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morethanonepage · 7 years ago

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2017 Fic Roundup Meme

Total Fics Posted: Nine. Ooof.

Total Words Posted: 44041

Total Words (of Anything Excluding Blogs) Written: Man I don’t even know how I’d count this -- I’ve written at least ten briefs for work and those are usually between 2 - 5 pages, and I write a lot of WIPs that I don’t end up posting. So I mean it’s probably in the 100,000 range but the majority of that (obviously) is either not fandom related or not likely to see the light of day as publicly consumable or both.

My favorite fic story this year: greenwood -- written as part of an AU meme and so so random -- Maurice-AUs are hardly a fandom trope y’know -- but man that’s one I wish I could commit to writing more of. I love Maurice (both the film and the book) so much and I love John/Chas so much as a pairing that I just kind of forced it to work, and I think it mostly did. But it’s just too far from the Constantine premise to be worth expanding, beyond just for the gimmick. Like as a historical AU I feel like I’d have to incorporate some magic nonsense to it and it wouldn’t be impossible but ugh, plots. Better to leave them in that nice, tender moment with all the possibilities before them. My one regret for it was that I got a little fade-to-black about the sex (not true in the initial conception and I did a little draft of some more explicit from Chas’ POV) but in the end I felt like I’d written too much porn lately (and was trying to be in keeping with the aesthetic of the original story), so.

My best story this year: Adrift -- I’ve re-read it to myself a bunch of times, and I just genuinely enjoyed working through it and figuring out the relationship dynamics and possibilities and putting in references to so many well established headcanons of mine. And John’s SUCH an unreliable narrator/POV character that I always have a great time trying to write him as clearly feeling SOMETHING while he’s pretending he doesn’t. And idk it’s just one of my top pairings ever and I was glad to finally devote myself to writing a nice, slow developing relationship fic with just the two of them working their shit out.

Story most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Honestly at this point, given that I’m writing almost entirely John/Chas fics, and otherwise for very niche pairings, I think any appreciation my fics get is a miracle. Though I do kind of wish I’d written Adrift in the Constantine fandom’s hey-day, because it’s a chaptered developing relationship fic and those are hard to come by and I feel weird saying it’s great but it’s solid and got really good reactions from people who did read it, and I’m proud of that.

Also I’m not as proud of blended cotton with gannex twill, in terms of its actual quality (I’m not sure the POV shifts quite work as well as I wanted them to) but it took me SO LONG to finish it and it was such a goofy premise that I’m really glad I did, and again I’m a little sad some of the early-day Constantine people didn’t get a chance to read it when I first started goofing around about the possibility of a sentient trenchcoat.

I’m also kind of surprised a reasonable amount of trouble was the least popular of the historic AUs I wrote -- I joked that I didn’t really know what noir was but I think it was close enough and I tried to set a (vaguely angsty) mood of both yearning but inevitable dissatisfaction to it. Maybe I didn’t go gritty enough with it? That tends to be my flaw for any Hellblazer related stuff, admittedly -- I can’t quite commit to the bleakness I know it merits.

Sexiest Story: Adrift has a lot of sex in it (IT’S NECESSARY TO THE PLOT, she said, not at all defensively), which was described with a fair amount of detail, and then I backed up to more subtle depictions b/c I thought all that sex stuff would get boring. There’s also a lot of John telling himself he’s pretty meh on the sex itself. So I feel like the sexiness of it was kind of neutered by it being so much about the plot (like, the shifts of what they actually get up to were to represent emotional shifts in how they were feeling about each other). Which at least made it less sexy for me to write, anyway.

I got good feedback about The (Shamelessly Indulgent) Sex Chapter in blended cotton with gannex twill [which was somewhat necessary b/c I wanted to get all manner of bodily fluids on the coat b/c in my vague headcanon/justification that’s what actively pushes it into true sentience but--], but honestly I think my truly sexiest fic of the year is mages against literacy -- to the point I was actively embarrassed writing it, and didn’t read it again for months after I posted it, and then went back and was like “w o w”.

Most fun story: blended cotton with gannex twill. TRENCHIE NO! TRENCHIE YES.

Also a boy with a thorn in his side is....fun for me and a few very specific people, probably. I wrote another high school AU Star Wars fic in 2016 that was way more fun and goofy and idealistic -- it’s called the id fic for a reason -- but if the id fic was what I wish high school had been like for me, ABWATIHS is -- what high school was, tbh. I mean not precisely, but Cassian’s EMOTIONS and his inability to deal with them was #relatable. I wrote it so fast, mostly because I was so intrigued by the possibilities of it and the headcanons I came up with for it, which I’m still really fond of. Like if I were to ever write original fic, I’d file off the serial numbers and make a go of it there.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: In Good Faith wasn’t, in my opinion, a great fic -- I wrote it too quickly and without enough of a reason beyond ‘someone asked for it’, and some parts were very derivative -- but I did work through some things with it, about Kes and Shara’s potential relationship history, and about what Shara’s flaws might be and what her life was like and why she and Kes work so well together. Not a lot of which actually came out in the fic IMO, but at least I had that going on in my head.

Hardest story to write: partly mors et fugacem persequitur virum, because I didn’t remember nearly as much about Roman history as I thought I did (and what was I going to do, research??? [I did do some but none of it is actually like -- visible in the fic], and I was overconfident about my ability to make it work and still be in IC. I’m.....still not sure if I didn’t fail on one or both of those accounts.

Also I wrote Anything Can Happen (On Halloween) for no fucking reason other than because I wanted to post the 100th fic in the John/Chas tag (I EARNED THISSS) and I think it shows. Again I wrote it too quickly (in about a week?? ridiculous), I was too nervous about someone else posting something else as the 100th fic instead of me and that my hardwork would’ve GONE TO WASTE wah wah wah anyway the ending was boring and I still feel guilty about it not being very good. Biggest surprise: Anything Can Happen (On Halloween) was actually surprisingly (to me) well received -- like it got very quick positive reactions and idk why since I’m still genuinely embarrassed by it -- I mean I don’t think it’s a bad fic but it’s rushed and clunky and not terribly original. A story I want remembered: Someone on twitter said that Adrift made them ship John/Chas and honestly that’s all I want for it -- that and for the people who keep coming to the lil’ Constantine fandom that there is and go looking for fic find it and read it and at least kind of understand why some rando keeps flooding the tag with John/Chas nonsense.

Resolutions for 2018: This has been a very John/Chas year for me and while I’m mostly okay with that, I do want to at least try to make my way back to finnpoe again -- I’m working on a bigbang fic so I desperately want to finish that (it’s outlined and everything and I think it may end up being one of my most personal fics) but we’ll see -- Star Wars fandom continues to push me away, and I won’t be able to post it until May, which is rough for someone like me, who depends so much on positive attention. There’s also a bunch of DamFam things I want to explore, especially now.

I also want to keep writing the John/Chas but I want to stop feeling so embarrassed about it -- like so what that it was so long ago, people are still into it! Every few weeks or so I get someone on tumblr clearly going through my John/Chas tag, anyway. So at least I will have/still have some readers for that nonsense.

I want to be better about prompts people give me -- I try to set expectations at the floor level for these things but I do genuinely like writing things for people, at least partly b/c I’m terrible at coming up with ideas on my own, so I want to try harder to fill memes and such.

And idk maybe I’d like to find another ship that I like, that’s not from a dead show, where the fandom isn’t the worst. DARE TO DREAM (the impossible dream).

#no one tagged me to do this i just stole it from somewhere #but anyway #thus are my thoughts on writing #writing meme #it's also just harder to write lately btw -- between work and life #(mostly work)#it's just.....draining and harder to find the time #for such little relative reward sometimes #w/e w/e

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cowboycakes · 4 years ago

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Do You Get My Letters

✥ Pairing: Levi x fem!Reader, somewhat Reiner x fem!Reader

✥ Themes: Fluff, angst, sadness, big ass plot twist

✥ Warnings: Female bodied reader (she/her pronouns,) Pregnancy and birth (nothing gory.) Mentions of death, violence, and threats. Manipulation.

✥ Synopsis: You are carrying Reiner's baby when he betrays Paradis. Levi decides to step in.

✥ Word Count: 2.2k

(there is a part two up to this fic, but i've decided i'm going to rewrite the ending at some point.)

Anon's Request: Hi! I saw your requests are open so here I want to give my little scenario a try! 🕳🤸🏽‍♀️ I thought abt this last night, I’m currently rewatching AOT after 6 yrs and yet to finish season 4, so sorry if I’m wrong abt timelines/the plot? My request is the reader was with child with Reiner, but b4 reader told him, he betrayed and exposed his mission. Levi stepped in to help reader. And btw, I just finished watching ep 3 of season 4, so maybe Eren telling reiner abt his child and he regrets leaving the reader? And reiner jealous at the fact Levi is most likely considered his child’s father at that point. I can’t come up with an ending, so I’ll leave it up to you if you do take in my request. If this isn’t your type of writing I totally understand!

Note: This story is canon divergent. It is set in season 4, but in a universe where Reiner is not revealed as a traitor/the armored titan until a few months before season 4 takes place, as the reader was having relations with him until then and did not know his secret. I’m sorry if that change bothers you, I just wanted to write this as sort of its own story. This story contains season 4 spoilers! It also has nothing to do with the canon ending of AOT.

---

Dear Reiner,

I hope this letter somehow gets to you, I don’t quite know where to start.

In a perfect world, I would be so happy to tell you this. You’d be ecstatic too, I think. And before you try to second guess me: I’m sure by now, don’t worry.

I’m pregnant.

I guess we weren’t careful enough before you left. I feel like an idiot. And lost. But I’m not hopeless. I know myself, I can make it work somehow. With or without you.

I’m still in shock about you. How could someone so close hide so much? You’re a talented spy I suppose, a great asset to Marley. You made me trust you with my entire life. You made me love every false thing about you. And this is the rude awakening I get in return.

I’ll raise our child to value honesty and kindness, all in spite of you.

Sincerely,

Reader

---

The paper was damp with tears after you lifted your pen for a final time. You wished you could just keep the whole thing a secret: go make a quiet life for yourself somewhere else. It wouldn’t be right. Not after all of the dishonesty that man had spewed to you over the past few years. You had to tell him.

The door to the office room you’d settled in to write the letter creaks open. It’s Levi. He looks at your puffy eyes somberly, sympathetic. He was the first person you had told about the entire situation. Not because you were close, just because you needed help.

You fold your letter and stick it into a sturdy envelope. Levi takes it in his hand.

“That piece of shit doesn’t deserve a thing from you. Not a letter. Certainly not tears,” Levi says, using a clean handkerchief to wipe a stray drop from your cheek, “but I am proud of you.”

You take the handkerchief from him, feeling more tears stream down your face.

“Proud? I’m a fucking idiot,” you say through your sobs.

“Don’t even try to pull that self pity shit with me. Things happen sometimes. And you’re strong enough to commit to getting through it,” he responds.

You stand up, pushing your chair out. You look at him as you dry your face off again.

“I’m alone. How the hell am I supposed to do this shit alone?”

“You are not alone,” Levi replies. You’re shocked when he pulls you into a hug. “I’m going to help.”

You had never seen this side of him before. You look at him as you pull away slowly, tears still welled in your eyes.

“Are you sure? That's a big burden, Levi. None of this has to involve you.”

“Not the biggest burden I’ve ever taken on,” he shrugs. “There’s a lot of death around here, Y/N. Everyone is going to be happy about the little bit of life you’re giving us.”

You chuckle. He’s cynical, but he’s right.

He licks the envelope as he walks toward the door.

“Want me to run you a hot bath or something? Is that the type of shit pregnant people need?” he asks.

You laugh, a little harder than normal. It felt so relieving to laugh.

“Sure, Captain,” you respond softly.

---

Dear Reader,

I received your letter before the battle in Marley. I actually got to hand it to Reiner myself. He knows everything now. He broke down in front of me after reading it, going on about how much he regrets everything. How he wishes he could change things and be there for you. He begged me to kill him right there.

The world will eventually not have suffering like what you are going through now.

Eren Jaeger

---

Your jaw had dropped reading it. He begged me to kill him.

You hand the letter Levi had just delivered back to him. He reads it with a furrowed brow.

“Do you think…” you begin, your voice shaky, “do you think I could send another letter?”

Levi purses his lips, “Possibly. I can ask Jaeger. But right now, you need to bring your blood pressure back down.”

You were over seven months along now. You had found out about your pregnancy late, after being in denial for four whole months. Hange insisted on checking you out after you’d thrown up every morning for a week.

Levi had since gone on a parenting book reading spree; he made you read several of them too. He knew just about everything you needed to do to make a healthy baby: what to eat, what not to eat, how to exercise, when to go to the doctor, etc. It was really sweet how much he cared. You knew it gave him hope, something to fight for, something to come home to.

You were terrified when he left for Marley. You kissed him for the first time when he returned. Just about everyone you knew had to fight. You wished you could be out there fighting with them like you were supposed to. Maybe you could have made a difference.

Levi takes your hand, squeezing it to bring you out of your thoughts.

“What can I do?” he asks.

“Get me a glass of wine,” you grumble.

“Absolutely not.”

---

Dear Reiner,

Reader does not know I’m sending this. So keep it that way, or I’ll kill your sorry ass. Or maybe not, you’d probably enjoy that. In that case I’ll get creative.

How does it feel? Being a fucking deadbeat? Is it everything you’d thought it’d be and more? Fucking her and leaving her with nothing, like she belongs in a whorehouse. Reminds me of what happened to my mother. Pieces of shit like you came in and sent her to her death, leaving her kid behind to starve.

