#i can’t wait to have some real pretty pink peonies in my room

[peonypetalsonsatin]

It’s almost peony season and i’m so excited

[glowinggator]

Happy Valentines Day!

Request: Hey since tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, think we can have a Rottmnt special? Like crush made them homemade chocolate and shyly gives it to them? ✨✨ pretty please! 🙏

Pairing: All, Non-Poly. (Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, & April O’Neil.) 

Content Warnings: None! Except for swearing?? I don’t know if people still tag for swears or not </3 

Word Count: 1658

You thank the universe that nobody could hear your heartbeat, for if they could, the world would surely fall apart at the intensity of its beats. Your face burns hot, and your body shakes with each step you take. You pray to every deity you can think of that you don’t drop the chocolate you stayed up all night making. Pan after pan and recipe after recipe lead you to this moment, finally finding the perfect concoction. That’s what you tell yourself, at least. No, it is perfect! Right? Fuck, what’s the backup plan if he doesn’t like it? Should you scrap it? Should you have brought some for everyone? You’re so lost in your thought, you hardly recognize your surroundings as you step into the lair. An enthusiastic “hey!” from your friends seals your fate: there’s no turning back now. No second-guessing.

You’re gonna give it to them. 

Raphael:

He’s so excited!! Chocolate? For him? From his crush?

He actually has to ask if you’re serious first, he can’t help it. Like really? Ethereal you made him homemade chocolate? He has to be dreaming.

“Are you sure you’re not confusing me for someone else? Not that I’m saying I don’t want it! Wait hold on, this isn’t coming out right-”

Raph what other giant, anthropomorphic snapping turtles do we know???

He smiles so big when you manage to stammer out that yes, this is for him, and he cradles the package so gently too. He’s such a sweetheart.

He actually made you something too!

He puts the box down gently before going to his room to grab it.

It’s a small handmade card with a little bouquet of wildflowers! (White trillium and starflower to be exact. He thought they were really pretty.) The bouquet is tied loosely with a red ribbon, pulled gently into a bow.

He was so nervous about giving it to you, that he actually wasn’t planning to at all! He’s had everything planned for weeks, but his anxiety kept getting the better of him. But getting something from you was exactly the kind of encouragement he needed to take that final leap.

He’s so flustered when he hands it over, and the way his hands shake makes you feel a little less shy. Maybe he does feel the same way?

Two shy dorks in love <3

Leonardo:

Yoo, for real? For him? Hell yeah, thank you!

He’s really confident on the outside. Like, he’s so excited and accepting about it it’s unreal. All of your anxieties melt away, as they tend to do around him, and you can’t even remember why you were so stressed in the first place! It’s Leo, after all.

He’s dying (in a good way) on the inside though. He’s just internally screaming. Holy shit his crush is giving him chocolate? And it’s homemade? Oh my god look at that tiny white chocolate drizzle, that’s so cute!! Is that a strawberry?? MANY thoughts, head FULL, and in LOVE.

(He’s gonna hardcore brag about it to his brothers later.)

His heart is pounding out of his chest, although he doesn’t divulge that information.

He asks you out right then and there. Like!!!

He doesn’t actually say the word “date,” but god. You’re suddenly all shy again, and you can’t do anything but nod furiously.

The date is super casual, (yes its at Hueso’s. He begs him to pull out all of the stops, and he does so, even if only to shut up Leo. Actual king <3)  and it really puts you at ease. At some point he moves to hold your hand, and you can’t help the way your heart leaps into your throat. And he'd be lying if he didn’t feel the same way.

His confession is so eloquent, and yet… dorky. Sweet. Like he’s rehearsed it a million times, trying to find the best possible words to win your heart. Little did he know, he’s always had it.

Donatello:

oh no

He didn’t plan for this. Like, this was literally the one thing he didn’t plan for.

(He has confidence issues, give him a break!! How could he have known that you were going to give him something too? And give it first as well?? Which sets a precedent for the gift he gives?? Social interactions are Awful and he’s in Hell.)

He’s still pleasantly surprised though!

He kind of short-circuits for a moment, and he’s completely deadpan for at least three seconds. It’s the worst couple seconds of your life. Then he comes back to reality and thanks you super genuinely.

(It’s hard to read him at the best of times, and this is. So much. He just doesn’t know what to do with himself!!!)

He takes his time looking at every detail on the chocolates, and your anxiety dies down as you see the softest smile grace his features. It’s so genuine, and you don’t even think he knows he is smiling, so it’s really reassuring.

You take the time to really study his features, and fuck, he’s really pretty. You’re both flustered when you guys come back to reality.

He made you a gift too!! In fact, he has a whole day planned out.

It’s a long and fun day of running around the Hidden City, and at night, in New York.

It’s incredible.

He’s confident, and he says all the right things. He’s had this night planned out for weeks, and fuck if it doesn’t shine through.

At the end of the night, he gives you his gift with averted eyes. It’s a strange contrast to the pure exciting, confident persona he’s been putting on all day.

It’s handmade, and tailored to your exact interests and equipped with his own, Donatello-Style flair.

He’s confident in his tech, and he knows you like the back of his hand, but this is… completely new territory.

Valentine’s Day has never been so perfect.

Michelangelo

He did the same thing, actually!!! So this is actually so perfect for him!!

He spent all night making the perfect chocolates. Most of them are filled, and those that aren’t have some unique, artistic drizzle adorning them. If you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he got them from a fancy chocolate place.

He genuinely can’t contain his excitement when you hand him the box all shyly. His eyes light up with the brightness of a dying star going supernova.

He immediately hugs you, careful not to crush the chocolates, and then his mouth is moving at a mile a minute. It’s almost hard to keep up!! He’s just so happy and excited, and he’s running to the kitchen and he has a box too??? Hello, what’s going on??

He’s trying so hard to not just blurt out a confession here and now.

It’s completely impromptu, but he suggests going out on the town. He didn’t plan it, he was honestly just planning to stay in and watch some movies with you, but now that you’ve brought him a Valentine’s Day gift too? That means you like him too right, maybe?

If he’s gonna confess to you, it’s sure as hell not gonna be in a sewer. (Even if it is his home. It just ain’t right, man!)

It’s really fun! You feel so at home with him, and there’s no pressure at all.

Everything just seems to fall into place around him. He’s your home. Unbeknownst to you, he feels the exact same way.

He confesses by the end of the night. It’s so sweet and sincere, but there isn’t a single moment of hesitation. He’s so head over heels for you, and that love shows itself in every movement and word.

April

She’s never been given chocolates before!! She’s always looked on in envy through middle school, highschool, at work, etc. So fuck, if she’s not immediately swarmed with emotion. She’s like, two seconds away from crying. I love her so much…

It’s actually really funny, because she ordered a really nice bouquet of ivory & pink flowers from her local flower shop for you, but they hadn’t arrived yet! She’s super upfront with it, and it gets a good laugh out of both of you. The classic April O’Neil luck, ey?

It definitely lightens the mood, and she suggests going out to a local restaurant to get lunch, and then maybe go sightseeing! Or maybe just goof around in the Hidden City? No pressure!

It’s super fun! You never want the night to end, to be quite honest.

You get to choose the music while you guys drive around, and you end up picking the silliest stuff. You guys laugh and belt out the lyrics to every song.

The food at the restaurant is perfect, and everything goes off without a hitch. At some point she reaches across the table to interlock fingers with you, and you’re suddenly alight with so much love and recognition that this is an official date, and your best friend - your crush - is holding hands with you, and her hand is so soft and warm and… you’re so in love. And unbeknownst to you, she’s feeling the exact same strain of emotion.

At the end of the night she takes you to a rainy spot in the Hidden City, and you guys dance and sing in the rain.

Everything feels so natural and perfect with her. She’s your safe space, your home, your world.

You can barely stand to part at the end of the night.

When you do get back to your home, you find her gift at your front door. It’s a beautiful bouquet of white Gardenias, pink Carnations, pink Peonies, and… a white Lily. They stand perfectly in a vase, apparently left at your doorstep by the delivery driver. You place them on your kitchen counter as soon as you can, and text her immediately.

You love her with all your heart, and she’s head over heels for you, too.

[novelconcepts]

fic: something to hang on to

When Jamie buys a camera, she isn’t really thinking about it. They’re driving through Virginia, stopped off at a little gas station; Dani’s outside filling the rental Jeep, which puts Jamie on snack-duty. At the counter, she spots a display of disposable cameras and, almost without thinking, adds one to the pile of sugar and caffeine. It isn’t a plan. Isn’t for any particular reason. 

Dani, pawing through the plastic bag of their spoils, raises it from a mess of M&Ms and Pringles and says, “You like photography?” She asks it the way she asks everything, like every little detail she learns about Jamie is another brand-new color added to the shine of the world. Jamie shrugs. 

“Never was much for it, but this brave new land is pretty enough. Don’t mind keeping track of it for later.”

It’s more than that, she thinks as Dani raises the viewfinder to her eye and clicks a photo of Jamie behind the wheel, one hand steering, the other stretching across the center console to rest on Dani’s knee. I almost lost you once, Poppins. Wouldn’t have had anything but my own memory to remember you by. This...this will help. 

Later, much later, years later, Jamie will look back on that moment as one of her wisest. Later, on a bed she can no longer sleep in, holding a thick album between shaking hands, she’ll think some of the most important choices you ever make are split-second recklessness. A camera, tossed in at the last second. A habit, built on nothing more than needing Dani’s smile immortalized. 

Open the album. Take a breath. Flip the page. 

***

A photo: Dani sprawled on a red-and-white beach towel, chin propped on folded arms, gazing out away from the camera as though she has no idea anyone is watching.

They’re with Henry and the kids--the first time they’ve seen the Wingrave family since the events at the house, and, though they don’t know it, one of the last times they’ll see them all together--in Florida. It’s strange, Jamie reflects, watching Miles chase Flora across an endless strip of sand. Strange how much world can fit into one country. England was green, rolling with hill and fog and haunted by things older than any of them can imagine. Florida feels...young, somehow. Too warm, too bright, too perfect on a Saturday afternoon. 

She’s hugging her knees, seated on a blanket with Dani sitting just an inch further away than she’d like. It’s the safe thing, the smart thing, but she misses her--misses the way they sit in hotel rooms and empty bars, knees touching, pinkies overlapping. Dani, in a sundress that matches the blue of her right eye, is laughing as Miles grabs Flora around the middle and tries with all his ten-year-old strength to hoist her off the ground. 

“Miles,” Henry calls, his voice laden with the anxiety of a man who has only just begun learning how to parent. “Miles, be careful--”

“They’re all right,” Jamie interrupts, tossing a handful of warm sand toward Henry’s precarious perch on a plastic chair. "Have you been wound this tight the whole fucking time?”

He looks pained. “You’ll excuse me for never having raised two children before. They’ve been a bit...”

“Precocious?” Dani suggests brightly. 

“Demonic?” Jamie says at the same time. Henry sighs. 

“Adventurous, shall we say, to meet in the middle.”

“They haven’t been...” Dani’s smiling, the way Jamie has grown accustomed to over the last few months: a beautiful smile that never entirely reaches her eyes. It’s the way she smiles when she thinks she needs to wear a mask of stability, when she needs everyone to think she’s doing all right. 

Henry frowns. “Haven’t been what?”

Dani shrugs, looking uncomfortable. “Scared? Having nightmares? I don’t know...”

She’s asking-not-asking about that night, like she told Jamie she wasn’t going to do. They don’t need me bringing it up, she’d said back at the hotel, holding tight to Jamie in a way that said she very much needed to talk about this against her own will. They deserve to just live their lives. 

Henry looks puzzled. “Strange, but no. No nightmares. Flora had a few at the very start, before we left London, but...no. Not since arriving here.”

Dani nods like this is all she wants to hear, and rubs her cheek with one slightly-sunburnt hand, the moment passing into obscurity as Flora shrieks and Miles trips directly into an oncoming wave. It’s all good here, all sunshine and ease of temper, and Jamie watches Henry stand. Brush off shorts that look truly insane set against his pale legs. Go awkward-jogging into the surf to lift a giggling Flora heavenward. 

“They make a fine little family,” she says, pitching her voice so only Dani can hear. Dani nods. There’s a tightness to her mouth that says she’s only half here, only half able to let the sun bake away the shadows. Jamie touches her ankle lightly, wishing they were somewhere less requiring of distance. 

“I’m all right,” Dani says. Not a lie of intent, at least, though Jamie suspects it’s more that she wants to be all right. She watches Dani roll onto her front, eyes on the endless ocean, the children tumbling around in its gentle grasp, the man doing his best to keep up. 

Could watch her forever, Jamie thinks, knowing it’s far too early to say something so catastrophically huge. She’s been having these thoughts more and more, wild notions of turning this brand-new adventure with Dani into a lifetime event. It turns a key somewhere deep within her chest, some far-off engine making a deep rumbling sound that sends her tripping toward a very real, very powerful feeling of terror. 

Her hand slips toward the bag of sunscreen, paperback novels, sliced oranges. A camera, small and yellow and used mainly in moments like this one, emerges. Dani never notices as she brings it to her eye, frames Dani’s blonde ponytail and sun-pink skin, snaps a photo. 

Later, when the pictures are developed and spread out across a hotel bedspread, shots of Miles with an orange-peel grin and Flora standing before a monster of a sandcastle intercut with Dani’s far-off pensive expression, Dani will touch the print. Lingeringly, fingers trembling just the slightest bit.

“Why this one?”

Because I loved you more than words could capture, Jamie will know it’s far too early to say. It’d be reckless. It’d be testing the bounds of something still fragile, still one-day-at-a-time hopeful. 

“Why not?” she’ll say, and tuck the photo safely back into its sleeve. 

***

A photo: Jamie and Dani, backs to the freshly painted Leafling sign, standing carefully apart with shoulders back and a small bouquet of flowers clutched in Dani’s hands.

They keep to themselves, mainly, but some of the nearby shopkeepers have been kind as The Leafling goes from mad late-night concept to brick-and-mortar reality. They bring welcome-to-the-block plants and casseroles that are mostly-edible, and Dani accepts each one with true Midwestern courtesy. Jamie leans back, watches the art of neighborly behavior being painted before her eyes: older women who compliment Dani on her earrings, young men bullied into helping move heavy boxes into storage by their mothers. Dani, in the middle of it all, wearing a soft pastel sweater and a smile that has finally remembered its own strength. 

She wasn’t sure how this would go, if Jamie’s honest about it. She’s been telling Dani not to worry for weeks, telling Dani they don’t need to know much about a business to run this one. I grow, you arrange, we make out like bandits with all the nice Americans who value pretty things. It’ll be perfect, Poppins. She’s been saying it, and she thinks she even believes her own words most of the time, but there have been dreams. Anxiety running its red thread through her sleep, telling her she has no skill in this arena, no education to speak of, no idea how to survive in American business while hiding her relationship with her “business partner”. 

The day the shop finally opens, Jamie has been saying “it’s going to be great” for so long, she almost surprises herself by rushing into the bathroom and vomiting into the toilet. Dani, expression warm and just the tiniest bit teasing, leans against the doorframe.

“You all right?”

“Perfect,” Jamie gasps, staggering to the sink and thrusting a toothbrush into her mouth. “Jus’ great.”

“Too late to turn back now,” Dani points out. “What would we do with all the business cards?”

Jamie groans, spitting mint foam and rinsing out her mouth. “You could show just the slightest bit less glee, Poppins. I’ve just run us into a brick wall of imminent failure.”

Dani laughs, coming up behind her to hug her tight around the middle. “We should probably at least unlock the doors for the first time before you decide it’s time to shutter them again.”

She’s good today, Jamie senses--not the fake-good where she tries her best to pretend she isn’t listening for some deep-down movement Jamie can’t register, but truly happy. Her body is relaxed, her hands certain as she tips Jamie’s cheek and kisses her calm. 

“How,” Jamie gasps when they break, “are you not out of your bloody mind right now?”

Dani shrugs. “It’s like the first day of school. Spend all summer planning and worrying, but now it’s happening. Just gotta jump in.”

There are already people waiting when they arrive, to Jamie’s mingled horror and delight. Most of them are their fellow shopkeepers, waiting with the brilliant smiles of people who have already lived this particular nightmare themselves, and just want to pay forward the relief of customers actually turning up. They’re kind, these people--they don’t know Jamie in the least, don’t have the first idea what shadows lurk behind Dani’s eyes, but they take their hands, squeeze, and congratulate them all the same. Jamie thinks they even mean it, most of them. Americans are complicated, boisterous, scandalous people--but they can have such heart. 

One woman, old enough to be Jamie’s grandmother, presses a bouquet of peonies against Dani’s chest. “For luck,” she says croakily, patting Dani’s cheek like she’s known her since Dani was three feet tall. “Dry ‘em, hang ‘em somewhere in the back. Remember we’re all rooting for you.”

“Rooting,” a man who owns a nearby pizzeria hoots. “Good one, Carol!”

Jamie almost rolls her eyes, but Dani is beaming. When the others make flapping get in front of the sign gestures, they can’t help but obey, standing with a perfectly-maintained half-person between their shoulders. She wants so badly to reach over, to take Dani’s hand, to kiss her with all the terror and relief she’d never known she could feel at once. Instead, she smiles as professionally as she knows how for the camera someone produces. It’s enough.

Later, tapping a finger against the print the photographer drops on their counter, Jamie says, “Look like I want to pass out.”

Dani glances toward the window, takes note of the empty street, presses a quick kiss to her cheek. “I’d have caught you.”

***

A photo: Jamie, sitting just behind Dani on a plush couch, arm wrapped around her waist, cheek pressed to flyaway blonde hair. Dani, grinning her widest, cheesiest grin, leaning back like she knows there is no world in which Jamie would ever let her fall.

There are parties, occasionally--usually thrown by other under-the-radar couples they get along with well enough for drinks, not so much that they truly build relationships. They like the quiet life, the two-person road trips, the easy silence after a long day. But, sometimes, life is grand and big and loud, and on those nights, they venture out into the world.

There are a pair of men maybe five years their senior who have been together for “a decade”, if you ask Mike, “a century”, if it’s Paul telling the tale. They’re good people, and their home is a safe space Jamie doesn’t anticipate finding. 

Friends are hard, she thinks. Always were, but they’re so much harder once you’ve lost a couple.

Still: when Mike and Paul are set to celebrate a round ten years together (”An eternity,” Paul clarifies, leaning against the Leafling counter to invite them over), they go. Dani wants to, and it’s good seeing Dani want things like this. It’s been almost a year together, almost a year of exploring the map and one another, and Dani’s been getting softer around the edges, less prone to jumping at shadows. The Dani Clayton of a year ago wouldn’t want to attend parties, lest the beast inside leap while her guard is lowered; the Dani Clayton of tonight is holding up a dark green dress, brow furrowed. 

“Too much?”

Jamie hums a moment to buy herself time. “Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether you’d like to actually leave the house tonight.” Jamie wiggles her eyebrows, buttoning a black shirt and searching for a good pair of suspenders. Dani laughs. 

“I think you can keep your hands to yourself for a few hours.”

“You,” Jamie points out, sidling up behind her and kissing her neck, “have always had entirely too much faith in me, Poppins.”

Dani is, however, a woman of her word when it comes to accepting social invitations, and soon they’re sitting on an exceptionally soft couch in an exceptionally loud living room. Jamie glances around, reading the environment, registering the two women holding hands by the coffee table, the men dancing near the kitchen, the way even the male-female pairs seem not to see anything odd. Mike and Paul have been doing this a long time. This is as safe a space as their own home. 

She likes the way Dani relaxes, a little more with every drink tucked into her hand, a little more with a lit cigarette pulled from Jamie’s, a little more still when Mike nudges her and mutters, “Your girl looks good tonight, Clayton.”

She likes, most of all, the way Dani doesn’t flinch away when a Polaroid comes out. These are good people, brave people, smart people. If there are photos taken tonight, they will be pressed straight into the hands of their subjects, gifted away before the chemicals have even processed. 

Dani presses back against her, seated on her lap, laughing at some joke Jamie hasn’t really been paying attention to. She’s too busy watching Dani’s profile, the way her head tips back when she’s really laughing, too hard to care what she looks like. Too busy reveling in how it feels to hold Dani in a setting so much more public than usual, her fingers stroking the soft material of Dani’s dress, her body burning and the most comfortable it’s ever been. 

Later, with the Polaroid on the nightstand, the green dress on the floor, and a sheet tucked up against the fall chill, Dani says, “We should do that more.”

Jamie chuckles against her shoulder, kissing a patch of freckles. “This?”

“Yes.” Dani wriggles a little, giggling. “But also that.” She’s gesturing to the photo, propped between a lamp and copy of some old Shirley Jackson novel. “It was nice, wasn’t it? Not...”

“Hiding,” Jamie supplies. Dani makes a humming noise soft in her throat. 

“I like not hiding you.”

***

A photo: Dani, eyes dark with a smolder only Jamie ever sees, a cigarette between her lips, hair loose around her shoulders. 

Nights spent home with Dani, nights where there are no groceries to pick up, no accounting to be done, no errands waiting to be noticed, are Jamie’s absolute favorite thing in the world. There’s just something about this sense of home they’ve been building together, this sense of locked door and secured window and no one else invited to partake that gets Jamie the way nothing else does. 

Especially Dani. Dani at home is less reserved, less careful. With every month that passes quietly, no sign of anything but her own mind, Dani gets a little less tight. A little less prone to gazing off into the middle distance. A little less likely to disappear from an otherwise-normal conversation, emerging several minutes later like she’s pulling herself out of a dream.

And, some nights, she’s not just here--she’s utterly present, every atom of her tuned to Jamie like they have no need of space between them, no need of separation. These nights, the nights where Dani strides into the room on a mission, are Jamie’s favorite of all. 

“Why,” Dani says, leaning back in a kitchen chair with legs spread and head tilted to exhale smoke toward the ceiling, “are you looking at me like that?”

“Me?” Jamie teases. “You’re the one gazing at me like I’m some terribly interesting new buffet.”

She’s half-joking, but there’s something about the way Dani looks at her on this very particular sort of night, with every line of her body tuned toward Jamie’s, that makes her feel a stupid kind of brave. A reckless kind of excitement unwinds outward, until her fingertips itch to grab at Dani’s hair, her knees weak with the desire to pull Dani close. 

She’s doing it now, smoking that cigarette with all the languid energy of a woman perfectly at home, watching Jamie with a faint smirk playing around her lips. No one else sees that smirk, Jamie understands, and it makes her a little faint every time she thinks it. To have something of Dani, some integral comfortable part of Dani that belongs solely to their apartment, their life together, is still a good fortune Jamie can’t entirely parse out. 

Her hand moves toward the camera, small and plastic and containing some of the best memories of Dani she desperately needs to keep. Dani lets her snap off a shot, shakes her head when Jamie lowers the camera.

“That’s going to be one of yours.”

She says it every time Jamie tries to capture the white-hot energy of this kind of evening. Dani doesn’t like to see herself through this particular lens, gets fidgety and embarrassed at the sight of her own face etched with such a confident hunger. Jamie asked the first time if Dani wanted her to stop taking the photos altogether, and Dani had shaken her head.

“I don’t mind. But they’re yours, okay?”

She sets the camera aside, moving to take the cigarette out of Dani’s hand, taking a long drag and dropping it in an ashtray. The rest doesn’t need anything in the way--no lens, no embarrassment, nothing but the way Dani’s mouth opens beneath hers, hands already roaming. The rest is not Jamie’s, but theirs, a joint ownership of soft moans and soft skin and soft assurances that this is still, always, home. 

Later, with Dani asleep, one hand thrown loosely over Jamie’s hip, Jamie will look at the photos that are hers and hers alone. Dani, mouth wet and swollen from a night spent confined to their bedroom around their anniversary. Dani, grinning and half-asleep, glancing over her shoulder to coax Jamie into putting the camera down, joining her among the blankets. Dani, smoke-haze around her face, wine glass in her hand, looking just past the camera at Jamie’s own desire. 

Dani’s choice to share a life with her, Dani’s decision to share every inch of herself with Jamie, is more than Jamie feels anyone deserves. 

***

A photo: Dani in front of the Eiffel Tower, sunglasses on, arms spread wide.

A photo: Dani kneeling at the Grand Canyon, gesturing bewilderment at the sheer scope of the place.

