#is this too long? yes. but i had like 10 other songs i mulled over adding so be grateful. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

snowdice · 4 years ago

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Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 33]

Here is my starting post for today’s study break stories session. See this post for more details and feel free to send me asks to keep me going! It’s been a lot of fun so far! I will reblog this post with the story as I write them today. I’ll be constantly looking for ideas of times and places for Janus to have missions, so feel free to send in any you can think of at any point!

If you are a new follower or just don’t want all of these posts clogging your dash, please feel free to block the tag “study break stories” as all posts and voting about it will go there. You can still see the finished product of the story even if you are blocking that tag as I will not tag the edited chapters with “study break stories” but with the tag “folds in paper.” See edited chapters below. None edited chapters are under the cut.

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

Alright, here we go again!

Chapter 12

There was something off about his readings. Clearly the time distortion was starting to pull at this place with the way the weather was flickering between storming and sunny, but he still couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact location of the source of it. He could, however, get that it must be somewhere on this side of the river more into the downtown area, so that’s the way he was walking, Pat close on his heels.

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

“Just because I don’t know the names of things doesn’t mean I don’t understand them.” He stuck out his tongue. Janus was dealing with an actual toddler. “Unlike you who has a bunch of fancy words, but just caused a time loop.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never introduced myself to you with a musician’s name, but now you’ve told me that I will. So, at some point in the future I will have to, thereby making you think to say that now. Time loop.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“Does too,” Pat claimed. “Like I have said once before and you may or may not have heard me say before, anything you do to me to get back at me for something I haven’t done yet, just causes whatever that is to happen in the first place.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“Then take it up with future me. I haven’t done anything to you.” Then he paused and sighed. “…Which I guess means you’ve done nothing to me.” He seemed to mull this concept over for a long moment. “Well you were a bit crabby about me not knowing what a time distortion was, but I can forgive you for that.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

“It integrates time relevant data like traffic conditions and local weather warnings with time travel technology,” Pat explained. “Something seems to be going on in a museum a couple of blocks that way.”

“I…” Janus said. That was actually a really good idea, usually unnecessary with scouts observing that data beforehand, and Janus wasn’t sure how good the accuracy would be considering whatever was taking it into account was automated, but still a good idea. “Well, I guess since we have no other leads, we can check it out.”

Pat looked far too proud for having only used a piece of tech that hadn’t even been confirmed as accurate. “Then, let’s go,” he said right as a chilly wind started to pick up and a couple of snowflakes began to fall around them. “Before that gets worse…”

Janus let Pat lead with his iPhone. Janus’s timepiece still wasn’t picking up a clear signal for some reason, but it seemed to point in the same general direction as Pat’s. Strangely though, as they got closer to their destination, the signal started to get fuzzier. Pat’s tech seemed unaffected leading them closer to the museum.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

He dithered from a few moments before following Pat inside. Pat had already struck up a conversation with the woman charging admission into art museum. She was looking at him, her brow knit as he spoke. Janus nudged him away from her getting a confused glance from him in return. He shot a smile at the woman.

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“It’s not silly,” Janus said. “It’s a legitimate issue. The wrong person who’s watched too much science fiction notices and you’re putting the timeline at risk. Not to mention if there are other time travelers around that aren’t as nice as me.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

Pat glanced at him with a bit of a smirk. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It would be a much bigger risk to the timeline than me speaking in French from the 1830s. But, I’m pretty sure the reason mine still works is just a software difference.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Pat opened his mouth, doubtlessly to supply him with yet another frustratingly cheeky and unhelpful answer. Yet, Pat did not have a chance to do so as, just as Janus stepped onto the second floor of the museum, the ground started to violently shake. Janus tried to turn to catch Pat as the other man’s foot slipped on the last step, but he couldn’t do so in time. Pat fell onto his hands and knees, sliding back a few steps and smacking his face into the stairs hard once and then a couple of times more after that as he slid.

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. ��Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.

Janus pushed him so he was leaning slightly forward and produced a pack of time appropriate tissues from his pocket. He pulled one out of the package and offered it to him.

He took it and pressed it up against his nose to try to stop the bleeding. He seemed mostly alright though Janus imagined he’d have plenty of bruises down the line. The power in the museum flickered and Janus looked up. Now that he was listening, he could hear people panicking in and out of the museum.

“We should probably get off of the stairs,” he suggested.

“Yeah,” Pat agreed. Janus helped him to his feet, and they climbed back up the steps. Janus looked around and found an employees only sign a few feet away. Usually he’d not risk that as it could get him into trouble he didn’t want to be in, but considering the earthquake that had just happened, he could probably play it off as panic.

He ushered Pat into a small room and found a chair and table. He had Pat sit in the chair and pulled out another one of the tissues to dab at the blood coming from the cut over his eyes. “Here,” he said. “Hold that there. I’m going to go see if there are any bandages about.”

Pat took the tissue with the hand not already holding one to his nose. “Thanks,” he said.

Janus nodded and got to his feet. The lights flickered once again but didn’t stay off for now. He didn’t know how long that would last.

He couldn’t see anything that might hold bandages in this room, but there was a second door. “I’ll be right back,” he told Pat, exiting through it.

The lights flickered once more as the door closed behind him and he cursed. When they came back up Janus’s eyes immediately fell on a man. They both froze.

“Remus!” Janus hissed the second their eyes met. “What are you doing here?”

Remus blinked at him for a moment. “Hi. Janus,” he said. “I… come to France for… tea sometimes?”

“There isn’t any tea back here.”

“So, there isn’t…” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Uh, so I actually cannot talk to you right now.”

“What do you mean?” Janus asked. Remus grimaced in a way Janus had never seen from him before. It immediately set off alarm bells in Janus’s head. “Oh my god,” Janus said. “Oh my god. You’re not from the same time as me.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Remus mumbled.

“Holy shit, you’re looping?!”

“It’s… not looping if I wasn’t here the first time.”

“Remus, we spend more than 12 hours a day together most of the time. The only thing worse than this is if I looped back to this time myself.”

“…Yeah. Anyway, I need to leave now.”

“Please do.”

He turned to go, but then stopped. “Oh, and,” he reached into his pocket and tossed something at Janus. Janus caught it.

It was Band-Aids.

“Oh, shit,” Janus spat at the clear use of foreknowledge. “I hate this. I hate you. I’m going to kill you the next time you see me.”

“Sure, Jan.”

“Go.”

He did, slipping into the next room while Janus took a deep breath and then turned back to the door behind him. He schooled his face before Pat looked up. “I found some Band-Aids.”

Pat nodded and Janus came over to squat next to him.

Janus opened the box and Pat looked down. His eyes lit up with sudden joy so intense that Janus felt like he’d just gotten a punch to the gut. “Kitty Band-Aids!” he exclaimed. Janus bothered to actually look at the design on the container, only to note the cartoon cats on the front. Pat was almost vibrating off his seat. “Look they’re all so cute!” He grabbed the container from him to inspect the different designs printed on the back with glee even as a bit of blood was still trickling from his nose.

Janus took the box back gently and guided the wad of bloody Kleenexes back to his nose.

“Which would you like?” Janus asked.

“Oh, they are all so cute,” Pat cooed. “Um, how about that one!” he pointed. “Or that one! Or that one!”

“Pat you only have one cut.”

“But they’re all so cute!” Pat said, tongue tucking into his cheek. He contemplated the box again. “Let’s do the black one,” he finally settled on.

Janus selected one of the Band-Aids with a black cat wrapped around a pink ball of yarn and staring back at them with wide green eyes. The think looked like it had partaken in one two many doses of catnip, but Janus didn’t mention that.

Instead, he just carefully unstuck the backing from the Band-Aid and motioned for Pat to remove the tissue from his forehead. He smiled at Janus as he drew back.

Janus cleared his throat. “How’s the nose.”

“It’s slowing down,” Pat replied. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Janus replied. They met eyes for a second before Pat looked away back at the box of Band-Aids.

“Oh,” Pat said. “There’s a grey one. I didn’t notice.” He pointed to it. “I should have used that one.”

“Do you like grey cats?” Janus asked.

“I like all kitties,” he said, “but one of my roommates loves grey cats. He had one when he was a kid and thinks of them as good omens. Seeing one always brightens up his day.”

“A friend of mine has a grey cat,” Janus said. “She’s much more tolerable than him.”

Pat laughed a bit. “Don’t be mean,” he said.

“Oh, he deserves it, don’t worry.” Janus considered him for a moment. “Here,” he said, pulling out one of the Band-Aids with the grey cat on it. It did, actually, look a lot like Diesel Fuel.

“But I don’t…”

Janus just shrugged and stuck it on his cheek where there was no wound. Pat giggled and touched it with a finger. Janus stood back up.

“Can I have another tissue?” Pat asked.

“Sure.” Janus handed a tissue over to him and he crumpled up the bloody ones in his hand.

“I think I’m good to keep going,” Pat said, putting the new tissue under his nose. “The nose will stop soon.”

Pat got out his iPhone and directed him back out of the room. They checked the second floor and didn’t find anything and so went to the third floor. The second they arrived in the room that Pat’s phone was directing them too, Janus knew that it must be right. There was a strange, distorted whirling sound and the entire room was shaking slightly like they were standing next to a railroad track.

“I’m guessing this is it,” Pat said.

Janus nodded and looked over his shoulder at the screen. They both cautiously walked towards where the little dot was on the phone.

“Is that it?” Pat asked, pointing at a small device on the center column in the room. Janus reached forward to flip the switch on it. The whirling stopped and the room settled. Janus’s time piece vibrated as it came back online. They waited for a few moments. “I assumed… time distortions would be more…”

“They are,” Janus said. “This one is artificial.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a simulation,” Janus said. “It causes similar symptoms to a time distortion, but it’s not actually fracturing time at all.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know,” Janus said. He took the piece of tech of the wall and carefully stored it in his pocket, “but someone’s trying to get our attention.”

Chapter 14

Janus didn’t feel comfortable leaving France 2027 just yet, still weirded out by the strange turn of events. So, he and Pat ended up sticking around for a couple of hours. They looked through the art museum for a bit, but Janus was having trouble focusing on the pieces, and Pat eventually suggested they get some air. Janus agreed considering the museum would close for the night soon anyway.

They wandered around the downtown for a bit. The people seemed to jump back from the strange weather and earthquake that afternoon rather quickly, and there were plenty still about to blend into.

Pat was snapping photos every so often like a tourist which Janus shook his head at but allowed because even with the outdated phone it almost made them blend in even more. It also might stop any questions about Pat’s weird way of speaking French. They could just say he was an overeager tourist who watched too many old movies.

“Ooo!” Pat said. “We should get crepes.”

“Why?”

“You can’t go to France and not eat crepes.”

“I assure you, you can,” Janus said dryly.

Pat shot a pout at him and the next thing he knew he was in a small crepe shop.

For Janus, choosing something was easy. He just ordered the first thing he found on the menu which seemed to be a standard one with ham and eggs. Pat on the other hand seemed to be struggling greatly, and Janus had to gently push him to the side to let some other customers order first.

“What should I get!?” Pat asked. “They all look so good! I could do strawberry preserves or maple syrup or just sugar!”

“Or you could get one that is actually food,” Janus suggested mildly. “I don’t think you need any more sugar judging by how you are acting.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “You sound like Lo.”

Janus made a note of the name ‘Lo’ even though it surely was a nickname.

“But, since you’re insisting, I’ll get something healthy. I’ll have the strawberry one. That’s a fruit!”

“It comes with a cream cheese filling,” Janus pointed out.

“And it’s fruit!”

Janus shook his head and stepped up to the counter. “One ham and cheese and one strawberry preserve, please,” he said to the cashier as he was not allowing Pat to order in French and accidently say something stupid. He forked over some euros.

“You don’t have to pay for me,” Pat protested when he saw that.

Janus glanced back at him. “I was afraid you’d try to pay in francs,” he said dryly.

It looked like Pat was about to stick his tongue out at him, remembered that Janus had criticized him for that earlier, and then just scrunched up his face in displeasure as though that was any less childish.

They waited for their crepes to be finished and then went to eat them outside near a water fountain.

“I can pay you back for the crepe,” Pat said after they sat down. “I do actually have euros.”

Janus waved him off. “It wasn’t that expensive.”

Pat hummed. “Well, in that case. I insist on paying for a wish for you.” Janus raised an eyebrow. “In the fountain!” Pat clarified.

Pat set aside his crepe to dig in his pocket for a couple of coins. “Here!” he said handing one over.

Janus glanced over at the fountain. “No.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat beseeched. “You have to want something. I’ll even throw it in for you, but you have to make a wish first!”

“No.”

“Please!”

Janus sighed. “Fine.” He popped the rest of his crepe in his mouth. “I wish for a crepe,” he said after swallowing.

“You just had a crepe, silly.”

“But I liked it, so I want another one.”

“We can go back and get you another crepe.”

“Ah, but I’m not hungry anymore.”

Pat crossed his arms. “You’re just being difficult on purpose.”

“Not me,” Janus said putting hand over his heart. “I would never do something like that.”

Pat glared at him, but then snatched the coin out of his hand. “Fine!” he said. “One crepe wish coming right up.” He hopped up with the two coins and darted over to the water fountain. Janus turned to watch him go but then happened to catch sight of something out of the corner of his eyes.

Pat’s phone.

He didn’t pause in his movement, completing the turn, but as he watched Pat close his eyes, presumably to focus on his own wish, Janus snuck a hand out and grabbed the phone without looking. He slipped it into his own pocket.

Pat came back over after throwing both coins in the fountain and didn’t even seem to notice that his phone was missing, picking up his crepe to take another bite. Just to make sure, though Janus decided to distract him. “What do you think of your crepe?” Janus asked.

“I like it! It’s sweet, but not too sweet. There was a crepe place across the street from my apartment in college, but they always put a bit too much sugar in the dough, I think. I’d still eat them, but these are much better.”

Janus nodded and kept up the light conversation until Pat was finished.

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“Well,” he said then, getting to his feet. “It seems that nothing else is going to happen regarding the time distortion. I should be getting back.”

Pat hummed. “I should too. It’s movie night!”

“I probably should arrest you,” Janus noted.

“In the middle of all of these people?” Pat asked mildly.

“Touché,” Janus said.

Pat gasped and pointed at him. “Pun!” he said. Janus blinked at him. “Because we’re in France! That’s French!”

“…Goodbye Pat,” Janus said, turning to walk away from him.

“Goodbye… wait I still don’t know your name!”

Janus stopped to look back at him for a moment. “Like I said,” he replied. “Elvis.”

“Fine,” Pat said. “Au revoir, mon chéri.”

“You never stop, do you?” Janus asked.

Pat giggled. “Considering I don’t know what you mean, I imagine I’m just getting started.”

Janus actually left then, walking off towards the alley he’d first arrived in. In some ways, the mission had been a bust, but in others it had gone very well.

He felt for the weight of the phone in his pocket before pulling up the display screen on his timepiece to go back to the TPI.

It had gone very well indeed.

Chapter 15

The first thing Janus had done when he’d returned to the TPI was hand over the timebomb to Khalid who sent it to forensics. Within the hour, forensics got back to them that it was the same timebomb as 2999 and that it had never exploded, but simply been diffused. Which meant, blessings on blessings, everyone got to go home that night.

Not that Janus went home, no, he ended up falling asleep on his desk somewhere between 3 and 4am, but at least he wasn’t sharing his space with anyone. He’d been trying to hack the cell phone all night to see if it had anything he could use, but he honestly had no idea what he was doing. All it seemed he could do was play some annoying song over and over again about never giving someone up. At around 2am, he’d finally broken and sent off an email, though, he’d continued to try to mess with it after that.

He got woken up by Lena coming into the office at 7am, and noticed he already had an email response asking when Janus wanted to come in.

“Now?” he sent back.

“…Do you sleep?” was the immediate response. “And yes.”

His wrist buzzed as an appointment in 5 seconds downloaded to his timepiece. He selected the coordinates and landed at Cultural Outreach. The receptionist blinked up at him and then back down at the screen on his desk. “Oh!” he said. “I didn’t see this appointment. I think Professor Eran is in his office.”

He didn’t stand to escort Janus this time, so Janus went ahead and went down the hall to Virgil’s office himself.

He knocked on the door and while he was waiting for Virgil to open it, the infernal contraption once again started to play the same stupid song.

“I didn’t even touch you!” he spat, getting it out and tapping on the screen.

“Jonas Brothers dude again?” Virgil asked causally upon opening the door.

Janus shoved it at him. “Make it stop.”

Virgil took it and fiddled with it for a few moments before it stopped with the song. “Oh my gosh,” he said scrolling through something on the screen.

“What.”

“What maniac sets a custom alarm for every 30-60 minutes for a week that just plays ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’? Oh, and one ‘It’s Not Unusual’ on Saturday. He’s mixing memes at an alarming rate.”

“Can you. Just. Make it not happen. Anymore?”

Virgil smirked at him. “Maybe.” He turned around to go back into his office.

“Virgil,” Janus growled following him in.

Virgil just laughed. “What do you want to know about it?” he asked. “Just a fair warning… the song means he… likely was aware someone would steal it.”

“Of course, he was,” Janus groaned.

“But I’m sure we can still get something out of it.” Virgil started tapping at the screen again. “Okay, let’s see. It’s an iPhone 5, and someone jailbroke it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Tampered with it so they could install non-company approved software,” Virgil explained.

“Well I figured that since he was using Google Maps to track time distortions,” Janus grumbled.

“I think I have something,” Virgil said to himself while digging through his desk. “Ah ha!” He held up some sort of cord. “This will let me hook it up to my integrator.” He slotted the cord into the bottom of the iPhone and then crawled under his desk to fiddle around with some other things. “There we go,” Virgil said popping back up. “It might take a few minutes. Running the program any faster might overheat the phone.”

Janus nodded and sat back to wait. Virgil grabbed the phone and started to play around with it a bit even as it uploaded all of its information to his computer.

“Weird,” Virgil said after a moment.

“What?” Janus asked, sitting up straighter.

“There are exactly two contacts. Fewer than I’d anticipate for a regular phone from the 2010s. More than I would expect from one clearly not being used as a phone.

Virgil glanced to the side, and it must have finished the download because he unhooked it from the computer. “I have a 21st century phone network adapter,” Virgil said. “It transfers call back to whatever date the phone says. Do you want to try calling one?”

“It’s worth a shot,” Janus replied.

Virgil dug back into his desk for a small device that he plugged into the same port he’d plugged the earlier cord. “Okay, which contact do you want to try first?” he asked. “One has ‘Ro’ with a crown, red heart, and a gold star emoji. The other has “Lo” with a book, blue heart, and Milky Way emoji.”

“He mentioned a Lo,” Janus said. “So, try him first.”

Virgil nodded. “I’ll put it on speaker.” He pressed some buttons before setting the phone on the desk between them.

The phone rang three times before with a bit of a crackle, it was answered. “Salutations,” a voice said, voice sounding a bit scratchy as though he had only just gotten up.

Virgil motioned with his head for Janus to speak. “Are you ‘Lo’?” he asked.

The man hummed. “To some people.”

Janus… didn’t quite know what to say to that, or even what questions he should ask.

“I’m assuming you’re the man that stole my associate’s phone.”

“Your associate?” Janus fished.

The man made an amused hum. “I believe you were calling him ‘Pat’ on your last adventure.” Janus could hear something being placed down on the other end of the phone. Before Janus could respond, he heard what sounded like an old keyboard being typed on. “Now,” Lo said. “I have to admit, I am surprised you were willing to oblige me so thoroughly by plugging the phone into your system. Let’s see…”

The screen on Virgil’s lit up bright blue all of a sudden. “…shit,” said Virgil.

“Well,” Lo said, “it seems you were clever enough not to plug it into the TPI system, which is disappointing, but…”

There was more clicking on the other end. “Hmm, interesting music tastes for the 4000s,” he said.

“I’m an anthropologist,” Virgil spoke up.

“Ah, yes, I can see that,” Lo replied. “Virgil Eran, senior professor at Silver Mountain University, a vetted member of the Cultural Outreach program, and searched the phrase ‘How to eat sushi without making a cultural blunder and making everyone hate you and losing your job because what kind of shit anthropologist doesn’t know how to eat raw fish right’ which you then shortened to ‘How to eat sushi’ and proceeded to search 52 times in the last 48 hours.”

Virgil went a bit scarlet around the ears. “Dude, did you really have to out me like that?” he hissed at the phone.

“My apologies,” Lo responded. “From my personal experience, don’t dip the rice parts in soy sauce, and don’t add too much wasabi. Overall, most people will be understanding of mistakes, and you will certainly not be fired or ostracized for handling food incorrectly. As long as you are not acting intentionally disrespectful, and I image you will not be considering your clear anxiety over whatever outing you are planning to attend, you will be fine.”

“Okay,” Virgil said. “Good point, but counterpoint, what if you’re wrong and everyone hates me forever?”

“Is it the lunch meeting today at 11:30am?” Lo asked, “because I can see that a Professor Boris Laden has attended the event multiple years in a row. Considering he is a philosophy instructor, has no Japanese heritage that I can see, and I have found a photo of last year’s event wherein he has placed his chopsticks vertically in his rice, and he has yet to be fired or ostracized, I would postulate that your fears are unfounded.”

“Yeah but… okay, I really don’t have an argument for that one, except maybe I’m a piece of shit and everyone is looking for a reason to hate me.”

“Considering your many impressive accolades in your field, I would argue that ‘a piece of shit’ is not a good descriptor of you. Not to mention the fact that you are often a highly requested member for different committees in your department and outside of it.”

