#is that when they say they run every service with the newcomer in mind

[cuppatealove]

⛪️

[semisolidmind]

So... how would the scene play out with Azure helping MK, Mei, and reincarnated Peaches go? Would he take the opportunity to yoink Peaches with Sun Wukong and/or Macaque trapped in the scroll (if that even happens)?

Or if he successfully becomes Jade emperor would he let the power get to his head and hold Peaches captive?

These are just some scenarios that have crossed my mind, feel free to ignore!

ooooohoohoo skye i love your questions

we'll just go with modern twice as bad au, to keep this relatively simple. it takes place in the lmk timeline; wukong and macaque are big bad guys, mk was raised by wukong and looks naturally like his monkey self, reader in the current era is a reincarnation of the reader from the past who was killed whilst on the journey with her two demon husbands, said husbands have been intermittently causing trouble and flirting with her every chance they get. reader works at pigsys alongside mk as the cashier/other delivery person, and is friends with the gang.

so, i imagine this is happening after the final lbd fight, but in this au wukong and macaque are also big bads, so their helping to defeat her is more because mk asked than out of any sense of heroism. they're still very much evil, they insist, and after that little bout of heroism they go back to being the bastards everyone knows them as. buuuut just a bit more tolerant of mk's friends (mostly because reader has influenced them with kindness bit by bit up to this point, shoujo-protagonist-style).

wukong invites reader to come to the mountain with mk after his monster-of-the-week battle with the twin metal demons in order to "help them organize" all the junk the kid is bringing home. really, he just wanted to get reader to the mountain so he could see her again and tease her (maybe she inadvertently admitted to finding him attractive in a heated moment the last time they met, during the big battle. like, telling him to get his big dumb handsome head in the game or smth idk). macaque joins in on the teasing too, of course.

mk, ever oblivious to his caretakers blatantly flirting with his coworker, opens the memory scroll by mistake. it almost gets him, if not for macaque quickly grabbing him by the back of his shirt and tossing him out of the way. unfortunately, this means the six-eared demon is absorbed into the ink. mk turns to wukong for help, and is firmly told to take reader and run. wukong stops a strike from the ink entity before being absorbed as well. reader and mk call out for them, but run for their lives until they get beyond the scrolls reach.

they go back later with their friends, the gang excluding mei get absorbed, and they're saved by a lion demon who introduces himself as azure.

the newcomer pauses when he looks at reader, a strange, stricken look crossing his features, almost as if he recognizes her. he looks like he wants to say something...but the moment passes and he continues his introduction. the two teens insist on going to save their friends (kinda ignoring reader's concerned voice in the bg), and he eventually agrees to help them.

the monkey demon boy and dragon girl go into the scroll (with the same reckless excitement they display in every other aspect of their lives), leaving reader behind with an unfamiliar demon. the distrust must show on her face, because said demon maintains his distance with the promise that he means her no harm.

azure tries to reassure reader, and offers to answer the many questions he's sure she has.

azure would explain the story a bit more in depth to reader (spinning it in his favor, of course). he would tell her the truths the monkey demons are hesitant to say; how reader's previous incarnation was a captive wife to the so-called great sage and his general, how monstrous the two really were, just how much bloodshed and chaos they caused... even when in service of the great monk.

reader is stunned—but not as surprised as she thought she'd be. anyone who pays even the slightest mote of attention to the world around them could tell you about just how much trouble the infamous monkey king is responsible for. kidnapping and hostage-taking seems tame in comparison.

when azure tells her point-blank who she used to be, reader goes silent. she's always felt a strange pull in her chest whenever she's around wukong and macaque. like she wants to get closer, but also wants to run as far away from them as she can. it's sobering to know why. she feels something similar when she looks at azure, she admits.

he chuckles fondly at her. it makes sense, he says, they used to be close after all. among the monkey king's allies, he was the only one who befriended the human queen of flower fruit mountain. azure assures her that her previous self was a kind person, that she had many friends who mourned her passing; himself included. reader says nothing, too stunned to speak.

azure lion rises from where he sits, stating that he must move the ritual site to his own home in order to bring the many victims of the scroll safely out. reader insists that she go with him. no offense, but i don't trust you with them, she says. azure chuckles, agreeing that blindly trusting someone you've just met wouldn't be very sensible. the two travel to camel ridge, and azure gives reader a tour.

---

sometime later, mk and mei bring each of their friends back to their present selves. they manage to free themselves as well (after mk has an...enlightening encounter with the scrolls' curse about his human half). they learn some interesting things about their past selves, and their many foes. they break themselves out of the scroll and confront azure about everything they've seen.

azure is holding reader hostage. the lion pins reader to his chest, and she struggles in vain to escape his grip. she yells, hurriedly telling them that azure isn't a good guy, he—! the lion moves his paw over her mouth. his expression is grim as she claws at the appendage.

the gang barely hold back from attacking him, not wanting to hurt reader in the process. though mei stubbornly tries to land a strike at the lion's head, getting knocked back.

azure says he didn't want to do it this way, but...he can't have anyone messing up his plans.

perhaps he puts reader into a scroll peice, right before the very eyes of her friends.

they stand horrified as she dissapears. azure glances at the scroll peice, tracing the characters of reader's name with his eyes. his expression softens a bit. he delivers his monologue to the gang, azure frees his brothers, they attempt to fight, the gang flees when their weapons are taken. they hate to leave reader behind, but... they're outmatched.

---

reader is forced to relive key moments in her past life as captive queen of the monkey king and the six-eared macaque. she learns more about them than she ever thought she would (way, way more; some of those memories were spicy 👀). she begins to understand why they treat her like they do, despite her seemingly being just another of mk's friends.

she plans on confronting them about it once she's been freed.

meanwhile, the gang is training and getting better, trying to figure out how to get both reader and wukong's scroll peices back. reader's peice is better hidden than wukong's, and so it'll be more difficult to recover. they have no idea where macaque's peice is, but one mystic monkey on their side is better than none. they know the two warlords are their best bet for defeating azure and the brotherhood.

thanks to some quick thinking, somewhat of a plan, and a whole lotta luck, the gang recovers wukong's scroll peice. they repair it, and it only takes a bit of prying from mk to get him out. the ginger-furred demon really doesn't like dwelling on his memories.

the rage radiating off the newly-freed monkey king is palpable. the hatred he feels for his once-allies is a force all on its own. now, mk and the gang just need to unleash it.

everyone is on edge during the battle, choosing to keep their distance and do their part while monkey king and mk fight azure. wukong demands to know where reader is. what have they done with her? if they laid even a single hand on her their lives are forfeit, he promises. he and azure fight for a while, trading jabs and airing out their grievances... to kinda everyone? the friends never would've guessed monkey king had romantic drama, but here they are.

it's likely they don't get reader's scroll peice back until later. i imagine macaque, after being freed (maybe it's revealed he was never trapped at all and it was just a trick; he sank into a shadow, not the ink, and that's why they don't see him in the scroll; watching and waiting for the right time to strike), sneaking into the jade palace to find her. he knows that the lion would keep her someplace he thinks she won't be in danger of being broken. when mac does find her (hidden by the throne, wrapped in a part of the lions' old cape), he handles the scroll peice as gently as glass, pressing it to his chest as he leaves the palace. he'll be the one to bring her out. he was her favorite, after all.

(kinda phoning in this part cause ive run outta steam)

the big battle happens, the gang defeats azure, they kill him, it's real sad, things sorta go back to normal. i imagine that wukong, macaque, and reader will have to have a long talk about everything.

[bloodgarnet]

my contribution to smoshblr: some open-ended ianthony-but-really-mostly-gen not!fics. three different AUs, too short to post on AO3 (and I can't be fucked to ACTUALLY write them to completion sooo...). will post the other two when I get around to them.

1/3 – Dungeon Chumps

Shayne sometimes finds himself missing their old travel companions.

In the dungeon diving world, it’s normal for parties to split up after a successful (or unsuccessful) raid, then attempt to reconvene only to find out that their cleric found a higher-paying gig, or the frontliner decided to settle down with a tavernkeeper. Even still, nothing can tarnish those golden memories of Noah and Keith jostling over their pot around the campfire, or Olivia's off-key attempts to sing to woodland creatures. He wonders where Courtney is now.

You know who he doesn’t miss? Ian. Because Ian never really leaves.

It was almost a running gag ever since his first proper five-person mission when they’d decided on hiring a dungeon guide, and Ian had been the only one in their budget. Like, suspiciously cheap services, in that way that was only more suspicious because it turned out, if anything, he was probably way overqualified for his job.

It took a while for them to warm up to him, which is to say that after that first mission, they separated with a somewhat guilty sigh of relief, though Shayne immediately felt guilty afterwards. It was the dungeon, nothing else. They were so ready for a nice, long break. Yeah.

But no need to worry! There Ian was again, just… hanging around outside the next dungeon, boredly asking if any adventurers needed assistance. So they took him on again, and then the next time, and the one after that.

It’s not like they couldn’t manage without him, but at this point, he’s basically their unofficial sixth member. And every time they crawl back up to the surface, Ian bids his farewells, and then—bam!—he’s just there at the next location as if waiting for them the whole time.

Damien seems entirely unbothered and calls it ‘big NPC energy’, whatever that means.

Ian is a bit of an awkward goofball but unfailingly professional where it counts, fleet-footed with an eye for traps and extensive knowledge of the history of dungeons. He can talk for hours about natural spike formations and how gruesome body collections are (really, he could talk less about that part), but god forbid you ask him a personal question.

Anyway, group members have changed over the years and Shayne had cheerfully welcomed newcomers Angela and Chanse alongside Amanda and Damien’s more familiar faces. As usual, they accepted their guide’s services at the entrance and several days later were taking their time cleaning up the lower levels, scrounging around for every last morsel of loot.

“Do you have another job lined up after this one?” Chanse starts the conversation, polite in the way that newbies often are. It’s a good question.

Amanda is the one who answers, “Oh, I’ve heard there’s a new dungeon west from here. I have a friend on the coast who’s been telling me all about it via snail mail.”

“Are you sure it’s actually new if the snails are carrying it?” Angela says doubtfully, trudging along in the rear. “I don’t get why the postal service can’t pick a better animal.”

“Well, it’s supposed to be around six or seven years old by now, I think,” Amanda clarifies. She raises her voice a little, mindful of the echo because you never know what’s up ahead, and calls out to the guide, “Hey, Ian, do you know anything about it? It’s the one in the Lost Angels province.”

From his position, Shayne can make out Ian’s silhouette coming to a halt for a brief moment, then continuing on as if nothing happened.

“The Sacramento Dungeon. I know of it. The name comes from ‘sacrament’, a religious symbol or rite in which spiritual power is transmitted through material elements. A bestowment of divine grace.”

His words are flat, detached.

Shayne raises an eyebrow and drawls, “Thanks, I was really curious about the name, man. Do you know anything interesting about the dungeon itself? What caused it, types of monsters, if it’s worth visiting…”

“I wouldn’t recommend it.”

That’s surprising. Chanse looks curious and prods further, “Even though it’s newly formed? What’s there to be worried about?” Shayne notes with respect that he’s being genuine rather than foolhardy. That’s often a worry with younger adventurers, but he’s proven to have a good head on his shoulders.

Angels adds, “Yeah, we could totally take it on! We’re total badasses!”

They discuss it further and Shayne watches Ian’s face turn grimmer with their growing resolution. He brings up a few tentative dissuasions but obviously can’t think of a concrete reason they can’t go. Even stranger, his comments seem to imply that he’ll be coming along for the ride, which he doesn’t have to do if he’s so against it.

Ian gives them a warning hand gesture and retreats to the back of the party. Shayne steps up to the front and confirms, “Final boss up ahead.”

“Finally, I’ve been meaning to say something to this fucker.” Amanda stretches her arms out, readying her weapon.

The aged iron door opens slowly with a loud creaking whine. Nobody hears Ian muttering to himself.

“I have something to say to that guy, too.”

[normalsdotheolympics]

Flight of the Shuttlecock

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post (sorry). In that time, Katy and I have been working diligently on our triathlon training. I've still been rehabbing my knee, walking on the treadmill four days a week, trying to steadily increase my time by 5-10% each week. Katy has been making great strides though in that regard. A couple of months ago, she wasn't able to really jog at all, but as of this week, she was able to jog for 2 miles! Such a huge improvement over the last month or so. For the triathlon, we'll need to get up to 6.2 miles or 10km. I'm hoping that by my next PT session in a few weeks, I can start some light jogging again. I've been doing a lot of strength training for my quads and hamstrings to try and strengthen the knee enough to be able to handle the running load.

In the meantime, we've been continuing with our cycling and swimming goals. I'm up to 35km on the bike and trying to get Katy back on the bike more. We took another swim lesson this weekend, working on some new drills. The past few weeks, I'd been working on some side swimming with the flippers, so I was pleased to hear that the instructor thought I was doing much better with my rotation and balance in the water. For some reason, I've been having more trouble with my flip turns the last couple of weeks. I think there are just too many things on my mind in the water, and the additional rotation on my strokes is leading to some rotational issues on my turns. Something to work on over the coming weeks. I've also been experimenting with some new goggles, since I've been having issues with eczema around my eyes, which I thought might be related to the latex in the goggles. I've been testing out what are called "Swedish" goggles, which are entirely plastic and without latex. They seemed like they'd be super uncomfortable, but actually they've been pretty nice. I kept expecting them to dig into my eyes since they're just plastic. The nice thing about them is that they have much more range of vision, which is why they're recommended for open water swimming such as a triathlon. However, I'm having a little trouble with keeping them on properly when doing my flip turns - they seem to get dislodged a little. During this week's swim lesson, we got some new drills. The most torturous one is called sculling, in which you somehow attempt to propel yourself through the water by essentially flapping your hands about in a back and forth sideways motion. It is brutal on the arms and lats, and it is SLOOOOOW. It's like I'm barely moving. But Katy told me she had the same experience last month, and now she's moving much more efficiently with it. So I'll push on.

And now to the biggest news of the day! Today, Katy and I ventured to the gym to try our hands at badminton. Our local rec center has one of the biggest and most organized badminton clubs in the state coincidentally. They meet twice a week and while most of the folks are paying members of the club, they do allow for drop-ins and newcomers. They have some sort of peg system in which you get a clothespin with your name (or a number if you're not a club member), and you put the pin on the board in a queue. As games finish on the six courts in the gym, you move along the queue. If you're next up, you become the "picker", and you can pick which other people in the queue you want to play with. It moves fairly efficiently really, but was a little hard to understand for newbies like us. We paid a $5 fee, which apparently goes to replacing the shuttlecocks, as they go through A TON of them every day. I couldn't believe how beat up they get just from one game. They also have to buy some sort of premium shuttlecocks to account for altitude. We borrowed racquets from the club and put our names in the queue. As we moved along, we were paired up with two very friendly young guys, who graciously showed the both of us how to play. We were inept to say the least. I figured out the service motion pretty well, but beyond that, it was ROUGH. I don't think I had properly appreciated how hard badminton is. I mean, forget playing at the high level that some of the folks were in the courts around us, but just making contact with the damned birdie was such a chore. It's like I couldn't quite figure out the length and size of the racquet. So many swings and misses at shots right there on the forehand. It was painful. After one game, we thanked the poor souls paired up with us for their tutelage, and we went into one of the nearby racquetball courts to practice a bit and get more comfortable with the game. It was fun though. We will definitely be back at it in the next week or two to practice more! It's a fun, fast paced game, and hopefully something that we can get better at over the next few months. The goal is to be able to play a proper game by the end of the year, or maybe in January depending on how often we can get out to play.

Otherwise, over the next few weeks, we'll just keep working on our triathlon training and strength training. We'll probably book another swim lesson in 2 weeks. Once we've gotten to a good place with our swimming, we need to start on the other strokes. We were supposed to have done so already really, but I think we sort of decided to postpone that a bit to make further progress on our freestyle. We'll also have a month break from curling for the holidays which will free up time for some of our other activities. I'll update again soon!

[bruhstation]

CASA TIDMOUTH’S MOST NORMAL AND RELIABLE RAILWAY WORKERS: THE NEWBIES OF ACT 2

Rebecca Nassif

Age: 23 Occupation: NWR 22's driver

A bright and optimistic newcomer to Sodor’s railways, Rebecca is the trainee for the express that Gordon took under his wing. She always sees the bright sides of things and firmly believes that there’s always a way out in every situation… which makes her prone to accidents due to how she is quick to act and late to see both sides of things. She’s also very clueless to Sodor’s cultural quirks and supernatural occurrences which always makes her seniors worry, while she can only giggle and say “Oops!” whenever confronted about it.

Underneath her cheerful demeanor, Rebecca can’t exactly understand the circumstances others went through or relate to them, and she secretly always felt bad about it. Yet due to her upbringing, she can’t help but feel like other’s feelings and worries are her responsibilities, making her fear that she could possibly strain her relationships every time she failed to understand them. Could this be the reason that she always try her best to make others smile…?

Trivia:

Her family runs a small catering service. The wave of gentrification in her hometown that eventually impacted their business is what made her decide to take action and support her family despite her parents’ discouragement.

Rebecca’s father wanted her to settle down with someone well off and live a peaceful life, not having to worry about her family. Even though she loves her father dearly and is usually obedient, she went against his words and moved to Sodor the moment she heard that the railways there are in desperate need of new workers hiring. She had no idea what she signed up for.

She has a calico cat named Eli.

She strongly sees her dad in Gordon. She also calls him “Coach”, something that he doesn’t mind. Her jokes and wisecracks always make him stifle his laughter.

The sheer willpower and unparalleled determination of Sudrians always hype her up. When asked about a word she can use to describe her Sudrian colleagues, she replied with “hardcore”.

Likes: her parents’ cooking, pistachio kulfi, orange-flavored gum, ridiculous meathead animes like Dragon Ball

Dislikes: overly complicated pieces of literature, rich people that can’t appreciate culinary arts

Nia Eunike Wanjala

Age: 24 Occupation: NWR 18's driver

Even though she’s generally friendly and cordial to her peers, Nia can be described as an extremely honest individual. She’s not sarcastic, she’s not being rude, just really honest and straight-to-the-point. This stems from her mindset to expect the worst in any situation in order to not disappoint herself with any bad outcome that might happen. Nia also loathes being pitied and automatically assumes that people feel sorry for her whenever they show even a semblance of kindness or worry to her. This becomes a problem to her as she wanted to show genuine care and appreciation for her peers yet couldn’t bring herself to trust them, thus making others think of her as distant even though she didn’t mean to.

Under her bluntness, she’s actually quite understanding of other’s troubles and always gives out rational advice (though she also points out what they need to fix and generally not biased). Even so, she wants to trust others and longs for strong bonds with the people she care about, but her skepticism prevented her from doing so. She kept rocking back and forth between catering to others’ needs and wanting to do the things she personally wants to do. At the end of the day, she just wishes someone could at least see the good intentions that she showed through her actions.

Trivia:

She tries her best to respect Thomas – younger yet much more experienced than her – and James – still proud but now much wiser – because they’re her seniors, but she always felt exasperated at their clowneries. The thing that always surprised her is that despite all their tomfooleries, they somehow always got their jobs done.

She moved to Sodor after a chain of events that started off from a particular flood that washed over her small hometown and destroyed her childhood home. She hopped from job to job and city to city to support her family, but after many trials and tribulations, she found a newspaper that mentioned something about Sodor in desperate need of new workers hiring railway workers.

Unlike her fellow newbie, she quickly catches on to the small island’s mysteries because she already counted the risks it has to offer… and she knows this won’t get easy for her.

She actually gets flustered easily, especially when showing genuine appreciation (that isn’t part of her “obligation”).

Whenever she gets nervous or is panicking, she starts counting prime numbers.

She’s interested in magic tricks. When she was a kid, a lot of kids like to watch her perform simple magic tricks. In actuality, she’s mainly interested in the science and mechanics behind them. She also thinks it’s quite a good way to kickstart a friendship.

The sheer willpower and unparalleled determination of Sudrians sometimes scare her. When asked about a word she can use to describe her Sudrian colleagues, she replied with “weird”.

Likes: the Gatsby sandwich, magic tricks (her go-to is the infinite handkerchief trick), dandelions Dislikes: heavy rain, dishonesty, people that hide secrets for the sake of others

[neptune-midheaven]

ASTRO NOTES 🪐 🧿✨🌌

*THERE !!!!!! IS !!!!!! NO !!!!!! BAD !!!!!!!PLACEMENT !!!!!!! IN !!!!!!! ASTROLOGY !!!!!!!PLEASE STOP FEAR-MONGERING THESE POOR NEWCOMERS PLEASEEE !!!!!!!! CHALLENGING never equals BAD !!!!!! If you’re a true student of astrology this would be a well know FACT to you.

*Saturn and Capricorn placements are the areas you will slowlyyy become wise in, having developed compete mastery over that area with TIME.

*You usually get compared with other people who share your rising sign.

*Most scorpios/scorpio risings have dark complexions, they even could have almost a permanent shadow cast over their faces, they may struggle to find perfect lighting.

*Virgo in 6th house are hypochondriacs and are paranoid/worry a lot about their health. They’re very nit-picky about their “symptoms”, they’re the types of people to know what they’re coming down with when they’re already at a doctor appt., they may as well even EDUCATE THE DAMN DOCTOR LIKE GO AHEAD MRS PHDD.

*Chiron conjunct midheaven is the ultimate healer placement, other chiron placements, chiron in first/aspecting the ascendant, following behind, these people are true healers whether they realize it or not, they’re born to assist and heal the general public. The midheaven, the highest point of the sky representing our reputation and career, what we’re known for. These people generate a reputation for their “healing abilities”, they’re quite literally known as the wounded healer (depending on if Chiron is positively aspected in the chart, this will affect the flavor of their reputation), they will experience pain related to work or matters related to the reputation, their status and authority could be wounded, they can later use their pain to help and heal others. Challenges will be met at work if Chiron is afflicted. This placement also means one will have their pain and wounds projected to the public, the whole world knows your pain.

*Mars in twelfth need to express their energy, their anger and will through the activities of whatever sign mars is located in the chart i.e. mars in aries in the twelfth need to express suppressed anger/anger through physical activity, sports, working out, sex, pisces mars by unleashing their massive creativity, compassion, dreams (this sign, and house combo especially, has many dreams, it’s a sleepy placement for the ideal fiery and straightforward mars to be located in). Mars in twelfth is generally a good placement that could manifest in someone being a dancer or athlete, mainly finding escape through any type of physical activity for fire signs, work for earth, socializing for air and creativity for water. This placement has very gentle, enchanting watery movements if they get into any sports or physical activity.

*Mars in eleventh can be aggressive toward their friends esp if mars is in a fire sign it becomes no joke. Don’t get me wrong, they’re the best humanitarians and what not but they have a reputation of being the “angry” or “aggressive” friend out of most of their friend groups, they’re very competitive and energetic people. However the way they stick up causes, they way they are always seen supporting any humanitarian cause with their whole hearts is AMAZINGG. They’re the types of activists to stay late to a protest, they’re the types to seemingly never leave what they’re standing up for, what they’re supporting because they are SOOO AMBITIOUS AND YEAHH !!

*This isn’t talked about a lot but uranus in eleventh have to be the most comforting and “welcoming” presence out of every eleventh house placement in astrology, with uranus in its home, the house of aquarius, it erases any filter put on what friend is attracted by their social presence as EVERYONE is attracted to them, from any possible and imaginable background or culture and homeland, anyone can trust and confide in their wide openness as their care and concern for society is completely genuine. They are truly the biggest and truest humanitarians, the universal humanitarian that will lead us to the monumental revolution of history and bring humanity to a collective whole.

*Pisces moon, people lovee you. People want to come up and talk with you just because of how interesting and intriguing you are. You OOZE this aura of compelling mystery similarly to scorpio moon. Your innocent playfulness is undeniably charming and you are definitely the life of the party, people want to pay attention to you!!

*Saturn in 11th, you are not an outcast, you are not too strange. You’re fine for just who you are, your individuality is a struggle for you, saturn is restricting you from liberating yourself and merging with society, you can selective or strict with friendships. You teach others to have boundaries and to never trust others too easily, you select social causes with caution. There is never anything wrong with this !! You choose what you support for YOU and NO ONE ELSE. You choose who you wanna become friends with it’s because they have passed the true rigorous test of friendship. When you become friends with someone, you already know you can trust them deeply, your caution is quite admirable !!

*Mercury in 12th is an extremely beautiful placement. The native grows shy of their flawless minds, little do they know they are connecting with the watery depths of the astral and psychic realms of the twelfth, the vagueness of their cloudy thoughts winds them up in wispy sheets of intellectual confusion. Your mind is communicating the brilliant and unbelievable parts of what seems like a dream. You are not too confusing or vague for others to understand your ideas, people await what emerges from this shiny and imaginable abyss of a sleepy mind.

*Mercury in 8th have an intellectual superiority complex of sorts, they analyze a piece of information or thing by tearing through the surface until they find the deepest depths of the truth, they believe this will never compare to other placements as they have dug far deeper into something. Be careful to not assume that someone doesn’t know something you don’t, while it still can’t be true. You always want to know someone, don’t be too controlling about it because you could cause conflicts which you didn’t mean to in the first place. If you know your boundaries and limits and of others’, then you should be fine. This placement is brilliant for investigators, someone who could examine, analyze and evaluate to find the answer others can’t see. They harbor a psychic mind, a plutonic one who knows the weight words can have on people. Fantastically persuasive speakers !!

*Gemini in 3rd, gem mercury have unstable minds, they’re very much prone to babbling, but can easily start up a conversation because they never run out things to say so they’re pretty social and friendly.

*Capricorn moon is an amazing moon sign placement, here the moon is in detriment as the saturn ruled cappy doesn’t get along with the soft, nurturing moon, it’s always gotta work work work, limit, restrict !! There’s never anything wrong with the moon here, just because the moon and saturn can’t get along, just because they contradict each other’s completely different functions never means it’s a terrible moon sign. It just manifests in a completely unique way outside of the traditional service and role of the moon, similarly to let’s say sag mercury as it’s also in detriment, they both manifest creatively to make something new out of the planet’s sign. Back to cappy moon, this moon has the capacity to work as they find fulfillment in getting things done, serving others, but negatively restriction and criticizing. With saturn ruling capricorn here your emotions and wellbeing become restricted and limited, you have felt as if no one understands you, you believe something is wrong with you. Like no one in the world supports you emotionally. But this is NEVERRR true, people love you for how caring, attentive and even funny you are !! You care soo much about others you forget to care for yourself, SOME of you even begin to think it’s normal to ignore what your own needs, nooo you need to STOP THISSS . You deserve to feel great about what you do, your accomplishments, how you care for others, EVERYTHING, and most importantly believe, trulyy believe that nothing’s ever wrong with you !! You’re unbelievably charismatic and overall just.... WONDERFULLL. Ily guys smm you’re amazingly stronggg souls !!!

*Moon in 12th house is an EXTREMELY sensitive placement, these people are little babies on the inside (ilyy guyss you all have my heartt <33). They often felt neglected, not nurtured as a kid which creates their extreme sensitivity to their current surroundings and environment. Their shy moon is always hiding behind the mystical and otherworldly curtains of the 12th because of their sensitive upbringing or personality, it’s takes some time for the little guy to come out. The moon here needs SPACCEEEE. A person who’s a walking sponge with fragile emotions, they’re our emotional and energetic vacuum cleaners of the world, they are helping the world without ever realizing it !!

*Pisces risings are known for being hard to characterize for their ability to naturally adapt to their environment. You can tell if someone has this if they absorb their environment like a sponge, then, react to this energy, you can easily see this energy morphing. It becomes noticeable if there’s a lot going on. Another clue is having trouble defining them based on their first impression, like they could be anything you project onto them, very mysterious and dreamy individuals when you meet them.

*Your midheaven/10th house is what you look up to be or what traits you wish to embody, ex: aries MC, confidence, passion, courageousness, being a leader, etc. Moon in 10th, being a therapist, helping the less fortunate, medical professions.

*Libra risings usually have amazing skin, just like virgo risings, to contrast, I’ve seen most of them marked with freckles. They have very symmetrical features, perfectly balanced just like a scale. But it appears as if they’re “superficial” once their faces begin to wear into your mind.

[lemonjoonah]

Wrapped Together (M)

Pairing: Namjoon x Reader Word Count: 18K Rating: M Genre: Christmas AU, Romance, Drama  Warnings: Protected sex, oral (m. rec.), referenced illness/death of parent, swearing, classism. Summary: Despite your best efforts to keep your head down, to self-preserve and endure what will no doubt be the worst Christmas of your life, you are still roped into volunteering for the hospital's annual gift wrap fundraiser. The enticing factor that lured you out? The promise of a new shift partner, Kim Namjoon. Though your first day together starts off with a slight miscalculation of his skills for wrapping, he soon becomes your essential ally in the fight to get through this lonely holiday season.

| Secret Santa Collab | My Masterlist |

A/N: A big thank you to @kimtaehyunq​ for asking me to join her Secret Santa Christmas Collab, this was my first collab ever and I absolutely loved it. And of course to my beta readers @m00nchild-shi​ and @ladyartemesia​ thank you for helping me gain the courage to post this. I hope that this fic is able to bring a bit of comfort to those celebrating the holidays a little differently this year, so please enjoy!

...

-5 Weeks Until Christmas-

Amidst the chatter of the office, a dull rumble reaches your ears and vibrates the desk beneath your fingers, waking you from the repetitive haze of your hundredth call report. The moment of confusion switches to frantic action when your brain finally catches on and recognizes it as your own personal phone. Scurrying through your purse, you nab it just in time, but after checking the caller ID you desperately wish you hadn’t. 

You knew this call was coming, you’ve dreaded it since you felt the first freezing snowflake on the tip of your nose, when you heard the first carol blaring over the radio, and saw the first tacky inflatable gracing a lawn on your street. It happens every year, like clockwork, though this will be the first time she’ll be enlisting one and not two. Unable to put off the dreaded moment any longer, you answer, accepting that if you rip the band-aid off now and decline her invitation to join the wrapping fundraiser, it’ll be one less uncomfortable moment later. 

“Aunt Emma, hey it’s been awhile.” She’s not exactly your aunt, but you’ve known her ever since you and your mother settled down here ten years ago. With little other family nearby she was one of the few you and your mom could always count on. Making your task to turn her down all the more difficult now.

“My dear, how are you holding up? I’m so sorry to do this but I'm calling with some rather unfortunate news.”

“Oh?” You exclaim, careful not to sound too hopeful that you might be free of your heavy burden.

“Yes, well it’s regarding the wrapping fundraiser. I wanted to put you on the same shifts as myself or Maria. I didn’t want to have you alone, since, well, you know... but there are so many rookie volunteers this year. And with you being part of the organization for so long, I was hoping you work with one of them instead for the evening shifts? It’ll just be you and him, do you think you could manage it?”

“I-I uh...” Now this is something you had not expected. You spent the past few weeks worrying about how you might have to work side by side with pitying glances, condolences, and referenced scripture from the usual staff. Any thoughts and prayers for your loss would likely turn you into a pool of tears. Not something you want to happen in public, or private for that matter, but if you are partnered with a newcomer, one who knows nothing of your past, maybe... maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. “I can do that.”

“I knew you could! I’ll put you down for the weekday evenings from the seventh up to Christmas. You’re off work at four, right? I’ll send you more details later, but do you want me to be there to introduce you to the other volunteer?”

“No!” You blurt out, insisting in a volume far louder than necessary, but you can’t risk her acting on the offer. Introductions when done by Emma are dicey at best, with one solid breath she has the capacity to share every bit of your sad history, leaving you exactly where you’d rather not be. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. No need to put yourself out like that, you can just tell me their name now and save yourself the trip.” 

“Thank you dear, always so considerate. One second let me just grab that for you...” She pauses on the phone line, as you look around your office in worry, not wanting to get in trouble for taking a personal call on the clock. “Ah here it is. You’ll be working with Kim Namjoon...” 

...

-Less than 3 Weeks Until Christmas-

After finishing work you head off to the mall for your first day on wrapping duty. It should be a relatively quiet night, since the majority of the crowd typically disperses at this time, heading home to be with families for dinner. Your own sits in a paper bag on the passenger seat of your car. A solitary meal as you battle the rush hour traffic. Finishing off the last of the salted fries with a lick of your fingers while you secure a parking spot. 

Flipping down your visor you scoff when confronted with your appearance, your makeup melted off thanks to the struggles of your earlier shift. You dab and blend a fresh blot of concealer on the dark bags beneath your eyes, determined to erase any evidence of your doleful days and sleepless nights. 

The rented store space is already set up, with a long table propped up right at the entrance. Dressed with a variety of paper and ribbon and looking particularly festive. The other volunteers give you a brief greeting and run down before they leave and pass the duties off to you. With them gone you take a seat, looking down at the selection you have to offer this year, trying with all your might not to focus on the empty chair beside you, one that is usually fill by your-

“Hi, sorry I’m late...” Your gaze flicks up from the table, startled to find a giant of a man. Greeting you with a smile warm enough to melt your frozen expression. 

“H-hi,” You stutter out, staring at his handsome face framed with light brown locks, feeling as though you’ve seen it before, but can’t quite place where. “You must be Namjoon?” You ask, running through the list of actors and singers in your mind but coming up empty on who he reminds you of.

He nods, before confirming your name too, and launching into the reason behind his tardiness. “The traffic was not in my favour today.” He gestures to the table and the vacant seat behind it. “May I?” 

“Of course.” You quickly scoot the folding table over so he can slip by the barrier that separates you from the mall. He takes off his coat to reveal a whole suit beneath, though he soon disposes of the jacket and tie too. You try not to gulp as he rolls up his sleeves in front of you, his arms flexing as they reveal themselves. 

“Pretty quiet?” He asks looking around the mall. 

“It usually is around now, give it an hour or two.”

“Have you been doing this long?”

“A few years...” You mumble, not wanting to dive too deep in that well, you quickly turn to pin the question on him instead. “What prompted you to volunteer? Did Emma enlist you during her recruiting effort?”  

“She did, I found her posting the flyer at my workplace.” Namjoon chuckles. “But I’ve seen you all set up here before, and since my usual Christmas plans with my family have changed, I thought I’d join you all instead.”

“Oh, so you’re not spending Christmas with them?” 

“No, they’ve gone to visit my sister and her family in her city this year. I unfortunately have a few work commitments I can’t get out of to make the trip in time, but rather than just mope about at home I thought I might be of some use.” Namjoon smiles again, his fingers folding the corner of the wrapping paper in front of him. “What about you, any plans?”

“No, I usually spend it with my mom, but she won’t be with me this year...” Or any year going forward, you consider while you give him a weak smile. She was the very reason you joined this organization all those years ago, when Aunt Emma was making her rounds and signing up everyone she could at the hospital, you and your mother were there for an appointment, your mom offered up both of your services lending you to a tradition that would extend for years through her treatment, remission, and the final return. 

“So we're in the same boat?” 

“I guess so.” His grin is so contagious, despite the differences in your situation you can’t help but agree.

Your first client of the evening comes forward and drops a small pile of kids toys in front of you both . “Thank god you're here. If I bring these home unwrapped my kids won’t hesitate to spoil the surprise.” You divide the presents between you and Namjoon while the mother keeps talking and flicking through the different styles of paper offered. “At least if they’re wrapped I can say I saw Santa at the mall and he gave me these early. They are so hard to fool these days.” 

“I take it you’ll want the Santa stickers?” You ask pointing to a closed box behind you, hidden away from the wide and prying eyes of young children passing by. 

