#in my defense the town looks amazing and I left it in good shape

[solvicrafts]

I feel kinda bad for everybody in my ACNL town because I always end up disappearing for half of the year and then like clockwork I always get the urge to play again in October.

[flowercrown-bard]

Flora and –yikes! - Fauna

pairing: Geralt/Jaskier

word count: 3k

read on AO3

thank you @kitcatkim for letting me use your idea with the two flower crowns <3

summary: Jaskier is making flower crowns, naturally. Too bad no one warned him that bugs like to swarm around flowers

Content warnings: bugs, insects

--- "Geralt, wait!"

Jaskier didn't give Geralt the chance to protest or grab the scruff of Jaskier's neck to keep him in place. As Jaskier ran towards the wildflowers blossoming in a patch next to the road he could practically hear Geralt rolling his eyes in the way he grunted.

"Jaskier, we can't keep stopping every other minute just for you to gather flowers." Despite his words, Jaskier could hear him bring Roach to a halt. "What are you even going to do with them? Don't tell me you spent your last coin on a vase."

Jaskier huffed indignantly but didn't bother turning around to fix Geralt with a glare.

"Of course I didn't. If you please to remember, I used it to buy some more bandages because someone didn't bother to restock before rushing into a hunt."

"I remember," Geralt grumbled but there was something strange in his tone. Something that wasn’t gruff or dismissive at all. Something that might have even been the exact opposite of that. Jaskier couldn't name it but it made his heart skip a beat. "But fine. We can take a break. Roach could use it anyway."

She didn’t. She was stubborn enough to make it known when she wanted or needed to slow down and she had done no such thing since the last time Jaskier had made them stop.

"Make sure she doesn't eat my flowers," he called over his shoulder.

His smile widened as he plucked the most beautiful blue flower and added it to his already impressive collection. Maybe he had gathered too many flowers, but how was he to know how many he needed? He had never done this before. It wasn't as if he could just pluck flowers out of flower pots at Oxenfurt and he would rather not dismay a town's residents by raiding their gardens.

Besides, no garden could grow such beautiful flowers as blossomed on their own in the wild. At least that's what Jaskier hoped Geralt would think. He never seemed to appreciate the carefully cultivated beauty of cities when instead he could have the open road and woods.

Jaskier eyed his flowers critically. Though most of them had differently shaped and shaded blossoms, most of them were blue. Perfect to bring out his eyes. Hopefully. Surely.

Satisfied and a little giddy, Jaskier marched over to Geralt and thrust the flowers into his hand.

"Hold this," he said, fighting the unreasonable blush that crept up his cheeks.

Geralt's brows pinched together in confusion and he looked almost flustered. Still, he didn't hesitate to close his hand around the flower stems, perhaps a little too tightly, as if he was afraid of them falling if he didn't clutch them in a death grip.

"I-Jaskier, what are you-"

"I need both hands to do this," Jaskier explained and began searching for the best flower to begin with. Not that he had any idea what constituted as a perfect starter flower, but as long as he scrutinised the bouquet, he surely looked competent and there was nothing more attractive than a person who knew what they were doing.

Geralt frowned. "And what exactly is it you need both hands for?"

"Why, making a flower crown, of course." Jaskier beamed up at Geralt and randomly pulled a flower out of Geralt's grip to begin. "I mean, really, it's a shame that I haven't thought if this before. But a bard out there in the wilderness without flowers on his head? That's just wasted potential."

Geralt gave an amused hum. "Are you sure you want to put flowers on your head?"

"Absolutely." Jaskier's voice left no room for argument. "I am going to look beautiful with it."

Geralt is going to look at him and think him beautiful.

"What does it matter? There's no one here to impress."

Jaskier's hands faltered and just for a second his eyes darted up to glare Geralt.

"Who says I want to impress anyone?" His voice definitely didn't waver and there was no way to interpret his words as defensive. "Can't I just want to be pretty for the sake of being pretty?"

Geralt grumbled something dismissively. It was wishful thinking, but to Jaskier is almost sounded like "You don't need flower crowns for that."

More to hide his burning face than anything else, Jaskier turned his attention back to the flowers and started weaving - or rather chaotically knotting – them together.

Geralt let him work in silence, but whenever Jaskier glanced up to pull another flower out of the bouquet, he found Geralt's eyes on him. It made his neck feel hot and his chest tight.

Somehow, as if by some miracle, he finished the flower crown. It wasn't stunning by any means, but it was passable. Kind if pretty even. Actually, for a first try it was downright amazing.

Filled with excitement about his craft, Jaskier hopped the crown around his arm so he'd have both of his hands available again and made to work on Geralt's crown.

"Looks like you got too many flowers," Geralt said, lips twitching up.

"Don't be ridiculous." Jaskier rolled his eyes good naturedly and bound some more flowers together. "I'm making a second crown."

"You know Roach will eat the flowers before you'll be able to put them on her head.”

Jaskier's hands froze and his heart jumped into his throat. He had forgotten to ask Geralt if he even wanted a crown. Judging from how he didn't even think about wearing the crown himself, it was quite clear just how much he didn't want it.

Jaskier's eyes went to Roach, silently begging her for help, but the horse was just munching on some grass, giving him an unimpressed and perhaps slightly judgemental look.

"It's not for Roach." Jaskier blurted, thoughts stumbling over each other to find an excuse. "It's for me. They’re both for me. Obviously. Why would I wear just one crown if I could have two and be doubly pretty, am I right?"

He grinned at Geralt in a way that begged please kill me now and let this embarrassment be over. But Geralt didn't grant him that mercy but at least he didn't call him out in his nonsense either. Instead his lips quirked up and he handed Jaskier another flower, unprompted.

While working on the second crown, Jaskier started talking again. One might also say he was rambling. Anything to distract Geralt from the way Jaskier's cheeks were bright red and he was still cursing himself for his stupidity on the inside.

He told Geralt about how he had always wanted to wear flower crowns ever since he had read a story book about a princess with flowers in her hair as a child.

Occasionally, Geralt would grace his tale with a hum or a barely noticeable upwards quirk of his lips.

Jaskier took that as encouragement. He continued to talk about how his sisters used to wear flower crowns when they were young, about how Jaskier had always been envious about how pretty they looked with pink, blue and yellow flowers in on their heads. He reminisced about all the times he gifted flower crowns to his dance partners during Belleteyn and never got any in return.  

More than once it looked as if Geralt was going to open his mouth, but then he always thought better of it and contented himself with listening to Jaskier.

It was only when Jaskier eventually ran out of flower related things to talk about that Geralt spoke up again.

“You’re getting better,” he commented, nodding towards the now finished second crown.

Jaskier’s face lit up but he forced his voice to sound nonchalant and teasing. “Why Geralt, is that a compliment?”

Geralt’s lips twitched. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Oh, that’s exactly where it’s going.” Jaskier winked and put both crowns on his head.

He felt a little stupid wearing both of them, but the sheepishness was quickly overshadowed by the giddy excitement of finally making his childhood dream come true.

A small giggle escaped Jaskier and he didn’t care how silly he probably looked; there was just too much joy bubbling up inside him that needed to be released somehow. He twirled and threw his head back laughing. Quickly he realised his mistake, when the crowns threatened to fall off. His hands flew to the flowers to hold them in place.

When he came to a stop, he found Geralt’s eyes fixed on him with an unexpected softness, though he quickly schooled his face into a neutral expression when he caught Jaskier’s eyes. It wasn't fast enough for Jaskier to miss and try how he might, Geralt would never be able to hide such a fond look from Jaskier.

"So?" Jaskier made a point of fiddling with the crowns as if he was righting a fancy little hat. "How do I look?"

Geralt contemplated him a long moment with a complicated expression. "Happy."

Jaskier's moth went dry. The way Geralt had said it made it sound like he meant so much more.

"Geralt-"

He let go of the crowns, but the universe saved – or damned - him from doing something stupid like take Geralt's face in his hands and kiss him. Now that he wasn't holding onto the flower crowns anymore, they immediately fell over his eyes.

Jaskier let out a little noise of surprise that very much wasn't an undignified squeak.

Geralt chuckled and had Jaskier not been squeezing his eyes shut to avoid having leaves poke them, he would have glared at Geralt.

As if was, he found that he couldn't be upset even when Geralt was making fun of his misfortune. Geralt's laugh was too beautiful a sound to ever want him to stop. Especially if Jaskier was the one making him laugh.

"Guess there were too many flowers after all," Geralt said and Jaskier could practically hear his smug smile.

Jaskier tried to lift the crowns, but he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began and he absolutely wasn't going to risk them falling apart because he tugged on the wrong one.

"I just miscalculated a little," Jaskier grumbled, but his own lips were stretched wide grin. "You know you could do the noble thing and save me from my predicament."

Almost immediately he felt the lightest touch on his cheek. For a second, Jaskier's heart sped up at how tenderly Geralt was touching him. But then it hit him.

Even if Geralt ever were to caress his cheek softly, he would not be able to do it that softly. In fact, the touch was so light it almost tickled.

Jaskier furrowed his brows and his heart began racing in earnest for a very different reason.

"Geralt?"

Something buzzed right next to his ear. Something that sounded very big and very crawly.

"Geralt!" Jaskier almost shrieked, but all the reply he got from Geralt the traitor was another laugh.

Another light touch as something landed on his skin, this time on his hands.

Immediately, he pulled them away from the flowers and clutched them protectively against his chest. He needed his hands. He couldn't let some insect sting his fingers.

He wanted to call out for Geralt again, demand that he help him, but the bug on his face chose that moment to crawl closer to his lips.

Jaskier snapped his mouth shut and held his breath.

"Now there's that blessed silence," Geralt teased as if he didn't even notice the danger Jaskier was in.

Mentally, Jaskier took back everything he had thought before. Right now he wanted to wipe away the smirk that undoubtedly was on Geralt's face. And if Geralt didn’t stop laughing, Jaskier was going to write the most scathing song about him, once he could open his mouth again.

Oh gods, but what if keeping his lips pressed together wasn't enough? What if one of those crawling things decided to go up his nose?

The buzzing around his head got louder. More insects landed on him and Jaskier could do nothing but keep his eyes and lips shut and pray none of the insects were dangerous.

He was tense as a bow string and his heart was thumping like a rabbit’s foot hitting the ground.

He could feel tiny legs all over him, could hear nothing but that horrible buzzing. He couldn't stop the whimper that escaped him.

"Jaskier?" All traces of humour were gone from Geralt's voice. In fact, he sounded concerned.

Oh. Oh no. If Geralt was worried, that could only mean that something truly bad was happening. Maybe one of the bugs had a venomous bite. Maybe one of the things on Jaskier's head was the larva of a giant centipede. Maybe one of them was a were-bug and Jaskier would get turned into a disgusting insect himself!

Jaskier wanted to leave. He just wanted to go back to civilisation where he was safe from those tiny monsters. Adventure be damned. Inspiration be damned. Flower crowns be damned. He would be happy if he'd never have to see another insect again. If being pestered by swarms of insects was the prize for walking the Path, Jaskier would not shed a single tear abandoning it. Good riddance.

If only that didn't mean that he'd also lose Geralt...

"Jaskier?" Geralt repeated, softer this time. He sounded closer.

Strangely enough, the touch if the insects disappeared and got replaced by another sense of tickling, but this was one warm and almost glowing. It washed over his skin and spread wider around him. Slowly, the buzzing grew more distant until it disappeared fully.

A warm hand brushed Jaskier's temple and the crowns were pushed back onto the top of his head where they belonged. Well, we're one of them belonged.

Carefully, Jaskier opened his eyes again. He let out a tiny gasp and then his breath got stuck again for a different reason. Geralt was standing surprisingly close to him, their chests almost touching. The hand not occupied with the flower crowns was twisted into an uncomfortable looking shape.

Quen.

A dome of warm golden light surrounded them. Jaskier hadn't known the sign could be used to keep bugs at bay, but as far as he was concerned insects did definitely count as fiendish enemies and he wasn't about to complain about the protection. Especially not since Geralt was looking at him with his brows knitted together in soft worry and his hand left the crowns to caress his cheek instead.

"I take it the story about the princess didn't warn you about the bugs?" Te corner of Geralt's lips twitched into a half-smile.

Jaskier shook his head and swallowed. "No, definitely not." He leaned into Geralt's touch. It was warm and comforting and Jaskier never wanted him to let go again.

Maybe... Maybe if this touch was the reward he got for bravely withstanding the terror of the insects, he could face the bugs again sometimes. Maybe. Perhaps being in nature wasn't too bad if he had Geralt with him.

"There's one thing the story did teach me, though."

"Oh?" Geralt's brows rose a little.

"At the end the hero gets a kiss." Before his bravery or foolishness could leave him, he leaned forward and pressed the softest kiss against Geralt's lips.

He expected the kiss to be over quickly, little more than a brush if lips, but Geralt's hand on his cheek travelled to the back of his head, holding him close.

Jaskier lifted his own hands, burying them into Geralt's hair. Geralt let out a soft sound and then a second hand found its place at the small of Jaskier's back.

Jaskier pulled back, just enough to speak, his lips nearly brushing against Geralt's with every word.

"Geralt, put the damn Quen back." His eyes narrowed. "I am not kissing you with bugs crawling all over me."

"Perhaps you could give one crown to me and share the burden?"

Jaskier drew back suspiciously. "You mean that?" he asked slowly, his insides twisting in excitement. "You would really wear my flower crown?"

Geralt shrugged. "I don't want you to complain about the bugs and the leaves in your hair," he grumbled, but his eyes shone with a fondness that made Jaskier's heart swell. The hand on Jaskier’s back gave a small squeeze and tugged him closer. "And I happen to like my hand right where it is."

Jaskier lifted his chin defiantly, mischief and another, softer emotion lighting up his eyes. "You can pretend not to like my voice all you want, but you just traded your blessed silence for my comfort. I know where your priorities lie."

Geralt hummed quietly, the smile on his lips getting wider and his thumb caressed Jaskier's cheek, coming to rest at the corner of his lips.

"Maybe I don't mind your voice too much when you're talking about something you like. Or when you're singing. Or laughing." He leaned forward, too fast for Jaskier to react and stole a quick peck. "And I prefer keeping you silent by kissing you."

Jaskier rolled his eyes and snorted. "Who knew you could be such a romantic," he deadpanned and shook his head fondly. "Truly, you know how to charm a man with your words."

"It's working isn't it?"

"Perhaps."

With a mental strength Jaskier didn't know he possessed, he let go of Geralt's hair and lifted one of his flower crowns off his head to put it on Geralt's instead.

For a long moment, he just stared at Geralt, admiring him. The colours of the blossoms contrasted beautifully with Geralt's hair. But that wasn't what took Jaskier's breath away. It was the fact that Geralt actually looked happy like this. Happy to be with Jaskier. Happy to make him happy.

"You know" Jaskier said with smug satisfaction as a bug with shimmering green wings landed on Geralt's forehead, "you're lucky I love you more than I hate bugs."

Geralt snorted. "Now who's the romantic?"

Jaskier could have answered with a quip if he wanted to. He most certainly had multiple quick-witted responses to that.

Too bad that he too liked kissing Geralt's words away.

And so that was what he did.

They only broke away again when Geralt's crown fell into his eyes. Jaskier burst out into a well-deserved laugh at Geralt's dumbfounded look. As much as Jaskier liked kissing him, he found that he also rather liked the way Geralt's eyes lit up when he joined the laughter.

He could get used to this. In fact, as he buried his face in Geralt's chest to stifle his giggles and could feel Geralt's heart beneath him, he knew that he could battle any creepy crawlies if it meant that he got to keep this.

---

tag list: @snowfea @diedfromembarrassmentlikeasim @thebloodletter7 @eleos-fawn @palefuckingmeme @irongal21 (sorry for tagging you unasked, but you seemed to like the idea when I posted it a while ago so I figured you might like this too)

[phykios]

honesty and promise me, part 5 [co-written with @darkmagyk] [read on ao3]

 Annabeth is making her periodic pilgrimage to the gynecologist when she gets Leo's call. It's very fitting--two uncomfortable and invasive things for the price of one. She answers her phone, ignoring the doctor's chastising frown. Surely she can place her new IUD while Annabeth deals with whatever Leo wants.

 "What are you doing on the 18th?" he asks, about the only type of hello she ever gets from Leo.

 The two of them never really grew out of pretending not to like each other, after they had gotten over their initial dislike. When he and Piper first got to Miss Minerva's, more or less straight out of juvie after Piper's dad made a lot of calls and called in a lot of favors, she and Leo had really hated each other. They used to fight over everything, from Piper's attention to the position of captain of the Mathletes team. And also, over Leo hating a rich white girl on principle, which, in retrospect, is totally fair. But then, by a weird twist of fate, they wound up in Boston together.

 If Annabeth had to choose between hanging out with her creepy, Norse mythology-obsessed uncle and hanging out with Leo, she'd pick Leo every time. They had gone through a lot together, things both big and small.

 "Of August?" she asks.

 "Please be still, Ms. Chase," says her doctor. Annabeth rolls her eyes.

 "Duh."

 Wracking her thoughts she can't think of any prior commitments she might have had. Maybe there's a concert that day, but if she can't remember, it probably wasn't that important anyway. "Not much."

 "Good, because we have plans."

 She frowns. "Piper didn't mention any--"

 "No, you and I have plans. I'll see you in Philly, yeah?"

 Philadelphia? Ew. "Why Philly?"

 "Our Smarter House thing won an award."

 "No shit?"

 "Eta Industries Award. The gala is on the 18th. You're my plus one."

 She sucks in air through her teeth, readjusting her hips as unobtrusively as possible. Eta Industries was… a very big deal. "Isn't that, like, an engineering specific award? Maybe you should accept it by yourself." She'd be better off staying out of the limelight for this one, she thinks, even as some part of her longs once again for recognition.

 Something electric whirs in the background, tinny and buzzing. "I'll see you on the 18th, then," says Leo, not having heard a word she said. "Also, you've been summoned to the castle."

 "Leo--" she jumps as the gyno touches something she really shouldn't have.

 "No arguments, she's expecting you today at two. Adios!" He clicks off.

 "Okay, Ms. Chase," says the doctor, a little too chipper for Annabeth's taste. "You should be all set."

 Annabeth leaves the doctor's office with her brand new IUD, a handful of medical literature which immediately gets tossed in the trash, and a sinking feeling in her gut as she gets on a train to Brooklyn, headed to Piper's place for another annoying and unnecessary fashion show. It's not that she doesn't enjoy being Piper's model--it's a position she's held since their time at Miss Minerva's, and it's never really a hardship to be told how gorgeous she is--but Piper has a way of just... getting information out of her that she doesn’t always want to share.

 Stopping off early, Annabeth gives herself a moment to walk down the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, to settle her nerves and indulge herself a bit. That skyline gets her every time.

 Turning down Pierrepont Street, she is once again struck by just how quiet the city can be. Manhattan is loud, rude, in-your-face, almost an entirely different world from the stately, deafeningly silent Brooklyn. For Annabeth, who is incapable of falling asleep without city horns blaring, it wigs her out a little.

 She barely has time to ring the doorbell on Piper's dad's place before the girl herself wrenches it open, grabbing Annabeth's hand and yanking her inside. "You're late!" she trills, suffering what Annabeth can only assume is the onset of a caffeine overdose.

 "I thought I had until two."

 "That was before I had the best idea."

 The brownstone is a mess, as per usual, reams of fabric tossed over every available surface, enough dressforms strewn about to make it look like Piper is hosting a party exclusively populated by headless zombies, adorned with a warehouse's worth of half-finished dresses and jackets. Based on the loud fabrics and structured angles, it looks like Piper is in the middle of a Klimt-ian phase of inspiration. Annabeth eyes a bright gold gown with a huge, extended collar, embroidered with silver eyes, the raw edges trailing the floor. "Please tell me this isn't your idea."

 "First of all," Piper releases her arm as they enter her kitchen-turned-photo studio, gingerly stepping over a box of assorted beads, "even though it would look amazing on you, that dress is for an actual paying client. Second of all--" she snatches up a dressform from its position behind the camera, setting it down in front of her with a flourish. "This is my idea."

 Annabeth was right--Piper is definitely on a Klimt-ian kick.

 Pulled straight from her art history classes, the dress looks like a two dimensional painting come to life, a stunning skirt like a column of liquid silver descending onto the black mat, pleats like fluted columns precisely draped over the dressform's hips… and not much else. Annabeth points. “Is that it?”

 Piper makes a face. "I have a bodice, promise. Now go take that shit off."

 Annabeth looks down at her repurposed The Police shirt, fished out of a thrift store bin some months ago, shirt collar cut and sides resewn to bring the waistline in. "I like this shirt."

 "Oh, I like the shirt plenty," she agrees. "But you could stand to wear a nicer pair of jeans."

 She does have a point there--her jeans are clinging to life at this point, the knees and hems all but obliterated, strings of fabric valiantly attempting to hold their original shape. "Fine. Be right back."

 When she emerges from the bathroom a minute later in just her bra and panties, Piper has laid out another bolt of fabric in that same color, silver with a blue shift beneath the studio lights. Piper, bent over with a strip of measuring tape, looks up at her, then squints. "So who is he?"

 Annabeth starts. "Excuse me?"

 "The guy you've been seeing."

 How... the fuck does Piper always know these things? "I don't know what you're talking about."

 She flicks her eyes down to Annabeth's thigh, Annabeth following her gaze to the remnants of the bruise that Percy had left there with his mouth two days ago. Dammit.

 Piper tsks, a smile distorting the sound. "Naughty, naughty, Annabeth."

 "How do you know it wasn't from a girl?" she asks, petulant.

 "Because if it had been a girl, you wouldn't be nearly so defensive."

 Shit. "We've been friends way too long," Annabeth grumbles.

 "That we have," says Piper. "And out of respect for our friendship, I will refrain from grilling you about him until you are more comfortable sharing."

 "So, for a few hours?"

 She shrugs. "More or less."

 "I suppose you want me to thank you for holding back."

 "Don't thank me yet," she grins, wide and toothy. "I've been cooped up here working on my collection for three days, and I am dying to talk to someone."

 Annabeth sighs, but obediently raises her arms, making room as Piper crouches down to pin the skirt on her. "Okay, you got me. I'm seeing this guy."

 "Seeing or seeing-seeing?"

 "Just seeing," she clarifies. "It's pretty casual."

 "Can't be that casual if you're telling me about it," Piper points out.

 Fuck. This is why she never tells Piper about her hookups. "You're the one who asked."

 "Another business bro, I assume?"

 "He's--" Piper swats at her as she automatically sucks her stomach in, their long held code for "stay put." "He's a dancer."

 She hums, arranging pleats over Annabeth's knees. "Like on Broadway?"

 "Ballet."

 Piper glances up at her, eyes sparkling. “Un danseur! Ooh la la,” she trills. “What’s his name?”

 “I can just leave,” Annabeth says, distinctly not thinking about how Percy will occasionally slip into French whenever he stubs his toe.

 “Okay, okay, no more boy talk.” Piper moves in front of her, adjusting the fabric about her waist. “Tell me about the thing you just won with Leo.”

 “I had honestly forgotten about it,” she says, lying a little, pulling her arms forward. “You remember his master’s thesis?”

 “The shmart kishen thing, right?” Piper asks around the tape measure in her mouth.

 Leo, the prodigal boy that he is, had spent his last year of school dedicated to a singular problem faced by people around the world: the sudden, out of control kitchen fire. Using very complicated electronics and engineering that Annabeth does not understand, he devised a handful of mechanisms to sense, contain, and ultimately douse random fires as soon as they popped up. Annabeth came on as his design partner after he had graduated and had gotten some funding to conceptualize an entire safe house.

 “Well, it just won an Eta Industries award.”

 Her head snaps up, hands freezing in their tracks. “Holy shit.”

 “Yeah.”

 “Congrats.”

 “Thanks,” she shrugs as Piper gets up to grab some more fabric. “I mean, it was mostly Leo’s doing. I just made sure he didn’t leave any stray pipes around.”

 Holding out her arms again, Piper slides them through the sleeves of a heavy, corset-like piece, structured and straight and very forgiving on Annabeth’s lack of curves. “You shouldn’t sell yourself short,” she says. “I’m sure your skills as a guinea pig were very valuable.”

 “Are you ever going to let that go?” Annabeth asks, she who has literally burnt pasta while it was submerged in water.

 “You’re just lucky my dad was out of town that weekend. Have you decided what you’re going to wear to the awards ceremony?”

 She shoots her friend a strange look. “I thought I was wearing this?” she gestures to the unfinished silver gown currently making her feel like an absolute goddess.

 Piper makes a face. “What do I look like, the fucking Flash? This isn’t going to be ready for another thirty hours, at least. I’ve got decals to add, Swarovskis to bead, not to mention all the hand-stitching on the neckline because for whatever reason my machine has decided to hate me this week.”

 “Okay, well,” says Annabeth, appropriately cowed, “then I guess I’ll wear the black one you gave me.”

 “2019 fall/winter?”

 Annabeth nods.

 “Styling?”

 “Luke gave me this really nice scarf for my birthday.”

 Throwing her head back, she groans.

 “What? What’s wrong?”

 “You’re so boring,” she moans, pulling Annabeth’s hair out of the way. “Let me guess, you’re going to pair it with the black shrug and opaque nude tights.”

 “Well… yeah, I was.”

 “Exactly! Boring.” Coming back around, she pushes Annabeth lightly into the light, before taking her place behind the camera. “You could do so much with that dress and you choose to make it boring. Why not some fishnets? Or a big statement necklace?”

 Annabeth waits after a few shutter clicks to answer. “Because I doubt that the people at Eta Industries are going to be big fans of my tattoos.”

 “That is a bald-faced lie and you know it,” Piper says. “Your tattoos and piercings are gorgeous and you would look absolutely rocking with them. Knock all the old farts right off their feet. Turn.”

 Obediently, Annabeth rotates, letting Piper snap off as many pictures as she likes. “This isn’t a Vogue event, Pipes,” she says, rolling her eyes where her friend can’t see them. “Punk isn’t exactly accepted practice yet.”

 “Punk was the Met Gala theme almost a decade ago, babe. It has filtered down from Vogue. It's practically cerulean now. Side.”

 Annabeth turns again, keeping her eyes straight. Side-eye would ruin the shot, no matter how much she wants to give it.

 “I will never understand why you both refuse to wear halfway decent jeans and then refuse to go guns out in my dresses that demand it. I can almost guarantee you that Leo will show up in those stupid suspenders with grease on his face. And you’ll have to get him to leave his tool belt in the car.”

 “Then it’s probably for the best that I have a modicum of professionalism, huh?”

 Piper leans out from behind the camera, glaring. “At the very least,” she hedges, “will you let me set you up with some shoes?”

 “I don’t know…”

 “You are not allowed to wear those horrid Manolo pumps you wear everywhere. And your nude Louboutins won’t look right with the black.”

 “What did you have in mind?”

 Piper’s grin is evil, and the way she scampers out of the room means she’s got something she’d been trying to force on Annabeth for a long time.

 Five minutes later, Annabeth is presented with a set of black strappy sandals, its edges detailed in a gold zipper, with safety pin pull to match. She frowns. “Are you sure? They look kind of… hardcore for something like this.”

 “They’re Versace,” Piper says. “I was not lying about punk’s democratization.”

 Well. They are pretty cool.

 “It’s either this or the McQueen boots. They have studs.”

 Annabeth sighs, holding out her hand. Piper squeals, bouncing a little, wrapping her in a brief, but exuberant hug, kissing her cheek with a loud, wet, smack. “You’re the best!”

 “I haven’t even done anything.”

 “I am saving up favors to cash in. Now,” she releases Annabeth, retreating behind the camera. “If you’ve got some time, can I borrow your head? I’m working on a helmet and all my mannequins are busy.”

 ***

 “Hey,” Percy begins. It is so late at night, the dawn is on the edge of breaking, and they are both exhausted from some particularly good sex. Which is saying something, because all their sex is particularly good. “You doing anything on the 18th?”

 “Yeah,” She says, distractedly, snuggling down into his bed. The fact that she’s also snuggling into him is just a coincidence.

 “Oh.”

 “Why?”

 “Nothing. Was going to invite you to a thing if you weren’t.” She nods her head against his shoulder and falls asleep in his arms, thinking absolutely nothing about it.

 She continues to think nothing of it on the train to Philadelphia on the 18th, half-asleep and listening to Paramore to pass the time, blasting Misery Business on repeat as she changes in her hotel room.

 The Eta Industries event is pretty much exactly what she expected: a lot of old rich white people milling about, sipping champagne and verbally circle jerking each other, the insipid strains of classical music spilling out of the ballroom as Annabeth steps up to claim her name tag. “Name?” asks the young, college-aged girl, skimming her printed guest list over the rim of her glasses.

 “Annabeth Chase.”

