#i was bit by the drawing bug and churned these out in an hour

[jargirls]

apology boy

(my breaking bad review: not enough yaoi)

[recurring-polynya]

Writing/Art Update 3/28/2023

At my old job, one of my big job functions was taking someone else's code and trying to figure out why they got one answer when they ran it on their system and we got a different answer when we ran it in the operational environment. This was often a long and painstaking process and among the worse parts of it was going to status meetings and announcing that I worked on it all week and found 5 bugs and none of them were the one I was looking for. Literally, no one was ever once disappointed in me for this because a) that's just how this work was and b) everyone knew I was good at it and if I was stuck it was because it was hard, but also, it sucked for me, personally.

Anyway, these weekly updates are starting to feel like that, where it's like "yet another week of not finishing the fanfic." I don't really mean to be pessimistic about it, because I actually feel like it's going decently well, it's just that the progress is not happening in any kind of linear or predictable way.

I made it most of the way through the editing and rearranging phase I was in last week. I still have about 3 scenes at the end that are unfinished, but I decided to put those off for the time being. I've mentioned before that this isn't really a story about events, it's a story about a time, so there's a beginning and an end and some stuff happening in the middle, and right now I'm trying to make the stuff in the middle feel like it's going somewhere and is not just a random collection of scenes. I've actually been thinking about the story when I am not actively working on it, which was hard to do earlier on. I've got a much better idea of what each of the characters is going through and I've been rearranging and adding scenes to try to punch up some of those themes. (The reason I left those last few scenes until later is that I need those to sort of wrap things up, and I can't wrap until I know what I'm wrapping, y'know?)

If you put a gun to my head, I could finish the thing in a day or two, but it would be kinda shitty. Every day, I work on it and it gets a little less shitty. There are definitely bits of it that I like. I hope to eventually get to a place where it's not shitty, or at very least, I'm out of ways to improve it.

I like to be done things and I have to remind myself that sitting with my work is good and important and also the point, like I write for the experience of writing and for my own mental health, not for churning out stuff, it's not like I get paid or anything. Also, I've worked on this fic for a really long time and it's a story that's important to me and I want it not to suck. I am, however, very very very sorry to all six or however many of you read these updates and sigh heavily.

Also, I kinda have a lot of other stuff going on. One of the effects of living under late-stage capitalism is convincing yourself that all the stuff that you do that's not paid employment, like grocery shopping and helping people move and running a child's health form to the doctor and back and doing taxes and driving the dog to chemotherapy all don't count and so I feel like I never do anything and am pathetic, but I actually do kind of a lot of things.

I realized yesterday that it was the 27th and I had not really drawn anything all month, so I started drawing a thing and I rushed through it a little, because I was mostly doing it so that I didn't have a blank space for March when I do my year-end retro, but then I realized I didn't want to put something that sucked there, either. (by rushed, I did spend, like an hour or two on this). I do have a few more days in the month, so maybe I can keep working on it.

I am pleased to report that I Made A Good Cake for Mr. P's birthday. It was an Almond Tres Leches Cake. It wasn't exactly pretty, but it was tasty. I made two modifications to the recipe. (1) It was just for our family, so I halved the recipe. I cooked the whole thing in one 9x13, and cut it in half widthwise and stacked the two halves. This worked out great, would recommend. (2) There was a comment on the recipe where someone said they used raspberry preserves instead of apricot and I did that, too, because Mr. P prefers raspberry.

This was definitely one of the nicest sponges I have ever made. I did a really good job whipping the eggs, if I do say so myself. It baked up nice and tall and had great flavor. If I made this again, I would consider using fresh raspberries and cooking them into a compote instead of storebought jam, but the jam was fine, actually! It was chilled from being in the fridge, and I think this would make a really nice summer desert. Both Mr P and Polynya Jr rated it among my Top Cakes. (Polynya the Smallest did not care for it, but it's simply not possible to please all the people in my house at the same time). The cake also gets bonus points for using some of the almond flour AND cake flour that I already had in my pantry from previous projects.

Oh, yeah, the childrens' spring break is next week. 😬

I almost forgot! We also went to the arboretum to see the cherry blossoms and we also visited our friends the koi. LOOK AT THIS BIG CHONK AND THEIR ENTOURAGE.

This wasn't even the biggest chonk there, it's just the one I managed to get a picture of.

[buckys-black-dress]

✄ chapter three: losin' grip on my doin'

a/n: okay, let's goooo! chapter 3 :) things are buildin up... get ready ;) chapter 4 will be posed tonight or tomorrow :)

wc: 4.1k

[fratboy!bucky barnes x fem!reader]

series masterlist

-

To say the least, waking up the next morning in the most coveted after playboy's bed was a shock. You wake up nestled into Bucky Barnes' side, and you wonder if this is what it felt like.

If this is what every conquest that's been brought to his room feels like when they wake up.

You're very much aware of a metal arm slung over your waist, and you feel panic rise up in your throat. Once you recognize you're fully clothed, you release a breath and feel the tension disintegrating from your body.

You can feel Bucky Barnes' heavy breaths under your head from where you're situated on his chest, and you take a moment and pause.

You would never think you'd find yourself in this situation; sidled up in bed with your university's most notorious fratboy. Someone girls and guys coveted after, and who would do anything to get in bed with him.

Yet, here you are. You don't want to admit to yourself that you quite like it here. You feel comfortable, safe. Fitted perfectly right under his arm, listening to his even breaths as you replay the night before's events in your mind like a film reel.

You meet him.

You play pong with him.

You talk to him.

You go up to his room with him.

And now you're awake in his bed. Fully clothed.

How?

Before you could ask too many questions and drown into a spiral, you hear Bucky draw in a sharp breath, signaling his awakening. You look up at him, wondering how he's going to react to you being here. Not only you being here, but also how you two woke up.

"Mornin', doll." He smiles down at you, and his morning voice sends a shiver down your spine at the raspiness.

"H-Hi." You simply say. You can't quite draw any coherent thoughts at the moment, as Bucky's arm tightens around you and draws you closer to his body.

"Sleep well?" He asks, still looking down at you fond look that makes your heart swell in your chest.

"Hm," you hum, "better than I expected, honestly." You laugh.

"Good, spent way too much on this mattress for it to not please my guests." Bucky smirks, and you get lost in his blue eyes for a moment.

But then, you think about his word choice. Guests. Plural. And although you know nothing happened between you two, you still feel a wave of shame wash over you at the notion.

Bucky's had guests in this bed before. You aren't the first girl to sleep in this bed, and you probably weren't the last.

You feel Bucky shift underneath you, seeing his expression turn to worry at the way you're clearly lost in thought.

"Everythin' alright?" He asks, and you nod quickly.

"Yeah, everything's fine. Just peachy." You give a quick smile, trying to not show how your stomach was churning at the thought of all the girls who've been here before you.

"Wanna go grab some breakfast?" Bucky asks, and you pause.

He wants to stay with me? He's not kicking me out, asking me to leave?

“Sure, uh, where did you wanna go?” You ask gently, worrying that you might scare him off, that he’s delusional right now and he doesn’t really want to spend time with you. You’re beyond confused right now.

“We can head to the diner if you’re good with that? My treat.” He says as he stands up, pulling on a shirt to avoid the chill of the room.

It’s a red henley, and the way you see his muscles straining in the sleeves of the shirt has a blush crawling up your neck.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” You croak, getting out of the bed.

-

By the time you get up and get dressed, sweatpants courtesy of Bucky, and head to the diner, it’s already noon. It’s a Saturday morning, so most people are still in bed while recovering from their hangovers.

“So, how come I haven’t seen you at one of our parties before last night?” Bucky asks while you seat yourselves at a booth in the back of the diner.

“I uhm, I don’t really go out too much. Natasha basically begged me to come out, and I only did it to get her off my case and stop asking me.” You reply while taking a sip of the scalding coffee in front of you that a nice waitress poured for the two of you.

“Really? Well, I’d say you should come more often,” he gives you this smile, and your brain is short-circuiting at how handsome he looks. “You were a great pong partner.”

The emphasis on the word and his tone indicate that he was very much so being sarcastic, and you give a bashful chuckle at his words.

“Oh yeah, definitely. I have nothing on Natasha and Sam.” You laugh, and the same waitress comes by to take your orders.

Once she flutters back behind the counter to put the orders in, you’re reading a text on your phone that you felt vibrate while it was in the pocket of Bucky’s sweater you were sporting.

Natasha:

(12:08 PM) Hey, did you end up getting back safe last night? Sorry I kind of bailed, I just ended up crashing when I got to Sam’s room.

She punctuates her sentence with a face palm emoji in embarrassment, and you smile at the text.

Y/N:

(12:10 PM) Hi, I just crashed in Bucky’s room last night. No funny business tho, so don’t get any ideas in your head.

As you send off the message, you turn off your phone and place is face-down on the table, deciding you’ll deal with Nat’s freak out about you spending the night with Bucky later.

“Everythin’ okay?” Bucky’s voice startles you out of your thoughts, and you snap your eyes up to his.

“Yeah, Nat was just making sure I didn’t end up dead in a ditch last night.” You laugh, shaking your head at how dramatic your roommate could be at times.

“Hey, it’s good to know she cares about you.” He responds, and you nod at his words.

“I mean, yeah. No matter how much she might bug me about going out or getting a boyfriend, she’s still like my sister. I don’t know what I’d do without her.” A sigh leaves your mouth, thinking about Nat. She’s been there for you through everything in your life, and it was true. She was your biggest supporter, and you’re glad you have someone who cares so much for you.

“She seems like a great friend. Sam and Steve are the same for me. I mean, although I grew up with Steve, Sam was like the third brother we never even knew we needed.” He stares off into the distance with a soft look in his eyes, and you smile fondly at his words.

In that moment, you feel like you’re seeing a side of Bucky that not many people get to see. This is Bucky, a guy from Brooklyn who’s just trying to get by in college. Not a man-whore, or a guy who just wants to ge his dick wet like everyone says.

Before you could come up with a response to what he’s said, the same lady comes and places your hot food in front of the both of you, leaving with a ‘enjoy!’ before she whirls away again.

You eat while making small talk, just about life, school, and hobbies. Before you know it, Bucky asks for the check, and even though you know he said he’d pick it up earlier, you still fight him on paying for half the bill.

In the end, Bucky becomes so frustrated with your antics that he simply gets up and hands the waitress his card, and you simply watch with a dropped jaw at his actions.

“You didn’t have to do that!” You exclaim, albeit quietly, but enough to show your frustration.

“Doll, I’m treating you to brunch. Just let me.” Is all Bucky says, effectively shutting you up.

-

On your walk back to campus, Bucky asks what you’re doing for the rest of the day, asking if you wanted to come back to his room.

“I should head back, Natasha’s probably waiting for me with a million questions.” You bashfully look up to your window from the bottom of your dorm building.

“Oh, okay doll.” Bucky wraps his arms around you, pulling you into an unexpected hug. You feel your body tense at the action, but once you realize what’s happening, you relax again, letting yourself melt into his body.

“See ya later?” He asks with a raised brow.

“Uh, yeah. I don’t know what I’ll be doing later, but we can talk later.” You smile up at him, slowly moving out of his grip and towards the door.

Before you could fully open the door, you hear Bucky’s voice call out to you one more time.

“Y/N, wait!” He yells, jogging over to you at the door. “Can I uh, get your number? So I can text you later?” He asks, his metal hand rubbing the back of his neck.

“O-Oh, sure! Yeah!” You reply a bit louder than you had intended, just out of pure shock at his question.

You open a new message on your phone, allowing Bucky to type in his number and save his contact. Once he hands the device back to you, you see his name saved as Bucky Barnes <3.

Before you can say anything about the heart he added himself, he pecks your cheek and runs off, with a distant ‘I’ll see ya later, doll!’

You essentially float up to your room, not feeling like you were on the planet right now. You felt like you were up in the clouds, unaware of your own actions. You unlock the door to your room, and Natasha is perched upon her bed, looking down at two outfits she has held up against her form.

“Hey! You didn’t answer my messages, you little bitch! Tell me everything!” She turns around at the sound of you entering, already berating you.

But it all sounds muffled in your ears, not fully comprehending what she was saying to you.

“Hey, you okay? Earth to Y/N?” The redhead says again, waving a hand in front of your face at your spacey expression.

“I-I, yeah, I’m fine. Just… shocked.” You breathe out.

“So? Tell me what happened!”

At first, you could barely get the words out of your mouth, trying to explain everything that occurred in the past 24 hours. You get through the story, a little bit challenged at trying to organize your thoughts, but eventually you get Natasha up to speed.

“So… you didn’t have sex with him?” Your roommate says, and you shake your head no.

“Nat, you know how I feel about having sex. I don’t want to rush into it, and I don’t want my first time to be with some… random guy from a frat. I want it to be with someone I trust, someone I’m comfortable with.” You tell her like a broken record, because over the course of the time that you’ve been friends with Natasha, you’ve had this conversation with her several times. Sometimes, you wondered why she was so hellbent on you losing your virginity.

As much as you loved her and understood her intentions with the question, you were getting tired of having to defend yourself every time.

“I- I know! I just… I want you to be happy, with whoever you want. I never want you to think I’m rushing you though, Y/N. I love you.” Natasha explains, putting her hand on your arm in consolation.

“I know, Nat. But trust me, you’ll be the first to know when I do… do it. Don’t worry.” You laugh at how ridiculous you sounded.

She’s looking back down at her bed now, looking between the outfits she was holding earlier.

“Okay… now, help me pick an outfit! Sam wants to go on a date tonight!” She says, showing you the different options.

As you two banter and talk about last night, you interrupt Natasha’s tirade about Sam and ‘what a gentleman he is!’

“Bucky gave me his number earlier.” Saying it out loud makes it sound all the more ridiculous. You feel like a high-schooler at your words, and the way Natasha stops all movement makes you feel all the more insane.

“His number?” She asks, like she couldn’t figure out what to really say.

“Yeah. He even saved a heart next to his name in my phone. What does that even mean?” You wonder out loud, and now you’re sure you’ve gone crazy.

“I… I’m not sure. I think he likes you.” She says nonchalantly, and you scoff.

“Yeah, because Bucky Barnes is very interested in a girl he met last night who didn’t want to sleep with him. He must be going crazy over a girl like me.” You finish with an incredulous laugh, like it never even crossed your mind that he could like you.

“Well… he acted very different from you’ve been telling me. He usually just fucks a girl and she leaves the next morning, nothing more, nothing less. The fact that he didn’t fuck you and took you out to brunch says a lot about this whole situation.” She explains, and you’re still having a hard time grasping this information.

Just as you’re about to find a rationale as to why her explanation isn’t plausible, you feel your phone buzz.

With furrowed brows, you open your texts.

Bucky Barnes <3:

(2:01 PM) Hey doll, do you wanna come by to another party we’re having tonight? Could use my trusty pong champ ;)

Your mouth dries at the message, words lodged in your throat.

“Look what he just texted me.” You flip your screen to Nat and she reads with an unreadable expression, which quickly turns into her brows shooting up.

“A winky face! Y/N/N, he fucking likes you! He wants to see you again!” She exclaims, and you don’t even know what to say.

“How do I respond?” You feel so unexperienced, asking your roommate for advice on how to text a guy.

“Here, gimme,” she snatches the phone out of your grasp, quickly typing something and handing the phone back to you.

You read what she sent with wide eyes.

Y/N Y/L/N:

(2:11 PM) I’ll be there ;) Should I bring clothes to change into for tonight?

“Nat! Why would you say that? You’re making it sound like I wanna have sex with him tonight!” You rise up from your spot on her bed in a panic, pacing the area of your small room.

“Y/N, relax! He-” Before she could finish, your phone buzzed again.

Bucky Barnes <3

(2:13 PM) Hilarious, doll. You don’t have to, but if you wanna crash here again tonight, you can definitely bring your own stuff if that makes you more comfy :)

“Oh my God. He’s so sweet!” Nat giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. “You have to go now!”

“Nat… doesn’t this look a little… suspicious? From what I’ve heard, this isn’t how he usually acts.” You say wearily, the worry clear in your tone.

“Y/N, look at me.” Natasha's hands come to the sides of your head, urging your gaze to meet hers. “You’re a great girl. You deserve someone who treats you well and gets excited to see you, like Bucky is right now. Don’t push him away. You deserve something good.”

At her words, your eyes soften and you feel the distant sting of tears behind your eyes. You give her a nod, not knowing how to express your gratitude to her in words at the moment. She pulls you into a hug and you hold her tight against you, like she might disappear if you let go.

“Now, we need to get you ready for tonight. You’re gonna make Bucky wish he fucked you.” Natasha smirks an evil one.

“Nat!”

-

The party was in full swing upon your arrival. You were all alone when you walked through the doors of the fraternity house, as Natasha had gone on her dinner date with Sam. She’d promised she’d come by after dinner, and you were practically shaking while searching for Bucky in the packed house.

There were people everywhere, and the longer it took for you to find Bucky, the more anxious you were becoming about being here.

“Y/N!” You hear distantly, and your head whips around in search of the owner of the voice.

You feel a hand slide around your waist, and you smell Bucky before you see him. If it weren’t for the distinct smell of his cologne and mint, you would’ve slapped the hand away long ago.

“Hey! Been wonderin’ when you’d show up.” Bucky has a smile on his face, showing off his pearly whites.

“Sorry, I got held up at home with Natasha.” You tell him, looking around at the crowd. You could feel your breathing shorten at the sheer amount of people around you, and your stomach churns in anxiety.

As if Bucky senses your discomfort, he rubs the hand on your waist along the expanse of your back.

“You okay?” He asks, visibly concerned at your demeanor.

You nod wordlessly, trying to make it seem like you weren’t extremely stressed right now. You would’ve loved to let loose tonight, but yesterday was already pushing it in terms of going out.

“Do you wanna head upstairs?” Bucky asks in clear concern at your demeanor right now. He feels a wave of guilt wash over him. If he knew just how much you were going to become uncomfortable by just being here tonight, he wouldn’t have asked you to come. He would’ve simply asked you on a date, or done a night in with you.

You nod again, not allowing the words to leave your throat. You feel as though your mouth is full of cotton, not even being able to form any coherent thoughts at the moment.

Bucky’s cool metal arm guides you by your lower back to the stairs, and you’re once again reminded of the previous night. His cool metal hand is the only thing grounding you at the moment, and you think you would’ve ended up on the dirty bathroom floor downstairs in a puddle of tears if Bucky had taken any longer to find you.

You pass through his doorway, and Bucky’s arm is holding you against him as the door shuts behind you two.

He wordlessly caresses you, running a soothing hand up and down your back, which is partially open because of your outfit. You’re wearing a dress from Natasha’s closet, which she claimed made you look ‘hotter than the motherfucking sun, Y/N’, and you were basically forced into.

“For what it’s worth, honey, you look stunning tonight.” You feel Bucky’s chest rumble from his speaking from where you’re placed against him, and you give a light laugh.

“Thanks,” you return quietly, unable to really come up with anything witty to say. “I’m sorry I’m ruining tonight for you.” Your voice comes after a few moments of silence, but suddenly you’re pulled away from his body.

“Hey,” his hands are on your shoulders, “you are not ruining anything, doll. Parties ’ll come and go, but I don’t want to do it if it isn’t with you.” He tells you in earnest, and you feel an indistinguishable ache in your chest at his words.

Where did this man come from? It seems as though the perfect guy, one who respects you, one who doesn’t force you into anything, one who seems to care too much about you has just... fallen into your lap.

It almost seems too good to be true.

“Bucky…” You trail off, unable to find any words of gratitude at the moment.

“Yeah, doll?”

“Can we just… lay down? Maybe watch a movie?” You ask.

“Of course we can, honey. Anythin’ you want.” He smiles brightly again as your mood seems to lighten a bit. “Do you need a change of clothes?”

“Yes, please. If you don’t mind.” You can’t really bring yourself to look at him. You feel embarrassed that you’ve pulled him away from his own party. Although he constantly reassures you that he doesn’t mind, you’re still bashful.

“Here, honey,” he hands you the same garments from last night, “you look good in these.” He laughs, and you feel your cheeks turn bright red.

“I- I’ll be right back.” You give a tight smile and retreat to the bathroom.

While Bucky waits outside, he begins to get lost in his thoughts. He liked you. A lot. How did he get himself into this mess? He’s not stupid. He knows what he did to get here. And now it was looking really, really, stupid.

Unfortunately, there was no getting it out of it now, though. He could try and reason with the person he’d made a promise to, but he was stubborn. There was little to no chance he would be able to get out of this one.

But he thinks of it on the flip side. He’s been seen bringing you up to his room two nights in a row, and he knows how it makes both of you look.

For him, he looks like he’s keeping up with reputation.

Take a girl home.

Fuck her.

Leave it at that.

No one quite knew you on campus except for your friends, so they weren’t worried about you or who you were.

All that mattered was that Bucky Barnes was keeping up with his usual antics that were expected of him. There was nothing out of the ordinary for him, other than the fact that he wasn’t actually fucking you.

Bucky snaps out of his train of thought when he hears the bathroom door click open, his eyes meeting yours once again.

But his eyes quickly divert to your body, once again covered by his baggy clothing. You were watching his stare move down your body and felt a wave of insecurity wash over you.

You probably weren’t half as gorgeous as the girls he’s brought back here before. You knew what kind of girls guys like him preferred. Long, cascading hair, big, bright eyes, thin waists, legs that went on for what seemed like miles.

You just weren’t that.

It made you come back to the thoughts that had plagued your mind previously.

Where did Bucky’s interest in you come from?

Why was he suddenly feel the need to coddle you, take care of you, to reassure you?

Your concern was quickly washed away when Bucky settled in his bed, patting his spot next to him under the covers.

“You comin’?” He asks in a raspy, quiet voice that makes your knees wobble.

You don’t say anything while you situate yourself beside him.

“Bucky, can I ask you something?” You begin meekly, not making eye contact with him.

“Anythin’, doll. Somethin’ wrong?” He looks down at you in a worried gaze, and you shake your head.

“I just… what made you want to approach me? I- I know I’m not like those other girls you’ve been with before, and I can’t help but think that you… you want something else from me?” You explain with little ease. You feel bile rising in your throat as you speak because you can’t bear to think that Bucky really ulterior motives for all this time you’ve spent together.

You’ve only just met him, yet you feel like you’ve known him forever. You’re comfortable with him, more than you usually would be with a stranger, and it freaks you out.

“Y/N… can you look at me?” Bucky tilts his head down to try and meet your eyes, which is something you can barely do at the moment. “I want you to know, before this goes anywhere else; you are an amazing girl. I don’t know why it took me so long to talk to you, but I think you’re one the most genuine, kind, beautiful girls I’ve ever met. I… I know I have a reputation that precedes me, but you… you’re different.” He speaks so genuinely to you that you feel a slight sting behind your eyes.

“I… I never want you to doubt yourself ever again, doll. You’re perfect, just as you are. I’m sorry it looked like I was after anything else before.” Bucky finishes, and you can’t seem to find any words at the moment.

You just nod fervently, and then you feel yourself being pulled into Bucky’s large arms.

“Please, don’t let anyone make you doubt yourself again. You’re worth it.”

That night, you fall into the most comfortable and deep sleep of your life, wrapped safely in Bucky’s arms.

[thephantomofthe-internet]

Read into Me Chapter 11: Love Story

Steve Harrington x Reader

CATCH UP ON THE SERIES HERE

Words: 4,771

Warnings: fire, injury-all end of season three things!

Author’s Note: Happy belated Strangers Things 3 Day! I wanted to get this up yesterday, but I didn’t have it in me to work. This is the end of the series, I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! It was a fun little ride!

Series Tag: @divinity-deos @thecaptainsgingersnap @wolfish-willow @scoopsohboi @herre-gud-nej @clockworkballerina @maddie1504 @i-am-trash-so-much-its-scary @jisungiesluv @wildcvltre @stanleyyelnatsiii @n3wtscaseofniffler5 @peterparxour @linkispink1995 @a-big-ball-of-idk @used-avocado @mochminnie @sledgy14 @the-creative-lie @yall-wildin-like-siriusly @ggclarissa @voidnarnia @anonymousonion33 @awkwardnesshabitat @darkcrystal-wolf @hannahrisacher

Paris was a lonely city. You’d arrived alone, having not seen Steve since prom and still desperate to see him one more time. You’d selfishly kept his sweatshirt, wanting a piece of him to take with you to a different country. Your mother hadn’t picked you up from the airport, having sent a car instead. She didn’t seem much interested in speaking to you after months apart; she was much more interested in redecorating her new condo and talking about her fiancé. You met him, a French fop named Jean-Pierre at least fifteen years her junior. He was nice enough, although a bit fruity for your liking. His interests were more on the modeling jobs your mother was getting him. She had no time for you, which was fine since your lessons at the salon began immediately.

You and thirty-five other young hopefuls spend your days locked in a studio with abundant resources and endless models and objects to sketch. And you hated it. You hated the long, rambling lectures from the artists who came to the salon to preach the values of the school and the importance of French art. They alternated between speaking in French and English without explaining themselves as they switched tongues. Your French language skills were nonexistent, so the lectures were exhausting and endless. The only time they ever seemed to help was when they brought you all to the Louvre to examining the long dead French men who’d made the museum possible. There, you could at least sketch out the greats and enjoy the beauty of the art. Inside the studio, you felt as though your head was going to explode. The lectures spoke too loudly and loomed over you without warning or word, you weren’t allowed your headset or Walkman in the studio to combat them, and the smell of various paints and clays made your stomach churn. The girl who’d taken up the easel next to you, a little German named Lisle, had taken to making clay pots and sculptures and the sound of her pottery wheel mixed with her incessant humming made you want to commit manslaughter. It didn’t help that the smell of the brown clay invaded your sinuses and made you sneeze violently. You dreaded the salon. But you dreaded being at home more.

Your mother had hired you a French tutor, utterly horrified by the fact that you hadn’t been practising. You tried to tell her that, despite her assumptions, Hawkins High had stopped offering a French elective two years before you started there.

“You cannot live in Paris without speaking French! It won’t do!” she moaned. Jean-Pierre was already on the phone, speaking fast into the receiver. You didn’t see what the big deal was. Everywhere you went, people spoke enough English to communicate with you fine. It didn’t occur to you till after dinner that if you were to study in the country, you’d need the language to understand your lessons.

So you got a French teacher, a short tempered older man who insisted on being called Monsieur Bérnard. His greying whiskers moved sharply as he spoke and he often spit on you as he taught proper pronunciation and conjugation. He ranted and raved all afternoon, disgusted by your apparent lack of an ear for languages and your doodling on the edges of notebook paper instead of working. You’d go from sensory overload in the salon to being bullied by a Freud-looking asshole each day with no room for a break or a breath.

You lived for weekends. Rest was very well thought of in the city so the hell spawn tutor didn’t work and the salon locked its doors. You were allowed to wander the city at your leisure, your mother glad to have you out of the apartment. You’d spend most of your days sat at a café near the Eifel Tower, a prime spot to tourists. Every day, you’d bring your sketchpad and try to draw out the profiles of those you passed you by. You spent two weekends working on a sketch of people sunbathing on the lawn in front of the tower. But it seemed you left all your talent in Hawkins. You’d spent so long drawing familiar faces back home, now that you were away from your nest, you found yourself without the skill to capture the faces around you. It occurred to you that you knew the faces of Hawkins far too well. They were engrained in your mind, your hand working like a stamp to put them on the page. France was full of strangers. You didn’t know how to understand them like you understood Hawkins. France wasn’t home. You couldn’t work out in a world of strangers.

You couldn’t work in the salon either. It was too much. Everyone was constantly showboating and trying out-do one another. You couldn’t work with people spying over your shoulder. You felt judged and insecure about what you could do. You didn’t want to be watched as you tried to make art. It didn’t help that you had no idea what to make. The closest thing you’d gotten done is that sketch of the Eifel Tower and that wasn’t something you couldn’t buy on the streets around the monument. You’d tried all the things that you couldn’t in your bedroom-paint splatter art, pottery, carving, paint pulling, mosaics. You never finished anything. The drive to push through wasn’t there.

When the loneliness and fear became too much to bear, you held Steve’s sweatshirt and cried. It still smelt like him; Irish Springs soap and Fabregè Organics shampoo and hairspray and a bit like sweat. It was nice though. You missed him. You tried to write him letters, but you knew that they wouldn’t get home before you did. You’d made up your mind that whatever the answer was, you were going home. Whether that meant deferring a semester or missing the first week of school you would go back to Hawkins. Still, you’d written over a dozen letters, all crumpled in your waste bin.

You waited until the last minute to finish something for submission. You’d tried to sketch your mother, to find who you knew in the fancy woman in front of you. With her bleached blowout and designer clothes, thirty pounds lighter and yellow gold jewellery glinting in the midday sun. She looked like the epitome of elegance, straight out of a magazine. The woman you remembered had greying roots and love handles, her only jewellery the wedding rings your father had given her. Europe had changed her into someone who you didn’t know and who didn’t seem to want to introduce herself to you. Nothing you drew seemed to capture the middle between who she was and who she is now. You realized in her profile that you weren’t a part of her life anymore, that she didn’t want you there. You were as strange to her as she was to you. You passed each other like ghosts in the hall, almost recognizable but hauntingly foreign.

The day before your final piece for submission was due; you got a letter from Steve. It only had one sentence.

“I should have asked you to stay.”

It was all you needed to hear to be inspired. You made your final project a tribute to him, mixing memories with unfinished letters building into his face. You used plain black ink to sketch his profile on the surface of the mess, building him into your loneliness. You only had your memory to recreate his face and your own letters to fill the canvas. Still, it was the only thing you’d done the whole time you were in the country that you were actually proud of. You didn’t finish it until the sun rose and you handed it off to be judged without a second thought, bleary eyed and exhausted.

You were on a plane home by the wee hours of July 4th.

Hawkins was a depressing place. After graduation, Steve found himself listless and at the hands of his father. He was a failure, a disgrace of a son. He was unready to start into the family business. His grades were pathetic. He had to get a job. Of course, with no job experience and late to the game, no decent place wanted him. The new mall only offered him one place of employment, Scoops Ahoy. And the uniform was embarrassing. Stupid sailor shirts and matching shorts, fucking knee socks and a corny paper hat. He looked like a certified geek. And his co-worker was a freak. Robin fucking Buckley did nothing but bug him all shift. It didn’t help that he had no friends without you, even Dustin had left for some nerdy science camp after the school year ended.

