#i could talk about this game forever i beat both of them in the span of like about 2 weeks i was obsessed

[gladiatorcunt]

han solo wants what atton rand has

[sukirichi]

crush

pov. you have a crush on your brother’s best friend

request. Hi! Congrats on 2.4k!!🤩 For the event, may I request an au where reader is Yuuta’s sister? Can be gn/fem reader anything is fine. And they fall in love with Toge? Fluff fluff fluff please

notes. awww i love this request, i have a fat crush on toge so i enjoyed writing this! i made this a modern high school au, by the way!

You stare disappointedly at the black wrappings of your bento, sighing because your brother took the wrong one again. Waving goodbye to your friend, you made your way to your brother’s classroom, knocking on the door to get his attention. However, it isn’t your brother who’d stopped laughing mid-conversation. Instead, it’s a familiar-looking platinum haired guy, his purple eyes glimmering with mischief as he slapped your brother’s arm.

“Yo, Yuta, I think someone’s looking for you,” you heard him say.

Meanwhile, you just stood there blankly, your throat growing dry because he was cute – like actually handsome boy-next-door cute.

You’ve met lots of cute guys before, but they were all very immature that you found no interest in others. He, on the other hand, was nothing less of polite, shooting up from his seat because your stupid brother was too invested in his video games. The guy flashed you a bright smile, the beauty of his face up close enhanced that you felt your heart squealing.

Not that you’d ever show that, of course, so you just reciprocated with a polite smile to hide your frantic nerves.

“Hi! You here for Yuta-kun?”

“Y-yes.”

Before he could speak, an arm had shoved him aside. Yuta stood before you, his frown apparent while his friend stayed at the side, a smile still playing on his lips. It took all your energy to not stare at him too much in fear he’d easily read through you.

“Hey, what are you doing here?”

“You swapped lunches with me,” you shoved the black bento box to his chest, stepping closer to your brother to whisper in his ear. “Is that a friend of yours?”

“Yeah, he’s Toge. He used to play with us a lot before he moved away, but his family’s back in town. Don’t you remember him?”

“No…”

“Toge, come here!” he called out to his retreating friend, the guy freezing in his tracks before he jogged up to where you were quickly. Oh crap, you kept gushing, he really was cute. He placed an arm around your brother’s shoulder, nodding at you as a greeting. “Remember my sister? You used to play with her a lot when we were kids. You kept stealing her Barbies, remember?”

“I did?” Toge looked shocked, his back bending into a fake bow. “I’m very sorry for that, but don’t worry, I don’t do that anymore.”

“I don’t play with Barbies at this age!” you defended, heat spreading all over your skin when he winked at you. Both of them laughed at your flushed face, and you crossed your arms on your chest, glaring at your brother. Really though, you were just trying to hide the fact you were very attracted to his friend, even more so now that he was actually familiar. “Stupid Yuta-nii.”

“You’re cute,” Toge randomly piped in.

If you were feeling shy before, you couldn’t speak now.

“Dude, don’t talk about my sister like that,” Yuta gagged, slapping his friend on the chest who effortlessly ducked away, his laughter like music in your ears. You stared at him for who knew how long, his happiness absorbed in your body as you found yourself giggling back. Yuta, on the other hand, wasn’t as impressed, rolling his eyes at his friend before turning to you. “You should go back to class. The bell will ring soon.”

“Okay,” you nodded quietly, hesitating for a moment. Surely it wouldn’t be too weird, right? Deciding to heck with it though, you balled your hands into fists, mustering the courage to look him in the eye as you said, “See you, Toge-senpai.”

He simply shrugged his brows up as a farewell, and just like that, you dashed down the hall so fast you put Quicksilver to shame.

Great. Out of all the days it had to storm, it had to be on the rare moment you forgot your umbrella. Unsurprisingly enough, it was Yuta’s fault for making you forget it. Both of you had slept in too much, but instead of being the responsible older brother, he left you to prepare the meals all by yourself while he spent half an hour fixing his hair. In your haste to arrive on school on time, you’d forgotten to pick up your umbrella, and now the misfortune of it slapped you right on the face.

“Tch, how can I go home?” you glared at no one in particular.

Yuta had to stay behind for baseball practice in the covered court, leaving you all alone to take the bus by yourself. Well, not that it mattered, going home alone was way better than listening to your brother rant about video games and girls he wanted to talk to in class.

Shifting your weight from one foot to another, brows pinched as you mulled on the different ways you could come back home, you came up with two options.

One, run like hell and risk getting sick from this weather, or two, wait for the rain to subside.

But ugh, you wanted to go home already. Before you knew it, you’d unknowingly pouted, arms hugged to yourself while you cursed your stupid brother a hundred times over in your head. Too lost in your own thoughts, you failed to hear humming from behind you, a scream nearly ripping from your lips when someone planted himself beside you.

“Hey, you’re here!”

You gazed up at him wide-eyed, subconsciously stepping away to keep your beating heart at bay. “H-hello, Toge-senpai.”

“Please, just call me Toge,” he offered, opening his umbrella before his eyes landed on you. Probably realizing you were quite helpless, Toge smiled, nudging you to come closer to him. “Hey, I’ll walk you home. You guys still live in the same block?”

“Yeah.”

And so there you were, debating that maybe Yuta’s carelessness wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, if it would lead to your crush taking you home, then you weren’t complaining. Funny how the weather seemed so gloomy, a huge contrast to the sunshine you radiated at the sheer happiness of living out your most romantic fantasies. It was silly, actually, to crush on your brother’s best friend of all people, but Toge was so nice and handsome – it was kind of impossible not to like him.

In the span of two weeks that you’d known him, he’d been nothing but friendly. And no, you weren’t going to admit you started visiting their classroom more often than before, simply because you wanted to get a glimpse of him.

Toge pulled you out of your lovesick trance, his arm landing on your waist before he shifted you beside him. You noticed he was now closer to the road while you were on the safer side of the sidewalk, and god, did he just step closer? He was close enough that your arms brushed with each step, sending a wave of heat that you bit back by tugging your lips with your teeth.

“For warmth,” he explained as if reading your mind, arm raised lazily in a shrug. “Wouldn’t want you to get cold.”

“Thank you,” you muttered, hiding your face under your scarf.

You and Toge were silent the whole time, but it was a silence you adored. Very rarely that you found comfort in silence with others, but with Toge, it felt so easy – so natural. You hadn’t even realized you were already at home, Toge chuckling at your spaced out self. He bid his farewell then, his back facing yours as he walked away when you blurted, “Oh, my parents aren’t home. I think you should stay first to let the rain calm down a bit. You live a little far from school, right?”

Toge looked a little surprised, his eyes shooting up to the sky with a sigh. Inwardly, you were screaming because you just invited him inside, but Toge was already waddling back to you before you could regret it.

“Yeah, thanks for the invitation. I don’t think I should go home in this weather too,” he said, following you across the threshold. He looked around in awe, his shoes left in the front door before he crossed the living room with you, his eyes shining with nostalgia and happiness. “Wow, your place hasn’t changed one bit. I missed being here.”

You flashed him a smile. Turns out it wasn’t that bad – Toge being comfortable made you comfortable. Aside from the nervousness partnered with shyness from having a crush, you applauded yourself for being able to look him in the eye as you asked, “Do you want tea, coffee…?”

“Water is fine. Thanks,” he shrugged off his jacket and placed it behind a chair, chuckling when you nodded too fast. Toge, much to your dismay (or delight?!) trailed behind you in the kitchen, having no business looking that handsome as he leaned against the counter. Him being unaware of his effect on you was even worse, and you bit the inside of your cheeks, trembling as you poured him a glass of water. 

From behind you, Toge snickered, “Why are you so jittery? Do I make you nervous?”

“A-a little.”

“Why? Am I intimidating?” he appeared beside you out of nowhere, so close that you could count his lashes. You leaned back with a muffled squeal, eyes wide at the proximity. Toge, as always, seemed completely unaware of it, taking his time to assess your features with a hand on his chin as if all the answers he was looking for was written all over your face. “Yuta told me I was very easy to approach though.”

“No, it’s not that, I just…” you stuttered, giving in with weak knees and turning your head to the side. Your heart, your poor heart! “Crap, I hate myself.”

“You were saying something?”

“I, uhm, it’s just,” you panicked, mind failing to function now of all times. “I think…I have a crush on you?”

The room fell silent.

Realization dawning on you, you flattened your palms together in a begging motion. Toge merely blinked back at you, and you were so close to just kneeling to the gods to rid yourself of this moment forever. “Please forget everything I said, I’m so sorry! Gosh, Yuta’s going to kill me, forget I said anything, I didn’t mean to be weird.”

“Hey, chill, it’s fine!” he laughed, helping you get up just before you fell in exasperation. Then, he smirked at you, wiggling his brows in the process. “I kind of knew that anyway, to be honest.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I mean, you asked me to marry you when we were kids,” he informed you, but the memory never played back in your mind. It wasn’t a lie though, you really did ask him that when you were kids. Embarrassment taking hold of you, you groaned behind your palms, feeling like your heart was going to explode every now and then.

“Oh my gosh…”

“It’s okay,” Toge peeled your arms away from your face, his grin nothing less of teasing the moment he’s greeted by your shyness. “I did say yes – let’s just wait after high school, yeah?”

[angelkurenai]

Beautifully reckless - Dean Winchester x Reader

Title: Beautifully reckless

Pairing: Michael!Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: None

Prompt: lately i just felt like reading a michael!dean fic, and since you're an amazing writer, I'd love to see you write a one shot/imagine with him. so here you go, reader is sam's and dean's friend who is a psychic, and after michael possesses dean, he starts feeling something for her that he never felt before? just some soft michael!dean, please? i love ur fics, they are truly unique and awesome to read

“Took you long enough, you bastard.”

The voice tone, to some extent, took Michael by surprise, to the point he jumped on the spot. Though he would never admit to that. He was used to respect, well, fear actually and he was used to hearing calculated and careful words. It wasn't like he had not been called that many more times before, but that was mostly in his face, and not behind his back (literally) and in such a tone. Not when everyone around him knew better than to push their luck. The fact that he really wasn't still around the people who used to tremble in fear when he was facing them, or not actually, and that he, Michael himself, wasn't entirely the same person as when he was in the Apocalypse world.

“I- Excuse me?” he couldn't stop the words from leaving his lips before he stopped in his steps and turned around to face the source of the voice that was so bold.

Within barely the span of a minute, he found himself being stunned twice... or maybe thrice, but there was barely any time to duel on that. Not in those first few seconds. Not when the sudden giddiness overwhelmed him and his breath came out shakily, as if somebody had just knocked it out of him. What was it that had just happened to him made him frown but his attention was instantly back on you.

The smile on the face of the person standing before him was not a surprise on it's own, seeing how much the sparkling and warm eyes told him that smiling was not a rare occurrence, but rather the fact that he had not expected such a friendly and caring, if the words were even enough to explain it, smile on your face after the way the words had sounded. Or perhaps it had indeed been all him and there had not been a real threat behind those words. He, after all, still kept forgetting that things had changed drastically.

“Let me guess-” the smile turned into a smirk, the teasing kind, the friendly and familiar kind of teasing he had truthfully never been on the receiving end and that sent him off balance “This is payback for those three weeks I stood you up in a row huh? Fair enough, fair enough. You had the right to not show up today either so I suppose I should be grateful you're here. And we're perfectly timed too.”

“Perfectly timed?” he repeated “I actually-” but before he could get to complete his sentence, he felt a pair of arms wrapping around him in what could clearly and very easily be described as a quick hug. It wasn't the long, tight and longing one he might have expected, probably because it hadn't been long since you had last been in touch, however that was not what he really dueled on at that moment. Not something he could duel on that is, not when he had to stop himself from returning the hug himself.

It was an impulse which he could again easily recognize, and even more easily blame on you. Because you had to be the one to blame, there was no other explanation. There was no other way to describe the way his body had just straight up frozen, not in shock but rather eager no less than a puppy (he could never admit to that) to turn to face you, eager to close the distance and eager to take everything in, whether it be by just getting to look at you or by, hopefully (why really?), getting to have you melt in his arms. Though shockingly enough he found himself doing the latter, feelings his muscles relax and a soft breath leave his lips when you were wrapped around him. It was strange, in a frightening way, and he had to push back all those feelings despite how he realized that it was easier to breathe with you there, without any weight resting on his chest. It was you who was responsible, that was easy to understand. What wasn't easy was the why. Why all of a sudden he felt this way with you?

“Gosh, Winchester-” ah yes, how did he not realize it? He was indeed the reason why and Michael hadn't even given his vessel a second thought, not until your eyes locked with his and his heart skipped a beat or two “I'll be able to see an angel's true form before you ever get rid of the green plaid huh?”

“I-” he looked down at himself, well aware that he hadn't had the chance to change Dean's clothes just yet “Funny enough, it was exactly what I had in mind too. Was actually planning on it.”

“Oh finally ready to dress to impress? Hm I wonder how I will be able to spot you next in the crowd. Was lucky this time I suppose.” you pulled away, playful smile ever present.

His eyes narrowed slightly in a way that must have scared his enemies in the past but that held no real threat this time, and maybe that was the most scary part: that he didn't meant it to be, especially to you “And... what makes you think I was actually heading this way?”

“Oh I see.” you placed your hand on your hips, nodding your head with a growing smirk “Feeling bold today. We haven't seen each other in quiet some time and here you come, ready to take me by surprise. I must warn you, though you already know, so I better say remind you-” you took a step closer to him and although he didn't let it show on his face, well, on Dean's face (or so he hoped) that didn't mean he didn't feel the flutter in his chest and the sudden weakness of his knees “You-” you poked his chest with your pointer and he could swear he felt the skin of his vessel start burning there, as if a fire was there that was only spreading “Would find it hard to surprise me, Dean. Not many people can, it's a tough challenge.”

“Well, you might have just done it there. It's time you finally found the right person because I was never one to say no to a challenge.” he felt his own lips form into a smirk, even though he was unable to believe how much he enjoyed seeing the sparkle of excitement in your eyes. Soon followed by the very familiar playfulness he could grow used to. And why shouldn't he? He had his sword, his perfect vessel, and nobody could take that away. He was in full control over Deans body and you clearly had not realized any difference, because apparently for what it mattered, maybe he was a lot like Dean after all- or at least could be, and that was more than enough.

“Bold of you to assume-” you pulled away and he had to stop himself- his vessel from taking a step forward to still be close with you “That it's a game with only one player. Let's see just how easily surprise you can be, Winchester. Feels like after years of friendship I might still be able to learn something new about you.”

“Then it would only be right to warn you I am not that easily taken by su-”

His words would have certainly held more value and determination, if not a chance at convincing you, if his voice had not wavered and, halfway through the sentence, they hadn't been cut off by a far-from-manly yelp that broke through his lips.

Well, if that wasn't a first. Again.

“Yeah, I get it. I get it. You macho man.” you scoffed, but the smirk on your lips was so playful that it almost made him forget what had just happened. Almost. Or maybe just for the moment, because he was sure he had a lot of thinking to do afterwards and maybe a much-needed conversation with his vessel about it.

“I- I didn't-” he blinked, more stunned with himself for reacting this way than anything else.

“'S alright-” you grinned at him in the end “Just, enough talking. Come on, this is no place for that kind of stuff.” you giggled and he got the impression that this wasn't a first for you, so really he ought to be prepared to be surprised in more ways than he could ever imagine.

“Wha- what a-are you-” it was so unlike him but everything about this situation was unlike anything he'd experienced before, he didn't really know what he should consider a normal reaction at this point.

“Wha- what?” you teased, mimicking him “Cat got your tongue, Winchester? Come on, move your pretty ass before they give our table away if we keep talking here.”

And just because he was such a fool for you already, or perhaps out of some inexplicable fear that your table would indeed be given away and you would have to part ways before he got enough of it, he didn't need to be told twice. He followed after you no better than a lost puppy, even if he'd deny it for the rest of his existence, not paying an ounce of attention as he should to the rest of his surroundings. And so, he didn't know what should alarm him more out of the two. The fact that it was easy to let go and relax so easily around you or the fact that he couldn't bring himself to be too far away from you.

Michael was confused. And whenever he was confused, as with anything in his entire existence ever since he was in heaven, he was intrigued. And whenever he was intrigued, he followed the one that interested him. Admittedly it had been centuries, if not ever before in his life, since the one to interest him in this way had been a person, and no less a woman like you.

“Feels like forever, doesn't it?” you breathed out as you both settled into your seats “I shouldn't tell you this but gosh... You're making me so sentimental and weak, Winchester, I'll have to change that somehow. But I have no idea how you do it in the first place, so...” you huffed with, narrowing your eyes at him.

“Good to know.” the easy smile on his lips felt both like his own and not “So I have to keep it up then.” and when he realized he too too much pleasure in your being playful with him, rolling your eyes, he didn't feel like questioning whose pleasure it was.

Your lips parted, and truth was he would have loved nothing more than to hear you tease him again, but he was also thankful for the interruption from the waitress and the moment of silence that followed afterwards, because at least then he had some time to gather his own thoughts, replay any moments that should have struck more than how beautiful your smile was or the way you looked at him.

Well, not him, Dean. But maybe-

“You said...” he started just as you'd given your orders, though he had barely cared about that when the thought crossed his mind “See an angel's true form?”

“Wha- Oh that.” you laughed, shaking your head “I'm not even close to that yet, I'm afraid. Not as much as I'd like but that's only because you're to blame, Winchester. I'm being as careful as I can so as expected things are going slow.”

“You've been... trying?” the confusion, if not the worry, was evident on his face much as he tried to hide it.

“If you say one more time that us psychics are too curious for our own good then I will kick you.” you said and proceeded to do just that under the table with your foot, managing to earn a small groan followed by a warm laugh from Dean.

“You said if. But I didn't say a damn thing!” he protested, still laughing and enjoying (far too much) the innocent shrug you gave him.

“Just taking precautions.” you grinned before you paused for a second too long and looked back up at him again with a softer smile, if he could even call it that, because it didn't reach your eyes not the way it should as he had observed the past couple minutes “I just...” you let a soft sigh “I'm sorry. I've- I know I've made you worry far too many times in the past. Scared you even. And well, you're no better sure, but I'm supposed to be the friend who has the functioning brain cells here and I haven't really lived up to that. I know-” another sigh and he was really starting to feel bothered by how much this seemed to stress you out, more than it stressed him out to keep up the act “I know how much you worry you. I really do. So I promise, even if it's hard for me, that I will hold back if I see things getting out of hand and I'm in danger again.”

The words rang in his ears louder than actual sirens ever could.

“Again?” he repeated with a raised eyebrow. He knew he probably looking more accusing than concerned, if not what he felt even more deep down: terrified. And he didn't even know what was more alarming anymore. The way his heart squeezed inside his chest or his palms clenched in order for his body to cope with the fact that his blood had ran cold and the shivers were far too unpleasant.

He didn't like it, he didn't like it one bit and he knew something had to be done about it.

“Figure of speech, I promise. There haven't been any close calls. At least- You know, ever since we last saw each other that is. But that too has been quiet some time. Speaking of which-” the smile returned on your lips and he had almost not realized it was not there until he understood how the uneasiness in his chest was also due to how you looked so distraught “How have things been for you hm? I haven't the slightest idea about what my two idiots have been up to lately. Is Sam alright?”

“Well, he's been... keeping busy, to say the least. Same goes for me. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Think of it as... a multiverse of madness being out there that needs the Winchesters to deal with.” he forced a small smile on his lips but he barely felt it to begin with, even if you were trying to stir the conversation away from any dangerous endeavors you might's recently had. And, truth be told, he couldn't even begin to think of all the times you might've gotten in trouble that weren't because of your own actions. The mere realization of that fact brought another unpleasant shiver down his spine.

“Ah, makes sense. We've been meeting up in this place at least once every week. 'S good though, I suppose, to take a break once in a while.” you gave a soft shrug, resting your chin on your palm and looked at him through your lashes “I am afraid we were both turning into two very sentimental fools, after all. Coming here, in the place we first met, after all these years.” a small laugh escaped your lips but he could hear the nervousness behind it, see how shy you were about it and deep down he loved seeing this side of you as well, if not wonder what else he could possibly do to evoke it “What are we anyway?”

The question did something to him and he soon realized it wasn't really him, but Dean. He couldn't always tell the difference, what with the Winchester being his perfect vessel, but in that moment he could, crystal clear. And once again it piqued his interest.

“Well, I don't know about you but I for one-” he paused to look into your eyes, to try and read some sort of emotion on your eyes that he might miss otherwise “Don't think I mind so much. Hell, I'll take pride in being always a fool for you.”

To see the way your eyes widened and your back straightened in surprise. Surprise that the words were said out loud or that they were said and were straight to the point, he couldn't tell. What he could tell was that you were not used to this and it was a good thing because things were changing and in a way this should too.

“Ah Dean, whatever happened to you these past months?” you looked away from him when you snapped out of the shock you were in, not that the small forced laugh was any indicator but the fact that you still felt stunned if not shy. You shook your head “Have some mercy on my poor heart, will you? Don't say things like that so carelessly.”

“I'm not being careless. If anything... I'm being honest.” and doing an incredible job at not showing how much that scares me but he couldn't really say that out loud and he knew “Besides, you were the one who started it.”

“Well, yes but actually no. This is what we do, Dean, you can't just go and- and be so... open about it. We-” a nervous laugh that he found too adorable for his poor heart's sake, well Dean's actually but it felt all the same at that moment “What was it that Sam called it? Uh yes, we're both too emotionally constipated to function like proper humans.”

“We don't talk about it remember?” you added in almost a whisper voice, making Michael wonder what was really there more than your playful banter and the way his vessel's heart couldn't rest for a minute “Besides, I know you're not as cool about it as you'd like to think. I can see it all over your face, so stop pretending Winchester.” you huffed, leaning back in your seat with your arms crossed over your chest, and he realized maybe he had underestimated you.

“And that is supposed to mean... what exactly?” he couldn't help the edge his voice took, too many years, centuries that felt an eternity, had taken their toll on him.

“Well, many things actually. But what matters most right now is one...” you tilted your head to the side, a soft expression on your face which stunned him momentarily “There's something on your mind.” it was a statement the left no room for debate “Wanna talk about it?”

The mere sincerity and care in your words were too much to believe in this entirely unprecedented event, and so it was no surprise when the words got stuck in his throat and his mind went entirely bank. Despite the lump that was stuck in his throat, despite how hard it was to swallow it over, the words in the very end formed before he could even comprehend it. And they were some of the most honest ones he'd spoke in a long time “Do I?” he questioned, mostly himself without any expectations for an answer “Funny...”

“What's funny about it?” naturally, though, you didn't hold back. It was clear that no matter how well you could read him, no matter how he was an open book to you, you wanted to know more of him. But which him was the real question.

Michael couldn't even remember when it was the last time that someone cared to know about him. Him, and not whoever had granted him access to wear around. Him, and not whatever face he had. Him, and how he felt. Him, and how he he thought. Him, and why he had done everything he did, what had led him to it and how he felt about it. It was a scary thought and feeling. Scary to hope there could be someone that would look past all of those layers, all that the eyes could see, and try to understand him. Scary that he wanted it, even more. Scary that after all this time, at the most tumultuous time and as he was in the right path to his goals, he felt the need for something so deep. Scary that it could lead him away from said path.

