#i also drew this like. last week but forgot to post it here. whoops | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

notapaladin · 4 years ago

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so let’s be sinners to be saints

oh boy i uh. well. completely forgot to post this here??? whoops?

Legend says that the first scorpion was once a priest who broke his vow of chastity.* Of course, that's not something Acatl has to worry about now, right?...Right? Surely he can have one night with his lover without waking up in a body not his own.

Unfortunately, the gods have a very mean sense of humor.

* this is an actual myth! I did not make this up! it was apparently first written down in "Treatise on the Heathen Superstitions That Today Live Among the Indians Native to this New Spain, 1629" by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón and i cannot find an ebook copy ANYWHERE, but google books was here for me in my hour of need. i found out about it in a twitter thread & went "itsfreerealestate.jpg"

there’s unwilling (temporary) animal transformation in this! there is also sex, not at the same time. you can also read it on ao3.

On something like a high ridge, a beautiful young man was resting and taking in the view. He was dressed as a prince in a headdress of golden flowers and a butterfly nose ornament; when he moved, the air around him shimmered with light. At his elbow was a golden bowl of popcorn, from which he took the occasional handful. An ancient coyote reclined by his feet, either sleeping or dead. He prodded it lightly with a gold-sandaled foot; irritated, it kicked a back leg at him. Sleeping, then.

He turned his gaze back to the expanse below him. “Xochiquetzal is still furious, you know. She hates being slighted.”

The coyote whined a question.

The young man smirked, his carefree gaze turning cruel. “Why, she tried to seduce Mictlantecuhtli’s High Priest! And lost, of course. The man’s a stone; did he not shed blood in our service, I would question whether he had any. Foolish woman, to think she could tempt him to break his vows.”

The coyote rose and shook itself, narrowing its rheumy eyes to squint out at the world below them. After a moment, it let out a little whuff of amusement.

“...Really.” He turned a speculative glance down at a small house in Tenochtitlan, its high rank marked only by a second story. “You think so?”

It nodded, tail thumping on the ground and raising puffs of glittering dust.

“Hmm. It would explain a lot—and oh, how it would make Xochiquetzal wroth to learn who claims him on their mat.” For a long moment he studied the house below—and then he started to smile, terrible as a gloating jaguar. “I think I’ll take that wager. Fine, Old Coyote—do what you will to him, and we’ll see whether his lover comes to me or to my beloved consort.”

The coyote sprang up on its hind feet to execute a shaky pirouette, cackling with laughter, before dropping back down to all fours and speeding away.

& &

In Acatl’s house, there was only moonlight. Teomitl had wanted to light a torch or two—he’d breathed I want to see you, Acatl, and Acatl had nearly given in—but the last thing either of them needed was anything that would draw attention to the house and what they were doing inside. Acatl had started to regret that decision almost immediately, but getting up to start a fire would mean stopping what they were doing, which was plainly not an option in any sane world. They’d shed their cloaks and sandals as soon as they’d gotten in the door, and Teomitl was fumbling with his loincloth one-handed while the other ran restlessly over Acatl’s chest.

Acatl was not helping. Teomitl was straddling him, which meant his thighs were right there and entirely too tempting to ignore. He slid his palms over lean muscle purely to feel him shiver; what the silvery light hid, his touch revealed. He liked that. Almost accidentally, Acatl let his thumbnail graze the curve of a hipbone. “Mmm, you are lovely.”

“And you are a bastard,” Teomitl huffed as he finally tossed his loincloth behind him—by the soft fwumph, it landed on his discarded cloak—and pressed Acatl back down onto the mat, taking a searing kiss that had him arcing breathlessly before his lover finally pulled away to breathe, “Good thing I love you anyway.”

No matter how many times he heard that, he still had to close his eyes as the enormity of Teomitl’s affections hit him again. After all they’d done, all they’d been through, Teomitl loved him. Duality, I don’t deserve this. All he could do in response was pull him closer, feeling the hot press of Teomitl’s cock against his still-regrettably-clothed hip. He’d been half-hard himself since the first hungry kiss they’d shared that evening, and feeling Teomitl’s own arousal was a delicious reminder of all the other things they could be doing with their night. “Do you?”

“You doubt me?” Teomitl propped himself up on his elbows, head tilted suspiciously; Acatl swore he could hear his frown.

Feeling bold, he gave Teomitl’s ass a lingering squeeze. “I’m still dressed.”

And then Teomitl’s hands were in his hair, pulling his head back, and teeth nipped sharply at his exposed throat. He made an incoherent noise, toes curling at the mix of pleasure and pain that sparked over sensitive skin. More of that, he wanted to say, but speech required entirely too much coordination; even when Teomitl’s hands slid back down his body, unceasing in their new quest to get his loincloth out of the way, he could only tremble and pant roughly as Teomitl sucked bruises along his neck that he absolutely wasn’t going to be able to hide. Discreet. We’re supposed be being— But then he was exposed, the air cool on his hard flesh, and before he could think about it he ground his hips against Teomitl’s thigh with a whine.

Teomitl lifted his mouth from his collarbone, voice rough. “What do you want me to do?”

What do I…? There was only one answer, something he’d thought about before they’d even kissed and with increasing frequency since then. He took a slow breath and tried to marshal his thoughts, calming the little flutter of embarrassment below his ribcage; no matter how much he’d dreamed about it, actually saying it still made his face burn. “...Make love to me.”

Teomitl stilled, one calloused palm resting lightly at his hip. It was hard to tell in the shadows, but Acatl suspected he was blushing. It made him want to kiss him senseless. “Acatl,” he murmured, “Are you sure…?”

Acatl couldn’t help but smile, scratching lightly down his spine in a way he knew would make his lover shiver. “I’ve never known you to hesitate before.”

And Teomitl did shiver, but then he was drawing away and resettling himself to kneel between Acatl’s spread legs, still so close that their cocks slid against each others in an agony of not enough friction. He sucked in a hard breath and almost missed Teomitl’s soft reply. “Your vows are important to you.”

For a too-long heartbeat, all he could do was breathe. He’d vowed to be chaste all his life, but he’d made that vow when he was young and stupid and hadn’t met Teomitl yet, hadn’t known that lust could rise in him like a flame at the touch of a hand or a sweet, teasing grin. He’d spent enough nights pondering the depth of his own desires to be sure of them now, no matter what happened. Half-forgotten myths and cautionary tales were not going to stop him. If Lord Death himself stormed up from Mictlan and turned him to dust on the spot, he’d figure out some way to make it work as a shade. He pushed himself up on one elbow and met Teomitl’s eyes, reaching out to cup his jaw. “If the gods punish me, at least let me have this first. Please?”

Teomitl closed his eyes; when he opened them again, there was an excitingly wicked light in them. “You don’t need to beg.” He paused, grinning. “But you can, if you’d like.”

“I’m not going to—“ But then a hand was being wrapped around his cock, and he broke off with a gasp. “Oh.” It was very different from his own, stronger and broader, and as Teomitl stroked him to full hardness he found himself instinctively rocking into it.

“Gods,” Teomitl whispered, “I really wish you could see yourself now, Acatl. You’re beautiful.”

Flatterer, he wanted to say. What came out instead was a growl of “Now who’s the bastard?” Teomitl’s hand was relentless, thumb working over the head of his cock in a way that was absolutely maddening, just on the edge of too much and not enough. If it was intended to rile him up, it was working.

Teomitl chuckled, caressing his hip. His voice turned almost sly as he looked him over, gaze taking on a possessive air. “I thought you were the patient one. Are you so eager to be taken already, Acatl-tzin?”

Acatl swallowed. Once Teomitl had learned that he rather liked being addressed like that during their intimacies—to be fair, it had come as something of a surprise to Acatl, too—he’d shown unerring instincts regarding when to deploy it for maximum effect. It would have made him flush on its own; with Teomitl’s voice a heated purr and his hand on his cock, it felt like it was lighting his skin on fire. His voice sounded rough even to his own ears. “Teomitl. You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this.” Since we stood on the temple steps together, since I saw you in the setting sun gilded like an emperor and knew that I loved you...

He was gratified to see Teomitl’s eyes widen slightly before he sent his gaze darting around the room. “We need...oil. Grease. Something. It will hurt otherwise and I don’t ever want to hurt you—“

“In the chest—one moment—ah, let go, I need to reach—” There was just no dignified way to scrabble one-handed through the nearest open chest and pull out the jar that had been hiding in there for two weeks, but it was worth it for the way Teomitl audibly drew in a breath when it was in his own hands. He found himself regretting the veto on torches again.

He expected to be breached. He didn’t expect Teomitl’s hand sliding up his inner thigh in a warm, slick caress, pulling out a shaky moan. Instinct told him to press his knees together, but he forced himself to relax. Teomitl’s other hand had found his own, interlacing their fingers tightly. “Have you done this before?”

He breathed out slowly. “To—to myself. A few times. Never with someone else.” There weren’t any vows prohibiting that, and if he’d spent most of those times imagining it was Teomitl instead of his own hand it certainly wasn’t Lord Death’s business.

Fingers slid over his balls and then behind them, smearing oil as they went; when Teomitl breathed, “Gods, you had better let me watch next time,” a shameful whimper of pure arousal escaped before he could even think to muffle it. It wasn’t something he’d considered before, but the idea of putting on a show for Teomitl—Teomitl, who was even now tracing his hole slowly with a single finger and sending little tremors up his spine—was apparently very exciting to whichever part of his mind decided such things.

“I—“ That finger slid in, and his grip on Teomitl’s hand reflexively tightened. Whatever he was going to say evaporated from his mind. “Gods.” It was entirely different from doing it to himself; for a moment it just felt strange, but then he breathed out and relaxed and that was better, he could work with that. Teomitl worked him slowly, when he brushed the spot that sent sparks through his veins, Acatl arched encouragingly. “Nnh—there…”

Teomitl leaned over him, grabbing a fistful of loose hair and bracing himself on the mat; Acatl mourned the loss of the hand in his, but it was worth it for the way Teomitl started to open him up in earnest, the stretch of an additional finger alongside the first making his legs tremble. His lover’s voice was a breathless sort of rasp. “This...won’t be enough. Don’t want to break you.”

He sucked in air. Break me. He imagined Teomitl’s cock in him, splitting him open, filling him, wrecking him. He bucked his hips hard, trying to get those fingers in him deeper. It was starting to ache, but it still wouldn’t be enough. “Teomitl—please—“

More oil drizzled down, enough that when Teomitl moved his fingers Acatl could actually hear how slick his own flesh sounded. While he shuddered, rocking into his hand, Teomitl whispered, “How’s that?”

It took him a moment to remember how words worked. “Nnh...more?”

A third finger slid in, and he gasped and clenched around it. Now it was starting to burn, the stretch an entirely different sort of pain than he was accustomed to—but then Teomitl did something with his fingers, or maybe his wrist, and he saw stars. Breath hissed out of him in an explosive “Fuck,” but before Teomitl could think to stop he hastened to add, “Keep going.” If you stop, he thought, I might actually die.

Teomitl kept going. Acatl swore he could feel himself being reshaped around those fingers, each slide past that one spot building the sparks along his nerves into an inferno. He knew he was the furthest thing from quiet—each thrust was pulling increasingly eager whimpers from his throat—and yet he couldn’t seem to stop. “Please—Teomitl, just fuck me!”

“Nnh.”

Teomitl pulled his fingers out. Acatl keened, but before he could do more than register the emptiness of his own body Teomitl was lining himself up and finally sliding in. All he could think for a long moment was oh gods; Teomitl had stretched him but it was nothing compared to the stone-hard heat of his cock opening him up more than he’d ever thought possible. He’d never been stuffed so full in his life and for a dizzying moment he wasn’t sure it would fit; he clawed at Teomitl’s shoulder, feeling him shudder, feeling that cock actually pulse inside him, and registered that he finally knew why disgraced ex-maidens spoke of being ruined. This really was going to wreck him.

His lover held himself perfectly still, panting into his ear. “Acatl.”

In his name, Acatl heard a wealth of questions—are you alright, can I move. Shakily, he nodded and shifted his hips, a careful roll that turned the pressure of Teomitl’s cock from overwhelming to intoxicating. Teomitl blew out a breath and started to thrust shallowly in response, which felt fine but wasn’t enough. Acatl barely recognized his own voice when he gritted out, “Deeper.”

“Fuck.” Teomitl shifted his weight, drawing back; Acatl didn’t even have time to be confused before he was surging forward again, grabbing Acatl’s hip to hoist one leg up to rest on his shoulder and oh, that opened him up wider and gave Teomitl room to fuck him properly. He’d asked for it deeper; Teomitl seemed to read his mind and gave it to him faster and harder as well, each thrust reducing Acatl’s mind to jelly. All he could do was rake his nails down Teomitl’s back and hang on, barely hearing the crackling of the reed mat under them over his own punched-out gasps. Teomitl was more talkative or at least more capable of stringing sounds together; his voice was a near-savage snarl against Acatl’s shoulder. “Fuck, you’re—Acatl, I love you, you are perfect—“

It was the sort of base flattery he’d normally at least try to refute, but such was utterly beyond him now; his lover’s cock had driven out any thoughts that weren’t more and harder and Teomitl. Even his usual hesitation was gone; while his mind was empty, his hips had no problem bucking frantically to urge Teomitl on. When Teomitl’s teeth scraped over his skin during a particularly rough thrust, he dug his fingers into his spine with a strangled cry.