“Oh, but is that because people like me or because I’m an anxious mess and make sure events go off without a hitch?”

“From experience, disorder with people you enjoy the company of is far more tolerable than order with people you do not. Which explains my current living situation and the lack of finished dishes in my sink. Therefore, I would assume the former.”

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“A lot of assumptions,” Virgil commented, but he was smiling slightly.

“Assumptions based on data,” Lo argued back lightly.

“You really came in here, hacked into my computer and smacked my anxiety in the face, huh?”

“Glad to have helped.”

“Y-”

“Are the two of you finished?” Janus interrupted, finally getting sick of the two of them.

“Not nearly,” Lo said. “I have gained access to an entire network of a very large university and will be sorting through the data for a long time.”

“Ugh, right,” Virgil groaned, “and you got access through my integrator.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to trace it back to you if you don’t tell them.”

“Nice try,” Virgil said dryly, “but not likely. I’m telling them about you immediately so they can work to kick you out.”

Lo laughed. “Fair enough, but I’ve already gotten plenty of information at this point. Including the fact that you work with the TPI and scheduled an appointment with an Agent Janus Picani this morning set to start a few minutes before this phone call. So, hello Janus.”

“Bastard,” Janus shot back.

“And goodbye Professor Eran. It was a pleasure.” He hung up.

Virgil sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “This is going to be fun to explain to both of our bosses.”

Arc II What We Do to Each Other

Chapter 16:

As it would turn out, Janus and Virgil did not get in trouble for hooking up the old phone to Virgil’s integrator, mostly because it wasn’t really a mistake on their part. The phone cleared all virus checks that the tech people both from the university and the TPI ran on it. The phone should have been clean and should not have caused an issue.

In fact, they were still trying to pin down the code on the general university server. They could tell that something was mucking about on the system but what or how was a mystery. This also meant that there was no telling what information had been compromised and considering how many things Silver Mountain had its hands in, that was… a bit worrying.

Another worrying thing was there was suddenly more activity of late at the TPI. There were more time distortions popping up every day. Usually they would be few and far in between. There had been 3 total recorded the year before, but over 12 in the last week. Some of them were fake like the one Janus had investigated, but some of them were real. It painted a distressing picture and also was a drain on their resources. Khalid was actually looking to advertise positions to hire new recruits which was something she rarely did as she liked to keep appointments to the TPI in house.

They’d even loosed the number of field agents needed for each mission and Janus and Remus had been splitting up just to get everything done. Today, he and Remus had thankfully only two missions scheduled for the day.

“Are we going together or separate today?” Janus asked Remus.

“Think they’ll burn me at the stake for being a witch if I go alone to either of them?” Remus asked.

“I don’t know. Probably. I think we’re getting a bit late into the 1700s for that in Cuba, but I have no idea about Mesopotamia.”

“Let’s just go together. I did not like almost drowning yesterday because I was the only stranger in town when the weather was going wonky.”

“Surely it isn’t because you opened your mouth. Ever.” Janus said dryly.

“How was I supposed to know he was the local clergyman’s son?”

Janus rolled his eyes. “On second thought,” he said, pushing a button on his desk to choose Cuba as he next mission, and standing up. “I don’t want you coming with me.” Yet, he did not protest when Remus also signed up for the Cuba mission and he waited for him by the office door before going to talk to Rhi.

Rhi was a bit frazzled when which meant quite a bit as she was usually incredibly put together. Remus didn’t even seem inclined to tease her today.

“Okay,” she said once they’d closed the door behind them. She flipped through some documents on her desk. “Picani and Clockson. Camaguey Cuba 1755. Do you know Cuba?”

“Uh,” Janus said. “Yeah?”

“Like you’re reading the things, right? I don’t have to babysit you, right? You got it? The Seven Year War was happening, but it won’t affect you much as it hasn’t really hit Cuba. It’s the middle of the Camaguey Carnival. Everyone will be everywhere and there will be chaos so as long as you don’t really fuck up you should be fine. Um…apparent races.” She looked up at them and studied them each for a moment as thought looking at them for the first time despite having known them for years. “It’ll work. Go to costuming.”

“Shouldn’t we…” Janus said, “sign things?”

“…Yep,” she said, fiddling with her desktop and then sending documents over to their side to sign.

Janus and Remus both did before sending them back.

“Great. Good.” She stood and grabbed some things from behind her. “You can go.” She sat back down as they took their things and Janus noticed a message pop up on her desk. She looked up at Remus looking exhausted. “What?” she asked.

“Just open it,” Remus said.

Rhi tapped it and a photo opened.

“I got her a new mouse toy!” Remus said happily as Rhi looked at the picture of Diesel Fuel attacking a cloth mouse.

“That is… appreciated Agent Clockson,” Rhi said. “Now get out.”

They did, leaving to get their costumes on and checked. Costuming was just as busy and frazzled as Rhi had been and they actually had to wait for decon because there’d been a mix up with the agents leaving before them. They landed in Cuba without issue. Janus could already hear the festival in full swing outside the small building they’d were in. Remy was standing there with a very not time appropriate mug of coffee.

“Sue me,” Remy said when Janus raised an eyebrow at it. “Please just… get in and out without causing trouble. Seriously. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else.”

“We’ll do our best,” Janus assured.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down to look at him. He looked exhausted. “God please do more than your best.”

Janus nodded tightly. “We’ll be in and out,” he said, already glancing at his timepiece. It had been disguised as a golden bracelet which made it a bit harder to actually use, but wrist watches wouldn’t be invented for more than a century, so they’d have to make do. “The time distortion, if that’s what it is, should be in the middle of town. Let’s go.”

He and Remus exited the building onto the packed city street.

Janus was immediately bombarded with all types of sights, sounds, and smells. There were many colorful articles of clothing and costumes as people went every which way along the street talking to other members of their community, playing instruments, and dancing. There was the sound of people speaking Spanish, still mostly almost pure Castilian Spanish with perhaps a bit of influence from Taino as the Haitian revolution had yet to push the Creole language over to Cuba. People must have been hard at work cooking different dishes for the carnival as many different spices wafted through the air. It was sticky hot considering it was the middle of June in the tropics and Janus was immediately sweating despite the temperature appropriate clothing he’d been outfitted with.

He glanced around their immediate area, just scoping out the crowds. His eyes were immediately drawn to one person near them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he said out loud when he saw Pat. Remus looked in the direction Janus was.

Even if Janus didn’t recognize him the moment he laid eyes on him, he probably still would have ended up staring as he was the only person in the area who clearly did not know how to do the dance he was attempting.

Remus snorted and Janus shook his head in secondhand embarrassment. “Well, would you look whose boyfriend’s here,” he said to Janus. Make that firsthand embarrassment. “Has anyone told him the Mambo wasn’t invented until the 1900s and also that’s not how you do it?”

Chapter 17

Pat stopped dancing the moment he saw Janus approaching him, but he still bobbed cheerfully ( and unrhythmically) to the music. “Hi Janus,” he said pleasantly.

“You just have to rub it in, huh?”

There was a flash of confusion across his face, but then he smiled. “Well, I know where in our relationship you are. How was France?”

“You’re a bastard.”

“You stole the phone,” he laughed.

“You stole the bomb,” Janus countered, “and you wanted me to steal the phone. You booby trapped it.”

“No,” Pat correct, putting a finger up. “We have security on my phone because in high school I once forgot it in the school locker room and long story short, the three of us ended up in a lake. So, then Lo made sure I always had some sort of tracker on it. When I started time traveling, he updated it and when I met you we updated it again in case there was ever an opportunity like that. Lo calls it using our weaknesses to our advantage.”

“He’s a bastard too,” Janus growled.

Pat just laughed.

“Is someone talking about me?” Remus asked, stepping over to them. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Oh,” Pat said, blinking at Janus’s partner for a moment. “Remus.” He hesitated slightly. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” Remus asked. “Uh, I’m doing good. A little stressed out with work, but fine.”

“Good,” Pat said with just a little too much heartfulness to it.

“What?” Janus asked, eyes narrowed at Pat. “What is that?”

“What is what?” Pat asked. He met Janus’s eyes briefly and it made panic surge up Janus’s spine because the look Pat was sending him wasn’t one that said he was playing dumb. It was a warning.

Oh, Janus did not like this. That look told Janus Pat had some foreknowledge that he absolutely could not tell Janus about without messing up the timeline spectacularly. This was why this mess the two of them were mixed up in was so bad, but it seemed Janus did not have much of a choice when it came to Pat.

Despite how bad of an idea he knew it was, he still wanted to push, because whatever Pat was hiding could be very, very bad and it had to do with Remus. There were so many reasons Pat could be acting like that around Remus, but the worst ones were definitely the ones on his mind. Death, injury, illness. They were all possible especially in their line of work and especially with how time was being screwed with right now. And Pat knew. He knew exactly what the answer was, and oh did Janus want to push.

Experience knowing what worse things could come out of having foreknowledge made Janus bite his tongue.

“So, what are you two doing here,” Pat asked, and Janus unhappily let him change the subject.

“Oh, like you don’t know,” Janus replied.

“I don’t know,” Pat said innocently.

“There’s another time distortion,” Janus said, “and while you didn’t know what it was the last time I saw you, I’m pretty sure you do now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know there was a time distortion here. I can help you if you like,” he offered sweetly.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see if I could find the Flying Dutchman,” Pat told him.

“And so you went to Camaguey?”

“Uh huh.”

“One of the farthest places from the ocean in Cuba?”

“Is it?”

“I don’t trust you.”

Pat just shrugged. “Well, if you don’t want my help finding the time distortion, I’ll just be on my way then.”

“Wait,” he said when Pat went to turn away. Pat paused. Janus turned to Remus. “Remus, do you think he’s bullshitting me so I let him wander off and do whatever the hell he’s doing, or do you think he’s bullshitting me into letting him come with us.”

“Hmm,” Remus said, looking Pat up and down. Janus could immediately tell he wasn’t going to get any helpful answer. “Well, if we’re going with the how much do I get to see his, admittedly very sexy, ass criteria.” Janus pinched the bridge of his nose. “Letting him leave now means instant gratification and a nice full image when he turns away. However, letting him go with us means many more opportunities to get a glimpse, but they’d probably just be glimpses. So, yeah that’s a tough call.”

“You didn’t even bother to give me an actual hidden suggestion with that bullshit,” Janus groaned. He glanced at Pat only to see him hiding his very red face in his hands. Janus blinked. “Oh,” he said. “You got him, Remus.” Janus was surprised. He’d expected a bit more tenacity for someone with Pat’s personality. Of course, Janus was used to Remus, so that perhaps had some effect. Pat made a muffled distressed sound behind his hands and Janus raised an eyebrow. “You really got him.”

Pat flapped one hand around while still using the other to completely hide his face. “It’s just. His face. Saying that. Is weird.”

Janus could not say that he didn’t feel a slight spark of joy at seeing Pat flustered. After all, Pat’s weapon of choice had often been flirting with Janus in the past. However, he still smacked Remus on the shoulder when it looked like he was about to continue with something likely far more inappropriate. “We are here for a reason,” he reminded. He turned to consider Pat and squinted at him. “You’re coming with us, I’ve decided. I don’t want to let you out of my sights. Don’t,” he said empathically turning to Remus as the man opened his mouth once more.

Pat had mostly recovered, though his cheeks were just a bit pink still. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Where do we start?”

Janus glanced at his timepiece. “It’s not showing up on our trackers yet.”

“It messed with your tracker last time,” Pat pointed out.

“I know,” Janus said. “Which means it could be another fake one or whatever is causing it hasn’t started yet. If things start going wrong, but it still doesn’t show on our radar, it’s almost certainly a fake one, but some of the fake ones haven’t blocked our technology.”

“Here, I can check,” Pat said.

“Please don’t pull out an iPhone,” Janus begged.

Pat stuck out his tongue at him, and then smiled. He reached for the bracelet on his wrist and twisted it back and forth a few times before pressing his palms together. He glanced around them quickly to make sure no one around them was watching and then peeled apart his palms like he was miming reading a book.

“What the fuck is that, and how do I get one?” Remus asked immediately. It was innocuous, whatever it was. If someone from this time caught a glimpse of the display, they’d likely assume it was a trick of the light, but staring right at it, Janus could tell it was a map of the surrounding areas with a softly glowing blue light marking their current location. Janus could see no screen or origin of a hologram. It looked like the image was drawn onto the man’s palms, but as he watched, the image shifted to zoom out.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything major yet,” Pat said wiggling his fingers a bit. The display changed slightly to some sort of colorful overlay Janus did not understand. Pat hummed. “Did you two come from that building recently?” he asked nodding at it.

“Yes,” Janus replied. “How do you know?”

“There’s sometimes a slight temperature change when people time travel,” Pat explained. “I can read it on here.” He tilted his head. “There also seems to be a big enough temperature change in a church a few blocks away that could indicate time travel. Want to check it out?”

“We might as well,” Janus agreed.

“And if it’s nothing, we can get drunk on the communion wine!”

“He’s going to get immediately struck by lightning,” Janus said.

Chapter 18

“If we see anyone,” Janus said as they entered the church. “You keep your mouth shut. Do you understand me? Remus, do you understand me?”

Remus immediately turned to Pat. “You know, I didn’t grow up Catholic,” he said to Pat who looked at him in confusion. “So the first time I ever entered a Catholic church, you can’t blame me for being a little confused about the whole cabinet thing with a wall between them. After all, everyone was singing about glory to god and what not. So I…”

Janus slapped him. “This is why you were almost burned at the stake yesterday.”

25821

“Excuse you,” Remus said, putting his hand over his heart. “I was almost drowned.”

“You were almost drowned?” Pat asked, his voice seeming legitimately distressed.

Remus shrugged a smile on his face that caused a Pavlovian migraine to start up behind Janus’s eyes. “It’s one of the hazards of the jobs, and really it would have all been worth it if I’d actually gotten to drown in that man’s…”

“We’re in a church!” Janus cut him off switching from Spanish to Swahili in the hopes that no random passersby would be able to understand him in this time and place. “Don’t talk about lewd sex things. Don’t talk about sex at all. It’s a Catholic church!”

Remus continued to speak in Spanish with no regard for anything. “But not talking about lewd sex things takes away 3/4ths of my personality,” he pouted.

“More like 9/10th,” Janus grumbled, “and the other 1/10th is just normal stupid.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t be mean,” Pat scolded, in fucking English for some reason, “but Remus, honey, you probably shouldn’t be saying things like that right now.”

“No, no, he has a point,” Remus said switching to English.

“He’s my partner, I have the right to call him stupid,” Janus insisted.

“And I love you too!” Remus said in Greek because he was really, truly, stupid.

26042

Pat looked between the two, but then seemed to accept it, dropping the concerned expression for a slightly amused one. “If you say so.”

“Can I… help you?” A voice asked. All three of them whipped around to see a young boy looking at them and seeming very confused. Which was fair considering that to his ears, they’d just been speaking nonsense.

“We’re here to pray!” Remus claimed, then he turned to wink at Pat and said under his breath in Swahili, “to that ass.” Pat went immediately bright red again, which was doubtlessly Remus’s aim. Janus subtlety stepped on his foot while smiling at the boy.

26150

“Oh,” the boy said. “Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in questioning the random strangers in front of him further. “I’m going to go back to the celebration now.”

Janus smiled at him. “Have fun,” he said. He waited for the boy to leave through the front door before slapping Remus on the back of the head.

“Ow!” he whined sounding far too pained for how hard Janus had actually hit him.

Janus rolled his eyes. “Let’s just start investigating,” he said.

“Sure, sure, you never let me have any fun,” Remus said, pulling up his wrist and spinning the golden bracelets on his arm. “Hmm…” he said.

#study break stories #not writing

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ficsandcatsandficsandcats · 5 years ago

Note

Can I request a little thing where plus size reader gets a little too drunk at a banquet and is crying to Geralt how Jask will never find her pretty and then Geralt pulls Jask over to take care of reader and she is about to kiss him when he pulls away and in the morning she feels like shit and Jask tells Geralt that he’s never take advantage of someone in such a state and that’s why he didn’t kiss her? Sorry if it’s too long or specific

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Jaskier x ReaderWord Count: 1,622Rating: GTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle @writingstudent @mlleecrivaine @coffee-and-stories @ultracolorfulnerdcollection @astouract @your-not-invisible-to-me @kemmastan @mycat-is-mylove a/n: Yesss 10 points for considering consent! Basic, good behavior should always be modeled and considered the standard and I love any chance to show Jaskier exemplifying that! Hope you like it!

“It’s not fair,” you cried, clutching the goblet of wine in your hand like a lifeline. Geralt moved to pry it from your fingers but you pulled it back in for another sip before continuing your tired, “Why wasn’t I born like other girls? Why don’t I look like them?”

“What do you envy about other girls?” Geralt asked, genuinely baffled. He knew people sometimes did this, finding little things about others they were convinced they didn’t or could never possess, all the while other people were doing the same as they looked at them. It was one of the many things about humanity he was grateful he didn’t have to worry about anymore.

“You know what,” you argued, glowering into your goblet, “If I were smaller, he’d like me. He always sings about these lithe ladies with perfect features. None of the girls in the songs ever sound like me. Especially not his.”

“Jaskier does like you,” Geralt argued, glancing around the banquet hall to try and catch a glimpse of the bard who was much better equipped to navigate matters of the heart.

“Not like that,” you emphasized.

Geralt knew for a fact that this wasn’t true, but he also knew that he wasn’t the one to say it. But he finally saw the one who was.

“Y/N stay right here, alright?” Geralt asked. You waved him off, muttering under your breath about all men being the same and their fear of emotions while Geralt ran for Jaskier.

“Y/N is drunk and I’m not the one to handle it,” Geralt said bluntly as soon as he reached his friend’s side.

“Is she alright?” Jaskier asked, concern creasing his features.

“Ah… No. But mostly just because of her… emotions,” Geralt replied. Jaskier nodded in understanding and once you were pointed out he began to head your way.

You’d been thinking after Geralt left, though it had only been a few minutes. Geralt sounded surprised to hear that you felt down about yourself. Maybe Geralt knew something that you didn’t know. Maybe you should take a chance. Maybe the real difference between you and all of those other women wasn’t your bodies, or at least not chiefly your bodies, maybe it was that they were willing to approach while you’d been too fearful. You made up your mind. The next time you and Jaskier were somewhere private, you would take your shot.

“Y/N Geralt told me that you’re not feeling too well,” Jaskier said, suddenly swimming into view unexpectedly. He was a little fuzzy around the edges but you could still make him out clear enough.

“Jaskier! Just the man I was thinking about,” you exclaimed, rising to your feet a bit unsteadily. Jaskier took a hold of your arms to steady you but through your rose-colored glasses he was preparing for an embrace and you leaned in, tilting your head up to meet him half-way. Suddenly he was no longer pulling you into his arms and you opened your eyes, blinking in surprise, to find him holding you away at arm’s length.

“Y/N let’s get you home,” he said gently. Mortification crowded out all other emotions and you silently let him escort you to the room you were staying in. As soon as you crossed the threshold you shut the door in his face so he wouldn’t see as you dissolved into tears.

—–

“Has Y/N come to breakfast yet?” Jaskier asked as soon as he spotted Geralt sitting at the inn the next morning. He looked around the room anxiously as he waited for the witcher to respond.

“No, I expect she’ll be sleeping in today,” Geralt answered. Jaskier nodded and took a seat across from his friend, trying to decide if he should tell Geralt what had happened, or nearly happened, last night.

“Was Y/N acting a bit strange last night, do you think? I mean did she say anything odd?” he asked. Geralt considered his answer, taking a long time chewing his bacon as he mulled over what to say.

“She was drunk,” he said finally.

“Yes I know but… Well… Geralt, she tried to kiss me last night,” Jaskier blurted out. His friend didn’t look as shocked by this news as he’d expected, confirming his suspicions that the witcher knew more than he was letting on.

“Tried to?” he asked.

“Well I didn’t let her, of course! I’d never kiss someone while they were drunk. It would be taking advantage of them,” Jaskier replied, visibly insulted at the idea. “But I fear that she may have thought I was rejecting her. And I mean, I was, but only in that moment. Not forever.”

“You could always tell her that,” Geralt suggested, not oblivious to the hypocrisy of telling Jaskier to share his feelings with another person. The bard nodded, thinking over Geralt’s advice, and then wordlessly seized the tray of food still sitting in front of Geralt and walked off with it, ignoring Geralt’s cries of protest.

—–

Everything hurt and you were dying.

You tried to open your eyes but your eyelids were 10 times heavier than usual and it hurt, gods everything hurt so much. The birds singing outside were screaming and you wondered what could be making them squawk so loudly, praying it would eat them soon. You managed to sit up and as you waited for your head to stop spinning someone tried to beat down your door. You slowly made your way over to it and opened it a crack. The smell of coffee and bacon wafted in, your mouth watering instantly.

“Y/N? I thought you may be feeling a bit under the weather and brought you some food,” Jaskier said, tone light and coaxing. You opened the door a bit wider but as you looked up from the tray into your friend’s cautious eyes the night before flooded back into memory.

“Oh gods,” you groaned, turning around and walking back to the bed where you unceremoniously flopped down face first. You heard Jaskier shut the door, hoping against hope that he’d shut it behind him, but your hopes were dashed as you heard him set the tray down on the little bureau and the clinking of cup against tray.

“Here, drink some water,” he prompted, holding out the cup.