He was alone and lonely.

He tried to write you a half dozen times. But nothing seemed to make sense, nothing was worth telling you. What was he supposed to tell you? That he had become an even bigger loser overnight? He felt so utterly pathetic. He just wanted things to go back to the way things were. But what did that even looked like anymore? It wasn’t a life with Nancy, she’d dumped his ass, and it wasn’t a life with you, you’d left him for a different continent. He didn’t have a clue where he was going anymore. So he did what any lonely, practically friendless teenager did-he worked his ass off. Eight hours every day in the mall with smart ass Robin Buckley, waiting for the ground to suck him up. And sure, he tried to hit on the girls his age that came around. It was a good distraction from his broken heart. He’d made up his mind that he was ready to move on and try to date again. That he needed a girlfriend. That he needed to be cool again.

And then, Dustin came back and Hawkins started acting up again. He thought it was over. Those damn dogs were gone, the thing was closed, the kid was safe and acting like a kid. Everything had gone back to as close to normal as he’d seen it in awhile. But Dustin just had to find a secret code and Buckley just had to decode it and Lucas’s bitchy little sister just had to be small enough to fit into the vents and find a secret Russian elevator. And they just had to get stuck in it.

He couldn’t keep that damn kid from seeking out trouble. And yeah, it was kind of fun in a scared shitless kind of way, but it wasn’t worth getting drugged and beaten up and nearly dying for. And it certainly wasn’t worth getting tricked into thinking that he had feelings for fucking Robin. He could murder that kid for getting it in his head that he liked that girl. Robin was cool; he wouldn’t pretend that she wasn’t a decent friend to have at the end of the world. But he didn’t need the embarrassment of trying to ask out a lesbian. At least the reason for her rejecting him wasn’t that he was unattractive or lame, just that she didn’t dig dudes. He was cool with that. And at least he got to punch out a communist. If he could tell his father that without going to prison or being murdered by a Russian goon, he’d be proud. Fuck that, he was proud. He won a fight! He beat up a Russian spy! More than one, he beat some up while drugged out; at least he thought he did. He couldn’t remember much, other than watching Back to the Future with Robin. That movie was too confusing. And then he stole a car, he saved Nancy’s life, he set up that weird tower thing for Dustin-there was too much going on to even recognize how crazy he sounded. How crazy all of this sounded.

And then, the mall was on fire.

Your flight landed on the fourth of July at about ten fifteen in the evening. It took about forty-five minutes to get from the Indianapolis International Airport back to Hawkins. You were buzzing. Seven words had given you all the hope you needed to push you back to the states. Every fibre of your being was alive with energy, with excitement. You couldn’t wait for your grandfather to park the car, you jumped out as soon as you were settled in the driveway.

“Don’t you want to go upstairs and unpack?” your grandmother called after you as you booked it down the driveway.

You turned back “No, I’ll be back later!” you called. Steve’s car wasn’t in the driveway but you figured if anyone was home they’d know where he was. You bounded up the stairs, ringing the doorbell twice.

Mrs. Harrington came to the door in her bathrobe. “Oh, hello there…” she trailed off, obviously unable to remember your name.

“Y/N, hi it’s nice to see you, do you know where Steve is?” you asked, bouncing from your heels to your toes.

Mrs. Harrington narrowed her eyes “He’s at his job I assume. At the mall.” She said slowly.

“What mall?” you demanded. Mrs. Harrington’s eyes blew wide open and you realized that you were probably coming off like an insane person. “Sorry, I’ve been out of the country for about a month.”

“It’s where the Hawkins Laboratories were, off East Wood Road.” She pointed out the door towards the roads. You knew instantly that the fastest way to get there was through the woods. You ran through the backyards of your neighbours and into the woods. You didn’t like the Hawkins forests. They were dark and dim and poorly maintained. The county hadn’t been out to cut down potentially problematic trees on the few hiking paths in the woods.  Burs caught your socks and twigs scratched your legs as you hopped logs to try to get there faster. They’d carved a road through the woods, you’d found it halfway to the mall, deserted and blocked off. You could see the bright orange flames from a mile away.

Your heart stopped dead in your chest. Steve was in there. You could cry.

Instead, you hopped the blockade, running down the road despite the calls of passing fire trucks and police. You didn’t care if they tried to arrest you, although you doubted that they could. It would be a waste of time to bother with you during an emergency.

The parking lot was filled with emergency vehicles. Massive streams of water were attacking the building. Luckily, it seemed the mall was closed, judging by the few people who were milling around not in uniforms. You sprinted into the crowd, looking around frantically.

Steve had been ushered into the back of an ambulance and draped in a bright orange emergency blanket. It wasn’t that cold but he felt as though he was freezing. The EMTs had checked his vitals and disinfected the wounds on his face and knees. As for the remaining drugs in his system, he chose not to mention them. He knew that the high would wear off eventually. Robin was sat next to him, equally bandaged up and silent, save an uncontrollable shiver. Wordlessly, Steve took the blanket off his shoulders and placed it over hers. He wasn’t that cold. Moreover, he just felt numb. He’d had this happen so many times; his face beat in, an otherworldly thing trying to destroy his life and hurt his family, a major building destroyed-it all felt familiar. It made him sick to his stomach to know that it was familiar. If he had anything left in his stomach he would’ve thrown up.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something running towards him. At first, he tensed. He didn’t know what it was and it could probably kill him. His heart stopped and then raced wildly. He held out an arm to protect Robin and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Steve!” you cried. He was in an ambulance. He was hurt. He was alive. You felt as if you could cry. In the span of fifteen minutes he’d gone from working to escaping a fiery building to missing in a fire to simply hurt. And hurt was just fine, you could handle hurt.

“Oh my god Steve, are you okay? Are you alright? I love you so much…”You grabbed his face, examining the bruises. You pulled him tightly to your chest, trying not to cry or freak out. You knew it wouldn’t help.

“I love you too…” he breathed into your ear, pulling you close to him. He recognized you by the smell of your hair, the feeling of your arms around him. He could cry. He didn’t believe you were real. But when you pulled away and his hand came to your face. You were real. And you were here. And he was safe. He was safe and alive. Feelings of relief rushed through his body. He wanted to cry, but the shock was too overwhelming for a tear to even drop.

“What’re you doing here?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper and hoarser than he’d ever felt it. “I thought you were still in Paris.”

“I came home early,” you chuckled, pressing a kiss to his jaw bone. “I didn’t get in.” That was the nicer version, the judges laughed at your final piece, they called it pedestrian. You should’ve been more upset, your mother was furious, but you couldn’t have cared less. You were free to go home. You could’ve thanked them for rejecting you.

Steve pulled away, looking you squarely in the eye. He wouldn’t have you give up on school to hang out with him in bum fuck Indiana. But you were telling the truth, it was written plainly all over your face. “Those bastards…” Steve murmured. You laughed, your eyes watery and throat thick. You were overwhelmed. You expected to come home and just see him in his element. You expected him to not necessarily want to see you. You didn’t expect a fire or Steve being injured or Steve to even be there at all. You pulled Steve back into your arms, you didn’t want to let go.

“I missed you so much…” you whispered. Steve’s arms came around your hips, pulling you in between his legs. He needed you here, to keep you in place for awhile.

“I missed you too…” he said, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of your head. “Did you get my letter?”

You looked up “Yeah I did…” you said “I wish I had written you, I tried so many times but I couldn’t find the words and-” Steve kissed you hard, stealing the words from his throat. He didn’t care if you didn’t write him back; this was the best thing he could’ve gotten from you. A letter wouldn’t do it justice.

You were lit up by his kiss. This is what you needed. No words could do the feelings he expressed in his kiss justice. You felt alive. You felt at home. Steve tried to pull away, but you pulled him back by his shirt, kissing him as if your life depended on it. Maybe it did. You couldn’t be sure anymore.

A loud clearing of one’s throat interrupted you and you pulled away to see Robin waving awkwardly. “Oh hey Buckley…” you muttered awkwardly. “How’s Samantha?”

“No clue, she never called me back.” The younger girl shrugged nonchalantly, hopping down from the ambulance deck. “I’ll catch ya later, Harrington.”

You turned your attention back to Steve, looking down at the material still in your fists. He looked ridiculous. “What the fuck are you wearing?” you asked with a laugh. Steve’s hands settled on your lower back, holding you in between his knees as if you’d run off if he didn’t.

“Oh this? This has been my whole summer.” He groaned “I’ve been captaining a boat on an ocean of flavours.” You couldn’t help but cackle, you had no idea what he was talking about but he seemed so serious.  

“And by that you mean?” you lifted the fake red neckerchief attached to his shirt, running the material between your thumb and forefinger.

“Ice cream store in the mall,” he pointed to the embroidered Scoops Ahoy logo on his breast.

“You’re kidding…” you shook your head as if to shake the idea out of your mind. Steve’s fingers trailed the raggedy edge of your sweatshirt. Well, his sweatshirt, his last name and basketball jersey number were embossed on the back; he could feel the textured design on your lower back.

“I like my sweater,” he chuckled, reaching up to adjust the length of the drawstrings on the hood. You looked away, a bit embarrassed.

“I didn’t mean to keep it I just…missed you,” You replied “You can have it back.”

“Nah, it suits you,” he smirked “Besides, I want my girl in my stuff, it’s cute.”

“Your girl?” you grinned giddily, elbowing him in the ribs. “Since when am I your girl?” You liked the idea of being Steve’s girl. It had a nice ring to it.

Steve smirked, squeezing your hips in his hands. “Oh come on baby, you’ve been my girl for awhile…”

“Oh really? Well, I wouldn’t know since you’ve never asked me…”

You heard a loud yell and turned to see a set of paramedics carrying a stretcher towards you and Steve. They were sprinting and bringing a badly burnt and unconscious Billy Hargrove towards the ambulance you sat on. You quickly moved out of the way. Steve grabbed your hand, allowing you to tug him from the ambulance’s deck.

You only got a brief look at the teenager, but it made your stomach churn violently. You felt ill. You felt Steve squeeze your hand. You turned to look at him and saw how hollow his eyes were. You wrapped your arm around his middle. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” you said, trying to stifle a yawn. You were exhausted from your flight and your run here and the trauma that had smacked you across the face.

Steve noticed anyway “Did you just get here?” he asked, lifting your chin.

“My flight landed at ten, I came to see you as soon as I could.”

“You should’ve gone home to rest, I wouldn’t have been mad at you.” You looked absolutely exhausted. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like.

“I missed you too much to not see you. And what if you had gotten hurt, if you hadn’t made it out then I would’ve never forgiven myself…”

Steve wrapped his arms tightly around you, shielding you from the scene, as more mangled people were brought out. The beast must’ve fallen apart once the brain was destroyed. It looked as though a bomb had gone off. Steve squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to leave, but he knew that the FBI would be called and he’d have to talk to them again. He wanted you to go home, but that didn’t seem like an option now.  Selfishly, he liked having you there, it was comforting to have you in his arms, squeezing him under his ribs and keeping him calm.

“I’m not gonna get hurt, I’m okay…we’re okay…” You nodded roughly against his chest. You felt as if you were burning up and freezing at the same time. You saw blinks of red flashing lights and sirens as one of the ambulances sped past. You were so thankful that he wasn’t on that ambulance.

“Yeah, I know, I’m not gonna let you out of my sight ever again.” Steve lifted up your chin, raising an eyebrow at you. “What? Last time I did you nearly died and for what? A shit job in the mall?”

“Well, not just for a job, I was helping Robin and a couple kids who were with us,” That wasn’t the whole story. Steve knew he’d have to tell you eventually about everything, but for now he was more than comfortable ignoring the looming problem beneath their feet.

“What a hero…” you giggled, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Something had been bothering Steve for awhile now and he determined now was the best time to tackle the subject. He turned away from you, folding his hands in his lap.

“Did you mean it when you said that you loved me?” he asked quietly. Truthfully, he wasn’t certain that you meant it. Or if he had even heard you correctly. After Nancy, he wasn’t sure if anyone actually loved him back. He’d given so much of his heart away only to have it tossed to the floor and tread upon like it was nothing more than a cigarette butt. He wasn’t sure if he could trust that you meant it.

You let out a small sigh through your nose, crossing your arms over your chest. You were a bit embarrassed. You were half hoping that he would forget about it. Your response brought all of Steve’s hopes crashing down. “Yeah, yeah I do,” you admitted, rubbing your arms, having suddenly gone cold. “I will admit, I hadn’t planned on saying that this early, feels a bit middle school to say that you love someone before they’re even your boyfriend.”

Steve turned to look at you once again, a bit surprised. Your face had gone red, adorably red, but still very red and your gaze had turned down to the asphalt at your feet. He reached out and took your hand, interlacing your fingers with his. “Good,” he said with a smile. You turned up to look at him; brow furrowed “I thought I had like imagined it.”

“Oh…no you’re good.” You said slowly. He looked like a little puppy dog, his whole face was radiating sunshine; it was almost hard to look at. It was harder to not match his energy, to get drunk off it. Then again, no one was stopping you from just enjoying the moment. You let out a small breath, not so much heavy with sadness or regret, but simply exhaustion. You let your head rest on his shoulder, smiling softly despite the scene in front of you. If it weren’t for the smouldering building and the emergency vehicles surrounding the pair of you, it would almost be romantic. The fact that you were even trying to find romance in the scene felt a bit silly, but maybe that was what this was supposed to feel like. Finding love in a burning building was a bit dramatic, it certainly not what you’d expected for your life, but you determined that no matter what you’d keep Steve safe. You had no idea what was going on at this scene, you had no idea what happened. But no matter how scared you were, you knew that Steve must’ve been even more scared. You knew that you couldn’t protect him, the same way that he couldn’t protect you, but maybe together you could keep each other safe for awhile.

“I love you too, you know,” Steve said quietly, his gaze trailed on the smoke of grey smoke coming up off the extinguished fire. The front of the mall had crumbled and the giant neon ‘Star-Court Mall’ sign shattered on the pavement. You hadn’t seen the mall before the fire, you didn’t know what it was supposed to look like, but a cavernous jagged mouth probably wasn’t the design goal. Still, you turned your attention to the side of Steve’s face. He couldn’t face you, the tips of his ears bright red underneath his flat, sweaty hair.

You swallowed hard “I know,” you say softly. Steve turned to look at you, examining your face with a nervous expression. You smiled and nodded reassuringly “I know.” Steve smiled and laced his fingers with yours. He squeezed your hand tightly in his and you squeezed his back, the feeling of his hand squeezing yours the only feeling left in your body beyond the giddy buzz. You didn’t know how any of this worked, you didn’t know if you were doing this right, if there was a right way to do it. The buzz under your skin was two parts anxiety and one part excitement. But you didn’t pull away. You were glued to his side.

“You know, I think that was one of the first normal conversations we’ve ever had,” Steve mused.

You scoffed loudly rolling your eyes “That was not normal.

Steve shook his head with a small laugh “Yeah, I know…”

[recentanimenews]

INTERVIEW: After 13 Years, Indie RPG Masterpiece Ruina is Finally Available in English

All screenshots of Ruina: Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins taken by author

  This article was made possible through the invaluable contributions of translators Dink and bool, and further aided by context generously provided by writer, translator, and RPG Maker scene dweller Kastel (@kastelwrites). Sections from their answers were excerpted for this piece and edited for clarity and content.

  Last year, at the start of the pandemic, a lapsed member of the RPG Maker community known as Dink stumbled across a screenshot while trawling Japanese free game websites: a black obelisk standing in the midst of ruins. “This is going to make me sound like I've been huffing paint, but this image spoke to something quite visceral for me — like I'd been waiting to find this game. Something about the sepia tones, the light and shadows, the elegance of its very archetype. I knew I had to play it.” Dink had stumbled across Ruina: Haitou no Monogatari (Fairy Tale of the Forgotten Ruins), one of the most acclaimed free RPGs ever made in Japan. Released in the antiquated RPG Maker 2000 engine in 2008 by developer Shoukichi Karekusa, it retains a strong cult following and has even been translated into Chinese. Yet unlike its RPG Maker siblings Yume Nikki and Ib, Ruina is practically unknown in English-speaking countries. Dink decided to change that.  “Once I realized that it had yet to be translated into English,” he said, “it was like I’d become possessed.”

  Ruina is unique. A role-playing game that takes direct influence from tabletop games and gamebooks, it boldly defies conventions established by classic console role-playing games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. Rather than controlling the main character across a top-down map, the player slowly uncovers a hand-illustrated map of nodes. Survival in the dungeon requires the use of ropes, pickaxes, and oil for your lantern, resources that are all expendable. Your party members are valuable not only for their combat skills but for their out-of-combat abilities: thieving, sneaking, even swimming. Most of all, Ruina allows for choice and consequence, a phenomenon far more common in western RPGs than Japanese RPGs. Say you stumble across treasure in a dungeon, but are ambushed by thieves who want the treasure for themselves. Do you give the treasure to the thieves? Stand your ground? Or attack the thieves before they can do the same to you? Since your ability to save in the dungeon is heavily rationed, you may find yourself having to choose between restarting a save or living with the messy outcomes of your choices.

    There’s something to Ruina that grounds it in the Japanese RPG tradition, rather than a straightforward riff on Wizardry or Might & Magic. Those earlier games gave you several choices as to building your party, but little in the way of story or character. Ruina is a far more curated experience. On starting the game, you’re offered four “backgrounds” that align you with certain other characters, just one year before Dragon Age: Origins would pull a similar trick. Rather than being given the full freedom to explore a sprawling world, your options are limited to navigating a single, contained dungeon. The characters available to be recruited into your party have defined personalities and quirks — some are already good friends of yours, others are insufferable, and still others have significant flaws that speak to the kind of person they are versus their gameplay function. These are NPCs out of the Baldur’s Gate school, given the illusion of life, rather than the team of personalized murderers you’d recruit in an Etrian Odyssey game.

  Very little else in the Japanese games scene is like Ruina. You could draw comparisons with games like Unlimited Saga and Scarlet Grace, representing the legacy of controversial SQUARE ENIX auteur Akitoshi Kawazu. You could similarly connect Ruina with Yasumi Matsuda’s experimental Crimson Shroud, which takes influence from tabletop to the point that it has the player rolling dice in-game. But Ruina is more accessible and polished than a Kawazu game, and far more fleshed out than Crimson Shroud. Even Etrian Odyssey, with its comparatively barebones story and characters, doesn’t quite compare. Ruina stands alone in the Japanese free games community, a legendary title that people respect but don’t fully understand how to replicate.

    A few days ago I reached out to Kastel, an academic, writer, and translator who is very familiar with Japan’s RPG Maker scene, about where Ruina fit in Japan’s wider field of indie games. “I know many people in the furige (free game) scene who love the game to death,” they said. “But they also found it to be a hard sell due to its unique, almost western take on the scene. The fact that the game is even this popular speaks to something.” Despite its crunchy mechanics and niche inspirations, the game is popular enough to have spawned light novels, an honor not unique to it (other RPG Maker games have accomplished the same) but certainly significant. Kastel drew a comparison between Ruina and Darkest Dungeon, another weird and uncompromising game that draws from both Japanese and western RPGs. “Ruina is sorta different from everything, but you also see dungeon crawlers get inspired by it,” they said. “Not all games take direct inspiration, but you can’t help but see a little bit of Ruina here and there.”

  So why did it take so long for anybody to translate Ruina? Dink isn’t the only person to try his hand at translating it into English; just last fall, another forum dweller placed an ad recruiting a translation team to tackle the game. The unfortunate reality is that translating text within the RPG Maker engine into English requires intensive and repetitive labor. “There’ve been tools developed by vgperson [a prominent translator of RPG Maker games] for RPG Maker 2000 and some other machine translation tools for newer games, but they all remain difficult to use for translators,” Kastel says. “The way games are scripted uses events inside the map and developers rarely name them. So not only do you need to edit it via the appropriate RPG Maker engine, but you also need to go through each event contextless unless the creator actually notes things down.” So, the enterprising Ruina translator doesn’t just need to translate all the text in the game into English. It isn’t even a question of whether or not to manually edit the game’s many pictures and custom menus into English by hand. It’s the sheer difficulty of navigating between thousands of (often poorly labeled) events and variables in the RPG Maker engine, ensuring not to introduce any new bugs or errors in the process, while also finding the time to do all of the above.

    Dink was assisted by a friend of his named bool, who played through the game alongside the translation process and gave invaluable advice and fixes. “Uncovering the mystery in the game's story sort of ran parallel with the translation of the game itself,” bool says. “As the story progressed, the characters would decipher and learn more about the lore of the eponymous ruins within the game, and as the translation progressed, the same held true for us. It really captivated me to be a part of this process, and I started to look forward to each new area that I could explore and each new morsel of the story I could understand.”

  Without bool’s efforts, it might have taken far longer to put together something workable. As it was, it took four exhausting months. “I worked long hours — 12+ hours a day, 6, sometimes 7 days a week on top of my day job — and very rarely used my free time on anything else,” Dink says. “I did manually input the text in RPG Maker 2000, which has raised some eyebrows because there are some very nice tools available for game translation that would have saved me a lot of time. However, a huge advantage of working directly in the editor is being able to see the game more or less as it appears to players. A Notepad file streamlines the basic translation process, but it also heavily obscures context, whereas the editor allows you to see what switches and variables are being used, what music is being played, and sometimes even helpful creator comments, all in the same relative order you'd experience it from within the game.” Dink had one more secret weapon up his sleeve: the experience of working with the RPG Maker engine as an adolescent. RPG Maker has a reputation of being a tool designed to churn out Dragon Quest clones with ease; but nobody knows the intense difficulty of forcing the engine to do something, anything, like a former RPG Maker developer does. 

    The English version of Ruina, as it currently exists, is a workable but inevitably compromised version of the game. Running the game requires installing the Japanese RTP pack of visual and audio resources for RPG Maker to function, along with the use of the EasyRPG player to provide English-language player name entry. There’s the matter of the custom menus, as well. Several of the menus have been replaced with functional English equivalents, but by Dink's own admission they could use an expert's attention to better compare to the original. Other pictures, such as place name displays, have yet to be replaced by English-language equivalents at all. And the strict character limits of RPG Maker 2000 led to some creative truncating when translating from Japanese to English, especially with item and skill descriptions.

  But the existence of an English-language Ruina, one that renders the whole game playable from beginning to end with a readable script, is a miracle. Speaking for myself, I started the long process of learning Japanese two years ago in part so that I could one day play this game, never expecting there might one day be an alternative. Others in the Japanese RPG Maker scene, knowing the brutal difficulty of translating a game made in the earlier engines, were shocked that a game of Ruina’s complexity and length was successfully translated at all.  Speaking for themselves, Dink and bool insist that their own story doesn’t matter much. What matters is the quality of the original game and the hard work developer Shoukichi Karekusa put into its creation. Anything else is an addendum, another version of the game that — while it cannot ever be the original — might at least make something resembling that original experience accessible to others.

    Frankly speaking, I think there’s something to that. The “true” version of Ruina will always exist in its original form, released for free by Karekusa in 2008. It stands as the defining work of a creator who sought to create a unique experience combining the appeal of console and tabletop roleplaying games, with no concessions to market sensibilities. A creator who not only released their baby on the internet for free, but insisted that a game like Ruina must always and ever be free. An austere monolith, it stands side by side with Yume Nikki, Ib, and even Cave Story as one of the great works to come out of Japan’s independent scene. Now any English speaker can pick up and play this new version of Ruina, and learn what that monolith is and where it leads to.

  You can download the English translation of Ruina here. For those who want to learn more about the Japanese RPG Maker scene, I recommend checking out Kastel’s page here.

  Are you a Ruina fan? Let us know in the comments! 

    Adam W is a Features Writer at Crunchyroll. When he is not working through exercises in Wanikani, he sporadically contributes with a loose group of friends to a blog called Isn't it Electrifying? You can find him on Twitter at:@wendeego

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a feature, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Adam Wescott

[mushykat]

been calling this the worms fic lol

I feel like I’m suffocating. I feel like every time I sit down to speak, little worms wiggle their way past my teeth and to my tongue. I feel like staring at a screen isn’t doing anything to silence you. I know what they think of me. What you think too. 

But why should I be a sympathizer to those who sit with heavy hearts. What good does pity do when I have more to worry about you. You fester and sit and rot like a spoiled squash in the back of the pantry. What good does it do to throw dirt to the writhing nightcrawlers hiding behind chapped lips. 

I know better than to listen. I know the sights and sounds of the fallen few are nothing but an illusion conjured up by nights long past. I know not to give in, but sleeping makes the headache of the waking world feel less sobering than it should. I understand as I sit here, letting bile rise and heartbeats sit unsteady. 

I understand what’s being said. I know the words falling to the ground, shattering like flakes of glass. What good would it do if I walked into the carnage that I sit through? Would they crunch under my bare feet like the first crystals of a new snow? Or would I walk on bloodied soles to the next bout of maggots. 

I can feel them under my skin. Sitting heavy like pebbles worked under the layers of fattened flesh, sticking against the supple meat below like cloves of garlic. What higher being would feel the need to let me rot away to skin and bones when I could stay plump like a tomato picked too late from the garden. Flipping over a fruit to watch the crop worms wriggling through the corruption they fueled. 

But am I the fruit? What sweet words tumble from the lips of a viper, sitting on a throne of warmth caused by the burning of a wrecked heart. Am I the mindless colony worms? Do I let myself scrounge around and drown myself in what’s long rotted away just for a semblance of joy in my fleeting life? Or perhaps the gardener, as I sit and stare into the torment of something I buried hours into. But how can one farm when only ashes fall from fingertips?

Maggots turn to flies. At what point will I shed the prisoner of rubber restriction for a new form? What good can being the fly be when only the wretched let me feed? Why do they only sing for a butterfly, whose poison is displayed as colors and light. Flies are much more plentiful. Maybe there's too many. They do swarm to the rot, making people face what they’ve done. 

What am I but a bloated corpse of a mindless deer, sitting at the edge of the road. Maggots make my stomach churn as the buzzing of flies in my ears makes my brain melt into nothing more than a slop of wet proteins that collapsed into themself. But even the deer was one to run and prance. Falling sweet to death’s gentle dance. 

What’s the point of sitting here? Do I listen to teachers? I listen and hear words that soon drop from my mind, like raindrops sunken with lead. Do I know what they teach? But do they know what they are to teach me? Letting my mind rot before I ever decided where to connect it seems to be my downfall. Letting little droplets of information slip past cold lips. The worm writhing on the back of my tongue won’t let me swallow. Is it my fault for letting them eat out my tongue like a parasite?

Do poetic allusions make me a poet? Do artistic scriptures make me an artist? Do creative writings make me creative? What are adjectives if they bounce off of my skin like hot coals, leaving nothing behind but a residual burn and the pitiful smear of soot against my skin. What makes a man? Is it what a man makes? What can I make if I can’t make myself a man?

I see them sometimes. Little shadows at the edge of my vision. I don’t give them the time of day. Tricks of the eyes dancing like worms on a barbed hook. I know that I’m probably imagining it. For what would be imagination if you could make them stop? Imagination is the only reality that can sit with me anymore. 

I slumber and yet wake into a dream. I drink water and yet sit and dry away. I eat and yet I feel so starved. What does this prison demand of me? Chemicals my brain won’t make shouldn’t control whether or not I get to have a day in the world of the living. Shambling as a corpse because I broke addictions that a younger body grew with. 

I know I should be thankful. I have much. I type on a computer of my own, I write on a phone of my own. I sit and fester in a room of my own. I sit in a house warmed by gas, fueled by money given away. Yet I open a window and let the night consume me as I sleep. The smell of the chilled air helped to quell whatever heat of the day that stabs into my skin like pins. 

Can I even complain about the pricking of pins laid in my own cactus patch? Can I worry about where I sleep when I’m the one to fill the sheets with needles? What is a needle but a tool of bloodletting? Syrup running down my fingers and clearing my mind and heart. And yet the burning also seems to cut the euphoria. 

What’s the point of cutting what I sit in when I can harm it in other ways? Bloated and heavy I can rot, like a waterlogged tree trunk sitting at the bottom of a bog. For what parasites burrow into my pores and eat away at me, I do not know. 

Will I read this? Will you? What are my words to one who doesn’t see the world through the shattered lenses I bestow over it. You don’t know what rattles around my skull, bouncing off and leaving nicks in the bone. Maybe the stinging in from the fragments sinking themselves deep into the mass of proteins and slime that controls this hunk of tissues and mold. 

I have the pictures sitting behind my eyes, dancing like reeds in a spring’s gentle breeze. Who am I to carve them out and splash them against a canvas like the crude oil they stem from. Why paint a picture out of slime when I could carve words out of broken bits of bone like sick little coins. What’s the point of words if the ones reading them don’t understand how they truly sit behind my skin. 

I try to draw them out, to show the world what sits heavy on my mind. Digging the stones out of my skull with blunt pencils and dull pens never seems to leave me satisfied, letting the memory of attempts rolling down like sticky tears crafted from discarded crimson. Does digging with nail bitten fingers do any better? I dig and tear, yet the only reward is marred flesh that stared back at me like a defiled corpse. 

I don’t know why I write. I don’t know why I’m sick. I don’t know why I’m mean. I don’t know why I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m sad. I don’t know why I’m mad. I don’t know why I sit and rot away while I watch the seeds buried around me burst from the soil like the sun blessing those above the horizon. Why do I let seeds dry away to a hunk of droughted dirt? What would watering do if only to prolonged the rate of which my negligence would hurt those around me. 

Do they know what I think of them? Spitting words as effortlessly as puppets marionetted by those who've seen the worst of man and walked through. Am I simply a puppet with strings cut? Why must I sit and replay the memories of those who hurt me behind my eyes. Why do I let them hurt me when I’ve suffered enough? Is it because my pity for my own downfall never burned the same as guilt of survival? 

