#is this a modern au? Did they have ring boxes in the middle ages? Who knows-just let your imagination run wild for the sake of the quote

[incorrectjane-andthedragon]

*Jane and Gunther are both standing on a scenic hillside* *They are both holding small ring boxes* Jane: Oh, it seems we both planned to propose to each other right here. Gunther, on one knee: Ah, but I have taken the knee. Gunther: So it seems *I'll* be the one proposing today. Jane: Not so fast. Jane: *gets on one knee and crouches even lower* Jane: I am even lower than you. *I* am proposing. Gunther, pressing himself flat on the ground: Oh, how sure you are of yourself! *I* will be the one who proposes and there's nothing you could do about it!

[cheolaholic]

ring of love; csc (05)

summary; agreeing to join vernon spectate an underground boxing match wasn't how you'd expect to spend your friday night. you also didn't expect to see seungcheol, someone you've lost contact with for years, become a part of the ring.

modern! au • boxer! au • hhu focused • multiple kinds of tropes • fluff, angst, smut

a/n;; omg, i'm alive????? jkjk, work's been piling up lately and i'm honestly drained by the time I get back home so I couldn't do much writing or even qc the draft before yoinking them into a tumblr draft 💀 but anyways, hope yall enjoy this chapter !! uri boo makes a small little cameo in this chapter :D a part of the angst in this fic has also arrived, pls be prepared (it’s not that heavy tho).

You were 15 when you experienced your first ‘heartbreak’. Though, you call it a ‘heartbreak’ solely because it was a “for the lack of a better word” situation. A week before summer break, your parents had announced that the three of you would be flying off to Jeju to visit your grandparents.

You adore your grandparents, and they adore you just as much. Before you started middle school, you remember constantly flying off to Jeju, or even taking the ferry, to visit them every holiday and school break possible. Even during the initial stage of your move to the small town, your parents had sent you off to your grandparents as they sorted out the heavier parts.

Your grandparents had brought you to the beach, taught you how to make kimchi and even brought you to one of the fireworks shows during your stay. But, when you started middle school and were bombarded by a shit ton of schoolwork, you weren’t able to visit them as often.

So, you were ecstatic when your parents announced the Jeju trip. Both Aki and Seungcheol could see the excitement and happiness in your eyes as you told them about your plans.

Aki asking you questions about Jeju while Seungcheol listens to both of you with a small smile on his face. “how long will you be there, pup?” he asks, cheek leaning against the palm of his hand.

“Uhm… I think maybe for two weeks? I’m not really sure… Dad did ask mom if she wanted me to tag along with them to London afterwards…”

“Oh? What are they gonna be doing in London?”

“They have a business meeting that lasts at least two days. But, they decided to stay back a week for a mini vacation.”

“Do you want to go?” Aki asks as she pops a piece of strawberry into her mouth, stealing a glance at Seungcheol, noticing the way his shoulders are slumped at the mention of you thinking of joining your parents overseas.

Dude looks like a puppy not wanting its owner to leave it alone… she thought to herself, finding the scene in front of her amusing.

“Well, whether or not you want to join your parents, I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself regardless!” she spoke.

“Take good care of yourself, pup,” Seungcheol added as he reached out a hand and patted your head, sending a faint blush spreading across your cheeks and a teasing smile on Aki’s lips, “If you ever need anything, call me, okay?”

“Or me!”

The older male rolled his eyes at Aki’s words, smiling when you nod your head.

“Seungkwannie!” you squealed out in happiness as you ran up to your cousin who was standing out at the gates of your grandparent's house, engulfing him in a big hug. “I can’t believe you’re here! Mom and Dad said that you’d be in Biyangdo!”

“And miss out on the chance to spend time with my favourite cousin? Never!” Seungkwan proclaimed as he pecked your cheek. “I haven’t seen you in years, ___! There’s no way I’d pass off the opportunity to spend time with you while you’re here!”

Seungkwan is your cousin from your mom’s side of the family. Before the age of 5, you don’t remember much about meeting Seungkwan other than the stories both your parents would tell you over family dinners. For example, when you asked them about the scar Seungkwan had on his chest, his dad said you were the one that left it on him. They proceeded to tell the story of how you had scratched Seungkwan because he had refused to let you watch Pocoyo on tv when both of you were just 3.

Or when his mom would ask you if you remembered Seungkwan hiding in the closet to scare you, but you ended up crying because you had thought he went home. So, instead of scaring you, he came out of the closet and both your parents found the two of you cuddled up on the floor the next morning

After Seungkwan helped you and your parents move the luggage into your grandparent’s home, Both of you sat on the porch, drinking the lemonade your grandmother had prepared. “How’re you, aunt and uncle doing?” he asks, “I heard from Uncle Lee that you’re starting high school soon! probably in a few months, right?”

“Things have been the same, besides the whole mom and dad having to go overseas occasionally and I had to stay with either Aki or Seungcheol.”

“Speaking of Seungcheol, how’s that little crush of yours on him going?” Seungkwan asked with a teasing smile, nudging your sides, “Ever thought of telling him before he graduates? There’s a chance he might head off to the big cities or even abroad for college.”

You were silent for a moment.

You have thought about telling Seungcheol your feelings, but you never thought about the timing. Now that his graduation is nearing, you still haven’t told him. As you were still stuck in your thoughts, Seungkwan places a hand on your shoulder, “Well, whatever happens, I wish you happiness.“

“You say that as if I’m leaving you forever.”

“Hey, let me be sentimental!”

Just as you rolled your eyes, you felt your phone vibrate - you had gotten a text from Aki.

aki: did you make it to Jeju safe? ___ bestie <3: yeap! ___ bestie <3: i’m with my cousin rn ___ bestie <3: [sent an attachment] aki: ooh, he’s cute ___ bestie <3: want me to introduce you? aki: gurl aki: don’t try to matchmake me when you’re struggling to tell Seungcheol about how you feel aki: and besides aki: your cousin is cute, but he’s not my type ___ bestie <3: wow ___ bestie <3: you really just did me dirty aki: i’m just saying ___ aki: better tell him before you lose the chance aki: besides your romantic struggles aki: have fun and take lots of pictures! aki: can’t wait to see them when you get back <3 ___ bestie <3: i will!

“Are you gonna stay here with grandma and grandpa while Aunt and Uncle Lee fly out to London?” Seungkwan asks as you set down your phone, refilling his glass of lemonade. You shrugged, still debating on whether or not you wanted to join your parents. “I’m honestly stuck in between… On one hand, I want to see what other countries are like. On the other, I haven’t seen grandma and grandpa in years…”

Your mother who was on her way to give you both a plate of strawberries overheard the conversation and tried her best to help you with your indecisiveness. “___, sweetie,” she began as she set the plate on the wooden porch floor, “you can always travel in the future when you’re all grown up.”

“That sounds like you just want her to stay here in Jeju so you and uncle can enjoy yourselves without her presence,” Seungkwan teased, earning a forehead flick from your mother.

“Well, she’ll be in your care too, Seungkwan. I hope I won’t return to a sassy, diva daughter after leaving her here with you.”

Seungkwan gasps dramatically, placing a hand over his chest at your mother’s statement. “Aunt Lee, I’m hurt and offended.”

“You’re just further proving my point, Seungkwan.”

“Hey, the sass could end up helping her in the future!”

cheollie: hey, pup cheollie: mom said you and your parents made it to Jeju safely cheollie: how are you feeling? cheollie: did you get motion sickness during the flight? cheollie: did you eat dinner yet? sweet pup: ehh, the motion sickness wasn’t that bad sweet pup: grandma made lemonade :D sweet pup: and yes, i ate dinner! sweet pup: grandpa grilled some mackerel sweet pup: [sent an attachment] sweet pup: and look at how fat the strawberries are :0 sweet pup: [sent an attachment] cheollie: wow cheollie: those look good cheollie: hey, do you think it’s alright if we have a call? sweet pup: like, right now? cheollie: yea sweet pup: oh sweet pup: um, let me head out to the porch cheollie: take your time, pup

As you quietly exited the room you were staying in and out onto the porch, you picked up Seungcheol’s incoming call, feeling the butterflies in your stomach intensify when you heard his deep, “Hey, pup.”

“Hi, Cheollie! Have you had your dinner?” you asked, getting a small hum as a response. “Dad got a deal with a big client so he bought steak for us. Mom also cooked calamari.”

“Wow, it must’ve tasted amazing…”

“Yeah, it was. But, tell me about your dinner, ___. I’m sure you had more than just grilled mackerel.” Seungcheol chuckled, a blush spreading across your cheeks as you mentally cussed at how the older male still has an effect on you despite being 2 hours away and talking to you through a phone.

“Well… Mom made raw crabs and seafood soup!”

“Looks like my little puppy is eating well... That’s good.”

“Is there another reason you wanted to call, Cheollie?”

There was a moment of silence on the other end, making you slightly anxious. You hear a faint rustling, thinking he must be lying on his bed as he’s talking to you. A sigh was heard before Seungcheol told you his motive for calling you - and to say it had you on the floor was an understatement.

No, this man had you envisioning a future with him.

“I miss you.”

When you didn't respond, Seungcheol got worried, calling out your name on the other end while you remained stunned at his confession.

“U-uhm, yeah?”

“Did that make you uncomfortable, pup?”

“No, no, it just… It just caught me by surprise…”

You hear Seungcheol chuckle, and more rustling can be heard before he speaks again. “Well, I’m used to having you around me, twenty-four seven, ___. It feels weird when you’re not.”

“I’ll be back in two weeks, Cheollie. You’re being dramatic!”

Maybe he was, the older male thought to himself. But, he pushes that thought to the back of his head as he finally tells you the real reason he’s calling you.

“My parents are thinking of bringing me to Seoul this weekend to check out a few unis… I just thought that I’d let you know since, y’know… I’m graduating soon…”

Your heart sank at the mention of him graduating. You knew it was bound to happen - you even told yourself to not be too sad when he does end up moving out of Daegu for college. But, to hear it coming from Seungcheol himself, the reality hit harder.

“Oh… Well, I’m happy for you!” you tried your best to hide the sadness in your voice, though he still picked it up. “Pup, I’m not going away forever. You’ll still see me when I come back during breaks and when you leave for college, you can come over to Seoul, too!” he assures you, chuckling to himself as he continues, “Maybe our parents might even have us share an apartment so I can watch over you.”

Humming, you stared up into the sky, mesmerised by the stars that were scattered along the blanket of the night sky.

“___?”

“Yea…?”

“Remember what I taught you during our taekwondo sessions?”

“What about it?”

“Don’t forget how to use them, okay? Can’t have my little puppy all defenceless now, can I?”

you bit your lip as Seungcheol went on with his words, how he wished he could stay in Daegu longer so he could spend more time with you. How he wanted to explore the bigger city in Daegu with you (where he implies it being just two of you and without Aki who would often nag at him for having a bad taste in things).

“I’m gonna miss you…” you muttered quietly, not knowing how or what else you were supposed to say. You weren’t going to tell him about your feelings, that’s for sure. but, a part of you wished you could.

Who knows? Maybe you both could end up being something.

“It’s getting late, pup. you must be tired from the flight and settling in. Goodnight, ___.”

“Goodnight, Cheollie…”

When the call ended, you stared at the screen of your phone, a million thoughts racing through your head. You couldn’t put a finger on it, but you had a sinking feeling in your stomach. perhaps you were overthinking the whole situation or something wrong was bound to happen. Whatever it was, you quietly got back into your room and crawled into bed.

Something didn’t feel right.

It was the weekend Seungcheol was due to head to Seoul to have a look at the city and attend a few of the education fairs - and not once, had you gotten a single message from him.

In fact, in the days leading up to that weekend, he had been quiet too. His replies were either short, took too long or there weren’t any replies at all.

It makes you feel uneasy.

“Still no updates from loverboy?” Seungkwan asks, glancing over your shoulder and peeking at your phone, seeing the wall of texts about how the past few days have gone down for you. When you sulkingly shake your head, Seungkwan’s heart aches as he sees his favourite cousin down in the dumps.

“Hey,” he calls out in a gentle tone, throwing an arm around your shoulder and pulling you close. “Maybe he’s just caught up with those college things. Sooner or later he’s bound to update you, right? Besides, you should be busy having fun here in Jeju!”

Looking at your phone one last time, you shoved it back into your pocket and let Seungkwan drag you to a food street, saying how they added more delicious treats since the last time you visited.

By evening, there was still no news about or from Seungcheol. You’ve tried calling him multiple times, but they all end up going to voicemail. It was starting to affect you and your parents began to take notice, but decided to not question it for fear of triggering an episode. After dinner, you decided to call Aki in an attempt to get some form of comfort.

“I just don’t understand, Aki,” you told her, “I texted him, even called him but I got nothing! What if something bad happened to him?”

“Hey now, you’re probably overthinking things. He might just be sorting those uni documents out - you know how lengthy and taxing they can be. Maybe, he’s just tired and needs some rest!”

“You think so?”

“It’s just a guess, ___. whatever it is, I’m sure it isn’t anything serious.”

Oh, how you wished it really wasn’t anything serious.

When the time came to send your parents off at the airport for their trip to London, you had sent a message to Seungcheol and yet again, you got no response. One thing you came to realise in recent years, was how big of an over-thinker you are. It was something you hated and while your family, Seungcheol and Aki have done whatever they can to help you lessen your overthinking, that still doesn’t stop it from creeping up on you from time to time.

Seungkwan does his best to cheer you up. Bringing you to more food streets, a maze field, and even the seaside to take your mind off of Seungcheol but alas, it was as if Seungcheol had taken over your mind just like the virus in ‘The Last of Us’. One evening as you sat on the sand of the beach, staring off into the horizon, Seungkwan came up and sat next to you.

“I know this might not sound nice, but you can’t let something like Seungcheol not responding to you ruin your trip, ___. Sure, it’s upsetting having someone you’ve known for years and care for go ghost on you, but it’s kind of… pathetic, to let it ruin what could be a fun summer vacation.”

As much as those words hurt you, Seungkwan was right.

You hadn’t seen your family that lived in Jeju for years and now that you can, you’re letting something like your crush not responding to you ruin it. “Then, what should I do, Kwannie…?” you asked, wiping the tears that were starting to stream down your face, “I don’t wanna leave Jeju knowing I didn’t get to spend time with you and our grandparents…”

“How about you try calling him only once? If he doesn’t pick up, we’ll forget about it and move on, okay?”

You give it a thought, minutes passing by before you pick up your phone and dial Seungcheol’s number, placing it near your ear.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialled cannot be reached.”

Seungkwan noticed your body shaking as you redialled the number, your breathing starting to grow shallow.

“We’re sorry, the number you have dialled cannot be reached.”

“___?” Seungkwan calls out, placing a gentle hand on your shoulder. When you began to cry, he pulled you into a hug, rubbing your back as you cried your heart out. “Shhh, it’s okay, ____. it’s okay.”

When you got back to Daegu, your heart dropped at the sight of the empty house next to yours. the entire house looked as if it were fully emptied (which it was) - the potted plants Mrs. Choi had displayed on the gates were nowhere to be seen, the shoes that were neatly arranged on the shoe rack weren’t there anymore, and the Choi’s family car wasn’t parked in its usual place.

“I guess they must’ve moved since Seungcheol is going to start college soon…” your mother tells your father who hums in response as he unloads the luggage from the trunk of the taxi. When she notices the sadness and tears in your eyes, she immediately starts comforting you.”Oh, sweetie… Does it upset you that much?”

“I… I couldn’t even say goodbye to him…” you sobbed out, “I couldn’t even see him one last time before he left…”

“Oh, princess…” your father coos after bidding the taxi driver goodbye, hugging you tight as your mother does the same, “I’m sure he feels sad for not being able to do the same, hmm?”

“Will… Will I… Will I be able to see him again?” you asked through hiccuped sobs, wiping your tears away as more kept spilling. Your mother nods, giving you a pat on the head. “I'm sure you will, honey.”

“He said he’s thinking of joining University of Pledis, right?” your father asked, a small smile on his face when you nod, “Then, you just need to study hard and get in there too! That way, you can finally be reunited with prince charming!”

despite your tears, you still manage to laugh at your dad’s tease. “Dad!”

“Ah-ah, don’t think we didn’t know about your little crush on Seungcheol, ___.” he responded, chuckling as he gave your arm an assuring squeeze.

“Whatever the future has in store, I’m sure the two of you will meet again.”

taglist (unable to tag a few ㅠㅠ)

@yoonclip @1004luvangel @catjunhui @mystikha @spk93 @tinkerbell460 @yoozuku @dnylwoo @christinewithluv @limbomoon @plutoxxxworld @i-give-up-1234 @m1ngyuc0re @yunloyal @leclercloverbot @bettybeako @billboard-singer @ocyeanicc @krupyadoorrahe @seobinnieshi @xcynthiaaa @k411z @disneyprincesshuri @sunnyapp @khxsh @staygenezy @loufi8iepuff @ursweetener @noisypapergalaxy @wonwootakemyheart @sugainpinksweater @leah-rose03 @thisisnotthelastofus @yearnoclock @kwonhoeshi @minhui896 @ohmygodwhyareallusernamestaken @ru-lin @deobiforever @belladaises @cheoliekkuma @duskunt1ldawn @hyneyedfiz @marshmallowshouse @ak6ko @chwevernonlover @jejuboo-s @tsukinluv @atinytinaa @gyros-cum-sock @soupbinlily @jungwoos-luvr @ener-energy @watermelon-sugars-things @cyberpunkhwx @ddaengpotate @nightwingsrobbinhoods @chaerrylov3r @joshuaahong @wonussmile @uliceeeeeeee @wonwoo24 @shinetogether17 @simplejihoon @luvkpopp

[ao3komorii]

Tangling with the Lifeguard (Pool Party Sett/Reader)

The Pool Party Sett story is done! I’ve gone with a beach!AU sort of setting where league races exist in a modern-day beach sort of place. Also sorry to any MF or Syndra mains, they don’t really come out the best in this xD Hope you enjoy, and as always, there is a smut warning for the end!

---

The sun was shining high in the sky, crystalline waters lapping against the shore as beachgoers took advantage of the perfect summer day. Taking in the scene from your place in the shade of a tree on the border between the beach and parking lot, you let a smile grace your lips as you mused on just how much this place seemed to not change, even after so many years.

The last time you had set foot on this beach, you had been twelve years old, full of excitement and unaware of the harsh realities of the adult world. Your parents had brought you here for that summer, now thirteen years ago, the beautiful beach an unforgettable experience. You had left after that summer with treasured memories, and a new friend, that same friend the very reason why you had returned to Port Navori beach after so long.

Taliyah had been the same age as you, with fairly lax parents who let her roam the beach by herself, even as the small twelve-year-old she had been. You had bonded instantly, spending almost every day together, and keeping in touch through letters, and later emails and text messages.

You had long said that you had wanted to come back and visit the lively beach town, but the timing hadn’t been right, not until this year.

You were done all your schooling, and had quit your high-stress, low-pay job, and as Taliyah had said on your last phone call, you had no reason not to visit. Her parents had been travelling the world since they retired, so you would have her house all to yourselves.

In your absence, Taliyah had become a fairly accomplished surfer in the local scene, working at an ice cream shop on the beach to support her expensive pursuits. She had been so insistent that you couldn’t find yourself able to refuse her offer; work in the ice cream shop with her in the day, and then spend the rest of your time catching up with each other. You had missed your friend dearly, and had accepted the offer without a second thought.

And now here you were, waiting at the beach’s edge for Taliyah to show up. She had told you to dress for the beach, sounding casual as was her usual, so you had worn a swimsuit with a short, flowy shoulderless dress on overtop. Unwilling to look like a lobster by day’s end, you had carefully layered yourself with sunscreen, and now all you needed was for your friend to get here already. Just when you were about to get out your phone to text her, an excited call of your name had you re-stowing the phone in your bag and looking back to see your friend bounding across the parking lot towards you.

Taliyah, dressed in a two-piece water suit and carrying a tropical-flower-print surfboard, came to a stop before you, leaning her surfboard against a tree to free her arms to tackle you in a hug.

“You’re finally here!” she grinned, surprising you with the strength of her hug. “We’re gonna have so much fun!”

“So what’s first?” you asked as you pulled back from the hug.

Taliyah hummed. “I guess I’ll show you the shop.”

You followed her onto the beach, recognizing the small bright blue building from the pictures she had sent you before. Taliyah took you around the back, fishing a key out of her pocket before unlocking the door and leading you into the small room.

There were large tubs of ice cream in the middle of the room, the walls lined with containers of various toppings and machines. On the back wall from you were two windows, glossy menus pasted to the doors that would display out when they were opened. Upon walking closer to the menu signs, you noticed something.

“Hey, it says we open at nine, but it’s ten-thirty…”

“It’s fine,” Taliyah replied with a shrug. “The owners are pretty chill. If anyone complains, I’ll just tell them I had to train the new employee.”

You playfully rolled your eyes. Sometimes you really envied Taliyah’s ability to be so carefree. Her calm energy was a big help for you, having got advice from her on numerous occasions over the years.

Taliyah came over to where you were, eyes flitting boredly to the menu boards before turning her attention back to you. “So I’m thinking we get you taking orders while I make them.”

“Works for me,” you agreed. It certainly sounded easier than figuring out what a poro float was supposed to be. You never knew ice cream stands had such fancy options now, used to the simple menus of ice cream cones and bars back at the shops in your hometown.

You were about to open the order windows when you were stopped by a rustling noise from the back of the store. You turned to see Taliyah digging in a cardboard box in the back corner, pulling out some folded-up fabric that was the same sky blue as the stand.

“Didn’t think you’d get away without an embarrassing uniform, did you?” Taliyah teased, tossing some of her fabric pile your way.

You caught the bundle, unfolding it to find an apron with Poro Palace Frozen Treats in pink bubble letters, little white fuzzy animals dotting the apron. There was an accompanying blue visor hat that looked like something out of a kid’s store. You reluctantly slipped both items of clothing on, looking back to find that Taliyah had done the same.

“Stylish, huh?” she smirked, striking a modelesque pose.

“We look like we work at an amusement park, Tali,” you laughed.

“Feels like it sometimes with all the annoying kids that come by,” she replied. “Okay, you can open it up now.”

Taliyah settled herself down in a chair in front of the section of ice cream tubs, and you reluctantly turned to unlatch and open the windows, unsure of exactly what you were getting yourself into.

The small room lit up with the outside sunlight streaming in from your window to outside, the immediate glare of the sun making you wish you had worn sunglasses.

Almost immediately, the masses were upon you. You noticed a woman with several children in tow who perked up as she laid eyes on you, striding over to you with her children right behind her, pushing each other as they scrambled to be the first one to get over to you.

You heard Taliyah groan behind you. “Get the pen ready. They always have the most annoying orders.”

You rose an eyebrow, but picked up the pen and notepad that sat beside the cash register as the woman came to a stop before you.

“You know, I’ve been waiting for an hour already. You young girls don’t know how hard it is for mothers,” the woman complained, not letting you get a word in edgewise. “Alright, tell her what you want.”

“I want a brownie sundae!” a small boy with blue hair who clearly intended to make full use of his outdoor voice shouted. “But with cotton candy ice cream and pop rocks and I want only blue candies!”

“Uh…” The kid was talking too fast for you to write, but luckily Taliyah had your back, a got it ringing out from behind you.

You weren’t sure how you had managed to get their orders out before they melted, messing up their total several times before Taliyah had to come and help you out. With a last snide look and a fistful of blue napkins, the mother and her little terrors left the stand at last.

“She’s the worst,” Taliyah said, bringing your weary gaze her way as she cleaned off an ice cream scoop. “I accidentally put one red candy in that kid’s sundae once and he screamed until I remade the whole thing!”

You winced. “Feels like we got off easy today.”

“Yeah,” Taliyah agreed. “Helps that they order the same thing every time, so I’ve got some practice.”

“Are they all this bad?” you asked, turning away from the window after seeing no potential customers nearby.

“Not all of them,” she replied with a strained smile. “I swear the heat just brings the jerk out in some of the people here.”

Speaking of jerks… your conversation was interrupted by an impatient-sounding throat clearing noise from behind you. You whirled around to see a redheaded woman with heart-shaped sunglasses and a revealing swimsuit leaning against your counter. She was staring at you like you were gum she had stepped in, flipping some hair over her shoulder when she knew she had your attention.

“Five cherry snowballs,” she said, dropping a few coins on your counter, some of which bounced and hit the floor. “To the red umbrella, thanks ice cream girl.”

Without any further interaction, she turned on her heel and strutted away, hips swinging as she went, leaving you wondering what had just happened.

You slowly turned back to face Taliyah again. “Um, do we usually deliver?”

“Nope,” she answered. “Not to people like that anyways.”

“But…” you protested weakly. You knew Taliyah got away with a lot here, but you didn’t want her to lose her job because some rude girl complained to her bosses. “I’ll just take them over and next time I’ll just say we don’t deliver.”

“Still tempted to put rocks in their snowballs,” Taliyah joked as she set about piling the scoops of red ice.

Soon you had a tray with five cherry syrup-coated piles of shaved ice in little plastic bowls with accompanying little plastic spoons stuck in the side of the dishes.

“I’ll be right back,” you said, heading past Taliyah to the back door, opening it to find yourself back out in the mid-morning heat.

The sand still felt uncomfortably hot underfoot, even with your flip flops on. With how hot it was out, these would have to be delivered as soon as possible to not be a puddle by the time they were eaten. Your only problem was that you had no idea where to go.

The redhead had said that she would be at the red umbrella, but of course nothing at this ice cream stand would be that easy. Standing just outside the hut, you were treated to a veritable rainbow of colored beach umbrellas. You counted at least ten red ones scattered across the beach, none particularly standing out to you. You didn’t have many options, and were forced to go with the most tedious one; checking every red umbrella until you found the girl and her group.

The first umbrella had been a bust, as had the next five. The sixth had led to a sweaty old man who told you that you were just in time to help him sunscreen his back. By the time you had hurriedly fled from that creep, it had been about five minutes of searching, the snowballs on your tray looking considerably droopier than they had been when you had left the shop.

You stared down at the tray of melting treats, unsure of what to do now. Should you go back and have Taliyah remake the snowballs? Try a few more umbrellas and hope you got lucky? You really hadn’t been anticipating this much stress when you had agreed to work here with Taliyah for the summer.

You frowned at the now-more-water-than-ice treats, your decision made. You couldn’t serve these, not as melted as they were. You would go back and help remake them and see if Taliyah had any insight as to which red umbrella was the right one. You turned around to head back to the stand, only to trip on your overheating flip flops and fall forward with a cry.

You had closed your eyes with a flinch as you fell, but opened them with a start as you heard a grunt from right in front of you. Looking up from your position in the burning sand, you felt like your heart was going to stop in your chest.

Standing before you was the most attractive guy you had ever laid eyes on, with fire red hair and a pair of black animal ears that looked soft to the touch. He was dressed in a tight pair of swim shorts, a lightweight red jacket tied around his waist. He had a flower lei around his neck, but that was the only thing that he wore on his top half, his insanely-well-built torso on full display, a torso you realized with horror was currently splattered with red syrup and shaved ice.

You looked from the hot guy to the ground, the sand around you speckled with plastic cups, spoons and napkins, your tray turned upside down in the sand. You slowly risked a gaze back up, only to see the guy staring down at you from behind his pink-tinted sunglasses as a clump of ice fell from his stomach to the sand just in front of your hands.

Embarrassment forced you to spring up, grabbing some stray napkins from the ground and dabbing them against the mess of syrup and ice on the man’s abdomen.

“I’m so sorry, I–” You looked up from your apologizing to see the man silently staring at you, your hand freezing in place as you realized that you were basically feeling this guy up through the napkins, the realization making your cheeks burn with shame and embarrassment.

“I’m really sorry!” you cried out, pulling your hands back. He still hadn’t said anything, and you realized that you couldn’t just stand here like an idiot, your flight instinct kicking in as you reached down to grab your tray before moving around the man and fleeing in the direction of the ice cream stand.

“Hey, wait!”

The man tried to grab your arm as you passed, but you were faster in your embarrassment-fueled retreat, and soon the hot stranger was far behind you. You didn’t stop running until you were back at the shop, the empty sand-logged tray clutched tightly to your chest, your heartbeat pounding in your ears as you shut the door, making eye contact with a confused Taliyah.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, getting up to approach you when you didn’t respond. “Talk to me. What happened? If that snob said anything to you–”

“No, no, she didn’t,” you replied weakly, sinking to the floor with your back against the door. “I didn’t even get to her.”

“Then what happened?” she pressed, bringing you a glass of water and prying the tray from your hands at last.

She ushered you to your feet and down into her chair, taking a seat on one of the counters. You took a deep breath, taking a sip of the water before recounting the events of the past ten minutes to Taliyah, who listened silently.

“…I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran,” you finished, setting your water down to bury your face in your hands.

“It’s no big deal,” Taliyah replied gently. “Everyone has embarrassed themselves in front of someone. Remember that time I tripped over my board in front of that group of tourists?”

“I covered him in cherry syrup, Tali,” you groaned. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“It’s your first day,” she stressed. “You’re bound to mess some things up.”

She stood up, returning to the shaved ice machine. “Now how about we remake those snowballs and then I’ll–”

Taliyah had frozen in place, a plastic cup in her hand as she stared straight ahead.

“Tali?” you questioned, standing up. “Are you–”

“That guy you dumped the snowballs on,” she quickly interrupted. “Did he have majorly cut abs and animal ears?”

“Uh, why?” You felt a jolt of fear shoot up your spine as you followed her gaze to see the man from earlier currently approaching the shop, well-defined abdomen now minus the sticky mess you had spilt all over him. “Oh god, it’s him!”

You and Taliyah exchange wide-eyed glances before you dove down out of sight, hiding behind the tubs of ice cream like they were a fortress.

“Please get rid of him!” you begged. “I’ll do whatever you want, I just can’t face him!”

You heard Taliyah sigh. “Fine, but this means you’re coming stone hunting with me tonight.”

You agreed immediately, even if the prospect wasn’t overwhelmingly appealing. Taliyah was always eager to add to her collection of shiny stones, but was so picky that it often took hours to find just one stone that met her standards. But right now you were so desperate that you would have promised her anything just to make the angry hot guy go away.

From your position behind the ice cream tubs, you could only hear Taliyah’s voice clearly, the general noise of the beach preventing you from hearing what the furry-eared man was saying. You wanted to peek out from your hiding spot, but found yourself chickening out. You really didn’t need him catching sight of you and making Taliyah’s job even harder.

You had gotten so in your own head with panic that you had completely tuned out of your surroundings until a hand waved in front of your face and you realized Taliyah was crouching in front of you, calling your name.

“You okay?” she asked worriedly.

“Is he gone?” you replied quietly.

“Yeah, he’s gone,” she confirmed, standing up and grabbing your forearms to pull you up with her. “Now help me remake those snowballs and then I’ll fill you in.”

You bit your lip as you scooped shaved ice into a row of plastic cups as Taliyah readied the cherry syrup. Soon you had five pristine-looking snowballs on your slightly-sandy tray, the sight of them bringing you back to your moment of collision with the cute guy.

The tray was snatched from your field of vision by Taliyah, who headed over to the rear door. “Be back in a few. Try not to freak out too much while I’m gone.”

And then the door was closed and you were left alone. Looking over at the order window, you decided that you were probably safer to just resume your position behind the ice cream tubs, unwilling to risk being out in the open in case the guy decided to come back.

While she was gone, you couldn’t help but fret over exactly what had been said between your best friend and the mysterious hot guy. She didn’t seem to be upset, so clearly their conversation hadn’t been that intense. Or maybe it had; Taliyah was a fairly relaxed person, so it would be difficult for a random angry customer to really get to her. But that didn’t quite make sense either; if he had yelled at her, you would have heard it over the noise of the beachgoers. All you were doing was overthinking yourself to death, exactly what Taliyah had told you not to do.

