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sweetberrysmooch · 4 years ago

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HC: And There Was Only One Bed (Affectionate) [pt. 2]

(Zzzzzzz…..)

(Alright, second part done :V Not much to say here for now, but I hope you’re excited for the upcoming part to come out next ^^ And my ask box is always open, so feel free to drop in and chat any time! I’ll be seeing you :D)

Basic sleeping hcs with ya boys, and for a part two, outside home life? You’ll see what I mean lol

Characters: Quackity, George, Badboyhalo.

Warnings: Nightmares in Quackity’s part, but besides that we’re clean <3

Song Recommendation: Metamodernity- Vansire

Up Next- Sapnap, Philza, Fundy, Schlatt.

Enjoy your day guys! I do hope it be rockin :]

Quackity:

Quackity is one floppy motherfucker. You fall asleep with him spooning you, head nestled between your shoulder blades, hands holding yours in front of your middle, legs entangled, the whole shi-bang, but wake up with him starfishing half on the mattress at a weird angle that makes his neck sore for the rest of the day.

Each day is a new position for you to add to your ammunition of teasing against him, but he takes it in stride. He totally doesn’t wake you up halfway through the night by flinging himself over your middle, ‘asleep’ and snoring like a freight train. When you give up halfway through trying to stop him breathing and just fall asleep lying on his chest, he turns to mush and gets distracted playing with your hair. You don’t know why he seems so exhausted the next morning, and he only giggles dreamily at you when you ask.

While he’ll be the big spoon for as long as you want him to, there’s a special soft place in his heart for being the little spoon. Hold him, please. Pull him to your chest and gently run your fingers through his hair, rub his back and kiss every inch of his face until he’s down for the count. The easiest way to make him feel better after a bad day or an argument is to let him know you want him and love him. Just holding him at night guarantees that he’ll bring you a present the next day (like the inner stardew valley house husband he sometimes longs to be lmao).

It’s a 50/50 chance of waking up with Quackity or after him, seeing as he prefers to get up early to enjoy the quiet mornings before the rest of the smp wakes up. He gets ready, makes the both of you coffee (or tea, something to help wake you up), and watches the sky change color while he waits for you to come sit with him in the kitchen. The two of you try your best to assure a moment together before you go about your separate ways, sitting together and talking about what you have planned or what you might have for dinner later. It’s his favorite part of the day, aside from coming back home to your awaiting arms.

Another citrus-y smelling fellow. More orange than lemon, he bathes in the morning after he wakes up. You typically wake up right after he gets finished washing up, walking into the bathroom to hear him quietly humming while drying off his hair and wings. He’ll give you a small guilty grin and a good smooch on your forehead as an apology.

Another poor fellow with nightmares;; They’re a lot less frequent than they used to be now that you’ve gotten together (having someone to talk to and work through each others issues does WONDERS apparently) but when they hit, they hit him hard. You wake up from him twisting and turning right before he wakes up in tears. He doesn’t like to be touched afterwards, drawn in on himself and facing away from you, hiding his crying. When you leave to get him a glass of water and come back, he’s more grounded, crawling into your arms and accepting the drink gratefully. With his forehead pressed to your throat, taking small sips from his cup, he’ll tell you what his dream was about. Sometimes it’s Technoblade, sometimes Dream, mostly Schlatt though. His ex lingers on his mind more than he likes to admit, a deep sense of abandonment showing through his nightmares. Quackity struggles with sleeping for a few days after, afraid of what he might see when he closes his eyes again.

(You’ve fallen back asleep by now, hand paused in its ministrations and resting snugly in his hair. Things are warm and quiet and soft, and he feels safe again.

The nightmare still hovers fuzzily in the back of his mind, but for now he can ignore it, focusing on your slow breathing as it lulls him back to sleep.

His last thought before finally letting himself rest is how much he loves you, giving you one last squeeze in his tight embrace before relaxing into a much more stable slumber. ‘Gracias por todo mi amor.’)

George:

Impeccable skill of just falling asleep wherever and whenever. Before the two of you got close and started sharing a bed together, he really left his sleep schedule up to fate. He’d find a comfy spot and crash there for a few hours till he was awoken and would just repeat that a few hours later. Now that he has you, he makes more of an effort to stay awake during the day so he can sleep through the night next to your side. It more or less works, but occasionally he’ll have slept during the day and he wakes up in the middle of the night. As “punishment”, he sentences himself to waiting it out instead of getting up to do something because he truly wants to keep going to bed with you.

Not big on contact, likes having his space when he’s sleeping. Cuddling is nice every once in a while, but he prefers being able to breathe a little bit when falling asleep. He does, however, actively make the choice to hold your hand while he slips into slumberville. His grip isn’t too strong, nor is it very light, but a gentle mix between the two to try and remind you how much he loves you. You’ll wake up before him and his hand will still be holding yours, pulled to his chin as he sleeps. His breath fans your knuckles slowly, face eased of any stress, absolutely content.

George bathes…… probably. I’m just kidding, he fluctuates between bathing at night or in the morning because he just goes through phases of forgetting to when the time comes. His little mushroom home doesn’t come with a bathroom, seeing as its wholly empty (please if anyone has housing information on George or like. Any character at all please inform me please i beg-), so he’s limited to getting clean at a friend’s or your house. Typically yours. He keeps all of his valuables at your place once you start letting him sleep over there, tucking his clothes into your closet or in your dresser when he thinks you aren’t looking, leaving a toothbrush and his soap in your bathroom, hanging his armor up on an empty armor stand you have tucked away, all due to his inability to straight out ask if he can live with you.

It’s not like he doesn’t want to live with you, he practically does anyways, but there’s something in him that worries that you won’t like him if you’re forced to live with him permanently. He knows it can become… a bit much when you have to be around someone 24/7, but doesn’t realize that you pretty much already are around each other 24/7 lmao.

It takes a while but eventually he settles down and over dinner suggest that maybe you two should take it to the next level. His face is flushed pink and he keeps switching which leg he has crossed, but he takes your hand and quietly asks if he could start living with you. It’s a surprisingly sweet moment, even with your confusion (thinking you already DID live together), and of course you say yes.

He looks so relieved when you accept, and is kinda like, “I know this will be a difficult process but I’m very excited to become closer with you.” and then nothing changes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(It’s on the walk home when George finally processes that he now lives with you. It feels heavy on his heart, a mix of nervousness and excitement that makes him swallow hard and tighten his fingers around yours.

This isn’t the first time he’s spent the night at your place, nor is it the first time he’s crawled into bed with you and slept next to just because you let him, but it is his first night actually living with you. The moment feels brand new, as if it’s his first time visiting your house all over again.

He begins to wonder if maybe this was a mistake, maybe he’s moved too fast and maybe your regretting letting him live with you already and- He takes a hurried look at your face. You look… unbothered. Happy, even.

There’s this half hidden smile on your face that soothes his anxieties, drawing out his own fragile smile. He can’t wait to live with you.)

Bad:

Mmmmm, big man warm. A natural heat machine, no need for lots of blankets or heavier pajamas, Bad will take care of all your cold problems. Every night after you finish your shared nightly routine, you curl up in his arms, immediately becoming over come with his toasty embrace. It like when you get clothes out of the drier and just hug them to your chest, the warm, clean, smell good experience that Bad also delivers.

He’s got a pretty ingrained nightly schedule that he sticks to, and he always invites you to join him after you finish up dinner. It starts by cleaning up the house a little, washing the dishes, setting aside clothes for the next day, taking a quick bath, brushing his teeth, reading a few chapters from a new book he’s picked up, and then settling down to go to bed. He won’t push you to do it with him, but he does try to incorporate you into his routine when he can. Usually it’s just by doing something small, like reading together or massaging your shoulders, but sometimes he’ll ask you to join him when he bathes.

Bad bathes pretty often, always at night, and using a nice smelling soap that he makes himself. Like what was said above, he’ll sometimes ask you to join him when bathing. It’s not ever for any naughty means, but because he sees bathing as a very intimate and vulnerable activity for you to share. He won’t push it, understanding that it can be overwhelming to be so open, but if you do choose to join him, he’s so gentle with you. His hands are worked and calloused, but they’re soft when they run soap through your hair, his nails lightly scratching your scalp and running down the back of your neck. He practically purrs when you return the favor, giggling as your hands brush sensitive spots around his sides. Afterwards he becomes so cuddly and attached to your side, you fall asleep with him curled up on YOUR chest, trapped under him.

That being said, most nights he takes to being the big spoon. It’s more for convenience sake, seeing as he’s a good few feet taller than you are, but he also can appreciate being held and loved on after harsher days. He’s a lot like a weighted blanket, a nice heavy weight that keeps you warm and makes you feel loved <3 love this guy.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), you sometimes have.... Visitors. Bad is a hub for the homeless, bored, and nutty members of the smp. They flock to him like birds to the elderly, which means you have “children” to take care of for a day or two at a time :/. Dream and George aren’t regulars, per say, but Bad has a room set aside for either of them when they come over. To their credit, they do try to be polite when they come over, and will help in cooking dinner or cleaning up. Skeppy, however, is unlike Dream or George, in that he’s more of a third partner in your and Bad’s relationship.

Skeppy up and appears at random, no announcement, and makes himself comfortable any place where Bad is. Be it at your home or his, Skeppy eats your food, lounges on your furniture, hell, he even sleeps with you and Bad at night. You two share Bad’s chest whenever Skeppy is over. It’s so jarring at first, having to deal with having another boyfriend (because Skeppy will consider you to be apart of the thrupple after introductions), but he usually only stays for like 3 days before leaving to do whatever else he has planned. You don’t know if you should be worried or upset or what, but after a while it becomes kinda nice to have him around.

All in all Bad is great to sleep with <3

(Bad blows the lantern out on his bedside counter, shuffling under the cover beside you once the room was fully dark. You slung an arm over his chest instinctively, cuddling up into his side when his arm pulled up around your back and held you even closer.

You shivered pleasantly when he gently pressed a kiss into your hair, becoming sleepier and sleepier with each rise and fall of his wide chest. He sighs quietly and squeezes you, murmuring softly to you as you both fell asleep. “Goodnight, sweetheart. Sleep well.”)

Have a good evening! Do something nice for yourself tonight. You deserve it.

#mcyt x reader #dsmp x reader #c: george #c: quackity #c: badboyhalo #georgenotfound x reader #quackity x reader #badboyhalo x reader #hc: and there was only one bed (affectionate)#woof #sorry this took so long to get out guys ^^;#lets hope pt.3 won't take as long!

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recurring-polynya · 3 years ago

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So I actually finally watched Memories of Nobody. I actually saw it years and years ago, in a theater, for some reason, back in 2008. I had vague memories of being disappointed by it at the time, but we actually enjoyed it on rewatch quite a bit. Some thoughts:

According to my husband, who found it on some shady streaming site, this film takes place “between the Bount arc and the Advance Team arc” which is the 2nd most ass-pulled place to cram some filler, second only the Amagai arc, which takes place in the middle of the Hueco Mundo arc.

Ichigo spends most of the film wearing what I believe are zip-at-the-knee cargo pants, a king

Iba and Ikkaku are 🎶drinking at work🎶

Hitsugaya is so tired.

There’s a scene where Urahara explains a bunch of metaphysics while Tessai sits behind him flipping through a book of (presumably his own?) sketches, exactly like that scene in the Advance Team Arc where Renji and Rukia do this. Notably, Ichigo does not pick on Tessai’s drawing, not even once.

I guess Urahara has some way of extracting Kon’s memories and playing them, like on a tv? W H A T.

ngl the world-building in this movie kinda slaps???

I am obsessed with the fact that it’s not The Valley of Screams, it’s “a valley of screams” and it’s they make is sound like a thing that just happens (although they later back off on that and claim that there must be someone nefarious behind it)

Did I made a “what if we kissed in the valley of screams? j/k... unless...?” joke? You know I did.

There’s a scene where everyone comes to arrest Senna and it’s so ham-fisted and dumb. They sent, like, 3 captains, 2 vice-captains, some ninja, and Rukia and let Renji shout at Ichigo at the top of his lungs. Literally, all they had to do was send Rukia to say “hey, it turns out Senna is the memory crystal we should take her to Soul Society to keep her safe” and Ichigo would have been totally on board. Anyway, this is the dumbest thing that happens is movie, so let’s just move past it.

The Reigai arc sure did rip some beats off this movie

Rukia forces her way into a captains’ meeting while two guards with detaining sticks try to hold her back, this fucking rules. Yamamoto screams at her. Byakuya does not even change facial expressions.

Hey, is this, like a grifting thing? At any given time, you’ve got (1) older, distinguished Kuchiki who never reacts to anything and (1) young, feral Kuchiki who raises ruckuses? And the Kuchiki can use the hothead to start shit and cause trouble while the older one just shakes their head in vague disapproval?

Anyway, someone gave Yamamoto a kidou cannon and he is going to fire it at that valley of screams, ain’t no one gonna stop him now.

It is explicitly stated that firing the kidou cannon will destroy a significant portion of both Soul Society and the Living World but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So you know that animated gif where Renji and Rukia do a sick backflip off a bridge? No one told me they were backflipping into the valley of screams.

My precious husband says “that would make a good animated gif”. “I got you, babe,” I say.

Okay, literally half the Gotei leadership ignores Yamamoto’s orders and goes to the valley of screams.

One thing I do not like about filler/movies is that they are so afraid to do anything new that they just copy the beats of the canon material, which sort of, I dunno, cheapens it. Like, this movie evokes both Rukia and Renji deserting to save Orihime in Hueco Mundo and the captains doing their own shit at the end of the Soul Society arc, and the overall effect is that no one has any respect for Yamamoto, which I don’t think was the point they were trying to make.

They should have let Orihime go to the valley of screams, but she probably would have fixed the problem in 2 seconds

The group of people who go to the valley of screams is perplexing. Mr. P suggested that the reason Soi Fon is here is because she had previously promised to do something with Omaeda (maybe it’s his birthday??) and was like “oh, shit, sorry man, valley of screams situation came up, catch you next time (i def will not)”

Yoruichi is not in this film. I am assuming she is off being a groupie for the Red Hot Chili Peppers or something.

Hisagi was here for maybe three frames and then did nothing. At least Kira got to release his sword.

Komamura is not here, but he is sort of a Yamamoto simp. We don’t see him hanging out with Ukitake and Kyouraku back at the kidou cannon, tho. Wait. Oh, no. That kidou cannon has gotta be pretty loud. Komamura probably had to go home and put on his thundershirt and hide under the bed.

Soi Fon’s shikai worked??????

RENJI USED ZABIMARU TO CATAPULT ICHIGO OVER SOME ENEMIES TO GO FIGHT THE BOSS!!!! MY HEART!!!!! 🐍💀💪🎇💯😍

I made a bunch of jokes about things Byakuya might be doing (napping, most likely), but then he showed up late and interrupted Rukia’s fight to announce “It is an honor to be slain by my bankai.” Dude, c’mon.

I kinda want to know more about this clan that got done dirty 700 years ago and learned to live in the Dangai like Westley and Buttercup living in the Fire Swamp??

If I had to wander the Dangai, instead of trying to implode the valley of screams and destroy all planes of existence, I would have just made a valley of screams and fixed it up real nice and lived there and not bothered anyone, but that’s just me

Yamamoto has fired the kidou cannon

RIP to Ganryu, you had kind of a cool design, dude, I’m sorry your plan was bad and also that you didn’t get any Vintage Soul Society Flashbacks

I am absolutely perplexed by the end of this film. Despite saving Senna, and being hit with the kidou cannon, the valley of screams is still imploding. Senna stops existing, Ichigo is sad, everyone is saved, it ends with Ichigo seeing a girl who looks like Senna because ???

Who cares! It’s time for Sen no Yoru wo Koete!!!!

Great movie, A+++

#memories of nobody #bleach movies

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vagrantblvrd · 3 years ago

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AU where Castle buys The Old Haunt and realizes a few months down the road one of the bartenders has a side job of Solving Crimes?

“I’m sorry, what was that, Castle?”

And Castle, okay, is like.

“I was surprised too, but if you don’t believe me, just ask him.”

In which the “him” in question is the guy waiting in an interrogation room because a couple of uniforms checking out reports of gunshots found him standing over the body and also Castle got a phone call and anyway.

“Huh.”

And then shenanigans in which Kevin Ryan sort of kind of works for Castle???

(“You totally do, I sign your checks, and also there was the whole...thing about new management back when I bought the place and you call me ‘Boss’ when I walk in and - “)

He also used to be a cop until Reasons and now tends bar and the things about crime solving on the side because friends and friends of friends and also random people have heard about him, and really, you know. It’s more of a hobby.

“A hobby.”

Kevin grins, all sunshine and flowers and Esposito is slowly, so slowly, losing his shit because Kevin Ryan is sweet, polite. The kind of guy everyone likes. Beckett likes him and they just found about about him an hour ago.

(But he’s a little shit to Esposito.)

“Yeah, I mean. Some people knit, I, uh. Do this?”

Like the man doesn’t know how he got into the whole solving crime by moonlight gig.

“Well, I mean. That’s a sometimes thing. Usually I’m tending bar at night.”

>:((((((((((((((((((((((((((

And on and on and maybe, idk, there’s a whole...werewolf thing in there too because you know me and werewolves, right?

Kevin had problems adjusting after being bitten on a case – “It’s a whole story, I wouldn’t want to bore you,” but he’s got a handle on it now, and anyway.

Kevin and his life of tending bar at The Old Haunt, Solving Crimes, and the whole being a Werewolf deal, and he’s like, it is what it is, you know? (Alternatively, “Life in the big city, never a dull moment!!1!” like Kevin hasn’t lived there all his life, and also what does that even mean, and is he trying to say the werewolf thing is just something that happens in New York? Is he???)

But also the thing where he’s having the best damn time fucking with Detective Esposito and also flirting and poor Esposito just doesn’t know what the hell is going on?

And then there’s the time they have to Kiss For Great Justice – or, okay, to avoid getting caught by some baddies and anyway, such a hardship, you know?

Plus, Kevin with his werewolf strength just manhandling Esposito – totally not something Esposito would like to experience again in a different setting – and anyway.

That was a thing that happened, and no, Castle, Esposito will not go into detail so just stop taking notes.

(Kevin off to the side, though? Thinking about it.)

And then, idk, some Thinking and Kevin gets a P.I. license – makes sense to do it since he’s got all these people coming to him for help and anyway, yes.

Montgomery is like – “Not only do we have Castle helping out on cases, but now there’s a P.I.?”

And Kevin’s like “Only sometimes, though?” like that makes it better, but he’s a damn good bartender and Montgomery’s like, maybe if I drink enough I’ll forget about all of this and also it will become someone else’s problem</i> because if ever there was a reason to drink it would be Beckett and her team and anyway, shenanigans.

Castle lets Kevin turn part of The Old Haunt’s basement into space for the P.I. gig – files and such. Boring paperwork.

Sometimes he meets with clients upstairs in the bar – before the place opens up for the night or whenever, and Castle is just ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about it because what mystery writer doesn’t love a good P.I. story?

Also, also, later in the Nikki Heat series a P.I. shows up who lives to ~torment Ochoa and make his life miserable and anyway? (Kevin’s like :DDDDDDDDDDDD about it because of course he is.)

