#if I see one more celebrity who had perfectly fine teeth with veneers….

[insomniamademedothis]

I will never forgive Americans for equating even, snow-white teeth with clean, healthy teeth and not even the most left-leaning progressive lot of them ever seem to challenge or push back on this idea

[lady-divine-writes]

ACITW AU one-shot “The Beginning” (Rated PG13)

Summary: It’s New Year’s Eve, and in an unexpected move, instead of partying with their friends like they do every year, Sebastian kidnaps his fiance and escapes to the Atlantic Coast for a celebration of their own.

Notes: Written per anon request and for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt ‘New Years’. This one-shot follows in the timeline after A Perfect Tree.

Read on AO3.

The erratic pounding of the pre-storm surf, the spiraling icy wind, the tangy smell of sea salt on the air, and a blanket wrapped around their shoulders as they stand together, nestled in one another’s embrace – this is how Kurt and Sebastian spend their New Year’s Eve, away from the loud, overcrowded city, away from the tourists that flood the streets of Manhattan at six in the morning to watch a mirror-covered ball drop nearly eighteen hours later, away from family and friends, all of whom they love but who had bombarded them non-stop from October through Christmas.

Kurt has to admit, it feels nice to get away – to have a moment for themselves, finally shrug off the holidays, breathe the fresh end-of-December air, and enjoy the solitude. He’s just a little perplexed as to why. Why the sudden and unannounced get away? It was Sebastian who had insisted on it, without a word of explanation or an apparent need to consult his fiancé. He simply woke up at dawn, packed their things (Kurt had to bite his lip and count to ten when he caught Sebastian stuffing his new Gucci jeans in a cramped overnight bag with the rest of their haphazardly gathered clothes and sundries), dropped them into his Mustang (forgoing his more recently acquired Porsche 911 turbo), and drove them out to the coast. It struck Kurt as bizarre since Sebastian is as much into the New Year’s party scene as anyone, and they always had an open invitation to numerous celebrations up and down the Upper East Side – though Kurt has noticed that Sebastian has slowed down on the partying in recent years, which suits Kurt just fine. He quite enjoys having Sebastian all to himself at home, where he can indulge in body shots off his fiancé’s incredibly toned abs in private.

Kurt smiles to himself at the thought of that first time doing body shots off of Sebastian, and at the thought of all of their firsts. He holds Sebastian close, buries his head in his fiancé’s neck, and takes a deep breath of his cologne – the same heady, spicy scent Sebastian has been sporting since high school, and surprisingly, Kurt has never gotten tired of it. They stand on the balcony overlooking the Atlantic, frigid onshore winds whipping around them, sneaking beneath the blanket to nip at Kurt’s ankles. The skies overhead darken with grey, low-hanging clouds threatening rain. Even with the possibility of getting drenched literally looming above their heads, they stay steadfastly wrapped in one another’s arms, swaying slowly, moving in a steady box step across the gritty wooden deck. Kurt takes another breath in and sighs, surrendering to Sebastian’s embrace and letting him carry the two of them along.

Kurt has no problem letting Sebastian lead now; he’s still such an incredible dancer.

Kurt shivers in Sebastian’s arms – a combination of the chill air batting at his exposed face and the sensual way Sebastian’s body touches him everywhere else.

“Did you want to go back inside?” Sebastian asks, his voice hushed, speaking beside Kurt’s ear.

“Not a bit,” Kurt says, winding his arms tighter around Sebastian’s waist and huddling further beneath the blanket that Sebastian keeps tucked around him. “Nothing in the world would make me want to go inside.”

Kurt waits for something witty, some remark about Kurt’s clothes getting ruined by the salty air or his perfectly style hair ravaged by the wind, but Sebastian stays silent, continuing to lead Kurt around the balcony, moving to the rhythm of the creaking swing pushed to and fro by the powerful current.

Kurt chuckles when the silence pulls past the point when a snarky retort would apply.

“After all this time, you still amaze me,” Kurt says with a slight chatter from his teeth. “Just when I think I have you completely figured out, you always manage to come up with something…unexpected.

“Well, I aim to please,” Sebastian says flatly in an offhanded tone. Kurt’s brow furrows as he watches Sebastian gaze out to sea, his eyes pointed toward the sky which, despite the crowding bank of clouds along the shore, has remained relatively clear. Sebastian doesn’t seem to notice Kurt staring; his mind is definitely elsewhere.

“But, you haven’t told me yet why you brought me out here.”

“Was I supposed to?” Sebastian asks, coming back a bit to smile and wink at Kurt.