Maybe I would be better if I drained my mind, and let the oils carrying the droplets of tears roll down the drain. Would emptying my stomach have the same effect? The weightlessness that follows the act of desecration of my own pride always seemed to clear my head. The burning of a stomach sitting on only old fears and whatever I couldn’t dig out with my bare hands. Maybe if I had longer fingers, I could pull the worms that slipped down my throat out. 

Are they even really parasites if I invite them to stay? Letting the cancerous venom sink into my flesh all because I thought it would quell the burning in my head. The cries of pain bashing against the inside of my mind. What did I do to deserve this self-made hell? Why do I let myself stay in a pit of embers and broiling maggots only to let the illusion of familiarity keep me on my ass? 

Maybe if I had been better, then I wouldn’t let myself earn the title of a broken husk. Am I really a husk if I’m not fully emptied? If I don’t allow myself to wither away, can I truly be more than a corpse walking with a broken mind. I let them in and I burned down the trees as my feet. Any disgust thrown at the steps of a false throne are nothing but my own. 

Why do I write? I try to let these words out on paper, to craft gentle shapes and divine figures to convey the emptiness that consumes my waking moments. I never find the right angles to convey the type of madness that plagues my existence. Why can’t I just silence them? Why does the screaming of those burrowed into my skull like plump bot flies only serve to fuel my apathy?

Maybe they’re right. I should empty my throat and hands of the oil keeping my rusted gear turning. But wouldn’t that be a waste of whatever fluids I let myself run off of? Testosterone isn’t cheap. Fighting to achieve a goal only to let the reality of it crumble around me like shattered terracotta does sound like me. Maybe if I could listen to the birds singing in the night, I wouldn’t let the rats in the walls whisper their sweet promises of endlessness hang over my heart. 

I stare at a screen, and let my eyes burn. Is it from the tears that refuse to fall? I sit at a screen and let myself pound away at a sheet of plastic set over a motherboard. Such complex code and mechanism to go into the vile sludge that I let fall past my lips. Anything held within is only allowed out once it’s festered enough to burn the nightcrawlers in my throat. 

Who do I write to? What goals do I hold? Why do I let these words leave me when it never sates the feeling of emptiness that hangs over me like a cloud of gnats. I can blink the bugs out of my eyes, and I can shut my mouth. But what is to stop the infectious little pets from crawling through my ears and directly into my mind. To die from suffocation and rot away. Everything else in my head rots. 

Is this how I want to live my life? Letting the sands of worn stone slip through my fingers as I hope to catch a shard? I don’t want to grow old. I don’t want to grow. Competing for light in the world of a dying sun sounds like something of insanity. But isn’t insanity all I have to make my claim? School isn’t enough for me to care. Skills and talents elude me. Communication is faulty. The only constant I have to sit with seems to be the maggots that like to chew holds in the veil I have hanging over my world. 

Who am I? Do I know the answer anymore? Am I a husk full of rotting mealworms digging away through the sawdust that sit heavy in my chest? Am I a corpse walking as the worms squeeze themselves between my bones as I shuffle towards my next objective? Am I a bloated log full of parasites and moss that can’t see through the muck blocking the lukewarm water I sit at the bottom of?

What could I possibly do to fix myself when I don’t know what’s broken? I’m not a doctor. They tell me falsehoods and deceitful lies meant to make me seem normal. Why is clinging to the decay of myself the only sure hood I have left to my name? Why am I broken? Others burn and beat and thirst to the brink of death. I’ve never known true fear except for that of which I’ve conjured to my own forefront. 

Is the fear true or is it another illusion meant to make the pity outweigh the disgust sitting heavy in my mind? Can I truly fix myself when I let myself believe the lies I whisper to myself in the dark of the night? Why do I let myself decay if I’m disgusted by the mold creeping over my skin. Why do I push them away if I’m upset when I end up alone with my thoughts? 

Do I have a future? Or did I ruin that, too?

[raleigh-ocean]

over my skin (where you left your own mark), part 3 | audrey tindall & dara ann lynch

words: 3,739

summary: series of drabbles about how Audrey got to know, one day at a time, little by little, one of the two women she wished to meet in every one of her lives. Part 3: when Audrey made Billie jealous; and also how Audrey started to act more like the advice giver than the receiver.

n/a: I strongly recommend reading ‘troubles of a learning heart’ before this one!

"I still can't wrap my head around how you manage to keep yourself in line," Audrey scratched her eyebrow a bit, looking at Billie in the kitchen from the couch. "It's beyond me, darling."

Billie's laughter sounded all over the apartment, lightening it up from its gloomy aura that autumn day. The medium had picked Audrey up from a meeting with her manager a few hours ago, bringing her over to the apartment just to spend time together since Dara was working a late shift in the shop. Audrey pouted again, resting her arms and chin better in the back of the couch so she could look at what was Billie doing in the kitchen.

Hoarding a plate full of brownies like some kind of gremlin was something very unlike of her, for anyone who knew the medium of the stars in like a street level basis, but she was doing it right now with like zero shame.

"My line of work has both perks and cons, I'm afraid," Audrey rolled her eyes hard upon noticing the tone in which Billie spoke, trying to sound a bit mighty with her mouth full of brownie. She swallowed, humming contently, and then shot Audrey the most perfect smile she could do. "But I think it's probably spinning twice a week what does the actual trick and-"

"Please, don't finish that sentence," warned Audrey, because she was like a million percent sure that Billie was going to say that sex helped her greatly as well. "I think you two have a problem at times."

"Do we now? Thought you enjoyed it as well, pumpkin," Billie laughed once again and Audrey felt herself blush to the root, cheeks and ears ablaze. It only got worse when the medium moaned a little upon munching on another brownie.

"Are they really that good?" Audrey felt necessary to change topic, coughing a bit, and trying to focus in the kettle that was over the stove. "Where did you buy them?"

"Nowhere, that's the best part," hummed Billie, retrieving cups from the cupboard and some milk from the fridge. "Dara bakes at times, she's really good at it, so I'm supplied of these delicious mortal chocolate bombs for a lifetime."

Audrey couldn't help but scratch her ear, feeling a bit out of place suddenly. There were many things about Billie's daily life that she was missing completely at times and those all were related to her actual girlfriend. Of course Audrey knew Dara was there, how not? A constant reminding her that she was actually the added one in the relationship, but hearing about those kind of simple tiny details wasn’t something she still got in her head easily.

It was weird, to be fair, because Dara could be eating her out one night but not get a wind of her in days if it wasn't because Billie mentioned her often...and that was as of now, in which Audrey thought their relationship was improving in someway. It all had going for the better after that morning in Audrey’s apartment, but they still had a long way ahead.

Audrey and Billie had been ‘together’ for a year and half as of now, while with Dara barely joined them half a year ago, so just imagine the whole thing.

"Well let me try them then," Audrey wanted to be courageous, trying something 'new' and having a new opportunity of interacting with Dara. She was pretty sure that complimenting her baking was another step to a good direction. "I don't have such a sweet tooth like you, but I'm willing to have my cheat day earlier if you say that they are so good."

Upon hearing that, Billie stopped her munching to look at Audrey, as if she grew another head all of a sudden, but she did walk towards her with the brownies' plate to let her have as many as she wanted. She wasn’t used to Audrey not being picky with everything she ate, so it was a surprise that she was indulging, a good one to be honest.

Until she heard Audrey’s moan.

It wasn’t something she didn’t heard before, but in that moment it was in a new light. One that made Billie’s stomach swirl and settle in a feeling she despised with her whole being, even if it was just a little.

“Well, so...where did you say Dara had her rings? I think I’ll give a jewelry downtown a call, because wow, if she’s down for it I’m marrying her right away,” Audrey’s laugh was soft after swallowing, trying to look at Billie. “How can she bake like some kind of God?”

From all the things that Audrey could expect, she didn’t expect to see such blank face in Billie. She was about to ask if there was something wrong but the next second Billie was taking the plate from her hands with a scowl on her face.

“Ha, ha, so funny,” Audrey was another million percent sure that Billie was about to pout at any second for some reason. “Find your own baker, miss Tindall.”

It only took Audrey what it took Billie to go back to the kitchen to actually know what was going on. And if she was being honest, it totally weirded her out that she managed to acknowledge that Billie was jealous.

Finishing the treat, Audrey left her friend room to clear her mind, just merely observing her going around the kitchen again to finish from fixing tea time. It also gave the actress time to think of some kind of action plan in case Billie was more annoyed than she thought. 

The next minutes, almost next hour, Audrey didn't add much verbally but left Billie be the one carrying the conversation. Having her talking about everything and nothing made the actress feel more at ease in some way, but still be worried sick because Billie always got like that when there was something else in her mind. Doing things that made her avoid altogether what was bugging her so deeply, a classic at this point that Audrey was getting a bit annoyed by.

She neither stopped Billie or suggested following her when she announced that she was taking a shower, only indulging a bit on the kiss before watching her walk away. Without knowing what else to do, Audrey decided to take the videogame controller from the coffee table and maybe keep playing that game Dara showed her - and in which she got really invested - was a good idea.

Billie looked at herself in the mirror after getting out of the shower, feeling how her stomach churned uncomfortably. 

Audrey didn’t deserve being the receiving end of all her frustrations, that was for sure, but the soft joke had hit her with an unexpected might. 

Three weeks had already passed since their vacations in Sacramento, the topic of everything that happened there not showing up at all nor close to, and Billie saw each day how Dara seemed to get a bit more lost in herself. She always had some magic way to separate every aspect of her life, but many times Billie had had to snap her out of a way too deep rant about work - when Dara herself was the one that always reminding her that work things were left at work after the clock ticked. Or even a few days in which Dara seemed out of touch with what was happening at the moment, making her to drop and hit things out of the blue, or worse: getting herself injured - Billie shivered with how she still had an oil burn she got a few days ago or when she hit herself in the head with the window by accident or all the tiny bruises in her legs from bumping into things.

All of that didn't help at all neither with trying to manage her own past discomfort and try to do something for her.

Billie sighed deeply, getting in her pajamas quickly, to spend some minutes in silence in her bedroom. She looked through her messages, trying to see if she got any important but the only one she got was from her assistant reminding her of something about tomorrow schedule. Tapping in Dara's chat, she looked at the few texts they exchanged that day and wondered how busy her girl was, taking in count she didn't respond to her last one. 

She really should stop from over worrying, Billie thought putting her phone down and rubbing her forehead a bit. Taking a peek to the living room, she saw how Audrey was really focused on the television, game controller tightly held in her hands and maybe a bit of a scowl.

Yeah, Audrey didn’t deserve her being mean for no reason.

If it wasn’t because Billie moved her legs to sit and leave them in her lap, Audrey wouldn’t have noticed her best friend coming back. The game was really fucking addicting, to be fair, and the music catchy which made a perfect combination to not think much.

She didn’t stop playing because Billie didn’t do or say something, so she only smiled at her sideways when the medium started to draw slow patterns in her legs with her thumbs. This was kind of a unexpected calm date, as far as Audrey could discern, but even when she kept playing the game she decided that she wanted Billie to speak her mind once and for all.

“Are you going to tell me whatever is burning your brain or are you going to just sit there brooding while I play?” she asked, thinking a bit the choices the game gave her.

It took Billie the incredible amount of ten minutes to finally answer, but she did it and Audrey felt herself to freeze on the spot.

“Do you think I am enough for Dara?” Audrey blinked, trying to discern if Billie really said that. “Sometimes I feel like I’m failing her, that she can do way more better than..me,” Billie rubbed her eyes a bit. “I don’t know Audrey, it’s weird, I feel bad.”

Pressing pause at the same time Billie sadly chuckled at admitting she was feeling bad because of those questions, Audrey looked at her in another light. It wasn’t that she didn’t notice before how Billie changed the moment she crossed the door of her home, but for someone she always saw so sure of herself...well, this was new and a bit scary.

“What made you think that, sweetheart?” she asked, taking one of Billie’s hands in hers, trying to run her thumb soothingly over her knuckles. 

She wasn’t ready for the flood that was Billie’s thoughts and words for the next twenty or so minutes, that was for sure. Everything that truly happened in their vacation, from when they landed in Sacramento to the moment they woke up that very same day. It made Audrey feel how her heart broke in a few pieces, listening to how unsure Billie was of everything in that moment. 

For a few seconds Audrey didn’t know what to say, how to give advice to Billie, and she wondered if her best friend was going to cry and let all that frustration out.

“You should have seen them Drey, they gravitate around each other and if he wasn’t with Dara’s sister, well,” Billie’s voice broke a bit and Audrey couldn’t help but bring her hand to her lips. That was Billie’s fatal flaw: the overthinking, it made her overlook many other details and go full beeline with everything and forgetting the rest. “So hearing you say that hit me like a fucking truck, you sure will swoop her off her feet and away easily.”

“I think Dara would slap the shit out of me if I ever suggest taking her away from you,” Audrey was really serious about that statement, looking at the controller with that unlike scenario in her head. “Did you hear her arguing with her sisters over the phone? Bloody hell, I bet she’s a feisty one.”

“Oh dear, she totally is,” hearing how Billie laughed for a bit was something good. “You should see them arguing face to face.”

“Next time Dahlia invite me over,” Audrey smiled with that, because after all, Dahlia still was her best friend and she was invited over a few times at some family gatherings. “But going back to the point...when Dara’s mom told you about them, did she tell you who left who?”

By the look in Billie’s eyes, her whole demeanor and obviously how she shook her head, Audrey knew Dara’s mother conveniently left that detail outside of the talk. She felt herself frown a bit and pulled Billie closer, kissing her temple tenderly, lingering softly to convey all that she couldn’t put in words. It was hard to give a good opinion, taking in count she only knew Billie’s side of the story, but she was about to do her best.

“Then you really should ask Dara about it, don’t you think?” Billie groaned at Audrey’s words. “Listen Billie, I know you two from not that long maybe, but I know how deeply you care for Dara and how much she loves you, how much you love her,” Audrey said those last words in a whisper because you should be blind to not see it yet at the same time she knew how much her best friend struggled with that point. “Do I think that sometimes you should be more forward with her, more vocal? Absolutely, but I don’t think you’re failing Dara. How long have you two been together, please do tell me.”

“Seven years.”

“Seven fucking years, you already surpassed anything she could have achieved with that guy and, as much I can see, you two are going forward,” how strange was to give her best friend and also her lover, for the time being, those words but she did it the same because it was what Billie needed to hear...or that she hoped. “Do you think Dara doesn’t know what’s best for her? If she decided you were that, the best for her, then why are you worrying? Wouldn’t she say something the second a doubt came to her head?”

Maybe Audrey shouldn’t have say that so promptly, because it made Billie to finally breakdown, but maybe she did have to say them to prompt that reaction. Let her go of those nasty feelings, she thought, because if Billie started to cry it was because it was needed. Billie wasn’t one to sob loudly - Audrey was that type of crybaby, being honest -, but her tiny whimpers were very heartbreaking. Audrey had to hold her own so Billie could take all the tears for herself.

She usually didn’t like to mingle with Billie and Dara’s relationship, mostly because she was the added one in this, but she had come to clash more with that side of Billie that Dara seemed to take and wrap with millions of bubble paper sheets so she didn’t explode. Maybe that was one of their main problems, as much as Audrey could have seen in the time they three together, but if it worked for them, who was she to snoop around? Only in times like those, which were pretty much rare, was that she suggested something to Billie or asked about.

Audrey thought sometimes Dara needed to be more forward as well with Billie, but this time it was Billie’s to take and do everything.

Letting Billie to cry to her heart content, Audrey tried to come up with something to tell Dara once she saw her girlfriend - again, Audrey refused to address both as anything different in her head, as much as she knew they never formalized their relationship - like that. She shivered a bit with the possibility of the other woman coming right in that moment, but it didn’t happen and for that she was grateful.

It wouldn’t be for another hour that Dara didn’t come home. Billie was fast asleep over Audrey’s chest while she decided to keep playing the game, not knowing what else she could do, when she overheard keys at the front door. The medium woke up in automatic, making Audrey to break her concentration and lose what she was doing, taking in count she was playing with the controller resting in Billie’s back.

“I think I’m sweating in places I’m not sure I should sweat,” Audrey saw Dara not looking at the living room, going for the kitchen immediately and a sleepy Billie trailing behind her like a lost puppy. “I hope you two are hungry, my cousin the super duper ultra chef gave me a recipe for a quiche that’s to die for and I’m going to cook the Hell out of that,” from her position in the couch, Audrey saw how Billie took the groceries bag from Dara’s arms and Dara thanked her a bit out of breath, her smile bright like the sun upon seeing how her partner was wrapping her arms around her middle after that. “How was the nap honey? Bet it was amazing, you can barely keep your eyes open.” 

Audrey smiled to herself when Billie replied to that with a mumble she couldn’t hear, the kiss the blonde gave her girlfriend as sweet and slow that for a moment they both only existed in the tiny kitchen.

If only Billie could see what she could, any doubt in her head would be erased from eternity. Billie said Dara and her ex seemed to gravitate around each other? That’s why she couldn’t see how she gravitated around Dara. How the whole apartment, all this time somewhat gloom even for a mild summer day, seemed to come alive the moment the woman with the cane entered; how Billie herself was more relaxed and the tears were long forgotten the second Dara circled her neck to keep kissing like in those old black and white movies.

How Dara seemed to just have all her focus in Billie because, for her, nothing else mattered.

“I’m starving, Billie only gave me tea for afternoon snack,” chided Audrey, going back to the game to fix the mess Billie left her with.

“Only tea?” it took Dara five minutes to reply, Audrey didn’t have to turn around to see how they were making out. “Bills.”

“She was mean,” Billie mumbled and Audrey overheard the soft smack of a new kiss. “Only tea it was.”

“Is that so, my love?” Audrey wanted to throw Billie a shoe if she didn’t catch the raw emotion behind the pet name. “It’s okay, I’m here to protect you from the big meany, but I need you two on table duty while I get out of this before going all crusader on both dinner and avenging.”

When Dara was out of view, Audrey finally turned around to see Billie. Billie was also looking at her, cheeks a bit blushed but not regretting a single thing. Ah, there she was again, thought Audrey standing up and doing as she was told, since her best friend decided to take out first the ingredients for dinner from the bag. They bumped into each other like kids, bickering a bit just like that, but this time Audrey did not go for a kiss like always.

She felt like today Billie wanted and needed every ounce of affection from the woman that was now walking towards them slowly, pulling up her hair into a ponytail and smiling at her girlfriend with the force of a thousand suns. 

Audrey didn’t add much after getting her task done, only sitting at the counter to watch Dara cook, Billie close to her as well and always touching her in some way. It also seemed that today she was going back home after dinner, she thought when Billie hugged Dara from behind and started kissing the back of her neck with care, tracing with her lips Dara’s tattoo just like that. She shook her head, giving Billie a teasing soft kick in her butt and Dara reminding both she was in front of a hot pan.

They needed each other too bad and Audrey simply didn’t have the heart to not let them.

So the best thing Audrey came up with was to go back to the game, for the third time in the day. She wasn’t of much use in the kitchen, anyway, so waiting in the couch didn’t sound half as bad and, if she was completely honest, she had discovered it was a nice spot for just observing.

A nice spot for watching two of the people she was so strongly attached to, which she loved in a way that not many could understand.

However she didn’t expect to overhear the private conversation the couple had while waiting for the ingredients to fry. It made her try to focus in the television, but it was of no use at this point.

“I’m sorry I’ve been acting weird these days,” the apology coming from Dara’s lips was not what Audrey expected to hear. “I know I’ve been worrying you, it’s just that...my head isn’t in a good place right now.”

“You don’t have to apologize Annie,” Billie sighed and Audrey was pretty sure she was hugging her tightly. “It’s not your fault or something.”

“Still, you don’t deserve be treated like this Bills,” Audrey tried to not be too loud pushing the buttons of the game controller. “I...look, you’re the most important thing I have, and I don’t want you to feel bad or something because I’m an asshole that can’t handle well her head.”

“I won’t let you call yourself an asshole, baby,” yeah, Billie, that’s it and a kiss to make it even more serious! “Not when you also aren’t feeling well...sometimes you don’t know how to handle your head, but maybe I can help with that...if you let me?”

Audrey couldn’t help herself, smiling as big as she could, when Dara seemed to agree partially with Billie’s proposal. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was a start, and that was very much a big step for them. As if they were keep building that beautiful bridge between them, little by little, and learning from each other at the same time.

It made the quiche taste even better and all.

[demaury]

You and me both (1/2)

Lucas gives him a look. He doesn’t want to say it aloud, and he doesn’t think he needs to either. There are, in fact, a whole bunch of reasons why the Demaurys could decide on not liking him, the most obvious involving weed, a houseboat and their son running naked in the streets.

OR; Lucas meets Eliott's family for the first time and spends his first family weekend in ages. (ao3 link)

SAMEDI, 9:45

“What if they don’t like me?”, Lucas blurts out on their way to the Gare-de-Lyon, and he automatically wants to crush his face against the closest newsstand.

There’s a fine line between being insecure as fuck and being the whiny mess that always complains about it, and most days, Lucas is able to swallow it down until it’s just a churn in the pit of his stomach. Keywords being, ‘most days’.

Eliott spares him a glance, discarding his phone for a while. His grey eyes narrow as his body shifts towards him. “Why on Earth wouldn’t they like you?”

Lucas gives him a look. He doesn’t want to say it aloud, and he doesn’t think he needs to either. There are, in fact, a whole bunch of reasons why the Demaurys could decide on not liking him, the most obvious involving weed, a houseboat and their son running naked in the streets. Thing is, he knows that introducing him to his parents has been on Eliott’s mind for a while now, and- well, they’ve been together for a couple of months now, so it’s only logical for them to take that next step. Except that logic has nothing to do with one’s goddamn insecurities — that’s precisely why they can’t be treated with paracetamol and a gulp of water.

Eliott lets out a small sigh, and pulls him into a hug, wrapping his long arms around his shoulders and resting his chin on top of his head. “I know it’s hard but one day you’ll realize that people not liking you isn’t a default mode.”

Lucas snorts, but right now his face is pressed against Eliott’s collarbones and every single one of his senses is overwhelmed by a wave of Eliott. Thank God no one they know is around, or they’d never let him get away with that — the last time Eliott mentioned that Lucas started crying at the bus stop, everyone became extra obnoxious about it and making stupid jokes about him being a duckling or a baby koala, depending on the day.

“C’mon,” Eliott says, freeing him from the embrace, but cupping his face long enough to peck him on the lips, “time to go.”

Eliott picks up the Adidas travel bag he had set down at his feet, when they had first stopped to check on the time and their platform (seconds before Lucas opened his stupid mouth and made a fool of himself), and reaches to grab his hand. Lucas finds himself smiling, a bit shyly, as they start striding through the crowd. They don’t really hold hands that often, generally Eliott flings an arm around his shoulders and they roll with it, but there’s something both extremely intimate and casual about his boyfriend tangling their fingers together — something that makes him feel warm and protected.

The Gare-de-Lyon is packed with people taking off for the weekend, but they manage to make it on time, and to find a compartment that is as close from quiet as they can hope for. They’ve been sitting for five minutes when Eliott flips his sketchbook open and starts drawing, while Lucas fishes in his backpack to find his earbuds and play some music. Their train ride to Reims isn’t long, about two hours, and in the meantime, Lucas makes a point of remembering the things he knows about the Demaurys without freaking out at the thought of them being, technically, his in-laws — there’s something so adult and mature in these tiny words that make Lucas want to remind everyone he’s just 17.

The family had lived in Paris for most of Eliott’s life, but his father, who had been teaching History at the University of Reims for over a decade, suggested that the family moved there after Eliott had failed to take the BAC. “They thought a change of scenery would be ‘good for me’,” Eliott had explained once, mimicking the quotation marks, then he added: “They had just found out what was wrong with me, so of course after that they wanted to baby-proof everything. We stayed in Reims for the whole summer, Lucille was gone for a family trip abroad, my friends rather wanted me far than close, so… yeah, having my parents bugging me all day long kind of- fucked me up, I guess. They sent me back to Paris the following September and you know the rest.”

Lifting his head off the headrest, Lucas turns to Eliott, suddenly haunted by a thought that just crossed his mind. “What’s your sister’s boyfriend like?”

Eliott glances up from his sketchbook, his back resting against the window of their carriage. As usual, it takes a second for him to leave the little space his mind has gone wandering while drawing, then he shrugs. “Thomas? He’s okay, I guess. We don’t exactly hang out together, you know, because we’re in Paris and there’s this shit-ton of kilometers between us and them, but yeah, if Clémence likes him I think he must be decent on a daily basis.”

That’s so very comforting, Lucas cringes internally. Eliott isn’t really the most observant one when he doesn’t feel like he needs to be (details are overwhelming at times), so it can mean everything and its contrary at this point. He startles when Eliott pokes him on the cheek with his pencil.

“Don’t overthink everything, it’s going to be fine,” he says, grinning. “They’ve asked plenty of stuff about you, and I already told my dad to back off because History isn’t your thing.”

Lucas’ eyes widen in horror. “You’ve told him that I don’t give a fuck about the one thing he cares about the most?” Fuck he’s screwed, he’s not going to make it through the weekend. He wonders briefly what would be the penalty for trying to stop the train, but he guesses reluctantly that it’s probably not worth the shot anyway.

“Lulu, unless you’re saying that the Man in the Iron Mask was either Fouquet or Louis XIV’s twin brother, I very much doubt that it’s going to be enough for my dad to hate you,” Eliott adds nonchalantly, the faint sound of his pencil scrapping against the page of his sketchbook returning. Lucas blinks, and his fingers are already unlocking his phone and nervously typing away when Eliott glances up, eyebrows shooting up. “Oh my god, stop! You don’t have to go all Wikipedia now!”

“But what if it comes up somehow?”

Eliott laughs incredulously. “You seriously think it ever came up with Thomas ‘I work in retail for Kaporal’ Goncet?”

Okay, it seems fair enough to him, and Lucas locks his phone again. “If it does come up, it’s on you,” he threatens, eyeing him warily.

Eliott snorts and leans forward, tucking his sketchbook between his chest and his legs to kiss him on the cheek. He’s right, he shouldn’t be freaking out so much, and that’s a bit annoying, if Lucas is being honest. He just can’t help it, that horrible thought that keeps bubbling in his chest. He’s broke. He’s not able to take care of Eliott. He’s not on speaking terms with his dad, just barely starts making up with his mom, he’s younger and he’s a fucking boy.

It seems like Eliott is sensing that whatever he can say won’t do it, so he just spins around onto his seat, finally sitting correctly, and wordlessly claims one of his earbuds. Lucas’ head finds its natural place onto Eliott’s shoulder, and his boyfriend waits for a total of three songs before fussing to choose the next one, which Lucas allows with a fond eye-roll.

*

SAMEDI, 12:32

It’s not until after spotting Clémence Demaury and her mom waiting for them at the train station that Lucas realizes how relieved he is that Eliott doesn’t have a bunch of younger siblings.

Don’t get him wrong, kids are fine. But as an only child without many family ties (his mom’s an only child as well and his dad isn’t on speaking terms with his only brother), the closest he’s been from a kid in recent years is Yann’s younger sister (who’s old enough to punch him in the face for even stating she’s a child), and the family of three living two floors away from the flat share.

In short? Children are not exactly his forte, and if you ask him, they are mildly intimidating.

The first interaction with the two women doesn’t go so bad, mostly because they are busy hugging his boyfriend to death for the first five minutes or so.

“Can you- Can you not do that?” Eliott mumbles, trying to get away from his sister’s grip.

“I haven’t seen you in forever, that’s basically my birthright,” Clémence fires back, unapologetic to the last degree as she squeezes her brother even more.

Eliott gives Lucas a pleading glance that makes him chuckle, and instantly there are two more sets of grey eyes drawn on him. He doesn’t really know what Eliott’s dad looks like, but there are already a lot of things Clémence and Eliott have in common that Lucas can track back to their mom, starting with the hair and the eyes. It feels strangely overwhelming, because he’s never really paid much attention to that sort of thing before, but now he just can’t unsee it.

“Lucas, right? I’m Clémence, it’s nice to meet you,” Clémence says with a polite smile. It’s not one of those big-ass grins that make the Demaurys’ eyes crinkling, but right now he welcomes everything that doesn’t involve being yelled at or glanced over as a victory (self-esteem who?).

“Nice to meet you too,” he replies.

Eliott’s mom eyes him a split-second too long — long enough for his heartbeat to start picking up. “Caroline. Nice to meet you.” And without transition she turns to Eliott, her gaze softening before Lucas even has the time to blink. “I was worried you’d get delayed, I’m glad you made it in time sweetie.”

“Let’s get home, I’m starving and Dad will want to hear about the details anyway,” Clémence chimes in.

Oh fuck, that’s just the first half, Lucas thinks, barely holding back a groan. Eliott slings an arm around his shoulders, startling him slightly, and beams at him as they’re heading out for the parking lot.

The trip to the Demaurys’ sees Caroline and her daughter bicker about a variety of things, which allows Eliott and him to talk a little between themselves at the back. It’s the first time he’s finding himself in Reims (the first time in a while he’s leaving Paris at all, to be completely honest), so he just takes some time to glance through the window every now and then to ease himself a bit. Eliott draws soft patterns onto his knee in the meantime, and that’s almost enough to make him forget it’s just the beginning of a very long weekend of basically watching himself and behaving.

Eliott’s parents’ house is located about twenty minutes away from the city, in a quiet neighborhood that doesn’t spark much at first glance; the two-story house itself is rather big and modern-looking, with slate rooftops, white walls and sharp edges. When they climb off the car, a beagle welcomes them, bouncing and enthusiastically yapping.

“Maia, come here,” Clémence calls out, tapping at her lap, and immediately the dog hurries to her side. She pets her a little, then she follows her mother inside, Lucas and Eliott trailing just behind, up the pathway to the front door.

The first thing that shocks Lucas once he steps inside is the nice smell, which, along with the pleasant warmth of the house, hits him in the face in the best kind of way. The entrance is facing the kitchen from across the hall, with the living-room on the left side and a staircase leading up to the upper floor directly to their right. There are a couple of pictures framed on the walls, on the way to the kitchen, or set on display on a console in the main entrance, and Lucas is sure he can spot Eliott on several of them, but he doesn’t dare to take a close look since everyone is already flocking in the kitchen.

