#i am very tired and a little burnt out so this may not make sense but here it is

[merbear25]

My girrrrl, I love you and your events, so here I am!

I will betray my men (shhhh) and I will request: 5. farm house + 🧛‍♂️ vampire au + Mihawk, please!

Gn o fem reader, sfw o nsfw, as you feel comfortable. I trust you and in your talent ♡

With love, Cami ☆

CAMI!! I'm so happy you sent something in for the event!! And of course of course, your secret is safe with me, girl 🤭 Hope you like it, my lovely 💜🧡

A road you’d traveled many times before. The journey home was long overdue and as the night carried you on the darkened path, a dose of reality put a hold on your plans. A house that was a part of the scenery for all those years now entered the foreground, earning itself much more than just an eerie visual.

CW: very suggestive, fem!reader, mentions of blood, death, reader is attacked

Heart Throbbing (Vampire! Mihawk) 

Traveling cross country on your way home for the holidays wasn’t all bad. The long stretches of road and the stars peaking through the clouds above gave you a sense of peace. The countryside was beautiful this time of year: the mix of yellows and reds painting parts of the way and the corn fields that were turned white under the moon’s rays. 

The fresh air sent your long locks flowing behind the headrest when you cracked the windows. You flicked your cigarette onto the damp pavement, letting the embers on it fade in the mirrors. A house appeared over the hill in the distance, one which graced your route each journey home but never had any lights on. It sat off in the distance in the open field. Each time you caught a glimpse of it, a thought crossed your mind of why it hadn’t been torn down yet.

As your car drew nearer, a sudden drop on the driver’s side caused you to swerve. Having been speeding down these roads for as long as you had, karma was sure to catch up with you eventually. Heart pounding in your ears, throat dry from the loss of breath, the smell of burnt rubber wafted past you: the sinking feeling was inescapable. 

Nothing but the rustling of the corn stocks greeted you as you exited your vehicle. “Is this your way of telling me to slow down?” You groaned up at the heavens, while the driver’s side was sinking more into the ground.

Your eyes fell on that soulless house in the distance again. Surely there was someone living there if it was still standing. There’d be no use for it surrounded by a corn field otherwise, you rationalized.

The path was beaten to hell and back. Overgrown weeds that crawled at your pant legs, rocks that seemed to penetrate the soles of your shoes, all leading to the front porch that creaked from the wind alone. Its front door was swallowed in the corner, completely hidden by the darkness, and the lack of floodlights in the front yard gave little hope for there being any life within its dwelling.

Scoffing at yourself for making the stupid mistake of flying down these parts to shave a few minutes off your travel time, you turned around trying to recall the nearest gas station. Stepping further to the side triggered a light. Your shadow instantly stretched down the long untended path.

The outer walls felt as if they stretched to the rolling clouds when you faced them again. Each knock on the door echoed around you. Only the original three felt appropriate to bother whomever may be resting inside and given the state of the place, the chill of who lived in such seclusion prickled at the back of your neck.

“Who’s there?”

“Sorry to bother you but uh, I’m having some car issues. I have a flat tire and I don’t have any service out here.” Your eyes darted over the same few spots on the door. “Could I use your phone to call a tow truck or something?” The dragged out silence coiled itself around your chest, tightening around it like a boa constrictor.

“You may.” The door was left ajar. Lights flooded the entryway, presenting this shabby house as a home. Burnt orange wallpaper with delicate gold swirls covered the walls and the dark cherry staircase made the crown molding pop. “Apologies for not opening the door sooner. One can’t be too careful when a stranger wanders up to their door in the dead of night.”

The deadpan stare tied with the suspicious wording had you on edge, yet you smiled out of understanding. “I know how inconvenient this all is, so I deeply appreciate your help, sir.”

A slow, short nod was issued before he started down the hallway. “Truth be told, I don’t get many visitors. I assume most have convinced themselves this place is abandoned.” The oddly personal comment directed at you sent a shiver down your spine. “But I pay it no mind. I’ve grown to prefer my personal time.”

You followed him as he continued down the hall. “I take it you keep fairly busy though, what with the fields and all?”

“Yes, I suppose they help pass the time, but it’s a mere fraction of what I get up to.” A demeanor as cold as his would’ve normally iced you out, but you found yourself drawn to him. The air of mystery thickened with each word that passed his lips. “And what brings you out here at such a late hour? A young lady such as yourself, shouldn’t be traveling right now.” 

“I was on my way back home for the holidays.” There was a stillness in the house when you spoke, causing a faint ringing in your ears.

The hallway twisted and turned. The patterns on the walls shifted and slithered. The lights that lit the way flickered and faded. You felt short of breath all of the sudden. Beads of sweat teased your hairline and the sensation of fainting flooded your trembling body. “I-I feel really…ill. I need to sit down.” Dry, choked concerns of yours fell flat on your host’s ears.

He turned to face you, stepping towards you in a way that savored your panic stricken form. The pattern in his yellow eyes was difficult not to be drawn to. They glowed along with the swirling patterns on the wall. Vertigo left you swaying back against the orange and gold.

When you began sliding down the wall, he was quick to catch you. Forcing you against his hip, a guttural grunt rumbled in his throat as he gazed down at the helpless rabbit. Each push against him in protest was in vain. His grip on you tightened, making you cry out.

As he leaned in closer to you, his lips grazed your neck. The feeling of his tongue tracing your quickening pulse coaxed the inevitable pleas of mercy. Begging for him to let you go, that you wouldn’t tell anyone, that you’d take it to your grave: it was all so delectable.

He groaned against your neck at your feeble attempts at breaking free. “I’ll do anything! Please, please, please,” you repeated in strangled sobs.

“Shhhh,” he cooed while stroking your hair. “Don’t worry, my pretty little thing.” He gently kissed your neck, trailing them up to your temple, each one allowing more of his sharp teeth to graze your sensitive skin. A deep sigh left him as he felt your hope of escaping leave your body. “I don’t play with my food.”

A deep puncture sent a shock throughout your system. You clawed at his back as wet gasps trickled down to your chest. Your eyes rolled back and your vision faded in and out, while the pleasure infused pants from him filled your ears. The grip he had on your hip and back of your neck strengthened as you lost feeling in your legs. Your body weight dragged you to the floor, pulling him with you.

Rough movements of his hips against yours as he lapped at the wounds in your neck made you choke on your own blood. He gripped the back of your head and painted the rest of your dainty neck in red strips. The jagged markings morphed into sensual kisses.

“I wish you could understand how good you taste.” Holding you closely, he was debating whether or not to drain you entirely. A tasty morsel like you was hard to come by, and seeing as his last fix was six feet under, there was an opening itching to be filled.

He pressed his face against your cheek, licking at the drying blood he left behind. “I can make the bleeding stop, but if I do, you’re bound to me for the rest of your days. You’ll live to serve me in every way I wish. If you refuse, you’ll die right here…right now. What do you say?” His hot iron scented breath bathed your clammy skin. 

You sputtered an agreement, earning you a curse disguised as your saving grace. Scared of what your life would become but terrified of death, you sealed your soul to a man you deemed the devil himself.

[sparkedblaze]

DAVEY

Look y’all gotta start telling me if y’all want canon or modern 💀

Okay so idk if Davey was based of Dave Simmons but let me tell you about him anyway 🥰🥰

I think Jack’s characterization is far closer to Dave Simmons than Davey’s. The only thing they share is a name.

But I digress

So! This is Dave Simmons!

President of the Union in the first half of the strike

Accused of betraying the strike, though I personally think he may have been a victim of a whisper campaign out out by the papers

The rumor was that he and Kid Blink took a bribe to sell papes before the end of the strike.

Though they both denied the accusation, they both stepped down from their position. Dave (I believe) became treasurer instead.

There’s no actual evidence that he actually scabbed. But they decided to step down rather than hinder the strike with disloyalty.

Newsies Davey

Mom friend. This isn’t even a hc it’s just canon at this point.

This boy is burnt out before he’s even an adult 💀My poor boy is so tired all the time please give him iced coffee and therapy

Book smart. Common sense dumb. Uses big words like auspicious but knows nothing of selling or anything about Snyder (despite living in NYC and being poor enough to need to join the newsies)

Here comes my rant about autistic Davey Jacobs:

Has no filter and even less chill. Davey is very all or nothing and I love him for that.

Doesn’t get social cues. See: Jack v upset about Crutchie being arrested. Davey: “abOvE thE fOld”

Special interest: learning. Especially about art. And hawking. And pretty strike leaders

He and Les have gotten stuck in echolalia circles. They’ll echo each other for hours on end.

Has trouble lying, and approaching people in general.

End of this autistic Davey Jacobs rant bc I could literally talk forever

He values honesty so much it hurts. When Jack scabs in 92sies. One of first things David says is “You’re a liar! You lied about everything!” And the devastation on his face in Livesies. Literal chills 😭😭

Where Jack ignores orders just to prove a point, Davey doesn’t mind following orders as long as they’re reasonable. As long as they make sense. When the strike starts, Davey doesn’t quite understand. He doesn’t get the difference in ten cents for a hundred papes. It doesn’t make any difference to him. When it’s explained to him, he’s wholeheartedly for the strike. When Jack scabs, Davey once again doesn’t understand because they’ve worked so hard. And this is the one thing Jack listens to?

Anti-violence. Even in the face of starvation and freezing in the coming winter (they don’t know how long this strike will last. He has to be prepared) Davey is adamant. Do not soak the scabs.

Is always 100% done with Jack’s shit.

Is Jewish!! I’m like 98% sure this is canon, but I am certain it’s at least fanon the Jacobs are Jewish

Say something about his baby brother and he. Will. End. You.

RYAN KOPEL IS SO RIGHT THAT DAVEY GETS A LITTLE MORE FERAL EVERY DAY.

Modern:

Davey✔️

He and Jack have been friends for as long as he could remember. His family always went around to the orphanages in New York, bringing old clothes that had been collected by the people of their Synagogue.

David and Sarah had always sought out Jack when they’d get to the Refuge. Snyder always put on a front of being a kind, caring guardian when there were visitors, but Jack told Davey and Sarah about some of the horrors that they were put through.

Their parents never believed them, because Jack (having a distrust of adults for some odd reason) always told them that he was fine and he wasn’t in any danger, and so they thought their children were making it up to try and bring their friend home. When Les was born, the Jacobs took time off to get adjusted to having a new child in the house.

In college for business or marketing to make sure he knows how to do what’s best to keep them successful.

Dave in the Life: Multiple videos a week just vlogging the domestic side of his and Jack’s relationship

Been There Done That: Joint channel with Jack. Traveling, doing wild shit, usually featuring many of their friends

This concludes everything coming out of my brain about Davey Jacobs right now

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk

[pitchblackkoi]

Jon as an avatar of the Powers

The Web got to Jon when he was only a child, easy to change into what it needed. He walks strangely, though by the time you would notice it would already be too late and he would have your mind in his grasp. Instead of being afraid of them, spiders are his only companions. They whispers secrets to him that help him puppet his prey all the better. The one person he won’t control, though, is Martin. Something about the way he had looked at Jon when they met, with kindness in his eyes. Fear, yes, but not as much as he was used to. Letting him make his own choices became a game and it became love, eventually. Martin sees the monster, yes, but he loves him all the same

Loneliness has been a constant companion of Jon’s, from being orphaned young to being raised by a grandmother who never showed much affection. It only makes sense that eventually that fog would take him. In the Lonely it doesn’t hurt to be alone. It feels right, even. And when he feeds that entity, well, it feeds him as well. Until Martin that satisfaction is the only feeling he has. With him he feels more. He thinks he might even know what love feels like. And maybe that sharp feeling of loneliness that Martin feels when Jon leaves him feeds him as well.

In life Jon had been starved for touch, for closeness. He needn’t crave that anymore now that the Buried has taken him. His world is walls surrounding him and the satisfying weight of soil on his shoulders. Maybe he always has dirt streaked on his hair and clothes and skin but appearances don’t really matter now, do they? He had never cared much for them anyways. It is not as if the people he crushes under the earth are thinking too hard about such things. Martin doesn’t mind, just smiles and runs his hands through Jon’s hair, not seeming to care that his hands come away streaked in soil. He doesn’t care that Jon stands too close either. Just holds him close in return.

Jon has never been under any illusions about his appearance. People don’t find him particularly attractive and that’s fine. Especially because with the Flesh he has the opportunity to be more. He can add bones, organs, to his body however he likes. It’s like an experiment, seeing how he can add and rearrange his body. He knows he is monstrous, and yet Martin takes his mangled hands in his own and presses a kiss to him. Listens to his garbled voice and laughs when he makes jokes. Jon thinks he can stay human enough to love and protect Martin.

The Desolation gives Jon the opportunity to make his anger known. Not to the point of cruelty (though he can get carried away, he will be the first to admit), but there is an amount of satisfaction that comes with setting something alight and watching it burn to nothing. He tends not to burn more than he needs to in order to keep himself from burning out. Jon has to be careful not to burn Martin. The one time he forgot himself and accidentally burned Martin’s arm still haunts him and the scar it left won’t let either of them forget. So he bundles himself in a coat in gloves and pretends the trust he was given wasn’t misplaced.

Something about working for the End feels right to Jon. It’s orderly. Things live and then they die and go to his patron. There isn’t anything for him to do personally, unless someone is trying to run from the inevitable. Then Jon becomes that figure of death that people so fear. It’s funny how dying gave him a purpose. People don’t want him to stick around, which is fine by him. He knows his presence feels like death. He doesn’t understand why it doesn’t deter Martin, though. Why is it that he would know what Jon is and still hold his hand and offer him tea and look so excited to see him? It’s no matter though, because in the end his patron will have him in it’s grasp as well.

The Dark is not so scary as people fear. There’s something so simple about it, really. Jon exists in the darkness and he also is the darkness. He doesn’t even remember what he looks like anymore, which doesn’t bother him as much as he thinks it once would have. All he has is his voice and the tendrils of darkness that are at his beck and call. It is very easy to corner people in the dark when you can kill the lights with a thought. People become so scared when they can’t see what’s coming. Martin isn’t though. Jon can always feel his smile in the darkness, how happy his is when his surroundings darken. All because he knows it means Jon is coming.

Jon is never alone now that the Corruption sings its sweet song to him. It provided him with his moths. They live in him, exiting from the hollow in his back like he is some sort of huldra, hiding it so that he is not discovered. They nibble at his clothes and the edges of the books that he reads and they tell him things. Sometimes they tell him secrets or things they learn or just about how good he is, how much they love him. Like all moths they are attracted to the light and the real light in his life is Martin Blackwood. They love him as Jon does, consider him family and fly to greet him when he is near. Martin is gentle with them in return, though he has made it clear that he doesn’t want to become a host. That is just as well, because that means Jon can have Martin to himself.

Jon used to feel helpless but there is something about the way his blood sings when he holds a blade that makes him feel alive and present. The Slaughter replaced helplessness not with control but the kind of wildness that makes him feel free. With a weapon in hand he could do anything and there is nothing so satisfying as the flow of blood after a good kill, his patron’s song swirling in his ears. He is reckless, knows when and where to kill. More so, he knows who it is okay to kill. Martin makes the song in his blood quiet, but not in a way that’s scary. It’s calming, his gentle nature. He makes Jon tea and holds him close and he almost feels human again.

The Hunt puts Jon’s mind to its full use. He is good at tracking people down, putting the pieces together to be able to find them. While he is more physically stronger now, he is much better at putting together traps that will make sure whoever he is after cannot escape once he leads them there. He knows people’s minds, how they think, and that is what makes him the most effective Hunter. It is satisfying, too, to know that if anyone tried to get to anyone he cared about he would be able to easily find them. He would be able to find Martin anywhere. And fool be anyone who would take Martin from Jon because he is the only one that can keep him human.

Jon is with the Stranger and he is an imposter. Jon isn’t even his name, it is one he stole. He took it along with some poor person’s life. He is an ill fitting puzzle piece sat in someone’s life, alike enough that it isn’t questions but off enough to make people uncomfortable. Fear feeds him, yes, but it is also a lonely life. Not fitting is what he does and that means people don’t get close to him. But Martin did. Martin knew he was wrong and got to know him. Not the person who’s life he was inhabiting but him. He is still a monster but this kindness offered has made all the difference.

Jon spent all of his life looking up at the night sky and the stars it contains, so it is no real surprise when the Vast takes him. It’s nice, being able to be in that glittering void without having to worry about the altitude making him sick. He tries to share it, but people are always too busy worrying about choking due to lack of air to appreciate the constellations and galaxies above them. The only person that listened to him as he spoke of the vastness of the universe was Martin and so Jon saved him. And Martin stuck around. Now Jon points up at the sky from the ground and regales him with stories of the sky above them.

They say that genius can easily turn to madness and that’s what the Spiral drove Jon to. His terrible work ethic added with his insomnia, it was really bound to happen. Spiraling into research and books until he didn’t realized that what he was researching was nonsense. Now he is a creature that knows much about things that do not exist, spirals in his eyes and a body that seems to curl in on itself. No one really tried to talk to him until Martin, who had noticed him many times and was unnerved but not afraid. He listens to Jon ramble on and on about things that are not real with a gentle smile.

[sukirichi]

hey!! congrats on 500!! could i get breakfast: ingredient 33 + sugar 7 for nanami kento? thanks!!

VIOLET

violet; a flower that symbolizes faith and affection — this was simply one of your promises to Nanami.

meal order: 🥞 + 33 (royalty au) + 7 (forbidden relationship) (no warnings, other than this fic is unedited.)

notes: thank you so much for joining the event and requesting! i honestly loved this idea so much, i still remember how happy i was when i first saw it and i looked forward to writing it. i hope this was what you were looking for! i may or may not have been too deep in the feels with this one. anyways, enjoy and thank you so much! breakfast has been served!

word count: 7k+ 

“Nanami.”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

You looked up from under the golden roof, a small smile on your face. The sun shone down brightly, the calm, gentle air making the flowers in your royal garden dance side by the side, almost as if encouraged by the soft kiss of nature. In this lightning, all the colors popped out vibrantly, a wide array of splashes of life laid out before you. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

Nanami, your bodyguard, followed your line of sight. “Yes, Your Highness.”

Stiff and straightforward as ever, you connoted with a hidden smile. “Perfect,” you announced, lifting your gloved hands in a beckoning gesture. “Come with me. I must inspect the garden. I heard from the staff last night that my new flowers have arrived. I shall see to it that it came in perfect condition,” Nanami nodded beside you and followed you as you trudged all the way out in broad daylight, your hair shining from the sun’s rays.

As if noticing the harsh glare of heat on your skin, Nanami was quick to open your parasol, standing at least a foot behind you. Trained to be obedient flawless in their duties, his footsteps were silent behind you, nothing but the tapping of your heels against the ground heard from the open space.

You were shielded from the heat, but you weren’t satisfied.

With a faux, distressed clicking of your tongue, you stopped in your tracks, whipping around to face your black-suit clad bodyguard. His gaze immediately fell down to your feet, back tilted in a perfect bow. You sighed, “Nanami.”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“Do you want to be fired?”

He froze at your words, momentarily looking up at you for a moment before turning to the ground again. “Of course not, Your Highness,” although monotonous, you could detect the slight tinge of worry in his voice, and you felt a smile crossing on your lips when you saw his brows furrow. “I extremely apologize if I’ve done something wrong. I must repent for it and assess my worth as your—”

“You’re not holding the parasol properly,” you cut him off and stepped forward, reaching to his extended arm and placing yourself right next to him until your shoulders were close enough to brush against each other.

Nanami’s jaw clenched at the lack of space, probably worrying that this was disrespectful, completely unaware you enjoyed every single moment of it, especially now that your senses were clouded with both his masculine scent and the calming aroma of flowers.

“If you keep such a distance from me and extend your arm to hold this, you’d tire your arm, and when your arm is strained, then you won’t be able to be fast enough to protect me from whatever harm comes my way. Plus, holding it in this manner leaves my nose to be burnt under the harsh sun! You wouldn’t want your princess to have sunburn, would you?”

“Definitely not, Your Highness. I would not want any harm or trouble your way.”

“So then step close to me. Like this,” you gestured to the both of you, and underneath the parasol, the hesitance swirled all over those pretty blue eyes of his. It made you want to sigh; he worried too much sometimes. “See? Your arm won’t be tired and my nose is perfectly safe under this shade.”

“But Your Highness – this distance—”

“I shall permit it for now. The situation calls for it,” you waved a hand nonchalantly, moving to where you wanted to see the new flowers. Although you couldn’t see him, the lack of warmth beside you was a telltale Nanami was too stunned to move, and you turned around, head tilted challengingly. “Or you’re still questioning the judgment of your princess?”

Nanami frowned, “I am not, Your Highness.”

“Good. Let’s see the flowers then,” You chirped with a clap.

It was the perfect day for a stroll, a rare day where you basked in not having to worry about your princess duties. The sun was out, the skies were clear, and was that a butterfly happily flying in your garden? Now that Nanami had grown comfortable after mentally reassuring himself it was fine to stick close to you, it honestly couldn’t have been better. But you being the sneaky little princess you were, you still had other plans in mind.

Three maids appeared out of nowhere, carrying a basket, a blanket, and a bottle of wine. They all strolled your way with their heads duck down, wordlessly setting out the white and red plaid patterned blanket on the soft, freshly trimmed grass.

You clapped your hands in sheer enthusiasm, “Oh, how perfect timing! It is quite tiring to stroll around this massive garden, don’t you think, Nanami? We should take a break.”

“A...picnic, Your Highness? Out here? Would you not be more comfortable inside—”

“The dining halls are boring and all the staff would be staring at me as I eat,” you plopped down rather ungraciously on the ground, taking off your heels and planting your sock clad feet on the blanket. On any other normal day, your dear Mother would’ve smacked you with her fan had she seen you act this way, but your parents were out of town, and Nanami was the last person who’d ever judge you. You had every right to be free. “It’s not a very comfortable thing, as you must know, and I’d like to enjoy my temporary freedom.”

A few beats passed as Nanami processed your words. A frown still on his handsome face, he studied the comfort of your body on the ground, already moving to open the basket with a cheerful hum. He supposed it wouldn’t be so bad to let you be this way.

“I will follow whatever pleases you then, Your Highness.”

You hid a smile through sucked in cheeks, pulling out the cake and acting surprised even though you’d ordered this days ago, randomly dragging a servant aside to shyly ask her to get you Nanami’s rumored favorite cake from when he went with you on a trip overseas.

“Oh, look! Fondant Cake from the Kingdom of Cherie. Fine, fine wine too, the best from His Majesty’s collection, if I heard it correctly,” you could barely contain your glee when the slightest light glimmered through his guarded eyes, hands reaching down to pat the empty space beside you. “Sit down. I need you to eat this for me.”

“But Your Highness—”

“Lest you want me to be poisoned, Nanami?” you reeled your hand back, gloved hands placed above your chest as horror filled your gaze. Nanami – bless his sweet soul – quickly bent his knees in half. Slowly, with disbelief still crossing his mind, he allowed you to spoon feed him, the chocolate sauce of the cake staining the tips of his lips. “Well? How is it? Is it safe to eat?”

Nanami moaned; pride swelling up on your chest because finally, you could do something for him. He was still too cautious though, and he concealed his delight with a slight clearing of his throat, palms flat on his muscular thighs as he nodded your way. “It is extremely delicious, Your Highness. I believe it is safe to eat.”

“Did you like it?” You already knew the answer, but it wouldn’t hurt to hear it straight from him.

“Yes.”

Thankful that your ears were covered by a frilly bonnet so he wouldn’t see how warmth crawled up at the tips of your ears, you beamed at him, proudly presenting more of the surprised you had in store.

“I have fresh milk cheese from the city of Lein too. Do you know that people travel from all over the world just to visit Lein and have a taste of this cheese? If it were not for our good connections to them, we would never be able to taste this,” you felt Nanami’s curious gaze fall on the delicacy on your hands, a smirk tilting your lips because cheese as quite rare where you were from. Setting it down on a plate, you cut a piece of the dairy, the fork nearly shoved in Nanami’s face. “But just to make sure, of course. We never know people’s intentions – I could be poisoned. You know very well there are plenty of people after the throne and my head.”

Nanami’s eyes widened at your implications, “Princess, please do not speak so lightly of the threats over your life.”