 She runs a long fingernail over the assorted collection of name tags, before settling on the correct one, handing it to Annabeth, her star tattoo on the inside of her wrist free and open to anyone who would care to look. “Here you are, Ms. Chase,” she says, smiling. “Have a wonderful night!”

 Automatically, Annabeth goes to pin it on Luke’s scarf, before she remembers that something is already occupying that place--Percy’s Acropolis pin. She had taken to keeping it in her pocket these days, something of a good luck charm, and thought that it might… she doesn’t know, maybe send a subconscious signal to Percy that she’s thinking of him. Even though there is, quite literally, no way he could know, she hopes that maybe he can sense it, and that maybe he’s thinking about her, too.

 Ugh. She snatches up a flute of champagne from a wandering waiter, eager to get that thought out of her head, making a beeline straight for the refreshments table. It’s there that Leo finds her, not five minutes later, munching on some chocolate covered strawberries.

 “And here I thought you might ditch me entirely,” he says, even as he bumps her shoulder. True to form, he is absolutely, 100% dressed in those stupid suspenders, a smudge of grease behind his ear.

 “You’ve got a…” Annabeth trails off, motioning behind her own ear.

 “Huh? Oh!” He snatches up a napkin, rubbing discreetly. “Thanks.”

 She squints. Something about him is distinctly different. “Are you taller?”

 Kicking out a foot, he wiggles it, triumphant. “Platform shoes.”

 “Seriously?”

 “Hey, if they're good enough for Robert Downey Jr., then they’re good enough for me. After all, I am Ir--”

 She groans, good-natured, taking another gulp of champagne. “If you quote Marvel in your speech, I’m leaving.”

 “Fine by me, Your Highness, they’ll give me the award either way.”

 “Excuse me, Mr. Valdez?” The same college girl from before sidles up to them, clipboard clutched in her hand. “They’re about to start.”

 He claps his hands, rubbing them together. “Excellent. You coming?”

 “I…” She casts her gaze to the makeshift stage they’ve constructed, eyeing the bright “Eta Industries” placard, the sharp angles shiny and alluring, the siren-song of recognition.

 This is a big deal. There are photographers in the audience. In the write-ups and reviews, she would be listed as a co-winner of the award, a co-designer of the world’s safest house, a thought so happy she practically starts flying.

 “I think I should stay out of the limelight for this one, Leo,” she says, politely. “This is your moment. I don’t want to ruin it.”

 He frowns. “You sure?”

 Were it not for the fact that people were watching, Annabeth would have leapt up onto that stage without a second thought, snatching up the trophy like she had just won the Oscar, holding it up like the goddamn Olympic torch. “What, you want a white woman stealing your glory?” she says instead, arching a brow.

 “You get a pass this one time,” he quips, holding out his hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”

 Whatever social grace she has left crumbles. She’s denied it enough--she wants to be up there. “Oh, fine. Since you insist,” she says, following clipboard-girl to the stage.

 There’s a quick burst of feedback, then an elderly gentleman at the podium begins speaking into the mic. “Excuse me--sorry about that. Yes, yes, thank you all for coming tonight to the annual Eta Industries awards presentation ceremony. It is always such a pleasure to come together with our hard-working and generous board members and shareholders to honor the best and brightest upcoming talent in engineering.”

 Internally, she rolls her eyes. Rich people.

 “It is my pleasure, however, to introduce the young man who is the recipient of this year’s Millennium Prize for innovation and safety. One of MIT’s youngest and most decorated graduates, he was a recipient of the Mead Prize for Students, the Friedman Young Engineer Award, and the Collingwood Prize, among several others. His master’s thesis, ‘Towards the Design and Implementation of Autonomous Safety Measures in Commercial Kitchens,’ formed the basis of the project which we recognize tonight, the so-called ‘SmartSafe House,’ reflects the pioneering spirit and outstanding creative vision of not only Eta Industries, but also the field of engineering as a whole. Please join me in congratulating this year’s Millennium Prize recipient, Leo Valdez.”

 From the sidelines, she claps enthusiastically with the rest of the crowd as her friend takes the stage, shakes hands with the Vice President of Eta Industries, and accepts the award, a blue, blocky triangle which almost seems to glow in the light of the ballroom. “Thank you, Mr. Helms. This is--this is a really big honor.”

 She can see him shaking a bit, taking a quick drink from his water glass. Public speaking was never really his strong suit.

 “As--as a lot of you probably know, this project is very near and dear to my heart. Growing up in Houston with my mother, a car mechanic, I was eight years old when her beloved shop went up in flames, like that.” He snaps his fingers, his other hand pressed to the podium where no one can see, joints white with pressure. Annabeth is proud of him--he hasn’t been able to speak this candidly about it in years. She knows firsthand how much his mother’s near-death haunts him still. “Thankfully, we were able to rebuild, and my mother went on to bigger and better things--including a shop with cleaner vents. But I can definitely pinpoint that moment as the day I knew I wanted to make the world a safer place, for my mom, if not for everyone else.”

 She remembers, so clearly, that snowy night in the dorms at Miss Minerva’s. The power had gone out, and Leo had made them an illicit campfire out of their trash bin and Annabeth’s failed English exam. Cold and miserable and with dying phones, they passed the time instead telling scary stories and funny memories, until the conversation had gotten suddenly, intensely real.

 “But I would be remiss,” he goes on, cheerful, “if I didn’t acknowledge my friend and collaborator, without whose work I wouldn’t be here today: Annabeth Chase,” he waves to his side, indicating her. The whole crowd, as one, turns their gazes on her. She straightens up, imperceptibly, hoping she doesn’t look too haughty or anything. “I’ve never been very good with people. My mama says I’m just like my dad that way. Give me a car, or a computer, or pages of multiplication tables, and I’m golden. But people?” He blows out a breath, and the crowd chuckles, naturally. “Now, if it had been left up to me, the SmartSafe House would have been a top of the line, cutting-edge metal box, efficient to a fault, but completely unlivable. Thank God I had Annabeth on my team to remind me what the project was really about: a home that families could feel safe in, so that what happened to me and my mom might never happen to anyone else.” He hoists his award above his head, leaning into the mic. “Ma, este es para ti. Thank you all.”

 Stepping down from the stage, they reenter the crowd, ready to receive adoration. In another life, she might have been embarrassed by such praise. Here and now, however, she takes each handshake and word of congratulations like a starving man in a desert who just came across an oasis, hungry and greedy.

 Hey, it’s her night, too.

 After what feels like a whole-ass sixty minutes of shaking old people's hands and polite nodding, though, she is in desperate need of a break. Escaping the throng of mingling bodies, she darts into a dark corner of the ballroom, leaning against the back of a rounded stone column, just barely out of sight of the party.

 Rubbing her hands over her face, she sighs, just short of a scream. Blowing out all her air, she lets the faint music and fake laughs melt into each other, becoming white noise, a blank canvas, empty of concrete thoughts and feelings.

 Then, her ear picks up a strand of conversation.

 “...announcing tomorrow that the CEO of Pallas Inc. is choosing a successor,” a woman says, the sneer in her voice almost visible. “About time.”

 “I thought she already picked a successor,” says the woman’s conversation partner, a man with the kind of cookie-cutter cadence that she heard every time she took a business major to bed. “Pallas is a family business, isn’t it?”

 “You haven’t heard?” Annabeth can almost picture it, the furtive glance around the room, the woman placing her hand on her partner’s arm, leaning in to share a juicy secret. “Supposedly she was grooming her daughter for the role, before she went in for rehab.”

 “Rehab? Really?”

 “What else could it be?” says the woman. “She’s disappeared off the face of the earth, and her mother refuses to talk about her. Let’s be honest, if she were dead, she would have raised a bigger stink about it.”

 Annabeth closes her eyes, sucking air in through her teeth. That… wasn’t totally untrue.

 But the woman doesn’t stop. “It’s always the same story,” she scoffs. “You throw countless hours of schooling and millions of dollars into girls like her, and what do they do? Turn around and blow it all on drugs and partying. Honestly, she should be grateful her mother is even bothering with her rehab at all. Hasn’t she wasted enough of the family’s money already?”

 Blood roars in her ears, drowning out the fancy party. Sharp points dig into her palm, pinpricks of pain, before she realizes that they’re her own fingernails.

 The lady has got it all wrong. Her mom couldn’t even be bothered with that.

 Luke’s scarf, the shrug, it’s choking her, suffocating and constricting. Percy’s pin feels heavy on her chest.

 Blinders on, she would have sprinted for the exit were it not for the Piper’s stupid Versace heels, reduced instead to a teetering, tottering wreck, like a baby colt running from a predator. The night is hot and humid, heavy with the threat of rain, and Annabeth can barely breathe, dark spots in her eyes, until she ducks into a nearby Target, the frigid blast of air a welcome distraction.

 Almost in a daze, she watches herself pick up a few things--clippers, an electric razor, beef jerky, a blue Gatorade she considers for a moment before putting it back, choosing a lemonade instead--practically throwing them at the poor cashier who begins checking her out, mechanically. He doesn’t spare her a single glance for her odd assortment of items. He doesn’t even look at her at all.

 The walk to her hotel room disappears in the blink of an eye. Blink--she breezes past the check-in counter, slipping into the empty elevator. Blink--she kicks off her heels in her room, nearly hitting the wall mirror, leaving a scuff mark on the white plaster. Blink--she’s down to her underwear and tights in the bathroom, shaving the right side of her curls clean off. She’d gotten them professionally done for the night, perfect spirals held together by expensive products. And now she wants them gone.

 She pauses and breathes too hard, looking at herself in the mirror. Her mother didn’t like that she was blonde. Maybe because of dumb blonde stereotypes, maybe just because it reminded Athena too much of her failed romance with Annabeth’s dad. And that thought stays her hand from getting rid of the rest of them.

 That, and maybe the idea of Percy, of some broke dancer, tangling his fingers in it as they lie together.

 Fuck her mother, and the fucking stories she tells.

 She likes it. She likes her blonde hair and her fresh undercut.

 She can get Thalia to touch this up later, maybe. Now, though, she needs this.

 It doesn’t look perfect. The left side of hair is too long, her gold laurel earrings too fancy for a homegrown haircut like this, her makeup too pristine. Shoving her hand under the running water, she rubs at her eyes, mascara and eyeliner smearing until they’ve reached something much more respectable for the failure that she really is.

 She misses her industrial. And her eyebrow rings. And the tongue piercing. But this will have to do for now.

 Breathing heavily, eyes hot, she doesn’t register her phone blinking, signaling an unread text message.

 It’s from Thalia. surprised you weren’t at kelp heads bday party, it reads. was pretty boring. Kno he missed you  

[bbrandy2002]

Happy Birthday Burnsy!

The Country AU -- I'm Gonna Live Where The Green Grass Grows

Pairing: Drake x Alyssa, Liam x Riley, and a whole host of other TRR characters.

A/N: This was a silly little idea I had months ago for an AU built around the places and people where I grew up. I never had plans to actually write it, but I mentioned it to Burns, and well ... she wanted it lol so here we are. And she’s already read half of this and is the one who made the mood board for it and the song inspo hahaha. Thank you to @mskaneko for the edits of our OTP’s, and @charlotteg234 for pre-reading the first half of this.

Trigger warning: Gun usage, hunting, mild language ... I think that’s it

@burnsoslow

My dearest friend, when I think back at where we were one year ago, I can’t help but be reminded of the vastly different world we live in now. On February 5, 2020, there was no covid keeping us sheltered and fearful, families were complete, jobs were stable, and so many of the things we worried about then simply pale in comparison to now, Life wasn’t so bad. But here we are with all these new changes and mindsets. Through it all, one thing remained consistent: YOU. You have been my strength, my rock, the anchor that grounded me. We have cried together, laughed a lot together, worried for each other, and celebrated those small victories that were important to each other. And I get so happy when someone comments about how much they love the friendship between Riley and Alyssa because it's the most real part of Fearless. If anyone ever wanted to know what we’re like, it's all written out in that story. I’ve got your back, and you have mine. You’re my best friend and I just love the hell out of ya! I hope your birthday is amazing and that this fic is everything you wanted for this AU.

------------------------------------

On Sunday mornings in southern Georgia, you did one of two things: You woke up early for church services or woke up late to watch NFL football.

Some people figured out a long time ago how to do both.

Sitting in the back pew of the First Cordonian Church of Everlasting Peace, Alyssa Walker sat quietly with the sweetest southern belle smile, nodding her head along to the beautiful words spoken during Pastor Hakim’s sermon and hiding a pair of earbuds lodged in each ear. 

She and her husband, Drake, had laid claim to the pew when they were teens trying to sneak a kiss or two during prayers. After ten years of marriage, they no longer needed to sneak kisses but stayed in that same seat, believing the biggest sinners should stay as far away from the minister as possible. Why be the barrier that may prevent the spirit from reaching the rest of the congregation? The couple felt it was the least they could do.

They were actually pretty good folks and well respected in their community. Alyssa had taught first grade for eight years at the local elementary school, where her two children, nine-year-old Audrey and six-year-old Patrick, also attended. Her best friend since third grade, Riley, was the art teacher there. 

Drake worked nearby as the lead mechanic at Rys and Sons Chevrolet out on North Ramsford Avenue. Constantine had owned the auto dealership for 35 years before passing it down to his sons, Leo and Liam, when he ran for and became the town's mayor. Leo peaced out, heading to South Florida, while Liam took on the sole responsibility of ownership himself. 

And while most people in this sleepy little town of Cordonia were Falcons fanatics, Alyssa grew up rooting for the team where her parents were born and raised before settling in Georgia as newlywed lawyers: The Chicago Bears.

With the game against the Packers blaring into her ear, she kept a keen eye on the rest of her fellow parishioners. When they clapped, she clapped. When they sang, she sang. She raised her hands in hallelujahs when they did. She had learned to read lips and could “Amen” and “Praise God” right on cue with the rest of them. All the while, she sat in contentment, listening to her weekly football games. 

“The score with 14 seconds left in the second quarter is Chicago -- 14, Green Bay -- 17. The Bears have the ball on the 5-yard line. It’s third and goal. If Trubisky can score here, they’ll go into the locker room at halftime with a lead for the first time in this game, or possibly tie it all up with a field goal after this down. This is a huge, HUGE play, Jim ...” 

Alyssa twined her fingers together and lowered her forehead onto them as she waited with bated breath for the announcer to call the play-by-play. As far as anyone else knew, she was praying fervently for the Hebrews crossing the parted Red Sea away from Pharoah's army that the pastor was chronicling.

“And here comes the snap. Trubisky backs up. He tosses to Robinson in the end zone. OHHH! So close… batted away by Alexender …”

“JESUS!” Alyssa yelled out in anger. With earbuds in, she didn’t realize how loudly that just came out of her mouth. Drake nudged her in the thigh. She glanced over at him for a second before he nodded to the 123 pairs of eyes that had all turned at once in her direction. It instantly dawned on her that everyone in the congregation heard the outburst.

Feeling the color drain from her face, Alyssa placed a hand over her chest and addressed, “I am soooo into this sermon, Hakim. Woohoo! Go, Jesus, go!” She pumped her fist in the air like she was rooting him on.

Drake dropped his face onto Patrick’s shoulder, who was sitting on his lap, to cover the incessant laughter that threatened to spill out of him. He was doing a terrible job of it, as a momentary burst of muffled snickers could be heard through the sound of the game playing in Alyssa’s ear. Her husband was nothing but a big kid himself -- she wouldn’t change that for anything.

“Mommy,” Audrey whispered next to her. “It’s about Moses. Not Jesus.”

Alyssa smiled, patting her daughter’s knee. “Same thing, baby. They both performed miracles.” She cut her eyes to the phone hidden under the cardigan draped across her thighs. “And the Bears need a miracle right now, guys,” she muttered, “Part those shithead Packer’s defensive line, Lord. It’s time to help my Bears get to the promised land.”

“Going for it on fourth down, Trubisky drops back. The Packer defense is putting a lot of pressure on the Bear’s offensive line. Every man is covered in the end zone. He has no one to throw to, Jim. They’re running out of time. Four seconds left. And, NOOO, they sack Trubisky on the 10-yard line … WAIT THE BALL IS LOOSE … THE BALL IS LOOSE ... he fumbled the ball. The Packers are scrambling to get it. There are green and white jerseys all over that ball. BUT LOOK … Green Bay’s Klark picks it up. He’s running the other way … and he just slipped … he just slipped, and the football fell right into the hands of Chicago’s Robinson --”  

Alyssa grabbed Drake’s thigh, her fingers digging deeply with hope and panic. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” her stressed words weren’t audible to the crowd, but they were speaking volumes in her heart.

“--Robinson’s on the 20, now 15, he’s sweeping past the defense to the 10 -- 5 -- TOUCHDOWN, CHICAGO!!!”

"FUCK YES!" Alyssa jumped up, her arms outstretched in a V shape. “Hallelujah. Holy shit. Thank ya, Jesus.” She let out a huge sigh of relief, feeling nothing short of elated, not concerned in the slightest by the heads that twisted around again.

Hakim stood slack-jawed from the raised platform for a moment, his tallish physique slouching on the pulpit, before adjusting the microphone and clearing his throat deeply. "I'm certainly glad, Sister Alyssa is ... feeling the spirit this morning."

"I am feeling it, Brother Hakim," She shook her head profusely. "I. Am. Feeling it." She shot him a dimpled grin.

Drake snorted loudly, covering his face with one hand and grabbing the side of her dress to pull her back down with the other.

They turned to each other, neither one able to control the snickering and shaking of their bodies. Drake lifted a sleeping Patrick over his shoulder while Alyssa grabbed Audrey's hand; the Walker couple decided they were too immature for church this morning.

They laughed all the way to the parking lot.

"It's never a dull moment with you, baby girl," Drake chuckled, turning over the ignition.

"You know me …” She blew on her nails before rubbing them against her chest. “... just doing the Lord's work." 

--------------

It was customary in Cordonia for families to gather together each week for a big supper after church. 

The Walkers traditionally took turns hosting with Liam and Riley, and Constantine and Regina. This week's meal was at the elder Ryses.

Sitting down at the dining room table, everyone licked their chops, hungry and ready to dig into all the made-from-scratch southern goodness Mrs. Regina had prepared: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, coleslaw, macaroni and cheese, green beans with hamhock, corn-on-the-cob, deviled eggs, biscuits, sweet tea, and coffee. It was all accompanied by two containers of broccoli salad, Alyssa picked up from the Piggly Wiggly deli after church, and Riley's lopsided carrot cake.

There was always a lot of food, a lot of love, and what would it be in a small town without a little gossip here and there.

"Regina, you've outdone yourself on this meal," Liam raved while placing his five-month-old son in a high chair and fastening the clasps. "If it tastes as good as it smells, we're all in for a big treat."

Everyone agreed as she sat down, Constantine pushing her chair in with a peck to the top of her head. "Thank you, Liam." She looked up at her husband with a sincere smile, rubbing his arm. "Only the best for our family."

She meant every word of that as she and Constantine glanced around the table at all the cheerful faces of the people they loved most — that included Drake and his family. 

Drake's father had been the sheriff for many years before his untimely death, while the younger Walker was a teen. Connie had never met a braver, more hard-working man than Jackson; the now mayor stepped in after that death to be the father figure in Drake's life. Drake was already best friends with Liam, and over time, the family just considered him one of their own. Drake and Alyssa's children referred to them as Mamaw and Papaw Rys.

As everyone settled in and passed the food around the table, the doorbell rang; 7-year-old Ellie -- Liam and Riley's oldest -- jumped up to answer it. With everyone focused on getting their helpings, Riley leaned over and whispered to Alyssa, "Any more scoop on Savannah?"

Alyssa passed the potatoes to her and answered in a hushed tone, "I drove past her house yesterday ... Chuck was there. His big rig was backed right up into the driveway. They're not even trying to hide it anymore."

"I knew it." Riley slapped a scoop of potatoes onto her plate, passing them across to Liam. "When does Bertrand get back from that Bankers Convention in Atlanta?"

"I think Max said on Tuesday. And I guarn-damn-tee, Chuck will be there until then."

"Of course he will. Have you told Drake yet?"

Alyssa shook her head, peeking over at her husband, who was in hog heaven, dousing everything on his plate with white gravy, blissfully unaware of their idle chitchat. She turned back to Riley. "Not yet. You know how protective he is. I'll need to hide the gun cabinet keys when he finds out ... if he finds out. You remember how upset he got when Bianca got caught at the Love's Truck Stop with Landon Ebrim over the summer. His mama can do what she wants, but not with a married man."

Riley agreed with a nod before taking a sip and swallowing her sweet tea. "Ya know, I've never seen sweet Emmaline that angry."

"Yeah, me neither. She sure whopped ass that day." They both giggled lightly. "Landon's dentures flew clean across that truck lot."

"I saw her the other day at the Food Lion, grinnin' like a baked possum. Got that ol' dog for everything he had."

Alyssa huffed, "Cept' his nuts."

Ellie ran back in and hopped in her chair. "Miss Olivia is here!"

Alyssa stiffened, clutching her fork a little tighter before letting out a faint groan. Not that she didn't like the Assistant Principal of Cordonia Elementary -- she was her boss, after all, and they grew up together -- she could just be a little off-putting, sometimes with her treatment of Drake. In light of Olivia's recent divorce, she had, however, started directing most of her scorn on her ex-husband, Anton.

Everyone greeted Olivia as she strolled in behind the youngster, shrugging her jacket off and tossing it on a counter with her purse. "I smelled your chicken and taters all the way from Lythikos Drive, Regina. You know how I love a good rib stickin' meal."

"Is Travis and Waylon here?" Patrick piped up eagerly from the children's table, hoping to have some boys to play with rather than the three little girls who kept ganging up on him.

Olivia pulled out a chair and started loading her plate down. "They're with their daddy this weekend, sugar. I'll tell them you asked about them."

Drake lifted his coffee mug, not making eye contact with anyone. "Speaking of ... I saw Anton yesterday at the Dollar Tree ... with someone." He smirked into his drink. While everyone else knew who and was trying to avoid the elephant in the room, he owed her for years of squabble.

"Who? Madeleine?" Olivia spat, adding heaping spoonfuls of sugar to her already overly sweetened tea. "Bless her rotten heart, he was seeing her before our break up. Moved in with her right after the divorce was final, so I hope she's enjoyed cookin' and cleanin' after my youngins' all weekend, cause she's gonna be doin it a hell of a lot more now that she got herself fired."

Madeleine was a bank teller in the drive-thru at First Cordonia and also Leo's ex-fiancee. 

"Madeleine got fired?" Alyssa asked in surprise. "She's been there for years."

The redhead swirled the sugar around in her tea with a spoon before licking it off and continuing, "Mmm-hmm. Bertrand caught her on video, stuffing her gaudy drawers into the vacuum tubes at the bank and sending them to that bastard when he drove through to make a deposit. He was making deposits alright. Right between her scrawny, cankled ass --"

"Olivia!" Liam quickly interjected, knowing once she got going, it would likely turn R-rated with several little ears listening. "I'm dying to hear how the Christmas Festival for next Saturday is coming along." He shot a look across the table at Drake for getting her worked up. Drake simply grinned.

By late afternoon, supper had been eaten, dishes cleaned, and pants unbuttoned. After a couple of hours of chatting on the back porch and watching the kids play, the two younger couples packed up leftovers Regina insisted they take home and were ready to hit the road. 

Liam and Riley lived next door and walked out with the Walkers who were making their way to the Tahoe parked on the street.

Alyssa bounced and cooed over baby Jacob before handing him back to Riley and getting into the vehicle's passenger seat. 

Liam was leaning into the driver's side window, having a casual discussion with Drake about the opening day of deer season next Saturday and asking what time he wanted to head out.

Alyssa was half-listening and half-working the stereo when an idea popped into her head. "You know what would be fun?” Both men stopped talking and glanced over at her. “We should all go?”

Drake knit his brows. “Go where?

“Hunting. We can make it a double date. You and me, Riley and Liam. The great outdoors. Some quality time together. I’ll even make snacks for everyone. It’ll be fun,” her voice was chipper. She was excited about it. 

She was also deadly serious. 

So were the dubious looks Drake and Liam gave each other over the thought of taking their wives on the most important hunting event of their year. Not that either didn't enjoy spending time with their significant others, but hunting was a whole different world. It was a one-person sport where you spent the day away from reality and responsibilities and just enjoying the great outdoors —a place to be alone and experience the thrill of a good hunt.

“Guys, I’m serious. We go fishing together, and I’ve shot targets plenty of times. I really wanna go hunting with you. Riley wants to go too, don't you?” She cast an inquisitive glance out her window at Riley, who glared back with the biggest what-the-fuck look she'd ever made. “See, she wants to go too.”

“Baby,” Drake began softly, giving her knee light squeezes. “I don’t mind taking you, but this is opening day. We’ll be in the woods for hours, in the cold. It’s not really what someone would consider a ‘date.’ And we’re going to the Festival that night … we’ll get a chance to spend time together there.”

She held his gaze as her lips began to quiver. “I understand. You .. you need time to be away from me, and it was a dumb idea anyway --”

“No,” Drake cut in. His heart plummeted from the sadness in her voice and eyes. “That’s not it at all. I love spending time with you. And if you really want to do this, then … let’s do this.”

“Really? We can go together?” Drake nodded with a smile before she squealed in his ear and pulled him into a tight hug. “I can’t wait! Thank you!”

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Liam let out a heavy breath as he looked over at Riley -- The woman he knew would not be a fun hunting partner next week -- still standing on the sidewalk, appearing like she might faint. “Yeah ... I can’t wait either.”

---------------------

Saturday. 5:15 a.m. The cellphone alarm on Drake’s bedside table let off a series of rhythmic beeping sounds and vibrations. 

The alarm wasn’t needed. The man had been awake for hours, listening to his wife's gentle snores; the anticipation of bringing home at least a 12-pointer keeping him from falling back asleep. 

Letting out a ferocious yawn and a hearty stretch, he picked up his phone to dismiss the alarm and rolled over to wake Alyssa.

With her ass perfectly curled into the space between his stomach and thighs, his hands settled on her curvy hip, jostling her slightly. “Time to get up, my little peach. We gotta get crackin’ before all the good deer are gone.”

“I just need one more hour, okay? Thanks,” she protested with a drowsy murmur, pulling the pillow over her head.

Drake chuckled, rubbing soothing circles over her back. “No. We have to get up now. We’re wasting time, sleepyhead. Unless … you don’t want to go.”

Alyssa’s heavy eyes stung as she tried to peel them open one at a time. “No, I wanna … go ...” she trailed. Her eyes slowly shut again, and she was out.

On a day like today, Drake was usually up and ready in ten minutes. Once he could finally get his wife out of bed, dressed, and back awake again from where she fell asleep on the toilet, it was close to 45 minutes. 

Maxwell, who was also a childhood friend and the music teacher where Alyssa taught, rented the room over their garage. He agreed to come down that morning and watch the kids while the pair spent their morning in the woods. Bianca used to help out in that regard, but the kids complained she slept the whole time, and Alyssa was pretty sure her mother-in-law smoked pot around them.

Drake loaded up the truck, placing his rifle and a smaller .22 caliber for Alyssa behind the seat. Dragging herself slowly to the vehicle, the night sky still pitch black and her breath turning to thick vapors in the frigid air, she listlessly tossed a Taylor Swift tote bag on the floorboard and climbed in.

Drake looked at his phone after everything was packed up to see if Liam had sent a message about being late. It was unusual for him not to be there already. Typically, his best friend was up and at his house before Drake was even ready. He sent off a quick text to check.

Drake: Where you at, man?

Liam: Running late. Riley had to put makeup on and do her hair. 

Liam: I’m having so much fun already 😑

Liam: snark

Drake: Lyss couldn’t decide which gloves looked the best with her orange vest. I guess she wants to impress the deer before she kills them.

Liam: We’re not catching deer today. We’ll be lucky if we catch a cold. Be there in 10.

Twenty minutes later, Liam’s gray Silverado pulled onto the Walker’s gravel drive. Riley had wanted biscuits and gravy from McDonald's, and she had to run back inside to pee, so that set them back. But, with everyone now there, they were finally ready to head out.

Just down the rural road from where Drake and Alyssa lived, the current sheriff of Cordonia, Bastien, owned several acres of unoccupied land that he used for recreation. He had been a close friend of Drake’s dad and agreed to let Drake and Liam hunt and fish on his property whenever they wanted.

Turning onto the dirt road and opening the gate, the four friends arrived at their spot just as dawn was breaking. 

No one spoke much as they trekked through the mud, sticks, and brittle fall leaves that littered the path to the deer stands. Riley and Alyssa were too exhausted to say anything. Drake and Liam just weren’t used to talking at all.

"Riley, love,” Liam whispered softly. “Can you watch how you’re walking? The noise is going to scare the deer away.”

“I can’t help it if … " She reacted loudly in frustration before Liam placed a finger over his lips, and she resumed speaking more quietly. “I can’t help it if there're leaves everywhere. I’m walking on them as delicately as possible.”