(Plus maybe there’s some charity cause around Halloween or whatever with a short story about a werewolf P.I. - come on, Elrod’s got the vampire P.I. in prohibition-era Chicago, why shouldn’t Castle have modern day werewolf P.I.?)

ANYWAY.

Yes.

Esposito is like >:(((((((((((((( whenever Kevin’s cases and theirs line up and Beckett sticks Kevin with him – “At least yours knows proper police procedure/protocol, Esposito!” and also “Do you really want to trade, Esposito?” because they love Castle, of course they do, and yet.

Doesn’t matter though, because Shenanigans still happen.

(And, okay. Kevin’s helpful and also saves his life a time or two – “I mean, I didn’t know we were keeping score?” and there are times it’s nice to have someone to talk to, like on stakeouts and such.)

Plus, it’s always kind of hilarious watching the Big, Tough Guys zero in on Kevin as the ~weak link and then running into the brick wall of his werewolf constitution?

And also Kevin and Esposito sparring together not long after they meet and Beckett keeps sticking the two of them together and Esposito is like, yeah, yeah, sure. Guy says he was in narcotics, mentioned doing a hefty stint undercover before everything went to hell, but just look at him! Definitely got bullied in school, you know?

So sparring and Kevin all “If you insist,” and Esposito being like “Wait, no, I - “ because Kevin’s smirking and he has a bad feeling about things, and also Esposito suddenly remembers how Kevin put that guy who charged him on the ground in nothing flat, didn’t even break a sweat doing it. Which. The guy in question was easily twice Kevin’s size and -

Anyway.

The sparring matches early on where Esposito learned Kevin can handle himself and also that cold showers are a lifesaver, y’know?

Also the thing with all the flirting and whatnot and at some point Esposito is like oh, no, he’s hot, but it’s a realization quickly followed by oh no, he wears sweater vests unironcially and however will he be able to reconcile the two?

And Kevin okay, standing there watching Esposito have these dual realizations – Esposito and his Night of Epiphanies brought on by too much to drink or a concussion and Kevin shows up after being drunk/concussion-dialed and anyway.

“Well, if I thought you’d remember this in the morning I’d have a suggestion that would take care of both those problems of yours, but since you are, what say you sleep it off/get that head checked.”

And then Kevin just being :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD the next day and Esposito has no idea why, but he’s rightfully distrustful of it, and anyway.

They figure it out in the end and all that good stuff.

(P.S. Castle gets Kevin a vest to wear when they’re going into Dangerous Situations that says P.I. or something along those lines? Kevin is like *eye-roll*, but not so secretly loves the thing because it makes Esposito *eye-roll* harder, and anyway, yes.)

#castle nonsense #castle #rysposito #technically not a fic #vagrant fic #also werewolf au #but it's kind of a side-thing #???

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ficsnroses · 4 years ago

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Motorcycle Sex - Keanu Reeves x Reader

summary : your boyfriend, keanu, shows you his brand new motorcycle...then fucks you on it. hard.

warnings : nsfw, smut. cum heheh. lots of fluff too though! x f! reader.

words : 3.1k

❧ Requested!

notes : well...here ya go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know you didn’t ask for smut, wonderful anon friend, but my brain did it anyway. hope you enjoy! please consider leaving comments and feedback, means a ton. xox

“I think you’ll like this one,” an enthusiastic Keanu spills, excited mocha eyes ecstatic, a gentle hold to your hand as he leads you to the garage of your home. A new model of an Arch had been released today, the first piece of its kind reserved for the man behind copious of the creative process. “I really like this one.” He chuckles, the bulk of his hand placed to the small of your back as he allows you into the garage doors first, holding the door open.

The piece stands bold, black, colossal; sharp Michelin tires, a sheened glaze of shined fresh charcoal black paint, stood stout on its carbon wheels. Gasping, your thumb rubs a soothe to the palm of your boyfriend’s hand that holds yours, comforting the rougher skin. “Is that the one, Ke?” You shine, holding back a cheeky grin.

This; spark in his voice, passion of craft coursing inside his flowing blood was your happy place. Him; this way, would always be your happy place.

Beautiful, radiant, his smile burns you piece by piece, the joy exhilarating off his skin is warm; something so au fait. Something special grows inside him, something special the crowds don’t understand.

Ambling up to the bike, you stand hand in hand with your love, his eyes glossing over the fine piece of machinery, before to a lock of eyes with you. There’s an inquisitive twinkle to his gaze, a gentle wonder of assurance brewing on his lips. Your opinion matters to him, you matter to him. “Well?” He asks, brining your bundle of interlocked hands up to his lips for a soft kiss to your fingers. “Neat, right?”

“It’s beautiful, baby.” You beam, soft skin of your dancing fingers velveting over the leather seat. His embrace is inviting, the curve of his neck a safe haven for your arms to loom around. Smiling into his lips, your hand cups his beard embroidered cheek, smiling a warm symphony his way. “Hey, I’m really proud of you.” Whispering, your sprightly fingers rest a squeeze to his skin. “You made something so, so beautiful.” Assuring, a kind kiss daubes to his cheek off your rose stained lips, in awe with the way his eyes décor over your features; stay lost in the embodiment of you. “Almost makes me want to ride one.” You roll a chuckle, feeling his warm hands embed around your waist.

“We could.” Keanu smiles, heavy palms gently moving along your back, soothing, comforting. His smile hardly contains, and the faint freckles speckled to his cheeks warm around a blushy peach hue.

Each day with him, as this, you fall further. Further into this sanctuary, this paradise he’s built with you.

You giggle, gaze downcast slight as your fingers smooth to his nape, twirling the ends of his dark chocolate locks. A nervous admission bubbles in your throat, and his eyes furrow ever so slight to your dropping gaze. “I’m just a little scared though,” Confessing, a thick sigh laces your tone, Keanu’s hands removing off your waist in a hearty chuckle, just before his hands hold to your arms, bringing them off his shoulders, in exchange for a loom around his waist. “Well,” He starts, drawing your body closer, flush against his chest. As your arms wrap around his larger body, Keanu’s own circle around you once again, cheeky smile plastered to his lips. “All you have to do is hold on to me.” He muses a deep, throaty chortle, features warmed the way of his love. “I know you can do that.”

Grounded, spellbound in his sincere hold, you absorb a moment to solely,

relish. To sink into the feel of his arms holding you, reminding you that all you have to do, to be alright,

is hold him.

“No,” Giggling, you add. “I meant like, I kind of want to learn how to ride. By myself.” You clear, toying a smooth to a wrinkle that cultivates on the fabric of his black shirt. Engaged, a knit of brows tints to Keanu’s dark, crisp features, a gentle smile twisting his lips to your admitting words. “I’d love to learn, actually; but I’m just…”

Keanu’s ears perk, awaiting the completion of your sentence; yet, as it dies half hearted in your throat, his fingers firm into the skin of your hips, thumbs circling a coax to your figure as he waits. “What, sweetheart?” He wonders, and the crumble of his engaged voice melts in your ears, smiling to the way he listens to each word, each vowel, each syllable that falls your lips. With a gentle bite to your lip, your heavy sigh punctuates with spoken confession, fingers raking a soft run through the dark mane of your boyfriend��s hair.

“I’m scared.” You frown, holding a locked gaze with him for a mere few seconds longer. Rich, Keanu’s chuckle flows through you, the sound of his amuse so delightfully, your beloved remedy. You blush, peachy pastel hues sputtered on curled cheekbones, a roll of eyes his way as he draws in closer, kissing a soft peck to your forehead.

“I was scared too, first. I could teach you, yenno, just how to sit on it, how to control it?” He offers, and his hold around you tightens. “And then, if you want to, maybe you could take a class?” Downcast, his eyes linger for a moment, fishing the right words. “I am a little wary because it can be dangerous, and I can’t have you getting hurt, sweetheart.” The joy in his tone rings in ripples. “But, It’s amazing, Y/N, the sights, the sounds, the views. It’s a heaven of it’s own.” Your gushing boyfriend praises, bulky hand finding yours below. “Is it really something you want to do?” He asks again, fingers interlacing a tender thread with yours.

And with a hopeful grin, you nod, hand coupled to his stubble ridden cheek, gently scratching. “I wouldn’t mind you showing me the controls.” Feverishly grinning, your hand trails suggestively low, groping his ass. “Hot teacher? Sign me up.” You wink, letting go of his frame to move towards the bike.

“How do I sit correctly on this one? It’s a little bigger than your other ones.” You wonder, touching the seat with a trace of your finger. With his hand on the small of your back, Keanu taps your thigh, urging it over.

“Bring this leg over,” He instructs, holding your waist, helping you on. “Alright, how does it feel?” He asks, once you’ve positioned on the leather seat. “Comfortable?’’ He probes, stroking your back in a gentle assure.

“Yeah, feels okay.” You declare, squinting your inquisitive gaze. “Gosh, Ke. How do you control this thing? It feels so heavy.” And with a rich giggle, your helpful boyfriend grasps your forearms, gently guiding them to the sturdy handles. “Hands on here, sweetheart. Annnnnd, rest your feet on the footrests.” He encourages, positioning your hands exactly where they need to be. “Alright, now lean forward a little bit, it helps with the balance.” Detailed with proper instruction, his hands hold your arms. Coincidentally, despite the bike being on its stand; stationary, and there being minimal risk of any harm protruding your way, Keanu still kept a hold on you, perhaps unconsciously; unknowingly.

For Keanu, your safety; you being alright, would always cast his thoughts.

You follow as instructed, leaning forward in optimal stance, smiling when you catch his whiskey gaze gloss over your figure, a knowing grin spread to his own cheeks.

Keanu breathes in a sharp inhale, drinking in the way your delicious figure displays on the bike. Spellbound, his earthy twinned pupils glaze over the curve of your breasts that purse together, hanging lower off your chest, in beautiful definition as you lean forward. To the hike of your hips, your ass looks beautifully plump, peachy from this angle, and he swallows tight; his hands smoothing their way down your arms, finding rest to a hold above yours on the bike handles.

“Wow,” He sighs, deep and gruff. “You look so sexy, baby. On my bike.” In his pants, a rush of warmth floods to his cock, and he attempts to quell the lust that cascades through his mind, the sinful thoughts of how he could ruin his deliciously beautiful girlfriend, right then, right there. He attempts greatly to shun the immoral depths, yet his efforts prove fruitless when you bite your lip, leaning further, pursing your breasts tighter together in allowance of your cleavage to bloom in front of him, the valley of your breasts on display for his prying eyes to see.

You understood the effect you’d had on him; a prominent tent slowly swelling to the seams of his manhood. Keanu watches you, simpering, smiling a smirk when you climb off the bike to the sight of his heavy hand palming his clothed cock, stroking his jean clad region, murals of your body painting his thoughts.

“You know, baby,” you whisper, suggestive. “You can touch me.” And with a nipped kiss to his jaw, you drip. “Nothing is off limits to you. Only to you.” And to the ring of your tone, Keanu groans a husky exhale, inquisitive palms finding the swell of your breasts, soothing over, gently kneading the soft flesh in his hands, thumbs circling your perked nipples that ache for him.

“Fuck, babygirl,” he moans, low, feeling the weight of your smaller hand travel to his pulsing length, palming over the clothed erection that bulges inside. His lips catch yours in a domineering kiss, before you travel lower, peppering small, mindless kisses across his chests, to his stomach, kneeling in front of him as your fingers work the buckle of his jeans, mouth watering.

Peeling the fabric of his boxers down, you admire his glorious cock in its entirety, beautifully erect, monstrous, rosy tip swollen to a blushy hue. It surrounds in bush of thick hair, similar to the drapes that flow off his head. Peering up, you feel his hand rake in your hair, locking the strands in a hold when your lips find his member, wrapping sinfully around in a warm, wet hold, slowly taking him in inch by inch.

He tastes of salty precum, with a tinge of something sweet, a faint trace of his delicious, creamy release a delicacy to your tongue. “That’s…that’s it baby,” He groans, gently pushing your head further down on him, yet cautious of making sure he doesn’t offer you more than you can manage.

Someday, you want to be able to fit his entire cock; tight, throbbing down your throat.

You’ll get there, someday. You’ll just have to keep practicing…

With an abrupt pop, you allow him to fall out your mouth, raising off your knees as you travel higher, hands resting to the broad of his chest, and his lips capture yours once again, sighing to the feel of your petite hand wrapping around his aching cock, slowly, leisurely pumping, jerking, twisting the sensitive skin that sends coils of shock building inside him. Your breath is hot against his lips, two of his fingers hooking to the waistband of your bottoms, slowly peeling.

“I want to fuck you.” He whispers, deep, gravelly, sending a bubble of want throbbing within your empty cunt walls that soaked, preparing for his taking. Nodding, your chest heaves breathy exhales, taking his hand in a firm lace, quick to lead the way inside, ready for his body to work you so fucking well within the silky sheets of your shared bed, similar to the way he often does, on frequent nights.

Nevertheless, Keanu’s body doesn’t move an inch, his hand gripping your waist before he stops your move, rejecting. “No, darling,” his hand moves to your mound, palming the fabric that shields your modesty from him. “I want to fuck you here, on my bike.” He gruffs, need flooding each inch of his body, the throb of his cock almost painful to how hard it swells for you, sore; tender; desperate to be buried inside your welcoming, warm haven.

Nodding, you feel the heat building inside, realizing this must have been one of your boyfriends sinful, envisaging fantasies.

He adores you, and he adores his bikes. Seeing you on one? It was a recipe for his sex starving thoughts and corruptly swelling desire. Nonetheless; you don’t mind.

Sex with Keanu is irresistible; his expertise, his skill, the girth of his cock and how perfectly it fits inside you,

Your body welcomes him, each and every time, slick arousal and frustrated whines far too frequent when he undresses your body slowly, delicately peeling the fabric off your figure for his eyes to devour. Once fully nude and exposed, Keanu’s lips trail to your breast, swirling a nipple with his warm and wet tongue as you continue to pump his member, slicking smears of dewy pre cum over his thick shaft.

“Here baby, sit on my bike.” He drools, heavy hands planting firm to your bare ass as he lifts you gently, positioning your weary, sex craving frame on the opaque seat of his brand new bike. You abide, trusting him full, devoutly as he tears off the texile of his shirt, exposing his bare chest for you; peppered with flushy patches of rosy pink, impending with need. For release.

“Bring your legs around my waist, sweetheart.” Keanu huffs, grabbing hold of your silken skin as it curls around his waist, and you blush. Despite being with him hundreds of times before, being on display for him, this way, your pussy completely vulnerable and exposed; you still feel your breath hitch when he sees you like this. Once sure that the bike is stable, and won’t collapse when he drills into you, Keanu drinks in the sight of your voluptuous body; stroking his cock in preparation, before gripping his length firm, tapping his shaft to your cunt a couple of times in anticipation.

“I got you, sweetheart, do you trust me?” He asks, holding your body tight in position, and you nod for him, a gentle smile his way. “Are you ready for me, baby?” He probes, lined up with your heated entrance, enhanced by his primitive desire and the weight of his cock resting on your cunt lips. You nod, swallowing tight before taking hold of his biceps for balance, feeling the pads of his callous thumbs sink into your waist. Keanu’s lips kiss you soft, quick, before slowly pushing his entire length into your cushy walls, feeling you tighten around him to the point that it burned, feeling his weight inside your small, fitted entrance.

“Fuck, Y/N,” He snarls gruffly, wasting no time before his needy cock beings pounding your core with an aggressive roll of hips, sweaty palms holding tight to your waist, sure to keep you safe on the limited space of the bike seat. Keanu is fucking you so hard, so well, so rough that you swore you could feel him in your stomach; lewd moans and breathy gasps bouncing off the cold walls of the garage. The raunchy sounds of his thick balls slapping against your pussy echo the walls, and he shivers, throaty growls released as his hands roam the bulk of your breasts, praising the feel.

“Fuck, baby,” He moans, rough and profound. Your walls feel delectably tender, warm, and he loses himself within you, the sounds of your whimpers and cries turning him on tenfold. “Ke, faster, faster,” You yelp, encouraging, feeling your cunt sore to his imperative pace and enticing whispers. “Make me cum, Ke, please make me cum,” You beg, sensitive, feeling him shudder as his thumb moves to circle your clit, toying harsh with the bundle of nerves.

His pace quickens, and he pounds into your body, piercing moans and stifled whimpers only encouraging him before you feel the bubble of ache within you intensify, your orgasm spilling in a tender, excruciating wash over each inch of your body, feeling his member stretch deep, deep inside your pussy as he chases his own nirvana. “Fuck!” You gasp, becoming oversensitive, yet still deliciously full of your boyfriend’s massive cock imploring inside, the baritone moans and breathy heaves of his chests, paired with the way his biceps look delectably toned and bulked as he holds tight to your hips; its all far too gorgeous, and you fall far too deeply within the entirety of him in this moment.

“You gonna cum for me, Ke?” You encourage, soft hand travelling below to massage the fullness of his balls, stimulating a delicate, tender wave of pleasure to his manhood.

“You’re so…so wet,” His breath hitches in his throat, and he slams into you harder, and harder, praises of your name, reciting acclaim for your heavenly pussy sashaying off his love drunk lips before channling a rhythem of fast, profound, hard, almost animalistic thrusts into you, his thick voice warning. “Where do you want it, baby?” In reference to bursting strings of creamy cum that would seep out his cock soon.

“On me.” Dark, lustful, in love, your eyes lock to his, and with a wave of absolute pleasure stinging each of his veins, Keanu’s moans roll deep in his throat as he spills your name, laced with satisfied groans,

His cock pulling out quick, spurting streams of his sticky, glossed white cum all over your bare belly, and you sigh, you moan and lose yourself in the way he looks, a heavy hand firmly wrapped to his relieved erection as he pumps himself, emptying his seed onto your body.

Lowering his head, he sighs, so content, holding your hips as he hovers over you on his bike. “Fuck,” Keanu sighs, breathes rugged as he catches his breath, his forehead connecting against yours as you both relish, floating in a paradise of joint euphoria after your orgasms.

His hair falls, draping, curtaining his eyes, a few tousled strands sticking to his sweaty forehead. Brushing it aside, you kiss his lips soft, brushing your tongue over the sensitive skin before planting your hand to his chest. Neither of you speak, collecting your breaths, smiling goofy grins at each other, thoughts hazed by what just happened.

Quiet, yet thoughtful, Keanu holds you to his chest, arms circled around your frame still positioned on his bike. “You okay babe?” A kiss from his lips to your temple. “Was I too rough?”

“Perfect.” You assure, smoothing your hands over his bulked biceps, sighing content. Below, however, you feel a mixture of your releases coat your thighs; trickles of your mess coating his bike seat. Lip bitten, you connect your eyes to his, concerned. “Shit, Ke, your bike is a little…dirty…” You frown, heart warming to the sound of his generous chuckle, and the weight of his cock still resting heavy on your thigh. Again, as a hundred times before, he’d quenched that satisfying long inside you. Fulfilled you so fucking well, even when you had no idea you’d needed it.

“Well,” He smiles, warm and contagious; a wet kiss to the silky dip of your neck. “At least we broke in the new bike.”

➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴➶ ➴

My taglist will be posted in reblogs, let me know if you want to be added or removed! :)

#keanu reeves x reader #keanu reeves imagine #keanu reeves fanfiction #keanu reeves x you #Keanu Reeves

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luckhissoul · 3 years ago

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CHARACTER SHEET

BASICS

NAME: mat cauthon

NICKNAME: : idk ? son of battles? lmao

ALIAS(S): n/a he’d have so much fun much making one up though.