As it turns out, Eliott’s mom well and truly seems to be the scariest parent of the two, because when he’s introduced to his boyfriend’s dad, he finds a smiling man in his fifties busy preparing lunch, and who apologies profusely because he needs to wash his hands before greeting him properly. The table is already set in the living-room, and the four of them sit down while Clémence is gone searching for her boyfriend Thomas.

“What is he even doing in the garage?” Caroline asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“He said he had to check something on Clémence’s car,” her husband, Olivier, supplies as he takes a seat next to her at the end of the table. So far, the only things Lucas can pinpoint in him that belongs to Eliott are probably the cheekbones and the sharp jawline, but it’s not like he’s spending his time staring either.

“Let’s hope he’s better with fixing cars than fixing a clogged bathtub,” she mutters. “Did we receive the papers from the insurance already?”

“I don’t think we should be expecting them until next week at best.”

Lucas can’t help himself and his eyes fly immediately to Eliott, who stares at his mother in return. “Mom, don’t start now, Thomas is fine.”

She smiles at him, and it doesn’t take much for Lucas to realize it’s her very special ‘Eliott’ smile. “Of course he is. But let’s be honest, it’s not like Clémence is going to spend the rest of her life with him.”

Lucas’ hands tighten on the edge of the table. What the fuck is he doing here? He doesn’t even know if he should cry or laugh at the situation right now. Cry, probably. Because if Caroline doesn’t really bet on her daughter’s long-term relationship to work out when both she and her boyfriend are fairly close from adulthood, how on Earth would she bet on him?

She’s totally going to chew him and spit him out in a two-day span of time.

“Caro, they move in together in three months, get over it,” Olivier sighs, handing her the bread basket.

She seems about to argue when the door leading to the garage opens on Clémence, a tall guy with dark hair and a grey button-down following close-behind. His faded jeans are hanging low on his hips, probably lower than Caroline and Olivier like it on their son-in-law, and maybe it’s this tiny detail, or the massive GUESS stamped on his belt, or the way his hair is styled, but all of a sudden Lucas has no trouble at all to picture him in a Kaporal store.

His face breaks into a grin when his eyes trail on Lucas. “Oh, hey. I’m Thomas,” he says, holding out his hand.

Lucas stands up, careful not to make a mess between his chair and the carpet on the floor. He smiles back, shaking his hand a bit awkwardly. “Lucas,” he offers a bit uselessly. He’s spent less than an hour with the Demaurys but somehow it’s not that hard to think he’s been the hot topic for quite a while. For better or for worse.

“What were you talking about?” Clémence inquires, visibly suspicious, as she takes her seat next to Lucas, and Thomas places himself between his girlfriend and Olivier.

Eliott picks up a piece of bread from the basket and he hands it to Lucas. “The train ride. Boring.”

The lie rolls off so smoothly that Lucas can’t help but find it a bit hot. Clémence hums in response. “At least you got here in time. Last time my train got delayed for four hours.”

“And that’s why we ended up driving for four hours to get here this time,” Thomas snarls.

Olivier passes around the crudités. “You should get your driving license too, Eli. The SNCF never stops failing, it could come in handy someday.”

Eliott shrugs. “There’s still the subway. And the bus. I don’t know what I’d do with a car.” And then he smiles, looking at Lucas who suddenly feels like his cheeks are heating faster than they should. “And I wouldn’t have met Lucas otherwise.”

Lucas knew it would suck to be at the other end of the table but he’s still unpleasantly surprised to feel so awkward under everyone’s glance when they all focus on him. He clears his throat. “We-uh, we met at a bus stop. After- uh, after school,” he explains, trying to keep his voice in check.

Eliott probably did it on purpose, judging by his bright grin that has nothing to do with the topic of the conversation.

“Oh, that’s sweet. So you didn’t know each other at all?” Clémence asks while she fills her plate.

“No,” Lucas answers honestly. “At least I didn’t, but apparently Eliott’s got some great stalker skills.”

Take that, he thinks, shooting a grin to Eliott. There’s something that glints into his boyfriend’s grey eyes and it makes his heart beat faster. “I bumped into him the moment I walked in, in January,” Eliott says nonchalantly, “I just kept an eye on him until we found ourselves together, is all. Besides, you came to talk to me.”

Lucas snorts, and immediately he swallows back his smile when he remembers where he is.

Thomas frowns. “Weren’t you still with Lucille back in January?”

The smile on Lucas’ face vanishes for good and it’s stupid, really, because it’s not like he never thought she wouldn’t be brought up at any point, ever. She’d been dating Eliott for the past four years, so of course it’s only natural that-

Fuck that, he just wants to crawl into a hole. The worst part? He can distinctively feel that his mind is torn between guilt at the thought of having taken Lucille’s spot in a family that apparently liked her very much, and being completely aware that Lucille wasn’t the right person for Eliott.

“It was complicated,” Eliott mumbles. “Too complicated if you ask me. Everything’s much simpler with Lucas.”

“And that’s what should matter in the end,” Olivier intervenes. There’s a second of silence, then he smiles at Lucas, gesturing at the plate Clémence had set between them at some point when they were talking. “Lucas? Will you take some?”

*

SAMEDI, 14:37

After lunch, he’s dragged along with Eliott in a very long, very tiring, and very intense shopping session in a shopping area nearby, which gives him massive war flashbacks from his childhood. He’s spent tons of afternoons like this, trailing behind his mom, occasionally whining because he was tired and wanted to go home while she kept filling shopping cart after shopping cart.

“Can’t we stay here?” Eliott asks after Caroline knocks on the door of his bedroom, literally five minutes after they got inside, to give them a heads up on the program.

“Honey, we barely ever get to see you. It’s going to be fun, you’ll see,” Caroline replies, and so Eliott caves in.

Since they can’t fit everyone in one car, Eliott and Lucas go with Clémence and Thomas, thus allowing him to catch a bit of a break.

As it turns out, shopping with his boyfriend instead of his parents is a bit more fun than he expected. It’s not the first time he’s going out with Eliott (aside from the occasional raid to the closest FNAC store every now and then, his boyfriend would sometimes drag him through all of his favorite record stores and Lucas would just watch Eliott rummage through them for hours without ever getting bored), but this time feels different, for some reason. They spend most of their time sharing jokes and decorating ideas while the whole family walks through IKEA.

“That kid is definitely called Stella,” Eliott says at one point when they walk by the nursery section, briefly stopping in front of a small area decorated with shades of pink and green. There are flowers laced together framing a round-shaped mirror, and plushy blankets in the white crib. “She lives with her single mom and her two aunts are always around to dote on her.”

Lucas quirks a brow, laughing. “Alright. What about this one?”

The following area is designed for a toddler, with a small bed instead of a crib and a tipi spilling toys on the floor in the corner. The various pieces of furniture are made of a light-colored wood that vaguely reminds him of bamboo. Eliott gives it a thought. “Esteban,” he says. “He’s been diagnosed with ADHD and his parents are always trying to follow him through all his activities even if they’re dying to get a quiet afternoon.”

Lucas huffs a laugh. “Okay, let me try.” Eliott gestures as if to say ‘be my guest’, and Lucas gets a look at the next one. The walls are painted light-grey, with wooden letters spelling the name Lola on one of them and a white crib in the center. The large carpet is white with small baby foxes playing. “Well, she’s called Lola-”

“You must be tired already,” Eliott snickers and Lucas elbows him in the ribs.

“-and her parents have a dog that she’s constantly petting. She’s got those extra-expressive eyes and she’s always laughing.” He turns his head to the side and Eliott grins at him. “It’s not that hard.”

His boyfriend pulls him closer. “You forgot the most important part though.”

Lucas cranes his neck up. “Which is?”

“She’s got two daddies.” Eliott winks at him and Lucas flushes while he’s already sauntering away, tugging at his hand as he does so.

After IKEA, Clémence and Caroline head for another furniture store but Lucas and Eliott decline to follow, opting to wander around on their own instead. They stop by at Subway to grab a drink and settle on a bench outside, which is probably not the best option regarding the temperature, as Lucas quickly realizes. “Are you cold? We can go back inside,” Eliott suggests when he sees him shiver a bit.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Lucas waves. Eliott slides a bit closer and wraps his arms around him, which makes him feel warm but for another, much sappier reason than mere body temperature. He doesn’t mind people looking at them anymore — it barely ever gets to him now. He’s just happy with how things are, and he doesn’t think he could ask for more than that.

“Sorry about my parents, they’re a bit overwhelming. They like to do tons of stuff like this,” Eliott says. “I guess they forgot I can’t always deal with it.”

Lucas turns around in his arms, worried. “Are you okay?”

Eliott tilts his head to the side. “Oh, yeah.” Then he smiles, cupping his face. “Yeah, it’s fine.” He pecks him on the lips, once, twice, before Lucas goes for a longer kiss.  

Eliott’s dad texts him not long after to agree on a gathering point, and they head to the spot, where the Demaurys suggest that they should have dinner at a restaurant, which makes Clémence snickers as soon as they climb in the car. “Mom can’t cook to save her life, be grateful Lucas.”

“I already got food poisoning from one member of the Demaury family,” he snorts as Thomas maneuvers through the parking lot, “but thanks for the tip.”

Clémence turns onto her seat. “Eli, what the hell did you do?”

“Why are you throwing me under the bus?” Eliott complains and Lucas tugs on his arm to kiss him on the cheek. “I made it with love.”

“I’m just kidding. And your eggs are great, generally.”

Eliott snorts.

“Still better than mom,” Clémence observes. “Once she put eggs in the microwave, it felt like we were reenacting that scene from the Gremlins movie. Luckily we had dad growing up. Not sure we would have made it otherwise.”

[ikonislife]

Same Moon.

-Bobby x Reader

-Angst, fluff, rekindled relationship, ex to lovers, Bobby’s birthday scenario

-Life torn your love apart but when it once more brings you back to where it had all started, will you and him survive the tumultuous ride?

The soft rustling of leaves being shed into the slight chill of an autumn night paves the way for his lonely footstep pattering down the desolated street. Dirty yellow streetlamp frizzing scaring a few bugs looking for a bit of warmth, blind by their desire to sooth an addiction that no doubt drawing close their demise much faster than the natural cycle of life would. What if that’s all human is, just bugs flying in the night, drawn to things in life that bring pleasure but, in the end, spelling out certain pain. Yet there’s no helping this calling, this, this strange addiction to feel loved even if at the end of a cold lonely night, it brings nothing but searing pain for days to come… And certainly, aching memories for years. As Bobby gazes upon the full moon casting its wisps of silver down upon the city that long forgotten about its wondrous healing light, abandoned for temporary high in the explosion of colorful neon lights and the pollution it brings, he finds himself solemn. It’s the same beautiful bright orb that occupies the sky no matter inkiness or clear blue. No matter the existent of the clouds that shy its beauty away from the world that couldn’t much care less for it has not for its detrimental effects on the tides and, well, that’s a topic he could spend all night speaking on but alas, irrelevant. What is within the realm of all things matter dearly to his heart, this is the same moon as it always had been in his short time on Earth. The same one he first took a breath of that disinfectant filled fresh air of the hospital, of his first kiss, his first fuck… the first time he caught the glimmers in your eyes despite the ass hour of the night across the crowded platform of Shibuya station. 

It was unknown really, why he suddenly felt the need to abandon a game he nearly bested and instead looked up, staring straight ahead at the platform across the metal rails. Bobby didn’t know why this night he had chosen to care about the storyline of someone else. He had learned to be impervious of the strives in the life streams possessed by the thousands other souls existing at the same time in the same space. He had enough on his own plate, why on Earth would he be bother with someone else’s life. Yet that night, he couldn’t help but be curious, to look up, to take a small peek into what was going on across the track, letting himself immerse in this deep philosophical conscious that to every face he sees, a complicated lifetime is attached. Were they also going through the many debacles of life despite the smile on their lips or are they truly happy? He stared into your eyes and saw what he could only described as an out of body experience. Like a ghost floating alongside your small steps and soft hum (he assumed you like to hum in the slow of life, you just seemed like the kind of girl that could carry a tune), Bobby imagined your mundane life playing out, every decision, everything that consequently lead to you standing right within his view. Like morn to any dream, the clicking of the approaching train conceal you away in the rush of the world existing outside of his little bubble. You were gone. He regretted it, in the five minutes he had stared at you like the creep he was, his feet would’ve carried him over the small pass connection the two side and right by your side. Yet instead he stared, like a dumbass, probably scaring you off but that little pout on your lips was too mesmerizing for his logical side to break the spell. When, how, where would he even find you again in this city of millions, not even accounting for the tourists just like himself. Were you also a tourist? Looking for a little break in your daily routine? The image of your (hair color) locks flowing in the gust of wind intensified by the ghastly sound of wheels grinding against metal track haunted his daydream until he could no longer remained still. So, he wandered. Where? A real plan of action was only something of a myth at this point, but Bobby had to do something. He went back to the infamous sea of the Shibuya crossing… Thousands of people passed by nearly every hour, what better place to start. Then it was the station, dozen times it must’ve been that he just stood there in the same spot you had been, hoping to see the familiar pout. What kind of place would a girl like yourself frequent, clothing store? cafe? park? Bobby tried his best but, in the end, his short vacation ended much too quickly, and the thrashing wave of reality wasn’t one he could stop. Yet life has a strange way of sharing a bit of its kindness on those who persevered for exactly 2 months later on a night much like the fateful one, you were humming a strange tune unfamiliar to his ears not even a few feet away. He thought you looked familiar at first, those soft tousles curiously gave him the worst case of nostalgia despite bearing no resemblance at all to any name he had committed to memory. A hot summer night and the wait for the much needed relieved of a delectable ice cream cone lit a fire in his stomach, antsy and not much patient had. He tapped his foot in place, click his tongue, and must’ve sighed about 4 times before you turned his way, soft whispers filled the night. “Not a waiting kind of dude, are you?” “Normally, yes. Tonight, debatable.” He normally hated small talk. What’s the point of them really? Nonsense to fill the dead air and awkward space, no value to anything being said nor is it important enough to commit to memory. Yet whatever grandeur life had in store for him that night made Bobby answered, he felt compelled to reply then only to feel his tongue go numb from the sight of that little pout. “Well quit being a grump. If you were a kid, wouldn’t you want to carefully pick the best flavor of ice cream to enjoy? Let the boy have his moment.” Gesturing at the boy who couldn’t be more than 6, tiptoeing despite having full view of the giant display of colorful treats, you swung your body with all the oomph you could in the small space of the line. Then you paused… So did he. For a moment, he could hear the wheel churning in your brain, eyebrows raised so high as if your senses recognized him just the way he did you. “AAHHH!” You suddenly exclaimed, drawing ire from the few customers behind Bobby. Panic engulfed his body; did you think he was a creep? “You! weird dude stared at me for like a billion years in Japan. You’re even wearing the same outfit!” “oh. Well, it’s a different white shirt if that makes a different… Probably not…” Bobby sighed in defeat, of course, now he was just a creepy person in your eyes. No way in hell now would you give him a chance. “Of course, I saw. I feared for my life for a bit there.” Or maybe not, your smile, much cuter than the pout he had been hung up on for all this time. “I-I have no excuse. I’m sorry.” “Well, at first I thought I was gonna get kidnap and sold off… but then you looked a bit… how do I say this without making it weird.” You mused, and he thought of a puppy hearing the TV for the first time, head tilt, adorable gaze and all. “I’m sure whatever you got in mind will be fine, this whole situation is already weird.” “You looked sort of… like a kid staring at his favorite meal. Goofy, cute even but at the same time sort of desperate.” He stood there staring in awe at the way your laugher chasing away the stickiness of summer, washing the slick layer of sweat right of his smooth tan skin with its freshness. Yet with each passing second, the pout that had plagued his dream slowly flooding back onto the cherry red lips he so desperately trying to ogle at. “Do you just like to stare, or do I look … odd?” “Y-yes” “Yes? What?” The way your eyes widen in panic was too much for him to handle, and it nearly, nearly made him lost track of the fact that he had just accidentally insulted you. “NO! NO! I mean…Yes, but not like that.” “Huh? Wait so do I look weird or not?” A long-winded sigh ripping away from his chapped lips, bunny teeth mauling at the frayed skin with all the viciousness of frustration rising high. “I’m not very good at this if, if you haven’t figured it out by now.” “I kind of got the hint.” You spoke so gently, almost teasing, which under any other circumstances he’d have flipped. Yet at the moment he was glad it was amusing you in some way that Bobby was such a flustering mess. Just the fact that his total embarrassment of a creep could serve to lighten your mood in turn put him at ease. “You’re, you’re fine. I’m a mess.” Shuffling awkwardly, Bobby was now one person closer to the sweet taste of a refreshing cone of ice cream, but he no longer cared. “I’m Bobby. Can I buy your ice cream to apologize?” Who would think a piece of memory so fresh in his mind was one of nearly 10 years ago… 10 wonderful years of joy and heartbreak, of memories warming to the heart yet simultaneously searing every bit of his skin with hot pain. Time with you was truly a journey. You both grew so much and matured with each tick of the clock, carving out a little niche of your own in this busy world and although not big, it was nice enough to settled into, for him to see a future with you. He had thought this was it, the relationship to end his life as a bachelor, the one that will seal away his parents worry of him living much too far away for their love to reach, to banish the fear of just how lonely he might be despite that bunny smile and his strange endearing chuckle doing their best to convince them otherwise. In the end it was a fairytale that was too good to be true. He got a taste of heaven, a little piece of paradise and even if life wasn’t always peaches and cream, deep down he always knew it would all be alright for as long as you both got each other. Then the news of your promotion came crashing down like that first raindrop amidst a beautiful sunny day. It was small, unexpected of course, and neither of you really truly grasped the impact to follow that tiny raindrop just as anyone would brush off the chance of rain on a sunny clear day. No one was happier for your success than Bobby knowing just how hard you worked, how much hours you grinded out, and the toll all those late nights took. He too knew what a promotion meant but who was he to put a dampen towel on your joy of reaping the reward from a long awaited and well-deserved climb in the vicious ladder of business. So, he rewarded you the only way he knew how, pampering and spoiling you for days on end… Well, four days to be exact because that was about the only amount of time off either of you could get approved. You were very much happy, pure adrenaline coursing through your veins blinded you from truly understanding what this all meant but Bobby didn’t mind. In fact, he really loved how pure you are with your emotions and everything in life but deep down, just the tiniest part of himself wallows in sadness and resentment. How could you not see the suffering he was going through despite the bright smile plastered across his lips. In no way was his happiness insincere, but at the end of it all, “we” and “us” was soon to be just “you” and “I”. In the end, he just wanted a simple life without the deadline of an imminent ending hanging over his heart. Sneakers squeaking to a stop, the charming awn of the past remained unchanged, adorning still the deep purple petals of the freshly bloomed chocolate vine, rich floral scent teasing at his olfactory drawing out a nostalgic smile. The ice cream shop that hosted so many dates and so many apology incentives continues to flourish despite the wilted relationship you both had left behind. For so long Bobby couldn’t bear stepping foot in the place where every table, every corner prick at a wound in his heart… Now, the tick of the clock had reduced the pain down to a bare tickle, as if finger pressing on an old bruise.  The old bell ringing out and the cashier whom he does not recognize cheers out a greeting. The sweet scent of cold treats and warmth of waffle cones being freshly made wrapping his rough body in its comforting embrace, the feeling he once felt every night but now only on the rare Sunday when Bobby is much too exhausted to leave the bed; So he let himself curls up in the now unnecessary giant blanket, toasting away under the risen sun. Browsing back and forth, Bobby lets his eyes feast on the colorful array of sweet, noting the many addition of flavors and for reason unknown, he prays your favorite remained. Another good minute before his eyes settle on the gentle pink blush hiding away in the corner, no longer the center of the attention as it once was but same as always. “Could I get a medium half guava, half triple chocolate please.” He smiles at the very patient worker, thankful she let him have his time and very much missing her giddy, demure smile or the fact that she was piling on much more ice cream than Bobby had paid for. Seat chosen and ice cream snugly within his palm, Bobby settles by a corner with the full view of the entire shop (much to the disappointment of the cute worker once she realized the handsome, yet oblivious customer is completely out of her eyesight). Barely a touch of the ice-cold treat on his tongue and he was reminded of how much he despised this flavor, still despises the pink goop you seemed to never gotten enough of. Mixing in with the chocolate? Good God what had you done with your poor taste buds. However, in the midst of the protest his body was so keen to put up against the strange floral taste of the guava and the rich punches of the decadent chocolate, there you were. Hair just as soft and shiny as always but it had been the gorgeous shade of rose gold you sported after losing to a dare. That retro Star Wars tee, a bit faded, a bit stained, and definitely sporting a few holes but nevertheless a favorite of yours. He wouldn’t misplace it anywhere. Your eyes were kinder, smile a bit brighter, the most radiant he had seen in years. You were the you he had met, the girl he had fell so hard for despite not understanding what had gone off in your head to order such a horrendous combo of ice cream flavors. And perhaps has it not for the lingering after taste of your strange choice of ice cream, Bobby would’ve wave back at the figment of you lingering about the doorway, a grin truly from ear to ear as you wave at him at the speed of light. Bobby sighs a soft smile, dazzling the worker who was unnecessarily sweeping the same spot for the 3rd time. He couldn’t believe it had been a near 8 years since the real non-platonic first date. The nervousness, the butterfly, quite honestly just as rambunctious as ever… or it’s the 5th bite of the mess of brown and pink still chilling his hand with its coldness. No, it got to be you, still vivid in the movie playing for one as Bobby soaks in the comfort you brought to his life. He didn’t believe it, the whole deal of one person could alter his life, change his perspective of the world the way countless romantic movies so dramatically play out. Then you waltzed in and flipped his whole world upside down. From the first moment he laid eyes upon you in the busy station to the miraculous reunion just a few feet away from where he seats now, even till the end, you remained the unpredictable force to be reckon with. As with all things in life, the little movie reel of your very first official date was soon over as the chime of the old bell rings out once more forewarning the incoming of new customers. Bobby shakes his head in disbelief still, how could it have been a full 3 years since he had said his goodbye to your adorable face, watched helplessly as your cheeks rosy and nose flared with the strange sound of your sobbing. The disgusting pool of dusty pink ripples as the clear pearl of lost love disturbing its serene surface reminding Bobby of just where he is. Sniffling and a bit flush, he hopes no one had noticed as he gets up to toss his ticket to memory lane, debating whether or not it’s time for another cup of ice cream, one he will enjoy this time. Without even commanding them to, his feet once more carry him toward the colorful display of ice cream, eyes searching through for potential victims for his second round of self-pity. Yet just as he begins voicing his final choice of dark chocolate orange with extra whipped cream, another voice rings out mere seconds before his. Being the gentleman he is, and also not in much of a mood to argue over who was first, Bobby apologizes without sparing a glance, eyes still keeping a close watch on the pan of delicious dark brown ice cream dotted with a few orange zest as if any second now it could grow legs and run off. “Could I please get a medium half guava, half chocolate please!” Cold sweat breaking and heart feeling much like he had just done a marathon, Bobby paralyzes with hope and fear. That voice… That order… Couldn’t be. “Wow, I’ve never had anyone order this combination before but today, twice in only an hour!” The cheery tone of the worker reminds Bobby that he was very much still in the ice cream shop, and this very much still is reality. “What?” Even with all the confusion plaguing the soft voice, he couldn’t misplace it anywhere… It can’t be. Only then did his eyes abandon his prize of classically complementing flavors for a peek at the owner of the sweet voice that was bringing him back to the past. Has it not for the hand bracing against the cold glass surface, Bobby would’ve drop right onto the floor, right there in front of everyone because he has just seen a ghost. You’re definitely real because he had just heard your interaction with the worker just now yet for reason unknown, his mind couldn’t get itself to process the sight beholding. “Bobb? You alright?” “Y-Yea.” He stutters, feeling stupid for staring, and feeling stupid for his jaws that had just dropped onto the floor because by God, you’re stunning. “Hi.” Stupid, so stupid, after all this time, after all the things left unsaid, all he could mutter was a stupid “hi”. Then again, is there really any right thing to say to the subject of his unresolved love, the woman of his dream, the one that got away, the ending neither of you deserved. And so he did what he does best, stares. He stares at you for what seemed like eternity and the whole world simply melts away into a massive shapeless blob of stars and moons and that wondrous feeling of first love. For a moment it was Shibuya, it was the train station, it was being 18 and knowing nothing of love, it was this exact place 10 years ago once more. For a moment it was all the moments you both shared for the 5 wonderful years he got to be with you and every single second thereafter of lost love, every single second condensed into one big explosion of nostalgia, feeling unresolved, and words unspoken. “Did you order my usual?” Your voice seemingly playful after what felt to him like an eternity gone by twice and suddenly, he wonders, did you feel the same? “Yea… wanted to see if I still hate it.” “Well?” “I still hate it.” Laughter, it has always been one of those things that Bobby swears on his life he’d always remember. He might’ve forgotten that favorite dress of yours or the strange way you eat ssam but the way you laugh, how you seemingly looking as though your head had snapped right off your neck bending backward in laughter. Or how bright your eyes shine even though they crescent away when you heave out a hearty laugh. Well… Bobby was sure he remembers it clearly until now. The sound you make, the way your head tilt back, it was all the same yet so distant, so unfamiliar and that scares him. How could something so simple, as simple as laughter instills so much fear into his heart. You were once the person he could simply call up just because without any reason whatsoever or simply because he was bored and needing human interaction, affection. If anyone in this world had been so unfortunate to know what true loneliness is, they would understand just how significant that is as ridiculous as it sounds… The blessing of having someone at the receiving end of “I’m bored, can we do something” even if that only results limbs entangled on the couch staring at the ceiling. Popularity is a double edge blade, that was a fact Bobby never knew until he met you. Never was he unpopular, charming and in possession of a smile that could melt the roughest heart, he was never alone. Yet there was always something missing, in the blur amidst the high of a rager or that second of quietness after a big laugh was shared, an emptiness drowned his heart in inexplicable sadness. A sorrow he was never quite equipped enough to figure out on his own, one he wallowed in after the music faded and goodbye long said. Nights after restless nights, Bobby thought of the fun he had and just how much of a world different it made only a few hours had gone by as he laid all on his lonesome pondering what it was, he’s missing from his life. He ate dinner alone most night, wake up alone… Well, save for a few mornings he managed to land a quick “date”. As he swallowed hard a cold bite of leftover on a random Thursday night, suddenly, his endless contact list seemed meaningless. That all changed the moment your sunshine liked smile entered his life, shooing away the darkest of thought with its pure intensity. Suddenly there was someone on the other end of the line at 3AM when his mind needed a philosophical outlet, or even just an ice cream date. You were always there no matter how trivial his request might be, no question asked and never once expressing grievance. You were a shoulder to cry on, a partner in crime, a protector, and a therapist. You were all and so much more but most of all, you were acceptance. No longer did he has to question himself, to hold back, or to be embarrass because of the opinion of others, with you… He’s truly himself. As the sad reminders of a past no longer obtainable slowly breaking down every bit of his facade, there’s one little piece of information that’s undeniably true, unbearably certain and, had been once more reaffirmed in his bleeding heart.   He still loves you desperately. Despite everything that happened, there’s no one else but you. There was no helping the knotting of his stomach and the stuttering that’s unquestionably worse than ever as he stumbles his way through the whole conversation like a bumbling idiot. Although, that in itself isn’t anything strange for he had always been a bumbling idiot whenever you were near, a bumbling idiot mesmerized by your radiant. “Still doing nonsense things I see. When will you learn that guava is not your jam.” “Yea, well maybe your taste in ice cream is just that preposterous. After all this time, I still can’t wrap my head around it. Plus, someone gotta keep buy it or else they’d just get rid of the flavor.” He bites out shyly, only when you had reached for your own cup that he realized the worker had been staring at him for ages. “Oh, sorry, small dark chocolate orange please!” He gave her the brightest smile he could, incentive for wasting so much of her time in the short hour, still completely missing the fact that she would give her life for him to live in the shop. As he stood there rocking back and forth, Bobby glances perhaps not so inconspicuously at the delight spreading through your features as you took the first bite. Sighing contently no doubt in heaven of satisfying the craving of your weird ice cream combination. Although that didn’t stop him from secretly wishing, that contentment was because you were once more by his side. “Are you busy?” You ask casually, as if the both of you were friends, as if you just saw him the week before. “Nope, I’ve been here for like an hour.” He chuckles awkwardly and for a split second, he could see fireworks behind those beautiful eyes as your feature light up in nostalgia. Yet just as fast as it had appeared, the sparks vanish instantly, leaving behind a dark void of reservations. “Ah… Well, I was thinking, if you know, not doing anything…” You stammer on, hand digging a literal pit in your ice cream cup and Bobby thought it was the most adorable thing in the world. Somehow after all these years, after he had given his entire heart to you, you were still nervous around him. “Let’s grab dinner!” He said with utmost excitement before the vibrancy in his voice drones out to something timid, as if fearing crossing the line. “If you’re up for it, of course.”  Always your knight in shining armor, Bobby pulls you from the pit you’ve dug for yourself, leaving you nodding like an idiot. Much to the sadness of the worker, you both wave goodbye as he walks you into the night, leaving behind the ghosts of the past and the happiness of the old times he had held on for as long as he could, doing his best to engrains every little detail to memory. Yet with you right beside him, somehow that seems wrong… And truth be told, that hurts. Even though the walk back to your car a mere 30 seconds, Bobby couldn’t help but hate the silent that was shared between your awkward bodies, hoping that you hate it too. Not that either of you were stranger to silent. It was something inevitable, something of a companion for couples who are lucky enough to share as much time together as you two did. It was the comforting silent of Sunday morning spent cuddling under the blanket, eyes closed yet the both of you were fully aware of the warmth of bodies and soothing rhythm of the rain tickling the windows. It was the content silent shared when you dragged your pillow and blanket into his office, made yourself a bed out of his couch with your nose deep in your book because he had to work late. It was the bitter silent of staring at each other in anger, eyes redden and tears scorching your cheeks, but pride get in the way of giving in. Then it was the silent of regret, silent of wanting nothing more but to dive into each other arms as anger passed and all that was left was your hearts aching to be together once more. This silent, this ridiculously awkward silent of uncertainties, of fearing to cross boundaries, it was something he never felt around you and he hates every damn second of it. “Did you drive by any chance?” You ask and suddenly very aware of the scowl worn on his lips as he stares into the night. A twinge of sadness breaks your heart at the realization that you can no longer be the person to sooth his sadness, calm his anger… And he no longer yours. “No, uh, I took a long walk here.” He replies with a smile, but you know deep down, his soul suffering and regret fills your heart. “We can ride together…” You half suggest, half really just want to know where you stand in his heart or if you even still have a place in his heart. “I tried to go to dinner the other night and, did you know that bbq place we went to so much? It’s gone!” You exclaim in disappointment, flapping your arms about just to ease the tension, although you were sure nothing could. “I was so disappointed.” “They moved a couple months back, we can go if you still want it. I know where they move to.” “Please and thank you.” You put on the best smile for him, already handing over your keys and feel the wind of the past blowing over the empty lot. As you take in a big breath of the slightly cold breeze of the night, you recount the thousand times he had taken the driver seat. Bobby had always looked so good with one hand on the wheel and the other on you, holding your hand or gently placing upon your thigh, it didn’t matter. He’d bobbed his head slowly to the beat vibrating the speakers, looking enticingly handsome focusing on the road ahead. Sometimes there’d be laughter, other times just silent as you did your best to impress your musically inclined boyfriend with your new playlist. He always looks amazing. Not much had changed as you hop into the passenger seat, waiting as Bobby changes the driver seat position before the journey began. The first few minutes felt like hours. The silent between you both were deafening, drowns out even the heavy bass of the song thumping out from the radio. You saw it, the way his right hand near out of sheer instinct reaching toward you, svelte fingers inching closer before the weight of reality settles in. There was no denying that part of you had wished he had let his heart finish what it started, to grab your hand and hold it just as he had for so long. There was no denying also, the depth your heart had dropped realizing Bobby has switches to driving with his right hand, the left leaning against the windowsill, no doubt a precaution for any future accidental touches. Painfully, you reach toward the knob on the radio and turn it a bit louder, filling the confine space with pointless noises. Thankfully the rest of the drive, all 15 excruciating minutes of it went on without a hitch. You resorted to staring out the window and drinking in the familiar sights, Bobby focused on the road before him. Part of you were disappointed that the owners of the restaurant wasn’t there, you’d love to see them and how the time had changed. Yet another part of you, strangely delighted that the long-winded explanation of the who broke up and where things left off were avoided. God knows what kind of ugliness this dinner will dredge up between you and Bobby, no need for someone of your happier past to complicate things. By the way Bobby glances back and forth before settling in with a sigh of perhaps relief, you ponder a guess that he feels the same. “Wow, everything is strangely familiar but at the same time, so different.” You gasp out without much thinking, far too enthrall in the way the menu remained exactly the way you had remembered it. “Yea, strange.” Bobby sighs softly, there was no helping the bitterness pulling his lips into a forced smile. The way his voice echoes out so drab against the exhilaration of the busy restaurant full of smoke and clinking of shot glasses, it was like he had taken a knife to your heart. You lean backward to look for the waiter, purposely hiding the frown playing on your lips at the realization of how incredibly on the nose and insensitive your statement had been. “How’ve you been?” Bobby asked absentmindedly as he tosses a few pieces of meat onto the smoking grill. “As well as can be, I guess…” Your answer catches his attention as the man before you abandon his surveillance of the sizzling meat to steal a glance at your dull features. The way his eyes scrutinizing every bit of your face, no doubt thousands of follow-up questions threatening to spill but he keeps silent, returning his attention back to the seared meat. “You?” “Same old, you know.” “Yea.” The word tumbles from your lips like the worst lie ever told. You and him both know “same old” isn’t exactly the phrase to describe the current state of reality, yet neither really brave enough to open that can of worm. The silent to follow that little exchange was far worse than anything you’ve experienced in this world. Awkward was slowly losing meaning as it treads territory of unpleasantness. As you quietly stuff another wrap into your mouth, you wonder if Bobby regrets this, regrets inviting you to dinner because you sure aren’t. As painful as it was to sit silently beside the man your heart desire and soul craving companionship for years now, you love every second of it. Who knows when would be the next time you’ll have the pleasure of being so close, you could make up the soft scent of his cologne even over the overwhelming stench of alcohol and delectable wisps of grilled-meat. In the end, you found out he had since move from that old apartment you both shared for so long. Make sense honestly, for who could bear being in the place where happiness was slowly turning into ashes. Certainly not you. No longer was he the lowly cubicle dweller but now a supervisor with his own fancy office and fancy car. Talk of work seems to get Bobby going as the faintest trace of a genuine smile graces his lips. You miss this. Honestly couldn’t recall the last time you had a real, honest talk with anyone, let alone someone that could understand you so. You let him onto the big project that had brought you home, and even though it’s only for a few months, you want to make the best time of it. And as that sentence left your lips, you could see it, there just at the tip of his tongue the words Bobby was trying so hard to bite back. You knew he thought of it, thought of rekindling the connection that had been left in the dust between you and him… You knew because you thought of it too. How could this place be the best when he’s not in it and as much as you’d like to be the one to raise the topic, it was best left for him to decide. As the scent of smoke and alcohol engrained into every fiber of your clothes and hair slowly dissipate into the air of the cold night, you found yourself sauntering beside his tall stature. A few steps behind simply because you wanted a few seconds to yourself, a few seconds to really look at the man that was once yours even if it was only the back of his head and the span of his broad shoulders. You both had been walking down memory lanes, a careful dance about the best of memories and the people of the past, avoiding the sour topics of the last few months spent together. “My brother just had a baby!” Bobby exclaims, delight graces his features and you’re left completely mesmerize by the handsome smile, even if it wasn’t really because of you. “Oh, that’s so great! Tell him congratulation, and your parents too. They must be over the moon.” You miss them was what you wanted to end that sentence with but decided in the end it’s best not to. “I will. They are, I am too. Though, I’m still scare of dropping the little one.” He gushes, already pulling his phone out to show you the endless pictures of the little tyke. “So handsome.” You sigh gently, adoring the little baby even if it was just a picture. “Of course, he is! Have you seen his uncle?” a teasing smirk blossoms on those beautiful lips as Bobby wiggles his eyebrows, holding a picture of the little one far too zoom in right next to his own face and for a split second, you have your Bobby. Not the solemn, silent Bobby of the drive to the restaurant, not the shocked and speechless Bobby when he first laid eyes on you. For a split second, he was your Bobby. “Oh, is that so? I think his dad got more to do with him being handsome than his uncle, don’t you think?” You jest with a slap to his arm, something that was once so normal considering you and him, best friends turned lovers. Yet his smile drops, an awkward chuckle replaces the bright sunshine previously beaming from his feature. It hurts, it hurts so bad because this was a reality you thought you had dealt with. Yet nothing prepared you for the raw reaction, the raw pain of the quaint touches that was now anything but. Silent befell over the souls wandering the night under the bare bone of greenery in winter. You listen to the leaves crunching under your feet, pulling your jacket higher as the mischievous tickling of a breeze brushes against your hair. Bobby again a few steps ahead of yourself as he stares longingly at the bright moon above, the same one that had always been there through the thick and thin of your relationship. Still here to witness the strangers-again walking through the night. You wonder if it cried for you, and for your relationship. “Did you ever think about the what-ifs?” Bobby was first to succumb to the pain of silent, yet the perhaps the question he had just asked was far more painful than anything else this failed relationship had brought. “Of course, I have.” The answer rushes from your lips at light speed, nearly in disbelief that there was a part of him that thought you didn’t. “How could I not?” your steps halt as you watch on in incredulity, heart racing and a tear already pricking at the corners of your eyes recalling the days to follow and all the times you wanted to abandon it all to be with him. You know exactly where this was heading but at this point, was there any benefit to holding back the words, suppressing the anguish of love lost? “Hm… I think about it often, ‘bout you.” A solid minute of deafening silent went by before he finally speaks up, stopping on his track too before turning back to face you. He got his hands in his pockets, lips pursing under an undecipherable expression though the pain was far from well hidden. “I still think about everything… I mean, it’s been years but. I can’t help it.” The weight heavy on your heart the moment your eyes skimmed over the destination of your business trip finally exploded, etching and cutting into your scarred heart. The words you wanted to say to him, the words you had forced yourself to push aside in an attempt to live a normal life, it came rushing in the moment you read the name of the city that destiny would lead you back to. The person your heart both desires for and knows would only lead it down the path of relapsing into the mere shell of a person the days following the breakup… it had been heavy and now, it aches. “I thought that suppressing you from my memory would help but it was all the same. I was devastated every waking second, in all my dreams and nightmares.” Bobby muses but there was something far beyond the emptiness of his eyes, glossing over with an emotion you couldn’t decipher and that scares you. It rattles all your cages and there was no helping the ugly thoughts coming. “We both were, Bobby. I mean, you say it as if I wasn’t there… As if I wasn’t the other half of the relationship.” Beneath the sorrow, beneath the pain of the part of your heart you thought was dead resurrected by the man you love, anger simmering. His tone, the words he had chosen… how could he… “Were you?” There was nothing, nothing about the man looming before you that could mirror even a fraction of the emotion surging through your body… Well, nearly nothing. The way his jaws clenching so tightly and the kindness formerly tugging those beautiful eyes into crescents of laughter vanishing at a rate that left your heart dizzy… He’s angry. Anger wasn’t something you knew of Bobby. Frustration, maybe. After all, you weren’t a walk in the park to be with so there were times minor disagreements would surface. Yet anger wasn’t an emotion you knew he could possess, not toward you. He had gotten angry at the guy who was far too handsy with you at his high school reunion, and the time when you ran to him in panic at a club because some creep never learned the meaning of “no”… Never with you. “Are you seriously questioning my feeling right now?” You too were teetering on the blade of anger. “Have you forgotten those nights, those weeks before everything ended?” Your voice raising without needing for you to tell it to, the disbelief in your heart overdrive every other function in your shivering body. Had he in all the years of loneliness forgotten just how much you had loved him… still love him. You’ve considered all the options, not taking the job, passing up the promotion, quitting, switching career, all of it. You considered it all and there was always one ending, the enticing thought of a future with Bobby. You were ready to make peace with your decision but in the end, it was Bobby who had held your hand and told you it was okay. You cried and you fought but ultimately, he was your weakness. He ensured that no guilt would plague you as you made the final decision of leaving. “No, I remember it clearly.” That sentence, Bobby had dreamt about it endlessly, of finally confronting you of your lies… How satisfying it would be to finally have his last laugh… So why, why does it hurt so much now that it had finally took its first breath of reality… Why does it kill him so watching the tears streaming down the rosy skin of your cheeks, the way your features had contorted into anguish? “I remember it because I was the one who told you to leave. I was the one who had to packed up our home and all the memories it held.” The way he bites out “our”, love was definitely not the driving force behind it. “Have you gone mad?” Your words nearly as feeble as the breaths you’re heaving. Neither anger or guilt were present on your face but rather complete and utter disbelief “If you knew all that, then how could you question my pain. I ripped half of me, my entire heart out when I left this place.” And for a second it confuses him, the part, the largest part of him that had loved you so dearly begins to doubt the truth he had held on for so long. “No, not at all. I’m completely sane and sober” But hell hath no fury like a betrayed man. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe you’re making me spell out every. Single. Thing.” “Please, because I have no clue what you’re even going on about.” Exasperation and disappointment of being question, of having your heart on trial finally reaching an unprecedented height. Hands carding roughly through your wind-blown locks before harshly wiping away the tears falling uncontrollably. A part of Bobby cowers seeing the red rashes scratched onto the smooth skin of your cheeks from the sleeves of your sweater painfully soaking away your tears. He would never wish harm onto you, even if you were the one doing it, especially if you were the one doing it. Needless to say, the protective part of him wants so badly to pull your hand into his, to cradle your cheeks and press healing kisses onto them but this mess, he started this. Yet the irrational side of him have had enough, far past the emotional limit a person could handle. “I ran into your boyfriend. Yea, the guy you said was nothing more than a co-worker.” He sneers and you could feel your blood runs cold. The disdain, the disgust in the dagger like glare burning your skin left your knees weak in the worst way possible. “Can’t believe I bought it. You know, I was actually glad I ran into him at first. Hearing how happy you were with your new job and already, just few months in, you were already on the fast track to a big promotion.” “Bobby…” You whisper his name, hoping it still hold the magic it once did, but the meek reality is far from the distant vibrant memories. “No, no, no. You don’t get to be all puppy dog eyes and pretend like it never happened.” He scoffs at you and perhaps it hurts more than it should have. “And then, so casually, he told me that you two were together, living together in fact.” “No, Bobby. You don’t understand. It’s all a big misunders-“ “No! Big misunderstanding? Falling in love, moving in together, fucking someone else all in the short months span since our breakup. You call that a misunderstanding? Please, Y/n. Am I that much of a joke to you?” He grunted out the painful sentence and it left you breathless, your lungs could barely keep up with the tears let along the bombs he drops on you. There was no other reaction but silently cry as Bobby continues his tirade. “I gave up my happiness, my entire life so you wouldn’t have to. And the big thank I got was you fucking the guy you said was nothing more than a good friend. You must love me so much that you couldn’t wait to let the next guy you see fuck all the memories of me out of your goddamn brain… All the while I was living like a goddamn zombie. All alone, every waking minute, every second of sleep consumed by the thought of you.” Exasperation begins to wear down on Bobby as he pants heavily, eyes still tearing your body apart with years of anger all pent up in his feeble heart. “Was it all a lie? The last few months of our relationship, it was… Wasn’t it? Because if I were to believe, to hold on to the last shred of the you I fell in love with… You wouldn’t forget me in just a mere few months.” You contemplate the next few words very carefully, taking all the moments, all the deceits leading up to this point into consideration. Life had never been fair, but nothing could contest against the spitefulness of the grand scale of things this very second. It had dealt you a hand that you wish surprise was what you’re feeling, but alas, you’ve always knew this was a possibility the second you spun your web of lies. You understand full well the implication Bobby had just brought to light, but there was nothing left to say. “I don’t think my words matter much to you this second.” You breathe through your sob. “Maybe in a few weeks, a few months it will. Or it might never will be…” the thought of never being anything meaningful to Bobby ever again, that was a pain you thought never will you have to experience. But in the end, this big tumultuous ride of a relationship had already thrown everything else at you and the end is nigh. “So, I won’t stand here and make some big excuses because I think I’ve done enough.” That was all you could let out, all the though your brain could form before it shut down in a muddle mess. Your heart aches far worse than all the pain it had ever been through combine and you didn’t know what to do to soothe it. The small glimpses your vision clear enough to allow you to steal a glance at the man you love but just destroyed, Bobby isn’t doing much better. Body dropping onto the cold stone pavement of the path, he got his head cradling in between his arms and silently, his body shakes with tears and the reality that was settling in far too fast. The thought of you cheating on him wasn’t one he wanted to be acquaintance with or even one he had formulated before the run in with your boyfriend. Yet the happiness of knowing you had moved on diminished fast as the logical side of himself began calculating the time and the disbelief of his heart that you would forgotten about him already in the short time apart. Soon the sound of sniffles and painful sobs was nothing more but distant echo of the night as you both settle into the present. This is it for the wonderful friendship, the by-chance love that had bloomed between two young souls doing their best surviving the rush of life together. You stare at him with all the love you still have coursing through your blood and he, at you as if a distant memory he was ready to let go. Nothing was said but the drumming of your headache burst through, drowning out everything in front of you. “I’ll drive you home.” He whispers impassively, eyes blank as he scans the features of your face. Were you always so sad? Have your eyes always been so sunken with pain and your skin so pale? The Bobby of the past still clinging on, caring yet he knows his time was ending. So, for one last time, he’ll care, just for tonight. “You’re in no condition to drive.” “No, I’m okay.” “Y/n, just please. For once, don’t fight me. I don’t care how things ended up between us, I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you.” You silently shadow the footstep of the man you no longer have the right to smile at. After tonight, you and he will be nothing more but strangers again, just as you were that fateful night at the train station. After tonight, you’ll have to respect his wishes and pretend as if life hadn’t given you the best years anyone could ever hope for. Once more the same moon as all the days before watches over as your life stream splits into two. You wonder if it too, is sad for the tragic love story.