“How much further? I think my toes are frozen and I need coffee.” Alyssa bemoaned while walking on the balls of her heels. Drake was basically dragging her sluggish body by the hand. Her eyes were still drooping from exhaustion with every careful step.

“Just over yonder of that fence row is our stand.” He pointed out.

Alyssa aimed her flashlight around the woods in several spots. "And where do we pee at?"

Liam lightly snorted as Drake answered matter-of-factly. "Just over yonder of that fence row below our stand."

"Oh ... " her tone was small and apprehensive, "... I guess that's ... okay." She glanced back timidly at Liam, who was following close behind.

He shielded his eyes from the beam of her flashlight in his face and frowned. "I'm not going to watch you pee, Alyssa."

Riley gasped, "Eww! I don't want Drake watching me pee either." 

"Shhhhh." Liam was quick to remind her again of the volume of her voice.

"Stop, shushing me, Liam! Those deer don't know I'm out here."

Drake grunted, then whipped around to face the three of them. "Would you keep your voices down? No one's watching anybody take a piss," he whisper-yelled. "Lyssa and I will be at least a hundred yards away from ya'll. Riley, I promise you can piss your little heart out, and I won't see it."

"We're separating?" Alyssa asked wistfully. "What if I need to ask Riley something, and she can't hear me yelling across to her?"

"You'll just have to ask her when we're done, baby girl. And ... please don't yell questions to her while we're out here. Low voices."

They continued on with their noisy hike.

"Having so much fun," Liam grumbled to himself.

-------------------

Liam and Riley headed to their tree stand as Drake helped Alyssa climb up the ladder to theirs. 

The stand and ladder were made of plywood -- chipped and faded from years of exposure to the elements -- and were attached at the apex to an oak tree about twenty feet off the ground. At the top it had enough room to take a step onto, with a wooden seat just wide enough to accommodate them. One plank rail came out on both sides. 

Alyssa plopped down onto the seat, clutching her tote bag of goodies on her lap. She lifted the brim of the orange beanie she borrowed from Drake -- that smelled of animal carcass and gun powder -- above her eyes and peered out to the wilderness spread monumentally below. She closed her eyes and slowly inhaled the fresh, dewy air, taking in the sounds of twittering birds, branches clashing from the nearby squirrel frolicking on them, and the rippling of a bubbling brook streaming down the hill. 

A pleasant warmth overcame her as Drake's much larger body sat down next to her and protected her from the frosty wind blowing in from his side.

Alyssa wrapped her arms around his waist, snuggling into him. "I can see why you like this so much. It's so quiet and peaceful ... look how purty it is out here, Drake. It's just real purty, isn't it?"

Working diligently on getting their gear together, he stopped briefly to look out; affection glowed in his eyes. “It sure is, darlin’. Almost as purty as you ... and notice I said 'almost.'” He winked, and Alyssa blushed, feeling that same love trickling up inside her she'd had since they were teenagers. Drake could charm the pants off a chipmunk, but she was thankful he only used that gift on her.

"Sooo ... " She drawled in her thick Southern accent. "How long will it be before the deer start coming out?" 

Drake drew the barrel of her gun back after loading it with shells and explained, "Don't know. It could be minutes. It could be a few hours. Just whenever they head this way, I reckon."

Perplexed, Alyssa nodded slowly. "A few hours? I s'pose that's okay. What do you do while you're waiting?"

He shrugged, passing a gun to her. "You just ... sit here."

"You just sit here and do what?"

Drake leaned over to kiss into her orange cap and replied, "Wait."

"Wait." She acknowledged. "I can do that. I'll just sit here ... and wait."

Several minutes had passed, and Alyssa was already bored with listening to nature, Drake's gurgling stomach, and sitting quietly with nothing to do. Every so often, a shotgun blast was heard in the distance, signifying either someone out there had gotten their prize or Riley had driven Liam insane. It was the only break from the monotony that came with the boredom of sitting in a tree for who knew how many hours.

Letting out a giant exhale that caught Drake's attention, she propped her rifle against the railing and pulled the cloth tote that was sitting between her boots into her lap. Rummaging through the bag, she pulled out her phone and began thumbing out a message.

Drake furrowed his brows and asked, "What're you doin'?" 

"Just texting Riley,' she answered dismissively. He shook his head and leaned it back against the tree while she formulated her message.

Alyssa: You still alive over there? How's it going?

Riley: This is boring as shit.

Riley: And now my texting is apparently scaring away the deer. F the deer Liam. F all the damn deer!!!! What were you thinking, Lyss?

Alyssa: I was thinking we could spend quality time with our husbands. The men we love and cherish with all of our hearts. I’m having a great time with Drake so far 😍😘

Alyssa: And no one twisted your arm to come bitch.

Riley: Liam's just staring through binoculars. He hasn’t spoken in 20 minutes except to tell me to point the gun away from him or to quit moving. Let’s go get our hair did at Adelaide's.”

Alyssa: OHHH Yes! And get Chinese food ... CRAB RANGOONS!! I'll have Drake drive us back. Girls Day Out. Love you!

Drake let out a belch and blew it away when Alyssa turned to him with a dazzling smile and a sparkle in her blues. "Can you drive Riley and me back to the house?"

"What? Right now?" he shrieked. She answered him with a cheerful nod. "What happened to all that talk about wanting to spend quality time with me?"

"I still do. But ... we're just sitting here, not really doing anything. I could be getting my hair done for tonight's festival. I also have a ton of laundry to do, some papers to grade, and I’m supposed to be making the Devereaux’s famous peach cobbler for the raffle. If I leave now, I’ll have time to do all of it.” Alyssa knew she probably wouldn’t do half of that, and Audrey would likely make the cobbler, but it made the situation sound more urgent.

"It's opening day, baby. I'm not leaving this spot." He reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out his keys. "If you and Riley wanna take my truck, I'll ride back with Liam."

She gave him an exasperated look. "I don't know my way back to the truck. And I sure as hell know Riley doesn't."

He smirked, stuffing his keys back. "Then you're stuck."

The next hour was brutal. Alyssa texted Riley to alleviate the boredom for several minutes, but there had been no responses in a long while. She wasn't aware that Liam tossed her friend's phone over the hill when she started making TikTok videos of her plight -- Liam took his deer hunting seriously: No noise meant no noise.

Drake wasn't much better; he was quieter than his usual self. It wouldn't have been so bad if she could at least talk. An occasional whispered word was not going to cut it.

Alyssa sighed heavily. She wiggled around for comfort. She unwrapped a Nutty Bar. She crunched. She opened a can of pop. She tapped her fingers. She flipped the pages of a magazine. Each one got that look from Drake that let her know it was too loud. If she ever made it out of there, she planned to jabber and stir until she couldn't do it anymore.

After another half-hour of stewing quietly in her thoughts without a sign of a deer anywhere, Alyssa decided now was the time to finally just talk. 

"Do you ever think about having another baby?" It was a topic that had been on her mind for a while. To her surprise, Drake didn't give her a look or even freak out the way she anticipated. Despite his own rule of silence, he even responded in kind.

"Yeah. Kind of a lot."

Her right brow darted up. "Really?" 

Drake took a breath and shifted the gun across his lap. "I mean, of course. It's always been my dream to settle down and have a bunch of youngin's with the woman I love." He studied her lit-up face; he'd swore she'd gotten more beautiful with age. That's why he hesitated when he added, "But ... "

Her shoulders slumped at his words, and a deflated look impressed upon her face. "But ... " The word barely made it past her lips.

Drake reached for her hand and gripped it tightly. "Lyssa, we have so much going on right now. You're working on National Boards, Audrey has piano recitals and basketball, Patrick has peewee football and Boy Scouts. We barely have time -- except for right now -- for just ... us. I'm not saying,"never"... just that right now ... isn't a good time."

"I understand that, but ... we've always made it work. And don't you miss those tiny little fingers wrapped around yours? And the way they smell fresh out of the bath? And those chubby little cheeks pressed up against yours?" she goaded.

“Of course I do. I remember the first time I held Audrey and PJ in my arms -- there’s just no better feeling in the world than ...to look down ... " Drake paused as his voice cracked, and his brown eyes glistened like glass. " ... and to see someone so small ..." When she sniffled, it made it that much harder for him to speak. "... that you created with the woman you've loved since you were 16 years old. But I like who they are now, and watching them grow, and doing things with them ... And, well ... there’s no shit clean up.”

“You obviously haven’t washed Patrick's clothes in a while,” Alyssa retorted with a chuckle that brought out one in her husband.

"I’ll have to talk to him about that." He gazed deeper into her eyes. "But I do love you ... more than all the peaches in Georgia, Lyssa Claire.”

Alyssa smiled.“That’s what you said to me when you promised to marry me when we were teens.”

Drake returned his own smile. “I did. I remember like it was yesterday too. Sitting in your parent’s basement, watching Friends reruns, eating pizza, making out. And hell, it’s still as true today as it was then. Somehow, even more."

Their cold lips parted and joined halfway for a fervent kiss, with Drake's hand meandering around the subtle groove at the junction of her waist. Just as it became more intense and desirous, a rustling of twigs off in a nearby thicket caught Drake's ear, and he broke away, his eyes scoping the perimeter. Alyssa wasn't offended, she heard it too, and her heart raced with excitement.

Lifting the binoculars hanging from his neck, he spotted two deer eating from a blackberry patch some thirty yards away. He pointed in their direction; Alyssa gave a quick thumbs up, letting him know she saw them too.

Drake carefully lifted the rifle resting in his lap as Alyssa leaned forward and squinted to get a better visual. "Is that a buck and a doe?" she whispered, not moving an inch.

"Sure as fuck is." He mounted the stock of his .30 caliber, Winchester, just beneath his collarbone;  the rush of this moment coursed ravenously through his body. He lined up the scope and placed a steady finger on the trigger -- his thumb pulling the hammer back.

“Wait.” Alyssa loudly whispered. “You can’t shoot him.”

"I'm gonna. Better cover your ears."

"No, Drake. There's a doe with him. What if that's his wife? You can't just leave her all alone without him."

"Lyss, this is the whole reason we're out here."

"So you can make a widow out of her?"

"No ... so I can make deer chili out of him."

Alyssa's mouth flew open. "No. No. RUUUUUUUUN! RUUUUUUN!"

Drake pulled his face away from the scope and fired her a look. "What the hell are you doing? They're getting away!"

She tilted her chin boldly. "I don't care. That was her husband, and they're in love, and you can't take that away from them. I would be so sad if we were just out eating berries and someone came up and shot you, ALL SO THEY COULD EAT DRAKE CHILI!". 

Drake dropped his head. He knew there was no point in arguing with her. As long as he’d known her, she was stubborn, and at that moment, she was dead set in believing those two deer were living out the greatest romance of all time. Nothing he said or did would change her mind on that. 

A thought emerged while he attempted to comprehend the logic of the situation. Those deer ran off in the direction where Liam was set up. Maybe if he could give his friend a heads up, it was still possible at least someone would leave those woods with the prized buck.

Turning his back from Alyssa so that she couldn't stop him, he pulled a small walkie-talkie from his pocket and radioed Liam. Alyssa knew what was up and jumped to her feet, thrusting her arms around him in an attempt to stop the travesty.

"You can't do this, Drake," she hollered, "That’s her soulmate. And why don't I have a walkie-talkie? I want a walkie-talkie!"

While seated next to Liam, Riley was swinging her legs, purposefully making the soles of her boots scrape against the platform. Liam tried to ignore her; maybe he had been a little too uptight about every little noise and utterance she made. But this was playing a whole different ballgame now: she was now making it her mission to piss him off.

Prepared to pound his head against the tree, Liam gritted his teeth, skimming his eyes in her direction. "Love, do you have to do that?"

"Did you have to throw my phone in the woods?" She spat back.

Liam rubbed his hand over his face. "No, and I am sorry that. I apologize for all of eternity. I promise I will get you another one as soon as we get back, okay?”

Riley huffed. "Fine, but that phone had all of my contacts on it. It had our babies' pictures and videos on it ... our vacation photos. I can't get those memories back ever, and I have to find it, and God only knows where it landed. It could be ..." She stopped rattling on when she caught sight of the distressed look Liam was giving her. Knitting her brows, Riley asked, "What?"

"Nothing ... just ... can you lower your voice a little? You're gonna scare the deer away," 

He regretted it as soon as it came out. 

“LIAAAAM!”

He saw the steam gushing out of her ears. There was no time to answer the incoming call on his walkie-talkie from Drake.

Belting out a furious screech, Riley jumped up and tried to jerk the gun from his hands. There was no question she wouldn't shoot him, but she'd sure as hell shred his favorite gun apart piece-by-piece and toss them all the way to Portavira Lake on the other side of town.

Riley tugged with all of her might. "I have HAD IT with being quiet for those damn deer, Liam. HAD IT!"

"Sweetheart, you need to calm down ..." He stood up in front of her, pulling back on the rifle even harder, surprised -- and not pleasantly so -- his considerably smaller wife had this much struggle in her.

"Don't you sweetheart me. You have shushed me for the last time, Liam Preston Rys!"

“Okay, I’m sorry! But can you at least admit us fighting over a gun is dangerous? Somebody is going to get seriously hurt, and I don’t want it to be you, Riley. Please. I won’t shush you anymore, I promise.” His face softened, eventually adorning a loving smile at his wife, who, with a sigh, was unable to resist that handsome face and relaxed her grip. 

Riley gave him a half-smile in return. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve ruined your hunting trip.”

“Yes ... you did.” Liam agreed, dodging the playful slap she nearly made to his upper arm. “But I don’t want to fight anymore.”

With the War of the Ryses finally over, they went in for a makeup kiss until Drake’s voice called out to Liam again through his walkie talkie. Liam set the gun down on the bench and leaned it against the tree before he started digging into his pocket to answer the device. Riley dropped down onto the seat, her elbow brushed against the rifle and caused it to slide away until the barrel end hit the railing and set off a powerful blast.

When the ringing in both of their ears subsided, and the smoke had cleared, Liam and Riley collected themselves from the sudden spine-gripping explosion that shook them both. While Riley explained to Liam what happened, a hysterical sounding Drake came back over the walkie-talkie, wailing, “Alyssa’s been shot! Alyssa’s been shot! Help me!”

__________________

Later that evening, in the courthouse square, the street was lit up with zig-zagged rows of red, green, and white lights. Strands of garland were wound around every lamppost in perfect spiraled loops, and red bows hung and waved with the wintry breeze.

With traffic rerouted away from the area, vendors lined sidewalks selling local goods to put the town's citizens in the festive spirit. What would this small town in Georgia have been without boiled peanuts, low country boil, fried green tomatoes, barbecue, and peach everything? 

Once Constantine had lit the 30-foot spruce, surrounded by hundreds of merry people from all walks of life that made up this small community, the festival was officially kicked-off.

In a large tent set up on the square, Liam and Riley laid out styrofoam containers and drinks they’d purchased from a barbeque vendor on one of several picnic tables inside. With their two young daughters munching away on their meal, and the stroller with their sleeping son beside them, they both sat down with heavy hearts and restless minds.

Liam bit into his barbecue sandwich, noticing Riley only prodding at her mac-and-cheese while staring off into the distance. He didn’t have to ask what was wrong; he knew what happened that morning was bothering her with guilt and worry. It wasn’t every day she accidentally shot someone.

“Are you going to be okay?”

Riley shook her head slightly with a sad look. “No. It’s just not the same without Alyssa here. You know how much she loves Christmas and the festival. She was so looking forward to it too, until --”

“You shot her.”

“Yeeeeeesssss,” she cried out. Liam reached across the table and gave her hand a comforting squeeze, his thumb caressing her smooth skin. Riley continued to sniffle as she grabbed a handful of napkins and wiped the barbecue sauce off Liam’s sticky fingers that were now smeared all over hers. “I didn’t mean to, I swear it. And the way … and the way Drake cried. It broke my heart. Now he has her on bed rest AND house arrest. He won’t let her take calls. I’ll never see or hear from my bestie agaaaain.” The tears continued to flow in steady streams.

Liam stiffened, feeling the eyes of everyone in that tent, gawking at his overly-dramatic wife breaking down. He started to tell her to lower her voice, but after the gun battle in the woods, he thought better of it. “Riley, darlin’, you know Drake is really overprotective of Alyssa. And as scary as what happened was, she only needed the one stitch and band-aid for her graze wound. Something tells me Drake won’t be able to keep her down long.”

---------------------------

Liam was right. As much as Drake tried to keep her in bed so he could wait on her hand and foot, protect her from the careless friends of the world who could inadvertently do his baby girl harm, and check to see if she needed a new band-aid every few minutes, he could not keep her down. She had been far too excited to hang out with the people she loved so much and celebrate at one of her favorite festivals.

Maxwell had left for the events with Audrey and Patrick an hour ago; they were part of the children’s caroling group and needed to be there early. Against Drake’s wishes, Alyssa showered, got dressed, and made sure he knew in no uncertain terms would he be able to prevent her from going. The only thing he knew to do was to go, follow her around the entire night, and make sure she wouldn’t get shot again.

They circled the block where everything was held several times, but spaces to park were impossible to find. Three blocks away was the church where they attended, and the parking lot was completely empty. Drake didn’t like the fact that Alyssa would have to walk so far in her debilitated condition and was prepared to haul her piggyback style if he had to, but this was the best spot he could find.

Drake moved the gearshift into park and reached over to grab Alyssa’s arm, who was already bounding out the door. He pulled Alyssa back inside, the chilly air blowing through her open door swept her straighten hair this way and that way. 

She cocked her head to the side and exhaled, “Drake, I can open my own door. I’m not broken. It’s just a scratch. I’m fine.”

“I know.” He smiled that tenderhearted smile only Alyssa had ever seen. The same one sending a shudder through her already chilled body. “I changed my mind,” he replied simply

Alyssa slammed her eyes shut and groaned. “I just told you I was fine --”

“No, no,” He shook his head. “About having another baby. I want to start trying.”

Saddled with curiosity, she slid back into the truck and shut the door. “But, I thought you said we didn’t have time for that --”

“Yeah, I did say that. I still believe it. But … today made me realize that yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today …”

Alyssa’s hand flew to her mouth as she laughed out loud. Drake gave her a confused look before chuckling awkwardly to himself, “What’s so funny?”

She lowered her hand, still laughing. “You got that saying from a quote on a poster in my classroom. You’re the one who hung it up for me.”

The memory dawned on him, and he lowered his head, attempting to cover the guilty grin that spread over it. “Well, hell. Here I was trying to make you think I was all insightful and smart and stuff.”

Alyssa’s hand splayed across his rugged chest as she leaned over to kiss him.“You are very insightful and smart. You know I never settle for anything less than the best.”

“I s’pose.” he said, forking his fingers through his hair. “But … I guess what I wanted to say was … I know that bullet missed you, barely … but what if it hadn’t? What if I’d left those woods without you today? Just like you were afraid that doe might. Time wouldn’t matter anymore. There will NEVER be enough time with you. You’re my life, Alyssa Claire. You’re my lover, my friend, my heart, my confidante, my soul, my everything … my little peach. I want to experience all that life has given me with you as my wife … and forever make time with you.”

“DRAAAKEY!” she bawled, spreading her tiny arms wide around his bulky body. Alyssa drew him into her so hard it nearly crushed the wind right out of his lungs. “I -- love -- you -- so muuuch!” Drake patted her back and kissed into her hair as she sniveled into his shirt. He hated when she cried, but damn if this didn’t feel good to him. Anytime she was happy made him that way too. 

They took a moment to kiss and pet each other a little before Alyssa sat up and asked, “So … when do you want to start trying for a new baby Walker?”

He shrugged. “Whenever you want, baby.”

Alyssa looked through the back window of the truck and scanned the parking lot. She bit her lip and looked back at him impishly. “What about … now?”

Drake’s eyes flew open wide. “In the church parking lot?”

Pursing her lips, she affirmed, “Yes. We’ve done it behind the Piggly Wiggly plenty of times. And let's not forget the ‘Great Ass Blow-out of 2019’ in the Atlanta Convention Center parking garage.”

“I will never forget that.” Drake shook his head as that momentous sexual experience replayed in his mind. “Mmmm, you performed magic that day, woman.”

She raised a brow and coaxed him on, “So? What’dya say?”

Drake took a tentative look around at the dark, empty lot, then back at her. “We’re so going to hell, but I’m in.”

“Eeeeeee,” she squealed, jerking his arm around in excitement. “Try to keep your ass out of the window this time, okay?”

Thirty minutes later, Pastor Hakim pulled into the church parking lot with Mara, the game warden, following behind in her truck. There had been several reports from passerby’s of loud animals howling and screeching behind the church. The stray cat population was out of control in that area, and several cats had burrowed their way inside the church on occasion. 

Hakim parked his car, with Mara pulling in beside him. They both got out simultaneously and listened quietly to see if they could decipher where the commotion was coming from. 

Within seconds, a load moan roared out, followed by several consecutive whimpers that were hard to make out by the duo.

Mara listened intently, then gestured with her flashlight to an area near the back of the lot where clusters of shrubs and dry brush bordered. Hakim ambled behind her, the noise getting closer and closer until the pastor's brow furrowed at the shaking of a nearby truck.

“Damn, teenagers,” he grumbled as they tipped toed discreetly.

Mara crouched down by the truck's tailgate, Hakim bending over while she duck-walked toward the driver's side door.

The game warden turned to the pastor and instructed, “On my three. 1 -- 2 -- 3.” They both jumped up at the same time, flashing the light inside the cab. “HAHA Caught ya! OH MY GOD!”

Alyssa, who was on top of Drake, completely naked except for the band-aid on her left arm, looked up in utter humiliation and shock. She crossed her arms over her chest to cover her breast, feeling like she might faint. Not knowing what to say at that moment to rectify their actions or why those two were still staring inside the truck, Alyssa smiled sheepishly. “I’m still feeling the spirit, Hakim.”

---------------------------------

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[fivefeetfear]

Chapter one

This takes place a year into the future.

......................................

"Spinel please be careful while you are down on Earth." White says worriedly as she kneels before the pink gem. Blue nods in agreement as she joins White on the floor.

"And don't forget to call us whenever you have the time." The cool colored diamond chimes in a soft smile gracing her features.

"And please bathe everyday so you don't get the stench of that disgusting planet onto your clothes." Yellow advise with a scowl on her face. She really hated the smell when they last visited, and she doubts much has changed. The two other diamonds roll their eyes at Yellow whom only shrugged. They knew she was right.

All three of the diamonds then shifted their attention back to the beloved gem before them wary for the journey ahead of her. Spinel smiles nervously at the over baring women as she rubs the back of her neck. Though she lived with them for a year, the pink gem was not the biggest fan of the diamonds overprotective nature. It could be quite exhausting and honestly a bit embarrassing. Most days she felt like their child when she was not being their best friend. Even so, Spinel loves them dearly, but this trip is necessary for the sake of her sanity. Just the thought of sleeping in without entertaining anyone sounded amazing to her. Spinel never knew she would miss having her own space, at least this time she gets to choose when she wants to be alone.

Spinel steps onto the warp padded preparing herself to leave the palace.

"Don't worry about me my diamonds; you won't even notice that I'm gone." She says teasingly trying to bring some light to the situation. Though the diamonds didn't find it amusing. Yellow's eyes sharpen as she crosses her arms over her chest.

"Was that self-deprecation?" Yellow questions making Spinel straightening up her posture at her tone. Crap. Blue eyes widen as she lowers herself closer to Spinel with concerned in her hues. Blue gently strokes the top of Spinel's head as she spoke tenderly.

"Of course we will notice you are gone, we love you Spinel." Blue says softly making the small gem feel guilty at her poor choice of words. In her defense she didn't mean for it to come out as self deprecation, they just took it that way as usual. Yellow then glances over at White as she "mutters" to her.

"Do you think she is ready to be on her own? Should we send one of our pearls with her?" Yellow asks White, who seems to be considering the thought. Maybe she still needed more supervision.

Spinel felt panic swell in her chest as she gazed up at her diamonds with pleading magenta eyes.

"I'm ready! I promise no more self-deprecating jokes!" She says. Spinel appreciates that her diamonds had spent all their time helping her build up her confidence. It was not by much, a year barely made a dent to the damage of six thousand years caused, but it was a start. She was able to keep her abandonment issues under control since she literally spends every single day with them, but she had some minor setbacks. Spinel thanked the stars that Steven was able to convince them that she is ready to go back to Earth for a mini-vacation and to take a break from diamond duties. There was no way she was going to let this opportunity pass her by. Spinel clasped her hands together and enlarged them as she gave the diamonds her best doe eyes.

"Please." She mutters meekly instantly making White and Blue melt under her glossy eyes.

"Ok, ok, just be safe and you can come home whenever you like!" White concedes childishly, how could she say no to that face! Yellow scoffs as she rolls her eyes agitated at how easily she gave in. This is Pink all over again.

Spinel smiles widely as she nods her head. She quickly waves at her family as a bright light shined from beneath her.

"See you soon my diamonds, bye!" And just like that she had vanished from their sight. In a blink of an eye Spinel was in the middle of Little Homeworld. It was bustling with different types of gems and a few humans here and there. The building also varies in sizes and colors, her eyes shined at the beautifully crafted town. The atmosphere here felt warm and cheery, the sky is bright blue with birds flocking above. It was nothing like the dark cold space at Homeworld. Releasing a heavy breath her shoulders slouches low to the ground, her arms spiral to the floor feeling at ease.

"SPINEL!" Someone cried out making said gem whip around behind her. Her smile softens as she spotted the main Crystal Gems. Steven was waving animatedly as he rushes over to her with Pearl, Garnet, and Amethyst behind him. Spinel nerves began to take over as they grew closer, she still felt a large amount of guilt for what she did to them. Even though they reassured her multiple times that all is forgiven during their visits to Homeworld. Nevertheless, she still felt a shred of doubt, but she pushed that aside as Steven yanks her into a hug giggling happily as always.

"It's so good to finally meet up again! This is going to be a fun summer with you around!" he says enthusiastically. The gems smirked at his upbeat energy, they were all grateful that even though Steven is getting older, he was still the go lucky kid they all love. Spinel hums contently as she pulled away, physical contact still made her anxious. Spinel waves at the rest of the Crystal Gems, each of them giving her their own unique warm welcome. The pink gem clears her throat as she looked around Little Homeworld, her orbs then looked over to the hilltop where her injector used to be planted. It was no longer a toxic cesspool, but a beautiful greenie that added to the scenery of this peaceful town. In addition, if she looked hard enough, the first crater her injector left was in the shape of a upside down heart much like her gem. It seems so long ago now, so much as changed but yet at the same time everything still feels the same. At least to her.

Spinel glances at her friends and their new outfits, then she looks down at herself. Maybe thats why she feels the same. Her appearance did not change much; she still has her spiky pigtails and the three lines running down her cheeks. The only differences are she exchanged her puffy shorts and her large pointy shoes for something more casual and comfortable. She also stretched herself a few inches taller, experimenting with her height. Her eyes sadden, as she looks back at Steven, who is now seventeen years old.

"Can't believe it's been a year since I've been here, this place is beautiful" She muses still remembering when the small town was only 83.7 percent complete. OR in her case 56.2 percent complete since she did destroy most of it trying to help Steven get Garnets memories back. She really did track disaster everywhere she went?

"Yeah remind me to dispose of the pizza cutter." Peridot voice chimes in as she, Lapis, and Bismuth approached the team. The three gems gave the pink gem either a small smile or a shy wave. She returned their greetings with a wave of her own. It will take some time for her to adjust being around them all at once again.

"Hey, guys ready for the show?" Steven asked the three breaking the awkward silence that fell upon them.

"Yeah, let's start heading over so we can get good seats." Bismuth suggested as she began to lead the way. The Crystal Gem's follow close behind as Spinel and Steven walked behind the pack.

Spinel stood close to Steven, still feeling a bit awkward with the rest of the gems.

"Show?" she asks him, Steven nods.

"Yeah, one of the gems created a Broadway theater so gems and humans can sing, dance, act and she is a really good friend of ours. I'm sure you'll like her!" Steven said positively, his smile never faltering. Spinel smiles ever so softly as she held her arms closed to her body.

"Ok sounds like fun." She mutters.

[jasmine-iroh]

i have so many ideas in my head for fics LMAO and as u know i am obsessed w ur writing hehehe umm lets think can you do a sokka imagine where reader is Piandao’s apprentice as well so she spars with Sokka in his training and always wins, until he beats her one day from like being flirty and distracting her or something?? idk u can ignore this and just do any imagines u like LOL

Ahhhhh I love this idea so much!! Idk why but I have a headcanon that Piandao is lowkey like Batman and just trains abandoned kids and now he has like a tiny army of little white lotus warriors he’s informally adopted over the years.

This kid is weird.

That was the immediate impression (Y/N) got of Sokka when Master Piandao had introduced him as a new apprentice.

