom replay, his ghostly fingers’ movements were light but hasty as he tapped his bracelet. This must have been before his captors had the idea to restrain him, but Hisirdoux was clearly afraid they’d get the idea soon (and rightly so, as the condition Merlin found him in made clear that they obviously had), so as soon as his bracelet glowed, he whispered…

“Vox Silentii.”

Immediately, Hisirdoux gasped in the vision. The noise became more hollow with each passing millisecond, as if - no, because his voice fell away just as fast, sucked away by the enchantment.

And it got the bandits’ attention, shown clearly by the nightmarish figures turning to face him.

“Sod it, I thought you stuck the cuffs on ‘im already!” the leader yelled to one of the other bandits, and whether it was at the display of incompetence, or out of sheer relief that his self-destructive spell worked, Hisirdoux laughed. It was a hollow, raspy, voiceless thing, but clearly a laugh all the same - a laugh that carried on until the leader marched over and raised his boot and -

The spell dissipated, and though it only lasted a few moments, it clearly took a lot out of an already weakened Hisirdoux in the present, whose arms fell to his sides as he started to sway, his eyes rolling back as his eyelids fluttered.

“Hisirdoux!” Merlin exclaimed, reaching out to steady him.

Before the boy could collapse, Merlin put one hand on his shoulder and the other against his head, cradling the side of it. Internally, he cursed himself, for he knew he should have told Hisirdoux not to carry out that vision spell, and to simply stick to writing out an answer. He’d already been exhausted by both the stress of his ordeal and the lingering effects of whatever nullifier was in his cuffs, and his magic, like everything else, was weakened, and the toll it took on him was far higher than usual.

But it hadn’t exhausted him completely. Though it took a moment, Hisirdoux put his hands down on the bed on either side of him to help keep himself upright, and his tired, tired eyes opened again.

“That spell…” Merlin pulled his hands away, “I had you study it in the event that you encountered another wizard with harmful intentions, so you could cut them off from saying an incantation at your expense.”

Fumbling to get his journal again, Hisirdoux quickly jotted something down and held up, “and sirens.”

“And you knew you couldn’t reverse the spell without a vocal incantation, didn’t you? An incantation you knew those bandits couldn’t perform.”

Hisirdoux nodded, and Merlin sighed. As much as the boy bumbled around as he did his chores, seeming at times like there was naught a competent thought to be found in that brain of his, he was clever. Even when it came to sabotaging himself, he was clever.

But somehow, that cleverness coincided with recklessness in a way that only Hisirdoux Casperan could manage.

Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? If you’d botched the spell, it could have closed up your windpipe, or-”

“This isn’t the time for scolding him, Merlin.” Archie reprimanded. There had been few times where the Master Wizard adhered to the advisings of a cat with glasses, but for his apprentice’s sake, this was one of those times.

Hisirdoux got his journal again and wrote…

“I’d never been tortured like that before. I didn’t know if I could’ve handled it.”

The thought of his apprentice - that sweet, gangly moppet who’d been bested by his own broom once - enduring any sort of torture made the Master Wizard’s skin crawl. He almost wanted to convince King Arthur that those bandits’ transgressions warranted far more harsh treatment than wallowing in their own despicability in the dungeons, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was focusing on Hisirdoux right now, he would go to the throne room right now.

But as it was, Merlin thought Hisirdoux was probably right; it was obvious that he had never endured torture, or…

Merlin reconsidered when he remembered that the boy knew how to use sleep spells that caused permanent memory loss.

...None that Hisirdoux himself could recall, at least.

“It’s not that I would’ve wanted to say anything.” he wrote on a new page, “I was scared I’d blurt something out. And I got knocked out before I woke up there, so I didn’t know where I was, so I didn’t try running away. It was the smartest thing I could think of.”

...Of course. Of course that’s what this was. Of course the boy would’ve taken such a drastic measure, but for what ? So those lowlife scoundrels didn’t have an upper hand, an advantage over a Master Wizard? No, it was too late for that, for they already had the biggest advantage over Merlin that they could’ve held in their grasp; they had his son, the one individual he would always put above the greater good, as a hostage.

Really, not only was Hisirdoux the only apprentice Merlin ever had who was as clever as he was reckless, but the only one who was as selfless as he was reckless - a combination that Merlin couldn’t decide whether or not he was more proud of or worried about.

“...I can reverse the spell now, you know.” he said, “Now that I know which spell you used, I can use a counterspell.”

The little Wizard’s eyes widened hopefully, as if the prospect of a counterspell was a shock.

“Oh, come now, Hisirdoux. Surely you knew-”

Oh.

He stopped.

No.

“Wait a moment… you did know another wizard can cast a counterspell to reverse the effects and restore your voice, did you not?”

As his eyebrows upturned, making him look like a scolded puppy, the boy shook his head.

...Oh, sod it all.

If Merlin Ambrosius were a swearing man, he’d have a sailor’s tongue right now.

Hisirdoux didn’t think the spell could be reversed, and he did it anyway. He thought it would be permanent, and he did it anyway. For all that boy knew, he’d taken his own voice away forever; he’d taken what he’d always used to blather on about nonsense and sing his heart out (albeit very off-key), and he destroyed it.

Merlin put his hand to his forehead, only pulling it down when he heard the boy scribbling again.

“Making sure they didn’t find out anything about wizards felt more important.” he’d written in frantic scribbles, “Or Camelot, or King Arthur, or Morgana, or you, Master.”

Merlin pinched the bridge of his nose.

“So you thought this would’ve been permanent,” he tried to keep his voice level, “that you would have lost your voice forever, and you did it anyway, just to nullify the hair-slim possibility that you might have revealed some secret to those idiots?”

Hisirdoux looked down and wrote again.

“It felt like-”

No.

No, no, no.

Merlin saw the words at the end of that page, but he did not want to read them. Reading them made them real…

...But they would be real whether he read them or not, and he knew that.

“It felt like the greater good.”

Merlin never thought he could hate that concept as much as he did right now.

No, the greater good was something for him to prioritize - him and him alone, and it never came at the cost of the safety and wellbeing of his son. If it did cost him that, then let the greater good fester and crumble to dust.

Hisirdoux curled his arms and hugged himself, looking down at Archie as the feline nuzzled his arm to soothe him. As much as it pained him to see the boy like this, he couldn’t bring himself to comfort him - not when he had a solution right at his fingertips.

“Hisirdoux, do you want your voice back?”

The boy lifted his head and nodded, almost pleading with his eyes, as if there was ever a chance of Merlin denying him the return of his voice.

The wizard raised his hand and said…

“Vox restituet.”

Hisirdoux gasped, just as he did with his own spell, but it’s effect was contrary to that of the former enchantment; the sound became less and less hollow with each fleeting millisecond as the boy’s voice came back to him.

When his breathing fell back into its normal pace, Hisirdoux traced his fingers down his throat.

“Master…”

His voice sounded so hoarse, so little, but it was there , and as soon as Hisirdoux realized that, his whole body seemed to relax in relief that he probably didn’t even let himself feel when he’d first been rescued.

Merlin was relieved too, but it was outweighed by so much - most of all, by the contempt he still held for those bandits down in the dungeons for making his apprentice feel like he needed to do this to himself, and by the guilt he still felt for what he said down there.

Not only was his relief outweighed, but it was also short-lived.

“...I’m sorry.”

No. No, Hisirdoux did not just say that.

Out of all the things Merlin expected his apprentice to say… at best, he expected thanks for restoring his voice, and at worst, he expected him to voice how upset and hurt he still must’ve been for the things he said about him down in the dungeons. But never, never in a millenia, did he expect an apology.

“Whatever for?” Merlin asked. Truly, whatever for? Hisirdoux had done nothing but endure; but withstand circumstances beyond unfit for those as innocent as him, and do what he thought would protect what was important to him at a cost that Merlin himself could barely imagine - could barely conceptualize even now.

“I really really didn’t mean for this to be such a hassle,” Hisirdoux answered, coughing from his voice’s disuse, “and I’m really not upset about what you said in the dungeons. Everything was just too much, and back there, with the bandits, I just didn’t want to put you in danger-”

“No, Hisirdoux.” Merlin declared, putting two of his fingers against one of his temples. It seemed like now that Hisirdoux could speak again, there was a backlog to his blathering. “None of that.”

Hisirdoux’s eyebrows upturned with that scolded puppy look again, “None of what?”

“None of this…” Merlin gestured vaguely, “throwing yourself in harm’s way for my sake. There’s no sense in that. It is not your job to fling yourself into self-destruction in what you think is my best interest. You are my apprentice, Hisirdoux.”

You are my son . Merlin didn’t say.

“And it is my job to protect you, not the other way around.” he told Hisirdoux with no room for argument, “Your job is to focus on your studies and the tasks I ask of you. Should you ever find yourself at someone else’s mercy again, your first priority should be keeping yourself unharmed, or as close to such a state as possible. Secrets can be stopped from spreading, and memories can be wiped, but you are-"

He almost said invaluable, but he stopped himself; though he himself knew the word meant to be priceless or crucial, he feared for the chance that his apprentice could take the word to have a completely opposite meaning, that he was not valuable at all.

"You are indispensable, Hisirdoux.”

Merlin loathed the look of disbelief on the boy’s face when he heard that, but he continued.

“Whatever it entails, self-preservation should come before all else until you’re rescued, because you will be rescued.”

Hisirdoux nodded - a little, minute thing.

“I understand, Master.”

Merlin stood up.

“You must be starving.” he said, “I’ll have something prepared and brought here. You should go back to sleep until then.”

Hisirdoux nodded and pulled the green blanket over his shoulders again, the cloth having fallen off sometime a bit ago, after Merlin came in.

The boy looked down in thought as if remembering something before raising his head again.

“...They didn’t have what you asked for. At the marketplace. Every shop and stand came up empty.” Hisirdoux said, apologetic for the lack of the one thing he’d been sent out to fetch - as if it even mattered after all of this.

No, if anything, the whole errand being for nothing was just another frustration of the day, mundane - no, trivial in the face of everything else.

Also, it brought another pressing matter to the Master Wizard’s attention.

“That’s quite alright.” Merlin said, “If anything, that reminds me: clearly, it’s far too dangerous for you to go on errands in town unaccompanied. As my apprentice, there are many unfavorable people looking to get an advantage over me and use you as leverage to do so, just like those bandits tried today. So, for the time being, you’ll be chaperoned on your future errands outside the castle.”

“But-” he started, but, as if he remembered what Merlin always said when he tried to question him, he cut himself off and nodded, still looking deflated nonetheless.

“It’s a necessary precaution at this point, Hisirdoux.” Merlin said, “Even if it gets in the way of you trying to get the attention of that girl at the shops.”

The boy’s cheeks tinted pink.

“It’s not about her!” he yelped, his voice’s strength obviously coming back rather quickly, “You already told me not to focus on that, and I didn’t even try talking to her today.”

“You never try talking to her, Douxie.” Archie said, pacing around the boy. But Hisirdoux didn’t let himself get distracted by his familiar teasing him.

“It’s…”

He sighed.

“...I don’t want to be a burden.” he confessed, “There are so many more important things to be done around here. Why should anyone waste their time coming with me on errands?”

At this, Merlin realized that it was his turn to sigh. If there was a spell Merlin could use to cast such insecurity from the boy’s head, he would have cast it now. But, much to his frustration, he couldn’t (at least, not without facing something of a moral dilemma over the ethics of mind control). So, simple reassurance would have to do.

“Hisirdoux…”

He placed his free hand - the one not holding onto his staff - on the boy’s shoulder, causing him to look up at the old wizard with wide, questioning eyes.

“Keeping you safe isn’t a burden.” Merlin assured, “I would rather take a few hours out of the day to accompany you, or even complete those errands on my own, than ever have a repeat occurrence of what happened today.”

“...Alright.” Hisirdoux said, although obviously reluctant.

Merlin took his hand off of his shoulder.

“Now, you’re to keep resting the rest of the night, and likely for much of tomorrow, so-”

“But Master-”

“-Don’t “But Master” me.” he said, “Just rest.”

The heaviness in the boy’s eyelids made clear how much he needed that rest, and thankfully, Hisirdoux didn’t contest that.

“Yes, Master.”

#yesterday we were making jokes about moppet getting stuck to walls... how did we get here #douxie #hisirdoux casperan #moppet!douxie #tales of arcadia #toa #wizards #toa wizards #my writing #merlin #Merlin Ambrosius #whump #wizard dad isn't as good in this one as in my other fic guys sorry 😔#fic: what's the greater good worth? (definitely not this)

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carriagelamp · 3 years

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Rememberance Day is over so I’m legally allowed to start getting into Christmas-y books. This month has been weird as hell around here... we sure are still in a series of ongoing global crisis? So books have been holding me in a protective, loving embrace...

Brambleheart

Brambleheart is about a young chipmunk, Twig, who lives in an animal society deep in the woods, who make a living from the nearby human trash, which they repurpose into all sorts of things. Learning how to work with this trash is an important right of passage for the young animals, as it defines their eventual role and status in society. Twig is concerned he won’t earn a respectable place in society and on a long walk away from home he stumbles across a strange, magical egg...

This is a book that was cute… and not much else. A fun read for an eight year old maybe, and for everyone else it’s just… there. And it’s fine! But considering it’s about a trash-based animal society that includes finding a dragon egg, it’s surprisingly basic. Nothing I would go out of my way to read.

A Christmas Carol

I have watched A Christmas Carol basically every year since I was a child, but this is my first time reading the book. The writing is truly phenomenal, it’s clever, funny, and evocative. I’ve read other Dickens’ books that have bored me to tears, but this is one that makes you appreciate why he’s such a beloved author. And, despite seeing it just about every year, it still made me full-on cry during the graveyard scene. I’m furious that this was apparently written in six weeks.

The Christmas Pig

[Mandatory disclaimer: yes I am aware of the gross politics here, yes I find them abhorrent, however JKR is still an author deeply rooted into my childhood and I can’t cull it that easily, so yes I did read her new book. I totally understand anyone that would make the choice to boycott her work and I respect that. Please feel free to scroll on. This review is based off the actual experience of reading the book and nothing else.]