I wasn’t about to let her suffer like my mother did. But you were. I’m glad your choices haunt you, Reiner. You fucking deserve it.

I’ll be there for the both of them from now on, doing everything you were never capable of. She’s due any day now, I’m sure she’ll try to write to you.

Levi

---

You feel your first contraction while napping on the couch with Levi. You were settled in between his legs, your back leaning up against his chest. He had his hands on your stomach; he loved to feel the baby kick and tell them some of the happier stories in his memories.

The two of you had grown so close over the past few months. You slept together every night now. You didn’t want to leave each other’s sides if you didn’t have to. Levi would cuddle and massage you any time your pregnant body was ailing you.

You had fantasized with him about life after the war. He wanted to be a husband, a father, to live peacefully in the countryside. And he wanted more than anything for you to join him.

The first contraction wasn’t painful enough for you to make much more than a grunting noise, but Levi woke up the second he felt your stomach contort a bit. He was on very high alert these days.

“Holy… shit…is that what I think it is?” Levi whispers, “Don’t answer. I’m getting Hange.”

He crawls out from behind you and sprints out of the room.

The pain worsens and becomes much more frequent while he’s out looking for Hange. You stand up eventually after getting the urge to walk around - and your water breaks. You start panicking, unsure of how dilated you were and how much time you had left before pushing. You really wished you’d done more than just skimmed through those birthing books right about now.

Levi and Hange eventually come sprinting back into the room with a wheelchair and cold rags to find you whimpering in pain on the couch, trying your best to control your breathing.

You’re rushed down the halls to the Scout’s infirmary, where Levi had made sure the perfect room was set up for you - and it had been that way for two months.

The next hour goes by in a blur. Hange knew the biology of how to deliver the baby, and Levi knew how to coach you. He helped you hold your legs back when you pushed, and helped you count out your breathing. Hange attended to everything that might have made Levi faint, like checking your dilation and making sure the baby was coming out at the right angle. You got lucky having these two by your side.

Through all of your efforts, you finally hear a cry. You look up to see Levi holding your tiny new baby as Hange wiped them clean. He was smiling, way bigger than you’d ever seen him smile before, with tears in his eyes.

“Here,” he says softly, handing her to you.

You cradle her on your bare skin. “She’s so perfect, Levi! Look how sweet she is!” you coo.

“What are you going to call her?” he asks, stroking your hair as you gleam down at your baby.

“I was thinking,” you smile, “Kuchel.”

Levi lets out small gasp. Tears start streaming down his face, his efforts to stifle them failing.

“Really? I think that’s,” he wipes his eyes, “a wonderful name.”

—-

Dear Reiner,

She’s finally here! Oh my god, she’s precious. Levi and Hange helped to deliver her. Labor went smoothly. Levi started to cry when he saw her for the first time. She really is just that perfect. We are calling her Kuchel, after Levi’s mother. He cried when I told him that, too (don’t tell him I’m sharing those crying details.) I've decided to give her Levi’s last name as well.

Levi set up the perfect nursery for us.

If you really did feel guilty for leaving - don’t be. I’m happy.

She has your eyes.

Sincerely,

Reader

—-

Dear Reiner,

Kuchel said her first word today. Of course it wasn’t mama, she’s such a daddy’s girl. She started crawling awhile ago, we are now working on standing up on our own. She has all of this blonde curly hair, too. She’s growing up so fast.

Reader

—-

Dear Reiner,

Levi proposed a few days ago. It was so perfect. We found a nice house with room for a farm that will be perfect for a family.

I can only wonder how you’re doing, now that the war is over.

Are you even alive?

Reader

—-

Dear Reiner,

I’m expecting again. Levi is beyond excited. I am too, of course. Kuchel started school this year. She is such a smart kid.

I still wonder about you. After all these years.

Reader

—-

Message after message, word after word. No response. You had decided he must be dead. The devastation after the war would argue that he was.

That is, until you found yourself rummaging through one of Levi’s desk drawers, looking for baby Isabel’s lost pacifier.

You felt the bottom of the drawer shift. A false bottom?

You pry at it until it comes open.

Letters.

Dozens of opened letters. With Marleyan postage stamps.

You pull out the first bundle you see. They’re all from you. Unopened. Unsent. You set them aside, your jaw quivering.

You pull out the second bundle and gasp.

—-

Dear Reader,

Eren showed me your letter. I am terribly sorry. Let me fix this, somehow. You can come to live with me in Marley. I will take care of you. Please.

I’m not just a traitor, a liar, a farce. Everything between us was real. I can explain everything. Just trust me.

Love,

Reiner

—

Dear Reader,

Do you get my letters?

I’ve only heard rumors about our new baby girl. I wish I could see her. Just once. For a second. Do you have a camera? I know they’re hard to come by in Paradis. I can send one.

I’d do anything to change this. You know I would.

Love,

Reiner

—-

To Levi,

You son of a bitch. I know exactly what you’re doing. You think this is protecting her, but it’s not. Just let her talk to me. She would listen, she would understand. You said yourself that she writes. You manipulative, sick bastard. That is MY child. She will never be yours. No matter what you brainwash her to believe, your dirty Ackerman blood does not run through her veins. She deserves to know. You are the farce, Levi.

Reiner

—-

There were dozens more. All opened. All from Reiner.

You sink down to the floor, tears spilling from your eyes.

You are the farce, Levi.

But, why? He was just protecting you, right?

The office door opens. You jump, shoving the letters back into the drawer.

“Mommy, why are you crying?” Kuchel asks.

You take a deep breath, staring down at the letters, thinking about everything that could have been.

“Are you happy here, Kuchel?”

“Yes!” she chirps, “Every day!”

“Then it’s nothing, baby. Mommy just got hurt. She’s better now.”

Your daughter giggles and skips out of the room, leaving you to hide away the rest of the letters.

༺♥༻

I REALLY HOPE I understood your request, Anon! I actually had a lot of fun writing this. It isn't something I would normally think to write, but I'm so glad you shared this idea! Sorry for the sad ending, I love playing w people's emotions ;)

༺♥༻

#levi x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi ackerman #levi aot #reiner x reader #reiner braun #reiner x you #levi x you #attack on titan #aot x reader #aot imagines #levi imagine #reiner imagine #snk reiner #snk levi #tw: pregnancy #tw: threats #tw: manipulation #tw: mentions of death

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yesimwriting · 3 years ago

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Hello! Your Nikolai fic tranquility is so beautiful! Can you write more for Nikolai? Maybe the opposite with reader having a nightmare? Or whatever you want just please give me more! If you have a tagging list I'd love to be included btw :)

A/n hii!! first off,, thank you! i was a little nervous about writing him for the first time,, but i love him so much (even though i love a good villain/morally grey character in love i think nikolai would probably make the least toxic bf in the grishaverse lol)

you gave me a little too much freedom here lol bc i have so many ideas for him!! lowkey might need to give him a longer fic/series soon when i catch up with requests!! WOW THIS FIC IS SO LONG AND FOR WHAT

Summary: Reader is a handmaid who has grown up assisting Nikolai. Through the years, the two have developed a special relationship that most definitely breaks royal protocol--they’re best friends and rivals on a good day, and dangerously close to being something more the second either of them is remotely upset or extremely happy. Learning about the fact that Nikolai was almost engaged to Alina (a good friend of yours) and being reminded of the fact that as royalty Nikolai has many prospects (both serious women worthy of his title and women only suitable for trysts meant to relieve tension) has you both realizing something you should have years ago.

Word count: 31210

Warnings: disclaimer--may not be the most cannon thing ever,, but i wanted the ‘child of the help competes and falls in love with the child of royalty’ energy okay?? Lol

I could do a whole blurb series with this dynamic nikolai x reader,, like just stories of them growing up together and randomly realizing they might like each other romantically?? I probably shouldn’t rn but i ADORE this trope.

The perfection of the room is disappointing. Idle hands, idle thoughts--so I work to smooth out a perfect duvet. Still, the thoughts come--aggressive and unavoidable. It’s silly, maybe even sad, to feel possessive over something that’s never been yours, something that could never be yours, but the harder I fight off the feeling the stronger it grows. Jealousy is a weed growing quickly in my chest, vile roots planted firmly in my heart.

Normally my favorite part of the day would be waiting for Nikolai to return to his room in the palace after dinner and his evening duties. He’s always a bit softer in the evenings, during my last check-in of the day. I’m normally thrilled to be done organizing his room early because that means the second he arrives there will be no distraction. Most evenings, he’ll find me perched in the seat by his bed, reading. He’ll mock-scold me for daring to defy his orders and reading ahead from the book we both take turns reading aloud from each night. He then warns me that I better react exactly the way I did when I first read it or else. That threat is always followed by a gentle laugh.

Tonight I’m in no mood for our nightly banter or even our nightly reading. My mother had warned me of the dangers of getting too comfortable with the royal family. I should have heeded that warning when she first gave it to me, the morning she found Nikolai and I fast asleep on a couch in the library as children. The palace likes to bring up the children of the staff by training them to attend to the next generation of royals. It makes the staff more efficient, a lifetime of knowing what someone wants makes you better for them. It also creates some level of connection, making betrayal a little less likely. Nikolai and I might have taken it farther than most. But now I want a reminder of the way we’re supposed to be--maybe if I detach now the bleeding of my heart won’t kill me. That has to remain secret, because if I explain it to Nikolai something in me will break. The one line between us will be crossed.

This will be the sixth secret I’ve kept from Nikolai in my entire life.

The secrets:

I don’t know why I was picked for Nikolai. I wasn’t particularly skilled, but still, the day came when my mother was told that I now worked directly for the Lantsov boy. It’s an honor, a true one, but my mother had been a little nervous. To whom much is given, much is expected--and I detested Nikolai. Not for being a prince, but for being a prince who thought girls couldn’t race or fight.

The day my mother came looking for me because I never showed up for dinner and she found Nikolai and I attempting to fight in the way only a ten-year-old girl and eleven-year-old boy would, she had looked truly mortified. Nikolai had only laughed, either oblivious to my mother’s embarrassment or uncaring about it. He had then hugged me--an expression of care that had left me reeling. I saw him more as a rival than someone to tend to, but in that moment I saw him as a friend. Even more so when he told me he didn’t want me to go yet and that he was upset that so much of the day had been wasted by studies that kept him with boring people and away from me. And then he invited me to his lessons--my mother was quick to attempt to decline politely, but the desires of a prince at any age outweigh that of a mother.

After that, everyone kind of just stopped trying to remind us of our propriety. The tutor at first was concerned about my presence, but Nikolai remained stubborn. I wasn’t a big enough deal to cause an argument, so I began to attend lessons with him almost every day, only staying away when my mother needed aid with laundry or cleaning. His parents must have been somewhat aware of our friendship, but they must have been oblivious to our closeness because it was never mentioned.

My mother’s worry began to ease, she’d even started to take some pride when I’d come to our room proudly proclaiming that I scored two marks higher than Nikolai. She did, however, warn that it might be more tactful to let him score higher.

The comment was casual, just a suggestion, but it left me feeling wrong. It was the first time since we met that I had thought about our different statuses. I didn’t tell him--and that was the first secret I ever kept from him.

As we grew, we traded physical competition for academic rivalry, trying to best each other in both lessons and games of strategy like chess and cards. But with growing comes responsibility. Nikolai started to have obligations that were meant to be private. I couldn’t follow him at all times. But he’d always come back from locked door meetings grinning like he carried schoolyard gossip instead of government secrets. He shared everything with me, even when I playfully warned against it.

He’d always step closer when I teased that perhaps he shouldn’t tell me everything. And then he’d say, “If I can’t trust you, then I can’t trust anyone--and I don’t want to live in a world like that.” Often, he’d give my hand a light squeeze before moving on like he had not said anything intimate.

On a day in which Nikolai was in one of those meetings, I became a woman. When I first saw the blood, I had been horrified--but my mother was quick to explain that it was natural. She said that I was now a woman, a wonderful thing, really--but a thing that came with obligations. She told me that I could no longer have the impromptu ‘sleepovers’ with Nikolai unless he ordered it. I told her he’s never ordered me to do anything for him.

She didn’t ease, something in her had started to become nervous again. My mother had recently started to act the way she did when Nikolai and I first became friends. I didn’t want to fall asleep in Nikolai’s bed while I was bleeding, but I didn’t want to never have another sleepover with him again. Especially not when she refused to explain why being a woman changed so much.

I had decided to avoid Nikolai as much as possible until the sting of my mother’s new rule faded. Unfortunately, that night Nikolai was extra talkative--excited as he insisted I stay for a little longer. Soon, I found his familiar good naturedness melting away my nerves and before I knew it I was laughing in the middle of the night. When my eyelids started to feel heavy, I had moved from the chair, ready to head back to my room.

Nikolai had looked at me oddly before he asked why would I leave so late when it would be easier for me to just sleepover? It was an innocent question, he did not know about my change and I had wanted to keep it that way.

I tried playing coy, but Nikolai has always had a talent for getting around my better judgement. I don’t recall exactly how it happened, but I remember him standing in front of me. It was the first time I noticed how much had actually changed over the years--he was now taller than me for the first time in his life. His hair had started to grow a little longer, golden and soft-looking--and his face seemed much more angular. But he had not lost his boyish charm.

“Y/n?” My name fell softly from his lips, and that was the first time I had ever noted the fullness of them. I didn’t understand why I considered that something worth noting. “Did I do something to make you mad at me?”