“Yes, thank you so much!” 

“No problem.” You assure her while putting the last piece of tape on the stack of video games. Though when you look over to check on Namjoon you find that he has barely even started. He cut off a sheet entirely too big and is attempting to fold it around the boxed animatronic pet. Your eyes stare at the state of the poor paper unable to look away from the crumpled carnage. But the shock soon turns to amusement over his determination to salvage the mangled sheet, and you find yourself biting your lip in an attempt not to laugh. Luckily the woman in front of you hasn’t noticed but once you're finished with yours, you reach over for the assist. 

“Here, I can take over that one. Could you do the ribbon for me?” 

 Namjoon nods opening his mouth in an embarrassed grin. He does manage to secure the strand around the package but loses the spool before he can cut it. The red ribbon rolls all the way to your foot, before you stop it with a tap on the sole of your boot. Namjoon winces, while you let out a chuckle before bending over to hand it back to him, and finish wrapping the other present. 

The attempt at a ribbon curl unfortunately goes the same as the package before it, with him completely at a loss and using the wrong edge of the scissor blade. Trying to save him you make another suggestion. “If you want you can always use the premade sticker curls.” 

Namjoon nods and places them on the two packages along with the vibrant sticker of a cartoon Claus winking as he delivers the warning, ‘Do not open ‘till Christmas, Santa’s watching.’

As you load up the presents into a bag, Namjoon takes to the cashbox, looking expectantly from the client with his dashingly dimpled grin. 

“Oh right.” She comments with an awkward smile. Opening her Gucci bag and matching wallet, the corners of her lips turning down when she rifles through several triple digit bills unable to find any smaller denomination. 

The stand is by donation only, but the implication has always been that one should compensate the fundraiser for the service provided. You can usually tell when someone intends to leave no payment at all, and unfortunately you know this act all too well. She’ll apologize and say that she has to run to the bank and get some cash, but you’ll never see her again. Namjoon, unfamiliar with this ploy, continues to give his eager smile, and to your utter shock she submits, handing him a hundred dollar bill. 

Namjoon thanks her profusely as she melts too under his gaze muttering, “Not a problem.” Before walking off clutching her now wrapped gifts. 

You look to Namjoon in disbelief while he locks the money away in the cash box. Only breaking the silence when the client is fully out of earshot. “How the hell did you do that?!”

“Do what?” He raises an eyebrow completely oblivious to what he just achieved. 

“She... she... you got her to donate, and such a large amount. How?”

“What do you mean how? People give that much all the time don’t they?”

“No, they don’t!” 

“Oh...” He gives you another of his knee weakening smiles. “Sorry I assumed, I guess I’m just used to it.” He scratches at the back of his neck looking down at the table.

“Used to it? Where on earth do you see, do you get used to, that kind of generosity?”

“Through my job I suppose?” His grin turns to a look of embarrassment. “I work in art procurement, currently under contract with the museum. I seek out collectors and convince them to donate or loan out their assets.”

It would seem that getting people to open up their wallets is practically his profession. “Well... looks like manning the cash will be the perfect job for you.” That smile of his is a dangerous weapon, and one you would be remiss not to use in the fundraiser’s efforts. Though it still leaves one question unanswered. “But I have to ask...” Your previously concealed giggling comes to the surface. “Why on earth would you volunteer for a holiday wrapping station if you don’t know how to wrap?”

A blush reaches his cheeks. “Last year when I was here... I left with far more than I was expecting, and feeling as though I should have given more. So I figured if I couldn’t be with my own family, I wanted to do this instead.” He starts habitually folding a paper scrap. “And maybe I’d learn a useful skill-”

When a streak of red is left on the paper trailing behind his finger you jump to interrupt. “Is that...”

“Fuck.” He mutters pulling his index close to examine it. “Yeah, those scissors are sharp, didn’t realize I drew blood though.”

You immediately start rummaging around in your bag. “I know I have a couple in here, one second.” You pull out a small box of bandages and peel apart the papers to reveal the adhesive.

“You carry band-aids in your purse?” Namjoon asks, with a raised brow.

“You're the one who cut their finger trying to make a ribbon curl.”

“It wasn’t a criticism, sorry I just thought it was... nice.” He holds up the injury and you're careful to wrap the strip around it.

“Yes well,” Your face heats up as you catch yourself lingering. “Try to stay away from the scissors unless absolutely necessary. I’d rather not have to make a trip to the hospital.”

“That would be counter productive wouldn’t it?” Namjoon laughs outright. 

...

Despite you being the only one to wrap you both manage the evening surprisingly well, pulling in a record donation amount.

“You must be good at your job,” you mutter with a smirk, as you finish counting the lockbox. “I’ve never seen people so happy to part with their money.”

“I only showed them how good of a job you did,” Namjoon explains. “I’ve never seen someone put so much care into wrapping.” 

“First impressions for a gift can be important too.” You justify as you secure the cash in a deposit bag. “They put a lot of care into selecting the gift, why shouldn’t I exemplify that?”

“Even the gift cards?”

“Especially the gift cards. I have to make them memorable somehow don’t I?”

“True.” Namjoon concedes, with a small frown.  “Listen I’m sorry if I didn’t make a good first impression on you myself. If you want I can call Emma and we will find someone else to help you.”

“No, I enjoyed working with you. It just caught me off guard that you didn’t actually know how to wrap. If you get bored of handling the cash I could try and teach you if you’d like... you said you wanted to learn right?”

“You’d be willing to show me?”

“Definitely, though let's stick to the premade ribbon curls. I’d rather not have to use anymore band-aids if I can avoid it.” 

After pulling down the gate and locking up the station up behind. Namjoon accompanies you to the bank to drop off the deposit before you part ways for the evening, with you going out one exit and him another. 

The sudden blast of cold air forces you to huddle in your coat, and crank the heat the very second you step into your car. As the windows to thaw and frost retreats, you spot your tall wrapping partner waiting at the bus stop. 

“Now why would he...” You’re left perplexed judging from the description of his job and quality of his attire you assumed him to drive some sort of flashy car, never would you think he would take public transportation. 

You drive over and stop right in front of Namjoon, rolling down the window. “Where do you live?”

“The Swan Estates, but if you don’t leave near there that’s fine I don’t mind bussing home.” Namjoon looks down the road. “It should be here soon.”

“It’s no problem, I pass by that area on my way home.” You reach across the car for the handle opening the door. “Come on get in. It’s too cold to wait for a bus.”  

Namjoon nods, and eagerly hops into the car holding his hands close to his vents with a sigh. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. I didn’t think to ask, I just assumed-”

“That I could drive?”

You nod giving him a sheepish grin this time. 

“As you saw earlier I’m rather accident prone. I think it’s safer for everyone if I leave the driving to others.” He chuckles looking out the window. “What about you? When not rescuing people from cold transit stops or wrapping disasters, what do you daylight as.”

You grimace at the question knowing your answer is nowhere near as impressive as his. “I’m a phone-rep for Interlude Shipping, I work in their tracking department.”

His reaction is not the usual glazed expression you get when you reveal that you work in a call centre, but a look of awe. “You must be so busy this time of year, how do you have energy for volunteering too?”

“I’m used to it.”

“Do you like it there?”

“It’s... a paycheck. I needed a full time position with benefits right out of school and that was what was available. I would have preferred something else but...” You stop yourself, scolding how much you almost revealed. Finding it far too easy to talk to Namjoon. He doesn’t pester you to continue but lets your abrupt end linger in the silence until he points out his house within the estate. “So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Namjoon nods in agreement with his dimples on full display. “Looking forward to it. Thanks again for the ride.”

After he leaves your car another nervous giggle you’ve been holding in finally escapes you. Three weeks working with this kind, considerate and downright gorgeous man. Though there’s no ring on his finger, he has to be attached to someone. Men like him don’t walk around single for long. Your shoulders fall at the thought, despite the fact that you have no intention of forming an attachment at this time... it’s still too soon. 

Before you even pull out of Namjoon’s driveway, your phone vibrates from the cup holder you stashed it in. Aunt Emma’s name popping up on the display. You press the green button to accept and put her on speaker while you pull out onto the road. 

“Hello my dear, just checking in to see how the first night went?” 

“Good, no great actually. I think you’ll be happy with the result.”

“And your partner? Everything working well with him?”

“Yeah,” You confirm looking up in the rearview mirror taking one last look at Namjoon’s house. “He’s really nice, we already have a system in place so I think we’ll work well together.”

“That’s wonderful to hear. I was worried at first, wondered if I had made the right decision-”

“You did!” You encourage her, not wanting her to change her mind, and make another switch.

“Great, so we’ll carry on as is then. I’ll message Maria to let her know, I think she’s still on shift at the hospital though...” Aunt Emma mutters to herself. “Speaking of which I had to stop by there today and guess who was asking about you?” 

You freeze in the front seat of your car, unable to say his name, but that doesn’t stop your chatty Aunt from continuing on despite your silence. 

“That Jackson, such a nice young man, it’s a pity you-” 

“Aunt Emma, I’m so sorry but I should go. ” You cut her off unwilling to listen to her disappointment over your own personal matter. “It’s getting late and I have work in the morning.”

“Oh of course, no problem dear. Call me if you need anything.” 

When you arrive at your cold and empty apartment. The silence greets you with the usual punch to your gut, just as it has for the past eight months. She should be there to say hello and ask you about your day, just as she always had. But all that’s there to welcome you is the stack of dusty Christmas decor boxes thrown in the corner of the living room. Unwilling to spend another minute alone you sulk off to bed, ready to put another day behind and start the next. But for the first time in a while, you are actually looking forward to a fraction of the never ending cycle. 

...

Whoever said Christmas time is the most wonderful time of year, clearly never worked a customer service job. They’ve never been yelled at for four hours straight, gone to lunch, and then endured another four. With a couple weeks still left until the looming deadline of Christmas you can only imagine what you’ll have to listen to in the coming days. The woes of a parent trying to track down their child's number one gift... it’s enough to send chills down your spine. Just once you’d like to find someone happy on the other end of the line, someone who didn’t need something from you, someone who called just to say hi, and indulge you with a friendly chat. 

With the last call of the day done you throw on your coat, and bolt out of the office before anyone else. Elated by the fact that you have somewhere else to be, happy that someone else is expecting you. Namjoon beats you to the station today, chatting with the other volunteers as they leave. One of them pats you on the arm and delivers a sad smile, you seize with fear and the worry that they had discussed you, but when you find Namjoon beaming without a hint of concern the weight lifts and you can once again forget your loss for now. 

“Hey, how was work?” He asks.

“Good... good.” You cover with a smile not wanting to drag him down. He doesn’t look convinced his eyes narrow and the corner of his lip twitches, but you reciprocate before he can confirm. “How about your day?”

“Quiet, I’ve spent the past few months alongside the curators putting together an exhibit and with it finally finished all that’s left is to wait until it’s over.”

“So you had to stay here for Christmas only to wait for it to end? That’s too bad.”

“There are a couple other tasks I have to attend, an auction, and an event for the patrons, but the tear down on the 24th is pretty important, some of the lenders will want their pieces back in time for Christmas.”

“That’s such a miserable deadline for so much work. Why would they ask you to give up your Christmas Eve to do that? Surely it can be done after the holiday can't it?”

“Not this one, it’s ‘The Gift of Christmas’ Past’ exhibit,” Namjoon explains. “Many people were good enough to donate their family heirlooms for the majority of the season, but come the actual holiday, it’s time for them to return home.”  

You just about fall off your chair in awe. You’ve seen that exhibit advertised everywhere, even been tempted to go yourself, but the thought of going alone has prevented your attendance. “I had no idea, that’s such a popular exhibit, you worked on that?”

“I did, I even helped come up with the idea for it.” Namjoon beams, with a small amount of red rises to the surface of his cheeks. “The curators at the museum have been more than accommodating. I never thought I’d get the chance to step into their roll myself. I was lucky to be given the chance, so you can understand why I had to stay and help them once it’s finished. Of course it’s given me some other opportunities I would never have had in the past too, like the ability to help you here.” 

You nod still looking at him in admiration, while in your mind a further divide falls between you. As friendly as he is to you, it’s obvious that he’s way out of your league. Even if you wanted to pursue something more with him, someone of his status... really it’s a wonder he even looks in your direction, let alone chose to volunteer at this tiny holiday wrapping station.  

Your conversation is interrupted by a mall goer with a bag of gifts. Namjoon helps as best he can, supplying you with tape as he learns over your shoulder. Loaning you his finger to help you knot the ribbon around the gifts. With a sizeable donation left in Namjoon’s care you are both left alone at the table again.

Between clients you do your best to show him how to wrap the small boxes and ready cut paper at your disposal. Though his folding has improved, his use of tape can be considered... excessive. “You shouldn’t need more than three pieces on a present like this.” You chuckle as you catch his hand before it can apply the seventh piece of tape. 

“But your packaging looks so durable compared to mine. How is it supposed to hold together if not for more tape.”

“Years of practice with tighter folds and better adhesive placement.” You analyze his work. “You might be an up and coming art curator but wrapping is my craft.”

Namjoon laughs and grabs a fresh sheet along with the scissors. 

“Should I go fetch my band-aids?” You ask, gazing at the sharp implement with trepidation. 

“No I’ve got this, I’m ready to earn my redemption.” Namjoon folds the paper several times before cutting a rounded edge. “Wrapping might not be my forte, but this I mastered long ago.” He opens up the paper grinning madly as he reveals a perfect snowflake.

You giggle at the innocence of the piece in question. “That is quite impressive, when did you become such a proficient?”

“I’d say I peaked at eight. One evening when it was just my sister and I, we covered my whole house with them. Every surface, every window, plastered with paper snow. Though my parents were less than enthused I like to think of it as my first full art show.”

“What on earth possessed you to do it?” You ask, trying to imagine the look on his parents as they returned home to the indoor flurry.

Namjoon looks up with a heavy expression, for such a lighthearted story why does he look so wary to tell you “A mutual fri-”

But as chance would have it he is once again interrupted by another coming to your station. When the post dinner rush hits you hardly get another chance to chat. 

...

-2 Weeks Until Christmas-

The week passes in much the same way as the past two days, but with each evening session Namjoon is able to improve upon his wrapping skills a little more. To the point where you are comfortable to leave him alone for a few minutes to man the station.

“You’re sure it’s all right if I just run to the washroom for a minute?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“I could put up the be back in five minutes sign if you-”

“Go, I can hold down the fort... just leave the band-aids.” You are ready to let out a big sigh when Namjoon holds up his hands in defeat. “Just kidding, I promise, now go.”

You hurry off as fast as you can swearing when you find a line up. By the time that you are finally able to return you find Namjoon finishing up with an attractive woman and her single gift. You smile at her as you join him behind the table, she pauses, caught off guard for a moment but then hands him the donation along with a slip of paper. 

Namjoon opens it as she walks off. Blushing profusely before throwing it in the trash along with the wrapping scraps. 

“What was that about?”

“Nothing... she just must have gotten the wrong impression.”

“Did she give you her phone number?”

Namjoon nods looking down with guilt. 

“And you're not going to keep it? She was gorgeous.”

“What? No, of course not.”

“Right, I assume that wouldn’t go over well with your girlfriend.” You speculate, seeking to figure out his status once and for all.

“No girlfriend.” Namjoon mutters.

“Boyfriend?” 

“No boyfriend either.” Namjoon smiles. “I just wasn’t looking to get her number.”

You look at him in disbelief. If she wasn’t good enough, there’s no way in hell you could ever dream of being with him.

...

The drive home in the evening is rather quiet. Namjoon’s fingers drag across his lips as if in deep compilation. 

“Any big plans for your couple days of freedom?” With Aunt Emma’s team working the weekend that gives both you and Namjoon some time off, but unfortunately apart. 

“What? Oh yes, I suppose.” He answers as though you dragged him from a stupor. “I have an auction to go to tomorrow for work.”

“Buying art for the museum are you?”

“Not exactly in the market to buy. But if you're not busy you should come along, I would love some company.”

“Not because you would love a drive?”

“No, not at all, I was planning on booking a car tonight. I could come pick you up on the way.”

You shake your head. “No, if we’re going together I’ll drive. No need to waste your money on something like that. What time should I pick you up?”

“I’ll have to double check and get back to you but likely late in the morning?” You nod in agreement as he pulls out his phone. “What’s your number?”

You give it to him and your cell vibrates in your pocket as he sends off a text a second later, leaving you with his own.  

“So I guess I will see you tomorrow now then.”

“It’s a date.” Namjoon smiles as he gets out and leaves you in the car. 

You snort in disbelief, staring after him while he runs off to the front door of his house. No, there’s no way, he can’t be serious, it’s not a date, date. The phone vibrates again, reminding you of the unread message he sent, prompting you to look at it before you drive off home.

This was the only phone number I actually wanted.  See you tomorrow,  - Namjoon  

...

You lie in bed caught between denial and anticipation for what’s to come in the next day. Every moment that excitement bubbles up inside, you are forced to push it down with the weight of scepticism. Namjoon was looking to distract from his lonely Christmas, you are just the band-aid to his superficial wound, but would that be so bad? Haven’t you been using him the past week in the same manner, a mode of distraction? The only difference is the depths of your injuries. While his might be a simple cut repaired by time, yours is a laceration straight to the heart, damage that will soon bleed through a flimsy bandage, but at least you can hide it for now, you can conceal the extent of your misery and enjoy the comfort that is him for the holiday. Ripping that band-aid off won’t hurt, not compared to the damage that has already been done.

You look back at your phone smiling at his message, confirming that this is what you want for now, when to your surprise another comes in. 

KNJ: Are you awake? 

You double check the time, 12:23 a little late for a friendly chat isn’t it?

YN: Yeah, everything okay?

KNJ: That depends, what are your thoughts on Hallmark Christmas movies?

You pause in confusion, questioning his motives for such an odd query. Coming up dry you can give him the most truthful answer you can. 

YN: They’re chestnuts.

KNJ: Chestnuts? 🤔

YN: Palatable only when thoroughly roasted. 🔥🔥🔥

Your phone starts ringing a second later, the caller Namjoon. You pick it up to hear him laughing on the other end. “I’ll have to remember that. You up for burning a film? I could use another open fire, there’s a pretty horrible one on their channel right now.”

“I’m sure I could spark an ember of criticism. How bad are we talking?”

“There’s a made up country, a town that looks like it exists solely for the purpose of celebrating Christmas-”

“And let me guess, a prince?”

“You know it?”

“Nope, just following the trend of tropes.” You grab your earbuds and venture out to the living room wrapped in your blanket, a beverage in hand, and ready to turn on your own TV. With one bud lodge in your ear to listen to Namjoon the other is free to take in the cringeworthy dialogue. “My god why were you watching this?”

“Couldn’t sleep, and I thought this would also help put me in the Christmas spirit, but I can’t stop laughing at how bad it is.” Namjoon chuckles deeply as the heroine stumbles over a mere pebble and falls into the hero’s arm. 

“I don’t think you have any right to laugh at that part.” You join him in laughter. “You two appear to have some similarities.”

“Wait, so does this make me the clumsy lead and you the dashingly perfect love interest?”

“Oh most definitely, I’ll be saving your Christmas.”

“I suppose you are pretty perfect.”  

You’re thankful that Namjoon isn’t there to see your response, silently choking on your glass of water, followed by spilling your sip all down your shirt, further emphasising your next point. “I’m not perfect.”

“Well you should let me see that side sometime, or I will continue to feel like this poor woman who is confronted with someone way out of their league.” 

Namjoon thinks that you're out of his league? “No, I’m sorry but in order for me to save your Christmas based on this movie I have to play the perfect hero.” Of course the leading lady swoons in her prince's arms. “I just wish the characters had more depth, I’ve read kids books with a wider emotional range.”

“Me too. And the timing,” Namjoon scoffs. “It’s always so perfect. They always meet at the perfect moment and latch on immediately only to have everything work out in their favour, and it all claims to be a Christmas miracle, it doesn’t work like that.”

“That sounds like someone’s been scorned before on Christmas.”

“Not scorned no. More like a missed opportunity, one that I’ve regretted for a long while.”

 “Anything I can help with?” You ask. “As the supporting lead that is my mission is it not?”

“Maybe, I’ll have to think about it. Unfortunately my dilemma isn’t so easy to solve.”

“I don’t think anyone's dilemma’s are ever as easy or clear cut as theirs.” You yawn as you lay down on the couch and watch the pitiful drama unfold. “Their world is perfect and always has their back through some sort of mystical power or being.”

   “I think people in the real world call that god...” Namjoon chuckles.

“Yeah well, our god is a shitty writer if this is what their creations come to expect.” You murmur, stifling a yawn.  

“Is that a crack in your shining armour I spy?”

“No, just commentary.” Though your own internal defences are askew, and the longer you watch the more you understand why. It’s jealousy, jealousy of how quickly they overcome any tragedy, and how they do so with a picture perfect life, as if the creators left all the negative emotions, the realistic impacts of trauma, on the cutting room floor. If only you were that perfect love interest that Namjoon wanted you to be... maybe you can keep the facade until the end of the holidays, at least one of you can have a better Christmas for it. 

All you have to do is continue ignoring the most painful parts, a practice you are well versed in considering the boxes still looming in the shadowy corner, still unmoved after all this time. You know nothing good will come from unpacking them, there is no comfort inside, the only thing that could help is long gone, the story which your mother used to read to you every Christmas before you moved here. You’ve hunted through those boxes so many times while she was still here with you, but now that she’s gone you don’t even have the desire to look, nor the strength to store them away. 

...

You wake hours later with a loud crumpling sound in your right ear. Your bud still in place, and your call time continues to count past the 7 hour mark. “Namjoon, are you there?” You inquire with a groggy yawn. 

“Fuck... yeah, did I wake you?” 

“It’s fine, sorry I fell asleep.”

“Don’t worry I did too. But unfortunately I seem to have lost an airpod at some point in the night.” The rustling continues as he chats to you. “I refuse to lose another to this couch, it’s taken so many from me already, you’ think I would have learned by now.”

“Oh, then this is a regular occurrence for you? Chatting up women until you fall asleep,” you scoff.

“No! God no, I just usually fall asleep listening to music and then my cushions eat them when I lower my defences.”

“I leave you to battle it out with your sofa, but what time should I pick you up?” 

“Eleven okay with you?” 

You double check the clock, ensuring you have enough time for a shower and to look presentable. “Yeah that works. I’ll see you then.”

...

You pull into the packed parking lot of a large warehouse. With Namjoon looking dapper in a blazer and peacoat. You yourself are glad to have chosen to dress a bit classier than your usual garb for a Saturday afternoon. When he said it was for work you couldn’t risk dressing down. 

But there is still an air of confusion about your reason for being here. If he’s not attending to buy something for the museum or a client, why is his presence required? The items up for auction are not exactly what you expected, with the majority of it being furniture and woven rugs. You tilt your head in confusion as Namjoon eyes up an old wooden desk. 

“Sorry,” He mutters, seeing you as he comes to from his distracted state. “I have a personal weakness for such items.”

“Don’t be, but is that why we're here?”

“No, although it is tempting.” He nods over to a collection of old black and white sketches on the wall across from you, graphite scenes of the city from long ago judging by subject matter and the yellowing of the paper behind the frame. “They’re the real reason we’re here. When I heard of this estate sale I knew that some of those works would likely come to market. I’m here to find out who buys them, and hopefully see if we can secure a possible loan for the museum in the future.”  

“So how do you do it? How do you convince them to part with such pieces other than that dangerous smile of yours?”

Namjoon humours you, flashing his most coveted weapon. “Many of the artworks found at estate sales like this, they’ve fallen into disrepair. They often haven’t been cared for, likely kept in some musty room where the humidity damages them. The museum has a team of top rated and highly respected conservators who would be able to properly preserve it and slow any further deterioration, and in exchange for their services we ask for a short term loan of the art. 

“A win-win.” 

“I like to think so, but some people are rather protective of their investment. It can be a tricky negotiation which I have been on both sides of when I worked for the private sector.” 

“Which do you prefer more?”

“Definitely the public. The museum doesn’t pay as much, but the audience and notoriety far greater. I really hope that I can continue my work with them once my initial contract ends.”

“I assume securing this for them will help in that goal?” You nod to the pieces, admiring the sought after collection. 

“One can only hope. Who knows, maybe I’ll get my Christmas miracle like the movies promised.” He jokes, putting his hand on your shoulder and leading you on. 

While you and Namjoon continue to look around at the lots up for bidding, he proceeds to fawn over the wooden art and furniture, taking pictures and looking up the makers. 

You can’t help but enjoy his interest, watching his eyes go wide and his mouth gasp when he’s found something which intrigues him. “Have you ever purchased something for yourself at one of these?” 

“A few things, tables, chairs, and books too. It’s a great place to find unique pieces, or things lost to the past.” He gives you a shy smile. “Is there anything you’d like to look for?”

A possible item springs to the forefront of your mind. “Do they have any books here now?” 

Namjoon grins at your request and leads you over to several crates filled to the brim with books. All the copies inside look to be older editions of epic novels, nothing like what you hope to find. Your heart sinks as you let out a sigh of disappointment.

“Can I help?”

“Nah, I think I’m out of luck. I was looking for a kid’s picture book. I briefly met someone at the wrapping station who found a copy second hand, must have been at a sale like this. I was hoping I would have the same success, but that seems like a bit of a far reach.” Had it not been their gift to someone else you would have made them an offer for it or even gotten their name at the very least, but you were so distracted at the time... all you can see and remember to this day was the book in front of you.

“I’m sorry-” Namjoon starts with an unnecessary apology, it wasn’t his fault that you lost the favourite book of your youth, that you missed the chance to give your mother one last glimpse of the pages with you before she passed.

“It’s fine,” You cut him off not wanting to dwell on the loss or risk deteriorating that perfect cover right here in front of him, in front of everyone, when he has something important to attend to. “Should we go find seats before they start the auction?”

Namjoon nods, seeming to examine your eyes with careful study, but he will find no tears, no dampness there, those are locked away tight. He escorts you to a seat near the back. “This way we can get a better view of those bidding without looking out of place.”

The auction lots pass by with many remaining silent. Namjoon points out several antique dealers to you that are snapping up many of the pieces. But the rest of the buyers all appear to be waiting for the same prize that Namjoon is. 

“Do you have any favourites to win?” You whisper to him as the collection is carried into view.

“I’m hoping for anyone I’ve dealt with in the past.” Namjoon nods in the direction of a middle aged woman dressing in a fur trimmed coat and strands of pearls draped around her neck. “Mrs. Coleman already has a few works in one of the exhibits, and Mr. Roth over there.” He turns to a man wearing a tweed jacket and a sturdy wooden cane in hand. “Is one of the most notable patrons of the museum.”

Silence falls in the room as the auctioneer takes up the gavel again and describes the works. Many around you sit up a little straighter as Namjoon’s eyes dart around at those he thinks might attempt to purchase.

The bids flood in, with very few gaps for breath as the numbers are rattled off. It takes only two minutes before the going price is more than your annual salary. You lower yourself, pooling in your seat as the extravagant wealth is thrown around you. 

Once the pace slows, Namjoon's face highlights his concern, his eyes glancing back and forth between two people, the older lady in mink he spoke of before, and an unknown man with a cell pressed to his ear. 

As the wooden hammer drops so do the corners of Namjoon’s lips. 

“And sold to the gentleman on the phone number three-two-eight, number three-two-eight for sixty-five thousand.” The auctioneer announces. 

“Shit.” Namjoon mutters under his breath.

“What, what happens now?”

“Now we have an anonymous buyer who I have no ability to meet or advise.” He sighs, hanging his head, with his fingers dragging across his mouth again.

“I’m so sorry.” You whisper as he nods next to you taking several deep breaths. Your hand reaches out to his arm and he turns to you with a small smile.

“It’ll be fine, I’ll figure something out, but I might as well make the most out of my time here.” With the auction now over he rises from his seat and approaches one of the museum's patrons with an outreached hand. “Mr. Roth, good to see you, you’ll be attending the final night of the exhibit I hope, and who is this with you...”

While Namjoon continues to make pleasantries and exchange business cards you keep your eye on the sketches watching as they are rolled behind the desk and packed away in crates. You approach the area where one of the clerks is recording and distributing the information for the now rightful owners, with a mob of bidders descending on him for their newly purchased items so they might leave as soon as possible. 

It would seem that this business too is feeling the crunch of Christmas. A flurry of paperwork is exchanged in haste passing from one hand to the next, until one signed receipt of purchase escapes his notice and falls to the ground in front of you. Picking it up you wait for the crowd to clear, giving the clerk a chance to recover before you approach with the lost sheet, setting it on the desk before him. His confused gaze soon changes to outright shock over his loss when he realizes what you’ve returned.

He thanks you profusely, causing you wonder how much strife he would have encountered had you not been there to return it. “No problem, you look like you have a lot on your plate.” You smile politely, attempting to soothe your fellow casualty of the Christmas rush. “I just have a question for you though, if that’s okay?” 

“Not at all how can I help?” He agrees, his stance far more relaxed than it was with the horde a few moments before. 

“My friend, he was hoping to get in contact with the purchaser of those sketches there, on behalf of a museum. I don’t suppose there’s any way we could get a hold of them, is there?”

“I’m sorry but not at liberty to divulge that ma’am.” Your rising hope falls, you knew it would be a long shot but you didn’t want to leave without trying. “However... if there’s a phone number or information regarding the museum’s interest I can include that in the paperwork to send off along with the purchase.”

“Really? You would do that?”

When the clerk confirms, you immediately turn on your heel and take a step in Namjoon’s direction before bumping into his solid chest, not realizing that he had already come to find you. 

“What are you doing-”

“Getting you that miracle.” You grab one of his business cards from his hand, and turn back around to give it to the clerk who tucks it into the envelope along with the other documentation. “Thank you.” You smile at the clerk who returns the gesture.

“And you said I have a dangerous smile?” Namjoon mutters as he leads you away with a chuckle. “What did he say exactly?”

“That he would include it with the paperwork for the sale. I just hope they will reach out and call you.”

“Me too.” Namjoon smiles, but it doesn't quite appear to reach his eyes. “Shall we head out. I think I’m done here.”

The drive home is rather quiet, the weight of Namjoon’s gloom hanging in the air and he makes no attempt to hide it. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just trying to figure out where to go from here,” he groans. “Those sketches were going to be the start of something new for me. I know the buyer might still come through but I’m not going to hold my breath. I need to keep searching for what comes next, I’m just a little lost, but I’ll find my path again soon.”

“You make it sound so easy.” 

“Sometimes it is, sometimes life will drop it right in front of me and other times I will have to search for it, but that’s a problem for after the holidays.” Namjoon looks out his window at the lights which start to come alive as you drive home. “Are you ready for the big day?”

“Christmas?” You give a nervous laugh, “No, I haven’t even put up any decorations.”

“Why not?!” Namjoon asks in alarm. 

“Just haven’t really felt the need this year. There’s no one there to enjoy them but myself.”

“Which makes it all the more important to put them up.” Namjoon sits up in his seat, his whole persona changing. “I could help you if you’d like?”

You wince over the quandary. With your decorations sitting in your living room under an inch of dust it might arouse some confusion, and his heart would likely sink if he knew how long they actually rested there for. “I’m not sure I’m quite ready for it yet. Maybe another time?”

...

-1.5 Weeks Until Christmas-

Work continues to degrade as the countdown progresses. The only thing getting you through the shifts is the thought of Namjoon’s help at the stand. But as soon as Christmas is over, you wonder if your friendship will go the same way as the festive season, cast aside like the wrapping of the gifts you tended to in the weeks prior. 

After a few days of busy shifts you’re both thankful to make it to another close. But when you are packing up the station Namjoon’s phone starts to ring. He looks down in confusion at the number without a contact attached. “Do you mind?” 

“No, not at all.”

He grins as he answers the phone pacing further back into the vacant shop space and away from the sounds of the echoing mall. You continue to count off the deposit, and roll the wrapping paper. Trying your best not to listen, to give Namjoon his privacy, however you can’t help but notice the happiness in his tone, spotting his dimples from across the room when you sneak a glance. When you grab to move the last box of bows Namjoon ends his call. Tears glisten in the corners of his eyes accompanied by the widest smile you’ve ever seen from him.

“That was- that was the buyer.” He explains as he comes to help you with the final box, taking it from your hands and placing it on the back shelf. “He wants to meet with me this weekend.”

He’s so close, vibrating with an overwhelming delight. His arms move around you as though he is about to pull you in for a gracious hug. You start to congratulate him as he embraces you, “Really?! That’s gre-” only to be cut off when his lips come for yours instead. Once the shock evaporates, you start to appreciate the heat of the moment, the warmth of his skin, the softness of his mouth. Your hands reach up to his toned shoulders and neck pulling him down, diminishing the space between you. Breathing him in like this with your eyes closed, nothing else matters in the moment, nothing other than his firm chest pushing back against yours, his hands on your waist gripping at your shirt.  

With a deep sigh and a bite to his own lip he pulls back. “Sorry I just-”

“Don’t, don’t apologize.” You cut him off this time.  

“I can’t even begin to thank you.” 

“I hardly did anything.” You laugh at the extremeness of his appreciation, though a small part of you dies when you realize his kiss was nothing more than a gesture of gratitude.

 “That’s not true...” He responds, giving you his wide eyes and a shy smile.

On the drive home your companion can barely contain his delight, breaking into random smiles and laughter as he informs his coworkers of the success via text. 

“There’s this event...” Namjoon starts, as you pull in front of his home. “At the museum on the twenty-third, a week from today, I was wondering if you’d like to go with me.” 

“Next Wednesday? But we have a shift at the wrapping station.”

“I spoke to Emma a few days ago and she agreed to cover if we both wanted to go.”

“Emma, making a change so close to Christmas? I don’t buy it. What did you offer her in return?” You ask with a critical gaze. The woman runs such a tight schedule, only something great or important would have prompted her to agree.

“My next year of service.” Namjoon confesses, he looks down at his feet as though he might buckle from the embarrassment. 

“Next year? You already promised to work it?”

“If you want me there that is. I’ll practice more in the meantime, I promise I won’t leave you to all of the difficult packages.” Namjoon chuckles. “But what do you say, will you go with me?”

“Ye-yeah I would love it’s just...” You stutter trying to come up with a good excuse but your brain draws a blank leaving only the truth. “I don’t know how well... how well I’ll fit in there.”

“What? No, why would you think that?” Namjoon places his hand on your leg while you drive. A move which causes the both of you to pause in reaction and him to retreat. “Trust me when I say you belong there more than anyone else.”

You nod your head and give him a small smile, wishing more than anything his hand would return. “I’ll come if you want me there. What’s the attire?”

“Semi-formal, and don’t worry about driving I’ll pick you up.” 

...

-2 Days Until Christmas-

You stand in front of your mirror, wearing a dress which fits your shape perfectly, but stretches your pocket book significantly. The price tags hanging down from the zipper taunt you, tempting you to rip them away, to commit to the indulgence. Even if it’s only for a night, the payoff in the end might be worth the overpriced lace. You give in with a snip of the scissors and a swallow of guilt, letting the printed cardstock hit your bedroom floor. 

 You’ve spent the past couple of hours leading up to this moment in a fit of stress cleaning, disposing of the dust bunnies. Now at least if Namjoon comes over after... you won’t be completely off guard.

The phone on your bedside vibrates with a new message.

KNJ: Just pulling in.

YN: Be right down.

Sliding your shoes on and grabbing what you need, you leave your empty apartment with a growing smile on your face. The moment you can see the car from the buildings foyer both Namjoon and the driver exit the vehicle, though Namjoon is quick to wave the driver back to his seat, choosing instead to hold the door for you himself. 