I got this book out of the library, and during out Weird As Hell Week my mom and I took turns reading chapters out loud. It was exactly the sort of soothing comfort I needed. The Christmas Pig was a really enjoyable book. Despite being new, it felt like a Classic Kid Christmas Story. It reads like games I used to play as a child around Christmas time -- there was something incredibly nostalgic about it.

The story is about a boy whose life goes through a string of changes. His parents’ divorce, his father moving away, going to a new school, and finally his mother dating someone new. He manages to weather it all with his beloved toy, Dur Pig, at his side. However tragedy strikes and Dur Pig is lost, and is replaced by a new imposter, the Christmas Pig. He can’t accept this, but the magic of Christmas Eve is at work, and the Christmas Pig comes to life and offers to bring the boy down to the Land of the Lost, to find Dur Pig before it’s too late...

A Dog’s Way Home

Sometimes you just need a good, well-written animal adventure. This felt like The Incredible Journey, but for an older audience. An adorable puppy is rescued by a man, and her entire life soon centres around him and their shared love. However things can’t stay peaceful, as she finds herself being persecuted for her perceived breed, and is taken away from her human… leaving her no choice but to embark on a perilous journey to get back to him.

Hercule Poirot: The Mysterious Affair at Styles // Adventure of the Christmas Pudding

It’s been long overdue but I’ve finally started reading Agatha Christie! I stared with The Mysterious Affair at Styles and it filled my heart with joy. This is the pinnacle of the “cozy murder mystery” genre. I get a funny, fussy little Belgian man, and a good-natured English man who very cheerful and very, very dumb. Absolutely thick as a brick. I relate to him so much and I adore him, bless Captain Hastings. And damn, is it ever clever! The whole way through it’s so thrilling to read a mystery that is slowly being pieced together when you can tell there’s some very clever machinations behind the screen.

I also read the “Christmas Pudding” short story because I’m getting into a Christmasy mood! Also very fun, and a little less murdery than Styles which was nice for a festive story.

The Lost World

What I’d been hoping for — Jurassic Park meets Dinotopia

What I got — Colonialism, Racism, and Genocide: The Novel

We spent way too little time checking out the cool dinosaurs and way too much time trying to commit wholesale mass murder against the indigenous “monkey people”. Thanks for that Doyle, very cool.

Monster and the Beast v2

Enormous, shy monster, meets shameless monsterfucker. They go on an adventure! The monster is able to hide in the human’s shadow and see the city for the first time! Try new foods! Meet new people! He’s excited to be around someone who, for the first time in his life, isn’t scared of him and treats him the same as he would treat anyone else. A surprisingly charming series, I can’t help but enjoy it; the human is a bit of an asshole and the monster is a sweetheart. It’s a fun spin on things, I’m looking forward to reading the third book.

Otter Lagoon

A youth graphic novel series based in the West Coast, with a bit of a Gravity Falls vibe. It’s about friends in a small island community who run into strange supernatural creatures and struggle with the ethical issues of living alongside them. I really adore this series. The art style is fantastic and unique, and the story feels like it’s doing something interesting with just a teensy bit more edge than a lot of the bubblegum soft kid series that have been coming out these days. In this book, the main character is trying to make up for an earlier mistake but only ends up compromising her own morals and digging her hole deeper...

Pryce and Carter’s Deep Space Survival Procedure & Protocol Manual

The DSSPPM is a fictional manual that exists in the world of Wolf 359 (one of my all-time favourite podcasts) and it was actually written out in its entirety as a part of the Patreon rewards. It has 1001 off-the-walls tips and tricks to survive in deep space on a life-threatening long-term scientific mission without compromising the company’s bottom line. Along with Doug Eiffel’s helpful commentary written in the margins.

Tintin

I finally invested in getting the entire English series of Tintin. We always had a number of books at home while growing up, we borrowed plenty more from the library, and I have another handful in French, but I wanted to reread in chronological order for the first time and decided I was ready to have them all on hand.

For anyone unfamiliar, Tintin is a Belgian comic (bande dessinée) about a young reporter who goes on many highflying adventures all around the world. He’s sincere, kind, and capable of surviving an truly stupendous number of head injuries, gunshot wounds, and blatant attempts at poisoning, maiming, and murder. Tintin is one of my all time favourite series, I passionately adored it as a child and that passion has never once dimmed.

While I’ve read most of them before, this was my first time reading The Land of the Soviets and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I expected all kinds of atrocious given what the early series is like in general (cough*Congo*cough), but blatant propaganda aside it was actually a lot of fun. Just pure silly slapstick goofiness. In America was a nightmare that I won’t be rereading again any time soon. And then we hit Cigars of the Pharaoh and the series starts in earnest, and it honestly only gets better and better from there. Can we all agree that The Crab with the Golden Claws is the best in the series? Captain Haddock, my beloved.

Witch Hat Atelier v1-2

A manga I enjoyed way more than I expected! It really feels like a unique gem. In a very strange way, it reminds me of +Anima... maybe not in story but in art and general vibe. We have a young girl who accidentally stumbles across the secret of magic — that it’s not hereditary, like it has always been claimed, but that it can be drawn by anyone who knows the patterns and has the appropriate ink. However she makes the mistake of experimenting with that, and ends up cursing her mother… she now has no choice but to join a senior witch at his atelier and begin to study magic with fellow apprentices, in the hopes of learning how to save her mother.

You Are Asexual

A fun little oddball of a book. It’s parodying both Choose Your Own Adventure stories, as well as dystopian you-are-assigned-to-a-single-faction ya stories, but this time with sexuality-based factions. Everyone has their sexuality repressed until “Orientation Day” when it’s revealed… except “you” don’t notice any change to your attraction. As a “forbidden asexual”, you then get to go on an adventure of discovery and/or death. It’s very silly, filled with all the old jokes and memes that used to make up the ace community. It was a sort of lightheartedness I haven’t seen since the destruction of the ace community almost a decade ago, so it was a fun read.

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yusei-clownington · 3 years

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...challenge accepted.

Yusei fudo.

Yuuuuseeeeiiii fuuuuuudooooooo.

Crab haired vroom vroom babyman fella

Everyone’s beloved.

Let us talk about him.

How do you explain Yusei?

Well, rua, my child. Listen closely.

Yusei fudo, whose name autocorrect keeps changing to ease food, is a gift sent down to us from heaven. He’s the embodiment of all that is good.

So let’s start with how Yusei was introduced/ Established.

We started off with very little info about him and his past, of course, but we knew this:

-Yusei was from somewhere called satellite, which seems to be a place people down at the main city aren’t very….fond of.

-He looks like the badboy type

-Really loves D-wheels (from that interaction with Jack)

-Had a card he adores, stardust dragon, stolen/taken from him by Jack atlas, some douche.

Now with that little info, presumptuous as I am, I assumed he’d be your average cool ass edgy boy, beats the rich guy, takes some sort of revenge and bam we get a setup for like… the ultimate chad. Like from his duel with Ushio i was getting badass main boy vibes.

BuT THEN Yusei tALKS to jack. Opens his adorable lil mouth. And the calmest, softest fricking tone comes out of that. And then… we realise…hE’S NOT EVEN FUCKING MAD AT JACK? He just wants his dragon back??? No grudge nothing??? What?? Is he not….edgy??

….And then it hits us all. Yusei is a cinnamon roll. But not just any cinnamon roll. A cinnamon roll that can kill you, your family, and the entire fucking neighborhood you live in if he wanted to………but just doesn’t.

So now what do we know about Yusei?

Yusei can throw hands.

Yusei can build D-wheels from like…anything at this point.

Yusei can make like ten friends by just…existing in the same area as them.

Yusei can, and will, protect everything and everyone. NOT EVEN JUST THOSE HE CARES ABOUT. NAH NAH NAH. EVERYTHING. HE PROTECTS ALL.

Yusei can defeat three fucking guys with under 2000 life points in one go.

Yusei can DETONATE THREE GODS.

Yusei can make everyone instantly feel like marrying him by just like…looking at them. just ask Kiryuu, jack, bruno, prison guy, Akiza, Random team unicorn dude, all of the members of team ragnarok, me, the fandom, humanity, god. You know I’m right.

Yusei will defeat you after you try and murder him, and then run to see if you’re okay.

Yusei loves children and children love yusei

Yusei is unstoppable, and it never gets obnoxious.

Yusei’s gay as shit

LOOK I CAN GO ON FOR LIKE AN HOUR TRUST ME.

Not even once have I gone “Ugh, there we go, won again…” nope. Langa should learn a few things from this guy.

I literally cannot even begin to tell you why Yusei’s the fricking best.

But I will anyway.

He’s practically the glue that holds everyone in this show together, the ROOT OF MOST CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. Like do I even need to mention the Aki situation? The jack situation? THE LITERALLY-ANYONE-HE-MEETS SITUATION?

So how can I explain Yusei? Well, I can’t. what? did you think I'd say yes?....loser. Yusei is not meant to be explained. He's meant to be admired.

Observe.

Yusei Fudo is the breaking of so many stereotypes all at once. His appearance contradicts with his gentle personality, but his eyes still manage to reflect it anyway. Because who needs badass eyes when you can have puppy eyes?

Unlike the past two protagonists, I can’t help but feel Yusei’s a little more insecure ? Not in a fatal way. But he seems to have more little moments of doubt than Atem and Judai did.That being said, he is confident in his abilities, and his friends abilities even more. When in doubt, a friend’s words, no matter how little, can send his morale up to the roof.

He’s got charisma like atem, and the general charm like Judai, without actually being directly like either of them.

He’s a very open, caring guy with too many emotions that his face just never manages to express— something i deeply adore about his design.

Still, because of how impactful he is, you can always get what he’s feeling, and so can his friends. He still keeps certain things to himself every now and then, but usually ends up saying them anyway, like that one time in the dark signers arc.

He’s seriously soft and adorable…yet very capable of defending himself and others.

If you wrong him, he’ll probably forgive you. If you wrong his friends he’s going to rip your rib cage out. Then ask if you’re okay and send you to a hospital, paying the full expenses because he’s like that isn’t he.

Literally no one has ever regretted being around Yusei or caring for him. And that’s for good reason.

Also look at him

…I may have a problem.

#.........Um #Plot twist I actually like Crow a little more...#This is VERY SCRAMBLED AND RANDOM AND WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS LONG.#Yusei Fudo #Yugioh 5D's

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livinginncity · 4 years

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if we were human

♚: lee rang x reader

❡: fluff??(angst, pure angst)

ⱳƈ: 2.5k

⚠︎: besides it being really bad? none really. like, literally a couple swears. it was fluff, and then it became angst, so...sorry, but not really because if i’m crying, so are you.

children could be heard all around the park. some screaming and laughing as they run behind, others crying after they tripped, only to soon be comforted by the gentle holds and hushed assurances of their mothers and fathers. a bit further away was a small dog park, from which came all kinds of barks and growl, as well as cooing of the passerby. and there at a bench, located slightly closer to the swings and slides attracting the younger humans, sat a man that looked less than pleased to be where he was.

“Guess who.” a female’s voice rang out as a soft hand covered his eyes. he merely rolled his eyes beneath their new coverings and proceeded to drag the small wrist away from his face. “y/n.”

the young woman sneered and scoffed before yanking her hand out of his grasp to walk around and join him on the bench. “I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you either.” a smack to the back of the man’s head could be felt soon after the words left his mouth. “Yah!”

“What are you doing here anyway? I never took you for the people watching type.”

“That's because I'm not. As if they deserve that much attention.” a hand lazily lifted in the direction of a familiar little boy, the action bringing a smile to the woman’s face.

“Ahhhh. But that one’s the exception? I thought you didn’t like little kids with runny noses, something I heard you have in common with your brother actually. Is that a gumiho thing or a family thing?” the man she addressed turned his head to look at her with an unimpressed look.

“Has anyone ever told you that you talk too much? Or that you ask too many questions?”

“Well considering that was one of the first things you said to me when we met, I’ll just assume you know the answer to that already.”

she turned to look where the man’s gaze had previously been fixed and he followed suit. their eyes moved as they followed the movements of the young boy whose energy seemed to rival that of a puppy’s. ‘how fitting’ was the thought that came to the pair. minutes passed before they changed positions—the girl moving to settle her head on her company’s shoulder. said company shook her off before she repeated the action, leaving her be the second time. and he stayed in place even after she dragged his head to rest upon her own.

“Rang-ah.” the man simply grunted in response, urging her to continue. “I hate this.”

his eyebrows furrowed slightly at the sudden proclamation. “The kids? The families? Parks? I don’t really like them either. The first are messy and demanding, the second is an extremely unrealistic dynamic, and the last are way too loud and crowded.”

“No.” she took in her surroundings before speaking again. “This. I love all of this. I want it all. The kids are adorable and it feels so rewarding to be someone they rely on and look up to. I’ve had my fair share of family drama, but I’ve always wanted my own that I could cherish—pointless fights and all. And parks are probably one of my favorite places because it gives me everything I need to imagine what it’d be like if I had the first two.”

“What?” at her words he lifted his head to look down at her.

“I hate all of this shit that’s going on right now. It was one thing when you were just this occasional menace to your brother, but now the Imugi is involved and Lee Yeon refuses to let Ji Ah go again. It’s caused so many problems and with them, questions to be asked. Things could be so much simpler. Don’t you ever think about what life would be like if we were all human? This would all just be some petty high school drama. Like, Lee Yeon got class president in school and now, years later, both he and Imugi are CEOs competing in the nightclub industry or something like that.”

“You’re starting to sound like Lee Yeon. I guess you’re just as lame as him. Or maybe even lamer because really? That’s the best you can do with this fake drama?”

“Did I ever tell you that I ran into Soo Ho before you got the Tiger’s Brow back from him?” she ignored the questions, but her own annoyed him slightly. before he could respond. “I asked him if I could try them on and walked to the nearest window I could see myself in.”

“So, what’d you see? What were you? A Snake? A rat? Pufferfish?” her only response to his teasing was a pinch to the side. she shook her head before continuing.