Perhaps I had been a little curt--nerves and hormones had left me not feeling like myself. I didn’t tell him about the bleeding, I couldn’t. That became the second secret I kept from him--but I did tell him that my mother had told me I was a woman now, and that women can’t have sleepovers. Not with those of the opposite gender. I made no effort to hide my confusion because I expected him to be as perplexed as I was. But he was not confused--in fact, he had the audacity to laugh. My face flushed, but I did not know why.

“Why is that funny?” Maybe he thought I was still too much of a child to be considered a woman. I assumed it a fair assumption, I had not grown the way he had--my shoulders had not become sturdier and I had not become particularly broader. Still, I would rather melt into the floor than tell him about the reason my mother now considered me a woman. “My mother did say that, and I don’t know what being a ‘woman’ has to do with staying in your room at night.” Something strange had crossed over his features then, something much more brooding than I was used to.

I had blinked at him as unexplained nerves pooled in my stomach. Perhaps that look would have been enough to keep me silent if he had managed to not grin. That self-assured grin that had always challenged me. “Well since you know everything about my mother now, maybe you can tell me why she’s been acting strange. She’s starting to act the way she did when we first became friends.” I expected him to at least pretend to be worried. Perhaps his parents had spoken to her and had mentioned wanting our friendship to end. But his grin had only grown. Pride left me angry. “She did say that I could stay if you ordered it--but I’m glad you’ve never ordered me to do anything, so I can leave right now because you’re acting as odd as her. I don’t understand what you could find funny about our friendship ending.”

He had stopped me from storming out of his room by placing one hand on the wall between me and the door. “Y/n, don’t be cross--I’ll explain it all, I promise.” Angry pride made me want to storm away from him, but curiosity and something unknown and warm kept me in place. “Do you remember when we read the play about the rival families, how the two main characters had kissed?”

I remembered that part of the play especially well. The concept of kissing so casually, outside of marriage, had been jarring to me. “Yes.”

“Now that we’re older, your mother must be worried that we might do that.” He paused before leaning against the arm he placed on the wall to keep me from leaving a little more. “Kiss.”

The clarification was not needed--in that brief pause, I had allowed myself to imagine no distance between our lips. Something in me burned with embarrassment when I realized that some part of me found the thought appealing. The only thing I wanted in that moment was assurance that Nikolai would never know I felt that. That was my third secret, and the weight of it was heavy against my chest.

Still, though, all of my confusion had not yet left. “Is there much harm in a kiss?”

The question had left an odd smile on his lips. “There’s potential harm in what it could lead to for the woman, but not so much for the man.” He exhaled slowly as my face tensed. He could always read me too well because he was quick to add, “What it could lead to isn’t a bad thing, it’s meant to be pleasurable, but it’s serious.” I did not understand, but a part of me was starting to grow okay with that. Nikolai’s voice had started to become lower than ever, and his gaze remained tense. Perhaps if I accepted the confusion for now, things could go back to normal. If the conversation ended, I could stop thinking of his lips and his hands and what it would mean for them to touch me. “It’s considered a vice, like drinking or gambling.” The additional comment helped more than it should have. A vice--not scary and not painful, but not something to indulge in. That’s enough explanation for now. “If you want to know, I won’t deny you.”

I appreciated the offer tremendously. The vice that comes after kissing is clearly something that’s been intentionally kept from me. It’s something he was privy to that I was not, and he offered it to me like so much else. But if knowledge that my mother feared us kissing made me think of his lips, then I doubted I could handle knowing what comes after kissing.

“I’ll let you know when I want to know, but I appreciate the offer.” It felt like a fair response. His snarky grin came back immediately. Irritation rooted itself in my stomach. I hated not knowing more than him for once, but I still had one question I could not relinquish. “But what does that vice have to do with orders?”

At that, his smugness faltered. “It’s not unheard of, for princes and handmaids--for a prince to obligate a handmaid in order to fulfill his vice. Though many handmaids fill the vice of their own will for benefits.

The explanation left him like a confession. I didn’t understand his hesitance--it’s not like he’d ever make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Even when I worked, he was hesitant to ask me to go out of my way to bring him a glass of water. And I couldn’t imagine gaining anything from offering Nikolai something I didn’t really understand. I wasn’t naive to the fact that my life had more privileges than many palace servants. “Oh.”

His eyes hardened. “You know I’d never--”

“I know.” It was finally easy to smile again. “I never thought otherwise.” Something in him seemed to ease at that, his eyes went from hard to warm in less than a second.

I had no more questions for him and I was also no longer a flight risk, but Nikolai did not move. He did not step back to create a more appropriate distance and he did not drop his arm. His gaze, however, did move--dropping downwards, and slightly away from my eyes. I did the same, my eyes falling to his lips.

The silence between us began to make me feel like something in me was in danger of overflowing. “Then I guess my mother is once again worrying for no reason.” Strangely, I did not feel the need to feel embarrassed about staring at his lips. “Because I would never particularly want to kiss you, Nikolai Lantsov.”

The comment was meant to be teasing, a joke to clear away unknown tension. I should have known better than to challenge his pride because he instinctually moved his hand off the wall and beneath my chin. I did not flinch when he tilted my head upwards slightly with his fingers. “I could get you to want to kiss me if I wanted to.”

Three secrets in one night. I did not think I could bear a fourth one. “Hm…” The ground we treaded on felt unstable, but something in me trusted Nikolai to not let me falter. “I should--I should go before I give my mother anymore cause to worry.”

His fingers had brushed down my chin easily as he dropped his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

And that he did. The days passed without mention of the last time he asked me to sleepover. It was as if nothing had changed except now I found myself noting things I most definitely did not want to note. These didn’t feel like individual secrets because it felt easy to group each admirational thought into one secret. Soon, that became my new normal--easy banter, easy touches of hands, and easy yet silent admirations of his beauty.

I never wandered too hard about what the vice that kissing can lead to entailed. I didn't particularly want to know, but knowing that I could ask Nikolai at any time brought a sense of security to me. But besides that, I never thought of that conversation until the day I was asked to look for Nikolai because he was late for dinner.

That in itself was odd, most of the time when Nikolai was late it was because he was with you. I checked his room, two other rooms he was known to frequent, and then finally the library. First, I noticed a handmaid two years older than me. I was finally at an age when one begins to compare their beauty to those around them, and I recognized the girl as gorgeous. She was better endowed than me, physically, and she always seemed fun. And then I noticed Nikolai, standing closer to her than I’ve ever seen him stand to anyone. His expression was serious as the girl giggled.

Nikolai’s expression shifted from tense to shocked when he saw me. “Y/n.”

It took me a moment longer than it should have to realize what I had interrupted. Guilt and jealousy were quick to twist in my stomach. “Dinner--your parents sent me to look for you.”

He was quick to walk around the girl, who was quick to glare at me. I attempted to disappear down the hall after mumbling a quick apology, but Nikolai was faster than me.

“Y/n,” he did not hesitate to grab my wrist.

It shouldn’t have irked me the way it did, after all, neither of us had ever really hesitated to touch each other. I had always reached for him when I wanted him, and he had done the same. But the thought of the same hands that touched the most beautiful girl I had ever seen on me left me bitter in a way I didn’t understand.

Still, I pushed through all of that. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, your mother asked me to look for you because she assumed you’d be with me when you were late to dinner. I didn’t think that there’d be--”

“You didn’t interrupt anything.” The words came out flat as his eyes took on the same quality they did the night he explained my mother’s concern to me. “Valaria wishes there was something to interrupt, but there wasn’t.”

Oh. I refused to let the correction inflate me. “Would you like me to not come to your room tonight?”

The offer felt awkward to make. “No,” the answer came quickly, “In fact, go there now--I want to see you right after dinner. I’ve missed you today.” The instruction left my face feeling warm. “We could read an extra chapter of our book if you’d like.”

Despite myself, I grinned. “Yes.”

“Looking forward to it.”

True to his word, Nikolai was quick to return to his room. He had come back to me eagerly, going out of his way to squeeze my shoulder as he entered the room.

I opened the book to the chapter we had left off on, but before I could start reading, Nikolai stopped me. “Sit next to me?”

The question came softly. It had been some time since we sat next to each other on his bed. Still, I moved off of the chair and to his bed. Something in me longed for the familiar closeness of childhood. I allowed him to play with my fingers as I read.

“You know you could take one night off from me if you wanted to.” The admission left me softly, part of unsure if he was still paying attention to my words. “She was pretty, it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings if you told me you wanted me to not come tonight.”

Nikolai exhaled easily, squeezing my fingers once. “I said I wanted to see you and I meant it.”

It took all of my energy to push past the way his words made my stomach leap. “In general, if you ever--”

Nikolai cut me off by laying his head on my lap the way he used to. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” It was the first time in years that he spoke to me in a way that acknowledged his authority. “Keep reading please.”

And that was the last time we had ever mentioned other handmaids in that context. The fifth secret I ever kept from him was the way I worried that one day that would change.

The door creaks open while I’m in the middle of fluffing an already pristine pillow. Nikolai steps into the room, but I continue to work.

“Darling,” he breathes too easily, “Today has been painful.” I straighten, looking at him as casually as I can manage. “And now I have to deal with you being mad at me.”

Damn him and his ability to read me with one look. “I’m not mad.”

“You know you can’t lie to me,” he sighs, stepping forward, “We’ve known each other too long for that.”

I press my lips together, irrational anger pushing itself into me at an odd angle. “We’ve also known each other too long to keep secrets.”

His eyebrows draw together, a look so quizzical I’m reminded of our schooling days. “What secrets have I kept from you?”

Mentioning that had been a mistake. I exhale as flatly as possible. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” My dismissal only has Nikolai’s expression hardening. I drop my gaze. “Unless you need something, I’m retiring my services for the evening.”

I take a reluctant step towards the door, eyes attached to the floor. “Y/n,” his voice is gentle. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing, I’m just tired.” Please let that be at least somewhat believable. “I’m sure I’ll feel more like myself in the morning.” I take another step, a little more assured. Nikolai’s hand is on my shoulder before I can escape. “Nikolai--”

“Y/n,” his voice is that of velvet, “I can’t have you be mad at me. Not now.”

Sighing, I meet his gaze. The tiredness I see behind his eyes is almost enough to chase away my nerve. What I’d give to be able to melt into our familiar routine. “Then you should have told me you were almost engaged to a literal Saint--the same literal Saint who’s one of my closest friends.”

Nikolai’s expression shifts as his hand drops from my shoulder slowly, fingers brushing down my arm before he finally intertwines our fingers. I bite my tongue to avoid squeezing his hand, but I don’t move to separate us either. He studies me silently, eyebrows drawn together. The longer he stares, the more whatever turmoil he’s experiencing seems to dissipate. After a minute of silence, I can read his expression perfectly. His lips are pressed together in that coy way--the way he only looks when he’s suppressing a smile.

I loathe him for it. “Nikolai Lantsov, don’t you dare laugh--not after what you did. Do you have any idea what it felt like to have Alina casually mention the fact that you almost married her casually? Like that was common knowledge to everyone but me?”

My words break away the last of his self control. He grins, flashing his annoyingly perfect teeth. “Do you have any idea what it feels like for me to want nothing more than to see you and then you let me believe something may actually be wrong when the only issue is your jealousy?”

The amusement in his tone is like poison to me. I find the strength to jerk my hand away from him. “I am not jealous.” He laughs; I am further enraged. “I am not.” The genuineness of my anger must finally register on some level, because he tries to suppress his smile. “I have every right to be mad at my best friend for not telling me that he was almost married.”

“We didn’t exactly come close,” he manages, expression still much too light for my taste. “I’m glad for Alina’s sake, I’m not sure being a Saint would be enough to protect her.”

He is infuriating. “I’m not sure anything you have will be enough to protect you.”

Something in his gaze shifts, softening the tilt of his mouth. “I don’t doubt that.”

I don’t know what I expected from him--but not this. I thought he’d be at least somewhat apologetic. “You should have told me.”

“I would have if I felt it was significant.”

“I’m your best friend--your marriage is significant to me. And even though it’s not like you’re engaged to her right now, you should have told me. You know I talk to Alina all the time.”

He sighs once, a hint of apology threatening to ghost over his eyes. “If I knew not knowing would have upset you so much I would have told you. I was--I was just so excited to be around you again I didn’t see much relevance in anything that didn’t involve you.”

The intensity that Nikolai regards me with is enough to wither all of my fury. But without my anger, I am left spiraling in emotion that I’ve been pushing against for years. My mother’s warning about relationships with those above us rings in my ears--sharp and headache inducing. I am still when he reaches for my hand again, but I do no allow myself to return the gentle squeeze of his fingers.

“I’m not sure much outside of you has significance.” He’s giving me a look I am familiar with. A look he often uses to chase away my anger.

Without my anger, I have nothing to keep me from melting into him, indulging in his presence fully. It’s so easy with him and I blinded myself to the danger of that. He may not be marrying Alina, but one day he will marry someone. A person worthy of his status--and what would I be left doing? Washing their laundry? Tearing up when I dusted the library and came across a book we had read together? Enough damage has already been done--I need to cut myself with this blade now in hopes of making sure I can one day recover.

He will get married one day, and nothing will be the same. And that’s a good thing--he deserves the love of a princess or queen. I want his happiness, even if it’s not with me. But some vindictive part of me hopes that some part of him will miss me. That some part of him will be dulled without me.

I’m a fool--he will remember me as the handmaid from his youth. The girl who made him laugh once or twice before he grew up. I force my hand out of his grasp. “You can’t win me over with words every time.” I need to get out of here before he says something that makes me lose all resolve. “Tomorrow morning I’ll be here to prepare you for breakfast.”