“Why didn’t you want to spend New Year’s Eve in the city?” Kurt asks, opting for a more direct approach to his questioning.

Sebastian sighs, his breath hot against Kurt’s numb forehead, his eyes returning to the ocean to scan the sky, as if he’s searching for something – something that should be there but isn’t.

“Because, I needed this,” Sebastian says, circling around the balcony and changing direction. “I needed to bring you back here. I needed us to have this particular night together, right here, in the place where you realized…”

“That I loved you?” Kurt finishes, his smile growing warm on his face despite the fact that he is slowly freezing to death.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, his own smile faint, bittersweet, a shadow of smiles that Kurt sees drifting in and out of his memories.

“Well, it was an amazing few weeks we spent here,” Kurt says, reminiscing himself of the time they shared together that memorable summer after their senior year of high school - driving out to the Smythe family beach house, those mornings on the sand, soaking in the sun, playing in the surf, learning how to love each other, how to come together and be a couple. Kurt had watched Sebastian change that summer, or maybe it was Kurt who changed. There was so much about Sebastian that Kurt hadn’t seen until they got out there – so much sensitivity, so much raw beauty hidden beneath his thorny, cynical veneer. Kurt smirks when he thinks of the things Sebastian planned, the lengths he went to woo Kurt…the ways Sebastian snuck around behind his back to unearth information about him. “You know, if I didn’t know better,” Kurt says with a suspicious glint in his eyes, “I would say you planned all of this from the beginning.”

“Hmm, planned all of what?” Sebastian asks, distracted.

“This,” Kurt says, squeezing Sebastian around the waist. “Us.”

Sebastian smiles. It’s slow burning, full of secrets. It confirms many of Kurt’s long-held suspicions. But to Kurt’s accusation, Sebastian says nothing. He has no answer to give Kurt that Kurt doesn’t already know - that regardless of what Sebastian may or may not have done to get them together, none of it matters now. What does matter is that despite the obstacles and the drama, the near misses and the almost break ups, they found their way to one another, and that’s where they stayed.

In each other’s arms is where they found home.

Sebastian straightens, obviously hearing something over the cacophony of the water’s relentless beating against the rocks and sand that escaped Kurt’s notice. It’s a cue of some sort, because Sebastian stops dancing and takes his eyes off the sky to look at Kurt.

“Today is the beginning,” Sebastian says, raising a hand to Kurt’s face, running a thumb down his cheekbone, along his jawline, tracing delicately over Kurt’s lips. “The beginning of a new year, the beginning of a new us.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agrees, his mind leaving the beach house and taking a momentary detour to their upcoming wedding. Knots of all forms tighten in his stomach at the thought – but not painful knots. Not anxious knots. Thrilled knots. Knots of overwhelming excitement. “You’re right.”

“Ooo,” Sebastian says cheekily. “Can you say that again so I can record it?”

Kurt’s teeth snap at Sebastian’s thumb still gliding lightly over his lower lip, and Sebastian laughs.

“Continue,” Kurt commands with a stern but amused look.

“Anyway,” Sebastian says, shaking his head, rubbing his nose against Kurt’s, “I wanted to start it off right.”

“Really?” Kurt asks with a charmed laugh. “And how is that?”

As if timed precisely to answer Kurt’s question, a streak of light whizzes upward, splitting the night sky, a dull boom shaking the shore. Sebastian twirls Kurt around to face the ocean where a second explosion of white sparks brightens the gloom. Kurt gasps at the spectacular display unfolding before his eyes – a multitude of detonations, accompanied by faint music aimed off to the distance. But Kurt doesn’t need the music because Sebastian is there, his voice in Kurt’s ears the only music that Kurt needs.

Sebastian kisses a spot on the back of Kurt’s neck before he answers, whispering softly against the goose bumps on his skin.

“With fireworks,” Sebastian’s says, planting a trail of kisses down Kurt’s neck. “I wanted our new life together to start with fireworks.”

[badnovels]

Surprise Birthday Drabbles!

To celebrate this special day, we cooked up two Everlark drabbles just for you! Enjoy! <3<3<3

Love always,

Jackie & Caryn

The Garbage Will Do by JennaGill

Modern Everlark AU, featuring a scavenger from Jakku and lowly radar technician. I just couldn’t leave this idea alone and hope you like it! Happy Birthday Jessa!

********

“C’mon Peeta, you promised,” she said through the bathroom door, fidgeting with her middle bun. A bobby pin shook loose, and she wished she’d been more attentive while her mother arranged her hair. She grabbed another from the dresser and secured her hair hiding the elastic. She checked the top and bottom buns, fussing with the details of her favorite character.

