#i know it's only been three days but when will the novelty and eagerness wear off ajjfjgkg

[riderheart]

i have no money and very little i need to do but gdi i wanna go out and drive and do stuff ajfjgkkgl

[alldayangst]

love someone for loving you (Peter Parker)

All of my fics are LGBT and PoC friendly. Soulmate and uni AU.

PAIRING: Peter Parker x reader, Brad Davis x reader (for like, a second)

Warnings: Makeout sessions. Characters drink but they’re of age to do so in this fic. Peter says ACAB and if you disagree with that & can’t have a mature convo about it, then this isn’t the blog for you. This fic isn’t all the way accurate to the MCU timeline. Harry [Osborn] and MJ live in Queens. Betty, Flash, Ned, Brad, Peter and reader all attend NYU in Brooklyn.

Thank you for reading if you make it all the way to the end! Word count: 4.2K words.

Happy reading!

“You’re so fucking hot, y’know that?” You were making out with Brad in your dorm room, with the lights off. Brad was a nice enough guy. Had taken you out on a few dates. Told you your hair was pretty. Said he’d like to get to know you more. But you’re not as eager to take things further because something in your heart just knows he’s not your soulmate. And you’d like to wait a little while for the novelty to wear off before you did something you regretted and entered a relationship you’d known was doomed from the start. “So fucking hot.” Brad kissed along your neck, big sloppy wet ones that left saliva trails from his lips to your neck. 

You didn’t like that kind. 

And that was another reason you knew you and Brad weren’t destined, because your soulmate would just know what you like, know you like the back of their hand. Right? Right.

It’s then that Brad tries to take your jumper off, but your soulmate tattoo is on your ribcage, and in this world, letting someone see your soulmate tattoo is probably makes you more vulnerable than getting naked in front of them. You try to pull your jumper down, but Brad doesn’t get the hint and tries again. You place your hands on his chest. “Not today, Brad.”

You don’t see Brad again. And maybe Brad was your soulmate because he led you to Peter. But Peter definitely wasn’t your soulmate, and I’ll tell you why you know that.

“Y/N!” Betty waved as you stumbled back into the party, shoes placed on improperly and no part of you subtle to what you’d been doing with Brad in your room just a few minutes ago. “Not you out of your room so early!” Your room door slammed behind you as Brad left your room, jacket in hand.

“Didn’t get any?” Betty made a fake pout at you, smoke breezing past her face as you stood there awkwardly, unsure of what to do as you found yourself in a circle with two of Betty’s friends she’d had yet to introduce you to. Sometimes, you wished Betty was your soulmate, but Betty made it clear before you signed the lease that you weren’t her type and truly, you couldn’t see yourself being anything more than friends. And you were the best of friends. Meaning she’d always be the first to comment heart eyes under your pictures and tell you to get that outfit because your booty was doing the thang in that pair of trousers. 

Things would just be easier, if they were easy.

But things weren’t handed on a silver plate for you like they were for others; where they’d been friends with their soulmates since childhood, or lived up the street from them or their soulmate saved their life or something else blindly obvious. And, desperate to find the gold in the treasure chest, you moved upstate to school at NYU. Because great minds and all that. You stood in perfect silence for a minute, chaos never ceasing to happen around you, before Betty decided to make the strangers next to her strangers no more. One shook your hand and said, “I’m Ned.” Oh. So this is who Betty had been raving about? Betty grimaced and placed her hands together to plead with you not to expose her consuming infatuation with her new boyfriend. In a bid to divert the focus, Betty patted the back of the slightly taller one next to Ned, with wispy brown hair and eyes like fresh, raw cocoa. “I’m Peter, nice to meet you.” He shook your hand.

“I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet you guys.” You sway your attention back to Ned with a smirk on your face, Betty clutching her solo cup a little too hard, her inner monologue begging you to knock it off. You knew Betty was going to get you back for this, but you needed somewhere else to fixate your gaze since you weren’t sure you could trust yourself not to ogle at Peter. With Brad’s saliva on your neck and having only known him for all of twenty seconds, you weren’t sure if Peter would take to any romantic advances. You weren’t even sure if he’d met his soulmate. “So, I’ve heard a lot about you, Ned.”

“All good I hope.” Ned replies and the room glints with his boyish grin.

“Well-” You didn’t get to finish your sentence, and it was probably for the better. Betty grabbed Ned’s arm, vodka making tiny puddles on the floor, with a huge fake smile plastered on her face. In turn, that only gave you a great, genuine smile, loving to tease your friend. “Baby! We should go to another side of the party!”

“What about Peter?” Ned’s voice was getting lost in the jungle of party goers. “Peter can come.” Peter turned to go follow his friend, but not before mumbling a low, “See you around, Y/N.”, snaking his arms around your back, pulling you in for a quick hug. “See you around, Peter.” 

He didn’t reply. Peter could only give you a thin lipped smile, packaged with a lazy half-nod before he was absorbed by the population around him, just as his friend was. And you cursed yourself that night for not taking your chances and saying more.

History was an 8am class, your only class in the morning. You woke with a a dull ache in your head and a dark mark on your neck that lasted longer than your relationship with the guy that gave it to you. The last thing you wanted was to run into Brad. But destiny offered you the next best thing.

“Oh. Hi, Flash.” You attempted to cover your face with your copy of Romeo & Juliet - if your soulmate was here, the last person you wanted them to see you with was Flash Thompson. Flash was walking backwards as you were walking forwards, unamused by his efforts to corner you. “Can we talk, Y/N?” Flash was Brad’s best friend, so you knew you were in for trouble.

“Can’t Brad speak to me himself? His mouth was working last night.”

“I can see that Y/N. Nice hickey.” You cringed, and Flash could tell he was running out of time to bemuse you. “Brad doesn’t want to bother you if you’re not interested-”

“Oh, so you decide to bother me instead.” You remark, and hop over a couple of steps so Flash had to awkwardly speed up.

“I just wanted to ask where you and him stood. Like, are you breaking up with him? I thought you had a pretty good thing going on.” His pace started to slow again as you slowly ascended up some of the last sets of steps. “I mean, seriously Y/N? What if you guys were soulmates? I wouldn’t wanna give up so easily.”

“That’s true.” You looked down at your sneakers. You hated this version of the world you lived in. Everything was driven by concepts, whether it be the concept of soulmates or the concept of time that left your campus filled with students five years older than they really were, or the concept of good and evil that spawned superheroes who you weren’t sure did more damage to the world than they gave back.

Overall, the concept of fate was once you had to always wrestle with. And you thought that maybe yours was standing at the top of the steps to rescue you from this conversation, ready to make Brad feel the trip of the guilt he and his friend tried to make you feel for not feeling the same way. “Y/N! We have class, c’mon!” Peter waved his goggles at the top of the steps, a knowing smile on his face as Flash looked up at him and glared. 

Peter just had to steal his thunder on a sunny day.

You ran to meet Peter at the top of the steps. “Thank you for bailing me out. You’re a hero.”

Peter was startled. “Who, what, when, where, me?” He scratched the back of his neck and gave you an uncomfortable, stammered loop of laughter. “Hero? Not me. I’m just good ol’ Peter.”

You chuckled as you breathed out another ‘thank you’ and returned the hug Peter had left un-exchanged last night. “I’m guessing you have bio?”

“Guilty as charged. So what’s your major?”

“English Lit.”

“Oo, how long are you planning to work at Starbucks?” Peter remarked as he held to the main door open for you. “Peter?” He hummed in response. “Fuck you.”

You sat next to Betty in History, the professor droning on about something that made you question why you continued to take History, but as your best friend snatched your book from you, you were reminded. “Star crossed lovers, eh?” Betty skimmed through the fights and the love scenes that all culminated to the uncertainty whether Romeo and Juliet were even supposed to be together. 

“Seems like you and Ned these days, huh.” You couldn’t believe that it had taken Betty three months to allow you to meet Ned, nevermind his cute friend. Ever since the ‘boyfriend’ label had been slapped on their little love affair a month and a half ago, you were beginning to see less and less of your best friend. It felt like two people paying for a single household, and with your lease ending in a short time, you worried Betty would almost evaporate from your life completely.

“Almost.” Betty tried to keep it hush, sheepishly grinning, but gave in completely in record time. “We said we’re gonna show each other our tattoos tonight!” She squealed, another student shushing her from the row above.

“Woah, that’s big!” It genuinely felt as if the wind had been knocked out of you. You realised you’d never gotten as far as Ned and Betty without either you or you partner showing your soulmate tattoo; and when they were never the same, you broke it off. “What if they’re not the same?”

“They will be.” Betty smiled. “I’m sure of it.”

Two loners getting together was never a recipe for success. Betty had given over your number to Ned, who handed it over to Peter, who’d texted you asking for you to come over: ‘wanna make it up to me for this morning at the steps? my bestie is with your bestie, so u wanna get pizza? do you like pineapple?’ 

Sure enough, you were over at Ned & Peter’s within ten minutes, Peter swinging the door open dressed in a tight red and blue top, a hoodie sparsely covering it, with an overexcited greeting of “Mi casa es su casa!”

The energy wasn’t returned. Not just yet. You had to be sure of something first. “Don’t tell me that there’s an American flag top under that hoodie.” Peter looks down at his Spidey suit which he’d completely forgotten he had on between scaling the ceiling in anxious anticipation of your text back. “Having such a boner for the USA is kind of a turn off.”

Peter started cussing under his breath and quickly turned to zip his hoodie all the way up. When he turns back to you, it’s word vomit. “I’m not saying I don’t love this country, I mean, I love Queens. I mean-”

You raise your eyebrows, curious to see where Peter would go with this. “The NYPD fucking hates me,”

“And what would they want with your little ass?” You walk into the apartment. He’d never admit it, but Peter kind of likes the way you bust his balls. It puts him on the spot, makes him want to tell the truth to you about who he really is.

“I mean, I can’t really say-”

“OK. I don’t wanna be an accessory to anything so,” You laugh. “I won’t push. ACAB.” There’s a thud that follows you closing the door. 

“I agree. ACAB.”

A few hours pass with Peter and he’s beginning to unravel. He shows you the photos he’s taken over the years, several of them featuring a fair haired boy you’d never seen around campus before. “Is he your soulmate?”

Peter nearly chokes on the coffee he’d prepared for himself. “No. Harry? In his dreams.” He sets his mug down. “No, uh, that’s my friend. He lives back home in Queens.”

“You say back home like Queens isn’t a 10 minute drive from where we are.”

“Yeah. But it’s not right here.” You weren’t sure if you’d bruised Peter’s feelings, so you move onto another photo. There’s a polaroid that makes a thin pile with another on the table.

It’s the New York City skyline, from all the way up.

“How’d you get a photo from all the way up here?” Peter grabs the photo underneath it, but not before you catch a glimpse. The glossy paper is adorned with an image of a beautiful girl, black necklace around her neck, the scribbles underneath her photo reading ‘MJ, Pre-blip’.

You think this girl is too gorgeous to just be a friend.

But judging by the way Peter reacted when you suggested Harry was the same, you kept quiet. He didn’t want you to see it anyway. 

“I’m really sticky and I climb up walls.” Peter being Peter is relieved he told you the truth, even if you didn’t know it.

“You’re weird, kid.” You thought you were being smooth, but you couldn’t help the way you look at his lips like they hold the answer to every question you’d had in your life.

“Uh-huh. But you like a bit of weird. Maybe Brad was too square for you.”

“Huh?”

“Huh.”

And then when you and Peter kiss, you suddenly understand what poets mean when they call your lips jigsaw puzzles, because yours and Peter’s slot perfectly together. And you get why there’s all these love songs on the radio, and you feel the Earth shift in your mind and you just know this is the unmistakeable indicator that Peter is your soulmate. Another reason you and Peter are destined, when he goes to kiss your neck, it’s like soft little hot touches. 

You liked that kind. 

And a soulmate would just know that, know you like the back of their hand. Right? Right.

Peter rests his forehead on your own, lips swollen. “I don’t want to go anywhere, don’t wanna do anything you don’t wanna do.”

You and Peter cuddle for the rest of the night on his sofa, Ned and Betty doing the same on yours. And the novelty picks back up like clockwork.

“Peter? What if we aren’t soulmates?” you groaned, Peter’s hand on your head, keeping you snug to his chest. You and Peter had been dating close to two months now, Ned and Betty moving to five. In any other relationship, you would’ve called this phase The Ticking Time Bomb. You toyed with the black dahlia that sat perfectly between his pecs. Peter had been to Queens last week. He’d retrieved his necklace from the girl in the photo, MJ. She was an old friend, he said. Him and her? Not meant to be. Maybe in another life, he’d say. Another timeline. Then he’d gesture between the two of you. This. This is meant to be. Us.

Peter shrugged. “What if we weren’t?” Peter had an almost permanent bandage on his ribcage, exactly where your soulmate tattoo was. Where and how Peter got injured was a mystery to you, and he’d never dare tell you no matter how much you pushed. It almost made you wonder if he was keeping any more secrets from you.

You propped yourself up, both hands on his chest. 

“I couldn’t move back in with Betty. She and Ned are soulmates, they need their privacy.”

“Who said you’d ever to move back in with Betty?”

“I couldn’t afford to live by myself, Peter. Not everyone had a Stark internship in high school.”

“Who said you’d have to move out at all?”

“If we’re not soulmates-” Peter moved your hands from his chest and wrapped them around your waist, pulling you in for a loving kiss. “What have I told you? You and me, we’re meant to be. Us.”

But you didn’t have the tattoos to prove it. 

You and Betty were sitting in History class, ignoring the professor’s droning as per usual. Betty had this beaming smile on her face and you were sure if she didn’t say what was on her mind soon, she was going to explode all over someone’s Henry VIII’s notes.

“Betty?”

“Yeah?” She shrieked with scarlet cheeks.

“Spill.”

Betty let out a breath. “Well, since you insisted.” You couldn’t help but smile at your best friend. “I think Ned might propose tonight!”

“I feel like you should be taking me out to dinner before you dump all this load on me.”

Betty’s eyes glazed over, obviously too excited to contain her emotions. “What about you and Peter? The tattoos must match up since you’ve stayed around this long.”

“Actually, I-”

Betty makes an O face at you, which told you she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “C’mon. You haven’t played I’ll Show You Mine if you Show Me Yours?” Betty was in awe. “Y/N! You must really like him.” 

You did really like Peter. That was the issue. You weren’t ready to feel jaded if your tattoos didn’t match up like they all inevitably did in the past. You felt something different for Peter. Betty was right. That was why you stuck around this long. “Hey Betty, is my old room still my room if things between me and Peter don’t work out?”

“Of course, Y/N! I’m here for you til’ the end of the line.” Betty pulled you into a great, big hug.

“OK. Session dismissed.” Your professor echoed. “Everyone can go. Y/N and Betty, stay after please.”

You’d gotten kicked off of History, which was bittersweet. Seeing as History was Betty’s major, your professor had to keep her there - but he was sure ‘she’d flourish once you two were separated.’  

You and Betty walked out of the main entrance, Ned and Peter both waiting for you under the shelter at the top of the steps. Seasons had changed. It was far from the summer day Peter had to spotted you on the way to class. “We’re gonna run in, drink some cocoa. We’ll catch you guys later.” Ned shivered as Betty re-engulfed him in his jacket she’d been holding for the scent. 

Love was weird, but you wanted so bad to be a part of it.

You turned to Peter beside you. “And what are we gonna do?”

“Swinging.”

“Peter, I don’t swing. I’m perfectly happy in our relationship.”

Peter held onto your waist, your head nuzzled into his neck, not daring to look down at the city below you. This was the first time you’d ever experienced something like this, no doubt, but Peter was getting a strange sense of deja vu.

“Y/N!” You didn’t move from your place in his neck, but he knew you could hear him. “I love you. I trust you.”

“You’re-” You didn’t trust yourself to speak. “Fucking.” You opened one eye just to be sure you weren’t dreaming. “Spiderman!”

“I’m something more important: your boyfriend.”

Leave it to Peter Parker to get all sappy with you in the middle of the sky. 

You opened both your eyes now. “What about my soulmate?”

“What?” Startled, Peter lost controls of his webs for a moment, and knocked his rib on the side of a building. Luckily for you, you were lower to the ground.

‘Injury detected,’ Peter’s AI, Karen, stated.

“Yeah, I know, Karen.” Peter stated.

“Is it right there, babe?” Peter nodded, sat on the concrete, and pressed the spider in the middle of his suit. You watched as it became loose.

Your eyes flickered to the bandage on his ribcage. Maybe you had your answers as to how Peter always seemed to be hurt, but you needed your ultimate answer. And it was behind the bandage. “Right here, are you sure babe?”

You were on edge. You weren’t sure what you’d do if fate didn’t allow this to be true. For the sake of your heart.

So you peeled back the bandage.

And you found nothing there but a series of bruises. Your heart was crushed. “Nothing, Peter. There’s nothing there.” You had tears in your eyes, and before long you were ugly crying. This wasn’t a case of the novelty wearing off. This was a case of the novelty being broken down ‘til it can’t function no more.

“That’s a good thing baby, maybe I just need to go to a hospital.”

“No, I mean it Peter! There’s nothing there!” You pull up your heart to reveal a half full shirt printed on your body twenty one years ago, this exact heart only belonging to one other person in the world. But it wasn’t Peter. Even though he had just told you he loved you. “Fuck!” Your voice became incomprehensible, drowned out in tears and squeaks of sorrow. “I’m so sorry, but we can’t see each other any more. T-there is someone out there for me. You need to understand.”

And, unsure if your legs would take you all the way, you made your journey to Betty.

When you made it to Betty’s, she stood in the doorway with a rock on her finger. You couldn’t see that, though, through your tear blurred vision.

“Oh, poor baby.” She immediately embraced you, with Ned circling to your side to group hug you. You sniff into her shoulder. “He’s not-we’re not-”

“My darling.” She pauses. “I’m hoping you got the first month’s rent.” She laughed and you laughed before she pulled you back in her embrace and allowed you to feel what you needed to feel.

It’s often underestimated how miserable you need to be in order to cry yourself to sleep. You didn’t even know you did until you woke in your old room, your old band poster replaced by a calendar titled ‘Ned and Betty Forever’ and you laughed because Ned and Betty hadn’t even known each other longer than than six calendar months.

And you missed your windowsill on which you’d perch and overlook the breathtaking view of Brooklyn, and the even more awe-inspiring view of NYU students hurling after one too many, especially after yours and Betty’s parties.

“Do you guys even clean this room?” You called out. “You got a serious case of cobwebs.”

Peter lowered himself to meet your view. You were about to draw the blinds on him, only to realise Betty and Ned had gotten them removed whilst you were living with Peter.

“Hear me out.”

“I have no choice.” You chew on the flesh of your cheek. “You took a while to find me.”

“You left me for dead.”

It was hard to beat that one.

“Peter, if you have something to say, say it.”

“I’m sorry.” he’s swinging upside down, side to side and it slightly amuses you to think he’s getting dizzy if the last three months were at your expense. “I know how much this soulmate bullshit means to you, and I kept you longer than you would’ve liked. I’m also sorry ‘cause I knew I wasn’t your soulmate from the start.”

You gasp.

“But I wouldn’t in a billion years say that either you or I belong to someone else. MJ is my soulmate, yes. I love her with all my heart, but I believe destiny can change in the same world where people disappear for five years. MJ moved on. I’ve moved on. Who cares about a stupid tattoo? People go to parlours and give themselves their own all the time. People get them removed all the time. I’m getting my black dahlia erased.” Your face softens a little bit at that, you guard slightly down, but you refuse to wave a white flag without first making your point.

You rubbed your rib cage. “I care.”

“Y/N, you’re smarter than to deny what you feel. You’re an English major, studying Romeo and Juliet. You understand the world better than I do, and I’ve been to 600 different versions of it. You have a heart half full on your ribcage and I have half a flower on my foot. Tell me, would a rose by any other name smell as sweet?” 

You know the answer’s the same one Betty gave Ned tonight when he got down on one knee, the same response you’d give Peter if he was to ask you the same question, what you’d tell anyone if they queried if you’d go through what you went with Peter all over again.

You pull down his mask, and look deep into both of Peter’s eyes, and still him from swinging. “Love someone for loving you for a change.”

And you don’t have to say it, Ned and Betty hiss it out for you not so subtly from the windowsill in the livingroom. “Yes!”

So when you and Peter kiss, it’s not about novelties or concepts, fate or tomorrow, it’s just the beautiful bliss that is love, in this moment.

The unmistakable indicator that you and Peter are meant to be.

Fin.

Credit for the gif goes to: @/tomhollandnet

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[tiny-smallest]

day one - pride

Rating: G Characters: Henry and Bendy Warnings: none Description: Henry reflects on the definition of labels and belonging in certain spaces.

Also on AO3!

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WHO'S READY FOR THE INK DEMONTH 2021 I SURE ONCE AGAIN TOTALLY WAS YEP DEFINITELY NO LAST MINUTE ANYTHING HERE LET'S GO

Doing writing prompts again because this year has been A Lifetime and I just don't possess the ability to draw this time so let's go let's get stupid get weird enjoy the misadventures of a specific au of of Bendy and the Ink Machine where the toons are their own people in a world they still don't entirely understand and the people who love them who try to help them navigate it.

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Henry was used to a surprising amount of things to interrupt his day first thing in the morning. Easily numbered in the hundreds. His children were toons; there was no end to the amount of crazy nonsense that they could get into when he was asleep, and that was disregarding the fact that Bendy usually slept until noon.

Sure, he was the Troublemaker In Chief. That did not mean the other two were paragons of holiness, no matter how much Alice tried glowing her halo at him while she and her brother gave him the saddest, biggest, shiniest puppy eyes. And that didn't even take into account how much trouble they could find, no mischief intended.

He'd seen smoldering breakfasts, pancakes on the ceiling, saran wrap around the kitchen archway, demonic rubber chicken noises from a saxophone that had a part replaced with the noisemaker from the novelty prank toy...

(He still didn't regret letting Boris chase Bendy for that one without intervening.)

With all that, being immediately accosted by three toons hanging off his legs the second he came down the stairs and all trying to talk to him at the same time did not magically get any easier to withstand.

"Whatever it is, it's a no until I get my coffee," he drawled as he attempted to walk with them hanging off him, the three of them dragged along with him. It was with quite some difficulty that he got to the kitchen counter.

"But Henry!" Bendy whined, "we only got a few hours to get ready if ya say yes! We need every second!"

"For what?" he yawned, pouring a cup from the machine.

"You don't know what day it is?" Alice was surprised enough to actually let go, and she dusted herself off like the lady she was before standing up.

Instantly something cold grabbed Henry's heart and squeezed. "Uh- no I...?"

Had he forgotten someone's birthday? No, it was summertime; Bendy was a winter 'birth' and Boris and Alice were spring and fall. An anniversary of some kind? Quick think what are you forgetting you useless-

"How!?" Bendy gaped at him from down below. "It's been all over the news fer weeks!"

Well okay now he was just thoroughly confused. "I um-"

"The parade, Henry!" Boris's tail was thumping gently against the floor; he was not trying one tiny ounce to hide his eagerness. "The parade that's today!"

"Parade-?" It took just one more nanosecond of thought before it clicked.

"Oh you mean the-!" And they wanted to go to it.

Well, he shouldn't be surprised. This would be the first parade they'd get to see, wouldn't it? And it was nice weather out. And it would be bursting with color, which the toons were darn near obsessed with.

He took a contemplative sip. They weren't human; god even knew if they had any sort of sexuality at all. Could they even feel that stuff? The urge to- do anything like that? Wouldn't that technically make them asexual? That was the word, right?

Well, human or not, that would solidly mean they belonged there. Queer was queer, regardless of species, right? Hell, even if they'd just started asking themselves those questions, or wanted to support the fans of theirs who fell under that giant umbrella, they were valid for being there.

"Sure, I can take you."

Both boys cheered, lifting their arms to do so and releasing his legs. He quickly took a step away from them, but their joy had them leaping to their feet anyway and he watched as they bounced around the kitchen, slowly draining his coffee and trying to curb his smile when he was actively drinking.

It was a hard task.

Their excited chatter melted pleasantly into the background as he took the time to drink and try to shake his brain awake the rest of the way awake like shaking out an old blanket to coax out the wrinkles. Their enthusiasm always made for the perfect background noise.

"What colors do you want?"

"I dunno! There's so many! I don' even know what label I fit in-"

"I saw you checkin' out that guy the other day don't think I didn't!" The wink and nudge from Bendy sent Boris blushing so hard the poor wolf's face turned nearly as black as his fur.

"I was hopin' you hadn't-"

They were all quick to consume breakfast, and Henry retreated upstairs after telling the toons to come get him when they wanted to leave.

He settled comfortably in the limitless, timeless space of art before reality came knocking with Bendy's distinctive tapping at the door, pulling Henry from the space inbetween something and nothing as he set his pen aside. "Come in, kiddo."

When Bendy stepped in with what was unmistakably a rainbow flag on his cheek and extra face paint he knew he was in for a time.

"Oh uh- what's that for-"

"For you!" Bendy said with a giant grin. "Who'd ya think?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah well- I uh-"

Bendy didn't slow down. "Anyway the others are about ready to go but they sent me up here to get your flag on while they finish up- now why they trusted me with the paint I got about as much an idea as you but hey I'm not gonna complain-"

"Aw that's- that's sweet kiddo but I sorta figured I'd just be-" How to say this. "Dropping you off...?"

Immediate confusion. "What? Why?"

"Uh well- I mean-" He fiddled with the pen- when had that ended up back in his hands? "You guys- you have a space there, you know? I'm not sure if I-"

There was now a puckered frown on the little devil's face. "Not sure if you what?"

"Well I mean- I don't exactly- belong, now do I?"

The frown multiplied its intensity by about five. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Aw jeez. He really did not want to discuss this with his kid, as much of an adult as Bendy was. For many reasons. "Uh well- you know-" He gestured, as if hoping that would somehow pluck the answer from the air and implant it in Bendy's brain without having to give voice to it, setting the pen down in the process so he’d stop playing with it. "I'm not exactly- I mean-"

"You like guys." Bendy's voice was so sure that Henry knew making any sort of denial was futile. And also kind of stupid. Why would he deny that to his own son? No of course he wouldn't.

"Well I mean- I married a woman, didn't I?" he finally blurted out.

Unimpressed blinking as he drew closer to stand beside the desk. "Yeah they got a word for that. Several actually. Most popular ones are bi and pan, so which colors is it gonna be?"

"No no I mean-" God he was probably blushing. His face definitely felt way too hot. "I uh- I mean I- I like guys, yes-" great brain thanks a ton totally needed that heart rate spiking why are you acting like that's scary this is our kid- "but I- I married a woman- I like women- more often?"

The blinking was now confused.

"Uh-" How to phrase this. "If- if we split it into a pie chart- it's probably like... thirty-seventy in favor of women?" He ran his fingers through his hair and down the back of his neck again. "I'm- not that I'm any great catch but like, if I was in any way qualified to be in the dating pool again, I'd be way more likely to end up with a lady."

The unimpressed look was back. "And?"