“Y/n.”

I step forward, refusing to look at him. “Goodnight.”

He sighs, his hand quick to grab my arm. Before I can question him I feel myself pulled back. I expect him to pull me just close enough so that I have to meet his gaze. He continues, pulling me sharply before placing a quick hand on my shoulder, forcing me down. My back hits his bed.

I sit up as soon as the reality of what just happened seeps into my mind. “Nikolai, what in the Saints--”

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat you like one.”

I scoff, thoughts of escaping him put on hold by the principle of pride. Fine. I’ll beat him one last time, and then I’ll let us separate. I shove him. He laughs--of course this is funny to him. He got to keep fighting past the age of about eleven. His laughter adds to my anger, I move to shove him again, but he catches my wrist easily. I struggle against his hold, shoving him a third time with my still free hand. He pushes me slightly. That’s all it takes to unleash familiar habits.

Our small fight is hardly fair. He has all the advantage--more training, and he’s standing above me. When I finally make a move that might give me some success, Nikolai leans forward. He practically tackles me, his weight forcing me flat against the bed.

I move an arm, ready to push him off of me. Nikolai snags my wrists, holding them above my head. “This means I win.” I roll my eyes, anger returning.

“Let me go.”

He sighs tiredly, but the smugness radiating off of him is suffocating. “Admit that you were jealous.”

There are a lot of things I am willing to do for him--but never that. I cannot give him the one separation I still have. “I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you mad?”

I press my lips together. “I told you--”

“Do you really think you could lie to me?”

“You don’t know me that well.”

Nikolai moves his freehand, touching my chin as a way to ask me to look at him. I meet his gaze hesitantly. “Yes, I do, and that’s never bothered you before but it does now.”

Maybe this is a conversation better had bluntly. “It bothers me now because you’re too old to hold onto the daughter of a palace handmaid and I’m too old to pretend that our different statuses don’t matter.”

“Y/n,” he breathes, “Nothing’s changed. Status didn’t matter to me when we were children, and it doesn’t matter to me now.”

“You can afford to say things like that.”

“What good is my title if it means I can’t,” he pauses, eyes hesitant, “If I can’t keep things the same between us?”

I smile, the sadness of the look weighs on me and I can’t even see it. “Nikolai, you always knew things would change.”

“No, I--”

“You can’t tell me you think your future wife would like you having such a close relationship with a handmaid.” I press my lips together. “One day you’ll fall in love and get married and you’ll want me to leave your bedchamber as soon as dinner is over because you’ll be eager to spend time with your wife.” His gaze hardens. “And that’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a really good thi--”

The last syllable of my sentence dies in my throat. Nikolai, who must be possessed by something, leans down and presses his lips against mine. I beg myself to resist, but his gentleness is everything I’ve ever wanted. He releases my hands in favor of holding my face. That’s all it takes--my hands move without my permission, into his hair--pulling him closer to me. What am I doing? I’m insane. Placing my hands on his chest cautiously, I push just slightly. He’s quick to obey, pulling away while allowing his teeth to brush against my bottom lip.

I gape at him--taking in his now slightly swollen lips. “Nikolai.” He can’t do this to me. We’re friends. Despite the fact that I’ve loved him more than I should--we’re friends. “You’re being extremely unfair.”

He draws his eyebrows together, sitting up quickly and moving off of me. “I’m being unfair? I have spent my entire life loving y--”

I sit up, furious in a new way. “You have not!” This is the dumbest I have ever been. I move to stand, still feeling the softness of his lips against mine.

“Your tooth fell out.” The sharpness of his words forces me to still.

“What?”

I can’t bring myself to turn and look at him, but I’ve always been able to feel any heaviness he bears. The weight of it leaves little room for air in my lungs. “You were ten. I told you ‘girls couldn’t fight’ so you punched me in the face. That was the first time we ever fought--I didn’t mean to hit you in the face, but you moved. You moved and I hit you in the mouth and your last baby tooth fell out. I expected you to cry or get angry, but you just blinked at me and laughed. You were happy to lose your last baby tooth because it meant you were grown up. And then you smiled and asked me if you looked older. If anything, the gap in your smile made you look younger but I told you that you looked like a grown-up because I wanted you to keep smiling. Because your smile made me feel like I won something.” I turn on my heels, but I cannot meet his gaze. “That was the moment I fell in love with you--so don’t tell me I haven’t spent my entire life loving you.”

The weight of his words is harder to survive against than the heaviness of his feelings. “Nikolai, you know we can’t ever be together--”

“Why not?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” I manage, voice low, “You almost married the Sun Summoner--”

“That was political--”

“Exactly, your marriage is meant to be political, and if it happens to be out of love--which is what I hope you get, because it is what you deserve--it will be to someone of status.”

Nikolai stands, the movement is that of a king, not the boy I know. “I do not want status or to love someone else--I want you.”

“I can’t take that from you--”

“You can’t take anything from me because I’ve already given it all to you.”

I press my lips together, heart tearing for him. “I love you too much to ruin you.”

My words seem to snap something in him because his eyes darken, the way he watches me adjusting accordingly. “You can’t ruin something that’s always been yours.”

I let myself smile. At him. At his words. At the foolish hope the child in me has clung to after all of these years. I reach for him thoughtlessly, because I have the right to. Because I’ve always had the right to. He’s quick to respond, kissing me with much more security than before.

This time, he pulls away of his own regard. “You still haven’t admitted that you were jealous.”

His teasing smugness isn’t as sour to me anymore. “I wasn’t.”

Nikolai pulls me towards him easily, lips threatening to brush against me, warm breath against my face. “Are you sure, darling? You were awfully quick to claim what’s yours.”

I roll my eyes, grinning so widely I’m surprised my face doesn’t yet hurt. “You’re the one that fell for a ten-year-old girl with a bloody mouth.”

When he smiles back at me, he places a hand on my hip, pulling me forward slightly. “That I did.” He pulls me forward slightly. "Does this mean you can sleep in here again?"

"If anything, this is more reason for me to sleep in another room." He rolls his eyes, pulling me even closer. "But I won't tell if you don't."

Nikolai leans forward, pressing his lips to my forehead. "Deal."

tags: @deardiarystuff @theincredibledeadlyviper, @grishaverse7 @benbarnes-supremacy @tranquilitymoon @kaitlyn2907 @lunamyangel @christinawxxx @deceivedeer @real-mbappe @tonks33

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov x you #shadow and bone #shadow and bone fic #shadow and bone fanfic #shadow and bone imagine #grisha #Grishaverse #grishaverse imagines #grishaverse imagine #grishaverse x reader #shadow and bone netflix

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myonepiece · 4 years ago

Note

Hello! First, I'm in love with your writings, especially the ones with Killer and Kid (hope to see more about the Kid pirates in the manga). So, I was wondering if I may request some headcanons about them (separately) being "sweet" (in the own way of course) with fem s/o before and after being together. Maybe how they would behave or how they would talk when they are alone with her. They look tough guys but I think they have a secret sensitive side... God, I love them hahaha

Thank you for your time and your amazing work!!!!

Kid, Killer soft moments with S/O

description: Kid & Killer (seperate) soft moments they share with thier S/O before and after they get together

warnings: none

a/n: 💕💕

before:

this happens before & after, but it starts before- talking trash about people. when Kid got annoyed he would go to you and just pace around the room yelling about whoever/whatever pissed him off, and he would let you do the same with him. he would listen intently but he would also sometimes get lost watching you and when you caught him he would deny it and blush

whenever you were hanging at a bar with the crew, Kid would usually find his way to beside you and he wouldn’t leave your side for the rest of the night, he would tell you it wasn’t on purpose but really it was because he wanted to make sure no one wowuld approach you & you’re safe- and spending time with you~

this also happens before and after but it starts before, he hypes you up, major cheerleader. no one speaks bad on your name and gets away with it, and Kid is honestly the reason you specifically get into fights in bars, because Kid is over on the side lookng like a kid in a candy store (see what I did there) and you don’t want to disappoint him by not beating a poor stranger’s ass

Kid and you had like a mutual understanding before you actually got together, like you could share a look and understand exactly what the other was thinking. it was a given that Kid would randomly barge into your room and either start complaining about something, drinking, or just tinkering with some mechanics/plans- and he was super happy when you did the same to him

after:

while Kid is brash and tough, he sometimes longs for the softer moments when time slows down and he can just stay in the moment with you, one of his favorite of these moments is when he stands on deck with his arms secured around your waist while you sit on the ship’s railing watching the horizon

after sex is one of the times Kid is most vulnerable and soft, he loves having you trace patterns on his bare chest while he stares up at the ceiling and basks in the innocence of the moment

Kid adores getting drunk with you because it always ends in either rough sex or laughing your asses off just the two of you. you’ll start meeting each other’s eye in the bar when it’s nearing time to go back aboard the ship because you both are piss drunk, and every time you look at each other you both have to stifle a laugh but eventually it gets too hard and you just burst out laughing- all the way back to the ship you’re talking about everything and aything you think it funny and you end up sprawled across the floor of the bedroom catching your breath

when you grab onto Kid for support, affection, to drag him away from a fight, he always feels his breath catch in his throat and his cheeks burn lightly, he’ll always grab you back in some way but his grip is harder, like when you grab onto his coat to steady yourself on the ship, he puts. his arm around you and tucks you into his side keeping you pressed safely and tightly against him

before:

you also have a mutual understanding but because you can’t see Killer’s expression, you actually learn to read his body language and overall “vibes”, Killer goes to stand next to you a lot, going out of his way to do so, and you never question him you just look at him and analyze how he’s standing and what manner he walked over in, and if nothing wrong then you just turn back to whatever- he does this as a kind of unspoken “don’t worry I’m right here”

he would often run into you in the kitchen and you would end up cooking beside each other, you talk about random things and it takes the stress off Killer’s shoulders, makes him forget that as soon as this stops he’s going to be putting his life in danger every second

this is sort of another understanding between the two of you, but whenever there’s a threat he’ll often move to stand in front of you, or if the threat is talking to you like it’s some stranger you met at a bar that won’t stop hitting on you, Killer appears right behind you (pretty close I might add) and he uses his build and intimidating aura to scare the person away

after being friends (hopefully more) for awhile, he knows he likes you a lot but he hasn’t made a move yet, but you haven’t seen him without his mask yet because as his crush he’s more scared of what you’ll think- so sometimes he’ll be laying in bed and you’re talking to him and to be more comfortable he’ll take off his mask and you promise not to look, sometimes literally sitting in the corner facing the wall just to provide extra assurance that you won’t look- sometimes the roles are reversed and he’s in your room sitting against the wall while you guys talk and he has his mask off again, and you’re laying with you back facing him

after:

when you’re laying in bed together, after sex or just because it’s late/really early, he has his arm around you holding you on his chest and you’re reaching up playing with his goatee and it makes Killer smile

when the crew is at a bar partying Killer will actually let Kid do more because he’s watching you instead (Kid thanks you btw), he sits over in the corner away from all the craziness, holding a beer in one hand his other arm is around you waist holding you on his lap, he rests his mask on your shoulder and he’s fallen asleep like this a few times

one situation that makes him appreciate you even more, makes him smile with pride and adoration and just feel so overwhelmed with love, is when someone insults him/makes fun of his mask and you just beat their ass, the insults you throw back at them are music to Killer’s ears and he pulls you off the stranger with a smile dancing behind his mask, he always thanks you after and compliments your hits landed on the guy- Kid loves this too and he sometime holds Killer back so you can keep wailing on the stranger who insulted his bestfriend

so as much as KIller likes making out for the sexual aspect, he enjoys it for the closeness and romantic intimacy too, when he’s in a softer more vanilla mood that is. holding you flush against him while your lips mold together with his, hands exploring every part of each other’s body, and when you pull away only to compliment him before reattaching you lips to his, it just makes his tighten his hold on you even more and the world slips away and it’s just the two of you

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece x reader #one piece headcanons #eustass kid #eustass kid headcanons #eustass kid imagine #one piece kid #eustass kid x reader #killer #killer headcanons #one piece killer #killer imagine #killer x reader

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panoramicvacuum · 2 years ago

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4/5, 15, 29 for Sidney? (There were actually a lot of good #s for this batch! Do you mind another ask for the same character though? I love hearing your thoughts but I didn’t want to flood you with more than three in one ask). Btw, any updates on your Sidney journey fic wip? I think I remember reading a snippet of it you had posted and I just loved how evocative it was!

Hey anon, sorry it's taken me so long to get to this. I've started typing up a reply several times and then forgotten about it (and closing the browser deletes the draft...) (Also thank you for the kind words about Sidney's journey fic! I have.... not been writing much at all as of late, so unfortunately it's still stuck in limbo. Sorry there isn't better news regarding progress.)

But, I've gotten to your ask now, apologies for the wait!

4/5. How easy is it to earn their trust/mistrust

Sidney is an interesting case when it comes to trust. Out of the gate he is not a trusting person. He's been burned too many times to count, and he'd rather not play with fire again. But prove yourself to him, follow up on your word, show him you're good on your promises and he will be incredibly loyal.

He'd run into trouble with misplacing his trust in his younger days. Gray and the gang he was a part of for a good part of his teenage years had proven themselves to be interested in keeping him around, yet at the drop of a hat they turned on him and shattered the trust he'd placed in them. Understandably, this made him incredibly leery of trusting anyone for a good while, but after meeting Steven and being brought into the fold with the Elite Four, he's learned that it's okay to trust again (though I imagine he never can truly shake the worry that it'll come crashing down around him again.)

So I guess the TL;DR of this one is: very easy to earn mistrust, much harder to earn trust.

