#like the high of beating an island was like no other tbh

[elikajinnie]

I Love You To The Moon And Back - S.J

P: Lycan!Jake X Fem!Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Suggestive Content, Minor Angst, Possessive Behaviour, Feral Behaviour, Minor Injuries, Falling In Love.

Synopsis: You and Jake have been best friends since childhood, but as you grow feelings for him, you notice changes in his behavior, leaving you to wonder what happened to him. And you’re determined to uncover the truth

a/n: idk, i honestly dont know. i have been digging the horror au tbh.

𓃦

The swing creaked beneath you, your legs dangling, feet brushing lightly against the woodchips beneath. It was your first day at this new school, and you didn’t know anyone yet. The other kids seemed to already have friends, running around the playground, laughing in groups. You had wandered over to the swings to avoid feeling completely out of place, gently kicking your feet to push yourself higher, but not too high. You didn’t want to stand out too much, after all.

Then, out of nowhere, you felt the swing jerk forward, a gentle push. Startled, you gripped the chains tighter, turning your head to see a boy standing behind you, his small hands still on the swing. He was smiling, a carefree grin, his messy brown hair falling slightly over his eyes.

“What are you doing?” you asked, trying to sound braver than you felt.

“Playing,” he said simply, giving you another push.

You blinked, unsure what to say at first, but his easygoing smile made you feel less nervous. As the swing gained a bit of height, you found yourself smiling too, the butterflies in your stomach slowly settling. After a few more pushes, he ran around to the front, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “I’m Jake,” he said, squinting slightly in the sunlight.

You told him your name, and without missing a beat, he asked, “Wanna play?”

It wasn’t long before the two of you were running across the playground, chasing each other, laughing. You climbed on the jungle gym, played tag, and pretended the ground was lava, hopping from one safe island to the next.

By the time the bell rang, calling everyone back inside, you had a new friend. And as you walked back to class together, you knew that somehow, this day didn’t feel quite so scary anymore.

𓃦

Years passed, and you and Jake stayed inseparable. Even as you both grew up and started exploring different interests, nothing ever seemed to drive a wedge between you. While other childhood friendships faded, lost in the chaos of school, new hobbies, and changing social circles, you and Jake never drifted apart.

Middle school came, and with it, new groups of friends. Jake found his way into the soccer team, while you got into art, spending hours after school in the art room. You both made new friends along the way, but no matter how busy life got, there was always time for each other.

After practice, Jake would wait for you outside the art room, kicking a soccer ball against the wall while you finished up a drawing. Some days, you'd sit together, your sketchbook on your lap as he tried—and often failed—to draw something that wasn’t a stick figure. You’d laugh, telling him it looked like a "weird, sad robot," but he’d always insist it was "modern art." He would tease you endlessly about your doodles, and you’d remind him how bad his drawings were—but you’d still show up for his games, cheering him on from the stands.

High school brought even more changes. Jake became more popular, his team winning matches, and he started hanging out with the soccer crowd. You found your own little circle with the art club and theater kids. At times, it seemed like your lives were taking different directions. But it didn’t matter. After every win, after every school event, after every late-night study session, the two of you would find each other.

Sometimes, you'd meet at the old playground, the same swings still there, creaky but familiar. It became your spot, a place to talk about everything. Jake would tell you about his latest soccer game, the pressure he felt from his team and coach. You'd talk about your art, about the projects you were working on and the ideas you had.

When things got hard, when life felt overwhelming, it was Jake who’d be there. He’d show up at your door after a tough day, throwing pebbles at your window just like in the movies. And when he needed a break from the noise of everyone else, you’d sit together in quiet understanding, whether it was in your room or out by the swings, finding comfort in each other’s presence.

Even with different interests, different friends, and different paths, one thing never changed—you always had time for each other. It didn’t matter how busy life got, or how much things changed around you. You both made the effort, the little moments adding up over the years, a constant reminder that some friendships are just meant to last.

Because at the end of the day, Jake wasn’t just your best friend. He was home.

𓃦

It was one of those quiet afternoons, the kind where the world felt just a bit slower, perfect for getting lost in a book. You were sitting on the bleachers, absorbed in the romance novel you’d been devouring for the past few days. The plot had you hooked—an unlikely love story full of tension, banter, and those heart-fluttering moments that made you wonder if such things actually happened in real life.

As you flipped a page, you heard the familiar sound of sneakers scuffing the pavement. Jake came strolling up beside you, twirling a football between his hands, a mischievous grin already spreading across his face. “What’s this?” he asked, peeking over your shoulder. “Another one of those sappy romance novels?”

You shot him a playful glare. “It’s not sappy! And it’s not cliché like you think.”

“Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. “Prove it.”

Without thinking, you flipped to a scene you’d just read, your finger hovering over the paragraph. It was a moment where the main character, after teasing the heroine endlessly, finally leans in close, says something flirty that catches her off guard, and leaves her completely speechless.

You handed him the book. “Here. Read this.”

Jake skimmed the passage quickly, his grin widening as he realized what it was about. "This? Really?" He set the book down on the bleacher and leaned toward you, his face only inches from yours, just like the scene. You could see the amusement dancing in his eyes as he lowered his voice, mimicking the character. “You know,” he said, his voice smooth and teasing, “if you wanted me to flirt with you, you could’ve just asked.”

Your heart skipped a beat, and your face instantly flushed. You hadn’t expected him to actually do it. Jake, noticing your reaction, let out a soft chuckle, his smile widening even more. He lightly nudged your shoulder with his own, that boyish charm never far from his teasing. “Wow, didn’t think I’d get you all flustered,” he laughed, clearly enjoying himself. “Guess the book’s rubbing off on you.”

Before you could recover, he gave you a playful wave and jogged off toward the field, calling over his shoulder, “Catch you later, romance expert!” He had no idea how those simple words left you sitting there, your heart racing, your mind swirling with thoughts you didn’t quite understand.

In the days that followed, things began to shift ever so slightly between you two. Jake seemed to take notice of how easily he could make you blush, and he started teasing you even more. He’d drop little flirty comments when you least expected it, his tone always playful, but there was something in the way he’d look at you that made your stomach flip. Whether it was during lunch, on the walk home, or just hanging out after school, he’d find ways to make your heart race.

Like when he’d lean close to you in the hall, his breath warm against your ear, and whisper something like, “Careful, someone might think you’ve got a crush on me,” before laughing and leaving you speechless. Or how he’d casually drape an arm over your shoulder, his touch light but lingering just enough to make you feel flustered. You tried to brush it off as just Jake being Jake, but something inside you was starting to shift.

One afternoon, sitting with your friend Wonyoung during study hall, you finally let it slip. “I don’t know what’s happening,” you admitted, staring down at your notebook but not really seeing it. “Lately, Jake’s been teasing me more, like… flirting teasing. And it’s different. Every time he does it, I get these… butterflies. It’s confusing.”

Wonyoung looked at you for a long moment, her smile widening like she had been waiting for this. “Girl, you’re not confused. You’ve got a crush on him.”

Your heart dropped at the realization. “What? No, I mean… we've been best friends forever. It’s just Jake.”

But as soon as Wonyung said it, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. The butterflies, the way your heart would race when he teased you, the sudden flush of heat whenever he got close. You were starting to see him differently. Maybe, somewhere along the way, between the teasing, the years of friendship, and those moments where it felt like he was more than just your best friend… maybe you had started falling for him without even realizing it.

After Wonyoung’s words that day, something shifted inside you, even though you tried to ignore it. You didn’t say anything to Jake, of course. How could you? The idea of bringing it up felt terrifying, like crossing an invisible line between what you had always known and something completely new and uncertain.

Still, her words stuck with you. No matter how hard you tried to push them aside, they lingered, sneaking up on you at the most unexpected moments—when you were with Jake, especially. It didn’t matter if you were at his house playing video games, or on the football pitch, where he would call you over, grinning as he tried to teach you how to kick the ball properly. Even when he waited for you after art class, leaning against the wall with that easy smile of his, chatting about his day or teasing you about your latest drawing, you couldn’t help but feel it.

You couldn’t stop thinking about the flutter in your stomach whenever he looked at you a certain way, or the warmth that spread through your chest when he laughed at your jokes. The feelings were suffocating, growing with every interaction but always kept hidden behind the careful mask of friendship.

Even in the library, when you sat across from him at a table—him with his head buried in textbooks, you with your nose in a novel—you were painfully aware of how close he was. You could hear the scratch of his pen on paper, the occasional sigh as he concentrated on his work, and every now and then, his foot would brush against yours under the table, sending a shock of awareness through you. But you said nothing.

On the bus to and from school, when you sat together in your usual spot, Jake would always lean his shoulder against yours, sharing his earbuds or cracking jokes that made you smile despite the growing knot in your chest. His presence was comforting, as it had always been. And yet now, it felt like there was something between you that you couldn’t name, something that made the air feel thicker, harder to breathe. Still, you kept it to yourself.

Science class was no better. You were partners, as always, sitting side by side during experiments, laughing at Jake’s terrible attempts to handle the beakers and test tubes. His hand would brush against yours accidentally as you worked, and every time it happened, you’d tense up, hoping he wouldn’t notice how flustered you were becoming. But he never seemed to, or if he did, he didn’t say anything. He’d just continue on, the same way he always had, making you laugh like it was the easiest thing in the world.

The worst was the mornings, though. Jake had always shown up at your door to walk with you to the bus stop, like clockwork. He’d stand there with his backpack slung over one shoulder, grinning as you made your way outside. You’d talk about everything and nothing as you walked, your footsteps in sync, and it felt like you were both stuck in this perfect little bubble, where nothing had changed. But inside, you felt like you were suffocating. The unspoken feelings weighed on you, heavy and constant, and every time Jake smiled at you, it made it harder to keep pretending everything was the same.

And then there were the swings. The old playground had always been your special place, the spot where everything began, where the world had felt simpler. You’d sit there together after school sometimes, talking about your days, your dreams, your lives. But now, even the swings felt different. You’d sit beside him, your feet barely touching the ground, and all you could think about was how close he was, how easy it would be to lean just a little closer. But you didn’t. You couldn’t.

So you stayed quiet, never saying a word, not even when the tension inside you became too much to bear. The feelings built up, day by day, moment by moment, until it felt like they were choking you. You wanted to tell him, to ask him if he felt it too, but the fear of ruining everything—the friendship you cherished so much—kept you silent.

And so, you kept pretending. Kept playing along, even though it was slowly suffocating you.

𓃦

You were sprawled across your bed, the soft glow of the TV casting shadows on the walls as you watched your latest obsession—a series about werewolves. The plot had taken a dramatic turn, and you were completely absorbed, leaning into the tension on the screen when you heard your door creak open.

Without tearing your eyes away from the show, you huffed, “Mom, I’m not hungry right now.”

But instead of your mom’s voice, you heard a familiar chuckle. “Good thing I’m not your mom.”

Your head snapped up, and there he was—Jake, standing in the doorway with that ever-present grin. He walked in like he owned the place, barely giving you time to react before he plopped down right next to you on the bed, making the mattress bounce beneath you. “Werewolves, huh?” he asked, glancing at the TV with mock seriousness. “And you said my interests were crazy.”

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore the warmth that spread through your chest the moment he settled beside you. “It’s not crazy. This show’s actually really good.”

Jake smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What’s next? Vampires? Maybe some shirtless brooding guy who’s half-wolf, half-whatever?”

“Shut up, it’s not like that,” you muttered, but before you could say anything more, Jake’s fingers found your side, poking you playfully.

“Oh, really?” he teased, continuing to poke you until you squirmed away, trying to bat his hands off. “C’mon, what is it? Secret romance between the werewolf and the girl? Or does she turn out to be a werewolf, too?”

“Stop!” you laughed, trying to shield yourself from his jabs. But he didn’t stop—he never did. His pokes turned into full-blown tickling, and you were soon in fits of laughter, squirming on the bed as you tried to push him away. Jake, of course, was relentless, his fingers digging into your sides as he grinned down at you.

“Jake!” you gasped between breaths, your laughter uncontrollable as you twisted and turned, trying to escape his attack. “I swear—stop!”

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he stopped, flopping down beside you with a triumphant grin. You caught your breath, glaring at him, and landed a light punch on his arm. “You’re the worst.”

He laughed, rubbing his arm dramatically like you’d actually hurt him. “Hey, just keeping you entertained.”

You both lay there for a moment, the sounds of the werewolf series filling the room, the earlier tension from his teasing melting away. Without thinking too much about it, you shifted a little closer, and Jake, ever comfortable, wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side. It felt natural, familiar—like you’d done it a hundred times before.

You settled into the warmth of his embrace, your head resting on his chest as his fingers absently traced circles on your arm. The weight of his arm around you was comforting, grounding, and for a second, it felt like nothing had changed between you two. Just like it always had been—best friends, close as ever.

“Alright, I’ll give this show a chance,” he said after a beat, his voice softer now, more relaxed. “But if there’s some cheesy love triangle, I’m out.”

You couldn’t help but smile, even though your heart was still racing a bit from the tickling—and from the way you were curled up against him. “Deal,” you murmured, your eyes drifting back to the screen, though your thoughts were far from the drama playing out in front of you.

As the episodes continued, the two of you lay there, cuddled together, and for a while, it felt like everything was normal. Like nothing had changed. Like it was just another day with Jake, watching TV, laughing, and being wrapped up in each other’s company.

But beneath the surface, the feelings you had been pushing down—the butterflies, the warmth, the way your heart fluttered whenever he touched you—were impossible to ignore. You told yourself it was just the comfort of your friendship, the way it had always been. Just like friends do… right?

But deep down, you knew things weren’t as simple as that anymore.

𓃦

Graduation day came quicker than you expected. You stood in the sea of caps and gowns, clutching your diploma, feeling a mixture of pride and dread. While everyone else seemed thrilled about what was next—about new beginnings and new places—your heart was stuck in the in-between, not ready to let go of the familiar. Jake found you after the ceremony, that wide grin on his face, as he pulled you into a tight hug.

“I can’t believe we’re going to the same uni!”

You smiled back, trying to match his enthusiasm. He looked so happy, and of course you were glad—relieved, even—that he’d be there. But deep down, something felt off. Maybe it was the weight of everything that had been building over the past few years, the growing feelings you still hadn’t found the courage to face. Being with Jake every day, pretending like things hadn’t changed between you, felt both comforting and terrifying. You nodded and said, “I know Jake! I’m so happy.”

The smile you gave him was genuine, but the anxiety underneath it was real too. You weren’t ready to unpack it, so you buried it deeper, pretending everything was just like it always had been.

Summer vacation arrived, and for a little while, everything went back to normal. The usual hangouts, lazy afternoons, and spontaneous adventures. But then one afternoon, while you were at Jake’s house, he broke some unexpected news.

“Hey, so… I’ve got something to tell you,” Jake said casually, tossing a soccer ball up and catching it as you both lounged on the couch.

You looked at him curiously. “What’s up?”

“I’m going away for a few weeks,” he said, grinning like a kid with a secret. “Family trip. We’re flying out in a few days.”

Your stomach dropped, but you tried not to let it show. “Oh… wow, that’s amazing,” you said, forcing a smile. “You’ll have the best time.”

Jake seemed oblivious to the little hitch in your voice. “Yeah, I’m really excited. But don’t worry,” he added, his smile softening, “I’ll text you every day. I’ll send you a million pictures, and we can still video call, okay?”

You nodded, your chest tightening. “Of course. Every day,” you agreed, giving him a playful nudge to keep the mood light.

The day he left came too quickly. You stood in front of his house, the early morning sun casting long shadows on the driveway as Jake loaded his suitcase into the car. You knew you’d see him again in a few weeks, but the thought of not having him around for even that short time felt strange.

When he finally walked over to say goodbye, you couldn’t help but throw your arms around him, hugging him tightly. You felt him hug you back just as firmly, his chin resting on the top of your head for a moment. “I’ll miss you,” he said softly, and you could hear the smile in his voice.

You didn’t trust yourself to speak right away, so you just nodded into his chest, squeezing him a little tighter. “Miss you too,” you finally murmured.

As he pulled back and grabbed his bags, you forced yourself to smile again, waving as he got into the car. “Text me when you land!” you called, your voice a little too cheerful.

“I will!” he shouted back with a grin, giving you one last wave before the car pulled away, taking him to the airport. You stood there long after the car disappeared, feeling like something was tugging at your heart, pulling you in two different directions.

𓃦

For the first week, things went exactly as Jake promised. Every day, without fail, your phone would buzz with messages from him—pictures of the cobblestone streets, snapshots of old buildings, random selfies where he’d make some goofy face just to make you laugh. He’d text about everything he saw, about how much fun he was having, but how he still missed home. How he missed you.

You’d text back just as eagerly, sometimes staying up late to video call when he found a quiet moment between exploring and family dinners. Seeing his face on the screen, hearing his laugh, made the distance feel smaller, like he wasn’t halfway across the world. Even though your feelings for him were still swirling in that confusing, unspoken space, you were content.

But then, something changed.

At first, it was small. Messages taking a little longer to be delivered. You didn’t think much of it; after all, he was traveling and probably busy. You told yourself it was fine. Normal, even.

Then the delays became longer. His texts would come hours late, and when you’d reply, your messages would sit there, marked as "Delivered," but no response would come. You’d send a couple more, asking if everything was okay, but still—nothing.

The video calls stopped altogether. You’d sit there with your phone, waiting for that familiar ringtone, hoping for the notification that never came. You started calling him, hoping to catch him during a break, but every time it went straight to voicemail. You listened to the same generic message over and over until you stopped trying altogether.

Days passed, then a week. The silence was gnawing at you, growing heavier with every unanswered text, every missed call. You told yourself it was just because he was busy, that maybe his phone wasn’t working properly. But deep down, you knew something felt wrong.

Sitting on your bed one evening, your phone in hand, you stared at the last message you’d sent him. It had been two days. Two days of nothing but silence from the person you talked to every single day for as long as you could remember. You scrolled up through the chat, rereading the messages you’d exchanged—the jokes, the casual “I miss you,” the pictures of his trip. But now, everything felt distant, as if the closeness between you was slipping away.

With a sigh, you sent one last message, a simple, “Are you okay? I miss hearing from you.”

You watched the message shift to "Delivered" once again. And just like the others, it sat there, unanswered, as your chest tightened with the weight of the silence.

You couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, and after days of silence, you decided you had to reach out to someone who might know what was going on.

With a deep breath, you dialed Jake’s mom, your heart racing as the phone rang. You felt a wave of relief wash over you when she finally answered, her warm voice a comforting sound amidst your anxiety.

“Hello?” she said, and you could hear the faint sounds of life around her—distant chatter, the clinking of dishes.

“Hi, Mrs. Sim, it’s me. I was just checking in on Jake,” you said, trying to keep your voice steady despite the nervous flutter in your stomach.

“Oh, hello, dear! I’m glad you called,” she replied, her tone brightening. But then, you noticed a shift, a slight hesitance in her voice. “Um, Jake hasn’t been feeling very well. He’s been locked in his hotel room for a few days now.”

Your heart dropped at the news. “Oh no, I—I didn’t know. Is he okay?”

“He’s just been a bit under the weather. Nothing serious, but he’s been resting and trying to recover,” she explained, her voice laced with concern. “I think he might just be feeling overwhelmed. Traveling can be a lot, especially for someone like Jake who hates missing out on anything.”

You felt a mixture of relief and worry. At least he hadn’t decided to cut you out of his life completely, but the thought of him feeling unwell and isolated made your chest ache. “Is there anything I can do? I’d love to talk to him or help in any way.”

“I appreciate that. I’ll let him know you called, and maybe it’ll lift his spirits a bit,” she said kindly. “He loves talking to you. You’re a good friend to him.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Sim” you replied, your heart warming at her words. “Just let him know I’m thinking of him, okay?”

“Of course. I’ll keep you updated. Take care, sweetheart,” she said before ending the call.

You set your phone down, a whirlwind of emotions flooding your mind. You felt better knowing he wasn’t purposely ignoring you, but the worry still gnawed at you.

For the next few days, you kept your phone close, hoping for a message or a call from him. You tried to focus on other things—hanging out with friends, reading, and enjoying the last of your summer—but your thoughts kept drifting back to Jake. You wondered how he was doing, if he was feeling any better, and if he’d return to you once he was back in the groove of life.

That night, as you lay in bed, you found it hard to sleep, thoughts of him swirling in your mind. You wished you could be there, to comfort him and remind him that he wasn’t alone, even if he was miles away.

𓃦

One afternoon, your phone rang, jolting you out of your thoughts. The screen lit up with Jake’s name, and you felt a rush of relief and excitement. You answered quickly, your heart racing.

“Jake! How are you?” you asked, the words tumbling out before you could even think.

“Hey! I’m… I’m okay,” he replied, his voice slightly strained but attempting to sound casual. “Just had a bit of a stomach flu, that’s all.”

Your heart sank at his words. “A stomach flu? Is that really all? You sounded… rushed.”

He hesitated for a moment, and you could practically hear the gears turning in his mind. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just needed a few days to rest and get better. You know how it is.”

“Are you sure? You don’t sound fine,” you pressed gently, trying to keep your voice calm. “Have you seen a doctor? I’m really worried about you.”

“Really, I’m okay! Just a little weak, but nothing I can’t handle,” he insisted, though the slight quiver in his voice gave away that he wasn’t as reassured as he wanted you to be.

You could hear faint noises in the background, muffled voices and the sound of footsteps. It made your stomach churn. “Where are you right now?”

“In the hotel,” he replied quickly. “Just had to step out for a second. It’s not a big deal; I’ll be fine, I promise.”

Your heart ached at how much he was trying to downplay it. “Jake, if you need anything… I mean, I wish I could be there with you. Just tell me the truth. You don’t have to act tough for me.”

A pause stretched between you, filled only with the sound of his shallow breaths. “I know, and I appreciate that. But really, I’ll be okay. I just need to take it easy for a bit, and I’ll be back home before you know it.”

You sighed, feeling a mix of relief and lingering concern. “Alright, but if it gets worse, promise me you’ll see a doctor. I don’t want you to push yourself too hard.”

“Deal,” he said, a hint of a smile in his voice, though it didn’t quite reach his tone. “I’ll keep you posted, okay? Thanks for worrying about me.”

“Of course I worry about you! You’re my best friend,” you said, your voice softening. “I just want you to be healthy and happy.”

“Trust me, I’ll get back to being my usual self soon,” he reassured you, though you could hear the weariness beneath his words. “And then, we’ll catch up like crazy. I’ve got stories to tell you, and you’ll be sick of hearing me.”

You laughed softly, trying to lighten the mood. “I could never get sick of you. Just focus on getting better.”

“Will do. I’ll text you later, alright? I might need a distraction from all this hotel room boredom,” he said, and you could almost picture him leaning back against the wall, trying to play it cool even while you knew he was still feeling unwell.

“Okay, I’ll be here,” you replied, hoping to convey your support through the screen.

“Talk soon!” he said before hanging up, leaving you with a lingering worry in your heart. You stared at your phone, feeling a mix of relief and concern. While you were grateful to hear his voice, you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was still holding back.

In the days that followed, you couldn’t help but check your phone constantly, hoping for another call or message from him.

After all, that’s what friends were for, right?

After what felt like an eternity, Jake finally returned home. You could hardly contain your excitement as you made your way to his house, your heart racing at the thought of seeing him again. You knocked on the door, and when it swung open, you were greeted by a familiar face that felt both comforting and disheartening all at once.

Jake stood there, looking a little rough around the edges. His hair was messier than usual, longer than it had been when he left, and he wore a faded t-shirt that hung loosely on his frame. Dark circles under his eyes hinted at the exhaustion he must have felt after his ordeal, and your heart ached for him.

“Hey!” he said, a tired smile breaking through as he stepped aside to let you in.

“Hey,” you replied, trying to keep your voice light. But you couldn’t hide the concern in your eyes as you took in his appearance. “Wow, you look… different.”

He chuckled softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I guess I’ve been through a lot these past few weeks. Just trying to catch up on sleep and everything.”

You stepped inside and closed the door behind you, your eyes never leaving him. “Are you good? Really?”

He paused for a moment, meeting your gaze. “I’m okay,” he reassured you, though the way he said it made you wonder just how much of that was true. “Just a little tired. Traveling takes a lot out of you.”

You raised an eyebrow, unconvinced. “It’s more than just traveling, isn’t it?”

Jake sighed, glancing away for a moment. “Yeah, it was tough over there. I didn’t expect to get sick, and then I just… I don’t know. It kind of hit me hard.”

You took a step closer, feeling the urge to comfort him. “You should have let me know. I worried about you, you know.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for the radio silence,” he said, his voice softening. “I didn’t want to worry you more than I already had. I thought I’d bounce back quicker, but… it just took longer than I expected.”

You nodded, biting your lip as you fought back a wave of emotion. “I’m just glad you’re back now. That you’re okay,” you said quietly.

He smiled, a genuine warmth spreading across his face, even as it faded quickly. “Yeah, it feels good to be home. And to see you.”'

You glanced around the living room, taking in the familiar space. “Can I get you anything? Water? Snacks?”

He shook his head. “I’m good for now. I just want to hang out and catch up. It’s been too long.”

With a small smile, you settled onto the couch, and he joined you, sinking into the cushions.

𓃦

As you both settled into university life, the first few weeks flew by in a whirlwind of classes, social events, and late-night study sessions. Everything felt exciting and new, but as the days passed, you began to notice small changes in Jake that made you raise an eyebrow.

For starters, there was his appetite. You had always known he liked to eat, but now, he seemed to be craving meat more than ever. He'd pile on burgers and chicken during lunch, his eyes lighting up at the sight of a plate full of food. “Are you trying to bulk up or something?” you teased one day as he loaded up his plate again.

“Just hungry, okay?” he replied with a laugh, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to it.

Then there was football practice. Watching him on the field, you noticed how he had an intensity that was different. He was stronger, more aggressive, effortlessly sending other players flying with just a slight push. You had seen him play before, but now it felt like he was operating on another level. It was impressive, but a part of you felt uneasy—he seemed to have tapped into some hidden reserve of energy and strength that wasn’t there before.

And then there were the crowds. You had always known Jake wasn’t a huge fan of loud places, but it was as if his sensitivity had amplified. You could see him tense up during busy events, his eyes darting around as he tried to find a way to escape the noise. The first time you noticed it was during orientation week, when the crowd of students became too overwhelming for him. He started to look pale, and you instinctively reached out to take his hand, leading him to a quieter corner.

After that, you decided to get him a pair of noise-canceling headphones, and the smile that lit up his face when you handed them to him was one of the best moments of your week. “You really didn’t have to do this,” he said, beaming. “But thank you. This will help a lot.”

You also started to see how protective he was of his belongings, especially around others. If someone asked to borrow his jacket or a book, he would hesitate, giving them a wary look before declining. But when it came to you, it was a different story. He’d drape his jacket around your shoulders without a second thought, his expression softening as he did so. “You need it more than I do,” he’d insist, a playful smirk on his lips.

But then there were the moments that made your heart race. Jake seemed to have developed a stealthy ability to sneak up on you. Whether you were in the library, waiting for a class to start, or hanging out with friends, he would appear out of nowhere, catching you off guard. One day, he crept up while you were reading, and before you knew it, he had his arms around your waist, pulling you into a quick embrace.

“Gotcha!” he whispered, his breath warm against your ear.

Yet, there were also those times when Jake would go quiet at night, his responses to your texts dwindling to a halt. It worried you, but every morning, he would greet you with a bright smile, as if the late-night silence never happened. “Sorry, I fell asleep,” he would say with an easy laugh, but you couldn’t shake the feeling that he was hiding something deeper.

And during lunch or class, you discovered a new side of him when you absentmindedly played with his hair while chatting about your day. His cheeks would flush, and he’d lean into your touch, practically melting under your fingers. The sight of him so relaxed, so vulnerable, made your heart race.

But the most puzzling change was his protectiveness whenever he saw you talking to other guys. It would start with a small frown, then a quick, almost possessive stride toward you. “Hey, what’s going on here?” he’d say, slinging an arm around your shoulders or wrapping his hands around your waist, pulling you closer to him.

“Just chatting!” you’d laugh, but there was something deeper in his eyes, a flicker of jealousy that made your stomach twist with both excitement and confusion.

As the weeks progressed, you found yourself caught in a whirlwind of emotions, trying to decipher the layers of Jake that were unfolding before you. Each small change, each interaction seemed to pull you deeper into a storm of feelings you weren’t sure how to navigate.

𓃦

As the semester rolled on, more instances of Jake's behavior began to pile up, each one both endearing and perplexing. You often found yourself caught off guard by the small things he did, but they all hinted at a change in your relationship dynamics.

One chilly afternoon, you were waiting outside your art class when you spotted a group of guys laughing and joking nearby. You knew them from a few classes, and they were friendly enough, so you struck up a conversation with them while you waited for Jake. As you laughed at one of their jokes, you suddenly felt a presence behind you. You turned to see Jake standing there, arms crossed, a frown etched across his face.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his tone slightly guarded.

“Yeah, we were just talking,” you replied, a little confused by his sudden seriousness.

“Right,��� he said, but you could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced. He shifted closer, placing himself between you and the other guys, a protective wall. It felt both amusing and oddly comforting, like he was silently claiming his territory.

Then there was the day you decided to join a study group for a particularly challenging class. You were excited to meet new people and tackle the material together. When Jake found out, he raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure you want to do that? What if they’re not nice?”

“Jake, they’re just a group of classmates. It’s fine,” you reassured him, but there was a flicker of concern in his eyes. “I’ll be okay.”

“Okay, but if they give you any trouble, you let me know,” he said firmly, his expression softening as he added, “I don’t want anyone messing with you.”

You couldn’t help but chuckle at how protective he had become. “I promise, I’ll call you if there’s a problem.”

During one of your late-night study sessions at the library, you noticed a few guys at the table across from you trying to get your attention, making silly faces and cracking jokes. You rolled your eyes and focused on your work, but it didn’t go unnoticed by Jake, who was sitting beside you.

He had been quiet for most of the evening, but as the teasing escalated, you felt him tense beside you. Suddenly, he stood up, stretching out as if he were getting ready to leave. “Hey, I need to grab something from my bag,” he said, but you could see the determination in his eyes.

As he walked over to the other table, you felt a wave of confusion wash over you. You watched him lean over and say something to the guys, who immediately straightened up, looking taken aback. You couldn’t hear what he said, but you could see their faces drop, and they quickly turned their attention back to their own work.

When he returned to you, he sat down with a satisfied smile, as if he had just completed some important mission. “You okay?” you asked, trying to keep the laughter out of your voice.

“Yeah, just thought I’d remind them to keep it down,” he said casually, but you could tell there was more behind it.

“Thanks, I guess?” you replied, shaking your head in disbelief. “But you didn’t have to do that.”

“I know,” he said, a hint of defensiveness creeping into his voice. “But I didn’t like the way they were looking at you.”

Another instance that stood out was during a group project for one of your classes. You were paired with a few other students, including a guy named Alex who seemed to take a particular interest in you. Jake, who had been working quietly at the other end of the table, suddenly cleared his throat, drawing attention back to himself.

“Hey, can you help me with this part of the project?” he called out, shooting you a look that practically screamed “rescue me.” You couldn’t help but smile, recognizing his attempt to reclaim your attention.

“Sure, what do you need?” you replied, eager to help him out.

As you leaned over to see his notes, you felt Jake’s knee bump against yours, and he shifted closer, as if to shield you from the rest of the group. You caught Alex’s curious gaze and felt a mix of amusement as Jake shot him a pointed look that said, “Back off.”

But it was during one of your routine coffee runs that his behavior really hit home. You had both decided to take a break between classes and popped into a nearby café. As you waited for your drinks, you noticed a girl from your sociology class come up to Jake, smiling brightly as she engaged him in conversation.

You watched as Jake’s demeanor shifted. He went from being relaxed to immediately on guard. He answered her questions politely, but you could see the way his shoulders tensed and how his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

When she asked if he wanted to join her table, he glanced at you before shaking his head. “Nah, I’m good. I’m here with my friend,” he said, motioning towards you.

As soon as she left, he turned to you, an exasperated look on his face. “I don’t know what it is, but something about her just rubs me the wrong way.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his overprotectiveness. “Jake, she’s just being friendly!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to take any chances,” he said firmly, crossing his arms again.

Each of these instances piled on top of one another, weaving a complicated tapestry of feelings that left you questioning the nature of your friendship. Jake’s protective instincts made your heart race, igniting a spark of something deeper that you couldn’t quite define. The way he cared for you made you feel special, but the intensity of it all left you wondering where the lines between friendship and something more began to blur.