“Why, does it worry you?”

Nanami looked at you like you’d grown two heads. “Of course it does. It is my duty to protect and worry about you.”

“Is it really just a duty?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing,” you said through gritted teeth, pushing the plate towards him again before Nanami could comprehend whatever went on in your head. “Pair it with the cake. Maybe there could be a chemical reaction that is life threatening. Oh, how I fear for my life, Nanami.”

Obediently, Nanami swallowed the food, eyes closed from the flavors bursting through his mouth. It wasn’t too much of a reaction, but there were hardly any when it came to Nanami to begin with, so it was enough for you, and your giggles were stifled beside him. “I believe this one is safe too.”

And so began your spontaneous picnic, with Nanami being flustered the whole time because you insisted on feeding him. He refused many times, claiming that a royal shouldn’t feed a servant, much less spend their time with him this way. Even though you didn’t mean it, you rolled your eyes just to dissipate his worries, lying through your teeth that you were full and you didn’t want to be suffocated in your corset.

You proceeded to tell him of the different ways his precious princess could die of asphyxiation. The more grotesque your storytelling began; Nanami ate everything quietly, still oblivious that you had your eyes on him the whole time.

He ate quickly, not wanting to be rude and take up too much of your time, but you insisted that you didn’t want him to choke and ordered him to slow down. As your lovely and dutiful servant, who was he to defy your orders? So he took his time, and you closed your eyes, leaning back onto his firm shoulders that grew rigid under the contact.

Soon though, Nanami relaxed, and you were about ready to fall asleep when Nanami quietly announced he’d finished his food, thanking you for the meal.

“That was a lovely picnic,” you grinned at him, even if you’d barely eaten anything.

After all, you only asked for servings for one person, lying to your staff that you wanted it for yourself. Should the higher-ups ever hear about you ordering two servants to share it with someone else when it was painfully clear to everyone in the kingdom you had no prince, it would cause chaos.

Nanami followed you as you stood up, the servants taking it upon themselves to clear up the dishes before they left you to your own devices. You walked all the way near the back of the garden, a place private only for the royal members for this was where they kept their most precious flowers. Upon seeing that the ones you’ve ordered had arrived and they were blooming beautifully beside the white roses, you ran to it, gesturing for Nanami to come closer. He leant down to inspect it, watching the way it twirled around your elegant fingers.

“This is called a Violet. It symbolizes faith and affection.”

“It is beautiful,” he commented quietly, his cool gaze sliding over to yours. “It suits you very much, Your Highness.”

Your cheeks warmed at the sudden attention, which was ironic, since wasn’t that what you always wanted? “I think it suits someone else better, if I were to be honest,” you admitted mysteriously, leaving your bodyguard confused for the nth time that day, but as always, he kept silent unless spoken to. Nanami’s eyes drifted to the flowers again, the rule of never looking in the eyes of royals burned right through his head.

Deep down in your heart, you knew it was a bit too early, but you’d always been impatient. You wouldn’t wait for the right time or the perfect opportunity – you preferred to grab moments and create them yourself.

Squeezing the hem of your dress under bundled fists, you finally gained the courage to be as upfront with him. “Nanami, can you promise me something?”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“Never forget this flower. When you are feeling down, I want you to remember this lives and blooms here, that it was the Princess’ favorite, and she wants nothing more than to have this whole garden bloom with it,” You knew, you knew painfully that Nanami may never understand your garden referred to your heart and that it bloomed with your affection for him, but was it so bad to hope that one day you may show your adoration for him?

You’d prepared for this – for the possibility that maybe you never could – so you ordered these flowers, wishing silently that someday Nanami might understand the things you could never say.

“When the right time comes, I shall pluck a flower and give it to the person that receives my faith affection, and I’ll create an entire garden for them.”

Nanami absorbed your words, processing them seriously just as a servant should when it comes to their master’s words. A moment later, Nanami nodded once, head bowed in respect. “I’m sure whoever Prince is lucky enough to get your hand in marriage will be absolutely delighted, Your Highness.”

“The person I long for is not a prince,” you hinted, “He sure is charming, however, much to his ignorance.”

Nanami peeked at you under his blond lashes, the confused pout on his face worrisome yet adorable. It made you want to step forward and capture those red lips in a kiss, but you were still his Princess, and he your bodyguard. You couldn’t do it – not now, at least – for his sake. “I am not sure it would be ideal that you marry a non-royal, Your Highness.”

“Tell me, Nanami,” you began, voice turning serious that his ears perked up at the sudden firmness compared to your usually lilted self. “Do you believe love should be constrained by rules and traditions?”

His answer came in an instant, making you wonder if he would still keep to his words if he found out everything. “No, Your Highness.”

You smiled at his answer – longingly, proudly, and at the same time sadly. “And I wholeheartedly agree with you on that.” Without another word, you turned your back on him and walked back inside the large castle, his footsteps finally audible as he followed you.

Funny it was, that you, a royal-blooded woman found so much comfort in the sound of someone’s breathing and footsteps.

“Nanami.”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

You sighed and placed your book down your lap, playfully glaring at the stiff bodyguard who hadn’t moved a muscle ever since he accompanied you in your private library. “You are causing me an uncomfortable amount of stress. I do not like it.”

“What have I done wrong, Your Highness?” his voice trembled again, his back forming that straight, perfect bow that you knew took him years to practice. It probably caused him a lot of pain if his head guard slapped the other servants’ backs just to straighten their spine, and you winced at the idea of it. No one had ever even dared laid a finger on your hair; not without your permission, anyway.

“I sincerely apologize for my shortcomings. I hereby vow to do better in my duties to serve you.”

“As you should. Now come here,” you beckoned him to come closer, sighing louder when Nanami sat a foot away from you, lips pressed into a tight line. “Closer, Nanami.”

Biting his lip – and you nearly couldn’t tear your gaze away from the sight – Nanami inched closer to you, his back still perfectly straight, eyes staring straight ahead, and he was so rigid you wondered if he even breathed at all.

You shook your head with a stifled smile, soft, tireless hands bunching up to release the tight knots of his firm, broad shoulders. You weren’t surprised he felt this hard under your touch; he was a bodyguard, after all, the Princess’ personal one, at that. It made sense he kept himself trimmed, but it didn’t stop the heat spreading all over your skin anyway as you imagined just how firm he was under his clothes.

Eager to get rid of such inappropriate thoughts, you huffed through your nose, continuing to roll your fingers over his back.

“You look so stiff that I cannot focus on this novel I’m reading. Heavens know how shameful it must be that we are getting scholars to study with me this weekend and I am not even halfway done with this classic. It truly bothers me, Nanami.”

“Your Highness,” Nanami’s voice was hushed, his eyes staring directly into yours. “What are you doing?”

“Giving you a massage. If you keep up being this rigid around me, I will lose focus because it makes me uncomfortable, and if I lose focus, I can’t perform my duty well as the princess, and if I am unable to do that, I lose respect, then my title stripped away from me. Terrifying, Nanami. Terrifying, indeed.”

Nanami was silent for a while, his gaze not leaving your focused face. Then, he turned away, his shoulders deflating as he gave in to the pleasure of your surprisingly expert hands. “I am extremely sorry.”

“As you should be,” you commented sarcastically, “Now relax. Pick up a book you like and have some of the biscuits, tea. I cannot focus with you standing around me like a statue. The stone gargoyles do that for us already,” when Nanami didn’t budge a muscle even after you’d finished massaging him, you waved a hand in the air, brow raised challengingly. “Well? Are you defying my orders?”

Nanami shot up from his seat in an instant, “Of course not, Your Highness.”

You pulled the book up higher to hide the wide grin on your lips, watching his curious and slightly dazed staring at the walls upon walls of books stacked upon one another. His wonder of the sight left you wondering just how you managed not to kiss every part of him senseless, for he was so fascinating and far more intriguing than any other universe written beyond these pages.

Nanami’s long, slender fingers finally plucked out a rather thick novel he seemed to find interesting, making his way back to you. He still sat on the other end of the couch to respect your space, and you kept silent this time, not wanting to cross the line.

He may be comfortable around you now, but you knew Nanami better than anyone, and he still held his orders and duties close to his heart that he would never break them no matter what.

It was a compelling quality of his – one you had no idea whether to admire or be irritated of.

Your twinkling eyes studied his stunning features; from his slicked back hair, to his sunken cheeks, all the way down to the sharp point of his nose and to the plumpness of his lips. He was too beautiful that you wondered how he hadn’t managed to be snagged away yet when you were reminded that Nanami was too busy in his duties of protecting you to have time for romance – and for the first time, you felt thankful for the fact you were a royal.

“That is a good one,” you piped up as you read the title of the classic novel. It was a classic about the variegated realms between dreams and reality, one you haven’t read but always wanted to. “Do you mind reading it to me someday? I love the sound of your voice.”

Nanami’s cheeks flushed a bright red at your unexpected compliment, but he nodded anyway, clearing his throat before he spoke. “S-someday, Your Highness, if your schedule allows it so.”

It sounded so much like a promise – and you looked forward eagerly to it.

Finally gaining your focus and determination to study and perform your royal duties now that Nanami had finally taken some time to relax, you did the same, leaning back onto the velvet couch and crossing your legs over the other. “Someday it is.”

“You have to be prepared for your coronation ball,” Rubine, one of the assistants of your dancing tutor made known, snapping her fingers in front of your face when you’d unknowinfly spaced out the window. “Now, up on those toes, back straight and head held high, Your Highness. Let us see if you’ve mastered your dance routine. You must understand it is the most crucial part of the ball and all eyes will be watching you. You cannot afford to make a single mistake.”

Suddenly remembering of why you were spacing out, you winced at the previous phone call prior to Rubine’s arrival. “I am well aware of that, Rubine, but...”

“But?”

“My dance partner, Philippe, just called to say he’s fallen ill and cannot make it today.”

“Ah, Philippe!” Rubine tugged at her hair, dramatically bending forwards to groan, “This is the final rehearsal! Your coronation is so near!” She sat up straight and paced back and forth, her long locks jumping and bouncing as she chewed at her nails. “Well, what shall we do now? We don’t have anyone else to practice with you and I’m only here to substitute for Madam Tee. She’d kill me if she finds out you didn’t rehearse, and I doubt any of the boy servants would know anything about the dance.”

���If I may,” Nanami suddenly spoke up from the corner, tentatively approaching the both of you with one of his hands laid flat on his abdomen. You and Rubine fell silent, his eyes flitting over yours for a moment. “I’ve been with the Princess from all of her dance classes. I know the routine very well,” his tongue darted out to lick at his lips, sending both your mind and heart into a frenzy overdrive. “If Her Highness is comfortable with it, I may be her dance partner for now.”

“That works, I suppose.”

“I’d like to see you dance, Nanamin,” you teased confidently, but no mistake, your heart drummed wildly in your chest at the idea of dancing with the man who’d unknowingly captured both your eye and heart the moment you met him. “Let’s see how good you are then. I warn you though; I’m a very skilled dancer. But please, don’t fret, I won’t criticize you.”

You expected Nanami to at least go along with your lighthearted teasing, but he was Nanami Kento; a very dutiful servant who lived to please and serve his master.

He simply pressed a polite kiss to the pads of your knuckled when you offered it, his eyes still unreadable as he praised, “You are a very good dancer indeed, Your Highness.”

You already knew that, but hearing it fall from his lips hit differently. It suddenly got harder and harder to remember the routine, your confidence slipping into thin air the moment his warm hands wound around the curve of your waist, flattening at the small of your back.

Your breath hitched as you looped your fingers through his larger, calloused ones, and your heart absolutely melted because you fit just perfectly in his hands. Considering that you’d taken off your gloves, you could feel ever callous and scar in his hands, a huge contrast to your soft ones that had never known a day of manual labor.

Nanami was close enough you could feel his breath warm your cheeks, with you staring up at him with wide, blown out eyes. He was still expressionless as ever, jaw tight and brows dipped low, but you could see the softness in his gaze – nearly bordering on adoration.

In that moment, you felt yourself falling harder, and soon, you were both lost in the music.

Nanami was right – he did know the dance. For such an unyielding protector, Nanami danced extremely well, his turns and guidance to your twists flawless.

He caught you in his arms each time, his hands slipping back to hold your waist as if it was second nature for him to hold you like this, to dance with you like this. Everything faded into nothingness at the background, both your gazes captured and enamored by one another. Somewhere in the climax of the dance, your chest pressed flush against his a little tighter, your hands squeezing his a little harder, and you both danced like you were the only ones that mattered in each other’s world.

And in that moment, it felt like you did.

When the music slowly faded out to its ending, you and Nanami were both breathing hard from the strenuous performance that required the utmost elegant execution. Still, his hands remained on your waist, your hand holding him in such a manner that you almost refused to let him go.

But you had to – you knew you had to – and with a broken smile, you pulled away from Nanami.

“Wow,” breathed out Rubine “Princess, I am blown away. You’ve danced better than you ever did with Philippe. You two have got amazing chemistry,” she rubbed her chin at the observation, but you and Nanami were turned away from each other, both of your hearts more conflicted than ever. Rubine, however, remained unknowing of this all. “I guess being around each other all the time adds in to that fact too. That was a very mesmerizing and intimate performance – I actually felt a little guilty that I’m witnessing such moment.”

“I am glad I could be of service to Her Highness.”

Your gaze cut through his, the heat in your eyes loud enough that he was compelled to hold your stare. You immediately softened at his expression; giving in to the pleads of your heart that you were and always will be, utterly and hopelessly in love with him – even if it was impossible he’d ever feel the same way.

Surely, though, it wouldn’t be so much of a sin for a princess to be selfish in a while. “I look forward to dancing with you on the ball, Nanamin.”

“I highly doubt that, Your Highness,” Nanami’s eyes blanked out into an unfathomable expression again, making you wonder if the fondness he held you with when you danced ever existed. “You would be swarmed and surrounded by royals and elites – and I shall be watching out for you from the distance, as always. It’s going to be a crucial event and you have duties to fulfil; a dance with your bodyguard would only ruin the importance of the event,” he reminded you, his words like a slap to your face.

You didn’t have to be scholarly enough to interpret the meaning of his words; Nanami was reminding you that he was servant as you were master, and it simply would not happen. “Who knows what people would say...I only worry about your reputation, Your Highness. Words cut deeper than a knife.”

“I know that,” you agreed with a shattered heart, “I guess I’ll just dream then.”

The coronation went smoother than expected. Until it wasn’t. People from all over the world came, chatting with you about the latest political trends and plans on how you wished to broaden your territories and expand trading systems.

Everything went fine and accordingly to plan until the marriage talk was brought up. Before you knew it, princes and dukes, along with equally socially powerful men came flooding left and right, pressing kisses to your (thankfully) gloved hands and spewing out poetry as if it would impress you. In a way, it did, at least most of them had good taste in literature and were actually well-read, but your eyes kept searching for a certain blond in the crowd, that sinking feeling only growing in the pit of your stomach.

Eventually, it became too much for you.

A neighboring prince asked for your marriage and announced he was good friends with your family, and that about crossed the line and tipped you over the edge until you excused yourself. Growing too tired with all this unnecessary “royal duties”, you disappeared from the crowd, running to the nearest desolated terrace and crying your eyes out.

You never wanted to be a princess.

You never wanted to be born with such luxury, only to pay a price that you couldn’t even choose your own future.

You lost track of time and you no longer questioned why no one looked for you. With each passing second, the crown above your braided hair grew a lot heavier and you slumped across the pillar, burying your tear-streaked face behind your arms. You just felt so tired you wanted to rest �� wanted to see Nanami, to run away, to tell him that you loved him.

But he wasn’t there. You hadn’t even seen him the moment you woke up, servants flocking you at every corner as they prepared you for the event.

Your heart ached and you called out for him in broken whispers, wishing that he’d be there to comfort you. “Nanami,” you cried out softly. It was pathetic, really, that the newly crowned queen was crying like a child who lost their toy as you hid from the crowd. “Nanami, where are you, Nanami—”

A pair of arms tugged you into a solid chest, your cheek pressing on top of a rapid heartbeat that raced to no end. Warm, strong arms engulfed you in a hug, a heavy head with a familiar scent falling on the sides of your head that was free from the tips of the crown.

“I thought I lost you, Queen,” Nanami panted, his hold on you growing tighter. Your tears stopped flowing as you fisted his shirt, weakening in his arms and he let you – he knew even the Queen of this prosperous kingdom was still a person and you allowed yourself to grow vulnerable, because this was Nanami and Nanami always caught you.

Before you could stop yourself, you leaned up and pressed your lips to his, the salt of your tears passing to his cheeks.

Nanami stood frozen solid for a second before he kissed you back, taking your breath away because his lips held the same wanting as yours did. Soon, his large hands cupped your face as he pulled you closer to him, sighing into your mouth as if he’s dreamed of this moment as long as you had. Nanami kissed you with so much love pouring from his lips that he didn’t have to tell you for you to know, prompting the dam within you to break.

You were crying – the happy tears flowing endlessly – while his thumbs wiped the tears away.

“I love you,” you confessed as you both pulled away, foreheads pressed against each other. This time, there was no more fear or worry as love shone in both your eyes, your hands still helplessly clinging on to him for dear life. “I love you, Nanami, I’ve always loved you. Please don’t leave me – please don’t.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere, Your Majesty,” he addressed you according to your new title, but nothing has changed for him. “I have loved you too long before, and I’ll still keep loving you if you’ll let me.”

That night, you both shared a plethora of first. The first kiss. The first dance. The first I love you’s that wouldn’t stop spilling from your lips, the confessions accompanied with laughter. It was only the beginning of a wonderful yet unforgettable memory, and you abandoned all the riches and gold in the world because this, right here was your real treasure, and you sealed your promise of your faith affection to him with one last kiss.

Ever since you and Nanami had established your relationship, you felt like you were on cloud nine.

Being Queen didn’t seem too much of a grueling task anymore, not when Nanami was grazing his thumb over your knuckles under the table when you were doing paperwork, not when work days and boring, dreadful meetings always ended with him pulling you aside as everyone left for a quick kiss that soon turned into a heated lip-locking.

This was bliss – to have him right here, to finally be able to express how much you loved him – and you couldn’t get enough it.

You still had no king despite the number of suitors that visited every week, so much so that the maids have grown weary of cleaning up your trash bin filled with unopened love letters. Quite frankly, you couldn’t care less because you already had the love of your life within your arms. You turned everyone down, and it wasn’t a huge deal because you were just crowned Queen and surely you had far better things to do than worry about bringing about an heir, but it had already been a year and your advisors were mad.

They’ve informed you that several cities and kingdoms were losing trust over your reclusiveness, the diplomatic relationship turning strained thanks to your eagerness to deny everyone.

Your tongue slipped inside Nanami’s, his hands crawling under your night gown as his body crawled between your legs, with you sighing romantically into his mouth.

“Your Majesty,” he mumbled through stuttering kisses, his fingers deftly pressing into your curves. Despite your insistence that he addressed you by your name, Nanami requested that he still keep his duty as your bodyguard, and you were too soft to deny him this. “Your Majesty…I think we should put an end to this.”

You stopped kissing him.

Hands falling from his neck, you pulled away from him, eyes hardened into a glare. “What do you mean we should put an end to this? Are you suggesting we break up?”

“Yes.”

You gritted your teeth at how he said this so easily. Before you could open your mouth to retort, Nanami beat you to it, distracting you by pressing soft kisses on the column of your neck, always so gentle and careful to not leave marks where the maids could see.

“I’m only worried about you,” he whispered, “I am ruining your reputation because I am in love with you. Your Majesty, I promise to still serve you and be loyal to you,” Nanami pulled away after leaving one last kiss to the sensitive area of your neck that always had you whining in his arms, but this time, you whined out of desperation, nails digging into his bicep as he stared at you apologetically. “We cannot keep doing this, Your Majesty. We both cannot be selfish enough to abandon the future of our people.”

“Well, what about my future?” you banged your fist on your chest, “What about my happiness, Nanami, ever think about that?”

Nanami wiped away the tears streaming down your cheeks, pulling you into the comfort of his arms instead. He understood your pain better than anyone for he, too, shared your longing.

“I don’t want you to go,” you cried into his shoulder, gripping his shirt tightly that it crumbled beneath your grip. “It’s not a life if it’s not with you and just tell me what I have to do, I’ll abandon my title and I’ll stay with you, we don’t have to—”

Nanami silenced you with a kiss, this one more ardent than the others.

He whispered sweet nothings into yours, broken promises that he’d stay, that you didn’t have to change anything and that you could work it out. You believed him, or at least you fooled yourself that you did, because your hold on him was regretful, angry, begging.

The next morning, Nanami was gone from your chambers.

The next night, Nanami was gone from the servant chambers.

The next week, you were married to Prince Satoru from a Kingdom you’d never even heard of.

Nanami resigned. As per rule of the kingdom, staff didn’t need the monarch’s permission to be dismissed from their post. He wasn’t there in your wedding, and he wasn’t there for the next few days to come. These days stretched into weeks, and two months have already passed before you were silently staring out at your window, wondering what Nanami was doing.

The last thing you heard from him was that he went back to his family’s warm, living a peaceful life and bowing one last time to you before he completely disappeared.

His letter remained in your drawers, his neat cursive informing you that he was a lowly servant, and didn’t deserve you, that he didn’t want to ruin your future and only wanted the best for you. You wanted to hate him for it, wanted to curse him for it – but you only tossed and turned in your bed, staring at the ceilings as you pictured his rare smile over and over again.

You wondered how he was doing.

Was he happy? Was he okay? Did he think of you night before he slept? Did he miss you the same way you craved his touch, his voice, his laugh – everything about him and himself?

A loud rattling caught your attention, your head turning to see Prince, or rather, King Satoru saunter in. He was popular in his kingdom and even rumored to have a harem, which you could see happening because he was flirty and shameless.

It was clear that this was a loveless marriage and he only agreed because he had good ties with your family, also adding in to the fact he was the richest and most powerful out of all your suitors. You weren’t too friendly with him, but you weren’t treating each other like strangers too. You both acknowledged each other according to the title, but it never stretched to the fact he was man and you his wife.

Satoru had never talked to you before other than the common pleasantries, so it surprised you when he sat across you, mirroring that familiar torn and forlorn feeling as he stared at your kingdom.

“You and I,” he began quietly, “We both want what we cannot have, don’t we?”

“Hmm.”

“I know you’re in love with someone else,” Satoru smiled, and your eyes widened when he only chuckled knowingly. “It’s okay, Queen, I promise I don’t mind. In fact, I’m just the same as you – I’m madly in love with my butler you won’t understand.”

You nearly toppled over your seat at the sudden confession that Satoru laughed as he helped pull you up, but it didn’t stop you from blabbering.

“You-you’re in love with Geto Suguru?”

“That I am. I’ve been in love with him since we were kids, to be honest, but people had different expectations and plans for me, as you can see.”

“I,” your throat ran dry, your palms growing sweaty. Surely…you could trust him with this, right? “I’m also in love with my bodyguard, or former bodyguard, anyway. His name is Nanami Kento and he’s currently at his farm and I-I—”

“You want to see him and break this marriage?” Satoru didn’t even have to hear the words come from your mouth before he’s pulling you up to your feet, crystalline blue eyes as vivid as the sky. “Well, what’s holding you back, Queen? Let’s go look for him.”

Satoru dragged you along the hallways, liberated laughter echoing in the large space of the castle before you two saddle up your respective horses, shouting for the gate guards to move away. You’ve never felt this free – and Satoru shared the same glee as yours when he stretched his arms beyond the sky, whooping as he smacked his horse to go faster.

By the time you’ve made it into Nanami’s farm, it was nearly sunset, and both you and Satoru were drained from the long journey.

Nanami was dressed in a plain shirt and worn-out sweatpants, dirt caked on his sunken cheeks when he turned at the sounds of horses galloping, you perched on top of your white stallion proudly. “Nanami!” his eyes widened and he dropped the bucket he was holding, the breath taken away from his chest when you jumped off your horse, crashing him into a huge hug.

“Your Majesty,” he spoke breathily, hands coming up to caress the back of your head. “What are you doing here? And King Satoru? What’s going on?”

You answered him by dragging his collar down until his lips danced with yours. Just like that, all your worries and previous sorrows washed away into nothing as his hands gripped tightly at your hips, kissing you back just as eagerly that even he was crying. This time around, you reached to swipe your thumb over the warm tears, kissing him over and over again to remind him your feelings hadn’t changed.