The thoughtful gesture is made more appealing as if it gives you a full view of your date in his dark three piece suit, his hair tamed back framing his handsome face, whose gaze appears to be giving you the once over for you too.

“You wrap up nice.” Namjoon jokes.

“Of course, I couldn’t embarrass you now could I? Have to land that first impression.”

“You would never. Besides I’m sure my colleagues will be fascinated to know who has enough courage to teach me how to wrap.”

“And how do you plan on introducing me to those colleagues of yours? As your date or your teacher?” You laugh.

“I was actually hoping I could introduce you as my girlfriend.” 

“Your girlfriend for tonight?” You panic, not expecting this development. “Wait, is this one of those fake dating scenarios? Did you tell them you had one and then-”

“I think we’ve been watching too much Hallmark.” Namjoon laughs and shakes his head. “No this is not one of those scenarios, but I’ll take whatever form of companionship you are the most comfortable with.”

He gives you the stare of a man who is looking for more, but you know he won't need you once the holidays pass. His loneliness is temporary, yours is permanent. You’d rather not get your hopes up only to have them lost as he fades away in the cold gloom of January when his family returns. “Let’s see where it goes.”

Upon arrival Namjoon leads you through the massive doors by hand, taking your coat and checking it. The main hall just off the entrance is filled with patrons and staff all mingling and drinking while dining on tiny hors d’oeuvres. You look at the crowd with apprehension.  

Namjoon’s fingers interlace with yours again, a grip clearly intended to give you confidence. “I’ll introduce you to some of the staff first.” 

Several people congratulate Namjoon on the exhibit as he passes, he responds giving them a brief thank you as he ushers you through the crowd. Stopping at a small group of two, who greet Namjoon with a warm welcome. 

“Thank god you’re here, people have kept asking for the brains behind the exhibit.”

“And why didn’t you answer them.” Namjoon smiles before turning to introduce you to them, following up with the man who just spoke. “This is Eric Nam, a curator who I worked on the project with.”

“Don’t pass the torch, we both know it was your idea, I just helped put it into motion.” His coworker smiles gazing at you. “And you must be the one Namjoon has talked so much about.” 

The heat rises to your face as you look to Namjoon who confirms the statement with his own embarrassment. “Thank you Eric for sharing that with her...”

“No problem, it’s the least I could do for someone who gave you the insp-”

Namjoon coughs and shakes his head, cutting off his verbose friend. 

You're about to question your partner himself when the other colleague of his starts asking you questions. “What do you do for a living Ms....” You remind her of your name while Namjoon spotting refreshments wanders off with a whispered promise to get you both a drink. 

“I-I work for Interlude Shipping, in their tracking department.” You explain clasping your hands together in an attempt to settle your nerves.

“Oh, how nice...” The false quaintness in her tone is matched with a smirk as she takes a sip of wine. “Maybe you can help me find out if my sister’s present will arrive in time tomorrow.” 

“Valerie...” Eric growls. 

“What? I’m merely curious about her employment.” She smirks at him before continuing to her inquisition. “How long have you worked there? Did you have to get a degree for your role?” 

“No,” This is exactly what you were afraid of coming here, you just didn’t think the judgement would be coming from someone who works with Namjoon. “I started there right after high school. I didn’t have the luxury to go to an elite school to work in a place like this.” 

Eric comes over and claps you on the back. “Neither did Valerie; she just has family on the board.” Giving a coy smile to his coworker who scowls and stalks off without another word to you.  “In fact you’ve actually done more work here than her in the past month. I hear you’ve been helping Namjoon secure the collection we’ve been after?” 

You nod looking off after the departed curator, worried as to what impact your interaction could have with Namjoon’s position here.

“Don’t worry about her. She’s just bitter that Namjoon didn’t ask her to accompany him here.”

“Oh, does she- do they-”

“Fuck no, but if she’s not everyone’s first choice she’s not happy.” Eric gets in a little closer. “You don’t have to worry about Namjoon looking elsewhere, if he’s at all hesitant it’s just because he’s a little cautious with you.”

“Why would he be cautious?”

“Why would who be cautious?” Namjoon asks, handing you a drink as he appears by your side again. 

 “Mr. Roth, that man should be careful. I heard he had hip surgery recently.” Eric responds, cutting in with a lie to cover your discussion. “It's good of him to still join us tonight, but enough about that, why don’t you go show her the exhibit before it gets too crowded in there?”

Namjoon offers up his arm in agreement. “I suppose we can get started on the tour, if you’d like.”

“Yes please,” You answer, threading your arm through his. “Thanks again Eric, it was nice meeting you.”

“You too, I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.” 

The stand next to the entrance bears all the names of those involved in the creation and a countless list of those who loaned out pieces to make it possible. “There’s so many involved, how large is this exhibit?”

“Not too big, you’ll see why there’s such a long list soon.”

When the door opens you find yourself in a hallway amidst what you can only describe as a snowstorm. The walkway, made to look like an alley set adrift in snow, with flickering lights and paper creations hanging from the ceiling. “Did you make any of those?” You ask, grinning as you squint through the flurrying beams.

“No, I left those to the talents of the students who came by on school field trips. It didn’t take them long before we had enough.”

“Find any new prodigies?”

“Several.” He answers, before pointing to the mounted photos on the wall. “But these works here are some of my favourites.” The pictures are framed to seem as though the viewer is looking in through the pains of a window to happy holiday scenes. From unwrapping presents around the tree to the busy crowds of your very own mall, each image sets out to draw from you a sense of nostalgia. 

“I can see why.” You find yourself lingering on the last of the photos by an accredited local photographer, savouring the display as much as you can, worried that it might end too soon. 

“Don’t worry,” Namjoon whispers, taking your hand in an eager urge to press on, “There’s plenty more to look at.” He points to the end of the hallway, where you find another door, though this one is dressed with a knocker and wreath looking as if it’s the entrance to someone's home.

You open the door to reveal a series of rooms connected by one long hallway. The first you step into you washes over you with warmth and comfort, the sound of a cracking fire surrounds you while the light of fake embers flows from the side. Set up through the room are tables of items from old to new ranging from Christmas tree ornaments, and household decorations to handwritten cards. “All of these-”

“Were loaned by families from the region, they gave a piece of their history and traditions up for most of the season so everyone could enjoy it. Over here we have...”

You could spend hours sitting and admiring in this room alone, but more than anything you want to push on more to see Namjoon’s excitement in sharing it with you. Each room features a different spot of the home. A chilly shed with vintage toboggans and sleds, a kitchen, stuffed with cookbooks and the smells of baking featuring countless cookie cutters of every shape and size. 

The next room is a little unusual and different from the rest, throwing you off for a moment, when the distinct scent of pine hits your nose. In the centre you find what look to be the replication of a massive trunk, and above false branches twinkling with lights. All round in a circle you find toys in glass cases spanning generations, when it hits you. “Are we under the Christmas tree?”

Namjoon gives you his coveted dimpled grin. “Yeah, do you like it?”

“I do. I can’t believe you managed all of this.” You exclaim hurrying between each display like a kid on Christmas morning. From wagons, and Rubik’s cubes, all the way to Furbies and gaming systems he has the whole collection of popular toys throughout the years.  

Namjoon beams with pride once you’ve circled the entirety of the fake trunk and the presents beneath it. “Only one room left, but I think you’ll like this one the most.”

You're ushered into the next, a dimly lit space, a bed with a quilted cover stands in the centre, and on the walls you find countless story books, pinned open to so their stunning art is on display, papering the room with climatic holiday scenes and loveable characters. In one you find Scrooge meeting the ghost of Christmas past, in another you witness the Grinch save the sleigh from a perilous fall. Namjoon was right, this is without a doubt your favourite. While people filter in and out, you take your time looking at each set of pages. Your pace slow and steady, until you reach the special story that stops you entirely, the book you lost long ago, and have been trying to find ever since. Drawn on the pages before you is a little blue koala, with a pale purple nose, round ears, and a smile that lights up his face as he cuts out dozens of snowflakes. Namjoon stands behind you with a hand on your shoulder as you gaze at the book you know to be titled ‘Koya’s Christmas.’ 

You take a deep breath, while trying not to bend to the tears that threaten to break from your eyes. Focusing your attention instead to seek out the owner of the book, but unlike most there is no nameplate attached to this desirable artifact. “Namjoon, who loaned this? Is there any way I could contact them?”

When he gives you a sad smile, your gut clenches over the possibility that this might be a similar issue to what happened at the auction, a lender who wishes to remain anonymous. The only difference here being that you’ll fight Namjoon for the information if you have to. You’ve already let this book escape from you last year, you refuse to let it happen again. “Please, I’ll-” Just when you are about to plead with Namjoon’s integrity, another memory of your past walks into the room, but this one unfortunately has more tragic ties. “Shit,” you whisper, shifting to put your date between you and the newcomer. 

Namjoon catching the change in your expression immediately reaches out in concern. “What? What’s wrong?”

“There's someone I know just over there,” You nod in the direction behind Namjoon. “I’d like to avoid him if I can. Sorry, it-it’s complicated. ”

 Namjoon puts his hands on your shoulders, eyeing a path the closest exit without letting go of you. “Do you want to leave?”

“If that’s okay?” And just when you thought you were free, when you were ready to make a break for the door. The man in question, spots you and calls out your name.

You turn to face him, trying your best to keep your tone even and your lips pulled into a smile. “Jackson? Hey, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s been so long, not since...” Thankful he stops, not dragging up the subject you wish to avoid. 

Namjoon moves closer, moving his arm from your shoulder around your waist, a comforting and protective gesture. “Dr. Wang... I had no idea the two of you were acquainted.” 

“You know him?” You ask Namjoon, your concern rocketing over what else your date might become privy to. 

“Dr. Wang was the phone bidder. I invited him here tonight to see the work we do.”

“The exhibit was impressive, I can’t wait to see what you have planned next.” Jackson confirms. 

“I should go and let the two of you discuss-” You ready to step away when Namjoon’s hand grabs yours and Jackson calls your name again.

“No reason for you to leave, we should catch up.”

“May-maybe later?” You plead with him fighting back the tears, pushing down the memories his presence drags up. “Sorry I just, I need to go.”

You pull your hand free and race to the exit.  

“Wait.” You can hear Namjoon call behind you. Though you continue to proceed out the exhibit and towards the closest exit outside, breaking into the cold evening air, only to find that he still followed. “Let me call for the car and we can go together.”

You stop in realization that your running will not deter him, he’ll pursue you unless you give him a reason otherwise. “No you should stay, this is your big event, I won’t ruin it for you.”

“Not without you.”

“Please Namjoon,” you beg, adamant that he return. “I don’t belong in there, I don’t fit in and I never will. Even when I try...” The ghosts of your past have a way of finding you and destroying your facade.

“I’ve told you before you belong in there more than anyone else-”

“That’s not true. I can barely keep myself together. I can’t, I can’t go back in, I'm sorry.”

“I don’t understand, what does Dr. Wang have to do with it? Did he hurt you? Did he-”

“No! No, he did nothing of the sort. Jackson was always very kind to me. Don’t let me affect your plans or any arrangement, you should go back and talk to him, I just can't be there.”  

“You think I’m going to just drop you for him, especially when he makes you so uncomfortable? No, I’m leaving with you.”

“Fuck, just... please listen to me. He is a good man, he’s a good doctor, you would be foolish to give up this chance.”

“A good doctor...” Namjoon pauses as a grimace hits his face. “Does he have something to do with your mother?”

“How-How do you know about that?” 

“I didn’t mean to pry, I swear. It's just, when I was first talking to Emma about you, out of concern she opened up about your past... about your mother, about your loss.”  

“She told you?” Aunt Emma, you should have known she would do something like that, god forbid at least one person not know your history. “Then all of this, these past few weeks were they all out of pity?” You should have known, there was no way he would like someone like you. It was all out of sorrow for what you’ve been through.

“Not pity no, I like you, I like you a lot. When Emma said you were pushing her and so many others away... I concealed it out of fear of losing you too. I wanted you to open up about it until you were ready. I was just trying to help you get through this.”

You look up at the museum, drawing a distressing connection between Namjoon’s daily life and you. “Why? You think I’m some abandoned project you rescued from a deceased’s estate? One for you to mend, and later show like an achievement? You should have just left me where I was, instead of breaking me further.”  

   Namjoon’s hands immediately pull back from you. “I never meant to hurt you. Only help you move on, you can’t deny that you are frozen in place. You have so much more potential, but you're living in denial.”

“I live there because it hurts less...” You snap back in fury, as he exposes your painful flaws. “I live there so I can work, so I can help others.”

“But what about you? When will you let someone help you?”

You step away unable to answer his question, turning your back on him you race to the sidewalk to hail a nearby taxi, refusing to let him see a single tear fall. 

Once home, you crawl into bed after throwing the dress to the floor. This was so far from the evening you had hoped it to be, with you instead left alone to ruminate on Namjoon’s words. Despising all the evidence he laid bare against you, turning it over again and again in your mind until your morning alarm startles you out of your stupor. Signalling for the last shift before your break for the holidays. 

...

-Christmas Eve- 

It’s finally here, the worst of all days at the call centre. With your eyes heavy from a lack of rest you take a seat at your desk with an extra large coffee in hand. On your computer you have this morning's team email pulled up, and attached to it a list of de-escalation tactics. You’ll need them today because if people don’t get their package by the end of the routes this evening, there’s no hope for tomorrow morning. 

The call board on your phone is already lighting up like a Christmas tree, but you know those little embers to be fuelled by wrath, fury and unkept promises of delivery dates.   

You try your best to remain calm during the egregious conversations. Offering up tips and tricks to parents who are worried that this will be the year that their child gives up on Santa because your company failed to deliver. 

Your lunch break can’t come soon enough. But when you finally check your own phone it’s littered with texts from Namjoon. Messages of concern, apologies, and the hopes that he will still see you at the wrapping station tonight. He even sent a picture of your abandoned coat and promised to bring it along. 

Fuck, you had completely forgotten about you wrapping shift together. Just one more night, then you can put it all behind you again. If you can just keep your cover for a few more hours then it’ll all be over and Aunt Emma will have what she was promised. 

You send Namjoon a quick message confirming that you will be there, but not promising any more before you head back to your desk. 

The calls get progressively worse with several people using foul language and demanding to speak to your supervisor, you try to talk them down as best you can knowing any call passed on to the higher ups will reflect poorly on your efforts.

Until one woman calling in search of her package finally wears you down, insulting you, your profession, even your family.

“Ma’am I’m sorry but if you continue to speak to be in such a way I am well within my right to disconnect the call.” A desperate bluff, your superiors would rather them end the call than you, you’ve been penalized for it before, and you’ll be damned if it happens again. But unfortunately she calls your hand.

“You will not! I have spent hours on the line trying to reach anyone. The shortsightedness of your company and staff is all too apparent.” 

“It’s the holiday sea-”

 “I know what time of year it is, but it seems your staff doesn’t realize Christmas is tomorrow!” 

“You ordered your package past the guarantee date, we could not insure-”

“Now you listen to me, if there was any form of intelligence in that office you’d be working hard to ensure that all packages make it out before tomorrow morning, but instead you just sit on your ass fielding phone calls and giving excuses so you don’t have to actually go out and do honest labour. You must be the biggest disappointment to your family, not even having a proper job. How can you go home and face them knowing you've left so many without their gifts?”

With the woman's last insult, something inside you finally snaps, giving you the freedom to do what you’ve dreamed of for so long. “I don’t,” you pronounce, building up to take your final shot at both her and your employment. “Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to let you go, as I’d rather not listen to your nonsensical bitching. So merry fucking Christmas to you ma’am, I suggest you go spend it with your own family if they’re willing to put up with your pompous ass.” You hang up the phone and pull off the headset, refusing to answer the next blinking light that comes on to replace it.

You just sit there looking at it denying the next caller their chance at verbal abuse, and your company's lax policy to protect you from it. The chatter of apologies continue to echo around you as your coworkers press on, but after the years of abuse you can no longer hold it in. Your company always said that this position was a stepping stone to greater things, that opportunities would come you just had to wait a little longer, but after being shackled by circumstances, and no forthcoming higher step to take, you refuse to press on any longer. 

...

You pull into the mall parking lot, far too early for your slot at the wrapping stand, with the contents of your desk now stationed in the trunk of your car. Taking refuge in the women's bathroom cleaning your face of the tears you shed on the way over as you try not to think too much about what you’ve just done. After refusing to concede and admit to any wrong doing you quit, telling them to shove their shitty policies right back where they came from.

Namjoon was right... and with the mall closing early tonight you’ll only have two hours with him, two hours to smooth the tension over and allow for an amicable goodbye while maintaining your cover. 

He’s already waiting for you, with your coat in hand, when you show up. The look of pity that you never wanted to see grace his face directed at you. “Are you okay?”

“Fine... I just would prefer if we didn’t talk about last night. I’m sorry for what I said, and now I just want to let it all go if that’s okay with you?” You smile up at him extending the olive branch.

Namjoon nods looking down at the floor as his hands habitually fold a scrap piece between his fingers. The silence between you is drowned out by the carols echoing down the emptying halls of the mall.

“Didn’t expect it to be so slow.” Namjoon mutters after what seems like an age with no one coming to the stand.

“On Christmas eve? Yeah generally people are home by now, spending time with their-” You force yourself to stop, unable to say a word which will bring sorrow to your heart and loneliness to Namjoon’s.  

 “I’m sorry I can’t do this,” Namjoon interjects. “I want to talk about last night, I need to talk about it.”

“Now is not the time.”

“There’s no one here but you and me. It’s just us, the mall is closing, it's our last shift, if not now when?”

“Anytime but now. The last twenty-four hours have been the worst in my life since-since...” You take a deep breath burying the wave of sadness and regret back down in your chest refusing to let it out. “Please, just forget it okay?”

“Not until you stop shielding yourself like that.” Namjoon scolds you. “I’m tired of you living in fear that your tears will erode your cover, and that your anger will tear it away entirely. I’m tired of you thinking that people will only appreciate you if you maintain this perfectly wrapped state. You might think it’s pretty, that it’s convenient for everyone else, but you are only keeping others out.” 

“Maybe I keep it on so that you won’t be disappointed in what you find when it’s discarded. A sad woman, with no direction, no dreams, unable to cope with loss, and I suppose I can add unemployed to the list now. Is that what you want to see? Is that what you want to find?”

“That’s not all you are... and as for your job, I’m sorry but fuck it. It’s about time you moved on to better things, that place was only holding you back, you deserve so much more.”

“No I don’t, do you want to know why I worked there? Do you? I took that job to make sure she got the care she needed. I promised her when she got better I would quit and find something else, but she never did. But if I leave now I’m accepting the fact that she’s gone... that she doesn’t need me anymore, because I couldn’t do enough to keep her here.” The first tear falls breaking through the long standing divide.

“Staying there wouldn’t have brought her back. Tormenting yourself by remaining frozen in place, won’t bring her back. It’s Christmas for god sake and you are being kind to everyone else but yourself.” 

“This isn’t Christmas for me. If it was, she would be here... not you. I’m tired too. I'm so tired of looking at her chair and- and-”

Namjoon wraps his arms around you pulling you forward as your emotions tear through the shroud. He moves you to the back of the vacant store sitting you among the boxes. “I’ll be right back okay?” You nod, while he tugs the table in and drags the gate down to indicate that you are now closed. When he returns his eyes too are starting to redden. His hands brush through your hair, the side of his palm pressing on your cheek and catching your tears. After seeing one of his own fall you crush yourself against his chest, clinging harder to him than before. His lips touch the top of your head, his hands rubbing on your back and arms as he waits, waits for you to be the first to pull away. The lights for every other store shut off around you the music lowers, all that’s left is the retreating chatter of those going to celebrate the eve of Christmas, and still you hold on to him. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t been a very good substitute.” He whispers, encouraging you to finally lean back and admit your denial, accepting his efforts to help, when you yourself wanted to do the same for him. 

“Don’t say that, it was never going to be a happy holiday for me, just something I needed to get past. But for you, I at least wanted to make yours better, I’m sorry I wasn’t a very good one either.”

“You never were a substitute. You were the one I wanted to spend the holidays with. A different Christmas than usual but no less enjoyable.” 

“That’s sweet of you to say.” You smile, but you doubt it’s true. “I suppose we should go...” 

“What about all the supplies?”

“Emma will come by in a few days to collect it all.” You grab the small donation from the lock box and seal it in the plastic pouch, while Namjoon rummages through his own bag. “Do you still want a ride home?”

“If you're offering, I would love one.” The flap of his satchel closes as he stops his search and instead goes with you to the bank and finally your car. You hadn’t checked the forecast for tonight so finding your car buried in a few inches of snow comes as an unexpected sight. At least with Namjoon’s help cleaning it off is a quick task.

Once inside you both warm your hands on the sputtering heater, changing them on the wheel as you continue to thaw your fingers while you drive. 

“Do you have any plans for the next couple of days?” Namjoon presses, though hesitant in his tone.

“Maybe look for some jobs, and take a good long nap?” You answer with a dark chuckle, still preferring to miss the entire holiday if you could. “You?”

“No, nothing in mind. But if you wake up and want to come over, you're more than welcome to spend it at my place.”

You return both hands to the wheel as the road becomes more difficult to drive on, your tires slipping here and there on the ice beneath the snow. “I’ll think about it, though depending on how much snow we get tonight we might both be stranded at home.”

You pull through the neighbourhood gates and up Namjoon’s driveway. With the car stopped he once again dives into his leather bag and pulls out a thin rectangular gift he looks to have wrapped himself. Dressed as per usual, with far to many pieces of tape, he hands it over to you. “I know this won’t make up for everything, but I want you to have this. Consider it a very belated Christmas gift.” 

“Belated? But Christmas isn’t until tomorr-” You take the present and succeed in pulling back the wrapping to reveal the book that you were reunited with just the night before. “Oh...” You look up from the cover to find the return of the sad smile on his face you saw in the museum. “But if this is late then, last Christmas, it-it was you? You were the one at the stand... with this?”

...

-One Year Ago-

You are counting down the hours and minutes until the mall closes, until you can pick your mother up from her doctor's appointment and head home, to your promised tradition of putting up the decorations. The past few weeks have been so busy, with work, volunteer shifts, and her treatments at the hospital, you’ve made it all the way to Christmas eve with the tree and ornaments still packed away in boxes, sitting in the corner of your living room since December first. 

Aunt Emma is currently taking your mother’s position at the cashbox, thanks to the scheduling of the last minute check up. You light up your phone again checking the time, only an hour left. 

“You can head out if you want my love,” Aunt Emma offers while swaying and humming to the carols. “It’s quiet enough for me to manage myself.”

You grin embarrassed by your desire for a hasty departure. “No it’s fine. I’m still waiting for the phone call to say she’s done, otherwise I’ll just end up waiting at the hospital.”  

“Suit yourself.” She stands up to look down the halls of the mall. “Oh, I think we might have someone, he’s heading this way. He’s cute too, you should give him your number and put that mother of yours at ease.”

“Aunt Emma, I don’t need your dating-” You look in the direction she was speaking of losing the rest of your words when you find a tall beaming man coming closer to your station.

“If you need me I’ll just be in the back fetching more ribbon.” 

“But we have plenty.”

“Doesn’t hurt to be prepared.” She waves herself off when he makes it to your table.

“Hi,” He greets you with the warmest smile and an even tone. “I was wondering if I could get these wrapped together?” He holds up a bag of gifts which he hands over to you.

“Of course. Any preference on paper?”

“Whatever you think is best, it’s for my mom. Just a bottle of her favourite perfume and something a little more special.”

You open the bag to find a small box containing the fragrance, and the other what looks to be a kids picture book. But what initially seems to be an odd choice for his mother, slams your chest with nostalgia when you see the cover and read the title.

“Koya’s Christmas.” You laugh with delight, you can’t stop yourself from smiling when you examine the artistry. The memories it brings back is enough to make your eyes well with tears.

“You know it?” The man asks, looking pleasantly stunned. 

“Know it? I had it memorized as a child. I loved it so much I couldn't bear it when it was packed away at the end of Christmas each year.”

“Me neither, I flat out refused to let it go, I read it year round to the point where our old copy is currently falling apart on the shelf. Even made snowflakes to put in my windows like he did.”

“That’s right, that scene was one of my favourites. May I?” You gesture asking him for permission to look through it. He nods just as excited as you by the concept of something so sentimental. As you flip through the book you recall the beautiful storyline of a koala living in Australia, one who is so upset that they must celebrate Christmas in the summer, never getting to have a while Christmas described in the songs and shown in the movies. But once Koya talks to the leaves in the trees, and the other small animals of the forest, the realization hits that none of them would be able to stay there if it was cold enough for snow. 

You are so close to tears when you reach the page where the little koala realizes it’s more important to have friends for the holiday than the frozen flurries. Proceeding to stay up all night cutting out perfect snowflakes to hang in the windows for all to enjoy at the family's Christmas Eve party. 

“Where did you find a copy? I’ve looked for so long, I lost my own in the move here.”

“I actually found it by chance, amongst a bunch of rare second-hand books at an auction.” The man itches at the back of his head. “Sorry, I can’t be of more help in locating another.” 

“No it’s fine. I’m just glad I got to see it again. I’ll have to tell my own mom that I was lucky enough to see a copy, she loved it as much as I did.” 

You quickly wrap the two gifts in the one sheet as requested. Handing it back to him before you can be tempted enough to make an excessive offer of your own on his mothers gift. 

“Thanks again.” He hands you two twenties for the donation. “My mom usually helps me with the wrapping but I didn’t want her to see this, you’ve made her Christmas.”

“I’m glad I could help.”

When he walks off you notice that he makes several glances back to you, holding a smile each time. 

“So did you get his number?” Aunt Emma pokes her head back out from the stock area. “Maybe his social media, his dick-dock or whatever it is you kids do these days?” 

“No, I did not get his tiktok.” You answer, unable to contain your laughter. “I was distracted by-” You’re ready to defend yourself when your phone starts vibrating on the table, the screen lit up with the number of your mother’s doctor’s office. You answer it, excited to share your account of the book. “Hey mom, you all finished? You’ll never believe what I just wrapped-”

“Sorry dear this is Laurie, I’m just calling on behalf of Dr. Wang’s office. We were hoping you could come by as soon as you can, the doctor would like to meet with both you and your mother before she leaves for the day.”

“Y-yeah, I’ll be right down.” You hang up the phone taking a deep swallow of fear, the moment of happiness and nostalgia vanishing with the prospect of the news to come. It’s never been a good sign when they’ve wanted to meet with you both in person. 

Aunt Emma catches on in an instant, pushing your coat on your shoulders and your purse in your hand. “Go, I’ve got this. You give your mother a big hug for me, and I’ll stop by soon to see you.”

...

While you try to relive, to pull back and hold on to, that moment from a year ago, Namjoon nods confirming your suspicions.

You mentally kick yourself for not recognizing him, for not remembering a single thing about him except your connection with the book. But after everything you had gone through, in that night alone, the devastating news regarding your mothers health had blacked out everything else. You took her home that night, trying not to cry, trying to be strong for her. Helping her into bed for some much needed rest, leaving your previous plans boxed up in the corner... where they remain to this very day. And the year only got worse leaving your mind engaged elsewhere, far from the man with the kind smile and similar taste in literature. “I’m sorry, I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you sooner.”

“No, it’s fine, it was a while ago, and I’m the one who should be sorry,” He whispers. “The moment I stepped outside that day, I realized you needed it more than my mother needed a second. I went back, but you were already gone. I was selfish though, rather than leaving it with another, I wanted to be the one to give it to you myself, I wanted to see you, to talk to you again, and so I kept it. I even put it in the exhibit on the chance that you might find it. When I met Emma at the museum and found out that you’d be doing the fundraiser again it seems like fate, but then I heard about what had happened since I saw you last. I realized how foolish I had been, how I had stolen your chance to share it with her before she passed.”

You reach up to your face attempting to wipe away the tears before Namjoon can see anymore, but he catches your hands before you can hide your grief.

“When you saw the book that day, you have no idea the impact it had on me. Watching you react, your emotions so close to the surface. You didn’t care where you were, what you were doing, all you could see was the memory in front of you. I wanted to create that for everyone.”

“Then the museum exhibit-”

“Was a result of my meeting you, my breakthrough idea which got me a chance to curate was thanks to your reaction. I was going to tell you when we were there, why you deserved to be there more than anyone else, but everything fell apart so quickly.” 

“I’m so sorry, I never intended to ruin your night. I just-” You take a deep breath, finally letting out the words you’ve been holding back. “I was scared. Jackson was one of my mother’s doctors, he was always friendly and kind to the point where my mother would joke that he would make the perfect son-in-law. We even went on a date, but when she passed... it was difficult, painful for me to see him again. Finding him there last night, I was so worried you would learn about what had happened, and that you would look at me with the same pity he did, so I ran.” 

“You didn’t ruin it, I deserved what you said for not being more open with you about what I knew. I was scared of losing you. So no more running, no more hiding okay?”

You give him a nod, unable to speak through the tears as you gasp between sobs. He hugs you across the cars divide. “Now will you please come inside? At least for a bit. It’s Christmas Eve and I can’t let you go home like this. I have the snowflakes up and everything but we both know it’s not enough without someone else to see them with.” 

You shake your head, now laughing despite the tears, “You really know how to reel me in.”

“I’m just admitting that I don’t want to be alone on Christmas,” He looks at you with a raised brow. “And I don’t think you want to be either.”

...

Namjoon’s house is the very opposite of your apartment, filled with warmth and light, wooden furniture and plants in every corner. The Christmas decorations bring another layer of himself into the fold. As promised, his window pains are full of snowflakes and the sills... you squint at several small blue lumps perched beside the glass. Moving closer you recognize them as clay koalas made by the skill and hands of a much younger age. Namjoon catches you staring at one position in a dozing state. He takes it off the ledge and hands it to you to give a better look. 

“Careful with that one though,” He points to another figure stationed in the corner. “It’s ears like to fall off.” He rolls the round bit of clay out of position chuckling as it exhibits the trait. 

“Did you make these?”

“When I was a kid. My mom held on to them.” Namjoon muses as he continues to fidget with the figurine. “She dropped off a box of decorations before going off to be with my sister and her family.”

“I’m glad she did.”

“Me too. But even with all the trimmings and decor here this year doesn’t feel quite normal.” He replaces them both in their rightful positions of honour and gestures to the massive couch behind you. “Make yourself comfortable,” he insists, before wandering off to the joint kitchen. “Is there anything I can get you to drink?” 

“I’ll have whatever you're having.” You take a seat on the monstrous cushions, which ease you in before swallowing you in comfort. Making it easy to see how this beast of a sofa has eaten several of his several earbuds. 

“Beer okay?”

“Perfect.”

He comes round with the drinks and takes a seat beside you. Turning on the television he lets it play with low volume in the background so you might continue your conversation if you wished, but at the same time eases the pressure from you if you’d rather not. 

You smile down at your beverage as the overly dramatic film plays out. Your mind still lingering on the damage that you might have caused with your hasty departure the night before.

“Have you talked to Jackson since, is he still going to loan the sketches?”

“He wants to, he sent me an email today saying so...” Namjoon pauses taking a sip of his drink, swirling the contents around in the can. “He asked if you were okay too. I haven’t responded yet, I wanted to talk to you first and get the full story, rather than speak on your behalf. But it’s clear he has feelings for you, if you told him how you felt, I’m sure you could still work things out if you wanted to.”

“No, I don’t think it’s feelings but his concern. He’s just too good of a person not to worry, and I’m sure his own guilt has a place in there too. Jackson and I never would have worked out, we went on that date, we didn’t have much in common, there was nothing there that I wanted to pursue, not like my time with you.”

Namjoon’s eyes perk open as he smiles. His arm reaches around, pulling you in to lean on his side and shoulder. As the strained plot plays out before you. 

“Why do you insist on watching these.” You ask as your eyes become heavy after a few minutes. Leaning into Namjoon more he lays back putting his feet up and sliding you down with him to do the same. Your head now resting on his chest the deepness of his voice carrying down to your ear. 

“They’re like the snowflakes-”

“A paper thin plot full of holes?”

“Funny and true, but not what I meant. I know they are by no means real, but they have this way of adding to the feeling of the season. I didn’t realize how much of a tradition it has become for me and my family until this year, when watching them alone just felt wrong. The movies were an excuse to sit down with them, to talk and laugh. The other night when I called, it wasn’t that I couldn’t sleep, I just wanted to spend the time with you.”

“But why me? You could have anyone, even Valerie seems to-”

“Why would I want anyone else when you helped me achieve something I’ve long dreamed of? You may think this cheesy but at the end of all these films, when everything comes together wrapped in a perfect bow, that’s how I’ve felt in every moment with you.”

“You’re right, very cheesy, but not unwanted.” You look up at him from his chest finding only sincerity in his face. “Now if we’re to continue in this similar Hallmark course of action, I do believe this would be the part where you kiss me again.”

“But I’m just the clumsy lead,” Namjoon jokes. “I’m pretty sure that’s your-” You lean in doing just that, cutting him off and pushing him against the couch as you kiss him. His chest quaking with silent laughter soon turns to rumbling groans as you fulfil the expectation of your role. “Though this would also be the part where I tell you we should wait before giving into temptation.”

Your nose scrunches up in displeasure over the notion of such abstinence. “Then let's omit that line, and go off script for the rest of the night.”

Namjoon takes his turn, flipping you over to push you down onto the plush cushions, where you sink under his weight. “Gladly,” he growls, his mouth trailing down your neck pulling on the collar of your sweater to seek further in. 

Desiring the same you discard your own knit garment, before moving on to unfasten the buttons of his shirt, pushing it back until he is forced to tear his hands from the sleeves himself and whip it down to the ground. 

Sliding between your thighs he wraps your legs around his back and picks you up off the couch. With an arm wrapped around your waist, he continues to kiss you while you squeal from being lifted into the air. 

“Bedroom?” You ask, excited by the possible prospect.

He nods, looking up at you with a smirk. “If that’s okay? I’d rather not risk losing you to the couch too.”

You giggle at the notion, while Namjoon heaves you up again to get a better grasp, his mouth tucking into your chest. He fumbles for the door now behind you looking as though he might break it open if the knob won’t turn to his grappling grip. You reach back to assist and push it open. The cool air of the room hits you, causing you to cling to Namjoon’s warmth. 

With two more steps you’re lowered onto the bed, where he grips the waist of your pants, unbuttoning and tearing them down your legs. Laying on the edge of the mattress, you watch as Namjoon kneels down between your legs. His hands glide up your bare legs and pause at the tops of your thighs massaging them as he asks to go further. “May I?”

You take his fingers and press them down on the dampening fabric. Namjoon groans and dips the tip of his index below the material peeking inside to find the warmth of your cunt. It’s a pity it’s so dark in the room, you would have liked to see his smile. 

But it seems you're not alone in this desire, as Namjoon gets up and reaches over flicking on the lamp beside his bed. “No more hiding, I want to see you, all of you.” 

“I want that too. I want you.” 

He smiles kissing you with both hands before rolling over and pulling you on top of him. You return the favour by taking off his pants and boxer briefs releasing his erection. Running your fingers down the soft skin of his shaft, curling them around the base. Tilting his cock towards your mouth you take the tip, teasing your tongue on the rim of the head. Namjoon groans in delight, thrusting his hips up, you take it again as far as you can manage, enjoying his reactions to your tongue trails downward, tracing the swelling veins of his dick. With another drag of his cock you release him with the pop of your lips and he reaches down to grip your arms, breathing heavily with closed eyes.