A photo: Dani standing before the alleged largest ball of twine in the world, looking rather like she regrets letting Jamie pick the destination this time.

They travel until Dani can’t stomach it anymore, can’t take the uncertainty of unknown roads and unmapped hotel beds--but, first, years of travel. Years of postcards and rental cars, of Jamie turning maps upside down and Dani being shockingly savvy in small-town situations. 

These photos, more than any other, feel like they have to be taken for someone else’s idea of posterity, and Jamie feels a little strange, at first. Dani’s already seen much of Europe by the time they meet, and has no photos whatsoever to show for it. Jamie, who started turning up in photos for the first time as an adult, says, “It’ll be good to show ‘em off,” while never quite bringing herself to the edge of an unspoken follow-up question: to whom, exactly? It isn’t as though she and Dani are having children, isn’t as though there will be grandkids tottering around down the line to tune out their stories. Who, exactly, are these mementos for?

Dani is far too kind, far too pragmatic, to put the question to her. Dani only poses, grins, lets Jamie take all the pictures she wants, and then--camera tucked safely away once more--grabs Jamie’s hands and leads her into living it: the food, the outdoor markets, the snowstorms, the sun-kissed hikes. As the years go by, Jamie takes more and more photos, never quite able to explain to herself why it’s so critical. Never quite able to look away when Dani finally covers the lens with one hand and brings her close, kissing her like it’s the first time. 

They stop looking at these photos together, after a while. Stop trying so hard to go back, as the days grow shorter and the exhaustion begins to steal the warmth from Dani’s smile. At first, it’s about moving forward--always one foot in front of the other. At first, every photo taken is set aside as a gift to another life. And then, finally, it’s about the moment they’re in, nothing more. Jamie sets the camera on a shelf. Refuses to look at Dani through any barrier but her own two eyes. Dani doesn’t like the snap-click of the camera anymore, anyway--each time, she flinches, like Jamie is about to show her a glimpse of whatever horror she’s been seeing in the mirror. 

I only see you, Jamie promises, the ache in her chest so great, she’s sure it will swallow them both. But Dani can’t bring herself to look. Can’t bring herself, just in case Jamie is wrong. 

Later--so much later, with eyes stinging and arms empty--she flips through the album and remembers Spain, California, Minnesota, Greece. Later, she finds Dani sticking her tongue out, spinning like a deranged nun out of musical, sitting quietly in a cafe with a small cup of coffee warming her hands. Dani, stiff-shouldered and trying not to laugh as Jamie made faces the one time they ever ventured back to Iowa. Dani, hair blowing back into her face, arms looped around Jamie at a terrifying, exhilarating first Pride parade. 

And, in the back, the photos of Dani as only Jamie knew her. The sly grin a second before pinning Jamie to the couch. The sweet surprise from Jamie coming home early with dinner. Shot after shot of no make-up, or smudged eyeliner, or ruined lipstick, of Dani in pajamas on Christmas, or Dani in bed after a shower, or Dani laughing herself silly at nothing Jamie can remember now. 

They’re all here, and they’re all Dani--all of Dani Jamie’s got left now--and still, they’re wrong. They sit, plastic and unyielding, beneath flimsy protective sheets, and they don’t laugh like Dani, don’t breathe out against her skin like Dani, don’t smell like Dani’s shampoo or swear like Dani tripping over a shoe in the dark or look at her with that solid, palpable love like Dani did and should still and never will again. 

Jamie sits, album in her lap, staring down at Dani with paint smudged on her cheek and their then-new bedroom behind her, and suddenly can’t remember how to breathe. Had she known? Somewhere in the back of her mind that day in a gas station, picking up a little yellow disposable camera, had she known that one day, this would be all she had left of Dani? Surely not. Surely, she hadn’t believed it would go this way, all the way back then. Surely, it was one day at a time, and we’ll have time, and any day with you, Poppins. 

Had she known? No. No, of course she hadn’t.

And yet, the idea of not having these in front of her--the idea of Dani’s face slowly, surely, washing away over time as Jamie fails to find her in a world so uncompromisingly cruel...

She touches a shot of Dani with her left hand covering her mouth, her ring gleaming gold against her smile, the day the state had legalized civil unions. Dani as gold as sunshine, in one of the last truly clean moments, before old ghost stories dug rotting fingers into their life. Her vision grays, her head suddenly too heavy to hold up. 

She hadn’t known. But she’s glad. She’s glad she has, at least, this much to hang on to.

[teamhappyme]

peonies

pairing: sonny carisi x fem!reader

word count: 1.5k

warnings: none

a/n: happy valentine’s day my friends!!! here is a cute lil Carisi fic that made me feel a lil less blah today. i love and appreciate you all so so much!

****

“Liv, I’m gonna bring these witness statements to Carisi before I head out. You need me to drop off anything else?”

“Nope, just those statements for him. And thank you for dropping them off, y/n. I can get home and spend some of the day with Noah.” You saw her put the chocolate heart in her bag, along with the dog stuffed animal she picked up from a vendor earlier today. 

“He’s gonna love that dog.” You commented, and she looked up and smiled. 

“I hope so. And hopefully it will put off the argument for getting a real dog a little longer.”

You laughed, knowing how much every little kid wants a dog. But stuffed animals were always a good second. 

The two of you walked out of the precinct together, both surprised that you were getting out of here while the sun was still out. 

“Tell Noah I said Happy Valentine’s Day. I owe him and the Rollins girls an ice cream date.”

She smiled. “I will. Have a good night, y/n.” 

The walk to the courthouse was cold, and you passed by at least a dozen vendors with Valentine’s day themed food and goodies. You made it almost the whole walk without caving and buying something for yourself, but the cute little puppy on the styrofoam hot chocolate cup was calling your name. 

And of course you bought one for Carisi too.

You made your way through the maze that is the DA’s office, finally making your way into Carisi’s small office. But the ADA in question was nowhere to be found.

You placed the hot chocolate on his desk, smiling as you saw drawings from Jesse and Billie taped to the file cabinet, Jesse’s little ‘Uncle Sonny’ handwriting too cute to handle. He’d only been moved into the office for a few weeks, and it looked like he was finally settled in. You heard the horror stories of having to move out the copy machines, but it all seemed worth it.

He had his degrees hanging on the wall, along with a quote from the declaration of independence, because this man lived and breathed the law. 

You turned to walk back to the chairs, when a picture frame on his desk caught your eye. You’d seen the one of his beautiful goddaughter’s Billie and Jesse, and knew there were a few of the giant Carisi clan scattered around. 

But this one was in a clean black frame, and you had to do a double take to make sure your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you. 

It was you in the picture frame. 

Actually, it was you and Sonny in the frame, laughing uncontrollably with disco lights in the background. 

You recognized the venue immediately, it was the indoor roller rink from Noah’s fifth birthday party. You hadn’t gone roller skating since you were a kid, and you were extremely apprehensive to get back on the skates. But Sonny convinced you to try again, sticking to your side the entire time.

The picture in question was after you had slipped. You were preparing to meet the floor in a painful thud, instead you felt two arms wrap around you, keeping you close and still on two feet. It was Sonny. 

You didn’t know this picture even existed, otherwise you would’ve gotten your hands on it pretty quick. You couldn’t help the smile spread across your face knowing that Sonny wanted it on his desk, to see your laughing faces everyday.

“Hey.” Your eyes snapped up to the doorway, Sonny standing there, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. 

“Hey.” You stepped out from behind his desk, pulling the file he needed out of your backpack. “Um, I brought the witness statements for the Carson case. There’s quite a few here, so hopefully you can get some of them to testify.”

He took the file from your hands, placing it on his desk. “Thanks, I’m getting ready to prep with Hannah, so this will be helpful.”

“Good, that’s good.” You said while running a shaky hand through your hair. 

You know he must have seen you looking at the picture of the two of you, and now you didn’t know what to say. He was carrying a bouquet of beautiful flowers on Valentine’s day; clearly he had some plans tonight.

“Those flowers are beautiful, you have a lucky Valentine tonight?” You asked, attempting to break the awkward silence between you. 

He smiled, his turn now to run a hand through his quaffed hair. “They’re for you, actually.”

Your eyes widened, not expecting that to be his response. 

“Liv texted me, gave me a warning that you were headed over. I would’ve been here when you got here, but I know you don’t like roses, and it took me four different shops to find pink and white peonies. Thought I was gonna have to fight the guy next to me for ‘em, but he grabbed the tulips instead.” 

He extended the bouquet to you, and gently took the flowers into your own hands. You can’t believe he remembered your favorite flower. When did you even let that comment about roses slip out? 

“Sonny, you didn’t have to get me flowers.” You commented, but couldn’t resist sticking your nose in to smell the fresh flowers.

He smiled, glad that you liked the flowers, while shrugging off his overcoat. “I wanted to. You’re working on Valentine’s day, just wanted to do something special for you.”

“Well this is definitely more than special. No one’s ever bought me a bouquet of my favorite flowers before. Not even someone who has a picture of me on their desk.”

You saw his cheeks turn red before he dipped his head toward the floor. “I figured you saw that.”

You placed the flowers down next to your bag, joining him behind his desk. You grabbed the picture as he finally brought his head up to look at you, a smile still resting on your face. 

“I really like this picture. I’m just mad that you kept it to yourself, I would’ve loved to have a copy for my own desk.” 

“I think I could get you a copy. But you’ll have to thank Dodds for the photography skills.” Of course it was Mike Dodds that withheld the image from you. 

“I’ll be sure to send him a text.” You said and placed the image back on his desk. You just now noticed the files piling up on his desk, and spared a glance at your watch; it was only five oclock. He had a long night ahead of him. “Well, I won’t stand in the way of you and your important ADA work.”

“Y/n/n,” He grabbed your hand as you took a step away from him, and you turned to look back at him. “The files can wait ‘til tomorrow. Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?”

You smiled. “Would I like to go to dinner with the only man who’s ever remembered my favorite flower?” He laughed as you gave his hand a squeeze. “I would love to, Sonny.”

You gathered your belongings, making sure there was enough room for you to carry the flowers in your hand. The two of you walked out of the courthouse together, the sun setting over one hogan place as you exited. 

You were halfway down the steps when he stopped, reaching into his pocket to grab his phone. He started rambling about how it would be impossible to find a restaurant on Valentine’s day, how he was an awful planner, and now you’d have to wait in the cold for hours. 

But all you could focus on was the way the sun was hitting him, covering him in an orange glow, his hair slightly fussed by the new york city breeze. He was beautiful, and you couldn’t let him stand there without letting him know.

He continued to ramble as you took a step toward him, complaining that you were going to end up eating hot dogs from a vendor.

“Dominick,” you said, and the sound of his real name leaving your lips got him to shut up. 

You reached up, running a hand through his fussed hair in an attempt to straighten it out. Once you were satisfied with the outcome, you rested a hand on his chest, as his free hand found your waist. He smiled before leaning down, your lips meeting his in an incredibly sweet first kiss. 

You pulled away after a few seconds, not wanting to cause a scene on the courthouse steps, and matched the smile that was still on his face.

“How do you feel about pizza for dinner?” He asked, his hand finding your own, linking your fingers together as you resumed walking down the steps. He gave your hand a squeeze, and you couldn’t help but look up and smile at him.

“Pizza and peonies, what more could a girl ask for?”

****

[punksungjin]

just flower shop things [kim wonpil]

the mandatory florist!wonpil bc he is so soft and cute. alternatively: everyday wonpil looks forward to seeing his favorite customer, but it has to take a little bit of jealousy to get him to admit he likes them.

pairing: kim wonpil (day6) x reader

1.5 k words | florist au, fluff

Your visits are the highlight of Wonpil’s day. 

The flower shop is a lot of things, brick and white concrete and earth, but boring is how he would choose to describe it. Not a lot of people buy flowers during regular days, and most of the time Wonpil just lounges behind the counter, occasionally spritzing and pruning, then taking a nap. Boring, Wonpil thinks. 

Until you start visiting.

You come in everyday. He’s memorized your routine: in the morning, you’re first to walk in—he’s lucky enough if any customer comes after you—so much that the wind chime tinkling before 9 AM has become synonymous with your return. Coming in, you’ll inhale all the scents of the shop—cherrywood and leaves—and walk to his counter with a renewed bounce in your step.

Wonpil thinks you’re pretty.

“Good morning,” he says brightly, when you come into his shop that morning. He doesn’t usually like acting cute on purpose but it just comes out when you’re there. He’s giddy when you visit, and grateful because you’re giving him business. “What can I get you today?”

Wonpil knows your order by heart, but he lets you say it anyway. He likes the sound of your voice. Friendship flowers, please. “Friendship flowers, please. I think I’ll get those pink ones.”

Pink? That’s new. He flashes you a smile, taking the pencil tucked from behind his ear, writing you a slip.

“What will you be giving me?” You peer over the counter to look at his handwriting. Then, Wonpil can only focus on your head, which he can see directly as you lean over, and he thinks even the back of your head is beautiful. “Ooh, freesias. I bet that’s pretty. Everything you do is pretty.”

Your compliment sends a zing up Wonpil’s feet. He disappears into the backroom for a bit, collecting your flowers. He considers adding another one, but stops when he remembers the flowers aren’t for you anyway.

When he returns, you’re still there, tapping your fingers on the counter. Wonpil’s noticed you like watching him work on the bouquet with his hands, so he spreads it out on the nearby table and beckons you to come closer. 

“Your friend must be very happy,” Wonpil hums. A strand of hair has fallen astray on his forehead and he’s pretty sure you’re staring at him. Cute. 

“She is,” you murmur. You’re fixated on his craft, folding and creasing, bunching and tying. “You make such good art with your hands.”

Wonpil feels the blush rise in his cheeks. “Ah, I meant she must be very happy because you’re thoughtful—”

“Really, you deserve more traction.” He looks at you and you’re grinning, all crinkled eyes and teeth, and he thinks your eyes are especially pretty today. “My friends like your work. You’re amazing.”

You’re amazing.

Even hours after you leave, Wonpil can still hear you talking fondly about him. He can practically hear the smile in your voice. You’re amazing. He shakes his head and buries it in his hands, aware of how giddy he’s feeling.

The next day, you walk in, same pep in your step, same cheer in your voice. Except—

“Do you have any flowers for... Someone you love?” You rub your arm shyly, and Wonpil feels like... Well. He doesn’t know what he feels like. It feels like jealousy, but the rational part of him condemns it, because while he truly does like you, it wouldn’t matter. You’re clearly not interested, anyway.

He settles for ‘dread’. “Roses?”

You smile. Wonpil has heard of the idiom of smiles lighting up rooms before, but he didn’t really think that sort of smile was real until he met you. “Roses it is, then.”

When Wonpil turns around he frowns so hard it feels like his head is going to explode. Maybe he should have confessed his little crush earlier.

Reluctantly he gets the roses and wraps them—he doesn’t even put on a show for you to watch. When he’s done he thinks about how the flowers are pretty and so are you, and how you’re going to give the flowers to someone you like, and it isn’t him.

Nope, not jealous. Definitely not.

Wonpil puffs his cheeks out and exhales, walking back to the counter where you’re waiting. “Here you go,” he says curtly, mouth in a tight smile. He’s holding the bouquet with both hands like a schoolboy offering flowers. 

You look at him curiously, taking the flowers from Wonpil. “Are you... Are you okay?” An awkward laugh punctuates the end of your sentence. “You look angry.”

Immediately Wonpil glances at his reflection on the nearby mirror and realizes he looks like a fool: lips pressed together, brows scrunched, cheeks flushed scarlet. “Oh, sorry—!” He drops the expression. “Sorry, I think I just—”

You cut him off with a laugh. “What was that? That was cute.”

“Ah...” Wonpil laughs nervously, allows himself a smile. He rubs a hand on the back of his neck. “Thank you.”

You give a bright nod to him. He looks at you starting to leave and suddenly one thing is clear to him: he likes you, and he wishes he could give you all the flowers in the world.

“Wait,” Wonpil says,  before you can leave. You’re paid and leaving, and he thinks if he doesn’t say it now, he’d never get the courage to say it. “Y/N, wait here, please.”

“Um— “ You freeze in your spot. “Um, okay...?”

He leaves you bewildered when he goes in the backroom. Hidden, Wonpil tries to even out his breathing. Then, systematically, like he’s done countless times before, he takes a couple of flowers, wrapping them together in a small, simple bouquet. It doesn’t look like much compared to your roses.

Still, these are the flowers that remind you of him. They’re direct and pretty. Just like you.

“Here.” Wonpil holds out your bouquet in the same manner again, and he doesn’t even meet your eyes. You look like a deer in headlights, but eventually you put down the roses—Oh, thank God!—and take the flowers, brushing against his hand in the process.

“What’s this?”

“Peonies and baby’s breath,” he says, fidgeting with his hands. “They’re sweet and pretty, so they match you.”

Wonpil’s a bit pleased to see you flustered.

“Wah, Pil, they’re...” You sniff the flowers. “I think I’ll just pay for this one.”

“What?” Haha, what? “They’re for you.”

Silence. Wonpil rubs his hands together awkwardly.

You blink. “For me?”

“Yes,” he says, “take them; they’re free.”

“Aw, Pil, thank you but I couldn’t really—”

“Take them,” Wonpil blurts out, waving his hand dismissively. “I made them for you. Just... For you.”

“What—” Your eyes widen with realization and he winces, preparing himself for the rejection. Oh, well. At least you would be kind enough to turn him down nicely. “What is—Are these really for me?”

You sound so bewildered he can’t help but laugh. “Um, I like you,” he says quietly, but you catch the words anyway.

“You like me?”

His head whips up to look at you. Why did you look so surprised? Surely you’d caught on with his pining, he wasn’t exactly the most subtle person.

“Yes, and I think you like someone so I’m going to say my feelings now before they get deeper,” Wonpil says earnestly, glancing at the bouquet of roses on the counter.

You hang your head. “Wonpil...”

Here it comes.

“I don’t really like flowers,” you mumble. Like some kind of cruel allegory, he actually feels himself wilt under your gaze. You didn’t like flowers? Why were you buying so much, then? Flowers were all he could offer, and you didn’t like them. “I don’t really like flowers, Pil, and—”

“Ah, okay. So I’ll just take those?”

“No!” Your voice surprises the both of you. “I don’t like flowers and... I only ever go in here to see you. That’s why I go here, to see you. Sorry if... That’s creepy. But I like seeing your smile and you’re cute and you make good bouquets so—”

What you’re saying slowly sinks in. You like him, too. Wonpil’s mouth quirks upward in a smile. “You’re cute.”

You’re gripping the bouquet too hard. “I think you’re cute, too.”

The two of you exchange shy glances at each other for a moment. Then, he asks, “So who are the flowers for?”

“My mom’s. It’s her birthday.”

“Ah.” Wonpil didn’t know it was possible but he smiles even bigger. He even giggles, and the sound rings through the shop. “I’ll take the roses back, then. Cotton would suit her better. Wait here, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll be here.”

Before he leaves again for the backroom, your hands brush like they always do. But this time, you aren’t in a rush to draw away, and you flash him the smile that makes him feel all warm and funny inside.

Okay, I’ll be here.

Definitely, your visits are the highlight of Wonpil’s day.

[givemestories-givemelife]

Blueberries, Lavender & Hot Matcha Tea  (Part 2)

A SasuHina ficlet

PART 1| Part 2

AN: THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO COMMENTED, OR RE-BLOGGED, OR LIKED THE FIRST PART TO THIS FIC. It truly means more than I can say. Helped a lot with motivation and it’s super cool to know that people are reading the things I write. I hope the follow up chapter doesn’t disappoint <3

Summary: Hinata has a run in with a familiar face.

Warnings: Brief mentions of grief and anxiety (because Hinata’s a nervous butterfly) but nothing remotely heavy. Also there’s alcohol consumption.

Word count: 6167

                                   __________________________

Lavender

Hinata knows that she needs to start putting herself out there. She can’t stay holed up comfortably in her room while years of her life pass on by, listening to cigarettes after sex under the safe warmth of her white fluffy blanket that still smells like her late mothers perfume, and sniffing essential oils like they’re some kind of soft-core drug to distract her spiralling thoughts from every embarrassingly mortifying predicament she’s ever found herself in.

She’s been trying really hard not to think about spilling her extra hot matcha latte all over this potentially handsome stranger a few days ago. She thinks - potentially - because she did not have the courage to look at the man's face after maiming him and probably ruining his expensive suit!

Hinata’s sure she must have ruined his entire morning, which must have ruined his whole day, and now he probably hates her. Oh goodness, Hinata strongly dislikes the thought of people out there in this world walking around hating her.  

Wow, these thoughts are entirely useless, she really needs to stop her brain from going down these awful paths.  

Today Hinata has decided to try really hard not to wallow in the comfort of all her numbing guilty pleasures.  

So, when Sakura Haruno, the loud and outgoing girl with pretty pink hair, who always smells like strawberries and vanilla from her photography course asked if she wanted to hangout and work on their portfolio’s after class; Hinata was thankful for the distraction.

They had spent that afternoon drinking green tea at the kitchen table in Sakura’s little homey apartment, showing each other their favourite pieces and sharing feedback.

“You have to include this one, it’s so cute” Sakura gushes, pointing at a print of children finger painting; a mischievous little boy is smearing bold red paint all over the face of a girl whose expression is twisted in pure terror.

“You have a real talent for capturing the essence of people.” She continues in a dreamy tone, “it’s like you’re able to capture the moment they’re most alive, even if it’s just the little moments, y’know?”  

Hinata blushes at the complement, “th-thank you Sakura.”

“It's kind of ironic that people are your main muse considering how afraid of them you are.” She teases.

“I’m not sca-AhyH!”

Of course, that’s the moment a woman with a giant blond ponytail barges through the door brandishing a bouquet of peonies making Hinata squeal. “Sakura I swear to god if you ate the last of the ice-cream again, I’m gonna- Oh! hello there.” The crazy flower lady stops mid-threat noticing a stranger in her apartment.

“Ino this is Hinata from class, Hinata this is my roommate Ino.” Sakura introduces, failing to constrain her laughter.

Ino’s demeanor does a 180 as she gently rests the flowers on her lacquered kitchen counter and approaches Hinata in a trance like state. “Your hair is so long and gorgeous, it totally reminds me of the violets we have at the flower shop -- you have to let me braid it.” She breathes and Hinata’s eyes are as wide as the sky outside.

“Ino, tone it down you’re going to scare her.” Sakura chides, rolling her eyes, not at all surprised by her roommate's antics. “Do you always have to act like such a spazz?”

“I am but a simple girl who is a slave to all things beautiful.” Ino proudly counters running her fingers through blue strands and Hinata mentally notes that she smells like a garden.

Sakura’s phone vibrates on the kitchen table, “it’s Naruto,” she says glancing at the screen. “Wondering when we’ll be coming over.”

“I don’t know, an hour or two? Tell him we’re bringing Hinata!” Ino adds excitedly and starts to braid blue hair without permission. “You should come out tonight with Sakura and I, meet the rest of the gang.”

“Oh.” In high school Hinata was never able to make friends with girls, and spent most of her time in the photography club’s black room developing pictures. Her introverted nature made it difficult to connect with people, but in this moment, the prospect of meeting Sakura’s friends, and the inclusive enthusiasm from these girls is making Hinata a little emotional. “I-I don’t know.”  

“Hinata, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I think it could be good for you,” Sakura encourages.

“Carpe diem bitch,” is Ino’s convincing addition.

Hinata giggles, absent mindedly sniffing her wrist searching for the comforting sweet scent of the fragrance she’s wearing today, “yeah, okay.”

Ino makes a pleased sound and saunters over to a kitchen drawer to snatch a pair of scissors and clips the head off of one the peonies, then ties it into the base of Hinata’s braid. “You really have no idea how cute you are Hinata,” she coos observing her work in admiration and Hinata feels warm all over.

Hinata likes the rapport between Ino and Sakura, there’s something about their friendship that she finds inspiring.  

When they split what’s left of the chocolate ice-cream and start getting ready for a night out, Hinata can’t help pulling out her camera and snapping shots of Ino with her shades of purple and Sakura’s vibes in red. Hinata feels outshined in her usual high waisted mom jean and oversized grey patterned sweater.  