Who was even that reckless to try any of it though? Who could so carelessly approach him and-

“Nothing.” the question answered itself “It's just amusing how... strange it sounds to hear someone ask me if I wanna talk about what troubles me, after all this time. But-” he said as fast as he could, the second he saw you frown in worry “We have plenty of time to talk about that and I promise we will. Later. For now-” he grinned, leaning back in his seat “Seeing an angel's true form huh? That's quiet reckless, you know. If not stupid and careless...”

“Yeah, I know, I was just throwing out the idea that I might-”

“But also fun.” he added before you could get to complete your sentence, enjoying the way that after your frown a smile light up your face once he added with a smirk “Want any help with that?”

[honestgrins]

I have a prompt for you if you can. Not sure if you watch Legacies, there’s an episode where Lizzie makes a wish to a Jinn that Hope is never born. In this alternate universe, Lizzie won the Merge, Klaus flipped his switch 2 years ago in grief and started a war with the humans leading to Triad publicly hunting all supernaturals. Enemy #1 is Klaus and his vampire wife Caroline Mikaelson. I’d like to see a Klaroline fic of this AU please.

Prompt part 2. I have some personal thoughts on this alternative universe but itS totally up to you if you go with them or if you come up with your own. No Hope means no Hayley, means no Elijah dying. So why was Klaus grieving? No Hope means back in TVD S4 the witches had no way of luring him to NO so he stayed in MF eventually wearing Caroline down into a relationship. Josie and Lizzie were like his daughters and when they merged he and Caroline both flipped the switch in grief of Josie.

 Tears Will Never Dry (angsty)

“I failed them.” Her voice was so small and defeated. Curled up as she was in the armchair, Caroline looked blankly out the window. Though she had a perfect view of Bonnie talking through some witchy herbs with a despondent Lizzie out in the courtyard, her eyes didn’t seem to register. It was like she wasn’t even there.

Klaus, who once proudly professed he had no heart, felt something break inside him for he knew nothing could truly comfort her. He had failed her. So he offered what little he could, what he held onto when she was so far away. “You love them so completely, you could never fail them,” he vowed, and he’d never meant something so much. It took all his strength not to pull her into his arms, to close the distance she wrapped around herself so tightly. “You will help Lizzie through this, and—” The lump in his throat made it hard to speak, not that he could bring himself to say the name she cried in her sleep. “—you loved her to the end.”

Tears trickled down her crumpled face. “It’s not supposed to happen that way,” she croaked. “Mom and Dad loved me to the end, too. Their ends. Now, I have to live with her being gone. Forever.”

It used to be a promise between them, sweet and tempting; on her tongue, the word sounded sour. Helpless and desperate, Klaus kneeled  at her feet. He pressed his mouth to her knee, hands wrapped around her legs like a lifeline. “Tell me what I can do. Please, sweetheart. Let me help.”

Blinking down at him, she let her fingers card through his hair. Her smile was sad, apologetic. “It just hurts so much.”

And he knew it was too late.

The club was a dangerous idea. They were meant to be in hiding, and it defied sense to flaunt their return to New Orleans in a favorite haunt. But the girls were having fun, and Klaus was loathe to break up the party with sense.

He was tucked into the quietest corner of the VIP lounge, high above the din. Lizzie and Caroline, meanwhile, danced in the crush of the crowd, the pounding beat far too much for even a vampire’s ears. They laughed as they bumped into each other, and a smile curled his lips. It was good to be home.

Their little family was still grieving Josie’s loss after two years, each in their own way. Caroline preferred enjoying the lighter side of life, aided by a lack of human sensibilities. Lizzie alternated between reveling in her magic and loathing it for the too dear cost, just as she hated her mother for flipping the switch and loved having her as more of a friend. Klaus...

Klaus was just trying to keep the game interesting.

“Careful, friend,” Marcel warned, offering him a fresh drink as he dropped into the next chair. “Your humanity is showing.”

“She’s not paying me any mind, we can speak freely.” He turned to his old friend, a son that was lost and found, then lost and found again. How he wished he could grant such a miracle to Caroline. “Tell me about Triad.”

Clenching his glass, Marcel looked grim. “My nightwalkers keep disappearing, and even the ones with the GIft,” he murmured with laden meaning, since vampires had learned to hoard the secret of lapis lazuli and the safety it provided, “have mentioned being followed. Davina hasn’t risen far in the ranks of the organization yet, but she thinks a big move is in the works.”

He grit his teeth. “And?”

“The ‘vampire wife’ is whispered around the place. Often.”

It was a fight to loosen the tension in his body, but a necessary one. He raised a toast to Caroline, who tried to coax him out to the dance floor. He shook his head, charming enough so as not to rouse her suspicion. “I assume a kidnapping then.”

“At the least,” Marcel agreed. “Whether they want information from her or to use her against you, torture is to be expected. The switch might be a benefit to her if it comes to that—”

"It won't." His tone was final, even as he held his smirk. The ladies were too busy laughing off those bold men trying to dance with them to read him from afar. "She's been through enough."

Noticeably quiet, Marcel just sipped his drink.

“What, Marcellus?” Klaus bit out.

With a measured glance toward him, he shrugged. “The switch... She’s not really going through anything, and she hasn’t for years now. And thinking you’ve flipped yours, too? You’ve created a comfortable little world for her to avoid the pain, maintaining it to keep her safe without her knowing. What happens when the illusion shatters?”

He gave a careless flip of his hand. “She can’t turn it off twice.”

“If you say so.”

It wasn’t a new argument to Klaus, not when Stefan, Bonnie, Elijah — even Rebekah — had implored him to rethink his grand strategy for Caroline to party away the worst of her pain. At the very least, he could be honest about his own, relatively intact humanity. Instead, he let her enjoy the lighter side of life without tempting a worse outcome should she feel the need to punish him for trying to fix her. After all, she’d done much the same when her mother died.

The subterfuge was messy but necessary, especially with credible threats against her in this war the humans insist upon waging. His ear was attuned to the array of heartbeats throughout the club, the loud music not enough to dull his hybrid senses. Vampires had a slow, dull throb when compared to the hearty pound of a werewolf, not that they’d find themselves in the Abattoir without some pressing business that was sure to involve him. Same with the witches, and only Lizzie’s let out the fast-paced thrum of both full blood and magic.

Humans, though, they seemed to be threading in from the edges of the crowd — and aiming for the blondes at the center. Feeling the world slow around him, Klaus launched himself down from the balcony, mindless to the vampires hurrying to get everyone out of his way. None of them caught the true danger, however, until the strobe light caught on the wooden stakes being pulled from jackets.

Klaus managed to snap three necks before they got close, but Caroline was too busy blocking access to Lizzie to notice the woman stretching a strong arm toward her. Feeling like he was underwater, he watched as Lizzie’s fear overwhelmed her, and the hand grasped around her mother’s wrist glowed red. Pain seemed to lance through Caroline, and she lost her focus to fend off the attack she still hadn’t seen coming.

The familiar scent of her blood filled the air, and all Klaus could see was red.

Later, he would confirm that the scratch down Caroline’s back healed perfectly, that she’d survived the bold offensive he hadn’t stopped. Even later than that, he would acknowledge his plan had been far from perfect, without even the veneer of success to defend it when her humanity was eventually restored.

But in the moment, the thought of losing her to his own carelessness was too much. Clearly, holding onto his humanity wasn’t working the way he’d envisioned; in fact, his rage at the sight of a stake piercing her skin felt like a liability. He processed this in the span of a second, and by the time the human’s bloody head hit the dance floor, his decision had been made.

The world already saw him as a ruthless monster. He might as well give it to them, and he’d make them bleed for daring to harm her. He didn’t need his humanity for that.

With his fangs bared and blood dripping from his hand, he certainly looked the part. When Caroline met his eyes, however, something must have alerted her to the change. Having torn the stake from her back and moved Lizzie to the safe space between them, her head tilted to the side as she appraised him with a new appreciation. She gave a sharp grin of joy and arousal, her tongue slipping from beneath her fangs to wet the corner of her lips. “It’s about time.”

[alpacaparkaseok]

Lost & Found - 10

Pairing: Park Jimin x soulmate (oc)

Warnings: Insecurity, anxiety, abandonment

Word Count: 5.1k

a/n: thanks for waiting! I normally post in the mornings but life happened and this is also a super important chapter (lol, they all are) that I needed to make sure was prepared to launch us into phase 3. (yesss, there are phases!) as always, thanks for reading, and let me know how it went!!

Chapter 10. Blue & Grey

series masterlist

Yuri steps into the back a moment later, coming to lean up against the counter beside me as I struggle to free myself from Taehyung’s gaze. In the span of a single blink, his eyes soften and he’s wearing a pleasant expression as Yuri begins to speak.

“You said you wanted to talk about something important with me?” Yuri urges, looking a little worried yet elated to have such prominent figures in her small bread shop. Namjoon nods hastily, sparing me a glance.

“Yes, thanks for seeing us. We know that this is a little...strange, perhaps. But we wanted to make sure everything was settled before things can get out of hand.”

Of course, my heart begins to race a little more. “What do you mean, ‘get out of hand’?”

For all the world, Taehyung looks like he’s ready to answer me, but Namjoon responds before he can get a chance. “Yuri, I’m assuming that you’re aware of Jolie’s, erm...accident.”

“Oh, of course,” she offers me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand what that has to do with anything you’re here for.”

Namjoon and Taehyung share a look before turning back to Yuri and I. Clinging to my apron which I have yet to remove, I pray that they can’t see the slight tremor in my hands. A thought passes through my mind, completely unbidden and foreign. Before I’m able to stop myself, the words dive off my tongue.

“Is...is he alright?”

Taehyung’s gaze snaps to me, brows furrowing as he looks genuinely confused. Namjoon, however, takes in my white knuckles and hunched shoulders, and gently smiles.

Before Namjoon can reassure me, however, Taehyung jumps in. “He’s fine. We’re here to discuss other things, however.”

The way that Namjoon doesn’t say anything to cross Taehyung has me realizing that while he may be the leader, this is a completely different ballgame.

It’s me, Jimin’s disgraced soulmate, against Taehyung, his proclaimed soulmate.

I know a losing game when I see one.

“Right. Yuri, we’ve got to discuss some sensitive information with you today. Would you be willing to sign an NDA?” Namjoon steers us back on course, even as Yuri glances back and forth between Taehyung and I.

“Oh. Y-yes, of course.”

Clapping his hands together, Namjoon dives right in. “Perfect. Well, I would like to discuss a few things with you. Taehyung-”

“Yep.” Without leaving me an opportunity to ask questions, Taehyung is coming to stand before me. “While Namjoon is explaining some things to your boss, we’re going to have a chat.”

Glancing over at Namjoon, who is leading Yuri to one corner of the large room, near the storage area, I receive no mercy. When I turn to look back at Taehyung, I catch him staring down at my thread with a faraway look in his eyes.

Needing to have something to keep me going while I receive what I’m sure is going to be a royal chewing out, I turn to head over to the worktable.

“You talk, I’ll knead.”

✂

I’ve learned something about Taehyung in the past few minutes.

He doesn’t hate me as much as he would like for me to think he does.

It was quiet for a long moment as I sprinkled flour over the worktable and pulled out a slab of dough I had been planning to let some of the other employees use later on in the day. With my heart in my throat, I began to beat it into shape. For about a minute, the only sound in the workroom was the sound of the dough against the table and Namjoon’s hushed conversation with Yuri.

Taehyung sidles next to me, the silence suddenly becoming blaringly loud as he watches my hands. Over and over again, I roll the dough. Once it’s sufficiently loose and pliable, I begin to shape it.

“So this is your job?”

He can’t keep the curious tone out of his voice, and I glance over at him to see his wide eyes flitting between me and the dough. Almost as though he can’t quite believe it.

“What did you think I did?” I ask, not able to refrain from my sarcastic streak. “Buried bodies?”

Just like that, whatever angry storm clouds were lingering in his eyes dissipate and he laughs. Laughs loud enough that both Namjoon and Yuri pause in their conversation before continuing.

“Honestly,” he confesses, “something like that. Yeah.”

I snort, returning to the dough. “Nice.”

“Do you think you can teach me?”

“How to bake bread?” I ask, curious at his change in attitude. I see him nod in my peripheral.

“Yeah. I think it looks amazing. Very therapeutic.” He pauses, and I can almost see the thought bubble hovering over his head. “We have a pretty big table at the house, you could probably use it. Or does it have to be a certain material?”

A part of me freezes under the nonchalant mention of the house he shares with my soulmate. The way he’s testing the waters, assessing me for any kind of reaction.

Another thing that I’m learning about Kim Taehyung: he picks up on everything.

“Er...what kind of table is it? Like, is it a countertop or-”

“Oh, yeah. The big one is the kitchen island. It’s a granite countertop I think...Namjoon hyung!”

There’s no need to yell, but he does anyway.

“What?” Namjoon asks, bewildered but used to this kind of behavior.

Taehyung turns back to me, shrugging. “It probably is. Would that work?”

I blink, wondering if it’s ok for me to laugh at what just happened. Shouldering through it, I focus on the dough again. “Yeah, granite’s great for dough.”

Taehyung looks lost in thought, but I’m starting to realize that I should always be on my toes around him. Indeed, he recovers quickly and decides to finally discuss what he came here to talk about.

“I’m assuming your boss doesn’t know what really happened,” he states quietly enough that there’s no way Yuri can hear him from across the room. A simple shake of my head is all it takes to confirm what he said. Glancing around the room, he notices the back door.

“I think it might be best if we step out back for a moment.” Taehyung takes a step toward the door before stopping to look back at me where I stand with the dough still in my hands. “Unless you need to finish that first…?”

I shake my head, pushing the dough back into a metal bowl and covering it up with a cloth. Wiping my floury hands on my apron, I follow Taehyung to the back alleyway. The sun is nearing the highest point in the sky, bearing down on us and filling my bones up with a little warmth despite the general chill in the air.

Taehyung makes his way to the opposite wall of the alley, looking around as though checking for spies before facing me. There’s no need for me to question him as to what’s going on, he can see the question clearly in my eyes.

“We have a Muster coming up in less than two days,” he begins, crossing his arms. “Jimin is going to perform on stage for the final song.”

It takes a moment for me to fully understand what that means.

“They’ll see what happened,” Taehyung continues, watching my every movement. “And I think it’ll be all too easy for people to see you and instantly accuse you. Which, they won’t be wrong. But still, it could get ugly.”

I know what he’s implying. Suddenly life will become a burning hell for the scarce few that have a severed thread. Which, by my understanding, is no more than a handful.

Immediately my thoughts go to Christina. “What about those people that have nothing to do with it but could be accused?” It would be devastating for her to think that she’d been the one to bring Jimin so much pain.

Taehyung tilts his head to one side. “You keep surprising me.” Before I can ask what he means, he continues. “That’s what we’re here for today. In order to protect those people and you, Bighit has to come up with some sort of cover story. Make it really seem like an accident. We just need to keep you out of sight while things get straightened out.”

Dread, cold as ice as just as sharp, sluices through my veins. “No.”

I can tell that this, at least, Taehyung was expecting. “You don’t have a choice-”

“So you want me to hide away forever?” I hiss, rocking back on my heels. “People will find out soon enough. And they’ll rip me to shreds!”

That cold fire from before is back and blazing in Taehyung’s eyes as he listens to my objections. “No! They won’t, that’s the whole point. They’ll understand that it was an accident-”

“Which they’ll immediately want to fix!” I shout, the sound echoing down the alleyway. “You don’t understand, no matter what you tell people, this ends up with me being forced right back where I was before.”

“And where was that?” Taehyung seethes, taking a step forward and making me stumble back. Those hawk-like eyes see how I react, but there’s no pity in them. “How horrible for you to be stuck with someone that would only love you. That would never ask for anything in return. That just wanted - wants still - nothing more than to be linked to you in any way possible.”

The confession falls flat in the face of my fear, however it’s something I know will come back to haunt me later. Instead, I allow my roaring emotions to take over even as I find that my back is now pressed against the wall.

“Of course I want that!” I shout, and Taehyung blinks. “Of course I want him! Did you want me to go to your house and grovel at his feet for forgiveness, and then teach you how to bake bread like some big happy family? Did you want me to tell you all about how the first and last thing I think about every day is Park Jimin and how I know the perfect way to hate myself for cutting this?” Throwing my hand up into the air I bite down the sobs that try to surface. “I sat and watched this thread burn not because I didn’t want him, but because I had to remove myself from his life before I could enter it.”

I can see the objection brewing in Taehyung’s mind, but I stop him.

“Jimin is not the problem,” I sigh out, utterly exhausted. “He became everything to me the second I saw him, but he is everything to everyone. I...I can’t be that. I don’t think I ever can.”

Taehyung’s eyes clear, and he looks down at me with sudden understanding. I want to lash out, writhe under that understanding, but I can’t stop the way his thoughts seemingly click together.

“I- Jolie, you’re not a puzzle that’s missing a piece. You don’t have to suddenly click into a pattern that everyone else has. You’re a human being,” Taehyung says reverently, and I wonder for a moment if someone has said this to him before. “You are allowed to just bake bread for the rest of your life, if you want. Nobody is going to ask you to stand on the stage, not even Jimin.”

“But I feel like I shouldn’t keep doing the same thing if I’m with him. I have to be more, somehow.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Taehyung admits. “Just because you’re allowed to be comfortable and hide away doesn’t mean you should. It’s tempting, I’ll give you that much.” He shrugs, still looking at me with that new light. “But you’re allowed to learn at your own pace, venture out of your comfort zone when you feel brave enough to do it. Just know this: most people never feel brave enough but do it anyway.”

“Why?”

Holding up his left hand where his deep red thread extends to the ground and through the back door, he smiles softly. “We deem the risk worth it, in the end.”

I’m just processing the fact that I had a screaming match with Taehyung when Namjoon pokes his head out into the alleyway. Both Taehyung and I turn to face him, looking guilty.

“I told you that I’d have to end up explaining everything,” he remarks drily. “Did you two manage to discuss the plan?”

Somehow, as Taehyung and I sheepishly shake our heads, I feel like I’ve made an ally in an enemy.

✂

Jolie (Elle): This is me telling you that I’m still alive, as you requested.

Me: Wow. That bad of a day? Are you going to take a nap?

Jolie (Elle): Literally as soon as I get home. I have to stop by the store and grab some cat food, Elle nearly murdered me in my sleep over it last night.

Me: I can literally feel your exhaustion through the phone.

Me: Was work ok??

Jimin has to wait a little while for a response. He just got a text from Namjoon, notifying him that they were headed to the Bighit building. When he asked him how it went with Jolie, he’d only received a vague answer.

It did nothing to calm his nerves. Especially knowing that Taehyung, even though he’d promised him that he’d stay calm, had gone in there with no shortage of wrath.

Jolie (Elle): Fine

He’d been afraid of that.

Me: 😟

Me: I’m so sorry, sounds like today has officially sucked

Jimin stares down at his phone, waiting for some sort of response.

Jolie (Elle): No need to apologize.

Jolie (Elle): It was my fault anyways.

“No,” Jimin whispers to himself, eyes wide as his fingers fly across the screen. Before he can even think about the message, he sends it. All he wants is to stop this ache in his chest that he’s sure Jolie feels as well.

Me: I wish I was there.

Three little dots appear on his screen, Jolie typing a message, but then they disappear. A moment later, they come back and a message follows.

Jolie (Elle): It’s fine, really. Texting is enough, I really appreciate it

The butterflies that erupt in Jimin’s stomach are enough to make a grown man cry, but he knows deep down that a text is not enough. Bringing his phone to his ear, he listens to the ringing. Taehyung and Namjoon walk through the door of the practice room right as Jimin begins to speak.

“Hi, I’d like to place an order.”

✂

There’s something on my porch.

I noticed the little pop of color as I began up the stairs to my apartment, carrying a grocery bag with catnip and a bar of chocolate, my excuse for a pickmeup. It wasn’t until I made it to the top of the stairs that I realized what it was that was waiting for me.

A bouquet of flowers. Hydrangeas, white and pink hydrangeas are waiting for me. They have a dewy shimmer to them, catching the sunlight just right.

Obviously, this is a mistake.

“Elle, look at these,” I coo as I shoulder open the door. Immediately the white cat appears, sniffing at the bag filled with catnip rather than the flowers. “Nooo, not that. The flowers.”

She doesn’t care about the flowers, apparently. Giving in, I gingerly set the flowers on the counter and get to work setting her food out. Once Elle is feasting away, I turn back to the flowers.

“Now, who were you supposed to be delivered to?” I hum, plucking the small envelope from amidst the arrangement. Taking a generous whiff, I close my eyes as the sweet aroma fills my senses. “Ugh, whoever they are, they’re lucky. These are absolutely beautiful, don’t you think?”

Again, Elle proves that she really couldn’t care less about the floral arrangement on the counter. Except to maybe knock it over, perhaps.

Slipping open the envelope, I take in the short message.

Jolie,

Because a text isn’t enough.

-PJM

“PJM?”I breathe out, staring at those initials with wide eyes. My breath comes up short as I reread the card again and again, flipping it over to see if there’s anything else. Some sort of clue.

“Elle, these are for us.”

The only response I get is a lazy swish of her tail, but I’m not paying attention to her anyway. All I’m looking at is that bouquet of flowers that’s meant for me after all.  

Ripping my phone out of my back pocket, I open it up to my text conversation with Jaemin. Scrolling through his concerned texts, trying to see if I’m doing alright. With shaking hands, I type out the letters.

Me: PJM?

✂

“She’s not ready to know the truth,” Taehyung reports.

Jimin sits beside him on the couch, arms crossed and looking out the window with a glazed expression. The other members listen to every word that Namjoon and Taehyung are saying, finally getting a full report of the events at the bread shop.

Nevermind the fact that it’s been hours and it’s nearly midnight.

“What? That Jimin’s actually Jaemin?” Jin stretches a little, bumping into Yoongi who hardly notices. “I mean, it’s not like it’s that much of a stretch.”

Taehyung shrugs, glancing over at Jimin who has yet to say anything. “We talked-”

“Screamed,” Namjoon corrects. Jimin perks up at this.

“What were you screaming about?”

Taehyung assesses his friend, deeming him capable of receiving this information. “You. Her own insecurities. Bread.”

“Bread?” Jungkook questions, but it goes unanswered.

“Some part of her wants to be with you,” Taehyung explains, completely overlooking Jungkook’s curious expression. “But she’s freaked out. Kind of like how Jungkook mentioned before, when you first started texting. She’s so in her own head that it’s hard for her to see that you wouldn’t demand her to become some sort of celebrity.”

“She thinks that I would?” Jimin asks. He left his phone in his bedroom, deciding to leave Jolie’s simple question, PJM?, until after he’d had a chance to discuss it with everyone. He knew what she was asking. It was a deliberate choice of his to put his initials on the card rather than the fake name.