It was Henry's look to be surprised. "And- and that means that, you know- I'm not really-"

"You like guys."

"I- yeah?"

"And you're a guy."

"Kind of a given at this point."

"So you're a guy, and you like guys, and just also happen to like girls too. We got names for that." He gave Henry's shirt an appraising look. "Gotta say the bi colors would complement your clothes best. If you want pan colors I'm gonna have to ask you to change. As your official fashion consultant."

Henry snorted. "My what?"

"Listen Dad I love you but I ain't about to let you walk into that parade wearing like, a pineapple hawaiian shirt or nothin'."

Henry banged a fist lightly on the table and pointed at him. "Liar! You wore the exact same thing just the other day!"

"Yeah but that was to the beach, not a parade."

"Literally when have you ever cared about not being a fashion disaster."

"This time, when Alice'll actually kill me otherwise."

"... Okay you got me there."

Bendy grinned. "So, bi colors or pan colors! Or somethin' else? I think there's other ones too."

He opened his mouth, closed it again and then opened it. What the hell. "... Bi colors, I guess."

"Yesssssss I was hopin' you'd say that." He hopped over onto the table like he'd suddenly become a bunny.

"Oh you were, huh?"

"Listen, the pan folks got pretty colors, but I'm always a sucker for a sunset," he said as he pulled out the pallet he needed. Henry sighed and shook his head, the smile ruining his effort to look exasperated.

"Well. Sunset me then, I guess."

"You got it boss!" Bendy said in maybe the worst mafia minion accent known to mankind.

It was barely five minutes of Bendy painting lines carefully on his cheek before he whipped out a mirror.

"Tah-dah!"

Henry blinked at himself in the mirror. He tilted his head, something shifting inside his heart that he had no name for, no way to voice.

The once proud look on Bendy's face was swiftly dropping. "... I didn't mess it up, did I...?"

"No- no, no." Henry tilted his head. "I uh..."

Bendy's worried browlines screamed anxiety to him.

"... I guess I just look good in a sunset," he said quietly, seeing the little corner of his reflection's mouth turn up as if in some sort of hazy dream.

Better than I thought.

[loveydoveyfrog]

fallingforyou pt.1

Um hi I haven’t written anything in years I’m sorry if this sucks. I might continue this? idk yet I’ve just had this particular scenario stuck in my head for days.  I tried to make it as inclusive as possible, but if you notice me doing anything that really limits that, please let me know! I’m always always looking to improve :> thank you!! (also if u find a grammar/spelling mistake plz lmk so i can fix)

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Pairing: Atsumu Miya x Reader Words: 1.7k  Warnings: None? Tripping on stairs but you don’t get hurt.  Part 2

You gathered your notes, breathing a sigh of relief as your long morning lecture finally came to an end. You loved your course, of course. You wouldn’t be paying to study it at university if you didn’t, but you had to admit a three hour lecture on a Monday morning could feel more like a chore than a passion.. Your best friend and faithful study buddy joined your side as you grabbed your fleece lined denim jacket and shrugged it on, slinging your bag over your shoulder, eager to leave. Before you step forward, your friend stops you in your tracks.

“Hold on, your hair clip is all crooked,” they attempt to fix it, but instead unclip it and hand it to you instead. You take your Halloween pumpkin decoration and clip it back into your hair, posing a little for your friend, wordlessly asking how does it look? 

“Perfectly spooky” they said with a thumbs up. You and your friend had a shared tradition of wearing Halloween accessories throughout October in celebration of the best and spookiest holiday. Today you wore a small, sparkly yet quaint pumpkin clip in your hair, whilst your friend opted for some novelty socks. You thank your lecturer as you leave, yet the second the two of you left the room and were out of earshot, your friend sighed loudly and began to whine about this section of your shared course.

“Did you get ANY of that?” they asked as you headed for the doors that led to the staircase.

“Which part? We covered quite a bit.” you respond idly, pushing the doors open and letting them pass first. 

“ALL OF IT. Ugh, I miss our lecturer from last year, he made everything so much clearer.” they continued to complain as you started to make your way down the stairs after them. After a few steps, lost in conversation regarding the class, you accidentally misplaced your footing on the stairs. Your breath hitched. The next few seconds seemed to slow down to a painful crawl as you felt every sensation in detail; the way you didn’t feel the security of the next step beneath your foot, the way your centre of gravity shifted and tipped you forward, the way your stomach dropped and your eyes shut instinctively to avoid looking at the quickly approaching ground, the way a hand caught a firm grip on the back of your jacket’s collar, keeping you suspended in mid fall.

Huh?

Your eyes blinked open, heart hammering as the lights suddenly seemed too bright, every sense amplified from shock. You immediately notice you didn’t feel the harsh impact that you were expecting. Instead, you felt a tension around your neck and shoulders as your jacket was pulled taut to keep you somewhat upright. Your friend’s eyes were equally wide with surprise, not having time to ask if you’re ok before their eyes shifted to the figure behind you. Their stunned expression was met with a deep chuckle, one you felt rumble through you as they pulled your form back to press ever so gently against their chest, hand placed firmly on your shoulder now, as if to prevent you from falling again. You turned your head to thank whoever caught you, though given they were quite a bit taller than you, you had to slightly twist your body out of their grip to face them (though you noticed their hand moved from holding your shoulder to resting against your arm). 

If your face wasn’t hot from embarrassment already, it sure was now. Your thank you was caught in your throat when you turned to face your mysterious saviour. You definitely heard a quiet wow go through your head when you were met with warm, amused brown eyes, and a smile that melted into another round of chuckling as his hand left your arm to brush through a mass of bleached yet brilliantly blonde hair. He seemed… somewhat familiar, but you didn’t recognise him from any of your classes. Either way, your heart was flooded with relief that he happened to be behind you. You took in more of his appearance; the way his dark eyes looked as though they were liquid honey when the light hit them just right, and the way his dark green hoodie matched said eyes perfectly, and the way… those glowing eyes followed yours as his humoured expression altered, a new kind of tone present in his smile, one which made you realise you were staring at him as though he was made of gold. You quickly snapped out of it, your face growing even hotter for having been caught looking at him for so long without even saying thank you.

“Sorry- I mean, thank you,” you stuttered. The boy before you smiled again and let out a pleased hum. His eyes caught the sparkly, Halloween themed clip in your hair. Cute, he thought to himself as his eyes met yours yet again.

“No worries, ya just need to be more careful, Pumpkin,” he mused. The nickname made you flush yet again as you tore your eyes away from his intense gaze. This interaction seemed to last forever. “Do you need me to walk you down the stairs? We’ve still got quite a bit to go,” he teased, though his voice didn’t seem to be laced with the malice of a typical bully. He sounded playful. 

“No, thank you,” you responded curtly, walking down the last few steps to where your friend still stood. Their eyes glinted with entertainment and poked you in the side. You lightly slapped their hands away and nudged them to continue down the last set of stairs.

“Well, I’m right behind ya if ya need me,” he said leisurely, walking a couple of steps behind you. You didn’t respond, only walked in embarrassed silence as your friend tried (and failed) to hold back their giggles at the boy’s comment. He had a proud grin on his face, basking in the attention and laughs from your traitorous friend. The journey down seemed to last a century, but eventually you made it down safely. Heading out the double doors, you breathed in the crisp Autumn air as it cooled your warm cheeks. You readjusted your jacket as you and your friend regrouped. You avoided their eyes, though in the process you caught the attention of Stair Boy. He flashed you a smile and waved as he passed the pair of you.

“See ya ‘round, Pumpkin.” 

You watched him till he turned a corner and disappeared behind a building, after which you promptly slammed your face into your palms, muttering incoherent nonsense as your friend finally lost it and doubled over and cried with laughter. You groaned, dragging your hands down your face, tugging your lower eyelids and cheeks with dismay.

“Oh my Goddddd, I can’t believe that just happened” you whined, growing more and more annoyed with your friend’s incessant laughter. “OKAY I get it, it was funny, shut up now.” you snapped. Your friend started walking as they took deep breaths to calm down. You followed, arms crossed.

“Okay, I’m sorry, you just really. You really FELL FOR HIM,” they managed to choke out as they spiralled into another fit of laughter. You punched their arm.

“He was BEHIND me! I couldn’t have fallen for him if he was behind me, I didn’t even see him!” You exclaimed as you tried to defend yourself, waving your arms around madly trying to illustrate your point.

“Alright, alright… Pumpkin,” they teased. Had you not been outside, you would have thrown a shoe at your supposed best friend. They saw anger flash in your eyes and dodged your oncoming attacks as they ran away a giggling mess. You chased them a few meters then jogged to a stop, panting in the burning cold air. You waved an arm with a dismissive whatever. The two of you approached one of the campus cafes, the entrance adorned with paper bats, window sills draped in cotton cobwebs and the door guarded by a pair of crudely carved pumpkins. The two of you entered, the door’s usual bell drowned out by chatter that filled the small, cosy space. You flopped into one of the seats, shrugging off your now infamous jacket and rested your chin in your hands, letting out a long sigh. Your friend sat beside you, mirroring your actions. 

“Well, hey, at least no one else saw,” your friend bargained, attempting to lift your low mood.

“True,” you admitted nonchalantly, your eyes still trained on the wall before you. Your friend elbowed your side playfully,

“And he was cute, too,” they quipped. This caused you to groan and lay your head on the table. After a few miserable seconds you turned to face your friend, not lifting your head from the wooden surface,

“Yeah, he was” you agreed with a pout on your face. “And now he’s gonna think I’m a clumsy fool forever and I’m probably never ever gonna see him again.” You planted your face back on the table in defeat. Your friend, on the other hand, shrugged in response. 

“You never know, y/n. Sure the campus is big, but he WAS in our block today, so you might see him again. On Mondays at least,” they suggested. You sighed and rested your chin on the table, shoulders slumped.

“Yeah, maybe, I guess… maybe,” you mumbled. 

“Besides, he definitely thought you were cute too.” This made your head shoot up in curiosity a little too fast. You tried to feign disinterest when you asked,

“What makes you say that?” you looked at your friend expectantly when they gave you a look.

“Pumpkin. Seriously?”

“Ugh,” you gave them another dismissive wave, “That didn’t mean anything. That was only because of this stupid clip.” You pointed to the orange ornament on your head.

“Y/n. He said it twice. Besides, he could have called you nothing at all. Not to mention, didn’t you see the way he looked at you?”

“It just seems like he was teasing me and messing around,” you argued. Your friend sighed and turned to pull a notebook and pens out of their bag.

“Whatever you say, y/n,” they said as they began to summarise their notes from your previous lecture. You tapped your fingers on the table, waiting to see if they’ll make further comments, but they seem to have finally given up. You retrieved your own notes, though the only thing you seemed to be able to focus on was a particular set of brown eyes.

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Xue Yang is asleep. It would be so easy to reach across the bed, take the knife the animal keeps on the headboard and silently slit his throat. Watch him bleed out, listen to the musical drip-drip-drip of blood pooling under the bed...

No. That would be too simple.

Too easy.

Xuexiao - E - Chapter 1 on Tumblr - Read on AO3! (<- heed the tags)

Chapter 2/2

Xue Yang is at his side in an instant, offering him fresh water, removing the jug of vomit, giving him a handful of raisins to clear his mouth.

Looking so solicitous, so worried, so sincere, even as he laughs and says, “A little warning next time, maybe?”

Xiao Xingchen swallows a raisin. It almost chokes him. “I want be alone,” he says. His voice is weak, scratchy, almost inaudible, but strangely calm.

"You don’t look too good, daozhang.”

A surge of something approaching hysteria. “Leave me alone!”

Xue Yang sits on the edge of the bed. “You’re not well, daozhang. I’ll just sit here quietly. I promise not to talk.”

That would be a first, Xingchen thinks, but, afraid that he’ll burst out with recriminations if he keeps speaking, he lies back down silently. Light pours in through the windows, filling the room with uncomfortable brightness, and it’s all too much after spending so long in darkness, too overwhelming. He tucks the rest of the paperman down into the darkness of his robe and tries to pull a second coherent thread of thought from the tangled snarl in his brain.

Nothing.

All he can focus on is that it’s Xue Yang, it’s Xue Yang. The monster, the murderer, the subhuman animal, sitting not three feet from him, one hand tapping worriedly on the bed, the same hand that had touched his tongue—his face—his—his—

And Xingchen’s mouth between Xue Yang’s legs, Xue Yang’s cum on his tongue—

A nightmarish eternity passes, an unbearable whirlpool of betrayal and horror, and then he feels that hand on his.

“Feel any better, daozhang?”

Xiao Xingchen allows the paperman to peep above the rim of his collar, just enough to look out without being seen. The room is black, Xue Yang’s head silhouetted against the dark gray of the window.

“Head injuries do a number on you,” Xue Yang says, and he sounds so normal, so exactly like Chengmei, that it’s all Xingchen can do to keep from shoving him away from, knocking him to the floor, driving his heel through his teeth—

A stab of heat in his brain. He should do it, smash Xue Yang’s face in, crush his skull to a bloody gray and pink pulp—

Xue Yang’s face is just barely visible in the dim gray starlight. His regrettably fine black eyes are gazing fixedly at Xiao Xingchen.

The eyes come closer, catching the faint light from the window, gleaming like demon eyes, stopping mere inches from his face.

Then they start to move again, floating downward past Xiao Xingchen’s lips, and he feels the brush of skin against his throat, a faint suction, and knows Xue Yang has kissed him, is kissing his way down his chest, down to—

“I’ll take care of you, daozhang,” whispers Xue Yang, his breath warm against Xiao Xingchen’s cool skin, and he licks Xiao Xingchen’s nipple, teeth grazing the sensitive nub.

Tingles spread throughout Xiao Xingchen’s groin as a painful rush of blood engorges his cock.

He moves his hand, meaning to grab a fistful of hair, rip Xue Yang off of him, fling him across the room, but Xue Yang’s mouth is on his cock, sucking it hard, and instead Xiao Xingchen feels a bloody tear slip down his cheek as he comes almost instantly, filling Xue Yang’s mouth.

Xue Yang laughs, swallowing with an obscene gulping sound. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Someone’s eager tonight,” he grins. “Was that all that was wrong?” The delinquent is straddling Xiao Xingchen, wearing just a half-open inner robe as he gazes fondly down at him in the darkness. “You can tell me these things now. Anything you want, I’ll do it.”

I don’t want anything from you, don’t touch me! Xingchen screams inside his head, but he can’t move, can’t speak, disgust choking the air out of him.

Supporting himself on his good hand, hair trailing down over Xiao Xingchen’s midsection like a silky black curtain, Xue Yang begins to move, rubbing his stiff pink cock over Xiao Xingchen’s still half-erect one. There’s something wet there—oil? Precum?—that eases the friction on his oversensitive member and makes it pleasurable instead—

Pleasurable. Xiao Xingchen wants to rip his own brain out through his ears at the thought. And yet he just lies there, rocking his hips slightly, as Xue Yang thrusts down at him with smooth quick movements, their bobbing cocks rubbing together, shafts sliding up and down, until Xue Yang comes with a little gasp, cum speckling Xiao Xingchen’s stomach.

Immediately Xue Yang is bent over him, Xingchen’s hardening cock cradled in the curve of his throat and shoulder, licking the cum from Xiao Xingchen’s stomach in long broad strokes, wiping it off where he can’t reach with his tongue and sucking it off his fingers.

“You look so beautiful like this, daozhang,” he whispers between each swipe of tongue. “As if you’re only half in this world…”

If that’s true, then it’s loathing taking Xiao Xingchen out of himself, a searing hatred that keeps Xiao Xingchen floating somewhere between pleasure and revulsion. He wants to savor the disgust, bathe in the venom before snapping Xue Yang’s neck between his legs—

Xue Yang tucks Xiao Xingchen’s cock more firmly under his chin, fondling his balls with his good hand, and rubs up and down with his chin, turning his face to brush his lips over the swollen flesh. Inhales deeply as if trying to breathe Xiao Xingchen into him, kisses the tip, sucks it gently.

“I like how you feel against my mouth,” he says, and Xiao Xingchen sputters all over his hair, his face, his eyelashes, coating him in a splattered layer of sticky white cum. Grinning, Xue Yang licks what he can off and wipes the rest on the sheets.

“Laundry tomorrow, I think,” he says, curling up beside Xiao Xingchen. He pulls the blanket over the half-naked daozhang. “My robes from last night have been soaking. Maybe we can use the spirit beast’s core to get the bloodstains out, haha…”

He drifts off.

Xiao Xingchen begins to shake.

A few touches of stickiness remain between his legs, and he wants to scrub himself clean, tear his own skin off—

Xue Yang is asleep. It would be so easy to reach across the bed, take the knife Xue Yang always keeps on the headboard and silently slit his throat. Watch him bleed out, lie there listening to the musical drip-drip-drip of blood pooling under the bed...

A flash of heat in his skull. No. That would be too simple.

Too easy.

Xue Yang must be planning something. He has to find out what. It’s been almost two years since he first came to Yi City with—with—

A chill of horror.

A-Qing.

He can’t let her come home to this. Can’t let her get caught in whatever trap Xue Yang is laying—

A few days. She won’t be back for a day or so. She likes her space—

Tomorrow he’ll put up a paperman at the courtyard gate. Have an early warning, be able to head her off.

In the meantime—

He sets up two more papermen in the morning, one in the Coffin House, one looking out over the courtyard, making sure they’re well-hidden. He can’t quite get used to the triply-split vision, and ends up maneuvering them so their vision is blocked, all but the one peeking from his robe.

The rest of the morning is spent sitting on the porch steps, just looking at everything, trying to get used to the unsettling sensation of not blinking. The dusty coffins, the clear blue spring sky, the ghostly white scraps of funeral banners, the bobbing funeral lanterns on sticks—all swim before him, and he has to take a break, tucking the paperman down fully into his robe when everything overwhelms him.

It’s hot out on the porch. Too hot. The heat seems to be coming from inside him, but that must be his imagination. He bathes his face with water and pulls the collar of his robe open and remains there, sitting, waiting.

He’s not sure what he’s waiting for. It’s hard to think straight, his mind stretched between three papermen. Little red lines mar the edges of his vision, pulsing slightly with little flecks of crimson light.

He tries to meditate, soothe himself, do something to cool the heat in his brain, settle himself enough that he can fully enjoy the novelty of being able to see again after years of darkness, but all he can think of is A-Qing, A-Qing, I have to protect A-Qing, and the memory of letting that monster put his hands on him, his mouth on him, cup the most private part of him against his throat. Let him whisper sweet nothings to him in mockery of—of—

No. He had not had true feelings for this disgusting animal. Friendship, perhaps, but that was it.

Against his will, his body stirs at the memory of Xue Yang’s mouth, and in a fit of self-loathing he digs his fingernails into the bruises on his ribs, focusing on the pain.

An enormous silver moon has climbed high over the city by the time Xue Yang returns.

“We’ve got to clean that blindfold of yours,” he says, tilting his head at the bloodstained bandages covering Xiao Xingchen’s eyes. Xingchen wants to cut his own dick off at the way his entire body comes alive in Xue Yang’s presence. “I totally forgot about the laundry. Anyway, I flew over half of Shudong, but I found you this.” He dangles a small black pouch from his fingers, grinning. “Medicinal tea, for your head.”

A stab of rage. How dare he do this, how dare he try to take care of Xiao Xingchen—how dare he continue trying to manipulate him—

“Daozhang?”

He forces a smile. Can’t give himself away just yet. “Thank you, Chengmei.”

“Can’t have you dying on me before you sew up my robes, at any rate.” Laughing, Xue Yang enters the house. A few minutes later he exits with a cup of tea steaming in his hand. “Here, daozhang.”

“You should have some too,” Xiao Xingchen says, making no move to take the cup. He knows it’s ridiculous, that someone like Xue Yang would never kill someone by poisoning their food, but—

“I bought it for you, daozhang.”

“Please, A-Mei. A sip. For me.”

Xue Yang almost melts at the A-Mei, blinking at Xiao Xingchen with liquid black eyes. For a moment Xiao Xingchen wonders if he knows he can see, for him to be keeping up his act without an audience. Xue Yang leans towards him as if he wants to touch him again, and a tingle of disgust spreads from the backs of Xiao Xingchen's knees.

“Just a sip, then,” says Xue Yang, twisting a length of hair around a finger, and he takes a small sip. He swallows dramatically to make sure Xiao Xingchen knows he's done as asked, and the tingle of disgust turns to one of arousal, throbbing gently between Xingchen's legs.

Xiao Xingchen downs the tea, sets the cup down on the steps, picks up Shuanghua, and flies up into the night sky.

He gazes down on Yi City. The grim funeral town is beautiful from this height, silver moonlight frosting the sloping rooftops and imbuing it with a mysterious, unearthly air. Starlight illuminates the surrounding forests, their boughs waving gently in the soft breeze, and in the distance he sees the curve of the river that supplies the city with its water.

“Would you like me to describe it to you?” Xue Yang is beside him, balanced effortlessly on Jiangzai. “It’s nice up here.” His voice is so soft that Xiao Xingchen has to fight the urge to shove him off his sword, watch him plummet to the earth, break open on the stone of the Coffin House courtyard in an explosion of blood and bone.

Xiao Xingchen recognizes Jiangzai’s dark energy now. He should have known sooner, should have known —

The red veins edging his vision throb gently, shedding a halo of crimson light, tinting the silver moonlight like blood smeared over a windowpane.

Xue Yang doesn't wait for a response. “It's all silvery. Lots of stars. Mountains in the distance, dark against the sky. Faint pink light still clinging to the horizon. Bats wheeling to the east, a silver ribbon of water to the west…”

Xiao Xingchen can’t listen to this discordant drivel anymore, not from someone standing atop a sword gorged on the blood of countless innocents.

“Get down,” he hears himself saying.

“To go make dinner? I bought some dried fish."

“Down on your knees.”

Without another word Xue Yang drops to his knees on the blade, good hand gripping the hilt for support.

Xiao Xingchen slips his hands inside his robes, takes out his cock. The mere sight of his enemy kneeling before him has him fully erect, and it’s almost painfully sensitive to handle.

“Kiss it,” he orders, and Xue Yang leans forward eagerly and closes his mouth around the tip, tongue caressing the swollen pink flesh.

Xiao Xingchen jerks his head back roughly by the hair. The malignant red light is all around him now, pulsing hot in his brain, and he wants to rip Xue Yang’s scalp off. “I said kiss it!”

Xue Yang is shaking all over now, high color in his cheeks. He gazes up at Xiao Xingchen with a worshipful look that makes Xingchen want to plant his foot on his throat. Gently, so gently, Xue Yang leans forward and presses a kiss to the underside of Xiao Xingchen’s cock. He touches the very tip with his tongue. flicking it back and forth, lapping at the milky beads of precum.

“You have the most magnificent cock,” he says, licking the precum from his lips and running a finger along an engorged vein. He gives a little laugh. “Majestic. You wouldn’t think it to look at you but you could use this thing as a club. They ought to carve jade replicas for the women. Hell, men too. I’d buy one.” He hesitates, waiting for Xingchen to laugh, then, giving up, he kisses the underside, right at the root, and reaches down into his own robes.

Xiao Xingchen tugs roughly at his hair again. “Did I say you could touch yourself?”

Touch yourself. Such vulgar words, but they sound right in this moment. Xue Yang looks up, still trembling, eager for this new game.

“Just for that, open your mouth.”

Xue Yang opens his mouth obediently, and Xiao Xingchen thrusts deeply into his mouth, his cock fitting snugly in Xue Yang’s throat. He grips Xue Yang’s hair as he fucks his mouth, jerking his head farther down on his cock, holding him steady as he fills his throat, heedless of Xue Yang’s strangled gagging.

He pulls out, and Xue Yang draws in a rasping lungful of air.

“Mouth open!” he orders before Xue Yang can catch his breath, and Xue Yang, breath coming in a thin whistle, obediently parts his lips.

Xiao Xingchen pumps his own cock, a few quick strokes, and then he’s coming in Xue Yang’s waiting mouth, on his tongue, his lips.

Marking him.

The red haze fades slightly as he spends himself, the heat in his brain cooling slightly.

“Swallow,” he orders, and Xue Yang does so, eyes bright, entire body quivering with arousal. A few drops of cum have gone astray, landing in his long thick eyelashes.

“Thank you, daozhang,” he says, licking his lips, and Xiao Xingchen would get hard again if it were physically possible.

He reaches down into the courtyard, stirs the paperman outside the Coffin House, looks up through its eyes.

He is standing tall against the brilliant silver moon, white robes and black hair flowing out behind him. Xue Yang, the murderer, the monster, kneels at his feet, gazing up at him, one shaking hand extended slightly as if to touch the hem of his gown, sully the white linen with his filthy fingers.

Xiao Xingchen turns and flies back down to the courtyard. As if nothing had happened he strains the rice Xue Yang had boiled along with the tea and seats himself at the table, his mind a curious blank.

Xue Yang steps over the threshold. He’s not fully erect anymore, but Xiao Xingchen can tell he hasn’t touched himself, either, and his cheeks are still flushed. He glances at Xiao Xingchen, that same oddly soft look on his face, and fills a bowl with rice. He bites his lip as he does so, hesitating for a fraction of a second. In all their time together, Xingchen has never once taken a bowl of food for himself without setting one out for Xue Yang and A-Qing.

A-Qing—

No. He has time to handle Xue Yang. He has time to protect her—

Xue Yang pulls his chair out, and Xiao Xingchen shakes his head.

“Did I say you could sit at the table?” he says sharply. It’s a tone he’s never heard from himself before tonight. “The table is for people.” He sets his own half-eaten bowl on the floor and takes Xue Yang’s full one from his hands.

Xue Yang grins and settles down on the floor, thrilled at this new game, at being taken care of by the daozhang, a favored pet. His back rests lightly against Xiao Xingchen’s leg, warm and solid and far too alive.

It would be so easy to reach down, plunge an ivory chopstick into Xue Yang’s ear—not his ear. His eyes—take his like he took Song Lan’s. Ivory chopsticks, slick with his blood—

Ivory chopsticks. Xiao Xingchen glances down at the smooth white sticks in his hand. He’s never thought twice about the chopsticks “Chengmei” had brought home one day as a gift for him. Stolen, no doubt. Had he murdered the owner? Killed them for a pair of chopsticks, a gift for the daozhang—

Of course he did.

The only other gifts he had ever received from anyone other than Xue Yang had been Song Lan's horsetail whisk and Shifu's parting gift.

He reaches down, rests a hand on Xue Yang’s head. Xue Yang makes a small sound in the back of his throat, and Xiao Xingchen removes his hand.

He hands Xue Yang his bowl when he’s done, watches as he washes the bowls and chopsticks.

“We should do laundry tomorrow,” Xue Yang says as he dries them. “And move your coffin out of the house—” He glances at Xiao Xingchen expectantly, as if wondering if he’s gone to too far, expecting Xiao Xingchen to remain in his bed, and Xiao Xingchen nods and crosses the room, undresses, lies down.

Grinning, Xue Yang strips off all but his inner robe and scrambles into bed beside him.

