#it is artfully arranged in my sai file

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 5: I Should Have Kissed You]

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, bodily injury, sloths, public indecency, another important conversation on a balcony, angst!

Selected Chapter Quote: “I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

Word count: 8k (+1 meme).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@doingfondue​ @catalina-howard​ @randomdragonfires​ @myspotofcraziness​ @arcielee​ @fan-goddess​ @talesofoldandnew​ @marvelescvpe​ @tinykryptonitewerewolf​ @mariahossain​ @chainsawsangel​ @darkenchantress​ @not-a-glad-gladiator​ @gemini-mama​ @trifoliumviridi​ @herfantasyworldd​ @babyblue711​ @namelesslosers​ @thelittleswanao3​ @daenysx​ @moonlightfoxx​ @libroparaiso​ @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics​ @mizfortuna​ @florent1s​ @heimtathurs​ @bhanclegane​ @poohxlove​ @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927​ @mariahossain​ @echos-muses​ @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​ @queenofshinigamis​ @juliavilu1​ @amiraisgoingthruit​ @lauraneedstochill​ @wintrr13​ @r0segard3n​ ​

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There’s turbulence over the Indian Ocean as the jet staggers towards Singapore, pitching and reeling, dark clouds churning beyond the windows like the malevolent brew of a caldron. Each time the plane plummets fifty or a hundred feet, you clutch reflexively at your armrests and try not to think of Cast Away. No one else seems bothered by it; that’s what years spent on international flights will do to people, you suppose. It dulls their instincts, tames them, sands down vestiges of primeval survivalism like a file taken to canine teeth. Cregan is ostensibly napping beneath his sunglasses, Daeron is propelling Mario through a maze of toxic fumes, Luke is watching The Crown on his laptop with Rhaena and Baela, Jace is applying shimmering, gelatinous, golden under-eye masks with great care, Criston is answering emails, Aegon is being forced by the label to click through online substance abuse education modules and sighs dramatically and often. And Aemond…

The jet loses a dozen meters of altitude and your stomach drops. You stifle a yelp with one hand as tears—unwanted and unforeseen—prickle into your eyes. You peek across the aisle to see Aemond watching you with his gaze of two blues: one like a clear cool river, the other an otherworldly maelstrom like the atmosphere on Neptune, beautiful yet barren. His expression is intense and searching, his brow low. You try to ignore him. You try to collect yourself.

“Honeybunch?” Shelby croons. Yes, she calls him honeybunch, freaking honeybunch, and occasionally Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s almost as nauseating as the turbulence. He turns to her after the briefest of hesitations. Shelby is crouched by a table, her project for the past hour: artfully arranged red roses, glass bowls of fruit that she spritzes with a spray bottle of water—like you’d use to discipline a cat—to keep it glistening, and bubbling flutes of pink champagne. When the careening of the jet sends anything sliding precariously towards the edge of the table, she casually pushes it back into place. Shelby is no stranger to flying either. She is an angel, born with wings.

“Yeah?” Aemond says distractedly.

“Can you come over here for a sec?”

The jet shutters; ripples quake through your ginger ale. You swallow down a pathetic mewing like a wounded animal’s, swiping a tear from your cheek. You nestle against the window so no one will notice. “Sure,” Aemond tells Shelby, casting you another glance as he stands. He goes to her—gripping the backs of chairs to keep his balance—and, after looking back at you one last time, swipes one gleaming strawberry from a bowl.

“Don’t!” Shelby whines, knowing that now she’ll have to rearrange things.

If Aemond heard her, he gives no indication. He chucks the strawberry as hard as he can at Aegon; it hits the side of his head with a wet thump. Tiny black seeds pop free. Juice like blood stains his blond hair.

Aegon rips out his earbuds and spins around in his seat. “Okay, what the fuck?”

“Whoops,” Aemond says dully.

“How does someone do that by accident?! How does that even happen?!” Rubbing his head with one hand, Aegon stretches and peers around the jet. His eyes—not a blue like clear water, but a deep murky cobalt, a difference you cannot help but notice again and again like the stinging of a papercut—catch on you. “Aww, Stargirl, what’s up?” He drags himself over, knocked to his knees once by the swerving of the jet, and plops down into the chair beside you. “You okay? Don’t worry. I’m a good swimmer. I’d drag you to shore.”

You laugh, pressing a napkin to your eyes. It comes away shriveled and damp. “I’m sorry. We get tornadoes back home sometimes, I can’t stop picturing wreckage.”

“You should have seen this flight we took last year over the Pacific. The jet was practically sideways. Jace threw up like ten times.”

“Three times,” Jace says, peeling off his under-eye masks like little gold jellyfish with his feet kicked up on an ottoman.

“Ten times?” Aegon replies innocently. “Ten, you said?”

“Three, you idiot.”

“Ten?”

“Three.”

“Ten!” Aegon confirms merrily.

Jace holds up an under-eye mask and jiggles it in the air, soft and wiggling and shapeless. “Hey guys! This is what Aegon looks like naked.”

“I don’t want him getting any of the money from my donut merch!” Aegon shouts. “Criston? You hear that? Criston? Hey Criston? Criston?!”

“Do your modules,” Criston replies without looking away from his emails.

“Fine,” Aegon huffs. The jet is gliding over the ocean more smoothly now. Still, he says to you after smacking a single sloppy kiss against your temple: “Follow me. You can help.”

You accompany Aegon back to his seat and laptop, a neon green MacBook Air. Shelby is snapping photos to post on Instagram, recording clips for TikTok: the meticulously arranged table, her long fingernails decorated with palm trees and Merlions and the flag of Singapore, selfies of her and Aemond…always taken to show his good side, of course. Your guts twist with hostility, mistrust, envy, wrath.

As you pass Jace, he holds out his discarded under-eye masks. “Wanna touch?” Jace invites you, leering. You peel one gluey under-eye mask from his open palm and examine it. As you massage the pool of viscous gold, Jace ogles, dangerously close to drooling.

“So soft,” you admire. “So smooth. Not a single wrinkle.” Then you fling it back at Jace. The adhesive side sticks to his forehead. “Just like your brain.”

Everyone howls, even Cregan—not asleep after all—and Criston; he tries to choke it down until his face floods red. Aemond is staring at the floor, but he is beaming. Shelby recaptures his attention and begins posing his hand around a glass of champagne, readjusting fingers like a physical therapist stretching and flexing half-healed limbs. She gets to touch him. She gets to speak to him.

“You’re always so mean,” Jace tells you as he pries the under-eye mask off his skin, unfazed, simpering, flirtatious. “You might have to make it up to me one day.”

“Unlikely.”

“We’ll see.”

“We certainly won’t.”

Aegon shows you the quiz that has popped up in his modules. “Okay, Stargirl. Time to prove yourself. Does coke make someone’s pupils bigger or smaller?”

All you can hear is Shelby’s high, sing-songy voice; all you can picture are her exquisite fingernails skimming their way down the ridge of Aemond’s spine. “I honestly can’t recall at the moment. Go snort some and we’ll find out.”

Aegon grins. “Don’t tempt me.”

Fifty minutes later and under blessedly clear skies, the jet touches down at Changi Airport: 88 degrees Fahrenheit, 80% humidity. Aegon groans as he trots down the airstair, slides on his aviator sunglasses, and wipes away sweat—already beading on his pink forehead and wetting the hair at the nape of his neck—with the back of one hand.

“Jesus Christ, I need a Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.”

“Do you really?” Jace jabs, and you don’t have to scold him this time. Baela gets there first, hissing something to him that is brief and fearsome. You’re only half paying attention. Once Comet Donati makes it through security, there may be paparazzi waiting for them inside the airport. Everyone knows this; it’s the same in every city and on every continent. And as Shelby strolls across the tarmac with one arm looped through Aemond’s, you cannot help but see—you cannot help but absorb like nicotine through the capillary beds of a lung—that she reaches out with those beautiful yet claw-like fingernails and taps the front pocket of his button-up shirt, black with white lilies, until he pulls out a pair of sunglasses and shields himself from the pitying eyes of the world with them.

And you think with puncturing clarity like a shard of glass through flesh: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Pan Pacific Orchard Hotel is brand new. You can’t breathe without inhaling fresh paint, glass walls, the bakery, the greenery that climbs steel like a trellis, the roomy emptiness of starting over. You wake up tangled in a nest of white sheets that your body has heated into an inferno. You don’t remember your dream, only that Aemond was there. It was the opening of the door that woke you. Aegon stands in the slanting early-afternoon sunlight, vivid red swim trunks and matching Crocs, his sunglasses knotted in his hair.

You yawn and peer blearily at him. “Aegon? What are you doing?”

“Every day I wake up hoping you’re still here,” he says. And then: “We’re all headed down to the pool. You wanna join?”

You smile; you can smell him in the air, Axe body spray, Tiger Beer, sunscreen that he never seems to apply often enough to stop his skin from burning. You haven’t been with him—not in that way—since that day in Paris. But time never feels quite linear with Aegon. He swings wide and then comes in close again, and when he does it’s like he never left. He’s with you always, and never, and sometimes, and forever. “Yeah. Give me ten minutes.”

“Cool.” He turns and studies himself in the full-length mirror that hangs on your bedroom wall. His eyes wander down to his bare chest and belly. He frowns, pensive, far-away, critical. It is an expression that looks entirely unnatural on him.

“Hey.”

He spins back around, running a hand self-consciously down the front of his torso. “Hm?”

“I think you’re perfect exactly the way you are. I am wildly, helplessly, pathetically attracted to you. I would fight off twenty fangirls with my bare hands for you. I think you’re one of the most ludicrously gorgeous men I’ve ever met in my life. ”

He grins, radiant again. “One of them, huh?” And he winks at you as he clops towards the door in his Crocs. “Maybe it runs in the family.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“So. College applications season will be here in a few months.”

Baela looks at you, started. You’re in a whirlpool with her, Rhaena, Luke, and Aegon, sipping pina coladas and kicking feet idly beneath water misty with bubbles. “Okay?” Baela says. Her swimsuit is an elegant white one-piece that—unintentionally you think, unconsciously, and yet truthfully—closely resembles a ballet leotard.

“Elaborate?” Luke says, then slurps noisily on his pina colada.

Aegon already knows where you’re going. He chuckles into one closed fist; you can see yourself reflected in his sunglasses. In the massive main pool punctuated by an arcing bridge and a miniature island, Cregan is lounging on a float shaped like a pineapple and eating his way through a heaping plate of juicy slivers: papaya, mango, starfruit, banana, lychee, rose apple, dragon fruit. Criston is sitting under an umbrella and reading a New Yorker profile of shipping tycoon Viserys Targaryen—a Greek by birth and a Brit by choice—with narrowed, vexed eyes. Jace and Daeron are attempting to do a TikTok dance for Shelby to post on her account and repeatedly screwing up, laughing hysterically and pushing each other into the pool. She always wears eye-catching patterns, leopard prints and retro geometric shapes and plaids and Swarovski crystals and tassels. Currently, she is dressed in a scarlet bikini and a sheer coverup of tropical flowers. Her blond hair flows down her back and swings like a horse’s tail when she leans in to direct her cast, pointing and waving. You see her like this, not in whole but in pieces: long beachy waves, nimble ankles and wrists, lip gloss, veneers, sugary perfume, tall like Aemond. Shelby has no idea why you’re here. She made a few tentative inquiries—So who introduced you to the band? So how did you and Aegon meet?—before being discouraged by the ensuing stilted silence. Aemond rarely acknowledges you. Presently, he is wading in the pool up to his chest, occasionally talking to Cregan but otherwise content to be left to his own…reverie? Observations? Machinating? Brooding? With his sunglasses on, it’s difficult to tell.

Back in the whirlpool, you ask Baela: “What if you applied to a few ballet programs?”

“What?”

“Just to see what happens. Just to have options.”

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that.” She says this so quickly it’s clear that it’s a reflex: something she does not think about, something she’s trained herself not to.

“Sure you could. You click a few buttons and it’s done.”

“I’d have to send in video clips and stuff.”

“Okay. Rhaena and I will help record you.”

“Absolutely,” Rhaena agrees right away. She drinks her pina colada with large, skittish eyes, watching you like you’re poking a tiger, a viper, and dragon. She’s tried to have this conversation before. She knows how it usually goes.

“I’m really not in shape right now,” Baela protests.

“You still have time to work on that. It’s only July.”

“And who says I want to work on it?” Baela snaps. “Have I ever mentioned ballet school? Have I ever said that I want to go?”

“But you do,” you say simply.

She frowns as she casts her gaze across the pool. Beefy men dressed in black—security guards, some employed by the band, some by Shelby—mill around aimlessly like ants when you lift a rock.

“I think you should apply,” you tell Baela.

“I can’t,” she replies, pained.

“Why not?”

“Because.” She’s flustered, cross. Rhaena and Luke look between the two of you anxiously. Aegon just smiles and gnaws on the hunk of pineapple that came perched on the rim of his pina colada. “Am I supposed to send Rhaena off into the world without me? Nothing against you, Luke, I like you, I trust you, but when you’re on stage or in an interview you can’t watch out for her. What if something happens to Rhaena? Or what if I go back to school and I’m a failure? What if I humiliate myself? What if I’ve lost whatever talent I once had? What if I couldn’t keep up with my classmates? What if I get injured and have to drop out? What if I’m too old, or too out of practice, or what if I don’t even enjoy dancing anymore? What would I do about the band? What would I do about Jace?”

“Those are all valid concerns,” you say. “But they’re also concerns for after you’ve applied to schools. If you get acceptances, that doesn’t mean you have to go. But it does give you options. And options are always good.”

Baela shrugs. She catches handfuls of bubbles in one cupped palm, preoccupied. “It just seems like a waste of time.”

Aegon snickers as he tosses the pineapple rind over his shoulder. One of the security guys snatches it up off the concrete and throws it in a trashcan. “Baela, please babygirl, don’t give up on your dreams for freaking Jace.”

“And who the fuck solicited your life advice, blond Nikki Sixx? If I want to know what Narcan feels like, I’ll ask you.”

Aegon sighs, rubbing one eyebrow. “You are never going to let that go.”

“I bet you’d get in,” Luke tells Baela. “To at least one school. You’re too good not to, even with the time off. Rhaena’s shown me old recital clips. You were fantastic.”

“Were,” Baela mutters. “Past tense. Very distant past tense.”

“If you don’t get in, then you know it’s off the table,” you say. “And you’re in the exact same spot you are now. But if you do get in, you have time to figure out what to do with that information. You have nothing to lose except application fees, and I don’t think those are much of a barrier for you, oh great connoisseur of Gucci and Hermès.”

“I’ll think about it,” Baela replies, and her intent to end the conversation is clear. A few awkward moments creep by like afternoon shadows stretching across pavement. “So, what are we doing for dinner?”

“Something quick, right?” Luke says. “Takeout? We have a meet-and-greet in two hours.”

“Jollibee!” Rhaena exclaims, clapping her hands. “They have coconut pineapple pie!”

“Chicken Up,” Aegon says.

Luke laughs. “What the hell is a Chicken Up?”

“A chicken restaurant.”

“Groundbreaking” Baela quips.

“I’ve been to one in Seoul. Great wings.”

“But…but…Jollibee!” Rhaena pleads. “I need a coconut pineapple pie!”

“You’re literally drinking a coconut pineapple smoothie right now. When am I supposed to get my wings?!”

“Out of loyalty, I will have to vote for Jollibee,” Luke informs Aegon apologetically.

“I saw a Five Guys when we were driving here from the airport,” Baela suggests.

“Oh, I love Five Guys!” you say…and then you realize how it sounds. All of you giggle so loudly that Aemond looks over at the whirlpool, a little intrigued, a little miserable. He sinks down into the transparent blue water, Godzilla retreating from his wreckage.

Baela teases you: “Like, all at the same time, or…?”

“No, definitely one after the other. I don’t want an audience.”

Aegon chuckles, low and devious. He sets his empty pina colada glass on the rim of the whirlpool. Then, unprompted, he takes off his aviator sunglasses and puts them on you instead. Strange.

Rhaena is saying: “Okay, but seriously, I cannot overstate the merits of Jollibee…”

Beneath the water, obscured by riotous bubbles, Aegon settles a hand on your thigh. You glance over at him. He glances back, so subtly that the others don’t notice; they are deeply entrenched in their dinner debate. Now Baela is pitching MOS Burger.

Aegon arches an eyebrow. Okay? he’s asking. In reply—and after a moment’s hesitation—you open your thighs a little wider for him. His lips curl into a furtive smile. His palm skates excruciatingly slowly over your skin, taunting, electrifying, fingerprints dragging lightly. He’s still carrying on a conversation with the others, gesturing with his free hand. You sip your pina colada and try to act just as casual.

“Look,” Aegon is saying. “I’m not gonna eat someplace where they serve spaghetti with hotdogs in the meat sauce. It’s unnatural.”

His fingers slip beneath your swimsuit bottoms. You gasp before you can stop yourself.

“You okay?” Baela asks with concern.

You nod, blood rushing in your cheeks, blood rushing everywhere. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I saw a bug.”

Luke says: “Man, the insects here are insane, some giant buzzing black-and-gold thing flew into my face earlier today and I almost cried.”

“A cicada,” you murmur. You grip the rim of the whirlpool and try to keep still, fixing your gaze on the palm trees that surround the pool, waving lazily in a hot humid breeze. “We have them in Missouri too. But ours are green.”

Rhaena is saying: “Apparently Singapore is famous for some super-rare beetle that’s been around for like 50 million years…”

Aegon’s expert fingers are circling, applying pressure, experimenting with different rhythms. He knows he’s found the right one when you suck in a breath and almost drop your pina colada; his smile is filling up his face, he’s fighting a grin. That feeling—a heat, a glowing, an unfurling like an opened letter—builds until it hits a blissful yet constraining plateau. It’s a ceiling, it’s a landing with no more steps. You stare at the swaying palm trees and try to relax, grateful for Aegon’s aviator sunglasses to hide behind. He’s half-watching you as he chats nonchalantly, wondering what more you need from him.