He couldn’t stomach her thinking that the flowers were from some random Jaemin, when they were in fact from him.

Her soulmate.

“No, not necessarily. She said that she feels like she would have to become something more, though. Purely because you are who you are. And I think that’s something that really scares her.”

It’s also something that Jimin doesn’t know how to fix. “If she’s not willing to get out of her own head, then how am I supposed to help her?”

Namjoon pipes up. “She seemed a lot better, though. I think, whatever she’s doing, she’s getting better. Chung-hei mentioned that she’s seeing a therapist, actually.”

Jimin sits back. “Good. That’s good.” He chews on the inside of his cheek. “What did she say about the plan?”

The plan. It wasn’t much of a plan. In reality, it was more of a precaution than anything. They all knew that everything would be a mess after Jimin goes back into the public eye, and Jolie would be at risk by just stepping foot outside her door.

“She agreed to be chauffeured,” Namjoon says. “I mean, obviously she’s not happy about it, but she said she understood.”

Jolie would be picked up in the morning and after her shift by a nondescript car driven by Bighit employees. Anytime she needed groceries, they would pick them up for her. Do anything they can to keep her out of the public eye.

“I’m kind of surprised that she agreed,” Jimin admits. “Maybe that’s a good sign?”

There’s a grumble of agreement, and soon after the boys are dispersing. Only one day left until the Muster, tomorrow was going to be busy with final rehearsals and preparations.

Jimin heads up to his room, laying on his bed and staring at the short message from hours earlier.

Jolie (Elle): PJM?

Sighing and ignoring the nerves in his stomach, Jimin just prays that all is not lost.

Me: Yes?

For now, she’s asleep. He doesn’t expect a response anytime soon. Rolling over and facing the wall, Jimin tries his best to close his eyes and let everything roll off his shoulders.

She’s bound to find out sometime.

✂

Jimin’s hands are sweaty as he paces below stage, listening to the roar of the crowd as his brothers perform above him.

The Muster came all too quickly.

Yesterday passed in a blur, consisting of Jimin checking his phone every few minutes only to find it void of any incoming messages. In his heart of hearts, he knew.

She must suspect that her newfound friend is her soulmate in disguise.

It’s with this knowledge that Jimin steps onto the lift, waiting for his brothers to finish their goodbyes before going up for the encore performance.

Looking around him, Jimin watches the staff and stage crew bustling about, preparing for the end of the Muster. Needless to say, his gaze wanders to the countless threads that overlap and lead in every direction. It’s always amazed him, how they never get tangled. How nobody ever trips over them.

Jimin has always marveled at the fact that somehow, somewhere on the other end of those threads is another person. Someone just as busy, just as oblivious to the lifeform attached to them through indescribable means.

Park Jimin has always been told that he would be the best soulmate.

He’s kind, and considerate. Loving and forgiving beyond all comprehension.

It’s something that he has believed is a lie. Every night, even before Jolie cut the very thing that tied them together, he’d lay in bed and stare at that red thread. Wondering what would happen when his soulmate was inevitable disappointed in the fact that their star-studded soulmate was just...him.

Tonight though, as the lift carries him up toward the stage and the beginning cords of “Blue & Grey” begin to play, he begins to believe.

He would be the best soulmate.

Perhaps this is the moment where he proves it. Without hatred, without envy. Without a wounded look in his eyes.

With that conviction humming in his bones, he rises to the stage and walks out under the spotlight.

The arena around him booms with sound as Jimin walks toward where his brothers sit in a semicircle. They gleam with sweat, still breathing heavily after their last performance. As Jimin takes a seat, he looks out into the crowd.

He sees the exact moment they realize what’s missing.

Or rather, hears.

That roar of the crowd, his ARMY so happily welcoming him back to the stage after his long absence, turns to deafening silence.

Into the silence, Jimin sings.

Blue & Grey plays out, Jimin raising the mic to his mouth and singing his parts with a steady voice. He waits for the end, hoping that the CG team in charge of the large screen behind him was able to carry out his request in time.

Taehyung sings the final words, his voice carrying in the quiet arena. And behind Jimin, three letters are traced out across the screen.

PJM.

As soon as the song is finished, the boys get up from their seats and make their way to the lift. They shoot Jimin curious looks as they spot his initials, but he shrugs it off for now. He can only hope that the person it was intended for saw them.

They’ve just made it to the lift when the wailing begins, the crowd having finally broken free of the spell that Blue & Grey wove over them.

“Saranghae Army!” Jimin shouts into the mic, smiling softly. The other members begin to bid them goodbye, reassuring them. They all know it will do little, already a few members of the crowd are inconsolable, but they do it nonetheless.

✂

“Twitter is blowing up right now,” Christina says, scrolling through her feed. I lay on her couch, staring at her television.

I’d come here to see if I sounded like a crazy person for taking Jaemin’s initials so seriously. However, I can’t shake the feeling of something being off.

Naturally, I’ve ignored the problem by not responding to him for a day. I’d say it’s a step up from what I’ve done in the past. At least I’m not cutting him out of my life, right?

“Isn’t it always blowing up over something?” I drawl. When I don’t get a response, I look over to see what the big deal is about.

Christina sits up in her chair, hand thrown over her mouth as her wide eyes stare at her phone.

“What? What happened?”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “I...you need to see this.” Screen-sharing with her TV, a stage replaces our episode. “He went public. It’s official.”

Ah, right. I’d also come to give Christina a fair warning about what was about to happen. Jimin going public today was the other thing occupying all of my thoughts, but I didn’t realize just how big it would be until I see the impact he had at the Muster.

Heart racing and stomach churning, I watch as Jimin appears on stage.

“Wow, that’s a statement,” Christina comments. “Doing ‘Blue & Grey’ as his comeback song?” She catches my eye, realizing who she’s speaking to. “Oh. Right.”

As Jimin settles down and Taehyung begins to sing, I find myself utterly entranced by him. He looks calm. Confident.

The world falls silent in what I assume is the moment people begin to notice that there are only six, not seven, red threads up on stage tonight.

Jimin doesn’t falter in the silence. Instead, he fills it with his voice.

“I’d forgotten,” I croak out. The rest of the words won’t come easily, but thankfully Christina understands what I mean.

“Yeah. He has a beautiful voice, doesn’t he?”

Wordlessly, we watch the rest of the performance. I can’t help but notice the fact that the cameras never pan too far so as to not see Jimin. I’m sure that they’re just as shocked as everyone else is.

As the song comes to an end, I find that somehow my eyesight has become blurry. I can’t quite tell what’s on the screen behind the boys even as Christina begins to shout.

“Look! He- he’s confirming it! Look!”

Rubbing madly at my eyes, I get a closer look at what’s on the screen. The second I see it, I stop breathing altogether.

PJM.

It wasn’t a coincidence.

“It’s him.”

Christina leans forward as the video ends, looking at me for a moment before laughing. “I mean, are we actually surprised? He didn’t try that hard to hide it, now did he? Park Jaemin, seriously?”

As much as I would love to laugh at this moment, I find that I can’t.

My new friend. The one I would scramble to read whenever I got a notification. The one that constantly checked up on me.

The one obsessed with my cat.

“How?” I breathe out.

Christina doesn’t bother to offer a reply, just watching me as the gears shift in my head. No answers are forthcoming, of course. Just the small sliver of truth that keeps on coming back.

“My soulmate is my friend,” I say. It’s obvious, but it’s important.

Jimin is my friend.

Letting out a sigh, Christina nods. “Yes. Your friend.”

The only other coherent thought that crosses my mind has me getting to my feet and slipping my jacket on over my shoulders.

“I need to go.”

“What do you mean, ‘need to go’?” Christina gets up after me, following me to the door. “Aren’t we hitting a major breakthrough right now? Your estranged soulmate is also your friend. Park Jimin isn’t just some celebrity, he’s your friend. Someone you can trust. I mean, sure, this doesn’t mean you have to barge up to his house and see him. That would be weird anyways, because then the thread would reconnect and only extend a few feet, at least, that’s what I’ve heard. It’s weird, because it’s almost like the thread has a mind of its own, you know? In order to defend itself upon reconnection, it keeps a short distance between the soulmates until it's sure they’re safe-”

“Christina.” I turn around to face her, one hand on the door. “He’s my friend, right? A good friend.”

She nods, looking a little confused. “Yeah, I thought we already established that.”

“Friends deserve an explanation, right?”

Christina blinks, looking a little nervous. “You’re not going to visit him, right? You should take the proper precautions for that, you never know how the bond with react-”

“I’m not going to see him,” I reassure her. “I’ll call you tomorrow, ok?”

Before she can question me further, I’m out the door. Keeping my head down as I head out on the main road and pass a group of teenagers, I overhear their shocked conversation.

“How does that even work, though?”

“I don’t know, but my dad’s cousin nearly had his thread cut-”

“I bet it’s all for publicity,” another remarks. “Don’t know why they need it, though.”

“Why would they cut a thread for publicity? Idiot, it’s probably CG. Maybe they did it to raise awareness or something.”

I don’t get to hear how their conversation ends before a black SUV pulls off to the side of the road and a woman sticks her head out of the window.

“Hey,” she flashes the ID hanging around her neck. I recognize it as a Bighit ID. “Operation Chauffeur is in full effect now. Hop in.”

It’s unsettling how they found me so quickly, but I distinctly remember agreeing to this plan just a couple of days ago. Sliding into the backseat, I ask the driver to take me home.

“Your name is Jolie?” The woman asks, hands on the steering wheel.

“Yes.”

“I’m Sunmi. Looks like we’ll be spending a lot of time together.”

✂

As I finally bid Sunmi goodnight - she’s oddly friendly for a Bighit staff member that’s typically charged with driving BTS around - I stumble into my apartment and head straight toward my room. Elle hasn’t arrived back home yet, probably still out on her nightly jaunt.

Which, apparently included Jimin without me even knowing it.

Flipping the light on to my room, I see that the Seoul City Electric envelope is exactly where I left it.

Sitting down at my desk and finding an empty page in a notebook, I take a deep breath.

Once I exhale, I begin to write.

And write.

And write.

Previous - Next

main masterlist

taglist is open! comment/send an ask, or click on the link in the series masterlist!

taglist: @secretlycrazyhummingbird @marianeamine @baepsaetay @dreamcatcherjiah @kookie-vuitton @thecaffeinatedscribbles @moon-write @fangirl125reader @heishichoulevi @knjkitten @sacha-cff @vik7797  @eusticenatalie @hesmyphenominiall @miriamxsworld @kayahay @onewoneman @preciouschimine @missseoulite @somewhereinthestarss @chubsjmin​ @daydreamerwestwood @010op10​ @4evahevah @mawwnsterr @hikka-light @biasnation @eusticenatalie @betysotelo18​ @fangirl125reader  @shhhhsecwet @channiespup @loudnecktrashrascal

[procrastinatorproject]

Fic writer review, thank you to @thelaithlyworm  for the tag <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

Ten? Oh no, it’s actualy 12 now!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

86,468

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Grand total of 1: Star Trek: Picard - although my latest offering might branch a bit into other Trek as well.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Passengers”

“And a Barrel of Gagh”

“CMO’s Log”

“Preparations”

“Game Night”

Which is actually kinda interesting. I wrote Passengers, Preparations, and Game Night while the fandom was still a lot more active (especially in the Aramis in Space corner), so that makes sense. The CMO’s log has had chapters added every few months, giving it probably the most exposure of any of my fics. Barrel of Gagh, though? I think I’m gonna attribute that to Thimblerig turning it into a truly, TRULY brilliant piece of podfic. Also the fact that it’s whump involving a character played by Santiago Cabrera. ‘tis A Thing..... :D

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to! I love talking with people in the comments and just... thanking the people who found the time and energy to leave comments. But especially in the last few months I have gotten very bad at keeping up with the comments and now there’s about two dozen that I have neglected to reply to for a painfully long time 🙈

But I will get there! Because I love that kind of interaction!

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

So far, none of them have had angsty endings. Angsty middles, yes, but not endings. I’m just a sucker for everyone being happy in the end. Or at least on the way to being better, and supported and cared for on that way.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t yet, but I’m definitely not opposed. One of the threads of my 200k unpublishable whump scenes takes place in a continuity that has existed in my daydreams for... I wanna say six years at the very least, probably longer. It’s mostly straight-up Star Trek, but with the twist that it involves the Wraith, the telepathic, hive-minded alien race from Stargate: Atlantis that suck the life force out of you with their hands? Or, well, at least a variation thereof.

I once typed up the world building for that particular setting and it took me three hours to try and make it all make sense. So it’s... involved. But not necessarily “crazy”. And I’m not sure I’m ever actually going to publish any of the stories I have set in it (not least because that would envolve finishing any of them and bringing them into a form that is interesting to read for anyone but me...)

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hm, not yet. I do enjoy reading smut, but only under very specific circumstances. I think I may eventually try my hand at smut, but the inner prude is still very strong. Writing about Rios and Xyr making out (which, honestly, was really tame, all things considered) made me melt in a puddle of blushing embarrassment, so full-on smut is probably beyond me at the moment. One day!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Though litigating that in a fandom like ours would be... tricky. ST:Pic is way too small to steal stories outright. But similar or the same ideas pop up all the time. And it’s a complete coincidence. Reading the book that recently came out and that has a kinda similar setting to a lot of my stories (pre-season 1, early in Rios’s history as captain of Sirena, dealing with original characters, holo shenanigans, friendship with Raffi, etc.), I was struck by just how many elements, both scenes or story beats and little details, were similar to things that have cropped up in my writing. And it is entirely coincidental, because I am beyond certain that the author doesn’t read fanfic. Just... for legal reasons. Not to mention I wrote a bunch of the things I saw parallels to while the book was already in production, and some of them are only in my drafts.

So there is a ton of convergent evolution going on in this particular section of the fandom, and trying to litigate who came up with certain plot ideas or character beats when would be a sysiphean disaster. Some things are clear and whenever I use any of them I give credit where I can, but people will have very similar ideas. It just happens. So no, I haven’t had either a full-on story or “an idea” stolen, and I might change my tune if it ever does happen, but so far, I’m trying to practice equanimity, so I’ll be better at it should I ever need it.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly no. My dad keeps complaining that all my fic is in English so he can’t read any of it, but honestly? I’m kinda glad for this very convenient excuse. Maybe if I ever feel like I want to practice my interpreting skills, I will give translating the stories into German a shot. We’ll see. Otherwise, if anyone feels inspired: Have at it! Just let me know, okay?

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not quite. I have a draft of off-the-cuff worldbuilding that I wrote on Discord with @curator-on-ao3 and that I would love to turn into an actual short fic (letters from a conference on holo-ethics), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do shipping.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT!!!! One day, I will write the next installment of Star Trek: La Sirena! I have so many ideas for that continuity and those characters. I’m not going to abandon them!

what are your writing strengths?

Hmmmmm. Probably detailed worldbuilding? Ask me something about, say, a technological or cultural aspect of Star Trek and chances are, I have thought about it in the past or will come up with three different sets of intricate lore within half an hour. (Things like... the architecture of San Francisco, or Will there still be taxi drivers? or the treaty between IKEA Intergalactic and the Borg Collective, or the Universal Translator, or Emergency Services or Why There Are Very Few Ambulances On Earth Anymore etceterah etceterah...)

I’m also good at slapping together off-the-cuff plot ideas (if, say, you need an explanation for how Seven and Agnes ended up stranded on a desert island, I could probably give you three different scenarios pretty quickly. Just don’t ask me to make them poignant or actually write them.

I’m also very, very good at beginnings.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Everything that isn’t a beginning. Especially endings, or rather: finishing something, but also just... keeping momentum.

I think my dialogue is somewhat samey and not distinct enough between characters. (Also my witty banter is... let’s just say it doesn’t come to me naturally...)

And I also struggle with keeping things brief and to the point. I can write you 30k of whump covering a span of three hours, but fitting a whole story in the same space? Much more difficult!

I have also avoided writing full-on action so far, but where it has crept in it has always been a struggle and been workshopped a lot with the indefatigable beta.

Otherwise, I don’t know. My self-perception is always a little warped, so I’m not sure what other people would say my weaknesses are.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oof. Well. I have used Spanish sentences in my fic and done the thing where they’re translated in the end note, but I’ve mostly done it sparingly. I’ve also done the ‘“What do you want?” he said in Spanish.’ It’s tricky. But I will likely keep doing it in some instances, even if it’s a bit annoying.

(It also really helps to have a native speaker of Spanish as a beta, even if it’s Spanish from a different region than you’re character.)

Speaking of regional: I’m also torn about the whole “phonetically writing out accents” issue. Some people love it, some people hate it, I’m really unsure because I’m not a native speaker of English, so I’m not even sure I’m consistent in my narrative voice’s regional quirks. So far, I’ve mostly gone with describing that an accent is happening, and only writing out when phrasing actually differs from standard English. Like Ian (Scottish) saying “dinnae” but not writing “I” as “ah” as you’d see on, say, Scottish twitter.

Though it can be a very useful tool if, for instance, you want to indicate a characters accent getting stronger as they get tired or upset. 🧐

Anyway, I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here and everyones milage will vary.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Published? ST:PIC

Actually first? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Pretty much simultaneously, though I did write more for LotR. On graph paper, mind, with my fountain pen turned upside down so I could write smaller. I still have folders worth of those stories that I urgently need to digitize before they fade and I lose them forever...

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m going to quote @thelaithlyworm here: I Love All My Children Equally! I honestly couldn’t say. They are different and I love them for different reasons but I love them all.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’ve kinda lost track of who all has done this already or has already been tagged, so feel free to ignore me! But I tink I’m tagging @curator-on-ao3, @aini-nufire, @29-pieces, @flowers-creativity, @highfunctioningflailgirl, @cristobalrios and @the-goofball. And anyone else whom I forgot or who feels inspired to do this!

[ineloqueent]

clouds of snow

Roger Taylor x Reader

synopsis: you and Roger are snowed in. an attempt to cheer up a gloomy Rog turns into an elaborate plan, and the results are cosy.

warnings: swearing

word count: 2.5k

see the moodboard here!

⭒

1975

It had begun to snow shortly after you’d woke up, and even now, two hours later, it had yet to stop.

You’d always known that your best friend— and flatmate— had a childish side, and when the snow had started to fall that morning, this childish side had come out.

He’d called your name from the kitchen, and sleepily, half-dressed in business wear for your drab office job but still wearing pyjamas on your lower half, you’d ambled out of your room to find him leaning out of the window, as the snow fell in his hair.

Realising what he was doing, you gave a shout of alarm.

“Roger, you’ll freeze to death!”

He turned to look at you, a smile forming on his lips. “If I don’t fall to it first.”

“What—”

His eyes widened and he waved his arms in frantic circles, leaning farther out over the windowsill.

You cried out and rushed forward, wrapping your arms around his waist before he could lean any more than he already had.

He laughed and braced himself on the windowsill with one arm, wrapping his other around you as you rested your cheek against his back.

“Don’t do that,” you murmured.

He ruffled your hair, shifting slightly in your grasp. “Would you miss me if I was gone?”

“Of course not,” you scoffed, “but who would pay the other half of the rent?”

“Oh, you’re lethal,” said Roger, shaking his head as he turned to face you, his arms winding around your frame. You clung to him still, your chin on his chest.

“How come you’ve lasted this long, then?”

He snorted. “Because I’m used to you.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Are you calling me boring?”

“‘Course not. You keep surprising me every day. It’s a wonder I haven’t moved out yet.”

“And on that note,” you said, unclasping his hands from behind you, before proceeding to disentangle yourself from his embrace, “I’m going to work, so that if you do decide to move out, I can still afford to pay the lease.”

“Already?” said Roger, crossing his arms and pouting, as you nodded and hurried back to your bedroom to finish getting dressed.

You left the door open a crack, because he seemed in the mood to talk, and would probably expect a response from you when he did so.

“Oh, at least stay for coffee, Y/N. We haven’t done anything together in ages.”

You smirked to yourself at his petulant tone, pulling on your newly-polished shoes whilst hopping from foot to foot, trying not to lose your balance.

“Y/N?”

Now properly dressed, you opened your bedroom door and walked straight into your best friend, who was leaning against the doorframe. You took a retreating step.

Folding your arms as well, you considered.

“C’mon,” he said, with a little dip of his head, pleading with those big eyes of his. “Just you and me.” He nudged your shoulder. “Just for a little bit.”

You pretended to continue your consideration, but really, you had already made up your mind.

“Fine,” you said, and Roger smiled gorgeously. “But if I’m late, again, I’m having you ring them and butter them up as your charming self.”

His smile only broadened, as he winked and pushed off of the doorframe. “I’ll go make coffee.”

You shook your head at his suave demeanour, then resumed in collecting your things for work.

A few minutes later, the smell of coffee had begun to waft through the flat, and you made your way back into the main living area to find Roger leaning his elbows on the kitchen counter, frowning as he listened to something on the radio.

“Y/N,” he murmured when he saw you, “come listen to this.”

“What?” you said, straightening your cuffs as you made for the kitchen. “Have the Bay City Rollers knocked Queen out of a number one spot again?”

Roger made a face. “Ha ha, very funny. Happened once, will never let it happen again.” He passed you your coffee, and you thanked him with a nod. “No, this is about the weather.”

“The weather?”

“Yeah, listen.” He reached over and turned up the volume on the radio, and the two of you leaned closer to the apparatus, almost with your heads together.

You wrinkled your nose, feigning disgust at your closeness, though really you felt anything but. Roger rolled his eyes at you and tossed his head in the direction of the radio. You sighed and refocused on the presenter’s voice.

“We once again would like to remind you of London’s severe weather warning, and the national advisory to avoid driving through the city. The underground too, is overwhelmed, so if you were planning on getting to work via the Tube, think again. With the current repairs, and the inclement weather having demobilised several stations, burying them under a blanket of snow, there’s no knowing when you’d get to work, or whether you’d ever make it back.”

Here, the radio presented laughed, and you glanced over at Roger.

“Bit of a morbid sense of humour, that one.”

Roger snickered, “Yeah, bit.”

“Once again, we strongly recommend not travelling during this weather, if at all avoidable, and the Prime Minister seems to agree. Stay safe out there, London.

We now return to our regular broadcast, bringing you the best music of yesterday, today, and even that of tomorrow. Coming up next, an oldie but goldie, Shocking Blue’s ‘Venus’…”

Roger dialled down the volume again.

“So,” he raised his eyebrows at you. “Stay home with me?”

You tapped his nose with your forefinger, and straightened up. “Yeah, why not?”

He grinned.

⭒

“I am so bloody bored, I actually wouldn’t mind an argument with Brian.”

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, and having finished your coffee that morning, you had changed back into loungewear, whilst Roger had set about attempting to find a film to watch on the telly.

Between Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the dreadfully dull and inaptly named Great Gatsby— the book of which Roger insisted was far better than the shoddy film— the two of you had turned to board games. When Roger had beat you seven times in a row at Scrabble, you’d just about had enough, and had gone to the kitchen to make hot chocolate, skipping lunch entirely in favour of dessert.