“Foot of the bed,” Xiao Xingchen orders.

Obediently, Xue Yang curls up at his feet. Through the eyes of the Coffin House paperman Xiao Xingchen can see the swollen flesh pressing up against his inner robe, the bright moonlight gleaming off the bulge, a small wet spot staining the green silk. His robe is half-open, and Xiao Xingchen sees his bloodstained bandages.

How could I have forgotten to wash his wounds, change his bandages—

The thought is gone almost as quickly as it appears, but it leaves a scar of shame and rage behind. The moonlight is bloodying again as he reaches out to the paperman in his robe and the one across the room, looking through their eyes.

He likes the sight of Xue Yang curled up like a docile dog at the foot of his bed. A rabid animal brought low, kept sniffing his hand, until he decides to put him down.

Another quick, flitting thought: this is not like Xingchen. Mercy is. Not forgiveness, perhaps; not after what Xue Yang has done, but a quick death. Not playing with his prey, not delighting in this—this perversion—

The veins on the edges of his vision throb hotly, clamping his head in a skull-crushing vise.

“Don’t move until I tell you to,” he commands, and he goes to sleep.

Xue Yang is still curled up in the same spot when he wakes the next morning. Clouds have rolled in during the night, and rain taps on the windowpanes. The room is cool, shrouded in grim gray light, dampness seeping in under the door and around the windows.

Xiao Xingchen has always liked rainy days. The peace, the coziness of the Coffin House, Xingchen holding in a laugh as he listens to Chengmei try not to curse as he stuffs the cracks he’s already fixed a dozen times before. A small fire, Chengmei telling stories, A-Qing pretending not to listen but secretly entranced—

A-Qing. Where is she? It’s rainy out, she should be home early—

He glances at Xue Yang. His eyes are open, gazing across the bed at Xiao Xingchen with that same bizarrely soft look. There’s something else there, too, that Xiao Xingchen can’t decipher.

He doesn’t bother trying.

Without a word to Xue Yang he dresses and leaves the Coffin House with a fourth paperman infused with the spirit beast's core. Carefully, he carves off another section of his mind and slips it into the paperman.

He drops his umbrella at the sudden jolt of blinding, searing, world-reddening pain, staggering backwards, one foot crushing the bamboo spokes of the umbrella, tearing the delicately-painted paper.

Umbrella. Another gift from Xue Yang—

He steps on it again, again, smashing, stomping it to splinters, then places the paperman in a dry alcove of the courtyard wall and returns to the house.

He’s a bit shakier than he’d like to admit, everything still tinted red, little pulses of light racing along the veins on the edge of his vision. He takes a moment to steady himself before entering the Coffin House.

“Get up,” he says shortly. A buzzing, crackling, energy is in the thick cool air, and when he grabs Xue Yang’s ear, yanking him up, he feels a spark of lightning jump between them, intensifying the heat in his brain.

Xue Yang scrambles to his feet, stumbling slightly, either from having lain so still or from the blood Xiao Xingchen notices seeping through the bandages on his side.

“Clean the house before I get back,” orders Xiao Xingchen, because he can’t stay another second in that house with Xue Yang. He loathes how his traitorous body still lights up around the repulsive creature, can’t stomach how the mere sight of him sends his blood rising, from lust or hatred or a mix of the two he doesn’t know. A flare of heat and he’s seized by a sudden desire to pin the dog down, fuck his wounds, brand him from the inside, fuck his side open, rip his bones out one by one—

“Daozhang?” Xue Yang is sitting on the edge of the bed. His face is pale, good hand on his bleeding side. “I…” He stops. “Where are you going?”

“Did I say you could talk?” Xiao Xingchen says coldly, and a look just as odd as that horrible soft one creeps across Xue Yang’s face. “Should get you a muzzle—”

Ugly words, foul words, words that feel foreign in his mouth, but ones that send a thrill through him.

Fuck the murderer like a dog, treat him as he deserves to be treated—

Xue Yang removes his hand from his ribs, glancing down at the blood staining his palm. “I’m not a…”

Xiao Xingchen’s mouth is set in a thin hard line. That heat is back, turning the hairline fractures along the edges of his vision a violent scarlet. “Rabid dogs are good for one thing only, and it’s not talking.”

Xue Yang glances up at Xiao Xingchen, that same odd look still on his face. There’s no bulge in his robe this morning, and his scarred skin is bone-white and streaked with blood from his side, as if his meridians half opened during the night.

Xiao Xingchen smiles.

It is not a nice expression, but all Xue Yang sees is the smile. He revives like a wilted flower, a smile of his own splitting his face. The game is back on.

“Tell me you’ll obey,” demands Xiao Xingchen, pointing at the floor, and Xue Yang gets down on his knees, shaking with excitement.

“I swear I will, anything you say—”

“Take a bath. Clean that blood. I’ll be back for you later.”

A flicker of a frown—Xiao Xingchen has always tended his wounds—but it quickly disappears. Xiao Xingchen knows what he’s thinking: all part of the game. The daozhang knows he’s all right, that the stitches half-tearing is nothing to Xue Yang, how he’s survived far worse—

Xingchen heads out. Flies over the walls of the city to walk under the trees, tries to absorb the peace of the forest. It’s the first time he’s seen greenery like this in years, but there’s a mounting pressure in his skull, and the leaves appear to be coated in blood, dripping—

The paperman is hot against his collarbone, searing the bruises Xue Yang left on his skin. He tucks the paperman fully into his robe and casts his consciousness back to the Coffin House paperman. It’s agonizing, white-hot heat blooming in his brain, but he can see Xue Yang stripping the bed, hauling the sheets out into the rain. He switches to the courtyard paperman and watches Xue Yang scrub the sheets with his one good hand, frowning at the bloodstains, whistling off-key, smiling when he gets the white streaks off the brown cotton.

Peaceful. Domestic.

A filthy lie.

For hours he paces under the dripping trees, swallowed by the growing shades of twilight as his thoughts blaze bright and hot.

A lie. A lie. All just a filthy lie—

The heat in his brain builds, expands, searing the inside of his skull.

If only A-Qing were back. Knowing she was safe, he could settle things once and for all—

A-Qing is not coming back.

The thought, cold and calm and blue against the scarlet of his mind, sits there, hands folded, staring at him with clear eyes.

A-Qing is not coming back.

Chengmei’s voice returns to him: “Good thing A-Qing isn’t home…”

He had killed her.

Xiao Xingchen knows it like he knows his own name.

Xue Yang had murdered A-Qing.

Murdered an innocent girl in order to get the daozhang alone. Alone to—to—

His hand on his hip, his mouth on his cock—

Xingchen doesn’t remember the flight back to the house. He steps inside, heat flaring through every inch of him despite the wet chill, and stares down at Xue Yang.

Xue Yang looks up at him, eyes bright. Three candles flicker cheerfully on the table, sending black shadows dancing through the room. Rice is cooling on the stove, a mound of fruit on the table. Xue Yang has been carving them into shapes with a long silver knife, fitting them together into little animals.

A-Qing’s favorite.

A-Qing—

“Give me the knife, strip, and get on the bed,” Xiao Xingchen says, and Xue Yang goes rigid, mouth opening. He closes it with a snapping sound and is across the room in an instant, shedding his robes. He lies naked and eager on the bed’s fresh blankets, swallowing convulsively.

Waiting for Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen snuffs out all but one of the candles and sets it on the floor beside the bed. Rain dashes itself against the windowpanes and hammers the stone courtyard, the only sound in the house as he slips off his soaked robes.

“Just tell me what to do,” says Xue Yang, already breathless. His burning eyes are fixed on Xiao Xingchen’s face as if devouring him, hunger in the lines of his mouth. He’s already hard, cock swollen and heavy between his legs, just visible in the glow of the candle on the floor.

Slowly, Xiao Xingchen removes the white jade hairpiece Baoshan Sanren gave him as a parting gift, wraps it in a handkerchief, sets it on a shelf. Combs out his wet hair, letting it fall around his bare shoulders. Lays Xue Yang’s knife on the headboard along with a small bottle of soybean oil from the pantry.

Unties his bloody blindfold, lets it drop to the floor.

Xue Yang’s eyes widen and Xingchen thinks the animal might come on the spot. He’s never seen Xiao Xingchen’s true face like this before, fully exposed, bare. Xiao Xingchen can see himself as Xue Yang does, long white body wreathed in candlelight and shadow, purple bruises mottling the faint outlines of his ribs, dark hollows swallowing half his bony, beautiful face. Stern, cold.

Pitiless.

A hazy look enters Xue Yang’s eyes, softening their usual intensity. He reaches up towards Xiao Xingchen’s face, and Xiao Xingchen finds himself leaning over him. Xue Yang tilts his face at Xingchen, fingertips grazing the rims of his empty eye socks.

“You’re even more beautiful like this,” he breathes, and he leans up to kiss Xiao Xingchen, their first real kiss, full on the mouth. Warm and soft—

Xiao Xingchen feels himself returning the kiss, the heat in his mind cooling. Watches himself lean over Xue Yang, watches Xue Yang’s long pale fingers tangled in his dark hair, watches himself slip between Xue Yang’s legs, one hand resting on the bandages, the other bracing himself on Xue Yang’s bent knee. Xue Yang’s cock is trapped between them, hot and hard against his stomach.

Solid. Alive.

Xue Yang bucks into Xiao Xingchen, rocking his hips. There’s increasing desperation in his kiss, his legs tightening around Xingchen as he ruts against him. He comes quickly, long-neglected cock spurting up onto Xiao Xingchen’s stomach.

“You didn’t mean what you said before, did you?” Xue Yang whispers into his throat. Haltingly, as if still hesitant to ask despite their intimacy loosening his tongue. “This morning.”

Rabid dogs are good for one thing only, and it’s not talking.

That morning. It seems like an eternity ago. Before Xiao Xingchen had left the house, before he had realized—had realized—

A-Qing.

Xiao Xingchen straightens up. Xue Yang’s cum is hot on his stomach, burning the skin. Tainting him, marking him. Gritting his teeth, he leans back, straddling Xue Yang, gazing down at him in the flickering glow of the candle.

“Did I say you could finish?” he asks. He wants to wipe the cum off but can’t bear to give Xue Yang the satisfaction. “Did I give you permission?”

Xue Yang looks up in confusion. “Daozhang…”

Xiao Xingchen smiles.

Xue Yang’s eyes widen but then, reading something in Xiao Xingchen’s face he’s certain isn’t actually there, he relaxes, tilting his head and grinning back.

“Now, stay quiet for me,” Xiao Xingchen tells him, because he can’t bear the sound of Xue Yang’s voice, Chengmei’s voice. The heat is returning, red splotches pulsing along the edges of his vision, scorching his empty eye sockets. “Keep your mouth shut for once.”

“I will, I won’t make a sound—”

“I said be quiet.”

Xue Yang’s grin stretches wider. “I promise, I'll be so quiet you won’t even know I’m here.”

“Shut up!”

“Make me.”

Xiao Xingchen extends a hand, and the spirit-binding rope inside his folded robes snakes ribbon-like through the air toward him. Before Xue Yang can react his ankle is bound to the bed frame, a little noose on the end of a long rope.

And the hooligan laughs. “So that’s what you’re into, daozhang? Can’t say I didn’t suspect it, after the past few days. Should probably tighten in a bit, though. Ha, could you imagine if A-Qing walked in right now—”

A-Qing.

A-Qing, lying dead in a shallow grave, tossed on the side of the road for the dogs, carved up in pieces and scattered for the crows—

Gripping him roughly, Xiao Xingchen rolls him over onto his front, yanking him up onto his knees. Xue Yang’s shattered arm jerks into the mattress and he gives a muffled grunt, but not a word of complaint escapes his lips as Xiao Xingchen takes the knife from the headboard and slices the bandages off Xue Yang’s wounded side, fingernails digging into his half-torn stitches.

“I told you to take better care of yourself,” he says and rips the stitches out.

Blood dribbles over his hand as Xue Yang gasps, muscles in his bare back standing out like whipcords as every inch of his body clenches. Xiao Xingchen slicks his hand with blood and oil and rubs it roughly over Xue Yang’s hole, nails scratching the delicate skin, digging deep inside him, working him open.

Xue Yang remains silent, every muscle tensed, then moves back, sliding Xiao Xingchen’s fingers deeper inside him.

The degenerate is… aroused by this.

Gritting his teeth, Xiao Xingchen grips Xue Yang’s wounded side tighter.

A wet tearing sound as his finger digs deeper into the gouge wound.

A second gasp. “Daozhang—”

“Don’t talk. Don’t you like this?”

Xue Yang’s cock has grown fat and hard, dripping precum onto the sheets beneath him. “Anything you want, I’ll do anything—”

"What I want—" Xiao Xingchen shoves him forward, pinning the shoulder of his bad arm into the mattress, Xue Yang’s cheek pressed into the sheets, cock crushed at a painful angle "—is for you to be a good dog for your daozhang, Xue Yang.”

Xue Yang’s body jerks in shock at the sound of his name, and Xiao Xingchen plunges his cock inside him. It’s tight, too tight, and Xue Yang twitches spasmodically beneath him.

Xiao Xingchen grabs a fistful of hair, wraps it leash-like around Xue Yang’s throat, and begins to move, thrusting hard into Xue Yang’s tight heat, yanking hard on the leash as Xue Yang’s good hand scrabbles uselessly at the noose of hair around his throat.

“Rabid animal, killing A-Qing—I’ll treat you like one—”

“I—didn’t—” Xue Yang chokes out. He’s bleeding heavily from his side, spirit-binding rope unsealing his blood-stopping meridians. “I—”

Xingchen loosens the collar slightly, allowing him to speak. “Didn’t lie to me all this time?”

“ I lied to you ? You lied to me, pretending you—”

Xingchen cuts him off, yanking on the collar, cutting off his air. Xue Yang’s bloodied teeth are bared, veins standing out in his temple as he chokes, a sudden flash of hatred burning in his eyes.

“Lying dog! So you didn’t slaughter Baixue Temple, murder A-Qing—you blinded Song Lan, set him against me—”

“You did that all by yourself—” Xue Yang chokes.

“Shut up!”

“That bastard deserved it, taking your eyes—”

“You took him from me—”

Xue Yang's voice is barely audible, a faint wheezing gasp. “That over-saturated blanket? You ought to thank me!”

“Shut up!” He releases the hair collar and instead presses Xue Yang’s head hard into the mattress and thrusts into him savagely, hurting both of them. He barely feels it through the heat blazing bright and red inside him, swallowing all else in an inferno of hate and betrayal and rage. “Shut the fuck up, you subhuman animal —”

Xue Yang manages to turn his head, gasps in a deep breath of air, laughs as if this is funny. Blood sprays the blanket. “Am I delirious, or is the daozhang cursing?”

“I ought to gouge out your eyes, let you bleed to death on this bed; nobody would mourn you, no tears would be shed, just another dog tossed in a roadside ditch. Carve your lying tongue out—”

More laughter, Xue Yang’s body shaking beneath his, accelerating the spread of the blood blooming over the mattress. “I have a collection I can show you.”

“You—”

More laughter, more blood spraying across the blanket. “You fucking gullible idiot—”

Xiao Xingchen flips him over his back so he can look him full in the face. A fresh trickle of blood is leaking from between Xue Yang’s legs. He’d torn something down there. Good. But Xue Yang makes no sign of pain, doesn’t resist as Xiao Xingchen pins him down, one hand on his broken arm, the other on his wounded side, fingers twisting at the torn flesh, digging deeper, clawing their way down to bone.

“My beautiful daozhang,” says Xue Yang sarcastically. His voice catches in his throat, as if he finally fully feels the pain in the raw red mess on his side. “My pure white dove with bloodstained wings.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Xue Yang tilts his head at him. His face is lily-white, the blood on his cheek shockingly bright even in the candle’s flickering glow. His eyes are rimmed with pink, hair a matted mess, and Xiao Xingchen almost comes at the sight of him. “Do you really want to know?”

And suddenly Xiao Xingchen does not want to know. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. A-Qing is dead, Song Lan is gone.

But Xue Yang is beneath him. Warm.

Alive.

Staring up at him fixedly, making no move to push him off. A sneer is plastered over his face, but if Xiao Xingchen didn’t know better he’d think tears were glistening in those fine black eyes.

He reaches down, touches Xue Yang’s face, leaves a trail of scarlet on his white cheek. Brushes his finger over his mouth, reaching past his bloodless lips, easing his teeth open, forcing his fingers in his mouth, stroking his tongue with a finger. Pierces it with his nail, removes his hand, wipes the blood on Xue Yang’s hair.

“You look so pretty with blood on your face,” he says, and begins to move inside him again.

“Fuck me like you mean it, daozhang,” Xue Yang grins, and Xiao Xingchen grips him by the throat, choking Chengmei’s voice out of him. Lets go to flip him on all fours again, then reaches around to grip him by the blood-slick throat again, fucks him violently from behind like an animal.

And Xue Yang laughs, laughs as Xiao Xingchen crushes his throat, laughs as his shattered arm is rocked into the mattress, laughs as he saturates the bed with blood.

Xiao Xingchen can feel nothing but the blazing, all-consuming heat devouring him from the inside, a foreign, malignant presence smothering his mind with rage.

Filthy lie—all a lie—all a lie—

“Not just me,” says Xue Yang, as if he can hear his thoughts, and Xiao Xingchen’s fingers tighten around his throat.

“I didn’t lie,” he hisses. “I did care about you, you subhuman animal, you made me think I loved you—”

Xue Yang ragged choking laugh breaks off and he spams, thrashing beneath Xingchen. A spurt of white splatters over the crimson of the bed. His muscles clench around Xiao Xingchen’s cock as he comes and Xiao Xingchen spills inside him with a shudder, yanking Xue Yang’s head back so sharply he almost snaps his neck in half.

Panting, he shoves Xue Yang flat on his chest, still locked inside him, and takes a moment to examine the tableau he’s created.

Xue Yang, spread out beneath him. The red-soaked sheets. Xiao Xingchen, damp black hair cascading loose over his white back. The glow from the candle on the floor, gilding the edge of the bed, painting the wet windows with gold.

He inhales deeply, the heady scent of blood mixing with the pounding red inside his skull.

“Had enough?” he says. He bends down, turns Xue Yang’s head to the side. “Enjoyed being fucked like the dog you are, my friend?”

Xue Yang stares glassily up at the window.

“Xue Yang?”

Nothing.

He touches the dark purple bruises ringing his throat.

Nothing.

He remains very still, still as the corpse beneath him, then pulls out of Xue Yang’s limp body with an obscenely wet sound. Carefully, very carefully, he moves the corpse, dragging it up to the head of the bed, placing it gently in his arms.

It’s rapidly growing cool, a combination of the massive blood loss and chill of the rainy night. He slides it under the blood-soaked covers beside him and kisses its ivory forehead.

“Good dog,” he says, and he begins to laugh.

He can’t stop.

He laughs until his bruised ribs threaten to separate and the blood covering Xue Yang’s body has grown cold and sticky. His mind is cooling too, but the pressure in his head is growing, swelling, threatening to burst his skull into a thousand shards. Icy-hot, it stabs at him as he reaches out to the paperman in the courtyard, the paperman behind the bed, across the room, at the gate—

No need for them now.

With an agonizing wrench, he severs the connection.

Coolness like water rushes into his mind, extinguishing the flames, banishing the malign presence, and darkness swallows the world again.

It’s comforting, somehow. Familiar.

Safe.

He moves slightly, and is surprised to find that his arm is pinned.

Pinned beneath Xue Yang’s body.

Xue Yang’s cold, lifeless body.

Chengmei’s cold, lifeless body—

A shudder runs through him.

“I had to,” he whispers. “A-Qing, A-Qing, I had to avenge her, I had to…”

He cradles the body in his arms, rocking it gently back and forth as he mumbles to himself.

“I had to…I had to…”

Had to had to had to had to—

Had to. Had to.

Had to.

Dawn is breaking when he hears the familiar tap-tap-tap of a stick on the stone of the courtyard.

A-Qing’s stick.

A-Qing’s—

Xiao Xingchen begins to cry.

[methoxyethane]

Reddie Prompt: “Peach Fuzz”

The first few hours of the drive down to California to meet Bev had been exciting. They had done it, they had graduated, they had all lived until eighteen and they were finally free of Derry and moving on. This was it, this was what they’d all been working towards for so many years, ever since that fateful summer they’d made friends in. 

The road was open and it represented the entire world in front of them. It had felt like anything was possible, felt like the entire world was in their hands, like the sky itself was opening up for them. They’d rolled down the windows and turned up the music, letting the wind howl through the car and sang obnoxiously loud along with the tunes. Even Mike had joined in from time to time, though when it was his turn to drive he chose the radio and listened to music generally no one else in the car knew any of the words to and was left to fill the car with his voice alone.

Richie honestly loved Mike’s voice though, was always excited to hear his rather quiet and thoughtful friend open up and obviously have fun. Plus he had a nice singing voice, nicer than Richie’s own and nicer than pretty much any of the other guy’s except maybe Stan, who’s voice could, ironically, fit into a choir.

It had taken all the way until a few hours into Richie’s turn to drive for the novelty to wear off. Everything was still good and exciting and raw like and open wound, but at the same time he was starting to get tired, and kind of bored, and he couldn’t even bother Eddie because right now he was in the other car with Bill and Stan because they’d decided to rotate who drove and who rode in what car so no one would be stuck with anyone (Read: Richie) too long for the nearly week long trip from Maine to California. 

They traded shifts so they wouldn’t have to pull over to sleep, everyone encouraging everyone else to rest while they could so they’d be ready to drive again when it was their turn. They pulled over for fast food and ate gas station food, they pissed at the side of the road and slept fitfully against the windows, and Richie knew that none of them would give up even a second of that road trip for any other fate in the world. It was stupid, and it was tiring, and the longer they went the more tired and frustrated everyone got, but it was the first taste of true freedom they’d gotten in their lives and they were all eager to experience the bad just as well as the good. 

After nearly six days they finally reached Cali, where Bev was waiting for them. Bev was the reason they’d chosen California to begin with - not only was it as far away from Derry as you could get without leaving the country, but it was also where she had eventually wound up after she and her aunt had moved out of Maine three years ago. They’d all stayed in contact with her over the years, and all applied for schools in her area of California when they got the chance, having planned to follow her out there pretty much the instant she’d announced to any of them that she’d be moving to the other side of the country. 

She’d met them all at her apartment, and everyone had poured out of the two cars they’d piled into to give her long-awaited hugs. Unfortunately, there'd been no time to enjoy her company, because Ben and Bill had gotten into a different college than Eddie, Stan and Mike had, who had all managed to get into different fields of study and therefore different schools than each other. This meant that everyone had to drive around unpacking the two cars, dropping everyone off at their respective dorms or apartments so they could all move in and get settled.

They were, in the end, all within about a forty-five minutes drive from each other, spotted all around the area. They still, however, only had two cars between them, but luckily for Richie he was sharing an apartment with Mike, who was the owner of one of said shitty vehicles and could be coerced into giving him the keys without much effort.

Which was good, because once Richie had moved in and set everything up he had expected himself to be exhausted. And he was, really, tired in a bone deep way that made his whole body ache for his bed, but then he tried to lay down to go to sleep he found it was impossible to calm his racing mind.

They’d done it. They had escaped Derry, they had made it to California to finally see Bev again, and it was all… so close to perfect. There was just one thing Richie wished for right now.

And, since it was past eleven at night and Mike had passed out on the couch like a log, it was a wish Richie could make true. As long as he didn’t wake Mike up stealing his keys.

Eddie wouldn’t know he was on his way, but Richie had helped Eddie move in earlier and still remembered exactly which dorm room was his. If he was lucky, Eddie’s old habit of leaving the window open a crack for Richie to slip in at night would carry true to this new location. 

When Richie pulled up to Eddie’s school and sneaked up to the window, it occurred to him for a moment that he might have been able to use the door for once. But by that time he’d already located Eddie’s room on the first floor and peeked in through the window, where his boyfriend had his lights on and was currently rearranging his room for what Richie could only assume was not the first time. 

He grinned, knocking on the window. Eddie jumped, whipping around at the window with wide eyes, only to roll them dramatically at the sight of Richie leering at him through the window. 

Eddie opened the window to let him in, instantly scolding him as soon as he got inside. “You’re an idiot. You couldn't wait one day to see me again? I JUST got here, if you get me kicked out of school before I even attend one class I’m dumping you on the spot.”

“It’s fine, no one will catch us,” Richie assured as he closed the window behind him, advancing on Eddie to pull him close. “And even if we do we can just pretend it was all innocent and friendly and shit. They’ll never suspect I came here with untoward intentions, since they won’t actually be catching a girl in your dorm.”

Eddie let himself be pulled in, to spite his petulant expression. “They will if they catch us in the same bed.”

“There’s only one bed! We can just say I crashed here and got cold during the night.”

Eddie glared at him, but his face had that slightest little blush that always belied his weakness for Richie, and he knew he was going to get his way. “Fine. You can stay for awhile. But you have to keep your pants on - there’s no way we can talk our way out of it if you’re naked.”

Richie grinned, leaning in to plant a kiss on Eddie’s blushing cheek, then another one on his lips. With Eddie here in his arms, like he’d been longing for, Richie’s tiredness hit him all at once, and he all but collapsed onto Eddie’s bed, dragging his boyfriend with him.

Eddie grumbled, shoving his shoulder to get him out of the way so he could crawl off the bed. He only went as far as turning off the light before slipping back in, though, waiting for Richie to roll onto his side so he could snuggle in and relax into his hold.

Richie took in a deep breath of air and sighed it out slowly, his breath ruffling Eddie’s hair. He reached to tug on the blanket folded by their feet, pulling it up over to cover them both against the droning of Eddie’s fan as it whirled softly at them. It was something soft and fluffy, the peach fuzz of the blanket wrapping around them both to cocoon them in its warm embrace, and Richie felt himself relax.

Eddie was warm and pliant in his arms, more relaxed than he usually was when Richie convinced him it was a good idea to let him stay the night. Usually, however, they were sneaking around locked doors and keeping their voices low so as not to disturb Sonia, knowing the consequences for being caught would be dire. Now, however, to spite his protests there really was very little chance of Eddie getting in trouble for having another guy in his dorm room, and even if he did they wouldn't have the ability to give him much more than a slap on the wrist. 

They were, for the first time, sleeping in the same bed without the fear and anxiety that came with being seen together. 

And there had been so much of that. Back in Derry Sonia hadn’t been the only looming threat, and Richie and Eddie knew as well as anyone what being gay in that town would mean. They’d hid their relationship from everyone but their fellow Losers, keeping it close to their chests out of fear of retribution for their willingness to love each other.

But now, here, things were different. They were on the other side of the country, in a big city where not only did no one know them or care about them, but there was, according to Bev’s reassurances and Ben’s research, there was an active and thriving gay community to support them. This wasn’t like it was in their hometown anymore - things were different now. They were safe here.

And safe Richie finally felt. He had Eddie, he had his friends, he had a shitty job at bussing tables lined up for him and a comedy set he was working on putting together, and life was finally, finally good. Just for this one moment in time, things were just about perfect.