Teomitl was trembling; he’d wrapped a fistful of Acatl’s hair around the hand holding himself up, and now he tugged hard enough to hurt a little when Acatl dared lift his head to steal a messy kiss. “I’m not going to—“ His voice cracked halfway through, and Acatl knew he was close.

Through some incredible act of coordination, he managed to reach a hand between them and wrap it around his own cock, thinking at the very least they could come together, but then Teomitl’s hand was there too and he was snapping his hips in quick, ferocious thrusts and it was all too much. Acatl’s release hit him in a wave that turned his world to a single spasming point of white-hot pleasure; he was dimly aware that he was raking his nails down Teomitl’s back hard enough to draw blood, but with his jaw clamped shut around a scream it was the only outlet left. And then Teomitl was coming too, teeth in Acatl’s shoulder a sting he didn’t even feel next to the pulsing of that hot, hard cock spilling into him.

Acatl couldn’t think. His mind was entirely, blissfully blank. Even when Teomitl softened and pulled out, drawing an entirely reflexive shudder at the overstimulation, he could only blink up at the hidden darkness of the ceiling. Other sensations filtered in slowly; there was Teomitl carefully unbending that one leg, there was Teomitl running his fingers through his hair. He was sweaty and sticky and sore, eyelids suddenly heavy. “Hmm...”

Teomitl rolled off him; Acatl felt him settle on his side and press a kiss to his mouth. Acatl returned it as best he could, feeling drained. When Teomitl spoke, his voice was hushed. “Mmm. Acatl, that was…”

He found his voice. It was easier with Teomitl touching him, one hand resting on his chest like a promise. “Wonderful?”

His lover chuckled, bumping their noses together. He could hear the smile in his voice. “Mm-hmm. How do you feel?” Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed a cloth from somewhere and started cleaning them both up, touch impossibly gentle.

Acatl considered the question. His spine felt like liquid, and he still wasn’t entirely sure he could move his legs yet. He knew without a doubt that he’d be sore tomorrow, with marks on his throat and hips and shoulders, but it would be a pleasant and well-earned ache. I thought I’d feel different. Changed, somehow. Instead I’m just...a man. A man who’s taken his lover to bed. Or...been taken, I suppose. “Tired. Happy, but...tired.”

“So am I.” Indeed, Teomitl’s face was twisting in the manner of someone forcibly suppressing a yawn as he spoke. “Acatl, I...I don’t want to go back to the Duality House tonight. Can I…?”

Discretion was paramount. Mihmatini was on their side, but if Tizoc or any of his men found out, Acatl knew he wouldn’t hesitate to have them both killed. If Acatl was a wise man, he would be throwing Teomitl out already. But he imagined Teomitl in the dawn light, hair sticking up every which way and eyes hazy with sleep as he breathed his name, and what came out of his mouth instead was “Please.” Stay tonight. Stay forever.

Teomitl sighed, nestling against him, and it sent a sudden pang through his heart; before he could stop himself, he found himself asking, “Will you be here when I wake?”

Teomitl snorted, breath stirring his hair. “As if I would ever leave you.”

Thus warmed from within, he drifted off to sleep.

Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong.

His skin felt too tight and too cold, and though he knew it was still dark out, the room was bright as day and sparkling around the edges. It took a moment for his vision to focus properly; when it did, he realized that the black thing blocking most of his view was an enormous scorpion’s claw. His limbs twitched. So did the claw. So did the long arc of a venom-tipped tail above him.

He thought he probably should be screaming, if only inside his own head. He thought he probably would be screaming, if he hadn’t had knowledge of the gods’ favorite punishments all but beaten into him at the calmecac. And I told Teomitl it’s never actually happened. A sudden icy spike of fear flashed through him; while he tried to force himself to remain calm, his legs had entirely different ideas and carried him off the mat and into a corner he only recognized by the presence of two walls and much more dust than he’d remembered. Corners were safe. He would think better here.

Breathing felt downright bizarre, but it still helped just as much as it always did. Focus. I need to focus. He could still feel, past the panic, the stretched emptiness of Mictlan running through his veins; Teomitl, asleep on his half of the mat, was much larger in proportion to what he supposed was his decreased size but still shone the same jade-green-and-gold through his priest senses. The gods had not abandoned him, then, and so this was unlikely to have been their will. Mandibles clattered together in what he supposed was the scorpion equivalent of a man biting his lip. It was possible that it had been some sort of sorcerer with a grudge, but he really couldn’t think of any that had escaped his justice recently. Quenami might hate him that much, but he was sure the man lacked the means for such a spell. Not to mention the sense of humor. Whoever did this...knew, somehow, what I was up to tonight. I’m sure of it.

Teomitl was stirring. Acatl froze as his lover rolled over onto his stomach and blindly reached across the mat, making a disgruntled little snuffling noise when his hand encountered only empty air. “Mmf.” One eye cracked open; seeing that he was alone, he sat up and scratched roughly at his scalp. It ruffled up his hair even more than sleep had, and the corner of Acatl’s heart not currently locked in terror melted at the sight.

“Acatl? Where are—“ Teomitl’s gaze fell on him, face twisting. “By the gods,” he muttered, before calling out, “Acatl, there’s a scorpion the size of a damned dog in here; where do you keep your knives again?”

It would have been wonderful, Acatl reflected, if whatever transformation had come upon him had left him the ability to speak. Since no configuration of mandibles and pedipalps seemed to be producing sound, he settled for scuttling closer and waving one claw in what he hoped desperately was a motion unusual enough to stay Teomitl’s hand. He’d seen Teomitl throw knives before, and he was very good at it.

Teomitl went still, one hand on the carved-bone chest that held Acatl’s knives. His eyes widened in something like fear as Acatl approached, only to be drained and refilled by bleak horror. Slowly, without taking his eyes off him, he crumpled to his knees. “...A scorpion...with...your day sign on its back...” For a horrible moment, Acatl thought he was about to burst into tears. When he managed to speak again, his voice was a barely audible whisper. “Acatl?”

At least whatever caused this had the decency to label me for safekeeping. He clicked his pincers together; evidently it was understandable as an affirmation, because Teomitl’s hand went to his mouth and he looked like he might be sick.

Teomitl was silent for a long while, staring fixedly at the floor in front of him. Though he was clearly trying to maintain some form of dignity, Acatl realized that the faint rattling he heard came from his earrings as he trembled, and not even hugging himself tightly enough to turn his knuckles white was helping. All at once, the fear he felt for himself was replaced by rage—rage that such a thing had dared happen, that it had upset Teomitl during what should have been such a wonderful night, that now Acatl couldn’t even hold him through it. Before he could rush forward—to do what, he wasn’t sure—Teomitl’s gaze fell on him again. He was starting to look angry, which at least was better than misery. “I don’t—I don’t understand. How did this happen? We—you were fine earlier, weren’t you?”

Ah. He supposed Teomitl’s education hadn’t covered that story. It took some doing to figure out where he was heading—his house looked very different a few inches away from the floor—but then he managed to scrabble across the room to the wicker chest that held his codices. His new lack of thumbs briefly stymied him, but Teomitl was right behind him to open the lid, leaving Acatl to fidget with his fangs while he searched. It took long enough that he idly began to experiment, lifting first one pair of legs and then the next. He tried flexing his tail, finding that it took the merest thought to have it touching the ground in front of him. Well, he thought, at least I’m not a spider.

And then Teomitl’s legs folded under him. The earth under Acatl’s clawed feet shook as he hit the floor, staring blankly at the codex he now held. Acatl didn’t need to look to know what was on it—the priest Yappan, transformed into the first scorpion for laying with Xochiquetzal and thus breaking his vows.

He looked bleak. “This is my doing, isn’t it? The gods’ punishment on you for what we did—Acatl, I’m so sorry.”

Acatl had a sudden, profound urge to sting him. He settled for scuttling forward and pinching his knee hard, tail waving furiously above him. Don’t you dare apologize. Not for this.

Teomitl flinched, but rallied with a savage glare. “But I—“

Acatl pinched him again. This time he winced, rubbing the welt left behind, and had the grace to look sheepish. “Alright, you don’t like me saying that. But what else could it be? I’m sure if there was a sorcerer who could do this, we would have heard of a good deal more mysterious disappearances by now. Tizoc would make a wonderful scorpion.” His gaze drifted over the discarded codices in the chest, brow furrowed in thought. “...Is your connection to the underworld still…”

He clattered his claws together, hoping Teomitl wouldn’t ask him to prove it. He wasn’t sure what it would do in this new body. I’m still here. He wanted to say I love you, wanted to tell him This isn’t your fault. All he could manage was a clicking of his mandibles.

Teomitl frowned, catching his lower lip between his teeth. His obsidian lip plug, a small thing with a jaguar’s face Mihmatini had gotten him for his last birthday, gleamed in the moonlight. “...Hm. We certainly won’t find answers here.” Then he was getting to his feet again and gathering his clothing, muttering to himself as he dressed. “Not waking Ichtaca...definitely not going to the Duality House, Mihm would flay us both once she stopped laughing...she absolutely would laugh, Acatl, trust me.”

Acatl didn’t think so—he thought it far more likely she’d skip any sort of amusement and go straight to fury—but he didn’t bother trying to express that. Instead he focused his priest-senses past the blaze of Teomitl’s magic and the low-level underworld hum that had seeped into every crevice of his home, trying to pick up on any foreign influences. Nothing...nothing...there! Flowing out the entrance curtain was the faintest hint of rose-red.

And then he realized Teomitl was about to leave without him. Baring his fangs, he raced after him; Teomitl stopped midstride, blinking, as he snapped his claws at his ankles. “You can’t think I’d accept this! We have to find a way to change you back into a man. God or sorcerer, whoever did this to you has to pay.”

Obviously! But you can’t think you’re doing this alone, Teomitl! He wished fervently he was capable of making some sort of noise beyond clicking—even a snort would be acceptable—but settled for hopping onto Teomitl’s foot and raising his claws like a toddler demanding to be picked up. It was humiliating, but it was the only way he could think of to make himself understood.

Teomitl frowned at him. “I don’t think you could keep up, but I suppose you could...climb up on my shoulder? And I’ll put another cloak on over you to—to hide you. You are a large scorpion, you know.”

He’d realized that. Teomitl knelt down, offering his hand after a noticeable moment of hesitation; when Acatl set his claws on his arm, he was struck by the warmth of his skin. Teomitl always ran hot, but it had never been quite as comforting as it was in that moment. He allowed himself an instant to bask, claws waving slowly, before clambering up to his lover’s shoulder. It took some very undignified scratching to settle his weight comfortably—scorpions were not meant to drape over anything—but once he had, he immediately felt much better about his change in elevation. It made him feel more human, seeing the world from a proper angle.

Teomitl set a hand on his carapace, and that helped too. He felt his lover’s shoulders shift as he took a slow breath. “Alright, then. Where to first? Maybe...maybe we should confess our sins—ow!”

Acatl released Teomitl’s ear from his claw, waving his tail in what he hoped was a suitably annoyed manner.

“But—“

He hopped off Teomitl’s shoulder and stabbed his tail in the dirt repeatedly, not letting up until it formed a recognizable dot for the number one. The only confession we get in our lives, and you want to waste it on something like that?

Teomitl stared at him. “You really don’t think this is because of—Acatl, forgive me for stating the obvious but you’re a giant scorpion. Wouldn’t Tlazolteotl be able to...to fix that? So long as we—ah, never did it again? Which of course wouldn’t be ideal, but...”

He was starting to really wish he’d been transformed into something with facial expressions.

“...Alright. We’re not going to Tlazolteotl, then. But—if not her, then who…?” Teomitl trailed off, puffing out his cheeks thoughtfully. “What we do together—it isn’t Xochiquetzal’s domain.”

Indeed it wasn’t, and in any case he had no desire to stand in Xochiquetzal’s presence on two feet, never mind six. But rose-red, parrot-red, could belong to only a few deities, and if not her then they would have to go to her consort. He thought he knew vaguely where the temple of Xochipilli was from his doorstep; if his hunch was right, the thread of magic would lead them the rest of the way.

He scrambled back onto his new perch on his lover’s shoulder and jabbed his tail in the direction of the door. Teomitl pulled a second cloak on over them both, and they set off.

Neither of them noticed the dark blotch of something parrot-shaped taking off into the night ahead of them.

They followed the magic to a temple of Xochipilli just on the edge of the Sacred Precinct, rich enough for its priests to still be awake at what Acatl suspected was either very late at night or very early in the morning, but not quite rich enough for Teomitl’s hurried stride to attract too much attention. In daylight, it would probably be beautiful with its frescoes of flowers and birds; at night, it just made Acatl nervous. Xochipilli was the god of youth, games, and those whose tastes on the mat did not run towards the begetting of children; Acatl had begun to think seriously of making a quiet sacrifice or two in His direction, but some lingering embarrassment had stayed his hand every time. He cursed himself for a coward and a fool, hunkering down next to his lover’s neck and feeling his pulse like it was his own. He wished they’d had enough time to formulate something like a plan. Parrots. We should have brought parrots and—whichever flowers Xochipilli favors, gold and quetzal feathers and precious jade. His skin was starting to itch, and he didn’t know if that was a sign of the transformation wearing off or something far worse. The magic in the air was tinting everything the color of blood, and what priests were in the courtyard were showing the whites of their eyes like dogs.