𓃦

One evening, as you were lounging in your room, scrolling through social media, a message from Hyerin popped up on your screen. “Hey, you need to check the news,” she wrote, and your curiosity was piqued. Clicking on the link she sent, you were met with a local news report that sent a shiver down your spine.

According to the report, several residents had reported hearing loud howls echoing from the nearby forest at night. Some claimed to have even spotted a large creature lurking at the outskirts of town—something that resembled a wolf, but much larger. The local authorities had dismissed the reports, attributing the sounds to normal wildlife, but the article featured alarming witness accounts that painted a more sinister picture.

You felt a rush of adrenaline mixed with unease. The thought of a creature prowling just outside your town was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. You quickly typed out a message to Jake, sharing what you had found.

“Did you see this? There are reports of howls coming from the forest, and people say they saw a giant wolf!”

His reply came almost instantly. “It’s probably just a normal wolf, nothing to worry about,” he typed back casually, as if the news was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

But you weren’t convinced. The stories echoed in your mind, and a sense of adventure began to bubble up within you. You felt the urge to explore, to see for yourself what was going on in those woods. The idea sent your heart racing, but you hesitated. You knew Jake would be against it if he knew, and you didn’t want to worry him.

After a quick glance at the clock, you grabbed a flashlight, bundled up in a warm jacket, and slipped out of your dorm room. The night air was crisp, and the stars shone brightly overhead as you made your way toward the edge of the forest. With each step, the excitement mingled with a hint of fear, but you pushed it aside, determined to uncover the truth for yourself.

As you approached the tree line, you could hear the rustling leaves and the distant sounds of the night, but your resolve remained firm. The forest loomed before you, shadows dancing between the trees. You took a deep breath, reminding yourself that it was just a hike, just a bit of exploration.

You ventured deeper into the woods, the beam of your flashlight cutting through the darkness. You moved quietly, listening intently for any sounds that might confirm the rumors. As you walked, your imagination ran wild. What if there really was a creature lurking in the shadows? What if you stumbled upon something extraordinary?

But as the minutes passed, the forest seemed eerily still. You stopped occasionally to listen, straining to catch any sound, but all you heard was the faint rustling of leaves. After a while, doubt began to creep in. Was this a fool’s errand? Were you just chasing a ghost story?

Just when you were about to turn back, a loud howl pierced the night air, echoing through the trees. Your heart raced, and you froze in place, eyes wide as you turned toward the sound. It was unmistakable—a chilling howl that seemed to resonate from deep within the forest.

A rush of adrenaline coursed through you, and instinctively, you stepped further into the shadows, driven by curiosity. You followed the sound, drawn deeper into the woods. Each step felt like a leap into the unknown, but you couldn’t turn back now.

Just then, your phone buzzed in your pocket. It was a text from Jake: “Where are you? You’re not out there, are you?”

Your heart skipped a beat. The worry in his text was there. You hesitated, debating whether to respond. He wouldn’t understand your need to explore, your desire to see if the stories were true. But you didn’t want to worry him unnecessarily.

“Just out for a walk,” you typed back, keeping it vague. You silenced your phone and tucked it away, pushing on into the dark.

With every howl that echoed through the trees, your fear grew. What would you find in the heart of the forest? Would you encounter whatever creature was rumored to roam these woods?

But deep down, a small part of you wondered if you should have listened to Jake, if maybe it was better to stay safe at home instead of chasing shadows.

𓃦

Jake’s heart raced as he read your message, panic setting in. “Just out for a walk.” Those words echoed in his mind, mixing with the chilling howls that pierced the night air. He felt a wave of urgency wash over him, and without thinking twice, he leaped from his chair, pulling aside his curtains to reveal the moonlit night outside.

The silvery glow bathed him in light, and he clenched his fists in the fabric of the curtains, fighting against the instinct to leap into action. He could hear it clearly now—the haunting howls from the forest calling out to him, echoing through the stillness of the night. The sounds tugged at something deep inside him, a urge that he could no longer ignore.

With a final groan of frustration, he dashed out of his room. He sprinted down the stairs, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he burst through the front door and into the night. The air was cool against his skin, but he barely noticed, his focus zeroed in on the forest where you had ventured.

Something deep within him stirred, a deep-seated calling that urged him to heed the instinct to protect and defend. The weight of the moon hung heavy in the sky, and as he ran, he could feel the change beginning to take hold. His body was alive with energy, crackling under the moonlight as it beckoned him to transform.

As he neared the edge of the forest, he stumbled momentarily, the first wave of transformation coursing through him. Pain and exhilaration intertwined as his muscles began to stretch and contort beneath his skin. He gasped, the sensation overwhelming him as his bones shifted and restructured, the very essence of his being reshaping itself under the moon's watchful gaze.

The first change came to his face. His jaw elongated, teeth sharpening as a low growl escaped his lips, mixing with the howls echoing from the forest. The ground beneath him felt closer as his spine curved and reshaped, forcing him down onto all fours. He gritted his teeth against the pain, feeling his senses heighten further—each scent more vivid, every sound clearer.

His skin tingled as the transformation progressed, a strange sensation as he felt his human form shed like an old coat. Fur erupted across his body, dark and thick, a protective layer that replaced the skin he had known. He felt bigger, more powerful, muscles rippling under his new pelt, gaining strength with each passing moment. The world shifted around him as his vision sharpened, hues of colors blooming before him in vibrant clarity.

He could feel the ground beneath him, cool and firm, and the smell of the earth was intoxicating. The forest called to him, the trees whispering secrets only he could understand. As he dropped fully onto all fours, his new claws dug into the soil, grounding him in this new form. Jake howled into the night, a sound that reverberated through the forest.

With a final surge of power, he bounded forward into the woods, his senses alive and alert. Each footfall was lighter, quicker, as he raced through the trees, branches whipping past him in a blur.

The howls continued, a symphony of sound that guided him closer to you, his mind focused solely on your safety.

𓃦

At this point the thrill of exploration slowly began to ebb, replaced by an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach. The howls had become louder, echoing through the trees with an intensity that sent shivers down your spine. You gripped the flashlight tightly, shining it around, desperately searching for anything out of the ordinary.

But then, in the distance, you spotted them—eyes gleaming in the dark, watching you intently. A chill ran through you as you realized you had wandered too far into their territory. Panic surged as you turned to flee, but the sound of rustling leaves behind you made it clear you were being pursued.

You stumbled into a small clearing, breathless, but the moment you looked back, dread washed over you. A pack of wolves emerged from the shadows, their eyes reflecting the moonlight like tiny stars. They circled you, growling low, their powerful forms tense and poised for action. You felt trapped, your heart racing as they advanced slowly, their jaws snapping in warning.

Desperation surged within you, and you quickly scanned your surroundings. In your panic, you spotted a long stick lying on the ground nearby. Grabbing it, you held it out in front of you, your hands shaking as you attempted to keep the snarling pack at bay.

“Stay back!” you shouted, your voice trembling as you brandished the stick, trying to appear more intimidating than you felt. The wolves paused momentarily, their heads tilting as if considering your resolve. You knew that bluffing wouldn’t hold them off for long; the pack was far more powerful than you could ever hope to be alone.

They growled again, a low rumble that vibrated in your chest, and as they lunged forward, you swung the stick wildly, desperate to fend them off. The closest wolf dodged your swing, its fur brushing against your arm as it darted past. Adrenaline coursed through your veins as you took a step back, trying to gauge their movements.

“Get away from me!” you yelled, your voice echoing in the stillness of the forest. But they were undeterred, their eyes locked on you, the alpha leading the charge as the others flanked it, their growls growing more intense.

You couldn’t let fear take over. You swung the stick again, aiming for the lead wolf. It snarled and snapped, but you managed to land a glancing blow against its shoulder, causing it to yelp and momentarily back off. But the other wolves seemed emboldened by its pain, their growls intensifying as they began to close in.

You backed away, your mind racing. You needed a way out. Just as the wolves lunged again, you heard a powerful howl pierce the night, echoing through the trees and causing the pack to hesitate.

Suddenly, a massive form leaped out from the shadows of the trees, a silhouette framed against the moonlight. The huge wolf landed gracefully in front of you. You stood frozen, your breath catching in your throat as you took in the size of the creature. Its fur was dark and sleek, rippling with muscle.

The wolves seemed to pause, studying the bigger wolf, their growls wavering as they assessed this new threat. Before you could fully process what was happening, one of the smaller wolves lunged at the big one, teeth bared and claws extended. But with a swift, graceful movement, the larger wolf sidestepped the attack and retaliated, raking its claws across the attacking wolf's side. The smaller wolf yelped in surprise and pain, tumbling backward into the underbrush.

More snarls erupted from the pack as they charged in tandem, but the massive wolf stood its ground, fighting valiantly. It was a whirlwind of fur and fangs, gracefully avoiding bites while delivering powerful blows to any wolf that dared to get too close. You watched in awe, feeling a mix of admiration and terror as the larger wolf defended you with ferocity, every growl reverberating in your chest.

Just as one of the wolves bit down on the big creature's front leg, you felt a surge of panic. It clawed and snapped, trying to gain the upper hand, but the larger wolf retaliated with a deep, rumbling growl, shaking off the smaller wolf like an annoyance. With each strike, the pack began to falter, sensing they were no match for the sheer power and tenacity of their adversary.

The battle raged for a few intense moments, the sounds of snarling and growling echoing around you, until, finally, the remaining wolves began to back off, realizing they were outmatched. With one last menacing snarl, the pack retreated into the shadows of the forest, leaving behind only the echoes of their howls and the fading rustle of leaves.

You stood there, your heart racing, watching as the larger wolf turned its attention to you. Its yellow eyes locked onto yours, and for a fleeting moment, you felt a connection that was both surreal and profound. You tilted your head, curiosity bubbling within you, and the wolf mirrored your gesture, tilting its head in return.

But then, your gaze shifted, and you spotted the blood trickling from a wound on the wolf’s front leg. Concern flooded through you, and without thinking, you reached out a hand, wanting to help this magnificent creature that had protected you so fiercely. But the wolf recoiled, stepping back from your outstretched fingers, its posture shifting to one of alertness.

With a powerful howl that shook your entire body, it filled the night with a resonant sound that seemed to resonate in your bones—a call to the wild, a statement of presence. And just like that, it turned and dashed back into the dark depths of the forest, vanishing into the shadows as swiftly as it had arrived.

You were left standing there, heart pounding, your breath coming in ragged gasps. The adrenaline of the encounter coursed through your veins, mingling with the confusion of what had just transpired.

What had just happened? Who—or what—was that wolf?

𓃦

The next day at university, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement and whispers. As you walked through the crowded halls, snippets of conversation floated around you, each more curious than the last.

“Did you hear the howls last night?” one student remarked, eyes wide with intrigue.

“I thought it was just a dog or something, but it sounded so… different,” another chimed in.

You felt a flutter of unease at the memory of your encounter in the forest, but you brushed it off, focusing on the bustling energy of campus life. Classes went by in a blur, your mind wandering back to the massive wolf and the bond you felt in that fleeting moment. You needed to talk to Jake about it, to share your thoughts and worries, to find some sense of normalcy again.

As you made your way to your usual meeting spot, you spotted him leaning against a wall, chatting with a couple of his friends. He looked as handsome as ever, his dark hair falling just above his eyes, a smile gracing his lips as he joked with them. But there was something else there, a tension that you couldn’t quite place.

You approached him, a smile breaking on your face. “Hey, Jake! Did you hear what everyone’s talking about?”

“Yeah,” he replied, a hint of amusement in his voice. “Seems like everyone’s a wolf expert now.”

You laughed, trying to keep the mood light. “Right?”

Before Jake could respond, one of his friends, Sam, came up and playfully hit him on the shoulder. “Hey, man! You up for some football practice after school?”

At the friendly jab, Jake flinched, a brief flash of pain crossing his face before he quickly masked it with a grin. “Yeah, sure. I’m in,” he replied, but you could see the tension in his shoulders, how his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

You felt a twinge of concern but decided against bringing it up. Instead, you played along, joining in on the lighthearted banter, though your mind kept drifting back to the moment from the day before. Why had he reacted that way? Was he hurt?

As the conversation continued, you observed Jake closely, noting how he seemed to stiffen when Sam clapped him on the back and how he carefully shifted his weight as if trying to alleviate discomfort.

Concern gnawed at you, but you decided to give him some space, figuring he might need time to deal with whatever was bothering him on his own.

You left him with his friends, offering a quick smile and a wave before heading off to your next class. Throughout the day, you kept your distance, hoping he would take the opportunity to rest or confide in someone else if he needed to. But it seemed your efforts were in vain.

Jake sought you out during school, showing up in places he normally wouldn’t. During lunch, you had decided to sit outside in a secluded corner of the campus, enjoying the quiet and fresh air. Just as you were getting comfortable, you heard footsteps approaching. You looked up to see Jake walking toward you, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Hey,” he said, plopping down beside you. “What are you doing all the way out here?”

You couldn’t help but smile back, though your concern for him lingered. “Just wanted some fresh air. What about you?”

He shrugged, leaning back on his hands. “Wanted to see how you were doing.”

You nodded, deciding not to press him on.

The two of you chatted casually, the conversation flowing easily as it always did. Despite your intention to give him space, he seemed to seek out your company more than ever.

After school, you decided to stop by a small café on the edge of town, a place you rarely visited. You thought you’d have some time to yourself, to process everything that had been happening. But as you were sipping your coffee and flipping through a book, you felt a familiar presence. Looking up, you saw Jake standing in the doorway, scanning the room until his eyes landed on you.

“There you are,” he said, walking over and sliding into the seat across from you. “I was looking for you.”

You raised an eyebrow, surprised. “Here? How did you know I’d be here?”

He shrugged again, a sheepish grin spreading across his face. “Lucky guess, I guess.”

𓃦

The quiet hum of the evening filled the room as you and Jake worked on homework together at his house, papers and textbooks scattered around you. The familiar scent of his room, the soft music playing in the background, and the comfortable silence between you two felt like old times.

But then, as Jake reached out for his notebook, you caught a brief flash of pain in his expression. His jaw tightened, and his hand faltered just slightly before he pulled it back. The small moment didn’t escape you; you could see something was bothering him, more than just physical discomfort.

“Jake,” you said softly, breaking the silence, “are you… okay? You look like you’re hurting.”

He looked up, caught off guard, and quickly brushed it off, frowning. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“Jake,” you pressed, feeling your worry bubble over. “I’ve known you long enough to tell when something’s wrong. Please… just talk to me.”

His eyes flashed with a hint of irritation. “I already told you, I’m fine. You don’t need to keep worrying about me.”

“I care about you, Jake,” you replied, frustration seeping into your tone. “It’s not like I can just turn that off when I can see you’re in pain.”

He clenched his jaw, looking away. “You always do this, you know? Acting like you’re supposed to fix everything for me.”

Your breath caught at the sharpness of his words, and you felt your heart crack just a little. “I’m just trying to be there for you, Jake. Isn’t that what friends do?”

His eyes met yours, but instead of softening, they grew colder. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he said quietly. “Maybe I don’t need you trying to solve all my problems.”

You sat back, stunned. His words felt like a punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of you. “I didn’t realize… that’s how you saw it,” you whispered, your voice wavering. Tears prickled at the corners of your eyes as you grabbed your books and notebooks, your heart pounding with hurt and anger. “Fine, Jake. I get it.”

“Wait—” His hand reached out for you, panic flashing in his eyes, but you pulled away before he could touch you. You didn’t want to hear his apologies, didn’t want him to see the tears that were already beginning to slip down your cheeks.

You bolted for the door, your vision blurry as you forced yourself not to look back. Jake called your name, his voice tinged with desperation, but you didn’t stop. You stepped out into the night, your heart breaking with each step. You didn’t want to see him, didn’t want to hear him apologize for something that had already cut too deep.

Lost in thought, you hadn’t realized where your feet had taken you until you looked up and found yourself standing at the edge of the forest. The sun had dipped lower in the sky, casting a warm, fading glow over the trees as the shadows lengthened, creeping out toward you.

You sighed, staring into the darkness that stretched ahead. Your day had been ruined—by Jake, of all people. Jake, your best friend. The one you trusted, the one you cared about… the one you loved, even if you hadn’t ever admitted it out loud. You knew he didn’t mean what he’d said, deep down. You’d seen the look of regret in his eyes as you’d left, and you could imagine he was probably beating himself up over it even now.

Still, the words stung, and the distance between you now felt unbearably real. Maybe, you thought, you’d just give him a few days to cool off, let things settle. And hopefully, like always, it would be okay again.

For now, though, you needed space—a place to clear your mind. You took a few steps into the forest, staying close to the edge but just far enough in to feel the peace of nature wrapping around you.

You kept your steps light, careful not to venture too deep; the last thing you wanted was to accidentally wander into wolf territory. Even the memory of last night’s encounter sent a shiver through you, though you pushed it aside. The forest was peaceful enough, and it wasn’t long before the tension in your shoulders began to ease, your breathing slowing as you took in the fresh air.

But, as you ventured just a little further, a strange feeling crept over you—a prickling awareness, like you were being watched. You turned slowly, peering back the way you came, but saw nothing beyond the dim light filtering through the trees.

"Probably just my imagination," you murmured to yourself, hugging your arms against the chill that had suddenly settled over you. The forest felt heavier now, somehow… like a place holding its breath, waiting.

As you took a deep breath to steady yourself, a low, menacing growl echoed from behind the trees. You froze, your heart racing as you slowly turned to find a lone wolf stalking toward you, its fur matted and eyes gleaming with a wild, hostile glint. The wolf’s coat was streaked with dirt, and you could see small wounds marring its side and face—scratches and cuts that looked fresh, as if it had recently fought for its life.

You held your breath, hoping it might lose interest if you stayed still, but it took a step closer, teeth bared and eyes locked onto you with a predatory intensity. The wounded creature seemed to be caught between fight and flight, each shallow breath a reminder of its pain and anger.

Your mind raced, frantically searching for what little you knew about wild animals. Don’t run. Stay calm. Don’t look it directly in the eyes. But it was hard to keep your gaze from the wolf as it crept forward, snarling, its muscles tensing as if ready to lunge.

You raised your hands slowly, trying to look as non-threatening as possible, your voice barely a whisper. “Hey… it’s okay. I’m not here to hurt you.”

The wolf didn’t seem to care. Its eyes narrowed, lips curling back further as it let out another snarl, the sound raw and desperate. You took a tentative step back, your heart pounding, the weight of the forest closing in around you.

The lone wolf’s snarl grew fiercer as it sized you up, its gaze fixed and threatening. You took another cautious step back, your pulse racing with fear and adrenaline, when, out of nowhere, a massive shadow streaked through the trees. The large wolf from last night leaped between you and the lone wolf, teeth bared in a fierce snarl.

What followed was a brutal clash—snarls and growls tore through the forest as the two wolves fought. They snapped and lunged, claws and teeth colliding in a flurry of movement. The lone wolf yelped, wounded and humiliated, and staggered back, casting a resentful glance at you before limping off into the trees, bloodied and beaten.

In the sudden silence, the larger wolf turned toward you, breath heaving, blood and saliva dripping from its bared teeth and maw. Its eyes were wild, gleaming yellow and intense, locked onto you. You froze, swallowing hard as it took a single step closer.

But something within you stopped you from backing away this time. You took a steady breath, raising your hand slightly. “Hey, it’s okay,” you whispered, your voice soft but steady. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The wolf’s intense gaze softened, its body visibly relaxing as it crept closer. It lowered its head, breathing heavily, and your pulse quickened as its warm breath washed over you, its massive frame towering above. Just when you thought you might be out of luck, it gave a strange, almost playful yip, leaning forward and swiping its tongue from your stomach up to your chin in a single, sticky lick.

You cringed, wiping your face. “Ew, oh my god.” The wolf leapt back, its eyes seeming almost… amused, as if it had understood your reaction. It started to bounce around in a way that almost looked like playfulness, pawing at the ground and glancing back up at you, the wildness in its gaze replaced by a warmth, an odd spark of familiarity. You stared, studying its eyes—they looked so human, so gentle.

You tilted your head as the big wolf came around, its presence both powerful and strangely comforting. It nudged your hand, its head pressing softly against your palm, and you hesitated before slowly reaching out, letting your fingers sink into its thick fur. The wolf let out a low rumble, leaning into your touch, its eyes closing as it nuzzled closer.

Then, with a quiet huff, the wolf rolled over, exposing its stomach. You couldn’t help but smile, realizing it wanted you to rub its belly like some kind of overgrown dog. As your fingers brushed through its fur, something caught your attention—a small scrap of fabric caught near its shoulder. You reached over, fingers tugging it free, only to stare in shock at the familiar material between your fingers.

It was a piece of Jake’s jacket.

You froze, your eyes darting from the scrap of fabric to the wolf’s face. The wolf’s gaze met yours, and you saw something there, a flicker of emotion that wasn’t just animal instinct.

“Jake?” you whispered, voice barely audible.

The wolf let out a soft, almost pitiful whine, its ears flattening as it looked down, its expression suddenly filled with shame. Your heart raced as the realization sunk in fully. This creature, this powerful wolf who had saved you—it was Jake.

You knelt beside him, reaching out slowly, your hand hovering before you let it rest gently on his head. “It really is you, isn’t it?” you murmured, the shock of it all making your voice tremble. The wolf closed his eyes, leaning into your hand, the shame melting away for a moment as he accepted your touch.

You stayed there, your hand resting on his head, letting the surreal reality sink in. Jake—the Jake who’d grown up beside you, who teased you endlessly and made you laugh, who’d been distant and guarded since his trip abroad—was here in front of you as a massive, powerful wolf. A whirlwind of emotions washed over you: shock, worry, relief, even an odd sense of awe. But above all, there was something oddly comforting in the way he leaned into your hand, his massive frame somehow still familiar despite his transformation.

The wolf let out another low whine, his eyes searching yours, as if trying to communicate what words could never convey. Gently, you moved your hand from his head, resting it against his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat beneath thick fur. He was still Jake. Somewhere beneath the wild exterior was your best friend, the person you cared about deeply.

Without saying a word, you sank down beside him, and he curled around you protectively, his body a warm, solid presence in the cool forest.

After a while, Jake moved, his head nudging your hand again, almost in a comforting gesture. And then, with a soft huff, he pressed his nose to your cheek, his eyes softer than you’d ever seen them.

“Jake…” you whispered again, feeling a lump form in your throat. “You don’t have to hide this from me. I’m here. I’ll help you, no matter what.”

The wolf met your gaze, his eyes shining with an emotion so raw and vulnerable it made your heart ache. He stepped closer, his gaze steady and intent, before letting his head rest on your shoulder, leaning into you as if accepting that promise.

As you stayed there, holding onto the warmth and strength he offered, you understood: whatever had changed Jake, whatever he had gone through, it hadn’t taken away the person he was. And you’d be there with him, every step of the way.

𓃦

The quiet of the house felt almost fragile as you tiptoed your way to your room, Jake trailing closely behind. Sneaking a full-sized wolf inside wasn’t exactly easy, especially with a few close calls as you both bumped into things along the way. You held your breath every time something clattered, tensing and listening for any sounds of your family stirring. But, to your relief, the house remained silent.

Finally, you managed to usher Jake into your room, closing the door quietly and locking it for good measure. When you turned around, you found him standing by the window, his large frame silhouetted by the pale moonlight. His eyes were fixed on the full moon, an otherworldly shine glinting in them as he let out a low, almost trance-like whimper. His head tilted back, as if instinctively drawn to the sight, a soft howl rising in his throat.

You quickly slipped past him, tugging the curtains closed and pressing a finger to your lips. “Shhh,” you whispered, and Jake quieted, lowering his head, though his gaze remained on the closed curtains for a long moment as he reluctantly turned away.

“Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back,” you murmured, slipping into the bathroom to change. When you returned, you saw him sprawled out by your bed, his head and front paws resting on your mattress while his hind legs remained on the floor. He looked surprisingly at ease, a bit of his usual calm replacing the restless energy that had him fixated on the moon moments earlier.

You rolled your eyes and let out a small groan, clambering into bed beside him, his massive head just inches from yours. Even as a wolf, Jake managed to take up far more space than should’ve been possible.

As you lay there, his warm breath against your skin, you could feel your nerves beginning to settle. Slowly, you reached out, your hand moving to rest on his head, fingers tangling in the fur at his ears. His tail gave a slow, contented thump against the floor, a quiet thank-you in his own way.

When you drifted off, Jake stayed still, his eyes fixed on your peaceful form beside him. The soft rise and fall of your breath, the way your hand had relaxed against his fur, all held his gaze, grounding him in a way he hadn’t expected. Even with the strange pull of the moon, the wild energy simmering under his skin, being here beside you made him feel…normal. Like he could set aside the instincts and chaos, if only for a little while.

He watched the way a small smile played across your lips, almost as if even in sleep, you knew he was there. His head tilted slightly, and he let out a soft exhale, careful not to disturb you. In his wolf form, he couldn’t say what he felt, couldn’t explain the relief that flooded him at seeing you safe and sound after the danger in the woods.

His ears flicked toward the window, catching the distant sounds of the night, the rustle of branches, the faint whisper of the wind. Normally, his senses would pull him toward every little sound, every flicker of movement, but not tonight. Tonight, they all faded into the background as his gaze lingered on you, steady and unwavering.

Eventually, with a gentle rumble that sounded almost like a sigh, he lowered his head beside you, his eyes closing slowly, only allowing himself to rest once he was sure you were deeply asleep. Though he knew the morning would bring questions he wasn’t sure he could answer.

𓃦

You jolted awake, your eyes snapping open to the unexpected sensation of warm, familiar arms wrapped around you. The soft fabric of your sheets clung to your skin, but it was the figure beside you that made your heart race. Turning your head, you were met with the sight of Jake—human Jake—curled into your side, shirtless, his messy hair falling over his forehead. For a split second, your mind raced with confusion before realization hit.

“Jake!” you screamed, and before you could process the panic in your voice, he bolted upright, his eyes wide with shock. In his haste, he miscalculated his position and tumbled off the side of your bed, landing in an undignified heap on the floor with a loud thud. “Whoa!” he yelped, a look of sheer bewilderment on his face. You could barely contain your laughter at the sight—his expression, a mix of shock and embarrassment, made it all the more amusing.

“Oh my god, you should see your face!” you said, trying to catch your breath as you leaned over the side of the bed to see him sprawled out, looking both flustered and slightly embarrassed.

“Okay, okay! Not funny!” Jake huffed, shooting you a mock glare as he scrambled to his feet. The flush creeping across his cheeks only made you laugh harder.

As you got up and made your way to the bathroom, you heard him rummaging around in your closet. When you returned, he had managed to find some extra clothes—an oversized T-shirt that hung loosely on his frame and a pair of sweatpants that made him look even more comfortable. He glanced at you, a sheepish smile breaking through the earlier embarrassment. “Hope this is okay,” he said, his voice slightly shy.

“Looks good on you,” you replied, giving him a playful nudge as you both made your way downstairs.

To your relief, the house was quiet—your family members had left for the day. You went into the kitchen, and together, you began preparing breakfast. The morning sunlight streamed through the windows, casting a warm glow over everything as you and Jake worked side by side.

He cracked a few eggs into the pan while you sliced some fruit, and the comfortable silence between you both was laced with the occasional teasing remark about your culinary skills—or lack thereof.

After breakfast, you settled into the living room, the cozy couch inviting you both to sink into its cushions. Jake stretched out, leaning back with a relaxed sigh, while you curled up beside him, pulling a blanket over your legs.

“So,” you said, looking at him, “about last night…”

Jake turned his head toward you, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features, but before he could respond, you continued, “I’m still trying to wrap my head around everything. You… you really are a wolf.”

He nodded, his expression serious now. “I know it sounds crazy, but there’s a lot more to it than just the transformation.”

You could sense the weight behind his words, the implications of what he was saying. It was clear that whatever had happened, he was still processing it himself. “You can tell me when you’re ready, Jake,” you said gently, offering him a reassuring smile. “I’m here for you.”

Jake took a deep breath, the weight of his confession hanging in the air. You could see the vulnerability in his eyes as he gathered his thoughts. “During my vacation,” he began, his voice steady yet tinged with the remnants of anxiety, “I went for a jog one night. I thought I saw a stray dog lurking in the shadows.” He paused, his expression darkening as if the memory was a physical burden.

“It wasn’t just any dog. It was a wolf,” he continued, shaking his head slightly as if trying to shake off the gravity of the moment. “I didn’t realize until it was too late. It lunged at me, and I felt this sharp pain. I didn’t think much of it at first; I just brushed it off. But then, I got really sick. I spent days locked in my hotel room, feeling like I was losing my mind.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together as he searched your eyes for understanding.

You remained silent, letting him speak, the pieces of the puzzle starting to fit together. “When the full moon came,” he went on, his voice dropping to a whisper, “that’s when everything changed. I transformed.” His eyes flicked to the floor, the weight of his words heavy. “When I woke up, I was in my hotel room, and I had no idea what had happened. I just knew I felt… different. My body was stronger, more aware, but I didn’t understand why. It was like I was… a stranger in my own body. I would feel a need to transform again, to run, to let out whatever this thing is inside me.”

“I called you because I needed to hear your voice,” he admitted, his eyes locking onto yours, filled with sincerity. “But when I got back, I realized something. The moment I saw you, all those instincts— the wild urges, the confusion— it all calmed down. Just being around you made it easier to breathe. But when you aren’t here, the need to transform is overwhelming. I don’t really remember much of what happens when I go under, just flashes of darkness. But when you’re with me… it’s like I come back to myself. I can control it.”

You swallowed hard, heart racing at the implications of his words.

He sat up a little straighter, “When I shouted at you… I didn’t mean it,” he began, sincerity in his voice. “I was confused. Everything I felt for you clashed with what was happening to me. This thing inside was overwhelming, and I was terrified. Terrified of losing control, of hurting you.” His voice trembled slightly, the raw honesty making your heart ache for him.

You opened your mouth to respond, shock flooding through you at his admission, but the words caught in your throat. Instead, you could only gaze at him, wide-eyed and taken aback. “Jake… I—”

He rushed on, misreading your shock as rejection. “I mean, it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way,” he stammered, panic rising in his voice. “You don’t have to like me back. I get it. I’m a mess right now, and it’s not fair to put that on you. I just—”

Before he could spiral further into his own uncertainty, you lunged forward, tackling him gently to the couch. Your lips found his in a swift, urgent kiss, silencing his rambling. The kiss was like a balm to both your hearts. Jake’s surprise quickly melted into warmth as he kissed you back, his hands finding their way to your waist, holding you close.

When you finally pulled back, breathless, you looked into his eyes, searching for something—assurance, maybe, or confirmation.

“Jake,” you breathed, your heart racing. “I love you too.”

His eyes widened in disbelief, a grin slowly breaking across his face. “You… you really mean it?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, as if he feared that saying it out loud might make it disappear.

You nodded, your heart pounding in your chest. “I’ve liked you for a long time, even before all this happened,” you admitted, feeling a wave of relief wash over you. “I was just too scared to say anything.”

“God, I thought I was going crazy,” he chuckled, the tension melting away as he pulled you in for another kiss. He held you close, as if you were the anchor he’d needed to find his way back to himself.

His hands rested firmly on your waist, grounding you in a way you hadn’t realized you desperately needed. You could feel the gentle roughness of his fingers, each touch sending a soft flutter through your heart.

You slipped your hands to his cheeks, your thumb brushing lightly over his skin, feeling the slight stubble that had begun to grow. It felt intimate and electric, as if every lingering doubt and worry from before melted away with each gentle caress.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and smiling, you both stayed close, your foreheads pressed together. Relief washed over you, like a wave sweeping away the remnants of confusion and fear. There were no more secrets, just the two of you, open and honest.

With a soft chuckle, you wrapped your arms around him, pulling him into a warm embrace. Jake melted into the hug, his strong arms encircling you tightly. The moment felt right, like coming home after a long journey. You could feel his heartbeat steadying against yours, matching your own rhythm.

“I’m so glad we finally talked about this,” you murmured into his shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of him that made you feel safe. “I was worried about how you felt.”

“Me too,” he confessed, his voice muffled against your hair. “I was scared I’d mess everything up. But now, it feels like… like I can breathe again.” He pulled back slightly, just enough to look into your eyes, his expression earnest. “You have no idea how much you mean to me.”

You smiled softly, your heart swelling at his words. “I do now,” you replied, warmth flooding through you.