But that’s okay, she still feels like one of the girls.

~~~

Ino had made a strong case for wanting to get her steps in for the day, (since her fitbit said she had only reached 8243 so far) convincing the girls to walk to Naruto’s apartment instead of taking the bus. On their stroll Sakura and Ino began giving Hinata character profiles of everyone she was going to meet and Hinata found them to be quite amusing.

Ino playfully starts with, “Shikamaru’s like, my best bro. I’ve known him forever, smartest guy I know but a total stoner and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything.

“Choji gives the best hugs and he loves giving them, so if he looks like he’s going in for one - just let it happen - you’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t.”

“Naruto and Kiba are basically the same person and are the biggest loudest dorks on the planet,” Sakura chimes in, “but they’re also super friendly and kinda funny if you can get over their lack of brain cells.”

“Then there’s Sasuke,” Ino says, and hearing that name strikes a familiar chord with Hinata, triggering flashes of fond memories. “He’s really hot, but kind of a dick,” Ino hugs herself smiling at a distant memory, “basically, we all know each other from going to the same high school -”

“Ino and I had the hugest rivalry back then because we both wanted him.”  

“What happened?” Hinata really wanted to ask if they were talking about Sasuke Uchiha, but didn’t want to interrupt the momentum of their story.

“We were so stupid causing all sorts of drama in our little social circle nearly tearing it apart, and Sasuke wasn’t having any of it, one day he told us to grow the fuck up and to leave him alone.” That did kind of sound like something Sasuke would say, but that would just be too big of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?

“We both cried.” Sakura snickers sheepishly.

“Eventually we finally realized that friendships should be forever-”

“And boyfriends are whatever.” Both girls enthusiastically finish the rehearsed line making silly faces at each other.

Hinata giggles at that, whishing she had taken a picture, “awe, that’s so cute.”

“And now he’s one of our good friends, but I just want to warn you that he can be cold and he can be mean and if he says something dickish, please don’t take it personally.”

Hinata hums, only half listening to Ino. Was it possible that when Hinata arrives at this apartment she was going to be face to face with the childhood friend she hasn’t seen in over a decade?  

Guess she’ll just have to wait and see.

~~~

When Hinata enters the apartment, her senses are immediately overstimulated; it smells salty like ramen and sour with beer which clashes with how clean and pristine the space actually is. It’s decorated with blacks, whites and a few splashes of colors, but overall has a very minimalist feel.

Hinata barely has time to kick her shoes off before she’s surrounded by strangers, and can’t stop the heat from suffusing her face from the disorienting barrage of unwanted attention.  

“Hey bitches!” Ino yells at the group, “we’re here! We know you missed us!”

“This is the beautiful Hinata,” Sakura adds, and Hinata really wants to hide under a rock somewhere. “Be nice okay, she’s really shy.”

“Hey I’m Naruto.” A blond man appears beaming at her, outstretching his hand. “I have never seen eyes that look like your eyes before!”

“Oh.” Hinata went to shake his hand but was interrupted by another hand grabbing hers and kissing it, which is so uncalled for.

“And I’m Kiba, don’t listen to that guy, he’s a complete moron.” He says with a wolfish grin and Hinata has no idea what’s going on anymore.

When she tries to turn away, she’s met with the kind face of a stout man in a green Zelda t-shirt with his arms wide open for an inviting hug. She decides to accept her fate by awkwardly stepping forward wearing a confused pout, and lets the arms of a stranger wrap around her in what is surprisingly one of the best hugs she has ever received. He smells nice, Hinata thinks. Savoury and warm like a thanksgiving dinner. For a moment she actually feels safe, like a veil has been thrown over the sudden wave of chaos, giving her a quiet moment for her heartbeat to settle, “I’m Choji, it’s really nice to meet you Hinata, try not to worry so much, everyone here is harmless, I promise.” He says, rubbing gentle circles on her back.

When Choji pulls away, he sends her one last reassuring smile before padding off towards the ponytailed man currently dying of laughter, and joining him on a leather couch. Choji grabs a handful of potato chips from a bowl on the marble coffee table and starts earnestly snacking.

Snacks! Snacks sound really nice right now! Tasting tasty things can sometimes be a good distraction when Hinata is overwhelmed. She self-consciously shuffles forward towards the provisions, drawn towards the colorful array of fresh fruits, grabbing a small handful of blueberries and popping one of them in her mouth. She tries to ignore the pair legs in her periphery... she needs a moment before making another introduction.

Hinata jumps feeling a presence directly behind her, she twirls around to see Naruto pulling back appearing extremely guilty.

What was he doing?  Was he pointing at her hair?

“Hehehe, sorry about that,” he says, smiling sheepishly, and scratches the back of his head, “I was just pointing out to my friend here, how beautiful your hair is, what a wonderful shade of blue,” he made a weird face directed at someone over her head, “are you enjoying those, blueberries?”

Okay.

Hinata hears more laughter coming from ponytail boy on the couch.

Weird.

Hinata turns to see who Naruto is looking at and-

Oh.

Sasuke?

Sasuke was here.  

It was her Sasuke!

She instantly looks away, eyes wide, staring down at the hardwood floors.

Well, not her Sasuke. But an older version of the one she knew as a child. The one she met that one summer years ago and spent nearly every day with him before her mother fell ill and her family moved away in the wake of tragedy.

And he was... Glaring at her? No, he was glaring at Naruto? He kind of looked like he recognized her, but why would he be glaring?

“This is fucking stupid,” Sasuke seethes and takes off towards the kitchen, where Kiba and Ino are talking and drinking.

Ouch.

Sakura approaches Hinata with a glass in hand, Hinata stares at the ice clinking as she offers it, “vodka soda, with lime?”

Well, one drink couldn’t hurt, Hinata thinks.

She glances over at a brooding Sasuke leaning on the kitchen island sipping his beer.

She might need it.

~~~

It’s nearly an hour later and Hinata feels the dread sinking deep into the pit of her stomach. She desperately wishes she could conjure up some courage, approach Sasuke, and see how he’s been after all these years, but he still hasn’t left from his spot in the kitchen.  

She’s starting to believe that maybe he doesn’t recognize her, which is a rather sad thought.

Hinata also appears to be at the butt end of some sort of mean inside joke that she doesn’t understand, ponytail bo- Shikamaru and Naruto joined Sasuke in the kitchen and kept making not-so-subtle glances her way -- but whatever -- she’s a big girl, she’s not going to cry about it even if she wants to.

Currently she’s sitting on the puffy leather couch between Choji and Sakura, Sakura is sharing the memes she’s saved onto her phone this month with Ino and Kiba while Hinata stares down at the melting ice in her drink and Choji attempts to calm her with platitudes.

Hinata doesn’t regret coming tonight despite feeling like the biggest fool in existence.

After all, tonight she actually has the opportunity to reconnect with someone she still thinks about, even after all these years.

She has always wondered what had happened to that bratty boy she met that one summer.

The sinking feeling grows deeper and Hinata feels her heart beating in the drums of her ears.

She takes one last tentative sip before downing the rest of her drink and summons every ounce of bravery she didn’t know she had to strengthen her resolve.

She stands from the couch with shaky determination ignoring Choji’s concerned inquiry, then forces one foot in front of the other strait towards the guiding bright lights of the kitchen.

The easy conversation awkwardly dies down when she arrives beside Naruto and Sasuke. She feels both their gazes land on her, and Hinata spots an ugly orange magnet on the stainless-steel fridge Sasuke is leaning on that has the phrase - believe it! - stamped on it and chooses to direct most of her focus on the positive affirmation.

“Uh, hey Hinata, you doing okay?” Naruto asks, slightly taken aback. Hinata nods still focusing on the magnet, face heating up as the beginning of a buzz tingles in the corners of her mind. “Can I get you another drink?”

She looks down at the empty glass she grips and nods again, muttering a quiet thank you, and handing it over. He takes it and moves further down the island to chat with Shikamaru and starts making her another.

“Hi Sasuke,” she forces passed her chapped lips.

“Hello Hinata.” Sasuke says, sounding about as uncomfortable as she feels and she looks up, hopeful, to meet his burning gaze and quickly looks back at that stupid orange magnet.

“So, you do remember me?” She asks, confused as to why he’s been ignoring her since her arrival.

“I remember how two days ago you ran into me quite rudely, burning me with tea.”

Hinata’s brain short-circuits.  

“Wait what!?-”

No! No no no no no. Impossible. No.

“-That- that was you? oh my god, oh no! I am so sorry about that, I really wasn’t looking where I was going, I-I can’t believe this, I swear you just came out of nowhere though, oh my goodness, I can’t believe that was-”  

“Please just stop before you give yourself an aneurysm.” Sasuke lifts his hands in a placating manner and Hinata snaps her mouth shut. “So that’s not how you seem to know me?” He asks, further rankling as the conversation drags on.

“So you don’t remember me.” She says mostly to herself, completely humiliated by this entire exchange, every time she opens her mouth it’s like falling down a flight of stairs -- Hinata seriously wishes she would reach the bottom already.

“Remember you from... where?”  

“I-I mean I guess it’s not that surprising, we were only nine or ten at the time and it-it was only one summer... over a decade ago... You-you never really did call me by my name either.” Hinata says focusing on her twiddling fingers, her voice barely above a whisper, a pensive smile framing her lips at the memory.

There’s a long drawn out silence before Sasuke slowly asks, “...Tomato face?”  

Hinata feels her face burn red at the old moniker, nodding. “Yeah...”

“Hyuuga, Hinata. Shit. Yeah. I do remember.”

The culminating tension finally releases from the moment and Hinata smiles at the black and white tiles breathing just a little bit easier.

He remembers.

“Wait... Did I hear you call her a tomato?” Naruto returns with a mildly amused Shikamaru in tow, handing Hinata her drink, and looks between the pair completely intrigued.

~~~

It didn’t take long for the word to spread that Hinata and Sasuke were childhood friends and everyone congregated into the small-ish kitchen asking curious questions.

It also didn’t take long for everyone to lose interest when Naruto nudged Hinata and started grilling her for embarrassing details of what a prepubescent Sasuke was like, earning him a surly glare. Hinata shyly shrugged saying, “I-I don’t really remember, it was a long time ago.”  

Safe to say -- Naruto didn’t buy it, but surprisingly didn’t press further, and the group dispersed, leaving them to reacquaint.

The conversation between them after that was unfortunately still quite awkward, thankfully, Hinata wasn’t entirely to blame.

They exchanged small talk, Hinata mentions that she actually works at Heaven’s Little Corner and was just coming off her shift early when she ran into him the other day, and Sasuke talks about going to school and getting a Bachelor's degree in Business and how he focused on E-commerce after graduation. Overall, their -- re-connecting -- consisted of the typical pleasantries involved in catching up, and Hinata couldn’t distinguish if she was disappointed or relieved when their conversation came to a lull and she couldn’t think of anymore pointless verbiage to drag it along.

What she really wanted was to reminisce over hot days on the beach, collecting tiny crabs to occupy the sandcastles they built, and how Hinata had found sand in her hair days after the event. She wanted to talk about ice-cream and food fights and sneaking out to gaze at the stars in the night sky way past their bedtime, and how they pondered if aliens exist.

“I think the universe is too big for there not to be something out there somewhere.”  

She remembers Sasuke saying, thoughtfully looking up.

“I-I think you’re an alien.”

She said back, earning her an indignant huff.  

“Whatever tomato face.”

She wanted to talk about how simple everything was when they were kids, how she misses that naivety and how scary the world had revealed itself to be over the years.

Hinata was never good at making friends, even as a child, but she could still look back and she knew that Sasuke was one. He had been the last mark on her childhood that had made it a good one, the last moments she had to truly be a kid before she lost her mother, the truest love she had ever felt, forcing her to grow up.

Instead silence overtakes the kitchen and they both stare at their drinks unsure of what to say.

Sasuke isn’t how she remembers him at all. Yeah, he has the same face, just matured, and the same haughtiness, but the spark for life that had once inspired her seemed to be gone.

Which is an unfair thought to have, she admits, but she can’t stop herself from thinking it.

“Well I think it’s time to go on an adventure,” Naruto awkwardly offers.  

“An adventure?”  Hinata repeats, eyes growing wide.

“Naruto’s idea of an adventure is leaving the house and walking around the block.” Sasuke says rolling his eyes.