GENDER: male

SIZE: 6′

AGE: canonically ranging from 19 to 23

ZODIAC: it doesn’t exist here bros lolol

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: the old tongue and i guess english?

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

HAIR COLOR: brown

EYE COLOR: brown ( let me jsut ignore barney harris’ green eyes for right now )

SKIN TONE: idk skin tones. light ish?

BODY TYPE: slender

VOICE: lower ? i d k

DOMINANT HAND: right

POSTURE: not the greatest. slightly slouched.

SCARS: a lot of them from battles and such. most prominently the one he hides on his neck.

TATTOOS: none.

BIRTHMARKS: - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

CHILDHOOD

PLACE OF BIRTH: emond’s field , the two rivers.

HOMETOWN: emond’s field , the two rivers

SIBLINGS: two younger sisters - bodewhin and eldrin

PARENTS: abell and natti cauthon

ADULT LIFE

OCCUPATION: general of the band of the red hand

CURRENT RESIDENCE(S): he’s always just traveling ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

CLOSE FRIENDS: rand al’thor / perrin aybara / elayne trakand / birgitte silverbow / nynaeve al’meara / thom merrilin / talmanes delovinde / aludra nendenhald / i almost put olver except thats basically his son but he deserves a mention

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: (verse dependent) but married to tuon paendrag, empress of the seanchan empire. she’s a tiny and slightly scary

FINANCIAL STATUS: wealthy now.

DRIVER’S LICENSE: these don’t exist lmao but he would.

CRIMINAL RECORD none. but he was always in some kind of trouble growing up.

VICES: gambling, sleeping around, drinking, can i include knife fights? lmao

SEX AND ROMANCE

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: straight

PREFERRED EMOTIONAL ROLE: would rather ignore an emotional role and be a good time or the reluctant but reliable helping hand lmao

PREFERRED SEXUAL ROLE: giver.

TURN ONS: loyalty, honesty, sense of humor, strong will, beauty, complicated ( hey he likes a challenge okay ) lmao

TURN OFFS: disloyal, betrayal, overbearing, uncaring

LOVE LANGUAGE: gift giving / acts of service / physical touch

RELATIONSHIP TENDENCIES: unsure of how to respond or initiate the emotional aspects of it he’ll over compensate with gifts, physical things, compliments, or acts of service. always looking for validation. he’ll risk his life for someone before telling them he actually loves them. lmao but he’ll get there eventually. he’s just mad that he’s squishy. but relationships can be tough to get into since he does like his freedom.

MISCELLANEOUS

CHARACTER’S THEME SONG: jak o’the shadows because i have to

MENTAL ILLNESSES: ptsd

PHOBIAS: nothing to be classified as like PHOBIA. there’s fears obviously but nothing on that scale?

SELF CONFIDENCE LEVEL: the most confident insecure person you’ll meet

Tagged by : @caracarnn

Tagging: @agoldenlily x @ofimaginarybeings x @ycllowhaired x @iithildim x @windtold

#;it's time to toss the dice ;; musings

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problematicfavesareproblematic · 4 years ago

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On Days Like This (part 5)

Carwood Lipton x Reader

Warnings: survivors guilt, comfort, a disgusting amount of fluff, a sick and sad mother of Easy Company doing his very best, some random dialogue, a lack of forward progression but I’m still proud of it for some reason

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You wake up to the smell of cigarette smoke and for a few moments you think you are back in the makeshift hospital you’d been taken to in Foy.

It’s the feeling of Carwood’s heartbeat against your cheek that brings it all back for you- how you’d snuck out from under the aggressive nurse’s nose during her shift change and managed to bully your way onto a supply truck headed to Hagenau, dressed in a combination of pilfered wool sweaters and a set of fatigues you’d collected from the bodies of fallen soldiers.

You’d stolen some boots from the supply truck, and when they’d threatened to tell your superior officer you’d informed them that they were more than welcome to do so, as long as they were prepared for your SO to also be told that the supply truck had been delayed a day because it’s drivers wanted to engage in one last sexual encounter with the nurses who’d welcomed them into their beds.

The two men hadn’t bothered you after that.

The moment after you’d reconnected with Nix and Sink, you’d gone to find Car.

Just from the way he’d broken down upon seeing you again, you knew that he’d lost some sense of himself in the time you’d been apart. It broke your heart. It had taken everything in you not to cry as well.

But Carwood had needed you to be strong, and you had decided long ago that you would do anything for him.

If that meant holding him as he cried himself back to sleep in the first mattress you’d shared since your time in Georgia, then so be it.

When you allowed one eye to peek open, you found that the smell of smoke wasn’t coming from somewhere outside the room- but rather from Carwood himself.

You watched for a moment as he lifted the white stick he’d once called a cancer tube to his lips and pull from it like he’d been doing it for years, a memory of him chastising you for lighting one up beside his cot after he’d been wounded in Carentan flickering in your mind’s eye.

Taking a deep breath, you allow your ribs to expand as you arch your back in a creaking stretch, the movement alerting Carwood of your wakefulness.

“Hm, never thought I’d see the day Clifford Carwood Lipton would willingly smoke a cigarette…”

His light chuckle is warm against your ear, the arm that he’d wrapped around you pulling you close into him and his fingers prodding your ribs playfully until you yelp and attempt to roll away from it.

Car leans over the side of the bed to stamp out the cigarette and set it down, shaking his head slightly as he exhales the remaining smoke in his lungs through pursed lips.

Before he can reply to your teasing, a body-racking cough has him sitting up and trying to catch his breath, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and bracing his elbows on his knees to combat the force of the hacking.

You frown, pushing yourself up to sit behind him and wrap yourself around his back, pressing a kiss between his shoulders once his coughing subsides before resting your cheek there.

“Got the black lung already?”

He sniffs, clearing his throat a few more times before sighing deeply.

“Doc says it’s pneumonia. Not much he can do.”

You hum at that, closing your eyes as you listen to the strong thud of his heart again.

“You should’ve told me you were hurt.”

Opening your eyes, you lift your head from his back, furrowing your brows at his admonishment.

“Huh?”

Lip turns enough that he can face you side-on, his tired eyes looking even more exhausted as he nods his head guilty at your arm.

Looking at your right arm, you take in the large lump of bandages wrapped around your bicep, the gauze beneath the sleeve of your sweater making it look almost comically swollen. The three bullets they’d pulled from your arm still remain in a pouch, buried near the body of your knapsack.

“Car,” you sigh, ready to assure him that you’re perfectly fine and that it’s nothing and that he doesn’t need to worry about you. But, judging by the way he narrows his dark eyes at you, you decide it’s best not to argue the point any further.

“I could’ve hurt you, Y/N! You should’ve said something, shouldn’t of let me grab at you like that—”

“Well, sorry that I was so excited to see the man I love that I didn’t think to give you a full medical report.” you snap, shaking your head and rubbing a hand over your face. “I’ll be sure to remember that from now on….”

Lip clenches his jaw and curses under his breath, raking a hand through his mussed hair before mumbling your name softly and taking your hand from your face to hold it between his.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you know I didn’t mean it like that.”

When you continue to stare at a point over his shoulder Car sighs and turns to face you further.

You allow his hands to come up and hold your face, eyes flickering to meet his remorseful ones and biting the inside of your cheek.

“You’re right, I’m sorry...Hey, c’mon.”

The press of his forehead against yours is sweet, despite the fact that you can feel the fever radiating from his skin.

“I just get worried, you know. I missed you so much—”

You shake your head, pulling your forehead back from his so you can press a kiss to his hairline.

“I do. I know. I’m sorry, too.”

With your uninjured arm, you brush your cooler fingers across his cheek, feeling a bit guilty for snapping at him.

You wondered if a day would come when the two of you would stop having to worry about each other. These days, it was hard to imagine a life consisting of anything other than loss and pain and heavy exhaustion.

At the feeling of tears rolling over your fingers, you pull back to look at him with concern.

“Lip?”

“I’m so glad that you weren’t there.”

Your throat feels tight, immediately knowing what he’s referring to.

Your torment at the hands of the German army was nothing compared to the horrors you’d heard occurring in the forest Lip had been in. whatever earth-shaking fear you had experienced second hand couldn’t ever hold a candle to what it must’ve felt like to Easy and Dog Companies.

“I’m so sorry,” you whispered, ignoring the slight twinge of discomfort in your other arm and bringing your other hand to his face to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I’m just….I’m so fucking sorry, Sweetheart—”

He’s apologizing again, and you know that he’s not simply apologizing to you for crying in your arms.

With devastating sobs, he tells you about all of it- of Buck and Toye and WIld Bill. you pull him to lean against you when he cries for Muck and Penkala, the other eighty-two lives that had been snatched away from this world while he’d ‘cowardly hid in a hole’ the whole time.

You don’t interrupt him, tears of your own welling in your eyes but unwilling to let them fall.

He needs this, he needs this, I can be strong for him

When he does pull away from you, he’s red-faced and his eyes are swollen, weakly repeating how sorry he is. You kiss him as softly as he had kissed you for the first time in Toccoa, inhaling sharply when he pulls your face closer and smashes your lips to his almost painfully.

You stroke at his face when he pulls away, letting him catch his breath in his own time.

When he starts coughing again you reach blindly around his feet until you find his canteen, giving him an appreciative smile when he helps you sit back up again.

He drinks dutifully, closing his eyes and letting his head roll from side to side as he swallows.

As you bring his once abandoned cigarette to your lips and relight it with the lighter you’d also managed to find, Lip looks over at you and sighs a weak laugh.

“You shouldn’t do that, young lady,” he jokes hollowly, taking the cigarette from between your fingers and taking a puff before putting it out again. “It isn’t good for you.”

Smiling at the ridiculousness of it, you blow the little smoke you’d managed to get into his face.

“You’re lucky I like you, otherwise I’d hit you, you handsome hypocrite.”

With a soft groan, you swing your legs around so you’re sitting beside him, your thigh pressed against his as you mirror his pose. Car brings your hand into his and laces your fingers together.

“In the interest of being candid, I should probably tell you that I’ve lost three toes since we’ve last seen each other—”

“What?”

His head whips to the side to look at you in surprise, gaping at the casual shrug you offer in explanation.

“Frostbite is a bitch….”

Carwood opens his mouth to protest your nonchalance, before seeming to think better of it and shooting you a glare.

“Well, as long as we’re being honest, I might as well tell you that I’ve been promoted.”

You feel your face drop in surprise for a moment before you grin like an idiot, bringing his hand to your lips and kissing it excitedly.

“Lieutenant Clifford Carwood Lipton,” you murmur, liking the way the title tastes on your tongue.

“Just wait till my mother hears that I’ve snagged myself a Lieutenant—!”

When Car rolls his eyes you press a quick kiss to his cheek.

The dead may always hang over your heads, and maybe they’re meant to.

But, for right now, the two of you have never felt more alive.

And that was more than enough.

~ ~ ~

( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ here we be, kids. I love you bbs and will fight for your honor any day of the week (just not Mondays at 11am, bc Mama has therapy)

Taglist: @mrseasycompany @itswormtrain @mrsalwayswrite @happyveday @sunsetmando @teenmagazines @liebgotttme

#band of brothers imagines #band of brothers x reader #carwood lipton x reader #carwood lipton imagines

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toukenramblings · 4 years ago

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Flirted With | Sanchoumou, Nikkou Ichimonji, Ichimonji Norimune | Feat. Mafia AU

Yes hi, Mafia!AU because I can. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You look at me and tell me the Ichimonji peeps don’t give you mafia vibes. Especially with all of the fanart I found. Forgive me y’all.

Warnings: Violence a lit bit, I mean it is a mafia au. Not gonna too far with that shit though.

Sanchoumou

Now as the current head of the Ichimonji clan and having you as his partner, there is no shortage of people who would be after your head. Or even to get into either of your pants to get the benefits of all that money and fame and power could bring them.

But there is no doubt that Sanchoumou is a loyal man. He would not even dare to bat an eye at anyone else, even if they flash their skin or their credentials or even give reasons why they would be a better lay than you.

Oh no. How dare they even insinuate that they could ever match you, his little phoenix.

It’s almost insulting. Ruby eyes boring into the perpetrator, burning their soul away from the outside in.

So when you two are at a gala, arm in arm, and you soon fluttering away to go grab another drink, Sanchoumou cannot help but let his gaze linger on you, oh so full of love. He knows that you can handle yourself but he cannot help but look for you in the crowd from time to time.

But when he notices this little upstart get a little too close to you, oh sweetie. His gloved hand will tighten a bit, careful not to shatter the glass of wine in his hand but enough to know that he didn’t like who the hell was with you. He would quirk an eyebrow but do nothing unless the body language of the other party was more malicious.

You are his lover for a reason, you can defend yourself. You have weapons stored in your clothes. But you can feel his gaze on you, more so out of concern - which soon translates to anger the minute this creepo of a mafia lackey began to advance on you. Yes you take a step back but soon you feel Sanchoumou’s arm wrap around your waist and the aggressor fucking freezes in horror.

“I do apologize for inserting myself into the conversation, but are they bothering you, dear?” Sanchoumou would not even give the creep the light of day, the look of worry evident on his face. He would press a sweet kiss to your cheek, red eye glaring at the other person, a silent notion for them to fucking lEAVE.

They scatter, immediately.

“Are you alright, love?” Sanchoumou would question when he moves you two to a much quieter and safer area. It would be a strange silence between you two, as Sanchoumou needed some time to seethe and release his anger. But the moment he sees that you’re okay and your hands find his, all is fine in the world.

Will keep a closer eye on you in public now, and probably up your self defense lessons. If push comes to a shove, he’ll have the rest of the gang also keep an eye on you in big crowds/big parties.

Nikkou Ichimonji

Compared to Sanchoumou who will go into a miniature rant about how amazing you are, Nikkou will not even notice someone trying to take him away from you. It’s not that he’s dense or anything, he’s already so loyal to you and he considers himself off of the market.

If someone continues to flirt with him and says rather nasty things about you, a mere glare and a growl from Nikkou will send them scampering. He will think not of this though, again he is nothing but loyal to you! Nikkou can tell if you’re upset with peeps flirting with him though, and will always reaffirm his promise that his heart is yours.

When people flirt with you though? Nikkou is all ears and eyes. He will watch you out of the corner of his eye, ready to jump in if needed. Maybe he will have Nansen intervene if he is too far away, or politely ask to excuse himself from Sanchoumou’s side to find you. He doesn’t panic when you disappear into the crowd, he knows you’ll be okay. Their men are everywhere, and they will immediately alert him if something is wrong.

It doesn’t mean he won’t worry though. Of course he is a man of business and will mostly be paying attention to whatever chat he’s having with other business partners and gang members. But in the back of his mind, he is searching for you. He won’t crack under pressure, oh no!

When he notices some creep far too close for his liking, there is a quirk of his brow and a subtle signal to Nansen or another member of the gang. Nikkou will not move right away, and the moment he could see some distress on your face he immediately moves in. He is silent, compared to Sanchoumou who will announce his presence with an adoring anecdote professing his love for you and his relationship with you, NIkkou is quiet. He merely arrives with a clearing of his throat, eyes behind his glasses narrowing at the other person who dared to take up your time.

If they do not get it, expect Nikkou to almost growl in protectiveness. The rest of the gang ready to jump them but Nikkou keeps his cool.

When they do leave, Nikkou and you go off to a quiet place to replace, leaning against each other in a comfortable silence before whispering, “Are you alright?”

If you are shaken, Nikkou will wrap his arm around your frame, pulling you closer and rubbing soft circles into your skin. “I apologize for not arriving sooner.”

Like Sanchoumou he will up also up your self defense classes (and join them to spar against you) and will try to hover around you more.

Gods forbid if someone hurt you. They would feel his wrath.

Ichimonji Norimune

The retired leader of the Ichimonji clan he may be, Norimune is a social butterfly. He reveals in social gatherings so if you find him surrounded by people who want to earn his favor, it’s common to be a wee bit jealous.

But Norimune is so so proud of being yours, and is that one guy who won’t shut the hell up about his partner, how pretty they are, how much he loves them, etc and etc.

If someone does flirt with him, Norimune laughs it off and takes it in stride. He does humor them but will let them down gently or harshly depending if they can take the hint. He is a proud of being your lover after all!

Now if someone is flirting with you? He...isn’t happy. He won’t be as angry or worried as Sanchoumou or Nikkou before him, but has much more faith in you. This party is meant to be fun! Why bring it down with such a dour mood.

He won’t lie that he is a lil bit jealous that they are getting too close to you.

The minute he sees you are uncomfy with their advances, there is a laugh as he approaches you, attempting to defuse any sort of situation. “Now love, are you enjoying the party?” he will act like he has come to check up on you, refilling your drink as an excuse to get close.

If the fucker continues to bother you, unaware of Norimune’s relation to you or undeterred, Norimune would wrap his arm around you and fully kiss you; right then and there, right in front of everyone to see.

When it’s over Norimune would chuckle, “I do apologize for such a brazen display of affection, my dear, but are you alright?” he would ask when it was only you two.

While the idea of taking more self defense classes are a thing, if anything Norimune will also will just want to be around you. Maybe you two won’t actually get any training done but hey~! You two are in love and it’s all that matters!

Will be keeping a closer eye out for you though, if such a situation happens again, he wants you to give him some kind of signal to come and rescue you.

#touken ranbu #touken danshi #touken ranbu x reader #tkrb #tkrb x reader #tkrb imagine #touken ranbu imagine #sanchoumou #sanchoumou x reader #sanchoumou imagine #nikkou ichimonji #nikkou ichimonji x reader #my writing #nikkou ichimonji imagine #ichimonji norimune #ichimonji norimune x reader #ichimonji norimune imagine

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idnek83 · 4 years ago

Note

Can u write something about soudam wedding?

I’m sorry this took like 3 weeks to answer, but here you go: 4.3k word worth of Soudam wedding ramblings.

(This is for a western style wedding by the way)

Wedding Planning

Neither of them know what they’re doing, cus neither of them ever really spent much time thinking about weddings growing up, much less their own weddings lol

So one day, after they’re engaged, they’re just hanging out with some friends. They’re on a couch, Soda’s laying with his head in Gundham’s lap, just vibing, then their friends start asking about what they have planned. They both kind of look at each other and shrug, cus they have planned literally nothing, they just know they kind of want to get married on their anniversary, but that’s really all they’ve got lol.

Sonia like presses them for ideas cus they must have at least some idea of what they want, right?

Soda looks up at Gundham and is like ‘probably lots of black stuff, yeah?’

Gundham nods and looks down at him ‘perhaps with vibrant accents in your preferred colors as well?’

Soda’s like ‘Oooh and we could have like an animal theme maybe?? OH! OR A ROBOT ANIMAL THEME????’ and Gundhams just like ‘whatever makes you happy’ and they throw out a couple more terrible ideas while Sonia silently suffers lol.

Eventually they’re laughing at their own stupid ideas and Sonia is just glad they actually realize their ideas were dumb and they didn’t seriously want a goth robot hamster ice sculpture lol. They admit they don’t super care how it all goes down, they both just want to get married and have fun with all their friends at the reception.