“I saw a child.” her face changed to a solemn one. “All I saw was a snot-nosed little kid that the world seemed to have it out for. I didn’t even live long enough to have many firsts. And no one was ever there for the few I did. Well, there was one. Towards the end, I think my final year, I met an old lady. She lived alone, but she took me in the moment we crossed paths. She gave me my own room, let me help her cook, as much as a child could help, and she would always tell me these stories of her husband who had passed about a decade before. In just a few months, that woman gave me what felt like a lifetime of love. All while I was slowly dying, she made me forget the hardships, the neglect, the hatred, and by some cruel fate, she died first. But before she went, she said to me “treat my death as not another result of this terrible world, but take it as a sign that even when we know that our end is inescapable, we are able to cherish the temporary moments in which we are truly happy should we allow ourselves that much.” And so,”

the woman finally lifted her head from the gumiho’s shoulder to look into his eyes. “I think, if I could be reincarnated as a human again, I would. But since it’s probably never gonna happen I want to live like one. Get married, have a family, get mad when someone doesn’t show up for the holidays. I don’t know if I’d make it as a human with everything I know now, and I honestly don’t want to be human right-right now because I probably wouldn’t get to be around you. And I also just can’t imagine how you’d get by without seeing me every day.”

“Don’t act like you’re anything special.” he scoffed and looked back at the playground.

“You don’t have to admit it.” she stood up from the bench, looked over to the young boy he had taken in, and turned back. the woman grabbed his face and, after looking at the man for a few seconds, leaned in. “I know you love me.” and then she ran. “Soo Ho-ah! Let me play with you, that old fox is being mean again!”

“Yah!” he didn’t get up to chase her. she was right no matter how much he thought about it. somehow that weird girl wormed her way into the list of people he more than tolerated. and as he sat alone with his thoughts, he watched her play with the reincarnated boy, the latter seemingly winning their current sword fight.

does he ever wanna be human? no, it seems way too boring. does he like kids? he likes one, so that’s good enough. will he get married at some point? well, it’s just some rings and paper. and it’s not like he isn’t in love with that girl in the park.

bonus;

“Hey, y/n. If you’re watching this then...you know. I figured a couple good deeds might do me well in the afterlife, so what better way than finally letting my brother be with the girl he’s waited hundreds of years for.”

“You crazy bastard.” those were the only words that she could force her mouth to speak as she looked down at the small screen.

“I know you’re probably cursing me right now, thinking ‘this crazy bastard.’” somehow they both managed to let out a chuckle. “You know I don’t like vulgar words, but I’m not there, so i told Soo-Ho to pinch you for me every time one leaves your mouth.”

“Of course you did. It’s already a habit of his now.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye. Especially to you, Yu Ri, and Soo-Ho. I didn’t get to say thank you, either. You’ve all helped me more than I’d ever care to admit, but I really am grateful to have shared part of my life with you. I got to help Yu Ri like Lee Yeon helped me, got to meet Blacky again, and I got to experience so many things with you.”

the tears in her eyes were already brimming and it was clear they wouldn’t stay there long. “y/n.” she looked back to the screen as he called her name.

“go to the nightstand on the right of my bed and open the drawer.” the girl got up from her place at the edge of the bed and walked over to the wooden table. with her phone in her left, she used her right to open the drawer, and she could feel her heartbeat stutter as she laid her sights on the black velvet box that sat in it. she reached a shaky hand to pick it up, and when she flipped it open she couldn’t help dropping the phone as she brought the other to her mouth with a choked sob. all she could do was shake her head and let the tears subject themselves to gravity.

“Do you remember that day in the park?” despite not being able to actually see through the endlessly flowing tears, she managed to scramble around and find the device that had slipped from her grasp. “You were talking about all this stuff like marriage, family, kids—what it’d be like to be human because things would be so much simpler. And while I don’t think anyone could ever convince me that being human would be fun, I figured we could at least do some of those human things. We were kind of halfway there, you know? You practically live in my apartment, and Soo-Ho took over the living room with his toys, so it was only a matter of time for him to get his own room so I could stop stepping on legos—maybe get a door with a lock from the outside so I don’t have to worry about waking up covered in stickers.”

she laughed as she recalled the memory, his interactions with the little boy, and their goofy smiles when things were calm for once. “You dorks were made to follow each other into every life.”

“I was gonna propose to you after this whole thing was over. Once I knew Lee Yeon was safe and not being targeted by a wannabe dragon. I’m sorry I couldn’t give that to you or...our own kid, though I think the one we have now is pretty great. And I’m also really sorry that I’m finally telling you this once it’s too late, but you were right. About what you said that day.” her breath hitched as she saw the tears glisten while they slid down his face. “I love you.

as if it were clockwork, a sob made its way from her throat and the tears began again.

“Yah, stop crying already. Please. I’d be upset if I was the cause of it.” and she tried, she really did, but it wasn’t as easy as he made it sound. “And, I know this is probably asking a lot for all that I’ve put you through, but can you wear it? At least for a little bit. Just think of it as a way of honoring my memory—the better parts obviously. You can keep my apartment if you want, too. Soo-Ho might be a job better-fit for Sin-Ju and Yu Ri, but if he says he wants to stay with you, you better let him.”

another laugh emitted from between the sobs as she listened to his final message.

“I really do love you, y/n. And if there is ever a chance of us finding each other again, I’ll tell you every chance I get. Anyway, I think it’s time for me to go now. I only have a couple more minutes and I don’t think the others are gonna make it in time. I’m scared if I’m being honest, y/n. I’m afraid of being alone, but you helped me not feel like that all the way up to the end—I finally had a family. So thank you. Love you.” and he smiled his big, child-like smile before adding on, “And don’t tell Lee Yeon I said sorry, or thank you, or I love you that much in under ten minutes.”

and just like that, it was over. no more, dumb family feuds, no more naengmyeon with no eggs because someone would always steal it, no more Lee Rang. she stared at the paused screen for what felt like hours before setting it to the side on the bed, to do as he had asked. carefully, she took the ring out from the safety of its cushions and slid it onto her left hand. she let out a shaky breath as she stared at her ring finger and she said it back, hoping that somehow, someway, he would hear it. “I love you too, Lee Rang-ah.”

it was a while before she moved from that spot—getting on her feet only to answer the door that had just rung. opening it, she could have seen the man who had taken the place of Lee Rang’s in the living world, but all she saw at that moment was an older brother who had also lost someone he loved.

“Lee Yeon-ah.” it was then that the male finally took in her appearance. she wore jeans, one of his brother’s sweaters, and her hair was in a bun that had clearly seen better days. but what really caught his attention as his eyes traveled, was the black box in her right hand, and shining silver band on her left. then he lifted his eyes back to hers to see just how tired she was. “Lee Yeon-ah. I miss him.”

the man simply brought her into his chest as she sobbed. and she cried, and she cried, and all the while he stood there with her in his embrace. it was all he could do, he couldn’t offer her words of comfort just yet because, even now she may be much stronger than he is. because she’s strong enough to live without the promise of his reincarnation. she knows she may never see him again, but won’t risk exchanging her life just so he won’t go through the same thing.

“I miss him so much.” her voice cracked as the words came out, and he ran his hand over her hair.

“I know, I know. I miss him, too.”

#tale of the nine tailed #tale of gumiho #lee rang #lee rang x reader #lee rang imagine #kim bum #kdrama #kdramanetwork #lee yeon #lee dong wook #i wrote the first part two episodes before the final one #so after acting it out in the shower i wrote the bonus part

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kaimelia · 3 years

Text

interns

a/n: okay here's a little thing I wrote super quickly so it's a little random but! I know people are more interested in canon compliant fics (which tourist is not) so here's this!

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

"He's just so nice." Amelia glanced up, looking towards the group of interns that had gathered at the end of the nurses' station, their voices hushed as they crowded together. "I mean, half the attendings won't even look at us, and he already knows all of our names."

"It's our first day; you can't expect them to care about us."

"But he does! I may just go into ortho now. Do you think he's single?" Amelia bit her lip, smiling as she listened in to their conversation, diverting her eyes back to the tablet in her hands.

"He was talking about a son, but he doesn't wear a ring."

"Single Dad? That's hot," an intern muttered, throwing her blonde hair over her shoulder.

"He may not be single, Em. Some people aren't married."

"What kind of woman would have a kid with a man like that and not marry him? Come on, have you seen him?" Amelia rolled her eyes, looking over once more to take note of who was there. The blonde woman, who the other interns had referred to as 'Em,' was twirling her hair around her finger, gawking at a photo on his phone. "I found his Facebook. He doesn't have his relationship status up, and all his pictures are of his kid. I'm placing money on single Dad."

"Or maybe, he just doesn't put it on the internet. Ever thought of that? Privacy is nice," a male intern added, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"Says the one with no digital footprint. I googled your name to see absolutely nothing besides a graduation list. Dr. Gregory Collins does not exist online."

"For a reason. Maybe Lincoln just doesn't feel the need to post a picture every time he sees a dog on the street."

"What if he's gay?" Another intern whispered, covering her mouth with her hand.

"How would he end up with a kid, then? Good one, Kayla."

"It could be his nephew, or he adopted?" Kayla shrugged her shoulders, her arms extended in suggestion. "We live in a progressive world; you never know."

"Will they kick me out of the program if I sleep with an attending?"

"Are you really going to try and seduce him? Because that's quite possibly the most idiotic thing I've ever heard." Meredith walked up to Amelia's side, reaching for a tablet from the stand and logging in.

"Shh," Amelia whispered, tilting her head in the direction of the interns. "They're talking about Link. I'm eavesdropping." Meredith rolled her eyes and opened her chart.

"Greg, you're just jealous because his thing is probably bigger than yours."

"That has nothing to do with this. I'm saying that you shouldn't go around trying to sleep with the chief of orthopedic surgery when we've been in this hospital for less than a day." He glanced down at his phone. "I've gotta go; Pierce is paging me. Please don't do anything stupid, Em." Meredith raised her eyebrows.

"They think he's single?" Amelia nodded her grin wide. "And you're fine with them talking about sleeping with him?"

"Come on, it's kind of funny! And when they find out we're dating, they'll stop; it's all innocent in the long run. I'm not worried about Link sleeping with an intern, and I'm pretty sure if that blonde one tried to make a move, he would freak out and never put her on his service again." Meredith shook her head in amusement.

"If you wanna really freak them out, text Link to come over here, make them see that you've heard everything and that you're his girlfriend." Amelia's face lit up, and she pulled out her phone, texting Link.

"His kid is cute. I love kids; I could be a good stepmom."

"You're at the start of your career, do you really want to start parenting a kid? That kid looks like he's four or something; you would be tied to that kid for fourteen years."

"For that man, I would. Have you seen him?" At that moment, the doors opened, and Link came walking through, a grin on his face. "Dr. Lincoln!" The interns stood up straighter as he passed, a blush creeping onto the blonde one's face. Link offered them a half-wave, casually walking backward until he playfully bumped into Amelia's body, wrapping his arm around her waist and kissing the top of her head.

"So, why'd you want me here?" Amelia looked up at him before her eyes darted to the side, seeing the interns staring at them.

"Those interns were talking about you and how they would be willing to be a mother to your child because you're that hot," she muttered, leaning up to kiss him. "And now they're super freaked out and will be scared of me for the next month because they know that I heard everything they said."

"Did I say something wrong? To make them think I was interested? I wasn't trying to do anything-"

"No, you were just being a decent human being, but interns see that as you offering to shove your hand down their pants," Amelia grinned and kissed him again. "You're supposed to be mean to the interns."

"Have some sympathy for them; we were interns once. You remember how much that sucked?" He dropped his hands to her hips and cocked his head to the side. "Okay, well, seeing as you don't actually need me for anything, I'm gonna go make sure none of the interns have killed my patient."

"You're picking up Scout tonight, right?"

"Yup. I love you!" He waved goodbye, jogging past the interns again, whose faces were flushed.

"They look like you just killed their puppies," Meredith laughed, a huge grin on her face. "I've missed torturing the interns."

"It definitely shouldn't be this fun."

#amelia shepherd #amelink #amelia x link #amelink fanfiction #atticus lincoln #grey's anatomy #amelink fanfic #greys abc #greys fanfic #meredith grey #my fics

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sourwormsaresour · 3 years

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Headcanons on the type of pets La Squadra would own?

Holy shit this was too fun to make, especially with giving the pets names.

Sorbet and Gelato have their own Crusty-White-Dog™ that's a Maltese Terrier named Armani. The dog hates and barks nonstop at everything deemed threatening (aka, everyone and particularly the rest of La Squadra) and yet those two will claim she's the sweetest thing in the world. True to her name, they deck her with Armani branded clothes, either specially made dog fashion or they had a DIY done to make it look like an Armani outfit- down to the bright pink leash she wears dripping in the Armani logo. She eats the finest dry kibble and only drinks Ferrarelle Sparkling water; she will know the difference if you switch it up. She's the epitome of "I demand pets but only do so with your eyes" to everyone. Despite loving Sorbet and Gelato the most, she demands all their attention on her and she will cockblock those two if she catches them being affectionate to each other instead. Despite having a nice bed, she always sleeps between the two of them and will whimper if they kick her out of the bedroom so they can get intimate. Those tear-stained eyes always look like they've seen everything, despite being constantly babied by her owners. If Armani could, she would kill everyone.

Risotto, the biggest man in Vento Aureo, has a little Syrian hamster he called Ace. He thought that a pet with a shorter lifespan would allow him the perfect balance of having a pet but not being very attached to it compared to pets that live longer- he was wrong. If you ever come into Risotto's office as he worked, either you are greeted with Ace running around in his green hamster ball, walking around Risotto's desk as he worked, or running in the hamster wheel behind the desk. Ace's tank is an old Aquarium tank Pesci gave to Risotto that is now full of soft bedding, toys, and Risotto frequently cleans it. There are days where Risotto just spends hours watching his hamster walk around the room, eating little treats, and staring at Risotto with its beady eyes. It's gotten to the point where you can't walk into Risotto's office without noticing a lone sunflower seed or piece of bedding on the ground that Risotto didn't notice until you pointed it out. Every time Ace passes from old age, Risotto buys a new Syrian hamster and calls that one Ace. He hasn't kept track of how many hamsters that came and went so far, but treated every one of them as if they were the first Ace. He takes pictures of Ace doing the most relatively boring things and will share them with his members.