And it was there you remained until Taliyah returned, closing the door behind her and placing the serving tray in the sink before she turned her attention to you at last.

“Calm down, it’s fine… I think,” she said.

“You think?”

“Well he didn’t seem mad,” she explained. “He asked if a girl that looked like you worked here and I said you went home sick. Said he’d come back another time.”

“Another–” Oh god. Was he really so angry that he was willing to come back just for the chance to yell at you?

“I can see you freaking out,” Taliyah scolded. “Don’t. You’re fine. Musclehead or not, he’s not going to kill you just because you spilled shaved ice on him.”

She was probably right; hot shirtless guys on the beach likely had more important things to do than yelling at clumsy ice cream shop workers. By tomorrow, he would probably forget you ever existed, and you could go back to enjoying your time working alongside your best friend.

 The rock collecting that night had been long and boring, at least for you. Taliyah hadn’t found any rocks she liked enough to take home, only ending the search after she had found some sea glass that she had deemed acceptable to add to her collection. You could only hope that you wouldn’t owe her any more favors any time soon, unsure if you could survive another late night rock hunt.

The next morning, you entered the shop alongside Taliyah, who put her bag down and began to set up the day’s supplies. Considering it was ten minutes past opening time and Taliyah had insisted that she didn’t need help setting up, you decided that you might as well just open the order window for the day, hoping that mom and her group of demon kids wouldn’t be waiting out there, only to unlatch the widows and see something arguably worse.

The window had only been open a peek, but it was enough for you to see the large figure of the man from yesterday standing ten feet or so from your shop, his back facing you as he stared out at the beach. In your brief glimpse, you also noticed that the jacket wrapped around his waist had a white plus sign in a circle as well as the word lifeguard in white blocky letters above it. Oh god, of course you had gone and pissed off a lifeguard on your first day here.

You shut the barely-open windows with a too-loud slam that made you wince before you quickly locked them again and rushed over to Taliyah.

“Tali, he’s here again!” you hissed.

“Huh?” she replied, pausing her task of refilling a container of sprinkles. “Muscle guy?”

You nodded frantically and Taliyah frowned, putting the sprinkles down and approaching the order window herself. You watched as she opened the window ever so slightly, peering out for a few seconds before closing it back up.

“Well… can’t say I was expecting him to actually come back,” she said evenly.

“What do I even do?” you asked, staring at the order windows like they would burst open at any second and reveal you to the clearly-determined lifeguard. “He’s a lifeguard, Tali! What if he bans me from the beach?”

She rolled her eyes in response. “He can’t just ban you from the beach. Lifeguards don’t have that much power. If they did, I would’ve been banned a long time ago for all the times I’ve surfed after hours.”

“Then what does he want with me?” you asked, looking away from the window.

Taliyah shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that.”

“But what if I… don’t?” you replied weakly. “He’ll give up eventually, right?”

“I mean, maybe?” she said. “But it might be easier to deal with him now and get it over with.”

You saw her point, but it wasn’t her that was being pursued by a tall, muscly lifeguard with a vengeance!

Taliyah clearly caught the reluctance on your face and sighed. “Fine, I’ll switch with you for today. Now let’s go over how to make the basic stuff before we open.”

True to her word, Taliyah had allowed you to hide in the back making orders, telling the lifeguard guy that you were off today. You watched him walk away from behind the shaved ice machine, hoping that your ordeal was finally over, but your hopes were quickly dashed the next day as you went to open the store again, only to see the same broad back facing you from just outside the shop.

Taliyah had reluctantly agreed to switch again that day, and the day after. But by day four, even the promise of helping her scavenge for rocks again wouldn’t get her to agree to switch.

You closed the window again, turning to Taliyah with pleading eyes, but she was having none of it.

“It’s been four days,” she said, arms crossed. “Clearly he’s not giving up. You should just see what he wants.”

“But…” The thought still terrified you. You knew you deserved to be yelled at for what you had done, but it was made that much worse by the fact that the subject of your plight was just about the hottest guy you had ever seen.

Taliyah shook her head at you. “Okay, but I’m not doing orders again today, so if you want to keep hiding from him, we’ll have to move onto plan B.”

Plan B, as it turned out, was a mascot suit of sorts; three fluffy poros stacked on top of each other like a snowman. A poro each made up your upper and lower body, the last poro being the head of the costume. You looked incredibly awkward, the arms and legs of the costume hairy and tipped with little brown claws. You were momentarily stunned by the sheer lengths you were going to just to avoid this guy, but you were already in the costume, so you reasoned that you might as well follow through with it now.

Taliyah put the costume’s head on you and your world was plunged largely into darkness, minus the mesh one-way view out of the top poro’s eyes. You were helped to the back door, some fliers for the store shoved into your hands.

Taliyah helped you walk out front, and you were pretty quickly swarmed by kids. You couldn’t see the lifeguard guy, but the relief that coursed through you was short-lived, swallowed by the immediate explosion of business brought on by your costume.

One thing you hadn’t considered in your haste was the heat. You weren’t sure if it was the costume or if today was hotter than usual, but very quickly you found yourself becoming a sweaty mess under the weight of the dense, furry costume.

The longer you were in the costume, the worse you felt, but you were determined to stick this out. So you handed out fliers and posed for photos with children while Taliyah ran the stand.

You wished that you could wipe the sweat from your face, but you weren’t sure if you could even reach up to remove the costume’s head yourself due to the awkward shape of the costume. So you endured the ever-increasing heat, only feeling wearier as the time ticked by.

You waved goodbye to a group of kids as they left with their ice cream cones, the sweltering heat really bearing down on you. As you went to turn and head back to the stand to ask Taliyah to help get the head off, a wave of dizziness crashed over you. You took one step towards the stand, and then another, and then it all went dark as you felt yourself falling forward, too weak to stop your descent to the ground.

 You woke up with a heavy head, feeling foggy with confusion. The last thing you remembered, you had been heading back to the stand…

Immediately, you realized that you weren’t at the ice cream stand, and you weren’t wearing the poro suit, or even your beach dress. Sitting up in the cot you laid in, you found that you were wearing only your swimsuit.

As you sat up, a blue ice pack that you hadn’t realized was there fell from your forehead and into your lap. Picking it up, the pack only feeling slightly cold, you turned to look around the room, still unsure what exactly was going on.

You were in a room of some sort, guessing it was afternoon by the minute amount of light filtering into the room, even through the closed curtains. There was a fan gently whirring above your head, but otherwise the room was silent.

There was another cot beside yours, and a table nearby with a few red first aid kits stacked on it, some bandages messily spilling out of one of them. There was a sign pulled over the door, the side facing you reading come on in, we’re open.

You got up from the bed, shuddering with disgust when you noticed just how sweaty your whole body was. The bed squeaked as you got up from it, your knees hitting a bedside table between the cots that you hadn’t noticed had been there. On the small table was a glass of water, as well as a white fan that was emblazoned with what looked to be a group of cats waterskiing.

You picked up the fan, letting out a small laugh at the silly-looking cartoon cats on the fan. It looked like something you could win at a carnival booth.

“If you can laugh, then I guess you’re feelin’ alright.”

A deep voice from behind you made you jump, fingers fumbling the fan, which fell onto the floor with a clatter that was only made louder in the quiet room. You turned to look behind you, only to fall off the cot in shock when you saw the very lifeguard you had been trying so hard to avoid standing in the doorway of a small office you hadn’t noticed was there.

“Hey, careful!” He quickly crossed the room to squat down in front of you, taking your elbow and helping you back up onto the cot. You were too stunned to resist and found yourself falling into his chest as a wave of dizziness hit you.

“You okay?” he asked, and you tried to nod, but your head was spinning too much to focus. “Hey, hold still.”

He placed his hands on your shoulders, keeping you steady against him until you were able to regain your focus. When he was satisfied with your condition, he pulled back, releasing your shoulders and instead reaching out for the glass of water on the table next to you.

“Drink,” he instructed, handing you the cup before standing up. “I’ll be right back.”

He stared at you for a moment before finally turning back and heading into the office at the back of the room.

You watched him go, feeling on edge, but complied, bringing the glass up to your lips and taking a long drink. The last thing you wanted to do was give this guy more reason to be upset with you. You were surprised at just how refreshing the water felt, and you had soon downed the entire glass, placing it back on the table when you were done.

“Alright, lay back down,” the lifeguard instructed as he returned.

“What?” you replied. What was he going to do to you? How had you even got here? Where was Taliyah?

He stopped before you, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked down at your shaky, terrified form. “Are you–”

“I’m sorry!” you exclaimed, bowing your head. “I didn’t mean to spill the snowballs on you! If you need to yell at me, go ahead. I’m sorry I didn’t just come out sooner and–”

It had occurred to you mid-ramble that he had yet to say anything, and you cut off your babbling, slowly looking up to find him staring at you with what you could only describe as a bewildered look on his face.

He blinked. “Is that why–”

“I’m so sorry!” you interrupted, bowing your head again. “If you want to ban me from the beach, I get it!”

“Ban ya from the beach?” he replied with a bark of laughter. “The only thing I wanted to do was get your number.”

“My… what?” You had to be hallucinating. There was no way he had just said that.

“Lay down first,” he spoke sternly, and you complied, still feeling stunned by his words.

Once you were laid down, he picked something up from the bed, which you recognized as another ice pack. He placed it on your forehead, the cool pack immediately flooding you with a feeling of relief. Closing your eyes, you let out a tired sigh, suddenly feeling fatigued.

“Get some rest, princess. We’ll talk when you’re up again.”

You took his advice, the cooling from the ice pack lulling you back to sleep, your eyelids too heavy to keep open.

When you woke up again, you felt infinitely better, your head clearer and body feeling less overheated. The ice pack on your forehead was room temperature, and it was now dark outside. There was a light illuminating your left side as you sat up in bed, turning to see the office in the back with its light on.

The cot squeaked under you, which was responded to by the squeak of a chair from inside the office, the red-haired lifeguard emerging from the office and approaching your bedside.

“Feelin’ any better?” he asked, and you nodded, biting your lip nervously. “Got you some more water.”

You looked over to the bedside table to see the water cup refilled and took hold of it, grateful to have something to focus on other than the intimidatingly muscular man before you.

You drank the entire glass before you forced yourself to finally address the situation before you. “Um… why am I here?”

“You passed out,” he replied bluntly, taking a seat on the cot next to yours. “Overheated yourself in that rat costume.”

“They’re not rats, they’re poros,” you replied, unsure of what to say.

He let out a huff of laughter. “Poros that important to you that you’re willin’ to fry yourself for ‘em?”

“No, that was…” you trailed off. Well, you might as well just admit it. If he had gone out of his way to care for you after you had passed out like an idiot, then he deserved the truth. “I was avoiding you. I was scared you were going to yell at me. My friend didn’t want to keep covering for me at the window so I decided to wear that stupid poro costume.”

“So that’s what that was about,” he replied. “And here I thought you were avoidin’ me ‘cuz you weren’t interested. Gave up on gettin’ your number and then got news that someone passed out from heat stroke.”

You were still having a hard time comprehending the asking for your number part, so you instead chose to focus on the other half. “Heat stroke?”

“Not sure what you expected, wearin’ that costume in this heat,” he said. “Can’t say nobody’s ever been afraid of me before, but giving themself heat stroke just to avoid me is a new one.”

He sounded somewhat self-deprecating, and you immediately felt bad. You had clearly misjudged him, and realized that he hadn’t even mentioned the snowball incident himself.

You forced yourself to meet his eyes, even with as awkward as you were currently felt. “I’m sorry for giving you so much trouble, and for spilling snowballs all over you. I’m just really sorry.”

He laughed. “Ain’t nothin’ for you to apologize for. I’ve had worse get on me since I started workin’ here, and usually it ain’t from a cute girl.”

You tensed in your seat, tearing your gaze from his to look down at your feet, your cheeks feeling warm.

“Hey, don’t go overheatin’ yourself again,” he scolded, standing up from the bed. “If you’re not interested, that’s fine, but I think it’s best if I take ya home. Don’t need your friend yellin’ at me again if you pass out on the way back.”

As much as you wanted to deny his assertion of you being not interested, you couldn’t muster up the courage, so you instead quietly accepted his offer of help. You would have to ask Taliyah what he had meant when you got back.

It was surprisingly cold on the beach at night, the icy breeze sending shivers along your skin. You stared out at the dark ocean waves, entranced by the water crashing against the sand, when your focus was broken by some soft fabric being laid over your shoulders.

You turned to look over your shoulder to see Sett just behind you on the steps of the lifeguard office, the jacket that was usually around his waist now laying on your shoulders.

He caught your curious look and raised an eyebrow. “You nearly cooked yourself to death today, I ain’t about to let you freeze yourself to death now.”

“Thanks,” you replied quietly, reaching a hand up to keep the jacket around your shoulders.

Your feet met the soft sand as you followed Sett towards the parking lot. The beach was totally empty, an odd contrast to how things were in the daytime. It felt weird to actually see the shape of the landscape unobscured by giant beach umbrellas and a sea of bodies. You only looked away from the empty scene when you realized that you had left the sand, and Sett was staring expectantly at you.

“…what?” you asked, getting the feeling that he had said something that you had missed.

“Which way?” he repeated with a quick glance at the street ahead of you.

“Oh right,” you replied. “My friend lives on Sandstone Way.”

Sett’s ears perked up. “By that tacky souvenir shop?”

“Yeah,” you laughed. “Right by there.”

You giggled at Sett’s assessment; you had noticed the eye-hurtingly brightly painted store when Taliyah had walked you to her house from the train station. She had rolled her eyes at the store as you surveyed the display of t-shirts with embarrassing designs on them, stating that sometimes they got some good rocks in, but it wasn’t worth the amount of tourists always asking for directions when she was walking around the neighborhood.

Looking over at Sett out of the corner of your eye, you were struggling to think of anything to say. He was dressed in just his sandals and shorts, his sunglasses forgone and giving you a clear look at his golden eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.

“So this your first summer here?” Sett asked, breaking the brief silence as you walked side by side. “I know I’d remember you if I’d seen ya before.”

“I was here for a summer when I was a kid,” you answered. “But everything looks so different now. Maybe I just saw this place differently when I was a kid.”

“Nah,” he dismissed. “It never used to be this busy here. Tourists bring money to this place, but it means it’s always loud around here.”

The conversation was slowly helping you feel more comfortable with the intimidatingly handsome lifeguard. You felt dumb for putting so much energy into avoiding him.

“So have you always lived here?” you asked.

“Born and raised,” he answered with a grin that you couldn’t help but feel looked a little sad. “Ma used to work at the boating shop… and the laundromat… and the candy store.”

“All at the same time?” you asked incredulously.

Sett shrugged. “Didn’t have much of a choice. Pa ran off on us when I was a kid, and it wasn’t like anyone would hire a fatherless runt to work for them.”

“Sounds like it was hard,” you replied. “Did you ever find out where he went?”

“For his sake, I’d better not,” Sett sneered. “I heard ma cry missin’ that scumbag more times than I can count. There ain’t a family here for that bastard to come back to.”

“How is your mom doing?” you asked as you turned onto Sandstone Way, passing by the tacky tourist shop, the flashy paint on the walls too bright even at night.

“She’s doin’ good,” he answered, finally looking happy with a satisfied smile. “Got her to quit her jobs when I started workin’ enough to pay the bills.”

“You’re a good son,” you complimented him. “She’s lucky to have you.”

You smiled at him, coming to a stop before Taliyah’s house. “Well, this is me. Thanks for walking me back.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “I don’t wanna see you passin’ out again.”

“I’ll try not to,” you replied. “No more poro costumes for me.”

“On that topic,” he purred, leaning closer to you. “You never gave me an answer.”

“An answer?” you squeaked, flustered by his sudden closeness.

“I’ve been tryin’ to get your number for days now,” he replied, and you did your best to supress a shiver from running up your spine. Was this real life?

You wet your lips with your tongue nervously, unable to miss how Sett’s sharp eyes watched the movement.

“I, um, I don’t have my phone on me,” you said, immediately realizing how dumb you sounded. You didn’t need your phone on you to tell him your number! You hastily made to amend your statement. “…but if you come by the stand tomorrow, I’ll give it to you!”

“Oh?” Sett’s grin was wide, gold eyes flashing dangerously. “I s’pose I could find some time to stop by. See you then, sweetheart.”

Sett turned to walk away, but you stopped him with a call of his name. “Wait, your jacket–”

“Keep it for the night,” Sett replied. “I’ll get it from you tomorrow.”

You reluctantly agreed, stunned silent by his bold flirting, his jacket sitting warm on your shoulders as you watched him walk away. You stared at his broad back until he was out of sight, only then turning to head inside, knowing Taliyah would be waiting.

 The next morning she was still on you as you spent some extra time getting ready.

“I still can’t believe he gave you his jacket,” she teased with a grin. “I mean, I figured he was probably into you, but–”

“You what?” you replied as you paused styling your hair.

“I kept telling you to talk to him,” she replied. “No guy like that is going to wait outside your work for days in a row just to yell at you for spilling ice on him. But I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

“I just feel so stupid giving myself heat stroke just go avoid him,” you lamented.

“Yeah,” Taliyah frowned. “If I had realized it was that hot out, I never would’ve let you go out in that thing.”

“It’s my own fault for being so dumb,” you insisted.

“But hey, it all worked out, didn’t it?” Taliyah grinned as she slipped on her water shoes. “You’ve got a hot lifeguard coming to visit you at work today.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m still super nervous,” you said, adjusting your beach dress over your most flattering swimsuit.

“You’ll be fine,” Taliyah replied. “He’s clearly super into you. You should’ve seen him when you passed out yesterday.”

“What?” You had been so tired last night that you had only told her the basics before crashing for the night, completely forgetting to ask her what had happened yesterday.

“Someone got him when you collapsed,” she told you. “You should’ve seen his face when he pulled off the poro head and saw it was you inside the costume! I tried to come with, but he told me he’d handle it. I maaay have threatened his life if anything happened to you, but just a little.”

You laughed. So that’s what Sett had been referring to.

Taliyah came up from behind you as you stared at your appearance in the mirror, resting her chin on your shoulder and meeting your eyes in the mirror. “Relax, you look great. Fuzzy ear boy isn’t gonna know what hit him!”

“Fuzzy ear–” you sputtered, laughing at Taliyah’s choice of words. “I guess his ears do look pretty fuzzy.”

“Well if he lets you pet them, tell me how soft they are!” she teased, pulling back from you to grab her bag. “Now let’s go. You’ve got a boy to meet!”

You somehow felt even more nervous today than you had the few days you had spent avoiding Sett. You were still having a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that a guy that looked like he had walked straight out of a fireman’s calendar was coming to your little beachfront ice cream stand for the sole purpose of getting your phone number. And his jacket, which was folded neatly on the countertop beside you.

You weren’t exactly sure when he was going to come. Usually, he would be there waiting outside in the morning before you opened, but all you had opened up to today was a sparsely-populated beachfront, no handsome lifeguards to be seen. By two in the afternoon, your anxiety had begun to get the better of you.

“Stop pacing,” Taliyah scolded you. “He’ll be here.”

“But what if he decided not to?” you said, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself down. “What if this was just a joke?”

“Then I’ll go kick his butt,” she responded plainly. “He’ll come. Relax.”

You were about to reply, when a ding of the service bell at the order window had you spinning around, ready to take an order, only for the words to die on your lips when you laid eyes on the well-muscled lifeguard with the fuzzy black ears just outside the order window, sending a grin your way.

“Here to pick up my order,” he said, leaning an arm against the window.

“Your… order?” you replied, too entranced by his appearance to properly make use of your brain.

“A pretty girl promised me her number if I came by,” he replied, looking down at you through his sunglasses.

“I… right… I…” You turned back quickly to see Taliyah staring expectantly at you, mouthing the word number at you. Right.

With slightly shaky hands, you reached for the small notepad at the front counter, taking that and a pen in hand and trying not to focus on the fact that Sett was watching you as you began to write.

Double-checking that the number was right, you handed the paper to him, your fingers touching as he took it from you. Remembering about your other promise, you reached over to grab the lifeguard jacket from the counter beside you. You went to hand him his jacket, surprised when he didn’t take it from you.

“What time do you get off?” he asked, and you answered a quiet six. “Give it back to me then.”

With a short wave and a grin, Sett made a show of stowing the phone number in his pocket before sauntering off and leaving you standing there slack-jawed.

“See? Was that so hard?” Taliyah called from her seat at the ice machine. “Now you just have to keep it together for your date.”

“I don’t know if I can,” you said, leaning back against the counter.

“You did last night, didn’t you?” she countered. “He’s just a guy. A really hot guy, but still. Don’t freak yourself out. You deserve a nice guy. It’s just a bonus that he has more abs than spiders have legs!”

You let out an amused huff. Taliyah was right, as she always was. You needed to get over yourself and let yourself have a good time tonight.”

But for now, you had customers to deal with. You and Taliyah let out a shared groan as you saw the nightmare mom and her army of brats heading towards you. You both returned to your posts, hoping their overly-complicated orders would be right on the first try this time.

 Taliyah let out a yawn, stretching her arms high above her head before beginning the process of cleaning up for the day. After the last customer left, you hastily closed the order window, not wanting to give anyone the chance to come and beg about how it was only five minutes past closing and they’ve been wanting a banana split all day. You had learned your lesson from that mistake on day two.

Once the order windows were closed and locked, you joined Taliyah at the side counter, helping to return all the different containers of toppings to their rightful places. You found your hands moving slower, your nerves slowing you down in order to prolong the inevitable.

Taliyah eventually got tired of your pitiful attempt at stalling for time and gently removed the container of blue sprinkles from your grasp. “Just go, I’ll finish up here.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, and Taliyah sent you an unimpressed look. “Okay, fine, I’m going, I’m going.”

“I hope you know I expect all the details later!” she grinned as you made your way to the door, hesitating with your hand on the door handle for only a moment before opening the door.

It was mercifully less warm outside today than it had been yesterday, not to mention that you were also minus a heavy mascot costume. Yesterday hadn’t ended too badly for you, but you would still prefer to not end today in a hospital if you exacerbated your current heat-sensitive state.

You weren’t sure if you preferred if Sett was already there, or if you got there first to wait for him; neither option seemed to abate your nerves. But of course, the lifeguard was prompt as always, leaning against one of the beams that held up the awning above the order window.

You didn’t think you had been making much noise walking along the sand, but he seemed to hear you, turning to face you with a grin as you approached.

“Ready?” he asked as you came to a stop before him, tucking some of your hair behind your ear in an effort to keep your cool.

“Yeah,” you answered, impressed that your voice hadn’t come out squeaky with how nervous you were.

“Good,” he replied, before his grin turned teasing. “Was half expectin’ ya to come on our date in that rat costume.”

“Poro!” you corrected again, trying not to get flustered by his mention of this being a date. You weren’t sure what else it would be, but you couldn’t help the butterflies that fluttered in your stomach when he had acknowledged the obvious.

He surprised you by taking your hand, pulling you along with him as you tried desperately not to stumble and fall into the sand.

The beach crowd was beginning to thin out, people heading home or to one of the many beachfront restaurants nearby. Watching as a kid packed up his sand toys, you wondered if one of those restaurants was where you were headed as well. Sett hadn’t told you anything about what the plan was, and you found yourself curious when he led you to the bright white lifeguard office.

At first, you had thought that maybe he had forgotten something, at least until you followed him into the small building to see what looked to be the table that had previously held all the first aid kits, now decked out in a soft-looking purple picnic blanket. On top of the makeshift picnic table was a spread of various tasty-looking finger foods, the scene completed by two chairs pulled up to the table, cushions with a starfish pattern placed on the seats.

You were perhaps too dumbfounded by the sight, as you snapped out of it to Sett calling your name, looking over at him to see him looking surprisingly tense. You should probably say something, you realized.

“It looks great,” you said, meaning every word as you looked over the table. “Are those cabbage rolls?”

“Ma helped me make ‘em,” Sett explained, looking bashful for the first time since you had met him as he raised an arm to scratch at the back of his neck. “Helped me with all of this, actually. Never done anythin’ like this before.”

“You mean a picnic?” you asked curiously.

Sett chuckled. “Picnics. Dates. Not a lotta women ‘round here who wanted anythin’ to do with a fatherless half-breed.”

You had a hard time believing that; you had noticed several mothers checking him out as they packed their family’s stuff to leave the beach. But the hint of something sad in his eyes made you reconsider. You had no memory of seeing someone like him that summer you had spent here, but it wasn’t like that was a surprise to you. You and Taliyah had been in your own little world at that time, only ever spending time with each other.

“Well I’m excited to try your cooking,” you said, figuring a change of subject was for the best.

Sett grinned as he sat down. “Should be decent. Haven’t poisoned anyone since high school.”

Your eyes widened, hand freezing on its path to grab a cabbage roll, startled eyes darting to his.

Sett let out a bark of laughter at your alarmed face. “Relax. Wouldn’t poison ya. Maybe those kids that keep swimmin’ into the boating zone, but not you.”

“Thanks… I think?” you replied, biting your lip as you stared down at the cabbage rolls, weighing your options.

“Wasn’t real poison anyways,” he scoffed, taking some rolls from himself. “Not my fault sugar and salt look the same.”

You laughed, grabbing some food for yourself at last. “I suppose they kinda do.”

“Ma didn’t wanna hurt my feelings, but I knew when I tried some myself,” he explained.

“It was nice of her to try,” you offered.

“Too nice,” he said. “Ma is always too nice. Never said anythin’ bad about my old man, even after what he did. Had to work three jobs for years because of that bastard, but not a word.”

“Well I’m sure she’s glad she has you,” you commented. “Even if you give her food poisoning sometimes.”

“Once,” he corrected, taking a bite. “Learned my lesson the first time.”

You followed his lead, finding the food to be entirely poison-free, and actually the best home-cooked meal you had eaten in a long time. The conversation moved to swapping work stories, and you were unsurprised to find out that the mother and her the demon children had been a thorn in Sett’s side as well.

“They really buried sleeping sunbathers in sand?”

“Five times in a day one time,” Sett grouchily confirmed. “Last time Braum went to handle it. Said I would bury those little assholes under the sand if I had to go yell at them one more time.”

You sympathized with his pain. You felt lucky that you had only experienced the tip of the annoyingness iceberg with that group of little terrors.

“Braum?” you inquired as you both left the lifeguard office, the beach now fully dark.

“Fellow lifeguard,” he answered, nonchalantly taking your hand in his as you made your way off the beach. “Bald, giant moustache, even bigger than me. Better at the whole gentle-but-firm thing than I am.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen him before. He comes by for poro pops sometimes,” you said, mind drawing a picture of the surprisingly friendly man in the small purple swim bottoms with a weakness for poro-shaped ice pops. “So are you the head lifeguard then?”

Sett considered your question. “Guess I am the boss of ‘em. All of the other lifeguards are always comin’ at me with problems to solve. The extra pay doesn’t hurt either if I wanna keep momma from feelin’ like she has to work.”

“Say thank you to her from me for the dinner. It was really good,” you said as you passed by the familiar tacky souvenir shop.

“She’ll be happy to hear it,” he replied with a soft smile that made your heart thump in your chest. “I know she wishes she had more to cook for than just me.”

You both came to a stop before Taliyah’s house, and you sneakily glanced over just to make sure Taliyah wasn’t peeking out from a window, which she wasn’t. You turned your focus back to Sett, only to find him closer than he had just been. How was he so good at sneaking up on you?

A large hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing against your cheek, and your face was tilted up towards Sett’s. You were glad it was dark out, because otherwise you knew your reddening cheeks would be obvious.

“Still afraid of me?” he asked, voice low, lips so close to yours that you could make out a small scar that crossed over his bottom lip.

“No,” you answered, making no move to pull away as you stared up into his eyes. “Not unless I was about to taste your high school cooking.”

“Smart,” he replied with a smirk. “But I’m talkin’ about right now, because if you don’t turn and run into that house, I’m gonna kiss you.”

Your bag almost tumbled from your grasp, but you held fast as you stared at Sett, whose own had already become half-lidded. You had no words to describe how much you didn’t want to run right now, so you didn’t use any, instead angling your face further upwards, trying to make your willingness abundantly clear.

With a grin, he leaned down and kissed you.

Pulling back slightly, he dove back in, his other hand coming to your waist to pull you against him. You happily leant into him, your hands on his firm chest.

When he pulled back again, you opened your eyes at last, feeling almost as dizzy as right before you had passed out from heat stroke.

Sett looked content, and you were only hoping you looked half as composed as he did right now. He leaned back in to give you one more peck before pulling back from you entirely, the cold from the air outside immediately apparent as soon as you were minus his warm hands against your skin.

“Think I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said. “Been cravin’ a cherry snowball for some reason lately.”

 Sett was a man of his word, you learned, though you were less happy to see him the next day when he asked if he could order a cherry snowball served like last time, and then laughed as you had proceeded to sputter like a broken machine.

His visits became daily, sometimes bringing Braum with him, who continued to surprise you with the sheer amount of poro pops he was able to consume in one sitting. Quite a few nights a week, you had found yourself all around Port Navori with the half-Vastayan lifeguard. You were surprised at how supportive Taliyah was being, considering you had originally come here to spend time with her.

“Gives me more time to surf,” she answered with a shrug when you had asked her. “And maybe that boyfriend of yours can convince you to stay here after the summer is over.”

“Boyfriend?” you yelped, and Taliyah raised an eyebrow.

“You aren’t? I thought he would have made it official by now. It’s been over two weeks… have you guys even done it?”

“Taliyah!” you scolded her, switching back to professional mode as a group of people approached the stand.

As you helped prepare their orders, you couldn’t help but think about what she had said. You and Sett had kissed quite a lot actually, but he had yet to do more than that. But it was far too embarrassing a subject for you to have the confidence to broach, so you had resolved yourself to just be content with things as they were.

It was just your luck that right then was when Sett had decided to make his daily visit to the stand, approaching the counter as the other group left.

Taliyah apparently wasn’t done pestering you for the day as she sped to meet him at the counter before you could get there yourself.

“Hey!” she greeted Sett with a sly smile as you stood frozen behind her, nervous about her motivations. “You’re on your break, right?”

Sett raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“Well,” she said, in the voice you knew meant that she wanted something. “There’s a surfing contest I entered, and it’s almost my turn and it won’t even take that long and–”

“Tali!” you interrupted, rushing over to the counter.

“All I need is an hour,” Taliyah insisted, before pulling you beside her at the counter. “And she needs some help while I’m gone since lunchtime is when most of the people come by.”

“I’m fine, I–”

“I’m in,” Sett cut in, eyeing you with almost palpable smugness.

“Awesome!” Taliyah replied, immediately shucking her apron and hat onto the floor in her haste to get out the door. “Have fun, see you after I win!”

“Taliyah!”

Your call of her name fell on deaf ears as she already had her board and was out the door, leaving you standing at the counter with Sett still leaning against the counter.

Sett reached up to pull his sunglasses off, tucking them into his packet, his golden eyes fully uncovered and sparkling with mischief, the sight alone making you feel weary.

“Well? You gonna invite me in?” he asked. “Not sure I’d fit through the window.”

You scrambled to meet him at the back door, not wanting him to try and get into the shop through the order window that was less wide than he was. It was a strange feeling to open the back door of the shop to a guy that was almost too tall for the doorway, and another thing entirely to try and corral him into behaving as you tried to keep the ice cream stand functioning while Taliyah was gone.

“Aren’t lifeguards supposed to set a good example for others?” you huffed, wiping ice from your apron. At least he hadn’t made things truly equal and put cherry syrup on the ball of shaved ice he had pressed against your neck.

“Not when I’m off the clock,” he answered. “Besides, it’s my once in a lifetime chance to see what workin’ one of these is like.”