Teomitl had barely crossed the threshold when a priest in Xochipilli’s flower-bedecked cloak and headdress of parrot feathers approached them. Acatl tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible, noting how ragged the man looked. He wasn’t old—a few years younger than Acatl himself, if he had to guess—but strain had sunken into his furrowed brow and fresh blood dripped from his earlobes. When Teomitl drew himself up, the man met his eyes with a twist to his expression that said his night couldn’t get any worse. “Zolin, Fire Priest of Xochipilli, at your service. What brings the Master of the House of Darts to our humble temple at this hour?”

They hadn’t expected to be recognized immediately; judging by the way Teomitl shifted, he hadn’t spent their trek through the Sacred Precinct thinking of an explanation. Acatl prayed that, just this once, he would discover the ability to lie. “Ah.”

“Well?” Zolin cast an impatient glance behind him to the top of the temple, where the central chamber had been lit with torches even at this late hour. “I don’t mean to pressure you, my lord, but we are somewhat...busy at the moment. If you’re looking for the god’s favor in winning a ball game—or for relationship advice, our god is not a god of judgement and I assure you we have seen everything—please come back at dawn.”

Teomitl swallowed. “It’s not that. It’s…” He trailed off, staring at his feet for a moment in which Acatl felt his temperature rise before he finally met Zolin’s eyes. “My lover is under what we believe is a curse, and I—we came here hoping the Flower Prince would—“

That got Zolin’s attention. His gaze sharpened, focusing on the huddled lump of Acatl under Teomitl’s cloak. “Most men would go to a sorcerer for that. A nobleman like you should go to the priests for the Dead. What sort of curse do you mean? If it’s the one with the boils, there’s a poultice for that.”

Oh, Duality preserve us. He’s going for the truth.

After so long laying between Teomitl’s furnace heat and a well-made cotton cloak, the night air was almost a shock when he was exposed. Zolin, to his great credit, only looked mildly revolted. “...Well. And here I thought that was something they made up to keep us all chaste in calmecac. It certainly explains what we’ve had to deal with here.”

“Oh?” Teomitl sounded as though he was half dreading the answer, but Acatl knew he had to be picking up on the anxious excitement in the air as well.

Zolin took in a long breath and let it out in a sigh. “You are in luck, my lords. Tonight we have the very great honor of paying host to the Flower Prince in person, for He has deigned to appear in the flesh of our high priest. He has been in high good humor for the past several hours, and may be inclined to offer a boon.”

Teomitl didn’t flinch. Acatl could feel the rock-solid stiffness of his muscles and knew just how much he wasn’t flinching; if he’d been in his proper shape, his own spine would be rigid with nerves. Throwing yourselves on the mercy of an unfamiliar priesthood was one thing; walking into a god’s realm with preparation and sacrifice was another. But to have the god unexpectedly appear in the flesh—and Xochipilli was known to be capricious—was enough to turn even the strongest man’s bones to water. The single meeting he’d had with the Flower Prince’s high priest gave him no reassurance now. He rubbed the side of his claw against Teomitl’s neck, the only sort of comfort he could give.

Zolin led them up the temple steps. As before, the other priests of Xochipilli scurried out of the way as they passed, but now Acatl knew why. The closer they got to the central chamber, the warmer the air got and the fiercer their blood pounded; by the time they neared the top, Teomitl was staggering like a drunkard and panting as he fought to control his limbs. Acatl nearly fell off his shoulder twice, legs spasming; the effects of Xochipilli’s presence were lessened in this body, but his mind had no such restraints. When they reached the top, he let himself drop off and scuttled along by Teomitl’s side.

Xochipilli waited for them inside, lounging on a bloodstained altar like a throne. The high priest whose body he was borrowing was a middle-aged man of average height, but Acatl could barely see him through the haze of his god’s power. There was gold on His hands and feet, and feathers had been shaped into brilliant bands for His upper arms. More feathers hemmed His cloak and parrot-shaped headdress; His face, beaming at the world from within the headdress’s beak, had been brightly painted with butterflies. The incense was thick enough to obscure the finer details of His form, and Acatl was glad he was so low to the ground. He knew it had to be drugged, and prayed that Teomitl could handle it.

The god was eating popcorn. As Teomitl entered and knelt, averting his gaze, He put the bowl down and laughed. It was a rich, thrilling sound, and Teomitl almost whimpered as He spoke. “I would have privacy. Leave us, all of you.” The priests attending Him did not precisely run, but Acatl had to wedge himself against Teomitl’s calf to avoid being stepped on.

And then they were alone—though Acatl was sure there was at least one priest eavesdropping on the steps outside—and Xochipilli was grinning at them with teeth like a jaguar’s. “Well now, and who might you be?”

Teomitl swallowed hard, and one hand drifted over Acatl’s back. “...Teomitl, my lord.”

Xochipilli cocked His head like a bird. “Aren’t you the Master of the House of Darts?” At Teomitl’s nod, He let out a bark of laughter. “Oh, you’re Jade Skirt’s boy! She’ll be terribly pleased, I’m sure. Whatever brings you here, pretty little thing? And with such an...interesting pet?” Now His face bore an unmistakable leer.

He could rummage through our minds at any time, but he already knows. He knows and he wants to hear Teomitl say it. Irritation cut through the warm haze in Acatl’s mind, only for it to flood back in at the next breath. There was no point in bringing such a petty emotion as mortal anger before a god, after all.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t remind Teomitl of that. “He’s not a pet,” his lover snarled. “He is Acatl-tzin, High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli.” Though even he wasn’t bold or suicidal enough to look Xochipilli in the face, he was nevertheless glaring viciously somewhere around the god’s knees. Acatl fought the urge to bury his face in his claws.

“He’s—“ Xochipilli flung His head back with a whoop, slapping His knee. It upset the bowl of popcorn, sending puffy kernels tumbling across the floor while He cackled. It went on for so long that He started to wheeze, clutching His stomach in pain as He visibly fought for air. “Oh...oh, I needed that. Does he have blood? Was he warm in your arms? Or did he just lay there like one of his corpses? Don’t be shy, don’t be shy! Tell Me everything.” He leaned forward eagerly, hands on His knees like a spectator at a ball game.

Acatl prayed that Teomitl would keep his temper. The Duality must have heard him; though Teomitl’s fists were clenched and his face flushed with fury as well as shame, his voice remained admirably steady. “We...were intimate, yes, for the first time—“

Xochipilli cut him off with a delighted cackle, clapping his hands. “You deflowered Lord Death’s High Priest! What a conquest, little warrior! Oh, oh, the Hummingbird will be so proud of you when I tell Him. Was it any good?”

“It was perfect,” Teomitl bit out. “But then I woke—and he was like this. We have come to throw ourselves on Your mercy, My Lord, and beg that you might know a way to restore him to—to his proper shape. Please.”

“...Hmmm.” The silence stretched on just long enough to be uncomfortable, and then Xochipilli shifted on His altar with a clatter of jewelry. “Restoring him is well within my power, but...ah, you ask a great favor, Teomitl.” His tongue caressed the sounds of his name in a way that made a sick, hot surge of jealousy curl low in Acatl’s gut. “What will you give me? Hymns? Sacrifice? Yourself? Will you sheathe the walls of My temples in gold? Why should I bother with men who do not worship Me?”

Teomitl closed his eyes. For a long moment, he was silent; when he spoke, his voice was as firm as any Revered Speaker’s proclamation. “You shall have my worship, my lord, and my faith. I will give you the blood of parrots, the hearts of eagles, and I will lay gold at your feet because—because I love him, my lord, more than I thought I ever could love anyone. He is the best man in the Empire, the star that guides my way in the night, and if I have been remiss in my gratitude towards You it’s only because sometimes I...I still cannot believe he loves me back.”

He flashed Acatl a brief, wry smile, but Acatl barely noticed. He knew Teomitl loved him—the man was hardly shy about showing it, tugging him aside in the street or draping over him in courtyards to whisper things so soft and gentle that they made him melt—but it was one thing to know he was loved and another for it to be proclaimed fearlessly to the Flower Prince Himself. If scorpions could blush, he knew he’d be crimson. The best man in the Empire? Me? And he cannot believe—Duality, when I am a man again I’m going to show him just how I feel.

Xochipilli sat back on His seat, clearly making a show of considering the matter. “...Oh. You are in love. Fine, then, you may have him back.” He waved a hand.

Acatl’s world was consumed by darkness and pain. It spread through his veins and over his skin like fire, separating him from all awareness of his own limbs with the same unerring precision of a sacrificial knife. He thought he was probably screaming inside his own head, but he couldn’t hear anything over the rush of his own blood and Teomitl’s panicked cry. Just when he thought he really wasn’t going to survive this—that this would be how he would die, on the floor of Xochipilli’s temple—it stopped.

For the span of a heartbeat, he couldn’t feel anything.

Awareness filtered in slowly.

“Acatl? Acatl! Say something—Acatl, please—“

He was alive, and the stone floor was freezing on his soft skin. He had an entirely normal compliment of human limbs; every inch of skin tingled with returned bloodflow, but he flexed carefully and felt the response of fingers and toes with relief. Breath filled his lungs with the scent of incense and stirred the hair that had fallen in his face. When he blinked—he could blink! He was never going to take having eyelids for granted again!—his vision started to clear, and he registered that Teomitl was hovering over him with a hand outstretched as though he was afraid to touch him.

He was also naked, but that somehow didn’t seem as important. “Mrgh.”

“Oh—“ When he tried to sit up, Teomitl sprang into action. His hands on Acatl’s arms were a relief, and then he wrapped the spare cloak around him and Acatl collapsed, boneless with the exhausted memory of agony, into his arms. Teomitl held him tightly enough to hurt, burying his face in his hair. Finally—with a faint tremor in his voice—he asked, “How are you feeling?”

He nodded before realizing that Teomitl would probably want words. It took two tries before he could produce any; his tongue felt foreign in his mouth, and the incense was starting to make his head swim. Finally he managed a rough “I’ve been better.” But I’m here. Alive. A man again, with a man’s proper form, and Teomitl’s arms around me. Nothing else matters.

Xochipilli tapped His fingers on the altar, sounding deeply smug. “See? Safe and sound.”

He sucked in a breath, coughed as the smoke stung his throat, and croaked out, “Thank you, my lord. I...do you know what caused my...transformation? I would avoid it happening again.”

The Flower Prince smirked, an expression that reminded Acatl unpleasantly of Quenami at his most self-satisfied. “You need not fear that. It was a wager with the Old Coyote, which I’m pleased to report you two have won for Me. Treat him well, Ahuizotl, and remember the old gods as well as the Hummingbird when you are Revered Speaker. Oh—and try to avoid Xochiquetzal. She might take this personally.”

Acatl couldn’t breathe. A bet? I spent two hours transformed into a godsdamned scorpion for a bet?! He’d faced down Tlaloc in His own realm, but he’d never before felt a seething desire to punch a god in the face. Only the knowledge that it would be both disrespectful and a means of certain suicide kept his fists from clenching, though the grip he had on his own cloak trembled. “...I see.”

“I—I will, my lord.” Teomitl kept his head bowed, but Acatl knew by the twisting of his mouth that he’d come to the same conclusion.

Xochipilli released His high priest like a child dropping a worn-out toy. Acatl watched as the godhood faded, the haze around the man dissipating to reveal graying hair and bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes in a face that had probably been handsome enough twenty years ago. He pulled off his headdress, shook out his blood-matted hair, and fixed them both with a tired smile. “You two both deserved a better night than what you got. I will have someone bring you a loincloth, Acatl-tzin, and some maize cakes. I’m sure you’re hungry.”

As the man spoke, Acatl realized he was hungry—and had the oddest craving for roasted grasshoppers, which he was not going to mention. “Thank you.” He still couldn’t remember the other priest’s name, but it was entirely too late to ask.

He certainly couldn’t fault the temple for its efficiency. It was the work of minutes for one of the definitely-eavesdropping priests outside to fetch him a loincloth, and the high priest himself brought them chocolate along with the maize cakes.

He also brought an apology, which Teomitl waved off. “It was hardly your fault, Nemalhuilli-tzin.”

That’s right. It was Huehuecoyotl’s and Xochipilli’s fault. Because apparently it amused them. Acatl concentrated on his chocolate, which had more vanilla than he liked but was delicious nonetheless, and tried very hard not to think about the gods using such a personal part of his life for their own enjoyment. It was embarrassing enough when he remembered Mihmatini knew about it, and now it was a topic of divine gossip. At least it wouldn’t reach Tizoc’s ears if the priesthood of Xochipilli had their way; he’d already seen a small but fervent whisper circle in the temple courtyard break up at Nemalhuilli’s glare. Their consensus seemed to be that Teomitl was a very lucky man, which was just absurd.

He and Teomitl wound up sitting on the temple steps, moonlight turning the world silver and making his lover’s hair gleam. Teomitl picked at his maize cake, and Acatl wondered what he was thinking. For his part, he only hoped he would be able to make it home before collapsing.

Finally Teomitl broke the silence between them. “What now?”