Sonia offers to take care of the planning and stuff with her team of professionals (Yes she has a team on wedding planners okay, she’s the kind of person who has been planning her wedding since she was 9 and also she’s a princess so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). She seems really excited and Soda and Gundham really don’t know what they’re doing so they agree to let her handle it as long as they get the final say on things. She immediately starts rambling about all her ideas and Soda and Gundham just kind of chuckle and smile at each other.

Suit shopping

Fuyuhiko takes them suit shopping. They go together, they aren’t too concerned about keeping their outfits a secret from each other and they figure it’ll be fun to watch each other try on all kind of different things. Sonia comes too of course.

They start kind of idlily browsing sample suits (they’re getting custom suits made, Fuyuhiko wouldn’t hear otherwise) and Sonia asks what kind of suits they’d like to see each other in. They both stop and look at each other, and Fuyu rolls his eyes cus they’re just blatantly checking each other out lol.

Eventually Soda shrugs and is like “I don’t really care. As long as I get to see Gundham looking hot as hell in a tux I’m good with whatever” and Gundham kind of tilts his head and is like “So you would prefer me to wear a tuxedo?” Soda is dumb as hell and doesn’t realize Gundham is not using ‘tuxedo’ as a synonym for ‘suit’ like he was, so he gets super blushy and is like “Oh. I-I mean if you were thinking about a dress instead that’s cool too.” And Gundham’s eyes just widen a bit because he was not thinking about wearing a dress but now he’s thinking about Soda in a big, white, full skirted wedding dress. Soda is picturing Gundham in something a little more fitted with a high slit. They’re both just blushing and staring at each other until Fuyu clears his throat and tells Soda that a tuxedo is a type of suit, and he’s pretty sure that’s what Gundham meant. Soda just hides his face in his hands and apologizes. Gundham comes over to kiss his forehead and tell him it’s okay, and eventually they get back to looking at suits lol

Gundham’s done pretty quick. He does end up picking a tuxedo, and I’m not great at fashion but Just picture something black, very gothic, and a tiny bit extra haha. Soda super excited to see it once it’s done being made, cus Gundham already looked amazing in the sample suit. He maybe gets a little emotional looking at his fiancé all dressed up knowing it’s for their wedding, but nobody says anything and Gundham just smiles at him softly.

Soda has a lot more trouble. He doesn’t want to ruin their wedding by wearing something tacky so he’s trying to stick to traditional black. But every time he comes out and looks at himself in the full length mirror he can’t help but feel uncomfortable. He doesn’t look like himself, he thinks he looks like some kid borrowing his dad’s suit for prom.

He’s on like the 12th sample suit, he’s trying all kinds of styles and different lapels and undershirts/vest combos but he still just feels like trash in all of them. This suit fits him like a glove, accentuates all of his best features, and he honestly looks so good in it. Sonia and Fuyuhiko are telling him as much, along with whatever staff are around.

But Soda still doesn’t feel like himself. And Gundham can tell.

Gundham comes up behind him and wraps his arms around his waist and they both just look at themselves in the mirror for a moment. Gundham makes a point of frowning as he looks at the suit and Soda laughs at how obviously exaggerated it is. It’s the first time he’s genuinely smiled in at least an hour.

“What’s wrong, babe? Don’t like it?”

“Hmm… perhaps if it was yellow… maybe blue?”

Soda laughs but he feels a little self conscious. He really doesn’t want to make their wedding tacky, but he just doesn’t feel right in such… boring colors. He tells Gundham as much. Gundham hums and kisses his cheek, still holding him from behind, and asks to see color samples for the suits materials while Soda insists he’ll be fine and he’ll just get used to the black.

Someone brings Gundham a collection of cloth samples, and he finally separates from his fiancé to stand in front of him and hold them up, one by one. Soda is insisting black is fine the whole time. Eventually Gundham stops, holding up a sort of deep red, and tilts his head. Soda looks at the color; he likes it, but he’s still worried it would be kind of tacky. Gundham asks for someone to bring him a jacket in that color.

He puts it on Soda and grabs a black suit jacket and a red tie for himself, before standing next to Soda and linking their arms. Soda looks in the mirror and, hey, that’s not too bad, the red actually looks pretty classy, and paired up with Gundham’s tie it looks…

He starts crying, but it’s mostly relief and happiness. Fuyu laughs at him but tells him he looks good and Sonia just smiles while Gundham pulls him into a hug. They order the 12th suit in red, and every time Soda tries t apologize for being so difficult Gundham just shuts him up with a kiss lol.

Wedding Traditions and Stuff

They start talking about wedding traditions one day after having a conversation with Sonia about how the wedding plans are going. The first thing that comes up is the whole ‘bride walking down the aisle’ thing since, obviously, there isn’t gonna be a bride. Gundham suggests they both just walk out together, but Soda kind of wants that moment where he’s standing at the alter and gets to watch Gundham walk down the aisle towards him. Gundham just smiles and kisses him and says he’s like that too.

Soda suggests they take dance lessons or something so they can have a cool first dance. Gundham says they can if he really wants to, but he would rather just be able to hold Soda close and sway to the music without having to worry about memorized steps. Soda blushes and agrees, he mostly suggested it cus he thought Gundham would like it anyways.

Neither of them really care about name changes. They both offer to change theirs, but in the end they just decide to keep their own names.

Sonia (jokingly) mentions being disappointed because there won’t be a bouquet toss, and Chiaki (also jokingly) responds that Gundham should just toss a single rose into the crowd like tuxedo mask. He agrees to do it (not jokingly)

They both write their own stupid sappy vows, it’s not even something they have to discuss.

Hajime is Soda’s best man, Sonia is Gundham’s. She insists on being called ‘best man’ instead of ‘maid of honor’ or ‘best woman’ because she likes the way it sounds lol.

They pick a very classic décor theme, but add in a lot of black accents for the aesthetic✨

They decide to do that thing where they spend the night before the wedding apart and don’t see each other again until the actual ceremony.

Bachelor Party

Soda wasn’t planning on having his own bachelor party, he figured they could just have like a joint bachelor party at their house or something because he loves his fiancé and prefers to party with him lol. But then Fuyuhiko, Hajime, and Nekomaru are carrying him out the front door while Gundham casually waves and tells him to have fun lol (They absolutely got Gundham’s permission before kidnapping his man haha).

(Gundham invites Sonia over for wine and calls it his bachelor party. They watch the bachelor and laugh about how funny they are.)

Soda is thrown in the back seat of one of Fuyu’s fancy cars with blacked out windows and yells at his friends for like the whole trip while they just laugh at him lol. They eventually get to a bar and Soda is just super relieved it’s not a strip club, Hajime tells him it’s cus Gundham wouldn’t let him, but Fuyu and Nekomaru insist it’s cus they have more class than that. (Whose lying? You choose lol).

They get a table and a round of shots as soon as they get inside. It’s actually pretty laid back as far as bachelor parties go, they mostly just sit and talk, and get Soda gushing about his soon to be husband lol. At one point, after a couple drinks, they do like a chugging contest for the first time since they graduated uni and Soda wins. Fuyu is just like ‘wtf when did you get so good at this?” and Soda is like “Well, thanks to Gundham I’ve gotten really good at swallowing” and everybody just fucking groans while he loses his mind laughing lol

As the night goes on Soda just gets sappier and sappier and starts complaining about how much he misses his boyfriend. Nekomaru pats him on the back and is like ‘he isn’t even your boyfriend anymore, he’s your fiancé’ and Soda just light up like ‘yeah… I’m so lucky…’ before he stops and his eyes go wide. The other guys kind of look at each other, confused, before Hajime’s like ‘uh, you good dude?’ and Soda’s just like ‘oh my god, he’s my fiancé! We’re gonna get fucking married next week!! Holy shit that means he’s gonna be my husband! I have to tell him!’ and the guys just laugh while he dials Gundham.

Gundham is surprised to get a call from Soda and gets a little worried, so he answers like ‘is everything alright, my paramour?’ and Soda is just like ‘Holy shit Gundham! Did you realize we’re gonna be husbands??!?’ and Gundham just laughs and relaxes while telling Soda that, yes, he did realize they were going to be husbands lol

Soda just rambles away on the phone about how excited he is to marry Gundham and how he promises to be a good husband and how much he loves him. The other guys roll their eyes and decide it’s probably time to call it a night lol.

When Soda gets home he immediately attaches himself to Gundham and tells him how much he missed him lol. Gundham just pets his hair and gets them both ready for bed as he asks if Soda enjoyed his bachelor party. He says his favorite part was when his fiancé kissed him good night, and Gundham just rolls his eyes and does it haha

The Wedding

Soda is super nervous the night before (not in a ‘I’m not ready for this’ way, he’s just excited and scared he’s gonna say/do something dumb or that something terrible is gonna happen and ruin the whole thing) and he ends up calling Gundham from his hotel room at like midnight and talking about all his worries (“What if I say ‘I don’t’ by accident and we have to do the whole wedding again?” “What if I have to pee in the middle of our vows?” “What if we get to the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ part and like, Nekomaru suddenly decides he’s in love with you? There’s no way I could take him in a fight!”). Gundham smiles as he reassures Soda that whatever happens, they’ll get through it, and that he doesn’t really care what happens, as long as he gets to call Soda his husband by the end of the day.

They fall asleep telling each other how excited they are.

In the morning their respective best men wake them and help them get ready. Gundham styles his hair up and Soda puts his in a low ponytail, and they both put on their fancy new custom suits (They both got ties to match each other’s suits too haha). They’re both a little nervous but Hajime and Sonia are ready with all kinds of compliments and reassurances, and they get both grooms out their doors and on the road right on time.

Gundham gets to the venue first, and he’s a little taken aback by how good it looks. Sonia gushes about all the little details while Gundham just half listens and thanks her. He’s looking at the flower arrangements sitting in classy black vases, the chairs covered in white cloth held in place with black ribbon, and noticing all kinds of subtly gothic touches Sonia added to the décor. Soda may have been worried about making the wedding tacky with his suit, but Gundham had been worried about making it tacky with shitty gothic decorations. He’s amazed with how well Sonia managed to pull it off. He grabs both her hands and sincerely tells her that he loves her and that she is, and always will be, his dearest friend. They both get a little teary and hug it out haha.

Then Hajime ruins it by kicking in the front door and saying something like ‘Gundham you look hot as fuck, but get out of my sight right now so I can bring your stupid ass fiancé in. Also, hey Sonia, great job decorating.’ Lol

Sonia and Gundham head off into a little room to wait for the ceremony to start, and Hajime heads back out to get Soda. When Soda gets inside he’s just as impressed by the décor as Gundham was. He thinks it’s all very Gundham and he loves it. Hajime tells him he tried to get Sonia to throw in some hot pink roses for Soda and Soda is just like ‘thank god Sonia didn’t listen to you.’ Lol

Soda just heads right into the main hall, just taking in all the amazing décor until his eyes land on the wedding arch. He stares at it and it just really hit him that this is happening. He’s about to marry the love of his life. He’s about to be able to call Gundham his husband. He’s about to be Gundham’s husband. He starts tearing up and Hajime pats him on the back, smiling ‘Come on, ya big sap, lets get you married’

Hajime gets Soda up to the front to take his place under the arch and Sonia comes out to see how things are going. Everything is pretty much ready and the officiant is ready to go, so Sonia heads back to Gundham’s room and the officiant signals everyone to take their seats so they can get things started. Soda’s regained his composure in the tie it took everyone to settle down, and Hajime gives him one last pat on the back before he takes his place to the side and the music starts.

Soda looks up as the door opens and he sears the image into his mind immediately.

Gundham looks amazing, he always does, but there’s just something extra to it in that moment. He’s glowing, Soda decides, and as their eyes lock he feels himself tearing up again. It only gets worse as Gundham gets closer, it’s not long before he’s full on crying. He’s jut so overwhelmed with love and happiness, and he almost wants to sip all the vows and wedding rites and just be married already.

Gundham’s not doing much better. He’s vaguely aware of their friends and family waving to him and complimenting him or congratulating him as he passes, but he’s way too focused on Soda to really care. He looks so handsome in his deep red suit with his hair tied back, and he’s frozen, clutching his hands in front of him nervously the way he had been when Gundham entered. Gundham want’s to run to him, sweep him off his feet and just declare them married himself, but he manages to hold himself back. He doesn’t hold back his tears nearly as well though, and a few roll down his cheeks before he makes it to the altar.

When Gundham gets to Soda he immediately pulls him into a tight hug, Soda wrapping his arms around him just as quickly, and then they’re both laughing through their tears. Gundham gently strokes Soda’s hair, careful not to mess it up, and kisses his forehead. Sonia scoffs to let Gundham know he’s on thin ice for that, she’s very into wedding traditions, but lets it slide since it technically isn’t a real kiss lol.

They eventually pull themselves away from each other a bit and try to wipe away each other’s tears at the same time. It’s a little awkward but they’re happy and don’t care, they just keep staring at each other as they finally step back, still holding hands, and signal to the officiant that they’re ready to start.

Soda says his vows first, it’s on purpose, he wanted to go first cus he knew he would be too busy crying after Gundham’s vows haha. He’s like shaking really hard when he starts, cus he hates public speaking and he’s embarrassed to be so sappy in front of all their friends, but as he talks he watches Gundham light up and it just gets easier and easier, until he’s only shaking from the effort it’s taking not to kiss his groom.

Everyone is expecting Gundham’s vows to be long winded and extra extra, but to their surprise they’re pretty straight forward. Gundham explains, as part of his vows, that he doesn’t need extravagant metaphors to express his love and he wants to speak plainly and clearly, in hopes of expressing how clear his feelings for Soda are (he said he doesn’t need metaphors, nut technically the whole thing is a metaphor lol). Soda is in fact crying well before he finishes, and the only things that stop them from kissing once Gundham stops talking are a stern cough from Sonia and a disapproving tut from Hajime lol

The officiant does their thing, Soda and Gundham requested a shortened version of the usual spiel cus they didn’t want to have to stand through a stupidly long ceremony, but even that feels way too long to them haha. When they get to the ‘speak now or forever hold you peace’ part, Gundham raises a non-existent brow at Soda before gazing pointedly at Nekomaru for a second. Soda snorts and laughs and nobody else gets it, but no one speaks up either haha

Gundham is the first to say ‘I do’, then Soda nearly cuts the officiant off with his own ‘I do’ before they can even finish the question haha. The officiant basically steps out of the way while saying ;you may now kiss cus they can tell these two have no patience lol.

They both lean in before the officiant even finishes speaking. Their lips meet and Soda wraps his arms around Gundham’s neck while Gundham pulls him in by his waist. Their friends are cheering and clapping and both of them are crying again.

They both smile and laugh as they part and make their way back down the aisle, thanking all their friends and family, before heading outside to get some photos taken.

Photos take literal hours (wedding party, friends, family, just them, each of them separate, each of them separate with friends, separate with family, now each individual family member with both of them and each of them separately, etc, etc), and they’re both pretty tired by the end of it. They end up heading back to Gundham’s little waiting room to take a nap together.

Sonia sends Mahiru in to get a picture of them cuddled together on the little couch. Both of them have their suit jackets off, their ties loose, and a couple shirt buttons undone. Soda is lying between Gundham’s legs, head resting sideways on his chest and drooling a little. Gundham as his arms wrapped around Soda’s back and his cheek is pressed against his hair. One of Gundham’s legs is dangling off the front of the too narrow couch, along with one of Soda’s arms.

Despite how sloppy they both look, it’s one of their favorite pictures from their wedding day.

The Reception

When Soda and Gundham wake up from their nap like an hour later, they spend like a solid 20 minutes just tenderly making out being all ‘hey you’re my husband now and I’m gonna keep saying the word husband until we’re both sick of it’ haha (neither of them get sick of it). Eventually Sonia and Hajime come get them, Hajime makes a comment like ‘haha save something for your wedding night guys’ and Sonia is just bluntly like ‘yeah, you two will have plenty of time to fuck later’ lol

They all grab something to eat before the reception because Soda and Gundham have barely eaten anything all day.

Their first dance is literally just them holding each other and kissing and swaying to the music, and Soda is so glad Gundham didn’t want to take dance lessons cus he doesn’t want to do anything but hold and kiss his husband in that moment. After the first dance the champagne starts flowing freely and formal atmosphere dissolves pretty quickly lol

Gundham and Soda have both ditched their jackets and are alternating between chatting and laughing with their friends and rocking out on the dance floor (they’re terrible dancers but it’s their wedding and no one is allowed to judge them lol). They’re both kind of acting like they’re drunk but they haven’t actually had that much to drink, they’re just stupid happy. They keep sneaking off to make out, only for Hajime or Sonia to drag them back lol

By the mid night Gundham has lost his tie (They threw it on the ground during one of their make outs and both of them forgot lol) and Soda has some fresh hickies on his neck, and Sonia and Hajime decide they’ve fulfilled their socialization quota and finally release them lol. They thought about getting a hotel room, but they both agreed they would rather just spend their first night as a married couple in their own bed.

The Wedding Night 👀

(suggestive but not explicit)

They start making out the second they get in the limo (courtesy of the Kuzuryu family) to take them home. They can’t keep their hands off each other, but they manage to keep their clothes on for now haha.

Once they make it home they’re stumbling over each other to get to the door, but then Soda freezes when they get it unlocked and Gundham is just like ??? Soda looks at him wide eyed and is just like ‘I want to do the thing’ and before Gundham can figure out what he means, Soda literally sweeps him off his feet and carries him bridal style into their home. Gundham just laughs and lets it happen.

Soda throws Gundham onto the bed and jumps on top of him, resuming their earlier make outs for bit before Gundham pushes him back. Its Soda’s turn to be like ??? but Gundham just says he has a surprise for him and heads off to the bathroom.

Soda is 100% expecting lingerie, but when Gundham steps out in a lacy white baby doll with matching white panties and stockings he nearly dies from joy.

Gundham says he noticed the way Soda had reacted to the idea of him in a wedding dress during their suit fitting and went out to buy this outfit pretty much right after. Maybe it wasn’t quite a wedding dress, but it definitely had a bridal feeling to it.

Once some of Soda’s blood makes it back up to his brain, he smirks and points out that Gundham doesn’t really qualify for the whole wearing white on your wedding day thing’ and Gundham’s like ‘hmm, really? Better make sure, just in case’

It’s all really tender, filled with reverent kisses and I love you’s and a couple of happy tears, and by the end of it both of them are completely naked and cuddled up, smiling as they look at the new matching gold rings adorning their fingers.

They both fall asleep thinking about how excited they are to spend the rest of their lives together.

#Soudam #Soudam wedding #replies #anon #Soudam ramblings #I wrote this in bits and pieces over a few days so I'm sorry if theres inconsistencies #this is longer than all my fics except 'Aid' jesus #I didn't even mention everything #why do I do this to myself #I could have just done the wedding but nooo #brain said I had to talk about all the lead up too #oh well it was fun #hope yall enjoy my suffering #fluff

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rainbowvamp · 3 years ago

Text

Gone and Back Again

Hello and welcome to chapter 5 of the manic creation that is my princess bride au. I’m slowly seeing my creative energy wind down, so the chapters for week three and four might be slightly more brief than this weeks and next week’s chapters are. It looks like there will be five for next week as well, but not all of them will fit the Albion Party prompts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

~5100 words. (AO3 Link)

Arthur and Morgana are our main dynamic today. (platonic)

Warnings: suicidal ideation, depiction of depression, mentions of force feeding, memory loss, and non-consensual memory alterations. (All of this happens after the cut) Further: Lots and lots of talk of marriage. And I don't know how marriage works in the long ago times, so if it doesn't make much sense, please excuse me. Merlin is a little sus this chapter, but it gets explained in chapter 7. Oh, in this AU Arthur and Morgana are not related in any way. Just in case you were worried about that.

