#its better for her. it was. considering the grand scheme it was so necessary | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

puttingfingerstokeys · 3 years ago

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A little something I whipped up for @heamatic with her Shinnok in mind.

No timeline alignment stuff here, just pure gift work based on a thread we’ve got on my RP account @bastardsunlight. Ft. Shinnok being creepy because that’s kind of his thing. Shinlao, because we haven’t come up with a ship name and I am appalled at our laxity.

Also like, I can’t believe I’m saying this but neither writer is in any way under some fucked up impression that this is a good, safe, or non-toxic ship. We use the term to describe people who are involved IN SOME WAY. That way is not necessarily healthy.

This story features no NSFW instances.

The dimly lit corridors of the Bone Temple are familiar passageways to Kung Lao as he moves effortlessly toward the audience chamber where he will soon be needed. Shinnok does not often offer his time, but today, he evidently feels generous. It is therefore his favorite creature’s duty to attend as well. Lao has long since stopped thinking of himself as a monk or even a former one, though his spiritual power is still formidable. That life is behind him. Netherrealm is—if not his home—his territory.

Emerging from a massive double door at one side of the infernal hall, he surveys the emptiness of it, the cavernous opulence of the mad god’s particular tastes. Deeper, under vents in the floor—Shinnok appreciates the screams of his captives—is the dungeon proper, though the audience hall very much resembles it. The high pillars are of dark reds, shining obsidian, and shot through with veins of other colors difficult to distinguish in the Stygian light of the realm of dishonored dead. Everything is bone and sinew and suffering here, fire and brimstone and ugly deception.

“You have kept me waiting, little one,” purrs the Elder God of Chaos from his throne. It is, naturally, constructed of bones—not all humanoid. He leans to one side and regards Kung Lao with those inscrutable eyes characteristic of his kind. “Do you wish to bring punishment down on yourself?”

“No, master,” responds Kung Lao, approaching the dais and then ascending to within reach of the massive entity’s long arms. If Shinnok wishes to pull his guts out and toss him back down like a used doll, he may do so from anywhere; why inconvenience him?

“Yet you offer no explanation…” The Elder God’s finger came out and lifted Kung Lao’s chin before sliding down his neck, over the pretty young man’s Adam’s apple, and down to collar bone and chest. He has left this one alive, appreciating the responsive heat and goose flesh of living skin. It bruises so prettily.

“I offer no excuse, my lord.” Kung Lao meets his eyes with an impertinence he loves and hates and oh he has made the right choice in this one. He had known the moment they met upon the field of kombat that Kung Lao would, indeed, make an excellent addition to his collection.

“You are wise beyond your years, it seems, if a bit pert.” Shinnok retracts his hand and waves it about. “Well, get on with it. I’ve better things to do.”

Quan-Chi materializes presently, late as well, though his arrival receives no acknowledgement whatsoever. His dark lord spares not a glance, instead watching the retreating back of the foolish monk who exchanged his own freedom for the life of his friend. Sentiment is worthless in Netherrealm and soon, the arrogant boy will learn this, if the old soul sorcerer must show him the way with his own two hands. His fists clench with the thought, imagining themselves about Kung Lao’s throat, squeezing until something breaks. The pleasure that arises from the thought sends a shudder down his spine.

Meanwhile, Kung Lao, unaware of this contemplation—or if he is aware, he cares so little, he doesn’t bother sparing the man, if a thing like Quan-Chi can be called a man, a single glance—turns to descend the dais. An oversized bone arm which has sprouted from the stone and bone floor of the mad god’s receiving hall offers itself, open-palmed, to the fallen monk. Kung Lao accepts it gracefully, laying his hand in the much larger one, knowing he has not displeased his lord on this day. The dry, brittle-feeling digits wrap gently about the young man’s hand as he makes his graceful retreat to discharge his duties.

Quan-Chi scowls at Kung Lao’s back until Shinnok actually turns his attention on his favored sorcerer—really the only sorcerer who will competently serve him with true, deep loyalty. It really is pathetic to watch, but sometimes a whipped dog is better than no dog. Shinnok has not even had to whip this one. He’s done it of his own accord.

A strange Netherrealm native (as native as anyone can be in a realm of dishonored souls and demonic constructs born of the mad god’s fits of rage), it had been he who had approached the Elder God of rot and chaos to serve him. If Lord Shinnok could be said to be grateful for anything, he might have chosen that moment when Quan-Chi’s power had drawn him to his lord and master’s prison and set about events which would eventually free and embody him. Of course they have greater plans, but for the time being, this will do.

This will do very nicely indeed, he considers, regarding his little pet’s taut backside as Kung Lao makes his way through the hall, the bone arm now sliding along with him, digging a furrow in the ground which seems to knit itself together just a few feet behind the abomination which now has its hand on the curve of Kung Lao’s lower back. Every sensation the bone arm feels, he also feels and the warmth of living flesh is delightful; he wants to grasp it hard, make the boy squeal with pain, make him bleed a little. Just a little.

Perhaps later.

“You have some… news?” Quan-Chi has been scheming—he is always scheming—to manifest his dark, mad god in Earthrealm and he clearly believes he has hit upon something. Shinnok can see it in the sparkle of the man’s eyes. Oh how he loves me, contemplates the Elder God with absolutely no reciprocity of that feeling.

“I do, my lord,” responds the sorcerer, bowing to one knee and standing to deliver his findings. Shinnok listens patiently, mind elsewhere as it must always be. He is chaos incarnate. There is little order to be had in Netherrealm beyond his absolute rule. Not much can hold the attention of an Elder God, in general, but Shinnok in particular has always allowed his mind to wander where it will. Aside from grand machinations of upset and overthrow which delight him endlessly, there is almost nothing of such magnitude in all of existence—no single object or concept which can so fascinate him. What could possibly be of such import that he, a deity, might need to focus his energies on it for any length of time? The boy, some part of his thoughts remind him sweetly. You’re quite captivated with your new toy, aren’t you? Ah but toys come and go. He will tire of this one… eventually.

That boy is now crossing the threshold of the temple’s audience hall, the doors gliding open before him. The dry heat of Netherrealm has ceased to move him and he walks out into it, ushering in the first petitioner, wondering if his lord and master will listen to this one, or slay it on sight. Any creature, demon, or lost soul who is bold enough to approach the Bone Temple and beg favors of the lord of the Realm is desperate, addled, or too cocksure for their own good. An obliteration by the death god is permanent, it is nothingness, non-existence. Somehow, that void is more terrifying by far than the screaming, burning, howling dimness of Netherrealm.

The first demon in line—he is first by virtue of having killed his way up the queue; the corpses of those before him are littered in pieces here and there as a testament to this, all still twitching and flailing as the death he grants is only pain—is a truly imposing figure, easily ten feet in height, with massive, twisted horns like a ram and a maw full of jagged teeth. His eyes ablaze with contempt. This expression does not soften when it lays its burning gaze (with all four eyes) upon the pretty, behatted monk—Kung Lao may not think of himself as a monk, but they do—but rather hardens to something bordering on obscene. The thing licks slavering lips with an exaggerated motion, clearly aiming to upset the small, soft-looking mortal, who does not respond, only gestures to the hall.

“The master will see you now,” he says in a neutral tone that betrays nothing. “Please, follow me.”

As they enter, the beast’s three-toed feet hit the ground much harder with each step than might actually be necessary, as if to emphasize his weight. Shinnok leans back upon his throne and assumes a semi-attentive posture. There is no real reason for him to pretend he cares; even the pretense is worthless, but for now, it entertains him. Some of the denizens of his realm wait the Netherrealm equivalent of months, even years, if Shinnok is indisposed and simply does not care. Lately, he has been taking more audiences, but then he has only lately had a… secretary. Kung Lao moves swiftly ahead of the demon, braid swinging tantalizingly behind his shapely back. The boy is an hourglass, upon close inspection, broad of shoulder, narrow of waist, and thick of hip and rear-end. The demon is inspecting.

“This is far enough,” instructs Kung Lao. “What are you called?”

The demon splutters with indignation. How could they not know him, the greatest general of the northern armies of Khadul, the god-king of the demons, the true creatures of Netherrealm! He has severely overestimated his importance, a grave error in the Bone Temple. The silent hall rings with its silence. An audience chamber ought necessarily to have an audience, but Shinnok prefers the cavernous immensity. It reiterates just how small his petitioners truly are. He eyes the demon, but has yet to speak. A bone arm sprouts near Kung Lao and it makes a twirling motion with its forefinger.

“Lord Shinnok bids you speak,” says the shapely boy through plump lips that look like they ought to be bruised and bloodied and used, in the creature’s foul opinion.

“I will speak,” he snarls, reaching out toward Kung Lao with the intent to brush past, “but with the lord of this Realm, he in whose temple we stand, not you, little slut. There are things I would do with you, yes, but speaking… it is not one of them.” The demon’s laughter rings out boldly into the hall, bouncing off the skulls and femurs and ribs and myriad other bones which make the walls, floor, and ceiling. Quan-Chi flinches minutely, though more at the brazenness of it than the sound. Shinnok is a statue. The bone arm has dissipated, crumbling like ash and ruin, leaving Lao alone. His lord is watching.

“No,” says Kung Lao, the syllable sharp and clear as a pretty bell rung in a mausoleum—and equally as incongruous next to the obscene, guttural speech of the demon. “No,” he repeats, “you do not speak. You bark like a mangy cur begging for scraps. Heel.”

He rushes the demon with lightning speed as it swings for him. There is a brief moment when it seems he might make a try for the beast’s sizeable testes, which swing visibly behind the scant loincloth one might say he is “wearing”. The idea occurs to him and a strange flash of melancholic amusement jolts Kung Lao’s spine before he disappears beneath his hat in a flash of red light and lotus petals. The creature, having never encountered this particular mortal, looks baffled and squats to examine the hat. Quan-Chi’s mouth opens to warn the beast of its insolence in his master’s presence, but a sharp gesture from said master silences him. His face heats with rage. How dare the boy show off this way? He will be punished—perhaps disemboweled or flayed. How delicious that would be!

As the as yet unnamed demon reaches toward the object to pick it up, the flash occurs once more and the deadly piece of headwear flips upward, turning vertically, its far edge held by the owner, the only man in any realm able to master such a strange weapon. The creature barely has time to cry out as Kung Lao draws the hat up its entirety, bisecting the thing and spilling its steaming insides along the floor. Midair, Kung Lao flings the hat, hard, toward Shinnok. Once more, Quan-Chi blanches, but the mad god catches it easily and holds it, bottom facing downward, toward his knees where he sits. This, he thinks, is the most fun I have had in millennia.

Kung Lao’s form plummets toward the gory mess he has made and for a brief, shining moment, Quan-Chi thinks perhaps he will fall and snap his neck and that will be that, one last escape attempt with the final spark of the monk’s spirit left to him. Lord Shinnok has no need of a broken doll. Of course this is a flight of pure fancy. Shinnok will find a use for that beautiful body, even broken.

Alas, rather than crashing to his death—or maiming, at least—Kung Lao’s body dives into a circle of blood, red light, once more accompanied by a flash and flurry of lotus petals. It takes only half a moment for him to repeat the trick, falling out of the hat and into his lord and master’s waiting lap. Shinnok allows the hat to settle upon Kung Lao’s head and once more tilts his chin upward so that their eyes meet.

“Far too impertinent,” he scolds, shaking his head, running his thumb over his little doll’s full, perfect, soft lower lip. Kung Lao is flushed with the pleasure of his accomplishment and hasn’t a spot of blood on his person. “Who are you to decide who I do and do not address, hmm? Is this not my domain?”

“His master would pretend it is not. One cannot serve two lords and you rule this Realm.” This is not a question, nor is it simpering. Kung Lao speaks cold, hard facts. “I merely saved you the trouble of hearing a dog bark.”

So bold, Shinnok thinks. I must curb this. But he does not punish his little favorite. The unpredictability delights him. Quan-Chi senses this misplaced delight and recedes from the receiving hall unseen, glowering over his shoulder and now hellbent on perfecting his machinations to bring his master to Earthrealm.

#violence #cc #cw #mortal kombat #kung lao #shinnok #shinlao #gift work

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thegoodprincess · 3 years ago

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Together We Are Apart, but Apart We Are Together | KTH Ch. 2

Author: thegoodprincess

Pairing: Kim Taehyung | Original Female Character

Genre: romance, fantasy, action, forbidden love, human KTH | angel of death OC, supernatural au

Word Count: 2.1k [series, ongoing]

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Mentions of violence [a stabbing occurs]

Summary: After admiring a handsome boy from afar, an Angel of Death reluctantly rescues him from his own demise. As a result of going against her better judgment she inadvertently invites him into her world.

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(I recommend listening to this song while reading)

Together We are Apart, but Apart We Are Together

Chapter 2. Fate

“Fate has a funny way of intervening in people’s lives.” ― Katie Ashley

It was a few months later in the dead of winter when I was walking near the Han River. Due to the icy temperatures the river was partially frozen. The ground surrounding it was coated in a fresh blanket of snow that came down earlier in the day. A chilly breeze nipped at the tender flesh of my cheek, causing an involuntary shiver to rake down my spine.

Sighing out my condensed breath formed a cloud that mingled with the crisp air. I glanced up at the sky. Overhead the pale moon glowed bright, illuminating the night sky against the backdrop of countless glittery stars. Looking around I stood alone admiring the the way the shadows created by the city lights flitted across the pavement. It was quiet, not eerily so, but in a way that emphasized the bare stillness of wintertime. Most people were at home presumably getting ready to go to sleep as it was fairly late.

I was waiting for my next patron to arrive: a man who was going to be murdered during a robbery gone wrong. This was a common occurrence for me. I was one of many angels of death. I was not a malevolent force. I did not decide who lived and who died, and how the act itself was carried out. I simply collected the souls of the fallen and escorted them to the afterlife.

It was bittersweet condoling the newly deceased once they realized their predicament. I would allow them to say their last goodbyes to loved ones and others they deemed fit before they departed into the light. But it was harrowing having to witness death first hand and being strictly forbid from interfering.

I had seen countless people perish a variety of ways. I had seen it all from natural deaths having to do with diseases or natural processes like aging, to accidental deaths like car fatalities. Suicides and homicides were some of the worst. While death was inevitable, loss of life done by the hands of oneself or by another wasn’t. There always lied a choice, humans just choose to be masters of their own and sometimes other’s destinies.

While I was a creation of purity, I had been become well acquainted with grief. It was almost as if I was stuck in an endless cycle; each time the metaphorical wound was healed it was being habitually ripped open. In the grand scheme of things it was woefully the one major downside of the duty. Tonight would be no different. I would again begrudgingly be a bystander to yet another fateful demise.

As if on cue an older man adorn in designer clothing came into view, walking cautiously with shifting eyes assessing his surroundings. His shoulders were tensed and his pace was quick as he shuffled across the sidewalk. He looked genuinely frightened as if he was paranoid that someone was following him, and I guess he wasn’t wrong.

Then seemingly from the shadows a man wearing a black ski mask and gloves appeared from behind some foliage. He snuck up and roughly grabbed the older gentleman from behind with gloved hands, startling him.

The two men fought for a short while until the masked man managed to get his forearm around the older gentleman’s neck. He began to strangle him. However, I don’t think the masked man’s intent was to maliciously murder him. Rather he was meaning to strangle the older man to the point of him passing out. This would ensure that the masked man could steal his wallet without the risk of being followed and potentially caught.

But nevertheless, the masked man exerted lethal pressure for way longer than necessary to the elder’s neck. The older man’s knees began to buckle and his struggling became less erratic. Regardless of the older gentleman involuntarily becoming compliant, the masked man had yet to let up his hold on him. The older gentleman’s arms dangled limply at his sides. He was dying.

Just then a third party came into view. I was bewildered as I wasn’t expecting anyone else to show up. A young man with a bag slung over his shoulder was inching closer and closer, until his face came into view. He seemed vaguely familiar, the distance between us was making it hard to distinguish certain features.

Then almost instantly I recognized him. It was the boy whose face I had found to be bewitching. He was indelibly engrained into my memory. While I had stopped secretly hoping to catch a serendipitous glimpse of him when I was out, there hadn’t been a day that went by where I didn’t wonder what he was doing, who he was with, or if he even frequented the same places.

He still looked the same dressed smartly in a white turtleneck, tan trousers, wool trench coat, and tartan print scarf. It was apparent that the overcast winter weather had subtly lightened his complexion by a few shades. The only significant difference about him was his hair. His once dark locks had been dyed to a golden blonde hue. In addition to the new color, the parting of his hair now showcased his entire forehead.

Regardless of the butterflies that had erupted in my abdomen from seeing him again, the feeling dissipated all too soon as my stomach sunk. There had never been a greater time where I wished he hadn’t show up, especially considering the circumstances of this situation.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.

My veins ran cold, as if the very ice water of the river before us, coursed through them. Every hair on the back of my neck rose on end. I silently prayed he would turn around back in the direction he came from and not involved himself. But I was sorely mistaken. He stopped in his tracks, witnessing the killing of the elder. Swiftly dropping his bag, he ran over to help.

What ensued caused me to let out an audible gasp. The boy threw a hard punch and was able to stun the masked man momentarily, as the criminal fell to the ground. Assuming the masked man to be knocked out, the boy then attempted to help the older man who fell to his knees gasping for breath. Crouching down, the boy pulled out his phone to call for an ambulance. But his attempt was short lived.

Rising from his place on the ground a bit disoriented, the robber fumbled around in his front coat pocket and hastily pulled out a small pistol rashly pointing it at the pair with a quivering hand. The older gentleman cowered low behind the younger boy, almost as if he was using him as a shield. The boy’s arms immediately came up to surrender, remaining perfectly still. The gunman agitated at the boy’s heroics fixed his aim directly to the boy’s chest. He was purposely planning to deliver a fatal shot to his heart. All to quickly the gun shot’s sound reverberated off the concrete. I could only watch in horror.

In that moment the world seemed to turn upside down. My mind was reeling. I felt dizzy, bile crept up into my throat while all I felt was I was my heart slamming against my ribcage. Everything seemed to move in slow motion as the bullet exited the barrel of the gun. Naturally the boy screwed his eyes shut while he tensed his entire body, bracing himself for the inevitable impact. A second later he flinched backwards.

Shortly after the deafening crack of the bullet penetrated my eardrums, I squinted my eyes to check where the boy had been shot. To my relief the middle of his chest was still intact, but a bright red substance began to slowly spread from his shoulder region and seep down into the area where his heart lay beating. The gunman had indeed missed his intended target, and instead shot clean through the boy’s left shoulder. The boy’s facial expression twisted into a state of confusion, shocked at what had just occurred. I assumed the adrenaline numbed his senses, altering his frame of mind.

The older gentlemen looked like he wanted to help but he remained unmoving still afraid to come out from behind the boy. The gunman tried to shoot again but to some miracle his trigger jammed. Seeing this as an opportunity to escape, the older man quickly abandoned the boy, scurrying off without looking back. But the boy was too weak to follow, he remained holding his shoulder nearly doubled over. The pain was beginning to set in.

In an effort to make due with the boy, the gunman reached into his interior coat pocket to withdraw his hand holding an odd black object. It was revealed to be a switchblade when he subtlety flicked his wrist and the blade sprung out. Since the older man escaped on the boy’s behalf, the masked man felt it was only fair the boy be robbed instead. The boy assessing the situation held out one of his hands as if to plead for mercy. A pained grimace painted his pretty face.

Then I saw the boy’s lips begin to move. The two appeared to be exchanging words. I felt petrified, so I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Their voices came out distorted, sounding more like unintelligible mumbles than any actual language. It was as though they were talking underwater.

In a last ditch attempt to save himself from further harm, I saw the boy slowly reach into his back pocket with his good hand and pull out his wallet. He dangled the wallet in front him to show the criminal before he chucked it into the snow at the criminal’s feet, hoping this would satisfy the man.

The man hastily grabbed the wallet off the ground and excitedly opened it to reveal its contents. But his smile soon faltered, boiling anger brewing in his eyes instead.

Originally it seemed he didn’t intended to stab the boy after already shooting him in a fit of blind rage, the knife was just the extra assurance he needed to intimidate the boy into cooperating. But the boy stuck his nose in business that didn’t concern him and ultimately costed the masked man.

Not only did the boy escalate the situation and cause the victim he purposely targeted to get away, but the masked man wasted time and energy grappling with the boy which increased the likelihood of him being seen and or arrested by the authorities. He went through all that troublesome effort and for what? Some chump change he could have easily pickpocketed off someone on the subway. He was throughly pissed.

The criminal was going to teach the boy a lesson. Taking the measly amount of bills out, he hurled what remained of the wallet back into the snow. He stalked closer to the boy ready to attack with a sadistic smirk.

Slowly the boy began taking small steps backwards subconsciously putting distance between him and the impending danger. Unfortunately he was unknowingly inching closer to the water.

But all hell broke loose when the boy accidentally slipped on some dangerously slick ice that caused him to lose his balance. He then clumsily stumbled backwards and plunged into the frigid water of the river, breaking through the ice in the process.

The gunman realizing the gravity of the situation, almost instantly snapped out of his aggressive trance-like state and stood there with a blank expression. It was then that he began to visibly panic, nervously looking around to see if anyone else had witnessed what had just happened. He apprehensively neared the edge of the river and looked as though he was debating whether to help the boy or not. But he knew if he did, it would only further incriminate him.

Deciding to conceal his involvement in tonight’s events, he plucked the jammed gun and wallet from the snow and hurriedly planted the two respective items by the river’s edge.

The gunman made it appear as though the boy had committed suicide by first shooting himself and then falling into the river. He subsequently raked his feet sloppily over the snow in a back and forth motion to disguise his shoe prints. Once he was pleased enough with his work, he bolted off fleeing the scene.

Quickly wrenching myself from my deep stupor, I rushed over without taking a second to assess the severity of my actions and immediately jumped in to rescue the boy.

#taehyung fanfiction #taehyung fanfic #kim taehyung #taehyung x oc #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts army #bts supernatural au #taehyung

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tsukikento · 5 years ago

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Too Fast For Your Own Good Part 3 (Finale)

Pairing: Takami Keigo (Hawks x Reader)

Words: 5656

Summary: Soulmate!AU - the first words your soulmate says to you is written on your body in ink.

Genre/Warnings: Some slight swear word usage. A little bit of kissing. Fluff and angst.

This part has some slight manga spoilers. Although I write it very vaguely, I still wanted to warn you guys! It happens basically right after where the anime ends, but I want you to know just in case. Please lmk if you have any questions about it, I would be really happy to answer your questions!

A/N: It is finally over! Only 3 parts, but I spent a lot of time on it so I really hope you guys like it, please let me know! Also, I forgot to tag people in part 2 and decided to just wait till I posted this one. Please select part 1 or 2 based on what you missed. So sorry!!

(part 1) (part 2)

Your trek to the local Korean restaurant was rather eventful. Not only did Keigo lead the conversation by talking about himself, which helped in calming your nerves, but you were both stopped repeatedly for photos. Although Hawks was much more famous than you, you were still asked to join the photos more often than not which was rather endearing in the grand scheme of things.

When you arrived at the restaurant, you were immediately ushered to a table and given water and tea. You politely thanked the waitress who told you she would be back with the complimentary appetizers. You bowed slightly while Hawks casually leaned back in his chair and stretched his wings.

She seemed to be an older lady and probably the owner of the restaurant, making politeness seem more necessary than usual to you.

Luckily, the two of you were sitting in a private area, something Hawks requested when you first entered the restaurant. His want for privacy made your heart thump in an unfamiliar way. On top of that, the area was dimly lit with almost ethereal lights that shined on Takami’s skin in a perfect way.

Your obvious looks to the hero did not go unnoticed and Hawks eventually decided to speak up. “You know, in Korean culture, the younger person should pour the elder the drink,” Keigo smirked while glossing over the menu.

“And what makes you think I’m younger?” You snapped back, your own cheeky smile glossing over your lips while you also busied yourself with reading over the menu to try and look as carefree as your soulmate seemed.

Hawks’ unrestrained laughter caught your attention and you looked back to him. “I know you are younger,” He explained, “It’s not like our birthdays are hidden from the world.”