“...Now?” He didn’t need to think about it. He’d had plans and desires at sunset that were still burning, unfulfilled, in his mind. He could still feel Teomitl’s hands on him. But he remembered Teomitl’s horror at his transformation, his fear that it might not be reversed, and it stopped his voice in his throat for a moment. No. For the rest of the night, let me just hold him. “I think...we should go back to my house. Don’t you?”

Teomitl bit his lip, dropping his gaze to his sandals. “Acatl...Acatl-tzin, I…”

The maize cake he’d devoured felt like a stone in his stomach. “You don’t want to.”

“I do!” Teomitl’s face was still turned away, hands clasped unhappily together in his lap. “But—the gods have taken notice of what we have, Acatl, and I understand if you don’t want to...repeat the experience, given how it ended. I surely wouldn’t blame you.”

What. For a moment, all he could do was stare incredulously at his lover as the words filtered through his brain. “Teomitl. I intend to repeat the experience, as you put it, as many times as you’ll have me. Did you not hear the Flower Prince himself grant us His blessing?”

Teomitl’s head snapped up like a dog on the alert, eyes wide. Even in the moonlight, it was clear he was turning crimson. “Oh. Is that—you’re sure, then?”

He reached out and covered Teomitl’s hand with his own, stroking it until his tense grip relaxed. When Teomitl favored him with a sweet smile and gave his fingers a squeeze, he found himself smiling back. If I’m the stars for you, then you are the sun in my sky. “As sure as I’ve ever been of anything in my life. Take me home. When dawn breaks, I want to greet it in your arms.”

Teomitl took him home.

& &

The house in Tenochtitlan was not expecting visitors, but the young man who ambled up to its entrance-curtain, whistling a jaunty tune in the dawn mist, didn’t care about such things. He had much more important things to do. The richly dressed slave on duty, normally quick to bar unwelcome visitors, took one look at him and made himself scarce.

Bells chimed on the curtain and on his ankles as the young man entered, beaming at the older woman eating a leisurely meal of grilled frog and peppers on her dais. Unaffected by her icy glare, he sketched a mockingly elaborate bow. “Xochiquetzal, my darling!”

She’d been as beautiful as he was, once, but that had been a very, very long time ago. Now she swallowed, narrowed her red-rimmed eyes, and told him, “Leave.”

His grin took on a vicious edge. If she’d been a mortal, it would have stricken fear into her heart. “Ah, but I think you’ll love to hear this. You recall the High Priest of Mictlantecuhtli?”

She could hardly forget him. Not many men turned her down, and even fewer went on to thwart her carefully-laid plans. Still, she couldn’t imagine how he’d attracted her consort’s attention. “...That cold fish? What has he done?”

The young man’s grin grew even wider. “The Master of the House of Darts. Or perhaps Jade Skirt’s boy has done him; they were regrettably close-mouthed on the details.”

He strolled out just as the screaming started, a thrown plate whizzing harmlessly past his head.

#obsidian and blood #teomitl #teocatl #acatl #not work safe #paladin writes stuff

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antiquecompass · 5 years ago

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Untamed Fest Day 2: Dynamic

Summary: Wherein Sizhui has a best friend and a crush and parents who care, perhaps, maybe, just a little too much.

(So, like I said yesterday these fics are going to bounce around the ages of 11-18 for the Juniors. In this one Sizhui is 14. It’s also pre-Sizhui/Jingyi. Don’t worry, nothing will get above Teen in this entire series, and only then bc I, and therefore characters I write, curse like a sailor.)

When it came to personality, at least inside the confines of Lan Academy, Lan Sizhui had taken after his Papa. He projected an aura of quiet leadership and confidence; fair in judgment, but willing to mete out and take punishments. Even at fourteen, he was already one of the leaders on the Student Council; the youngest Vice President in a decade. Sizhui had entered the Academy at the age of eleven, determined to prove any doubters wrong, and had done so quietly and efficiently, just like a Lan should.

Lan Jingyi did not lead quietly, though he was still a leader among their class. Lan Jingyi had the type of dynamic personality that drew others in, fluttering around him like butterflies, but he ignored most of them to keep the company of his two best friends. He was loud, opinionated, and always willing to make his feelings known. He wasn’t the way many thought a Lan should be, but he was very much a Lan, through and through, just willing to openly show the more stubborn parts of their personality that people forgot they had under their veneer of genteel manners.

It was often said that together, Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi truly made the perfect Lan. A balance of the best, and worst, traits. Sizhui was calm and quiet, Jingyi excitable and loud, but where Sizhui often had self-doubts, Jingyi had enough pride and confidence for the both of them. They’d grown up as a pair, rarely apart, settling into their roles and friendship with an enviable and familiar ease. So many years together, being so known to each other, they were a hard pair to defeat in anything--be it something as simple as a classroom debate or something more serious as an actual fight to defend someone’s honor. Since they were always found in each other’s company, they’d become the pride of the family and the Academy.

Sizhui was proud to be the one-half of such a whole.

Sizhui also had a problem.

He knew he had a crush on Jingyi. It’d been there for years. Apparently he’d told his fathers at the ripe old age of five that he was going to marry Jingyi one day, and while it’d been a story retold often at family gatherings for laughs...well, Sizhui may not have truly meant it at five, but at fourteen, it was definitely a future he wanted.

And somehow he knew that wasn’t normal.

He knew it was normal, for him, to have a crush. His fathers had taken great pains to inform him about different sexual and gender identities and forms of attraction and the like as soon as he showed the first hints of a boyhood crush. So he knew a crush, especially on attractive, kind, funny, caring Jingyi wasn’t unusual. They’d been best friends since they were four. There was no one else his age Sizhui trusted more than Jingyi.

But Sizhui was worried that he’d passed the crush stage long ago and had been firmly planted in something that he was hesitant to call love, because he was only fourteen, but knew that clearly picturing a future with Jingyi that saw them married and raising some kids of their own as the most natural course of their relationship probably meant something significant.

He knew most Lans fell hard, fell once, and fell in love for life. But Sizhui was a Lan in name only.

Perhaps Nurture had won this round versus Nature.

He still needed to talk to someone before he embarrassingly blurted out his love for Jingyi straight to his face, probably when the other was devouring a basket of chicken wings. That would be Sizhui’s luck. He’d probably make poor Jingyi choke. And then he’d have to give him the Heimlich or something, and Jingyi would probably spit out his chicken bone right into Great Uncle Lan’s face, and then Sizhui would have to go find a grave plot to bury himself in after he died from the collective embarrrassment.

So, yeah, he needed to talk to someone.

**********

Dad’s office occupied the single turret tower of their massive house. He jokingly called it his gargoyle hoard, and often sang songs from Disney’s take on The Hunchback of Notre Dame as he climbed the stairs to the tower. Or he called for Papa with, ‘Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan, let down your hair’ which never made much sense to Sizhui since Dad was the one in the tower, but they all indulged Dad’s whims and humor.

From the outside the tower looked imposing in its stone and dark shingled roof, but inside it was full of vibrant color. All of his books were here, crammed on an overstuffed bookshelf, containing every edition of every book he’d published in every language available, a handmade wooden sign hung above it declaring, A Leap of Faith. Art of his various characters hung on the wall, some official that he’d commissioned, some of his own making, but most sent by fans from around the world in the barrels of mail that came to the house each week.

It was a cluttered mess of genius that perfectly encapsulated his dad.

Today Dad was behind his desk, hair pulled up into a messy bun, with fingers covered in paint as he worked out some new character designs for his latest story. He was slowly moving from elementary reading level books to Young Adult, but his new series would straddle that border of Young Adult and New Adult--that vague spot where the characters weren’t young teens, nor in their mid-20s, but still had their own stories to tell. It was a story he’d been wanting to tell for years, based largely on his own life, but set in a mystical and magical modern world.

His papa was unceremoniously sprawled out on the battered couch that had followed his fathers from their apartment in Cambridge, to their home in Boston, to this massive estate in the Berkshires. Sizhui smiled to himself as he pictured his classmates faces if they ever saw the great Hanguang-Jun with such imperfect posture, wearing only worn sweatpants and a t-shirt older than Sizhui. His hair was also pulled up into a messy bun, a red pen clutched in his teeth as he read through the most recent edit of Dad’s new book.

Sizhui smiled as he watched them. His parents had always been so full of warmth and love--for him, for each other, for all their family--that Sizhui knew he’d been spoiled in care and affection. And he wanted that, the connection that they had. He knew it wasn’t effortless, every relationship took work and dedication and effort, but they made it seem so very easy.

“Sizhui, why do you linger?” Papa asked, eyes barely leaving the bound pages in his hands.

“Because he is a good boy who waits until he’s invited in, even though he knows he never has to,” Dad said, waving him inside. “What can we do for our favorite son?”

“Your only son, since you never did give me that sibling I asked for,” Sizhui teased.

Dad smirked. “Not for lack of trying,” he said.

“Wei Ying,” Papa admonished from the couch.

Dad patted the chair next to his desk. “Come. Sit. Speak. Bond. I feel like we never talk anymore.”

“We had an entire family conference just last night,” Sizhui said as he took his seat.

Dad frowned. “But that was school stuff. I want gossip, Sizhui. I want the deets. I want the 411. Give me the dirt. Spill the tea. Or the beans.” He looked to Papa. “What else do the kids say these days?”

“None of what just passed your lips,” Papa said.

Dad frowned. “So mean, Lan Zhan.” His pout became more pronounced as he turned to Sizhui. “See how he treats me? Betrayed by my very own heart and soul.”

Sizhui shook his head at them, but grasped on to the opening. “So, about that.”

He didn’t know what he expected to happen but Dad actually gasped and Papa sat up so fast he nearly tumbled off the couch.

“Is it happening?” Dad asked. “Did it happen?” He pulled out his leather planner, full of post-it notes, napkins, and various other bits and bobs. “I had you two down for at least another month from now, but your Papa insisted it would be before Halloween.”

“What?” Sizhui asked as he looked back and forth between his parents.

“Sizhui,” Papa said as he walked over to the desk. “Did Lan Jingyi not ask you out on a date?”

“What?” Sizhui asked. He felt the blood rush to his face, in his ears, blocking out all other sounds. “What?” he repeated.

Dad grimaced. “Whoops. I think we broke him. Bad parenting penalty.”

“No--I---what?” Sizhui asked again. “I just wanted to know how you, like, know if you like someone more than a friend and you’re running a bet on my dating life? With my best friend?”

“To be fair, your Uncle Huaisang runs a bet on everything,” Dad said.

“Wei Ying,” Papa cautioned.

“Fine,” Dad said, pushing his planner to the side. He sat forward and grasped Sizhui hands. “Sizhui, if you’re asking us this question, do you not already know the answer?”

Sizhui nodded. “But, how can you be sure?”

“In your own heart, what do you feel?” Papa asked. He knelt to meet Sizhui’s downcast gaze. “You don’t have to tell us, or even him, but you’ll feel so much more relief if you acknowledge your own truth.” His smile was small as he patted Sizhui’s knees. “It was the only way I was able to manage all the years when your dad still didn’t know his own feelings.”

“It must’ve been torture,” Sizhui said.

Papa smiled and met Dad’s eyes. “It wasn’t so bad, in the end. But you and Jingyi are different. You don’t have the restrictions on you that Uncle put on me and your Uncle Xichen. You don’t have the physical distance between you. If you want to, you can start dating now. If you feel like you’re ready.”

Sizhui tried not to hunch his shoulders and make himself smaller, but the uncertainty ate at him. “But what if I ruin our friendship? I don’t think--I couldn’t take him hating me.”

“Oh, Sizhui,” Dad said as he clambered over the desk and hugged him. “Jingyi could never hate you. I know you know him better than that, but if you want more, well…”

“Leap of faith?” Sizhui asked.

Both his fathers nodded.

If the Lan-Wei family had its own motto, Leap of Faith, would be it. If they had their own crest, it would be a rabbit surrounded by the words, Daring, Determination, Devotion, and Honesty. His fathers had raised him with those values, and Sizhui did his best to own them, and now, he knew, he could either rely on them or try to patiently wait until Jingyi came to him.

If at school the dynamic of Sizhui and Jingyi made the perfect Lan, at home, Sizhui was very much the best, and worst, of both of his fathers.

“Oh, I know that look,” Dad said as he kissed the top of Sizhui’s head. “Poor Jingyi isn’t going to know what hit him.” Sizhui could feel his wide grin against his hair. “It’s going to be awesome.”

Part 2

#untamedfest #fandom: the untamed #long post #verse: lahl #fic: tales from lan academy #the untamed #my ridic writing #day 2

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quicksilversquared · 6 years ago

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Keeping Up With the Ladyblog

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It's an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can't skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she'll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

Initially, setting up the Ladyblog and getting a devoted userbase had been a bit of an uphill battle. Even though Alya had gotten noticed right away with her footage from the first fight, that didn't guarantee her a permanent position as the best-known blog on Paris's superheroes. Not covering a few fights would mean that someone else could sneak in and steal her spot, so that meant that even if she missed a little school here and there (or had to drag her sisters along during a fight), it was worth it. She had to stay on top of all things Ladybug and right then, that meant getting the best coverage of as many fights as she could physically manage and writing up good, thought-provoking articles for when there was a slow day or two.