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

I don't think Sidney is much for rehearsal or careful crafting. He's rough around the edges and not afraid to say what's on his mind. Sometimes this gets him into trouble, but it's never enough of a deterrent to get him to stop doing it. He's also pretty flavorful with his speech, sprinkling in some colorful word choice to emphasize his point. He's known on occasion to try to compose himself before he speaks, but that's more of an influence of being part of the Elite Four and knowing that sometimes he's in the public eye and should reign things in a bit, but those moments are definitely few and far between. There are others in the Elite who are far more diplomatic than he is, and he'd rather let them do the talking.

29. Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

Ohh a good one! Sidney is very much a work in progress in his own eyes. He's always wanted to be a good kid, but kept being dealt a shitty hand in life. Bad home life, getting involved with gangs as an escape from said shitty home life, getting into trouble with said gangs, ending up a run away in order to hide from said gangs, and then somehow lucking a way into a high ranking position in the League. He still can't believe it, honestly. But he has tried to be honest throughout all of it. He only stole when he needed to, he only used force when he needed to, etc. In his eyes (rather than the eyes of the law) he's lived up to his ideals. He wants to be honest, but he also wants to survive. With a second chance on life at the League, he's determined to do things right.

The one thing he's never compromised on, though, is being kind to his pokemon. Humans he could take or leave. But he could never turn his back on a pokemon. He'll always be kind to them.

TL;DR Sidney tries to be a good bean, but he's pretty rough and ready. He's got a good heart buried in there, and he's been waiting for the right environment to let it flourish.

Thanks so much for the ask, anon! Sidney's a fun one I don't see many people talk about.

#pokemon asks #fic asks #anon asks #sidney #pokemon #my headcanons #thanks anon!

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rayofsunas · 4 years ago

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haikyuu!! as dads (pt.1)

A/n: hello! starting off with a clean slate here yay! if some of the first few seem so short and the writing seems different, it’s because I wrote half of this like three days ago- anywways, requests are open btw!!

Summary: haikyuu characters as dads/domestic living.

Pairings: Semi Eita, Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo Tetsurou, Oikawa Toru, Kenma Kozume

Warnings: some timeskip spoilers, fluff, parenting, angst (kinda) swearing (maybe), crack, all characters are aged up

Word count: 1.8k

Part Two!

Semi Eita

- the serious sometimes scary looking dad, but other than that he’s a fluff ball

- he may look scary but he simply cannot punish them for anything

- especially after they bonded over music, legit cannot do nothing wrong

- on the days he’s not working or with his bandmates, you can often find him with his twin daughters, teaching them how to use different musical instruments

- okay, so your daughters are still pretty young, so they aren’t very good at using most instruments, but for Christmas you and Semi got them both a small set of drums, something easy

- it was very cute to come home from work to see your husband and daughters loudly practicing on the drums

- sure at first it gave you a blasting headache, but after a while you got used to it, and even jammed out with them when you had the time

- mainly just random sounds/beats coming from the two five year olds, but Semi doesn’t mind, he’s willing to teach them and he does proudly

- if one of his daughters or both wants too

- definitely writes songs for his daughters and you

- i can see him writing lullaby’s for them and working on them for hours making sure they were perfect

- lets just say they were perfectly beautiful

- because you went to high school together, the nickname “semi semi” stuck with you (thanks chicken tendo)

- but your girls will also cutely call him “semi semi”

- you often bring them to concerts despite semi saying it’s probably too loud for them

- he’ll let you sit safely with them back stage uwu

- after he runs back to you three and is bombarded with hugs, high-fives and kithes

- YOU’RE ALL SO PROUD OF HIM

Bokuto Koutarou

- bokuto is a hyper dad, which we all saw coming. there is no taking the child out of bo

- i feel like he’d want tons of kids, probably even uses his children as an excuse to act the way he does

- i can see him with a few kids, 3 to be exact (2 boys and 1 girl)

- he likes to be really involved with his children, and gets very sad/emo when he doesn’t see them for short/long periods of time

- for example, the Black Jackals is a whole different game field than high school volleyball and it’s much more time consuming and has him away a lot

- when he does come home and has time off, let’s just say he clings to his children like a puppy

- even after a while THEY get sick of him and wanna ditch him, cue emo bo :(

- if his children gang up on him (which they do) cue emo Bo again :(

- he babies them all, can’t ever say no

- tends to go back on his word lmao

- if your oldest son begs and begs for season tickets to his favorite sports team? Bo KNOWS they can be expensive, and he was even scolded by you, but two hours after saying no, he runs back to his son and gives him the money

- if your daughter wants to get her nails done with a group of friends, he knows she picks out the most expensive polishes, etc, BUT HE DOES NOT CARE, he will gladly give her the money and even go with her to get his nails done

- yes, you heard me

- of course he’ll being chaperone for this girls day, he promises to pretend that he doesn’t know them and keep his distance (sit very far away lol), but after a little while its just hard to contain and he’s screaming to everyone in the salon that his daughter is sitting on the other side of the room eye-

- your youngest son wants an expensive sports car? done

- he just wants to make his family happy, pleaseee

Kuroo Tetsurou

- poor Kuroo, he has 2 daughters and you, so he’s surrounded by girls lol

- he actually doesn’t mind it tbh

- between you and his two daughters, he wouldn’t have it any other way

- just gives him an excuse to be overly protective

- anywhere in public, expect either kuroo holding your hand

- or holding his daughters close to him (piggy back rides, yes)

- or, he stands protectively behind you and your daughters while you talk to someone, sending them threatening glares behind your backs

- he was shy as a child, so it wasn’t surprising when one of his daughters, the youngest, was very very shy

- he doesn’t mind once again, just gives him an excuse to be protective

- although he’s busy, he always makes time for his girls ALWAYS

- definitely a bragger

- if his family is brought into a convo, he pridefully will express how cute and smart his daughters are, may or may not openly declare his daughters are the cutest amongst his co-workers children

- he’s mad intuitive and aware/observant

- kuroo always knows when one or both of his daughters are about to start crying/throw a fit

- cue dad kuroo prepared to crack funny chemistry and or science jokes

- his shy daughter finds him very funny, doubles over every time he cracks a joke and calls him a “silly rooster”

- even when she's older she still laughs and even copies his jokes

- but his other daughter just cringes, every time sigh

- when she was younger she used to fake the laughs, but when he started saying the jokes in public she just stopped reacting, hoping he would stop-

- he didn’t...

- i like to imagine kuroo and kenma staying friends even after high school, and since kenma has hella video games and a whole arcade in his house, he’ll often bring his daughters over to his house

- his eldest daughter loves it at uncle kenma’s house

- cue jealous rooster dad

Oikawa Toru

- okay so oikawa is ALWAYS busy

- isn’t home much, except during off seasons or if he messes up his knee again (yes, it’ll happen)

- in the event that he’s home due to a knee injury, he’ll wanna be catered too lmaooo

- he doesn’t expect his little girl to cater to him and really only teases you about it

- but his daughter will get him whatever he needs while he’s propped up on the couch

- she admires him so much

- his daughter kinda has a smart mouth-

- definitely got that from him, having picked up on it from a young age, while he was home

- when he was home once propped up with a messed up knee, she went “here dadkawa” as she handed him an ice pack

- he laughs at the nickname, asking you about where it came from later

“she was on call with hajime’s daughter yesterday... hajime asked how ‘poopykawa’ was doing”

- he just rolls his eyes, “at least he cleaned it up for her sake” you explained

- will not lose the “kawa” part, so it’s dadkawa lol

- when he’s away, she’s always asking for dadkawa

- when he’s here they're inseparable

- morning breakfast now will be her sitting in his lap instead of yours

- she asks to watch cartoons with him instead of you :(

- bath time consists of her arguing with you as you try to wash her hair, while oikawa sits on the closed toilet seat laughing to himself

- “mommy i want dadkawa to wash my hair!”

- “you always whine that he gets soap in your eyes”

- “I don’t care!”

- when you bring your daughter to games, she’ll be cheering him on proudly, “mommy, look at dadkawa!” “GO DADKAWA!!!!”

- since he plays for the professional Argentine team, i figure you all live in Argentina now, traveling from Argentina and Japan was tiring, so you moved to be closer

- when the news approaches him after or before games, he makes sure to show his daughter off and the whole time it’s his daughter stealing the show

- she might be shy at first, but as long as dadkawa is holding her, she’s fine

- he’ll teach her Spanish, defiantly sings happy birthday to her in Spanish because it’s special

- he calls her his princesa (princess in spanish)

Kenma Kozume

- if his child didn’t enjoy video games like him or any of his hobbies like volleyball, I feel like Kenma would have a hard time with them

- he loves his son yes, but he’d have a hard time interacting with him, especially if he’s not into video games or volleyball

- if he is though, you can often find the two in kenma’s home office, playing games

- when your son was a infant, you would always come home from being out/work to find your son sitting in his pj’s on kenma’s lap watching his dad play video games

- “it’s late, ken. i see he’s already in his pj’s- did you already have dinner?” “yes”

- “without me?” you asked, lifting up your son to give his cheeks kisses. “there’s apple pie in the fridge.”

- eye-

- yes he fed your son that, yes he needs a little guidance, yes he needs to be told apple pie is NOT dinner

- on another occasion of coming home, you found your boys in the same spot, once again playing video games, your sons eyes drifting between the game and his father every time he muttered under his breath

- “the screen is bad for your eyes kenma, and he’s just a baby! he’ll get bad eyes too!”

- kenma’s short answer is, “he won’t”

- when your son got older, and he started getting into video games, it got harder for you to tear his eyes away from the screen

- he’s been around video games his whole life, so of course it’d be hard, you just didn’t think he’d grow attached

- kenma leaves most of the strict parenting to you, because he LEGIT doesn’t NOT know what to say

- he’s lowkey afraid he’ll push his son away if he says the wrong thing, but he’s also worried that if he doesn't say anything, they’ll have no real relationship, so he struggles

- he tries his hardest to bond with him over video games and volleyball though

- as said by your son, kenma’s cooking can’t compare to yours, BUT he does know how to make a yummy apple pie

- his son will help kenma with said apple pie, when he’s younger he was often the taste tester and made a mess every time

- kenma gets nervous in huge crowds and really around anyone he doesn’t know, so if his son is a social butterfly he’ll try to get kenma used to people other than himself and you

- somehow, during the rare moments his son has problems (friends, school etc), kenma will be the one to speak up privately

- he’ll definitely tell his son to surround himself with a good friend/good friends, he also makes sure to let him know the importance of quality over quantity

- he has a brotherly relationship with kuroo, and if not for kuroo he’d be alone, he wants the same thing for his son

10.20.20, rayofsunas

#haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#semi eita #semi eita x reader #kuroo tetsuro #kuroo tetsurou #kuroo tetsuro x reader #kuroo tetsurou x reader #oikawa toru #oikawa toru x reader #kenma kozume #kenma kozume x reader #bokuto koutarou #bokuto koutaro #bokuto koutarou x reader #rayofsunas

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xserpentlife · 4 years ago

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Cling

Requested - Anon: Saw that you wanted more request so i was wondering if you could do a sweet pea x reader where sweets had a rough day so he goes over to the readers house and he's just really clingy and soft and they have a movie night or something. btw i really love your blog and your writing, it's amazing 💜

A/N - thank you all for being so patient even with Covid-19 and the stay at home orders things have beenc razy I have been staying at my aunts/grandparnents and watching my little cousin daily so during the day I do not have mch time, hence not writing much. BUt I really want ot start to be more active. If you guys want to send in moodboard rewuests or FSM’s I can get those out faster or even story requests I am going to work on more too but somethims they just take longer and I like doing moodboards inbetween as well. Anyway thank you all again so much! Thanks to my beta @wayward-river

WC - Almost 1000

You hadn’t seen much of Sweet Pea during the day today. Your classes didn’t line up much on Thursdays and it was one of the days of the week he hated the most. This week had actually sucked a lot for him. With Serpent jobs left and right and his part time job at Pops you two had been crossing paths in the night and waking up for school was about the only time you saw one another, other than when he would kiss your forehead when he would lay next to you to fall asleep. It was starting to weigh heavy on him. You were quite literally the highlight of his day and without you, there would be no reason for any of it. He worked so hard to make a better life for the both of you. After meeting you he began working harder in school, getting a job outside of the Serpents. Working to apply for scholarships and much more, to be able to eventually move out of Riverdale and start a new life and have a fresh start. He was proud of his Serpent family and you would never deny him that, but he wanted more. So he pushed himself so overly hard, and you knew it weighed on him heavily . This week was one of the tougher ones.

You sat in class trying to pay attention to the board in front of you as your phone kept buzzing on your desk, the teacher staring back trying to figure out where it was coming from as you quickly grabbed it before she could notice. You opened it to stop the vibrations realizing it was Sweet Pea’s number, your heart instantly dropping in worry.

*Texts from Pea*

Baby

Babbbyyyy…..

Princess why are you not answering me it’s just math you hate it c’mon

“You know I'll help you with it later just answer

What are you doing

Are you okay

Y/NNNNNNNNN

I’ll meet you outside of your classroom for lunch, love you

Usually he wouldn’t text that much unless he was worried, and you also would usually meet in the lunchroom. It was somewhat odd that he wanted to wait outside the classroom but you let it slide. The bell rang and you walked out, Sweet Pea leaning against the lockers to the side of the classroom, locking eyes. He came up sliding his hand into yours and leaning into your side. His body seemed to press against yours more than usual. You leaned on your toes placing a kiss to his cheek, a smile curled on his lips and a slight pink blush crept onto his face. The walk to the lunch room was silent, and content. It was the way you always were with him, happy. You got to your table as he took his seat down on the bench, as you did the same, seated the opposite way. He pulled out your lunches from his bag as he placed them in front of you both. You grabbed your sandwich as he pulled your back against him, usually he wouldn’t urge you to be so close. He wasn’t one to deny it, but at least while at school and while eating he would not necessarily grab at you or pull you into him like he did. You felt like something was up but you didn’t want to mention it. Luckily there was only one period left because you all had the late lunch.