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Becoming the King’s Ward is even more suffocating that being the daughter of a Lord. She is always expected to be dressed in finery, she is almost never alone, and far too many men look at her. Arthur does his best to keep them away, but it becomes clear in late Autumn that Uther doesn’t intend for her to be Arthur’s wife. He invites a neighboring king and his very lovely daughter to the Samhain festival.

Morgana is still seated in a place of honor, but her usual place beside Arthur is occupied by the Princess Vivian. The girl is so insufferable that it hurts to even think her name, and so Morgana does not spend much time speaking to her.

Morgana’s lack of socializing is excused time and again by someone or other who says that she’d just lost bother her parents, last week, less than a month ago, only a month ago, only a few months ago… She doesn’t have to pretend to be happy, at least, but she knows the excuse will not last.

Days pass and at Yule, a different princess is at the castle. This one stays for weeks because of the bad weather, and Morgana becomes a ghost in the palace.

Uther calls her to his chambers one night, a nobleman she doesn’t recognize is also there, likely for the sake over own reputation.

“Morgana, please sit.” Uther gestures to the place across from his desk, and she takes the seat gracefully, keeping her face cool and collected. “The Princess Elena has expressed concern for your wellbeing. She says you seem, despondent. I understand your parents death was very distressing, and no one expects your mourning to be finished, but I will ask this of you only once. You are to make sure the Princess Elena feels welcome here. She is very likely to become Arthur’s betrothed, and if you are to continue to stay here, you should become friendly with her. Do I make myself clear?”

He thinks I want his son. She nods and smiles sheepishly. An act she had learned pleased him early on. “I understand, Your Majesty. I will make every effort to show her kindness and make her feel welcome, just as you welcomed me.”

“Good girl.” He turned back to his papers and she stood, dismissed.

Arthur is waiting outside the door for her.

“What did he say to you?” He fell into step beside he and she smiled wanly.

“He intends to marry you to Elena, and I should not be so cold to her if I would like to stay here.”

“I would never let him turn you out. You know that.”

She and Arthur had built a tentative sort of alliance since she’d come to live in the palace. In keeping with that alliance, he took her hand in the guise of reassuring her, while slipping two gold coins into it. She placed them in the pocket of her dress. Beside the ring she had stopped wearing upon the king’s demand.

“I don’t think you’ll have much of a choice.”

“I’d go with you.” He promises, and she laughs.

“No you wouldn’t. Your loyalty is too bound to Camelot and it’s people.”

“You are a person of Camelot, aren’t you?”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

They walk in silence until they reach Morgana’s chambers. At her door they stop and finish the conversation. “Princess Elena has no interest in marrying me. She wants to rule alone.”

Morgana smiled, “Good for her.”

“Yes. You should still be nicer to her.”

“I am nice!” She said with a scoff. When Arthur raised an eyebrow at her she conceded, rolling her eyes. “I’m not any less nice to her than I am to you.”

“Yes, but I know you’re nice inside. Elena just thinks you hate her.”

“I will smile at her at dinner tonight, will that make you happy?”

“Immensely.” Arthur bows and kisses her hand before he goes, and Morgana make a very unladylike face of disgust at him. He does this to exasperate her and amuse himself, and she plays into it every time.

—

The castle servants are not as kind as the ones from her home, or as loyal. Not to her, at least. Her stash of coins is discovered and taken, and the King is cold to her for many days. Each stash of coins she manages to acquire receives a fate much the same, until Arthur starts hiding the coins for her. His servant doesn’t take coins, but he does manage to “put away” every bit of traveling supplies Arthur manages to help her acquire.

Eventually, she gives up. Spring comes and goes, then another Winter. She mourns the loss of her freedom almost as much as she mourned Lancelot. Eventually the hopelessness gets the better of her, and she takes ill. Arthur visits her everyday, and at first she can muster the occasional conversation, but as time passes she finds she has the will to speak to him less and less, and eventually, she goes quiet. He is good, and kind. The last thing she intends to do is bless him and wish him well when she thinks that she will die.

She doesn’t die.

Uther calls physicians from every corner of the Kingdom to come and tend her, and promises the position of court physician to anyone who manages to cure her. She’s poked and prodded, and Arthur is by her side as often as he can be. She doesn’t trust these strange men and so she’s always grateful for his presence, even if she doesn’t say so. She wishes they would just leave her to die, but her body is too heavy to move, and her mind too clouded to protest.

Her dry lips barely part to take a little water. She can’t eat, and her sleep is fitful.

She goes through nearly a dozen physicians before one, Merlin Emerys, finally cures her.

“Take this.” Is all he says to her, not even bothering to do a physical exam.

She is laying on her side, curled in on herself, much the same position she’s been in all afternoon. She doesn’t reach fo the medicine when he offers it, and only his assistant, Gwen, can coax her into motion.

“He looks very young, doesn’t he?” Gwen asks as she smooths hair back from Morgana’s face. “He is, but he is very knowledgeable. Studied with all the best physicians in the five kingdoms. Here, let’s sit you up.” Gwen takes her under the shoulders and props her up. Arthur moves forward and adjust her pillows so she can lean against them, taking Morgana’s hand to help her shuffle back against them in the bed.

Her whole body hurts, aches with the motion. She feels hopeless, like nothing will ever be right again, and the only reason she doesn’t protest is because there is no point. She’ll just be force fed whatever concoction he has for her if she does. That was what happened with the first physician who had come to see her.

She can’t focus on anything that’s happening, she just takes what she’s given, letting Gwen give her medicine. She drinks and the bitterness she is expecting never comes. Whatever this tincture is, it’s sweet, and there is just enough of it for a few sips. She swallows it down and then Gwen lets her go, lets her rest against the pillows and returns to Merlin’s side.

Arthur and Merlin bend their heads together and whisper to each other. Arthur’s shoulders are tense, hunching inward, while Merlin speaks low and easy. Gwen stays beside him all the while, but says nothing. There is no ring on her finger, so she is not his wife. Morgana wonders idly if they are involved.

It’s the most interest she’s had in anything in months.

Arthur sees Merlin out of the room, and a servant comes in to bring Morgana something to eat. She finds that she is starving, and she eats everything given to her. It was a small amount of a wide array of food, the castle staff having been told to prepare anything and everything they thought might make her eat. She eats all of it, and Arthur watches her with wide eyes.

“What?” She asked when she finally stopped eating long enough to see her friend. The servant who had brought her dinner was out of earshot, straightening the room, but Arthur looked at her and held his tongue. Morgana watched his eyes, and then nodded, understanding. He sat beside her bed and took her hand in his.

When the maid moved further away to get Morgana’s bath water, Arthur leaned close to her and whispered, “The potion is already working. I’m afraid it is not just medicine he peddles.”

Morgana raised her eyebrows at the accusation, but Arthur shook his head, looking to the maid again. “I’m glad you’re eating well. I hated watching you be force fed.”

“You could have stopped it.” She reminded him, in fact, she had begged him to stop it, weak and breathy from too little time spent speaking in too many days.

“You would have died. I hated it, but I would not see you dead.”

“The kingdom will talk. The Crown Prince favoring an orphaned girl.”

“And orphaned Lady. It’s hardly out of character.”

“It is out of line with your father’s plans for you. Which princess does he like for you think season?”

Arthur laughed. “Princess Mithian.”

Morgana had never met princess Mithian. She found she wanted to, if only to compare her to all the other princesses that she had seen paraded in front of Arthur.

It was one of the first things she’d wanted to do in a long while.

“Get out.” She said, her voice stronger than it had been in weeks. “I need to dress.”

“It’s late afternoon.”

“And dinner is soon. I need to dress. Get out.”

Arthur laughed, and squeezed her hand as he stood, gesturing the maid over to help Morgana out of bed for the first time of her own accord in days.

—

The Lady Morgana goes down to eat dinner with the Prince and the King for the first time in a month that evening. Uther immediately calls for a servant to bring him Merlin, who he assigns the position of court physician. For the first time in weeks, Morgana smiles brightly, and whatever the man has done, Uther is glad for it.

Morgana eats heartily, almost unbecomingly heartily, but neither Uther nor Arthur begrudge her the meal. She is boney, and her dress is loose from the weight she’d lost in her sickness. She is to eat to her heart’s content.

The food Morgana eats tastes divine. For weeks everything in her mouth felt like ash and nothingness. Now the warm sting of wine and hot vegetables feels like home, like life, and she is eager to take it all in.

Uther asks her questions, and she is eager to speak, happily chatting about her intentions to take a morning ride, her desire to return to her studies, and even her desire to start looking for a husband.

This catches Arthur by surprise.

Morgana has not spoken of a husband of her own accord except to speak of her dead love, Lancelot. Something about this is strange.

When dinner is over, Arthur excuses himself and goes to find the Court Physician, Merlin.

“What did you do to her?” Arthur finds Merlin in the court physicians chambers with his assistant, Gwen. Merlin is wide eyed and watchful when Arthur enters his room.

“I gave her a medicine to heal her mind. She is better now, yes? Eating, active, back to her usual self?”

“Yes.” Arthur doesn’t dare make an accusation without more proof, but the wary way that Merlin’s assistant watches him makes Arthur think that he is on the right track. “I haven’t seen her this happy since before her parent’s deaths.”

“Grief can sometimes be so deep that it dulls everything else. What’s the point of food when you’re in so much pain you can’t fathom going on?”

Merlin sounds so wise, so knowledgeable, when he speaks, but Arthur is suspicious.

“If you say so. Well, whatever you’ve done. Thank you.”

“I live to serve.” The physician waits for Arthur to leave, but he doesn’t go without sizing Merlin up first.

He would be able to take him in a fight, if needs must.

—

Time goes by and Morgana is happier than Arthur has ever seen her and while he is glad for it, his suspicions never waver.

They are never left alone anymore, upon his father’s insistence. With Morgana’s willingness to speak of marriage, he thinks maybe he’s trying to discourage anything untoward between them. This makes it hard to ask Morgana the question he so desperately needs an answer to. He sees hints of it, but he doesn’t find hard proof of anything. She doesn’t stare off in the distance like she once did. She smiles like she has no worries. She never slips her hand into her pocket to touch Lancelot’s ring.

Merlin is a good court physician. He can heal almost any ailment, or at the very least help the patient be comfortable. Gwen is also very competent, though she is quiet. She doesn’t talk much to the other servants, as he’s heard from George. Or, as he’s made George tell him in his own quest to wheedle out whatever information he can about Merlin.

Merlin is a hard nut to crack. The man’s face never falls, always tranquil, always sure of himself. Even in the most dire circumstances, he is easy-eyed and softly smiling, like he expects everything will just go his way eventually.

Uther eats it right up.

Arthur doesn’t dare make his suspicions known until he has proof, and even then he thinks he’ll have a hard time having a man killed who’s done so much good, but a year on and he still doesn’t know what’s wrong with Morgana. Between his new and increasing duties as a knight and the crown prince, and Morgana’s now constant activity, he barely has time to speak to her, let alone discern what the problem might be.

He has nearly a whole sack of gold coins discreetly saved before he mentions to Morgana that if she wishes to leave, soon she might be able to.

When Morgana smiles serenely at him and says she has no wish to leave, Arthur knows that something is wrong. And he can’t do anything about it.

—-

Morgana’s parents have been dead for two years, a plenty adequate mourning time, when Uther starts suggesting matches. First a Lord’s son that Arthur knew to be a cad. Next a young Lord who was fine but very bland. After that, a prince from a neighboring Kingdom who had caught word of Morgana’s beauty and shown interest.

All of these men Morgana entertained, smiled at, was polite to, far more polite than she had ever been to Arthur before her mind sickness. She made them smile and completely enthralled them, only to turn down each proposal made, all smiles and apologies.

That, at least, gave Arthur some comfort.

But after a year of failed courtings, three years in the palace, people were starting to talk. Morgana is 21 and people start to call her unlovable. They don’t say such things about Arthur, and he is nearly 23. It seems unfair to him, that people are so cruel.

“If this keeps up, you might have to marry her, Arthur,” Uther said in passing once, rubbing his temple while he read an angry letter sent by yet another lord turned down by the Lady Morgana. “Gorlois used to speak of her unwillingness, but I never expected she’d be so brazen about it here.”

Arthur doesn’t think before he speaks, going over the grain reports from the latest council meeting in more detail. “Is that an option?”

The soft sound of Uther setting down the letter he’d been reading draws Arthur’s attention up from his own.

“Is that something you would consider?” Uther had made no secret of his distaste for Arthur’s own reluctance to marry. Uther, of course, hadn’t been married until he was almost 26, but he often forgot that.

“Maybe. If she was amenable.” Arthur shrugs. It would save them both a lot of trouble, at least. They were good friends, Arthur would never press for a physical relationship, and their marriage would be in name only. For Morgana’s sake, it would probably be the least painful option. Arthur wouldn’t mind not having his father trying to force him to fall in love with new women every season either.

Of course, there was still the question of status.

Uther doesn’t respond, but Arthur can feel the king’s eyes on him long after he’s gone back to reading over the grain report.

—

A month later, while they are having dinner, Uther asks Morgana if she has any interest in courting Arthur. Considering this is right in front of Arthur, he’s quiet embarrassed, but Morgana only smiles, laughs, and says, “Arthur is one of my dearest friends.”

“Dear friends make the best husbands.” He raises his brow at her, watching her every reaction. She looks over the table at Arthur, who smiles, shrugs. They don’t get much time to talk now, but maybe if they were courting, he would finally have time to get to the bottom of Morgana’s drastic change in demeanor.

“Well, I suppose there’s no harm in courting. It can always be broken if we don’t agree with each other?” She looks at Arthur when she asks this question, and Arthur nods, solemn.

Uther grins and claps his hands together. “Excellent.” He just seems happy to have two problems off his hands all at once.

And Morgana’s unwillingness to marry had been a problem. Rumors started to fly that she’d been holding out for the prince since their first meeting, wrapping him around her finger for three long years until he had no choice but to beg Uther to court her. Morgana never mentions these rumors, and so neither does Arthur.

Morgana’s early morning ride is now accompanied occasionally by Arthur, and George. They sometimes take their breakfast alone, save for a chaperone, usually the Lord Agravaine, who had also been seeing over Morgana’s lands.

It’s on one of their shared rides that Arthur manages to tell her that he won’t expect anything “wifely” out of her if they do end up married. Morgana just smiles and nods, shrugs like this doesn’t particularly bother her.

This is too far. And so he tests her.

“Where do you keep his ring, now?”

She blinks and looks at him. “What?”

“His Ring. Lancelot’s ring. Where do you keep it?”

She looks at him blankly, blinks a few times, and then shrugs. “I forget.”

I forget. A woman so distraught at the loss of her love that she’d been willing to leave behind everything she knew with no money and only the dress on her back, but she’d forgotten the last thing that she’d received from him? This was why she felt better after the potion was drunk, he was sure of it now. She’d been made to forget the things that caused her pain.

But still she’d refused to marry. The love ran deep for her. Arthur wouldn’t pretend to understand it, but he respected it none the less.

“It was that damn physician who did this to you.” Arthur muttered, but Morgana was unaffected, distracted by the buzzing of a few nearby bees, smiling.

He wonders if this was what Morgana was like with him, this Lancelot fellow she’s so lost without. He hopes she was. That he brought her joy with whatever time they had together.

Arthur has a physician to see, so he ends their ride early, despite Morgana’s protests.

George is glad to be heading back, at least.

—

As soon as they return, Arthur storms the court physicians quarters and confronts Merlin about what he’s done to Morgana. Merlin holds firm that he’s done nothing magical, and has only given a sick girl medicine to make her better.

“How is it better to forget your love?”

“She was dying for him, Arthur. Doesn’t your friend deserve a chance to live her life, free of pain?”

“Life is full of pain. You can’t simply get rid of it. What sort of heartless bastard are you?”

Merlin’s eyes flash with anger and maybe something else, but before Arthur can get a good look at it, Gwen, his assistant, takes Merlin by the elbow and reminds him they have a pressing appointment with an expectant mother in the lower town.

Arthur lets them go, but he doesn’t forget that interaction.

—

For a year he courts Morgana, and finally, at Yule, he makes a public proposal. She accepts, as she had agreed she would weeks before, and the Yule celebration becomes a celebration of their engagement. Their wedding is set for Samhain of the next year. The wedding of the crown Prince and the King’s only son is going to be a giant affair, the whole of Camelot will rejoice in it.

At least, that’s what everyone keeps telling him. Morgana seems content enough to marry him, though he can’t help feeling distraught where this marriage is concerned. Morgana isn’t in her right mind without her memories of Lancelot completely intact, or blocked off, or dimmed, or whatever it is that damn sorcerer has done to her.

So, finally, Arthur goes to Merlin and demands he lift the spell on Morgana.

“My Lord, I haven’t cast a spell on her. I gave her medicine. Medicine that saved her life, might I remind you. Even if I could simply reverse it’s effects, which I can’t, she would only be right back where she was when I gave it to her, wasting away with mind sickness.” Merlin’s face, when he says this, shows no remorse, not a hint of anything resembling pity. He just looks… blank.

Arthur hadn’t wanted to hear this. He grit his teeth and closed his eyes, trying to collect himself. “What exactly did your medicine do?”

“It blocked some of her ability to feel emotional pain. She still has all her memories, if that’s what you’re worried about. She simply doesn’t hurt when she thinks of them.”

“You say that like it’s not a terrible thing.”

“I’m a physician. My whole life is dedicated to easing people’s sufferings.”

Arthur is very glad Gwen isn’t here. He’d feel terrible starting a fight in front of a woman.

Arthur clocks Merlin in the mouth for the blasé way that he talks about taking Morgana’s feelings from her. “I want you out of this castle. We’ll find a new court physician. Whatever your remedies are, I don’t want them for my people.”

Merlin glared but didn’t say anything back. Arthur stormed out of the room and only once he was down the hall did the commotion start in the physicians quarters.

Arthur felt satisfied, then, that at least he’d gotten a rise out of the man.

—

Uther gives him grief about firing the court physician, but when Arthur stands his ground and says he doesn’t like the way the man behaves, Uther simply nods and agrees to send the man, and his assistant packing.

He hadn’t held out much hope for the possibility that Morgana would return to her old self when the man was gone, but when three days passed and Morgana still seemed unbothered, mood entirely unchanged, Arthur’s last little bit of hope died.

He promised himself that he would do right by her, then, and committed himself to honoring the memory of her love. He’d make sure to remind her regularly, even use the ring Lancelot had given her as her wedding ring, if she wasn’t opposed to the idea.

—

Their engagement goes well, and Morgana throws herself into the wedding preparations. She seems to be enjoying herself, and Arthur is glad of that, at least. They eventually find a new court physician, a wisened old man named Gaius. Arthur takes his suspicions about Morgana to the man, but he claims he can do nothing for it. Even so, something about the look on his face makes Arthur suspicious.

He sits down to breakfast with Morgana in his chambers, and while his manservant is attending to business on the other side of the room, he takes her hand in his to get her attention.