“Did it really happen?” you asked, voice muffled by the pillow.

“Did what really happen?” he asked, knowing damn well what you meant.

“Did I try to kiss you?”

“Ah, that, yes,” he replied. You emitted a low, guttural groan that went on for a while and Jaskier sat with the water in and, awkwardly crouched next to you until you finally stopped your muffled screams.

“Have some water,” he repeated, gently rolling you to your side facing him. You took the cup and after you’d drained it and handed it back you fixed him with a serious look.

“Jaskier I’m sorry, that wasn’t right to do to you, and now it’s all embarrassing and weird and oh gods just please tell me I haven’t ruined our friendship,” you said.

“Y/N, no! No, listen,” Jaskier implored, taking one of your hands in his, “I didn’t deny the kiss because I didn’t want it. I did it because you were drunk and even though you were initiating, you weren’t in total control and it would have been taking advantage of you on my part. And I could never do that, not to anyone but especially not to you.”

“Well that’s very gallant of you,” you murmured.

“It’s not, though, it’s basic, common decency,” he insisted, and you could see by the look in his sky blue eyes that he was being sincere. You smiled wanly at him and then looked back down.

“Well at least things can go back to the way they were,” you said with a slightly bittersweet sigh.

“Oh, no, they can’t,” Jaskier protested, “At least, not unless you no longer want to kiss me. Because if it was just a strange, drunken impulse of course we can just move past it but if it was a glimpse of feelings you’ve been holding secret… feelings I hold as well… I don’t intend to have things go back to how they were at all.”

“Jaskier are you saying…”

“Try again,” he said, excitement gleaming in his eyes.

“What?”

“If you want to… sometime when you’re not drunk or otherwise impaired, try to kiss me again,” he said. You stared at him blankly, shock written on your face as you processed what he was saying, half worried that you were still asleep.

“Only if you want, mind! I don’t mean to be ordering you around to give people kisses but if you get the urge to give it another shot them pl-”

Jaskier’s words were cut off as you lurched up and pressed your mouth against his. He melted into the kiss immediately, pulling your bottom lip between his and sliding his tongue through the parted lips, tasting wine and water and the salt from the tears you’d cried the night before. He wrapped an arm around you, pressing you closer to him the best he could at your awkward angles, and when you broke apart he was beaming.

“I can do better. Once the world stops spinning it’s over for you,” you said, the shock and adrenaline of the last few moments being overtaken by your hangover’s insistent torture.

“It was perfect,” Jaskier said, giving your nose a little kiss, “Now, lay down and let me take care of you. And you better start by eating some of this food because if Geralt finds I stole his food only for it to go to waste he’s going to be exceptionally angry.”

#Anonymous #jaskier x reader #jaskier x plus size reader #jaskier imagines #jaskier fluff #reader request

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thomothysdoodles · 4 years ago

Note

1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 23, 26, 17, 28, 31, 32, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67,, 68, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 75, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98

I am so sorry, I literally have no idea what came over me

Wow Lulu you really said ‘let’s ask this bitch EVERYTHING’. I love it tho lmao. Since it’s long imma put it under the cut tho

4. How did your elementary school teachers describe you?

“A pleasure to have in class, a bit lost in their mind, if they committed and focused more they’d excell but they settle for good grades”

From elementary to high school lol

5. Do you prefer to drink soda from soda cans, soda bottles, plastic cups or glass cups?

I like soda cans

6. Pastel, boho, tomboy, preppy, goth, grunge, formal or sportswear?

Somewhere between tomboy and grunge I think

8. Movies or tv shows?

Tv shows

9. Favorite smell in the summer?

Sunscreen and freshly baked bread

11. What do you have for breakfast on an average day?

A cup of milk with some cereal or biscuits. For the past month I’ve been following the keto diet tho, and I usually are some ricotta with peanut butter for breakfast

12. Name of your favorite playlist?

“Sad but vibing” lol

14. Favorite non chocolate candy?

Strawberry lollipops

17. Most frequently worn pair of shoes?

A black vans pair, I bought em in August but the left one already got a hole on the front 😤

18. Ideal weather?

Cloudy but not too windy or cold. I just don’t like the sunlight in my face

20. Preferred place to write?

On my phone’s notes app lol, I’ve got almost two thousand notes in here

23. Strange habits?

I hide stuff in my room with no apparent reason. I’ve got money stashed around my room in four different points lol

26. Favorite activity to do in warm weather?

Given the chance, I like to race with my bike to get some refreshing wind

27. Favorite activity to do in cold weather?

Cozy up in a blanket and watch some tv

28. Five songs to describe you.

Karma— AJR

Ultimately— Khai Dreams

Putting a spin on Slow Dancing in the Dark— egg

Mars— YungBlud

Gotta be a Reason— Alec Benjamin

31. What outfit do you wear to kick ass and take names?

Black jeans, black sturdy boots, and a silly little hoodie lmao

32. Top five favorite vines?

‘DONT FUCK WITH ME, IVE GOT THE POWER OF GOD AND ANIME ON MY SIDE— AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA’

‘Let me see what you have!’ ‘A KNIFE!’ ‘NO!!!’

‘Hey bro, what do you wanna eat?’ (‘The souuuls of my enemies’) ‘A bagel’ (‘NOOO’) ‘..two bagels.’

FR E SH A VOCA DO

‘Two shots of vodka..’ *pours half a bottle of vodka*

35. Average time you fall asleep?

I am terrible at this. I love sleeping but I also love feeling ✨ unbothered ✨ doing whatever I want in the middle of the night. So, never before 3am usually

37. Suitcase or duffel bag?

Suitcase

38. Lemonade or tea?

Tea

40. Weirdest thing to happen at your school?

I dunno how weird it is, but I always found peculiar that there were cigarette butts on the ceiling of the bathrooms. Like, seven feet tall ceilings. How did those cigs get there??

41. Last person you texted?

My best friend to tell her that my sister found a way to let me watch supernatural on American Netflix >:3c

42. Jacket pockets or pant pockets?

Jacket pockets

43. Hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

Hoodie and/or jean jacket

44. Favorite scent for soap?

I dunno. Talcum powder I think

45. Which genre: sci-fi, fantasy or superhero?

Superhero

46. Most comfortable outfit to sleep in?

Tee and boxers. Sometimes socks too

48. If you were a fruit, what kind would you be?

Umh. Clementines maybe. Easy to peel, sweet but also not, sometimes with seeds.. and some people loathe the little white stripes they have and they spend hours peeling those away

49. What saying or quote do you live by?

“Like any / unloved thing, I don’t know if I’m real /when I’m not being touched.” —Natalie Wee

50. What made you laugh the hardest you ever have?

My best friends always make me wheeze, it can be the stupidest dumbest thing ever, I’m really fucking easy to amuse lol

51. current stresses?

My driver license my driver license my driver license my driver license my driver license my d

52. Favorite font?

I have no idea. This one? Lol

53. What is the current state of your hands?

Good. I just cut my nails, I really wanna put some nail polish but my dad comes back home tomorrow and he always looks me weird when I put it

55. Favorite fairy tail?

The little mermaid

56. Favorite tradition?

A tradition I have with my friends is that when we celebrate someone’s birthday, we go to the thrift shop and buy them stupid stuff to wear or put on. On my birthday a couple days ago I had to wear playboy bunny ears and a black glittery bow tie lol. Once I bought my best friend a tiny pirate hat, and for another my friend took a boa with pink feathers lol

57. The 3 biggest struggles you’ve overcome?

Mmmh

I’m having a hard time with my parents since I dropped out of uni but I think I’m starting to overcome it finally

When my parents were about to divorce and in was dreading the idea of moving from this city

That time in middle school I spent a couple weeks at the hospital to run a bunch of neurological tests

58. Four talents you’re proud having?

I’m pretty good at multitasking

It’s very difficult to enrage me (yes I consider it a talent)

I can juggle lol

I can read in moving cars/trains etc without getting sick :D

59. If you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

“What the f—“

61. Favorite line you heard from a book/movie/tv show/ etc?

“Happiness isn't in the having. It's just in the being. It's in just saying it.” Aka Castiel’s love confession (OF COURSE I WAS GONNA SAY SOMETHING DESTIEL RELATED)

62. Seven characters you relate to?

No specific order:

Dean Winchester

Eric Derekson

Jake Peralta

Doug Eiffel (👀)

Tony Stark

Klaus Hargreeves

Diego Hargreeves

63. Five songs that would play in your club?

Anything from P!ATD

Bang!— AJR

Natural— Imagine Dragons

Anything from Set It Off

Maniac— Conan Gray

64. Favorite website from your childhood?

I didn’t use computers in my childhood lol

66. Favorite flower(s)?

Fresias 💕

67. Good luck charms?

I used to keep in my pocket a little hazelnut my dad gave me once telling me that it was a good luck charm. I took it away tho. I dunno, maybe my rings

68. Worst flavor of any food of drink you’ve ever tried?

I have to admit I never tasted it, but the smell of truffle literally makes me gag, so that

69. A fun fact that you don’t know how you learned?

Apparently your love language is both the one you give AND want love, and also the one you most lacked growing up. So. Mull that over.

70. Left or right handed?

Rightie

71. Least favorite pattern?

Holey ones. Make my sight go double

74. At what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an Advil of ibuprofen?

A seven I guess. I usually try to sleep off anything I have, I hate to take medicines, and loathe to call the doctor lol

75. When did you lose your first tooth?

Around.. six I think?

85. Fairy tails or mythology?

Mythology forever

86. Cookies or cupcakes?

Cookies 🍪

87. Your greatest fear?

That the other shoe will drop and I’ll be alone and lonely

88. Your greatest wish?

To have enough stubbornness to do what I wish to do without getting demoralized so easily

90. Luckiest mistake?

Me and one of my best friends got to know each other through other common friends, and once they both couldn’t come and we ended up spending the day together. We had lots of fun, but we also got drunk and I lost my mcfreaking watch lmao

92. Lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

Lamps

94. Favorite season?

Winter ❄️

95. Favorite app on your phone?

Tumblr! (And the music one. And the podcasts one. And— jk lol)

#ask thomothy personal stuff!#lulu chaos incarnation #not a doodle #I had to think long and hard for some of these questions

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mindctrlaltdel · 4 years ago

Text

Random Reviews: Mulholland Drive

This movie is BASIC INSTINCT, written and directed by Salvador Dali.

***

Recently, I watched MULHOLLAND DRIVE for the first time for my friend Shawn Eastridge's podcast, MISSING FRAMES (www.thenerdparty.com/missingframes/episode-103-mulholland-drive).

As I watched this odd, funny, disturbing, interesting flick, I took the following notes. Is it, as some critics say, the BEST FILM OF THE 21ST CENTURY? Here's an inside look at my viewing experience as I mulled over MULHOLLAND DRIVE...

[PRESS PLAY]

I love how the first five minutes is basically a bad late 90's Gap commercial, all swing dancing, no point...

The Mulholland Drive sign is calling to us. The street, Mulholland Drive, is Bali Hai for perverts.

Justin Theroux gets top billing over Naomi Watts??

I gotta admit, I saw one of the movie's original posters and thought "Naomi Watts AND the lady from the first MEN IN BLACK is in this? It's the triumphant return of Linda Fiorentino." When I DIDN'T see her name in the opening credits, I was disappointed. She's NO Linda Fiorentino... for this role, she's even better. AND she's a countess (seriously, look it up). Oh, and Robert Forster shows up for 10 minutes.

Not-Linda Fiorentino has some hustle in her for someone who just survived a horrible head on collision.

I like how the street signs kind of tell us where we are and what kind of world we're in. It's like a surreal, dramatic version of that Californians SNL sketch.

You mean to tell me that the red-headed older woman didn't see not-Linda Fiorentino under her kitchen table? UnbeLIEVable.

Holy crap, the wide-eyed guy in Winky's - he plays Jimmy Barrett, the comedian in MAD MEN... and MAD MEN is an interesting connection here, because everyone talks in this measured, paced deliberate way throughout that series, kind of similar to how the characters usually speak in the David Lynch productions I've seen... When I started watching MAD MEN, I thought the actors were purposely directed to speak that way, so everything to seem more "real" as opposed to that fast-talking, old-Hollywood style that you'd expect to see from outspoken, big idea-types. I imagined that Matt Weiner wanted people to seem - at least to modern audiences - the way people actually were - particularly, the inhabitants of the intelligent and cerebral world of ad men, working behind the scenes, on the fringes of show business. But then Jimmy Barrett, an old-timey comedian ALSO spoke that way. And it just didn't seem authentic to me. Anyway, back to THIS movie...

OH and that dingy woman behind the dumpster! She's like if Captain Howdy moved out West and got all LA on us. Is that Cloris Leachman covered in mud? And the music... for some reason, there's nothing scarier than the sound of an HVAC vent on full blast. (According to this article, www.vulture.com/2014/10/mulholland-drives-evil-hobo-breaks-her-silencio.html,the actress who played Evil Hobo #1 said of her audition process: "I don’t mean to brag, but David Lynch said he was looking for the most incredible face he could find. I actually met him at a Twin Peaks party, and he was like, 'Look at that face!'")

I love the X-Files-style synth strings that play over Naomi Watts (Betty) and gram-gram (Irene) as they walk through the hotel, I mean the airport... Aw, these two old people love Betty. What a different life she's living than that countess who's not Linda Fiorentino who's squatting in that redhead's apartment that Betty's about to move into.

Even then, Naomi had a good American accent. (Although I learned she's technically British but split her time between England and Australia), those Australians are great at spitting out neutral American sounds. But once I learned that Betty is supposed to be Canadian, I was very disappointed. It's not THAT authentic. Where are her "Aboots"? And she didn't put maple syrup on anything in this whole movie.

Oh my God, are Irene and her husband, riding in this towncar, ALSO going to get held up, like not-Linda Fiorentino at the beginning of the movie? Oh okay, they're not. We just followed them for no reason other than to see that they look happier than an old couple in a Cialis commercial. I guess meeting Betty really improved their sex life or something.

Coco - of course she's a fading hollywood starlet... AHHH, Coco is played by Ann Miller - good for her. She's basically that kooky old landlady from SEINFELD, the one who worked with the Three Stooges that Kramer met when he went to LA. Look at all these connections!

"Prize-fighting kangaroo who shits all over the courtyard" - do you think Naomi Watts is going to come out and say, "as an Australian, I was actually offended by this line, but I was scared into silence by that power-hungry monster, David Lynch."

The countess - who now goes by "Rita" - does kind of look like Rita Hayworth. I like the connections to old Hollywood and to noirs and how it's all wrapped together. Rita Hayworth is also a redhead, like Betty's aunt. She's of Spanish descent as well... and the actress playing Rita in this movie is of Mexican descent... Connections, connections.

I love that this casting session is basically run by a deep state shadow organization with a weird waiter in a red blazer... This is how Disney cast WandaVision.

HAHAHAH "That is one of the finest espressos in the world sir!" - this is DEFINITELY how Disney casts their movies. And Justin Theroux is the only man with integrity in this room! Does anyone have any class in this town!? They don't even validate his parking.

This is my favorite movie about making movies since BOWFINGER. And I may not be lying. And somehow less weird than THE ARTIST.

Is everyone gonna start killing each other over Ed's famous black book? This is oddly funny.

"Something bit me bad!" This incredibly long fight scene between the blond guy and secretary... it reminds me of the Uma Thurman/Daryl Hannah trailer fight in KILL BILL VOL. 2 but with less snakes.

These closeups of lingering looks on Rita's cash-filled purse are great... She's pulling wads of cash out of that purse one at a time, like Leslie Nielsen pulling eggs out of that blond lady in AIRPLANE!

I want to know what direction David Lynch gave that braless woman who's following the blond assassin around. It's like she's doing an acting exercise... like you know, when you're told to fill the space... "walk around the room, and clear your head. And now you're walking really fast. And now you're slow. NOW, imagine what it would be like to walk with your nose as the furthest point in front of you. Lead with your nose..." And David Lynch did that and told the braless woman to lead with her chest.

Justin Theroux is basically Robert Downey Jr.'s character from BOWFINGER, except NOW, he's the protagonist.

Betty is loving Rita's amnesia a bit too much. If this were my life, Rita would be the most interesting thing to happen to me too. Hell, if I was from Ontario, getting off at LAX would rock my world.

When Justin Theroux enters his glass-walled home to find his wife with another man, well... Justin Theroux may never star in something like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, but I can definitely picture him in YUPPIE WITH A GOLF CLUB.

That slinky theme song playing in Justin Theroux's/Laraine's house is a song that I actually listen to in my tiki, lounge playlist - to give you a hint of my music tastes. What I listen to for fun, Billy Ray Cyrus puts on to drown out his love-making.

By the way, BILLY RAY CYRUS!!! WHAT? Is this how Miley was conceived??? I think yes.

Pink paint in a jewelry box! This is much better than the usual throwing-all-his-belongings-out-a-second-story-apartment-window-scene that happens in every other movie.

I wouldn't be THAT excited if I learned MY name was Diane Selwin. BUT the sexxxual tension with the waitress Diane at the diner is palpable!

So, not-Linda Fiorentino has amnesia. How does she know that answering machine is NOT her voice!?

Justin Theroux/Adam Kesher's wife is very aggressive with the large man who's so dedicated to finding Adam Kesher that he keeps calling Adam's name in vain like the secretary in my doctor's office.

I watched this movie in pieces, the first half late at night. The second half the next morning. In between, while sleeping, I had a dream where Betty and Rita were looking over a map and any time one of their hands brushed over another, their hands would turn gold. As if this was a stylistic choice made by the filmmaker directing my dream to show that there's some kind of deeper relationship between these two women. So I've started dreaming in Lynch.

I like how this film is so utterly connected to not only Lynch's subconscious, but the audience's as well. Lynch is TAPPED IN. I don't always love when a film goes all in with a surreal style, because sometimes that's just a cover for something lacking in the storytelling department. But I do feel there's more to it here, in MULHOLLAND DRIVE.

The hooded woman, Louise... I feel like I've run into her on the streets of New York. A Louise will ALWAYS find a way to give you a portent of doom that ruins your day. Friggin’ Louise.

This movie is so moody, you really have to be in the mood to watch it.

There's something magical and prophetic about the cowboy, like he's the seer that the old general sees on the eve of battle... Also, I love how the lead female role in Justin Theroux's movie is his sword of destiny. There's a glitz and gleam and nostalgia to Old Hollywood that naturally gives this movie, set in "modern" Hollywood," a total fantasy vibe.

Hahaha that "You're still here?" scene rehearsal between Betty and Rita is an excellent transition.

James Karen - the real estate guy from POLTERGEIST - is handling casting! "He moved the headshots but he didn't cast the bodies!!"

The casting direction: "Don't play it for real until it gets real." It's interesting how the characters, who work in the "business," seem to control their reality. Betty seems unsure of where the scene is going, then she gets into it. And it really speaks to her conversion from a bright-eyed new arrival to someone who surrenders to the darker impulses of the city.

HEAVY BREATHING.

Ugh friggin' Bob...

I love how Lynnie, the casting director, pulls the rug out from under that scene. There's always a jaded casting person who totally wrecks any good feelings about every audition. It's a thing.

David Lynch uses nostalgia and a latent love for Hollywood to draw the characters (and us) into his world and then subverts our expectations. A lot.

Why is the screen test just a lip-synching contest? ...I think it feeds into the nostalgia element for the movie at large but it seems like a waste of studio resources here. Early-aughties Hollywood spending, amirite?

Rita's reaction to finding the body is played very much like the reaction a character would have in an older film... The horror! The fear! The silent gaping terror while possessed with the inability to scream. I was watching the original KING KONG before this (which is may be a sign from the universe that I had to watch this Naomi Watts vehicle, as she starred in the remake), and specifically remember the scene where the director Carl Denham is coaching Ann Darrow/Fay Wray on how to act in a horror film - "now look up, and you see it, you see it in all its horror. And your jaw drops and you try to scream but you're so frozen in terror that you can't!" - I imagine that's what Lynch is doing to not-Linda Fiorentino off-camera as they filmed this scene.

Uh-oh, Rita is single-white femal'ing Betty now... She doesn't have a personality of her own, so she's going to take Betty's.... And now we're just getting NUDE with each other. This erotic thriller immediately turned from skintillating to Skinemax.

"I'm in love with you" - is Betty just saying that to convince herself? It feels more lusty than real. Betty's so bright-eyed and bushy tailed. Rita is gonna chew her up and spit her out!

I like the shot when they're sleeping together and, as they rest, their faces overlap thanks to the perspective of the framing. How much of the same person are they becoming? Where does one personality start and the other end?

The weird 2am theater. How'd Rita and Betty find this place? I love how this pop-up slam-poetry reading in this opera house is as terrifying to Rita and Betty as finding the dead body.

So Betty starts convulsing in her seat and then the poet disappears in a kind of old-style, cinematic I'm disappearing effect. I dig it.

Wait... is this a mysterious, magical show that just appears in LA, like Hamunaptra, the City of the Dead, that town in THE MUMMY that only shows up at sunrise on the third day or something like that? Or is this just a poorly attended Spanish-language talent show that could only afford to book this theater at 2am on a Thursday?

I love that Betty and Rita are tearing up over Rebekah Del Rio's performance (Rebekah Del Rio is a real person, by the way). Then, Rebekah faints as her voice keeps singing - is NOTHING real? Has Betty totally given into this weird world to the point that she doesn't really know what's authentic and what's fake anymore OR was Betty fake before she got to LA so it was easy for her to get acclimated.