Eddie was breathing deeply now, apparently asleep as soon as his head had hit the pillow. Richie didn’t blame him. He was tired too, but just now, in this moment, he wanted nothing more than to enjoy exactly where he was. 

And that was with Eddie.

—

[iamakiller]

Daddy

Wordcount: 2000

Warnings: Pregnancy.  Infidelity.  Murder.  Reference to past abuse.

Notes: Some men take to fatherhood quite naturally.  Others … do not.

The wedding is elaborate, expensive, and populated entirely by the bride’s family and friends.  

Perhaps this is why no-one mentions the haste with which it has been arranged, in spite of how decisive the couple’s most recent and definitely final breakup had been only a few months ago.

Nobody comments on the irony of the bride wearing white, either.

***

It is a novelty, at first.  

The matching rings are fun, and it is rather nice having someone to complain to after a long day of dealing with the world and its stupidity.

Charlie calls her Wife, and she calls him Husband. Ironically, of course.

He likes the idea of the vows.  Til death do us part is pleasantly macabre, and reassuringly final.

He’ll never be alone again.

***

The other business is nothing at all, to begin with.  

He enjoys the way her magnificent curves have been augmented by the twist of fate that brought them back together so permanently. Her swollen breasts and rounded belly are a gift for him to enjoy.  A fitting tribute to his virility.  And her fertility, he supposes.

Look at what I have done to you, he thinks, each time he fucks her.  See how you have grown by me.

And she grows.

And she grows.

***

One evening as they are laying on the couch, Nicole suddenly lets out a gasp, and grabs his hand.  Before he knows quite what is happening, she has pressed it to her abdomen, right below her navel.  Just as he’s about to ask her if she has gone mad … he feels it. A tiny movement from within her, pressing against his palm.

Her eyes are very bright as she gazes at him, the beaming smile on her face making her look like a Stepford version of herself.  “Oh, Charlie,” she says, softly.  “I’ve been feeling it for weeks, and now you can too!  He’s kicking.  Isn’t it wonderful?”

Kicking?

He?

Wonderful?

Charlie pulls his hand away, and turns his attention back to the TV.

***

Nicole starts leaving books on the topic of baby names and parenting scattered around the house.  

Charlie shakes his head at her carelessness, and tidies them away.

He wastes an entire day of good writing time on painting the spare room pastel blue under her scrutiny. Another on assembling the crib that is now the centerpiece of the room.

Every time she returns home from an outing, she brings with her some item of clothing or toy, then insists on inflicting a painfully uninteresting show-and-tell on him.

She watches him carefully at these times, like she’s waiting for him to do something.  But he doesn’t know what.  So he does nothing.

Eventually she stops, and simply adds her purchases to the growing pile in the spare room.

It’s a relief, quite frankly.

***

Long gone are the days of the seductive young starlet he first met, with her penchant for slutty lingerie and bodycon minidresses.

Nicole’s underwear is sensible now. Frumpy, even. She wears a stretchy band of fabric to support her belly.  She waddles like a penguin, and when she sits she looks a bit like a frog.

“NO,” she protests, when he reaches for her with intent.   “Charlie, I’m too big.  I don’t feel attractive at all.”

When he offers to fuck her in the dark, she becomes quite irate. “You don’t think I’m beautiful?” she rages, her dramatic exit from the bedroom greatly undermined by the ungainliness of her gait.

Charlie cannot understand her reaction.  She may be less alluring now, but he still has needs.

What is he supposed to do?

***

One of his supporting cast is young, and extremely eager to please.

He asks her to stay behind one evening on the pretense of giving her some notes on her performance.  He fucks her on the prop couch in the center of the rehearsal space, imagining that there is an entire audience watching them.  Imagining that Nicole is watching.

Then he gives the girl some feedback on her lackluster performance, and she cries until he makes her stop.  

It’s a shame, really, he thinks as he disposes of her.  But these minor roles are relatively easy to recast, so no harm done.

When he gets home a couple of hours later than normal, Nicole is already sound asleep, facing away from his side of the bed.

He lays down next to her on top of the covers, and watches every minute on the illuminated display of the clock tick by slowly until dawn.

***

One morning, Nicole hands him a list of five names and tells him to fucking pick one for the stranger who roils so violently within her belly these days that it makes him feel quite sick to watch.

After some deliberation, he makes his choice.

Henry.

***

“Why don’t you talk to him?”

It’s the middle of the night.  Charlie hadn’t realized he wasn’t the only one awake.  “I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve never once tried to talk to Henry. How can you expect to bond with him if he doesn’t even know his Daddy’s voice?”

Bond?

Daddy?

He runs his fingers through his hair.  “What do you want me to say?”  

It’s a genuine question, but Nicole takes it as a personal affront. She lets out a hiss like an angry cat, then turns over and shifts around for an interminably long time before her breathing finally evens out and she begins to snore.

Very slowly, so as not to wake her, Charlie rolls over, and inches down the bed until his face is level with her middle.  The skin ripples, letting him know that the inhabitant of his wife’s body is awake.  

He chews on the inside of his lip, and clears his throat several times.  “Hello, Henry,” he whispers, after a long pause.  Almost immediately, a wave of embarrassment engulfs him, even though nobody else is watching.  This is stupid.

But for a moment, he thinks he sees the outline of a little hand, pressing against the taut skin as though it’s reaching out to him ... and then it’s gone.  

It must have been a trick of the light.

***

Henry Barber is born at 3:30 a.m. on a Tuesday.  

He weighs nine pounds three ounces.  

Nicole cries happy tears when they lay him on her still-swollen belly.

Charlie stares at the small, red-faced, screaming creature, and feels nothing.

***

Home is no longer a sanctuary.

The baby cries.

Nicole cries.

Charlie comes and goes as he pleases.

He is exhausted, and he is numb.

***

“Where the fuck have you been?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Just out.  Walking.  Thinking.”

(He picked up a hooker in Brooklyn.  Left part of her in Manhattan, and the rest of her in The Bronx.)

“You can’t keep doing this, Charlie.  I need you.  Henry needs you.”

“What do you need?”

“…”

“WHAT DO YOU NEED?”

***

Henry is a few days shy of being one month old when Nicole walks into Charlie’s study one night.  He’s been trying to write – he has been on the verge of feeling inspired for days now – but the screen in front of him is thus far stubbornly blank, the blinking cursor taunting him.  And then Nicole is there, looking like a ghost in her nightgown, face pale and blotchy, with dark circles under her eyes.

“I need you to take him,” she says, quietly.  Her voice is eerily calm, where usually it is filled with too much emotion.  “He is full.  His diaper has been changed.  You don’t need to do anything.  Just … take him for a minute.”

Charlie nods.

“You have to support his head,” she reminds him, as she transfers Henry into his arms.  Charlie wants to say I know, but in truth he doesn’t know anything. He hasn’t held him before; not even at the hospital.

Nicole backs slowly out of the room, and shuts the door behind her very quietly.   Almost immediately, Charlie hears a strangled sob, and then the sound of their bedroom door slamming shut.

The loud noise makes Henry jump, and he starts to wail.  Straight away, Charlie’s head begins to hurt.

As the crying goes on and on, Charlie is reminded of something his mother once told him.  About how much he’d cried as a baby, just to inconvenience her.  About how angry it had made his father.

Charlie doesn’t feel angry at all.  Just worried.  Henry’s face is bright red, and his little hands are balled up into fists.  He is going to make himself sick if he carries on like this.

“What do you want?” Charlie asks him, even though he knows it is completely futile.  The situation is hopeless.  He is trapped in this apartment with a wife who won’t tell him what she needs, and a baby who can’t.

Perhaps it is just wishful thinking, but Charlie notices that the baby’s cries seem to grow a little quieter after he speaks.  Does Henry want him to talk to him?

“Your crying is quite understandable,” Charlie tells him, in a conversational tone. “The world is a dreadful place, filled with terrible people.  It is quite incomprehensible even to me, so I can’t begin to fathom how terrifying it must be for someone so small and so new.”

It isn’t his imagination.  The crying is definitely getting fainter, and the indignant fists have started to uncurl. Fat tears glisten on Henry’s long, dark lashes, but he isn’t producing any more.  Now, he just seems to be making a noise for the sake of it.

“You appear to have a penchant for the dramatic,” Charlie observes. “Perhaps we have more in common than our shared fondness for Nicole’s breasts.”

Henry sneezes, and stops crying completely.

“Good boy,” says Charlie.

When Nicole returns some time later and whisks him away without saying anything, Charlie’s arms feel strangely empty.

***

At four o’clock the next morning, Charlie closes his laptop.  After the earlier interruption, the words had flowed better than they had in months.  

He is on his way to bed when a little noise from down the hallway catches his attention, and he finds himself drawn into Henry’s room.  When he peers down into the crib, he sees Henry gazing up at him, looking alarmingly awake given the lateness of the hour.

“You should be asleep,” Charlie points out.

In response, Henry lets out a little coo.

“You are right, of course,” Charlie agrees.  “I should also be asleep.”  He pulls up the chair that Nicole sometimes sits on when she is feeding the baby, and sinks down on it.  “Perhaps I will keep you company for a while.”

When Henry begins to fuss a short while later, Charlie doesn’t hesitate before reaching over to pick him up. This time, he holds him against his chest, like he’s seen Nicole do.  He rubs his back gently, marveling as he does so how his hand seems to cover most of the little boy.  “There there,” he murmurs.  “I’ve got you.”

Just as he had earlier, Henry gradually quietens down, and eventually drifts off to sleep in Charlie’s arms.

Charlie stares at Henry’s peaceful face as he holds him, suddenly feeling quite sick with remorse at his behavior so far. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers.  “I have been quite remiss, haven’t I?”  He strokes his son’s head, admiring how soft and fine his hair is.  “I must confess I do not know what I am doing.  But you seem rather determined to teach me, so I promise I shall endeavor to learn as quickly as possible.”

Henry stirs, and whimpers in his sleep.  A shadow passes across his perfect little face.  Charlie’s heart clenches, as though a fist has curled around it.

For as long as he can remember, there has been a scar on the back of Charlie’s head.  He once asked his mother about it when he was young, and she told him he’d fallen down when he was a baby.  He didn’t believe her even then.

Charlie chews on the inside of his lip, and thinks.

Nobody ever held him when he cried, so one day he just stopped.  His terrible nightmares were caused by the ones who were meant to soothe them.  He has no happy memories of his childhood.

But ... it doesn’t have to be that way for Henry.  It won’t be.  Charlie might not know how to be a father, but he knows how not to be one.  

He squeezes his burning eyes tightly shut.  His lips are trembling as he presses a gentle kiss to his son’s forehead.  “It’s okay, Henry,” he whispers fiercely.  “You are safe.  Nothing’s going to harm you.”

Daddy’s here.

[thewillowbends]

BotW Link/Zelda or Link & Zelda: A-10, B-13, C-3?

Oh God, this took forever to finish because I rewrote the ending like three times before I found something I was satisfied with.  I hope you enjoy!

Long after the night has fallen over them and the air turned cold, the rain follows them. It lasts until midnight, where the bitter ache of his bones keep him sentry for the long night of their camp. Zelda rests fitfully, turning in her sleep, but it's more peace than she has known for years, and he dares not wake her. His guilt is a relentless beast, one that prowls and twists through the corridors of his mind when he is idle and curls at his feet to look at him with piercing eyes when he dares let his sword rest. The earth still carries the memory of pain; he feels the echo of the world's grief in the wind.

Link rubs his eyes, feeling the fatigue of a night that wears heavy, the ache of old wounds whose pain lingers after healing. Behind him, Zelda twists in her sleep, her breath so quiet he strains to hear them - and strains he does because her dreams are the blood and marrow of his. It is her voice that carried him in the long and lonely hours of a battle that seemed ever at an end, and it is his vision that drives them now, into the world hungry for hope. He tries to imagine a time when the world will be healed, when the hills and valleys won't hold the scars of great battles, when the air is no longer sullied with poison, when they are more than a scattered people scavenging the bones of a world's remains. He thinks of the Zora, where the rivers still ran clean, and the desert, with its soothing monotony and purifying heat, and the image cannot coalesce in his mind as anything whole, fragmented by loss of a mind that has only known the ruin. The dream of a world restored is Zelda's. He can only hold it in his fist for so long before he clasps too tightly, and it slips through the cracks in his fingers.

When she stirs, he stills, cautious in his regard for her wants. Zelda has spent her life a sacrifice on a great stone slab, waiting for the flash of the ritual knife. The world is always eager to ask more of her; he cannot fashion himself as one to be among their number. So when she comes to sit beside her, he tilts his head at her skeptically, his eyes sharp and knowing.

"You should be sleeping," he says firmly.

"I could not," she admits. In her hands, she fiddles with the gold chain of her necklace. She worries it keenly, this remnant of her past, as if it could be compelled to conjure something more than memory. She is quiet for a long moment, looking with him to a cloudy midnight sky, the stars hidden by the haze of a passing storm.

"I dreamed of my father," she admits after a moment, releasing her necklace to clasp her hands in her lap. When he does not speak, she continues unprompted, "I dreamed of him as I knew him in life, in the grand halls where the throne once stood. I saw him as he was in the prime of his youth when I was but a child, grand and proud." She smiles faintly. "A happier time, before the prophet brought word of the resurrection."

He looks at her thoughtfully, uncertain of the emotions that wells in him - compassion, yes, but also something more sordid, something with sharp edges that pricks should he grasp it. Envy, perhaps, he wonders, or something darker, more resentful. The cruelty of a life stolen, even as he knows the past exists mainly to cause her pain. Her grief is momentous yet contained, a lake to whose edge he can step but from which he cannot drink. Memory is a stranger to him. The novelty of it is an uncertain weight, as heavy as its absence.

"Did I know him then?" he asks after a moment.

"No," she answers, "you hadn't come to us yet."

Her feet are bare despite the cold. She wiggles her toes, digging them into the grass and soft earth. Her body still carries the litheness of youth, a countenance girlish and sweet; it remembers youth that she does not, her mind eaten away by years of madness gripped in Calamity's iron fist. He wonders if either of them have ever been children, if they have ever known laughter that came easily.

"Do you miss him?" he asks abruptly.

Zelda tilts her head to look at him, her eyes a blue as dark as the ocean in the dark. For a moment, he thinks he's offended her, but after a moment she smiles faintly. "Sometimes," she says quietly, and it has the color of a secret. "I loved him. He was a good man - but a hard one. He had to be. The world required it."

He nods, looking out in the vast plain, where the night lights up with the gentle glow of fireflies and the distant fire of Death Mountain. He thinks of time, how it shaped him as much as it has the contours of this land, how it continues to shape them. He wonders when the stories are written, will they be grand as the shadows of distant mountains or passing through like rain, a footnote among the pages. A sigh forms on his lips, and he lets it out, forming a moist cloud in the air.

"The Zora have been telling me about my family," he says finally. "My father they knew died in the Calamity. My mother and sister left soon after, and they know not what became of them. Though all these years later, they would have passed."

"I'm sorry," she says, and her tone is genuine, carrying the weight of all their failures.

"You are not the one I expect to answer for it," he tells her gently, and though he is honest, he can see she does not, cannot believe him. Perhaps with time, though he can only hope they are given as much as was stolen from them. He gives her a smile, as faint as the whisper of the night's wind, which she returns with favor.

"I only met your family once," she admits after a moment. "The day you arrived at the castle with your father." She sighs a little. "We were so young, then, to recall it. You could not have been more than fourteen, but the sword had called to you already. I remember you were so quiet, even then. I thought you shy or perhaps reserved, but thinking back on it, I think you were just as frightened as I was. A huge duty had been laid at your feet, as big as my own."

Link tries to imagine himself as a boy, the shape of the fears he held then, an abstract idea of an uncertain battle to come; he wonders whether the knowing and concrete pain of his failure wears heavier. The face he sees in the mirror has it deceptive youth, a certain delicacy that lends itself to a nurturing and condescending regard from those who cannot recognize the weariness in his eyes, who do not see the scars etched in his skin. He wonders if his mother beheld his face now if she would even recognize it.

"The past is uncertain companion," he says eventually.

"So is the future," she answers, and he cannot bring himself to disagree.

He breaks a twig and tosses it into a fire. Its sudden flare lights up in Zelda's eyes, the flames dancing in her pupils. The shadows give her the edges and contours of sculpture, something hewn from stone, sturdy and with heft. Link thinks of all the years and days and hours she spent waiting, the way she hardened her heart against the possibility of a hero that may never come for her. He wonders if the strength that carried her through that time is enough to carry them forward.

"Do you think Impa will have the answers you seek?" he finally asks.

Her face falters, the smile easing to a flat line. It hurts his heart to see it; there has already been so much pain between them.

"I don't know," she admits after a moment, her voice quiet. "I'm not sure there are even answers to be had, but we need to start somewhere. Hyrule deserves a second chance."

He nods. "We owe it to the people to try."

She looks at him curiously, an expression he can't quite read on her face, like a book abruptly closed. They sit with the quiet of the night for a few moments more, before she turns to him more fully, her face reflecting a warmth more common each day the calamity is put behind her. Reaching out a hand, she touches his shoulder, and he twitches at the feel of it, the tension that holds them snapping like the taut string of a tightened bow.

"Does your shoulder bother you?" she asks after a moment.

He blinks, rolling his shoulders a bit, feeling them crack as he does. The storm makes his bones ache, but no more than anything else does. His wounds are deep, but he has learned to value the pain that tells a body it is still living.

"It is only the rain," he says. "It is nothing of so much concern. These things pass."

"They do," she answers softly, "but so does kindness, and the world has far less of that."

His smile is bitter. "That it does."

Zelda shifts, moving to her knees, then moves behind him. He glances at her in confusion until he feels her hands come up to rest on his shoulders tentatively, and he tenses, years removed from any tender touch. She lets them rest there for a moment, letting him feel the heat of her palm warm him skin. His shoulders remain tight; this sort of casual touch is not common between them.

But oh, that it could be, his mind whispers, full of weariness and longing. Link wonders if she knows how many nights he laid awake, the sound of her voice the only comfort, the only way he knew how to remember hope.

"May I?" she asks, and when he nods slowly, the touch of her hand is so gentle and kind it makes him sigh.

She rubs firm circles around the places where his muscles twinge and bones ache. It a strange thing to let her care for him, a strange thing to be cared for at all. It unbalances something between them, like a face reflected in a rough mirror, familiar and yet indistinct, not unpleasant but neither completely comforting. What a pair they make, two incongruent puzzle pieces trying to make a whole: a man who cannot remember the past, and a queen who wishes to forget hers.

"Did you dream in the ether?"

"What do you mean?"

Link stares out into the night, feeling its cold and dark keenly, black magic of the earth. "All of those years your soul was tied to Ganon, as you watched his power slowly expand past the breach, you must have held on to something." He worries his bottom lip with his teeth. "I want to know what it was."

Her hands continue their work, but he can feel the gears of her mind turning in the quiet. It is a long moment before she responds. "I dreamed of the day you would show to the gates with sword in hand. Or with a bow, riding a great horse. I dreamed of a day when Hyrule would be whole again. I dreamed of peace."

His hands tighten around his sword, a spasm running through the palm. "And when the years wore on, and I did not appear, what carried you then?"

"I did not allow a thought, otherwise," she says simply. Her hands move down his back, to the place where the tension knots like rope between his shoulder blades, where he wears the worst of his burden. "Understand that my thoughts were not wholly my own in the seal. To bind a spirit..." A shudder runs through her, fine and brief, but he catches it. "I had not known what it would cost then. I thought only of what must be done, but when you are bound, you are one. I saw what was in him, his plans for Hyrule, and I knew it must be stopped. I dreamed because I had to. It was all I had to keep the nightmares at bay."

Her hands pause on his shoulders, and when he turns to her, her eyes are wide and wild, the dark pupils round as black holes. It is fear, he realizes. The memory of madness that was not hers but found a home in her all the same. Before can stop himself, his hand is clasped around her own, firm and kind; she returns his grip tightly, an anchor for all her grief. He smiles at her sadly, feeling how very small her hands feel in his; how they have carried all of that grief alone, he will never know.

"Link," she says, then stop, her eyes glassy. A fine tremor runs through her hand into his; Link runs a thumb over her hand, soothing her.

"You're safe now," he tells her and means it with his whole being, every muscle that swings the sword and the soul that waited for her voice in the deep well of his lonely silence.

Zelda looks down at her hands, turning them over in his, looking at the way calluses are forming there that they have never known before. She has known hard work, but not like this, building a world up from a grown-over ruin, a little like coaxing life from dry and dusty earth. Now her hands know the heft of the axe and dirt under the nails. Her body knocks the ache of muscles worn and tired.

"And you," she says after a moment, "what did you dream of all those years you slumbered?"

Link weighs the truth in his mind, the way it scales against the pain he knows it inspires. He thinks of the gaps in his memory, like the darkness of space between stars, the past that is lost somewhere beyond his reach. In the time he slept, there was nothing; *he* was nothing. It is only when her voice awakened him, coaxing him out of the dark, that he grew out of his own ruin.

He closes his hands around hers, feeling the warmth in them, the way her pulse thrums in the delicate angle of her wrist. It anchors him to the moment, tethered to her in a way that has damned him as often as it has been his salvation, but he would no sever it, not for the privilege of any freedom beyond her reach. It makes what he says feel like something a little more truth, the bones of something like faith.

"I dreamed of nothing," he says, "but I remembered you. When there was nothing else, I had your voice."

Her hands are shaking when they unclasp from his and then when they move to cup his face, gentle and light as a bird's touch. When she moves toward him, Link feels he has seen this moment before, has known the contours of its shape formed in the eaves of his mind, in the shadows where hope flickered like the pale light of a struggling flame. Pressed this close, it is easy enough to reach out and clasp her to him, whole and warm and steady, more than a dream and greater than memory, to ease her trembling with the strength of his arms as they tighten around her, the way she fits so very well against him, tucked into the space he makes for her.

"All of those years with Ganon," she says heavily, her voice loud in the quiet, "I would never have survived if not for you. If it was my voice that kept you going, it was hope of hearing your answer that carried me." She presses her face against his shoulder, and he feels the wetness of her tears. "I cannot do this alone. I never could."

And it is the promise unspoken that he did not realize had kept him wanting, the one that slept inside all the hollow spaces of the silence between them, the things unsaid. They have been alone so very long, trapped in the prisons time made for them, kept distant by the failures that made them. How he has longed for her in the hours and day and years that have made them, two halves of a whole cleaved apart by a blade that could not sever them from the destiny that awaited them It has taken a long time to come back around to the voice that speaks in the darkness, the one that says you need not be alone any longer.

"You have me with you always," he promises fiercely, a vow as weighty as any he made on bent knee, and when she sighs against him, full of sorrow and relief, he knows this much is truth. "I wish only to stay by your side, to build the world you dream of. It is our now, our future to make."

His grip loosens on her, and slowly she looks up at him, all the trembling parts of her that held when Ganon wanted her to break. It fills his heart with warmth where memory leaves him cold. When she reaches for him again, he does not fight it, even as time seems to skip its rhythm, stuttering past them to leave them this moment. Then her hands are on his face, her eyes are glittering like stars, and the touch of her mouth is so sweet against his, warm and perfect as sunlight or summer's breeze, the moment that has waited for them through darkness and shadow, memory and time.

Outside, it is raining, and the night is long and dark. It does not touch them.

[formulatrash]

Could I get your opinion on Hamilton? Bc I feel like people either love him and are like he is the nicest person in the universe or hate him and think he’s the worst & tbh while he does seem genuinely good he’s also clearly willing to do quite a lot to win (2007) & I really doubt the Nico thing was one sided either way so... opinions.

Hello, anon - I got two of these so gonna answer this one rather than both .Lewis, man. Where the hell do you start with Lewis? Unquestionably one of the most talented drivers we have seen or will ever see on track. Not just for raw speed or ingenuity but with the way he has been able to adapt and learn across a changing era of cars - something a lot of the other drivers aspiring to GOAT status (Alonso, in particular) just haven’t been able to do. 

People think of Lewis as having unquestionably the best car. But that’s a recent development (and not always true even then) - the last few years he and Jenson were at McLaren, they were wildly outperforming the cars with a really strong driver pairing. (and the order was a little less rigid then, in all fairness)

I’m nearly the same age as Lewis so I remember him when he was a novelty - when what people said was that there was this guy in the junior categories who was fast - and this was always prefixed - he was black. 

People said he was stroppy, had cheating engines (there is no evidence of this, especially when you consider the budget he was working with) and that he had a bad attitude, he was never going to get to Formula One so why put him in your team, a kid like that couldn’t be a champion… in other words the extremely racialised term “uppity.” Like, have absolutely zero illusions on this front, people were not supportive.

Some were, obviously and for every hand up like the McLaren backing, the detractors got louder. So when Lewis took the GP2 title and moved up to F1, he had to come in hot and obnoxious. Especially with Fernando as his teammate. Especially with spygate about to wipe out any shine left on the mangled heap they’d made of the championship trophy that year.

And oh, the disqualification (for anyone not up to speed: the whole McLaren entry was excluded that season for allegedly spying on Ferrari) just validated the detractors: you see, he isn’t that good. He was cheating. 

Lewis has a temper. I don’t mean that in the sense he’s an angry guy, at all, just that there is a certain length you can push him and he will eventually snap, like all of us - he’s not a robot. And if you have to prove yourself again and again and again, in tests way beyond what anyone else is being scrutinised on, knowing that it is unfair and having no way to get past them but to once again, obnoxiously, excel then you will occasionally also make the odd sniping comment. 

I’ve never heard him say anything stroppier than he once threw a bit of a shit fit because he thought Jenson unfollowed him on Twitter, though - whereas the howling conniptions when he succeeds in whatever the latest arbitrary challenge someone has decided he must pass to be considered successful? Those continue to the day.

Lewis, of course, is now pretty zen. He’s spent a long time working on himself and has been repairing his relationship with his father (who used to be his manager until they somewhat explosively parted ways) and with old rivals. He’s been growing as a person and a driver, he’s been caring less about what people think. The Lewis now is very different to the Lewis even a few years ago - clearly a lot of self-reflection and space has happened, after what was years of charging around and also some - bluntly - horrible psychological shit which the Merc team definitely have to take some responsibility for because it was their success formula to set him and Nico against each other to push each other forwards.

And for all the bitterness between him and Nico, they were never, like, really loathing each other. Just couldn’t work together. I find it really ghoulish how eager the press is to see Carlos and Lando go the same way, asking when will you fall out? all the time like it wasn’t obvious both Lewis and Nico were in pretty horrible states during it. (I saw some of the aftermath via one of them and like, that’s some trauma right there :/)

Has Lewis had his controversies? For sure. Some of them I have been upset by - like when he posted an instagram story telling his nephew he couldn’t wear a dress. Thing about Lewis is that, especially as he’s got older, he doesn’t double-down on things like that, he goes away and reflects - and designed a range of skirts and modelled them for an interview where he was called on it, then went to Disneyland and walked round with his nephew wearing that princess dress he’d mocked him for. [warning: Daily Mail link sorry, only site that had the pics] 

Yes, ideally he would not have been a prang in the first place but it is also very good to publicly show growth. Especially in F1. 