Four cups of hot chocolate later— two for each of you— Roger had flopped down on the couch, his head and upper torso hanging over the armrest, his legs splayed on the sofa cushions, with a long-suffering sigh.

“I don’t think Brian would agree,” you laughed, finishing the nail you were painting. You were painting the nails of one hand black and the other white, as you’d once promised Freddie and Brian you would. You’d never had both the time and energy to fulfill your promise, until now, nearly a year later, despite Deacy’s efforts to coerce you into doing so, because he and Freddie had been running a bet as to when you would finally get to it.

“Hm. He’s probably off with Chrissie.” Roger shifted, pushing hair out of his eyes. His face was growing pinker the longer he remained suspended upside down. “I haven’t got a Chrissie,” he mumbled.

You screwed the cap back on the black nail polish, and looked over at your best friend. “You’ve got me,” you said softly.

“Yeah, and I’d give my life for you,” he smiled rather sadly, “but it’s not the same, is it?”

In all honesty, it hurt a little to hear him say that. You knew you were not to Roger what Chrissie was to Brian, but it hurt to know that you weren’t enough.

“Roger,” you began slowly, folding your legs beneath you, “are you lonely?”

His eyelashes fluttered as he turned his gaze on you. “Bit, yeah,” he said quietly.

This confession hurt all the more. You wanted to gather him into your arms and hug him to you until all the loneliness dispersed from his very soul.

You didn’t, though. You and Roger had always been close, but this would bring you a little too close. A little too close to something he clearly didn’t want, even if you might have been open to the idea. A little more than open, really, but you pushed that thought to the back of your mind, and the feeling to the depths of your heart.

He’d said nothing more in your silence, and when you looked at him again, he had tugged his lower lip between his teeth, and his eyes seemed more like the ocean than ever— watery.

“Rog,” you said.

“Hm?”

“We could build a fort. A pillow fort.”

His smile was small, but it was there. “The one you always tell me not to make because it’ll ruin the sofa cushions?”

“Yes,” you sighed, “with the splinters you get from these hardwood floors, they’ll scuff up the cushions nicely. And I can’t afford new ones.”

Roger sat up, brightened at the prospect of a pillow fort. “You know I can. I’ll gladly buy you new ones. So, pillow fort?”

His sudden excitement was almost comical, and you so loved seeing that smile back on his face, so you conceded.

“Yeah, alright then.”

“Oh, I’ll love you forever!” He stooped and kissed your cheek in elation, and you pushed him away.

“Get off, you big sap.”

He only laughed, and threw a cushion at you. “Get building, Y/N. We don’t have all day.”

⭒

It was a large-scale construction, your pillow fort. It spanned the whole of the living room floor, which, relatively speaking, wasn’t a lot, as the property you and Roger shared was in London, where a flat cost an arm and a leg, and half a heart as well. All the same, it was still quite impressive.

The pillow fort employed four blankets, six sofa cushions, five pillows, and two rugs, and was wide enough to crawl through and around the coffee table, in a sort of loop. Roger had retrieved torches and switched them on beneath coffee filters, to create makeshift lamps. In the meantime, you’d collected books and magazines, for something to do, and a tin of Roger’s favourite biscuits— the latter in hope of cheering him up ever the more, to keep at bay that loneliness.

“It’s brilliant,” said Roger, standing outside of the fort to admire the results of your teamwork. “It’s the best bloody pillow fort I’ve ever seen.”

You opened the tin of biscuits, a book already in your lap.

“You coming in, or what?” you asked. “You promised you’d read me Gatsby, and I’ve got the only biscuits in the house.”

“Is that so?” Roger mused, and a scuffling sound announced his entrance to the pillow fort, which, in your humble opinion, was really more of a castle.

The blankets rustled as he made his way toward you, and you glanced up at the cotton ceiling.

“Watch it, Rog. The whole place’ll come down in a second.”

Roger only laughed, but the cushion-wall at your side seemed about ready to fall.

“Roger,” you said again, as he came into view. “Seriously, be careful. All our hard work will be for nothing.”

“And to think you weren’t taking this seriously at the beginning, eh? Now you’d give up those biscuits to save it.”

Your tone was warning, “Rog, I really think you should—”

At that moment, the cushion at your side tilted dangerously, and you grabbed Roger’s arm to pull him away from the wall, because his motion was what had upset it in the first place.

But it was too late, and instead of pulling Roger out of the line of fire, you pulled the whole place down around you— and him atop you.

The blanket fell over his head as the walls around you collapsed, and Roger narrowly avoided falling flat upon you, bracing himself on his elbows, at your sides.

He laughed, and despite your slight contempt at him ruining the fort before you’d even had the chance to enjoy it, you laughed too.

His hair hung down over his face and fell in your eyes, and you batted golden streaks away as he continued to laugh, giddily.

“Oh, I’ve not had so much fun in ages,” he said, an echo of his statement from the morning, though this was an expression of happiness, rather than of complaint.

You smiled up at him. “Yeah, me neither.”

But Roger had gone abruptly silent.

His chest rose and fell in the wake of his laughter, but the smile had faded from his lips, his eyes.

Then he lowered his mouth to yours, trading a soft breath with you, before he kissed you.

Something swept over you, a tide, a wind, a fog, a daze— you knew not what, but it swept over you, and slowly, devoured you. It was like clouds, only these clouds were unfamiliar, warm in place of cold when, logically, they should have been cold. This was like looking at clouds, and realising that you’d been looking at clouds wrong for all your life.

Because something had to have changed, didn’t it? You had never felt Roger’s touch in this way, nor longed for it so much as you did now, even with it still upon you.

You’d looked at Roger wrong for all your life, it seemed.

Your hands came to rest on either side of his face, before they carded through his hair, and you kissed him deeply, savouring the taste of chocolate which still lingered on his lips, savouring his sudden closeness to you, the softness of his kiss— far softer than the pillows which had toppled about you and landed you in this beautiful mess in the first place.

You pushed his shoulder so that he fell to his side and you could wrap yourself around him and meld into his form, and he yielded to your touch as equally as he reciprocated it.

When he broke the kiss, it was with a dazed expression and swollen, parted lips, and you swallowed thickly, glancing away and hoping dearly that he was not about to express regret for what he had done.

He didn’t.

“Maybe it is the same,” he whispered.

“What?” you murmured back, confused.

He raised his hand and his fingertips traced your jaw, his eyes following in an intimate gaze. “I said I didn’t have someone, you know, but maybe I do. Maybe it could be the same. Maybe we could be both. Friends, and—”

His breath faltered, and you reached for his hand. “Go on, Rog.”

“Lovers,” he suggested quietly.

You didn’t think about it, because it was not a matter to be thought of. This was to be felt, and nothing more.

“I’d love that.”

He blinked. “Pun… not intended?”

You swatted at him, rolling your eyes, and that light, fluttering laughter bubbled up in his throat again, warm and familiar.

“I hate you,” you said.

“Good,” Roger whispered, touching his nose to yours. His words hummed on your lips. “Because I think I love you more than ever.”

[bokutosworld]

home | bokuto koutarou

a bokuto x reader one shot loosely inspired by taylor swift's cornelia street.

wc: 2.7k words 

--

"ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent into japan, approaching narita international airport. the local time is 4:15 pm, with temperature of 19 degrees celsius. in preparation for the landing, please make sure your seat is straight up and your seat belt is safely fastened. in behalf of my co-pilot and today's crew, we hope you enjoyed your flight with us and wish you a pleasant time in japan. thank you."

the sudden announcement sounding over the whole cabin woke her up from her slumber. she stirs and adjusts her seat just as the captain ordered. sitting near the window, she saw the buildings of the tokyo skyline coming into view. it's been years, she wondered.

as the plane continues its descent, she checks her documents: passport, immigration form, health papers. she pulls out her phone and goes over her schedule for her first night in tokyo. she shakes her head in disbelief, still wondering why she agreed to return in the city.

'come on, y/n! it's been five whole years. we miss you,' her friend said. 'besides, it's our first high school reunion! we haven't seen the rest of the batch in like forever.'

and just as she was recalling that conversation with her friend, the plane began taxiing on the ground and was pulling up on one of the arrival gates.

finally, the aircraft stopped moving and the captain's voice was heard on the speakers again, "ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived. please remain seated until the seatbelt sign has been turned off and wait for the cue of the crew. please be careful in deplaning and we hope you enjoy your stay in japan."

in a few seconds, the ding! of the seatbelt sign was heard and people hurriedly stood up, opened the compartments and took their bags. not one for rushing things and going with the crowd, she took her time in leaving the plane.

narita international airport was a busy place, with tourists going in and out and citizens returning home. lucky for her, she still had her residence card and was able to queue in the shorter line in immigration. as soon as she entered the baggage claim area, she spotted her hot pink luggage, decorated with stickers of all the places she's been to. she picked it up and headed to the taxi stands.

time check: 6:05 pm

'asakusa central hotel, please,' she directed to the friendly man in the driver seat. he nodded and sped off the airport. tired from her flight, she leaned back and closed her eyes. the journey downtown would take at least an hour and she debated on whether she was going to nap. deciding against getting a few more minutes of rest, she took her phone and decided send her friend a message.

y/n: i'm here, loser. on my way to the hotel. i'm still pissed you couldn't have just picked me up :/ friend: U'RE BACK!!!!!!!! <3 i'm so sorry, i got held up at work. but let me make it up to you! i'll buy you some welcome home drinks later? :D

she smiled at her friend's reply. how could she forget that she loved drinking out. back in college, they would be spending weeknights going bar hopping. looking back, she recalled how some of her best years and moments were created here. it was in this city where she met the love of her life.

time check: 7:15 pm

the taxi parks in front of her hotel and a bellboy immediately runs over to the car door to assist her. she pays and thanks the kind driver for a safe trip and with a smile, she hops off the taxi.

the bellboy takes care of her luggage, while she makes her way to the receptionist. for a weekday, the hotel was packed with tourists. maybe it was a holiday in some part of the world, she thought. looking around mindlessly, she examined the hotel that her friend had booked for her. two brown lounge sofas were the centerpiece of the lobby. to the side, there were some coffee tables and chairs were people could sit while they wait to be serviced.

she continues to scan the room, her eyes almost missing the boy she thinks she knows. if it weren't for his eye-catching dual-toned hair and his loud and bright laugh that resonated in the floor, she wouldn't have paid attention to him. but as soon as she heard that familiar sound, she turned to the doors and caught a glimpse of him. there was no mistake, with the way her heart skipped a beat and the world seemed to blur around her. bokuto koutarou.

she was pulled out of her trance by the friendly receptionist beckoning her to come to the desk. she gives her the reservation details and a copy of her passport, and in just a few minutes she receives a key to her room. thanking the receptionist, she goes to retriever her luggage and insists that she can take it on her own and gave the boy some tip for helping her a while ago from the taxi.

she proceeds to the 16th floor where her room was situated. she taps the keycard on the lock, and the door opens, revealing a large, spacious room with a king sized bed and notes how it was too big for her alone. however, what took her breath away, was the big window with a view overlooking the city. she takes in the scene and gets lost in her thoughts, going back to the few minutes earlier when she saw him. he hasn't changed one bit, she muses. he still brightens every room he walks in to.

with that thought, she settled on the bed and brought out her phone. she hovered over the facebook app, wondering if stalking her first love would be appropriate right now.

it's not as if she and bokuto ended on bad terms. they both agreed it was a mutual decision. something that was brought up by their different dreams and goals. she wanted to pursue law, he wanted a professional career in volleyball. and as supportive as they are of each other, they went on their separate paths and wished each other the best. for a while, they kept contact but as they got busy, the texts and calls got less and eventually stopped. throughout the past years, she'd been wondering if separating was the right thing.

just as she was about to visit his profile, her best friend called.

friend: hey guess what y/n: what friend: oh come on, you could at least be a little excited! i'm done with work and heading over to shinjuku right now! y/n: i thought we were getting drinks friend: we are!!! but some of our batchmates are around the area and they invited me for drinks and you're coming with me

time check: 9:08 pm

there was no point, honestly, in trying to resist her friend. that's why she was now being dragged along the street, with her friend talking her ear off about how she missed her and how she can't wait to spend the week with her.

they entered one of the bars in the area and immediately, her outgoing friend waved to the group sitting in the corner of the place. as soon as she spotted them, she couldn't move and it was like her feet were rooted to the ground. the moment her eyes locked with his, it was like she was in high school again and she was overwhelmed by the urge to run to him and hug him.

'Y/N!!!!!!!!!!', her high school friends screamed and suddenly, they were running to her and tackled her with a hug. 'we missed you!'

she laughed and returned their embrace because, yes, she missed them too. they dragged her to the booth and she took the seat right across him.

oblivious to her, bokuto has not once turned his attention away from her. he was a busy man and no one was expecting him to be present in this reunion. but a part of him wanted to go, he was hoping that maybe she would be going. so he couldn't believe his eyes when the door to the bar opened and he saw the face of the girl he has loved since forever.

'hey bokuto, why are you so unusually quiet,' one of their friends quipped and the whole group laughed. any other day, he would have retorted with a witty comeback but right now, in this moment, he was too absorbed taking in the sight of his great love being in front of him. no one else but her got him flustered and tongue-tied, so it was no surprise when he broke his silence with, 'you look good, y/n.'

she blushed and her brain almost short-circuited trying to think of a reply. god, she thought she was lame for feeling like a high schooler again. thankfully, she was able to mutter a thank you and the both of them exchanged knowing smiles before socializing with the group.

time check: 10:49 pm

the rest of the night was spent catching up with each other and reminiscing on their good high school days. it was crazy to think how much they all have grown in a span of years. two of their batchmates were getting married, another was currently pregnant with her first child and three of them were opening their own businesses in the city. they were all successful and their teachers would be so proud of them right now.

of course, they didn't miss the opportunity to congratulate bokuto on his recent win in the volleyball league. he thanks them and goes on a funny story about the game and his teammates. she remembers the news she has heard about him, msby black jackals was his team now. and it warms her heart seeing how happy he currently is and sharing about his accomplished career. looks like we did the right choice, she thought.

suddenly, one of the boys in the group speaks up and remarks about how everyone thought that she and bokuto would be end game. and the booth was enveloped with silence. no one dared to break the silence and she looked at everywhere but him. until bokuto laughed and caught her attention when he said, 'well! we're here now, we could still continue our story you know. you never know what can happen!'

indeed, no one could predict what the future holds. and it was like fate was working in their favor because of course, her friend just decided to be so drunk that she had to be taken home by one of the girls that lives near her. which was how she found herself walking back to the hotel with bokuto by her side.

'i guess it's pretty convenient that we are both staying at the same hotel huh,' bokuto said. they were walking in the streets, the cars zooming on the road and the lights guiding their journey back to where they were staying.

she can't help but smile as she nodded at his statement. she wondered why she was staying at a hotel when he was a tokyo resident and for sure had an apartment in this city. he sighed dramatically and said that his apartment was currently undergoing a renovation and no one, not his teammates or even his parents, offered to let him stay as he was out of his apartment. 'yeah, so that left me with no choice but to stay at that hotel. and lucky for me, because you're also staying there! who could've known,' he exclaimed.

wanting to spend some more time together, bokuto suggested that they take a detour to the park. she instantly knew what park he was referring to and let him take the lead.

a few more minutes of walking and they arrived at the park on the hill. it was a place that they frequented: a place that witnessed their love blossoming and unfortunately, it was also the same place where they said their bittersweet goodbyes. they went closer to the mini observatory which offered a great view of the city lights, with the tokyo skytree illumination standing out above them all.

she didn't notice she was shaking from the cold until bokuto draped his jacket on her shoulders. she muttered a thank you and bumped his shoulder with hers. a comfortable silence fell upon them - one that they have been used to whenever they would spend the afternoons on their shared apartment when they were in college. for an outgoing guy, bokuto admits that he didn't mind the silence as long as it were with her. but for now, the silence was so loud that he wanted to say something before he lost his mind.

'i missed you,' the both of them spoke at the same time. they looked at each other, wide-eyed, and laughed. and as if they didn't break up with each other, bokuto extended his arms and brought her to his arms. he wanted this moment to last longer.

she let herself fall into his embrace because, if she were to be honest, she's also been missing his touches. no one else could bring peace to her mind and calm her soul than bokuto. they stayed like that, embracing and swaying to the breeze of the autumn chill, for minutes.

'where are you going after this,' he finally inquired. she knew that he didn't mean right at this instant. he meant after this reunion week. he wanted to know her plans, her future, and if there were any space for him in her life.

she looked up at him, getting lost in his beautiful eyes and she knew. she's spent her years running around, with the thought of him back in her mind. what ifs filled her daily thoughts and she wondered how things would be different if she had just stayed. but now, she knows better. it was a risk, but it was one that she was willing to take. her parents would call her foolish for what she was about to do, but she figured she could always take a fresh start in japan. besides, it was something that she has been thinking of and now that bokuto asked her, the timing couldn't have been more perfect.

'i'm thinking i could help you once apartment renovations are over. do you have another room? maybe i can stay with you and -' before she could finish her sentence, bokuto lifted her up in a bone-crushing hug and spun around. she giggled and begged him to stop before she got dizzy.

'wait, are you serious right now? what about your job,' he asked, worried that she was doing this for his sake.

'well, i haven't actually told anyone yet but i've actually sent in my resignation notice two weeks ago. they gave me this week off to take a break and once i return there, i'll just pack up my stuff.'

'so, you're actually planning on returning home? here?'

'yes, bokuto. this is home. you are my home.'

there was always something unspoken between them. even in the years that they spent apart, the both of them were waiting and yearning for each other. the both of them believed that their hearts were connected and that they were each other's destiny. now here was the chance they were waiting for, a chance to continue where they left off and spend the rest of their days together.

time check: 12:15 am

And baby, I get mystified by how this city screams your name

tokyo, a city filled with memories of him. when she left years ago, she vowed to never look back. she never would have thought that something good would come out of returning here.

And baby, I'm so terrified of if you ever walk away

but now, wrapped in his arms, she thinks that flying back is her life's greatest decision. 'you don't know how happy this makes me,' he hugged her tightly and she wrapped his arms around him. 'i love you, koutarou.'

I don't wanna lose you, hope it never ends

they definitely weren't going to let each other go this time.

[orangepanic]

I saw this “100 OTP questions” by @the-moon-dust-writings and figured I'd procrastinate:

1. Who loves flower crowns more?

Neither of them really, but Asami might make Iroh wear one just to laugh at him.

2. Who is the one who likes to cuddle?

Iroh. Asami likes it, too, but he usually initiates.

3. Who has awful taste in music?

Honestly, both of them. Asami likes terrible dance music and Iroh likes obscure combinations of horns and bells and stuff from different cultures.

4. Who is the meme lover?

Asami thinks they’re funny. Iroh doesn’t quite understand.

5. How did their second date go?

Iroh tried to take Asami somewhere very fancy, but the wait was too long. They ended up making out in a shadowy doorway down the street and missing their reservation entirely. Iroh was mortified, but Asami dragged him around the corner to a low-key noodle shop that has since become their favorite restaurant.

6. How many children do they want/have?

Asami thinks about three. Iroh, as many as Asami will agree to.

7. Who hides the weapons?

Iroh hides weapons for Asami around the house so she’ll always have something on hand. In a drawer in the kitchen, on her nightstand, etc. He knows she can take care of herself… and he stashes weapons for her anyway. Asami rolls her eyes but secretly thinks it’s sweet.

8. Who is the better dancer?

Asami. She likes dancing, and learned formal dancing in school. Iroh can’t dance at all, having skipped out on all his lessons as a child after bribing his instructor. He thought dancing is boring, but likes dancing with Asami and lets her lead.

9. Do/Did they have a theme wedding?

No. They quite deliberately have a very normal wedding, including cutting out a lot of the more stuffy Fire Nation customs because Iroh doesn’t want Asami to feel out of place not having any family present.

10. What do their parents think of them dating?

Hiroshi Sato is livid, and actually tried to have Iroh assassinated from prison. His little girl, marry a firebender? A prince of the firebenders? Iroh’s parents are more accepting. Izumi initially thinks Asami is too young and gives Iroh a hard time about how quickly he got serious, but quickly comes around when it’s clear Asami is very mature for her age. Within a year Iroh’s parents are both hounding him on when he’ll make it official.

11. Are they a super sappy couple?

They are that couple everybody hates.

12. How did they get together?

They meet during the Equalist revolution, but don’t get together until long after. Iroh has a crush on Asami almost immediately, but spends forever sitting on it thinking it wasn’t the right time and trying to be friends until one day he just kind of slips up and kisses her. She kisses him back. It turns out Asami liked him, too, but she isn’t great at reading people and had no idea he was interested.

13. Who asked the other to get married?

Iroh just kind of blurts it out one day.

14. Who stays up too late and makes stupid jokes?

Asami is the night owl. Iroh makes the bad jokes.

15. Who is the nerd?

Oh my god, both of them. Asami is more of the classic nerd. Iroh is more of a dork.

16. Who knows the most obscure facts?

Iroh.

17. Who makes the other a flower crown?

Two questions about flower crowns out of 100?? Changing this to who is more dominant in bed. Asami.

18. Who likes to read?

Iroh. They both do, but he’s much more into it.

19. Who bothers the other person while the other person reads?

Asami. She has the shorter attention span.

20. Who tutors the other?

They both would in different subjects. Asami is better at math, physics, etc. Iroh is better at philosophy and languages.

21. Do they have similar taste in movies?

No. Asami likes gory slasher films and lots of action. Iroh scoffs and thinks they’re dumb. Asami, in turn, thinks his period dramas can be kind of boring, and refuses to count documentaries as movies. But there’s a healthy overlap in things like Vikings and Game of Thrones.

22. How do their personalities complement each other?

Asami helps Iroh lighten up a bit, drawing him out of his shell, and gives him an anchor and a sense of home. She’s more social than he is, and a lot of her friends eventually become his. But she’s also quiet enough and serious enough that she doesn’t tire him out and can feed his need for downtime. Iroh, in turn, loves seldom but deeply, and gives Asami the kind of fierce, unconditional love and stability she needs. He’s also genuinely interested in her projects, is smart enough to follow most of it, and is one of the only people who can occasionally beat her in Pai Sho. They have a lot of fun together just being nerds.

23. How do they tell everyone that they are going to be having a kid/adopting a child soon?

They don’t have to tell anybody. It’s all over Iroh’s face like a big neon sign.

24. Who has better fashion sense?

Asami, but not by much. She’s more up to date with trends, while Iroh’s style is clean and classic.

25. Who will punch someone out if they are rude to their partner?

Hoo boy, both of them. Do not go there.

26. What songs do they sing together in the vehicle?

Neither of them sing in the satomobile. Iroh has a decent voice, but he’s a bit private about it. Asami mostly hums.

27. What other couple would your otp get along with?

Iroh quickly becomes BFFs with Bolin. Asami and Opal aren’t quite as close, but they like each other’s company and have fun as a foursome. They also get along quite well with Pema and Tenzin.

28. Who likes to prank the other?

Iroh tries more often. Asami’s pranks are more successful.