This movie is like THE MATRIX, from the perspective of characters who only took the blue pill and didn't look back.

OOOH, Betty has the box and Rita has the key! But the box is empty except maybe its the Gom Jabbar pain-box from DUNE. Is David Lynch using MULHOLLAND DRIVE as an excuse to make good on his promise to produce a good version of DUNE.

WAIT A SECOND, the cowboy knows the dead girl? Does this even matter?

Now, wait ANOTHER second. Is Betty performing or DREAMING when she's Diane or is something else going one??

What's the BLUE KEY doing there?

"Two Detectives"??? Is she talking about Betty and Rita OR Robert Forster and the pudgy guy? OR someone else entirely - the two guy's from Winky's???

The movie became more interesting the moment the perspective shifted to "Diane" and "Camilla." When that happened, Naomi Watts really amped up her performance... reaching a level of intensity we hadn't seen since Betty's audition... it does take 2 hours to reach that point.... But then, when Betty and Rita are topless on the couch, I couldn't tell who they were supposed to be until Rita/Camilla called her "Diane."

Wait, now Rita's acting?? OH, so Rita was an actress? And Diane wasn't? Or Betty looks exactly like Diane?

The weird shifts in focus. The sad masturbating. This is the most depressing soft-core ever made!

Did Betty get killed and have amnesia too?

They take a shortcut to Eddie's house which looks EXACTLY like where Rita/Camilla was taken at the beginning of the movie by the hitmen in the towncar before that wild accident with those teenagers made her life weirder... OR less weird. You be the judge.

IS this a flashback or the future. Eddie and Camilla are having an affair?

MY MOTHER? COCO - what's real and what isn't????

The jitterbug competition.... Diane/Naomi wanted the lead so bad, Camilla got the part but in Mulholland Drive, Naomi is the star.

Then, Camilla is kissing that other blond actress who Betty watched screen test...

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is just David Lynch telling us that LA is a place for lust and jealousy and no matter what, purity gets ruined.

WHAT, the blond waitress is BETTY? And Diane hires the blond guy, who's officially labeled as a hitman.

Diane is also from Canada...

Are Diane and Betty just different versions of the same people in nearby parallel universes? I certainly HOPE so. This is too much insanity for ONE universe to handle.

The blue key will be found where the blond guy told Diane. Okay, that makes sense. But if this were to mirror real life, the key was in her hand the WHOLE time!

OH, and hobo-Cloris Leachman comes back... AND she's holding the blue box/Gom Jabbar... WHY the hell did those two old people wander out of that paper bag??? Do they represent longstanding guilt? Seems like it. Because they've just crept into Diane's apartment.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost silly to the point of pretentiousness at points - at least with the last word to be uttered on screen - "silencio." That said, it does evoke the HAMLET line: "And the rest is silence," so THAT's poetic.

Sadly, Robert Forster was barely in this movie...

Oh, and Lee Grant played Louise - the old-Hollywood connections keep coming!

I can't believe this movie was intended to be a pilot?

***

Now, some final notes:

On the swapping of characters and relationships in the last 30 minutes -- my first thought was that Betty/Diane and Rita/Camilla look similar and/or they're connected by a parallel universe, and the diner is like the central hub between worlds, and hobo-Cloris Leachman is the gatekeeper between the two worlds... I buy the "dream world" explanation that some critics espouse, that's something I considered myself as I watched. But I'm not sure I believed Betty is Diane's dream version of herself. Also, I think David Lynch has a feeling about how everything fits together, yet I don't know if he's even settled on an explanation for everything. He just trusted his subconscious and he's so confident in his latent abilities, that we trust him to show us everything we need to see and take us everywhere we need to go.

I enjoy how it's a surrealist answer to SUNSET BOULEVARD. I hope in 2050, someone makes "The 405" really tying all these movies and Los Angeles roads together.

MULHOLLAND DRIVE is weird but good. Still, I don't know if, to me, it's more weird than good. It's also funny. But is it funny because it's weird or because it's actually, genuinely funny? Are these questions David Lynch actually wants me to ask or does he make it weird on impulse to cover for the fact that the film is simply just weird and based entirely on impulse? MULHOLLAND DRIVE is almost like a parody of a film noir, made by an inter-dimensional alien life-form who studied a bunch of movies from the 40's through the 90's but doesn't have a full grasp on human behavior, and DESPITE THAT, it's more of an emotional experience than a logical one. It's somewhere in between. It's self-indulgent in a way but also very giving. It's a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a coffee-stained napkin covered in cigarette ash locked in a small, blue box.

***

Summing it up: I don't think there's a world where this movie would get a perfect score from me. Because ultimately, for all it's interesting and exciting moments, it's more of a passion project for David Lynch than a piece of entertainment for the audience, no matter how entertaining it may be. To me, it's a vision board more than it is a complete film. And yet, it IS a complete EXPERIENCE. And there's nothing wrong with that.

All of that said, I know David Lynch doesn't really like to give viewers a clear cut, traditional narrative. So, I had a feeling the mystery was just that, a mystery. Or even moreso, the FEELING of a mystery. It's not about where we're going, it's about the journey to the destination. And while the general atmosphere is moody and evocative and often powerful, MULHOLLAND DRIVE plays more like a 2.5 hour piece of music than a cohesive narrative. Maybe that's the best thing about it.

In the distant future, when our way of speaking has become as archaic as the words of Shakespeare are to us, it's the feeling and emotions and images of movies like MULHOLLAND DRIVE that will still have a timeless impact on the future audiences who view them.

#Random Reviews #movie review #review #Mulholland Drive #David Lynch #Missing Frames #Twin Peaks #Naomi Watts #Laura Harring #Ann Miller #Justin Theroux #Dune #existential #surreal

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soundofseventeen · 5 years ago

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When I Grow Up (Lee Seokmin)

So...Erin snapped me that we hit 1300 followers as I was finishing this!! Thanks my loves for sticking around!!! We try to keep you happy!!! I still have plenty of ideas but no time, but I’m trying!!! I hope it captured the growing theme!!!!

Credits to the gif owners!!!

Word count: 5607

Inspo: When I Grow Up

Y/N age 12:

“Did you know chocolate is a vegetable?” You looked up from your homework to stare at the ten-year-old boy you were babysitting and shook your head. “I’m serious,” he continued. He attempted to clean the cookie crumbs off of his mouth, only to smear one of the chocolate chips that had gotten stuck. He laughed at his mistake.

At that, you smiled at him and cleaned his face. “Finish your snack and then we can start your homework. And it’s shower day, so we need to make sure you’re clean when your parents come home.”

“I don’t smell though,” he whined, his lower lip sticking out in a pout. He reached over to grab another cookie and accidentally knocked over his glass of milk. You managed to pick up your worksheet in time but by the time you found a rag, it managed to seep into Seokmin’s shirt and pants. “Oops,” he said sheepishly. “Can I shower right now? Milk smells gross when it’s not cold anymore.”

“Okay. Being me your clothes when you’re done and then I can wash them.” You walked to the kitchen sink to wring out the milk, nearly gagging when you felt it running through your fingertips and washed the cloth thoroughly. You heard the shower running, thankful that he listened to you and threw his soiled outfit in the washer.

You had been watching Seokmin for a few weeks and you learned how to adapt to his hyperactive personality, which made you proud of yourself. You didn’t force him to stay still or make him do things quietly. Instead, you let him take out all the Hot Wheels he owned and build all the bridges with the VHS cassettes his parents stored away and let him play to his heart’s content. Like many kids his age he would’ve rather done that than start his homework, which was normal. And he liked to bribe his way to have dessert for dinner, which never happened but you commended him (hah! You managed to use a vocabulary word from one of your classes!) for always trying. You’ve met his sister several times but she was currently in that phase where she was embarrassed by her younger brother so you often stepped in with the babysitting. He was a sweet kid and one of your favorites at that.

“Y/N, I’m out,” he called you a few minutes later. He stood in front of the doorway fully changed into his favorite Spongebob pajamas, the water dripping onto the carpet and held out his towel for you to dry his hair. Seokmin’s favorite thing about showers was having someone running the bath towel through his scalp to dry his hair, or anyone just playing with his hair in general. He liked that more than when someone scratched his back when he tried sleeping.

“Alright, you’re all done. Now get started on your homework. I don’t know what time your parents are getting home today but I know I let you play long enough.”

“Five more minutes?”

“Sorry buddy. We had a deal. Homework now, and then maybe TV later if they’re not here yet.” You checked the time. “I think they left pizza money just in case.”

Seokmin’s eyes widened. “I like pizza! With lots and lots of pepperoni and lots and lots of cheese. Can you order pizza Y/N?” He clapped his hands together. “I promise I’ll do all my homework and I won’t say nothing. We never had pizza before.”

You mulled it over a little bit more, not really trusting the child’s word, but when your stomach growled, you agreed. “Fine. Start it now and I’ll call.” You had to admit that it was a comical sight to see Seokmin zoom out of the room and put his backpack back in in record time.

He pulled out his folder, sending a few loose papers flying in the process and searched through them until he found the one for his reading log. “I don’t like reading so can we do it last?”

The homework session flew by with moderate amounts of complaints from Seokmin (despite his promise to stay quiet) and almost crying a couple of times because he couldn’t pronounce some of the words right. The pizza arrived before he finished so he ate while he read, getting some of the oil on the paper and you telling him to put his slice down so he can concentrate and by the time the Lees came home, he was grumbling about taking the empty box to the trash and how he could’ve been playing with his cars. But he smiled the whole time and begged his parents to let you sleepover and then to go with his dad to take you home even though you lived across the street.

“You’re coming tomorrow, right?” He asked hopefully before you left.

“Tomorrow and the day after that,” you promised.

“Y/N, will you still take care of me when I grow up?”

“Ask me in 10 years Seok. You might change your mind and be too old for a babysitter then. Good night.”

Y/N age 13:

“I can’t believe I’m finally going to your house! You’ve been in my life forever and I never knew what the inside of your house looks like.” Seokmin talked a lot faster when he was excited so all you caught about this conversation was how it was related to you was how his new best friend having a pool at his house and him (the friend) going swimming whenever he wanted, among other things. He stopped talking long enough to watch you unlock your door and he changed the subject. “Is your room messy like mine or does someone make you clean it? Do you have to do chores too? One time my friend got his Xbox taken away because he didn’t wash dishes the other day…”

“Seokmin, I’ve had a long day, and I’d appreciate it if you stayed quiet for two minutes, please.” You flopped on the couch, closing your eyes and hoping to finish the day. A new school was tough enough but it was tougher when you were trying to fit in with the crowds and no one spared you a second glance. It didn’t help that you had developed a fast crush on a boy in one of your classes when he picked up your mechanical pencil and said red was his favorite color. “Do you want something to eat?” When he didn’t answer, you opened your eyes to see Seokmin wiping his own. “Hey are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Do you not like me anymore Y/N?” He sniffed. “You never talked to me like that.”

You let out a big breath, reminding yourself to be patient with the young boy. “Yes Seokmin, I still like you. I just...didn’t have the best day.”

“My mommy says it isn’t good to do things like that.” He stopped the last of his tears, and quietly took out his homework to work on on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry,” you told him after awhile. “I’ll try harder...but listen, I know the neighbors got a new dog. Do you wanna go see if they’ll let us walk him?”

At that, Seokmin forgot about the pain in his heart and smiled wide enough for all his teeth to show through. “I like dogs! Can we get slushies too?”

“If you want,” you shrugged. “I just don’t want you to be sad anymore. You’re not Seokmin if you’re not smiling.”

“I won’t be sad anymore Y/N! Promise!” He crossed his heart with his finger and beamed at you until you laughed. “Y/N?”

“Yeah?”

“Do I make you happy? Even when I’m annoying?”

“You are without a doubt one of my favorite kids.” You found his beanie on the couch and put it on him in case the air had a chilly bite to it, and patted his head fondly. “Then again, you’re the only one I watch most days of the week.”

“When I grow up, do you think there’ll be someone you’ll love more than me?”

“Ask me in 10 years pal. As of right now, no.” Although you couldn’t help thinking about that guy in your class.

Y/N age 14:

“I’m too old for a babysitter,” he huffed.

“Seokmin, the fact that you and your friends had to graffiti a wall when you were unsupervised says otherwise.” You sighed. Truthfully, a 12-year-old had some (or should’ve had) common sense at this point so even you didn’t know why you still watched him. You would’ve rather stayed home curled up somewhere, taking an online quiz about which Big Time Rush boy was your soulmate or memorizing the newest One Direction song and cursing the peak of puberty for the imbalances of your life.

But because the Lees still paid you to watch their son, Seokmin sometimes felt more like the gum under your shoe you couldn’t get rid of no matter how many times you tried scraping it against the pavement instead of a friend due to your closeness in age and all the time you spent together. Sometimes you wanted to talk to him about books or music or something that piqued your interest but he still found joy playing in the mud and throwing bugs in your direction. You scoffed at the simplicity of his life. You already knew how you wanted to live. You wanted out of here, going to the school that offered you the best job skills and working the hours you wanted and still have time for your friends. But for now, even just a concert would suffice. Instead, the sun beat down on you and Seokmin as you waited for his piano teacher to arrive and you didn’t wanna hear him complain about being old enough to be here by himself. He had been growing at a steady rate so it was somewhat of a challenge to ruffle his hair in apology because you agreed with him but you managed.

“Why do I even have to play the piano Y/N? It’s so boring.”

You felt the offense personally, but waved it off. “It could come in handy someday.” You pictured your future love in the form of your idol serenading you with a ballad and sighed dreamily. “The greatest composers are still remembered for playing the piano and you know something? You can control the emotion with just a stroke of the keys.”

“Still sounds boring.”

“Well, I tried,” you laughed. “I’ll let you in a secret though.” Seokmin’s eyes widened and he leaned in closer to you, eager for you to spill. You lowered your voice, making it seem like it was important that this information be shared with him only, “If you don’t like it, your mom said we can find something else for you to do. But just give it a shot, okay?”

“Okay, I will!” He bounced up and down. “But if I don’t like it, can we go watch movies or go play at the park?”

“Not today, but we will if you don’t like it. We’re just trying to keep you out of trouble.” You ruffled his hair again and kneeled. You pointed to your lap and he raised his left foot so you tie his shoe.

“I don’t cause trouble,” he pouted. “When I grow up, you’ll see that I’m an angel.”

Y/N, age 15:

You were on your feet, giving Seokmin his standing ovation before he even finished hitting the last note, and he stared out at the crowd, finding you easily. The audience followed soon after, most of them standing up as well. He shuffled off his seat, his pudgy hand waving excitedly at everyone. Tears pooled at his eyes from the emotion and a few slipped and he wiped them away just as quickly. Win or lose, you knew he gave his all and that was the most important thing. The host shuffled him backstage, announcing a quick intermission for deliberation and the crowd started voicing their opinions, some louder than others and you had to cover your ears.

Although you didn’t watch Seokmin anymore, it didn’t mean anything, especially recently. His parents had it let it drop that Seokmin was being bullied at school and he needed all the support he could get while they worked with the administrators to do something about it before they took the law into their own hands. That meant distracting him with whatever he wanted and protecting him when you heard particularly nasty comments about him. (Now you weren’t a fighter by any means, but you didn’t exactly shy away from throwing a couple of punches or books when necessary, regardless of age, gender, or height.)

He found his escape on the piano, pouring out his sentiments onto the keys and playing for several hours and you could often hear the heartbreaking melodies, wanting to console him and find everyone who hurt the precious human who said hello to plants every morning and often stayed wary of the insects. You did pride yourself on finding a couple of them and dragging them by the ear to apologize though it wasn’t a complete loss.

You could feel Mrs. Lee’s clammy hand wrap around yours as everyone held their breath. Fifth place was announced, followed by the fourth, third, second, the honorable mentions and finally to no one’s surprise, Seokmin’s name was called as he won first place, the host stating that the song choice baffled the judges, especially when his he opened his mouth to sing. He was still crying when he met everyone outside minutes later, holding both his parents and hiccuping whenever he tried composing himself. His sister sprayed him with silly string and offered to treat him to breakfast the next time they hung out. And you merely held out the bouquet of roses to him, showering him with all the compliments you could think of and watching his eyes mist up again from the praise. You stuck a twig full of leaves on his hair to distract him and it worked.

“Y/N, are you always gonna be like this?” He asked, dodging his mom’s kiss as discreetly as possible.

“Like what?”

“Being here when I grow up.”

You smiled at him. “Buddy, I think it’d be a crime to not to at this point.” You wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his sweater you were holding.

Y/N, age 16:

“I mean, if you wanna sing, then sing.” You had bumped into a tall and awkward 14-year-old Seokmin at a karaoke night, you with your friends and him with his. Well, you had passed his table and he pulled on your backpack and hid behind the food menu so you shrugged it off and walked away.

He had the habit of greeting you with an ear-splitting scream because you didn’t see each other as often as you were used to. (High school...what could you do? You wanted to shred your old image ad start a new one, though you weren’t sure how. Your teenage rebellion did give your family a headache so you knew you were doing something right). He told you about the possibility of moving to Seoul City to pursue his new dream of becoming famous. His asset turned out to be his voice which you couldn’t help but grin at the recognition.

“I’m leaving next week so tonight we’re having a night of fun.” He beamed at you. “But we should do a duet like we used to when I was little before we go!”

Because he was sitting down, he made it easy for you to pat his head and then pull his hoodie over him so he wouldn’t be cold. “If I don’t forget, then yeah. I’ll be-” you searched for your favorite table, cheering silently when you saw it was vacant, “-right over there if you need me. I won’t be as good as you though. You mom tells me you’ve been practicing.”

“I try. Okay Y/N, I’ll pick the song and then I’ll let you know!” He wiped pizza sauce from his mouth, missing a spot. “If they throw food though, at least you won’t have to pay.” He laughed at his own joke before one of his friends dragged him away from you and led him to an air hockey table.

“Doesn’t he use your honorific?” Your friend asked once you were seated.

“He used to when we met, but I told him it wasn’t necessary. I’m not that much older than him.” It never felt weird that Seokmin addressed you so casually just because he felt like a friend now, not someone you used to babysit. “Besides, I’m already used to it, so if he started to do it, I don’t know how I’d feel.”

“Besides old?” You smacked your friend playfully. “I’m just saying. It’s not a bad thing, but I was just curious.”

A couple of hours passed by, and you were sure Seokmin had forgotten about his proposal when he came out of nowhere just as you were starting dessert. He told you he thought long and hard on his decision and he chose a Disney favorite: “If I Didn’t Have You” from Monsters Inc. and you let him take the lead, putting all his emotion into his parts and you trying to match the passion and failing.

“I hope we can do this in future when we grow up,” he smiled, fanning his face and you nodded in agreement, not telling him it’d be awhile until you went onstage again. You held hands as you as you took the final bow and yelling at him for leaving you up there.

Y/N, age 17:

“Seokmin, this is my boyfriend.” You didn’t expect to run into the boy while you visited the city, but then again, you didn’t expect your parents to let you explore Seoul City with your boyfriend and yet here you were. After window shopping for a large part of the day, you decided to have lunch at a fast food restaurant. And as you were leaving, you held the door open for a handful of rowdy boys and it was only when the last one thanked you that you recognized him.

He had grown taller, obviously and if puberty wasn’t done hitting him yet, it’d continue. He lost a lot of his baby face and weight overall, and you could see he was slowly getting comfortable with that. His eyes still held the naivety which surprised you because you expected a lot of it to be lost (mostly because a lot of 15-year-olds understood the concept of dirty jokes, hormones and the fact that society rejected anyone who didn’t confine to the norm, amongst other things) and his smile was as wide as ever as he grabbed you in a bear hug, and even though you missed seeing the precious boy in your neighborhood, you had to push him away because he reeked of dirty socks and an enclosed space.

Seokmin waved at him eagerly and continued catching you up on his life as if you weren’t blocking the doorway and there weren't any people trying to get in and out as fast as they could. “I’m here having lunch with my hyungdeul.” He pointed to everyone there saying their names faster than you could keep up. “We have seven boys, one from China and a young one from America and there’s another boy who has the same birthday as me! How exciting! Now we get to have two cakes and double the presents! They want us to debut with 17 boys...isn’t that crazy?!”

“I bet, How are you holding on?”

His smile faltered a bit. “Sometimes I wanna quit because it’s so hard, but there’s a boy named Seungkwan who keeps telling me to go home, but he only makes me wanna try harder. I think I like him but I’m not too sure. There’s another boy named Hoshi who helps me with my dancing so that helps.”

“Dokyeomie,” you heard someone call out and Seokmin turned his head. “Your food’s ready and it’s getting cold. I’m not responsible if someone eats it.”

“Coming hyung!” he called brightly.

You stared at him in confusion. “Dokyeomie?”

“Oh yeah! They call me Dokyeom or DK or whatever! It’s so cool to have a nickname! Can you call me that from now on, now that I’m grown up?”

You tiptoed to remove an insect that had gotten caught on his hair. “I mean I can try. Don’t move. You have a ladybug in your hair.” He froze his tracks so you were able to take it off quickly, and ruffling his hair in farewell. “We’ll see. It was nice seeing you and good luck with your group.” Once you had gotten outside, you made a wish on the ladybug, hoping that Seokmin, err DK would get everything his little heart desired.

Y/N, age 18:

You didn’t expect to see Seokmin at your graduation party so he managed to render you speechless. From what the Lees told you, he’d been working hard and fighting hard for the chance to debut because the company who scouted him couldn’t afford to keep him or any of his members and they preferred to cut their losses. “You’re here!” You managed to say through your shock. You hugged him dumbly, quite sure you were dreaming and you’d wake up soon. Nope...his arms wrapping around you felt too real but even then you weren’t convinced.