Illuso got a Sulphur-crested cockatoo named Scapino as a joke. He thought they didn’t require much attention but later felt bad when he found out that they need specific proper care. He proceeds to care for it as if it was his child. Illuso taught his bird how to speak and swear at people, specifically swearing at Formaggio and occasionally at Ghiaccio. This man will shower his bird with the best treats (expensive nuts, dried fruit, chicken bones) and has a special bar for it to perch on when they're in the shower together. This bird has free reign all over Illuso's place and wears a little anklet thing to verify that it has an owner should it escape. The two of them have spa days together and it’s one of the most wholesome things in the world to witness. Scapino will actually join Illuso on missions too, staying in the mirror world the whole time, and it provides him some comfort from his social anxiety. Sometimes Scapino sits on his shoulder as he walks. Illuso trained it to stay and hide in the mirror world so that it wouldn’t fly away or blow his cover when he’s working. But the bird will fly around in there and will watch anyone that’s getting murked in front of him with no remorse and commenting on it too. Imagine you’re dying in the mirror world and your last moment is this fucking bird looming over you going “night night, motherfucker”. JESUS CHRIST.

Prosciutto used to be on the whole “pets are unnecessary” train but he had considered looking at breeders for the best quality dog. And then one rainy day he found an abandoned Portuguese Water Dog puppy in an alleyway and at Pesci’s insistence took it in. Turns out the puppy was bought by a rich family for their kid but then abandoned when the kid wasn't interested in it anymore. Prosciutto insisted that the dog was going to stay for one night and then sent to the pound first thing in the morning. It's been years now and the little dog is now a big fluffy good boy named Pon Pon. The second biggest chunk of Prosciutto's paycheck is for this dog; I'm talking grooming services with paw-ticures, an all-organic raw diet, the nicest beds that even a human would wish they can sleep on. Pon Pon is properly trained with all the basics and tricks, because Prosciutto doesn't want to deal with a misbehaving dog, but it will use puppy eyes against the old man now and then. He give you the best smiles if you call him a good boy and if you glance at the right time you can see Prosciutto smile for a brief moment. Had he lived longer, he would have made Pon Pon famous on Facebook like Boo the Dog. Prosciutto will also not admit that this dog has helped him get laid a few times, because every person he did bring home always got a kick out of Pon Pon.

Ghiaccio has a pet snake- an albino ball python named Bianco. Ghiaccio was also on the “pets are unnecessary” train too but mainly because he can't stand loud pets (i.e. Illuso and Sorbet and Gelato’s pets). When Risotto suggested he get a snake, Ghiaccio looked into it, researching and meticulously setting up the proper enclosure and found himself going to a local reptile expo to find Bianco for sale. He’s fascinated by his snake to say the least, and would use leftover containers or Tupperware for Bianco to spend more money on proper equipment or food. Ghiaccio is really involved in online reptile forums and frequently debates with people on topics such as the best substrates to use, whether live rodents are better than frozen, ethics of breeding certain species, etc. He often gets worried when Bianco becomes picky and Ghiaccio would spend sleepless nights trying to get his baby to eat. Ghiaccio would walk around with his ball python wrapped around his neck or lets him slither around in his room under supervision but he mostly leaves him alone in the enclosure. There are times where he would claim he has the best, smartest pet and everyone just rolls their eyes like “yes the white fettuccine that got stuck in a toilet paper roll an hour ago is so smart”. But they let him rant about it. It’s kind of cute to say the least.

Pesci is the definition of people whose entire LIVELIHOOD is making his room into an aquarium. His room is full of strictly maintained, cleaned, and decorated tanks full of various types of aquatic animals. I’m talking Dwarf Puffers (Antonio, Portia, Jessica, Bassiano, and Solanio), Albino Gold Axolotls (Moe, Larry, and Curly), Red Ear Sliders (Franco and Ciccio), Clown Fishes (Browser, Mario, Toadstool, and Koopa), Brazilian Sea Horses (Tom and Jerry), a Blue Betta Fish named Valentina in a 30+ gallon aquaponics tank that grows a variety of plants each season- to name a few. He rebuilt his entire room to keep everything running and even had Melone help him set up timers for lighting and temperature control. Pesci will cry if you somehow made the pH level off by 1 or did not care for his animals properly when he’s away. He’ll even lecture you about bad tank setup. He's a prominent member of the aquarium community in Italy and will regularly redecorate each tank to suit the year and mood. This is where he’s spending his cut on the 20 million lira job: caring for his mini aquarium room. He occasionally gives away his pets’ offsprings for extra money (he doesn’t breed but sometimes he ends up having a ton of baby animals he can’t take care of) and would have been a YouTuber for his fish content. Now that I think about it, Pesci reminds me of my mutual @nexter2nd. Please go follow them.

Melone has a Holland Lop bunny and you cannot change my mind. He actually had a pet bunny growing up, another Holland Lop named Echo and Grep, and his current one is named Sudo; all three are named after UNIX commands. He has a large dog crate he diy-ed to be a roomy enclosure in his room for her that he cleans frequently but also allows Sudo free reign of the room when she wants to go out. Because of his job, he makes sure all his wires are covered so his bunny isn't tempted to chew them and watches his bunny diligently whenever she roams around. Easter time is when the denim jacket, pastel bows, and flower crowns come out and Melone makes sure to take a lot of photos. He also housetrained his bunny and taught her a few tricks, similar to how he trained Echo and Grep years ago. Sudo is spoiled in terms of getting a lot of pets, new toys, and feasts on the finest veggies and delicious hay. Melone also makes sure the first thing he teaches his Juniors is to not harm the bunny. Surprisingly, he's against breeding Sudo and has her neutered. This is mainly because he doesn't have the time to breed and raise more bunnies but also he hates the idea of selling the grown bunnies off afterward.

You know that Formaggio has a cat: the little Russian Blue cat named Sweetie Baby. Sweetie Baby was a kitten that he found outside his home. The little thing was the sole survivor of its litter and nearly starving to death, so he took her in thinking he will bring her to the shelter when she recovers; that cat now lets him live in HER apartment rent-free. Despite feeding her cheap dry food and constantly shoving her into bottles, he treats her like a queen otherwise. He will dress her up in little outfits (much to her annoyance) and often would be too aggressively affectionate towards her. Still, there are moments where she would cuddle with him during the later nights and allow him to put on one iced-out bow he just spent a quarter of his paycheck on. Walking to his apartment and even the backdoor of La Squadra’s HQ means carefully walking through the stray cats mewling at your feet, because Formaggio will feed any cat he sees. Initially, Risotto wanted the cats gone, but then he finds out the cats doubled as security when he watched some robber attempting to break in but getting their eyes scratched off instead.

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krillin-fanfic · 3 years

Text

Identity In Ink

Welp, I did a thing! Probably one of only two I’ll be able to do this month, but I DID IT! This one’s for the “Tattoo” prompt, and mostly 18-focused and a shortie, but it’s a concept I’ve discussed with people in the past: Basically, did Gero ever do anything to mark his creations, and if so, how would they deal with that. And this one just kinda flowed out. Feel free to show some love or leave feedback in the links too! FF.net link AO3 link Without further ado, here we go.

Sometimes, she couldn't help but let it bother her.

It was a small thing. Something hidden away, beneath clothing, able to be put out of sight, and thus out of mind. But since she'd moved here... since she'd spent more time with her husband on the beach... it was becoming harder to ignore.

"Hmm.." 18 stood in front of the bedroom mirror, her pajama shorts pulled down a bit as she gazed at her hip, fingers idly tracing the object of her discomfort. There, on her left hip, was a small tattoo of the Red Ribbon logo.

It really shouldn't have bothered her, she knew; she'd made her peace with that part of her life a couple of years ago, around the same time she'd finally allowed herself to accept she'd had feelings for her best friend. But still, it reminded her of a time when she hadn't been so free. Reminded her that everything she used to be had been stolen away from her. Reminded her of that twisted old man and his "experiments"...

"Hey babe, you ok?"

18 inhaled sharply and let go of the shorts, the elastic snapping back against her as she spun to face her questioner, her expression cool as ice. "Do I look like I'm in trouble, dear?"

Krillin frowned, tugging at the loose shirt that served as his pajama top. "Well... yes, honestly. You can fool a lot of other folks, 18, but I know when something's bothering you." He pointed at the mirror behind her. "Plus I kinda caught you staring at that for a while."

18 closed her icy blue eyes and exhaled sharply through her nose. "Picking up habits from the old man again, are we?"

"Hey now, come on," he protested. "You're my wife and the mother of my child, who is finally asleep, might I add. But I'm allowed to look in our bedroom."

18 crossed her arms and huffed. "Peeping tom."

Krillin laughed as he noticed the faintest hint of a smile on his wife's lips. "Okay, okay, my bad." He threw his hands up in mock despair. "Spare me, oh mighty goddess of Kame Island."

She opened one eye and peered at him. "Hmm... offer me tribute and I'll consider it."

Krillin took a step forward and stood on his tiptoes, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. "Is that better, mistress?"

18 felt her face flush. "N-no... not good enough." Her blush deepened as she felt his hand cup her cheek and bring her face to meet his, her heart skipping a beat as he began to place feather-soft kisses on her lips. She loved this feeling. It was almost enough to make her forget-

She broke off the kisses and sighed deeply again. "Okay... okay yeah, there is something that's been bothering me."

"Ahhh, I figured." He took her hand in his. "What's bugging you, hon? Is it that... mark again?"

She nodded. "Mhm. Just seems so dumb. I know that's not who I am, I know I'm more than that, but sometimes when I see it, it just reminds me of before. Back when I really thought I'd lost my humanity. When I thought it was too late."

Krillin frowned. "Babe, if it bothers you that much, we can try to do something about it." He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. "We can always see about getting it removed."

18 snorted. "Like we can afford that? Those procedures aren't cheap, you know. Besides, I doubt there are any places that do that who have a laser remotely strong enough to work on my skin."

Krillin shrugged. "Fair enough, I suppose." He rubbed his chin for a moment. "Have you considered covering it up with something else, then?"

18 rubbed her forehead. "Maybe... I dunno. I'm not sure what I'd put there even if I could, really." She sat silent for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. "I think... I think I'm gonna go check on Marron real quick." She gave her husband a pat on the head as she headed out the door. "Back in a sec."

She tiptoed across the hall to her daughter's room, the door now adorned with letters spelling out the little one's name, turning the knob as quietly as she could. She only opened it wide enough to slip in, and shut the door behind her; no sense risking her baby girl waking up when she could see just fine in the dark, after all. She took the final two steps to the crib nestled in the middle of the room and smiled.

There lay her baby girl, sound asleep. Her blonde curls splayed out on her pillow, her tiny fist balled up on her chubby little cheek, little noseless face the picture of angelic calm as her tiny chest rose and fell with each breath. 18 reached out and brushed her other cheek softly, and sighed with content.

Little Marron had only recently reached an age where they'd felt comfortable letting her have her own room, and even then it was reluctantly. But between needing a larger crib, and frankly no small amount of frustration, they'd decided it was time. Little Marron hadn't initially been a fan, being quite fussy the first few nights; her father had been as well, and 18 rather appreciated the irony of her husband wanting a return to their intimacy yet also being grumpy about not having Marron with them. She understood though. Marron was one of the only two people whose mere presence seemed to have a calming effect on her. She could be in the worst of moods, but the moment that baby girl cooed at her, it all seemed to drift away as she got lost in those big dark eyes.

18 rested her cheek on her arm as she watched her baby sleep. Her baby. The idea had felt so impossible not so long ago. She'd been sure, positive, that all the alterations to her body would have made her unable to conceive. Gero hadn't seemed the type to leave behind anything that didn't fit his uses, after all. And it's not as if she and Krillin had bothered with precautions for well over a year without consequence. 18 allowed herself an admittedly lecherous smirk at the memories.

But then, one day, it'd happened. The news had shocked both of them, and been a source of both happiness and fear for them as well. But the moment their little bundle of love had come into the world, all that fear seemed to vanish in an instant. She's been so very small, with her mother's soft blonde hair and her father's eyes and features. There was no doubt she was theirs, and Krillin opined that she was the physical manifestation of their love. She'd initially snorted derisively and called him sappy, but as she held their little bundle, she couldn't help but quietly agree.

The tiny form in front of her stretched and yawned, and her heart melted. She was so sweet and innocent... so much so that 18 could find it hard to believe she came from her. She'd been meant to be an assassin, a killer, but now all she wanted was to protect this little angel. 18 smiled and leaned down, placing a feather-soft kiss on her baby's head before quietly opening the door backing out into the hall, gently shutting it behind her.

"She really is amazing, huh?" 18 stiffened and turned to see Krillin leaning against their doorway, grinning.

"Amazing is an understatement. Sometimes I still can't believe that we... that I-"

Krillin straightened and stepped toward her, shushing her. "You best start believing it, 18. She's ours." He took her hand and kissed it softly and smiled as she sighed, contentedly. "You feeling better now?"

"Yeah, I suppose so," she said, wrapping her arms around him. "Feels kinda silly now, letting something like that get to me as much as it did."

He rubbed her back softly. "Nah, it's understandable hon, believe me. So... any ideas on what you might wanna cover that up with?"

18 glanced over at her daughter's door once more. She was her second chance, the ultimate proof of her humanity. The center of her world. Her eyes fell to the plaque on the door, taking in the letters of her daughter's name. 'M-A-R-R...'.

She smiled. "Yeah... I actually do." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once 18 had decided on her new design, Krillin had called up Bulma to see is she's had any ideas on how they could get this done; 18's skin was near-unbreakable, after all, and no normal needle was up to the task. Bulma had eagerly agreed to be of assistance and told them to come over the next day.

It had taken a moment for 18 to brace herself, going back into a sterile lab, laying down on a table, but the procedure had been shockingly swift, a matter of minutes, and it was over before she's realized. She handled it well, all things considered, though Krillin's hand was a bit sore by the time it was over. He smiled at her. "See? That wasn't too bad." He leaned over and gently pecked her nose. "I'm proud of you, babe."