“Let’s go home, Nanami. I promise I’ll do everything right this time around – just please, come home with me.”

You’ve lost count of the times you’ve prayed to the divine beings over and over again to give you one last chance, fearful that maybe Nanami would still be firm in his belief that he wasn’t good enough for you when he was perfect the way he is.

But then he kissed the crown of your head as a silent form of affection, staring deep into your eyes as he smiled, “Your wish has always been my command, Your Majesty.”

Nanami had his back turned to you, his slender hands plucking the violet flower. Upon hearing your not so sneaky footsteps, he whipped around and laughed just as you roared, making the little girl in his arms giggle, copying your greeting as she hissed her fangs.

“Rawr!”

“Aw, you’re so adorable!” you pinched her little cheeks before peppering them with kisses, your precious daughter laughing at the sudden shower of affection. Nanami laughed, too, the deep sound vibrating from deep within his chest. He held up your baby to kiss the left side of her cheeks while you squished her right, your baby’s cheeks smushed between the adoration of her parents. “You’re so cute – just like Daddy!”

“I am not cute,” he protested dejectedly, although the small smile on his face told a different story.

It wasn’t easy – none of this ever was, but you didn’t regret a single moment of it. The old school traditions of your kingdoms were abolished due to a long, hefty process of appealing to the public and proving that love should never be constrained by rules and traditions, and now Satoru was also happily married with his husband, Geto Suguru. The last letter you got from him informed you they adopted a two baby boys named Megumi and a feisty little girl called Nobara, and you were excited for the children to meet and play again.

Safe to say, it was all worth it. All the moments led up to this were painful and filled with longing, but you’d do it all over again if you could.

Because this was what you promised him – endless faith and affection – and you sealed this lifelong promise with a kiss.

“I love you, King,” you mumbled through his lips, and he laughed as he rocked the baby side to side. The kiss was slightly awkward since her grubby hands were trying to clutch both of your chins, sending you both into fits of laughter.

“I love you too, Queen,” he kissed the top of your head and your crown with it – for you were his woman, his wife, and the Queen who ruled all of his heart – leaning down to kiss his baby’s cheeks before he pulled you both in for a hug. The atmosphere that day was similar from when you first forced him to have a picnic with you; warm, sunny, with the wind encouraging the flowers to dance in sync like how you danced with Nanami when you were younger. Your baby gurgled nonsensically, Nanami smiling to himself as you both stared at the bundle of joy in his arms. “I love you too, Violet. Mommy and Daddy loves you a lot.”

To love him, to hold him, to cherish him – it was a promise you held deep within your soul.

[thelovelylolly]

Perfect

Summary : You were the perfect padawan and jedi knight. You had everything in line and under control, which may or may not have caused you to catch Obi-Wan Kenobi’s eye.

Warnings : None :) the only thing is the reader is depicted with having longer hair, or long enough hair to pull into a bun. (also not proofread bc im lazy)

Notes : instead of us simping, how about he simps for us? am i right guys? also the start isn’t my favorite and a lil weak. also pt 2, sorry i’ve been dead for over a month now, i havent had motivation to write that much and school is ending which meant testing :) hopefully ill get my motivation back so i can pump out more fics

Ever since you were a youngling and padawan, your master and other jedi praised you for being the perfect example of a new jedi. You got all the training forms down quickly, you were in control of your force abilities and you were always on time to everything.

It wasn’t even hard for you to do so, it was just natural for you. So that’s what stood out Obi-Wan Kenobi the most. You and him had classes together, bunked near each other and advanced around the same pace. You two were knighted around the same time as well.  

You even helped Obi-Wan out when his padawan, Anakin, caused him stress and trouble. Especially during the Clone Wars. You were a very put together general and your clone squadron was highly renowned, so you were ready to go help 501st and, if needed, the 212th. In Obi-Wan’s eyes, you were perfect 

Now, here you two were, working together again. You were on Obi-Wan’s star destroyer and the two of you, along with both of your clone squadrons, were tasked to go check in on a planet. The Republic had gotten reports of Separatist forces trying to turn the planet against the Republic. You and Obi-Wan were standing around a hologram of the planet with points highlighted where there were attacks.

“I saw we spread our forces out in order to reach all those areas quicker,” Obi-Wan commented, crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

You put your hands on your hips. “I agree with General Kenobi. Cody, go tell the men our plan. Once we get on planet, we’ll split into groups then and spread out,” you replied.

Cody saluted you and left, leaving you and Obi-Wan alone. Your gaze fell on Obi-Wan, who was avoiding it. “General Kenobi,” you said, breaking the silence.

His head flicked towards yours, a little bit of blush forming on his cheeks. “Yes General L/N?”

“I’ve been sensing your emotions shifting a lot lately, is everything alright?” You asked, your head titling to the side ever so slightly. Your question made Obi-Wan’s blush increase. 

“Uh,” he paused to clear his throat and think of a excuse, “it’s nothing, just some stress with Anakin is all.”

You hummed as a reply and nodded. “Well, we should go get to the transport ships.”

-----

The trip to planet was easy and so was splitting up. Your men, along with the 212th, were assigned a area of the planet to patrol. Once everything was evenly divided, there was still a little bit of land to cover. It was a flat plain of tall grass with a few tall mountain formations in it. You and Obi-Wan both volunteered to cover it with land speeders.

A transport ship dropped you and Obi-Wan off with two land speeders, once again leaving you two alone. You two prepped your bikes and small amount of supplies you had. The sun was close to setting on the planet and you two planned on only taking a few hours. You pulled your hair into a neat bun so it wouldn’t become a mess from riding your speeder. Obi-Wan watched you and how the late day sunlight made you look as if you were a golden goddess.

“Are you ready to go?” You asked, snapping him out of his thoughts as you mounted your speeder.

“Oh, yes,” he quickly replied, following your actions. The two of you set off towards the setting sun, scanners ready and eyes peeled for any separatist action.

A little while into your patrol, you were getting tired of being quiet. Twilight was setting in at that point. “Do you wanna talk about your stress with Anakin? I know you mentioned it earlier and it seems intense, at least from what I can sense,” you said louder than usual, since you were speeding through tall grass.

“Well, um,” Obi-Wan paused to think of a excuse again, “I think him and his padawan are pulling risky moves in their missions.”

“Don’t they complete their missions successfully?”

Obi-Wan mentally slapped himself. Anakin and Ahsoka were very successful their missions, of course you’ve heard about them. “Uh, yeah, well-”

“Bandits.”

“What?”

“Bandits, coming our way on speeders,” you said, switching the gears on your speeder so you could speed away. You turned right and Obi-Wan followed you. After a few moments, you two saw the bandits still on your tail. “We have to shake them!”

“Let’s split up! I see four, we can each take two,” Obi-Wan replied. You nodded and turned right again while Obi-Wan turned left.

You were doing fine until you looked behind you and saw one of the two bandits following had their blaster rifle out and aiming at your speeder. You gasped as they shot. You jumped right as your speeder exploded. Luckily there was tall grass beside you so you weren’t that hurt from the fall. You had to act dead though, you sensed the bandits coming to check that you were.

Obi-Wan heard an explosion behind him and looked, seeing your speeder blow up. His eyes widened as he thought he worse. He quickly made a sharp turn with his speeder and turned around, causing the two bandits following him to crash into each other in confusion. 

Obi-Wan sped over to where you were, seeing the two other bandits speeding over to him. He jumped off his speeder and grabbed his lightsaber, activating it. As the two speeders were barreling towards him, Obi-Wan simply inhaled and exhaled. Then raced towards them, slicing through both of them. The bandits jumped off their destroyed speeders and hopped onto Obi-Wan’s, stealing it and riding off. Obi-Wan stood their for a moment before deactivating his lightsaber and running to find you. 

You sat yourself up and rubbed your head. Obi-Wan quickly made his way over to you and crouched beside you. “Did they take your speeder?” You asked.

“Yes, come on. I think I see a cave not to far from here. We can stay there for the night and you can contact Cody. My comm link was on my speeder,” Obi-Wan answered, helping you up. Your hair was messy now from the fight and your clothes were dirty from falling on the ground.

“My comm link is a little bit busted, but I think the tracker still works on it. We can activate that once we’re safe,” you replied, following Obi-Wan as he lead you to the cave that he had seen.

--

Obi-Wan was able to make a fire while you tried to fix your comm link’s tracker. You two sat in silence, the fire crackling every once in a while. Obi-Wan watched as you worked, so focused on what you were doing. Some of your hair had fallen out of it’s bun, framing your face. Obi-Wan smiled to himself.

“There, I think I fixed it,” you said, breaking Obi-Wan out of his trance. You pressed a button and moved over to the opening of the cave. “It may take a while to reach the ship since the signal isn’t that strong. I think setting it over here will give it a better chance to reach.”

You sighed and leaned your head against the cave wall, a wave of tiredness washing over you. 

“If you want, you can get some rest. I’ll take first watch,” Obi-Wan said, moving over to where you were so he could see outside. You smiled as a thank you then closed your eyes. 

You were making it harder for Obi-Wan to ignore his feelings for you. Attachments were forbidden by the jedi. With you being the perfect jedi, he didn’t want to be the reason you messed up. No matter how much a struggle it was for him.

Only a little bit in his watch, he felt something heavy fall on his shoulder. He looked over and saw your head there as quiet snores escaped your mouth. Obi-Wan smiled then went back to watching outside. Though, it wouldn’t be long until he got tired and leaned his against yours as he fell asleep.

--

The morning light shined through the cave entrance and woke you and Obi-Wan up. Your fire had died out a while ago, only the ashes and burnt ground left behind. Your comm link was right where you left it. You got up tiredly and picked it up to check on it. 

Obi-Wan stretched a little while you looked around outside. Moments later, you went back into the cave. “There’s a transport ship landing right now,” you said, taking Obi-Wan’s hand and leading him out.

He felt his face heat up at your touch. You didn’t let go of his hand as you two watched the transport ship land in the field below. “Obi-Wan, one last thing,” you started to say.

“What is it?” Obi-Wan replied.

You pressed a kiss to his cheek before letting go of his hand and making your way down to the transport ship. Obi-Wan smiled and touched where you kissed on his cheek. He watched as you met up with Cody in the field and started to explain what happened on your patrol together. Obi-Wan sighed happily before making his way down to you. You were so perfect to him.

[goldafterglow]

dissolve me (repost)

(deleted this post on accident, reblog of original here)

Summary: We find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. Except the Tootsie Pop is Horacio Carrillo.

Pairing: Horacio Carrillo x Reader

Word Count: 5k+ (look away)

Warnings: angst, fluff, gory metaphors (I use figurative language to mask the scent of flaming trash)

A/N: This is literally the first thing I’ve written in like 3 years so you have to be nice to me. Please give me feedback!! But it has to be exclusively positive or I will spontaneously combust!!!

Horacio is cold.

It’s a little past midnight and the Sun has been asleep for hours by now, but not Bogota. Instead, the city moves in slow motion, the weight of slumber heavy on its creatures as the few visible stars shush the agitated crickets. Somehow, even despite the Sun’s absence, it’s influence still blankets the trees. It accumulates, even. The hot radiation permeates the lungs of taxis and buildings, but the cool darkness brings life into the air as water begins to materialize on the sides of newspaper stands and underneath Horacio’s shirt. His clothes stick to him so tight (more than usual) that he thinks he may be drowning under the moon. He can taste the ocean on his tongue and the sensation is only relieved as he steps off the pavement and onto the tile of the rundown convenience store. The building, heavily air conditioned, makes each drop of sweat feel like icicles pricking into his fried red skin, but his body still burns from the residual heat.

Somehow, Horacio still maintains that icey core in his chest. So even as he makes a beeline for the refrigerated-goods, yes. Horacio is cold.

He exists as a green-sheet ghost walking through the aisles of the grocery store, barely conscious at 2 am as he searches for some goddamn milk. He knows he works too hard, knows his life is concrete and bricks screeching against his steel heart. Every morning he walks on glass to enter his office, and every morning he forces his feet to bleed. What else is there for him? His body has been adorned with splinters and cuts for so long now, so what’s a few more? Each night, he drags his body flat across the floor, just trying to make it out the door. Trying to escape an office that chews him up and spits him out, saliva covered and filthy.

But fuck if he just wants some milk.

So he makes this small trip before he heads home. Once he finds the dairy, his heavy eyes hoist themselves upwards, to the second-to-topmost shelf in the refrigerator. The last carton of fat free milk -  dairy-flavored water - that he’ll chug the next morning. But just as his hardened fingertips reach for it, they meet something else; a third wheel to this toxic milk-Horacio romance that is ruining his plans for what might as well be the best morning he’s had in the past three milk-free days. His mind, once fuzzy from the sleepy grey clouds filling his lenses like cataracts, now feels a sharp jolt of electricity soar through it as his machine body is activated and his surroundings suddenly become clearer, laser vision kicking in. His senses are now sharper and his guard is completely up. His nerves begin racing as the data from his hands shoots straight to his brain to get integrated and that thing he’s feeling is...warm? Shit, no it’s hot. It fucking burns his skin and immediately he pulls back because his motherboard is screaming at him that he’s in danger.

His head shoots up and his eyes dart to the side as he turns to look, expecting a raging bonfire or boiling cast iron, but instead he sees a human. A sweet, candy person that looks almost surprised as he does, but with softer features and kinder eyes. He smells the caramel seeping out of your pores and it stings his olfactory nerves but perhaps he wants to smell it again so it can fill his lungs and then let it harden inside of his cold body. So that it can stay within him forever.

“Disculpame,” you say, remorse dripping out of your golden mouth and if his ears were in control, he’d beg you to say it again. Say anything. He recognizes your accent. Not a Columbian, but a gringo. His brain reminds his heart that hey, we don’t like selfish, egotistical gringos. His heart doesn’t listen.

“Go ahead,” he says, and shit he sounds horrible. He sounds fucked up, and it’s probably because he is fucked up. He talks like toothpicks and needles, but it’s okay because he got to speak to you and he’s never spoken to an angel before.

He notices how you relax a little at the sound of his English, and he feels that heat spread at the beautiful notion that he did that all by himself.

“No really, I don’t need it,” you insist, a small smile gracing your lips. “You’re very sweet for offering, though.” Huh?

Horacio Carrillo is not sweet. He doesn’t taste like sugar or chocolate or berries. Horacio is bitter gourd, burnt toast and that shitty part at the end of the banana that no one wants. Copper and hot tar oozing down taste buds and burning the frail pink dots along the way. Straight black coffee that’s tear-inducingly retched. Pepto Bismol and whatever the fuck is inside of those plastic pill capsules. Raw beef festering with E. coli and flies, a rotting corpse under a wake of vultures, the creepy old man that sits next to you on the train, mace burning your shivering eyes while you collapse to your shredded knees onto a floor of thumbtacks.

Horacio Carrillo is not sweet. But you said he was, and you are oh so persuasive. That’s when he felt the first one. Crack.

His mind goes into overdrive as panic sets in - what was that sound? What just broke? What crevice of his mind just ripped a little and how can he staple it back shut? He feels the slimey pus of his emotions begin to seep out of the opening a little, and he doesn’t like it. Not one bit. He wants to put his guard back up and regain control of this situation the way he’s been trained to do by offering you the carton and then leaving; defying your orders and following his own.

But who is he to refuse you?

“Thank you,” he says, and he’s just noticed that your hand is back at your side and your eyes shine a little brighter as your smile widens at his defeat. That was me, too. But then you’re turning around and leaving, messy bun flopping up and down as you walk towards the cash register and his heart is furious. It’s pounding in his ribcage like a ravenous shark caged in glass, telling him to not let you get away because it wants to burn in your soft flames and turn to ash in your fingers, but he stays planted. Watches you walk away and take that gentle radiating heat with you, leaving him just as hard and frozen as he was before he’d ever let you poke around into his soul. Suddenly he understands why you’d burned him so bad; doesn’t even the lightest match make that violent sizzling sound when it touches ice? But he can’t deny that you had melted him, just a little bit, and he can’t deny that he likes being a little watery.

He sees you again just a few days later. It’s a Sunday morning and Bogota is now wide awake. Pastel streaks fly down the streets as manifestations of yellow taxis, dusty red cars, and pale blue cyclers bring the canvas of the city to life. Horacio decides to be adventurous, introduce true exploration and child-like color into his monochrome world, and walk to the cafe near his street. A truly exhilarating touch, if he did say so himself.

Except he hadn’t prepared himself for the anarchy that would occur within him when he saw you again. The girl that was awake at 2 am and offered him white calcium water in a carton and called him sweet. You’re wearing one of those pink dresses that you just know is sleeveless, but a light denim jacket guards your shoulders and he can’t help but wonder what would happen if he just tugged on your collar a little bit, exposed some of your delicate skin and traced his fingers over it. Just closed his eyes and leaned down to brush his lips over - shit, fuck. What is he thinking? His eyes don’t know where to look, his heart doesn’t know how to beat, his lungs don’t know how to take in air. What do you do when you see a pretty thing in a pretty sundress? Certainly not function. Horacio wasn’t doing that at all. So he did the next best thing: sit at a table and watch you. That’s the next best thing, right?

He watches as you smile at the young man taking your order, talking to him like you know him, care about him. All you were doing was listing the ingredients you wanted in your drink, but your bright eyes twinkle with a sort of endearment that he isn’t used to. Like you were happy.

He is in awe of you. Horacio has worked so hard to stay numb, to feel nothing but that rusty scrape of motivation that made him do his job. But you made it look so easy to gush, to overflow and spill your delight with life onto everyone around you until that tired, overworked teenager behind the register was smiling too as he said “next!”

You turn your head to find a table once you pick up your order and panic settles into Horacio’s bones again as he reflexively turns his head away from you, but your keen eyes spot him. Oh, how you must pity him. The poor, miserable apparition from the grocery store. He feels that radiating heat begin to grow as you approach him at his table, so he pretends to not notice you. Pretends he’s numb as you thaw him into a dripping mess of thin ice and water.

“Is this seat taken?” you ask him, nodding to the other chair in front of him with a cup of coffee in your supple hands. Horacio’s tactful eyes scan the cafe once more; there’s other seats in the building, other men and women for you to pity. He’s been chosen. And he just can’t resist you, is too weak to deny himself that addicting sugary sweetness that you’re coated in because he’s not sure he’ll ever feel so soft again and he wants to savor it.

Horacio looks up at you, clearing his throat as he takes the kind of breath that you can feel as the air fills his lungs. He’s priming his voice to talk to you because this time, he wants to make it count.

“No,” he says. Fuck. In that moment, he couldn't remember having talked before. Has he ever spoken? Certainly not, or he’d know how to do it. But you don’t seem to mind his cold tone as you take the seat in front of you, and those damned eyes of yours are blinding to look at but god, who needs pupils anyway?

He can tell you’re curious about him. You want to pick him apart scab by scab and take him apart into individual fibers until you get to that soft mushy center that is Horacio Carrillo. You want to see him naked and open, but that’s not something Horacio can give you. How could he? He’s taken that weak, inferior soul within him and crushed it under concrete and plaster of paris, secured it with walls and steel and barbed wire until the protective layers become so extensive that even if someone could get through them all, why the fuck would they want to? It wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

“You know, I’ve never been here before,” you say, taking a sip of your drink, and he hums, knowing that’s how people interact but not quite knowing what is going on with him. You’re just saying things, just want him to talk back. You’re trying to have a real conversation with him, and he doesn’t understand why, but maybe for just once in his life he doesn’t need to fucking understand everything.

“Then what brings you here?” he asks, and slowly he begins to regain a little feeling inside him. Not enough that it unleashes his pain, but enough that he can feel that ice water slosh around inside him easily. A gentle flow of slush that mixes with your amber and makes him feel like a person.

“A student of mine recommended it to me,” you explain, and he’s starting to put together a little picture of who you are in his mind. 

“You teach?” he asks, probing you for your life. He wants to study your mind, hear the music that leaves your mouth when you speak. You nod thoughtfully, and he can tell he’s mentioned something you enjoy. He learns that you teach at a local university and hears about just how passionate you are about what you teach. His dark eyes begin to fill with that precious light you possess as you tell him about your students and how though you’re new to Bogotá, you already love it. But that doesn’t surprise him so much; somehow he just knows that you’ve got plenty of love to go around.

“Well now you know what business I have in a grocery store at 2 am,” you conclude after you tell him about your late nights grading subpar papers, curiosity twinkling in your eyes like fairy lights in the dark. “What about you?” It isn’t until the focus is back on himself that he notes the smile that graces his features. A real smile. He smiles not out of diplomacy but because right now, he’s happy. He’s high on you and serotonin and he’d let you ruin him if you wanted to. But your question troubles him. He can’t really tell you why; he can’t bear to take his ugly, black, acrylic life and stain your lavender and daffodil backdrop. So he tells you the bare minimum: that he’s a colonel and leads a special ops unit called the Search Bloc. He leaves out the blood that paints his eyes everyday, forgets to mention the agony he’s felt and inflicted on others.

“Your drink isn’t ready yet?” you question, like a sudden realization has just hit you. Your kind features are furrowed into slight confusion, and Horacio wants to let a black sky swallow him into his own misery because he forgot to order something.

“I didn’t get anything,” he admits, face starting to glow light pink as his foolishness begins to manifest on his hardened features. You don’t look confused anymore; you’re curious again. Forever wondering about the enigma in front of you, except he’s no mystery; he’s a labyrinth. Full of questions and doubt without one single answer, and once you enter you can’t ever escape.

“Then what does a colonel do at a humble cafe?” you ask. And all of the sudden, for a man that makes a living out of repeatedly evading death, he wants to evaporate into the beige, worn tile beneath the teal cushion of his seat because the answer to that question will surely ruin the delicate, blushed bubble around the two of you. But you’ve incapacitated him with your stupid fucking pretty eyes so much so that you must be the enemy in this story. He can escape gunpoint, rouse himself from a concussion, but he hasn’t got a single clue how to regain his quick wit and pistol mind in the face of something much more sinister: a pretty girl.

“I-” he starts, but all of the sudden his throat won’t cooperate because his mind is helpless to lie to you but his body is resisting. His body rejects that frozen, dreadful state of nothing that it’s normally kept in. You’ve spread the warmth of fuzzy blankets and blissful vertigo throughout his stomach and his body wants to stay warm. “I was just…” he coughs, hard, willing his esophagus to heed his commands, “...I was watching you.” Horacio is flustered now, completely out of his element as he feels his blood seep to the topmost layers of his skin, exposing his embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” he adds almost immediately, his eyes wide as he tries to avert his flushed features from your careful gaze. “I know that’s weird. I didn’t mean to-”

“Horacio,” you interrupt. Say it again. Say my name again. “It’s okay. Actually, it’s kinda cute.” Crack. That steel fortress that he thought was so impenetrable was beginning to soften into something moldable, pliable only to your hands so you could transform him from a wall to a rose.

Horacio lets out a soft chuckle, biting his lip so hard he almost can’t feel his teeth digging into his own chapped flesh. His pink cheeks are full and for the first time in so long his eyes glimmer with life and adoration.

“I don’t want to be too forward and scare you away,” he says, a little nervous but so much more giddy, “but could I see you again?” You giggle, a beautiful melody that floods his ears and softens his brow.

“Yes, Horacio, I’d really like that,” you agree, and he can’t help but feel like he’s not in a cafe but somewhere in the cosmos as a compliant planet orbiting a bright, burning star. Somewhere far more heavenly and celestial than this godforsaken planet. He watches you glance up at the grandfather clock situated against the wall behind him and then back at him. “I need to get going, but take this.” You pull a pen out of your small bag and scribble a string of digits onto your coffee cup, holding the marked cardboard out to him. He’s slow to take it from your hands; he doesn’t want to keep you here, but at the same time he very much does. He allows himself to brush his fingers against yours again, like they had the night before, so that your potent you-flavored syrup can inject into his bloodstream and fill his capillaries. 

As you stand to leave, he can tell you have one last lingering thought itching at your brow. “For the record, you couldn’t scare me away,” you assure with a smile that borders on teasing. “You’re just not scary.” And he watches you walk away, leaving him completely and utterly dumbfounded as to who you had just spoken to because it certainly wasn’t Horacio Carrillo, world class murderer and notoriously inhuman interrogator. Crack.