“I thought you said you wanted to see me?” You chuckle at his undoing.

“I do, but I also want to last.” 

“Condoms?” You ask, continuing to stroke his cock while you adjust to straddle his thighs.

“In there.” He mutters, pointing to his bedside table breathless and helpless to your touch. Only looking up when you have to free him to reach for the box and unwrap its contents. His own hands help you to roll it down his shaft. 

You guide yourself down on his cock while Namjoon arches against his pillow and mattress. His fingers tracing up your stomach and ribs. You reach back to unclasp your bra just as he reaches your chest, and lean down into his touch. 

With his firm grip you rock your hips clenching on his dick and grinding your clit on his pelvis. The louder he gets the faster you move, trembling as you chase your own high and pivoting down further. When Namjoon’s hands grip your hips pressing you into him the pressure becomes far too great pushing you over the edge, sending waves of pleasure through you until you collapse on his chest. He holds you in place as he thrusts from beneath, gasping as your climax continues, coaxing you to clench down on him, straining his thrusts until he comes. 

Dotting the side of your face and neck with his lips at a soft and slow pace, he succeeds in forging another smile in your still gasping lips. He tilts you off and beside him in your blissful haze so he may dispose of the filled barrier. When returning to your grasp you cling to him and he you, dragging the covers up and over the both of you.  

“I could get used to this.” You whisper, curling into his warmth. No longer afraid of the emotions that the holiday will bring. Glowing over the prospect of not facing Christmas morning alone, but wrapped together with Namjoon in the sheets of his bed. “Maybe even consider it a new tradition?” You joke with him looking up to witness his smile.

“If that’s a tradition...” Namjoon whispers, coming in for another kiss. “I plan on celebrating Christmas everyday for the foreseeable future.”

[causeiwanttoandican]

The Times

Prince William’s close friends on what makes him tick — and why he’s not trapped

March 20 2021, 6:00pm

As the world devours the Harry and Meghan interview, what’s going on with the brother who was left behind? He’s embracing his destiny, William’s close friends tell the Sunday Times royal correspondent, Roya Nikkhah

Next month Prince William will celebrate his tenth wedding anniversary — the day he became a duke and embarked on the most formative decade of his life. Back then, the tentative 28-year-old newlywed was not ready to devote himself entirely to royal duties. A decade on, he is in a very different position.

The job of being the heir to the heir to the throne, of finding a balance between life and duty, is difficult at the best of times. These are not the best of times. In their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey this month the Duke and Duchess of Sussex accused the royal family and the institution around it of racism and callous disregard for a suicidal newcomer, among many other damning charges. Harry the spare also declared that William was trapped within “the system … My brother can’t leave that system, but I have.”

In the immediate aftermath of the interview William was “reeling”, a source close to the duke says. “His head is all over the place on it.” Four days after the Sussexes had their say, he hit back during an engagement with the Duchess of Cambridge at a school in east London. Asked about accusations of racism, William retorted with restrained fury: “We’re very much not a racist family.” He also confirmed that he hadn’t spoken to Harry yet, “but will do”. By the weekend it emerged they had “been in contact”.

William is thought to have been less than thrilled a few days later when that conversation made global headlines after the American presenter Gayle King, a close friend of the Sussexes, revealed live on air that it had not been an easy chat: “I did actually call them to see how they were feeling,” she told viewers. “Harry has talked to his brother and he had talked to his father too. The word I was given was that those conversations were not productive.” The intervention prompted a senior royal source to say that “none of the households will be giving a running commentary on private conversations”.

A close friend of both brothers says Harry’s “trapped” comment was “way off the mark”, insisting that William does not see it that way. “He has a path set for him and he’s completely accepting of his role. He is very much his grandmother’s grandson in that respect of duty and service.”

When the Queen turned 90 nearly five years ago William admitted “the challenge” that “occupies a lot of thinking space” is how to “modernise and develop” the royal family, and make it “relevant in the next 20 years’ time”. Twenty years now seems like a very long time. In the hours and days after the Oprah broadcast, William was at the heart of all discussions with the Queen and the Prince of Wales about how to respond to the Sussexes. He was keen that the issue of race should be acknowledged in the Queen’s statement as an area of particular concern that “will be addressed”.

William has always railed against being a “ribbon-cutter royal” and the issues he champions — mental health, battling racism in football, homelessness and his ramped-up eco-warrior role — are a window into where the future King William V will take the House of Windsor. A friend says: “He’s a small-c conservative. He values tradition and the need to go around the country, but he realises he can make a difference beyond traditional royal duties.”

Today royal popularity is, to put it mildly, in a state of flux, but William’s strategy has been working. Post-Oprah, he ranks just below the Queen at the top of a YouGov poll of royals. Not so long ago such a position looked like a long shot, when the “workshy Wills” and “reluctant royal” tags plagued him and he was clocking up fewer days of royal work than his nonagenarian grandparents. Pictures of him hitting the ski slopes and clubs of Swiss resort Verbier in March 2017, missing a Commonwealth service that even the Duke of York flew back for, didn’t help.

After the lasting PR gold dust of the Cambridges’ 2011 wedding and the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte, it was the first public nosedive for William, who was still working as an air ambulance pilot. “That pissed him off,” a friend says. “He was leaving home at 5.30am, getting home after dark and saving lives in between, but people were still being critical of his commitment to his [other] job.” William was based at Cambridge airport with East Anglian Air Ambulance for two years, where he was on call for “some very sad, dark moments”, often working “on very traumatic jobs involving children”. He later acknowledged that “after I had my own children … the relation between the job and the personal life was what really took me over the edge, and I started feeling things that I have never felt before”. But it was a job he loved, because of “working in a team … that’s something that my other job doesn’t necessarily do. You are more out there on your own.”

A former royal aide says: “Immediately after their wedding he had a very clear idea of the pace at which he wanted to take things.” William was adamant he wouldn’t curtail his day jobs, first as an RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot in Anglesey and then with the air ambulance. “If you’re not careful, duty can weigh you down an awful lot at an early age,” he said, insisting he didn’t “lie awake waiting or hoping” to be king. He delayed full-time royal duties until the autumn of 2017, when, acknowledging the Cambridges’ future required more time at “monarchy HQ”, they moved from Norfolk to London and George started school.

He’d had to fight his corner for the air ambulance role. A source close to William reveals “there were lots of raised eyebrows in the Palace when he wanted to do that. While the Queen and his father backed him, some senior courtiers questioned whether it was becoming of a future king to be doing a middle-class role, hanging out with ordinary people. They thought he wouldn’t stick it out, he’d find it boring, or was doing it out of stubbornness to put off royal duties. He was pretty bloody-minded about it, and determined that other people’s expectations in the media or the system shouldn’t get in the way of his own values.” In the wake of Harry and Meghan’s interview much has been speculated about the extent to which royal life is dictated by Palace officials, but it is clear that William has managed to forge his own path. Who knows how high those senior courtiers’ eyebrows rose in 2019, when William spent three weeks shadowing the spooks of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ to learn how they combat terrorism. He insisted on being called “Will” and lunching in the canteen every day.

Those closest to the duke say his resistance to the idea of full-time royal duties stemmed not only from a desire to achieve something for himself but also from a fear of the impact on his family life. Miguel Head worked alongside the prince for ten years until 2018, as William, Kate and Harry’s communications secretary and later as William’s private secretary. “In his role everyone’s going to tell you you’re marvellous,” Head says. “The RAF and air ambulance jobs were about knowing what his abilities were, what he was good at in his own right. Without that he’d still be hankering for something that was his own.” After children came along he says William developed a “visceral determination to give them a life of consistency and privacy that were missing for large parts of his own childhood”.

Another close aide says the plan enabling the Cambridges to have a few years of “normal” married life, away from the full-time glare of the royal spotlight, paid dividends: “For years, the battles around privacy and paparazzi intrusion were all-consuming. He wanted to know, could we build them a credible plan allowing them a family life while slowly increasing the profile of official life? It took years to get there, but the success of that plan allowed him to be confident and content in his role. He’s not worried about his kids’ privacy any more and he has been able to be the kind of dad he wants to be.”

“Marriage maketh the man,” a friend says. “Catherine’s groundedness has been the critical anchor. And where his relationship with the media was once all fury and frustration, he now understands using the power of modern media, so the public feel they’re getting enough access.”

The children’s birthdays are marked with photographs — often taken by the Duchess of Cambridge — and there has been a noticeable increase in their public appearances of late. While not “officially” staged, William was happy to let George and Charlotte be photographed at their first Aston Villa match with Mum and Dad in 2019. Pandemic set pieces have shown the family clapping for the NHS on the steps of Anmer Hall, their Norfolk home, and, before Christmas, their first red-carpet appearance together for an evening at the panto with key workers and their children.

As they celebrate their anniversary on April 29, friends who joined the Cambridges on their wedding day tell me the partnership’s equal footing is key to its success. “They’ve got a solid relationship and she gives him confidence,” one says. “There is no jealousy, no friction, they are happy for each other’s successes.” In private William talks as passionately about Kate’s work as his own campaigns, and takes pride in her growing confidence on the public stage.

William has said his grandmother’s approach to being head of state is to take “more of a passive role. She’s above politics and is very much away from it.” He doesn’t plan to meddle in party politics, but he was not happy about the unenviable position the government put the Queen in with the 2019 proroguing of parliament, which was later ruled to be unlawful and forced an apology from Boris Johnson to the monarch. Constitutionally the Queen had no alternative other than to act on the advice of her government, but in William’s reign there will be “more private, robust challenging of advice”. His last three private secretaries — Christian Jones, Simon Case, now the cabinet secretary, and Head — had all worked in government departments, helping William to keep his finger on the political pulse. The new incumbent, the Whitehall heavyweight Jean-Christophe Gray, who served as David Cameron’s spokesman, continues in that vein.

The former Conservative leader Lord Hague of Richmond was last year appointed as chairman of the Royal Foundation to develop William’s work on mental health, the environment and a raft of new support programmes for key workers. “People internationally and nationally respect his credibility and knowledge on these issues,” Hague says. “He’s very persuasive. You only see that behind the scenes. He knows what he wants and he goes out to get it.”

Charlie Mayhew, chief executive of the conservation charity Tusk, has known William since he was 20. In 2005 Tusk and Centrepoint, the homelessness charity championed by Princess Diana, were the first patronages William took on. “In those early years I kept having to pinch myself to remember how young he was,” Mayhew says. “He was much more mature than his age and very aware of his destiny coming down the track. He had a sincerity, but never without wicked humour. His teasing is merciless.”

William knows some people see his passion for conservation as a posh man’s part-time hobby, but Mayhew says the duke’s “genuine and huge knowledge” undermines that view. “He’ll call and WhatsApp to flag up something that I haven’t even seen in the conservation space. He can be impatient to get things done.” Last year William launched the Earthshot prize, a £50 million Nobel-style environmental award to galvanise solutions to global problems over the next decade. He believes “conservation and the environment … shouldn’t be a luxury, it’s a necessity”, Mayhew says. “That’s the drum he wants to beat. He’s got a megaphone and wants to use it in the most constructive way. He speaks for that next generation and I think they can relate to it.”

A turning point for William was his 2015 official visit to China, one of the world’s largest consumers of ivory, where he met President Xi and condemned the illegal wildlife trade as a “vicious form of criminality”. Unlike his father, who has refused to visit the People’s Republic over its human rights record and treatment of Tibet, William’s view was that despite the UK’s fractious relationship with China, “we’ve got to engage”.

“It was very political, raising the illegal wildlife trade in China. I’m sure the diplomats were having all sort of nightmares in advance,” says Mayhew, who joined the duke in China. “But he was gathering greater confidence that he had the ability to be a mouthpiece for the issue.” Mayhew reveals that while William was visiting Japan before China, he still hadn’t secured a meeting with Xi. “But when the Chinese saw all the high-level meetings he was having in Japan, they changed their minds and Xi made time for him.” Later that year, as Xi began a UK state visit, William appeared on Chinese television condemning the ivory trade. Two years later China banned the trade.

In 2018 he spent months prepping for his most high-stakes overseas visit yet, to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that summer. Navigating the diplomatic tightrope walk between Jerusalem and the West Bank, he visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Ramallah. As he travelled back to Jerusalem, he changed his speech for a reception with young Israelis and Palestinians to strengthen his solidarity with the latter: “My message tonight is that you have not been forgotten … The United Kingdom stands with you.” It was a bold move, but both sides hailed his visit a success and the officials breathed a sigh of relief. To the delight of the travelling press pack, William’s engagements on the final day were brought forward, allowing the diplomat duke and president of the Football Association to land back in the UK in time to watch England’s World Cup tie.

Ask him if he’s a peacemaker and William will laugh, saying Kate is the mediator. But according to a source close to William and Harry, his bridge-building skills were deployed in the lead-up to Harry and Meghan’s wedding in 2018, when tensions in the Kensington Palace household, then still shared by the brothers, were running high: “Every time there was a drama, or a member of staff on the verge of quitting, William would personally try and sort it out.”

As the brothers clashed more over the substance and style of their work, and the family hierarchy that William is a stickler for but Harry is less keen on, a split was inevitable. When they finally divided their households in March 2019, it had been a long time coming. But he never thought that a year later his brother would up sticks for America.

The pair went for a long walk to clear the air after the “Sandringham summit” when the Megxit deal was hammered out, but did not part shores as friends. What upset William the most was Harry and Meghan’s surprise launch of their “Sussex Royal” website before the summit, which featured their blueprint wish list of a part-time, commercial royal future. Later, when the Queen decreed they could no longer use “royal” in their future ventures, their website hit back with this bold statement: “While there is not any jurisdiction by The Monarchy … over the use of the word ‘Royal’ overseas, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex do not intend to use ‘Sussex Royal’ … or … ‘Royal’ …” Both “the content and that it’s still online is staggering”, a senior royal source says. “That was it for William, he felt they’d blindsided the Queen in such an insulting and disrespectful way,” says a source close to him, who reveals it was still at the forefront of William’s mind at the Commonwealth Day service one year ago. It was the Sussexes’ final engagement as working royals, and the froideur between them and the rest of the family was unmistakable.

It is a year since the Sussexes left for California and William misses Harry. “Once he got over the anger of how things happened, he was left with the absence of his brother,” an aide says. “They shared everything about their lives, an office, a foundation, meetings together most days and there was a lot of fun along the way. He’ll miss it for ever.” A close friend says William “definitely feels the pressure now it’s all on him — his future looks different because of his brother’s choices, it’s not easy.” Another friend says: “It’s still raw. He’s very upset by what’s happened, though absolutely intent that he and Harry’s relationship will heal in time.”

After lobbing bombs in his Oprah interview, Harry said: “I love William to bits … We’ve been through hell together … we have a shared experience … The relationship is space at the moment, and time heals all things, hopefully.” Harry would be wise not to set his stopwatch.

The first test will come this summer, when the brothers could be reunited for a series of family engagements including the Duke of Edinburgh’s 100th birthday and the Queen’s birthday parade in June. In July they are scheduled to unveil a statue of their mother at Kensington Palace, marking what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday, an emotionally charged occasion with the world watching.

While a chasm has opened up between the brothers, William has grown closer to the Queen and Prince Charles. He has helped them to navigate their way through Megxit, Prince Andrew’s removal from public life following the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and, now, the Oprah controversy. “That has changed the way the Queen sees him and values his input,” a courtier says. William also feels his relationship with his grandmother has “massively improved” in recent years and their views are “more aligned than ever”.

Friends say there has also been a “renaissance” in William and Charles’s relationship. “As the years passed there were strains imposed by the system — money, work, competition, Diana,” one says. “Part of William’s evolution is that as he has become closer to his father, he sees their similarities. At William’s wedding there was a gag in one of the speeches that he was more like his father than he’d ever admit, which made a lot of us laugh. As their respective destinies get closer, it weighs more heavily on them and strengthens the bond. The rift with Harry has also brought them closer.”

William is said to hate “flummery”, though the role of future king comes with plenty of bowing and scraping. But in 2017, for the first time publicly, he didn’t get his way. As a new parent worried about rising teenage suicide rates, he had spent a year convening a Cyberbullying Taskforce with big cheeses from tech and social media giants including Facebook, Snapchat, Apple, Google and Twitter. He wanted them to adopt industry-wide guidelines creating safer online spaces for children. According to William the meetings at Kensington Palace got “fruity” and the tech giants didn’t come close to the change he wanted. He was furious.

Tessy Ojo, chief executive of the Diana Award youth charity, sat on the taskforce. “He was deeply disappointed,” she says. “He didn’t come into it as ‘the duke’, he gave emotional pleas as a father.” William has since publicly condemned social media giants for their “false choice of profits over values” and privately offered support to the family of Molly Russell, who took her life at 14 after viewing images of self-harm online. Ojo believes it is William’s “lived experience of the fragility of life that guides the work he does”.

It also shapes the way he and Kate are raising their family. William has said he is determined that the grandchildren Diana never knew should “know who she was and that she existed”. He “constantly” talks to his children “about Granny Diana” at bedtime, so that they know “there are two grandmothers in their lives”. Earlier this month on Mother’s Day, Kensington Palace’s social media feeds published George, Charlotte and Louis’s cards paying tribute to “Granny Diana”, revealing it is an annual ritual for the Cambridge children. After a difficult few weeks for William, a line in Charlotte’s card provided poignant insight into how he is feeling: “Papa is missing you.”

He is on course to be a more modern monarch than any before him, but William is still a creature of habit at heart. He has the same tight circle of friends from his schooldays, one of whom says that, with William, “it’s all about trust and loyalty”. He plays five-a-side football in his Villa socks when he can, goes to the Chelsea Harbour Club gym he went to as a child with his mother and has a “smart casual” public uniform of chinos, jacket, blue shirt and no tie.

“William’s not trying to be down with the kids,” a friend says. “He never wants to be painted as irrelevant or dull, though he’s allergic to being compared to celebrities. The public doesn’t always get to see his funny side, but otherwise he’s the same in private as in public. He once said, ‘I’ll be in the public eye all my life. I can’t hide who I am because I’ll be found out.’ ”

In 2019, during a visit to a youth homelessness charity supporting LGBT people, William was asked how he would feel if one of his children was gay. “Absolutely fine,” he replied. “I fully support whatever decision they make, but it does worry me from a parent’s point of view how many barriers, hateful words, persecution and discrimination might come.” Such a personal exchange was a radical departure from royal engagement small talk. But William, the first in his family to be photographed for the cover of a gay magazine, had personally put the issue on the agenda.

As president of Bafta he gave the academy a diplomatic dressing down in his speech at last year’s ceremony, expressing his “frustration” over the lack of diversity: “In 2020, and not for the first time in the last few years, we find ourselves talking again about the need to do more to ensure diversity in the sector and in the awards process — that simply cannot be right in this day and age.” The 2021 nominees announced this month suggest his words hit home.

William “thinks the public look to him to keep royal work looking modern”, a confidante says. “The Queen and Prince of Wales are providing continuity and stability. He’s carving out his own relationship with diverse communities. He sees it all as a way of doing things now that will help a smooth transition when the time comes.”

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as a former frontline worker himself, William has led the royal charge supporting key workers. “Now, more than ever, he knows what his role in public life is, and he sees the value in it,” a close aide says. Chatting to NHS workers in January, William said: “Something that I noticed from my brief spell flying the air ambulance … is that when you see so much death and so much bereavement, it does impact how you see the world … as a … darker, blacker place.” Soon after the first lockdown was announced, the Cambridges’ Royal Foundation launched Our Frontline, a round-the-clock mental health and bereavement service for key workers.

Miguel Head says the future King William will continue to campaign on his big issues: “I can’t see him backing away from causes he’s passionate about. And while he’s not someone who loves ceremony, he knows the importance of it. When he gets the top job he won’t do away with it all. He’s mindful the monarchy represents something timeless that’s above all of us, and many people like the magic and theatre of it.”

Roya Nikkhah

Roya is royal correspondent at The Sunday Times. Over more than a decade she has covered royal events for the BBC, interviewed the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry and presented the films Prince William, Monarch in the Making and Meghan and Harry: The Baby Years.

[tarithenurse]

In the eyes

Fandom: Naruto Pairing: Uchiha Itachi x fem!reader Content: Feels. Angst. Loss. Love. Reference to killing (war and murder). Captivity. Sorrow. Hope. Anger. You name it, it’s there. A/N: I just want to say in my defence that this story isn’t my fault. Blame @maladaptive-ninja-returns​...it’s her birthday present (yes, I’m late)!

In the eyes

The steam is long gone together with your interest in the drink when you drain the cup of tea as the black-haired man gets up to leave. The cape hides what he’s missing – if only it was his leg instead – that way you wouldn’t have to keep the distance to the bare minimum, constantly risking him discovering that you’re following him. It doesn’t help to complain, though: he’s alive and mobile...and you have to watch your every move.

Volunteering for the assignment has probably been one of the more masochistic choices you’ve made, but you just couldn’t let the last Uchiha go yet.

For years, watching the kid grow older had kept a wound alive that no one knew about. It festered, saturating you with a sickening, rotten, sadness that never washed off but wasn’t detected by your peers. You should have let it heal. Should have moved on. But there had always been something keeping you from accepting what everyone else had decided must be true.

You weren’t the only one dealing with grief, of course. The life of a Leaf ninja was to say goodbye too soon and then to live with the numbing ache, renewed each time memories stirred.

Before the fourth war, the newfangled gossip of the dead returning was treated as ghost stories by most people until the climax of it all, when too many stood face to face with loved ones. Lost ones. And you were too weak to prevent the hope from being rekindled, so once peace was a reality and all the shinobis prepared to celebrate in the chaotic haze of the aftermath, you made a decision.

That is why, three seconds after the door closes behind Uchiha Sasuke, you get up...

...and sit right down again to avoid pressing against the sharp blade of the person suddenly appearing beside you.

The newcomer’s face is hidden partially under the wide-rimmed hat and the rest behind a dark and tattered cloak. Glancing down, a hand with purple-painted nails slips the kunai into the darkness of the cloak, leaving you with the knowledge that it’s there.

There’s no doubt in your mind that this is a shinobi. Where did you come from? Admittedly, there are others frequenting the little tea house because it’s a popular stop at a major crossroads...even if it mainly services those without national affiliations. None of the rest of the clientele reacts to the scene unfolding discreetly and you have no wish to catch their attention before you know what and who you’re dealing with.

“What do you want?”

It takes a second before you realize the question isn’t asked by you. Another one to recover from the smooth dusk that is the stranger’s voice. A voice with a hint of familiarity in the timbre which you decide must be your mind playing games.

“Nothing. I’m no enemy of yours,” you try to placate them, silently counting the seconds worth of head start separating you from Sasuke, “and I hold nothing of value...you should let me go.”

The tickle of a laugh surprises you. “If I’d wanted your possessions, they’d already be mine. I want answers, Konoha-girl.”

The headband you carry is hidden under your clothes, well out of sight from any prying eyes. Finally giving up on stalking your initial target, you turn your undivided attention to the person who has seated them-self before you.

The little skin you can see is pale, and a few black strands have escaped the slack ponytail and fallen in front of the face where only chin and jawline is visible. As if knowing your annoyance, the head is tipped slightly, allowing you to glimpse soft, gently smiling lips. Kissable. The thought jars you.

“I recommend you give up that wish.” No one should be able to hear the nervousness in your voice...but the stranger smirks. “My business is my own.”

“Not when it involves him,” they says, inclining the hat towards the door where Uchiha left.

You’re out to get him? You almost feel sorry for this fool who clearly doesn’t have a clue about the one-armed ninja’s identity.

“Don’t be mistaken,” the person smiles as if reading your thoughts, “I know who he is and what he’s capable of, after all...he’s my brother.”

Calmly meeting your gaze, the eyes meeting you flash red.

...

“Don’t look an Uchiha in the eyes”. It was the warning that was whispered into your ears as soon as you were big enough to run errands on your own. Naturally, you had to do it, and what met you was not as demonic as the warning stories had made you think – rather, they were kind, and wiser than the smooth face hinted at – although you never looked another Uchiha in the eyes just to be on the safe side.

It was impossible to discern the colour. Some days, they seemed leaden as if the rain clouds were gathered inside the boy too. A few times, in the morning when he watched where his fists struck the wood, the sparks from the cozy fire of the evening before still lingered in the warmest of black. What you loved the most, though, was when the gaze was locked onto infinity and they were soft like liquid.

...

Everything is different: the stuffy tea room with its noisy patrons has been replaced by somewhere deserted that seems to be carved out of grey stone.

How did I get here? Careful to move as little as possible, you take in the new surroundings only to find the place empty and with only one way in and out. A dull cold has already seeped into your feet as you stand there, lost as your bearings have nothing to latch on to – the only light is a torch in a wall sconce to your left.

Feet. They are bare, and a quick pat-down reveals that all of your weapons, your belt, and your headband have been stripped from you too. The sensation is uncanny, akin to nakedness. The logic behind it is obvious as it reduces the chances of a successful escape even if you were to make it out and establish a route.

On the other hand: you’re unharmed and unbound.

Turning, you have no doubt that the wooden door is locked but of course you go over to try, heart frozen near your throat when you push against it with your shoulder. Surprisingly, it does open and the screaming hinges sets the tiniest hairs on your body on end.

“Not wasting any time, Konoha-girl.”

You recognize the voice and the decorated nails on the hand that appears to pull open the door completely, and not just from the rest stop but from years of aching recollections that have been warped by watching Sasuke grow up with this man’s shadow lingering over his life. Over your life.

No. There’s no way. He died. Now your heart jackhammers a frenzied rhythm.

It’s a fool’s hope that powers the jab towards his neck. An idiot’s dream urging you to sprint past him. At least I tried, a bitter thought comments the moment both attempts are thwarted as a rib-crushing kick sends your tumbling backwards and you land sprawled in the middle of the room.

The ceiling is still spinning, it seems, when you sense the man’s presence loom over you. The fingers are cool (and surprisingly gentle) as the curl around the back of your skull, fingers digging into your hair to grant a tight grip to pull you closer by. Very close. A hand’s length separates the tips of your noses and you want to be oblivious to the way his mouth curves softly.

“You’re not leaving,” he whispers, “until I say so.”

Feeling and strength are beginning to return to your arms, including a sharp ache in your chest that grows with every shallow breath which you try to ignore. Should have restrained me, fool...and the thought dies there as everything shifts and the ground swallows your limbs.

“N-no...how...? No!”

He watches your struggles lazily before releasing his grip and sitting down next to you on the hard floor. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

But you did. Wait...no! You haven’t...it wasn’t you...it can’t have been...

“You lie about your identity,” you scoff, regretting the outburst immediately as pain stabs coldly into your side, “so excuse me for not trusting you on this either.” There is a little smile there on his lips, full of sadness and regret that makes your insides cringe momentarily until you have the breath to explain to him (or yourself) why it can’t be true: “Uchiha Itachi has been killed!”

“Yes...and then I was brought back.” He’s impossibly calm as though he’s simply discussing the weather. “Twice.”

Double reanimated? As if! The war had been a horror to live through and would have been without people facing their deceased comrades and family members on the battlefield. However, once destroyed or sealed, none of the animated dead had walked again and all of them had been dealt with properly in the end.

Looking at the ninja, none of the signs of reanimation are prominent. On the other hand...even if they had been, you might not even notice it now that you meet the man’s gaze and the liquid infinity there.

“I could show you...but I’m afraid your mind can’t take the strain in your current state,” the so-called Itachi explains.

Mind, your aching heart still reels from fear of being broken once more, this is all in my mind.

Zoning out everything else, you focus on the flow of chakra within. Calming it, soothing it, until abruptly forcing the flow to revert. It feels as if your very soul drops for a second but the moment it returns to its place, the world is no longer made up of lies and imaginary sensations...and you’re still lying on the ground in a room made of stone, your ribs feeling as if they’re speared by frost. The only improvement is that at least your limbs are free.

And Itachi? Yes, you have to call him that because deep within you can’t deny it any longer.

The official reports hadn’t been released by the time you left Konoha and you’re not high enough up in the ranks as a shinobi to get the juicy information unless it’s necessary for a mission – and since your missions tend to be B or simpler A rank...well, I guess my current mission’s a bust but this is an important discovery!

A silky chuckle refocuses your attention. “Very good...I suppose I must strengthen my genjutsu against you.”

He’s so close, you could touch him. Shifting to lean against the wall, he rests his arms casually on the knees and begins to pick at the chapping nail polish.

“No need to,” you bite back a groan as you roll over to sit up, “I take it that’s how you got me here?” Pretty eyes are watching your every move as he nods in agreement. “Hm. It’ll probably be useless to ask where we are, so...why? Why show yourself now?”

Sitting cross legged, you find the pain lessens if you pull your clothes and arms tightly around your torso, restricting the depth of your breathing. Broken or bent ribs? Not that it really matters. First of all, he would be able to beat you in a fight anyways; secondly, even if you got out of here you wouldn’t know where “here” is; and third (but not least), you don’t really want to run from him.

Rather than answer, Itachi stands up and holds out his left hand for you. Puzzled, you take it. Soft fingers curl around yours and he pulls you to your feet, studying your movements and the twisting facial expressions.

He doesn’t let go.

Not when he guides you out the door and into a hallway shaped of the same kind of stone as the room was made of. Carved from.

Not when he slows down at the sound of the squeaky breathing the pace forces from you.

There doesn’t seem to be many rooms along the winding path. Here and there a door bars the way or you catch a glimpse of a dead-end that looks as though the excavation was abandoned or even disrupted by cave-ins.

You do your best to memorize the path, but frankly, your mind is getting fuzzy from pain and exhaustion. You have no sense of time, just hunger and tiredness weighing you down to indicate the loss of many hours.

“Just a bit longer, [Y/N],” Itachi soothes.

When did I tell him my name? You want to ask or at least protest, but it would be a choice between talking or getting to wherever he’s leading you...and you doubt he’ll let you pause.

A few dozen steps later and a short flight of stairs up, he ushers you through a door into a room that looks like a mix between a kitchen and work station. A fire is the only light and heat source (the smoke venting up through a chimney too narrow to be an escape route), casting a warm glow over the solid wooden table and chairs. Everything else is hewn from whatever mountain you’re inside.

“Sit,” your captor finally releases the grip and points at a chair near the fire and you obediently do as you’re told.

There are shelves and niches almost hidden in the dancing shadows at first holding with boxes, bundles, and various utensils. He knows where everything is, grabbing a few items before returning and laying it out in the light. Bandages. His movements are fluid and elegant, just like you remembered.

He motions towards your upper body, then turns to tend to the fire. “Strip.”

“That’s really not -”

“Some of your ribs are broken. Restraining them will minimize the pain.”

He’s right. Of course he is.

With clipped movements, you pull off the layers until you hesitate at the poor excuse of a bra. Despite the now roaring fire, the cold from the stone still seeps into your body and raises waves of goosebumps and tightens your nipples. It would be easier to apply the bandages correctly without the last bit of clothing in the way, but right now it feels like the only shield left at your disposal as Itachi turns back to you.

“We’ll work around that,” the man offers softly.

He works quietly at first. Hands winding the linen bandages around you adeptly, pausing each time the ministration intensifies the pain and causes the discomfort to escape as stubborn hisses. The purple nail polish is mesmerizing – simultaneously a contrast to the horrific stories of a killer and perfectly fitting the pretty, nearly feminine, traits you see. Especially the eyes. Sure, they’re filled with a bottomless sadness that you don’t feel comfortable acknowledging, but they’re beautiful. Haunting.

“You’re staring,” he hums without looking up.

Shit. “No. I just -...let’s say you’re who you claim to be,” you try to recover, “why’re you back?”

“To be his watcher.”

“Says who?”

This time, he stops and looks you dead in the eyes. “Otsutsuki Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths.” There are very few proper comebacks to that, so your captor continues without giving you a chance to think of something, “Otsutsuki told me about the bonds of families and that it can transcend blood. He knows hatred can cause – and has caused – too much harm...but something rekindled his hope that it can be overcome.“

I don’t have an eye on Uchiha constantly, but... “Does Sasuke know?” Returning to his work, Itachi avoids your gaze. “He doesn’t...”

“He’s finally found peace and is on the right path...I can’t risk undoing it.”

Bullshit! “Or you’re a coward who doesn’t have the guts to fa-” the rest is cut off as soft fingers tighten around your throat.

Blood-red eyes pierce your mind, numbing you for an eternity or a millisecond.

...

They were a means to reach the goal but their words still hurt as you followed meekly in their footsteps. Snobbery. Disdain. Considering how proud your two team members clearly felt, they had very little to show for their reputation as Uchihas and frankly, it was your skills rather than theirs that ensured successful missions and still, you never once looked them in their face. Instead, you kept an eye out for two other of the clan.

Where one was, so would the other be. Thick as thieves, the boys had found a companionship that complemented their differences in the same manner as the sun and the moon. But as opposed to your teammates who swooned at the brightness of the sun, you were drawn to the night and the calmness it brought whenever that boy was near – each time he met your eyes, time became meaningless.

...

The two of you sit in silence as the steam from the soup caresses your face. Your mind is blank, slowly starting to pick up on the absence of stone walls – wood has replaced the cold surfaces, making it almost unbearably warm with the bandages underneath your layers of clothes – and a plethora of questions begin to press against your conscious only to be held back as most of your thoughts get derailed whenever you look at the man before you.

Without the hat and cloak to conceal him, it’s impossible to ignore all the details you’ve nurtured in your memory for ages, such as the slight pull of his lips as he thinks or the elegance of his movements now that he gets up and refills his bowl from the pot hanging over the fire.

“Why are you following Sasuke?”

You should be diplomatic. “I could ask you the same.” You’re not.

“I already told you,” Itachi shrugs.

“Well I...I don’t believe you.”

But you do. There’s no denying anymore that this man is who he claims to be and so, why would he lie about his purpose? The sad smile. The quiet mannerisms. The idea that Itachi would somehow transcend death to watch over his little brother? That’s a mysterious intricacy that fits with your memories of him from before that night.

“You do...but something else is bothering you.” It’s a statement, not a question. “Am I not what you expected?”

No, you’re not. However, he’s what you remember with a layer of sorrow added on top. He doesn’t get to be sad. The little spark of anger is what you need. You nurse it, feed it until it flares up hot and bright and consumes your regrets and self-pity.

“Expected? I don’t know what I expected from someone like you!” Your voice is rising, shaking with years of frustration. “Clan killer. Murderer. I never told anyone but I was in love with an Uchiha! That night, I’d gone to bed, finally sure that I was gonna tell him but when I woke up...” Something inside you had broken that day and it still hurts now. “They told me how you’d left Sasuke alive...but the boy I loved was gone and no one knew I was mourning. Each time I saw him -” you can’t hold back a strangled sound and you realize, you’re crying -”I saw the ghost of...” The bowl of floating vegetables looks blurry until you blink angrily. “Ugh! But what does a teenager know of love, right? They’ll grow up. Get over it. Except I knew you were out there still and that you had all the answers. Why? The Itachi I remember wasn’t a mindless monster! I was told a story, but it doesn’t make any sense. If all the monster wanted was power then why spare Sasuke? Why did everyone else have to die?”

The inhalations are shallow and rapid, making you dizzy as you cling to the table and the spoon. It burns in your lungs and cheeks.

“I am sorry for the pain, I’ve caused you.”

Your gaze snaps to his face and you know he’s speaking the truth but it doesn’t matter right now.