As Jake pulled you in for another kiss, the world around you faded away once more, enveloping you in the warmth of his embrace. His lips moved against yours with a hunger that sent shivers down your spine, and you surrendered to the moment, feeling every worry slip away. Yet, beneath the sweet intimacy, you began to notice something different—deep, low rumbles emanating from his chest, vibrating against your body.

Curiosity tugged at you, and you tried to pull back slightly to gauge what was happening, to make sure he was okay. “Jake?” you murmured, but he didn’t let you go. Instead, he tightened his grip on your waist and pulled you back into the kiss, deepening it with an intensity that made your heart race.

But then you felt something sharp graze against your lip. You gasped and pulled back, eyes wide. His canines had elongated slightly, pressing against your skin. Your heart pounded as you looked at him, noticing how his form seemed to swell beneath you, muscles shifting and growing larger as he transformed.

“Jake!” you exclaimed, your voice filled with concern as you took in the sight before you. His hair had grown fluffier, tousled and wild, and his eyes glowed a striking yellow, reflecting the light with an otherworldly sheen, you could see the subtle signs of his transformation taking hold.

He looked at you, panting softly, his breaths coming in heavy, almost desperate gasps. You could feel the tension in his body, the way he fought to control the change happening within him. “Jake, you need to stop,” you urged, trying to maintain a calmness you didn’t entirely feel. “You’re—”

But before you could finish, he whined softly, his expression pleading as he pulled you back into a kiss, the warmth of his body overwhelming you. Despite the rush of emotions, you could sense the struggle in him—the way he wanted to hold onto you, to keep you close, even as the wolf inside threatened to take over.

Your heart raced, and panic bubbled within you. “Jake, please!” you gasped against his lips, desperately trying to catch your breath. “I don’t want to lose you to this.”

He paused, his eyes searching yours, filled with a mix of longing and confusion. For a moment, it felt as if the connection between you was all that tethered him to his human side. “You won’t lose me,” he promised, his voice barely a whisper, yet it carried a conviction that soothed the fear clawing at your chest.

You swallowed hard, your gaze steady on his. “We can face this together. Just… don’t let it take control, okay?”

Jake nodded, his gaze softening as he leaned in closer, the distance between you two disappearing. The rumble in his chest quieted, and you could see the flicker of the boy you loved shining through the fierce exterior. “I won’t,” he assured, his voice warm and earnest.

As you watched Jake begin to transform, every instinct in you urged you to step back, but you couldn’t tear your gaze away. His body, once solid beneath you, started to shift, muscles rippling under his skin as if they were being pulled by an unseen force. It was both mesmerizing and terrifying.

His back arched slightly, and you could see his spine subtly elongating, each vertebra shifting as his form adjusted to accommodate the changes. The sound of his bones cracking and reforming echoed in your ears, primal and raw, but you didn’t flinch. Instead, you felt a strange sense of awe at the beauty of it all—the way he seemed to be caught between two worlds, the boy you loved and the creature he was destined to become.

His hair thickened, the strands transforming into a soft, plush fur that shimmered in the dim light of your room. You reached out instinctively, fingers brushing against the silky fur, and Jake leaned into your touch, as if it anchored him to his humanity.

His face began to elongate, the jawline widening and reshaping into a more pronounced muzzle. His nose transformed, darkening and broadening, taking on a canine shape. You watched in fascination as his lips curled back, revealing those sharp canines that had grazed your lips moments before.

With each passing second, Jake grew larger, the muscles in his arms and legs expanding, powerful and sinewy. The way he filled out beneath you was a reminder of the strength he possessed. His fingers transformed into powerful paws, claws extending and retracting with a grace that seemed both dangerous and beautiful.

Finally, with a deep, rumbling growl, he shifted onto all fours, the final stage of his transformation complete. His body was now a magnificent wolf, towering and powerful, with a coat that glistened like the night sky. You could hardly believe this majestic creature had once been your best friend, the boy who had made you laugh and smile, who had always been by your side.

As he crouched before you, the wolf’s eyes softened, the wildness within them momentarily quelled by the bond you shared. You reached out again, fingers brushing along his fur, feeling the warmth radiate from his body. The wolf leaned into your touch, letting out a low, deep rumble.

“I love you, Jake,” you said softly, the words spilling out as easily as your breath.

Jake responded with a low whine, his eyes shimmering as he nuzzled closer to you. He licked your hand gently, the roughness of his tongue sending a thrill through you. It was a simple gesture, but it was clear that he understood you.

This was not how you had imagined your life would unfold at all, but it felt undeniably right.

[muckmagister]

ANOTHER RAPID FIRE QUESTION ROUND!!!!! on the condition that it cannot help you escape the deserted island, what is one thing you would take to a deserted island? what's a book that changed your life in high school? what's your ideal job? what's your favorite ice cream flavor? what's your favorite place you ever visited and where would you like to visit someday? what's your favorite video game? again i can't think of any more questions but if you have something you would like to say. well. you can say it. bye bye 💖💖💖

oouhh my god that's a tough question to start with. like the boring answer would be some sort of multi tool but i suppose anything that helps me survive would eventually also help me leave. it'd have to be like. a ball. or some other sort of small nicknack that i could easily keep on me to play around with, oH or my childhood plushy. or actually like a lil instrument like a harmonica to learn that'd be cool. yeaah so like a rubiks cube or a harmonica or my plushie ^^

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was like the only thing i read during middle/high school that wasn't required reading for a class it's fantastic. ok well it wasn't the only thing i read but it's the only thing i've reread like 5 times by now lmao. it definitely helped stoke my imagination and interest in physics with the dumbass sci-fi fkjdksjs

wuuuh i haven't thought too much about it but i think ideally i end up in some sort of pure mathematics research position; i imagine i'm also gonna end up teaching at a uni somewhere at the same time, which isn't bad honestly even though i'm an awful teacher ^^ i just love talking about and trying to explain that stuff. i don't know exactly where my passion comes from but it's just. sure i've always been good at it but more than that it's exciting! it's so exciting to learn about! maths isn't invented, it's discovered, and we're discovering it! and it's so complex and so stupid. it's embedded in everything and exists wholly outside of it. i also like philosophy lmao

ok ok, so. good. proper. vanilla icecream. like chocolate with fudgy bits and stuff is incredible, fruity/berry flavoured icecream is awesome too. but there's a reason vanilla became synonymous with default and it isn't because it's boring it's because it's the best. but yeah only if it's good, shitty vanilla icecream sucks ass. it's also incredibly close to be entirely honest i DO like a good berry icecream. but the simplicity and delicacy of vanilla just does it for me most of the time

i don't think i have a favourite place- i haven't traveled enough yet😭 the furthest i've been from home was just sydney and the gold coast and it was like. different but the same, all just australia still but somewhere else. but i've always wanted to tour through europe and japan and some bits in south africa and the americas and other places too though. i need to see everything

AHH terraria probably??!!!?! it's so hard to say but really terraria is probably the game i've played the most in my life. otherwise plazma burst is an old flash game that's close to my heart because of nostalgia. and cause it's fucking awesome still tbh. OHH and the henry stickmin games!!!! also nostalgia but they also fucking rock still. and then there's the basic answers like portal and skyrim because of course. i cried when i finally beat portal 2, it was literally one the first games i ever played on the xbox 360 we got when i was like 9-10 years old, and like, i'd get stuck at bits and not play for a while at a time so it ultimately took some two years to get through but when it happened it was just. ough.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

TAKE TWO. I’m unhappy with version one. I exaggerated the worst aspects of Sir Handel’s reaction here thinking that it added clarity and… comedy? Dunno what I was thinking with that one tbh. And then I didn’t tag/couch the material in a safe way.

I’ve deleted the original. If you’ve reblogged the original, I’d be grateful if you deleted it too.

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

Heads-up: I think Sir Handel is, at the time when he meets Duncan, a canonical toerag who canonically hates everything on reflex... probably due to trauma- and adjustment-related issues. 

This means I believe he was a dick about Rusty’s arrival and any preference for the singular ‘they.’ Like, as ugly as his reaction to meeting Skarloey. Worse, even. 

I don’t think this lasted forever, or even very long (Sir Handel just spirals when he doesn’t have his grandparental figures around - and Skarloey's just gone away to be mended), but he was purposefully difficult to Rusty at first. 

But you know who DIDN’T fuckin’ stumble over Rusty’s nonbinary presentation, even though it’s like 1954, on a British railway? 

The S.R.’s other career hater… 

I have exactly ONE headcanon for these two, but I think it’s a good one. 

When Rusty arrives and gives their pronouns, these two are at the opposite ends of the spectrum re: take-in-stride-ness. 

Peter Sam is the one who asked if Rusty was “a he or a she?” and, when Rusty said “I’m a ‘they’” was like “... what does that mean?” It’s 1953 or whatever on the Island of Sodor. These are perfectly natural questions. 

Sir Handel jumps in before Rusty can even answer with “you have to be a he or a she.” 

Rusty explains. They are very clear with themselves on why they like this pronoun and they explain it in a way that makes sense to everyone present who isn’t determined to be a dick about this: “You know when a train is coming in, and you don’t know the engine pulling it?” 

Some digression as their audience relates the junctions or the lack of junctions and subsequent unfamiliar engines in their personal histories. Duncan is the one who is the most ‘yeah yeah i’m sorry you guys are stupid it’s a simple question’ about it. 

“You don’t know if the engine is a he or a she. So what do you say when you see the new engine in the distance? Everyone says ‘ah, there they are.’” 

A beat while everyone digests this. 

“ ‘I don’t see them.’ ‘Give them a minute, they’re almost ‘round the bend.’ ‘They’re here, lads, get ready!’ With most engines, you meet them and learn that they’re a ‘he’ or a ‘she’. But I’m always the ‘they’ in ‘ah, there they are.’” 

“Oh,” says Peter Sam, brow furrowed in thought. “How come?” 

“It’s just me,” smiles Rusty. 

Peter Sam likes that smile, likes Rusty, and smiles back. He will spend the rest of the night and the following couple of days’ conversation needing to slow down and visibly screw up his face to think through diagramming his sentence whenever he refers to them (it’s a very cute expression). After this period of earnest practice he never has to think twice about it again. It’s just Rusty. 

Sir Handel doesn’t like Rusty. He doesn’t like strangers. He doesn’t like engines who smile too much (unless they’re Peter Sam, and even that’s… complicated). He certainly doesn’t like engines who Peter Sam looks on the road to making friends with (everybody. that’s basically everybody.) And he instinctively hates this whole “difference” thing. He’d be fussed about it in anyone. Engines should be he or she!!! And if anyone is going to be fussy and high-maintenance and go against that, it oughtn’t be a shunter and utility engine!!!!1!

He starts in being a real heel, arguing with Rusty. ‘They’ is for more than one engine, it doesn’t make sense for one engine. You’d think he’d never heard Rusty bring up the example of singular they one damn minute ago. No, clearly this diesel-burning mechanical oddity is trying to deceive them. Why? What do you mean, why? For the sake of deception. For unknown but nefarious purpose!

Now, Duncan also doesn’t like Rusty. He doesn’t like diesels. He doesn’t like Rusty’s general air. He can tell Rusty is the sort of suck-up that managers like better than him, and that already has him sulking and glowering. 

However, Duncan has zero problem with their pronouns (indeed, he is able to use them effortlessly from the first, and is eternally impatient with anyone who will ever have even the slightest difficulty getting used to them). 

And, though he already doesn’t like Rusty, Sir Handel harassing them about so stupid and pointless a thing pisses him off. 

So their first night together features Sir Handel trying to bully Rusty – and Duncan just sailing in to argue with Sir Handel until the air is rather blue. (Peter Sam is shocked by the language he’s hearing!) 

The crux of Duncan’s argument and discontent is that 

Sir Handel should stop being fookin stupid 

At this point, Sir Handel is already gasping in indignation. 

Sir Handel has no business giving anyone else shit about what they’re called when he goes around being called Sir Handel (Duncan spits here, and spits again every time for the rest of the night he sarcastically says the name). Engines shouldn’t be theys? Yeah, well. Engines shouldn’t go around with titles! 

Sir Handel is furious. It’s the name of their OWNER! 

Yeah, well, people shouldn’t have titles either! Duncan proclaims that he’s, like, a democrat. [small d]

Sir Handel’s brain explodes. 

The two of them are at each other’s throats until Mr Hugh arrives in his nightcap to sternly explain to the “new” engines the concept of bedtime. (Duncan and especially Sir Handel ain’t that new around here anymore, but allow a tired man his sarcasm.) 

Anyway, that’s the story of Duncan, all-around jackass and yet… nonbinary ally?

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

(If only an ally because he hates the oppressor, and his class issues run so deep. As do Sir Handel’s… Look, while the two learn to rub along together and they do appreciate having a fellow hater with whom they can grumble about things, I don’t think their mutual class issues have ever gone away. I would hesitate to go so far as to ever describe them as friends. Duncan and Rusty in the end, yes. Duncan and Sir Handel? The only thing they have in common is their worst instincts, and they never stop low-key looking down on each other.

Like, James and Gordon overcame less of a gap. But also they have things in common besides their grievances. Their friendship was born the moment Gordon saw something in James he could approve of, and James was instantly like ‘oh hell yes your approval was all i ever wanted!!!!! #winning’ Sir Handel is never gonna acknowledge anything in Duncan he respects, and if he did Duncan would be all ‘your approval fills me with shame’ about it.)

[eternalgyu]

okay starting a new series because of @slytherinshua send groups in and I'll rank discography either by album or song!! depending on how well ik them hehe

youha - soloist

last dance - let me tell u guys something. all of u that haven't listened go last dance by youha aren't living ur life to its fullest. have u ever felt ur life spiralling downwards? the cure is this song. you feel like ur relationship isn't working?? the cure is this song. ur dying?? listen to last dance by youha. the music video is equal parts cunty and beautiful. if u like songs like oh my god by g idle, anything on seulgi's album, or even like idk just cunty music listen to this song I beg u.

island - the queen the beginning pls she is the moment I made this list so I could listen to island on repeat I'm not even gonna lie. it's so summery and HIGH NOTE? such a solid debut

universe - goodnight this song is so pretty none of u guys get it. it makes up for the fact that there was barely any music from youha this year LMAO but ugh it's so melodic and just rly pretty I cannot :(

numb - this song I had no idea what to expect for this song tbh but it's so freaking good like the punk rock elements sound soooo good ugh!!

flight - CITY POPPPP guys the mv for this song is so pretty u don't get it youha is so stunning I need to listen to this song at night w my windows rolled down for real

zzz - such a comfy song AND THE HIGH NOTES??? LIKE HELLO?? her voice is actually so capable like???

abittipsy - such a pretty song and the mv is the cutest thing like hello? her tts r so yummy.

satellite - this song is such a good opener for the album u guys I love openings having the talking kinda singing (no idea if that makes sense at all help) but she has no other openings to compare to so uhm...

we - so cutee it's so lofi chill core pls and the beat is literally so yummy it's soda flavoured this is so dosii coded if u guys like their music!!

flower rain - prettyy not my favourite song but the instrumental is giving 2017 kpop a lil but sigh it's so good exactly how the title sounds

cherry on top - again not amongst my favourites the sound effects have me giggling BUT at the end of the day this is youha and she has no flops so I'm sure this is someone's cup of tea!!

ice t - not my favourite but if she wasn't nugu ppl would've ate this up it's giving peak kpop tt fr.

[mythos321]

Chapters 6 and 7 of me reading Moon Rising! and my random scattered thoughts

first up is of course Chapter 6,

which I had a lot of for lmao

•Kinkajou wakes up like that “Gooooood morningg(insane high note)” meme(I hope someone knows what that is

•“I was a little worried about it at first because I was, like, ACK, that means I’ll have to make friends with a NIGHTWING.” Kinkajou somethings are better left unsaid. Trust me, I get it, but you don’t have to outright say it-

•“I can’t wait to meet our Seawing, they sound so weird.” When did Kinkajou enter the racism olympics-

•completely valid to be nervous of Tsunami tbh

•Starflight managing to memorize 35 new names is legitimately super impressive imo

•“tail kisser” that joke still makes me laugh a little even when reading it here

•Umber being so small is frustrating to me he is the same size as Clay

•“We decided to switch a couple of dragons around, since you guys seemed like a good match.” Tsunami Winter threatened to violently murder her-

•What were Sunny and Clay thinking with that, since it was likely them who thought of it since they were the ones present

•Can someone make Qiblis brain shut the fuck up-

•I love Kinkajous crush on Winter admittedly, I know Winterjou isn’t popular but I feel there’s potential

•I’d also like Umbers to an extent but it feels off due to him being the same age as the DoD? I know the age gap is only 2 years but the DoD feel much older in comparison, I just chalk this to being a Tui flub though since Umber acts the same age as the others

•also I love Carnelian hating everyone there lmao

•I kind of like Moon feeling safer around Turtle, I know it’s cause she can’t hear his thoughts, but I still find it cute

•Tsunami introductinh herself just to spite Sunny because she said she wouldn’t is hilarious to me lmao

•the fact Tsunami never actually does anything a head of a school would do is so funny they 100% gave her that title to stop her whining-

•“When do we eat? Just kidding. Pretending to be Clay.” Fuck you Umber, I hope you get eaten by animals actually

•“did I sound like an idiot?”

YEAH YOU DID FUCK YOU-

•Note, the two above notes are to be played for laughs…however I am legitimately not appreciative of that joke-

•“It was impossible to ignore how handsome Winter was, especially with Kinkajou thinking about it all the time” just gonna leave that there-

Tsunami:I brought fish!

Turtle:Yooooo

Kinkajou:FUCK-

•Oh Carnelian you won’t ever get that promotion for a very different reason

•also imo all of the stuff Qibli pointed out felt kinda obvious? I got that read off of Carnelian as well before Qibli mentally pointed it out so we can know how totally smart he is

Carnelian, the red skywing:my favorite color is red

Kinkajou, the yellow rainwing: My favorite color is yellow!

Carnelian:Basic bitch-

•honestly Qibli just feels like a mean bitch to Winters MOODY mean bitch-

•““And I’m Umber,” Said Clay’s brother”

that is one of his two claims to fame in this series lmao

•“See, I’m your destiny”

“Wish he were my destiny”

lmao

•Qibli I’ll tell you right now Moon is not laughing at your lame joke, only Kinkajou and Umbers punchline-

•“Winters such a moonlicking crocodile” of all the expressions to use-

•Why did no Nightwing ever write down how their powers work when they got to the island, or keep those in tact, there’s no way they’d be THAT stupid- oh my god they would-

•I love Kinkajou stepping in for her friend, I appreciate her way more in this than the Graphic Novel(like her a little more and like Qibli and Winter less)

•Qibli thinking to himself of how he’d beat Winter is so funny with hindsight with Icicle absolutely whoops him lol

•I don’t even blame him for thinking about that btw Winter is legitimately being out of line here

Kinkajou:Idc if you’re hotter than the rainforest during a humid day in summer you and your perfect face can’t be mean to my friend-

•I legitimately love how infectious Kinkajou is as a person, she even got Winter to tell his first joke

•Also, more like Winter Turning into a tsundere am I right(🦗🦗🦗)….anyways!

•Hold on was Kinkajou on drugs once-

•Darkstalker get your mansplain manipulate malicious ass AWAY

•“Dragons who like you now are most likely to betray you. Believe me, I know”

Darkstalker, I could give a million and one reasons why you lost your friends, and believe me, you are the root problem in all of them-

Now for chapter 7!

•Qiblis such a loser bruh, Moon can tell you’re watching her you creep-

•I love Moon getting gleeful when she realizes she can have a goat to herself(also her sharing with her friends!)

•don’t worry Qibli we all know you’re a bum you don’t need excuses for why you can’t hunt for shit-

•Moon you’re the size of a car how is a goat heavy-

“You don’t need to be popular if you’re powerful”

-Guy who 100% got shoved in a locker once

•“Moon wanted to ask what he meant by calling Qibli desperate” Girl you’ve seen his thoughts this guys more desperate than a dog being taunted with a bone-

•God I love Kinkajou

•Okay over the top Qibli hating aside genuinely fuck Cobra, I genuinely want to cave her face in for how she treated Qibli

•“Who was “she” Qibli had been asking about? His mother? Thorn?”

I know it was intended as separate things, but I first read that as Moon calling Thorn his mother(in the adoptive sense) and my heart melted for a sec, so ima read it as that instead

•time for Moon to lock in and try and stop a murder, here’s to her succeeding and nothing bad ever happe- okay I can’t even finish that joke lmao you don’t even need to read the book to guess what’s gonna happen-

[eldrith]

˗ˏˋ A Golden Chain ˎˊ˗ Jacaerys Velaryon

jacaerys velaryon x aunt/targ!fem!reader [part three of a golden cage series.] words: 16.1k. im so sorry synopsis: "Jacaerys is hurt; angry, upset, scared - but he is insulting. And irrational men make the gravest errors." notes: hi<3 i cannot lie i am stressed over the quality of this chap bc of the pressure but fuck it we ball ig. anyways, the kids are fighting again <3 but reader (and author) likes to put jace in his place. & i am also dying on the hill that JACE HAS A MEAN STREAK. HE TRIES NOT TO, BUT HE DOES. he needs therapy so bad it makes him look stupid warnings: character death. canon-typical violence/blood/injury, poorly written medieval politics, angst, possessive/jealous jace, daemon as his own warning, fear of commitment, mommy issues and religious trauma galore, brief dubcon(?), light smut, brief PiV, arguing (after all they are half-enemies and half-lovers), High Valyrian as foreplay tbh thank u to @softspiderling and @dipperscavern who both put up with my neurotics xoxo feedback is appreciated <3 requests open. previous. series masterlist. masterlist.

YOUR HEART BEATS ERRATICALLY WITHIN YOUR THROAT. 

The halls echo with the quick pace of dread - melting away a heated daze of pleasure, giving way to an inexorable pair of hands, chilling to your bones; fate, at your doorstep. 

Fate, which lies on a ship down at the harbor, flying the flag of your kin. 

Flickering torches cast fleeting shadows on the stone walls; You do not dare glance to your side, though you know Jacaerys strides as swiftly as you, the corners of your vision in darkness, a deep unsettle within your stomach. 

A single ship, bearing a green, three-headed dragon.

With shaky fingers, your hair is tamed into a hastily drawn braid, far from the elegance worthy of court - yet in this hour of ghosts, it must suffice.

A heavy foreboding hang; the only sounds are the soft echoes of his sheath brushing against Jacaerys’ belt and the rhythmic clink of Ser Marbrand’s armor.

The dress you’ve taken upon your tired frame is one previously worn just a day ago; a gray and red material, it was the closest on hand - you’d thrown it over your sleepgown with shaking fingers. Jacaerys, eyes sharp and dutiful, had laced up your corset for you in the silence just as Ser Marbrand returned with appropriate clothing for the Prince. 

You do not dare breathe; two weeks ago, you’d found yourself embossed with that same gilded pressure that returns with the ship that has come to dock at the island’s bay. It has been just hours since you sent a letter by raven to your grandsire, proclaiming your alliance to Rhaenyra, though it is undeniable. 

There could be no other reason for the ship's visit than for you.

The council chamber doors are oak, large; Ser Marbrand makes to open them, and the moment his back has turned, a hand grasps yours. Fleeting, but there. 

Eyes flicker to each other for a moment and you are unsettled to find his own gaze, a mirror of your own: Anticipation, fear - determination. A recognition, something deeper - something that courses fiery through your veins alike. Two sides of the same mad coin. 

The hand around yours relieves a gentle squeeze before dropping away; a fleeting affection, one that just subtly calms the racing gallop of your heart within its ribbed cage as you squeeze his back. 

If it weren’t for the apprehension in the air, you might marvel in this transient moment; Jacaerys has a strikingly beautiful profile from your angle aside him. Hair haloed from the flickering torches, eyes warmed with determination, cheeks a rosy red that’d remained from the moment you’d had him within your sheets just thirty minutes past. 

It is the moment you brush the curls - likely gone astray with the sins of the evening and your tireless fingers - from Jace’s forehead, that the doors begin to open, and you jump away from each other like startled hares. 

You are otherwise relieved to have Ser Marbrand upon your other side; had it been just you and Jacaerys, your appearance would likely have struck as less than confident, the observing eyes of those in front of you certainly more piercing. 

A trickle of anxiety - the Prince’s attire of the same regalia from the day before, matching your own and acquired in haste, might raise heads. But the gods are merciful this night; there are far more pressing matters than the prince's whereabouts before these late summons. Each of the council members in front of you have clearly also hastily dressed, their garments and expressions reflecting such abruptness of awakening.

Rhaenyra, seated at the head of the table, straightens when she lays her eyes on you and her firstborn - such familiar weariness and determination in her expression. It strikes you, among the flickering scarcity of light, that she and her son share the same sloped nose, the same cheekbones. The moon shines faintly through the slats of stone on the right of the chamber; illuminating silky hair, the upturn of her chin - a mirror of her son as she nods in greeting.

Regality in its finest, purest form. 

Jacaerys remains beside you, and as you approach the table of lords and ladies, you barely see a flicker of his hand - twitching as if to reach for you before reminding himself of his place. “Apologies for the late summons,” Queen Rhaenyra sighs; you have scarcely nodded at the Queen and others before the door opens once more. 

It is a castle page, who, despite the exasperated, impatient silence from the council, still takes his grace to bow deeply. The velvet black doublet he wears folds awkwardly with the motion; Daemon’s exasperated eyes meet your own briefly in a bout of chagrin.

The absence of a greeting in return spurs the page’s words into action. 

"Your Grace, the ship held a sailor, swornsword, and a messenger - a page, from King's Landing, requesting an audience."

The tension in the room tightens further; you let out a short, bewildered breath. 

All of this, for… A page? You’d half expected your grandsire himself upon the floorboards of the ship, arm already raised to strike you in fury. Rhaenyra's gaze hardens, echoing your exact thoughts. "A page, in the middle of the night?" 

Weary eyes meet the council before him. "Yes, Your Grace. He comes with a message from the Hand of the King."

Right. 

Eyes land on you, though you are quite past the point of listening to the furthered words; a page? Was this all for show, then? To rattle your court, to send threats by way of ship, when your family could not be bothered to show to you themselves? 

Bitterness, a caustic sting, festers in your chest. 

You know better than to think them foolish enough to dare come near the island; it would surely mean death - but the degradation of a mere page to come collect you and return you? Some little lamb, wobble-legged and bleating? 

A rage simmers within your blood. 

The man is dismissed with a curt nod from the Queen - your eyes rove over the cups of mulled wine and muddled sourleaf tea, served in this unholy hour to encourage tired eyes awake and alert. As if coaxing you to trace, the mugs release tendrils of steam; you watch absently as your own half-drunk mug sits, mocking you from below. 

A conversation of murmurs in the wake of the page’s words, yourself stuck in the currents of shock and apprehension. You tune in - eyeing Jacaerys, who stares back at you with an expression of concern. 

A small nod to him - one returned equally subtly, yet with a soft emotion. Something alarming curls in your stomach under his quiet attention, and you look away. 

“-Well then, where is the dragon?” Lord Celtigar’s voice cuts through the chamber. “If they put the effort to come to Dragonstone, despite the blockades along the gullet, one would expect them to come with a show of strength.”

Rhaenys, from beside the Queen: “They would not be foolish enough to send a dragon here.”

The words linger, a dark cloud; a war of dragons would spell certain doom for nearly half the realm. Even your grandsire - for all his stubbornness - your brother, and your mother, would not desire such a fate. At least, you hope not.

The very doubt sends a shiver down your spine.

But would they truly take the time to sail a ship for your sake alone? The anxiety, disbelief within you unwelcome companions - the absence of a dragon harbrings a small relief yet a deeper sense of unease.

Daemon, always quick to voice his opinions, leans forward, hands splaying over the glowing painted table. “If they intended to pose a serious threat, they wouldn’t bother with an audience,” He reasons, “-rather, they’d break into her quarters and get the job done quick.” 

Eyes land on you. 

Heat under such scrutiny, but yet a cold, gripping fear at the prospect; indeed, if they wanted you dead, you’re sure they could find a way to have it done without ceremony - and yes, without witnesses. 

True as it is, the audacity of Daemon’s statement strikes a chord - a sharp breeze through the room, the hearth does little to dispell the chill in the air. 

A shiver down your spine, unwillingly reproducing what sight could have befallen the assassin sent to eliminate you: Expecting a maiden asleep and abed, not a maiden writhing with pleasure, her thighs propped precariously over the sturdy shoulders of the Prince of Dragonstone. 

You send your flushed gaze down to the stone table before you, the remnants of your previous dalliance still slick between the apex of your thighs. 

It is not hard to notice as Jacaerys shoots Daemon a hot glare, jaw clenching, hands resting upon his sword’s hilt. “This is no time for brash statements,” Jacaerys enunciates sharply, “If the greens are sending a message, it is because they wish to negotiate, or make demands.” 

Daemon’s eyes narrow; a silent challenge passing between them that sets your hair on end - you see it, for a moment, in your uncle’s gaze. Deciphering, analyzing, as if searching through scrolls of a foreign tongue as his gaze flickers to you and back to Jace. 

Gods, you think - if anyone could see between the lines: your shared flush, the marks that just conceal under the modest neckline of your dress, the budding mark that lies just under the curls near his jaw - the way your body drifts ever so slightly towards the heat of Jace’s arm. If anyone were to notice, Daemon would be the one. 

You shift upon your feet - the other council members, sensing the growing discord, exchange uneasy glances. Rhaenyra shakes her head minutely. “It is late. Let us hear what our guest has to say before the sun rises.” She orders. 

A flicker of fear; what if the messenger rears to be some kind of assassin, prepared to take the Queen’s life? By camouflage, bearing false words about your own neck, when it is hers he intends to take? 

“-But we must consider your safety, your Grace.” You speak up, voice practical, though a tremor of anxiety lies beneath your calm exterior. “How are we to know this isn’t some plot?” 

The long shadows upon the walls are a faint reminder of the docks of Blackwater Bay in the evening, floating licks of orange flame across the abyss of sea. How easily an assassin could be dressed in the clothing of a page, sent under the guise of some pretext from the pretender’s Hand.

“They would not dare try such a thing.” She denies, “Not here, on Dragonstone - at court, with the Queensguard.” Despite your half-sister's deflection, there are murmurs of agreement. Daemon's eyes flash with approval. “Ser Erryk, Ser Alfred - keep a close watch on the messenger. Any sign of treachery, and you know what to do. The rest will remain at the Queen’s side.” 

Ser Erryk nods, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword as he moves to stand by Rhaenyra's side; The room falls silent, the tense air of roused slumber and alarm ringing thick. You blink back the pained ache that has begun to fester behind your eyes; sleep calls to you insistently, yet the burning adrenaline keeps your heart pumping, your eyes blinking. 

“Prepare the chamber for an audience,” Rhaenyra orders, her voice steady despite the early hour. “Maester Gerardys, take two swords with you to accept the messenger.”

NEVER HAVE YOU SEEN THE THRONE ROOM BATHED IN SUCH DARK.

The late hour casts shadows, oppressive and sinister, across the obsidian throne; slated, rising up like those very cliffs outside the ramparts of the castle. Such cold, stone walls. The recess of your mind has not yet forgotten how it felt to stand before such ancestry power, before her.

Bloodied, hurt, desperate - hardened by determination. Imposed upon, by the harsh stare of the boy who now stands just aside you. You’re nothing but a puppet, dancing on strings pulled by whoever promises you a bit of power. With the memory of his words, a sharp lance to the side, you swallow thickly. 

You remain with the other members a level below where Rhaenyra sits upon the throne - Jacaerys leaves your side with a glance to join Daemon and Lord Corlys aside her. Hands perch on hilts, eyes aflame with despotted determination. 

The queen is announced as wide oak doors creak open - Maester Gerardys enters with a small figure behind. 

Bewildered, you share a look with Rhaena and Baela; the messenger could not be much younger than yourself, with hair of gold and eyes of green. 

A Lannister boy, then. 

Perhaps, reared at Casterly Rock - brought to the keep to assist the Master of Coin. A swornsword follows - stopped at the bottom of the steps leading to the throne; when the boy stands alone in front of the court, Daemon’s eyes roll with the subtlety of a dragon in a sheepfield. 

Rhaenyra’s voice cuts through the oppressive silence. “What is the meaning of this?” 

The messenger unrolls a scroll; with a shaky breath, he bows to the Queen before turning towards you - your blood runs cold as he begins to read aloud the message: 

“To the traitor who once swore fealty to King Aegon II, 

It is with grave displeasure that His Grace has received your declaration of allegiance to the pretender, Rhaenyra Targaryen.”