What the hell kind of name is Sokka, anyways?

That was her second thought. It was the kind of name that rolled off her tongue nicely when she was snapping at him to focus during their drills. The shape of it in her mouth made it easy to add a snarl to the front and a growl at the end when he was screwing around in front of Piandao, making them both look bad.

By the end of his first day training with (Y/N) under Piandao’s reserved tutliage, Sokka had been introduced to several intermediate forms. His heavy wooden practice sword had turned his arms to jelly long ago and there were various bruises and scrapes from (Y/N) sneaking past his defenses, but Sokka didn’t mind the aches.

She’s amazing.

That was Sokka’s first impression of (Y/N) as he watched her demonstrate the basic forms he was supposed to learn. He wasn’t focusing on the forms, but rather the warrior waltzing her way through them.

(Y/N) seemed to merge with her abilities. She moved with the ease of someone who spent her time befriending her skills, pouring her soul into singing metal and brutal dance numbers. Her blade was her master as much as Piandao was. She wielded her sentences as tactfully as her steel, every word intentional and aimed to cut to the heart of a matter.

Sokka would wager his last copper piece that her and Suki would get along quite well if they ever met.

He’s good.

That was (Y/N)’s third thought as she watched Sokka breeze through his basic drills.

A tiny part of her sung with pride when Master informed her that she was excelling in her duty of shaping Sokka into a proper swordsman. Sokka was her first real trainee during her time with Piandao. She’d studied under him from the age of six, when she’d turned up on his doorstep after being left behind in the middle of the night by her nomadic family.

She’d seen many hopeful young men turn up on that same doorstep, opening her sanctuary to their arrogant swaggers and second rate weaponry. They had all given her the same look when she guided them through Piandao’s home; a look that held the intrigue of having a girl around to preen for, not knowing that she was the judge, jury, and executioner of their fate.

Piandao might’ve been the one to teach the boys to fight, but (Y/N) was the one to make them honor the battle. They all came boasting to the Master about their accomplishments in their backwater town, lauding their own praises and embellishing their military bloodlines. Most left cursing the girl with forged steel for a personality and the word no sharpened like a blade.

Not Sokka, though.

(Y/N) supposed that maybe that’s what first warmed her up to him, the fact that he’d seen the sword on her belt first and her gender second. His quick wit and ability to bounce back after a defeat didn’t hurt, either.

Sokka’s knuckles were still red and actively bruising from their previous match when Piandao informed the pair that the next would be their last for the day. The compound was bathed in the golden promise of a sunset to come and (Y/N) found herself getting distracted by the way the light pressed gentle kisses to Sokka’s cheeks. The breeze played with his unraveling topknot like a teasing lover, taunting (Y/N) with the idea of what he’d look like with his hair down.

Before her thoughts could settle on the fight in front of her and not the boy, Sokka was making the first move. He went for the obvious strike, even though he should’ve learned by that point that (Y/N) would parry the blow.

Swinging her sword up to block him with ease, (Y/N) found herself shocked by their close proximity, puzzled that Sokka had thrown his first move to get close to her. A coy smirk was crawling along Sokka’s face as he gifted the young warrior with a flirtatious wink, causing her to narrow her own eyes back at him. It seemed that Sokka had seen her distraction and chose to wield his looks as his weapon of choice for this round.

“You can’t fluster me into losing, Sokka,” (Y/N) huffed, a mild bout of surprise bubbling as she realized that she was actually having to try to keep Sokka from getting the upper hand in their fight.

“That doesn’t seem fair, you’ve been flustering me all day.” He replied with a disarming grin, putting her on the defense with a quick, if somewhat unpracticed, set of attacks.

“Cut it out.” She growled, hoping the dark flush on her cheeks could be written off as exertion and not a real blush. Those oceanic eyes stared a hole into (Y/N), the flickering of his pupils to the side being the only consistent indication of his next move.

He was still too close for (Y/N) to ready a true offense, so she blocked and parried his attacks, his ever increasing proximity forcing her a step back with each move. She was trying to distance herself for an attack when the stone wall of the practice arena hit her back, shocking the wind out of her and allowing Sokka to land what would have been a fatal strike in a real fight. Their eyes were still locked as their chests heaved from the effort of the fight, bewildered (Y/E/C) eyes meeting a cunning blue gaze.

“Resourceful use of terrain, Sokka. (Y/N), don’t allow yourself to be crowded by a larger opponent. Use your agility, not your size.” Piandao advised, snapping the pair out of their staring contest. Sokka was still looming over (Y/N), but she wasn’t looking at him, instead forcing herself away from the wall to disappear into the bamboo thicket. She was being melodramatic, she knew, but she was ashamed that she’d let a stupidly charming boy make her look like a fool in front of her Master. The blow to her pride was blistering, raising all of her long buried insecurities to the surface.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Sokka’s voice called from the bamboo to (Y/N)’s right. To hear that much concern in the voice of a boy who barely knew her showed his true character, but (Y/N) wished he would reveal an arrogant side. Something, anything, to throw her heart off the scent of a crush.

“Why would you do that?” She snarled, trying to cover the turmoil in her mind with misplaced anger.

“Do what?” His disembodied voice was confused, the rustling of bamboo revealing his position to (Y/N).

“Embarrass me like that in front of everyone! Do you know how hard it is to be taken seriously as a girl doing this?” (Y/N) ranted, her glare already fixed to the spot where Sokka popped out of the foliage into her line of view.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that, I just... I thought we had something going on there for a minute, y’know? You’re the best fighter I’ve ever met, being a girl doesn’t change that.” He told her honestly. He took a tentative step closer, approaching her like he would a scared cat.

“That trick won’t work a second time.” (Y/N) snapped, her eyes spitting fire at him. Once again, she found herself on the defensive with this boy, every careful step he took towards her sending her a step back until her back pressed against a clutter of bamboo.

“Trick? (Y/N), there is no trick. It’s called liking someone, and hoping they like you back.” Sokka exclaimed, frustration trickling into his tone. He wanted to be patient and give her room to puzzle out his intentions, but she was too busy protecting her emotions to see his truth.

A long pause, before, “he’ll replace me if he thinks I’m easily distracted.” It was said so quietly, in such a hopeless voice, that Sokka wouldn’t recognize it as (Y/N) speaking if he wasn’t watching her lips form the words.

“He’s a fool, then. He won’t find another (Y/N).” Sokka told her boldly, feeling wild and fierce in their bamboo haven with her baring her deepest emotions to him.

“Please stop saying nice things. It makes it really hard to be mad.” (Y/N) whispered in that same careful voice, her tone cooling as she folded in on herself. She couldn’t believe she’d shown her soul to a boy she’d known for two days.

“Then don’t be mad, be honest. Do you find me as distracting as I find you?” Sokka matched her tone, speaking quietly as he tried to coax her back out of her shell.

“No. Yes? I don’t know. I’ve never even liked any of the apprentices before you.” She huffed, tilting her head back to groan at the sky in confusion.

“Stop over thinking it. Do I distract you? Yes or no?” Sokka pressed, taking (Y/N)’s battle calloused hands in his own and tugging her attention back to those oceanic eyes.

“Yes.” Her tone was confident, her rough thumbs tracing delicate shapes over Sokka’s bruised knuckles as she accepted his rough palms in her own.

“I’m glad I’m not the only one, then, or this would’ve been awkward.” He admitted, a warm blush crawling up his neck.

“It already was,” (Y/N) giggled quietly, releasing the tension between them. They stood grinning at each other like fools, both trying to stretch this soft, peaceful moment into a lifetime. Sokka leaned down closer to (Y/N) slowly, his eyes flickering between her own and her lips as he gave her the chance to stop him.

Instead of bolting like he half expected her to, she leaned up and pressed a firm kiss to his lips, pulling him closer. The action threw him off balance and sent the pair tumbling through the bamboo, Sokka landing on top of (Y/N) with a squawk of indignation.

The serene atmosphere broken, they stared into each other’s eyes for a shocked moment before bursting into laughter and settling for holding each other close like a cherished possession.

[benhardyisdaddy]

attachment not included

MASTERLIST 

(i hope that whoever requested this, likes it!!! and i hope you all do too!)

WARNING: numerous mentions of violence, violence, mention of implied smut

Word Count: 4,179

Description: you are now known as eight. four can’t keep his eyes off of you as he desperately tries to figure you out.

It started out like a perfectly normal Sunday morning. You were at home with a cup of coffee in your hand while you're sat on your porch. The sun was rising and the colors in the sky were beautiful. This was your favorite thing to do on your days off. Your work schedule had been hectic, but that was your fault. Ever since your boyfriend left you, you tried to keep yourself as busy as you possibly can so you didn’t have to think about it. You consumed yourself with work and it helped, but only slightly.

At one point in your life, you were an informant for the Secret Services. You had been an orphan all of your life until one day, that changed. You were six years old when someone finally adopted you. You weren’t allowed to meet the person until you arrive at your destination - the middle of nowhere in Nevada. You weren’t adopted to be apart of a loving family, you were adopted to be groomed for the Secret Service. Your ‘father’ made it his mission to train you for anything and everything. You had to grow up too quickly. You never got a childhood as you were trained in every single class of self defense, weaponry and manipulation. They needed someone they could shape and mold into the deadliest human weapon possible - and they did. 

When you turned eighteen, you were trained in the art of seduction. You knew exactly what to say, how to act, how to read people and know exactly what they’re thinking. It truly was a special talent forced onto you and you were amazing at your job. That is, until you quit that job. You were beyond amazing at what you do - they would say the best they’ve ever had, but that wasn’t the life you wanted. You wanted a family… love. When you realize you’d never get that, you went cold. You found yourself hating your ‘father’, hating your job… Hating life. That’s why you decided to leave. Run away and hide. That is...until you were found. 

You made a life in a small boring town, with a small boring life and got with a boring guy - that is until he left. You were used to that now though. You had been on your porch and watching the colors of the sky change. You decide to get up and go get some more coffee. As you’re about to reach the door, someone behind you speaks. 

“You’re a hard one to find.” 

Suddenly, your cup is crashing to the ground as you whip around fast. You’re not even thinking as you fluently grab a man by his collar and slam him against the side of your house. You grab his arm as you hold it behind his back. He shouts in pain at the sudden attack. 

“Holy shit! I didn’t think you were that good!” he hisses with his face shoved into the wall. 

“Who the fuck are you!?” you scream. 

“I’m not here to hurt you!” the man shouts. “My name’s One and I have a proposition for you!” 

***

It took you several minutes to finally release the man. You didn’t let your guard down as it takes you less than ten seconds to evaluate him. He’s weaponless and you can tell by his body movement. He’s cautious and is more nervous of you than you are of him - as it should be. Your jaw is tensed as you stand up and tell him to sit down on the chair you were previously sat in. You listen as he explains anything and everything.

“We need someone like you.” he says once he’s finished. “I read everything there is to know about you. We need a charmer.” 

If you were anyone else, all of this would sound completely insane and terrifying, but you weren’t just anyone else. You were you and you’ve heard and seen crazier things. This actually all made sense. Something about what he was saying was pulling you in. As if everything you had trained for was for this moment. You were already alone in the world, how would faking your death make that any worse? 

“The charmer?” you ask with a raised brow. “That’s what you want to call me?” 

One just shrugs and smiles as he thinks. 

“That’s what you do, right? You charm people and get them to tell you whatever it is you want.”

You’re quiet for a moment before you step forward and change your entire mood. Your face softens and you half smile. 

“I like your eyes. My mother had the same color as you.” 

“Oh really?” he asks. “I get the color from my mother. She and my father-” 

He stops suddenly and looks up to you with a surprised face. Your eyes are narrowing as you smirk. 

“I see what you did there.” he says impressed. “You almost had me talking about my family life. That was amazing.”

“I don’t even know my mother.” you remind him with a smirk. “So... When do I become a ghost?” 

***

You faked your death and finally decided to go watch your funeral. You were shocked to find that only six people arrived. Your adopted father was there as he shed no tears. Typical emotionless SS. You stare at the man you call dad and turn around to storm away. You were done with him, with everything. Your new life was ahead of you there’s no looking back now. One was by your side the whole time until you get to headquarters. You were the last person joining the crew. They were to call you Eight. You’re holding your bags as you follow behind One and into the abandoned plane that they call home.

“Everyone,” calls out One. “I’d like to introduce you to our new ghost. Meet Eight. Eight, meet everyone.” 

All eyes are on you as you just nod your head. Your eyes scan their faces when you pause on the blonde who’s known as Four. You look away fast, but feel his eyes still on you. You look over as one of the men smirks and walks up to you. 

“One says that your some big Secret Service machine, but look at you,” Three laughs as he walks in front of you. “So tiny. What does she do? Fight flies?” 

He’s looking over at One as he laughs and everyone else rolls their eyes. You tense your jaw as your bags hit the floor and your hand grabs his wrist. You scream out as you fly forward and kick as his ankles. You bend over and fling him over your back and onto the ground with a loud thud. Everyone gasps as he coughs hard and tries to catch his breath. You stand up and act like you didn’t just do that. You bend down and grab your bags as you look over to One. 

“Where am I staying?” 

“If I show you, will you promise to never do that to me?” he asks with wide eyes. 

***

One Month Later 

You’ve gotten used to the group and understand the mission. One’s still doing some research on one specific person you’re trying to track. You’re sat on a chair as Seven and Four talk. You look out the small window and watch as One walks by. 

“What’s up with One? What’s his story? How does someone become that rich, yet be so unknown?” 

“He loves Wally the dog,” starts Four as he looks through old passports. “He loves his ‘beaver’ show. I think he’s an orphan.”

Four turns around to look at you and Seven, but his eyes stay on you. 

“Actually, we got a little bet on if you wanna put some money in.” 

“I’m an orphan.” you say with the most serious face ever. 

Four’s face drops as he looks beyond guilty and embarrassed. He sits up straighter and looks to Seven and back to you.

“Oh… I-I didn’t know. I’m sorr-”

This makes you break out into a smile as you watch Fours horrified expression. He’s confused for a moment, but finally understands. 

“I’m messing with you. I mean, I am one, but it’s no big deal.” 

You watch Fours face as he goes through several mixed emotions. This causes you to laugh lightly as he finally does the same. He shakes his head and looks down - obviously impressed by how amazing your acting had just been.

“Wow. You can laugh.” jokes Seven. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you do that.” 

You roll your eyes and look back down at your hands as Four speaks up. 

“I like it.” he says sweetly with his eyes on you. “Your laugh I mean.” 

You look up to him as your eyes lock. You feel your face turn red as you find yourself half smiling. You swallow hard and clear your throat as you stand up fast. The boys watch you as you find something to say. 

“I’m gonna go ask Three if he wants to practice.” you say quickly. 

You hurry out of the plane and have to catch your breath. Four looks away sadly at your leaving while Seven looks to him. 

“You like her.” he tells him. 

Fours eyes go wide as he looks to him and tries to act confused. 

“What? That’s insane.” he laughs. 

“Oh really? Ask those hearts in your eyes.” 

And with that, Seven turns around and walks out as well - leaving Four by himself with a big smile on his face. 

***

3 Weeks Later 

“This is bullshit.” you hiss as you pace by and forth. 

You and Four got stuck being the ones to stay in a hotel room and keep an eye on a man that’s staying in another hotel in front of you. You have a giant patio that looks out directly to the man’s hotel room across a tiny road. Four has binoculars over his eyes as a large radio and a device to hear far away are set up on the table next to him. 

“We should both be out doing field work too.” you say as you continue to pace. 

You act like you’re upset over that, but that’s not the main reason. You’re alone with Four in a hotel room. The man has you seeing stars every time you look at him. He messes with your head and causes you to forget what you were doing. You don’t realize that you do the same thing to him. You need to concentrate and it’s too hard to. 

“You aren’t at least a bit happy that we get to chill and get room service whenever?” he teases. 

He leans away and places the binoculars next to him. He frowns and shakes his head as he stares out the window. 

“I’m taking a break. There’s nothing to watch for. The guy’s not even there.”

He sounds frustrated as he stands up and stretches. You look away fast as he looks to you and stares. 

“You know, out of everyone here, you’re the one I can’t seem to figure out.” he says with narrowed eyes.

You swallow hard as you just shrug. You walk over to the bed and sit on the end of it. 

“Isn’t that the whole point?” you ask. “There’s a reason why One doesn’t want us to know names. We’d get attached.” 

“Bullshit.” says Four quietly as he shakes his head. “Several of us have almost died for each other. If that’s not being attached, then I don’t know what is.” 

You silently watch him as he begins pacing the room now. His hands are on his hips as he keeps speaking. 

“I know maybe two things about you. You worked for the SS and you were an orphan. That’s it. I know more about everyone else than I do you.” 

He seems almost frustrated as you stand up and narrow your eyes. 

“Why does it matter so much to you?”

He stops walking and turns to face you. His cheeks are pink as his lips are parted - deep in thought. He just shrugs as his eyes go wide slightly. 

“I mean… It-it doesn’t matter. I just…” 

He continues speaking almost gibberish as you slowly walk up to him and find yourself only inches away. Four straightens himself up and stares into your eyes as he goes serious. You raise a brow and look to his lips, then back to his eyes. 

“Do you want to kiss me?” you ask fast, catching him off guard. 

You already knew the answer. You know how to watch for signs and Four was definitely letting off signs that he wanted you. You’ve known that from the moment you met him. It wasn’t a secret. You’re just better at hiding your feelings. 

“What?” he whispers. “Um, I don’t kn… I don’t know-” 

Before his can fully answer, you lunge forward and land your lips on his. Four gasps slightly at your sudden actions, but quickly goes along with it. The kiss is hot and fast as your hands travel up and down each others bodies. Four cups your face with his hands and begins slowly walking towards the bed. The back of your legs hit it as you fall onto your back. He’s looking down at you with hunger in his eyes. 

“How did you know I wanted to kiss you?” he asks. 

Suddenly, he leans forward and grabs your hips as he harshly flips you over on your stomach. You moan as he leans forward and presses his chest with your back. He kisses your neck and shoulder as your eyes flutter closed. 

“I’m just really good at my job.” you tease, causing Four to almost growl in your ear. 

He leans away and flips you back over. He kisses down your neck and slowly trails down your chest. 

“Wait,” he says out of breath as he looks up to you. “Can I know your name?” 

You tense your jaw as you smirk down to him. 

“Maybe one day.” you whisper. 

Four watches you with dark eyes as he shakes his head and laughs. He goes back to kissing you as he slowly makes his way down in between your thighs. Your eyes squeeze closed as your back arches up from the bed. Man, did you love being right. 

***

Several months have passed as you all are still on the hunt for the man One wants to find. You all got word that he’s walking around an outside town plaza that’s filled with shops and people. You’ve partnered with Three as the two of you keep your eye out for the man. 

“Remember what he looks like?” he asks you quietly. 

You both have large sunglasses on as you peer around secretly. 

“Yep.” you tell him when you spot Four on the other side of the road. 

He’s watching you and gives you a small wink. You fight back a smile as you lightly shake your head and look away. The two of you have secretly had a fling ever since the night in the hotel. Nobody knows about it and you want it to stay that way. 

“Eight!” harshly whispers Three as his eyes spot something about five shops away. 

You look over fast and freeze. The man you’re trying to locate has been spotted, but he’s surrounded by three men in black outfits. 

“We have eyes on him.” you say low into your headpiece. 

“Don’t let him leave your sight!” shouts One through your ear. 

“Copy.” is all you say back. 

Suddenly, the man turns his head and he locks onto you. He narrows his eyes as he concentrates. Your heart almost stops beating as his face falls. All of you had almost gotten him a few weeks ago, but the mission was a bust. You did your part perfectly as you seduced him back to his room. It was the rest of the crew that had messed up. You had a knife to your throat, but luckily you knew how to fight your way out of that. He got away, but not for long.

You know for a fact that he’s recognized you. You’re panicking as Three walks beside you and looks around fast. Four realizes that you’ve been compromised as he begins to freak out. 

“He spots them!” he hisses into the earpiece. “He sees them!” 

Three grabs your wrist and forces you to look at him. The man and his small army begin walking your way as his eyes were still glued to you. You stare at Three as you begin to rub his arm and laugh as if he’s said something funny. He looks at you confused until he understands. He joins in as the man gets closer. You swallow hard just as he whispers to you. 

“Go along with me.” 

You’re confused as he grabs your face and begins kissing you like crazy. You’re taken aback, but finally go with it. You grab at his face as you speed up the kiss. His hands are flying all over your body as you try to hide both of your faces. Four is watching you two with wide eyes and a jealous heart. He tenses his jaw and absolutely hates watching another man touch you like he does. The two of you continue when you hear One pop up on your earpiece. 

“What in god's name is that noise?” he asks. “Is… Is someone kissing!?” 

Four clears his throat as he watches the man look at you two and quietly pass by with no interruptions. When it’s all clear, you shove Three away and wipe your mouth off. You’re breathing hard as you look for the man and spot him rounding the corner. 

“Let’s go.” you say as you look to Four. 

He’s watching you closely and raises a brow. You give him a sympathetic smile and shrug. You all begin to slowly make your way closer to the man. Three’s behind you as you slowly round the corner by yourself. Just as you do, there are screams all around as everyone begins running away. Four doesn’t understand what’s happening as he sprints to find you. He rounds the corner and stops. The man has you with his arm around your chest and a gun to your head. You’re remaining calm, but Four can see the terror in your eyes. The rest of the three men all have their guns drawn and pointed at Four and Three. 

“Let her go!” shouts Four loudly. 

His face was red with anger as he balls his hands into fists at his side. The man just laughs as he jerks you around with him. His squeeze tightens as you gasp. You can’t look away from Four as he stares at you. 

“You think the two of you can take out the four of us!?” he laughs. 

Suddenly, in less than two seconds, a quiet bullet flies through the air and in one quick motion - pierces all three of the men in the head. They happened to be in a perfect row as Seven fired. Three birds with one bullet. They fall to the ground as everyone flinches. The man looks at the dead men and now he’s the one with fear in his eyes. He looks back to Four and Three as he pushes the gun even harder against your head. 

“I’ll kill her!” he screams. 

All of a sudden, the man goes still as he thinks. He tenses his jaw and suddenly lets out a loud shout. 

“You’re going to kill me anyways!” he screams. 

He then grabs your neck and turns you around to face him. He’s squeezing tight as he flings you to the ground and you hit your back harshly. All of the wind is knocked out of you as you gasp. You hear Four screaming something when a loud bang is heard. It’s as if everything went in slow motion. The bullet ripped through the air and hit you in the shoulder. You were in complete shock as the pain hadn’t hit you yet. 

Just as the man pulled his trigger, he was down on the ground in a matter of seconds. Your vision became blurry as you look around and see doubles of everything. Four is down at your side as he holds your head and tries talking to you. He’s crying hard as he shakes his head no repeatedly. Three is next to you as he presses down on the wound to stop the bleeding. 

“Eight’s been shot!” he screams. “She’s been shot! We need Five!” 

“Stay with us! You’re going to be okay! Don’t close your eyes!” 

You were losing a lot of blood and you knew it. Your head was light and there was a light ring in your ears. You listen as others from the group finally show up and rushed to help. 

“Please don’t leave me!” Four begs with a harsh whisper. 

You flutter your eyes and slowly open to look at him once more. He’s watching you as you slightly smile and then wince from the pain. Five was trying to get the bullet out as fast as she can. You ignore it as you look back to him. 

“Y/n,” you say quietly. 

Fours face drops as more tears rush down his cheeks. 

“What?” he asks shocked. 

“You said we’ve all almost died for each other and you don’t even know our names. It’s y/n.”

Four finally understands as his face scrunches up and turns red as another wave of tears hits him hard. His breathing is hitched as he runs his hand against your cheek and smiles - his chin quivering. 

“That’s a beautiful name.” he whispers. “I’m Billy.” 

You smile more as your eyes flutter closed and your hand cups his face gently. 

“Bill…” you trail off as sleep starts to hit you. “Billy…” you barely whisper. 

Your hand falls to your side as Billy’s eyes go wide. He grabs your face and tries to wake you back up. 

“Y/n?! Wake up, y/n!? Please wake up! Don’t leave me!” 

He’s screaming loudly as Seven walks up and tries to pull him back. He’s fighting against him as he watches your lifeless body just laying there. 

“Give me room!” shouts Five as she tries to still remove the bullet. 

“I didn’t get to tell her!” Billy cries out. “I need to tell her!” 

Seven grabs Billy’s shoulder and turns him around to look at him. He lowers his head and looks him in the eye. 

“She loves you too, man.” he says quietly, causing Billy to go still. 

Seven must have known all along and never said a word. Billy’s heart breaks as he continues to look at him in shock. 

“She loves you too.” 

Billy is silent as Seven brings him in for a hug. Seven was right, you loved him too.

***

2 Days Later

“Mmm,” you groan in your sleep as your eyes squeeze together.

You move your head around as someone begins yelling out for Five. 

“She’s waking up! She’s waking up!” 

You take in a deep breath as your eyes flutter open, but fall closed again. You groan some more when you hear voices surrounding you. 

“Eight?” Five asks with a slow tone of voice. “Eight? If you can hear us, try to open your eyes.” 

You do hear her. Your eyes flutter open once more and this time they stay half open. You’re peeking out as you spot a blurry version of Five, Billy and Three. They’re all staring at you with worried expressions. Your eyes scan to Billy as they slowly close once more. This time, a smirk fills your face. 

“You look nothing like a Billy.” you barely whisper, causing him to laugh loudly. 

He was beyond happy that you’re awake and okay. Tears are in his eyes as he smiles huge, as does everyone else. He kneels next to your bed as his hand gently runs through your hair. 

“I was so worried about you.” he whispers. 

You open your eyes and half smile at his soft expression. 

“Is it because you like me?” you tease as you slightly laugh, your eyes closing once more. 

Billy’s quiet for a moment as he leans forward more and gently runs his fingers over your cheek. 

“It’s the other ‘L’ word… actually.” he whispers for only you to hear. 

You’re taken aback as you look to him fast. Your face is serious, but turns into a small smile. You move your hand over as you grab his. He lightly gives it a squeeze as he brings it up to his mouth and kisses it. 

“I… I ‘L’ you too.” you tease with a smirk. 

Billy looks beyond thrilled that you had just said it back to him. He can’t stop smiling as he bends down and softly kisses you. 

The girl who wanted a family, finally did. The girl who wanted to be needed, finally is. The girl who wanted to be loved, finally was.

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[casualneonglitterpainterposts]

"First Encounter"

So this is the story/ how I imagine Jules met/ encounter Michael and how she kinda ended up falling for him...

Heads up there is a little bit of violence in this- It’s not OTT though..

It was early evening, Jules had finished her last coaching session for the day- so she went down to her fave place- the batting cages for a while to smash up some balls for a bit. As she left the pitching ovals with her duffle bag and bat in hand, from within the shadows- “The Shape'' had been there the whole time. He’d been secretly watching Julie for many days, weeks and months- she seemed to intrigue him, causing feelings he’d never had before to rise inside him and now he just wanted her all to himself …

Of course he followed her discreetly and from a distance to the batting cage to watch her some more- watching such a sweet and loving woman like her show her wild side and smash the crap out of baseballs was very therapeutic (seeing this side of her was a bit of a turn on too).Soon after arriving and getting in the cage, Jules let herself get lost in the moment and started smashing out those baseball without a care in the world. Time certainly flew by, Jules had been there for two hours, she’d been having a great time smashing some balls- her hard hitting had a small crowd of kids standing there watching in amazement from the other side of the cage. She smiled and decided to teach em’ to hit like her too. Though from behind the dark shadows between an empty batting cage, he watched her- she was so beautiful, so sweet and certainly knew how to swing  a bat alright- his heart pounding harder against his chest as he watched some more …

Hours later, it was just her and the owner, (Michael too of course, in the shadows- he probably wandered off and killed a few people though). The owner was beginning to close up- after hitting her last ball, she turned off the machine, put down her bat and cleaned the cage up. Now she was done Jules grabbed  her towel, patting the small droplets of sweat from her forehead- then picked up her duffle bag and bat, walking out the cage and towards the front door..

On her way out Mr. Hardstone called out smiling and waving..

“Goodbye Julie, you have a good night now deary”.

Julie (looking over her shoulder and waving back): “Oh, Goodbye Mr.Hardstone, you have a lovely night too”.

And with that she made her way down the road, by foot of course back to her grandparent’s house. On her way home of course, she without her knowledge was followed by “The Shape”.

As she was making her way back home, at least halfway down the street from her grandparents place- Julie was attacked by a bunch of creeps.. Michael of course (from within the shadows of the street lights) wouldn’t let harm come to this woman…

“Hmmm, what’s a pretty lil’ thing like you wandering the streets late out at night?” (Creep leader says with a disgusting pervy smirk on his face)

Rolling her eyes in frustration and with her bat out in front of her- Jules swung it wildly towards them to protect herself..