It has been a month since he last saw you, a month since he accused you of the worst things a man could accuse the woman he loves. He crossed all the lines and all the boundaries that night and it left him an empty shell of the man he once was. After all these years, after all the pain had been dealt with, there was still a bit of hope, the last thread of a beautiful relationship connecting his life to yours. Yet in one moment of delirium, he crumbled all the effort of all the years before because he was bitter. It broke his heart, the way pain washed over your beautiful features as the accusation that had torn so many relationships apart left his lips. He left you so speechless, you stood there and took his abuse silently, clutching your heart. In the moment when sleep evaded him, all he could think about was the horrible things he had said and your nearly lifeless body as he dropped you off that night… He has turned into the monster he promised himself to never be. Somehow all the pain seems so much worse tonight as he lays awake in bed, hours away from his birthday, another birthday alone… Truly alone for he had burned all the bridges that could potentially lead him back to you. Eyes studying the world just beyond his little window as his mind drifts to you, Bobby wonders if your project was going well and if you were leaving soon. He had thought of calling you, of course, but how could he after saying such horrendous things without even granting you the small wish of explaining everything. Did you realize that night that his phone’s background was still a picture of you? That thought warms his heart for a second before the logical side of himself butts in, reminding bobby once more that you probably don’t care, not anymore at least since he had taken all the precious time you’ve both had and ripped it all to unsalvageable shreds. Yet perhaps his heart knows best after all as that ringtone, the one he has always associated with sunshine and happiness, like an omen echoing through the darkness of his room. Bobby didn’t believe it at first, staring at it blankly before the third ring reminding him that you could hang up any second now. He scrambles to his feet, hastily picking up the phone and nearly dropping it. “Hello? Y/n?” Bobby huffs out impatiently, needing to hear your voice even if there was a slight chance you had called to yell at him. “Uhm, are you the boyfriend of the owner of this phone?” A gruff male voice spills from the speaker sending fear to his heart. Jaws tighten and fist clenches tightly, he grunts out a rough yes, nevermind the fact that it was a blatant lie. “Could you come pick up your girlfriend. She been here for hours and I don’t think she should drink anymore.” The voice speaks up hesitantly, growing distant as if the guy was glancing away to check something, someone. “I don’t understand, what happened?” Bobby questions, already grabbing his jacket and keys, on his way even though he has no clue where you were. “Your girlfriend, she came in, had a few too many drinks, and would not stop talking about her amazing boyfriend… Well, you, I guess. Then she cried for a bit and said she was going to call her boyfriend but passed out before the line even start ringing.” The bartender explains, sighing a bit, no doubt done with your antic. “If you don’t mind, please come pick her up. I don’t want to send her home on her own. Le Lune, do you need direction?” “No, I know exactly where. Thank you.” If his heart beats any faster, Bobby suspects that his blood vessels would burst. Worries and dreadfulness engulf his body as he speeds through the empty night, anxious to see you, anxious to know you’re okay. His fingers tap frantically as his car tears through the night toward the place that holds his entire life. As he bursts into the nearly empty bar, a few eyes glare his way vexingly, loud slam of the door had disrupted their night cap and meaningless conversations. Bobby glances about, looking for that familiar figure before a young man wave frantically, calling him over. “Bobby, I assume.” Holding up a phone in front of him, the bartender glances up then back at the screen with a satisfying nod of his head. “Picture checks out. Here you go.” He hands back the phone to Bobby, screen still illuminated, and the background, it sends a pang to his heart. It was him, smiling bright, exuding all the happiness of a man at the height of his love. And for a moment, time stood still. He thinks about you going about in your daily life… His face being the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing you see at night. He’s there when you check whether it was time for lunch or time for homecoming. You’ve managed to keep that part of the old life the same despite everything being torn apart and the foundation of your relationship crumbling into nothingness.  But now was no time to be sentimental for a much more pressing issue was at hands. “Yes, we spoke on the phone. Where is she?” His voice frantic, panic wrecking his entire being. He thought there was nothing worse than watching you walk away but this, knowing that you were all alone… There is nothing in his short life thus far that scare him so.   “I left her on the booth over there, didn’t want her to hurt herself falling over the stool.” Sighing a few thanks, Bobby closes up your tab and left a hefty tip to a very delighted bartender before making his way toward the booth in the far end corner where his sleeping beauty awaits. Leaning back against the red velvet plush of the back rest, your eyes tightly shut and hair a bit dishevel but he swears, you were still so beautiful. Blur streaks of mascara smearing down the soft skin of your cheeks, still so redden and hot, your chest rises and falls gently as a soft snore emanating through the near empty bar. The breath he had been holding ever since the voice of the bartender reached his ears finally dislodge itself from his throat at the sight of you so peacefully snoozing away. Bobby sighs heavily as his eyes scan to your bare shoulders, dress far too thin to shield you from the harshness of the world. “Sweetie, let’s go home.” He whispers softly against your temple where he had just placed a thankful kiss. Though he knew that kiss was crossing every lines and boundaries, there was no helping the natural reaction bursting out of the man who for the past hour had been so uncertain of the safety of his love. He’s thankful, so thankful that insomnia had been so gracefully blessing him with another restless night, thankful for the bartender, and thankful for you. In your most drunken stupor, he was still on your mind and that, just that small thought of you still valuing his pathetic self enough to call him up… Well, it eases his heart and soul in ways unimaginable. “Bobby…” You groan sleepily, despite the stench of alcohol seeping through your every pore, there was no denying how adorable the way you mew his name. Fingers rubbing at your drowsy eyes, you peers through the clumpy curtain of the mascara that was now mostly staining your cheeks than shielding your lashes. Blinking a few times, a smile blooms on your lips at the familiar face and endearing scent, your head instinctively nudges closer into the crook of his neck, stealing all the warmth the man got to offer. “Yea… Sweetheart?” He tests the water, considering holding back the pet name that was only ever meant for you. Yet just as everything else had when you’re around, it was near involuntary. “I love you.” You mewl out a softly amidst a small giggle before diving into his arms. “Can we go home?” Now, Bobby knows full well this was nothing but a drunken sleep talk but that sentence, home, it lights his heart on fire. He was always the one that’d get drunk, coming home laughing and diving into your arms. This was something new, something so different that despite everything else that was happening, deep down a blissfulness spreading through his body. Your head lulling gently, falling right into his chest as your soft snores continue to echo through the darken parking lot. He places you gently into the passenger seat, buckling you up before placing yet another kiss to your forehead. The steady pace his heart had regained finally seeing you safe and sound was once more beating erratically as the moonlight, dirtying by a bit of the neon sign of the bar seemingly adding to the ethereal glow of your beauty. Your lips so soft, cherry red and plump enticing his soul to its own perdition. Just as easily as breathing, he could effortlessly steal a kiss this very moment and you wouldn’t even care nor have any knowledge of it the next day. Yet as much as he wanted that, Bobby knows it means nothing and mess up beyond anything he had done up to this point if you don’t kiss him back, if you don’t want him. So, he brushes a bit of hair tickling your nose out of the way before shutting the door and begins the journey back home. So strange the way you feel so familiar, so right in his arms yet the world revolving around you, the very nature of your relationship is anything but that. No longer was he the companionship to your night out nor could he provide the care he once did on the rare occasion you’d drink past the point of clarity. As he gently places you into the comforting embrace of his bed, a twinge of pain thumps at his heart before electrifying through the entirety of his being. If this was the you and him of the past, Bobby would already be changing you into the comfort of your PJ, knowing just how much you despise bra and all that it stands for, nothing worse than sleeping in a bra, you used to say. Gently, though drunk you has the sleep capability of Snorlax, Bobby still took great care to not disturb your sleep as he delicately worked his way to wipe away your makeup, remembering how pimply you’d get after just one night of forgoing makeup removal. Although he never thought there was anything wrong with it, and that you were just as beautiful as ever even with a few new red friends on our cheeks, he hated seeing you pouting especially over something so trivial. But this is now, and this is the you and him of the present… There’s no “us” and there’s nothing to tie your life streams together other than a few good memories and a ocean of pain. As you roll to your side and snugging closer to the overwhelming scent of home and comfort, a tear burns down his cheek. Bobby watches on helpless because he had crossed far too many lines tonight… And no longer did he have the right. So, he did what little he could, brushing your hair gently away before placing a pillow under your head. He wraps you up in a big cocoon of blankets, situating himself beside your peaceful self just for a second, lingering. He wonders how much different life would be had you stay, had he gone after you… Maybe you’d be his wife, maybe you’d be the mother to his child, children even. Or maybe you both weren’t meant to be together and the tough time would tear you both apart regardless of who stayed and who went. There’s so much what-ifs, so many fantasies he wished you both could’ve see the ending of but alas this is the reality you’ve both chosen and there’s nothing else to do but to sleep in the bed you both have made. Pulling over the cold blanket he had just gotten out of the closet, Bobby settles himself into the couch, sleep was no more of a friend than it had been before the trek through the night toward you. Suddenly, even the distant siren beyond his living room window lost its spark as his eyes traverse toward the tightly shut bedroom door. He could see nothing beyond the white wooden door, silent and stoic in the night, hiding you away from his eyes. Yet his heart knows just beyond the threshold, warmth and comfort await, its owner awaits. Thirty minutes then come the full hour, Bobby was still staring at the cold barrier protecting his princess as his mind roams back to the wonderful days of sharing cover and warm breath tickling soft skin. The echo of each tick of the clock louder than the one before, reminding him once more of the present. His body exhausted yet his mind runs at thousand miles an hour, tracing over every single mistake he had made. The whirling of helicopter replaced by the chirping of the early birds, out and about ready for another day. He has been far too lost in the distant world his mind had made up for you and him when the loud honking of a car somewhere across the apartment complex finally break the trance your present had put Bobby in. He forces himself to turn the other way, blanket pulls over his head before his eyes forced shut hoping to find peace in the short rest till morning come. Surely the consequences of his words will greet him as the day break, so for now, he’ll take whatever sleep he can get. The very next moment consciousness graces his present, Bobby had long forgotten about your drunken confession and that he had very much braved the cold of December to rescue his princess from darkness and strangers’ gazes of the bar. Throwing the blanket that was already very much half pooling on the floor, Bobby mutters a cuss for being so careless, having once again falling asleep on the couch in the cold embrace of the mistress of winter. Drowsy and barely stable, he scratches at an invisible itch, carding his fingers through the soft brown locks before stumbling carelessly into the door of his own bedroom. The loud bang of his door swinging wildly into the wall was followed by a sound that sends shiver down his spine, far worse than the frigidity of morning cold air against his bare skin. The softest groan reaches his ears, delicate and cute as if a kitten awakening from her slumber yet instead of adoration, all he could feel was fear. The giant blanket burrito stirring on his bed drowns his being in panic, brain frantically searching for an answer, a clue as to what the hell had happened the night before. One foot than two, Bobby inches closer to the sleepy bundle, muscles flexing, ready to put up a fight to the drowsy bandit. The sight beholding the surprised man was beyond his imagination, far far beyond the fathomable realm of situations his sleepy mind was prepared for. The memories of the night before come flooding back like a broken dam after a long storm, waves thrashing his heart against the rocks of the past. The quaint touches, your love confession, everything rushes back in a matter of second and it left Bobby breathless in all the best way possible. Somehow in between the time he had left you safe and sound in the comfort of his bed and the moment he had clumsily burst through the threshold, you had managed to create a tiny nest for yourself. Bundling around your body is the hoodie he had carelessly tossed onto the ground the night before along, cradling between your cheek and your hand, the sweat-soaked fabric of his t-shirt. It brings peace to his heart knowing that after all this time, you still find comfort in clinging onto him in your drunken state. So many nights he’d toss and turn simply because you too were doing the same, stirring in your sleep, trying your best to maximize the amount of his body you could hoard for your own. He had forgotten how many nights he took for granted, tossing you a bundle of his clothes simply because he could take no longer the exhaustion, pushing you off to your side of the bed. What he’d give to get those nights back now, to cuddle up to your sleepy self and bask in the way you had taken on the scent of his cologne. He stares in awe for a moment, considering waking you yet in light of the alcohol vapor lingering about still, assaulting his nose, Bobby’s sure you’d love nothing more than a few more minutes of snoozing so he left you be. Bobby could count on one hand the amount of time he had braved the kitchen all on his own when you were still a constant in his life. 90% of those times turned out horribly and most definitely ended up with you cleaning up after his mess. Yet that was then, and this is the now of him spending most of his time alone, dining for one. Fast food and eating out sufficed for as long as it could for there’s no replacing the coziness of a homemade meal. So with burnt pots and scarred fingers, Bobby eventually learned to take care of himself even though there’s no comparison to you. A simple soup bubbling away on the stove, he debates with himself on whether or not you still like eggs. God, you must find him insane having a monologue about eggs while burning his fingers checking the sad state of his porridge pot. Deep down, a soft warmth settling in his chest thinking about the simple breakfast coming together… You, sitting beside him at the dining table. And although he knows for certain the conversation had won’t be a pleasant one, there’s no denying the little bit of joy, having a tiny bit of normalcy back into his sad daily life even if it’s just for a one morning. Far too lost amongst the cloud of steam shooing away the frost-bitten skin of his naked torso and the clanking of metal spoon against pan, Bobby misses completely the silent shuffling growing louder. “You really need to invest in a wooden spatula. Don’t you know you’re not supposed to use metal on nonstick surfaces?” Your words so gentle, all the pain of your last meeting evades. In its place nothing but the warmth he was used to, and perhaps a bit of gruff from a hangover. “Oh… Is that why half my pots and pans are useless now? Even butter sticks to it.” Your sudden entrance got the man hopping back out of shock, yet nevertheless, a shy smile already on his lips. “Yea, you should throw those out. Don’t eat the nonstick coating, it could make you sick.” Inching closer, you let the flame of the burners lulling you back to reality with its wonderful warmth, putting color back into your pale cold skin brushed with the cold of early morning. Eyes carefully going over the bubbling pot of hangover soup, sunny side up eggs, and porridge, a smile blooms on your tired lips at his effort. Good to know he was at the least taking care of himself with homemade meals. “that’s quite an impressive spread you got going there.” “I, uh, can’t take credit for the soup. I bought that.” Bobby shares a sheepish smile before rummaging to plate the egg borderlines on overcooked. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted to eat so I just kind of made both rice and porridge… Should be done soon. It’s not much but I figure it’ll be easy on your stomach. You should go wash up.” He beams at you, the brightest you’ve seen since the first time you laid eyes on the man at the ice cream shop just a month ago. “Why are you staring at me like that?” “uhm… I don’t exactly have anything here to, uh, wash up.” “Oh! Right. I’ll be back.” Tearing away from the pot one second from boiling over, Bobby nearly tumble over knocking into the couch before running back with a bundle in his arms. “Here, these are the smallest clothes I could find. I’m sure you’d be more comfortable in these than…” He eyes the small dress on your body, disheveled and stained from lord knows what yet the simple act of nodding toward your less than pristine choice of clothing soon turns into a walk down memory lane. He traces over every little mole on your skin, the soft curves of your body, down to your delicate fingers. He misses every single detail about you, your laugh, the little dance in the confinement of the passenger seat, your body. Tears brim his eyes as recent past come rushing in, giving him a dose of the lonely reality. “Uhm, here.” “Thank you.” You grab hastily the bundle thrusted into your embrace, not missing the reddening eyes and the silent sniffle. You say nothing more, knowing it’d only add to the sad reality that was you and him, making your way back to the bedroom you thought was only a dream. Any other day and the steaming water washing away the shame of the night before would be something divine, heaven sent. It would mean relief that you had survived another night spent pathetically living precariously through the illusion of the happier past that the bitterness of hard liquor had granted you access to. Yet today, it’s painful, burning every bit of your skin with the reality that you had very much damage the last bit of good remained of the girl he once loved, if there was any good left after the lies you’ve told. Mirror clouded with the lingering steam and vapor of your silent tears, you pull on the clothes barely fitting onto your body, twist and turn to view the outfit hanging loosely. The reflection of yourself in the mirror, blurred, barely visible through the cloud of your regrets. Even through the billows of water vapors and the surprisingly sparkling scent of neroli mingling with bergamot of his body wash, you couldn’t help but let your nose trail on the ghost of Bobby’s scent. You know it was crazy to even try for he had handed you clothes shrouded with the fresh scent of laundry detergent yet there was no helping your hands from bunching up the fabric of the ill-fitted shirt, bringing it close to your nose imagining it was just shed off of his body. Your mind went back to the late nights of digging your face as far into his body as you could, taking in the comforting warmth and soft scent of faint cologne and Bobby. Sorrow overtaking your senses because soon enough, you’d have to leave the safety of this hideout. So just for a few minutes, you let your heart has it moment. Table was set by the time you finished freshen up, Bobby graciously waiting by the table, scrolling through his phone to pass the time. Though the clothes might be small for him, the t-shirt he had given you near hitting knee length and the pair of short barely holding on. The smile he offers was far short of the one you were used to but nevertheless, better than the scowl and pain etching so deep on his features the night everything ended. The meal begins in complete silent despite the friendly small talk and although it was nothing surprising, there’s still a bit of pain lingering for tableside conversation wasn’t something scarce between you two. “I’m really sorry, for bothering you like this.” You say finally, noting the small glances he steals, unable to any longer swallow another bite with the air thicker than tar suffocating all your senses. “I- there’s not enough words to say sorry and thank you for going out of your way to pick me up. I know this wasn’t what you imagined starting your weekend with.” He was the drop of water to quench your thirst, yet you couldn’t imagine the same could be said about you, not after everything that happened. “Y/n, there’s no bother. This is the least I could do after all those years you took care of me.” Was this how it will be? Polite banter and careful dances about the rich history your souls shared for so long? Bobby watches carefully as your dainty fingers pushing your spoon about, rare bites taken he surmises could barely even be qualified as a bite but rather formality to reward his effort. So many question bubbling close, so close to the surface, he could feel them knotting in his throat. Why were you out so late, who were you drinking with, what was your intention behind calling him… He knew your actions were merely alcohol induced yet isn’t it also true that drunkenness only amplifies true intention? “Is something bothering you? Is the food that horrible?” He had to do it, unable to bear the desolation paints so clearly across your features. “Oh, no, not at all. I’m just…” You consider for a second to lie, blame it on the uneasiness of your stomach souring the morning after… But lie isn’t what either of you need, it’s not what Bobby deserve. “I’m so sorry. I really can’t do this.” “Do what?” Panic slowly engulfs his body watching the color leaving your skin, anguish slowly replacing the small smile you had watching him fumbling over the hot soup. “You’re scaring me, Y/n…” “I tried, I really tried to pretend as if this is normal… But I just, I can’t get over the fact that I intruded your life after you had so explicitly expressed your desire to never meet again. This must be so uncomfortable for you.  And I, there isn’t enough sorry I can give for last night, for all the nights before.” Your heart vomits out the guilt pent up and pushed away for a moment of joy pretending as if watching Bobby struggling over breakfast was something normal, just another typical morning in your household. You wanted so badly to hang on to this last piece of happiness with him, to have one last breakfast as a “couple” but alas, guilt was eating you alive even before you realize it was there. “I should go.” No sooner than the last syllable of the sentence left your lips, his hand was already on yours, cradling, squeezing so tightly you could feel the weight on your heart becoming undone. “Don’t… Please. I know I’m despicable, and I’ve accused you of the most horrendous thing… And I’m sorry for that.” His eyes calm, like the grey sky just before a big storm breaking but just beneath the roughness of his voice, panic. You could feel that guilt too was wrecking him apart and it kills you. You’d rather him hate you, never want to again see your face but guilt... Guilt is what keep people from moving on, and that’s not what you want for Bobby. “What you did after we parted, it was none of my business. I know too that heartbreak is much easier dealt with if you have someone to lean on. I crossed far beyond all the lines and I, I’m just so sorry.” “No, your anger was well deserved. I told you lies, that part was true. And I thought for the longest that if you hate me, it’ll be easier for you to move on and be happy. If I can’t provide you with the love and happiness you deserve, then at least someone else can.” How far will you be able to carry your truthfulness, only time can tell. But for now, you’ll do your best to close finally end this chapter of your life and give it the closure it deserved, one that should’ve been written years ago. “That was the sole reason behind everything I’ve done.” “I know you’re not so cruel, and I know in my heart that you wouldn’t forget about me so soon after, just as well as I know you’d never cheat on me… So please, Y/n, end my misery and tell me the truth. I know that night I let anger taken over, but your words matter to me more than you could ever know.” He begs, hands clutching onto yours so tightly, the last line of hope for the drowning man. “When I said it was a misunderstanding, that part was true. I would never cheat on you and rest assure the time we spent together, no matter how shitty, my heart only ever had you in it.” To finally clear up the unspoken thoughts of that night, you felt the weight of the world lifting from your shoulders. Bobby too, seems to have felt the same effect as his head hang low, long sigh release the breath he had been holding. “And the matter of whom my heart had belonged to following our breakup, it was you… Still to this day, only you. It was always you and I’m sorry if I’ve made you thought otherwise, for the pain I’ve caused.” “Why? Why would you- How, what about all the things your boyfriend had said?” “There was, still is no one else. It has always been you and I’ve only lied because I thought it’d protect you. Whatever he had told you, it was done under my instruction.” Tears were once more streaming down your cheeks, sullying the bowl of porridge he had worked so hard on. Bobby falls back into his chair, body limp, no strength for anything else for his brain had taken it all to process the revelation falling from your lips. For reason unknown, you thought it now is the best time for another bite of food only to find it choking with sadness, bitter the entire way down. “Why would you do that? Why would you let me believe in a lie that made me saw you in such a disgusting light? Y/n?” He repeated your name like a mantra, frustration, love, anger, nostalgia, it all mixed up in an undecipherable wave drowning Bobby in guilt. The things he said, oh the things he had accused you of, how could he ever repent for his sins. “I came to visit, a month after we ended things… I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t bear not seeing you. It nearly drove me insane not being able to see you, to speak to you daily.” Your head now too hanging low, recalling the days when wounds were fresh and pain so excruciating, you’ve gone numb. You recall too the excitement of finally seeing that handsome smile and feel the familiarity of happiness. “I was stopping by our coffee shop, figured, if I was to show up and ruin your day, might as well bring some caffeine.” You chuckle bitterly at the past, thinking of how shock he would’ve looked if you just show up at his work with coffees in hand just as you used to. “That was when I realized, we needed to move on if we even hope to survive.” “What are you talking about?” Confusion plagues his features and it was rightfully so. This insane misunderstanding had been solely on you. “I saw you with that girl, seemed like a date. I was happy, honestly, seeing you smiling, going out, having fun. So, I left. I thought that was it, you were moving on and so should I. You could imagine how hurt I was, hearing from our friends that you were still so hung up on what happened to us that you were barely living.” Your eyes trail along the sharp lines of his jaws to the soft pout he has on his lips. Bobby got his gaze on you, watching intently with bated breaths and once more his hands found their way to yours. “It wasn’t your fault, Y/n. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” The soft sniffles have grown, echoing, spreading through the dead air of the living room that was warming up by the soft sunlight peeking through the living room’s windows. So opposite of the harsh tone and chiding words of the night just mere month ago, his words ring with the dejection of a desperate man. A man that wants so badly for you to realize that the pain of breakup was no one’s fault. It was a part of life and however unpleasant it might be, it was simply inevitable. After all, there are always only two outcomes when hearts begin to beat as one… And neither of you were favored by the grand scale of life. When silent was what met his protest, Bobby finally gazes upon your frail face, glossy with tears and guilt. He wrapped your cheeks in the protective hold of his hands, thumbs gently ridding of the tear hiding away the rosy of your cheeks.  And as if it was his last lifeline out of the tumultuous sea of heartbreak, he places the most delicate kiss upon your forehead. Bobby wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do but it was what his heart told him to. “Hey, it wasn’t your fault. I just needed to deal with pain at my own speed.” “I was hanging on to the image of you, so happy even if it was with someone else and somehow it got me through. Day by day, some days hurt more than others but knowing you were happy, it made my heart content. When I found out you’ve isolated yourself from the rest of the world, I was eaten alive with guilt. Guilt that this all happened because I left… Guilt because I went on living while you were suffering… So, when my friend texted me that he ran into you, I decided to take things into my own hand.” Embolden by the leap he had just taken, you rest your forehead against his, wrapping your own hand around his wrists, fearful still that this is all just another reunion dream your tired mind had conjured up. But that thought was soon banish as Bobby pulls your hands up to his lips and the wings of hundred small kisses flutter against your soft skin, reminding you that he was very much right before you. There are few moments in life that can capture the fleeting nature of life and aside from the moment when you had bid goodbye to your entire life, the very second that text had flashed across your screen was the realest moment in your short days on this Earth. It was so simple, “Hey, I ran into Bobby. He asked about you!”. How could a few sentences, so straightforward, no underlying messages could mess with your heart so much that you felt all the progress you’ve made, all those day coping, surviving this new found loneliness reverting back to the beginning. You contemplated, telling him you were fine, telling him you were miserable, beg for him to take you back… In the end, you asked your dear friend a favor you knew you could never pay back for. A fabricated life in place of the pathetic one you’ve been living. You painted a home with two dogs, a loving business partner, best friend, and lover all in one. Mornings were filled with laughter as you both fought over coffee even though there was more than enough to go around. Nights echoed with the scent of sweat and lingering moans of pleasure as the delectable cloud of a homemade meal wasp around the kitchen, awaiting to be dine. You thought of the future that never was with Bobby as you begged your dear friend to lie for you. “God…” Hands still snuggling yours, Bobby let the weight of his head resting against your knuckles as he mutters soft cusses. He was so wrong, he made you out to be the villain, yet the truth was so far from all the fuck up scenarios he had conjured up in his mind. “I’m so fucking sorry, Y/n. I’m so sorry.” “Don’t be. I started this, none of this was your fault. At the time, I really thought it was the best way to get you to move on... I didn’t think about the consequences, that it would backfire. And I don’t think I can ever make up for it.” A heavy sigh left your lips and your heart wishes so desperately for Bobby to place another kiss upon your skin… Perhaps this time he’d settle for one on your quivering, chapped lips. “How about just start being honest with me? Hmm?” He leans in close, dragging your chair effortlessly right beside his. For the first time since the conversation start, you let yourself focus on the starlight sparkling in his eyes. You were so scare, deadly afraid that if you gaze into his eyes, all you could see was emptiness. Oh, how wrong you were because there’s so much light and warmth emanating from them, so beautiful and tender. “I don’t even know if I should be-“ “No, I know what you’re trying to say. Did you really think I’m letting you go a second time? I’ve got you here, even after the spite I’ve thrown at you, you’re still here with me. You must be insane if you think you’re walking away one more time.” Your self-pity drowns out with all the love his heart could give. Hands once more gently encasing your cheek as he shushes away the lingering tears. “There’s no other place you should be but here. Stay with me.” Your heart nearly explodes in light of the words you desperately hope to hear for the longest. You’ve always wonder what would have happened if you had just stay, screw career, screw the world. What would’ve happened if you had let your heart taken control of your body and soul, letting love win? Like the most wonderful Christmas miracle, life, Bobby had offered you a second chance at the life you wish you have, only this time you both have matured and learned so much from heartache. It wasn’t an easy road here, but it felt so much like the first time. You dive into his arms that was more than ready to welcome you back for they had gone on far too long without feeling the your curves under them. Tears was once more falling, but this time Bobby let them fall because he knows it was out of sheer bliss and happiness… Because he too is crying along with you. Neither of you dare move an inch even as awkward and aching as the position of your intertwining bodies currently in. Breakfast long forgotten and hangover was just something so an hour ago, you could only feel the warmth and solace. “I still love you so much.” It feels as though an eternity had passed since you crawled awkwardly into his arms. You shyly confess, ear pressing up against his chest as the sound of his heart vigorously beating calms yours. “I know, you told me last night.” “I did?” A smirk was already blooming on his lips when you found the strength to pull away from his hug. “I’ll be honest, if you hadn’t sleepily professed your love to me… I don’t know if I would’ve offered breakfast. Not because I don’t want you to stay but rather… After that night, I’m just so scare you’d never want to see me again and crossing more boundary was the last thing I ever want.” Gently brushing away a few locks of hair that was obstruction his view of you, Bobby confesses. “But now, I wouldn’t have this morning any other way, with anyone else. You don’t even know how long I’ve waited for this.” “Thank you, for waiting.” You nuzzle into the crook of his neck, taking in the soft sighs of satisfaction and the gentle sweet words being hum by your loving man. “Why were you out so late last night. I was so scare when I pick up the phone and it wasn’t you on the other end.” Pressing a kiss onto your cheek, Bobby once more has his hand grazing the skin of your face, taking in the way you glow softly under the morning sunlight. He was thanking God that you’re here, in his arm, letting the hotness of your skin under his fingertips shooing away the fear of the night before. “I was so worry, I’m sure I’ve broken every traffic law there is.” “It’s always a bit hard for me around time of our anniversary and, well, your birthday.” You lament the pain the comes twice a year, never fail like an ominous alarm reminding you of your loneliness. “I’ve learned that alcohol numbs the pain…” Your revelation seems to only worsen the concern plaguing the handsome man. “At the very least, it prevented my soul from wandering down the path of self-destruction, wallowing in guilt and the thought of who were celebrating with…” There was no missing the way his eyes dance about as if relearning all the curves of your features and committing to memories all the new freckles and mole you’ve acquired since. Bobby was never shy about eye contact, so it was nothing out of the ordinary for him to really just focus on the way your lashes flutter, still heavy with a bit of tear and sorrow recalling the bitter past. Though soon enough, the reality of just how close you were to him, so close that he could feel your breath hot against his skin, it sinks in fast and he couldn’t stop his eyes from falling onto your lips. He tries, really hard but in the end, no matter which route he took, in the end, his gaze returns to your lips. You too, couldn’t deny the calling for that long-awaited kiss to happen and finally let your heart takes control. You wish you could see his expression as your eyes flutter close, to witness the soft gasp leaving his soul but alas, the soft touches of his lips against yours exceed far beyond anything else. He leans down finally, lips so soft and gentle against the roughness of your own. The first few seconds, neither of you could bear parting way so you both still, taking in the saltiness of leftover tears and the familiar touch that had evaded your lives for so long. Fireworks blossom within your soul, louder and more vibrant with each passing second relishing in the taste of him. But soon that first spark was barely enough to sustain the insatiate hearts desperately trying to sync. Fingers trailing up against the tone muscle of his torso before you let your hand rest on the nape of his neck as his arms fasten around your waist. You’ve waited, wanted this for so long that time no longer a factor in this kiss you’re sharing, deepening so much further as he tilts his head to fully take you in. Pulling away slightly, you nibble on his lower lips lightly before letting the softness of your tongue to sooth the gentle pain. You both kiss for as long as your lungs would allow before parting way, heavy pants, resting in each other arms. “Happy birthday,” You whisper into the small kiss you’ve just placed, unwilling to be apart for so long. “I love you.” “I love you. You’re the best present I could ever hope for.” This was in no way the perfect reunion and quite frankly, there’s still so much more that need to be said, feelings long stored away that need to be dealt with. You’ve spent the first part of your relationship trying to be perfect, to be the couple goal, and to be envy by all your friends. But you know now, no couple is perfect, no love can be without its trials and tribulation. In the end, all you could hope for is to have done the love you have for each other the justice it deserves. You both know in your hearts that the safety and happiness of the other person are what worth the most and that’s all that matter. You have him, and he has you. Life have had its way for far too long and it was time you both, hand in hand, take it by the neck and make it your own. Surely there will be days when life once more gets rough but this time, this time you know with all the certainty in the world that you and he will survive anything. This time, no matter what life throws your way, you’re beyond prepared for all its trickery… Because this time, you have under your belt the experience of a life without each other to remind you both of how fragile this love is. The whisper of a promise to never again leave each other side mingles in the soft giggle of excitement and anticipation. So, as you both let yourselves get lost in the second kiss of your second chance, you hope that the same moon who had for so long watched over your relationship will be there to witness the beginning of your new life with him. You wonder if it is too, proud of the progress you both have made. 