Oh, Gods be good. You bite your lip, resisting the urge to melt into the background, trembling as your fury festers. Daemon shifts his weight; Rhaenyra’s displeasure grows. The shame of being seen consumes you. 

“In the spirit of preserving the realm and avoiding unnecessary bloodshed, His Grace, King Aegon II, extends a proposal to rectify your betrayal and bring it to a swift conclusion. 

Your jaw clenches as he speaks, the thought of your brother sitting among his small council of fools and traitors within the Keep stirring a deep anger.

“First, you shall present yourself at King’s Landing to face judgment, where your mercy shall be decided by His Grace King Aegon II. Second, to solidify alliances and ensure the stability of the realm, you are hereby betrothed to the son of Ser Jason Lannister, Loreon Lannister. The marriage will come end of the seventh moon of the year. 

You will leave the court of the Usurper at once, to answer for your tresspasses against the crown. Should you refuse these terms, you will be stripped of your title and expelled from the lands of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms; No longer shall you hold any title, claim, or influence within these realms, and your name will be struck from the annals of all noble houses sworn to King Aegon II.”

Your breath is frozen in your lungs, unable to enter or exit your chest. What kind of deception is this? Stripped of your title? As if a mere king can decide who has blood of the dragon or not.

“Signed Otto Hightower, Hand of the King, on behalf of His Grace, King Aegon II Targaryen-"

The messenger’s voice is cut off rather briskly as his head falls from his body. 

A moment, stretched slowly; a glint of a sword sliding in the dark, the warm spray of release at impact. Rhaena and Baela are pushed behind you in a rather instinctual shove, burdening yourself with a welcome of warm blood upon your shocked lips. Thick, dark - it splatters across the bust of your gown, your cheeks, your hair; tainted, with the innocent. 

 A voice, lilting: The butterfly escapes the web, but the dragon’s breath will singe its wings. This morning, it seems you do not have the energy to ask Helaena to leave your head. 

A horror, a memory whispering in your mind as the decapitated body keels down, folding unto the stone, in a slumped heap. Your vision narrows, the floor swimming below you - distantly, the sellsword shouts - he is struck down within moments, his own body thudding as he crashes to the ground. A hand tightens around your arm, though you scarcely feel it. 

Your vision shakes, imbued with red as Daemon wipes the blood from his blade - a picture of himself those years ago in the Red Keep, having struck down Vaemond near identically. 

If you were to drop a hairpin on the floor, its echo could be heard out in the hall. 

The bodies, slumped upon the throne room floor, look suddenly so young; A gust through the hall, as if the sweetness summer has dissipated, cursing weary corpses in the dawn of winter to come. 

Every muscle within your body is tense, a sickly metallic smell thick within your nostrils. A rush of anger; betrayal at the cold, calculated, empty threats that have just been laid out before you, but more at the brash and foolish act Daemon has just committed.

Your horrified gaze seeks Rhaenyra. 

Her own eyes blaze with fury, her voice like the crack of thunder. “What have you done, Daemon?” she demands, her tone sharp and unyielding. 

Rhaena, whose hand found your other forearm just after her father’s blade found the boy’s neck, tightens just as her sister’s upon the fabric of your dress. 

Subtly, you wipe at your lips with the back of a palm; it comes away muddled with blood that did not come from your veins. You fight the urge to expel the contents of your stomach upon the stone

Daemon shrugs, a cold smirk playing on his lips as he sheaths his bloodied sword. “I silenced an insolent mouth,” he replies nonchalantly, wiping his hands clean. You shudder in fury at his hubris. 

“This was a messenger, Daemon, a boy. Not a foe on the battlefield,” Rhaenyra snaps, her fists clenched in anger as she rises to him. “We needed him alive to send a response, to show we are not savages.”

The court is frozen in shock, the air thick with silence; Rhaenyra steps down from the throne, her eyes never leaving Daemon’s. “You have acted rashly and without thought. This will not go unanswered.”

Corlys, eyes dark with anger, nods. “The greens will surely take this as a provocation - a justification for further bloodshed.”

Daemon’s expression hardens, his eyes narrowing. “They send threats in the eve of night and expect us to bow. I will not grovel to that usurper nor his lackey when they try to push around the whims of a mere girl - and neither should our Queen.” 

You’ve begun to tremble, head light and empty of any thoughts - you barely glare at Daemon for such belittling words. 

You, in a ditch for comfort amidst the panic upon your stomach, seek Jacaerys, who stands across the way. 

The prince’s jaw is clenched, eyes staring hard at the syrupy dark that pools onto the obsidian from the mangled body, a bloody mess before your feet. The emerald eyes of the boy stare lifeless up at your own and your stomach lurches; looking back to Jace, you meet warm eyes - a glance, an expression hardened but laced with unbridled worry. Unsure why, you raise your brows slightly. He returns the gesture subtly, before focusing venomously upon the back of Daemon’s head. 

“We must let them know we do not fear their words.” Daemon finishes, jaw tight - he and Rhaenyra share a sharp look, an anger slithering between their gazes in a heat so tight it might snap. 

After a moment, Rhaenyra turns to the courtiers, her voice commanding. “Remove their bodies and have a pyre prepared.” She soothes her hands down her gown, pursing her lips in regally concealed displeasure, “Await our decision to King’s Landing about this…unfortunate accident.” 

They obey. 

You stand numbly, staring at your feet as inky blood crawls slowly towards your night slippers, infecting you, staining you, corrupting you. 

Your hands are stained with crimson, your satin gown ruined - it will take the handmaids hours to scrub this dress free of blood. How trivial, you think, to notice such things. 

The sharp sting of embarrassment and shame reddens your cheeks - struggling to hold back the anger that threatens to betray your composure, you let out a sharp exhale. A humiliation; a fourth betrayal, some twisting of the knife already long wedged between the blades of your shoulders. 

A boy lies dead at your feet, because of you. 

Daemon has ensured that should you ever lay eyes upon the greens again, it will be at the cost of your life. Your hands grip the skirt of your dress as you try to steady yourself - a very harsh reality of impending banishment and the implications of this boy’s murder feels like a cold shroud wrapping around you; you tell yourself to calm. 

The threat is empty - all of them are; You are to fight in this war, and win it. Rhaenyra will sit the throne - she will never banish you, nor make such outlandish claims that you shall lose your title, nor the name you have carried since before your birth. 

Despite this, the words trivializing you only serves to heighten your sense of isolation.

To think, your biggest sorrow this evening was being cursed to wait to approve a marriage between you and Jacaerys. A bitter flare flickers through you as your eyes cut to him. 

Amidst the discussion you should likely join, your gaze seeks his comfort; a new, unfamiliar feeling indeed. His expression contorted with concentration, some frustration, they catch yours, trailing over the bodice of your gown, likely taking in the splattering of crimson that is soon drying upon the fabric. Unwilling, a voice echoes once more in your mind: It’s hard to miss when someone dresses as if they’re trying to hide the stains of betrayal with a new cloak-

It isn’t until the Queen’s voice, tired and consequential, orders everyone to leave that you snap out of it. 

“You are all dismissed.” She says suddenly; eyes turn to her in shock. 

Jacaerys takes a step towards you, but is intercepted by his mother, whose pace is brisk as she reaches you. His hesitation pangs your heart, wishing only to be in his company. 

Instead, you turn to face the Queen - for a moment, your eyes take in her icy ones, a flash of emotion in them before she flicks a strand of hair from your shoulder. Your wince is hidden as it tugs, sticky with drying blood. 

“Sister,” She orders, “Come with me.” 

You bow stiffly, still in shock; and then you are following her - with a craned neck, you turn to catch Jacaerys’ eye. 

“Where are you going?” Daemon questions, arms crossed.

Jace’s voice is similarly irate, “You cannot leave. We must discuss our next steps.”

Rhaenyra stops, turning sharply. Her eyes flash dangerously as she tightens her grip on your arm, but you still feel her tremble. And you know well the touch of fear when you feel it.  “Enough.” she snaps, her voice echoing through the hall. “This is not a discussion. The court is dismissed. We will reconvene in the light of day.”

Not foolish enough to resist the Queen's orders, you follow her with one last glance towards Jacaerys. His stare of disbelief offers no comfort as you and the queen leave the court to await the morrow.

Daemon and Lord Corlys have begun a discussion with Lords Staunton and Celtigar, and Jace turns to join them at once, not sparing a second look at your retreating figure.

YOU FEEL THE TENSION BEFORE HE EVEN ARRIVES AT YOUR QUARTERS. 

Perhaps finding sleep might have been wise; a sluggish dread, one that had clung to you as you attended the Queen's chambers at her behest still remains now; just as oppressive, as obscuring as it had been when you’d followed her rushed steps down the staircase to her apartments.

And then it had been just you and your sister, alone.

Of course, not without protest; aware of pursuers, she had shut the heavy wooden doors to her apartments right behind you, the thud reverberating through the silence. Company was denied as she’d motioned to a nearby servant, instructing them to bring you some water and a change of clothing. 

“I know this has been a grievous night for you,” she’d said, voice quieter but still filled with the weight of authority, “Daemon’s actions were reckless, and the threat from Aegon was indeed stirring, but you must remember, we must stand together in any fight.” 

During the following hour, not once but thrice a servant entered, informing you that the King consort and Prince Jacaerys wished to speak with you and the Queen; and each time, they were denied. Perhaps you were simply exhausted; stricken with dread, anger, confusion - but it truly became suffocating. Ironic, how Jacaerys can bear such similarities to Daemon in his wrath.

As you left the Queen’s chambers early this morn, you could nearly feel your rationality slipping from your grasp - and now, the sun has begun to rise up once more.

Your eyes sting at each glance you spare out the window to the bloody rise of dawn; you are alone, but not for long. 

You should have slept this morning, just as you should have slept last night. Slowly, you ward off the memories of your happenings all around your chamber - the bed, previously tossed upon with wrinkled furs and the weight of Jacaerys, now done up by your maids with tightly folded corners and crisp sheets; the chair upon which you sit and the scuff marks it’d drawn upon the stone floors after Jace had pushed you onto it - now tucked in and turned to its correct position facing the desk. 

The discarded cup of wine you’d knocked over haphazardly when his knees had so willingly dropped to the floor before you; the spill now wiped up and goblet gone. Melted wax, dripped completely off a wicked candle, that had pooled in a hard crust upon the desk until one of your handmaids had scraped it away this morning while you bathed. 

Perhaps it is your paranoid mind, or perhaps you truly have lost it - but you feel him before you even hear the knock. 

It comes within moments of such observation; Fatigue claims you in the heavy downturn of your gaze, the puffiness of your eyes, the tension and exhaustion within your mind. 

You beckon his voice when it rings behind your door, because you have been expecting him. Your chamberdoor creaks open; Jacaerys’ footsteps are weighed with his own sleepless hours. 

He is arrestingly handsome this morning, as all mornings - though he offers you a terse nod, his eyes darkened by the shadows of the morning. The room is dim, the bloody light of waking sun barely touching the stone floors, casting elongated shadows that seem to dance around the edges of your vision.

You sit at your writing desk, the ink wet within the bottle but the parchment empty, your thoughts tangled and frayed; you ignore as the quill chitters at you, mocking your inability to form coherent thoughts. 

Jace’s eyes search yours. With a flicker of recognition, you prepare yourself - because you know this look; a look you grew quite used to in the months following your arrival. He is dissatisfied. 

“I thought I should check on you, since it appears you’re now accepting company.” he says, his tone rough, the echo of sleeplessness clear in his voice. 

You nod, unable to form a coherent response, nor even acknowledge the veiled slight at the end of the sentence. The silence stretches between you, heavy and laden with unspoken words; recalling how gratifying - selfish, perhaps - it had been to forget everything last evening. To live in a world where, if only for an hour, it was just you, him, and some kind of pleasure. Some carnal need. 

He’d stood last night where he stands now; I can't bear this, he’d said. You ignore the skeptical flame that stokes within your breast, looking away; a bitter swallow. You foolish girl. More than glad to give Jacaerys a distraction, it seems. To distract yourself, too. You sin, your mother’s voice whispers, you let him use you. You let yourself succumb to a bastard. 

You clench your eyes shut momentarily, wishing to expel your mother’s venomous voice from your veins; What a fragile thing to consider - what a little death it has become, to escape her clutches but never her judgment. In the eyes of the Mother. 

You try for a smile, but it does not come out correctly. “Did you rest well?” 

He gives you a nearly exasperated look; you clear your throat, “Did you rest at all?” You mend. 

His cross expression grows, footsteps muffled by the thick rug upon the floor. He is soon stopped before you, his eyes locking onto yours, the intensity of his gaze almost too much to bear - you do not dare look away. You know what is to come, for you saw it in his eyes the moment his mother dismissed the council this morn. 

"I could not afford to rest. While you and my mother retreated to prattle behind closed doors, the rest of us were rather occupied with the burden of ensuring your protection.” Sharp; a hint of accusation in his voice. 

Your anger simmers within, a fiery ember stoked by his tone. You bristle, feeling the heat of your indignation rise, shaking off the weariness that had draped over you in your exhaustion. Jacaerys may be the prince, but you’re still a princess; he ought not forget so. “Mind your tongue,” You hiss. “The Queen and I were discussing the matter at hand.”

His knuckles are white around the hilt of his sword. “Yet instead of sharing your insights with us, you retreat?” 

You cannot help but eye the sheath around his waist with disdain; echoes of Dark Sister, gleaming with the blood of the Lannister boy. You take a drawn breath, actively ignoring the pounding of your head’s ache. 

“I understand your frustration,” you attempt to reason with him, your voice tight, “but we needed time to deliberate privately on what happened. The message, the…” you swallow, picking at your nails as you subconsciously try to scrub the blood away, though they’ve been long clean. “All of it. The threats it will bring - to me, to her. The only reason I was summoned was because the letter was directed towards me, if you may recall. Clearly, attempting to use me as a tool to unsettle your mother’s claim.”

“And so you cloister yourselves away, to gossip and conspire away from the council - who were appointed to aid in such matters?” 

Jacaerys is hurt; angry, upset, scared - but he is also insulting. And irrational men make the gravest errors.

“It was necessary to deliberate away from the incessant prattle and intrusion of men in our ears.” You snap. “Lest one of you decided to decapitate another innocent.” 

He mutters something under his breath, barely audible. “Maybe you’ll prefer a Lannister’s company, then, if you find our counsel so burdensome.” 

Your heart clenches, the implication cutting deep. You stand from the chair rather abruptly; Jace does not flinch - his head tilts down, a subtle attempt to remind you of the difference in height between you. It means nothing to you in this moment. “Pardon?” You snap. 

He levels you with a look. “I said nothing.” 

He is acting as a child. The air within your chambers is nearly suffocating; you feel a moment away from either passing out or snapping completely. 

How could he dare say such a thing? How could he dare to, for one moment, consider the foolish allusions to your assumed betrothal - one that will never play out? 

After all that’s happened, all that will happen, that is what he’s chosen to focus on? 

Your mind screams, begs for sleep. 

Jacaerys’s skin is still bathed in a bloodied hue from the rising of the waking sun; you ignore the pang of anxiety within your stomach - the Lannister boy was no older than Jacaerys, than you. 

“You cannot truly be hung up on that, Prince Jacaerys.” You hiss, disbelief laced through your words. He bristles at the formal title, ire flashing in his eyes as he turns to you, nearly bewildered. 

“Can I not?” He counters, “They wish you to show up at the Red Keep - what are they thinking, expecting you to be carted off like some baseborn… to be paraded around King's Landing, to be…” He looks away, nearly disgusted, “bartered like some chattel.” 

You sigh sharply, leaning back as you run a hand through your unruly hair; your exhaustion frays your patience, but there is no part of you that wishes to appear less than furious. 

“Should there be any doubt in your mind, let me make it clear now. I have no intention of submitting to any commands from Aegon’s mouthpiece. The idea of going back there is as repugnant to me as it is to you.” You scoff, your own temper rising as you consider his tone more, adding, “Especially after what Daemon’s done.” 

An exasperated gesture of his hands, unrelenting, “All the more reason you must strategize with us, to remain safe with us.” His headshake is bitter, “Forgive me, but sudden retreats to private chambers do not inspire confidence in your ability to do so.” 

He has quite the audacity to so abruptly assume the role of your protector. “Quite amusing.” You narrow your gaze, “If memory serves, only days past you were quite swift to wield your sword at my throat. And just as soon to brand me a traitor for all to hear. Prepared to cast me right back up the Gullet, were you not? A snake in dragon’s clothing, you said.” 

There is no denying, his words are bitter when you throw them back at him. 

His nostrils flare, eyes expressive; the truth clearly stings him just as it does you. “That was before-”

“Before what?” you interrupt, anger and hurt lacing your words. “Before you decided it was worth the trouble to indulge yourself between my thighs?”

A ghost, some shadow of remorse; Your words echo in the silence - his eyes, fierce but momentarily bridled with disbelief. He opens his mouth, words bubbling up, but they hang in the air like mist, elusive and unspoken, until he mutters, “That has nothing to do with the matter at hand.” 

A very poor response, indeed - your heart clenches. You turn away from him, fury and pain bubbling with the fear in your heart; his voice, mere days ago - Is it true that your taste in fashion matches your taste in allegiances? A bit confused, I presume. 

Your nostrils flare, recalling the sheer embarrassment his words brought upon you, how you’d so easily let yourself become spun into his arms - so easily given in to such temptations in his gaze. 

You foolish girl. You turn to look at him, eyes watered and stinging. “Do you find my fashion less confused, now that it has been stained red and black with the blood of the innocent?” 

His face reflects a shame - cheeks red, brows lacing together. A momentary inhale, “I spoke out of turn that evening, I did not mean it.” 

You do not hide your scoff of disbelief and this serves to incense him further. 

His voice is low, defensive, provoked: “You act as though it was mine own sword that carried out the act!” His glare is sharp, “I know just as well as you how dangerous Daemon’s actions this morning have been. Especially for you.” 

The table swims below you as you whirl to face it. Your hands, fumbling to grab at something - a handkerchief with your initials embroidered to the corner - lest they begin to tremble and belay your emotions too much. 

You cannot help it; all matters of pretense are gone, left out the window the moment Jace uttered of the backless betrothal arranged by the pretender king. 

Try as he may to protect you, the notion has you reeling. Your fingers clench tight to the kerchief in your hand. “Jacaerys, I beg of you. Spare me the pretense of your sudden concern for my well-being, as though it were anything but a matter of your own desires.” 

You do not see it, but you hear the incensed indignation in his voice. “-By the gods, you truly think I’m driven only by desire?” Jace’s voice spits, barely controlled, but you have none of it. 

Whirling around, you do not try to hide the emotion of your eyes. “Yes, Jace! You scarcely spoke to me for a fortnight—barely met my gaze thrice since my arrival—yet you’ve not seemed to have any trouble finding my neckline.” You accuse, recalling his icy glares and cold remarks, the way his head would subtly turn to watch you retreat as you walked past in the halls. “Do you think me foolish enough to not notice this sudden change of interest?”

Jacaerys’s expression darkens around rosy cheeks, his knuckles white as the sun where he clenches his hilt - but he does not deny such accusations. 

Your laugh is a bitter one to hide your humiliation. 

“And now you act so affronted, as though your sudden concern with me is born of anything but a desire to claim me for yourself. You do not want me to advise the queen without your presence - you are blinded by the fleeting, falsified claim of me betrothed to another, ignoring that a sentence after, my brother threatened to have my head.” You scoff, shaking your head, “You cannot strip me of my choices just because now it suits you to do so!” 

His eyes flicker with disbelief, affronted. “Do not misinterpret my concern as some measly desire to claim you for myself.” Jacaerys’s voice is sharp, yet there’s an undercurrent of hurt. “I’m not blinded by a false betrothal, I’m enraged by the threat to your life.” He looks at you, exasperated, hissing your name, “You could die. We cannot protect you, nor the Queen, if you hide away and conspire amongst yourselves.”  

Emotions swirl; exhaustion beats upon you with the pounding ache of your mind. Your voice is too close to desperate as you shake your head up at him. 

“Why must you never find it within yourself to trust me, Jacaerys? Why must I continuously prove to you my loyalty to mine own sister’s birthright, when every other already sees it?”

Eyes, wide, deep and umber, search for something between your own. You’ve grown wearied to the bone by this discourse; by the unyielding chasm that seems to only grow between you and Jacaerys with each waking day. It has begun to feel as though you are two angry hounds, chasing each other’s tails with snapping jaws; cursed, to encircle each other forever.

“It’s not about loyalty, or trust. Of course I trust you!” He retorts, “I just– I can’t bear the thought of you being hurt, or…worse.” 

A flicker in his eyes; Lucerys, your mind whispers to you. But the thought is too painful - the memory of such a sweet, kind life - an innocent life, taken. 

It occurs to you rather suddenly that love, in its purest form, is such a fragile thing. 

That Lannister boy had people who loved him. The sellsword too, perhaps - and yet they were taken from this world without so much as a blink by people who knew not even their names. 

What a futile thing, love is. 

A shudder in your chest as you come to understand; to cherish someone in such times is to invite sorrow upon yourself - and to learn to love Jacaerys, with all the fervor and depth of your heart as you know you would, is to court grief. The mere thought of his absence - a void that would engulf your very soul - is a torment too great to bear. 

So as you gaze upon his face, so alight with ire, determination, devotion - you retreat into the cold embrace of logic, of duty.

You meet his gaze, your voice dripping with bitterness. “If caring for me is your answer, then your misplaced affection is nothing more than a weakness.” The words are sharper than you intend, aimed to wound.

The moment the words leave your lips, you see the immediate effect; Jacaerys’s face pales, flinching slightly. He nods slowly, jaw clenching and shoulders squared. A shadow; a staggered inhale as he levels you with a withering look. 

“Perhaps it is.” He spits, large brown eyes resenting, contemptuous. 

Your own shadow of heartbreak washes across your breast; with a bite of pain, your heart drops in immediate regret. 

Without another word, Jacaerys turns and walks toward the door - his posture is rigid, you can see the tense in his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw. 

The weight of Jacaerys’ previous accusations weigh too heavy upon your shoulders to give in to the guilt you feel - you will not be treated like an object of desire, rather than a valued advisor. Tears burn at your eyes, the dual-headed beast of dread and burden rearing its head to you. 

The door shuts behind him with force, and the room seems to collapse in on itself. 

You are left alone, the silence amplifying as you suck in ragged, dizzying breaths; the mirth you’d harbored moments earlier dissolves into a deep, aching regret. 

Unable to hold back any longer, you collapse into your chair, burying your face in your arms as sobs wrack your body. The tears flow freely; the embroidered kerchief sits abandoned, untouched upon your writing desk. 

The needlepoint hung above your head stares down at you; a spider and a small butterfly with singed wings, flying from a dragon. You ignore its whisper, its call; writing it off as the wind through your loose hair. You whisper softly for your sister. 

THE SUN EVENTUALLY FINDS ITS CREST IN THE SKY, UNIMBUED BY CLOUDS. 

You know your dragon lurks within the mont, restlessly waiting for you; it has been too long since you rode with her. 

The tea before you is less unappealing at this hour, yet leaves the same bitter taste within your mouth as you sit your place before the painted table, back straight and head thundering. 

You slept most of the day, after Jacaerys left; your body finally rejecting the foolish battle of remaining alert amidst the puffiness of your tears. The muscles of your legs ache, your throat dry and bruised - your mind gnaws just as your stomach; churning as you ward off unwanted visions: 

Jace, lying upon the mattress below you, his chest heaving, head canted back. The rustle of a scrolled message, unraveled. Your lips, peppering down taught muscles - fingers tangling in your hair. Crimson, splattered upon fabric. A wanton groan, a sharp gasp. Some humming whisper in your ear - a riddle, of betrayals-four. A sick trickle of blackened blood, flowing in rivulets upon the cracked stone floor. A steeled voice, low from kiss-bruised lips: Jurnegon rȳ nyke. Look at me. The last widening of emerald eyes that will never once more see the light of day. 

There is the parchment, in your grandsire’s penmanship - marred with a dark splatter; a festering, open wound upon the painted table. 

A distant caw of gulls upon the shore, a yearning to let the sea mist kiss your face, the rush of clouds sweeping past your head. You reluctantly pull your thoughts away from the outer world, adjusting your sight to the solemn slated room in which you remain. 

"-It was a letter addressed to her, declared before my entire court.” Rhaenyra remains firm, arms crossed as she stares at the parchment. “A deliberate attempt to undermine our unity, to..to sow discord among us." 

Daemon is similarly stubborn. "Words from a usurper mean little,” He drolls, “they should not unsettle us."

Jacaerys speaks up from his seat, cheekbones illuminated in the upglow of the candlelight of the table below. "And yet, here we are, unsettled." His fiery eyes meet Daemon’s. 

Jacaerys is cross; has not taken one glance at you since council was called - nor have you sought out his attention, your own anger still festering with the memory of his words. Maybe you’ll prefer a Lannister’s company, then, if you find our counsel so burdensome.

His gaze simmers; you know it is upon your visage, but you do not grant him the pleasure of meeting your eyes. 

"Some of us more than others, it seems." He finishes. 

A poke to the hornet’s nest, as it were. You stiffen at his words, feeling the sting of his veiled insult; you sigh, unwilling to contribute to his remonstrance. She’s just as much of a nuisance as her brothers. 

Isn’t she?

You send him a heavy stare for a moment - one met with steadfast ignorance, as he’s chosen to redirect his brooding stare to his mother - and then you sigh, looking instead to the members of council before you. “After this morning…” Your eyes flicker to the sword upon Daemon’s side, “-it is likely they will paint me a villain, around the capitol.” You say. A moment of consideration at your words. 

"What of a public response of our own? Denounce the proclamation and, in doing such, reaffirm loyalty to Queen Rhaenyra from our bannermen." Lord Celtigar suggests. Baela, from beside you, leans forward. "And what of the threats within the proclamation? They should not be ignored."

Daemon hums at his daughter from across the table. "The notion that she may somehow lose her own birthright, her name, for supporting the rightful successor is foolish. There are no real threats in the letter." He says, nearly dismissive - Baela tenses beside you. 

You feel equally vexed by his tone. “There may not have been,” You start, placing the mug of tea before you. “Until you killed the Lannister boy.”

The room falls silent. 

Daemon’s eyes narrow, a dangerous glint in them - you are once again reminded of his vicious tenacity. You set your jaw, ignoring the looks from around the table, “A brash decision. But,” You start, “the Greens will thrive on any disunity. So we must display the opposite of such." You acquiesce, keenly aware of the rolling brown eyes diagonal of you, a small scoff. 

"Tis easier said than done when some among us prefer retreating to private discussions, rather than engaging with the council." Jace’s words are sharp, a whip of fire within an iced chamber. 

 A reminder, perhaps, of his quick temper - so readily stirred, despite his commonly measured demeanor; you resist the rolling glare of your eyes, opting to clench them shut for a moment to gather your composure. 

Queen Rhaenyra delivers him a look, brows furrowing with dismay at his tone. “It was not a retreat.” She dismisses him with a stern look. “It was prescient to not shed any more blood whilst considering such an urgent matter." 

Daemon and Jacaerys both turn away, jaws clenched, eyes fixed on opposite walls of the chamber. You stifle a scoff at their childishness. An old passage from the Seven Pointed Star about apples falling not far rings in your mind. 

Rhaenys’ voice is smooth from the end of the table. "The fact remains that we must act as one." She reminds. 

Rhaenyra sighs, “Then we shall send out ravens to our bannermen, ensuring their support remains steadfast. Denouncing such absurd claims from the usurper.” 

Jacaerys, still quite cross, gestures to the parchment. “And what of the populace? They may be swayed by Otto Hightower’s words, if we do not counter them effectively.” 

Rhaenys offers a thoughtful nod. “A coordinated response, then. Letters to our allies and… some kind of public address to the smallfolk.” 

Daemon’s eyes remain fixed on an unseen point, his thoughts likely on the implications of his actions. 

Jacaerys’s fingers tap restlessly in a pattern upon the table, and you watch them with vague memories: those fingers, lithe and cool against flushed skin - dragging along the expanse of your throat, down your sternum, sliding to pull your thighs apart; your mind halts in its tracks when his gaze flickers to you once, resentment clear. Unmoving.  

The heavy attention so suddenly engulfs you in flames of shame; You look away, hiding your own disdain as you take a large gulp of the tea before you, ignoring the stinging feeling of hypocrisy and discomfiture under your own desire. You sin, your mother ceaselessly reminds you. 

"We ought to give a show of strength.” Daemon decides, coming out of the recesses of his mind. “Perhaps a demonstration of our power will remind them who they are dealing with."

Rhaenyra looks at him, exasperated. "And risk provoking them further? No."

But he’s been pondering; he stops, staring at a point of the table you cannot see, before rising to full height. “If we show them every piece of our faction aligned…” he leans forward; there is an intent in his eyes. “Then it will indeed speak volumes on our internal strength. As for the smallfolk… a demonstration less… violent.” He finishes. Corlys, down the table, hums. “Unyielding.” 

You do not miss it, however miniscule it is: Rhaenyra and Rhaenys’ eyes, meeting across the table in a brief, laden glance; Daemon, Corlys, the other lords - all of them with expressions unreadable yet congruent. 

You glance at Baela, finding her expression as perplexed as your own. In that moment, you become acutely aware of the chasm of wisdom afforded between you and the elder members of the small council; Despite your training and schooling, you - Baela, Rhaena, and Jace - remain quite inexperienced in the presence of the others. Your cheeks heat with the shame of childish illusions of grandeur. 

Jacaerys’s jaw tightens, seemingly observing the moment similarly; His gaze has drifted to the parchment before him once more. “A public address, ravens denouncing their claims. And what else? We must act in a way that solidifies our stance, not just in words but in actions.”

He’s correct; your eyes glaze as you begin running over options within your mind. Rhaenyra’s gaze shifts to Jacaerys, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. “Honor lies in action, indeed.” 

Daemon clears his throat. “It seems we are all agreed upon the necessity of a firm response, both to our enemies and to our allies.” 

Rhaenyra nods, though her eyes linger momentarily on you; there is a pause, thick with implication, as if she is pondering something unsaid - you blink back owlishly, unused to her sudden attention. 

A small worry in the back of your mind - They wouldn’t dare suggest you truly go to King’s Landing… would they? A gust of icy fear through your heart at the thought - you’d not make it three steps before losing your head. She does not voice her thoughts, and it does nothing to settle the nerves within your stomach. 

“Well,” Rhaenya folds her hands upon her stomach, “It has been a tiresome day. Let us take time this evening to rest. We shall reconvene once we have all considered the ramifications.” 

You cannot ignore the glace shot your way from Jacaerys; at this angle, you can see a bruise in the shape of your lips that paints a small blemish just below his ear; your stomach flips in a horrid concoction of heat and guilt. 

You release a breath, ignoring the smoldering stare across from you. You know you must speak with him, though you wish nothing more than to avoid him. 

Anxiety knots within your belly, that cunning serpent coiling tighter with each passing thought - You were rash, allowing fear to seize your tongue this morning. A conversation must come if there is to be any hope of mending whatever delicate…companionship has grown between you and Jacaerys during your time upon Dragonstone - one which you both so easily discarded earlier this morning. 

As the council members rise and Queen Rhaenyra takes her leave, you linger in hesitation. Heart beating a discordant rhythm, you tug at the bodice of your gown and grit your teeth - but before you can gather the courage to approach, Jacaerys has already slipped from the chamber, vanishing into the shadowed depths of the castle to brood in solitude.

A DAY PASSES BEFORE YOU FIND A MOMENT TO ATTEND YOUR DRAGON.

The wind whispers through your hair as you ascend into the sky; with a grin, the drop in your stomach is accompanied with adrenaline as you call to fly higher, “Eglikta!” 

Your dragon takes your command with glee, wings powerful as they beat a quicker rhythm, bringing you closer to the heavens. It’s been much too long - you haven’t ridden upon her for this long since your escape from the Keep those months ago; though such memories are far from your mind this afternoon, wonderfully empty save for the scales that rest, warm and known, under your palms. 

A surge of unbridled freedom; you soar above the clouds, gliding effortlessly over the endless, shimmering expanse of the sea below. A seacreature leaps from the depths and you laugh in surprise - wind against your face, the island becomes a distant painting, stroked with a hundred shades of green and blue. 

There are clouds above; rain will come in the evening, as it did the eve before, and the eve before that - the memory of drizzled water against the sill of your chamber window, candles flickering, Jacaerys’ voice low and warm; you shut the thought from your mind. 