It would definitely be only one time if you had anything to say about it. If the almost-hour with him here had taught you anything, it was that Sett was not cut out to work in an ice cream shop.

The scoops of ice cream he doled out were easily twice the size of the ones Taliyah did, which made for happy customers, but a less happy bottom line if he was here for more than an hour. He was also lacking Taliyah’s patience, and you were forced to sideline him when an especially picky middle-aged woman came by who insisted you remake her smoothie four times until it had an acceptable pH level. The woman’s complaints had miraculously stopped the moment Sett had approached the window himself, becoming so invested in flirting with the handsome lifeguard that she had snatched her next smoothie attempt from you without complaint, not even glancing your way as she batted her eyes at him, only leaving when he excused himself with an excuse of needing to make more orders.

You approached Sett to check on him and found yourself pulled down into his lap as he leaned back in the chair.

Huffing, he pulled you against him, nuzzling against your neck. “Don’t know how you deal with that. Couldn’t pay me to make her damn smoothie one more time.”

“You get used to it,” you replied. “Don’t you deal with worse as a lifeguard?”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “But nothin’ sayin’ I gotta be nice when I deal with ‘em.”

“That’s true,” you laughed.

“If anyone complains, they can go somewhere else. Ain’t another beach within a hundred miles as well-run as this one,” he bragged, kissing at your neck.

As much as you were enjoying his sudden affection, you knew time was running low until Taliyah would return. You made to pull back to tell Sett that, but were instead pulled into a kiss that took you a few breathless moments to find the strength to escape.

“This Friday,” he murmured, face inches from yours. “There’s a party at the pool. You should come with me.”

You had heard about the exclusive pool parties on this beach from Taliyah, but hadn’t expected to ever get an invite. The pool, which was at the far end of the beach from the ice cream stand, was as exclusive as it got. Gated with walls so high that you couldn’t see in, it was the membership-only place to be for all of the elite in the beach town of Port Navori.

“Is that… okay?” you asked hesitantly.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he countered, and you didn’t really have an answer. “It’ll be fine. Come. Have some people I wanna introduce ya to.”

The door burst open at the same time as you nodded your agreement, revealing Taliyah clutching both her dripping board as well as a shiny blue ribbon.

“You won?” you asked, trying to disentangle yourself from Sett, who reluctantly let you up.

“Easily!” Taliyah gloated. “Nobody else stood a chance. So how were things here?”

“The money ain’t worth the drama of this place,” Sett griped.

Taliyah laughed. “Smoothie lady come back with a vengeance?”

“I’ll take kids buryin’ sunbathers up to their ears over this any day,” he replied with a grimace, standing up and stretching.

At his mention of ears, Taliyah had brought both hands up to her own head about where Sett’s were on his head, and you quickly waved at her to cut it out before he saw. Thankfully she did, but you could tell that you were going to get asked if you had pet his ears yet as soon as his fuzzy ears were out of earshot.

“I’ll text ya the time when I know it,” Sett said, giving you a quick kiss on the head and a two-fingered salute to Taliyah before heading out the back door.

“So?” Taliyah asked, pulling the chair up to the ice cream station after she had stashed her prize ribbon in her bag. “Are they as soft as they look?”

“I didn’t pet them,” you answered.

“It’s been over two weeks!” she complained. “Has he at least asked you to be his girlfriend yet?”

You shook your head. “He did invite me to a pool party with him on Friday at that fancy pool.”

“Really?” Taliyah responded, eyes wide. “You have to tell me what it’s like! I mean, I’ve seen satellite photos, but it’s not the same…”

“I’ll probably be too nervous to remember any of it,” you grumbled.

“This is your chance!” Taliyah encouraged. “By Friday it’ll be three weeks. You need to ask him if he sees you as his girlfriend or not.”

You reeled back, waves of anticipatory anxiety rolling over you. “I don’t want to scare him off. What if this is just casual to him and I’m too dumb to see it?”

“Then you’ll know,” she replied. “I know you. It’ll eat you up if you put this much energy into a guy without knowing how he feels about you. So ask. If he says no, then at least you’ll have an entire store’s worth of ice cream to drown yourself in after!”

Taliyah was right. She was always right. You knew that you couldn’t keep whatever this was up without knowing where you stood with him. The more time you spent with Sett, the more you wanted, and if he intended to keep things casual, you would rather know sooner so you could make an informed decision.

So that would be the plan then. Go to the party, have a good time (and get some photos of the pool for Taliyah) and then ask Sett about the state of your relationship. Sounded easy in theory. You could only hope you could muster up the courage to go through with the plan when the time came.

 After hearing that the party was to start at four, Taliyah had gone all out, closing the stand at two so she could help you get ready to impress the snobs. You hadn’t put up too much of a fight, happy to have her help and her company, as your nerves only climbed higher the closer it got to four o’clock.

“You’ll be fine,” Taliyah said as she styled your hair. “You’ll only feel worse if you don’t get an answer from him. And with how good you’ll look at the party, he won’t be able to say no!”

“Thanks, Tali,” you replied gratefully. “I promise I’ll get you a bunch of photos of the pool. And whatever else you want.”

“What I want is for you to stay here for good,” she said. “So really I’m just doing myself a favor by helping you. This place has been a hundred times more bearable since you’ve been here, and I want it to stay that way.”

“Still,” you persisted. “I feel bad that you’re going to so much trouble. If you want anything, just let me know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taliyah dismissed with a wave of her hand. “You should get going, don’t wanna be late to the fancy pool party.”

She practically shoved you out the door, and then you were alone, walking down the mostly-empty sidewalk. As you walked along the street, you couldn’t help but dwell on the possibilities. What would happen at the party? What would Sett say?

If he told you that he wasn’t looking for anything serious, what would you do? It was hard to have an answer for until you were in the moment, since a lot of it would depend on what Sett’s answer would be.

You walked through the parking lot, and then onto the beach, passing by kids building sandcastles and games of beach volleyball as you walked towards the end of the beach where the pool was. As you made your way to the fancier end of the beach, you began to notice the differences that marked the split between here and the side of the beach that you were usually on.

The shops on this side of the beach were much fancier, the sand littered with designer beach chairs and umbrellas. It was crazy just how different two ends of one beach could be.

The pool was noticeable from a great distance, or at least the wall white walls that surrounded it were. At least you weren’t going to get lost and miss the party entirely.

You approached the pristine white stairs that led from the beach up to the pool entrance, equal parts excited and apprehensive. The entrance was an open doorway, covered by a deep blue curtain and guarded by a muscled bouncer in white. The sight alone was intimidating; why hadn’t you just asked Sett to meet you beforehand?

You plastered a reluctant smile on your face before approaching the man. “Hi, I–”

“Name,” he interrupted, not looking up from his clipboard, sunglasses too dark for you to see his eyes.

Well it wasn’t like you hadn’t expected some level of standoffishness from the elite side of the beach. Keeping your smile up, you told him your name, waiting the prerequisite few moments for him to leaf through the list.

He seemed to have found what he was looking for, as his hand with the clipboard went to his side and he moved over to the curtain, pulling it to one side to allow you to enter. He had said nothing further, but seemed to be staring in your direction, so you took that as your cue and walked towards the now-open entryway and into the pool.

The entryway led into a hallway with pristine white walls, soft lighting hanging overhead. You could begin to hear chatter as you got closer to the end of the hallway, exiting into an explosion of sight and sound.

The pool was huge, and there seemed to be an intricate gold pattern on the tiles at the bottom. The pool was surrounded by lounge chairs and umbrellas, tropical foliage bordering the inner walls around the pool.

There were people all over, in and out of the pool. There was also a bar in the center which seemed to be very popular, as many people were carrying around intricate-looking cocktails.

More than the scenery or the people, your eyes were scanning the area for Sett. You checked your phone again to make sure, finding that it was the time he had told you to be here for. Maybe he was just running late or…

Your rising concern was broken up by the tap of designer wedges on the granite heading your way. You looked up from your phone to see two girls heading towards you, one of which you realized you had seen before.

The stuck-up redhead that had been the reason you had been out on the beach to spill the snowball on Sett in the first place was striding towards you, not a hair out of place underneath her likely-expensive sun hat. At her side was a lilac-haired woman in a swimsuit with a plunging neckline that was color blocked with various shades of purple. Together they made quite a striking pair, but your previous encounter with the redhead had you wishing that Sett would get here soon to save you from the impending conversation.

“Look, Sarah,” the purple-haired one sneered as they came to a stop before you. “So eager to pretend she’s one of us that she rushed right over.”

You took a step back, but that only seemed to embolden them.

Sarah lowered her sunglasses, staring at you like you were in her way. “Sad when they don’t know their place, Syndra.”

“Sett invited me here,” you replied defensively.

The women exchanged a pointed look before Sarah raised an eyebrow at you, a hand on her hip. “You ever think about why that was?”

“What?” you replied, unsure of what she was getting at.

“She doesn’t get it,” Syndra said with a cruel undertone in her voice that unnerved you.

“Look around,” Sarah said sharply. “Really look. Do half the people here look like they belong?”

You looked around, not sure what you were supposed to be seeing. A man with a hook-nose sat at the pool bar, flanked by women in skimpy bikinis. A humanoid form that seemed to be made of water conversed poolside with a large purple man in a ratty straw hat who was holding a ukulele. What were you supposed to be noticing?

“Sett is too nice to break it to you, so the job falls to me,” Sarah said with a smirk. “This is our annual loser fest. Charity case race. Bring-a-freak-to-work-day.”

“Pig party,” Syndra supplied.

“Yeah, pig party,” Sarah repeated, noticing your confused look. “Don’t know what that is? Poor thing.”

“I don’t–”

“It’s pretty simple,” Sarah interrupted. “We take half the summer to find the biggest freak we can, and then we bring them all together and crown a winner, and by the looks of you, Sett is really going for the top prize.”

You gasped, eyes wide, suddenly feeling like you were going to be sick.

“Aw, you really thought he liked you, huh?” Syndra mocked with fake sweetness.

“He didn’t… he never…” you stammered, clutching your bag to your chest.

“Well duh,” Sarah replied haughtily. “He wanted to win. Do you tell a pig when it’s about to become bacon?”

“What is meaning of this?” Braum accused, storming up to your group. “I have not heard of such a thing!”

“Need-to-know, Braum,” Syndra dismissed.

“And you didn’t need to know,” Sarah added.

You felt numb. This whole time… is that why Sett wouldn’t ask you to be his girlfriend? Why he never did more than kiss you? All this time, he had just seen you as a prize pig for an ugly date contest? It all made sense now, why he had been so desperate to get your number. He had never liked you… it had all been one sick joke. You should’ve known; nobody as attractive as Sett would ever see you as anything but a freak. And was too cowardly to come and tell you the truth to your face.

“Look, she’s crying,” Syndra taunted. “Don’t cry! Soon you’ll be queen pig!”

You couldn’t do this. You couldn’t stay here with all these people who saw you as less than human as your heart was breaking into pieces. You were so, so stupid, now wanting nothing more than to cry in peace. So you did, turning and running as fast as your legs would take you out of this awful place.

“Bye, piggy! We’ll ship you the ribbon!”

You heard Braum shout your name, as well as the cruel laughter of the women, but you didn’t stop running. Not when you got to the beach, nor the parking lot or the tacky souvenir shop, the sayings on the gaudy shirts too blurry to read through your tears. Your feet didn’t stop until you were at the doorstep to Taliyah’s home, out of breath, tears running down your cheeks.

The door opened, Taliyah’s face appearing in the doorway. “Hey, did you forget– wait, what happened?”

 “Settrigh, stay still!”

Sett frowned, but did as his momma requested, allowing her to tie the ends of his hair after she had finished arranging it. He loved his ma dearly, but he really didn’t have time for her to redo his hair ten times right now.

It was getting way too close to the start time he had given you, and with how nervous of a person you were, he had intended to be on time, but that was before his mother had discovered the reason why he was cutting their visit short today.

Ma was aware that he had been seeing someone, had been ever since Sett had needed help making food for their first date.

“You do intend to let me meet her, Settrigh?” she asked, stepping back once she had fixed his hair to her satisfaction.

“Yes, ma,” he answered, standing up from the chair.

He wasn’t exactly surprised by his momma’s eagerness, considering this was the first girl he had ever dated, let alone considered introducing to her. This world was shallow; he had learned that early in life, which may be why he found himself so drawn to a girl who had put her all into having nothing to do with him. You broke up the monotony in this busy beach town and gave him something to look forward to other than seeing his ma for the first time in a long time.

Sett knew he was working on a time limit. You had mentioned that you had planned on only visiting Port Navori for the summer, and the summer was half over already, which meant his chances to convince you to stay were also halved, which is where tonight came in.

He had been taking things slow, not wanting to come on too strong and scare you off like he had watched happen to many a beachfront pick-up artist. He had been unwilling to rush things and lose you, but the slip of the calendar into August had forced his hand.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit apprehensive as to how today would end. How would you take him asking you to be girlfriend? He could only hope that he hadn’t misread you entirely.

He didn’t go to the pool parties often, but it seemed like a good way for him to introduce you to his friends, as they didn’t often all gather outside of those parties. He knew you would likely feel out of place, but Braum would be there, and he intended to stick by your side the entire time. And then after the party, if things went well, then maybe he would end the night with you as his girlfriend, but the party would be the first step.

As he left his ma’s house, he found his mind turning to the party. If you were wearing that red swimsuit you had worn last week, then it was going to be a difficult night for his self-control. His desire to take things slow had really taken a hit then, his only saving grace being ma’s lecture on being a gentleman pounding in his head as he tried not to look at how your chest was half-busting out of your top as you leaned over to pick a thread off of his glove. You were really too hot for your own good, which made him all the more eager to see you.

He knew he was running late, the party having started at least ten minutes earlier. It wasn’t his style to be late, but he was also pretty helpless to defy his ma. He only hoped that you hadn’t given up on him and left.

He took the shortest route possible, which included a short trek through some bushes that left him more leafy than he would’ve liked, but it was all forgotten when he spotted the stairs that led up to the pool entrance.

He was able to bypass the doorman who was only half as big as he was and seemed to be wary of interacting with him, stepping out of the way as Sett approached. He pushed past the curtain, hurried steps heading down the hallway. You hadn’t been waiting outside, so clearly you had been able to get in. He tried to fight back the excited grin that wanted to take over his face, but it was a losing battle as he entered the pool area, eyes immediately scanning the area for you.

“Your cruelty is unimaginable!” Braum’s booming voice carried easily through the air. “That girl has done nothing to be deserving of such treatment!”

What had Braum so worked up? Generally he was an easy guy to get along with, easily Sett’s most tolerable co-lifeguard. Not much phased him, which was a little concerning. But Sett had other priorities, the most important being locating you.

You weren’t in the pool, and didn’t seem to be sitting in any of the chairs. Maybe you had gone to the bathroom and would be right back–

“Well how else was she supposed to know Sett is too good for her? She clearly wasn’t going to see reality without a little help.”

Sett’s ears perked up, his attention snagged by the mention of his name, but especially by the latter half of the sentence. He turned around to see Sarah Fortune with Syndra at her side, who had her arms crossed and looked bored. In front of them was Braum, looking more irate than Sett had ever seen him.

“What’s this about?” Sett asked in a warning tone as he approached, the fur of his ears standing on end, leaving him feeling like he wasn’t going to like where this was headed.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Sarah dismissed, flipping her hair behind her shoulder with a flick of her head. “We just showed a daydreaming little clout chaser the way out.”

Sett’s eyebrow rose. “A what?”

“Your ice cream girl,” Braum cut in. “These two have told her that this is a party for pigs. They have told her that you intend to bring her here to win ugly contest, and then she had run off.”

“What?” Sett growled dangerously, but the two women remained nonplussed.

“We did you a favor,” Syndra stressed. “If we get a reputation of letting just anyone in, then we’ll lose all status as members of the ruling class of the food chain. So we decided to throw this little pig party to make you come back to your senses.”

“You’re one of us, Sett,” Sarah added. “This pool doesn’t have room for little nobodies who don’t know their place.”

“Rather be a nobody than whatever the hell this is,” Sett snarled angrily, the full knowledge of the truth turning his bad feeling to a mix of simmering fury at the two women, and worry for you. He hated himself for being late and allowing this to happen to you. “Save your concern and don’t talk to me again.”

“But we were–” Syndra started, but Sett wasn’t in the mood.

“If you even look at her again, you’ll have me to deal with. And unlike that girl you just bullied outta here, I ain’t so nice.”

With that, Sett turned on his heel and stormed towards the exit to go do his best to fix this mess.

Braum quickly followed behind him. “My friend, I am sorry I could not stop them in time.”

“Ain’t your fault,” Sett replied. “Wish I’d have known. Gotta go see if she’ll even talk to me at this point.”

“I wish you luck,” Braum said as exited the hallway and emerged out into the sunny late afternoon.

Sett parted from Braum, taking the stairs two at a time as he surveyed the area, trying to see if he could catch sight of you. He quickly crossed the sand, making a beeline for the ice cream stand, even if it seemed like a longshot. He passed by a group of kids throwing sand on an older man sleeping on a towel, but ignored it and kept going. If anything was on fire, Braum could put it out. Sett’s sole focus right now was finding you and hoping you’d let him explain himself.

His chest felt heavy with anger and regret. How could he have let this happen? He hadn’t realized how cruel those women could be, and it had led to them making you believe he thought you were some freak he was using for convenience, which could not be farther from the truth.

Seeing those two talk about you like you were a pariah had brought him right back to when he was younger, to what he had endured at the hands of people just like Syndra and Sarah. People who had ostracized him, did their best to make him feel like he didn’t have a place here. Sett-the-beast-boy-bastard; the words had haunted him for a long time.

He had grown tough in response to the years of bullying, but you hadn’t. This was your first exposure to how awful this place could be. He and ma had dealt with it for years after pa ran off; he had nearly gotten expelled from school after a particularly bad fight with a kid that had made one too many nasty comments about his ma to his face.

Sett stopped, letting out a frustrated sigh as he saw the large closed sign on the front windows of the ice cream shop. So that was a bust. Without giving the store a second look, he continued on towards the rocks and then up to the parking lot.

There was only one other place to try. Chest tight, Sett followed the same path he had the night of your first date, the same path he took every time he walked you home. The walk there was one long blur, his feet unable to stop moving until the familiar house was in sight. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sett approached the front door, rapping his knuckles against the wood. When no answer came, he tried again, and after a few moments, the door opened to reveal Taliyah, who glared once she caught sight of him.

“What do you want?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Is she here? I need to talk to her,” Sett said, urgency bleeding into his voice.

Taliyah sighed, stepping outside and closing the door behind her. “You’re lucky I’m even talking to you after this. You don’t deserve to talk to her if that’s how you let your friends treat her.”

“They ain’t my friends,” Sett argued. “If I’d have known they were gonna pull that shit–”

A sly smile lifted the corner of Taliyah’s lips. “Good answer. If you had said anything else, then I’d be slamming the door in your face right about now.”

“Then can I–”

“Talk to her?” Taliyah interrupted. “Nope. Not a good idea.”

Sett’s face must have taken on a darker quality, because Taliyah retreated back a step, raising her hands in the air in mock surrender. “Relax, tough guy. I didn’t mean it like that. But she’s a little too upset to talk to you right now.”

The information only made Sett feel worse. He wanted so badly to talk to you, to do what he had wanted to do before this mess had happened and make you his girlfriend. You had never felt farther away than you did right now.

“Give me some time to calm her down. I can get her to be at the pier at seven, then the rest is up to you,” she said, levelling him with a stern look. “I know this wasn’t your fault. That’s the only reason I’m giving you a chance. She really likes you, so try not to make her feel any worse than she already does. Bye.”

And then Taliyah was gone, retreating back into the house and leaving Sett standing on the doorstep.

 “Brought you some water,” Taliyah announced as she entered the room, glass in hand.

“Who was at the door?” you asked.

She shrugged. “Someone looking for my dad. Told them he’s not here.”

You nodded. It was probably too much to hope that it would be Sett. You winced as you thought his name. You hated how much you wanted to see him, someone who had used you to win some popular kid ugly date contest.

So it had all been a lie then? All the things he had told you about his life, his family? Every time he had kissed you, was he picturing kissing one of those girls instead? Is this really what popular people did for fun? You felt stupid for falling for it, for falling for him. You were so stupid.

With some prompting from Taliyah, you took a sip of the water. After she had made sure you had drank the whole glass, she sat down next to you, taking the glass from you and setting it down on the bedside table.

“I should have known,” you croaked.

“Known that popular girls are bitchy? Maybe,” she responded.

“That it was too good to be true,” you corrected.

“You’re acting like you’re eighty,” she scolded. “There are other guys out there. Ones who don’t have shitty friends.”

“Yeah, I know,” you replied. “But I really liked him. And I didn’t even get to pet his stupid fuzzy ears.”

“Well if you’re joking, then you must be doing okay,” she said. “How about we go do something to take your mind off of things?”

You frowned, and she rolled her eyes. “Not right this second. I’ll give you until six-thirty to get yourself ready to go.”

Taliyah got up off the bed and headed towards the door. “I’m not gonna let your night be ruined because of a couple of snobs.”

She closed the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts again. You laid back on the bed, intent on taking some time before you got ready to just veg out. As much as the notion of going out didn’t excite you right now, it was probably better than being a mopey mess all night. There would be other guys; it was just a shame that you had liked this one so much.

Two hours later, you were walking down the street with Taliyah. Your getting ready to go had consisted of washing your face of all the smeared makeup from your crying, brushing your hair into a semi-decent state and then watching dumb cat videos on your phone until you felt like you didn’t want to crawl in a hole and die.

Taliyah had assured you that you didn’t look bad, which you might have believed if you hadn’t seen yourself in the mirror as you were leaving, but at this point you were beyond caring about how you looked right now.

Taliyah had refused to tell you where she was taking you, and so you were forced to follow her down the familiar path towards the beach, unsure of where it was you were being led. Part of you was worried that you might run into Sett, but then the more rational side of you took over; he was likely back at that pool, partying it up with those girls and lamenting that you had run off before he could win his ugly date prize. It was crazy to realize just how flawed your judgment had been.

You had expected to be walking onto the beach, as it was where you two usually spent most of your time, but Taliyah didn’t go to the parking lot, instead heading towards the rockier section of the beach. You hadn’t been over here before, only vaguely aware of the area as a prime fishing location, bait shops and the like lining the street across from this part of the beachfront.

She took you past the fishing spots, down to near the end of the beach, where there was a small pier that went about thirty feet out into the sea. Like most of the beach at this time on a weekday, the pier was empty, most of the fishermen also having headed out with their day’s catches.

Taliyah led you down the pier to the small bench at the end of it, pushing you to sit down. When she didn’t do the same, you looked up at her, confused.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I’m gonna go grab something to help cheer you up. You just enjoy the view for a bit.”

You decided to follow her advice, staring out at the water. There wasn’t much to see other than some boats in the far distance and some buoys bobbing in the water that marked the swimming section from the boating section.

It was kind of nice in a way, the calm waters helping you to relax as you watched the waves roll in and out. You stayed like that for a while as you allowed yourself to zone out until you began to wonder how much time had passed. Pulling out your phone, you saw that it had been almost twenty minutes, and yet there was no sign of Taliyah as you looked around.

You had assumed that she went to get you two some food, which likely was still the case. Some of the places here tended to have rather large dinnertime crowds, so a twenty minute plus wait wasn’t exactly unusual. You had no idea where she had gone, so all you could do was wait. If she wasn’t back by seven, you would just text her and ask what was up.

You let yourself be taken in again by the rolling waves as you continued to wait, trying to recall what kinds of restaurants there were on the beachfront. It couldn’t be that fish and chips place; Taliyah had spent a full half hour last week complaining about how stale their food was. Or the taco place, since it had been closed for renovations for the past week. You had been trying to think of a third option when your concentration was broken by someone taking a seat next to you on the bench.

You looked over, expecting to see Taliyah back with some food, but instead nearly jolted off of the bench when next to you was the very man you were out here trying to forget.

Just seeing him when you were feeling so pathetic sent a jolt of you weren’t sure what up your spine, your flight instincts screaming at you as you made to stand up, only to be stopped by a firm grip on your wrist.

“I know you don’t wanna see my face right now,” Sett said. “But I can explain.”

“Explain what?” you replied meekly. “Those girls explained enough.”

“I haven’t,” he insisted. “Just listen for a minute. Then you can leave, or punch me, whatever you want.”

You took a look around, still not seeing Taliyah anywhere. You weren’t sure what he could have to say that would make much of a difference, but you sat back down, and he let go of your wrist.

You turned reluctantly to face Sett, waiting for him to talk first.

“Never told ‘em to do somethin’ like that,” he said gruffly. “Didn’t even know about it ‘til I got there and you weren’t there.”

“But they said…” you started, taking a breath to keep yourself calm as you prepared to recount the hurtful words. “They said you were only spending time with me so you could win their whole ugly date contest.”

Sett’s eyes narrowed, the skin of his knuckles tightening on his curling fists. “First I’ve heard of it. Ain’t no way you’d ever place in an ugly contest anyways.”

His words threw you. “Wait, so you don’t think I’m ugly?”

He snorted, a grin playing at his lips. “Well I was plannin’ on askin’ you to be my girlfriend after the party, so nah, I don’t think you’re ugly.”

“You–” you gasped, pulse skyrocketing. This was not how you expected this conversation to go. You were half convinced you were experiencing auditory hallucinations until Sett reached over, pulling you into his side.

“This is my fault,” he spoke lowly. “If I hadn’t been late, I’d have been there to stop that from happening.”

“What happened when you got there?” you asked quietly.

“Braum told me what happened, then those two tried tellin’ me they did it for my sake,” he growled. “I thought I was used to seein’ through bullies from how I grew up. Doesn’t matter now, they won’t be botherin’ you anymore unless they wanna find out why momma says I got her temper.”

“Why were you late anyways?” you asked.

He groaned, leaning his head back against the bench. Even with the sun mostly set, you could clearly see a pink tone to his cheeks.

“What is it?” you pressed, curious about why the intimidating lifeguard was suddenly being so shy.

He let out a long sigh, finally meeting your eyes. “Ma was doin’ my hair.”

You looked him over, realizing that his hair did seem to be tied differently today. The only thing that looked the same was his ears, just as fluffy as they always looked. You could almost hear Taliyah’s voice screaming in your head to pet them. Speaking of Taliyah…

“Taliyah!” you gasped, trying to extract yourself from Sett’s grip, but failing. If Taliyah was to come and see you here with the guy she had taken you out to forget about… “My friend, she’ll be back any second and–”

Sett laughed, and you were immediately left with the feeling that you were missing something.

“She ain’t comin’ back,” he said amusedly. “I’ve got you all to myself for the night… if that’s what you want.”

“Taliyah set me up?” you breathed, not having suspected a thing.

“I asked her to,” Sett explained. “Wasn’t about to let you go ‘cuz of some shallow assholes.”

Taliyah was much sneakier than you had given her credit for, you realized, but you couldn’t bring yourself to mind right now. Though that didn’t mean you weren’t hungry, your previous stress melting away and removing the only distraction from your empty stomach.

“So,” you hummed. “Are you still going to ask me to be your girlfriend?”

You still had no idea what would happen by the end of the summer, but you really wanted this. You wanted him.

“Yeah, was plannin’ on it.”

 You had thought about it all the way back to Sett’s house. Was it really for the best to go back to your city when the summer was over? Back to your parents’ house to find an equally demanding and unfulfilling job?

The more you thought about it, the more you wanted to stay. Taliyah was here, Sett was here, and other than your brief nasty encounter at the pool earlier, this summer had been the best one you’d had in a long time.

Sett seemed intent on giving you more reasons to stay as he was on you pretty much as soon as you entered his house. You had been standing in the entryway, looking at a picture of what must have been Sett and his mother when he caught you off guard, picking you up from behind.

You yelped, turning your head back to face him just in time for him to dart forward to snatch a kiss.

“You’ll have time to look around later,” he said as he walked down the hall, nudging a door open with his shoulder and then taking you into what looked to be his bedroom.

Once again, you were scarcely granted a look around before Sett had overtaken your attention yet again. You were swiftly carried over and deposited on the bed, Sett eagerly caging your body down against the sheets with his own.

“I wanted to go slow,” he said against your ear. “Didn’t wanna mess things up. But that’s not what you want, is it?”

“No,” you gasped as he snaked a hand under your dress, and then under your swimsuit bottoms. “I… I want…”

“This?” he inquired, thumb brushing against your clit, causing you to jolt against him with a breathy moan. “Waited a long time to hear that.”

Seeking more room to work, Sett pulled back to reach down and pull down your swimsuit bottoms, tossing them to the side. You watched with reddening cheeks as he returned his attention to you, head disappearing under your dress next.

His first lick against your pussy felt back-archingly good, but you didn’t have a lot of room to move with Sett’s hands holding your lower half in place. His tongue felt slightly rough, bringing pricks of pleasure-pain along its path.

Closing your eyes tight, you tried not to squirm, but it was difficult as Sett’s tongue prodded inside you before moving back to sucking at your clit. It felt good, almost too good, but you found yourself wanting more than his mouth against you.

“Sett,” you moaned. “Please…”

You weren’t sure if he got the message until you reached down to grasp at one of his hands. He pulled back from you, wiping one forearm against the wet lower half of his face as he sat back. His position on his knees on the bed allowed you a good look at the decently-sized bulge in the front of his tight swim shorts.

Sett caught your eyes, reaching one hand down to cup his cock through his shorts. “All you, sweetheart. Still think I think you’re ugly?”

You somehow managed to shake your head, speechless from his ardent display of his body. Sett seemed to bask in just how speechless he had made you, a sexy grin overtaking his face as he stared down at you.

“Couldn’t ask for more than this,” he said. “But if you want more…”

He was such a tease. With a burning face, you relented.

“Could you just put it in me please?” you asked, too shy to make eye contact.

“Can do,” he replied, and you could easily hear the smug satisfaction in his voice.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Sett stood up from the bed to pull his shorts off, wincing slightly when he pulled the tight fabric over his painfully-hard cock. Tossing the shorts to the floor, his attention quickly returned to you.

Giving his cock a few slow strokes, he watched you sit up on the bed. Feeling a burst in confidence from his display, you reached down to the hem of your dress’ skirt before pulling it up and off your body, Sett’s hungry gold eyes unable to look away from you as you moved onto your swimsuit top.

Once your top was off, Sett struck, pulling you towards him. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he pulled you onto his lap, reaching around to your front to cup your breasts as his mouth went straight to your neck. His hands were warm against the sensitive skin of your breasts, rolling your nipples under his thumbs as his teeth scraped against a sensitive spot on your neck.

You felt his hard cock under you and shifted yourself against it, Sett letting out a deep groan in response. You could feel how wet you were, but this wasn’t enough. You needed to fuck him, needed this building tension to come to a satisfying end for you both.

You turned in his lap, looping your arms around his neck and leaning down to kiss him. Sett was happy to meet tongues with you, one hand resting on your ass until you pulled back from the kiss.

You met eyes with Sett, who began to help you lift yourself up, lining up his cock with his other hand. When he brought you back down onto him, you both sighed as you were fully seated on his cock at last.

“Nothin’ else would feel as good as you,” Sett groaned as he began to help you move and up and then back down onto him. “Never wanted any girl as bad as I want you.”

You were much less coherent, moaning out his name as your hands grasped against his chest. With a further burst of confidence, you reached a hand up to his ear, running your fingers along the fur and enjoying the resulting groan, the next upward thrust of his hips hitting even better into you. Maybe you would leave this out at Taliyah’s interrogation later.

“There,” you moaned as he shifted you in his lap, his cock hitting even deeper inside you. “Right there, Sett.”

“You’re so tight,” he groaned, pulling you down into a rough kiss as he held you close, thrusting up into you as you eagerly moved along with him, needing to make this gorgeous man under you cum.