(Of course, there were other problems that she had to deal with as well. Alya had to put together a functioning site that was user-friendly, could handle the traffic that she was getting, and offered everything that anyone could possibly want from an official superhero blog, because there was no. way. Alya was going to lose traffic just because some other blog had one option or another that she didn't have or because her blog went down from traffic overload at a critical moment. There were some places that she drew the line- she didn't accept fanfiction of the superheroes, because they were real people and therefore it would be weird, and only appropriate art was allowed- but she had to add all sorts of options so that people who visited the Ladyblog would come back over and over again. It was a lot of work and all had to be done fairly quickly, which meant that her homework sometimes got pushed off until later than it should have.)

Alya didn't consider setting up the blog itself to be that big of a problem, though. Software could usually be battered into submission if she worked on it for long enough, and as long as she didn't try any system updates to the Ladyblog when a lot of people were using it, short outages were usually not a big deal. It was the content that was more of a problem, especially now that her parents (and teachers) were on her back about not skipping school just to film attacks.

She just had to get creative.

Originally, Alya had considered trying to use her fame from being the sole moderator of the Ladyblog to see if she could get a get-out-of-class-free card during the attacks. Her teachers could just check her blog to make sure that she wasn't abusing the pass, she figured, and it wasn't as though most of her classes would be that hard to make up. But it didn't take long before Alya realized that that was just a pipe dream. No teacher would just let her go whenever just so she could keep up a blog when there were professional reporters out there as well that could film the attacks just as well (though Alya would argue with that). Besides, she sometimes had to bike across town to try to get footage, and there were times when it took so long that Ladybug and Chat Noir were already done when she got there. Without any footage, it was a waste of her time.

She had to play it smart. She couldn't just take footage from news channels, but what if there was other footage out there, unseen by most of the public? The Ladyblog already used fan submissions. People took pictures and videos of the superheroes all the time, and most didn't have any interest in starting their own superhero blog but were willing enough to share their superhero content online. Alya always spent a chunk of time every day sorting through the submissions and organizing them by akuma for easy reference.

Still, that wasn't quite enough. Alya had to go above and beyond if she didn't want to be replaceable.

Asking Mr. Kubdel about getting security camera footage from the Louvre partway through the year was a stroke of pure genius on her part. Getting it was a combination of luck, her fame as the Ladyblogger, and the fact that she knew Alix.

"They don't have the best angles in the world," Alya told Nino three days after Mr. Kubdel agreed to her request. She had just gotten the footage from all of the security cameras for the time frames of the last few akuma attacks that had gone through the museum, and digging through the video to find clips of the actual fight was taking a while. Some parts she could just fast-forward through, since the superheroes didn't go into that particular room, but she couldn't go too fast or she could miss the superheroes flashing by. "But I can't really complain. No one has any video of any of these fights yet, so this is incredible."

"It was super-nice of Mr. Kubdel to agree to it," Nino said as he watched the video over her shoulder. "Are you- whoop, there goes Chat Noir."

"Am I what?" Alya asked as she marked down the time Chat Noir entered and when he exited. "Ooh, look, that's a cool akuma!"

"It is a pretty cool design," Nino agreed. "Are you going to ask other places if you can get security camera videos from them, too? Like, there's some places that seem to have a lot of akuma fights go through them. School, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Paris-"

Alya's eyes lit up at the mention of the last place. "Ooh! D'you think I could wrangle some footage of Chloe as Antibug? I kind of want to see some footage of her getting her ass handed to her by Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Nino cringed slightly. "...yeah, I wouldn't phrase it like that when you ask Mr. Bourgeois about it if I were you. He might say no just because of it." He considered that for a second, then added, "Actually, come to think of it, a lot of the akuma that pop up at his hotel tend to be after Chloe, right? So maybe he would say no if most of the footage you get is of Chloe being tormented, no matter how funny you find it. And he's not going to have anything from inside of the guest rooms, just the hallways and dining areas and whatnot."

Alya sniffed. "I'd be professional and include as much of the fight as I could find. Any compilations of Chloe being pursued by angry akumas would be completely unofficial and only posted to an anonymous YouTube account. Which I would then share with you guys, of course."

Nino laughed.

"I think I could persuade him to help, though," Alya decided, going back to the Louvre videos. "He's nice enough when Chloe isn't pushing him around. I'd just have to ask when Chloe isn't there. Maybe I could ask Sabrina's father for help to get footage from other places." She squinted at the screen, then stopped the video for a moment. Nino looked over and saw that it had gone all blurry and pixilated.

He frowned. "Uh, what happened to it? Is the file corrupted?"

"I don't know. It's happened a couple times before on other files, once near the start of this fight and twice again near the end of the first fight I looked at. I don't know what causes it." Alya rewound a little so she could get the last good frame of the superheroes and record the time so she could cut it there. "And... I know I kind of gave up on exposing Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities on the Ladyblog, but I kind of thought that I might catch them detransforming on the security cams. I wasn't going to post that part online, of course, but still..."

"Maybe they're just really good at moving out of the area first," Nino suggested. "That's gotta be tough, actually. I never thought about it. But there's so many cameras in buildings like that nowadays that they have to be super-careful so they don't get seen by others or by cameras!"

"They're bound to slip up sometime," Alya grumbled, opening another file and starting to fast-forward through it. "I really hope I don't miss an attack when I'm working on this. Like, it's gonna be great for my blog to have this footage and all, but it's the live stuff that people like the most."

The first of the spliced-together security camera footage hit the Ladyblog almost a week after Alya got the first batch of raw video. There was an immediate spike of interest, though, as Alya complained to Nino as they waited for Adrien and Marinette to arrive to work on their group project, some people were whining about favoritism getting her the tapes.

"It was just because I asked first," Alya grumbled, scrolling through the comments. "Because I thought of it first. And- oh! I forgot to tell you! Mr. Bourgeois said yes, I just have to figure out the dates and times of old attacks myself and give them to his security people. And I talked to the principal too, and to Sabrina's father. Mr. Damocles said yes, and Sabrina's father said that he would ask his supervisor and also people at Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower about the security cameras at their individual sites." She was grinning now, momentary irritation gone. "It's gonna be a beast going through everything and getting my homework done, but it'll be worth it."

Nino frowned. "Are all of them gonna give you footage from past attacks? Some might discard video once a certain amount of time passes, or they might think that it's too much work to go back that far to get you the files."

Alya shrugged, face dropping slightly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Still, going through the past stuff I do get plus new stuff is gonna be hard. At least spring break is coming up soon. Ish. Kinda. And then I can really plow through stuff once it's summer."

"You're gonna vanish into your room and never come out again," Nino joked. "You'll get all pale from lack of sun."

"I still gotta go out for livestreaming attacks," Alya reminded him. "And once I don't have homework to do, I don't think it'll take that long to mark and edit stuff. I can get through one per day for sure, maybe more. I can do it while I babysit my sisters, as long as they don't want to go anywhere."

Nino snorted. "Right, and the chances that they won't want to go out to the park or on a walk?" He shook his head at her. "But I can help with the timing stuff, so you can just focus on the splicing things together."

Alya grinned and leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "That would be great, Nino! Thank you so much!"

"You'll have to tell me how you want it done sometime before I start, but it really shouldn't be a problem," Nino assured her, grinning as he returned the kiss. "Though maybe we'll have time for you to show me before Adrien and Marinette arrive. Where are they, anyway?"

Alya just shrugged. "Who knows. I texted Marinette ten minutes ago to remind her we would be meeting, but no response yet. She might be in the middle of a project, and if she is, I don't wanna startle her. Last time I called her when she was busy sewing, she got started by her phone ringing and stabbed herself with a pin."

Nino cringed. "Ow. Yeah, I texted Adrien too, but no dice. No idea what he might be doing- oh, wait, here they come. Finally."

"And from the same direction too, hmm? Interesting!" Alya slid her laptop back into her bag and stood up, grinning as she watched Adrien and Marinette approach. "And neither of their houses are in that direction, either."

"We're here to study, not interrogate them," Nino reminded her. "Midterms, remember?"

"Oh, but come on-"

"You can interrogate them after, once we've gotten our studying done," Nino pointed out, grinning. "But I actually want to pass my classes, thank you very much."

There were times when Alya almost regretted starting to post the security camera footage. It was a lot to handle and process, and it ended up cutting into her article-writing time, which, well, she really liked writing those articles. It was one of the things that set the Ladyblog apart. But the old footage was popular, particularly when there was no good news coverage of the fight, and she could always prioritize which fights to edit together and which could maybe be set aside until she had more time.

It was after Alya was first tapped to become Rena Rouge when she realized how great of an idea it had been to start including the security footage from attacks on the Ladyblog. She couldn't cover her own fights- well, not that she was called for many of the akuma attacks, really- but she could still provide that footage, and it wasn't as though she had only started with that kind of footage after she became a superhero, so it wasn't going to raise any suspicion.

Well. Much suspicion, at least. There might be a few people who wondered why she could never cover Rena Rouge's fights, but there had been few enough of them so far that the pattern wouldn't be apparent. And if it continued- which, well, she hoped that it would- then she could always use her much improved video editing skills to "interview" Rena Rouge in person.

She was sure that Ladybug would let her borrow the Miraculous for a little extra time if she mentioned the need to throw people off of her trail. After all, Ladybug was very big on secrecy.

Most of the time, though, Alya loved her stroke of brilliance. It had been worth the security checks to make sure that she could be trusted with the security footage, and she had managed to shore up her views again. Future employers would see that she was focused and willing to put in the work, and well, she had gotten herself a fabulous reputation at the Louvre after she had spotted a shoplifter on the footage and let them know about it right away. It made her feel like a detective of sorts, discovering things that she wouldn't have otherwise.

And, well, summer was coming. Soon, she could get all caught up, and then Alya was sure that it wouldn't be quite so overwhelming.

"I figured it out!"

Nino glanced up at Alya as she slid into the empty spot at the table he was sitting at. From the other side of the table, Adrien and Marinette looked over at the reporter as well.

"What did you figure out?" Marinette asked, gaze immediately going to the tablet Alya was holding. She looked interested and inched closer. "Is it something to do with the Ladyblog?"

"It is!" Alya held up her tablet. "So you know how I've been putting together footage of the akuma fights from security cameras?"

Nino nodded. Both Adrien and Marinette looked puzzled. Alya groaned at them.

"Seriously? Have neither of you looked at the Ladyblog in weeks?! It's my big new thing!"

"I've been busy," they both claimed at once, before shooting each other startled looks. Alya narrowed her eyes at them both.

"Too busy to even glance at the Ladyblog once in a while, even now that school is almost out? Really?"

"I've glanced, but not looked into the archives at all," Marinette corrected herself. Then she frowned. "Wait, what do you mean, security camera footage?"

"Huh, I guess I must not have mentioned it to you before, either," Alya said, looking thoughtful. "Hm. Anyway, I've been contacting people at the Louvre and at the Eiffel Tower and Chloe's dad and Sabrina's dad and the principal to ask if I can get the raw security camera footage from the akuma fights that go through there, and they all said yes! So I've been going through that and splicing together stuff from different cameras to try to get as much of the fight covered as possible."

Now Adrien was frowning, too. "Really? They just happen to know which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir have gone past?"

Now Nino snorted. "Of course not. They just basically give Alya all the footage from the cameras for the duration of the fight and she- well, we, I've been helping- have to go through and find which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir went past and when."

For some reason, both Adrien and Marinette now looked deeply alarmed.

"Anyway, we've been noticing some weirdness on some of the clips," Alya told them. "It get corrupted for a bit, mostly near the start of the fight before the superheroes show up or after the akuma's been defeated but sometimes in the middle, too. I've been puzzling over it for the longest time, and I think I've finally figured it out!"

"Really?" Nino asked, interested and finally distracted from his strangely pale friends. "How?"

Alya grinned. "It was some comments on the Ladyblog that finally got me to notice the pattern. The corruption is either before Ladybug and Chat Noir show up or right after they vanish- or, in the middle of the fight, if one of them has to go recharge, then it happens then, too."

Nino blinked, then caught on. "So you're saying that somehow their magic is interfering with the cameras and protecting their secret identities?"

Alya pointed at him. "Exactly! I thought when I started all this that I might accidentally catch them transforming or see someone where they weren't meant to be, but their magic just means that they can't be caught on camera. It kind of makes me wonder if they always have that effect on cameras when they aren't transformed, or if it only pops up when they're about to transform or just detransformed."

Nino was so caught up in thinking about it that he completely missed Adrien and Marinette's identical sighs of relief as they both slumped in their seats. "It's gotta be the latter. Otherwise how would you explain people never getting a good picture of you, if it happened all the time?"

"Maybe Juleka is Ladybug, then," Marinette offered, giggling a little. "Remember, she was convinced that she had some sort of photo curse?"

"And now she's figured out how to manipulate the magic so that she can get normal photos again," Alya joked, sounding serious for a moment before she laughed. "Nah, she can't be, she was akumatized and fought Ladybug and Chat Noir. Remember that?"

Nino shuddered. "How could I forget? I was stuck in a skirt and high heels for ages!"

"I rocked the platforms," Adrien bragged. He grinned at Nino's raised eyebrow. "What? Sure, they were hard at first, but with a little practice..."

Nino just shook his head and groaned. "You would, dude. You must have been hidden, though. I couldn't find you after Reflecta left."