“Sorry? Sorry?! You don’t get to be sorry! I missed y-...the boy, I loved was gone and it took ages before I could let go and stop mourning, finally accepting the truth had died with you and now...now you’re here? And it’s all back and I don’t understand! How could you?” Itachi doesn’t flinch as you launch the bowl towards him – he doesn’t have to because your aim is off and it clatters to the floor in a shower of shards and wasted food after hitting the wall behind him. “How? The boy I loved was not a monster! He wouldn’t do what they s-”

The echoes of your wheezing shouts ring through the room after the abrupt stop. Holding your breath, you wait for the ground to swallow you whole or for the man at the other end of the table to react and the fear is colder than the burning in your chest.

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” Itachi eventually whispers, “they were just people who had been wronged and misguided until their arrogance made them blind.”

What? That’s not exactly what you had expected. Without explaining further, your captor gets up, handing you his bowl of food before beginning to clean the mess you’ve made.

“Don’t...I’ll get tha-” you begin.

He only has to look at you.

...

The dew had soaked your toes, cooling and soothing them after each kick that you landed on the wood stump. Pine. The new splinters refreshed the scent as they fell to the ground and you knew that birds would rummage through them in the hope of finding a morning snack once the training grounds were free of people again – they were already gathering at the edge of the clearing except for where Itachi stood.

The realization made you stop mid-kick, gaze locked with his and heart fluttering in your chest. How long had he stood there?

“They’re wrong.” You could barely believe he was talking to you. “Your teammates...don’t listen to what they say.”

Before you could ask what he meant, Itachi was gone and maybe it had all been your imagination running free.

...

Sitting up abruptly, it takes a few seconds for your eyes to get used to the low light of the dying embers. Where am I?

Salt and drying seaweed is heavy in the air, somehow worming its way into what appears to be yet another room of stone. No...it’s a cave. You’re sitting on a bedroll splayed out onto the sand filling the place and you have no memory of arriving.

The dark form on the other side of the fire pit makes no move as you slip a hand underneath your shirt to confirm what you already know: the bandages are gone and there’s only a muted tenderness as you prod at the ribs. How long has it been?

“You’re safe,” Itachi’s gentle voice assures, and you feel your pulse slow despite the ominous situation, “go back to sleep.”

Yes. Sleep...hang on! Shaking your head, you fight the urge to succumb to the fuzziness that weighs your thoughts. “Why’re you doing this?” you mumble.

It doesn’t make sense why the man wouldn’t simply get the answers he want and then dispose of you or at the very least leave you locked up somewhere while he keeps following Sasuke from the shadows. Instead, your captor has put an effort into keeping you comfortable. Feeding you.

“I remember you.” His eyes reflect the red coals as they burn into your soul all over again. “Memories don’t do your justice, though.”

...

There is no world beyond the walls of the garden but a red sheet of sky dotted with storm clouds. The sliding doors have been pushed aside, opening the hallway to the view, and you know the wood beneath your bare feet should be silky from decades of use. You can’t feel it. There are no scents either, no breeze to toy with the soft fabric of your yukata, nor insects clicking from the rhododendron.

“This isn’t real.”

“No,” Itachi confirms from behind you, “but here I can create what you need. Who you need.”

Turning at last, there’s no reason to shy away from meeting his gaze even if it matches the fake sky. He looks real – as opposed to the familiarity of the home of your childhood that surrounds the two of you – and the ghost of a smile kindly tries to hide the sadness.

“...need. For what?”

The black strands falling into his face are strangely dull in the nightmarish light. “Closure.”

“That’s not possible.”

Wanting to leave, to run away and avoid what Itachi intends, you find yourself rooted in place by an invisible force. Even turning your face away is impossible and you pray that he doesn’t understand the well of emotions he must be able to see in your eyes.

“This is a chance for you to say goodbye to the one I killed. The one you...love,” he pauses to scrutinize your expression and you try to remain neutral, “because you do. You still love him.”

“You have no right...” swallowing hard, you fight to keep the words back, “no right t-to claim to know what I need!” Finally, you manage to close your eyes but they snap open again at the touch of his fingertips on your forehead. “This isn’t something you get to fix like -”

...

The world has shifted again and you’re back in the ocean side cave. You can feel how uneven the sand is under your knees and shins even with the bedroll to soften the press and some some the grains have found their way in between your toes...but none of that matters because Itachi is still right before you, his fingers gently resting on your brow.

A pop-and-crackle from the fire pit is the only sound other than your shallow breathing. You know, he knows. Eyes widened in nigh-comedic understanding, it’s as if he sees you for the first time.

“I’m sorry, [Y/N].”

You barely manage to whisper, “for what?”

His fingertips send shivers along your spine as they trace a path, allowing him to cradle the back of your neck in his palm.

“Everything” Itachi’s lips brush your cheek, “for breaking your heart in so many ways and for making you think your love was unrequited.”

[dwellordream]

“Henry's marriage to Catherine had long since grown cold. Though his wife remained, and would remain, loyal and devoted, Henry was in very different case. The raptures of the early days had faded and the consequent demands upon him for self-discipline and generosity had found him wanting. Catherine was five years his senior. In I527 he was still in his prime, in his mid-thirties, she over forty. As king he could satisfy desire all too easily, for who would refuse a king easily, especially a king such as he? Fidelity was rare among monarchs and the temptation besetting him, in particular, strong.

At first Henry had been a gallant husband. Catherine had accompanied him to every feast and triumph, he had worn her initials on his sleeve in the jousts and called himself 'Sir Loyal Heart'. He had shown her off to visitors, confided in her, run to her with news. Though there had been talk of a lady to whom he showed favour while campaigning in France, he had slipped home ahead of his army and galloped to Catherine at Richmond in order to lay the keys of the two cities he had captured at her feet.

We cannot know when he first succumbed to the temptation of adultery, but it must have been within five years of his marriage, when there appeared on the scene one Elizabeth Blount, a lady-in-waiting of Queen Catherine and a cousin of Lord Mountjoy - and she may not have been the first. She caught the king's eye during the New Year festivities in I5I4, that is, shortly after he had returned from the first campaign in France. Bessie Blount eventually bore him a son, in I519. Subsequently she married into a gentle family, the Talboys of Lancashire, with a dower of lands in that county and Yorkshire assigned by act ofParliament. Hers, then, was a fate less than death; and her son, the duke of Richmond, was occasionally to acquire considerable political and diplomatic significance.

Next there was Mary Boleyn, since 1521 wife of William Carey, daughter of a royal councillor and diplomat, and sister of Anne. That Mary was at one time Henry's mistress, and this presumably after her marriage, is beyond doubt. Years later there was a strong rumour that she too had born Henry a son, but we cannot be sure. Anyway we may guess that the liaison was over by l526, and when her younger sister climbed on to the English throne, with perhaps pardonable pique, she dismissed Mary from the court. The latter was to do well enough, with her family at the centre of affairs during the reign of her niece, Elizabeth I - which was more than could be said of Bessie Blount. And finally there was Anne, Thomas Boleyn's younger daughter.

Following in the wake of her sister, who had been in the entourage that accompanied Mary Tudor to France in 1514, Anne had crossed the Channel about 1519 to enter the household of Queen Claude, wife of Francis I, an amiable lady who had several young girls in her care and supervised their education. The newcomer to the royal school must have been about twelve years old. She stayed in France until the out- break of war in 1522 and then came home, by which time she was on the way to becoming an accomplished and mature girl. She does not seem to have been remarkably beautiful, but she had wonderful dark hair in abundance and fine eyes, the legacy of Irish ancestors, together with a firm mouth and a head well set on a long neck that gave her authority and grace.

On her return, if not before, her future had apparently been settled, ironically by Henry and Wolsey. She would marry Sir James Butler, an Irish chieftain and claimant to the earldom of Ormond, to which the Boleyns, rivals of the Butlers, had long aspired. Anne was therefore to mend the feud by uniting families and claims. Had this familiar kind of device been executed, and had this been the sum total ofher experience ofhow marriage and politics could interweave, things might have been very different for England, if not for Ireland. But Butler's price was too high and Anne remained in England.

Her father, aided perhaps by her grandfather, the second duke of Norfolk, had meanwhile brought her to Court, as he had her sister before her. There she eventually attracted attention, first from Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, a cousin of hers; then from Henry Percy, son of the earl of Northumberland and one of the large number of young men of quality resident in Wolsey's household. Alas, Percy was already betrothed. At the king's behest, Wolsey refused to allow him to break his engagement and, summoning him to his presence, rated him for falling for a foolish girl at Court. When words failed, the cardinal told the father to remove his son and knock some sense into him. Percy was carried off forthwith- and thus began that antipathy for Wolsey that Anne never lost.

But it may well be that, when Henry ordered Wolsey to stamp on Percy's suit, it was because he was already an interested party himself and a rival for the girl's affection of perhaps several gay courtiers, including Thomas Wyatt. The latter's grandson later told a story ofhow Wyatt, while flirting once with Anne, snatched a locket hanging from her pocket which he refused to return. At the same time, Henry had been paying her attention and taken a ring from her which he thereafter wore on his little finger. A few days later, Henry was playing bowls with the duke of Suffolk, Francis Bryan and Wyatt, when a dispute arose about who had won the last throw.

Pointing with the finger which bore the pilfered ring, Henry cried out that it was his point, saying to Wyatt with a smile, 'I tell thee it is mine.' Wyatt saw the ring and understood the king's meaning. But he could return the point. 'And if it may like your majesty,' he replied, 'to give me leave that I may measure it, I hope it will be mine.' Whereupon he took out the locket which hung about his neck and started measuring the distance between the bowls and the jack. Henry recognized the trophy and, muttering something about being deceived, strode away.

But the chronology ofAnne's rise is impossible to discover exactly. All that can be said is that by I525-6 what had probably hitherto been light dalliance with an eighteen or nineteen year-old girl had begun to grow into something deeper and more dangerous. In the normal course of events, Anne would have mattered only to Henry's conscience, not to the history of England. She would have been used and discarded - along with those others whom Henry may have taken and who are now forgotten. But, either because of virtue or ambition, Anne refused to become his mistress and thus follow the conventional, inconspicuous path of her sister; and the more she resisted, the more, apparently, did Henry prize her.

Had Catherine's position been more secure she would doubtless have ridden this threat. Indeed, had it been so, Anne might never have dared to raise it. But Catherine had still produced no heir to the throne. The royal marriage had failed in its first duty, namely, to secure the succession. Instead, it had yielded several miscarriages, three infants who were either still-born or died immediately after birth (two of them males), two infants who had died within a few weeks ofbirth (one ofthem a boy) and one girl, Princess Mary, now some ten years old. His failure to produce a son was a disappointment to Henry, and as the years went by and no heir appeared, ambassadors and foreign princes began to remark the fact, and English diplomacy eventually to accommodate it, provisionally at least, in its reckoning.

Had Henry been able to glimpse into the second halfofthe century he would have had to change his mind on queens regnant, for his two daughters were to show quality that equalled or outmeasured their father's; and even during his reign, across the Channel, there were two women who rendered the Habsburgs admirable service as regents ofthe Netherlands. Indeed, the sixteenth century would perhaps produce more remarkable women in Church and State than any predecessor - more than enough to account for John Knox's celebrated anti-feminism and more than enough to make Henry's patriarchal convictions look misplaced. But English experience of the queen regnant was remote and unhappy, and Henry's conventional mind, which no doubt accorded with his subjects', demanded a son as a political necessity.

When his only surviving legitimate child, Mary, was born in February 1516, Henry declared buoyantly to the Venetian ambassador, 'We are both young; if it was a daughter this time, by the grace of God sons will follow.' But they did not. Catherine seems to have miscarried in the autumn of 1517 and in the November of the following year was delivered of another still-born. This was her last pregnancy, despite the efforts of physicians brought from Spain; and by 1525 she was almost past child-bearing age. There was, therefore, a real fear of a dynastic failure, of another bout of civil war, perhaps, or, if Mary were paired off as the treaty of 1525 provided, of England's union with a continental power.

Catherine, for the blame was always attached to her and not to Henry, was a dynastic misfortune. She was also a diplomatic one. Charles's blunt refusal to exploit the astonishing opportunity provided by his victory at Pavia and to leap into the saddle to invade and partition France had been an inexplicable disappointment. Of course, had Henry really been cast in the heroic mould he would have invaded single- handed. But established strategy required a continental ally. Eleven years before, in 1514., Ferdinand of Spain had treated him with contempt and Henry had cast around for means of revenge, and there had been a rumour then that he wanted to get rid of his Spanish wife and marry a French princess.

Whether Henry really contemplated a divorce then has been the subject of controversy, which surely went in favour of the contention that he did not - especially when a document listed in an eighteenth-century catalogue of the Vatican Archives, and thought to relate to the dissolution of the king's marriage - a document which has since disappeared - was convincingly pushed aside with the suggestion that it was concerned with Mary Tudor's matrimonial affairs, not Henry's. Undoubtedly, this must dispose of the matter even more decisively than does the objection that, in the summer of 1514, Catherine was pregnant. In 1525, however, the situation was different. Charles had rebuffed Henry's military plans and, by rejecting Mary's hand, had thrown plans for the succession into disarray.

For a moment the king evidently thought of advancing his illegitimate son - who, in June 1525, was created duke of Richmond. But this solution was to be overtaken by another which Henry may have been contemplating for some time, namely, to disown his Spanish wife. Catherine, therefore, was soon in an extremely embarrassing position. Tyndale asserted, on first-hand evidence, that \Volsey had placed informants in her entourage and told of one 'that departed the Court for no other reason than that she would no longer betray her mistress'.' When Mendoza arrived in England in December 1526, he was prevented for months from seeing the queen and, when he did, had to endure the presence of Wolsey who made it virtually impossible to communicate with her. It was the ambassador's opinion that 'the principal cause of [her] misfortune is that she identifies herselfentirely with the emperor's interests'; an exaggeration, but only an exaggeration.

The king, then, had tired of his wife and fallen in love with one who would give herself entirely to him only if he would give himself entirely to her; his wife had not borne the heir for which he and the nation longed, and it was now getting too late to hope; he had been disappointed by Catherine's nephew, Charles V, and now sought vengeance in a diplomatic revolution which would make the position of a Spanish queen awkward to say the least. Any one of these facts would not have seriously endangered the marriage, but their coincidence was fatal. If Henry's relations with Catherine momentarily improved in the autumn of 1525 so that they read a book together and appeared to be very friendly, soon after, probably, Henry never slept with her again.

The divorce, which came into the open in early 1527 was therefore due to more than a man's lust for a woman. It was diplomatically expedient and, so some judged, dynastically urgent. As well as this, it was soon to be publicly asserted, it was theologically necessary, for two famous texts from the book of Leviticus apparently forbade the very marriage that Henry had entered. His marriage, therefore, was not and never had been, lawful. The miscarriages, the still-births, the denial of a son were clearly divine punishment for, and proof of, transgression of divine law. Henry had married Catherine by virtue of a papal dispensation of the impediment of affinity which her former marriage to Arthur had set up between them.

But Leviticus proclaimed such a marriage to be against divine law - which no pope can dispense. So he will begin to say. And thus what will become a complicated argument took shape. Henry had laid his hand on a crucial weapon - the only weapon, it seemed, with which he could have hoped to achieve legitimately what he now desired above all else. How sincere he was is impossible to determine. More than most, he found it difficult to distinguish between what was right and what he desired. Certainly, before long he had talked, thought and read himself into a faith in the justice of his cause so firm that it would tolerate no counter-argument and no opposition, and convinced himself that it was not only his right to throw aside his alleged wife, but also his duty - to himself, to Catherine, to his people, to God.

At the time, and later, others would be accused of planting the great scruple, the levitical scruple, in Henry's mind. Tyndale, Polydore Vergil and Nicholas Harpsfield (in his life of Sir Thomas More) charged Wolsey with having used John Longland, bishop of Lincoln and royal confessor, to perform the deed. But this was contradicted by Henry, Longland and Wolsey. In 1529, when the divorce case was being heard before the legatine court at Blackfriars, Wolsey publicly asked Henry to declare before the court 'whether I have been the chiefinventor or first mover of this matter unto your Majesty; for I am greatly suspected of all men herein'; to which Henry replied, 'My lord cardinal, I can well excuse you herein. Marry, you have been rather against me in attempt- ing or setting forth thereof' - an explicit statement for which no obvious motive for misrepresentation can be found and which is corroborated by later suggestions that Wolsey had been sluggish in pushing the divorce forwards.

Longland too spoke on the subject, saying that it was the king who first broached the subject to him 'and never left urging him until he had won him to give his consent'. On another occasion Henry put out a different story: that his conscience had first been 'pricked upon divers words that were spoken at a certain time by the bishop of Tarbes, the French king's ambassador, who had been here long upon the debating for the conclusion of the marriage between the princess our daughter, Mary, and the duke of Orleans, the French king's second son'. It is incredible that an ambassador would have dared to trespass upon so delicate a subject as a monarch's marriage, least of all when he had come to negotiate a treaty with that monarch.

Nor was it likely that he should have sug- gested that Mary was illegitimate when her hand would have been very useful to French diplomacy. Besides, the bishop of Tarbes only arrived in England in April 1527, that is, a few weeks before Henry's marriage was being tried by a secret court at Westminster. The bishop could not have precipitated events as swiftly as that. No less significantly, another account ofthe beginnings of the story, given by Henry in 1528, says that doubts about Mary's legitimacy were first put by the French to English ambassadors in France - not by the bishop of Tarbes to his English hosts.

He and his compatriots may have been told about the scruple or deliberately encouraged by someone to allude to it in the course of negotiations, but did not invent it; nor, probably, did Anne Boleyn - as Pole asserted. It is very likely that Henry himselfwas the author ofhis doubts. After all, he would not have needed telling about Leviticus. Though he might not have read them, the two texts would probably have been familiar to him if he had ever explored the reasons for the papal dispensation for his marriage, and he was enough of a theologian to be able to turn to them now, to brood over them and erect upon them at least the beginnings of the argument that they forbade absolutely the marriage which he had entered.

Wolsey said later that Henry’s doubts had sprung partly from his own study and partly from discussion with 'many theologians'; but since it is difficult to imagine that anyone would have dared to question the validity of the royal marriage without being prompted by the king, this must mean that the latter's own 'assiduous study and erudition' first gave birth to the 'great scruple' and that subsequent conference with others encouraged it. Moreover, Henry may have begun to entertain serious doubts about his marriage as early as 1522 or 1523, and have broached his ideas to Longland then - for, in 1532, the latter was said to have heard the first mutterings of the divorce 'nine or ten years ago'.'

By the time that Anne Boleyn captured the king, therefore, the scruple may already have acquired firm roots, though probably not until early 1527 was it mentioned to Wolsey who, so he said, when he heard about it, knelt before the king 'in his Privy Chamber the space of an hour or two, to persuade him from his will and appetite; but I could never bring to pass to dissuade him therefrom'. What had begun as a perhaps hesitant doubt had by now matured into aggressive conviction.”

- J.J. Scarisbrick, “The Repudiation of the Hapsburgs.” in Henry VIII

[snowpeawritings]

As Long-Standing As The Earth

Every day, Zhongli stares down at a little cube. The cor lapis-colored thing humming with Geo energy as the little dial that shows on one side slowly ticks.

When the dial reaches its peak, Zhongli feels like the earth is alive again.

Reader is gender neutral

CW (CONTENT WARNING): Reincarnation AU, Modern AU, Zhongli character story spoilers, blood warning

❄ Snowpea’s words: LET’S GO ZHONGLI BANNER DROPPING TOMORROW I WROTE 2K WORDS LIKE I PROMISED--

The first time he held the little cube, you were dying in his arms.

It shouldn't shake him, he thinks. He is the god of war, death became a norm when mortals and archons alike are associated with him. He is the long-standing pillar that brought his army to victory. Just like the earth that continues to stand, just like his energy that reshaped the land, he will not bow to whatever danger his immortal lifetime will experience.

It shouldn't shake him. It shouldn't shake his hands when he holds your lifeless corpse, your blood running down his skin like water weathering down stone. It shouldn't.

Yet it does. Each stream of blood crumbled his visage, eyes pleading at your dead ones to see if you will laugh at how ridiculous he looks. He would take any sort of jest from you just to see you that you were even capable of making jokes while bleeding out.

You never did.

And just like sand, he crumpled down onto the earth, hoping that he would be swallowed in when the gods took you away from him.

The second time he held the cube, it was when he used it for the first time.

He remembers it fondly; you were pledged to him beyond Teyvat's mortal realms, as a god and a mortal who were sworn to each other. You joked about it, saying you two were practically married to each other and wondered if he hated the fact that he had been tied down to a mortal.

Before, he would've laughed at the thought and said that you were silly.

He wished he could've done more than just laugh at your insecurities.

The Guili Plains were slowly coming to life as he spent his energy on making his abode. You mentioned to him before that you would've loved to sit back and eat your favorite cuisine underneath a red tree, surrounded by water as the sound of nature encompasses your dining wonderfully. He had hoped that the tree in the center was big enough for you to see.

As if realizing his fondness, a little cube-no bigger than his palm-glowed from his pocket. It hummed with elemental energy as he gasped at the dial pointing at its peak.

Terraforming would have to wait.

Ever since the Archon War, he began to loathe being an archon.

He sees old friends come and go or worse, die during the war. It wouldn't be a surprise that he was used to death.

No… that's not how he would describe it.

He was used to loneliness…?

Close.

Ah, he grew tired of being lonely. He supposes that was an agreeable feeling to describe him. The price of him wanting to end his loneliness was a price his heart couldn't bear. He was a smart god, cleverly providing strategies in order to gain the upper hand in the war. 

Clearly, he wasn't smart enough to know the long-term consequences of his need.

The gods had warned him and he stood his ground as resolute as the mountains of Liyue.

The bustling village greeted his sight. Newcomers of Liyue and old villagers walked around, giving space for him to walk. Whether it was fear or admiration towards the archon, he couldn't care less. He set sight on a rather large house, its windows and doors opened for the public as wounded laid down on cots. Victims of people attempting to colonize Liyue, Treasure Hunters, or the sad case of Hilichurls, he couldn't care less.

He spots the aura of yellow energy before he could properly see the person. They were wearing a nurse's outfit, caked with blood and unknown grime from treating patients. Yet he never saw a more beautiful sight.

He approaches you and he feels the cube in his hand vibrate in tune with your aura. Making a deal with the devils be damned, he can never throw this opportunity away because he was an immortal.

"Oh, hello sir!" You greeted him and he felt the earth tremble slightly from your voice. "What can I help you with?"

He smiled at you, placing his palm in front of his chest pocket where the cube hummed. "My name is Zhongli. I heard that you are an excellent doctor?"

The third time he held the cube, he nearly threw it away along with his past.

He was no longer Morax, or Rex Lapis. He was just Zhongli, the head of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.

It was ironic, to be connected to a place of death and moving on when he tries to do the same thing. Not once did the thought of moving on never crossed his mind. Not once did the thought of giving up his life never crossed his mind because he was so tired.

His past seemed just as resolute as the earth, he thinks bitterly.

The cube that he wanted so badly to discard still kept reappearing in his sight. Whether throwing it outside the window or burning it in the fireplace or even chucking it at the Chasm. It doesn't matter, it keeps reappearing like it was gloating at him. Like it was sneering at him as it reminds him about this perpetual curse that follows him until his dying breath.

But that doesn't matter at the moment. He has a job to do as the head for doing the rite of passing. He follows the Traveler to the floral boutique, wanting to buy the best Silk Flowers for Rex Lapis's passing.

How fitting.

Before he could try to get a word out for the history of Silk Flowers, his words got trapped in his throat. He sees the same yellow aura that he associated with the color of Geo. No matter how much time has passed, he knows those vibrant colors anywhere. The cube inside his coat hummed annoyingly like it was trying for him to do something. You were blissfully unaware of his longing stare, busy trying to barter against a merchant for the cheapest price of cor lapis.

Oh, how much he wanted to march right next to you and barter with the merchant himself, say that the cor lapis he sold couldn’t hold a candle to the aura that you emitted, that he was willing to put the price of the cor lapis on his tab because you were worth it--

"Mr. Zhongli?" The Traveler's travelling companion asks. "Are you okay?"

He ignores them, chest tightening at the thought of seeing his love for the third time. "I… lost my thought. I apologize."

Stand as resolute as the earth, Zhongli scolds himself. You can't stay like this forever.

... Forever is nothing compared to an archon, though.

After having dinner with the Traveler with a smooth rite of passing, he would've loved to take Barbatos's advice and drink until he can't think.

The fourth time he held the cube, it was when he felt his powers slipping away.

The times have changed, he fears, for the Statues of the Seven slowly dwindled out until they were almost ruined. The age of metal and alchemy conquered Teyvat instead of the elemental energy and Visions that people possessed. He couldn't heal using the broken down Statues but at least he could share one last drink with Barbatos before the inevitable.

"You should see them build the first plane!" He said excitedly as he downed his umpteenth drink. "Looks like they don't need the winds from their archon anymore!"

Somehow, he wishes he could share Barbatos's anguished laughter as he drank himself into forgetfulness.

The age of innovation grew higher and higher towards its peak while Zhongli's powers grew lower and lower. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't mind it.

Anything to get rid of the blasted cube.

He gave up trying to get rid of it. Gave up on trying to find his love when the dial hits its peak. If giving away his gnosis meant that the cube would no longer work, he would. Even more so with the depletion of everyone's belief at Archons.

He hopes.

Alas, it appears Celestia would laugh at Zhongli's hopes, for when the cube glowed for another time, he nearly tore his hair out.

How many lifetimes? How many more heartbreaks? How many more funeral rites?

And yet he seemed to be the biggest fool despite being the eldest Archon, for when he sees you, an inventor innovating the new gadgets for tomorrow, he felt the earth beneath his feet tremble.

He missed this feeling.

"Hello sir!" You greeted him with enthusiasm that he wished he could relate to. "Care to see the future of mankind?"

He is the biggest fool there was. "I would love to."

And he may as well die as a fool.

The fifth time he held the cube, he was only fidgeting it around.

Funeral parlors were becoming commonplace but not a lot of customers. With globalization and the new funeral trends being used, people have mixed feelings about having such an expensive and extravagant rite of passing.

And it also doesn't help that he gets confused when some people don't even bother asking for his services. They just stare at him with a wiggly smile on their lips.

Regardless, he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. He sees the dial on its peak but he doesn't pay heed to it. He gave up. With how many people there are and newer countries emerging, he lost hope.

No, more like he doesn't care anymore.

It was probably an insult to you-no-it was a clear insult and it was scary that he doesn't care anymore. He can't be the man that existed before, assisting the Traveler and Childe. He can't be the broken down Archon that shared drinks with Barbatos. He was so goddamn tired that he deserves this sanctuary.

If he could even call it that.

And yet, he persisted. Not for Guizhong, not for you, but for himself.

He takes his time with his tea, relishing in the flavors as he used this time to calm himself. The sounds of the clock ticking, the ceramic of his cup hitting the table, and the distant sound of birds chirping were all welcomed to his ears. It appears that his daily tea rituals haven't changed at all ever since he was born.

As he sips up the last bit of his tea, a knock broke him out of his concentration. He allowed entry.

An employee under him bowed before straightening his back. "Mr. Zhongli, you have a customer."

He sets down the cup. "Bring them in."

The employee nodded at him before walking back to fetch the customer. He fixes his tie and moves his finished tea away, wanting to look best for the customer.

Hearing an extra set of footsteps, he raised his head to greet the customer but he felt the earth tremble.

Maybe Celestia had enough of his sulking as he sees you smile at him like the first of you smiled at the archon all those millenia ago.

"Hello, Mr. Zhongli," you greeted and his name never sounded so poisonously sweet in his ears, "I hope you aren't too busy with what I have to ask…"

He may as well start his own funeral rites for himself.

He takes a while before composing himself, not meeting your eyes as he gestured to the vacant seat on his left side. He can’t meet your eyes even when you sat down and smiled politely at him. It felt like his heart stopped, then jump started like an engine.

“So, um…” You said, fiddling with the tips of your fingers and Zhongli had to resist the urge to take your hands in his. “Mr. Zhongli, I was hoping that I could ask you something.”

He steeled his spine in order to not show the shiver he felt when he heard you say his name. Gods, when has it been that your past reincarnation said his name? Even in a non-romantic way? “Well, as long as it is within the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor’s power, I’ll do what I can.”

This time, you averted your eyes from him, your hand moving to scratch the back of your neck. “About that… it’s not really something related to the funeral parlor perse…”

He raised his brow, your nervousness almost easing him. “Oh?”

Your face flushed and Zhongli can’t help but feel his heart race just like before. “It’s ah… It’s just that I have a research thesis that I’m doing and for some reason, the people I’ve asked recommended you.”

He slightly deflated, then wondered why he felt disappointment in the first place. “A research thesis? Pertaining about...?”

You immediately perked up and you reached out from behind you. Your bag was sitting behind you, smooshed against the chair as Zhongli watched you curiously. From your backpack, you fished out a laptop, a heavy history book, a slim book, two notebooks, and a pencil case that’s practically bursting at the seams with stationery. You set them down on the table, the force clattering the plates but nothing was spilled.

You booted up your laptop, getting one of your notebooks and grabbing a pen. When the laptop finally booted up, you logged in and presented Zhongli what was on the screen.

He felt the earth tremble from his knee knocking up against the table.

‘History of Rex Lapis And Their Influence On The Modern World’

“I’m a huge fan of history, you see!” You explained quickly, grabbing the large book that shows an old copy of Rex Lapis Incognito, a book that he hasn’t seen a while. “I really appreciate everything that the old archons did for the world, even if people don’t believe in them anymore. I especially have a fondness for the adepti but they’re even more forgettable-but I don’t mean it in a bad way! I want to write this with intentions of people remembering what both archons and adepti did for Teyvat…”

He zoned out soon after you said ‘history’. He wasn’t the type to pray for a blessing when, after all, you’re a literal god. But it comes to a time where, after heartbreak after heartbreak, he grows tired and soon goes numb. He thought he hardened his heart ever since he subjected himself to this but it appears even bedrock can be reduced to dust.

He let out a small, shaky breath before raising his head. That doesn’t matter now. He was Zhongli, used to be adeptus, used to be archon, but now: a man.

He couldn’t be any happier.

“I admire your fondness for researching ancient history.” He said, cutting off your rambling. “I may not be as knowledgeable as any other book, but I will try my best. We should speak about this somewhere else, though. It would be dreadful to speak in a funeral parlor.”

Just like terraforming, he can be rebuilt.

[imagine-that-one-thing]

Her Majesty || 19

Aces and Spades

Smut Warning

May

Three times every Summer, the grounds of Buckingham Palace are awash with scones and fascinators as the Queen hosts her annual garden parties. The events recognise those in public service — so guests include charities, organisations, and the civil service. As Queen, this is now MY garden party.

Just under a year ago, my father was hosting this identical garden party in debut to telling everyone who my boyfriend and soon to be husband was. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned, nor did the series of unfortunate events that followed suit.

Today, there's a distinctive atmosphere to the event. It isn't as articulated and controlled. Today it's an event that doesn't bother me as much as it worries Harry. He despises events held at the Palace because it implies there's constantly a flow of people in and out of the grounds. The garden parties customarily host around eight thousand guests, but today we have a little extra. Harry has been operating nonstop doing his dues for the Palace, revising plans with Matthew and specific insurrections for today in case of emergency.

I wander the grounds, viewing as the staff hustle around in an attempt to make sure the settings are immaculate. Finally, the tents are up, the flower arrangements are in sequence, and all that is left is for the food and little things to be settled into place. I beam as the crew pass me, their hands abundant with an array of various items. They do deserve so much acknowledgement for these functions. Without the team, these events wouldn't transpire. They indeed are the masterminds behind it all.

I have not possessed substantial control over the garden party. I know my mother habitually plans the event for my Father, but my mother had no desire to plan the event to the extent she usually does due to circumstances. I enabled the staff to plan the event and have most of the say with all decorations and foods. The only thing I requested was for my father’s chosen flower to be the tables' centrepieces. He always loved blue orchids, so did I, but that is one of the flowers not grown in the gardens. Perhaps the reason for him not desiring orchids in the gardens is because, in Victorian-era England, the orchid was a symbol of luxury and decadence— My father never threw around his luxuries, he never overstepped and became entitled or snobby, he stayed humble throughout his life as a royal. The colour blue is associated with peace and tranquillity, something that my father did not observe towards the end of his life. I believe orchids to be elegant of all colours, no matter their meaning or their status of luxury or wealth.

"Excuse me, can you help me?" I discover a bass voice question. Without a second thought, I turn on my heel to recognise a gentleman carrying boxes stacked higher than he can view.

I take the top box from him, allowing him the ability to meet my gaze. The man has voyager-blue eyes that are as clear as a fresh pond. Although they are vibrant and clear, something about him is cloudy, something I can't quite put my finger down on. His eyes are beautiful, but I can't ignore the unsettling feeling he leaves me with when he makes eye contact with me.

"Oh, my, your highness, I am so sorry," the man begins to apologise profoundly.

I draw my gaze from his eyes, scared I have spent too much time staring into the eyes of a man who has a front that I cannot figure out. Staring into the eyes of someone can lure you deeper into a pit you don't always want to be in. "Don't mention it," I shake my head, staring at the rest of his figure for a moment, attempting to grasp where he's from. He appears familiar, but I'm not sure what about him is drawing my curiosity.

"I'm trying to get these insides before they dry out."

"What are they?" I question, beginning to walk back towards the palace doors.

"Flower centrepieces for the tables," I'm informed.

I gawk at the man and nod my head, my emotions wanting to take grasp of me, but I halt them in their track. This is a felicitous day; there is no room for tears or sad emotions. In my hands, I hold the orchids that I insisted on, and for a brief moment, I don’t feel alone in the royal world. I feel the sense of tranquillity and peace wash over me. I don’t think my Father ever intended for things to pan out the way they have; he had no intentions of surrendering me into this world of monarchy distress. It happened, and I can do this.

We reach the palace doors, and I slide my finger over the thump print. I shift the large, gold-lined door, enabling the man to wander into the Palace before me. "Thank you. You can place it right here. I'll come back for the box."

"Do you know where you're going?" I raise a brow, unsure how this poor man will discover his way around the Palace. Sometimes I still get lost roaming the Palace grounds. This place is like a horrible maze to newcomers.

"Uh, well, no. I don't believe your highness should be carrying boxes. So I figured I'd get inside and wait for someone to help me."

I lift my shoulders into a shrug. Carrying a box or two isn't going to kill me. "Excuse me," I seize the awareness of one of the manor staff affiliates, "Would you mind showing this gentleman where he needs to go? He has the centrepieces for the tables."

"Certainly," The staff member nods, taking the box from my hands.

I leave the two of them to figure things out, making my way back upstairs to my room.

♛ ♛ ♛

The trek to my room is reserved and tranquil, something that is quite surprising. I expected to run into Madeleine or Louis attempting to sneak around the Palace in an attempt to keep their relationship ambiguous. I know what is going on between them, so does Harry, but the two of them act as though they are smug for trying to keep their relationship quiet. I think the award for best relationship honoured quiet is mine and Harry's. We did manage to fool my parents and the monarch.

I travel down the long-drawn hallways adorned with various paintings and decorations, the man, however, in my thoughts and driving me bonkers. Perhaps it was the eyes, but I want to know more. I am intrigued; I crave to learn who he is.

Is he a florist?

Is he attending the event?

What is his name?