The conversation that whirls around you has revolved back to dinner: Shake Shack, Yoshinoya, Nene Chicken, Marrybrown, Wingstop.

“We should go somewhere that has vegan options,” you say shakily.

“What? Why?” Rhaena asks; she has forgotten, but you never do.

“For Aemond.”

You steal a glimpse of Aemond over in the main pool and see him taking a piece of starfruit off Cregan’s plate. Aemond bites into it—those pristine, glistening, golden angles—and wipes juice from his lips with the back of one hand. Then he looks over at you: two people pretending they don’t see the other, two pairs of sunglasses meant to render certain things invisible. And immediately, without planning to, you are thinking about Aemond touching you. You are thinking about his lips and his fingers, his shoulders, his throat, his eye devouring parts of you he’s never seen. You are thinking about where you would both be now if Reykjavik had never happened. And as Aegon’s hand works beneath the veil of bubbles, you are close, so close, agonizingly close. You are incapable of following the conversation. It takes everything in you not to moan and reach down into the roiling water to press him even more forcefully against you. His fingers glide through folds that are slick and achingly ravenous. Your pina colada is melting.

Someone makes a restaurant suggestion; you can’t register it. Aegon holds up the index finger on his free hand. “One moment. Allow me to consult my associate.” He leans into you, his hair brushing against your face, smelling like beer and sunscreen and pina coladas and Axe body spray. And he whispers as he pushes two fingers inside you and strokes you insistently with them: “Come for me, pretty girl. Right now.”

And while these words are in Aegon’s voice, for a split second you image them as Aemond’s; and then your climax shudders through you, silent by necessity but mind-numbing, a reset button, a deleted message, an echo chamber of nothing, nothing, nothing. For a moment, there’s no past and no future, no Kansas City, no Rome, no Reykjavik, no Singapore, no shame and no guilt and no desire for anything. And then slowly, like drops of rain, the world begins to fill back in again.

Aegon turns your face towards him so your lips are to his ear. You have to say something. “You’re unbelievable,” you exhale, so softly no one else will hear. “You can’t be real.”

He tells the others: “She says she votes for Chicken Up.”

When Aegon leaves the whirlpool, you follow after him a few minutes later, just long enough of a gap not to arouse any suspicions. You find him alone in the band’s private cabana and talking to someone on his iPhone. You kneel down beside his lounge chair and bend over his neon red swim trunks, palming him through the fabric—almost immediately, he is hard—and untangling the knot of the drawstring.

“Okay. Sounds good. I gotta go. Emma? Hey, Emma? I gotta go now. Yeah. See you soon. Uh huh. Bye.” Aegon hangs up and sets his phone down. Then he hooks a finger beneath your chin and lifts it. “What are you doing?” he asks, amused yet kind.

“Taking care of you.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

Your hands go still; your face is lined with wounded bewilderment. “You don’t want me to?”

“Well obviously I want you to,” Aegon says. “But only if you’re really into it. Not just because you see it as a debt to be paid. This isn’t about reimbursement. This isn’t an ATM transaction. And, you know…” He shrugs, rueful. “I can tell you’re kinda going through it. And you’re the one who needs to be taken care of right now. That’s cool. That’s not a problem.”

You sit back on your ankles, feeling guilty but undeniably relieved. “It seems unfair to you.”

“Stargirl, I don’t mean this in a braggy way, but at all times I have a line out the door of women begging to take care of me. I think I’ll survive.”

“Okay.” You smile up at him. “Okay, Aegon. I get it. Thank you.”

His sunburned brow crinkles. He is confused. “For what?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Comet Donati is scheduled to play three nights at the National Stadium. On the afternoon of the second show, Luke and Rhaena go to Fort Canning Park to explore the archaeological excavation site, Jace and Baela depart to procure his tattoo to commemorate Singapore (a Merlion on his left pec), and you, Aegon, Cregan, Criston, Daeron, Aemond, and Shelby receive a private tour of the Mandai Wildlife Reserve to promote the conservation of endangered Southeast Asian species. There are conversations with the staff and generous gift baskets and photo ops—which each time you quietly step out of the frame for, while Shelby steps in—but what snags in your mind, what you will remember forever about this day is Aemond. Because when he holds the animals, he lights up like you haven’t seen since those YouTube videos of Comet performances before the accident in Tokyo; he becomes at peace, he becomes whole again. He lets a blue tarantula creep across his palm and forearm, he feeds pumpkin slices to Asian elephants rescued from circuses, he walks around with Bunny the sloth draped over his chest like a napping toddler. And he smiles wistfully the whole ride back to the hotel…even when Aegon makes Criston stop the Escalade at Starbucks so he can get a venti-sized Double Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino.

Shelby likes to be in the front row with you, Baela, and Rhaena, but she spends less time dancing and cheering than she does taking selfies and recording video clips. During your now least-favorite song, A Girl Named After A Car, you spend a few minutes covertly scrolling through Shelby’s latest Instagram posts. She’s been sharing Stories relentlessly, but her last photo is from the private jet: her beaming smile, Aemond’s more reticent one (and only his good side, his smooth cheek and clear river-blue eye), a meticulously-arranged bouquet of flowers clutched to her chest like a gift. The comments are a waterfall of praise worthy of a saint. I was praying you two would get back together! You have such a kind and selfless heart, Shelby! You are so good for him! You are so brave! Thank you for showing the world that beauty is only skin-deep! Like she’s goddamn Mother Teresa. Like she deserves an Olympic medal for finding the strength to love him.

And you think once again, not for the first time and not the last: I hate her, I hate her, I hate her.

After the concert is a ritual, like drawing a pentagram or burning sage. People converge in Jace’s suite to mingle and drink and smoke and find someone to fuck if that vacancy isn’t already filled. You loiter by the bar even after you are handed your Bramble, a drink that should be poisoned by the fact that Aemond introduced it to you; but you can’t stop craving it. Criston is pacing and trying to make a call out on the balcony; from the look of his expression, the person isn’t answering. Cregan is in a velvet lounge chair with three models on his lap; they are taking turns feeding him the dripping cherries that bob in their cocktails. The rest of the band is sitting nearby and discussing their plans for next year once the tour has ended. You overhear Rhaena saying that she wants to visit the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. Luke wants to finish writing a new album. Aemond is conspicuously quiet.

Security guys float through the room between currents of musicians, label executives, friends, acquaintances, assistants. Shelby has her own detail that follows her everywhere; approximately every eight hours they switch out and new faces show up. Sometimes you recognize them from a prior shift, sometimes not. They look through you like you don’t exist at all.

A seat is waiting for you between Aegon and Baela, but you are in no hurry to sit opposite of Shelby and be forced to bask in the radiance of her flowing zebra-print dress, red-lipped, California-sun perfection. As you procrastinate with your Bramble, you listen to Daeron ask her about the Met Gala next May.

“Yeah, I finally made it onto the planning committee!” she gushes.

“Yay!” Baela trills, palpably sarcastic.

“Make it donut themed,” Aegon slurs. He has had a lot of Tiger Beers.

“I was thinking a masquerade ball, actually,” Shelby says, then looks at Aemond and settles a hand on his thigh. “We can go together, honeybunch! The timing never worked out before, but I’ve always wanted to attend with you.”

Luke asks: “And what’s the inspiration for the masquerade ball…?”

“Well, you know.” Shelby gestures vaguely. “Aemond won’t have to feel bad.”

Because everyone will be wearing masks. There is a long lull as people piece together what she means. Jaws drop open. Eyes grow large and then blink at her, incredulous, appalled.

Finally, Jace chuckles awkwardly. “Oh fuck, did you really just say that?” He looks around at everyone else. “Did she really just say that?! I mean, I wouldn’t even have said that!”

“It’s fine,” Aemond says, getting up off the couch.

Shelby reaches for him. “Honeybunch, wait, you know I didn’t mean—”

“It’s fine,” he repeats roughly. He takes his Bramble with him as he escapes to the balcony. Criston returns inside just as Aemond goes out.

“What’s his problem?” Criston inquires. Nobody answers.

Shelby sighs and—as furious blood swirls hot in your veins—approaches the bar. “Can I get a gin and tonic?” She takes out her phone, scrolls for a while, sighs again. You are glaring murderously at her. Shelby doesn’t even notice. The bartender slides her a tall glass full of clear carbonated liquid, ice, cucumber slices. She takes a picture of it before she plucks out the straw, lays it on the counter, and swallows a single, ladylike sip straight from the glass. She says to the bartender: “Drinking out of straws gives you wrinkles, you know.”

You say to her suddenly: “What is wrong with you?”

Shelby turns to you, startled. “Excuse me?”

You take a step closer, your pinkish Bramble still clasped in your hand. “I’ll ask again: what the fuck is wrong with you?”

She’s backing away, jumpy, clicking in her black heels. “What are you talking about?!”

“How dare you say something like that about him. In front of him.”

“Oh, so now I’m a bitch?” Shelby snaps. “Because I want him to have a good time at the Met Gala? Because I don’t want him to be humiliated?”

“No, because you think there’s anything humiliating about him at all, that’s what makes you a bitch—”

She shoves you backwards, only a few steps. You throw your Bramble in her face. She screams like you’ve stabbed her; it’s a scream that says I don’t know what it’s like to be hurt. And instantaneously, one of her security guards has his monstrous hand around your wrist.

You hear the pop before you feel it: bubbles bursting, tethers snapping. Then the pain explodes into your consciousness like a flashbang grenade. You’re shrieking, and suddenly there are voices all around you and people tugging in every direction. The security guy still has a grip on your wrist; each time he moves, he yanks you along with him, igniting fresh flairs of agony, impossibly red Morse code.

“No no no no no!” Aegon is shouting, pawing at the security guy. “She’s with us, she’s with us—!”

“Let her go!” Criston booms. Rhaena is crying. Baela is punching the security guy in the kidneys. Comet’s security guards clash with Shelby’s security guards, a miniature civil war. Within seconds the misunderstanding is resolved and you are freed. You are engulfed by Aegon and Criston, who try to examine your wrist; you are holding it gingerly to your chest, not even aware that you are sobbing. Baela is berating the rogue security guard. Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, Cregan, and Cregan’s soon-to-be one night stands are gaping at the scene. Shelby is being comforted by several fellow influencers; they coo sympathetically and give her napkins to mop the Bramble from her face.

Aegon, drunk but not far-gone, coaxes your wounded arm from your chest. “Shh, shh, you’re okay, let me see it…”

“Broken,” Criston pronounces. “Or dislocated. Time to go.”

“I can’t go home,” you say, petrified. Your thoughts are muddled by shock and pain.

Criston shakes his head. “No, not home. To the hospital.”

“I can take her,” Aegon volunteers, lurching as he grabs a barstool to keep his balance.

“No!” you, Baela, Rhaena, Luke, Jace, Daeron, and Cregan burst out simultaneously.

“I’ll take her,” Criston says. “But you can come along, if you behave yourself and don’t try to steal morphine or anything. Bartender, I need ice…”

There is a commotion as Aemond bolts in from the balcony, moments too late. He looks at your swelling wrist, Shelby dripping with a Bramble, Baela taking a cloth full of ice cubes from the bartender and passing it to Criston. “What happened?!”

Aegon seethes as he pushes him aside: “Ask your fucking girlfriend.”

And Aemond watches, thunderstruck and horrified, as Criston escorts you out of the suite with Aegon and Baela following like shadows. When you glance back at him, he is growing smaller and smaller, like an object fading away in the reflection of a rearview mirror.

Under bright white lights, a gentle and mild-mannered Singaporean doctor maneuvers your bones back into place. It feels like you’re dying; Aegon tries to distract you with stories of shenanigans from tours long past, Baela finally begins to talk about ballet schools, which programs she likes and which she doesn’t and what exactly she’ll have to show in her audition tapes. The doctor informs you that you have a mild dislocation, no surgery needed, no cast, only a splint. He tells you to rest it and try to keep it elevated. He gives you pain medication that doesn’t do enough.

“That is an interesting saying,” the doctor says when he glimpses your tattoo, black ink between the straps of your pale pink dress, like the color of a healthy lung or brain: I’ll come back for you if it kills me, Comets clip by again after eons and so can I. You try not to think about these words. You don’t know what to make of them anymore. “Is it from a poem? Or a movie?”

“From a song,” you reply, studying the tiles of the floor. “One I used to love.”

Criston goes to pay the bill. Baela goes to get you a soda from the vending machine. “I’m sorry,” Aegon says miserably when the two of you are alone in the hospital room. Beer and remorse sweats out of his pores. “I’m sorry I fucked everything up in Reykjavik.”

“I know, Aegon. I’m not mad at you.”

“I shouldn’t have said it. I had way too much Icelandic beer, that was my bad. But it was supposed to be a compliment.”

“It was kinda sweet. In an unhinged, debaucherous sort of way. An Aegon way.”

And he burrows his head against your chest, and you comb your fingers through his messy blond hair with your uninjured hand, and you wish you understood why the coincidences of the world had brought you together if it was only a blip, an error, a momentary crossing of orbits before you returned to your designated places on opposite ends of the universe.

In the elevator, as the four of you zoom up to the top floor where the band’s suites are, you check your phone to discover that in addition to well-wishes from Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, and Cregan, Jace has sent you a WhatsApp message: A meme to make you feel better…

“Ugh,” you groan, and toss your phone back into your purse. You try to ignore the fact that there is nothing from Aemond, not a single word, not a missed call, nothing.

“You good?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah. The drugs the hospital gave me aren’t quite cutting it.” That’s very true, although that’s not the whole problem.

“You want some Vicodin?”

“No thank you, Aegon.”

“Oxy? Percocet? Klonopin? Codeine? Demerol? Coke? Speedball? Valium? Weed gummies?”

You blink at him as Criston and Baela stare at the elevator walls, trying not to listen in. “I think I’ll just go to sleep now.”

“Okay, Stargirl. Sure. Whatever you want.” He grabs your face, lands a kiss on your forehead, staggers off to his suite when the elevator doors ding and open. You walk in the opposite direction to yours after thanking Criston and Baela. As you pass Aemond’s suite, you can hear people arguing inside, heavy footsteps and sharp words.

“You need to get better control over your people,” Aemond is saying.

“Who even is she?! I know she’s not Aegon’s girlfriend. Aegon doesn’t have girlfriends.”

There is a gap of silence, and you wonder what Aemond will tell Shelby. She’s a fan, she’s an employee, she’s a groupie, she’s a slut. At last he says, drained: “She’s a therapist.”

“Oh, for you?”

And you can hear Aemond sigh through the door, perpetually a broken thing now, forever someone in need of being stitched back together; they got the flesh back in December, but the soul is still unmended.

You go to your suite, wash the night off of you, and pull on your Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized One Direction t-shirt. You can’t sleep yet; the pain in your wrist is too bad, the chaos in your mind is too loud. You take another pill from the bottle the doctor gave you and go out onto your balcony and sit in the sounds of Singapore past midnight: sparce traffic, buzzing cicadas, the ocean, the wind rocking the palm trees. When you hear the sliding glass door open, you aren’t sure who to expect: Aegon, Baela, Criston, Cregan, Jace. It is none of these people. It is Aemond. He stands there rigidly, like he hadn’t planned to get this far. He is in black—as usual—but he wears no sunglasses.

“Criston really needs to start keeping a closer eye on those extra room keys,” you say.

“I’m sorry about what happened tonight.”

“You don’t need to pretend to be worried about me. It’s fine, just leave.”

“I feel responsible.”

“I’m not someone you consider worthy of concern,” you say. “You want me to be honest with you? You want to keep a running list of my sins in your little black-paged notebook? Alright, sure. I’ve been hooking up with Aegon. Only after Reykjavik, and not…like…all the time or exclusively or anything. But occasionally. And I know exactly what you think of me and how I’ve chosen to live my life. So don’t come out here acting like you care when you clearly don’t.”

“I know what you told Shelby. I don’t…” He stares at you, a little mystified, a little grateful. “I don’t understand why you keep defending me after what I said.”

Because I believe you deserve better. And I care about you. And I can’t stop. And honestly it fucking sucks and so if you could just leave, that would be great. “That’s just what I do.”

You expect Aemond to go. Instead, he sits down in the other chair, lights one of his Benson & Hedges cigarettes, takes a drag and exhales smoke in a long, slow breath like a hushed confession. “I once asked what made you want to be a therapist.”

“And I didn’t tell you.”

“No.”

Your eyes list to him like a ship in a storm, groggy, clawing for purchase. “Do you still want to know?”

“I do.”

The night sounds like wind in clattering wet leaves, car horns and rolling tires, ocean waves, indistinct echoes of laughter like a memory. Aemond waits for you, patient, eternal, or at least so long-lived it’s practically the same thing. You wonder what he sees when he looks at you like this. You wonder why you can’t outrun what you feel for him, a curse or a spell or both tangled up together like veins beneath skin. “I had a boyfriend when I was in high school,” you say. “And I took pictures for him. Because he asked me to, yes, but also because I wanted to, because it made me feel desirable, and powerful, and like I was choosing to share something special with him. No one talked me into it, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. And when we broke up, he sent those pictures to his friends. And they sent them to their friends, and they sent them to their friends, and I’m sure you can do the math from there.”

Aemond doesn’t look disgusted or horrified or pitying. He looks furious, and not at you. “That’s illegal, right?”

“In some places, sure. In Missouri? Ten years ago?” You smirk cynically, shaking your head. “The only person anyone was condemning was me. And it wasn’t just the students. They said things, obviously. They wrote notes and they whispered. But it was the teachers too, and the parents, and the administrators. It was everyone. Staring at me. Talking about me like they understood who I was.” You meet Aemond’s eye. “And you called me a slut.”

He voice is hoarse. “I didn’t know.”

“But you still said it.”

“What I said…” he sighs shakily, rubbing his face with one hand. He crushes the end of his cigarette beneath his Adidas sneakers and then lights another. “What I said wasn’t a reflection on you or what you did with Aegon. That’s not what it was about. It was about me, it was about how I interpreted things, and…I mean, you get that, right? You know that. You’re a professional. I took what Aegon told everyone and I bounced it off a few mirrors and ran it through my filter of how I’ve been taught to believe the world operates, and that’s why I said what I did in Reykjavik. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t true. And I could never express to you how sorry I am.”