“Oh?” You perked. You reached forward to grab the kettle of tea, giving Hawks a cue to hold up his small glass. You poured the hot, steeped tea while he presented his cup to you delicately. “So you did research on me?” You questioned once done pouring his glass.

“Why wouldn’t I look up the cute hero I had plans to meet today?” Keigo countered before blowing on the steaming tea and taking a sip.

A faint blush found its way onto your cheeks which Hawks immediately noticed. Before you had a chance to quip back, the waitress made her way to the table with a platter of small appetizers. You recognized a few of them immediately and suddenly became much more aware of your growling stomach. The japchae, kimchi, and seaweed salad stared back at you and you immediately opened your metal chopsticks.

“Thank you,” You commented while looking up to the waitress.

“Of course,” She replied, nodding slightly as a bow. “Are you ready to order?”

You looked at Hawks with a questioning face and nodded slightly to tell him you were ready. He smiled and looked to the waitress, “Yes, we are. Can I please have the chicken hot stone bowl?”

The lady nodded, wrote down his order, and looked at you. “And can I please have the veggie dumpling ramen with medium spice?” You added.

“Of course,” The waitress spoke while grabbing up your menus. “It will be right out.”

“So,” Hawks began once you were once again left alone, “Tell me more about you than can’t be found on a website.”

When you looked to meet Hawks’ eyes you saw a rather fond glint in them. They seemed soft which was difficult to do considering the sharp, black designs that outlined his goldeneyes. If you weren’t mistaken, it seemed the bird boy was genuinely interested in learning about someone else, a feat that not many people could say they’ve conquered. Takami was known for being closed-off in his social life, enjoying the company of few, but being charming enough to attract the company of all.

“Well, there’s not much to tell.” You took a small sip of the glass of water. “I always wanted to be a hero. I mean, who doesn’t when they’re younger, but with a quirk like mine it seemed rude not to become a hero,” You recounted, remembering all the people who told you your time stopping quirk could stop villainy altogether. “So, I went to U.A.” You shrugged your shoulders.

“So, you felt pressured to be a hero?” Hawks inquired.

“I guess?” You replied, “I don’t think about it very much.”

“Well, what about your quirk?” Hawks asked, a small smile graced his lips. “It must have been crazy to lie about your quirk for so long.”

You sighed and ran your hand through your hair. “Yeah, it was. I don’t know why I lied about it for so long.” You looked down at your lap. “In all honesty, it felt like I dug myself into a hole. I kept trying to just forget about it, but every time I went on a mission, I had to be careful to make it seem like I was teleporting.”

While you spoke, Hawks nodded periodically. It seemed like he really was paying attention which was something you really appreciated.

You looked down and bit your lip, it was hard to talk about how miserable you were sometimes. Especially with someone you just met. Even if he is your soulmate, it goes against natural human instincts to share so much of yourself right away.

Hawks noticed your reluctance to share and quickly changed the topic to something else. “What do you do in your free time?” He asked, leading the question in a more positive direction.

“Oh, this and that,” You laughed while pushing your hair away from your face. “Training, reading, hanging out with friends, and relaxing would probably summarize my free time the most. What about you?” You questioned before picking up your tea and taking a sip.

“Ah,” Hawks sighed. He followed you in taking a sip of your tea. “I don’t have much free time.”

Fuck.

You felt like such an idiot for asking. Obviously he doesn’t have free time! He’s the number two hero, he owns his own agency. Even right now, he is probably worried about how he looks and is coming across. No matter how private this area looks, you were sure there were paparazzi lurking around every corner and fangirls just begging for him to slip up and lose his rank in approval.

“Sorry,” You mumbled before grabbing your water and taking a few big gulps to avoid meeting his eyes.

“Don’t be,” Hawks nonchalantly consoled, a sympathetic smile spreading on his face. “I want the world to one day be so free from villainy that everyone, even heroes, are relaxed. I want to just kick back, you know? It’s gonna take hard work to get there and I plan to get there within my lifetime.”

A shy grin spread across your face. You looked at your lap to hide the blush you were currently nursing. It seemed Hawks was a very brave and passionate hero, something that could be considered very admirable and attractive.

Handsome, funny, and a kindhearted personality that made his wings seem like angel wings. This wasn’t like the Hawks you had read about. The confident, almost arrogant, man was covering many tabloids. It seemed everyone was trying to find out if the winged hero was really all that great and strong.

“You don’t have to hide your blush,” Hawks insisted, causing you to look up just in time to see the waitress carrying both your dishes.

You had gotten so caught up in the conversation that you barely ate any of the appetizers so far. You resisted pouting and reaching for the seaweed salad that was almost gone and instead smiled as the waitress placed your ramen in front of you.

Once she left, you snatched up the seaweed salad before Hawks could eat all of it. The blond laughed at your childish action and raised his hands up in surrender.

“Sorry,” You mumbled before using your chopsticks to grab some salad and stuffing your face full.

Hawks’ glorious laugh once again rang through the private area, making you feel much better. “I’m just glad my soulmate loves food as much as me.” He reasoned while picking at his bowl as if to find the perfect bite.

“Yeah,” You grinned, looking into Keigo’s eyes. “Isn’t it crazy?”

“That we both love food?” Takami joked. His smile made his cheeks look like apples and his eyes like crescent moons.

“No, you idiot,” You scolded. If he was close enough, you would have definitely slapped Hawks on his arm.

The winged hero laughed in reply once more. “It is,” He confirmed, “But it’s totally worth it. The craziness now should be worth it in the end.” Hawks sighed loudly and leaned back in his chair. “And trust me, life is crazy.” He ran a hand through his hair and closed his eyes.

For the first time, you noticed just how tired Hawks was. His wings were just a tad bit lower than when you were standing together on a stage in front of an audience. With these dim lights and close proximity, you were finally able to see the sunspots on his skin and purple bags under his eyes.

It made you all the more aware that your soulmate was busy and tired. It made you nervous that you might just be another chore for the winged hero. Just another person he has to take care of.

You gulped down the lump in your throat and nodded. “Yeah,” You vaguely replied before turning your attention to your ramen. You picked at the noodles while you continued to debate your relationship with Hawks.

“Hey,” You heard Takami’s soft voice speak up. Your nondominant hand, which had been placed on the table, was suddenly being held by the calloused hands of Hawks. You looked up to the golden boy to see his eyes filled with worry, his eyebrows furrowed, and a frown on his lips. “What’s wrong?” He inquired.

His warm hand encased yours and his thumb rubbed back and forth across the back of your hand.

“I’m okay,” You mumbled, “Nothing’s wrong.” You shook your head and looked back down.

“No,” Hawks countered, holding onto your hand tighter. “I can tell something is wrong. Please tell me, Y/L/N-kun.”

Hearing your name on his lips was something to behold. No Telethon. You aren’t a hero having dinner with another hero. You are having dinner with your soulmate. If you started your relationship based on lies, it would constantly be lies.

“I,” You stumbled, “I’m worried about you. Or more so our relationship.” You motioned in between the two of you and looked up at Hawks to see just how attentively he was watching and listening to you. “You are a busy man and I don’t want to burden you,” You clarified.

A few beats of silence and then the sound of Hawks once again sighing. His free hand came up to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose.

During those seconds, you worried that he was going to tell you that in fact, you were a burden. You weren’t strong enough to protect yourself. You weren’t famous enough to stand next to him. You lied about your quirk and would bring down his approval rating.

“You aren’t going to burden me,” He ensured. His free hand moved to hold your other hand which was now resting on the table. Luckily, the table was small enough so neither of you were awkwardly leaning over your dishes. “You are my soulmate,” He continued, “And that doesn’t mean we are simply stuck together. It means that we are destined to make each other better people. You will never burden me.”

A small smile found its way onto your lips. “Thank you,” You whispered.

Hawks face mirrored yours. Tired eyes and smiles.

“Listen,” Hawks finally spoke up. “I could sit here all day admiring how beautiful you are, but I am so hungry and this chicken smells so good.”

Without realizing, you began laughing at his joke and leaned back, letting go of his hands. “Yes,” You insisted, “Let’s eat. Let’s stop worrying.”

“Agreed,” Hawks murmured before digging into his food.

By now, your ramen had enough time to cool down and you were able to scarf it down fast. For the rest of your dinner, you and Hawks casually chatted while digging into your food.

Eventually, the bill came and Hawks immediately put down his credit card.

By the time you left, you were in a much better mood. You were simply enjoying the company of Takami.

“Ooh,” Hawks gushed. He grabbed your hand and pulled you across the parking lot of the complex you were in. “Ice cream!”

You laughed at the childish antics of your date. And followed him as he practically glided towards the small ice cream store. It was a fairly cold night and definitely not one for ice cream considering the rain from this morning.

Regardless, Hawks was still determined to eat the delicious creamy treat.

A bell rang when you walked through the door. You were greeted by two shocked faces of teenagers. After the workers and few guests inside calmed down, you and Hawks were able to order each of your respective cones of ice cream.

This time, you insisted on paying.

The two of your left shoulder to shoulder, each of you licking at your ice cream cones.

“Where do you live?” Hawks mindlessly mumbled. “Is it far from here?”

“Oh, not too far,” You replied. “Maybe a twenty-five-minute walk from here?”

You were currently sitting at a small table outside of the creamery, debating what to do next.

“I could fly you home,” Keigo suggested. “I’d probably get there in 10.”

“Aw,” You joked, “And lose 15 minutes with you?” You nudged him with your shoulder and caused the winged hero to chuckle.

“Nah,” He replied, “We would just spend that 15 minutes doing something else.” He winked, causing you to blush and choke on the ice cream in your mouth.

Keigo laughed even harder and you shoved him harshly with your empty hand. “Jeez, you are too confident, Takami-kun.”

“Ahh,” The blond sighed, “My name sounds so good coming from you.” A lazy yet confident smile found its way onto his face and he slowly licked his lips, causing you to become aware of the cool wind blowing past your hot skin.

You took another bite out of your ice cream to cool you down, suddenly way too nervous to even think about kissing the hero in front of you.

“Nervous?” Takami asked, leaning forward to force you to look at him in the eyes.

“Maybe,” You mumbled, keeping your attention on your ice cream.

Hawks practically cackled at your response. Once his laughter died down, he looked at your blushing face and confidently asked, “How can you be so cute?”

You bit your lip and took a few breaths before looking at Takami. You scrunched up your face and pointed your finger at him, “Listen here, you better stop saying stuff like that or else.”

“Or else what?” Hawks challenged. A coy smile fell upon his lips and there was a glint in his eyes just begging you to do something.

“Or else I’ll have no choice, but to actually kiss you. In front of all these people.” You smirked at the blond and motioned to the busy complex. “Our relationship will get released in the papers before your managers have any time to prepare. They will hate you,” You hissed, hoping the threat would work.

“Like I care,” Hawks shrugged.

“Then kiss me,” You demanded, deciding to stand your ground instead of faltering back because of his confidence.

You watched the smirk on Keigo’s face disappear. His mouth formed an ‘O’ shape and his blown eyes stared at you nervously. “I can’t,” He mumbled in defeat.

You laughed at his actions and cheered in excitement. “I knew it!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” He mumbled before digging into the cone part of his ice cream cone.

You laughed lightly before leaning towards Takami to whisper in his ear, “We’ll just kiss back at my apartment,” You tittered.

The comment grabbed Hawks’ attention, who smiled happily and lightly flapped his wings. It was just enough to make the area windy and get him about a foot off his feet before he stopped and plopped back down into the seat.

You laughed at your soulmate before finishing off your ice cream cone. You crumpled up the small wrapper and grabbed Keigo’s which he left on the table and tossed them. “Shall we go?” You asked, holding out your hand for him to take.

“Of course,” He replied, allowing you to help him up.

You two strolled through the streets to your apartment. Keigo offered multiple times to fly, but you insisted on walking. “I like seeing all the citizens I protect,” You reasoned, shrugging your shoulders and looking at Keigo.

The blond smiled and wrapped his arm around your waist.

You invited him up to your apartment and grabbed each of you a glass of water while Hawks curiously wandered around the apartment, looking at all of your belongings.

You spent most of the night chatting until the blond couldn’t help it anymore and kissed you. His soft lips graced your cheek and ear. His hot breath asked if he could kiss you.

With a meek nod, Hawks’ lips were all over you.

A shock ran through your body when his lips first attached to yours. You were sure it was something only soulmates felt when they kissed because you really had never felt this way before.

After what seemed like only seconds, or maybe minutes or hours. You really had no clue. Anyways, after some amount of time, Hawks pulled away and looked at his phone. “I’m so sorry, I have to go.”

You saw the clock read midnight and you really couldn’t blame him although you craved for him to spend the night.

“That’s okay,” You sighed, trying to regain your composure. “I’m sure you have a busy day tomorrow.” You bit your lip and gave yourself a push to ask the question that was on the tip of your tongue. “Do you have any idea when we will see each other again?”

Hawks sighed. “Tomorrow. Come at noon to my agency and we’ll get lunch.”

“Really?” You giddily asked, not expecting to see him so quickly.

“I promise.” Hawks pulled his jacket back on, it had been discarded during the heated makeout session, and a little red book fell out.

“What’s this?” You asked as you picked it up and read the label.

Paranormal Liberation Front.

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’ve read it,” Hawks spoke while snatching the book from your hands. “These guys have really been growing lately, gaining tons of attention. It may be old, but it still has a lot of power for today’s society. I know it’s long, so just read the highlighted parts.” He opened the book to flash you a random page with yellow highlights all over it. “Destro’s ideals are everything we could have asked for! A society where everyone can look out or themselves, it really fits this era!”

You took the book from Takami’s hands, too distracted to respond.

The speech he just gave you did not seem like him. Although it wasn’t like you knew very much about him anyways. “Yeah,” You sighed while tossing the book onto your coffee table.

You saw Takami out the door and he kissed you on the cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow, love.” He whispered in your ear.

You smiled and waved goodbye to your soulmate. Once your door was closed, you let out a large breath you had been holding in. You stretched out your limbs and began your nighttime routine.

It was currently noon the next day and you walked through the double doors into Hawks’ agency. You, unfortunately, had to go straight to work after your lunch meeting so you were sporting your heroes uniform. It didn’t bother you too much considering you would be with Takami who was always in his hero uniform.

You were currently working a grin as you walked up to the front desk and told the receptionist that you had plans with Hawks.

“Ah yes, Telethon, of course,” The receptionist spoke. “Please have a seat right over there and someone will be right down to grab you.”

Although it sparked you as weird that Hawks wouldn’t just come down to greet you, you waved off the worry and happily sat down. Nothing could ruin today.

You had already called your manager and best friend to tell them the news. It was only a matter of time till you and Takami were official and you wanted your manager and best friend to be ready.

Eventually, a man came down to grab you. He was wearing a casual suit and had an earpiece on.

“Yes sir, I’ll bring up Telethon now,” You heard him whisper into the bluetooth device.

You stood up, well aware they were coming for you. “Hello,” You greeted with a small bow.

The person who came to grab you did not bow and instead simply motioned for you to follow. “Please come with me,” He mumbled.

Although concerned with the mystery surrounding your invitation to the company, you followed. You assumed you would mainly be working with Keigo. You did not expect to have to go through multiple people just to see him.

However, maybe this was just what it was like as the number two hero.

The trip up to the 13th floor was quiet and unbearably long. There was an awkward air around you both and it gave you this weird feeling. As if the person you were with knew something you didn’t.

Once the elevator dinged, you followed him through the halls. Eventually, he opened a door for you and mumbled out, “Please go in.”

You smiled and mumbled a small “Thank you.” Once you entered, you noticed multiple people sitting at an oblong table.

Your eyes flashed around the room to look at every one. First and foremost, you noticed your manager. Next, you noticed the manager who was with Hawks at the competition yesterday. Lastly, you noticed another manager sitting right next to him.

Everyone stood up once they saw you and you heard the click of the door closing behind you.

Immediately, you stopped time, unable to think clearly.

You needed time to think.

The unease in your stomach spread to your throat and your heart began to beat all too fast. You felt your sweat drip from the back of your neck to down your spine. You gulped down the lump in your throat and started time again, knowing that stalling the inevitable was worthless.

Your manager was motioning for you to sit next to them. Silently, you moved to take your seat.

About 10 feet away from you were two incredibly average looking people. They each looked so plain and stern. However, most of all, all you could think about was where is Takami?

You knew something was wrong. Tears swelled in your eyes and you looked down to hide them. You saw a single teardrop onto the shaking hands in your lap. You took in a deep breath and croaked out, “Why am I here?”

“Telethon, we are here because of your forming relationship with Hawks,” The female spoke, her voice rather curt.

The use of hero names irked you to no end. Before they could continue to speak, you looked back up to meet their eyes. “I’m Y/L/N Y/N, he is Takami Keigo and we are soulmates. Don’t belittle that if you are here to end it,” You hissed through seething teeth.

“Please, Y/L/N-san,” Your manager spoke, looking at you with pity in their eyes. “Please listen to them.”

Reluctantly, you looked back to the people across the table. “Go ahead,” You mumbled.

“Tele-Y/L/N-san, Takami-san is on a very important mission right now,” The male manager across the table explained. “We cannot give you explicit details, but it is vital to the safety of Musutafu that he remains undercover and does not date you now.”

“It would not only put his life in danger but also yours. We cannot take that risk,” The woman added.

There was a ringing in your ears that wouldn’t go away. In order to help you think clearly, you stopped time.

You felt so helpless. Like the world was coming crashing down on you. Through last night and today, all you thought about was how happy you now were. How happy Takami made you feel.

Without thinking clearly, you exited the room. Although your lungs were already beginning to burn, you pushed through and searched the hallway.

You had to find him.

You had to find Keigo.

Nobody could see you wandering around. You had a sinking suspicion that everyone at this agency knew your secret and you were determined to find him without the help of anyone else.

Knowing Hawks, although you only met him yesterday, he was probably on the top floor. Of course he would want to be high in the sky when he launched himself with his wings. You couldn’t use the elevator with time frozen so you ran up the stairs as fast as you could. If you weren’t right about him being on the top floor, you would have no time, no breath left, to keep searching.

Once you climbed up the 7 additional floors, you paced through the hall in an attempt to find Takami. There were no labels on the doors, so you had to open each and every single one to see if you could find him.

Eventually, finally, you opened a door to see Keigo nervously sitting on his sofa. He was sitting perfectly still and his bright wings were gray because of your quirk. Despite the stillness of his wings, you could see they had been nervously flapping like one would do with their legs when nervous.

You started time, took a deep breath in, and practically leaped at Hawks.

“Takami-kun,” You cried, falling to your knees and grabbing his hands.

Although shocked, Hawks still caught you to the best of his abilities. His wings no longer flapped because he was too shocked by your appearance. He did not expect you to run from the meeting, but here you were, right in front of him.

“Y/L/N-kun,” He whispered. You looked at him and he caressed your cheek and swept his finger across it to wipe away a tear that had fallen from your eyes. “Why are you here?”

“I had to see you,” You reasoned. “I need to hear you say it yourself.”

Takami’s phone rang.

You held him close, worried he would answer it, and direct you back to the meeting.

“Just tell me, please,” You begged.

“Sweetheart,” He mumbled, the endearing words falling from his lips. He never expected to see you like this. Yes, it was hard on him, but he had been trained since his childhood to dissociate. You were never trained to forget people easily, let alone your soulmate. “I know this hurts.” He pulled you up onto his lap and held you tightly. “I don’t want to put you in danger.”

“Please just tell me,” You pleaded. “Tell me what you can tell me and then I’ll go.”

Takami sighed, “Fine.” He ran his hand through his hair and took off his goggles.

You could tell he was worried, not irritated. He didn’t want to put you in harm's way. Before you could stop yourself, you kissed his cheek to try and calm his nerves, something that sent heat up his neck.

“I am working with some bad people,” He explained. “If I date you, then you’ll be a target. I can’t let that happen and I can’t say anything more. Please just read the book I gave you.” His golden eyes bore into yours. “Remember, read the highlights.”

You nodded at him with wide eyes, finally being forced to accept your fate.

The blond knew he should send you back now, he was sure people were on their way up to grab you. But he just couldn’t let go when you looked so weak and soft. He craved to continue to hold you and he knew this somehow related to the soulmate bond. He knew this was the last time he could hold you for a while. And so he held on tight. He held you tighter and kissed the top of your head.

He didn’t know how long it was, but eventually, security came up and you two had to part. The last he saw was you exiting the room with your head hung low. The image of you crying played on repeat in his head and made it all the much harder for him to forget you.

On your end, you were ushered back into the conference room and given a glass of water. After you chugged down the cup, you were handed a contract.

“Please take your time to read it over, we constructed it with your manager before this meeting,” The female manager spoke up. “Overall, it details that we cannot have you see Hawks, I mean Takami-san. This contract is to last six months. We are hoping it may be able to be canceled, but it also might have to be extended. As we said, Takami-san is under-”

“I know,” You interrupted and your eyes glossed over the contract. “I understand. I, um, I just had to hear it from Takami-kun,” You reasoned. You knew you must have looked crazy. Your hair was a mess and your eyes were surely red.

You just wanted to get this over with, fix up your appearance, and go to work.

You looked to your manager who nodded and reassuringly touched your hand. “I’m sorry,” He mouthed.

You nodded and finished reading the contract. You grabbed the pen on the table and signed each page. You said you goodbyes and followed your manager out of the building, not paying much attention to anything that was happening.

“Y/L/N-san,” Your manager sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

You meekly nodded as your manager ushered you into a private cab.

“I arranged for someone to cover your shift today,” Your manager debriefed. “I also arranged for Bubble Girl to come over with takeout and anything else she may deem necessary.” Your manager once again grabbed your hand. “I want you to be as happy as you can during a time like this.”

“Thank you,” You whispered. You wished you could show your happiness better, but it was too difficult to right now. As a result, you simply went through the motions of your day.

You got home and were greeted by your best friend, takeout, a punching bag, and face masks. You got out all your stress by punching your feelings out. You then showered and ate food while doing face masks and watching old movies. You smiled through the pain as you wished her a goodnight. You laid on your bed and cried again while looking up Takami on social media.

Eventually, around midnight, you ran out of tears. You sat up in your bed and chugged more water. You felt helpless, empty, like nothing in the world could make you happy.

It wasn’t very common that you felt this depressed, but a soulmate bond could have some major impacts on people. All day, you had been thinking of a story where two people died because they tried to ignore their bond. No matter how strong-willed Takami could be, and no matter how much you cared about keeping him safe, this could take a major toll on your mind and body.

You felt utterly defeated like there was nothing left to do. You couldn’t fight against the contract because it was only in place to protect you and you couldn’t help Hawks in his mission either.

You literally couldn’t do anything.

All you could do was go about your life and wait.

Or maybe…

You immediately stood up with a new mission on your mind. You beelined it out of your room and through your small hallway. You flicked on the living room light and glanced over the area in search of the small red book.

It was still sitting on the coffee table from when you gingerly placed it there the night before. You grabbed it off the table and walked back to your room while flicking through the pages. As of now, you weren’t paying too much attention to the words. You were much too distressed and tired to actually read.

As you reopened the door to your bedroom, you noticed a flash of red outside your window. Your room was too dark to see what it was, but out of pure surprise, you stopped time. Before starting it once again, you realized that the red blur could very well have been the winged hero you had been crying over.

You rushed to the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Takami. If you were right that he was watching over you, you would know that Hawks was just as depressed as you were. Although it pained you to know he was sad, it at least proved that he longed for you just like you longed for him.

It proved he cared for you and would continue to look over you regardless.

Your eyes analyzed the sky outside your window. You searched up and down for any sign of your soulmate. Alas, you turned up nothing.

Once again, Hawks was simply too fast for his own good.

Taglist: @hawkso-o @fashinogi @sprinkklz @shirotology

#bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my hero academy #mha #hawks #hawks x reader #takami keigo #takami keigo x reader

124 notes · View notes

forkanna · 4 years ago

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WARNING: Very N S F W. Includes sisterly incest, cunnilingus, anal play, tickling, foot worship, and as you probably expected... food kink.