“Get lost .. you sick pervs, keep your filthy mitts to yourself” (Jules yells as she continued to swing her bat about).

Though she swung her bat hard out in front to protect herself, the creeps were getting closer and closer to her..

As she swung her bat once more, one of the strong looking creeps grabbed a hold of it and threw it aside on the street, Poor Jules was a little frightened right now, but she wasn’t ready to let them get away with what they were trying to do to her. She then swung her fists at them, using her taekwondo and self defense skills to protect herself..

“G..GET BACK!!!.. O..OR ELSE. I MEAN IT!!!” Jules shouted at them with a tremble of fear in her voice

“Or else what?” (the creep leader snickers at her as they cornered her)....

“O..OR.. OR…” (Still swinging her fists at them)

“GOTCHA!!!!!” 

“ARGH!!!!!!!!” …..  “LET GO OF ME.. RIGHT NOW!!!!” Jules cried out yelling, kicking and screaming.

The Creep leader came up close with that pervy smirk still on his face, Jules still kicking and screaming..

“Hmm.. Now why would we wanna do that little lady?”

Jules swung her leg and kicked him hard in the arm.

“Oof, you certainly know how to kick don’t you sweetheart. Come now, let’s teach this feisty little firecracker a lesson boys” (the creep leader says rubbing his arm where she kicked him)...

“No, No.. Keep you filthy hands away.. Don’t touch me” (she screamed with a tremble in her tone).

As he watched from the shadows, a deep rage was growing inside…

Jules was still kicking and screaming- as she turned her head to the side, one of the creeps went from behind to inappropriately touch her…

“NO.. NO.. DON’T TOUCH ME!!!.. LEAVE ME ALONE, LET ME GO” (Jules cried  once more freaking out and panicking a little).

“Now, sweetie, there’s no need to be like that. I just wanna have some fun”( he says in a disgusting fake sweet tone)...

Just as he was about to let his hand caress the sides of her beautiful body, from behind- lurking in the shadows, a tall figure with a chef’s knife pierced right through his neck. Instantly he fell to the ground bleeding to death- everything went silent, the men froze in fear and their faces went pale white when they turned around to see that it was none other than Michael Myers…

Julie couldn’t believe her eyes- it was really him. As she was still in the grasp of that filthy creep that grabbed a hold of her, she watched Michael tear apart these disgusting men with his bare hands. Watching him use such sheer strength certainly made her blush a little, oh boy he was certainly strong. As the guy holding onto her freaked out- watching this brute kill every single one of his mates, he dropped Jules aggressively to the ground. Jules quickly got up and as hard as she could- sucker punched him right in the face as hard as she could. 

Her elbows and knees were scratched up and scraped a bit, they were quite sore and poor Jules was left a little shaken up too. But she hobbled over to the tree nearby best she could to lean up against it before she fell. As she stood there leaning against the tree, she continued to watch this hunky strong brute tear these creeps to shreds. 

As Michael broke the neck of yet another creep, the Creep leader was watching- enraged as he was, he quickly pulled out Mikey’s knife from his friend and charged towards him, piercing the blade of his knife right through his thick muscular arm. Julie wasn’t going to stand around anymore- though a little wobbly on her legs, she managed to grab her baseball bat. Just as he turned around, Jules did her killer swing and smashed him real hard across the face and head- knocking him to the ground unconscious. All the creeps were on the ground, surrounded by nothing but road and blood- though after pulling the knife from his arm, Michael plunged it right through the unconscious bastard's spine- standing there staring and doing his good old head tilt. 

Jules, though still very wobbly in the legs and ever so sore managed to retrieve her duffle bag and towel- with them and her baseball bat in her arms she turned around, though as she turned around Michael was right behind her. Jules blushed as she stared up at him- her heart racing wild and her legs shaking a little more. He was so tall (Jules was only “5’2” tall) and his heavy breathing from behind his mask was a little freaky too.. But she could see right through him and sense that he wouldn’t harm her. Jules  was more concerned about him since he was stabbed in the arm- she could see he was bleeding. 

He looked back down at her through his mask, then at the dead creeps, then back at her again. Without any hesitation Michael lifted her up into his arms effortlessly Jules and her belongings too- walking her down to her grandparents house (of course he knows where she lives- he’d been watching her for weeks- following her everywhere). Jules was a little nervous at first- could you judge her?- but being in his strong arms (even if he was a killer) made her feel comforted and safe. It wasn’t long before he arrived there and made it up her grandparents front porch- unseen of course, luckily they were outta town for the next two days- so the place was dark and empty. After unlocking the front door of her grandparents house, The Shape pushed it open with his foot and walked in with her still in his arms. Shutting the door behind him, he went over and placed Jules on the couch, sitting beside her. She switched on the lamp nearby, Jules looked over at him, staring at his bleeding arm concerningly.  Then courageously she scooted over a little closer to him- Then Jules grabbed his arm, firmly pressing her towel up against it to stop the bleeding…

He was surprised and huffed out loud a little..

Julie looked up into the slit eye holes of his mask sincerely...

“You’re hurt badly, please stay there, hold this. I’ll go get my first aid kit” she said in a soft sincere tone.

Looking into her sincere eyes made his face fluster and his heart pound hard against his chest- oh thank goodness the mask was covering his beet red face right now. He just grunted a little and sat there holding the towel to his bleeding arm. Though she was a little scratched up and quite sore, Jules hobbled into the kitchen, opened the cupboard under the sink, grabbed the first aid kit and hobbled back over to the couch. She grit her teeth together from the pain as she sat down, nevertheless she ignored it and opened up the first aid kit- she then got him to move the towel and uncover his arm.

“Alright then, um.. Can you take your arm out of your sleeve so I can clean it up? Please?” Jules asked nicely.

Michael just grunted (still flustered under his mask)- though after being a little stubborn at first, he unzipped his coveralls a little and took his arm out of his sleeve. Jules just sat there with a damp cloth, her face glowing all cute and rosy. Once his arm was uncovered, she gently wiped the wound with the clean damp cloth, then pat the surface of it dry. She then grabbed the antiseptic ointment- as she was grabbing it, Michael turned his eyes towards her for a moment, but the minute she turned back towards him- he looked the other way still blushing and flustered underneath the mask, yet still heavily breathing too. Placing a small amount of the ointment on her finger, she looked up at him ..

“This might sting a little, sorry about that” (she says ever so sweetly).

So she gently applied the ointment , dressed his wound and wrapped the dressing with a bandage. Then out of habit (since she’s used to doing first aid for children- especially since she’s a baseball coach and occasionally encounters injuries) she gently laid a small soft kiss on his bandaged wound. With his face burning red under his mask, Michael quickly covered up his arm with his sleeve again and awkwardly grunted of course. Jules moved back a little, blushing and apologising.

“I...I’m so sorry if I upset you, it was something I just do out of habit since I’m used to doing that for the kids I coach when they get hurt and patched up”  she says blushing a little deeper.

He sat there, still heavily breathing- burning red under the mask. Though he felt a bit bad for the way he reacted, Michael knew her intentions were good. He looked over at her- she was blushing and averting her eyes. To reassure her that it was alright, he brushed his thick fingers over her hand and grunted a little softer than before. Jules looked up, eyes wide open and her face all cutesy and red. A small gentle smile crossed her face, she then gently touched his hand back. As she moved her leg, she scrunched up her face a little from the pain, she grabbed the first aid kit and got a clean wet cloth..

Though just as she went to clean her wounds, out of the blue- surprisingly, Michael got a hold of her wrist- not tightly though- taking the cloth from her hands he began to clean up her wounds. Julie’s face went bright red, but she just sat there and let him do so. Though he might have been a little rough cleaning (he did his best to be gentle for her) but she knew he meant well. Then he patched them up with a few thick bandaids and sat there after doing so. She sat up slowly, still blushing bright red Julie mumbled…

“O..oh.. um..Th..Thank You for that”...

“Hmm” he grunted back softly as he watched her get up and put the first aid kit away.

By now it was getting pretty late, Jules was pretty much tired now- she made sure the front door was locked , then turned off the lamp beside the couch. Though as she headed towards the staircase, once again she was swept off her feet into Mikey’s arms- her face glowing all rosy as he carried her up the stairs to her room. Placing her down on her bed he stood there looking down at her ….

“Oh um, thank you. You didn’t have to do that”  Jules said with a cute awkward smile on her face. 

She then got up, going into her en suite, she closed the door over and changed into her pyjamas- getting herself ready for bed. Once she’d gotten herself ready Jules poked her head out the door a little- Mikey was still standing there- though she was surprised he wasn’t running off before that nutter Loomis and the cops turned up down the street looking for him. It was cute though how he was concerned about her. She gently pushed the door open and hopped into bed- resting her head down on the pillow and staring up at the ceiling. Of course though, Michael sat himself down at the end of her bed (on the end of her bed mattress)- watching over her as he heavily breathed through the mask. She laid there with a small sincere look on her face, she let her fingers brush over his hand again as she fell asleep. She soon fell into a deep slumber, he just sat there staring as Jules cuddled into her quilt, peacefully resting. As he let his fingers brush over her arm, Michael stood up glancing over at her slumbered body as he left her room- quietly closing the door behind him. He made his way out into her grandparents backyard and out of that street before Loomis and the cops came along.

As he got back to his hide away, without alarming anyone- “The shape” slumped himself into his chair, taking off his mask- sitting there with his face resting in the palm of his worn hand for a moment, then after he unzipped his coveralls, he just sat there in silence looking at his bandaged arm… As his gaze remained focused on his arm, all he could see was Jules cutely placing a sweet kiss upon his arm. His face flustered a little pink, his heart felt a warm sensation he’d never felt before.. Love. How could a cold blooded killer fall for such a sweet being like her? Though it didn’t really matter, she was the one being he wanted to protect rather than kill. Michael soon found himself drifting into a light sleep- only to wake up a few hours later to go out killing again.

Dawn soon rose, Jules awoke to find that Michael had left. She still couldn’t believe that he’d saved her like that or how he just let her patch him up. Jules knew that he wasn’t a monster- looking deep into his eyes- she could see the pain in them. She knew he just needed someone to show him true affection. As she got herself out of bed, showered and dressed, the only thing Jules could think about was when she’d encounter or when Michael would show up again...

[hegleg]

Mammon x reader

(If you'd like to support me and my writing, give me a follow on my wattpad, where my main work is found, @Kek_its_me)

Enjoy~!

You sat in the common room on a sofa. Accompanying you was Satan on your left and Asmodeus on your right.

The other brothers had gathered around as Lucifer had instructed and were lounging on adjacent furniture.

"I've gathered you all here for something important" Lucifer spoke up. "Anyone wanna tell me what day it is?" He spoke with clear agitation.

"Eh? It's Tuesday, right y/n?" Mammon spoke, turning his head to you. You nodded reluctantly, you were positive it was Tuesday, but pretty sure that wasn't the answer Lucifer was asking for.

"Its Diavolo's Birthday, Mammon" Lucifer corrected him, putting a hand to his face and shaking his head distastefully. On your right, Asmodeus broke into uncontrollable laughter.

"Tuesday! Tuesday? Really, Mammon?" Asmodeus continued laughing at his brother's stupidity. Levi joined in, and shortly after Belphie began to chuckle. You swore you even heard a chuckle from Satan, on your left.

To be honest, although you loved teasing Mammon, you didn't like him being the butt of every joke. Especially from some earnest mistake like this- you could even see yourself saying 'tuesday' if you had chosen to spoken up. You shuddered at this thought.

"Ahem" Lucifer cleared his throat.

"You are all to pair up and get Diavolo gifts for his birthday, today. Do I make myself clear?" He said sternly. You felt a chill crawl up your spine. Lucifer had a chilling effect when he wanted to intimidate. The brothers groaned in unison. He had been understood.

"Oi! Y/n, wanna pair up!" Mammon approached you excitedly. "Not that I want to or anything- just you look like you haven't found anyone yet-"

"How could they?" Belphie chuckled. "You only gave them 2 seconds to process this. Admit it Mammon, you wanted to pair up with y/n" Belphie teased.

"Do not!" Mammon blushed.

"Well- if you don't wanna.." You teased.

"Oi! Oi! I want to, I want to" Mammon said embarrassed.

"So, are we all paired up? We're on a schedule, so if you're paired up go and look for a gift already" Lucifer demanded.

Slowly, the brothers dragged their feet out the door. You waved at Belphie and Beelzebub as they headed in the opposite direction.

"Oi" Mammon redirected your attention to him. "What's the quickest way to town from here?" he asked, flicking up his sunglasses.

"You've lived here all your life, you tell me" you challenged him.

"O-of course I know! I was just..testing you! Its by subway, of course! Everyone knows that!" He exclaimed.

You nodded. Makes sense, but you weren't excited for the crowds that frequently accompanied trains.

"Oi, y/n, you coming?" You were temporarily snapped out of your thoughts. "Yeah" you replied, hurrying to catch up.

.........

When the two of you reached the station it was bustling. You were suprised to see so many demons in one place before, this was nothing like RAD.

"Oi, Y/n, it'd really suck if you got lost- and we got separated. I wouldn't really feel like tracking you down if that happened so.." Mammon extended out his hand.

You blushed slightly. You could tease him here and ask him 'why do you have your hand out?' And make him explain it, but you decided against it. You'd teased him enough today. Hesitantly, you took his hand in yours.

Mammon diverted his gaze, his face red with an embarrassment. "Good, now you wont get lost.." He murmured just to fill the awkward silence.

..............

The subway the two of you were waiting for arrived, its doors hissed open and demons filed out and then into it. Mammon lead you to the door and the two of you stepped inside.

This hadn't been your first time on a subway, but you weren't very found of it. You stepped towards the window and held onto the ring-shaped rail that hung in front of it. Mammon stood next to you, although, your hands had broken apart by now.

If on purpose or by accident, neither of you chose to bring it up, probably out of embarrassment. Demons began to fill the space around you, and the subway began to feel as if were shrinking. How many demons were on now? You felt claustrophobic, and felt a prick of anxiety.

Mammon looked at you curiously, "everything alright, y/n? The subway ain't even moving yet" he said.

"Yeah, I'm alright" you lied, feeling things would only get worse when the subway did begin to move.

Subtly, Mammon slipped his hand back into yours. "I'm here, y'know, just in case things ain't alright, ok?" He spoke softly, directing his gaze at you, which you wouldn't meet. A few breaths later, you began to calm yourself down. You'd mastered long deep breathing just for this moment.

Suddenly, you felt a hand creep around your waist. Quickly, you dart your eyes to Mammon to scold him when you see his hand still in yours. You search for his other hand to find its at his side. His face is completely oblivious as it looks out the window wistfully.

Your face pales and your heart sinks at this. Suddenly, you wish it had been Mammon. The hand creeps down your waist falls down to your ass, tracing the outline of it in your clothing. You find yourself trembling, as tears find their way to your eyes.

"Oi, y/n when he go to get Diavolo's gift, can we stop by somewhere, I wanna show you this amazing restaurant that.. Oi! Y/n are you even listening! Y/n-" Mammon chides as he turns his face to meet yours. "Y/n...?"

He looks over to see tears slipping down the outline of your cheeks. With pursed lips, you let out a low whimper and squeeze his hand in yours, your hand trembling in his. Concerned, Mammon looks around you, and spots the demon, and his hands halfway between your legs by now.

"Oi, bastard! What do you think you're doing!" Mammon shouts at him. Shocked, the demon backs away from you.

"Sir, I don't wanna cause a scene-"

"You should of thought about that before you groped my friend, asshole!" Mammon shouted.

Nervous, the man backed away from Mammnon and headed towards the back of the subway to escape the attention Mammon brought onto him.

"Serves him right, asshole" Mammon scoffed. Sniffling, you quickly attempted to dry your tears with your sleeve.

"Oi, y/n come here" Mammon calls. Lifting your head, you look at Mammon. He pulls you in a tight embrace against his chest. "Its ok if you wanna cry..." he says quietly.

"I got you.."

You allow yourself to cry softly against his chest. "Let it out.."

"And another thing! Don't let that happen again, y/n. If another demon lays a hand on you, let him have it! Or better yet, let me at him! I'll tear his hands right off him! I won't let anyone touch you, y/n" Mammon said defensively.

You chuckled softly at Mammon's reaction.

"I promise I'll keep you safe..."

[i-am-a-bad-influence-writes]

The Dutchess’ Garden - Part 1

Series Masterlist - Chris Evans Masterlist - Full Masterlist

Pairing: Chris Evans x OC Emma Meijers

Warnings: Strong language, age difference, smut but not really smut

Word count: 1922

‘Good evening gentlemen,‘ a female voice calls from behind the bar, ‘you must be here for Robert and Mark. They’re outside. I’ll be right there to take your order.‘ Chris can’t help but stare for a second. Who is this woman and why has he never seen her before? She looks beautiful. Golden waves brush her shoulders, heart shaped lips painted red, rosy cheeks, and bright blue eyes. While Tom is already standing on the doorstep to outside, Chris hesitates. ‘Chris, are you coming?’

‘Oh, yeah, of course,‘ Chris stutters and tries to pretend he wasn’t staring at the bartender just a second ago. The two venture outside to find a deck atop the green sea in front of them. It could seat a pretty big party if you squeezed, but by the way the seating spaces are spread on the deck you can tell that that’s not what they’re going for. It’s cozy, with string lights everywhere, candles on the tables, celebrities littered throughout the place looking completely at rest. Some are with others chatting away, others are reading, some are simply enjoying the music playing through the outside speakers. ‘Ah, you found it,‘ Robert calls over to the two men walking. They gain a few looks, a few greetings, and walk over to Robert and Mark where they sit down. ‘Welcome to The Dutchess’ Garden,‘ Mark says, raising his glass to the two. Chris looks confused at the shape glas. It stands on a leg like a wine glass, but has an hourglass kind of shape, with the upper part cut in half so that the top bit is wider than the bottom. On the table is a bottle in a wine cooler filled with ice water, but it doesn’t look like it’s wine. ‘So what is this place,‘ Tom asks as both of them take a seat. He doesn’t seem as confused about the glass. ‘It’s a kind of secret bar for celebrities who don’t always want cameras in their face,‘ Mark tells them, ‘Robert took me here the first time we filmed something from Marvel together.‘ ‘And how did you find it,‘ Tom asks Robert.  ‘Robert helped my father find a place to start it,‘ a female voice says and the group sees the bartender from before stand at their table. ‘Gentlemen, meet Emma Meijers,‘ Robert introduces, ‘her dad and I go way back. He helped me out when I was stuck in the Netherlands once and we kept in touch. Anyway, she runs the place now.‘ Chris looks her up and down with starts in his eyes. Emma is not your typical skinny model. She has an hourglass figure with a little more sand that is perfectly accentuated by the copper wrap dress that she wears. Though the dress conveys a mature look, her kiwi socks and white sneakers don’t. They mix the playful with the mature to come out with a sort of teasing image. She has her ears pierced in multiple places and wears golden rings and dangling earrings in them. Around her neck are two different golden necklaces. One a simple chain, the other a chain with a coin hanging from it. She wears a brown hair tie around her wrist and has chipped, red nailpolish. Chris is mesmerized, but that doesn’t mean the others don’t stare. ‘Thank you for the introduction Robert,‘ Emma smiles, ‘I hope you have told your guests about the secrecy of The Dutchess.‘ ‘I have not,‘ Robert turns back to us, ‘The Dutchess is a secret bar like Mark said, but she also asks for her guests to keep the secret. Not all celebrities know about her and she tries to keep her clientele the right crowd by being a members only and invite only bar. So no telling others until The Dutchess decides you can be a member.‘ Emma nods with a smile. ‘Now that we have that out of the way,‘ she says, ‘Mark and Robert are enjoying some jonge jenever, but I can get you anything else. We have several different types of Dutch and Belgian beers, we have gin though I would suggest trying the jenever over gin, and we also have some different kinds of whiskey.‘ She looks at Chris with a wink. ‘Of course we also have ice if you need ot water it down.‘ A laugh erupts from the group. ‘Emma, I think they’ll like the jenever. Can you get us two more glasses and another bottle of water?‘ ‘Of course Robert, I’ll be right back.‘ ‘She’s a feisty one,‘ Chris huffs, crossing his arms in front of his chest. ‘Come on Chris, you can’t seriously tell me a pretty girl made you sulk because she called you a pussy for drinking whiskey on the rocks,‘ Robert laughs. Chris sighs, but Tom is already in the next topic. ‘So it’s The Dutchess is spelled with a T because they’re Dutch? That’s such a fun play on words,‘ he comments, ‘but how do they keep their staff quiet?‘ ‘From what she told me,‘ Robert explains, ‘they ask the staff to sign a contract that requires them to keep The Dutchess secret. Otherwise they get fired and are sued.‘ ‘So they’d never hire you,‘ Chris jokes, trying to take the attention away from him more. But it backfires as Emma reappears with the glasses and the water. ‘But I wouldn’t hire you either,‘ she says, ‘you’re too big and I doubt anyone other than Chivas would want a superhero that drinks whiskey on the rocks.‘ ‘Is this how it’s going to be tonight,‘ Chris asks, trying to sound jokingly. ‘I mean, I could start asking why you consider jellybeans a food or ask you if you can drive,‘ she jabs at him. ‘How do you know all this stuff?‘ ‘Dutchess secret,‘ she teases with a wink as she puts down the glasses. ‘Don’t sell yourself short Emma,‘ Mark smiles, ‘she’s a great hostess and because you can’t get in here without giving a name, she researches people before they come here so they get the best service.‘ ‘And she shames everyone who drinks whiskey on the rocks,‘ Robert adds, ‘she did the same thing when we brought Hiddleston here. He drinks Jameson on the rocks.‘ ‘You’re not supposed to drink whiskey on the rocks,‘ she says in her own defense, ‘it’s a pure product. You should drink it pure. Or if it’s just a temperature thing, you could ask for a cold glass, but-‘ ‘You’re rambling darling,‘ Robert says with a smile. She tucks some hair behind her ear with a small blush forming on her cheeks. ‘So sorry about that,‘ she says, ‘but to ramble on a little longer for our newcomers. The drink you have in font of you is jonge jenever. It’s the drink gin was based of off and it is far superior. I don’t just say this because I am Dutch and it is a Dutch drink. It’s genuinely better. You’re supposed to fill your glass to the brim and drink it cold and pure. Enjoy.‘ She walks off, walking past a few other tables to have a chat and a laugh. Chris watches her go around. ‘She knows a lot about all that,‘ Tom says as Robert pours all of them a glass of jenever. ‘She studied it,‘ Robert tells them, ‘she knows a lot. Wine is her area of expertise. She is not really a sommelier, but she was studying it before she had to take over here.‘ ‘Take over?‘ Tom looks a bit concerned at the word choice Robert had made. It would imply something bad happened. 'We shouldn’t gossip about Emma,’ Mark says, ‘she took over for her dad. That’s all.‘ Chris nods agreeing, but he wants to know more. Not like this though. He wants to hear her tell it. In fact, he wants her to tell him anything. Her voice is wonderful to listen to. Even when she makes fun of him.

‘I hate to be a buzzkill, but I’m doing the last round,‘ Emma says with a kind smile, ‘I don’t mind staying open a little longer, but I do have to move you guys inside if you want to stay.‘ The four men look at her like she spoke gibberish and only now realize that they’re the only ones left. ‘That’s alright Emma, I think Mark and I will be leaving,‘ Robert says and turns to Tom, ‘Tom, do you need a ride into town?‘ ‘Yes, that’d be great.‘ ‘Good, Emma, would you be a doll and tell Marcus we’re ready to leave?‘ ‘Of course,‘ she says and scurries back inside to warn the driver who had been sitting inside the whole evening. Emma had offered him a book of hers when he finished his, which she did more often when drivers had to stay for a long time. ‘Your driver has been here the whole time,‘ Tom asks in amazement. ‘Yes, Emma takes great care of him,‘ Robert tells him, ‘makes him virgin cocktails and coffee or a meal if they want.‘ ‘She really is a great hostess,‘ Mark adds as he gathers his stuff. Marcus walks outside to alert the men that he’s ready to get them home. ‘You’ll be fine, right Chris?‘ ‘Oh yeah, don’t worry about me.‘ The group says goodbye and Chris is left alone, outside, enjoying the view and the quietly played music. Emma walks outside with a beer bottle in hand. She sits down next to Chris to enjoy the view with him. ‘I’m sorry, did you want me out,‘ he asks Emma a bit shocked. ‘No, it’s fine,‘ she says, ‘I’m done inside, so I thought I’d join you for a drink. If you don’t mind, of course.‘ ‘I enjoy the company,‘ he says with a smile. She watches his face with a smile. There’s a slight drunk blush on his cheeks, but nothing too bad. She saw he had drank the least out of all of them, drinking more water to keep himself grounded. ‘Can I pour you another one or are you good?‘ ‘If you’re not going to shame me, I’d like a whiskey on the rocks.‘ She chuckles. ‘What kind?‘ ‘Surprise me.‘ ‘That’s not a kind of whiskey,‘ she teases, but she’s off before he can jab back at her. He watches her walk away. She is truely stunning. He wonders how a business like this keeps existing, but they probably ask more for drinks or something. ‘I played it safe,‘ she says as she hands him a glass, ‘it’s Chivas.‘ He smiles and absentmindedly puts an arm over the back of the bench they’re sitting on, almost brushing her shoulder with his hand. ‘Wow, you’ve been liberal with the ice,‘ he jokes. ‘Whiskey on the rock,‘ she laughs, ‘if you want more, there’s an ice machine behind the bar.‘ ‘You’re just going to let me behind the bar,‘ he smiles a bit confused. ‘I’m off duty. Making you that drink was me being friendly. You gotta get your own stuff now,‘ she teases. He laughs and as the evening gets later, the two get more familiar with each other. But all nights must come to and end and so does this one. Emma lets Chris out the front door and throws him another sweet smile. He starts walking away, but she calls after him. He stops and turns around to find her running after him. She hands him a piece of paper. ‘Just so you know,‘ she smiles shyly, ‘you’re always welcome here. Would be a shame to refuse someone living this closeby.‘ She runs back inside and he watches her. When the door closes he checks the piece of paper he got. It’s a flyer with the opening times of The Dutchess’ Garden, as well as a form to sign up to be a member.

[giant-sketches]

The Library

Awesome! Another short side done for you all to enjoy. This one is completely by me without any kind of prompt attached so I hope it’s just as nice. 

In this story Logan is a scholar living in a house on the outskirts of town. He’s been living there for five years now, adding books to his ever growing collection. However, such a long time of isolation has weighed him down and he’ll need a helping hand in getting back on his feet. A tiny hand that is. ;3

This story includes 3 sketches and 1 colored page.

Word Count: 4787 (a long one!)

Disclaimer: isolation, alluring to depression, anxiety, mention of vomiting, kind of steamy 

“Thank you again Mr. Logan for helping us find the last herb we needed for healing our father.”

“You’re welcome. Now for my payment please.”

“Yes of course, here you are. This is a story our late grandmother read to us as children. We’ve memorized the tale so we have no need to keep the book around.”

“It's only been collecting dust on the bookshelf. It could use a new home.”

Graciously, Logan took the book and inspected its title; The Prince of Syds. The book was of the fairy-tale variety and told of a Prince that went on many harrowing adventures. The book was of a decent thickness and looked to be an interesting read for the scholar tonight. Casually, Logan hopped back on to his horse and trotted off back to his secluded homestead.

Logan was a recluse that lived a decent distance away from the neighboring towns. There in his comfy abode he collected a variety of literature and stored them all in his personal library. The library consisted of a multitude of genres from mystery, adventure, romance, nonfiction, maps, journals, and more. Logan was never picky when it came to a new read and he was titillated with his current find.

Like a child at Christmas, Logan pulled up a chair to his desk and gingerly turned the cover. Inside the book read a tale of The Prince of Syds that was on a quest to save the princess from the villainous Dragon Witch. While the initial premise may appear cliche, the story had many unexpected twists and turns. One of them being that the actual Dragon Witch was his twin brother that had been kidnapped as a baby and was being controlled by a sorcerer called D.

“Interesting, I had found it curious why this Dragon Witch had not just attacked the kingdom as a whole and only settled for a mere princess we hadn’t previously been introduced to. To think it was the Prince’s brother who was still fighting against the mind control placed on him.”

Logan rubbed his eyes as a tiny yawn escaped his mouth, “I should call it a night and return to my chambers.”

Another yawn, this time more pronounced, caused Logan’s mind to lock onto the idea of sleep. In his haste he simply placed the book onto his ‘to read later’ podium, left wide open. As Logan slumbered the book started imitating a mysterious glow as the pages flipped furiously to the start of the story. Once the book stopped on the page showcasing the Prince character a small hand covered in light stretched out and pulled its remaining parts out of the book. Now free from its bindings a tiny man now stood upon the page in confusion.