It was not raining when Daemon took the head of the Lannister boy, your mind reminds you; a clench of your heart, you cast aside all thoughts that ravage your weary mind. 

Soon, an eclipse of sunlight draws your mind from its dredges; a shape, familiar as the back of your hand, reflected in refractions of clouds and water on the ocean below - another dragon. 

It seems your dragon has craned her neck to gaze above you - a delighted chortle, a low screeching as she draws upwards sharply, jolting your momentum back with a startled gasp. 

The scales of the dragon above glint; emerald looks polished, nearly bronze in the light of the day as your dragon flies to meet her familiar - your stomach dips wildly. 

Vermax lets loose a similar rumble of recognition as he emerges from a batch of fluffy clouds high above -  despite the seize in your heart at the glimpse of the rider upon Vermax’s back, you let your dragon near, not possessing the heart to separate her from him. 

Vermax and your own dragon - born two of four small eggs of Syrax. Placed in the cradles of you and your nephew in your own youths and hatched; grown together, flying for many years under the same sky.

The years in which Vermax lived within the Dragonmont while your own dragon resided within the Dragonpit were laced with a forlorning; a mourning, for a part of themselves lost to distance and destiny. 

No longer.  

You could not have believed yourself surprised when, after arriving upon the island, you’d looked up through your temporary cell’s window to see their two shadows dancing upon the shimmering sky, chittering excitement and roaring into the chasmed blanket of night. 

Today, it seems they are just as enthusiastic to fly together. 

With a grunt, your hands fly to stabilize yourself; your dragon spirals, chirruping as Vermax dips to circle her - a joyous play, as if young pups. The earth below spirals in your vision and you shut your eyes for a moment, reveling in the ecstasy of thrill at the dipping and swaying. 

Scales catch light of the sun in brilliant flashes. Emerald and sapphire; an ocean and its shore. 

Sharp drop of weight and you let out a short yelp - a well-waited thrill, your eyes wide as you glimpse Vermax and his rider diving steeply just beside you; Jacaerys rides upon Vermax with a small smile, his hair windswept and damp from the moisture of clouds above. 

Just as true in youth as now, the sun seems to favor him more than anybody you’ve ever met. 

It kisses his silhouette gently, divined from the very gods you ride upon; fiery, golden, striking. Lit in a warm glow, a sturdy chest, aquiline nose, plush lips. His gaze finds yours as your twinned dragons soar towards the chasm of blue below. 

It is indeed the first time you’ve seen him in a sun’s cycle - You offer him a strained, tight-lipped smile, acutely aware of the tempest of ire and remorse mirrored in both your eyes and his own. 

A terse nod, which he returns; eyes less than pleased to meet your company, though he hides it just as well as he did in youth. You scarcely have a moment to feel such pangs of dissatisfaction before the dragons split - their feet skimming against the ocean below. A yell of exclamation from Jace harmonizes with your own scream of surprise. 

Water sprays up, drenching you both in salty droplets, and you find yourselves laughing incredulously, the strain of shared enmity momentarily forgotten in common exhilaration. 

“Jikagon, Vermax!” Jacaerys’ command to go is far away as your dragon ascends once more - but you can hear the twinge of amusement. Swallowing back the thick wad of thorns within your throat, you smile to yourself smally; never does he seem more free than upon the back of Vermax. You wonder what he sees when you’re aback your own dragon; that same uninhibited joy, the absence of worry, of duty, of harbored emotions.  

With the flicker of smoldering, ancient eyes behind you, a memory of youthful chases on dragonback spurs your call. “Jikagon, Vermax arghugon īlva!” Your dragon screeches with excitement at your command- Go, Vermax will chase us - her tail flicks as her wings pull you upwards.  

Vermax indeed chases you; A jubilant screech from your own steed as you hold the leather tight - dipping, serpentining through the air. The ocean shimmers below you, the air whips above you; That scarce memory once again - you, flying in your youth behind Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, Vermax and Arrax snarling with lively pursuit behind you. And the watchful, judging eyes of your mother - always so wary of dragons - below you as you and the others soar over.  

Your elation is curbed as the cold reality washes over you; the absence of pearlescent scales now seems to swallow you whole. The dragons chirp playfully and a deep pit of despair opens once more: Do Vermax and your dragon feel that tearing, gnawing hole that plagues you? Does Vermax stir at night as you know Jacaerys does, unable to rest with the memories of his brother, gone?

It stings your eyes, to think they mourn Arrax just as you both mourn his rider. 

The thought seems to underscore the rift that has ruptured between you and Jacaerys - the twin embers of his eyes avoid yours as he stares down at the passing ocean below. You look ahead, ignoring the longing which hides somewhere in the depths of your heart. Of course I trust you, he’d said - I can’t bear the thought of you being hurt, or…worse. 

Your own words, then - cold and unforgiving and entirely foolish: If caring for me is your answer, then your misplaced affection is nothing more than a weakness.

Your heart sinks with burden, scolding yourself for destroying any small chance of personal connection. How easy it would be to place such blame upon your mother and father; how are you to embrace a tender touch, if all you’ve known is the harsh sting of neglect? How can you allow yourself to feel, when any other embrace has only left you stumbling through shadows, chasing the attention of those who will never give it? 

You look to the shoreline, as if it would give you the answer you wish to hear. It remains silent. 

Vermax is not far behind you when you redirect your dragon to the Dragonmont.

She is hungry; you thank the keepers for rations given, insisting you may feed her yourself. Soothing your palm along her scales, warm as coals, you’ve successfully busied yourself to quell the anxiety eating at the lining of your gut.

You sit, legs perched precariously off the chasmous pit of the mont, tossing your dragon bits of sheep, smirking as she catches them within her maw. 

The tremor of Vermax entering through the mouth of the cave jolts you from a hazy absence of thought - you rise, wiping your sweaty palms upon your riding trousers as you gather your gear to put away. Your dragon chitters, the immense heat from her nose nudging against your arm - distractedly, you press your forehead to her for a brief respite from the impending inevitability.

It isn’t until you see Jacaerys in your peripheral vision, until you feel the heat of Vermax across the way, that you straighten your posture and turn. 

Jacaerys has bent to pick up a discarded leather glove; Wordlessly, he places it gently in the basket of your riding gear the dragonkeeper holds - the garment must have fallen in your haste to leave. The unnecessary gesture sends a remorseful pang through you; with a nod of thanks, you clear your throat, eyes meeting his own from across the way. 

Vermax has begun to settle, stalking closer to your own dragon as their riders remain feet apart, watching each other with wary eyes. 

“Thank you. I must have dropped it.” you murmur, trying to steady your voice - he nods curtly, eyes still avoiding yours. It’s not more than a day, though the gap in casual familiarity between you makes it feel as though it’s been years once more.

The silence within the scent of dragonsmoke is near unbearable - dense and suffocating with unresolved emotions. It is keenly obvious to you that bringing up anything of substance will only lead to another argument; A poor fate, especially in front of the dragonkeepers - so you resort to tearing at the skin surrounding your nail beds, shifting upon unsteady feet. 

“It’s... quite a nice day,” you finally offer painfully, glancing out at the clear sky through the cave. “The weather’s agreeable.”

Jacaerys follows your gaze, turning his head momentarily - he nods, mercifully relinquishing his evident resentment for the sake of propriety. “Good for riding.” He observes. 

You nod, feeling awkward - though wind-dried, your hair still carries the smell of the sea, clothes damp from your dragon’s romp with the glassy waves. “Yes, very... good for riding. I believed it would rain, but it seems to be holding up.” 

“I believed so too,” Jacaerys agrees, clearing his throat. “But this was ideal. For the dragons. And... us, I suppose.”

An incredibly stunted conversation - as if regressed to your childish selves, to the awkward conversations you’d been guided to have once the news was announced of your betrothal; in the throes of your budding admiration and his growing aversion. 

Ten years after, yet you stand before him still: A girl, forever cursed with blood of emerald.

Trying to grasp at any remaining thread of conversation, you rub your arm. “The dragons appear to have enjoyed it.”

“Yes,” Jacaerys says, though his eyes remain distant. “They’re quite contented.”

“They seem relieved after such time apart,” you say, glancing at the two dragons who playfully nudge each other, grunting and growling low - scarcely like anything seen of dragons before. 

He replies after a moment, his tone thick, “I believe they missed each other’s company.” 

You do not find the words to respond. 

The dragons chitter and grumble, their shared heat warming the entire cavern; You can’t help but feel a sense of longing for the simplicity of their connection. 

“It’s quite remarkable.” you say absently, eyes zoned out somewhere toward the dragons. A pair of hazel eyes follow your gaze, a softening in his expression. After a moment of watching them, Jacaerys’ gaze drops. 

It is awfully quiet until, seemingly tired of his sister, Vermax has moved to nudge into Jace’s side, sending him tumbling slightly in surprise. 

An ache in your breast; a mirthful grin grows upon Jace’s expression, reaching to rub his dragon’s snout. 

You take this as a chance to exit, unable to watch him interact so kindly with Vermax any longer. “If you’ll excuse me.” You say, unbalanced on your feet. A flicker in his stare, as if he almost wishes to speak - but instead he simply nods. “Good day, Princess.” 

You bow lightly, stung by the reality of formality as you avoid his stare. “Good day, my Prince.” 

You look back once as you leave the mont - Jace’s back is to you, engrossed in tending to Vermax; movements precise, practiced - a low drawl of Valyrian from his lips, whispering into the deep cavern. 

HIS CHAMBER SMELLS OF CINNAMON.

It is dark, in the eve of night; a soft glow of the hearth echoing in the heat of the room - furs, sheets - tangled, soft and yet fractious against your thighs. There is a fuzzy haze that has been brought in by the slow roll of waves against a rocky shoreline in the distance; by the empty cups of wine shining in their brass against the flickering flames. 

It is quite warm with Jacaerys’ chest against your own. 

Your eyes find the ceiling, stone above a four-postered bedframe, cinnamon hinting in your mind, some odd reminder of forgotten halls and whispers beyond curtains. There is a pair of lips, trailing over your throat with a hungry enthusiasm; just so, you find yourself alight with similar desire. Your skin, slick with the sweat of exertion though your arms curl lazily around shoulders bare of clothing. 

You are blissfully aware of the pleasure that grows within your core - Jacaerys moves his hips in slow, languid thrusts, your hair matted with sweat and ecstasy to the pillow below; your legs pull him closer by the hip. His hand, large and imbued with thick veins, cradles your jaw - the other stabilizing himself as his teeth nip your throat. 

“You do not know how long I’ve loved you.” The words are murmured against your neck, muttered with a slurry of laziness - one that only comes in the heat of passion, some desire lacing and clouding your mind. 

That cannot be true, some part of you tries to remind you - but it matters not, because he’s picked up his strokes, your back arching as some vague crest begins to stir within you, pleasure snaking its way through your veins. You beg him not to stop with whimpers and lips upon the shell of his ear. 

There is some odd twinge in your thoughts. Craving, with some vague kind of confusion - you tug the head of curls closer against your chest; perhaps, in an effort to muffle the lies which spill forth from such deceiving, beautiful lips. 

His eyes are shut and yours roam his warm expanse, dropping with a rush of thrill to see where your bodies meet - with an experimental roll of your hips, you are rewarded with a deep satisfaction. His groan harmonizes your mewl, a cottoned, far-off hymn. 

Seeking, you pull him down, pressing plush lips with your own; a heat, spurring and yearning, festers in your chest. Jacaerys’ body is warm and wanting, tangled with yours as he gives himself to you over and over, rocking you into the mattress below. It is euphoric. 

…How did you get here? 

Nails drag along the expanse of his back, over ridges of muscles and skin warmed with blood of dragons; he lets out a short breath at such a sensation, head tipping back as his brows tangle in pleasure. 

Soon there is a gust of cool air. 

Startled by the sudden shift, you blink - to your right, there is a cold hall; doors to some vaguely detectable apartments ajar just across the way. Lips press to you once more. 

There are tapestries of old hanging above the entryway, though they are not the ones you remember near Jace’s quarters - a flash of hair behind a curtain. 

When the voice comes, it is not from Jacaerys’ lips - which have found themselves a home upon your breast, biting lightly and groaning against your skin - you are very near the apex of your pleasure; You tear your eyes away from the corridor, faintly aware the doors to Jace’s chambers should be closed - but when his hand soothes over your temple, you forget your very thoughts. 

“She doesn’t have a brain between her ears.” 

Your eyes snap open, but the voice is far away - your head turns; aside the bed is that very room from the recess of memory. A girl, eight-and-ten, watching shadows reflect upon walls, burdened with the weight of an apology not her own to give. The voice is not warm nor laced with anything but disdain, and you shut your eyes, aware of what’s next to come. “It’s like she opens her mouth and her mother speaks through it.”

You push Jacaerys away slightly, your emotions swirling in confusion and need. He pulls away instantly though you remain staring up at the ceiling of stone, unable to face him, to reveal the chinks within your armor. 

 “Do you trust me?” 

You ask it, though it is not what you mean to say. In an odd breath, you find that your mouth is equally frozen and running without your permission - sheets, curling whitecaps upon waves over your body. The ceiling swirls above you. 

“You’re my wife," He says. It does not feel right. 

You shake your head, but it is dizzy and you begin to really wonder how you got here, and why it seems as though the Jacaerys before you isn’t the one you know. 

Your fingers twitch in his hair, wondering when he’d trimmed his curls; "Gaomagon ao pāsagon nyke?” You ask with a quiet voice, your voice distant, floating. Do you trust me?

The silence nearly makes you flicker your gaze - but then, a sigh. “You know I do not understand when you take that tongue - only your dragon knows such ancient words.” 

No, certainly that is not right - but, he speaks again. “Our betrothal was a gift from the gods. A gift of loyalty, from His Grace.” 

Alarm rises within you; you struggle to sit up, sheets tangling around your legs. The room shifts, shadows of serpents and spiders dancing upon the walls, mocking your turmoil.

With fear, you meet the eyes of the man before you: It is no longer Jacaerys.

Blonde hair, green eyes. Your throat tightens, eyes flickering to the sigil hanging above the hearth; a roaring lion. 

You start with a gasp, eyes flying open. Eyes, panicked, flicker to your window; in the distance, the sun still shines. A shadow eclipsing the light momentarily in the horizon - a dragon, screeching as it crosses the refractions of the ocean. 

Relief floods you. Gods. 

Reaching aside your bed, gulping down the remnants of a stale cup of water, you let out a shaky breath - there is something you must do. 

You must do it now, before you lose such conviction. 

You summon your maids with a quick command, stripping in preparation to bathe, staring out upon the sea. Once again they appease you, as they always do; you ask them of their days, avoiding speaking of yourself nor the turmoil that brings such tired evidence below your eyes. 

They tend to your hair, your nails - you ask of their childhoods with a gentle melancholy, and when they lace up an elegant gown, pin up your hair, they answer you with kind voices and sympathetic eyes. 

IT TAKES MOST OF THE DAY TO FIND HIM. 

Afternoon meal has passed; you know Jacaerys prefers to train in the mornings, but you still make the foolish decision to visit the sparring yard first. There you find no prince but instead endure a short sword lesson under the tutelage of Ser Marbrand, who mercifully does not dare broach the subject of Jace’s late night visit to your chambers.

Jacaerys’ absence persists as you check his personal chambers - next, Joffrey and the younger boys’ rooms; you spend a few moments with them, soft smiles and quiet conversation about their toys, before nodding kindly to the nursemaids. 

Rhaena and Baela, puzzled by your inquiry amidst the clear tension between you and your nephew, shake their heads with pressed lips and quick glances to each other. 

It is not until a bit later that desperation grips you - Vermax is alone at the dragonmont, the Sept is cavernous as usual, the forge, the gatehouse, Aegon’s Garden - all, untenanted; the library echoes only the sparse coughs of household workers. 

You nearly give up, stalking back to your quarters with a melancholy affliction, lonelier than you’ve felt in weeks, arms crossed. It is only when you pass the council room on your journey to the beach - a last-ditch effort to find the prince, knowing he often retreats to the beach when he wishes to be alone - that you consider it. 

The presence of guards perks your interest; Discouraged but resigned to the futility of the day, you nod to them in greeting. When the guards open the chamber door, you expect to turn heel after being met with an empty room. 

You do not expect the arresting sight of Jacaerys, stood in thought, curls handing over his sharp expression. 

Sword and hilt abandoned atop the painted table, he seems to stare at some point upon the map; you take a few hesitant steps down the stair before he takes in your presence. "Princess," Jacaerys greets, his voice strained. 

You nod to him - having searched all day to no avail, you’re rendered rather stunned by his presence.  “My prince.” 

Feet carrying you unevenly, you find the point of his attention - the seat paramount of the stormlands: Storm’s End. You bite your lip at the wave of sorrow that washes over you, knowing you must push through the flare of anxiety, despite how you wish to turn tail. 

"I was hoping I’d find you.” You say gently, unwilling to admit the extent of your desperate search, the way your heart has begun to pound with a yearning to make amends. “You were not in the yards this afternoon. I trained with Ser Marbrand.” And then, an afterthought, “He is not as patient a teacher as you.” 

He nods, jaw clenching as he stares down at the table below. “I did not feel well.” He excuses, shifting upon his feet. It is a falsehood, yet neither of you dare to challenge it.

You clear your throat. “I hope you are faring better now.” 

Jacaerys nods once again, but he doesn't meet your gaze; a solemn stare down at the table. You take in his furrowed expression - Maybe I’m afraid of hurting you, you’d excused. He’d laughed at your words, voice so sure as he’d regripped the training sword. You won’t, he’d promised.  

The silence stretches between you, heavy. 

After a long pause, he finally speaks. "The other day," he begins, his voice tight with emotion, "you mentioned that all we ever do is raise our voices at each other." 

You swallow hard, the memory of your words stinging - how soft his skin looked as he looked upon the sunset - freckles kissed upon his nose by the doting sun - his hand in yours, escorting you over jagged rocks. A whisper in the wind: You will be a wonderful wife to whoever you marry. I’ll likely wish I were him for the rest of my life.

You’ve been a fool. 

"I did." You whisper.  

"It is true, is it not? Each time we converse, it seems to end in strife." He falls silent again, and a pang of melancholy churns within your belly. 

"We are both... under much pressure.” You start, looking to his hands, splayed over the stone, fingers tapping in a betrayal of the anxiety within his chest. Your tongue brushes over your bottom lip. 

“But…I do not wish for us to always be at odds." You add, tinged with a desperation to mend whatever oddship, whatever possibility you may have found within each other. He shakes his head, glancing sidelong at you. “Nor do I.” 

“Then…” You take a breath of your own before forging ahead, “you must stop seeing me as someone to be controlled.” 

His jaw tightens, eyes clouded with unspoken thoughts, but he lets you speak; he knows, just as you, that this conversation must be had. 

Despite the wild fluttering within your stomach, you press on. “I worry losing you, Jacaerys. Of losing all of us.” Your breath trembles, “But that does not grant you leave to belittle my actions in the name of protection. I do not wish to be coddled."

His mouth opens, then shuts; an acknowledgement, a promise to listen.

Just as well - it has become apparent that if you stop, you will let loose the emotion which brims in the corner of your vision. 

“I understand it was a poor choice to leave the council. But…” You shake your head, struggling to keep your composure, “He killed that boy, Jace. We.. was I supposed to say no to the Queen?” 

He stirs, swallowing down the words that nearly spill from his lips. Instead, he nods.

“I never intended to belittle your actions,” he says softly, his voice tight with sincerity. “I have been beset with anger and fear, with the Greens and…with my own uncertainties.” He hesitates, his gaze falling to the table as if searching for answers among the gleaming stone surface. “But that does not excuse my actions. I realize now that you deserve more than my misguided efforts.”

Misguided. 

The chamber is cavernous, its emptiness echoing with a chill of air; sunbeams pierce through the slatted windows, casting long, somber shadows that dance across the cold stone floor. The light feels harsh, as you look upon him.

Your heart twists, wishing nothing more than to grasp his face in your hands, smooth the furrow of his brows. 

You find yourself relieved that you and Jacaerys have managed to temper your dispositions, if only just. Your hands tremble slightly - you clasp them tightly in the folds of your gown, trying to still the quivering, before you reach out to touch his arm. 

At the reach he pulls away slightly, his eyes lifting to meet yours with a sorrowful, almost pleading expression. The change in his demeanor tugs painfully at your heart. “What is on your mind, Jacaerys?” you ask softly, leaning closer to catch his troubled gaze. He, dutifully letting you speak to him of your conniptions; yet you have not given him the time to speak his own. 

His gaze is much more genuine than you expect, large eyes framed by long, dark lashes. “Are you truly of the opinion that my actions are driven by nothing more than desire?” His voice breaks the heavy silence. “Is that all you believe me capable of?” 

You pause, the depth of his vulnerability catching you off guard, leaving you momentarily speechless.

“I... I was angry. Hurt.” You begin, heart clenching. His gaze drops, and you notice the subtle slump of his shoulders, a sign of his own weariness. “Jacaerys,” you begin, your voice gently coaxing him to look up - he does, with those large eyes. “I should not have said such things to you. But you must understand how your actions could suggest that I am merely something of... convenience for you.” 

He blinks, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “There are times I have treated you as an adversary, and then a playpiece.” he admits, his voice thick with regret, his fists clenching against the cold stone of the table. “I lament every moment of it.”

He inhales shakily, turning towards you with a pained expression. “I should not have come to your chambers that night,” he says, shaking his head as though trying to rid himself of the memory. “I should not have dishonored you in such a way. I cannot bear that you think me a man so incapable of such restraint.” 

Your heart races at his admission, the air thick with unspoken tension. “I said very foolish things to you yesterday. I was much too harsh. I know what-” you speak softly, your voice catching with emotion, “What holding affection for someone can mean in times like this. And… I admit, I am also just as much to blame for the lack of restraint-"

But he interrupts gently with a murmur of your name, shaking his head. “I could not blame you for the words exchanged after such a…long night. I merely wish for you to know that I see you my equal. And I beg forgiveness that I let my affections for you make it seem I would believe anything less.”

There is a soft rustling of the tapestry hanging on the wall; a flutter of your heart. 

Such familiar resistance twists within you, a sharp contrast to the gentle grace Jacaerys and his brothers embody - a grace quite absent in the memories of your own upbringing. His mother has indeed raised her sons well: strong-willed and astute, tempered with tenderness, with care. Such virtues woefully absent in your own brothers, woefully amiss within yourself on many occasions.

“Jace,” you murmur, stepping closer, the space between you shrinking. “I no longer harbor resentment for the strains in our relationship since my arrival at Dragonstone, even though I used such memories against you when I was angry.” You shake your head, your voice steadying as hunger, affection, pent-up stress slowly pools in your chest. “We have both erred. Yet I desire to be more than hurtful words, spoken in the heat of a moment.”

He nods; the tension between you softens with every breath between you. Some ancient shift, as if the gods blow air into your chests one and the same. A hymn - of the Crone and of the Maiden, written long before you and he.  

Jacaerys studies you with eyes no less than worshiping; you suspect you might regard him the same. 

His finely tailored doublet; rich fabric clinging to the contours of his form, accentuating the powerful lines of his shoulders and chest - you course your eyes past the light which weaves through the intricate embroidery. 

His hands, trickled tributaries of veins akin to the maps of the riverlands - knuckles rough, caressing your arm gently. You quite enjoy the soft dimple, accentuated by the sun’s attention, that slowly grows under the heat of your study. His cheeks, red.

Some radiant intensity within his expression; dark in contours, in the line of his brow, the curls against soft skin.

“I regret that my behavior has made you question my intentions.” He wettens his lips. You do the same. “I must make clear to you that my feelings for you are not misplaced, nor driven by mere impulse. Though…” He pauses with a gaze rather intense, a soft, sheepish grin escaping as he adjusts a curl at the nape of his neck, “I cannot deny that desire often has its own power over me when it comes to you.”

You believe him - and at the reminder of such times you’ve let the desire consume yourself, your cheeks flush. A new longing; deeper, more warm, like a long-awoken affection, rises within your chest as you eye him through your lashes. Some secret self-destructive streak, the very same you’ve seen hidden within Jacaerys’ gaze, flickers awake within you. 

Falling from your lips is a shaky laugh, eyes fluttering as you lay your hand gently upon his shoulder. You’re not sure why the ancient tongue slips from your lips - perhaps to dispel the echoes of your unsettling dream, or to remind him of the shared flame that burns within you both. “Gaomagon ao pāsagon nyke?” Your voice trembles; vulnerability and yearning alike. 

Do you trust me? 

Shoulders turning, he regards you with a craving, some deep warmth that heats your stomach. A palm, leaving the table to brush a stray hair from your gaze. You find his jaw with a palm of your own - gentle, tentative. 

He does not recoil from your touch as before. Instead he draws nearer, as the tides are pulled by the moon, pressing his body against yours; effectively pinning you against the painted table. 

The sudden contact takes your breath away, a sharp exhale through your lips as the heat between you intensifies. His breath mingles with yours in the stillness, a shared warmth, a prayer intended for no gods but those you create within each other. Your hands grasp his biceps, feeling the taut strength beneath his finely tailored clothing. 

His expression is firm, certain. “Sodjisto. Nyke pāsagon ao lēda mirre bona iksan.” His voice cuts through the quiet chamber; I trust you with all that I am. 

The sincerity in his eyes is a flame that mollifies the waxen worry of uncertainty; his lips hover near yours, breaths entangled in the lazed still of afternoon. A warm memory; a murmured whisper to your heated lips in the heat of your bedroom nights ago - I crave you. To have, as a husband may have his wife. 

Beams of light pierce the room behind him, a halo of divine grace backlit over his curls; A fleeting gift from the Father himself.

You might have fallen to your knees in prayer, if his body did not so tenderly cage you.

His hands grip your waist with a tentative worry, as if the echoing of your harsh words replay within the concern of his mind. Do not give in to desire, he must be schooling himself - a foolish notion, when all you possess is such. And what is devotion, if not desire? 

Slowly, you draw him closer until you are pressed firmly against him. 

“Se…” You swallow, heart alight with burning eagerness, “Kessa ao vūjigon nyke? sir?” His brows lift slightly, a groan concealed with an exhale; his eyes rove over your figure below his stare. And… would you kiss me? Now? 

The table beneath you shifts as he leans in, his lips brushing yours with a tentative lightness, as if he holds back. “Lo issa skoros ao jaelagon.” He whispers against your lips, a heat in your chest; If that is what you wish. 

His tongue traces his lower lip before he speaks again, “Gaoman daor jaelagon naejot deny ao mirros.” He promises - a shiver down your spine. I would not dare deny you anything. 

You pull him by nape of neck, relishing in the short breath you both seem to take against each other’s lips. It is slow, soft before your lips find his. 

The echo of reticence in the chamber when his lips press to yours is rather thrilling; here, in such a public space - a foolish decision, one that is done out of nothing but pure desperation, unbridled emotion. His lips are just as feverish as your own when he finds you; you are pressed once more against the table behind you. 

His hands, no longer hesitant, roam your body with a possessive urgency - drawing you into his depths. Your fingers tangle in his hair, the sensation of his tongue against your lower lip drawing a sigh of both pleasure and relief. 

Spurred by your soft, breathy sound, Jacaerys shifts, pressing you further upon the painted table, the cool stone upon the fabric of your back. 

Your lips glide against his with a tantalizing ease, tongue brushing his own. A fiery touch roams over your shoulders, down your sides, grasping your hips with a sense of urgency; tender, insistent.

“Jace,” you breathe, your voice trembling with a mix of desire and emotion, your tongue dancing between the common and high Valyrian, ”Nyke zālagon syt ao.” I burn for you. He responds with a growl, his hands sliding down to your hips.

The painted table creaks beneath you as he presses you down, his body arching over yours with protectiveness, desire. Fingers upon your hips; against your dress, lifting you just so - tremors of arousal at his lithe body pressing flush against your own. Pushing, coaxing you upon the very table you’ve held council for the past moons. 

A surge within you - his mouth moves to your neck, leaving a trail of soft, intent kisses that make you gasp. “We should not be here,” he murmurs, words burning into your skin between kisses; though his actions betray his words, one palm sliding to the curve of your thigh as it hooks around his own lithe waist.

Fingertips dancing hungrily upon the crest of your ass, you release a short mewl that nearly has his hips buck into your own. A rush of pleasure - you shiver at the boldness of such a touch, spine bending deliciously to press your chest against his own.  

“No,” You agree, breath ragged, “Indeed, this may well be one of our gravest decisions.” 

He hums, equally unperturbed by any semblance of decorum. You tilt your head back, giving him more access to the column of your throat; he takes full advantage, his lips and tongue exploring every inch of your trembling skin - aware of the cloaked guards just outside the heavy doors, it becomes obvious how reckless you’ve become under the power of Jacaerys’ affection. Two flames, twinned and flickering, lost in each other.

“I cannot resist you,” He nearly groans into your skin, eyes clenching as if to ward off any barrage of less than suitable visions. “Everything you are.” 

The painted table creaks beneath you when he presses himself firmly against you, arousal growing beneath his breeches - yet you are beyond caring for the noise, too consumed by the rumbling of his chest, his grasp upon your jaw. 

Thumb pressing your cheek, fingers splayed below your ear; the hunger in his eyes, laced with a gentleness as he turns your face with an adoring gaze, taking in your flushed cheeks, your lips slick with his saliva and your own. 

“Iksā ao umbagon isse ñuha bartos. Gevie.” His eyes watch you - you are stuck in my head. Beautiful. Shivers over your body as you pull him back to you, heart pounding within your chest. 

The strong bridge of his nose slides against your own as he finds your lips once more; nails clawing desperately to pull him further atop you, you drink his low groan in, sighing into his own mouth. 

Yet, a sudden noise through the quiet of the chambers shatters the fervor of the moment. 

An ominous creak of the heavy door, sending a visceral jolt through both of you; eyes snapping open, time seems to stretch. 

Fear of being discovered crystallizes instantly - a panicked lurch, forehead knocking to his. Jace, wincing and equally startled, scrambling to disentangle himself from you. 

The door opens. 

Jacaerys, in a swift, instinctive motion, tugs at the skirts of your dress, desperately seeking to shield your modesty. 

The figure in the doorway makes your heart stop. 

Daemon. 

Your eyes, wide - cheeks, flushed; your uncle, staring inscrutably at your disheveled forms.  

You slide off the table with a graceless drop, desperately attempting to compose yourself, the racing in your chest, the arousal that drips between your thighs. 

Jacaerys stands beside you, his eyes avoiding both you and Daemon, his posture rigid, cheeks redder than an apple. 

Daemon breaks the heavy silence with a dry, almost casual tone. “I had intended to seek you both in your chambers,” he begins, his gaze flicking over the disheveled state of you and Jacaerys. “but it appears that is no longer necessary.” 

You do not dare utter a word; never mind that you’d not be able to speak if you so wished - your throat has become a desert of sand. 

Daemon pauses, allowing his words to settle before adding, “The queen has summoned you to her chambers. A matter of importance awaits.”

THERE IS A TRAIL OF INCENSE THAT LAZES IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM. 

Its smell is wonderful, while thick - low light of candle, your eyes strain to pick up the small stream of smoke from your position, perched rather direly on the edge of the upholstery. Jacaerys shares the seat, though he has precariously placed himself on the complete opposite end, his profile once again sacrificed to the sole window’s bright glare of sunbeam. 

The room, richly adorned with tapestries and elegant furnishings, seems to close in on you; steadfastly ignoring both the lingering arousal that had pooled between your thighs not minutes ago and the man beside you that coaxed it, you feign interest in a book placed before you on the table. 

Daemon’s gaze is inscrutable, though a faint smirk lingers at the corners of his lips, serving to churn your stomach as you smile politely - weakly - at the queen. 

With a calm that contrasts sharply, Queen Rhaenyra offers a gracious nod of acknowledgement, sat across from you in an identical loveseat. “I must apologize for summoning you here rather than to the council.”

You shake your head, not trusting your voice - it seems Jacaerys is even less eager to respond. Daemon finds the grace to respond for you, unbothered to conceal a smirk. “Just as well, my queen. The council chambers were otherwise occupied at this hour.” 

His words, though spoken softly, are laced with an implicit understanding that sends a fresh wave of heat to your cheeks; Jacaerys shifts uncomfortably in his seat, though neither of you dare glance to each other.

 If she notices, the queen does not remark on the burning of your face. 

“I believed it best we address this matter before it reaches the ears of the others.” She folds her hands; you clench yours, resisting the urge to pick at aching nail beds. Your half-sister delivers the message the way maesters often rip off bandages: quick, without hesitation. “In light of the message from Aegon and the implications of your recent pledge to my cause, it has been decided that a reinstatement of the betrothal between Jacaerys and you is both prudent and necessary.” 