Tell me the whole story, you think, you plead, watching him like parched earth looks for rain. That you were afraid my feelings for you weren’t real. That you wanted me then and you still want me now. That you’ve never wanted anything the way you want me. But that’s not what Aemond says.

“What happened next?” he asks gently.

“What do you think? I had to be homeschooled. I lost every friend I’d ever had. I was terrified to leave the farm and go anywhere…to Walmart, to McDonald’s, to 7-Eleven, anywhere. And my parents…they’re Southern Baptists, okay? They tried to be supportive. They really did. They didn’t shame me, and that alone was a huge leap for them, and I’m very grateful. But they had no idea how to talk to me about what had happened. What they did do was find someone else for me to talk to. She was a therapist, and she saved my life. And when I got into UChicago, I decided that the only thing I wanted to do was help people in the same way.”

“Why didn’t you stay in Chicago?” Aemond says, bewildered. “I mean, why would you go back to Kansas City after the way people treated you there? So fucking closed-minded and hypocritical and…and…and evil? You were a kid. You were a goddamn kid and they tried to destroy you. Why would you go back there? You could have gone anywhere else. You still can.”

“I considered it,” you admit. “But my family has lived in Missouri for almost 200 years. It was once a place of opportunity, somewhere for people who had nothing to carve out a piece of the world and make it their own. Why should I let anyone banish me without my permission? And besides, I think Missouri could use more people like me. I can make a difference there. Someone like me in Chicago or London or Los Angeles or New York or Miami? I’m a dime a dozen. In Missouri, I’m part of the change. In Missouri, I can save people like I was once saved.”

“Hmm,” Aemond says. And then he smiles at you, kind and tender. “Pretentious.”

“Oh shut up,” you laugh, shoving him with your uninjured hand: his deep, warm, rolling chuckle, his broad shoulders that barely give beneath your palm.

His eye flicks down to your One Direction t-shirt. “And a traitor.”

Want me to take it off? you almost say. Instead: “As if you don’t idolize them. As if you wouldn’t deign to have a favorite One Direction song.”

“I couldn’t divulge information as sensitive as that.”

“Aegon tells me you spend a lot of time brooding to The Script.”

Aemond groans, but good-naturedly. You got me, his face says, surrendering. “True.”

“What’s your go-to crying on the floor song? Breakeven? Nothing?”

“The Man Who Can’t Be Moved. But now you have to give me one in return.”

“If You Ever Come Back. A certified tragic bop.”

He nods, thoughtful. He slides his phone out of his pocket to check it.

“Sexts from Shelby?” you ask with undisguisable vitriol.

“No. Favorite Coldplay song?”

You remember that night with him in Rome: the concert, the motorcycle, the lingering in the hotel room doorway as you waited for him to ask to stay. “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall. What’s yours? You strike me as a The Scientist stan.”

“Viva La Vida,” he counters.

Of course. “I used to rule the world,” you quote.

“Now the old king is dead, long live the king.” He looks out into the city, streetlights and ocean and wind, sounds of the planet you call home. Again, you think of Rome. “I should have kissed you,” he says softly.

Your heart stops like a car against a brick wall, glorious euphoric shattering. “What?”

“My favorite One Direction song. I Should Have Kissed You.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s great.”

“Yours?”

You have to think about this. At last you decide: “Through The Dark.”

“Ah. A deep cut.” Aemond checks his phone again. “Look up,” he tells you.

“Why…?”

“Right now. At the sky. Look up.”

You go to the balcony railing and peer up into the sea of darkness and moon and stars. And at first you don’t see anything extraordinary…but then you do. There’s a thin flash like white ink on black paper, tracing its way along the arc of the Earth. There’s a visitor, there’s a time traveler. “What is it?” you ask Aemond, entranced.

He gets up to stand alongside you. “The Perseids. A meteor shower that happens every summer. They’re difficult to spot from a city. Too bright, too much light pollution. There are hundreds, but here we’re lucky to glimpse one or two.”

“But they’re always there,” you muse, remembering what he told you in Rome about the comet that gave the band its name. “Whether we see them or not.”

Aemond points up at the faint silvery glimmer in the indigo night. “The Perseids are from a comet too. They’re debris left by Swift-Tuttle.”

“Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like Donati, does it? And no potential for cute donut merch.”

Aemond smiles. “Comet Swift-Tuttle is the largest object to cross Earth’s orbit so closely. Very, very closely. Luckly, it only swings by us every 133 years. It’s been called the single most dangerous object known to humanity.”

“I thought that was Jace.”

He bursts out laughing, gazing over at you with a face that in this moment he is unashamed of. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“I’m a universe away from Shelby, that’s for sure.”

Aemond’s smile dies. He clears his throat and puts out his cigarette. “I guess I should get going.”

“Yeah, I need to go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He hesitates, he acts like he’s going to say more, he leaves you on the balcony as he retreats back to his own suite, his own life, his own past and future and secrets.

And before you crawl into your empty bed, you look up at the Perseids one last time as they hurtle through space and time and gravity, through a landscape of constellations that Aemond could tell you the names of, through the dark.

[sirianasims]

Chapter 43.5

Idiot.

The voice in my head is persistent. It’s been over two months but it’s not letting up.

I try to focus on the lines, struggling to keep the faint remnants of my Tartosan accent from creeping into Llama Man’s commanding voice. It’s always more difficult just after I’ve been home.

Idiot.

Images from the last year keep flashing by, little details seared into my brain. Her green eyes. Her smile. The delicate birthmarks artfully strewn across her face. I used to insist on kissing each of them goodbye before I left and it always made her laugh.

It was the best sound in the world.

Idiot.

The more recent images are a different story. Her tears. The look of shock and confusion in her eyes. She didn’t understand, of course, and some days I’m not sure I do either. Am I an idiot for leaving her? Or for letting myself fall in love with her in the first place?

Both?

“Alright, Paul, that was good, but let’s do an extra take just to be sure.”

I nod at the sound technician and start over.

“I’ve sent the files off to Mike. Personally, I don’t think he’ll demand another round, the last two takes were flawless.”

“Thanks. I’m sorry for dragging you in for pick-ups again, I’ve been feeling a bit off lately.”

“Hey, it’s a pay check. And I’m going to need it for the move. We want to get settled into the new house before my son’s wedding so we’re already packing.”

“Did you find a job in Henford yet?”

“Not yet, but my wife got an offer. We’ll make it work. My kid is the only family I have left, so if he moves abroad, we follow. And I never liked staying in one place for too long anyway, I get restless.”

“Well, best of luck over there, Charles. The new sound tech will have some big shoes to fill.”

“Thanks, Paul. It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

Charles leaves, and I turn on the coffee machine.

I’ve just finished pouring two mugs when Lee arrives.

“Oh, you must have read my mind, love, I am positively dying for a coffee right now.”

“When are you not?”

Lee settles onto the sofa with a sigh.

“It’s been one of those weeks, deadlines put such a damper on my creativity. But how was Tartosa? Did you have a nice birthday?”

“It was fine. I didn’t feel like making it a huge thing, but my mother had arranged a family dinner at the vineyard.”

“Ah, just an intimate and completely non-threatening gathering with fifteen to twenty people, then.”

I lean back against the counter and take a long sip of the coffee to avoid responding. It’s still too hot, and I grimace as the liquid burns my mouth. Idiot.

Lee isn’t so easily deterred, though.

“So, that’s it? You’re just never going to see her again?”

“Lee, first of all, she blocked me. On my birthday, no less. So I’m going to take that as a big fat hint and respect her wishes. Second, I broke up with her because it was a dead end. She’s not going to settle down for another decade, and when she does, she’s not going to pick some fifty year old relic.”

Lee raises an eyebrow.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Yeah, I said it. Sorry to break it to you, Lee, but you’re old. Ancient. Practically dust.”

“I’m choosing to ignore your hurtful remarks because you’re clearly heartbroken and out of your mind with grief.”

I snort. “Sorry. I’m fine, really, I’m just annoyed at myself.”

“For irrationally breaking up with the love of your life or for stubbornly refusing to reconsider?”

“For being an idiot in general, I guess. I knew it was a bad idea. I even told her as much the first time I met her. But then I just had to go back and talk to her again like a complete dumbass and she practically invited herself back to my hotel. How could I say no to that?”

Lee chuckles. “Oh, but you couldn’t, of course you couldn’t. I mean, she’s not exactly my type, but I can still appreciate the aesthetics, as it were.”

“Right? And that might even have been fine if it never went any further, but I got carried away and kept seeing her even though everyone could tell it was going to end badly. We’re both better off like this, I’ll get over it.”

Lee just looks at me over the rim of his glasses.

“Are you sure? I may be a dusty old relic but as far as I’m aware, the only way you could possibly know that she blocked you is if you spent your birthday trying to look her up.”

“Thanks, detective. It was a moment of weakness, you don’t need to rub it in my face.”

“I’m not trying to rub anything in your face, love, I know it’s not your thing. But you were clearly serious about her if you were planning to bring her to Tartosa. And just because the poor girl understandably got slightly intimidated, you drop her like a newborn giraffe. Why not give her some more time?”

“I didn’t… Lee, it was the sensible thing to do! I just turned forty, I can’t just spend years waiting for her to make up her mind and hope for the best.”

“I don’t share your fetish for monogamy, but I believe all relationships are like that, you can never be certain. But you’ve always been stubborn so I’ll just give you the usual break-up advice. Get a haircut, hit the gym, put yourself back out there. Will you at least see my stylist?”

“Never. I am not brave enough to let Jessica Clemons near my wardrobe.”

beginning / previous / next

[pathetichoney]

i needed to practice drawing interactions just after i read the latest chapter of sound check and uh @unironically-dad i said kotone needed a hug and yup! hug time.

[drarrily-we-row-along]

Day 127: Fake Dating

"It's just annoying," Draco continued as he and Harry packed up for the night. "Literally every single party or brunch, I am hounded about when I'll start dating someone." He slammed his desk drawer closed, "I'm a bloody auror! I haven't got time to date anyone," he groaned. "And now I have this party tonight and I just know-"

"I'll go with you," Harry offered.

He broke off and stared at the other man. "What?"

"Yeah," Harry said with a shrug, "I'll go and be your pretend boyfriend, it would be easy to fake that we're dating since we already know everything about each other."

"But," he started, tilting his head at the other man, "Then people will think we're dating."

"I thought that was the point?"

He stared at Harry, waiting for it to click. When no click was forthcoming he said "but then people would think you're dating me."

"Am I missing something here?"

He rolled his eyes, "I don't think you quite understand what dating me entails."

"Ah, need to be pampered, darling? Wined and dined? Roses on Tuesday and dinner on Friday nights? I could bring you coffee in the morning-"

"I- What?" Draco spluttered. "No! No. Merlin, that's not what I'm saying, although, yes if we're being honest I want to be absolutely doted upon," he added.

"Obviously."

"Wait," he said, shaking his head to clear it, "You're missing the fucking point."

(Read more below the cut)

"Sorry," Harry said, smirking at him and not looking sorry at all, "What's the point?"

"The point," Draco said, poking him in the chest, "Is that dating me is not a pleasant experience."

"Oh come on," Harry teased, "You're not that bad."

"I am a fucking delight," he replied, exasperated, "I am saying that the press will make your life hell."

"Ah," he said, nodding, "I have no idea what dealing with the press is like."

"The press has been kind to you for at least the past decade because of the whole saving the world nonsense," Draco replied as he opened the door and held it open for Harry.

"Except for the lurid months after I came out and all sorts of lies were spread about me," Harry replied wryly.

He shook his head and headed toward the floos, "Even those were mostly flattering," he added with a lewd glance.

Harry laughed, "Whatever. My point," he said, poking him in the shoulder, "is that I'm not afraid of the press." He bumped his shoulder against Draco's, "Come on. What have you got to lose?"

"Fine," he huffed but his stomach was silently doing back flips while his heart did a complicated tap routine in his chest. "Meet me at the Screaming Goblin at 7:00pm sharp." He stepped toward the floo and turned, "Don't dress like a homeless person," he added before stepping into the floo.

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

Harry did not dress like a homeless person. In fact it was quite the opposite.

Harry looked fucking hot.

He was wearing tight dark-wash jeans and a lightweight jumper that hugged his body, making his strong, broad shoulders look even broader and his trim waist even narrowed. He'd done his hair, putting enough product in his curls to make them look artfully tousled and not a mess. And he'd arrived before Draco but instead of waiting, he'd gone in and bought Draco's friends a round and was sitting and yammering away at them.

As Draco approached, Harry turned his head and gave him a wide grin, "Hey, babe," he said, standing up and pulling out Draco's chair for him.

"Hi," he said weakly.

Harry pressed a kiss to his temple and a thrill shot through Draco's body as his brain went pleasantly fuzzy.

And thank Merlin for Harry because Draco hardly answered a question all night, hardly even heard a question all night because he was too busy focusing on the way it felt to have Harry's fingers trailing through the hair at the base of his skull. Harry talked and laughed with Draco's friends like they'd all been friends for ages as he sat with his arm resting on the back of Draco's chair.

When it was time to go, Harry helped Draco into his coat and bid all of the former Slytherins goodbye as he wrapped his arm through Draco's.

The bar wasn't far from Draco's but still Harry murmured, "Can I walk you?"

And Draco found himself charmed into saying yes.

Harry hummed, quiet now that all of Draco's friends were gone, but he still kept his arm looped through Draco's as they walked. When they arrived at Draco's front door Harry asked, "Everything alright?"

Draco's eyes snapped to his and he nodded, "I just can't believe how well they took to you."

He shoved his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and grinned up at Draco from the bottom step, looking entirely too pleased with himself. "Well, I can be very charming, what can I say?"

"It's a little strange-" Draco started but Harry leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of Draco's mouth and every word that Draco knew disappeared.

"Don't overthink it," he said with a wink. Then he turned and started off down the sidewalk calling, "See you tomorrow," over his shoulder.

Draco was half way to bed before he realized that there was no one watching when Harry kissed him on his door step.

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

They spent the next two weeks fake dating and it was the best dating experience Draco had ever had. Harry was sweet and doting, just like Draco had said he wanted and Draco enjoyed that thoroughly.

But what he hadn't expected enjoying as much as he did was being good to Harry in return. While Draco loved to be praised and brought little treats, Harry loved to be touched. He melted when Draco ran his fingers through his hair; when Draco held his hand, he got a huge dopey grin on his face that took hours to disappear; and even a casual touch, fingers trailing over the small of his back when Draco walked by, made his lips twitch up as he leaned into the touch.

Draco was quickly, and disconcertingly, becoming addicted to those smiles.

Smiles were in short supply that day, though. The case they'd worked had been tough. Harry was scowling at the folder splayed out in front of him, his jaw clenched as he filled in paperwork.

"Hey," Draco murmured as he slipped behind him and slowly rubbed Harry's shoulders.

Harry dropped his quill and leaned back into the touch, "Hey," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"Alright?" Draco asked.

He nodded, "I just hate the ones with kids."

"They're going to be alright, though," he said.

"Yeah," he agreed, "But it just brings up bad memories." He shook his head and covered Draco's hand with his own. "Want to get out of here?"

"What did you have in mind?" he asked as he combed his fingers through Harry's soft curls.

Harry tipped his head back to look up at Draco, "this is nice," he said softly. "Want to go back to mine and I'll make you dinner? Then I'll lay with my head on your lap and you can stroke my hair?" he asked wistfully and Draco's heart stuttered in his chest.

"That sounds an awful lot like dating."

"Yeah," Harry affirmed.

"But there's no one there-"

Harry pulled away, breaking Draco's contact with him, "You're right," he said, nodding as he stood up and started shoving files into his bag. "Forget it."

"Harry-"

"No, it's fine," he said, giving him a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You're right. I'm just," he shrugged helplessly. "Forget it," he repeated as he grabbed his bag and headed to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow," he said.

"But-" Draco started before realizing it was useless because Harry was gone. He packed up his things and headed home, this was what he should have been worried about; pretending to be dating had been a terrible idea.

When he got home he flooed Pansy and told her everything. "And now I don't know what to do," he finished, imaging Harry at home all alone make dinner.

"You're such an idiot," Pansy groaned.

"Excuse me?"

She rolled her eyes. "You do know that we all knew you thought it was fake, don't you."

"What?"

"We all knew. Potter told us that first night when we met up for drinks," she said.

He frowned, "Why? Why would he say that? And why haven't you said anything?"

"Because he asked us not to. He said he was really into you, or whatever," she said flippantly, "And that he thought he could win you over by showing you how great dating him could be. He begged us to play along."

He stared at her, mouth open, "He feels the same?" he breathed.

"Yeah," she said. "Obviously."

"I've got to go," he said, abruptly ending the call so he could floo to Harry's flat.

He stumbled out of the floo and immediately called for the other man, "Harry!" he shouted, heading toward the kitchen. "Harry!"

The other man's head appeared outside of the kitchen doorway, "Draco?" he asked as though he couldn't believe his ears.

Draco took one look at him and then closed the gap between them in three steps before wrapping his arms around him and kissing him.

Harry dropped whatever he'd been holding and it shattered at their feet but Draco didn't care because he was kissing Harry Potter and that was all that mattered at the moment. He poured his heart and soul into the kiss and Harry met him with the same.

"Me too," he gasped when he pulled back.

"What?" Harry asked, looking a bit dazed and Draco could hardly blame him.

"I'm into you too," he said. "Or whatever you said to Pansy that first night."

"I told them I was in love with you," he confessed. "You still want to own that?"

He nodded and threw himself at Harry again, kissing him and wrapping his arms tight around his neck.

The next time they parted Harry asked hopefully, "So, do you want to stay for dinner?"

"How about I stay forever?" he asked, grinning wide at the other man.

He nodded, "Even better."

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

Day 126: Arranged Marriage | Day 128: Snake

[spicycreativity]

An angst prompt if you're up for it (no pressure): Patton bakes the others a batch of cookies/cupcakes to lighten the mood, but nobody seems to like or appreciate them.