That next Friday, Horacio sees you again. He shakes as he knocks on your door, roses trembling in his fingers as you swing the door open. He knows the bouquet resting under his chin is pathetic, an overused display of affection, but it makes you gush as you take them from hands and bring them to your own wondrous features and let that stupid cheesy token fill your lungs with its scent. 

He takes you to a restaurant like a proper gentleman, not that he gave a single shit where he was as long as it was with you. You put him far too out of his element for him to get creative with his date idea, so instead he pulls every last cliche out of the book and piles it on you. He holds the door open for you and pulls your chair out and orders wine for you because he doesn’t have a clue how to tell you that you turn him into sugar bubbles floating on warm cocoa but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try to show you.

So evening after evening he finds himself leaving work just a little earlier each day. He spends less time in poorly lit grocery stores and more time loitering at the open farmer’s market under the real sun, perusing lazily amongst the various produce and trinkets because why not? He starts wearing pink and stripes and maybe a polka-dot shirt because he starts to realize that the world has so much beauty in it and all things beautiful remind him of you. He waits a little longer to shave his face so he can hear that ethereal symphony of giggles play from your throat when he uses his scruff to scratch against your soft shoulder. You start showing up in his life in places that you don’t even exist and filling his odd corners with a pretty white glow.

He lets little things bring him joy; your tongue wetting your lips when you’re deciding where to eat for the night, your neck craning to look up at him from the couch when he walks through your door, the way the stacks of student papers that rest on your kitchen island are always different sizes.  Your tongue tapping his skin when you lay a lingering kiss to his face. Your lipgloss sticking to his tricep when you don’t feel like getting up to kiss his lips, leaving a shimmer on his skin that he never wipes away. Your feather fingers sweeping his torso and turning his skin to cotton candy. The fumes of pencil lead and your perfume choking his lungs when he buries his face into your neck and breathes you in. And every fucking time you call him cute, adorable, pretty, beautiful, baby. All of those forbidden words that you dare to use in vain, courageously sacrilegious considering how he worships you, create more little cracks inside of him.

Horacio may not know how to communicate, but he knows you. He knows which compliments make you turn the reddest. He gets you your favorite artists’ CDs imported from America. He shows up at your door with your favorite pastry from your new favorite cafe. He hugs you from behind and peppers kisses down the column of your throat because it makes you giggle. He flutters his fingers where you’re ticklish until you’re so overstimulated that tears form. He cooks meals for you, insisting that all you can do to help is sit on the counter and look pretty for him. He kisses you deeply, so hard and intimate that the two of you are breathing the same air and taste the same. He does everything he can to make you smile for him because in return he gets called a “beautiful boy” and “my sweet soldier” and an “angel,” all words that send him beyond the stars and spin his head like a top until all he can think to do is giggle.

Passed weeks turn into a month, a month becomes two, and before he knows it he’s twice the man he used to be with you filling in half of him. Horacio is still, however, a man adorned with flaws. And with each moment that you occupy, he starts to really collect cracks. The powerful resolve that keeps him from ever admitting that he’s absolutely gone for you becomes compromised because you are powerful. Without even trying, your soft voice is like a wrecking ball to his defenses, breaking him down as you probe into what you call the “pretty parts” of him that he hides. But you don’t have the first clue what he’s hiding.

Horacio is not a man without emotions. He gets angry and frustrated, but those kinds of emotions sit at his surface, above his armed fortress. He can let them all out in his work through stony grimaces and raised voices and guns and fists. But he also feels sorrow, regret, shame. So much shame. These emotions are unsightly black and blue dents in the soft, fragile mush that sits at the very core of him. Under his walls are wounds still wide open and full of splinters, gushing blood and pus, septic and untreated. And they fucking hurt. So he gathers them all together along with his love, his adoration and sweetness, and ices them over, freezes them away and covers them in layer after layer of concrete until he can barely even remember that they’re there.

But he’s starting to feel again.

His fondness for you is explosive and wild, greedy for your affection. But he’s afraid. He knows you adore him, because you are brave. You can speak your feelings into existence and not feel like something inside you has fractured. But Horacio is a coward. He can’t say he loves you, he can’t love you. He knows that if he did, his filthy rotting core would be unleashed and he’d feel an agony worse than anything he’s ever subjected anyone to. But you’re leaving him full of cracks, making him weak and vulnerable in the security of your arms, and he doesn’t think you could hold all of him together if he was truly unleashed. He thinks you might realize how much of a lost cause he is and leave him on the side of the road to bleed out.

The last crack you leave in him is so small, you don’t even notice.

He sits next to you on your couch, your head tucked into his neck as a shitty telenovela radiates through the thick glass of your TV set. Neither of you say anything because you don’t need to be talking to feel comfortable with each other, so you don’t notice how he hasn’t glanced at the TV in 15 minutes. He can’t take his eyes off of you, hermosa, the puny glow of Rodrigo telling Lucia that “it’s not what it looks like” barely doing your face justice. He notices each pore on your face, the curve of your jaw and the bridge of your nose forming sweeping lines that sculpt your face, and he knows he is so utterly fucked. He knows he’s so dangerously in love with you.

He only blinks when you yawn softly, those lines contorting as you scrunch your face. He relaxes a little as you move to sit up, leaning forward to grab the remote from the coffee table and blindly turning the TV off as the preview for the next episode plays. He fills to the brim with amazement as you stretch your back, letting out a gentle squeal. Now it’s just that antique lamp on the edge of your couch illuminating the room, and it’s still not enough light. Nothing is ever bright enough when you’re there to rival it.

“It’s late, baby,” you whisper, a sleepy rasp scraping your voice a little as you look up at him with a rosy smile. You reach up to run a hand through his dark hair, taking care to let your fingers caress his scalp. “You can stay if you want,” you offer, as he’s stayed the night before. “I sleep better with you anyway.” Crack.

“Cariño,” he breathes, his features turning pained as his lip begins to quiver like never before. “Cariño I love you.”

Horacio crumbles in your hands.

Like a mound of brown sugar after it’s poured, the dome losing its form as it slowly collapses, grains dragging over each other as they sink to the bottom of the bowl and the dome is destroyed. No longer held together by tight, sticky molasses and instead a helpless, feeble puddle too broken down to be considered a shape anymore. Just a pathetic sea of lost particles, helpless in putting itself back together. He falls apart right in front of you.

He feels tears that are years old begin to flow down his cheeks, falling off his chin and onto the baby blue cloth of his too-tight shirt. He is completely unprotected, every last defense around that shapeless, dark flesh inside him falling to dust as you hold it in your kind hands. Your arms are quick to wrap around his head, bringing his face to your chest where he is safe. He’s never been more raw and vulnerable in his life, and yet he’s never felt more secure.

He bares his soul to you. He chokes on his words as he gushes his dried, brown blood onto your cotton skin and you soak up every ounce of him. He tells you he is ashamed, that he is remorseful, that he is afraid. And you listen, skin absorbing him in until you’ve got him enveloped in your big, beautiful heart. And whereas every touch used to break him down, your fingertips are now healing him, building him back up and reshaping him into something better than what he was. He can feel his scars begin to heal and the pain begin to dull as an intense awe for you overcomes him.

He knows you can’t just fix him with your fairy dust overnight. He knows he will need time to restore himself from beast to man. But fuck if he doesn’t want to do it with you, can’t do it without you.

You’ve led him towards your bed, undressing him slowly because you know that he just needs to breathe and feel the air cool his irritated skin. Once you’re both down to your underclothes, you’re careful in letting him onto the mattress. You sit down first, leaning back against the pillow, and then you sweetly tug on his arm to join you. He dives into your body head first, face nosing into your neck as his big arms wrap around your midsection. You reach for your softest blanket, enveloping the two of you in the added warm as his breaths begin to even out against your chest. He feels you wrap your arms around his head again, for the second time reminding him that he is safe.

He can feel his emotions getting the best of himself again as you whisper sweet nothings into his hair, telling him how strong and brave he is, how beautiful his soul is now that he’s really showing it to you. His muscles melt into you as you take those fragments of him and begin to piece them back together, filling the cracks you’d made with your marshmallow fluff and liquid gold.

He feels warm again as you call him your “baby,” and this time he doesn’t try to run away from it. He embraces it, leans into it. He was being protected by bones and bricks, but now it’s by honeycomb and delicate flesh. Horacio finally starts to feel like he’s beautiful because you’re letting him borrow yours. And as long as you’ll have him, he’s willing to share.

[punkslowlife]

How it ends/how it starts

Tomorrow I start my new life(style) as a part-time office worker. For a long time I have been wanting to do this, and during last summer it suddenly became a possibility, and after some adjustments, I decided to take advantage of it and cut my nine to five schedule in half. Now, as this is my very first entry (journal? blog post?) I think I should do a little digression about the reason why I decided that it would be good for me. Or better still, while continuing with my previous lifestyle would have been very bad for me.

First of all, I have a chronic medical condition that, while being completely manageable on a day-to-day basis, tends to get worse and cause flare-ups when I am stressed. And the last year at work has been very, VERY stressful and frustrating. I felt really exhausted and burnt out.  I observed the people around me leading a meaningful and balanced life while having a full-time job, sometimes even taking care of their kids on top of it, and feeling like a total failure, because I could not do the same even while living alone. I could not understand where did people find the strength to visit a gym or cultivate hobbies or have a social life after work, when I spent my evenings curled up on the sofa hugging a hot water bottle against pain. This, in turn, started having an impact on my mental health as month after month passed without any changes. Even the activities that I greatly enjoyed before had started to feel like chores, as each time I made a commitment – to meet a friend, to attend an event, or even to take proper care of myself, I could not predict how I would feel when the moment came, and often ended up cancelling stuff last minute as I was too tired or sick (or both) to follow through my plans. My anxiety was through the roof and I began to avoid making any commitments at all, enclosing my entire life into a suffocating work-home routine that eventually trapped me in.

As melodramatic as it sounds, I started to feel like my body, my mind and my life were slipping away from me and I had no control on how to stop this. On the one end, the answer was simple – I had to work less, have more free time and rest. For many years now I have been working two or more jobs at the same time – one full-time office work and several freelance projects, which I had picked up during the times when I had more free time and energies. When I complained about my busy and crammed schedule, logically my family and friends suggested I drop my freelance jobs and focus only on my main career. Though this solution makes a lot of sense, I held on to these side gigs as to a lifeline, thinking that I might end up without a job all of a sudden or may need the extra money one day, and knowing how hard it is to find this sort of reliable extra income once you really need it. To be fair, probably my anxiety played a role in this way of thinking.

So, to wrap it up – when a part-time position in my office was opened, I was very happy to jump at this chance to keep my stable income (although much reduced) and at the same time, gain some more free time, as perplexed as my boss was when I told him I wanted to switch. To him, as to many more around me, it sounded damaging and counter-intuitive. It took a few months and lots of negotiations, but it’s happening already tomorrow.

I think this is enough of an introduction, and I want to keep this first entry focused on the background of this big life change. In the near future, I want to write about my plans and goals for the near future, why I decided to write this journal (as it’s not quite yet a blog) and also why I decided to call it as I did. But for now, I am going to bed, as tomorrow is a short but actually big day for me.

[ezraspiderwick]

hi bee :D i’m here for the character match (lin character ofc but if you want to recommend a pedro character for me to start with i wouldn’t mind 😆)

i like: reading (ofc) especially fantasy/sci-fi/memoirs, a wide variety of music, party tricks that double as fidget (cough pencil spinning cough), cuddling when it’s someone i like, mechanical things (i.e. analog watch instead of a smart watch), validation, being up high (this may seem like a trick to make you give me lee but i literally have a loft bed lol), roller coasters + other adrenaline-inducing things, animals, procrastination, small details, accents, candid pictures, space + things that make me feel small, crisp things, exchanging lots of little compliments, small presents (yes i’m a gold-digger /j)

favorites: sky blue, cats, taylor swift (atm; it changes a lot), mulan (1998), microwave popcorn

dream date: i honestly don’t think about this a whole lot, but definitely something fairly low-key. if it was huge and fancy i’d be flattered but also supremely uncomfortable and burnt-out within a few minutes lol. the devil’s in the details! if someone includes the little things they know i like, i’d definitely be very happy and flattered. honestly, it’s enough to just be together and not do anything.

dream guy: i promise i am not intentionally describing anyone here. someone with a nice smile, preferably taller than me (not by too much though), is willing to talk when i want to talk but can back off when i’m socially tired, good dry sense of humor, inside jokes, i don’t have to force him to do self-care (eating, sleeping, etc), preferably not very hot-headed because i am and that wouldn’t be a good combo lol, stubborn like me but knows to back off when necessary

thank you! i think the fact that you’re celebrating your milestone by giving more to your (numerous, for a reason) fans says something. ilysm and congrats!! <3

Moony! I'll give you a Lin and a Pedro one

So Jack would be perfect for you, he's all about the little details, he'd bring you little presents like flowers and candies. And on big occasions you bet he's saving up to gift you a book. He loves hearing about the books you read and reading them with you, there's nothing better for him that to spend the afternoon cuddling with you and reading out loud.

And you'd definitely adopt a cat together, I'm picturing Jack finding a stray cat on his work route and feeding it, the cat eventually follows him home and now it's your cat 😌

And for your Pedro boy I'm giving you Ezra, from the movie Prospect, here he is

He's the biggest reader you are going to find, when he talks is like poetry is coming out of his mouth, he uses words to their maximum extent, I swear this man has read the whole dictionary. He'd definitely give you compliments every single day.

And you're never going to be bored when you're with him, he has a ton of stories about his space travels, he has visited a lot of places and done a lot of things, some he's not proud of but they helped him survive. And he's going to be totally honest with you about every single thing.

This is a man who can match your wits and I promise you you'll have the most interesting conversations!

[derekmorganscrocs]

Last Summer: Ace x Reader (OneShot)

Here’s an adorable Ace gif for you because I love him.

Word Count: 2, 064

Summary: You and Ace are best friends but it turns into something more.

Quick Note: This is the first thing I’ve written that I’ve fully finished and am posting so I’m like freakin our right now. Also this isn’t my usual style but I’m super happy with how it turned out and I hope you (anyone who reads this) likes it! I’m considering a series but I also have several other things in the works, so it might not be soon. Anyways, let’s get this show on the road!

Ace and Y/n. Best friends since they could walk. Inseparable through elementary, middle, and high school. Where do we start?

To be honest, there’s not a lot to explain. You and Ace kind of just... were. It made sense. Best friends, always had the other’s back. You both work at the Claw, you’re both a little burnt out and worn down, but still clever and funny. Everything always made sense.

You always joke, laugh, and do stupid shit together. You’ve bailed him out of trouble more times than you can count. He’s done the same for you. He’s your favourite person, you’re his.

And you’ve been in love with each other forever. Except neither one of you can tell that the other loves you back. So we’re at a roadblock.

You got weird when Ace dated Laura back in the day.

Ace got weird when you dated James, the biker dude in high school.

You got weird when Ace started crushing on Bess.

Ace got weird when you mentioned that Ryan Hudson was hot in a douchebag kind of way.

Summer was different though. Had you known it’d be your last summer before you spotted Dead Lucy, saw Tiffany Hudson’s ghost, were introduced to the spirit world, and started doing seances and rituals every other day, you may have appreciated it more. But oh well, right?

Not right. The start of summer was when you started realizing you couldn’t go on the way you were, but that you also couldn’t live without Ace. So how do you confess? You don’t.

A couple weeks go by before you start to notice the way Ace looks at you, how he always stands just a little closer than anyone else does. How he puts himself between you and the guys that ogle you as the two of you walk to the pier. The way his jaw clenches when someone cute hits on you. His hand always right beside yours, and you wonder if he gets the urge to grab your hand like you do his.

And by the end of June, you’re this weird something. Not just friends, you’ve both seen the way the other stares. But it’s unspoken. You don’t know if you can bring yourself to tell him. He doesn’t know if he can bear the risk of losing you.

Don’t get it twisted, despite the buried feelings you and Ace are the best pair of best friends anyone in Horseshoe Bay has ever seen. Constantly laughing and cracking jokes, seeing who can get more tips in a day. Ace is always the one you turn to, you’re the one Ace turns to. For pretty much anything.

When July rolls around, you both get more time off. The fourth comes quickly, and you make plans to watch the fireworks from the roof of the claw. Upon climbing up at sunset, you decide to just hang out for a few hours until it’s actually time for the fireworks. You talk and joke, and you and Ace carve your initials into one of the shingles. Laying against the shingles, he only carves an A, and you ask if you’ll ever find out what his last name is.

“Maybe when you take it.”

Those are the five words that change everything. He looks up from his knife, startled at his own words. You’re frozen in place as the sky finally reaches its full darkness. And the first boom grabs your attention. You look over in the direction of the beach, and see red sparkles in the sky. Turning back, Ace is sitting up now, both of you still shell-shocked at his joke. Was it a joke?

His knife is long gone, tucked safely in his pocket, and he grabs your face and kisses you. You kiss him back, obviously. He kisses you passionately, slowly but strongly, and fireworks erupt. Both metaphorically and literally. You both end up laying side by side on the roof, kissing and watching the fireworks. It’s the best night ever.

But it’s never made official. There’s still no blurted out confessions, and it never happens again. His eyes still dart to your lips when you speak to him, you still imagine his arms around your waist, and you both still stare longingly at the other whenever their back is turned.

Until August rolls around, a month filled with storms and fog. And death. Ryan Hudson and his goons pull up for dinner. You and Ace serve them when all the others bail, make jokes about insufferable rich people and stare at each other’s mouths, both trying to not get caught as you wish you could just have what you want.

Then the lights go out. Screaming outside from Nancy, and Tiffany Hudson is dead. You and Ace are pretty much free to go, alibis confirmed. The next day Nancy comes to you with evidence that Tiffany Hudson was killed by Lucy Sable. Dead Lucy. Oh god.

The case unfolds and you’re wrapped up in a supernatural mystery. All the while trying to figure out your very natural mystery. What the hell is going on between you and Ace? It’s normal but not, and you don’t want to lose him, but you can feel the drift starting. It’s so uncertain. For once in your life, nothing makes sense.

You cover well though. Burying your feelings is a lot easier than it should be, and you and Ace still joke and pull stupid shit all the time. George and Bess are tired of being caught in the crossfire of your pranks, Nancy would be, but the only time she’s actually noticed anything is when you shot her with a nerf gun because Ace dodged. Nick, the guy from the garage, makes his way into your crew, and takes immense amusement from you and Ace. It’s fine. Great, even.

Then in September, after Tiffany Hudson’s funeral, you go to the Claw to talk to Ace. But he’s beyond talking. He’s got his tongue in Laura Tandy’s throat. And you knew she was back in town, hell, that’s what pushed you to finally talk to Ace. Only you’re too late. You’ve wasted the summer, your summer, being afraid of losing him. Just to lose him anyways.

So you spend a miserable month pretending you’re fine and fake gagging every time him and Laura have their backs turned on you. You bitch to Bess, who’s all too keen on the drama. Nancy’s so wrapped up in the paranormal and her own love life that she’s barely bothered to notice that you’re drowning. George on the other hand... she’s supportive. Well as supportive as George can be. Mostly threatening Laura and saying she’ll fire Ace if you want her to. But you can’t do that. He may only be a dishwasher at the Claw, but he loves it. He loves being part of the team.

And then you walk in on Laura asking Ace to go to Paris with her. You nearly lose it, but manage to keep it together, hiding around the corner with a hand clamped over your mouth as tears threaten to finally spill free. When they’re out of sight, you call Bess, then George, then Nancy, all to no avail. And so you’re hyperventilating and alone, sitting on the front porch of the Claw when Nick swoops in to save you.

Of course it was Nick. The only one who doesn’t know about the whole mess with Ace. So he makes you explain and watches in horror as you refuse to let tears fall and successfully convince yourself to just not be sad. Over the next few days he turns into a brotherly figure, managing to help you realize that feelings are okay to have.

So the garage is your new hangout, and you don’t realize that Ace is actually missing you. Because the only one he wants to ask about going to France was you. Nick sends you back to work on the fourth day, you don’t want to go but he forces you. He says ‘mixing shitty Caesars is the best remedy for any amount of pain.’ It’s the first time he’d seen you laugh in a while. Actually, the first time you’d laughed in a while.

The first person you see when you walk in the diner, of course, was Ace. Sitting at the bar, staring into the wall’s soul. You manage a quiet ‘hey’, and when he turns to see you looking mostly back to normal, he nearly tackles you into a hug. He manages to restrain himself though, not sure what to do. You two never fight. Is this even a fight? How do you make up from a not-fight-fight? Instead he asks you to sit with him. You do, reluctantly, but only because he insists and you can never say no to him.

“Say the word and I’ll stay. Say you want me here and I won’t go.”

And there he goes, changing everything again. You freeze, just like on the Fourth of July, and stare at him in shock. This time though, he isn’t surprised, it’s just you who’s shell-shocked. It takes you a while to understand that he is actually saying what he’s saying, and you kind of just stare at him for a minute. Then you make your decision.

“I can’t tell you what to do. You need to make this call on your own.”

And then, you mix Caesars. And more Caesars, and more Caesars. The restaurant could be supplied for a week if it weren’t a festival day. You would’ve kept going, but what’s left in the bottom of the vodka bottle looked pretty delicious, so you down it instead. Still mostly sober, but tipsy enough to manage a smile, you patted George on the back and said goodbye before heading to the garage.

Nick makes you crash on his couch in the loft, and after a power nap and a glass of water you’re back to completely sober. Good as new. The only thing that’s missing is... your phone. You left it at the Claw earlier. Which means you have to go back. And probably see Ace again.

So back you go. You get the phone without running into anyone, but pause at the sound of voices in the dining area. Frozen in the kitchen, you watch as Ace tells Laura he’s staying. That he has a ‘purpose here. And a person.’ She tells him to miss her, which gives you mixed vibes, and leaves.

“Ace?”

“Jesus! Oh, Y/n! You’re-you’re here. Oh that’s great, you saw that. How much did you hear?”

“That you have a purpose here. And a person.”

A smile finally appears on your lips, and he reciprocates. You walk into the dining room, toward Ace. He watches your every move intently, as if he’s entranced with you. He is, because he hasn’t seen you smile since Laura came to town. And even though he’s been playing it happy, he’s been miserable. He loves Laura, he really does, but it’s more of the ‘maybe in another world’ kind of relationship.

You and Ace. That’s the ‘perfectly perfect, made for each other, soulmates, in any world’ type of relationship. Best friends to something more, with ups and down. Real. Not some whisk you off to Paris and live in a movie. Horseshoe Bay’s ugly, scary, haunted, real life.

Sitting on a barstool, back to the kitchen, you lean against the bar and look at Ace. You think about what to say. There’s so many things you could do. That you want to do.

Slap him.

Kiss him.

Throw him off the roof.

Hug him until he has to peel you off of him.

Throw a bottle at his head.

Jump into his arms, wrap your legs around his waist and stay there forever.

Stick Lucy on him to suck out his soul.

Kiss him until you run out of air.

Maybe you’ll say something instead. There’s lots of things you could say, but you’re not sure how many of them are true.

Did he really betray you by seeing Laura?

Are you grateful for this because you met Nick and gained a brother?

What would’ve happened if Laura never showed?

Are we still us?

Instead, you decide to go with something you know is the truth.

“I’m your person.”

And he smiles like he’s won the lottery.

Tags: @vexfulfun

[joshslater]

End of Shift

Similar stories and bonus material on my Patreon.

My life is over. I've been playing a high stakes game, and somehow landed on one side of the odds all the time, but my luck was bound to run out sooner or later. I guess I should be happy that it turned out to be later, but it sucks no less. I got sloppy. I was looking through the items near the cashier, as always, trying to mostly use reflective surfaces to see what was going on, as always. I need to be within 15 feet or latency becomes an issue. Some old lady still using the old wallet was buying KokaKola and a pack of Ziffs. This would be easy, as always. I discreetly pressed my watch as she was ready to make the purchase, activating my EM-swiper. I wouldn't take much, a few credits more. She probably wouldn't notice it, or think the store stiffed her, or think she bought two packs of Ziffs and lost one. I'm not stealing to get rich, just to get by.