Seven heavens. 

A wave; shock, disbelief, relief. You are doused with an unbelievable heat upon your cheeks. 

Jacaerys and you exchange a glance, heart racing as you attempt to process her words. Have you truly stumbled your way, so recklessly, into such luck? Jace’s eyes mimic the same bewilderment as you, and neither of you risk it by speaking. 

Rhaenyra’s gaze is steady, “Such a pairing will serve to display a union of tradition and power to both our allies and the enemy. It shall similarly reinforce the strength of our position, and mitigate any further doubts regarding your allegiance.”

Jacaerys, cheeks visibly crimson, shifts in his seat, his eyes fixed on the ornate rug beneath him; knuckles grip the edge of the sofa as he hides some small breath of emotion. 

You find yourself pressing a tight-lipped smile towards the Queen, steadfastly ignoring the hawkish smirk on her husband’s face beside her. You let out not even a breath, hoping to the seven that this is not another dream.  

Her eyes scrutinize your silent reaction, laced with a concealed intrigue that sets you in mortification. 

“I would have expected you to show more protestation.” 

Jace finds himself before you do, mercifully. “No—” he stammers, his face a mix of relief and barely restrained fluster. “It’s... it’s a sound strategy. I see the...necessity.”

You notice the blush creeping up his cheeks, flush, pretty. You wish to press your lips upon the heated skin. 

You draw a steadying breath, casting such unseemly thoughts out of your mind. “I believe it a sound decision.” you say, your voice firm. 

Rhaenyra’s gaze is steady, “I know this coupling might not feel ideal,” she begins - you ignore Daemon’s stare once more, the smirk that refuses to leave his lips. “-but you have both spent the better part of your lives preparing to serve the realm–together.” She nods,  “It is a prudent match. You two are more alike than either of you would care to admit.”

Daemon does not hide the huff of amusement at the queen’s words; you glance at him sharply, but hold your tongue. 

“Th-thank you, my queen.” You nod, genuinely moved by such high praise, your mind still reeling. The incense is thick in your nostrils. Her words carry the weight of expectation, of hope; you find yourself drawing a deep breath. 

“There is more,” She adds, “But I think it best to discuss at council.” You can only spare a weary glance to Jacaerys, heart skipping a beat as you look into his eyes - the eyes that will one day be of your valzȳrys. Husband.

series masterlist. taglist (strikethrough i cant tag): @useralba @bitchydragonparadisee @lukehughes43 @rhea-ripley @chloe-petrichors @jottositto @uhnanix @knight-of-flowerss @lenadoerrer @saccharineseas @greenvita @honk4emoboyz @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @darylspersonalwhore @taestrwbrry @withjinkoo @realporcelainkat @burningwitchobject @meowmeowmau @bigolidioot @eleana-aerrin @miraakswhore @mckennah123feedback highly appreciated.

[five-miles-over]

Whoo-hoo! Thanks for tagging me in this, @anukulee! Here are my answers:

Q: Which Mr. Hiddleston character (aside from Loki) is your comfort character?

Aside from Loki (who is definitely becoming a comfort character for me), it would have to be a tie between Bill Hazeldine from Suburban Shootout and Prince Hal from The Hollow Crown. I just start grinning and giggling like a fool every time I see them on-screen. Like everything is right with the universe :)

Q: Which Mr. Hiddleston character would understand self care and mental health the easiest?

Um...Ragnarok!Loki would probably understand mental health in my opinion, just because he's the most "modern" out of all of Hiddleston's characters. Though I agree with your opinion about Thomas Sharpe being very understanding of mental health due to his empathetic nature and the trauma he's witnessed in his lifetime

Q: Out of all Mr. Hiddleston works which one is your comforts?

Out of all of his works, which would be the most comforting? Probably the first Thor film. I swear nothing beats seeing one of your favorite characters' first appearance. It's like you're falling for them all over again, like tasting a familiar, sweet memory.

Q: What do you think would Mr. Hiddleston characters comfort playlists?

This could be an entirely separate post in itself (and maybe if I finally get my damned priorities straight with my WIPs, I'll do it), but I think each person's playlist would be reflective of their time period. For example, Thomas Sharpe's playlist would feature Debussy's Claire de Lune, and maybe some bits from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. James Conrad's playlist - and maybe Robert Laing's - would have hits from the 60s and 70s.

Q: Which one of Mr. Hiddleston characters do you think would be the most rational when you need comfort? And which one do you think would struggle and be unsure what to do?

Most rational? I have to hand it to Bill Hazeldine because he's just so caring. And definitely Loki (all eras) because he's also quite good at reading people. (Queen Frigga made this remark about him in Thor: The Dark World)

In terms of who would struggle, I'd go with Robert Laing and James Conrad because they're both used to not caring about what other people. If I can elaborate a bit, Robert's ability to not care about other people is what enabled him to be one of the final survivors of the madness within high-rise. So to bring comfort to another person is not something that would come easily to him.

Similarly, James Conrad has lived in a survival-type of situation for a long time, whether it be his time in the military or his time hiding in Vietnam (before Skull Island). Being able to break out of that 'every man for himself' mode is something that would need time.

Q: Out if all of Mr. Hiddleston characters (aside from Loki) who do you think is in the most need of comfort?

THOMAS SHARPE for sure. Tbh, I think they could all use more comfort, but Thomas Sharpe definitely needs intense help because of, like you said, incest. Plus, he lost his parents at a young age, had an overbearing guardian in the form of a sister who tried to control everything, and pretty much gets criticized by everyone as someone who's never known hard work. (This is true in the film when Thomas tries to sell his own inventions)

Also, nice choice picking Freddie Page from The Deep Blue Sea

Q: Who do you think out of all of Mr. Hiddleston characters would give the best hug?

Bill, Loki, or Henry V.

Q: What would be each Mr. Hiddleston character comfort routines?

How they would comfort you in times of need?

Thor 1!Loki, Bill Hazeldine, Thomas Sharpe, Jonathan Pine: Hug, cuddle, cry, and forget about the world for a little while. Hot chocolate included.

Robert Laing, James Conrad, Freddie Page: Pour a drink and try not to think about it. Repeat.

Prince Hal, Oakley: Let's stop being sad, and be awesome instead. Have some fun, life is short

Q: Out of all of Mr. Hiddleston characters who would likely to take you to Disney?

Ragnarok!Loki, for sure. I think he'd have a lot of fun (just for kicks, Thor would tease Loki about fitting in with the princesses). Bill would also have the time of his life, putting on the mouse ears and enjoying the rides.

But you know who I want to take to Disney? Jonathan Pine, just so he can take a break from his dangerous life and enjoy something simple. Even if he doesn't have a liking for fairytales, he'd still have a lot of fun.

Also, if I had a time machine or something like that, I'd love to see Henry V enjoy Disney too.

Time for what I am calling our caring edition. What is that you may be wondering, basically I will be asking you all questions regarding to Mr. Hiddleston characters and how they would be in a caring manner. If any of this hits too close to home, then you don’t have to answer if not then proceed on..

Q: Which Mr. Hiddleston character (aside from Loki) is your comfort character?

A: I would have to say Thomas because I think he could use a good hug, and wouldn’t mind giving me one.

Q: Which Mr. Hiddleston character would understand self care and mental health the easiest?

A: Loki 💯 percent, due to his childhood I think he would grasp the concept of mental health better then most or already know of it.

Q: Out of all Mr. Hiddleston works which one is your comforts?

A: Honestly Loki because I see him and smile a little seeing him. Reminds me things could be worse.

Q: What do you think would Mr. Hiddleston characters comfort playlists?

A: I am not sure about this honestly.

Q: Which one of Mr. Hiddleston characters do you think would be the most rational when you need comfort? And which one do you think would struggle and be unsure what to do?

A: Loki and Bill easily would likely understand the concept easily and try to help you. I honestly think it would be James, Jonathan, Freddie, and Thomas who would be unsure what to do. All of them are likely not used to having to express emotions of what they truly feel. They have to be seen as men before anything else.

Q: Out if all of Mr. Hiddleston characters (aside from Loki) who do you think is in the most need of comfort?

A: Thomas and Freddie. Thomas because of incest and Freddie due to all that war trauma.

Q: Who do you think out of all of Mr. Hiddleston characters would give the best hug?

A: Loki I wouldn’t mind being hugged by him.

Q: What would be each Mr. Hiddleston character comfort routines?

A: Loki trying to find a way to cheer you up whether that be comforting you or just letting you be.

Freddie: He is unsure what to do exactly but tries his best.

Thomas: Just hugs you, refuses to let you go, and reassures you.

Q: Out of all of Mr. Hiddleston characters who would likely to take you to Disney?

A: Loki I think he would be amusing of everyone crowding for two minute rides.

@mochie85 @lokisgoodgirl @loki-smut-library @lokiprompts @lokisprettygirl @lokisgoodgirl @eleniblue @queen-paladin @muddyorbsblr @mcufan72 @lokifiction @lady-rose-moon @smolvenger @the--sad--hatter @holdmytesseract @simplyholl @sarahscribbles @starlight-loki @five-miles-over @infinitystoner @ijuststareatstuffhereok89 @writings-of-my-own @five-miles-over @wheredafandomat @shadeysprings @anonymousfiction211 @asgardwinter @evelyn-kingsley @chantsdemarins @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @lokibug @chantsdemarins

[salvatoreren]

Alright...

Chapter 127 is one of my favorite chapters in War For Paradis, so seeing it animated made me really happy

first of all that baby was cute that's it

tbh I wished Hange had raised their voice even more to convey more emotion as shown in the manga, because of the expression lines and all but It's good

Seeing the old scouts get animated in MAPPA also was cool, like i said in my last post abt the previous episode, Im not even an erwin stan but damn he looked good, have you also seen Miche/Mike? Whoo!

Bro Marco in MAPPA made me feel things, I love my boy so much even tho i make a lot of half jokes-

This episode made me sympathize with Jean a lot, which i did not honestly expect, he became my favorite character in a span of 24 minutes, seriously tho, he's honestly relatable in terms of realism

Gabi and Reiner's face when Magath tells them the sufferings of The Island devils isnt compared to what Marley has experienced, like wow it says so much fr it does

Mikasa and Annie facing off each other, god i love that annie shot with her blade

And Yelena? My god don't even get me started, Just like Jean I'm like wow this person speaks so much facts, and i was just cheering her on while she told the crimes of every single one of them like go on queen

oh and let's not forget about the expression Annie and Reiner make when she mentions Marco, pure, just pure satisfaction, Marco's death was one of the most cruelest things that happened, i haven't quite gotten over the unfairness of his death so yeah, but is it just me or do Annie and Reiner look more remorseful than in the manga when telling about his death,

Those shots, those weird branch shots i like them honestly, if i overanalyze it like i always do i'd say its like showing a shot of the paths so there's that

jean beating up Reiner, i swear guys i like reiner

Hange just being Hange, gosh they were so great this episode, their face when Reiner mentions about his split personality, them saying how no one was their to witness the past and to tell them to cut their bullshit, them saying "What about your seconds?"

Gabi apologizing, now her VA did a good job, so did Falco's, them saying please made my heart ache, poor kids

Istg guys Jean looked so good this episode especially these two shots

Jean apologizing to Gabi was idk ig this a stretch is kind of like Levi apologizing to Eren after yk beating him up, eh maybe that was just me, but fr Jean would rock the Captain position tho, and this part where annie says

Like did the guys rlly forgive her in the end? Ofc we don't know, no one bothered lol

Pieck in all her glory, amazing

I love this episode but lemme tell u guys I hate that god! only three episodes left, yk yk chapter 132 and then i will go into a deep state of isolation and utter emptiness bcus damn me for diving so deep into the aot fandom without any alternatives to make myself feel better when it ends, oh well there's always aot junior high,

at least the fandom would be suffering with me as well so cheers to us coping

[lauras-collection]

beyond being friends | part 1

Harrison Osterfield x Holland!Reader

|| Masterlist || Series Masterlist ||

Summary: What happens when you suddenly realise you’re attracted to your brother’s best friend?

When you and Harrison cross the line between friendship and something more, it makes everything more complicated than the average ‘being more than friends’ relationship. Because he’s your brothers best friend and you’re all living together.

Words: 1.5k

Warnings: mentions of toxic  (ex)friendships, smut in future chapters

A/N: THIS IS NOT A DRILL! It’s finally here! Can you believe it, because i can’t. I hope you like it!

special thanks to @duskholland​ for coming up with the title so i could keep the BBF abbreviation without downright calling it Brother’s Best Friend and being BBF’s biggest fan since the first time i told you about it 🥺

Feedback is always appreciated ❤️

You always thought that when you’d eventually move out, you’d move into a small flat in the city centre or student housing for uni. But you never imagined moving into a house that’s a literal five-minute walk from your parents' house with two of your brothers and their best friend. With Tuwaine moving out because of his new job, a room in Tom’s house became available and since Sam had his own place close to his cookery school, you’d been the first person to be asked to take the room. And you jumped at the opportunity.

You liked to be around your parents and Paddy, but you did crave a bit of the independence your older brothers seemed to have. Granted, Harry and Sam were only minutes older than you, but they never failed to remind you of that. Either way, you were now no longer living with your parents and it filled you with a sense of pride. 

Okay, you didn’t have to pay rent, just part of the additional costs, which was not really part of the typical experience when moving out, but you won’t complain. There has to be a benefit to your brother being an international movie star, right? 

“How do you feel now that you’re the only one living in this house who isn’t a Holland?” Tuwaine asks Harrison who’s leaning against the kitchen island his arms crossed over his chest.

“At this point, he might as well be” Sam interjects before Harrison can even open his mouth. “I swear he spends more time with our family than I do” 

“That’s because you’re too busy becoming the next Gordon Ramsey” Tom teases and nudges Sam’s shoulder. 

“Funny” Sam looks at him with a deadpan expression, you can’t help but snigger. 

“Hey, you’re the one who’s away for the majority of the year” You jump to Sam’s defence. Because if one of the Holland siblings is too busy for anything it’s Tom.

“Fair enough” Tom raises his hands in surrender. 

“How long was it that you’re leaving next time? Six months?” Harrison raises one eyebrow.

“Oh c’mon, it’s only four” Tom rolls his eyes with a chuckle. He’s laughing, but all of you know that he hates being gone from home for so long. That’s why he takes someone with him most of the times. This time, Harry will join him in New York, leaving you and Harrison living alone in the house.

You knew it was going to be rare that all four of you would be staying at the house at the same time, but it was still sad to think about. All of you are family people, you love to be around the people you love. And with Tom’s job sending him all around the world, you didn’t get to see him a lot. 

“I’m gonna miss you guys” You pout and Tom immediately comes over and gives you a hug.

“I’m gonna miss you, too.” Soon you feel another pair of arms wrap around you, without looking you know it’s Harry. And then the other boys join as well and you’re one big pile of people hugging in the middle of the kitchen.

*

“Morning” You mumble as you shuffle into the kitchen where Harrison is currently making himself a tea. He looks at you over his shoulder with a grin and you wonder how someone can have so much energy in the morning.

“Good morning, sunshine” He has to bite back a laugh and you only manage to grumble something unintelligible. You’re not really a morning person. 

Yesterday was as draining as a day of moving can be and then Sam stayed over because he drank a little too much and he kept kicking you during the night. So you’re certain you look like a mess but you don’t care, it’s not like Harrison has never seen you like this before. 

“Tea?” Harrison offers you a mug and you take it from him gratefully.

“Thanks” You let out a sigh as soon as you take the first sip. Harrison makes a mean tea. It’s got the perfect temperature, too.

“Rough first night?” He asks and pours himself a cuppa as well.

You must pull a face because Harrison is looking at you amused again. “Sam kicks in his sleep when he drinks” Both of you move to the table in the dining room. You let yourself fall into one of the chairs. “I swear he woke me up with a kick every five minutes” 

“Sucks to be you” Harrison laughs as you glare at him. You’re just about to give him the finger when a well-rested Sam enters the room. You can’t even react as quickly as he’s got your mug in his hands and drinks your tea.

“Hey! That’s mine!” You attempt to grab the mug from him, but because he’s a little shit he pulls it out of your reach and you’re too tired to fight for it. You watch dumbfounded as he goes back upstairs, with your tea.“I hate you” You call after him and slump down in your chair. 

“Hmm, you love me” Sam calls back. Of course, he’s right, but right now you’re not his biggest fan. You’re about to get up to make yourself another cup but Harrison beats you to it. 

“I’ve got it” 

“You’re already my favourite housemate, you know that?” You call after him and you hear him chuckle. Not long after, another perfect cup of tea is placed in front of you. 

“You’re the best” 

“Hey, what about me?” Harry comes strolling into the living room, his hands placed on his chest in mock offence. 

“You never make me tea in the morning, so you’re not even part of the competition.” 

“I’m wounded, sis” 

“Get over it, bro” Harry sits down next to you and ruffles your already messy hair. You don’t even muster up the energy to complain. Why are your brothers such a pain? Why can’t they be as lovely as Harrison who makes you tea without you even asking for it? 

“You look like shit,” Harry says as he rests his chin on his hand and looks at you.

“Thanks” – you glare at him – “That’s because I didn’t get any sleep because Sam kept kicking me” 

“Brutal” Harry doesn’t sound one bit sympathetic. 

“He’s staying in your room the next time he’s drunk” 

Harrison just watches the two of you with amusement while he sips his tea. 

Sam was right when he said that Harrison might as well be part of your family. For almost ten years he’s been Tom’s best friend now and you couldn’t even really remember what it was like without Harrison in your lives. You’d been twelve the first time he came over and to say you had a little bit of a crush on him would be… accurate. He’d intrigued you. With his blue eyes, blond hair and that little smirk he still had today he’d been the cutest boy you’d ever seen. 

Of course, he’d never seen you like that. What fifteen-year-old boy was interested in his best friend’s little sister? And you eventually grew out of that crush. Your high school friends on the other hand didn’t. And maybe that was why you were no longer interested in him. 

It took you a while to realise that the main reasons they always wanted to hang out at your place were Harrison and Tom. But when you did you felt a little lost. Was the only reason you had friends your brother? Was that all you could offer them? Because as soon as you refused to host any more sleepovers at your place you were quickly disregarded from the group. 

Now, a few years later, you could see that you’d rather have no friends than those girls, but at the time it was hard. The good thing about having four brothers, though, was that you’d never be without friends. Your brothers were your support system. They cheered you up and dragged you along to whatever mischief they were up to. And when Tom’s career took off and your old ‘friends’ tried to reach out to you, you just rolled your eyes. 

You were happy that Tom had found such great friends in Harrison and Tuwaine. Friends who were there for him and not his popularity or fame. Tom was a great judge of character and that was one thing you’d always admired about him. While you were a little naive at times and trusted people blindly, he knew who he could count on. And now, all of you were a tight-knit group of people you wouldn’t give up for the world.

 That’s why you aren’t even the slightest bit worried about living in the house with Harrison for four months. You’re close friends. What is there to worry about other than household chores? Living with him should be plain sailing, right? 

A/N: thank you for reading!!! this part was a little introduction to the story, I promise there’s going to be more happening in part two! I’ve got so much planned for this and I hope you’re as excited for the next 11 parts as i am 😅❤️ 

want to be tagged? you can find the link to my taglist form in my bio

mutuals that might be interested (I’m just gonna tag you for this first part): @terrifictomholland​ @stuckonspidey​ @selfcarecap​

everything taglist: @spidermanlondon​ // @averyfosterthoughts​ // @duskholland​ // @tutuabby28​ // @missevrythingg​ // @in-a-lot-of-fandoms-tbh​ // @thenoddingbunny-blog​ // @emilykjh​ // @clara-licht​ // @hollandfanficlove​ // @calltothewild​ // @crybabyalexxx​ // @hazardosterfield​ // @calsthomas​ // @quaksonhehe​ // @geminiparkers​ // @thirzaholland // @tombrina​ // @outshineallthestars​ // @serendipitous-amor​ // @soincredible​ // @trustfundparker​ // @localfangirlx​ // @writertoo18​ // @r3ader // @viagracex​ // @skamlover200​ // @wonderlandfandomkingdom​ // @wehavetomakeourheartssitstill​ // @thearchersupremacy​ // @itstaskeen​ // @camimndess​ // @allyz​ // @technosoot​ // @fanficscuziranout​ // @parker-hollandx​ // @givebuckyhisplumsnow​ // @dangerouslovefanfic​ // @ertherealrose​ // @i-married-a-pineapple​ // @miraclesoflove​ // @bi-girlwrites-2000​ // @seasidetom​ // @katcontrreras​ // * @determined-overthinker​ * // @fallingforfics​ // @destinedbooklover // @parkerpeter24​

bbf taglist: @m-a-r-i-n-t​ // @mrs-hollandstan​ // @unicorn-princess-1999​ // @mimisparkle12​ // @bearsbeetsbarnes​ // @annathesillyfriend​ // @sydsquibbles​ // @vapingisntmything​ // @littlebookbengal​ // @quethekillerqueen​ // @love-makes-all-things-beautiful // @swiftmind​ // @pearly-pisces​ //

harrison osterfield taglist: @hjoficrecs​ // @lolychu​ // @hazardosterfield​ // @hollandbroz-n-haz​

series taglist: @softholand​ // @svturtles​ // @cloverrover​

[bondsmagii]

so a while back I was talking about extensive blacklists and somebody messaged to see if I wanted screenshots of a very impressive blacklist from an old Discord server they were in. of course, I did. here are the aforementioned screenshots as promised -- naturally the person wishes to remain anonymous, but here’s what they said:

hello, t'was i who was your Long Blacklist anon. here's what i have, or at least what i have scraped from the sides of my massive screenshots folder

to note: in the first image, in the section "TSS specific", the Remus mentioned is one of the characters in the show that the server is about,  whether he's secondary or main is up for debate. like. a WHOLE CHARACTER

some of these are understandable honestly, i don't mind a lot of this, but i had forgotten "y'all" was on here and. i'm sure that was probably said about 500 times in there because. how do you. IT'S Y'ALL

I gotta admit that I was not expecting this to be so wild. I had no idea an entire regional accent would be on here; nor could I have anticipated the fact that the whole of Ohio State University would be a banned topic, but there you go.

full transcription under the cut, for which you owe me, because this is long.

USER SPECIFIC

Recording <@!412026064970186753>’s voice without permission

Pet names directed at @‘beat drop’ A Jumbo Jellyfish

Referring to @rrationality in the feminine, “kiddo” directed at by anyone but Patton

“Tinker bell” or the phrase “I just want you to succeed” directed at @Groundhog badger

Deleting messages from @JEYKSHK without informing first

“Kitten” directed at @jelly 

“Know-it-all” directed at @The Rat God Summons Thee, asking to roleplay, people fighting in earshot, interacting while under the influence of any substances

Patronising and/or directing “cute” nicknames (smol, baby, dear, etc.) at @arson, overly aggressive conpliments (heart spamming, etc.)

“Princess”/“Champ”/“Sweetheart”/“Buddy” directed at @Silverquill (She/Her)

“Sweetie”/“honey”/“babe” and other pet names directed at @let airam see fuck without permission

“Hun”/“love” directed at @Ren 

“you’re acting like ___” and “very nice” directed at @probably activism, venting privately without warning/asking

“Dumb”/“stupid”/“idiot”, etc. directed at @blurryeyesinbewilderment 

“Selfish”/“worthless” directed at @Safira 

Calling attention to/making fun of the typos of @one of the best ppl here tbh

Referring to @It ya boy idk in the feminine, mocking

Referring to @I’m gonna shine like the sun as a hypochondriac

Referring to @Currently Committing Tax Fraud as argumentative

TSS SPECIFIC [translator’s note: this is an abbreviation for The S*nders Sides-- the fandom the server is about. I censor this because I do not care for him and do not wish to type his accursed name.]

Any discussion (including mentions), images, gifs and links involving Remus, and ships where he is included

The phrase “have you ever thought about killing your brother?” [translator’s note: this entire phrase was blacked out behind censor bars.]

Unsympathetic portrayals of the Sides (being villainous, abusive, (passive) aggressive, restrictive, etc.)

Ships involving the Sides and Sleep

Romantic Prinxiety

Intruality

Romantic logicality 

Snitties (tumblr post)

CenThomas (tumblr post)

TOPICS

Tangerines

Depersonalisation and depersonification

Divorce

Being controlled/your actions not being your own (including mind control)

Bullying (in a non-joking context)

Burning buildings and house fires

Belittling serious issues

Zombies

Existential issues (such as questioning reality)

Claustrophobic (small) spaces

Being patronised

Puppets

Bad parental relationships

Narcissistic people

Ohio State University

Annesia/mind-wiping

Bernie Sanders (US Politician)

Hell (discussion of)

Anesthesia

Fasting (for religious reasons or otherwise)

Unhappy endings

Power outages

Directing “stupid” at another person

Southern or Texan accents

Cringe culture

Spiders

Heights

The concept of pure nothingness

POC being stereotypes as promiscuous

Conflating age regression with age play [translator’s note: ‘age play’ was blacked out behind censor bars.]

Condiments (ketchup, mustard, etc.)

Malevolent of morbid supernatural entities

Food dicourse

Roanoke (the historical colony)

Self-depreciation

Heated discussions

Major character death

Hanahaki disease

Ants (the insect)

Eye lip eye (sequence of emojis)

Realistic-looking teeth on non-human things

Teeth in any place but a mouth

Human trafficking

Worms

OTHER MEDIA

The son “Sing me to sleep” by Alan Walker

Creepypasta (all forms)

The song “Hide and seek” by SeeU

Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared (webseries)

The song “Last christmas” by Wham!

Heathers (movie and musical)

The song “Empty” by boyinaband

The song “You should see me in a Crown” by Billie Eilish

The Momo challenge

Stephen King’s It (book and movies)

The song “Bury a friend” by Billie Eilish

Undertale and Delta Rune (video games)

The song “Wish you were gay” by Billie Eilish

The song “Ocean eyes” by Billie Eilish

Sora from Kingdom Hearts (video games)

Scooby Doo on Zombie Island (movie)

Onward (movie)

WORDS/NAMES/PHRASES

The word “senpai”

The name “Cryptid”

“I see the light”/“I’m going into the light”/“Light at the end of the tunnel”

“A beautiful mind”

“Babe” in a romantic context

“Baby” and “sweetiepie” as pet names

The name “Tristan”

The name “Ana”

The name “Jamie”

The name “William/Will”

“Make yourself useful”

“Y’all”

“Agere” (as a shortform of age regression)

SOUNDS AND VISUALS

Fife music (fife and drum corps)

Loud noises

Spiders and insects

Trypophobic images

“Distant shore” and “It’s all over isn’t it” from Steven Universe

Homestuck (all forms)

Crying while laughing

High saturation/bright images/eyes strain

[allsassnoclass]

okay so re: smutless long fics, I’ve tried to compile a list of fics as close to 50k words as possible since that’s the wordcount the anon cited and tbh my friends there really are not that many that I personally have read but I did my best.  All fics under the cut are over 30k and have either been verified good by me or my trusted friends

delete this transmission by @anxietycalling: 67k mashton sci-fi. I reread this one recently and it’s just as amazing the second time around I very highly recommend it

“Yeah,” he says, catching sight of his reflection in the dimly reflective surface and running fingers through his hair to fluff it up. And instead of getting on the mag-train home like he wants to, he catches the northbound train to the greenlawn with Calum. “You know, I think I might not go through with it,” he tells his best friend, meaning his activation. They sit together across from the back doors of the car and watch the adverts for an upcoming showing of ‘Titanic’ at the interactive theater. While Calum sits beside him silently he gnaws on a thumbnail and wonders whether it’s too late to get his money back.

“You can’t go back on it now,” Calum tells him.

And it’s true: His payment has already been processed, the credits removed from his profile. The invoice showed up in his e-net overnight and he’d added it to his encrypted folder. “It’s just - weird,” he says, weighing each of the words on his tongue before he speaks. “To be in charge of another person like that. I don’t want that responsibility.”

I’m a Falling Star by @pixiegrl: 55k lashton fantasy, very cute and sweet

A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars or do we gaze at them because we are human?” Pointless really. “Do the stars gaze back?” Now that’s a question.

Or: Ashton’s a shop boy setting out on a adventure to find a star to help grant a wish. Luke’s a star crashed to Earth looking for some help to get back home. They’re both in for more adventure than they bargained for.

I Wanna Sleep Next to You... by milecgv: 54k malum college au.  I read it over a year ago but I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it then

"Cuddle buddies, how can I help you?"

Pausing, Calum thought, he could just hang up. Get over the moment of weakness and face the rest of the night alone. He could do it. But the idea of spending one more second alone, brought a fresh pang of hurt to his heart and really, he couldn't bear it. Before his thought process could spiral out of control, the calm voice repeated itself.

"Um, yeah. I-, I need someone to-" He cut himself off because really, how was he going to phrase this?

Chuckling softly, the man on the other line interjected. "Sir, do you need someone to cuddle you?"