Sett came first, stilling for a moment before pulling you slightly back to put a finger to your clit, letting you cling to him as you followed him over the edge.

Once you had both come back down from the clouds, you were set back gently on the bed so Sett could run off to grab a cloth to clean you up with. You watched him leave the room, still having a hard time comprehending just how you had ended up this situation.

You definitely had some phone calls to make tomorrow. Your parents would be surprised, but you would probably focus on the Taliyah part rather than the new boyfriend part of your reasoning. Taliyah would be overjoyed for sure; you’d have to thank her for her meddling when you saw her.

As Sett returned, you realized something.

“Wait, is your mom home?” you asked in horror. You hadn’t made any effort to be quiet during sex, forgetting about his mother until he re-entered the room.

Sett laughed at your mortified face. “I don’t live with ma, so no.”

“Oh god,” you breathed in relief. “I was worried I was too…”

“She ain’t here,” he replied as he joined you on the bed, handing you the cloth he had grabbed. “You can be as loud as you want.”

You dropped the cloth, burying your head in your hands, Sett’s amused laughter ringing in your ears as you tried to content with just what you had signed yourself up for.

[chiwhorei]

𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐞𝐬

paring: kenny ackerman x fem!reader

genre: apocalypse!au, smut, dark content, 18+ mdni [cross-posted to Ao3]

word count: 3k

overview: kenny *i-wouldn’t-fuck-you-if-it-was-the-end-of-the-world* ackerman; but it is and you do . . . and you’ll probably do it again. or, if you read beyond the cut and wind up in hell that is legally not my fault.

tags: dymph does sacrilege once again, post-apocalypse au, blood, violence, zombies (only mentions of gore nothing specific), somnophilia, noncon, dubcon, degradation, smoking, insertion, sloppy oral, big age gap aka kenny is a nasty old man and reader is a sweet little virgin.

a.notes: happy *fucking* easter. this is for the smut pile’s apocalypse collab so go give everyone’s pieces a read, everyone has worked so incredibly hard. this is dedicated to @pleasantanathema​, who was both my beta reader and emotional support while stringing this together. here’s to the old man fuckery, cheers.

hymn: the seven deadly virtues - camelot

But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man. -Luke 21:36

                                      * * *

Wet.

A sticky kind of wet. Clinging on like thick clay, splattered across your neck— gore and sinew wrapped in a noose. Shades of decaying reds and browns are all you see these days. 

The seeping, molding kind of wet.

The smell is suffocating, the toll of death deep in your bones. You keep moving, you have to. One foot in front of the other, fingers fretting with the cross hanging between your collarbones. Counting your Hail Mary’s distracts from the ache in your soles and the burning feeling that you’re rotting away.

It was slow at first. The end of the world, the crashing, clattering end felt like a slow decent to hell. Pieces of the modern world falling away, the promise of tomorrow, the assurance of a cure. You refused to believe the dead could walk the earth until they were stumbling straight towards you. 

All of us, you think, are rotting away.

“Pick up the pace, kid. Are you trying to end up like the rest of those fuckers?” His voice rings from a few feet in front of you. The brush under your feet is dry, leaves crunching loudly with every weary step forward. 

Kenny always likes to remind you of your naïveté, insults about your rose tinted glasses barked crudely from around a cigarette. Your youth, your optimism, your beliefs-- useless traits in his opinion. What good is God in a world like this.

“Friends. They were our friends.” Your words come out in a whimper, the tone further irritating the man ahead of you.

He stops, turning around to catch your eyes, gaze piercing through the night like a knife. All that’s left of your composure is used to keep from crashing right into his chest.

“Ain’t no more room for friends in this world, baby doll,” a long pointer finger lifts your chin, the slightest touch still bruising, “thinkin’ like that is what’s going to get ya killed.”

Rose tinted glasses, cracked and splattered with blood, fall off and are lost to a world that no longer exists. Kenny let’s up and turns, pulling you farther into the thick brush. You could swear you feel the lenses as they splinter under your shoe.

                                      * * *

Kenny is a vile man. He knows his name isn’t on a reservation list at the Pearly Gates, he’s aware that a sinner lives on borrowed time. 

Nowadays, everyone is living on borrowed time. Even you.

You, he thinks, looking back to where you stumble over a tree branch, far to good for a world like this.

He can’t help but laugh, the absolute absurdity of his current situation. Escaping death by the skin of his teeth, watching any familiar faces burning in the remnants of a camp he couldn’t really call home. People that fought to the bone, melting or devoured or both.

And then there was you, standing in front of the flames, tears falling down the apples of your cheeks, stiff in shock and horror. He remembers the way your lips moved, mumbling a quiet prayer instead of trying to run. Stupid little thing.

It’s not the earth the meek inherit; it’s the dirt.

Was it pity that made Kenny pull you away from an infernal gravesite all those months ago? He’s never the hero of any story. No, it must have been something else.

Maybe it was the way you looked up with teary eyes, silently begging for help. Unwittingly making a deal with the devil. His teeth grind at the memory, the vision of how beautiful you look so completely helpless. 

Kenny leads and you follow, he hunts and you flitch at the sound of an arrow piercing flesh. The small squeak and proceeding thumb of meat as it hits the ground never fails to make you sick. When he’s not hunting for food, he’s hunting something else.

The sounds of death are all the same.

Some days you’re lucky, coming across abandoned hideouts or deserted cars. Snagging whatever hasn’t already been picked over; some ammo, the occasional can of peaches or pack of cigarettes. Kenny laughs dryly everytime, chucking the carton into his bag. Always the cigarettes, never the lighter. Most days, not so much.

Every night, you fall asleep to the flicker of a campfire, lulled by the steady sound of Kenny’s knife as it scrapes against a piece of wood. He’s always the last asleep. The woods are a dangerous place, the possibility of monsters circle at every moment. Under the veil of night, anything could happen. And it does.

He wipes his mouth, settling back into the harsh ground below him with a pleased hum. Your whimpers have settled back into a light snore. 

Kenny is a vile man, and you’re too concerned with the lifeless villain in the shadows that you forget about the one sitting on the other side of the fire.

Three months of waking up to aching limbs and misplaced panties can’t be a coincidence, can it?

                                      * * *

“Well ain’t this something.” Kenny pulls on the door, swinging it open with a loud creek. Your neck strains to look up at dark wood and steepled roof, the tall building hidden by dense forest, you two must be the first people to step inside in months. 

“A church.” You’d find comfort within these walls if you weren’t so positive that God had abandoned this world.

Statues of the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph are empty behind their stone eyes, shadowed with an unsettling shade of red from the stained-glass windows. The moment is a time capsule, a vision of the congregation of saints bathed in blood.

A chill runs down your back, counting every vertebrae.

You push down the unsettling foreboding, focusing back on the instincts to survive instead of lingering on a religion that you can no longer make sense of.

“Hey kid, over here.” You pick up the pace, quickening footsteps away from holy symbolism and towards Kenny’s voice. You walk into the closest room off a dark hallway and find him leaning against the doorframe. The rooms are getting darker with the vanishing sun, but you make out shelves of cans and boxes, food, blankets, clothes.

“I bet they used this as a food pantry,” Your comment was probably an obvious assumption, but Kenny just hums in response, “there’s enough here to last up months.” 

Good samaritans in the first life are a saving grace is this one. Your cynicism lifts from heavy shoulders for just a moment. The lines between luck and divine intervention are fuzzy at best.

“I saw a well right outside too. Water’s probably cold as ice but it’s better than anything we’ve come across yet.” Kenny’s voice is even, but you swear he cracks a smile.

He was right, the water is cold enough to shatter your bones like ice. You shiver and chatter, teeth threatening to crack, but the feeling of being clean has you dumping bucket after bucket over your head. The grime and grit of your reality running down to seep into the grass below.

There’s no home to run to after the world ends, but water and food is more than you could imagine in recent months. Shuffling through boxes of donated clothes, you find a shirt big enough to sleep in. The fabric smells like moth-balls and dust, but the feeling of clean cotton against your skin is heavenly. 

You find Kenny in the clerical office, rummaging through the priests desk. The sun is replaced with a flight of candles, for the first time in forever, you don’t feel like death is standing right behind you.

“Would you look at that,” Kenny pulls a cigar from the desk, bringing it up to his nose for inspection, “Looks like father had his own little habit.”

Despite yourself, you laugh at his comment, rounding towards the large leather chair he’s settled into.

“Smoking kills you know.” You lean against the desk next to him. Your bare legs brush against his knee, the heat from your skin makes his mouth water.

“I think there’s more pressing concerns than tobacco, kid.”

There’s something different about tonight, even more than just the four walls and roof around you. There’s something about Kenny and the way his stare has followed you all night. You can feel a cord pulling taught, fraying in the middle before it snaps.

“Asshole.”

The plush of Kenny’s bottom lip is close enough to your cunt to be disastrous.  Friendly banter becomes laughing and swatting at his chest like a teenager. Communion wine and tension pulling you into him. The loneliness of this life becomes more apparent the closer he is to touching your skin. When did the man in front of you make your heart race so fast? 

Maybe you’ve always felt this way.

You feel it, the ghosts of last night, the night before. The ghosts of weeks or maybe even months. The familiarity of a touch you weren’t quite awake for. 

Ass arching off from where it sticks to the cherry wood, you want to feel it again. The laving of tongue and mouth against you. The devouring of your most intimate planes of skin, places no one else has ever touched before, places you were saving for your future husband.

The kiss as hot as hell.

“Awe, c’mon now,” His nose nudges against your clit, the movement pulling another cry from your throat to bounce against the high ceiling, “that’s not my name.”

“I’ve been tracing it into this precious cunt of yours every night,” each word is more unhinged than the last, no longer worried about the doe in his sights running away, “Do I need to spell it out for you again?”

There’s nowhere to run, pressed in between his canines.

Dreams of calloused fingers and a wandering mouth are now cementing as memories. The feeling of rough facial hair. The sounds of desperate moans and how they shake against you. 

The way his tongue curls like a signature. 

His mouth is flush against you again, sucking at your aching clit for only a moment before moving his attention to long lashes against your clenching hole.

“You must remember. You were moaning it so sweetly,” he nips at your puffy lips before drawing back. His chin is sheened in your arousal, slick refracting off the dimly lit space between you, flickering candles outline his features with a dance of orange shadows. Kenny’s eyes hold you captive, giving you one more chance to answer.

“What’s my name, kid?”

His tongue breaches you, a set of large, familiar hands keep your legs spread wide atop the desk. 

You remember— of course you do. You remember everything. The name stuck in your head like a broken record. The name you call for in a sleepy haze as your body is dragged into orgasm.

The name that’s spelled against you like a promise.

“K-Kenny please.”

That’s all that he needs, the only thing, if he’s being honest, that he’s ever needed.

“There’s my sweet little girl. Finally using your manners.” Two fingers come up to swipe against your pussy, stopping right before your clit and collecting slick to bring up to your eye line for inspection. You jump when the warm digits drag against your bottom lip, a silent prompt for your mouth to fall open.

Kenny sticks his fingers in, the intent to make you gag is clear but you take it. You’ll take anything he gives you. Your tongue swirls around the intrusion, running against each joint and suckling loudly. The sound is wet and lewd, the spit collecting at the corners of your mouth makes his head spin.

Your destruction, he decides, will be beautiful. 

Kenny’s fingers release with a wet pop. He runs callouses down from your cheek, over the curve of your tits and down your abdomen. Two fingers stop at your pubic bone to trace lightly against the skin in random patterns. 

“Your body is just as agreeable when you’re awake.” His words drip in sin, reminding you exactly how familiar he is with you. All of you.

Both thumbs come down to spread your lips, Kenny can’t help but take a moment-- just a beat-- to stare at your swollen, glossy clit and the quiver of your little hole. Your skin is soft, completely untouched by anyone else. He laid claim to almost every inch before you begged him to.

He sinks from the leather chair, kneeling in front of you. You’re the body and blood as far as a sinner like Kenny is concerned.

There’s a plea stuck in your throat. You want to beg him to slow down, it’s too much all at once, but you know if you cried out-- all you would do is beg him for more.

His tongue is long and flat against you, every swipe is punctuated with a growl. The rumbling from his chest is thrown against your clit like a current through cold water. Sharp, shocking, terrifying.

“Kenny, I- I want,” He sucks your throbbing clit into his mouth, rubbing the tip of his tongue against the hood. There’s no words in any language that make sense to you. There’s nothing but his name. 

“Kenny ah, I need, I don’t know how t—”

Your dangling over a fire, trying desperately to jerk away from the lick of the flames. 

“I know, kid, I know exactly what you need.” his breath is heavy and warm in fans across your skin. You're dripping down the sides of his face and onto the cleric’s desk. Kenny is covered in you, open mouthed kisses against the sweetest thing he’s ever had in his mouth. The tangy taste of your pussy mixing with the wine still on his tongue. 

If he spent forever between your thighs, it wouldn’t be nearly long enough.

“Such a sweet little thing, you’re insatiable.” All you can do is nod dumbly, eyes glazing over with a distinct look of teary submission. It’s so new to you, but grinding upwards and catching your clit against his chin seems like second nature.

The primal need for release is much stronger than any prayer of abstinence. 

“What would your little prayer circle think if they knew you spread your legs for a dirty old fucker like me?” Kenny coos against the apex of your thighs. His words knock on the hollow space behind your breastbone.

Your family and friends, the priest from St. Mary’s who baptized you, old man Jaeger from next door— all buried or burned to ash or so much worse.

Anyone you’ve ever loved is dead, maybe that’s why Kenny is still around.

There’s nothing that can hold you back anymore, the control you claw at slips from your fingers like watery silk. There’s no escaping the roughness of his stubble and an evil, serpent tongue.

“Kenny!”

You cum with a shattering cry, the sound ringing so loud in your ears you swear any enemy of the living in a 10 mile radius could hear you. In reality, what escapes is little more than a broken snivel. 

It hurts, muscles aching from the exertion of trying to keep from falling apart. Your body is a hairpin trigger, the comedown feels more like withdrawal.

“There’s my girl, my good little girl.” His voice is uncharacteristically soft, doting while you fall back to earth. It’s a strange feeling, you’ve never found comfort in Kenny before, he isn’t the shoulder you go to lean on. 

But tonight he’s the chin you buck into.

The aftershocks run across your naked skin, already missing the feeling of his touch as he settles back into the cracked leather chair. 

His cock presses into the denim confines uncomfortably, the ache can wait though. Whether this is his last night alive or has all the time in the world-- he’s going to savor the glistening prize nestled between your thighs. Kenny’s fingers find the cigar where it lies next to your knee, bringing it up to examine while you squirm at the cold night air against your wet cunt.

“No one will ever make you feel as good as I do,” both legs kick out, falling to dangle on either side of his knees in surprise as the cigar comes down to trace your outer lips. He presses the tuck inwards, pulling out slightly so you cry out. The harsh texture of the wrapper mixes with the most minimal of stimulation, causing tears to clump in your waterline. 

“Why don’t you think of a way to repay me, hmm?”

You push past the heaviness in your muscles, sitting up to meet his incredulous stare. Kenny sticks the cigar between his teeth, striking a match from the desk drawer to light the cap. The cigar is stale, cheap tobacco. But every drag now tastes like you.

“I- I could try to--” Words are left unspoken on your tongue, even now, the intonation is poison in your throat. 

You expect Kenny to laugh at your bashfulness, instead, two fingers come up to curl around the Rosary around your neck. He drags you forward, exhaling smoke into your parted, quivering lips. You try your best not to choke. 

He pulls the cigar away, ashing it carelessly on the floor.

“Use your words, kid, tell me what you want.” His words are sleazy but his voice is soft around the edges. Prompting you to shuffle onto his lap. His free hand rests in the small of your back to keep you steady.

“I want--” Fuck, your voice feels like it’ll fail, you take a moment to breathe, “I want you to fuck me, Kenny.” 

Your plea is rushed, so quick to hit his ears he almost misses it. There’s no hiding anymore, there’s nowhere else in this world but the private quarters of a long-dead clergy member. The space between you and Kenny is foggy and tense, only inches between lips.

There’s no more penance in this world, no more time to sit and atone for his sins with prayer. The soft, syrupy feeling of your cunt wrapping around his cock is a slice of heaven, cut out and stolen right from the sky. 

“I thought you’d never ask, doll face.” 

✞ all writing is dymphnasprose’s original content, please do not repost or modify. do no read my content as asmr.©️

[juliettecxi]

Hi Abby! If you're taking requests, can I ask for a thomastair with “We would make a great couple.”? Thank you and take all the time you need!

Prompt number 9: “We would make a great couple.”

Fandom: The Last Hours

Ship: Thomastair

Genre: Modern au, Non TSCverse, Camp counselor au, Childhood friends who had a crush on each other and kissed once and then grew apart and found each other again to lovers, fluff, lot’s and lot’s of nostalgia

Prompt List | Writing Playlist

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(Flashbacks are in italics)

 Camp. Alastair’s favourite time of the summer.

Nothing appealed to him more, then spending two weeks in an outdoor, mosquito infested campsite that had swamp water for showers and he loved having hormonal teenagers under his wing.

But if Alastair hated camp so much, why did he sign up as counsellor every summer? Well, as much as Alastair hated it here, there were just too many memories that he didn’t want to let go of.

Ever since he was a little boy, he’s attended this very summer camp. He’d made friends here; Tried smores for the first time by the campfire, surrounded by other kids his age; He’d met his first summer love here, and had his first kiss here as well.

Alastair let out a sigh as the nostalgia hit him. He picked up the boxes of saltine crackers from  head counsellor Jem’s car and headed to the main cabin.

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

“Alastair!” a voice called. Alastair rolled his eyes, he’d recognize that voice anywhere.

“Will!” he said back, his over exaggerated enthusiasm dripping with sarcasm.

“Don’t pretend you’re not excited to see me!” Will said, and tackled Alastair in a bear hug. “I’m not.” Alastair replied, his voice muffled by Will’s shoulder.

“Hey did you know there’s a new counsellor joining us this summer?” said Jesse, who was making an inventory of all the medicine. “Really?” asked Lucie, who was sorting out the pens and paper for her creative writing class. “Yeah, apparently he’d attended camp a few times before, back when he was a kid.” Will, who’d finally let go of Alastair, added.

Alastair raised an eyebrow. “Why would anyone want to come back here?” he asked. “I don’t know Alastair, why do you?” Lucie said, without missing a beat, and Will and Jesse snickered. 

“Touché.” he said, and shrugged his shoulders, a small smile on his lips.

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

An hour later, and the new counsellor was yet to arrive. The kids had started to trickle in, both familiar faces and new ones, and Alastair had to make sure the children under his care didn’t get lost or wander into the wrong cabin. Matthew, another counsellor, was notorious for losing the children, and heaven forbid Alastair made the same mistake as him.

“Orientation in the mess hall in half an hour!” called Jem and the counsellors headed to the main cabin to get ready.

“Seems like a no-show.” said Matthew, and the others murmured in agreement. “He’s on his way, he’ll be here.” said a worn out looking Jem. He was in charge and he did a pretty great job, but the poor guy needed a break. He cleared his throat and said,

“James, please don’t allow the kids to swim in the river this year, and Will, for heaven’s sake, keep them away from the poison ivy. Matthew, don’t you dare lose anyone this year, Lucie and Jesse, try to avoid unnecessary midnight Ouija board scares and Alastair, please don’t call the kid’s names.” and he looked at all of them. 

“I just get on their level.” Alastair said, and shrugged at Jem.

He was not impressed.

“Fine.” Alastair said and slightly rolled hi eyes. He headed to the cabin he was in charge of, to rally the children to the mess hall.

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

They were fifteen minutes into the orientation, and the new counsellor had still not arrived.

The children were actually pretty nice, and none of them had set their cabins on fire yet.

Alastair stood up front along with the other counsellors, while Jem spoke to the children.

“If you have any worries, please don’t hesitate to talk to your counsellor in charge. Avoid going near the lake without an adult, and don’t get late for your session. Punctuality is key here at-”

"I'm here!" A loud voice yelled from the back, interrupting Jem in the middle of his speech.

"I'm so sorry! My alarm didn't ring and I got caught in traffic and-"

Alastair frowned.. those eyes, why were they so familiar? 

They reminded him of a similar pair, from many summers ago, But How? The boy he knew was small.

This guy was not small.

He was tall, like extremely tall, and he was muscular. He was good looking, Alastair had to admit, and those eyes were extremely captivating, and also somewhat familiar.

Jem let out an audible sigh, breaking Alastair out of his reverie.

“Everyone, meet your new counsellor, Thomas Lightwood.”

Thomas who?

Wait.

No.

The eyes.

No way.

Holy fucking shit!

Alastair almost fell off the stage.

Thomas smiled sheepishly and scratched the nape of his neck, and  Alastair was suddenly whisked away to that one summer, all those years ago.

“Um, hi, is this the bear cabin?” a timid voice asked, interrupting a thirteen year old Alastair from his book. He looked up at a small boy with hazel eyes, who was scratching the back of his neck, with a small smile on his face.

Alastair’s heart did a little flip.

“Yep.” Alastair responded, as nonchalantly as possible.

“Oh, well hi! I’m Thomas!”

“Alastair.” he responded, and they shook hands, both of them smiling.

“Alastair.” Will said, and punched him on the shoulder.

“Ow!” he semi-yelled, and punched Will back. “What the hell?” he asked, voice laced with annoyance. 

“The meeting is over, let’s go back to the main cabin.”

Alastair nodded his head and looked ahead, and his eyes locked with a pair of hazel ones. Thomas’s face held a mixture of recognition and surprise. His cheeks were tinted pink, and Alastair felt his face heat up.

“Hello.” Thomas mouthed, and Alastair smiled.

These two weeks were most definitely going to be something.

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

Alastair and Thomas hadn’t interacted much these few days. Camp was ending in three days, and Alastair had mixed feelings about interacting with Thomas.

There had been the occasional wave and helping each other lift boxes, but other than that they hadn’t interacted much.

Alastair whistled to himself tunelessly, his mind full of thoughts about Thomas, as he arranged the sticks, marshmallows, crackers and chocolate for the smores. He remembered when he and Thomas had snuck out after stealing a box of chocolates from the main cabin, and headed to the lake.

“Do you think they’ll notice?” Thomas asked, and Alastair shook his head.

“If they do they won’t know it was us.” he said and giggled, and Thomas joined him. He looked at the lake, and its clear waters reflecting the sunlight. They both sat in silence, enjoying the chocolate and each other's company.

The kiss happened two days later, on the last day of camp. The campfire was in full swing, everyone was singing and dancing and yelling, it was exhilarating. Towards the end, things mellowed. Everyone went back to the cabin, except for Thomas and Alastair.

“Quite nice isn’t it?” Thomas said, breaking the silence. Alastair hummed in response

“I’m going to miss you.” he said suddenly, and Thomas looked at him in shock.

“Me-me too.” he said, and smiled.

Alastair turned to face Thomas, he looked beautiful, that was all he could think. Slowly they inched closer. It was just a short peck on the lips, But it felt like more for fifteen year old Alastair. 

They both looked at each other and grinned, and Alastair felt like he was in heaven.

They'd parted from each other on the last day of camp, promising to meet each other next year, but when next year came, Thomas was nowhere to be seen, And very soon he became a distant memory, a mere summer love.

"Hey!" An all too familiar voice said, and Alastair's heart did that thing again.

"Hey Thomas.." Alastair said, And smiled at the former.

"Brings back memories doesn't It?" Thomas said, looking at the smore ingredients, and Alastair raised an eyebrow. Thomas seemed to realize what he said and grinned. "I was talking about camp.. and smores and campfires.." he finished awkwardly. 

"Yeah, yep I was thinking the same thing." Alastair said, and cleared his throat.

"So…." He began, attempting to dispel the awkwardness, "What have you been up to Thomas?" 

"Well," Thomas began, "I've been studying, and well you know, just getting around. You?" 

Alastair nodded. "Pretty much the same thing." 

"Oh, Well, I've got to go get something for Matthew, I'll see you around." Thomas said, and began to walk away.

"Do you remember the kiss?" Alastair said suddenly and mentally slapped himself. "Nice going dumbass." He internally scolded.

Thomas looked like a deer caught in headlights. Finally, "Yeah, I do.. It was nice." 

Alastair nodded lamely and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Do you regret it?" He asked.

"What? No! Never! It was one of the best things that happened to me that summer." Thomas said, and laughed.

Alastair smiled at that. There it was again, the little backflips his heart did.

"You know," he said, about to say one of the riskiest things he'd ever said, "We would make a great couple." He held his breath, and Thomas looked like he'd stopped functioning altogether. 

"I-" Thomas shook his head. "I've got to go.. I'm bye!" He said, and ran away before Alastair could say anything, and he stood there, wishing the last ten minutes hadn't happened 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------It was the last night at camp, and Alastair and Thomas had skillfully avoided each other. Alastair was a little upset. Sure, he hadn't seen Thomas in years, but he'd never grown as close to another man as he had with Thomas, and seeing him again had rekindled something in him.

Oh Well, he'd blown it anyway.

He stared at the growing campfire as everyone hustled around him. Finally Jem stepped forward and cleared his throat.

"These past few days have been extremely memorable and truly remarkable." He said, and Alastair couldn't help but laugh softly. Jem always had a tendency to use big words to address things important to him.

"I thank you all for attending and I hope you had a good time. Enjoy this final night to the fullest, and I hope to see you all next year." He finished, and everyone cheered.

The campfire was perfect. Everyone sang songs and ate to their hearts heart's content. Will attempted to start one of his shenanigans, but a disapproving glance from Jem stopped him.

He was going to miss this.

Once everything had died down and everyone had headed back to the cabin, Alastair sat by the campfire as it slowly dwindled, and looked at the stars, randomly naming stars and constellations.

"Orion's belt is my favourite, but only because it's the easiest to find."

Alastair turned, only to find Thomas settled next to him.

"Hey, not going to bed?" Alastair asked.

Thomas shook his head. "I wanted to tell you something about earlier."

Alastair sat up. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable." He began, "My mind was all over the place and I didn't think it through."

Thomas shook his head. "I agree with You."

"Huh?" 

"I think we'd make a great couple too."

Alastair laughed. Words couldn't describe how happy he felt.

"But maybe we should take things slow." Thomas said and Alastair nodded his head.

"Of course, maybe go on a few dates first, get each other's numbers and then put a label on it." He said, and they both chuckled.

Alastair's chest felt fuzzy  and warm. Thomas looked beautiful in the moonlight. Thomas was looking at Alastair funny.

"Hey do you think kissing goes against taking it slow?" He asked.

Alastair shook his head "Uhhhh. Why do you ask?" 

"Because I'm going to kiss you now." And then Thomas's lips were on his, soft, slow and sweet. Alastair kisses him back, wrapping his hands around his neck. So as the fire crackled on and the stars shone in the sky, Alastair felt like he was fifteen again.

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A/N: @writeforjordelia This is the end! Yeet! *throws smores everywhere* I'm sorry this took so long, but this is it I guess. This ended up becoming way too long but I hope you liked it nia!

-Abby💕

[prettywordsyouleft]

The Cowboy - Part 3

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol)

Word count: 2054

This series will be updated every Thursday and Friday.

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

“What are you handing me those for?” you asked when the man you had arranged to meet with at eleven shook your hand in greeting and then placed a pair of gumboots up on the hood of your car. You eyed the footwear and then looked back at Avery McConnell with interest.

Avery chuckled. “I know how expensive those boots are.”

“It’s not muddy, though. I’ve come at the end of spring.”

“You’re in for an awakening, Y/N. Trust me, put them on.”

You took Avery’s advice and followed him over to his truck. Climbing inside, you then glanced at your guide. “Thank you for meeting with me today.”

“Hey, it’s my pleasure. Always nice to see a new face once every three or so years,” he teased, and you laughed with him.

“So I’m learning. Not many venture out here.”

“It would be nice if people did.”

“Right?!” you enthused instantly, gesturing to the mountain ranges in the distance. “This place has so much untapped potential.”

“You won’t get to un-tap it, Y/N,” Avery told you upfront as he swung the vehicle out onto the main road. “But I wish there was a happy medium. If we could create more jobs and better housing, it would improve our farming. It’s hard to get help to come out here when services like Amazon don’t.”

“Wait, they don’t?!” you groaned heavily at the concept of not being able to order coffee pods in bulk.

“You’ll have to set up a PO Box in the township over. And if you need to have any internet meetings, it’ll be best to do them there too. The internet reaches out here, but the signal drops so frequently that no one bothers.”

“Why hasn’t anyone asked for services to be improved?” you asked and Avery smiled at you knowingly. “What? You can request cables to be laid, and I’m sure if you pay half the cost-”

“There’s not a huge focus on the internet out here when the sun rises in the morning for outdoor productivity. Most of us just have mobile phones to ring one another when we’re out on our property. And even then, the signal can be dodgy.”

“But there could be improvements,” you insisted, and Avery nodded.

“You’re persistent.”

“Well, it’s not the primitive age. I appreciate there’s a historical factor and a tight-knit community here, but this land is capital, and you could all win from some modern intervention.”

“I’m not your enemy,” Avery admitted, parking the car up on the side of a country lane. “I went to the city to escape how plain Blayne is.”

“You did?”

Avery nodded.

“Then how come you’re back?”

“It’s my home. It’s strange. Not a lot of people get why we live like this, but to us, it makes the most sense. Plus my old man got sick and needed me to help take care of the steer.”

“Okay, I’m going to sound really ignorant for a moment, but is a steer some kind of deer?”

“You came out here without knowing your basic farm animals, Y/N?” he asked with a laugh, and you rolled your eyes. “Come on I’ll show you why we need gumboots around here.”

Holding your nose, you attempted to listen to Avery’s speech about how the pigs of Blayne were some of the best meat pigs in the country. However, you were overstimulated by the smells and the sounds of the barn that you couldn’t quite keep up with the knowledge he was passing on to you.

“Ah, so this is where you were,” a voice mentioned, and you spun around, letting go of your nose and gasped for air. The newcomer smirked, his dimples deepening.

God, you wanted to hate him for being so attractive.

“You know me. I’ve got to help any damsel in distress out.”

“Where is she?” he teased, and you rolled your eyes. “Oh! Miss City, are you getting snippy with me?”

“Thank you for the warning about the owl.”

He grinned. “You’re welcome. So, seen enough pigs and want to go back to the city yet?”

“Not a chance.”

“That’s a pity, should we take her out into the cattle fields, Avery?”

“No need to be that eager to get rid of me,” you bit back and Avery, who had been watching the two of you, started to laugh heartily. You realised then how similar it sounded to May’s laugh. You pointed at him. “Wait, are you two-”

“Sadly, I’m related to him,” Avery admitted dramatically, and you glanced at the scowl on the other man’s face. “Come on Jaehyun, who wants to be your cousin anyway?”

“I never asked to be related to you either but here we are!”

“Jaehyun,” you breathed, and the man in question blinked at you curiously. “Oh, I didn’t get your name last night, you see.”

“I thought you had,” he answered back, grinning again. “Mr Cowboy, isn’t it?”

“Well, you do look like the typical cowboy in the movies when you go around in your boots and hat,” Avery defended, which you couldn’t help but snort a little at.

Jaehyun folded his arms across his chest. “Cattle fields, next. Right?”

You followed them out onto the field, watching where you stepped. Now you knew the reason for the boots. If there hadn’t been enough dung and muck in the pig barn, you certainly had seen more than enough of it out in this field. Climbing up the hill after the two men, you huffed at how easy it was for them.

“I guess there’s no need for a gym membership out here,” you muttered, sucking in a deep breath.

Jaehyun turned and looked at you then. “Come on, Miss City. The cows are over here.”

“I never wanted to see a damn cow, I came to survey the land for suitable resort spots,” you grumbled out of earshot, grateful when the slope evened out, and you reached the top of the field.