As the EM-swiper went off a high pitched beeping starts behind me. I barely have time to turn my head enough to see the charging police officer, before he slams me into the side of a KokaKola fridge. Shit, I hadn't done a survey pass through the store as I always do. I could barely register what he was screaming in my ear. "Drop it," I realize, and let go of the magazine. He must have thought I had the EM-swiper in my hand. He told me to put my hands against the wall and performed a pat-down. It's only him, so he must be off duty or not on a real patrol. He empties my pockets on the cashier table. Nothing of value, and certainly not something incriminating. I may not have been fortunate enough to afford academy, but I'm not stupid.

"You are detained under suspicion of committing proximity fraud. Do you understand?" he asks me in that commanding yet bored tone of a laborer having to recite corporate bullshit, only in his case it is in the pretense of justice. "Yes," I answer him. He doesn't have anything on me or he would have arrested me right away. Probably. "Put this on to acknowledge you've read the Citizen Rights Act and agree to an investigation in this matter." He hands me a pair of handcuffs to put on. I hesitate for a second. He is behind me and in the way of the store exit. I can stall for time and tell him to recite the CRA, but that immediately counts against you, as it is your duty to know it. I have no choice but to put them on. It's the latest model. I haven't seen any up close before. Light, thin, all metal, no key hole. Probably opened remotely or only inside a police cell or some shit. I put them on.

"Turn around, pick up your stuff, and exit the store." I do as told, turn around and begin to pick up my stuff and put them back where he took them. It's an older police officer. None of them young, jacked up types. Perhaps he is one of the fair ones. But then I am the criminal, so what good would that do me? There's a small, black duffle bag by his side. So he is on his way home. Perhaps he is tired. Perhaps I can shake him. Have Leo remove the shackles and then stay low for a fucking long time. Or this just doesn't amount to anything more than a slap on the wrist. I walk towards the door, him behind me.

"Nice watch," he says, pointing at my wrist as I reach or the door.

He knows. Unless I can get away now my life is over. All I can think of is the monstrosities the state churn out as punishment. Equal part labor force and sadism. I open the door as little as possible and as soon as I am through I dash down the block. I don't dare look behind me, but I don't hear him in pursuit. Halfway down the block I swerve into the alley that cuts across the building and out on the block on the other side. If I can cross that block and then down south I'm in the park and there are plenty of places to hide there.

My hands are not on fire. This surprises me as I look down on my hands, screaming in pain. There is a high pitched sound coming out of the handcuffs, like capacitors charging, but it is continuous. The pain emanating from my hands is something unlike anything I've ever experienced before. My legs buckle. I know I need to move, somehow, somewhere. It's just so difficult to think of anything but my hands that are not on fire. It would probably be a good idea to not scream my lungs out, but I don't really have a choice in that.

Just as suddenly as it started it stops. I'm still writhing in pain, but my hands are not on fire in a much more comforting way. "The payment proxy is in your watch, is it not?" the policeman asks, standing a few steps away. I'm panting, I realize when I attempt to answer him. Panting and sweaty. I can't manage to speak. I just nod my head.

"The state vs. item RK-220553 finds the defendant guilty to breach of contract with the state, executed by judicial AI 5" he reads off his handheld screen. I'm confused to what just happened. "No trial?" I manage to wheeze out. "You entered into a cooperation contract when you put on the handcuffs, as you are aware of as you claimed to know the Citizens Rights Act. Disobedience at that point allows for immediate trial by AI as long as no forensic work is needed." He sounded like the same bored cop as he was in the store, reciting memorized text for the thousandth time.

I struggle to get up on my feet. Not only am I shaky, but having my hands locked together makes it surprisingly difficult to get up. "You know, this is bad timing," the cop starts. "I was on my way home and don't have all the standard gear. It's supposed to be a swift punishment, for deterrence, but there is really only one thing I can do." Why is he so apologetic? He opens the bag and pulls out a fucking tactical human transformer. I've never even seen one in person before. He turns it on, selects something on the screen, and points the device towards me. "No, I can..."

This time I am on fire, if only so briefly. There is a blinding light, a pulse of heat, and the smell of burnt plastic. As the transient heat subsides it keeps falling colder and colder. I'm naked. All my clothes have been singed from my body. My watch is gone. My shoes are gone. Underwear gone. And, I realize, my hair is gone. The cop keeps punching in selections in the menus of the devices. I manage to get up on my feet. "Stay on the ground," he tells me. Not so much as an order, but as an advice. I sit down again and he trains the device on me.

I don't know how to describe it. It's not pain exactly. There is something about rewriting the code and cellular structure of your body while your brain is engaged that makes it give up in disbelief. "This can't be what's actually happening," it thinks and gives you completely nonsense sensory interpretations. But it also gives up on all other tasks. Time becomes irrelevant. Critical thinking put on hold. When the device stops you are utterly confused for seconds. Possibly by design, but it makes sense that you can't rewire the brain in flight without some glitches.

"I want you to stand up," the cop says in a firm voice. "Who?" I ask, still dazed, just to make sure. "You. Get up on both feet. Take this." He throws an orange bundle to me, and I feebly grasp for it but my one arm yanks the chain to the cuff of the other arm. The bundle brushes by and lands on the ground next to me. He looks disappointed, more at himself for thinking it would work than on me for not catching it.

I look down at my hand and see something orange in my grip, but it is not the orange that interests my but the grip. My arms, thin from lack of food and nimble from grabbing P2 storage modules out of vendor racks. are enormous. Big, well defined muscles with popped veins going up and around them. They look longer than before and even the hands are larger than they used to be. I can see that not only my arms are different. My chest is all lean and strong-looking as well, the legs have these weird lines showing different groups of muscles under the skin, and I can almost bet that the ground is further down than it used to be. Orange! I'm holding something orange in my hand.

"I only have an emergency kit with me, so not very many options for you I'm afraid. If you had come with me I think they would have found some better use for you, but as I said, I didn't have much to chose from beside himbot," the cop said while putting some beat-up looking boots from his bag next to me. He grabs the chain between my cuffs, and both of them pop open instantly, and he folds them up and begins to place them back into the cuff holder in his belt.

There was something he said that was important. Like, really important. I feel cobwebs like I had just been awakened from a deep sleep. "Put on the jock," he tells me, and again I am confused, but of a different kind. It's like I urgently need to know what he means, somehow. "You're holding them in your hand." I again look down at my hand and see the orange piece of cloth, which obviously is what he meant. I flip it around in my hands and finds it to be an orange jockstrap with a generous pouch. Looking down I also see the reason for that, since my dick and balls are large. Much larger than I remember them to be. I don't want to keep him waiting, so as quickly as I can manage, with my balance a bit off, I manage to place one leg in each loop and pull up the jockstrap. It neatly collects everything in front into a large orange ball.

Himbot! That's what he had said. It's like the government robots but human. What was the I and M now again? Wait, those are just mindless sacks of muscles roaming around doing whatever menial task is available.

"Himbot?" I ask him. "Yes, you are a himbot," the cop answered. "Put on the shirt."

I immediately grabbed the orange bundle from the ground I assumed to be the shirt. To my delight I was right and with just a few tries I managed to get it on me. It isn't a real shirt, but one of those without arms, whatever they are called. Quite a lot of skin showed. The shoulders were bare, as were the sides and the nipples unless you positioned the strings just right. Stringers! It's called a stringers, or something close to it. I feel so tired thinking of words.

"And the boots"

I grab one of the boots. There is something missing, but I'm not sure what it is. I has something to do with the small holes, I think. Well, the large hole is missing a foot, so I put one in it. Then I put the other foot in the other boot, and looked at the cop to see if he approved. He looks about the same. Good enough I hope.

"Face me and raise your hands" I comply immediately. He is pointing the large gun at me again. I don't like it, but I must do what he says. He presses a few buttons and then there is a sharp headache.

"Who are you?" "Himbot 220553." "What is your assignment?" "Walk along path 228-red responding to requests." "What types of requests?" "Any type of requests."

[sirphillipcranestanaccount]

Can I be greedy and suggest two prompts? Obvs don’t have to do them both, or either.

1. Neon signs & Polin

2. Dandelion & Benophie

🥰🥰

May, my darling, anything for you. I am going to take the easy way out, however, and have everything take place within the L&F AU

Some corny Polin under the cut, Benophie coming soon

"Colin, do you mind if I doze off for a little bit?" Penelope asked. The low hum of the car engine and the view of trees flitting by in the window was putting her to sleep.

“No problem, get some rest. You’ll need it when we get to Miami.” Colin said.

Colin had taken an assignment to go down to Miami and insisted Penelope come with him. Why they were driving instead of taking a plane was beyond Penelope’s comprehension, but Colin was so ecstatic about the idea that she couldn’t say no.

“It will be great, there’s a thousand places on the way that you need to see!'' he had said. So far they had taken a couple of stops along the coast and eaten at a few restaurants where the staff knew Colin by name.

“What are we going to do when we get there?” Penelope asked.

“I have a few ideas,” Colin said with a smirk. He was keeping his eyes on the road but Penelope could tell, even in profile, that he was arching his brow.

“Like?”

“Sandwiches,” he said excitedly, “specifically Cubanos,”

“Oh,” Penelope replied. And here she thought he had been being flirty.

“But for real, go ahead and sleep,” he said, placing a hand on her thigh.

Penelope soon fell into a deep comfortable sleep, so deep in fact that she must have been out for a few hours, because when she woke up, it was dark outside.

“Where are we?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“We are in Pensacola, Florida,” Colin said with a grin.

“Pensacola?” Penelope asked, “that’s nowhere near where we’re supposed to be.”

“Pen, how many times do I have to tell you that traveling isn’t about where you’re supposed to be, it’s about where you are,” he said looking over at her.

Penelope rolled her eyes, “Okay, why are we where we are?” she said.

“It’s a funny story,” Colin began, “Last year I was doing a piece on tourism on the Gulf Coast and I stopped here in Pensacola at this little motel called the ‘Pensacola Inn’.”

“A fitting name for a motel in Pensacola,” Penelope added.

“Indeed,” Colin affirmed “Now I was tired and had already blown most of my comp budget on the hotels at my actual destinations, so I got their cheapest room, which just happens to be on the second floor right by their big neon sign that shined directly ”

“Mhmm,” Penelope said, wondering where this story was going.

“And wouldn’t you know, half the letters were burned out on the sign,” he said.

“Colin, I love you, but I’m so tired and would really like to know where this is going.” Penelope said

“I think it will make sense if you look up,” he said.

When Penelope looked up she saw the Pensacola Inn sign, but the s, the as and one of the ns were burnt out so it read:

PEN COL IN

“Oh my god,” she said.

“I had been feeling very adrift at the time, and that burnt out sign was the sign I had been looking for,” he said, choking up a bit, “I needed it spelled out for me, but right here, is where I realized that I couldn’t keep trying to avoid my feelings for you.”

“Oh Colin,” Penelope said, her eyes starting to water.

“I wanted to show it to you, even if it wasn’t still burnt out, but it is, and I think it’s because I love you so much that it actually bends the laws of physics.”

“I love you too, Colin, I think I always have, and I know I always will.”

[creativeashproductions]

What If...? IV // Alive!Luke Patterson

Summary: 1997 and 1998 are big years for Luke Patterson and his fiancée with their engagement and wedding planning. If you thought wedding planning and the wedding itself was the big things well, you’d be wrong. I mean this is the couple that almost ended with a car accident. Join the year long adventure.

Warnings: Swearing, pregnancy, minor angst, sweet groom!Luke, and fluff

Words: 3.3k

Requested: By @beautifulblogsblog. There is one more part after this. 🥺😭

A/N: It’s finally here! The Patterson-Y/L/N wedding makes its appearance here and a little cameo of a future character. The next part is the last part in the miniseries as well. Enjoy.

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Masterlist

Hollywood 1997

An entire year had flown by from the day of your engagement to Luke filled with frustration, elation and greatness. Sunset Curve toured around California, leaving the Y/L/N-Patterson women to plan the wedding. Nineteen years old now in the modestly sized apartment, Luke sat beside you in the bathroom.

Two nervous teenagers a mere month away from their wedding day they cuddled each other eyes pinned at the floor. Apprehensive of the stick that held power to change everything in their lives. For the last week, you hadn’t felt very well with being tired and nausea laying you out in bed.

“It’s been long enough.” Luke murmured reaching for the test, “No matter what. I love you.”

Kissing his cheek, the two of you slumped at the negative with surprising emotion. The negative greatly disappointed you.

“I’m sorry,” Luke mumbled to his fiancée equally torn up because while the timing wasn’t perfect, he had pictured what life would be like.

A tiny baby growing in his fiancée womb, growing into bump made flutters in his belly. Of love, he already felt for your future unborn children and snuggling his kids. Introducing them to his loved ones and bonding over music. Teaching his son or daughter how to play the guitar.

He’d love to see his parents cradle a new addition to the family freshly born with the tiny knit hat Emily couldn’t resist making. Sharing a celebratory beer with his father and wisdom for the coming years. To learn the parental reason of why they had been against his career choice.

“I really wanted it to be positive.” You admitted playing with your fingers disappointed at being wrong about your body. Luke smiled as your words as he grabbed your hand in his calloused grip.

“Do you…do you want to try for a baby?” Luke trailed off flushing at how beautiful you would look growing his child. The bathroom was quiet as you thought the idea over, “With the tour just finishing the band will be writing music and recording. I could be here for the whole pregnancy and birth.”

“If we get pregnant in the next month. But we’re also getting married in a few months.” You sighed leaning to rest about his bare arm staring at the pregnancy test.

“If it happens then it happens.” Luke spoke, “If you want, we can try.”

Raising your eyes to meet Luke’s you hesitantly nodded at his words as it settled that is there ever a perfect time to get pregnant? So many people struggle with conception like your parents did with you; your mother’s labour was so complicated that you’d never have siblings.

“Okay.” Luke breathed, standing up to scoop you into his arms, “Best get on with it.”

The laughter filled the simple bedroom as Luke crawled over your body to hover with a matching smile. There was no one else in the world that could get his heart fluttering and focus on something other than music. It was terrific, and he couldn’t be mad about.

“So, Rockstar…are you gonna help?” You whispered tugging on the chain of his necklace to drag his face closer. Closing the distance, Luke’s lips brushed yours before time stopped in a collision of senses.

The callouses of his fingers trailing a fire under the flowing shirt chosen for the lunch date earlier. The warmth of his hands nowhere close enough to match the heat your body burnt with. The taste of the cherry chapstick he shamelessly stole from you, but it was the heady scent of Luke that got you.

 Luke heavily breathed as he pulled back with a hazy gaze with the green almost overtaken by the black pupils. No hesitation as your lips sucked on his neck, bringing a gravelly moan from the man over you, a sound that caused your lower half to clench. Legs unable to fully close as his fingers drew symbols on your inner thigh.

Symbols that spelt out his full name. Now that was really hot.

A gasp pulled from your throat you arched as a hand came up to cup your breast in his hand; Luke could argue all he wanted, but he was boob man when it came to you.

Thoughts disappearing the ecstasy with the love of your life overtook your senses.

July 1998

The white dress was a little snugger than the previous month, but you had a good reason for it. A tiny little blob had taken up residence in your womb with a sickness that lasts all day from day one until the start of trimester two. Getting pregnant had to be easy with Luke from the number of times.

Didn’t matter where you were when Luke tugged you away. The small bathroom in the studio? Three times.

Luke’s couch? Yeah, Alex refuses to sit there now.

At this point, you had been everywhere, trying for a baby was incredibly fun, but the hormones sucked. Luke’s deft fingers creating the chords of a song? Bobby banned you from rehearsals, and you had an emergency bag of clothes as well.

“You look gorgeous.” Nancy Y/L/N told her daughter with tears glittering in her eyes as she took in the sight of her daughter. The wedding dress the bridesmaids, mother’s and Alex had hunted for; the boy had tagged along as he was like a brother. Reggie, Bobby and Luke had spent the day with Mitch and Lance.

A sob broke from the lips of Lance; his baby girl no longer needed him with her soon to be husband. There was no one in the world he trusted more with his daughter than Luke Patterson. The boy never placed the band ahead of his fiancée, and it was quickly noticed how much Luke adored the Y/L/N girl.

“Dad.” You spoke, rushing to hug the man in your arms, “Stop crying. You’ll make me cry.”

Lance was able to hold his tears until the music started and the doors opened to the venue that Luke’s parents married in. Luke stood at the altar with Bobby, Alex, and Reggie. On the opposite side stood your best friend, a childhood friend and your close cousin.

“You look beautiful,” Dad told you slowly making their way to the man cupping his hands over his face. Overtaken by your beauty and the glow, Luke thanked Lance.

“Baby, you look like an Angel,” Luke whispered, squeezing your hands tightly in his as the ceremony began.

“It’s rare that one can find their soulmate, the other half of themselves on such a large plant. Luke and Y/N orbited each other as young children and fell in love in a perfect place. For those of you who don’t know, these two met as a concert. The first step to falling in love. Music is important to this couple.” The officiant spoke, “Luke’s mother told me once that music tethered their souls together, they truly met at a concert, and every important moment had a song.”

Luke’s eyes watered meeting the brown of his mother’s love-filled eyes holding hands with her husband. Luke had no clue how much his mother came to accept, and he felt the relationship fully fix itself as it settled that his Mom had personally made the ceremony better.

 “These two souls came together and became one. Luke and Y/N’s love is rare and beautiful. Today these two had decided to make their own vows.” The officiant finished, “Luke if you could start.”

“There has always music in my heart and soul since childhood. I adored listening and begging my parents for new music. My parents, one year, gave me a guitar as a gift, and it started a deep passion in my soul. I made a band with my best friends, and the band brought me to a person that would become more important. Y/N, I had had a crush on you for a long time before you first spoke to me. I had hit Reggie in the calf with my father’s car, and you made a joke about my height. It wouldn’t be until years later than I somehow convinced you to take a chance.” Luke squeezed your hands, “I love music because it brought me to you.”

“Luke. I am absolutely positive that I have loved you for more than this lifetime as my love is so vast and deep. I believe we have been destined since the dawn of time to find each other together by music. I can’t compete with your vows because you have a way with words with the songwriting you’ve done. You’ve been there through the hard times and best times holding my hand ready to catch me if I fell. I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives catching each other when we need it.”

“May the rings be presented?” The officiant asked with a smile as your best friend and Alex gave the rings.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Luke whispered as he slid the band to rest against your engagement ring. You repeated the words as you slid the band on his finger as well.

“I now pronounce you as man and wife. Mr. Patterson, you may kiss your wife.” The officiant spoke, sending the room into applause.

You and Luke ran down the aisle still holding hands with the biggest smiles of your entire life to the limo that would deliver you to the reception. Luke couldn’t help himself as he pressed kisses all over. This was a glorious day for the musician, his career was going really well, and he married the most beautiful girl.

“God, I love you.” Luke murmured to the girl in the white dress. Leaning closer for another kiss, Luke froze.

Digging into his ankle was a heavy object. Your nervous eyes glittered under the dimmed lighting in the limo. Never-ending eye contact Luke lifted a moderately heavy wooden chalkboard. Written on the sign was: ‘Unofficial flower girl or ring bearer’.

“Are you serious?” Luke asked gobsmacked at the news that heightened the greatness of his wedding day. Eyes flickering to meet yours he watched as your hand unzipped a hidden pocket on your dress.

Flat on your hand was a pregnancy test similar to the one you took months back. The only difference being this one had two lines.

“AS serious as a heart attack. There will be a baby Patterson in six months.” The laugh was joyful as your lips parted.

Luke wasted absolutely no time in setting his hand on the slight bump the dress had covered, “This is why you mentioned your dress being snugger?”

“Mhm.” You replied, stroking the softness of his cheekbone in pure love with him and the life you carried, “We’re in for a wild ride Patterson.”

“Bring it on.” Luke finished kissing your cheek as the limo came to a stop in front of a large venue. The duo you ran inside where your wedding guests threw paper airplanes that Reggie had suggested.

Each airplane had a personal note from your friends and family along that would be gathered into a binder. Reggie had found out that rice wasn’t good for birds and while the reception was inside, he couldn’t do it. So, he brought the idea of paper airplanes; in class, the boys would throw airplanes at each other. It was a nod to their adolescence.

“I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Patterson,” Alex announced into the microphone set on the stage with Sunset Curve’s instruments. It didn’t surprise anyone that the band would play at the wedding.

On the stage, a beautiful Hispanic woman played a soft piano ballad, if you could recall that maybe the bartender from the Orpheum. Her name was on the tip of your tongue as Luke twirled you into his arms with a big grin.

“Mrs. Patterson.” You hummed tugging him to the head table with where your wedding party would join as well. The second Luke helped you sit he knelt down to reach the box covertly placed.

Your eyebrows came together as he opened it, revealing two matching pairs of personalized vans; following the wedding theme one pair was white and another black. On the right shoe, it had ‘just married’ with the wedding date while the left shoe had a picture from your engagement pictures. Of course, Luke made them have Mr. and Mrs. above the image as well.

“How?” You breathed as Luke gently removed your heels to replace them with a thin pair of no-show socks. Over the socks went the white vans that gave your feet a break from the four-inch heels.

“We’re supposed to party now.” Luke beamed squeezing your hands in his only bending to kiss the back of each. His hazel eyes had shifted to a rich green as he stared up at yours with such a tender look, you could feel the heat building in your cheeks.

As your wedding party took their seats, Luke had already changed his shoes and pushed the box back under the table. His left hand refused to leave your right one as you both took in the magical room that had once only been a concept on paper.

“This is amazing.” You breathed leaning into Luke’s arm, sending a smile to the table near the front with both your parents, “Also thank you for the shoe surprise.”

 “I am so happy they got done on time.” Luke sighed slouching in his seat, waving at the photographer you had hired.

If you can recall correctly, Luke had met him at a band photoshoot, and he was the assistant to the head photographer. You believe his name was Ray and incredibly talented and under-appreciated by his former boss.

“Did you let the photographer know we have an open bar?” You leaned over to your new husband with a flutter in your belly at his new title. The question turned the corners of Luke’s mouth for the first time that day.

“I find it unfair that we have an open bar and we can’t drink anything.” Luke snorted nudging Reggie in his side.

“Oh, I think we both know you’ll sneak some for the guys and you.” You chuckled leaning back in the chair. One hand resting on your stomach to caress the material with your thumb, unaware, “I’ll stick to the sparkling juice.”

Luke’s one eyebrow raised at the sudden change in your drink choice as in the past you wouldn’t turn down your favourite. His eyes shifted down to your hand with raised eyebrows.

“Wait…are you…?” Luke drawled out slowly in your ear taken aback when your head in a surreptitious manner. His jaw unhinged mind opened as he took in the tiny bump; in the years together, he was very acquainted with your body.

“We are. How cliché are we?” You laughed as Luke lunged to press a kiss to the supple skin lightly painted with foundation.

Your makeup was natural and straightforward to last longer for photos and make it through the dances for later. It was also Luke’s favourite look.

Dinner, the dances and speeches had sped by ending with both the bouquet toss and the garter toss. The guests mingled with the newlyweds as some danced, Emily had managed to drag Luke back on the floor.

“I’m proud of you, Luke.” Emily smiled up at her son, “And you said those dance lessons were a waste of time.”

A light pink flush took over the nineteen-year old’s full cheeks reminiscing the lessons he had taken with his mother. He had been eleven or twelve at the time when his father pulled a muscle at the worst time. The coupons nearly expiration Emily took Luke to the lessons that initially had been for date night.

“I think it helped with singing-“Luke instinctively cut himself off as he had done years before when music was a no go subject, “Sorry you don-“

“Luke, I can never explain how sorry I am about what happened. I was wrong to push you into a box you didn’t fit. Music is a part of you, and I understand now.” Emily squeezed the bicep of the guitarist, “Besides you’ll understand where we were coming from in a couple months.”

Luke’s jaw dropped at her announcement, “What.”

“Luke, I am a mother. I know the signs such as your wife turning down the wine.” Emily admitted stepping back from the boy that had so suddenly become a man before her very eyes.

No longer was he the chubby-cheeked boy running naked from his bath after splattering spaghetti sauce on himself. He had outgrown his interest in soccer and baseball with his little friends. He had matured into a man that lived up to Emily’s teachings. Luke, in her eyes, was now a man of honour, integrity, kindness and stood up for himself.