Morgana looks away from her breakfast and smiles easily at him. He would be a liar if he said he wasn’t glad Morgana smiled more now than she had years ago, but something about it always felt wrong. Knowing she was being forced to suppress the memories of her dead love made that feeling of wrongness infinitely greater.

“I’ve said this before,” He started, and she raised an eyebrow, curious, but without any bite. He used to quite like that she was always subtly making fun of him. “But I feel the need to say it again, with the wedding just a few weeks away. Morgana, I will not expect anything of you in this marriage. I do care for you, but I don’t love you anymore than you love me. You will be an excellent queen, and I’m grateful to have you by my side, but this is a marriage of friends, and equals.” Despite our differences in stations goes unsaid, but not unheard.

Morgana’s smile becomes softer. “I know you don’t. I wouldn’t be marrying you if you did. I-“ She stopped, trailed off, really, blinking like she was blinking away some thought she couldn’t be bothered to remember. “The preparations are going splendidly, anyway. It will be a beautiful ceremony. Unfortunately large, but it can’t be helped. We can’t refuse anyone an invitation.”

The way her mind changes track from the aftermath of the marriage to the wedding itself worries him, and he thinks that he should’ve pushed harder for a cure of some kind. But he dared not do anything that might alert Uther that he suspected an enchantment was placed on Morgana. Uther’s intolerance for magic had extended to those under its influence before, and he wouldn’t risk Morgana’s life like that.

“No, I suppose not. Any friends you’re looking forward to seeing?”

Morgana laughed, “Other noble ladies have never liked me much, I ruffle their feathers.” She pulled her hand away from his and went back to her breakfast, but Arthur was not quite done.

“I want you to use Lancelot’s ring, as a tribute to him.” He watches her carefully when her body stills, eyes distant as she looked down at the fruit she’d just speared with her fork. Again, she blinks away a thought and smiles.

“I don’t know where it is.” She smiles, but it’s tight. “I haven’t even thought of it in years.”

“Would you like me to help you look for it? It might be nice to have.” Even if she says no, he thinks he’ll try to convince her to find it. Maybe whatever connection it gives her will help bring her back from whatever spell Merlin put on her.

“Maybe,” She says it like she can’t be bothered either way. He swallows and nods.

“Let’s look for it. You used to love it so much. I’d like you to wear it again, once we’re married.”

“The wedding is in just a few weeks, and I haven’t seen that ring in years. Do you really think we’ll find it in time?” One of her eyebrows raises, a question, and maybe a challenge.

“How hard can it be? It’s probably in with the rest of your jewelry.”

Morgana laughed wholeheartedly now, still delicate enough for a lady, but very obviously laughing at him.

“What?” He asked, and she just shook her head.

“I don’t think you realize how much jewelry you’ve given me over that last two years. Your courting gifts are very unoriginal.”

—

Sure enough, her vanity and another separate chest are both full of Jewelry. She goes through her vanity while Arthur checks the chest, but neither of them find it. Morgana gives him a knowing sort of “didn’t I tell you” look, but Arthur is determined. Morgana is his friend and that ring is important to her, whether she remembers it or not. He will not see it lost forever to time and a terrible curse.

“Alright, fine. So it’s not with your jewelry. Check the pockets of your dresses, then. I’ll look under the bed.”

Morgana laughed at him again. “You really think I’d find it in a pocket after all these years? Surely a laundrywoman would have taken it out and put it with my things.”

He leveled her with a gaze that brokered no arguments. “Humor me.”

She rolled her eyes at him, and at least this teasing felt a bit like the Morgana he’d known for a short while before she’d been influenced.

Arthur got to his hands and knees, then down to his stomach, to look beneath every piece of furniture in the room. The bed, the night stands, the wardrobe. He even looked behind her changing screen and under the empty tub, but there was no ring in sight.

The rustling of fabric at the wardrobe stops and Arthur looks around the privacy screen to see Morgana, standing frozen at the door, head bent, eyes locked on something Arthur can’t see.

He gets up and approaches her quietly, trying not to startle her.

“Morgana?” He asks when he’s still a few feet away, trying to see around the wardrobe doors to what she’s holding, but his vantage point is no good. He moves to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder.

In her pale, shaking hand, lies a dull, tarnished ring. The band is far too wide to be fitting of a noble lady, let alone a queen, and the stone doesn’t glitter so much as gently diffuse light. He’s seen it only a few times before, after his father banned her from wearing it, but he thinks this must be it.

“I found it.” When she whispers it, her voice is choking. He gently turns her toward him and there are tears in her eyes. When she looks up at him, he sees every ounce of pain he remembers from their first meeting, and maybe more, laced with years of regret. “I can’t marry you.”

Arthur nods, feeling tears prick his own eyes as he pulls her into a hug. “We’ll figure something out.” He promises, and she sobs into his shoulder, soaking his shirt through. He pats her on the back and swears that he won’t force her to be married to him. Not on his life.

He explains his suspicions of Merlin to her, and when she goes to bed that night, she’s distraught. The next morning she goes for her daily ride without him, presumably to think, and she never returns.

#albionparty21 #morgana #arthur #fic #bbc merlin #pbau au proper

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popatochisssp · 4 years ago

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So... quarantine and everything else has been messing with my headspace a little, plus I’ve been a little busier with work and life stuff than the usual, so I haven’t been entirely in the right place to be creative lately. I’m taking my time and not stressing about it or anything, and I have no plans to go on any kind of extended hiatus (so no worries there!), but I have wanted to share something with you guys lately, so...

I threw together some playlists! Just some songs that make me think of certain skeletons, whether it’s the lyrics, the genre, or just the General Vibe-- and to make it interesting, I’m only going to allow myself to make excuses for one song on each list and the rest, I’ll just have to let you judge me for. XD

Note: A few of the songs on these lists have some suggestive language and the occasional curse word for those that need a warning for that sort of thing-- and in fact, feel free to tell me if I included a censored version of any songs on accident, I’ll try to fix that ASAP--but hopefully nothing too shocking or explicit.

Sans (Undertale): I don’t even feel like I need to defend myself for it but, All Star by Smash Mouth? You really think that’s not a Sans Undertale song? C’mon.

Papyrus (Undertale): Spaghetti Cat by Parry Gripp... I... I have no excuse, I just think he would be supportive of a cat who wanted to eat spaghetti.

Sky (Underswap Sans): Sexy Bitch by Akon is only on there in the context that he’s the sexy bitch, he drinks far too much Respect Women juice to ever call a lady that, just for the record! 😤

Paps (Underswap Papyrus): The Bus is Late by Satellite High, yes I was into Welcome to Night Vale for awhile, yes it’s a good song, no I will not accept any criticism on this point.

Jasper (Underfell Sans): I cannot even begin to articulate why Full Moon by Sunmi reads as his vibe/sound to me, it just does and I have made the mental association, it is too late to unmake it.

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus): Interlude IV by Zach Callison... He has the range, that’s all I can say.

Mal (Swapfell Sans): Dark Horse by Katy Perry. Listen, he’s my boy, I know what he’s about, it’s a valid choice and I stick by it!

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus): I actually don’t feel like there’s anything I need to make an excuse for on this one, so I’ll just bump Crystalline by The Midnight, it’s a great song lol

Slate (Horrortale Sans): The Other Side of Paradise by Glass Animals is also almost 100% on there for the vibe/sound, but that vibe/sound is just right so on it stays.

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus): I first heard Always by Erasure in the context of that Robot Unicorn Attack game, if anybody remembers that; as if half of my song choices in these aren’t already showing my age lmao

Ash (Undergloom Sans): The Call Me Maybe cover by Ben Howard is good, actually, it’s a legit jam and I’m not sorry for it.

Yrus (Undergloom Papyrus): The Great Pretender by the Jon Frederik Band... yes, it (and a few of Classic Papyrus’ songs) came from a Yugioh soundtrack, we don’t need to talk about that, it’s fine.

Brick (Horrorfell Sans): Gingerbread Man by Melanie Martinez doesn’t 100% fit his vibe, but it’s another one I’ve made a mental association with and it’s not going away, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

King (Horrorfell Papyrus): Guren (Hip Hop Remix) by Dirty Kid... I swear I’m only a little bit of a weeb, I never finished Naruto, call it an homage to HF!Undyne! 😂

So there’s that! I’d love to say I’m accepting new song recommendations for these playlists, but as you can see, the song-count on each is already at 69, so I can’t mess that up, you understand.

I hope you guys find some new music to bop to on one of these lists, or some old favorites you haven’t listened to in awhile! :3

#headcanons #sorta #undertale #sans #papyrus #music #purely self-indulgent and just for me #but also #i hope you guys like it too!

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lemondropsssss · 4 years ago

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ok so i accidentally posted the wrong version of this first chapter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who knows how i managed that, here’s the actual version with like, finished thoughts and shit. this story is on ao3 here

The mountain happens.

Words are said in a moment of anger and fear. Terrible words. The Witcher couldn't have hurt him more if he'd used his sword. Jaskier has made Geralt angry before, but this? This was different. This time he means it.

So he walks away.

Doesn’t get the stories from the others. He stops at their campsite and packs up his gear as quickly as he can. He knows there’s a few of his items in Geralt’s pack but he ignores them. Rooting through the man’s belongings with abandon is not something he should be doing anymore.

His ears are ringing and all he can hear is the steady thud of his heartbeat and the beat of his lute on his back as he walks.

His lute. Jaskier stops short and quickly pulls the instrument from its case. Still as beautiful as the day Filavandrel had given it to him, barring one small dent when he’d used the poor girl as club. He’d taken out four of the bandit’s teeth with that blow. Geralt had smiled at him.

Now thinking of that moment brings bile to his mouth, and he retches horribly into the tall grass. The rushing in his ears gets louder and louder. His grip tightens and he can hear the unhappy twang of pressed strings.

He needs to get it away from him as humanly possible so Jaskier grips his lute and flings it far over the mountain side. He doesn't hear it hit the ground, but knows there will be nothing left of it but scrap.

Good.

He keeps walking.

Jaskier is alone, half drunk on lack of sleep and actual drink from his hipflask when it happens. When the last twenty-two years of his life fragments around him.

It's the fucking metalsmith's that triggers it; one second he's ambling down the road in the vague direction of an inn, tavern, or otherwise amenable hayloft. And the next second he's brought to his knees by the smells of worked leather, hot steel, sword oil, and some burnt tang in the air he can't even name. It's distinctly Geralt and it breaks him.

Memories fall around him like shards of glass; cutting his skin until a biting stinging hurt is all he can feel. And when the pieces shatter they dig into him; flaming shards of the last decades burrow deep into him, the hurt taking root in his bones and the soles of his feet. And every piece sounds like...

Shut up, bard

Fuck off, Jaskier

Go away, boy

Why do you never listen?

He wanted you gone

You shouldn’t be here

He doesn’t like you

This is where we part, bard

He wanted to be rid of you

It’s like ordering a pie and finding it has no filling

He’s telling you everything you need to know why don’t you take the hint you stupid useless excuse of a man

If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands

For once in your life do as your told

It takes Jaskier three months to get from the dragon mountains to Oxenfurt. Apparently, destroying his main way of generating income isn’t the best idea he’s ever had. It also doesn't help that most of the coin he does find he in turn spends primarily on wine and not say, getting to his destination in a timely fashion.

Cresting the hill, Oxenfurt is just as beautiful as he remembered it. He slogs through the city, thinking wistfully of one of Geralt's more useful talents; scaring other travelers well away meant less time pushing and shoving through people to get anywhere.

When he finally reaches the great carved gates to the University he’s stopped by two guards before he can even think to step closer.

“This entrance is for students, faculty, and the academics. Giving Door is around the back.” The guard gestured over his shoulder towards the back side of the citadel where Jaskier knew there was a free kitchen and a place to get staple supplies run by the University.

“Oh, but I am faculty, good sir,” He says with an easy smile. No need to antagonize the nice men with pointy sticks. “Julian Alfred Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, at your service.” He mimes tipping his cap. The guards are not impressed.

It takes some wheedling, but soon the dean is summoned and Jaskier is recognized and clapped firmly on the shoulder and after just a little too long of the bowing and scraping and speaking of payment and contracts and gods cursed lesson-plans before Jaskier is allowed to retire to his rooms.

The rooms are as he left them, though he suspects that while he was being held captive by the dean someone came in to sweep, dust, and open the windows.

Here he is. Home. Or as much as passes for it anymore. He’d thought that Geralt was his home but- no. No. If he was going to do this and be here, he has to put that fanciful life aside. He has to accept that he doesn’t belong in the worlds of magic inhabited by witchers and sorceresses and powerful princesses. He was a bard. Less than that, he was a bard without an instrument.

Well then.

Time for a change.

The next morning he takes a long bath. His traveler's beard is scruffier than he likes, so he trims and shapes it carefully until he’s satisfied. It's important to look the part. He'd managed to squirrel away a hefty sum over the years, so he goes down to the city on a mission.

He buys new shirts, trousers, doublets, boots, coats, gloves. All in muted earth or jewel tones; burgundies, rusts, indigos, navies, and soft tawny browns. No black. He gets his hair cut shorter, something more fitting a professor at a prodigious university and not some fumbling idiot following a man who clearly doesn’t care for him.

When Jaskier gets home he carefully packs everything from his life with Geralt into a chest. His clothes, cloak, packs, songbook, and some small treasures children had given them as thanks. He grabs the last one, a crudely carved wooden cat. Geralt had been given this by an eight-year-old girl in some backwater village plagued by a nasty band of nekkers. She’d been so proud of her work, even Geralt couldn’t be a grouch to her. He puts that figurine back on the mantle, shuts the chest, and pushes it under the bed.

Slowly, he dresses in his new wardrobe. Shaking fingers struggle with new buttons, but he manages the shirt and half of the doublet. Trousers next, then boots. And finally, after an age of adjusting seams and doing then redoing buttons, he meets his eye in the floor length mirror.

The man before him is in his early forties. He's handsome, with a wide smile and bright blue eyes. Lightly built, but corded with muscles built over years on the road. A few streaks of grey swirl in his hair. He’s fit, almost six foot tall. Dark blue peeks from under his high necked burgundy doublet. Dressed like this, he looks like a professor and not some damned fool.

“Well then,” His voice is rough, even to his own ears. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” Saying it aloud made his breath catch, his stomach roll, but he stood firm. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” That felt marginally better. “Jaskier the Bard is dead.” Hardly any wobble to his voice at all that time. “Jaskier the Bard died on a mountain top, far from home and very alone.” Deep breath.

“My name is Professor Julian Alfred Pancratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years ago

Text

my whole trajectory's toward you, and it's not losing momentum (call it anything we want)

Summary: Anthony had expected a certain amount of trouble when he took over managing the Danbury campaign. He didn’t imagine this amount. He didn’t imagine that it might at some point become something other than trouble.

There was mention of rival political campaign managers Kate and Anthony and even though I couldn’t quite get there - or make a scene happen which directly featured Newton 😔 - I did manage rivals and political campaigning. So here’s something to serve as incentive, congratulation, or brief respite depending on how far @thesokovianaccords has gotten in her grad school application process. Sorry if it’s a bit OOC, Livia - maybe it’s just the right degree to make sense in a modern AU? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Read on AO3

A week into running Dr. Danbury’s campaign, Anthony realizes that he has made a grave error in allowing himself to give in when his mother requested “a bit of a favor.”

At the time she’d asked, he had just gotten the news that his previous candidate was dropping out of his own race for health reasons, and of course, Dr. Danbury has been a fixture for his entire life so he might well have stepped up merely because she needed help (despite knowing that the reason she needed the help was that she’d fired her entire previous campaign team). Besides that, he has rarely been able to deny his mother anything, and that’s even before she brings up the number of hours she spent in labor with him (twenty-two, as he well knows by now) but still...he damn well should have ignored all that this time.

For his money, the most annoying part of not being listened to by the candidate is that her instincts have mostly served her well. Three days after he started, she ignored the common wisdom of maintaining decorum and not insulting the opposition which he had reminded her of before she went on camera, and had only benefited from it; apparently the majority of the constituency agreed that the particular candidate she had been asked about was indeed a “first class wanker who should pray nightly for the brains God gave a goose.” At least she had heeded Anthony’s advice to refer to the man as “my opponent” rather than using his name and giving him free advertising in the soundbite as it was played on nearly every news broadcast for the next several days.

“Well, we seem to have come out of this one all right,” she says, sipping her coffee and looking just the slightest bit smug - he doesn’t lie to candidates, so he had been obliged to report that the latest polling numbers actually went up after the incident. “Anything else, Bridgerton?”

Swallowing the speech he wants to give about how easily things could shift during a campaign, not to mention the difference between what people told a pollster and how they actually cast their votes, he says, “Perhaps we might look to hire a policy director, ma’am? To help...guide the campaign a bit more?”

“If we did, I should wonder what I had hired you for.” She looks at him over the tops of her glasses as if she can tell he is dreaming of responding that ah, well, it seems he is unnecessary, and perhaps he will just excuse himself from the position now. He makes sure his expression remains neutral and finally she waves a hand. “Well, let me see some names and CVs after the weekend, and I shall decide then.”

“Very good.” He extremely purposefully does not sigh until he is out of her office and striding along the corridor of their campaign headquarters. There are plenty of people who will take a call from him on short notice and who will back him with the candidate. Yes, if he can’t quit altogether (and he can’t if he wants his regular seat at Christmas dinner) then having someone in his corner is just the ticket.

He arrives for work on Monday even earlier than his traditional first thing in the morning, wondering to himself whether it will be better to simply present his top applicants or if he should throw in a decoy or two to make his choices shine even brighter - although perhaps that’s just the sort of ploy that the candidate would sniff out in a heartbeat after a career of wrangling university students. Still debating, he turns the corner toward his office, only to find Dr. Danbury in the hall outside, speaking with someone. Anthony doesn’t recognize the person from the back, can only see a fall of shiny, dark hair, so he guesses it is one of the volunteers, perhaps someone new who has arrived early for orientation. He hopes that Dr. Danbury isn’t being too intimidating.

“Ah, Bridgerton,” the lady in question calls down the hallway, and something about her tone makes Anthony’s spine go straight. “Good morning.”

Still, he clings to his good mood as he greets her. “Let me put my things down, and then we can go over your schedule for the day. And I have those CVs you had requested as well.”

“Nevermind those,” she says, and the little smile on her lips makes every one of his nerves stand on end. “Did you know that your mother and I went out for a drink on Friday evening? Oh, yes, we had a wonderful time, and your brother Colin came around to escort us home. Such a lovely boy, had some delightful stories about his trip to Greece - and so interested in the campaign. In fact, he had a brilliant thought when I mentioned your idea for bringing on someone new to help shape things alongside the two of us.”

Whatever virtues his brother Colin might possess, interest in the campaign is absolutely not among them. Skin humming all over, Anthony manages a casual, “Oh?”

“Indeed, and luckily I was able to organize it all over the weekend so you wouldn’t have to do a thing.” She gestures toward her companion, and with a sick swoop in his stomach, Anthony knows who he is going to see before she shifts around.

“I believe you two have met before?” Dr. Danbury says, voice fading just a bit beneath the static in Anthony’s ears as Kate Sheffield turns to face him.

They have not actually met before, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t know of each other.