Maybe one of the Sides comes in to help Patton feel better? But feel free to interpret this prompt however you prefer 😊

Thank you! This turned out to be a fun one. I used this scenario as a way to explore a potential friendship (or at least allyship) between Patton and Remus post-PoF. Hope you like!

The atmospheric pressure in the mindscape was at an all-time high. Everyone was acting on an odd sort of principle, maybe pride, Patton didn't know, but they all kept trying to be in the same room and sitting in icy silence until they all left one-by-one.

They were all pretending not to be upset and doing an absolutely awful job of it.

And the pressure rose and rose and rose. Patton handled it with his usual grace, which is to say he treated the symptoms and not the underlying issue, which is to say he made cookies. 

He woke up early and made batches and batches: frosted sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, monster cookies. He found it all rather meditative.

But this peace was not to last. As the others filed in (first Logan, then Virgil, then Roman) and ignored him, Patton shattered the silence each time with forced cries of "good morning!" that went largely unreciprocated.

Logan nodded at him. Virgil gave him a lingering look. Roman's mouth quirked in a flash of a false smile. Not one of them spoke.

This only increased Patton's desperation to make it better make it better make it better take care of them take care of them--

When the final batch of cookies were cooled, he arranged everything on a massive tray. He brought this out to the others, who were sitting deathly still as they pretended to enjoy each other's company.

"I thought you guys might like some cookies!" The false cheerfulness in Patton's voice seemed to echo off all the hard surfaces in the living room, bouncing back and hitting him in the chest.

For a moment, they all just stared at him. Then Roman made a monumental effort. "Thanks."

"I can get some milk or make coffee if you want," Patton said, an edge of desperation creeping into his voice.

"No, thank you," Logan said, not even looking up from his laptop.

"Virgil?"

"Maybe later."

"Oh," said Patton, sinking down onto the couch. "Okay."

And the tray remained untouched.

After everyone had left for the day, satisfied in their daily quota of forced social interaction, Patton picked up the tray and went to find Janus.

He found Remus instead. He was sitting on the floor of a vast room, manning the controls of a model train. The track took up most of the floor and even extended up the walls. Patton paused, forgetting himself, and stared.

"Are you lost, little Puritan?" Remus asked, not looking up from his task. "I think Virginia is that way." He nodded toward the door.

"I was looking for Janus."

"He's working." Remus brought the train to a halt and finally looked up from the controls. "Okay, that's enough cookies to feed an entire youth soccer league."

"They were supposed to be for everyone," Patton said, unable to wholly control his curiosity. Playing with model trains was benign even for him, and try as he might, he couldn't see a single sinister thing about the setup.

"Aha!" Remus leapt to his feet. "I see you admiring my caboose! Care to take a closer look?"

"Oh," said Patton, already backing away, "no--" But Remus leapt over everything in one fluid, physics-defying motion and took Patton's arm. The tray teetered, unbalanced, but Remus just snapped his fingers and it began to float.

He dragged Patton over to where he had been sitting and steered the train to the tracks just in front of them. "This--" He pointed to one of the cars-- "is a perfect model of a UP 2612 caboose."

Seeing movement inside, Patton leaned in to take a closer look. "There are little people in there!"

"Well, of course." Remus took a cookie off the tray, which was still hovering beside Patton, and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. "Who else is gonna die in the crash? Come on, old man, I know you've seen The Addams Family."

"Oh," said Patton, sitting up straight again.

"It's not like they feel pain," Remus said, artfully inserting another cookie into his mouth. "I'm not a complete sicko." The words came out with a spray of crumbs, which Patton couldn't even bring himself to mind. At least someone was enjoying his cookies. As if reading his mind, Remus said, "These fuck!"

"Oh," said Patton, wide-eyed. "Is that good?"

Remus nodded. "These fuck severely and if your dumbass friends can't see that, then it serves them right that they don't get any."

"Don't call them--"

"Now check this shit out!" Remus started up the train. It chugged along the little metal tracks, picking up speed. On a downhill slope, it hit a hairpin turn and derailed, flew a few feet, hit a model water tower, and exploded.

Remus cheered and elbowed Patton in the ribs. "That was a good one!"

The idea of little people-shaped things dying in a horrible explosion still didn't sit right in Patton's stomach, but even he couldn't deny the sheer childish delight in watching things go boom. Still, he would have preferred a happy ending. He just didn't understand. He sighed and picked up one of the frosted sugar cookies. "Why do you have to kill people in order for it to be fun?"

Remus shrugged. "It's what I am. People die in train crashes."

"But why dwell on it?"

"Ooh," said Remus, creating a cookie sandwich out of two snickerdoodles and a chocolate chip cookie. "You're starting to sound like a certain sanctimonious snakey. You know--" He tried and failed to shove the triple decker cookie in his mouth and had to settle for taking a bite. "You guys are very similar when you think about it." He pointed at Patton. "Pretty lies." Then he pointed at himself and leered. "Ugly truth."

Patton stood up abruptly, suddenly very sorry he had asked. "I'm gonna go." Making his own model train sounded nice. And it would go around and around in circles and all the people inside would have tea and coffee and little desserts and nobody would have to die.

"Hate to see you go," Remus sang, "love to watch you leave!"

"Uh, Remus?" Patton paused in the doorway, not quite able to look Remus in the eyes.

"Yes, daddy?"

Patton managed not to flinch. "This was… This was nice. Thank you." He turned to leave.

"Pretty lies!" Remus called as he went.

Patton didn't bother to correct him.

[winterbarontrash]

Okay, so I was motivated by people's interest in my fanfic ideas and I started writing.

For the idiots in love idea, here's the first time Loki throws himself at an oblivious Mobius.

Loki grinned when he finally located Mobius's office in the labyrinth-like halls of the TVA. The Jet Ski magazines that were piled all over the agent's desk made it a dead giveaway. 

Loki paused, tapping a finger against his lips. "Hmmmm… What would work best?" He quickly decided on the small office couch out of the possible options, not that there were many options in the dismally bland office. "It will have to do," he muttered, before quickly untying his tie and pocketing it.

Taking a seat he cringed. "This is practically a torture device." Loki tried to bounce on the couch, but the bloody thing had absolutely no give. It was as hard as a cement slab. Not at all ideal for the outcome he hoped, but one makes do.

"Is the production of quality furnishing beyond the powers of the all knowing Time Keepers?" Loki grumbled as he unbuttoned the top several buttons on his incredibly dull beige cotton button up. "Given their design choices so far, I really shouldn't be surprised." He then took a few moments to artfully mess up his hair, before arranging himself as seductively as possible, with his height, on the small couch.

When he finally heard the sound of approaching footsteps, Loki felt his heart pounding somewhere in the region of his throat. Biting his lips a few times, to make them redder, he quickly ran his fingers through his hair again. He had never felt so nervous about something as mundane as a seduction.

The door opened.

"Hello, Mobius," Loki said, looking at Mobius through heavy-lidded eyes and glancing at his lips.

The time agent chuckled and shook his head. "Hello, Loki," he said with an amused smile. "I had always considered that couch a better fit for interrogation than comfort, but you make it look almost comfortable."

Loki smirked. "Why don't you join me and find out?"

"Sure." Mobius snorted and walked over to his desk. He didn't spare a second glance at Loki. Suddenly Loki felt very foolish. 

"It was only a suggestion," he snapped before quickly sitting up.

Mobius leaned back in his chair and threw his legs up on the desk. "And a completely genuine one I'm sure." 

Loki flushed, feeling uneasy, embarrassed, and a little annoyed. "What can I say, I love a good prank," Loki responded through a tight smile.

"Such a mischievous scamp." Mobius chuckled and Loki immediately began to button up his shirt. 

"So," Mobius said, now flicking through one of his magazines. "Where are you at with locating the variant?"

"I'm still reviewing the files." Loki glared at the time agent, then flipped his hair. "Perhaps, it would be best if I resumed my search."

Mobius nodded. "Perhaps, you should," he agreed.

Loki scrambled to his feet and stormed off, Mobius's quiet laughter following him.

[sisterspooky1013]

The Perfect Gift by SisterSpooky1013

2931 words, rated E

Read it here on AO3

Adult content immediately after the jump

He trailed kisses down her sternum, stopping to lavish each nipple with the rough brush of his tongue before continuing to her belly button, dipping into the shallow well of her navel and eliciting giggles from up among the pillows. He smiled against the skin of her lower belly as he rubbed his second-day stubble on her flesh, delighting in more arousal-laden tittering. The amount of play and laughter in their newly-blossomed sex life had surprised him; someone who was generally as serious and task-focused as Scully didn’t strike him as the type to make a joke while he was breathlessly driving himself as far into her tiny body as he could get, but she did, and often. He nipped at the hem of her panties, snapping the elastic with his teeth, then ran his nose down the damp gusset of the thin fabric, smelling her arousal. He wanted desperately to taste her. Tentatively, he ran his tongue along the seam of her thigh, slipping millimeters into her panties. His hopes were dashed, yet again, when he felt her hands on the sides of his face, pulling him up.

“Come here, Mulder,” she breathed in an intimate whisper. “I want you here.”

After they had each found their release and lie sated and sweat-damp on her bed, his head resting on one of her small breasts as though it were a pillow, he surveyed her face to gage her openness to a real conversation.

“Scully, can I ask you something?” He queried.

“You just did, “she replied smartly, brushing her fingers over his scalp with a content smirk on her lips.

“Har har,” he said with a sarcastic roll of his eyes. “I can’t help but notice that you don’t seem to want me to, shall we say, go down under.” He lifted his eyebrows and tipped his head back slightly to indicate he was referring to the lower half of her body.

“‘Go down under,’ Mulder? I assume we’re not talking about a trip to Australia here?” She was making light, but he caught the slight tensing of her body when he’d mentioned it.

“Okay, if euphemisms are unwelcome, let me clarify that I’m talking about me putting my mouth on your vagina.” He punctuated the statement with a haughty little smile as her eyes briefly went big before she composed herself.

“I think you mean vulva, Mulder. The vagina is just the opening and pathway to the uterus. The vulva is everything external, including the labia majora and minora, and the clitoris.” She was averting her eyes to where her fingers were trailing down his upper arm, hiding behind facts and definitions. Had anyone else witnessed this conversation, they would not detect that she was deeply uncomfortable. Mulder knew better.

“Thank you for the anatomy lesson, Dr. Scully. But that begs the question of why you won’t let me go down on you.” He worked to keep his expression soft and open, without judgment or expectation.

She met his eye and shrugged, pushing her chin into a pout concurrently. “I’m just not a fan. Is that a problem?”

“No, not a problem per se. If you truly don’t like it I can accept that, but I can’t help but wonder if you actually don’t like it, or if you’re just not comfortable with it.” He had picked up her hand after she dropped it from his arm and was brushing his thumb over her palm. He wanted to maintain connection, to communicate that this was wasn’t meant to be confrontational. He just wanted to understand her.

She inhaled deeply and let the air stream out through puffed lips. “I suppose I would say the former, because of the latter.”

“So you’ve done it before?” He clarified. “Or experienced it, more accurately.”

She peered at him from under her eyelashes, a look of slight annoyance on her face. “Yes, Mulder,” she said as though it were the most obvious answer possible.

“And you didn’t like it?”

She sighed again, growing tired of the conversation. “I’ve just never been able to…get out of my own head, I guess. It’s just awkward, and I find it difficult not to think about what my partner is thinking or experiencing.” She picked at a patch of lint on the comforter. “I’ve honestly never enjoyed it so I’d rather just skip it.”

He absorbed this information, to which he had numerous rebuttals, but he knew that it wasn’t something he could or should push her on. “I respect that decision,” he started, “but I also think you should know, just so you’re armed with all relevant information, that I’m really good at it. Like, REALLY good.”

She smiled sadly at him. “I don’t doubt that, Mulder. But the fact remains that I could make you the best rhubarb pie on Earth and you still wouldn’t like it, because you hate rhubarb.”

He shifted so that he was lying on his side facing her, propped up on one elbow.

“Or have I only ever had shitty, underripe rhubarb? I’d have to try it to know for sure.”

“Mulder.” Her tone carried warning that he was taking it too far.

“Okay, okay. Just one more thing and then I promise to let it go.” He lifted his free hand and placed it gently on her thigh so that his thumb was resting just beside the cleft of her sex. “What if I told you that in all the times that I fantasized about being with you, which were very frequent by the way, that the thing I thought about the most was going down on you?” He swept his thumb lightly back and forth, a whisper of a touch near her clit.

“Then I would tell you that I’m deeply sorry for your loss,” she replied, bringing her hands to his face and pulling him towards her for a kiss, at the same time letting her legs fall open so he could explore her with his fingers. That much, she would happily permit.

******************************************

Autumn had arrived in full swing, the yellowing leaves and chilly air sending them into hiding beneath wooly blankets, favoring her place for the availability of a fireplace to keep them warm. It was here that they sat on a lazy Sunday afternoon, steaming coffee cups wafting up to their kiss-swollen lips after a morning of lovemaking.

“It’s almost your birthday, Mulder,” Scully remarked, “What do you want to do?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. You know I’m not a big birthday fan. For myself, anyway.”

She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I know, but that’s because no one ever made any effort to make your birthday special. I’d like to change that, if you’ll let me.”

“I don’t want you to put a bunch of effort into it, Scully. It’s just another day, it doesn’t need to be a big deal.”

She set her mug on the coffee table and then took his, doing the same. She wrapped his cup-warmed hands in hers and looked at him with tender affection.

“It IS a big deal, Mulder. I’m certainly grateful that you were born.” He smiled sheepishly and looked at his lap, uncomfortable with such unabashed praise. “I really want to do this for you. Think of something you’ve always wanted to do but never have, and we’ll do it together. It would mean a lot to me.”

He met her eye and felt his heart swell at how open and genuine she looked. “Okay, I’ll think about it,” he finally said, and she smiled victoriously as she retrieved his cup for him.

*******************************************

“I figured out what I want to do for my birthday.” He announced. It was October 10th, and she’d reminded him a few times that she would need at least a little bit of notice to make arrangements, depending on what he decided on doing.

“Oh good!” She exclaimed, setting the file she’d been reading on his coffee table so she could give him her full attention. “What is it?” She sat at the far end of the couch with her back against the arm rest, legs crossed.

He felt nervous, knowing that he had to do this just right or it wouldn’t work. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, years actually, but I’m not sure you’ll want to do it with me.” He rubbed his palms on the tops of his thighs. “Actually, never mind.” He picked up another file and opened it in his lap.

Scully stood and moved to sit right beside him, one leg folded under her so that she was facing him, and took the file from his hands. “Tell me, Mulder.”

He fought off the smirk that tugged at his mouth. “Before I tell you, do you promise you’ll do it, even if you aren’t exactly excited about it?”

“Of course,” she said emphatically, her eyebrows stitched in concern as she folded her diminutive hands around his own. He felt a little guilty, but not enough to stop. “It’s your birthday, and I’d really like to do whatever it is that would make it special for you. It doesn’t matter whether I enjoy it, as long as you do.”

“Okay,” he said, beginning to lose the battle to maintain a neutral expression, which contorted his face into an odd grimace. He looked at her and bit his lip. “What I really want for my birthday, more than anything in the world, is for you to let me go down on you.”

Her eyes widened and then narrowed as she let go of his hands and sucker-punched him on the upper arm. “Mulder!” Her mouth dropped open in a mix of surprise and amusement. “That isn’t fair, you tricked me!”

“I did not, everything I said was completely true and honest. I have been wanting to do this for years, it’s all I want for my birthday, Scully.”

She shook her head at him ruefully, but there was a soft smile on her mouth. “I’ll give you three minutes, Mulder, and that’s it.”

“Deal,” he replied, extending his hand in an offer to shake on it. He had the good sense not to tell her how confident he was that she would be begging him not to stop when those three minutes were up.

******************************************

At the time she agreed to his birthday gift, it had been four days since they’d last had sex, and he artfully avoided being in a position for them to be intimate for the following three. Part of his plan, which was exceedingly well thought out, involved her being as turned on as possible when he finally touched her. He picked up her favorite red wine and made sure she had the opportunity go home after work before he came over, in case being able to take a shower or bath was something she’d want to do, not that he cared. He just wanted her to be as comfortable as possible, part of which included being in her own apartment.

His own excitement was palpable, his cock twitching at the idea of tasting her as he knocked on her door, bottle of wine in hand. When she answered in a knee length grey dress, the apartment abnormally warm with a fire blazing, he failed to suppress the grin that spread across his face. Easy access was all he thought, and he was hoping she had the same thing in mind.

“Happy Birthday, you bastard,” she crooned, pulling him through the door and pushing on to her tip toes to kiss him.

“Why thank you,” he returned, pulling back and holding up the wine. “I brought you something.”

Taking it from him, she walked to the kitchen and set it next to an already open bottle. “I’m two steps ahead of you,” she replied, pouring him a glass after she drained her own.

He joined her by the counter, setting their glasses to the side and gripping her by the hips to lift her up on to it. Stepping close to occupy the space between her thighs, he brought his hands to her face and tipped it up until she was looking at him. “You know you don’t ever have to do anything with me you don’t want to, right? No matter how much I want this, if you’re not into it, we won’t.”

She nodded. “I know. But I’ve made up my mind. I think I can withstand three minutes of something mildly uncomfortable for the sake of all your birthday dreams coming true.”

He smiled warmly at her. “Okay. But just so you know, my plan is that it’s slightly better than tolerable.”

She chuffed a laugh and he kissed her, a slow languid kiss that morphed into the slip of a tongue, and then the grip of a hip, until finally they were making out on her kitchen counter as he tugged her pelvis against his own, grinding into her as she hummed with desire.