“This is one of the biggest achievements in your life and you think I’d miss it?” Although he was teasing you, you could see the hurt making his way to his face. “I think it’s time for me to be here for you this time don’t you think?”

“Oh please, when you debut it’ll be the same thing as always.” You eyed the gift bag in his hand curiously. “What’s that?”

He hid it behind his back shyly at seeing your boyfriend beside you and kiss your head. “Oh it’s nothing...just something that my friend Mingyu helped me make for you. I’ll leave it on the table.”

“Oh no. I wanna open it now. Lemme see.” You reached for it, but due to Seokmin’s never-ending growth spurt he easily put it out of your reach and you had to fight him just to get it. “Good to know you’re still a child,” you told him good-naturedly when you failed to reach him and he lowered it enough for you to snatch it from him. You peered inside, frowning at the tissue paper that covered the present. You took it out gently and were met with a card. You opened it, not recognizing the names inside, congratulating you and wishing you well.

“My bandmates wanted to sign it,” he explained. “I hope that’s okay.” He pointed to each one, explaining who each one was and filling you in on what they were doing that day. “Who knows? Maybe if we debut and we’re famous, they might be worth something.” The unspoken hung in the air and you changed the subject.

You moved onto the actual gift in the form of a shirt. You gave the bag to your boyfriend and unfolded the shirt, doubling over in laughter. “Really?”

“What? My favorite babysitter needs to support her favorite kid and what better way than this?”

“Yeah Seokmin, but it isn’t it a bold assumption to say you’ll be my bias? How do you know that…” you scanned the names on the card quickly, “the dinosaur won’t be it?”

“I...don't think he’d be your type; he’s still a baby.”

“And you aren’t?” He ducked down to your level to pout and you used the excuse to pull the beanie he was wearing down to his eyes. “See?”

“Excuse me? I already grew up!” He wrapped his arm around your neck, grabbing you in a chokehold and not letting you go until you called him an adult.

“You still have a ways to go, dude,” you smiled at him. “Thanks again for coming.”

“When I grow up more, you’ll do the same for me.”

Y/N, age 19:

With the exception of Seokmin and his family, you weren’t familiar with one person in the room, but your eyes prickled with tears for everyone. It was actually happening. After what felt like an eternity of walking on eggshells, everyone had gotten the news that Seventeen would be debuting, albeit with 13 members. But that was only half the struggle. The other half would be staying afloat with what they had for the time being. You hoped that everything would work out for them in the long run. They’ve worked too hard and sacrificed more than everything to get to this point. The boys hugged each other, their parents, each other's parents and each other again, all while crying and hollering and praising the leader, producer and choreographer (you couldn’t tell who anyone was, but that would change soon, you promised yourself) for their talents and efforts.

You could feel your phone vibrating in your pocket but you opted to ignore it. Your boyfriend knew you’d be here already and you wouldn’t be home until midnight, the earliest. It’s not that you had been having problems lately, but something felt amiss, like something was fading. You could almost feel the beginning of the end of the relationship, but you were trying to keep it alive. He was too. But there was a small, subconscious part of you that knew that the first love magic was wearing off, not that either of you mentioned it out loud. You felt a little bitter about it, but you were gonna ride it out until the end...no matter how long it was and with no regrets.

Seokmin running to you from behind and enveloping you in a back hug brought you back to the present moment. You could feel the wetness of his cheeks on your neck and you turned around wipe the tears from his face with your sweater paws. “Are you proud of me Y/N?”

“I’ve been proud of you since you decided to do this. You’ve grown up really fast. I can’t wait to see what else you decide to.” You hugged him again. “I can’t believe just yesterday I was tying your shoes so your laces wouldn’t get stuck to the pedal and now you’re gonna be this big star. It’s amazing.”

“Thank you for believing in me Y/N. I promise I’ll do the best I can as I grow up as an artist.” He bowed. “Aren’t you gonna play with my hair now?”

Y/N, age 20:

finally split with your boyfriend as 18-year-old Seokmin captured the hearts of fans all over Asia and the world.

Y/N, age 21:

said goodbye to everyone in Yongin to move to Gangnam with the promise of a good job and college life while Seventeen rose on the charts

Y/N, age 22:

finally attended a Seventeen concert. The seats weren’t the best and the shirt he gave you for from graduation was still too big, no matter how many times you tried to shrink it, but you had fun watching him. Your heart flip flopped a little when he smiled at the crowd and you proceeded to drink your water as fast as you could.

Y/N, age 23: moved closer to Seoul City because of a better job offer; Seventeen travelled the world both for work and leisure.

Y/N, age 24: The barista gingerly placed your coffee on the table and back away, unnoticed. You looked up from the laptop when the aroma reached your nose and took a small sip before resuming your typing. It wasn’t everyday that you had a chance to breathe and you took advantage of going out to your favorite coffee shop. From the first moment you stepped in there, it had the otherworldly feel and you just loved the homeliness of it, so whenever you had a moment to breathe, you stopped here. Between work, school, making new friends and looking for a potential relationship, you were still learning how to divide your time but figuring out something had to go. You stirred the cup with the little straw absently with your free hand, keeping a majority of your attention on your email.

“Y/N?”

You looked up the person who called you, your brain registering it as Seokmin’s voice but not processing it quickly enough because it still surprised you when you saw him. “Oh, hi.” Your eyes widened and you blinked a few times just to make sure you weren’t hallucinating. “Hi!” You stood up to greet him properly, but unsure whether to hug him or bow. He was an idol now, after all.

He decided for you, reaching for the hug. He grabbed you tightly, wrapping his arms around you as if he didn’t intend to let you go and he sighed deeply. “How are you? What are you doing here? Can I get you something? Wow it’s so good to see you.”

“I’m good. You look good. How are you?”

“Good. I’m taking a break. Woozi hyung needed some more coffee and he asked me to bring him another cup while I was still out.” He smiled widely. “What brings you here?”

“I live here now. I mean I’ve lived here for the past year. I mean, not here, here but here in Seoul.”

“That’s so cool! You have to let me show you around sometime! Or we should hangout! Whatever works for you! Wow, it’s so great to see you!”

You could feel the blush on your cheeks at that. “It’s really great to see you again Seokmin. The years have really good to you and you’ve grown up well.” You straightened the collar on his jacket.

“I dunno about that. SCoups is always threatening to find me a babysitter, so if you’re interested in taking up that job again, feel free to call him.” He scratched the back of his head. “Hey Y/N, do you wanna grab dinner tonight? I know it’s sudden and you have things to do but tonight I’ll be off early and I don’t know when we’ll run into each other again so-”

“Sure.” You held out out your phone to him. “Call your phone from mine and then you can text me the address later.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

Seokmin, age 23:

Seokmin had always been a dreamer, but he never expected his childhood crush to be sitting next to him while they watched movies. He watched your intense expression as you focused on the screen, piecing the puzzle together and your eyes widening when you figured it out. Seokmin didn’t know how you did it, but he knew if he asked, you’d gladly share your theory. He saw your bouncing in your seat from keeping quiet, so he paused it and asked you. When you finished, he smiled at you and cupped your cheek, still not quite used to the fact that he could do it freely.

“What?”

“I’m just really happy to have you, you know that?” He closed his eyes when he felt your fingers dust off the crumbs from his face. Some things, he realized, never changed and he had never been more okay with that fact than right now. “I’ve been in love with you for so long and then this happens after a few years of not seeing you.” The old shirt he gave you was still too big but it touched his heart that you kept it in good condition and still wore it to this day.

“You’re still smiling. Share.”

“Do you remember what I told you a long time ago?” He threw his arm around you and brought you closer to him. He kissed your hair and nuzzled you.

“Seok, you told me a lot of things. I can’t remember everything.”

“What did you always tell me?”

“‘Seokmin, stop running with scissors before you hurt yourself?’”

“Every time I asked you a question Jagi,” he giggled. He kissed your forehead this time.

“‘Ask me in 10 years?’ Okay, what about it?”

“It’s been longer than 10 years. I can’t remember everything I asked, but here you are, taking care of me still.”

“The circumstances are different, but still. Why are you asking me all this though?”

He let go of you and fumbled around his pockets until he produced a ring. “Will you take care of me for another 10 years? Maybe more? It’s not an engagement ring because I know we still have a lot to do, but it’s a promise ring. Will you accept that Jagi?”

He slipped it on your finger when you nodded and you stared at him dumbfounded. “Just how long have you been in love with me?”

“Awhile.”

“How long do you plan to stay in love with me?”

“Always.” He pulled you close him and he could feel you playing with his hair, the way he remembered you doing it millions of times. Your fingers never lost the tender touch and it was one of the times he felt like a kid again. “Maybe when we grow up more, I’ll understand everything.”

“Seokmin?”

“Yes my love?”

“We did grow up.”

He kissed your lips. “But now, we can grow up...together.”

228 notes · View notes

kdramaanalyst · 5 years ago

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THE KING: ETERNAL MONARCH REVIEW

EDIT: I AM SO SORRY, THIS IS A SECONDARY BLOG AND I JUST LEARNED THAT I CAN'T REPLY TO COMMENTS. PLEASE CHECK MY PINNED BLOG WHERE I WROTE ABOUT THIS PROBLEM. THANK YOU!

Spoilers ahead!!! Read at your own risk. Once again, I am not an expert and these are my personal opinions. If you have disagreements, let's talk it over. Don't judge me, let's judge the show together instead and have an understanding.

For the first drama that I am going to review, I chose The King: Eternal Monarch. A lot of viewers who supported the show with all of their hearts could still not get over its ending. Others who like to binge-watch are relieved because they can finally watch the entire series without waiting for a new episode to air. While some are still mulling over about watching it. Well, I hope I could help you with this review.

• Introduction to the Drama

Short gist:

The story revolves around Lee Gon, present King of Kingdom of Corea. He witnessed his father’s death when he was young, an incident that haunted him until he grew older. Due to unfortunate circumstances, a legendary flute with powers called Manpasikjeok that can open different worlds was cut in half. He was able to get hold half of the flute, while the other half was obtained by Lee Lim, his uncle who killed his father. Lee Lim had been going back and forth two different worlds, plotting foul pursuits to fulfill his evil desires, and disrupting the peace between the two worlds. In order to restore balance and order, Lee Gon also traveled between worlds, meeting Jeong Tae Eul who soon became a significant person in his life.

If you've been watching Korean Dramas for quite a while now, you must be familiar with some of the characters of The King: Eternal Monarch, especially the lead.

If you call yourself a k-drama fan and you don't know who Lee Minho is, give yourself a slap (just kidding, please don't take that seriously). Lee Minho has a good reputation because of his experience, acting skills and obviously, his gorgeous face. He has an impressive list of successful dramas and movies! Most of us probably knew him through his breakthrough role in Boys Over Flowers.

Meanwhile, Kim Go Eun, despite being fairly new to small screen (she first started appearing in movies), is also highly distinguished by a lot of k-drama fans. In all three dramas she starred in, including The King, she always got the lead role. His leading men are no joke either. And because of Kim Go Eun, many of us still wants to be the goblin's bride.

Among the cast also includes the familiar faces of Woo Do Hwan, Kim Kyung Nam, Jung Eun Chae, and Lee Jung Jin.

Anyway, I'll try to share every thought I have from the first time I watched it until it ended. I will also try not to give so much spoilers because the drama just ended. I will talk first about my experience watching it and then I will list at the very bottom some of the issues I have and that list contains major spoilers so watch out for that. As you notice, I always warn you with spoilers using red font color.

• The Experience

When I watched the first teaser of the drama, I got intrigued and a little confused. What worlds are they talking about? Do they have super powers? Is this a historical drama? Questions were instantly formed in my head.

It also reminded me of the drama Queen In Hyun's Man because of a similar scene where the leading man is riding his horse in the middle of the city and finding his woman. But that's just it, the two dramas are completely different. I just mentioned it because others may have felt the same way.

I don't usually watch dramas while it's still fresh. I wait for about two to three weeks before the schedule of the ending so I can binge watch without waiting so much. When I watched The King, there were already 12 episodes available on Netflix. Usually, I would finish 12 episodes in 1-3 days, and if the drama is really good and it's MY STYLE (i said that in an obviously fake Korean accent), I could watch it for an entire day.

However, I finished those 12 episodes in 2 weeks...

Why??? Why did it take me that long???

I wouldn't say I was bored, it's just that during the first few episodes, nothing caught my interest yet. I wasn't convinced that it was a good drama. There was nothing special and I didn't know what to look forward to that's why I couldn't watch it continuously. I got lazy. The pace was slow and the story build up was a little stagnant. It was too slow that I even started watching a long length saeguk just so I can watch something else.

I could have skipped some parts and dropped it but I continued watching and gave it a chance. Though it was a good thing that I didn't stop because as I watched more episodes, the story actually became more exciting. Finally, I saw some progress. I started to get invested in the drama after the eighth episode. That's when the story felt more alive. Finally, there were revelations, more conflicts arose, more emotions were shown, and the story got deeper. I began to appreciate the drama. However, I still don't like the fact that it took me 8 episodes before I started to like it.

• Points that I Liked About the Drama

1. The plot seemed like it's going to be too science fiction-y but it's just the right amount. I was worried that it might be too much for me to handle but it was just okay (i am a potato who dislikes thinking so much, but that depends on my mood lololol). I liked how there's a mix of history in the drama, as well as of politics but it still feels modern. There is a balance.

2. The distinction between the Kingdom of Corea and Republic of Korea is impressive. It's obvious that they put a lot of effort in building their vision of KOC to life.

3. Many people were saying that it's hella confusing and so much was going on. I don't think so. They actually made it easy for viewers to understand about parallel worlds. You don't have to study science facts just to get this drama's concept. I think the slow pace did its job well in this part.

4. The story is unpredictable. You never know what's going to happen next, that's the strength of The King's concept. Because of the two different worlds and the crazy number of characters, there could be a lot of possibilities and backstories.

5. The action scenes are commmendable. I liked the action scenes, the one during the last episode is probably my favorite.

• Points that I Didn't Like About the Drama

1. The slow pace. I don't think I still need to explain more but it totally ruined my whole experience of watching the drama.

2. Many characters didn't leave much impact. Their acting was great, however, I don't see a lot of personalities that standout. The most remarkable ones for me are the characters played by Woo Do Hwan. The other characters, especially the lead, the prime minister and the traitor were okay, too. The others were just bland and years from now, I probably won't remember most of them.

• The Ending (spoiler alert!)

The ending was good. It didn't feel rushed and everyone had a separate ending of their own. I just wished there was more Nari and Eunsup / Yeong and Seung A moment in the end, the conclusion was fine though. I don't like that Prime Minister Koo ended up in jail but Luna became a cop...

I just have one issue regarding the ending that they decided on. In the end they didn't show if Tae Eul became a queen. Well, it would be weird if she became one considering there is Luna in KOC. They can't be together in ROK, too because Gon's counterpart was able to live. So... what? They just kept traveling whenever they have time? Because if that's the case, doesn't that mean they will hide their relationship forever??? I liked that they ended up together but I wish they also kept this in mind. Because it kinda makes me sad. Lol.

• Final Thoughts

Overall, it was alright. It was over-hyped by netizens due to the amazing casting and promotions, but it's not bad at all.

Would I watch it again? No.

Would I recommend it? Yes. Give it a try! I honestly thought I wouldn't like it but I still did, even if it took me 8 episodes, I wouldn't say it wasn't worth it. If you enjoy fantasy dramas with complicated twists and conflicts, this drama is for you. Just have patience and prepare yourself mentally when you've reached the middle. This drama is gloomy and a little heavy, too. It was serious and has a very few humorous scenes.

I am giving The King: Eternal Monarch a 7/10. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

• The King: Eternal Monarch OST Top 5

There are 13 songs in total and everything is so good! I wish I got to hear more of the songs in the drama, some were just played briefly. I swear every song makes me feel things. Choosing just 5 songs is really hard. If you don't watch dramas but love music, give these a listen!!!

My Day Is Full Of You by Zico, Wendy

Orbit by Hwasa

I Fall In Love by Ha Sungwoon

I Just Want To Stay With You by Zion.T

Please Don't Cry by Davichi

Now I'll move on to some of my "issues". This section isn't really what you think. The word "issues" is just intriguing ㅋㅋㅋ but this is just a compilation of my opinions, observations, feelings and other stuff no one might care about in the series. If you have answers for my questions or if you can explain it for me, please enlighten me. Major spoiler ahead!!!

• Issues

1. During the time when Lee Gon was time traveling and finally got back to Repuplic of Korea, it probably took him a lot of time, right? He even took his time to take care of Tae Eul in the hospital. I wish they also showed what was happening in Kingdom of Corea during that time because he's a king and his absence might have caused a ruckus in his kingdom. I can even picture the palace lady Noh getting really worried as Lee Gon travels. The moment he came back, they only gave him updates as if everything was okay.

But since they didn't show it, I guess it is safe to assume that nothing much happened in his kingdom back then. 🤷‍♀️

2. When Gon and Tae Eul met again in Gwanghwamun, why did Tae Eul hug him? In my understanding, at that period of time, Tae Eul only met him twice—once when she was 5 and once when she was 27. So why did she hug him suddenly as if she knows he's going to be a significant person in her life? Their dialogue when they met again when she was 27 wasn't even enough for her to act that way.

3. I hope they also gave Nari more lines and importance. Maybe it's just me, but at first, I thought she and her KOC counterpart would have more significant roles. When I think of it, even without her, the story could still go on. Though this is just a minor issue. ✌

4. Prime Minister Koo. She was a villain, but I didn't really hate her until the last 4-5 episodes (can't recall the exact episode, sorry), though I wouldn't say I hated her so much. I actually liked her at first! She's ambitious, fierce, independent and intelligent. She just got blinded by greed.

My issue here is, am I really supposed to feel like that? In my opinion, her character has the potential to become more heinous and despiteful. I was wondering why they didn't turn her into someone like that? She was just greedy, bitchy, a little sly and annoying.

5. Lee Gon's and Tae Eul's love for each other was a little shallow. Sure, the man who saved Lee Gon when he was a child, had Tae Eul's ID. But how sure was Lee Gon that the woman who owns the I.D. is not a villain? The woman in the ID could lead him to the man who saved him, yes, but it still bugs me how easily they fell in love especially on Lee Gon's part. Maybe I'm just thinking too much. I am sorry. 😅

In spite of that, I still liked their love progression. I didn't ship them that hard but their chemistry wasn't cringey and forced.

6. The scene where Lee Gon gave Tae Eul flowers and then left, was a little confusing. It didn't break my heart, too. I just felt a little sad while watching that scene because Kim Go Eun's acting was good.

7. Who the f is thay yoyo boy??? My guts tell me he's a part of the flute or something because he knows a lot. But I wish it was explained more. It looked weird how he just suddenly appears sometimes and suddenly talks some sense. He remains a mystery.

8. Why the f is Jeong Tae Eul a flat earther??? Well, at least she had a character development in the end. It just annoyed me lmao

9. I don't get why people keep comparing The King: Eternal Monarch to Goblin. Why??? They don't even have the same plot or concept.

10. Court lady Noh was from Republic of Korea... What? Was that necessary?

Don't mind me. Don't mind me. Don't mind me.

Anyway I hate how tumblr wasn't able to save my draft when I was writing additional content. I lost half of it and it makes me furious!!! I had to redo the draft but I can no longer remember some of the things I wrote. I am sad because I lost something that can't be brought back again. This experience earned me a lesson.

That's it for my first review. What are your thoughts? I am a horrible reviewer, I know, but I will do better in the future. Thank you for reading!!!

#the king: eternal monarch #the king #kdrama #korean drama #korean series #lee minho #kim go eun #woo dohwan #kim kyungnam #jung eunchae #lee jung jin #goblin #queen inhyun's man

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timeforelfnonsense · 4 years ago

Text

Mistress Wit

Wyll x Criella

Rating: T

Ao3

With Patch 3 out now, I decided to make another bg3 oc to romance Wyll! Dafni will still be the main character so to speak of my bg3 writing with Criella serving as a secondary protag & member of the party in Sunshine and Starlight. She and Wyll will also be getting their own little collection with Dafni & Astarion serving a similar role! However, as my writing is pretty ship centered you wouldn't really need to read one to enjoy the other!

Prologue

Criella brought her hands above her head, fists pounding against the transparent shield that kept her snuggly trapped in the mind flayer pod. If she could just find a weak spot…

Ah-ha!

It was faint but, Criella spotted a hairline fracture in the upper right portion of the glass. Perfect. Her tail dipped into the worn leather bag strapped to her thigh seeking her tinker’s tools. If she could just find her mallet she’d be able to shatter the glass and free herself from her confines. She reached for the top of her head, pulling her goggles over her eyes. With one precise strike, the mallet made contact with the pod’s lid. What had started as a single small fracture now spread across the whole surface in a spiderweb of spits and breaks. Carefully, her fingertips traced the somatic symbol needed to cast a gust cantrip.

“Ventus!” With the command spoken a small tempest broke free of her palms sending shards of glass flying across the clearing.

Her boots hit the ground with a soft thunk, the collateral of her escape crunching beneath her feet. She scanned her surroundings nose wrinkling with repugnance. This was definitely not Waterdeep. She’d crashlanded in some sort of hinterlands located god knows where. She brought her fingertips to her temples rubbing away the tension with little circles. She needed to locate civilization and quickly. It was only a matter of time before the dangerous effects of the tadpole squirming behind her eye would manifest.