The first time Anthony heard her name, it was her sister saying it - about twenty times in a row, if he’s being honest. He met Edie Sheffield two years back at one of his mother’s galas. Edie ran a different prestigious kids charity than the one Mum was fundraising for, so he’d wondered if inviting her was somehow inviting the enemy or maybe bragging. But Edie was sweet, and passionate about her job, and looked absolutely gorgeous in sapphire satin, and he settled into a night of getting her drinks and chatting her up, despite the fact that she didn’t seem as interested in speaking with him as she did in mentioning that he really must talk with her sister.

He’d stayed the night in the hotel where the gala had been held (alone, in one of the rooms which had been set aside for guests from the event; he’d put Edie in a car at about 11) and was planning on taking his mother to breakfast after she came down from her own room. When he went to check out, however, the desk attendant handed him a message which had been taken down for him on hotel stationary.

Dickheads like you shouldn’t try to get with my sister. Don’t do it again.

“Is there anything else that I can assist you with?” asked the attendant, holding onto her poker face remarkably. Perhaps they taught that in hospitality programs.

He’d crushed the note in his hand before smoothing his own face placidly and handing over his credit card. His mother was all smiles and chatter during breakfast, but his mind was still on the note, which seemed to have burned itself behind his eyelids.

Dickheads like you - oh, so only other types of dickheads need apply? And get with? Were they twelve years old and couldn’t use grownup words? Not to mention the signature, such as it was. Trying to play mafia boss, expecting that he’d know who had sent it. He did, but it took a lot of bloody gall to assume that he would.

Not as much gall as Don’t do it again. He couldn’t even think of that part, the demeaning certainty of it, without a certain vein beginning to throb in his forehead.

In the two years since, he found himself falling back into analysis of the note - it was barely more than a dozen words, so how could there still be so much to parse? - whenever her name came up, which became more and more frequent as she moved from nothing campaigns in the most forgotten corners of the country to deputy deputy whatever on somewhat more consequential ones. She was gaining a reputation among his peers. They said she was smart and canny, that she had a knack for looking at the bigger picture and acting on her instincts.

(Someone who’d once worked with her had also mentioned that it helped that she didn’t have a high opinion of her looks, didn’t flaunt herself the way some women did around the office - she certainly didn’t have a reason to do so, but sometimes that didn’t stop them.

“Oh, be fair,” said the other man. “She does have quite a nice—”

They’d shut up when he’d walked into the room - everyone knew better than to talk that way around him, and it wasn’t just because of “all those sisters” the way some people said. Eloise had been interning with the campaign that summer, and for the rest of the day while he’d talked with human resources, he’d let her make mistakes on all of their lunch and coffee orders and give them the wrong data for their reports when they’d made her look it up instead of doing it themselves. When he’d fired them, he spread the word on why, but left the particulars out of it.)

The note returns to his mind whenever someone new has their one experience of suggesting Kate Sheffield as a potential hire, or when he thinks he’s seen her in the background of some press conference or event for another candidate, or if he runs into Edie at another charity function, where he absolutely does not flirt with her just that extra bit harder while part of his mind thinks Your move directly toward her sister who he has never actually met in person.

Until now.

“We’re acquainted,” he tells Dr. Danbury, managing to remain polite by avoiding Kate’s gaze. He leaves it at that.

They’re the first two in the conference room for the all-staff the next morning, and somehow he’s not surprised.

“Good morning,” he says as he comes in to find her over by the coffee. She’s doctoring it significantly, clearly already familiar with the quality to be found in a campaign office. He always buys his own; he can’t stand the amount of milk and sugar and oddly flavored creamers required to make the other stuff palatable (and don’t even get him started on the alleged tea).

Tone cool, she replies, “Mr. Bridgerton,” and takes a sip from her mug.

It isn’t as if the staff goes around calling him “Tony” or “boss,” and only the most knock-kneed newcomers call him “sir.” He’s Anthony to most. He has no inclination to correct her.

He works to keep his tone casual and courteous as usual when he introduces her to everyone (“And this is Kate Sheffield, who will be doing some consulting for us”) but something about it must catch Dr. Danbury’s attention, because she raises an eyebrow at him from her end of the table and rests both hands atop her stick.

The fact that the candidate is aware that something is going on between the two of them makes it all the more exasperating when two days later she signs off on Kate’s media and advertising plan over his own. He shows up for dinner with Daphne and Simon that evening as planned, knowing that Daphne would be completely willing to pull the pregnancy card if he tried to get out of it, but she sends him home before the waiter has brought the dessert menus because he keeps muttering about how more people travel by tube and railways and for longer distances but are more likely to take more individual rides on buses and what that means for posting print ads.

(The numbers are seared into his mind, considering she’d included a full breakdown with three kinds of graphs and bloody footnotes in her presentation.)

Getting released from the restaurant early gives him extra time to go back to the office for a bit and put together a preliminary get out the vote strategy. He calls in several favors as a part of it, including one from an old friend of his father’s who asks incredulously, “Really? For this?” clearly wondering whether Anthony’s reputation is deserved if he’s pulling out all the stops for something so routine.

It’s well worth it, however, when Dr. Danbury raises an eyebrow as she looks over the document he’d put together, and tells him, “Well done, Bridgerton, very well done indeed. I think this shall do nicely.”

He does not even glance toward Kate; there really isn’t any need to gloat.

Well, one tiny peek won’t hurt.

Her jaw is set and her eyes are flinty, but she gives him just the slightest nod, as if to say that he might have won this round, but she’d like to see him try the next one.

Just before three in the morning, he wakes himself, panting, from a dream that makes him think he might have to report himself for workplace sexual harassment.

“I would have hoped you’d have better self-preservation instincts,” he says aloud to his body. “Or at least better taste.”

Collapsing back against the pillows, he pushes his mind toward images of ex-girlfriends and celebrities, but no, there is Kate, strong and challenging and gorgeous above him, a vivid afterimage that refuses to go away, and he sighs and gives into it, trying to set himself to rights so he can get past this and find at least a bit more sleep.

Anthony has never been the sort of boss who shouts at people in the office - he has always tended toward cold anger and ��you know what you’ve done, now fix it” stares, and doesn’t intend to act differently now. But as he stalks over to Kate’s desk, he finds a fiercer anger taking over, just a bit.

“You changed my media statement,” he says, voice silken with it as he leans his palms down on her desktop and rests his weight on them. He is speaking low, the words just for her, although his eyes roam over the others moving busily around the main space of the office.

She turns her chair slightly, so that he feels the brush of her hair on his forearms where his sleeves are rolled up; it shifts his attention fully in her direction. Her hair tie had snapped earlier, and the thick topknot she tried twisting for herself has collapsed, leaving it free around her shoulders. He snaps himself back from examining the shining curls as she says, “Yes, I did.”

Part of him admires her straightforwardness, that she takes responsibility without even trying to deny it. The other part...well, the anger hasn’t exactly disappeared.

In a level tone which would have his siblings looking over in alarm, he says. “I had worked that statement out with the entire communications department.”

“The entire communications department does what you tell them to do. It’s what you pay them for.”

“And what, exactly, do I pay you for?”

They are facing each other now, their bodies a bit too close for it. She is looking directly at him, voice sharp and clear as glass. “I was hired by the candidate, to help run the campaign that she wants. Your statement was just a polite walkback of her words.”

He has the sudden thought that the brown of her eyes could be warm, that her gaze probably is warm when she’s looking at her sister or the dog whose photo she has framed on her desk (a plump, panting little corgi wearing a bright blue bow tie, absurd), but he’s never seen her that way. He’s only ever gotten this, annoyance and disdain and perhaps disappointment.

Still, he responds, “Her words need to be walked back if she wants to someday be more than the candidate. In this constituency, colonial reparations aren’t a popular enough issue to increase turnout for those who weren’t already interested, and it’s exactly the sort of thing which will put off those who were on the fence. We’re trying to flip a seat by reminding people of what their current MP is doing wrong; we have to stay on message, not muddy things with topics too few understand. Sending out a statement moderating the comment is the right move.”

“But that statement isn’t what the candidate believes, and her future constituents should know what her actual position is - they likely aren’t as stupid as you seem to think. And besides that, she has the right stance in the first place.”

In the weeks since she arrived, he’s found that the things people said of her were true: she is smart, perhaps too smart for the good of either of them, and decisive, easily seeing what’s been done and what needs to be and acting on it, the exact sort of person you would want at your side as you plot a course forward. But he hadn’t realized that she was a believer.

There are fewer idealists in politics than one might think, or at least who have risen to her level. He always finds them a bit off-putting, and it startles him even more with her - he had thought he recognized in her a sharpness and pragmatism which reminded him of his own.

“Don’t do anything like this again,” he says, trying to temper his own abruptness even as he is somewhat unsettled by the conviction in her. “Or I’ll fire you, and I don’t care what the candidate says about it.”

“I think she would have quite a lot to say in that circumstance,” Kate tells him, but she turns back to her keyboard and doesn’t argue anymore.

At least until the next day, when they end up nearly nose to nose in his office as Anthony maintains that they can’t get anyone’s hopes up with a promise of immediate action on climate change, especially considering the priorities in the party platform and the likely makeup of the next parliament, and Kate practically shouts that they’re showing people where their convictions lie and that Dr. Danbury will fight for them if she gets the chance.

When Anthony dreams of her again that night, they are not talking about policy at all. But when he wakes up, edgy and aching as he is, he finds himself hoping one day to see her smile at him the way he did in his sleep; he wants to know if her eyes really are as warm as he imagined.

On Saturday, there’s such persistent nagging in the older sibling groupchat that Anthony finally gives in and agrees to leave the office for a night out. Forcing him into some allegedly relaxing activity is a time-honored tradition when they’re coming into the final stretch of a campaign; he’s certain the others have been discussing tactics in one of the numerous other chats that are always going on. (The last he’d glimpsed, the sibling group which didn’t include Gregory, Hyacinth, or himself - but did, irritatingly, include Simon - was named “Anthony’s Scary Forehead Vein.”)

“Please tell me that we aren’t going to paint ceramics again,” Anthony says as he walks, hands in his pockets, beside Benedict. Their group is too large to all move together on the sidewalk, which is a bit of a relief. “I don’t think I could put up with another night of Eloise reminding me that there are stencils if I need them.”

Benedict very narrowly and very obviously avoids laughing at him. Now that Anthony thinks about it, actually, his brother had spent that particular outing using a dozen colors to intricately decorate a mug, spending so long on it that they had nearly closed the place around him. Their mother drinks her tea from it frequently, however. “Thankfully there won’t be any pottery or painting tonight.”

“And it’s not—”

“Not a club,” Benedict assures him, then grins. “Can you imagine Simon trying to make certain no one came within a foot radius of Daph on the dance floor?”

Anthony shakes his head, looking ahead of them to where his sister and brother-in-law are walking together, not holding hands, but so close that they might as well be. He still feels a bit strange about the two of them together, especially after all the drama on the way, but he can see that they’re in love each other, even if he can’t really imagine why anyone would want to be, and they’re extremely obviously happy, so he’s trying to grow accustomed to it. He can also absolutely see Simon working himself into knots playing mosh pit bodyguard.

“So where are we going, then?” he asks, but before Benedict can answer, Eloise, broken away from her friend Penelope, tosses her arms over their shoulders and wriggles her face between them.

“You’ll just have to see,” she says, and Anthony doesn’t have to look at her to know that she is twitching her eyebrows at them. He probably could get it out of her if he tried, but he actually is finding himself feeling a little lighter being out with everyone, so he just waits and ten minutes later, they’re entering an already fairly crowded pub. Colin and Eloise go over to register them as a trivia team - or more likely to bicker over what name their team should have. As if realizing the same, Daphne squeezes Simon’s hand once and pushes over to join them.

(Her stomach is still flat, even for someone looking, but Anthony notices that she places a protective hand over it as she walks through the crush anyway.)

The rest of them go to claim a table and start putting together an order for drinks and appetizers. Anthony is leaning across, shouting a promise that if Penelope doesn’t finish her chili loaded potato wedges, they’ll certainly be taken care of, when someone behind him asks, “Excuse me, can we borrow this chair?”

“Sorry, there are more of us coming,” he says politely, turning to face the woman. She’s thirtyish and tall, but that’s all he takes in before he spots, over her shoulder, the rest of her group. They’re all chatting with each other, wearing matching T-shirts in a variety of bold colors which declare them the Quizzie Bennets, and in the center, her hair up in a ponytail and definite warmth in her eyes, is Kate. Edie stands beside her, picture perfect nose crinkled in a teasing way, but all Anthony can notice is that he’s never seen Kate in jeans like this, that the odd, bright purple of her shirt looks electric instead of ugly against the dark of her hair, and all he can think is that he never imagined her as relaxed as she is, weapons laid down.

She seems to detect his gaze then, and as she meets it he expects the weapons to be picked right back up. There’s certainly surprise, a guardedness to her eyes as they meet his, but then she narrows them in his direction, as if saying game on.

So that’s how she wants to play it, he thinks, then turns to the others and says, “No alcohol.”

Benedict blinks. “What do you mean by that?”

“In solidarity with Daphne,” Anthony offers.

“Daph does know that it’s pub trivia,” Simon says. “And she’s not—”

“Fine,” Anthony interrupts before the compliment train can get rolling. He sets his jaw. “I mean that we need to keep clear heads if we’re going to absolutely trounce everyone here.”

Penelope looks a bit alarmed by the vehemence in his tone and Simon quirks a brow, but the others are game enough - Bridgertons have always had a competitive streak, and apparently the rest of them actually chose this particular trivia night because it’s done aloud, infinite bounce style, instead of on paper.

“We play with live ammo around here,” Eloise declares gleefully once she’s returned and been updated on what she missed.

“Damn right we do,” Anthony mutters to himself, glad that he is seated with his back to Kate so he can resist the temptation to see how irritated she looks just now, or how face might be a little flushed and her ponytail loosened from the heat of everyone packed together inside…

“Who exactly do you keep looking for?” asks Colin, who’d plopped himself into the chair Kate’s teammate had asked about. He cranes obviously around, and Anthony turns firmly back to the table before his brother can follow his line of vision.

For all that they didn’t pick their team in order to be serious contenders, they do cover the bases fairly well. Anthony has politics and current events, obviously, along with history. Penelope plays backup there as well, and covers literature alongside Colin, who handily takes on geography too. (Anthony has always inwardly wondered how reasonable it was to build a career around wanderlust and Instagram and freelancing for travel magazines, but if it brings them victory tonight, he will never question again.) Benedict apparently took in more about nature than any of the rest of them who grew up in the Kentish countryside, and knows quite a bit more about art and art history than Anthony had expected. Daphne, unpredictably, knows a lot about sports - she claims that it’s what happens when you spend your life being rambled at as “another one of the boys” - and, more predictably, music.

Anthony hadn’t expected Simon’s skill with numbers to be particularly helpful, but now he’ll have to buy him a drink at some point, both for doubting and for pulling them out of a sticky situation involving Bernstein's constant. He wishes that Francesca wasn’t too young to have come out with them - there are several instances where they could have used her chiming in with quiet calm about anything related to economics or science, but they instead have to all give questionable contributions in that regard. They all chip in for pop culture, too, although Eloise is clearly the master - she actually yawns as she announces that of course the country where Monica’s boyfriend Pete Becker took her on their first date was Italy, and Anthony has never been more grateful that he lets everyone sponge off his Netflix login (although would it really kill them to not be using all the screens on the rare occasions he actually has the time and inclination to watch something?).

The trouble is that there are plenty of other teams who are clearly regulars, and they were put together in order to be serious contenders. The questions and answers are flying through the air, the quizmaster, a skinny older man with big hair shouting “Correct! For ten points,” more often than not, and most importantly, the Quizzie Bennets are availing themselves nicely. (He should have guessed as soon as he saw the matching T-shirts.)

Questions his team can’t answer correctly bounce to them next, and he can’t help but toss Kate an incredulous look after she not only answers that Angela Merkel was voted chancellor of November rather than October 2005, but also rattles off the margin for and against. Her eyes meet his as if she was expecting his glance, but she just shrugs before wrapping her lips around her straw and taking a dainty sip of her drink. He has to look away then.

Still, Team Quizerton (apparently the name that both Colin and Eloise had hated enough for Daphne to negotiate them to agreement) has done well enough that Anthony feels confident as they move into the final round.

“And what will the twist be tonight?” the excitable quizmaster asks, although he then just presses a button on his phone rather than spinning some kind of enormous wheel. His face lights up as he announces grandly, “Ah, the ladder!”

He quickly outlines the rules: each team will have five questions selected for them in ascending order of difficulty, with point values from ten to fifty. For each correct answer, they will receive the corresponding points and the option of requesting a related bonus question for half the initial question’s value. Wrong answers mean a point deduction, double for bonus questions, and the end of play for that team. You can also pass, choosing another team to answer and forfeiting further questions for yours but freezing your points where they stand.

It’s more like a game show than any trivia night that Anthony is familiar with, but he actually appreciates the strategy element; he can understand why this would be Kate’s preferred contest.

He considers giving a pep talk to the table, but all of them - except for Simon, who’s looking somewhere between vaguely amused and bored - are dialed in, ready to claim victory, so he settles back and readies himself for it too.

It happens in the final round. Anthony is just allowing himself to feel the slightest bit smug at having earned them another 75 points by not only correctly responding that Sri Lanka was the first country to have a female prime minister, but answering the bonus of her name (Sirimavo Bandaranaike) and year of election (1960) as well. The quizmaster nods, turns, and reads off the next question: “This famous playwright’s last words were reportedly ‘I knew it! I knew it! Born in a hotel room and, goddamn it, dying in a hotel room.’”

There’s a strange, deep silence, then a buzz of whispering among the Quizzie Bennets, and Anthony is struck by the realization that they don’t know the answer. He certainly doesn’t either, and a glance around at his group tells him that they would have been screwed had they gotten the question, but it doesn’t matter. Excitement licks up his throat, victory so close he can taste it…

And then Kate’s head comes up from the huddle, and her eyes meet his, and he knows exactly what she is going to do before she does it.

“Ten seconds!” says the quizmaster.

“Trust me,” Kate mouths to her teammates, and then says aloud, “We’d like to pass, and give the Know It Ales a chance to answer.”

Anthony’s mouth goes dry. Stupid team name aside, they’ve been confidently answering questions all night, and this time is no different. Their leader is nearly bored as he immediately says, “Eugene O’Neill.” And Anthony can barely hear the room around him over the blood rushing in his ears as they answer the follow-up too.

When the quizmaster declares the Know It Ales the champions for the evening, Kate slings her arms around her teammates and cheers as if he’s announced her name instead. The other Quizzie Bennets look puzzled, but when she stares defiantly at Anthony, chin raised, beaming, glowing not like she’s in the spotlight but like she’s the light itself, he somewhat suspects that she’s the winner indeed.

“Isn’t that—” Colin starts somewhere close to Anthony’s ear.

“No, it is not,” Anthony tells him firmly, and wrestles him off to pay their tab.

Later that night, after he’s somewhat successfully distracted himself with work and somewhat less successfully distracted himself with looking for something to watch (why isn’t everyone asleep, and even if they are up, could they really not leave him one available screen?) he finds himself sitting on the edge of his bed with his work phone in one hand and his personal one in the other. And even though he knows exactly how bad an idea it is, he very carefully references the campaign contact group and keys one number into a new text message in his personal phone.

Sorry that this didn’t seem to be your night. Best of luck to your team next time.