Stopping to catch your breath, you blinked at the view. In every direction you looked, the mountain range was so beautiful. All you could see was an expanse of land, which held a lot of possibilities. A golf course, a swimming and spa resort were merely two of the possibilities for Blayne’s development. Being close to nature whilst enjoying leisure pursuits could really put this place on the map.

You turned again, smiling at the wondrous thought of redevelopment until you saw what had come upon you. Backing up from the impossibly large beast, you raised your hands in defence.

“Nice cow.”

“She sure is a beaut, isn’t she?” a voice mentioned at your side, and you yelped in surprise, slipping on a cow patty.

Strong arms reached out to balance you before you hit the ground and you looked up into the face of your saviour, Jaehyun washing his gaze over you momentarily.

And then he started to laugh. “Wow, Miss City, you sure are jumpy! Feeling a little scared, are we?”

“You scared me first!”

“Was it me or the cow?” he questioned with a chuckle, and you yanked yourself free from Jaehyun’s grip, skirting around the curious animal and dashing over to Avery’s side.

He seemed equally amused. “You sure this is a place for you?”

“I’m adaptable,” you muttered, blinking rapidly.

Even you didn’t believe your words now.

“Wow, I’m exhausted,” you mentioned when you arrived back at your residence, falling down onto the couch with a groan.

Jaehyun had joined you for the rest of your exploration with Avery, much to your disdain. Every time you got close to discussing some sort of loose plan with the man, Jaehyun would distract you or shoot down your ideas entirely.

You glared up at the ceiling. “Stupid Cowboy. What would he know?”

The phone rang then, and you whined childishly, hauling yourself up from the couch and going over to answer it. “Oh good, you’re there!”

“Ah, yes. You have a nice home here, June.”

“You think so? It was once the home I raised my children in until we built the one we’re in now. Ah, that’s why I called you. I’ve made extra food and wanted to invite you around for dinner.”

“That’s too generous of you.”

“It’s the least I can do after knowing how long the boys had you out for. I told them to take it slow since you weren’t used to our ways yet. I bet your feet hurt.”

“They do, I’ll admit it,” you confessed and June giggled down the line with you.

“That’s it then! I’ll send Jaehyun around to fetch you!”

“Oh, it’s fine. I can drive myself there if you give me directions.”

“He’ll be there shortly, dearie. I pushed him out the door long before making this call.”

“Well, he should be here then,” you mentioned, glancing outside the house with some unease. “I’ll get ready!”

“See you soon, Y/N.”

After placing down the phone, you dashed upstairs to freshen up your appearance, pulling out a floral boho styled maxi dress that you had bought specifically for your country adventure. Picking up a straw hat and accessorising your middle with a woven belt, you laughed at how carefree you looked out of your usual business attire.

“He should be here by now,” you guessed, looking down the drive for Jaehyun’s truck. Collecting your bag, you stepped out of the house and locked it, slipping the keys into your purse and then jumped when you heard a loud whinny.

Turning to the field adjacent to the drive, you gaped at the sight before you. Jaehyun watched you for a moment before leaping down from the wagon. “It’s a good thing I had to run errands for Dad and didn’t bring a horse for you to ride instead, huh?”

“You didn’t bring the truck?”

“You asked if it was legal yesterday. I doubt you would have gotten in it.”

You eyed the large animal warily. “And you expect me to get up there?”

“Miss City, don’t tell me you’re scared of a mere horse. Back before any car, they were man’s best friend.”

“I thought that was a dog,” you murmured as Jaehyun leapt back up onto the cushioned seat of the wagon, his hand reaching down for yours.

“Ever seen a dog plough a field for crops?” Jaehyun asked with a chuckle, his grip firm around your wrist as he helped you up.

You sat down and looked around yourself hopelessly. “Do I need a seatbelt?”

“You really haven’t experienced much in life, have you, Miss-”

“Y/N,” you interjected, smiling nervously. “Please, call me Y/N.”

Jaehyun stared at you again and then smiled, picking up the reins. “You can hold onto me if you get scared, Y/N. I won’t tell anyone that our city slicker is frightened to ride on a horse wagon.”

“Why did I agree to go out tonight?” you wondered with a groan, shrieking and grabbing onto the front of the wagon when it started to move. Jaehyun laughed at you before eagerly asking the animal to move faster, your hands gripping on more tightly to the bar. “You’re working too hard to get rid of me, Jaehyun.”

“Really? Is it that noticeable?” he wondered and smiled when he watched you loosen your grip. “You’re adapting to this pretty well, though.”

It was your turn to look at him, a smile forming on your lips. “I am, huh.”

He glanced at you and nodded. “Who knows, maybe you’ll last more than a week.”

“Talk to me again when I make it to a month.”

“You’ll be riding a horse by that time,” he suggested, and you scoffed loudly.

“No, thank you. I’m not here to play farm. I’m here to work.”

“Farming is one of the hardest jobs out there. I thought you were here to see how us Blayners tick?”

“Well…”

“I guess you better think about what you’ll wear for a horse riding lesson tomorrow then.”

“I never agreed to it,” you objected and then sat back in your seat when Jaehyun leaned towards you.

“I like your dress by the way. It’s pretty.”

“Still full of yourself,” you mumbled, fanning your cheeks with how hot they grew with his compliment.

Jaehyun grinned. “Still enjoying it, aren’t we?”

_________________

Part 4

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[alicedopey]

Gratulerer med dagen

Fandom: Vikings

Genre: Fluff , Modern AU

Pairing: Harald x Reader

Warning: None

Words: 1785

Summary: You haven’t been feeling well because of a loss and Harald wants to make you feel better for your birthday.

A/N: This is written for my dear @gearhead66​ to celebrate her birthday. I’m sorry for the delay, love and I hope you will like it. Huge thanks to my other half here @naaladareia​ for the wonderful moodboard.  Also, I took the liberty to imagine lockdown was over everywhere. 

Harald looked at you, sleeping peacefully in the care while he was driving. You needed to rest, this year had been rough enough – and it was only halfway done. Losing your aunt had been hard on you and this broke Harald’s heart every time he read some sadness in your eyes. He knew how it felt to lose someone dear. His parents had died in a car crash when he and Halfdan were teenagers, and they only had one another to rely on. They never really felt at ease with anyone apart from each other and it was still like that today… well, until he met you.

You represented what Harald had craved for his whole life, a woman to love who would love him in return. Right now, he wanted to do everything in his power to keep you happy and satisfied – hence his plans for today to celebrate your very special day. It was a good thing lockdown was over in the USA or everything would have been ruined.

After the funeral, he knew he had to take you far away from your place. He suggested to go and visit his family, meaning Halfdan in Norway.

“What about my dog?” You had exclaimed.

“We will take him, of course.” He smiled. How could he leave behind the fluffy thing that brought them together?

The day you met was still on his mind. You were walking two dogs when he first saw you, smiling and laughing at their antics. He liked you instantly, even more when he got to know you. First, he had invited you for coffee a few times then for dinner when he had tried to cook a nice meal at his place. Trying was the word since their main course had ended up burnt in the oven. You had laughed and promised to teach him a few things. In the meantime, he bought some sweet things for you to enjoy.

It’s been a year now and he had felt it was the right time for you and his brother to meet. Halfdan had always been the odd one but you got along quite well with him. Well enough for you to trust him to take care of your dog for the day while the two of you were away. His brother was good with animals, not with women. Harald could not even count the number of girls he had scared away. He was a free bird, enjoying women from time to time but never committing. So, he often mocked his brother for searching love so frantically. Harald did not care and kept searching. Now, he had finally found the one and he would not let go.

Here he was, driving from Oslo to his secret destination. He had woken you up at dawn this morning and you had not stopped grumbling until he had told you that you looked like the dog you used to take care of. You had struck out your tongue at him and hopped in the car in silence. Then, you had fallen asleep instantly.

The sun was high in the sky when they finally reached Trondheim. Perfect. He parked the car and gently shook you awake. You slowly opened your eyes.

“We’re there, love.”

Rubbing your eyes, you threw a look outside to try and guess where you had stopped.

“We are in Trondheim. Do you want to get a closer look?”

“Why not?” You both exited the car. Harald put his huge backpack on and he gave you yours.

“First stop?”

“Lead the way, Sir.” He kissed you softly and took you by the hand. You stopped in front of a huge cathedral.

“Wow…this is beautiful”. You whispered, in awe.

“It is, isn’t it? This is the Nidaros Cathedral. Want to get inside?”

“Please.” You almost pleaded. The moment you set a foot inside the Cathedral, you were amazed by its architecture, a beautiful mix of Roman and Gothic styles.

“It was built from 1080 to 1300 and had been the place where the Norwegian Kings are crowned since the Middle Ages.”

He knew he had captured your interest, then. You were really fond of history.

“So, Harald V was crowned here?” You asked and he nodded. “I guess it means that you would be crowned in this Cathedral if you ever became Harald VI, King of all Norway.”

Harald rolled his eyes. “You definitely watch this show too much.”

But he liked it as well and the way you would compare his life to the ‘real’ Harald’s life. He did not mind because he was assuredly more in luck than the lonely king you were so fond of.

Harald let you wander around the place and take a lot of pictures. He sometimes added some historical comments to which you listened intently. When you went out, it was noon. Your stomach grumbled loudly.

“What?” You said when you saw he was smiling. “You woke me up really early and I did not have time to eat. I’m hungry.”

“Then I think you will like our next stop.”

To your surprise, Harald did not take the direction of the town center. “Don’t worry.” He explained when he saw your interrogative stare. “I know a better place than here. The town is really nice, and I promise we will come back someday, but it is too noisy for what I have in mind.”

You went back to the car. Harald drove for a few miles before parking in a beautiful green valley full of trees surrounded by a lake.

“Let me introduce you to the Golden Road or as we call it, Gyldne Omvei.”

“Harald, this is breathtaking.” He chuckled lightly and kissed your forehead.

“Let’s go get some lunch.”

You found yourself in front of a nice little restaurant, Gulburet. Inside, it looked like a farm. It was warm and cozy.

A middle-aged plump woman welcomed you. “Hallo, vellkommen.”

You let Harald do the talking then you sat down at a nice wooden table.

“I know it’s not much but I can assure you will like it. The food is really good and they have a lot of Norwegian specialties.”

“My dear, dear King Harald…” You set a comforting hand on his. “I love it. You couldn’t have pleased me more.”

They were served different homemade meals: soup, bread, goat cheese from the local farms and a large piece of Fyrstekake, an almond and cardamom pie. The meal was simple but absolutely delicious.

Afterwards, he watched with a tender smile as you listened to the stories told by the host, giving a good impression of farm life over a 100 years ago. The stories, told in English especially for you, had caught your attention and you were listening to every word that came out of her mouth. It was a relief to see you so enthusiast about something after the troubled times you had to go through.

When the story was finished, you fiercely hugged him. Harald simply hugged you back and you stayed there for a while, enjoying each other’s embraces.

“Ready for more?”

You tilted your head upwards to look him in the eye. “We are not done?”

He shook his head. “Far from it. Brace yourself though because there will be a lot of walking.”

He let go of you and handed you your backpack. “Argh walking?”

“Yes, grumpy girl.” He kissed the tip of your nose. “I promise you won’t regret it though.”

He was right, you did not regret it. Harald took you to Inderøy where you visited two medieval churches and there also was a lot of hiking. It did not bother you. The trails were not that difficult to walk on and the landscape was so beautiful. It was this wonderful mixture of valleys and mountains, green and blue in front of your eyes with every step you took. That could easily make you forget you had been walking for hours.

“And there’s our final stop.”

You lifted your head at Harald’s words. The sun was slowly setting down on the valley, its numerous colors being reflected in the lake downwards.

Lost in the amazing view the Norwegian landscapes were offering, you did not hear Harald coming near you. He circled your waist and set his head on your left shoulder.

“You like that?” He kissed your ear, tickling your skin with his beard.

“It’s wonderful”. You whispered, putting your hands over his. “This day was wonderful…thank you.”

“Everything for you, my sweet…and I’m not quite done yet.”

He made you turn around and you discovered he had set down a whole picnic on a blanket.

You looked at him, amazed.

“So that’s what you’ve been hiding in this huge thing all day.” You exclaimed and lightly punched his shoulder.

“What can I say? I’m a man full of surprises.”

He helped you sit down on the blanket and took place near you. Then he filled two glasses with champagne before giving you one.

“Gratulerer med dagen, my love.” His glass clinked with yours.

You watched him closely, tilting your head on the side. “You just wished me a happy birthday, right?” He nodded. “Harald, thank you for today, for all of this. I didn’t know I needed it but it helped a lot.”

As you took a sip of champagne to fight back the emotions that were invading your heart, Harald squeezed your hand to comfort you.

“You don’t have to thank me. I did it gladly and I would do it again without a hesitation. Losing someone is never easy and it also made me realize how unbearable it would be for me if I lost you. I could not imagine my life without you. In fact, I want to tell the whole world that you are mine as much as I am yours.”

You gasped as Harald pulled a little velvety box from his pocket.

“Harald, are you…?”

He opened the box to reveal a white gold ring set with diamonds. “Y/N, will you marry me?” He asked with his deep hoarse voice that always sent shivers running down your spine.

“Oh…err…of course. Yes! Yes! I will marry you!”

Your half full glass fell on the blanket as you threw yourself in his arms. You exchanged a few kisses, laughing and crying at the same time. Then Harald put the engagement ring on your finger. You admired it, your eyes still full of tears.

You looked at your Northern man before saying “Jeg elsker deg*, my King.” His eyes widened so much you laughed. “Yes, I did some research. I can speak Norwegian too, you know.”

He chuckled. “Jeg elsker deg også**, my Queen.”

* Jeg elsker deg: Je t’aime

** Jeg elsker deg også: Je t’aime aussi

Tagging (tell me if you want to be added or removed): @naaladareia​ @gearhead66​ @therealcalicali​ @tephi101​ @maggiescarborough​ @peaceisadirtyword​ @mblaqgi​ @flowers-in-your-hayr​ @captstefanbrandt​ @medievalfangirl​ @girlonfireice 

[is0gild]

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 1

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 5,353

NEXT CHAPTER || NEWEST CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented @ky-jane​

“Alright, Elsa, what’s the plan here?”

My reflection in the changing room mirror stared back at me with a pointed look.

“Me?!” My hand flew up to my chest, fingers splayed as I breathed out a strained chuckle.  “You think I know what to do?  You do realize who we’re talking about here, right?”

She frowned at me, eyelids drooping.

“Ugh, I know, I know I need to call them, don’t remind me!” I tossed my hands up and turned my back on the mirror as I began to pace in the tiny box of a room.  I hugged one arm around my abdomen while I brought the other up so I could bite my thumbnail.  “It’s just… It’s a lot to take in! They won’t understand, hell, I don’t even understand! I’m supposed to be the good girl! The one that always follows the rules and does as she’s told, the one that can do no wrong.  They’ll…”

I froze mid step as my eyes fell on the heaping pile of alabaster silk, lace and tulle laying in a rumpled pile on the ugly carpet not a few inches from my feet.  I winced.  “...they’ll be so disappointed. Their perfect girl is gone.”  Sighing, I shook my head and turned back towards my reflection once more, gripping the edges of the mirror.  “I can’t talk to them right now, I just can’t.  I should wait.  Give them time to cool off and... and to process.  Yeah, that’d be better, right? ...right?”

She stared back at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

I scowled.  “Oh, you’re no help.”

“Hoo-hoo!”  A sudden knock at the door made me jump as my heart leapt up into my throat.  “Everything okay, deary? Who are you talking to in there?”

“Er… fine!” I called out. Was that a tremor in my voice? Dammit, girl, learn to keep your cool.  Clearing my throat, I tried again.  “Everything’s fine!  And no one!  Talking to, that is.  I’m talking to no one!”  Wait. No. That sounded crazy.  “Uh… I mean, talking to myself!” I flinched, slumping back against a wall and lightly banging my head against it. Not much better.  “Talking?  What talking?  There’s no talking going on in here!” Cue nervous chuckle.

Smooth.

“Oh? Must be hearing things then. Oh well!” I listened to his retreating footsteps until I couldn’t hear them anymore.

Releasing the small breath I’d been holding, I looked myself over in the mirror once more.  The price tags were still sticking out of the powder blue sundress and ankle boots I was wearing. They’d just been the first things I’d grabbed on entering this store, I’d hardly even looked at them before running straight back to the dressing rooms.  Thankfully, fate or luck or whatever you wanted to call it seemed to have smiled upon me, at least in that second, for they’d turned out to be in my size.  Yanking the tags off, I then squinted at my platinum blonde hair in the reflection, still up in the tight, elegant bun from-

I grimaced, quickly shutting down that train of thought as I started yanking out all the bobby pins. After dropping what felt like a million of those wiry little jerks to the floor, the bun loosened and unwound into a thick braid falling down my spine.  Sweeping it forward over one shoulder and brushing my bangs back, I then gave myself one last hard look.  My skin was even paler than usual, making my faint freckles stand out for once against my face.  I took a second to try and slap some color back into my drained cheeks before stabbing an index finger up against the glass, hissing, “Keep it together, you got this.”

Blue eyes blinked back at me owlishly.

“...I hope,” I muttered, shoulders slumping.  But then with renewed resolve, I straightened up once more, cast one last sour look at the giant, fluffy garment discarded on the ground before turning my back on it and marching out of the changing room door.

“Hoo-hoo!”

I jerked back as the cheerful voice pierced the air, what little courage I’d manage to piece together already fluttering away like a frightened bird.  Heart pounding in my ears, I looked past the racks and racks of secondhand clothing to the source, a burly, rosy cheeked man standing behind the register counter, waggling his fingers at me as he flashed a warm little smile.

“That looks very nice on you, deary, if I do say so myself,” he chirped. “And you’re in luck! It’s part of our big summer blowout, so it’s fifty percent off!”

Ah. Right. Munny. A means of purchasing goods. A thing of which I had very little in that exact moment.

None, in fact.

Not even so much as a credit card.

“Th-thanks,” I stammered, quickly looking away as I twisted my braid and tried to steady my breathing. Think, think, think… how was I going to get out of this?  …I wished Anna were here. She’d know exactly what to do. She was always so much better at this whole… impulsive… thing.  For now, I just needed to buy more time to think.

Act normal.  I could do that at the very least, right?

Conceal, don’t feel.  Don’t let him know.

“I… think I’ll just browse a little more… if you don’t mind,” I managed to get out, going to the nearest rack and idly thumbing through a few of the outfits on hangers.

“Of course, of course, be my guest,” he said, tapping his fingers together happily.  “I must say, you were quite the sight when you came bursting in here! It’s not everyday someone rushes into my shop dressed in a-”

“Costume party!” I blurted out, my fingers spasming and knocking one of the hangers from the rung, the shirt draped on it crumpling to the carpet.  I snatched it up and hastily shoved it back onto the rack.  “I just came from a… a costume party, that’s all.” My hand trembled and I balled it into a fist, hiding it behind my back.

Don’t let him in, don’t let him see.

“Oh! How delightful, a party! Well, you must have been the belle of the ball, deary!”

I hummed out a soft, curt laugh, my lips pressed into a tight smile.  “I just left it back there.  In the dressing room.  You can have it if you, ah, if you like.  I’m not attached to it.”

His lips formed a tiny O, but then the smile was already back. “In that case, I'll knock ten percent off your purchase,” he proudly held up all ten fingers to emphasize what a deal he was offering. “Sound fair?”

“...sure.”

Now how to pay for the other ninety percent?

Forget it. Surprisingly, that was actually the least of my worries at the moment. I had much, much bigger problems to deal with.  Like what on earth I was even going to do once I stepped out those automatic doors and back onto the bustling city streets.  I had nowhere to go.  No one to turn to. No-

I inhaled sharply, my eyes widening and my fingers flying to my temples as my breathing became shallow again.

...where was I even going to sleep tonight?

On the streets? That’s a thing some people actually did, right? But how to even pick the right street, a safe street? It’s not like the homeless left online reviews with a star rating system on which alleys were primo bunking spots.

...oh dear lord, was I homeless now?

“Focus, Elsa, focus! Get it together,” I whispered harshly at myself.  Out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed my new friend behind the cash register giving me a funny look.

Reminder to self: act normal.  Normal… you remember how to do that, right?

Okay, breathe in.  Breathe out.  Let’s figure this out, calmly and rationally.  Let’s start with what city we’re in.  Oh gosh, what was it called again?  I’d only said and heard it a million times in the last few months leading up to this day, but now my mind was drawing a total blank.  Started with a T… Twi… something.  Twixt… Twisted… Twirling…

Twilight! That was it!  Twilight Town.

Wait… Twilight Town?  There was something about that name… something from a long time ag-

Ah!  Wasn’t Twilight Town where she had been from?

...oh wow, it’d been years since I’d even thought of her.  Goodness, did she even still live here?

I glanced towards the salesman again. He beamed and wriggled his fingers at me in another tiny wave, “Hoo-hoo!”

I blanched, eyes snapping back down to the hanging clothes before me, heart hammering in my chest.

Dammit, girl, grow a backbone already.

Gulping down my anxiety, I looked to him again, plastering what I hoped could pass for a friendly, if somewhat shaky grin to my face and approaching the register.  “Would you, um, would you possibly have a… a White Pages back there, maybe?”

“Of course, deary,” he ducked down behind the counter before coming back up, plopping down the massive book in question before me. “Take all the time you need, I’ll be right over there.” He pointed to a large box in one corner of the store packed high with clothes, probably in need of sorting and price tags.  “Just give a shout when you’re ready to ring up.”

“Thanks,” I murmured, watching him walk off before pulling the phone book closer to me and cracking it open somewhere in the middle.

Let’s see… last name… it’d been Hewley, right?  I began rapidly flipping through the pages until I found the one I was looking for, lightly running my index finger down the column as my eyes scanned.

Hewley, R… Hewley, R… ah-ha, there!  Oh fudge, none of the first names had been fully printed, just that damn first initial of R.  My lips pursed to one side as I squinted down at the page.  Oh well, it wasn’t that big of a list.  “Excuse me?” I called back to the man and he looked up, a dark turquoise dress folded over one arm and a pair of boots in hand.  “Would I be able to use your phone? Er… please?”

“Ah,” he tsked sadly. “Sorry, deary, it’s busted!”

“Oh. A-alright.” I frowned back down at the list of names.  Now what? Not like I could use a pay phone. Still had that whole munny problem, as in not having any.  Did pay phones even still exist? Ugh, so not the thing to be focusing on right now! Maybe... I could ask someone on the street if I could borrow their phone?

My nose scrunched up and I shook my head. No.  Hell no. Talk to a stranger? Me? Please. Even talking to this guy here was a major feat for me and he was paid to put up with me.

Sighing, I read over the list again, then blinked.  Huh… addresses were included…

I looked to the employee on the opposite end of the store, who was currently faced away from me.  Then my gaze flicked back down to the White Pages.  Then at the doors leading outside.  Back to him.  To the book.  To the doors.  To the book.  My eyes widened and my pulse spiked once more.

… I’m not seriously thinking what I think I’m thinking, am I?

“Hey!” he gasped.  “What are you-?!”

Apparently I was.

For I’d already snatched the phone book up, clutching its open pages to my chest and pounding my soon-to-be officially shoplifted boots against the carpet as I bolted for the sliding glass doors.  I yelled over my shoulder, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I… I’ll bring it back! All of it, the book, the clothes, everything, I promise! I just, I need to borrow them, just... just for a bit!”

“Get back here!” He charged after me, somehow suddenly looking ten times bigger and ten times more intimidating.

I squeaked, eyes forward once more as I forced every last ounce of speed out of my legs that they could muster.  The doors glided open just enough for me to squeeze through in time and I stumbled outside, staggering into a sharp turn before booking it.  Luckily, the sidewalks were crowded and I’d had just enough of a head start.  It wasn’t long before I managed to lose him, ducking behind the corner of one building. I pressed my back against the wall, panting heavily.

So, so sorry, you oddly super nice yet super terrifying man! But I was really going to return it all, I swear!

I just needed to find her first!  Which shouldn’t take long, right?

After all, it wasn’t like I was going to have to check every name on the list, right?

Answer: yes. I’d had to check all of them.

Every.

Single.

Last.

One.

On the whole goddamn frigging list. And every single last one? Hadn’t been her. I didn’t even want to think about the sheer number of intercoms I’d buzzed or doors I’d knocked on, each one more nerve-racking than the last as I waited, chest tightening and hands clammy, to hear or see who’d answer.  And each one a disappointment. I shuddered as I recalled the last one, still disturbingly fresh in my mind. He’d looked me up and down, given me a smile that’d made my skin crawl and told me while he didn’t know anyone by that name, he’d gladly give me a place to sleep tonight and I could call him anything I liked.

And here I’d thought I’d sprinted with everything I had when I’d swiped this phone book, but my legs had proved me wrong in that second when I immediately turned and gave Speedy Gonzales a run for his munny to get away from that creep.  Bleh!

Sighing, I glanced back down at the book, cradled close in my arms and still open to the same page.  There was only one name left at the bottom of the list.  This was it.  My last chance.

Looking up again, I hesitantly crept down the hallway inside the apartment building, my eyes shifting from one door to the next, searching for the unit number that matched the address in the phone book.  I passed a window, outside of which it was dark save for a few stars sparkling here and there.  Night had already fallen.  I’d been at this all afternoon.  My legs were tired, my feet sore, and I was just about ready to collapse.

“Three seventeen… three eighteen… ah!  Here it is, three nineteen!” I stopped in front of the door, taking a deep breath before slowly releasing it.  Then balancing the White Pages in one hand, I curled the other into a fist, raised it towards the door and-

-stopped just short of it.

For it’d just suddenly struck me... 

...what… was I going to do… if this wasn’t her either?  My hand, still hovering just an inch from the door, began to quake.  This… really was it. I had no other options. I couldn’t go back. There was no way, just no way. Not even Anna could help me, otherwise I might just drag her down with me. My vision began to blur as I felt a wetness at the corner of my eyes.  If… if I-

No. Stop it. Suck it up, hold it back.  Just… hold it back.

I angrily swiped at my eyes, blinking several times until they cleared once more.  Then squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I rapped my knuckles firmly against the door. And I waited.

Everything would work out.  It’d all be fine.  This would be her.  This had to be her.

I heard a click on the other side of the door and my breath hitched.  Slowly it creaked open and there, standing in a faded black tank top and sweatpants, was…

...a man.

An admittedly quite pretty man, with his bright blue-green eyes and ashen hair down to his mid back currently pulled back into a loose ponytail.

But still... a man.

He cocked an eyebrow at me.  “Can I help you?”

It wasn’t her. Because she was a she, and this before me was very much a he.  And she wasn’t a he.

...not unless she’d made a very big, very life altering decision…

But no, he looked nothing like her, not even the same eye color. This couldn’t be her.

“Uh… hello?” he squinted at me, waving a hand in front of my face and I jerked back, blinking a couple times.  “Anyone in there?”

Oh. Right. Talking. That was a thing I should be doing.

I cuddled the book closer to my chest, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.  “Um, h-hi.  Is… Living here, is there a…” I stopped, my mouth going dry.

What was the point of even asking? I already knew the answer he’d give me. It’d be the same answer all the other names on the list had given me.  She wasn’t here.  She wasn’t anywhere.  It’d been a long shot, I don’t even know why I’d gotten my hopes up.  She’d probably moved out of town years ago.

I… was all alone with no place to stay.

I felt my eyes start to brim over and my bottom lip quiver.

He blanched.  “Oh shit, are you okay?” he asked, an awkward hand stretching out towards me, but immediately halting and wavering, clearly at a complete and utter loss for what to do.

I couldn’t hold it back anymore.

The metaphorical dam burst, tears pouring down my cheeks as I sunk down to the ground and buried my face in the pages of the phone book.

I hardly even heard it as he called over his shoulder, voice distraught, “Honey? Could you come out here for a minute? Please?!”

I was going to have to live in a box on the streets. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it’d be a nice box. A box with a view. A deluxe box. A fancy box, with like a Prada or Rolex logo printed on the side.

“What is it? Why are you-” a new voice joined the conversation, cut off by a gasp and a stuttering of footsteps.  Then there was a loud, distinctive smack, followed by the man emitting a pained grunt.  “What did you do?!”

I was going to have to get a roommate so I wouldn’t be lonely in my Rolex box.  That roommate would be a cockroach, of course, since I’d be living on the streets. Her name would be Carol.

“Whaddya mean, what did I do?!”

“There’s a woman sitting on our welcome mat weeping into a phone book, Riku! I ask again. What. Did. You. Do?!”

Carol would probably hog the shower every morning. Sounds like something Carol would do. Carol always seemed like a selfish hag.

“I didn’t do anything! I just opened the door!”  Another thwack and another yelp.  “What was that one for?!”

“It must have been how you opened the door! You have a very off-putting way of opening doors!”

But then, it was a Rolex box on the street, so it wouldn’t be so much a shower as a grimy, gutter puddle. Wouldn’t make a difference to Carol though.  Ugh, that wretch Carol. Always such a puddle hog.

“How?! How does one be off-putting when opening a goddamn-”

“Shush! What’s she saying?”

“No clue, she’s just been sobbing incoherent gibberish this whole time.”

Crud, had I been saying all that stuff aloud? At least it had been drowned out by all my blubbering, otherwise they would have thought me insane. Well… more insane than they probably already did, what with me being the whackjob wailing uncontrollably on some random strangers’ door step.

“Wait… hold up…” the second voice lowered hesitantly.  “Is that… you? ...Elsa?”

I stiffened, my eyes snapping open and my head jerking up. Next to the guy now was some chick, her long, messy black hair framing her face as she bent forward slightly for a better look at me, her gold eyes wide and searching.

Was it… really her?  Was it…

“...Rayne?” I croaked out, punctuated by a sniffle.

Her hands flew up to her mouth.  “Oh wow, it really is you!” Brow furrowing now, she tentatively reached for me.  “Sweetie, what’s wrong? Why are you-”

“Oh my god, Rayne!” I bawled, on my feet in a flash and throwing myself at her. She caught me, stumbling back a step as I threw my free arm around her to clutch at her shoulders while the other still grasped the now thoroughly soggy book between us.  “It’s you, it really is you! Thank god! I’m so happy! Now I don’t have to live in a box with Carol!”

“Um, I’m… happy for you?” she gingerly patted me on the back, glancing to the guy, who merely shrugged.  “But… what’s wrong? What on earth are you doing here?”

I pulled away, fingers digging into one of her sleeves now as the words started to rush out of me. “I couldn’t go through with it! I just couldn’t! It was all too much! The music, the chandeliers, the people, the, the… him! Especially him! Because that’s all it was going to ever be, was him! Just him! That’s it! The end! It's what he wanted, and it's what they wanted but what about me and what I wanted? Oh sure, I thought it was what I wanted at first, but then I started to think about it, really think about it and I didn't know anymore and I just got scared and it just… I didn’t, I couldn’t... I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t stay! I had to get out of there, to run, to escape! Anna helped and-” My breath caught in my throat and I folded my fingers against my lips, pressing hard, making my knuckles turn white.  “Oh no! All those people! What will they think? What will they say? Wha-” Another pause, this one with a scowl and a shake of my head.  “No. No, no, no, I don’t care! I don’t care what they’re going to say, they can take their hoity-toity opinions and shove it up their hoity-toity a-”

“Elsa!” she snapped, grabbing me by the shoulders.  “Elsa, Elsa, stop! You’re not making any sense! Slow down, breathe! Words generally make more sense when they have spaces between them, you should try it sometime.”

I clasped a hand over my mouth, inhaling and exhaling rapidly through my nose.

Her eyelids drooped and she sighed, reaching out to wipe some of my tears away.  “Just… come inside and sit down so we can talk.”