He hadn’t expected them to get right to business so quickly, but he was more than happy to initiate phase one of the plan; torture her until she was practically begging to be touched. Slipping his hands under her ass, he lifted her off the counter and carried her into her bedroom, placing her gingerly in the center of the bed. He kissed down her throat, his lips brushing over the sensitive spot beneath her ear and sucking gently at the juncture of her shoulder. Feeling for the zipper at her back, he peeled it down and then pushed it from her shoulders to get at her breasts. She’d skipped a bra, and he circled her nipples with his tongue before flicking at the hardened buds. She flexed her hips, moaning softly, and he trailed his hand up her inner thigh to cup her lightly over her dampening panties; not enough pressure to relieve her need, but enough to drive her crazy with want. He moved between her mouth, neck, chest and breasts, licking and sucking as he simultaneously teased his hands around the edges of her panties, brushing close but never touching her clit. Finally he peeled her panties off and lifted her dress over her head, leaving her naked and aching before he resumed the same pattern on her bare skin. His fingertip danced at her opening, placing a hint of pressure but never going inside. He fluttered over her inner lips, hovering just above her clit and she squirmed, biting his lips and whimpering. She was incredibly wet, which allowed him to slide over and around her effortlessly with almost no pressure. This went on for a deliciously long time, until she arched her back abruptly in an attempt to force more contact and then moaned in frustration when he pulled his hand away.

He moved quickly, not wanting to give her time to pull herself out of the moment with self-conscious thoughts. Moving to the end of the bed, he shucked off his shirt and then gripped the top of her thighs and pulled her down to where he was kneeling before her. He hoped that in the future he’d have the opportunity to look and explore and taste her slowly, taking his time, but in this circumstance he instead immediately brought his lips to her swollen, aching clit and sucked it softly, fluttering the pointed tip of his tongue across it as his eyes darted to her bedside clock and took note of the time.

She sucked air into her lungs audibly, her chest rising and obscuring her face as a single, piercing “Oh” escaped her lips. He proceeded to devour her, dipping his tongue into the liquid pool of her entrance and tasting her sweet and slick, running up her seam and to her clit, when he felt her hand on the back of his head. Dismayed, he thought this was the point where she would ask him to stop, and he would without question if she asked him to. But when he glanced up he saw that her eyes were closed, her face contorted into an expression of absolute ecstasy as her other hand gripped her breast tightly and pinched at her nipple. Encouraged, he swirled his tongue around her sporadically throbbing bud and let his ears delight in the sounds of her pleasure, knowing that she was close. When her panting became quick and rhythmic, he slipped two fingers inside her and flexed them against her front wall, and she cried out in a mix of surprise and relief as he felt her clench around him, spasming under his tongue as she dripped down his chin and his wrist, wetter than he had imagined possible. He continued, slowing only as she did, pulling from her each pulse her body had to offer, not letting her miss out on a moment of it. When she shifted her hips away from him he removed his fingers and placed one last kiss to the inside of her thigh before he crawled up the bed to find her with her eyes closed, breath still quick as she returned to Earth.

��Hey Scully,” he whispered into her neck.

“Mmhmm,” she replied, eyes still closed.

“I still have 30 seconds left on the clock. You wanna go again?”

She snorted. “Happy Birthday, Mulder.”

“Thank you. Hey Scully?”

“Yes?”

“I think you liked my present.”

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him, pupils the size of saucers, a sated smile on her lips.

“That I did.”

Tagging @today-in-fic thanks!

[justkeeptrekkin]

@ariaste​ thank you for the Object Permanence prompt!

Meng Yao is only seconds away from snapping the pencil in his hand when the delivery arrives. He’s been sat on the phone trying to negotiate with the totally useless manager of a catering company; it’s really quite important that they get a good deal out of them, considering that this is for their biggest event yet. A charity event, no less, and so they have less money  to work with (and yet, somehow, more morons to deal with).  

And so, as he leans back in his desk chair and holds the phone to his ear with a pursed smile, the only thing that stops him from calmly breaking both the pencil in his hand and his phone is the distraction of the delivery man in the elevator doorway.

“Delivery for…” the postman winces as he looks at the name on the cardboard box in his hands. “Meng Yao?”

Meng Yao raises a finger to show he’s present, but remains on the phone as the catering company manager waffles on the other end.

“Ooh,” says MianMian. She stands up from her desk and rolls up her jacket sleeves before signing. “Thank you. Your timing could not be better.”

Su She is pretending not to be interested. He’s hidden behind his desktop, and is slowly to angling around the screen to view the cardboard box. Their office space is small and sparse, white walls and desks and very little else; Meng Yao watches MianMian’s short commute from the elevator doors to his desk, carrying the box with raised brows and a curious smile. She deposits it quietly on his desk and backs away.

“I understand that we hadn’t previously discussed the potential for extra guests, but as I’m sure you’re aware from your many years of experience, these things often change.” Meng Yao speaks down the phone and stands up, peering down at the top of the cardboard box. He can feel MianMian and Su She sending furtive glances in his direction. They don’t get deliveries often, and when they do, it’s either one of them who’s ordered it in for the office. “Customers change their minds regularly.”

Meng Yao takes a pair of scissors from his desk drawer. He presses his phone between his shoulder and cheek as he cuts through the brown tape. Had he ordered something for the office and forgotten about it? That feels very unlikely.

“Yes. Yes. I understand.” Meng Yao restrains a sigh and purses his lips. He suddenly feels a lot more dangerous with a pair of scissors in his hands. (There is a picture of Jin Guangshan’s face on a dartboard on the other end of their postage-stamp office. He could very easily hit bullseye from here.) “You’ll recall that this is for a charity event -- any reduction in price will not only be appreciated by the customer but also will reflect very well on you. I anticipate that we’ll be working with them often in the future. You would gain a lot of recognition from this if you were to agree.”

The whining voice on the end of the phone continues. Meng Yao opens the box and frowns at its contents. Plunging his hands inside, he pulls out from a cloud of packing peanuts a bouquet. A bouquet? No-- these aren’t flowers.

“That’s excellent news. It’s more appreciated than we can say,” Meng Yao consoles. “I know how much of a stress this is. Yes. I understand--”

It’s stationary. It’s a basket of stationary, arranged like a bouquet of flowers. And it isn’t ordinary stationary, either -- it’s artfully designed fountain pens; tastefully coloured highlighters that don’t immediately take him back to his university days of bright yellow ink leaking all over his hands; post-it notes with daily quotes on them; rose gold paperclips; fine ballpoint pens and file labels.

It’s so organised.

It’s Meng Yao’s idea of heaven.

For the first time that day, he finds himself smiling, despite the reluctant whinging going on in his ear. It’s a smile that makes his cheeks warm and his chest warm and the tips of his ears warm. “I’m so pleased we could agree on this. I’ll let the customers know. They’ll be very pleased. Yes. You too. Yes. Yes. Of course. Thank you. Goodbye.”

Meng Yao puts his work phone on the table and looks down at the basket of stationary.

“That’s so sweet,” Su She says. It sounds more jealous than anything. He’s eyeing the gift with his chin in his hands and a wrinkled brow.  

“I personally find it offensive that we didn’t each get one,” MianMian announces, leaning back in her swivel chair. “Here we are, all working like dogs, and Meng Yao’s boyfriend leaves us out on the stationary deliveries.”

Meng Yao doesn’t deign to give either of them a response. Instead, he dips his hand into the packing peanuts and searches for a note. He pulls out a little card.

This seemed more useful than flowers. :) Love, Lan Huan.

Fucking hell, he knows him too well.

***

The day didn’t get much better after that. In fact, he received several more phone calls which seriously challenged his patience whilst dealing with morons quota-- which is saying something, since he’d thought that quota was endless. It was made somewhat more bearable, knowing what waits for him at home.

Meng Yao lets himself into their house. It’s still in the middle of being unpacked. By the looks of it, Lan Xichen has done a fair bit today whilst working from home; the living room is almost entirely finished, except for Meng Yao’s books, which he had wanted to arrange himself. There’s the smell of something familiar and warm the moment he steps through the door.

There’s Lan Xichen, too, on the sofa with a laptop. He turns and looks over his shoulder when Meng Yao comes in. “Welcome home,” he says with that slow smile. “How was today?”

There are so many answers Meng Yao could come up with. He sorts through them, finds the one that fits best, as if he’s trying on a pair of gloves. “Oh,” he sighs, hanging up his coat, “it was fine, thank you. Busy and somewhat grating, but fine.”

“Oh dear.” Lan Xichen sits up straighter and puts his laptop on the coffee table. He views Meng Yao with a wrinkle in his brow. “Grating?”

Meng Yao comes round to his side of the sofa slowly. He looks down at Lan Xichen with a tilted head. “Nothing too challenging.” He steps towards him, leans a knee on the sofa beside Lan Xichen. “Is A-Xing asleep?”

Lan Xichen’s hand reaches to take Meng Yao’s. He’s looking up at him in gentle surprise. “Yes.”

Right, then. Meng Yao smiles, swings his leg over Lan Xichen and settles in his lap, a hand on either side of his face. Lan Xichen manages to smile back before Meng Yao leans in and kisses him. It’s the kind of kissing that they don’t often have the chance to indulge in and that he doesn’t think he’ll ever tire of: thoughtless and tangled up in each other. It makes him warm and heavy. It makes him want to go on forever -- kissing like teenagers, wrapped up on the sofa.

“I’ve always preferred practicality over sentiment.”

Parting for a moment to speak. “Your present made my day a lot better.”

Lan Xichen smiles against his lips. “I’m glad you liked it.”

Lan Xichen rests his hands on his hips, leaves a small kiss. “Mm. I’m not sure if that’s true.”

He kisses back. “Oh?”

“Mm.” Another small kiss. “You’re more of a romantic than you realise.”

Meng Yao goes to nuzzle his neck. He kisses him there. He lets himself smile and take fistfuls of Lan Xichen’s shirt. “I’ll take your word for it.”

[khazadspoon]

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh have some kinky nieyao involving nmj in lingerie being filmed as trans meng yao gives him a pounding.

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

The red light blinks from the corner of the room, unobtrusive with the lighting arrangement they had chosen. Nie Mingjue still notices it though. He still glances over at it as he breathes in deeply. The air is just warm enough to keep his skin from breaking out in gooseflesh. Most of him is on show in the sheer dusky pink chemise hugging his figure, stretched taught around his chest and loosening around his hips. He feels seen, vulnerable, delicate in a way he never has before.

He didn’t know he wanted to feel delicate until he met Meng Yao.

The man in question sits on the bed with him and traces his jaw with one long, precise finger. The carefully manicured tip of his nail scratches at Mingjue’s cheek, catches on stubble. He feels the whimper rise in his throat before it drips from his lips like honey.

“You look beautiful,” Meng Yao says loudly, confidently, voice no doubt carrying to the camera’s in-built microphone. “Sit up, show me your pretty face.”

Nie Mingjue does as he is told – he always does as he is told when Meng Yao is the teller. He sits up, back arched into a curve Meng Yao had shown him before, knees spread wide as he tucks his feet under his backside.

Meng Yao smiles at him. “Perfect,” he whispers, just for Mingjue to hear. His hand is warm where it trails down the curve of Mingjue’s chest to cup him, to tease an already peaked nipple. “You’ve done so well for me tonight; I think you deserve a reward.”

He licks his lips as Meng Yao leans forward, pulse hammering in anticipation. Meng Yao pushes him onto all fours, arranges him artfully, his backside bare and his eyes fixed on the red light. It blinks at him. He blinks back. His cheeks heat up at the thought someone could find the recording but-

“You can keep the file,” Meng Yao had said with a slight frown. “It would only be for you to use.”

He hates the idea of not trusting Meng Yao. He hates the idea of Meng Yao not trusting him more, but then they are doing this together.

He is on show as Meng Yao pulls the plug from his ass with a slick pop. His breath leaves him in a long, drawn out moan as delicate fingers test him, press and stretch and rub until his fingers grip the sheets in tight fists.

The skin-warm silicone of Meng Yao’s cock startles a gasp from him, his hips jerking back to meet it as Meng Yao slides forward inch by torturous inch. His own cock twitches, hard enough to be painful between his thighs by the time they are fully joined.

“So good for me, A-Jue,” Meng Yao hums, voice thick with heat and pride. “So beautiful. Show them how much you enjoy this.”

Mingjue whines low in his throat and shifts, lifts himself onto one hand and tugs the hem of the chemise up, displays his erection for the camera, the audience, to see.

“Good boy.”

The praise runs through him like fire. Mingjue bites his lip and falls back to all fours, eyes still focused on the camera’s dark lens.

Then, then he feels Meng Yao thrust.

There is no mercy in Meng Yao’s movements. He thrusts hard, his whole body behind each movement as he rails into Mingjue’s ass with single-minded determination. Mingjue shouts his pleasure to the camera and fists the sheets until his knuckles ache. It’s almost too much, almost not enough, his body alight with pleasure as Meng Yao pounds into him relentlessly. Flashes of pain from Meng Yao’s nails on his hips make his cock twitch.

“I want you to come for us,” Meng Yao orders him. “Come just from my cock in you, showing the world how much you love it.”

Mingjue’s eyes flutter shut at the words, the moan in his throat catching with each of his lover’s thrusts. He knows it will happen – Meng Yao has wrung him dry before with just his fingers, just the push of a dildo between his thighs until he is so spent he passes out. He knows he can do what Meng Yao asks.

He raises himself again, raises the chemise, glances down at himself and moans at the sight. His skin is flushed and shiny with sweat, his thighs glistening with lube and his own precum. He feels used, feels beautiful.

Meng Yao thrusts harder somehow, the strap on grazing over his prostate with each motion and the sensation is heady. Orgasm is rushing up to meet him and he is helpless to stop it. The chemise slips across his belly, rubs against his nipples and shimmers in the light as his body is rocked by Meng Yao’s movements.

“Oh god,” he groans, “I- I’m going to-”

Meng Yao reaches up and pinches a nipple hard. Nie Mingjue shatters.

He comes with a shuddering cry, eyes fixed firmly on the camera, body quaking and chest heaving as he does what Meng Yao orders.

He thinks he hears some stitches pop.

[dreamdropxoxo]

Hello! I just try to stay active and thus I’m posting part 6 of the prosecutor/detective AU. :) I still have no title and will continue to ignore this issue for a long time.

Damen wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans. His gaze flitted to the entrance of the waiting room of the secondary gender specialist. He had been too early by almost half an hour because he couldn’t wait at home any longer. 

Laurent had, as promised, arranged an appointment for them with the best known expert in the city and now he sat here, Saturday morning at half past ten, a nervous wreck.

He stood up and paced.

He knew he would feel much better if Laurent were there too. His skin felt too tight on him and he almost growled at all the scents flooding his senses. He felt as if he was shortly before a rut, self-aware enough of his heightened aggressiveness and territoriality. 

 Right when he thought he couldn't handle the wait anymore the door opened. In came Laurent, hair artfully tousled, endless legs clad in dark grey slacks, slender upper-body accentuated by the pale blue shirt and silver-blue waistcoat, eyes immediately fixating on Damen.

He looked- Damen didn't even have words to describe it. Laurent looked- devastating and he wanted to press him up against the wall and ravish him until his careful control slipped and he was a moaning wreck. The alpha felt the blood rush southwards.

"You're able to follow simple instructions. That's good. I wasn't sure." Laurent said coolly and gracefully sat in one of the chairs. His eyes still tracking every movement of Damen. He felt himself grow hot, whether through shame, anger or arousal wasn't clear.

A growl left his mouth and immediately the omega across from him froze. It was only for a second but it seemed to make Laurent furious. If he was more angered by Damen's disrespect or his own instinctive reaction wasn't really clear.

He sneered and leaned back in the chair, as if he liked lounging in the same room as an obviously agitated alpha, just to deliberately raise an eyebrow over blazing eyes and saying, "don't bother. I'm already aware of the fact that alphas are beasts. You don't have to educate me with cavemen posturing."

Damen was horrified by himself. Alphas were made aware of the effect of their growls from a young age and it was the height of disrespect to growl in the presence of an omega. The only exception was between mates and there the growls were never intended for intimidation. What had he done?

"I'm so very sorry. Really, I don't know what's wrong with me." He gripped his hair and shook his head. "Please, believe me when I say that I'd never ever try to force you or even hurt you. I'm not some savage." 

Something in Laurent's shoulder's seemed to relax. He rearranged his long limbs on the chair and stared Damen down with his incredible, blue eyes. "Hard to believe after what I've seen so far from you. Mangling the grammatical structure of our beautiful language beyond all recognition is certainly fitting for a savage."

The alpha felt the next rush of heat through him but this time it wasn't anger, he was sure. Just as he wanted to open his mouth, a beta man entered the room and smiled at them. "Mr. Vallis and Mr. Leblanc, I assume?" He waited until both of them nodded and then nodded. "If you'd please follow me. Dr. DuPont will be with you shortly."

He directed them to a beautiful office, where they sat down on comfortable armchairs.

"Look, I'm really sorry. Something is definitively wrong with me and I normally don't act like such an-" Damen needed to search for the right word. 

"Arsehole." He said at the same time as Laurent filled the gap with, "Disrespecting git."

He couldn't keep the laughter back and even the omega had a smirk on his lips. It was then that Dr. DuPont entered the office, a faint scent drifting towards them.

Damen was on his feet immediately. He placed himself between Laurent and the unknown alpha who entered the room, posture intimidating, heart racing and thoughts occupied with protect, mine, protectprotectprotect. 

"Interesting," was all the man said, looking from Damen to the chair Laurent occupied and then to a file. "You don't have to worry, Mr. Vallis, I'm no threat to Mr. Leblanc."

Finally Damen's rational brain caught up with the situation and he let his shoulders relax and smiled apologetically at the man.

 "I'm sorry. I'm not myself today. It's nice to meet you Dr. DuPont."

The alpha returned his smile and nodded. "Nothing to worry about. I'm used to reactions like yours. Most of my patients have similar symptoms." He walked towards his desk while Damen sat down on his armchair. 

He turned towards Laurent, the apology already on his tongue and what he saw made him grateful that he already sat. The omega was flushed red with blown pupils, he bit on his bottom lip and had his fists balled on the armrests.

 Dr. DuPond immediately offered pushed one water bottle closer to Laurent while Damen stared speechless at the beauty before him. Laurent's gaze flickered to him for a second and that was almost enough for Damen to lose control completely. He observed how the blond man reached for the bottle with shaking fingers. 

He wanted to lick each and every one of those beautiful digits, suck at the scent gland located on those wrists and biting his way up over the pale skin to his throat.