“Hey anything can be an adventure if you let it!”

~~~

It smells like damp grass and Hinata nearly jumps out of her skin as Naruto’s roar of triumph echo's off the surrounding buildings, catching the glow in the dark frisbee Kiba threw him. Sakura and Ino had joined them in their late-night excursion and Hinata can’t suppress the giddy giggles from watching them stumble about attempting athleticism when they are clearly four or five drinks deep.

She snaps a few photos and decides that she likes Naruto’s philosophy of approaching even the mundane aspects of life as an adventure.

This whole day certainly has felt like one.

Hinata puts her camera away, feels the chill in the October air, and pulls her scarf tighter. She casts a glance over at the park bench where Shikamaru was smoking a joint to see that he’s now casually chatting about... string theory? -- to Choji, who continues to nod his head like he understands.  

Her trailing gaze then lands on Sasuke and-  

Hinata immediately looks back towards the glowing air bound frisbee.  

He was watching her - he looked suspicious - Hinata doesn’t know of what.

“Hey Sakura,” Hinata tries to call out, voice wavering, “it’s getting late, I think I-I should start heading home.”

That seems to put a halt on the physical activity for a moment, she’s then hugged by every frisbee player.

“It was nice meeting you Hinata.”

“Come back any time.”

“Yes please! We need more girls in our group, Sakura and I are severely outnumbered.”  

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk you?” Sakura slurs slightly, pulling away from the tight embrace.

“I’ll be fine, thank you Sakura,” Hinata smiles at her newest friend and turns to leave but stops at the bench to wave goodbye at Choji and Shikamaru, earning her a warm smile and a lazy nod. She looks at Sasuke’s arms proudly crossed over his broad chest and says, “it was nice seeing you again Sasuke.” And makes her way down the busy street, casting one last glance behind her just in time to see Sakura jump on Ino piggyback style to catch the frisbee in an impressive display of drunken camaraderie.

She smiles wider to herself. Wow. Today was a good day. An Adventure! Even if seeing Sasuke again was really weird and awkward and not at all how she wished it could have gone, she still met a lot of new people – Sakura's friends are so nice! They made her feel right at home and didn’t make her feel too weird about being shy and -

“Hey, Hinata.”

Hinata startles, hearing the sound of her name accompanied by footsteps catching up and her breath hitches when she turns to see Sasuke slowing down next to her.

“S-Sasuke? What are you-”

“I’m going to walk you home,” he snorts like it’s obvious, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, “it’s late.”

“Oh,” Hinata hugs herself, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious and maybe even a little nauseous as they walk in silence, their steps in sync.  

She can feel the heat of his gaze on her and Hinata makes a point to stare at the crispy autumn leaves on the pavement – yeah – Hinata has no idea what to make of this.

“You know it finally makes sense now, why I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”  

Hinata trips over nothing, “you what?”  

Leaves. Look at the leaves. The beautiful burnt orange leaves. Just. Keep. Looking.

“At the coffee shop, there was something about you, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Guess I thought you were familiar somehow.” Sasuke shrugs, with an air of nonchalance as they cross the street.

“Oh,” Hinata’s starting to feel warm, she doesn’t know if it’s from their quickening pace, the two drinks she’s had or how Sasuke is close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“It’s kind of crazy that we’d run into each other like this, after all these years.”  

Hinata stops walking and Sasuke mirrors her. There’s something in his tone that catches Hinata off guard, something almost fond? Hinata looks back in the direction of his friends, they’re about five blocks away now.  

Sasuke seemed... different than how he’s been all night -- more open somehow. Maybe he feels weird about their earlier interactions too, but didn’t feel comfortable acting this way in front of his friends? Sasuke’s always been a very private person, even as a child.

“Yeah it is,” Hinata bites her lip and throws him a timid fleeting smile, silently wishing she knew what was going through his mind.

“So, why did you come back to Konoha.”  

“I-uh-” Hinata starts playing with the hem of her sweater and reminds herself it’s good to open up, “-wanted to figure out this life thing for myself – be independent - if my dad had his way, I’d never leave home or do anything that wasn’t part of his plan-” she tapers off, distracted by the approaching sound of music, a dumb smile spreads across her face when she sees an old skinny man on a sparkly bicycle riding past them on the road blaring ‘Dancing Queen’ from an oversized speaker he probably installed himself -- he seemed so – in the moment, like all that existed was him and the music filling the streets that he owned – Hinata silently mourns the missed opportunity of capturing that moment forever in a-

“You were saying,” Sasuke pokes her shoulder harder than necessary, bursting her from her reverie, and starts leading her down concrete stairs away from the bustling main road of the city, towards the waterfront.

“Right,” Hinata continues feeling energized from the random encounter and embarrassed from being caught drifting away in a daydream when they were in the middle of a conversation, “it was – uh - hard to leave my sister, but she encouraged me to go, that I should at least attempt to do the dream chasing thing.” Hinata pats her shoulder bag in reference to her camera. “I saved up some money and here I am, making it up as I go.”

“Hm, you always were snapping pictures everywhere you went.”  

Their steps slow to a stop once they reach the cold metal railing where tourists gather during the day overlooking the docks, but it’s mostly quiet at this time of night.

It smells cold from the breeze and salty from the ocean. The lampposts must need changing because the only light is from the half-moon in the cloudless sky, casting them in dark shades of blue.

Hinata takes a deep breath observing the skyline and the colorful lights reflecting in the undulating ocean waves, then asks the question that’s been bothering her since their seemingly kismet reunion. “What do you remember after all this time?”

“I remember...” He trails off, Hinata doesn’t miss the sly edge in his tone. “That I had told you I’d marry you one day,” his voice is deep, almost gravely when he takes a slow playful step closer and Hinata swears her heart skips several beats noticing their breaths mixing in the cold air between them. “And that... you were technically my first kiss.” He says with a sarcastic snort, stepping back, and gesticulates somewhere behind them. “You can’t tell them about it though. Especially Naruto, the idiot would never let me live it down.”

Hinata blushes at the memory and attempts to mask her frown with an indignant pout, trying not to take the jeer personally.

Sasuke always did like to mess with her.

“You were my only kiss.” Hinata then whispers without thinking and regrets it. She immediately hates the implications -- like she’s some inexperienced-love-sick-twenty-something, who’s never gotten over her childhood crush.

Hinata sighs, briefly drowning in her own self-deprecating thoughts, gripping at the railing, eyes a passing ship, and pretends she can’t feel him studying her, surprised by the admission.

“What do you remember?” He asks back, finally breaking the silence.

She bites her lip, thinking, a rush of memories flashing one by one, settling on their goodbye -- her sobbing because she had to move away to a new city thousands of miles away that had special doctors who could treat her mother, how Sasuke was speechless and could only squeeze her tight in the first and only hug they had ever shared.  

She remembers how he always told her she should stand up for herself, even against him, and she remembers how sometimes when she was around, he’d bite his tongue, holding back petulant sneers.

There’s a small quirk to her lips when she softly says, “Looking back, I-I always thought that we brought out the best in each other.”

There’s another long silence and Hinata once again feels the heavy weight of his gaze examining her, he reaches out and she stiffens when he gently grips the base of her braid touching the bright pink flower there.

“Did Ino do this?” He quietly asks, and there something hidden in his voice that shifts the mood of their conversation, and he’s close again, close enough for their visible breaths to once again mix, his fingers trail down towards the tail end of her braid.

“Uh huh.” Hinata breathes, watching his fingers play with the tip of her strands.

“Why can’t you…” he starts to ask, unsure, but curious, “never mind.” He let’s go of the braid, huffing lightly in frustration and leans on the railing, looking out towards the roaring waves.

Hinata’s stunned by his sudden apprehension. "Why can’t I what?”

“I said never mind.”

“But… I- I want to know.”

“Why can’t you look at me?”  

“Oh.”  

Sasuke sighs, “you don’t have to answer.”

Hinata bites her lip hard, internally wincing. “I-it’s not just you it’s most people really.” She starts, racking her brain for the right words “- It’s -it’s embarrassing… Well everything is embarrassing but, I get anxious about nothing all the time? And looking at people. I don’t know. I get paranoid that they can hear my thoughts or something? Not that I’m thinking about anything weird, well sometimes I am… it’s easier when they’re not looking back at me... Anyways... I guess it’s just become a bad habit now…” she sighs and smiles bitterly at the mess that just flew out of her mouth. “So, to summarize, looking at people kind of sometimes really freaks me out?”

“I see,” Sasuke says, Hinata glances at his mouth, he’s smiling a little, it’s almost warm in an amused sort of way, which completely disarms her.  

Hinata’s tongue feels dry, “uhm, do-do you ever feel anxious?”  

“Never. I get annoyed or frustrated with people very easily though, which can be problematic, not that I care”

“I guess some things never change then.” Hinata teases gently.

Sasuke smirks, he seems ready to retort with a quip but retreats and opts for something entirely different, “are there things that help you with your anxiety?”

There’s something about the question that makes Hinata feel warm all over, she never really gets to talk about these kinds of things without it feeling like it would dampen the mood, but there’s surprisingly no judgement in his tone, he seems genuinely curious, which encourages her to open up some more, "I find different scents to be calming, so I wear whatever my current favorite essential oil is on my wrist every day and whenever I feel too overwhelmed,” Hinata begins to explain in a rush pulling her sleeve up to demonstrate and presents Sasuke her wrist, “I close my eyes, count down from ten and-” Hinata’s breath catches in her throat and her eyes fly open when Sasuke gently pulls her forward by the wrist and she feels the softness of his lips brush over her pulse, then draws in a slow breath to scent the fragrance she chose to wear that day, “...and... sniff.”

Oh goodness, is it getting hot out here? Because Hinata’s face feels like it’s about to burst into flames. Hinata debates pulling her arm back but is currently enraptured by the softest look she’s seen on the Uchiha’s face this evening.  

This feels way too intimate, and Hinata thinks she likes it. Hinata thinks that maybe this is what’s been missing in her life. The feeling of being close to someone in more ways than just proximity. Is it possible she’s been physically and emotionally touch starved for years without realizing it?

That’s a thought that petrifies her. How sleeping on your basest human needs can become a habit, and you find yourself going through the trivial motions of existence, not bothering to search for more, for something that makes your heart sing, twist, and turn into itself the way that muscle pumping blood through her circulatory system at a quickening pace is doing right now.

“Lavender,” Sasuke murmurs against her wrist and his breath feels hot on her skin, Hinata struggles for breath when the sensation brings her back to the present moment and she realizes that she’s been staring directly into his darkened obsidian eyes, boring into hers and she finds herself unable to look away. A subtle look of achievement flashes through them when he softly asks, “you okay there?”

Is she dead? Is she imagining this? This whole situation with the soft touches coinciding with depressing epiphanies triggered by Sasuke smelling her suddenly seems completely absurd, and Hinata’s not sure she’ll be able to form a coherent sentence any time soon.

“I uh, uhm.” There’s definitely something wrong with Hinata’s voice when she attempts to speak.

“I think that...” Sasuke smoothly adjusts their hands to interlock their fingers and his hand feels so warm in hers, “you should go out with me.”

What is happening?

“No.”

Hinata kinda meant to say yes, but sure, no works too?

“What?”

“I mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hinata winces slightly. Gosh what is she even saying? Is this some sort of weird defense mechanism because she’s afraid of getting hurt?  

Sasuke nods slowly, narrowing his eyes, “why not.”

Don’t you have to risk getting hurt to get anywhere in life that’s worth while?

“I-I don’t know.”

“Hn.” Sasuke breaks eye contact and lets their holding hands fall. Hinata reels at the loss of warmth. He turns away from her and crosses his arms over the railing and looks out towards the dark rhythmic waves of the ocean. Hinata worries her bottom lip between her teeth as she studies the man before her. The moonlight is hitting the sharp angles of his face just perfect, and Hinata’s in awe. He’s all grown up now, and by default that means Hinata is too. Yet, here they are, the oldest they’ve been, and still the youngest they will ever be.  

Nostalgia floods through Hinata’s system, deciding to grab the moment instead of letting it pass. She’s not sure when she pulled the camera out of her bag, but the flash went off before she understood that she was taking a picture.

Sasuke jumps slightly at the flash and is pulled from his brooding thoughts, shooting her a puzzled glare.

“Sorry, that was kind of weird of me. I just – I just thought you-you looked erm... nice in the moonlight?”  

A bewildered look flashes across Sasuke’s face before a small smile begins to form and he laughs! He actually, genuinely laughs while shaking his head in what appears to be disbelief.  

The only thing Hinata can do is smile sheepishly distracted by how handsome he looks when he lets go of his composure, the light in his eyes makes him look younger, like the Sasuke she knew all those years ago.  

Hinata wonders if any of his friends get to see him like this.

He looks down at the pavement, shoulders still shaking, smile still present and pinches the bridge of his nose while taking in a slow breath and on his exhale, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, unlocks it, hands it over and says, “give me your number.”

Hinata tentatively obliges, pulling open the add new contact page, filling in the blanks then handing it back. Sasuke starts typing something in his phone and asks. “Do you work Sunday?”  

“Uhm, yes?”  

Hinata’s phone buzzes, when retrieving it from her bag she sees a text from an unknown number.

>> I’m going to come by after your shift and I'm taking you out. Don’t even bother using your mouth to respond.

Hinata feels her fingers tingling and tries to open her mouth to speak, closes it, bites her lip to try and stifle her giggles and resists the urge to slap herself in the face for acting like a complete airhead.

She pushes her fears aside one more time tonight...

And takes the damn dive.

<< Okay <3

                __________________________

AN2:  Wow, okay. A month later and I have the second part to this little story. This is the first time that I’m posting something I didn’t just throw together in one sitting. I’ve also never posted anything that was longer than 1200 words and it’s unexpectedly a little nerve-wracking??? OKAY SO, I guess there’s going to be one last chapter and it’s going to be like 90% SasuHina interactions? And spoiler alert they’re finally going to make-out. I have this SasuHina headcannon where they’re both private people who generally keep to themselves -- so people think they’re a boring couple, but when they’re alone together it’s like they’re in their own little world, and that’s the dynamic I’m looking forward to exploring in the final part.  I’m not sure when it’s going to be up since I have a bunch of other stuff I need to work on so it depends on how the inspo hits me, but I do have plenty of fun ideas!

[luvknow]

tempting | hwang hyunjin

genre: fallen angel!hyunjin x reader summary: “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”, no matter how small the temptation. wc: 4.4k

The first time you saw him was at the flower shop. That’s right, the damn flower shop, also known as the most fairy tale, cliche, and disgustingly corny place to lay eyes on possibly the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen in your entire life. It was weird because junior year literature class and Disney movies taught you that Hades was this bad blue fire-haired guy who ruled the underworld, but after learning that he fell in love with Persephone while she was tending to flowers, you think that maybe Hades couldn’t have been such a bad guy, right? I mean, totally disregarding the whole part where he kidnapped her, took her to the Underworld, and bound her by contract to visit him for a third of the year by a pomegranate seed, you were practically Hades and you weren’t a bad guy, so by transitive property, Hades wasn’t a bad guy.

Yeah, math wasn’t your best subject.

While peeking through the peonies, you noticed the bundle of brown paper he took from the cashier. He was buying bunches of eucalyptus that hugged little lavender sprigs. Quite subtle, but still fragrant bunch - he was tasteful and you respected that. But of course he was, he looked like that, after all.

Ah, but he was probably buying that for his equally-hot significant other. Not that you thought you had the slightest chance with him to begin with, I mean look at him, but hey, one can daydream for a couple of minutes, right? You wondered what kind of person captured his heart and compelled him to buy such a unique arrangement. Were they someone as stunningly beautiful and graceful as he was that he had to buy something muted that would only accentuate their perfections? Maybe he liked someone more on the reserved side, someone who didn’t catch the attention of everyone within a mile radius and wanted to match their delicacy. Or you know what, he was probably into those artsy types because what non-artistic being would be excited over a bouquet of koala chow and perfume?

Then again, if you got a bouquet from any boy, koala crisps or not, you’d be ecstatic because getting something from any guy ever was all you ever wanted. So not only were you a desperate damsel, you have also succumbed to capitalism just so you could dump a dozen flowers into a vase and show it off to your equally-single coworkers at the office. One day you’ll live that fantasy of hearing ‘flower delivery for _____?’ echoing throughout the entire room and all your coworkers gasping with jealousy. One day.

The tall, handsome, mysterious man must have felt your eyes boring holes through his fancy long coat because he turned to your direction before signing his receipt.

Oh shit, you were caught! What should you do?

“_____, welcome back! Can I help you?” a blessed, loyal employee slash friend named Seungmin asked suddenly, causing you to jump. The look on his face was all but welcoming as he knew exactly what you were doing between the pink blooms.

“A-Ah, Seungmin! My favorite worker! Th-These peonies are quite beautiful in their pre-bloom state. But I’m wondering if I should wait another week until they are in full bloom…? You know how picky Sunmi can get.” Your boss’s love for all types of flowers allowed you to pull some bullshit out of your ass and saved you from embarrassment. Seungmin was impressed, so he’ll save you the embarrassment for some other time.

“Definitely get pre-bloom. Sunmi can look at them longer.”

“But she’ll order more before they even reach full bloom, so that’s why I’m wondering if I should leave empty handed? She specifically asked for peonies this time.”

“In my humblest opinion, they are much prettier this way. And who knows, maybe she’ll see them bloom and fall in love with them and keep them for another week.”

You pointed an accusing finger at your friend. “You work commission, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Was I too pushy? Too obvious?”

“Not at all. If I were any other customer, I’d be convinced. I’ll take a dozen.”

“Excellent choice. I’ll meet you at the register.”

Peaking with your peripherals towards the register, it seemed like that mysterious hot guy hasn’t left yet. What the hell was he still doing? “Uh, no that’s ok! I can wait here…!”

“But you need to pay…”

“Can’t you just pull up the credit card number, or something?”

“Uh, no?”

“You don’t save our credit card history? After all the business we’ve given you?”

“No, because I don’t think that’s legal…?”

“Ugh, you’re such a goodie two-shoes.”

Seungmin shook his head while grabbing the twelve finest peony bulbs. After he made his way towards the back of the register where he’d wrap the bouquet in that signature brown paper, you made your way towards the tall, hot guy and waited patiently. It was an awkward silence between the three of you and the boy ten feet to your right stealing glances at you wasn’t helping one bit. The shop was starting to feel warm. Was there one of those fancy warmth lights above you? To help with photosynthesis, or whatever?

But all of that was beside the real matter at hand - why the hell was this guy still waiting here? Who was he waiting for? Did he buy something else?

Slipping between Seungmin and the register, Mina, your real favorite flower shop worker, popped in with a neatly-wrapped bouquet of a different color pre-bloom peonies than the one you were purchasing.

Ok, was this really coincidental, or did he overhear your conversation with the achingly-slow flower wrapper boy? Maybe not though, because the bunch were actually really pretty… Much prettier than yours. You knew that whomever he was giving them to was one lucky person.

“Do you like peonies?”

Oh, my God, even his voice was hot! It sounded like fresh honey dripping from the comb itself! Or like the pounds upon pounds of melted milk chocolate in a patisserie. Or something else along the lines of corny poetic metaphors comparing the sweetness of his voice to equally sweet foods.

“I love peonies,” you answered honestly and surprisingly normally. You even dared to return the eye contact, which might have been a bad idea because wow, there was no way you’d be able to look away now. How could one person look so perfect? “Y-You, too?”

“They’re ok. I prefer this boring bunch of green and purple.” Of course he did. “My girlfriend likes peonies.”

All thoughts created in the last fifteen minutes under your smitten state were thrown out the window now that it was confirmed that he was indeed taken. You could finally act normal again. The chase was kind of fun while it lasted, at least. This would go down in record history of the fastest time for being rejected.

“She’s a very lucky lady.”

“Yeah, I guess. Although I think I’m the lucky one.”

His gaze on you was strong. Not like in a weird creepy way, it was just strong - that was the best way to describe it. If you thought you burned holes through his jacket, then he was searing your skin slowly, making sure you would remember this very moment. Your creepy stares between the peony bulbs was nothing compared to him being up close and personal. Being under the microscope was not fun and you wondered if he was doing this to get back at you from earlier, but his intentions weren’t that at all. They were quite flirty, if they were anything, especially with that heart-stopping smile of his.

Something wasn’t right.

“You’re all set, sir. Have a nice day!” Mina said, breaking the silence.

“Excellent, thank you!” With the cutest, nearly heart-stopping smile, he gladly took both bouquets. His face dropped back to that flirty gaze when he turned to you. He even dared to wink. “Enjoy your bouquet.”

“U-Uh, thanks…! You too, peony pal!!”

He laughed while exiting the store. Look, if you couldn’t win hearts with your looks, you could win them with your humor. God couldn’t have nerfed you in two of the most important human traits. What did it matter anyways, he was taken! Right? But who knows, he could have been lying… Maybe he was hiding something…

“Peony pal? Really?” Seungmin teased. “You’re so bad at social interactions!”

“I’m only bad when people look like that! Did you see that guy!? He’s sculpted from marble and gold! Mina, how did you keep your composure the whole time?”

“When I had my back facing him, I practically allowed myself to melt where I was standing. That guy is unreal…”

“It’s no wonder he’s taken.”

“Mm, I don’t know about that…”

“What do you mean?”

“While you and Seungmin were discussing peonies and their bulb maturity, he was looking and listening the whole time. That’s when he asked me to get a bouquet for himself.”

“So? Maybe he just thought, ‘ah, I bet my super hot model girlfriend would love those, too.’”

“It could be. But you should have seen the way he was looking at you, _____.”

“Wha-? How was he looking at me…?”

“Like he wanted to claim you as his own.”

Your heart leaped up to your throat. It was a gross and quite sexist proclamation, but damn did that boost your ego into space or what.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” you mumbled, though not bothering to hide your giddy smile. “You really think so?”

“Of course!”

“Hey, don’t go feeding their big head, it can’t be good to have all that air in there,” Seungmin scolded. “I’ll admit he was staring. I don’t think I’d call it flirty. Creepy is much more like it.”

“He did seem kind of off, huh? Oh, well. I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. So what do I owe you guys?”

“Nothing today!” Mina grinned. “That guy paid for you.”

With a blush on your cheeks to match your bouquet, you shyly took them from Seungmin. “Holy shit, really? Three bouquets is a lot of money.”

“Yeah, that means he has a lot of money.”

If creepy hot guys at the local flower shop you frequented wanted you to fall in love with them on the spot, they should just say so! You were already making your way there, anyways.

The second time you saw him was on the way home after working overtime. The office was in the middle of the city and the walk home to your place near campus was a solid thirty minutes. Somewhere between the popular cafe and the overpriced chic clothing store at the end of the street was where you saw him. You knew it was him, too, because in his hands was another dozen of the same peonies he bought last week wrapped in Seungmin’s signature ribbon. There was no way the man in front of you was just any random man. You couldn’t explain it, but you just knew it was him.

Something compelled you to follow him. There wasn’t a snake to blame for tempting you to the shiny red apple, so whatever happened to you tonight after following a hot stranger in the dead of night was all your fault.

He turned the corner where the overpriced boutique stood. Then turned the corner where the late-night bbq place was. Then finally, he turned into one of the busiest streets in town, where all the street food vendors and bars gave life to the night. That’s when you lost him and felt a wave of relief wash over you. This was definitely for your own good.

“If it isn’t my peony pal.”

Behind you stood the gorgeous man a little too close for comfort. So close, you could smell the intoxicating and expensive Gucci cologne. It felt like your shoes were melting with the cement, for you couldn’t move a single cell in your body and now you were sure this was the start of your slow, torturous death after he kidnapped you and locked you in some jail cell he built in the basement of his mansion.

When did he get behind you?

“H-Hey, peony pal…! What a coincidence meeting you at nightlife’s hot spot, huh? Crazy, ha ha ~”

“Not quite a coincidence if you’ve been following me, is it?”

Well, shit. “Yeah, about that -”

“I’m kidding!” he chuckled, showing you his curvy eye smile that made you want to sign all your possessions over to him. “I was actually hoping you were.”

“Really!?”

“Mhm. I was hoping I’d see you again.”

“Why...?”

The clever boy only winked and continued on forward towards the crowd of people populating the street. “I’m kind of hungry. Wanna grab some street food? My treat.”

Was it normal for strangers to be this friendly? Nothing bad could happen anyways, right? Especially in such a public place? And you were getting quite snacky… but again, something didn’t seem right. Something in your gut and your brain told you that this guy was hiding something. But your weak, dumb heart that beat for cute, tall boys said fuck it! YOLO, right!?

“I promise I won’t kidnap you,” he persuaded.

“I knew that…! It’s just wouldn’t your girlfriend be upset about this…?”

“Hm? What girlfriend?” he teased lightly.

“Eh? Were you lying at the flower shop?”

“Maybe.”

“Then who were the flowers for?”

“A man can buy a bouquet of flowers for himself if he wants.”

“Of course he can, but you didn’t have to lie!”

“I wanted to see your reaction.” You’re pretty sure he said that so he could get another reaction from you and by the coy smirk on his lips, it’s safe to say you delivered just how he expected - face flushed a bright red from embarrassment.

“You’re kind of weird.”

“Will you come with me or not?”

He held his hand out to you. Before you could reject, before your mind and gut could convince you of all possible red flags this guy had, your body had already gravitated towards him and took his hand to guide you through a place you’ve been many times before. His hands were soft.

“Who are you?” you asked.

“My name is Hyunjin.”

“I’m _____.”

“Nice to meet you, _____.” Your name sounds oh-so sweet in his honey tone. “Let’s get to know each other.”

Hwang Hyunjin liked peonies and eucalyptus bouquets, red wine, tiny puppies, eating tons of bbq, liked kissing (a lot), and was a sweet and sensitive man during romantic movies. This was what you’ve learned in the past couple months dating him.

Well, not dating dating… the conversation hadn’t been brought up yet. It was more like you were seeing each other. Exclusively. While sneaking in a kiss or two at the end of the night. Totally normal not dating-kind of dating stuff, right?

How you even got to this point was a mystery to you. One minute you were caught following him at midnight, the next he’s prince charming while buying you food and walking you home, and now you’ve practically fallen head over heels for him like he was your middle school crush all over again.

To put it simply, he was perfect. Almost too perfect. Still, even after figuring out that he wasn’t going to kidnap you that night, you could still sense that something was off.

But that’s for another night to lie awake figuring out.

Tonight was a warm night spent having dinner at an expensive restaurant near the beach. He even paid for everything before you asked how much the bill was. And sitting in one of the empty chairs between the both of you was a bouquet of peonies picked just for you. While walking off the dinner hand-in-hand, Hyunjin took a sharp turn and dragged you to the sands of the beach.

“Let’s go for a swim,” he said.

“A swim? At this time!?”