He shoves out a breath and stands as soon as he’s sent it, forces himself to start getting ready for bed; she’s probably asleep now, or she might read it as rude or sarcastic and choose not to respond, and the text is just going to sit there, awkward and interminable…

There are plenty of ways to be lucky, thanks very much, and I think we found one - although I look forward to reclaiming my rightful title someday soon. See you on Monday, Bridgerton.

Regardless of what he tells himself, he can’t quite get the stupid grin off his face as he shuts off the light. He’s under no illusions about who his dreams will feature tonight.

Monday night before the election, Anthony leaves the office past eleven. He rubs his eyes as he walks past dark cubicles and conference rooms - unsurprisingly, he’s the last one around - and decides that what he needs more than sleep is something to eat, and not whatever cup noodles or single egg he might come up with at home. No, he needs comfort food, something generous and hot and greasy as Benedict’s face the year he was thirteen (not that his at fifteen was much better).

His favorite hole in the wall is open until midnight, so he stumbles over there and buys the biggest order of chips he can, the enormous burger nearly an afterthought. The place is tiny and not the sort of spot that has ever even heard of ambiance, but he’s tired and the idea of waiting to get back to his flat and eating in its emptiness isn’t particularly appealing. He turns with his food in hand and finds Kate looking up at him, startled, from one of the three tables.

He could take one of the others, leave them to eat in awkward peace, or he could pretend he had always intended to have his food to go. Instead he comes over and asks, “Can I join you?”

Her capable hands moving just a note too slowly, as though giving him time to reconsider, she collects the documents from the opposite side of the table, tapping them into order as he waits patiently. She folds her fingers atop the neat stack in front of her once she’s finished, watching as he dives into his meal; he should probably be embarrassed about it, but he doesn’t really have the energy.

They talk about inconsequential things - how the weather forecast might cause trouble with voter turnout, the unfortunate office incident with Johnson and the speakerphone last week, mutual political acquaintances - and Anthony realizes that it’s the first time they’ve ever done this, just made small talk without disagreeing. Kate doesn’t lose her sharp tongue simply because they are in casual conversation, but it’s different when her remarks aren’t directed at him; hearing her pert analyses of other candidates and campaign staffers actually makes him laugh.

She’s left half a piece of cold fish and polished off more than a few of his chips (completely unthinkingly, he’s sure) when they’re informed that closing time’s come and they have to clear the table. It would be completely natural for them to part ways and see each other in the morning for another round of sparring, but he finds himself saying, “I think I might go get a drink,” and finds her answering, “I think I might join you.”

He regrets it just a bit when he’s balanced on the bar stool (he really is exhausted; this is the earliest he’s been out of the office in days) but then Kate raises her wineglass and says, “To the homestretch,” and smiles just a bit as he touches his glass to hers. The light falls cozy and dim around them and he can still see exactly how long and competent her fingers are, wrapped around the stem, the places where strands of hair have escaped their pins, trailing down to rest against her exposed throat.

Right, he thinks inanely to himself. Right, excellent, this was a good choice, and belts back his scotch before signaling for another.

“Those were your siblings?” she asks, taking a sip of her own drink. “At trivia the other night?”

“Some of them were...are…” He shakes his head, trying to straighten out his own meaning. “It was some of my siblings, the oldest four, and my brother-in-law, and my sister’s best friend.” Then, before he can stop himself, he adds, “I saw your sister was there as well.”

“Hmm,” she says, taking another sip of her cabernet, and he can see her spine stiffening, armor reasserting itself.

For the first time, he realizes that she could easily hate Edie, her younger sister - her younger half-sister, even - who is sweet and accomplished and more apparently pretty, the one people’s eyes turn to when the Sheffield girls are around, but what Kate displays is no begrudging love.

It would probably be better for him to change the topic, get them back on safer ground, but though he might be smart, he’s not necessarily wise, so he tosses back his second scotch and asks, “Why did you warn me off her the first time? You didn’t even know me.”

“Yes, but I knew of you,” she says. As always, she faces the comment head on, doesn’t even pretend not to remember exactly what he’s talking about. “I was starting in the industry, I needed to have an ear to the ground and at least a general sense of the players, and I didn’t like the sense I got about you. It didn't make me think you were the kind of person to trust with my sister.”

“I’ve never—I would never—I don’t think I’ve—” he says, stumbling, slightly stricken. He knows that there are whisper networks about the people - the men - in their field, knows exactly who some of the whispers are about and has done his best to be the type of person who helps make those whispers into shouts. It would kill him a bit to find out that he’s done something that would make someone feel the need to speak about him that way.

“Not necessarily on a personal level,” she says, suddenly gentle, then circles her finger around the rim of her glass and amends, “Well, not that way. People actually said you were very smart and a good employer, but when I learned more about your history, the jobs you’d worked on in the past, it didn’t feel like there was any principle to your choices. As if you were just willing to sell yourself to whoever asked, or at least whoever looked good on a resume. Edwina deserves more than that.”

She is looking at him extremely frankly, as if she hasn’t just shrugged away the idea of the career he’s built, but with the way she says her sister’s name, the softness of it, how she somehow makes the full, old-fashioned version more personal than the nickname - he understands that sort of devotion. Hearing it from her steals the irritation beginning to build even as she continues. “I could never even entirely figure out why you went into politics rather than something else. You’re reasonably intelligent, you could have done any number of things if you weren’t particularly invested in the issues.”

Somehow, instead of the protest he was expecting, that he was intending, what comes out is simply, “It’s the family business.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The Bridgerton Group. My father started it.” By her expression, she doesn’t think that two generations exactly makes a family legacy, but for once she holds her tongue, and his, loose with drink and exhaustion, can’t hold back.

“I grew up playing under the table at a dozen campaign offices across London and having poster mock-ups as my placemats. When I was a bit older, I was allowed to volunteer, and I loved seeing him there, in his element, listening to proposals and then telling everyone, ‘Well, here’s what we’re going to do.’” He swallows. “He—My father died, just after my first year at university, and I wasn’t old or experienced enough to take his place. The staff went off to work for other people, and all I could think about was how disappointed he would have been, to see this thing he’d built, this thing he loved, fall apart so easily. The entire time until I graduated, while I was getting experience with other consulting firms and working on other campaigns, I was just waiting until I could do justice to what he left behind for me.

“He nearly called it ABC Consulting, but my mother told him that it sounded too juvenile. My parents had me and my brothers fairly young - he was still a student when Benedict and I were born - and he wanted to name it after us.”

He realizes as soon as he’s said it that he’s only ever admitted that once before, to Simon on a similarly drunken night during their final year at school, forgetting the way that Simon and his father were, or weren’t, with each other; his friend’s face had closed up as soon as the words had left Anthony’s mouth, and they’d never talked about it again. But Kate’s face is open, listening, more than he thinks he’s ever seen from her, in such a way that he thinks he could reveal anything to her.

He could tell her about the trouble he and his brothers got up to as children, or how he likes watching baking shows to relax even though he’s not worth a damn in the kitchen, or that he can’t stop himself from adding another mile to his morning run each time he finds a gray hair. He could start talking about how complicated his feelings have grown regarding the man who was once his best friend, or about the way his entire chest had burned as his mother placed a squalling Hyacinth into his nineteen-year-old hands before closing her eyes and about how he never wants either of them to know that he’d tried to force himself not to tremble and had trembled anyway. But this isn’t the time for any of that, so he continues.

“I wanted to put it back together for him. There were candidates I took on in the early days who were stepping stones, necessary to building a reputation but who I wouldn’t work with again now that I have the reputation and the choices that come with it. And I have my own opinions on the issues - some of which might match yours more closely than you’d expect - but I’m there to make sure that the candidates who hire me succeed in getting where they want to be. I’m good at that, and I’m committed to it, and I’ve never run a campaign I wasn’t proud of. Sometimes, though, being around you, I wonder if you're going to eventually talk me into a different philosophy.”

His glass is full again though he isn’t sure when that happened, and a group of middle-aged men with ties undone and suitcases beneath their eyes fumbles past the bar behind them toward a booth, but the only thing he is paying attention to is Kate’s considering gaze on him as she absently swirls the wine remaining in her glass.

“I have the feeling,” she finally says, “that when you say a different philosophy, you consider it a more naïve one. And I’m not certain that our opinions on the issues would really match up considering that you grew up with family money.” Her voice is not arch or insulting, though, and he would certainly know.

“We were...comfortable,” he admits. She raises a waspish eyebrow in response.

“No one who’s actually middle class would ever put it like that,” she informs him. “You most definitely have a trust fund.” But she actually smiles at him, and for once he knows what it’s like to have Kate Sheffield look at him with warmth in her eyes.

He’d quite like to have that again.

“Do you think—?”

“That we should dignify the remarks with a response? No, I absolutely do not.”

Anthony glares down at the article he has pulled up on his phone, then looks over at Kate, striding down the hall beside him, eating slices of peach out of a reusable container. For a moment he’s distracted from the rumormongering on behalf of one of their opposing campaigns; he thinks of Kate’s hands carefully working the knife around the fruit, of the way her tongue flicks over to catch the juice when she takes a bite…

“I could reach out,” he says, too loudly, before he walks into a wall. “I know the head of the campaign over there, I can remind him about the spirit of fair play and all that, especially this close to the finish line.”

She looks over at him incredulously, snapping the top onto her empty Tupperware. “I don’t care if you were the best man at his wedding, he’ll laugh you off the phone. I’ve had at least three listicles of our candidate’s best insults toward her opponents forwarded to me just this morning.”

“I had the feeling that wouldn’t work.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Just three days left, for better or worse. “Fine, so we say nothing and hope that it passes out of the media cycle quickly and doesn’t do too much damage to the absentee votes.”

“As I said from the beginning.”

“You are far too determined never to let me have the last word,” he says, just the slightest bit amused, as they circle around the desks of the main office, edging their way over to hers.

She snags the toe of her ballet flat on a computer charger trailing across the floor, stumbles, but he catches her hand just in time and sets her upright again. She continues walking as if it hadn’t even happened, raising her voice enough to be heard over the chatter and buzz of phone calls as she teases, “What would be the fun in that?”

Aghast, he says, “We aren’t here to have fun, Sheffield.”

“Oh, did you actually want to win?” She tosses the empty container onto her desk as she drops into her chair, then looks up at him, swiveling slightly from side to side and shaking her head. “You really are a cliché.”

“Yeah, well, here’s another one: get to work.”

“I’m not sure that’s technically a cliché, but I suppose I could do that,” she says, with a shrug and a grin, turning toward her computer. He watches her for another few seconds, and then takes himself off to his office before he becomes too much of a cliché himself.

Despite the phone call he had earlier with his mother promising her that he wouldn’t, he falls asleep on his desk the night before the election, startling himself awake hours later.

“Too bloody old for this,” he mutters to himself, grimacing as seemingly every joint and muscle in his body quite firmly announces itself when he stands. Scrubbing a hand through his hair, he gathers his things and makes his way through the darkened office.

Except it isn’t as dark as he’d expected. He scans the desks to try to figure out who left their lamp on, and finds Kate with her head resting on her arms, essentially imitating him from ten minutes prior.

Briefly, he stands there, not entirely sure what to do, but then he walks over, hand hovering by her shoulder before he gives her a light shake.

“Kate,” he says softly, crouching so he’s closer to her level. Her loose ponytail drapes over the burgundy of her blouse, quite close to his hand. He had not realized that he would recognize the scent of her, clean and straightforward with a subtly delicate edge; he should have known - he’s been smelling it in his dreams for weeks. He swallows and shakes her once more. “Kate, you should go home.”

“That was meant to be my line,” she says, far more lucidly than he would have expected. He shifts back as she stirs and sits up, massaging her fingers over her eyes. “I had the feeling that you weren’t going to leave at a sensible time, so I was planning on reminding you before I went home, only apparently I can’t leave at a sensible time either.”

“No, I suspect that sensible times to leave the office don’t involve the letters A or M,” he agrees. “Not that I would know anything about that.”

As she readies herself to leave, he tries to remember that the way she stretches out her back or takes down her hair, how she swings her bag over her shoulder, the quick, assessing way her eyes cover the room to make certain everything is in its place: all of that should be unremarkable. But there’s a moment, just the tiniest sliver of time, when she’s flicked off her desk lamp and they begin to walk out together in the glow of the emergency exit signs and the dim light of windows from other office buildings - she glances over at him, his hair rumpled, tie and briefcase dangling from one hand, and he thinks that he sees her swallow in a way that he recognizes all too well.

And then the moment is gone, and they’re out on the sidewalk, about to go their separate ways, the car he’d called for her already waiting.

“Big day tomorrow,” he says over the top of the door, holding it open as she climbs in. “Are you ready for it?”

“I’m always ready.”

He laughs, soft as the night around them. “Yes, I suppose you are. Good night, then.”

She looks at him one last time in the yellow beam of the streetlight, still a bit sleepy-eyed but no less aware for it. “Good night, Bridgerton,” she tells him, and drives away, and he can’t help but wonder about what if she hadn’t, what if he’d said something or she had made a choice, what if she didn’t drive away from him again.

The day of the election is always the worst for him - all the work behind him, nothing really to be done but let the people vote. He’s in the office earlier than usual anyway, early enough that he isn't certain it was worthwhile going home, but this, at least, he can control. He manages to keep himself busy throughout the day, but it’s all just a countdown to that night.

Somehow, despite - or perhaps because of - the sleeplessness and planning and stress, it isn’t one those contests that drag on. Dr. Danbury is brought on stage at about a quarter to one alongside the other candidates; the results, when the returning officer announces them, are decisive.

She’d brushed away his offers to help or choose a staffer or hire someone to work on her speech with her; instead she’s written it herself, and although brief, it’s as firm and irreverent as she is. He suspects that no one will ever pack as much sarcasm into referring to certain colleagues as “the right honorable.”

He makes some calls and receives congratulations from his mother and siblings, who have long since ceased to find these sorts of things interesting enough to attend but who make certain to keep up from home. As Dr. Danbury frees from handshaking and small talking, he makes his way over to her.

“Congratulations, ma’am.” He holds out his hand, which she eyes with a lifted brow.

“Anthony Bridgerton, I’ve known you since you were charming people from your mother’s arms, and considering that - not to mention all we’ve been through together over these last months - I think you can stand to give me more than just a handshake.”

He hugs her, which feels odd and tells him more than anything that the campaign is over. When he pulls away from her, she pats his cheek. “Now, go celebrate. You’ve earned it. I’m certainly going to.” And she winks.

The campaign staff is making plans for drinks and dancing and even just going home to raise a glass with loved ones. He wades into the group, patting backs and shaking hands, speaking briefly to some of them, smiling all the while.

And then he sees Kate, toward the edge of the crowd, chatting with one of the young guys from finance. Edwina is beside them, likely not as inured to the excitement of the night as the Bridgertons.

Kate, the taller of the two, spots him, leaning over to say something to her sister before weaving her way over. He tips his head toward a quieter little hallway, and they go over together, leaning against parallel walls.

“Congratulations,” they say to each other at the same time, and then immediately after, “I only wanted to say—”

He nods at her to go first. It’s only polite. But there’s an unusual sort of trepidation about her face, a pause that he doesn’t expect, that makes him wonder if she wishes that he’d taken the initiative. Still, she’s Kate, so she takes a breath and comes out with, “Edwina is here tonight, and if you still wanted—Clearly I misjudged you, and so if you were still interested in her, I wouldn’t say anything.”

“Oh,” he says, and that is all he can manage for the moment, standing frozen and watching Kate force her shoulders back and her gaze to his.

He does not know precisely how to communicate the depths to which he has realized that he does not want to date Edie Sheffield, that he never wanted to date her, that his interest lies entirely elsewhere. What he says instead is, “I had wanted to ask you to stay on with the Group. Permanently. You’re very, very good at what you do, and I think that...You know, your perspective and your clarity during the campaign was extremely helpful, extremely valuable, to me.”

He can picture it plainly, has been picturing it already: Kate taking him to task about every little issue, forcing him to remember the things outside of the campaign itself, the bigger things. Kate, with her hair swept up and her eyes bright and furious, challenging him to be the best version of himself, or at least to want to try.

But then she looks up at him and says, “I’ve actually had another job offer recently. The candidate—I’m sorry, the MP-elect wants me to be her new chief of staff, and I was already inclined to accept.”

“You’re going to be incredible at that,” he says immediately, blank shock quickly giving way to sincerity then laughter. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. Maybe I just didn’t think that Parliament was ready for it.”

“That’s probably for the best, though. Element of surprise and all.”

Her voice doesn’t trail away but as his laughter does, so does her smile, her animation; the air seems to fall thin and still. He doesn’t know that there’s ever been a beat of awkwardness between them like this, not even when they have been at their most prickly with each other, but it’s there now, in her eyes as she looks across at him, in his gut as he wonders what to say next.

“I’m glad you got another job offer,” is what comes out, and there is her unamused, interrogative eyebrow, hovering upward.

“So you weren’t serious with yours?”

“No, of course I was, it’s only that...Well, I’ve been your boss up until now, regardless of how much you might believe it should be the other way around.” That even gets him a slight returning smile, enough for him to ignore the dryness in his mouth and the franticness of his chest to say, “And if you had taken the job with me, I would have continued to be your boss. Which would have made it rather unacceptable for me to ask you out.”

In the space of that breath, with the silence heavy between them even as they stand right beside a crowded room, even as Dr. Danbury’s voice crows easily above the others, still practiced from projecting through the university lecture hall, he wonders if she is going to leave him like this, cards on the table, only the fall below him.

“Well,” she finally says, slow as anything. She is looking up at him, considering and careful, but he knows that her mind must be working at triple its already remarkable speed. “If I’m going to be around the city, and there’s no conflict of interest…”

He doesn’t entirely like the way it is turning into something neat and logical in front of him when he’s never felt anything close to that around her. He doesn’t like the way she looks tentative, pushing back against the edge of something more than caution - fear, perhaps, as if this might be a trick, as if the idea of allowing herself to crack open is unbearably terrifying, and it looks wrong on her face, so bold and familiar, he never wants to see that expression there again. He reaches out across the space, and when she reaches back, he takes her hand.

“Kate,” he says. “You are the most infuriating person I’ve ever known and possibly the smartest, you are wildly, overly principled and somehow make me want to be the same, you never let me have a moment’s peace, I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’d like to go on a date with you.”

“Well, that does sum things up nicely, Anthony,” she tells him, and despite herself, he can see a little snatch of a smile just there, the warmth growing in her eyes as they look right into him, the fear working its way from her. Still, she tries for nonchalance as she says, “My contract with the campaign doesn’t end until Friday. We can do Saturday night, if you’re up for it.”

He’s up for it. He takes her out Saturday night for dinner, hides a smile as she pokes fun at his shoes, gets into an argument with her about education funding, and goes to bed more distracted by a half hour of pressing her against her front door (and then onto her sofa for another twenty minutes) than he has any right to be considering he isn’t fourteen. He spends Sunday night with her too, and on Monday they go to see a movie they both hate but can’t stop talking about, and he is fairly certain he is going to spend essentially every night with her for the rest of his life.

It isn’t peaceful - and only likely to get busier once they both really get back to work - and her dog is a nuisance and Colin tries to take credit for the whole thing, and they’re so happy that neither of them cares.

#Bridgerton #Bridgerton fic #Anthony Bridgerton #Kate Sheffield #kathony #(is that what we're calling them?)#Kate/Anthony

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