Notes: HAPPY CORONATION DAY! I've been hanging onto this since I posted chapter 5 both because I wanted to make sure it was just right, and I thought it deserved to be released on an important day in the fandom's history: the date Elsa was crowned Queen of Arendelle in 1844. (We know this thanks to some smart cookies on Reddit haha)

So I know this should technically be from Elsa's POV if I continued to follow the convention I set up for myself, but I decided to keep writing it as Anna. It's been her story from the beginning and it should end as her story. Plus it's an epilogue, so it doesn't have to follow the rest of the fic's format! So there! AHAHAHAHA… I don't know, I'm tired.

And YES, this is the end. No sequels, no Epilogues-To-Epilogues; the MSB grand finale. I know a lot of you may have not seen my mention of an epilogue in the notes for last chapter, so hopefully you'll see this! If any of you want to continue Elsa and Anna's story in your own spinoff fanfics, be my guest (but please credit me); otherwise, I consider MSB to be at its natural ending. Hope you all enjoy the last slice!

In all seriousness, thanks to everyone who has waited this long for what is essentially a one-off smutty fic about D*sney sisters to be finished. I owe so much to this story; it changed my life in a very literal, very unexpected way. Elsa and Anna's true love thawed my jaded heart and encouraged me to keep writing, even when I was sank deep in the darkness of a miserable life, and to explore who I am in ways I never felt brave enough to do. I'm in such a better place now than when this began. It's been a pleasure being part of this fandom, and hopefully I will continue to enjoy it for a long time to come.

Until we meet again,

Jessex

[AO3] [WATTPAD] [QUOTEV]

EPILOGUE

Min Søsters Bursdagsmadrass: Anna

~ Five Months Later ~

Okay, okay, not quite five months have passed since we saved our kingdom from my sister's magic. Closer to four-and-a-half. But the time has flown by so much that it feels more like a week.

Kristoff and Sven came galloping up to the gates just as we were exiting. The ice boy was a lot less shocked that I was arm-in-arm with Elsa than I expected; probably because he pretty much already caught us in flagrante delicto before. He tried to offer congratulations, and I gave him a big hug to cut through all that awkwardness.

Olaf showed up not long after. Well, we came across a puddle that used to be Olaf; I'd know that carrot nose anywhere. Before I could start sobbing, Elsa calmly created a little ice-flurry and rebuilt him as easy as if she were breathing; he was disoriented, but didn't take long to be back to his cheerful self, hugging us and congratulating us on figuring out that we belonged together. That made sense the more I thought about it. Seriously, why wouldn't our snow-baby always know his parents should stay together?

Naturally, there were a few people who came to the levee that didn't condone our love. I wish I could say differently. Most of them were either too afraid to speak out against us — probably because my sister was some kind of ice witch, that tends to make even the bravest of men need a change of underwear — or they were genuinely happy we were happy, and summer was back. But one or two tried to shame us. Didn't go well, considering we were the monarchy and surrounded by supporters. More insisted we needed a king, at the very least for the purpose of heirs. I tried to tell them that Olaf was our heir, which got a lot of weird looks, but Elsa insisted that it was our decision if and when we crossed that bridge. I guess that's why she's the queen, right? I mean, can you imagine me as the queen of Arendelle? No way!

Hans was tried and convicted of treason against the kingdom. I didn't even go; I didn't want to look at him again if I could help it. But I watched from the castle walls with my sister as they led him away to a ship bound for the Southern Isles. We figured his family would make sure the sentence was severe if they wanted to maintain a good trade partnership with Arendelle. Plus, we wouldn't have to deal with him still being in our home. Win-win.

We also shipped old Weaseltown out. He can peacock-strut and backstab on his own turf.

Everything flew by a lot faster after those first few days. Kristoff was our new icemaster general — totally a real title, thank you — and Olaf's cheery presence got everyone used to the idea of magic. The people slowly grew to accept that their queen had a queen of her own. At first, we tried not to be too open with our relationship, but even though everybody thinks of me as the free spirit, it was Elsa who decided we should begin taking walks through the kingdom, hand-in-hand. At first, we got a few stinkeyes, but little by little, they saw we were happy, and not hurting anyone with our taboo love, and… it just became normal, I guess.

Which is fantastic! I mean, if they didn't I would have bought a whole collection of lutes to start smacking them with, but that didn't turn out to be necessary. Good thing; a co-queen shouldn't brawl with her subjects. Looks kinda bad.

As we hit the middle of December and the weather was turning colder without my sister's influence, I started scheming. We had enjoyed four wonderful months of getting to know each other all over again. Even though I'm basically a big ball of libido, somehow Elsa convinced me that we shouldn't just start banging each other's brains out every day. How dare she! But I have to admit, having that sex-free courtship time was somehow a magic all its own.

Because we were behind. By thirteen years. I found out just how well-read my sister was, since she had ploughed through book after book when she wasn't trying to practice controlling her magic. That was something we had in common, since I was often equally bored; it turned out we had read a lot of the same books, and we could compare our thoughts and feelings about them over many, many cups of tea. She never did start talking to paintings like I did, but when I introduced them to her, at least she was bemusedly giggling behind her hand instead of openly mocking me, or telling me I needed medical attention. And we went horseback riding, and swimming, ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner together. Started going through our parents' things at last, painful though it was. Learned about the kind of adults we had become since we last knew each other as children.

And kissed, sure. Just because we didn't start rolling around in the bed sheets right away didn't mean I was going to let us be complete prudes.

However… my sister's birthday was fast approaching, and I knew I had to do something big. Maybe in a literal sense. So the scheming turned to plotting, and the plotting turned to planning. And then the plans got put in motion leading up to her big day.

~ o ~

"Alright, alright, Olaf! I'm going!"

"Sorry, Elsa, but there's no time to waste!" I could hear him replying to her from the other side of the door. I could just barely see her slippered feet and his snow stumps through the crack underneath. So weird doing that from the inside this time… "I guess. I've never had a birthday, but Anna told me this is your biggest one yet, and we got a schedule to keep!"

"Okay, little guy," she laughed at him easily. Even though I couldn't see, I could just picture her petting over his head. "Thank you."

"Yep! And oh, I was supposed to do something else, it was… yeeeessss! Anna told me I should 'get lost for the rest of the day'. So I guess my question is, does that mean until sundown? Or midnight? And how lost do I have to get? I can get lost just in this castle, it's so big, but she was pointing at the gates when she said it…"

"Tell you what. Why don't you go pay Kristoff and Sven a visit? That should be far enough."

"But I won't be lost if I know where I'm going," he told her in a patient tone, as if she were the one who was missing something instead.

"My mistake," she laughed fondly. "Just have a little adventure outside of the castle and we will see you in the morning."

"Okie-dokie! Have fun, don't do anything I wouldn't do! Or do, because you're not me, so you should be doing things I wouldn't do? Maybe? Especially if I'm going to be getting lost and you don't need to be lost. I don't know if that's exactly…"

He was still talking by the time his voice started to fade around the corner. The rest of the sentence was cut off by Elsa knocking on my door.

"Go away, Elsa," I called back at her in an exaggeratedly pouty tone.

"Anna," she sighed. "Yes, I know I was the one saying that to you for a decade of our lives, but this joke is starting to get a little old now."

"Whaaaaaat? No, I don't think so."

"It's officially old as of today. Now, may I come in, or will you be coming out?"

"Think we both already did that last part," I giggled. "Did you, um, prepare?"

"For the love of- yes! Though I don't know why, I let Gerda bathe me thoroughly, and now I am standing outside your door, scrubbed raw and regretting that I listened to her, because you are being a pain in the-"

She didn't finish that thought because I unlocked the door just then. But I didn't open it for her. I was too busy scampering across the floor of my chambers to stand by the bed, grinning from ear-to-ear like a loon. And don't judge, okay? I'd been planning this for a long time.

"Um…" The door creaked open, and one of her baby blues peered around the inside of the darkened room. The sun had already set, so it was only the moonlight and the single candle on my bedside table providing illumination. "A-Anna?"

"Please enter," I said in a pretentiously royal tone.

"Oh, your robe is like mine," she said with a small smile as she eased the door shut behind her.

"Yep! Silk, from the East! I mean, you fill yours out a little better — especially up top. But that's one of the gifts. And I figured, hey, might as well get one for me, too!"

Barely glancing down at the blue silk covering her sizable assets, she shook her head with a small laugh. "It's very nice, thank you. But I thought I told you I didn't want you to make a big deal about my birthday; we should be focused on the Yule festivities for the kingdo-"

"No, no, no," I teased her with a wave of my index finger, bouncing on my heels excitedly. "This is the first time in thirteen years I have been able to celebrate this with you. Give me this one, okay?"

"When can we stop saying the number thirteen and start really enjoying our lives again?"

"When it's been fourteen years. Now… can you take that robe off and hop up on the bed for me?"

Oh, that shrewd little smirk that blossomed on my sister's face. It was both breathtakingly beautiful and super sexy. She was all the time, anyway, but there were moments that it stood out a lot more. "Ahhhh. So that's what all this is about, is it? You think tonight we are going to break our courtship."

"Mmmmaybe. But even if we don't, I still want more with you tonight. If that's okay," I added hastily, fidgeting with my hands behind my back.

"I see." Elsa stepped forward to smooth her hands up and down the green silk covering my chest, teasing her fingernails over my neck. Definitely not making it any easier to stop my lady parts from launching a hostile takeover of my brain, I can tell you! "And… this is very important to you, isn't it?"

"Y-yeah." Clearing my throat, I said, "And I understand why courting was important to you. And it's been great! Really, I loved getting to know you all over again, and we have been having so much fun. But… maybe just a little playing tonight? Please?"

As she glared across into my eyes, I brought my thumb and forefinger up between our faces, half an inch apart. That was all it took to make her burst out laughing.

"That little, hmm?" she finally chuckled as my cheeks burned. "Okay. I assume once I am in position, you will tackle me on this bed?"

"Yeah. Well, not 'tackle', but I'll join you. I just want you to feel how soft it is first."

That got Elsa's eyebrows raising in slight surprise. "Soft, hm? Did you get yourself a new bed for my birthday?"

"I dunno, did I?" I gasped. Hoping my acting skills were at least good enough to hide how excited I was.

Not quite. But at least Elsa hadn't fully figured out my cunning scheme. She pointed at my face and hissed under her breath, "There had better not be anyone hiding in here."

"Hiding? Wait, why would I stick anybody else in here and then tell you to take off your clothes?"

"How should I know? Sometimes you have a really strange sense of humour, Anna."

"Not that strange! Surprise creepy people sounds plain old mean!" But before she could say anything else, I placed a hand over my heart and raised the other one. "I do hereby solemnly pledge that nobody is going to jump out of the wardrobe at you. Or anything else like that."

"Fine, I believe you," she laughed as she stepped from her slippers and let the silk fall from her shoulders, exposing her smooth, pale back. Even now that we had been going for walks and rides, she was still white as alabaster, despite the alternating tans and sunburns I had.

"Mmm…"

"Again, my birthday seems to be full of gifts for you," she accused playfully with a little glance over her shoulder at me as she approached the bed, moving to climb atop it. "Little pervAAAHHH?!"

SPLAT.

Nope, I definitely couldn't hold back anymore. I wrapped my arms around my middle and burst out into gales of laughter, shaking all over and trying my best not to fall down. "ELSA! Your face — you should see your face!"

"I'm- what is- ANNA!" my poor sister finally burst out as she slipped and slid everywhere, defiling all my hard work. "What is the meaning of this?! What IS this, where did- is this CAKE?!"

Cackling and bouncing up and down as I clapped my hands, I finally crowed, "YES! Isn't it incredible?! Doesn't it look just like my bed? I mean, it did before you jumped on it, but even still, the rest of it!"

God, she looked hilarious. I was laughing, but was doing my best not to actually point at Elsa while I did it. And anyone would have laughed; her face covered in so much chocolate and frosting, a huge chunk falling from her chin to splash onto her right breast even while she blinked at me in wonder. Never had our regal queen looked so un-regal.

"You… made… a bed-sized cake… just to play this prank on me." She scraped some of the frosting from her eyelids and flicked it away, turning slightly so she could kneel on the layers of confection. That only made me laugh so hard I snorted like a pig. "This is… I have no words. I literally have no words, I could never have anticipated this."

"Aww, don't be grumpy," I teased breathlessly as I got rid of my own robe, dropping it right next to hers. "Just because I got you good this time! You freaked out, it was the most amazing thing I've watched in my whole life!"

"Yes, well, the show is ov- Anna, what are you doing now? Don't tell me- are you going to jump into this cake with me?! That's insane!"

I hesitated. "Well… I was before you called it 'insane'…" But then I approached the edge of the bed, hands on my hips. No way was I going to chicken out that easily. "This wasn't just a prank. I really wanted to do this for you."

That finally got her to laugh, and when she started she found it hard to stop. I laughed with her, watching her slap her caked thigh a few times. But before I could join her on the bed, she suddenly breathed, "Insane… but beautiful. I've never seen a woman more lovely in the entire world."

My heart skipped over a beat, and I hoped she couldn't tell how hard my nipples were in the low light. "Ahhhhh, now you're just lying. We both know you own a mirror."

"Nice try," she laughed, biting her sugar-coated lip for a moment to weather my counter-compliment. Then she tilted her head slightly while asking, "Why? This is the strangest surprise I have ever received — and that includes that certain birthday of yours. But I can tell it means a lot to you, so could you help me…?"

Great. Now I had to actually face the music, and it was going to take a lot of exposing of feelings. So I took a deep breath before throwing my inhibitions to the wind... and letting my knees sink into the cake.

"That is so wrong," I groaned, feeling one of my eyes twitch.

"I know. But once you get used to it, it's… still wrong, but interesting." She was leaning slightly on one arm, moving her legs out to one side. Always so ladylike, even in a big mound of baked sweetness.

"So here it is," I sighed. "You and me, even when we were really little… chocolate was our soft spot. We could never resist it. And especially after my birthday, when we bonded over it again… I knew your birthday had to be something big, since I could finally celebrate it with you. Something that mattered to both of us. And fun! I thought fun was really important, too. Took me a while to figure out just how I wanted to do this, but once I had this idea, I just… I knew. This was the only thing that would be good enough."

Though she had been listening with a small smile, my last sentence wiped it away. Why? What did I say wrong? Her cake-slicked hand lifted to caress my cheek.

"Anna, anything would have been good enough. Even if this had turned out to be a normal bed, I would have been so happy. How much you spend, how much you plan these gifts, it's sweet but you don't have to go to so much trouble. Don't you know my favourite gift is you?"

My lips only got the chance to part very slightly — when she booped me. She booped my nose with frosting on that finger. The Queen of Arendelle, everybody.

"You little stinker." But her words kept me from retaliating. "You… you mean that, huh? That I'm enough?"

"I do." Her lips pecked mine. "You always have been. I'm just sorry I wasn't able to show you until these past few months. But now, I get to make up for lost time."

Sliding closer, I whispered, "Same here."

And that was as far as I could get before I was attacking her mouth. Elsa welcomed me gratefully, humming as she pulled my body closer. I knew she was getting cake all over me, but I had kind of resigned myself to that when I concocted this whole crazy scheme. Literally concocted.

Which was what she asked about next. "How long did this take to bake?"

"Oh, a couple of days. The trick was keeping the parts we already made fresh so they wouldn't spoil before we finished the rest of it. Kristoff helped me with that, grabbed me a few blocks of ice; normally I would ask you to do it with a little magic, but I mean, since it was a surprise for you that would have been pretty stupid."

"Yes, I suppose so," she giggled, rubbing her fingertips against each other experimentally. "Smooth frosting… buttercream?"

"Of course! And I wanted to add a bunch of berries, but then it wouldn't have looked like my bed, because I don't normally have a bunch of berries on it." While Elsa laughed again, I slipped my arms around her waist. "And yeah, I know you still think it's weird I wanted to be in a cake like this. Plus it's a big waste of food. But for just this one birthday, the first one since we reunited, I wanted to give you something so big it was literally all around us. Like we're part of the cake instead of just the other way around."

Her voice was so gentle and warm when she responded, "I believed you the first time, Anna. But thank you for elaborating. I love knowing how you think, how your mind works. My amazing, clever sister."

Again, we kissed, deeper and longer and with no inhibitions. We tried to restrain ourselves when we were out in public, of course, but alone in my room? Nobody looking over our shoulders? Free as wild horses.

By the time we came up for air, I was no longer the clean one because we had been rolling around in the cake-bed. Sure, I still felt guilty for putting the castle cooks through so much work just so we could wreck it, but at least Kristoff and I gave them a hand — and I gave them the day off once they were through. Anyway, basically the only places where chocolate and frosting hadn't accumulated multiple layers was our faces, because they were so close to each other that nothing could get in between them.

"Are we supposed to be eating any of this?" Elsa laughed, running her finger through some on my shoulder.

"Well, yeah. I wouldn't have done this if it was just for show; this might as well have been a big frosted mud pie." Then I held up…

"Anna, where could you possibly have been hiding that?!"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Elsa merely blinked at me for a few seconds until I caved. "Okay, I had it in my butt."

"What- that sounds incredibly painful!"

"No, no, I was just clenching my cheeks on the handle. Obviously! Like I used the handle outside your door that first time. Come on, do you really think anybody would stick the pointy part into anywhere that sensitive?"

"Well, it is you," she laughed as she reached for the fork. Our fork. "Though I suppose I admire the control you have over your muscles back there." Then she hesitated, her brow furrowing. I could figure out what was holding her back.

"I also took one of Gerda's very thorough baths," I informed her to put her fears at ease. Which made her finally take it with a slight shake of her head. "Oh — and I helped one of the servants mop the floor before we got started in here. Trust me, when I say you can eat off the floor, I really mean it this time."

"You really have thought of everything; such attention to detail. It's almost a little scary."

"Love makes you a little scary sometimes, I guess."

"I guess." Then she slid the fork through some of the cake that we hadn't already rolled in, bringing it up to my lips. "After you."

"Oh! Wait… you first, it's your birthday."

"Diving into it counted as me going first," she chuckled. "Besides, I tasted a little on your lips once they caught some from my lips. Go on." And since I had no argument against that, and she was looking at me with those bemused, insistent eyes, I took the bite into my mouth.

"Ohmyghob, ibzo goob!"

"Anna, manners." Which I could appreciate the irony, since there were very little manners involved in rolling around in a giant cake. Probably. Maybe they do that more often in Corona…

"You have GOT to try this," I gushed once I had swallowed, grabbing the fork and scooping up another big bite for my sister.

"Can't I have a different fork?" But I wasn't budging. And she knew how important that particular utensil was to the both of us. "Gerda bathed you the same way she bathed me, didn't she?"

"It was like standing in a geyser."

"Fine." She accepted her first proper bite. Her blue eyes slid closed in ecstasy as she hummed her approval, eventually nodding after she had chewed for a moment.

"Amazing, right?" All she did was nod, raising a hand to give the okay symbol. So I helped myself to another bite, clutching my hand to my chest as tears welled up in my eyes.

Seriously, it was that good. Best cake I ever had in my life, up to and including the one with my sister's extra frosting.

"Okay," Elsa panted a couple minutes later when we had eaten our fill for the moment. "I was teasing you before, but I take it all back; I do want to live here and sleep here."

"Surrounded by layers of chocolatey goodness?" I giggled as I flopped onto my back, spread eagle in piles of sweet perfection. It was like Heaven, or Valhalla or whatever you believe is the good afterlife.

"Exactly. Fun and function." I glanced over to see she was lying on her side, propped up on one elbow so she could look down at me with a smile full of so much affection that my heart skipped a beat. "So very you."

At first all I did was chuckle a little and smile up at her. But then when she leaned down to kiss my chest, I let my eyes fall closed as a little sigh escaped my lips. "Mmm…"

"You were after something like this, I believe?"

Opening my eyes again, I was just in time to see her tongue slide across the meat of my right breast, the one closest to her. The track of freckled skin she revealed by cutting through the chocolate confection gleamed from her saliva, and it was somehow both offensive and arousing at the same time.

"Y-yeah. Something like that." I cleared my throat and caressed along her back, through cake and hair. "But you don't have to. If that whole courting thing is so-"

"We can take a break," she interrupted with an impish smile. "One night, for both Yule and my birthday. And for you, because I know how hard it has been to keep your hands off me."

A blast of air exploded from my lungs as she licked again. "HAH! W-wow, somebody's conceited in here, and I think her name rhymes with… with, uh…"

"With what? Jelsa?"

"No, that's not a thing."

I was still trying to think of a rhyme for her name when she found my nipple, and my squeal blasted every thought out of both of our minds. My chest was a feast for my sister for the moment as my conscious thoughts faded, simply letting her enjoy me. Because I enjoyed it just as much. A few times, she hit the nerves just right that I twitched, digging my nails briefly into her back and making her hiss in response. Some extra added fun.

Then she started moving down my stomach. I knew where she was going; this wasn't our first time trying this particular activity. But the butterflies were as fresh as ever, and my thighs tried to trap her head there.

"Oh, not tonight?" she purred.

"Reflex," I panted shortly, trying not to laugh at the cake all over her face now. Because even though it was funny, it also wasn't… since she was about to go to town on me.

Oh, she did. She really, really did — and it blew my mind so much more this time, somehow. Maybe it was because for the past few months, I only had that fork handle for company in my bed. Being pent up and needy tends to make the release ten times stronger, you know.

"Elsa!" I whined after a few hours. Okay, it was probably a minute or two, but it felt like so long! "You're really… how did you… get this good?!"

By the time she came up for air to answer me, she was gripping my ass cheeks to hold my pelvis closer to her face. "You're worth trying my best for, Anna. And… I may have practiced on an ice-replica." When I laughed at that, a frosting-smeared eyebrow arched. "Ooh…"

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. Your backside is so firm, and I felt it flexing in my hands. Powerful."

"Y-yeah, I exercise a lot. Could probably pick up a gold coin with it."

"Really?" I felt her poking around back there, and I clenched — again, reflex. "Wow. Do you think… you could squeeze this?"

Before I had any chance to ask a question or protest, I felt a finger sliding between my cheeks. What in the fjord was Elsa doing?! It felt wrong, and disturbing… and hot? Was it hot somehow?! Maybe, but only because it was her, and she had already been going down on me, I'm pretty sure; if anybody else had tried that, especially when I wasn't already chomping at the bit to get off, their hand would be kindling for the fireplace in the corner.

So don't let anybody tell you Elsa is a prude who would never do anything like that. That whole regal facade is just a smoke screen. She can get just as wild as me.

"Wow, your muscles really are strong," Elsa breathed in honest surprise, not just teasing me. "I'm impressed."

Freya, I tried so hard to hold it together. To control my reaction. But as she dragged her finger back from my crack, brushing the little forbidden spot that I had been trying not to think about, I shivered and let out a little moan. Dooming myself.

"Anna?"

"Yes! I m-mean, hello, yeah, you can… you can start back in on the goods now! Remember my goods? Right there in front of you?"

"No, wait. Did you enjoy…?" Probably trying to spare me some embarrassment, she didn't finish the sentence. Instead, she raised her frosting-covered finger and flexed it in my field of vision.

"Oh, did I really get cake in there, too? Sheeze, we've really been going crazy!"

My nervous laughter made it way too obvious I was just trying to distract my sister. Why was I so bad at that sometimes? She looked at me suspiciously for a moment, then glanced at the finger, then back at me.

"Anna-"

"Please, can we not-"

"Anna, it's okay. If you want me to leave that alone, I will; I was only asking how you felt about it. That's all."

Though her words didn't dial back my embarrassment, it soothed away the anxiety spike. "Oh. Well… no, I didn't mind that much. Not really. It's just because… like, after all you've been doing to my clit and tits, I'm kind of sensitive… everywhere. So it was pretty interesting, but I would never ask you to do it again! That's too big a favour!"

Elsa thought that over for a moment, and I finally started to relax. Then she kissed my inner thigh. "Just relax, my love. My Lord Anna." I groaned, thinking back to the coronation ball. Even though it all worked out okay. "I'll take care of you. And all you have to do is ask, and I will stop or change what I am doing. You can always talk to me, alright?"