Shit, it was now or never. "Yeah. I-uh, I do." His voice came out so small, and he really hoped the man on the other side wouldn't pick up on how desperate he was.

~~~

Calum gets the opportunity to live out his dreams in New York City but it proves too much for him, and on a lonely night he ends up calling the professional cuddle service he swore he'd never call.

those are the only three completed fics over 50k that I personally can vouch for, but here are a few more longer ones I’ve read and I’ll link some over 50k that have gotten good reviews from my friends after those.

Destination: Perth by onlythevoid: 34k lashton 

The stranger swung into the seat next to him and sighed contentedly. Luke stole a glance from under his hat. It was a boy with light-brown messy hair, reminiscent of surfers Luke saw on the beach in Brisbane - he had a t-shirt on and black jeans, and fade-tint round-frame sunglasses propped on his straight nose.

The stranger caught Luke’s eyes.

“Hey?” The stranger asked. Shouldn’t have looked at him, Luke thought. Too late.

The stranger had set his sunglasses on his head and was peering below Luke’s cap. “Dude. You look terrible. Are you okay?”

Oh, so the stranger was one of those guys. Too friendly and ever-inquisitive. Yes, Luke looked like shit; he’d been crying for an hour at a time, every few hours, and all he’d had to eat in the past two days was some wet broccoli at the hospital and a bag of chips he’d bought that morning in Brisbane, and there were bruises all up and down his right arm from a car crash he wished he’d died in.

Luke didn’t say any of that. He prayed his voice would be steady and said, “Yes. Thanks.”

The messy-haired boy did not seem convinced. After a pause, he offered, “My name’s Ashton, by the way.”

hello, hello by @clumsyclifford: 30k lashton

For one long, blinking minute, Luke stares at Ashton and wonders if he’s hallucinating. Because that’s definitely Ashton. That’s Ashton Irwin, his former best friend from Sunny Days, the show they co-starred on as children.

But it’s also definitely Ashton Fletcher, professional film actor worth many millions, possibly hundreds of millions, of dollars, standing on his doorstep, wind ruffling his hair.

Now for the fics that I haven’t read but can confidently say are good through a rigorous peer review system (aka I have friends who read them/I have read and enjoyed other works by these people)

home is wherever you are tonight by @lifewasradical: 72k lashton. this one is on my tbr, I have only heard good things, and I’ve read other things by Amanda and trust her as a writer

Life has become so mundane in the past few years that there’s very little that sends a thrill up Luke’s spine anymore. It’s that idea that had him saying yes to the idea of moving out here for a few weeks anyways: the knowledge that this was a completely new place where no one knew his name. He could be anyone he wanted to be here, within reason. He wouldn’t be seeing any of these people again after May, so what’s the harm in becoming a new person for a bit? Someone not so bogged down by the shit in their head that they can’t get out of bed some mornings. Maybe this is a step in the direction of the person Luke wants to be in the future anyways.

Or, Luke inherits a beach house on a tiny costal island that needs some work. He didn't plan on falling in love with the guy at the hardware store.

world war series by prettyluke: 58k lashton historical au. Megs really likes this one and I trust her judgement

Even after months of seeing bodies ripped apart by bullets and bombs, Ashton still isn't prepared to be ripped apart by the fragile German soldier who has seen far more than any child should.

and

Luke shows up in Britain after 25 years right in time for World War Two to start, and Ashton has been waiting for someone to yank him from his melancholy since Christmas of 1914.

i’ll keep on fighting (just to make you believe) by @squishmichael: 33k muke I have heard good things about this one, have read other works by Taylor and trust them as a writer, and also I did skim this one when it first came out and it’s good I just need to sit down and fully read while paying attention

“Hi, Mike,” Luke says softly.

Michael might have cried from hearing his voice so clearly, not through a phone line, but instead his smile just gets bigger and bigger until his cheeks hurt.

“Hey, Luke,” he replies before throwing himself at Luke, arms looping around his neck and holding tight.

“Easy there, tiger,” Luke says with a chuckle, but he hugs Michael back.

It feels so different, all the shapes and sizes wrong, yet Michael has never felt so at home, melting right into the hug. Luke still fits so perfectly against him despite everything. Because it’s them, and they’re meant to be, and Michael never wants to let go.

*

In which Luke is finally coming home to Australia for the summer after two years, and everything should be perfect. Michael quickly realizes nothing is.

Under the High Low Lights I See You There by @pixiegrl: 33k lashton 90s bar au. I have heard a lot of good things and I have read and enjoyed Emily’s writing

Luke moves onto cleaning the glasses, sneaking glances over at him, admiring the open blue flannel he’s wearing with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his chest in the white tank top he’s wearing and the pull of it over his muscles, the acid wash denim pants straining over his thighs. He’s attractive and Luke knows he shouldn’t be looking, shouldn’t be so obvious in his stares, but he can’t help it. The man was made to be admired.

Or: It’s the summer of 1996 in New York City when Luke meets Ashton at his bar. Things aren’t always as they seem.

He Did Ballet by @kaleidoscopeminds: 34k cake. people love this one and meg is a great writer

Like the way he danced, everything in Luke's life was perfectly placed, an allegro exercise all on beat, an enchainment with no mistakes. The last thing he needed was a distraction, something to pull his attention away and make him stumble, like losing your spot during a series of fouettés. He glances back towards the bar and sees Calum still looking in his direction. Luke catches his eye again by mistake for just a second too long and Calum smiles slowly and winks at him. Luke shivers slightly and already feels slightly unbalanced. Calum is definitely not a good idea.

Luke's life is perfectly on track. He is about to get everything he's ever wanted, to become a Principal dancer for the Royal Ballet. He's focused, determined and nothing will get in his way. Then he meets Calum, a smooth-tongued barman with dangerous eyes, and suddenly not everything's so simple.

The Sun Is Burning Down Los Angeles by @burstingsunrise: 40k cake. have heard good things and Molly is a good writer

Calum probably signed a form saying he wouldn’t fall in love with the lead singer of the band. And he really doesn’t want to. What a cliché. It’s just…people get famous for a reason. This guy got famous for all the reasons.

***

Calum moves to LA to work for 5SOS.

[ahkaahshi]

taste testing [hirugami sachirou x reader]

pairing: hirugami sachirou x fem reader

genre: smut (18+) and fluff

warning(s): explicit sexual content, food play, spitting, reader has one dom moment but I swear to god it’s very fleeting bc that’s not our brand here, and there’s not really any other warnings?? this one was kinda wholesome, good for the soul smut tbh

word count: 4.4k (episode #??? of why am I writing so much?? idk!!)

overview: a heatwave in combination with an accidental ice cream spill end up giving your boyfriend a new idea

“Should I be worried?”

Hirugami rolls his eyes at you mockingly from over his shoulder in response to your comment as you shuffle to one of the stools near the kitchen island. “C’mon, (f/n), have some faith in your reliable boyfriend, why don’tcha?” he teases, turning his attention back to whatever creation he’s concocted on the counter in front of him—which his tall figure blocks from your view.

With a chuckle, you comment, “Well, it’s not often that I get summoned to the kitchen by said boyfriend unless he wants me to try some crazy recipe he developed.” Grabbing the small fan sitting atop the wooden surface and activating its oscillating function so it can blow room temperature air towards you as well, you add, “Besides, with this stupid heatwave I wouldn’t be surprised if you accidentally set something on fire.”

“I cracked an egg on the floor earlier and it didn’t cook, so I think we’re still good, babe.”

His wittiness never fails to elicit a gentle snicker from you, no matter how foul your mood may be, so you can’t help letting one out in spite of your current circumstances. Much to your dismay, the air conditioning unit had decided to succumb to the increased temperatures outside, leaving the two of you in a nearly unbearably hot apartment. Luckily, the power hadn’t gone out, so the two of you were able to keep fans running, and you were able to stick your head in the fridge while he stuck his in the freezer above it. The situation could be much worse, but that knowledge didn’t make it any less unpleasant.

You hadn’t worn a shirt at home in days, resorting to lazing around in a sports bra or bralette and shorts most of the time. Today was no different, and you appreciated every blast of air that the sheen of sweat on your chest and abdomen cooled down each time the fan turned your way. From where you’re sitting, you’re able to admire the ridge of every bone or muscle beneath your boyfriend’s toned back, since he’s only wearing a pair of athletic shorts.

“Well,” he begins, his voice snapping your gaze from his exposed skin to his warm, brown eyes when he peers at you from over his shoulder once more, “wanna know what I made today?” Your enthusiastic approval prompts him to turn away from the counter and place two bowls atop the island filled with a treat you can instantly recognize. “I made some ice cream earlier this morning, and it’s extra cool since I just took it out of the freezer.”

He marvels at the look of awe and excitement on your face as you admire his handiwork, since he’d gone the extra mile to decorate his dessert with chocolate and caramel syrup, some fruit, and a dollop of whipped cream. “Wow! Look at you!” you exclaim before placing your hand around the back of his neck to pull him closer for an appreciative kiss, “Thank you. This looks really good.”

“You sure you’re not just blinded by love?”

Playfully, you give his arm a gentle smack where he stands opposite you, elbows resting on the countertop as he patiently waits to see your reaction to his creation. Prickles of heat rise to your cheeks at the way he’s staring at you so intently, as if he could do so all day long. A small grin forms on your lips when you pick up the spoon resting in the bowl and carefully scoop out a generous serving of the ice cream he’s so carefully prepared. The refreshing coolness and sweet flavor it spreads across your tongue when you place the spoonful in your mouth has you humming with satisfaction and closing your eyes momentarily.

“It’s really good, Sachi,” is the praise that leaves your mouth once you’ve swallowed. You’re soon digging in for another bite, making him laugh at your eagerness. “Seriously, if you hadn’t chosen to be a vet, you could’ve definitely been a pastry chef or something with all the desserts you’ve made for me.”

Wiggling his spoon between his fingers pensively, he wonders, “Maybe I should start an Instagram page, take pictures of my creations, and climb my way to fame in the pastry-loving community.”

“Oh, you’d have so many followers.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re a hottie who likes to bake. Simple as that. Trust me,” you explain, reaching over to him to brush his waves of brown hair away from his face, “you’ll have women all over the world sending you tokens of their love and commenting heart or fire emojis underneath your posts. You might even get to be on a talk show if you’re successful enough.”

He nods towards the living room, indicating that he wants to sit down at the table with you to eat and asks, “Is that so? And where are you in all of this?”

You place your hands beneath the cold bowl of dessert and scoot off the stool so you can seat yourself on the floor beside him instead. “Professional taste tester slash content curator slash manager,” you answer with confidence before dipping another spoonful of ice cream between your lips curled in a self-assured smile.

“So fancy,” he states, sending a small wink your way that has your heart fluttering in your chest—as if he’s a high school crush who’s noticed you rather than your boyfriend of three years. Holding up his metal spoon filled with ice cream towards you, he suggests, “Should we toast on our new business deal, then?”

With a giggle, you raise your spoon to his so you can clink them together and continue enjoying the delicious treat he’d prepared just for you. In between scoops, you reach for the television remote to turn it on so you can watch something other than a dark screen and distract yourselves from the stifling heat flooding your home in any way possible. As you’re eating, trying to finish off the ice cream before it melts entirely, you end up accidentally spilling some of it on you.

The squeal you release at the iciness of the dessert trailing down your chin and onto your chest startles Hirugami, and his attention snaps to you instantly. Shuddering at the sensation of the ice cream sliding down your sternum, heading towards the low neckline of your sports bra like it’s on a race against time, you quickly scan the room for any napkins you can grab. “I got it,” your boyfriend offers, placing his bowl down on the table and shifting closer to you.

At first, you think he’s going to reach for the tissues you’d spotted nearby, but you find yourself frozen in place when he suddenly dips his head towards your chest to drag his tongue along your skin. The sensation of the wet muscle gliding along your chest, from the dip of your cleavage all the way up to your chin, has you shivering for an entirely different reason, and he meets your wide-eyed gaze with his calm one once he’s finished.

“Did I get it all?” he questions, purposely feigning cluelessness, as he enjoys doing to tease you.

There are a few beats of silence spent watching one another while you try to regain your composure. Hirugami always found little ways to surprise you, whether he was welcoming you home with something special he’d baked or spreading your legs apart to dive between them after he’d had a rough day. He’d never once attempted the feat he’d just done; however, you find that you’re surprisingly aroused. He seems to notice his actions have had what he deems to be a desirable impact on you when he sees you clench your thighs together and dip your spoon into the ice cream once more.

With intrigue reflected in his gentle eyes, he watches you intentionally press the spoon to your collarbone so the substance can drip down your chest, leaving small, rivers of color over the bones beneath your skin and the shape of your breasts. A somewhat innocent grin spreads across your lips when you feel the ice cream sink below the neckline of your sports bra.

“Hmm,” he murmurs, turning away from you momentarily to grab the bottles of syrup and can of whipped cream he’d brought along with him from the kitchen, “Might as well make this an entire sundae, don’tcha think?” You swallow thickly as he pops open the caps and tasks himself with drizzling the syrup over your chest, deviating from the area once he’s satisfied with his work and allowing a few drops to fall onto your lips.

His tone is sugary sweet, but there’s a devious glint in his eyes. All you can do is nod and lean into the arm he wraps around your back, letting your head roll back so your neck and chest are fully exposed to him. Your heartbeat is quick underneath his tongue when he pulls the top of your sports bra down enough for him to dip it inside and start collecting the trails of ice cream and syrup he’s used to decorate your skin. Almost instinctively, you arch your back towards him in a silent plea for him to give your breasts more attention, but he ignores your request for now and moves up your sternum, towards your chin once more.

When his lips meet yours, the taste of his tongue is sweet as it slides along your own, making you moan softly into his mouth. His hand on your back moves to your waist before traveling up to your shoulder and plucking at the strap of your bra. “Take this off for me,” he requests between heated kisses, “Actually, take your shorts off too, and wait for me in the bedroom. I wanna taste what I made on every inch of you.”

Though you’re hesitant to leave his tight grasp and part your lips from his, you oblige his request and head for the bedroom. After grabbing a towel and laying it out across the comforter so it doesn’t get stained, you strip off the little clothes you’re wearing—but leave your underwear on. Not long after you’ve situated yourself atop the mattress, Hirugami wanders into the room with all the food items he wants to adorn your bare body with.

“Want some?” he asks upon seeing your attention shift to the can of whipped cream when he sets it down atop the bedside table. After receiving a nod from you, he says, “Close your eyes and open your mouth for me, baby.” You do as your told, your heart racing with anticipation as waves of adrenaline course through your veins. The crackling of the whipped cream spurting through the tip of the can reaches your ears moments before you feel his breath fan over your face and his tongue press the cool topping against yours, guiding it into your mouth.

Your hands move to his shoulders to pull his hot body closer to yours, wanting to feel every inch of his skin burning against you in spite of how unbearably warm the apartment is. Your kisses are messy, but neither of you mind, considering how sweet they taste and how intense the craving you have for one another is becoming. When he pulls away from you, he looks uncharacteristically disheveled—cheeks and lips tinted red with warmth, a hint of whipped cream at the sides of his mouth, and his eyes clouded over by an undeniable lust. Because of how calm and composed he usually is, it thrills you to see him like this.

However, his lips are quick to form a grin, as if he finds it entertaining that you saw him in a moment of discomposure. In an instant, he’s reaching for the ice cream nearby and standing beside the bed with a pensive look on his face, like an artist pondering what he should paint on his blank canvas. You squirm a bit under his intensely focused gaze, but soon shiver at the cool sensation of the previously frozen treat dripping onto your chest once more, navigating along the natural ridges and valleys of your body.

As he drizzles ice cream and syrup along your exposed skin in a way that makes sense to him, your attention flits between the look of admiration in his eyes and the prominent bulge in his shorts. He sees where your gaze is drawn and chuckles before picking up a strawberry and pressing it to your lips, which you open to take a bite. At noticing how the juice makes your lips shimmer tantalizingly, he can’t help but swoop in for another open-mouthed kiss. But it’s short-lived, since he’s eager to taste the creation he’s made on your torso instead.

Once more, he opens his mouth and drags his tongue along your skin, being sure to trace every path that the dessert has taken along your figure. You release a small mewl and place your hands on his head, weaving your fingers into his soft hair when he grazes your breast with his nose and lips. The whimpers of appreciation and increasing strength of your grip spur him to lick and suck one of your hardened nipples while he gently pinches the other, coaxing more breathless cries from your mouth at the dull throbbing that’s building in your core.

“Mm,” he hums, sending pleasant vibrations through your body, “so sweet. Want a taste?”

You nod when his face returns to your field of view, hovering over your own as he watches you intently. Your lips part naturally, waiting for him to meet them with his own, but, instead, he places his hand on your jaw and prods your lower lip, signaling for you to open wider. The pucker of his lips soon brings you to the realization that he intends to spit into your mouth—and while you thought you’d be repulsed by the idea; you find yourself sticking your tongue out expectantly. With curiosity, you watch as a glob of saliva leaves his mouth, finding purchase on your tongue and rolling back towards your throat. There’s a pleasant tinge of sweetness to it that you hadn’t fully anticipated, but that you appreciate as you swallow.

The way he’s watching you with such rapture makes your heart pound in your chest. In an instant, he’s occupying your lips once more with his own, showering them with passionate kisses as his long fingers trail down your torso, making their way to the lacy edge of your panties. You hold his body flush against yours, creating a sticky mess between your chests of syrup and ice cream as you wiggle your hips needily and take his lower lip between your teeth. An airy chuckle leaves his throat at your antsy behavior, but he’s soon indulging you by slipping his hand between the delicate fabric and your skin.

His lips soon travel in the same direction as your fingers so he can lap up any of the toppings he’s drizzled along your neck and collarbone while his fingertips tease you by lightly running up and down the length of your slit. Your grip on his shoulders tightens in response to the sensation of his digits coated in your essence sliding along the sensitive skin before one of them takes to tracing circles around your clit while the others slide inside of your tight core.

“Sachirou…” you whine softly, hips bucking against his touch as you feel your body temperature start to rise. Though you love the way his fingers feel inside of you, curling to reach the spongey region within you, and on your bundle of nerves, you’re desperate to feel his tongue since he’s been using it everywhere but where you want it the most. “Could you…?”

He seems to already know what you’re about to ask him, since he responds to your half-finished question with, “You want me to eat you out, baby?”

A breathless “Yes,” from you prompts him to give your neck a few gentle kisses before he removes his hand from inside your soaked panties and moves his head between your legs, treating himself to any food still left on your skin along the way. He presses his lips to the inside of your thighs before taking the fabric separating your dripping pussy from his mouth in his teeth and dragging it down your legs. Once he’s used his hands to slide it all the way off, he casts a somewhat devious glance upwards at you as he blows on your clit, making you squirm beneath his grasp.

You’re about to scold him for teasing you when you’re so vulnerable, but his gently spoken words give you pause: “You’re so beautiful, (f/n).” Moments after the compliment leaves his lips, he’s pressing them against your pearl, followed by his tongue.

The pleasurable burn you feel from his hot breath dancing along your exposed slit has you moaning loudly and sinking your fingers into his hair to inch him closer to your pussy. It’s evident he knows your body like the back of his hand, since he’s precise about his actions, being sure to vary his pace and intensity to make the buildup to your orgasm as enjoyable for you as possible. Where his large hands rest on your thighs, his fingers loosen and tighten their grip, kneading your supple skin. Every needy movement of your hips towards his face has him uttering a gentle groan, reminding you of the satisfaction he always receives from getting you off.

However, in spite of feeling the knot in your stomach loosening with each hungry swipe of his tongue along your clit, you move your hands to the side of his face to nudge him away from you. The confusion he feels is evident in his gaze and furrowed eyebrows, but it soon morphs into one of excitement when you sit up on the bed and motion for him to join you. Before he sits down, you tug at the waistband of his shorts and regard him with a demure gaze through your eyelashes that he reacts to subtly by biting his lip.

With a nod, he allows you to strip them off, then plops onto the comforter beside you and pulls you into his lap. Reaching towards the bowl on the bedside table, you grab another strawberry and the can of whipped cream so you can take the fruit between your teeth and offer it to him with your mouth. The gentle smile he wears spreads onto your own lips when he leans down towards you to carefully take the rest of the strawberry in his own mouth. His lips meet yours in a sweet kiss before you pull away to finish chewing the halves you’ve split with each other.

Grabbing the whipped cream this time, you place the nozzle in front of his mouth, prompting him to open it for you. However, you misfire and end up covering his nose with the fluffy topping instead, sending the two of you into a fit of laughter that he only fuels by using it to smear the whipped cream along yours as well. In spite of the stagnant warmth in the apartment, only disturbed every now and then by a gust from the nearby fan, you find yourself pressing your forehead against his and draping an arm around his shoulders to pull him closer.

The kisses you share are heated and passionate in spite of the sweetness lingering in both of your mouths. Your chest is sticky against his with remnants of food and sweat, but he doesn’t seem to care, since he places his hands on your waist to hold your torso flush against his, only moving them up and down the sides of your body occasionally to feel the shape of you against his palms. Your free hand moving between the two of you to gently stroke his erection elicits a breathless and somewhat surprised moan from his vocal cords that empowers you to curl your fingers around it.

As much as he loves having your hand around his cock, he seems to want more of you, since he’s breaking the connection between your lips to suggest, “Let me fill you up, yeah? I’ll make you feel so good.” Once he’s received enthusiastic consent from you, he gently pulls your hips over his, before slowly guiding you onto his dick, being careful not to hurt you in the process. Low grunts rumble through your own throat when he presses his lips against your neck to trail open-mouthed kisses along your tender skin as he eases inside of you.

Once he bottoms out, you place your palm on the center of his chest to give him a playful push down onto the bed so you can rest your hands at either side of his muscular torso to support yourself as you begin grinding your hips against his. A smirk creeps onto his lips at your sudden act of dominance, since you both know it won’t be long before his large body’s hovering over yours as he plows you into the mattress until your mind is so blank that all you can say is his name overand over again. But he’ll let you have your fun for now, since he knows you like riding him, especially after he’s had a long day and you don’t want him to have to do any extra work.

Plus, he can’t complain when the view above him is spectacular.

“There you go, baby,” he praises, chocolate brown eyes darting down to your hips undulating against his as you take him deeper, “God, you’re so fuckin’ gorgeous.”

His compliments spur you to increase your pace until beads of sweat are glistening on your skin and your body’s starting to shake from both fatigue and pleasure. Each slam of his cock into your sensitive core sends shocks of ecstasy through you, and you know—with the way he’s meeting your hips with thrusts of his own to reach your most receptive spot—that you won’t last long. “S-Sachi!” you cry wantonly, reaching for the hands he has gripping your waist to hold onto them for support, “Harder, please. I’m so close!”

“Don’t worry, pretty girl, I’ll make you cum,” he responds huskily. His face contorts ever so slightly with exertion as he pulls your hips down so he can snap his against them, filling the room with loud smacks of your skin meeting. Upon feeling your hips stutter beneath his palms, he quickly sits up and guides you onto your back so he can plunge deeper inside of you at a much faster pace. “That feel good?”

“Yes! Yes, it’s—ahh—so good, baby!” You’re surprised by your ability to form coherent words while he’s balls-deep inside of your pussy, filling your entire body with pleasure that’s nearly too much to bear. “Please!”

You don’t have to finish your sentence for him to understand what you’re trying to say, since his pace and intensity have you coming undone for him only a few moments after you’ve spoken. His voice is low and guttural as he growls, “Mm, just like that,” at feeling your walls flutter around him affectionately. Your loud cries of his name fill his ears, edging him closer to his own orgasm as he fucks you through yours. “You feel s-so good,” he rasps, “C’mon, make me cum. Yeah, that’s it; that’s it, baby.”

Soon, the sensation of being inside your tight heat as you squeeze him lovingly has him finishing with a string of expletives, followed by praises rolling off his tongue. Hot spurts of his release filling you up in the midst of your high have you mewling breathlessly until you’re left in a euphoric haze that renders your entire body too heavy to move. Once Hirugami’s ridden out his orgasm as well, he lets out a long sigh of both exhaustion and satisfaction before sinking into the bed beside you.

A few minutes of silence ensue as the two of you regain your breath and find the energy to move once more. In a tender gesture, Hirugami grabs the towel beneath you and uses it to wipe off any remaining food or sweat that’s accumulated on your skin before doing the same with his own body. As the two of you lie together, staring up at the ceiling while waiting for the fogginess to subside, you hear a familiar click that instantly makes you hold your breath with anticipation. Sure enough, the sound is followed by a familiar whirring, then a cool breeze against your skin from the vent on the ceiling.

“Yes!” you cheer, clenching your hand into a fist to express your gratitude towards the workers who have finally fixed your air conditioning unit.

With a small hum of contentment, Hirugami extends his arm out towards you to bring you closer to his chest. Now that there’s cold air circulating around the room, you welcome the gesture and curl up beside him. “Well, now that the AC’s working, does that mean you don’t want any more ice cream?” he wonders, lips brushing against your temple before he presses a kiss to it.

“Of course not! I mean, as long as you still have some that’s actually frozen.”

He laughs nervously and admits, “Full disclosure: I got a bit carried away and made enough to last for at least a few weeks, I think.” Upon seeing the incredulous look on your face, he elaborates, “I followed a recipe created by someone for her son’s birthday party of like thirty kids, so… that’s a lot of servings.”

“Sachirou!” you laugh, nuzzling your face in his neck, “Why did you do that?”

“Didn’t know how long the AC would be out. I thought I planned ahead pretty well, actually.”

“In that case, I would love to have some more of your ice cream.” He beams at you and pulls you into a hug so tight that your skin is sticking together when you pull away. “But let’s go in the shower first. Please.”

“Don’t know what to make next, though,” Hirugami murmurs as he sits up before grabbing onto your hands to help you into a seated position so the two of you can head into the bathroom. “But,” he adds, turning to you and leaning down towards you so he can press a chaste kiss to your lips, “what I do know is that I’d love be able to sample it on you again.”

treat me to a coffee! ⭐︎ kinktober masterlist

taglists (see pinned post on my blog for form)

general: @dinablossom, @newfriendjen​, @devlovesramen, @ohbyunhunn, @aftcrlust, @mister-future, @kyleclxin​, @kac-chowsballs​, @osamusmiya​, @nit-sir-hc​, @arixtsukki​, @shinsurou, @ichorizaki​

hirugami: @hqxreader, @pretty-setters, @misora-msby, @atsunakaashi

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 2

OK, last we left off, we were in a different Youtube video. This one I grabbed off of 2 different videos (you’ll see their watermark in the corner change) and it makes me appreciate the quality that our other episodes have been, honestly. A little bit of compression going on in these, just to give you even more of that nostalgic feel of watching a bootleg anime from the 90′s your brother got from his weird high school friend’s Napster account.

Because this is done with subtitles on, it takes more caps to cover it. Part of why I rewrite the dialogue in these recaps is to help abridge stuff, and so consider yourself warned...there’s a lot of caps in this one. For most of you, that’s probably not much of a problem. But I’m just letting you know because...I sure wasn’t expecting it to be over 40 caps for half an episode, and I’ll probably just type less to make up for that. (Tumblr keeps Erasing All My Words anyway, so this is for the best, but that’s a tech issue I already went into in another post.)

(read more under the cut)

So, to start off, Yugioh and co. walk up to a bar like a really weird version of a bar joke and are like “do you know where we can find the yo-yo gang?” And, much like a video game npc, the bartender was like “I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, and I heard every part of their intimate conversation. Let me give you all the details, children.”

Hey, PS, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry about the bar joke. And that is wild. Apparently the first bar joke was from Ancient Sumeria, and Wikipedia was like “Here is the Sumerian joke, but we Do Not Get it. Please don’t try to get it.”

The joke being: "A dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one'."

Damn. I can’t believe the Sumerians were onto meme humor before we ever invented memes. They were in the Galaxy brain over there in the land before time, holy crap. Depositing their memes knowing that 7,000 years later mankind would look at the world’s first joke and be like “I don’t get it!” while all the millennials and zoomers with our MB of nonsense memes on our phones are like “No. I get it.” Good on you Sumerians, that is freakin the best joke ever made. 7000 years to get to the punch line of confusing the hell out of all us. Bless.

They promptly tell Miho that everything was resolved and that she should go to bed and she was like “Cool!” and exited stage left. Bye, I guess. Anzu also went home, but she didn’t have to be tricked into doing it, she just went the hell to bed.

(PS, I just realized that if I want to write less...I should probably not look up Wikipedia articles about the world’s first ever bar joke. But y’all, habits die so freakin hard, and I just feel like it’s very pertinent to this Yugioh recap, although I know it’s really not.)

Yuugi and Honda decide to visit the warehouse and harass Jounouchi. In the context of the show, they’re going out of their way to pull their best friend out of society’s systemic downward pull of a life of crime and most likely turning into exactly like his Father. But, the way that it’s storyboarded makes it look a lot like these kids just show up out of the corner and this gang was like “Damn it, again? OMG small children, please leave us alone!”

Honda hands over the symbolism sash, to which Jounouchi symbolically says “Nyeh.”

And Honda didn’t take it very well.

After tending to his kidneys for a little while, Honda decided to go back at it again at the Krispy Cream and do some sort of insane parkour over this completely ordinary fence.

Ah, the very first instance of real duel law where you duel over a relationship. In later seasons duel law is invoked for things like Mai’s marriage and the right to date Tea (and then just kind of forgetting you ever won the right to date Tea twice). But to think the very first time was Honda dueling for the right of Jounouchi to be part of nerd gang because Jounouchi had fallen to the dark side yo-yo gang across the street run by some 40 year old man with blue hair.

How many times is Honda gonna fight with a broom? Like are they just magnetized to his location? where are they even coming from?

Freakin janitor powers over here, put him in a Final Fantasy style RPG. I want to see what his limit break would be.

Not like it matters, because Hirotani very quickly explains why these yo-yo’s are at all a threat.

Which honestly shouldn’t be...so lethal? Seems like the weight is all you need, not really the spikes. But it’s at least stronger than Honda’s janitor stuff.

Unfortunate for Honda that he just destroyed an antique.

So with lightning reflexes, Yuugi does what he does most:

The death yo-yo ricochets back and does this little itty bitty scrape to this guy’s face and he’s real bothered by it. Although it’s like...well dude, you’re a 50 year old high schooler, I don’t think people will notice the scrape compared to everything else falling apart in your life.

And so then the Yugioh Season Zero team was like “oh shoot is it time to torture Yuugi???” and they got hella excited.

Like I thought it was just Yuugi’s class that were a bunch of disturbing criminal disasters, but I guess it’s the whole city. Like...was Yuugi’s class the good school?

I mean, it can’t be, there’s no way...

but like...is there a good school in this universe? How does anyone survive till graduation? If you so much as disgrace a yo-yo, you will get the torture treatment that I sure did expect in Yakuza games, but not so much in Yugioh, tbh.

Just a reminder: This is the third time we’ve beat up Yuugi this episode. Within the first meeting of Yuugi and Hirotani, he beat the tar out of Yuugi within eye shot of Jounouchi. So like...Jounouchi was reallllllllllllllllly lax on that deal, right? Like...he took his toot sweet time to realize “yeah this just ain’t ever gonna happen.”

And then the yo-yo wars begin.

Just like Solid Snake crawling through the radiation chamber.

Hirotani throws his Fyper-yoyo, Jounouchi intercepts with his Eireboy, and Hirotani’s completely terrible yo-yo just flies off the string again because Hirotani should have just sticked to using his fists. No wonder they wanted to recruit Jounouchi so badly, their yo-yo game is so off.

We never get a door to darkness in this episode, dipping our enemies into mind horrors. Instead, we get home-alone style traps. But, this makes sense. Not only do the show makers have to make Yuugi avoid solving problems with magic in front of Jounouchi, they also have to make it Jounouchi’s choice to leave Hirotani behind. If Yuugi did it for him in like...some sort of duel law situation...then that sort of leaves out Jounouchi’s choice in the equation.

Not like this ever really comes up in later seasons, since who even follows through with duel law and marries Mai? But like, it does feel like Season Zero calls out the later Seasons a bit in this regard. Honda got beat up because he tried to win Jounouchi back by force (or game, I guess.) That was just another form of coercion on the heels of Hirotani’s. What Jounouchi actually needed was to make his own decision to leave.

...most other anime I’d be like “I’m sure that’s just a translation error” but not this one.

So Yuugi runs to the roof where Jounouchi will never see this.

My audible sigh reading this line about fight club roof.

These stupid gang members went into Yuugi’s native territory, not just a fight club roof, but on a warehouse? They were dead before they arrived.

This was like maybe 3 frames of animation in just rapid succession, it was pretty silly and good.

Reminder that like 4 minutes ago, Yuugi was about to get like executed on a meat hook.

Speaking of getting executed on a meathook:

Hope you like the idea of glass in your eyes, because this anime’s got it.

They chase Yuugi around, in a sequence that was done mostly to conserve frames, so you rarely saw the ground until this shot:

Lots of falling down this episode, but unlike Tea, who fell from a warehouse ceiling once and just kind of rubbed her ass after and was like “ah damn it.” these guys won’t come out of it virtually unscathed.

Also, Honda is here now:

Jumping off of his symbolic sash trapeze, he decides to do in Hirotani for good.

Hey so like...walk the dog is a fairly gentle walk that a yo-yo does slowly on the ground right?

Just pointing out how sensitive Hirotani’s fingies are.

And he...didn’t appear to be dead, so I don’t have to add to the bodycount...but it’s gonna be a real long road for recovery.

And now, with the gang back together Jounouchi is back at school knee deep in make up assignments he’ll probably completely ignore since we know that in a years time, these fools are going to be trapped on Pegasus’ island, and at that point school will be just that place you talk about when you try to remember why you’re friends with Bakura.

---hey aren’t those chairs attached to the desks?

Because...holy crap, Anzu.

Honestly this is what you see before you die, but I guess Jounouchi died off screen after the episode ended, so I don’t have to add him to the deathcount (again). RIP.

Alright! That took like...8 tries to get Tumblr to save this one, but it managed! (well...I guess “managed” isn’t the word you’d use for a typing program that takes 8 tries to save)

Next time, we’ll be back to S5, for an arc I’ve heard is kind of boring. We’ll see. If it truly is, I can condense episodes into fewer posts. Or maybe it’s a secret gem? I guess we shall see.

And if you just got here this is a link to read all the Season Zero recaps from the start:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi-muto/chrono