The handsome boy ignored your incredulous cries, for he had already taken most of his clothes off. He turned to you, clad only in his underwear, with an adoring smile on his lips that made you fall deeper every time you saw it. As usual whenever he’d tempt you to do something you were skeptical of, he held is right hand out for you to take.

“Will you come with me or not?” he’d always say.

And every time, wordlessly, you’d take his hand and follow him to nowhere. Tonight’s nowhere was the ocean.

Of course you stripped down to the bare minimums also, revealing the most of yourself to him than ever before. It wasn’t awkward or shy as you’d expect. In the cold ocean waters, laughing in the arms of someone so beautiful, you felt so alive! You hoped Hyunjin felt the same way.

“I really like you,” you admit as you two waded calmly in the waves.

His hold on you only tightened while he pressed a loving kiss to your forehead. “I like you, too, love.”

“No, I mean I really like you. I want to be with you. I want to be yours.”

The boy brushed away hair that clung to your face and cupped your cheeks in his hands. “Are you sure you want that?”

“I’m sure. Do you not want that…?”

“There’s nothing I want more than for you to be mine.”

“Then why did you ask me if I’m sure?”

“I’m… just a lot to handle.”

“I can handle it.”

“Are you sure -”

“Yes.”

His sweet giggle rang in your ears. “So eager.”

“Not that eager…”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that now I can call you mine.” An ocean-salty kiss on the lips under a full moon was what sealed the deal and you wouldn’t have it any other way. “Let’s go before we get sick.”

Hyunjin headed to the shore first. This was the first time you got a good look of his bare back. Much like the rest of his body, he was well-toned in all the right places. You could trace every bone, every muscle fiber on him for hours on end if you could. Then you noticed two long scar slashes on either side of his spine between both shoulder blades.

“Hyunjin,” you called out to him.

“Hm?”

“What happened to your back?”

He turned to you half-way, enough for you to see his broken smile. “I had an accident.”

You left it at that.

“Tempting?”

“H-Huh?”

In the middle of his kitchen, Hyunjin was cooking you both some delicious dinner. His technique was flashy and cute and the aromas from all the spices were delectable, but he was even more so, in the best and worst possible ways. You were staring at his back for a moment too long when he caught you. Still, even after months of being together he was able to have your heart leap in your throat.

“Am I tempting, or something? You keep staring at me,” he teased.

“Seems like I can’t get enough of you.”

“Mm, you do have a habit of giving into temptation.” The boy who held the universe in his eyes took them off of the sizzling pan and over to you, where he leaned in just before the tips of your noses touched. “So do I.”

“Match made in heaven?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

A light, feathery kiss graced your lips and you think maybe you give into temptation a little too much because you wanted more of the boy named Hyunjin.

“Ah, I forgot dessert!” he whined childishly.

“That’s ok! We don’t need any.”

“I’ve been really looking forward to some cheesecake, so I’m going to get some and you can’t stop me! I’ll be right back -”

“No no, I’ll go. I could go for a walk, and I wouldn’t trust me with a pan full of food if I were you.”

“You’re the best.” A kiss on your forehead was planted to bid you a short farewell. “Be safe, ok?”

It was that time of the year when the nights were longer than the days. Luckily, the market was just a short way down the street. You used this time to think about Hyunjin, as you always did. When you said you could not get enough of him, it was the truth. You knew the moment you laid eyes on him between the bulbs of peonies at the blessed flower shop that you’d find yourself thinking about him at ungodly hours, even if he ended up being a passing stranger. But now he was your loving person, someone who meant the absolute world to you in just a short amount of time.

Since the night at the beach, Hyunjin didn’t bother hiding his scars from you. Whether you caught him in the middle of changing or were tracing tiny shapes in the middle of a nap, he let you memorize the most vulnerable parts of him. For that, you were thankful, and you felt like you’d gotten closer to him because of that, but there’s still so much of him that you don’t know. The details of his accident are still unknown to you, but you hoped he’d tell you when he’s ready. You wondered if other couples had doubts about their partner the same way you do.

Your thoughts about the mysterious boy ran wild with all possibilities of what happened to him from the moment you left his place to the moment you realized someone was following you. He kept a safe distance and covered his face with a hood, a sign telling you that this guy was up to no good. You tried to lose him at random corners and different alleys, but somehow he still managed to catch up. He was narrowing in by picking up his pace and you were running out of ideas, but when you turned the corner and ran into a dead end, that’s when you knew you were screwed.

“Oh, fuck me…” you muttered to no one.

The mysterious man hadn’t said a word. Instead, a maniacal laughter was heard and you watched him pull out a knife. Whether it was going to be used as a scare tactic to rob you or it would be used to carve you open like a pumpkin, you just hoped it would end quickly.

“Hey there, darling,” he finally spoke, inching his way towards you. “You ready to have fun tonight?”

Out of fear, your shaky hands dropped the cheesecake. You hoped Hyunjin would forgive you later.

Suddenly, a heavy and loud THING landed behind you. You called it a thing simply because there was no way any human could not only jump down from one of the rooftops and survive, but also make the ground shake and boom with a loud thud. You figured this thing wasn’t a part of this man’s plan or posse by the look on his horrified face and you’re glad, but on the other hand, you had absolutely no idea what the fuck was behind you and you didn’t want to look. You could tell by its shadow peeking through your peripherals that this was nothing human.

The man before you dropped his knife and ran away, tripping multiple times throughout the process. You’re stuck in your spot, unable to turn around and face reality.

“_____,” Hyunjin whispered.

When you recognized his voice, you spun around quickly. Here your hero was, plain old beautiful Hyunjin in all his glory, glowing against the light of the moon. His shadow, however, was anything but the beautiful Hyunjin you knew. From the brick wall behind and around you, you saw the shadow of what was once his wingspan. The expanse of all the black space hugging the walls was so terrifyingly beautiful. It matched him quite well.

“Say something,” he begged quietly.

You touched his shadow. It felt like a thin velvet film covering the bricks. “You’re a real work of art, Hwang Hyunjin. What am I going to do…?”

The boy, or Angel, or Devil, or whatever he was, didn’t respond. All he could do was wait - wait and see if the only person that made him feel like he could fly again would continue to do so. But who would after seeing the real him? Really, one had to be so damn stupid to continue on with this life -

“Will you come with me or not?”

You’re confused, you’re scared, you’re absolutely bamboozled, but most of all, you’re an idiot. You’re the idiot who stared too long between the peony blossoms, the idiot who stalked him in the dead of night, and the idiot who fell into temptation whenever he brought it to you on a silver platter. But you loved him… what were you supposed to do about that?

Hyunjin took your hand and led you home. Then he fed you dinner like you hadn’t seen the ghost of wings thirty minutes ago. Then you spent the night in his arms while watching a movie until it was time to go to bed. His hold on you was tighter and the kisses that were smothered atop your head lingered a little longer than they had before, allowing both of your worries to subside.

In bed tucked warmly beneath the covers, you refused to let the night consume your tired soul and stayed up studying every last bit of Hyunjin’s face hoping to find something more phenomenal than angel wings. You found nothing out of the ordinary. Honestly, you’re not sure how you didn’t figure it out in the first place - you knew from the start he was way too hot to be a normal human.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” he mumbled, nuzzling his face closer to yours.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Too many questions?”

“I have a million.”

“I’ll allow one for tonight.”

“What happened…?” you trailed off, referring to his clipped wings.

“Long story short, temptation is a terrible thing.”

“Really? I don’t think it’s that bad.”

“You’re right. If it brought you to me, it can’t be that bad.”

“Does this change anything between us?”

For the first time since you came to bed, Hyunjin opened his eyes. You were right to say that his big, round eyes held the universe - the mortal universe, the heavens, and even hell. They held stories he couldn’t wait to tell and heartbreak he’d hope to fix with your help. He was a whole-ass mess, but he was your mess.

“No,” the most beautiful angel told you. “Not one bit.”

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Heritage - Part 5

Description: Steve Rogers wakes up in the 21st century to learn that he missed more than he could ever realize.

Pairing: Steve Rogers & Y/N [Platonic]; Bucky x Reader … eventually

Word Count: 2,588

Previously On...

A/N: I am so, so sorry it took me so long to write this. I have had like 0 free time. 

Y/N felt bad for lying to Steve and Sam. But she believed she was doing the right thing. For the next few months, she managed to follow Bucky.

There was no reason that it should be so easy now. But it made Y/N realize he had to be doing in on purpose. Bucky was leaving her breadcrumbs only she’d be able to follow. Maybe she was imagining it. Bucky had made it clear when he last saw her: he didn’t want to be found.

Y/N was exhausted. She hated lying to her family and friends. She hadn’t slept in her own bed in one year. But worst of all, she was starting to get lonely. Foreign country after foreign country; fancy hotel after fancy hotel. Y/N was wondering what game Bucky was really trying to play with her.

The frustration lead her to a dingy bar in Ireland.

She’s just made it into the country that morning and was so jet-lagged that she couldn’t go to sleep. Her body couldn’t keep up with constantly changing timezones. It seemed to have completely given up on trying to figure out when she should be awake and when she should be asleep.

So Y/N drank at a local bar by herself. The Irish were polite enough to leave her alone. Maybe they could sense that she could kill them in two moves if they tried anything.

Y/N threw back her second whiskey when she finally felt the stool next to her being filled.

“Her next one is on me.” A gruff voice told the bartender as he placed euros on the bar.

Y/N’s body tensed, but she didn’t look over. She’d know that voice anywhere, even though it had hardly spoken a handful of words to her. The American accent was a dead give away, but she’d always recognize the voice of Bucky Barnes.

He turned his attention to her now. “You look like shit.” His voice was rough, but she swore she heard a little amusement in it.

Y/N still didn’t turn to him, choosing to look into the bottom of her empty glass instead.

“Yeah? Well, I’ve been chasing this guy for awhile. It’s pretty exhausting.”

“Then why do you do it?” Bucky played along.

Y/N finally turned to look at him. He was wearing a baseball cap, pulled low to cover his face. But his blue eyes still glowed in the shadow. He had some scruff, but it seemed to define his handsome features even more than usual.

“There are people who care about him still. He needs to know that.”

Bucky’s jaw clenched as he glared at her. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

“Honestly? No. My job no longer exists.” Y/N grumbled.

The bartender came back with Y/N’s whiskey that Bucky bought for her.

“Stop following me.” Bucky growled as he roughly pushed back his stool and made his leave.

Y/N chugged the whiskey in one gulp and scurried after him.

“Hey!” She yelled when they were both outside of the bar. He decided to humor her and turned around at it. “If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t be making it so easy for me to follow you.” She raised an eyebrow, daring him to try and argue.

Bucky slowly walked back to her. His steps were heavy and forceful, but his face showed no threat.

But Y/N still held her breath, waiting.

Bucky didn’t stop until he was just inches from her body. He studied her face carefully, taking in her beauty without her realizing it.

“Get some sleep, kid.” He finally told her faintly, like he was genuinely concerned for her well-being.

As soon as he disappeared into the shadows, Y/N let out the breath she was holding.

—————

Y/N didn’t let the encounter with Bucky scare her away. But there was also a part of her that believed if she stopped following him now, she’d never ever find him again. So she kept going. She never tried to intervene, only followed just a couple of steps behind him. Being careful was of the utmost importance. Y/N would never forgive herself if her sloppiness was the reason for someone else finding Bucky.

Months continued to go by when they Bucky finally ended up in Romania.

Y/N had never been before and there was something about Bucharest that she instantly fell in love with.

Bucky seemed to settle a little bit when he got there. He found an apartment, instead of jumping between motels and abandoned buildings.

Y/N found herself relaxing as well. It seemed to be contagious.

It was a beautiful morning in Bucharest and the sun was just starting to rise. The square below was filling with tents and vendors, preparing their goods to sell. Y/N decided she needed to give herself some kind of break… something to make her feel normal. So she put on a sundress, the most feminine thing she’d worn in over a year.

Y/N practically skipped out of her hotel room and headed to the market. She knew enough Romanian to speak like a child. But her friendly smile seemed to help her with the locals more than anything.

Then a flower vendor caught her eye. There was a bundle of pink peonies that Y/N leaned forward to smell. They were beautiful and she decided she had to buy them. Maybe they would brighten her day. 

But as Y/N dug into her purse for her wallet, a hand reached over her shoulder to pay the vendor for the flowers.

Y/N whipped around to find Bucky watching her carefully.

But her attention was quickly grabbed by the vendor handing her the beautiful bouquet of pink peonies.

Y/N stared at Bucky a moment. “Thanks for the flowers,” was all she said before turning her back on him and walking away.

But he quickly fell in line with her footsteps. Y/N sighed. “How long have you been watching me?”

“Since you walked out of your hotel.” Bucky shrugged. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Yeah? Well… it’s my day off. You don’t matter to me today.”

Bucky managed to hide his smirk from her sass. But he walked a little quicker so he could step in front of her and cut her off to a stop.

“I was wondering if you’d meet me later.” He said nervously.

Y/N narrowed her eyes, shocked by the request.

Bucky looked around anxiously, making sure to check for any eavesdroppers. “I can’t talk about it here. But I think I’m - I’m remembering things…it’s slow and it hurts. But I just need help to figure out what’s real. You’re the only person who knows about … me.”

“And you trust me?” She challenged.

Bucky took in a deep breath and she saw his jaw flex. “I don’t know yet.”

“Yes.” You respond confidently.

“Yes?”

“Yes, I’ll meet you tonight.”

Bucky nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

“Why’d you buy the flowers for me?” She blurted without thinking.

Bucky shifted his weight, clearing uncomfortable by the question. “You…ugh… you look really beautiful. I didn’t think you should be buying your own flowers.” Then he blinked rapidly, realizing what he’d just said.

“I’m - I’m sorry.” He quickly sputtered out. “I don’t know why I said that. It just… it seemed like something I should.”

To his surprise, and almost relief, you giggled at him.

“Steve always said you were a ladies’ man back in the day. Guess you’re just a little rusty.” Y/N managed to say through her laughter. She turned half away from Bucky, but gave him a look that made his heart thump harder… unbeknownst to her. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Y/N didn’t have to ask specifics. She knew Bucky would find a way to send her to the right place or to find her. It looked like he was keeping as many tabs on her as she was with him.

But as soon as the sun had set and the moon replaced it, Y/N grew impatient. So she decided to take control and prepared to leave her hotel. She had already changed out of her day dress and was now wearing dark jeans, combat boots, and a leather jacket. Hidden in her clothes were half a dozen weapons ranging from a switch blade to gun with a silencer.

Did she think Bucky would hurt her? No. But maybe the Winter Soldier would. He might be gone now, but he wasn’t dead. 

Y/N walked into the night. It only took a few minutes before she felt his presence following her and she smirked. Eventually she turned into an isolated and narrow street.

“You plan on killing me?” His voice asked from behind her.

Y/N smiled as she turned around. “Why would you feel the need to ask?”

“Because you have enough weapons on you to slaughter a SWAT team.” Bucky responded. This was the first time he’d lost his baseball cap. With the nighttime and Romania’s lack of surveillance cameras or streetlights, he was able to be a little more free.

“Well, you haven’t exactly given me a reason to trust you. A girl’s gotta look after herself.” Y/N smirked as she crossed her arms.

“If I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve done it by now.” He sighed. “But your caution is completely justified. I shouldn’t even be doing this.”

“Relax, Bucky.” You urged.

“Follow me.” He does a quick look around to quadruple check that she wasn’t followed. Then he led her through a maze of a route.

To her surprise, Bucky eventually stopped at an apartment building. He goes through the back entrance and listened before unlocking the lobby door. He does the same thing before opening the door to an apartment.

Y/N’s stomach dropped when she realized where he took her. It was his apartment. It was small, grimy, and decrepit. His mattress was sitting on the floor. But he seemed neither embarrassed or cautious about showing it to her.

Then she comprehended what a sign of trust it was that he’d brought her there.

Bucky walked forward and grabbed a journal that had been sitting on top of his refrigerator. He paused when he saw that she was still frozen in the entrance.

“You can sit.” He stated awkwardly as he pointed to the two person table that was pushed against the wall.

Y/N swallowed and nodded her head before doing so.

Bucky reluctantly did so too. All of his instincts told him to remain standing. Then he could make a quick getaway. It was hard to shut off his survival and assassin instincts that Hydra had beat into his brain.

“I…I remember Steve…Brooklyn…the war…the Howlies. Those memories come easy. I don’t have ‘em all. But they’re there. It’s the stuff when - when they had me. I get flashes and it stings. It’s like part of me doesn’t want me to remember.” Bucky admitted.

It’s then Y/N realized that Bucky didn’t need her to clarify what memories of his past were real or fake. Bucky just needed someone to talk to.

“I remember you. In D.C.” he muttered, “I almost killed you.”

Bucky frowned and looked down at the table instead of at her. His guilt couldn’t be more evident.

“No, you didn’t. If anything, you saved me.” Y/N assured him softly.

Then she saw him looking at her shoulder where the bullet had hit. There was a scar but it was faint enough for people to miss it if they weren’t paying attention. But Bucky was paying attention. In fact, it seemed like all he did was find the details in Y/N.

Bucky opened his journal.

Y/N immediately saw the photo of Steve. It was a cut out of a vintage photo, with him dressed as Captain America. “Why did he send you?” Bucky suddenly asked.

Y/N sighed. “Steve’s an Avenger. It’s his duty. You’re his best friend. It’s impossible for him to run way from a fight, to give up saving the world to find someone who is so keen on not being found.”

“So you’re here for him?” He asked carefully.

Y/N eyed him. A part of her wanted to confess her true relationship with Steve. She wanted to tell Bucky everything about her, including how she had that same serum running through her veins. But this wasn’t about her. She was there to help him.

“It’s killing him, knowing you’re alive… but missing. So I told him I’d find you.”

Bucky watched her for a moment. “But you didn’t.” He pointed out. “You didn’t tell Steve you found me. Why?”

Y/N rubbed her fingers through her hair. It was a nervous tick. “I - I don’t know, okay? I don’t know why I didn’t tell him.” She said with exasperation. “Maybe because you haven’t had control over your own life in a century. And you told me you didn’t want to found. How am I supposed to hear that and ignore your wishes?”

Bucky didn’t respond or give her any non-verbal reactions that she could interpret.

“You told me you needed help. So let me help.” Y/N continued, now with a little roughness in her tone.

Bucky cleared his throat and started deconstructing his own mind.

When Y/N confessed she had read the file that Kiev had given Natasha, he started trying to line up dates. Attacks, assassinations… had he done them or were they just conspiracy theories?

Y/N had read his file so many times that she’d memorized it. Meaning she could deny or confirm what he wanted to know.

Bucky looked exhausted as he dug through his mind, desperately asking her for confirmation or denial.

After hours passed, Y/N had had enough of watching him torture himself.

It was a bold move, but Y/N reached across the table to grip his hand. She saw him tense immediately, trying to fight the urge to fight or flight. But then she saw him relax and let out a sigh that he seemed to be holding in for years.

“I think that’s enough for tonight, Bucky. You should take it easy.”

He didn’t agree or disagree. She didn’t know that he was too focused on her skin touching his to do so.

When was the last time he had been touched for comfort instead of pain?

It had to have been before WWII. Bucky brushed away the sadness that came with the realization. He didn’t have time to feel sorry for himself; he was barely living.

“I should head back.” Y/N finally broke the silence.

As soon as she took her hand away, Bucky missed her touch.

“Same time tomorrow?” She tried to ask casually.

But Bucky stood up abruptly and shook his head. “No. This was a one time thing.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off.

“Go home, Y/N.” He took a step closer to her. “You’re young. You have you’re whole life ahead of you… don’t waste anymore of it on me. Go home, tell Steve you found me, and that I refused to come with you. And then don’t ever come back.”

Y/N read his face for a moment. His eyes were sad and pleading. His body was mere inches from hers. She could feel his even breathing on her skin.

“No.” Y/N declared before leaving his apartment.

-------

Part 6

Please give feedback and reactions. I need constant validation lol. Otherwise writing makes me sad. 

[mrs-dragneel-stark-solo]

Mr. Crowley

Part 8 of Long Gone

Pairings:Winchesters X Sister!Reader, Crowley, Juliette, Earl, Sam and Dean, Dan ,mentions of little demon girl     Word Count: 2893

At the bunker-

Crowley slowly turns around with Y/N’s letter folded up in his hand. Just as he was about to speak Sam beat him to the punch. Not wanting to get on the boys bad side yet again he decided to let them tell him what they want to know, but knowing then it’s most likely about Y/N and if there is anything that he may know.

“So Crowley we caught a few demons looking for Y/N, yet we have little knowledge of why you’re doing so.” Sam was quick to the punch.

“Why Samantha no foreplay today?” Crowley teased as he quickly put  the  letter in hand away.

Sam was quick to catch that and would try and get the letter from him or even just ask about it he wanted to do so without his brother’s acknowledgement. Dean on the other hand was pulling up a chair to sit Crowley down.

“Quite the shit Crowley, what do you know about where our sister is?” Dean snarled at the king, looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. He went behind Crowley and harshly pushed him into the chair.

Looking up at  Dean “I’ve had all my demons scouring the states looking for any clues and the only thing they’ve found is that a blonde and a black haired girl have been seen hunting” As much as he wanted to see Y/N. he also  wanted to get the boys away from going anywhere near her location in California.

“Hunting where?” Sam asked getting closer to Crowley he went around and attempted to grab the paper but was found with an empty pocket.

Having forgotten that Crowley could have sent it someplace else he walked back to his brother’s side. Either not seeming to care or actually seeing what he had done, Dean pulled up a chair right in front of Crowley.

“So why exactly are you having your demons search for our baby sister” he made a point to emphasize on the our as if Y/N were an object rather than a person.

That irked Crowley and Sam saw his eye twitched, smirking “Last time I remember Y/N didn’t want to hear from you because you had blown her cover on a hunt, isn’t that right Dean?”

Dean looked over confused and Crowley could tell that they were having one of those silent conversations. “Oh yeah! What had she said to you while I stitched her up?”

Pulling out his best impression of Y/N “I swear if I see that asshole around the bunker again I’ll put a bullet through his leg”  Dean patted his thigh where they believed he would get shot.

Crowley realized they were riling him up to see if he would spill any information that he might be holding back.

“If you believe that I may be holding back something that  you need to know, well your both wrong” he shrugged his shoulders.

“Oh yeah? Then what was that slip of paper that you put in your pocket when we summoned you?” Sam asked him.

They were getting nowhere and Sam really wanted to know what was written on it.

“What are you talking about, what paper.” he turn to look up

“There was a slip of paper on his hand when he turned around” Sam explained

Not wanting to believe that there could be something that could help find his little sister he walked up to Crowley and  stuck his hand in the coat that he had been wearing. Feeling something in the pocket he found the slip of paper and proceeded to remove it from the pocket. Dean walked back to stand next to his brother and they both began to read what was written little did they know that Crowley had switched the note with something else he had been given that same day.

My lord,

We have been given news that the two hunters that we had heard of were none other than some woman named Claire Novak and Patience Turner. They are associated with the Winchesters as well as the other hunters from Sioux Falls.

Some of the other demons have been begun to wonder as to why you have become invested in looking for the youngest Winchester many have already begun to revolt and want to assign someone new as King of Hell. Those who still plead loyalty to you are working hard to make sure that those against will be punished for even thinking of such thing.

We’ve will continue to look for Miss Y/N as you requested we will have Juliet be readied to venture through the state in search of her scent, until she is found she will frequently give us notice of where she is.

From your loyal assistant,

Alistaire.

Seeing that there was no real useful information in the letter they gave it back to him.

“Now if you would break the trap I could go about my business I am very busy at the moment”

“Alright but if you hear anything about Y/N you tell us” Dean grumbled as he broke the trap.

“Relax squirrel, don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

Just as Sam was going to say something Crowley smirked at them and at the snap of his fingers he was gone.

Y/N’s POV-

It’s been two days since Juliette had left and I had gotten the fire message from Crowley once he read and agreed to my terms. To think that the man sent me instructions on how to be able to send them back was surprising but not too much seeing as he’s a bit old fashioned for certain things. It make me wonder if there’s a different side to him that he lets few people see, having agreed to the terms is another thing, he usually wants things done his way.

Curiously grab a  slip of paper and do as the directions follow:

Have message written on small paper

On the back of the message write the name for whom this will be sent to

Toss paper in the air and chant; quod in animo meo, audire cantus et mitte me est verba quae digesta sunt

Not sure if it would work I wrote “what are you wearing?” as a joke, repeated the chant and the saw the paper erupt in flames it took  a moment and wondered it he would respond right away. Seeing as nothing had been sent back I assumed Crowley was busy attending his duties as king. I cleared the mess i had left on my station from making a new board and went to my room getting ready for the night. There was a small breeze in the air that felt great, I had a feeling I would be sleeping in the next day.

Come morning I had been woken up by the smell of something slightly burned, seeing as there was a note waiting for me by my phone I grabbed it and to my surprise Crowley had responded and he was cheeky about it too. It simply said “wouldn’t you like to know” and a smirking little demon after it. I quickly get to my study and reach for a slip of paper to respond

“Well that’s one way to start my morning” and a little wink I did the same as the night before and was actually a little excited to see how he would reply. Just as quick as I sent it he had replied “that’s not the only way I can start your morning” and with it a red peony flower.

“Thank you for the flower, I look forward to seeing you this Friday” I sent and began to wonder about how our meet up will go.

“You’re very welcome my little dove, I look forward to Friday until then”

This was definitely a great morning now to get ready for work.

I haven’t stopped thinking about Crowley not in the sense of he’s coming to see me but more of what will he say once he has arrived. Him coming to the house and wanting to talk to me, I don’t really  get why he wants to do such a thing, we didn’t end things on good terms. I told my brothers that I would put a bullet in his leg if I ever saw him again but I feel like that it was just the anger of the moment, idiot got in my way just as I was about to gank the son of a bitch that had been grabbing the children. I still ganked the sucker but in the process I got bit and left a pretty gnarly scar to prove it, wouldn’t  be a job well done if you don’t get hurt doing it. Or at least I’d like to think that way as we always end up injured after each hunt.

Just as I was about to take my break I went to find Earl in the office seeing as he wasn’t that busy.

“Hey Earl I'm about to go take my break I was wondering if there was anyway that I could get this weekend off? An old family friend will be here and was hoping to help him get settled in at my place and show him around?” I fingers were shaking a bit but I had no idea why.’

“I don’t see why not, the missus was talking about going to the lake house this weekend so I’m closing up the store Friday evening.” He pointed at the reminder she had left for him.

Looking over at the calendar I nod my head, “thanks so much! I’ll stop by Friday before you guys leave to introduce you to him, seeing Friday is my day off anyways.”