29. Who is the one who loves to take pictures?

Iroh, though generally Korra is the picture taker in the group.

30. How would they react if they found out they were soul mates?

Iroh raises an eyebrow. “Hmm.” Asami only shrugs. They both already knew that.

31. Where would they live?

They like Republic City and decide to stay downtown, first in an apartment and eventually a larger townhouse.

32. What type of dragon would they own, if they could have one?

Whichever one Iroh made friends with. Asami is a bit wary of animals and would need him to convince her it was safe.

33. If they were both vampires, what type of vampires would they be?

The kind that live in a beautiful house with perfect collections that took hundreds of years to make. Iroh has first editions of everything in a giant library, arranged in a complex system only he understands. He’s working on his 14th language. Asami has invented artificial blood and doesn’t miss sunburns. Occasionally she’ll throw one of those big fancy vampire balls just so they can both get dressed up. They’re pretty happy.

34. What would they dress up as, for Halloween?

They once went as Lady Tienhai and the last king of Mo Ce because picking something obscure and historical was the only way to get Iroh into a costume.

35. Can they name each other’s favourite food?

Kind of. They are both really into food, so picking a favorite is hard. But if the question is can they order for one another, absolutely.

36. Do they have pet names for one another?

Asami sometimes calls Iroh “General Hotstuff” when she’s teasing. Iroh sometimes calls Asami “sex pretzel” when he’s 1000% sure they are alone.

37. How do they cheer each other up?

Asami is more of a gift giver. She’ll show up with Iroh’s favorite take-out or make him something in her workshop—anything to make him feel special and valued. Iroh is all about quality time, and will swing by Asami’s office to haul her out on surprise dates. He also gives great hugs.

38. Do they show a lot of PDA?

No. Iroh is very uncomfortable with PDA, especially when he’s in uniform. Asami follows his lead.

39. How old were they when they got together?

Asami was 19-20, Iroh 24-25.

40. Who is the one that would bring the puppy home?

Iroh, 100%. He’s such a sucker.

41. Can they do yoga couple’s poses?

Yes, though Asami is the only one who really tries.

42. What is their song?

They don’t really have one.

43. What does their room look like?

Asami moved in with Iroh, so it’s very basic. White walls, perfectly made bed, a neatly organized desk in the far corner by the window. He’s a total minimalist, having spent most of his adult life on a ship. Asami added a very fluffy comforter in *gasp* a color and lots of pillows.

44. Who would be the one to kill zombies while the other keeps them grounded?

They’d take turns, and at some point Asami would turn it into a contest.

45. Who makes the other breakfast in bed?

Iroh. Asami is a terrible cook.

46. Who loves kids more?

Iroh.

47. Do either of them have a crazy ex?

Not crazy, but Iroh and his ex are not on good terms. He doesn’t like to talk about it.

48. What are their favourite colours?

Asami, purple. Iroh, black. He gets annoyed when people get him so much red stuff.

49. Who likes to cook?

Iroh. He fired Asami from the kitchen, something they are both grateful for.

50. Who is the forgetful one?

Asami.

51. Does either of them know how to fight?

Have you met these people?

52. What do they do for Valentines Day?

Iroh would probably plan something elaborate for them to go out. Asami would plan something sexy for when they got home.

53. Who swears more?

Asami, at least out loud. Iroh mostly swears under his breath.

54. Who has the better comebacks?

Asami. It’s not even close.

55. Who would start a fight with another parent at a bake sale?

Probably Asami, unless it was about the kids. If anyone comes for Iroh’s kids, they’d better hide.

56. Who reads buzzfeed?

Asami.

57. Who is the hopeless romantic?

Iroh, hands down.

58. Do either of them know how to do a handstand?

Asami can manage it.

59. Who can rap better?

Asami, though Iroh is the only one who actually listens to rap.

60. Do either of them want to go sky diving?

Asami would love to. Iroh laughs. “Been there.”

61. What do they usually text about?

Some version of “I miss you” or random pictures of stuff. They generally only text when Iroh is away as they’re both busy during the day.

62. Who is the dramatic one?

Asami has a shorter fuse. Iroh is more ridiculous when he loses his shit.

63. Is either one confrontational?

Not really.

64. What is their favourite cuddle position?

Asami will lay on top of Iroh on the couch like a sandwich. It’s the only position she seems to be able to nap in.

65. Who are their favourite musical artist(s)?”

See above about terrible taste in music.

66. What are their parenting styles?

Iroh covers a lot of the basics. He sets a schedule, makes lunches, tells bedtime stories, is more likely to help with the homework. Asami is the one who gets them around and does most of the interacting with teachers, other parents, etc. They share things fairly equally.

67. Who would be the more laid back one?

Iroh.

68. Who listens to more vulgar music?

Asami.

69. Do either of them have secrets even the other doesn’t know?

Yes. Asami can be secretive about some of her projects, both out of an abundance of caution but also because she likes a big reveal. Iroh keeps some past relationship stuff close, and will occasionally read a steamy romance novel for “tips.”

70. Who is their go to couple for a double date?

Bolin and Opal

71. Do they tip the waiter/waitress on their date?

Iroh tips very well.

72. How do they work out a fight?

Asami yells. Iroh yells back. One of them storms off. The other one waits about half an hour then goes to find them, usually with an offering of food. There are hugs. Somebody cries. Then they finally talk it out before falling asleep together.

73. Who brings home an illegal pet?

Asami. She is less likely to have a pet, but if she does, it’s going to be a weird one.

74. What side of the bed do each of them sleep on?

Iroh is on the side by the window because he likes to get up with the sun.

75. What is their favorite photo of them two together?

There’s a photo Korra took at the beach where Iroh has Asami thrown over his shoulder right before dunking her in the water. This is the picture he takes with him when he’s deployed.

76. Who takes longer in the bathroom?

Asami.

77. Who has more songs on their ipod?

Iroh. If you can call them songs.

78. What movie did they first see together?

Iroh took her to Last Days of the Sun Warriors. She fell asleep. He said the book was better.

79. What do they like to see each other in?

Asami thinks Iroh’s butt looks great in jeans. Iroh got Asami a red silk robe from the Fire Nation and likes to see it fall off.

80. Who makes jokes during inappropriate times?

Iroh.

81. At what age do they discuss the possibility of children?

Mid-20s, though they don’t have them until a little later.

82. What do they love about each other the most?

Iroh likes that Asami is tough and smart and a problem-solver. Asami likes that Iroh is kind and brave and has a strong moral compass.

83. Who is the one that sees the big picture, while the other focus’s on the small details?

They are both big picture people, which is sometimes a problem. Of the two, Asami is probably better at details, but she’s also forgetful.

84. What would they write on their partner’s social media’s for their anniversary?

Asami would probably put up a picture of them and say something brief but sweet. Iroh doesn’t really understand social media and would just paste a heart-eyes emoji.

85. Who is bad at math?

Iroh. He’s not bad, per se, but Asami is very, very good.

86. Who googles everything?

Asami.

87. Who does stuff on impulse?

Both of them in different ways. Asami is generally more flexible. Iroh usually has a plan but makes big decisions completely off the cuff.

88. How do they comfort each other when they are helpless to do anything about the situation?

Lots of physical touch. Iroh will kind of just wrap himself around her in one giant, whole body hug. Asami will spend some time cursing out whomever is causing the issue, then let him lay his head in her lap and give Iroh a good head scratch or massage.

89. What is an inside joke they have?

There was one time they had sex in Asami’s office at Future Industries, so occasionally she’ll drop things like, “feel like coming by the office?” with a suggestive eyebrow waggle. Iroh is, predictably, very embarrassed. Also interested.

90. Who makes the other smile with almost no effort at all?

Asami: *exists* Iroh: *smiles*

91. What is their favourite holiday?

New Years is a big deal in the Fire Nation. Iroh loves his family and likes going home, and Asami has grown to love it almost as much.

92. Who is the one that is calm and collected while the other is angry and destructive?

They take turns. Both of them can have quite a temper when pushed too hard.

93. What is their favourite board game to play?

They’re both big Pai Sho fans, but can get into any kind of strategy game. Nobody really likes to play them though, they're too good.

94. Who accidentally sets something on fire?

Asami. Iroh hasn’t had a fire accident since he was four.

95. Who has the car ready while the other is robbing the store?

Asami. She’d rob the store, too, but no way is she letting Iroh drive.

96. What artist/group did they go to for their first concert?

Iroh booked a private box at the Republic City Opera, thinking that was an impressive thing he should do on a date. It turns out neither of them like opera, and by the end they were both making fun of it.

97. Who sleep talks?

Asami. Iroh thinks it’s funny.

98. Who is the more social one?

Asami, by a long shot.

99. What are their karaoke songs?

Neither of them would really sing karaoke, but Iroh cannot hold his liquor like at all so if he ever got really plastered Asami might be able to drag him up there. By which point he’d be too far gone to have an opinion on the song and would sing just about anything.

100. Who would get up on stage and make a fool of themselves just to make the other laugh?

Asami.

[twokinkybeans]

Shocked [ELECTRIC PLAY] - Starker

Hi everyone! Kim here! As a nice and fun addition to our Jar of Dirt challenge, Lien and I decided to join! I got “Electric Play” from the jar, so here’s what I wrote! I hope you enjoy! <3

Summary: In which Peter decides to take ‘Electric Play’ to a whole other level: puppy training. 

Written by: Kim

Warnings/Tags: Nff, Adult Peter Parker, Dom/sub, Puppy Play, Daddy Kink, Humiliation, Praise Kink, Electric Play / Shock Collar, Oral Sex and Hand Jobs.

Read it on AO3 here!

Find the original story here ^^

---

Peter grins as he makes his way to Tony’s office. About a week ago, they’d used the jar again. It’d been dusting away in their kitchen cabinet for so long and somehow- after pulling the breeding kink, they’d been picking a note from the jar almost every single night. Yesterday it’d been Peter’s turn to pick one and as he read it, he knew he had to keep it a secret for Tony just a bit longer. He needed time to prepare for it. 

Which, he had.

He clutches the shock collar in his hand more tightly. He has no clue if Tony will like the idea. Of course, the older man is the one who put ‘Electric Play’ in the jar in the first place. Peter figures Tony probably had something else in mind when he put it in there, but there’s no harm in tweaking it a little bit, right?

Peter knocks on the door of the office and laughs as his enhanced hearing picks up on Tony’s startled breath, smiling when Tony walks to the door to open it.

“Hi, Tones!” Peter saunters into the office without even waiting for a reply. He hops onto the desk. His feet dangle in the air and he swings them back and forth playfully. Tony stares at him for a good second, shaking his head as he closes the door again.

“Sometimes,” he teases, “-I wonder why I ever fell in love with you, kid.” Tony turns around, the playful gleam in his eyes giving away that it’s exactly this why he loves him so much. Peter just hums and brings up the hand in which he’s holding the collar. Tony’s eyes widen in an instant.  

“Peter, is that…”

“A shock collar? Yes.” Peter tilts his head and extends his arm to Tony. The man bridges the gap between them and takes the collar within his own hands. He sniffs once, cocking an eyebrow at Peter.

“Tell me, kid. What’d the note say?”

“Electric play. I know that you were probably imagining tying me up in your lab and experimenting on me true mechanic-style,” Peter starts and licks his lips when he sees the dark look in Tony’s eyes. Cool, another thing to put in the jar. “But I… I figured- why not train your puppy instead?”

“So, you saw the words electric play and the first thing you thought was to electrify your own neck.”

“Eh, yes?” 

Tony growls low in his throat. He grabs Peter’s hips and leans in for a hot, passionate kiss. Peter whimpers into the sudden touch. Ever since he walked into the pet store this morning he’s been super excited about this. In all honesty, he isn’t sure if he’ll like it. But he does recall that one time he got shocked by Dum-E. Thrice in a row. As scary as it’d been, it’d resulted in a stupid hard-on that Tony noticed. Where the temperature play all those years ago was a big no-go, maybe… Maybe this could be fun. The puppy training aspect of it sure makes it all the more exciting. 

“Tony,” Peter whispers and moans into the kiss. He presses himself closer. “Collar me?” 

“Mmh,” Tony hums and pulls back slightly. His eyes are dark. Hungry. Peter swallows. When Tony brings the collar up and wraps the strap around his neck it feels so real suddenly. Oh God. His eyes flutter shut for a moment. He feels the thrum of his heartbeat where the collar presses into his jugular veins. The cold, metal pins are so evidently there. Both a threat and a promise of something good. 

“How’s that feel, pup?”

“Strange. A, eh, a bit scary. But it’s good. It’s good…” Peter’s voice trails off and he looks up at the man. Speaking words he hasn’t spoken in forever. “-Mr. Stark.” Tony sucks in a sharp breath and hooks his finger into the collar, pulling Peter in for another sloppy kiss. Peter whines and melts into his lover’s arms. Daddy’s arms. He giggles when Tony shifts his hands a little, lifting him up. Peter wraps his legs around Tony’s waist and grabs his shoulders to steady himself.

“Let’s get out of the office. No place for a pretty thing like you.”

“Nggh, da-”

“Shhhhh now, Petey. No more talking. You know the rules. Or do you need me to zap you right away?” Peter blinks, shaking his head quickly. The metal pins against his skin feel even more threatening now. Tony frowns at him. “Speaking of which, where’s the remote?”

Peter sends the man a smug grin, tilting his head. As if to say ‘you told me I can’t talk, so I won’t’. Tony needs a few seconds until he gets it. He chuckles, shaking his head.

“You brat.”  

Tony lowers Peter onto the floor and Peter stares up at the man- now towering over him. Tony squints his eyes at him.

“I need that remote, buddy. Fetch.” Uh oh. Peter already feels torn. He knows that one way or another, Tony will find the remote. If Peter gives it to him, he won’t be zapped. If he disobeys and Tony finds it himself, he will be punished. Such a hard choice. He sighs, turns around and crawls toward the elevator. When he reaches it, he eyes Tony first, then nudges the metal doors with his nose.

“Ruff!” 

Tony ruffles through Peter’s hair and presses the button, waiting for the elevator to come down to their floor. The man wonders where Peter hid the remote. If he even hid it at all. Seeing the boy’s naughty posture the answer to that is yes. It’s probably in the penthouse though.

The elevator doors open. Tony steps inside and snaps his fingers, ordering Peter to crawl into it too.

“Heel.” Peter rushes forward, pressing himself into Tony’s side. Tony smiles at him. Puppy Peter is the cutest thing. Switching between the most obedient little thing to straight-up naughty within the span of a couple of seconds. At each command, it’s a surprise how Peter will respond. The shock collar is a promise though. A promise that Peter will be misbehaving. Tony can’t wait. His cock is already half-hard in his jeans.

“Take us up to the penthouse, Fri.”

“Of course, boss. Should I mute any incoming calls until you’re done?”

“Oh, yes Fri, you’re the best.”

“I know.”

Peter chuckles beneath him and Tony smirks. About two years ago Tony had installed the new feature and it’s been an absolute game-changer. No more stupid phonecalls when Tony was pounding him. 

It doesn’t take long for them to actually reach the penthouse and Tony clicks his tongue once. Peter’s head whips up. He stares at Tony wide-eyed, waiting for the next command. Tony pets him once and repeats his earlier order.

“Fetch, Pete.”

With his head hanging low, Peter makes his way out of the elevator. Tony takes a second to stare at him. Peter on his knees, crawling, is a sight that has his heart skip a beat every fucking time. The way his strong shoulders stick out. The slight arch in his back. The way his ass moves with every step he takes, wagging his imaginary tail. It’s cute and sweet and so insanely hot. So much more than Tony ever thought possible. Yes, it’s his kink. But Peter truly takes it to another level.  

He saunters after the pup, curious to see where Peter hid the remote. Peter easily hops onto the couch, a naughty sparkle in his eyes as he nudges the pillow aside and clasps the small zapper between his teeth- presenting it to Tony proudly. Tony smirks.

“Good boy.” Peter blushes, the praise never failing to make him feel good. “C’mere, bring it to daddy.”

Peter seems to hesitate again. Just as Tony expected him to. Peter has to make a very deliberate choice as to whether he already wants to get punished or not. Just moments ago, it seemed Peter would start out good. But now, the boy didn’t seem too sure. Tony growls at him.

“Pete, I’m not saying it again. Get over here or there will be consequences.” Peter whines and hops off the couch again, apparently choosing to be good for just a bit longer. He drops the zapper into Tony’s open hand and sits back on his butt. Tony pets his hair absentmindedly and brings the remote closer to his face.

“Mmh,” he hums, playing with the controls for a second. “It’s got quite the voltage range uh?” He looks down at his boyfriend again. Peter’s eyes are wide. Apprehensive. Tony crouches, hooking his fingers into the strap around Peter’s neck to pull him in close.

“I know you want to try this, pretty pup. But your safewords still count and I’ll take it slow, ‘kay? Use your words.”

“T-thank you, daddy. I really want this, I- just don’t know what to expect.”

“That’s alright. Want to have a tiny break and just try out a couple of settings?” Peter visibly relaxes and nods. Tony leans in and kisses the boy on his forehead. 

“Alright,” he whispers sweetly, showing Peter the little display. “It’s at the lowest setting now. 400 volts. I-”

“Press it. Let’s get it over with.”

“Are you-”

“Please?” Peter stares at him intently, nodding. Tony sighs. His thumb circles the little button underneath and then decides that Peter is asking for it. It’s okay. So he presses. Peter’s body jerks and he makes a strangled noise. Tony sniffs.

“How’s that?”

“Ah- Not that bad, actually. It startled me more than it shocked me. Which is, fair cause it’s basically the duration that would hurt and it’s just a millisecond. And of course, it’s the amperage that makes it-” Peter stops himself and grins up sheepishly. “You obviously know all that.”

“Hmmm, then you do know that as much as that’s true, you will feel more if I turn it up.”

“I- yes.”

“Wanna try?” Tony hadn’t quite realized how nervous he’d been about the first shock too. Now that it’s been done, he starts to feel the very familiar rush of power course through his veins, already turning the voltage up by a step. Peter nods, seemingly more into it now as well. Tony doesn’t wait, pressing the button again. Peter flinches at the electric shock. His shoulders slump down afterward, trying to hide the blush on his face. Tony grins and reaches forward, palming the growing hard-on in Peter’s pants.

“Oh, you liked that one, uh?” Tony rubs the bulge, Peter whines. The kid is already slipping back into his role. “Whenever you’re ready for more, just say green and we’re on yeah?”

“Just, one more? Maybe turn it up a little higher? I kinda want… Eh-”

“-Yeah?”

“Ikindawantthesting,” he rushes out mumbling. Tony understands him though, so he takes a look at the display and turns the level up by five steps, pressing the button again without warning. Peter jolts, clearly taken aback. The loudest, filthiest moan falls from his lips.

“Perfect, perfect- green oh god Tony green.” Tony zaps him again, relishing in the way Peter’s body jerks at the shock.

“No more words then buddy,” he growls, palming his own, aching dick through his jeans. “You’re my naughty little pup and I’m going to train you so well. Gonna make you a perfect, obedient plaything.” 

Peter nods feverishly, pressing his lips together to keep from talking back. He wants to chant it. Please please, please. But he knows he can’t. He has to show Tony. Has to-

“Gimme your paw.” Wha-

Peter yelps when yet another shock electrifies him for a split second. Pleasure shoots down his spine, making his cock twitch and throb with need. Warily, he raises his right hand, no paw, and puts it in Tony’s hand.

“Good booooooy,” Tony coos, playing with the remote in his free hand. “Gimme the other.” Peter is quick to comply, nearly tipping himself over in his hurried movements as he switches sides.

“God, look at you,” Tony breathes heavily. Peter stares up at the man. Tony looks… Oh, he looks so out of it in the best way possible. His ragged breath, hungry gaze. The large bulge very visible in his jeans. Oh, how Peter wants it inside of him. Where doesn’t matter. He just wants- needs to please Tony so badly. He shuffles forward and bows his head, pressing it into Tony’s thighs close to his groin. With his nose, he nudges the hard-on and tilts his head. He gives the jeans an experimental lick and yips at the musky smell lingering in his nostrils.

“Oh,” Tony mumbles, “-you want a treat, buddy?” Peter nudges him again, wagging his butt. Yes, yes he wants it.

“Mmh, you gotta earn it though. Down, boy.” Peter leans back at the command, putting both his paws on the floor between his knees. Tony licks his lips and brings his hands down to open the fly of his jeans. Peter stares, whimpering when the large cock springs free.

“Listen carefully, pup. I’m allowing you to suck me off, but I will give instructions. If you fail, I zap you. If you bite down, I’ll turn up the voltage. Understood?” Peter nods. Tony hums appreciatively and steps out of his pants, shoving it to the side using his foot. Then, he wraps his own fingers around the shaft. He strokes himself, slowly. Teasing.

“Come here,” Tony growls. “Suck.” Peter lunges forward, craning his neck to catch the head of Tony’s cock between his lips. The boy moans as the taste of precum fills his mouth. He does as asked, sucking the cock into his mouth as far as he can. It’s sloppy when he bobs his head up and down, saliva escaping from his lips- trickling down on Tony’s cock. It’s difficult to not use hands in this position but Peter manages to make it work. He pulls back a little and laps at the head, pushing the tip of his tongue against the slit to feel more precum oozing out of it. Peter whines, sucking, relishing in the increasingly heavy moans that leave his daddy’s mouth.

“Stop moving, Pete.” Peter hesitates and realizes his mistake when Tony lifts the remote.

“Tsk, bad boy.” A sharp, jarring sensation sizzles against his neck and Peter sobs with pleasurepainpleasurepain. He tries very hard to not graze his teeth past Tony’s cock in his mouth but he can’t help it. Another blow follows and Peter surges backward. Panting, staring up at Tony with reddened cheeks. His entire body is tense, his cock hard and leaking in his sweatpants.

“I didn’t tell you to pull back, Pete, but I’ll let it slide for now. You’re such an eager puppy, it’s not your fault you can’t control yourself just yet. But no worries,” Tony murmurs, caressing Peter’s cheek and gently dragging him toward his cock again. “-I’ll teach you. Get back to it.” 

Peter shifts, quickly getting back in the right position before closing his lips around the shaft again. He presses down, ignoring the probing of Tony’s cock against the back of his throat. His nostrils flare as he tries to breathe through them calmly. He has to impress daddy, has to show him he’s got this, has to-

“Nnngh, so greedy. Impatient little thing.” Tony moans and Peter takes it as an invitation to press his tongue up. His neck still burns, a tingly, numb feeling where the now body-temperature-warm pins still press into his skin. He starts sucking his daddy off real good then. Swirling his tongue around the head before pushing down, suckling and drooling and whining. Tony’s fingers tug on his hair to spur him on even more. Peter’s eyes flutter shut, keenly waiting for Tony’s next command. It doesn’t take long.

“Off. Sit back. Wait.” Peter whimpers as he listens, not wanting to listen but needing to show Tony he’s still a good boy. He slumps back onto his own heels. He whimpers in surprise when Tony crouches down and hooks his finger into the waistband of Peter’s sweats. Tugging and sliding them down far enough for Peter’s cock to spring free.