[damienthepious]

When The Reckoning Arrives (Chapter 2)

[Chapter 1] [ao3] [Chapter 3] [Chapter 4] [Chapter 5] [Chapter 6]

[Summary: There are, inevitably, consequences for being too complacent while having a highly illegal affair with an enemy combatant. 

Chapter 2: The chapter during which Sir Angelo Does His Best.]

-

The continuous, terrified churning of Sir Angelo’s stomach eases for the first time in hours when he sees that there is smoke coming from the chimney of Rilla’s little hut. Rilla is smart, Angelo knows. Possibly the smartest person that he knows, and she will know what to do about this, will know what he should do. Angelo very much needs someone smarter than he to tell him what to do right now, because-

Well. Yes. The reasons are obvious.

“Rilla?” He bangs his fist off the door frame, straining with the effort it takes not to hit the wood too hard. The more upset he is, the harder it becomes to contain his strength, but the last thing he needs in this moment is to face Rilla’s wrath if he breaks any part of her home. Again.

There is a grumbling from inside, and Angelo thinks that he hears her voice tell him to go away in a muffled groan. He bangs again, only fractionally harder.

“Friend Miss Rilla I must insist you come to the door,” Angelo says, strained. “I must speak with you immediately about a matter of dire-”

“Angelo?” her voice is slightly less muffled now, and he hears her feet creak across the wood before the door cracks open, revealing her face blinking and squinting down at him through the sunlight, framed in a loose, sleep-tangled mass of dark curls. “Damien isn’t here, Angelo,” she grumbles through a yawn. “He left to report in before the sun was even up. I’m trying to take a na-”

“Sir Damien has been arrested, Rilla,” Angelo blurts, and Rilla flinches, stares at him for a moment, and then she steps backward and pulls the door open for him.

“I’m getting dressed,” she says, all hints of sleep gone from her voice as she marches back towards her bedroom. “Come in, close the door behind you, and tell me everything.”

“They said treason, Rilla. I don’t know what happened, exactly, but they said it was treason and that they were taking him to the Queen.” He presses his hands together just to give them something to do, his armor squeaking around him as he fidgets in place. He can hear Rilla tossing things around through the thin wall of her room, and then she’s bustling back out, dressed and twining her hair over her shoulder in a quick, practiced braid.

“They didn’t say why?” Rilla asks around the hair pins in her mouth, hands and feet still moving.

“No, they- Rilla they said treason, and I don’t know what to do. Damien wouldn’t let me help.”

“Wouldn’t- let you?”

“I was going to insist that they let him go, of course,” he says, flinging his hands out and barely avoiding knocking a bowl full of some viscous orange liquid off of a table. “But he said he had been summoned and must not disappoint the Queen. I just don’t understand, Rilla, why-”

Rilla’s feet stop, and she swallows, her hand raising to press at the skin above her heart. “It’s simple, Angelo,” she says. “They figured it out somehow.”

“Rilla?”

“They know about Arum, Angelo,” she says in a strained voice.

“How can you be sure?”

“Has Damien done anything, literally ever, that could be considered treason besides what he and I have with Arum?” she asks. “Anything at all? A word, a mistake, a thought? He’s loyal to a fault, Sir Angelo. Arum is the only reason they could possibly have to punish him. It’s the only explanation.”

Angelo considers that, and decides that as usual she is correct. “Oh dear. Whatever are we going to do, Rilla?” he asks, voice wavering and light with horror.

“We aren’t going to do anything,” she says, and then she’s in motion again, striding around the room and putting things in order, extinguishing the fire and stuffing objects into the pockets of her skirt. “I am going to march down into that Citadel and figure out exactly how to keep Damien from getting himself killed.”

“But-” Angelo winces, wringing his hands again. “Damien said- he said for you not to worry about him.”

“Oh, is that so?” Rilla aims a glare at him and he quails under it. She can be far more frightening than the monster she and Damien love with very little strain, Angelo has learned. “Well, I’m not worried, Angelo. I’m furious. And I’m going to get him out of this if I have to knock the walls of that stupid Citadel down myself.”

She’s packing up her medical bag as if she’s going to the scene of an injury, and Angelo isn’t really sure why. Actually, Rilla doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to what she’s doing, her hands moving automatically, placing instruments and tinctures in their proper places and brushing her fingers over them, methodical and certain, before she lifts the bag and slings it around her shoulder to hang at her hip. She’s turning for the door when he speaks again.

“He said- he wanted you to be safe, Rilla. He told me to tell you not to worry, but also to be safe, and I don’t think-”

Rilla’s face freezes, and then her mouth falls open in shock as she turns back to look at him. “Oh, oh no, the complete idiot. Oh Saints above, he’s going to tell the truth.”

“The- truth?” Angelo blinks. “Is that a bad thing?”

She snorts, though her lips are tight with fear. “The truth is that Damien and I are in love with a monster, Angelo. Do you really think it’s going to go well if Damien admits that to the fricking Queen?!”

Angelo winces, and Rilla winces in turn. She sighs, and takes a moment to compose herself.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, okay, I can still figure this out.” She narrows her eyes, then glances to Angelo. “I’m still going to the Citadel. I have to know what’s happening with him. Even if Damien’s done something completely stupid, the Queen will have to consider the issue for a full day before she passes official judgment, no matter how guilty she thinks he is. Custom and all that,” she sneers. “I have to go, but-”

“But?”

She steps towards Angelo and places a careful hand on his shoulder. “Angelo. You have to tell Arum what’s going on. I can’t wait another second here or I’m going to go out of my mind, but Arum needs to know what’s happened, too.”

“I- of course, Rilla, but- how do I-”

She drops her hand and turns, striding over to a wide planter in the corner of the hut, full of dark soil and luminous plants that Angelo hadn’t noticed before but is quite sure is a new fixture in the home.

“Keep,” Rilla says, and a low singing fills the space. “Open a portal to the greenhouse, please?”

The planter seems to spring to life with that airy song, the dirt at the edges curling up into vines that form a distinct archway that reaches all the way to the ceiling before the space between is filled with magic, a chasm that leads somewhere green and chirping and warm.

Angelo takes two full steps backward. “Ah… Rilla?”

“Through there is the place where Arum lives,” she explains quickly, pulling her shoes on. “The castle, the plant- the Keep is alive. When you go through just tell it that I sent you, and tell it you need to talk to Arum. It’ll lead you to him and you can explain.” She smiles tightly. “I’m counting on you, okay?”

“I will not let you down,” Angelo says automatically, though his brow is furrowed with worry.

“I know you won’t,” she says, her smile tilting more genuine. “Just- please promise me you won’t let him do anything stupid, okay?” Angelo nods quickly. “I have to go. I’m sorry, Angelo, but- thank you for coming to tell me. I’m glad you’re on our side,” she says, her hands in tight, anxious fists at her side, and before he can respond she’s outside, the door banging shut behind her, and he can hear her stride struggling not to run towards the Citadel.

Then, Angelo turns back towards the portal, and is certainly not afraid of it. Afraid of a little magic! Certainly not.

He thinks about that for a moment.

Actually, he is rather afraid of the portal, he decides. But he can’t possibly let Rilla and Damien down, so he musters his courage and charges, and then nearly gets a mouthful of some frilly, flowery plant once he’s through. He careens sideways so as not to collide with any more flora and skids to a halt, looking around himself in wonder at the strange space he now occupies.

It is impressive, and vast, and mostly green, and Angelo thinks he would probably appreciate it all the more if he knew anything at all about plant life. No wonder Rilla is so charmed by this monster! Angelo smiles at the thought. His interests seem to intersect nicely with those of the herbalist.

He notices, belatedly, that the portal through which he entered has stopped working, the vines shrinking and receding into the floor of this place, and Angelo very bravely tries not to let the lack of an exit make him nervous.

“Er- excuse me please,” Angelo calls out, and a number of the dull bug and bird noises he hadn’t quite noticed before quail and quiet at the boom of his voice. “Friend Castle-Plant-Keep?”

After a pause, there’s that singing again as when Rilla summoned the portal, clear and questioning and very, very odd.

“Miss Rilla has sent me,” he says, wondering precisely where this building keeps its ears, and whether he should try saying things a bit louder. “Sir Damien has been- imperiled, and I am to inform the liz- er- I mean, I am to inform Lord Arum. If you could take me to him. Please?”

There is another pause, filled with strange animal calls and chimes. Then there is the singing, and suddenly there are vines again, this time twining around his legs and arms and lifting Angelo into the air, pulling him- somewhere. The automatic instinct is to draw his sword, but- well, this is the Castle-Plant-Keep, yes? He does not want to hurt something that Rilla cares about, and it doesn’t seem to be squeezing him or otherwise trying to hurt him, it is just- lifting him and moving him out of the large green space and into smaller corridors, all wood and soft blue glow.

“Pardon me, I don’t know if you realize, but I am quite capable of walking to where the- Lord Arum is on my own feet,” he says, voice mildly strained due to the current way the vines are holding him, horizontal and verging on upside-down. “Would you be so kind as to set me down?”

The building sings around him, but the vines decline his suggestion. He still doesn’t reach for his sword, partially because he has become aware of exactly how strong these vines feel around him. He’s not actually sure that he could pull his limbs from that willowy grip, and-

Hm. The pressure is actually oddly comfortable. Much more gentle and supportive than the Budkin woman, he decides.

They exit to a balcony space and Angelo is suddenly back on his feet, wobbling and slightly dizzy, and the lizard Lord himself is staring open-mouthed at Angelo over the top of a scroll as he lounges on a large leaf that seems to be serving as a loveseat.

“Ah,” Angelo says, watching the vines recede again. “I see! I asked to be taken to him, and here he is! How helpful, friend Castle-Plant-Keep. And hello, friend Lord Arum,” Angelo says, his words going on automatic.

“What,” Arum says, blank. He sets aside the scroll and stands in a flurry of motion too fast to follow. “Knight? What are you doing here?”

“I have-”

“Keep, why have you not ejected this-” he blinks, glances Angelo over a little more closely. “You- you are Sir- Angelo, was it? The one Damien is close with, is that right?”

“Best friend and rival!” Angelo can’t stop himself from chiming, even as the mention of Damien sets his stomach sour again.

“How did you get in here?” Arum growls, but the heat seems to have gone out of the words now, and he seems only confused.

“Rilla, she opened that quite strange door-”

“Amaryllis is back?” He glances over Angelo’s shoulder, as if somehow Rilla could be crouched down quite low to hide behind the knight.

“No, friend. She sent me to-” he swallows uncomfortably. “Um. Pass along news. Quite unfortunate news.”

Arum raises an eyebrow, folds three of his arms across his chest, and gestures with the fourth for Angelo to continue.

“Er-” he coughs. “Sir Damien- that is, that is to say- I happened to meet him in the Citadel this morning and- well, it just so happens-”

“Will you spit it out already?” Arum says, tail flicking behind him emphatically. “Ridiculous, the air you lot waste on meaningless blather.”

“Damien has been arrested,” Angelo says, liking the words in his mouth less and less each time he needs to say them. “For treason, and Rilla believes it is because of- well-”

“Me.” Arum has gone so very, very still that Angelo has the mad thought that he has been turned to stone. He doesn’t even breathe, for a long moment. “Obviously. Me.”

“Ah. That- that is what she thinks as well, yes.”

“Arrested,” Arum echoes, voice sliding into a snide growl. “He was only- only just here last night.” He pauses, inhales sharply, then eyes Angelo over. “Why did Amaryllis send you to me? Why is she not telling me this herself?”

“She was eager to go to the Citadel to try to- to deal with the situation herself.”

Angelo has difficulty reading expressions at the best of times, but something in Arum’s sharp features goes overtly flat and frightened for a moment. “Of course she did. Did she not even pause for a moment to consider- if they suspect Damien of treason, would they not suspect her as well?”

Angelo’s stomach churns and churns and he clenches his hands as tightly as he can. “Saints above, you don’t think they will arrest her as well?”