I loved old, obnoxious fuckboy Lewis. He was the middle finger F1 needed showing - and his resilience to the number of times the press and the talking heads and the social circles of F1 tried to push him back down, only to spring back up with a blindingly-polished trophy… ah, you love to see it. 

Lewis means more to me than almost any other driver - and like, I vibe heavily with several - because he is that outlier example who shouldn’t have been counted but who keeps forcing them to score him into the ledgers of history, even now.

Is it good having a vocal advocate for women and for LGBT rights, who isn’t scared to call out motorsports prejudices and racism, so prominently in the sport? Yes. It’s a hard truth that he had to get this level of success in order to gain a platform because no when Lewis speaks people have to listen and report it. Because if his Instagram story can turn into a scandal, it can also be a communications platform. It’s why he holds a lot of sway with Liberty Media. 

Now Lewis’ rights to be in the sport are unassailable. So he can start on other fights he couldn’t take at the time - there’s a reason the F1 press still gives Wehrlein (who is one of the sweetest drivers I have ever worked with) the “uppity” treatment and it’s fucking sad. It’s so embarrassing to work in this industry that’s a thousand miles behind even other embarrassing industries on this global fucking shame. 

Look, I don’t give a fuck about the whole GOAT thing because sport is a continuous cycle (err, most years) and so ‘all time’ is a dumb thing to put in an accolade. But Lewis is, in my opinion, the best Formula One driver we have ever witnessed the career of. He is devastatingly good, has honed himself to a level where mistakes are such a rarity they’re a headline in and of themselves.

To maintain that, year after year after year? It’s not human. It’s a man who’s pushed himself beyond the pinnacle of the sport because he has proven everything and still someone will be typing out some snide little piece, at the same time I am writing this, that Hamilton will never be the greatest because [arbitrary mathematics about how you can’t count three of his titles so we don’t have to respect him yet. Not yet. It’s not that we don’t respect him because of who he is. It’s just one last test….]

Does Lewis being so good at Formula One driving it’s not really comprehensible below the level of fellow world champion make other drivers bad? No. He’s not walking to the titles. And maybe one day someone will be better than Lewis. Maybe he won’t be on form this year, somehow, for the first time in years of racing - if it ever starts again. Maybe he’ll retire to make tracksuits and rescue dolphins. 

I am glad he seems happy now. He looks incredible. Man gets hotter and nicer with every year and you absolutely love to see it. His growth in himself and the sport has been equally impressive and his transformative power, both in terms of pushing forward the sporting side and in terms of using his platforms for good, is awesome. 

(Lewis doesn’t have to speak out about stuff; I know people think it’s naff or crass or obnoxious or preachy but he could just not - and he knows people’d bash him for something else) 

That said, I wish he’d put some money into sponsoring some grass roots motorsport but that is literally my only beef with him. But yeah, we stan a complicated, evolutionary boy.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Come Hell or Helwater - Part Fifteen

Claire comes back to the past with Brianna and arrives at Helwater looking for Jamie—but must confront the Dunsanys first.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen

******************************************

When Geneva left a few days later, she took her sister to stay with her. It had been their mother’s idea since Geneva insisted she didn’t need Claire to examine her again and that she was fine. But Claire could tell from the relief on Geneva’s face as she preceded Isobel into the carriage that Lady Dunsany’s idea had been planted there by her daughter. 

Claire could only shake her head at the young woman’s predicament and try to enjoy the fact that she would have her own daughter all to herself again.

Brianna appeared excited by the change in routine too. At least, she did at first. But by the end of the first week helping Claire tend to minor injuries and working in the herb gardens of the estate, Brianna was considerably less enthusiastic. Even when she began spending some of the days helping Jamie with his groom’s duties, Claire could sense something was off with Brianna. 

Claire too was beginning to find the excitement and novelty of Helwater wearing away. 

“You need to cut the stems at an angle,” Claire prompted Brianna as they crouched in the garden. Each had a basket next to them and a short blade with a sharp edge. 

Jamie had gifted them with the matching set, though Claire’s instincts screamed not to let her daughter wield something so potentially dangerous, Jamie had taken Brianna aside and given her a thorough training with it. 

“Be sure to remember, you should always—”

“Cut away from my body,” Brianna recited, exasperated. “Make sure my other fingers are out of the way. I know, Mama.”

“I know you know,” Claire said, apologetically. “I don’t say it to make you feel I don’t believe you know better. It’s more like one of your father’s superstitions. If I don’t say it, then it will happen. I’m saying it to protect you.” 

She paused in her own cutting to glance at Brianna who frowned back, unamused. 

They worked a while longer in silence before Claire finally broke down and asked, “Are you missing your lessons with Lady Isobel?”

Brianna shrugged but didn’t look at Claire. “Not really. I miss… I actually miss school. Back home in Boston. I miss my friends,” Brianna confessed.

Claire moved to sit beside Brianna. “Of course you do, sweetheart. It’s a lot you’ve given up and it’s only natural you would miss some of it — especially the friends you left behind. It’s not as though you can be pen pals with them. And there aren’t a lot of girls your age here at Helwater, either.”

“Sometimes… sometimes I get so bored and… I don’t have anyone to talk to,” Brianna said in a choked whisper. Claire watched one tear, then another, drop onto the tansy plant in front of her. “I’m glad to be here with Da but… I wish he could have come through and found us in Boston instead.” 

Claire set her knife aside and reached over to rub Brianna’s back. “You know, sometimes I wish the same thing,” she whispered back. 

Brianna’s head shot up, her face filled with disbelief and relief. “You do?”

Claire nodded. “There are a lot of things about the 20th century that I miss, too… like my friends. But I also know that they miss me and they want me to be happy – even if they don’t know where I am exactly. I wish they could meet your father.”

Brianna nodded. “I wish my friends from school could meet Da. They’d think he was a giant,” she giggled. 

“I miss the hospitals we left behind,” Claire continued. “The clean smell of the antiseptic. Proper medical equipment like x-rays and anesthetic to figure out what’s wrong and set it right with less fuss. Having the necessary medication at the ready instead of always feeling like I’m going to run out of what I need the moment it’s needed.”

“Yeah,” Brianna agreed, “this is a lot more work.”

“But the challenge can be fun too. Trying to make something without the proper tools is enjoyable when it isn’t an emergency.” 

“Like a puzzle.” 

“Precisely,” Claire smiled at her daughter. “What are some other things you miss?”

“Television. And music, like listening to the radio in the car.” Brianna tilted her head, her voice growing more animated as they spoke freely. “I mean, it’s nice not to have so many cars around. There’s plenty of space to play and it’s quieter. But it takes so long to get places, you might as well not go. Except when you don’t go places, it gets so boring.”

Claire chuckled. “There is certainly more limited entertainment in that way. And you’ll always miss those things – the books that haven’t been written yet, the music that hasn’t been composed yet, the films that won’t happen until the equipment to make them is invented. But there’s music that you would never know about if you weren’t here to experience it in person because the people making it don’t know how to write it down or they make it up as they play. And there are a lot of books that have been written.” 

“And we have Da to read them with us.” 

“Mmmmhmmm. And we might miss those other stories, but we got to read them or see them or hear them and we can share those with him as well.”

“There are a lot of little things to be sad about and a lot of little things to be happy about too,” Brianna summarized, her eyes wide with the truth of it. But a smile played at the corners of her mouth too. “I think I need to do a better job counting the happy ones.”

Claire watched Brianna as she turned back to their chores. Brianna did seem lighter as she held the plant steady with one hand and cut at the stems with the knife in the other. 

“I think I do too,” Claire murmured, turning back to her own basket and examining the bundles of cuttings she’d made. 

They lay neatly, all going in the same direction, still mostly clustered together into the groups she would bind together and hang for drying. After that task was done, there were those herbs that had already dried that would need to be crushed and mixed into the various ointments, salves, and decoctions most used in her healing on the estate. Few of those lasted long before spoiling so it was necessary to remake them on a regular schedule and dispose of what had gone unused in the last batch. It was a constant cycle of activity, something always needing to be done, that made it too easy to ignore the disappointment and sorrow building in her chest. 

She wanted a baby and every month that passed that she and Jamie failed to conceive, she sank a little further into that disappointment. It would consume her if she let it. 

But if she wrapped herself in that, it would block out the light of all she did have, most importantly the daughter before her. No matter how old she got, Brianna would always be her baby. All she had to do was close her eyes and she could remember the weight and warmth of that small body in her arms, the smell of the top of her head, the subtle differences of her various cries that only she had learned how to interpret. 

What’s more, she had Jamie again to share in everything yet to come. Brianna growing into a woman, courting boys, learning how to be a wife and mother, or whatever other path their daughter might decide to take — if anyone was likely to buck the expectations of an 18th century woman, it would be one who had spent her formative years in the 20th century.

She needed to focus on what she had and not what she wanted. She’d done that with Frank and it had left them miserable. It had worked out, in the end, and she’d been given what she wanted — a life with Jamie and their child — but she couldn’t expect to be so lucky again. Could she really have gotten used to having Jamie back so quickly? Was she already taking for granted the fact that she had him in her life once more?

“Mama? Are you already done?” Brianna asked, breaking Claire’s reverie. 

“Just counting, darling,” Claire said, shuffling down her row and taking up her knife again. “A few more should do it. Then we can head inside and move on to the next part.”

******************************************

As she lay in bed that night and Jamie turned towards her, she began counting under her breath. 

The way his fingers brushed her shift aside to expose her shoulder. “One.” The way his breath stirred her hair so it tickled her ear whenever he kissed along her jaw. “Two.” The way the heat of his body hovering just above hers had her back arching toward him, so eager for contact. “Three.” The way her skin felt like it was shrinking so that she might burst when his tongue traced its way down her torso. “Four.”

“Are ye makin’ sure I dinna miss a step, Sassenach?” Jamie asked with a chuckle as he lifted his head and grinned at her. 

“Just counting my blessings,” she told him, reaching down and running her fingers through his ruddy curls. “Brianna and I were discussing all the things we miss about Boston and all the things we’re happy to have here. There were several I left off my list at the time because I didn’t think it appropriate to share them with her. But now,” she purred, writhing as he bent his head back to teasing her. “Now I intend to take a full accounting.”

“Mmmm, well, I’ll see if I can make ye lose count.”

[let-it-show]

Rainy Day Activities

I’mma cut right to it, this is like 5000 words of canonverse Elsanna smut. There’s fingers and tongues and it’s just as wet inside as it is outside. IT’S SWEET THOUGH and also anna u little devil

"Three days in a row is ridiculous. It wouldn't be so bad if it were light rain, but it's been pouring and cold and windy," Anna complained as she stood in front of the beautiful windows of their room to stare outside.

It was true, the previous days had been filled with what felt like a constant onslaught of rain. There was no enticing storm of thunder or lightning to accompany it, just the chilly drops hammering down from the sky. Elsa didn't feel the chill herself but sometimes watching Anna shiver was enough to make her own skin break into goosebumps and Anna had been cold quite frequently.

Though as Anna continued to stand there in nothing but the thin white chemise that hung loosely on her body, her chill came as no surprise to Elsa. When they had gone about their normal days Anna had the sense to dress warmly, but often once they found themselves back in that large bedroom, the girl lost layers and whined about feeling cold. She would throw wood on the fire and then crawl onto the bed with Elsa, insisting it was time to cuddle up.

Elsa was smart enough to know half the time Anna just wanted an excuse to be held and hold her under the blankets, the novelty of their recently admitted romance nowhere close to wearing off. Still, Elsa let her keep it up. It wasn't like she had anything to lose out of it, just everything to gain.

"It is still nasty out," Elsa said as she stretched out on her side along the top of the bed. Her thin but strong body was covered in a dark blue nightgown with a plunging neckline. The edges of said neckline stood out in a light blue contrast to the rest of the garment and in a gentle gradient became paler closer to her skin around her chest and shoulders to blend in. Little white snowflakes edged the bottom of the gown which ran down to her knees. Her hair was down, half of it draped over her shoulder. "I expect we'll have to cancel some appointments today, I'm not making anyone ride here in this weather." That was true, but Elsa was watching Anna with other motives in mind as well.

"I agree. And I'm not going anywhere in this either, even if you can make us a carriage of ice to stay in." Anna placed a hand on the window as she kept watching the dark grey morning. "I don't even want to look at it."

"Then why are you?" Elsa asked with a smile. Even with no sunlight to illuminate her further, Anna's form in the chemise with her hair back in a messy ponytail was a delicious sight. She drank it all in, unable to take her eyes off.

She'd woken up with a need, and with a lot of the day shifted or cancelled entirely, she couldn't be more thankful for the timing. Normally she would have forced herself up and ready for the day, ready for duty. Elsa still had trouble allowing herself to spend any time unfocused on some goal she deemed important - whether it be going to the forest to see if things were alright (they always were), or pouring over documents Anna needed to sign with her.

Anna was important too, though, and Elsa always found some time for her. The wet and dismal morning was going to be for both of them. Elsa was going to be a little selfish with her own desires...

She wasn't laying on the bed like that just to do it. Elsa preferred some kind of blanket usually, even if it was thin.

"I dunno," came Anna's answer as her shoulders sagged. "I guess because I'm annoyed at it, so I'm going to keep looking," she grumbled.

"Why are you annoyed?"

"Because we have things to do! And all this rain is going to give me a headache."

"Anna, our schedule has changed a little, sure, but now it's more open. We've nowhere to rush to. I think if you want to feel better, you should come back to bed."

At those words, Anna straightened up and Elsa swore she saw happiness shoot right up her spine. If there was one thing Anna loved more than sleeping in, it was waking up and finding she had even more time to sleep! Not that Elsa had exactly that in mind, but...

Anna spun around in excitement but as eager as she obviously was, she stopped just as suddenly and her eyes went wide as she stared. "Umm...Elsa?"

"Yes?" Elsa asked quietly, watching her. Anna looked like her normal self and the chemise wasn't particularly flattering. Elsa mostly enjoyed the fact that she knew there was no underwear under there... Anna's normal self was also beautiful. No makeup, nothing to change those freckles or cheeks or anything. She was a cute, pretty girl in a long shirt that hung off her shoulders.

Elsa's gaze traveled over her entire being with want.

Anna started forward, but slowly. "You look, um..."

"Yes?"

"Really sexy, like some kind of...if there was an animal that was sexy," Anna blurted out. Her face went red and she stopped just before the bed.

Even if it broke what she was going for, Elsa couldn't help letting out a snort followed by a laugh. That girl! "Anna! I'm...I'm glad you find me..." She couldn't finish, she was too amused. So much for trying to be seductive, what did she really know about that skillset anyway?

"Hey, don't laugh at me! I don't know how to word thoughts about that sort of thing," Anna whined and her face only deepened in color. She looked down at the edge of the bed and kept her stare there.

Elsa felt a little bad and patted the bed next to her. "Come here," she told her softly. "I'll stop laughing."

Though Anna looked like she wasn't sure about that, she sighed and crawled on the bed. "You do look beautiful though," she told Elsa after a moment. She had paused kneeling next to Elsa.

Elsa watched the way the edge of the fabric slid up Anna's strong thighs. If she didn't have self-control her mouth would have hung slightly open at the way Anna's legs looked in front of her. "So do you," she managed to reply. She couldn't help reaching over to take the edge of the chemise between her fingers and rub, her hand grazing Anna's thigh.

Such a small touch and her belly was already doing pleasant little flip-flops.

She tugged on Anna's arm next. "Hey, come down here with me."

"You've got something on your mind."

Elsa fought back the telltale twitches of a smile on her face. "Do I?" she asked and tugged again.

Lucky for her, Anna decided not to prolong things and she turned to stretch her legs out in front of her. She started to wiggle herself down properly on the bed and was still the smallest bit upright against the pillows when Elsa decided to be impatient. She watched the way the garment started to roll and drag up against Anna's body, her hips becoming visible.

So Elsa moved, immediately making to roll over on Anna and raising herself up enough to crawl over her sister's lap and torso to where she hovered above her. It was almost like a playful attack the way she climbed on her, legs straddling her.

Elsa felt hot.

Her hands found Anna's sides as she looked down at her surprised face. "Couldn't help myself," Elsa told her.

"Huh. Well, are you going to kiss me before having your way with me?" came Anna's reply and though there was some wavering in her voice, Elsa was surprised at how well she kept it together. Part of her honestly thought Anna would immediately become unraveled as she had the first couple of times they made love. The girl had made progress.

She was interested to see how long it lasted and let one palm travel from Anna's side to slowly wander over her full, firm breasts. They were a little smaller than Elsa's own and less dense, more malleable, fun for her to play with. "Maybe I will."

"Elsa! Not fair!" Anna said as she took in a sharp breath, looking to where Elsa's hand was and also, hopefully, accidentally making eye contact with the cleavage Elsa's nightgown allowed. When Anna gasped again and shivered ever so slightly, Elsa knew she had. "REALLY not fair! You went right for them!"

Elsa raised an eyebrow. "How is that not fair...? Did you think I wasn't going to...?"

Anna was grabbing the blankets. "No I just, you usually kiss me more before you go for my chest and-"

"Well, I want to play," Elsa admitted and then swallowed. She started off well, but her shy nature was still lingering. Kissing was more romantic sure, but she wanted to explore and touch Anna however she wanted, the stark contrast of what they used to be exciting to her. Both her hands found Anna's breasts and she squeezed firmly. "Is that alright?" she finally asked even as Anna let out a content little sound.

As a response Anna managed to pry one of Elsa's hands from her chest and bring it to her mouth. She ran her fingertips along her lips slowly before bending them slightly to kiss her knuckles. Anna's lips were soft againts her skin and her breath tickled with warmth. "Yes. I just really like your lips on me," Anna said as she smiled sweetly at Elsa.

That smile always did things to her, and her heart pounded. Elsa couldn't hide from the light of her sun. Her palm slid to where she could best feel Anna's heartbeat as she leaned down. "It so happens I like the taste of you," Elsa murmured before catching Anna's lips. Anna's hand squeezed her own as Elsa ran her tongue along her lips to beg entry. As soon as they parted Elsa was kissing her deeply.

Her whole body, again, felt hot. Anna's hand suddenly clutching her hip didn't help either.

Elsa could only kiss her so long before she needed to move her lips somewhere else, just for the sake of having more. She broke away but not a second was wasted before she was already kissing and sucking on the skin just between Anna's neck and jaw. She smelled like like-like a sunny day. The scent of wildflowers, the breeze off the fjord, of fruit eaten on a picnic filled her senses and she chased it with her mouth. Anna's neck was always a delicious spot and Elsa found her hand gravitating right back to the perfect mounds under her shirt.

She skimmed her teeth over the pulse in Anna's neck as she thumbed her nipple, eliciting a moan from her sister. Elsa's legs felt unsteady even though she was on her knees. The hand holding Anna's pressed both into the pillow next to Anna's head. Her thumb kept rubbing the hard peak while she nipped at Anna's skin.

"Elsaaa," Anna was saying quietly while her fingers dug into her hip. "What's got into you this morning?"

"Mmmm..." Elsa lifted her head and her fingers ran down Anna's front, lower and lower. She could drag it all out, or she could just have her fun. She couldn't imagine Anna being displeased even if she was slightly anxious about not kissing her enough first. "I just woke up like this. It doesn't help that you slept like that," she said as she ventued her fingertips down Anna's belly, right down her crotch and stopping nearly bewteen her legs.

Anna's eyes went wide and then she smiled a guilty smile. "Oh yea...I decided not to wear underwear to bed..."

"You did this on purpose, huh?"

"Well. Duh." Anna then smirked while Elsa blinked. "I love your hands all over me. That was one less barrier. I half-hoped to wake up with you already at it."

"A-at it? Did you mean..." Elsa's sultry look was replaced by one of astonishment. Surely Anna hadn't meant-

Anna's legs pushed aside at her own. She released Elsa's hand to push at both of her shoulders. "I sure did. Come on, stop trapping my legs," she said and gave Elsa a heated look. Anna's face was reddening yet again, a sign that she wasn't totally secure with the way she was speaking.

Not that it mattered. Elsa moved off her again and dropped back beside her, half on her side and half on Anna. Shuffling caused the shirt to move up and Elsa could see that cute fuzzy layer of reddish-brown fuzz that decorated her crotch. Anna had been self concious of it at first but Elsa thought it adorable and as usual two of her fingers slid through the little hairs.

However as Anna's legs fell apart, Elsa couldn't focus on that pleasing sensation under her fingerpads for long. Anna meant business, evidently, and though Elsa started with that attitude it was already surrendering to Anna's. She found herself easily molded by the love that girl shared so generously with her.

Still Elsa took a side trip of sorts, running her hand over Anna's thigh that was against her own leg. Anna's arm curled around Elsa's head and brought her down for another good kiss. She could tell Anna was smiling against her lips even as her own fell closed. Anna's lips and tongue held her captive and her hips squirmed just a little.

It was enough to convince Elsa. Her defenses weren't that high anyway and finally she was tracing Anna's perfect folds. Anna moaned again, into the kiss, and Elsa felt electrified. It may not be the first time she had touched Anna's sex but the feeling still made her feel an intense burst through her body. Anna was so nice and hot and slick, the way Elsa's fingers slid against her so easily made the growing wetness under her own gown almost unbearable.

And to think, Elsa had never cared much about any sort of arousal until she began to feel Anna's body so intimately.

Anna still kissed her but she waas struggling, little sounds escaping her while Elsa lightly teased her clit. It made Anna's hips twitch and rock up, begging for more. Elsa loved when she did that. Anna had said before it felt cold against her but at the same time so good she saw sparks. If Elsa released their kiss she was sure she'd hear Anna begging her not to stop touching her.

And why would she when Anna's warm, needy body was responding so nicely to her touches?

Elsa turned her hand, her thumb continuing to play with Anna's sensitive little bud while her fingers sought out her entrance. She was so slick for her that Elsa's body wanted to react, wanted to grind against something, anything. Nothing was ever so satisfing as being buried between Anna's pretty legs.

They mutually broke the kiss, Elsa supposed, but she also caught a brief movement as Anna pulled at her chemise. She slowly dragged it up over her breasts which lay beautifully against her. Elsa didn't need a strong hint. Her fingers pushed inside Anna and she leaned down to kiss the soft skin around Anna's beautifully red nipple. Anna groaned and tangled her fingers in Elsa's hair.

Elsa loved it. She loved when Anna was needy and brave enough to trap her where she wanted. Slight pressure on the back of her head kept her lips wrapped around Anna's hard nipple, her tongue flicking eagerly.

Anna had said that too was cold and exhilirating. Icy little crystals settled on Anna's chest as Elsa was losing herself.

Nothing was better than being with Anna the way she was, Anna arching her back and moaning while her hips twisted and responded eagerly to the easy slide of Elsa's digits.

It was almost too much.

Elsa switched nipples quickly because with the way Anna twitched and she continued to soak Elsa, the redhead was close. Elsa's fingers moved quickly, with intent. Her thumb fondled Anna yet more and Anna's voice grew louder. Her calling of Elsa's name was never very quiet when Elsa enjoyed her.

Then Anna squirmed and an additional burst of wetness around Elsa's fingers accompanied muscles squeezing tight around her. Anna drove herself down on Elsa's fingers while panting and groaning her name in continued desperation. Elsa was rougher on her clit as the girl spasmed through her climax, body twisting against the bed. With her tongue teasing until the last bit Elsa raised her head off her chest.

Nothing looked so stunning as Anna in the throws of a wonderful orgasm that she'd caused.

When Anna had ridden the waves of pleasure thoroughly, Elsa withdrew her hand. She lowered herself down Anna's body to gaze upon her work and inhale her thick scent - Anna may not smell exactly like a sunny day between her legs but she smelled of a hot summer night, the air thick with heat. The kind of heat Elsa would gladly let melt her, drown her.

She rested her head on Anna's thighs and looked up at her, watching her stomach flutter as Anna struggled to reclaim her breath. She had such a good view of her center too, and it was all Elsa could do to keep herself from continuing to touch. Her mouth watered, too. All of her body raced with a cold fire and she was ready to lean her face right in when Anna tugged at her hair.

"Hey, my face is up here," she cooed, and giggled. "But I'm happy you like looking at what you've done," she commented. She tugged her hair again. "Kiss me, you know I love kisses."

Elsa sighed and slid up along Anna's body. She noticed the way Anna shivered, wondering if the cool touch of her nightgown was finally having some effect. Anna may not like being cold while just trying to exist, but she loved the sensation pressed against her when Elsa was behind it. She wrapped her arm around Elsa and turned against her, surprising her when her hot lips locked on Elsa's neck.

"Oh Anna-" She gulped when Anna sucked on her skin hard enough that there would definitely be a hickey.

"You can cover it up with some ice," murmured against her before kissing her neck again a little lower. Her neck felt so warm and her body was having a hard time being still. She wanted more of her Anna.

Her Anna.

Anna pushed at her shoulder to roll Elsa onto her back and Elsa complied eagerly. She couldn't fathom how she had been able to be without Anna's touches for so long. She'd never go without them again, that she knew as Anna shifted on top of her and traced her finger down Elsa's chest, right to her cleavage.

"It's not fair that you have this on still. You look amazing in it, but you know what I want."

Once more Elsa was blown away by how direct her silly sister could be, her body quivering under those firm words. "I do," Elsa breathed and in a second, her dress became nothing but glittering snow.

She sent it right up the shirt that had fallen just slightly back over Anna's breasts and was rewarded by an alarmed squeal. "Elsa!"

Elsa laughed, knowing that had been a total jerk move. She loved it anyway, especially picturing how hard Anna's nipples had gotten - if they werent't still. As she expected Anna was quick with her revenge, both hands on her breasts and just as quickly, one nipple pinched between two of Anna's fingers. "Really, Elsa?" she asked with narrowed eyes, turning her fingers just so.

A little jolt of pain came through as a result but it felt so damn good that Elsa moaned. She bit her lip in an effort to catch herself, but it was no good. In a flash Anna's hot tongue was worshipping the light pink nub she'd just punished.

She always knew just what to do...even from the first time, when Anna's eyes had gone wide as dinner plates at Elsa's bare chest with a slightly bigger rack, that girl had known how to squeeze them and lick them as if she'd practiced for years.

Elsa had no evidence she hadn't.

Anna's mouth surrounded one nipple and her fingers pinched the other and Elsa's thinking was getting hazy. Her hips lifted in want and she was moaning again, her hair spread out on the pillow and knowing she looked a bit out of sorts. She sought out Anna's adorable butt and squeezed her cheeks firmly as she also held her against her needy body.

With an approving hum Anna released Elsa's nipple only to kiss and suck the skin above it hard enough for yet another mark - and another moan from Elsa. "Anna, your mouth is so good," she managed with a rough voice.

"Mmmhmm," was the only reply she got while Anna dragged her tongue down and slid further, making Elsa's hands trail up her back. That tongue lavished attention on her skin down to her sensitive belly. Anna began to kiss again, little love nips left around Elsa's belly button. Then yet another hard suck that had Elsa squeaking, she was borderline ticklish where Anna used that wicked mouth.