I shake my obsessive thoughts away as I find myself at my door. I unlock the door with ease and step into my quiet room, just as equally bewildered. I suspected my room to be bustling with staff striving to shove me into a dress and get my hair done. Instead, I regard Harry on our bed with the covers draped over half his body and no staff in my room.

This is a first.

"Did I wake you?" I challenge, noticing him move insignificantly between the soft sheets, the rays of the sun peeking through the sheer curtains, forcing their way through the crack of the blackout curtains.

"Mm, no, been awake for a few minutes," Harry responds tiredly and with a soft voice.

"Oh, I was just downstairs looking at the setup."

"I know," Harry responds, his hand gesturing towards his phone. "I can see the cameras from my phone. Just wish you wouldn't stand in the blind spots every bloody time," Harry softly snickers.

I roll my eyes as I shift the heavy, red curtains to each side to induce light into the room before I shuffle closer to the wrack of clothes that were left in my room last night for me to go through. I have seven dresses I can choose from to wear today, all of which have been pre-approved by my mother already. Even as Queen, I have to have my attire pre-approved by her. I don't think I'll ever be able to wear what I want without approval, no matter how long I reign. "Shouldn't you already be with Matthew?" I challenge, shocked Harry is still in bed at this hour.

Harry shakes his head, not bothering to move in the bed as I gaze at each dress, taking them off the wrack and holding them up. "No, I was allowed to sleep in," Harry responds.

"Which dress?" I turn around, holding up two dresses that I can’t decide on.

One is The Reiss Peacock dress with lace and cording embroidery detailing on the bodice, a wide neckline and a heavily lined, full skirt. The second dress is a red and white Alexander McQueen dress, with a knee-length skirt and slim-fit sleeves with white cuffs.

Harry moves insignificantly in the bed, the sheets sounding with each slight movement. Harry grimaces as he relaxes upon his forearms to get a better glimpse.

"The lace," Harry answers with a petite smile, "Swear your mother picks the most horrid dresses sometimes," Harry continues, relating to the green gown at the end of the wrack that I didn’t touch.

My mother has a way of trying to dress me up to par with royal protocol. I do my best to stick to the protocol without looking like I am in my sixties.

I am not entirely convinced that the only reason Harry is in bed is that he got the morning off. It is rare for him to still. be in bed, for the most part, on his day's off, he gets up and starts moving. Something about him doesn't seem quite right. Perhaps I am reading into things a little too much, but I feel uneasy when I shouldn't. Harry doesn't just take days off or stay in bed unless there is a reason for it. Sometimes it is to keep me occupied while protocol takes place, sometimes it is because he has worked too many hours and legally has to stand down, and other times, on that very off chance, it is because something isn't right with him.

"I can see you're stressing already. Relax."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

Harry sighs and nods his head, "Yes, I'm a bit tired, that is all, I promise." ... "Your mother said I was to attend as a husband today. I never knew marrying you would entail your mother controlling my work schedule." Harry informs me, "I am not mad, just amused. She won't do this often, will she?"

I shrug my shoulders in response. I am not sure why my mother decided to inform Harry that today was an event as a husband. I am confident she has some purpose. I can only imagine she is delighted to show him off as her son-in-law to the several people who do know. Perhaps she intends to show the world that we are together, I am not quite sure. I frankly do not want the media and the people to draw much attention to us. I know the balcony from the night of my coronation has people talking, but I don't want the spotlight on us or myself. I don't want the spotlight at all.

My door opens, and my ladies-in-waiting unobtrusively walk in, smiles adored across their lips and bright eyes as they notice the dress I have chosen. I don't know how they appreciate the process of getting me ready and looking like a royal, I am over it, so I assume they would be too. From the anticipated expression on their faces, it is safe to say they relish this a lot more than I do.

"I am going to get for a walk or maybe get coffee, enjoy whatever you lot do," Harry gestures around us as my hair is already being touched and hairstyles discussed. Harry kisses my cheek and promptly leaves, allowing me to be forced into a chair.

The ladies assist me with getting prepared, making sure my hair, makeup, and attire match perfectly. They smile happily with each moment, asking questions to help prepare me for any sort of conversations that may take place. They enjoy the questions and keep me occupied so that I don't freak myself out. I chuckle and roll my eyes as Eleanor exposes the glass boxes that contain jewellery pieces. "She wants to wear a tiara," Harry pipes up, ultimately making himself known in the room after his coffee walk.

I raise a brow and shake my head, "No," I mouth to Eleanor.

"The sapphire one that I like." Harry presses.

"The Dubai Looped Sapphire Demi-Parure?" Eleanor challenges with a raised brow as we all glance at him. He doesn't typically comment when the ladies are around. He tends to let them do their job and choose for me unless otherwise specified.

Harry nods his head and steps closer to me, placing a warm cup in my hand, the scent of tea filling my senses. This man always knows when to bring me what beverage.

"I will have Matthew get it from the vault with the earrings," Eleanor smiles, and I nod my head. "Now for the dress," Eleanor gestures towards the dress that I picked out.

Eleanor helps me into the dress; it doesn't take much assistance, unlike some of the ball gowns I have had to wear in the past. This dress is quite simple and slips on perfectly. The only issue is the buttons down the back.

I glance over and view Harry once again grimacing as he stretches his shirt around to draw the sleeve up to his arm. Then, finally, he catches my stare and softly grins, "You look lovely," he compliments me as Eleanor proceeds to button up my dress from the back, tightening it with every moment.

"You look like you're in pain."

"Just a little sore, it's normal," Harry shakes his head, "Plus, this suit is not my usual look. It's not black." Harry half-smiles, attempting to hide the pain laced in his eyes.

Harry is notorious for wearing the same damn suit. I don't know why he wears the same one, he can afford to buy different suits, but he doesn't. I think he has duplicates of the same suit, to be honest. The man can afford to buy horses and have a nice car, but the man will not buy a different suit. He won't even change the colours. He is a simple man; a straight black and white suit is more than enough for him. I am surprised I got him to wear suspenders on our wedding day.

"Well, your hardcore black and white suit isn't going to cut it for today's event. Get over it."

"Feisty," Harry chuckles, "What am I meant to do? I am prepared as security, not a husband, so I need some pointers," Harry reminds me of the fact that he has not been introduced into the royal world as more than his career. He only understands how to act as my security detail. "Do I curtsey? Do I act posh? Do I carry one of those umbrella things around?" Harry questions. He is spiralling. The man who isn't frightened of much is somewhat panicking over how to present himself in the royal world.

I chuckle and shake my head, "Next, you're going to ask if you have to play polo."

"Well, if I do, I cannot, "... "Not only am I god awful, I can't play with my shoulder."

I roll my eyes as Harry works to arrange his tie, "Just act like you."

"The royal's do not want to see me as an asshole who will call a level four protocol if I seem fit."

"Harry," I breathe.

Harry huffs and shakes his head, "I like this better as security."

"Just stay with me, talk to people and try to enjoy yourself."

"There are thousands of people on the grounds. I cannot enjoy myself." Harry is in security mode and not husband mode. It doesn't matter how many people are on the grounds. It isn't his problem.

I restrain myself from glaring at him and huffing. Instead, I offer him a small smile to conceal my frustration, "Are you going to be a grumpy ass all day?"

"I am sorry," Harry sighs, "I will do my best."

I walk away from Eleanor and step to Harry, taking his suit jacket from his hand, "Allow me," I instruct, moving behind him and helping him put the jacket on without having to move his shoulder too much. I know he is in more pain than he leads on. I know he struggles daily with his shoulder; it seems to be getting worse.

Harry turns around and nods his head, "Thank you," he kisses my cheek.

"You should get your shoulder checked out again."

"When I have time," Harry responds, dismissing the conversation and stepping away from me instantly.

♛ ♛ ♛

The Palace is bustling with staff hurrying to get last-minute things under control, and the rest of us in the Palace are getting ready, more so the ladies adding any last-minute touches to things. For once, I am ready early and without restraints. I am not hurrying to find pantyhose or trying to find ways to see Harry before we are whisked away for a day apart.

I escort down the endless hallway, my heels silenced under the red carpet that has been rolled out for today's occasion. God forbid if this marble floor is scratched by anyone who cannot walk in heels.

When I recognise Harry walking in my direction, I smile to myself, his physique adorned with the navy blue suit he left my room in. He is dashing with a rascal's smile, and his hair is a casual jumble but mostly neat and flowing. Harry prowls typically around with a lion-like power when walking the halls, but today he eases about the hallways with grace, seeming more relaxed and not so dominant.

As he steps closer, Harry’s eyes are a-twinkle with the ‘Joie de vivre’ as he graces me with a confident smile.

I grasp Harry's hand and sway us away from the hallways leading to the event of people commencing to assemble outside in the gardens. I drag us into a hidden passageway with no warning.

"Why are we here?" Harry questions, confused as he locks the door behind him. “I didn’t call a protocol,” Harry informs me.

I lean up and kiss him fearlessly, wasting no time with my intentions.

"Anna," he draws away, gazing at me with bewildered eyes.

"Harry, I'm in a dress," I point out the obvious, motioning towards the white dress that caresses my body in the superfluous yet modest way.

Harry nods, "And you look lovely."

"I'm in a dress, so please, for the love of God, give me attention," I breathe out, "Give me you," I demand, causing him to raise a brow. "We have a few minutes." I remind Harry that we still have time before we need to make our entrance into the garden and begin mingling with people who have been invited.

"Right here?" He is shocked as he gestures around the passageway I have drawn him into without any sort of warning.

Sometimes, you have to do what you have to do. There is nowhere else that we will be adorned with privacy. My room is clustered with the staff cleaning up and taking out the dresses I did not choose, the team are all around the palace, and I am sure security has every damn camera working and being watched intently.

"Any other time and place we are interrupted, right here, right now," I confirm. “There are no cameras, no staff, no interruptions.”

Harry stands in front of me, blinking owlishly. I sigh and shake my head before moving to the side, my hand reaching for the door we entered from.

He isn’t interested.

Abruptly, he seizes me and pushes me against the wall. My back hits the wall as one hand cups my neck and the other rushes to my hip, leaving very little space between us. His lips waste no time with leaving rained kisses on my exposed skin, butterflies in my stomach soaring with every luscious kiss settled to my skin.

He caresses my shoulder and bequeaths a trail of kisses leading to my collar bone, my fevered skin shivering at each moment his raspberry-red lips leave their mark. I tilt my head to the side as he advances to kiss the slender skin column of my neck, producing a meagre exhale to escape my lips.

Finally.

He urges his body closer to mine, and my breath hitches in my throat while he bites my neck mildly, just enough to enthral me. My chest rises up and down, and I sense his breath brush my skin with every moment that transpires. He takes bold possession of my lips, kissing me vigorously and passionately with his sumptuous, sensuous and velour soft lips that drip with honey. My hands' haste to Harry's physique, which deserves to be on statues, chiselled by the greatest artists. My leg encloses around his body to draw him closer, a wild desire and yearning taking power. His hand drifts to cup my boob, my body continuing to advance into his as tongues slip and surge in superfluous movements.

He takes his palm and glides it up to my inner thigh, my dress being of no concern to him. He takes his time, welcoming every inch of my inner thigh that he can, feeling every inch like a map for him to follow. Finally, he discovers the lace beneath my dress, and my palms clutch his shoulders. He glides a finger across the lace, my leg wrapping tighter around him while the other holds me up, keening anticipation humming through my veins.

I draw away from our kiss and let out a breath, my chest rising rapidly as he teases me with extremely light glides across the lace. "How much do you want this?" Harry challenges with a soft voice and a grin on his face. "Because I don't think you want this enough."

"I need you, now," I murmur, my fingers burrowing into his shirt while he brushes his finger over the lace of my underwear.

"You sure?" … “Tell me how much you need me,” Harry instructs, gradually positioning himself on his knees and thoroughly pressing his hand to the back of my thigh.

“Don’t do this,” I whine as he begins to kiss my skin, slowly making his way up my thigh.

Harry gently squeezes his hand on the back of my inner thigh and leaves a few more sweet kisses on my skin. I tilt my head back, my mouth allowing a small groan to escape as I am enthralled with him getting closer and closer to where I want him.

“I’m still waiting,” Harry responds, his breath tapping my skin, driving me crazier.

"Harry, just put me out of my misery and—"I begin, frustrated with him, but my words trail off as he slides the lace to the side, ever so nonchalantly.

"And?" Harry questions, standing back to his feet, his hand pressed to the lace band of my underwear, tampering with my sanity.

"And do what you do best. Why do you make this so fucking frustrating you're—, oh," I trail off the moment he graces me with his presence and slides a finger inside me, shutting me up instantly. I tilt my head back and softly moan.

“Is that what you wanted?" He grins cockily, working his fingers in a circular motion, causing me to want more and more of his breathtaking movements.

“Don’t stop.”

Delighted with excited anticipation, he slides in another finger, my toes curling within my heeled stilettos, my hand clutching fistfuls of his shirt, my body focusing on the sensation he’s dominantly advancing, his fingers twisting in a circular motion. My eyes narrow to half-mast, my head is tilting back, my nails digging into his shirt as he continues to grin.

Harry chuckles quietly as I begin to dance my hands along with the band of his pants, hinting at what I want next.

“Gettin’ ahead of yourself already,” Harry grins, “I’m not done,” He continues, catching me off guard as he slows his circular motions and lowers himself back down to his knees. He rides my dress up and grasps the back of my thighs, kissing his way up my thighs. My fingers press his shoulders while my other hand holds my dress. He bites gently on my inner thigh, a small chuckle escaping his lips before I go weak at my knees, enthralled by the motions of his tongue.

His hands squeeze the back of my thigh harder, in turn, my fingers squeezing his shoulders as my legs begin to quiver. I feel the rushing, narcotic power building in my body, “Harry,” I moan his name, fighting the power and squirming as he gets closer and closer to finding the exact spot I have been demanding.

I feel the building pressure, the climax coming at me in digging waves, but Harry stops. He stands to his feet, and I go to protest, but I’m stopped the moment he unbuttons his pants, thrilling me further and entering slowly. His hand presses against the wall, and we work together, at first going slow before he gradually inclines his thrusts, my hips moving to work with his.

My eyes roll to half-mast as my residence is broken and my body weakens, entirely falling into him with pleasure.

I catch my breath as he holds me up, my nails removing from their emended position on his shoulders.

I give him a smile as my dress falls back to its original length and my leg unwraps from around him. He holds me tighter, my legs shaking even further.

"You okay?" He breathes, pressing me back against the wall while holding me securely.

I nod, “Just for future reference; I’ll be getting you back for demanding praise before pleasure.”

Harry shrugs as he drops his arm from me and begins to adjust himself and his pants. “You dragged me in here.”

“If I had to wait for you to drag me in here, we’d never get anywhere.”

“I’m sorry I prefer to pleasure you in complete privacy.”

“Up your game, Styles,” I smile, adjusting my dress.

Harry rolls his eyes, “I look forward to your revenge, darling.” Harry winks as he cocks his head and looks me up and down, “Your quivering legs say you’re satisfied.”

“Very,” I nod, “Next time, it’s my turn to pleasure you.”

Harry grins and agrees, “Revenge and all.” ... "You have an event, Queen," Harry winks, gesturing to the door, reminding me of my other duties.

Harry's POV

When I woke up this morning, I had not intended for the events of the morning to go as they have. I didn't anticipate Anastasia to drag me to the royal office right before the garden party to take care of business. Then again, I didn't expect her to lure me into a passageway and demand I please her, not that I'm complaining by any means. Intercourse is infrequent these days. Finding alone time is like attempting to find a pot of fucking gold.

I stand in front of her, waiting for answers, just as Pippa and her mother do as well. My mother in law steps closer to me, "What is going on?" she questions, and I shrug my shoulders.

"No clue," I whisper.

"It is rude to whisper," Pippa remarks, causing me to cock my head to the side and glared at her.

Before I can speak, my mother-in-law speaks for me, "Nobody asked your opinion," she mutters.

"The only way to become KingKing is to inherit the title; I hereby change the ruling. If any Queen wishes to title her husband as KingKing, she can do so on the conditions she rules the majority of the monarch, and they can co-monarch successfully. I am still higher ranked than him." Anastasia states, signing her name effortlessly across a piece of paper, taking all of us by surprise.

I watch as Anastasia signs a warrant authorising the preparation of the letters patent and approving the draft text of the letters patent. "What? Anna… What?" I utter, confused as to what is happening as Anna hands me the letter that will be written in ceremonial calligraphy on vellum in the next few hours.

"You cannot be serious, Her Majesty," Pippa laboriously huffs.

I am not sure how any of this affects Pippa. It isn't like I do anything to bother her.

"I am changing your title," Anna responds, glancing towards her mother and Pippa, who have witnessed the moment, "Any objections?" Anastasia raises a brow, narrowing her eyes towards Pippa.

Pippa shifts her weight from foot to foot, evidently troubled with Anastasia's smartass remarks and comments. Pippa shakes her head, and I take a moment to glance down and read what Anastasia is ordering.

In the name and on the behalf of Her Majesty.

Anastasia Annette Leanor, Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen Defender of the Faith etc. To all to whom these Presents shall come greeting: Our Will and Pleasure is, and we do hereby declare and ordain, that from and after the date of this warrant, Harry Styles, shall be styled, entitled and called "His Royal Highness, King of the United Kingdom," before his name and such Titles and appellations, which to Him now do, or at any time hereafter may belong or appertain, in all Deeds, Records, Instruments or Documents whatsoever, wherein He may at any time hereafter be named or described. And We do hereby authorise and empower the said Harry Styles henceforth and at all times to assume and use and be called and named by the style title and appellation of "His Royal Highness" accordingly.

Given at Our Court at Buckingham Palace the Fifteenth Day of April 2022.

I place the paper down on the desk, "Anna, Are you sure about this? I don't know about all this," I gesture, unsure of what to do or how to act.

I don't want this at the expense of pissing Pippa off.

"Yeah, I am unsure too," Pippa steps closer to the desk.

"Nobody asked your opinion, and this has nothing to do with the Priminsiter. Why is she here?" I cross my arms over my chest.

This woman is a pain in my ass.

"I think I liked you better as a security detail."

"Yeah, well, I liked you better when you weren't up my ass and pissing me off all the time."

"That is no way to speak to a parliament member," Pippa responds.

"Parliament can kiss my royal ass," I respond, "I believe this is a conversation between my wife and me, so please, respectfully, shut up," I smile through my teeth, trying my hardest not to be an outright asshole to her, but my patience is thin right now.

I look back towards Anastasia and Anna stands from her position at her desk, "I am sure, we have a garden party to attend," Anastasia smiles before she steps towards me and kisses my cheek, "Are you escorting me or are you going to argue Pippa?"

"Do I get a say in this?" I softly challenge.

Anna shakes her head, "No, take it," Anastasia responds, her eyes narrowing down on me, indicating that I need to shut my mouth and let her do what she is doing. Perhaps there is a method to her madness, or maybe she wants to give me the damn title, either way, I will stand by her, even if it means I become a fucking King, formally,

♛ ♛ ♛

For the first time, I trail Anastasia's lead, doing my amplest to empower myself to be in the moment and not destroy things by being her security detail. I try my best not to keep track of the number of people in the gardens or that with every second that passes, there's an extra set of eyes on Anastasia.

Matthew is in charge of keeping Anastasia safe in the event of some catastrophe, and Oliver is in charge of keeping me safe. Quite frankly, as her husband or not, I do not care about myself in situations; my main focus is her not just because it is my profession but because she is the woman I love. Therefore, I will put my life on the line for her no matter the circumstances.

"Eaglette, any threats?" I softly question Oliver as Anastasia is occupied with one of the other Princess' that have appeared.

Oliver clears his throat and steps closer to me from behind, "Will she fire me if I tell you?" Oliver whispers, and I can't help but laugh. Anastasia and Princess Charlotte view me with raised brows, and I begin to softly cough into my hand, proposing to divert the attention.

"No, Oliver, she will not fire you. Give me the rundown," I instruct, moving to the left so he can stand beside me.

I begin to glance around, exercising close surveillance of the physiques around us. "One woman was denied entry, and that is all. Nothing dangerous or threatening."

"Who has their eyes on her mother?" I question, unable to locate Anastasia's mother where I am.

"She is sitting under the tent with her lady-in-waiting. She will not be moving. Everything is running smoothly."

I nod my head and march towards Anastasia, joining her conversation.

I feel out of place. I feel as though I should be standing with Matthew or Oliver. I shouldn't be participating in the events as more than security detail. My marriage to Anna doesn't modify my stance on things. I don't want to be known as the man who abruptly gains a title and completely changes; I am no better than anyone else and don't like the idea of being more than just security. Most people would love to have some sort of title. I don't.

I excuse myself from Anna and walk away, leaving the crowd of minglers for Oliver to handle. These events have always bothered me, not just from a relationship stance but from a security detail stance. It is rattling my nerves not being in the loop and knowing where everyone is or who is here. Matthew didn't want me a part of today's service, as requested by my mother-in-law but not knowing makes me want to panic. I weave in and out of the gardens, well aware of Matthew's sneaky path, and I eventually locate him.

I offer him a grin, and he shakes his head, "What do you want? You're off duty."

"Can I please just have my in-ear? It would give me peace of mind," I ask politely.

Matthew rolls his eyes and shoves his hand into his pocket, "I figured you'd ask," Matthew chuckles, "Can't help yourself, can you?"

I lift my shoulders into a shrug and take my in-ear from him, "Makes me nervous not knowing."

"I understand, but if Anastasia sees you being her detail, she is going to get upset with you. She wants her husband."

"Yeah, well, her husband is struggling with this… What the fuck am I meant to do? I don't know these people." I question, needing some sort of advice. "Do I curtsey?"

I am the kind of person who likes to be prepared, and I haven't been prepared for anything. I don't know how to start conversations with royals, I don't know how to act as anything other than a security personal, and most of all, I don't know who I am meant to curtsey to and who I am not. Things are more manageable when I am security. As Anna's security, I knew every single person who was meant to curtsey to Anna and every single person who did not have to. Everyone who does not hold an HRH title has been required to bow to Anastasia even when she was young, and anyone without an HRH title will have to curtsey to our children. Now that Anna is Queen, everyone is to curtsey to her no matter the title, and now that I have a title, I have no clue who the fuck I am meant to bow to or who is meant to bow to me, not that I want anyone to bow to me.

Matthew chuckles to himself before placing his hand on my shoulder, "Harry, relax. It is okay."… "Anna had to only bow to her parents; now her mother has to bow to her… As reigning Queen, everyone curtseys to her, and when you two are together, they curtsey to you. You are titled His Majesty, and as King, everyone curtseys to you as well when you are both together."

"So I do not bow?"

"No, Harry, and there is no way I am bowing to you either."

I laugh at Matthew's comment, "Royal protocol says otherwise."

"You can shove it up your ass; I am not bowing," Matthew continues, causing me to laugh a little harder. "Now that you are relaxed, just breathe. Don't worry about the royal rules. Anna doesn't want you to be moulded to those rules. She just wants her husband; she doesn't expect you to act like a King on your first day."

"Nobody even knows I am King, oh God, is the media going to find out? I don't think I am up for this. I don't want to be formally known as King."

"Would you prefer the title of an asshole? I think it is still available unless Pippa took it," Matthew continues to endeavour to lighten the mood and stop me from spiralling with my thoughts and feelings towards the situation. "Look, Anastasia knows what she is doing. It doesn't change anything major right now, Harry. It isn't like you have to make speeches and attend public events on your own. Just stand with her and smile."

"I prefer to be on security. Can I just do security?"

Matthew shakes his head, "You need to do this for your wife, so suck it up."

I nod my head, "Can I just get a few minutes to recoup?" I question, requiring a few extra minutes to amp myself back to go back to Anastasia and the swarming crowd of guests.

"I am going back to Oliver. If you're not back with your wife in ten minutes, I will make you regret it."

"How so?" I curiously ask, purposely being a shithead.

"I will stick you on watching the cameras between two and six in the morning, your favourite shifts," Matthew responds, causing me to groan. "Figured you would see it my way and get back to being King," Matthew smirks, shuffling away from me.

I stand in the extensive gardens, taking in deep breaths in an attempt to calm my racing thoughts.

What have I gotten myself into?

I struggle to wrap my head around this morning's events. I just gave up the crown and being in charge of the monarch, and somehow I gained the title of King- a title that has never been obtained by a man who hasn't been royal by blood. I am sure the parliament will dispute it the best they can, but ultimately, Anastasia has the last say.

I observe a man and take it upon myself to walk closer to him, "This area is off-limits," I immediately begin, startling the man as he turns to stare at me.

"You're in here."

"I am allowed to be here. I would suggest you go back to the public and leave the flowers alone," I command, pointing to the flowers he had been touching, "If I catch you here again, I will have you arrested." I threaten the man, not wanting to cause a scene. Anna would kill me.

"No need, Harry," the man shakes his head.

"How do you know my name?" I instantly challenge, narrowing my eyes on him and stepping closer to the man who appears familiar, but I know I have never met him before. He isn't in any of our files for looking out for and for someone who can't be trusted.

"I read social media. I am not from the seventeen hundreds, Mr Styles," the man chuckles.

I nod my head, "Careful what you touch, might be poisonous," I cross my arms over my chest, making it known that I know he is up to something, but I am not quite sure what it is. I don't know what he could want with a few flowers or what he was doing out here, but I do know that I do not like it.

"Likewise, wouldn't want any Aces in the hole," the man grins.

"You seem a bit lost in the shuffle there, mate," I respond, irritated by his use of idioms.

"Have a good day," The man proceeds to walk away, leaving me intrigued. Part of me wants to grab him and force out of him what he means by an Ace in a hole. The saying represents a hidden or secret strength or unrevealed advantage, but what could this man mean?

What Ace is hidden in the gardens?

What Ace is hidden in the flowers?

What Ace is hidden?

I shake my thoughts and force myself to forget about the man, a man who is just someone attempting to get some sort of attention at the Palace. I walk the pathway and head back towards the area where the guests are gathered. I weave in and out of the bodies, trying to locate Anna or her mother, whichever one I can manage to find first.

I find Anastasia standing under one of the tents on her own, standing beside an ice sculpture that is just for looks. "I was looking for you," Anastasia begins, "You okay?"

"I am fine," I kiss her cheek.

"I know that is a lie," Anastasia sighs, and she takes my hand, lacing her fingers with my own.

I heavily sigh before speaking, "I don't like not doing my job, it is… weird," I trail off into a whisper as we are interrupted by Princess Madeleine. "Princess," I nod, acknowledging her as she smiles towards Anastasia and glares as her eyes meet mine.

"I believe you have the title wrong," Madeleine informs me, purposely irking my nerves as she did the first day I met her.

She has lived with us for a little while, and I do everything in my power to avoid her at all costs; she and I don't see eye to eye, and her sarcasm pisses me off nine times out of ten. The only time she has come in handy was when she scared some of the new guys I am trying to train.

I clear my throat and look at her, "Madeleine Noelle Veil of Denmark," I correct myself, "As I call you by your official title, I believe you must curtsey," I gesture with a grin, "Go ahead, don't be shy."

"Harry," Anna nudges me, signalling for me to stop playing the same petty game as Madeleine.

"I Madeleine Noelle Veil of Denmark do not bow to you, but as for your royal title, I shall curtsey," Madeleine mutters unhappily, bending her knees and curtseying.

I chuckle and nod my head, "Thank you, Princess Madeleine Noelle Veil of Denmark. Your presence is always a joy."

"Do you two do anything but bicker?" Anastasia interrupts before Madeleine can comment.

Madeleine and I both lift our shoulders into a shrug, "No," I shake my head, "I am going to find Prince Louis," I inform the two of them as they grab more drinks, "Madeleine, who is watching you?" I ask.

Madeleine raises a brow before looking around, "Are you not on my service?"

"I am serious, Madeleine."

"Nobody was assigned to me. My guard never showed."

I run my fingers through my hair and shake my head disapprovingly, "Stay with Anna. I will have someone put on your service." I inform the two of them before walking off, on a mission not only to find someone for Madeleine's service but also to figure out who the man in the gardens was. He has left a bitter taste in my mouth, and something about him doesn't settle with me.

♛ ♛ ♛

The garden party ended an hour ago, and as the evening concluded, I couldn't help but have this begging need to go to the security office and grab some paperwork. My thoughts have been racing since the man in the gardens. I haven't been able to shake his comments off.

I rummage through a few files, doing my best to locate what I am looking for.

I turn to observe Anastasia sitting down; her head bowed as she stares at her lap. I watch her for a minute and cock my head to the side. At first glance, I assume she is tired from a long day; hell, I am exhausted from today, and all I had to do was stand there and look pretty. But, instead, I was merely just the man who stood beside her all day. "Baby, are you okay?" I challenge, walking closer, realising that something about her doesn't appear the same. Minutes ago, she was smiling, had energy to her, and now she seems as though her light has dimmed.

I step closer and notice what Anna has in her lap that has caused her to gaze down thoroughly. "Anna, you can't just go through things," I raise my voice insignificantly, panic mode setting in.

Anastasia was not intended to perceive anything in that folder. I lean down and snatch the file from her hands and arrange it back on my desk. She gazes up at me, all the colour drained from her face, her eyes sullen, and her hands shaking as she attempts to disguise them by adjusting the length of her dress. "I'm sorry for raising my voice," I apologise, not knowing where to begin with what I have to handle. I thread a hand through my hair while she twists the wedding ring on her finger anxiously.

Anastasia stands to her feet and wraps her arms around her. I can't tell if it is out of comfort or for the fact it is chilly down here. I know she viewed information in the file she was never meant to perceive, there is a reason she isn't meant to be down here, but I didn't expect this file to be left in plain sight for her to recognise. "Anna?"

She doesn't want to speak, I don't blame her, but she can't keep shutting down on me any time an inconvenience occurs or she finds things out she doesn't want to acknowledge. At this rate, her life is a series of unfortunate events, and I am doing everything I can to shield her from it. But it isn't my fault she is in the mess she is in. It all originates from her family line. Finally, Anastasia steps to the door and waits, not bothering to turn back to glance at me as I stand in the middle of the surveillance room at a loss for words. I don't know how to comfort her.

I take my jacket off and step closer to Anastasia. I drape my coat over her shoulders from behind before I grab my keys from my pocket, "How mad are you at me?" I question, flipping through my keys to locate the one I am looking for.

"Harry, I don't want to talk." Anastasia's lips set in a grim line.

"I don't want a lot of things, but I have to deal with them, Anna."

Anastasia glances at me and takes my jacket off, handing it to me out of spite. Her usually effervescent eyes now burn with contempt. "Leave me alone," Anastaisa mutters.

My body stiffens at the remark; it breaks my heart, but I know deep down this has nothing to do with me. I am just the middle man attempting to figure out who the fuck killed her father and who I need to deal with so they don't take Anastasia.

I unlock the door and permit Anastasia out, "As you wish," I gesture for her to step out, allowing her to march out of the security room and into the tunnels. I close the door behind me and place the keys in my pocket. I heavily sigh, and I lean on the door as I watch Anastasia walk off without me. I should follow her, but I know the tunnels are relatively safe, at least the ones on this end— I know that sometimes she needs space. I can't smother her, and I can't shield her from everything as I try.

After a few minutes, I begin to walk.

I recognise Anastasia on the cold ground, and I wander closer to her before I kneel in front of her, her cheeks tear-stained with mascara, her arms wrapped around her stomach, and her legs tucked under her dress. Her chest rises and falls with rapid breaths. "Don't ask if I am okay," Anastasia snaps before I can bother to open my mouth.

"Didn't plan on it," I respond before I stand up, leaving her to her own defences and beginning to step away. I may walk away from her, but I can watch guard without her knowing. I don't want to push her over the edge or start an argument with her.

Sometimes you have to pick and choose your battles, especially in relationships; this is a battle I do not want to fight. I don't want to argue herewith in the tunnels because of her emotions.

I catch her weeping, and it breaks my heart, but I can't always be the one to pick up her pieces if she doesn't want me to. I cannot fight her and urge her to understand things. "Harry, wait," the painful vibration of her voice causes me to stop in my tracks. I stand with my back to her, unsure of whether to turn around and go back to her or to leave her where she is. "I'm sorry," her apology causes me to think for a moment. She is furious and sad at the same time, and I am frustrated— neither of us is better than each other— we both have emotions that we can't always control. Finally, I turn around and begin to walk back towards her.

Anastasia gazes up at me, her usually alluring eyes harbouring nothing but grief and sorrow. I kneel again, this time noticing the blood spots on her dress. "What happened?" I request, lifting her arms to take a glimpse at her dress.

"I was coming back to apologise," Anastasia breathes, bowing her head in defeat, "I tripped over the uneven stones."

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" I ask, gingerly shifting her arms from their position from around her stomach, scanning every inch of her.

"It's no big deal," Anastasia responds, "Life likes to knock me down."

"Happens to the best of us," I respond, "Can you get up?" I request, unsure of how she fell or if she had hurt herself aside from a few scrapes.

I place my hands at her waist and mindfully assist her where I see her dress is torn, and she scraped her legs on her fall. "If you hadn't walked off, this may not have happened."

Anastasia's eyes roll skyward, and frustration crinkles her eyes. "Sure, because prince charming would have saved me as always."

"I am not sure why you're angry at me," I shake my head, kindly placing my jacket to slide up her arms before I bring it to her front. I button my coat up so the tear in her dress isn't exposed.

Anastasia gazes at me and looks down before peering back up at me, "I don't know who else to be angry at…."

I don't respond, mainly because I do not know how to. So instead, I swallow any sly remarks I have and place my arm around her before we quietly walk the rest of the tunnels.

The walk was silent; the only thing that we could hear was the echo of her heels tapping the stones with every step she took. I know the fall to the stones hurt, and I know she was doing her best not to lean on me, but even when she is pissed at me and I am frustrated, I don't want her ever to think I won't be there for her to lean on, whether that be literally or metaphorically.

Life is troublesome, and it is even harder when you're attempting to avenge your wife's father's murder. I promised her I would get to the bottom of things, I promised her father I would keep her safe, and these go hand-in-hand. I will stop at nothing to make sure Anastasia is not next. It scares me every day to wake up knowing that there are people out there who don't want her in the monarch. It terrifies me that she took control of something much more significant than her. It scares me that there are members of parliament who are evil and corrupt— I plan to deal with them the second that I can, but for now, Matthew and I are taking things one step at a time. Anastasia can't stay enraged at me forever. I didn't tell her to scan through files; she took a seat to get off her feet, resulting in disaster. I didn't expect her to open the one fucking file with pictures of her father the night the unknown killed him. I didn't expect her to somehow turn things around on me. I didn't anticipate becoming the inferior guy in the situation because her emotions are ramped.

♛ ♛ ♛

Anastasia rummages around the bathroom, and I observe her silhouette with every move while I undo the tie around my neck. Every so often, I notice her wipe her reddened cheeks and shift her hair away from her face. I want to comfort her and stop her from crying, but nothing I do will help. Finally, she bends down to take out bandages from the drawer, and a groan escapes her lips, her hand grabbing the edge of the marble counter for balance. I stand to my feet instantly, discovering myself in the bathroom before I can think twice.

"Here," I sigh, placing my hands on Anastasia and sitting her on the bathroom sink. I've watched her struggle enough with trying to clean herself up.