"Yeah, the outfit and the makeup would do that, probably," Adrien pointed out with a laugh. "I mostly decided to stay out of the way. And that fight didn't last that long. Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated her within an hour."

"Okay, fair."

"What would you do if you found something that told you who Ladybug or Chat Noir are?" Marinette asked, pulling the conversation back on track. "I mean, you can't see them transforming or detransforming, but if..."

Alya waved a hand. "Oh, I would destroy the footage as fast as possible. Hopefully I wouldn't recognize them-" though she wasn't certain about the probability of that, considering that Nino had been picked as a temporary superhero, too. What were the chances of that happening if Ladybug at least didn't know them to some extent? Unless of course it was a coincidence since she was the well-known Ladyblogger and Nino had already been out in the middle of the fight before Ladybug grabbed him- "and so it wouldn't matter if I saw them for two seconds."

Adrien looked astonished. "Really? I thought that was your dream, to figure out who they are! Not that I don't support the deleting thing," he added quickly. "That's probably safer for them. But what made you decide to change your mind?"

Well, she had become a superhero herself, for one. She had realized that she didn't really want the city to know her identity, because what if the akumas targeted her family and friends? And then Nino was a superhero, too, and what if people knew that and she became a target? She had figured that if she didn't want the city knowing her secret identity, she should probably extend the same courtesy to Ladybug and Chat Noir. And Heroes Day had proved that even superheroes knowing the secret identity of other superheroes wasn't necessarily safe. But instead of saying any of that, Alya just said "Well, I realized that it wouldn't be safe for them. And I figured that we should probably respect our superheroes' wishes since they've done so much for the city."

Adrien grinned. "That's very mature of you, Alya."

Alya just shrugged. Really, there had been so much more to it than she had let on. He was probably giving her too much credit, considering it had taken her being in the superheroes' shoes to realize what she had. "Yeah, well. I'll get a big scoop someday. I just refuse to have it at the superheroes' expense."

With the start of summer came more free time, and Alya attacked her backlog of footage with gusto. It was slowly shrinking as she and Nino dug into it with occasional help from Adrien or Marinette, deleting the superhero-less footage out and discarding it. It had become a bit of an obsession now that she had plenty of free time, and Alya had finally- finally!- figured out how to have several streams going at once on her screen and how to pause the others and switch to just one when there was footage that she wanted to watch more closely.

It made things go a lot faster, that was for sure. She was getting through a couple akuma attacks per day, and she finally had to start queuing things up so that the Ladyblog wouldn't get overwhelmed. One per day would be good, maybe two if they were short fights. Alya prioritized newer fights, too, knowing that the old ones were interesting but also old news. The newer fights generated more views and more interest, but it wouldn't be long before the next wave of akumas took over public interest.

Still, Alya loved having that old footage. She loved watching Ladybug and Chat Noir facing up against the akuma, and she loved seeing Ladybug's creativity when faced with a strange Lucky Charm. Their teamwork was so strong, and the way that they absorbed the occasional extra teammate and worked in those powers- yeah, it was pretty obvious why they had been chosen to be the city's main superheroes.

She was digging through her folders of akuma fight footage when she spotted a particularly large one. Alya frowned, puzzled- what, had the entire city been involved in the fight?- when she noticed the date. It was from Heroes Day.

"Oh yeah," Alya said eagerly, grinning as she clicked on the folder. This had been one of the battles that she really wanted footage for. All five superheroes at once in the boss battle? Yes please. All of the existing footage of the fight had been filled by possessed people, so it would be great to get literally anything else.

It was going to be difficult to piece together all of the bits of footage that were bound to be all over the city, but hey, it was summer and Alya could probably rope her friends into helping. And hey, if she could get Adrien roped in, he had several computer monitors. He could use all of them at once and have a ridiculous number of feeds going all at once. But Alya was impatient and wanted to get another look at the fight, so she flipped through the camera files until she found a set on the Eiffel Tower. They opened right before a fox-themed supervillain got there- and ugh, Alya immediately found herself annoyed. Another Volpina? Why were there so many people in Paris who seemed to have some sort of design on the Fox Miraculous?

Ugh. She was going to scour the footage to see if she could get a glance at this new Volpina's unakumatized identity. One Fox villain before Rena Rouge had showed up was one thing, but again? Nuh-uh.

Alya watched as once again, chaos descended on Paris. Volpina detransformed- uh, could Hawkmoth recall akumas? Then why had the baby akuma actually happened at all?- and revealed- uh, was that Lila? What was Lila doing in Paris? She had told the class that she was out of the country and wasn't going to be returning yet!

Okay, something was definitely up there. Maybe Marinette was on to something when she said that she didn't trust Lila. Especially when- they had talked to Lila on Heroes' Day, hadn't they? They had video chatted with her as a class. She had said that she was abroad, and it had looked like she was, too.

Strange. Alya was going to have to do some digging there for sure.

On-screen, the red butterflies descended on Paris. Alya winced as she remembered the terror that had reigned. They had been tricked by Volpina's illusions- and wait wait wait. Alya rewound the footage to when Lila detransformed and- oh, she looked disappointed when she was detransformed, as though she knew what she had been doing and had wanted to continue.

Even stranger. Also really, really concerning. Alya was going to put a hold on making any plans with Lila until she figured out what was going on there.

Alya continued watching. Red akumas found their mark, and Hawkmoth emerged, watching over the panic. Red bubbles bloomed into oversized akumas, and then... well, more chaos. There was screaming in the streets as people were turned into akumas and everyone else fled- well, there looked like there was screaming in the streets, at least. The cameras didn't pick up sound, which did take away from the experience, just a bit, but she could imagine what it would have sounded like.

The sheer amount of footage that Alya was getting from just the Eiffel Tower was astounding. She could only imagine how much she was going to get across the city, though the ice appearing now from the re-akumatized Frozer probably took at least a few of the feeds out. If she just played it all one camera at a time, it would be an insanely long video.

She might have to learn how to play several streams at once in a split screen. Hawkmoth would have to be shown at all times, Alya thought, and then she could do flashes of different akumas and also show the superheroes. They would fill the screen when they were doing an intense fight, maybe and-

Oh, Alya had so many ideas for the video already and she had only watched part of four streams so far. The number of akumas and the civilian resistance- which, by the way, amazing- meant that she could really play with angles and video cuts and oh, it was gonna be great.

It was also going to be a whole lot of work. Alya was probably going to spend the entire week picking out clips and then deciding which ones she wanted to use, and then it was going to be another few days of editing.

Hopefully her friends would be willing to help her out. They could blast through mostly-boring feeds in no time and get stuff trimmed down for her to review. Maybe she could even get Max to help her with the split-screen editing stuff, since he understood all of that technical talk.

Smiling widely, Alya turned back to her computer. Most of the footage at the moment was just Hawkmoth standing up on the Eiffel Tower with his two singers- and boy was Alya going to rake him over the coals for that, it was ridiculous- and so she had to wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir to head up like she knew they had. Thankfully the camera on that level wasn't iced over at all, like the ones on the lower levels were. This time, she had a front-row seat (abet at a bad angle) as she saw Lila get akumatized again (and boy was it interesting that Lila didn't look at all alarmed about the butterfly approaching her- she looked eager) and Volpina conjured up a second Hawkmoth while the real one hid.

And boy, was that ever an anxiety-inducing experience, watching Ladybug and Chat Noir approach the decoy while the real Hawkmoth hid down below, ready to surprise them from behind. Somehow Ladybug noticed him creeping up on them- and how, Alya had no idea how, she and Chat Noir seemed a bit distracted by trying to get Hawkmoth to do the right thing by turning over his Miraculous- and then they were fighting. Hawkmoth's cane-sword went down, but he didn't go down with it.

Alya sat up and watched as the three secondary users re-joined the fight just in time. She wondered where they had gone wrong, where they might have messed up and could have done better. The next bit was also the only example they had so far of the mysterious Peacock user's powers, and they needed to know what to expect in case they came into play again.

It wasn't that the Peacock's powers seemed that dangerous, at least not from what they had seen so far. Their team had just been taken off guard, and that gave Hawkmoth enough of a distraction to run off like the coward he was. Alya watched the giant moth vanish after Ladybug hit it, and she wondered if it would have vanished so easily if Ladybug had hit it when Hawkmoth was still there. Had the Peacock backed off as soon as Hawkmoth had retreated?

On one of the streams, the superheroes glanced around, trying to figure out where Hawkmoth had gone. Meanwhile, a Hawkmoth-shaped blob limped- had he been injured? They should have looked for him!- past one of the iced-over cameras, and then slumped down against a wall. Alya leaned forward, eager, as Hawkmoth sat there for a few seconds, likely shaken by the whole run-in.

Was he going to detransform? Had they really caught Hawkmoth on camera, after nearly a year of attacks? The ice on the camera would make it hard to see exactly who it was, but Ladybug's Miraculous Cure was bound to come zipping past any moment now. Was this her big scoop-?

"Ugh, and there's that distortion," Alya complained, flopping back in her chair as the already-fuzzy footage got even worse as a burst of purple lit up the screen. "C'mon, really? Can't his kwami not provide magical protection for him? The dude doesn't deserve it."

Alya sulked at the screen as a rush of red went by, clearing off the ice but doing nothing for the magical distortion. She could make out a bit of a shape on the screen, and colors- red and white- but no details, and static regularly cut across the already blurry picture. The static stayed there for longer than normal, and then the blurry, pixilated shape of civilian Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. It was only once he had fully exited the frame that the picture finally snapped back into focus, one last bit of static cutting across the screen before the picture stabilized for good.

"Oh, come on," Alya groaned, flopping back on her bed. "That's so unfair that we were so close, and this freaking arse just- just waltzes out of there? Just walks away down the stairs and off of the tower and- and- ugh!" She slapped her fist down on the bed next to her- and then she froze. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. He walked off of the Eiffel Tower. There have to be more cameras on the staircase and at the bottom. If he didn't detransform in front of those, would they have gone out, too?"

She didn't know. She had never really tracked other cameras from the area after the fights ended, so she didn't know if they had caught the civilian Ladybug and Chat Noir or not and she wasn't going to go back and look, not now that she knew now how dangerous it could be to have other people knowing a superhero's secret identity.

But now? There was absolutely no downside to finding out Hawkmoth's secret identity. It would be the biggest break of Alya's journalistic career.

Re-energized and laser-focused, Alya clicked back to her files, looking for the other cameras. It took a few tries for her to find the footage from the stair cameras and then she fast-forwarded to close to the end. There was a minute of anxious waiting, where Alya scanned the entire screen in case Hawkmoth had tried climbing down the side of the stairs or something ridiculous like that, and then a pair of feet appeared, headed slowly and almost unsteadily down the stairs. Before the feet could go down any further, though, the footage came to an end.

Alya let out a frustrated snarl and rewound the video a few seconds, pausing it right before it came to an end. Only a pair of perfectly white shoes and the hem of bright red pants came into view.

Those... those pants looked really familiar. Alya frowned as she stared at them. She couldn't quite place them, but maybe Marinette could, if Alya brought the footage over the next time that she went to Marinette's house. But that was stupid, Alya decided after a moment of mulling it over. Maybe they knew someone with pants like that, but there were several million people living in Paris. There was no guarantee that there weren't other people making the same (awful) fashion choices.

"So close," Alya complained aloud, glaring at her screen. If only Mr. Raincomprix had sent footage that was a few seconds longer! Except- oh, that was it! All she had to do was email him and ask for the footage from the lower-level cameras running from maybe a minute before the end of the fight to several minutes after the current end time. That would be sure to get her lots of footage of Hawkmoth, and surely he would be recognizable in some of it.

She had to hope that the footage still existed and it hadn't been written over at all. It would be close- it had been over two months since that battle- but Alya knew that she had gotten older footage from the Eiffel Tower before.

Hopefully that stuff hadn't just been saved for longer because of the akuma attack.

Excited, Alya turned back to her computer. If she was going to file a request for more footage and hoped to get it in a reasonable amount of time, she needed to have all of the information possible- what the camera IDS were, the exact date and times that she wanted were, everything. Just to be sure, Alya checked her other files to see which cameras would be focused on either the place where Hawkmoth detransformed or the stairs that he had gone down, writing the code for every last one down. Once she had that, she folded up the list and stuffed it in her pocket as she raced for the door.

"Alya, remember that you're going to be babysitting the twins in two hours," he mom called out as Alya raced past. "You'll be back by then, right?"

Alya had to bite down the frustrated noise that nearly escaped because even though this was critical, this was huge, it wasn't as though she couldn't wait a little longer to review the footage. And she could review the footage while sitting out at the kitchen counter with her sisters watching a movie in the living room, it would just be harder. "Yeah, I'll be back!"

And hopefully, she would come back with the footage that would change everything.

Officer Raincomprix was all too willing to bring Alya over to the Eiffel Tower to get more of the footage, all without her having to explain anything. He showed her to the people she needed to talk to and then trotted off to deal with a littering teenager while Alya was ushered inside of the office. The staff were all helpful, and soon Alya was leaving with everything she needed, with no questions asked.

She supposed that it was good that all of the adults were so busy, because she didn't exactly want to explain. Really, Ladybug and Chat Noir should be the first ones to know about Hawkmoth's identity.