“Wha-what is this? Where am I? Just a moment ago I was conversing with my long-lost twin brother and now I’ve suddenly been summoned to this unfamiliar realm filled with giant objects.”

Frantically, the tiny man looked about the darkened room. He searched desperately to find something recognizable, but his eyes failed him. Distort, he huffed loudly,

“I can’t see anything in this darkened place, but I can at least see where I stand. I’m high up, too high to get down from so I shall remain here.”

Frustrated at his own uselessness the tiny man laid himself down on the pages folded beneath him and fell asleep until beams of warm sunlight awoke him. He gave a small yawn as he stretched unaware of the figure looming behind him.

“How peculiar.”

Shocked, the tiny man spun around to face the booming voice that ringed through his ears. Instinctively he yelped and jumped to his feet in order to take a defensive stance, but as he motioned downwards towards his hip a grim realization hit him. He was unarmed as a giant towered over him with peering eyes. Despite his fear he called out to the massive figure,

“Stay back giant fiend! I may be unarmed, but I’ve faced worse in more dire straits!”

Logan raised an eyebrow in response as he leaned in closer allowing his face to catch the light of the sun.

“I can assure you I am no fiend nor am I a giant. You are simply small and…” Logan paused to contemplate. “Actually, what exactly are you?”

“First off I am not a what, but a who. For who I am, I am Prince Roman of Syds!”

Prince of Syds? Is this the character from the book he was reading last night? Quickly, Logan glanced behind Roman to see that the pages had gone blank.

“The pages, what happened to them?”

In one swift movement Logan slammed his hands onto the podium causing Roman to lose his balance and fall on top of the giant hand. Dazed, Roman groaned at the sudden movement as he tried to lift himself back up. He stopped when he realized what he was holding on to and blushed.

“Why are they blank?” Logan was panicked.

Roman snapped out of his thoughts and turned his attention back to the upset giant. He appeared concerned over the book that once housed his being. Even he had no idea what had happened honestly.

“I’m sorry, but even I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is I can’t return though I must be here for a reason.” Roman looked at the giant with pleading eyes, hoping this would calm them.

Logan huffed and raised his hands away in retreat. If this was the case there truly was nothing to be done.

“No need to give such a look, I believe you. Still, since you will be held up here for a time I might as well be a gracious host and make the best of this perplexing situation.”

Logan stepped back and took a deep bow towards the prince. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Your Majesty. My name is Logan the Scholar and this is my home and personal library.”

A library, so that’s where he was. Roman looked around at the now lit room in awe, he had never seen so many different kinds of books. His eyes sparkled with delight as he himself enjoyed a good tale from time-to-time. Excited, Roman turned to ask if they could read one together, Logan however, had already made his way to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I want to make a record of what’s going on for future reference and historical relevance. I have never heard of a book character coming to life before. You’re an astounding find.”

With that Logan turned the corner towards his room to retrieve his journal. All Roman really pulled from that statement was that his new giant friend found him astonishing. Boredom quickly overcame him as he laid down on his books empty pages and stared at the ceiling. He so wished he could roam about the room and read right now, but alas he was limited by his tiny stature. However, an ominous figure was stealthy creeping its way towards him.

“This truly is an amazing event to watch transpire in person. I must make haste to record what I can of our interactions. There are too many unknowns that could affect how long he will remain here.”

Uncharacteristically Logan gaily retrieved his journal from his nightstand drawer and made his way back down the hall to the library in a hurry. Right before reaching the door an all familiar sound came from behind, ‘meow’. Logan went pale and slammed the door open with a fright,

“ROMAN?!”

Yet, Logan’s fears were unwarranted as his eyes locked on to the adorable scene of the tiny prince cuddling with his uninvited and fluffy guest.

“Oh Logan, you’re back! Look at this adorable beast that has submitted to my charms so willingly. She will make a grand stead for my time being here.”

Oh thank heavens; Logan sighed in relief. For a moment there he feared for the worst.

“Pray tell, what name have you bestowed upon this fair feline?”

“Name? It doesn’t have one. It’s simply a stray that wonders in from time-to-time and I share leftover scraps with.”

“Just a stray, you say. No this cat is indeed yours Logan and as her owner you must grant her a suitable name at once!”

Logan was taken aback by such an absurd command and scoffed at the notion of even following through with it, until another soft meow rang out. Logan twitched slightly as he felt the cats warm fur press up against his pant leg affectionately. Roman looked on with pure delight on his face.

“Yep, she is indeed yours. Now a name if you would Sir Logan.”

Logan’s face scrunched up in embarrassment. To think he had been persuaded so easily by a pretty face and a fluffy tail.

“Cat should suffice.” he groaned.

“CAT?! Are you mad?”

Startled by how loud the tiny man’s voice could carry he jumped back in surprise.

“You’re an intelligent man, surely you can come up with a better name then that!”

“Fine! How about….Jam?”

Logan’s face flushed instantly at such a silly name, yet the cat’s appearance reminded him of marmalade.

“Jam? I like it, quite a cute name coming from someone so stern.” he chuckled.

Right now Logan’s face resembled that of a strawberry as he coughed to move the conversation along.

“Can you tell me the last thing you remember before you were summoned here?” Logan asked as he picked Jam off the floor and carried her back over to his podium.

“I was talking with my long-lost twin brother about a plan to take down the evil sorcerer D and free him from the curse. Next thing I knew this bright light swallowed me whole and I awoke to a darkened room with only strange, and large shapes surrounding me.”

That sounds terrifying and yet this hero found his surroundings safe enough to slumber in?

“Interesting, that correlates perfectly with where I left off with the book.”

“Really? What does that mean then? Will I ever be able to return and finish my story? Wha-what if I’m stuck here forever?”

An unusual sense of guilt washed over Logan as he looked down at the tiny prince. He couldn’t help feeling that somehow this was his fault even if there was no proof for said theory. Regardless he needed to do something to comfort Roman. Gingerly he raised his hand and patted Roman rigidly on the head in an awkward attempt to cease his woes. Roman, however, found the mechanical motion hilarious.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!!!” Roman had slumped over in laughter as he rolled playfully on the podium.

Logan found the reaction jarring as he simply rested his hand down and remained still. Obviously, Roman was now feeling much better, but at what cost to Logan’s pride. Once Roman stopped he could see how distort his giant friend looked and confidently walked over to the resting hand.

“I’m sorry for laughing, Logan. I know you were only trying to comfort me and I appreciate it. I feel much better now.” he said as he wrapped his arms around Logan’s pinky and planted a charming kiss on the knuckle.”

At that moment it was like a dam broke as Logan was overcome with emotions he had locked away. The sensation was so jarring it nearly knocked him out cold. If he hadn’t already been sitting he most certainly would have fallen to his knees. Any longer and he would have melted into a puddle, luckily Roman snapped him back to reality,

“By the way do you live here by yourself? I have yet to hear anyone else walking around or any other noises for that matter.”

It took a moment for Logan to compose himself, but he answered with a cooled down expression.

“You are correct in your assumption. I do indeed live here by myself and I have for many years now. Thus, you have no need to worry about anyone else discovering you are here. I can guarantee your safety Roman.”

Logan smiled the best he could, but it faded quickly as he saw small tears peering out from the corner of Roman’s eyes. Did he say something wrong? What could have been his miscalculation?

“Logan tha-that’s so sad!”

“Sa-sad?”

What was this tiny prince saying? If anything he was the happiest he had been in a long time right now.

“Yes sad, this place is huge and yet there’s NO ONE here? What about friends or family?”

That’s what he meant. Logan put on a cold demeanor as he remembered why he was here.

“No, I have no one like that and that’s just the wa-”

“Don’t lie to me!”

Logan’s fake face shattered in an instant by way of Roman’s concerned words. It would seem he couldn’t feign callousness with this one. He was now an open book.

“Fine, I won’t try that again. Still I’m not good at expressing myself and it’s true that I don’t have any friends or family. Not anymore at least.”

“Anymore? So you did have them once.”

“Yes.”

Roman wiped his tears away and choked down the lump that had formed in his throat. Logan was just like the princess he was sent to save in his story. All alone in the world with no one else there to help her. No, Logan wasn’t fictional, he was real and so was Roman right now! He had a wonderful idea,

“Then let’s go out and make some new ones!”

“Excuse me?”

“If you don’t have any friends then you just need to get out there and make some!”

“I-I don’t know…”

“It will be fine darling. Besides I also want to take a look at your realm before I leave.”

That’s right he was going to leave eventually. A slight pain coursed through Logan's heart. If they didn’t have much time together then maybe going out together was the best idea.

“Alright, but you have to stay close to me and not be seen by anyone.”

“Understood!”

With that Roman bounced with anticipation as he watched Logan’s hand lower down to him. Without hesitation, the tiny prince climbed aboard mesmerized by the site of him resting in a massive palm. His life was now completely in Logan’s hand, but he felt no fear. Carefully, Roman was slipped into Logan’s breast pocket. It was so warm as Roman pressed his back up against Logan’s chest to look up at the opening a few centimeters above him. Logan’s heartbeat pounded vigorously causing his entire body to pulse. The sensation was like nothing he had felt before as it overwhelmed him and he quickly fell forward against the other side of the pocket’s fabric walls.

“Are you doing alright in there?” Logan could feel the abnormal moment and grew worried.

“Yes, I-I’m alright. Just got a little warm is all.”

“I see, if that’s the case then here.”

Logan poked his pointer finger into the opening of the pocket. Roman could tell what Logan was going for as he clung onto the huge amount of flesh and was lifted up. Once his head had reached the lip of the pocket Roman latched himself on. Now he could breathe in the fresh air of the outside world.

“Is this this a town?”

“Yes, it’s the one that’s easiest to walk to and a good place to find magical items and good like spices and tea.”

“Oh so you all have magic in this realm as well?”

Logan paused for a moment before answering.

“Yes we do. Now try your best not to get over excited and pop out of my pocket okay?”

Tenderly this time Logan placed his finger on top of Roman’s head and ruffled his hair. The motion pleased Roman greatly as he blushed deeply. He felt extremely cared for in this moment. Usually he was the one doing the swooning so this was a nice change of pace.

“I’ll never leave your sid-”

Before Roman could finish his confession two loud voices called out from behind the pair,

“LOGAN?!”

Logan froze, he knew exactly who was there. He squeezed his eyes in fear and began to shake nervously. Roman had no idea what was going on, but he fell back into the lower part of the pocket and stretched out his arms in a comforting hug. Logan twitched a bit at the sudden feeling of the prince’s tiny frame pressed up against his. Yet, he found his touch pleasing as he placed his hand over his breast pocket in response. He could feel Roman being squished in between his hand and chest. Roman let out a light giggle at the return hug.

Thanks to Roman’s efforts Logan had calmed down and turned around to speak to the two mysterious figures waiting patiently.

“Patton, Virgil...it’s been awhile. How are you both?”

“Oh my gosh Logan, it really is you!”

“Where have you been? After...well you know, you just disappeared. Some people were even saying you might have died.”

“Yeah, we were so worried!”

“I can’t imagine why? As you can see I am doing quite alright for myself regardless of these so-called rumors.”

“You can’t imagine why...Lo aren’t we your friends?” Patton whispered through teary eyes.

“Geez Logan, we’ve finally been reunited after five years and this is how you act.” Virgil growled.

Logan was visibly agitated. Unclear of what had happened with these three Roman hesitated to step in, but shook his head at the notion of letting this opportunity slip away. Roman tugged at Logan’s shirt to garner his attention. Logan noticed and sharply glanced downwards, but his expression softened as he saw his tiny friend pinching his cheeks upwards in a smile. It didn’t take a genius to see what Roman was getting at.

“You’re right Virgil.”

“I’m sorry did you, mister know it all, say that I’m right?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, I had wondered how you may have changed after all this time. Glad to see you learned some humility during that time.”

“I suppose I have changed, though I can’t say it’s not a recent development. Regardless I’ve had plenty of time...alone to think about my past attitude. I apologize for upsetting you Patton.”

“An apology as well? Now I’m not even sure I’m talking to the same gen-”

“That’s enough Virgil, he apologized after all. I know you’re upset, but…” Patton looked to Logan with a solemn look.

“Lo? Have you been alone this whole time?”

Logan swallowed loudly.

“...I have a cat.” he mumbled.

Patton’s face lit up at the idea of grumpy Logan playing with his cuddly pal, but a cat wasn’t a person. Virgil gave Patton a look of concern and grabbed his hand. Patton smiled and gave a nod.

“Would you like to hang out with us and catch up?”

“Oh I…”

Logan glanced down at his pocket where he took note of Roman’s shallow breathing and reddened face. It wasn’t a good idea to keep him trapped inside his breast pocket for much longer.

“How about I invite you two over to my residence instead? That way you’ll know where I live.”

“That sounds lovely Lo, we’d be honored to come over to your home. Wouldn’t we Virgil.”

“Yeah, it will be nice to catch up and tell you what’s been going on.”

With that the newly formed group took off to the outskirts of town. Once inside Logan’s abode the two were amazed at his collection, but even more astonished he hadn’t lied about the cat. Patton was instantly smitten with the fuzzy creature. After Logan finished up the tour Roman was placed inside his room on top the pillow. There he lied down with his body completely spread and finally relaxed. It had been a long day for the prince and he was understandably exhausted.

“How about you get some rest while I go entertain our guests?”

Roman yawned, “That sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Logan carefully covered Roman with his handkerchief and caressed his face as he whispered, “Sweet dreams.” and tip-toed out of the room.

It wouldn’t be until a couple hours later Roman would wake up as he rolled over to be face-to-face with a slumbering Logan. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed the giant climb into bed, but maybe he was just that tired. Lost in thought Roman continued to stare at the snoozing behemoth. He smirked mischievously as he crawled his way up to the top of the pillow. Logan’s hand was in the way, but if he aimed right he should make it. He tested for any wind resistance and blinked twice to turn on his targeting systems before hurling himself downwards towards Logan’s face. Thankfully, he stuck the landing!

“I certainly have found myself in a peculiar predicament being suddenly transported to this giant land, but I believe this lovely princess right here makes it worthwhile.”

Pressing his lips to Logan’s the prince planted a barrage of kisses on to his sleeping beauty.

“Even if I am never to return, I believe I’ve already found the princess I was meant to save.”

Funny enough, Roman was now unable to make the climb back up the steep hill that was the pillow, but he didn’t mind. He simply made his way to Logan’s hand and squirmed himself between the fingers. Slowly, Roman fell back asleep and dreamed of his beloved.

An entire week flew by as Logan reconnected with his friends from his school days. Roman heard from Logan about what had happened five years ago and what led to his separation from society. It was a tragic tale of him being born without the ability to wield magic, but gifted intellectually. His noble family deemed him worthless and disowned him when he turned sixteen. Determined to prove them wrong he enrolled himself into the Magic Tower. To pass over the casting exam however, he forged his entrance papers by pretending to be a famous magician's apprentice. There at the academy he was deemed a prodigy and his brilliance flourished. Yet, despite his best efforts he was found out and promptly expelled with all his achievements and research being awarded to other promising students.

His entire existence was wiped from the Tower’s records. It was like he never existed in the first place. Having fallen into despair Logan simply thought disappearing was the only logic course of action. After all that’s what everyone wanted wasn’t it? However, that wasn’t true as his two friends had been searching for him this whole time. Once they heard about what the academy had done to Logan they were outraged and exposed the entire thing. The Tower lost its spotless reputation overnight and disbanded. Together Virgil and Patton put together a new institution that enrolled anyone interested in magic regardless of their abilities.

Logan felt like a fool for hiding this entire time without once thinking of looking into how things were developing without him. He had planned to move on, but instead he had become complacent, stewing in his own misery. His friends had helped him finally realize his error in judgement. However, it was Roman that had brought light back into his darkened life. He needed to properly thank him after Patton and Virgil left from their weekly visit.

“He’s doing so much better now. I love seeing him smile like that and he’s got this cute pep in his step too. Gosh, I didn’t think he could get even more beautiful, but he’s full of surprises isn’t he Jam?”

“Meow.”

“I hear you! I’m really happy for him, but...I’m a little jealous of his friends. I wish I could be out there with them chatting and laughing.”

“Meow”

“I know! Logan wants to keep me safe. They don’t visit for long anyway and then the rest of day I have him to myself.”

“Meow”

“Sure our relationship hasn’t changed...at all.”

“Meow”

“What confess?! I couldn’t I-I’m not even real. That’s right I’m nothing but a character from one of his many books.”

Roman looked sadly around the library where he was sitting on top of the desk and snuggling with Jam. He was one of many stories Logan owned, no one special.

“I’m not his happily ever after.”

Spontaneously, the blank book resting on top of the podium was enveloped in a light glow. Roman sprang to his feet in surprise as the light beckoned to him. He knew then that his quest had come to an end. Roman gave a whistle for Jam to carry him up to the podium.

“Thanks girl.”

Roman stroked the bridge of Jam’s nose dismally. Meekly he glanced towards the door hoping Logan may walk into the room any moment now, but no dice. The glowing had become more intense as Roman neared it. This was the end of his story, who knew it’d be a tragedy.

“Goodbye Logan.”

Not able to stall any longer Roman dived into the light and vanished as a gigantic flash spread throughout the entire house.

“What in the world was that?!”

“Ah my eyes!”

“What just happ- no,no,no,no!”

Logan’s stomach dropped at his current thought. He rose from his seat so fast he thought he would vomit as a sickening feeling crept up on him.

“Woah Logan are you okay, You don’t look so well.”

“I’m fine, I just need to go check on something real quick.”

“You are not fine! Why don’t we help you an-”

“NO! Please I-I need to do this alone right now. It’s important, please.”

“Bu-” Patton pulled Virgil back and shook his head.

“We understand Lo, go do what you have to do. We were about the leave anyway.”

“Thank you, both of you.”

With that Logan raced down the hallway and burst through the library door.

“ROMAN?!” no answer.

Logan frantically scanned the room, but all he saw was Jam standing on the podium. What the podium! There he could see Roman’s book with the pages now visible peeking out from underneath the cat. Slowly, Logan dragged his feet to take a closer look and gently shooed away to fluff ball. Sorrowfully, he turned each new page not caring to full read the paragraphs as his tears welled up. The story had changed to his own of finding the prince in his world and asking for his help in ending his isolation. Yet, as Logan reached what should be the end, what he found was another blank page. Too distraught to think about what this might mean he closed the book and clung to it. Pressing its entirety against his chest as he fell to the floor screaming out in pain.

This new found happiness meant nothing to him if he couldn’t spend it with the man he loved.

“Why, why did you have to go? I never got to tell you how I felt! What’s the use of these new emotions if I’m never given the chance to express them?”

Logan continued to weep long into the night. Never once allowing the book to leave his side as he finally tired himself out enough to sleep. Birds chirped per usual as the new morning came. Begrudgingly, Logan groaned as he went to reach for the book he had cuddled with all night only to find it missing. Panicked, he rubbed his puffed up eyes to better focus on his surroundings. Suddenly, he was caught off guard by the touch of the leather backing poking at his face. Logan whipped his head around to see who the perpetrator was that had snatched his book only to be met with an unbelievable sight.

“Ro-Roman?”

The man standing at the foot of the bed was none other than Roman, but he was now the same size as Logan.

“Ho-How is this possible?” Logan was overcome with emotion as tears began streaming down his face.

“Look.” he whispered.

Roman had turned the book to the final page, but this time it wasn’t blank. Instead what appeared on the page was a beautiful illustration of Logan and Roman holding hands and kissing in front of the house. Logan shaking in amazement, took the book from Roman’s grasp and started lovingly at it.

“Seems like I was your happily ever after, after all princess.”

Logan was happy, so happy he didn’t know what to do with all of it. In a bold move he pulled Roman on to the bed and curled himself around him sobbing. He was never going to let his prince go ever again. Roman tucked himself into Logan’s embrace and whispered into his ear,

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The End

@thought-u-said-dragon-queen​ @sanderssidestrash27​ @nomynameisanon​ @crystalk17​ @notkolaidoscop​

[cursebreaker-lilith]

HPHM Bang--home

For the @hphmbang2020 ! 

It was fun to write this? The Weasley’s are great! I don’t focus on them enough. Math is not my forte (lol) but ages should be roughly: Bill-16, Charlie-14, Percy-11ish, Fred and George-9, Ron-7, Ginny-6.

The art that goes with this is done by @kathrynalicemc ! You can find the art here ^^

Story under the cut or on Ao3!

A day in the Burrow always begins with Molly Weasley in the kitchen. She’s up before anyone else, dressing quickly so she can get some food into her husband before he leaves for work.

It’s quiet in the house, save for the spells she whispers to ignite the stove fire and gather the dishes. Even the ghoul is quiet this early in the morning, no moans or thumps coming from the attic. It’s so different from how the Burrow is usually, and Molly always takes a moment to appreciate the quiet. She loves her family and doesn’t mind the cacophony they bring, but all that commotion just makes quiet moments like this sweeter.

Arthur is usually the first downstairs—and the first out the door depending on his work schedule. Molly gets a peck on the cheek as she hands Arthur a bowl of porridge. He smiles in thanks and begins to wolf it down. Molly holds back a sigh. Seems like today is one where he needs to leave early.

Her oldest three usually wander downstairs next. Both Charlie and Percy are natural early risers—Charlie likes to take a walk before breakfast in the early dawn light, while Percy basks in the rare silence of the house with a book. It’s the only time she doesn’t admonish him for having a book at the table. Molly knows how much he enjoys the calm.

Bill isn’t an early riser like his brothers, but he’s got into the habit of waking early anyways. When she had been pregnant at the same time as raising toddlers, she had relied on Bill to help her wake, dress, and feed his siblings. Even now, every time he comes downstairs, he asks her if she needs any help, to which she always replies that she doesn’t. She can handle the cooking just fine now, and she wants to let her eldest relax like a child should in the morning.

It’s usually the three of them, Molly, Bill, and Percy, for a while after that. Charlie is out walking, while the younger kids sleep. Ginny sometimes is with them, but as she’s gotten older, she has started to sleep in more. Molly misses bonding with her only daughter who is always so fascinated by seeing food float through the air, but she’ll let her daughter sleep in with her brothers.

Charlie’s arrival is usually when she goes to wake her other children—after she makes Charlie wash all the dirt he accumulated on his walk off at the door and change into clean clothing. None of them appreciate the wake up, especially Ron, but the smell of food wafting through the house usually convinces them it’s a good idea.

With the noise of groans echoing through the house and stomps coming up and down the stairs, she goes back down to the kitchen to start filling bowls. Once everyone’s downstairs, the quiet peace of the morning will be gone until tomorrow.

-x-

Breakfast is loud. Much too loud in the opinion of Percy. Why can’t they all just sit quietly and eat? Why does Fred have to chew with his mouth open to gross out Ginny who squeals? Why can’t his family be normal sometimes? It’s exhausting.

Percy is usually the first to finish because he actually eats his food instead of trying to convince Ron that spiders aren’t that bad. Percy scoffs inwardly. You’re not going to get anywhere, Charlie! He’s terrified of the pests.

He pushes his chair back. “May I be excused?”

His mother gives him a concerned look. “Did you eat enough? You finished pretty quick there.”

Percy considers it. “I’m—”

“Hey, are those the school owls? Percy, get the window.” Bill’s voice interrupts him, and Percy is out of his chair and opening the window before anyone can say anything else. He is turning eleven in a few weeks’ time, just before September 1st, and despite his parent’s assurances that he will be able to attend Hogwarts this year, a part of him is terrified he will have to wait another year.

His heart soars when he sees what the owl is carrying.

“Three letters!” Percy cries out triumphantly. He will get to go to Hogwarts!

Fred and George moan but that is to be expected. They are annoyances who are to be ignored whenever anything big happens. Ron and Ginny join in on the complaining as Percy passes envelopes to Bill and Charlie. He ignores them too, focusing only on his own letter.

Dear Mr. Weasley

We are pleased to inform you that….

He continues to read and desperately tries to ignore his younger siblings rising insistence that they all want to go to Hogwarts now. He can’t let them ruin this for him.

Percy switches to the booklist, scanning it. He has already read all the books for the year, except for the Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook. Percy thought it would be that way. He always read Bill’s schoolbooks after his brother finishes a school year.

“So, what’s yours say, Perce?”

A hand snatches the letter from him. Percy sputters as Fred holds the letter in front of his face.

“Fred! Don’t take something from your brother’s hands like that!”

Despite their mother’s reprimand, Fred is unrepentant. “I want to see what the letter looks like!”

Percy snatches his letter back, silently fuming. Fred and George are always like this, ruining every good thing Percy gets. He gets that they’re little kids, but do they have to be so annoying all day every day? “Like you haven’t read Bill or Charlie’s letters? I’m going to my room.”

“Percy—” his mother tries to call, but he ignores her and dumps his empty bowl in the sink. Percy retreats upstairs to his room, ready to savor his Hogwarts letter in the relative quiet of the currently empty upstairs.

This is supposed to be a happy moment and those are always ruined when he’s around the twins.

-x-

Charlie surveys the collection of bits and bobs spread out on a towel. While the assortment of rocks in front of him is undoubtedly very cool looking—one rock is dark grey and shaped like a shoe if you squint, while another seems to have some sort of quartz in it—no matter how you look at it, none of his morning finds is a dragon scale.

Logically, Charlie knows it is unlikely he will find a dragon scale—or tooth, or claw, or dragon related anything—by the Burrow. They live nowhere near a dragon reserve and the Ministry of Magic strictly regulates where dragons can fly, but Charlie can dream. It is possible he could dig and find some dragon scale left behind centuries ago. It isn’t an unheard of thing, just rare. A slim chance is still a chance, and Charlie is nothing if not optimistic when it comes to dragons. He fully believes that he can join the small percentage of people who have happened upon dragon relics.

For now, he stuffs his collection of rocks back into his bag. He usually puts them in a chest by his bed, but Percy is sulking in the room they share and he doesn’t want to deal with his little brother’s snappish mood. It always takes Percy a while to calm down after Fred and George rile him up.

Instead, he goes outside. It’s a nice day. Slightly cloudy, of course, but it doesn’t seem to be rain clouds. As good flying conditions as it’s going to get.

None of his family is outside, so Charlie isn’t interrupted as he takes a broom from the shed and lifts off gently into the sky. He gives himself a minute to just enjoy the feeling of being in the air. Usually, one of his siblings would have noticed him on a broom by this point and begged for Quidditch help so they could also make the Gryffindor team when they went to Hogwarts. Charlie doesn’t mind helping them, not in the least bit, but it is nice to just fly without distractions. To hover and take in the land laid out before him. See light glisten on the river that winds its way through the countryside and into the distant Muggle town. Feel the sun on his back, giving him the slightest bit of warmth against the wind. Flying calms him, and, slightly ironically, grounds him. It reminds him that there is more to life than dragons, believe it or not.

He can’t really leave the shadow of the Burrow—they live too close to Muggles for him to really be able to fly—but doing lazy laps around his home is fine.

“Oi, Charlie! If you’re flying, then can you help us with Quidditch?”

Charlie snorts. The moment of peace was nice while it lasted.

-x-

Ron trudges up another flight of stairs, seriously regretting picking the top floor to live in once he was old enough to have his own room. It is one of the biggest rooms in the house and super cool, no doubt about it, but having to walk up all those stairs after several hours of playing Quidditch nonstop with his brothers is not fun. Not fun at all. Every muscle feels like it’s on fire and those last few steps seem to take forever to make.

He can’t help but let out a groan as he collapses onto his bed. He is covered in sweat and dirt and probably should shower before he gets his blankets and sheets dirty, but he’s too exhausted right now to bother. Mum will clean them anyways before the week is over.

The impromptu Quidditch practice went well, in Ron’s opinion. Fred and George had persuaded him and Charlie into dodging balls that they sent flying, but that wasn’t very hard, even for Ron. Their family didn’t have real bludgers to practice with and had to settle for regular balls that weren’t enchanted to knock people off brooms. Fred and George’s aim was improving, but they couldn’t send the balls flying that high.

Charlie had been amazing to watch. Unlike Ron, who had kept higher in the sky to avoid the twins being menaces, Charlie had kept the ground. Ron could understand how he had become Gryffindor’s Seeker in his second year—there was a precision to how he flew. He seemed to know exactly where Fred and George were going to hit the balls and swerved out of the way easily.

Ron wishes he could fly like that. He tries to tell himself that Charlie is that good because he is fourteen and a teenager, but sometimes Ron has trouble believing that. Charlie has natural talent, everyone says so, but they never say that about Ron.

Quidditch Through the Ages is still on his bed from where Ron had dropped it when he went running to practice Quidditch. He flops over onto his stomach and sighs, flipping through the book. It automatically opens to the section on the teams in Britain, specifically where the small part on the Chudley Cannons starts. Ron isn’t much of a reader, but he’s read this book dozens of times over.

His brothers favor other teams, but Ron thinks his favorite is the Cannons. He maybe relates to them a little. No one expects anything from the Cannon’s, so anytime they do well it’s a celebration.