18 nodded and hopped off the slab, walking over to the mirror to examine the new ink, as Krillin turned to speak to Bulma.

"Thanks for the assist, Bulma," Krillin said. "This really means a lot."

The blue-haired Capsule Corp heiress brushed her gloves off on her overalls and lifted her face shield. "Oh, no worries. I had a free day today, and I'd been meaning to test this puppy out." She patted the side of the machine. "I got a custom order from a dinosaur rancher asking for something capable of inking numbers into his livestock, but he never showed up with a test subject so I never got to see if it worked. Just a matter of coding in the design and letting the computer do its thing!"

Krillin blinked. "Wait, did you just use my wife as a guinea pig?"

The heiress chuckled and waved him off. "Don't think of it like that. I never would have offered to do this if I wasn't 100% sure it was safe."

"I gotta admit, I never knew there were dinosaur ranchers out there..."

"Oh... yeah." Bulma scratched her cheek. "I mean, there aren't anymore, but..."

He raised his eyebrows. Oh. I...oh."

"Yeeeeah." She laughed nervously. "Turns out there's probably a reason that profession isn't very common, huh?" She glanced over at 18. "So, whaddya think?"

18 gazed at the small tattoo in the mirror. The red ribbon had been altered to resemble a small red butterfly, and letters added in the same font to now read "MARRON". It was a minor change, but it suited her perfectly. Red Ribbon's mark had been a symbol of the humanity stolen from her; this would be a reminder of what had proven to her that they never had.

She felt Krillin's hand slip into hers and smiled, warmly.

"It's perfect."

#chestnutfest2k21 #chestnutisland #Krillin #Android 18 #K18 #Kuripachi #Android18 #Android Eighteen #Dragon Ball #Dragon Ball Z #Dragon Ball Super #DB #DBZ #DBS #Dragonball #Dragonball Z

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charming-2d-boys · 4 years

Text

Adultrio with children (Illumi Version)

By the way, this one’s veeeery long, but I had too much fun 😅

You have been warned!

so, despite the usual push from the family for more future little assassins, Illumi isn’t really that thrilled by the idea

he seems like the type of person whose eyes and actions don’t really stray when he’s outside, especially on a mission or errand, whether personal or professional

that being said, the most likely way you’re going to meet Illumi is through others, whether that someone is Hisoka or his own family (but he doesn’t really trust Hisoka’s judgment when it comes to introducing someone to him, especially with the intent of getting together)

so, the family is the only viable option of meeting

Zeno is the one who comes up with a new option after several failed ones brought up by Silva and Kikyo

you, the granddaughter of an old friend and former partner of his, who used to be in charge of gathering information on the targets (not really a partner per se, but they participated in several missions together and became friends over the years)

smart, cute, close in age to Illumi and seemingly a lot more… empathetic and emotional-looking than our dear pincushion boy (who isn’t, though?)

Illumi is told about this and despite being asked for his opinion, it’s already decided nonetheless

unlike all the other candidates who were all asked - more like forced - into meeting formally and at the Zoldyck estate, you insist on meeting in a more casual place and fashion

Illumi, along with Kikyo, remain a bit shocked - Kikyo more than him because the audacity, but also the courage~

Silva doesn’t really care as long as they meet and Zeno laughs because he was expecting this from all the stories about you and your stubbornness and actions throughout the years that he heard from your grandfather

and it is settled: meeting in a quaint, little cat café in the town nearby, a little bit before lunch, no one else from your families except the two of you - coming with the promise that if you saw/sensed anyone keeping an eye on you two, you’d leave immediately and refuse any sort of contact from the family (again, shock because not many get to demand anything from the Zoldycks, but it seems that they already have a good feeling about you)

Illumi dresses up in some casual clothes (still with the flame pattern 🙄) and heads out, getting a pat on the back from Zeno and a good luck

when he enters the establishment and looks around, he sees you, next to a bookcase, with a very big and fluffy peach-coloured cat in your lap, both relaxed and watching the others around you

your eyes lock with Illumi’s when you sense his aura and you smile, beckoning him closer - cue Illumi raising an eyebrow because you’re not getting up to greet him and that’s rude, but he understands when you explain that you had to coax that cat with food and headpats for like 5 minutes until it stayed in your lap

so, he sits down next to you, petting the cat in your lap when its large, round, green eyes stare at him and next thing you know, you’ve got almost half of the other cats in the café flocking to Illumi, sitting on his lap and around him and purring loudly

the other customers can only stare, too afraid of his expressionless face to complain and when they see that the cats aren’t leaving him and returning to them, they’re slowly trickling out of the café until it's only the two of you (one of the staff members, who was apparently pushed by the other to come and talk to you, is quickly told, by you, that you’ll pay more by the end of the day to cover whatever losses they might acquire from the lack of clients, which makes them leave you two hurriedly)

you can only laugh when he stares at the cats and the empty room, then at you, almost clueless as to why you’re laughing

but you start talking and discover that you really like spending time with him

you talk about your families, your dreams, because he says that he doesn’t have any (liar), friends (again, liar) etc.

you really like that he cares about his family, even if it’s a bit twisted (good intentions, bad plan, especially when it comes to Killua)

since he was forced by his family to respect the tradition and become an assassin, he’s surprised when he finds out that despite the possibility of following the family tradition, you’re also allowed to make your own decisions, as long as you talk about them with your family

something that amuses you a lot is when Illumi receives a message from someone called Pain-in-the-Ass Clown, saying How’s your date going, Illumi-chan? ⭐ ￣ ∀ ￣ 💧

and he explains that it’s someone really annoying who always bothers him

So, not your friend?

Never.

anyway, that was one of the first of many dates, with Illumi almost always letting you choose, mostly because you knew he’d choose some really fancy place and you wanted to have fun with him and get to know him naturally

despite his lack of expressions, he is having fun and likes that you’re happy (appreciates the fact that you are so... lively, you’re like complete opposites and apparently fit like two puzzle pieces)

Zeno is the one who pretty much declares that you’re the OTP

one of your dates definitely consisted in the two of you going on a mission together, just to see how you’d get along in a professional situation

100/10, no dilly-dally, professional from the beginning to the end of the mission, but you laughed and teased Illumi about how serious he was - as if it was just another normal day of meeting up after work... not after killing someone

the marriage proposal is more and more prominent in Illumi’s head and the rest of the Zoldycks and he’s wracking his brain trying to think of how to ask you

the two of you have bought an apartment and moved in to get used to living together and it’s going pretty well (definitely took a bit of convincing to get Illumi to agree, but he feels so human and happy with you that he just can’t say no and even his mother likes you, somewhat)

some nights are spent inside, watching movies, playing board games (he beats you here), video games (Illumi sucks at those) or cooking (he’s mostly watching and trying to remember everything, but man, too much work, he’s used to his butlers), while others involve you two going to bookstores, cafes, the zoo, even concerts/festivals

so, he decides on something that he read about on the holy Internet: Illumi had gone out that day and told you he’d come by later, but he actually bought you a puppy, who, as soon as it was put down, ran into the house when you squealed and picked it up to nuzzle it while it licked your face and wagged its tail; your fingers felt something on its collar and when you saw a ring, you froze, looking at Illumi without saying a word

he slowly approached you, face as expressionless as always (but he was so, SO nervous) and took the ring off the collar, getting on one knee and saying that you’ve made him feel happier and more human during those few months with you than he’s ever felt in all those years and he hopes that you’ll be willing to share your life with him and allow him to make sure you’ll always feel happy and loved

cue the tears because Illumi’s never said so many heartfelt words in one day and you’d be a monster to say no and extinguish that little sparkle of happiness in his eyes

so you put your puppy down and hug him tightly, kissing his face until he actually cracks a smile when the puppy whines because it wants your attention too

the wedding? Beautiful.

you? Gorgeous.

Illumi? He’s never been happier in his entire life

Hisoka cries at the wedding and is chosen as his best-man, along with Illumi’s brothers (even Killua accepted, especially after noticing the positive change you brought in the family and Illumi)

Alluka is your maid of honour along with Kalluto, because those two are attracted to you like moths to a flame

the reception is memorable, with various friends and family members congratulating you two and wishing you a long and happy marriage

things settle down a bit for a few weeks afterwards, especially after the honeymoon (which was spent somewhere where you could both enjoy some private time away from everyone as a newlywed couple)

and the biggest surprise was finding out that you’re pregnant (lucky~, that’s what Hisoka said when you texted him because yeah, you remained friends, somehow)

Illumi actually hugged you when you told him and kissed you because he was ecstatic

you definitely sat him down and told him that you need to talk with his family so they don’t get any ideas about torturing your child or children since you want them to have a normal, happy childhood

while a bit against it because that’s how he and all his siblings were raised, he definitely understands that it’s not only his decision to make and that he actually doesn’t really want anyone to go through what they did (especially after seeing that yes, even without training like his you can still be powerful and smart and somehow, his)

so, he agrees and tells the rest of the family (Zeno knew what your thoughts would be and never said anything, while Kikyo would probably be on the verge of having a stroke and Silva wouldn’t really care because they have Killua)

they can’t do much in terms of making you accept, especially because you don’t live at the estate and Illumi is loyal to his family, but now he’s got his own and he chooses you and your baby in the end

despite a few arguments with the Zoldycks, *cough* Kikyo *cough*, you still have the support of pretty much everyone else in the family and your own, so you actually can support yourselves just fine

Illumi insists on going shopping for baby clothes with you and is already looking at the variety of toys (he’s not gonna admit that he can’t wait to play with them when he’s spending time with his child because he wasn’t really allowed to have many toys or play with them so they wouldn’t make him stray from his path as an assassin)

likes talking to the baby bump and even sings to it (he’s got a beautiful singing voice and the baby always kicks when he sings something they like, which Illumi always take into account)

protective as hell whenever you’re out and about together and pretty much never lets you leave alone until you have a small argument that you can take care of yourself, after which he lets you be, but still insists on being called once an hour just to make sure and to have his heart put at ease

doesn’t even want to think about your weird craving because eww, some of them are gross (you know it, he knows it, the baby doesn’t care and when you’re hungry, neither do you)

will be there when you’re giving birth because he just wants to meet the baby faster and when he does, he smiles because there they are, his little bundle of joy

just stands and is fascinated by how small the baby is and how cute and squishy they look

it’s a girl, btw

almost always tells you to go to sleep when the baby wakes up in the middle of the night, especially because he can’t really sleep and he’s too happy and excited, plus he knows how tired you are

the baby’s first words are definitely dada and her little hands were just desperately reaching out to him (you practised with her whenever you could because you know how enamoured he is with his little girl)

Illumi actually breathed in deeply so he wouldn’t feel like crying anymore and just hugged you both while your daughter was patting his cheek

she inherits his long, black hair and they both spend the most amount of time in the bathroom taking care of it and brushing it

you’re the only one allowed to touch and braid their hair

she definitely likes all her uncles and aunts because they’re all so nice and doting and funny (Hisoka and Killua), while great-grandpa Zeno spoils her rotten

yes, Silva and Kikyo love her a lot as well, but inside they still want her to follow into their footsteps

you laugh at Illumi’s surprised face when your daughter asks you two for a brother or sister

oh boy... he’s gonna die from the cuteness and joy all these babies of yours are going to bring him

THAT was a lot, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless!

#hxh #hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter x reader #hunter x reader #illumi #illumi zoldyck #illumi x reader #illumi zoldyck x reader #hxh illumi #hxh writing

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

Text

The Fight

CW: Ableism against a child, references to attempted noncon/assault of a survivor, religious references to the Bible, conditioning, trauma recovery, trauma response

TIMELINE: Immediately post-Creepy Pet Lib Guy. Links in piece.

She hears his footsteps, the soft motion of him through the living room and into the den, where a single lamp is on in the corner on the side table next to the old couch Paul never could bear to throw out. Ronnie doesn’t look over at him, instead picking at a bit of duct tape affixed over a ripped spot while sipping her beer straight from the bottle.

There’s a show on the television - they have a new one finally, but Ronnie’s never thrown out a damn thing that wasn’t broken just because it got replaced and she’s not about to start now, so she moved it in here - but she’s not watching it. Not even sure what the show is, only that the laugh track is tinny and never seems timed to the moments of actual humor.

The house is mostly silent, this late at night. There’s no sound but the occasional gurgle from the ice machine in the fridge, the soft hum of electronics that she never notices except when the power goes out, and then only because of its sudden absence.

No sound but the television’s off-key laughter and the footsteps of her son, creeping up behind her.

“Mommy?” His voice is so high and soft, fuzzy with sleepiness, and she turns with a tired smile to see him dragging his favorite blanket behind him along the floor. It’s a quilt she bought at a church’s Christmas market when he was two, and it had buttons sewn in with the patches, giving the cats the quilt is decorated with three-dimensional button eyes.

His face is rounded and so like his father’s, even so, his face and eyes and his hair are all Paul’s, through and through. He’s an echo, a clone of his father, in a lot of ways… up to and including navigating a world that has already labeled him as difficult, and he’s only six years old.

“Hey, baby. What are you doing up?” She’s twenty-three with a six year old son, and doesn’t that seem strange, some days? So many of her friends from high school are still out until dawn, posting photos of their drunken shenanigans on Facebook, and here Ronnie sits… twenty-three, with a husband who works nights, and a six-year-old son whose teacher calls him hopeless, right to his fucking face.

“I, I, I had a bad dream,” He says, and his eyes are so, so big in his small round face. Paul’s eyes are like that, big and green and soulful. She’d fallen into them, her junior year, and she’d never wanted to climb back out. No matter that her friends thought he was weird, no matter that yeah, okay, he is weird - he’s her kind of weird, and she and Paul understood each other right from the start.

“Oh, no.” She pats the couch cushion beside her and he clambers almost eagerly up to tuck himself in beside her. Her throat nearly closes as he carefully spreads his blanket out to cover them both, the simple gesture of care and love. How do you look this boy in the eyes and tell him he can’t do something? “What was your bad dream about, do you want to tell me?”

“Monsters,” He says, as if that single word relays all the information she could possibly need. Maybe it does, really - at least the monsters her son dreams about are easier to vanquish than the ones Ronnie has to help him learn how to face on his own as he grows.