"Okay," I said, completely relieved. My queen was so sweet to me, always taking care of me as much as she could. Making me feel safe.

Well, I did feel a little less safe when she started kissing closer to my behind. And then when I felt two thumbs pulling the cheeks apart, I wriggled all over and gasped out, "WHOA! Elsa, are you- you're not gonna-"

"Just going to try to get the cake in here," she laughed softly. "Unless you have objections."

Did I? The whole thing was too weird to have any objections. And while I was still trying to come up with one, I felt that wriggling tongue press somewhere I had never wanted or needed it to go. Was Elsa really doing this? She really didn't mind? We did enough wrong and taboo things already that this just seemed like one step too far! But the way she was going at my ass suggested she didn't agree.

And it was… different. Not good, not bad; just unsettling even while it was stimulating. When she was still at it a minute later with no signs of stopping, one of my hands started trailing the handle of that trusty fork down my stomach. Maybe, if I could take care of the main attraction, a little sideshow in the back room wouldn't be so bad.

"Mm?" she hummed, tongue still sliding over my taut skin. She must have seen my fingers moving, because she drew back with a chuckle. "Oh, did you need me to move along?"

"Y-yeah, Elsa, I… we could try that again later, but right now I'm…"

With a solemn nod, she went right back to going down on me. Who could complain about a girlfriend like that? Just takes care of my needs without any complaint. What an angel.

"Oh ffff- MMM!" Yeah, I had to scream into my hand to let out some of my energy. Luckily, it wasn't the one holding the fork or I might have stabbed myself in the face. A minute later, I gasped, "Elsa! I'm almost there! Almost there!"

My sister did not slow down until I actually was there. It felt like she had six tongues instead of two — which she might actually have been able to pull off if she used her ice powers, but I didn't feel her mouth get any colder. I came so hard and shook all over, and the whole time Elsa just held onto my hips and devoured me like I was the best cake she had ever tried. Which was probably how she felt.

Once my heat faded, she lowered me into the cake again and smirked. "That happened awfully quickly for someone who didn't like me playing with her a little lower than usual."

"Y-yeah! Well… you… let me get pent up for multiple months!"

"That is fair. I hope my apology was satisfactory."

Pretending to think real hard about it, I screwed up my face and tapped my chin. Elsa laughed. "Weeeeeelllllllllll… on one condition."

"What condition?" She started when I moved to pin her to the bed. "Oh!"

"This one." My chosen target was her neck. She shivered a little when I ran my tongue along it, enjoying the rich chocolate mixing with the light purity of her skin. I wanted to eat Elsa whole.

"Anna… you… make it hard to breathe."

"Elsa…"

"N-no, I… I'm really-!"

With a shock, I realized she meant the way my hand was pushing into the middle of her abdomen. "OH! Shit, Elsa, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" As she took a deep breath, I caressed her side. "Better? Man, I am just really dumb sometimes…"

Elsa pulled me down into her embrace. "We already covered that. You are not dumb. You have never been dumb."

"You sure? I mean, not that I'm trying to argue with you, but you keep saying that and then I keep doing dumb things."

"Because you're excited. I am, too; I've just had a lot more practice... controlling myself."

For good reason. But since she wasn't judging me, I pushed myself back up to begin devouring the cake covering her ribs and stomach. She giggled a couple of times, and I smiled at the way her abdominal muscles flexed under my lips, bumping up against my nose. I could have kept eating off her and exploring her for hours and never got bored. Not once.

"Mmhhh, this really is so good," I sighed as I got closer and closer to the finish line. "The cake, you… who could ask for more?"

"I'm glad you… approve." But I could tell she was nervous. Why? It's not like this was the first time we had done anything like this; just the first in a little while.

"Elsa?" She didn't answer right away. Watching her bite her lip and look anxious was cute, but I still prompted her, "Hey. You okay?"

"What? Oh… yes, I'm fine." My face must have looked extra unconvinced, because a second later, she relented. "I'm still a little afraid of losing control of my powers when I…"

"When you what? Oh, wait, you're- right, got it, you don't need to explain. But hey, even when you've done that before, all you did was give me a little extra blast of snow. I don't mind a cold cake."

Tittering the slightest amount, despite the fear in her eyes, she reached down to run her fingers through my sugar-matted fringe. "Neither of us do. And I know you're probably right, but I can't help but worry I will hurt you for a third time. I don't think I could take that."

"Me, either. But you won't. I hear you, I do, but I know you have a handle on this now. You've been doing so good! Nobody in Arendelle is scared of you anymore. So just… let me do the magic this time."

That was that. Even though she was still biting her lip, her brow still creased, she didn't protest further as I kissed the inside of her thigh, devouring the frosting I found there. But I still didn't like that she was wound up so tight. So I figured hey, why not try to loosen her up?

"So, if I get a couple of fingers in you and really start going to town… does that make this pound-cake?"

Oh, now she looked mad. I barely had enough time to register the movement before her foot was pushing into my face, trying to shove me off the bed entirely.

"Hey, whoa whoa, Elsa! Come on, I'm sorry!"

"Why don't I believe you?" she demanded in a would-be stern voice. The answer might have been because I was laughing up a storm. But I caught sight of her smile, which told me she was just trying to mess around with me. One of the many things I had been missing over the past thirteen years.

"Truce! I'll keep my corny jokes to myself if you don't shove me the rest of the way off this bed!" Really, I already had to whip one leg back and brace against the floor to keep from falling as it was. But she slowly began to relent. "Thank you."

"I ought to put my finger back in your 'fork holder' for that one," she grunted.

"It was one time! I don't go around carrying forks back there all the time, you know!"

"Actually, no, I don't know that. Because I never inspect the back of your dress when you are casually walking down the halls."

"You could, though…" As she just shook her head at me, I decided to get a little more playful.

"AH! Not my feet — don't bite my feet, you know how ticklish iyyyahahahhaaaa!"

Too late. My teeth were nibbling all over her chocolatey toes in retaliation for almost being knocked on my butt. The way she began kicking was extremely dangerous, but at least now my childhood memories were intact; I remembered learning by watching our father that you had to hold her leg steady when you tickled her, or you were asking for an eyeful of flailing heel.

"STOP!" she cackled. "I'm- I am about to ruin this cake! Anna!"

Right away, I broke off with a laugh. No matter how much fun I was having, it wasn't worth ruining an entire cake-bed by making her wet herself. "Okay, okay. Yellow frosting is as bad as yellow snow, I guess."

"You… monster!" But she was still laughing a little, cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling in an attempt to regain her breath. Which looked like she had been doing something else.

Flawless. I was head over heels, alright.

"Sorry. But do you know how cute you are when you get tickled?"

Clearing her throat, she pushed up onto her elbows before answering me. "That is… because I didn't get to run around outside the way you did. Not after my ninth birthday. So my feet are…"

Oh. Well that was a sad reason for them to be extra sensitive. But I decided to simply kiss the one I had been attacking and say, "Perfect. You were gonna say 'perfect' right? Because that's the only answer I'm accepting right now."

Shaking her head a little at me, she let out an exasperated sigh that was followed by a small smile. "You're too kind to me."

"Nah. Just know you deserve the best."

Again, I kissed, and she hummed as her smile grew. When my lips parted to let my tongue slide between two of her toes, she rolled her eyes and pulled her foot away. "Fine, I get it, you love every inch of me."

"Glad we got that straightened out. Now, I have my eye on a couple of pastries… one sec."

Her hand raised up to rest on the back of my head when I attacked her chest. I figured she would probably appreciate having some time to recover before I went back between her thighs. The sounds floating out of her lungs were every bit as enthralling as if I had gone straight for the crux of her thighs, of course, but at least this way I could enjoy my cake a little longer.

"You are… so persistent." I switched to the other peak, my hand wrapping around the mountain below and kneading just enough to add pressure and pleasure without causing pain. "Mmmhh, and I almost want to ask if you have been practicing on someone else!"

"Maybe I made an ice-replica," I shot at her as I moved back down. Her grin was so huge. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this."

"You make it sound like you're about to go cliff-diving!" she laughed.

"Oh, I am. I'm about to dive down deep into your sound."

Elsa's lips parted, probably to reprimand me for another corny line. But all that came out was a moan when I pressed my mouth tightly against her soft folds through the frosting and chocolate. And I intended to clean every speck of that from her by the time I was finished.

My Elsa. My queen of snow and ice, grace and beauty and power. The only woman in the world. My mind and heart were full of desire for the goddess I was making writhe with my every teasing touch. And it wasn't just that she was the most beautiful girl in Arendelle, not that she had given me an orgasm so recently. This was about way more than repaying a debt or physical beauty; it was my sister. The one person who had always been a part of me, and who always will.

"A-Anna!" she gasped — well, she had been doing that for a couple of minutes, but this one was louder and stronger. Somehow, I just knew what she meant. "I'm… I'm still scared! I love you!"

I loved her, too. But I wanted to show her in some way besides slowing down to tell her with words. So I moved one hand from her hip to push our fork into hers, which had been clutching uselessly at another pile of birthday cake. And wow, did she respond! My hand was caught with the fork between our fingers, and it was such a tight grip that I felt like she would never let me go again.

Which did as much for me as I might have been doing for her.

There was more snow this time. Somehow, I had kind of expected that; I mean, when you tell an ice witch that she shouldn't hold back with her power, you're going to get more power. Makes sense, right? But even while I was still feeling her flesh pulse against my lips and tongue, her juices running down my chin, tiny pinpricks of cold were dusting my back in the spots that weren't covered by chocolate.

"Oh," I panted when I finally came up for air, satisfied that she no longer needed little licks for little aftershocks. "Snow! See? I told you everything would be fine. And this isn't even that bad!"

Though of course, we were both looking around at the winter wonderland filling the room. It was only a couple of inches deep, but spread over that large an area it still added up to a decent amount.

"It's… a lot," she panted. "But at least there aren't any… nothing dangerous."

Scoffing, I crawled up to lay my head on her shoulder, curling my entire body around hers as tightly as I could. Needing to be that close to her now. "Dangerous? You? Come on, you're a big pussycat."

"We both know… that's… a stretch." Finally, she cleared her throat and simply took in a couple of deep breaths so she wouldn't be so winded. Then she turned to look into my eyes with a smile full of afterglow and affection. "Thank you. For that, for all of this; for my perfect birthday night."

"Yeah. You got it. I'm always going to show you how much I love you, no matter how big I have to go to get the point across."

"Anna, you don't have to. I already know." We shared a firm kiss. Then she crinkled her nose. "Oh, that's… did you really enjoy me adding that to your cake? It's so strange."

"Maybe I wouldn't have if I didn't know what it was," I admitted with a giggle. "But knowing? Oh yeah. Totally hot."

"If you say so." Then she suddenly looked horrified. "Oh no — my lips have- you were kissing-"

"All I tasted was Sister-Queen and cake," I headed her off before she actually said it out loud. "Don't have to make it even more gross. Seriously, you didn't run away from my butt? I thought that would be a fate worse than death!"

"No, no," she reassured me, completely contented now that we had both enjoyed ourselves and could relax. "I wasn't lying for your benefit; it wasn't that bad. Especially when mixed with chocolate cake. Though I agree with you about my essence on this subject; probably wouldn't have enjoyed it not knowing what it is, or by itself. Well…"

Running my index fingertip in small circles on her stomach, I prompted, "Well?"

"I could try it by itself. Maybe. Someday."

"Go ahead. I won't… well, I might judge a little, but since we're already sisters who knock boots, it's not gonna hold a lot of water."

"Mmhmm. I suppose that's a valid point."

"Ohhhhh, I just wanna lay here forever!" I burst out as I curled even harder around Elsa, and she laughed again, nuzzling into my hair. "Though I do have another bath ready in the next chamber. I'm no doctor, but it's probably not the best idea for us to leave cake in some of the places we have cake right now."

Nodding, she whispered, "In a minute. This is so comfortable. Actually, I'm surprised we're not sinking all the way down to the floor."

"Oh — yeah, that's because we took a bed-sized wooden box and made the cake on top of that. Like, it's pretty much a bunch of little cakes smushed together in a grid pattern to make one huge sheet cake, and then we just put the icing all over it and down the sides with the right colours and patterns. So it looked like a real bed, with a quilt and all."

"Clever," she chuckled, scratching at my rib cage just enough to prompt a giggle from me before she stopped. "Really, I was flabbergasted at first, but now I really admire all the work you did for this. Because it turned out to be a lot of fun."

Her praise made my heart glow. "It did, didn't it? Chocolate cake slumber party. Go me."

We both fell into the kind of comfortable silence you can only have with family. Lover, sister, friend… Elsa was all of those things to me. And we had beaten all the odds and found our way back to each other, and we were alive, and our lives were wonderful. There wasn't much else I could ask for.

"I love you, my Anna," she breathed into my hair before rolling over to prop herself up on her elbow and look at me. I mirrored the gesture, gazing into her eyes.

"Love you, too, Majesty. And I always will."

Elsa kissed me hard and long, and held me close for such a long time that time itself ceased to hold meaning. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill anniversary of being born, but I finally knew: what we had? Different-good. The best kind of different a princess could ask for.

~ Takk for Reisen ~

#Min Søster Bursdagskake #cake fic #min soster bursdagskake #forkanna writes #elsanna fanfiction #elsanna fandom #elsanna #jess the writer #the cake fic

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the-navistar-carol · 5 years ago

Text

A Daminette songfic — ‘Invisible Thread’ by Matt Gould

From the marvelous Maribat AU of @ozmav, @maribat-archive where u at

Inspired by the Maribat Discord :))

Everyone had a soulmate. A black mark where they would first touch. Once the two did, the mark would blossom with color.

People would go for years with black marks on their knuckles, thinking it was from a punch, and then have their knuckles brush someone on the subway and voilá, their mark would change.