Emily and Mitch Patterson had done a fantastic job raising their son, but now they could step back. They would get to watch Luke find his way as a husband and a father.

“Hey, man,” Reggie spoke as Luke walked off the dance floor finding you among family congratulating the couple.

“Hey, Reg.” Luke beamed tugging the bassist into his arms for a tight hug. As the two boys leaned back, they looked over at their friend.

Alex discarded the pink suit jacket at the table in favour of leaning against the wall talking with the bartender. A smile blossomed on the two men’s faces as they took in that Alex was utterly relaxed in the conversation.

“They were hardcore flirting.” Reggie piped up, referencing the male bartender, “His name is Billy, I think.”

The bartender had shoulder-length dark hair pulled back in a bun with glittering brown eyes drowning in the shy blonde. He wore a dark shirt opened a few buttons with white detailing on it. A white necklace as well, but it was the lovesick smile Luke loved; Alex deserved happiness the most in Sunset Curve.

“He’s totally a skater.” Reggie spoke, “It’s a love story. He’s a skater boy, and he’d like to do ballet.”

“That would be a sick song. He was a punk, she did ballet.” Luke hummed to a melody created on the spot, “Not really our sound.”

“Someone will figure out a way to use it.” Reggie waved off, and he was right. A singer would use the exact lyric in her song ‘Sk8er Boi’ in 2002 when Sunset Curve would bump into her.

Slowly the boys of Sunset Curve found their way to the stage to perform a few songs directed towards you. At your urging, you had demanded they give a live performance of Unsaid Emily for your now mother-in-law. As they sang, you wrapped an arm, Emily, as she cried.

“This is his best work.” You mumbled to the older woman cupping her wet cheek leaning into the touch of her husband’s touch.

As soon as the song was over, Emily yanked her son into her arms both parties of the hug emotionally moved. It seemed the performance had shifted something in their relationship for the better. Luke didn’t need to explain as he pulled you into his side once more.

 “Alex isn’t the only one that found someone.” You whispered, finding Alex and the bartender on break dancing on the edge of the dance floor. At your husband’s puzzlement, your finger pointed in the direction of the stage.

In a conversation photographer, Ray captivated the lead singer of the band you had hired when Sunset Curve didn’t play. Even Reggie seemed to have the attention of your twin showgirl cousins from Las Vegas.

“Love attracts love.” Luke simply spoke, wrapping his built arms around his wife, thinking back on the changes that had happened.

Luke hitting Reggie’s leg with the car at thirteen, finding each other at the concert a few years later, the accident that threatened the relationship. Proposing twice and finally marrying over a year later on the same day you confessed the pregnancy. So much had happened in such a fraction of time.

“I love you.” Luke murmured at the shell of your ear watching his friends have the time of their lives on a beautiful day in the summer of 1998.

Above are the example of the shoes that Luke got.

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[fanfic-she-wrote]

Imagine being the reincarnation of Dracula's long lost love: Part 9

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8

A couple hours later, the flames eventually died out, leaving the castle practically in ruins. You still hadn't moved and Dracula was beginning to lose hope that you would never move again. He picked you up and carried your limp body in his arms as he walked back to the castle. So much of it was burnt and fallen apart. There was a large gaping hole in the cieling where you could see into the sky above. Dracula noticed that it was nearly dawn. He just hoped that the dungeons were still in tact as they made their ways towards them with Henry and Van Helsing clearing the way, pushing aside the charred debris.

At this moment Dracula felt numb. His castle was a heap of burnt rubble and the love of his life was possibly dead forever. Luckily for him when he reached the dungeons it was untouched, not even by the mob. At least that was a good sign. He thought. But not much of one. In a room just off the staircase lay his coffin, it black with plush red lining, and inscribed on the top was his family crest. Henry lifted the lid and Dracula placed you gently inside.

"What do we do now?" Van Helsing asked.

"We wait." Dracula replied, looking down at your lifeless body.

He felt anger once again boiling over inside him. He clutched his fists so tight that his knuckles turned white and his nails cut into his palms.

The tension was so thick in the room you could cut it with a knife. The longer Dracula waited, the more he became angry. Angry that his love had been taken away from him again. Angry that no matter how much he wanted it, he would never find peace not from angry townsfolk, not from Van Helsing, and not even from himself.

Van Helsing watched him carefully, sensing his anger. This anger was different than before. For the first time, he actually felt a little frightened. Dracula could tear him apart like paper if he wanted to. It felt like waiting for a bomb to explode.

Finally it did and like a viper he grabbed Van Helsing by his collar, lifting him a couple inches off the ground. "This is all your fault!! " He growled.

"My fault?! I'm not a monster that goes around killing innocent townsfolk am I?! " Van Helsing choked, trying to pry himself lose, but to no avail.

"Get out before I kill you were you stand!" He hissed, releasing him.

"No, Im staying." Van Helsing refused, fixing his shirt. Dracula stepped toward him, baring his teeth, aiming to kill.

"If she wakes and finds me dead, she will never forgive you. You don't want to risk that do you?" He pointed out, trying to appear calmer than he felt.

Dracula hesitated for a moment. Why did she value his friendship so much? He wondered.

"If she wakes up I will let you go. If not, you better pray for a quick death." Dracula threatened, glaring at him.

"Master, where will you sleep?" Henry asked, changing the conversation.

"I can't sleep. Not now. I'll be fine as long as the sunlight can't find me." He answered.

Dracula bent down beside you and held your hand. It was so cold now. Only a couple hours ago it was warm and soft. It was almost hard to believe it had only been a couple hours, it felt much longer to him.

Henry yawned, unable to stay awake for another second. He took off his coat folding it into a makeshift pillow and rested his head on it against the cold floor. He missed his bed, but that went up in the fire. Stupid townspeople. He thought to himself as he fell asleep.

Van Helsing didn't sleep either, although he wanted to. He couldn't even remember the last time he actually had a good night's sleep. His thoughts kept him up most nights, mostly about creatures of the night, but sometimes his thoughts were of you. Like how cute you were when you crinkled your nose when you were thinking or how you used to laugh when he did something you deemed silly...the little things that made him fall in love with you. If only he had told you how he felt...at least you would have known. He forced tears back, but it was becoming extremely difficult as the hours passed and you didn't wake.

"I love her too you know." Van Helsing confessed.

"What?" Dracula sneered, glaring at him from over his shoulder, but Lawrence paid him no mind.

"Yes...for a long time. I never told her." He said his voice cracking.

"You're a fool!" Dracula scoffed. Van Helsing nodded in agreement.

"I suppose I am. Maybe if I had this never would have happened." He said with a sigh.

Dracula spun around to face him. "What do you mean by that?!" He snarled. Van Helsing got up off the floor where he sat and came face to face with him, staring into his cold, dark eyes.

"I think you know what I mean. If I told her than maybe she would be with me instead of being dead because she fell in love with you!" He accused, finally losing his temper.

"How dare you!" Dracula angrily spat, smacking Van Helsing hard into a wall. "She could never love someone like you!" Van Helsing rubbed his head, feeling dazed. "You're pathetic! Weak! A miserable excuse for a mortal!"

"Am I? I'm not the one that has to hide from the sun or cower in fear of the cross." Lawrence retorted, lifting himself back on his feet. He looked at you and took a deep breath, knowing that you wouldn't have wanted them to fight.

"So much blood has been spilled, Dracula. Haven't you had enough?" He asked, trying to reason with him.

"No. Not till I have spilled yours." He hissed.

"Then I guess we are destined to do this forever." Van Helsing sighed.

"Forever is short in the life of a vampire. But you will never see it. " He swore through gritted teeth.

"I don't want to see forever. I'm tired. I've seen enough death and despair to last several lifetimes. I will eventually die, but there are things that are worse than death." Van Helsing admitted. Dracula's face softened a little as he mulled over his enemy's words in his mind.

"Get. Out." Dracula said, turning away. He didn't want to admit it, but Van Helsing was right. Living forever did feel like a curse. There were many times he wondered what it was like to be really dead. It must be glorious...

"I would like to stay a little while longer..." Van Helsing started to ask, taking a small step toward Dracula.

"Don't push it Dr. Van Helsing. I'm letting you go alive. Don't make me change my mind." Dracula warned.

"May I have one last look at her then?" He asked. Dracula nodded stepping aside. Van Helsing slowly walked up to the coffin and reached inside to touch your hand. It was still cold as ice.

He felt tears well up in his eyes again. "I'm sorry Y/N...for everything. If only it were me in that coffin instead of you. You of all people on this Earth didn't deserve this." He whimpered before placing gentle kiss on your forehead.

"Goodbye."

As you lay there, you tried to call out to them to tell them that you weren't dead, but you couldnt. It felt like there was an invisible force controlling you, preventing you from moving at all. You couldn't even breathe, it was almost like you were drowning and your lungs were being filled to the brim with water. Everything hurt. Wherever you were it was pitch black. You were frightened. If only Vlad or Lawrence could help you, even Henry. You didn't even know why you were here...oh right you're dead. Is this what it was like to be dead?

From the darkness, a small voice said, "Go back."

"We must go back." It implored you, sounding desperate.

"We? Who is we?" You ask. Suddenly, a bright light appeared blinding you. Squinting, you could make out a strange, blurry figure and faint whispering could be heard emanating from within the light. As you looked closer, it became clearer and you realized who it was. It was Dracula. You tried calling out to him once more, but he couldn't hear you. His appearance was different. He looked younger and was significantly less pale. He had longer hair that fell to his shoulders, even his clothes were different. You saw behind him the castle the way it once was, like in your vision. Your heart skipped a beat when he turned to look at you, as though he just noticed you were there. Then you finally felt yourself move, but you weren't in control. It was like you were a puppet being pulled around on strings.

Dracula reached for you, pulling you into his warm embrace, which you gladly welcomed. "My dear Maria, how I've missed you." He said, kissing your cheek. Maria? Who's Maria? You wondered, feeling a twinge of jealousy.

"I've only been gone a few hours Vlad." You said to him.

"But to me it feels like an eternity." He told you, kissing you again. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Without warning, the light flashed again and you found yourself in a church. You did not recognize this place, yet it seemed to familar. Before you stood Vlad and behind him was...Lawrence? No it couldn't be?! It certainly looked like him. The face was the same, but the hair was different. It was only slightly shorter than Dracula's and he was sporting a goatee. He didn't look as happy as your beloved. In fact, he looked extremely bored. Was this a wedding?

You slowly walked up the isle towards them, feeling all eyes on you. You didn't even know who any of these people were. All you knew is that you wanted to get out of there. You glanced up at Vlad and saw how much love glimmered in his eyes and you felt your nerves instantly calm. The room just seemed to fade away and only he mattered. He held out his hand for you, helping you up the last remaining steps.

"You ready, my dear?" He whispered.

"Of course. I can't wait to start my new life with you. " You happily answered.

"As am I."

Then the scene disappeared again much to your disappointment, this time to something a little less happy...this time you found yourself in a duel against Van Helsing. At first you weren't sure if it was a friendly duel, but quickly realized that it very much wasn't. This was a duel that could only have one victor.

"It should have been me on the thrown! All of this should have been mine!" Van Helsing yelled, smashing his sword into yours with a loud clang that rung throughout the great hall. You parried and sent him flying backward with a hard kick.

"The thrown! The castle! You..." He lunged at you once more, but you blocked it and counter attacked. He twisted your blade around his and pulled you close, your faces inches apart.

"You could never have me." You spat, pulling away.

"You wouldn't have had a choice." He retorted with a sickening grin. You could feel the anger building up inside you. With a swift flick of your sword you slashed him in the face, leaving a deep cut in his cheek. He chuckled. You were a fiesty one. Too fiesty for your own good, he thought.

"That's the difference between you and Vlad," You began. "He doesn't tell me what to do."  And with that you swung at him once more, this time breaking his sword in two. You held your sword to his neck.

You caught a glimpse of your reflection in the blade. That's when it dawned on you. You were Maria, Dracula's wife, and you remembered him telling you that you looked like her. It all made sense now. This is why you were having these visions. They are your own memories. Could it be that you and Maria are one in the same?

"Surrender traitor." You hissed, your blade mere inches away from his throat.

"I am no traitor." Van Helsing said.

"Fine then, a coward."

He rolled his eyes."At least I fight my own battles. Where's your beloved now?" He pointed out, looking smug.

"Fixing your mistake. Don't think I don't know what you've done. Vlad might trust you, but I sure as hell don't." You stated, inching your blade closer to his neck.

"And what will he say when he finds out that you've killed me?"

"The truth. He has no reason to doubt me." You answered confidently.

"Well, we'll find out sooner than you think." Confused you followed his eyes over to where Dracula now stood.

"What is this?!" He asked looking at the both of you.

"Vlad, he is a traitor. I caught him giving information to the Turks. He is league with the enemy." You explained. While you were distracted, Van Helsing quickly pulled a small dagger from within his sleeve and slammed it deep into your stomach. You dropped your sword falling to the floor alongside it writhing in pain. Dracula's heart stopped. It felt like time had slowed down as he ran to you and held you in his arms.

"Maria, no..." He let out a small cry, running his hand over your wound.

"I had to do something...I love you Vlad. I told you the day I married you that I would do anything for you." You told him, cupping his cheek.

"Then don't leave me...I can't live without you." He whimpered, sensing the end was coming for you.

"We will meet again, my love." You promised, sealing it with a quick kiss as the life faded from your body.

You could feel everything fading away again as you returned to the darkness. You mind was dizzy from everything you had just witnessed. It all felt so strange...

"Go back." The voice repeated again.

"He needs you. Go back!"

Suddenly, you felt whatever was holding you back had finally released you. Eager to get out of there you ran through the darkness hoping to find a way out. You didn't know where you were running, but you had to try. The darkness seemed endless and just as you were about to give up, the ground gave way below your feet and you finally woke up.

You gasped for air feeling as though you were drowning. You sat up clutching your throat, trying to catch your breath. Why was it so hard to breathe?

"Y/N?! Dracula gasped. He couldn't believe it. You were alive. It worked! It wasn't too late after all!

"Y/N! You're alright! Thank God." Van Helsing sighed in relief, smiling like he never smiled before.

"You!?" You exclaimed, backing away from him, your past memory still fresh in your mind. He looked at you feeling confused and hurt. Before Van Helsing could say anything, Dracula appeared at his side reaching out to you.

You looked over at him, eyes wide. "Vlad...I...I remember." You breathed.

"What?" He asked. "What do you remember?

"Everything."

[pleasantwizardphilosopher]

Just you and me

So, I finally gathered the courage to write something and went for a SuperCorp fanfic, because clearly I am supercorp trash. I haven’t decided whether to post it in AO3 or not but if I do I’ll let you know. English is not my first language so if you get any mistakes or some parts lack cohesion please let me know and I’ll try to fix it. This fic goes by the idea that Kara is a very good scientist, she deserves that much, Lena’s background is canon-like. There are no dialogs, only feelings and senses, hope you like it.

*********

Finding yourself stuck in time is hard, at least that’s what most people would feel like under such circumstances, but not for Lena, not right now, where every single piece of “normalcy” her life had is just beginning to crumble, like a piece of sun-dried bread, or the way eggshells crack after someone steps on them, painfully, noisily, in a million pieces, most of all and beyond everything, they shatter unrecognizably and irreparably. Maybe the cold that such pain leaves behind is what led her to run, maybe it was the sudden fear and tiredness that was left in her, like cold steel in her bones, maybe it was the emptiness that started consuming every truth she thought she knew. It did not matter, she fled, running as fast as she could in those 7-inch Louboutins. She never looked back, not even after her flight landed in National City, not even after setting foot for the first time in her new penthouse in the middle of the city. She never regretted it, at first it was rough, sure, like every bumpy road is, yet, after the first glance she ever took at that blonde hair that day in the park, all doubts were erased off her mind.

*********

It was the end of August, the chilly air that announced a cold winter ahead blew her hair, ruffling it in her face; filling the streets, waking scattered orange and brown-ish leaves that had fallen from nearby trees, whistling on its way through the now almost-bare branches. The wind left behind the soft aroma of wet dirt, freshly baked bread and upcoming rain, heartwarmingly, filling her lungs easily with every breath, puffing visible clouds when exhaling. It was certainly nostalgic, the kind that makes you feel warm and cozy and at the same time makes your eyes prickle with unshed tears. Kara felt that pull, as usual, for everything good her life has had, and everything it had taken from her. She stood on the sidewalk, towards National’s City Central Park, glancing around her, taking in her surroundings when her gaze landed on a particular someone, dragged to her as if her eyes were mere pieces of steel and that woman were a huge neodymium magnet; She found herself staring at a sight she’ll always remember, because at that moment, when she first saw her, she felt a different kind of pull at her heart, the kind that screamed “caution!”, but in the good way, hopefully.

Long before she knew her name, what made her laugh, what made fer fidget with her fingers nervously, but above all, long before she had met that woman with dark long silky hair, forest-green eyes and pearly skin. Long before that gorgeous human being, with such power emanating from her, yet such caring, hopeful eyes, crossed her path, long before she made her feel like flying without actually leaving the ground, mostly, who she would grow to love, maybe, maybe she was fantasizing too much, who could blame her, it surely was a sight to remember.

*********

When the double doors slide open, she’s expecting a no-nonsense, powerful, cold-blooded, cocky-demeanor CEO, what she’s definitely not expecting is for such CEO to be almost precisely all that shaped and carefully placed in a stunning, raven-haired woman, whose green eyes could pierce through your soul and would probably make you spill your darkest and deepest secrets, those that also hide so much fear, making her want to walk over there and pour all her support into a hug. Kara swallows. Nevertheless, there is also something else to this woman’s aura, her posture is perfect, clearly carved into her from a very young age, and her smile is polite but stiff, almost practiced, and still, Kara can feel kindness emanating from her, true deep kindness and care. Something brings her to the present again, her breath hitches, those beautiful eyes are staring intently into hers with curiosity and a hint of amusement. The woman in front of her has managed to steal her breath twice now, which is not something she, the founder and co-owner of a start-up company. Harvard graduate and Kryptonian, finds happening often, she has faced great threats, from grumpy bankers to out-of-space threats as Supergirl, yet, Lena Luthor has managed to make her heartbeat go erratic with a simple gaze. 

The soft scent of an expensive perfume fills the office, something akin cinnamon, vanilla and a little scotch (?). It is dizzying and a little distracting. She somehow manages to go through her proposal for the CEO without stumbling too much and, fortunately, without rambling. Lena seems fascinated by the proposal and agrees to the terms without major modifications to the contract. After both signing, they shake hands, and maybe, just maybe, they linger a little more than needed, both enraptured by the softness of the other’s hand. Lena pulls away first, fingers tingling, feeling the tips of her fingers warm and a lingering scent of something floral, it is electrifying, like a low current cursing through her veins, making her get goosebumps all over her arms, but she doesn’t mind, as her attention is captured by those ocean blue eyes that seemingly hold the weight of the world. She certainly is nowhere close to getting tired of them.

*********

When they signed this partnership, they did not expect it to turn this way, at least Kara didn't, or so she muses while sitting on the ledge of her rooftop. She truly just meant to get funding and maybe get to work a little up-close with the brilliant, certified genius of a woman. Sure, she is gorgeous and incredibly sharp-minded, as proven by so many magazines’ articles having bothered to analyze both qualities deeply and thoroughly; but after that first sight of her, with such strength and determination to her pose, with each powerful step, with every sway of her hips, albeit hiding so much hurt, sadness, and a great burden, brought to her by her last name; a burden that Kara has somehow come know so well, such need to be understood, because, the truth was, that no one had ever lived through loss the way they did. One lost her world, her culture and way of life, but found love and compassion, whereas Lena was denied both from a very short age, living a life without love, compassion, and affection, in a household where the outside cold wouldn’t enter, as the inside was icier. 

The cold nighty wind startles her, it brings to her mind memories of bight smiles, so hard that certain dimples showed, laughs so hard that some wine would be spat on a very white leader couch, sunny days filled with an assortment of foods and a wonderful voice, filling every corner of the room with its melody and a slight accent, becoming more evident when emotion takes a rightful place in her voice, one that comes from a very pale yet very compassionate woman. She has to tell her, it's been just over a year since they first met, but she knows it is time, with them growing closer, she has to tell her she is Supergirl. And yeah, she definitely did NOT expect things to turn this way. (Maybe she kinda did).

**********

When she asked Kara if she understood the quantum mechanics behind the surface plasmon resonance their platinum nanoparticles showed, she wanted to be shaken, mad even, because why wouldn't she, the to-be youngest member of the Science Guild on Krypton? Of course, they didn't have the same metals as they did on Earth, but they understood the physics behind the phenomena. Okay, Lena did do not know her identity, yet, hopefully, but she did have a Bachelor in Mechatronic Engineering and a Master Degree in Advanced Materials, she definitely may have crossed paths with the concept. But hell, how can she be mad when those bright, summer-trees green eyes look at her with such glint of excitement, with a twinkling sparkle or curiosity? Those eyes that were looking at her with a look you give someone you know gets you, beyond understanding your words, those who truly get a grasp of your language, of who you are, what makes you shake with the excitement of a new discovery, a greater challenge. It was then that Kara knew that she could read Lena the way no one had ever done for her, she could grasp what she needed in every moment, what she was thinking, but she also got her sciency stuff, the theoretical jargon, upcoming theories, the physics behind phenomena and she shared her love for technology that could make humans' lives better, longer, healthier. They shared, compassion, vision, passion and... Kara was now almost certain, love.

At least she thinks so, what else could those stolen glances be? She looks up, just to find those forest-green eyes glinting with determination and concentration while those agile slender fingers handle tools and twinkle their way around the solar panel’s circuitry. She is so enraptured by her skills that she mistakenly adds way too much platinum sulfide to the solution, turning it suddenly black and bringing her out of her stupor as the contents boil, violently spilling all over the place, filling the air with a slight scent of iron, evaporated water and burnt plastic. Green eyes break contact with the panel to look towards where strong hands work frantically to turn off the hot plate she was working on, dropping her tools she reaches a hand to help Kara, concerned green eyes looking for any kind of burn injury or spill that may need to be taken care of. After making sure everything is (mostly) okay and that it was just a failed reaction, Kara is suddenly aware of a soft hand pulling her away from the table, vanilla and cinnamon fill the air around her, like a soft embrace, that turns real when Lena pulls her into her arms, a soft bubble surrounding Kara, making her a little giddy and peaceful at the same time. Flowers, fresh-cut flowers is what Lena smells, while she hugs Kara tightly, it is normal to get worried for your best friend after a lab incident, no matter how small, she tells herself, and while it maybe is, it is definitely not normal the way her heart felt like stopping the moment she saw the hot contents of the Erlenmeyer flask spill all over the place, fearing for Kara, feeling it creep up her spine and settle like cold ice on her stomach and lungs, making it hard to breathe.

When strong arms surround her and pull her in tighter, she realizes she has started shaking and hyperventilating, embarrassed she hides her face in the crook of Kara’s neck, and everything fades outside this moment. It is just them, vanilla, and flowers, Kara murmuring sweet nothings into Lena’s ear, hearing her heartbeat even out, and her breathing become normal; and Lena trusting that this person, whose arms seem to be able to lift a bus, whose laugh makes her heart warm and fuzzy, whose smile lights her world and makes her feel safe, cared for and understood; will never let her fall. And perhaps she is right.

**********

Yup, it is definitely love. What else could it be? That snowy January, between hot cocoa and soft muffins, she knew. She is hovering outside her lab, on the outskirts of town, where it was less likely that someone caught her both personas; peeking through the windows, she sees her, Lena is coding the interface that would allow them to take the most efficiency and durability out of the technology they had designed, the mechanical and chemical part was almost done already. She is typing, eyes narrowed in concentration behind thick rimmed glasses, the tip of her tongue poking from a corner of her mouth. And Kara knows, she wants to caress those hands when they were trembling from the winter cold, but also kiss them after a long day working with her computer, she wants to rub her feet after a day filled with meetings and kiss her every time her brilliant mind comes up with a solution for an impossible problem. But above all that, she wants to hold her and whisper into her ear comforting and loving words when she has a nightmare regarding Lex, she knows it’s a common occurrence. She wants to see her crumble knowing that Kara would always hold her and support her, kissing her lovingly every time her insecurities get the best of her. She wants her to feel safe, protected and loved in a way she always deserved but never got.