I take the cotton from her hands, the smell of rubbing alcohol causing both of us to screw our noses up. I am not sure what it is, but the sterile smell of rubbing alcohol bothers me. I take her arms and begin to clean her forearms off; I dab delicately. "I know it burns," I soften my gaze on her as she jerks away from my touch, pulling her arms back with a hiss. "Rubbing alcohol burns, but it's all we have unless you want to go-"

"No," Anna cuts me off before I can finish speaking, her voice rough with pain. I know she doesn't want to go to the doctor at the Palace. I know all she wants is to get in bed and forget this evening ever occurred. Anna gives me back her arms and glances away, focusing her attention on something other than the burning pain.

"Can I take your pantihose off? They're all ripped, sweetheart," I softly request, not wanting to take them off without her permission. Anna nods and lifts her dress just enough to take the thin layer of material between my fingers and slide them down her legs, doing my best not to touch the tender skin at her knees where she befell.

Her knees remind me of a time when I was a little kid.

I was running with my sister, we had both been told to stop, but neither of us listened. Instead, we competed with who could reach the neighbours first. The giggling between my sister and I grew louder and louder, and my mother's pleas fell silent the further we got. Finally, I tripped over my own feet, and I went straight into the concrete. I skimmed both my knees that day, I still have the scars, but I remember trying so hard not to cry because I knew my mother was precise. I should have listened to her. The moment my mother got to me, I cried, and I cried. The fall destroyed my pants, and my knees stung like thousands of needles pricking my skin. I attempted to focus on something other than the agony of the minor incident, but I couldn't concentrate on anything besides my skimmed knees.

I remember the fall and the discomfort, and I remember my mum taking me home and cleaning me up in the same way I am with Anastasia. The only difference is I was six, and Anastasia's cuts and scratches are a little more vicious than what six year old me managed to do.

Anastasia winces and hisses as I start to dab her knees. I look at her, and she's biting down on her lip while her hands curl and hold the edge of the countertop. "I'm sorry, baby," I again sigh, apologising for a pain I did not inflict. But, of course, this could have been averted if she wasn't stubborn and marching away from me. Perhaps then she wouldn't have been so emotional and stumbling over herself.

"It's fine; we've both been through worse."

I nod my head and agree, "Perhaps, but scrapes deserve credit. They're fucking painful."

"The tough security guard agrees scapes hurt?" Anastasia softly questions.

"Still recovering from mine when I was six," I wink, attempting to lighten the mood, but she goes withdrawn as I continue to tend to her scrapes.

I clean Anna's legs, bandaging them with bandaids before standing in front of her and benevolently placing my hands at her hips. "Look, you can be mad at me all you want, you can give me the silent treatment, you can yell, do what you need to do, but— hey, look at me," I softly trail off, touching my hand to lift her chin, "I'm not going anywhere. I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't tell you to look through the stuff. I never intended for you to see what you saw. This is why I don't let you down there." I begin to explain my train of thought. She can be bitter, but it doesn't change the outcome of anything at the end of the day.

"What if it's you?"

"Excuse me?" I am taken aback by her question.

Is she referring to me as the person who killed her father?

"What if it becomes you, like him?"

"I don't understand." I shake my head, still unsure of what she's alluding to.

Anastasia becomes reserved for a minute before she shakes her head and places her hands on my shoulders, propelling her body forward, signalling she wants to get down off the counter. I help her off, but I retain my hands on her, "Please explain." I caress my hands to hers that rest on my shoulders, and I hold them as she releases her grip on my shoulders.

"What if… What if they do to you what they did to him? Since you're on track to knowing what happened." Anna is fighting a rising panic, but I don't know where she is going with it or where it stems.

"Anna, you told me this is what you wanted, for me to find who did this."

"I don't want to see pictures of you like the way I had to see pictures of him."

"I know what I am doing."

"So did he," Anastasia whispers, "I am going to bed. I don't want to keep having this conversation."

"Hey, you can't just walk away every time you get uncomfortable with something," I inform her as she steps towards the bedroom.

Anastasia halts in her tracks and turns to glance at me, "I'm not coddling you. I am done coddling you so much with certain things." I stand my ground, not wanting to be an arse but not wanting her to keep shutting down conversations. It isn't healthy for her to do this.

"Okay, would it help you sleep better to know that one of the two of us is likely next? I won't sugar coat it; I know that no matter where I go or how good security is that I am a threat. So perhaps it would help you sleep to know Dad, Victoria, and Henry are all dead, and it all boils down to me."

"No, that doesn't help me sleep, but you know what does? Knowing that I do everything humanly possible to make sure you are not touched."

"You're missing the point," Anastasia exclaims, "What about you? Who is keeping you safe? Matthew and Oliver's main concern is me. So who the fuck is making sure that you aren't going to be joining Henry and my Dad?"

"Anna," I sigh, working my hands through my hair. "I signed up for this. I knew signing up for the job that my life would always be on the line to save yours."

"You signed up for your job; you didn't sign up to be in harm's way because you married me."

"Well, that's just one of the perks I have to deal with. I will be fine, damnit… This conversation is over."

"Look at the pot calling the kettle black, uncomfortable?"

"I love you."

Anna shakes her head, "You don't get to end things with an I love you. No."

"You end it as you wish," I respond, stepping around her and beginning to unbutton my shirt.

Even on my worst days, I love her. My love for her is immeasurable. I don't care if we are bickering like cats and dogs. I still love her. Neither of us is perfect, and we are going to fight; it's inevitable. We don't see eye to eye on everything; right now, I have no fucking clue what eye she is even using, but I will figure it out. I vowed to love her through everything, even the moments she is spiralling with emotions.

"You don't understand, do you?"

"I understand that you are hurting, I understand that you're scared, but arguing with me isn't going to help… I don't even know why you're mad. It isn't my fault. This is how things panned out."

"It isn't my fault either."

"I never said it was, Anna," I respond, letting out a grunt, pain branching across my shoulder like lightning as I move my shoulders back and take the damn shirt off. A sharp breath escapes my lips while I lean forward and massage my shoulder. "Don't worry. I promise I am not dying," I mutter, glancing up to notice her staring at me. Damnit.

"Insensitive," Anastasia rolls her eyes.

"Fuck me," I sigh, leaning down to lay on the bed.

I peer up at the ceiling and begin to wonder where I went wrong with this evening. Today went well. There were no significant issues that arose, no protocol I had to call, and everyone complied with the garden rules. I didn't have to throw anyone out, nor did I have to lock down any parts of the Palace. Today is a day that rarely happens when events happen, today was successful without any errors. Rare.

Anna and I had a decent time; I did my best to escort her around and speak with people who I wouldn't usually be entitled to talk to if I was only her guard. So, for once, I somewhat appreciated a royal event... up until now.

"Are you alright?"

"No, Anna, I am not," I respond, "I have a wife who I have no clue how to make feel better and who thinks I am going to be assassinated in my sleep. I also apparently have a monarch and parliament after me, not to mention a job you make a bit difficult."

Anastasia grows silent, and I realise I am only digging my grave deeper with her. If I don't watch it, she's likely to smother me with a pillow in my sleep. But, of course, I wouldn't blame her either. "Just turn the light off when you're ready," I mutter, not wanting to get up to turn it off or to get up to do anything. I am pretty comfortable with my legs dangling over the edge and my back against the bed.

The lights turn off, and I continue to stare up at the ceiling, thinking of how to defuse the situation when we wake up in the morning.

It is my honour to keep Anastasia safe. I started this job due to needing money and a job; I never expected to fall in love with the Princess and get married, but I did. I wouldn't change my job or my decisions to marry her for the world. I'll put my life on the line for her whether it means I get paid or not. At this point, I do my job because I have grown to enjoy the career path I chose. I do it to keep me occupied; keeping her safe is a bonus now. Whether I am on her service or not, I will do everything to make sure she is safe. I don't need to be in a suit and tie with an earpiece to look out for her. I am trained for all conditions and emergencies, whether I'm on the service or not.

I have never thought twice about my life or hers.

It's always going to be hers over mine, not just because she's Royal but because that's how I am as a man. I won't hesitate to take all pain from her. Love isn't just about the sweet kisses, the dates and the honeymoon phase. It's about knowing how to take care of the other person in all aspects; it's about putting them above yourself when it's appropriate and being selfless. Don't get me wrong, I'll put my life on the line for her and take a bullet for her, but dammit, it irks my nerves when she says she doesn't want anything and then drinks my coffee. Being selfless doesn't have to happen constantly; just because I'll take a bullet for her doesn't mean we are perfect or that I devote everything and give her everything. There's an appropriate time and place for each selfless act. Right now, I'm selfish by letting my emotions and feelings rise to the occasions— and that's okay.

I observe the bed dip, and surprisingly, Anastasia lays beside me, closer than I ever anticipated. She thoughtfully wiggles close to my body before she rests her head on my good shoulder, her arm carefully draping over my stomach.

I thought she would prefer to sleep as far from me as possible. I don't move. I lay on my back, still staring at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck to do. I don't want to give up my job to give her peace of mind, I want to stay in security, but I don't think I'll be able to. If I were to give it up for her, what would I do? Sit around in a robe and drink coffee while dubbing people knights?

After a few moments of silence, Anastasia pushes away from me. I realise she's moving away because of my lack of words and emotions. It wasn't intentional; I didn't aspire to push her away or make her believe like I didn't want her around. I'm merely attempting to figure out my circling thoughts, "Anna," I breathe out, "Come here," I whisper, opening my arm and enabling her to nestle back into me. I wrap my arm around her and caress a kiss to the top of her head.

"I'm sorry."

"Me too," I respond.

Me too, baby, me too.

[pearl-pilots-in-chains]

Ice Cream Expertise (All the Little Lights #1)

Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ships: Kawoshin

Rating: G

Summary: Shinji is faced with a dilemma of sorts, and is characteristically indecisive. Fortunately, Kaworu is there to give some helpful advice. Or maybe just call himself an ice cream expert. Let's be honest, it's a bit of both.

Notes: This is intended to be the start to All the Little Lights, my attempt at a relatively happy Evangelion high school AU featuring the pilots we know (and maybe love) actually getting to live a normal life (including all the cute gay romance they deserve). That said, it also works totally fine as a one shot. Considering it's an AU, there's going to be some rather interesting deviations from canon, some of which are alluded to here. So, if something seems off, that's probably because it is.

As usual, any errors, grammatical or typographical, are mine. I apologize in advance.

This was originally posted to my old AO3 on May 21, 2020. I hope you enjoy it!

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Shinji Ikari was not having a good day. No, perhaps that was an understatement. He was having a distinctly bad day. School had been tedious to say the least, considering that testing week was approaching, and the teachers seemed to be doing their best to “prepare” the students using every form of academic torture known to humankind. Okay, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration, but it had been a hectic hell all the same. Not to mention the fact that his best friend Touji was going through a rough patch (not the first one, mind you), with his girlfriend Hikari, which led to a tense mood within their friend group outside of class as well. Adding onto this was the fact that he was getting worried about his sister (what wasn’t new?) Rei, who had been especially quiet the past week or so, even by her standards. That was usually a sign that her depression was going through a rough spot. He had wanted to mention something to his mother about it, considering she usually had better luck at getting through to Rei than he did when his sister was going through a difficult time, but unsurprisingly, he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He was gone too often, and his mother was gone too often. There was all of a one to two hour period when they were both home and awake on any given night. Rei always ending up alone probably doesn’t help her state of mind improve either. I wish she had more friends. People she could connect with.

And, of course, to top all that wonderful baggage off, he had had work after school, which had gone lovely. Just lovely. A simply wonderful group of customers had come in, and stayed for a better part of three hours, ordering intermittently while they all talked (way too loudly, in his opinion) at their shared table, which, in a predictable move, they hadn’t even bothered to clean off. He was a barista, not a waiter, despite what some people seemed to think. To make matters worse, they had been laughing so hard partway through their “discussion,” that one of the party had practically flung her iced latte through the air by accident (how someone could do that by accident, was a whole other topic for conversation), sending its contents flying halfway across the room (in a bafflingly impressive display, he had to admit, as irritating as it was). Of course, he had drawn the short straw and been the one tasked with cleaning it up. His boss seemed to get a special satisfaction out of giving Shinji all the “fun,” jobs. Okay, maybe Mr. Anno’s not that bad, but he still gets a kick out of watching me suffer. Or something like that.

Shinji sighed as he pulled his car into the store parking spot. As he exited it, he glanced down at his phone. 7:16. That meant he should have enough time to get home and get dinner going before his mother got home. These days, it seemed as though she worked progressively later and later. It had been a couple months since she’d been home before 8. She was almost certainly still out at the base at that moment. Whatever project she’s working on now is one of the more intensive ones.

He headed for the doors. He was planning on making stir fry, which meant that he needed to get soy sauce for sure, since he knew they had run out from the last time. He thought they had most of the rest of what he needed at home. So, this should be a quick run. Just in and out. After a day like today though, he was tempted to grab something sweet. Come on, after this whole mess, I think I at least half deserve something to take my mind off of it. Just a little.

Inside, he made a bee line for the condiments aisle. Alright, first things first. Get what I need. Then, maybe, I’ll just check out what they have. He grabbed soy sauce, and then wavered for a moment, trying to decide just for what he was in the mood. Okay, just something little. Nothing too big. I am going to be cooking, after all. Hmmm . . . I mean, it’s probably not the best idea, but . . .

Making his decision, he set off for the frozen section. Once again, he paused when he arrived at the aisle, looking through the glass freezer doors at the available options. I’ll just get a pint. That should be more than enough. Even if Rei goes for some too. ‘Cause mom hardly ever eats anything sweet, so I doubt she’ll have any. He tilted his head, tapping the soy sauce bottle against his thigh as he considered the selection. Why are there so many flavors? I didn’t even realize they sold Pumpkin outside of November. And Lime-Raspberry? What would that even taste like? Who comes up with these things? I’ll go for something classic. I could always do Vanilla. But, that’s a little boring. I don’t even really like it that much. Chocolate’s always classic, except that Rei doesn’t like it. And her favorite is Cookie Dough, which I don’t like the texture of . . . there are way too many choices here. Running his eyes over the racks, he did a quick count. Forty-two different flavors. Why are there forty-two different flavors? I wonder if anyone’s ever tried them all. Then again, that might take a while. And be kind of pricey. Dammit, I’m getting distracted again. The only conclusion that Shinji was coming to was the fact that he liked ice cream far too much, and was wasting far more time than he should be trying to pick out something. Maybe I should just get the soy sauce and head home. He peaked down at his phone. 7:29. Yeah, I’ve already been here longer than I should be.

A voice interrupted Shinji’s thoughts. “So, what’s your drug of choice?”

Shinji head snapped to the side, his concentration broken. “What?,” He asked, a little surprised.

The source of the interruption was standing a little further down the aisle, casually leaning on one of the freezer windows, his head cocked to the side, watching Shinji with a friendly smile on his face. Shinji thought the interrupter looked to be about the same age as him, though that fact was complicated slightly by the fact that though his face was youthful, his hair was an ashen grey. He must dye it. Is grey hair a style though? The interrupting individual sported a pair of black jeans and a band shirt for a group whose name looked vaguely familiar to Shinji. Porcupine Tree . . . I feel like Rei might listen to them. Maybe. Not to mention the fact that the newcomer had red eyes. Red eyes. Okay, so maybe this is a look he’s going for. I mean, those are definitely contacts, right? Unless there’s a genetic mutation I’ve never heard of, I don’t think humans can be born with red eyes. Which means that they’re contacts. Which means that the hair is almost definitely dyed too. I’m pretty sure that’s not what ‘scene’ looks like . . . there’d be brighter colors . . . and I don’t think it’s emo either . . . I’m pretty sure his hair would be black then . . . huh . . . maybe that’s goth. Yeah. Let’s go with that. In addition to making him second guess what scene fashion looked like, Shinji’s visual analysis of the interrupter also led him to a more definite conclusion. That regardless of what category his fashion fell under, he was pretty cute. Seriously Shinji, focus here, and stop thinking about how some random boy in Safeway who asked you what type of drugs you like is cute. Don’t be an idiot. Sure, you haven’t been on a date in months, ever since Martin broke up with you, but he was a manipulative jerk anyway— Shinji realized the interrupter had started talking again, which snapped him back into reality and out of his wandering mind.

“Yeah. What flavor is your favorite. I mean, out of the forty-two, there has to be one you’d pick, right?”

“Oh. Yeah. Probably cookies ’n’ cream,” Shinji answered, feeling more than a bit confused. On an afterthought, he added, “You’ve counted all the flavors too?”

“Not a bad choice,” the boy said with a firm nod. “Although, I’m more into mint chocolate chip myself. And yes, I’ve counted them all. It’s an important part to being an ice cream expert. Keeping track of the available flavors at the nearest store.”

“Okaayyy.” Shinji’s tone betrayed his uncertainty concerning just how he should deal with this stranger. “Ice cream expert?”

“Yep, that would be me,” the boy replied matter-of-factly, as though the question was a pointless one. He strolled over to Shinji and extended his hand. “Kaworu Akagi, ice cream expert, at your service.”

Shinji shook the offered hand, deciding he should be polite, despite the fact that his perplexity had not been substantially diminished in any way. This guy is . . . interesting, to say the least. As their hands met, Shinji was struck by the strange, but intense, sense that this wasn’t his first time meeting Kaworu.

“Shinji Ikari.” Against his better judgement, he decided to follow his introduction with, “Have we met before?”

Retracting his hand, Kaworu pursed his lips, ostensibly mulling over the question in his mind. After a few moments, he shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least, not that I can recall. I just got into town a few days ago. Why do you ask?”

Shinji shrugged, trying to play off his earlier question. “Oh, I think you just reminded me of someone I used to know.”

Kaworu nodded, seeming to accept this answer. “Ah, that makes sense. So, have you come to a conclusion, or would you like a second opinion?”

Shinji raised an eyebrow. “About the ice cream, you mean?”

“Indeed. That is the topic on the floor, as they say,” Kaworu responded nonchalantly.

Shinji blinked. “Who says?”

“Why, they do of course.”

“Oh. Umm, alright.” Shinji looked back through the window, surveying his options once more. A obvious choice didn’t present itself. “Well . . . I suppose a second opinion probably wouldn’t hurt.”

“Great,” Kaworu stated, his tone even and pleasant. “Any occasion in particular you’re buying for?”

Shinji shook his head. “Nope, not really. Just . . .” he hesitated, uncertain how much he wanted to tell someone who was still basically a stranger to him. “Just a bad day,” was what he ended up deciding on.

Kaworu pretended to stroke nonexistent hairs on his chin, nodding slowly as did so, in an amusing imitation of the stereotypical philosopher. “Hmm . . . ice cream for a bad day, you say?”

“Uh. Yeah. I guess so.”

“I’d have to recommend Cherry Chip for that. It’s a guaranteed mood improver from my experience. It is nearly impossible to feel down while you’re eating Cherry Chip ice cream.”

“Really?” Shinji’s ice wandered down the display, finally locating the flavor in question. Fortunately, they had it in pint size, which meant that the option was on the table. He couldn’t think of any reason not to go for it. As far as he knew, Rei liked Cherry Chip. At least, he thought she did. He wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever seen her eat it. For that matter, he wasn’t entirely sure that he’d ever eaten it himself. Which means it might be pretty good, and I just don’t know it yet. You never know. “Really. Trust me, I’ve tested its potency. It won’t let you down.”

“Alright. Why not?” Shinji opened the door and grabbed a pint of Cherry Chip. He examined the container in his hands for a few seconds, before looking back up at Kaworu, who now seemed to be smiling in encouragement, which had the effect of making him look even cuter than before. Come on Shinji, don’t get distracted! Sure, he might be attractive, but he’s also a self-proclaimed ice cream expert. . . not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing yet, to be honest.

“That’ll do the job,” Kaworu remarked, in a straightforward tone that made it sound as though he was utterly confident in the truth of his words.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Shinji furrowed his brow as another question popped into his mind. “Hey .. . you said you just got into town a few days ago. How is it that you already know all the different flavors they have here?”

“It was one of the first things I scoped out after we got into town. Always important to know what kind of ice cream game you’re going to be dealing with. Plus, I had plenty of free time once we finished unpacking, considering I won’t be in school up here until the fall.”

“Ah, okay. That makes sense.” Almost on a whim, Shinji was tempted to ask Kaworu where he had moved from, but decided that could come across as prying a little too much, since Kaworu hadn’t offered that information. As it was, Kaworu gave a partial answer to the question without Shinji even verbalizing it.

“School down south ends earlier. Though, to be fair, it also starts earlier there as well. We left a couple days after my semester ended. Which means I currently have relatively few obligations, other than locating and obtaining a job for the summer.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Shinji still wasn’t exactly sure how to respond, but he decided to field a question of his own. He figured it could come across as a polite inquiry, rather than being nosy, taking into account what Kaworu had just revealed. “So, what brought you up north?”

“My mother got transferred out to the base,” Kaworu returned offhandedly.

Shinji tilted his head in response to this answer, the gears in his brain turning. Well, that’s interesting. He almost wanted to make some sort of follow-up remark expressing their similarity in that regard, but he decided that might be a bit too much to say for the moment. Instead, he merely offered a casually, “I gotcha.” He continued with an amiable, “Well, welcome to Asherdale,” along with a more ironic, “It’s halfway decent, once you get used to it.”

Kaworu’s face broken into a grin at the humor, an expression that Shinji couldn’t help but feel made him look all the more attractive. Oops, getting distracted again. . . don’t do that . . . too much.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” Kaworu said warmly.

“No problem.” The thought suddenly entering his mind, Shinji shot a momentary glance down at his phone. Hmm, what time is it? The answer was 7:37. 7:37?! I’ve been talking for eight minutes?! That felt like four or five at the most. I have to bail, now, if I’m going to make it home in time to get cooking.

He looked back up at Kaworu, who was still watching him, his gaze soft, the smile still on his face, his head tilted to the side. Shinji had the strange feeling that if it had been anyone else, the observational pose the boy had struck would have looked unusual, to say the least, but somehow, on Kaworu, it didn’t look half bad. It gives him a kind of elegant aesthetic . . . okay, where did I come up with that? I definitely need to head out.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry to leave so quick, but I need to get going.” Shinji cringed a little internally, hearing the awkward tone in his voice. You could have said that in a way that didn’t basically announced the fact that it made you flustered. Great going.

“Understandable. You wouldn’t want that ice cream to melt before you get the chance to test out its powers.”

“Haha, yeah, you know it.”

Kaworu nodded, imply that yes, he did indeed know it. “Why don’t I give you my number?” He remarked. “That way, you’ll have someone on hand for any future ice cream dilemmas.”

“Ahhh . . .” Okay, that was actually kind of smooth, in an odd way. And . . . it’s not like it could really hurt anything. I mean, he didn’t even ask for my number. Which means he’s not even necessarily flirting with me. It’d probably be a bit of stretch to say he is. After all, if I have his number, and he doesn’t have mine, that means I can choose whether I want to text him or not, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Which isn’t really a good way to flirt with somebody. I think I’m stalling again here . . .”

Shinji noticed Kaworu was watching him again, waiting for a response. “Sure. Sounds like a good plan.” He pulled out his phone and hastily created a new contact, before offering it to Kaworu. “Here, you can put it in.”

Kaworu nodded, his smile remaining intact, and typed in the digits, before handing it back to Shinji. “It was nice to meet you, Shinji Ikari,” he commented affably.

“You can just call me Shinji,” Shinji quickly responded.

“Alright then. It was nice to meet you Shinji.”

“You too . . .” Should I use first and last name like he did the first time? Or just go with first name. I don’t want to offend him, if that’s the sort of thing that’s important to him. After all, he does seem a bit, umm, particular.

“You can just call me Kaworu,” the boy suggested, his smile widening.

“It was nice to meet you Kaworu,” he finished lamely. “Guess I’ll see you around.”

“Yes, maybe so.”

Shinji nodded again, spun on his heels, and promptly made for the registers. Well, that went excellently. You meet a boy who’s kind of cute, even if he is a little eccentric, and straight off the bat, you’re second guessing yourself and fumbling for words. Fantastic.

Shinji shot a brief glance back as he reached the end of the aisle, to see that Kaworu was now retrieving an ice cream carton of his own from the merchandise freezer. Shinji turned away again before the boy could look back in his direction. Don’t want him to think I’m staring at him or something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shinji collapsed back onto his bed with a satisfied sigh. He was glad to have finally reach it, after the nigh-interminable day. Well, maybe not quite interminable. But definitely overlong. Without much thought, he grabbed his phone from his nightstand and spun in about in his hands a couple times, feeling the sensation of the textured case against his skin.

Dinner had been a success, such as it could be, anyway. He had impressed himself with just how fast he managed to throw things together when he went into slight (well, maybe more than slight) panic mode.

The ice cream had been a success as well. He had to admit, Cherry Chip was a pretty good flavor. He still wasn’t sure whether he had tried it before or not, but he was glad he had definitively tried it now. Rei had also enjoyed it, which was an added plus. In fact, their mother had even had a bowl, something altogether unexpected. Apparently, Cherry Chip ice cream was one of the sweets she would indulge in. Didn’t see that coming. All in all, the majority of the pint was no more.

Powering on his phone, Shinji was faced with another choice for the evening. Unlike his earlier ice cream deliberation, however, this cerebration was of a cursory duration. After a few seconds, he had composed the text, and was hovering over the send button. Alright. Let’s do this. He tapped the icon.

Shinji I.: Thanks for the recommendation. It was a good choice! Lol. This is Shinji, btw.

The response to his message came swiftly. Wow, he must type fast.

Kaworu A.: Happy to be of service. I’m glad it worked out.

Shinji found a smile edging its way across his lips. Maybe, in spite of everything, today wasn’t such a bad day after all.

[luminashdawnwing]

The Wages of Sin: Part III

(Part I here; Part II here)

“So the tormented soul the Accuser has been parading about…”

Luminash nodded in confirmation to Grigori’s question, “The last of the Sunstriders, yes. A face I had hardly expected to see again, after all these years.” 

He raised a delicate black teacup to his lips and took a long sip. It was scarcely a mortal beverage, but a pair of dredgers - Wubbins and Nubbins or something of the sort? - were insistent that he and Grigori have some while they caught up.

“House Dawnwing remained so close to the throne?” Grigori trailed off, taking a sip of his own tea. His gaze drifted out from under his parasol and out over the Light-seared chasms below. Despite all the activity - the Ember Court would soon be hosting guests in a celebration of Castle Nathria’s fall and Sire Denathrius’ imprisonment - Luminash and Grigori had found some measure of solitude on the terrace overlooking the Ember Ward, “I admit, my curiosity is getting the better of me, Luminash. Tell me, what became of the House in your time?”

“It is...” The magister drummed his fingers on the heavy wood of the table, “A bit of a sore point. The House, as it must have been at its foundation, is a shadow. My son and I are the last, by blood, of the noble line.”

“I will not pry further, then,” Grigori replied, noting the magister’s somber tone, “That said, I wish to extend a gesture of trust.” Reaching into his coat, the Venthyr pulled out a scroll, tightly bound, seal unbroken, “I have taken the liberty of transcribing my own sinstone. For you, my scion. You have heard Lanestrian’s, and if we are to hunt him, I would have you see mine, so you might not be surprised if he attempts to name the crimes that led me here.”

The magister reached out, taking the scroll gingerly, looking between it and its giver in bafflement, “Are you certain? If this falls into the wrong hands…”

“It will not. You had the power in your hands, remember. And you chose your ally over expediency. You can be trusted.”

Breaking the seal with the reverence due in such a moment, Luminash nodded, taking in the words on the page:

Senaril Dawnwing.

Devoted to his people, all his deeds furthered their cause. The wilds left uncharted were laid bare by the stroke of his pen, expanses of forest carved away for monuments of lasting stone. The soil was broken for his own glory in the end, not that of his people.

In exile, he led his House in pursuit of a new power to sustain them, lest they wither away. Power was wrung from the dark earth, and into their minds it seeped. Among few others did he make his escape.

In his final days, he became a weapon of his people, one wielded honorably. Weapons ought take no pleasure, yet rejoice he did in searing flesh from bone. To secure his legacy in his new kingdom, he built a monument to cruelty.

A man of duty; a hoarder of honors.

A caring patriarch; a boot on the neck of his own children.

Honorable; bloodstained.

For his devotion, drive to protect his people, and his service, he deserves redemption. For his avarice, cowardice, and cruelty, he has come to us. Let these be washed away and let him be made anew.

“There is a story behind those words, one not told on the stone, as well. My crimes were many, but one was my greatest source of guilt.”

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

Senaril Dawnwing stood, arms crossed behind his back, in the center of his father’s grand observatory in Zin’azshari. Underneath its darkened dome, images of Azeroth’s night skies glimmering in goldleaf upon it, one could almost forget the horrors raging just outside those walls but for the quaking as infernals rained down. Behind the closed lids of his eyes, Senaril could see the felfire, the crater left behind, and the stony forms of the Legion’s beasts rise. Why had Lanestrian not come? He thought for sure that his invitation - his taunts - would bring a man so vain running to defend what honor he thought he had left.

Another quake, and a muffled sound of fighting beyond the marble walls. Amidst those sounds came too the near-imperceptible thump of slippered feet on marble in the observatory’s entryway.

Turning, eyes opening to expose the arcane power Senaril held barely in check - he was prepared to do what had to be done - the younger Dawnwing greeted the newcomer, “So good of you to join me, father.”

“I always suspected you lacked the will to seize what our people deserve, Senaril,” Lanestrian replied, ignoring his son’s jab, “You would see those forest-dwellers and their peasant defectors tear down everything I have built!” The sound of his sword slipping from its sheath resounded off the marble surfaces of the observatory.

“You? While you stared up at the sky, I mapped our empire! Those forest-dwellers already owe me for my aid, and will owe me more when all is done here!” Senaril’s hands flared with flames, nearly white so great was their heat, filling the chamber’s doorway with an inferno, cutting off Lanestrian’s way back, “You will drag the House down with your demon-consort Queen, and I will not let everything I have done fall with you!” The next burst of flames flew from Senaril’s fingertips.

A flick of his sword, an arrogant smirk on his face, and Lanestrian slashed through the flames, the magic infusing his weapon - and himself - dispelling his son’s attack, “Oh please, Senaril! I would have expected more tact from you than such a sloppy attempt! Do try again!” He continued striding towards his son, seemingly unfazed.

With a shout of barely-contained fury, Senaril unleashed another gout of flame, and another, and another. Lanestrian, remaining cool, cut through each with ease, his head tilted to the side as if curious, that look on his face that had always driven his son to anger. He had always been so insufferably smug - he was never wrong, never the lesser man, always had the other Highborne eating from the palm of his blasted hand. Even now, on the eve of the Legion lapdogs’ downfall, one would never guess he was on the losing side.

“I trained you better, Senaril. Everything I did - and you know this - was for us, for our family. Do not throw it away!” As he drew near, Lanestrian lashed out with his blade, a thin silvery thing, but it was hardly a threat. The blade-like thrust of arcane power it sent forth, however, was.

Blinded by his anger, Senaril did not notice until too late that he was bleeding, a gash along his side. As he stumbled back, the floor of the observatory shook violently, sending both him and his father reeling. Pushing himself up, he realized that the entire building had shifted, and the sounds of fighting outside had grown more intense. Something was happening. His father had noticed too, eyes wide.

There was a great disturbance in their source of arcane power, as if what they both sought to hold in their hands was being forcibly torn away, and while it remained in their grip, every moment cut into their flesh ever further.

Leaping forward, a momentary advantage gained in Lanestrian’s shock, Senaril crashed into the elder man, knocking him to the floor and his mageblade out of reach. Magic would not be the weapon that saved the Dawnwing name this day. Fury welled in the son as his fists rained upon his father, ignoring cries for mercy. His mind was filled only with anger - his whole life, charted and constrained for the House, never for himself; a loving, kind father on the surface, but distant beneath, depths unseen by any around him; that insufferable arrogance when he just knew himself to be right.

In the end, as the resistance fled Zin’azshari, Senaril alone emerged from the ruined observatory, blood staining his robes, his knuckles, and his face, eyes cold and dead within, all the anger burned away, leaving an empty husk.

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

“I was once a cartographer, as you might have guessed,” Grigori laughed, “I looked to the earth while Lanestrian looked to the stars, and oh, how that earth could glorify me, make my name resound.”

“What of the rest?” Luminash rolled the scroll back up tightly, and with a few flicks of his finger, something shifted around the seal, and it was once more good as new - the very same as a moment before.

“I assume you know the history of the Highborne’s landing in what the humans named Tirisfal, yes?” The Venthyr’s face appeared pained, as if speaking of these deeds even without proclaiming them formally disrupted something vital within him, “The Highborne struggled without the Well, and so we reached deep into the earth in that dark place. What we found drove many to madness, and yet I drank deep. Experimented on those who had pledged themselves to the House. Abused their trust, only to run, a coward, when it all came crashing down.” 

Grigori twisted his lips, looking like he was about to spit in disdain, “And when the man I was fled with those few who remained in his care, he was shocked when they distanced themselves. He threw everything he had left into carving out a new homeland, and what joy he took in watching Amani corpses burn. By then…” He sighed, “He was hollowed out. Nothing was left that could feel remorse, for he had sacrificed everything to his own glory. And in the throes of his personal war he perished, and…” A theatrical wave of his hand, a pointed change of perspective, “Here I am.

“I felt no remorse, no regret when I arrived here. Only outrage that I must be subjected to the will of another. Outrage that the Venthyr dared accuse me of anything. I did not realize until the Inquisitors had spent who knows how long wringing manifestations from me that I had become everything I found unbearable in Lanestrian.”

“It is never too late, then, is it?” Luminash threw back the rest of his tea, some of the weight his worries pressed down upon him having lifted for now, “Thank you sharing this, Grigori. I may never understand fully what it means to give me that trust, but I can at least try.” He was about to say more, when he was interrupted by the approach of crunching boots grinding against the sand blown in from the Ember Ward.

“Ah, Nelyne! So good of you to join us! Please, do take a seat.” Grigori smiled broadly, motioning to another seat at the table, “The Mad Duke’s pet dredgers have been keeping us in a steady supply of liquid shadows while we await the main event.”

Nelyne, rather than sitting, or responding to Grigori’s invitation, rested her hips against the table, leaning a clawed hand on the surface and drumming her fingers as she spoke, “I am glad to have found the two of you, even if you aren’t making yourselves at all useful.”

Luminash opened his mouth to respond, then shook his head, reconsidering, “It is good to see you too, Nelyne. How is the turnout?” He jerked his head subtly in the direction of the Bridge of Banishment, the once-grand structure that connected Sinfall and the Castle Nathria, “Have many come to gawk at the Master’s vanquishers?”

She nodded grimly, lips pursed over her jagged teeth, “Oh yes. And among them, I suspect, are loyalist infiltrators. Once you lot have finished sipping tea, we’ve orders: patrol the perimeter and make sure any and all mirrors are secured. There have been disturbances in the network as of late, and while they seem to have been scoured, we cannot be sure.”

Grigori’s face nearly split in two from his toothy grin, “Infiltrators! In the Ember Court! Oh, this will be a delight! It has been so long since I’ve had a decent day of drama among the nobility.”

Nelyne rolled her amber eyes with a scoff, though to Luminash’s ear it seemed more playful than anything else, a quirk of her lips directed at Grigori before she pushed herself from the table and strode off, “You both performed admirably in Nathria. Let us not grow lax at home, now!”

The magister’s companion finished his tea and set the cup delicately on the table, grin still plastered on his face, “This should be good. Anyone who is anyone will be here today, and I suspect we may be able to tease out some lingering traitors to Revendreth while we are enjoying the festivities. But, you were saying, Luminash?”