Some were more obvious, a handprint over their own (a high-five), a hand on their arm, or even one directly across their face.

~~~

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had no such obvious case. Her handprint was directly over her fingers of her right hand, as though someone had shook her hand (but only her fingers). Without a doubt, it confused her.

Once she became Ladybug, she met Chat Noir. Upon their first meeting, he took her hand directly over her soulmate mark and attempted to kiss her hand, but she had pushed him away. After the akuma attack, she had detransformed in a panic to check her hand, and in relief, found her hand was still uncolored.

The mark was still black.

It worried her, then, after her crush on Adrien started, that he did not turn her mark colors either.

So who was it?

Not like she’d ever meet who it was.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

Damian Wayne had an odd soulmate mark that was, thankfully, easy to hide via gloves. The black silhouettes of fingers in his right hand confused him, so he gave it little thought. Who even shakes hands like that?

During his training both with Ra’s al Ghul and the Robins, none of the ways anybody had touched his hand had made the mark change, thankfully. Soulmates were a nasty business, anyway. They were almost expected to drop everything upon meeting. Dumb.

Not that he cared who it was.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Lila, upon her return to Ms. Bustier’s class, had successfully turned the class against Marinette. She made good on her promise, but allowed Marinette to keep her spot as class president — only useful when she was needed, of course, and expected to drop everything for them without looking for anything in return.

She was effectively that one tool in a closet that only was picked up when needed, and discarded as soon as she had lost her use.

She couldn’t reverse the way things had gone. If only.

Let go, let me

Little boy, break free

Leave him out on his own

Let him find his way home

When Damian had become the next Robin, he had fought many people under the mask. But his black marks underneath his gauntlets never changed, even when he met new people at charity galas and shook hands.

Clearly, his soulmate wasn’t anybody he was going to meet anytime soon.

Not that it bothered him anyway. It did.

Can't take all this pain on his shoulders

Only weighs you all down when you're older

Chat Noir had come up to her, demanding she stop pretending. Pretending that they weren’t soulmates, that they weren’t in love, that they didn’t make a good couple.

He deserved her, he had yelled. He had been nothing but loyal, hadn’t he? A good cat? So, as a reward, he deserved her love. Her lips, her hands, her body.

He didn’t. And she told him so, exploding at him atop a roof despite the paparazzi growing below.

They made sure to catch his outburst, too. It served him right.

He treated the fame of being a superhero like a game. It was only fair that he dealt with the consequences.

Let them take their pictures.

Let him run, let him fly

If you love him, then don't cry tonight

Let him learn all he can

The cameras at Wayne galas and other nonsense never bothered him. They would be pointed at him anyway, so what difference did it make if he paid attention?

Flashes of white lights were only peripheral at this point, the snaps of shutters something to be tuned out.

The tabloids would run rampant anyway. Whether it was Grayson or Todd or Drake making the headlines with their antics, he would be shoved in there anyway.

Let them take their pictures.

So when he comes home to you

He'll be a better man

When she had proposed a class outing, the class had suggested many things, but Lila had thought of karaoke, so that was that. Of course, it was all up to her to plan the outing, raise funds, and reserve places.

She had asked the class to help her out, but Lila had oh-so-innocently wondered that since her family ran a bakery, couldn’t they just maybe give a few away to help their daughter raise the money?

Never mind the fact that they would be losing money. Never mind the fact that it would stress her out more than necessary. Never mind the fact that no one person should have to run their entire outing by herself.

But Marinette was their everyday Ladybug. That should be enough to cover any problem.

But they were looking for a miraculous cure. Who in the world had one for these situations?

Certainly not her.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

When Damian heard that his brothers and Father were going to Paris, his original thought was one of disgust. Of course, he spoke French. But any Romance language or country made him want to vomit. Latin lovers? Please. But France, the country dubbed one of love? Absolutely not.

But it was for a League reason, something to do with a supervillain with magic butterflies. It probably wasn’t even real.

But Paris meant his brothers teasing him about love, which infuriated him to no end. Who cared if he met someone the universe deemed his match?

Certainly not him.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

She had the dates figured out, triple-checked with her classmates to make sure it all worked together. Thankfully, the class had agreed to help fundraise for once. A small relief in the grand scheme of things.

Patrols now were such a chore. Where she had once enjoyed swinging through Paris’s streets with only her yo-yo to hold her up and the wind teasing through her hair, there was now a demanding Chat Noir, proclaiming her as his soulmate and he should be treated as such.

Akuma fights took so much longer and so much out of her now. Chat would watch from the sidelines, taunting her with the fact that he would join in from now on if she only gave up the delusions that they weren’t meant to be.

The gauntleted fist in his stomach was so worth it.

Sadly, it hadn’t come from her.

Lord above, can you hear my prayers

If you know the answer, then make me aware

How to still love him and how to still care

And how to stay strong when I want to be over there

Upon his first investigation in Paris, he had come across an akuma victim. It wasn’t hard to find, actually, as it left a trail of destruction in its wake.

Apparently, Paris already had two superheroes clad in Spandex, Ladybug and Chat Noir. Any information he had found on the latter was increasingly negative, if videos on the Ladyblog (God, that was a dumb name) were to be believed.

The first encounter he had had with the duo was subpar. Far, far below the bar.

The increasingly negative press on Chat Noir was completely accurate. Which was why he’d immediately punched him in the gut and gone up against the akuma, giving Ladybug a chance to rest.

“The akuma?”

She started, surprised that he would know of those. “The locket! It’s on her bracelet—”

Smash.

“Bye-bye, little butterfly.”

He shook hands with Ladybug, introduced himself as Robin, and updated her that the Justice League was looking into the Hawkmoth problem.

It had felt good to punch that brat of a cat. He had a feeling Ladybug would have enjoyed it more.

Sadly, it hadn’t come from her.

Do I run, do I fly?

How can I love him and keep my eyes dry

Do I learn all I can

The next day left Marinette in shock as she prepared for the karaoke night with her class. In all honesty, she would probably be left alone. Again.

But when she showed up, they initially welcomed her, to her pleasant surprise. But it couldn’t last. As soon as she had gone to the bathroom, they had gone into the room and not told her the number.

So she was left in the main room, pathetically sitting at a table by the stage, twirling a microphone she’d nicked from the stands.

Not like she could sing with anyone.

So when he comes home

I'll be a better man

Grayson had had the marvelous idea to go to a karaoke place. Abhorable. Not like he would even sing. The entire idea was dumb. Incredibly dumb. Who, in their right mind, would go and sing in front of people completely sober? (Not like he could drink legally, anyway.)

But when he got there, it was a bit more welcoming. All the rooms were taken, they were told, so there was only a communal stage left. No matter, Grayson grinned, and led them toward the main room. There were already a number of people there, taking turns on the stage.

He sat back in his chair, and prepared to sit back and enjoy the view.

Not like he would sing with anyone.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

A number of people went by before she did, and when she got up there, she selected a song that would usually be considered a duet, shrugging that she would sing it herself.

What she hadn’t expected was for a trio of black-haired boys to practically drag a fourth over to the stage, hand him a microphone, and place him next to her with positively wicked grins.

He looked like he wanted to leave. Marinette offered him a sympathetic half-smile. “That’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“It’s fine.” His voice was tinged with visible reluctance, but he took the microphone from its stand. “Just sing.” He was cute, she admitted, but would probably forget her after the night.

So she did.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Dumb karaoke. Dumb brothers. Dumb Father, for bringing him to Paris. And it didn’t help that the girl hid certain mortification. But he wasn’t going to back down and show weakness to his brothers. “Just sing.” And get this over with.

When she began to sing, it sent a jolt through his body. She didn’t even need to read the lyrics, voice something that could only be described as melodic. Hell, she sounded better than some professionals.

After the first verse or so, she nervously glanced at him, as if making sure he was still there and hadn’t taken off into the night. Damian shrugged in response, waiting for his turn.

It came up, and he gave his voice to the music. Grayson was definitely recording.

The girl at his side, a pretty black-haired girl who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, flinched as though she had been shocked. His singing wasn’t that bad, he groused, but kept at it anyway.

His brothers had pushed him up there as a challenge, taunting him to do it.

So he did.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

Wow, she mused. Cute and a good voice. When she added his voice to hers in the first true duet part, their singing harmonized into something truly remarkable. Is this even my voice?

In a sudden burst of courage, she spun, pleated skirt adding to the movement.

Her classmates started to trickle out of their room, as if wondering who was singing. She could see Rose, Juleka, Alya, and the courage vanished in a heartbeat.

Oh no.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Suddenly, the girl next to him spun, a giddy smile beginning to form. Somehow, he was beginning to enjoy this, too. Curses. Maybe he had been drugged.

But her spin stopped, voice faltering, and he quickly followed her gaze. A group of teenagers had exited one of the rooms, looking up to the stage, no doubt causing her to waver.

So he took her hand and spun her, certainly not missing the way her face lit up in a dazzling smile.

As soon as he released her hand, she took it again and spun him. A laugh nearly bubbled up (yeah, he had to be drugged). She was half a foot shorter, and yet she did it anyway.

Those people who had made her hesitate wouldn’t ruin her night, at least.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Oh, no.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

A burst of warmth blossomed in her right hand as she danced with the stranger, voice strengthening by the note. Marinette met his jade-green eyes with a smile, left hand clutching the microphone.

For tonight, at least, maybe she could forget about her classmates and Lila and Chat Noir.

Hopefully it would last.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

Her enthusiasm had returned, Damian noted, and her excitement was definitely leeching into him, too. His right hand was warm, but he chalked it up to her hand. He didn’t sweat, at least not in a karaoke bar.

For this song, at least, maybe he could ignore his brothers’ antics and the seriousness of the League.

He knew it wouldn’t last.

And I can't break free

As the song died out, Marinette dropped his hand, the movement causing her to catch her breath. Oh God.

Her soulmate mark had changed. From the blackest black, it was colored in a beautiful blend of red, green, and gold.

It’s him.

And I can't break free

He didn’t miss her gasp, glancing back to catch her reaction as she stared at her right hand — now colored in reds, greens, and golds. His colors.

He didn’t miss a beat to check his own right hand, eyes only widening as he found the mark swirled in blues, pinks, and silvers.

It’s her.

And I can't break free

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elmidol · 4 years ago

Text

Error: Program Not Found - Thirteen

Summary: You are in charge of programming the droids that work most closely with both General Hux and Kylo Ren. Unbeknownst to you, each of these two men have it in their heads that your relationship extends beyond the workplace. This causes things to escalate quickly when your two apparently secret boyfriends compare notes on their respective partner who is far too similar for their liking.

Read on AO3

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.” - George Bernard Shaw

Thirteen: Inspirational

The senator’s arrival had managed to squash your otherwise good mood, and it was the knowledge that you would not be required to approach him until the following morning that kept you from feeling utterly miserable. That as well as the messages that had been delivered to your inbox by Anonymous and Unknown. You worked to unveil which of the identities was Kylo Ren and which was General Hux to no avail. Their similarities were more pronounced in their writing than when conversing with either man in person. This was to be expected given how the written word worked. Droids became less individualized when you were staring at their lines of coding; it was the limitation of relying on the surface of things, the absence of body language to highlight the quirks and unspoken thoughts. Kylo Ren and General Hux were closed off, private, mistrustful.

Both had sent word of the senator having come to the planet, which led you to believe that they were not in league with one another--unless they were trying to throw you off their scent. It was difficult for you to picture them collaborating together on something of this nature, except in the case where they would make it into a competition. Your lips quirked to the side at that thought. There was something primal about two men fighting over you that made you feel desirable. A little like a piece of meat as well, a sort of trophy. The lack of physical damage to one another saved you from disliking the position you were in. To top it off, it was better to focus on them than your impending interactions with the senator. You still had to determine which aspects of the physical therapy droids that you wanted to share. Leaking too much information could very well result in your idea being stolen.

With a sigh, you settled back against the pillow and opened one of the new messages that were waiting for you in the inbox. Stress melted away from you with revelation that the message itself was little more than a picture; underneath it was the title of the painting. It was from a local artist that, from what you could recall, was growing in prominence. Depicted was a female humanoid so concealed in luxurious silks and gems that you could not properly note her species. Only her eyes stuck out, lovely things that they were. You were drawn to peer into those depths, which were lifelike. Your breath stilled in your chest as you scanned the entire painting to appreciate all its details. The sender of this message had been Unknown, and you wondered how best to respond to him. It might be that he was a connoisseur of arts or else this one piece had somehow managed to catch his attention.

You debated for a few moments longer before typing up a line of gratitude that preceded a question as to whether he enjoyed many paintings and, if so, who his favorite artist was. It did not matter the identity of the man at that point; you simply wished to know more about him, what it was that had led him to enjoy the painting enough to send it to you.

After clicking send on your response to the painting, you returned to the inbox and opened a new message from Anonymous. This correspondence was entirely text-based yet no less artistic.

To stand upon the hightest tower of Coruscant,

You will miss the brightest land verdant;

The durasteel walls tighten like a cage around you,

Unlike the open halls found on Naboo;

Yet across the skies that they share are the stars above,

Here I pray, though apart, you feel my love.

You discovered that your mind was piecing together popular images from both planets and arranging them so that they stood in juxtaposition to each other. The fields of Naboo that Coruscant could not boast, the fresh air of the former planet as well. Yet Coruscant had its own beauty amongst those durasteel towers and the pollutants that was known to partner itself with city life. Loveliness in the chaos. You pictured two lonely souls staring up into the sky. Each person on a different planet, longing for more, for one another. A sadness threatened to creep over you. What if, in the end, the two lovers did not meet?

Shaking your head, you shoved aside that line of negative thinking then grunted in response to Aelin asking if you were fine. He was laying on his bed with both hands atop his stomach. If not for his presence, you might have ventured to pursue a different topic of conversation with the two men messaging you. It had been awkward enough during the last portion of your meal when it had dawned on you that the sexually charged flirtations had occurred in front of Aelin. For his part, he had ignored it as much as he could.

You chewed on your bottom lip as you started your reply to the poem. Though it had instilled a sense of melancholy, the hopefulness of the words had stuck out as well and left you with an appreciation of the piece. Like with the painting, you wondered what it was about the poem that had caught the sender’s attention and also if they read poetry on a more regular basis. The message read similar to the one that you had sent to Unknown, with necessary changes to better suit the poem.

You rather enjoyed that the two men held an interest in the arts in some form or another. It set aside the role they played in the looming war that would break out once the First Order was in a better position to take charge. This more human face that you could glimpse behind the safety of a screen helped you to feel less alone. The knowledge that hidden parts within each person were held private for a reason; it reminded you of the droids you had worked on. Lines of code that most would never see despite their importance in the grand scheme of things. Those lines aided in dictating what actions the individual would commit to.

“You’re smiling again,” Aelin muttered, not unkindly. You rolled your eyes though you felt your grin widening in spite of the audience you had obtained with the expression. “Is it work related? I’m curious.”

“No, it is not work related,” you said, turning your head and meeting his gaze. His countenance betrayed nothing if he was suspicious of your actions beyond idle curiosity. The decision to alter the course of the conversation before that had a chance to change prompted: "Do you think I should include mentions of the anti procrastination droids as well?"

Aelin's features twisted, contorting and scrunching as he considered the question. There was merit in revealing that a variety of projects were underway; the senator might be more apt to provide more credits. On the reverse, it spiraled back to ideas being stolen and also could result in him pushing to discuss all projects to include the assassination droids. You half wished that TeeArr was present to aid in distracting the senator despite being fully aware that he would have had the complete opposite effect. While he was continuing to internally debate, you heard the tell-tale sounds of two messages arriving, one a few seconds after the first.

Though you had messaged him second, Anonymous had been the first one to send a reply. You opened it without reading. Aelin had begun to speak at that same moment. “I would hold onto that information in case he presses to talk about the assassination droids after you’ve already spoken of the physical therapy ones. Gives you another means of changing the subject and putting emphasis on this particular project since it encompasses both droids.” He stifled a yawn with one hand. “Mm. Do you mind if I watch a holodrama?”

“Thank you,�� you said. “And no--go right ahead. I won’t bother me.” You quite welcomed the distraction that Aelin would be offered by the holodrama, whichever one he happened to select. This gave you a semblance of privacy, a lower risk of him noticing the way your expressions altered as you read the messages you received.

The program Aelin selected was older and you were vaguely familiar with the storyline though you had not watched it yourself. Once he was more immersed in that, you returned your attention to the datapad in your hand and the message displayed thereupon.

Anonymous: [It is an older poem that I was taught as a part of my education. The senator may be familiar with it should you require material necessary to dissuade him from lingering too long on droids as a subject matter. He will enjoy hearing himself talk.]

For another time you felt your face breaking out into a smile that was filled to the brim with amusement. He had only half answered your questions, however you were not disappointed. It was thoughtful for him to have done this, and truth be told you had not considered going this route with the senator. This was not entirely surprising given the fact that you had not had much experience one-on-one interacting with senators or other politicians for that matter. Such business was conducted in larger groups, not dissimilar to when you presented potential projects to the Board at the First Order.

Music filtered into your musings as the holodrama Aelin watched droned on. Instead of responding to the message from Anonymous, you switched over to the reply that Unknown had sent.

Unknown: [Do you know the story behind this painting?]

Once more, not a proper reply to the questions that you had sent. With a shrug, you composed a brief message stating that you did not along with a nudge that you were now more curious about it. After sending this, you returned to the message from Anonymous to thank him for being considerate and attentive to your needs.

Unknown: [The artist stated that she is a spectre, a ghost from his past that he saw on three separate occasions. The night before his mother’s passing. A day after his childhood friend left the planet and never returned. The final occurrence was during his graduation from school.]

You stared at the message without reacting for a beat. Then your eyes narrowed and you found yourself unsure if this meant the woman was an omen for tragedy or success. Was she just some figment of the artist’s imagination. No matter the case, it hit you that Unknown truly was, at least somewhat, invested in this particular painting. To know its history as he did, to have the desire to share it. That was personal. You set aside your datapad and laid down while staring up at the ceiling. These men were going to give you an existential crisis.

After dozing off for a stretch, you quietly slipped off the bed and entered the bathroom with a bundle of fresh clothing to ensure that you looked more presentable when meeting with the senator. The reflection in the mirror showed subtle signs of exhaustion, albeit nothing beyond what was expected with how life had been proceeding. You wanted to get a headstart on the man you were to meet with as a means of gaining the upper hand. Part of that included taking care of your basic needs before he was out of bed. Prior to exiting the room, you checked your datapad for any new messages yet found nothing of note. Aelin was lightly snoring, nothing obnoxious or that would have wakened you had you not already been up and moving.

One the items on your to-do list was to purchase food for breakfast given the fact that you had already agreed to do so. Aelin had already given his order, which you had memorized, and you were willing to pay the extra credits to have the meal delivered at a specified time. You grabbed something small for yourself as well. It had been dark out when you had first left the building in which you were staying; one of the stormtroopers escorted you, and the two of you watched the sunrise in a shared silence. You were not yet sure if the stormtrooper would remain with you once you encountered the senator. A part of you did not mind the idea. Another part of you knew that it would be more difficult to make the meeting seem happenstance instead of premeditated. In the end you did not have to worry; returning indoors had been enough for the stormtrooper to break away from you and resume his previous post.

The lull in activity offered the opportunity to digest the fact that neither Anonymous nor Unknown had sent more messages. You took into consideration the fact that they might have been aiming to not overwhelm you since the both of them were aware of the senator. Plus, you thought after a second, Aelin’s presence might deter them. You smiled a little at that, recalling the thrill you had felt when racing against the clock as you masturbated. Their behavior during the meal was just as exhilarating. Your mind began to race through scenarios wherein you found yourself alone with one of them. Would they kiss you? With no one watching, would they touch you? Your face heated up at the memory of the message that had been sent regarding you being fucked in front of others during the meeting.

What if both of them had you? One of them inside of your cunt and the other in your mouth? “Ah!” You yelped out a swear at the sound. Turning, you spotted the speaker. The senator was escorted by one of his guards and accompanied by a single advisor. The small entourage caused you to inwardly groan. This was something that you had expected, however it did not make you any less annoyed; having the senator one-on-one would be less taxing. “I did not mean to startle you.” There was a slight purr to his voice that you had heard in the past whenever he felt he was in control of the situation. This, naturally, put you into the exact position you wanted to be in: on his good side.

You placed a hand over your chest to feign a more exaggerated rattled state than what you were truly in. “Sorry, I did not mean to swear like that.” The best way to go about this conversation was to rely predominantly on truths. He shook his head and took a step nearer to you. “I was hoping to find you, actually.” You worked through ways to seem submissive simultaneous to taking charge. The man’s advisor was frowning, his eyes pinched halfway closed as he glowered at you in suspicion. You jerked your gaze away from his then chewed on your bottom lip before speaking again. “It stuck with me, your interest in the...thing we discussed in the previous meeting.”

“Oh?”

“Mm,” you hummed with a nod. “That one is a bit ways off, what with needing proper programming and trial periods. I hope that is not disappointing.” The senator and advisor shared a look. His guard was generally unresponsive to anything that did not involve fulfilling his duty. This was enough to increase your pre-existing suspicions that he had sought out others for the droid series. You inwardly bristled while outwardly you maintained a calm facade. Kylo Ren’s words echoed in your head, the permission he had given you to lie. “Thankfully we hold the appropriate patents to dissuade others from pursuing a similar model.”

Both were frowning, frustration blossoming on the advisor’s face while the senator appeared more angry than anything. You waved a hand in the air dismissively. “That is beside the point. I just wanted to thank you for the vote of confidence in the project and for your secrecy.”

Maker, I am bored talking to this man. Your mind kept drifting back to the thoughts that had taken residence directly before his approach. Until this point, you had not realized just how much you wanted physical intimacy. Or even just sex, take away any other element that might exist. Your mind circled back to intimacy, however, and the poem that had been sent to you along with the art. It was the poem that you mentioned as a means of breaking up the silent conversation that had been transpiring between senator and advisor while you had been distracted by your reverie. You wanted to keep the physical assistant droids as an Ace up your sleeve during the meeting. You would still not put it past the man to mention the TR8-0R droids, more so now that he believed his plans to go around the First Order were compromised. Sex really would be preferable to this.

Introducing the poem had a powerful impact. The senator pulled away from his advisor with a soft smile that you had never witnessed on his countenance before. You were tugged away from your negative line of thinking. As tantalizing as sex was, you realized that these interactions could translate into your future conversations with General Hux and Kylo Ren. Shift away from business, leave behind work, and focus on something that others would think trivial. A poem of all things, which was evocative of countless emotions. You had been handed a weapon, albeit not one to harm others. One that was a key of sorts. The senator could not duck away from any questions you posed his way as easily as Anonymous and Unknown had; there was no screen for him to hide behind.

Relaxing into the conversation, you listened as the senator began to speak in a more animated, less haughty fashion than he was wont to do. Though you heard everything that he said, some portions were not committed to memory. Your mind drifted in places. You remembered the conversation that you had had with Kylo Ren in the training area. How personal that had been, how it had led to the kiss. Next your encounter with General Hux.

Armitage and Kylo… Both, truly, were the woman in the painting; elusive, puzzles you could not figure out. What did they represent for your personal life?

“There was a sister poem to that one,” the senator said, drawing you out of your thoughts for another time. His advisor lingered several steps behind, your small party having started to walk through the hallway. “It compared Arkanis and Tatooine.” A desert and a planet that rained so frequently. You felt your smile widen at that. This glimpse into a side of the senator that you had not known existed was humbling. It reminded you that you saw only portions of people. This was precisely how you had missed the fact that General Hux and Kylo Ren had each believed themselves to be involved with you.

I need to speak with them one-on-one in a setting that isn’t...a ship or a base… I need to use this time wisely. Lunch and maybe dinner. Or between meals.

“Was the poem with Arkanis written first?” You recalled that this was the birth planet of Armitage Hux, and you were curious if he knew of the poem. If he knew of either of the poems; it was again driving you crazy to not know which man was Anonymous and which was Unknown. Simply more motivation to get them by themselves.

The senator held up a hand haplessly. “I am afraid there are contradicting statements on that.” So much less pompous. The less time he spent conferring with his advisor, the more you enjoyed his company. Maker above, you hated politics. “I do know that the poet is said to have been related to a Jedi.”

Kylo then? He would know more of that, wouldn’t he? Except...the Jedi were involved in politics. You ran your tongue along your lips. “I think I am going to have to do some more research.” He chuckled then suggested the title to a book as a starting point. This you did commit to memory, promising yourself that you were going to mention it to the sender of the poem. See how they responded. It was your goal to unmask them before the day was through.

#kylo ren x reader #general hux x reader #kylo x reader #hux x reader #kylo ren imagine #general hux imagine #errorpnf

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draggingthedregs · 4 years ago

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as i said earlier, it is an ungodly length but i hope you can enjoy my late night, book-drunk opinions anyway!

***

guess who just finished “ruin and rising”?

i’m seriously not okay. someone send help. i got lots of thoughts, none of which you are obligated to read but this seems like the best place to share.

oh and spoilers, duh.

for starters. woah.

i can’t say it was what i expected but i had known that what my heart really wanted was kinda far out of reach. the ending felt real and feasible, complete with love and loss.

in terms of “ruin and rising” alone, i think it was possibly the strongest of the three books. the pacing was good, nothing felt like it dragged on too long or went too fast for its own good. i think that was really important as well, considering the fact that there was always something going on. literally,, always. no one ever got a damn break.