"That's really interesting," Dr. DuPond remarked again, his gaze jumping from Laurent to Damen. "Would you please explain to me why the two of you are here today?"

[rosesisupposes]

What I’ve Been Looking For

Part 4 of Breakin’ Free, a High School Musical Sanders Sides AU

Chapter Pairings: Prinxiety

Chapter Warnings: Roman Is A Disaster Gay (If Only He Was Out Enough to Know That)

Reader tags: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice   @jemthebookworm @arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse​ @thelowlysatsuma

<<3. Get’cha Head In The Game | 5. The Status Quo>>

read on ao3

SCENE: Homeroom and Hallways of East High

A particular air was flowing in the Ms. Darbus’ classroom the next morning. There was a humming undercurrent of excitement that didn’t quite spread to every occupant, but filled those it touched.

Dee Evans was in full form, glowing in gold accents, from the line on his sneakers to his eyeshadow and lip liner. His head was out of his phone for once as he smiled at every student he walked past on his way to homeroom. Cee was in an equally good mood, in complementary shades of silvery blue with a matching hat in navy. He carried a small gift bag with artfully arranged tissue paper. Cee handed the bag to Dee, who placed it on Ms. Darbus’ desk with a flourish. “Just a little something for you in honor of today!” he said with another bright smile.

As he returned to his desk, the rest of the class filtered in. Virgil and Roman made eye contact as they found their desks, sharing a small smile before Remy called Roman’s attention away. Patton Baylor chatted happily from his spot at the center of a small crowd of students, all of whom looked up at him with slightly starry eyes. Logan McKessie brushed past the crowd, his face buried in a book on theoretical physics. Murmurs of chatter slowly quieted as Ms. Darbus stepped on the stage at the front of the room.

“I expect we all learned our homeroom manners yesterday, correct? If not, we have some dressing rooms that need painting,” she said imperiously. Remy rolled his eyes at Roman as he leaned on his basketball as a pillow.

“Now, a few announcements,” she continued, brightening. “This morning during free period will be your chance for the musicale auditions, both singles and pairs.” Dee sat up even straighter in his seat, clapping in excitement. “I will be in the theater until noon for those of you bold enough to extend the wingspan of your creative spirit.”

Remy snorted. “When you’ve got auditions at 11 but have to be back on the mothership by noon,” he snarked under his breath. Roman had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep from catching the teacher’s attention with his laughter.

Unaware of her students’ commentary, Ms. Darbus began to instruct. “Today, we are going to discuss the importance of William Shakespeare and his works. Can anyone tell me of a phrase or word we use in everyday language that was originally coined by the Bard?”