“Yeah that would be great, I let Shirley know that her and I will be working the store that day.”

“Alright you want anything, I’m heading down to get some burgers”

Pulling out his wallet he gave me a few bills “Here, can you get me one of those strawberry lemonade slushies they make?”

“Sure thing! Be back in a few”  

Heading down to get something to eat I pulled out the old cell I always keep on me if I ever need to contact my brothers I’ve taken out the sim card so they can’t track me when the phone is on but I can still look at the pictures.

I put the sim card back in and send him a quick text it might be the same phone but it is a different number, I hope he doesn’t try to send multiple texts because I most certainly won’t see them until I put the card back in.

With that I quickly turned my phone off and took the sim card out again can’t chance that he could have quickly tracked my phone.

Getting my burger and Earl’s slushie I quickly walked back to work not wanting to take too long. Just as I made my way there I was stopped by a little girl she looked so sweet in her little pink corduroy dress.

“Excuse me but I have a message for you”

I look around but there seems to be no one else with her. “You said you have a message for me?”

“Yes, Mr. Crowley had me personally to come give you this message” she gives me a slip of paper.

“Thank you, darling. Would you like to come with me and get something?” I offer her my free hand after I put the letter in my pocket.

“If it’s not too much trouble? I was told to wait until someone comes to get me.” She took my hand and we headed back to the store.

I helped her onto the counter so that we could speak.

“I’ll be right back just gotta give this to my boss” I raise up the drink.

“Okay” she sounded so innocent even if she is a demon.

“Here you go Earl” I hand him the drink and his change.

“Thanks Y/N enjoy your food.”

I walked back to the front counter and see that she’s playing with her hair.

“Are you hungry?” I ask her then realizing that she probably doesn’t even eat.

“Not really but thank you for asking” she kicks her little feet up.

After I finished eating and cleaning up I heard the bell ring signaling that someone had entered the store. Looking over I could see the little girl got excited seeing it was an older looking kid about 17 or 18 she turned to me and waved goodbye. I helped her down from the counter and she ran into his arms. They both left, making me wonder if they were the only two who were that young looking down in hell. What had they done to get there?

Dan’s POV-

She does some research about what her nightmares mean and how she can find a way to clear her conscience.  She overhears Sam and Dean talking about summoning Crowley but she knew very little of him all she knew was he was king of hell.

These last few nights have been the worst, I’ve woken up drenched in sweat. All I can seem to dream about is Y/N getting killed in different scenarios during a hunt and how worried the boys have been, not to say that I’m not worried either it’s just that I don’t have the same connection with her as they do.

“God I don’t know how much more I’ll be able to take of these dreams.”  I huffed while getting up to get some books from the library.

Knowing what I know of this world and what the three of them have lived I know that there has to be something behind why I keep seeing these things or if there is a meaning to all that’s been going on with myself and if there’s any way that I would make things right.

Made my way to the library hoping to get some stuff done on my own without them asking me what I’m doing, just as I turn the corner I over hear them talking about the king of hell, Crowley’s the name if I’m correct, he sounds menacing but I’ve yet to meet him. Not wanting to just yet I got away pretty quickly and without them noticing I was passing by.

Unsure of what I should be looking for exactly I went to the little system Sam had made to find what books might help, there were a few on dreams and  how djinns feed off what a person most desires but I doubt that falls under what been going on with me.

“Now where would I look for dream interpretations?” I say as I search through the little cards. I found a section about meanings behind the things that one might see in their dreams finding nothing in any of the books I  had found I had decided to leave it for now until I could find someone to help me. The boys had disappeared to some room in the bunker for quite some time now and I had no idea where exactly they could have gone.

“I might as well get started on dinner since Dean hasn’t come up to make anything” I walked to the kitchen looking to see what I could make for the three of us. A little while later everything had been pulled out for something simple. I had also found what might be a recipe for a pecan pie, I might make one for Dean seeing as how much he loved pie.

Time had passed by and I heard the  boys had come out from where they were hiding. Once they get the scent of  dinner they both will end up at the table watching me cook what I didn’t expect was to hear Deans boots pounding the floor as he showed up in the kitchen. I turned around in time to see his eyes light up then the light fade away

“Y/N! Your back?!” he had said, I wasn’t sure what could have made him believe she had returned. I saw Sam walk in after Dean looking hopeful seeing it was just me he stayed 

“No just me in here, what made you think it was Y/N?”

“The.. the pecan pie smell it’s the recipe she uses for when she was in a baking mood, I thought she had come back and was making some” he sagged a little knowing it hadn’t been his little sister in here baking his favorite dessert. “Where… where did you get the recipe?”

“I found it in this little box with other recipes” I pointed at the little tin box.

“That was our mother’s recipe box, Y/N had asked her if she could have it because she had loved the idea that she’d get to  bake my favorite food” his voice sounded rough.

“I didn’t mean to get your hopes up”

“No it’s not your fault Dan we should have known you’d end up finding the box” Sam said coming closer to stand next to his brother for support.

“well dinner is almost ready if you guys want to go wash up and meet back here” was all I could muster out seeing how much I had affected them.

Tagging:  @reigningqueenofwords   @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @winchester-writes  @winchesterenthusiast  @georgialouisea @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog  @dammit-stark  @livelikeawinchester @sammysbuttcheek  @bran2015  @misz-adrii  @sandlee44  @womanxofletters  @natsuccs  @childishhoebinoo  @depressed-moose-78 @oldfreakything @expecteddifferent @girl-next-door-writes @fanaticfanfiction @dakotapaigelove @sassy-spn-knight-of-hell

[ginnymontague]

little moments | ginny & dante

Parties: Ginny Montague and @dante-montague

Date: August 27th

Location: Dante’s dressing room

Summary: Ginny and Dante have a private father/daughter moment before her claiming ceremony

Triggers/Other Notes: just some fluffy feels between these two!

Ginny felt nervous and excited and a whole other multitude of emotions as she got ready for her big day. Multiple times she even had to hold back from pinching herself, just to make sure that this was all really real and happening. She was finally getting to be with the person she loved, the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with- and even though the wait had been horrible...it was almost apropos that their claim be the very last one needed to fulfill the decree. Diana helped do the finishing touches on her hair before announcing that she was all done and Ginny let out a breath, looking at herself in the mirror and smiling. The gown was gorgeous, easily the most beautiful thing she'd ever worn and....one of the first thoughts that came to mind was that she wanted her dad's opinion. She remembered being five and making him take her to the mall so she could try on grown up heels and dresses and play with makeup, up til now when even still he tagged along on shopping trips when she'd ask him to. She wanted to know what he thought. So she had Diana and Posey make sure the coast was clear and no one would see her and she walked across to the other room where he was getting ready, knocking on the door and poking her head inside, "..Daddy?"

Dante knew this day would come. The day he gave his daughter away. He just wasn't prepared for it to come so soon. She was still so young in his eyes but then again he had claimed young as well. He just hoped hers would have a happier ending than his. Deep down he knew it would though. No matter what they had put Will through he had stuck through it. He had respected everything that him and Oz had asked of him without complaint. He took care of his baby girl and made sure that she was happy. He put a stop to her wanting to elope which was the things that had pretty much turned him. He respected the family enough to know that they would want to be there. That Ginny would want them there. Pulling his jacket on he buttoned the first button and grabbed the boutonniere Diana had given him. He was about to try and pin it on when he heard his daughter. Turning around he smiled when he saw her head poking through the crack in the door. "Sweet pea, what are you doing here?"

Ginny looked over when she heard Dante's voice, biting her lip but smiling shyly, "I um....I wanted to see you. And I also wanted to get your opinion on my dress. Like I always do." With almost every single ceremony they'd attended this year, she always asked for his opinions and thankfully he always indulged her even though she knew he didn't really know too much about fashion the older she got. "Besides, looks like you need some help with that." She nodded to the boutonniere before opening the door all the way and letting herself in. She adjusted the skirt of the dress, letting it flow out before tilting her head and looking up at him hopefully, "..So...?"

Dante watched his daughter for a moment before smiling. Ever since she was little she asked for his opinion on what she was wearing. Even if he had picked it out for her. He would go along shopping with her and give her advice where he could. They were some of his favorite moments with his daughter. "I would appreciate some help before I stab my finger and bleed everywhere." He chuckled a little bit before the door opened and she walked in looking like a vision in her white dress. His eyes looked over her and he coudln't stop from tearing up because it was all real now. He was giving his daughter away today. Dante smiled as he looked at his daughter all grown up. "You look so beautiful, Ginny. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

Ginny snorted lightly, wrinkling her nose, "Yeah, I'd rather not deal with getting blood stains out of your shirt or needing to run home to get a new one." She closed the door behind herself and then watched him, her own expression softening as she saw his eyes beginning to well up and she laughed softly, shaking her head, "Don't start crying! Posey will kill me if I ruin my makeup!" She blinked quickly a few times, trying to dry up her own eyes that began to tear up a bit. She walked over to him more, smiling still, "I'm glad you like it. I was hoping you would."

Dante laughed a little bit and nodded. "I grabbed an extra just in case." He winked at her for a moment. He wanted everything to go flawlessly today for her. Nothing could go wrong today and he made sure of that. As she scoled him for starting to cry and wiped at his eyes for a moment before laughing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I can't help it though. You're my baby girl, Ginny." He walked over to her to pull her close into a hug. He made sure not to wrinkle anything or mess up her hair as he leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Of course I like it, Sweet Pea. You look amazing."

Ginny laughed again, grinning, "I taught you well, young padawan." She teased up at him. She leaned into the hug, closing her eyes for a moment as she leaned into him. "Thank you." she told him softly, pulling back and closing her eyes for a moment as she felt the kiss to her head. "Thank you for letting me do this. For accepting him. Us. He...he makes me so happy, dad. And I know he's not what you expected for me but...he's not what I expected for myself either. And maybe that's what makes him so perfect. I've never felt so loved and wanted and protected as I do when I'm with him. It's kinda overwhelming how much he loves me.." She laughed softly again, shaking her head and dabbing at her eyes as she felt them welling up again. "A-And I'm happy you're here. Because I couldn't imagine doing all this without you."

Dante pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her so she wouldn't mess up her makeup. He laughed a little bit as he wiped at his own eye. "Yes, you have. And I have taught you well." He smiled because he had always taught her to stand up for what she believed in and to fight for what she wanted and she was doing just that. Even if it was fighting against him. "I know. I'm still working on everything but I can see how much you love him. He's respected this family enough and not fought us on anything." He cupped her cheek for a moment and nodded. "I wouldn't be anywhere else, Sweet Pea. I have something for you as well." He moved to grab a pink velvet jewelry box from the table. Bringing it over he opened it and inside was a bracelet and matching earrings made of pink pearls. "These are your grandmothers. She gave them to me a long time ago for you one day. She wore them on her claiming ceremony and wanted you to have them."

Ginny thanked him softly, using it along the edges of her eyes and sniffling a bit before just looking up and smiling, "You have. And I know you still have more to teach me. A collar around my neck won't change that." She said it softly but with conviction. She hated that he and Oz seemed to have had a thought process that it would be like she'd vanish once she was claimed. She'd still need them in her life, she'd still seek their guidance and comfort and love. Nothing would ever change that. "He does. He does respect you. That's why we've waited so long. He'd never want to go behind your back or something." She assured him before perking up as he spoke. "Oh..?" She watched him curiously as he walked away, and when he came back with a little box and opened it she gasped softly, a little intake of breath as her eyes widened. They were old, delicate...and beautiful. Perfect. She exhaled a bit shakily and blinked up again, "Really?"

Dante smiled as he watched his daughter dabbing at her eyes. He wiped at his again. He said he wasn't going to cry but just seeing her standing there in her dress looking so gorgeous it all hit him at once. "I know. Its just some getting used to though not having you around as much as you used to be." He could see that now that Will respected him and it made him feel better. Especially that he wanted them there as well and not just for Ginny. That he guided her enough to not run away and get claimed. As she looked at the jewelry he grinned and nodded. "Of course, really. She's been saving them for you for you and had me keep them for this specific day and one day you'll give them to your daughter."

Ginny hummed softly, nodding, "I'll still be in the building." She replied a bit wryly, giving him a little smile before sniffling again. She reached for the box, carefully running her fingers over the pearls, "They're beautiful.." She smiled, one that only grew when he mentioned her having her own daughter one day. She picked up the bracelet first and handed it to him before extending her right wrist out, "Put it on for me?"

Dante just watched her for a moment. "I know. But after a year you'll be off into your own home." It was still going to take some getting used to. It had been just them for the longest time. Ever since she was four years old it had just been the two of them. Now she was getting claimed. He smiled wider when he saw her smile before taking the bracelet and unhooking the clasp. He wrapped it around her wrist and hooked it securely. "Perfect. It matches your flowers too."

Ginny just shrugged, "I'll still be around often. It's not like I'm going to disappear, I promise." She assured him, letting him put the bracelet on her before she turned her hand and squeezed his. "Di helped with the flowers. She knows Will's gotten me peonies since our first date and they're the only main flower I wanted. Hence the boutonniere." She added, letting go of his hand before going over to the table to pick it up and stepping back to him, "Stay still." She told him lightly so she could pin it in place.

Dante sighed for a moment and nodded. "I know. I just didn't think this would happen so soon." He smiled a little sadly. He was happy that she was happy but he thought they had a little bit more time before she was off and starting a family. "They're gorgeous. She's done an amazing job as usual." As she walked over and grabbed the one on the table he chuckled and stood still. "Don't stab me too much, darling."

Ginny nodded, "Me neither. But it is happening, and it's everything I've ever wanted." She told him softly before laughing, "I haven't stabbed you since my sweet sixteen and that was by accident, thank you very much." She teased, pretending to jab it in with a giggle before shaking her head and then focusing so she could pin it on him properly. Once it was secured to his lapel she smiled and nodded, "There. Perfect."

Dante leaned in and kissed her forehead for a moment. "I know. I can see how happy you are, Ginny. Its all I ever wanted for you." He couldn't help but laugh as she mentioned her sweet sixteen. "I think the pin could ahve stood up on its own then if you let it go." He teased her a little bit before smoothing out his suit jacket when she was done. "Well, how does your old man look?"

Ginny smiled up at him, warm and happy and feeling like she was practically floating on air, "Thank you, daddy." She took a step back then and nodded, humming her approval, "Very handsome. Hopefully a pretty lady or two at the ceremony will appreciate it too." She added a bit teasingly, giving him a wide grin.

Dante smiled and hummed a little bit. "You're welcome." He was happy that she approved of his suit. She had come with him to pick out a few options but he felt like this one worked the best with the color scheme she had picked out. He laughed a little bit and shrugged. "Maybe. I did take Carlisle on a date not that long ago..." He liked the submissive but it was still early to tell if anything would come from it.

Ginny dusted her hands over his lapels and adjusted his tie, her smile turning into one of surprise as he said Carlisle's name. "As in Capulet? Really now..." She had quickly become friends with the older woman, and in turn she'd become somewhat of a mentor for her and Ginny couldn't wait til the next school semester so she'd have Carlisle's guidance. "How'd that go?"

Dante smiled a little bit and rolled his eyes at the surprise that came from his daughter. "Yes, Capulet." He knew where her surprise was coming from but he felt a connection with the woman and he hoped that they could keep seeing one another. "I think it went rather well. She came over to watch a movie before but this was a proper date at a restaurant this time. I like her."

Ginny hummed, tapping her fingers against his chest just under the knot of his tie, "You've come a long way from the guy that glared at Will simply because he's a Capulet." She teased, grinning at him before nodding, "I like her too. I'm so excited to work with her when I start my fashion classes again. She really believes in me and my work. She's pretty wonderful."

Dante chuckled a little bit and stuck his tongue out at her. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. If I remember correctly though it was mostly capulet Dominants." He smiled a little bit though before listening to her. "I'm glad you get along with her. She is a very talented designer and I'm glad she can be somewhat of a mentor for you when your start your classes again."

Ginny rolled her eyes at that, "Yeah, yeah. Still, same family. Although at this point? I don't even think it should be our family and their family. With all the claims that've happened? And more that'll probably still happen? Not to mention that Sin and Ava's baby is definitely not going to be the first? It's starting to be like one big family. Which I think is how it should be. Things are good with us all together. Not perfect, but...good. Getting better every day. Hopefully one day everyone will see it that way too."

Dante chuckled a little bit as she rolled her eyes. He knew she looked so much like him when she did that and he was perfectly alright with that. He listened to her and nodded. "I know but its going to take time for everyone to see that. You're right it has been good and it has been getting better but its going to take time before things could potentially be great with the two familes. There is a lot of history and bad blood that we have to get through."

Ginny nodded, "I know. I'm hoping for one day. And that includes Uncle Oz. One day where we'll all be content together. With a bunch of happy couples and adorable babies." She grinned as she said it before letting out a breath and leaning up to kiss his cheek. "But for now, we're good. With my claim today to Will, we officially finished the decree and we get to keep our homes. We get to stay. And that's good enough for now."

Dante nodded as she spoke. He hoped one day there wouldn’t be anymore violence and he wouldn’t have to worry about his family anymore. He knew it was going to take some time but it was a start. “I’m happy we can stay in our home. I was so worried about that.” He hugged her close for a moment and nodded. “I love you so much, Ginevra. I’m always going to be here for you no matter what. You’re my everything. We should get going though. Don’t want to be late to your own ceremony.”

Ginny moved to hug him, leaning into him for a few long moments before letting out a long, calming breath and nodding, "I love you too, Daddy. So much." She pulled back and gave him a watery smile, kissing his cheek once more before she heard the knock on the door and Posey calling that everything was ready and she nodded, adjusting herself once more before letting go, "I'll get back to my room now to grab my bouquet and everything. I'll meet you out there in a few minutes to walk me down the aisle." She smiled as she said it, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze before heading out, ready for the day ahead and everything that would come with it.

[thetaekswoon]

BTS Jimin| Boyfriend AU

“omg I’m preparing myself for all the amount of hurt that I am about to go through while writing this.” - me, the second I opened up a new post.

Slightly NSFW

Jimin:

Now I know I have said that there have been ultimate soft boyfriends in the past but.... well Jimin may put all those other boys to shame.

buys you small gifts of Twizzlers and brings you slushies at work when he can.

You stealing his beanies and wearing them out and Jimin thinking that you are the most stunning thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

 He’s so sweet, especially during your first few weeks as a couple,

holding doors open for you, light touches on the shoulder, and ALWAYS waiting for you to make the first move.

At first it may have been annoying, waiting for him to make the first REAL move once you two were dating, you had been the one you had grabbed his hand for the first time walking through the park, 

the first one to lean into the kiss, 

, but in the end you were very thankful that Jimin wanted you to initiate things, not that he hadn’t wanted to kiss or touch you my god did he want to, he just wanted to go through things at your pace, he wanted you to be comfortable, and that was one of the greatest kindnesses anyone had ever given you.

This however became a slightly different problem when you wanted to become more intimate with Jimin and practically destroyed the poor boy with your teasing, trying to get him to finally give in to his desire and have sex with you...

... your efforts eventually paid off and he cracked, 

Doesn’t mind it if you aren’t someone who likes dressing up a lot, 

, he likes you just as much in sweatpants and a holey concert tshirt than he does when you’re wearing makeup and skirts.

Night long karaoke in the living room, you guys go hard for this and just dance, like can you imagine.  ChimChim gets so competitive with all of his friends, but when it comes to you he can’t help but let you win.

however this is completely wrong, no matter how many times Jimin tells you he let you win Just Dance, in reality you crushed his ass

 Jimin may be an amazing dancer, but those moves just never translated well into the games that you two play, and he’s left in the dust point wise.

Bright pink peonies in a glass vase from Valentine’s Day,

Smooth acoustic melodies coming from the radio.

, not the best cook in the world, definitely not terrible he can hold his own, but would love to learn more if you wanted to teach him all your family recipes

... bonus points if you’re from a foreign country and you try to teach him all the native dishes from your home country, wow he would just love trying new things, but also feel so proud that you are willing to share your culture with him.

Jimin is one of those people who may start to doubt your feelings for him if you aren’t very affectionate physically.  He takes hand holding very seriously.

Like one time, after you had only been dating for a few months Jimin began to think that maybe your heart wasn’t as set on this relationship like he was because you had been very busy with work, spending most of your time there, and whenever you were home you weren’t as touchy, sometimes even preferring to sit on the other side of the couch rather than snuggle up to him.

, and in reality there was nothing in your mind that was doubting how great you felt when you were together with Jimin, he was all that you ever hoped for in a partner, but you had a big deadline coming up and became very stressed because of it.

  When Jimin finally confronted you about your distance, you had laughed, explaining there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was only work and that the thought of leaving him wasn’t even an idea that crossed your mind.

You have made sure to be more affectionate towards him ever since.

If you haven’t guessed yet, Jimin is the BIGGEST cuddler.  He loves it when he can retire after a long day of practice that he can curl up on the couch or the bed and just hold you, playing with your hair.

This lil cutie would take you to the beach all the time.., even in the fall when it’s not quite beach weather you two layer up in thermals and beanies and go have a picnic on the beach.

 sometimes you guys invite some friends there with you but most of the time it is just the two of you and it’s so cute Jimin loves playing with the sand between his toes and you two have so many candid pictures ahhh.

 Loves it when you sit on his lap, wrapping his arms around your waist so he can hold you close.  imagine sitting on those T H I G H S god bless you you’re so lucky.

 An amazing kisser, you can make out on your couch for hours and never get bored.

His mouth is so warm and inviting, his tongue so soft and smooth.

and sometimes it can be just that, making out on the couch and that’s all it needs to be which is really nice and soft and sometimes those are totally the best times you get to spend together, you know?

, but... when it does go farther... holy crap.  Hold onto something will you cause it’s going to be a wild ride to the finish.

Jimin is really into body worship, so he’d be all over you, telling you how pretty and soft and beautiful you are.

 Likes to take his time with these kinds of things and will strip you slowly, making sure to cover your shoulders and chest with as many kisses as he can.

  doesn’t mind having you be in charge of everything.  Loves it when you pull on his hair as you ride him.

He’ll hold you up with his strong arms and pull you down back onto him.  Grinding your hips into his lap...,

 Again,,, those T H I G H S

they make the best sounds when you slap down onto him

makes the cutest whines and moans whenever you go down on him. 

 He’s a begger and not embarrassed by it at all, he’ll whine for you whenever he can.

Pinch his cheeks... see what happens. face or ass who knows what I’m talking about teehee

Would love wearing matching couple outfits, especially if you are going out on short simple dates like to the mall or to a cafe together.

, 100% would adopt at cat with you, maybe two or three

don’t even try to fight me on this Jimin is a cat person, if he could he’d take in an ungodly amount of cats and love all of them like they’re his children.

Your parents are absolutely OBSESSED with Jimin.  He’s above and beyond kind the first time you introduce him to the family, and they immediately welcome him with open arms.  

More times than not, whenever your family gets together they always offer Jimin a place at the table, even if they know he can’t make it.  They wanna see a ring on your finger so badly teehee.

speaking of rings,,,  Jimin has every intention to marry you, he wants a family more than anything and he cannot imagine sharing his life and something so special,, with someone other than you.

tbh the day after you moved in together Jimin called his mother asking if there were any family rings from the previous generations, that if any of his grandparents or even his great grandparents had left anything,

 there was one ring left from one of his great grandparents and he had it shipped out to him within a week.

Jimin doesn’t plan on proposing immediately of course, but he wanted to have the ring nearby as a constant reminder that you are the one, that he can’t mess this one up, or just in case the moment felt right.

<><> do not edit/remove anything from the original post <><> this AU belongs to me <><>

[feroluce]

TakeRitsu Week Day 1: Horror

aka RiMomo, aka Peach Sorbet, aka Feroluce continues her fond tradition of beating the tar out of Ritsu. 

Warnings: swearing, kinda sorta kidnapping, body horror (eyes), a knife, and spooky evil spirit shenanigans. Overall rated T for Teen. Its not particularly plot important, but Ritsu is in his first year of high school and he goes to the same one as Tokugawa and Kamuro. Mob and Momo are second years and they go to a different high school nearby.

Related hcs: Momo doesn’t actually have an aura/barrier. He can be possessed by force, but he’s so powerful that they get kicked out automatically. He’s probably been almost possessed NUMEROUS times in his life without realizing it, because he can’t actually see/sense spirits. (He can Hear them, though, if they want him to.) He would have to be very weak for it to succeed...

Momozou has been acting strange. For the past couple days, he's been oddly twitchy. On Wednesday he seems anxious and keeps close. On Thursday he keeps periodically looking behind him, to the point that Ritsu gets jumpy as well.

On Friday there is no student council, thank god, because Ritsu isn't sure how much more he can watch Kamuro and Tokugawa make out with their eyes across the table. They were far more tolerable in middle school when they were just childhood friends.

"Ritsuuu!" Oh, god, no.

Momozou comes trotting from around the school gate with one arm waving above his head and the other holding...are those flowers? Ritsu can feel his face deepening from peony pink to rose red.

"Momozou, what the hell are you doing?" He has a reputation to keep around here, dammit!

"Being a good boyfriend." His cheeks are slightly flushed, but he's obviously enjoying himself, the handsome bastard. He must have run from his own high school instead of waiting and meeting at a halfway point as usual. He probably cut his last lesson again just to make it right when class gets out, too.