mal’s “death” hurt me more then i had expected. which honestly leads back to one of my main gripes with this story. the love square (which i elaborate on later in this post, just hold on a bit). i’m not going to lie. i hated mal. through the middle of “siege and storm” up to page 168 of “ruin and rising” (and even then it was a long road from hate to crying over him). he was an ass, i think we can all admit that. for awhile there, i even jumped on the “fuck mal” train and had no plans to stop at any station anytime soon. for the longest time, the relationship with alina felt so fragile and forced, like the only reason it existed was because leigh had written it into existence. though, as i read on, i saw why it was so strained and saw the eventual resolution, which i will admit i was happy with. mal and alina, however annoying and troupe filled their personalities were, did develop as characters. and their relationship made some semblance of sense in the grand scheme of things. does that mean i forgive the “on-again-off-again”, “cold-shoulder”, “we-cant-be-together-in-this-lifetime” bullshit? no. does that mean i suddenly love mal? also, no. does that mean i ship them? ugh slightly. does that mean in a magical dream world where i got to chose what happened, they’d still end up together? impossible to say. BUT i can say, that they deserved each other. and i am happy that they got their peace together like they both always wanted (no matter how out of place it felt at any point), especially considering the fact that she literally had to kill him.

my dear dear darkling... i knew what fate awaited you and yet, when the time came... it hurt just the same.

okay,, that was a bit dramatic. but come on. leigh wrote a damn good villain with aleksander morozova. i meAN, thE lAYERS. he was a horrible person and yet, so many of us still love him. he killed for fun, manipulated no matter the cost, preyed upon the weak because he could, literally blinded his own mother and still! i can’t help but love him. there was so much human woven into his darkness. the moments of simple longing, of exhaustion, of loneliness. in all honesty, if there had been a way to humanize him, to erase or explain away his atrocities and have him just be aleksander again, i feel like i would do it. but, in the context of the story i do understand why it wasn’t possible. redemption for the darkling was off the table, no matter how much humanity still remained. but that’s what makes him such a good character. you want him to be different because you can see the good and all the potential for things to change, for them to rule ravka side by side, but at the same time, he’s the same man who is still actively creating more shadow demon creatures to eat whoever he wishes. you can’t resist him and that’s why he’s so wonderful, yet horrifying at the exact same time. (though don’t worry i am still a trash can and the darklina ship is still superior in the love square. again, i promise i will get there).

i feel like i have to talk about how much i loved the “secondary characters” (i struggle to call them that because they actually run this shit). i will say, at first, i hated zoya. i am not a big fan of the “mean girl” troupe or the “i’m-prettier-than-you-and-i-know-it” thing but... she really grew on me. i looked forward to zoyas comments and constant bitchiness, as did the characters in the books. and when she left the note and the blue kefta with alina in the epilogue,, oh god my heart. and the ragtag crew of grisha making up the remainder of the second army were amazing. their banter and dialogue were some of my favorite scenes to read in “ruin and rising” and i want books just filled with them and only them. david and genya deserve the damn world, adrik was so great, nadia and tamar are so precious, and i will miss harshaw’s weird ass more then you’ll ever know. don’t even get me started on misha and oncat. they are the true stars of this series, you cannot convince me otherwise. god i love them all so much, what a brilliant cast of characters. except the apparat. fuck the stupid ass apparat.

i know what you’re thinking. “you forgot nikolai.” no. i promise you, i most certainly did not. i just love him so much he gets his own chunk.

i mean, how could he not? he’s one of those rare, genuinely perfect characters that are impossible to not love. and i don’t mean perfect because he has no flaws or he’s written unnaturally, i mean perfect because of all of his flaws. he is arrogant and calculating, brash and unapologetic in his ways, but he’s also kind and caring, witty and charming and way too clever for his own good. i rooted for him more then i have ever rooted for someone in my entire life. he made everything ten times better. you can always count on his ass to pop up in a flying ship with a shiny pair of boots, a witty remark, a new plan, and too many ideas.

now, the important business... the ominous love square.

i think the words i used were “one of my main gripes with the story” which is true, but i think leads to a bigger issue with some of the characterization in the story. the “love square” was a term i thought of in relation to the many overlapping and confusing ships that center around alina (obviously being mal, the darkling, and nikolai). all of the ships were so entertwined and written over top of one another that there was no other way for me to describe it and the square seemed like a nice enough analogy. it just felt like way too much on everybody’s plates.

i love nikolai and alinas friendship. i mean, LOVED it. because i loved it so much, i found the little nods to a ship odd and unnecessary. their story line was very focused on the fact that ravka would need a king and queen, hence the scene where he gives her the emerald and all but proposes right then and there. however, that scene would have made scene and carried the same weight had there not been the splashes of romance both before and after. now, i understand why people ship them. and honestly, if under different circumstances, i probably could’ve and would’ve shipped them myself. they would have had one of the best marriages in a society where you didn’t get to marry for love. but it just made everything more complicated. people would’ve speculated on a ship had there been no kisses or pining, soley based on the possibility of a marriage and because of their close friendship so, why was the canon addition of it necessary? i just couldn’t get behind it when i loved their platonic relationship so much and when there were two stronger and more developed ships, waging war in the background.

now, my final bone to be picked... let’s be real for a second, alina in “shadow and bone” sucked. she was annoying and had no personality beyond being a sad, lonely, orphan in the darklings sparkly new grisha world. though i will say, in the later two books, i grew to like her. her character development did its job and i actually think she grew to be a pretty good protagonist. she did her best with the cards she was dealt and i think she did really well. however, her inability to pick a boy constantly bothered me. after being in love with her best friend for literal years, she is really ready to be be the first lady of the second army. and yes. sure you could justify it. she wasn’t getting letters in return, she’d been away for months, she was adapting to her new life, the darkling made her feel seen and wanted which is all a very new feeling to her. but then she goes right back to mal after he makes a confession that he didn’t realize he loved or needed her until she was gone for months (this was one of my biggest problems with mal. my problem only grew when he spent the entirety of “siege and storm” being a dick. but like i said,, we have reconcilied. we are fine now). there were times throughout the series where i genuinely didn’t understand why they were together, why i liked them together, or why i even wanted them to end the series together. alina even asks mal at the end of “ruin and rising” if there entire relationship was based solely on the fact that mal was the last amplifier and the fact that she even had to ask really says something. was their entire romance because of the amplifier? was it because of the “we-are-just-meant-to-be-together” thing? or was there actual chemistry? i really couldn’t tell sometimes. and the darklina ship was even more twisty and winding. he went from telling her deep dark secrets because he wanted to hear the girl he loved say his name to literally threatening everyone she loves because he wants her weak and all to himself. like,, whAt? (again,, layers) and don’t even get me started on the darkling and alina apparition interactions. those were a wild fucking ride. i felt like i was getting manipulated along with the both of them in those. but maybe that was the point of the darkling and alinas relationship. it was supposed to be so horrible yet so electric that you couldn’t pull away. but i doubt the same was meant to be said for mal and alina.

now i feel like i may be coming off in the wrong way. i loved more about this series then i didn’t. but me gushing about every fine detail and conversation that made my heart melt wouldn’t make for the most interesting read, if it was even coherent. all in all, i think it’s safe to say the grisha trilogy is great. does that mean it doesn’t have flaws? of course not. does that mean the flaws outweigh the good and the actual point of the story? absolutely not. my small complaints about a few things really do not take always from the fact that i love this series. i would love anything written by leigh bardugo, especially in the grishaverse.

if you’ve made it this far, that’s commitment. thank you brave soldier. don’t take anything i’ve said with anything more than a grain of salt. seriously. if this is your favorite series, don’t let my lil complaints ruin your day. because really, the good outweighs the bad here tenfold. i’m just a girl with a lot of opinions and a platform to share them at four am... it’s a dangerous game.

but, goodbye grisha trilogy. you have served me well and i will return to reread you soon. but for now i will do a lot of writing (i already have so many fic ideas brewing) and read all the fan fiction and tumblr posts i’ve been avoiding for fear of spoilers.

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ninjakitty15 · 3 years ago

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Chapter 23: And Now A Word From Our Sponsor (Loki x OFC)

"Ruh roh," I murmured before a great, powerful unseen force ripped me away from my prey and threw me aside like an angry giant girl tossing aside an old ragdoll that happened to be me.

I went flying back who knows how far off from where I started and hit the ground hard enough I didn't feel like getting back up then, my body going back to flesh and blood instantly, the power I had tapped into returning to its reserve. I groaned in agony as even sitting up seemed to hurt my entire body and my enemy, thinking he finally had the upper hand with me staying down for once, started his march to me rather than Loki. But even before Loki could intervene this time, seeing I wasn't getting back up, the shrill cry of angry crows filled the silence and through the overcast clouds of autumn a great big flock of them nose-dived right for the bastard coming at me. It happened so fast, he barely had time to cry out in shock and fear and in the blink of an eye he was forced away from me as well by the swarm and viciously pecked at whilst pinned to ground by the lot of them. I dropped my head back and stared up at the sky but right after I did, a face came into my field of view, a face of a man I hadn't seen and had hoped not to see in ages.

"Well isn't this a familiar sight?" he noted with a smirk.

"What took you so long?" I groaned. "Been watching Brandon Lee's last movie for dramatic entrances again?"

He glared at me and knelt down on one knee to get a better look at me. "We thought you could handle this."

"And I was until you rudely interrupted us."

"That's not why we gave you that power."

"We? I might be earthbound but even I know it's never a we with you lot. It's them or you."

He rolled his eyes at me. "Not the point here." He slid a hand up my wounded leg damn near sexually because he knew that would rile me up like old times despite the immense pain the blade inflicted, causing me to cry out between the combo of pain and slight pleasure before he healed it. He smirked at my reaction before offering me his hand to pull me up to my feet with enough force that I was pulled flush against his muscular body. "Still my favorite protege," he growled into my ear.

"You're doing this to piss off the only other man still standing," I pointed out.

"You want him to know, right? What better way to inform him."

"Is he allowed to know?" I wondered.

"He is now that you got our immediate attention by summoning power you aren't supposed to use till we tell you."

I scoffed at this. "What good is it if I can't use it when needed otherwise?"

He chuckled and let go of me but kept me at a close distance all the same. "I'll take care of that wanker now that you mention it." He casually walked over to where his birds were torturing the target, winking at the semi frozen god watching all this happen without being able to move due to the other man's power, and pressed a heavy black boot against the target's chest as his birds made room for him. He then put his weight on the foot on the guy and leaned forward. "If we didn't put the gems inside you ourselves, you aren't meant to do that or have that in you. That's why you're currently dying from the inside out and not simply in a death stasis like she is." He reached down and held a hand over the guy's head who began to scream bloody murder as the stone was being forcibly removed from his skull and taken from him, his head bloody once done as that was how the man removing it liked it. "Now we generally don't take lives, that job is beneath us as Supremes, but I'm not gonna stop my favorite student from doing that twice. However, I got some things to discuss with her so you stay put till I'm done, okay?" He patted the guy's cheek with a bloody hand and then stood up, getting off him and walking back to me, crushing the stone he had taken as he did. He glanced back at Loki curiously. "You always did have a thing for chaotic divines."

"There is nothing divine about you, hun," I mused. "You invented corruption."

"He'd make a nice Horsemen though, that kind of power all on his own."

I bristled at this. "Don't you fucking dare, you've taken away more than enough people in my afterlife and I'm not talking the ones I chose to forget. You want me to stop tapping into that power, leave what's mine alone first."

"You say that like I've done this before..."

I simply glared at the deity. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, you were part of it whether you made the final play or not, you're always a part of it. If you take him away too then you'll have to kill me for good to stop me from using that power again."

He just smirked and shrugged. "Relax, I can't touch him whether I plan to or not, his fate isn't in our plans." He snapped his fingers then and suddenly Loki was able to move and made a bee line to my side while eyeing the man in front of us. "You've been hounding her since you met so ask now or never know the answers you're dying to know."

"What are you exactly then?" Loki asked carefully.

"We have no true names but we consider ourselves divine planners of this world, there's two kinds, Chaotics like myself and Orders, as a whole we call ourselves Supremes."

"And Nell, what is she to you?"

"Oh so many things," he purred, causing me to elbow him in the gut.

"And you wonder why it was so easy to move on from you," I muttered.

"No one moves on from me."

"There's your answer Loki, I'm no one," I replied.

"She was my favorite student when she acquired necromancy and all the things she needed to know about herself and the Natural Supremes that demanded her service. We knew she would be among the most powerful of our planned creations and every test we threw at her, she passed and proved she was the right candidate for our grand finale."

"Are you the reason she has no past then?" Loki prodded.

He grinned at this. "Power not naturally acquired or earned but given by another has a price, and she also had a choice, turn down the power we chose her for and give it to someone else willing to pay for it, or pay it herself and accept her responsibility. Regrets, love," he teased.

"Not yet but there's always room for change," I muttered.

"And what exactly is she in the grand scheme of things?" Loki pressed.

"Besides the deadliest necromancer yet, she's also a Horsemen, I'm sure you know what those are, there's four total. Kind of fitting if you know the actual lore, one rides a pale horse, and here you are, known for being a horse at one point in your long life, and definitely pale. What are the odds?"

"Dude, stop antagonizing him, it's getting old real fast," I warned.

"How would you know? You don't age," he countered.

"Don't need to tell time to tell your jokes are as stale as your style."

"What's wrong with my style?"

"You mean besides the fact that it's you?"

"You used to sleep with her," Loki muttered, seeing the pattern in semi playful semi insulting bickering.

"Yup," we both said at the same time.

"He claimed it would make me stronger, said if I can survive being fucked by the higher powers, I can survive everything else coming for me."

"I wasn't wrong," argued the Chaotic.

"Doesn't make you right either though."

"It did though, was all part of my plan and one of the more enjoyable parts at that, I couldn't make you a true Chaotic as you have to be one from the start but as you've seen with my birdfood over there, not even the strongest earthbound necromancer could survive a stone fusion."

I sighed heavily. "Way to make it weirder than it already was. You've nothing to worry about, Loki, he's more bark than bite these days. Only ever shows up to ruin my fun, like now when I almost had him."

"You'd do more damage than I'm sure you want in your favorite city," the older god noted. "I know you wouldn't want anything to happen to it and that's exactly what happens when you tap into that much power at once and try to use it for one target alone."

I glowered at the smug bastard. "Bugger off."

"All in due time, love," he chided. "Anything else you want to know before I pop off?"

"So she's a factor in the apocalypse then? As a Horsemen?" Loki questioned.

"One of the four, yes, she's alot more powerful than any of you realize. Damn near indestructible though you apparently found a way around that, do not let anyone else find out though, between her army and myself, Hydra and anyone associating with them are taken care of so its up to you to make sure no one else knows how to use that against her. Of course I could just take that issue away myself and be done with it but that's not part of the plan unfortunately. We chose her for a reason, if her time is cut short before the big finale we're all hoping for, we'll be forced to give that position of hers to someone less suited for the role and no one wants that. If that's all, I'll be going, any further questions she's allowed to answer now that you've met one of us."

"Cro," I called to the older god before he could leave. "Was that really necessary throwing me like that?"

"Have you met you?" he countered. "You don't do what you're told till its beaten into you."

"Could've asked nicely, alls I'm saying."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"Not seeing how knocking the wind out of me was fun..."

"That's because you weren't looking at the other two's faces when that happened. Try not to start the end of the world without me." And with that he was gone and the world was no longer on pause.

"You all right, love?" Loki asked me with a sigh of relief he had me to himself again.

"I think you might have to carry me home, wherever that is, feels like someone threw a moon at me. First things first though." I hobbled over to where we left the guy that caused so much trouble for us. Without the stone keeping him afoot, he was pretty much already dead since he was rotting from the start and still had my dagger wound eating at him as well. "Still alive in there?"

"I should've known you were protected by them," coughed the rotting body.

"You really should've known not to trust Hydra with things they'll never understand, look where that got you."

He cackled but it ended up being more of a choked gasp or death rattle as he finally rotted through completely.

"Okay, now you can take us back, the carrion critters will get rid of this before it scars some kid walking through here for life."

Loki smirked and scooped me up in his arms, green mist surrounding us in a flash. "To home then."

#loki fanfiction #loki fanfic #avengers #zombies #necromancers #necromancy #loki romance #loki x ofc #loki x oc #loki x original female character #nell the necromancer #loki x nell

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qedavathegrey · 4 years ago

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As some of you know, I have used the name MARAKALA thrice before: the initial instance being in The Instantaneous Conception of MARAKALA; then in RAKALA & the creation of humanity; and most recently in {A} Creation, which discusses MARAKALA’s “creation” and hints at her broader function in (and as) the Great Schema. I hope to further explore today both what and who MARAKALA is in greater detail, as well as to look more closely at she and RAKALA’s connection to one another. I will add that, given the nature of what I have undertaken by attempting to make sense of what I am given, there is a good chance that what I write today will need updating tomorrow. This has been the case already with what I have written about RAKALA (formerly called the Red Queen), whose enigmatic and mercurial nature makes her difficult to categorize or simplify in words. Thus, let this preface make clear that what is written below will be correct if only representative of a fraction of a fraction of the whole. In other words, I’m working with what I’ve got and who knows what else I may get moving forward that might reshape or redefine how these things are viewed. Expect updates and appreciate the process, I guess.

With that being said, let’s dive right in to take a closer (or broader) look at MARAKALA.

Understanding MARAKALA

In {A} Creation, I expanded upon what was pictured earlier in The Instantaneous Conception of MARAKALA. Therein, she is described as Thought made action, as the preserved Consciousness of MĀ. She is pictured as a severed head, she wields a blade and is the butcher of the Singularity. She is the one who divides One into many, beginning with her own “conception” and ending — at least in {A} Creation — with the creation of RAKALA from both MĀ and herself. And “conception” is an important word here, because MARAKALA is very much conceptual: she is a thought, an idea. In this sense, she is Creation itself. She is the moment MĀ recognizes a new possibility and that possibility is made real through MARAKALA. Thus, when speaking of MARAKALA as MĀ’s preserved Consciousness, it should be understood that MARAKALA is, in essence, MĀ. But the part of MĀ that is “disembodied,” or without physical substance. The conception of MARAKALA, then, might be better understood as the birth of matter whereby MARAKALA defines matter as opposite or at least inherently different from herself. And this is a recurring theme in {A} Creation, where something is defined only by that which comes after, as in the “birth” of MĀ and the naming of OMĀ. “Something isn’t really something until there is something else to compare it to.”

But what does MARAKALA as Thought and as the Consciousness of MĀ really mean? What is she really?

At the most fundamental level, she is Order. She is Law, she is Fate, she is Omniscience. She is, herself, the Great Schema upon which everything and every possibility relies. She is physics and quantum physics, she is spirit, she is consciousness beyond physical processes. She is so very much that it is much easier to define her by what she isn’t. And what she isn’t (at least when distinguishing her from MĀ as a Whole) is matter. Obviously any attempt at distinction between matter and energy is a fool’s errand, but for the sake of applying “ownership” over the states of matter to the Sisters, one must at least attempt distinction. And those lines separating matter from energy or states of matter from other states are anything but concrete, nor do they really need to be. They are all MĀ, interconnected but not Singular. And that’s the most important distinction to make. MARAKALA allows for the existence of matter and defines its qualities, composition, etc. but lends ownership of it and its states to the Sisters, who are about as distinct from MĀ and MARAKALA as matter is from energy. Which is to say not very or at all except in that they are and aren’t. Really clears things up, I know.

Another thing she isn’t (and again, not an easy line to draw) is action. MARAKALA is the framework, but RAKALA is the force which drives change and all that “moves'' within the framework. This is represented by MARAKALA as the Head and RAKALA as the Hands: MARAKALA is the thought that dictates Action, but RAKALA is the Action itself. Or, to give an example, we know matter can change states based on temperature. The fact that this can happen at all is MARAKALA, but when it does, it is the work of RAKALA. Thus, one might consider MARAKALA the omniscient consciousness that dictates RAKALA’s omnipotent hand. And while RAKALA is not herself truly omniscient, her relation to and mutual reliance upon MARAKALA means that she is “not far off.” This, of course, makes her delightfully fit for tricksterhood: she knows nearly all there is to know and what fate has in store both at the cosmic and individual (and even smaller and greater still) level. Her Sisters, however, are not privy to this same knowledge and thus, what animosity manifests does so almost always from this difference of knowing. As humans, this is easy to comprehend as we ourselves are ignorant beings bumbling around trying to make sense and plan accordingly for things we simply cannot understand. But then imagine for a moment that your arrogant, omnipotent, know-it-all little sister shows up and says “Sorry, whatever you’re up to isn’t going to fly, chief,” gives you a wink and then renders you effectively powerless to do anything. Valid cause for frustration, I think, but what do you do? You grumble something like, “She’s always been mom’s favorite,” then do what you can to move forward.

MARAKALA’s omnipotence is also the cause for her “Silence,” which is another of her defining features. This concept of silence was introduced in The Instantaneous Conception of MARAKALA and further explored in {A} Creation, where it is written:

Finally, what parts remained of MĀ — the Mysteries — MARAKALA devoured for fear that those Great Secrets might escape into the Nothing. To ensure this would never happen and that MĀ could not be reunited before such was meant to be, MARAKALA sealed up Her mouth never to Speak again. Thus, MARAKALA is the Keeper of the Mysteries and the one who ensures that their powers are kept in check by wielding them with Consciousness.

And in The Instantaneous Conception [...]:

Her presentation without a mouth symbolizes her Silence, Her incomprehensible vastness precluding Speech or human understanding. As such, RAKALA — “eldest” and “youngest” of the Four Sisters as she is and is born of MARAKALA — acts as Her intercessor: the Face of the Faceless, the Mouth of the Silent.

These passages both explore the relationship between MARAKALA and RAKALA wherein MARAKALA exists as vast and unknowable and RAKALA acts as her intercessor and “Mouth.” This, of course, is symbolic of what has already been discussed: MARAKALA is framework while RAKALA is action. But there is more to her Silence than this.

Existing as the Great Schema, MARAKALA’s Silence is a necessary one. It is crucial to the “success” of creation that its “subjects” remain ignorant to Fate, otherwise the function of separation and distinction (i.e. creation itself) would be moot. Which, of course, brings us to the function of creation itself.

Creation is best thought of like a grand experiment. It is a game MĀ plays with herself and MARAKALA exists as its rules, the board, the story, or however you would prefer to define it. RAKALA, thusly, is the game’s master or officiant: the one who ensures that things move forward in accordance with the rule book. The rules are written, the board is set up, but without players and a moderator to guarantee things move as planned, the game goes nowhere and nothing is gained for their is no structure or action to make the rules reality. And certainly some of you are thinking: if MARAKALA (as the consciousness of MĀ) is omniscient (and omnipotent) and thus already knows exactly what will happen, then what function does the game serve? I could speculate, but I won’t. That’s an answer that I do not and cannot know. But I will say that there exist infinite “places” possessing different rules where infinite eventualities can be explored. Maybe there’s something to it, maybe there isn’t. Can’t say for certain, but it’s above my pay grade and does not affect me in any way. I was not there at the beginning and will not be there at the end. Humans are the product of what rules govern this existence and others, but I would not be so self-aggrandizing as to assume that we are some great subject which entire universes were formed to wrought. That being said, life and consciousness are something relatively unique and interesting subjects. At least as far as we can tell, which isn’t saying much.

If you refer back to what is written in RAKALA & the creation of humanity, you will find I assigned some importance to humanity. After all, we are the product of RAKALA and her tricksterism. But you will also find that what function we serve in the great scheme of things is a question left unanswered. We create religions to place and understand ourselves in a world and universe that is big, unknowable... often terrifyingly so. We are a species which seeks answers and delights in categorization. Hell, you’ll see that this exercise in itself is one meant to categorize what cannot be categorized: to give dominion to things whose separation we, ourselves create. But you read above how difficult it was to segment even the limited existence of which we are aware, and even more so to personify these forces. Was I effective? Likely not, but it doesn’t really matter. As I said, this is an exercise: one to apply meaning to what can often seem meaningless. And maybe it is. But I choose to find and apply meaning because it’s such a delightfully human thing to do. And whether humans are of any import in the greater scheme of things doesn’t really matter, because we are here and we do what we do. And what we do is powerful, interesting, and more recently quite horrific. Strange, isn’t it, that in 200,000 years of existence that we humans typically only remember the last 15 thousand? To put that in perspective, writing has existed for only 0.2% of all modern, human existence. Agriculture? ~5%. Electricity? 0.007%. We so frequently define humanity by our “progress,” but rarely by what things have truly made up the bulk of human existence: living in nature, cooperatively with one another. And undoubtedly creating countless cosmologies lost to time. But I digress...

MARAKALA and RAKALA make up two halves a whole: Thought vs. Action; potential vs. kinetic; not at odds, but working in tandem to create existence as it is fated to be. Neither is far from humanity, though one remains decidedly unknowable if at least in her entirety. But we are constant witnesses to her Law and can gain knowledge and insight through partnering with her intercessor, RAKALA. What wisdom and meaning one takes, of course, is up to them.

#rakala #marakala

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caiminnent · 4 years ago

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no road home [kylux, rated T]

PROMPTS: stranded - bug - break down by @kyluxxoxo

SUMMARY: When Hux gets bitten by a venomous insect on an unfamiliar planet, it falls on Kylo to bring them both back home—alive.

FANDOM: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy

TAGS: Near Death Experiences, Stranded, Angst, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Hopeful Ending, Protective Kylo Ren, Timeline What Timeline, Mentioned Brendol Hux, The Author Regrets Everything

NOTES:

Disclaimer: Research told me I could have either a very well-researched WIP or an unrealistic fic. I chose the fic. If you know anything at all about insect bites or survival, please accept this as my formal apology.

Heads-up for Hux trying to talk Kylo into leaving him for dead. No MCD or suicidal tendencies, because that's not how I roll; but Hux does temporarily give up somewhere in there.

2.5K || ALSO ON AO3

Hux collapses just outside the clearing.

Panic seizing his chest, Kylo breaks his fall with the Force on instinct—manages to catch Hux’s head, the rest of his body hitting the ground with a thud that echoes in Kylo’s skull. Kriffing hells. Be conscious, be conscious, please you infuriating—