She sighs, this is it and she knows it, there is not moving forward without coming clean about Supergirl, because, staring at Lena, she knows there is no going back either, looking the way her agile fingers dance around the keyboard as if she were writing a letter to a friend instead of a state-of-the-art software to power and control their recently developed solar panels. She thinks of how beautiful of a soul Lena is, she has such a big heart, she has a huge weight on her shoulders for being a Luthor, a burden which Kara would love to lift from her since it is not hers to carry, it shouldn’t be. Furthermore, she cares so much for the world and the people in it, even for the ones that are not human, unlike her family she is truly kind and compassionate.

Here goes nothing. Kara flies through the lab floor-to-ceiling windows towards the desk where Lena is working, placing beside her the paper bag containing hot cocoa and muffins for her. Due to the cold, the soft warm homey smell soon starts filling the room. Lena looks up smiling, expecting to find Kara behind the treats, but instead, bright green eyes lock with glassy baby blue eyes, trembling lips and fingers fidgeting. Lena stands. She is instantly shaking, whatever it is that could possibly turn the unyielding hero into a crying mess must be of great concern. She steadies herself by grabbing the edge of the table to keep her knees from buckling, knuckles turn white. Green never leaves blue. And just when she is about to ask the hero what brings her here, a strong hand comes to the small of her back to steady her and keep her upright. She has never been this close to Supergirl and at that moment when every sound seems to shut and the air stills, she knows.

She knows why those sky-blue eyes always inspired her such calm and confidence, why she always felt safe in those arms that could bend steel as butter. Because in that moment, when the warmth emanating from that hand starts filtering through her clothes, warming her, her senses are also filled with a smell of flowers, mixed with chocolate and bread, and a hint of mint; when a single tear escapes those ocean blue eyes, she crumbles. She crumbles under that gaze filled with pain and sorrow, filled with such regret that she could feel it creeping through herself, nestling in every corner of her body, making her feel slump and heavy. She also sees intelligence, compassion and strength, qualities she has come to be very familiar with under a blue setting. And so, she grabs the hero’s suit in her fist and buries her face in her chest, a single heart-wreaking cry filling the air. Kara shatters then, knowing how much pain this is causing to a soul that has been betrayed over and over again, who has been abused and pushed to her limits. She knows she is picking an open wound with a stick, and she hates herself for it, for using the same trust Lena gave her against her. They slide to the floor, never letting go of each other, tears falling freely through both their cheeks. Lena breaks into heartbreaking sobs and Kara holds her tighter, as if trying to keep her from falling into pieces, from breaking apart, rocking them both back and forth softly. Lena just cries, screaming from time to time, gripping the fabric so tightly that if it were regular fabric, it would be tearing down by now, but it isn’t, just as the woman holding her, the woman she most certainly is NOT in love with, is not a regular human. They stay there, holding onto each other, never breaking eye contact, the hot cocoa and muffins long forgotten.

**********

She really isn’t mad. She isn’t. So maybe she has been slightly avoiding Kara, but she isn’t mad. Despite her first-instance outburst of emotions, she realized she really isn’t angry at Kara from keeping the Supergirl thing a secret from her, yes, she was deeply hurt and upset but she understands the reasoning behind it, albeit she wishes Kara had told her earlier in their relationship it also makes perfect sense for her to hide it until making sure their relationship was well-founded and strong.

She is quite lost though, there is a small hint of emptiness inside her chest from that day which smelled like chocolate and bread, at first Lena thought she might actually and finally be broken, her heart having taken so many hits already. But the pain eventually faded, and that emptiness never left, on the contrary, it became more present, so much that she was now almost used to it. Like a lingering rock in the bottom of her stomach, or a ball of cotton in her throat, constant, bearable but persistent. And now, as the snow starts melting outside her office she wonders why. She knows why though; she just likes to pretend like she can fool herself.

The morning sun is hitting her office’s windows, warmer than it has been for the past few months and as the first drops of melted snow start to fall from the rooftop to her balcony, the pretense falls to pieces, and she falls along with it. She fumbles with her balcony door and stumbles outside, not even bothering to grab her coat, as soon as she steps outside, she is hit with cold, humid air and slippery floors. Taking huge gasps of cold air to fill lungs that seemingly do not want to be filled.

Maybe this is all she needed, standing on her balcony and glancing at the city, the morning sun casting a bright yellow light over her face, warming her skin softly, while her side in the shadows gets colder every passing second. It is enough, hot and cold, day and night, light and darkness, she always wondered to which side of the scale she tipped the most, she used to believe she was all shadows, a Luthor, and Kara was light, all goodness, she smiles at the irony, a Super. However, while she is taking in the city, calm and almost quiet since it is so early, bright light hitting the buildings and cold, contrasting shadows hiding smaller streets, cars, and people, she gets it. Kara was never all light, and will never be, she has on her shoulders an unbearable pain that will never go away and with her powers come hard choices that no one should ever have to make. And she, she is not darkness, she is both, and she can choose which side to feed, and she wants to choose light, just not any light, one that is personified by blonde hair and ocean-deep blue eyes that she could, and does, get lost into. Maybe, she can bring a certain light to Kara as well, maybe they both deserve it, they deserve each other. Letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding she turned on her heels towards her office and out of it, directly to a certain warehouse on the outskirts of town. The balcony door left open, melted snow glowing gold from the morning sun, dripping into Lena’s office.

**********

Disappointment is that what she feels, no, sadness, for sure, she knew things could go sideways with the whole reveal show and yet, the clench in her heart won’t go away easily, and she knows she absolutely has no right to feel that way, she made that choice, just as she has made every other choice before it. She is tempering with her suit, waiting for her cell culture to finish growing so she can properly test their absorption properties. Soft pop music plays in the background, filling the warehouse with soft notes with a cheesy vibe, the mid-morning sun streams from the windows, lighting the space with an orange-ish golden glow. She finishes her upgrades with a tired huff, never one to hate working on something she surprises herself with such reaction. Groaning with frustration that has nothing to do with her projects and a lot to do with a certain pale powerful, wonderful, CEO.

She walks towards the windows, letting herself bask in the mid-morning light, feeling her powers recharge and her body start buzzing with energy. She clenches her fists, as the warmth caress of the sun on her skin makes her heart ache, missing another entirely different kind of warmth. She leans against a wall and lets her body slide to the ground, bringing her knees to her chest, she closes her eyes, letting herself get lost in the feeling of the sun kissing her skin, softly, almost hesitantly, she can almost picture a certain brunette, softly stroking her cheek, a sweet lovingly caress. A single tear rolls down her cheek from her closed eyes, knowing that such caresses may never be from her, a faith written by her own hand, resulting from her choices, as hard as it is. Letting her straining superhearing and expanding its reach she hears the hustle and bustle from downtown a few kilometers away, she hears the honks of the cars and the heavy panting from people running late for their work, such mundane thing that she may never truly get to live and experience. As her hearing expands, she finds herself focusing in a very well-known heartbeat, one she can distinguish above the sea of heartbeats that flood the city; it is beating absurdly fast, and her first reaction is to focus on her surroundings to find out whether she is in danger or not.

She hears heavy puffs of air, heels clicking steadily and determinately on the pavement, closer with every step, and is she running? Her breath hitches when realization dawns on her, she IS running, towards her. While her mind screams for her to move, to do something, her body is frozen, unresponsive, breath caught in her throat, she absolutely does not understand what is happening and doesn’t know what to expect from the woman that is now reaching her. Before she can dwell on it further, a feminine soft hand with slender cold fingers is touching her knee softly. She is panting from the effort, her breath smells like back coffee and mint, hitting Kara’s face warmly, making her head spin; a slight scent of grounded coffee beams mixed with Lena’s favorite scotch emanates from her clothes, she smells strangely like home; her red lipstick matching her flushed cheeks from running, and Kara cannot help but let her jaw fall open in awe at the sight.

She grabs Lena’s wrists softly and stands up bringing her along. Kara finally gathers her courage and looks at her eyes. She feels like sinking under her gaze, not out of fear, it’s nothing but love and warmth what she sees in those jade-green eyes, feelings she doesn’t feel worthy of, specially not when coming from the Irish goddess. Just when she’s about to close her eyes again, uncapable of keeping her gaze, Lena hooks a finger under her chin and makes her raise her eyes up to hers again. Insecure, scared-like blue puppy eyes find soft-looking bright emerald eyes. It’s understanding what she sees now in those deep green eyes, the same ones that seem capable of reading her like an open book. She lets out a sob, and Lena lets go of her chin, going to grab her hand, bringing it to her lips and kissing her palm tenderly.

The breeze brings to Kara’s nose the scent of Lena’s shampoo, smells like rainy days and autumn leaves, and, as usual, no words are needed when Kara moves her hand from Lena’s lips to cup her cheeks, bringing her other hand up. And, what else can she do other than lean forward? So, she does, she leans forward and kisses her forehead, its soft, tender, like a butterflies’ kiss, just barely brushing her skin, trying to convey her love for her beautiful Genius™ mind, for her brilliance, stubbornness and compassionate selfless soul. She then brushes her lips softly on both her eyelids, trying to convey all the love and regret she feels regarding the way she did Supergirl secret-related things. She parts slowly and watches as Lena opens her eyes fluttering open slowly, bringing her hands up to grab the wrists of the Kara’s hands that are still cupping her face, thumbs softly stroking the inside of the kryptonian’s wrists, she lets out a shaky breath, blue eyes looking at her so lovingly tenderly, with such determination and strength, unyielding as sapphires, she feels no questioning in her heart, this is where she is meant to be, she turns into a mushy puddle and lets herself be drawn into the Girl of Steel.

Kara leans forward and kisses her nose, giggling quietly, Lena simply melts into it feeling a soft warm breath that smells like chocolate and honey, suddenly, the emptiness in her chest melts like ice cream on a hot summer day, leaving nothing but love and warmth, like the one from a fireplace on Christmas Eve. She lets out a shuddering breath, relieved. They lock eyes again, and finally all those unspoken questions find an answer. They lean forward at the same time, their lips meeting in the middle, fitting perfectly against each other. It is warm, tender, loving, and everything it should be, the way every cheesy romantic comedy says it’s like. They pour all their love into that moment, lips moving against each other, chocolate-honey and black coffee.

When they finally part, it’s like breathing for the first time, lungs grasping for oxygen, freshly cut grass, concrete and sun-provided warmth, and it is perfect. Like taking a breath after holding it underwater for a long time, except you never truly knew what breathing was like, until that life-altering breath. They breathe in sync, foreheads touching, Kara’s hands go down to wrap around Lena’s waist, pulling her closer, Lena rests her head softly on Kara’s chest, nuzzling into her neck and closing her eyes, letting herself fall into that fierce love, like an all-consuming fire, she’s been too afraid to open herself to, to be vulnerable. They stay there, enjoying each other’s embrace, the hustle and bustle of the city blind to a beautifully blooming love.

**********

Kara is very clumsy, it does help her keep up her façade, albeit it is also a personal trait of hers. And right now, as she trips on nothing, while standing nonetheless, she makes it extremely evident. Forest green eyes look at her amused from the other side of the door. How does Lena expect Kara not to fall face first to the ground when she is dressed looking like THAT. Wearing a deep red drees that falls softly just below her knees, strapless, leaving her back and cleavage on display, her hair up in a neat bun and her signature 7-inch black heels, Kara definitely stopped breathing, not that she needs to anyway. She stands up awkwardly, taking the dust off her khaki pants and dark blue blazer. Lena cannot hide a smirk after pulling such reaction from no other than Supergirl.

The CEO pulls Kara into her apartment, it smells like vanilla and apples, probably resulting from the many scented candles that Lena likes to light around her apartment. The only light comes from said candles and several Christmas-like light strings that are hanging from the ceiling, giving the place a warm cozy glow. Kara smiles lazily as she leans down to kiss Lena, catching a glimpse of bright emerald eyes melting glimmery before falling shut. She smiles into the kiss. She pulls apart slightly and kisses the tip of Lena’s nose, the raven-haired woman lets out a soft chuckle. Kara grabs her hand, intertwining their fingers, and leads her to the door. Today it’s dinner date day, they are celebrating the successful launch of their joint solar panels project, the best performance ever achieved thanks to a certain Kryptonian’s platinum oxide nanoparticles; and 10 months of full-on dating. As Kara closes the door of Lena’s apartment behind them, the warm smell of the candles fills the hallway and follows them into the elevator, a fluffy plush blanket, a protective mantle surrounding them.

**********

drip…drip… the constant crash of raindrops against the windows surrounding them, rain pouring heavily around them, drowning the usually loud noises of the city’s rush hour, washing away the strong smell of smog. They are tucked under a bus station stop, at least Lena is, Kara is already dripping, since she stubbornly stood outside the small protection the roof offers so Lena and other humas could take cover, she doesn’t get sick anyway. Lena is shivering, although it has been a remarkably hot summer, today was quite a cloudy day and it rained for the most part, resulting in a temperature drop of several degrees. The brunette leans into Kara seeking for her abnormally high body temperature to warm herself up, but the Girl of Steel has other plans, since she cannot fly Lena to their apartment, she might as well take the best out of the situation.

Just as Lena is dropping her full body weight into her, she slides away, pulling Lena’s hand with her, directly into the downpour. Lena gasps when the first heavy drops of the cold water hit her, feeling her clothes get soaked almost instantly, she feels the raindrops roll down her skin and further dampening her clothes, the smell of the rain fully hits her now and when she lifts her eyes from where they were looking at the floor not to trip, she sees Kara smiling her signature megawatt smile at her, completely soaked and intertwining their fingers playfully, so Lena smiles, smiles so hard her dimples show. She lets herself be dragged by Kara, running under the rain, feeling the cold sweeping into her bones, and feeling more whole and filled with happiness than she has in a very long time, if ever.

Kara jumps over a puddle with all the grace of a gazelle, letting go of the CEO’s hand, such displays of her true nature still wonder Lena, just when she is about to make the jump herself, Kara stops and abruptly turns towards her. The world stops. Or maybe she is the one that freezes, the only thing she can hear is the rain pouring heavily around them, and her heart beating erratically in her chest, ringing in her ears, the smell of rain mixes with Kara’s floral perfume, she is getting closer now. The brunette starts shaking, and it has nothing to do with the cold water still running down her body. Kara stands in front of her, soaking wet, dirt all over her jeans from playing in the rain, her hair falls in wet dirty blonde strands around her face, her eyes as baby blue as always are dim because of the raindrops that coat her glasses, and in her soaking hands she’s holding an astonishingly made silver ring, two intertwined silver strings hold one small bright emerald in the middle, the inside of one of the string, in almost unreadably tiny letters reads “You are my hero”. The simplicity of the stone in contrast with the intricate design of the ring.

Lena forgets how to breathe, but Kara understands, so she just waits there, with the most loving smile ever seen stamped on her face. When Lena’s out of body experience ends, she simply nods enthusiastically. And so, the world starts spinning again, the honks of the cars return, engines roaring and muffled conversations, all muted by the rain, washing over them as reality sinks in, they are choosing each other, even when the world has tried to pull them apart repeatedly, furthermore, against each other, for them, none of it matters, just them, here and now, kissing for the first time in hopefully many years to come. Lena lets her hands drape loosely around Kara’s neck, feeling the grounding weight of the ring on her left ring finger, hot against her cold skin, the same way Kara’s hands, which hold her together.

[some-dr-writings]

Kiibo helps Reader with burnt fingers wash their hair

·       You sighed in defeat waking up that morning. It was shower day, the day you’ve been dreading. But it had to be done. You could take care of most of yourself just fine, but your hair… it was rather difficult to care for it with only one hand, so you’d have to use your burnt fingers, not matter how much it hurt.

·       You glanced to the corner of the room, finding Kiibo was still shut off, recharging. Though you appreciated Kiibo helping you get your work done before your deadline, given your work became much more difficult with all the fingers of your right hand being burnt, it… it felt weird having him stay up all night with you, it was your work after all, but Kiibo insisted on helping, stating he’d could stay up for a full week without needing to recharge, which evidently was true. Sometimes you were jealous of him. He could recharge and not need to eat or shower, he could just keep going without needing to stop… or feel the pain of burnt fingers. Though he likely had other things to maintain in place of those you knew.

·       You winced, feeling the water pelt down on your burnt hand. You wondered how it still was so tender. Seeing your hand uncontrollably, lightly tremble you tried keeping it away from the water or walls or door or anything else.

·       On unsteady feet you leaned against the wall, exhaustion threatening to knock you out at any moment. With a yawn you mindlessly reached out for a shampoo bottle, only to yelp out, slipping and falling. You braced for impact, landing on your hands and arms. “Y/N!” You heard more than your name being called, but it was near impossible to make out what the words were amongst the crashing of water. Shakily you sat up, using your uninjured, though slightly stinging hand to shut off the water. “I-I’m okay, Kiibo!” “From that crashing sound to your shaking voice I have reason to believe otherwise!” “J-just tired. Go back to recharging.” “… I realize this may be strange to ask, but can I help in some way?” You clenched your teeth, feeling this pain course through your fingers. “I can handle it. Just have my hair left.” “But won’t that hurt? You told me how bad it was last time.” “Well… I don’t exactly have a choice if I wanna stay clean, now do I.” “…” You were just about to turn the water back on when an unexpected and confusing request was made of you. “Y/N come to the kitchen and bring your hair care supplies!” “… Huh?” “I’ll wash your hair!” Baffled, yet intrigued, you decided to go along with this. Not before quickly drying off and getting dressed that was.

·       Entering the kitchen, you found Kiibo had set up a chair before the kitchen sink. “Ah, so we’re trying this salon style.” “Yes! Just leave everything to me!” “But Kiibo… Do you know how to care for hair?” “… There are instructions on the bottles, right?” You chuckled as you took your seat, seeing Kiibo turn slightly sheepish at your question. “It’s simple, I’ll tell you.”

·       You leaned your head back into the sink. “Well, the first step is wetting the hair, and that’s already taken care of. Though we will have to rinse later and you’ll need some practice so nothing get’s in my eyes.” “What will happen if it gets into your eyes?” “It’ll sting, a lot.” “I see!” Seeing his slightly flustered yet determined expression made you smile. No matter what, Kiibo always tried his best in everything.

·       He first tested the kitchen spray hose away from you, wanting to see how much pressure it had. Then slowly pointed it towards you rewetting your damp hair. “First the shampoo, you massage that into the scalp.” He looked over the bottles, making sure he got the right one. “Oh, about the size of the palm of your hand is enough. It doesn’t take much.” “Alright. Is there anything I should know, any techniques?” “No, no, you just rub it in, nothing complicated.” At first his movements were hesitant and stiff, but he quickly relaxed, and he slowly worked higher and higher to the crown of your head. He kept glancing to your face making sure he didn’t accidentally get any shampoo near your eyes. It was pleasant hearing the soft foaming sound and feeling those metallic fingers massage into you. You’d think it’d hurt, but Kiibo used a light pressure and used the pads of his fingers, not the tips so with more surface the pressure was more spread out. He even occasionally asked if he was hurting you or not.

·       “Next we have the conditioner, that more so goes in the middle and lower part of the hair to help detangle it and make brushing easier.” “Oh! So that’s how you get the tiny knots out!” “Exactly. With a brush alone it just gets caught and tightens them.”

·       As he worked the conditioner in, he seemed to stop at some point. “I never realized how heavy hair could be when wet. Even without the shampoo and conditioner it’s rather hefty.” “Your hair is not the same?” “My hair is made of synthetic fibers and some metals. Thanks to some carefully placed magnets and a few other things, it can be styled and stay in place without need of hair products!” “Is that why your hair can stay in place even in the harshest of wind or never fall in rain, yet still gently move with the breeze?” “Yes! It can move a little but not much unless I want it too when styling.” “Huh… So what does it feel like? Human hair or something else?” “… Y/N that’s robophobic!” “Hey! Excuse me if I forget you can’t feel different textures! Actually… Can’t Iruma or Dr. Idabashi give you a function so you could feel stuff?” Kiibo was silent for a moment. “Let me guess, I’m still being robophobic.” Kiibo kneeled down beside you. “No. Not the last part, but it’s true that I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” You looked to him with sparkling eyes. “I get to pat Kiibo.” You eagerly pet his hair. “It’s so weird… and silky soft.” There was some resistance, you could pet it, but in general it could all stay in place, so any attempts at playfully ruffling his hair would be in vain. “It’s like… it reminds me of that feeling when you hold those really thin chained necklaces, it’s cool, and seems soft despite knowing it’s metal. Feels like that.”

·       “Now all that’s left is rinsing it all out.” “… Huh?” You couldn’t help but laugh seeing how baffled Kiibo was. “H-hey! Don’t laugh at me!” “Sorry, but that expression.” You managed to repress it to a chuckle before continuing to speak. “Just leaving it all in is not healthy. So we gotta wash it out.” “Okay. So… it’s like washing clothes? You put the soap in but also wash it out.” “Yeah, just like that!” “I understand.” Kiibo held the tips of your hair in one hand, the other the sprayer hose but something kept him from pressing the button. “… Uh, tell me if I get soap in your eyes. Those are very delicate, and I don’t want to be responsible for damaging them! You can’t be as easily repaired as me.” “I’ll scream. That should suffice.” He flinched, momentarily turning the hose on, startling himself. He slammed it back into it’s place, fearing accidentally turning it on again. “DON’T SCREAM! You’ll startle me and maybe things will just get worse!” “Alright, fine, I won’t. I’ll just tell you.” Kiibo sighed, crossing his arms. “Thank you. Now, back to washing.”

·       He gently ran his fingers through your hair, making sure he washed out every part. He was careful to avoid any knots, knowing pulling on hair could be especially painful. He was here to make life easier for you, the last thing he wanted was to hurt you, you were getting enough of that from your fingers. Your hair absolutely fascinated him. It had this glossy shine even after washing the conditioner out. It reminded him of a waterfall how it just flowed down so prettily. Never before had he found something similar to it. It was soothing and almost fun going through it, though his anxiety spiked as he worked his way to the crown of your head faster than he had anticipated. He was very careful to not allow the water to get to your face.

·       “Now pat it down so we don’t get water on the floor. Then we just brush, and we’re done!” Kiibo did as told, drying your hair out enough for it to not drip everywhere. You scooched the chair forward so Kiibo could have enough room. “When brushing you need to start from the bottom. If you go from the top, you’ll just tighten the knots.” “That makes sense. I’ll start from the bottom then.” As he brushed, he used one hand to hold a higher part of your hair, hoping that could negate any accidental pulling, but… “Ow!” “Sorry! I’m so sorry!” “Kiibo, it’s alright. I’m fine.” “Are you sure?” “Yes, I am.” “Should I know of anything else?” “Uh… Nothing I can think of.” Hesitantly he went back to work, a part of him fearful of hurting you again. He carefully brushed through it, his nervousness soon subsiding. He found himself getting lost in detangling those knots and the soft sound of your hair getting combed through. When he reached your scalp he opted to brush through with his fingers, thinking the bristles of the brush may hurt you. It… was intriguing seeing his fingers part your hair, getting him to realize just how thin hairs were. It got him to wonder if he truly got all the knots out.

·       “Heh, having fun?” “Uh- Huh?” “You’ve been done for a while now, but you keep brushing.” His whole face flushed a bright pink and his face covering shot up, clamping over his mouth. “I, I, I-I, I’m just being thorough! I don’t want to mess up!” “Kiibo, there no need to be embarrassed.” “I’M NOT EMBARASED!” You could help but burst into laughter only making that blush on Kiibo darken to a bright red. “Well, then you don’t have to stop… it felt nice.” “It felt nice?” His embarrassed tone faded, intrigued by your words. “Yeah, like a kind of scalp massage, but not.” “Then allow me.” You hummed in delight, melting into his touch. You loved this. “Thank you, Kiibo. For everything. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn���t.” “I’m just glad to help. Now…” You looked to him in confusion feeling he had placed his hand on your shoulders. “I’ve heard shoulder massages are very relaxing. Relax, and let yourself fall asleep. You’ve been up for a week straight. We’ve gotten all your work done, you’ve taken care of yourself so there’s nothing left to tend to except for your energy, so, like everything else, allow me to assist with this.” “Kiibo, you’re too kind.” “… If that is the case, I don’t see what that has to do with this.” “… Well, you didn’t reject the compliment, so I’ll take it.” “Take what, exactly?” “Never mind. I’m just tired.” He smiled, seeing your eyes already starting to droop. “I’ll get started then.”