Alya jogged back towards her family's apartment, memory stick clutched tightly in her hand. On it, she hoped, would be evidence that would show her Hawkmoth's identity. She was nearly back to her building when she ran smack-dab into a very familiar figure.

"Yo, I was just looking for you!" Nino exclaimed, pulling Alya up. He bent back over to grab the memory stick that she had dropped before the passing pedestrians could kick it away and handed it back to her. "I was trying to text you earlier, but I didn't get any response."

Alya winced. "I'm so sorry! I just got really distracted by my video editing. I opened up the folder for Heroes' Day and I got really distracted."

"Oh, that was a crazy fight. I bet there was a ton of footage. Well, until everything got all icy, at least." Nino glanced down at her as they continued down the sidewalk. "So can I ask why you were out? You look out of breath."

"Not out here," Alya warned immediately. She didn't want a passerby overhearing and trying to grab the memory stick to grab the discovery for themselves. "Come inside with me. I can tell you there, and at any rate I have to be back in-" she checked her phone- "fifteen minutes anyway to babysit my sisters."

Nino followed without question, looking interested.

"So did you find something interesting in the footage?" Nino asked curiously. "You must have. Or was there footage missing, was that why you were out?"

"Not quite," Alya told him, grinning. "I needed more footage, yeah, but it wasn't during the middle of the fight. It was at the end, because I almost had Hawkmoth's civilian self on tape."

"You- what?" Nino asked, freezing for a few seconds before jogging up the stairs alongside her again. "You think you have Hawkmoth on tape? I thought that the magic messed with the cameras!"

Alya grinned. "It does. But where he detransformed- he had to go down the stairs, and there's another camera there. Before, I could see his shoes and the hems of his pants, but now I have an extended clip of the video! It should show him coming down the stairs into sight."

Nino looked impressed. "Oh, that is amazing. But what if it's not someone you know? I mean, there's a lot of people in Paris."

"Well, I'll turn the video over to Ladybug and Chat Noir. They can decide if they want to get the police involved. They might recognize the guy, too." Alya was assuming that she wouldn't recognize Hawkmoth, but she supposed that it was a possibility. "Or we could help by asking Max if he can run some sort of face recognition thing, so that they don't have to go to the police. I'm worried that the police might try to take over themselves and end up getting really hurt by underestimating him."

"Yeah, they might try to do that. Freaking adults, thinking that they know better than the actual experts." Nino shook his head, disgusted. "But do you think Max can do that? I mean, I know he's good at computers, but face recognition- that sounds like he would have to tap into files from, like, ID cards or something."

Alya shrugged. She supposed that was true, but Max was crazy smart and also had Markov. She was sure that if she asked, he would try to see what he could do for her.

"So are you gonna look at the footage now?" Nino asked as they reached her floor. "I thought you said that you have babysitting to do."

"I do, but I wanna at least look at the footage first, if I can." Alya pulled out her keys to open the apartment door. "And I was planning on just putting on a movie and some snacks for my sisters so that they stay out of trouble while I work. They should stay out of trouble that way."

Nino gave her a supremely dubious look. "Your sisters, staying out of trouble?"

"I'd still be in the room! And it's not like I would have headphones in or anything."

"...would you like me to stay there while you do your video stuff?"

"That would be amazing," Alya told Nino, leading him into the apartment. She waved to her mom as they headed down the hallway. "But I still have time to get this done before my mom has to leave!"

Nino glanced at the clock on the wall. "Uh, babe, you only have ten minutes."

"Do you really think I can't get this done in ten minutes?" Alya led the way into her room and wriggled her mouse, waking her laptop up. "You know me better than that. I know exactly where to look in the footage."

"And you really think you'll be able to focus on looking after kids once you've seen Hawkmoth's face?"

...Alya had to admit that that was a very good point.

"I can show you the footage leading up to the end while the computer recognizes my memory stick," Alya told Nino as she plugged the new flash drive in. She rewound the footage. "See, here's Hawkmoth escaping- but he didn't go far!"

"That ice on the cameras is annoying," Nino commented as the footage played. "Is all of it like that?"

"A few cameras were spared, I think," Alya told him. "Including the one on the main level, thank goodness. I mean, there's a few blurry spots from where the ice extended onto the lens a little bit, but it's mostly clear."

"Oh, and now it's worse," Nino added. "He detransformed right in front of the camera, holy cow."

"Yeah, I was really hoping that the distortion would go away since he seemed to be hanging around, but no such luck." Alya watched as on-screen, the ice cleared away and Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. "So watch here- there's no one besides him and the superheroes on the Tower, right? Well, them and Lila, but that's beside the point. It got evacuated pretty fast, and anyone who didn't get off got akumatized or hit by Dark Cupid. So he's headed for those stairs."

"So whoever comes down is Hawkmoth, right," Nino agreed. Then he paused. "Wait, you said Lila? But she was abroad!"

"Apparently she lied." Alya stopped the tapes right where Hawkmoth's feet appeared on the stairs. "Okay, so the stuff that I got should start about thirty seconds before the end of these, so there's some overlap."

A tension rose in the room as Alya got the new files set up to play. She kept glancing at the clock while things loaded, watching as the time for her to move into the living room ticked closer and closer.

She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to stop at this point. Even if it was only for a short break while she said good-bye to her mom and got the twins set up with their movie and their snacks, she couldn't. She was so, so close.

This had to work.

"Loaded," Alya announced as soon as the program was ready. "And here we go!"

She and Nino leaned forward as they watched the feed from the stairs on the screen. There were thirty seconds of anxious waiting, and then Hawkmoth's shoes appeared on the stairs. They headed down unevenly, revealing the red pants cuffs once again.

"Oh, he's shaken," Nino murmured, a grin evident in his voice. "Super shaken. Serves the asshole right."

Another step, more of the pants were revealed. They watched in anxious silence as the red pants gave way to a very familiar ivory jacket, then a striped necktie, and then Hawkmoth took one more step down the stairs, head hanging down as he made his way down the Eiffel Tower.

And much to Alya's surprise, she recognized the face that went with those atrocious fashion choices, even at this angle. And from Nino's sharp inhale, she knew that he had, too.

"Well," Nino managed after a minute of trying to find his words. "This is bad."

And with that, Alya could only agree.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #in which Alya actually acts like a reporter

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otheroutlandertales · 6 years ago

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Anonymous said: Fergus doesn't know what to get Marsali for her birthday

Hello OOT readers! Muy here. I’ve shaped this prompt to fit within my Fersali ficlet series, which means it can be enjoyed as a standalone fic or as part of a larger story. This particular ficlet takes place in between “First date”/Oversight and The jacket. enjoy!

Fersali: Pictures

by @ianmuyrray

Fergus lounged at the end of a metal pier, cigarette in hand, the sky an early morning blue-gray behind him. Across the bay stood a shadowed city skyline, rectangular windows winking golden in the shadow of buildings. In the distance, sailboats billowed their white sails, stiff, rocking clouds.

Marsali’s birthday is tomorrow. Fuck.

He drew from his cig, the end glowing a brilliant orange, and narrowed his eyes against a sea breeze. He took a moment to appreciate smoke-filled lungs. God, that feels good. He exhaled out of his nose, reluctantly.

He’d met Marsali about a month ago. And it’d been the best month of his life. It was a whirlwind, and yet, he forgot nothing. Time flashed by like lightning, but he knew he could freeze-frame, recall any image he wanted in high definition.

Marsali was a walking daydream. He constantly feared he would be roused from it only to find himself alone again. She was tough, funny, sweet, smart-mouthed, and ridiculously sexy. Their relationship had progressed very quickly, and Fergus felt the groove of pavement and the roar of an engine as he raced toward everything he never thought he wanted.

He was terrified, yet glad of it.

When apart, they were constantly in contact, unable to refuse the magnetism between them. He felt compelled to update her on the little things during the day, to check in on her smallest moments, to share everything. He had never felt such a depth of connection with anyone before.

He ran his hand absentmindedly over the phone in his pocket. It had been largely silent - nothing from Marsali in a number of days.

He stared blankly into the skyline. Boats bobbed around him, the air smelled of sea salt and algae-blanketed rock walls. Fergus frowned.

Rushing into things had its side effects. Like David - someone he reached out to when he was lonely and bereft, someone Fergus had used to pretend another person liked him, cherished him, wanted to spend time with him. But really, David was just someone he could get off with shortly after sending a text. Fergus never had to clean his shitty flat, or shave on his days off, or feel responsible for buying David’s dinner. David wasn’t a boyfriend, wasn’t a relationship; he was only a hookup.

Fergus hadn’t had an opportunity to reach out to David since Marsali had appeared in the restaurant, looking thoroughly fuckable, extremely dangerous, and forgotten by another man. He had been drawn to her, and watching her storm out of the restaurant made him shed his apron and tie and clock out-- assigned shift be damned. He needed to be near her, to find out if she felt the same undeniable pull.

He flicked his thumb against the cig’s filter end, ashes falling into the harbor water, before bringing it to his lips for a final inhale. He sighed as he exhaled and extinguished the cigarette butt on the metal pier before tossing it into a little rubbish bucket hanging from the pier’s post.

And tomorrow was her birthday.

Fergus had agonized over what to get her. Always strapped for cash, making little money as he did as a server, his options were limited. What the hell was he supposed to buy someone he’s only known a few weeks when it feels like he’s known her longer than time itself?

He had decided to show her how meaningful the time warp was to him. So, he prepared a box of photographs for her. Snapshots of them together, of silly selfies, eating mustard covered hot dogs from a street cart, climbing grassy hills in the park, sharing a slurpee at the theater. Photos of them separate. He had included several of the images she had snapped of him: one while he was reading under a lamp at night, one where he was eating an ice cream sandwich in the car, another where he lounged in bed, nude and happy.

And, of course, there were photos of her that he had taken. Photos of Marsali was the largest category in the box; he couldn’t seem to stop taking photos of her, let alone select only a few of the ones he had taken. He wanted to capture her in all lights, in all settings, in all expressions.

There was one he had taken of her in the shower. He snuck into the warm bathroom and playfully stuck his phone around the corner of the curtain. She had squealed in delight and surprise, trying to knock the phone from his hands and into the running water. Water droplets sprinkled his arm and phone, and he nearly dropped it, but he managed to snap a picture. He had leaned against the sink, admiring the image of her on his cracked screen, the out of date phone broad in his hands.

Shower still running, Marsali whipped open the curtain, wild-eyed and laughing. She leaped forward and tackled him, dampening his t-shirt and jeans. But he hadn’t cared. He stripped out of his wet clothes as quickly as he could and pulled her back under the running water, closing the curtain behind them.

The photo from that day is his favorite. A blurry image of Marsali whooping with laughter, surrounded by running water and steam and sea-foam colored tile. She was covering herself the best she could with one arm while the other extended to swat the camera away.

In that photo was Marsali, the woman. Daring, goofy, fun-loving, kissable, fierce Marsali, who trusted him completely from the moment she had met him, who gave him all of herself before he even realized how much he needed it.

His lips twitched, his mind cascading through tender memory, familiar tobacco whirring through his head. A seagull flew by him, then parted with a low swoop. Twilight was fading.

His phone began to buzz, and Fergus felt his heart stop as he was ripped back into the present. He swallowed hard but didn’t move to grab it. Instead, without checking the name on his screen, he silenced the phone.

Several days ago, he had been in the kitchen, stirring a bubbling pot of noodles for a macaroni and cheese dinner for the two of them. Marsali was on the couch, buried in her computer.

At the last second, he had heard his phone ringing.

“Marsali, could you get that?” he called, tapping starched water off his wooden spoon and reaching for a colander.

“Sure thing, dove,” she had replied, standing up from the couch and heading for his jacket on the coat hook, where his phone waited in a pocket, dinging.

Fergus busied himself by straining the noodles and pulling milk from the fridge, tearing open the cheese packet and dumping it into the new bowl of noodles.

Marsali entered the kitchen, her face stony and cold, and held out the phone.

“Who is it?” Fergus asked, mixing ingredients together, frowning at her severe look.

“It’s a call from some guy named David. He wants to know if ye’re available tonight,” she replied, her voice dark and clipped.

Fergus’ stirring efforts stopped abruptly, and he glanced over at Marsali. “Dav-- David?”

“Yes,” Marsali replied, terse. “He also sent ye a photo.”

She tossed his clunky, outdated smartphone to the counter where Fergus saw a graphic, closeup of David’s erect penis.

Fergus’ heart leaped into his throat, and his head spun. He rubbed a hand against his forehead, trying to stop it, staring hard at the macaroni bowl before him, the two smaller bowls he had set out for their dinner to share.

“Who is David?” Instead of demanding, Marsali was cold, her blue eyes glittered dangerously with ice. “And how often does this happen?” She waved a hand over the phone.

“It’s not what you think,” Fergus replied, his mind racing, trying to find a way to explain that wouldn’t upset Marsali further.

“It’s not?” she snapped, nodding towards the lit phone screen, David’s erection still displayed. “What is that, then?”

Fergus flinched. “He was from before you.” He had been so focused on Marsali during the last weeks that everyone else had faded into the background.

“Ye’ve been with men?”

Fergus swallowed. While he had reached an incredible level of intimacy with Marsali, he hadn’t yet shared that. No one knew he had been sleeping with David, or that David wasn’t the first. “Yes.” His cheeks flushed.