She dug around her bag until her hand found its target. A spyglass forged of brass, runes of her creation glowing across the tarnished cylinder. Pushing her googles back up, she pressed the scope to her eye looking out into the forest. Her mind tingled, the Spyglass of Clairvoyance reveling a small settlement nestled in a nearby grove. It was no city of splendor but it was a lead. The only one she had anyway. Perhaps, whoever called the grove home would be able to point her towards the nearest healer if they didn’t have one of their own. Her body ached from the top of her horns to the tip of her tail. Even if they couldn’t see to the parasite they could ease the discomfort of being crammed into a pod had caused.

----------

Criella sat atop a traveler’s chest, her tail flicking idle from side to side. The groves healer had just set out alongside a mercenary band just recently. Meaning her only choice was to doodled among the druids until their Master Halsin returned. She let out a huff of air, blowing away a stray strand of straight, lilac hair from her eyes. If someone were asked to rattle off a list of locations they might find Criella Wit of Waterdeep, a druid’s grove would certainly not have been among them. She’d never been one for nature’s charms. Given the choice between a bustling market or a quiet glen, Criella would have picked the crowded walkways and noisy rabble of the city to the glen every time. At least she was among kin. All around her other Tieflings mulled about weary faced as they set to packing up what little they had. Criella’s gloved fingertips tapped out an anxious rhythm on the side of the chest. Criella knew better than most that right and wrong could be terms with objective definitions. But turning out helpless refugees and children? That was wrong by every definition. She had sat in Zevlor’s quarters discussing the events that lead his people to take refuge among The Oak Father’s servants. They had come from Eturel originally- Collateral damage in the wake of post-Decent xenophobia. People who had once been treasured friends and neighbors became easy scapegoats for the suffering Elturel’s people experienced in the hells. Her grip on the chest tightened. Were it not for the black leather gloves her pointed fingernails would certainly have left a mark on its suede surface. Well, if the druids weren’t going to help she would. She pulled out a well-weathered note pad and nub of charcoal. She could adapt her design for the Protector canon with relative ease. She’d have to find a way to streamline and simplify it given her the groves appalling lack of anything metal. What she wouldn’t do for steel and iron! Perhaps their smith would have some to spare though she doubted it by the state of his forge. “What are you drawing?” a tiny sing-song voice asked. Criella glanced up from her work. A little tiefling girl of no more than 10, was staring owlishly over the edge of her notebook. Criella’s lips quirked, tuning the book so the girl could get a better look at her scribblings. “It’s a diagram of an Eldritch Canon. I’ve made hundreds of the things but today I’m working on one just for you and your friends. To keep you safe.” She explained, tapping the tip of her finger to the sketch, “It’s sort of a… a mechanical cleric! If anyone gets hurt on the road it might be able to help.” “You can make that?” The child whisperer reverently. “I can make anything.” Criella winked, “Just give time and the right tools.” “Could you teach me?” She asked, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly, “I want to be able to make anything! I want to help! I’m not good at fighting or sneaking like the others maybe I’m good at making things!” Criella let out a chime of warm laughter. The little girl’s eyes were full of wonder and optimism despite all she and her kin had endured recently. She’d too had been more interested in tomes and tinkering as a girl. While her peers were swinging sticks and imagining themselves as knights and guardsmen, little Ella would climb the tallest tree in the yard and name it Blackstaff Tower. “Well I can’t teach you how to make everything in just one day but, I can show you a few things.” Criella brought her hand to her lips, sharp teeth tugging the grove from her left hand. With a heartfelt smile she extended her hand to her would-be apprentice, “They call me Misstress Wit of Waterdeep but since we are friends, you can call me Criella.”

Wyll walked the length of the makeshift training ground. Adjusting postures and offering up every word of tender engorgement he knew. The tiefling children had been ecstatic to meet a ‘real-life hero’, bombarding him with sweet, curious questions the moment he stepped through the gate. After such a warm welcome teaching a few sparing lessons while he waited for Halsin to return, was the least he could do. These children had already witnessed more than many noble old men would in their whole lives. They should have been chasing frogs, enjoying their childhoods without fear. Not training for battles they couldn’t win. Despite the cheerless nature of his thoughts, Wyll put on his warmest, bordering on a fatherly grin. “Not bad! Not bad! Now, remember not to keep yourself so open.” He instructed demonstrating his instruction for a little boy with rusty hair, “Like this.” “Keep it up little one. You’ll be a fine warrior one day!” A lovely voice called. The gentle, golden timbre belonged to a statuesque tiefling woman. Wyll’s heart sputtered a bit when her soft silver eyes fell across his face. A dazzling smile on her rose-petal pink lips. Walking beside her was a child- Nalia, the little girl with a missing horn. He’d invited her to spar but she’d only blushed and ran off. “Wyll! I look at what I made!” Nalia shouted dragging the pretty-pink woman along behind her. When she reached the ring she pulled free a small metal gadget no bigger than her palm. The steal contraption glowed with a soft purple light. It’s slivery surface marked with an inscription: Be Brave, scrawled in infernal. “Aren’t you clever!” He said crouching down to admire her handiwork, “What is it?” “It’s an eldritch canon!” She rolled her eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world The woman stifled a giggle, covering her grin with the back of her gloved hand. “Is that safe?” He asked cocking an eyebrow at the smirking beauty. “Yes! think of it as a mechanical cleric, Wyll!” Nalia said winking at her companion, “I’m going to be an artificer just like Mistress Wit!” “That’s right!” Wit nodded, “I think you’ve done enough work for today apprentice. Go on, take the rest of the day off...” As Wit trailed off a strange feeling began to unwind in Wyll's mind. The sights and smells of an unfamiliar harbor city danced across his senses. He could almost feel the sea breeze on his face. He saw a workshop so organized and meticulous it reminded him of his time with The Fist. He felt the uneven surface of cobbles stone under his feet as he tore after a thief, tears stinging at his eyes as the hooded figure mad off with the last project he and a half-drow woman had planned before she left. Lastly the memory of being confined to a pod and dragged to the hells. Wit blinked back at him dazed. Her slender nose wrinkled, her lips turned down in a worried grimace. “We should talk.”

Criella sat across from the Wyll at a shabby picnic table, poking at her gruel with a wooden spoon. The old woman had called it vegetable soup but remind her too much of the oil she used for in some of her machines to be palpable. “Not much for stew eh?” He teased taking a long sip of his bowl, “You haven’t spent much time in the wilds, have you?” “I am I that obvious?” she giggled, “I’m from Waterdeep- I’ve lived there all my life. Not much work out here in the woods for someone in my line of work.” Wyll tilted his head, bringing his chin to rest along the top of his knuckles, “Oh? And what is your line of work Wit?” He hadn’t heard of her? How strange. She was something of an arcane darling back home. If you asked someone where to inspired spellwork or magical mending. If they had any sense they would give you one answer: Wit and Wander. Well- Just Wit since Zoria had left for Neverwinter with her new wife…. “I’m many things; wizard, artificer, genius. Take your pick.” Wyll chuckled raising his tankard in approval of her assuredness, “Impressive.” “And what about you Wyll?” She said playfully, “Let me guess? You are a soldier. Mercenary? No, you are too upstanding to be a sellsword.” “They call me the Blade of the Frontiers.” He stated with a proud nod before continuing “Monster hunter. Hero. Protector of the common folk.” “The Blade of Frontiers? Now that’s a name!” She whistled, “And I thought Misstess Wit was a clever epithet! Now tell me Blade- How did you find yourself aboard the nautiloid?” Before he could respond the sound of a war horn rang out across the grove. Zevlor sprinting past them as shouting about a goblin siege at the front gate. Both adventures sprung to their feet as panic spread among the refugees. “Alright Blade.” Criella purred pulling her storm canon from the holster at her hip, “Let see if you live up to the legend.”

#bg3 oc #Wyll #elf writes #bg3 early access #Criella Wit

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orangeflavoryawp · 5 years ago

Text

Jonsa - “From Instep to Heel”, Part 2

Alright, this is starting to get fun. I think I’m enjoying exploring Jon’s Targaryen sibling relationships a little too much perhaps. I don’t know. You tell me.

“From Instep to Heel”

Chapter Two: Rancid

“Sansa stumbles to a halt in his arms, watching as the whirling torchlight settles upon his face in harsh slants, a look about him too spiteful to be called lonely. And yet, lonely is exactly what she’d call it – on any other face.” - Jon and Sansa. Like the curve of the horizon, when the moon breaks from beneath its bow.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 fin

* * *

Jon surveys the room with disinterested eyes, watching as lords and ladies twirl upon the dance floor, laughter and raucous conversations drifting up from the tables. From his perch at the edge of the room, he can see the evening unfold in its entirety.

A shadow breaks across his light, and Jon turns his head just enough to catch sight of Rhaenys beside him as she raises a cup his way, smirk gilded in mischief over the rim of her wine. “Brother,” she greets.

He answers with a responding grunt.

Rhaenys takes a sip, one arm crossed over her waist, the arm holding her glass tucked into her side. “Quite the event, hmm?”

Jon slides listless eyes her way.

She smiles in response, taking another sip. “Are you not happy with the turnout for your betrothal feast?”

Jon’s dark gaze slips back toward the crowd. “Curs, all of them. Sniffing after scraps from Father’s table.”

Rhaenys sets her wine glass along the edge of the nearby column before leaning an arm atop Jon’s shoulder, resting her chin there, perfectly manicured nails thrumming along his leather-clad shoulder. “Even the Starks?” she asks, eyes glinting in the firelight.

Jon takes a moment, gaze flitting over the head table where Ned Stark sits on one side of their father, with Aegon on the other. Beside the Warden of the North sits his eldest son, Robb Stark, and then beside him, Sansa.

Jon’s betrothed.

He grinds his teeth, taking a large gulp of wine from his own glass. “The Starks are…” He stops, licks his lips, mulls the words over a moment before letting them to air. “A different sort entirely.”

Rhaenys snorts at his shoulder. “Too proud, I’d say.”

Jon’s eyes shift to Sansa. She sits perfectly poised, hands held primly in her lap, smiling prettily at any lord or lady that engages her in conversation. His eyes catch on the wayward strand of copper that has escaped her pinned-up, braided hair. Sansa tilts her chin slightly, a graceful whip of her head – hardly noticeable – sending the strand back behind her ear. It creeps back steadily, and Jon watches as she frowns almost imperceptibly at the intrusion. He stifles an amused laugh. “Perhaps,” he agrees breathily, never turning to his sister.

Rhaenys follows the path of his gaze, eyes narrowing in the firelight. She strums her fingers along his shoulder again, lifting her mouth to his ear. “She’s a pretty thing, isn’t she?”

Jon’s eyes finally flick away from his betrothed, landing darkly on his sister half-draped against his side. “Rhaenys,” he says warningly.

She runs a knuckle boldly down the side of his neck, eyes focused on the Northern bride at the head table. “A bit frigid though, it seems. A true winter rose,” she scoffs, nose wrinkling.

Jon brings his cup back to his mouth, eyes dark across the rim as he focuses on his sister.

Rhaenys’ lips are at his ear again, a breathy sigh raising the hair at the back of his neck, his fingers flexing over his wine glass. “I wonder…has she been plucked yet, do you think, dear brother?”

Jon licks the wine from his lips, glass lowering. His eyes stay fixed to Rhaenys’ own dark ones. “Ned Stark knows better than to offer a tainted daughter to the crown,” he says surely, a hint of danger to the words. “She is a maid.”

“And does that excite you, brother? To be her first?” Rhaenys’ eyes dance threateningly, a challenge in them that Jon will not rise to.

A bemused smirk lines his lips, his free hand coming up to play with the silk sleeve at her side, fingers dancing close to her hip. “If it did?” he asks nonchalantly, lips stained dark with wine.

Her eyes drift to his mouth for a moment, nails curling around his shoulder in her hold. “She’s a Northern cunt, brother – don’t forget it. Treason’s in her blood.”

Jon bites back the snarl before it can hit air, his fingers curling tightly in the fabric of her dress before he retracts his touch, pushing from her, gaze wondering back to the dance floor as he takes a large gulp of wine.

Rhaenys seems to notice her mistake half a breath too late.

“A Northern cunt,” Jon muses, voice low. “Like my mother?”

Rhaenys stills beside him, hand hovering over his shoulder. “Jon,” she tries, the name an intimate thing between them, voice hoarse and needy.

“Leave me,” he says, near on a growl, grip tightening over his wine glass.

Rhaenys hesitates a moment, hand alighting his shoulder in silent apology.

Jon shrugs her touch off easily. “Now,” he presses, jaw clenching.

She leaves him in a quiet flutter of silk.

Jon takes another large gulp of wine, finishing the cup entirely. When he looks back out across the floor, he finds Sansa staring up at him. He does not flinch from her intrusive gaze. Instead, he leans his arms over the rail before him, eyes steady on hers, hand rolling the empty wine glass in his hold.

She takes a steadying breath, hands tightening over her lap, and then she’s turning to smile at something her brother has said, a delicate laugh lighting her lips.

Jon stays watching her for many moments, before he finally pulls from the rail, setting his cup beside Rhaenys’ own abandoned one.

He does not look back once.

* * *

Sansa takes to the floor with her father for a round on the dancefloor sometime during the feast that night. He whirls her around like they have so many times before back at Winterfell, and the tension eases somewhat from her shoulders, her smile smoothing out of its practiced curve and into an open-mouthed laugh, easy and natural.

Bran asks for her hand next, and she takes it happily, feeling almost as though she is the one whirling him around, her steps more sure, her head still standing a few hairs taller than his, though not for long, she laments, feeling the growing strength of her little brother’s shoulders beneath her hands.

Her chest tightens at the reminder, knowing that this is all the growing she may have left to witness. For how much time will he have to spare his sister in the coming months of his training? How often will even living in the same city feel like thousands of miles between them? She wonders if Rickon still refuses to brush out his hair and if Arya has torn another drees at the knees yet. She wonders if she will ever see any of them again before they are men and women grown.

She keeps the fragile quiver of her smile from her brother’s gaze, dipping her head in thanks for the dance when the music eases at the end of a song, lulling toward a new one. She looks up to see Theon starting for her, a confident smile at his lips, before he stops, smile slipping, jaw clenching. Sansa catches the shadow over her shoulder before she realizes what has stopped Theon.

“My lady,” Jon greets at her side suddenly.

She twists to meet his gaze, not missing the way his dark eyes flick warningly toward Theon before landing on hers.

It incenses her suddenly, and she finds her hands bunching in her skirts even as she curtseys. “My lord.”

The music starts up again. Bran stands staring at them dumbly, one brow raised. Jon works his jaw, before motioning to the floor. “Dance with me.”

It is not a request, and Sansa knows not to take it as such even if it were, her hand going out to meet his dutifully, lips pursed. He keeps his eyes ahead, leading her away from her brother as Bran nods his farewell, walking back toward Theon.

Sansa catches the flash of frustration that passes through Theon’s eyes when she glances back to offer an apologetic look, before she’s ushered into Jon’s arms, one of his hands settling at her back, mid-waist, his other gripping her own hand. She gathers her skirts in her free hand and they’re off.

It’s a silent affair for many long moments, the air stilted between them, with Jon’s eyes always about the room, never lighting on her, and with her own steady stare, studying him. He’s very much like her father, she finds, in a somber, weathered sort of way – only in looks, of course, except for where it counts. There’s nothing of ease in the lines of his face, and nothing of warmness in the crinkles at his lips, and nothing of familiarity in the grey of his eyes (Stark grey, she finds, now that the brilliance of torchlight flickering over the hall as they dance illuminates them well enough for her to truly see.)

And still, he does not look at her.

Sansa tries not to stiffen in his hold, her gaze falling from his face, barely managing to smother the huff of discomfort begging her lips for release. If it’s such a chore to dance with her, then why had he bothered to ask her?

(Not that a prince need ask for anything, she reminds herself carefully.)

“I suppose we should become more familiar with each other, seeing as we’re to be married,” he says suddenly, gruffly, as though in explanation for the unexpected dance.

Sansa blinks up at him, surprised after all the silence, before glancing back out at the room from over his shoulder as he twirls her. “Yes, that does tend to require conversation,” she says tartly, biting her tongue almost instantly after she says it.

Jon finally looks down at her, and with the intensity of his stare, she almost wishes he’d go back to never looking at her at all. His lip twitches, but it’s barely enough to be mentioned, and Sansa glances away again.

“Have you had the chance to dance much back at Winterfell?” he asks, and Sansa wants to laugh at the stiffness with which he says it.

She manages not to, though. “Some, my lord.”

“With your brothers?”

“Mostly.”

He grunts his acknowledgement, and Sansa catches sight of Theon watching them from across the floor, Robb at his elbow, eyeing them similarly. She turns and tucks her face back toward Jon’s shoulder.

“You are rather proficient,” he says finally, the hand at her back easing somewhat, losing its tension as it slides more comfortably toward the small of her back.

“I thank my mother’s lessons for it,” she answers, ignoring the tremor his touch lights up her spine.

He nods, glancing down to her again.

Sansa bites her lip, the hand not already held in his leaving her skirts to light along his shoulder. They are to be wed, after all. Touch is expected. Her fingers curl along the leather of his sleeve.

Jon’s hand seems to press more firmly at her back, fingers splaying over her dress as he keeps her fixed to him, their legs threading through each other easily in their steps, never tangling in her skirts.

“You know the steps well yourself, my lord. Did…” she stops, considers it, tries again. “Did her Grace, the Lady Elia, teach you before her passing?”

Jon cocks his head as he watches her, eyes roving her face. “She did,” is all he says.

Sansa nods, throat tightening. Her hand thrums along his shoulder. She takes a breath, expels it quickly. “Had you ever wished your own mother could teach you? Perhaps in the steps of the North?”

Jon’s brows sharpen down immediately, his jaw clenching.

Sansa steals a breath through her nose, watching the shift. “I’m sorry, my lord, I only meant that – ”

“She’s dead,” he clips out, dark eyes still fixed to hers. “What does it matter?”

The brusqueness of it takes her aback, an ache in her suddenly at the detachment he displays. She speaks before she realizes the words are on her tongue. “A great many things die. It does not mean we stop needing them.”

A sneer finds its way along his lips. “I’m to need her, am I? A woman who abandoned her family for an already married man? A silly little girl too willful to learn the ways of the world before it killed her?”

Sansa’s mouth parts indignantly, remembering the fond way her father had recalled her aunt Lyanna. To hear her spoken of so disparagingly stirs a meanness in her heart. “That’s not – ”

“Do not presume to tell me what I need, my lady.”

Sansa exhales hotly, pulling from him mid-turn, but his hands hold her tight, bringing her back to his chest easily, a puff of hot breath breaking across her cheeks from his mouth. “I have not dismissed you,” he says warningly, fingers bunching in the material of her dress at the small of her back.

Sansa lifts her chin, tongue tart with her indignation. “I am your betrothed, not your dog, and you were the one who expressed a desire for familiarity, if you recall.”

“But not on account of my mother,” he says firmly, eyes narrowing on her.

She takes to his turn of her about the room as though they never broke form. “And on what other common ground are we to find ourselves? We are cousins, you realize. You’ve a family half a world away and you’re telling me that means nothing to you?”

“I have a family here,” he bites back.

It’s said so tersely, so full of finality and abject certainty that it carves a piece of sorrow into her, suddenly and unexpectedly – like a gust of winter through a window never meant to be left open. Her throat constricts, her eyes blinking furiously up at his, nails curling at his shoulder when the breath rakes from her. “Have you never wanted to know us?” she asks softly, almost painfully, and it’s not a familiar pain.

It’s desolate and untethered and hammers about her ribs like a caged thing.

The lone wolf dies.

Sansa’s eyes prick with a heated wetness.

“About as much as I imagine you wanted to know me, my lady,” he answers her, lip curling at the admission, voice tight.

Sansa stumbles to a halt in his arms, watching as the whirling torchlight settles upon his face in harsh slants, a look about him too spiteful to be called lonely.

And yet, lonely is exactly what she’d call it – on any other face.

Jon blinks, his face shuttering away the expression almost instantly, his hand retreating from around her waist, stepping back from her.

They stand there simply breathing, eyes unflinching from each other, unerringly still amidst a whirl of bodies. She cannot find it in herself to walk away. So instead, she watches as he does.

She hardly notices the gentle touch of Robb’s hand to her shoulder.

* * *

“You know, it’s not proper to leave a lady before the dance is done,” Aegon says at his side suddenly, eyes watching the dancefloor as he steps up to Jon.

Jon gives him a withering look from where he leans against the column. “I’m sure you know all about what’s to be done ‘proper’ by a lady.”

Aegon smiles, amused. “I could show you a thing or two.”

“I know enough.”

“Where to put it doesn’t count.”

“Aegon,” Jon faintly growls, straightening from his lean.

Aegon sighs, picking imaginary lint from his shoulder. “You’re so obtusely glum, Jon. It’s souring my mood.”

At that, Jon lets a chuckle escape, eyes roving back to the dancers before them. Sansa is in there somewhere, dancing with Robb. A wave of copper catches the light. Jon whirls the wine around his glass slowly, fingers tight on the stem.

Aegon glances at him out of the corner of his eye. “It’s a good match,” he says softly.

“You mean a necessary one.”