"You'd like to mark me all over, huh?" she asked and that only made her hips move again because of how hot it was. She was so wet that she imagined they'd need to clean that blanket soon.

Her hands were on Anna's shoulders by then as Anna kissed her way down further, down her pelvis to her thigh. "Yes. No one is taking you away, ever again," she said, her hands on Elsa's hips. "Never ever." She nudged Elsa's thigh with her nose. "I'm keeping you forever."

Elsa's legs spread without a thought, her heart nearly skipping a beat at Anna's words. Anna fully meant them, she would do anything and everything to keep Elsa there with her. And with the way Anna was kissing and marking her inner thigh Elsa couldn't find a single reason she would ever want to get away. Her gaze met Anna's when the redhead switched thighs.

She was almost ticklish enough there too that it was hard to feel the light way Anna's lips and teeth skimmed along her sensitive skin. She twitched and gasped as Anna's tongue. There was such a trail of fire down her entire body from Anna's busy mouth and Elsa was ever grateful. She stroked Anna's hair with one hand, playing with the ponytail. Cute, cute...

Then she felt a finger stroking slowly along her folds and her legs parted more. Anna was giving her sex a very heated look while she teased with one finger, then two, just stroking. "Anna..."

"What?" Anna asked so innocently. "What, Elsa?"

"Aren't you going to...um..." Elsa's cheeks were red. She had tried to start the whole thing! ...Well, Anna had actually been a step ahead sleeping with nothing to cover her bottom. Still, of course it was her asking Anna to bury her face in her wetness.

"What's 'um'?" Anna asked with that sweet tone again, slipping two fingers inside Elsa easily. She crooked them just so and Elsa's hips were off the bed.

"Anna!" Elsa shouted her name and then again, bit down on her lip. She doubted anyone would come running if she shouted Anna's name like that, all of the castle staff probably knew something was up. Besides, she shouted Anna's name for plenty of reasons that weren't filthy.

"Well?"

"Use your tongue, Anna, please, you're so talented with it," she finally blurted.

Anna needed no more prompting. Her tongue found Elsa's clit and long licks had Elsa gripping the blanket with one very frosty hand. She could usually control anything with her powers fairly well when aroused, but it still helped to let some ice seep from her fingertips while fingers were pushed inside her with increasing speed and Anna's mouth lavished hot attention on her.

The fingers in her hair kept Anna there as Elsa couldn't stop herself from grinding against her. Her legs didn't want to be still and she tried to draw them up, knees in the air as her toes wiggled against the bed.

Anna's other hand splayed over Elsa's stomach, her tongue flicking her clit with an expert motion and alternating between the slower licks. Her fingers shifted inside her and Elsa felt the feeling build. The only heat she really felt inside herself, white hot and wanted to burst.

And that she did.

Her climax hit so fast and hard that she didn't even get a good chance to warn Anna. Those fingers in her were just as wicked as the tongue and Elsa suddenly found herself absolutely howling Anna's name. She rocked against her face as waves of pleasure pulsed through her and she turned her head to the side, unable to take the visual stimulation of Anna's head between her legs.

When she came down from her orgasmic high she was still moving, albeit much slower as her lower body jerked through the aftershocks. Anna's fingers had finally slid from her tightened hold but her tongue darted out to taste everything Elsa had to offer, making her body shake.

And yet...

She wasn't totally satisfied. "Anna, Anna," she said, trying to catch her breath and make her head clear. She looked to where she had gripped the blanket, trails of solid ice had shot out and over the side of the bed. She looked back at Anna.  "Anna, come up here."

Anna's head lifted as Elsa directed her gaze to her. The girl looked almost drunk. "But you taste so gooood," she purred and Elsa nearly told her to just stay down there.

But Anna deserved more. Elsa tugged gently at the hair she had just been pulling at harder. "Up. All the way."

With a slightly confused look Anna began to slide right back up against Elsa's body. The shirt dragged along Elsa's skin, but she didn't mind. However, as Anna's face neared hers, Elsa shook her head and reached again for her butt, cupping the bottom and pulling a bit. Anna hesitated and kept looking thrown off and then-and then she seemed to suddenly get it and a wide smile broke over her face. "You sure?"

Elsa nodded and as Anna raised herself up, she situated her head a little better on the pillows. Anna straddled her chest then and looked down at her, while Elsa admired the way she looked above her. She pushed her hands up Anna's sides, under the shirt, and kneaded her skin. Then she cupped her breasts and the way Anna leaned her head back with a little whine-

Elsa was nearly thrown into a second orgasm from the sight, so before she could lose herself again she encouraged Anna to move. "Come on," she ordered her and once again her hands grabbed her hips.

Finally Anna did what was commanded of her and moved up yet more, her wet center right over Elsa's face. With a tug, Elsa lowered her down to her mouth, enjoying the way Anna's thighs surrounded her face. She would willingly smoother herself between Anna's perfect legs, but for the time being she'd had another idea.

And she knew it would take Anna out in the best way.

As she tongued her folds and heard the hitches in Anna's breath she focused. Her wet tongue became coated in an extremely thin layer of ice and she used the cold, slick muscle to assault Anna's clit.

It got her just what she wanted as Anna moaned loudly and then nearly screamed Elsa's name, her hips grinding down on her face. "Elsa-Elsa! Oh my-ELSA!" she was calling and Elsa could feel her leaning forward to grip at the bed frame. "Elsa!"

She was twitching madly above her as her thighs kept a tight grip on Elsa's head. Her icy tongue flicked at her entrance a few times before dragging a cold trail in her moist center.

Anna became undone quickly while her body shook above Elsa. She moaned and panted and Elsa's fingers dug into her skin enough to leave little bruises. When Anna came she continued to be loud and Elsa savored the taste of her, her sister's sweet nectar covering her lips and chin. Tremors went through Anna's body as she rode through it.

Elsa could barely breathe but she let Anna go through at her own pace, even as Anna finally came to a stop still on Elsa's face. It was only a second before Anna's leg swung off and Elsa gulped in deep and satisfying breaths, air returning to her slightly burning lungs.

"Elsa Elsa," Anna uttered and in an instant her hands cupped Elsa's face, her eyes meeting Elsa's. "Can you...oh my god, I'm so sorry, I forgot you needed air."

Before she could stop herself, Elsa let out a weak laugh. Of course Anna would say that, of course. Her own hands had slid back down to the bed. "I'm fine, Anna, I asked for it."

"I know..."

"And I loved it. If I go, that's how I want to go," Elsa managed and offered another laugh at Anna's shocked face.

"Well now I've never doing it again!" Anna shot back.

In response, Elsa stuck out her icy tonge. She watched the way Anna's throat worked as she swallowed. However, she didn't say more to tease her, she merely took one of Anna's wrists in her hand. "I said, I loved it. I love you. Making you feel good is my favorite thing to do..." Whether it was with sex or soft-spoken words, it was true.

Even though she looked like she wanted to shoot baack with something else, Anna sighed and let her body relax. "Oh Elsa..." she said in a quiet, lovely voice only used between the both of them.

"Come down here, Anna. I need you in my arms and if my guess is correct, you want to be kissed."

"I always do," Anna said as she finally dropped down into her admitted favorite position of being on Elsa's right side, half on top of her. She circled an arm around Elsa's waist and Elsa turned to face her. Their lips met and Elsa couldn't be bothered she was tasting a bit of herself from Anna's mouth.

It didn't matter. They were both so intertwined with each other, she couldn't care less. Anna's kiss was soft, not as needy as before and her body was melting into Elsa's. A morning nap looked to be in order.

Unless...

Elsa's leg nudged Anna's, and the redhead parted hers to allow Elsa's in between. With a few careful touches Elsa knew Anna would be rubbing herself against that leg for just the slightest contact to her clit.

She almost felt guilty for wanting yet more, but then Anna kissed her neck in that hungry way-

If Anna still craved more attention from her, Elsa was not about to entertain turning her beloved down.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Kissing Dead Pearls (Part 28)

For someone who wears a sling, Azula is strangely unintimidated by the prospect of going back to sea. Sokka isn’t particularly surprised though, she always has been the resilient sort. The type to brush things off and get back to whatever task she had been doing before tragedy struck. It is one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place. If he isn’t mistaken he would say that she is rather eager to get back to sailing.

He can think of several other things that he’d rather be doing. “Wouldn’t it be quicker to just take a plane back home.”

Azula tilted her head, “we can’t just leave the boat.”

“I dunno, that thing looks pretty banged up, I’m sure that you guys could get a newer and better one.”

“Sokka, it’s not even our boat.” Zuko points out. “We’re borrowing it from that ex-pirate who runs the town bar.”

Sokka cocks his head. “Why would he lend you a boat?”

“He and dad have gotten close.”

Sokka furrows his brows.

Azula sighs and scans the beach for her Ozai before whispering, “I already told you about father’s drinking problem.”

He flushes as the pieces click. “Oh, yeah. Bars. Drinking. Talking to the bar owner.”

Azula swats him, “not so loud!”

“Ow! Blisters!”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Your days of being babied are over!” She declares. “And besides, most of your blisters are gone now anyways, you’re just trying to get special treatment.”

“And that takes the attention away from you?” He quirks a brow and gestures to her arm.

“I,” she draws the syllable out, “am not complaining.”

“Hey, Sokka!” Katara calls. “I found a piece of your raft.” She holds up a bright yellow strip.

“Anyways, I still think that we should travel by plane. Ozai and Jet can sail the boat back and the rest of us will meet him there.”

Azula fixes him with a dull stare. “Sokka, that’s a terrible idea.”

Looking equally as unentertained, Zuko adds, “I’m not going to leave my father unattended.”

“And your father isn’t going to leave you unattended either.” He mutters. “Not after the fiasco with the souvenir shop.”

Zuko flushes, “that wasn’t even my idea.” He flicks his gaze to his sister.

She gives one of her faux innocent stares. “I can’t do much damage like this.” She strokes her sling.

“It only takes one hand to pop several blisters.” Sokka grumbles.

“Gross, Sokka!” Katara exclaims.

“Our luggage is on the ship.” Ozai remarks.

“What about Jet?” Katara asks.

“He has been on the ship avoiding me.” Azula crosses her arms.

Sokka can hear the hurt in her voice but she says nothing more of it. He feels another onslaught of guilt for finding relief in Jet’s avoidance. If he is angry with Azula, then he won’t have to worry about the other boy getting in the way of things. It doesn’t seem to matter how many times Azula assures him that she has chosen him over Jet, he still can’t shake away the paranoia. He isn’t sure how close she had gotten to Jet and he is afraid to ask. Just as he can’t shake his dread of the sea.

“Come on, Sokka. Everyone else is on board.” Her touch is much gentler this time, less playful.

“I’d really rather…”

“Take a plane. You’ve said so.” She nods. “It’ll be fine, we got here in one piece.” He doesn’t miss the split second glance she makes at the sail. It might be that he is over thinking things, but he has a suspicion that there was a mishap with that sail. “And you won’t be alone this time if we get lost.”

“Unless…” he lifts a pointer, “we get separated by a storm.”

“We’ll be fine, Sokka.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it would be absurd for the universe to hand you back if it was just going to kill you a few weeks later. Why would it when it could have just killed you in that storm?” She shrugs.

“Gee. That’s reassuring.” He rubs the back of his head. Her humor has always been somewhat dark but her delivery has never been this dry. Dry to the point where he thinks that she is only half joking. It is just one more glimpse into the damage he has done in disappearing for so long.

And then it dawns upon him--and he swallows a lump in his throat--that in the time that he had left, she has changed. It wouldn’t make sense if she didn’t. But what if she has changed into someone that he doesn’t particularly love...could she have changed that much? Could he have changed as well?

“Come on, Sokka.” She says softly, more sympathetically. “I have something for you.”

He bites his cheek. There really is no sense in drawing this out, he knows that he is getting on the boat one way or another. It is probably better to spare himself of Azula fetching her father to carry him aboard kicking and screaming. He also can’t deny that she has piqued his curiosity.

He follows her onto the ship. It is a lot sturdier than his was. And bigger.

“Khozen says that this ship has survived a few decades of storms.” Azula points out as she leads him below deck and to the cabins. “And, just so you know, we tested that. Overall, it is a well built ship.” She sits down upon what he assumes is her bed and she pats the spot next to her.

He takes a seat. He looks the girl up and down as she shuffles around a suitcase. Now that the novelty is wearing off he is noticing more things. More changes; mostly his gaze is glued to the scar on her chin. He wishes he didn’t, but every time he sees it he imagines her with cloudy eyes and none of that fiery spirit standing at the edge of a cliff. He sees a different person entirely. A more dismal person.

The real Azula is much different than the one in his mind’s eye. She is grinning, holding something behind her back. “I’ll give you three guess. If you don’t get it then you don’t get the thing that I am holding.”

Some of his anxieties wash away as a memory drives the darker images out of his mind. Now he is picturing a much smaller Azula with big eyes, chubby cheeks, and a missing front tooth.

He can’t quite get the voice right in his head, but he remembers her declaring, “what am I holding, Sokka!? If you get it right, you get a prize.” She only gave him unlimited guesses because she knew that hadn’t stood a chance. Usually with this game, other kids held was  coin or a toy. Azula...she was always different. After guessing, “a coin? A stick of gum? A dollar bill? Five dollars!? A rubber duck…” She held out her fist and opened it to reveal a cherry pit.

So that is what he goes with, “it’s a cherry pit, isn’t it?”

She shakes her head. “Good guess, but now.”

“A pumpkin seed?”

Azula rolls her eyes. “Pumpkins aren’t in season.”

Her eyes, they are the same, but they are different. He thinks that they aren’t so care free anymore. There is a knowingness to them. A hardness that goes beyond any physical changes.

And there are plenty of those too. He had expected her to have grown taller, but she really hasn’t. But her face has lost a little more of its softness, he thinks that her cheekbones are more pronounced. He thinks that her muscles are more defined...that would explain the iron grip that she’d had on him. She wears her hair differently too, it is somewhat more tousled and is no longer bound up.

“Stop thinking so much and just start throwing guesses. I’ll give you a hint.”

Sokka pretends like that is what he had been thinking about. “Shoot.” He forces a smile.

“It has seen better days, but it’s still kind of cute.” She pauses. “Sort of like you.”

His smile becomes more genuine and he tries not to laugh. “It’s my clownfish isn’t it?”

Azula blinks before chucking it at him. “You cheated.”

“It isn’t my fault that you gave such an obvious hint.”

She turns her head and folds her good arm against the other. “That was a pity hint.” He is glad that she does. It reassures him that she is still there. Even if her eyes are more tired, even if her body bares the scars of a rough period, her smile is still the same. Her mannerisms are the same.

He puts the stuffed clownfish to the side and puts an arm around her. He can’t fault her for her changes, not when she has probably observed some within him.

.oOo.

He has lost his spunk. His adventurous spirit. The ocean stole that from him and dragged it to its depths alongside his cargo.

His posture isn’t quite right. At first she thinks that it is because he is physically frailer. The doctors had warned that it might take several months for him to re-attain a healthy body weight. And that it might take longer for the patches of discolored skin to even out again.

But they hadn’t warned her that his mind might be frailer. Though she thinks that it was probably implied. He still jokes and quips. He still makes her laugh. But he always seems weary and on edge. As though the sea will flood and snatch him back from wherever he stands.

Azula can’t hold it against him. She can’t imagine it is all too different from the fragility that had gripped her own mind some time back. She lets him hold her but she feels as though she should be holding him.

“When did you start wearing your hair down?” He had inquired a few hours ago.

“I think the month after you left.”

“Why?”

She hadn’t had the heart to tell him that it was because she had simply stopped seeing the point in putting so much effort in. Instead she told him that she needed change, and it wasn’t a complete lie. It was simply a small fragment of a whole truth.

“When did you decide to grow a beard?” She had tried to lighten her own mood.

“It wasn’t a decision.” They both laughed at this. And just as she had begun to stop laughing, he flared his nostrils and gave his beard a few pretentious strokes. “Do you fancy it m’lady?”

“You’re shaving tomorrow.” Secondhand embarrassment had spread color upon her cheeks.

The conversation had died away three hours ago. She pretends to be asleep, she isn’t sure if he wants to be caught crying. She wonders if she should get Katara, it seems somehow more appropriate to have a sister comforting a brother. That is how it has always been between she and Zuko.

Azula looks at the bed over. Katara is sleeping soundly. Pictures of events that Sokka has missed are still sprawled out on her nightstand. One by one Katara had been going through them, catching Sokka up on everything.

Azula doesn’t know how the pair had spent the alone time she’d given them, but Katara had went to bed extra cheerful.

“When did you wake up?” Sokka asks as he wipes his eyes.

“A few minutes ago, I guess.”

“Oh.”

“Why are you crying?” She notices that he is shaking and comes to a few conclusions. The boat rolls and bobs as it makes its way through the waves. “The ocean is very calm tonight. Do you want to go on deck?”

He shakes his head abruptly. “I don’t like how open it is.”

Azula nods. She takes his hand. She could tell him that it really isn’t that bad, but what good would that do? It would only be entirely dismissive. And a simple, ‘it’s going to be okay’ seems insufficient. Instead she says, “you were strong enough to find sleep on an unstable raft, you’re strong enough to get used to this.”

Though she thinks that these words might only be comforting to her. She thinks that words might not mean much at all right now. Her grip simply needs to be stronger than the pull of the sea. So she holds him close and waits for his anxious trembles to pass.

If he falls asleep in her arms then she will just deal with the earful that her father will give her.

“You used to love the ocean. You can’t fear it now.” She tries. “You beat it. You shouldn’t fear something that you have defeated.”

[talkingismylifewrites]

You’re a gift and too good for this world caro — even the little snippets leave me clutching my chest in awe. I’m obsessed with this so I’m sorry to bug you with another one .... how would they celebrate their anniversary post-accident with everything but the amnesia? (Sorry the hurt/comfort tenderness in the last chapter just about destroyed me and in a masochist & back for more)

awwwww, stop that’s so sweet!! i love dyldyl and i’m always willing to write little snippets!! if there’s anything else you’d like let me know!! i’m especially good at angst🙃

(now onto the snippet)

Roger was mumbling in his sleep again. 

John drifted between consciousness and sleep, listening to Roger’s faint grumbled and sighs, relishing in the sounds. Three weeks ago, he’d never thought he’d get to hear it again, thought that it would have been a pipe dream. Every second he got was a gift. 

Roger rolled over in bed with a grunt, kicking his leg out to collide with John’s, forcing him out of his doze and into consciousness. He couldn’t find it in himself to mind; maybe in a year the novelty of having Roger alive and almost whole would wear off and he’d be annoyed by his nightly restlessness, but not now. 

He smiled to himself as he rolled closer, unable to stop himself from watching him sleep. Asleep, Roger mumbled something about a boat, his nose scrunching as he snuggled deeper into the pillow. 

John leaned in and pressed a kiss to Roger’s forehead, carefully avoiding the faint scabs of road rash that still existed. Roger had spent hours the other day complaining about the scabs, demanding to know if John still fond him attractive despite his “deformity”. For the first hour of his dramatics John was adamant that not only was he not deformed but that he was still as attractive as before. By hour three, John was loudly demanding on the phone that Phoebe find Roger a mask “to cover up his ugliness”. 

“Mmm,” Roger hummed, smacking his lips in his sleep. “G’way.” 

Rolling his eyes, John carefully thumbed away a spot of drool from the corner of Roger’s mouth before lightly kissing him. He pulled away to slide out of bed, shivering as his bare feet hit the cold floor. With a stretch, he headed to the door, grabbing a dressing gown on his way out of the guest room. 

Anniversaries called for pancakes; he made sure to queue up the coffee pot before getting started on the batter. Phoebe had dropped off their weekly groceries the day before, bringing them lamb chops and fresh veg, tossing in a few lemons as well for pancakes. It was a tradition he was wont to miss. 

He’d just finished the first stack when the little bell rang, signalizing Roger had woken up from his sleep. Clapping his hands to shake off any excess flour, he hurried back down the hall, eager to get to Roger. 

On the bed, Roger had managed to shift himself into an almost upright position, mid yawn when John arrived. 

“Morning, baby,” John smiled, taking the moment to look him over, drinking in the sight of him. 

“Mmm, morning,” Roger yawned, reaching up to knuckle the sleep from his eye with his broken hand. Instead, he thumped himself in the head, wincing comically and cursing under his breath.

“Idiot,” laughed John fondly, coming over to grab his broken hand and pull it away from his head. “Don’t fracture your head again.” 

“I hate this stupid cast,” Roger grumbled through a pout. “Always getting in the way.” 

“Next time,” John teased lightly. “Think of how annoying the cast would be before you walk in front of a car.” 

“Don’t be mean,” whined Roger, that damn pout still on his face. “It’s our anniversary, you have to be nice to me.” 

In lieu of response, John leaned in to kiss him properly, wrinkling his nose at the taste of sour morning breath. 

“Happy Anniversary, your breath stinks,” John laughed, pulling away in time to catch Roger’s affronted look. 

“That’s what you decide to go with?” Roger all but shrieked, thwapping him with a pillow. “It’s our fucking anniversary!” 

Ducking another pass of the pillow with a laugh, John held out his hands for Roger to take, pulling him to his feet and holding him close. Still grumbling, Roger let himself be pulled into a hug, hanging onto him less for support and more for comfort. 

“You’re still a knobhead,” Roger huffed, pulling back to stick his tongue out at him. “But I guess you’re my knobhead.” 

“That’s right. And I’m a knobhead who made pancakes.” 

Roger grinned, teeth flashing in the early morning light. “See? This is why I’ve kept you around for four years!” 

*

In typical Roger fashion, he descended upon the pancakes like a ravenous wolf, digging into his stack with gusto. John was disgusted by the fact that he was not, in fact, disgusted at the spectacle. 

“Every year they get better,” Roger praised from behind a mouthful of half chewed pancakes. 

“You’re disgusting,” John said with very little meaning. Roger beamed, a dribble of sugar and lemon dripped down his chin. John leaned in, quick as a whip and licked it clean, sending Roger shrieking, shoving him back as John laughed. 

“You’re disgusting,” Roger laughed, swiping at his chin to clean up whatever spit John might have left behind. “Ugh, slobbering all over me like a dog.” 

John blew him a kiss; Roger followed up with a kick to his shin. 

Pulling out the newspaper, John distracted Roger with the crossword, reading out the questions for him. Despite his skull fracture, Roger’s ability to remember even the most obscure facts appeared to have remained. In seemingly no time, half the puzzle had been solved, the other half left to be completed after John finished cleaning the kitchen.

“You know,” said Roger sullenly from where he’d been sat at the table. “I had so many plans for today.” 

“Oh yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he continued. “I wanted us to go to Neuschwanstein--” 

“Gesundheit,” John teased.

“The castle,” Roger emphasized, ignoring John. “Y’know, the famous one? We were going to wake up early, go for a long drive, see the castle, get dinner...romantic shit, y’know?” 

John snorted, turning away from the sink to give him a disbelieving look. “Baby, if you honestly think we would have done that instead of spending the day in bed, you need to get your head checked again.” 

Roger flushed, but didn’t argue. “Okay, so I might have had other plans...and, I’m just saying, they’re plans we could still go for! I still have the panties from Christmas, and--” 

“Rog,” said John gently, subtly trying to shift his weight to hide just how much he wished that was something they could do. “You know what Dr. Mitchell said. No strenuous activities until you stop having flare ups. We can’t risk it, baby.” 

Roger scowled down at the table. “Fuckin’ flare ups.” 

Abandoning the dishes in the sink, John knelt before Roger’s seat, taking his hands in his. 

“Look at me, Rog. I don’t mind, honest. I’m just...” He trailed off, swallowing back tears thickly. “I’m just so fucking happy that you’re here. I’m so, so happy. I don’t care if we can’t have sex for another year--” 

Roger made a noise in protest, but John carried on; “All that matters to me is that you’re still here. With me. Alive.” 

Roger, too, looked a little choked up. Sealing his words with a kiss, John leaned in towards Roger, pressing their lips together sweetly. 

“Love you,” Roger mumbled against his lips, kissing him again. 

John took a deep breath, head spinning with the pure, unadulterated joy of knowing that Roger was still here, still loved him, still wanted him. Smiling into the kiss, he relaxed into the kiss, wishing it would never end. 

*

After the kitchen was cleaned they returned to the guest bedroom, falling into bed together for a cuddle. Roger rested his head on John’s lap, allowing himself to be pet like a cat as John continued where he’d left off in Dune, making sure to keep his voice soft. Eventually, Roger dozed off, snuffling into the blankets. 

Careful not to wake him, John again slipped out from under the blankets, tucking them in tight around him before returning to the kitchen to get started on cooking. 

He made quick work of the meat and veg, placing the lamb chops into the fridge to marinate and gathering the potatoes to peel. He was about to put them in the oven when the bell rang. Wiping his hands clean on a tea towel, he hurried back into the room, smiling. 

“I bet you could smell it from here, huh?” John teased as he opened the door, prepared to see a hungry and happy Roger waiting for him.

Instead, he found Roger in the middle of a flare up, his arm thrown over his eyes as he gasped wetly, hand grasping at the sheets. 

“Deaks,” he grunted, voice rough with pain and sleep. “Deaks, m’head...” 

“Shh,” John soothed as he rushed to his side, running his hand through his hair. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. Flare up?” 

“Yeah,” Roger gasped, venturing a peak from behind his arm, eyelashes wet with unshed tears. “S’a bitch, too.” 

John hummed, sympathetic. “I’ll get you your pill.” 

It was a familiar routine, but never an easy one. He grabbed the pill from the bathroom across the hall, wetting a flannel and filling a glass while he was there. Quietly, he crept back into the room just in time, managing to catch his sick in the waste basket. Once he’d cleaned him up, he helped Roger sit up enough to swallow the pill and some water, carefully draping the flannel over his eyes. 

“M’sorry,” Roger gasped once he’d fallen back to the pillow. “I’ve ruined dinner.” 

“It’s okay,” John assured him as he climbed onto the bed, sliding in to cuddle up close. “It’s just dinner.” 

Roger gasped wetly, his jaw clenching through the pain. “It’s our anniversary.” 

“S’not like you planned it,”John whispered, stroking his hair gently. “All that matters is you get better. Dinner can wait until tomorrow, alright?” 

His hand flopped atop the blankets, Roger blind from the flare up and the flannel. John moved to grab his hand, tangling their fingers together until their palms met. 

“Love you,” Roger murmured as he inched impossibly closer. 

John smiled into the crown of his head, kissing his hair. “Love you, too. Just get better, alright?” 

Roger hummed noncommittally, curling in closer to John, seeking comfort. 

“Happy anniversary,” he murmured into the meat of John’s chest before drifting off to sleep.

“Happy anniversary, baby.” John pressed a kiss onto the crown of Roger’s head, closing his eyes and committing to memory the feel of Roger in his arms before he, too, fell asleep. 

Just in case. 

[arianaofimladris]

Reversed roles

I know, it took ages, but finally Feanaro got to work (play) in the forge. And he got his promised shinies.