“This. Cannot. Happen, takatakataka,” Arum snarls, apparently not quite hearing Angelo’s question. His entire body is twitching intermittently in his distress, his tail lashing dangerously. Mind, Angelo has not spent all that much time with the lizard since they met, but this is not how Lord Arum typically composes himself. Angelo is worried that the creature is about to come apart at the seams, and he only just keeps himself from instinctively wrapping his arms around him in a steadying hug, and only because he suspects that he will find himself on the receiving end of those flexing claws if he does. “I won’t let it happen. I’ve infiltrated that vile Citadel once before, I can do it again, I can- I can find my way into their dungeon, find him and get him out-”

“While that is impressive, friend lizard, are you quite sure that Sir Damien will leave with you?”

Arum almost looks wounded for a moment, and then he rounds on Angelo with a guttural noise that is nearly a roar. “Of course he will! Do you think he desires to let your foolish human rules kill him? Do you think he desires be hanged, or beheaded, or burned alive? I can’t stand- I cannot stand aside and wait for-”

“I merely meant that our friend allowed himself to be brought into custody,” Angelo says, a little queasy at the trio of horrible mental images the lizard has presented him with. “When I saw them bring him in I tried to have him released immediately, but he stopped me, and would not permit me to interfere when I saw they would not let him free. He means to face judgment. He has done no wrong, he says.”

“Of course he hasn’t, of course he’s done nothing wrong, he would sooner toss himself from this balcony than intentionally do harm to anyone, the naive little- but that doesn’t matter, because they won’t care.” Arum’s tail collides with the leafy seat he had been reclining in and it snaps, but he doesn’t seem to notice, teeth bared and eyes wild. “All your petty laws and taboos and the bindings with which you try to shackle the infinitude of the universe, and all it does is strangle the life out of everything good, just as it will strangle the life from him, just as- just as- they will kill him, knight, do you understand that?”

Angelo worries that his own eyes have gone a little wild by now, because the lizard Lord is starting to genuinely frighten him. Not with fear for his own person - Lord Arum is a friend, and Angelo has nothing to fear from friends - but with fear that Arum is going through something close to one of the paroxysms of panic that Damien himself is prone to suffer. Angelo nods (though he can’t make himself think of Damien dying, he simply cannot), because Arum seems to be waiting for an answer before his tirade continues.

“They will kill him,” he says again, more of that clicking, guttural rasp in his voice. “Because of me.” He pauses, all four of his arms wrapping around his own chest in a grip that looks like it hurts. “Damien will die because of me, because he- he will die and it will be my fault.”

“But Rilla is-”

“Marching to her own doom as well,” he says with a grim smile. “Amaryllis, clever Amaryllis will try to reason her way out of this, but our bond is magic, not science, and they will not understand it. They never will.”

“But I-” Angelo pauses, taps his fingertips together awkwardly. “That is, I understand. And- friends Marc and Talfryn understand, so perhaps-”

“Amaryllis’ brothers tolerate me because they adore her,” Arum says dismissively. “As they should. And you- you don’t understand.”

“I do understand your bond,” Angelo says, pretending not to feel hurt. “I will admit that there are many things in the world that I do not understand, Lord Arum, but love is not one of them. I was raised in a home that had love in spades, love to spare, and I can recognize it by sight.”

Arum winces as if Angelo has said something horrible, but he sighs and nods in concession. “Fine. Fine, if you say so. But just because a few humans understand doesn’t mean that your little ruler is going to let Damien live.” He turns away and starts stalking, pacing in a quick circle, thoughts visibly churning in his head. “And perhaps I could get him out of the Citadel if he would let me, but then- they would hunt for him, of course. Pursuit that would eventually lead them- here. Unless-”

He turns, looks at Angelo oddly for a moment, and then the frill at his neck raises suddenly, framing his head like a spiky halo.

“What?” Angelo says, fidgeting uncomfortably under that gaze. “What is it?”

“I have a plan, or part of one,” Arum says in a frantic growl. “If you will- help, that is. I think I can- I can make sure that Damien is released.”

Angelo’s spirits lift with the joy of helping, before they dip back down in worry. “I don’t suppose it is a stupid plan?” he asks, entirely earnest. “Because Rilla made me promise specifically not to let you do anything stupid.”

“Of course it isn’t,” he snarls.

“Oh, good!” Angelo says, instantly convinced. “Then of course I shall help. What are we going to do?”

“I will explain on the way,” Arum says, already turning to lead Angelo back inside the Keep.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Hi! please! Is it possible to get an update of the royal equerry story? I am loving it! Thank you!!

Previously:

Part I: The Crown Equerry | Part II: An Accidental Queen | Part III: Just Claire

Her Royal Highness (H.R.H.)Part IV: Foal

On the trekback to the palace after she had stormed out on Fraser, Claire felt her heart hammering a thunderous rebuke in herchest.  

She replayed his words over and over again: Do ye no’ ken who ye are then? Ye canna be just the queen.

Her head mocked his accent, the bravado and confidence of his voice when he asked the question and made the statement. At the same time, her head mocked her, urging her to come up with something (anything) that would serve as evidence that she knew, with any certainty, who she was.

“What washe thinking?” she muttered, fists balled at her side and fingernails carvingcrescent moons into the flesh of her palm. 

The nextnight, Claire was resolute in her stubbornness.  

Defying the urge to go for a night ride, she stood ather window and glared down at the stable. Her mind was ablaze with all manner of condemnations. (How dare he? He doesn’t know the half of it. Bloody presumptuous Scot.)  She finger-combed her shower-damp hair andworked it into a loose braid.  Thedistant amber glow of the light on his desk clicked off.  Craning her neck, she saw a hulking silhouetteround the edge of the stables and ducked down as she heard the gentle rumble ofa motorcycle.

‘Amotorcycle,’ she thought absently, hands fluttering to cover her stomach.  

She hadnever ridden a motorcycle.  

Suddenly herthighs yearned for the mechanical power of it (a daydreamed sensation). She could almost feel what it would be like to have her back pressedfirmly against the broad chest of a sturdy teacher.  She almost could the feel the control of the machine at her fingers, the curling of them around the rubber grips while accelerating.

Summer air, thick like butterscotch on her skin. Zappingpings of bugs hitting bare, sunset-warmed shinbones. Riding to nowhere in particularand everywhere on their little island (her island).  Kicking up great, billowing plumes of tan dust on gravel roads andgetting lost on lanes to fields with turns and turns and turns to obscurity.  Climbing off ofthe motorcycle and laughing, her searching fingers in saddle bags to produce sweating Cokes or beers or wax paper-wrapped sandwiches. Refueling and buying apack of cigarettes without her own face staring back at her from the newspaperstand, letting the cashier keep the change with a smile. Anonymous. Swapping spots, snugglinginto a leather jacket that smelled of forest and man. Picking a stray auburn hair off ofa white t-shirt as she climbed onto the back of a motorcycle.

She yankedthe curtains shut, her mouth tripping over a series of four-letter words.

The secondnight, she had taken up residence by the window in her riding gear. “This is stupid,” she said aloud, just to confirm that she still had a voice. 

She made it as far as the back stairwellbefore returning to her bedroom and stripping down to her underwear.  Second guessing it all –– the riding, the answer to his question, what she would say if he tried to ask again, whether she wanted him to ask again.  Sitting with a frustrated pout pulling at hermouth, she elected not to go downstairs.

When she heard the roar of the motorcycle’s engine, she wasreasonably certain that she would never ride on either the front or back of amotorcycle.

The thirdnight, she was caught up in a state affair. 

An intricate blue dress, a twistedupdo that made her temples ache and eyes water, a series of conversationsswitching from French to English that made her head spin.

Frankcalled that evening when she was finished, and they exchanged pleasantries. She rubbed her feet and stared at the window, knowing that with the phone call it was too late to make an appearance at the stables and to find Fraser.  After wading through the mundanities of theirdaily lives (the scallops she had fordinner and the dreadful summer cold he felt coming on), Frank concludedtheir conversation, saying, “I will see you Saturday.”  

She felther heart catch on something and the thoughts in her brain splash against the limits of her skull, like water sloshing in a basin. With a flat affect, she responded with the only thing thatcame to mind: “Alright.”

Exhausted,she slept face down and dreamt of summer-warm limbs on beach towels, suntanlotion, and sweating bottles of beer with a broad-shouldered stranger. A motorcycle just down the beach and shaking sand out of canvas tennis shoes with peals of howling laughter.

On thefourth night, she finally exited her suite via the back stairwell.  She found the stables to be eerily quiet. Ridinggloves in hand, she made her way down to the last stall where a light glowed with the promise of Fraser’s continued presence.  

The door had been thrown openwide into the exercise yard.  Drawing herblouse over her mouth, Claire sputtered on the unusual, odiferous cocktail of feed, hay,dust, urine, and manure in the air.

Fraser,shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, was crouching at the gate of the stall,arms draped through the pickets.  She wasabout to say something, an overtly playful volley as an olive branch to apologize for her hasty departure earlier in the week.

But then what she was made her fall nearly breathless.

One of themares was on her side –– legs extended out in front of her, neck heaving.  The heavy, panting sounds of labor filled theair.

“Not thatmuch longer, love,” Fraser crooned, a piece of straw rolling between hisfingers.  

Clairestuffed her gloves one of her back pockets and took a tentative step towards thegate. A little stunned and already knowing the answer, she asked, “Is the marein labor?”

Fraserturned, immediately narrowing his eyes. A man she did not recognize was standinglooking at a watch with detached coolness. When he looked up he startled, mouth falling open dumbly as he made a half-bow. Claire wavedthe gesture off with a casual dismissiveness.

“Yer majesty…” the man said, fingers going tostraighten his tie as he stood back to full height. “An honor, I’m…”

Jamie brokeinto the introduction. “Aye.  She’s beenstraining and pacing about for a few hours now. It’s about time.”

For amoment Fraser’s eyes traveled over Claire, inspecting but not questioning.  It was an intrusive look, searchingintimately, but she welcomed it. It drove out her indecision about coming down to the stables.

Fraseradded, “Her name is Epona. The mare.”

Somethingin her wanted this to be okay–– this awkward, silent exchange of looks and their companionable silence. 

A few daysearlier she had pushed, wanting him to ask something personal just so she could hear herself say it. And he had risen toit.

He hadasked who she was.

She yearnedfor the sickening feeling of riding in a car at high speed at reverse. The gutchurning knowledge that while she could never go back, she could reverse course.  What she wanted was to go back in time–– to that moment where she had encouraged him to ask and he had. She would amend her response to his inquiry.

She would blurtout the true answer: ‘Who am I? I don’t have a bloody ideaanymore, but I can tell you who I usedto be. I liked that person.’

From Fraser’sthoughtful expression, it was clear his inspection of her did not identify whatever it was that he was looking for. She wondered if he craved that reversing feeling, too, or iffor him this was work.  Her mind was a traffic jam as she consideredthe possibility –– he was simply puttingup with her. 

The Queen, someone to beappeased. 

The thought grabbed at her guts and refused to let go.

When shesaid nothing, Fraser added, “This is Dr. Matthew Martin.  He’s an equine veterinarian.  Best in the business. At least he says.”

“Pleasure,”Claire said blankly, looking at Dr. Martin who was mumbling something and plainly stunned intoincoherence by the near-midnight appearance of the Queen. Brows furrowed, Claire took one more tentative step towards thegate. “Can I come watch?”

She was notsure why she asked the question when there was absolutely nothing Fraser or the veterinariancould have done to stop her. But it felt like an intrusion nonetheless. 

Fraserquirked an eyebrow, lips curling into a slight smile. “Foaling can be a messybusiness, ma’am.”

“And your point, Fraser?” She raised a single,manicured eyebrow of her own. At this point, she would have sacrificed theentire trust of land in her portfolio for a little messy business.

In amovement so fast that she wondered if she had imagined it, Fraser licked hislower lip and drew it in between his teeth.

He was smirking at her.

Hisexpression flipped back to neutrality by the time he shrugged and responded, “Nopoint, ma’am. Ye’re welcome to watch, if ye want.”

Giving her ownlower lip a quick swipe of her tongue, she went to the gate and stood next tohim.  For a moment she consideredcrouching just so she would not be towering over him. He had her off balance andshe wanted to be on his level.  But beforeshe could adjust her position, he stood, dropping the piece of straw.

“It willnabe much longer, ma’am. She’s been pacin’ and walkin’ the fence line for a fewhours, ye ken. The foal’s in the right position, allantoic fluid’s beenreleased. Ye’re just in time.”

“How do youknow all of this?” Claire asked, not looking at him but unable to stifle theslight tone of awe in her voice.

“It’s myjob, ma’am,” Fraser said simply.

Holding herbreath, Claire watched as the mare huffed and strained, going to her knees andthen back to her side.  

Anunidentifiable part of the foal eased from the mare. It was covered in a bluish-white,rubbery protective layer. Claire reached for Fraser’s forearm, fingers winding around the curve of it and feeling the almost undetectable twitch of muscle there. “Oh Christ,” shewhispered.

“And Iguess I’ve seen this a fair bit… farm life, and all.”

Heart inher throat, Claire looked down at her hand. Fraser glanced down onlymomentarily, a quick flick of his eyes, before he resettled his attention onthe mare. After a beat, Claire let her hand fall casually away. The warmbristle of his flesh was imprinted on her palm.

It feltlike an eternity and no time at all passed before the foal was born, sticky andawkward in the straw. The slick, velvety head swiveled awkwardly. Eyesstinging, Claire went to her knees and peered through the bars of the gate. Themare gently licked behind the foal’s ears, earning a whimper from the newestaddition to the stables.

“Theinstinct… it is… beautiful.  Nature justfills in the blanks where no one dictates how to act, how to be.”

Fraser stayedsilent, leaning against the post and indicating with his head for theveterinarian to leave.  For a moment Fraserstudied her: the hair flopped over her brow, the slight parting of her lips asshe watched the mare inspect her foal, the slow way she blinked when plainly amazed by something.

After atime, when they were alone, she asked, “Will you stay the night here then,Fraser?”

“Aye,” heresponded quietly, running a hand over the back of his neck.  “There’s somewhat messy business of expellingthe placenta. Could take a few hours. If it doesna pass, weel, it’s a differentkinda situation, ye ken?”

“Mmmm.”  The mare nudged the foal’s neck, gruntingslightly. “I want to stay. To help. I mean, if you need it.”

“Alright,”he said, his voice carrying an entirely different tone than hers had the daybefore. “I’d like ye to stay, if this is where ye want to be.”

Turning,she looked at him.  

A riot of urgesswelled in him.  

To sweep aside the chunkof damp curls from her forehead.  

To lickhis lips as he inhaled.  

To straightenthe collar of her blouse, pat it down so it rested flat at her neck. 

To brushthe straw from the knees of her riding pants.

“It’s whereI want to be,” she confirmed, lips curling slightly before she turnedback.  

Fraser did not turn. He thought ten thousand things in Gaelic at once.

[akar0ku]

Right now I’m working on a 100 theme challenge and a 30 kink meme, both for Radiata Stories. The first one I’m trying to get a variety of stuff and am trying to stock pile about 25 fics at a time before posting them over a 25 day period. The kink meme is just for fun and to give me a break since I’m not taking it to seriously. It’s also 100% self serving sooooo I’m just gonna dump a bunch of smut for my favorite character everywhere. If you haven’t guessed this is a part of the kink meme.

p.s. I’m seeing if I like posting the whole story to tumblr better than just sharing the AO3 link. Here’s the AO3 version if that’s easier.

Prompt 1: Cuddling

Summery: Jarvis and Jack find navigating the aftermath of a hook up to be both awkward and a little more guilt ridden then they thought.

Warning: Implied underaged sex, also I did a poor job following the prompt. Cuddling is literally the only one I had a hard time making a plot for, go figure.

Now he’d really done it. Of all the stupid things he had done in his life, in all the ways he had inadvertently fucked himself over, this really took the cake.

“You gonna be okay there?”

No, he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. As soon as tomorrow hit, everyone would know. The kid would realize how messed up this was and tell everyone they worked with. Hell he’d probably go running to the castle guards over what happened.

“Um, Sarge?”

His life was over now. They’d throw him in the dungeons and leave him there to rot for eternity. He’d forever be known to the world as a degenerate and a pervert. People would tell stories of him to their young ones, of how his wandering soul would abduct them into the night if they didn’t behave.

“So like, is the massive panic attack a common thing for old people after getting laid or is this just a you thing?”

“Aw, can it will you! You have no idea what kind of a predicament this puts me in!” Jarvis hissed as he rolled over to face his bed mate. A huge mistake when he was met with the sight of a young lean naked boy; laying on his side and propping his head up on an open palm, the blanket barely draped across his waist, and large innocent brown eyes staring at him like he was a chore...well the boy wasn’t so innocent anymore, no thanks to him.

“Right, should have guessed it was a you thing. What’s the problem? You seemed into this a few hours ago.”

“How do you NOT see the problem?! I’m twice your age. I just deflowered a damn child.”

“Last I checked I was legally an adult. Also don’t say deflower, I’m not some virgin maiden from a story book.” Jack argued, pouting in response to the older man’s choice of words.

“Well you certainly weren’t experienced by any means.” Jarvis couldn’t help scoffing. He took a small amount of satisfaction in how Jack’s face practically glowed red in the dim light.

“Still doesn’t change that I’m an adult…”

“Hardly!”

“Hey I’m trying to help you feel better!”

“Fine! So maybe I’m not going to jail but people are still going to give me dirty looks. Plus I’ll lose my job now. You’re still my subordinate remember.”

“You’re saying that like we have to tell everyone.” It was probably the most observant thing Jack had said since they met. The thought honestly hadn’t even occurred to him.

“You’re not going to tell anyone or make some story about how I forced you into this?”

“No, why would I want to? Even if I did, who would ever believe that you could MAKE me do anything.” The look on Jack’s face was a mixture of confused, annoyed, and blissfully ignorant. The kid had no clue how precarious the situation was or how easily he could screw him over. Though despite their bickering, Jack had never proven to be the malicious type, not to his coworkers at the very least.

“Don’t paint your flagrant disobedience as a positive quality.” Jarvis huffed. Contrary to the scolding nature of his words he was very clearly relieved.

“Whatever, so what do we do now?”

That was a good question. Typically the people Jarvis brought home left not long after the fact, or if they did end up staying he had no perception of it, usually winding up passed out and waking up long after they had gone. He realized with some degree of embarrassment that this is the first sober hook up he’s had in a long time. Digressing, the sun wasn’t fully set yet so it was kind of early for them to go to sleep. Kicking the kid out seemed a bit crass and cold hearted though.

“Dunno, what do you wanna do?” He supposed he’d just roll with whatever the kid wanted. A part of him wanted Jack to stay...but the thought of vocalizing that felt awkward and needy.

He watched as Jack averted his gaze and stared upwards towards the head of the bed. The look of uncertainty was alien on his usually confident face but clearly showed that the boy did indeed have an idea of what he wanted but was struggling to spit it out. Eventually the boy moved to crawl across the short space separating them. He nuzzled his face into the older man’s bare chest, wrapping one arm around his torso and struggling for a moment to find a place for the other before settling on leaving it awkwardly curled between them.

Despite being well toned, the boy’s body felt oddly small and out of place against him. It’s not the filled out body of a fully grown man yet but he can't really compare it to the feeling of a woman either. His stomach churns when he remembers it's the build of a child, just entering into the realm of adulthood. He knows Jack is of age and is certain he won’t say anything, but he wonders if his conscience can handle keeping this between them. He hasn’t always made the best choices in life, but he wanted to believe he wasn’t so unscrupulous.

“Please stop it with the moral crisis. It’s making you tense up and I’m never going to get to sleep with you making things so heavy.”

...On second thought, why exactly was he feeling so bad about what he’d done to this brat? Whatever, if the kid was going to act so cocky and like he was doing him a favor by staying then he was going to reap what he wanted from this while he could.

He grabs a hold of Jack and rolls onto his back, bringing the younger man with him so he's laying against his chest and straddling his waist. The indignant yelp from the brunette is worth a good laugh and for the moment he’s almost completely forgotten about the guilt he had been struggling with moments ago.

“What? You ready for round two already?” Jack's tone is intended to be snarky but the red flush across his face and the slight waver in his voice clearly betrayed the mix of excitement and nerves he was trying to cover up.

“Tsk, I wish.” As if to mock him, his still overly sensitive cock gives a sad and painful twitch. “I’m not young enough to go at it so soon. You’re just going to have to settle with cuddling.”

“Didn’t think you were such a cuddle bug, Sarge.”

Jarvis knows his face is burning red at the accusation and he covers it with his free hand to hide the fact from the snickering teen. It doesn’t help either that the brat keeps referring to him in that casual honorific.

“Yeah, well I never knew you were such a pervert.” He says to draw attention to the the obvious erection he can feel twitching against his stomach. Wait the kid was seriously ready to go another round? Jeez, if only he were about a decade younger.

Jack’s laughter stops rather abruptly and when Jarvis pulls his hand away to look, he sees Jack’s face burning equally as hot. The flush is clearly not from embarrassment though, he can recognize the look Jack makes when he’s thinking hard on something from a mile away.

“You know…” Jack starts, pushing himself up with his hands against Jarvis’ chest and smirking down at him in a way that Jarvis can only guess is intended to be sultry. “I could always...I dunno, be the one...to...” Jack doesn’t need to finish the sentence for Jarvis to catch on to what he’s trying to ask. The rapid shift from cheeky confidence, to apprehension, and finally sheepish uncertainty makes it even clearer. Jarvis can’t help the patronizing smirk pulling at his lips or the laughter bubbling up from his chest.

“Hey! Stop laughing.”

Jarvis’ barely contained snorts escalated into full on laughter the moment he’s been called out. A part of him feels bad, the boy’s face is so red, he’s surprised his head hasn’t blown up and he could already feel the new erection wilting fast against his stomach. He really shouldn’t be laughing at the fumbling of a sexually awakened teen...but it was just too funny.

Now rife with embarrassment, Jack sunk back down until he was laying flat again. He glared off to the side, a pout on his face and his chin resting against the other man’s still heaving chest. The first thought that came to Jarvis’ mind was that of angered puppy that just had its ball taken away. He had to admit, it was kinda cute and fitting to the boys temperament.

“Nice try,” he ruffled the teens hair with a bit more force than was necessary, earning a disgruntled groan. “But no.”

Jarvis didn’t pay much mind to the younger's continued pouting and settled back into the mattress, keeping one arm firmly wrapped around Jack’s waist while throwing the other up over his head. He busies himself with tracing formless shapes into the younger's back, finding it oddly hypnotic to the point that he’s starting to doze off.

Jack must have found something soothing in the action as well, eventually easing out of whatever indignation he was feeling. He shifting so his cheek was pressed against Jarvis’ collarbone and hooked his arms underneath his shoulders.

Jarvis closed his eyes and savored the intimacy as he started to drift off.

“Hey…” Jack’s voice brought him back from the edges of sleep, making him hum in mild annoyance. “You’re not uncomfortable like this?” He shook his head ‘no’ in reply. If he were honest, he kinda liked the reassuring pressure of another person's weight pressing into him.

“Kay…” A long pause stretched on before Jack admitted with a slightly nervous chuckle. “This is kinda nice, actually.”

Jarvis snorted in amusement. He brought his free hand back down and affectionately combed his fingers thought messy brown hair. The action seemed to elicit a different response then expected though, bringing a sad sigh from Jack’s lungs.

“You still regret doing this?” Now that was a question that had some weight to it. Enough to fully jar the older of the two out of the half asleep state he was in. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, struggling to figure out exactly what to say. Here he had been feeling sorry for himself and worrying about the repercussions of his actions, he hadn’t really thought of how Jack could interpret that on his end. It hadn’t occurred to him that maybe Jack was looking for him to show some sign that this was something he had wanted as well.

Did he really regret what he had done? He thinks back on all the times he had caught himself staring for a little too long. The occasions where he felt confusingly overjoyed and shamefully embarrassed to the point of anger when the young corporal would occasionally drag him home when he’d had a few too many. All the moments he’s denied that maybe he felt something a little more than just distaste or at the very least amicable annoyance towards Jack. He’s pretty sure there’s substantial enough evidence to prove he’d do it again if presented with the situation all over. Maybe it’s about time he actually started looking into the nature of whatever attachment he’s been feeling lately. At the very least he needs to admit he’s physically attracted.

“I just feel bad I was your first. You honestly could have done better.” It’s not until he speaks it that it fully dawns on him what had make him so upset earlier. He’s sure if Jack had been more promiscuous by this point he may not feel as torn about the situation.

“Is that really it?” Jack looks both relieved and incredulous. “I already told you, I can make my own choices. So stop feeling bad.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jarvis chided, not fully convinced that Jack wouldn’t change his opinion sometime down the line. “I suppose there’s nothing to be done about it now. Just do me a favor and remember how adamant you were about making your own choices before you decide to report me down the line okay.”

“Stop saying that!” Jack pushes himself back up again, this time glaring down at Jarvis with that angry puppy expression again. Again Jarvis feels laughter bubbling up from deep in his chest. God, when did he have such a soft spot for the kid. Must be some post sex magic heightening the already dubious attraction he’s been harboring.

“Just get back down here and shut up already. You're so needy.” He doesn’t really want to get too involved in the topic at the moment. He’s tired and all he really wants is to bask in the warmth of post-coital intimacy before he winds up falling too far into a guilt trip again.

“How is that being needy? Plus you're the one smothering me right now!” Jack fought against the arms pressing down into his back, but the effort was fruitless as he was simply squashed down into the other man’s chest. The only thing Jack could do at that point was glare and stick his tongue out, an action reciprocated by the second of the pair.

“See, now who’s acting like a kid.” Jack mumbled, almost getting cut off with a stifled yawn.

Jarvis doesn’t even bother with a rebuttal, instead running a hand through Jack’s messy hair, down the length of his back, and repeating the process as if the boy were little more than a tired pet. He watched as Jack struggled to keep his eyes open before eventually succumbing to his fatigue and finally drifting off.

It’s a sweet sight. One that does little to assuage the guilt that’s fighting to rear its head again. He tries with all his might to swallow it back down and has some success. But he can’t get over the fact that this was the boy’s first experience. He’d forever look back on this and even though he’s okay now, there’s little doubt Jack would eventually regret it. There’s nothing special to be had here, just a casual hook up and nothing more. Regardless of what happens further down the line, this instance was driven by little more than lust.

“Too tight.” He hears Jack mumble in his sleep and he realizes he’s stopped petting the sleeping brunette and has been clutching him to his body far too tightly to be comfortable. He eases up on the pressure but doesn’t release his hold. Again he focused on the pleasant feeling of being intimately close with someone, on how warm Jack’s body is, the gentle pressure of his chest expanding as he breathed, the tickle of unruly hair against his neck and face.

It seems to work for the time being. At least well enough that he can start feeling the fog of drowsiness overtaking him again. He supposes he’ll worry about it tomorrow instead, there’s not much he can really do about it now anyway.

[bxcketbarnes]

Spades and Pick-up Lines

Pairing: Ashton Irwin x Reader

Author: @ninja-stiles

Words: 2041

Request: 4, 15, 16, with Ashton??? <3 by nonnie!

Author’s Note: Here’s my second 5sos fic with the lovely Ash. I hope you enjoy it and don’t forget you guys can send in requests! :)

I sat on the tour bus as the guys were in the venue, doing their thing that they do every night. I would have usually been on the sidelines, watching my four best friends achieve their dream, but I wasn’t feeling very well ever since this morning. I had laid in Ashton’s bunk for about an hour, tossing and turning as I tried to sleep the terrible feeling away, but it didn’t work. So now, I’m sitting at the table in the kitchen/living room area, playing with a set of cards.

Soft quiet music played on my phone, resting my head against my arm as I turned another card over, sighing slightly as it wasn’t the one I needed. I heard a bunch of screams, quickly sitting up straight as the door to the tour bus opened, four sweaty boys walking inside as they were laughing and waving at fans. A smile immediately came to my lips, always loving how they adored the fans, leaning my chin against the palm of my hand as Calum turned around, noticing me at the table.

“Hey, where were you?” The bassist asked and I was about to speak when Ashton cut him off.

“She wasn’t feeling well. She told me she would be resting,” Ash answered, raising his eyebrows at me as I bit my lip softly, giving him a small smile.

“I tried, but I couldn’t get to sleep,” I explained as Luke and Ashton sat across from me, the blonde sitting right in front of me. Luke leaned over, pressing the back of his hand against my forehead, checking my temperature as I smiled sheepishly at the young teen.

“You feel a bit warm, but not warm enough where you have a fever,” Luke frowned, sitting back down in his spot as Ashton looked over at me, an indescribable look on his face as I gave both boys another small smile, letting them know I was alright… well kinda.

“Guys, I’m fine. How about we play some cards?” I asked and Michael immediately declined, heading towards the back. I laughed a bit at how quickly he answered, looking to the other boys as they shrugged.

“Yeah, I’m down. Let me just shower real quick,” Ash mumbled, getting up from his seat as he walked towards his bunk, getting off my seat to follow as well.

“Hey, you okay?” I asked, leaning against the bunks next to him as he dug through his bag, finding some clothes to put on after his shower.

“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine,” he muttered, running a hand through his sweaty hair and I could tell he was lying.

“Ash…” I trailed off, laying a hand on his arm as his hazel eyes glanced towards me. “You know we’ve been friends for almost a decade, I can tell when something’s bothering you.” Ashton frowned, nodding his head as he pulled me into his chest, softly rubbing my back.

“I’m just… I’m not gonna lie to you, Y/N/N. You’re like my good luck charm at concerts and tonight I felt like I messed something up while drumming. It’s been bugging me ever since,” Ashton sighed, resting his chin on the top of my head.

I slipped out from his grip, raising my hand to run my fingers through his sweaty locks, giving him a grin. “Ash, let me be honest with you now. You’re the best goddamn drummer I know. I’m sure you did great without me being there. Even if you did mess up, who cares? Your fans still adore you so fucking much,” I told him, the hand that ran through his hair resting at the base of his neck. The drummer’s eyes widened a bit, lips parted as he was surprised those words came out of my lips.