“Why didn’t ye tell me? Did ye really think I would care?”

He hadn’t wanted to find out if she’d care, fearing the worst. “Marsali, I--”

“Ye know what, I dinna care about yer interest in men. At all.” The words hung in the air, and for a moment, he felt he believed her. “What I do care about is ye sneaking around behind my back. I thought we had something good here, Fergus.”

He fought to catch his breath. “We do! Marsali--”

“Fergus, I willna have ye lyin’ to me.”

“Dammit, would you let me speak!” He gripped the edge of the counter tight with rage and fear, feeling everything slipping quickly away from him.

She glowered at him. “Go ahead then. What have ye to say?”

He breathed deep, ran his hands over his face, wanting to pace the small room that was his kitchen, try to gain some traction. “I didn’t tell you about him because I was a coward, Marsali. No one knows!” He took a deep breath. “And I didn’t tell him about you because he’s not important enough to me. I was just going to ghost him. I have no attachment to David.”

“No attachment? Ye seem pretty cozy to me.” She grabbed the phone, held it up again like she was a prize presenter on a bizarre game show he didn’t want to play.

“Put that down! I’m only going to delete it like I have the others.”

“The others? You’ve received other photos from him, or there are others who send photos?”

He had, actually, received late-night texts from Rhona, someone he had been seeing several months ago. He ignored them, but... he hadn’t actually deleted them.

Marsali immediately turned to his phone, beginning to search through his messages. He stood there, feeling trapped in quicksand, unable to move for fear of making the situation worse.

Finding the naked photos of Rhona, Marsali looked as if she was going to explode, a powder keg, set to ignite if he had reached to touch her. Full of disgust, she threw the phone at him, and he had to duck quickly to dodge it. It struck the wall and landed with a sharp sound on the linoleum floor.

“Ye didna delete it, you pig,” she uttered. Her eyes were bright and red, tears gathering in her long lashes. “Am I just another one? Another number for you to call when you’re lonely? To keep dirty pictures of?”

“No!” he reached for her, wanting to pull her into his arms, convey with touch what he couldn’t express in words.

She swiped at him, denying his embrace, and backed away. Without another word, she threw on her coat and shoes, slamming the door behind her as she left. At the sight of the shuddering door frame, his heart ached, his stomach churned, his head swam. Fuck, fuck, fuck his cowardice.

He hadn’t heard from her in several days.

He leaned back against the pier, all the way back, flattening himself, his ribcage collapsing with resignation.

From the beginning, he could have handled everything differently. He could have been upfront with Marsali, upfront with David, and yet hadn’t been. Because he wanted Marsali all to himself because he didn’t want to upend the boat. Because he was scared.

He sighed, lit a second cigarette. Savored it until it burnt to ash and stank of plastic filter. He lay silent, unmoving.

But the spell had broken the spell anyway. She was gone. He had gambled and lost.

The car he had been traveling in, towards his everything, disintegrated around him like the smoke he exhaled. His everything disappeared into the twilight, wafting up and away from the city skyline; it drowned in the water, trapped in weeds, too far gone to cry out to be saved.

She haunted him. Even now, he could hear her chastising him for not contacting her. These days apart were an eternity. If life was fast with her, it was glacial without her.

He ran his hands through his hair, sat up. He pulled the phone out of his pocket, finally able to look at it.

He ignored the notification-- it was just a spam email-- and opened an app to message Marsali, even as he guessed she wouldn’t reply. He didn’t know what to say, or where to start, but he had to try something.

A life without Marsali didn’t feel possible.

I’m sorry.

Immediately, the message registered as read. Bubbles from the other side jumped, stopped. Jumped again. He waited, hardly able to take a breath.

I know. Miss you.

She had been waiting to hear from him. Thank god.

He stood then, brushed the dust from his jeans.

He found his car, scrounged a pen out of his glove compartment. He opened up the box of photographs beside him in the passenger seat, began to write what he could remember about the moment he took it on the back. His heart leaped as he remembered being together in the park. How content he felt when they lay together. The exhilaration that rushed through him when he snuck into the shower to take a picture of her. He wanted to show her how she made him feel, wanted her to know everything, all of it.

It was her birthday tomorrow, dammit, and he wasn’t going to let cowardice or fear, or weakness, stop him from celebrating her.

#outlander fanfiction #otheroutlandertales #mod muy #pair: fergus x marsali #ch: fergus #ch: marsali #modern au #category: mf #queerlander #fersali #oot #*

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classic-rock-roller · 7 years ago

Text

1. Kevin invites you to his class to see his presentation for Music History. You go, excited to see what he’s come up with. When he gets up to present, he uses 3 of his allotted 10 minutes, doesn’t have a slide show, and is overall uninformed. You love him to death, but his presentation is, frankly, awful. When he finishes, he looks to you earnestly. “What did you think? Was it great?” You want to be honest, but you don’t want to break his heart. What do you tell him?

I’d smile at him and go, “It was good, but not the best I know you could do. I know and have seen you do better.”

2. You’re sitting calmly on the quad at school when someone comes up behind you and covers your eyes and wraps an arm around your torso. They lean around to whisper something in your ear and say, If you–Oh fuck you’re not who I thought you were.” They let you go and you see it’s Vince. How do you respond?

“Were you expecting someone else, Vincess?”

3. You are being especially sassy toward Kevin lately. He is just trying to be nice, but no, just sass. After a couple of days of this, he says, “Even with all this sass, I still love you, but you are getting on my nerves.” How do you respond?

“Good, I’m glad,” and I’d kiss him and go back to being my sweet self. “Wait...were you trying to get on my nerves?” “Yes, because you said I couldn’t do anything to annoy you.” I’d turn around then and next thing I know he’s wrapping his arms around me. “You drive me crazy, you know?” I’d smile and go, “Oh, I know.”

4. You noticed that Randy and Kevin both wear rings with letters on them. Randy’s ring has 2 R’s for his initials, so you assume that’s what Kevin’s has too, since he’s never let you see his. One day when he’s in the shower, you pick up his ring and see that the letters aren’t his initials, but yours. What do you do?

I’d smile and place the ring back down. When he’d come out of the shower, I’d go, “I really like your ring it's nice.” He’d freeze, realizing he forgot to hide it and say, “You don’t think it’s too sappy.” I’d give him a kiss. “Nah, I think it’s sweet.”

5. You went to the bar with Kevin, Randy, Rudy, and Drew. You’re all fairly buzzed, and the house band starts up an old song. They all know it, and you don’t, unfortunately, but they all start singing. It’s got repetitive lyrics, so you catch on quickly and join in. You’re all singing together and it’s great; when it’s over, Kevin, who has been slowly progressing from buzzed to drunk, stands up and declares his love for you in front of all the bar’s patrons. Some guys whistle, and Randy and Co. whoop. How do you respond?

“I know, Kev, you do this every time I’m with you and you get drunk. You’ve had me for two years I don’t think you need to do it anymore.” He jumps down from the chair he’s standing on and goes, “Oh, I’ll do it every time.” Before pulling me in for a kiss that makes the bar whoop and whistle and Randy, Rudy, and Drew gag.

6. You’re sitting inside one day, and Kevin is noodling with something outside trying to fix it. After about half an hour, he comes inside and very determinedly begins rooting through a kitchen drawer. “Whatcha doin’, Kev?” you ask him. Without looking up, he says, “I need a hairdryer, a fork, and a tube of tan caulk.” What is he doing and how do you respond?

“What are you doing?” I’d stop. “Don’t tell me you didn’t call the exterminator to get the hornets out of the roof.” He’d turn to me and go, “I’m not paying eleven dollars an hour for him to do something that I can do on my own.” I’d cross my arms, “Call the exterminator.” But--” “Call the exterminator. I’m am not having you fall off the ladder from getting stung by hornets.” He’d sigh defeated, “...ok.”

7. You and Kevin just went through a very nasty and painful breakup. Out of sheer anger, you write a little poem and post it on Tumblr. It reads, “You stabbed me a hundred times and then acted like you were the one bleeding. And the worst part was that everyone was helping you while I was bleeding to death.” You think nothing of it, until 2 weeks later. A new Quiet Riot album has come out, and your poem is the main chunk of lyrics of the most popular single on the album. In an interview, Kevin is taking all the credit for writing the lyrics. You’re outraged. How do you respond?

I’d march over to his house and the minute he’d open the door I’d go, “You fucker!” This would then escalate into us having a screaming match on his front porch. Somehow we end up making out, he stops and goes, “So does this mean we’re back together?” He gives me a hopeful smile. “Yes, but you’re still a fucker.” “Oh, come on, don’t be like that.”

8. Kevin suffered a pretty severe head injury when he fell off the roof at his parents’ house trying to fix something. You’ve been with him in the hospital for 3 days when the doctor pulls you aside. He tells you that if Kevin wakes up, he will have severe amnesia. You scoff at him, thinking that Kevin could never forget you. You’re with him for another 3 days before he wakes up. When he does, he looks at you as if you’re a stranger, and you know what the doctor said was true. He has no idea who you are. What do you do?

I’d hold back tears and go, “Hey, Kev, we’ll have you out of here in a few days I promise ok?” I’d sit with him for a little bit longer and explain who I am. I can tell he really wants to remember me and it’ll take a bit. Right before I take him home on the third day he tells me he remembers walking somewhere with me by a lake. This makes me hopeful that he’ll remember because it was one of our fondest memories together.

9. You are frantically cramming for your finals. Your phone rings, and it’s your sister calling. You ignore her because you’re super busy. She keeps calling, and you keep ignoring her. The next morning, you take your test, and when you get back to your room, Kevin’s sitting on your bed, and he’s on the phone. You wait for him to hang up, and when he does, he looks at you sadly. “That was your sister. Your mom had a heart attack yesterday afternoon. She…didn’t make it.” How do you respond?

I’d sway and literally break down right on the floor by the door. Just...huge wracking sobs. Kevin would come over and pull me into his lap and we’d just sit there on the floor for a little bit not saying anything and just rocking ever so slightly.

10. At the park, you and Kevin see a bunch of seagulls. You say “I wonder how many there are.” Kevin just says, “One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding and four for a birth. Five for silver, six for gold, and seven for a secret never to be told.” You look at him confusedly. He explains, “That’s how you’re supposed to count crows, my grandma told me that.” How do you respond?

“Wow cool, my grandmother used to just scream, ‘Get those fuckers off my lawn! I hate birds!’ Before chasing after them with a broom.”

11. You’re downtown with Kevin, and you’re walking on the sidewalk. Ever the gentleman, Kevin is walking on the street side. Suddenly he pushes you into a store, clearly not paying attention to what it is. You look around him to see a car driving along the sidewalk to pass a stopped bus, missing Kevin by inches. He steps into the store. “What were you thinking!?” you ask. Kevin is suddenly pensive. “If me dying meant you living, how could that be anything but good?” You are shocked at this train of thought. How do you respond?

“Well, if you died then life wouldn’t be worth living...Don’t do anything stupid like that again!”

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

1) Randy has brought you over for the first time to meet Rudy, Kevin, and Drew. As you’re leaving so that Randy can drive you back home, you hear Kevin scream from the porch, “Remeber to use protection in the next ten minutes!” You think the whole neighborhood heard. How do you and Randy react?

2) You work in a florists shop and Kevin comes in and slams twenty bucks down on the table. “I need to get flowers for my girlfriend. How do I passive aggressively say I want to fuck you in flower?” How do you respond?

3) You get home from work to see Randy lying face down on the carpet. “Hey, hon, what’s wrong?” He turns and looks at you, “I just had a bad day.” How do you respond?

4) You and Randy are laying in a hammock. You’ve fallen asleep on his chest and he’s gently rocking the hammock. After a bit, he rocks it too hard and the two of you tumble out, effectively waking you up. What do you say and how does he respond?

5) You’re walking through Walmart singing one of the newer Quiet Riot songs that came on the radio. From a couple aisles down you hear someone else singing along with you. When you turn down the aisle, you run into them. It’s Randy from Quiet Riot. What do you do?

6) You and Randy are watched one of your favorite tv shows. You get up to go to the bathroom and pause the show. “Don’t play it I’ll be right back.” You’re not even gone five minutes and when you get back, Randy is watching it again. How do you respond?

7) You’re making breakfast for you and Stephen. When he comes out you can tell he hasn’t slept well, “Morning sunshine. Ready for breakfast.” He’s about to say something but bursts into tears. Why is he crying and what do you do?

8) You’re in the shower when all of a sudden the curtain is pulled back, You scream, but it’s only Randy, he goes, “Are we--stop screaming, it’s just me--are we out of Cheetos?” How do you respond?

9) Randy and you are sitting on the couch and he’s telling you about the gig last night that you were unable to go to. You’re listening but also thinking in your head, “This is the person I’m in love with.” Randy literally stops and says, “You realize that’s the first time you’ve said that right?” How do you respond?

10) You and Randy are in bed and you have your back to him. After a bit, you feel this light touch on your back. It’s Randy spelling out ‘I love you.’ He thinks you’re asleep. How do you respond?

11) You were eating dinner with Randy and accidentally bit your lip. “Shit I bit my lip.” Randy puts down his fork and gives you a smile, “Do you want me to kiss it to make it feel better?” How do you respond?

@osbournebemydaddy , your move, love

#tag game #tag war

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