Hux is conscious—thank stars he is, lying there with his eyes wide open and face pinched tight in his agony. He might not be breathing.

Placing Hux’s head down gently, he drops on a knee next to him. “Hux?”

Hux closes his eyes and empties his lungs on one, long exhale. “My knees gave way,” he mutters, irritation and anger underlying his tone at his body’s apparent betrayal. “It’s all right. Just give me a moment.”

Stark relief courses through Kylo, the grip around his heart loosening.

Hux takes minutes on the ground, working his body—rolling his ankles, clenching and unclenching his hands, turning his head. Once satisfied with his findings, he pushes himself up to a half-roll, then a sitting position. Kylo helps him with a hand between his shoulder blades—Hux hisses at the pressure, flinching away from his touch. No. It must be the fall; it can’t have already—

Stomach at his feet, “Let me see,” Kylo says, tugging at Hux’s sleeve. Exposing more of Hux’s skin might not be smart, considering; but he needs to see for himself—needs to know how much longer they have left.

At Hux’s questioning look, “We should keep track of how far it’s developed,” he adds. A half-lie, at worst. “The research team will need the data.” Useless as it will be, with no way to capture it without their datapads.

Hux frowns deeper, sizing him up through the corner of his eye—weighing Kylo’s sincerity. Kylo steels himself against the sting of Hux’s distrust—justified as it may be—and tugs again.

Releasing another long sigh, Hux shifts into a steadier position, raising his knees. His hands are trembling as he makes short work of his belt and the hidden clasps of his tunic—lightly enough to dismiss, if it were anyone else. The tight undershirt comes off last, pulled carefully away from Hux’s skin.

Blood freezes in Kylo’s veins.

The rash has spread from the bug bite high at his nape, the purple boils extending to Hux’s upper arms and halfway down his torso in thick cords, the skin around some red and broken where Hux must have scratched them behind Kylo’s back. No signs of development up or around Hux’s throat; but gut feeling says it’s a matter of yet.

They need to get Hux into the medbay before that happens.

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

After the first sun’s set, fever and nausea enter into the equation.

They were expecting it. The insect, whatever it might be, injected some sort of toxin into Hux’s system. Logic follows that the body will want to fight it through whatever means necessary.

If only he could make it easier on Hux.

Left up to him, he would have just thrown Hux over his shoulder instead of letting him exert himself further, the general’s useless pride be damned—better yet, they wouldn’t have had to rescue themselves from this backwater planet in the first place. As it is, his options are limited to pushing water into Hux’s hands and biting his tongue as Hux’s steps slow down the longer they go.

He doesn’t let himself ask to see the rash again, either. He just watches Hux’s hand drift lower and lower.

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

Without a map and unfamiliar with the terrain—Hux’s unnecessarily extensive dossiers would have come in handy here, were he given the time to prepare one before they were dropped planetside for a fool’s errand—he relies mostly on the Force’s guidance to find their way out. Much to Hux’s displeasure. Hitting flowing water like Kylo said they would put an end to the snide comments; but Hux still won’t try the berries the Force deemed safe.

Not that there would be a point to it, now.

Hux is on his knees next to a tree again, dry-heaving. Kylo’s own stomach aches with how hard Hux’s body is trying to cough up nothing; even river water barely stayed down long enough to count as success.

Once done, Hux practically drops against the tree trunk. His skin is dotted with sweat; he wipes it on a clean corner of the tunic he didn’t put back on. “That’s it,” he chokes—clears his throat. “I need a break.”

They both could use one. Kylo could keep going if he had to; but they’re playing the long game here—he needs to save his energy just in case. He won’t be any good to Hux if he exhausts himself unnecessarily.

They can’t afford to linger long, though. Hux’s breathing has been growing shallower since the third sun’s rise, his skin losing what little color it had; every minute is against them.

“We can take ten minutes,” he allows. “Then we have to get back on the road.”

Hux rests his head against the trunk with a sigh, closing his eyes. Without the strength to keep his mental shields up, his thoughts are laid out in front of Kylo—and what a glorious minefield it is. Hux thinks in stark visuals: of his father, rank stripes they shared, Phasma, his vibroblades, an orange tabby Kylo had thought to be just a rumor; of Hux himself on an unfamiliar throne and Kylo standing next to him, of Kylo’s broken body on the snow, Kylo floating in a bacta tank with an oxygen mask covering most of his face—circling back to Brendol Hux in that same tank, dissolving too slowly and painlessly for Hux’s liking.

Kylo wanders a little deeper into Hux’s mind and finds those tendrils of tenderness and affection again, gently redirecting Hux’s thoughts to the cat. Her name is Millicent, apparently—Millie, who likes to sleep behind Hux, in the crook of his knees. Millie, who costs a small fortune to feed, without taking Phasma’s treats into account that Hux pretends not to know about. Millie, who won’t show herself to any of Hux’s visitors but Mitaka.

Millicent, whom Hux might never see again.

Breathing deep to chase away the tightness in his chest, “Time’s up,” Kylo says, pushing himself off the ground. Hux watches him slap dust off his robes and heft what remains of their supplies with misty eyes. “Come on, Hux. You can sit around as much as you want when we get back to the base.” Just watch anyone besides the medical personnel try to come twenty feet near him.

“If we get back to the base,” Hux corrects him through a hoarse throat, not unkindly. “Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?”

“Yes.” Mostly. Individual Force signatures are nearly impossible to identify from this distance; but they are headed towards a large group of people. Even if it’s just locals, they might know something about the venom flowing through Hux. With any luck, they might have an antidote or at least some relief to provide for Hux while Kylo figures out how to send a message to the base. It’s better than what they currently have, at any rate.

Hux raises a brow in disbelief, the heat of his glare diminished by the slackness of his face as his expression fails to tighten into its usual lines. He tilts his head up, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his folded arms on them. “How much farther?”

Kylo anchors his senses on the strongest signature, a wildfire among torches and candles. By their progress so far, he would estimate… longer than what they have left of daylight. Kriff. If only he had his helmet.

“A couple hours,” he lies. Hux will have his head when he realizes it; but he’s suffered a lot more for a lot less. “Less if we pick up the pace.”

Hux nods slowly at the sky, making no move to get up. “Certainly you realize,” he starts, a new weight to his measured tone. “I don’t have another couple hours’ trek in me. Let alone picking up the pace.”

Dread fills his guts, dark and heavy. “Come on, General,” he tries with a low chuckle, aiming for mocking. “All your scheming, all your grand plans of ruling the galaxy—was it all just so you can waste away in the middle of nowhere?”

An image of snow flashes in Hux’s mind—blindingly white and oppressive, vivid enough to send a shiver down Kylo’s spine. The remains of the Starkiller Base shakes under their feet as Hux half-carries, half-drags Kylo’s barely conscious bulk across the snow, taking stumbling steps towards safety.

The slash across his face burning anew, Kylo flees from Hux’s mind, not brave enough to face Hux’s account of Kylo’s biggest failure.

Hux grimaces, sending him a look that says careful, Ren. “I appreciate your efforts,” Hux continues in that same, carefully neutral tone. “Truly, I do. Not many would have lasted this long. With a dead weight on their side—” Bile rises in Kylo’s throat. “—not many would have even tried.” Hux meets his gaze, steel in his eyes. “Thank you for having tried, Kylo Ren.”

No. No, that can’t be Hux. General Armitage Hux is a survivor before anything—he would have stared death down than sit and wait for it. “I don’t know what the hells has gotten into you,” Kylo spits, the words leaving a bitter taste at the back of his mouth. “But I’m not returning alone.”

“You weren’t given a choice in this matter.” Hux sighs—in his usual, bone-weary exasperation. Kylo latches onto the Hux-ness of the gesture in the middle of this foreign everything. “It is not failure to accept what you couldn’t have prevented, Ren. You are just cutting your losses. I’m sure Leader Snoke will understand.”

“Shut up, Hux,” he hisses, his hands curled into trembling fists. His insides are liquid fire, churning and boiling like lava.

“Not even you can win against nature, Ren. Leader Snoke—”

“Damn Snoke to the void!”

The silence rings between them—or it might be Kylo’s ears. His breath tears out of his chest, coming in short puffs. Hux thinks—Hux expects that Kylo will leave him for dead and go back to the base by himself—the base with its mindless soldiers and stupider minions and no one to walk beside him through the endless hallways, no one to find him when he needs to not be alone the most and to put him back together—

Hux blinks at him, trying to school his features into a scowl. “Why are you fighting me on this?” he snaps. “I won’t find my way out of these woods, not alive—and you risk stranding yourself by trying to make me. There’s no reason for both of us to die here.”

“We will not.” Kylo won’t let it—by stars, he won’t, no matter what comes.

“I thought you would be relieved,” Hux says, his tone pitching higher in accusation—as if trying to save his kriffing life is one of Kylo’s bigger shortcomings. “You’ve been trying to get me out of your way since day one—and now that—” He draws in a shallow, effortful breath—Kylo’s lungs tense with it. “Now that you can without drawing Snoke’s ire, you try your damnedest to save me. Why?”

Because the future of the galaxy depends on you, Kylo should say—should stroke Hux’s ego enough to bring him back from whatever messed up, morbid headspace he’s fallen into. Because the First Order needs you. Because I— “Save your energy for the trip, Hux.”

“No,” Hux barks, every bit the stern general commanding his bridge, even half-undressed and sitting three steps from his own mess. “Tell me why you insist on keeping me alive.”

All too aware of his heartbeat, “What do you care?” Kylo snarls. “I’m making sure you’ll live to see your petty dreams through. Does it kriffing matter why?”

Hux looks at him intently, as if trying to see through him—to take him apart. His thoughts are so loud when he wants them to be, reaching; if he were Force-sensitive, he would have been screaming his thoughts into Kylo’s mind.

Taking it as an invitation, Kylo slips back into Hux’s mind—like a guest most welcome, instead of an intruder who found the door unlocked. Hux is thinking about the Starkiller Base again, but the memory is of Kylo lying on the snow this time, his breath ghosting over him the only sign he’s even alive. Fear fills Kylo’s—no, Hux’s heart at the sight, dizzying and amplified, coming from the center of his being. The bloodstain on the snow as he lifts Kylo’s torso off the ground with considerable strain, careful of his injuries. The medbay, watching Kylo float in the bacta tank with a heavy heart and raw palms. Seeing Kylo for the first time after his release from the medbay, in the Supreme Leader’s throne room, sans the helmet that still irritates Kylo’s facial wound—cold hit of relief that he quickly smothers, composing himself before approaching the two of them with sharp clicks of heels.

Oh.

“Yes,” Hux says, his unblinking gaze daring Kylo to look away—the many scenarios of potential humiliation at Kylo’s hands flickering just beyond his awareness. “As a matter of fact, it does.”

Kylo breathes—breathes again, mind reeling. He reaches into Hux’s mind again, just to make sure he’s not reading this wrong—but no, the feelings are all there. Buried deep, deep enough to escape Kylo’s notice unless he went looking for them—deep enough for Hux to ignore unless he chose to. That, more than anything, convinces Kylo of their authenticity.

Stepping closer, he sinks onto one knee in front of Hux, separated by Hux’s bony knees between them. He reaches to cup a careful hand over Hux’s face—sure of his welcome, yet no less hesitant for it.

“I’ll tell you at the base,” Kylo says softly, running a thumb over Hux’s hot, damp cheekbone. Disbelief rises in Hux—disbelief and suspicion and dangerous, dangerous hope. “How about that, General? Live for me and I’ll tell you why.”

The long look Hux gives him is the same as before, careful and calculating. Appraising. Kylo kneels and lets himself be judged, wishing deeply, desperately, to be found honest and true for once in his wretched life.

Something clicks in Hux’s eyes, his expression shuttering. Kylo doesn’t know what it means—but Hux is leaning forward in the next moment, putting his arm over Kylo’s shoulders and Kylo just doesn’t kriffing care.

Kylo wraps his own arm around Hux’s slim waist, keeping the pressure light on the boils he can feel under the thin fabric as Hux finally, finally helps himself up on shaky arms and legs. It takes two false starts to get him to stand by himself—and this time, when Hux’s knees buckle under him, Kylo is there to hold him up.ba

#Kylux Summer Fest 2020 #kylux #Kylo Ren #Armitage Hux #Star Wars #Cai does words #finished fics #kyluxxoxo just hit me on the head and demanded I write something for it #so here we are #I finished this in record time for me #now it's time to get back to my KBB work

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haberdashing · 5 years ago

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Eyes Wide Open

Gerard Keay finds out that there’s more to the afterlife than being painfully bound to a book for all eternity, featuring one Timothy Stoker.

(Props to @divorcedmilfaddict for betaing this and helping me reign in my inner comma gremlin!)

on AO3

Gerard Keay wasn’t sure what he was, or why he was, or how he was, or even for that matter where and when he was, exactly.

But then again, that Gerard was was enough of a surprise in and of itself.

He hadn’t entirely trusted that... Jon, was it? Sure, Jon had torn Gerard’s page out of the book when he’d asked, but Gerard knew better than to assume that was the end of the story. He didn’t put it past Jon to keep the page as a sick sort of prize or to shove it into the Institute’s Artefact Storage or to do something else that wasn’t getting rid of the bloody thing already.

But this... this felt different. It didn’t hurt to exist now, not like it did in the book where life and death mingled unnaturally, where he both was and was not dead and that contradiction ate at everything in his being. It wasn’t quite like being alive, though, either. It was... still. Still and calm and quiet.

All things considered, Gerard wouldn’t object to a bit of quiet.

Gerard didn’t see Jon or the Hunters that had kept him imprisoned for so long or anyone else he recognized for that matter, but he saw his surroundings just the same, though he couldn’t place the area around him at a glance. A handful of cars plodded along driving on the left, so he wasn’t in America at least. Hotels, businesses, and homes mingled together oddly--some sort of vacation destination? A resort town perhaps, or a tourist trap of another variety?

Gerard thought he could make out the smell of sea salt in the air, but he wasn’t even sure which ocean he was near.

Then he heard what sounded like a calliope playing in the distance, what sounded like a circus just beginning to open its doors, and Gerard still didn’t know where he was or how long it had been since he had spoken to Jon but he had a sick feeling he knew exactly what that music meant.

Gerard followed the music, hurried to find its source, and evidently the true meaning of that music wasn’t known to the general public yet because while he was hurtling towards instead of away from certain danger the handful of people he encountered on nearby sidewalks, walking unhurriedly towards destinations of their own, didn’t give him so much as a first glance, let alone a second one. They just went about their business as if he wasn’t even there, as if the end of the world wasn’t in progress a few blocks away, remaining blissfully ignorant to everything that didn’t fit nicely into the small circle of their own lives.

He wondered what it felt like to have a pedestrian life like theirs must be, to go about your business unaware that there were eldritch powers scheming at all times to bring about terrible new worlds of fear and horror. Living a life like that had never really been an option for him, after all. He’d been in the thick of it since the day he was born. Since his mother set her eyes on him for the first time.

Gerard had managed to pin down the source of the calliope music to a large, dilapidated building and approached said building just in time to see it collapse in front of him, a series of sizable explosions turning what had apparently once been some sort of museum into a pile of rubble and debris.

The music stopped when the building fell, which Gerard supposed was a good sign. While he hadn’t cared about it terribly much when he was bound to the book, stuck in a half-life of torment for the foreseeable future, now that he could explore the world more freely again he’d prefer it not end or get apocalyptically transformed to the point where it couldn’t truly be considered the same world anymore.

Still, it seemed oddly anticlimactic for something as grand and strange as the Unknowing to be stopped by a building collapsing around it. Gertrude’s plan would probably have been a bit subtler, but then, Gertrude wasn’t around to carry it out anymore, so explosions it was, apparently. Jon’s handiwork there, Gerard assumed. Apparently the little he knew about the Unknowing, and how Gertrude had been preparing to prevent it, had been enough in the end. Good to know their agreement hadn’t been entirely one-sided.

He looked for survivors, human or otherwise, a task that’d been ingrained in him for some time now. He was no Gertrude Robinson, wasn’t the type to stop grand rituals threatening all of humanity all by himself, but he did his part to save a few people at least, spare those that could still escape from the horrors that haunted this world.

Gerard’s eyes fell on a woman whose blue hijab had been tattered and torn in the explosion, a few stray bits of debris clinging to her back and legs as she lay on the ground near the periphery of the destruction, clearly breathing but also clearly not getting up in a hurry.

He edged closer to the woman, trying not to look too closely at the loose strands of hair that had escaped her hijab. “Hello? Can you hear me?”

No response, which wasn’t entirely unanticipated, but still wasn’t a good sign.

Gerard reached out to grab the woman’s arm and check her pulse--even if the Unknowing was over now, a building collapsing around you could easily lead to more mundane injuries that needed tending to sooner rather than later--but his own arm never made contact with hers, instead reaching through her flesh as easily as if he were moving through thin air, and now that he got a closer look at himself, Gerard could see that his body was ever so slightly translucent.

In hindsight it made sense, it was logical enough that one form of undeath where he couldn’t fully interact with the living world would give way only to another, but the realization still came as a rather unpleasant jolt.

Gerard could hear the sound of an ambulance siren ringing out somewhere in the distance as he backed away from the woman, who remained seemingly unconscious and definitely unaware of his attempt at contact.

Alright, so he’d been dead, and he was still dead, and being able to interact with the living only under certain circumstances wasn’t entirely new... now he just needed to figure out what the new set of circumstances for that were. And whether he was going to stay like this for the long term, or whether he was going to get shunted into some other form of undeath before he had the time to examine things properly. And whether this was just regular death now, the End in its final form, or whether there was something more going on here. And perhaps whether this all meant Jon had actually burned his page from the book like he’d promised.

Christ, he could use a cigarette... but he still wasn’t getting one any time soon, was he? Figured.

As Gerard stood by the remains of what had been the staging area for the Unknowing, he saw a lone figure making its way towards him from out of the rubble.

The man approaching Gerard was tall and fairly muscular, with a short-sleeve shirt that showed off dark tattoos on his arms and hair that was clearly a natural inky black, the kind that Gerard had tried and failed to emulate with brand after brand of cheap hair dye over the years. His eyes were wide, his skin tawny, his body tense, and honestly, he was pretty good-looking despite (or perhaps because of) his unassuming and casual clothing, though that was one opinion Gerard figured he would keep to himself for the time being.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the man’s body was the same sort of translucent as Gerard’s own, and he stepped through the debris around him as though it wasn’t even there.

As the man drew closer, Gerard could see a deep fire in his eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

Gerard resisted the urge to flinch, to back away, instead standing his ground and looking coolly at the other man. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“Yeah, sure, but I asked first, and I was here first, and if it came down to it I’m pretty sure I could punch your lights out first, so...”

The other man probably wasn’t wrong, when it came to that. Gerard Keay was many things, but especially skilled at hand-to-hand combat was not one of them, and his would-be opponent had the advantage when it came to both build and stature.

Though he wasn’t sure if they even could get into a fistfight now, given the state they were both in... still, probably better not to find out the hard way.

Gerard raised his hands in the air, open palms facing the other man in a clear gesture of peace. “Alright, I’m-”

But before he could finish his sentence, the other man’s eyes widened further and he cut off Gerard’s speech. “Hang on, I think I’ve heard about you. Are you Gerard Keay?”

Gerard wasn’t sure what to make of this other man apparently being able to recognize him on sight (admittedly, his eye tattoos were fairly distinctive) while he couldn’t say the same the other way around, but it didn’t seem like a good sign.

Still, no use hiding from it. “Yeah, that’s me. You’ve heard of me, then?”

“Oh yeah. Christ, they weren’t kidding about the bad dye job, were they... but wait, aren’t you dead?”

“Sure. So are you.”

In the seconds that followed, Gerard realized that his words had probably been a fair bit more blunt than necessary, and he half-expected the man to start freaking out about being so straightforwardly informed that he was almost certainly no longer among the living, but instead the man just shook his head and shot Gerard a strange smile.

“Suppose you’ve got me there.” The man snorted in a way that was clearly meant to convey humor and just as clearly was entirely devoid of any before adding, “I had a lot of ideas about what death would be like... wasn’t banking on it being quite like this.”

“That makes two of us.”

“No insider scoop on the whole afterlife front, then? Haven’t you been dead for years already?”

Gerard considered his response for a long moment, trying to decide how much he was willing to share with this stranger before deciding that, hell, he was already dead (twice over, even), so what did he have left to lose? “Yeah, and I spent most of that being stuck in a bloody book. This?” Gerard made a broad, sweeping hand gesture that encompassed himself, the stranger, and the collapsed building next to them. “This is new.”

“Damn. No use having a ghost buddy without getting some handy intel out of the deal.”

Gerard shook his head and let out a soft sigh. “Look, I’m not your ghost buddy, I don’t even know your name!”

“Oh, of course, where are my manners? Lost them with everything else, I suppose... Tim Stoker here.”

Tim extended a hand, which Gerard eyed warily. If the name was supposed to mean something to him... well, it didn’t, but Tim also didn’t seem to be keen on explaining himself any further, giving up who he was beyond a meaningless name, elaborating about why he was hanging around dead at the scene of the attempted Unknowing with knowledge enough to recognize Gerard’s appearance at a glance.

He seemed nice enough, though, and Gerard was curious as to whether his inability to contact others, as demonstrated when he’d tried to help the woman with the hijab, would still apply to somebody else stuck in the same state of being as himself.

After a bit of hesitation, Gerard reached out and reciprocated Tim’s gesture, engaging him in a brief but firm handshake. There was no warmth in Tim’s grip, no residual body heat seeping out at the point of contact, but there was strength in it, and Gerard could feel a slight roughness to the other man’s fingers.

“Now, this might sound awkward-”

“’m sure I’ve heard worse.” Tim muttered in a voice just low enough that Gerard wasn’t sure if it was meant for his ears.

“-but you seem awfully chipper for someone who just died.”

The thin smile on Tim’s face that Gerard had suspected wasn’t entirely genuine faded away entirely, replaced by a thoughtful frown. “Yeah, well... it was cancer that got you, right?”

Gerard nodded silently, unsure where Tim was going with this. It was surreal, to just quietly nod as a stranger casually and correctly references your cause of death, but then, this was a surreal conversation to begin with.

“But you must not have known for long, ‘cause you were traipsing all around the world before that... maybe... maybe it’s different when you see it coming. When you know it’ll happen, and you’re ready for it.”

As Gerard processed the implications there, he nodded again, trying to make the gesture more somber than before.

“Reminds me, how’d you even get here, anyway? Didn’t you die in America?”

Gerard shrugged. “Beats me. I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”

“Great Yarmouth. That-” Tim pointed to the pile of rubble. “-used to be a creepy old wax museum. Current state’s an improvement, if you ask me.”

Gerard let out a short laugh, though he wasn’t entirely sure that the comment was solely meant as a joke. “Good to know.”

Tim shot Gerard a weak smile as he added, “Suppose I’m a bit biased, though, given that I’m the one who blew the place up.”

“You-?” Gerard looked back at what had apparently once been a wax museum and was now well and truly exploded. “I- I thought Jon did that?”

“Oh hell no. He and the others helped, sure, but I held the detonator, I made the call, I get the credit here.”

Tim was still smiling as he said this, smiling as he admitted to blowing a building up--and, given his current state, doing so almost certainly while he was still inside of it. Maybe he thought that joking about it would stop Gerard from examining his words too closely, from realizing what he was really confessing to, but Gerard caught it all.

Before Gerard could think of a proper response to that, though, Tim kept on speaking.

“How d’you even know Jon? Is there some spooky monster groupchat I should know about or something?”

Gerard sighed and pressed one hand to his temple. “First off, not a monster, thanks.”

Tim made a show of looking Gerard up and down before saying “Sure.” with what must have been all the sarcastic uncertainty he could muster at a moment’s notice.

“Look, whatever else has happened along the way, I think we’re on an even platform now, so unless you meant to call yourself a monster-”

Tim’s gaze went from focusing on Gerard to on Tim’s own hands, and a bit of that thin smile slipped away. “Shit. Okay. Let’s- let’s table that bit for now, then, yeah?”

“Sure.” Gerard tried to force his frustration and suspicion into his pronouncement of the word, but most of it didn’t manage to stick. “Second, he tore my page out of the book back in America; I told him what I knew about the Unknowing. Given... everything...” Gerard gestured vaguely to their surroundings once more. “I’m guessing he used my info to help stop it, and my page got destroyed in the process.”

“Right, yeah, that makes sense, because nobody tells me fucking anything around here-” Tim tried to kick a piece of rubble away, but couldn’t make contact, his leg instead arcing up into the air uninhibited before he began to pace. “Didn’t tell me about the circus, didn’t tell me about meeting Gerard Keay, what else is that bastard hiding from me?”

The question was probably meant to be rhetorical, but Gerard couldn’t help but respond just the same, if only because he wanted to see the reaction on Tim’s face if his guess was right. “Did he tell you about the Hunters?”

“...what hunters?”

“He was with two Hunters back in America, that’s how he got my page in the first place-”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

Tim looked exactly as outraged as Gerard had imagined he would, and Gerard couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the sight of it.

“That funny to you, is it?”

Gerard calmed his laughter, but he couldn’t seem to wipe the smile off his face. “Kind of, yeah. I mean, I dunno how you even knew Jon, but the two of us got on well enough...”

“He was my asshole boss. Told him as much a few minutes ago, actually.” Tim paused for a moment before raising one finger in the air and amending, “Asshole ex-boss. Like hell I’m doing any work for him now.”

“Oh, so you were an archival assistant... Gertrude’s assistants didn’t last long either, from what I heard-”

“That’s not what this is.”

Gerard raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“This isn’t some cycle, some magic bullshit, something that was bound to happen no matter what--I made a choice. And nobody forced my hand in it, either. Hell, Elias didn’t even want me there, but fuck him-”

“Or don’t.”

Tim clearly wasn’t expecting Gerard to interrupt him, because he stopped mid-rant, looking over at Gerard with a strange look on his face.

“Have you seen that man? That would not be a good time! And he’d probably have that smug little smirk on his face the entire time, too.”

Tim hesitated for a moment before bursting out into loud, raucous laughter and pressing a hand against his eyes (which probably didn’t actually impair his vision much, given that Gerard could see Tim’s eyes almost as clearly as before). “Oh, I like you.”

“Really? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Shut up.”

Gerard rolled his eyes theatrically, fighting the urge to respond with a “Make me” and see how far Tim would actually go in trying. Instead, Gerard settled on a response that changed the topic of conversation less confrontationally.

“Actually, you having been an archival assistant fits one of my theories for, well, how we can talk in the first place. Working in the Institute’s archives makes you Eye-touched, and as for me...” Gerard looked down, pointedly, at one of his knuckles, at one of the many eye tattoos scattered across his body. “I’m right there with you. It’s fitting, too, as an afterlife for those connected to the Eye--being here but unable to interact with the living world, only getting to watch...”

Tim’s eyes turned from fire to cold steel in an instant.

“No. No, that can’t be right. Those bastards already ruined my life, they can’t have taken the afterlife from me too, taken...” Tim’s speech trailed off abruptly, but as his form started shaking and the slightest hint of tears started welling up in his eyes, he forced out another bitter “No.”

“It’s just one idea, but it’d explain why it’s just us here--I’m sure we’re not the first ones to die in Great Yarmouth, after all. Unless... you know the old trope about ghosts having unfinished business on earth, I’ve got loads of my own that’d probably qualify...”

Tim shook his head emphatically. “No, no, that’s not it, either. That-” He pointed at the pile of rubble that was only a few short minutes ago the site of an attempted world-changing ritual. “That was my unfinished business right there, and it’s sure as hell finished now, isn’t it?”

Gerard looked over at the rubble, though it wasn’t terribly changed from before; an ambulance had made it to the scene, and a first responder was helping that woman with the hijab that Gerard had seen earlier, but what remained of the building itself was more or less untouched. “Looks like, yeah.”

Tim snorted with mild amusement.

“Only other thing I can think of is it’s something to do with the Unknowing itself-”

The fire returned to Tim’s eyes, but what it burned with now was not laughter.

“A parting gift from the circus?”