The whole story is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15031922/chapters/34847624

Chapter 4

In all honesty, Mahtan wasn't really surprised when he saw Nolofinwe and Fëanaro at his doorstep. Not even ten days passed since he had learned that his son-in-law had been released from Mandos. In fact, Mahtan expected Fëanaro to come at least three days earlier, but something or someone must have kept him occupied elsewhere. He really hoped it was because Fëanaro wished to renew his contacts with Arafinwe after a bit unfortunate reunion and not because his brothers held him away. He really wouldn't mind Fëanáro's company. And the boy – boy? – regarded him as a kind of father figure. Perhaps he could use one now...

Nolofinwe left his brother and promised to come and retrieve him before the evening, looking sheepish. Mahtan remembered well the times when little Nolofinwe had followed Fëanáro around, which had often ended with him sitting somewhere around his forges, waiting for his brother, or lurking to see just what  Fëanáro had been doing. More than once had  Fëanáro dropped his work to get his brother back to the palace, and he had never been happy about it. Today, however, Nolofinwe didn’t stay. That, realised Mahtan, would have been even more awkward than Nolofinwe escorting little  Fëanáro around.

For his part,  Fëanáro didn’t seem to mind at all. He was so eager to join Mahtan that he ignored his brother’s bit patronising tone and dismissed him as one would dismiss a servant reporting some trivial matter. Mahtan chuckled softly and headed towards his forge before the famed Spirit could turn into fire. The boy’s eyes were shining and... was he really bouncing along?!

“Is there anything particular you’d like to make?” Mahtan asked once he reminded  Fëanáro the rules that were the condition of him being allowed into the forge at all. No heavy tools and nothing involving heat, which ruled out a lot of things, but still left  Fëanáro a wide range of possibilities. Knowing his talents and creativity, Mahtan doubted the boy would be bored.

“How about some crystal lamps?”  Fëanáro was already eyeing the colourful gems set neatly in a box on the long working table. Some were already faceted, some still raw. “I have an idea...”

“Alright,” Mahtan nodded. “In fact, you could make one for me too, I need a yellow one to the garden.”

Fëanáro smiled. “With pleasure.”

Some of the apprentices in the forge looked surprised when they saw their master accompanied by a child, but Mahtan’s glare stopped any comments before they had a chance to arise. He led  Fëanáro to a free working table close to his own and as far away from the others as possible.

“I have some parts already made, you can pick from these anything you like,” he took a box from the highest shelf and placed it before his ward. He knew  Fëanáro would probably have wished to create his own from scratch, but he would have to settle for now with what he got. “I will help you later with the setting.” Mahtan bit his tongue before adding ‘have fun’, though he doubted  Fëanáro would have noticed, so preoccupied he was already with the gems. Lamps were always needed and making them was a pleasant break in between harder work. Once you knew how to make the crystals glow, of course.

For the next hour or two, it was as if  Fëanáro wasn’t even there. He only spoke to ask where he could find some tools, otherwise he worked silently and required no assistance. After having checked that the boy’s precision was good enough, Mahtan decided it was safe to give him pliers and left him to his projects.

“Could you put these together for me?”  Fëanáro jumped off his stool and came to Mahtan, but stopped when he saw that the smith was busy. “Oh, once you’re done here, of course.”

Mahtan smiled. Child or not,  Fëanáro knew his way around the forge and was aware which tasks could not be stopped in the middle. He glanced over his shoulder at the other elves.

“Alquandur, bind those for him, would you,” he said to his apprentice, who seemed unoccupied at the moment.

The youth moved to the working table, picking a place where Mahtan could see what he was doing.  Fëanáro followed him, explaining in what way he wanted the pieces to be connected. He dragged a stool and stood on it, so that he could see everything Alquandur was doing.

The two worked together and for a while the forge turned quiet again, so Mahtan focused on his own work. However, it didn’t last too long, and soon he heard  Fëanáro’s firm remark.

“It’s not heated enough. You have to wait a little longer.”

“And just how would you know that?”

“Because I do,” replied  Fëanáro, calm for now. “If you bind them now, the connection will be brittle and will most likely break soon.”

Mahtan sighed inwardly, sensing an upcoming disaster. Alquandur had a lot to learn, yet he despised criticism when it came from others than his teacher. And to be reprimanded by a child...

The piece he was working on required his attention, so Mahtan left the problem for a moment and checked his work, searching for details that could require some corrections. The problem did not leave him though.

“Mahtan, it is not ready!”  Fëanáro’s high-pitched voice made him look up briefly. “Do NOT connect these!”

...There it was, right when he could not come over.

“Alquandur, you might want to listen to him, he’s probably right.”

The apprentice puffed in disbelief, clearly deciding that Mahtan was just humouring the child. He bent to resume his work, but  Fëanáro grasped his arm, clearly unable to stand it any longer.

“Oh, let me do that,” he snapped and reached for the clasps.

“We have a deal,  Fëanáro,” Mahtan reminded him sternly. He would not see the child operating any hot tools, especially when his own hands were busy and he would not be able to react in time.

The apprentice gasped and stared at his master. “ Fëanáro? Who in Varda’s stars would name a child like that?”

Fëanáro looked hurt and furious when he glanced up. “Miriel,” he growled, his eyes treacherously shiny. “Leave my work before you ruin it. I’ll wait.” With that, he strode towards his corner, turning away from everybody.

“That’s...”

“Curufinwe  Fëanáro Finwion, yes.” Mahtan couldn’t look, but the astonished silence that followed his statement was meaningful enough.

Only after he had finished his work, Mahtan glanced at his son-in-law.  Fëanáro had not moved, bent over the table and focused on whatever he was doing. Seeing that the boy had had enough time to cool down on his own, he sent the apprentices for the midday meal and came over. Fëanáro seemed not to notice him, furiously preparing more glowing crystals than he really needed.

“These are marvellous,” Mahtan said sincerely once he saw bright green gems radiating with soft glow in  Fëanáro’s hands. Those were the hardest to make them shine. “It’s not your usual colour of choice, though.”

Fëanáro looked up, clearly pleased with the praise he received. “These are for Arafinwe. I saw a place in his library that could really do with a bit more of light. And green should correspond well with the window ornaments.” To prove his point,  Fëanáro unfolded a sheet of paper with a sketch of said window. It looked peculiar, childish on one side, but on the other consisting of all measurements necessary to create a lamp that would fit. “See? A lamp placed here should highlight the leaves and this one here...”  Fëanáro reached for another sheet, lost in his explanations and eager to share his idea, but he couldn’t quite hide the tremble in his tiny hands. Mahtan covered them both with his large one, startling the boy and stilling him.  Fëanáro blinked in surprise and closed his fingers around the nearest gem.

“Alquandur is very young,” Mahtan said quietly, placing his other hand on  Fëanáro’s shoulder. “He only knows you from the stories of old. Do not dwell on his words.”

Fëanáro stared at the crystal in his hands. “I shouldn’t care.”

“It’s only natural that you do,” Mahtan shrugged. “Perhaps I should have forewarned them all. I’m sure once the novelty wears off, they will come to you for advice. Alquandur too.”

“He already has a teacher, who once happened to be my master too.”

Mahtan chuckled. “Now you make me feel ancient.”

Reluctantly, Fëanáro returned the smile, then grinned unexpectedly. “You were ancient the first time I came here.”

“That’s charming. Now let your old master show you that he’s not yet rusty,” Mahtan picked the parts of crystal settings. “Shall we?”

When Nolofinwe, drawn by an old habit, came earlier than he had said, just to watch his brother work, he found him sitting on the working table and talking,. The multicolour light emanating from several crystal lamps standing around him made the forge look homely.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

i don’t wanna break your heart (i just want a brand new start) - ONE-SHOT

Months after things go horribly wrong with Ben, Rey plans to spend what was supposed to be her first holiday season as a married woman sick, miserable, and alone instead.

Enter Finn and Poe, completely unwilling to let their friend go through with that plan and completely willing to go behind her back to make sure it doesn’t pan out.

Also enter Ben, with a ton of apologies, homemade chicken noodle soup, and every intention of taking care of his ex-fiancée.

This December, I'll be writing a collection of one-shots for the holiday season. Gift Fic #1 is a modern AU getting-back-together for Twitter's @ft_shipper, who writes some truly beautiful tweet fics that are 11/10 worth checking out. 

Also available on AO3. And hey, maybe check out my Twitter or Ko-fi?

“Peanut, you awake?”

Hidden under a mountain of blankets as she is, it takes Rey a while to make out Finn’s question. “Still alive,” she croaks back, and whines when he begins to tug at the covers. At least he has the decency to keep her curtains shut, so that she isn’t blinded by what little sunlight they’ve been blessed with this winter morning when he finally pulls away the last of her blankets to find her.

She can’t be a pretty sight, because Finn grimaces before a cool hand presses against her forehead. “Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own? It’s not too late for me to cancel, Poe can deal with his family on his own–”

It takes more effort than she’d like to bring one hand up and bat Finn’s away, every single part of her weak and sore with fever, but she’s not about to let him know that. “Finn, stop babying me and just go already. You love Christmas with the Damerons more than Poe does,” she reminds him.

“I do,” Finn shrugs, “but I love you more than Christmas. And Rey, I think if we threw you out into the snow right now you’d burn right through all of it. At least let us bring you to the hospital first, I’m sure Shara won’t mind us being late–”

Rey steels herself and uses one last burst of strength to yank the covers out of Finn’s hands and back over her head. “I’ll be fine,” she calls out through a yawn. “Now go before you make me get out of bed and kick you out of this apartment.”

She picks up on indecipherable grumbling even through the four layers that separate her from Finn, but eventually he relents with a heavy sigh and a pat on her shoulder. “Just… call me if you need me, okay? Promise me, peanut.”

His voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away, maybe even underwater, as sleep drags her back under. Rey has one last fuzzy memory of giving in to Finn’s request, but she’s asleep again before he can say anything else.

A series of insistent knocks on their front door wakes her up just a few minutes later, though. It has to be Finn again, doubling back for something he’d forgotten. Probably his keys, since he’s knocking on his own door, but then how would he have locked the door in the first place?

“Oh,” Rey mutters to herself as she finally pokes her head out from underneath the covers. Thin beams of weak winter sunlight have snuck in through the cracks in her curtains, which means it’s definitely been more than a few minutes since Finn left, which means it’s definitely not Finn at the–

“Rey!”

Yeah, there’s that theory proven right. The voice calling out for her from the other side of the front door is barely audible here in her bedroom, but she can hear just well enough to know that it’s not Finn. He must’ve asked one of their other friends to stop by and check on her, but who’s still in town on Christmas Eve?

It’s a masculine voice; that much becomes clear when the call comes a second time as she slowly drags herself out of bed and across the small apartment. She’s making good progress, until he speaks again for a third time just as she’s passed the kitchen, just as she’s finally close enough to realize–

“Rey?”

The voice sounds suspiciously like… It can’t be, but there’s no way she’s wrong, no way she’s forgotten his voice this quickly, no way she’ll ever forget it. But why would he of all people be knocking on her door at – Rey squints at the novelty clock hanging above the front door – seven minutes past noon on Christmas Eve?

“Fever,” Rey reminds herself out loud, cursing her body for wreaking havoc on her senses and her heart like this. It’s probably just one of their many other guy friends, doing Finn and Poe a favor. Nodding to herself in approval of her theory, Rey finds the strength to continue her slow journey toward the front door and cautiously crack it open to see who her mystery visitor is…

… only to find that her fever-addled brain was right all along.

He’s got one hand up in the air, as if he’d been about to let loose another round of knocks, and his fourth attempt to call for her leaves him like a gentle exhale as they catch each other’s eyes.

“Rey.”

She, on the other hand, is too stunned to say anything in return. Because there, on the other side of her apartment door, stands Ben Solo – ex-fiancé and partner of five years, person who should have been her husband of two months and one week by now, man who broke her heart six months ago instead.

Seconds or minutes or hours pass – enough time for the shock to wear off and exhaustion to sweep back into her system. She clutches at the door a little tighter for support, and watches the way Ben’s eyes dart away from hers to observe the movement with a slight frown.

It’s enough to spur him into motion, apparently, because he lifts his other hand to reveal a lunch bag. “I brought soup,” he says quietly, his first words to her since the day he let her walk out of his life.

Rey thinks of asking him what the hell he’s doing here, what the fuck he thinks he’s doing waltzing back into her life like this.

She thinks of slamming the door in that stupid face she’s missed so much and ignoring his unwanted presence until he leaves her alone again.

She thinks of undoing months of so-called healing to rip open all of her wounds and resume that fight they never really settled, the one she’d chosen to walk away from instead.

But the thing is… Rey grew tired of fighting Ben Solo a long time ago. Maybe that’s why they ended up like this, why they ended at all. And that thought, more than the fever, more than anything else, drains her of what little fight she’d had in her to begin with.

So she opens the door with a sigh, and steps aside to let him back into her life.

❄ ❄ ❄

On an unusually sunny late October morning, Rey finds herself admiring the way beams of sunlight set the diamonds of her engagement ring ablaze and create little rainbows in their wake. Odd, how something she’s had for less than twelve hours can feel so much like a part of her already, so right.

A heavy arm slings itself around her middle as Ben rolls onto his side, pressing his face into her thigh. She tears her eyes away from the ring to shoot him a fond smile, running her free hand through his hair as he slowly blinks awake and peers up at her.

“Why’re you up?” Ben mumbles, warm lips brushing against her bare skin.

Rey shrugs and slides back down into bed so that he can hold her properly. “Too excited to sleep, I guess. I’ve just realized something, by the way.”

He’s fully awake now, a slow, lazy smile stretching across his face as he reaches for her left hand and draws it closer so that they can both admire the heirloom ring he’d slid onto her finger just last night, the ring he later admitted he’d been carrying around since their first anniversary three years ago. “What is it?” Ben asks softly, bringing her hand up to his lips to brush a feather-light kiss across her palm before he lets go.

“Weddings,” Rey tells him as she moves to mimic him, the both of them resting on their sides and facing each other. She tips her head back to give him a quick kiss before adding, “We’ve never talked about weddings. Do you have any idea what you want?”

Ben shrugs, but he’s still wearing that lazy smile and his eyes are bright too, lit up from within and without as more sunlight pours into their bedroom. “I want whatever you want.”

And that has to be the standard answer, the easiest answer for grooms who’d like as little involvement in planning their own wedding as possible, but somehow Rey knows that’s not why Ben is saying it. That’s never why he’s happy to go along with her plans for everything, even though he tends to have grander ideas for anniversary dates and summer vacations and dinner parties; he just really, really wants her to have everything she wants, and trusts that he’ll be happy so long as she’s happy. It’s worked out for them so far, but if a wedding is meant to set the tone for the marriage it gives birth to, then Rey doesn’t want them to do their usual thing this time around.

Her marriage to Ben will be one of the most important things in her life, Rey already knows, and she wants them to start it off the right way, as a team. “I don’t really know what I want,” she claims, a half-truth at worst; she’s entertained the odd daydream here and there in her four years with Ben, but it’s true that she hasn’t really decided on anything yet. “What about you? Did little Ben ever imagine what his big day would be like?”

She means to tease, to joke, but after a moment Ben furrows his brows in concentration and Rey suddenly finds herself eager for a real answer.

“I didn’t… I mean, I never gave much thought to the colors and the cake and all that stuff, but… I was three when my parents got married, remember?”

Of course she does; the highlight of her first visit to his parents’ place had been Leia breaking out the wedding album to show her adorable pictures of little ring-bearer Ben. There’s even a fuzzy old VHS of Ben toddling down the aisle with one hand carefully balancing a small pillow and the other clutching at his Uncle Luke for balance, tiny face scrunched in concentration as he kept his eyes on the rings he’d been tasked with.

“I don’t remember much, but I know there were a lot of people, so many people I’d never even seen before and haven’t seen since. And I just… I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right to me, that my parents – my mom – had all of these people who didn’t even really matter at their wedding, people who probably didn’t even really care about them or their happiness and were only there out of some sense of obligation. So I guess the one thing I’d want is to keep it meaningful, you know?” he asks, reaching out to tuck a few stray locks of bedhead behind Rey’s ear. “If this is about celebrating our love, then I only want to be surrounded by people who genuinely care for us and are happy for us. Something small, just close friends and family.”

A small wedding, coincidentally, happens to be the common thread running across all of her varying wedding fantasies. Rey rests her hand over the one slung around her waist, and laces their fingers together before giving Ben a small squeeze.

“That sounds perfect,” she tells him with a smile, and so it’s decided that they’ll surround themselves with love and only love on the day of their wedding.

❄ ❄ ❄

Ten minutes after she lets Ben back into her life, Rey finds herself leaning against her kitchen doorway and watching him from a safe distance as he makes himself comfortable in her kitchen and uses her stove to warm up his soup and goes through her cabinets for bowls and spoons. Well – her and Finn’s kitchen and stove and bowls and spoons, all of which Ben probably remembers from the numerous times Finn had them over for dinner throughout the course of their relationship.

A small part of her is irritated at how easily he navigates her space, but a bigger part just aches at the familiar sight of him putting together a meal for her. The soup is homemade from Leia’s secret family recipe – the one she’d made Ben teach her the first time he got sick during their relationship; the one that had become a staple in their shared household, a secret form of communication whenever one of them felt that the other was working too hard or needed more rest. She honestly can’t remember how many times they’ve made this exact soup for each other, and now she’s watching Ben heat it up and ladle it into two bowls for them while she tries to come to terms with the fact that her ex-fiancé is apparently here to play nurse and spend Christmas Eve with her.

She’s still struggling to make her peace with the idea when Ben finally turns around and sets two bowls down on the kitchen island-slash-dining table, and then looks across the room to give her a pleading look.

“Fine,” Rey huffs as she slumps into the closest bar stool and drags one bowl toward her. From the corner of her eye she can see Ben settling down and pulling his soup closer as well, but Rey doesn’t look up. It’s for the best, really, given that tears start welling in her eyes as soon as the familiar taste of the soup invokes dozens of cherished memories and reminds her of what she’s lost, of what he’s denied the both of them–

But that’s a dangerous path to tread in her mind, one that will only lead to more tears, and so Rey defaults to the mantra that’s kept her together since the day she turned her back on him: better mad than sad.

With that in mind, she decides to break their silence. “I’m surprised Snoke doesn’t have you slaving away on Christmas Eve this year,” Rey says through gritted teeth, barely suppressing the snarl that that name naturally draws from her.

Ben, to her surprise, merely shrugs and continues focusing on his soup. “I’m sure he’d like that, but I’ve made it clear that I don’t really give a fuck what he wants outside of office hours,” he says so calmly, so casually, as if this doesn’t change everything.

Rey, meanwhile, has to try really hard to keep her spoon from splashing into her soup. Her hand shakes as she takes a few careful sips to buy herself some time, blinking and processing and weighing potential replies until she finally settles on a relatively harmless one. “Good for you,” she mutters, just loud enough to be heard across the kitchen island.

For the longest time, the kitchen is filled with nothing but the too-loud sounds of her spoon accidentally scraping against the bowl a little too hard as she tries to put up an unaffected front. It’s only when Rey pushes her bowl away that she realizes Ben stopped moving a while ago, that Ben’s been watching her this whole time.

When she finally finds the strength to look up at him, he’s staring at her with the most heartbreaking look she’s ever seen on him, his eyes reminding her of pictures she’s seen of his childhood dog and its sad, pleading eyes during big holiday meals.

Still holding eye contact, Ben murmurs, “I wish I’d done it earlier.”

And Rey… god, Rey wants nothing more than for him to have done so too, for them to be able to go back in time and shake some sense into past Ben before he ruined everything and broke her heart and destroyed their future.

But she never gets what she wants, not really. The piles of unsent wedding invitations gathering dust under her bed are evidence enough. So instead of getting her hopes up, instead of giving him the power to break her all over again…

Instead of all that, Rey abruptly gets up with an ugly, painful scrape of her chair against the floor and turns her back on Ben as she makes her way out of the kitchen.

It’s oddly reminiscent of the last time she’d walked out on him, damning silence and quiet resignation and all. The thought weighs her down, stops her by the doorway.

“Yeah,” Rey sighs without turning back, “me too.”

She disappears into her room before Ben can say something in return – or worse, not say anything at all.

❄ ❄ ❄

According to Leia’s expert advice, it’s only polite to send save-the-dates six months in advance, especially since some of their friends and family will have to fly in for the wedding.

And so, a rainy April evening finds Rey and Ben and multiple versions of their potential guest list sprawled out across their living room in an attempt to finalize at least this one aspect of their wedding planning.

“Babe,” Rey speaks up with a slight frown as she comes upon a series of names that don’t ring a single bell. “Exactly how many Naberrie relatives are we expecting, and why do all of them have different last names?”

“Hmm?” Ben hums in acknowledgement, looking up from his own list of her guests. In a last-ditch attempt to trim the list down to their original idea of fifty or less, they’ve taken to scrutinizing each other’s guests to identify potential exclusions. “Wait, let me see that.”

He reaches out for the list, but Rey – sprawled out on her stomach with her legs crossed at her knees and her feet comfortably swinging in the air – decides to roll closer instead and face-plant into his lap. It feels unbearably silly, but at least it draws an increasingly rare laugh out of Ben. She doesn’t get to hear that precious sound much these days, not with Ben as overworked and tired as he is from all of those long nights and weekend meetings he keeps getting roped into.

Besides, she’s planning her wedding with the love of her life – Rey figures she’s allowed to feel silly and light and maybe even a little bit fluttery.

“Oh, those aren’t the Naberries,” Ben tells her as one hand instinctively moves to the back of her head to comb through her hair. “They’re some of our biggest clients and a few potential ones too, so Snoke figured it’d be a good idea to invite them.”

And just like that, all feelings of the silly, light, and fluttery variety vanish into thin air.

“Ben,” she groans, though it’s muffled by his tee shirt. “I thought we agreed on no work guests?”

They had, just two weeks ago when Rey first noticed their guest list had somehow ballooned from a manageable fifty-seven to a rather alarming ninety-nine. It’s why she’s crossed out a bunch of her colleagues, and has allowed Ben to mark several more for reconsideration.

He’s still running his hand through her hair, but it’s not as soothing anymore. “I know, sweetheart, but Snoke really thinks–”

Rey drags herself into an upright position so that she can look Ben in the eye when she scowls, crosses her arms, and says, “Well, if Snoke has such strong wedding guest list opinions, maybe he should save them for a wedding of his own.”

To her dismay, Ben simply laughs at the idea rather than take note of her irritation. “It’ll be okay, Rey, I promise. It’s only thirty people at most–”

“Thirty?” she echoes with horror. “Ben, we’re trying to trim this back down to fifty. Thirty is more than half of that!”

“About that,” he hedges, setting the list down to give her his full attention. “I was thinking… maybe we keep the fifty quota for friends and family, and just count these thirty separately?”

She reaches for the list Ben’s just set down, along with all of the others marked as his guests, and takes a good hard look at them only to realize… “Ben, more than half of your guests are people from work. I thought we wanted something small and intimate?”

“Small went out the window the second you agreed to let my mother invite our entire family, Rey,” he tells her wryly, snatching the papers out of her hands. “Besides, what difference does it really make? It’s still just going to be you and me up there, we’ll just need more chairs at the ceremony and more food at the reception–”

The idea of being surrounded by strangers at her own wedding reception was bad enough, but the ceremony? Ben intends to have complete strangers bear witness to the most intimate moment of their lives?

Rey can’t believe what she’s hearing, what she’s seeing. How is this the same Ben who promised her the wedding of her dreams, the same Ben who hated his parents’ wedding despite barely remembering it? How is this still her Ben, when he consistently sides with and picks Snoke over her these days?

“This isn’t even a wedding anymore,” she snaps, more harshly than she’d intended or even realized herself to be capable of. But the more she thinks of it… “It’s a fucking networking event, Ben. And I’ve been to enough of those to know that I’m not spending my wedding surrounded by strangers and alone in a corner while you and your boss make the rounds.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Ben’s eyes soften, and for one beautiful, golden moment Rey thinks she’s finally gotten through to him, finally made him see sense, finally snatched him back from the jaws of that slimy old bastard. “C’mere,” he mumbles, holding his arms open. “That’s not going to happen, I swear. I won’t leave you alone like that.”

She’s just about to fall into his arms when he ruins it all. “It’s our wedding, Rey. We’ll make the rounds together.”

The world comes to a stop, and then crashes.

Rey yanks herself back and stumbles to her feet instead, ignoring Ben’s open arms and questioning look as she picks her way through the mess of papers scattered around them. “I’m going to bed,” she tosses over her shoulder as she storms out of the living room. “We can talk about this again when you get your priorities straight.”

In the morning, Ben’s already left for work by the time she wakes and she can’t tell if he spent all night working on the guest list or if he simply chose to sleep on the couch. But when she finds the updated list still cluttered with twenty of Snoke’s guests, she’s just angry enough to not care either way.

❄ ❄ ❄

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Rey can hear the sounds of Ben moving about in the kitchen, cleaning up after them and putting away the dishes. When the apartment finally falls silent, she squeezes her eyes shut and tells herself this is it, this is the moment he packs up and leaves without even a goodbye–

But then he shuffles past her slightly-ajar door, and not two minutes later she hears him turn on the TV and settle into Finn’s creaky old couch.

It looks like he’s planning to stay for a while, then – which is more than she could say of him during their last few months together, Rey grudgingly reminds herself. She’s spent too much time since that day wondering if maybe she’d overreacted, if things had still been manageable or salvageable, only to remember how awful it had been to feel alone around the one person who’d promised her she’d never be alone again. And sure, she’s lonely now too, lonelier than ever before maybe, but somehow it doesn’t hurt as bad, knowing that she’s choosing to be lonely rather than allowing herself to be forgotten and abandoned again while Ben slaves away at work.

Only… he doesn’t do that anymore, it seems.

With a cry of frustration, Rey puts an end to her thoughts going in circles by reaching for her phone for the first time since she was so rudely woken up by her unexpected ghost of Christmas past. She scoffs when she finds a flurry of texts from Finn and a handful from Poe as well, the earliest of which is timestamped just ten minutes after they were supposed to leave the apartment.

Finn: Okay, please don’t kill me but

Finn: It’s Christmas, peanut. I couldn’t let you spend it sick AND alone

Finn: Also Poe maaaybe still meets up with him sometimes and maaaybe let it slip that you aren’t feeling well and we won’t be around for a few days

Poe: IT WASN'T MY IDEA

Finn: And… I have to be honest, peanut

Finn: We all know how much you’re hurting

Finn: And Poe says he’s hurting too

Finn: Enough that the both of us thought maybe…

Poe: Okay fine maybe it was, but it’s a shared idea.

Poe: With Finn.