[shadowturtlesstuff]

Dress part 2

so this is dress from Audrey rose’s perspective. i loved writing this. i finished it a few weeks back and its been slowly edited. i am working on other things, but i can feel my brain slolwy stop working, and i’m failing miserably.

This party is dreadful. Beautiful, but dreadful. The only things that are interesting to me is looking at the gowns being worn and the intricate details I discovered when observing them. And Thomas. But I refuse to acknowledge the latter and fix my gaze on a pale pink dress, little gems of dark pink lining the neckline flowed down the bottom of the dress. My own was of a pale green and blue, the top being blue and slowly turning green, with gems in little pockets so that if I were to dance, to spin, there would just be a flash of colour. It is a shame I will not be dancing tonight. Originally my dress was going to be a deep purple with white pearls around the neckline but I may have overheard Thomas talking to his carriage driver about his own outfit for tonight and may have decided against the purple.

My eyes move away from the gown and find Thomas who is conversing with an old man that I assume is his father. From the scowl on Thomas's face one can assume his father must be a pleasant conversationalist. Then Thomas's gaze slides away from his father and meets mine almost immediately, as if he was waiting for my eyes to find his, or that he could feel my gaze. A smirk replaces his scowl and I try to ignore the blush creeping onto my cheeks as I look away quickly; to find my cousin’s face fixed on mine, and eyebrows raised as she took in my expresion. She took her own gaze at Thomas, then winks at me and I scowl slightly. All night I had been stealing looks at Thomas, to try and notice all the details in his suit. He looked incredibly handsome in his midnight blue and black clothing, his hair brushed back and a permanent look of boredom and contemptment on his face. Apart from when he caught me looking. Then his lips quirked up in a smirk that I wanted to smack off.

It takes all my common sense to stay rooted in my seat and not walk over and ask Thomas to dance. Yet all of this silence and patience, pining and anticipating our next encounter was starting to weigh on my chest, hoarding control over my senses. It was infuriating. My mind was still convinced I did not ever need a husband, yet my mind also wondered about a life where Thomas was by my side. Every time I did the weight would increase slightly and I had no idea how to fix this. We were not even meant to be friends, uncle had warned me a few times when I had gone to investigate something on his behalf, that Thomas was trouble. Yet it always seemed he disliked Mr.Douglas more, and was miserable about the fact we did not have Thomas's particular skill sets on our side.

“It is most important for you young girls to attend not just tea parties, but parties.” Aunt Amilia was saying to us. Liza looked exceptional tonight, her dress was golden yellow with lilac accents. She had been very excited about tonight, about the prospects of romance and the fact she did not attend such things when trapped in the countryside; even though I hadn't been looking forward to tonight, her excitement was invigorating.

I let my aunt and cousin talk as I mess with the bottom of my glass. Attending tonight meant that there was another chance for our murderer to strike, another victim to add to his growing list. I shuddered at the thought of seeing another horrific scene; a woman cut open and dispatched as though she was worth nothing. Uncle and I had conducted post mortems on all the unfortunate women, they all seemed to have similar inflicting wounds yet they were worse each time. Uncle claims our murder is getting more confident as he is taunting the Scotland Yard. As much as I enjoy the magical atmosphere the ball produced; I couldn't help but think it a waste of time. There must be more we could do to find who our perpetrator was. Thomas and I had been discussing theories over the course of the last month whenever we found ourselves together, and even with our skills combined we were no closer than when we started. It certainly didn't help that we kept getting distracted. Thomas is an excellent flirt and seems to want to do just that all the time. It did not help that my mind kept drifting back to our kiss either. I had to keep convincing myself it was the adrenaline that caused me to kiss him, not the fact I had grown to like him very much.

I kept thinking about how his hands burnt my skin, electrifying me and it made me drunk on his touch. I kept wondering what would happen to me if we were to kiss again and if I would be able to control myself. To not drown in his touch.

I caught another glance of him, but his eyes were already upon mine. I looked away just as Mr.Douglas appeared at his side. I slid my eyes back to him as he begrudgingly spoke to his boss. Thomas scowled at something he said.

“Audrey Rose, would you like another glass of champagne brought to you?” Liza asks, capturing my attention away from Thomas. I had only had one and it couldn't hurt to nurse another tonight. So I nodded and watched Aunt Amila gesture to the waiters to bring a glass for me as well as some food for Liza. My glass is replaced and I try to ignore the growing boredom I have.

“May I borrow your daughter for a dance, sir?” The smooth voice of Mr. Thomas Cresswell appears to my left. Slowly I look at him, trying to hide my confusion. And longing. I would very much like to dance with Thomas. I would like to know how it feels to dance with him, whether he can dance. Yet we were not meant to be friends, surely Uncle will notice the fact we are, and perhaps scold me for it. My father looks over at him, surly registering who he is, who his father is and the title he holds. He gives a tight smile. Father is still slowly recovering from his opium addiction. Aunt Amilia arrived so she can keep an eye on him and it makes me happier to see him be less tired. Yet it does cause problems if I need to visit my Uncle. Nathaniel narrows his eyes at Thomas, surly bemused at why his apparent robotic friend would want to dance with me. However he gives a more genuine smile than my father does. Then Uncle scowls. I would much rather face the killer's knife than be in Thomas's position right now. I look towards where Liza is trying stilfe her giggles and can't help but smile too.

“Cert-” My father begins, but does not get far before my Uncle cuts in. Of course he would. Normally he would not care. I am still shocked my Aunt managed to convince him to leave his laboratory for this.

“No.”

“What do you mean no? She's my daughter I suggest you-”

“No. Mr. Cresswell, what are you doing? You do not wish to seek out my niece for the case do you? If so, leave now.” I see Thomas wince slightly, but smile before quickly looking at me and answering:

“No sir, I can see why you'd think that but I truly wish to dance. Your daughter is captivating.” His smooth words wash over me, the honesty in his tone fills my bones, making me more light headed than the champagne ever could.

“I shall dance with you Mr. Cresswell.” I interject before anyone else can speak on my behalf. Thomas is the only one I had wanted to dance with. I make my way to the dance floor, giddy with excitement. My hands shake slightly from the need to hold him.

“I'm glad you saved me. I've been dreadfully bored.” I tell him as he places his hands on my waist, my own finding his shoulder. I forget how tall he is sometimes. I would have to go on my tiptoes if I were to kiss him and he would need to bend to find my lips. He laughs at my words and everything about him relaxes slightly as we begin to dance. Each step is filled with confidence. Of course he'd be perfect at dancing.

“I'll always be the one to save you Wadsworth. I am your Dark Prince. Be sure to think about me and my heroic nature whenever you're alone.” Once again I ignore the blush making my cheeks it’s home and focus on his smirk. His ridiculously arrogant smirk.

“Please; I have more important things to consider than you.”

“You look beautiful, Audrey Rose.The dress is magnificent, compliments you perfectly,” he must be making the connection to his own outfit and contemplating the implications behind it; “although completely unnecessary, I'm sure you are perfectly capable of rendering me speechless without a dress on at all.” Or not. The fiend just wanted to shamelessly flirt with me. To make my skin turn hot and cold all at once while I consider his implications. His eyes hold promise and he no longer wears his impenetrable mask with force. It makes him look younger, more like the man I have grown to know and not the cruel beast society believes him to be.

“You claim I render you speechless yet you still speak? Are you lying or just horribly bad at compliments? Or, you hate the dress but need to charm me nonetheless?” Despite his vaulnrability I must not allow him to have the upper hand in this conversation or I shall never live it down.

“Wadsworth, darling, please; do you really think that little of me? I'm merely stating the obvious, it's what I do best. And I don't need to charm you when you are already infatuated with me. If I were you I would be. And as much as you truly render me speechless with your brilliant mind, I adore your body too, an added bonus, but I will always be able to tell you how astonishing you look.” He looks ready to kiss me, and I know if he did I would let him. It would be quite the scandal but I do not care at this point. We flirt, tease and taunt each other endlessly but it pains me that we do not get to do it as often as we wish. That I do not get to learn each side of Thomas, like this charming man who holds me tightly, as though if he let go of me I'd disappear. I feel as though I might if he did. I search for any lie, anything but the same pain I must be showing on my face. Instead of a kiss, unfortunately, he pinches my sides lightly, as if conveying his words to me. I pinch him back and we smile, content in our own little world.

“It is a good job you are not me then isn't it?” My voice is barely above a whisper and we both know my words hold little bite. People were fools to think Thomas was anything other than lovable. He may be in pain most of the time but that was a part of his charm.

He clears his throat, attempting to control himself, “I've enjoyed the game tonight, our secret moments in this crowded room no one knows about. Each little glance at me gives my heart a rush. Makes it worth being at this blastidly boring event. I've missed you.”

‘I’ve missed you.’

The three words repeat over and over in mind. We spoke this week yet in my bones I understand what he means. We haven't truly discussed our kiss; or our feelings. We are both too wrapped up in our individual fears. Yet even with the confession we dance in comfortable silence.

“When does this get easier?” My voice is quiet for a completely different reason than before. Our eyes meet and I find myself captivated by him, the fact my best friend is not perceived as my friend. A secret that neither of us ever wanted to keep. “I want to stay with you all night, but after this we must return to our lives, I go back to being judged for my curiosity and you will go back to the animatronic villain the world thinks you are. When does it get easier Thomas?”

He contemplates for a moment, his eyes flashing all sorts of emotion before turning to that calculated gaze that feels somehow more intimate than before. If he has an idea on how to make this all better then I have no intention of stopping him.

“Wadsworth, how much does your Uncle hate me?”

“He doesn't hate you, at least I don’t think he does. He- he isn't a person who gives positive opinions on anyone. Even me. But no, I do not think he hates you, just Mr. Douglas. Oh but he doesn't like that you are working against us. For him no less.'' I have believed for some time my Uncle would like Thomas to work with us and attend his school. He never technically speaks ill of him, but of who he works for. I’m half convinced Uncle is upset Thomas did not go to him first.

“It's not ideal, I despise him, he doesn't care about the cases, but of the fame; it makes me near vomit whenever he speaks about the women- or any woman for that matter.” Uncle had said the same thing a few times to me.

“Audrey Rose, if I were to quit would your uncle offer me an apprenticeship?”

“I think so but why?”

“There are more benefits in working with your Uncle than that egotistical man. The main one being right in front of me.'' I gasp slightly and stop for a second. Once again Thomas has left me speechless at how vulnerable he is for me, at how his words caress me and hold such promises that make us both slightly afraid. There was so much wrongness in the world, so much that confused me and left me stranded. Perhaps that is why I relish science so much, in finding out facts from the deceased because they could never lie to me, never hold my brain in such misery that I feel ill. Maybe the familiar feeling of carving open a body meant that it was the only sure thing I knew. That was before Thomas.

Now I know two things for sure. For the most part. Thomas would always baffle me but in the most delightful ways.

Finally I mustered the courage to speak. “You could talk to my uncle tonight, I'm sure he'd much rather discuss the case or anything remotely close to work rather than listening to my Aunt.”

“Would you want me to work alongside you Wadsworth because if not I can-” he would always allow me a choice, but he would always doubt himself too. So I snapped my head up from where I was staring at his chest. His eyes flash as he misunderstands my movements.

“Do not finish that sentence Thomas. Of course I want you to work with me and my Uncle.”

“My brilliance is desperately needed isn't it? I mean you cannot resist my charm.” He adds a wink, lightning the tone and making me roll my eyes in the process.  

“No, I'm merely the one saving you from that- that man before he rots the only decent part of your brain.” Half truth, half a lie. I relish in our easy banter.

“If you are the one saving me, will you be like the heroes in the books, because I do recall that they always give their saved maidans a kiss once they are saved?”  I blush again at his words, but more so the memory of his lips on mine.

We had been investigating when two ruffians attacked, so we fled to safety in an alleyway. With one look we were both upon each other, clinging desperately as our lips met, the feeling of being lost in him, the feeling of his hair beneath my gloves. Of the sweetest kiss he added after we broke apart. Even after then Thomas had doubted his actions slightly and apologized but in that moment I didn't care about anything but him. I'd seen a new side to him that night, one I wished to witness again.

We were coming to the end of our second dance, any more would be considered improper. Thomas seemed to stumble onto that fact too as his grip tightened ever so slightly. Just enough for me to notice. I doubt even his impressive deduction skills noticed his own movement as he was too fixated on my face. It made me smile slightly.  Even as I knew I'd have to break apart and return to my table. To Liza's knowing smile and teases, to the males scowling and whatever my Aunt thought.

Slowly I let go of him, the music coming back into my head, as though I had stopped paying attention to it. We walk back to my table and I take my seat, hand going onto my glass as I calm my heart. Thomas stands there awkwardly by the empty chair, so I kick it slightly with a smile playing at my lips. He scowled but sat down. I tried desperately to ignore my cousin, I knew she watched me dance and would inform me of her opinions on it and on Thomas.

Everyone at the table is silent, watching and waiting. My father orders a glass of champagne for Thomas, which indicates either he likes Thomas or the title he holds. I watch as Thomas messes with the rim of the glass. My friend has never been exactly good at social interactions and becomes restless faster than a toddler. Uncle is glaring at Thomas so my father elbows him and it seems so unlike them I smile. They are no longer close due to my mother’s death, but perhaps my Aunt can change that for the better, at least a little bit whilst she is here.

“So Mr. Cresswell, my son has been telling me a bit about you, what is it you do again?”

I've not spoken to Nathaniel about Thomas. In fact I haven't spoken to him in quite a number of days. I make a mental note to fix that.

“I'm a scientist sir.” My fathers face drops, either having that information made true or knowing Nathaniel had missed it out deliberately.

“Surely a man of your title would pursue something other than that?”

“Science isn't about titles sir, it's just the pursuit of knowledge. You must want to know how things work, how things are made. I enjoy learning about the body, the world and how it works.” My father narrows his eyes at him. He used to enjoy that sentiment before my mother died. He loved making things. It was his form of science. Perhaps if mother had not died he would be more open to my love of science. I'm filled with silence that floods my head until Thomas taps the table slightly. My attention turns to his warm smile, one that tells me everything I need.

I am not morally corrupt for liking science. I return the smile, a silent thank you.

Silence falls on our table and I find Liza watching me and Thomas with something like wonder on her face. When she notices me she smiles, then raises her eyebrows up and down and we both nearly snort with laughter. But we control ourselves as Uncle takes a seat next to Thomas. His gaze makes Thomas bounce his knee in the annoying way he does when he is nervous.  

“Would it be okay for me to attend your school sir?” Thomas askes suddenly

“Yes, on one condition; you must stop working for Mr. Douglas.”

Neither of us were surprised by the condition, although I am miserable that Thomas was accepted so quickly. I had to beg my Uncle to let me join and I've only ever been once. His stipulation for me was to remain quiet. Quite a task when the ‘men’ partaking in his lesson squirmed more than I did.

“Of course.”

After a few minutes Thomas returns to his table and my Uncle stays in the seat he's in, instead of going back to the seat beside my father. My father returns to his conversation with Nathaniel, Liza and Aunt Amelia being talking again. I look to uncle in hopes he will talk to me, but he is looking at his plate of food miserably. So I sit alone silently.

“Mr. Wadsworth? May I join you this fine evening?” The voice of Mr. Blackburn pierces my thoughts. He takes the seat that was my Uncles and smiles brightly at me. “It is lovely to see you, Miss. Wadsworth. You look beautiful.”

I force a smile as my mind wanders to the words Thomas uttered to me earlier. They felt real. It leaped at me and held me tightly. Blackburns’ felt much like my smile. Forced. Polite. I had no idea what he was doing here. If he wanted to talk about the case I'm sure he'd drag Uncle somewhere.

“Thank you.” I say, turning to look at Liza and begging her to help me out. But Aunt Amelia cuts in instead.

“She looks delightful doesn't she? You must dance together.”

I try to hide my wince but it clearly doesnt work as Liza smirks at me.

“Before you do that there is something we must discuss Audrey Rose,” Blackburn states, his tone makes me squirm in my seat like a child, Uncle looks up from his food finally and they look at each other carefully, “We need you both tomorrow at the station, the Ripper has sent another letter.”

So Uncle was right when he spoke about the killer's confidence another letter surely meant he was ready to strike again. I must speak to Thomas, get him to be at the station with us, he will likely notice things we would normally miss.

“Certainly.” Was all Uncle responded with. Especially since we both noticed my father’s glare at us all.

“Both? Both? When I told you to court my daughter I didn't expect you to let her see such horrors. You were to stop her madness not help it prevail.” He snaps at Blackburn. Anger rose as I understood what my father was saying. He had graciously allowed Blackburn to court me, to marry me, without even mentioning it once to me. I was clearly too much to handle and must be doused before I dare have a life of my own choosing.

“You have been secretly courting me?” I snapped at him, rising from my seat. “Father, why on earth would you allow this? I have a right to know, to choose for myself.”

“Audrey Rose, sit down and be quiet, you're making a scene.” My Aunt snaps back. Of course, our reputation is in such jeopardy if I stand up for myself.

How had I missed Blackburns’ advances, my fathers scheme? What else were they hiding from me? My father was enraged with me, Blackburn had the guts to look sorry for me. It was utterly ridiculous. I hated him, hated my father, hated society. Myself. I'd missed it because I had convinced myself he was a friend. I was so desperate I had ignored my intuition. I was pathetic.

Instead of sitting down I pushed my chair far back and began walking out of the ballroom. I needed air. Needed control. Needed Thomas. A thought I refused to linger.

The cold air bit at my skin, seeped inside me as I walked to the edge of the garden. The darkness comforted me as tears freely slipped down my face. I was a fool. I didn't want to marry Blackburn. I wasn't sure I wanted to ever marry. I just wanted to be a scientist. I wanted-

“Miss. Wadsworth, is everything okay?” Thomas appears behind me and I find it so utterly cruel that he gets to see me so vulnerable. Not an hour ago had we danced, had we been happy and now I was apparently being courted so I spun around and let out a joyless laugh.

“Perfect, Mr. Cresswell. I am a woman in this absurd society so I must not dare think about anything remotely masculine. I must not be able to pick who I love but have my father arrange it without informing me.” I spit at the words at him, knowing he was not to blame but knowing he was the only one willing to listen to me.

“Audrey Ro-”

“Blackburn. He chose Blackburn. He was never nice to me to be my friend, but because of him and my fathers scheming. If he hadn't been he would not have been this nice to me. I know I am not exactly the nicest person and that my interests disgust society but it was nice to have a friend.” I whisper the last part as though I voice how pathetic I am.

“Am I not your friend Audrey Rose?” His voice is an attempt at a joke, I think, but it is also tinged with pain. I consider Thomas my best friend, and it hurts me he thinks otherwise.

“You are but you're different, you; I don't need to try with you Thomas. I have to try with everyone but you.” He dares a step towards our eyes finally meeting. We needn't say a thing for us to understand each other.

“Wadsworth, I find it easy with you too. More than I even understand. This world is cruel and I wish more than anything to make it better for you, for it to be better in general. I- my father long ago gave up trying to marry me off, deeming me worthless and unable to love, and I still cannot figure out which is worse.” This was another side of Thomas he was showing me, to tell me that we may not fit into society but it doesn't matter too much. The fact will always hurt us slightly but we learn to live with it. Eventually.

He takes my gloved hands and rubs small circles over my palm sending shivers over my body. “You are worth more to society than they realise, so please keep fighting for your freedom. I will forever remain your friend if that is what you wish to happen, to help you figure this world out.” His confession replaces the darkness clinging to me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be a wife, but Thomas always made me doubt that. He would always give me my freedom because he understood how important it was to me. I tighten my grip and he catches his breath as I take another step closer.

“Thomas,” My voice is somewhat breathless, my own breathing failing me, “you are not unlovable, your father is a fool. An utter fool. I want you by my side always, I fear I couldn't do this without you.” I go closer, impossibly so, “What if, what if it was more than friends though?” I may have overstepped with my question, we were in such uncertain territory to what we felt and I wished I could take back the words. What if Thomas wanted nothing more than friendship? The kiss we had could have just been adrenaline for him. His flirts may be out of boredom or something else I couldn't understand.

“I- I’m sorry.” I stutter when he doesn't respond to me. I take a step back, ready to return to the line placed between us. Where I would forever remain it seems.

That is until his hand tightened on mine and brought me back forward. My face widens in shock.

“Wadsworth I'd like that too.”

There is a second of silence as it sinks in. “You would?”

“More than anything. I care deeply about you. I shall court you like a proper gentleman if that is what you wish.” We return to standing apart and I can't help but snort at his insane statement.

“You are anything but a gentleman Cresswell.” I smile brightly as we both laugh. “It may be my favourite thing about you.” He flashes me a devilish smile.

“I am fully aware, love, that you love the scandalousness of my words. Would you like to go back inside or return home, I am sure I can get us a carriage to share.”

“Us? Thomas you do not live with me.”

“Yet,” he adds. I roll my eyes at his dramatic nature despite picturing how lovely it would be to live with him. “It would be ungentlemanly to let you return home alone; and purly scandalous to be in close quarters with you.'' Once again I ignore his words and begin to walk to where the carriages await. I couldn't care less if father got mad at me for going home. I knew I had to be lectured anyway.

“Very well, you may escort me home. From a distance.” I emphasise this to make sure he understands. He merely laughs at me.

When I make nearly a quarter of the distance and do not find Thomas with me I spin around and find him watching me with a weird expression on his face. He is captivating as he stares at me, his eyes full of wonder. His perfect hair has fallen in his face slightly, disheveling him slightly. My brows burrow in confusion at what could make him look like this, but I relish the look he gives me anyway. He really is a dark prince; standing tall in his dashing suit. He blinks when he releases I've stopped then begins to follow me.

“Are you alright?” I ask as he falls into step with me.

“Yes of course, I get to leave with the most dazzling woman at the party.”

We link arms, pay for a carriage and start to head towards my home. We sit across from each other, but the carriage is small and Thomas obnoxiously spreads his legs out so they brush against me and it takes all my willpower not to just place my hand on his knee, slowly stand then lean over him and kiss him. He nudges me and I raise my gaze, he tells me something but I've no clue what.  

I blink and feel the heat of my blush form on my face. Which Thomas notices and smirks wickedly at me whilst raising his eyebrows in amusement.

“Wadsworth?” He asks and I hum a response and try to snap out of my indecent thoughts.

“Cresswell?” I attempt words, not sure that I can manage more than his name.

“My kiss? I am still waiting for it.”

When did I promise him a kiss? Not that I do not want to kiss him. He leans closer, knee hitting mine. I feel the heat of him envelop my senses even as I remember our dance and the words he teased me with. For a moment I see him doubt and so I lean in to make sure he doesn't regret being in here with me, regret asking to kiss me.

His lips are soft as they meet mine. I feel his hand rest on my knee as I deepen the kiss. My night has been abysmal and I do not think I would have made it if Thomas was here. I adore the feeling of his lips on me and find my hands wandering on his knees. This is so vastly different from the first kiss and it makes me wonder if our kisses will always be different. Thomas pulls back, resting his head on my forehead and searches my face. I am a complete mess as he looks me over and he smiles at the result of our kiss. He presses a lingering kiss then sits back. I return to being pressed against the back of the carriage as we regain our composure. But I feel his legs still against mine so I brush my own against him and his warm smile against his flushed face made my heart nearly burst.

“I should save you from boring events more often if it means kissing you like that.” The words hold the same promise as the kiss and I smile brightly at him. I didn't think I wanted a husband but perhaps being with Thomas my feelings would change. Even in my worst time Thomas would stand by me, and I'd stand by him. We would make mistakes, argue; but I felt the truth sink in that we would always see the truth in each other. He was my one and only lifeline and I do not think I could ever truly explain the feelings as they raced around in my body faster than I could comprehend.

@fangirling-again @goatahoan @city-of-fae @the-hoofflepooff @purplecreatorhorsewagon @kittycat2187 @padfoot-sirius-black @boredbookwormgirl @goddess-of-writing @lovecakeandmore @loveyatopluto @yikesitsmaddie