“Maybe. Dunno. All I’ve got is a bunch of theories with no way to test them.”

“Actually, I’ve got an idea about that bit.”

“Oh?”

“There was a... a colleague of mine-” The way Tim said “colleague” left Gerard very certain that there was another, more fitting term he could be using in its place, that his connection to this “colleague” went deeper than a shared workplace, though he didn’t have a clue as to the details. “-we worked in the archives together, but she died in the Institute about a year ago.”

Gerard let out a low whistle. “Jon really is following in Gertrude’s footsteps there, huh?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Maybe if you take me on a couple dates first.”

Tim ran his hand across his eyes again and down his face, then elbowed Gerard in the ribs for that one; it ached a little, but he supposed he deserved it.

“So we can go try and find her, since she’d be--how’d you phrase it? ‘Eye-touched?’” Tim made air quotes around the word, and for some reason that brought a smile to Gerard’s face. “Same as us.”

“That... yeah, that’d probably work, actually.”

“You don’t have to sound so surprised.”

Gerard rolled his eyes again. “So we’re heading to London, then?”

Gerard’s memories of London were decidedly... mixed. He’d lived there with his mother, though they’d done more than their fair share of traveling along the way, and that was still what came to mind first when he thought of the city, though Gertrude and the Magnus Institute were different at least, if not necessarily much better. But he wasn’t going to object to the only thing they had that vaguely resembled a plan just because he didn’t much care for London as a city.

“Suppose so. Do you know the way there?”

Gerard blinked a few times in confusion. “I figured you would, I was just in America, and didn’t you just come from London?”

“Well, we stopped at a bed and breakfast for the night first. And I wasn’t the one driving.”

Gerard let out a long, somewhat exaggerated sigh. “So the plan is a road trip from here to London, but with no car and no directions. This sounds like a great plan.”

“Fuck you too.”

“Only if you ask nicely.”

The look on Tim’s face was priceless.

“Hey, Gerard-”

“Gerry.”

And that priceless look was gone in a moment’s time, replaced with one of blank befuddlement.

“What?”

Gerard scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Gerard was what my mum called me. I always-” He let out a soft laugh, one born more of embarrassment and awkwardness than actual amusement, as he remembered telling Jon this same thing--except that with Jon he’d said that he wanted his friends to call him Gerry, while his feelings for Tim were... well, he was going to phrase things slightly differently this time, at any rate. “I always wanted someone special to call me Gerry.”

“A-alright then. Gerry. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted.” Tim’s words were harsh, but the tone was playful rather than biting, and Tim chewed on his lip absentmindedly for a moment before continuing. “If it’s just you and me here in whatever afterlife this is, at least until we find someone else... well, honestly, you wouldn’t be my first choice of people to be stuck with, not gonna lie. But you’re not on the bottom of the list, either.”

Gerard wasn’t sure who would be at the top of his list for such a thing, but he knew who would be at the very bottom of the list for him, and it definitely wasn’t one Tim Stoker. “Well, the feeling’s mutual.”

“So. To London?”

Gerry reached out with one hand, brushing against one of Tim’s, and if he had a heartbeat still it would have sped up when Tim’s hand took hold of his own, his grip loose but firm.

“To London. Provided you have at least some idea how to get there. Cardinal directions, maybe?”

Tim stared off into nothingness for a moment as he thought. “Southwest, I think?”

“Christ, we’re doomed.”

“Fuck off.”

They both burst out laughing, their grip on one another’s hands unyielding, as they prepared to make what was sure to be a long and winding journey together.

#gerard keay #gerry keay #tma #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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vannahfanfics · 5 years ago

Note

Okay okay I know I just send in a request, buuuut your writing is amazing so... could you do a ohshc prompt? About Haruhi and the twins? It could be platonic, romantic, as long as it’s just centered around them! Something will subtle angst and teeth rotting fluff! Maybe a sleepover between them? Where Haruhi’s oblivious self finally figures out how much she means to them?

Here it is! It isn’t very angsty at all but I tried to keep with the spirit of what you wanted. I hope you enjoy it all the same!

The Twins’ First Sleepover

Haruhi sipped calmly at her cup of tea as she sat between Hikaru and Kaoru as they entertained the handful of young ladies seated on the sofa across them. Though Haruhi normally entertained her own customers, every so often the pair of mischievous twins would kidnap her to weigh in on their avid discussions. So here she was, crammed between the two redheads as they courted the girl students with their shameless “brotherly love” gimmick. At one point Hikaru brought up something about a “sleepover,” which had the girls squealing and wriggling about as they probably imagined some sinful thoughts- and a possibility sparked in Haruhi’s brain.

“Have you two ever actually been on a legitimate sleepover?” Haruhi could practically hear the record scratch as the twins each looked at her in a mixture of shock and humiliation- inadvertently answering her question without the need of vocalizing. With wide eyes mirrored the brown liquid sloshing around in the elegant teacup, Haruhi’s head swiveled back and forth between them like a perplexed baby owl’s. She hadn’t thought in an odd question, but then again, she was the odd one out in almost anything that pertained to the host club and its rich entertainers and patrons… Hikaru’s mouth was the first to curl into a languid smirk. She knew right then as he leaned his cheek into his fist with glinting eyes that a scheme was hatching in that nefarious mind of his.

“Why, no, Haruhi; as a matter of fact, we have not. Are you offering?” Jesus, these two will use any means necessary to get in my house. Are they really so fascinated by poor people?! she thought with a small sigh. Now that she thought about it, though, it had been a terribly long time since she had participated in a sleepover, too. Part of her considered announcing a host club sleepover, but that simply wouldn’t do; her house was much too small, and entertaining the club of boys was much too draining for a few hours— let alone an entire night. Additionally, she never really had the opportunity to socialize with just the twins by themselves; though they had crawled out of their shells considerably since her arrival, she had the feeling that there was a lot more to delve into when it came to them.

“As a matter of fact, I am. Why don’t we have a sleepover?” she suggested with her normal deadpan, innocent demeanor. It apparently had not been the reaction Hikaru was expecting, because he let out a choking sound as he reared back with a wild blush. Her head pivoted to Kaoru to find an identical pink tint painting his cheeks as he stared at her owlishly. They then grinned devilishly to each other over her head in agreement, and as she shrank down hoping the couch cushions would swallow her up, she wondered if she had made a grievous mistake.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Coming!” she called as she hurried down the hallway, her bare feet slapping against the wood to echo through the small house. She skipped over the landing to run right for the door before the twins, who were incessantly ringing her doorbell, got too impatient and started beating their fists on the door in addition. She swept open the door while she fought to catch her breath and swept disarrayed strands of her caramel-colored hair back into place. The two identical twins were wearing matching grins, as if Haruhi hadn’t arrived like a bat out of hell to greet them.

“Hey, Haruhi~!” they chimed in unison.

As promised, Haruhi had arranged a sleepover to take place three days after her proposal. Though her father had been a bit unwitting to allow her to stay overnight with boys while he was at work at first, with enough gentle coaxing and reassurance, he had reluctantly agreed to allowing the house to themselves for the night. Haruhi really had no illegitimate plans in mind, but her father was so overprotective that it would just make the sleepover cumbersome and admittedly hard to enjoy. It was about seven o’clock in the evening and so Haruhi had already finished her bath routine early to prepare; she was freshly showered and her skin smelled faintly of vanilla lotion (because Tamaki insisted on a skincare routine for her; at first it had been an annoyance, but actually she had come to find it quite cathartic), and she was dressed in a pair of white cotton pajamas decorating with corgis in all manners of poses. Haruhi was actually an avid collector of ridiculous pajamas- they were often on sale at the supermarket, which was even better- and her corgis were definitely the pride and joy of her assortment.

“Nice jammies, Haruhi,” Kaoru laughed as he patted her lightly on the head. “If Tamaki ever spied you in those, his heart would probably explode, yeah?”

“Without a doubt. They’d be shipping him to the hospital for cardiac arrest,” Hikaru agreed with a snicker, hand raised to his mouth to curl his index finger at his lip as he chortled. Haruhi thanked them for praising her pajamas before she squeezed between them to all but push them into her house.

“No time to waste! Go get changed into your pajamas. That’s step one!” she ordered. They fumbled at the doorway to kick off their shoes before taking off for the house’s only bathroom with resounding “Yes, ma’am’s.” Haruhi’s out-of-character insistence was mostly because she was actually excited, having not partaken in the childhood pleasure for such a long time, but also because she really didn’t want her neighbors to spot the twins and badger her with questions next time they caught her alone. She shut the door behind her and walked down the hall just in time for the twins to jump out of the bathroom door in a grand flourish. They sported (naturally) matching baby-blue silk pajamas with dark blue buttons and needlework at the various hems. They were very tasteful and undoubtedly a product of their mother’s creative mind.

“Well, Haruhi, how do we look?” they inquired as they struck dramatic model poses. Haruhi giggled and assured them that yes, they were very handsome, before escorting them to her bedroom. They lingered in the doorway with wide eyes for a moment, as they had never been in a girl’s room before. Haruhi’s bedroom was overwhelmingly plain, mirroring her easygoing, relaxed personality, but nonetheless still held its own simple charm; on her schooldesk was a little succulent that she had been tending to for the last several years which now sprawled out its wide, bulbous leaves in a big pot. A few stuffed teddy bears were gathered in a small basket at the foot of her bed. She had a carpet with soft, fluffy fibers that matched the color of her curtains, which were drawn back to display the starry night sky and neighborhood landscape like an exquisite oil painting. It was nothing grandiose, but it was definitely Haruhi, and the boys seemed to appreciate this sentiment as they stood holding their chins and nodding in approval. As Haruhi quipped for them to get inside already, they saluted her before skipping across the room to join her on the rug, on which she had sprawled a thick comforter and several accessory blankets.

“What now?” Hikaru asked, watching with interested as Haruhi cocooned herself in one of the blankets.

“Well, when I used to have sleepovers, we would always watch a scary movie first. We’d all scream and hold each other at the scary parts. Since we did it first, though, we’d spend the rest of the night on other things and so by the time we went to bed, we wouldn’t have nightmares because we barely remember the movie,” she explained as she picked up the remotes to her television and DVD player to flip them on. Of course, her TV was incredibly small and an older model before flat screens, but hey, she was grateful to even have one in her bedroom. She already had the disc in the DVD player; it was an older movie about a haunted videotape where a monster would crawl out of the television and murder whoever dared to play it. Haruhi had seen it many a time. Though scary movies terrified the bejeezus out of her during the experience, she kind of loved the rush of adrenaline they gave her, and when one was with friends, it was much less horrifying, anyway.

Regardless of that fact, she was still screaming in fright and burying her face into Hikaru’s chest not twenty minutes later. Kaoru had a similar idea and had his arms wrapped around her waist as he pressed his face into her back, muffling his continued shouts of “ohGod-ohGod-ohGod-ohGod-OHGOD!” Hikaru wasn’t screeching like the two of them but his bodily was noticeably tensed as he wrapped his arms around the back of her head to pull her close. He nervously laughed at the two of them, especially Haruhi, asking her why she would choose a scary movie in the first place when she couldn’t even watch it; however, as an unearthly screech blasted out of the television’s audio system, he jumped violently and yelped aloud. This made Haruhi laugh into his silk shirt despite the tears brimming in her eyes; it was so cute to see him try to be a tough guy when he was scared out of his wits, too. By the time the movie was over, Haruhi was pretty much in Hikaru’s lap quivering but laughing at Kaoru, who had shimmied under the bed with only his bare feet sticking out, and at Hikaru, who had been looking at the ceiling for the last thirty minutes as he tenderly held the scared girl and pretended like the entire thing hadn’t been much of an ordeal.

“It wasn’t that scary,” he muttered for the tenth time as Haruhi finally pried herself off him.

“Yes, it was!” Karou wailed from beneath her bed frame. “I dun wanna do sleepovers with Haruhi anymooooore!”

“Pity, I guess you’ll miss the makeover,” Haruhi said with a click of her tongue as she crossed the room to pull out her small make-up kit.

“Makeo-“ There was a loud thump as Kaoru smacked his head against the wooden frame of her bed. “Owwwww… Makeover?” he cried as he wriggled backward out from underneath the bed to sit up and grin at her breathlessly, with his orange hair all scrambled from his actions. Haruhi snickered and sat down on her knees in front of them while spreading out her make-up. Haruhi didn’t use it for school anymore now that she was masquerading as a male for the host club, but she occasionally pampered herself on the weekends with some minimal applications of foundation and mascara and lip gloss. Honestly, her father had given her most of it and she felt guilty for not exploiting its range of options; given Hikaru and Kaoru’s proclivities for creativity, she had reasoned that they would enjoy dolling her up. When she explained this to them, they were nearly beside themselves with excitement.

“We’re gonna make you the prettiest girl ever, Haruhi!” Kaoru beamed as he plucked up a few of her powder brushes.

“Hey, she’s already pretty,” tutted his twin, which made Haruhi chuckle. Kaoru stuck out his tongue in annoyance at him.

“Of course she is! You know what I meant, meanie!” he grumbled before looking happily at her. “Okay! Now close your eyes so we can work our magic!” Haruhi did as instructed. With her eyes closed, she had to try her best not to wriggle at the alien sensation of the plush brushes feathering over her skin. Occasionally one of the twins would voice instructions, such as for her to purse her lips or open her eyes long enough to apply mascara. With no mirror in front of her, it was hard to really tell what they were doing, but to Haruhi the surprise was worth the anticipation. It really took them no time at all to paint the canvas that was her small face, and soon her eyes were open again watching as Kaoru bounced up and down with excitement while Hikaru held up a mirror. Haruhi’s eyes went wide in shock; though she would’ve imagined that with as much make-up that she felt them smear on her skin she would’ve looked like an upscale prostitute at best, it actually blended well nicely. Haruhi’s face was definitely her own, but with the brown-hued eyeshadow (the perfect tint to match her corgis) and lip gloss and blush, she also looked like some foreign model. When Hikaru lowered the mirror, she smiled sweetly.

“Wow, guys, thank you. It looks beautiful.”

“Yes, it does!” Hikaru quipped as he held up his fingers around her face like he was framing art. “Absolutely stunning, right, brother?”

“Yes indeed! We could send her down the catwalk, no problem!” he snickered. Haruhi smiled as she leaned back on her legs; she honestly wasn’t sure what would come of this sleepover, but she could honestly say that she was having the most fun in ages. Not that the host club wasn’t fun, but it was different… While the host club was chaotic and an adrenaline rush because she never knew what was going to happen, this was almost like nostalgic fun, like she was someplace that she was comfortable and belonged. It was a bit strange, but nevertheless, Haruhi savored it.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time the three of them finally settled down long enough to even consider sleeping, it was 2 a.m. Haruhi had abandoned her bed in favor of sprawling out between them on a collection of thick comforters and pillows on the floor. At first, they had tried to convince her to do otherwise, but she had insisted that this was how sleepovers worked and it was either this or trying to cram into her twin-sized bed… So there they were. Of course, they weren’t even really trying to sleep; they were giggling in hushed voices as they relived many of the ridiculous things Tamaki had done, and the twins even filled her in on more comedic events that occurred before she had joined the host club. At present, Haruhi was snorting with laughter as she buried her face into her pillow, smearing tears of laughter across the fine cotton surface. Suddenly, she heard the twins sigh in unison, and looked up while wiping at her lashes.

“What is it?” she inquired as she looked between them. Hikaru was propped up on one elbow, while Kaoru was on his belly with his legs kicked up and crossed at the ankles.

“We were just thinking about how grateful we are to have a friend like you, Haruhi,” Hikaru answered. A faint dusting of pink blush even more prominent than the make-up she had been wearing earlier appeared on her round cheeks.

“Yeah!” Kaoru agreed with a nod of his head and a serene smile.

“I don’t get it,” Haruhi said blankly. “I mean, you guys have Tamaki and everyone else, right?”

“Ah, that’s different,” they bleated in tandem. Haruhi scrunched up her face as she tried to riddle the strange twins’ words out. She really wasn’t anything that special to them, was she? She had thought maybe they had just accepted the sleepover because it was something they had never done before, but she was beginning to think that perhaps Haruhi herself had more to do with it than she initially thought. Hikaru leaned over to ruffle her silky brown hair, smiling softly.

“Thanks for inviting us, Haruhi.” She blinked up at him, not quite sure how to react; then, he suddenly whirled around so his back was to her. “G’night!” Even more inquisitive now, Haruhi turned to look at Kaoru, who had done the same and was apparently asleep or at least pretending to be, snoring softly. Confused, Haruhi rolled onto her back to look up at the ceiling while the puzzle pieces shuffled around in her mind searching for their homes. A small smile gradually bloomed on her face like a night cactus flower. Maybe there wasn’t an ulterior motive for themselves and they just really wanted to spend time with me, she reasoned. She snuggled into the blankets as a warm, fuzzy feeling began to tingle through her body. They certainly had seemed to enjoy themselves completely, and they hadn’t made any sort of move that implied to Haruhi that they had any nefarious tricks in mind. A friend like me, huh? Haruhi’s hands rooted through the blankets on either side to find their arms, pulling at them such that she could grasp their hands and lay them down against the blankets. It was kind of an uncomfortable position for them, but neither of them said a word.

“I’m glad I have friends like you, too. We should do this again,” she said with a soft, happy sigh. Again, neither of them said anything at all, but she felt both their fingers curl around hers in silent affirmation.

Haruhi drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face, wedged between the two twins whose hearts she had unwittingly laid bare, even if just a little…

Enjoy this oneshot? Feel free to perusemy Tableof Contents!

#ouran high school host club #ohshc #haruhi fujioka #hikaru hitachiin #kaoru hitachiin #fluff #friendship #cutesy #friendship fluff #ohshc fanfiction #ohshc fanfic #ohshc haruhi #ohshc hikaru #ohshc kaoru

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fandomluver-101 · 5 years ago

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Sweet Elite Chapter 8

So I have finally finished playing the last chapter! You would think I’d hate playing a game where I’m in school when IRL college is kicking my ass, but to each their own, LOL.

Anyways, I finished playing it and though I found it enjoyable, I’m not all that sure I truly enjoyed it. I normally don’t make my own reviews of the game and just leave comments on ones posted by others, but I decided to post it because why not!

If you’re interested in a spoiler filled review, just click that “keep reading” below ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓

First off, I like to write my little fanfics for my enjoyment (I’ve never posted any of them, but I have them in existence via USB lol). I’m probably gonna reference what I’ve written for Tadashi’s arc for comparison, so don’t try looking for them!

When I play Sweet Elite, I also like to record my screen so I can keep track of my choices (and compare what happens to what I wrote). A single playthrough for the first time and this is the longest I’ve spent on a chapter, a whole 2 hours and a half! Not a bad thing of course considering it was a major arc and expected to be on the longer side. But I feel like for the length, I didn’t get much Love Interest interactions because you’re forced to spend fairly equal amount of time with everyone (I played on my Tadashi account first since I had the most AP on that one).

I shall start with things I liked about the chapter, which wasn’t much to be honest?

1 - Tadashi not knowing what the Grammy’s was is hilarious to me (and also kinda sad because that kinda shows how much of a childhood he lacked since the average person would at least know the name!). That whole interaction was nice to see since it showed TadAxel having a non-arguing conversation, but the “Granny’s” was a major highlight.

2 - Neha hinting once again that she might be a scholarship student (because mentioning that scholarship students don’t have to advertise that they’re one is a major thing to introduce and not expect me to run with). And I interpreted how she responded to Karolina supporting Tadashi despite the scandal more of her being a bit jealous because I can only imagine how she’d react if Neha actually is a scholarship student (though Tadashi becoming one himself might soften Karolina up into accepting that your parents’ money doesn’t make you almighty).

3 - Ellie just being Ellie. Lordy she’s adorably terrifying and those are the best short friends to have because they keep you on your toes (and are totally down to hunting for the obscure or raiding Area 451).

4 - Tyler basically being how I felt playing as Scholar because the whole “I’m not doing shit while everyone else is offering something major in their super-awesome ways” was easy to recognize with.

So my first complaint is the convoluted plan to get Tadashi proven innocent/uninvolved in Hiroshi’s yakuza crap. I get the whole lie to the dad to make him think he’s on his side thing since it would get him half of his money back. But what I envisioned in my head and wrote down centered around my Scholar recording the conversation between Tadashi and his dad (which Tadashi did himself, which still makes it a viable plot-point) and them using the script/email from the lawyer and the bank statements of his dad taking all of his money to show him as a victim?

The video idea wasn’t bad and was also something I wrote for my BCP Scholar fanfiction (she’s marketing and PR with her own little company managing social media accounts, so the idea and image control was her main addition to help out). So I don’t know if I’m just being my biased ass self and preferring my solution (release the proof of blackmail, show Tadashi is a victim, have Tegan hack Nakano Corp.’s CCTV/security footage to get timestamps of Tadashi not being present for mafia meetings, have him testify against his father).

None of what was shown in the video could have really proven any sort of innocence to be honest. Tadashi could’ve easily pulled whatever texts and emails he wanted, so unless he showed the one from the lawyer essentially extorting him to testify in his father’s favor, I don’t see how that on its own would have helped with anything.

Adding the recording to the beginning of the video during editing would have been something to warrant all the positive response to the video. I know the recording is used to try and force Nakahoe Senior into giving Tadashi the rest of his money, but it was also the only logical way to prove Tadashi was without a doubt a victim too (and Tegan could easily get the money back himself or there could have been something about the mom, which I’m gonna talk about later in this post).

IRL, people would point out that Tadashi could easily be lying through his teeth about not being involved. So that’s kind of a plot-hole since getting the public to see Tadashi in a positive light is important to getting the school board to let him stay (which was incredibly dumb to me because are you really gonna tell me there aren’t students at the school with openly corrupt/mafia/mob/gangster parents using dirty money to keep their children in attendance???) (yes, Jack, I’m talking about your ass).

I could understand forcing him to step down as student body president since Arlington has the position kinda Anime styled where the president is the face of the school and has an absurd amount of responsibility and power (as proven by Ellie’s story of the previous president and the fact that Tadashi can veto someone getting academic amnesty). Them removing him from office was something I expected (though my fanfic had him helping pick a replacement for the rest of the year since that’s how it was done at my old private school). But not wanting him to attend school even though his family could easily pay for his tuition was very out there to me. I suppose having someone with a negative reputation could reflect badly on a top school, but I’m pretty sure private schools need justifications to expel someone and expelling them based on their parents actions seems very illegal to me.

But anyways, the super computer plot to hack Nakahoe Senior’s information was also very weird to me. I justified it by telling myself Scholar is in a school of super rich, super intelligent teenagers, so maybe the most simple approach doesn’t come to mind (I know first hand that smart people have a tendency to overlook the simple solutions without meaning to). It makes sense to make their own computer to not be traced overall, but the purpose it was needed for didn’t make much sense in the grand scheme of things (because they didn’t really use the information they found, so what was the point of finding it other than being a hundred percent sure on Hiroshi being corrupt?).

And then while I was playing and listening to my commentary, I again was reminded about how confused I was that calling Hiroshi in jail and keeping him on the line long enough to trace the transaction was necessary? Because I don’t think that’s how that works? If it was to track his location, then maybe, but I don’t think Tegan would need Tadashi to keep Hiroshi on the line to trace a bank transaction or get into Hiroshi’s accounts (but that’s me being nitpicky I think).

Then what they found, IE the gibberish in the calendar descrambling to “Yakuza” was a major asspull while I was playing. I wondered why Nakahoe Senior, AKA the Inglorious Bastard and Chessmaster of the arc, would make it so obvious? Let alone actually put that in his planer... If there was a meeting every Friday evening, I figured introducing this would at least lead to something where Tegan finds a way to prove Tadashi wasn’t present or active even phone call wise because he could get the call logs too. Yeah, the emails are important, but wouldn’t footage or flights be better at proving he wasn’t there?

Then Tadashi’s mother, who was never truly introduced, but teased really. It was set up in a way that my fanfic had Nakahoe Senior threatening to setup Tadashi for the fall if she didn’t convince him to testify in Hiroshi’s favor because Alistair mentions how protective she normally is of Tadashi and even Tadashi says that his mom was frantic over the phone. So I don’t know, I was hoping for something with her since she was brought up.

But my major complaint about the story was that Scholar has little influence on what goes on. At first, I thought there would be options based on your Department and maybe your choices during the Department Competition (you pick your concentration during the presentation). Essentially, I was expecting to be asked to pick a task I would do best in (in this playthrough’s case, I expected to be able to help with PR because for the competition, I picked Sociology which is essential in marketing research).

I also expected something similar for others. Business would get to come up with a marketing and PR scheme, utilizing Axel, Karolina, and Neha. Performing Arts or Fine Arts would get to help edit and fine tune the video or make a smear campagne against Nakahoe Senior with Tyler and Raquel. Pure and Applied would get to code with Tegan or build with Ellie. Health Sciences (or any department because you’re Arlington’s Sweetheart) would get to work with Alistair (who knows Tadashi best) and Claire to make Tadashi’s script and showcase him to the world as a victim (which he really is in this situation).

But that didn’t happen. The only things Scholar really does is buy computer parts and talk to Claire and ask her to help Tadashi (and suggest Tadashi ask Neha for help too). Which was a major asspull because during that section before where the group is talking about who should help him write something from the heart, I was expecting (and super hyped for) Scholar to finally have the chance to be useful. They weren’t, not even for Tadashi’s campaigning since all that they did was talk to a few students (which I know is good for campaigning, but not really helpful in the grand scheme of things) (especially because by default, Scholar isn’t good at these things even if you’re in a department that’s necessary). I got really happy thinking Scholar would do anything that justifies them being involved as “human resources.”

Then being thanked for not really do anything but being the spectator and emotional support friend kinda bothered me. I’m all for that and sometimes you just need that one friend that’s good at being a support unit (AKA the mom). But even though Tadashi says that Scholar was his main inspiration to defy his parents, that’s not really helping him do that?

How was Scholar instrumental to anything going on? “Waste a couple hours finding pieces for a super computer, something anyone could search for because you can’t code or build things even if you’re in Pure and Applied,” “Go ask Claire to help Tadashi write his speech only for Tadashi to appear and ask her to himself because she would, by default, help anyways and you’re not good at writing a heartfelt speech (which Scholar technically isn’t, but should be if there were more options or at least acknowledged in this situation because why bring up the whole Arlington Sweetheart thing?),” “Get some rest, you deserve it even though you did absolutely nothing beside deliver the computer parts and suggest asking Neha to help.”

To be honest, Scholar may not be as static/pre-determined as most otome games, but Scholar doesn’t have much variety that actually impacts the story. What you’re good and bad at is already determined (like the essay and presentation; you’re automatically not good at it even if you’re Performing Arts or BCP and interested in things that, you know, require being able to give a good presentation).

I would prefer waiting longer to have more meaningful options than getting something quicker and not really being able to do much. Like during the competition where we eavesdrop on people and see the story unfold, that’s what this chapter pretty much was for me.

#Sweet Elite #SE #Sweet Elite Game #SE Game #sweet elite chapter 8 #se chapter 8 #Sweet Elite 8 #SE 8

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