Poe: He needs to take AT LEAST 50% of the blame

Finn: Anyway that’s not the point

Finn: Just… please let him help? For me

Finn: I’m just worried about you, that’s all

Finn: We can talk about the rest when I get back

Finn: Love you, peanut

Rey… god, Rey doesn’t know what to feel or think or say. She knows they mean well, knows they only acted out of love and concern for her, but… a little warning would have been nice. And what were they even thinking, letting Ben ambush her like that? Oh sure, she believes he’s been hurting too, isn’t so blinded by anger or her own pain that she’d deny him his, but he was the one who ruined everything, he was the one who picked Snoke over her, who watched her walk away without even trying to stop her, who gave up after barely two weeks of trying to call and text and communicate through their friends.

Ben has known all along exactly what he needed to do to fix things, and it’s still taken him six months to do so. Even if he were to quit his job and tell Snoke to go shove his head up his ass, it would be too little, too late at this point… right?

“Don’t even think about it,” she mutters out loud, forcing herself to concentrate on the here and now instead of what could have been and what could be. The here and now is Finn’s desperate, pleading, well-intentioned texts waiting for a reply, a reply that Rey decides she’s not quite up to giving him just yet. She’s too soft-hearted to snap at him, but too hurt and betrayed to let him off the hook just yet. Besides, she doesn’t want to be held accountable for whatever she says in her feverish state.

So Rey does what any other person in need of a distraction would do: she scrolls through Instagram and likes a bunch of photos of all her friends spending the holidays with loved ones. And when that’s done, she goes through her messages and writes back to a dozen holiday wishes. And when those are handled, she taps on the Facebook app in an act of sheer boredom and desperation… and promptly regrets it.

Because the first thing she sees is Facebook’s oh-so-helpful reminder that exactly one year ago today, she’d posted a picture of her and Ben spending their first Christmas Eve together as an engaged couple.

Her phone is sent sailing across the bed, landing on her pillow with a thankfully soft thump. Rey pulls her knees up to her chest and curls into herself, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths until the moment has passed, until her tears recede, until the white-hot pain fades back into the constant, dull ache she’s grown used to.

And then, like the masochist she is, she reaches under her bed for a photo album.

❄ ❄ ❄

With only four months left before the wedding and everyone’s schedule growing increasingly packed due to a variety of work and personal commitments, the wedding party takes to having the occasional marathon planning session at Leia’s place, during which they typically knock a good chunk of planning and preparations out in one afternoon.

Their second marathon session revolves around the venue, and Leia starts by happily announcing that they’ve indeed managed to secure the Amidala Gazebo and its surroundings for October 17th. Despite the fact that the entire botanical garden itself is named and was built in honor of Ben’s grandmother, it’s popular enough that Leia had to pull some strings to make this happen. Now that it’s a done deal though, everyone is smiling and clapping and cheering in celebration – everyone except Ben.

“Ben?” Re calls quietly, hoping not to attract attention from the others. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just…” He makes the mistake of speaking at a normal volume, and suddenly the room falls silent as everyone turns to the two of them. “Does it have to be October 17th?” Ben asks the room at large, only to be met with blank looks.

It would make for a funny sight, especially since even Poe seems to have been shocked into silence, but Rey can’t quite pause to appreciate the moment as a familiar wave of dread begins to swell. “I mean…” she begins calmly, evenly, trying her best to give Ben the benefit of the doubt even though a part of her already knows. “Since that’s the date we told everyone to save, I’d say yes, it does?”

“It’s just,” Ben stops and darts his gaze to his left, and that’s when Rey realizes he’s had his phone right next to him all along, keeping tabs on work even on a Sunday, even as she sits right next to him trying to get his opinion on lighting options for the venue.

The wave of dread pulls Rey under, ushering in a familiar sinking sensation in her stomach that threatens to turn into nausea. “It’s just, Pryde is flying in that weekend for a meeting, and Snoke has me running point on the…” Ben trails off, finally reading the room or maybe catching sight of the stricken look Rey knows she’s wearing.

He reaches for her hand and gives her a reassuring smile. “It’s fine, forget it. Don’t worry about it, I’ll just get everything done in the morning and then rush over. The ceremony starts at four, right?”

And the worst part is, he actually looks like he’s trying his best, actually looks like he thinks this is okay.

Rey snatches her hand back while everyone else remains deadly silent.

“Rey?” Ben asks, the smile on his face faltering.

She takes a deep breath. “Are you seriously telling me,” Rey says quietly, biting off each word with deadly precision, “that you intend to go to work on the day of our wedding?”

“It’s just a half-day, sweetheart,” he says, and someone – Finn, maybe, or Poe – sucks in a sharp breath at him doubling down on this. Neither of them turn to see who it is, though, trapped together in a brewing storm that separates them from the others. “Don’t worry, I’ll be on time, maybe even fifteen minutes early–”

So he’s planning to leave her and his family and her friends to manage his work guests while he’s off handling even more work, and then waltz in maybe fifteen minutes before their wedding, and then spend the evening networking with clients.

“I’m done,” Rey announces as she stands up, looking around to see everyone else graciously pretending to be staring at their phones or their hands or their laps. “I’m fucking done,” she decides, and walks away.

“Rey!” Ben calls after her, and promptly gives chase. “Sweetheart, calm down, we can talk about this, I know weddings are stressful but–”

She whirls around so fast she nearly knocks into him, hot on her heels. “Not the wedding,” she snaps, because how is it possible that he still can’t see what’s happening here, what he’s doing to them?

What he’s already done to them, Rey realizes with a wave of quiet resignation as everything comes crashing down on her, every cancelled date and lonely night and entire weeks away at a time when they should be closer than ever–

“Not the wedding, Ben,” she says again, softer this time, though she can’t tell if her voice is calm or just small, weak, broken at the thought that… that… “Everything. All of it. I’m just… I’m done, Ben.”

And even after everything, she takes no pleasure in seeing the hurt she’s been carrying around on the inside for months finally reflected in his eyes.

“Rey…” he whispers, taking a step back as if her words have him reeling. The way he’s looking at her… god, it’s like she’s just taken a knife to his heart.

She wavers then, just for a moment, tells herself that maybe it’s not too late, maybe now he’ll finally understand what a mess they’ve gotten themselves into and work with her to fix it–

Their moment of silence is broken not by an offer of peace, but the Imperial March. It’s coming from Ben’s phone, which she realizes now is in his pocket, which he’d found the time to pick up even in his haste to go after her, which even now he automatically reaches for before he realizes what he’s doing just in time to stop.

The ominous tune plays on, Snoke’s custom ringtone for summoning his loyal servant.

Rey would know; she was the one to set it. She sees the way Ben’s fingers twitch, the way his entire frame is tense with the need, the instinct to respond to Snoke’s call, and gives him a small, sad smile. “I’ve been telling you for months to get your priorities straight,” she reminds him gently, too tired to summon any real energy or fight within her, too sad to wrestle with what she already knows is a predetermined outcome. “Moment of truth, Ben.”

The music finally stops then… only to start again seconds later. And this time, the siren call proves too strong for Ben to overcome. “Just a minute, Rey,” he pleads, looking her in the eye even as he pulls his phone out. “It’ll be just a minute, sweetheart, I’ll tell him to call back later–”

She’s already walking away.

“Rey, wait, Rey!”

And she doesn’t turn back to see if he follows, doesn’t even need to. Because the music stops and his voice replaces it almost immediately.

“Sir, I’m sorry but now is not a good– Oh. I understand. Yes, I’ll be there right away–”

The first wave of tears hit her then, as he lets her walk away without a fight, as he picks someone else over her again and again and again.

“What the fuck, man?” she hears Finn growl even as Ben continues to placate his boss rather than her, and seconds later her best friend is the one who comes after her, who drives her away, who lets her cry on his shoulder in the botanical garden where she and Ben will no longer be getting married.

❄ ❄ ❄

“Rey, can I get you more–”

It’s her fault, really, for not shutting the door. She’d just wanted to be able to keep tabs on him, to know what he was doing and when he was leaving, and so Rey had pushed the door almost all of the way closed instead of shutting and locking it behind her like she should have.

Now it swings open under Ben’s fist, only to reveal her curled up in bed with tear-streaked cheeks as she relives the better parts of their relationship.

The album had been an engagement gift from Leia, filled with candids their friends and family had taken over the years, instances when their love had shined so brightly the people around them were compelled to capture the moment in time.

“Rey,” Ben sighs once he realizes what he’s looking at, and she’s getting so sick of hearing him say her name in that pained voice when once upon a time he only ever said her name with a smile. He rocks forward almost instinctively, stops and slows himself down to hesitantly move closer as she admits in a defeated whisper–

“I can’t do this anymore, Ben.”

He stops cold, five feet of distance between them yet so much more. “I’m sorry,” Ben says, looking at his feet. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have– I knew coming here wouldn’t change things, I’m not here to pressure you into anything, I swear, I just… I just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving you to spend the holidays alone–”

“You left me alone a long time ago,” Rey points out – not accusatorily, not angrily, simply… a statement of fact, gentled by her resignation and acceptance and old hurt. He still flinches though, as if after all these months it’s somehow news to him that he broke his promise.

“All the times I had to show up to our friends’ places on my own because Snoke called you in,” she points out, because he deserves to know what he did wrong, because he needs to know what he did wrong if they’re– Rey stops there, doesn’t let her silly hopes get ahead of herself. “All the nights our bed was too big and too cold without you while you worked late. All the days I spent alone in the home we were supposed to share. Ben, you promised–”

She hadn’t planned on breaking down like this, hadn’t expected those memories to still hold so much power over her long after they’d done their damage. But her voice breaks, and her vision blurs, and a single sob rips past her lips as Ben closes the distance between them to pull her into his arms.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry, if I could do it all again, if I could change everything so that I never hurt you–”

Rey shakes her head, long past the stage of if and maybe, long past dwelling in circles and hypotheticals and daydreams. There’s no going back, she sees that now, but maybe, just maybe… there could be a way forward.

“I just…” She wipes away her tears and takes a deep breath, looks him in the eye when she asks, “I just want to know why, Ben. Why did you choose work over me? Why wasn’t I enough?”

And he knows, he knows exactly what it means for her to have to ask that, exactly what it means for him to have made her feel that way, because in the blink of an eye Ben is crying too. “Rey, no. You’re… you’ve always been enough, sweetheart. Always. Fuck, you’re more than enough, you’re too good for me, always have been. I’m just this huge fucking disaster of a human being with nothing to offer you, but I thought maybe… maybe if I made something of myself, maybe if I worked hard enough so I could give you everything… then maybe, maybe I would finally be good enough for you.”

Rey doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream at the fact that they’ve wasted all this time, gone through all this hurt, just because… god, they really are perfect for each other, aren’t they, the two lonely, broken kids forever thinking they aren’t worthy of each other, forever worrying that they’re not enough?

“Ben,” she says and laughs and cries, “Ben, you idiot.”

He freezes. “What?”

“You idiot,” Rey says again, and can’t hide the odd mix of despair and affection in her voice this time. “You’ve always been enough for me. You filled my life with love, you gave me a home, you promised me a future and a family. Ben, you already gave me everything I ever wanted.”

Ben stares at her for the longest moment, blinking at her like she’s just told him the earth is flat. “You… but I… that would mean…”

“You were enough,” she tells him with a nod. “That was enough, Ben.”

She watches as he closes his eyes, as realization gives way to regret gives way to grief gives way to…

When Ben opens his eyes, there’s the slightest spark of hope in them. “Rey, do you think maybe… I mean, would you… Could it be enough again? Just us?” he asks haltingly, hesitantly.

After months of waking up in tears in this very bed, chasing after dreams so cruelly ripped away, it takes Rey a moment to realize that they’ve actually found their way to this point. A moment’s pause, though, is all it takes for Ben’s eyes to grow dull again as he lets her go and stands to leave. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I don’t deserve a second chance, I know–”

Rey panics and reaches for his hand, yanks him back to her with what little strength she can muster from her heavy limbs. “I can’t do this anymore, Ben,” she tells him again, and watches as the fog in his eyes finally lifts. “I can’t be apart from you anymore. And that doesn’t mean I’ve completely forgiven you, doesn’t mean I’m not still sad and hurt and mad, but… but…”

But she’d rather be sad and hurt and mad with him than on her own, rather cry into his shoulder than her pillow, rather fix what they broke together than forge a new path alone.

And somehow, Ben sees that. “Rey,” he says, clutching both her hands as he drops down to his knees. “Sweetheart, I know I don’t deserve a second chance. But you deserve absolutely everything in life, and if you let me I’ll spend the rest of our lives giving you anything you want.”

His plea reminds her so much of his proposal, of his promise to give her everything in the world. But she’d never wanted everything, had she?

Rey hadn’t known the difference then but she knows better now, knows what they need to move forward. “All I want,” she tells Ben carefully, pointedly, “is you and us and our life together. That’s all I want, Ben. Nothing else.”

“Then that’s what you’ll have,” Ben promises her, all earnest eyes and sincere words, “and nothing else.”

It’s a good enough restart, Rey supposes, to a story that was never supposed to end anyway. “Good,” she says with a grin, and watches as a smile lights up his face. “Now get up here,” she commands with a tug at his hands, “because everything hurts too much for me to get down to you.”

The smile falls off Ben’s face immediately. “Wait, shit, I should’ve asked– are you on cold meds? Is this all for real, or should we talk again later, or–”

“Still an idiot,” Rey mutters with a smile as she leans down to silence him with a kiss.

“Your idiot, though,” Ben whispers between kisses, and all feels right with the world again.

. . .

Just a little past sunrise on December 27th, Finn and Poe cautiously tiptoe into their darkened apartment in the hopes of avoiding Rey’s wrath. Judging from the lack of communication they’ve had with both Rey and Ben in the past few days, their plan might not have worked out as well as they’d hoped.

Finn can only hope Rey will forgive them for their meddling before the year is up.

As terrified of his best friend as he is, he still makes a dutiful stop by her room to make sure that her fever really has broken as Ben had claimed in his single Christmas Day text to Poe. He cautiously twists her doorknob, slowly eases the creaky door open, and blinks a few times to make sure that his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” Poe whispers into his ear as he sneaks up on him, and Finn can only smile in response as a sleeping Rey shifts in Ben’s arms, the two of them still dozing with slight smiles on their faces as the winter sunlight bounces off a familiar ring on Rey’s finger.

[delkios]

The Beginning of Forever (ToV)

I gotta say, the fact that the game ends with all the world's blastia turning into spirits, I'm shocked and somewhat disappointed at the lack of post-game spirit world speculation. I kind of like a Shaman King-esque situation where spirits (weaker spirits) are tiny floating figures that can lend a person of their choosing their power or empower items. I also like the idea that the barrier blastia became city spirits that can act in their own interests but also protect their respective cities. Eventually. After Estelle ran around for a year or two trying to talk the spirits into being cooperative. Title: The Beginning of Forever Fandom: Tales of Vesperia Rating: G Word Count: 2618 In Responds to: Fluri Week 2019: Sweet Sunday Characters: Flynn, Yuri, cameo by Judith and a couple OCs Summary: Future fic, it's the first day of the rest of Flynn's life. Flynn wakes up with the sun, even though he doesn't have to anymore. For a moment he's disoriented, mind automatically shuffling through his schedule, making lists of all the things he has to do in order to prepare for his first meeting and stalling out when he remembers he doesn't have any today. Or for the foreseeable future. He lays in bed, even though his body is already becoming restless, and wonders how the hell he's going to survive the rest of his life. Mornings in Aurnion are chilly most times of the year so, when it's time for the markets to open and Flynn finally leaves, he pulls on a coat. It's admittedly too fancy for something as simple as shopping, a parting gift from Ioder, but it's currently the only one he's unpacked. The house is on the outskirts of Aurnion- it's current outskirts, the original wall had long been taken down as the town grew -so it's a bit of a walk but it allows Flynn time to enjoy the sun and scent of dew-laden grass and the nearby forest.

The market itself is a little on the hectic side, mainly from all the people wanting to talk to him and give him gifts, welcoming him to the town he'd helped found. Then a couple knights joined the crowd, and the town's knight commander, then the mayor and even a couple guild representatives and Flynn will absolutely deny that he ended up making some awkward excuse and farewell before taking what groceries he'd managed to buy and running. He hopes the novelty of his presence wears off quickly. As he clears the last row of houses, Flynn spots Ba'ul in the open area behind his house- part of the reason for getting it, really -and quickens his pace. The Entelexeia hasn't changed a bit, though Flynn swears he gets a bigger each time Flynn sees him. As Flynn expects, Judith is there and he takes her hand in greeting. "Ba'ul, Judith. Always a pleasure." "Same." She reaches forward with her other hand, brushing her fingertips along his jaw. "The beard suits you." Flynn laughs- he's had that beard for over a decade now. "You always say that." "And it's always true. Karol asked me to apologize for missing your retirement ceremony on his behalf." "It's alright. You were all there for the important one." The one held a week earlier in the Lower Quarter which, despite spending nearly forty years living in and working out of the palace, still felt more like home to him. It had been a sprawling, raucous party that had lasted nearly to dawn, music and lights, dancing and laughter and so many people from all over eager to tell him how proud they were and wishing the best in his future. In contrast, his official retirement ceremony was as expected for an upper class event: stuffy with decorum and full of nobles and dignitaries and politicians who pretended they'd always liked Flynn and would miss him dreadfully. Estelle and Rita were about the only people worth sticking through it for. Especially when Rita would 'accidentally' wheel over the feet of particularly annoying 'well wishers'. If anyone asks, Flynn will freely admit he's glad he'll never have to go to one of those things again. "Speaking of which, Yuri brought your gift inside already." All the people he'd known and grew up with in the Lower Quarter had decided to make him a quilt, each square a message from a person or family. It ended up being about the size of a wall tapestry and Flynn had asked Judith to bring it to Aurnion for him. She turns back toward Ba'ul and Flynn asks, "Are you leaving already?" Judith winks back over her shoulder. "I'd hate to get in the way of your reunion." That enigmatic smile and her taste in clothes are the only things that hasn't changed. Honestly, Flynn is somewhat jealous of that. He hadn't thought himself a vain man until he began to visibly slide out of his physical prime, pushing himself harder through his workouts and trying to ignore the aches and pains that lingered longer until Estelle and Ioder and, finally, Yuri banded together to knock sense back into him. But Judith didn't care about how the passage of time changed her looks, unashamed of showing off her wrinkles and stretch marks and rolls. Flynn supposed having her as a sort of role model helped him cope with his own physical imperfections. "Besides, we'll be back soon enough for your house warming party." Flynn just huffs at her in reply, waving Judith and Ba'ul farewell. Then when he enters the house he's greeted by, "Well, well. If it isn't the former commandant," Flynn's breath catches. Sure, they'd seen each other a week ago but his breath always catches, his heart always skips a beat whenever he sees Yuri for the first time. It has since they were in their twenties. "Took you long enough." Flynn can't help a fond smile even as he shoots back, "Not everyone's retirement process is as simple as telling Karol you'll be retiring in five months." Yuri just shrugs. "You get the better pension, so trade off. By the way, Estelle know you stole one of her dogs?" Flynn reflexively looks down at Thierry at Yuri's side, his tail wagging lightly as Flynn's attention. "Estelle gave him to me. She figured now I'd have time to train a dog." Thierry's young, hasn't yet grown out of his puppy stage entirely. He's also Repede's great-something grandson though, asides from his tail, there's no other resemblance. He's mostly black sable with pale tan patches on his chest and around his red eyes. Flynn isn't certain if Thierry is stockier than Repede was or if maybe Estelle spoils her pets overmuch. "Just how I wanted to spend my retirement years," Yuri sighs, all for show, "babysitting even more things." "I'm pretty sure it's usually the other way around. Isn't that right, Luna?" Yuri's right hand from just below the elbow unravels into a dark mist before reforming into a long, flat spirit, not unlike a ribbon eel whose body is made out of midnight and stars, spine rimmed an iridescent yellow. Luna's full, glowing eyes curves into happy crescents as she swirls around Flynn in greeting. Flynn lets the spirit weave between his fingers. "You've been keeping Yuri in line for me, haven't you?" She trills in response. "I swear," Yuri says in mock indignation, "she likes you better than me." From behind Yuri's thick braid of silver hair, another spirit pops out, hissing at Flynn in actual indignation. Flynn winces and chuckles. "I'm sorry I didn't wake you, Aska. I only went to the market." Aska, a three legged bird-like creature with a ring for a body and a tiny sun floating inside, isn't placated, glaring at Flynn while allowing Yuri to scratch under its chin and coo about how mean and thoughtless Flynn is. Thierry grumbles at the lack of attention directed to himself and goes to thrust his head under Flynn's hand for skritches. "How'd Zaphias take you leaving?" Yuri asks as he takes Flynn's groceries and heads toward the kitchen. "Well enough, I think." Flynn goes to stand in the entry way, watching as Yuri begins to cook, their spirits finally switching back to their preferred people. Luna fashions herself back into Yuri's hand to help him cook. "It took a while for them to understand that I'd be leaving- really leaving -and that they'd need to work with the new commandant." Zaphias resides in the Sword Stair, right where their core used to sit. It had taken both Flynn and Estelle years of careful coaxing and handling before they agreed to lend their power, under direction of Flynn and Ioder, to protecting Zaphias instead of acting out on their own. "You think they'll listen to Ilka?" "I can only hope." Flynn has the utmost confidence in the new commandant, otherwise he wouldn't have retired. "I've seen her work with the spirits protecting Halure and the ports. I'm certain she can handle Zaphias. But," he says because he knows that look Yuri is side-eying him with, "that's not anything I need to worry about any more. So what was so dire it needed Brave Vesperia's founding members to get back into action?" Yuri waves a hand and says something vague about council troubles- Dahngrest has been trying to implement an actual system of government to avoid another succession issue -which he obviously doesn't care about on top of being retired and goes into far more detail about how apparently Karol and Harry's granddaughters nearly eloped and that Karol was needed to mediate his family on the issue. "It's not that anyone doesn't want them getting hitched," Yuri explains as they finish up their breakfast, "it's just the girls don't want a big affair but Harry's the former Don and Karol's the founder of one of the biggest guilds so people keep butting in." Flynn hums, draining the last of his tea. "I believe I'm still a legally recognized officiant. Just to throw that out there." Given one of the women involved is the daughter of Yuri's -and, by extension, Flynn's -godson, he feels obligated to help where he can. Yuri laughs, "If it gets that bad, I'm sure Karol'll be happy to ship 'em our way." He gets up to let Aska and Luna out of the house, Thierry playfully chasing and nipping after them. As they clean up, Flynn talks about the weekend he spent in Halure with Estelle and Rita and their family- the Ristelle Mob, as Yuri dubbed them -as well as the trip from Zaphias, being picked up by Patty despite her technically still being a wanted criminal. She gave Flynn her obligatory threat of kidnapping Yuri for her harem in the same breath she promised to come for the house warming party. Yuri just laughs. And when Flynn mentions swinging by Zaude to pay his respects to Raven, Yuri looks both sad and fond. It had been by Raven's request- when he refused to let Rita find an alternative to his failing heart -that he be buried in such a remote place where few, even now, were allowed to go. A place, he said, where he'd no longer be bothered, his simple grave kept company by two equally simple markers, one for Yeager and the other marked Casey. There had been flowers put there recently, Flynn notes, likely by Gauche and Droite who had all but disappeared after the Adephagos. On paper Flynn had, due to their involvement with Leviathan's Claw, put a warrant out for their arrest but put minimal resources into actually finding them. After a few years with barely even rumors of their presence, Flynn had quietly shuffled those warrants to where all others would eventually forget about them. He wonders, every now and again, if they ever a found a way to be happy. A finger roughly pokes him in the forehead. "Ow!" Flynn says out of reflex rather than pain. "What was that for?" "Because you're gonna scratch up my pan if you keep wiping it like that," Yuri says. "And also I know when you're thinking about work. Or what used to be your work," he added with a very pointed stress on the word. "Sorry," Flynn replies because it's not worth lying about it, putting away the now thoroughly dried pan. He takes a moment to watch Yuri wipe the sink and then his hand dry and stretch his arms up and back until his spine curves and joints pop. "So?" Flynn asks. "Now what?" "How was your walk into town?" Flynn sighs. Yuri grins right back. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Think we'd be better off taking a nap right now." Flynn looks at him as if he'd just said something completely alien. "Nap?" "Yup. I got up too damn early to get here and I'll bet you woke up too damn early yourself. And you gotta learn to take it easy so," Yuri grabs Flynn's shoulder and spins him around until he's facing toward the bedroom, "nap." "But... Thierry-" "Can use the dog door to get back in. And if he hasn't figured out how to to use it, Luna and Aska can show 'im." Despite his protests, Flynn makes it to the bedroom with only a bit of prodding though he feels somewhat foolish changing back into his sleeping clothes at Yuri's insistence. He's much more amendable to the idea when it becomes apparent that Yuri is joining him. As they get into bed, arranging themselves around each other with practiced ease, Flynn gets startled when, instead of tucking his face against Flynn's neck as he usually does, Yuri leans in close enough to cause Flynn to push into the mattress reflexively. "What?" "When did you last spend any time in the sun? I can see your freckles again." He chuckles. "Forgot you had 'em, actually." "Your memory must be going," Flynn quips dryly, "because you said the exact same thing last week." "Can't help it if I'm not used to you being so pale." Yuri laces their fingers together, holding their joined hands up where Flynn can easily see. "You're almost as pale as me now." He's not, really, but there's no denying Flynn is not nearly as tanned as he used to be. He lets their hands drop and Yuri slides around a bit so he can prop his head up on Flynn's chest. Flynn doesn't bother attempting to crane his neck to look at him, he knows that angle is too awkward on a good day. "So how was your first twenty four hours as a free man?" Yuri asks. Flynn's mouth and brow creases as he bluntly says, "Boring." Yuri doesn't try very hard to hide the fact that he's laughing. "I know how that is. Haven't figured out what you're going to do with yourself yet?" Flynn sighs. "When I first started the retirement process, I thought I had plenty of time to do so." "But you didn't," Yuri states, apparently unsurprised. "No." He snorts, then stretches back out next to Flynn. "Good luck with that." Flynn lifts a hand up just to drop it knuckles down on Yuri's back. "You could offer suggestions." "I have a hard enough time keeping myself busy, thanks." But he hums and tilts his head to look at Flynn thoughtfully. "Is there anything you've wanted to do but never had the time?" He looks up at the ceiling, dwelling on the question and coming up blank. Yuri snorts again but doesn't turn away. After a long moment, Flynn asks, "Should we get married?" "Oh, it only took you thirty years to ask," Yuri teases. "Only because I got tired of waiting for you to." "Couldn't. Made a bet with Judy 'bout who'd crack and ask first." Flynn turns to give Yuri a mild glare. "You did not." "Didn't I?" Honestly it's absurd enough to go either way. "In that case you owe me half of whatever you won." "Yeah, yeah." Yuri scoots over to rest his head on Flynn's chest, fingers scratching through his beard. "Yes, by the way." "Hm?" "To getting married. Your memory must be going, old man." Flynn rolls them over, pressing Yuri into the bed. "I'll show you how old I am." "Good idea. I better sample the goods before committing." Flynn sighs. "I can't believe I'm marrying you." "Me, either," Yuri quips but, as they kiss, Flynn can taste the words and I can't wait on his lips.