Flipping through the book, Ron loses track of time. Someday, he wants to play for one of the team’s mentioned. That would be so cool. Quidditch is so cool. Maybe if he bothers Charlie enough they could practice again later—

“Ron!”

He jumps at his mum’s voice.

“Yeah?”

She opens his door a bit and peeks through. “Lunch is ready, dear. Did you not hear me?”

Ron smiles sheepishly. “No, sorry.”

Molly smiles back. “It’s fine. Just be down quickly, okay.”

He nods, and sets Quidditch Through the Ages down. Practice is nice, but food is even better.

-x-

Ginny smashes the two dolls against each other, almost angry that her dolls are made of fabric and not something harder. If they were, then there would be banging noises to represent how upset she feels, and also one might break and that would represent her feelings too.

Well, no, she doesn’t really want to break one of her toys, but she is still so angry! Her stupid brothers spent the whole morning playing Quidditch and when she tried to play with them too, they hadn’t let her. It isn’t fair! Ron is only a year older, so it isn’t like she’s too young. They were only doing it because she’s a girl and that is such a stupid reason.

She smushes the dolls together again in anger—pretending that they’re Fred and George colliding midair because that would be funny to watch—then throws one of the dolls across her room. It hits the wall and then the floor with next to no noise. Ginny pulls her knees to her chest and puffs out her cheeks.

Boys are stupid. Brothers are stupid.

“You okay there, Ginny?”

Ginny looks over to Bill standing in her doorway.

Okay, maybe all brothers aren’t stupid. Just most of them.

She continues to pout but doesn’t yell when Bill comes into her room and sits down across from her.

Bill has a small smile on his face. “Still angry about this morning?”

“No,” she lies. “Maybe.”

He winks at her. “They were being kind of mean, weren’t they?”

Ginny throws her arms out. “Yeah! They wouldn’t even let me watch!”

“Awful.”

“Right? They’re all such stupidheads.”

“The stupidest.”

With that agreement, Ginny finally relaxes and launches into a ramble about all the ways that her brothers (except Bill of course) are very stupid and mean. Bill nods and doesn’t interrupt which is why he is Ginny’s favorite and the only boy in the whole world who isn’t stupid. Well, Bill and her dad. And Harry Potter. They’re all okay.

“You okay now?” Bill asks and Ginny nods. It feels good to have someone take her complaints seriously and not make fun of them (like Ron or Fred or George always do) or reduce them (like her mum sometimes does).

“Thank you for listening,” she says, because she’s polite.

Bill laughs and musses up her hair. She benevolently lets him. “Anytime, kiddo. Have fun playing with your dolls.”

Ginny nods once more as Bill walks out. She crawls over to the other side of the room and guiltily picks up the doll she threw earlier.

“Sorry about that,” she tells the doll who does not reply. “I didn’t really mean to throw you.”

She crawls back to her original spot and picks up another toy on the way, an old doll-sized toy broom that barely can float after years of being owned by the Weasley’s. She puts one of her dolls on the broom.

“There. So, you’re the new Chaser for the Holyhead Harpies and…”

-x-

“So, I think we should first try tricking Ron—”

“Yeah, but if we do, then he’s just going to squeal to Mum—"

“Yeah, but if we try to just sneak into Mum and Dad’s room without a distraction, then we’re more likely to get caught. Ron’s gonna squeal but it’ll have her distracted.”

“Distracted? More like Mum’ll make us wash dishes the Muggle way as punishment.”

Fred and George glare at each other, neither wanting to cede victory to the other. Usually, they get along swimmingly and know just what the other wants, but sometimes fights do happen.

The two noticed their dad sneak in some chocolate bars the day before, likely for Percy’s birthday coming up soon, and he had hidden the chocolate somewhere in his and Mum’s bedroom so no one could eat it. Well, that’s just a silent challenge in the twin’s eyes! It probably wouldn’t take long to actually find the chocolate—Mum kept her room clean and they knew her regular hiding spots—but getting in is the hard part. Their mum always seems to know when they are sneaking into rooms not their own, and they always are scolded for it.

“We could always bribe Ron to help us,” George says eventually. Ron is the easiest of their siblings to bribe. “Instead of tricking him. We are looking for chocolate bars after all.”

Fred wrinkles his nose. “It’d work, sure, but then we’d have to actually give him some of our hard-won chocolate.”

George shrugs. “Can always tell him we found less than we really did. Or not tell him about the chocolate at all and trade a favor.”

“That could work,” Fred strokes his chin as if he is pondering something important and not candy theft. He grins. “We’ll just tell him we won’t bother him for a whole two weeks. That’ll probably work.”

George laughs. Ron is their favorite victim after Percy. Soon, he’ll be their main victim since Percy is off to Hogwarts in a month. “Give him a small reprieve before the real pranks start.”

Identical smirks grow on identical faces.

“Oh, yeah, this will be good.” Fred is laughing now too. “We can even extend it; say we won’t bother him until the others leave for Hogwarts. Lull him into a sense of false security.”

“Obviously, this means we need to come up with something good to do to him on September first.”

“Obviously,” Fred agrees, eyes alight with mischief. “Something big to do the moment we get back from King’s Cross.”

The two of them laugh, any tension from their small fight earlier gone.

George calms down first. “We can plan for that later. Now, we need to convince him to distract Mum so we can have that chocolate.”

Fred falls backwards onto the floor, staring at the ceiling with a smile on his face. “Chocolate. That’s exactly what we need to plan the best prank ever.” He sits up and stretches. “Well, no time like the present! Let’s go.”

-x-

Bill studies the parchment in front of him. Only a few months previous he had taken his O.W.L.’s, and the letter with his exam grades had come a month ago. Despite all the panic he’d felt before and after the exams, Bill had done fine. His schedule the past few years, not even including any extracurriculars, had been packed with twelve classes. The fact that he passed every single one, that he received 8 O’s, 2 E’s and 2 A’s, was amazing and something to be celebrated. People would kill to have marks like that.

Still, part of him feels conflicted going into his sixth year. Apart from Divination and Muggle Studies, the two classes he received the Acceptable grades in, he can get into any N.E.W.T. level class he wants. He even managed to get the O necessary for Snape’s Potions class. But he doesn’t really want to leave any of his old classes behind. He knows it’s necessary and he knows what classes he needs to take to have a career in curse breaking, but he still is so reluctant to commit to them.

It’s the first step towards being an adult and, for the first time in a while, Bill doesn’t want to take the step.

He’s always had to act older than he was, told to look after his siblings and take care of them when his parents were busy, so he’s used to acting in adult ways. It isn’t anything new. But looking at his Hogwarts letter, it suddenly hits him that he is sixteen. One year from now, he’ll be considered an adult by wizarding laws. In two years, if he passes his classes and applies to Gringotts, he could very well be in a different country working to break curses in Egypt or Greece. It’s exciting, Bill can’t deny that, but also terrifying in a way.

Bill looks down once more at the letter from Hogwarts. Defense Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Transfiguration, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy are the classes he needs to take to become a curse breaker. All are classes he received an O in. Bill loves learning and part of him wishes that he could take more classes than those five, but five N.E.W.T. level classes is already an insane workload. He can always study in his free time, or during vacation.

It’s later in the afternoon, the time of day he is pretty sure is called the golden hour. Outside, he can see that golden reflection in everything below him. He takes a steadying breathe, tries to feel as calm as the environment around him looks. It will be fine. Growing up and becoming and adult is okay.

“Bill? Are you up there? Dinner’s ready soon! Can you get your siblings down to the kitchen?”

Bill stretches, having been musing for quite a while. “Yeah! Be down in a sec.”

“Thank you, dear!”

He listens as his mum wanders away and smiles to himself. It’ll be fine. Growing up is just a new extension of what he’s already been doing his whole life—taking care of his family.

-x-

Depending on how work goes, Arthur usually comes home right as dinner is being served. He has no idea how Molly does it, how she always seems to know right when he finishes his paperwork and clocks out, but there’s rarely a day where he has to wait more than ten minutes for dinner.

He pecks Molly on the cheek, admires her smile, and listens to the jeers from the disgusted children at the table. Fred and George in particular are at that age where any sign of affection is considered sickening, while Ron and Ginny always try to mimic them.

“How’d work go, Dad?” Bill asks with a bright smile.

“Delightfully!” Arthur crows, mostly meaning it. There was more paperwork than usual today and he had to deal with Jameson, but he also had a Muggle-born witch explain to him how planes fly! Apparently, her Muggle brother works as an aerospace engineer and has spent a lot of time explaining the mechanics to her. He enthusiastically explains this to his considerably less excited children.

Ron crinkles his nose in confusion. “I didn’t understand any of that.”

“Dragons are cooler anyways,” Charlie adds predictably. “Do you want to know how they fly?”

“No,” comes several long-suffering voices, used to Charlie’s dragon rambles.

Charlie sulks a bit in his chair. “Dragons are cool,” he mutters.

“Maybe another time, Charlie,” Arthur says, smile still on his face. Charlie perks up a bit at that and nods. Arthur doesn’t mind listening to Charlie ramble—he knows what it’s like to have your passions thought of as weird and wants to give Charlie an outlet somewhere.

“Fred! George!” The two boys yelp at Molly’s loud exclamation. “You’ve barely eaten! Is there something wrong with the food?”

Both boys wildly shake their heads and begin to comically scoop large portions of shepherd’s pie into their mouths. Ginny laughs, but Molly purses her lips and gives Arthur a look. He nods slightly—the boys probably got into some food store and ate before dinner. He’ll have to look for that chocolate for Percy’s birthday cake he hid. That seems like the most likely thing they ate.

Conversation goes from there. Percy rambles a bit about receiving his Hogwarts acceptance letter and gets a proper congratulations for it. Bill talks about the classes he needs while Charlie valiantly tries to talk about dragons once more.

Dragon talk gets derailed by a long discussion about Quidditch after Fred makes a comment about something that happened earlier in the day. This draws in almost the whole family—only Percy and Molly stay quiet.

Arthur shares a smile with Molly as the discussion gets particularly lively. For all the still mornings they see and how much he enjoys those quiet moments, nothing beats the lively debates that happen at dinner where they are all together, as a family.

[pretty-thoughts-and-a-pen]

Their Game (The One They Feared, 3)

Tagging @quirkykayleetam . And shout out to @whumpfigure for the amazing prompt!

CW: dehumanization, captivity, mind control, magic whump, asphyxiation, sensory overload, burning

“Now, don’t be scared, kids. We’ve done a good job of trapping him completely. But be warned – you are about to see a monster.”

Azure’s voice, fast becoming the bane of Jacques’s existence, floated in from behind the closed door. Chained to the opposite wall, all Jacques could do was glare holes into the locked opening and grit his teeth. A sick feeling churned in his stomach at the whispers that arose on the other side. Unintelligible, sometimes even too quiet to be heard at all, yet the sounds made it clear that there was a whole group of people accompanying Azure. A group that was fidgeting – tapping their feet and bumping into each other – and snapping at each other in crisp, sharp sentences. Hushed in dread. In fear.

The lock clicked and the door swung open.

Jacques had already prepared to see their faces. Deep in his heart, he had known, and somewhere in his logical mind he had also deduced that Azure would do this. But the second he caught sight of the crowd, it was clear his preparation hadn’t been enough. His carefully stilled hands shook, eyes widened and bottom lip quivered. Jacques looked with despair at the faces of his former classmates.

They didn’t fare much better. Ten young faces, five girls and five boys, stared back at him in utter shock. Feelings ranging from discomfort, to horror, to sickness on their faces. One by one they filed into the room, stepping as if they thought the ground would collapse under them. But, the whole time, all of their eyes were trained on him, and perhaps the worst part was, their surprise was not the same as his. Jacques hated the unfairness of the situation, and how helpless he was in it. Their shock was at being in the same room as him, someone that was to be feared. They hated him.

Azure came in last, locking the door again behind him. The only face in the room that was the picture of calm and joy, he stalked forward, spinning a keyring around his finger. His grin only got wider as he got closer to Jacques, but every time he looked up, at the remaining students, faux sympathy painted that expression. As if his smile was meant for them, to reassure them, in the face of danger.

Jacques couldn’t let this continue.

“Guys,” he started, wincing at the rasp in his voice. There was no talking to do where he was, only screaming; and, in moments of truly gripping weakness, pleading at the merciless walls. The Sorcerers that condescended to bringing him food barely even acknowledged his presence when they came. All Jacques ever saw was eyes turned away and postures tensed defensively, expecting an attack. But, with his hands wrapped in leather gloves, really the only thing he had was his voice.

So, he had to use it.

“I don’t know what he told you…” He breathed deeply between words and tried to speak steadily. All those efforts went to waste when, quick as lightning, Azure’s fist flew into his face and knocked his head back into the stone wall. Pain thrummed through his battered head, and the only response from people Jacques had long ago called friends, was a little gasp from exactly one person. And that was immediately stifled. For no one had truly cared to listen to the prisoner, the enemy that posed a threat to their town. They would rather focus on the wall, or the floor, or the presence of their teacher, Azure.

The man in question knelt in front of Jacques, and raised a finger in front of his face. A second, no, a fraction of a second before it happened, what was happening clicked in Jacques’s mind and a scream built up to the edge of his throat. His last independent thought – stop him. Then, his vision focused intensively onto his captor, and his muscles relaxed in response to the power of the man who could control belief.

Azure reached up and unchained Jacques’s wrists. That received a much more startled, horrified reaction than before as some students clamored forward to stop him, others stumbled backward to put distance between themselves and the prisoner. Azure simply held up a hand and, with the other, seized Jacques’s arm and hauled him up. The boy teetered trying to find his balance. Days, it had been days since he had stood upright and on his own. How many days? Not even the faintest idea was in his head.

“How nice of you, Jackie,” Azure spoke from his right, “to volunteer yourself as a target for my students. They were so, so bored, I think they’ll have a little more fun now.”

Yes, of course, Jacques had volunteered. He dutifully stepped into the middle of the room when Azure guided him with a hand on his lower back. He gestured to the others and, though still apprehensive, they moved into a circle around him, tightly knit for protection, and closing in on Jacques, leaving no escape.

“Tell them you deserve it. It’s the least you do – help them practise their abilities.”

“I deserve it,” Jacques looked in turn at the people encircling him though his response was aimed at Azure, “whatever you need to do to practise.”

“Trying so hard not to be completely worthless.” Azure spoke with glee, and victory, in his voice. “But you have to, since you’re just a monster.”

“…that’s not true.”

The screeching in Jacques’s mind, following that answer, rose more and more as he tried to stick to that conviction. Uncomfortable shivers travelled down his spine a symptom of resistance in the face of powerful magic. His beliefs were under the control of the master Sorcerer; but perhaps, never entirely.

Azure’s face promised pain and horror for that answer. His expression had turned stony with hatred. But, in the blink of an eye he was back to normal. And Azure’s normal happened to include a terrible, self-assured smile.

“You kids were playing a game before, huh?” He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms. He was sitting this out. “Do carry on, and include the little monster. There’s no reason practice should be boring.”

Seven out of ten students raised their hands and flexed their fingers in anticipation. They didn’t look uncomfortable now, when Jacques had already shown how willing he was to stand still and repeat what Azure said. Mostly, anyway. His former friends, they looked steady and confident. Behind Jacques, a girl clapped her hands and gained everyone’s attention. Her long, auburn hair fell in a fiery mane around her shoulders, and the same fire seemed to translate into her eyes.

She had seemed the least scared from the start.

“Alright!” Julietta Romano spoke to the crowd. “Here’s the plan. You give him one of the tongue twisters from before. If Jacques says it perfectly three times, you lose a turn for target practice. If he can’t, then he’s fair game. Agreed?”

Yes! Sure! Got it! Some part of Jacques’s mind wanted to scream against this arrangement. But why? He had volunteered to play, he believed. The only thing Azure had said that he didn’t believe was…was…

“I have one.” A tiny, soft voice piped up. The girl next to Julietta, shorter and chubbier, raised her hand and waited for the others to nod. “Uh, how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

That was easy. Jacques could say that, no prob-

He couldn’t say it.

“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodch-could…choo- chuck-"

Five people clapped their hands, as if that was a buzzer sealing his fate. How had he messed that up? But, try as he might, he couldn’t get his tongue to move as naturally as it did before. He seemed fine. He was fine. But his body wouldn’t cooperate, knowing it was pointless.

As if someone had planted that belief there.

Jacques mouthed wordlessly a little, and went to try again. But suddenly, a column of air shot upwards around him; he blinked and found himself inside a translucent white cylinder, carved out of thin air and stretching from floor to ceiling. The short girl flexed her fingers and twisted her palms, and slowly but surely, the air around him seemed to vanish.

Jacques’s breath came in gasps as, minute by minute, the oxygen seeped magically out of his prison within a prison. He tried to escape, scratched and pounded against the curved “walls", but they didn’t budge. His lungs burned and he collapsed as emptiness surrounded him instead of air. Grasping his throat, he felt panic consume him as the choking was followed by black spots, dancing at the end of his vision, creeping further, multiplying…

When the cylinder dissolved, it left behind Jacques writhing on the floor.

“Not bad!” The guy next in line clapped the little girl on the shoulder. “You’ll be creating vacuum pockets in milliseconds soon. Now my turn.”

Jacques gulped down as much air as he could. He tried to soothe the ache in his chest. Tried to get ready for the next round-

“She sells seashells by the seashore.”

“See…sells…sea sells…”

He had barely wheezed out the words when three people clapped and the guy took his chance and snapped his fingers. Then the room exploded in colour.

Lights. Flares. Fireworks. Bright and glaring and constantly moving. They whirled and twisted around the room messier than a kaleidoscope, sharper than stage lights. Aches pounded behind Jacques’s eyes and soon they were watering. Shapes materialized on the walls and bounced back and forth, almost like they were attacking the weak figure on the floor. Jacques curled up on the floor and covered his face with both arms.

He still saw the light show, clear as ever behind his eyelids. This young Sorcerer’s ability wasn’t physical. It was mental.

Jacques was left reeling and wiping lines of tears from his cheeks when the colours let up. The others hadn’t seen the ability in action, but the reactions spoke plainly. People cheered and whistled in awe. Jacques couldn’t stand to face them anymore. He flipped onto his back and pinned his gaze on the ceiling, trying to ignore the after images still flitting around on the stone.

“Listen up!” Julietta stamped with her foot. “Your next one.”

No…he couldn’t.

“Which witch switched the Swiss wristwatches?”

“Which…witch…which s-sw-“

This time there was no indication. No claps. No snaps. Only red hot flames bursting up in a circle around him. The fire rose up as high as his eyes were, and Jacques wailed as the flames danced back and forth around him, getting licks at his skin and scorching it in small stripes – on his arms, his feet, his stomach’s sides.

But never on him. No, the flames stayed a fixed radius away, amping up the temperature and sending smoke billowing in his eyes. The faces of the students became hazy and vanished, Azure’s face vanished, and the only thing remaining was Julietta's prominent voice.

“Have the next one ready!”

[stanuary]

Spark

(submitted by Quill)

It isn’t a thread, one beginning leading neatly (however tangled it may be) to one end. It’s a mechanism, built from pieces that most people would never think to fit together. (Like all Sparkwork.) * One piece is a conversation overheard, stating that madboys can only be equals if they are rivals. Stanley builds into his worldview that he is Ford’s minion, will be his chief minion. (He doesn’t tell Ford what he heard - Sixer’s got a bad habit of overthinking things and working himself up about nothing, and Stan isn’t going to risk him doing that with the nonsense thought that Stan might turn against him. It’d probably take three hours of arguing himself into a migraine before Ford admitted that Stan would never do that.) (The conversation was a hope that ‘those two Stan boys’ would be too busy destroying each other to turn on the town. Stanley does his best to rub in that he and his brother are an inseparable team, unbeatable. Each time their faces go a little greyer, a little greener, he feels a little more satisfied.) * One piece is a conversation shared, “I hate everyone calling me a freak!” said with a passion most would think too fierce for such a young boy, and Stanley redirecting his twin’s thoughts with “We’ll get out of this place and never come back!” because he knows, deep in his heart, deeper than he has the words for, that if Stanford’s breakthrough is the painful disaster that the pettyminded idiots in this town fear it will be (and push him towards) his twin will never forgive himself for it, will be wounded in a way Stanley won’t be able to heal, damaged in a way Stanley won’t be able to repair.

This piece is the keystone to everything else that happens.

* Their mother shapes two of the pieces. One is Stanley’s devotion to his twin, encouraged by her approval and whispered pride (at least his mother’s approval can be earned, even when it feels like his father’s never can; at least his mother is impressed by something he does, even if it sometimes feels like the only thing he does that impresses her is how much he gives to and for his twin). The other is shaped slowly, intentionally, quick lessons kept secret from the rest of their family, jokes and teasing that Stanley knows for teaching. “There are lies and there are lies,” his mother will say with a laugh in her voice, and: “if the truth’s only going to hurt, why say it?” she’ll murmur with a wave of her hand, and: “People see what they want to see anyway, so why not show them what they want in the first place?”

Stanley’s too busy keeping track of the bullies in their class to pay attention to the teacher, so his grades keep slipping behind Ford’s. Everyone sees him as the future madboy’s dumb strong muscle, and Stanley plays to the role with delight. (Stanley learns dishonesty. He’s an apt pupil.) * Stories of heroes and sidekicks shape another piece, wild adventures and improbable dangers that only people with the Spark could get themselves into - and out of. It’s a role that isn’t the villain, the only positive role a Spark is ever portrayed in, and Stanley embraces it as his future wholeheartedly (“The Spectacular Stan Twins! Stanford Pines and his chief minion, Stanley!”). Ford pretends to grow out of his interest in their shared dream, but Stanley knows his twin too well to think he’ll settle for being anything less than amazing, no matter how often the teachers at school try to convince him to. (Stan’s blood boils sometimes at the thought of the adults around them trying to smother his brother’s Spark just because they’re scared of it.) Stanford wants the admiration of everyone, but Stanley only needs the admiration of his twin. That’s why he’s going to be the sidekick. (He doesn’t share that information with Ford. His twin gets on this weird kick about 'fairness’ sometimes, and something in Stan’s gut tells him this would set it off.) * The half-destroyed clankship they find is a deceptive piece - a non-Spark might think it vital, but any Spark worth the name would see how easily it could be replaced by something else. It lies hidden within the false rocks some long-gone captain or crew crafted to hide it, impassible to any without the Spark of Genius. It stays hidden as they work on it over the years, toiling to learn its systems and repair them, rebuild it to be the vessel of their desires. (Stanford insists there should be two laboratories, one for each of them. Stanley agrees with the expectation that his brother will have taken over both within a week.) Stanley finds that the practical work comes easily to him. Stanford suggests when they’re young that it means Stanley’s genius will be in the mechanical field, but Stanley just laughs the thought away. Of course he’s good with mechanics, isn’t that necessary for a good minion? (He refuses to see the way Stanford looks at him when he says that, puzzled and a little concerned, with a sense that something’s wrong but none of the emotional skills to understand what.) * For their last science fair in high school, Stanford builds a perpetual motion machine. (Stanley builds a football-playing clank and laughs as his brother sighs.) The final piece is the offer - to Stanford and only Stanford - of a scholarship to West Coast Tech. Or maybe that’s the impetus, the power source. The Spark. * Stanley knows that Ma’s going to be worried (how long has it been?) but he’s too busy to care that bolt needs tightening (He knew Stanford was exaggerating how complicated those defense systerms keeping them from the interior control room were, it’d barely taken any time - it’d been so obvious -) Those old power sources were ridiculously inefficient, he was so lucky he’d had Stanford helping him invent replacements more metal, he needs more - aha! (was that part of the false rocks?) (didn’t matter, he’d needed it) these tools are amazing, he’s so glad he stole them He’ll have to leave the navigation alone, Stanford is so proud of what he’s done there - and it makes so much sense now, how was Stanley ever confused by it? - but the steering is all his, baby! they split the outer defenses between them (didn’t they?), so Stanford won’t mind if Stanley just tweaks that forcefield generator, right? Why did Stanford use such a basic wiring system? He’ll have to ask when his brother gets here OH! Stanley beams That’s what he’s been missing! His twin! * Ford clasps his hands behind his back and wishes he felt confident enough to tap his fingers together without worrying that they’d be counted. He’s so tired of everyone whispering that he must be a construct, as if polydactyly is so impossible without a Spark’s intervention. (He’s still trying not to think about the medical records he found detailing how impossible it should have been for his mother to have any children after she gave birth to Sherman.) He wishes Stan was here, to talk him up or calm him down or make him laugh, or all of those at once. He hasn’t seen Stan since he told him about this chance, words spilling out of him as he tried to explain how thrilling it was to be told he was valuable. He’d expected Stan to agree, to build him higher, but instead his brother had gone strangely blank-faced and wandered away, and he’d felt surprised and hurt and hadn’t gone after him. (He’s trying not to think that he should have.) (There are lots of things he’s trying not to think right now, about his family and his twin and his chances and himself, and Ford is really wishing Stan was here beside him right now -) The wall disintegrates. It’s impressively soundless, bricks and concrete and who-knows-what crumbling to dust, and everyone whirls and stares in horror because this must be a Spark attacking - Stanley strolls in through the dustcloud with a huge grin. And an even bigger raygun. “Hey, bro! Hope I’m not late!” He balances the raygun on his shoulder - somehow - and claps his hands twice. “Kiddo, get over here!” The football clank that he built without any voice-activation, Ford would have recognised - wait, is that what those extra circuits Stanley insists on adding to everything he makes are for? - jumps off the table and jogs over to its maker. Stanley doesn’t watch it, eyes fixed on Ford, filled with a burning glee that makes Ford oddly nostalgic (when did Stan lose that fire?). The principal puffs up his chest, steps forwards. “Stan Pines, you will -” Stan waves a hand at him dismissively. “Ah, shut up!” he orders. The principal freezes, too shocked by his insolence to say anything. Stanley takes the unintentional obedience as his due and strides over to Ford, grabbing one of his hands to tug him along. “C'mon, bro, let’s get going!”

“Going? I - Stanley -” Ford has no idea what’s going on. He stumbles a little, trying to put words to 'I’m in the middle of getting my scholarship’, but Stanley doesn’t give him a chance to. “Yeah, you gotta get to West Coast Tech in style, right? Come on, bro, I figured out that last bit of the wiring and everything, the Stan o’ War’s right there waiting for us, let’s head out!” “Us?” Ford asks weakly. “They gotta let you take your chief minion, right?” Stanley grins, repeating that old joke that Ford never found as funny as he did (of course Stanley’s not his chief minion, they’re equals!) and there’s something here, something about how Stanley’s actions seem to be a little to the left of reality, something about how compelling his view of things is, that Ford almost recognises - it’s like a formula that he almost remembers, these chemicals and this reaction means - The principal snaps out of the daze he was in, fuming at the blatant disrespect, furious at the way Stanley is ruining this (it’s as if this scholarship is a chance for the principal instead of for Ford). “You stop right there, Stan -” Stan turns to him, suddenly furious. “WHAT PART OF SHUT UP DIDN’T YOU HEAR? GET OUT OF MY WAY!” and the principal scrambles backwards with a squeak of, “Yes, Master!”

- and Ford finally realises what he’s seeing. “Let’s go!” Stanley demands, eyes feverish with the breaking through of his new Spark, and Ford should feel angry or bitter that Stan broke through first but what he does feel is a rising excitement that probably heralds his own. “Yeah,” he breathes, and the two of them run out to the clankship that Stanley finished building, their breakthroughs too obsessed with escaping to even think about revenge. * The Stan o’ War never does make it to West Coast Tech. (Stanford blames Stanley’s decision to convert it into an airship. Stanley blames the construct that shot them down. Fiddleford apologises - again - and the three of them get back to tracking down the latest monster Ford’s decided to hunt.) (Stanley stopped making fun of how many PhDs Ford collects between monster hunts after Ford coerced him into getting some of his own. “That was way easier than I thought it’d be,” he muttered after the first one, and Fiddleford and Stanford rolled their eyes at each other behind his back.) The Mystery Trio aren’t quite world-famous, but among the people who know what they do they’re widely considered the best at it. (Though what 'it’ is tends to vary.) “So, where to next, Sixer?” “Funny you should ask! I’ve just received coordinates for a fascinating settlement. A small town, apparently. Highest known concentration of non-Spark-related oddities in the country.” “It got a name?” “Gravity Falls.”

((Girl Genius fusion for week four, Prompts Science and Technology - Quill))

[thekitchensnk]

and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 7)

Rating: T Warnings: Violent imagery Pairing: Gin/Ran Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7 “They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”

A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.

The girl lives.

—

(The boy doesn’t.)

She frowned in concentration, and her tongue stuck out from between her teeth. She stared with pin-point focus at the knife in her hands, her gaze absolutely ferocious and directed at the object of her wrath.