“You’re so hard, little pup,” Tony mumbles, giving it an experimental tug. Peter gasps, a surge of arousal shooting through him at the slight shame of feeling his cock bounce back up like that. Tony’s fingers wrap around him. “Don’t move just yet.”

Tony’s hand moves up and down in a relentless, deliciously torturing pace. Peter tries, oh fuck he tries with all his might. But the feeling is so overwhelming and good and hot and he – as Tony predicted earlier – he can’t help himself. He ruts forward, only then freezing completely as he awaits the next shock. Instead of just once, Tony pushes the button thrice. Peter sobs, dropping himself forward on all fours. His breathing is erratic. His instincts are telling him to rip the collar off his neck and toss it out the tower windows. His dick doesn’t quite agree. He looks up, teary-eyed.

“Please,” he croaks. “Please daddy I need more. ” The shock that follows hits him like a punch, his entire neck jerking to the right at the sudden harsh sting. Tony turned it up again. Oh god-Oh god.

“Well, if you’re that desperate, why don’t you fuck my fist like a needy little bitch, uh?” Tony speaks, his voice rough and dripping with white-hot arousal. Peter whimpers, not sure if he should move or if it’s a trick. But when Tony zaps him for not moving this time, he rolls his hips forward.

Peter’s movements are slightly awkward and messy. His thrusts unsteady as he tries to chase the friction that’s Tony’s squeezed fist. His knees hurt where they press into the harsh, cold floor. Yet, it only adds to his pleasure. It’s ever so humiliating and it has him over the moon.

“That’s it, that’s it Petey. You’re gonna come all over the floor, just like this?” Peter sobs in pleasure, only thrusting faster and faster.

“Ngggh, yes baby, I’m gonna zap you five more times, ‘kay? Increasing voltage with every single one. At the fifth, you’re allowed to spill your mess.”

Peter doesn’t even have the time to process what Tony’s saying before the first blow hits. Peter gasps, jolting and rolling his hips down faster. If he wants to come, he’s gotta stop holding off from the edge.

“Alright, buddy. Brace yourself.” Peter sucks in a sharp breath at the warning, almost wishing Tony wouldn’t have said it as the anticipation only increases the insane dread of what’s to come. It’s almost as if-

“A- AAH!” Peter cries out at the next shock. The sting is definitely harsher, burning and powerful and Peter claws at the floor beneath him. His thrusts are already erratic. The tingly sensation he’s left with is enough to draw him close and closer to that edge. Vaguely, barely registering it, he sees how Tony brings the remote up, then pushing it between Peter’s teeth.

“Wha-“ He mumbles around it, but Tony’s stare is enough to shut him up in an instant.

“You’re gonna shock yourself for me, cucciolo. Daddy needs both his hands now, thanks to your neediness.” Peter stares at how Tony uses his now free hand to pleasure himself. Peter whimpers, wanting Tony to cum all over his face. They don’t do it often, but somehow whenever they’re doing the puppy thing something in Tony is desperate to visibly claim Peter as his.

“When I tell you to shock yourself, you will. So- Shock yourself, Pete.” Peter breathes heavily, his hips rolling and stuttering into Tony’s touch.

“Fucking do it, Pete. Don’t you wanna please me?” Peter squeezes his eyes shut and bites down into the button. The shock that follows is the most intense one he’s felt and it takes everything to not gasp and drop the zapper to the floor. He’s floating, floating through the weird buzzing sensation of the reverberating electricity in his system. He knows it’s just his nerves firing without pause, but it feels like he’s channeling the power and as if the only way to ground himself is through his release. His head drops, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead as he keeps rutting and thrusting and rolling his hips in the air.

“Oh fuck oh fuck, Peter, I’m gonna cum all over your pretty face. Take it, take it, take-” Tony grunts, and Peter gasps when the hot stripes of cum land on his face. It trickles down and Peter desperately opens his mouth in the hopes of catching the last drops.

“S-shock yourself, Pete-“ Tony chokes out as he rides out his orgasm. Peter doesn’t hesitate this time, clamping his teeth down onto the button. The movement has the drops of cum mix with his saliva and he flinches, twitches. His entire body trembles at the delicious overstimulation. He’s so close. So close. One more shock, one more and then he gets to spill his seed all over the floor like the naughty little thing he is.

Tony slumps down into a seated position, watching Peter. Panting heavily as he tries to catch his breath. Peter loves it. Loves being watched. He keeps fucking into Tony’s fist. The man squeezes a little more, the friction already nearly tipping him over the edge. He gasps, trying to pull back, but one little tap against his balls has him obedient enough.

“Nnnn,” he mumbles around the zapper. He needs it. He can’t hold back. Not any longer. His vision is blurry, his stomach coiling and burning with an all-consuming need to release. Thank god, Tony is in a forgiving mood today. He nods once, and Peter gulps. Yesyes yes.

“Do it, pup. Shock yourself for daddy and… cum for me. ” Peter is so desperate that he doesn’t even think twice, doesn’t even realize that the shock is gonna hurt cause holy fuck he’s going to explode. He bites down, the shock surging through him like a sizzling fire that sets off the bomb. Peter cries out and drops the remote onto the floor as he spills into daddy’s tight grip. His arms no longer support the weight of his body and he groans, shivering as he lowers himself onto the floor. He doesn’t care- doesn’t care that the floor is hard and cold and stained. He’s spent. Truly, utterly, spent. Tony’s lips part with a soft sigh and he cradles the boy into his lap.

Peter doesn’t know how long he’s been there, his head resting on Tony’s strong thigh. He’s slowly starting to come back from his high. Becoming aware of their surroundings again.

“Hey, Pete,” Tony whispers sweetly. Peter just hums and snuggles closer. The shock collar around his neck no longer a threat, but a sweet reminder of what happened. “How’re you feeling?”

“Mmmmmfeelin’ good,” he mumbles. He doesn’t want to form coherent sentences yet. He wants to bathe in the aftermath of this for just a tad longer. He never thought he’d like it this much. They didn’t even fuck but it feels like they have. He feels ravished in the way he absolutely loves. “Hold me, daddy, pleeeease?”

“Yes baby, won’t let you go. I’ve got you, buddy. I’ve got you.”

[iridescent-hallucinations]

Your hands were made for mine - Chapter 3

Third and final chapter of my first ever Jemily fic!

Summary:  Is there a winner in this game? A prize? What's the point of playing a game that doesn't have a winner?

Word Count: 1304

Read it on AO3 

Emily surrendered herself entirely to JJ, sucking in air as she eagerly awaited the words that were to follow. JJ continued her whisper, letting her breath lightly caress Emily’s face: “your move”.

Emily looked deeply into JJ’s eyes, finding the sapphire there darkening with what could almost be interpreted as a threat? Never one to back away from a challenge, the danger spurred her on, as courage rushed into her chest, spreading outwards along her extremities. Adrenaline taking over, Emily grabbed the wrist that was attached to the finger still pressed to her lips, throwing JJ’s arm away from her face, whilst keeping her fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. She span them so JJ was now backed against the bookshelf by the door, one arm pinned to the side of her head.

The sudden action caused JJ’s eyes to widen almost impossibly, pupils dilating. What made her gasp, though, was the hunger reflected back in Emily’s own face, a face that was approaching hers so painfully slowly it caused JJ’s heart to physically ache with anticipation.

She felt, more than saw, Emily’s other hand come up to gently tuck a stray strand of golden hair behind her ear. Emily continued, softly stroking JJ’s cheek with the back of her index finger, barely making contact with the flushed skin that resided there, eliciting a delicious shiver from the blonde beneath her touch, before cupping it fully in her palm, using her thumb to draw patterns on JJ’s skin. The duality of being slammed into the bookshelf so suddenly and the tender caresses against her cheek caused JJ’s stomach to flip.

Now mere centimetres apart, Emily broke the silence with an involuntary gravelly tone to her voice.

“I win”. She husked out.

A simple statement, but loaded so heavily that the gravity of it pulled the women together until finally, Emily released JJ’s wrist, allowing her hand to fall beside them. Closing the gap entirely by pressing a soft kiss against JJ’s bottom lip, Emily would have sworn her heart had stopped beating if she couldn’t physically feel it throbbing in her ears.

It was delicate, a simple meeting of flesh on flesh, but as they separated, something inside of JJ awoke, as though she’d been sleepwalking through life until this exact moment.

Overcome with emotion, her hands flew to the older woman’s chest, pushing her forcefully backwards until her butt connected with JJ’s desk. Grabbing the brunettes hair, JJ leant down and drew her back in, forgetting everything other than the taste of Emily Prentiss. In return the brunette reached up to cup both of JJ’s cheeks. Their lips began a dance, one that came more naturally than either would admit, JJ pressing more deeply into Emily to increase the pressure until her lungs screamed for air.

Reluctantly, JJ finally withdrew, untangling her hands from the brunette nest they had been resting in to fall upon Emily’s shoulders. She gently rested her forehead against the older woman’s as she attempted to regain her breath. Emily revelled at the contact, running her hands over JJ’s toned back muscles until they connected behind the blonde, opening her legs to pull her in closer.

“Wow...” JJ gently whispered as her head span and her heart soared.

“Wow indeed,” chuckled Emily as she absentmindedly began stroking her thumbs against the base of JJ’s spine.

Still not ready to break contact, the blonde lifted her head from the brunettes, replacing it with a series of sound kisses pressed against Emily’s hairline. She could feel uneven puffs of air tickle her collar bones as Emily regained her own breath.

Finally leaning back far enough to look at Emily’s face, JJ braced herself, unsure of what the next move was going to be, anxiety beginning to build in the pit of her stomach.

Biting her bottom lip softly, she looked at Emily. Really looked. Desperate to work out what to do now. Hoping the answers would be written across the older woman’s features.

Emily looked up, her own anxiety peaking as she saw the uncertainty on JJ’s face. Swallowing it away, she decided now was as good a time as any to ask the fatal question. The final question. The question that had stabbed at the back of her throat since their first accidental touch all those months ago.

“JJ...” she began, “Is this just a game?” Emily immediately began to panic as she heard the words out loud, they had sounded so much safer coming from her internal monologue.

Beginning to spiral, she continued, far too quickly, “because if it is, of course, that would be fine, I don’t expect anything from you, that would be presumptuous to say the least... and I would never want to assume anything about you because, well, you’re incredible, I suppose it’s my fault really, this is all just a misunderstanding, and that’s absolutely fine because the thing is...” The end of her sentence was interrupted by the sudden contact of JJ’s lips against her own again, the blonde’s mouth swallowing whatever the end of that sentence was going to be.

Releasing Emily’s lips from her own, JJ couldn’t help but smile down on the flustered and stunned agent in front of her.

Watching the confusion swim in Emily’s hazel eyes, JJ chuckled out loud - partly because Emily was hilarious in this state - and partly at her own insecurities. It all seemed so juvenile now, the game, the moves, the doubt, even the way that this entire conversation had started.

Glancing down briefly at the forgotten papers she had dropped when Emily had asked what they were talking about, the papers that had been the cause of JJ’s initial blunder, the ones that had caused Emily to grab onto her waist minutes before, it caused JJ’s laughter to die down.

“Emily, has anyone ever told you that you talk to much?” JJ managed between giggles, concentrating on trying to not sound so amused.

“Uhh, actually yeah, once or twice,” the brunette replied. Her confusion had not yet subsided, however, JJ’s giggle was contagious, and having the privilege of watching her eyes sparkle as she laughed made Emily’s heart swell. An honest smile began to tug at the corner of Emily’s mouth until she could fight it no longer, smiling up at the beauty before her.

Seeing Emily relax into her own smile, JJ carefully considered how to answer the initial question.

“You were wrong before you know, you said you’d won. But the truth is, I’m the winner, and I cannot wait to collect my prize.” JJ continued to see confusion on Emily’s face as she blinked up at the younger woman.

Sighing in feigned frustration JJ once more tried to articulate her answer.

“It’s you dummy. You’re the prize. The game was fun while it lasted, but this,” she motioned with her hand between the two of them, “this is as real as I’ve ever known.” JJ reached to swipe a finger across Emily’s lips, and just to make sure her point was absolutely clear this time, she pressed another firm kiss to Emily’s lips, allowing herself to linger for a moment to really punctuate her point.

Emily’s brain finally caught up - pieces clicking into place - as she stood from the desk, causing JJ to take a step backwards so as not to stumble. Finding the younger woman’s hands, she brought them between their bodies in her own, intertwining their fingers delicately. Looking down at their joined hands, Emily grinned ear to ear, allowing herself a moment to appreciate how well they fit together, how nothing would ever make her feel whole like this again. Bringing her gaze up to meet JJ’s, Emily’s world was forever changed, she now knew exactly what to say.

“My love, your hands were made for mine”.

[celestial-archer]

A Lady’s Tail Chapter 1

First part of the adventures of my oc, Kelpie!

Zoba is from the wonderful @reallifeonthetheseventhfloor (a 10/10 person), check out her writing if you haven’t. Its really good!

AO3

           _________________________________________

The rustling glide of scales on smooth stone echoed through a long cavern. There were several small indents along the wall, leading to adjacent rooms. They were near impossible to find, unless someone knew what to look for. There were trap rooms randomly spread throughout the hall. The remaining rooms each had a different specific purpose, such as being a lab, bedroom, smithery, mine, etc. At the entrance of every room had a hidden alarm system made of a crystal that activated an alarm spell when an unknown entity walked through. 

The rustling stopped as a naga stopped moving and caressed a hand down the nearest wall. Her name was Kelpie. She had short pixie cut black hair, purple eyes with square glasses, and sharp venomous fangs. Her black tail was incredibly long with splatters of purple all over. She wore a  dark grey pinstripe corset. 

This was her base. It wasn’t as grandiose as some she had seen, such as The Great Tomb of Nazarick. Her friend Zoba was in the guild and had shown her around it one day. It was basically a masterpiece that anyone would be in awe of. Hers...was not. It wasn’t flashy nor extravagant, but it was useful. She was incredibly proud of it.

She had first discovered it when she was exploring a small mountainous area of the map. Not many people came there because it was rumored to be barren. Her objective was to see if the rumors had actually been true, afterall, Yggdrasil had so many niche secrets that something appearing to be empty could be a possible treasure trove. She roamed around for several hours that day, not finding anything until she stumbled onto the cave. It was a tiny, barely noticeable cave that couldn’t even fit her tail inside. The possibility of it being a secret entrance to a hidden dungeon was 90% in her head, but 0% in actuality. Her first thought was to just cut her loses and leave to find a real dungeon, but something made her stay. Even now she couldn’t say what it was that made her spend weeks carving out the beginning of the cave. It just felt right.

She never really stopped carving it out either. Every time she logged in and had available time, she would spend 30 minutes to an hour expanding it. As of now it spanned throughout the entire mountain area. She first began expanding it because she had wanted extra space, but continued it due to the mountain range being rich with precious stones and metals. Expanding it every day would give her a profit of over 100 metals or gems. 

She sighed deeply and turned to look at her NPC, Goren. He was near identical to an Archangel of Flame, except for some key differences. Being at level 80, he had way more power than them.  His halo was a swirling mass of molten gems. A good amount of her gems went into decorating him. His angelic metal body was almost completely covered with gems and stones of different composition and color. Technically he wasn’t supposed to exist since she was only a solo player, but through the use of a world item she had stumbled upon he was able to come into existence. While not necessarily a handsome NPC, he was very pretty to look at with the rainbow of colors on his body. 

Flicking her hand in the air, the screen of the menu popped up. The clock counting down the seconds mocked her. In less than 3 minutes Yggdrasil and everything from it would be gone forever. Her avatar, NPC, and base, gone like a piece of paper going up in flames. Pulling up her friends list, the green font of two players rested at the top, Momonga and Zoba. Seems they were online too. She quirked a smile, happy that she wasn’t the only one seeing Yggdrasil off.  She was, at most, a step above acquaintances with Momonga, but he was a fun guy that cared deeply about the game. She couldn’t imagine him not being here for the shutdown. 

Zoba was one of her one of her closest friends in the game. They had first met while they both were dungeon crawling and ended up partying together to beat the final boss. Even though she was not an official member of the Ainz Ooal Gown guild, Zoba would still go farming and dungeon crawling with her. 

Kelpie hovered her hand over the message option, but let it drop down. She wanted to talk one last time, but didn’t want to interrupt anything either of them were wrapping up. These last moments felt too sacred to do so. There was a tension in the air that said she needed to be alone in these final moments.

Less than two minutes remaining now. She felt the seconds ticking by like an execution and in a way, it was. She slid her hand into one of the indents in the wall and a section of the wall scraped silently across the floor. Slithering through, she glanced around the room. Shelves filled with items ranging from magic books to limited time drops lined three of the walls. The fourth had a drawered desk with a simple wooden chair in front against it and an anvil to the left. The center had a huge bundle of furs from several different high leveled beasts. This was her bedroom in all its glory. 

One minute remaining. There was nothing she could do to stop the horrible march of time, but wait for the inevitable. Wiggling her tail under the top layer of fur, she settled down on the top of her coiled tail. She imagined the softness of the fur and the warmth that radiated from it. Her eyes drifted shut and she counted down.

5

4

3

2

1

0....

The forced consciousness of her IRL body never came. She peeked an eye open, expecting to see the white ceiling of her dorm bedroom, but instead, her vision was filled with the dark grey of stone. 

What...was going on? She pushed her hand down to get up, but paused.

A plush warmth pushed against her hand. Almost the same feeling she had imagined a few seconds earlier. Her eyes drifted down and confirmed, yes that was indeed her fur bed. 

Huh, different possibilities popped inside her head. Am I hallucinating? Am I in a coma? Am I dead? Am I trapped in the game? She lazily flicked her hand up and-

Nothing appeared.

“The fuck?”

She flicked her hand again and again, but still nothing appeared.

“Ok, the menu doesn’t seem to work. Great.” 

Kelpie ran her hand through her hair and propped herself up. Immediately, she fell forward and slammed her face against the floor. Her tail stayed passively coiled on the bed. Shit, she had forgotten about that. Note to herself, trying to move her feet would not move her tail. 

Putting a hand on her chin, she stared at it. 

The color was even more vibrant now than it was before. The black was so sheek while the purple glowed brilliantly. With a light hand, she tentatively touched them and shivered. That was a new experience. Her hand felt the cool, smooth texture of the scales, while her tail felt a muted pressure against it. Almost like a cloth between her hand and tail. It wasn’t unpleasant, just unfamiliar.  

She shifted her hand and lifted the middle section of her tail. It wasn’t as heavy as it looked. She didn’t think her tail should be this easy to lift. 

Was it possible that she became stronger? She gave it a second of thought, but she shook her head to dispel the thoughts, no time to think about that right now. 

She placed her other hand on the opposite side of her tail and shook it back and forth to imitate the side to side movement of snakes. The feeling certainly was different from legs. Her tail had a lot more flexibility and there wasn’t the feeling that it should be one certain way. With legs, it's not possible to bend it in any way other than forward, unless the bone was broken. She could move and twist her tail in almost any direction. It was kind of freeing to not have any movement restrictions.

Committing the sensation of her tail moving to memory, she took a deep breath and tried to stand up. Well stand up as much as one could with a tail. It was a different balance than she was used to, more unstable. She no longer had two rigid foundations, but one long fluid foundation. She wobbled unsteadily side to side and immediately face planted.

Again.

Ok.

One more time. She could do this! 

She pushed herself back up, rubbing her face lightly with one hand. She wobbled horribly, but, by extending her arms to the side, didn’t fall over right away.

Progress!

She inhaled and tried to stabilize her center of mass. She shook slightly, but had enough balance to try moving forward. She visualized the image of a snake moving. Its entire body would swerve left and right, so maybe she should try that. It didn’t seem right for her to move all of her upper body though. That would disrupt her delicate balance.

She lightly swung her hips back and forth. It felt absolutely ridiculous, but she couldn’t deny it gave her results. She successfully slithered out from the fur pile. 

With the basics down, she spent the next ten minutes practicing how to move. She fell a lot the first half but was able to gradually work up from a slow crawl to a fast slither. The longer she practiced, the more her tail felt right. Like this was the way she was supposed to exist.

Well, one thing done. Now to figure out what was going on here. First step, exit her bedroom. She slipped her hand back into the indent and the door slid open. A warm and pleasant breeze brushed against her, causing her arms to erupt in goosebumps. It felt like she was outside in the middle of winter and the breeze was the little bit of sun shining down. Why was it so cold? 

Pulling a small fur from her bed and wrapping it around her shoulders, she slithered out of the room.

The wind blew from the direction of the entrance, so she decided to head that way. The walls passing by her were enchanting. She had never paid much attention to them before, being just a simple background to her, but now she wondered if she just never looked hard enough. The walls shimmered with rainbow particles in a nice contrast with the dark grey of the stone. She lightly brushed her hand down it. The texture was very smooth like a polished stone and warm to the touch. 

Why was everything so much more vivid? What was the cause behind it? The scientific part of her was desperate for the answer. 

She absently ran her finger tips along the wall. The smooth surface paired with the warmth was a calming tactile stimulation. Texture was a coping technique that worked decently well for her. 

Breath in and out, in and out, in and out. 

So much happening in so little time was overwhelming. 

Deep breath in and out, in and out, in and out.

She dropped her shoulders, releasing the tension in them. 

Ok, she was ok. She could get through this.

She wrapped the fur tighter around herself and continued onward, still dragging her hand across the wall. The cave got brighter and brighter until the light shining from the outside was visible. She could see the… greenery… of the outside?

She rushed forward, the fur slipping off her shoulders and onto the floor, forgotten. The sun beat down on her still body. She glanced around, twisting around to take in all of her surroundings. 

A forest.

She was in a fucking forest! 

Trees so densely packed together that she couldn’t even see past them. Shrubbery with berries and thorns at the bases. She was supposed to be in the mountains!

What the fuck! Whatthefuck! Whatthefuck!

Her heart pounded in her chest and her breath quickened into hyperventilation. 

Fuck! Fuck!

She clutched her head tightly as her vision swirled. She tried to force air into her lungs, but it wasn’t working. Her body swayed haphazardly and she collapsed against the bark of one of the trees. 

Oh god, she couldn’t breathe!

Calm down, calm down, calm down. 

She put two fingers against the pulse point on her neck and took deep breaths. One, two, three, she counted up to ten and started over, letting her heart rate settle. 

She inhaled, held it for a few seconds, then exhaled, repeating it until her heartbeat and breathing returned to normal. 

Ok, good. She was calmer. 

She pushed her weak arms against the tree and righted herself. Hopefully her nausea would subside in a few minutes. 

Shutting her eyes and tilting her head back, she took in the sounds of the world around her. It was strangely quiet, not a single bird chirping or any rustling of small animals scavenging for food. It should have sent warning bells through her mind, but the silence was too nice for her high nerves. 

Seriously, what was going on? She knew her dreams weren’t this vivid, so she couldn’t be sleeping. The coma theory was still a possibility but very low. 

Maybe this actually was her new reality somehow, but it just didn’t make any sense! It had to be an error of some kind in the game. 