Behind him, Roman could hear Remy sliding dark glasses over his eyes as he settled in to nap.

~~~

Later that day, Roman was sorting through the books in his locker when Remy came up, spinning his basketball on a finger.

“Sup, gurl.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“So the whole team's hitting the gym during free period. What do you want to have us run?”

Roman looked directly at the books and binders in his locker as he answered. “Uh, my dude, you know what, I can't make it. I gotta catch up on some homework.”

Remy snorted. “Bitch, it's only the second day back. I'm not even behind on homework yet. And you know I've been behind on homework since preschool.”

Roman forced a laugh. “Oh, Rem, you’re so funny! I’ll catch up with you later, okay?” He closed his locker and walked off before his friend could offer another objection.

Remy pulled his sunglasses down his nose to stare at his friend’s retreating back. “Homework? Girl, nah.”

He followed Roman down the hallway as the team captain turned into a classroom to chat with another student. Remy slid up to the door as he tried to see where he was going, listening to their idle chatter. Then someone bumped him. He turned to see Patton and a small handful of admirers.

“Remy! How are you today?”

“Hi Pat - I’m good, thanks, just busy…”

“Not too busy to miss the GSA meeting this afternoon, right?”

“Never too busy for my little minions, you know that,” Remy said with a fond smile.

“Oh good,” Patton said, his bright teeth a contrast to his brown face and browner freckles. “See you later, gay-ter!”

He turned and walked off with his friends as they giggled and Remy rolled his eyes. Turning back to the classroom, he realized it was empty. Roman has escaped him. “Boo, you whore,” he muttered to himself. “What could possibly be more important than basketball?”

Roman slipped down the southern stairwell of the school, checking behind him to make sure Remy was off his tail. He wasn’t sure he say why he felt so compelled to at least watch the auditions, but he knew that for some reason, he needed to be there. That need wasn’t quite enough to admit to even his best friend in the whole world what he was doing, though. He strolled through one of the lower courtyards, alert for any team members who might see him and ask why he wasn’t heading to the gym. He turned a corner and immediately turned back. Here he’d been worried about teammates when Coach himself was in the next courtyard, clearly looking for him. Had he seen him? Were those his footsteps walking in his direction?

Crapcrapcrap gottahide gottahide

Roman ducked into the closest door, the auto body and mechanics shop. He put on an air of nonchalance as he leaned behind a car, seeing his dad glance into the shop from the corner of his eye. Coach didn’t spot him, though, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He turned his head to see the shop teacher staring at him oddly.

“Uhh, shortcut,” he said lamely. “I’m… late for class. Gotta go, thanks, bye!”

He walked quickly out, from the auto shop to the woodshop. He could hear snatches of a tune played on the piano from here, where the woodshop connected to the backstage and green room areas of the auditorium. He took a deep breath. This was it - the auditions. He could as least get up the courage to watch, right? He walked into the backstage, trying to summon more confidence. Then he heard another person walking towards him and immediately ducked behind a janitor’s cart, hunching over to hide his face behind the mop.

SCENE: Auditorium

The auditorium and backstage were buzzing with chatter as multiple auditioners filed into the audience seats. Ms. Darbus strode to the stage to welcome them all, a small person in her wake. They seemed to be trying to hide from the crowd behind their bright orange beanie and also behind Ms. Darbus herself. The drama teacher took center stage and addresses the crowd.

“This is where the true expression of the artist is realized. Where inner truth is revealed through the actor's journey…”

She was interrupted by a loud ringing, and immediately glared at the crowd in front of her. “Was that a cell phone?”

“That was the warning bell, Ms. Darbus,” the student at her elbow whispered.

“Ah, I see,” she said, clearing her throat. “Those wishing to audition must understand that time is of the essence. We have many roles to cast and final callbacks will be next week.”

Roman slowly made his way to the back of the auditorium, still hiding behind the janitor’s cart as he listened. Callbacks, next week? In the same week as the big game? Luckily, even if he somehow got the nerve to audition, there’s no way he’d get called back. That was a thing that only happened to real actors, right?

Ms. Darbus was still reviewing the audition process. “Please come to the stage on your turn. Once you’ve introduced yourself, you will sing a few bars and I will give you a sense of whether or not the theater is your calling. Better to hear it from me now than from your friends later.” From his hiding spot, Roman gulped. Maybe this whole ‘audition’ thing was a mistake. “Our composer, Joan Stokes, will accompany you and be available for rehearsals prior to callbacks. Shall we?”

Joan took their seat at the piano bench as the first singer came to the stage.

“Hi, I’m Derionna!” she said with enthusiasm. She dove into singing, with plenty of energy but perhaps not a lot of rhythm.

“It’s hard to believe that I couldn’t see that you were always right beside me. Thought I was alone, with no one to hold, but you were always right beside me”

Joan played well, trying to get her to match their beat, but she was snapping to her own beat and seemed unaware.

“Thing feeling’s like no other, I want you to know…” she paused, seeming to have forgotten the rest of the song. Ms. Darbus took the opportunity to jump in.

“Uh-huh, thank you, next!”

A nervous-looking, gangly boy came to the stage. He seemed to be speaking rhythmically more than singing, and kept checking his hand for the words he’d written there.

“It’s hard to believe that I couldn’t sneeze - see! That you were always right there next to beside me!”

“Camden, I admire your pluck. As to your singing... That's a wonderful tie you're wearing. Next!” Camden smiled and smoothed his tie as Ms. Darbus’ words sank in. His face fell as he shuffled off the stage.

Roman winced through the next singer. Even he could tell she was badly off-key and trying to conceal it by winking frequently, directly at Ms. Darbus. Joan mouthed the words along with her, trying to get her back on rhythm, but it was to no avail.

“Please, stop,” Ms. Darbus finally interjected. “Thank you, Brittney. Next!”

Another auditioner. She was clearly talented, but was also singing as if in an opera, not a musical.

“So lonely befooorrrre I finally fooooo-hooounnddd what I’d been lookiiiiing fooooooooooooooooooor!” She held her last ear-piercing note as Joan stopped playing in shock and audience members tried to subtly cover their ears.

“Ah... Valerie,” Ms. Darbus said with forced cheer. “What... courage to pursue a note that has not been accessed in the natural world. Bravo! Brava! Perhaps the... spring musicale?”

Valerie frowned and looked over at Joan. They forced a smile as Valerie hmphed in affront and left the stage. She was almost knocked over by the next auditioner, a tall, graceful man who leaped onto the stage to the opening bars of the audition song. Joan stopped playing once again, confused. The auditorium was silent as the dancer pirouetted and jetéd before elegantly leaving the stage. The effect might have been perfect, had not he crashed into an unseen obstacle backstage that was audible to everyone. Joan looked over in concern as Ms. Darbus coughed politely. “Thank you, Leo. Next!”

Up came a pair of auditioners, one very short student with brightly-colored hair, the other a man with a headband and bangs swept to one side. The shorter of the two started delivering a dramatic reading of the song as the other whispered echoes of their words.

“It’s hard to believe that I could not see”

“See”

“That you were always right beside me”

“Beside me”

The pair accompanied their words with strange motions that appeared to be attempting interpretive dance

“Thought I was alone!”

“Alone”

“With no one to hold!”

“Hold”

“But you were right beside me”

“Beside me”

They both began to roll and crawl on the floor as Joan backed up their piano bench as far away as possible.

Ms. Darbus had been stunned into silence, but finally found her voice again.

“Talyn, Dominic, that was… that was just... very disturbing, go see a counselor. Next!”

A hand suddenly tapped Roman on the shoulder, and he jumped so high he almost hit his head on the doorway. Virgil had come up behind him, smiling wryly.

“Hey there - did you decide to sign up for something?”

Roman ducked his head. “Uh, no. I was just… watching. Did you?”

Virgil shook his head, his purple bangs falling into his face. “So, uh, do you often hide behind mops, or do your friends just not know you’re here?”

Roman flushed lightly and shook his head in response as another auditioner came to the stage. She stood tall and adjusted her glasses as Joan began the opening bars. She took a breath to sing as she looked out at the audience, and froze.

“Thank you, Dahlia. NEXT!”

Roman winced. “Ms. Darbus seems a little… harsh,” he observed quietly to Virgil.

Virgil smirked. “Roman Bolton, Wildcat superstar, afraid?”

“Not afraid,” he protested. “Just… a little, uh… scared.”

“Me too, usually,” Virgil said, rubbing his neck. “But, um. I was thinking of actually auditioning, if someone could sing onstage next to me?”

Roman blanched with fright. “Um, uh, I could--  I mean, possibly, uh--”

“And for the lead roles of Arnold and Minnie we only have one couple signed up,” Ms. Darbus said happily. Virgil pushed Roman slightly as he hurried to hide behind the janitor’s cart with him. “Diego and Cedric, I think it might be useful for you to give us a sense of why we gather in this hallowed hall.”

Cee and Dee walked from the audience to the stage, flashing smiles at the remaining audience. As Cee started up the stairs, Dee stopped him so that he could go first.

Joan caught Cee as the twins picked up their microphones. “What key did you want?”

“Don’t worry about it, we had our rehearsal pianist do an arrangement,” Cee said with a smile.

Joan deflated. “Oh. Okay.”

The curtain closed as Dee & Cee prepared to sing. Virgil tugged on Roman’s arm to follow him as he found a seat in the last row of the auditorium.

The music started, jazzy and far more upbeat than the previous auditions. Two pairs of hands stuck through the curtain and snapped to the beat, before the curtain opened to reveal Cee & Dee with matching bedazzled microphones in silver and gold, respectively.

“It’s hard to believe that I couldn’t see,” Cee sang. He had an unarguably nice voice, and his perpetual smile matched the bouncy drumbeat the accompanied them.

“That you were always there beside me” Dee joined in, singing in harmony with his twin. Virgil wrinkled his nose as he watched. The pair were both excellent singers, but they kept adding in a lot of over acting, pretending to be surprised by each other on “beside me.” Even for a musical, this felt corny. But Ms. Darbus was clearly enjoying it, bopping along from her spot in the audience.

Roman physically recoiled as Dee handed off his mic to perform a peppy tapdance solo in the middle. “Is this normal?” he whispered to Virgil, who grimaced.

“I don’t think so,” he responded, nodding a head at Joan. The pianist watched from their bench, looking vaguely horrified at the spectacle in front of him.

The pair continued on through the song, adding full choreography. Cee even broke in the middle to do a highly energetic jazz square with accompanying jazz hands before accidentally bumping into Dee. His twin scowled and pushed him, but both recovered and smiled as they continued to sing.

They finally came to a close, Ms. Darbus and the sprinkling of audience members applauding enthusiastically. Dee shot Joan a glare until they clapped too.

Holding their final pose, Dee hissed in Cee’s ear. “I told you not to do the jazz squares.”

“It's a crowd favorite. Everybody loves a good jazz square,” his twin shot back, grinning hugely.

As the applause quieted, Ms. Darbus stood. “Are there any last minute sign-ups?”

Roman stood and tried to edge out of the theater without being spotted as Cee appealed to the dispersing crowd. “Don't be discouraged. The theater club needs more than just singers. It needs fans, too! Buy tickets!”

Joan caught Dee’s attention as he strode backstage. “Oh, actually, if you do the part with that particular song, I imagined it much slower…”

“If we do the part? Joan, Joan, my sawed-off Sondheim, I have been in 17 school productions. And how many times have your compositions been selected?”

“This would be the first,” Joan admitted.

“Which tells us what?” Dee asked with a tight smile.

Joan flinched and offered, “That I need to write you more solos?”

“No,” Dee snapped, his smile dropping. “It tells us that you do not offer direction, suggestion, or commentary.” He advanced on Joan, who backed up nervously into their piano. “And you should be thankful that Cee and I are here to lift your music out of its current obscurity. Are we clear?”

“Yessir! I mean, Diego.”

Dee backed down, then smiled brightly, lifting his mic closer to his mouth again. “Nice talking to you!” He followed his twin backstage with a tiny wave.

“Any last minute sign-ups?” Ms. Darbus called again.

“We should go,” Roman whispered at Virgil, reaching out to grab his hand.

“No?” The theater teacher said, looking around. “Good. Done.”

Suddenly, Virgil was pulling away from Roman’s hold and speaking up. “I'd like to audition, Ms. Darbus!”

Roman’s mind went into overdrive. What is he doing? What? How!? Why?! He gestured wildly at the smaller man, willing him to somehow take back his words and for them both to disappear.

Ms. Darbus looked up, surprised, but her surprise quickly morphed to disapproval. “Timeliness means something in the world of theater, Mr. Montez. The individual auditions are long, long over and there are simply no other pairs.”

Roman stuffed his fear into a tiny corner and emerged from his hiding place behind the theater door. “I’ll sing with him.”

The drama teacher pursed her lips. “Mr. Bolton? Where is your sports posse or whatever it's called?”

Roman stared. “Team”

“Ah.”

“But I’m, uh. I’m here alone,” Roman stuttered out. He felt as nervous as he ever did right before a game. “I’m actually here to sing with him.”

Ms. Darbus was unimpressed. “Yes, well, we take these shows very seriously here at East High. I called for the pairs audition, and you didn't respond. Free period is now over.”

“He has an amazing voice,” Roman protested, gesturing towards Virgil. Virgil looked vaguely queasy over the confrontation, and appeared to be attempting to will himself out of sight or out of existence, whichever came first.

“Perhaps the next musicale, then,” Ms. Darbus said, and left the auditorium.

Just then, Joan tripped as they turned away from the piano, spilling sheet music in every direction. Roman and Virgil hurried to the stage to help them.

“So, you’re a composer?” Roman asked, smiling at the piano player. “You wrote the song Dee and Cee just sang? And the entire show?”

Joan seemed unable to speak, but nodded weakly, staring at Roman like an alien had just landed in the middle of theater.

“Well, that's really cool. I, uh, can't wait to hear the rest of the show,” he offered, helping them up. “So, uh, why are you so afraid of Cee and Dee? Or, Dee, at least. It’s your show, isn’t it?”

“Um, it is?” Joan asked, confused.

“Isn't the composer of a show kinda like the playmaker in basketball?” Roman asked with a smile. Both Virgil and Joan stared at him in incomprehension.

“Playmaker?”

“You know, the one who makes everyone else look good. I mean, without you there is no show. You're the playmaker here, Joan.”

“I am?” they responded, smiling tentatively. “Do… do you want to hear how the duet’s supposed to sound?”

Virgil nodded, and tossed a small grin Roman’s way. The taller man covered his face with a hand to hide what felt like another blush and followed the composer back to the piano, standing behind them to read the sheet music over their shoulder.

Joan tapped a foot to the proper timing, a much slower, sweeter tune than the one the twins had performed, and prompted Roman to begin at the right moment.

It was like New Year’s Eve all over again, and yet nothing like it. The fluttery nervousness was still there, but without the surprise or fear of the crowd. And this time, he wasn’t standing with a mysterious stranger who might run away. It was Virgil, smiling up at him as he came in for the second line. He no longer felt the same electrifying urge to grab the other boy’s attention at any cost - he just wanted that smile to keep being directed his way.

“I've never had someone that knows me like you do,” they sang in harmony, eyes meeting. Was Virgil blushing? Roman couldn’t be sure, especially as the shorter man turned back to the sheet music.

They finished in harmony and paused, all three appreciating the sweetness of the tune.

“Wow,” Roman finally said. “That’s really nice, Joan.”

Suddenly, a voice sounded from the rear of the theater. “Bolton, Montez,  you have a callback.” Ms. Darbus stood at the entrance, looking less severe with her glasses removed. “Joan, give them the duet from the second act. Work on it with them.”

Joan gasped in delight, then started bubbling over with plans. “All right. If you guys wanna rehearse, I'm usually here during free period and after school, and even sometimes during biology class. You can come and rehearse anytime. Or you can come to my house for breakfast. I have a piano, we can rehearse there. After school, before school - whatever works. After basketball class… do you have basketball class? Is that a thing?”

Virgil listened to the pianist, smiling a bit bemusedly, as Roman stared after Ms. Darbus’ retreating back in shock.

“We- she- what?”

a/n: Look who's able to write fluff again! Trust me, no one's as surprised as I am

(I know all of Thomas' friends are incredibly talented and would never be awkward/bad auditioners, but I feel like they'd have fun acting it out anyway :])

[shankss-magnificent-ass]

Imagine becoming the weird bone collector in Erebor

*having dinner in Thorin's study*

Thorin: I can't figure this out *staring at a folder and ignoring his dinner*

You: figure what out *picking the food you want off his plate*

Thorin: for some god awful reason some one keeps buying the large bones from our hunters and furriers, which we use a lot in making steel. I've had Dwalin, Nori, and the royal guard investigate and we don't catch them and they buy the bones out from under me.

You: *sweats nervously and shoves your bag full of defleshed skulls under the table.*

Thorin: they've been doing it for almost two months, the hunters only come once a week with their game. The furriers come twice a week, this asshole swoops in and buys the bones for a ridiculous price. Two gold coins for a skull, and five silver for all other bones. Who outside of the company has the money for that?

You: I don't know

Thorin: *looks up from the file to his plate and sees half of his steak missing along with all his mashes potatoes and gravy and to your guilty face with a bit of mashed potato on your chin* stealing my food again? *leans forward and licks the mashed potato off you*

You: yup, would them buying bones every other week be okay?

Thorin: it's you isn't it?

You: ...yes, I didn't know.

Thorin: you bought bones today, where are they?

You: *shows him your bag*

Thorin: *sighs* yeah every other week would be find, just try to only purchase two skulls maximum.

*a week later*

Thorin: *comes over to your chambers for tea* ah so this is what you go with all of the bones

You: *looks at the decorative jars full of bones, and shelves piled in skulls* um yeah, I just really like bones. Now I'm thinking of moving on to crystals and plants to complete the aesthetic.

Thorin: you bought all these bones for aesthetic?

You: and because I find them interesting and I like to arrange them artfully for fun.

Thorin: *puts his face in his hands and laughs* god damnit (y/n), you nearly caused a steel shortage for your aesthetic, that's such a you thing to do.

You: what can I say, I'm committed.

[wynilthyrii]

Cautionary Tales

They took a portal to Dalaran.  Wyn was silent but did not relinquish her grip on Galdanir’s arm as she headed resolutely down the city’s cobbled streets.  The mage wisely held his tongue as they moved swiftly along the broad boulevards lined with handcarts and floating pots brimming with flowers and greenery.  The girl navigated those streets with the familiarity of one who might as well have been a local.  The truth of it was, she’d spent enough time in the city over the nearly four decades of her life that these streets and the stones that built Dalaran were as familiar as the manor where she’d been raised and the city that was her people’s home.

The coffee shop she brought him to was tucked into the artisans’ quarter, dark-paneled with the faintest tinge of pipe-smoke lingering in the air, mingling with the scent of fresh-roasted coffee and baked goods.  There was a warmth to the place, but also a remoteness, a sense of anonymity and privacy. She brought him to a shadowed corner, inclined her head slightly to one of the waitstaff.  The waiter nodded and blinked to the counter, stepping behind it.

She didn’t speak until the man returned, settling a tray onto the mahogany table between them. There was a pot of coffee, two mugs full of the stuff and already steaming, and a small plate of flake rolls, savory and sweet both, artfully arranged into a pile on that tiny plate. Wyn took up her mug, stirred in a bit of sugar, and watched him for a full minute before she took a sip of that coffee.

Once her mug settled back to the wood of the table, she cleared her throat.  “Thank you.  I suppose I owe you a bit of an explanation.”

He answered with an arched brow as he took up his own mug, watching her in silence.  One corner of her mouth curled upward, expression almost rueful.

“I have a history with the Forsaken.”

“Clearly,” he said, tempering his own coffee to his liking before taking a sip.  He leaned back, watching her, and said nothing more.  She met his gaze, studying him, flickers of gold and silver tangling with the last vestiges of fel green.

Then, after a moment and another sip of coffee, he said, “Certainly not those particular Forsaken.”

“No,” she agreed. “No, but I have experienced the tender mercies of ones like them.”  A fingertip trailed along one of the scars around her neck, near her throat, her gaze growing distant for a few moments. “You’ve read my file.”

He said nothing, but his silence was answer enough.  She picked up her cup, took a sip, smiled faintly, her gaze flicking back to his face for a few seconds before she looked away again.

“You know that they held me,” she said softly.  “And now we know that I was in their custody thanks to an attack by the Eye on my family’s ancestral home, thanks to the attack a few months ago while I was there looking at my mother’s papers.”  She idly rubbed at her wrist, at one of the scars there.  It was a small thing, a neat, narrow mark perhaps an inch in length, long healed now though far younger than some of the other marks on her flesh. “Intellectually, emotionally, I knew that I had been tortured,” she said, her voice growing even quieter, as if someone might overhear despite their isolation there in that shadowed corner. “But it wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I really started to remember—that I fought to remember—what had happened to me in their hands.”

There was only the most subtle shift in his expression, though she seemed to mark it.  A moment later, she produced an object and set it on the table between them: a felsteel screw, no more than half an inch long, its point facing up, balancing on its head.  Galdanir eyed it even as Wyn watched him.

“It started with that,” she whispered.  “I was a volunteer to Arthamir Tyrellian’s regiment then, and I was standing in defense of his family’s lands in the marches when the Legion returned.  It was before I joined the Order, when I was still just considering as a possibility.  I was still a mage, then, but I’d come to know Knight-Lord Dra’zar by then and we were friendly.  I don’t know how much you know about Jadoth Bloodreign, but he’s how I met the Knight-Lord. There was a sparring match at one point, probably six months, a year before the Legion assaults started, and the Knight-Lord and I were both watching it.  He could tell I was concerned about Jadoth and I think in some ways he already had a bit of a soft spot for him.  He took the time to reassure me and we got to talking.  We kept talking afterwards and in time, it developed into a friendship that I treasured.”

She was keenly aware of the weight of his gaze but chose to ignore it as she took a sip of coffee, staring at the screw on the table between them.  Then she took another sip, savoring the interplay of sweet and bitter before she continued.

“Anyhow.  There was an attack and I had joined the defense on the walls.  The Legion had made allies of some of House Tyrellian’s enemies, so the forces were a mix of elves and demons and other allies of that enemy house.  There were gargoyles and demons and siege engines and at one point, a trebuchet took out a section of the wall near where I was helping to shore up the wards.  Another of the mages and I were hit by flying debris and I broke my wrist.”  She nodded to the screw.  “That was embedded in the bone and came free when it was broken. Sufficient to say that my friends with the Vanguard and outside the Vanguard were concerned but at the same time, I think most of them didn’t want to think about what it could mean.  I think most of them assumed that it would be too traumatic and besides, there was a war coming—we all knew it—and why reopen healed wounds, after all, especially on the eve of that?”

The ghost of a smile crossed her lips and then was gone, replaced by a determined look and a fire in her gaze as she stared at him.  “No one supported me in my desire to figure out what it meant, pushed me to keep digging, like your father did, Galdanir.  Everyone was afraid that what I would find might break me, or at the very least hurt more than it was worth.  He knew different.”  She reached out and picked up the screw, tucking it away.  “I know he was worried, too.  But he supported me in what I needed to do and gave me the encouragement and support necessary to learn the truth.  I know he worried along with the rest of them but he recognized two things: that he could not stop me and this was something I needed to unravel in order for me to finally truly begin heal.  There were more than a hundred screws just like that one inside of my body. They tainted my magic, affected my ability to wield the Light, and were put there by the bloody Forsaken.

“I was brought to the Tirisfal Glades by the Eye’s adherents and turned over to some Forsaken who promised to extracts the secrets of my House from me.  They promised to break me.  I know now what their ultimate goal was, at least in the attempt to break me.  I still don’t fully know or understand what they were trying to do with the felsteel they left inside of me, but I suspect quite a few things, theories that will be either disproven or confirmed the day I get my hands on the worthless undead that did it to me.  I will never again forget their faces or their voices because I cannot and have not forgotten what the feel of their hands and their tools against my flesh.  I carry more scars than I can count thanks to their ministrations. Someday, they will pay for it—justice will come, whether from my blade or another’s, it will come.

“They tortured me, Galdanir. They used me, experimented on me. For years, I had no real idea what they did and now I know.  I have a journal full of what I’ve remembered, the dreams—the nightmares—and memories from that time.  I would wake in the dead of the night in a cold sweat with a scream trapped behind my teeth suddenly knowing what had happened, what had been.

“I will never trust them.  I can’t.  Not knowing what they come from and not knowing what they did to me and being entirely certain that I was not the only one suffering that way.  The bloody apothecaries do their damnable work on whoever has the misfortune of falling into their hands.  It doesn’t matter who you are, who you were—they don’t care.  All you are to them are a subject for their work.  That is the true nightmare—that and the fact that no one can or will stop them because they are useful and their work is useful.”

She closed her eyes for a few seconds, taking a deep swallow from her cup of coffee.  “My views are unpopular, but they are my own.  I keep them to myself, but no one can force me to believe what I do not wish to believe.  Trust in that, brother, if you trust in nothing else.  Trust in that.”

[Mentions: @darlingknave (for not-Cord), @drimmari, @worst-paladin-ever]

[boneandfur]

An Unexpected Island [5] [Raj x Michelle]

Chapter Five

Song: Bad at Love, Halsey

Pairings: Raj x Michelle, Raj x Quinn

Summary: Michelle doesn’t like to share. A very angsty chapter with an unexpected twist.

Notes: So, characters have a mind of their own, even the ones you borrow. How dare PB make their pixels human? Ahahaha, I write as I go with a bare bones outline, but even the best laid plans can go awry. Sooo, hope you all like angst. The smut will return later. This part is rated simply M for mature content and drug use.

Thanks to @lizzybeth1986 for the help with cultural context, the name of the Indian village where Raj’s grandparents hail from, and the Marathi word for “grandmother”. I don’t know anyone who is Vietnamese-American, so hopefully Michelle’s background parts are culturally sensitive as well. If you think I’ve gotten something wrong, feel free to shoot me a PM.

Also, I couldn’t find a screenshot with Raj’s file, so I have his major listed differently than canon I think.

Words: 1905