“Good thing I monster-proofed this house before we moved in,” Ronnie teases. She moves her arm around his shoulders and he smiles, faintly, eyes closing as he leans his head against her collarbone, his ear right where he’s always wanted it, ever since birth - over her heart. Listening to her heartbeat. Sure enough, his fingers find their way to her stomach and start to tap in time with it, and Ronnie sips her beer again.

“Monsters aren’t, aren’t, aren’t real, actually,” He says, speaking quietly and without opening her eyes, and Ronnie thinks if her six-year-old well, actuallys her one more time… she read all the parenting books and has a whole shelf of parenting memoirs she’s picked up and not a single one mentioned that little kids are fucking know-it-alls. Not one.

“Well, if they’re not real, then why are you buggin’ Mommy at midnight because of dreaming about them, huh?” She keeps her voice light and affectionate, just this side of teasing. Tristan doesn’t react well to any kind of perceived anger or rejection, moping for a day or more around while his brain tries to process that she didn’t stop loving him just because he did something that bothered her. Tris as a toddler broke her heart more than once with terrified insistence that you, you, you don’t even like me anymore after time-outs or discipline.

He’s just being manipulative, her mother had said once, but Ronnie knew better.

He’s three years old, Mom. He’s not trying to manipulate me, he’s scared.

He’s just doing what works, Veronica, you can’t always give in to it.

Mom. He is a little boy. Do you realize how you sound?

Now his teacher is repeating the same tired circular logic that cycles round and round her son without ever seeing him. Ronnie is staring down the barrel of another round of meetings, talking to administrators to try and get around the teacher’s rigidity and hostility, arguing for Tris to get moved into a new class, and all the while he’ll fall further and further behind in his in-class work - while at home he rockets through the homeschooling workbooks she buys, a six-year-old already doing second-grade reading and writing work, first-grade math, obsessed with a kid show about science that they have to watch every single day or he has seriously informed her he might die.

The knowledge is there, and his love of learning hasn’t been throttled by school yet, and Ronnie can’t do anything but try to work within a system that tells her that her son needs to be changed or cured in order to not be kept locked away from everyone else.

Monsters are pretty fucking real, in Ronnie’s experience.

One day her son will have to learn that all the monsters are human beings.

God, she’s so tired of fighting, and so very aware that she’s not going to stop until the whole damn world remakes itself to give space for Tristan, until the world deserves how unreservedly her son loves it.

She takes another drink, then sets the beer bottle carefully down on the coaster - she ordered them last year, and they all have little stylized drawings of the three of them on it, faceless sketches of a man, a woman, a child - man and child red-headed, woman with brown hair.

When she’d gotten the positive pregnancy test, right before Thanksgiving her junior year, she’d thrown up and cried for a week and been sullen and silent at the holiday table, trying to figure out what to do next.

But Paul had never hesitated. When she told him, his response had been to go home to his dad and ask to start working part-time with the Garden, running packages he never looked into, playing lookout outside of bars while the Garden met inside. His first pay - cash handed to him in an envelope - he’d spent some of it on a onesie, a baby blanket, and a stuffed puppy with fur so soft Ronnie could barely stand the fluff.

Then he’d spent some more on ginger chews and ‘Preggo Pops’, lollipops that were supposed to help with Ronnie’s morning sickness, and three books on pregnancy for her and one book on becoming a dad for him.

Paul did what Paul always did - took one look at a cliff he had to cross and simply leapt headfirst and hoped for the best. That impulsiveness that she loved and that had gotten him in so much trouble in life, the enthusiasm that carried her long with it.

There are monsters in the world, Ronnie thinks, running fingers through her son’s fine, soft hair. But there are people who help you fight the monsters, too. Even if the monster is just the stares from other students at school as her stomach grew, the way her friends’ parents stopped letting her come to their houses, the thin-lipped disapproval of the principal handing her a high school diploma as she half-waddled across the stage, refusing to be shamed, engagement ring on her finger. Even if the monster is a world that tries to shove her son into boxes that he can’t fit into, or a teacher who sends him home in tears convinced he’s too stupid to learn anything.

Her jaw sets.

Veronica Higgs has been headstrong since birth, and she’s never made a decision she didn't follow through on. Never turned away from a fight. She’s not about to start now, not when it’s her son.

Ronnie has never turned away from the sweet baby that had looked at her with such dark-eyed seriousness when he was born, the infant who cried for reasons Ronnie couldn't’ fathom, the toddler who screamed that the lights at Target hurt his skin, the little boy who lined up dinosaurs and cars and toy horses in perfect color gradients, the boy who rocks in her arms and hums when he’s happy, the boy she hopes will one day be able to live on his own without her, because…

Because if only Paul and Ronnie are going to fight for him, then they’re going to have to be a fight so fierce that everyone else can’t possibly hold out against them.

The doctors said he might not talk - and he talks a mile-a-minute, about any-fucking-thing that comes into his mind. They said he wouldn’t make friends easily, but he goes on sleepovers with his gymnastics buddies, just went to a party at Chuck E. Cheese with a little preparation so he wasn’t scared of the games and lights and noise when he got there. They said he would struggle in school, and-

Well, he does. But only because of the adults who refuse to understand that Tris learns just fine… if you let him listen in his own way.

“Hey, Tris?” She smiles down at him and he turns those big green eyes up to her. There’s a chapped spot on his lower lip that looks like he might have messed with it until it opened into a sore, and she reminds herself to get some vaseline on it. “You want to stay here with me for a bit? We’ll watch one of your shows, and then back to bed. How’s that sound?”

He smiles at her, and nods a little, still tapping along to her heartbeat. “Oh, oh, okay, Mom. Can, can, can… can-can… can we watch Dino King?”

“Yeah, sure.” Ronnie hates that show, but really - he loves it, and it’s one night, and she could use the way his open, brilliant happiness helps her forget that he’s going to have to work harder and harder to hold onto it as he grows.

She picks up the remote, brings up the menu, switches to a streaming network, and listens to the grating, familiar theme song start to play as her son’s eyes move contentedly to the screen.

He watches the show, but he never takes his head away from her heartbeat.

---

Natalie Yoder has had easier nights than this one, that’s for fucking sure. She leans over the kitchen table, papers spread out in front of her, trying to figure out where they went wrong. This is one of their biggest grants, it’s a bit of funding that she has always relied on, and… denied approval for the upcoming fiscal year.

Thousands of dollars she needs to feed and clothe and house her rescues, gone up in smoke, denied with a bloodless email and no ability to fight back, not for this one. Not this year. It could be a simple error, something she overlooked, sure. Or maybe the association that gives out the grants is suspicious of her story about transitioning homeless people into permanent housing, which really is exactly what she’s doing, isn’t it?

Just… not the kind of homeless people the grant givers are imagining.

She’ll have to call Vince to beg for him to help her fill in the gap, and that will mean time for him to speak with his finance guy and get another couple of shell companies to funnel the money through so it doesn’t go back to him. He’ll give it to her, to be sure - Vince could give her the money to run this place flat out for the rest of his life and still be one of the wealthiest men in America, thanks to his low-key lifestyle and strong work ethic meaning he spends more time filming or producing than he does doing anything else.

Nat knows why Vince doesn’t want to be home, to sit up alone with a bottle or a glass in his hand. She knows his work ethic is simply escaping the demons that will never stop haunting his footsteps, what he traded away for his success, what he lost, what the money and fame can protect him from but can’t remove the stamp of it already written over his soul.

He’s famous, and rich, and Owen Grant can’t touch him now… but the tradeoff of Vince’s survival was that some innocent kid was abducted and turned, through drugs and torture and horrifying assault, into Kauri.

Kauri, who hasn’t answered the phone or sent a text in a week.

Not since that fucking group meeting where Chris was assaulted and Kauri stood up for him. Not since Kauri’s intuition that Kyle had some less-than-savory interest in Chris had proven correct, because… it wasn’t intuition at all.

It was experience.

Nat groans, rubbing her hands over her face, closing her eyes and reminding herself, teeth ground together, to try and stay calm. It’s not unusual for Kauri to disappear for a while, a week or more. It’s not a sign that something is wrong. He was hurt by Nat pushing him, he needs time to think.

He’ll pop right back up again, smiling like nothing happened, like he isn’t giving Nat gray hairs (well, new ones, anyway) trying to tell herself he’ll be okay.

All she can do is trust that he’ll come back when he’s ready.

... and castigate herself for letting that fucking predator get close to Chris without picking up on what he was planning, and for not realizing Kauri wasn’t just being overprotective of a younger rescue, but - in his own way - waving giant red flags that Nat, and Jake, and everyone else just didn’t see.

That, and then losing the grant, have made for one hell of a fucking week.

Nat takes deep breaths. Her hands smell like dish soap and a hint of the roasted garlic she’d put in the soup for supper lingering. The kitchen still smells like the garlic, roasted parsnips and rosemary. Chris had never had parsnips before-

Not that anyone knows if he really hasn’t or not.

“Oh, Nat, you are a mess tonight,” She mutters to herself. “Just full-on moping, huh? That’s how we’re gonna play it?”

Then she hears the soft scrape of a foot on the tile and looks up, blinking, to see Chris in the doorway, leaning against the wood of the frame, the big purple fuzzy blanket she’d gotten him a few weeks back wrapped around his narrow shoulders, the hints of faded muscle that still linger there. Usually he’s draped in Jake’s clothes but tonight he’s only wearing his basketball shorts, no shirt at all.

The rare glimpse of so much of Chris’s skin - she hasn’t seen so much of him since the night he arrived in the pouring rain - tells Nat more than anything else that Chris isn’t okay, either.

“Hey, Chris. What’s up, sweetheart?” Nat glances over at the oven, squinting at the clock, and then groans. “Jesus, it’s nearly 2 am. I lost track of time, I guess.”

Chris doesn’t move from the doorway, not at first. He’s gone quiet again, since the assault, regressing back into periods of stillness and silence that they were so sure he’d gotten past. Jake says he’s testing again, trying to push Jake and Antoni into repeating the patterns that were tortured into his mind as normal, reacting with relief at their rejections - and then testing again, within hours, reminding himself that they’ll never say yes.

Nat looks at him, the shadows under his green eyes, and tries, “Did you have a nightmare?”

He slowly nods, and she watches his hands twist a little into the soft fabric of his blanket, rhythmically twisting to the side and back, nearly invisible with how well he can hide what he does to soothe himself, a skill taught in all the worst ways, learned in a desperate attempt to keep himself sane.

“Hm. I can see that. Was it about the meeting, the other night?”

His eyes dance away from hers, move to the ceiling, and he’s staring upwards at the rough texture up there as he nods, chewing on his lower lip with his top teeth, worrying at a spot that she knows he’ll eventually work to bleeding, sooner or later. He pauses and says, softly, “Kauri… didn’t come find me. That was, was my... my dream. And... it. It hurt.”

His voice, slow drips of speech, hits Nat like a knife to the heart. She nods, slowly, and pushes herself up, chair scraping back across the tile. Chris flinches minutely at the sound, curling a little into himself. “I understand, sweetheart,” She says, softly. “I’m so sorry we didn’t know sooner.”

She thinks, looking at him, of Daniel in the lion’s den, an old Bible story that’s never left her. Daniel trusted God and walked out unscathed, but she’s always thought maybe he wasn’t quite as unscathed as the Bible wants you to think he was.

It’s one thing to have faith that you’ll survive being thrown in with monsters - it’s another to be so inhuman that you don’t wake with nightmares, for months or years after, that you were never saved at all. She is certain, deep down inside of her, that Daniel dreamed of a lion’s teeth and a promise broken, a prayer unheard.

The stories talk about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in a furnace walking out of the flames untouched, but of course the flames had still touched them. Scars aren’t always written openly on your skin.

Of course they dreamed of flames scorching their skin, curling their hair, smoke stealing breath from their lungs. They, like Daniel, must have woken gasping, certain that their faith had been misplaced, that their trust that someone stood between them and the monsters who would destroy them had been betrayed.

They must have breathed, panting, in the middle of the night, and sworn they could still see the smoke in the air, feel the heat against their skin.

They must have needed to come fully awake to remember - and believe - that they had been rescued. They must have needed the reminder.

Chris has no scars from walking with monsters - all his scars are inside his head. Chris’s scars come in his fear that she will not want him, that no one really wants him, when he can’t fight back or say no or defend himself, when he needs someone else to be his defense, to go to war. They come in his insistent, constant testing of Jake, pushing to see if it’s all been a lie, if they only want to use him the way he has been taught he is made to be used.

“Kauri was smarter than any of the rest of us,” Nat says, feeling suddenly exhausted. “We should have listened. I shouldn’t have had to step in. You deserved better.”

Chris deserves a fucking angel to lead him untouched out of the flames.

All he has is Jake - and Nat.

She fills a saucepan with cold milk while he watches her, his eyes on her back a tangible, palpable weight, and pops a lid on, turning the dial until the flames flicker up from the burner to start heating it to a simmer.

“I’m going to have hot chocolate the old fashioned way,” She announces, pulling down a bag with some discs of melting chocolate in it. They cost too much and mostly nobody notices the difference, but tonight… tonight, she thinks the extra effort is worth it. “You want whipped cream on yours, when it’s done?”

“Yes, please,” He whispers, and she looks over at him with a small smile. His hair is mussed still from sleep, a hint of red on his cheek where he must have had it pressed into a pillow. His freckles stand out in the thin light of the kitchen’s overhead light fixture.

Next door, at Miss Ruth’s, a light turns on, and Nat glances through her own window to see it. Jaden, probably - that kid sleeps about as little as Chris does.

“Well, good, because I’m having some, too.” She pauses, leaning her back against the kitchen counter. There’s a long silence that draws out between them. The milk heats, bubbling just the tiniest bit around the edges in the saucepan, and Nat carefully drops in the chocolate discs to melt whisking until the liquid is a rich brown, thickened, ready for her to pour carefully into two mugs and top with the spray-bottle whipped cream she keeps in the fridge.