The magister’s eyes drifted towards the tendrils of black in the distance, the Maw looming beyond the edges of Revendreth, and he shook his head, “Only that I ought to tell you of the good things as well, sometime.”

Grigori stood, a fluid movement that scarcely disturbed the chair he had been sitting in, “I would very much like that. It gives me hope, Luminash, that - while I may have found my lessons here - the legacy Senaril left may be some good after all.”

Luminash’s smile was warm and genuine, but his face quickly took on a look of resolve, “I am glad for it. But now, there is work to be done, is there not?”

“There certainly is, magister.”

[nad-zeta]

Headcanon: MC taking care of the boys’ pets feat; Leonardo, Sabastian, Comte and Dazai

Hi hi, dears! ❤☺🌻Hehe so here is the final Hc for Mc taking care of the vampy bois pets! Thank you so much for all the sweet comments on my previous posts ya guys make my heart so happy! Thanks so much! ❤❤🌻Love yass lots and I hope yall enjoy this and have a super good day! ❤🌻So as requested to be tagged by these lovely wonderful people here ya go!🦊🌻🦋

@jiyuu-chan​ @datenoriko​ @briars7​ @jeandarc-cant-draw​ @stardust-dreamer13​  love ya guys hope yall keeping safe and warm! 🥰☺

Leonardo

Leonardo had a couple of errands to run in town and his little kitten was being rather clingy

Leo had a full day planned of helping the towns’ people, most of which were somewhat superstitious when it came to pitch-black cats

He looked over at you peacefully sleeping away and gently leaned down to place a kiss on your forehead, “Cara mia I have a few errands to run today, would you mind keeping Lumiere company while I’m away?”

He smiled as you groggily mumbled something

At the sound of his name, the back kitten jumped up onto the bed and curiously looked up at Leo

“I’ll be back soon Lumiere be a good kitten while I’m gone,” he gave the cat a final head pat, before leaning down to place a final parting kiss on your cheek

You lazily reached out to scoop up the little kitten and bring him into a warm embrace as you continued to sleep in

You woke up the playful kitten clawing at you face, bouncing around on your bed in an attempt to play with you

The second you got up the little cat got a fright and dove under the covers only to reappear moments later, to wish you a good moring by rubbing his body against your arm as he purred

Lumiere watched from the bed tail swishing from side to side, as you lazily got dressed and ready for the day

You made your way to the dining room with the small black cat in tow

After the little creature had eaten his breakfast he started pouncing on your feet as you sat and finished your breakfast

You couldn’t help but adopt the cat’s playful mood as a mischievous smiled crossed your face, the second you saw the van Gogh brothers enter into the dining room

The minute the two newcomers entered into the room Lumiere’s attention was on them

The little kitten couldn’t help but start playing with the grumpier Van Goghs scarf

Both you and Vincent locked eyes and giggled as the gruff brother was blissfully unaware of the cat destroying his scarf as he ate his beloved pancakes

Once the pancakes had been devoured Theo’s gaze drifted down to the little critter playing with the ends of his scarf

He fell back on his chair and let out a shriek

Both you and Vincent broke out laughing as Theo finally discovered the little kitten playing by his feet

You couldn’t help but chase Theo around the mansion with the little kitten, to get him back for all the times he and Arthur had pranked you

After spending a better part of the morning terrorizing Theo, you and Lumier found a warm spot in front of the library window to take a nap

Which lasted much longer than anticipated as when you woke up you were cuddled in Leo’s arms with the kitten curled up in a ball nestled in the crook of Leo’s neck

Sabastian

You woke up that morning with a sticky note stuck to your forehead

Groggily you sat up and read the little note left to you by Sabastian

It had said that he had some urgent business in town and that he needed someone to feed and keep his dear little pet company for a few hours

You were slightly confused as you never realized that Sabastian had a pet

You had met everyone in the mansions furry, feathery and prickly companions but have yet to meet Sabastian’s

He indicated that his beloved pet was in the last room in the stables

You smiled thinking that perhaps Sabastian had been a secret equestrian and had a beautiful pet horse

You got up and dressed, and make your way to the stables

You walked through the rows of beautiful horses when you finally reached the end

You opened the stable door and was shocked as you had come upon a lavishly decorated room

And instead of finding a horse, you found a snow while lamb peacefully sleeping in a pile of the fluffiest blankets, you had ever seen

The second the little thing heard you, he bounced up and curiously pranced his way towards you

He rubbed his head against your hand affectionately as he let out a content “meh”

The little creature then skipped out of the stables and to the mansion’s kitchen and looked up at you expectingly

That’s when you remembered that you were supposed to serve him some breakfast

You opened the kitchen cupboard designated for the mansion’s residents pet’s food, and found a bottle

You then filled the bottle with milk and fed the little lamb, you honestly enjoyed the experience so much that you made a mental note to ask Sabastian if you could feed the lamb every morning

Once the sweetheart had, had his fill, he jumped around excitedly and full of energy.

He gave you a small headbutt as if asking you to play with him.

You smiled as you chase after the snow white lamb wondering if this is how Sabastian’s spent his early mornings before getting breakfast service ready

After a while, you were so tired and out of breath that you flopped down to lay on the plush grass

The little lamb skipped over to you and nuzzled you affectionately before hopping off to case some butterflies in the field

You sat on the grass for a few moments watching the sweet scene before you

You panicked for a moment when you saw Arthur’s dog, start to chase after Sabastions dear pet

But relaxed when you saw that sweet little Vic was continuing your game of tag with the lamb

Sabastian made his way up to you and plonked himself down beside you on the grass wearing a fond smile

“Thank you for feeding Lotte this morning for me.”

Comte

Comte had a day full of meetings with some important people out of the mansion

He sat at his desk and looked down at the letter before him

His little ferret, Thyme, was peacefully resting on his lap enjoying the feeling of Comte’s gentle hands stroking his soft fur

Comte sighed as he summoned Sabstian over to let him know the plans for the day.

Usually, Sabastian would watch his sweet little ferret while he was away, but today he needed Sabastian by his side, as he took care of important business

Suddenly you appeared carrying a tray of tea and snacks for the pureblood and he smiled a charming smile at you

He beckoned you to take a seat and enjoy some tea with him

He asked you the favour of watching his beloved pet while he was gone for the day

You beamed up at Comte and nodded.

Comte stood up and placed his beloved little Thyme on your lap as he and Sabastian made their way into town.

The ferret looked up at you expectingly as he walked a little circle on your lap in an attempt to get comfortable once more.

Finally comfortable the little critter started barking at you as if to say “Please pet me”

When you finally started petting the little creature, he let out happy chittering sound

You spend most of the afternoon with the little critter curled up in your lap as you stroked his soft fur and read

Waking up from his afternoon nap, thyme was full of energy and ready to play

He jumped down from your lap and ran over to a chest in the corner of Comte’s room.

The second you opened the box the little creature climbed in and pulled out a ball

The excited little critter started running around the room with the little ball, barking in delight

Soon the noodle creature escaped the confines of the room and made his way straight to the garden

You ran after the little guy only to find him playing in a puddle of mud

The second the critter spotted you he made a beeline for you and jumped into your arms. His once soft snow-white fur was now covered in mud.

You decided to give the little trouble maker a bath to restore his soft snow-white fur to its former glory

This playful creature was having a ball playing with the little bath toys that Comte had bought for him, as you cleaned his fur,

He hopped and splashed about the water without a care in the world, until you were thoroughly soaked.

He whined when you took him out warm water and placed him on the ground, however that was short-lived, as soon he started happily chirping away at being towel-dried

Thyme honestly loved the attention

You had noticed that in Thyme’s little chest, Comte had kept small outfits for the little creature, so you decided to play dress-up with the ball of energy

You sat in front of the chest filled with various cute little outfits, you finally decided on a yellow dress with sunflowers

Thyme absolutely loved playing dress-up and the second, the dress was secured he scurried over to a small mirror to check himself out

You laughed as the little ferret started doing a few poses in front of the mirror,

Even more so, when you placed a tiny flower-crown on his head

Comte walked into the room and couldn’t help but chuckled at the sight of his beloved pet running over to him to show off his cute little outfit

Dazai

Dazai’s books started gaining a lot of traction under the people of Paris and his agent had summoned him to do a book signing of his newest release

Dazai had been writing under an alias for a while now, and was low key surprised that his newest books had become so popular

His agent had given him no choice in the matter forcing him to do the signing.

Dazai, however, had one major problem, who was going to keep his sweet little bird company while he was away

He looked out his bedroom window and spotted you outside in the garden reading a book.

He hopped out the window and made his way to the garden to ask you the favour

You now found yourself in Dazais room holding the tiny bird, as Dazai thanked you for watching his companion and affectionately ruffled the little bird’s feathers with his fingertips

The second Dazai left the room the sweet little bird flew over to the stack of papers on Dazai’s desk and started tearing them up

Your eyes went wide as you weren’t exactly sure what to do, you hoped that whatever the little creature was tearing up hadn’t been of too much importance

You sat on his chair and watched the bird cheerfully chirping away as he happily tore up the papers into shreds and then proceeded to make a little makeshift nest in the corner of Dazai’s desk

Once the little bird was satisfied he hopped into the little nest and looked up at you

The second he noticed the bag of seeds you were holding, he excitingly hopped his way over to you, accidentally spilling some ink on the desk

The little bird without a care in the world, tracked small ink footprints all over Dazai’s desk to get to where you were sitting

You smiled as you placed a few seeds in the palm of your hand and watched as the bird happily ate them

In the distance, you could hear Mozart playing the piano and you heart absolutely melted, when the little bird comfortably nestled himself in the palm of your hand and chirped along to the tune

Once the song ended the little birds face dropped

You decided to cheer him up by singing a little song of your own

You were super surprised as the bird now happily chirped along to the song that you were singing

Suddenly little Buntas eyes lit up as he got an idea. Still singing you curiously eyed the bird as he found a little bell

He flew back to you, rest in your palm now shaking the small bell ball and chirping along to your song

The little guy was honestly so cute you couldn’t help but carefully pet him

The little bird returned you affection by giving the palm of your hand an affectionate head rub

As Bunta hopped around your palm he noticed your gold bracelet

Bunta LOVES shiny things

The little bird tried to steal your bracelet off your arm by gently pulling at it with his little beak

You giggled slightly, as the bird started getting frustrated, and decided to take off the bracelet and hand it to him

The second the bracelet was freed the little bird carried it in his beak and flew to his cage where he placed it on his little swing in front of the mirror

You couldn’t help but laugh at the little bird, as he added your golden bracelet to his shiny treasure-trove of stolen jewellery

You could tell this little bird had been stealing shiny belongings from all the residents for a while now

You spotted a golden pocket watch, cufflinks, buttons, earrings and even one of vincents paintbrushes.

By the time Dazai got home from his book signing, he found you cleaning up the mess Bunta had made while the bird watched you from his tiny swing, happily chirping away

That’s the end of that hehe hope ya guys enjoyed this! 🥰☺And I hope everybody is having a good day! :)🦊🦋❤

[the-fixation-zone]

a drink from hell

okay so i haven’t written fanfic in literal years (and even then, it was only one, unpublished) and my writing in general is rusty, but i saw this  answer by @hurricanezukka and i just. i had to write something. so here it is! it doesn’t follow the prompt exactly, the plot got a little away from me, and if i didn’t just write something i was going to take a billion years on it/not finish it at all so! anyway! the Work!

~5k words

“Your change is three dollars.” Zuko hands over the bills, trying not to wrinkle his nose as yet another person purchases his Uncle’s…concoction. The customer smiles and walks down to the end of the counter, awaiting what Zuko believes can only loosely be considered a drink. He sighs through his nose, turns, and begins crafting. A Thai tea with…boba. He tries not to gag as he finishes it and hands it over with its obnoxiously large straw. The customer’s eyes light up when she sees it, her “thank you!” almost lost in the loud popping of the drink’s seal. Zuko does not say you’re welcome. Instead, he tries to keep his eyes from rolling and goes back to the register. Another day, another delusional person. When Uncle Iroh had said he wanted to try something new in his tea shop, Zuko hadn’t questioned it. It was his shop, after all, and Zuko was only there because of his Uncle’s love. Uncle obviously knew how to run a business without outside influence. But when Uncle had shown him the little…black…balls he intended to put into the most finely brewed tea in the city, Zuko had nearly put his foot down.

“Uncle. What…what are those.”

“They are tapioca balls, nephew! Don’t they look delicious? It will add a bit of fun to drinking tea, if I say so myself!”

Right. Fun. As if drinking hot (or, in this case, cold) leaf juice needed to be a diverting activity. Zuko had said nothing and had dutifully tried one. And then he had just as dutifully spit it out when Uncle wasn’t looking. Honestly, what the fuck was he thinking?

So now Zuko stands behind the counter of the Jasmine Dragon and waits for people to come in and order the monstrosity, forcing him to relive his waking nightmare. Cold tea. And tapioca balls. It isn’t enough to make him rethink working here, but it’s damn close.

“Gooooood afternoon! I hear you guys have something called boba tea?”

Zuko’s eyes clench close reflexively before he remembers the customer service etiquette Iroh tried to drill in him. He opens his eyes and says, through clenched teeth, “Yes. We do. Only place in the city.”

“Wooooow.” The customer is flashing him a bright smile, one that takes Zuko off-guard for a moment. Sure, sometimes customer’s smile at him. It’s usually because they want something. A bit knocked off the price of their drink; to be able to use an expired coupon. But this customer doesn’t seem to want anything. Just the boba. “Is it good?”

Zuko raises his eyes from the smile to the man’s eyes, intending on telling him the honest truth, but he’s arrested by how bright blue they are. Zuko forgets how to form sentences. The customer’s tanned skin makes his eyes look even bluer, the little blue beads in the single braid that comes down into his face tying the whole package together. He has laugh lines.

“Uh—what?”

The customer’s smile falters, just a bit. “The boba? Is it good? I mean, my sister says it’s great, but who can trust a little sister’s taste?” He winks, bringing Zuko into the joke. Zuko thinks about Azula’s taste in, well, anything, and finds himself nodding along.

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand. Uh, a lot of people say it’s good. Like, uh, it’s ordered a lot? Instead of regular tea?” Zuko does not know why he’s asking his customer these statements, but Zuko also doesn’t know why he isn’t just telling him that the boba fucking sucks and to try something else. Maybe it’s because the customer is still smiling, even though by now he’s sure to have gotten a proper look at Zuko’s marred face. Maybe it’s because his hair, the rest of it that’s not in the little braid but is instead in a wolftail, looks so soft…

Maybe Zuko is a bit preoccupied.

“Well, that’s good enough for me! How about I get a small black milk boba tea and let you know what I think?”

Zuko nods numbly, tells him how much it is, and exchanges currency. He’s fairly certain he doesn’t look at the till to do it, but the customer doesn’t say anything about incorrect change so maybe he’s done it right. Zuko makes the tea with shaking fingers. When he finishes, he turns and sees the customer leaning against the counter, looking down at his phone. He looks up, as if he knew Zuko was looking at him, and flashes that smile again. Zuko passes over the tea and their fingers brush.

“Thanks!”

“You’re welcome.”

Zuko watches as the customer walks to a table near the windows, pulls out a laptop (how long had he been wearing a messenger bag?) and gets to work. Zuko, unfortunately, finds it hard to get back to work for the rest of his shift.

 ***

Zuko’s off the next few days and he spends his free time reading. Mostly Wikipedia articles, but if pressed Zuko would defend his habits as educational to the last breath. Besides, it isn’t as if he is just reading them for fun, not that anyone asked. He’s editing. The nature of Wikipedia is such that anyone, even idiots, can create a page. It is a beautiful idea in theory, but in practice it gives Zuko a headache. He doesn’t edit every inaccurate page that he comes across (he’d get nothing else done) but he does look through pages he considers himself an expert on. Species of turtle, types of candle wax, the furnace manufacturing industry—well. There are plenty of things to keep him occupied until his next shift. He very pointedly does not think about the blue-eyed bombshell from the other day who stayed in the shop for several hours, long after he had finished his tea. He also doesn’t think about how, after finishing the tea, the blue-eyed customer had looked up and unerringly found Zuko’s eyes to give him a big, hammy thumbs up with another grin. He doesn’t think about how he’d fumbled the teacup that had been in his hand and blushed furiously, thanking the gods the cup had been empty. He doesn’t think about how, though he didn’t look back at the customer’s table ever again, he could feel the man’s eyes on him. He really doesn’t think about that.

Instead, he thinks about how someone has changed all the mentions of “tortoises” to “turtles” as he viciously changes them back. Honestly, if there weren’t a difference why would there be two separate words?

His next shift is an early one. 7am. Zuko doesn’t mind; he tends to rise early anyway. He comes in a few minutes before his shift starts, unlocking the door and bringing down chairs from their upside-down position on tables. He can hear Uncle in the back, counting change.

“Zuko, is that you?”

Zuko sighs. “Yes Uncle. Were you expecting someone else?”

Uncle Iroh’s chuckle can be heard clearly in the front room. “No, no, just glad you are here. Today is going to be a great day!” Uncle comes through the door to the back, tying his apron around his generous belly. Zuko still doesn’t understand why Uncle, the owner of this shop, insists on working when he could easily just hire someone to take his place. He’s asked a few times, wondering why his uncle doesn’t take an early (or, honestly, past due) retirement, but Uncle always gives him the same answer. He grins, slaps Zuko on the back, and says, “Can’t leave all the fun to the young!” before busying himself with some part of the tea process. Zuko doesn’t understand it, but he’s long learned not to question it. He grabs his own apron and gets behind the counter, taking the glass jars of tea out from the cabinets to display them next to the till. Uncle is insistent that people see the tea before it’s brewed, so they know exactly what they are getting. Zuko doesn’t get it. He looks in the jars and sees different shades of dried leaf, which doesn’t help him choose which one he’ll hate least. But Uncle is the boss, so.

The morning goes quickly, a rush hitting a half hour after they open and holding steady until around nine. Perks of being located near the college campus, the best of which being that students in the early morning are dead-eyed and silent. They take their caffeine and go, without much small talk. Zuko decides to take his break after the rush, knowing another one will start up again in an hour or so. Uncle had decided pretty early on that tea was much better with a snack, and so had added café food to the menu. Oatmeal, avocado toast, and smoothie bowls are part of the Jasmine Dragon’s repertoire, among other tasty things, which brings more people in for lunch than they’d get just serving tea. A blessing and a curse, Zuko thinks. A blessing, because more customers mean more tips. A curse because…well, customers. Zuko throws together a sandwich and starts to head to the back. Uncle always says he’s welcome to eat in the dining room, where the seats are more comfortable, but Zuko prefers not to be seen while he eats. Usually, Uncle leaves it just at that. Today, however, he pushes Zuko a little more.

“Are you sure, nephew? I chose these couches myself for their comfort! I think you will enjoy your lunch a bit better if you sit out here today.” Uncle has an odd twinkle in his eye as he says this, one Zuko doesn’t have the energy to parse through. He looks at the clock, then back at Uncle, and realizes if he wants to have any food at all it’s better to just give in now. Zuko shrugs and heads to the dining room instead, taking an armchair close to the back. The room is, thankfully, empty for now. Not knowing how long that will last, Zuko starts to take a bite of his sandwich when the bell over the door rings. He sighs, moving to get up, but Uncle waves him off and heads towards the till to take care of the customer. Grateful, Zuko sinks back into the armchair, eyes drifting to the newcomer in case they try to give Uncle any trouble. As his eyes find him, Zuko freezes. It’s. The blue-eyed man.

Zuko does not drop his sandwich.

The man walks to the counter, familiar grin on his face, and greets Uncle like they’re old friends. Zuko watches, confused, as they immediately launch into a hushed conversation too quiet for him to make out. He does catch Uncle attempting to subtly point in his direction, though, and feels his ears go red. Better not to worry about it, Zuko thinks, and hunches deeper into his armchair to nibble on his sandwich. Not worrying about it, he keeps his eye on the customer.

Eventually, after it seems the man has finally ordered, the customer moves down the counter away from Uncle, and Iroh starts his tea. Instead of looking at his phone like he did last time, the man looks directly at Zuko and makes a beeline for his corner. Zuko eats a bit faster.

“Hey! You on break?”

Zuko wishes he hadn’t eaten so fast. “Mmph? Uhk, er—”

The other man’s eyes fill with concern and he puts his hands up, palms out. “Whoa, whoa sorry! I should’ve waited, take your time!” He watches Zuko swallow with a soft smile, getting comfortable in a nearby armchair. Zuko tries to tone down his impression of a human tomato.

“I—fuck—hi. Hello. Again.”

The customer’s smile stays soft, but a light comes into his eyes. “Hello. Again. Name’s Sokka,” and he reaches a hand out to shake, “what’s yours?”

Zuko definitely drops his sandwich now (onto the table, thank fuck) and quickly meets the man’s—Sokka’s—hand with his own. Sokka’s hand is pleasantly cool. “Uh, I’m Zuko.”

“Zuko. Cool.” Sokka keeps looking at him, and smiling at him, and should Zuko let go now? Or is it okay, since Sokka hasn’t let go either? Zuko wracks his brain for the last time he shook anyone’s hand and how long the shake lasted and comes up maddeningly blank. Has Zuko shaken anyone else’s hand before?

Sokka’s smile grows. He slowly removes his hand from Zuko’s grip, fingers lingering. Zuko has just enough presence of mind to bring his hand back to his lap, and not leave it dangling in midair like an idiot. It’s a near thing, though.

“Uh, so. What were you and Uncle talking about?” Zuko asks, the first thing that comes to mind.

“Oh! That’s your uncle?” Sokka looks over his shoulder for a second, then looks back. “Oh, uh, nothing? Would you believe nothing? We were just shooting the breeze, you know, real casual small talk.” Sokka does not sound very convincing, but he also doesn’t sound like he’s going to change his story so Zuko doesn’t push it.

“Oh, okay. Yeah, he’s, uh, he’s good at that. Small talk.” Unlike me oh gods strike me down now.

“He seems like a good guy!” The nervous look leaves Sokka’s eyes, which is just as well because that means they’re not shifting all over the place and are firmly planted on Zuko’s face. “Must be nice to have such a nice uncle to work for. All the free boba you want! What a dream.”

Zuko’s eyes widen and he coughs. “Uh yeah. All the…the free b-boba…I’d want. Because it’s so good. Who doesn’t like boba? You like it, right?”

Before Sokka can answer, Uncle comes to their little corner with Sokka’s order: same as the other day, black milk tea with boba. This time, though, it’s a much bigger serving. Sokka’s eyes light up when he sees it, and he thanks Uncle profusely as he stabs into the drink’s seal. Zuko tries to hide his grimace, his question thoroughly answered. He looks at Uncle, intending on asking if he should get back to work, but Uncle just gives him a wink and walks off without saying anything. Flustered, Zuko stays put. Between slurps of tea, Sokka begins to ask him about himself and, helpless, Zuko answers. He makes sure to keep his eyes on Sokka’s face, rather than the abomination he’s inhaling, but really that’s not much better. Looking at Sokka makes Zuko feel like he’s on fire. Every time Sokka asks him something his tongue trips over itself trying to provide the best, most accurate answer. He’s sure he looks like a buffoon but Sokka never comments, just keeps smiling at him and encouraging him to answer. He just wants to know and Zuko doesn’t get it.

“Uh, so. What about you? You were working on something the other day…what was it?” Immediately Zuko wants to take it back, sure he’s asked something too personal, maybe the guy doesn’t want to talk about his work, honestly Zuko just think sometimes—

“Oh! I’m glad you asked, I’ve been meaning to bounce some ideas off someone!” Sokka’s eyes light up like he’s been given another boba as he launches into an explanation of his work. He’s a PhD student apparently, trying to hammer out a decent thesis proposal for his dissertation on medieval war tactics. War isn’t really Zuko’s interest, but he does know a bit about medieval history so he offers advice when he can. He’s sure it’s not very helpful, but Sokka seems to take it all very seriously, even pausing for a moment to bring his laptop out and take some notes. Zuko doesn’t have the heart to tell him most of his information was collected from his Wikipedia hunts. Before Zuko knows it, the lunch rush has come and gone and evening is swiftly approaching. When he finally notices a clock he swears, standing up quickly.

“Oh shit, I should go back to work! Oh man, I left Uncle all alone, I—” He looks around frantically hoping to catch his uncle’s eye.

Sokka stands too, seemingly also unconscious of the time. “Oh wow, yeah it’s later than I thought. I’ve got to go, Katara’s gonna kill me…” He quickly packs up his things, having over time brought out papers and folders along with his laptop, haphazardly shoving things back into his messenger bag. “This was good, though! I really liked talking to you. Until next time?” Sokka shoots Zuko a hopeful look as he puts his items away. Zuko blinks a few times, still in Red Alert mode, but takes a second to look back at Sokka. And nods.

“Yeah. Next time.”

***

Next time is apparently the very next day. Zuko isn’t scheduled but Uncle calls him in last minute, as Jin, one of the other employees of the Jasmine Dragon, apparently called in sick. Zuko isn’t planning on doing anything but sweep through Wikipedia so he agrees, taking a quick shower before heading over and arriving with his hair still a bit damp. Uncle gives him a wide smile when he sees him arrive, which Zuko returns, albeit in a more subdued manner, before he spots Jin behind him. His eyes narrow.

“Uncle. I thought you said Jin called in sick.”

“Ah, nephew, you see….” His uncle has the good grace to blush. “She had called in sick, but it seems she felt a bit better and decided to come in anyway!”

“Uncle, you called me twenty minutes ago. Did she get sick and better within the span of half an hour?”

Uncle shrugs, unperturbed by being called out in an obvious lie. “Who is to say, nephew? Illnesses come and go, sometimes. Since you are here already, why don’t I make it up to you? You go sit in your corner and I’ll bring you some tea!” Uncle has that look in his eye, the one Zuko knows means he’s been caught in something he can’t see yet, which doesn’t make any sense….

It’s then that Zuko looks to “his” corner. And sees Sokka sitting in the same chair as yesterday, tapping away on his laptop.

“Uncle! Did you--?” Zuko doesn’t even know how to finish the sentence, but one look at the conniving old man tells him all he needs to know. Zuko groans. “I’m going home, Uncle.”

“No, no! Why go home if you are already here? You may as well relax your poor feet and have some good conversation while you are at it. Go, go sit and I will bring you and your…companion some tea and pastries.” Uncle makes a shooing motion and Zuko finds his feet have decided to make their own decisions, choosing to carry him over to Sokka. Sokka seems to know he’s there because when he gets close, Sokka turns to greet him.

“Zuko! I didn’t know you were working today! Good to see you.” He indicates the chair opposite him, snug in the corner. “Join me?”

Zuko nods numbly and goes to sit. “I wasn’t working today. Uncle called me in, said Jin called out sick…but she’s not sick. She’s right over there.” He points to where Jin is laughing with Uncle about something. He hopes to the gods it’s not him.

“Hmm. Sick but not sick huh? Well, I guess it’s my lucky day then,” Sokka says, beaming a smile at Zuko. Zuko feels warm down to his toes and musters a small smile back.

“Yeah, I guess.” Zuko scratches the back of his neck, feeling the weight of conversation-making drop onto his shoulders. How do people do this?

Thankfully, Sokka seems to feel no such weight and launches right into a story about his sister and their roommate, a blind girl named Toph who sounds like a handful. Sokka doesn’t look like Zuko’s one-word answers bother him, seemingly content to talk about whatever, switching topics on a whim. It’s…comforting. When Sokka wants something from Zuko, he asks. He doesn’t push and doesn’t stray into awkward territory. He doesn’t’ ask about the scar. At one point, Zuko looks down and sees there’s tea in front of both of them, the usual for Sokka and a smaller version of the same for him along with two croissants. He didn’t even notice Uncle coming by. He doesn’t say anything about the cup of boba in front of him, choosing to pretend he doesn’t see it.

“Oh! Can I get your opinion on something?” Sokka asks, his laptop now out. He looks a little nervous, typing at some keys.

“Yeah, sure, I guess. What is it?” Zuko doesn’t know what Sokka could possibly want his opinion on, but he can’t possibly say no.

“Well, it’s this paragraph. I think I’m describing the reign of this king right, but the way you said it yesterday made so much more sense…” Sokka lifts his laptop to hand it over to Zuko, and Zuko doesn’t understand because he could just slide it over and—oh. Sokka’s fingers brush against Zuko’s in the handoff, and Zuko has no more complaints. He takes the laptop, feeling his face heat up, and tries not to fumble it as he turns it around.

“Oh, uh. Yeah, let me read it.” He does, half his mind on the highlighted paragraph and the other half on how nice Sokka’s fingers had felt on his. “This seems right. If anything I’d just, well…” He turns on track changes and does a few minor edits, hands it back. Hopes Sokka’s fingers will touch his again and is not disappointed. Sokka’s ears seem a bit red but otherwise he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, great! Yeah, see that’s what I meant, you just are so good at that. The words, I mean.”

Zuko looks at him like there’s worms coming out of his eyes. Him? Good with words? What planet is Sokka from? He doesn’t say anything though, just shrugging.

The day passes the same as the one before, Sokka alternating between asking Zuko questions and working on his thesis proposal. Zuko tells him about his love of turtles, and his Wikipedia obsession, though he refrains from calling it an “obsession” and refers to it as “an academic obligation.” Sokka nods as if this makes sense. Zuko finds the courage to ask Sokka a bit too, about his sister (Katara, a bit of a pain but the way Sokka talks about her Zuko knows he loves her), his roommate Toph (exactly as much of a handful as that story made her sound like), his parents (dead mom, Zuko regrets asking, and great dad, Zuko really regrets asking) and his school program. Occasionally Zuko will catch Sokka looking at him in a way he can’t read, like Sokka is puzzling something out. When Zuko catches him, he raises his one eyebrow in question but Sokka shakes his head and goes back to his laptop. Zuko leaves it at that.

When it’s time for the Jasmine Dragon to close, neither are ready for it.

“Time sure flies, huh?” Sokka asks, looking genuinely bewildered at the position of the sun. “I should be getting back.”

“Yeah, me too.” Zuko stands, instinctively clearing the table. “This was. Nice. I’m…glad I came in today.”

Sokka gives him a soft smile, pausing in putting his laptop and papers away. “I’m glad too.”

***

For the next week, Zuko is working every day. When asked why he signed up for seven days in a row, Zuko shrugs.

“Rent is coming up.”

His Uncle, who is very familiar with his nephew’s finances, smiles and says nothing.

And if Zuko’s breaks are spent in the corner of the dining room with a certain blue-eyed regular, well. It’s nobody’s business but his.

He makes sure he doesn’t go over time, feeling guilty about the work he skipped last time, but when he goes back behind the till Sokka doesn’t leave. In fact, he just moves tables, sitting in a chair closer to the counter, angled towards Zuko. Zuko doesn’t know why, but he isn’t complaining. It’s much easier to watch Sokka this way.

The man really was beautiful. Zuko’s never been very good at describing people, wrinkling his nose at the labels people use for body parts. All he knew was that something about Sokka called to him, somewhere deep down, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Or if there was anything to do. Sokka was a customer, after all! He came for his (disgusting) tea and a quiet place to work. And, apparently, to talk to Zuko, sometimes. But that didn’t mean anything. Still. For seven days, Sokka came in and ordered his boba, they chatted during Zuko’s breaks, and Zuko watched him work when he had to go back behind the till. He might have dropped a mug or two. But who was counting? Apparently not Uncle, who only gives him mysterious looks whenever it happens and sweeps up the glass without comment. He also seems to be oddly occupied in the back of the shop, leaving Zuko at the front. Alone. On days when Uncle is not in the shop, but Jin or Piandao are working instead, they also seem to make themselves…scarce, unless there’s a rush. Zuko doesn’t question it, as it leaves him more chances to watch Sokka unobserved.

Somewhere in the middle of the week, Sokka starts coming up to the counter after the lunch rush to ask Zuko some more questions. Mostly about his proposal, but sometimes not. He always goes back to his chair when a customer comes in, ever courteous of Zuko’s job, but Zuko kind of wishes he wouldn’t. Zuko would much rather explain to Sokka his disinterest in organized sports than watch a customer stare at the menu above Zuko’s head for five minutes, just to give a fake laugh and ask what Zuko thinks they should get. Zuko really wishes they would stop asking his opinion on tea.

By the end of the week, Zuko desperately needs a break. All his clothes, even his non-work ones, reek of tea. He doesn’t know how, but they do, and he’s tired. His feet hurt. He thinks he’ll do something violent if he has to make small talk with another customer. But he looks over at Sokka and thinking about the prospect of not seeing him for a few days fills him with panic. Maybe he could come in anyway? But, surely that’d be obvious, right? Maybe he can ask Uncle to loudly call him on the phone…

It’s nearing closing time and Zuko is still thinking about what to do. Sokka’s still there, which isn’t unusual. He hasn’t left before closing time all week. He gets up, stretches, and starts packing his things away. Also not unusual. What is unusual is that, instead of giving Zuko a wave and heading out, he walks up to the counter.

“Hey.”

“…hey?” Zuko’s mind switches from thinking about how to see Sokka in the next few days to how to deal with the Sokka in front of him. “Want a tea for the road?”

“Well, actually…” Sokka brings a hand up to tug at his braid, biting his bottom lip. Zuko tries not to track this motion and utterly fails. “I was wondering. You, uh. You’ve been working a lot this week, haven’t you?”

Zuko blinks. Sokka had noticed? “Uh, yeah. I’m supposed to be off a couple days soon.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah, that makes sense, cool. Would…would tomorrow be one of those days?”

“Maybe? It, uh, could be? Why?”

Sokka tugs a final time at his braid before planting both hands on the counter. “Wellyousaidyoulikedturtlesright?”

Zuko frowns. “What?”

Sokka takes a deep breath. “Well. You said you liked. Turtles, right?”

Zuko nods slowly. “Yeah…?”

“Okay. Okay, so, I’m planning on going to the aquarium tomorrow. I have a free day from—” he gestures to the messenger bag on his shoulder, as if that explains anything at all, “—and was wondering if you wanted to join me?”

Zuko’s eyes widen. “Oh, like. You and me? At the aquarium?”

Sokka seems to gain his equilibrium in the face of Zuko’s awkwardness and grins. “Yeah, you and me. Like a date?” As confident as Sokka suddenly looks, Zuko can tell he’s a little nervous. Zuko rushes to reassure him.

“Yes! Yes. I would. I would like that. A date.”

“Great! Meet here at 2?”

“Yeah. See you then.”

Sokka leaves and Zuko allows himself a solitary fist pump.

***

The next day, Zuko comes in to find Sokka already out front, holding two cups.

“I thought I’d get us some boba for the trip over! Here,” and he hands one to Zuko. Zuko looks at it like it’s going to bite him. Sokka doesn’t notice, having already popped the seal on his and taking a big slurp. Zuko watches the boba balls go up the straw with dread.

“Come on, man, no need to be shy. Don’t even think you have to pay me back, just go ahead and enjoy!”

Zuko’s eye twitches but, as if on autopilot, he stabs into his drink. Takes a few sips. He tries his best, but a ball of boba gets stuck in his straw and he has no choice but to bring it all the way up. The moment it touches his tongue he makes the loudest retching sound, dropping his drink onto the pavement and launching the ball from his mouth to land on Sokka’s shirt.

Sokka, for his part, is in hysterics.

He laughs at him the whole way to the aquarium, and a bit more while they’re there for good measure. In fact, he doesn’t stop laughing until Zuko kisses him, right next to the turtle tank.

 fin