“I dunno Katniss,” wafted between the crevices, spreading tendrils of doubt that they could pull this cosplay off at the Capitol ComicCon. “It’s a lot, Katniss. I’m Kylo acting as Matt, poorly, and I just want to be me.”

She straightened her muslin bindings and wrapped on the door with her staff. He promised this for her birthday and there was no backing down now. “I haven’t had my muffin yet, Matt!” she bellowed through the thin veneer, shoulders squared up to face him.

“Fine! Could you please not yell at me, you’re stressing me out!” Peeta huffed and stepped through the door, a vision in a beige jumpsuit, safety orange vest, over-sized glasses, and wayward ashy blond waves grown out especially for today. “You can’t even see how shredded I am in this,” he muttered and stomped across the room, grabbing his wrench.

“There’s my Undercover Star Killer Base Boss,” she drawled, proud of his transformation. She hooked her finger under his stiff collar and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. “If you keep this up Matt, I’ll treat your light saber right tonight…”

He hummed in approval, “Lead the way, Mrs. Radar Technician, lead the way.”

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

The Seventh Floor by Papofglencoe

A/N: Modern AU Everlark ficlet. Rated M/Eish? Basically this is just library porn, with a nod to a mutually beloved author (who would be appalled by this). Happy birthday, Jessa!

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

She watched, her mouth hanging slightly agape in shock at the sight of him, as he strode past the circulation desk and jabbed the call button for the staff elevator.

A goddamn masterpiece. That’s what he was, his wavy golden hair and the t-shirt stretched taut over his thick, muscular shoulders damp from getting caught in the summer squall outside. A fucking Picasso. Or a Renoir. Or… or one of the other names she really should have paid more attention to in any of the countless art museums in D.C. that she’d been dragged into in the past couple years. None of the masters she could think of now came anywhere close to capturing his beauty.

As the elevator descended, groaning on its ancient cables, Katniss had the ridiculous thought that even the machinery was bowing to him, drawn to him not because it was summoned, but from the magnetic pull of simply wanting to be near him, prostrate at his feet.

When the rheumatic elevator doors finally wheezed open, after what seemed like three delicious years of gaping at his ass, he glanced over his shoulder toward her. His shockingly blue eyes, framed by a pair of ill-fitting, black-rimmed glasses, locked on hers, and the ghost of a smirk flitted across his lips. He stepped onto the elevator, the doors sliding shut between them, and she would have written him off as a phantom, some gorgeous ghoul conjured by boredom and a dash of paranoia, if the panel above the elevator wasn’t marking his progress upward.

As he made his way higher, to the fourth, then fifth, then sixth floor of the library, her pulse sped up, hammering violently throughout her body. She could feel the blood throbbing in her neck, in her ears—so loud the world fell silent around her. The blood stampeded through her arms to the tips of her trembling fingers. It pushed her heart to its aching limit. It coaxed its way between her legs, heating her, inspiring her.

She squirmed on the stool where she sat, watching the number “7” light up. The elevator halted, waiting at the top floor of the library to be called again.

He’d gone to the seventh floor—a quiet floor—its stacks housing all the language and literature books the university owned. Of course that’s where he’d go.

“So, ah, I know no one asked me, but I vote you go find that nerd.”

Her coworker’s caustic tone snapped Katniss out of whatever trance he’d put her in the moment he’d walked through the library’s double doors.

“Eh,” Katniss demurred, nervous at the mere thought of it. “I don’t know…”

Her brain began to list out all the reasons it was a terrible idea. It was the week before finals. The library was swarming with students, and the circulation desk had been slammed all morning. To make matters worse, her boss was in the office today—albeit probably passed out drunk at his desk. Katniss looked at the mountain of books that needed to be checked back in and sorted onto carts for reshelving. She imagined the mountain growing to epic heights in the next twenty minutes, avalanching and smothering Johanna Mason to death.

Actually, that last part was sort of a pleasant thought.  

“Listen up,” Johanna sighed. “I can go on pretending I don’t know it’s your birthday and be the spectacular bitch to you that I usually am. But I’m feeling generous today, I guess. And I know for a fact that loverboy was shooting ‘fuck me’ eyes at you. So…” She waved her hand dismissively at Katniss. “Scram. If anyone comes looking for you, I’ll tell them you’re on the can from whatever crap you ate at the Union for breakfast.”

Katniss bit her lip, her nerves warring with the overwhelming urge to go find him. Not that she had any idea what to expect, or even to say, if she did. “Well…”

Johanna shot her a withering look, her limited patience with her having already run threadbare.