Nat sets the mugs down on the kitchen table, pulling Chris a chair up right next to hers. He relaxes a little at the tacit, silent request for closeness, drops into his chair with a slight smile playing over his face. He picks up the mug with both hands and takes a sip, getting whipped cream at the end of his nose, wiping it off with a scrunched-up expression that lifts some of the fatigue that dogs Nat’s muscles in the early-morning hours.

“I know the dreams are scary,” Nat says softly, reaching out to lay a hand on his back. He looks over at her, with those giant green eyes in his narrow face, searching for something in her. Maybe just for certainty that the promises she’s made to him will be kept. “But Kauri did come to help you. And you’re safe here, with us. We’ll always come for you, Chris, no matter what.”

He leans over, with slow inevitability, until the top of his head brushes against her neck, his head just at her collarbone. She lets her arm slide around his shoulders, her hand moving to run fingers slowly through his fine, soft coppery hair. “I, I, I forgot how to say no,” He whispers, and presses his head against her.

“I know, honey. But that’s okay, we get back up and try again, right?” Nat sips her own hot chocolate slowly, and Chris holds his cupped warm in his palms, but even as he keeps taking sips, he doesn’t pull away from her. Eventually, he puts the mug back down on the table and shifts a little, so his ear is just over her heart.

“We, we, we try again,” He whispers. “But, but, but I don’t want to, to, to, I don’t-... want to be, um, to be scared again, to… have someone-”

“I know.” Nat swallows, her throat closing, briefly, but she fights it back and keeps her voice - and her hand through his hair - steady as she speaks. “There are going to be bad people out there, Chris, who want to hurt you. But you’re not alone.”

She thinks again of Daniel, waking from nightmares of gnashing teeth, maybe kicking off blankets and pacing a room, his skin written invisibly with the aftermath of a terror that never punctured skin. She thinks of three men in a fire, dreaming again and again that the fourth never arrived to lead them out of the flames.

She thinks of promises made, and kept. Prayers spoken in desperation, and answered, although so often far too late.

She thinks of the prayers for mercy, in the cold white rooms, that are never heard at all.

She’s tired, but she loves them - all of them, who have passed through her doors and gone on to other places - and she can’t imagine being anything but their army, their defense, the wall they can hide behind to rebuild themselves until they fight on their own.

Not on their own, though, never really on their own.

She may never know what happened to him, to bring him here to her doorstep - but she knows that he doesn’t have to face the monsters, the flames, the danger alone. Not anymore.

“You’re safe here,” She says, gently, and turns her head to rest her chin on top of his head. “You’re safe here, and loved, and there’s nothing we won’t do to make sure you’re safe. Whatever comes at you, sweetheart, we’ve got you. And we’ll fight it for you, every time, until you can fight for yourself.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then he asks, in a whisper, “Do, do, do you you-you promise?”

“Promise, Chris. Cross my heart and hope-”

“Don’t-... don’t say the, the end of it.” His voice weakens. “Please.”

“Sorry, sweetie.” She tightens the arm around his shoulders a little, and feels him snuggle closer in response, a low sigh of relief at the reassurance in the embrace. “Swear on everything. I’ve got you, and Jake has got you, and we’re not gonna disappear. I don’t-... I don’t know if we can always save the day for you, Chris, but I can promise you that we will always try.”

He hums, eyes closing. One of his hands slides over her stomach, and begins - slight, soft, barely-there - to tap.

It takes Nat a few seconds to realize that he is tapping along to the beat of her heart.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker, @boxboysandotherwhump , @oops-its-whump @moose-teeth , @cubeswhump , @cupcakes-and-pain @whump-tr0pes @whumpiary @orchidscript, @itallcomesdowntopain

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fishoutofcamelot · 4 years

Text

Pokemon AU because why not

Arthur: he would be one of those trainers who obsessively calculates which Pokemon would best balance his team. His main companion was a Shelmet when he was a little kid, but his dad convinced him to give up his beloved Shelmet with the idea that Shelmets were too weak and that he needed something more befitting of his father's legacy. Uther wants him to focus on Fighting-Types so he can one day inherit his father's gym, but Arthur feels like restricting himself to just one type is very imbalanced and would ruin his chances of success. Growlithe is his new companion, but he always secretly keeps an eye out for Shelmets

Gwen: she would catch all the ugly and unpopular ones. When asked about her reasoning for this she says, "if i dont love them, who will?" and then cries as she hugs her Alolan Muk, which she named Sweetie Pie. Unassuming in that you think she won't be hard competition, but the next thing you know her Drowsee has knocked out three of your pokemon and you're all out of Potions

Morgana: the Dark-Type gym leader. She was supposed to take her father's place as leader for his Fight-Type gym, but she's rebellious and edgy and somehow even more competitive than Arthur. Her main companion is a Spiritomb

Merlin: a member of the Elite Four. He likes to hang around Arthur and make fun of him for having taken on the Elite Four about 17 times now, but every time he loses to Merlin. Since Arthur used to be mean to him when they were kids, Merlin considers this poetic justice. Now you probably think he's got all Dragon-Types, being a dragonlord? Nope! In this au, Merlin himself is a rare shapeshifting Dragon-Type pokemon called Emrys (doesn't exist in the canon pokedex, just thought it'd be a cool idea) that has taken the form of a human - of course, Merlin isn't aware of this and thinks he's actually human. Its for this reason that he is uncannily in-tune with his Pokemon, a factor that contributes greatly to his status as the hardest Elite Four member to beat. His team is comprised of cutesie Fairy-Types - but then all of them are heavy-hitting powerhouses. So basically not only is Arthur's Machamp getting K.O'd in one hit, but its getting K.O'd in one hit by a frickin Rhibombee. Merlin finds this absolutely hilarious. His main companion is a Psych/Fairy type called Hatterene. He sucks at naming things and usually names them after the main color of their body

Elyan: his original intention was to do all Normal-Types, but then he learned about the tragic past of how Phantumps are made (souls of lost children possessing tree stumps), and now he exclusively adopts catches Phantumps bc Protective Older Brother Mode: Activated

Gwaine: Fighting-Type. The Fighting-Type gym used to belong to his father until Uther bought it out, something that made his father so upset that he fell ill from stress and later passed away. Gwaine became a drifter, wanting nothing to do with the lifestyle that killed his dad, until he meets Merlin and Merlin teaches him the value of forming friendships with Pokemon. His companion is now a Blaziken named Weed

Lancelot: he scolds the others for being so aesthetic-based with their Pokemon bc that's bad for building a balanced team, but then when you look at his team its just all sword/knight-themed Pokemon. All of them. Except for his main companion, which is a Milotic that was a gift from Merlin

Leon: he takes the Nuzlocke approach - catch the first pokemon you encounter in each new area, let them go when they faint in battle. He has somehow managed to beat the Elite Four with just a Houndoom and an Eggsecutor

Percival: he only has one Pokemon, bc he feels like that's all he needs. He just has one sole Aron, but since he couldn't think of a name he let Gwaine do it for him (which is why its name is 69)

Gaius: another member of the Elite Four. His team is mostly Poison-Type. His main companion is a Gloom, but his Toxicroak is one tough customer. Used to be the Poison-Type gym leader, but decided to retire and gave the gym to Merlin. But then Merlin gave it to some kid named Daegal, much to Gaius's chagrin. The main reason he's so hard to beat is bc he uses so many goddamn Potions

Mordred: he's just a small child starting out on his first big adventure, with a trusty Charmander by his side. He grew up in the foster system, but he has fond memories of the Alakazam that once belonged to one of his foster parents. He hopes to catch an Alakazam as well some day, or really any Psychic-type. He also follows Arthur around like a lost puppy

Gilli: Fire-Type gym leader. His companion is a Centiskorch

Freya: Pokemon breeder with an incredibly vicious Purrloin as her companion. She's the only one the Purrloin - named Cow, for some reason - is nice to. Her dynamic with Arthur is pretty much the "it don't bite" meme

Mithian: a trainer whose father wants her to inherit his Normal-Type gym, but she ran away from home to pursue her dreams. What those dreams are tho, she's not entirely sure yet. She just knows she doesn't want to be a gym leader. Her method of battle mostly involves a lot of stat-changing/HP-draining moves that drive Arthur absolutely ballistic

Elena: doesn't keep pokemon due a traumatic incident in her childhood involving a Grimmsnarl, but makes sure to show up to all of her gf Mithian's battles for support!

Will: you bet your ass he's Arthurs rival. He saw Arthur be a jerk to Merlin when they were all kids and decided to become his sworn enemy. He doesn't stick to any particular type, just whatever he thinks looks cool. His lack of effort when it comes to balancing his team makes Arthur very, very frustrated - especially whenever Will beats him in a battle (which doesn't happen often, but enough for Will to feel properly vindicated). His main companion is a Shieldon that his dad helped him catch when he was a kid, a few months before his father died

#merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #bbcm #fish post

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agentlemuse · 4 years

Note

i was thinking about a buddie prompt where eddie gives buck puppy eyes (role reverse haha) to get him to make his fav dessert or something idk!! love your writing :)))

His body has betrayed him.

He supposes he can’t be too mad, it has been awhile since it decided to break down. Eddie can’t even remember the last time he was sick enough to admit he was actually sick. El Paso, if he had to guess. Before Shannon left. That’s right, she took Chris and stayed at his parents’ house so they wouldn’t catch whatever he caught. Seems so long ago now.

The thing is, he doesn’t have time to be sick. Even if he can spare a sick day from work that he purposefully reserves for Chris should he need him, he can’t exactly take time off from being a dad. He has to keep going, that’s the gig.

So trust his body to break down the day after Chris leaves for camp. His body may have betrayed him, but at least it has impeccable timing. That’s something, right?

Eddie spends the first night of Chris’ grand adventure away making a damn good attempt at coughing up his lungs. Sleep eludes him as he sweats through his sheets, the dampness of the fabric and the fever ravaging his body making his teeth chatter so hard he wakes up with a sore jaw. Doesn’t matter, he’s too nauseous to eat. He spends a good hour debating the pros and cons of laying on the cool tile floor to wait for death when Buck begins to blow up his phone.

“Look, you’ve had enough time to wallow,” Buck starts in, not bothering to wait for or offer a greeting when Eddie finally accepts the call. Eddie can’t help but grin, even as he buries his head further in his pillow. “I have given this a lot of thought and I’ve created an itinerary to keep us busy while Chris is away.”

“Can’t,” Eddie mumbles against his pillowcase, wincing at the scratchiness of his voice.

“...Why do you sound weird?”

“Dying,” Eddie states flatly, tensing against the latest round of coughing to wreak havoc on his throat.

“Are you sick,” Buck asks with concern even as Eddie coughs his confirmation. He can practically hear Buck thinking as the silence stretches for a moment. “Is someone coming to take care of you? Isabel?”

“I don’t want to get her sick.”

“I’m coming over.”

“Buck you don’t have to--” Eddie croaks, but Buck has already hung up. He should call him back. He should protest Buck risking his health and wasting his free day by taking care of him. He should do a lot of things, but he doesn’t. He knows Buck well enough to know he’d be wasting both of their time.

By the time he hears Buck’s key in the door he has dragged himself to the couch, wrapping himself up in as many blankets as he could find along the way. It may be the middle of summer, but he’s freezing. It’s the fever, he knows, but he doesn’t care. He’s cold and the blankets are comfy.

“Okay, I know you’re Mr. Tough Guy,” Buck starts in, geared up for a fight as he marches his way into the living room having clearly been practicing this speech in his head on the way over. “And I know you can take care of yourself, but it’s not going to kill you to accept some he--”

“Soup,” Eddie asks hopefully, interrupting Buck’s speech as he glances down at the bags in Buck’s hands. Buck looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut, all fight knocked out at him upon realizing Eddie isn’t going to protest his presence.

“I -- Uh, yeah. Chicken noodle. Bobby’s recipe.”

Eddie perks up a bit, pushing his face out of his blanket where he had burritoed himself in. “I like chicken noodle.”

Eddie likes to think he’s pretty good at reading Buck by now, but he’s not sure what to make of the soft expression that’s currently on Buck’s face. There’s a fondness there like when Chris hands him a piece of art he made, but something else. Something he can’t quite place. He blames his fever.

Buck gets to work on laying everything out, grabbing a bowl and spoon from the kitchen before filling a bowl up for Eddie to eat. As good as the soup smells, he’s reluctant to remove himself from his blanket, but he forces his arms out into the open air.

“You’re not wearing a shirt,” Buck observes, eyes trailing down his newly exposed skin, but surely isn’t bothering him. They’ve seen each other without their shirts plenty of times.

“I’m hot.”

“I can see that,” Buck grins, his knee tapping against Eddie’s own playfully. The back of Buck’s hand is cool against his forehead, which must explain the sudden shiver traveling down his spine. “Jesus Eddie, you really are burning up.”

Eddie shrugs, carefully swallowing sips of soup under Buck’s watchful eye. “Thanks for the soup.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something,” Eddie insists. Only one other person has ever made him soup when he was sick and that was his abuela when he was eight and she was in town visiting. No one has taken care of him when he was sick as an adult. He hasn’t asked, but a small part of him has always hoped someone would offer. Buck offered without prompting, so yeah, it’s definitely something. “The soup is really good. My compliments to the chef.”

Buck straightens at the praise, his smile now reaching his eyes in a way that makes his birthmark crinkle. It’s a good smile. He likes being the one to put it on Buck’s face.

“Eat up, we’ll have you feeling better in no time.”

He expects Buck to leave after he finishes eating, but instead he does the dishes before settling next to him on the couch. He expects Buck to leave when the sun starts to go down, but instead Buck runs his long fingers through Eddie’s sweaty hair without complaint, massaging his head until Eddie’s falling asleep under his touch. He expects him to leave as Eddie curls pitifully into bed, but he stays, bringing him fresh glasses of water and stroking his back as he hacks and wheezes throughout the night.

He expects Buck to leave, but he stays. He stays. He stays.

“Maybe tomorrow we can have ice cream?”

“Eddie, dairy will make your mucus thicker which will cause more draining and...Are you giving me puppy dog eyes?”

Yes, yes he was. In his defense, it always seems to work on Buck when Chris does it. Chris is much cuter and an actual child, but still.