Aegon is silent for a time, and Jon glances at him to find him staring at Daenerys while she sits at the head table. She’s in all silver, iridescent in the torchlight, but as still and cold as metal, a patiently sheathed sword. Her eyes flick over to Aegon for a passing moment, and Jon reminds himself that even metal burns beneath fire. Daenerys offers what might pass as a smile to the unobserved eye but Jon and Aegon see it for the sneer it is.

Sometimes Jon understands Aegon’s need to seek warmth elsewhere. Theirs were never meant to be matches of the heart. He’s known this since a very young age. Known it in his bones. Known it since he first saw the way his father looked at Elia Martell from across the long width of the dinner table – a distant, tolerant sort of affection, a comfort borne of time and resignation and nothing of passion.

He remembers Rhaenys as a child, eyes bright and hopeful, looking at her parents for the sort of love she read about in books. He remembers curling his small palm over her own childlike one when her eyes had dimmed in disappointment.

Looking at Daenerys now, the way she uncrosses and re-crosses her legs at the ankle, a finely bowed wrist going for her wine glass, nodding at something Rhaegar says at her side – he cannot help the inkling of remorse he feels. Perhaps for her. Perhaps for Aegon.

Perhaps for much more than he can possibly fathom.

Jon sighs, looking down at his glass.

“I suppose you could do much worse,” Aegon says, trying for levity.

Jon lifts a brow at that. “She’s a Stark.” As though that were enough damnation.

(He thinks it should be.)

Aegon laughs, abrupt and loud, swinging an incredulous look at his brother. “You say that like you aren’t one yourself.”

A scowl tugs at his lips. “I’m not.”

“Well, half of one, anyway.”

“I’m not,” Jon intones lowly, hand halting the swirl of his wine. He hates the way he sounds like a petulant child, but the fervency is there all the same, brimming beneath his tongue – an ages old wound still festering, despite the years.

Perhaps part of him will always be that motherless child.

Perhaps part of him will always be resentful.

Aegon simply watches him, violet eyes unreadable, hands moving to clasp behind his back with a regality Jon has never managed to master himself.

He feels the shame of his pettiness lancing through his chest, turning his gaze from his brother with a heated exhale.

About as much as I imagine you wanted to know me, my lady.

What does it matter, that they are blood? They were never the blood that counted – the blood that wanted him.

No. That’s always been the Targaryen in him. That’s always been the only family he needed.

He remembers suddenly, the time he and Aegon stole their father’s horse for a midnight ride as children. Hardly made it through the stables and into the riding fields when they’d been thrown from the saddle, Jon breaking his arm in the tumble, Aegon suffering only a few minor scrapes. He remembers stubbornly limping after the horse in the night, refusing to wake the stable hands and ask for help for fear that they would report it to the king. Aegon trudged along reluctantly after him, until the exhaustion and fear wore him down enough to go running to their father just before the sun broke over the horizon with an accusing dawn, Jon hollering after him to get back here, you traitor.

Jon had made it back to the stables, tugging the horse behind him by the reins, his broken arm cradled to his side, weary and sleep-deprived and absolutely, all-consumingly angry with his brother, when their father met him at the pen’s doors, winded and wild-eyed.

“Jon.”

He’d pulled up short, breathless, a heady shame filling him, eyes lowering to the straw floor instantly, hand tightening over the reins in his fatigued grip. “Father, I – ” he croaks out, before his father’s arms are coming around him, smothering his apology in the silk of his sleeve.

Jon stills, wincing slightly at the pain lancing up his arm with the embrace, feeling his father’s hand curve around the back of his head, holding him to his shoulder, shuddering a worried breath at his temple. “Aegon said you’d been hurt,” he huffs into Jon’s dark hair, not angrily, but with an underlying frustration that blooms something needful in Jon’s chest – a smothered kind of longing.

“I’m alright,” he mutters out, eyes landing on Aegon over his father’s shoulder.

He stands in the open doorway to the stable, the meager light of dawn breaking against his silhouette, a small crowd of servants gathering behind him.

Jon remembers the way Aegon had curled his hand along the wood threshold when their father finally released Jon, hands still clutching his shoulders, a sternness overtaking him that did nothing to stifle the tender stain of relief in Jon’s lungs.

Looking at Aegon now, his silver hair framing his face, all soft angles and hard majesty, handsome and stately and strangely blinding (in much the same way as staring at the sun too long) – Jon wonders if he will ever forget the feel of Aegon’s arms around his waist that night they rode their father’s stolen horse, the suffocating terror that overtook him when they went flying, the way Aegon had sulked and stomped his feet before abandoning the search to run off to Rhaegar while Jon bellowed unprincely insults at his back.

The way their father cradled his face in his hands and demanded he swear never to do it again.

“I’m a Targaryen,” he says finally, the words smarting along his tongue, even now. A need and an uncertainty all at once. “And she – ” He stops, swallows. “She is nothing,” he finishes tightly, the untruth a tremulous exhale as it leaves him.

He clamps his jaw shut over the words, letting them curl behind his teeth like a bite of blood – copper as her hair.

Aegon gives him an unconvinced look but says nothing, and Jon is grateful for the silence.

He does not tell his brother how the earnestness in her question had unhinged him.

“Have you never wanted to know us?”

Or how the harrowing stare she left him with seemed to peel his skin back with the efficiency of a practiced blade. Or how her pursed, pink mouth had rattled him beneath the sincerity of her words. Or how his hand had seemed to mold perfectly to the slender curve of her waist, the warmth of her seeping through the folds of her dress and taunting him like a fickle summer – for he had always been promised winter from the North, and had expected his new wife to be no different.

Jon swallows the remembrance back with a slice of unease.

How the heady urge to grip her even tighter had made him hazy and greedy.

(How it does even now, the imprint of her heat still lingering along his calloused palm.)

Jon licks his lips and stalks from his brother.

* * *

For all the friction last night’s dance with Jon Targaryen had distilled in her, Sansa recalls the night of her betrothal celebration mostly with fondness and laughter. She does not, however, expect the same levity from the feast to set the tone for her stay in King’s Landing. She’s seen her father hold court with petitioners often enough to understand the workings of a lordship. She imagines it to be much the same when they take to the Southern court the next day, Rhaegar reclined on the Iron Throne, hosting supplicants in the main hall, Aegon seated similarly beside him.

“You should attend,” her father had said to her. “Learn the lords and ladies. Familiarize yourself.”

Protect yourself, he did not say.

Sansa had nodded, understanding. Ned had rested his hand gently atop her head, smoothed her hair down, smiled wanly at her, and then left, taking his own place in the hall of Rhaegar’s court. She stands now on one of the balconies overlooking the hall, after greeting so many of the lords and ladies earlier that morning. The sun peeks out from the high tops of the long windows, signaling its slow descent into afternoon. Sansa sighs imperceptibly, longing to take a turn outside. She’s never seen quite so much color before, so many decadent gardens and golden sun and red-stoned walls. It’s a different kind of beauty than Winterfell offers, difficult to appreciate when shuttered up in the barren throne room.

“Careful, my lady, your disinterest is showing,” someone whispers at her shoulder, and Sansa turns swiftly at the sound to find Lady Margaery smirking beside her, a single, fine brow raised toward her.

She’d recently been introduced to the Rose of Highgarden that morning, along with her brothers and father. She’d not missed the way Robb’s eye followed the lady when she left, and Sansa had to admit to finding herself rather breathless in her presence as well, at the low but attractive cut of her dress, the mischievous curl of her lips, the earnest way she’d grasped both of Sansa’s hands in hers upon their greeting, instantly intimate and affectionate in a way Sansa had only ever experienced with Jeyne Poole back home.

Sansa blushes at Margaery’s observation now, smiling at the other woman’s keen expression. “I hope I haven’t been too obvious,” she whispers.

“Nonsense,” Margaery hushes, wrapping her arm in hers. “I’ve simply been watching you, is all.”

Sansa wants to laugh, but she holds it in, shaking her head.

“Though, I’m not the only one, it seems,” she says enigmatically.

Sansa instinctively glances toward Jon, standing low on the steps beneath his father and brother, but his attention is on the current petitioner holding the floor. Her brows furrow, lips pursed in confusion at what Margaery could mean when she glances up from Jon, eyes landing on Aegon suddenly, blinking at the realization that he’s watching her.

She sucks a quiet breath through her parted lips. The look on his face is inquisitive, curious, and it shouldn’t cause a heat in her, yet it does. She has never been the center of a prince’s attention before, and never so openly. It’s not a look of desire or anything so inappropriate, but there’s an openness to it, and it makes Sansa’s throat go dry. She dares another glance toward Jon. He stares resolutely away from either of them,

She cannot explain the coil in her gut just then, the unease.

Margaery’s pat along her hand breaks her from the stare. “Oh good, this looks to be the last one of the morning’s session. I do so love the afternoon breaks. I’m famished, aren’t you?” She turns a genuine smile toward Sansa.

“Well, I was going to find my brother Robb once court was dismissed. Ask him for tea.”

“Oh let the boys get to know each other,” she says, nodding at Robb speaking with her brother Loras down amongst the other lords. The hall begins to let out with Rhaegar’s dismissal, the crowd mulling about. “Have lunch with me in the gardens. I’m to join the ladies Daenerys and Rhaenys.”

Sansa withers at the idea, but she keeps her smile in place. It’s a stupid thought, she tells herself. Rhaenys and Daenerys are to be her sisters by marriage. She should befriend them, get to know them at the least, not dread the sharing of a meal with them. Even so, she cannot help the recollection that neither Targaryen princess has yet to look as kindly upon her as Margaery has. It should be nice to have a friend at King’s Landing though.

Sansa thinks of Jeyne Poole, of Arya, even. No, she would not have them here, and perhaps that is best. Winter roses tend to wither in the Southern sun.

Sansa looks at Margaery.

But this rose…

She smiles, clasping the other lady’s hand in hers. Some roses yet have thorns. Sansa has always admired such resilience. Margaery smiles wickedly and Sansa is instantly captivated. Yes, she thinks, it should be nice to have a friend.

Sansa nods her answer, letting Margaery guide her out the hall. She never notices the pair of eyes following her – Stark grey.

* * *

Jon walks beside Aegon through the gardens, hands at his back, eyes ranging over the tall flowers and perfectly landscaped bushes with indifference. “You were staring,” he says without prompt.

Aegon flicks a low hanging leaf from his path. “Hmm?”

“At Sansa Stark.”

“Was I?”

Jon stops, giving his brother a deadpan look.

Aegon smothers his chuckle behind his fist, clearing his throat. “Yes, well, you were hardly giving the girl the attention she deserves.”

Jon turns fully to him now. “We were in the midst of court.”

“Yes, and your lady was clearly bored.”

“Hearing petitions is a necessity of ruling. It is not for amusement. Even she must know this, given that she was present in the first place.” Jon begins to walk again, not waiting for his brother. Aegon meets his pace with quick strides regardless. “It speaks to her understanding of her new position that she was there at all. A lady of the court should be familiar with her kingdom’s ails.”

“Then perhaps you should have entertained her while there, brother,” Aegon teases, glancing at him from the corner of his eye. “Why was she not at your side?”

Jon is silent for a moment, and then, “We are not married yet.”

His brother only answers with a raised brow.

“And even when we are, she may go where she wishes. She is not required to stay always with me.”

“But don’t you want her there?”

He has never wanted the company of any woman so, not even Rhaenys, who has held the bulk of his affections since childhood. He hardly thinks that will change, even with marriage.

Even with Sansa Stark.

Jon’s tongue goes heavy in his mouth, remembering how his eyes had found her instantly in the crowd, her copper hair catching shades of sunlight through the long windows. Her dress was a soft iris, almost mauve, with a dragonfly pin at the bust, and Jon had bristled unexplainably at the sight of her, the color of her dress, perhaps inadvertently, closer to the shade of his brother’s eyes than his, and what in the seven was wrong with him for noticing that?

It’s ridiculous, really.

“It’s not a matter of want,” he tells Aegon, hoping his answer is enough.

It is not, apparently.

Aegon bends to sniff a tall flower, stopping them in their trek. Jon waits diligently at his side. Straightening, Aegon fingers the edge of one petal. “You do not desire her? As a woman?”

Jon works his jaw at the question. Desire is not the issue. He imagines it will take very little to rouse him when the time comes to bed her. He is not simple enough to miss the supple curve of her breasts or the willowy line of her waist in the modestly cut bodice of her dress. Nor does he miss the pale flex of her throat when she speaks, the slender arch of her wrist, the pink, tempting purse of her lips.

(Neither has he missed the frost of her gaze, the cool intensity of her stare , and yet this – this rattles him more than anything, makes his skin grow tight, his mouth dry.)

Jon adjusts the collar of his tunic, clearing his throat. “Of course I desire her. What man wouldn’t?”

Aegon gives him a predatory smile and Jon regrets the question immediately, groaning his incredulity as he rolls his eyes. “But I should hope to find more use for a wife than a good fuck,” he says testily.

“And you may yet,” Aegon tells him, tugging at the petal in his grip until it breaks from the flower. He swipes his thumb over the softness of it, keeping it pressed between his fingers. “The North may finally come to heel.”

Jon’s face darkens.

Aegon looks at him then, fingers tightening over the petal in his grasp. He is all at once sunlit and shadowed. “I will not permit them to break from the crown,” he says lowly, the words a tight breath of air.

Jon nods, mouth a thin line, the air gone from him suddenly. Something shifts in the space between them, a familiar tremor lighting Jon’s spine with the way Aegon’s face slips into a striking coldness.

Aegon gives him a considering look, before he releases the petal between his fingers, letting it flutter to the ground unhindered. All mirth has left him, the angular cut of his jaw a harsh thing in the glaring sunlight, his eyes violet and immutable. “We need this marriage. What use you find for Sansa Stark is your own business, so long as the North remains loyal, and you are going to ensure that, little brother.”

Jon recognizes the shift in Aegon’s tone, the eerie way that playfulness turns abruptly to a cutting warning, like the toss of a coin.

“You are my brother, and I love you,” Aegon continues, stepping toward him, heedless of the broken petal now crushed beneath his boot (or perhaps not heedless at all), “but this is not negotiable. You will make an effort, do you understand me?”

“I do,” Jon answers firmly, eyes never leaving his, fervent in his promise.

Aegon watches him a moment longer, before he seems satisfied, nodding, taking to the path once more. Jon follows silently, jaw aching beneath the force with which he clenches it.

He has a place, after all, as all bastards do – even royal ones.

He does not admit to the resentment still lingering between his ribs, first anchored there many years ago – affection turned rancid.

Because here’s the truth:

The morning after they stole their father’s horse, Jon had taken the lashings, admitting to the theft that had, in truth, been entirely his brother’s design.

He remembers Rhaenys wailing for their father to stop, Daenerys tugging her out of the hall with an admonishing tut, a glare for him in her passing. And he remembers the sharp flick of the thin leather riding crop across the backs of his calves as he held his breeches up over his knees with trembling, white knuckles. And he remembers Aegon standing at the edge of their father’s chair, watching with an unnerving stillness, nails digging into the armrest at his side, eyes glinting dangerously in the torchlight as a perverse smile spread slowly over his thin lips.

Jon swallows tightly, hands clenching behind his back. He keeps to his brother’s pace, smothering that flare of bitterness in his chest. There is no use in bringing the rot to air, after all.

My brother, and I love you, he reminds himself, like a ringing of the bells, a discordant, air-sundering hail.

He looks at Aegon now, the sharpness of his profile obscured somewhat in the garden’s ill-fitting light.

Jon remembers wincing with every flick of the crop.

And he remembers that his brother never had.

(Not once.)

#jonsa #from instep to heel #my writing #jon snow #sansa stark #jon x sansa #jon and sansa #game of thrones #got fanfic

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sockablock · 5 years ago

Text

Once upon a time, @inkedinserendipity tagged me in a post by @superssonica asking what would happen if Caleb got a bit too used to the Polymorph spell.

Seren, you monster, this one goes out to you:

- - -

Beau disappears into the clouds below the branches, trailed—then outpaced—by a second crack of thunder.

After a moment, the massive boughs sway. A few leaves tremble, then fall still.

Caduceus takes a seat in the newly-sprung grass. Yasha joins, sheepish at his side.

“My wings were not made for flying,” she mumbles. “I think I will just stay on the ground.”

Nott tugs on Caleb’s sleeve. “I kind of want to go,” she says. “Do you have a way to get us up?”

He follows her gaze. He considers the tree. He mulls over a mental list of spells, then rummages around in his pouch for silken string.

The tiny cocoon gleams silver in the light.

He gives Nott a smile.

“Ja, sure. Hop on.”

—

Caleb is flying.

He’s never flown before, only seen and heard through Frumpkin’s eyes, back on the safety and security of the ground. But for a person, for a human, for the child of a farmer and a soldier, long ago, he’d like to think that he’s not doing a bad job.

The skies seem to tug at something deep within his soul, something feral and instinctive, something finally freed, something soaring, something lifting, something wild—alive.

In this euphoria, he tucks his wings close, driven on by a craving he’d never felt before.

He spins into a barrel-roll, diving through the clouds, Nott on his back, screaming—maybe it’s a cheer—all he really knows is the rush of the wind, the thrill of the ether, the endless expanse.

It is beautiful, so high in the clouds.

His mind lets go. There’s no need for control.

It is empty. It is peaceful.

Serene.

—

Later on, he turns back into the same bird to ferry Beauregard up to the nest. He lingers in the form a bit longer than needed.

It’s to save spell slots. You never know.

—

They arrive in Bazzoxan well after dusk and fall into the first and only bunks they can find. Jester and Caduceus look well enough tapped, and Fjord still occasionally plucks gravel from his chest. Yasha and Beau are as unfazed as ever, but this is as much of a habit as an act. Nott is fretting somewhere in the background, still searching desperately for her flask.

As far as evenings go, this one is fairly standard. It has been nearly a year since the Mighty Nein assembled, and all of these bustling midnight sounds are just a part of the familiar nightly song.

But when the lamplight fades, Caleb cannot sleep. He lies there, unmoving, eyes open in the dark.

He cannot stop thinking about what he’d done that morning. He cannot forget the way that it had felt.

Of course, he cannot forget anything. He’s never been able to, never known how.

But for that a minute, for that hour, for that daydream in the breeze, it had been so wonderfully easy.

—

He changes a few more times during the trip. Once towards the tomb, once within, once to dive past narrow, winding stairs. He mostly sticks to eagles—he knows them, they’re safe, and a part of him fears the uncertainty of other shapes.

He remembers the story that Jester had told about becoming a moth. She hadn’t been able to control her mind. She hadn’t been able to focus her thoughts. He remembers being a giant ape, and knowing nothing but the adrenaline and the bloody haze.

To a wizard, to a scholar, to a son of the fields who’d crawled his way up through sheer brains alone, this is something that rips at his core. It is horrifying. He must avoid it at all costs.

Still, though, he wonders, at dusk, by the campfire, as he stares alone into the flames:

What would it feel like? How far could he go?

His fingers brush a tiny cocoon. It glimmers faint and gold in the light.

—

They go home. To a home, anyways. They report to the Queen and her stance does not change, but Caleb’s convinced that there’s a new nod of care, maybe fondness, for their motley crew. They have continued to serve the Dynasty well. They have continued to help the Krynn win the war.

And gods, if the reports can be believed, the Krynn are winning this war.

She allows him to see the Vollstrecker.

Caleb’s soul is still rattled when finally, he leaves.

—

He goes to bed alone that night, alone in his room on the first floor of their house.

His mind is a well of isolation and regret, of a churning desire for a wish he’ll never have, of plans and ruminations, more distant by the hour, of dreams, calculations, memories long and past, all flooding, all filling, overflowing, overmuch, much, much too much—

He drags his fingers down the sides of his head, sweat dripping from the tangle of his hair.

He needs air. Breathe. He needs air.

Below the silence of the ever-present moon, his footsteps creak against a polished floor. His palm brushes the smooth wooden banister, and then he reaches the stairs to the roof.

He opens the door.

He inhales, below the tree.

The little globes of daylight are dormant at this hour, still and cold beneath the stars.

Caleb looks up into the branches across the sky. Their tree is not nearly as large, as enormous, but still, it is familiar all the same. It makes him think...it makes him remember...

"But not a bird if it’s night,” he murmurs. “Something else, something...”

Ah, yes.

He reaches into his little leather pouch. He pulls out another silk cocoon.

He’ll have to pick up more, soon. But that is a problem for another time.

Polymorph trips off the curve of his tongue like a dream he’s dreamt a thousand times before.

And then he is nothing but a tiny, squeaking bat, a single lone heartbeat aflutter in the night.

—

The spell lasts an hour.

—

If you cast it once.

—

That next morning, Caduceus makes breakfast. Caleb trudges down the stairs.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” Beau asks, as he pulls up a chair and collapses against the table. “Did you sleep bad? You look like shit.”

“Thank you, Beauregard,” he mutters, and pulls a mug of...of something, to his face. “Your razor-like honesty is always appreciated.”

“Alright, fuck me for asking,” she scowls, and turns around to harass Fjord instead.

Nott, seated across the table, is feeding something to Yeza. It is amazing, the change he brings to her.

Caleb’s gaze drifts away. He focuses on a faint spiral in the wood, a little point of difference in a world of smooth grain.

After a while, he is aware of someone calling his name. He jerks up, just in time to see a fried egg slide onto his plate.

“Didn’t sleep well?” Caduceus asks kindly. “You, ah, I hope you don’t mind my saying, but you seem a bit tired, today.”

Caleb gives him a weak smile. “Ja, I stayed up last night. Working on...working on magic,” he adds.