“Don’t move. Don’t move a muscle. Don’t. Even. Breath,” she gritted out.

Cold sweat coated the back of his neck.

“Nah, Ran-chan-“ Gin attempted, trying to placate her.

“No!” she shouted with determination. “I’ve got this. Don’t you dare.”

With a swish of the knife and a few colourful expletives, she cut carefully at the last of his lopsided, unevenly chopped hair.

“Aha! There,” she said with triumph, her hands on her hips. “All done. You should have a look at your reflection in the river. I’ve done a brilliant job, even if I say so myself.” She puffed up with pride and laughed magnificently. “The girls in town will be fighting after you.”

“Ya’ did say so ya’self,” he pointed out grumpily. “And have those hags in town after me? Thanks a bunch, Rangiku. Done me a real favour there.”

Her satisfaction was incorrigible, and her self-praise had known no bounds even then.

“You’re just being petulant because you cut it lopsided when you did it yourself, and you looked stupid for a whole week because you wouldn’t let me fix it. Face it, I’m the best and you’re the worst!” she sang.

“I was cuttin’ it with a knife!” he said defensively.

“So was I!”

That’s why he had been nervous to let her fix his hair, though he would never say as much out loud. Any man would be nervous with a sharp blade pointed at his neck. “Yeah, well-“ she had him cornered, and he knew it –“let’s see how well ya’ did, then. Can’t be possibly be worse than my job,” he muttered. “Pass me the water?”

She passed one of their water jugs obediently, and he traipsed outside with it. He found a level, flat stretch of rock, and poured the water out onto it. He went silent for a moment, reaching down into the dark plains where his power lay. He inhaled, and reached out for it, and instead of throwing it at the water and the rock, the way he had once done, he shaped it to his intent, feeling the contours and implications of the word frozen in his mind. Stillness, he thought. Fixed. Cold. He looked at the curve of the water, and imagined its fluidity.

The amorphous puddle in front of him froze slowly, and he exhaled in triumph.

Next to him, Rangiku whooped.

“That’s amazing! Have you been practicing?! When did you learn to do that?”

It had taken a degree of incredibly fine, precise control. The power they had loathed being shaped in such measured, purposeful ways. It was as if he was missing some element of the process, some set of commands or rules. The water would unfreeze in seconds, he knew- his power couldn’t really do ice- and so he bent quickly to look at himself in the ice.

There was nothing lopsided about his hair at all anymore. She had done a very good job, he had to admit it. He glared.

“Alright, ya’ win. Ya’ the hair cutting champ.”

He saw her reflected in the impromptu mirror he had made, and her hand made its way to his head, her fingers threading delicately through its newly cut strands; her hand ghosted down to his neck, and tenderly, so tenderly it could break his heart, she brushed away some of the remnants which still lay there.

“Whoops! Missed some. Sorry,” she said, barely thinking about it.

Goosebumps rose on his neck at the casual intimacy of her touch, and he watched her, unaware, in the reflection, turning over in his mind how often it felt like there was no dividing line between him and her, that they were two halves of the same thing made whole; gold and silver, boy and girl, light and dark.

When she turned to look at her own reflection, he looked away quickly, as if burnt, suddenly shy to be caught.

She frowned slightly, and her hand left his neck to play with the ends of her own hair.

"It's getting long," she mused. She turned to look at him, and his gaze jerked upwards, to look her in her forget-me-not eyes. "Will you cut it for me?"

The knife was in her hand and she offered it to him, and for some reason, his mouth went dry.

"After the job I did on my hair? Ya'd trust me after that?" he tried to stall for time.

“Yes," she said simply. "It's different, cutting someone else's hair. You can see properly. You’ll be fine." She paused. “If you leave me bald, I will get my revenge. You know that, right?”

His eyes went to the knife that she held out to him, and he was haunted, suddenly, by the thought of driving it pommel deep through her neck until the blade stuck out her trachea, by the thought of arterial spray and the crimson of her blood splattering over the plants and across his chest, about its hot liquid warmth gushing out over his body and going cold in the morning air; how her body would go slack, and her eyes dull, and her skin gray, and how her mouth would gape in the way that all corpse mouths seemed to gape.

If she only knew the things he had done with that knife, and how easy, how simple, they had been- like drawing water from the river, or pulling carrots from the ground.

Did the ability to imagine doing such things to her make him capable of them? He didn’t know, and he didn't want to know.

He shivered in the warm air, feeling a little sick, but took the proffered knife. Reluctantly, he bid her to sit down in front of him anyway.

Her amber hair lay slightly askew, and he could see a glimpse of her neck, made golden by the sun, between its strands. It would be so easy, he thought, and yet. And his mind kept butting up against that thought. It would have been the simplest thing in the world, like snuffing out a lantern, and yet-

Could he?

He would sooner stab himself.

She bared her neck to him, and let him hold his knife there, millimetres from her, and she did not flinch for a second. It was as if she didn’t realise at all that with one slip, he could end her.

She trusts me, and the truth of that settled across his shoulders like a blanket, like a burden. She trusts me with her life. He felt sick.

Would I trust her with mine?

With a sure and certain hand, he began to cut, and unaware of the thoughts which had raced through his small head, she chattered on blithely.

---

One day in the early autumn, he took her to a sunny spot in the garden and made a cheerful announcement. "This spot is for ya'. Ya' grow whatever ya' want here- onions, scallions, garlic, cress, cabbage, whatever ya' want. I’ll help ya’."

It had come so out of the blue that she was completely thrown.

"What?" she asked dumbly.

He moved from foot to foot energetically. "The garden is ours, but I want ya' to have this bit for ya'self. I'll help ya' turn over the earth so that we can start growin' things."

"To grow anything?" she asked.

"Anythin'," he reaffirmed impatiently.

She hesitated for a moment, but he knew her face too well for it to slip past unnoticed.

"What's the matter?" he asked immediately.

"Nothing," she said a bit too quickly.

"I know what 'nothin'' looks like," he said. "Spill."

She bit her lip, and her ears started to go pink with embarrassment.

"Could we grow flowers?" and for some reason, she felt shy. She looked up at him, and he was grinning. "Don't laugh at me!" she demanded, her face hot.

He laughed, but it was a happy, care-free thing, a laugh which rose up into the sky and into the winds, and carried her up there with it. He would be sad to pass up on regular scallions, but there was always the occasional patch growing wild in the woods, so it would not be too much of a loss.

"I'm not laughin' at ya'," he said easily. "It's ya' patch of the garden. I wanted ya' to grow what ya' wanted. If Ran-chan wants flowers, she'll get flowers. Come down here and help me turn over the soil." He beckoned her closer. "It's a mucky job, so ya'll want to hitch ya' yukata up, like so," He had gathered the fabric above his knees and tied it before kneeling on the threadbare grass.

She had followed suit, and knelt beside him, her calf bumping absent-mindedly against his. Her limbs had been thin and starved once, he recalled, when she came to him, but they had grown healthy and strong in the time since. The sight pleased him

"We're just goin' to turn over the earth with our hands," he said cheerfully. "Ain't got no spade or fork to use."

She glared at him. "You didn't say that we'd have to put our hands in the mud for this."

"Nah, Ran-chan, that's just life. Gotta get ya' hands dirty sometimes and muck in if you want flowers."

The ground gave way easily, even only using their hands, and the air was soon full of the dark, loamy smell of fresh earth. He delighted in picking up worms when they found them, pink and wriggling, and dangling them in front of her, because she'd shriek and laugh and push him away.

"That's disgusting!" she'd shout in outrage. "How can you even touch it, Gin?"

She appreciated it even less when he slyly bumped her with his shoulder, causing her to over balance and land in the mud.

Working together, they cleared the area quickly, though they did not get away unscathed. He had several streaks of mud on his face from when he'd brought a worm too close to her, and she'd swiped her hands on his face in revenge. Her knees and the front of her legs were brown with dirt, and her hands were not worth mentioning. But they had smiled, and joked, and the hot morning had passed quickly.

By early afternoon, the sun was shining thick and fast, and they were almost finished. He had rolled his sleeves up, and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his arm.

"We're almost done here, I reckon," Gin said decisively. "I'll stay and neaten up the edges. Do ya' know which flowers ya' want to plant up?"

"Some of those spindly red ones that grow by the river," she said, having thought about it whilst they had been digging. "They're not due to bloom yet, but it shouldn't be long." Her eyes shone with excitement.

"Go on then," he said indulgently. "Make sure not to damage the roots. Ya' know what ya' doin'?

Her answer was an undecipherable noise yelled back at him and lost to the wind as she sped off to the river as quickly as her small legs could carry her.

The patch of cleared earth was not large, and was made clumsily by the small hands of children, but it would do.

He attempted for a few moments to neaten up its edges, but was too lazy and content to exert much effort. His knees ached from having knelt too long on the hard ground, and he knew he would be in desperate need of a dip in the river. He almost groaned at the thought. Birds sang in the eaves, an unmelodic, but cheerful twitter, and the sun baked the back of his neck.

Idly, he thought of flowers, and pondered whether they would attract bees, fat and bumbling, and whether they could possibly get honey for their efforts. It would be nice, he thought. Maybe we could dip the persimmons in it.

It was, he thought, a beautiful day, and so he decided to bask in the sun on his back until she returned, a satisfied vulpine smile on his face. Let her catch him, he thought.

She emerged twenty minutes later from the forest, her arms filled with a bouquet of crimson, spidery lilies which she held like a bride. Some were as of yet still only in the bud, some beginning to reach the fullness of their bloom.

Her face peaked out from between the beautiful red flowers with their strange, ungainly tendrils. Her face was flushed, and her eyes sparkled and the sun played in her hair.

She was so beautiful, that day.

She raised the flowers to him in triumph and as she did so, they began to tumble from her arms, and she had to bend and fumble clumsily not to drop them. He could not help but smile softly at the sight.

Looking at her, something in his chest tightened, and he could not say what it was, only that it was half agony, half tremendous sweetness, and entirely of her making.

He rose to his feet.

"Here," he said calmly, "Give them to me. I'll carry 'em for ya’."

She looked up at him quickly, and smiled brightly when she met his gaze, her eyes crinkling warmly. She handed the flowers over.

"They're pretty," he mused, opening his eyes fully, though the flowers took up only the smallest part of his attention. She felt heat rise in her cheeks, and could not explain why it did.

He felt a tendril-like petal between his fingers. "This was a good idea ya' had. I wonder what these are?"

She had no idea. In truth, she knew little about flowers, only that there were certain kinds that you shouldn't eat because they were poisonous, some that came in the spring, and some that came in the summer. There had not been the space to think about beautiful things before she met him.

She had chosen these because she knew that they were bright and interestingly shaped, and it had been as simple as that.

"I don't know," she said. "It’s just a pl-". She broke off, and stretched out her hand, distracted. She could have sworn she felt rain.

The world paused, like the attention of creation was focused on a grand spectacle far off in the distance.

She heard a hesitant pitter-patter.

 And then an uncertain stutter of rain drops bouncing off the ground.

The gentle tapping grew heavier and heavier until, suddenly, it became a drumming cacophony, the sound echoing across the garden, and the world turned green and blurred as the air overhead filled with water, with great lashings of water, pelting down. The sun kept beating brightly and relentlessly, and the raindrops shone like diamonds hanging in the air, and the world tilted and overturned.

She could not see; he could not see.

She grabbed his hand blindly, and startled, he allowed the flowers to slip from his arms and his fingers and crash to the ground. She ran exhilarated through the rain, laughing and laughing deliriously, leaping over the vegetable beds and odd mounds of earth, and he followed, delighted and laughing and letting himself be led after her.

He would have followed her anywhere.

When they reached the house, they were soaked through, and water dripped on the floor. His hair lay flat and drenched across his forehead, and hers hung in a wild mane about her head. They bumped together clumsily, and clung to each other to keep one another steady. Their feet were wet and water pooled on the ground.

His lips had found themselves on her forehead, so tightly were they pressed against one another, and the rain clattered against the roof like the banging of a war drum.

"The fox is- the fox is having his wedding," she laughed, struggling to catch her breath.

"What?" he asked, dazed and blinking, trying to wipe the water from his eyes. There was still mud from earlier in the day on his face, and it smeared where he rubbed.

"I-" she paused for a moment and glared at him. "I don't know! I don’t know why I said that. It's a saying, I think."

"What's it mean?" he said, trying to catch his breath.

"I dunno. It's just what you say when the sun shines and the rain rains at the same time. I think I must have heard it when I was still alive. The fox is cunning, and sneaky, and powerful, right? When he does stuff, he doesn’t like people to see, so he makes it rain.” She explained it all as if it were commonsense. “He didn’t want us peeking in on him."

"Huh. The fox is havin' his weddin'," he echoed, turning the phrase over slowly in his mouth. It was poetic, he thought- but he still didn’t have the first clue what it meant.

But she had moved on, stepping away from him to peer outside. The air was thick with falling rain.

"Will the flowers be alright, do you reckon? Will they die if we don't put them in the ground right away?" she asked, concern written all over her face. "It was tough work digging them up and carrying them here. I got mud under my nails."

"They should be okay," he considered. "They'll get plenty of water in the rain at least, and rains like this never last long."

"Ugh," she groaned suddenly, looking at her arms. "I'm still covered in dirt. I wanted to go and wash up in the river before we ate and went to sleep.” She pouted, her hands on her hips. “Maybe I should just take my clothes off and stand outside in the rain and let it do the washing for me," she said petulantly.

His heart skipped a beat.

"Nope," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. "That would be silly. And anyway, there's not enough rain now for ya' to get clean."

“I bet a bath in a sunshower would feel like nothing else in the world,” she teased, not because she knew what it implied, but because he had forbid it.

But as if his words had intervened directly with the weather itself, the drumming on the roof quietened to a patter and stopped completely soon after.

Birdsong resumed, and with it the lazy background hum of cicada music.

“You did that!” she accused. “You stopped the rain with your powers!”

“I wouldn’t know how to do that even if I wanted to!” he complained. “I don’t know why ya’ complainin’ anyway- standing in the rain wouldn’t have got ya’ clean, and now there’s no rain, ya’ can take your bath in the river, like you wanted.”

She huffed at him.

“But we’ll plant the flowers first.”

He sighed in frustration, and ran a hand through his hair. The dirt on his hands transferred, leaving a dark streak, and she giggled at the sight.

“We’ll plant the flowers first,” he said.

 ---

(And they had. They had bloomed through the autumn that year until even after her birthday had come and gone, and they had come back year after year after year without fail, even after they had both left the old house to tumble down into ruin and the garden to be overcome by the wilderness.

The spider lilies had shone in bursts of scarlet and crimson against the verdant trees, and even when they planted other flowers there, they always took pride of place.) 

(They were still there even when she returned years later, a tired woman weighed down by grief and betrayal, but wiser.

She looked at those flowers then and knew too late their irony. She thought of then of the fox’s wedding day, and of a foolish girl who had carried a bouquet of red spider lilies in her slender arms to the boy she had loved, bride-like and ignorant, so ignorant, of what was to come.)

[creator-zee]

59

“We both know I don’t really need a bodyguard.” The princess said dully as I accompanied her on what she wanted to be a walk alone.

“You may be an exceptional fighter, Princess, but you aren’t as good as me.” I stated plainly. “Besides, it is improper for a Princess to be without a body guard.”

She sighed, looking back at me apologetically. “I know, I know, and it’s not your fault, sorry for being grumpy. I just sometimes want to be alone, like really alone.”

“Don’t apologize Princess. Everyone wants to be alone sometimes.” I stated, looking at her kindly, although she couldn’t see my expression underneath my helmet.

She sighed sitting down on a bench in the garden, I came to a halt standing next to the bench, arms at my side, ever the perfect picture of an apathetic guard. “You don’t always have to be so formal, Liz. You’ve been my guard for years.”

I smiled, softly. “I know, Princess, but there’s other guards in the garden. If your Mom caught wind of me being, er, unprofessional she would have my hide. You’re supposed to be chasing after suitors, not your personal guard.”

She blushed, although she tried to play coy, raising an eyebrow at me. “Who says I’m chasing after you. You’re the one who follows me everywhere.”

“‘Liz, take off your armor.’ ‘Liz, loosen up, we’re in my room.’ “Liz, let’s spar so we can end up inches away from each other in a very compromising position and then kiss.’” I mocked.

Her blush grew. “Hey! I didn’t say that. At least not the last one, not exactly.”

“Whatever you say Princess.” I said noncommittally. 

She stood brushing off her dress. “Well, guard. Why don’t you escort me back to my room, so that I can change and then we can go for a ride?””

“As you wish Princess.” I said, copying her teasing formalities.

She groaned as we walked back to the arching stone of the castle. “How come when you say ‘Princess’ it sounds more like a nickname than a title but I can’t do the same? It’s not fair. Liz.” She complained.

I laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the metal of my helmet. “I guess you just aren’t as flirtatious as me, Princess.” I teased.

She shoved me playfully, barely changing my step. “Knock it off you big tease.”

I laughed again at her antics. “Besides, guard isn’t a very endearing nickname... Princess.”

She shrugged, as I held open the wooden door for her. “I suppose your right, Princess.”

“Seriously? I think you missed the memo Princess, you’re the princess here, not me.”

She sighed again. “I guess, I'll just have to think of something else.”

“Like my name.” I offered.

“Lizard?” She asked, eyebrow raised.

Heat rose to my cheeks. “You know that’s not my name. It’s just Liz.” I huffed, annoyed and embarrassed at the longstanding joke.

She laughed. “I know, I know, but you get so flustered when I call you that... Lizard.”

I came very close to hitting her then, but I restrained myself as we had reached her room. A large bedroom with a bed and bath and couches, and shining lights, and a large window that looked over the woods that surrounded the castle, and the town was just visible in the distance.

She looked longingly. “I wish I could go into town, but Mother will only let me go with a small arm of guards, which ruins all the fun.”

I closed the door to her room behind me. I grinned wickedly behind my metal face plate. “I may have a solution for that, but not a word to anyone.”

She perked up, glancing over to me. “Really?” “Yes.” I sighed, now get some civilian clothes for yourself and me.

“And you?” She asked.

“Disguising you is kinda defeated if you’re walking around with a royal guard on your tail.” I explained. “I’ll have to change in the woods, so that your mother doesn’t skin me alive, but minor details.”

She began digging through a large dresser in her room pulling out a simple tunic, pants, and boots. “How are you going to disguise me? I don’t think clothes will cut it.”

“Magic.” I stated.

“Oh, right, I always forget that you're also a mage.” She said, and began slipping out of her dress.

I turned away quickly. “No decency Princess, just going to strip right in front of me?”

“Meh.” She said, shrugging it off. “Not like you haven't seen in my undergarments before.”

“Just hurry up.” I said. “We don’t want to get back after dark.”

“All done.” She said, and I turned around. Even in plain clothes she was still beautiful. Her long brown hair was pulled back instead of down and flowing over her shoulders, but I didn’t care.

She tossed a satchel at me. “To put your clothes in. If your done gawking that is?”

I blushed, although she wouldn;t have the satisfaction of seeing. “Your mother will get suspicious if I stop at the barracks.”

“Aren’t you wearing something underneath all that armor?” She asked gesturing at me.

“Yes, but it’s not exactly appropriate for a common civilian. An aketon can still function as armor by itself. I would still scream knight.” I explained.

“And under that?” She pressed, although she was pulling out clothes.

“Uh, under that is a thin white undershirt that is not appropriate for wearing in public.” I continued.

“Okay, fine, you win. Now let’s go.” She rushed out the door, and I followed after stuffing the clothes in the satchel and hooking it on my shoulder. She practically sprinted to the stables, and by the time we arrived she was panting.

I set the satchel on the ground, going to the tack room. “Come on Princess, I’m not saddling your horse for you.”

“Wouldn’t want you to.” She shot back.

We saddled the horses quickly, they had already been brushed by the grooms, and didn’t need a second brushing. I mounted first, leading my piebald gelding, Cloud, out of his stall and swinging on, heading towards the trail.

“Follow me Princess.”

She followed suite on her bay mare, Plum. Her saddle, was a simple one, without any saddlebags. My saddle had not only saddlebags but also, two spare quivers, my bow, and a couple daggers strapped on. Even though we were just going for a quick ride in the woods to the town before stopping and adopting our disguises, I wouldn’t dare leave without extra protection in addition to the swords strapped to my back and the daggers hidden everywhere on me. 

“Is that all necessary?” She asked.

“If you would prefer for me not to incur the wrath of your parents then I would say yes.” I stated.

“But we are going to just leave it all in the woods, aren’t we?” She pressed.

I sighed. “Yes, but it will be hidden. I know a spot. I found it while riding one day.”

“A spot?”

“You’ll see.”

I turned Cloud off the main trail, on a small one, that could barely be considered a trail. The Princess, Rose, followed me and I could sense a question on her tongue although she didn’t ask. The small trail led to a small cave in a small hill. I dismounted Cloud and led him into the cave, pushing past the branches of the bushes that disguised the entrance. Rose did the same with Plum and once inside, she turned to me.

“Neat cave. Now hurry up and change.”

“Yes, yes, Princess.” 

I pulled the satchel out of Cloud’s saddle bag, and walked to the far end of the cave, and began taking off my armor staring with my helmet. The helmet revealed my short blonde hair, and as the rest came off, including the aketon I was left in white undershorts under undershirt, which revealed my toned figure and some of the scars that peaked out from the edges of the clothing. I could feel Rose’s gaze on my back, but I tried to ignore it, as I traded the shirt for a tunic and the shorts for pants. I slipped socks on and slid the simple hide boots on. I turned around, and sure enough Rose was staring.

“You should really let me see you out of armor more.” She said, dreamily. “You look amazing. I never even get to see your face, much less your body. Both are absolutely beautiful by the way.”

Another blush rose to my face as I stuffed my clothes in the satchel leaving the armor on the ground, a safe distance from any stray hooves.

“Ahhh, you’re blushing.” She teased. “I love being able to see your face.”

“Shut up.” I murmured. “Come here, so I can disguise our faces. Luckily, our frame is pretty average an we can blend in easily, though people may wonder why two strong women are in town.”

“Two?” She asked.

I nodded. “You do train as well, can;t do that without building muscle. Now hold still and be quiet.” I waved my hand over her face, changing the features slightly. Red hair instead of brown, and green eyes, instead of blue. I changed her face shape slightly, as well. I copied the motion over my face, changing my hair to brown, and my eyes to blue, changing my face shape slightly as well.

“There. Now, no one should recognize you.” I smile. “Now we can go. It’s only a little way left to town, we can go on foot.”

She nodded. “I wish you didn’t change your face, I do like seeing it.”

I glanced away before she could see I was embarrassed again. “Same, Princess. I feel the same, but come on. If you don’t hurry, we won’t be able to have any fun.”

Later... at a tavern...

I glanced over from where I was leaning against the table in the corner, slowly sipping on a mug full of mead. I was only on my first, but Rose, who was going by Rory forsafety, had had several and was currently drunkley arguing with a farmer on how to take care of sheep. I laughed to myself. As long as she didn’t get herself in trouble, we were fine. I was going to get my ass kicked by the Queen and King later for having the Princess out after dark, but she was having so much fun I couldn’t drag her back. Literally, she made a huge scene and a bunch of guys came to her defense. I sighed and took another sip from my mug.

A woman sat down next to me, leaning back. “What’s a pretty face like you doing sighing in a corner?”

I glanced over, and only years of practice of maintaining an apathetic face stopped me from spitting my drink out. The woman who had just sat next to me was my ex, Jen.

“Watching over a friend.” I answered monotonously.

I felt her piercing gaze on the side of my face as I didn’t face her, eyes trained on Rose. She leaned in close, and I could feel her breath on my ear. I resisted the urge to flinch away as she spoke.

“A simple illusion can’t fool me Liz.” She turned and stood in front of me. “So why are you hiding, Liz?”

Jen’s movements had attracted the attention of Rose who had stopped her drunken rant and had come closer, for what purpose I wasn’t sure.

“Did you finally get around to fucking your precious Princess and the Queen has had you thrown out?” Jen mused. “Trying to hide away, huh, that’s why you hid your face. Should’ve run farther than just to town.”

I had set down my mug and stood up to match Jen, ignoring her brazen comments, but she pushed me back up against the table, her body pressing against mine as her hands found my wrists and held them to the table. I saw Rose over her shoulder and gave a small shake of my head. I hope she understood. She didn’t need to get involved.

“Well, it doesn’t matter because I finally found you again. You didn’t even try to hide the illusion very well.” Her face was right next to mine and I struggled to keep my breathing level. “Come on, Liz. What do you say? Come back to my place, like old times?”

“You don’t have a place.” I whispered, knowing the sound would travel to her ear that was inches away.

“Come now, LIz.” She teased. “I got my life together. Got a job hunting for the blacksmith.”

I didn’t respond, letting my expression of skepticism speak for me.

“You said you’d date me if I pulled myself together.” She added, and was that pleading in her tone.

“No, I said I wouldn’t date you because of your reckless lifestyle, doing anything for money.” I corrected.

“Well, I’ve changed. Come on Liz, give me a second chance.” When I didn’t respond she pushed. “You know you have no chance with the princess. She’s destined to be married off into a loveless relationship for political reasons, and then where will you be?”

“Not with you Jen. I told you I’m done with you.” I reasserted.

“Then why aren’t you struggling. We both know you’re much stronger than me.” She pushed.

I looked away, turning my head to the side. “Don’t know what your talking about. You kinda have me trapped.”

She laughed, and I felt it against my jaw. “Don’t forget, we have fought together Liz. I know you could easily toss me against the room and have a dagger to my throat. You may have ditched your other weapons, for some reason, but I know you have at least 10 daggers hidden on you.” She muttered. “I bet I could only find them if I took your clothes off.”

One of her hands wandered from my wrist to the hem of my shirt at my waist, and I turned back to her, growling. “Try to take any of my clothes off and the dagger ends up at your throat.” I threatened.

The hand returned to my wrist. “Ooh, still fietsy. So.... why haven't you kicked my halfway to the castle?”

“I don’t know.” I muttered truthfully.

“Miss me?” She teased. Did I miss the woman who had gorgone our relationship in favor of going down a path of darkness? Unfortunately, yes. I hadn’t dated since, being busy with guard duty. And, pining after the Princess doesn’t really count. Jen was right it could never happen.

“Maybe.” I confessed. “But, I am not dating you again. I will not let myself be dragged along again as you drag me along, not taking me seriously.”

She sighed, one of her thumbs began rubbing patterns into my wrist, and I resisted flinching away from the touch. “Liz, please. Just one date. I’ve changed, I want to try again. I miss you. I will respect you this time. I will make you a priority. I promise.”

“I don’t trust your promises.” I returned flatly.

She sighed, backing up. “Fine, Liz. It was nice seeing you.” She poked my nose. “Even if it wasn’t your real face. Send me a note if you need a friend. I have changed.”

I sat back down on the bench, grabbing my mug again. I stared into it. I hadn’t counted on her showing up, or stirring up feelings I thought I had buried. Rose sat next to me.

“Who was that L-, her Beth?” I had told her to call me by Beth instead of Liz to hide my name.

“No one important.” I dodged the question. 

“Really?” She drawled. “Why did she mention you, uh, ‘finally fucking me?’”

I turned away, heat rising to my cheeks. “It was just a jest. She didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Right... just like she didn’t mean anything by saying that we could never work.” She continued.

“Right. Look Ro- Rory. Just drop it. You won’t even remember anything by the time I manage to drag you back to the castle. Your parents are going to kill me by the way.”

She just shrugged, leaning up against me. “Noooo, they won’t.” She giggled. “They wouldn;t kill my favorite guard. I would be heartbroken.”

She suddenly grabbed my face and planted a sloppy kiss on my lips. She tasted like the mead she had been drinking. 

I hurriedly pushed her off me. “Knock it off Rory. I’m taking you home. You’ve had one too many and have obviously lost all common sense.”

“Come on, Beth.” She groaned, pushing futilely against my grip. “You like me I like you, what’s the problem?”

“The problem-” I hissed, as I dragged her out of the tavern after tossing the barkeep some gold pieces. “Is that you are a Princess, and you will marry some noble for political purposes. You don’t have the luxury of kissing people you like.”

She grumbled some response, but I ignored it as I fragged her drunk self back to the horses, then changed then led her mare through the trail as she could barely keep herself in the saddle much less ride. By the time we returned she had passed out, and I carried her silently past the other guards to her room. When she woke up, she was going to regret ever drinking. As I returned to the barracks my hand wandered to my lips. I can’t believe she actually kissed me. Flirting was one thing, but actually kissing me was another. That crossed so many lines and probably broke a million laws. But, despite that I wished I hadn’t pushed her away. I wished I had kissed her back. I wished I could date her, nut reject her out of duty, but flirting was one thing, actually kissing was another. Non-drunken Rose knew that, and I’m sure if she remembered she would understand it was impossible and not hold it against me.