"Oh, but you're always such a good boyfriend, Momo." The smile Ritsu gives is saccharine sweet, sugar added in excess to hide the bitter taste beneath it. Two can play at this game.

It works, much to his delight. Momozou’s face develops a petal of dark red that bursts and blooms towards his ears and down his neck.

"Kageyama, please remember that high school still has rules on PDA. You, too, Takenaka." Ritsu quickly wipes the smile from his lips as he turns to face none other than Kamuro and Tokugawa themselves. Are they giggling at him?

"Of course, President and Vice President. I wouldn't dream of subjecting other students to such a thing. Especially other council members." He really hopes they get what he's hinting at. The four of them walk together until they separate at the sidewalk. Kamuro wraps himself around Tokugawa's arm as though it were a trellis almost as soon as they step outside the gates. Ritsu and Momozou both make gagging noises once they're out of hearing range.

"They absolutely knew what you were hinting at, by the way. They just don't care," Momozou speaks up eventually. Dammit. He's going to start putting rude anonymous notes in the comment box next week.

The two of them stay out until almost dark, meandering around the quieter parts of the city, with Ritsu watching and observing the entire time. He picks out several incidents where Momozou acts as though he's Heard an unpleasant thought, or turns and looks over his shoulder for something that isn't there.

Ritsu has a lot of homework (well, they both do, but whether or not Momozou will do his is questionable), so he figures they'll see each other Saturday night after he's done. Sunday, at the latest.

He doesn't hear from the other at all over the weekend. Not so much as a text message. Shige tells him he wasn't even in school on Saturday. This is highly unusual, at least for this amount of time. On days when Momozou's headaches get too bad, when his skull starts to feel like cracked glass, he can't bear to look at a back-lit screen and will let social and educational obligations slide. It's never gone on for two days straight, though, even during large public events where crowds gather like dumb birds around shiny coins and their thoughts crow just as loudly.

On Monday Momozou still isn't in school. Not even the disbanded telepathy club members or his older brother have heard from him. Class lets out and he decides to try to call one last time. It goes to voicemail. Again.

Ritsu can almost physically feel the uneasiness welling up around him, a dark and sticky pool slowly growing deeper and deeper. The longer he thinks and stews in his own muck, the worse it gets. They've been going out for a few months, but they've been friends for much longer, would it be too pushy to show up at his apartment? What if Momozou is just avoiding him? But his mom is also gone for the week, so he's home alone. What if something's really wrong? What if he goes over there and finds a body-

That's enough of that. Ritsu takes all of the images his own traitorous mind has conjured and tamps them down tightly into a neat little box before taping it shut. It'll be fine. He'll get Momozou's homework from his high school as an excuse to show up and his boyfriend will answer the door and give some explanation and everything will be fine.

(Unless he doesn't and-)

Ritsu lights the damn box on fire.

No one comes to the door and he sinks deep enough that the uneasiness forces it's way through his mouth and settles into his lungs, threatening to drown. There's something really wrong here, he's sure, he just doesn't know what yet.

Now what should he do? There's a balcony with glass doors in the kitchen and Shou never seems to have trouble getting into Ritsu's room through the same set up, so... After making sure no one is around to see, Ritsu levitates himself around the corner of the apartment building and onto a tidy landing with potted plants. The doors stay shut at first, but just as he's wondering if he should jam open a window, there's an ominous click. They're unlocked now.

His barrier manifests itself unprompted in shards of color as he cautiously steps inside. The air feels thick and oppressive, weighing heavy on his limbs and clogging up his throat.

He nearly drops his bag when a voice filters from down the hallway, quiet murmurs slipping beneath Momozou's bedroom door. The thudding in his chest starts to go faster, knocking his breathing into something quick and shallow.

"This time I've gone all the way without you. There's nothing more I can say..."

It sounds painfully weak and wispy and yet its still familiar from days spent in each other's quiet company. Ritsu’s feet carry him to the door.

"So maybe I took a little too much. Maybe life didn’t want this part of me. If it helps to know, I never let you go. I'm sorry, but I lost my mind..."

It sounds wrong, wrong, wrong, because Momozou usually only sings to himself like that when he's desperately trying to block out something terrible and Ritsu is the only one here. (Isn't he?) The door eerily creaks open before he even touches the handle, inviting him in.

"So maybe I took a little too much. Maybe you sucked the life right out of me. I should have let you know I never meant to go. Sure, I lost my mind, but I never really Meant to Die..."

It sounds like a swan song.

Ritsu steps into the room and nearly trips over something heavy and solid. He looks down and the box from before flies open, spewing ash and soot and thick black smoke everywhere.

Momozou is laying curled into a ball on the floor, arms wrapped around his head and pressed hard against his ears. He's staring up with his sunken eyes blown wide and glassy, looking at Ritsu like he's not sure whether he's even real or a hallucination.

"Ritsu...?"

His eyelids slowly sink shut. The shadows beneath them have never been worse.

"Help..."

Everything goes still.

Time stops and stretches into something almost infinite until Ritsu dives down and grabs ahold of a wrist to check for a pulse. This isn't real, it's a nightmare, he probably just ate too many sweets before bed again-

The hand he's holding suddenly grabs back, tight enough to pop his knuckles, as the body in front of him jolts. He's ecstatic for all of two seconds until laughter starts to fill the air, because that is definitely NOT Momozou.

Ritsu throws himself back out into the hallway, scrambling to get up on his feet as the thing in front of him rises. There's a physical sense of revulsion boiling in his gut at the way Momozou's body moves like it's being pulled upward. It's still laughing.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the little brother! How sweet of you to save me the trouble of finding you."

The sound is an all out assault on his ears, it's Momozou's voice, but it's not at all the way that he usually talks. His posture and the way that he carries his long limbs is slouched where it shouldn't be. The sneer on his lips and the slant of his eyebrows has gone outright manic and murderous. Most startlingly, the whites of his eyes have turned a bright noxious purple.

Ritsu is made to revise that statement when more eyes appear over every exposed inch of skin, lining his arms and giving a spider-like appearance where they dot his cheeks and forehead. All of them are that same toxic shade.

"I was getting pretty impatient. It took three days to possess this body! Three days! Do you have any idea how boring it is to watch a kid either lay around or drive himself up the walls for three days straight in one tiny room? The answer is pretty fucking boring." There's a short pause as it stuffs Momozou’s hands in his pockets. "…OK, it was a little funny." The thing giggles again and it grates like nails on a chalk board.

Ritsu snarls as he raises his hand, aims straight ahead and lets loose his powers. Momozou's body is engulfed in color before it all suddenly disperses, flying at the walls in ripped apart chunks of blue and green and pink. Shit.

"Adorable. Alright, kid-" Another blast, stronger this time. Same result. "Awww, aren't you cute? Well, go ahead, then. Third time's the charm, right?" Ritsu grits his teeth as he forces his body to double the output. His aura whirls like a tornado with Momozou's body at the eye of its storm, but even still its sent flying back at him. "You done now? I suggest you quit." As if Ritsu would take advice from some evil spirit. He can already feel the pressure building up inside of him for another offensive. The thing just smiles and rolls Momozou's eyes and pulls something out of his sweatshirt.

A pocket knife.

"Do you really think you can threaten me with something like that?" Ritsu switches the charge to defense, shards of light glittering as his barrier comes into being around him. Momozou is taller and has a longer reach, but Ritsu has better stamina. As long as he can keep out of range, he should be OK.

"Oh, I think I could. You're not the one I'm threatening, though." Then the knife is pointed right at Momozou's throat and its as though a vacuum has sucked all the air out of the room, out of the apartment, directly out of his lungs. The uneasiness he'd been choking on before is drained and replaced with panic and cold fury, because how dare this thing go so far?

"There we go, now I think you understand. I'm gonna need some cooperation out of you later and if you don’t, well... This is a veeeeeeery nice vessel. I've never seen such a powerful telepath! But I just need it to be able to use its powers. It wouldn't hurt anything if I broke it a bit." The entire time it's talking, it's waving the knife around casually and Ritsu flinches whenever it gets too close to Momozou’s face or especially his eyes.

He should have known something was wrong earlier in the week. He never should have left him alone.

"You, on the other hand..."

Momozou's body lunges forward, slamming a fist against the wall that Ritsu only barely dodges.

"You're only the bait! It doesn't matter what I do with you!"

Part 2 goes up on Day 3: Action! @takeritsuweek2017

[possibilistfanfiction]

perfect places (just another graceless night)

[VIEWS—for those of you interested in a bit of sloane & nora’s backstory & what is really the backbone for everything in the show, heres their first night together. @turnandchasethewind & i are writing this whole big story together so u can talk to olivia abt the kids too] // to unravel a torment you must begin somewhere —louise bourgeois // everything is dark blue and you can see the stars, so it’s a good time to tell the truth. also, you’re really drunk, and you’re lying on your back next to nora, who smells like peonies and impossibly a little like confectioner’s sugar. the tiny tennis ball stick and poke she pressed into the skin just above your elbow stings, but that might be because you keep touching it, hard enough to hurt: things still move so fast around you sometimes; the world is heavy and aching and beautiful; it’s hard to tell, when you’re very empty or very full, what exactly is real.

but you’re pretty certain that this is real: the roofing tiles beneath your back; the sharpness of the smoke you inhale when nora hands you a shared belmont. her hands are steadier than yours but she’s young and she’d had absolutely no problems getting absolutely smashed with you, laughing when you’d suggested it at the event you were both working but then offering up her parents’ house in etobicoke. it’s a beautiful house, big and open, with a backyard and a pool surrounded by flowers. nora—who is very solid and who also did countless shots of whiskey and smoked at least six cigarettes before suggesting you do stick and pokes after she put pure heroine on her record player—laughs next to you, at her own story about her little sister, kennedy. you stopped paying attention to the actual words minutes ago because her voice is the same color as the sky just before sunrise; the same sky that you can see through the wisps of silver from between your ribs that remind you, somehow, of the ocean in vancouver; that remind you of nothing at all. nora laughs and then she turns and smiles over at you, this mega-watt thing that kind of takes your breath away, because, in some way, this is fun for her, this young desperate aching. nora smiles and takes a drag from the cigarette you hand back over, hands shaking. her room is all pale pinks and blues and a perfectly clean white duvet, a fair amount of posters of beyonce, a wall of polaroids of her friends and strings of fairy lights, little succulents lined up against one windowsill. did you walk out of a fucking nylon or something?, you’d asked her, and she’s laughed again, fishing out a bottle of jack daniels from behind a few books. 

‘tell me something i should know about you,’ she says, after you’ve done your tattoos and climbed out of the window clumsily onto where her roof overhangs the backyard. you want to tell her that it’s the first time you’ve been on a rooftop in ages that you haven’t wanted to jump, but it’s only the second story and that’s a dramatic thing to say in general. ‘you tell me, you fucker.’ she rolls her eyes but she shrugs. ‘fine,’ she says. ‘i’m bisexual.’ ‘that’s boring,’ you say, and you catch her huff a laugh out of the corner, and it makes you want to grin and cry all at the same time. ‘you have literally like seventeen posters of beyonce in your room.’ ‘she’s beautiful,’ nora says, and it’s so sincere and so reverent you can’t help but laugh.  she turns and rests her chin on the palm of her hand, tries very hard to focus on you. ‘my big brother is my favorite person in the world,’ you say. ‘he’s funny and solid and i throw a party for him every year on the day he started t.’ nora grins. ‘invite me. i make a mean double fudge macaroon.’ ‘that’s—’ you shake your head— ‘what’s the point of that?’ ‘they’re amazing if you eat like twelve.’ ‘fine,’ you relent. ‘you can come next time.’ ‘sweet,’ nora says. ‘thank you, sloane.’ it’s so sincere you blink once. ‘you’re welcome, nora.’ you’re sure she could tell you lots more about herself, things you’ll learn in time: her little sister terrifies her because she goes to like five protests a month; nora knows four languages; she thought her parents would be angry when she didn’t want to go to university, when she wanted to work with her hands, but they weren’t. she’s afraid of silverfish and going up on roller coasters; sometimes when she’s overwhelmed she prays.  but for now she’s quiet, gentle.  you light another cigarette after a few minutes, the sky lightening to the purple of another helpless bruise. you let your lungs burn for a moment. ‘i tried to commit suicide,’ you say, and she doesn’t move at all, only breathes steadily. ‘before i moved here. i drove my car into a pole.’ you pause and wait for her to roll her eyes, or tell you to go inside and leave, or for her to freak out or cry. the world tilts a little when she doesn’t do any of those things, just turns toward you and nods.  ‘i broke my collarbone and ruptured my spleen,’ you say, lifting your shirt to show her the scar that runs along your stomach, the scar that’s fading daily but is still red, angry, here. ‘but that’s about it.’ nora’s hand is remarkably steady when she brushes her fingers over it, then takes your own trembling hand in hers. ‘i’m glad you sucked at your end goal,’ she says, very seriously, and it draws a messy, wet laugh out of you. she smiles gently and lays back, laces your fingers together a little tighter.  ‘me too,’ you say. later you’ll tell her that you were manic and depressed at the same time, that some days you can’t sleep, some days you can’t wake up. she’ll go with you to shoppers every month to get your lamotrigine, usually throwing in a box of tampons and some sour jujubes every time. she’ll meet you in christy pits even though it’s raining and late, because you can’t stay still and you’ll go to the swing set like children, like you’ve never been hurt at all from jumping. and you will adore her with the same assuredness. she will become a balm for your brain and you will become one for hers, although it’s hard to believe that now. she will make you smile and let you borrow her boots when yours are too worn out and you will make music, sometimes, just for her. in so many of the ways that matter, she will become the greatest love of your life.  for now, though, you put out your cigarette and she leads you by the hand through her window, pulls down the duvet. you climb in bed together, tangle up because you’re drunk and young and hurting and whole. she hums a little beyonce and you laugh and you are in this new city, here and then and now, and you are becoming and you are home.  you fall asleep as the sky’s bruise fades.

[flower-filled-dreams]

Peonies Song

title sorta related to this?? ths is a sorry gift for being dead for so long!! plz!! take!! it!!

WC: 2626 (im so happy by that)

ship: does demonio x flowers count bc if not then none

notes: i know n o t h i  n g about peonies so i hope this okay!!

Demonio sighed softly, wandering around Velder. It was a cool spring day that day, the sun peeking out behind clouds that drifted past. A gentle breeze gently blew Demo’s hair out of his face, the black and blue eye hiding behind white hair being visible. Demo quickly yanked his bangs back in place, making sure no one saw that.

He was alone today.

Most of the Elgang was in Sander at the moment, other than him, Diabla, Esper, and Asura. They all stayed behind to keep watch over Velder to make sure there were no more demons hiding around. How funny, since Demo himself was a demon, even if the others said he “wasn’t like them”. He was still one of them, wasn’t he…?

He shook his head to clear that thought. He may be a demon, but he wasn’t an evil demon. No no, he was a good one. As good as a demon could be, at least. He found himself sighing softly, his brain trying to bring back emotions he no longer felt. He refused to let it, putting his straight face back on.

Along his route around Velder’s bridge, he noticed something down below the bridge, something small. His first thought was it was a mouse or something, but then he noticed that it was a pale pink color. Almost a pastel pink, really. He stopped walking, looking around quickly. It didn’t seem there were any demons around, so…

He hopped off the bridge, the drop only being four feet. It was nothing to him. He landed with ease, crouching down beside the pink object. It had pastel pink petals, a green stem, and was actually in a small cluster, the cluster in a shattered pot with some dirt. Most of the flowers were dead, other than a few that were clinging to life. Demo quickly recognized them to be Peonies, gently scooping up a handful of dirt with two of the alive flowers inside of it. He didn’t know why, but...he felt (somewhat) bad for the flowers. It appeared someone had dropped them here...he couldn’t imagine why, unless it was an accident, but how do you accidentally drop a flowerpot full of peonies? Unless they tripped, it made no sense.

He felt himself smile for the first time in a while. He decided to take the two peonies back home with him, holding the dirt with the flowers all the way home. Demo was very cautious, constantly looking around to make sure that he wouldn’t trip on anything. For some reason, the flowers made him feel...some emotion he forgot the name to.

When Demo got home, he was greeted by Asura, who was currently drinking green tea and munching on chocolate chip cookies Demo previously made.

“Hello, Demonio!”

“Hello.”

“What do you have there?”

“Peonies.”

“Why? Where’d you get them? Last I checked, peonies weren’t sold around here…”

“They aren’t. I found them under Velder bridge when I was making sure there were no demons around. These two were the only two left alive from the flower pot.”

“Flower pot?...”

“Yes. Someone must have been passing by and tripped, dropping the flowerpot. It was shattered under the bridge, and most of them were dead.”

“...Those are some very pretty peonies!~”

“Indeed. I’m going to keep them.”

“What, are they your kids now?”

“Yes.”

Asura was chuckling over her joke, laughter cutting off when she heard Demo’s answer. Demo, raising flowers as if they were his kids? It sounded ridiculous, but...she knew Demo liked flowers more than people. She wouldn’t put it past him to do that. He usually did.

“...Demonio, if you really like taking care of things, you have Lu. Besides, you’re also still young enough to have kids, if you ever found someone or adopted them.”

“Nonsense. My mistress is already enough to take care of. I don’t need to have children. I don’t want to. You know this.”

“I know, I know, but…”

“I like taking care of flowers, to watch them bloom to be absolutely beautiful...but then they die. Like all things do.”

“That’s pretty dark, Demo.”

“It’s true. All things die, but...all things are beautiful at some point.”

Asura didn’t question most of Demo’s actions, band she wasn’t about to question this one. She simply nodded, sipping her tea. Demo saw a glass jar on the counter in the kitchen, walking over and letting the dirt fall into there, along with the flowers. He turned the sink on, holding the jar under the water for a second or two. He set the jar on the counter, washing his hands off and looking at the peonies.

He felt himself feel...calm, looking at them.

“So, are you gonna name them too?”

“Yes. The smaller one shall be Vivi, and the bigger one shall be Zuzu.”

“I can’t believe those names!”

“Is there a problem with them?”

“N-No, just...I never would have guessed you’d name them something so simple. I thought you’d name them something elegant, like...hmm…”

“Those names are just fine for them.”

Demo sighed softly, Asura shrugging and smiling. If Demonio was happy with them, that alone was a blessing. It was better than him being constantly moody, after all. They were quite pretty...she noticed Demo pick the jar up, walking upstairs.

“Where are you putting them?”

“In my room, in front of my window.”

“They’ll look lovely there.”

“They already do.”

Asura nodded a bit, knowing very well Demo couldn’t see it. He was already upstairs. Esper yawned, coming up the stairs from the basement, going to the kitchen. His hair was a mess, dark circles under his eyes. Asura could already guess what he was here for, watching him pull down the container with the instant coffee in it. The kettle’s water was still hot, if the steam coming from it was any indication. He put some of the water in a mug covered in little cat faces, then poured some of the instant coffee into the mug. He didn’t even bother stirring it, just swirling it around a bit in there.

“Esper, get some sleep.”

“No. I’m busy.”

“You sound like Masi when you say that…”

“Technically, since me and Masi come from the same person, it wo-”

“Esper!”

“...I’ll sleep once I’m done writing down a couple of formulas I have.”

“You kno- fine. Hey, did you hear me and Demonio?”

“Yeah. About flowers or something…?”

“He’s raising the flowers like they were his kids.”

“You know how he is, Asura...he’s lonely, let the man raise his flowers in peace.”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing!! Just...it seems likes he devotes more time to flowers than us.”

“We all have hobbies, you know…”

“I know! Just...I’m worried that there’s something wrong, with how much he avoids us…”

“Nothing’s wrong with him. He just likes flowers. You’re overthinking it, Asura.”

Esper sipped his coffee, frowning at the taste. He forgot to add sugar and cream. Oh well, the coffee would probably wake him up more if it was black. Probably.

“If you’re really so concerned with his flower collection, then ask him why he does it.”

“I-I’m not concerned!! I just...want him to spend more time with us.”

“He likes being alone, I think. That would explain why he always hangs back with Diabla here whenever he can...I think too many people stresses him out, so he vents it by taking care of flowers. You see how delicate and careful he is with them.”

Before Asura could slip in another word, Esper went back downstairs, smiling softly. He knew the real reason why Demo collected flowers. He promised to never tell anyone, though. After all, it would embarrasing to the demon if anyone but Esper and Apo knew that the flowers made him feel as if he had emotions again, yet people couldn’t bring them back. Esper sat back at his desk, continuing to write down formulas, yawning. He was exhausted...maybe he should get some sleep…

Nah. He was busy. With his will steeled, he sipped his coffee, continuing to write.

The whole Elgang came back from Sander that night. Most of them were on their way home at this point, exhausted from the battle against Giant Waldo. Even Esper and Asura left at some point, wishing farewell to Demonio, leaving him alone. Diabla may have been in Velder, but she was out all day with her patrol, the chances of her actually just exploring around higher than her actually doing work. Demonio came down a few minutes after Asura and Esper left, looking at the clock on the wall. 21:27...it was getting late, and he hadn’t even made dinner yet! Then again...Diabla wasn’t home yet. She was strong, she could take care of herself, she’d be home soon enough, asking Demonio where dinner was.

Demonio decided to finally work on dinner, just in case she got home soon. The other Lu’s and Ciel’s should be home soon, too...he went to the kitchen, washing his hands again. He’d been touching dirt all day now, making sure the soil was suitable for the peonies. He turned the sink off after washing his hands, taking off his black sweater he wore when he didn’t have to watch any of the Lu’s, or didn’t have to do much of anything. His blue undershirt had long sleeves, Demo rolling them up and opening the fridge. He never really liked wearing aprons, so with no one around...he didn’t see a reason to. He pulled out a few ingredients from the fridge, like fish that was thawing, butter, eggs, breadcrumbs...he set it on the counter, going over to the cupboard and pulling out a few spices and herbs, sighing softly.

He already missed the feeling of happiness caring for the flowers brought him.

He made dinner in the span of 30 minutes, wrapping it up when he noticed no one was home yet. He put the food in the fridge, mumbling to himself how he could have waited a bit longer to cook...by now, it was 21:57, and he really just wanted to go to bed. He was tired from the day, but he couldn’t sleep until he knew Diabla and the others got home…

With a small sigh, he sat on the couch, pulling a pillow on his lap. So he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And fell asleep.

By the time the others got home, it was nearly midnight, the two other Ciel’s carrying asleep Lu’s, Dread carrying both Chili and Diabla. They didn’t even notice Demo asleep on the couch until after they put the Lu’s in their beds, going downstairs right after to go see what they could eat. It was then they noticed the white hair hanging down from the back of the couch, seeing the blue horn as well. Dread was the first to go over, confirming it was indeed Demo, as if there was any doubt.

“He’s asleep.”

“I can see that, Dread.”

“I wonder how long he waited for us…”

“Probably a long time, if he fell asleep here. He could catch a cold, it’s chilly in this house…”

“Yeah. Should we wake him up, or…?”

“Just...go up to his room and grab his blanket. We should let him sleep...look under his eyes.”

“He’s always got dark circles under his eyes.”

“Exactly. Go grab his blanket.”

Dread mumbled softly, something along the lines of “fine”, trudging upstairs. He walked to the end of the hall, stepping in Demo’s room, flicking on the light. His gunblades were on his bed, his long black jacket hanging off the chair near his desk. He then noticed the burst of pastel pink in the blue and black room, walking over curiously.

“Huh...those are pretty. Wonder what kind of flower it is...he’d know.”

Dread found himself staring at them for longer than most normal people would, snapping out of it once he felt a hand clasp his shoulder. He nearly jumped, spinning around to see Royal sighing. Royal’s blue hair was out of it’s usual low pony, resting on his shoulders and back, Dread noticing he was in his pj’s; a blue long sleeve shirt and grey jogging pants. Royal looked in Dread’s eyes, the butler’s eyes sharp still, despite the time now being 24:46.

“You’ve been standing here for twenty minutes.”

“I zoned out.”

“Bullshit.”

“...I was staring at these flowers.”

“For twenty minutes? Are you sure you weren’t going through Demo’s stuff looking for porn mags or something?” Royal said, letting out a chuckle.

“Y-Yes, I’m sure!! Demo doesn’t even have porn mags!!”

“You’d know.”

“S-Shut up!”

Royal was chuckling at how flustered Dread was now, Dread gritting his teeth and sighing.

“The flowers are pretty.”

“Indeed they are. But not pretty enough to stare at for twenty minutes.”

“I told you, I zoned out. It’s late. I’m tired.”

“...Right. Did you at least get the blankets?”

“His gunblades are on them, El Lady knows where his sniper is.”

“...I see. Best to leave them there. He’s pretty picky about how clean they are...I’ll just get him some spare blankets in the closet.”

“Yeah. Oh, Royal, do you know what flower these are?”

“I’d say peonies. Why?”

“I like them.”

“You? Like flowers? Never thought I’d hear that.”

“Shut up. They’re nice. No wonder he has them…”

“Okay Dread, I get you like them, but really...go to bed. I’ll get the blankets. You’re acting strange.”

Dread frowned, but obliged, mumbling a goodnight before walking out of the room. Royal smiled softly, looking at the flowers for an extra moment. Demo was obviously taking good care of them, the petals full and alive. No wonder Dread couldn’t stop staring.

Royal whispered a goodnight to the flowers for some reason, shutting the light off when he walked out of the room. He closed the door behind him, walking over to the closet and pulling out a few blankets, carrying them downstairs. When he walked past Dread’s room, he could already hear snoring. He was that tired…?

Royal chuckled quietly. Everyone but him was asleep, and here he was at one in the morning, bringing blankets down for Demo. He stopped at the couch, resting the blankets on Demo’s body, making sure to cover his arms, feet, and legs. At this point, the demon was lying on the couch instead of sitting up, quiet snores leaving him. Royal made sure his whole body other than his head was covered in blankets, stepping back when he was done.

Good. Demo was completely wrapped up, like a cocoon. Now he could head to bed as well.

He walked up the stairs again, stepping in his room and shutting the door behind him softly. He lingered there for a moment, thinking about a few things from the day. He thought about how Lusa and Reckless sparred on the way to the Barren Sander, thought about how Chili demanded cookies from Dread, only for Dread to have ended up having enough cookies for everyone somehow, thought about how Arme had a debate about the El Lady with Crimson…

He smiled.

He...enjoyed his time with the Elgang, to say in the least. He enjoyed being near them. Noblesse loved them too, even if she’d never admit it.

He yawned, walking over to his bed and lying down. He pulled the blankets over himself, eyes shutting. He was exhausted.

The last thing that entered his mind were the flowers Demo had, how pretty they were. He fell asleep thinking of the pretty pastel pink flowers, his dreams very flower filled that night.

[earthtomaggie]

YOU’RE IN MY BODY Pt. 116 - REBRANDING

Hello! 

I decided to give this another shot! I hope you like it! If you’ve never heard of this story before, here you can find the first 115 parts (Geez!) of this story!

please share this if you like it! thank you!

xoxo ♥♥♥

Pt. 116 - Rebranding

 With my hand on the cold door handle, I take a deep breath. I bite my lip, trying to ignore the nauseous feeling that is trying to crush me every time we’re playing this little game. Shaking my uncut fringe out of my eyes, I then open the door.