She took my hand in hers and led me into the apartment, the guy stepping in after and clicking the door shut behind us.  The flat was modest, with a little kitchenette off to my left. The living room had blue carpets and sandy colored walls decorated with island paintings and what looked to be some sort of yellow, star-shaped fruit preserved in resin hanging in a glass case. I numbly followed behind her as she gently pulled me towards the nearest couch.

There was a cold hardness that I suddenly became aware of pressing into my palm and I looked down at where Rayne’s hand held mine as she tugged me along.  That’s when I saw it.  The plain, elegantly understated little silver band.

Wrapped around her ring finger.

I came to a screeching halt with a gasp, yanking her hand up to my face and forcing a yelp out of her as she stumbled back towards me.  “You got married?!”

Scratching her cheek with her free hand, she shrugged. “Uh, well, ye-”

“I didn’t know you got married!  You!” I dragged her over to the man, shoving the beringed hand in front of his nose. “Did you know she got married?!”

He staggered back a tiny step, his wide eyes darting from me to Rayne and back. Then he tentatively raised his own hand and pointed to the matching band he was wearing.  “...sorta the one she’s married to.”

My eyes were welling up once more.  “That’s… that’s… Congratulations!” I was all but attacking her with another tight hug and she wheezed out an oof.  “I’m so happy for you!”

“Thanks,” she chuckled softly.  “Also… kinda have a baby on the way too, actually.”

“A baby?!” I tore myself away to gape at her.  Then at her stomach.  She was hardly even showing.  “A baby!” I looked to her husband. “Did you know she has a baby?! In there?!” I pointed at her belly.

He glanced away, scratching the back of his head with the barest hint of a blush and pleased little grin twitching at one corner of his lips.  “...sorta the one who put it in there.”

“Riku!” Rayne hissed.

“What?!”

With a grumbling huff, she turned her back on him and stomped the rest of the way over to the sofa with me in tow, putting her hands on my shoulders and pushing me down to sit.  She then plopped down across from me, using the coffee table as a makeshift bench.

“Enough about me. Let’s try this again.  Why are you here?  Don’t get me wrong, sweetie, I’m delighted you’re here, but I haven’t seen you since we were kids. Tell me what happened, why are you crying?” I opened my mouth and took a deep, deep breath, but then she poked an index finger to my lips, silencing me before I’d even begun. “Hold it. Hmmmm,” she narrowed her eyes, pressing her hands together and bringing her fingers up to her mouth.  “...let’s try more specific questions, shall we?  Let’s start with where the phone book came from?” she said, carefully removing said item from my grasp and handing it to Riku, who blinked and frowned but took it.

Alright, let’s try not to overwhelm her this time. Put a muzzle on the motormouth. Keep it concise. To the point.

“I stole it,” I said simply.

“You…” her eyebrows shot up into her bangs before she shook her head.  “Okay, why did you steal it?”

“Because the phone was busted.”

Her head tipped to one side. “The phone…?”

I nodded earnestly.  “These clothes too.”

“Those clothes…” her gaze flicked to my sundress and boots before meeting mine again.  “...are… also busted?”

“No. Stolen. I stole them too.”

“Oh.” She and Riku exchanged a glance.  “Alright... why?”

My shoulders bobbed. “Because I had no munny.”

“Had no…?” her head rocked back at that. “But… but you’re you, how could you possibly-” she cut herself off, scrunching up her nose with a sour twist to her lips.  “Okay, just… help me out here and walk me through this. What happened? From the beginning.”

From the beginning? Really? Well alright, she asked for it.

“We - he and I, that is - knew each other from childhood. Our families were close, so it only made sense that we played together, grew up together, spent time together. Then in high school, we started- well, of course we did, it only made sense, right? Everyone said it made sense and that it was only a matter of time and I figured they were right, so I did. We did.”

I shot up from my seat and began pacing, Riku having to stumble back to get out of my way. My words started blurring into each other, tumbling out faster and faster as I wrung my hands together.

“Before I knew it, years had gone by and we were in our senior year of college and he was asking me and I was saying yes. I mean, of course, I said yes.  He was him, I was me, his family was his family, my family was my family, it only made sense, right? And oh, my parents would be so thrilled, they liked him so much and sure, I liked him too I guess, so…” I shrugged, flinging my hands up, “...why not?”

Rayne had stood up by now, attempting to interject, “Sweetie, sweetie, calm down,” as her fingers snatched for my arm, but I absently evaded as my pacing quickened.

“So we graduated and we planned.  Oh my god,” I groaned, “so much planning, so many people, I just couldn’t, ugh- Luckily mother handled most of it, you’d think she was the one who was- Anyway, it was all falling into place. The musicians, the catering, the cake, the flowers, the dress, the place, the- oh my god, the place! Radiant Garden! What a lovely building, the perfect venue, so gorgeous with all those fountains and leaves and vines and marble, right in the middle of the beautiful city of Twilight Town and- Twilight Town! That’s what brought me here, right now, to you! Is I recalled that’s where you were from! Remember, you told me, back at our first year of summer camp? You remember camp, right? What was that one counselor’s name,” I snapped my fingers repeatedly in quick succession, “oh, Anna loved him so much… Olaf! That was it, right? The short, pudgy one with the thinning hair and big nose and adored everything about summer and liked warm hugs and-”

“Elsa!” Rayne grabbed my face, squishing my cheeks together, getting me to stop for a second. “I-”

But one second was all she was going to get.

“Right. Off topic.” My expression hardened as I yanked my head free of her grasp and resumed pacing once more. “Back track. Rewind. So. It finally came. The day. You know… The Day. And I was there. I was in the back, by myself, in my dress, in my makeup, thinking this is it. This is what it all comes to. This is my life. My future. Then it hit me.” I halted mid step, spinning on my heel to look her in the eye and said dead serious, “He hates dogs.”

She blinked once, then twice.  “He…?”

“Hates dogs, yes. Oh sure, he claims he’s allergic, but I’ve seen him around dogs before and he hasn’t sneezed. Not once. And I love dogs. I’ve always wanted one. A giant white one bigger than me that’s just pure fluff on four legs with floppy ears and a curly tail and I’d name it Marshmallow because how perfect would that be and- Anyway, I realized that was never gonna happen now, not with him hating dogs! And who hates dogs anyway?! They’re dogs, Rayne! Dogs! And that’s… that’s just when it all started falling apart!”

Was I hyperventilating? Pretty sure I was hyperventilating.

“And I just… I suddenly had so many questions! Was this really what I wanted? Why was I doing this? Because it’s what he wanted? Because it would please my parents? Because it’s what everyone said would happen? Because it made sense? Do I even love him? And it just struck me… no! No, I don’t think I do!  I don’t think I ever did!”

My steps began to falter, the room felt like it was spinning.

“That’s when… That’s when Anna came to get me, and she took one look at me and she... she just knew!  Somehow, she knew! And she didn’t even have to say anything, she was already helping me.  Before I realized it, she’d managed to jimmy open a window in the back, this really teeny-tiny window, I don’t even know how I managed to get through it, big poofy, frilly dress and all, but I did and I just started running and running and-”

Rayne grabbed my hands and jerked me into a staggering stop, shouting, “Elsa!” I looked at her, eyes round and panting, wobbling slightly where I stood. She returned my gaze, brow furrowing and saying gently, “Are you… Were you going to get… Was today supposed to be your… wedding day?”

“I…”

Was it getting darker in here? I was suddenly feeling so tired.

“I…”

I blacked out.

Author’s note: So in this AU, Elsa is an antisocial emotional basket case and when she loses control of her emotions, instead of unleashing a burst of ice, she unleashes a burst of nervous babbling xD Sorry, no Lea yet this chapter, I feel like there’s no harm in telling you all now, he doesn’t show up until the end of chapter 3! Please be patient with me for a couple chapters while I do some setup first to get Elsa where she needs to be before the fluffy romcom shenanigans can truly begin. Please just stick it out until the end of chapter 3 and I'm pretty sure you'll be sucked in by then :) Oh, and Rayne is my friend’s OC, much love and many thanks to her for letting me borrow her!

NEXT CHAPTER || NEWEST CHAPTER

[gigi-sinclair]

It’s @ferrame‘s birthday!!!!!!

If you don’t know, this is the author of the definitive John Irving/Tom Hartnell modern AU, I dreamed of the fine deep harbour I’d find, as well as the entire Another New World series, which is A-MAZING.

As a little birthday gift, I have the first part of an untitled Irving/Hartnell plane crash AU I will likely never finish, and which was going to be super sad if I did. (Hint: Tom’s brother died of cancer several years before the story is set.) Rated M for a bit of naughtiness. 

Happy Birthday @ferrame!

Tom arrives at his parents' house just as the snow begins to fall.

Betsy is the only one of the kids still at home, but their parents still decorate as much as they always did. The same wreath—faux pine branches with Styrofoam apples and wall-eyed wooden birds—is on the front door. The same string of multicoloured bulbs hangs from the eaves. There is a new addition: a wire-framed reindeer lit up in the middle of the front garden, snowflakes landing on its back, its antlers, its festive red scarf. With a smile, Tom raises his hand to ring the bell.

It seems the polite thing to do, given he no longer lives there. When there's no answer, he slips his key into the lock. The hall is in darkness, but firelight flickers from the direction of the front room. It sends out shadows, dancing on the floorboards and on the opposite hallway wall.

“Hello?” Tom hangs his coat on a hook, and puts his scarf on top. He kicks off his boots, then lines them up carefully against the wall. He didn't live with his mother for twenty-one years without learning something.

“Tom? We're here.” A voice comes from the other room, where the firelight glows. Tom follows it, his socks sliding on the wooden floor.

This room is also decorated, of course. The tree is short and scraggly as always. Betsy is the type of person who chooses that type of Christmas tree. Its spindly branches sag beneath the weight of half a dozen childhoods' worth of handprint ornaments and painted baubles and twinkling lights. Up top, an angel with a paper cup body and a golf ball for a head surveys all.

“Hey! What took you so long?” Tom's brother Johnny says. He's lounging on the sofa in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, his feet up on the coffee table and an open tin of Quality Street chocolates on his knee. Tom stops. He can't quite remember why, but he didn't expect to see him here. His presence is a surprise, but it's not the biggest one.

“John?” At the other end of the sofa sits John Irving, formal and tidy, his feet on the floor. He's dressed nicely as always, in a knitted jumper and corduroy trousers. “Like you're fifty years old,” Tom often teases him, but in truth, he likes the look. It suits John. Tom can't picture him wearing anything with an elastic waistband. “What are you doing here?”

John and Tom weren't going to be together over the Christmas holidays. They decided that weeks ago. “I have to go to my dad's,” John had said.

“Maybe you could drop by our place on Boxing Day,” Tom offered. “Or I could come to you.” It was worth a shot, even though John's reaction was exactly as Tom had expected it to be.

“I'm so sorry, Tom.” He seemed it. “It's not that I'm ashamed of you.” Tom knew that was true. “It's complicated.” That was also true. Tom knew he was lucky, as far as families went. They drove him mental most of the time, but there had never been any question of acceptance. From the earliest days, Tom knew there was nothing he could do, no one he could be, that would make his family love him any less.

John, it seemed, couldn't say that about his father and stepmother.

“You didn't tell me you had a posh boyfriend,” Tom's brother accuses, unwrapping a chocolate from its crinkly purple paper.

“I'm not posh,” John protests.

“Oh, no. Of course not.” Johnny laughs. “'I say, old boy, would this happen to be the residence of one hot piece of arse known as Sir Thomas Hartnell, Esquire'?”

“Shut up, Johnny.” Belatedly, Tom's heart soars. “I can't believe you're really here, John.” He goes around the sofa to sit beside him. “What made you change your mind?”

John licks his lips. His cheeks are pink, from the fire or from embarrassment. Tom knows John well. It's probably embarrassment. “Christmas is about love. I decided I wanted to spend it with the person I love the most.”

Tears prick at the back of Tom's eyes. He has more questions: does that mean he came out to his parents? How did they react? Tom's not sure he wants to hear the answers, or if John wants to share them now. Instead of asking, Tom kisses him. His hands go to John's strong shoulders, his thigh presses against John's. John kisses him back, softly and sweetly, with all that natural talent that made Tom doubt, the first time they did it, that John was really as inexperienced as he claimed to be. “Why would I lie about being a virgin at my age?” Was John's counterargument. Tom didn't have an answer for that one.

“Right, then. If it's going to be like that, I'm fucking off out of here.” Tom hears Johnny stand up. “And I'm taking my chocolates with me.”

“Bye,” Tom says, his lips still against John's.

“Don't come on the sofa,” Johnny warns. “Mum will kill you.” John's cheeks go from pink to scarlet, even as Johnny leaves the room.

“Ignore him,” Tom advises.

“He's...”

“An arsehole.” But Tom loves his older brother. He can't believe he's here, and John as well. It's going to be the best Christmas ever. “He likes you.”

“How can you tell?”

“He only takes the piss out of people he likes.”

“Oh.” John's eyebrows furrow, adorably. Tom kisses the spot between them. He lets a hand slip beneath John's jumper, tracing the muscles of his abdomen and his chest. That was a very pleasant surprise. Tom knew John was kind, and sweet, and as handsome as fuck from the moment they met. He hadn't known John was built until the first time they had sex. Which had happened to be John’s first time. 

John presses closer as they kiss again, exploring Tom's mouth as he slides his own hands up the back of Tom's hoodie. Tom pauses just long enough to pull it off, tossing it aside. The fire pops. John startles a little, and Tom laughs fondly.

“He's right though,” Tom admits. “About the sofa.”

“Oh. I, I, I...”

“So I'd better swallow.”

“Tom!”

Tom wishes he had a bearskin rug. John deserves decadence like that. Instead, Tom kneels on the beige Berber carpet, urging John to slide his hips forward. Gratifyingly, his cords are tented already. Tom reaches for his belt, and John lets out a groan that goes straight to Tom's own cock.

“Tom,” he repeats. John unzips him. The fire is hot at his back, warming him. The lights on the Christmas tree cast a festive glow on John's cock. “Tom,” he moans.

“Yes.”

Again, “Tom. Tom, stay with me.”

“Always,” Tom promises. He shivers as he takes John's cock into his mouth. And shivers, and shivers, and shivers.

“Tom!”

First, he notices the smell. Fire. Real fire, burning wood, not like the odourless gas fire at his parents' house. The cold is next. He's lying on his back, wearing a coat that doesn't feel like his own. It's big and bulky, but still, the cold permeates, making him shake.

The dark is the last thing. He opens his eyes to see nothing but black.

“Tom.” The voice says again. He doesn't know it. “Are you awake? Thank Christ.” Whoever it is sounds genuinely relieved. A pinprick of light pops into Tom's field of vision, cutting through the darkness. There's a man beside him, standing over him, holding up the overbright light of a mobile phone. He's got blue eyes, and a large gash on his forehead. Tom doesn't know him. There's a polar bear pin on his jacket. That, Tom recognizes. He can't think why.

“Where am I?” Tom's voice is weaker than he expected. He clears his throat. “Where...” It doesn't help.

He's lying on a bench of some kind, an uncomfortable sofa or chairs, but he's not inside a building. It's far too cold for that.

The man sighs. He looks tired, that's obvious even in the thin light. Tom feels tired, too. Maybe he should go back to sleep.

“You need to stay awake,” the man says, as if reading Tom's thoughts. “ What do you need? What can I get for you?”

Then, Tom remembers. Everything comes back in a flood, the dam broken by those few words. Tom wishes it hadn't been.

***

“What can I get for you?” The flight attendant smiled at Tom from behind his drinks cart. He was good-looking, Tom noticed, in his navy blue suit and red tie. His name tag read “Thomas”, and there was a pin on his lapel shaped like a little polar bear.

“Coke, please,” Tom said. He glanced beside him, to where John slept against the airplane window. “And a water for him.” He would want something when he woke up.

Thomas shovelled  a scoop of ice into a little plastic cup and poured half a tin of Coke on top. He passed it over, carefully avoiding the man on Tom's other side, then gave him John's cup of water and two packets of biscuits.

“And for you, sir?” Thomas turned his attention to the other man in their row, the one in the aisle seat. He was dark-haired, with thicker sideburns than Tom had seen on anyone for a long time. He’d spent most of the time watching what seemed like a home improvement show on his tablet.

“I'll have a gin and tonic.”

“Certainly, sir.” Thomas poured the drink as Tom fought to open his biscuits. Thomas gave the other man his cup, followed it up with a quick kiss to the man's forehead, and continued down the aisle.

Tom didn't say anything. Growing up in a big family, he'd become an expert at minding his own business. Still, the man beside him said, “That's, ah, that's my, um, my husband.”

“Ah.” Tom nodded.

“We're going on our honeymoon.”

“Congratulations.” Tom didn't really want to continue the conversation, but he said, “In Toronto?”

“We're flying on from there. To Nunavut.”

“So are we.” It was a longstanding dream of John's to see the northern lights. They'd talked about going to Finland or Sweden, but he wanted to do it in northern Canada. It was a big trip, and an expensive one, but the look on John's face when Tom agreed to it made it all worthwhile.

Almost. There was an engagement ring burning a hole in the pocket of Tom's carry-on bag. That would make it extra worthwhile, but he wasn't sure about it. Rather, he wasn't sure how John would feel about it.

Tom wasn't sure what else to say, so he put his earbuds back in and picked up his phone.

Tom hadn't flown that much. Of the two of them, John was the more experienced traveller. He didn't seem nervous when the plane started to shake. Nobody did. Thomas' cheerful voice came over the intercom informing them Captain Crozier had turned on the seatbelt light, and asked them to return to their seats. John, who had been in line for the toilet, came back grumbling, but he didn't appear worried. Obediently, he buckled his seatbelt, a moment before the plane dropped what felt like a hundred feet in one go.

That was when John started to look a little nervous.

As a concerned murmur ran through the crowd, the man on Tom's other side unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up.

“Thomas!”

“You should probably sit down,” John advised.

“He's married to one of the flight attendants,” Tom explained. Thomas had likely been standing up. He might have been hurt by the sudden drop. Tom wouldn't have been that inclined to sit down if John was in that position.

“Still,” John insisted, “you should...”

Another drop, although this one was less severe. Someone screamed, then someone else. More than a few began to cry. The man beside Tom stumbled, and sat down again.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Thomas' voice returned on the intercom, as smooth as before. So he's okay, Tom thought. He was glad of that. It would suck to be injured on your honeymoon. “Please stay in your seats. We'll be making an emergency landing in Gander.”

The murmuring didn't abate. John reached for Tom's hand, and squeezed. “That's not so bad.” John’s voice was calm, reassuring. Steady. “We saw 'Come From Away', right?”

[switchbrainedholylime]

Like Petroleum & Water - Chapter 1

Based on the prompt/AU idea by @skygemspeaks: https://skygemspeaks.tumblr.com/post/189686838998/you-know-what-dr-stone-modern-au-where-all-the

Summary: Senkuu’s new stepmother Lillian comes a family...a large, Southern one. And while Senkuu may have dreamed of going to space to explore another planet, he didn’t think that alien planet would be West Virginia.

Sure he and Byakuya were still going to live in Japan full-time, he didn’t have to move there; they just had to visit for one month every year during the summer after they got married. Lillian wanted a low-key family wedding without all the fuss of the media, so she was secretive about any details in interviews. 

Of course, Lillian had told Byakuya who blabbed excitably about all the details to Senku, but luckily for the newly-engaged couple, the teen prodigy didn’t care about leaking any of the info to the media.  

“I just dan’t wanna get my loved ones involved in all that drama, y’know? I just wanna have a nice time with the folks that made me who I am. I might have a big celebration afterward, but really deep down I guess I’m still a hometown girl. Sure, I could hire a big city caterer, have big names come to it, have a big giant cake the size of the moon, have everything big-big-big. But...that’s just ain’t who I am. It just wouldn’t feel right. I made a promise before my first major concert at 14 in Morgantown, home to my home state’s biggest university music program, to my aunt that she’d be the one that’d make my wedding cake, and I wanna keep that. She was my first official voice coach once she heard about how much all the kids on the street loved my singing. I owe it to her.”    

When pop idol Lillian Weinberg posted her engagement photos with her and Byakuya in the ISS on her Instagram. The video of the engagement ring fluttering in zero-gravity until it moved towards Lillian, who slipped it on and embraced the Japanese astronaut got billions of views. 

By the time the ISS returned, Bakuya was an international sensation and people were flocked to his university office. The school security had to actually train to themselves to deal with pesky paparazzi. 

The world Senkuu inhabited was shattered like someone had taken their bare hands to a statue and crushed it like an egg. The other astronauts were clapping in the videos. Everyone in his class went ballistic. 

Literally ballistic, too; one of Yuzuriha’s friends named Nikki threw her eraser so fast across the classroom in utter shock that it matched the trajectory of an arrow at about 27.3 mph. “Oh my God! Senku, this is your dad, isn’t it?”

Senkuu shifted his head over. “Yeah, that’s him, alright.”  

“I can’t say that I blame Lillian, he’s a lot hotter than you, Senkuu.” Nikki smiled, “Of course, I’m always a sucker for a five-o-clock shadow.” 

“He’s also gotten pretty buff from all that astronaut training, too. Some of the gym photos show ‘em getting pretty jacked.” 

“He has a rustic spice about him, but he’s also smart. He raised Senkuu on his own, so you know he’s family-orientated and doesn’t have issues with commitment. He has a steady job, too.” Another schoolmate gushed.  

“Wait, weren’t you working on a bodysuit for him back in elementary school. You don’t happen to still have a model of that around, do you?” 

“I’d prefer it if you don’t talk about my dad in front of me like he’s some top 10 movie star. Sweet Issac Newton, my old man is in his mid-forties! None of you thought he was hot before he hooked up with Lillian!” Senkuu’s face was beet red and sweat as he grasped his piece of chalk for dear life. “Alright, can we please go back to the parabola formula. It’s going to be on the final exam.” 

After a frustrating pre-finals review, Senkuu left the school grounds on his own as he thought to himself. His arms were firmly planted in his lab coat. He pouted and scowled to himself, “Had I known that the main result of my old man getting into JAXA would be that he got to bang his favorite celebrity instead of getting some serious science work done, I wouldn’t have made that swimming suit-” 

His monologuing was interrupted by Taiju and Yuzuriha. “Senku! Hey, congrats to your old man. Yuzu said that she’d make a custom tuxedo, so I kinda gave her your measurements. Sorry I didn’t ask you first-”

“Great, now even my two best friends wanna bang my future step-mom and by next school year, I’ll have to submit paperwork to change my name to ‘Senku Weinberg’. What a joke,” Senku groaned. “I even heard people are starting to fantasize about me, comparing my eyes to rubies! No one even cared about us before this!” 

“Senku! You know I only love Yuzuriha. Also...you know I’ve always cared about you. Famous or not,” Taiju insisted.  

“Then why haven’t you told Yuzuriha yet that you love her?” 

“I...plan on it! I promise! After finals, and definitely by the time you get back from the wedding!”

“You better.” Senkuu gazed up at the sunset. He then high-fived his friend, “Don’t forget your summer homework assignment, big oaf.” 

“I won’t!” 

----

Getting to travel first-class was surreal, to say the least. Senkuu gazed out his window and calculated the seconds it’d take to get there or how high they were above ground by the centimeter. They transferred from Tokyo to New York to Huntington. From there it was an hour drive through the windy mountains that made Senkuu AND Baykuya nearly vomit from motion sickness until they finally arrived at Lillian’s hometown: Pickens, West Virginia. Population 40.  

“Alright, y’all! We’re here.” Lillian turned to her fiancee and soon-to-be stepson. 

“Here I thought the JAXA training was rough...,” Byakuya groaned.  

“I figured I was going straight to Hell, but I didn’t think it’d be this soon,” Senkuu muttered to himself. 

“GET UP!” Lillian kicked the car and shook them out of it. “Good grief, y’all need to build up some grit!”

“Darling!” A dark-brown haired middle-aged woman and embraced the pop singer. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much. I prayed for you constantly that you’d come back home.” 

“Thanks, Auntie Turquoise!” Lillian jumped towards her aunt. “How’re Cousins Kohaku and Ruri? The trio o’ Ruby, Sapphire ‘n Garnet ain’t causin’ the sheriff too much trouble, are they?”

“Thankfully they’re not. Though boy is that Magma a whole wreck to deal with; he broke his DUI parole again yet he still drives through the town on his truck like it’s a NASCAR ring. He’s a headache.”  

“Turquoise...? Lapis Lazuli?” Senkuu sat up. 

“There’s not a lot of people ‘round ‘ere so we don’t really bother with last names. We just go by our favorite stone. Lillian Weinberg’s actually my stage name. I actually officially changed it in order to enroll in the ISS program, though. I’m the only person in this ‘ol town with a first and last name or to have left in more than 50 years.” 

“The only person!?” Senkuu nearly choked. “And not only that, you made it to SPACE!? What even is this!?”   

“Why did you choose ‘Weinberg’?” Byakuya asked.  

“There’s a town just a few miles north ‘o ‘ere called Helvetia that’s a huge tourist trap since it’s all about Dutch and German heritage. Auntie Turquoise used to get me presents from there craftsmen there all the time. I’ll always treasure that wooden music box y’all got me when I started my first period.” 

“Well, I couldn’t help myself for my favorite niece.” Aunt Turquoise smiled.   

“We can swing by there sometime on our way back to the airport. I get the feelin’ y’all have had enough twirling for today.” 

“Yeah,"

“What happens if more than one person has the same favorite stone?” 

“Oh, Pastor Jasper keeps a record on that. If that happens, they pick the same name of the stone but in a different language. That’s why Kohaku and Ruri aren’t called ‘Amber’ and ‘Lapis Lazuli’."

“I-I guess.” Byakuya blinked. 

“Well, what’re waitin’ in the car for? C’mon in!” Lillian picked both grown men up and carried them into the house. 

[zacharybosch]

PLAYING DEAD - chapter 1

wheeeeeee here it is, the sequel to Playing God! which is my vampire AU for anyone who doesn’t know!

i’m also posting this as part of Vampire Hannibal Fest organised by @gleamingandwholeanddeadly!

read chapter 1 of Playing Dead below or on ao3! yayyyy!

Hannibal knows pain, and he knew fear, once. What he feels now is not quite akin to either, but shares more in common than it holds in opposition. It’s bizarre, the way he feels so entirely outside of his body, as though he’s floating four feet up in the air and is gazing down upon himself and all his blood on the beautiful marble floor of his entrance foyer.

He can hear great bells ringing, and the low rumble of huge drums, crashing in his ears like the restless roll of the ocean. The colours of his house alternately brighten and fade around him, and everything blurs, until it doesn’t, and becomes sharp, until it’s not.

The earth moves and shakes around him, and he’s in his kitchen, blacking out and coming to over and over again. The butcher block, he’s being butchered over the butcher block just as he’s butchered so many others before him. This can’t all be his blood, surely, there’s so much and it just keeps coming, filling his nose and mouth and ears and lungs, but then it’s only filling one ear because the other one is no longer attached to his head, and was it always like that? Hannibal can’t remember what his body was like, if he ever even had a body to begin with.

Every second stretches for an eternity and it’s like being born, but also dying, but also living, but it’s definitely like dying now because the Devil himself is looming over him, spilling black ichor on his skin, and Hannibal knew, he always knew that he would enter Hell as a king in splendor, to be greeted by Lucifer and all the legions of the dead.

He inclines his head and spreads his hands and takes a graceful step forwards into night.

***

The Santa Maria del Fiore was older than Will by all of twenty-two years, if he counted from the year that construction began. Counting from the year of completion, Will beat it by one hundred and eighteen. Not that it was a competition; indeed, he’d never even had a chance to visit the Duomo over the years, to compare cracks and weathering and general wear-and-tear.

Now that he walked past it on a near daily basis, Will had decided that it was in fact a competition, and that he was most certainly winning. All credit where it was due: the Duomo certainly looked impressive, but it required a huge amount of work to keep it that way, whereas Will remained damn near perfect with only minimal maintenance required.

It was a shame that Hannibal didn’t get to walk beside Will through the streets of Florence; he would’ve enjoyed it, and could even perhaps have been persuaded to admit that the Duomo’s magnificence was nothing compared to Will.

But it couldn’t be helped. Will had tried to turn him that night in Baltimore, but successfully turning a human was notoriously difficult even under perfect conditions, and given the circumstances at the time it was no wonder that Will had failed. But he would live with the consequences of his failure, just as he had lived for the past seven hundred years; there would be opportunities to begin again, somewhere new, anywhere he wanted. Florence was little more than an indulgence, really. A distraction. Hannibal had spoken of it so often, starry-eyed and staring off into the distance, so it only seemed appropriate that Will see what all the fuss was about. He’d missed the city entirely during the Renaissance, a good portion of which Will had spent in eastern Europe in thrall to the one who turned him. By the time he escaped the clutches of his maker, his taste for Europe had soured considerably, and he boarded a ship bound for the New World and never looked back.

Perhaps he had missed a trick there, in not coming to Florence when it was still the beating heart at the centre of the world. Modern Florence was uncomfortably heaving with tourists, and it seemed unthinkable that Hannibal could ever have loved such a place. The architecture was beautiful, yes, and the history that saturated the place was no doubt fascinating, but the effect was somewhat lessened by the noisy bar on the corner and the hawkers selling plastic trinkets on the Piazza. Probably better for everyone that Hannibal was out of the picture; Will could too easily envisage the countless unfortunate tourists that would’ve met an unhappy end at Hannibal’s hands.

Not that there weren’t a few who were meeting unhappy ends at Will’s hands. But that was beside the point.

Will wended his way through the crowded city streets until he came out onto a market square, no less filled with people but skewing slightly more towards locals than tourists. He had a few things to pick up, but otherwise little else to do that day but kill time. He didn’t like spending too much of his time in the house; it belonged to Hannibal, and was full of Hannibal’s things.

To the enclosed market hall first, for another random selection of food that he thought probably looked like a reasonable meal but which he wasn’t going to eat. Perhaps he’d get some artichokes today; the neat symmetry of the vegetable was pleasing to look at, and counting the leaves as he tore them off one by one would be eminently satisfying. Not to mention, the grocer who owned the best vegetable stall in the market could tell that there was something off about Will, and it amused him to spend too long silently perusing the vegetables just to make the man unsettled.

The grocer, as expected, greeted Will with his usual wary signore, and Will, as expected, smiled and kept smiling and didn’t look away as he gathered up every artichoke the man had in stock.

Then to the second-hand clothing vendor out on the forecourt, for more shirts. Will seemed to be buying shirts nearly every week, and if it wasn’t shirts then it was trousers. He should really find some wholesaler and just start buying in bulk, great boxes full of cheap t-shirts and sweatpants, but the thought of keeping such ugly things in Hannibal’s house was uncomfortable in a way that Will couldn’t quite pinpoint. The house was like a mausoleum, and Will had always had a healthy sense of reverence and respect for death. At least the clothes from the market seller were of a good quality and solid construction, if a little musty with age.

The clothes seller didn’t find Will off-putting at all, and was always too happy to chatter mindlessly in his ear while Will idly inspected buttonholes and counted the stitches running along hemlines. It helped with the verisimilitude, if nothing else.

With his canvas shopping bag filled, Will ambled out of the square and onwards to a nearby public garden. It was as pleasant a place as any to spend the remainder of the day; the people-watching was good, and the noise of the city was muffled by the high surrounding walls and the spreading canopy of the trees.

It had been nearly six months since his escape from Baltimore, and the freedom to sit and wile away the day on a park bench still felt somewhat foreign to Will. He had known so many freedoms over the course of his long life; the freedom to live, in spite of the onward march of time; freedom to fight and kill and sing the praises of death on wide dusty plains, or out on the open ocean; freedom from the drudgery of bodily functions and needs; the freedom to be beholden to but one thing and one thing only: the call of blood.