“You’re amazing, you know that?” Ashton asked, his large hand wrapping around my dainty wrist as I smirked, shrugging my shoulders.

“I’ve been told that yeah.”

“Well, you are. I’m reminding you again. I’m gonna take a quick shower then we can play cards. Spades, right?” He asked and I nodded excitingly.

“Of course! You’re gonna be my partner right?” I asked, grinning up at the cute Australian. Ashton nodded his head, leaning down to place his lips on my cheek before grabbing a towel, heading towards the bathroom.

“You bet your sweet ass I am.”

“Alright,” I spoke, sitting down in front of Luke as Calum slid into the spot next to me, both boys looking at me. “You guys know how to play spades, yes?” I asked, taking the two of hearts and diamonds out of the deck, replacing them with the big joker and the little joker.

“Yeah, I take it Calum and I are partners by the way we’re all seated?” Luke questioned and I grinned at the blonde boy.

“Yup, that would be a true fact,” I laughed, shuffling the cards together before dealing them out to the boys.

“First-hand bids themselves, gentlemen and lady,” Ash smirked, looking towards me as I could feel my cheeks heat up. I sorted my cards, my eyes looking towards Luke as he placed down the first card. Ace of hearts.

“Startin’ off big aren’t we, Lukey?” I giggled, watching as everyone threw a low card, throwing down a low card as well. Luke just smirked at me, picking up his and Calum’s book, placing it next to him.

“Well, might as well get as many as we can. You guys are way too good at this damn game,” he laughed, throwing down a low club. My eyes looked over at Ash as he were already on me. He gave me a cheeky wink before throwing down the ace of clubs.

Calum groaned from beside me as he threw down a king of clubs, knowing that it’s his lowest card. I threw down a shit club, having Ashton collect our books as he gave me a high five.

Luke and Calum were ahead of us in points, but only by like thirty. I nibbled on my bottom lip, looking towards Ash as he was counting his bids. “Are you a magician? Because whenever I look at you everyone else disappears.” Ashton grinned at me, causing me to furrow my eyebrows together in confusion, looking at Cal and Luke who just shook their heads.

“U-Uh, what?” I stuttered, my cheeks blushing as Ashton chuckled, holding up three of his fingers. I gulped, nodding my head as my stomach churned, wondering why he just used a pickup line on me. “O-Okay, we’re going six.”

“Flustered, Y/N?” Calum asked and I glanced up at the Kiwi boy, seeing the smirk on his lips as I turned my head away from him, shaking my head in reply. Lie.

“I think she is Cal,” Luke grinned, holding his cards close to his face as I narrowed my eyes at the two boys.

“Shut up,” I muttered, my cheeks red as a tomato as I looked towards Ashton who had a silly grin on his lips.

“Y/N, you’re absolutely adorable when you blush,” the drummer pointed out and I hid my face in my hands, getting way too embarrassed, needing air.

“Cal, Luke, you guys win,” I mumbled, maneuvering around Calum before going into the back of the tour bus where Michael was, letting out a breath. Holy shit. What’s going on with Ash?

“Y/N?” I heard Michael’s voice as he looked up at me from the couch he was sitting on. “You okay?” He asked and I ran my fingers through my hair, shrugging my shoulders as I sat down beside him.

“I-I don’t know. A-Ashton, he uh, he told me this pickup line and I’m just very confused,” I mumbled, looking towards the red-haired boy. Michael’s eyes widened, looking back out towards where the guys are, seeing Ashton himself walking back here.

“I’ll leave you guys alone,” Mikey mumbled, leaving the room. I licked my lips, standing up in front of Ashton as he looked to be a bit nervous.

“Your lips look so lonely…Would they like to meet mine?” Ashton asked, my eyes widening, lips moving to form some sort of answer when he spoke again. “You must be a hell of a thief because you stole my heart from across the room.”

My heart clenched, swallowing thickly as he smiled down at me. “What’s with the cheesy pickup lines?” I asked, not wanting to get my hopes up about him having feelings for me.

Ashton grabbed my hand, lacing our fingers together as my breath hitches in my throat. He stepped closer to me, our bodies inches apart as his index finger lifted my chin up. “You mean everything to me…” he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine as my eyes slowly fluttered shut, gripping his shirt in my hand.

“A-Ashton,” I stuttered quietly, feeling my heart pounding against my chest. “This isn’t some sick joke is it?” I asked in a whisper, opening my eyes to glance up at him through my lashes.

He shook his head immediately. “No, no, of course not,” Ashton muttered, resting his free hand on my cheek, his thumb softly rubbing my cheekbone. “I’ve liked you for so long. Hell, I’m probably in love with you.”

My breath hitches again, staring up at the hazel-eyed boy, both his hands moving to my hips as my grip on his shirt loosened, trailing my hands up bid chest and around his neck. “I-I love you,” I mumbled, butterflies flying around in my stomach as he grinned down at me.

“Can I… can I kiss you?” He asked and I nodded my head, my fingers dipping into his hair. Ashton tilted his head to the side, leaning down to close the gap between us. My eyes fluttered shut, feeling his lips press against mine. It felt like my heart was going to explode as I moved my lips against his, our chests were pressed against each other’s as one of his large hands dipped under my shirt.

I pulled away from him, needing to breathe as I was panting slightly. His lips connected with my forehead, a large grin appearing on my lips. “Can I sleep with you tonight?” I asked, biting my lip softly as his eyes widened, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he nodded.

“Y-Yeah, come on,” Ashton muttered, taking my hand in his before leading me towards his bunk, allowing me to get in first. Once we got situated, my back was facing Ash as his arms wrapped around my waist.

I could feel his breath but the back of my neck, his fingers drawing shapes on the bare skin of my side. I pushed my ass back against him, getting more comfortable as I heard him groan, tightening his grip on my side. My eyes widened as I felt his semi-hard member pressed against me. “Are you seriously horny right now?” I asked, looking back at him as I noticed his cheeks dusted pink, clearing his throat.

“How can I not be when your ass is pressed up against me!?” He asked, feeling the back of his hand against my behind as he adjusted himself in his sweats. I bit my lip, turning around so I was facing him, laying my head on his chest.

“Sorry. I didn’t know I had that kind of effect on you,” I mumbled, pressing my lips together in a thin line. Ashton’s hand rubbed my back gently, sending shivers down my spine. “But, I’m glad I do.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hush, gorgeous,” Ashton chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I nuzzled my face into his neck, nice to actually be able to cuddle with someone I’ve been in love with for seven years.

“I love you,” I mumbled tiredly, feeling my eyes slowly droop shut.

“I love you too, Y/N,” Ashton whispers, pulling me closer to his body.

[ellohcee]

Alright. Your writing is amazing and Im a complete sucker for angst, soooo #17, ladynoir, post-reveal potentially? Thanks hun!

Sorry it took so long, took me a bit to figure out which direction I wanted to go with the prompt, but here it is! It’s not super angsty, but I got a little of everything in there so I hope you like it!

- - - -

50 Prompts

#17 – Promise

Miraculous Ladybug

Prompt List

- - - -

“I’ll always be by your side.”

It’s a statement that sends chills upher spine, as if a cold hand trails spindle fingers across her skinto leave goosebumps in their wake. She wants to believe him, with allof her heart, because she’d like nothing more than to always face theroad ahead with her partner. He is her strength, her pillar, and hersunshine. Ladybug can’t imagine life without him in it, his beautifulsmile and ever present optimism.

But, as much as this promise fills herheart with joy, it also forms a pool of dread in her stomach. How canhe know? How can he be so certain that he’ll always be there? Notthat she expects him to ever desert her willingly. No, it’s hisdetermination to protect her that scares Ladybug the most.

Chat Noir is always so immediate tothrow himself in harms way, taking hits for her, being thedistraction, drawing the danger and painting a giant target on hisown chest. On one hand she loves him for how brave and selfless heis, but the way he acts it out terrifies her. Hawk Moth is learningfrom them, taking in every defeat with unbridled anger but alsoputting it to use. Every Akuma seems to get a little closer, landharder blows, give them more of a run for their money than the last.It’s a constant dance, a deadly waltz of push and pull, dangernipping their heels like a constant presence. And one day, she fearsit will catch them, and he’ll throw himself in harms way like always.

Just last night she woke in a coldsweat from nightmares, haunted by the images in her sleep. It hadbeen after a close call with that day’s Akuma. A barber, enraged by agreedy customer feigning discontent and smearing the name of hisbusiness, akumatized to become Close Shave. The transformed civilianwields a huge barber’s blade, sleek and sharp and blinding them byreflecting flashes of the midday sun.

Chat had a close shave indeed, blockinga swing that had been aimed for Ladybug by deflecting it with hisstaff. But it strayed far too close, grinding against the staff andsending a shower of sparks from the contact. The blade ended upcatching his forearm along the way just before narrowly missing hisface. Ladybug had screamed, pure, unbridled rage and fear, as bloodseeped from the cut in his suit and ran down his arm, swinging heryo-yo out to wrap around the surprised Akuma.

After the fight, she stood tremblingwith fading adrenaline, clutching his hand in her own and making surethere was absolutely no trace of injury after the fix. “Really, I’mfine,” he tried to insist, but she merely glared down at his armwith tears in her eyes, bringing his feeble assurance to a halt. Shewanted to yell at him, tell him that was stupid and reckless, but shecouldn’t find the words as her throat was too tight. So she gave hima punch in the shoulder, then a tight hug, and ran off without aword, surely leaving him confused.

Later she tries to put it from her mind, toforget the sight of blood running down the leather of his suit, butit will not leave. She feels nauseous a few times imagining what couldhave been, how close he’d come to something much worse, and has tolie down more than once. That night her sleep is plagued by terribleimages, of how things could have gone, and if her fix works on moreserious injuries. In her dreams, it does not. In her dreams, he islost.

These nightmares are the reason sheslumps into her seat at school the next morning, tired and aching anda subtle sway to her body when she tries to sit still. Her friendsknow something is up, but she’s thankful she doesn’t look as terribleas she feels. “Marinette, are you okay?” Adrien asks, startlingher out of nearly falling asleep moments after sitting down. Her bodyflinches upright, an all-over sensation akin to a jolt ofelectricity.

“Ah, y-yes, I’m fine,” shestutters, her heart beating rapidly. For once it’s not becauseAdrien’s talking to her, but for being jolted out of that near sleepstate. She’s too tired to be nervous or embarrassed from those greeneyes watching her, she just wants to set her head on the desk. Somehazy passing of time and the cool stinging of her forehead makes herrealize she’s actually done it. They’ve given up talking to her,maybe assuming she’s fallen asleep in the few minutes before class.They’ll wake her when it’s time.

But suddenly her blood runs cold in herveins, because Alya’s going on about the Akuma attack yesterday andoh there’s a news report about it.Of course there would be, and of course Alya would be playing thevideo. She listens in an uncomfortable fog to the sounds of theirfight, feeling herself dragging down into the depths of sleep. Butsomewhere in the haze of her exhausted mind she hears the sharp hissof metal and Chat’s yell of pain that causes and immediate andviolent churn of her stomach. Marinette stands abruptly and hurriesout of the room, afraid she might be sick as she heads for thebathroom.

The exhaustion fromrunning on a mere 3 hours of sleep opens the door for her full bodyreaction. When Alya finds her in the bathrooms, Marinette is pale andshaking, a cold sweat over her body like she’s just woken from one ofthose terrible nightmares. “Marinette, geez, are you okay? You looklike you’re going to pass out!” Alya exclaims in worry, hoveringover her where Marinette leans heavily over the porcelain sink.

“No, I can’t…”she trails off, another wave of nausea hitting her hard.

“I have to takeyou home, you look terrible,” Alya says softly. “Can you walk? Doyou need a minute?”

She does, sheabsolutely does, so she nods stiffly. Alya looks worried, she’s neverseen her friend so disheveled. “I’m going to go tell Bustier I’mwalking you home, and I’ll get your bag, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Her hands trembleon the sink, and she wonders why this is affecting her so much, sostrongly, as if her heart were about to break. Is it the lack ofsleep making her overreact, or is it something much more? Her headspins just a little, and after several moments, she whispers into thevast silence of the bathroom. “You can’t be by my side if you keepputting yourself in danger, Chat,” she grumbles softly.

“And I can’t beby your side if you get hurt.”

Marinette’s headwhips up so fast that everything spins, and she almost falls overbefore hands are suddenly under her arms, keeping her from hittingtile. That’s definitely not Alya, the hands are bigger, and she fallsagainst a firm chest as her rescuer supports her. Her heart poundingin alarm, she trembles in their grasp because everything is stillspinning so she has no idea who’s touching her.

“Woah thereblondie, girls bathroom much? Thanks, but I’ll take it from here.You’re lucky you stopped her from kissing the floor, otherwise I’dbeat your ass for being in here. Go on, shoo!” Alya berates theperson, steering Marinette away from that comforting figure. Is thatChat? There’s no way he’s here…

But whenMarinette’s vision clears and she peers over Alya’s shoulder, shesees Adrien there, and her heart nearly stops. There are so manyemotions in his gaze, surprise, recognition, worry, love, that itsends a jolt through her body to realize it was him who’d startledher in the bathroom. And it was him who’d spoken those words.

He’s wide-eyed andalmost out of her sight, and just before they round the corner, hemouths something that looks suspiciously like ‘it’s you.’

- - - -

Later that nightthey meet up for patrol, Chat Noir ghosting across rooftops until hefinds her, slowing to a halt. He stands hesitantly a few feet awaybefore approaching, looking concerned. “Hey, you okay Bug?” heasks softly, peering at her from under wild bangs. “You look…um…”

“Terrible?” shegroans, running a hand down her face. “Of course I do, I hardlyslept. And today…” she trails off, as if questioning the realityof what happened in the bathroom. Was that really Adrien under themask?

Chat blinks. “Why?”

“Why?” sherepeats, incredulous. “Because of you!” she snaps, startling him.Normally she’d feel bad for causing that kicked kitten look on hisface, but she’s too exhausted to care. All of her pent up worry andfrustration she hadn’t verbally communicated yesterday swells like aflood. “Because you- jumped in front of me like that yesterday andgot yourself hurt because of me- And the nightmares! I kept seeing-You- and the knife-”

She doesn’t realizeshe’s started to get worked up until Chat wraps his arms around herin a hug, trying to calm her down and rubbing a hand up and down herback. “Hey hey, it’s alright, I’m okay, you fixed me up!” heexclaims quietly, feeling her exhausted body start to slump in hisembrace. He’s not sure if Ladybug is actually calming down or if thatbrief burst of angry energy is wearing off. Her arms raise up toweakly return the hug, and his chest tightens with worry. “Are yousure you should be out? Today in the bathroom…”

“So it wasyou,” she whispers in amazement. “I wasn’t sure if I had beenhearing things, or I misunderstood…”

“Yeah, sorry I…after you ran out, you looked so sick, I walked in right as you saidthat and I just kind of blurted out… I’m really sorry, I didn’tmean to,” he rambles nervously, wary of disappointing her forruining their shared anonymity.

“Don’t be,” shewhispers softly, making him blink.

“Really?” heasks, surprised.

Ladybug nods weaklyas he lowers them both to sit on the rooftop. “I… know it wasbound to happen eventually, there’s no denying that. The onlyquestion was whether it would be an accident, or when it becamesafe,” she sighs, making his eyes light up at the implication. “ButChat… I… need you to promise me something.”

He leans forward,claws digging into the palms of his gloves in barely concealed glee.“Anything, My Lady.”

“Please, youcan’t keep… trying to take all the hits for me,” she whispers,making his face fall. “Yesterday rattled me so badly, seeing youhurt like that because you were trying to protect me… I can takecare of myself!” she suddenly exclaims hotly, making him lean backin surprise. “But also, I could never live with myself if somethinghappened to you because of me. In the last 24 hours I’ve nearly hadthree full mental or physical breakdowns because your arm was gaugedopen. I’ll lose it if anything ever happens to you,” she admitssoftly.

Chat swallowsagainst the lump in his throat, feeling the full force of his loveand joy battling against the terrible feeling of upsetting her. “Wellyou know the same is true for me,” he says quietly.

“Then let’scompromise,” she demands. “Instead of you trying to take hits forme all the time, yank me out of the way! I can take hits Chat, soplease, no more human shield! You promised to always be by my side,right? Then be by my side, not in front of me. You’re mypartner and my friend, but you’re not my sacrificial lamb. Okay?”she pleads, taking one of his hands in her trembling grip and lookinghim dead in the eye.

Chat is strucksilent by the expression on her face, her eyes trembling in so manyemotions that he feels like he’s been sucked into a gale of hurricanewinds. His heart skips a beat before coming back to a painful tempoin his chest. He’s not used to seeing her so desperate, pleading withhim when she’s usually self-assured and confident. He wants to sayit’s worth the risk if he can keep her safe, but seeing her so hurtand worried over him breaks his heart. How can he say no? He takes aslow breath, before carefully setting his free hand atop of hers.“Okay,” he finally relents, seeing the wash of relief floodthrough her instantly. “No more sacrificial lamb, for your peace ofmind.”

“Thank you,”she sighs, leaning forward abruptly to hug him. “You stupid cat,”she grumbles in finality, making him laugh.

“My Lady,” hesays in a sudden fit of joy, holding her tight against his chest.“I’m so glad it’s you,” he whispers into her hair, the pleasantswirl of emotion humming in his chest.

Ladybug smiles, andfor the first time since she’d temporarily hated him, she’s notstuttering around Adrien. It’s hard to be nervous anymore because her‘perfect’ dazzling crush is really a giant goofball in cat ears, andthat thought makes her want to laugh. More importantly, he’s been oneof the best friends she’s ever had and he’s secretly been at her sidemore than either of them realized. And that one makes her eternallygrateful, seeping into her voice without restraint as she responds.“Me too.”

“You’re also gladthat you’re you? Or you’re happy that I’m me?” Chat teases.

“Shut up youdork,” she laughs, pushing him over.

[outrealm-gates]

Drabble prompt: one day's diary, by the hour, for Camilla who takes care of 3 abdl who sleep in her womb each night.

[8:00am] The sweet little babies are churning in my big belly that beaches me to my bed, they’re gonna be awfully cold and shivery when I let them out.....poor dears~! Good thing I have towels and a warm cuddly bed for them to snuggle in for warmth with Mama~[9:00am] Such sweet babies...my chubby little honies are all cuddling against their warm fluffy mommy, Such grabby hands they have~! Little Mitama is still a sleepy bean, her fat little butt wiggles adorably, Forrest is a lovely snuggler, and poor Midori Just doesn’t want to stop squeezing me! [10:00am] After putting mommy’s big leaky breasts to the test filling their cute tummies with her milk, I burped each and every last one of them and reminded them what precious sweethearts they were. Once they were warmed and snug in their little outfits I decided to bring them out into their little play area.[11:00am] I’m so glad they get along well....Midori and Mitama like reading even if only for the pictures, Forrest likes trying to tell me how pretty Mommy looks in clothes, and how he’d like to wear Mommy’s clothes. Tries....ehe....he’s so cute!

[12:00pm] Each of my little sweethearts gets a little snack for being so good, Midori made a mess shortly after and made me come after her to change her. I think she just wanted more attention, attention Mommy was only so happy to give~! And being cooped up inside me leaves them with energy and the desire to stretch those leggies, so I encourage it to a degree.[1:00pm] I wrangled my little darlings into their big stroller and made sure all three of them got some sunshine and saw some cute little animals.....Mitama likes trying to draw what she sees with her crayons and always shows me...I’m proud of her in developing such an interest~![2:00pm] Back inside, And all Mommy’s little cuddle bugs come onto the couch with her while she takes a little load off, Midori immediately commandeering my lap! Forrest snuggles into my tummy from the side and Mitama lays against my leg while she draws more.....[3:00pm] It seems I wasn’t the only one who’s tired~ Poor little babies are running out of steam, sounds like its time for food before they go down for sleepies......or up rather~

[4:00pm] Cute little yawns and little hands rubbing at my legs and belly tell me my sweet babies are ready for nappy time, so I make sure they’re all nakey and as am I before I let them back where good babies go for bedtime. Legs spread and ready, Midori all but dives in! It takes a good bit of going, but lord knows i’ve since gotten over the bit of pain associated with this.

[5:00pm] Two babies down, only Forrest remains~! Mitama went in fairly gentle, and I can hear the two of them in there giggling and playing....so sweet [6:00pm] All three babies snug as a bug in my big bloated belly.....oof....such a challenge moving around with them all~! I recline back on the couch for a bit and enjoy their moving and playing in my womb until they tucker themselves out,......then once they’re out for the night I make sure to finish what their entrance started

[darrilshrugs-blog]

Hunters & Prey

I wrote another Critical role thing. I liked writing it. I hope you enjoy it.

Link on Archive of Our Own

Two hunters make their way to a grove in the woods, where their target lies. Are they the hunters still, or will they become prey?

They could not come to an agreement using nods, looks and hand signals, so they withdrew quietly from the clearing, back into the thick grove of trees, to make a plan. They have been well-schooled; they settle into a crouch, facing one another. Each bends to put their mouth just outside the pointed tip of the other’s ear. This way they can whisper at the absolute minimum volume, and between them, have a full view each other’s back, and the surrounding area. There may still be additional guard patrols this close to their goal.

“It’s another trap. It’s too obvious” he says.

It’s hard to believe that her brother was being the cautious one. It was usually she who had to stop him from charging in headlong; it fell to her to calm angered friends and authority figures, and occasionally, to flash a blade to get him out of more troublesome situations.

Maybe they were as much alike as everyone always says.

She had grown so weary of hearing it while growing into young adulthood, and outwardly, she resisted the comparison with utmost effort. Who had to know that it gave her such security and confidence to be so close to someone? That she never had to feel different, or totally alone, wherever she may be, because he was so like her?

This time, she is ready to throw caution to the wind. “I don’t know that it is a trap. I think we may surprise them with how quickly we’ve gotten here.” They had seen their target, in the open, unarmed and unarmored. His sword had been propped against a nearby tree as dozed, his head lolled over, sitting against a stump. “They may not be ready for us.”

Her brother scoffs, quietly, but clearly, in the shell of her peaked ear. “We can’t be reckless, or we risk getting caught. We’re up against some of the most dangerous people in the world, sister.”

“I know that, and I think this time, that we have the advantage. With the number of guards and alarms, and the dense- denseness-.” She couldn’t remember the proper word for a second, and a vision of their father correcting her lapse in vocabulary flitted across her mind and made her pause until she grasped it “… The density of the forest, they may have expected us to be carefully picking our way here.” She adds more to her case before he can object. “More likely, they think we’re skirting around the long way, from the south.”

She glances down from over his shoulder and into her brother’s face, which shares so many features of her own. She watches his dark eyes lose a little bit of their trained focus and watchfulness. He must be considering her words and going over their approach to the clearing in his head. All their time out in the forest (and maybe some of the elven blood running in their veins), provides them a base level of alertness, even when distracted. She was doing the same, after all - replaying their movements while keeping her general awareness trained on woods around her.

They had known their target’s location for more than a day, and had prepared accordingly. On entering this section of the Parchwood, they had immediately picked up on the guards patrolling the most straightforward approach. They had communicated via hand signal and decided against circling around the entire area. It would have taken hours, if not a full day. They had instead moved forward into the patrol area. They avoided detection by remaining absolutely still for more than a half an hour in the thick underbrush. Bugs and who-knows-what-else crawled over them, as the patrol passed mere feet away. They then took to the thick interwoven tree branches of the ancient forest, further eluding the sweeps of guards for another mile.

Tripwires, magical traps that would have sent flares skyward, and alarm wards had been thick throughout, but their observational and trap-disarming skills complemented each other well. They had also purchased some additional magical items just for such occasions. They had made excellent time through the remaining miles that brought them within range of their target.

She finishes her own internal recounting of their past few hours, and can see he has done the same. He looks her full in the face and nods. He is going to go with her judgement on this one. It means everything to her, having his trust, yet her gut churns at the possibility that her call could lead them foolhardily into a trap.

She leans into him, throwing him momentarily off-balance, part of a long-running game of theirs. She presses her mouth close to his ear once more. “We’ll take another quick look, and if nothing looks out of place, we blitz him. If it goes wrong, we start to make our escape to the south, the way they will think we came, but we circle around. We meet right here and wait out their chase. Maybe we even get another chance in the confusion.”

He huffs. “If this goes a bit wrong, it’s over.  But I do appreciate the positive outlook.” His mouth quirks up at the edge, as does hers. It’s a well-schooled expression of controlled amusement. They had observed it so often from their mother that they learned to emulate it.

They stealthily return to their vantage point of a few minutes prior and see much the same sight as on their first visit. The target is alone, without his sword, and napping. She thinks may even be lightly snoring, but that could just be her imagination.

His white hair makes him look older than he is, and his noble-bearing and rail-thin frame supposedly belies a vicious combatant. She has heard some of the stories behind all that, and the rumors that had reached her ear had only made her eager to someday learn the whole truth of the tale.

They are aware that the Lord of Whitestone is legendarily quick of hand, but they well are quite capable themselves. Even if he carries knives in his boots or elsewhere, they should be on him quick enough to render such concealed weapons useless. She knows he is no magic-user.

Her brother catches her eye, and nods. He is ready, waiting on her signal. She draws a deep breath, and her own dagger. She tenses her legs to spring forward and sprint across the clearing. She nods and they go for it.

They hit the grass of the clearing at a full run. No alarm is sounded, by man, beast or magic spell, and there is no evidence that their target has been disturbed. They close the thirty feet to him in seconds. He only stirs once they have each gripped his shoulders and is unable to resist as they half-lift, half drag him to his feet and back against another tree at the far edge.

The man’s blue eyes have sprung open behind his glasses, but any dismay at being rudely awoken and man-handled by two smaller, darkly-cloaked individuals seems to pass quickly as they manhandle him.

He lets out a puff of breath as his back connects with the trunk of the tree, but his first words are less of shock and more a pleased, detached observation. “Ah, ambushed by ruffians. I must have been more tired than I thought.”

Her breath is ragged and her muscles burn, but she can feel the rush of imminent victory pumping adrenaline into her system. “We got you!” Both she and her brother continue to swivel their heads, trying to cover all angles. Her left hand pins the noble’s shoulder back, while her brother’s forearm rests high against the taller human’s chest. Their quarry is over any surprise and might as well have been greeting guests in the great hall of his castle when he addresses them.

“I congratulate you on your quiet stalking skills, and commend your bravery at making a quick strike against your prey. However, I am not sure you have been as successful as you may think.”

He slowly raises his left arm; palm turned outward, and lifts his thick eyebrows at her for permission to continue. Receiving no threat, he moves his hand up to his face and uses his index finger to push his glasses back up on his nose. He then brings his hand to rest, palm still out, showing no aggression, above where her brother’s arm holds him, and near to his own throat. He speaks again “For I am not, in this case, Percival de Rolo, Lord of Whitestone.”

She cannot help herself. She glances at her brother. She can see the worry on his face, and feel it on her own. Have they been deceived? Is this an impostor? Neither of them has much experience with magical disguises or illusions.

Her brother is growing alarmed, and it comes through in his growl. “Then who are you? Tell us!”

“I’d be happy to.” The man chuckles at their confusion as he taps the top of his breastbone with the back of his hand. “I’m the bait.”

As his hand continues to tap his chest, his fingers scoop, impossibly quick, into the open collar of his dress shirt, and grip a black pedant that hangs under the cloth.

Immediately, and without warning, a massive fist is there, pressed against her back. She can see her brother also crowded forward in her peripheral vision.

“Hullo, lovelies!” It’s a gravelly, but happy, growl from above and behind them. As she turns her head a few degrees, she sees a slab of gray muscle and scars that can only be a Goliath.

The horrible realization at what is behind them is only made worse by the whoosh of incoming arrows passing well above their heads from off to their right. Two arrows thud into the trunk just above the white-haired human’s head, making him flinch.

Her brother releases their quarry and drops his hands to his side, already defeated.

She’s just mad.

“This is some dirty trick!”

A familiar voice rings out from the direction of the arrows. “Your enemies will not play fair, sweetheart.”

Her brother has taken a seat on the grass, sulking more visibly by the moment. “I believe we didn’t hear mother, but we missed Uncle Grog?” His head drops to his hands.

Father pulls her into a one-armed hug and brings her down with him into a crouch to show them both the necklace. “This is an old trinket of your mother’s.” Despite themselves, both the children smile at the father’s obvious and terrible pun. They can tell he’s pleased with himself by his tone. “It’s called the Raven’s Slumber, and it can hold, and then release a willing creature.”

“Like me!” Grog barks, and throws his arms wide, waiting for a hug. A lithe, but well-toned arm appears from behind and rests for a moment on his mountainous bicep. Then their mother walks around him and into view. She is dressed in an old set of dark leathers, her dark brown hair pulled back into the familiar braid that hangs now in front of her shoulder. She ducks under Uncle Grog’s arm to join them. He continues to wait for his hug.

Lady Vex’ahlia de Rolo gives both her children a short hug and a kiss atop their heads, and then leans over to give a kiss to her husband, who chides her. “A little close with the arrows, Vex.”

She gives him another kiss, this one to the tip of his nose. “I didn’t want to aim too near the children.”

He melts a bit, as he always does. “Mm. Makes perfect sense.” Gross.

Her mother stands, and puts her hands out to her children, join her. Their father also draws himself to his full height. “You did very well, children. The guards had no clue you were there, and you did a wonderful job with the alarms and traps. I’m pleased, and even your Uncle Vax would have been proud of your sneakiness and bold choice to attack first and ask questions later.” Her mother’s smile gets a little sad, as it always does at the mention of their uncle.

However, the cloud passes from her mother’s face as Uncle Grog tires of waiting and bellows out “Come here you de Rolos!” and sweeps the four of them into a crushing hug. “You did so good little de Rolo’s! You’re just no match yet for Vox Machina!”

Despite her disappointment at not winning this trial, she can’t help but grin at Uncle Grog’s enthusiasm, and sees her brother unable to contain a laugh as well. Their father seems less pleased, but he seems resigned to his huge friend’s affection.

She will have another chance to test herself against her family of legends, and maybe, someday, she will become one herself.