“Hey,” he says with his husky voice and looks at me from underneath his thick lashes. I know he’s trying to unleash the mystic powers of his eyes on me, but those days are over. It’s just not happening anymore, no matter how good he looks. “I brought something for you,” he announces and from behind his back he produces a single pink peony. I cock my head and stare at my favorite flower for a bit. At least he remembers. But that doesn’t change anything. And it doesn’t make this easier.

Overwhelmed by the situation, I take the flower he’s holding out to me, and take a step back to let him in. “I’m afraid we’re not ready yet. Ellie is still in the bath and Noah is being impossible today…” I lead him through the apartment, leaving the flower on a side table, and go into the bathroom where Ellie is playing with an oversized yellow rubber duck in the water.

“Mommy, I want Pooh in the bath wit me,” she announces and with her paddy little hands she wipes her curls out of her face. “Hi Daddy!”

“Hello angel,” he smiles and kisses her forehead, kneeling down next to the tub.

I take the special shampoo I use for her hair off the sideboard and form her curls into a mohawk. “Don’t you remember, sweetie, kittens don’t like water. I don’t think Pooh would like to play with you in the water, but she’s just waiting for you to get out!”

And as if on cue, Noah and our little rescue cat Pooh walk into the bathroom. “Why are they called kittens and not cattens,” he asks while staring at the feline, but then he looks up and sees his father. “No!” Turning on his heels, he stalks out of the room, like only a five year old can, with the most sass and anger he could possibly fit into these steps, the cat following him like a loyal companion.

Jared looks at me, surprised and frowning, so I shrug apologetically. “He’s in a bad mood today,” I try to explain, but Jared can tell, that’s not the whole story.

Apparently he decides to ignore that though. “Can we talk? Please?”

I hesitate. I’m suddenly parched; I’ve been planning how to bring it up all night when I couldn’t sleep, and now he has done it for me. Suddenly I’m too scared though. I can’t do it. I need more time, so I opt for the diversion technique. “Why don’t we talk tonight? And why don’t I try to talk to Noah and you get Ellie dressed?”

He sighs softly and tries to wrap me into his eyes once again, but when he notices that it doesn’t work, he gives it up. “Alright, fine.”

I get up and step out into the hall where I turn around and look back. Jared looks odd these days. Even though he was named one of the best dressed men in the world by GQ lately, to say he embraces the hobo style would be an understatement. Gabe Saporta’s hobosexual style was nothing against Jared now: shaggy hair, wild beard, clothes that don’t go with themselves… so odd. But the way he persuades Ellie right now to get out of the tub and wrapped up into a towel, I cannot deny one thing: he tries to make an effort to be a good father.

I leave those two alone and go into Noah’s room. He has turned up ‘Holding on to You’ loudly and has hidden underneath his blanket; probably not realizing that the bump he makes is very visible. It looks very odd, because apparently he is bopping along to the twenty one pilots’ song he’s listening to. I sit down in the rocker in the corner and sigh.

“Honey, I can’t change the facts. He came here to hang out with you and play with you… and you should go with him!”

“No!”

I lean forward, ignoring the pain of my elbows digging into my knees. “Why don’t you want to?”

He angrily rips the blanket off his head and shows me his reddish face. “I hate this! I don’t want him to come and play with me! Why can’t Daddy live here always?! Like he used to!?”

It’s so funny. He is angry at his father because he doesn’t live with us anymore. Yet I am the one forbidding this family to get back together and I am the one keeping his father from living with us. Thank God Noah doesn’t know my plans for the future; he’d hate me, a lot.

“Your daddy loves your very much, you know? And sometimes things can’t get back to what they were before.”

He scrambles off the bed and puts his hand on my knee. When did my little preemie grow up into a man? Time just flew by. He gets to his feet and throws his arms around my neck. “Is it because of the woman?”

I freeze for a moment, but then I start rubbing his back. “I’m going to tell you one day. When you’re older,” I promise, using a terrible phrase that I swore myself never to use with my own kids. “But I want to make sure you know that the fact that Daddy and I are fighting has nothing to do with you. Absolutely nothing.”

“But you are fighting,” he repeats and tightens his hug. “I don’t want you to fight with Daddy!”

I kiss his curly head and caress his little cheek. “I know. But if you want to do me a favor, you go with Daddy and show him that you love him no matter what!”

“Alright,” he whispers just when Jared appears in the door with Ellie on his arm.

“Is it me,” Jared asks with a small frown, “or does Ellie have pink hair?”

“Yes, I do! Mommy dyed it for me,” she grins and ruffles her hair. “Am I pretty, Daddy?”

He laughs and gives her a scratchy kiss. “You are the prettiest little girl in the entire world!”

She blushes and hides her face in his neck. They are so cute together, it breaks my heart. Jared holds his hand out to Noah; my boy gives me another sad look and a wet kiss, then he gets to his feet and takes Jared’s hand.

 I fill my day with doing laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning… we don’t have a housekeeper anymore. The apartment I live in with the children is much smaller than what they’re used to. We have 3 bedrooms and a large living area, a big kitchen and a breakfast nook, but everything on a smaller scale than in the old days that feel like a century ago. I feel reminded of my student days; when I moved out I had no furniture obviously so everything in here is bought from IKEA. I packed the children’s toys and our clothes, and some of the furniture in their rooms was picked up as soon as we had the apartment, but everything else is new. And untainted. I assume everything else is gone since Jared sold the house and moved into the new Lab. Or rather trying to sell the house.

The apartment is located in Woodland Hills, just off Canoga Avenue. Maybe not the best area, but it’s fine. No paparazzo would ever think to look for us here. We have a small balcony and access to a pool, and there’s a playground nearby. I put Noah into a play group once a week, and they still have their Nanny twice a week; the time I have off I use to write for different papers and magazines, at least up until now.

I sit on the couch and scroll through my emails with Pooh on my lap purring when the doorbell rings. Checking my watch I frown. They should not be back by now. When I buzz whoever it is up I wait until they climb up the stairs to the 2nd floor. A smile spreads on my face when I see who it is. “Now look at that!”

My sister in law, Flor, comes up the stairs, her dog Heidi behind her, wagging its tail. “Hello Mags,” she smiles and folds me into a hug. “I thought I’d drop by and drag you outside for a walk?”

I sigh and giggle. “Yeah, alright, fine. Just one second.” I go back inside and scratch Pooh behind her ear for a moment, check that she has enough food and water and then I grab my phone and keys before closing the door behind me.

We walk a short distance towards a path around the golf course; I come here a lot with the children. I enjoy the sun on my face without having to run after a toddler every couple of steps, and it’s nice to chat with Flor again. We obviously don’t see each other as much anymore since we don’t live next to each other anymore.

It’s a nice area here. With a country club nearby, they really try to keep the area pretty; well trimmed bushes and clean roads and paths, all surrounded by flowerbeds of Southern California-appropriate greenery. Birds are chirping and there’s a hint of salt in the air today, even though we’re miles from the sea.

“Jared was over this morning, and he told me that he’d take out the kids today. So I left my children with Shannon and thought I’d stop by.” Flor looks at me from the side. “How are you? Really, I mean.”

“I’m good!” I hesitate when she looks at me with a frown and then shrug. “It’s been a hard couple of months; but we’re getting used to it, a bit more every day.” I sigh heavily and stretch out, breathing deeply. “I’m sad about my marriage not working out, I will admit that. And I miss him. No, that’s not true. I miss who I thought he was. I thought I saw something that others don’t see, I thought that I knew the real Jared, and that he was all mine. Finding out that I was making a fool of myself made me swear to myself that this would not happen again.”

Flor shakes her long hair out of her face and slides her shades up her nose. “Will you make it official then? Will you try to divorce him? Or what do you mean by that?”

I look down at my feet and rub my arm. “I don’t think I want to divorce him right now. Maybe one day, if I meet someone new I guess. But for now, it’s not that. I have different plans. I’ve been talking it through with some lawyers, and I think it’s all sorted.”

“You make me curious!” She grins at me and cocks her head. “What are you planning that you need a lawyer’s approval for?!”

I shake my head and squint in the sunlight. “I’ll tell you after I told Jared. I owe him this much; he won’t be happy about it, I can tell you this much!”

I can feel her eyes burn a hole in the side of my head, and the way she hooks her arm through mine, I know that she tries to convince me to give it up. “Flor, I really…”

“Alright, I won’t push it.” She whistles after the dog and shrugs. “I just hope it’s not too dramatic.”

I bite my lip and look down on my feet again. “I can’t promise that.”

  I get back to the apartment at 6, which gives me time to shower and dry my hair properly before Jared brings the children back at 7. When I’m dressed again I take a moment to look in the mirror. My favorite black sweater is hanging a bit too loose off my shoulders. I lost weight in the last couple of months. You can see it especially in my face that seems to have harsher edges now, and my boobs have gotten smaller. Great; the one thing that actually made me interesting to the opposite sex has decreased. It’s funny though, Jared and his model friends actually turned me into a clone of one of his model friends. I need to get away from all this, and fast.

When I buzz them up later, I can hear them on the stairs, babbling Jared’s ears off. I wait for them by the doorframe and when they come around the corner, they make a sweet picture. Jared has Noah by the hand and Ellie on his arm. Both curly headed children look at their father in awe, and he beams back and forth between them. Apparently even Noah forgot how angry he was earlier.

“Mommy,” he squeals and throws himself into my arms. “Daddy took us to the zoo and we saw lions and bears and a koala, and-“

“Elephants!” Ellie shouts with a gleeful smile. Jared grins, happy with himself, and laughs along. “I got the shirt,” she waves it around over her head; apparently Jared went wild in the gift shop since Noah is also holding a shirt underneath his arm.

I usher them in, as to not disturb the neighbors. “I’m glad you had some fun! Did you have dinner?”

“We had burgers,” Noah cheers and skips over to Pooh on the couch and cuddles her as only a child can. “Pooh, I saw a huge cat! It would have eaten you for breakfast!”

“Alright, you two, get into your pajamas and go brush your teeth.”

They giggle and tease each other when they scatter down the hall towards the bathroom. I sit down on the couch and motion Jared to the same. “I need them out of the way for a moment. We need to talk.”

Jared straightens his back, looking at me with worry. He strokes his elbow unconsciously, just like he always does. We’re staring at each other for a bit, and while looking at him I notice that he doesn’t look good at all. He looks like a homeless person. A wild beard, grown out hair cut, dark shadows under his eyes, and, even though he is 45 years old, there are the first crowfeet around his eyes. Well, if he’s unhappy it’s his own fault.

“We’ve officially started recording the album,” he tells me with his soft voice and he puts his hand on mine. “The last couple of months were crazy, I know that, but… I miss you so much. Sometimes it’s hard to sing when I think about us being apart, and I wish you’d come back home, or… at least into the new house. There’s a lot of space for the children, and they can play outside, and we could have a-“

“I’m going to move,” I interrupt him. His face freezes and falls while he tries to comprehend what I just said.

“What? Why? Where?”

I can’t bear to look at his disappointed face and stare down at his hand still on mine. “I’ve had an offer from ELLE magazine in the UK. As Senior Editor for the Culture Department. If I play my cards right, I might be Editor In Chief one day. I’d have to be in London though.” I wait for him to say something, but when he just stares ahead, I go on. “I would love to be closer to my family, and from London we could hop over for weekends and family affairs, and-“

“Wait, wait,” he interrupts me. Oh no. He’s angry now. “You’re telling me that you have no intention to give our marriage another chance, and instead you’re planning to take my children thousands of miles away from me?! Really, Maggie, do you think that’s fair?”

“Fair,” I hiss and get to my feet, stalking over to the window to stare at the sunset. “You have quite a nerve to talk to me about fairness, when I had to come home from that conference in Brussels last year only to find out that you had a female guest here while I was gone and you kissed her in front of our son!”

Jared also gets to his feet and walks over to me. A deep frown is on his face and his lips are pressed together, but there’s shame in his deep blue eyes. “You’ve been punishing me for that for a year now. And I’ve been apologizing for it for a year. And except for that kiss, I swear nothing happened. Nothing! So, please… don’t do this.” He takes me by the arms and looks at me, pleadingly. “I understand if you need more time, but, I need you. You and Noah and Ellie.”

“You spent so much time on your own this last year, I didn’t get the impression that you’re eaten by grief. When you’re climbing and preparing movies and shooting movies for months in some foreign country and skipping around Europe with your friend Alessandro. It doesn’t seem like you need or miss us or even have time for us.”

“I had to keep busy and you know that.” He caresses my cheek so tender and lovingly, just like in the old days. “It was one mistake, Maggiecakes. I got carried away for one moment, when we were fighting none the less. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. And when Vera dropped by it was… weakness. And I regret it every moment I draw breath.”

His hand feels so good on my cheek. A sob is stuck in my throat and for a second I am tempted to lean into his hand. But then that nauseating feeling of betrayal is creeping up on me again. “How many moments of weakness have there been while we were married? And how many of them have you had since I moved out?”

“None! Never! I swear to God, I haven’t touched anyone!”

“What about when you were shooting that Gucci commercial,” I hiss and push away his hand from my cheek. “Why did she suddenly decide to come here if there was nothing between you back then?”

“I don’t know why she came, she said she had been in town, I didn’t really ask! We were talking, suddenly we were kissing, Noah saw us and when I had him calmed down and back in bed, she was gone! I didn’t encourage her, I didn’t invite her, and there was nothing between us when we were in Venice!”

“Excuse me if I don’t believe that,” I snarl and look sideways, only to find Noah standing there in his with tears in his eyes. He clutches his bear to his chest and stares at us from a distance. In three steps I’m over at his side and pick him up and hold him in my arms.

“I don’t want you to fight,” he mumbles and wipes the tears away with the arm of Mr. Bear.

“I know. I’m sorry, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy won’t fight anymore in front of you, okay?”

He shakes his head, seeing through the intent of my phrasing. “No, I don’t want you to fight at all.”

I open my mouth and try to calm him down further but instead Jared swoops in. “Why don’t I read a story to you and Ellie and get you to bed? Mommy and I can continue our discussion later.”

I sit around and wait for them to come back, but when I have more ants in my butt than I can take, I get up and sneak over to Ellie’s room. Ellie is already in bed, Jared is sitting on the bed and makes fun and jokes with her. He pokes his daughter in the sides to hear her laugh. Ellie has grown into a fierce and funny girl, always laughing, always in a good mood. While Noah is sometimes moody and sometimes gets angry, Ellie hardly ever even frowns. She has been the sun in these dark times.

I cross the hall to Noah’s room and sit down on the edge of the bed. Noah, with the sheets pulled up as high as possible, gives me a small smile, then he turns his attention back to his book. “What are you looking at,” I ask and he holds up the book so that I can see Winnie The Pooh on the cover. I sigh and massage my left hand. “I’m sorry, Noah. About everything.”

“It’s okay, Mommy. It’s not your fault.” How is he so grown up? I feel like I’m having a conversation with an adult, not a five year old. I want to protest, but he doesn’t let me go on. “Have Tyler or Josh posted something on instagram?”

I smile and shake my head. My five year old son is the biggest Twenty One Pilots fan I have ever seen. He listens to the Blurryface album at least twice a day, and to the others accordingly. I even bought a record player so that he can listen to the live vinyl. Every day we check instagram and snapchat for signs of life from them, and I took him to the shows they played in Los Angeles. “Let’s have a look.” I get up to get my phone from the living room, opening instagram on my way back. I should just put them on notifications, that would make everything easier. “No, it doesn’t look like it. Sorry.” I kiss his forehead. “You should sleep now, my sweet.”

“Will you sing something for me? Please, Mommy!”

I nod slowly and think of a song, in the end deciding on a church song I heard once. He nestles into his pillows and gets comfy while I sing him a song telling him how much God loves him. “Good night,” I smile and kiss him again when I have finished. “Sleep tight.”

“Good night, Mommy!”

I turn on his batman night light and leave the door ajar when I leave. Jared is already waiting for me in the living room. I get a glass of white wine from the fridge without bothering to offer one to Jared, he hasn’t touched wine in years. He gives me a disapproving look, but then leaves me alone. “Don’t go.”

I sit down in my favorite chair; a blue and white striped extra wide and extra deep armchair with a matching ottoman. Jared is sitting in the matching sofa and has a white blanket pulled onto his crotch. I took a cue from Erin when it came to designing the house, and next time I set up house I will definitely let the people who furnished her house do mine. Right now it’s all very bright and light with a maritime touch to it.

“I think I will go. There is no future for me here,” I shake my head and take a sip of wine. Jared frowns at me and rubs his bushy beard. How is that beard not super-itchy and what on earth is nesting in it?

“No. That’s not true. If you want a job a big magazine, you can have that here, you don’t have to travel all this way. You don’t have to leave the fucking continent.”

“But I can’t stay here. Even if what you say is true, I can’t stay in Los Angeles. The big magazines are based in New York, not here. And I… I don’t want to be here anymore. There are too many memories here.”

“Let’s make new ones. Here. Together.” I want to answer but he interrupts me. “Besides, you can’t just take the kids and move somewhere else! We’re still married, and if we get a divorce, I’d definitely want shared custody.”

“My lawyers say you don’t have a case,” I say and I can tell how much that shocks him again.

“Lawyers? You already talked to a lawyer?”

“Yes, of course,” I shrug and cock my head with raised eyebrows. “I’m not an imbecile, Jared. I want this to be bulletproof. And they say that you can’t ask me to stay in California while you jet around the world when you’re on tour for extended periods.”

He nods slowly, then he leans forward again and stretches out his hand for me to take. I’m not going to do him that favor though. “If you stay here, I’m sure we can sort it all out.”

I shake my head again. “No. As I said. I don’t want to be here. And I don’t want to be stuck in a marriage if I can’t trust my husband.”

He buries his face in his hands, he looks pitiful. But where he’s concerned my heart has cooled off to an ice block. “What can I do to persuade you that you can trust me?”

“I don’t know, turn back time and unkiss that girl?”

“This is not the time for jokes.”

“You’re right,” I agree and down the rest of my wine. “It’s time for you to leave.”

Slowly Jared gets to his feet. “And if I have to make a speech every time we see each other: I want you back.”

I stride over past the kitchen to the front door and open it for him into the dark hallway. “Well, not even you can have everything you want.”

He seems defeated; I know he’d love to argue, being said ‘no’ to is not his strong suit, but something he will have to get used to these days. When he is almost out the door he turns around again. “One last thing. Have you heard of or seen Miguel lately?”

I sigh and shake my head. “No, of course not. I’m pretty sure he only exists in my imagination.”

Jared shrugs and before I can push him off, he brushes his lips over mine. “I thought I saw him around the house lately. But maybe it’s just a new neighbor, who knows.” And with that, he turns around and leaves me standing baffled at the door.

[misssophiachase]

Letters to Juliet

This is for the awesome and talented belated birthday girl @howeverlongs for her love and that gorgeous cover, I hope you like this mini drabble in the meantime.

New Orleans (present day - 6 months after the TVD finale)

Klaus thought he was going mad. His eyes flickered opened, slowing trying to gain his bearings as his nose picked up a very familiar scent. It wasn’t just any scent either, it was hers. It was Caroline. It wasn’t the first time though and Klaus knew it wouldn’t be the last given his frequent visions.

“So, is this how you treat all your guests? Or am I just lucky, Mikaelson?” She asked, appearing in the doorway hands on hips. She looked gorgeous as usual, her golden waves falling over her shoulders and those expressive blue eyes staring him down. What he couldn’t quite work out was whether she was real or a figment of his imagination, yet again.

New Orleans - Three months post TVD finale

Klaus remembered that day well. It was a Friday and he’d stumbled out of his studio around 10am after a long night painting. The morning sunlight was spilling in through the large bay window as Klaus walked into his expansive kitchen. He flipped on the kettle switch, hoping that some tea would aid some much needed sleep.

It was the third night that week he’d painted through the night, too restless to sleep. Klaus knew why of course, not that he’d admit it aloud. It had been three months since he sent the cheque. Klaus hadn’t really expected a response but it didn’t mean that he didn’t want one. His thoughts had been filled with her and her reaction. She hadn’t cashed the cheque, that was all he did know. But Klaus needed to know more.

“That scruffy, homeless look is really becoming on you, Niklaus,” Rebekah drawled, breaking Klaus from his thoughts. He didn’t respond just emmited a low growl of frustration. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.”

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Can’t a girl want to spend time with her brother?”

“No,” he shot back.

“I think its time you get some sleep, grouchy, unbearable insomniac isn’t your best look.”

“No, its time he got laid,” his younger brother interrupted, swiping an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter. Klaus rolled his eyes, all he wanted was to have a nice cup of tea and here he was stuck with the bloody peanut gallery. “All of that brooding over blondie isn’t going to relieve the stress.”

“I am not brooding,” Klaus scowled, not even bothering to deny that she was on his mind. “And not that it’s any of your business but I happen to relieve plenty of stress in the studio.”

“Only because all you do is paint Ms Forbes,” Elijah added, opening the fridge door and inspecting its contents.

“Could I maybe get at least two seconds of peace?”

“Not until you open the letter that arrived for you from blondie which Rebekah has in her greedy, little hands,” Kol scowled. Klaus suddenly felt buoyed, he’d been desperate to hear from her for what seemed like forever. He immediately narrowed his eyes in his sister’s direction.

“You took my letter?”

“I was about to bring it to you,” she replied, defensively.

“Only because I insisted she did,” Elijah murmured.

“Did you read this?” He insisted, snatching it from her grasp unexpectedly.

“Unfortunately not,” Kol muttered. “Elijah went all overbearing big brother on that possibility too.”

“Maybe we should leave Niklaus in peace to read his letter,” the eldest suggested, attempting to steer his younger siblings from the room.

“But we’re just getting to the good part,” Kol whined.

“How about I leave instead,” Klaus growled, leaving quickly his cup of tea long forgotten. He wasn’t sure what to expect but all Klaus cared about was that she’d responded. After shutting his bedroom door, he undid the flap equal parts nervous and excited.

The first thing he noticed was his cheque as it fell from the envelope, and floated onto the floor beneath him. Klaus should have known the obstinate blonde wouldn’t take his gift so easily. He sat down on the nearest chair and finished unfolding the white stationery, her neat cursive coming into view.

“Klaus, while I appreciate your kind gesture I cannot accept your rather enormous and quite frankly over the top gift. Might I suggest flowers or chocolate for the next girl you want to impress?” She’d signed it quite formally at the bottom and Klaus let out a small chuckle. In two sentences she’d captured everything he loved about her. That unapologetic pride, that snappy wit and her apparent need to impart advice.

Klaus wasn’t going to let this go and walked towards his desk, scooping up his cheque as he went. It would be a crime not to respond given how much her words spoke to him. He produced a piece of paper and began writing.

Mystic Falls (Four months post TVD finale)

Caroline stared at the familiar writing she was beginning to know so well after all this time and all those notes. When she’d sent back his cheque Caroline would be lying if she hadn’t expected some kind of response, his ego was frankly too large not to reply. She might have baited him unnecessarily, especially after such a kind gesture, but when it came to Klaus Caroline couldn’t help herself.

She’d been confused the day his cheque arrived, Caroline didn’t doubt his sincerity or his deep feelings for her over the time they’d know each other but she wanted Klaus to move past all the gestures and gifts and show her some raw emotion and maybe even a private piece of himself.

She opened the letter, finding his cheque still perfectly intact. Caroline rolled her eyes not completely surprised. Her gaze lowered, furiously reading the lines of text.

“Dear Caroline, the cheque was meant for your school and most importantly the children. Given your obvious confusion, I have returned it to its rightful owner. As for the romance tips, I have taken note…” Before Caroline could finish the sentence, there was a knock on her office door and in walked a delivery person, flowers and chocolates in hand. All she could do was shake her head, if there was one thing this guy had it was perfect timing.

After the bunch of pink peonies and box of chocolate, strawberry creams had been left on her desk, Caroline shook her head knowingly and then resumed reading. “Although I wasn’t quite sure what you’d prefer. Please feel free to let me know and I’ll be sure to rectify the situation.” Of course he’d gotten it right, Caroline was beginning to realise that Klaus knew her almost as well as she knew herself. That in itself was equal parts comforting and scary as hell. She began to write, enclosing the cheque as she did.

“Cute. Although I didn’t mean me. Here’s your cheque still in pristine condition.”

New Orleans (Five months post TVD Finale)

Klaus had to admit that even though she stubbornly returned his cheque again, she didn’t address him so formally which denoted a certain kind of ease that he’d been craving. Not that he was going to let her get away with ignoring his wishes.

“Your stubborn determination may be extremely attractive, love, but I have no intention of allowing you to decline my generous donation that will mean so much for your school and students.”

Klaus figured she would fight back again and for some reason he was excitedly waiting for Caroline to argue especially given his convincing point on this issue. Kol and Rebekah had been shocked by his sudden interest in anything but painting recently and Klaus knew they’d be loitering close by to spy.

Mystic Falls (Five and a half months post TVD finale)

Caroline was all for writing letters via snail mail but unfortunately she’d reached her limit and her patience. He’d returned the cheque again against her will claiming it was all for the kids. Caroline wanted to pretend it was a lie but she knew he meant it and this drove her crazy. She was lucky Klaus wasn’t nearby to hear her scream with his special vampire hearing. It was obvious he wasn’t going to accept the cheque so she decided to furiously type on her phone via text message.

“For someone who is over 1000 years old, you certainly still have those stubborn and immature tendencies.”

“Nothing immature about the truth, love.” Caroline was momentarily stumped, he always annoyingly had the best response that drove her wild. She decided then and there only one thing was going to deter him.

New Orleans (present day - 6 months after the TVD finale)

“Are you real?” He asked somewhat uncertainly, staring at her curiously from across the room. She looked beautiful but every fibre of his being was willing him to stay away. For now that is.

“I’m pretty sure this extreme persistence and annoying bitchiness couldn’t be mistaken for a dream.”

"No it couldn’t, not sure this is the best way to be awoken though,” he offered, sending her a curious glance. She seemed a little hurt but Klaus knew she needed to hear it. 

“I owe you something,” she mumbled fumbling in her pocket, producing the same cheque he knew so well by now.

“Is that the only reason you came?” He asked, his voice breaking with disappointment. Caroline faltered slightly her blue eyes downcast for now.

As he waited impatiently for her to reply, it took all his willpower not to envelop her in his arms right there. Yes she looked so beautiful but the fact she turned up unannounced spoke to him more than anything else. It can’t have been just about the cheque. She cared for him and in turn it seemed maybe she cared for their future together. Just like him despite everything they’d gone through to get here.

“You never let me go,” she murmured. “No matter how hard I fought against everything you never gave up on me.”

“When you love someone it’s difficult to let go,” Klaus replied moving closer and placing a stray lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

“You love me,” Caroline whispered, her blue eyes never leaving his.

“Not wanting to sound desperate but I thought that was kind of obvious from the beginning, love.” Her face softened at his admission before she cupped his cheek and pulled him closer.

“However long it takes,” she grinned before his lips captured hers hungrily. At this point it was obvious money didn’t matter even if it had brought them together in the end. 

You can read this on FF HERE