“Hey Pea”

“Yeah baby?”

“You okay”

“Mhm”

“Okay” You knew something was up but you also knew how he was, if he didn't want to talk about it he wouldn’t and you weren't going to be the one to force him. Lunch was quickly over and so was the last period of the day. You climbed into the truck Pea grabbing your hand, the radio on as you listened to music for the short drive home.

As soon as you walked through the door his hands were on you, but not in the way they usually are. He wrapped you in a hug, his hands snaking their way around your waist, and then placing a kiss on your cheek. He soon let go and then walked into the bathroom, without saying a word. You dropped your backpack before sitting on the couch back against the side leg hanging off. Pea always liked to laugh at the way you sat, thinking it looked so uncomfortable. He came out of the bathroom looking at you, a slight chuckle coming from his lips.

“What? Don’t laugh at me” He smiled, coming over and laughing on the couch, a 6’5 man baby trying to lay in between your legs, his head resting on your chest as his legs hung off and your hand snaked through his hair.

“What is going on with you today?”

“I miss you”

“You know you could have just told me that right, i could kinda tell”

“No…”

“No what”

“You didn’t tell”

“Pea you sent me like 5,00 texts while I was in math which by the way I am so lost on”

“I’ll help baby” he started getting up before you stopped him

“No don’t, Iwanna cuddle my big man baby”

“Hey!”

“It’s okay to be a man baby sometimes, sometimes I’m a big baby too”

“Always my baby though”

“Mhm”

“I love you pea”

“I love you too princess, but hey start playing with my hair again… pleeeeaseeeeee”

“See… man baby”

“Shut up” You pecked him on his cheek before continuing on with your hand in his hair while slowly drifting off to sleep.

#sweet pea #sweet pea x reader #riverdale #riverdale x reader #riverdale x you #sweet pea x y/n #sweet pea x you #sweet pea X #sweet pea x you reader insert #sweet pea x reader riverdale #riverdale x y/n #riverdale x reader insert #riverdale x you reader

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theyearsiturnedintoaghost · 3 years ago

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Hello, Is This Thing On?

Hi! (as mentioned above). Do people still use this thing? I have no idea. Years ago, and I do mean YEARS ago, I had one of these. I didn’t use it for much, just reposting things, following humans I’d met in online communities, a ‘celebrity’ here or there, sometimes screaming about shit I couldn’t control into the void that is the endless scrolling interweb, and being pointless in wasting my time between classes, work, and twenty-something. Regardless, my previous tumblr had minimal followers, made minimal impact, and that was okay. It was honestly just a nice place to sort of hide in plain sight. Still be part of a social world without actually having to do much. This was also pre a billion other apps and social media outlets to express yourself or scroll mindlessly at a million other pointless things that people were posting to make you giggle or even just stop for a second and think.

Clearly, the point of this, back then, felt like something I would use to help propel my writing career. Turns out, it did not. I did not write much, if at all. And most of the time I think it was because I was scared nothing was as good as any of the other stuff I was reading from people I liked, and thought were so much cooler and smarter than me; I still feel this way all of the time, but I do realize this was me being nervous, small minded about myself, and completely unconfident.

Unfortunately, I am still most of these things a lot of the time, but recently, after getting fired from a job, having my heart broken by pretty much everyone on the planet, especially a few specific people, cancelled by all of my friends (?) - this is a thing btw. (It’s not as awful as being cancelled publicly, but it does still ruin your life, mindset, confidence, and overall physical and mental wellbeing) Getting a new job, hating it and feeling like I was going no where, and missing out on living a life I felt proud of and that I was actively participating in, I decided maybe I should just try to write it all out and see what happens.

To be frank, I expect nothing of this. I can’t fathom a world where anything I have to say truly matters to people because lets be real - everyone has this own shit and everyone is going through so much all of the time. And we all think we have something new, quirky, interesting, and important to say. And in a world that constantly shoves perfection down our throats and works so hard to make each of us feel completely inadequate to every Kardashian, Beyonce, Grande, etc., it’s hard to really think that anything I have to say will matter to anyone; at all.

(I also hate that all of my ‘perfectionist’ people were female, but maybe it’s harder to compare to Golden Boys when you are a female. Either way, there are many boys/men/theys/thems that are put on a pedestal and made out to be perfect out there, as well, and they deserve that notation as well. I just have no points of reference off the top of my head, so please forgive me; I am trying to do this in a stream of consciousness type thing.)

I mean, the truth is, I’m a fucking mess. I’m 33, single, living at home, afraid of my own shadow most of the time, and spend about 98% of my time alone. I pay for a phone plan that I literally only use to send memes to my two sisters, and that’s about it. I rarely receive texts, invites out, or even calls to make plans for something. And while a lot of this is my own doing - again, I did cut off most of the world after I realized I was sort of the joke to a lot of people - it’s still kind of pathetic, and entirely uncool. I am not a socialite, or someone cool and trendy, and to be honest, I kind of never want to be.

Which is a semi-false statement, because years ago, when I had one of these previously, I sort of hoped it would work out and that I could write and be ‘cool.’ Whatever the fuck that means. But now, years later, I’m honestly beyond glad I am not cool; not in the slightest. Maybe that’s making it to your 30s? Maybe the trade for having to create a daily routine of lathering up my body with like 9 different versions of FDA-Approved-Vampire-Juice on my skin to prevent me from looking any older than I already do, you in turn get to have a brain that finally realizes... having a ‘normal’ life is honestly pretty cool? Normal is clearly subjective here as everyone is normal, famous, notoriety, or not; They’re all still humans and people with feelings, thoughts, and emotions. This is a hard thing to realize when you see stadiums full of people screaming at Harry Styles (Boom! found a male perfect in this scatterbrain) or hundreds of paparazzi lined up to take photos of every person on a red carpet wearing clothing that costs as much as my student loan debt (Which sidenote, is VERYYYYYY much). It’s hard to fully realize that maybe some of those people who became ‘icons’ never really knew what they were getting into when they signed that deal with the Devil to make them seemingly immortal; especially in a world with the internet where everything can exist forever (or until the world explodes, clearly). But maybe getting into my 30s and removing myself from most social media outlets, even listening to the news, or caring about whatever fucking popular haircut was in this season (it’s always bangs, and I’ve already made that mistake. No thanks), that I learned to realize - the truly most important people in your life are the ones that stick with you when it’s tough. When getting out of bed is so hard your limbs ache and you cry every morning on your way to work, at your desk behind your computer screen hidden in a corner, or in a bathroom stall during your lunch break. The normalcy that comes with realizing your prayers to ‘just make it to five o’clock,’ are heard and that you are just so thankful for that that you don’t even desire the innate feeling in most of our egos to stand out, be seen, ‘Make it’ in a way that lets people notice we ‘succeeded.’ Maybe this only comes with the realization of how nice it is to go to a grocery store braless and unnoticed.

Maybe this is also something I, and so many of us in this point and shoot viral world, are trying to still learn.

Sure, a lot of days I still crave being able to make a perfect Pintrest project, practice my Late Night interview with Letterman where I sound funny, charming, and likeable to all walks of life, or recreate a recipe from the New York Times website so great that The Barefoot Contessa finds out through word of mouth, and comes to my basement hide out, and offers to give me, a fellow barefoot loving bitch, her title and crown along with a glass of wine and a kiss from her husband, Jeffery. We’ll both laugh at how lovely it feels to be Barefoot ladies who understand that wanting ‘fame’ or ‘recognition’ in your twenties is only really a pathway to destruction by your 30s.

And this is not exactly something that I learned easy. In fact, I spent most of my twenties destroying my body with drugs - plenty of hard ones - and alcohol - various kinds of the same things - in order to numb my brain from the sadness that is just... being young, lonely, scared, unsure of yourself, and nervous that all of your hopes and expectations for yourself in your ‘dream life’ are too much for what you and your actual self will ever be capable of ever becoming. That I would never become the comedian I dreamed of being, or sing the perfect song in front of a crowd of admirers, or write that best selling book to tell everyone who thought I was nothing they could go fuck themselves. It’s something I still have to remind myself, and my brain and ego, that are most likely things I will never do because those are lottery dreams. And people you know don’t actually win the lottery. And at the end of the day, I am people you know. And sometimes it breaks my own heart to realize I may never feel that rush of making a crowd laugh, or creating a piece of art that makes someone feel seen, but as Pam, from The Office said, and I am paraphrasing, ‘there is beauty in ordinary things.’ And I think reminding myself of that as I sat on the beach this summer and watched a dad teach his son to surf, and how happy they both were when he got up, gave me that brief feeling of... being okay. I won’t lie, I did cry a little at this realization at that moment, and I am slightly teary now as I write it, but I think I’m not ashamed of that because being normal means I get to feel things as I do, in that moment, and that is something I think I lacked in my desiring-bigger-flashier- twenties; actually being present in the world and your place in it. Even if that is just as small as being kind to a random person on the street.

I think that is why everything I felt I wanted to write never came out correct. It never came out ‘Perfect.’ And that was my problem for most of my life, even up until today, I’m afraid that I am a perfectionist in the ways that are preventing me from becoming... me. I’m still fearful that I am too late in ever ‘accomplishing’ anything I ever dreamed. I doubt I will ever actually write a book. I’m unsure I’ll ever make a decent living. I am beyond doubtful I am ever going to be loveable to someone whom I also want to love back. And maybe I’m a little scared that I’ll never have a kid, or that if I do have a kid, I’ll never be a decent parent. And I’m still working on breaking the cycle of thinking something has to ‘sound’ or ‘be seen as important’ to be meaningful. There is beauty in the ordinary. I’ve started to make it my mantra. Spoken in my head every time I see a teenage couple holding hands walking in town, a father holding their baby close to his chest, a woman dressed in a power suit striding through an office building or city on their way to make their own careers or push equality further. I’ve started to dream of how actual normalcy makes the real changes. How every 4th grade teacher has a chance to change some kids life.

Clearly, a lot of these personal fears I have about myself not being ‘enough,’ or doing something good enough to become successful at it and build a life out of it, are monotonous fears and privileged middle-class complaints. I’m aware they may not resonate with anyone, anything, or mean much more than just being an online public diary entry to my own meandering thoughts, but, still - I finally felt like I had to try.

So here it is, the whole truth on how I let myself become a ghost for years.

I hope someone will stick around while I just... try to explain it all, figure it all out, and hopefully make sense out of even being whatever a human who is hoping to grow even means. Hopefully, something here will resonate with someone else and we can create our own little weirdo corner of the world where we’re not seeking more than just trying to be honest with ourselves and what it means to be human. Even if that means just posting a recipe for banana bread (thank you Gwen Steffani for keeping me able to spell Banana), reposting random memes about how we all want to scream for 30 seconds and feel better, or sad-girl diary entry posts about how I ruined my own life a million times over. Oh, and maybe I’ll give you tips on how to stain your wood deck, because I spent my day doing that yesterday and basically, Home Depot is calling me to be in their ADs.

But at the core of it all, lets be very real, it’s hard to be human in so many ways. And I’m just hoping this connects with anyone. Especially any of us who wished we were different - in any way.

xoxo

-K

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harryandhishook · 4 years ago

Text

Don’t touch what isn’t yours! - Chapter 1

Fandom: Dream Daddy

Pairing: Damien x Robert

Setting: Maple Bay

Warning: Mentions of smut, Damien’s genitalia referred to as male, nothing much for this chapter

Summary: Damien has been dating Robert for a while and their life is becoming slowly more and more domestic but unfortunately, someone has been watching and doesn’t like it one bit.

Words: 1618

Requested: I remember seeing an old posts about some really dark prompts and I thought about the cult ending of Dream Daddy so I jumped at the chance ... then got really carried away (Btw, I wanted to contribute to the cult ending stuff so don’t @ me for this, normally I wouldn’t write Joseph like this)

Side note: This is a story I have completed and if it wasn’t for an anon jumping into my asks to see if I was okay then I would have waited longer to post this. Sorry for the absence for this time but everythings just piling up and I rarely get much time to myself if I’m not doing uni work (Which I graduated :D but I’m going onto a masters) or doing normal adult survival stuff so I hope this is okay.

First // Prev // Next

Perfect, everything was perfect, Damien had a perfect house, a perfect, if somewhat moody, son and a perfect, if slightly dysfunctional, boyfriend, everything was perfect … Maybe not perfect but close enough.

The bright morning light filtered through the curtains, flowing over the beautiful dark coloured carpet and slithering up to drape across the two lumps underneath the red silk sheets adorning the four-poster bed. Soft sounds of snoring filled the room as two men embraced as if their lives depended on it, one gruff and rugged while the other delicate and soft, complete opposites but fit together like two pieces of a jigsaw, maybe not the exact same picture but they go together nevertheless. Nothing could ruin the morning, nothing could interrupt their moment of bliss, nothing at all, except an alarm.

The blaring of Damien’s phone alarm caused the two men to stir, groaning from the rude awakening as the long haired prince of darkness sat up, his hair ruffled and tangled, the obviously two sizes too big, red V-neck shirt hanging off his shoulder as he looked around, his eyes still drooping while he observes the room, trying to get his brain into gear.