“Please?”

“Eddie, I don’t think…”

“Please, Buck? It will make me feel better.” Buck sighs, but by lunchtime he has ice cream.

The look also gets him control of the remote, free head massages and the right to use Buck’s thigh as a human pillow. Or maybe it’s just because he’s sick. Either way, Buck doesn’t put up much of a fight, even when Eddie wipes his snot on Buck’s shirt to Buck’s absolute horror. It is almost worth the side cramp he gets from laughing and coughing so hard simultaneously.

“The kleenex are too far away.”

“They’re literally right there,” Buck exclaims, pointing towards the box sitting right in front of Eddie’s face.

“Your shirt is softer.”

“You’re disgusting.”

He is, but Buck still stays. He stays until Eddie can admit he doesn’t want Buck to go.

“I think your fever finally broke,” Buck says softly on the fourth day, his fingers moving from Eddie’s forehead to stroke through his hair. Eddie’s head rests on Buck’s thigh, still wrapped up in a pile of blankets as he lays out across the couch.

He was always going to get better. Buck was always going to leave. Still, he was hoping for a little bit longer. It’s selfish, but it’s there.

“Maybe, but you should stay a bit longer just to make sure,” Eddie ventures, voice soft as he stares ahead at the TV.

“You know, that’s probably not a bad idea.”

“And maybe, if you get sick, I could take care of you.” Eddie does look up at him then, blue eyes staring back down at him with that soft look he can’t quite place.

“I’d like that,” Buck grins, his birthmark crinkling as it reaches his eyes.

Buck doesn’t get sick for another four months, but when he does Eddie is there. Buck doesn’t even have to ask.

#buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #soft eddie #prompts #I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG #my stuff

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jalapeno-princess · 4 years

Text

Hey Santa

Mark Tuan X Reader

Word Count: 2.8K

Genre: Fluffity fluff

Summary: Christmas has always been your favorite holiday, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to be all that happy this year since your favorite person in the entire world is currently thousands of miles away on a business trip. However, Santa always seems to have a few tricks up his sleeve and this Christmas turns out not that bad after all.

The lights and festive decorations surrounded all throughout town were a constant reminder that Christmas was just around the corner—five days to be exact. As excited as you wish you could have been right now, especially because winter just so happened to be your favorite season and Christmas was your favorite holiday for many different reasons, you couldn’t find it in yourself to really get in to the Christmas spirit this year.

If anything, you felt like the grinch. Witnessing how happy everyone you were surrounded by—your family, friends and colleagues did make you feel the least bit jealous.

Just last year, you were the one trying to get everyone in to the Christmas spirit. You set up your Christmas tree in your apartment a week before Thanksgiving. You stayed up with your boyfriend Mark making dozens of different cookies to pass out, the two of you decorated the tree to the best of your abilities—or at least tried your best to.

You’d cuddle up on the couch together watching a bunch of your favorite Christmas movies and hummed along to some of the best Christmas songs; new and old while washing dishes or doing the laundry. Last year had to be the best year, especially because it was your first Christmas together as a couple.

He brought you to see the lights; something you’ve been indirectly hinting towards wanting to do, you brought him ice skating—one of the only activities you did better at than him, he invited you to go snowboarding and sledding with his family up in the mountains and on Christmas Day, he gave you the prettiest heart shaped necklace and told you he loved you for the first time after five months of dating.

Maybe it was because you had the time of your life the previous year with the man you called your soulmate and now you were miserable and lonely. Mark was currently away on a business trip in Japan, trying to secure one of the biggest business deals that could bring his company a lot of success.

You had a hard time understanding why his boss felt the need to send him just days away from Christmas but you didn’t want him knowing that it bothered you. Your boyfriend was one of the youngest department supervisors at one of the top technology companies in the country.

Not only was he extremely intelligent; graduating with his master’s degree in business at only 24-years-old, but he was very passionate in his field of work and he did anything and everything in his power to help bring the company as much publicity and prosperity as he possibly could. You admired his work ethic and how determined he was to excel in his career, but you would have preferred for him to be with you right now.

It was currently snowing in California and there was nothing more that you wanted than to be cuddled up in bed with Mark—a tangle of limbs underneath your blankets watching the snow fall against your window while drinking some hot chocolate and stealing sweet kisses from one another.

If Mark were to come home and saw how dull and empty the current state your apartment had been because you had no desire to do anything merry—he would have been upset. He loved Christmas as much if not just a little bit more than you did—so you were sure he wouldn’t have been too happy if he found out you were having such a horrible time.

On the day that he found out about his trip, he was visibly upset. He wasn’t as verbal as he was physical with you—clinging on to you like a sloth. Following you all around the apartment like a lost puppy and holding you in his embrace as you cooked dinner for the two of you. It was then—mid bite of his shrimp pasta—Mark admitted that he tried to prolong telling you about the trip because he knew you would be devastated.

Honestly, that had to be the understatement of the year. You were heartbroken beyond belief. This year, your grandparents were flying down for your younger cousin’s graduation and it’s been at least two years since you’ve seen them, so you expected this holiday season to be one for the books. However, you didn’t take his absence so lightly. Your boyfriend has left on business trips multiple times for weeks and even months on end.

Sure, you hated any moment spent without him by your side and talking to him through your phone and computer screens weren’t the same as having him there with you in person—but you did your best to be a supportive girlfriend by not showing an ounce of distress. It’s just that—Christmas came around once a year; you suffered through work and school; crying while staying up and studying for exams—being scolded at work for things that were out of your control. You waited all year for this one day and now it was ruined.

You hated the fact that you were acting so childish, there was nothing he could do. It wasn’t as if he could tell his higher ups that he didn’t want to go—no matter how much he didn’t want to. Mark even nonchalantly tried to reschedule the trip, but the director already purchased his ticket.

He made it a habit to call you right before a meeting, before he went to bed, right before you went to sleep and when you woke up in the morning. Hearing that Japan was decked out in Christmas decorations and how even their food was festive made you wish you could have taken off from work to be there with him. You didn’t care where you ended up spending the holidays, all you cared about was who you spent it with and the only person whose presence you craved the most was more than 5,000 miles away and 19 hours ahead of you.

Working at your family’s Christmas annual “Santa’s Workshop” that they held every year since before you were even born never failed to bring you so much joy. When your cousin was diagnosed with Leukemia when the two of you were only 6-years-old, your aunty decided after seeing all the children in the hospital not able to celebrate Christmas as they probably would have wanted to—that she would give them and their families a chance to have their own little private festival in one of the hospital ballrooms so that the kids could get a visit from Santa Claus along with toys that were donated from families all across of California. You loved being able to do something like this; you wanted to give back to the less fortunate and seeing the bright and hopeful smiles on all the adorable little children’s faces always seemed to make your heart flutter.

How could you be so selfish—letting the fact that Mark wasn’t there with you get in the way of your happiness when there were little ones who were suffering through some really tough battles. But you were only human; you hardly ever got to see Mark as it was—and that said a lot considering that you lived together. His job took up most of his time and you did your best to hide the fact that being his second priority bothered you.

Trying to take on more hours at work in order to take your mind off of the distance in your relationship wasn’t enough to cover up how much you were falling apart at the seams. Mark Tuan was the love of your life—your life revolved around him. He was genuinely the biggest blessing that you couldn’t even fathom in to words how grateful you were to be the lucky one who got to love him and was vehemently loved by him. You missed him even when you were with him. You felt pathetic—allowing someone to have this much power over you, but that just showed how much you loved him with your entire being.

As much as you would rather have been locked up in your room watching home alone reruns while stuffing your face—being dressed up as an elf and assisting the children as they made their way one by one on to Santa’s lap; telling him what they each wanted for Christmas wasn’t all too bad. It was actually the best thing to happen so far since December came around. You found yourself smiling every time one of the patients beamed up at Santa Claus.

Honestly, nine hours went by faster than you would have expected it to. Observing the way the kids would grin in delight after receiving a present tugged on your heartstrings and opened your eyes to the idea that Christmas was so much more than asking for and getting all the items on your Christmas list. It was seeing these hopeful little faces gleam even for only a few moments. You might have missed your boyfriend dearly, but you knew he would make up for lost time once he finally arrived back like he always did.

After the last child got a gift from Santa and made their way back to their hospital room, you and your cousins began to close up shop—turning off the lights on the tree, folding up some of the poster boards and just preparing everything for the next day when you heard someone gently whisper your name.

You smiled softly at the older man; he was a friend of your uncle’s who has been dressing up as Santa for longer than you could remember. You made your way towards him and laughed softly to yourself when he patted his lap.

“Do my old eyes deceive me or is your smile not as sincere as it usually is? what’s wrong y/n? you’re always so bright and cheery this time of year but these days, your excitement seems so forced.”

Releasing a sad sigh, you were well aware you couldn’t lie to him; he already knew there was something bothering you so there was no point in hiding what was currently clouding your entire thought process.

“You’re going to think it’s silly—“

“Your feelings aren’t silly y/n. You’re only human, it’s okay to be sad sometimes, even during the most wonderful time of the year. I’m sure you haven’t told anyone else what’s wrong, so why don’t you tell Santa? Maybe I have a gift for you that might uplift your spirits.”

You were too busy staring at the ground in disappointment to notice the glint in his eye—but you didn’t want to keep him waiting. It was late, you were sure he wanted to go home just as much as you did, so you poured your heart out to the older man.

“My boyfriend—he’s currently on a business trip in Japan and I just—I don’t know, I miss him dearly and I just wish he could have been home for the holidays and now I feel like a grumpy little scrooge.”

He laughed lightly while gently squeezing your arms as a way to comfort you. Admitting it out loud sounded so pathetic but it also made you feel lighter in a way. Telling someone else of your problems felt good; it took a huge weight off of your shoulders, but it didn’t feel the void Mark always seemed to cause whenever he had to leave.

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with moping around because of that. The holiday season is the time you want to spend with your loved ones the most. Your parents told me about him a few months ago—Mark is it? He sounds like a really great guy and your mom seems impatient waiting for the two of you to get married. I’m sorry about the unfortunate situation y/n, but just think about it this way, you’ll have many, many more Christmases to spend with him. Don’t let this one circumstance ruin the way you look at this glorious wintertime. If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the bathroom, I’ll be right back.”

He was right; it has only been almost two years since you and Mark began dating, but you knew he was the man you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. You sat there for a few minutes, looking at your phone to see if Mark had gotten in contact with you and you let out a sad sigh when you realized there was nothing. He did say he had meetings to attend the entire day—so you understood that he was probably busy, but it didn’t make you feel all that much better.

Finally, you could see in your peripheral vision that the older man arrived back and motioned for you to get up before sitting back down and had you take your spot back on his knee.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before—I love that man with every single breath that I take. Waking up next to him—feeling his heartbeat against mine, I can’t explain how exuberant he makes me feel. Every time we’re together, it’s like we’re in our own little worlds. He’s been so busy these days and sometimes I feel as though I’m a burden to him. I’m sure he’s probably exhausted after coming home from work, but he never fails to do whatever it is that I want to do together just to make me smile. I want nothing more to marry him one day—maybe I should fly up to Japan and surprise him—“

“I don’t think that would be the best idea right now.”

You frowned at his words; wasn’t he encouraging you earlier to try and make the best of the next two weeks until the new year? What made him change his mind in the few minutes while he was away? Before you could ask him about what he could have meant, he wrapped his hands around your waist and placed his chin on top of your shoulder.

You were surprised at the sudden movement—you didn’t want to seem rude and push him away because you were now feeling uncomfortable, but you didn’t know how to feel. However, before you could say or do anything, he brought his mouth up to your ear and whispered softly before placing a gentle kiss right below your ear.

“If you go to Japan, then we won’t be able to celebrate the holidays together babe.”

Your eyes widened in shock—how could you not differentiate between the two voices? Maybe you were too deep in your self pity to notice—but you flung your arms around his neck and smashed your lips against his. Your boyfriend smiled against your mouth and depend the kiss as his hands made their way down to your lower back.

“Mark you ass! I was about ready to sock a family friend in the face, why didn’t you tell me you were coming home? You knew how miserable I’ve been—“

He stole a wet kiss from the corner of your mouth; his way to silence you before playfully squeezing one of your thighs.

“I’ve been just as miserable baby. I’m sorry, I was actually debating on whether or not I should tell you—but your mom told me that it would be a lot more fun if I surprised you. You’re well aware that I can’t keep secrets for shit. I almost blurted it out last night when you told me how rough your day was. None of that matters though—I’m here now and I have a lot planned for us. I’ve missed you so fucking much baby. Don’t get me wrong, Japan is such an amazing country—but fuck, I feel so numb when you’re not by my side. By the way, I feel the same exact way about you y/n. You’re my entire world. I love you so—so very much. I don’t think there’s enough words in the English dictionary to form a sentence perfect enough to describe what it is that I feel for you. I’m sorry—so fucking sorry that you think my job means more to me than you do. Nothing in this entire world means even half as much to me as you do. I’m at fault for making it seem that way, but I plan on spending the rest of my life showing you and telling you otherwise. Now, there are a few mistletoes that have our names on it—why don’t you let me make up for not being around as much as I should. This Christmas will be a lot more astounding, that’s a promise.”

He reconnected your lips together, not being able to stay away from your lips for too long. You really did miss this. Being held by him, feeling him lick on your bottom lip—nonverbally asking for entrance, having him run his fingers through your hair. Mark was your home—you always felt so safe in his arms and God, you’ve been homesick for quite some time. After a couple minutes of fervently making out, you grabbed at his hand and pulled him up with you—laughing at how the santa suit he was currently wearing practically swallowed his silhouette.

“You’re such an adorable Santa Clause.”

He playfully rolled his eyes at your comment as you led him to the back in order to get your things. Mark made sure you weren’t paying attention as he tapped on his leg to make sure the velvet box was still safely in his pocket. If you thought his early arrival home was already quite the surprise, he couldn’t wait to see the look on your face when he were to pop the question he’s been wanting to ask you from the beginning of your relationship. This Christmas was definitely going to be one for the books, and he couldn’t wait.

#got7 imagines #mark tuan #mark tuan imagines #got7 #got7 mark

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