A breeze blew through her and she shivered again. Scouring the ground around her revealed that nothing was there. Shit, where was her fur? Did she drop it in her panic?

Her teeth clattered and she wrapped her arms around herself. She made a plan in her head to find a permanent solution for the cold to replace the fur. She turned around and glided towards the cave. 

Snap

A branch behind her broke in half. Shit, it really had been too quiet. Of course something had been wrong!

Instinct took a hold of her. She spun around and hissed, the sound echoing through the forest. Her fangs elongated and venom pooled at the tips. Distortion took over her voice, slurring the S as she shouted.

“Who are you?! Ssshow yourself now!”

The green brush parted and out stepped a shiny silver angel with multi-colored stones all over his body. His arms were raised as he spoke carefully, his voice a quiet baritone.

“My lady, it's just me. I apologize for leaving your side. I should have asked permission to do so.  I will take any punishment you wish to impose.”

He kneeled in front of her, waiting patiently and radiating shame. Her body slouched back, resting against her coiled tail. She relaxed her face, allowing her fangs to shrink back to their normal size, no longer producing venom.

Holy shit.

“Goren, is that you?”

“I assure you, my lady, I am no mimic. If needed, I can show proof of my identity”

He remained completely motionless, his head bowed in submission. It was so surreal that she doubted that he was actually there. She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. The panic was bubbling back up into her chest, but she took deep breaths to stave it off.

“My lady, are you ok?! Give me the order and I'll do whatever it takes to aid you!” 

She opened her eyes and peered at him. Yep, he was still there, but now his head was raised, staring at her. There was no change in his facial expression, but from the heavy concern lacing his voice, she knew he was deeply worried about her.  

“Ah, yeah. I’m uh… I’m ok, just give me a second to contemplate.”

“Understood.”

He continued staring at her and it felt like he was staring into her soul. 

“Actually, would you go retrieve my fur? I dropped it somewhere inside.”

“Of course! It would be an honor!” He exclaimed, his voice full of happiness.

Swiftly standing up, he gave Kelpie a deep bow and rushed into the cave. 

With a heavy sigh, she rolled her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck with one hand. It was nice to not have the heavy weight of his stare on her, but she was a little sad at the absence of his company. His eagerness to help was really cute, like an excited puppy. It lifted her spirits and reminded her of how she interacted with her own friends, extremely loyal and excited just to be with them. Some of her IRL friends would even call her a golden retriever with how excitable she was. 

It was possible that it would come back to bite her, but she decided to trust him completely. He seemed too earnest to betray her. Plus trusting him would save her more hardship for the meantime.

His hurried footsteps clanked from behind her. She turned to him and gave a small smile. The fur was clutched in his arms as if it was a sacred object. It was impossible for his facial expressions to change, but he still managed to radiate happiness as he reverently held the fur out to her.

“Here is your fur, my lady! Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Thank you Goren. I’ll let you know in a moment.” 

She grabbed the fur and gently wrapped it around herself. That was so much nicer. The cocoon of warmth banished the cold. No longer feeling trapped in the middle of a blizzard, she could think more clearly. The cold and large amount of new information had given her sensory overload. 

She observed Goren. He was intensely watching her again, probably waiting for her response. He had been acting very interestingly. He was so subservient and worshipful, like she was some kind of goddess. Was this part of a scenario the developers had set up? If so, she wished she had been given some kind of warning. She clicked her tongue and addressed Goren.

“So I assume you went exploring. Did you discover anything?”

“Yes! It seems that we are between a mountain range and a forest. I found no signs of the mountain we were in previously. There appears to be a city and small village in the distance. The village is closer than the city. If you wish, I can lead you there.”

She tilted her head and hummed.

“Yes, that would be good. Thank you.”

Visiting the village would be very advantageous. It was likely where she could get more information about this new scenario and how to complete it. She didn’t really need Goren to lead her to it. With her ranger skills, she could easily find it herself, but having Goren with her would be comforting.

“Understood, please follow me, My Lady.” 

Goren turned and led her through the forest. Trees passed by quickly and she easily maneuvered over the roots and uneven ground. It was a normal forest except for the missing ambience of life. She slithered her way up to Goren, matching his walking pace.

“Goren, do you know why there are no animals around?”

Goren tilted his head to look at her.

“Of course. While you were resting, I took the opportunity to establish our territory. There were many species that had territory near the cave, so I defeated all of them. The other animals are likely avoiding us out of fear. Any who dare to challenge you will be struck down.”

His voice dripped with malice as he spoke the last sentence. Anyone with a sane mind would be filled with unease from hearing the deadly tone, but it just filled her heart with happiness, causing her tail to slap the ground repeatedly. 

“Good job! That will save us so much trouble! If we don’t need to worry about animals tripping them, we could install several traps and extend the alarm system outside the cave. Possibly even making dummy caves.” 

She paced back and forth muttering to herself about what traps would be good to put down, but  was interrupted by Goren gurgling and dropping down to one knee.

“My Lady! I am undeserving of your praise! It is my duty to fulfill your wishes and protect you. Everything I am belongs to you and if you commanded it, I would happily die for you!”

Her mouth fell open and she stared at him. She was just giving him a compliment, how had the conversation turned so serious?? She rushed forward and pulled his arm up. He gave no resistance and rose to his feet.

“No, no, no, there is no need to die! I gave you a compliment because you deserved it! It would make me very happy if you were to accept.”

“I...Yes, of course. I humbly accept your words.”

He tried to kneel again, but Kelpie held his arm tighter and gave him a stern look.

“Enough kneeling. You were showing me to the village, right? Let’s continue with that.”

He gave a simple nod and turned to continue through the forest. Kelpie sighed in relief and followed after him. His personality was different from what she expected. She hadn’t given him the worshipping trait, so where had it come from? She would ask him why he was so reverent but she was worried that he’d do something extreme again. 

She shrugged her shoulders back and focused her attention to the forest. They were getting closer to the edge of the forest. The trees were thinning out and she could start to make out the image of a village. The first thing she should do upon arrival would be to gather information. Knowing where they were currently was priority number one, but it would also be good to discover the main quest. Finishing it was probably the key to getting her menu and ability to log out back. 

Now that she thought about it, the immersion was incredible. The devs must have worked really hard on this, especially the npcs. She always imagined the personal npcs having a monotone voice, but Goren’s was incredibly expressive. She was interested to see more of his personality as well. She had originally programmed him to be shy and blunt.The blunt trait was intact, but the shyness was nowhere to be seen. In the future, would she see it through his interactions with other people, maybe even other players? 

There had to be more players spawned into random locations like her. It couldn’t be just her, right? Yeah, it couldn’t be just her. Meeting another in the village would make her day. They could share information and figure everything out faster. 

“My Lady, we’ve arrived.”

Goren’s quiet voice cut through her thoughts.

The village was just beyond the edge of the forest where they stood. There were several stone houses surrounding a wooden watchtower. Several villagers were wandering around doing menial chores, such as wood chopping and tending the fields. Kelpie scanned the area, searching for anyone that looked important. They would be the one most likely to be the quest giver.

“I don’t see the chief, what about you?”

“I apologize, My Lady, but I am also unable to.”

She clicked her tongue in annoyance. She would just have to go searching for them then. Hopefully they’d be outside, she didn’t really want to search through all of the houses for them.

“Goren, use your skill “Hide Shadow”. We don’t know if the village is safe or not. They look harmless, but you can never be too careful. Stay in my shadow until danger appears or I give the order, understood?”

“Of course!”

He crossed his arm over his chest with a bow and melted into darkness that tunneled down into her shadow. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Ok, time for answers. She set her shoulders and crept towards the village.

The field workers in front of her were hard at work, weeding and harvesting the wheat. They remained oblivious to her existence until she started crossing across the field, trying to avoid crushing any crops. The first to see her was a young male villager around the age of 18. His scythe slashed through the wheat stalk and he pulled the bundle away cleanly. He was laying the bundle into his basket when his eyes met with Kelpie’s. For a moment, nothing happened. They stared at each other, neither making a single movement. She lifted her hand to wave and all hell broke out.

The villager opened his mouth and let out the loudest scream she had ever heard. He turned tail and sprinted towards the houses. The others lifted their own heads to investigate and gave their own screams of terror. They retreated the same way as the young man, shoving and trampling the ones in their way. One was unfortunate enough to trip. He fell pathetically to the ground and whimpered in pain as he was slowly trampled to death. His lifeless body laid there, blood pouring out from under it.

The screams flowed through the air like an orchestra symphony and euphoria welled up in her chest. 

This was exciting! 

A breeze blew across the field and carried the metallic scent to her. She slowly inhaled then exhaled, enjoying the scent. It was enticing, like the smell of thanksgiving dinner on an empty stomach. 

Her pupils dilated into slits as saliva pooled in her mouth. Her fangs elongated, venom dripping down them. The sounds and smell were amazing and she wanted, no, needed more! A long hiss reverberated from deep in her chest. The sound traveled through the village and wails erupted from just beyond the houses.

Yessss, she liked that! More, more!

She flew across the field and entered the village. A mob of villagers were waiting for her with torches and pitchforks in hand. They shook where they stood and she could hear the loud pounding of their hearts. The fear was thick enough that she could smell it and it was as delicious as the bloody scent. 

Good, they should fear her! A forked tongue flicked out as she licked her lips. She could practically taste their flesh already. A hunting horn boomed out and like a flash, the mob charged her. 

Foolish~

The world slowed down to a crawl as adrenaline shot through her body. She could clearly see the terror on the front line’s faces. They knew their chances of survival was low, but they still had the smallest amount of hope inside of themselves. She would enjoy crushing that~

She crouched her body down and shot forward with explosive force. Slashing her hand in an arc, the heads of all the frontliners flew from their shoulders. Blood erupted out like a volcano and the bodies collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. It happened in an instant, leaving no time to react before they were dead. The mob collectively shuddered in fear. Many of the back liners dropped their weapons and ran for their lives, crying pitifully and letting prayers fall from their lips. She gave them a glance but didn’t chase after them. She had enough of a feast before her to ignore the stragglers. Kelpie brought the back of her blood covered hand to her mouth and dragged her tongue across it. The blood was sweet like a piece of candy. 

Tasty! Tasty! Tasty!

A feral grin overtook her face and drool dripped out the corner of her mouth. How nice would it taste right from the source? 

A muscular elder stepped forward with an axe, staring defiantly. Yes, he would do nicely as an example. Let them see what happens to those who defy her! He rushed forward and swung the axe at her head. 

Slow! Slow! Slow!

She thrust her arm at his neck, her fingers wrapped tightly around his neck and she lifted him off the ground. The axe clattered to the ground.

“Let thisss be a warning to you all. Those who defy me, die painfully.”

She unhinged her jaw and bit down on his shoulder. His agonized scream intensified as she pumped venom into his bloodstream. Releasing her hand, he slammed into the ground and convulsed wildly. He would die slowly and painfully. She brushed her thumb across the corner of her mouth. 

Laughing maniacally, she asked,

“Who'sss next?”

_________

She woke up from her trance several hours later, the taste of blood thick on her tongue and piles of bodies surrounding her. Her fur was drenched enough that there was no sign of its original color. In just one day, she had completely obliterated a village. 

The slickness of the blood covering her cooled her body uncomfortably. Yet, it still wasn’t a horrible feeling. 

Oh god, what had happened? Memories overwhelmed her mind with perfect clarity. The revulsion she should have felt was completely missing. In fact, just thinking about it was enough to make her happy. She touched her hands to her face and felt the smile she had.

She dry heaved. Why wasn’t she horrified by her actions?? What had happened to her?? 

Oh god, this couldn’t be the game! It couldn’t be! The game couldn’t affect her thinking and feelings!

Hyperventilation took her over and she clawed at the invisible pressure squeezing her neck. 

This was real! She had just murdered whole families and enjoyed it! Worse was that she wanted to do it again!

Her vision became hazy and black spots appeared all over. She fell forward, the sensation muted to the point of nonexistence. She dug her fingers into the ground and tried to drag her body away from the glassy eyed bodies. She raspily called out in desperation.

“G...Goren...Help…”

The sight of Goren rematerializing and reaching for her was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

[petri808]

Awaken the Sleeping Dragon Within

Nalu Canon divergent, would take place after ft 100.  Here you go, I hope you like it!  :)  Lol it ended up longer than I’d expected.

Natsu moves with an extra spring in his step that morning.  The job was a mission complete with no damages and full payment given.  He’d found the perfect gift for Lucy that he’d been searching for and was now on his way back home to Magnolia.  The perfect weather was like a bonus treat that made his travel by foot a pleasant one.

Things had been progressing in their change of relationship status.  Through the whole 100-year quest, the shining revelation was not only that their bond could never be broken, but one that transcends the lines of simple friendship.  When he’d said ‘together forever’ it was a phrase uttered from the heart towards a person he knew he’d always want to be around.  But now he fully understood what it had meant, and it was time to solidify that phrase.  To take it from mere words to action and the gift he held in his pocket would do just that.

It would be another half-day’s journey to Magnolia, which meant he’d have to sleep under the stars one more evening.  Natsu didn’t mind so much.  As long as he could see them, they reminded him of Lucy, and that made him feel less lonely without her at his side.  The roads were quiet considering the holidays were so close in time.  Natsu remembers passing very few travelers, and in the last several hours, none at all.  Yet it was strange that he’d felt eyes watching him on a few occasions.

Just before nightfall, Natsu makes camp just off the side of the road in the first clear area he could find.  He sets up his bedroll, a small campfire, and eats dinner before lying down to get some rest.  The sooner he falls asleep, the faster the morning will come, and it doesn’t take long for mister sandman to come a calling.

There was little warning than a downward draft of air from above bringing with it…

‘What the hell?!’

Natsu jumps to his feet, awoken from a sound sleep by the scent of his brother blasting his senses.  He barely has a chance to dive away and block as a stream of fire burns his belongings to a charred pile and blackens the ground where he had just been occupying.

“Ignia!!!” He screams at the dragon hovering above. “What the fuck is your problem?!”  He was tired of these surprise attacks.  Four times now, but he was glad this time Lucy wasn’t around to be caught in the middle.  The last one… she’d almost been burned.

But Ignia simply bellows a guttural laugh and sends another blast of fire at Natsu in response.

The slayer dodges stream after stream of fire sent his way, lobbing blasts of his own the few chances he gets.  Ignia keeps up the volley at breakneck speed causing Natsu to endure a few near misses and a couple of singes.  Oh, this is ridiculous!  What kind of game was Ignia playing with him?!

As soon as Ignia pauses to change his flight pattern, Natsu takes advantage and lights up his feet.  He rockets himself toward his brother, sending his own crackling of flames to overwhelm Ignia long enough to compromise the dragon’s vision.  Then he uses a flame whip to lasso its neck.  Ignia thrashes at the binding, but it’s too late.  It gave Natsu just enough time to pull himself up and grab on to his brothers back, gripping tightly to the scales.  “Dad… and.. uncle Atlas… would be… so.. pissed… at you!”  He scoots up slowly, inching his way to the base of the dragon’s neck.

His brother bucks harder to get him off, free diving and suddenly banking one way or the other, doing anything and everything to throw Natsu off him.  “Fuck them, as if I care!”  He growls. “They did nothing for me and now they’re all dead!”

That pisses Natsu off!  How dare Ignia speak ill of their family!  “And you tarnish all they fought for by fighting me!  Spare me your sob story, I will not let you talk badly about Igneel like that, you selfish asshole!”  He lobs a ball of fire at Ignia’s head.  “Or Atlas!”  Another ball.  “Even he recognized me as Igneel’s son!”

Several more blasts are levied at Ignia’s head.  From this close proximity, the dragon can’t strain his neck far enough to retaliate or get a good hit on his brother, instead taking each one.  His skin may be immune to fire, but it’s effectively irritating.  There’s only one way he can think of to attack back.

He flames up his entire body.

At first Natsu’s screams pierce the dragon’s ears and he grins wide, assuming his brother still couldn’t handle his flames.  Several seconds tick on, but something changes.  Natsu’s screams die out.  Did he kill his brother?  That brings a wider-brimmed smile to his snout.  He grins and cranes his neck as far as it could go, but the sight that greets him quickly sullies his demeanor.

“It won’t work on me anymore… brother.”  Natsu’s own grin brings a great roar from Ignia.  The dragon bucks, but this time Natsu stands firm, holding tight to his flame whip now blue in color.  The slayer was covered in his brothers flames from head to toe!  The initial flame on had surprised him, hence the scream, but Natsu was able to slurp it up and take it in.

“You’ve learned to control it?!”  Ignia screams.  “I am a dragon god!  How can a mere human handle my flame?!”

Their last fight had hardened Natsu’s resolve to beat his brother once and for all.  It wasn’t a matter of choice, he needed to gain control over the flames to protect his loved ones.  Ignia didn’t need to know all the pain he’d endured to master this ability, but he will see the results.    

The longer he continues to soak up his brother’s flames, the more changes morph along his body.  Scales over his extremities and around his face.  Sharper claw-like nails and elongated canines.  Leathery wings with horn spiked joints and finally, serpentine pupils.  He was still humanoid, a hybrid of both worlds.  “Because I am no mere human.”  Natsu’s voice is low and full of pride.  “I’m a demon and the son of the Fire Dragon King!  For the sake of our father’s honor, I do not wish to fight you, but I will if you continue to threaten me or those I love!”

Ignia wanted to defeat his brother, but he wasn’t a fool either.  He could sense the gathering strength flowing through Natsu and the threat was not baseless.  This slayer or whatever he was, was not only on par with him power for power, but possibly even more so.  There was a strange feeling to Natsu’s energy…  ‘Tch, it’s that stupid love shit again!’  Ignia vaguely remembers his brother spouting nonsense about strength from family, friends, or something like that.  

“Well, brother?” Natsu narrows his eyes and concentrates his flames towards his hands, pooling, and growing balls of fire around them.  “Fight or live?”

“You’re bluff!”

Before Ignia finishes his retort, Natsu sends one ball, hitting his brother in the eye.  His fire, combined with his brothers explodes like white-hot shrapnel, burning through scale.  If Ignia hadn’t closed his eye soon enough, he would have been blinded.  

The dragon shrieks in pain, tossing his head from side to side to shake off the burning sensation.  It was unbelievable to Ignia that any fire could burn a fire dragon!  And one from this damn slayer!    

“I’ve come a long way,” Natsu reiterates, “there is nothing I won’t endure to protect.”

“Get off of me!” Ignia screams.  “Alright!  I’ll leave and go back to Guiltina!”

Natsu takes flight, hovering above and to the side of his brother.  “Don’t come back to Fiore, Ignia or I will not hold back!  I will slay you as we were originally conscripted to do!”  

The dragon blows out a puff of steam and without another word takes off towards the clouds.  Whether Ignia keeps his word or not will remain unseen, but for now, it was over.  Natsu looks down at the area he was sleeping in and remembers that his bedroll and backpack were destroyed, leaving him nothing to rest on.  He groans.  It was still a few hours till dawn, but with the wings, he could make it back to his cottage by morning.  He didn’t like staying in this form for so long because it drained his energy, but it might be better than sleeping on the hard ground.  ‘I’ll just sleep when I get home…’

It was a loud banging on his front door that rouses Natsu from another dead sleep.  “Come… coming…” He stumbles off the couch, wiping at the crusted drool on his cheek and chin.  His body ached all over, not painful, just sore, like every muscle was on strike and his vision was foggy.  His side bumps into the counter while trying to steady his wobbling gait.  “Oww!” Natsu grabs his side.  He looks down at where the pain was coming from and sees a large healing burn.  It was only then that his mind snaps together enough to focus and starts to inspect the rest of his body.  The burn was the worst injury he could see, but his top and vest were ripped or torn and barely hanging on his body, pants singed and tattered in a couple areas.    

Another loud bang on the door followed by a woman’s voice.  “Natsu?!  Are you in there?!!”  “He was supposed to be back by now,” the woman speaks in a lower tone as if turned away to another person.

Natsu shakes his head, even his hearing was fogged up, and his sense of smell.  That fight, nay, the transformation and holding it for hours is what zapped his reserves.  He could barely remember making it home.  The voice sure sounded like Lucy’s.  

Now a male voice.  “Are you sure?  Maybe the job ran late.”  

“But tomorrow is Christmas,” the woman replies, “he promised to be home by then.”

Wait a minute!  Natsu whips his head towards the door.  “Christmas?” he mumbles.  That means he’s been asleep for 3 days!  “Christmas?!”  He pushes away from the counter, trips over his own feet, but manages to grab hold of the doorknob, yanking it open.  “Lucy?!”

“Natsu?!”  She rushes up, throwing herself into his body, wrapping her arms tightly around him.  “Where the hell have you been?!  I’ve been so worried!”

“I…”

She pushes off to take a better look.  Immediately, Lucy’s joy at seeing her partner turns to a new range of emotions, going from happiness to sadness to anger in the span of nanoseconds.  “Oh, my Mavis!  What the hell happened to you?!!”

“Aannd, this is where I take my leave,” Gray takes a few steps back.  Natsu was confirmed alive, but now was in another level of trouble.  “See ya guys later.”  He makes a swift exit, leaving the rest to Lucy to deal with.  A lover’s quarrel was not something he was going to get in the middle of.

“Was it the mission?  Did something go wrong?  Who did this to you?!”  Lucy fires question after question in rapid succession, matching the speed at which her mind was flying in that moment.  Natsu was a total mess.  His singed and torn clothing was one thing but the large wound on his side was of a bigger concern.  She should run to get Wendy, but first, demanded answers!  Just as Lucy was about to lay into him with more questions, Natsu swoons on his feet.  His legs were buckling from exhaustion.  Lucy swings his arm over her shoulder to steady him and drags him back to his couch.  She brings him a glass of water, then when he finishes the drink, kneels in front of him.

Lucy takes a deep breath.  She was furious over being worried half to death but knew a fight wouldn’t accomplish anything.  Instead she places her hand upon his knee, looks up, and in a softened tone, “Spill it Natsu.  Tell me what happened.”

So, he does, starting from when Ignia attacked to flying all the way home after the fight, leaving out no details.  “I barely remember getting home or even passing out on the couch three days ago.  The dragon mode took a toll on my body.  I’m so sorry Luce, I never meant to worry you!  All I had wanted to do was…”  Natsu’s eyes widen, the gift!  He’d forgotten all about it!  Did it survive the flames?!  He reaches into his pocket and pulls the small box out.  Its packaging seemed okay, but as he opens it, Natsu’s heart sinks.  The metal ring of the band was melted and warped.  “Fuck!” He closes the cover and lifts his arm to throw it.

“Wait!” Lucy stops him, grabbing his arm and reaching for the box.  “Don’t!  What is that?”

“It was your Christmas gift,” Natsu’s head sinks, and his eyes fall to the floor.  “But it’s ruined.”

She was still trying to process the fight with Ignia and now this gift added another element to the mix.  Lucy wasn’t sure if she should be upset, or just happy that he’d become so powerful, because that growth had saved his life.  How about both?  “Next time Natsu, when there’s something important like this, you should talk to me about it.  I shouldn’t have to find out by surprise that you had trained to wield his fire or that you can control your dragon form.”