Moments of tiredly debating the inevitable wake up and letting his alarm play, Damien finally groggily reached over to his oak nightstand, swiping the screen and silencing the obnoxious disturbance. His hand shuffled around the wood, pushing his phone out of the way to grab his glasses and place them on his face.

Looking around, after giving himself the ability to see, he spotted something that quickly pulled a small smile across his face. Laying on the floor nearby the end of the bed was Roberts black leather jacket.

With a deep breath and his bottom lip between his teeth, the Victorian man carefully shuffled across the silk fabric of his bed, his bare legs slipping out of the covers and over the edge. Once his foot made connection to the fluffy carpeted floor, Damien peered over his shoulder to make sure that his other half was still deep in his slumber before finally pushing himself up.

Tiptoeing across the room, he carefully took the article of clothing in his hands, making sure that no noise could rouse his sleeping lover before slowly pulling the coat over his arms and holding it close to his body. The fading smell of Alcohol and Robert’s musk bombarded Damien’s nose causing the gothic dad to moan in happiness, letting a shiver course down his spine at the familiar aroma giving him a little boost for the day.

While Robert continued to sleep, Damien decided to get ready for the day. Looking over at the dark drawn curtains, he decided against letting the warm sun light up the room, his boudoir was dark but his lover was still asleep and he wouldn’t want to disturb that so he used the small amount of light flowing past the gaps to find his vanity, taking his ornate carved brush in between his long slender fingers and carefully pulling through his long black hair, luckily, the knots weren’t too bad after … last nights adventures … but still enough to make him wince. The Victorian decided to distract himself from the slight pain in his roots by reminiscing, well, more dreaming about Robert, thinking about their romance, thinking about their late-night escapades, thinking about Roberts hands, about his ruff voice about his…

He had not realised just how distracted he had gotten until he felt two strong arms wrap around his body from behind as some prickly stubble grazed his neck and a breathy deep voice whispered in his ear,

“Morning, love” another shiver shot down Damien’s spine as he squeaked from the sudden appearance of his lover, quickly he turned his head, hair swishing over his shoulder as he came face to face with the man he was fantasising about a moment ago,

“Robert, I didn’t hear you get up, darling, how, erm, how long have you been awake?” the goth asked softly, a slight nervousness laced in his voice as he realized just what state of dress he was in, Roberts shirt, Roberts Jacket and nothing else, he was practically naked. His thoughts were interrupted by a low gravelly chuckle,

“Long enough to watch you practically drool over me” he smirked as he wrapped one arm under Damien’s legs, lifting him off the chair so he could sit down, placing the man onto his lap instead, “I woke up just in time to see you smell my jacket” he whispered with an underlining tone of lust but to Damien, he could also hear the love emanating from his voice.

The Victorian squeaked softly and quickly pushed his face into the crook of Rob’s neck, hiding his obvious blush, even in such a dark room, anyone could see the bright crimson gracing over the softer mans face,

“I-I wasn’t smelling it, I was just … reminding myself of your scent, there’s a difference, my dear” Damien argued back, his voice muffled by Robert’s tanned skin, unfortunately the sound of his phone vibrating with notifications stopped him from just hiding under the safety of his bed sheets, “I think my cellular is definitely taking away the aesthetic of my lifestyle” he chuckled softly, peeking out from his little safe spot, moving his gaze as best as he could to see that his lover was staring lovingly down at him,

“I think you wearing my leather is definitely taking away from the look … but it suits you, makes you look a little … rebellious” he smirked as his eyes seemed to move over every inch of the Victorians body until they stopped, Damien watched curiously, following his gaze until he saw exactly what he was staring at.

With a gasp, Damien pulled the red shirt down his legs further, keeping anything out of view as he tried to keep himself composed, unfortunately, the damage had been done and Robert now had the image of Damien’s long, slender legs nestled over his as the red shirt crumpled up his body and revealed … a little too much of his body,

“Robert, as much as a part of me would love to recreate the events of last night, I’m afraid I am under dressed for the day and you must remember, some of us must leave the home for our place of work, so I really do need to go and bathe before Lucien awakens so I can at least provide him breakfast” he tried to argue but it got harder and harder to want to when he felt the familiar feeling of large, rough hands creeping up the inside of his thigh, “a-as I already seemed to h-have wasted some time, my morning bathe will need to be cut shorter t-than usual” he stuttered out, feeling Robert’s hand push past his and under the red shirt, creeping closer and closer to his little treasure, “I n-need to make breakfast a-and make sure I have e-everything and … R-Robert...” he partially moaned out as he felt the fingers of his lover touch the crease connecting his thigh and something that was still quite sensitive, “I-I need t-to get r-ready and I’m already s-sensitive enough a-as it is…” he whispered in the other man’s ear, his breathless argument only made Robert smirk more, his fingers dangerously close to his prize,

“You always seem to give yourself a good few hours and never use it all in actually getting ready, so a little fun before you do get ready shouldn’t be too bad and anyway” Robert’s thumb and forefinger wrapped around Damien’s little dick, rubbing gently, “how about, to help you save time and not have to rush, I join you in the shower?” he asked with the biggest shit eating grin on his face as he watched Damien’s expression change to sheer pleasure, he took it as a win. Earning a whine from the goth as he removed his hand, his arms once again snaking underneath Damien’s legs but this time it was to carry the softer man into the en suite bathroom, spending the next half hour giving Damien a reason to think about him all day … and probably giving Lucien a wake up call.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch, Damien managed to get ready for work in time, breakfast was made with enough time to spare for both him and Lucien since the boy still had school and even though he refused to look either his father or Robert in the eye, probably from the inappropriate wake up call, he gave them a smile before he left. Damien and Robert kissed each other goodbye as they left to go their separate ways with a promise of meeting up again after the Victorian came back from his probably quite exhausting job and that was how the day went.

Finally, when the end of the day came, Lucien was first home like always, stomping to his room to play his obnoxiously loud music, Robert decided it was around time to head over to wait for his lover and also be uncharacteristically nice enough to start dinner for them all to give Damien a little break and once the man in question was home, Robert was there waiting by the door, bouquet of flowers in hand and a warm smile on his face.

However, unbeknownst to them, a pair of eyes were watching them from a distance, a pair of dark, hate filled eyes, glaring at them both while hatching a plan for them because if someone were to have Robert, it wasn’t going to be Damien.

#Dream Daddy #DDADDS #damien bloodmarch #Robert Small #Damien x Robert #SmallMarch #Lovers #Morning Routine #Cute #LGBT #Transgender #Trans man #Gay #Boyfriends #Bed #Shower #Implied Sex #Cult Ending

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fandomexplosion · 5 years ago

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Kara arrived on earth at the same time and place as her cousin Kal and raised him.

I would really like to write this out as an actual story but I already have too many unfinished Fics so I'm doing this. Maybe I will write this one day but for know im just gonna leave this here.

When they land Kara is quick to find Kal and retrieve him from the ship.

It’s late at night and they are in a field.

she suddenly sees lights coming towards them.

She’s on a foreign plant and scared so she hides in the cornfield.

She sees two figures looking around and she runs with Kal in the opposite direction

After what feels like hours of walking she comes upon a road.

Somehow she’s not extremely tired but doesn’t dwell on it too much.

By this time it's early morning.

Eventually, They stumble upon a gas station.

It’s very confusing to Kara but she has no choice but to go in.

She tries asking for help but she quickly realized they could not understand her and she can’t understand them.

The woman behind the counter looks apologetic but Kara leaves before she can do anything.

The lady decides to call the police.

Not long after the police come across a teen walking on the side of the road with a baby.

After some convincing through hand gestures, the officer gets Kara and Kal in the car.

Once at the police station they are both looked over.

Ultimately, they determined neither of them had records, could not speak English, and that the girl was about 16 and the boy only a few months old.

Kara picks up English quickly and speaks broken English in no time.

A social worker helps them out and talks with Kara. She knows Kal isn't Kara’s son even though she insists he is. Kara knows if she claims he's her son it'll be harder to take him away from her.

The social worker lets it be though.

She suggests that Kara change at least her last name to blend in more.

Kara though wants to keep the name El

Kara and Kal’s legal names are Kara and Kal Ell

Eventually, they find themselves in foster care.

School is tough but Kara gets by.

She gets a job

their life is.... good.

But then she learns she can do things others can’t and so can Kal.

She starts to fear for Kal and her life. She doesn’t know what could happen.

Out of fear she starts to plan on running away from the foster family they’ve been staying with.

One of the girls notices and convinces her to stay until she graduates.

Once she does graduate Kara moves her and Kal to Metropolis.

Kara has saved up enough money from work to get by.

It’s tough but eventually, she finds her footing

Things start moving fast once they move to Metropolis.

She’s 18 now. She has a job and an apartment. Her English is better but you can tell it’s not her first language.

Kal is 3 and walking and talking like no one's business.

While Kara is shopping she finds those glow in the dark stars and buys them. At home, she uses them to make Kryptonian constellations. Kal looks up at them every night.

When Kal first asked about them Kara said "they are the stars of our home planet, where we are from. Just because we are the only ones left it doesn't mean we forget. We need to remember. For our people. Okay."

"Okay," Kal responded

Kal will sometimes call Kara "Mama Kara." in a similar fashion as mommy.

This stems from when he was learning to speak and he'd call Kara mama but she would tell him she's Kara as she hadn't fully accepted the role.

She loves it when he calls her that though.

Kara teaches Kal Kryptonian which he is fluent in along with English.

As Kal grows he starts to develop more powers

Kara has always gone to the gym to hone her strength and done various other things to understand and control her powers.

She doesn’t believe in ignoring their powers just because they have to hide them.

Once Kal does start showing powers she helps him understand them.

*Whenever the are able to get a break they go camping. There they can Exercise their powers without having to worry about others seeing.

Kara often teaches Kal about his powers through games.

Kal is now 15 and Kara is 29

Kara works almost all the time which sometimes worries Kal.

Because of their living situation, Kal has learned to cook and will cook when Kara is working late.

Kal has started high school.

Luckily he has his friends with him, BJ and Tyler. He’s also made a new friend, Jimmy Olsen.

Something that has been on Kara's mind a lot is what her powers are for.

She had once told Kal that she believed Rao had given them these powers so that they would be strong enough to live on and carry on for those Kryptonians who perished

Kara asked a coworker one day "You're a parent right. If you had powers others didn't what would you do with them. Would you try to make the world a better place for them?"

Sometime after that Kara started to use her powers to stop muggers and other petty crimes.

In secret Kara makes a suit with a mask to hide her identity. She put the house of El symbol on the chest. (BTW this suit has pants NOT a skit)

Some start talking about the mysterious figure but it isn't until she stops a robbery in broad daylight does she become fully known

Kara had been on her lunch break and she couldn't just stand back.

Media quickly took to the name Superwoman

Kal found out almost as soon as it happened

"How'd you find out?"

"umm the powers, the blonde hair. You really think I wouldn't notice my mom running around wearing a cape."

Kara starts to do more in daylight. She doesn't want to hide. She wears the mask though. There's a difference between hiding and protecting the ones you love.

This attracts even more attention both good and bad.

This included the Luthors who are less than enthusiastic

Lillian Luthor is the first to speak out against her. She says that they don't know Superwoman's true motives. They don't know who she is or why she's here.

This prompts junior journalist Cat Grant to try and track down this mysterious hero.

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definitely-not-an-alb · 6 years ago

Text

Magical Machines In RoL: A short Round-Up

Shortening because this is long.

There’s a surprising number of magical or mysterious devices we keep encountering:

The Pin in one of the Cat-Girls temple in Moon Over Soho

The Cunning Device in A Rare Book of Cunning Device

Lesley’s Phone-Bomb in The Hanging Tree

“Mary Engine”, (Might be related to Ada Lovelace’s design, as per Peter’s observations, might be some type of early calculator?)

“Some Type of Device” Babbage (Who worked with Lovelace) was working on for the Folly, according to Nightingale

And then there’s Lady Helena’s insistence that her tradition’s Magic Salons go back to Caroline from Ansbach, who, Peter notes, also hung about with one Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz (Who was – hopefully – not a machine, though he did write like he was running out of time and was generally low-key bonkers)

First three are kind of ??? so let’s look at the last three (+) instead

Why the fuck is Leibniz relevant for us?

Now, I’m not one for Great-Man-Histroy, but even I have to admit that Leibniz was, again, kind of off-the-Weird-Genius-charts. If you, say, want a literary or historical counterweight to Isaac Newton in Allsasser-Excentric-Genuis-Bullshit, he’s the man. Literally. Anygays. There are five(ish) things that connect Leibniz to the rest of the RoL Universe;

He’s connected with Caroline from Ansbach, as stated above

He dabbled in alchemy (well, he dabbled in everything)

He got into an academic bitch fight with Isaac Newton (Because either on of them plagiarized the other or they just invented the same Important Math Thing at roughtly the same time – we will never know ~~~)

He either invented the binary code* (aka thing that makes Computers go be-bop) or greatly improved it/anticipated a bunch of logic-probelms with it, depending on who you ask

He revolutionized early calculators by inventing the Leibniz Wheel (aka, the things that made Calculators go shrrrrrrrrrr for 200 years before things got funky and analytical)

(All of this is somewhere between the late 1660s – 1716s) (* same problem of the )

Early Calculators and Leibniz Wheels

(Aka a long and rambly part that you can skip if you don’t want to learn about Fancy Early Tech)

Early Calculators where mostly stuff like fancy modefied Abaci, but in the 1640s this french dude Pascal build an Arithmetic Machine, which used interlockign wheels to do what it says on the tin crunch numbers. This machine was both very cool and very suck-tastic; it could do math for you (yay); But it was also super expensive, hard to transport, harder to build, even harder to opperate and therefore prone to human error (boo). It was also limited to addition an subtraction. It didn’t really catch on.