Raj rubs Michelle's nose with his own, then gets up, whistling all the way to the bathroom. The elevator pings, and Quinn emerges, a basket over her arm like she's been through the woods. Her lips are swollen, like she's been kissing a wolf. (Maybe she has.)

"What happened to you?" Michelle asks. Quinn has a flower tucked behind her ear that wasn't there before. 

"Oh, you know!" Quinn winks. "I ran into Jake and he offered to carry this big, heavy basket for li'l ol' me... All the way back to his room." She grins. "But I told him I was busy."

Raj returns, still whistling. He grabs Michelle by the waist and she laughs, pulling his mouth to hers for a hot, wet kiss. She thinks she can still taste a little of herself on him, and it amazes her how easily she has fallen back into his arms, still, after all this time. Like she never left. Like Sean was her intermission. Michelle makes a sudden noise as a fist clenches her heart, and Raj strokes her back, holding her close. 

When she pulls away, he rubs a thumb under her lashes. "Nuurii," her lover's voice rumbles in concern, and Michelle's whole body trembles. He drops his arms from her to grab the fruit basket from Quinn, and she is surprised by the ferocity with which she wants the other girl to leave (but maybe not so surprised.) 

"What's wrong?" Quinn lays a hand on Michelle's shoulder. 

"I..." Michelle can't breathe when Raj's hot eyes catch hers, devouring her. Her stomach flutters. 

"Come sit with me on the couch and tell me. You'll feel better." 

Michelle allows Quinn to lead her to the couch. As they pass the jacuzzi, she gathers up her clothes and puts them back on. There's something too vulnerable for her about being the only half-naked person in the room. Michelle can feel Raj's gaze caress her, it's like his name is branded all over her skin. She sits on the couch with Quinn, drawing her legs up. "I don't think this is going to work out tonight." 

Quinn smiles, then kisses Michelle on the cheek. "Yeah, but it was fun while it lasted. Raj is... yummy. That's like the best kept secret at Hartfield, isn't it?" She sighs. "I really did want a massage, though." 

"We can still do that! It's just..." Michelle leans in. "Can I trust you with a secret, Quinn? This is going to sound so weird, but I feel like we've known each other for a long time." She rubs her temples. 

Flash. 

Quinn, standing in the ocean with Taylor, a flying seahorse materializing before them. 

Flash.

Michelle, a crumpled Quinn before her, barely breathing, someone is sobbing, sobbing. Wake up! Please, Michelle, you have to save her! 

Flash. 

Quinn and Michelle, bound with ropes to a rock, while above them rears a three-headed sea monster, all fins and sharp white teeth. Someone is shouting her name, but Michelle can’t look away.

Flash. 

"...Yeah? I mean sometimes. I don't know. Maybe some things are meant to be." Quinn twists a strand of hair around her finger. She laughs. "I know that sounds so silly!"

"Not at all." Michelle can't seem to stop stealing glances at Raj. "Raj tells this story better than me." She crooks her finger at him, and he rubs a hand through his hair, a goofy smile on his face. 

Me? Raj points to himself, and Michelle nods. He bounds over to the coffee table with a pitcher of something alcoholic and fruity, and a platter of artfully arranged fruit. She intercepts him before he sits down, taking his hand, and Raj pulls her to him, searching her face. He must like what he sees, because he brushes his thumb across her lips, stealing a scorching kiss. His body is so hot, it's like his touch is burning her up on the inside, and he bites her lips, gasping like a man drowning. 

When they break apart, her heart is pounding. Raj cups her cheek and sits on the couch, pulling her into his lap. "Michelle," he croons, nuzzling her neck. 

"Michelle and I were just talking about --" Quinn clears her throat. "I feel like we already know each other, like we've always known each other. Like we've lived this life a thousand times before." She looks between them and smiles, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around them. "Michelle was telling me that you know a story like that. Will you tell it?"

"Have you been telling my secrets, maahiyaa?" Raj slides a hand just under her shirt, rubbing circles against her lower back with his thumb. He's teasing her. She can hear the smile in his voice. "Yeah, I know a story about it." 

A thousand and one stories, one for every night of their captivity. "Once there were two lovers..."

Raj inhales a breath, his nose buried in her hair. "You know, I searched the whole wide world until I found you," he says in a deep whisper, for her ears only. "And the whole time, you were right in front of me." Then, turning to Quinn, hand under her chin and blue eyes shining, he begins. "My Ajii would tell me this story when I was a little boy, making jilebi with hibiscus jaggery syrup for my sisters' weddings." He smiles, continuing to make circles on Michelle's back. "And now, I will tell it to you." He clears his throat. "Once there were two people, born on the same day and the same hour, and the oldest ajii in the village, who delivered them both,  said they had been born under a lucky star. A comet, streaking across the night sky, with two tails, like a dragon..." his voice is lulling Michelle into the past, and she closes her eyes, leaning back into his caress. 

"My grandma, my Ajii, wants to meet you," Raj had told her one hot summer night as they lay in one another's arms, his fingers whispering like ghosts down the path his mouth had taken so many times before. The crickets sang in the long grass, and beneath her cheek, she could feel Raj's heart beating. His skin was warm, and when she kissed the side of his jaw, he growled, rolling over on her in the meadow, tickling her until she begged for mercy. 

It was the end of that first summer, in just two weeks time they would move to Hartfield to start their first semester as freshmen. She was pre-med, and he was *Economics.

But we'll still see each other, won't we? Michelle had asked, tucking her hair behind her ears. If I rush for sorority and you get into a frat, I mean...

We'll still see each other. I need my best friend to shotgun smoke with, don't I? I could suck on those pink lips all night. He'd pinned her to the ground when she'd slapped his chest, playfully, and proved it to her.  Come meet my Ajii, nuurii. I've already told her about my new friend...

Her own mother and grandma were making the trip from Washington to see her settled in, and they planned to treat her to a nice hotel and spa stay near the campus, in Northbridge. After twelve weeks of cabin life and washing her hair in creek water, Michelle was ready to be pampered like a princess. And she missed both her mother and grandmother too, though she didn't miss their heavy expectations. Be a good girl, don't let any boys touch you. Wear more makeup, you must be pretty. Study hard, you must be a doctor! 

Raj, she knew, came from a big family in Queens, he was the youngest of many older siblings. His sisters had married first, and all his family lived together, brothers and their wives, nieces and nephews, mother and father and his father's mother, who had come from her home village when Raj was not yet born, to live with her favorite son and his growing family in New York City. 

Now his brother was to be married, an arranged marriage to a girl from Nanda, in Maharashtra, India, where his Ajii was from. Raj had mentioned it offhand, would she be interested in going with him to the wedding? 

Only if you meet my grandma first, she teased him.

But when Michelle's grandmother met him, she knew she was in trouble. Her grandmother pulled her to the side in a fury. "No, no, no!" When Michelle protested, angrily, her grandmother had grabbed her by the chin, hard. "Will you be like your mother?" Her grandmother demanded in a harsh voice. 

It was the worst thing she could have said. Michelle reeled back, like she'd been slapped. Her mother had raised her alone, with help from her parents, after Michelle's father had abandoned them. "Bà," she pleaded, in a choked voice. "Just give him a chance!" 

"You do not know what is best for you, Michelle," her grandmother said, in a dark voice. "If this is what a summer of sleep-away science camp has done to you, maybe Ong and I will take college away and not pay for it after all. Do you want to be a doctor or not?" 

Meeting Raj's Ajii was almost easier, after that. Until she took Michelle aside, and gently informed her that Raj's future bride was a girl from Nanda who had been arranged to marry him since birth, their horoscope charts matched by the priests and the dowry already paid. Michelle, from a traditional family herself, knew what that meant. So while his Ajii was as warm and effusive with him as her Bà was with her, and if no one said aloud that they disapproved of Raj bringing a foreign girl to his brother's wedding (besides the sidelong looks his mother gave her when no one was watching), she felt the distance all the same. 

Someday soon, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, she will have to say goodbye to him, and he will walk out of her life forever, becoming nothing more than a name and a photograph, and her lonely hands will trace the path his kisses once took down her body in the dark.

"...and they keep searching for one another, for a thousand years. I will always know you, he told her, and I will never stop searching until I find you again." 

Quinn wipes a tear from her eyes, sniffling. "That was so beautiful, Raj Bhandarkar!" 

"And now, let's smoke this spliff, and start the massage chain." He nips the nape of Michelle's neck, swirling at it with the tip of his tongue, but she's having none of it. 

"And what if the man had been promised since he was a child to a girl in his grandparents' home village -- the horoscopes already matched and the dowry already paid?" Her laugh is brittle. "What then?" 

Raj's hands tighten on her hips. "What?" When he sees the look on her face, his brows draw together in concern. He cups her cheek in his big hand. Usually, this would make her melt. But not now. 

She pokes her finger into his chest, but before she can get a word out, a pounding on the door startles all of them. 

"Michelle!" Someone is shouting. The voice strikes her with the clarity of a bell. It belongs to Sean. 

[creative-type]

Monster of the Salt Rock Hills IX

First

Previous

AO3

AN: I must again apologize for a transition chapter that is about half as long as I originally intended. We have influenza in our building at work again, with lots of sick and dying residents that has made it difficult to find motivation, and I’m starting a stretch where I work seven of the next eight days. It was post now or probably wait another two weeks. 

On a somewhat happier note, several plot points have clicked into place so when I do get time the writing process should occur faster. I estimate there are 2-4 chapters left, plus maybe an epilogue. Also, there will be world building elements in upcoming chapters that I am taking directly from Patreon, so if there are things that pop up in the comic later that seem familiar, yes, I did steal them from Meg (but only with her permission). 

Chapter Nine: Fact and Impossibility (and the Confusion Thereof)

There was little to do after that except give Isla her shoes, which thanks to Mum’s wards was trickier than expected. Neither Thistle nor Isla could get close enough to the bars to simply hand them over, and any attempts at using magic would read as an escape attempt. In the end it was Lyra who made two lucky tosses into the cell itself. Thistle felt a sense of relief that Isla would be allowed at least that modicum of dignity, but found herself getting angry all over again when she rose unsteadily to her feet.

“Where’s your cane?” Thistle asked.

“Confiscated,” Isla said bitterly. Moving gingerly she bent down to pick up her boots, pausing do adjust the brace that supported her ankle. “Said I couldn’t be trusted with any enchanted items.”

“You enchanted your cane?” Brent asked.

“It’s hardly a Wizard staff, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Isla said. “I just etched a few runes to help with stability. I…I fell a lot after I first woke up. It helped when I was getting used to all this.”

Isla made a disgusted gesture at her bad leg and hobbled back to the bench at the back of the cell. “I never did thank you for looking at it,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t hurt nearly as bad today.”

“Oh! Um, you’re welcome,” Thistle said, blushing furiously. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

Isla shook her head ruefully, and seemed to be ready to say something before stopping herself. “You should get out of here before the orc sics his horse on you.”

“She’s right,” Lyra said. “We should try to find Orrig and see what he’s found out.”

The trio were filing out of the jailhouse when Brent said, “How d’you think Rizaek got a winged horse anyway? It doesn’t look anything like the ones out here.”

“It’s probably a domesticated breed,” Thistle said.

“It’s a $&#*@!$ warhorse,” Lyra said. “Not even gelded. Can’t imagine how much upkeep costs.”

She made a good point, and Thistle was reminded of Rhys’s expensive enchanted bracers. Either Rhys’s team was doing extremely well for itself or they had some very generous patrons backing their work. Thistle was about to point out this fact when she saw that Rizaek was no longer guarding the jailhouse by himself.

Mum wiggled his fingers in greeting. He managed to drape himself artfully against the railing, and seemed perfectly at ease despite the fact that Rhys was glowering with displeasure not two feet away. Rizaek stood apart from them both, glancing at his employer uneasily whenever he thought Rhys wasn’t looking.  

And Orrig…Orrig was as stoic as ever, seemingly neither happy nor upset at the morning’s turn of events. He beckoned to Thistle, Brent, and Lyra, and suddenly the two rival mercenary groups were all together again for the first time since their disastrous meeting the day before.

“Whatever he says, I didn’t touch him and I didn’t lose control,” Brent said defiantly.

“I know.”

It was amazing the effect two simple words could have. Relief washed over Brent, leaving him momentarily unguarded and vulnerable. He quickly regathered himself, trying to copy Orrig’s effortless serenity and not quite succeeding.

An unnatural hush fell over the front of the jailhouse, the air thick with tension. The animosity radiating between the two groups was nauseating, and Thistle wished she could be anywhere else. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a housewife staring at them through her kitchen window. They were being watched, and whatever happened here would spread like wildfire through the Salt Rock Hills.

Almost unconsciously, Thistle straightened her spine. She was afraid, the gods only knew how much she was afraid, but this was bigger than herself. Thistle didn’t know if she’d be able to live with herself if she failed Orrig again after he had placed so much (undeserved) trust in her abilities.

She felt Lyra on her other side, poised and confident and ready to fight if the need arose, and relaxed. She wasn’t alone in this. By herself, Thistle knew she was weak—

foolish girl. only digging yourself in deeper. useless, nothing you can do. why even try, you don’t even know if you’re right

—but right now she wasn’t by herself. Orrig, Lyra, and Brent were all at least willing to entertain the notion that Isla was innocent, and that made all the difference.

“It has become evident that, despite all evidence in my favor, you are going to pursue this matter until the very end,” Rhys said, his tone icy cold.

“*@$& straight,” Lyra said, only to be hushed by Orrig.

“Your doubts have reached the mayor’s ears,” Rhys continued, glaring daggers at Lyra. “He has decided to allow you to stay and conduct your investigation, should you choose to do so. However, by this evening arrangements will have been made for Miss Clark’s incarceration at the Crossroad’s jail, and she will be formally charged with poaching. The only thing you can hope to accomplish is to waste my time. I implore you to bring this charade to an end. Go home, catch a few rous or whatever it is you people specialize in. You’re hunting a monster that doesn’t exist.”

Orrig leaned against his axe, a small twitch in his jaw the only thing betraying his irritation. “I come to you because dere facts you not know about case. Ve try to help.”

“Yes, yes, you’ve already mentioned Miss Clark’s financial contribution,” Rhys said dismissively. “It’s obviously a bluff. One horse would more than cover the cost of hiring a mercenary team, and the girl’s killed three of the beasts—and that’s only what we know of. It’s her own fault she deluded herself into thinking she wouldn’t get caught.”

“But—“

“But nothing!” Rhys shouted. “There is exactly one mage that lives in this miserable pit of a town. One. Unless you’re able to convince me that the monster suddenly changed its means of killing then your protests of motive are irrelevant. It is impossible for anyone else to have done the deed. Miss Clark proved of her own accord that she is physically capable of walking to the springs. She has repeatedly refused in the strongest possible language my generous offer for a truthseeker. She, and she alone, has the ability required to mercilessly butcher a magical creature, and what’s more, has in the past has displayed deep failings of character that inevitably leads down such an abhorrent path.”

“What?”

Rhys trained his brilliant green eyes on Thistle, his look just as venomous as the words that came out of his mouth. He laughed a mocking, hurtful kind of laugh. “Oh, did she not tell you? I could see why she would choose to leave it out of the little sob story she’s woven. Allow me to enlighten you: Miss Clark didn’t leave the Academy, she was expelled.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. “I’ll admit that I was surprised when I found out, but just because the facts are inconvenient doesn’t make them any less true. Not all monsters live in caves. Now if you excuse me, I’ve work to do. Rizaek, come with me. Mum will stand watch until I can make final preparations.”

Rhys swooped away with the terrible grace of an avenging angel, a more reluctant Rizaek trailing after him. Thistle stood spell-shocked as they disappeared into the town.

did you ever consider the fact she might be guilty? jumping to conclusions without proof, why am i not surprised? how could you let your emotions cloud what little sense you have? see, this is what happens when someone actually qualified investigates

but…

what if he’s wrong? what if there’s another solution we’re not seeing?

that doesn’t mean you’re the one who will find the answer! how could someone so incompetent hope to discover the truth that has eluded everyone else! you’ve done nothing thus far, and that won’t change!

“Ve go now,” Orrig said quietly.

“What? We can’t leave,” Lyra protested. “I mean, this looks bad, but…”

“Ve go now.”

Orrig was staring down Mum. The mage was smiling innocently, still leaning lazily against the railing. When he noticed Orrig his grin widened. He brought a hand out of his pocket and made a little shooing gesture. He didn’t need to speak to make his message perfectly clear.

Wary of their previous interactions, Thistle extended her senses in search of hidden magic. Not finding any, she followed Orrig. It quickly became apparent that they were making the short jaunt back to the house of Frank Cunningham. The old man was out on his porch smoking his pipe thoughtfully, the crow’s feet that framed his eyes deepening as they approached.

“Didja find what you was lookin’ for?”

Orrig shook his head. “Am very sorry, must ask for hospitality for little more time.”

“You can have it, but I were told the elf already caught who done it. Can’t say I’m surprised—that girl always had a shifty look about her. She shoulda known a mage has got no business up in the Hills.”

“Something isn’t right here,” Brent said. “I mean, yeah Rhys has got a point with that magic stuff, but…I don’t know. It just doesn’t sit right.”

“I want to know how he found out she was expelled,” Lyra said. “Even if Isla was stupid enough to declare it in her papers, there’s no way Rhys should have access to that kind of information.”

“She could have just told him,” Brent argued.

“That would be even stupider,” Lyra said as she began to pace. “She didn’t look the type to make that kind of mistake.”

“Either way, it doesn’t matter so long as the horse was killed with magic. Do you think his mage was wrong? Would there be any way for a normal person to cause those wounds?” Brent asked.

“I don’t think so,” Thistle ventured. “I…I didn’t get a chance to say it at the spring, but I thought it was strange that some of the wounds didn’t bleed. There wasn’t enough time to get a good look, but they were clean.”

Lyra frowned. “No blood means the horse was cut up after it was dead. Maybe to distract from the missing wings? Stinks like a cover up.”

“Or a set up,” Brent muttered darkly.

“Now listen here!” Frank cried. “You got no right t’ come around shoutin’ foul play when there ain’t no evidence.”

“That’s just it though,” Lyra said, “no one has even looked for any evidence. Rhys was so gung-ho about arresting her he’s ignoring some really obvious possibilities. Even if Mum’s right and the horse was killed with magic doesn’t mean it was a mage. There are all sort of enchanted weapons that could do the trick, or maybe it is the monster. What Isla said about it sounded like magic to me.”

“Explain,” Orrig said.

Lyra and Brent explained Isla’s story in turn while Thistle thought. She hadn’t even considered the possibility that someone was framing Isla for the crime, but had to admit it made a certain amount of sense. As an outsider and a mage Isla would have been an easy target, but who would have the resources to pull off such a sophisticated trick? And why?

Or perhaps the most obvious solution was the correct one, and Isla was guilty. As much as she hated thinking about it, Thistle had to at least consider the possibility.

And if not Isla, then who? No matter how Thistle looked at it, it was beginning to feel like an impossible question. But the impossible couldn’t have happened--either Isla was walking out to the springs on a mangled leg to imitate the killings that led to the death of her teammates or someone was making it look like she was. Somehow Thistle had to figure out how the impossible was possible, in spite of appearances.

It took Thistle a moment to recognize that silence had fallen over the group. She jerked to attention, hoping she hadn’t missed anything important. Frank had gone pale, pipe hanging from limp fingers, forgotten.

“Ye gods,” he breathed. “I ain’t never heard of nothin’ like that.”

Orrig rubbed his chin. “You sure had blue flame eyes?”

“That was the only thing Isla was sure of,” Lyra said, with Brent nodding in agreement.

“Hmn. Get ready to go to mine, bring weapons. I know vat monster is.”

��

[mepaintingdreams]

BnHA x KHR

Chapter 4. Sports Festival Part 1.

She supposed, there was a time even she had mulled over becoming a hero. She remembered reading so much shonen manga in her past life and wishing she could be just like them. Until Reborn, - tutor from hell and devil incarnate - shoved himself to her life and she wished she could take it all back. She did not want to live a life like a shonen protagonist or a superhero, after all. She was wrong and she was willing to pay any price just take Reborn back whence he came from. Please.

(Reborn had snorted over her trecherous thoughts and smacked her with a Leon hammer. Then, for good measure, he made her ran laps around her neighborhood until she felt like jelly. And sat her in her desk to study at gun point.)

(A second lifetime later she still ran laps until she felt like jelly whenever she thought he'd disapprove of something. She swore it was an automatic response. She felt like if she didn't do so, he'd shoot a Chaos Shot through time and space just so he could bully her into doing it anyway. Wherever Reborn was, she pitied and envied anyone who has to live with that sadist.)

(She took the thought of not having Reborn back, too, when he never returned to her one day.)

(She missed him, too. And, oh, so much.)

She stared at the paper in her hands. It was a parent's/guardian's permit for the incoming Sports Festival. A permit so she could join. She might have misread it.

She held the paper at arm's length. Nothing changed. She reversed it and twisted it left and right. Still the same. She squinted. It really was a permit.

Midnight-sensei didn't even tried to hide her snickers. She blinked and palmed it against her desk. The ink in the paper didn't magically shifted into a secret message.

"Alright. Alright. I'm sure we've made sure the permit was authentic." The plus-eighteen pro hero smirked down at her, heavily amused at her reaction.

She's going to hold onto the hope that the secret message would magically rearrange itself later. It might just have a delayed mechanism.

(Like that one time she'd been sent a flame encripted message and Reborn had made her learn to unlock the true message beneath the ink by herself. She'd lit her hand aflame but hadn't thought she only needed a small flame, to run her fingers across the page, and wait a minute before the message slowly revealed itself.)

(Reborn laughed when she screamed and nearly threw the paper out the window when the paper ignited so suddenly and voraciously. She'd nearly had a heart attack and Reborn laughed like it was the most pleasant joke in the world.)

(It was captivating, his laughter. He should have done it more.)

They stared at each other for a bit. The woman didn't seemed inclined to speak first. She waited for a few more seconds, she might change her mind and leave with the paper. When it seemed like that wasn't happening anytime soon, Tsuna finally gave in.

"Students from the Business course don't participate in the Sports Festivals like students from the other departments, especially the Heroics department." She carefully arranged her lips into a strict frown like she used to give to her subordinates to say she's disappointed. Izuku once muttured her inclination to pout rather than frown, though. It shot through her confidence to look serious and strict like a wrecking ball against rice paper.

The woman, artfully posturing for all her worth, only smirked in further amusement before actually answering, "Correction. Students from the Business Course simply does not choose to participate in the tournament. The few who did had not gotten farther than the first obstacle of the first round. That urged the others to not bother with it anymore. So, ultimately, it was decided to leave the option open for any business kids and would only strongly suggest for the students who had great potential to participate."

Tsuna stared at her long and hard. She had a feeling the older female wouldn't leave without her taking the permit and actually getting it signed.

Finally she opened her mouth to utter the fact that her parents were out of reach and it wouldn't be signed by them in time. Reading where Tsuna was going to lead the conversation correctly, Midnight-sensei took the paper and replaced it with another. The difference? It had been signed by one Midoriya Inko, her alleged guardian.

She pursed her lips then looked up at the woman with a really annoyingly smug face. "Really?"

"Really," the woman followed without delay.

So, that's why it was her giving the permit and not my homeroom teacher, who was twirling his gun in a corner, studiously trying to look cool leaned against the wall even though it was just the three of them within the classroom.

It was afterschool hours and so, the rest had already left home. In other words, she got cornered not unlike a helpless prey by two vicious predators. She was not impressed. He was totally in on this.

Why was she even targeted for this specifically, anyway? She immediately regretted voicing her question. It seemed like the woman had been waiting for her to ask just that.

"Did you know you had a recommendation for the Heroics Department?"

Yes. Yes, she did. She received the congratulatory letter with a time and place of meeting. She sent back a letter of apology. She was not interested. She carefully not tried to think about not having told this to her cousin. In better circumstances, she'd have taken this secret to the grave. As it was, it might get back to Izuku if she's not careful.

Her lips remained closed.

"Someone recommended you. That someone had only recommended a number of students who could only fit one hand and still has some spare. You're already included in that number, mind you. And within that number, all students had excelled magnificently." The pro hero daintily buffed her nails with a nail file that Tsuna had been pointedly looking at since she pulled it out of nowhere.

"You've met, I've heard," the tall woman continued, "almost two years ago in a bus incident he had to respond to out of costume. You've impressed him, it seemed. So much that he put you on recommendation right after it was taken care of."

There could only be one incident and one person - or hero - she was talking about. More than half a year ago, she had ridden a bus from Tokyo to Musutafu. A villain tried to hi-jack the bus. Tried was the key word. Before he could even try to do anything, she'd already noticed his intent and moved to stop him.

She didn't have to use her quirk. She only needed to stealthily stride to his direction and kicked him under the belt so hard she heard he couldn't get up on his own nor walk straight even an hour later. The said hero happened to be on a day-off and was on the same bus.

That was it. There was nothing remotely impressive about it. She didn't even got to talk to the hero and didn't recognized who he was.

She took a deep breath and looked at her in the eye. She unconsciously shifted into what her guardians had jokingly called the boss mode Before.

"What is the actual reason you wanted me to participate?" Her hands steepled atop her desk and her voice echoed within the classroom eerily. She didn't notice the increase in tension nor the sudden colder temperature.

(A shiver passed through the two teachers' spines. The aura of the girl had shifted so rapidly, they wouldn't have believed it had they not just witnessed it.)