But right now, to sit on a park bench in the full flush of the Florentine summer was perhaps the sweetest freedom of them all. He could sit there for a thousand years as the whole city crumbled around him, and remain perfectly content all the while so long as the sun kept shining and the Earth kept spinning.

Will did not sit there for a thousand years, but he did sit there long enough for the sun to start sinking, shadows stretching across the park and roseate light fading into dusk. He’d need to go home soon; he’d been too long out of the house already, and there were unfortunate necessities to which he should attend.

On his way back through the twisting little streets, Will came upon an easy mark. There was no reason to pounce; he’d drained someone dry just last week, and wouldn’t need to feed again for the rest of the month. But where need was satisfied, desire was not, and Will began to pursue the solitary figure down a darkening alleyway.

He was a middle-aged man, skin turned tough and coppery by a lifetime spent outdoors. He would taste clean and simple, of oil and bread and the rolling green hills of the Tuscan countryside. Will picked up his pace, quick, steady steps until he was almost breathing down the man’s neck. He threaded a finger into the gold chain laying across the man’s nape, using it to jerk him back lightning-fast against his chest, then slamming him forward into the wall.

It was quick work after that. Will pulled the man’s shirt aside and bit down deep where shoulder met neck. He was dazed from being thrown against the wall, and didn’t struggle much. Will didn’t take a lot of blood, just enough to satisfy his impulse and keep him from stalking several more people on the rest of his walk home. It wouldn’t be smart to drop another body so soon. It wasn’t smart to be feeding at all, really. He’d already lingered in Florence too long. Someone would start to notice.

Will pulled a small folding knife from his shopping bag and made a few cuts over the bite mark, back and forth through the punctures until the area was a checkerboard mess of skin and blood. Then he flipped the man around so they were face to face, and slapped at his cheek until he roused enough for Will to catch his gaze.

“What’s your name?” Will asked. “Do you understand me?”

“Fr… Franco…” the man said, and then he started to slump, arms hanging heavy at his side and legs on the verge of buckling. Will must’ve taken more blood than he thought, or the man was already infirm to begin with.

Will shoved Franco more forcefully up against the wall and held his lolling head in one firm hand. He had admittedly become lazy with clearing his tracks; too many random, unconnected victims across too many cities to bother wiping and replacing all their memories, and it didn’t matter if he left a few empty minds when they were all so scattered. But Will was sharply aware of the fact that he’d left too many blank holes in the heads of Florence already. It wouldn’t take much for someone to link them to the bodies and start seeing patterns.

“You’re drunk, Franco. You stumbled into a railing and lacerated your shoulder. When you look at the wound later in the mirror, it won’t bother you enough to question it. Sit down now, have a rest before you go home. You’re drunk.”

Franco stared hazily into Will’s eyes, unblinking and nodding. Will carefully removed his hands from where they pinned Franco to the wall, and then Franco was no longer staring at Will, but through him, and he wandered off haphazardly a short way down the alley before stopping and sitting down on the cool cobblestones.

Will melted back into the shadows of the alley and was gone in an instant.

The sun had fully set by the time Will got back to the house. It was an unassuming building from the outside, with its plain facade of smooth, pale stone and the high, solitary window that looked out over the street. The shutters were made of a dark cherry wood, and they were flung wide open.

Will stood outside the front door for a long time, just listening. He didn’t remember leaving the shutters open when he left that morning. He couldn’t hear any noises coming from inside the house, couldn’t see any light spilling from cracks in the doorframe. Cautiously, he opened the door and set his shopping bag down inside the hallway.

He crept silently across the floor, fangs already out and ready to clamp down on whoever had made the mistake of intruding. As he ascended the stairs, he had the absurd thought that maybe he hadn’t wiped Franco as thoroughly as he should have, and now he was here with the proverbial torch and pitchfork. Getting paranoid over humans was as clear a sign as any to Will that he should move on from Florence soon.

But Will’s paranoia proved entirely unfounded: there was no intruder in the house. Rounding the top of the stairs and coming out onto the landing, he could see that it was only Hannibal, shuffling around the room like a corpse with his IV drip and his petty little resentments. He had churlishly opened the window and flung wide the shutters in some attempt to cause trouble.

The first thing Will did was slam the shutters and close the window. He’d taken great pains to conceal Hannibal as they moved across the continent, and he was not prepared to have their cover blown now just because Hannibal was feeling grumpy.

The second thing Will did was to ignore Hannibal for the rest of the evening. It was juvenile, and ultimately useless, but he knew that if he spoke he would say something incendiary, and then Hannibal would fire back with something cruel, and they would waste another evening sniping at each other.

Will had brushed it off the first few times that Hannibal had acted out in such a manner, but with every new weight that strained the fragile bonds between them, Will thought again that maybe it would’ve been better if Hannibal had died in Baltimore.

[daredevile]

Illuminate [1/5]

Summary: James Barnes, an upcoming artist in Brooklyn lives a routine life. It’s all sunshine and rainbows until you show up at his building, hesitantly becoming his roommate.

Warnings: Not Steve approved language

A/N: Hey guys! It’s my first time writing an AU and this one’s for @ruckystarnes‘s summer of AUs. Nearly had a heart attack when I almost deleted this entire post just after finishing. Also, I apologise if it sucks. Hope you enjoy!

“Hello? Mrs Potts? This is Y/N. I saw an advertisement for your apartment, I would like to have a look if it’s still available,”

And that’s all it took for you to end up in front of a modern building, right in the middle of Brooklyn. Logically, you knew that the rent in this particular area would be sky high, however, desperation got the better of you. Before you knew it, a stylish woman dressed in white greeted you with a warm smile, her unwavering, straight posture resembled one of a businesswoman’s.

“You must be Y/N,” She waited for your assurance, stretching her hand out, “I’m utterly delighted to see you, it’s been ages since James had had a roommate,” 

“Roommate? I thought I would be living alone,” Your eyebrows shot up. Sharing an apartment was already not too high on your list, but sharing an apartment with a guy, that was rock bottom. 

“Oh no, honey, it’s mentioned on the flyer,” Mrs Potts noticed your hesitation, placing a hand on your shoulder as she guided you to the elevator, “Don’t worry, James is an absolute sweetheart. He’s quite easy on the eyes too,” She winked.

Hope filled your mind, and with Mrs Potts’ descriptions of James, maybe sharing a living space with him won’t be so bad after all. She continued rambling on about the apartment’s amenities, but all that whooshed out your head when you stepped inside the lavish area. The first thing you noticed was the abundance of paintings all across the apartment, some hung on the walls, some placed on the paint-splattered floor. You were completely mesmerised, recognising the classics—Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet—whoever James was, he must be filthy rich to afford all of these. 

“James is out of town, he’s returning this evening,” Mrs Potts stated, watching you observe the art, “He’s an aspiring artist, and a great one too. Unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten his big break yet,” Her phone rang interrupting your conversation, “Well, what do you think? I mean, if I had known you were coming earlier, I would have asked him to clea—“

“I’ll take it,” You interrupted, “It’s great, thank you, Mrs Potts,” A wide smile erupted on the woman’s face upon hearing your words. She threw her arms around your shoulders, gleaming.

A couple of tiring hours later, you were done shifting your things into the apartment. Just as you plopped down on the couch with a satisfied sigh, the door burst open, revealing one exasperated James Barnes. He took notice of your presence with a curt nod before turning his attention to his phone.

“Um...hi?” You extended your hand, “I’m Y/N, your new roommate,”

“Hi,” Ignoring your hand, he walked towards his easel, preparing his art supplies.

Annoyed at his lack of communication, you turned your attention towards the masterpieces on the wall, “Did you do these? They’re amazing,” A look of awe displayed on your features as you faced his back.

“Yeah, yeah,”

“It must have taken forever,” You gushed, not paying attention to the phone in his hand.

“Mhmm, one second, Steve” James spun around, blue eyes meeting yours, “Hey sweetheart, I’m on a call, do you mind?” He gestured to his phone, a smirk forming as you blushed in embarrassment. He resumed his phone call, marching his way to his room.

“Ok, first interaction could have gone better,” You muttered under your breath, leaning against the wall. A soft, brown-furred kitten brushed past your feet, leaping on the couch with immense effort. You chuckled at him struggling before pushing his hind paws up, “What have we gotten ourselves into, Milton?” The cat cuddled against your arm, burying his head into your side. 

The apartment glowed by the vivid pieces, each sporting its own story. The ones you didn’t recognise, the James Barnes originals, were quite random: a family at the park, a ballerina, a garden of flowers and many more exquisite pieces. Pieces of various sizes adorned by modern frames intricately placed on the walls. You hovered your fingers over one of them, ever so lightly grazing over the dried paint.

“Sorry, let me start again. I’m James Barnes,” His deep yet soft voice shook you out of your thoughts. His bright eyes followed your gaze, watching your fingers trace the texture of the piece, “A perfectionist who gets irritated when people touch his art, so please remove your undeserving fingers from the canvas,” The words quickly flowed out his mouth, piercing cerulean eyes observing your movement.

“Also, I’m not a big fan of crowds, so no parties, no loud, uncultured music, and,”  He paused, focus shifting to the small creature, who was poking the plushy cushions on the couch, “No pets,”

“Excuse me? I’m paying half the rent. Milton isn’t going anywhere,” You retorted, frustration seeping through your body. You weren’t about to let a second-rate douchebag boss you around in your own house. You moved away, leaning against the paint splattered counter.

“Listen, sweetheart,” He stepped dangerously close to your form, a firm expression on his face as he spoke, “I’m the boss here. You either listen or beat it,” He placed his hand on the counter behind you, trapping your body between the table and himself. Your breath hitched at his proximity, he leaned closer, his nose millimetres from yours. In one quick motion, he swiped the coffee cup placed behind you and dashed into his room.

The cool Brooklyn breeze along with a perfectly made hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows were the elements present that evening. James had requested absolute silence while he worked on his pieces, so you decided to hit the nearest coffee shop for a relaxing time with your friends.

“So, is she nice? Bitchy?” Natasha asked, sipping on her tea. She leaned against the velvet couch, perching her legs on the wooden table, “You better not ditch us for her,” She nudged Wanda’s shoulder, laughing at the immediate drop of your smile.

“Well, he is a jerk,” It was your turn to laugh at their awestruck faces, Wanda gasped in disbelief while Natasha snorted, “And don’t worry, I’m never ditching you guys,”

“No way! You’re living with a guy!” Natasha exclaimed, “Damn Y/N, never would have thought,” She clapped her hands.

“Don’t get excited, he’s just like the rest of them. Possessive, bossy and not to mention incredibly annoying,” You rolled your eyes, Wanda placed a comforting hand on your shoulder.

“Come on, you just met him today, I’m sure he’ll warm up in no time,” She sent a warm smile, hiding her laughter behind her mug.

“Yeah, and soon enough, we’ll be crying at your wedding,” Natasha added, dodging away from the cushions you were throwing at her, “Would it be a summer one? No, you seem like the winter type,”

You nearly spat out your hot chocolate at her remark, “What! Never,” You exclaimed, “He’s already on my hate list. And he doesn’t like pets. Come on, that’s already a red flag,” You defended, glaring at the two of them and their shit-eating grins, “And, for your information, I am the winter type,”

“Girl, I already know what’s gonna happen. Don’t you watch movies?” Natasha stated as a matter-of-fact, a mischevious glint in her green eyes.

“No, James isn’t that kinda guy,” You shook your head, scoffing at the mere thought of a cheesy, romantic relationship forming between the two of you.

“Then what kinda guy is he?” Wanda inquired, watching your demeanour slightly shift with your thoughts.

“The one that’s a pain in your ass,”

Milton shuffled across your lap, tiny paws carefully treading on the soft furs of the couch. His quiet meows resonated through the apartment, you watched his actions closely. Moving in with James did not take off in the direction as you would have hoped, nevertheless, you had no choice. Putting up with his demanding attitude would be a small price to pay until you found another place. Slowly, your eyelids began to droop, feeling heavy due to today’s tiresome events. A few minutes after sleep had conquered your mind, a loud ring echoed from the kitchen. 

“Fucking hell,” You muttered, rubbing your eyes in frustration. The noise was coming from James’ phone, one that he had conveniently left behind. Just as you were about to answer, it went to voicemail.

“Hey, Buck. Lara came, she dropped off a box of your stuff. I’ll swing by tomorrow morning, alright?” A masculine voice spoke, you caught the underlying tone of pity weaved into it.

“Buck?” Your eyebrows scrunched together as you stared at his phone, curious.

“Is that my phone?” The sudden voice broke the silence that filled the air, making you jump. James leaned against the wall with an amused smile, placing his sketchbook on the counter.

You blinked at him, trying to form a reasonable excuse, “No...I mean yes, but I wasn’t going through it. You got a call, so I picked it up, it went to voicemail and I listened to it and you came,” You blurted, moving away from his phone.

A smile tugged on his lips at your rambling, “Ok stalker,” He smirked as you scoffed. To his surprise, the kitten gently brushed past his legs, James scowled before looking back at you, “Thought I said no pets,”

“Thought I said he’s staying,” You retorted, yearning to wipe that stupid smirk off his perfect face.

“Actually, you said, ‘Milton isn’t going anywhere’,” He playfully crossed his arms, horribly mimicking your voice.

“First, I do not sound like that,” You stomped your foot, attempting to hide the tiny tug of your lips, “Second, you’re an asshole,”

James immediately held his hand on his chest, “Oh sweetheart, that struck my heart and here I thought we were becoming friends,” He feigned hurt, blue eyes burning into yours as he burst out into laughter. You rolled your eyes, walking away to avoid looking at his charming smile.

To be continued...

[ellstersmash]

Three: Nine

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan (Modern!AU) / Minor Cullen x f!Lavellan

Rating: T for Teen

|Previous Chapter| |Next Chapter| |Read on AO3|

Cullen stares at her open palm.

“That’s none of your business.”

“None of my business?” She laughs mirthlessly. “Uh, unless you’ve got another girlfriend stashed somewhere, I damn well think it is my business.”

He snatches the box from her hand, snaps it shut with a heavy click, tosses it in with his things.

“Let it go,” he says.

“Right,” she hisses. “Sure. Let’s forget about the engagement ring you had wrapped up in your boxers. Let’s just not talk about that.”

“Why not?” he asks, voice dripping with sarcasm. “We can put it with all the other things we don’t talk about.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what I said: we don’t talk about things.”

“About what?”

“About anything! About us, and this, where it’s going, if you’re happy, and every time I try, you shut down or deflect.”

“So, what, you bought a ring just to make me talk about it?”

“No, Athi, I didn’t.”

“Oh gods,” she groans. “Tell me this isn’t like, your grandmother’s or something.”

He folds his arms in front of his chest like a shield, and does not answer.

“Fuck.” She’s pacing now, stomping over sleeping bags. “Fuck, Cullen, you can’t just shove this into the fast lane! I don’t even know if I want to be with—”

Cullen’s eyes narrow and go a little cold as she cuts herself off.

“Care to finish that sentence?” he asks.

She does not. “Quit turning this around on me, it’s not about me.”

“That’s funny,” but he isn’t laughing. “See, because you always make it about you. Even this, which really, truly is not about you, you've made about you.” Even this close to a whisper, his words cut like a blade, sharp and pointed and made to hurt.

“Fine, then,” she says and crosses her arms. “By all means, enlighten me. What's this really about?”

He closes his eyes, inhales slow, exhales through pursed lips.

“I’ve been waiting,” he finally says. Softly, and after all his harshness, it feels like a trap. “Pretty damn patiently, I think, for you to give me something. Anything. Some part of you. Something real, some . . . I don’t know, indication that you want this. Want me.”

“It’s a pretty big jump to—”

“Maker’s balls, woman. I’m trying to be honest here. Could you quit talking at me for a damn second?”

She snaps her jaw shut.

“I’m sorry, just—” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “What do you want from me? Because I can’t figure it out to save my life. You didn’t have to call me, but you did. You didn’t have to stay with me, but you did. Now we’re together, playing the happy couple, but I have no idea how you feel about me. I thought this”—he gestures around the tent walls—“meant something. Your family’s far away, I understand that, and I don’t want to rush you. But meeting your friends? That’s something.”

He fishes the velvet box out from his pile of clothes, thumb rubbing against the lid but he doesn’t open it.

“This was . . . this belonged to someone else. She loved me, and she said yes, and we planned our life together. And then she died. A few weeks before our wedding.”

It comes out of nowhere. Feels like a sucker punch, and she’s reeling.

“Creators, Cullen.”

“I tried to sell it, but couldn’t imagine it on someone else’s hand. Her parents wouldn’t take it. So I figured I’d hold onto it until maybe I could let it go. Then some years passed, and I healed, and then you came along and . . . ” He shrugs. “Anyway, I thought this was something.”

Her stomach sinks. “You were going to let it go.”

All of her words—her assumptions, her accusations, her almost-admissions—still hang in the air, a deafening miasma that burns when she breathes it back in.

“Clearly, I was mistaken, because I still don’t know why I’m here. I still don’t know what you want.” He drops the box back in his bag with his shirts and socks and deodorant. “And I don’t think you do, either.”

Cullen shakes his head, and a slew of emotions flicker across his face like slides of an old film. “I am not a man who settles for half-measures, Athi, and I am tired of this one. So tell me. What do you want?”

Her mouth falls open, but she has no answer for him.

“No, you know what?” His voice is icy now, his gaze unyielding steel. “It doesn’t matter. What you want doesn’t matter. Because I’m done.”

Athi chokes back something—not a sob, not really—and he kneels to pack his things. He’s neat, tidy, and there isn’t much to gather; it doesn’t take him more than a minute.

“I’m sorry, Cullen. I tried to—”

“You tried.” He laughs, cold and harsh. “Tried, what, to love me?”

The shame burns all the way to the tips of her ears. It sounds ridiculous, said out loud. Said like that. She cries, then, but it feels like begging and she scrubs the wet from her face with the back of her hand.

He hoists his bag onto his shoulder. Looks around the emptier tent.

“Kind of wish you hadn’t.”

She stares at the shifting circle of light as he leaves her. He doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t draw it out. Shoves past her, slams the car door, and drives away hating her.

The smoke from off her skin stings her eyes.

When the sound of his engine fades into cricket mating calls and a crackling fire, she grabs a bottle of something from the stash by Sera’s tent and takes it to the lake. Doesn’t look at Solas, though she sees him, illuminated, from the corner of her eye.

Knees hugged close, she drinks too-sweet rum by the water like a godsdamned pirate, and she cries and she drinks and she plays back all those months. All those half-truths. All those excuses. All those choices she got wrong. All those things she shouldn’t have said before he left, and all the things she should have.

She cries and she drinks and she thinks and she feels.

Sick. Empty. Guilty. Lonely. Foolish. Frightened.

Free.

    “Hey.”

Sera’s voice brings the sun in with it. Cruel and sudden, a flash of red on the backs of her eyelids, and Athi groans. She doesn’t remember coming back to her tent, or really much of anything past a quarter-bottle. Something hovers just out of reach, faint and wavering, and the harder she tries, the less certain it feels. Something about her head tipped back, watching the stars below the water from upside down.

She lets it go, for now. It doesn’t make enough sense and the sharp pain gripping her skull makes remembering seem a lot less important.

“You okay?” Sera asks. “Need anything?”

“Fuck off,” she says into her pillow.

Sera sighs, sounds like the sweet spot of the scissors catching on wrapping paper. One long clean cut. “Don’t be an assface,” she says.

Athi huffs, and it hurts. “Thirsty.”

“Behind you.”

She turns, no small effort, and peeks one eye open. That hurts, too. Sure enough, though, there’s a clear plastic bottle, half-hidden by the blanket she’d thrown off at some point. She gulps down half its tepid contents and caps it tight.

A rustling sound, and then a warm body presses in close behind her, arm tight around her middle and a raspberry blown on the back of her neck. She flinches away from the unexpected contact, but Sera gathers her back in.

“Sera what the—”

“I’m being here, stupid. For you.”

“For me.”

“But Cullen’s the stupid one, you know. For leaving. You’re a catch, and the fish are in the sea, and all that.”

“Um. Thanks.”

Fucking void. They hadn’t been that loud, but then . . . Solas had been right there.

She really hadn’t pegged him as the type to run his mouth, though.

Whatever. That’s a problem for later. Athi shifts in Sera’s arms and rolls her neck with a series of cracks that sound a whole lot more satisfying than they are. Straightens her spine, curls up tighter. Then she gives in to the discomfort with a whimper.

Everything hurts.

“What if I wanted to be the big spoon?” she grumbles.

“Psh, you’re teeny. Got to be big for that . . .”

Got to be big. It’s fading fast, fraying at the edges, flashes of moving horizontal under the trees. And something about her father? But again, the memory unravels even as she grasps at it, until she’s not sure she remembers it at all.

“Might make a decent backpack, though,” Sera continues. “Now shut up and sleep while I still can.”

Sleep she can do. So they doze until it gets too hot, sun on canvas and bodies and blankets.

The second waking is almost worse. Sera goes looking for lunch while Athi changes. It's slow going; her muscles are stiff and sore, and this is why she doesn’t drink rum. If it weren't so stifling, she’d consider never moving. Never leaving this tent. Never facing what Solas does or does not know, shared or did not share. Never telling them why she’s alone.

A person can go more than three weeks without food. What’s one day?

But her teeth feel gritty and her stomach grumbles and the heat makes her head pound. So she forces her chin up and emerges into the light.

They’re scattered around the cluster of campsites, all of her friends and their faces full of pity. Except Leliana, who sets her hands on Athi’s shoulders and offers to kill him.

She is probably kidding.

“So, Cullen really just left?” Josie says gently. “Are you certain it’s over? Perhaps there was a misunderstanding.”

There was.

Cassandra answers for her. “It does not sound that way, Josephine. Ugh, and he seemed so genuine.”

He is.

“Do you want me to write him into my book?” offers Varric. “I think there’s room for one more dastardly villain.”

Dorian tsks him. “He is, at best, a lowly scoundrel. By the by, is there perchance any room for a handsome, yet also quite brilliant hero?”

Everyone’s around except Solas, and Athi’s not sure if she’s relieved or annoyed. By his absence, by their attention, by everything and anything and nothing at all. By the gnawing in her gut as they crucify Cullen’s character, and as she lets them, using their distraction to sidle away unnoticed.

The table is spread with food, chips and bread and meats and cheeses, fruit, a tray of brownies and crumbs, but it might as well be empty. None of it looks appetizing. She settles for an apple, yellow-green and freckled with brown. Supposedly, they’re almost as good for energy as coffee, which sounds like a load of halla shit.

Feels better in her mouth, though. Less like earth, more like air.

She sits, hunched over the table, and carves off slices with a knife, focused in on the shapes of crisp white flesh rimmed in gold.

Bull steps over the bench, holding a sandwich the size of his face on a comically small plate.

“Scoot.”

She does, and he sits, and the table wobbles backward.

“Sure, make me look selfish,” she says, waiting to see how he's going to fit it in his mouth.

He doesn't try, though.

“You know, I didn't really like the guy much anyway,” he says, more to the sandwich than to her.

“It wasn't him,” she admits. Then, because Bull has a way of getting more information than he asks for, adds: “I think I was an ass.”

“Oh yeah? Good, because I was lying.”

She laughs, just a huff of amusement, but it feels good. Her head, on the other hand, is killing her.

The apple’s too much; she leaves it to brown and buries her head in her folded arms. A reprieve from all the brightness and a satisfying stretch along her back.

Bull lays one huge, heavy hand over the ache of it. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I really, really don't.”

The pad of his thumb presses into her skin, digs a broad line along the curve of her neck and rubs small circles into the knot he finds where her neck meets her shoulder. He increases the pressure and she grimaces as he bores in toward her bones, but then he slides it away down her spine, and a guttural, broken moan escapes her.

His hand doesn’t stop, even as she tenses at the primal sound.

“Uh . . . do you want to talk about that? ” he teases.

Athi giggles despite herself. Then freezes, feeling a different sort of twisting in her gut.

Her stomach lurches, threatening, and she tumbles back over the bench, runs to the woods. Waits, pulling fresh air into her lungs, anchored by her hand on the rough bark of a tree, trying to ease her churning insides back from their precarious ledge.

It’s no use; she empties the meager contents of her stomach into the weeds.

She deeply regrets the apple.

A rustle ahead and she glances up, pressing the back of one hand to her mouth. It’s Solas, because of course it is, eyes shifting uncomfortably toward her, then away, then back. She’s not sure if she’d rather use her last dregs of effort to glare at him or compose herself.

“Oh. Hello. I was just—” He points back the way he came with a thumb over his shoulder, which means less than he apparently thinks it does. “I did not realize you were awake.”

There is no room in her head for witty one-liners. It’s all don’t throw up, so she only answers: “Yep.”

“Well, are you . . . Is there anything I can do?”

“No, I think you”—she stops to take a slow breath, deep and even, don’t throw up, don’t throw up—“you’ve done enough.”

“Excuse me?”

“What you heard last night was—” Another wave of nausea hits, and she leans her forehead against the young bark. “That was private, Solas . ”

A long silence from him, followed by a heavy sigh. She’s not in the mood to argue anyway, just spits into the grass, turns away with a dismissive wave.

“Athi, I—”

“Gotta go,” she tosses back.

Brush my teeth.

For, like, an hour.

The rest of the day flies by.

She bums some coffee off Varric, which helps immensely with her headache. Then she packs up Cullen’s tent, moves all her stuff into Sera’s, goes swimming again, and again gets too much sun.

Solas keeps his distance, even after her head stops hurting and she wishes maybe he wouldn’t. And when he is finally forced into proximity by the promise of dinner, there’s nothing remorseful about it. He is silent, brooding, chatting privately with Varric until she makes some joke about an ancient ritual.

Should have known it would be a hot-button topic for him.

“I am pleased to hear the Dalish have at least recalled its existence,” he says. “Even if only for the sake of crude remarks.”

It surprises her, the bite of his words. The venom behind them. The arrogance in his voice and the hard, angry look in his eyes.

As if he has the fucking right. She leans forward, elbows on her knees.

“What,” she taunts, “am I not respectful enough for you, Solas? Too casual with my own people’s culture?”

His calm is unflappable. “That is one way of putting it.”

“Here’s another,” she says, and coolly flips up her middle finger.

Bull and Sera chuckle beside her, but Solas scoffs. “Forgive me, but your intent is unclear. Are you attempting to debate my point, or make it for me?”

Athi seethes. And wonders why she ever yearned for his unattainable approval.

Varric, bless him, swiftly recovers the mood, and the collective sense of relief is palpable. Not for her, though. Cullen’s anger didn’t hurt this much.

Solas remains aloof until he retreats to bed after dinner.

Good riddance, then, she tells herself and stays up with the others. Playing cards by the lantern light and trying to keep her eyes on her hand and off his little blue tent. Trying not to think of the way he looked at her last night. Trying not to think about him at all.

    He’s gone when she wakes up. No little blue tent, no rust-eaten sedan, no goodbye.

Not that she was really expecting one.

The others are packing up as well; all except Sera, who’s wandering around looking just as dazed as Athi feels.

Varric, bless him twice, left the last of his coffee behind him. It’s good stuff, too, if a bit lighter than she’d like, and she and Sera sit and sip it on the dock in the late-morning quiet.

Toes in the water, but this time there’s no wind. The lake is placid, mirror-like, peaceful. She’ll miss it when she’s gone.

“So,” Sera says, “that Solas is an interesting one, yeah? Lots of teeth when it comes to old elves and stuff.”

“Apparently, he has a lot to say about a lot of things.”

“Yeah. Wait, what?”

“Forget it.”

Athi takes a long draw of coffee, just barely on the near side of too hot.

“I mean,” she continues, “it was none of his business.”

“Right. Still what?”

“Cullen! Solas was still up. I guess he heard us fighting, and then he fucking told everyone! I mean, what the fuck?”

Sera stiffens, stares into the sky with her face twisted all funny.

“Yeah,” she says. “Right. What the fuck, him.”

But her discomfort is telling. No, Athi thinks. Pleads. No.

“Sera.”

“Mhm,” she says into her mug.

“Sera.”

“Okay! Okay. It was me.”

Athi groans. “Sera!”

“Oh come on, it’s not like they weren’t going to notice his fancy wheels had up and rolled off! I was just preparing the room, is all.”

“And who told you?”

“What, like I can’t work it out for myself?”

“Did you?”

She rolls her eyes. “Well I could have.”

“Sera,” Athi sets down her mug, like somehow that means she’s serious. “What did he say?”

“Ugh, fine. Elfy told me that Cullen left, and you had gotten wasted, but he didn’t say wasted, he said something all fancy. Think he used the word ‘imbibed.’ Said you might be confused about where you were, and he asked me to check on you.”

“And that’s when you told everyone else.”

“More or less,” Sera mumbles.

“So I yelled at him for nothing.”

“I mean, he was acting kind of up-there.”

“No, no that.”

Athi shakes her head, hard, and something clicks.

She remembers, just a little. A soothing voice—“Are you all right?” —as the sky rippled above her. Her feet, swept sideways as he lifted her in his arms. The bottle of water he placed next to her bed, tucked in with a reminder to drink it in the morning. Those unraveled pieces, pulled back into focus by one common thread.

He was there.

Oh, she is absolutely, undeniably, unequivocally, an ass.

[midnightsnapdragon]

speak now or forever hold your peace

For @lovelunarchron, whose support and commentary has encouraged me to keep writing over the years. LLC, I know I haven't written Cresswell in ages, so here is something that I hope you'll like.

Please note that modern AUs of the soap opera brand are not my forte.

(Read on FFN or AO3 if that’s more your jam!)

Carswell Thorne had screwed up.

Well, that was nothing new. He screwed up all the time, and almost never paid the consequences. It was part of what made him a good businessman: the ability to slither out of a jam that might ruin his reputation or worse, funnel money out of his wallet rather than in.

But this time was different. Carswell Thorne had screwed up something precious. And for maybe the first time in his life, he wanted to fix it.

"Come on," he muttered, pressing the doorbell for the seventeenth time in a row. The way through the city to Cinder's apartment was so deeply fixed in that part of his brain that turned to her in disasters big and small - when he was too drunk to drive, when he'd failed to impress one venture capitalist or another - that he'd come here almost without thinking. How many times had he shown up in the middle of the night with a bloody nose and a sheepish smile to camp out on her couch? "Come on, Cinder, open up -"

"All RIGHT!" came a muffled bellow from inside the apartment. "By the fish, SHUT UP! I'm coming!"

Thorne grinned and stood a little straighter, adjusting his pilot's jacket snugly over his shoulders. There was Cinder that he knew. He hadn't known how much he'd missed her until he heard her voice.

She was one of Cress's closest friends. She would know what to do. And even if she boxed his ears for what a douche he'd been - well, he would deserve it, wouldn't he?

Footsteps thudded through the apartment, the heavy gait of someone used to wearing work boots. "All right," someone growled, "whatever idiot is here at five in the goddamn morning is going to -"

The door swung open, and Linh Cinder stood there in worn shorts and an oversized T-shirt, a familiar sarcastic angle to her brows. When she saw who'd woken her up, the annoyance vanished from her face, replaced with astonishment.

Awkwardly, Thorne gestured at his face with both hands. "Something on my chin? Sauce, maybe?"

"You asshole," she said, and threw her arms around him. And then they were hugging and laughing and somehow he ended up on the other side of the door, which she kicked shut with her bare foot.

Then she pulled back and slugged him hard in the shoulder, through the jacket. Thorne yelped and clutched his arm.

"Jeez, what have you been lifting?"

"Two years, Thorne! Two years of - of cryptic postcards and weird emails where none of us have any idea what you're doing or why you left and now you come back at the crack of fucking dawn and all you can say is 'sauce on my chin’?” She threw up her hands. "What the hell!"