“I know…” he sighs.

Lucy sighs too, squeezing his knee.  “I’m annoyed… but I’m also excited that you’re home now and safe.”  She smiles, “I’ll help you get cleaned up, and go get Wendy to heal your wound, okay?”

“Gah!  I feel so bad, I don’t even have a Christmas gift for you now.”

She chuckles and waves her hand, “I don’t need a gift.  It’s the thought that counts, and besides, maybe it’s still repairable.”

Natsu grabs her hand, “it’s not… just a ring.  Lucy, I…. I was planning on proposing to you tomorrow.”

“Wait, what?”  Lucy pauses in shock, but quickly regains her thought process.  She starts to laugh, bringing a look of confusion to Natsu’s face, like his girlfriend has just lost her mind.  “I’m sorry for laughing,” she chuckles again, “Natsu a ring isn’t important.”  Her eyes crinkle in a smile.  “If you want to ask me, then just ask me.  You can fix the ring later if you still want to.”

“Really?!” That brings a wide-brimmed smile back to Natsu’s face.  “Wait,” he tilts his head, “is this a trick question?”  

That sends Lucy into another round of hysterics.  “No!” she laughs, “I’m serious!”

He pouts, “but I wanted to do the whole show, get down on one knee and stuff like they do in your books.”

Lucy smiles from his cute gesture and caresses his cheek, “then I shall wait as well to say yes…”

[lithalwrites]

Realization

Life is a series of realizations, some creep up on you slowly, like ivy covering brick walls, while others hit you with all the force of a sucker punch. The relative numbers of each kind of realization vary from person to person, from situation to situation, from day to day. Some are better at spotting the impending realizations, while others are surprised more often than not. Some realizations are uncomfortable, some are relieving, and some change our lives forever.

Kuroo Tetsurou’s life was also a series of realizations, some trivial, some vital, all contributing to shaping him into the person he was.

He was six when he realized he loved volleyball, and that he wanted to play it for as long as he was able to. He was eight when his family moved, and he was unhappy with the move. He was shy and scared that he wouldn’t be able to make any new friends. Luckily for him, the neighbours had a kid just a year younger than him, who didn’t seem to mind when he went over and watched him play games. It was hard to get to know him at first, they were both quiet and he didn’t know where to start, but eventually they started talking, and became friends. He was still eight when he realized that he liked spending time with Kenma, who loved playing video games way too much, but also humoured him and tossed around a volleyball with him when he asked.

He was ten and working on his science project when he realized he would love to keep learning about how things worked. There was something very satisfying about gathering information and putting it together to create something that gave results.

He was twelve and watching a horror movie with Kenma when he realized that he was much more easily scared than Kenma. It was only after the movie that he realized that he had instinctively clutched Kenma’s arm in fright, and that had made the movie less scary.

He was thirteen and at the pool with his friends when they started talking about girls, and he realized that he wasn’t interested in the conversation they were having. He wondered if it meant he was interested in guys, but he didn’t find himself staring at the guys at the pool either. Perhaps he was just a late bloomer.

Over the next few years, other realizations followed: he liked teaching, he didn’t like parties, he was loud and boisterous, but it always left him tired and in need of recharging. It was as if spending time with a lot of people drained his battery. Spending time with Kenma never tired him out, and he could spend hours watching his friend play games and playing with him. They talked, about a lot of things, and Kenma knew more about him than anyone else. Probably more than even his father and grandparents. He had a feeling that there was something big related to that he should pay attention to, but he also wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.

Sometimes, the realizations that hit the hardest do so because signs have gone ignored, and things have reached the breaking point. The mind and the heart are sick of the deflection, the denial, the avoidance, and confrontation is the only option left.

Kuroo was eighteen and packing up for university when he found an old album. His father had gotten him a film camera for his eleventh birthday, and he had spent most of his allowance on film and getting it developed. He had stopped using it after about six months of near-constant use, and had never really picked it back up. Kenma had asked to borrow the camera, and probably still had it. He would have to ask him about it. He looked around his room at the half-packed boxes, and then decided to take a break from packing. He picked up the album and opened it to the first page. The very first picture was a selfie he had taken in Kenma’s room, Kenma playing a game on his handheld console, not looking at him. His own face took up one corner of the picture, his grin wide. He looked awfully pleased with himself. He remembered when he had taken the picture. It was his birthday, and his dad had left the present in his room for him to find when he woke up. He had run over to Kenma’s house as soon as he had opened his present.

The next picture was him blowing candles on a cake Kenma’s mom had baked for him, Kenma by his side. Kenma’s mom must have taken the picture. She had always welcomed him to their house, and had treated him like a second son. She sometimes even joked about him being a son she hadn’t asked for but loved anyway.

He flipped through the album. It was full of pictures he had taken, some of them ‘artsy’ shots of things like clouds and rocks and flowers, some of them selfies, some of them pictures of him and Kenma, and most of them pictures of Kenma. His album was full of pictures of Kenma. Kenma playing video games, Kenma doing homework, Kenma opening the present Kuroo had gotten him for his birthday, Kenma looking at him in fond exasperation.

As he got farther into the album, he wished he hadn’t put the camera away after just a year. Pictures were snapshots of life, moments frozen in time, and he wished he had frozen more of them. He put the album in one of his boxes, to take with him. He wouldn’t be able to see Kenma as often as he had for the past decade, and the thought made him unbearably sad. Before he could spend much thought on his feelings, his phone pinged and he saw a text from Kenma, asking him to come over. His mom had prepared a going-away dinner for Kuroo.

Seeing the words ‘going-away dinner’ made his heart ache, and he wished that he didn’t have to leave. He put the phone in his pocket and headed over to the Kozume house. He greeted Kenma’s mom, who smiled lovingly at him and told him to go ahead and have a seat at the table. Kenma came downstairs and asked him if he was done packing, and Kuroo felt something unpleasantly squeezing his chest.

The food looked amazing, and they dug in as soon as Kenma’s mom joined them. She gushed over Kuroo and how proud she was about him getting into such a good school, and asked him about his program and what classes he would be taking. Kuroo answered her, a smile on his face, but his heart still ached.

Once they were finished with dinner, she brought out a cake that said, ‘We’re proud of you, Tetsu-kun!’ and it took all of Kuroo’s willpower to not start crying at the table. After they were done with dessert and Kuroo and Kenma had helped clear away the dishes, Kenma’s mom gave Kuroo a hug, and then handed him a present, telling him to open it with Kenma. They headed upstairs, and Kuroo unwrapped the present as Kenma watched him. It was another photo album.

“You can go ahead and look at it if you want,” Kenma said, and Kuroo complied. Inside were pictures of him and Kenma, on birthdays, graduations, in Kenma’s room, outside in the yard. Kenma’s mom must have taken them. In several pictures, spanning the past few years, Kuroo saw himself looking at Kenma with what he could only describe as love. That he had feelings for Kenma wasn’t a revelation to Kuroo, but the realization that he had apparently had these feelings for years hit him like a ton of bricks. There had been so many signs that he had ignored or denied or dismissed, and now these pictures were laying down evidence in front of him that he couldn’t deny.

“Kuro? What’s wrong?” Kenma asked, sounding more concerned than Kuroo had ever heard him, and to his shock, he saw a teardrop land on the back of his hand. He touched the back of his hand to his eyes, and it came away wet. “Kuro?”

And then, because Kenma always was just as good at reading him as he was at reading Kenma, moved closer and pulled him into a hug. “I’m going to miss you,” Kuroo said, his voice muffled.

“Me too,” Kenma said. “We can still text. And call. And visit.”

“It won’t be the same.”

“I know.”  

And then, his heart racing a mile a minute, Kuroo said what he should have said a while ago. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Kenma said, without missing a beat. “I have for a very long time.”

Kuroo laughed through his tears. “I have too, but I just didn’t know until the realization hit me.”

“Better late than never,” Kenma answered, rubbing his back soothingly. “Mom is going to be very happy. Now she can really call you her son.”

Kuroo found himself smiling, the ache in his heart subsiding just a little.

As far as life-changing realizations went, Kuroo could not have asked for a better one.  

[frospino]

To Learn About Life

Jaskier x fem!Reader (she/her pronouns)

Warnings: A tiny mention of a stabbing injury, mentions of sex.

Summary: Angst with positive ending. Jaskier has fallen in love with a Princess, and has to write a song for her wedding. He thinks about the meaning of True Love.

Word Count: 1.570

A/N: I loved Joey Batey’s interview about Netflix!Jaskier’s way of falling in love with people, and wanted to explore this idea a little. How does the concept of “true love” go together with this? It’s very angsty at first. It does not end with Jaskier crashing a wedding, but it ends on a positive note nontheless. I tried to play with usual conventions of “love = sex/marriage”, hopefully demonstrating that love is so much more - at least that was my intention with this story.

The problem with singing so much about True Love, Jaskier thought, was that when it actually did come along, you missed it. He had realised too late that True Love, the one love every hopeless romantic (and he did count himself among those) longed for, the one that would change your life forever, was nothing like the stories would make you believe. There was no fanfare, no fairies announcing She is the one; there was no moment when time stood still and made him understand the weight of his feelings. Instead, True Love came along in many little moments, moments you would miss if you blinked. It came as her laughter resounding through the clearing at night, with all the brilliance and gentleness of a stream sparkling in sunlight. It came as her curses when her mare refused to go another step, and they had to make camp in the middle of a field, holding on to the faint hope that it was too obvious a place for bandits to find. It came as questions of “Are you okay” and “Does this hurt” when he did get stabbed by bandits, and only a timely intervention of Geralt saved him from certain death. There were so many small moments, Jaskier thought, that seemed mundane or trivial or understood. That’s what friends do. She’s beautiful and kind, of course you would think like that. Honestly, this isn’t different from the other princesses you’ve seduced. This, too, will fade, as it always does. But it didn’t, and Jaskier wanted to say something, he really did, but then the Prince came along, and what should have been said long ago became unspeakable. He tuned his lute as the reminisced on his feelings. “I would not want anyone but my dearest friend to sing at my wedding,” she had said, and how could he have refused? His fingers ghosted over the strings, eliciting sad notes, happy notes, as he tried to capture the sound of her voice in his melody. The Prince was kind, and handsome, and noble; many things that Jaskier would have found attractive himself, once upon a time. But he had met his Princess, and his True Love, and he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to look at someone else that way. What song should he sing? Which chords and words would capture the feeling of True Love he so longed to convey, even though he knew their wedding was the last place to do so? In a great ballad, Jaskier thought, the story would go like this: When a noble and a bard meet, it is understood that their different social standing prevents them from ever pursuing something more than fleeting lust. But their eyes locked, and their hearts beat as one, and they knew; but they said nothing, denying themselves the feelings that were so obvious for everyone else. The Prince came along, and he asked for her hand—what a great catch, how wonderful for her family, both of their families, what a perfect match. She accepted, desperately waiting for Jaskier to jump up, to object, to steal her away in the middle of the night. But alas, she had accepted the Prince’s proposal, and the contracts were already in place; how could they ever live a life in peace? And the story goes on: The bard saddled the horses, only packing the most essential things, and the Princess agreed to live as a maid, relying on Jaskier’s songs to get them through the harsh summers and even harsher winters. But they had each other, nothing else mattered, it was True Love, after all. He would have to change his name, Jaskier thought; his travels with Geralt had made him too famous, and after all, there were many flowers left he could pick. How about Dandelion? Bright and yellow, growing everywhere but never seen for its beauty; he could make it work for himself, he thought. Or they could flee to Nilfgaard, which would soon span the entire continent anyway. They could hide there, in a small town in the countryside, and work on a farm; and at night, he would play in the local inn, with a beautiful name such as Rittersporn—he had overheard a traveller with a thick accent talk about a blue flower at the side of the road in such a way. He would become an entire field of flowers, Jaskier thought, if it meant he could stay with her. But Jaskier had seen the way she looked at the Prince. He had seen the shy glances between them, and the quiet laugh, hidden behind a gloved palm; he had seen the subtle touches and the way their pure love made Geralt sick. He had seen it all, and he knew: There was no obligation to her family that drove her to this, no quiet pleading for Jaskier to stand up and say something. There was only love between the two of them, and even if he had known the means to, he would not have destroyed it. No; theirs was a love to last and to nurture and to sing about, not a plot device in a dramatic tale of bravery. Another song about True Love, then; the one that made people say “Oh no, my drink was a little too strong”, as they covertly dry their eyes with handkerchiefs. Surely, he could weave his feelings into a sad melody—he knew how to capture an audience, and he knew very well how to portray himself as a victim of fate. He could tug at heartstrings, elicit quiet gasps of shock. He could make people remember their first love, the one they still think of fondly until that day, with a feeling of pleasurable pain, the one that was so long gone but still, once in a while, reminded you of what it means to be human. Yes; he would sing and be the heartfelt young man most nobles wanted to see in him. He would hug his lute as he brought the song to a crashing crescendo, his voice carrying sadness and regret. And then, he would find the one person in the room his performance had touched the most, the one hopeless romantic on a quest to find their own True Love; and he would suddenly appear next to them after the performance, and they would express their sincere condolences, and he would find himself a companion richer that night. He had done that many a time before, Jaskier thought. Abused True Love, reduced it to something to be performed, something to be used as a means for seduction. How very little he had understood it, then. He had thought himself such a brilliant bard, so empathetic, knowing everything there was to know about human emotions. Love, he had thought, was the feeling when an interesting person caught your eye, and they were a sparkling conversationalist, and for a moment, you allowed yourself to believe they were interested in more than bodily pleasures. Love was a game that made your heart beat fast, love was what made nobles fear you, for they knew how easily you could show them what their own lives were lacking. Love could be found everywhere, if only you allowed yourself to look at someone, truly look at them. And he supposed it was true: He had loved many people throughout his life, even if it was a love that only lasted until the next person came along. What he had been searching for, all this time, was someone who would appreciate his love, and made him stay. Someone who would also look at him, and finally see who he was. Someone who would know which questions to ask, and how to read his body language; someone who would write songs with him, for him, someone who would use the rhythm of his heart as a guiding beacon in their life. It was then, in that very moment, that Jaskier realised he had not just found, but received True Love. How foolish had he been, to think of True Love as something to own, something that could only be reduced to marriage and sex! Even if the Princess married someone else tomorrow, and even if she shared her body with the Prince only, and even though she had stopped travelling with him, she had seen and understood and known Jaskier. Still did. She knew to look for the words he didn’t say, and the songs he didn’t sing; he knew from Geralt that she asked about him, even when he didn’t come along. And if he really thought about it, then Geralt’s gruff way of looking after him, and Ciri’s childish endeavours to befriend him, all of that, too, was True Love. He smiled to himself as he struck the first chord of his new song. There was still so much to learn about life, and about what was true and what was not. He knew, then, that the song should be about gratefulness, and about the little gestures that seemed too mundane, and trivial, and understood, and the impact they could have on one’s life. When the Prince and the Princess said their vows and kissed and spoke promises of forever and always, Jaskier’s smile was radiant, for he had found True Love, and what more could a hopeless romantic want from his life?

[avoutput]

Final Fantasy VII Legacy || Nomura, Complex?

This is the 3rd out of 3 articles. Find the second here.

It’s time to get down to mythril tacks. At this point, I have talked about what this game meant to me when it was released and how it’s newest installment fared as a game. Finally, it’s time to talk about the impact the Remake has on what has unexpectedly become a robust and diverse universe. What does this mean for us at large, the players? This is a no-holds-barred SPOILER frenzy about anything and everything in the Squaresoft/Square-Enix pantheon. This means not just the games in the orbit of Final Fantasy VII, but the entire catalog at Square-Enix. To be honest, this is just the introduction, I don’t know if I even have an intent of going so far beyond the purview of the Remake, but in the spirit of the Final Fantasy gatekeeper, Tetsuya Nomura, I refuse to limit myself.

It’s been almost exactly a month since I started writing this article. It took so long to come back to this because I kept finding more and more content related to Final Fantasy 7 that I either forgot about or didn’t even know existed. On my own shelf sits Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and Crisis Core. I decided to watch Advent Children immediately after beating Remake. As a movie fan and amateur critic, the film is littered with terrible film decisions and was clearly the work of people who spend much of their time penning and creating video game stories. It’s a series of cutscenes without a controller attached and at a certain point, you realize Advent Children was never meant for film fans, but for fans of the game. Specifically for fans desiring an epilogue and more directly fans of Cloud, Tifa, and Sephiroth. The story is almost unintelligible because there is tons of connective tissue left to be assumed by the viewer. It is at once too far removed from FF7 in both linear real time and in-game universe time to be recognizable, and simultaneously inexplicable in what has transpired and why. It takes a crack at explaining it from moment to moment, but largely, it looks like they were looking for excuses to push the characters to act. I am not trying to review the film but rather my intent is to create a modus opendai for the gatekeeper, Mr. Nomura. The more I learned about the world of FF7 that was being created over the years, the more it seemed to lean on the stylings of this one man. In a way, Nomura launched Squaresoft and himself into a whole new stratosphere of fame and broke all expectations. In my first article, I mentioned that for a certain generation of fans, it was the perfect storm, but I would later find out the cause of the storm was Nomura breaking open lightning in a bottle, releasing his brand of design on the world with a multi-million dollar international company backing him.

If I may, let me take a parallel series by the same creator infested by the meta of his own other original creations, namely Kingdom Hearts. In its inception, it looks like two producers at Square were trying to make a 3-D adventure platformer game with characters as popular as Mario, but only the biggest brand on earth, Disney, could possibly beat the king of platformers. Nomura was… walking by and pushed himself into the conversation, and they decided if they could do it, they would let him direct. (Read more here) Yada yada yada, Kingdom Hearts was created. While I can’t seem to find (and didn’t look too hard to find) proof, I can only imagine that with KH having a tenuous new relationship with big-corp Disney, they focused more on a simple game that was straightforward. KH is very much a disney product with a little bit of artificial Nomura sweetener. With its unbridled success, Nomura was unleashed. Kingdom Hearts 2 would go on to be, in my opinion, one of the most unintelligible video game stories ever inscribed to plastic discs. But the power of Nomura’s story-telling is that we all understand it differently. He creates bedrocks, little story islands of unshakable facts that are connected via a salty sea of undefinable liquid moments. Cast out to sea, rudderless and deprived, you try to bring to your mouth this brine only to be dehydrated faster than if you had just sailed the sea and died in the sun between fact islands or lived long enough to tell the tale. And that metaphor is my tribute to Nomura. Long, winding, hard to remember, and just clear enough that you think you got it, but you still have problems with its construction.

It has now been over two months since I have last visited this article. What is keeping me from continuing? The incomplete nature of my knowledge of Final Fantasy VII lore. Unlike the Kingdom Hearts sea, VII is like a series of interconnected caves, and the more you unearth the more you learn. And therein lies the problem. The Nomura-verse is composed of both his methods and his circumstances. His methods, we have discussed, but his circumstance is game development. Unlike movies or books, games obviously have an interactive capability, but they also have a variable development cycle. Some titles come out quickly, others span decades. They also consist of different teams, story writers, directors, and a myriad of producers. This in turn can make it much harder to make a solid universe, especially when new additions start off in a place where a continuous story was never meant to exist. Nomura is at once hindered and strengthened by his circumstances. He can’t tell a better story because the development cycle of his vision is variable, and success is based on sales and popularity. Without success, he can’t create a new addition, and often in games, the end is meant to tie the whole thing up. Were there to be a sequel, a whole new story is thought up and tacked on wherever it fits. Gamers are pretty forgiving of this concept. Still, at the same time, Nomura probably wouldn’t make a concise story because it's not his style. For comparison, see the Dark Souls series. A game that both has deep lore and an involving story, but at the same time, the game doesn’t require you to know a single point to continue moving forward. This is almost the antithesis of Nomura’s style. In Souls, they let the player decide to explore its story caves, but doesn’t confront them with it to continue advancing. This is a strength of  video games. A strength that Nomura keeps using to his disadvantage.

Yet, Final Fantasy VII still excelled to unparalleled heights. It engages you in the same way all of the previous games in the series have, but with a slight departure on the strict fantasy theme, instead a merger with steampunk or semi-future. The series was changed forever, and so was gaming. Instead of doing the Dragon Quest method, expanding on the same universe design with different stories, Final Fantasy was emboldened to try completely random approaches with vector entries like VIII and X. For longtime fans, or fans of their original design, Every future title, MMO or Single Player, would go on to be successful, but not fully realized in their original context. Even the return to form in IX was much more playful than any of the original six entries. Gaming franchises have since become playgrounds for developers. Once they are accepted by fans, developers are emboldened and experiment with what would normally be a new IP, but instead use the financial shield of the famous namesake to move forward with new ideas. And in the case of Final Fantasy, when this concept of change works, it means that every numbered game becomes a wildcard. It’s a double edged sword for a gaming franchise that dates back to the 8-bit era. It has fans over 40 years old by this point and they may be willing to buy anything new. But this isn’t new to you and it isn’t a revelation for me. Final Fantasy VII Remake causes me to reckon with these demons I had buried years ago. It rips off a scab I thought had healed. I had given up on the past, a past where I was excited for a singular story, contained in a single universe, in a single title. I had given up on the glory years of Final Fantasy, but the Remake took me back and said, what if we told you everything you remember about the original was true, and everything we added after that was also true, even though you probably didn’t play it or even know it existed. Even if you do your very best, you probably won’t be able to track the story or interconnected characters if you aren’t in the know. It’s like joining a group of long time friends that are constantly referencing inside jokes, all of them just winking at each other, nudging you in the ribs and asking, “Do ya get it?” Truly, the Remake series thus far makes me feel lost at sea when what I wanted to feel like was coming home.

This retrospective has left me feeling broken. Based on the end of the FFVIIR, I sought out to reconcile all of the loose ends to all the connected media. However, spending time with the prequel Crisis Core for over around 40 hours, I realized this was a crapshoot. None of it mattered. It didn’t enrich the characters, it only made the story longer. It just added wibbly-wobbly, timey-whimey “facts” to an otherwise complete(ish) origin point. The FFVII universe can’t handle the weight that is put on it. It’s a faulty bridge over a treacherous pass. On the other hand, that same bridge for some is a point of excitement. You tread the boards, one by one, testing your weight, hoping to get to the other side intact. And I think that is why we keep trying these games and why they keep getting made. We don’t want the fun to end, despite the fact that it has nothing left for us to be excited by. It’s a closed loop that we keep looking for something new in. By the end of the Remake, we are somewhere between ⅓ or ½ way across the faulty bridge, dangling between where we have been and where it is taking us. At this point, I am too mentally exhausted from trying to make sense of it all. Yet I am incapable of not enjoying it, the mental somersaults one does to understand the interconnected mess that is Final Fantasy VII. It’s too dear to me. I got on the bridge for so many reasons, but the biggest one is to be on the other side with all of the other fans who dared to play and dared to complete the game. To be in the know, to wink across the room. I want to be in that hyper-critical utopia where we all have one thing in common: We played Final Fantasy VII in 1997. And we all have something to say about it.