Along comes Leibniz and designes the Leibniz Wheel (which, unlike the A.M.’s wheels, which needed 10 rotations per single digit, only needed a single rotation for any operation involving a single-digit number and could, in conjunction with other Leibniz wheels, carry over into higher digits more easily. He used it to build the first really usable Calculator(s). This Stepped Reckoner (which is what you get when you badly translate Stufenrechner) was easier to operate and it could perform all four basic operations. You could actually use it. Or, as this book puts it:

“The demand for Leibniz’s machines was largely for it’s help in calculating tables of common mathematical functions. In the seventeenth century producing one of these tables might have been a lifes’s work.”

Just, in case you wanted to know how rad people thought this was.

Here’s a link to a video of an animated Leibniz Wheel in use.

Babbage’s Difference Engine and Analytical Engine

Babbage’s Difference Engine (1820s/30s) and Analytical Engine (1830s), genreally considered the ‘first computer’ if they’d actually build it, was basically the attempt to stack as many Leibniz Wheel-ish Wheels (they used a variation, btu it‘s afaik the same concept) as possible on top of each other and operate them all simultaneously by using the technology of Joseph Marie Jacquard’s “programmable” Loom (invented around 1800, uses Punchcards to weave different & complex patterns) to brute-force complex mathematical problems.

The Difference Engine was supposed to use this system to calculate and print mathematical tables. It was supposed to be able to calculate polynoms and use sinus and cosinus and such (!!! I know that sounds easy when we all have a graphical calculator lying around at home like a useless math brick, but this is so cool!)

The Analytical Engine was a step up from this, as it should have functioned without human intervention and was upposed to be fully programmable. It even had something like 10 kB memory space. It was a computer, is what it is.

Now, Ada Lovelace took one long look at that and went “well, clearly this isn’t cool enough yet” because she was born a Byron and Just That Extra. She was also apparently called the Enchantress of Numbers by Babbage ... just ... like ... maybe ... okay.

Anyways, Ada, while trying to explain what the fuck this thing was supposed to do to the general science public, casually invented the analytical computer program. As you do. As you fucking do.

(Still using this book as well as this book btw)

To make this clear: Babbage is that one kid who’s always finished first in Math Class because he actually knows how to make tht Unloved Math Brick Of Ugh do what he wants; Ada is that kid who wrote her own game for her Math Brick, hasn’t payed attention since Grade 6 and is currently reading a college-level informatic book under the table. In the first row, Isaac and Gottfried are throwing chalk at each other. Well, you get what I mean.

The Mary Engine

The Mary Engine is produced in the 1840s and is small enough to fit into the store room’s shelves. It’s not a Differentiation or an Analytical Engine, and probably also not a Stepped Reckoner.

But. This thing is actually incredible. The Mary Engine is TINY.

Babbage never finished either Engine. They only build on around 1900 iirr. Second off, the Engines where fuck off huge. Things the size of the Mary Engine really only came around in the early 1900 or so. ‘Enigmas’ (aka Rotor-Crypto-Machines, which are way less complex then actual calculators), while ‘invented’ shortly after WWI all over the world, only became small enough to be moved comfortably on-person during WWII. How the fuck did they get the Mary Engine that small in the 1840s?

If there’s anything I’m missing (or that I’ve gotten horribly wrong, because I’m a computer noob in the end) hit me up so that I can amend this thing. I don’t really have a Grand Fandom Theory or anything. This is just a list (+ minor explanations) of Cool Stuff. A lot of people probably already know this stuff, but I had fun writing this and it might bring people who weren’t raised in Leibniz-Central up to speed somewhat.

Now, another thing, because someone pointed it out a while ago (and I can’t! Believe! I didn’t make that connection!); Linden-Limmer. I really should have seen that one: I fucking live here. So: Hannover, Germany is kind of a bonkers town.

#Rivers of London #meta #idk if anyone actually cares #but this has been in my drafts for ages #and i can't even properly check it anymore because i've read it so often #ugh

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codevassie · 6 years ago

Note

For the writing promt, how about shatt museum date? (btw i love a sky full of stars soo much =)

CV: There is literally no excuse for this being this late. I’ve gone through the excuse of school work many a time. I went through spring break. I went through an actual musuem last week and that was it. Literally no excuses left. Even though it is very very super late, I hope you enjoy anyway! And I’m glad you liked asfos; thank you so much!!!!

Matt’s hair had grown longer in the time they’d been apart. Shiro expected it would have hung over his eyes if Matt hadn’t tied it up in a weird knot back on his head, his glasses pushed atop to keep back the sprigs that the ponytail couldn’t pick up. He was sitting at the tables outside the museum as Shiro approached, head in some book, eyes squinting as he tried to make out the text in the shade of an umbrella.

Shiro chuckled, but decided to stay quiet as he came near, taking the moment to really savor it. Matt looked beautiful; he always looked beautiful, but it had been so long since they’d seen each other face-to-face that Shiro felt he could root himself to this spot for the rest of the day and be content.

Except, he knew he wouldn’t. Because Matt was so close. And it had been months.

“You’re going to hurt your eyes more if you don’t use your glasses,” he said as he stepped into the only light Matt had, casting a shadow over his book and person. Matt’s head bolted up, eyes alight and excited. He jumped up, throwing his arms around Shiro.

“Takashi!” he exclaimed, laughing. Shiro wrapped his arms around Matt in return and felt the other squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

“You’re going to suffocate me before we’ve even gotten into the building,” Shiro gasped out. Matt, for a moment, squeezed harder just to prove a point, then stepped back, a wicked smirk on his face.

“You’ve grown weak at school,” he challenged. “You used to be able to take my hugs.”

“And you used to be a weakling with noodle arms,” Shiro countered. “What’s your school doing to you? What are you eating?”

“Monster and canned ravioli, typically,” Matt answered, and the sad thing was, he was probably telling the truth. Shiro frowned at him.

“Matt,” he sighed, but he couldn’t scold him. Maybe later. Right now, he was too happy to see his boyfriend to give a damn. “So,” Shiro said, finally stepping back a bit to look up at the building they were standing in front of, “An art museum. What made you decide that?”

“Not everything in my life revolves around space and computers, Shiro,” Matt teased, but Shiro raised an eyebrow and Matt sighed. “What? I thought we could get cultured.”

Shiro laughed. “When have you ever cared about being cultured?”

“Well,” Matt scratched the back of his head, “You seemed pretty interested in that art appreciation class you took last semester. So, I figured, why not?”

“Oh,” Shiro said, eyes widening. He hoped his face didn’t look as warm as it felt.

“Besides, that means you can be our tour guide,” Matt said, teasing again, and Shiro laughed.

“A single art appreciation class isn’t going to make me a tour guide, Matt.”

“Let’s test it out, Mr. Shirogane, then we will see,” Matt said, then tugged him into the museum.

-/-

Matt was squinting at his book again.

“What is that?” Shiro asked, distracted from the statue they were looking at. According to the placard, it was made of wood and raffia.

“I got it from the gift shop. It’s stuff about the pieces, but it’s hard to navigate,” Matt answered, flipping through a few pages, then sighing. He tossed the guidebook to Shiro. “Your turn. Try to figure it out. Also, take a picture of me with this guy.”

“You want me to look through this book and take a picture at the same time?”

“I assume you are a man of multi-tasking abilities, Shiro.”

Shiro sighed, then took out his phone and snapped a picture of Matt making double peace signs next to the statue. He smiled at the phone, quickly made it his new background, then went to the book. They walked as he flipped through it. Matt stopped at the next piece over.

“We’ll never make it through the whole museum if we stop at every piece, Matt,” he warned, but Matt was reading the placard, probably not listening. “Put on your glasses,” Shiro, for probably the hundredth time that day, reminded his boyfriend. Matt nodded and let the inertia slip the glasses onto his nose. Shiro snorted while scanning the guidebook. “Found it.”

“No way!” Matt exclaimed, causing a few people to look their way in irritation. Matt crowded at his side, peering at the picture in the book, and, sure enough, it was the piece in front of them. “How???”

Shiro just laughed, walking over to the next piece and rattling off some of the information about it from the guidebook for them both to hear.

-/-

They were sat at one of the many benches throughout the museum. The benches were placed so people could admire pieces for longer periods of time. And, sure, Matt and Shiro admired plenty, but their legs were killing them and the bench was a blessing for that too.

“I never realized museums were so much work,” Matt said, slumping against his boyfriend.

“You mean, when you aren’t jumping around from rocket exhibit to rocket exhibit?”

“Hey, that tires me out too,” Matt said and Shiro shrugged. “This is still a lot of fun, though. I don’t know a whole ton about art, but it’s really nice.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Shiro replied, resting his head atop Matt’s. He set serene eyes on the oil piece before them. An ocean, a cliff, two little boys and colors mixed so beautifully that Shiro wished he knew a bit more about art to understand how it was so beautiful.

“I wish we could spend time together like this more often,” Matt sighed. Shiro twined their hands together without moving too much, never taking his eyes from the painting.

“I wish our campuses weren’t so far away from each other,” he agreed.

-/-

“I have never wanted to touch a piece of art more than I have right now,” Matt whispered furiously into Shiro’s ear, eyes trained on a marble statue. “How do sculptures do it?”

Shiro looked at it too, eyes scanning over the woman’s smooth cheeks and the folds and creases of her dress. It was truly amazing. It was stone. It was marble. But it looked so soft, malleable.

“Beats me,” he said. Their hands were still linked, and he dragged Matt away from the sculpture to some of the silver pieces in a glass cabinet.

“Artists, man,” Matt murmured. They entered another room, this one filled with more modern-looking art. Matt sucked in a breath at a light display and practically ran to it, dragging Shiro by the hand. “Fuck,” he swore, his eyes reflecting the glow as they took it all in. It was hard to take his eyes off of, the art that was Matt in his awe. Eyes wide, a galaxy of wonder in them, light illuminating his face like he was gazing on heaven itself. It made Shiro feel like he was the one looking at heaven.

At the thought, Shiro suddenly felt his face and neck explode in heat and he tore his gaze away, looking towards the lights with Matt. He couldn’t really focus on it. After what he had already seen, it didn’t hold the same magnificence.

-/-

Shiro’s feet were killing him as they approached the exit of the museum, but he wasn’t tired, per se. It was strangely invigorating, going through a museum; always something to see next. You never wanted to sit down because there was always something else, something new, around the corner. There wasn’t the same promise at the exit of the building, but he was pretty certain his body was carrying him through despite the fact. It didn’t seem to care about the exercise anymore.

The sky was beginning to dim outside, to Shiro’s surprise, and he checked the time on his phone.

“Wow, I didn’t realize it was getting so late,” he remarked. Matt frowned, looking over his shoulder at the time.

“I don’t want to leave yet,” he whined, but it was soft and sad. Shiro squeezed his hand.

“I’ll walk you to the metro?” he asked, and Matt nodded.

As they walked down the streets to get to the next station, they remained silent, but stuck to each other like glue. It would be the last time they saw each other in person until the end of semester. Finals and projects and papers would start to pick up, and that, with Matt’s job and Shiro’s internship, would make it impossible to plan another day trip. Shiro tried resigning himself to more Skype calls, which were usually the highlight of his day, but, standing there with Matt, real and in the flesh, it was hard to go back.

He decided not to think about it again until it was time. For now, he savored being next to his boyfriend.

When they approached the station, they stood between the entrances to the two platforms, one going uptown and the other downtown. Shiro eyed the sign to downtown over Matt’s shoulder and felt something tug at his heart. He looked down to Matt’s hazel eyes, taking him in like it would be an eternity before they saw one another again. It felt like it would be.

“Call me when you get back to the dorms?” Matt asked and Shiro nodded.

“Don’t eat canned ravioli everyday just because I’m not there to stop you, okay?” Shiro replied. That got a small smile out of Matt.

“Tell Pidge and Keith and Allura I said hi.”

“Tell Rolo and Nyma not to drag you into too much trouble,” Shiro returned. Matt rolled his eyes.

“You act like they’re exclusively troublemakers.”

Shiro laughed. Matt’s eyes went to the clock near them, biting his lip, and shoulders going down. “The next train will be here soon, probably,” he said.

Shiro held onto Matt’s hand tighter. “Do you have to go?” he asked, heart desperate, but he already knew. They were both so busy.

“The fair’s tomorrow,” Matt said apologetically. “The invitation’s still open.”

Shiro shook his head. “My paper’s due Monday. I still have so much to do for it, and there’s a tutor session on Sunday.”

Matt nodded. He’d known this too, but it never hurt to try. They didn’t want to leave.

The clock ticked on. Their eyes locked and an understanding passed between them. Shiro leaned down, giving Matt one last lingering kiss, trying to commit it to memory for the next month and a half they would have to be apart. It was too long.

When they parted, Matt stepped back once. Twice. Three times before waving and turning his back, pulling out his metro pass and stepping through the gate. After the gate, he looked over his shoulder one last time before he got caught up in the crowd and was carried away.

Shiro stayed between the platforms, watching the entrance to the downtown platform for longer than he’d like to admit before sighing and turning to his own station.

He could survive until the end of term. They still had Skype.

Shiro already found himself looking forward to the next call.

#requests #shatt #vld #voltron #i am blessed with their existence

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