He winced. "I know. I messed up. I'm sorry."

"I know you are," she grumbled. "But I'm not the one who needs to hear th…" Her eyes widened. "Shit. Thorne, you have to go."

He blinked. "But I just got here."

"Yeah, and as usual you couldn't have picked a worse moment to show up. Go and come back at a more reasonable time like, oh, I don't know, noon?" Cinder yanked the door open again and tried to shoo him through it. "Go!"

"But why-"

"What's going on?" said a sleepy voice.

Thorne sucked in a breath and glanced into the shadowy apartment. Beside him, Cinder slumped, letting the door fall shut.

"That's why."

Cress was leaning in Cinder's darkened bedroom doorway, her nightgown slipping off one shoulder. She was yawning, rubbing at her eyes with the heel of her hand, and he remembered guiltily that it was in fact five A.M., even as he itched to back out through that door and disappear for another two years. However long it would take Cress to forget that he'd left her, that she had ever loved him at all.

But then Cress's hand fell away from her face and she squinted through the gloom at Cinder and Thorne standing by the front door. Recognition flashed and faded in her eyes. She froze.

Thorne swallowed. "Hey, Cress."

Emotions chased each other across her face like frightened rabbits. She opened her mouth, shook her head slightly, and closed it again.

"This," Cinder muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose, "is why you call ahead."

"Ah." An awkward pause, before Thorne said in a strangled voice, "Sleepover?"

"Yeah."

Another silence as Cress stared stricken at Thorne and his eyes darted around the apartment to avoid meeting her gaze. Between them, Cinder looked as though she'd rather take a wrench to her prosthetic hand than be in this position.

Finally she asked Cress, "Do you want me to make him leave?"

Cress shook her head.

"Do you want me to punch him, at least?"

"No," Cress whispered.

"Fine," said Cinder. "Then I guess I'll leave you to work things out because someone" - this with a scathing look at Thorne - "didn't stick around long enough to work it out before. Cress, feel free to boot him out at any time."

With that, Cinder turned and marched back into her bedroom.

And then they were alone.

"Where have you been?" Cress said softly.

Thorne glanced up at her. She was watching him steadily through the gloom. At some point in the past two years, she'd shorn off her tangle of blonde hair, leaving it to curl around her chin. He wished it were still his place to tell her how much it suited her. The nightgown left her legs bare down from the knee, duckfeet and all, a sight that made him swallow.

She had never been afraid of him. There had been a time when she'd been shy, almost as painfully awkward as he felt right now, but she had walked fearlessly into love without breaking stride, and pulled him bumbling along with her.

Until Thorne had begun chafing against the feeling of being tethered, and disappeared with his piloting license and a hasty international business plan. Until he'd left her with a stiff farewell and a series of impersonal postcards to remember him by.

He cleared his throat. "A bit of everywhere." And forced a laugh. "You should have seen the kind of crazy drinks they served in Vienna - goat balls, I think. And all the stray cats would have broken your - "

Her eyes shone briefly with pain, and he stumbled over the words.

"- h-heart."

Cress had never been afraid of love, had embraced it with all the joy and pain and peace and chaos it brought to her heart. But he'd been terrified of it. Of her. Of the power they had over him, together.

But maybe this time - maybe now it would be different. Maybe if he showed her the person he'd become, how much he'd agonized over that last goodbye, maybe they could start again, and this time he would do it right.

He would be worthy of her.

"What about you?" he asked, finally meeting her eyes. "What have you been doing?"

Her voice was barely above a whisper. "Same old, I guess."

I miss you, he shouted into the ensuing silence. There was nothing more he wanted to do than sweep her into his arms and spin her, laughing, around the room, bonking his head on all of Cinder's light fixtures, and yet here they were, two people who could barely look at each other. Cress, can we begin again?

But she wasn't listening; she was kneading her hands, rubbing the fingers of her left hand into a fist.

The sight of it tickled unpleasantly at the back of his mind, whispering: something's off … something happened while you were gallivanting around the world … you're too late ...

"Did Cinder tell you everything?" she asked quietly.

"What?" he said, unsettled. "Oh, sure. Of course."

Cress moved as if to rub the sleep from her eyes, but stopped, still clutching her left hand in the right. "It's just … it's been two years, Carswell. Two years and not a word!" Abruptly, she let go and clutched the fabric of her nightgown in both fists. "And it might have been better if you'd just gone, but you just pretended everything was okay and didn't tell me why you left or … or what I did … and you kept sending those stupid postcards!"

Thorne grimaced. "Okay, I admit the postcards were in bad taste. But, Cress - " He swallowed. "I want to ask you - if we could start … over …"

He trailed off. Because he'd finally glimpsed what she'd been trying to hide: on the fourth finger of her left hand, a ring sparkled in the dim hallway.

"Start over?" she echoed. "Just like that?"

Thorne couldn't answer. An icy, leaden weight had dropped through his chest and through his shoes, and it took him a moment to realize that it was the thing that was supposed to beat under his breastbone. The thing that still belonged to her, despite all his attempts to wrest it back.

Did Cinder tell you everything?

"Carswell …" She shook her head, with a small regretful smile. "I think we should at least talk first, don't you? Work through what happened - what you did," she corrected herself. "You have a lot to answer for. I don't know … maybe, in time …"

She was trying to let him off easy, Thorne realized dully, dragging his eyes away from the ring. Maybe in time, she would say, we can be friends again. But it was too late. She had moved on, had found happiness with somebody else … he would spend the rest of his life torturing himself at night, wondering what might have happened if he hadn't been so stupid …

Friendship was impossible. If he had ruined her love for ever, who was to say he wouldn't ruin that, too?

"Yeah, that's fine," he heard himself say distantly.

"Okay," said Cress, smiling. "Could we catch up in the afternoon, though? I have church in a few hours and I kind of need to sleep."

Right - it was Sunday morning, and she would join her Ukrainian Orthodox congregation with ribbons in her hair. Once upon a time, he'd imagined attending with her, shaking hands with her father Dimitriy. But that would never happen. God, he'd thrown it all away -

"No," he said.

She blinked, the smile slipping. "What?"

"No," he repeated, looking at his shoes. "Sorry. I shouldn't have come here. I'll leave you alone."

Cress drew back, brows drawing together in resentment. "Don't do that. Don't flip like that. Why did you come here if not to - to reconcile?"

He waved a hand, feigning nonchalance. "What's the point? All our friends probably will never speak to me again anyway - "

"That's not true," she said, her cheeks reddening with anger. "You haven't spoken to anyone in two years, how do you know what we think of you?"

"I can probably guess." He turned to the door, hating himself, hating the all-too-casual tone of his words. "I'll see you later, Cress."

"Carswell!"

He glanced over his shoulder, chest contracting painfully at the sight of her dishevelled in the nightgown.

"Will you …" She hesitated, appeared to throw one last line of hope. "Will you at least come to the wedding?"

The ring glingted tauntingly on her left hand.

"It would mean a lot to all of us," Cress went on. "Scarlet and Wolf, and Cinder, of course. And Jacin."

And even though he had never known so much regret in his life, he had to raise his eyebrows at that.

"Okay, probably not Jacin," she conceded, awkwardly. "But it would mean a lot to me." She started to wring her hands again, nerves and frustration in every motion. "Will you come?"

"Sure," he said coldly. "Count on it."

Then he stepped into the hallway beyond and let the door swing shut behind him.

That night, he got a text from Cinder:

1000 HOURS, MILLENNIUM GARDENS, MAY 24th.

No caption. No invitation. And by that omission, the message was clear: You can come. Or not. The choice is yours.

Millennium Gardens, Thorne thought, staring down at the phone screen in his hand. The bridal banquet hall with a sprawling orchard and a gazebo that was overrun with flowering vines every summer. A dream come true for Cress.

And then he realized: May 24th.

Two days from now.

He fell back against the wall, finding that his legs would no longer support him.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of the stars …"

Thorne paced in front of the oaken double doors, wrought with ornate designs that were probably meant to signify holy union or eternal soulmateship or some such poppycock. He wrung his hands, and swore under his breath, half-listening as the priest (not officiant, he knew; Cress was Orthodox, and her groom would respect that or they wouldn't be marrying in the first place) began the ceremony.

He paced and paced and paced, ignoring the people milling around him in the grand marble hallway, who kept giving him odd, pitying looks.

He hadn't asked Cinder who the groom was. He was afraid it would be someone he knew, or worse, someone he liked. The stars only knew he'd never imagined marrying her - it felt too domestic, too constraining, too stifling … but he'd never imagined this, either.

And here was his very last chance.

Could he let her go? Could he live with himself, if he ruined this day for her? Cress was a dreamer, a romantic; he might have once found the idea of weddings cheesy and vaguely repugnant, but for her a wedding day was magical, a day for good luck. He shouldn't jinx it by bursting in and proclaiming his love. It was too late for heroics like that.

But he couldn't live with himself knowing he'd walked away, either.

What if there had been a mistake? What if she still loved him?

Thorne tiptoed up to the doors and pressed his ears to the wood:

"Now that the bride and groom have given themselves to each other in solemn vows …"

Wha- Had they skipped the line? They'd skipped it! The priest was supposed to say "Speak now or forever hold your peace" - that was supposed to be his cue! Come to think of it, it was kind of obsolete -

Damn it, he'd been thinking too long!

"I now pronounce you husband and - "

Thorne flung open the doors, the word roaring up out of him.

"STOOOOP!"

There were gasps as heads turned toward him, a crowd of men with gelled-back hair and women with poufy feathery things on their heads. In the front row, Cinder and Iko swivelled around to give him furious, scandalised looks. The priest at the end of the aisle gaped in shock. But Thorne had eyes only for the bride as he jogged up the aisle, his heart hammering in his chest.

"Cress, I'm sorry I left, but I have to tell you that I - love you …"

He stopped halfway up the aisle, the words dying in his mouth.

Cress's jaw had fallen open as though she'd been smacked over the head with a frying pan. And then, impossibly, her face lit up in the most blinding sunlight grin he'd ever seen, her hand bunching in the dark blue fabric of her bridesmaid's dress in a familiar motion.

Next to Cress, at the altar, Scarlet was a vision of fiery hair and white frothy gown, Wolf looming as usual in a groom's tuxedo, staring at Thorne just like everyone else in the room.

Both of them looked ready to murder him.

"You blind fucking idiot," someone hissed in his ear, and then Thorne felt himself yanked aside into one of the pews and forced to sit. Mutters and embarrassed whispers had flooded the church.

"Sorry," Thorne blurted out to no one in particular, when it seemed they weren't going to forget about him and just continue. "Wrong, uh, wrong couple. I mean" - with a nervous smile at Scarlet, who narrowed her eyes - "you are the right couple, perfect for each other, and all. But not … the one I objected to."

"Anyone else?" the priest said helplessly into the silence.

Cress looked away from Thorne, her cheeks pink, biting her lip to keep from smiling.

"I thought she was getting married," Thorne whispered to the man who'd pulled him aside, as the priest finished his sentence and Scarlet and Wolf crashed together in a dizzying kiss. The whole congregation exploded in cheers. In the front row, Iko cupped her hands around her mouth and whooped.

Jacin, who still had a deathgrip on Thorne's wrist as if afraid he'd somehow manage to interrupt what was left of the ceremony, scoffed. "Yes, that's patently obvious. She's Ukrainian Orthodox, remember? They wear their rings on their right ring fingers."

Thorne groaned, tipping his head back. "God, I'm a moron."

"You think?"

But Thorne couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. Cress looked like a blushing flower, glancing back at him even as she was swallowed up by the other bridesmaids and he lost sight of her in the crowd. He'd done it - he'd told her he loved her, that he was sorry. Even if it was in the most ostentatious, dramatic way possible.

"If you ever break her heart again," Jacin muttered through the noise of celebration, "I'll break both your arms."

Thorne patted his knee. "If I ever break her heart again, I'll totally deserve it."

He should have known that it was never too late for those kinds of heroics.

[wholitzukoonfire]

Modern/YouTubers AU Klance Pride Headcanon [Part 1]

So this is from a hc convo I was having with my klance shipping buddy @destielschild 

So basically klance meet at a Pride parade and these are also my general Voltron gang Pride headcanons. 

So the voltron team is split into 2 friendship groups Lance’s friendship group (Hunk, Hunk’s moms, Shay, and Lance’s lesbian sister - Elena)

Hunk 

Hunk in this au is the lovable straight ally - he’s been to Pride every year since he was a child because of his Moms, it’s a thing they do - a tradition. 

He and Shay are dating they are the most adorable couple 

He’s wearing his “I <3 my moms” rainbow shirt and its so wholesome

He once got shouted at by an angry gay for being there and not being LGBTQ+, but Mom Ana tore the guy a new one telling him how supportive and amazing her beautiful son is.

This year he’s holding a sign that says “You know it’s bad when a straight guy is marching” - you know the one

He and Shay have a YouTube cooking channel called Hunkalicious and PassTheShay cook things - They’re pretty well known and do lots of collabs with Lance.

Their YouTube name is Hunk-A-love-&-A-Pinch-A-Shay 

(They have so many Shay is Salt memes bc she can be sALTY AF when needed)

Hunk also has a side gaming/sciene-y things channel (How he met Pidge) 

Shay

Shay is bisexual

The two of them are so in love and sometimes they sit in coffee shops and admire pretty girls together (Shay always adds on ‘Of course she’s not nearly as pretty as you.’ Hunk is the prettiest boy fight me on this. he giggles every time and blushes)

She’s wearing a ‘bisexu-whale’ top Hunk got her bc she majors in marine bio and she ADORES whales.

Lance

Lance is tagging along with Hunk’s crew - He hasn’t been out for long (his family are v Catholic and traditionally Cuban - his dad didn’t speak to him for a month after he came out) and it’s his first EVER Pride.

He’s super nervous although he’s literally been adopted into the Garrett family he feels like hes intruding tagging along on their traditional Pride march.

Shay notices INSTANTLY and makes him feel right at home in the bi community.

“Lance, I know you haven’t been out for long, but you are a valid bisexual, no matter what anyone says, your sexuality is yours to define and nobody else’s. You belong here.”

(This is why we love Shay) Lance cries for five minutes and is enveloped in a group hug.

Shay paints Bi hearts onto Lance’s cheeks (one gets smudged but he doesn't care) 

He does his make up (he hardly every wears make up, but he loves doing it) - Purple to pink to blue eyeshadow, and a touch of eyeliner.

Of course he also sprinkles a fuckton of pink glitter over himself, the Moms, Hunk and Shay

Lance is a pretty well known YouTuber - SirLancelot (he does mostly Vlogs, make-up tutorials, random funnies, relatables videos, occasional gaming sessions and he also pops up frequently on Hunk and Shay’s channel - it’s adorable and when Lance is involved they’re always “w/ the bestie” videos) And he decided to Vlog the whole thing - telling his subscribers in a mini vid that he’d be going to his first Pride and uploading a Vlog of it the following day. 

When he first get’s there there are so many people and it’s all so much he thinks he might just faint, but as soon the Parade starts, Lance is on cloud nine. Hunk is manning the Vlog camera (he offered to as it’s Lances first one and he wants Lance to enjoy it)and captures Lance grinning and chanting and waving his “AIN’T NO LIE BABY, BI BI BI” sign with gusto.

He turns to grin at Hunk who is literally internally screaming and shaking Shay gushing to the camera about “LOOK AT HIM! HE’S SO HAPPY AND ADORABLE!!! HE LOOKS SO CUTE, LOOK AT HIM SHAY- MY BEST FRIEND!! I’M SO PROUD!”

Lance is wearing a “my BI-FI signal is strong” shirt that the moms got him. 

Elena 

Lance’s sister, they’re the same age - her mom is actually Lance’s Aunt, but the pregnancy was accidental and Camille never wanted children, so at aged 5 when Camille finally told her mother to stuff it and that she did not want children - Rosa took Elena in as one of her own

From then on the two of them were permanently joined at the hip (Elena is just as goofy and just as stubborn as Lance - and both of them are strong willed and will Fight You about womens rights, POC rights and LGBT+ rights)

She is a Lesbian™

She came out when she was 15 - she had a massive crush on her best friend Lucy and told mom and Lance first (their other siblings found out through evesdropping and general sneakiness) and told dad a few days before her Quinces. He didn’t show up so when the father-daughter dance came up Lance was the one who calmly got up - as if it were meant to be him up there with her and danced with her as she tried not to cry. And the first person Lance told he might be Bi was Elena. (She always kinda knew)

She regularly features in Lance’s videos (she sort of half lives at his and Hunk’s place - crashes on the couch every other night) known (early on) in Lance’s post-moving-in-with-Hunk videos as That Cuban Lesbian™ who always interrupts Lance’s videos to complain or yell at him in Spanish. Ofc anyone who’s a real Lancelot fan knows who she is. 

She was in his Coming Out video where he told the world he was Bi - and they called mom together, for support, and then told Hunk. (Hunk cried many tears)

She had a Very Gay™ crush on Shay when they first met and it’s a running joke that Hunk got to Shay first and that Elena is Bitter about this.

She has a mini lesbian flag tattooed onto her shoulder blade - Lance went with her to get it.

Keith’s friendship group (Pidge, Shiro, Matt, Allura, Coran and Alfor)

Pidge

Pidge is Nonbinary They/Them or occasionally She/Her pronouns

They identify as an Ace Lesbian (just hear me out - cute dates where Pidge is all flustered bc Pretty Girl!!! And just talking about Science Stuff™ and blushing aaraarrrrrrrgggghhhh)

Pidge is also a YouTuber but like an actual Big Time™ YouTuber - They used to be HackerKatie but then they came out and changed their name so now they’re HackerPidge (If you’ve ever watched MilesChronicals that is what Pidge’s Channel is like - also a Gaming Channel - for Gaming) 

They live in a space-y flat with Keith, Shiro and Matt but they’re like never there??? (Once they straight up disappeared for a week and one morning Keith walked into the kitchen to just see Pidge sat on top of the fridge eating a bowl of Lucky Charms™)

One time they pulled a massive prank on Shiro (which they ofc recorded and put on YouTube) and when Shiro found out he banned them from YouTube and all Social Media for two weeks. Turns out that was a Bad Idea™ because Pidge fans (Hacklets) started Major Discourse on Twitter and Tumblr bc they didn’t get updates and there was nothing on Pidge’s social media (there was a theory that Pidge was dead). Shiro allowed Pidge back on YouTube and stuff and Pidge made a video explaining with Shiro in the back of the video holding one of those Shame Signs that said “I banned my child from social media for two weeks and accidentally started an internet war”

wait wasn’t this supposed to be about Pride???

help

Pidge is wearing a top that says “Male/Female/Don’t worry about it” - their galaxy backpack is littered with buttons about gender (e.g. ‘ask me about my pronouns’, and the nonbinary flag) and their sexuality (e.g. ‘beautiful day to love girls’, ‘girls, girls, girls’ etc.)

They have the nb flag and the lesbian flag painted on their cheeks and THEY/THEM painted in block capitals on their forehead.

NEXT PERSON

Shiro and Matt

Shiro is a very Bi Dad Brother and he is Very Tired™

Matt is the Gayest being you will ever meet.

He and Matt have been dating since High school, they were best friends until Matt blurted at Prom to the entire student body that he’d been in love with Shiro since middle school

Shiro felt the same and they started dating (The entire school was relieved - there were betting pools on when one or the other was finally going to fess up)

They have a joint YouTube channel (GaysInSpace - Matt-Man and SpaceDad) Its mostly a fitness/yoga and some make-up videos (they did the Boyfriend Does My Make-up - it was horrendous) He did a galaxy make-up tutorial ONCE because he and Matt had just got into loads of space shows/films and was forever named SpaceDad because of it. 

They mostly do couples yoga and fitness videos which generally turn into shenanigans after the first like ten minutes - they are the power couple of space and their fans named themselves the ‘Gaybies’

Shiro and Matt have matching shirts and hoodies 

Hoodies: Matt - If found return to Shiro / Shiro: Keep him.

T Shirts: Matt - My Boyfriend is Bi-Lingual (bc Shiro can speak fluent Japanese) / Shiro - My boyfriend’s gay, but I’m not. 

They have their flags painted on their faces - Gay for Matt and Bi for Shiro.

Matt bought a giant gay flag at the start of the parade and has since tied it around his shoulders 

Shiro’s holding a sign that on the front says “God said Adam and Eve so I did both” but on the back has a message that Matt hasn’t seen “My boyfriend has no clue I’m going to propose today.”

Shiro proposes halfway through the parade (Lance’s group was actually just a little behind them and he and Hunk caught the entire thing on camera). The music from the parade cut out and all of their closes high school friends, Shiro’s dad and Matt’s parents emerge from the crowd whilst a song they both adore (“Marry Me” by Jessica Smith - when Lance uploads the video he makes sure to link the song in the description to credit the artist) starts to play, Shiro gets passed a mic and he starts to sing (his voice isn’t perfect but it’s damn good) When the chorus (May All Recognise Real love Yours and mine Make all love Equal) comes on the friends and family members hold up the lyrics to spell out MARRY ME. Matt is completely stunned (the gay flag cape had been stolen by Keith earlier so at least he didn’t look like a complete idiot) Then Shiro’s getting down on one knee and opening a box with a ring in it at Matt’s crying. 

“What do you say, Cadet? Wanna get hitched?”

“Oh for christ- Just put the ring on my finger and kiss me idiot!” 

Matt’s still crying as Shiro slides the band onto Matt’s finger and swoops up for a kiss, before turning around to yell “HE SAID YES!”

The crowd goes wild

Allura

Allura is a beautiful Lesbian and she and Elena get on swimmingly (Elena has the biggest crush on her and she and Lance cry about how beautiful she is from her videos)

Her user is PrincessOfAltea she does beauty tips and tricks as well as a gaming channel - she’s surprisingly good and is one of The Best players in a game called Altea (It’s an RPG Quest series) - her subscribers love how amazing she is and she usually plays with Matt, Pidge, and Shiro - Keith sometimes joins in and he’s surprisingly good. 

She’s Alfor and Coran’s daughter (Alfor’s biologically - they got a surrogate mother - who they still keep in contact with - she’s Ace/Aro and also goes to Pride with them but she couldn’t make it this year)

(Coran is wearing this )

She met Shiro through working out at the same gym - He mad a mini bi crush on her and gushed to Matt about the Pretty Girl at the gym for weeks

(Matt didn’t get too jealous - as soon as he lent over and pressed a kiss to Shiro’s lips, he would generally shut up about Pretty Girl and think about Pretty Boyfriend instead)

Allura is covered head-to-foot in glitter (as are Coran and Alfor) because of an incident that happened at Shiro’s flat with Pidge, a pop-tart and glitter Allura was opening to dab on her face. 

She has the lesbian flag painted like war paint on her cheeks and a pastel top with two girls kissing on it that says “Girls like Girls like Boys Do” on it. 

She’s also parading around with a sign that says “I love my emo gay son” with a picture of Keith’s face on it.

Keith

Keith has been out for years. Literally since he was thirteen. 

(He came out via a dinner conversation, when Matt was over for dinner at the Shirogane Household one evening. Matt had been talking about how all teenage boys are supposed to be obsessed with girls and wanting to date girls etc. and Keith had simply said “Well I don’t like any girls but I was in calculus the other day with Jared and I thought he looked cute. I wouldn’t mind being his boyfriend.”  A bug eyed Papa Shirogane had asked “Keith are you gAY?” - Keith had asked what that meant and after Shiro had explained “B-boys who l-like other b-boys... romantically.” Keith had shrugged dismissively and said “Well I guess then, yeah, I am.”)

He’d also been watching SirLancelot’s videos since Lance had begun YouTubing (at first they’d just been braces-Lance and Hunk prank videos and relatables middle schoolers version) And has pretty much been In Love since.

However, this was Keith’s first ever Pride - the only reason he’d actually agreed to go was because he knew Shiro planned to propose and he didn’t want to miss that, despite the overwhelming threat of an large-crowd-induced anxiety attacks.

He’d gone with a simple gay outfit, black shorts, ratty converse, flannel around his waist, rainbow suspenders and a tank top Shiro had gotten him especially (that said Too Gay For This World)

At first Keith had refused to wear it (he secretly adores this top and Shiro Knows)

He has his own YouTube channel which isn't isn’t nearly as popular as Lance’s - but he has a solid fanbase

His user is CryptidKeith and his channel is called The Keith-Files - Conspiracy Theories

His fans are called his Cryptids and he is continuously referred to as “The Wild Keef” due to a comment Pidge once made in one of their Conspiracy collabs

Of course Hunk and Pidge have done many collabs and when its mentioned that most going are YouTubers they decide to meet up and introduce their friendship groups - Lance decides to vlog it all as he is anyway - First Pride.

[Part 1]/[Part 2]

[ofstarsandvibranium]

Internet Famous: Part 18

Fandom: Star Wars (Modern AU)

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Summary: Poe and Reader are friends who came together and started a youtube channel for fun. 1 million subscribers later, they’re now internet famous. Their friendship has thrived, however, all of their fans can obviously see that Poe and Reader aren’t just friends.

Internet Famous Masterlist

The first one to step up was a little girl who looked like she was nine or ten, “Hi,” she said shyly.

You smiled, “Hi, sweetheart! What’s your name?”

“Zoe.”

“Cool! My sister’s name is Zoe! What’s your question Zoe?”

“I was wondering how Poe did in Aladdin?”

Poe smiled, “Well, thank you for your question, Zoe. Um, for some who don’t know, I played Aladdin at our local theater. It was acting, singing, dancing, the whole shabang! And it was absolutely great! For about three months, I was a Disney character! I couldn’t believe it! It was fun and I made a lot of new friends! And Y/N, bless her heart, was so supportive of me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be able to cross that off my bucket list!”

Zoe nodded, “Okay, thank you!”

The next person was a teenage girl that looked like she was maybe fifteen or sixteen, “Hey guys!”

“Hiya!”

“Hey!”

“So, a lot of youtubers are writing their own books and going on tours. I was wondering if you two planned on doing the same.”

You hummed, “Actually,” You faced Poe, “This is gonna be the first time you’ll hear this Poe,” You faced the crowd, “I’m actually planning on creating my own book journal thing!”

Poe’s eyes widened, “Really?”

“Yeah! But it’s gonna be great. It’s gonna be called the Happy Journal. That’s all I’m gonna say about it for now, but I think you’ll all love it.”

The next person was a guy about your guys’ age, “Hey guys. Thanks for coming here and everything. We really appreciate it.”

“Well, thank you! We appreciate you too!” Poe said.

“Thanks! So I was wondering if you guys could sing something for us? And Poe can you play the guitar?”

You and Poe looked at each other, “Wow. Uh. Hm? That was kinda unexpected. I didn’t bring my guitar so I can’t really-”

“Actually,” Kevin interrupted him, “We brought one with us juuuust in case. Can someone bring out the guitar?” A young woman ran up the stage and handed Poe the guitar.

You shook your head at Kevin, “You’re sneaky, Kevin.”

He held up his hands, “Hey! It’s good to be prepared!”

You looked to the young man, “Uh, what do you want us to sing?”

“I honestly have no clue.”

You glanced at Poe, “Lucky?”

Poe smiled, “Lucky, it is.”

After the panel finished, you two went to your meet and greet after. It was fun as you interacted with viewers, talked to them, and took pictures. Many actually gave you two gifts, which was really sweet of them. A lot of it was artwork and you were amazed! You vlogged a lot during that time too. A lot of people said such nice and heartwarming words about you and Poe. You felt so overjoyed!

Once the meet and greet was over, you and Poe met Zoe, Matt, and Ava at Disneyland. They met you at Cafe Orleans in New Orleans Square.

“AUNT Y/N! UNCLE POE!” Ava screamed as she stood from her seat. 

Matt was chuckling, “Sit down sweetheart before you get hurt.”

“Sorry,” Ava mumbled. 

You and Poe walked up to them, “Hey there, bug! Wow! You look beautiful!”

Ava twirled in her Belle dress, “I’m a princess! And look Uncle Poe! I’m wearing the crown you gave me!”

Poe picked Ava up and kissed her on the cheek, “I see that, Princess Ava.”

Just in time, the waitress came with the bill and Matt immediately paid before Zoe could whip her wallet out. Zoe pouted and Matt kissed her on the cheek, “Don’t pout, gorgeous.”

Ava giggled in Poe’s arms and whispered to Poe, “Mommy and Matt are in looove.”

Poe smiled, “Yes they are.”

The waitress came back with the receipt and Matt’s card. Zoe stood up, “So! Where to?”

“Dumbo!” Ava yelled in excitement.

You laughed, “Alright, Dumbo it is.” Poe set Ava down and she tugged you and Poe with both her hands.

“Let’s go let’s go let’s go! Hurry up!”

“Calm down, bean. I’m sure your aunt and uncle are a bit tired from VidCon.”

You shrugged, “We’re good. We could actually watch her for a bit if you and Matt want to do some stuff on your own.”

“Yeah mommy! Go spend time with Matt! I’ll be fine with Aunt Y/N and Uncle Poe!”

Zoe looked up at Matt who just shrugged. Zoe sighed and knelt to Ava’s level, “Okay, be good for them. You promise, bean?”

Ava nodded, “Promise!” She kissed Zoe on the cheek and waved, “See you later mommy! See ya Matt!”

By the time it got dark, Ava was tired. Within an hour and a half, the fireworks show would happen. You, Poe, and Ava decided to find the perfect spot in front of the castle. Ava was napping in Poe’s arms when he received a call from Zoe. He handed you Ava and he stepped away to answer the call, “Hey.”

“We’re all here to the right of the castle by the wishing well. These cast members know what’s gonna happen so you could cross the rope and propose to her right in the middle.”

“Great. You wanna get Ava?”

“Matt’s heading towards Y/N to get her.”

“Okay, cool.”

Poe heard Zoe chuckle, “You don’t have to be nervous. She’ll say yes. She’s loved you since high school.”

“I know,” Poe ran his hand through his hair, “But there’s always that small chance she’ll say no, then I’d have made a fool of myself in front of-”

“Calm down, man. It’ll be fine. Oh, hold on.” Poe waited and within seconds, Zoe came back, “Okay, the cast member said the show will start in five minutes. So you gotta do this now.”

Poe groaned, “I’m not ready!”

“Yes, you are! Now go kill it and propose to my sister!” With that she hung up. Poe took some deep breaths and walked back to you.

As he approached, you smiled at him and suddenly, Poe felt like he couldn’t breathe, “Matt got Ava. They’re with Zoe somewhere else.”

Poe nodded, “Okay. That’s fine.”

You arched an eyebrow at him, “You okay, babe?”

Poe took your hand, “Come on.” You two walked under the rope and stood in front of the castle. People started cheering and you didn’t know why.

“What’s going on?” 

Poe held both your hands and looked into your eyes, “Y/N, when I first met you in high school, I knew you were going to be someone special. We graduated high school and college together. We live together. We have a career together. We’ve basically been together for ten plus years. But it’s not enough. I want forever with you. I love you so much, princess.” Poe fished out the velvet box out of his pocket and knelt on one knee. People began screaming and cheering. He opened the box to reveal the ring to you, “Y/N L/N, will you make me the happiest prince in the happiest place on earth and say ‘yes’ to being my princess forever?”

You stood there, eyes watering and hands covering your mouth. So speechless you nodded. Everyone’s cheers grew louder as Poe slipped the ring onto your finger, kissed your hand, and swept you off your feet into a hug. Poe set you down and pointed behind you. You turned to see not only Zoe, Matt, and Ava, but Finn, Rey, Kylo, Ben, and the rest of your family. You ran up to them and they all surrounded you. They all congratulated and applauded you. 

You looked at Poe still with watery eyes and threw yourself at him. You gave him a big passionate kiss and you could feel his smile against your lips. You felt so lucky to fall in love with your best friend.

Part 19