It was enough.

“Fine. Cover for me. But if anyone asks where I am, don’t say anything about the “can.” Tell them I took my break early.”

**********

What the fuck was she doing anyway? This wasn’t like her at all. This was reckless and wild and… and so completely unlike any script she’d ever followed. It’s not that she was a great respector and worshipper of the rules—not at all. She’d trespassed more times than she could count into local hotels to use their swimming pools. She’s smoked pot with her best friend Gale since she was fifteen, either lying to her mother or sneaking out in the night to get stoned in the playground of the local elementary school (“drug free zone,” her ass). Katniss was openly disdainful of authority, and, if she was not mistaken, she’d dreamt just last night that she’d embarked on a personal mission to assassinate President Trump (best dream ever).

But when it came to boys…

It was different.

She found him down one of the British literature aisles, a copy of Persuasion open in his hands. At the sound of her steps, he looked toward her, his cheeks flushing a ruddy pink. He snapped the book shut and carelessly stowed it back in what was probably not its place, the spine jutting out a couple inches.  

“Hey,” he whispered, his voice a low rasp in the almost sacred silence of the stacks.

“Hey,” she murmured back, wiping her suddenly clammy palms on her skirt. The thread connecting them pulled her toward him, the force of it unwilled but never more welcomed.

She stopped about a foot from him, unsure what to do next. Really, it was up to him.

The glasses he was wearing sat awkwardly on the bridge of his nose, a little too low. Not fitted for him. He pushed them up with one finger, but it did nothing to hide the fact that the glasses were also crooked.

“Sexy specs.” She smirked at him, hopelessly lost for him.

“Well,” he sighed, smiling down at her. “Unfortunately, my girlfriend has a thing for nerds, so I’m sort of stuck wearing them.”

“For now,” Katniss amended.

“Or,” he shrugged, “you know… whenever she wants.”

Katniss barked out a laugh, remembering too late where they were. She clapped a hand over her mouth to silence herself. In the distance, somewhere on the floor, she heard a chair push back and the soft snores of someone who’d lost their battle with studiousness.

It was probably a terrible idea, what they were going to do. Technically, they could get expelled. Or possibly arrested. But the minute Peeta had cracked a joke, in passing, about fucking her brains out in the library, it had become the fantasy that had sparked a hundred orgasms for her. It had been months, and it was all she could think about.

It was a terrible idea.

As the thought of what they were going to do came to her, Peeta seemed to read it on her body. Before she could change her mind, he had her pinned against the shelves, the hard planes of his body perfectly molded to the soft planes of hers, like two pieces made to lock together.

“Happy birthday,” he breathed against her neck before biting down on the flesh, sucking it between his teeth, nearly to the point of pain.

Katniss gasped, her hips involuntarily bucking at the sensation. As his tongue flicked the tender spot he’d left in the crook of her neck, Peeta grabbed one of her legs, winding it around him.

“You wore the perfect skirt,” he rumbled into her skin, burying two fingers deeply, shockingly fast, inside her.

Katniss’ head lolled back, ecstasy and agony raging through her. She wanted to burn alive, burn with him, burn this place to the ground. When she moaned, he leaned in and bit her lip harshly, punishingly.

“Shhhh,” he reminded her, his fingers curling inside her in a taunt. Teasing her, tormenting her, commanding her to moan again.

“Nerds don’t…” she gasped, her hands desperately trying to find their way into his pants, trying to grasp onto him, to feel him and love him. “Nerds don’t kiss like that.”

“Lucky for you, then, I’m not a nerd.” He backed away slightly, taking his fingers and the heat of his body with him. It felt like a cataclysm, that loss of his warmth and steadiness.

But instead of losing him, Katniss watched him sink to his knees in front of her, his hands coasting down her body, over her tits, her tummy, to her hips. He squeezed them, bracketing them with his hands as if touching her was painful to him somehow. He kissed her pubic bone softly over the fabric of her skirt, then dipped his head and bit her thigh.

“Oh god,” she said, wondering if god himself could see, could hear, would know what was happening. Wondering if god thought the creation before her was half as perfect as Katniss did.

She pointed upward, her arm flailing against the shelf. Amis, Austen, Auden went tumbling down around them as Peeta lifted her leg onto her shoulder and, moving the narrow fabric of her panties aside, began to speak to her in a language they’d made themselves.  

“They’ll see,” she panted, her index finger pointing to nowhere.

She could feel the rumble of Peeta’s laughter against her, seeping into her and moving her. His breath was hot against her, his hands bruisingly clutching at her ass.

“Then let’s put on a good show.”