Technically, it is not a lie.

However, Caduceus is hard to talk around. His eyes give a flicker, and though he doesn’t argue, it certainly doesn’t seem like he is fully convinced.

Still, he gives a nod. He moves on to feed the others.

Caleb feels guilty, and he isn’t sure why.

Then again, he muses, stabbing at his plate, there’s a lot for him to be guilty for.

He sinks just a bit lower in his chair.

—

They decide, unanimously, that despite the uncertainty, they desperately need a break before heading to the north. Another week wouldn’t be too bad, adds Jester, so one more week of downtime is had. Almost immediately afterwards, Beau grabs Fjord to train in the cellar, saying something about—I can’t let Dairon down. Nott and Yeza disappear to the lab, to steal every moment they can before they part ways. Jester and Caduceus opt for some therapeutic shopping, leaving Caleb by himself, alone with his own devices.

Three months ago, that wouldn’t have been so bad.

He drifts around for a bit, idly doing tasks, re-sorting the library and polishing the windows, making his bed and then stopping to make the others’. He even takes a whole hour to scrub their tub, draining out the water and rolling up his sleeves, getting down on both knees and working the basin with a towel.

It is noon by the time he is finished. There are still seven more hours until sundown.

There are still one hundred and fifty-one until their week-long vacation ends.

Caleb sits down at the edge of the pool. His fingers run aimless across the soapy rag as he tries desperately to think of more to do.

He even briefly debates seeing Essek.

After a little while, he stands up.

It is pointless. Nothing is as good.

—

“—and we’ve got a deal on clay, too. Great for Earthquakes, Feeble Mind, Shaping Stone, if that’s something you’re interested in. Only 10 silver for a—no?”

“No, no,” Caleb says quickly, carefully pouring the silk threads into his pouch. “Thank you, but I am well-stocked in that...regard. Er...thank you, madam.”

“Well, if you change your mind,” says the goblin, waving her hand and watching him go. “Come back soon, you know where to find me!”

Caleb does.

And he is sure that he will.

—

He deliberates only a few minutes more as he stands atop the stone wall along their tower. It is dark in Rhosana, that is the problem, otherwise a bird would be the obvious choice. Then he thinks harder, and laughs at his own foolishness, and smashes the silver cocoon in his hands.

His wings spread wide, don’t make a sound.

His eyes, large, yellow, seeing all, drink in the energy and movement of a city that he—for now—does not entirely understand.

—

He comes home that night feeling mildly rumpled, somewhat wind-swept, all his spells spent. Still he agrees, as he collapses at the dinner table, that was a long afternoon well-spent. Caduceus is cooking again, of course he is, though Nott is assisting and Jester offers advice.

The food is amazing, once it is complete. Though he eats much, much much more than he usually would, a fact that a number of his friends pick up on.

“Did you and Essek bone or something?” Beau asks. “Dude, chill out, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

Jester snickers as Fjord thumps him on the back, giving him a sympathetic hand.

“I did not,” Caleb says, affronted, and coughs one more time just for good measure. “I can assure you, we did nothing of the sort.”

“So what did you do?” Caduceus asks. His eyes, usually so dazed and relaxed, have focused onto Caleb with an uncomfortable accuracy. Damn the priest, Caleb thinks. What is this? A confession?

“We just reviewed dunamantic basics,” he murmurs, well aware of how it sounds to Jester. “I do not have any spell slots left, but I can certainly show you at a later time.”

“Firing blanks now?” Beau asks with false sympathy. “He must have really worked you hard.”

Caleb groans, and deliberately turns so that he cannot see her. Even Nott is grinning at him widely, seemingly pleased at the idea of...well, of whatever they think that he is doing.

He wonders, idly, as the conversation shifts to other inane topics, if this is because she is gently, in her own way, trying to let him go.

After all, she has Yeza now. She has a son she needs to go home to. She has a mission she needs to accomplish.

Caleb is supposed to have one too. But at some point during the months that have passed, he is trying less and less to think about it.

He has a feeling he knows why, but that does not make it any better.

—

That evening, his mind churns again. But he is exhausted, and depleted of his spells. He has to force himself to rest, even a short nap will do. He lies there in bed, undreaming, for hours, until he is finally dormant long enough to tap into his old training and conjure up a burst of magic.

It is just enough for one final spell. Time to make it count.

He closes his eyes.

He curls up against the mattress, and imagines what it would like to be Frumpkin.

—

There is no sunlight in this city, which means no morning gleam through the windows, but the distant hum of activity in the house, the far-off clamor of voices and life, signals to Caleb that the day has now begun.

And Frumpkin is there. Asleep against the covers, but stirs when Caleb starts to shift.

Very quickly, he is up and locking eyes with his wizard, draping across his lap and purring up a storm.

The sleep-muddled curve of Caleb’s mouth forms a smile. He runs his fingers across Frumpkin’s scalp, gently strokes his thumb against his cat’s fur.

“Dir auch einen guten morgen,” he murmurs. “I thought you were out enjoying yourself in the city.”

Frumpkin mrows in response and rolls over onto his back.

There is a moment, and then suddenly, Caleb frowns.

“Was? What are you talking about? Do not be silly, everything is fine.”

He absently scritches the fur on Frumpkin’s chest. But now his rhythm is a little unsteady.

“I am not sure what you mean,” he adds, after another pause for silence.

Frumpkin purrs. He opens one eye and peers at Caleb.

“I am not,” Caleb says.

Frumpkin turns over. Caleb scowls.

“I do not see why this is any of your business. And even if I was doing for that reason, it is not a harmful habit. I am just taking advantage of the skills I have learned. There is nothing wrong with that.”

Frumpkin stares until Caleb can no longer stand it. Brow furrowed, he plucks his cat from his lap and drops him onto the bed.

He says:

“I need some time alone. Do not bother me.”

—

Frumpkin is a familiar, bound by an eldritch pact. He cannot allow his master to come to harm, and he cannot disobey Caleb’s commands.

He cannot disobey Caleb’s commands. He cannot allow his master to come to harm.

Frumpkin is a familiar, and they had made a pact.

Then again, Frumpkin is also fey.

And fey do not take “no” for an answer.

—

“Gods above,” Beau grumbles, leaping to the side, “hey, jeez, calm down, already. What’s gotten into you?”

Frumpkin sits back on his haunches and yowls purposely at her knees. His tail lashes through the air impatiently.

Beau scratches the top of her head.

“Are you trying to tell me something? What’s wrong?”

She can swear that the feline is rolling his eyes. She crouches down and frowns at him.

“Is...oh, shit, is it Caleb? Where is he? Is he alright?”

—

The spell that Jester and Caduceus had woven into the ribbons of daylight on their tree illuminates the top of the tower for a few hours every day.

It is the closest thing that Rhosana has to sun, to a good and honest warmth. Caleb had decided, just minutes ago, to utilize this to its fullest potential.

He is content, here. He is basking, and at peace.

And then, just at the edge of his hearing, there is a faint disturbance.

“—what, that? Are you sure?”

The voice is familiar. Right now, Caleb can’t seem to remember whose it is, but he is vaguely irritated. It had been so quiet before, it had been so calm—

“You have to be really sure. I’m not gonna kill a random lizard.”

His little reptilian heartbeat leaps. He can sense a shadow looming over him now, all his instincts scream to run—

“Alright, alright, calm down, I’m doin’ it—”

—his muscles bunch, he gets ready to jump—

And a hand descends from the heavens above, the edge colliding with Caleb’s spine, there’s one second of awful, horrible pain, of a bright-yellow smudge staining the rocks, and then he is growing, aching, stretching, tumbling onto two legs, not four, glaring up in a light too bright and snarling at the unmoving face of Beau.

Now the physical is secondary. His mind is back, and it is angry.

“Arschgesicht! I had forty-two minutes on that spell!”

Beau doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t even respond. Instead, in true Cobalt Soul fashion, she stares him down with such a gaze that for but a second, Caleb almost feels sheepish.

Then the furry bubbles right back to the surface.

“Why did you do that?” he demands. “Beauregard, why would you interrupt me?”

“Uh, what exactly did I interrupt?” Her eyebrows are raised, her chin turned up. “Caleb, what the fuck were you doing?”

“I was—I—magic!” he shouts. He gestures wildly to the smooth stones. “I was just practicing my spells! You know you are not supposed to interfere!”

He feels something dull at the back of his skull. It is like a pressure, though rapidly fading, and as he whirls around towards the source, he just sees the tip of a ginger tail vanishing down the tower stairs.

He almost shouts. He does not, but almost. He begins to storm off towards the door, his foot falls once, hard, into the grass, but then comes a grip like iron against his wrist.

Beauregard always says that her hands are her weapons. Even Caleb, in this state, remembers this well.

“Good gods,” she says, eyebrows rising further. “Dude, seriously, what’s up with you? Why’re you pissed? You can cast it again, can’t you?”

“Yes, Beauregard,” he manages, “yes, of course, of course I can. But that is not the point, here. The point is that Frumpkin disobeyed what I said, and, and coerced you to come here. I know you are innocent here, but he—”

“Wow.”

Caleb pauses.

“‘Wow’ what?”

Beau lets go of his wrist. She takes a step back, crosses her arms, looks him over with the sudden terrible stare of understanding. “Damn, dude, I came up here because I thought you were in trouble. That something was attacking you, or something’. But I guess trouble comes in different forms, huh?”

Caleb frowns. “What do you mean?”

She points at the rocks, where he had been resting. “Sometimes it’s a lizard. I’m guessing sometimes it’s a bird? A giant one, with eagle-wings?”

His eyes narrow. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Yeah, well, I barely do either, but Frumpkin seems to think there’s something wrong. With you, I mean. And I guess with your spells.”

“There is nothing wrong with me. And there is no reason for you to think that.”

She leans in.

“You and your cat are telepathically linked.”

“And? What of it?”

“If there was something goin’ on in your head, don’t you think he would have noticed?”

“He is overreacting,” Caleb huffs, “there is nothing—”

“Come on, man, this is Frumpkin. He cares about you, he’s just worried. And honestly, based on the way you’re acting, I’m starting to worry too.”

Caleb stops.

He goes still.

His gaze falls to the ground.

“Ja, well,” he murmurs. “Perhaps you should not bother.”

To his amazement, Beau rolls her eyes.

“Aw, come on,” she says, stepping forward. “Don’t play that face with me, alright?” She prods him in the chest. “Alright, spill. What’s up? Are you still pissed about that Scourger that got caught?”

Caleb sighs. “No, no, that is not it. It is…” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It is just...other things. You know.”

“I don’t.”

He inhales. Then he sags, finally defeated.

“Ja. Ja, I suppose that is true.”

He watches her cross her arms.

“I won’t know unless you tell me,” she says. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He feels the last of the rage drain away. His stares intently at the dirt.

“It is...I believe it is everything. Everything that has been happening. Everything that has happened.”

He falls quiet.

“I think it may be too much.”

Beau gives him a very level stare.

Eventually, she gestures to the stones. Warm under the glow of light made by a friend.

“Alright,” she says. “Fine. Let’s talk.”

They both sit. It is quiet, for a moment. And then, Caleb sighs one last time, and speaks:

“We are in a very strange place. And we are trying to...we are trying to do some very big things. Things that...as every day goes by, seem more and more impossible to accomplish.”

Beau leans against the bark of the tree.

“Yeah, I…feel you there.”

Caleb raises an eyebrow.

“What did your mentor say, by the way? How much does she know about...about the things we have done?”

Beau meets his gaze, eyes blank and cool.

“Oh, no. We’re doing your problems now. We can talk about all that later.”

Despite everything, this makes Caleb laugh. It’s nothing more than a faint chuckle, but Beau smiles back, gives him a nod.

“C’mon,” she says. “Go on. Keep going.”

Caleb tilts his head up to the boughs of the gnarled tree.

“I am...well, I am not sure. Not really. I do not think I have been, for a long time. And…seeing that V—that Scourger, it made me realize that…that for all of my memory, all my knowledge, for all the things I had swimming in my head, I realize now that I did not really have to think. I just...really, I just had to believe. I had to obey what my Lehrer—teacher, said. Really, I was not expected to think. And everything, for all its complications, everything was so, so simple.”

He glances down at the ground. Tufts of grass lay silent below his feet.

“Today, my friend, today they are not. We are...we are trying to do very big things. And we are trying to help many people. And I think that is good. Really, I do. And I think it has given me...in some ways, a...a goal. Something that seems a bit more feasible, anyway.”

“More realistic then bending reality.”

He gives a faint smile.

“Ja, you could put it that way. But, ah...but as you can likely see, that goal has gotten slightly more...complicated. And trying to stay on the right path...even finding that path itself, is not a straightforward process. It requires thought. It requires so much thought. And now, after everything, after all we have seen and tried to do, I believe...I am sure...that I am just tired of thinking.”

Beau nods sagely as his voice trails away.

“Okay,” she shrugs. “Then you should just stop.”

Caleb blinks.

“Jus—what?”

Beau sighs. “I…I dunno, man. I think, honestly, I think that’s all you need. To stop thinking about all that shit. Not—” she adds hastily, “—not in the way that you’re doing with the lizards. Not like that. But just...I dunno. When you’re being you.”

“But when I am me, I cannot do that,” Caleb says. “I have a perfect memory, Beauregard. There is nothing I can forget.”

“Oh, wow, look at you. Wow. I’m so impressed.”

“Beauregard—”

She grins and raises her hands. “Sorry, sorry, I couldn’t resist. But, uh...yeah. I guess that makes sense. That...that sounds pretty rough, dude. If I had a record of my greatest failures playing all the time in my head, I think I’d go pretty crazy too.”

Caleb raises an eyebrow.

“Now I am confused,” he says. “Is this conversation supposed to help me?”

Beau throws her arms into the air.

“Hell, I dunno,” she says. “I’m not the feelings expert, or whatever. I’ve just seen people do this kind of shit before. You’re supposed to talk things out, right? That’s supposed to...I dunno, fix things, or something?”

“Is it?” Caleb asks, incredulous. “Who told you that?”

She scratches the back of her neck. “Uh...I dunno. Probably Caduceus.”

“That seems like something that he would say.”

They fall silent for a few moments after that, drinking in the sunlight and the distant city sounds.

Then Beau says:

“I wasn’t lying, though. I don’t really know what it’s like to feel like you. I can’t imagine having a brain like yours. But...but I do kind of know what you’re going through.” He glances over, and she nods. “Yeah. I do. I think...I think it’s a pretty common thing. Maybe not in such perfect detail, but...it can be hard to stop thinking about all the times you’ve fucked up. And it can be even harder when you know that, uh...when it feels like the fate of a hundred thousand souls rests on every stupid decision that you make.”

“We have made many stupid decisions, eh?”

“God, you’re telling me?” Beau groans. The back of her head rests against the tree. “I’m amazed Dairon didn’t kill me. And honestly, I’m amazed all of us are still alive. But...I mean...I guess that’s just it, right? We’re still alive. We’re still here. And, most important, we’re still truckin’.”

She tilts one eye towards Caleb.

“We’re still here, and we’re still trying to figure it out. As shitty as it is, sometimes. As much as...as much as it hurts. And as tired as we get. We haven’t given up, and we’re still alive. Seriously, think about it in math. The odds are definitely that we should’ve died by now.”

He can’t help but snort. “Ja, absolut.”

“But we aren’t,” Beau shrugs. “And as shitty as that is, as much as it hurts, as fuckin’ terrible as it can sometimes be...that means we still have a chance. To do...whatever it is that we’re supposed to do. Or not supposed to do. And I always get pissed when people tell that I’m lucky for it, or whatever, but...I dunno. Maybe we are. And maybe it’s rotten luck for the world that it’s us, but...here we are. All of us, here we are. And...and we’ve got each other. And I won’t pretend to know what I’m doing, and I definitely don’t know...not really, how to help, but, uh. I’m here for you. Okay? Whatever...whatever you need. As long as it’s not bullshit—" she raises an eyebrow, Caleb chuckles.

“—but yeah. Seriously. I’m here. And I’ll always listen, whenever I can.”

She leans back against the bark. She closes her eyes and gives a nod.

“I mean that,” she says. “I really do.”

Caleb feels the sunlight glow against his skin, feels the warmth of its whisper brushing across his face. And there’s another light too, maybe brighter, maybe warmer, coming from either side of his form—it’s the gentle sigh of a shoulder pressed against his own, and the curling, purring softness, of a cat beneath his hands.

He glances down at Frumpkin. Then he turns to look at Beau.

Here we are. All of us, here we are.

Very, very slowly, he closes his eyes.

And it isn’t the cure. Not by a long shot.

But certainly, it’s a start.

#critical role #critfic #fic #fanfic #critrole #caleb widogast #beauregard #the mighty nein #long post #SUCH A LONG POST #SORRY IF THE BREAK FAILS #jay writes #jay tagged #seren you monster i did this for you #text #drabble #thank ya thank ya thank ya for reading!!!

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snowdice · 4 years ago

Text

Finding the Time to Study Fic 2 [Day 32]

My Masterpost Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I also have a playlist on youtube (because Spotify didn’t have one of the songs I wanted). It’s short, and not really for serious listening, but I had fun with it.

This was on hiatus for a while because I needed to focus a lot harder on my exam than usual studying and then it was break after that, but I have to get some stuff read for next week, so I’m going to be doing this for a bit today! Last time we just entered a church... with Remus. Let’s see how this goes...

Chapter 12

“What’s your name, by the way?” he asked.

Janus shot him a glare. “Elvis Presley,” he said.

Pat frowned, clearly knowing who that was. “There’s no reason to be mean.”

“You did it to me first.”

“…Introduced myself as a famous musician?” he asked. Janus didn’t respond, and after a moment, Pat laughed lightly. “You really don’t understand time travel, do you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Janus said. “Name the three types of time distortions.”

Janus scoffed. “I did not just cause a time loop.”

“Maybe not a big one,” Pat agreed, “but you did.”

“That’s not… that doesn’t count.”

“But you’re still going to do it.”

“And I’m supposed to forgive you?”

“Like I said,” Pat said. “I haven’t done anything yet.”

“You also haven’t done anything to endear yourself to me either,” Janus grumbled.

“Hmm,” Pat said. “Fine.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “You’re obviously not having much luck finding whatever you’re looking for. Tell me what it is and I’ll help.”

Janus squinted at what was in his hand. “Is that… an iPhone 5?”

“No!” he said. “It’s super-secret time travel tech disguised as an iPhone 5!”

“We’re in 2027,” Janus said. “Not a great disguise. Those things have been obsolete for a decade.”

“Well I’ll keep in mind to have my tech disguised as phones from the right year next time,” Pat said, sticking out his tongue. “Now what are we looking for?”

“If my timepiece can’t find it, I’m certain yours can’t.”

Pat rolled his eyes and tapped on the device’s screen a couple of times. “I’m going to guess it’s that,” he said proudly.

Janus leaned over to look at the screen. “Are you using google maps?” he sputtered.

When they got to the Musée Fabre museum, Janus stopped. “What?” Pat asked. He was shivering slightly in the cold and holding his arms around himself.

“My timepiece stopped working completely,” he said.

“I’m assuming that’s weird?” Pat said.

“It is,” Janus confirmed, turning to squint at him suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not the one doing it?”

“If I was doing it, wouldn’t I have just knocked it out from the get go?” Pat questioned.

Janus pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “Would you have? Maybe it’s a trick.”

Pat’s eyes narrowed a bit on him. “Think what you want, but I’m freezing. Come in with me if you want.”

“Two adult passes for the museum and the Hotel Sabatier d’Espevran, please,” he said, placing down 14 euro.

“Ah,” she said, still looking at Pat oddly. “Yes sir.” She gave them the passes and Janus quickly shuffled Pat away.

“What is wrong with your French?” he hissed once they were out of earshot.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“You sound like you’re reading Le Comte de Monte-Cristo. No one talks like that anymore.”

“I’m a little rusty,” Pat defended himself.

“Two centuries?” Janus asked. Pat stuck his tongue out like a child once again. “Is that your only way to respond to legitimate criticism?”

“What does it even matter anyway? No one ever expects time travel, at least not for something so silly.”

“Are there a lot of time travelers around?” Pat asked, sounding intrigued.

“There are plenty, both legal and not.”

“Huh,” he said, “but what are the chances we’ll run into another one?”

“Considering the time distortion? There could be many. Opportunists wanting to capitalize off the chaos, people trying to stop it, like me, and not to mention the person who caused it.”

“Wait, someone made it happen?” Pat asked.

“These things don’t just happen naturally.”

“Huh. So, something like this has to be caused by a person?”

“Yes,” Janus said. “…Why?”

Pat smiled. “No reason. I think we should head upstairs. Whatever I’m picking up says it’s around here, but I don’t see anything. Maybe it’s a floor or two above us.”

“Which is why it’s ridiculous to use Google Maps.”

“Would you rather use yours?” he asked sweetly.

“I’m still not convinced it’s not your doing,” Janus growled. “Why does your tech still work when mine doesn’t?”

“Probably the same reason the ring did,” he muttered.

“What?”

“You may be the most aggravating being in the universe.”

“What the hell do you mean a software difference?”

Chapter 13

The room stopped shaking after a moment. “Ow,” Pat said. He seemed a bit stunned but was still moving at least. He carefully maneuvered himself into a seating position. “Ouch. Owie.” He reached up to poke his own nose. “Ow!” Janus slapped his hand away when he got there. A bit of blood was already trickling from his nose and there was a small cut over his eye, but it wasn’t bleeding too much.