(there’s also a link to read all the Yugioh posts we wrote from the start in chrono order but straight up, this file won’t freakin save, and I just can’t even will myself to look up that link again. It’s on the home page of this blog on the right.)

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Hi could you talk more about why youd recommend not watching ww84?

Sure!

warnings for under the cut: spoilers for WW84 and a bit of the first wonder woman; i only saw WW84 once a few days ago + it’s been a hot sec since i saw the original so if i get a few details wrong i apologize

tl;dr with no spoilers: WW84 is a poorly executed movie that insults its viewer with its messy and self-proud plot, bad character/relationship portrayals, and offers a personal slap in the face to a majority of its audience in their various discriminations, generalizations, and plot points.

the first point is the racism, made well by the post i reblogged here, (edit: found a second post that goes more in depth here) so i’d just suggest looking at that for that matter

next is just How they portray wonder woman in this one

i really appreciated the way the first movie portrayed diana because they did very well in keeping true to her Amazonian raising and life while still clearly showing she was a woman

when i say this i mean that a lot of media has a tendency to either make women who are very fem and keep to traditional gender roles or women who more or less shun femininity and attempt to largely fulfill only male gender roles

diana in the original is a warrior, strong and fierce, but still a woman, not trying to shun that or anything. she wears styles that suit her while still being woman’s styles (she doesn’t force her way into a suit), she talks of and addresses her womanhood proudly and without issue, etc

i want to note here i have no issue with female characters who act extremely masc and reject femininity- i love them tbh- but it’s important to remember that it’s not inherently against womanhood or anything to be a strong fighter who doesn’t stick to every stereotypical social gender norm

and the first wonder woman movie shows this very well

WW84... oh boy

first of all, wonder woman’s changing outfits every other scene. even between scenes where it makes no sense! i’m not saying she can only wear one set of clothes but Geez this was too much

not to mention an entire scene dedicated to her helping steve pick a fashion look? i understand this was to highlight the ‘80-ness of the movie, and it would’ve been fine if it seemed diana was helping him pick a period appropriate look, but it was clear she was trying to help him pick a ‘fashionable’ look which. wonder woman? from the island without a sense of popular outfits or fashion? what?

and the amount of focus on her wearing high heels.... ugh

i’m not saying you can’t have a badass woman who also likes social gender norm fem things but it felt clear that wasn’t what they were going for

wonder woman in the first movie liked practical fashion and not only were many of her outfits not that, her high heels? one hundred percent not practical

it didn’t fit her character and felt horribly out of place, clearly just the producers / directors / whoever going ‘oh, wonder woman is a woman how can we show this? fashion! high heels!’ and i hated it

(warning: imma be jumping from thought to thought as they bump into each so uh... enjoy the train-of-thought style of flaw informing)

and starting at the beginning like.... wow that scene had no purpose

wonder woman cheats in a competition and is punished for this by losing it in the end. except. this is stupid for two reasons

as the audience is shown she didn’t cheat on purpose. she made a mistake, lost her horse, and made a strategy to get back into the race despite this. honestly? i thought the story was going to be a lesson in ingenuity in the worst looking situations. but it wasn’t, which is bad storytelling, because the lesson is then based on a point that isn’t even that true

it is literally Never important again later. unless you count what was going on with the wishstone as ‘cheating to victory’ which i dont. that’s not even what the villain did. he wanted to take over the world. there’s no victory there you get without cheating. wtf. why did that message even happen

going into the actual story we meet the cheetah pretty quick, when she’s still whatever-her-civilian-name-is

and the cheetah... she’s such a bad villain

she doesn’t have the same backstory as she does in the comics

in this one, she uses the wishstone- which is a whole ‘nother thing in and of itself- to wish to be like diana, because ig being smart as hell but social awkward as hell too is so bad you need to desperately wish to be someone else? i hate that trope, but onwards-

she gets that, but in exchange for not only diana’s likable personality she also gets her wonder woman powers (and she loses her glasses, because pretty and cool means no glasses, right? /s), she loses her kindness bc of the rules of the wishstone- in exchange for your wish, it takes smth u care about a lot from you; for her, it was her kindness

this makes her villain! just because she lost her kindness. yep. honestly not a good look regarding all those people out there who are low/no empathy and can still be wonderful nice people but i digress

at one point she complains about why she needs to keep her power rather than go back to being just Her and i fucking wanted to scream

she has like. half a dozen degrees, clearly a couple of friends even if she’s awkward, and she’s got a life that was perfectly okay before she made the wish. as someone who is also socially awkward as hell, it infuriated me to here her acting like it was the fucking end of the world she couldn’t be more extroverted or whatever. there are ways to work on that!!! the movie trying to convince the audience she had a legit reason to not un-wish her wish (for the good of the entire world) was stupid and insulting

also her transformation between ‘looks human, wearing cheetah-pattern clothing‘ to ‘humanoid with cheetah fur/skin/appearance’ literally just. happened. for no reason. that was stupid

y’know what else is stupid? the wishstone. it was clearly just a plot device, and a poorly executed one at that. it isn’t even consistent in how it works

and they did a whole side thing with like. how it had the language of the gods written on part of it and it appeared in random locations across history around the time of great tragedies and,,, that was it???

they never explored the divine connection??? who planted it or why??? how it location traveled or anything????

like i said. poor plot device

i move on now to steve

oh boy steve

he’s brought back to life by diana’s wish on the wishstone, but... it causes him to come back in someone else’s body, quantum leap style. this is. weird. and is never ever addressed by him or wonder woman except once in a throw away comment. like. diana and steve kiss and are implied to have sex while steve is in someone else’s body and neither of them seem to care. this is not good!!

and then his relationship with diana? HORRIBLE

in the first movie they were barely starting to fall in love, only barely a couple even if that. more importantly they were friends, and that night he died diana didn’t lose a potential lover so much as she lost her first non-Amazonian friend

but WW84 portrays their relationship as if they were not only already a couple, but one close enough that even after forty years since steve’s death diana is still completely and hopelessly in love with him to the point that she’s literally hanging off his arm as soon as he’s back and making love that very night

it plays again once more into the misrepresentation of wonder woman’s character (how stereotypically hollywood female to fall over herself at the sight of her love interest) and it wrecks their relationship, which had been a lovely friends-who-could-be-more

what they should’ve done was focus on that friendship, build it back up after the long gap for wonder woman, and then started to rebuild that possible romance (and tear it down at the perfect moment... right when steve had to go again... ah that would’ve been lovely)

but they wanted to go in full-haul on the romance and it just felt. wrong and weak to me. diana’s refusal to consider giving up her wish (to get her powers back and save the world) is bc she doesn’t want to let steve go again, which makes more sense in the context of a first and true friend rather than a hastily slapped together love interest

steve’s character was generally good tbh but the way he played into the story? bad

moving on... the main villain of the movie? sucks. he’s just. fucking awful

despite a motivation being given that he wants to have money, he launches into wanting to take over the world for no real reason. he takes advantage of people for this and almost destroys the world he wants to rule for it. the main reason he stops this is for his son, who up until now he largely ignored and didn’t seem to care that much for outside of basic obligations. and the movie dares try to make him sympathetic by throwing in the fact he grew up poor and was bullied and not liked which i HATE

lots of people are/have been poor. lots of people are/have been bullied (myself included). that does NOT justify them DESTROYING THE WORLD TRYING TO TAKE IT OVER. can it be used to show the audience why he does what he does? yes. but to use it and clearly try to make it a reason to hand-wave-away what he did? NO. FUCK NO

also fucking. y’know how wonder woman took down this villain? she talked to him and the world. she gave a stirring speech while she laid slumped against a wall, not injured, just too weak to beat a bit of wind. she talked and she looped her lasso around his leg so she could talk to the world to to convince them to give up their wishes

once again... the mischaracterization

in the first movie, wonder woman gives a stirring speech while fighting Areas. it’s done in her battle, beating the god of war up while reminding him of what she stood for, who she was, why she would keep fighting for a broken world

it was BEAUTIFUL. it was MEANINGFUL. it was BADASS but SINCERE

this was weak. and it clearly wanted to be more than it was

the whole movie wants to be more than it is- it wants to have an important meaningful message like the first movie, about wishes for the self and war and the world and whatever. and it wants it so badly it does it horribly

the message is ham-handed yet messy and unclear and not right. it doesn’t make sense, and it feels poorly plotted. the movie thinks it’s more than it is and that makes it very hard to watch

and to finish my rant off... WW84 lied to its audience

did you see any ads for WW84? i did. they were bright, vibrant, funky music, stunning moments, action and intrigue. i was thrilled for a movie like it

the actual movie isn’t that

it’s not nearly as action filled, it’s not as ‘80s-focused as it leads you to believe, some of the most prominently featured moments barely matter

the lightning swing? pointless, as at that point in the movie wonder woman’s learned how to fly and does it for no reason but the trailers

and that cool suit? introduced in a random myth for no reason halfway through the movie, brought in at random with no explanation, only there for show and the trailers

WW84 is not the movie is lead people to believe it was, and the movie it is is poorly executed and insulting to a variety of peopler/minorities

if you’re gonna watch it, pirate it. i can give you a link. just don’t give dc your money or your legit views for it

[bluesylveon2]

My My I Could Never Let You Go

Summary: Sasha Zoe just wants her dad to walk her down the aisle. There is only one problem: she doesn't know who her dad is! Sasha invites 3 men in hopes of finding out which one is her father. What could possibly go wrong?

Pairings: Levi x Hange, Sasha x Niccolo, and other background relationships

Disclaimer: This is a Levihan Mamma Mia au. This fanfic is inspired by Mamma Mia which is directed by Phyllida Loyd, written by Catherine Johnson, and uses music from the pop group ABBA. Attack on Titan is a manga/anime series written by Hajime Isayama and published by Kondasha

A/N: Is it too late to say that Sasha’s wedding takes place in the first week of August? (edit: I realized my mistake and I fixed it) Tbh this chapter is short and just filler BUT it does set up what will happen in the next few chapters. You could say it helps with the subplot. I did make a few edits to the fic, especially last chapter because I’m nit-picky like that. 

Need to catch up? Catch up here!

Ch 8: Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy

2 months before the wedding

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Kalokairi, and Hanami could not agree more as she sips her coffee in front of the Swell Cafe Bar.

The smell from her coffee was wafting her nose, the warm sunlight on her sun-kissed skin, the beautiful view, and the slight breeze that moved her sundress a bit were perfect for her. 

She tapped her foot to the music playing in the background. The owners were playing an old 80's jazz song. Hanami wasn't familiar with it, but she liked listening to the beat. She also noticed the waiter shyly glancing at her every now and then as he worked. 

Aw, she thought. It seems like he's too shy to walk up to her. He kept subtly glancing at her since she sat down. 

Hanami looks in the man's direction and gives him a bright smile and a small wave, causing the guy to blush and look away with embarrassment for getting caught. 

Hanami chuckles to herself. She considered winking at him, but she didn't want the poor guy to blush much. 

She rests her head on her palm, and her gaze returns back to the sea. She reflects on what has happened in the past few months.

2 months ago, during Easter break, Jean approached her with a plan to win over Mikasa. At the time, Hanami was unsure if he would be able to pull it off. Everyone knows how much Mikasa likes (is that even the right word?) Eren. Yet, everyone knows about Jean’s huge crush on Mikasa. 

She only agreed after Jean offered to pay for everything during their "meet-ups" (she insisted that they take turns instead and Jean agreed), assist her with her Maid of Honor duties for the wedding when she had to go back to college (Hanami did her best to exclude him from anything related to Sasha’s dads), and do any other favors for a year. Hanami knew Jean was serious after the conditions. 

You see, Hanami used to not like Jean back in high school. He was cocky, arrogant, and annoying (at least to her and (not)surprisingly, Eren). Hanami made sure to express her dislike for him. However, Jean changed after an incident when Marco broke his right leg and Jean was too late to stop it. He became more mature and considerate of his friends. As a result, both he and Hanami decided they could be friends, and everything went from there. 

And so, Hanami agreed with one condition: Jean must teach her how to dance. 

The reason being is Hanami’s Austrian friends invited her to one of the many balls held during ball season in Austria. Everyone in Hanami’s friend group knows she cannot dance, especially in heels. 

Luckily for her, Jean was the only available guy with a decent enough dance experience to teach her. 

(All the guys agreed that Jean was the best dancer of all of them. Eren is a close second.)

The two would sometimes bicker, but they had each other's backs. They define their friendship as comfortable, per se; they were comfortable enough to actually kiss each other to get out of a sticky situation.

Hanami could remember an incident a few days ago when Sasha decided that the two, plus her and Niccolo, to take a trip to Skiathos to take a break from all the wedding plans. They had settled for a party at a local beach bar at night. Skiathos is known as a party island after all. Niccolo and Sasha had separated from the group to swim in the sea, so Jean offered to buy Hanami a drink since they were alone. 

About 10 minutes had passed since and Jean did not return, so Hanami went out to find him. She did not expect to find him at a table near the bar surrounded by girls without holding any drinks. Despite how cocky Jean looks, he cares about personal space and making sure his friends are ok. He would hate it if someone decided to harass Hanami while he was gone. 

The girls were getting a bit too close to him, so Hanami decided to step in. She strutted to his side while ignoring the other girls and proclaimed how much she missed him. She then grabs his hand and subtly squeezes it, to which he squeezes it back, giving her permission to do what she was about to do. 

Jean had turned to face Hanami, wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her close to his body. Hanami looks up at him and grabs the collar of his shirt with both hands. She pulls him down for a kiss while ignoring the other girls who were still present. She wrapped her arms around her neck, while Jean's hands played with the hem of her cover-up. It was nothing sweet and cute like what normal couples do. Their kiss was more heated and was enough for the other girls to leave them alone. 

They never brought it up again just for their own sakes. Jean and Hanami made an agreement to help each other by acting as if they were dating as practice for Mikasa. Hence why they kissed during the party. The two even agreed to squeeze each other’s hands as a sign if they were comfortable to proceed. Jean had no experience with dating, and Hanami had one boyfriend back in high school. She had more experience with dating than him. 

(Hanami only mentioned that Jean had improved on his kissing skills and left it at that).

Hanami continues looking at the view as she waits for Jean. Apparently, he requested that they meet up one more time, and this is very important. Hanami questioned why this meeting was important. Did they not cover everything in the plan? Is there a plot hole they might have missed? She does not turn her head when she hears the man of the hour heading in her direction.

“You’re late. If you came any later, then I would go on a date with the waiter instead,” she teases and turns around to fully face him. He wore a white long-sleeve button-up shirt that he rolled up the sleeves. He also had on slacks and a pair of dress shoes. She found it strange that he decided to dress nicely when it was only 10 am. Usually, he dresses in casual clothes. She eyes the camera in his hands.

Jean sits in the chair across from her and places the camera on the table. “This is not a date, Hanami.” He dismissed with no hint of a laugh anywhere. “I’ve-” he hesitates for a second. “-been thinking about something lately.” 

“Oh,” Hanami says and leans forward a bit. She noticed his hesitation and folded her hands on top of the table. She gestures to the camera on the table, “What’s with the camera?” 

"I’m just practicing for school. I need to take a picture of something I admire and paint it for the school's art exhibit."

Hanami chuckles. "Too bad Mikasa is not here. She is the perfect subject for your painting."

Jean shifts around in his seat uncomfortably. Hanami notices but does not ask about it out loud. Why did he look uncomfortable? She thought he would at least agree with her. 

"About that..the plan with Mikasa..." He trails off, sounding almost uncertain and confused. 

"What’s up?." Hanami asks and raises an eyebrow. She was taken aback. Did Jean notice a hole in their plan? She sits up and stares at him intensely. She's getting the answer one way or another.

“Did we miss something with the plan?”

Hanami knew that Mikasa would not arrive at Kalokairi until days before or maybe the day before the wedding. Jean’s plan was a long shot. Who knows if Mikasa would fall for him in such a short amount of time. Then again, they have been friends for a while now.

“No...It’s nothing,” He says dismissively. Hanami raises an eyebrow. Jean was never this jumpy during their past meet-ups. She is not one to pry, but something is clearly on Jean’s mind and he was the one who insisted on meeting up today. Looks like she might have to play a secret weapon.

“Ohhhkayyy,” she says, holding out the word. She slumps in her seat, feigning disappointment. 

“Don’t tell me you’re backing out of the plan? It would be a shame to put all that time to waste.” Suddenly, she smiles a wicked smile.

 “Don’t you agree, Jeanbo?”

Jean breaks out of his trance and looks at Hanami with shock. He was speechless. Jean could name only two people from his friend group who knew his childhood nickname. Marco, for obvious reasons, and Armin. Armin found out on accident and promised Jean not to tell anyone.  How did she know? 

Checkmate.

“How do you know that?” Jean asks with a hint of fear. 

Hanami places her elbows on the table and rests her hands on her head. “How did I know?” She smiles slyly and raises her eyebrows.

“I met your mother last summer when Sasha and I were visiting Annie in Paris. Sasha wanted to take a road trip around France, and we ended up in Strasbourg as a stop for some sightseeing. You should’ve seen how shocked we were to find your mom in town. She was even shocked when we mentioned that we knew you! It’s a good thing we recognized her from the various letters she sent and the old photos.”

Hanami looks at Jean, who is still speechless. She continues her story.

“You were on your trip in Spain with Marco at the time, so the girls and your mom wanted to keep it a secret. Don't want to ruin the surprise, you know?"

Hanami chuckles to herself.

"Although she did ask if one of us was your girlfriend though. I think she wants grandchildren soon, Jeanbo.”

Hanami laughs at her little joke. Jean was too busy blushing to even laugh at her joke. Doesn’t his mom know that he is too young for that?! He decided to take note to never bring any of his female friends back home. 

“Anyways, she even made us her famous omelets, which were the best I ever had! You have to make me someday, Jean. Don't even try to back out of it. Your mom said you could make it." She looks at him  

She even showed us your baby pictures! You look so adorable!" she gushes. 

Meanwhile, Jean has not said a word. He was too shocked to even talk. 

"It's too bad you changed…" Hanami trails off and glances into Jean's golden-brown eyes. Suddenly, she stands up from her seat and leans forward. One of her hands rested on the table for support, and the other was reaching out to Jean's face. 

Jean only watches as Hanami gently grabs his chin. He was too flustered to make any move to stop her. Her thumb was in the front, and the rest of her fingers were in the back. He doesn't make a move to stop her. He only blushes instead. 

"You just had to grow a beard and your hair out into a mullet. You know, most guys can’t work it, yet here you are. Congrats, I guess."

She tilts his head left and right as if she was examining him. She leans closer to his face that Jean can feel her breaths fan his face. 

"You also got taller and muscular too." She tsks with slight annoyance. "I wonder why no other girls on the island haven't jumped you yet, huh, lover-boy?." She laughs while referring to the fact that Jean harbors a crush on Mikasa for years now. 

Her hand trailed up from his chin to cup his cheek. Jean stays still and continues to watch by looking into Hanami's espresso brown eyes behind her glasses. He hoped she could not see him short-circuiting with how close she was. 

He feels her shift the hand on his cheek to pinch him. Hard.

"Ow! What the hell, Hanami?"

"You just had to lose all that baby fat and get a sharp jawline instead! I’m going to miss the pinchable cheeks I never actually got to see!"

Jean breaks out of his trance and raises his hands up to stop Hanami. 

Two can play this game. What was the best thing to do in this situation? Grab both her cheeks as retaliation.

"You hypocrite! You're the one with chubbier cheeks than me!" 

The two continue pulling at each other’s cheeks and throwing insults at one another. They completely ignored that they were in a public area and people nearby can see them. There was an elderly couple nearby who watched the scene unfold. They couldn’t help but laugh to themselves because it reminded them of when they were young. The waiter from earlier was starting to doubt his impression of Hanami. Who knew she was also childish?

Hanami and Jean’s bickering went on for a few minutes until Hanami gave in.

“Ok. Ok. You win, Jean!” she says after sitting back down in her seat. She rubs her now sore cheek. Yeesh, that guy has a grip.

She looks up at Jean’s face. It looks more relaxed and not as tense as before as a result of earlier. 

Hanami mentally high-fived herself because her plan of getting Jean out of his whatever he was going through was a success. Now it was time to get serious.

“Jean. I can tell something is on your mind.” She reaches forward to place one hand on top of his on the table. She does not make any motion to hold it.  

“It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me specifically. However, just know that I am here for you, and I am happy to listen. I promise not to say anything.” She finishes with a smile.

Jean gulps and takes his hand away to tug on the collar of his shirt. Hanami just watches him patiently. 

“It’s about the plan with Mikasa...I think we need to change tactics.”

Hanami crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “How so?”

“We...need to get Mikasa jealous.” 

Hanami chuckles a bit. She has never seen Mikasa jealous in all of her years knowing her. Unless you consider that one instance with Annie training him, but Hanami thinks Annie didn’t view Eren that way. Hanami could not help but wonder how they can get Mikasa to feel jealous of a random girl with Jean in a short amount of time. Again, it depends on when Mikasa and Historia arrive.

“How do you plan on achieving that, Jean?” Hanami asks and takes a sip of her coffee. Things are starting to get interesting now.

“How are things with the bachelorette party?” Jeans suddenly ask, changing the topic. Hanami places her cup down on the table and looks at him suspiciously.

“Well, it is definitely going to be at the hotel plaza. Sasha had requested it there. Oh! Hange and her band are going to perform too. Hange wants to relive her glory days, or so she says. Why do you ask?”

Jean presses his lips in a thin line as if he was contemplating what to say next. 

“I need your help with something for the bachelorette party.”

Hanami’s suspicious look never left her face. She takes some time to think about what Jean just said. 

Suddenly, it all clicked in her head. She points an accusatory finger at him and glares at Jean.

“Don’t tell me you plan on inviting male strippers to the bachelorette party?!” Hamani yells and startles Jean as well as some passersby. 

“No! Do you want me to get killed by practically this whole island?!” Jean exclaims, leaning forward in his seat to cover Hanami’s mouth. He keeps it there for a minute before leaning back to take a deep breath. Of course, Hanami would quickly jump to conclusions.

“No.” He says again calmly. “I need your help setting me up with-” He glances around him, looking slightly unsure. “-Rico when she arrives.”

Hanami looks at him dumbfounded. “Come again?”

Jean sighs and looks at Hanami with a serious face. “You heard me. I want you to set me up with Rico.”

“Rico? As in Rico Brzenska, the three-time divorcee? You do realize she is old enough to be your mom, right?”

“Of course I know that! It’s all part of getting Mikasa jealous!”.

Hanami nods her head, trying to understand whatever just came out of Jean’s mouth. To her, it sounded as if he must have gone mad or something. “Uh-huh. Do you plan on going after Pieck next?”

“No! She’s married!” He exclaims while blushing.

Hanami smirks and crosses her arms in front of her chest with triumph. “Exactly.” 

Jean rubs his temples and looks at Hanami with a serious face. “Look, Niccolo came up with an idea about crashing the bachelorette party. Of course, we will make sure to let you have your fun before the guys come in.”

Hanami nods along, showing Jean she is following the story. “So you want me to help you get close enough to “seduce” her (she uses air quotes on the word seduce) that you end up dancing with her at the party and hope that Mikasa notices? Let me guess, you plan on adding more attempts right before the wedding and maybe at the reception?”

“Exactly. You can even try to put in a good word for me when Mikasa comes.”

Hanami nods again in understanding. “Ok, but I won’t do it for every interaction, ok? Only if it is just us two. I don’t want the other girls to raise suspicions if I start complimenting you randomly. Also-” She clamps her hands together. “-I won’t gatekeep Mikasa from Eren. If they want to talk, then I will let them talk. I don’t want to raise any suspicions between the two if that makes sense.”

Jean nods in agreement. “Ok. That sounds like a deal. You will help put in a good word for me to Mikasa, I can try talking to Rico before the party, we will work together to get me close to Rico. You also can't tell Mikasa about my old nickname. It's embarrassing enough that more people know it.” He holds his hand out for Hanami to shake.

Hanami laughs at how serious Jean was. She thought it was kind of funny to see how dedicated he was to this plan. She shakes his hand to seal the agreement. “I promise not to tell Mikasa, Jean. I do have some doubts about the Rico part. I don't mind saying ‘I told you so’ if things go south.”

She places her hand back down on the table and looks at Jean. She smiles, and it even catches him off guard. “You put a lot of effort into this, Jean. You deserve to be happy with Mikasa.” 

“Y-y-yeah. You’re right.” Jean rubs the back of his head nervously, causing Hanami to laugh again. 

Hanami continues smiling as she stands up and grabs Jean’s hand. “C’mon! I paid last time, so it’s your turn to pay for the food and I’m very hungry! I’m craving some walnut pie with ice cream!”

Jean never questioned her request. That woman had a sweet tooth second to Annie’s. He sighs as Hanami lets go of his hand to call over a waiter and start ordering a whole list of food.

This woman is going to be the death of him.

©: This is where I insert all rights reserved stuff. This story belongs to me. Do not modify or republish

I know this is a filler chapter, but I am currently working on ch 9 right now. It is a good way to look at Hanami’s character though.

Updates may take a while because the semester is about to end

I chose Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy because I can see it fitting Jean and the many Nicosasha Tiktoks I used to get with this song. 

The timing in this fic might be weird because I try to make it somewhat accurate with the research I find.

Speaking of research, this fic is basically a list of places I want to go to in the future. Too bad I can’t go now 😭

[yeoldontknow]

Ciperion: 1/2

Author: @yeoldontknow​ as part of the Anchors & Arrows collaboration with @imdifferentshadesofpurple​ Pairing: Jaebeom x Reader (oc; female) Genre: fantasy!au; shipwreck au; jaebeom is a fisherman; romance; angst; elements of horror; ghosts; eventual smut Summary: Everyone on the Isle Indolon knows the story of Ciperon, though none believe it is true. Over centuries, the tale of the long lost ghost ship on the high seas has become little more than urban legend. In his youth, Jaebeom always thought the story was heartbreaking, and he did his best to avoid it - the same way he avoids the missionaries that have taken occupation on the island. On the anniversary of Ciperion’s ill-fated port date, you wash up on sea, and only you have the answers he’s always been seeking. If only you could remember who you are. Rating (this part): PG-13 Warnings (this part): angst; shipwrecks; references to head trauma; jaebeom does CPR; jaebeom rescuing an unconcious woman; allusions to sexual assault but it didnt happen, he just is protective and misinterprets everything; anxiety; ptsd; vomiting; ghost stories; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of blood; non-major character death; themes of horror; lots of grief; memory loss; jb doesnt really know what to do with himself; mentions of becoming a widow; it sounds really sad but i promise its not that bad; tbh oc is a really great sport Word Count: 17.5K

Three hundred miles off the emerald coast of Isle Indolon, Second Mate Ansil Green looks up at the shimmering night of the dark sky and feels a chill of apprehension burrow deep within his bones. 

There are only three days left to their journey, and for five months he has charted each with meticulous accuracy. It is easy to rely on the stars, he thinks. Their steadfast illumination and the reassurance found in their seasonal rotation have brought him immeasurable comfort throughout his life, and not once, not even on nights when storms threaten to eat their way through the ship’s bowsprit, have they ever led him astray. 

In the berthing hull, the missionaries say their prayers with tightly clasped hands, while others read their scrolls in preparation for new lectures once they reach the shore. Back in Indolon, Ansil’s wife and two children anxiously await his triumphant return, and everyone, every crew member and stow away rat, is eager to breach land. Even now, he can see it clearly - his wife’s pretty eyes as she laughs, small crescent moons that remind him of the night sky; the youthful, almost violent laughter of his sons as they play in the fields; the creaking if their iron bed frame as he rocks between her thighs, not unlike the ship as she rocks against the sea. 

Tonight, he wonders if these simple treasures have fallen too far out of reach, if they have slipped, imperceptibly, out of his grasp. 

Because tonight, the stars are wrong. 

Gripping the mahogany banister, he leans against the side and cranes his neck, angling his view slightly to the right in the hopes of correcting the pattern. Something about this is terribly wrong, wrong enough that the deepening doubt bites at him, heating his skin like a fever. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he does his best to swallow this worry,  attempts, rather meekly, to focus on the light flapping of the mainsail above him, on its rhythmic and soothing white noise that often helps him drift, hazily, through sleepless nights. Now, it offers him little comfort, the wind that moves the ship rustling through his hair, stroking against the shell of his ear, carrying whispers of splintered wood and rocky shores blackened by sea water mixing with spilled blood.

Heavy footsteps make their approach from behind, the purposeful strides and confident gait of Captain Grier L’Allante causing the heels of his boots to shatter the false sense of peace. Ansil does not move to greet his Captain, and while this would be considered an insult on any other crew ship, he supposes Grier has become used to his flippant and yet focused attitude when the stars are out, decades of manning ships alongside one another having reduced the rules of propriety almost entirely non-existent. Keeping his gaze on the sky, he feels Grier come to stand beside him, the heat of his closeness full of pride and awe; admiring the vastness of the sea before him, he exudes an energy that puts a sour taste in the back of Ansil’s throat. 

How he hates to ruin the evening.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ he announces, feeling Grier stiffen rather than deflate entirely.

His captain hums in consideration, never one to give over to fear or uncertainty. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the stars.’ Ansil corrects his posture and regards his friend with pleading eyes. It is, perhaps, the first time he has ever shown signs of fear with his captain, but Grier maintains his composure and presses his lips into a thin line. ‘They’re at the wrong angle by about twenty-six degrees,’ he continues to explain. 

Pointing up at the constellation Cassiopeia, he gestures a long straight line back behind him, back towards the foresail, in the direction of Hydra. Turning once again to look at Grier, he waits for some kind of flicker of emotion to pass over his features, and when nothing comes, he simply sighs, pressing his friend for more. 

‘This distance shouldn’t be this wide,’ he offers grimly, straightening his posture to stand at his full height. ‘Did we turn?’

‘No.’ Grier barks his reply with forceful authority, though, behind his eyes there is a storm brewing, a brief flash of concern that placates Ansil. ‘I helm this ship myself, and you know in your heart we haven’t turned. You said straight on until dawn, and the wind is steady at four knots to the South-West. We’re still on course.’

In unison, they turn back to the sky, and Ansil tightens his grip on the railing. ‘There’s something bad about this. I can feel it.’

Grier chuckles amicably. ‘What you’re feeling is five months staring at the same bloody lights in the sky.’ His gaze falls on Ansil’s profile, and he can feel him regarding his features with probing scrutiny. ‘You didn’t even take a woman at the last port,’ he states, nudging his shoulder with a force that makes Ansil lean to the side. 

‘They’re not precisely the same,’ he admonishes with a laugh. Grier regards him expectantly, but all Ansil can manage is a sigh of longing. He’d love to laugh at this kind of crude joke, and normally he would, but three days is somehow longer than five insurmountable months, the ability to count them transmuting the number into something brutal. ‘And you know I’d never do that to Mala.’

Taking off his hat, Grier runs a hand through the greasy black strands of his hair, grimacing through his laugh. ‘Too loyal for your own good.’

This is something Ansil can tease him about, and he offers his friend an impish grin, taking his own opportunity to nudge Greir’s shoulder roughly, revealing his hidden strength. ‘And your prick is too slippery for your health.’

It’s childish, the way they punch their fists into one another’s arms, the jovial nature of this making him feel as though they are teenagers once again. At once, he is nineteen and Grier has just convinced him to come out to sea, to stow away on his father’s vessel, and they are laughing at the reckless foolishness of this idea. But they are smiling, already hungry for the adventure, already wanting the spray from the waves and the salt that shall never leave their skin. They are young and they are hopeful, and now, even after the bloodshed and the violence and the horror they have seen among the ocean, he thinks they have never been quite as dangerous as they were then.

‘You need rest, mate,’ Grier advises once they’ve settled back against the railing. They look out over the ocean, the water as black as the night it reflects, light of the moon illuminating the peaks of waves and casting shadows behind them as long as the sea is wide. Releasing a deep sigh through the flare of his nostrils, he suddenly becomes alarmingly serious. ‘Otherwise, it’s scurvy.’

A beat of silence passes between them, a pregnant pause in which neither one of them breathes, the word hanging heavily between them both, unwilling to be touched. Until, they erupt into laughter, Ansil leaning against the railing to steady himself atop the wet baseboards. A wave hits the side of the ship and sprays gently against his cheeks, cooling his skin and for a moment, he is grounded in the happiness of this. For a moment, the sky is clear and he can see Grier’s warm, too kind smile; can see the way the ship is heading home, steadfast and unyielding in her journey.

For a moment, there is peace.

Calming his breath, he runs a hand over his face and nods. ‘What I would give for a peach.’ 

Ansil waits for the inevitable hum of commiseration, a sound of companionship in the memory of the juicy ripeness of Indolon peaches - the yellow of their fruit so moist it would leave their hands sticky for days. He can almost taste the burst of flavor in his mouth, tongue wet in desperation for something other than the salt and brine of oysters and trout, and finds the only consolation for this hunger is that they shall arrive in time for the peak season. 

Ansil waits for Grier, but the sound never comes, his captain watching the waves beyond the ship with lips parted in pale shock. Knotting his brow, Ansil takes his time turning to look where Grier’s focus rests, the tendrils of dread rising once more within his belly. The fear in him feels almost inhuman, taking full control of his joints as they stiffen, keeping him rigid and held firmly in place. Grier continues looking out to sea, blood rushing away from his cheeks, likely retreating within to service more important pieces in preparation of survival. 

When Ansil finally gathers his strength, he swallows thickly, and looks out to the water. He has lived through war - a great many battles on Naval ships both larger and smaller than this. He has seen dying men beg for both life and death, the fear in their eyes making it unclear which they crave more. He has seen waves rise taller than the ships he crews, seeking an immortal companion for her enduring loneliness. 

But he has never seen fog overtake the earth quite like this, or with such wrath.

It comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, swallowing both sea and sky as it crawls across the horizon. From its center, an ethereal light seems to glow, a beacon to herald the nothingness that surrounds them, but even this light too is a half formed shadow, the core of its rays smeared across miles as it spreads within the clouds. The blood in his ears in unrelenting, the rush of his blood to his thunderous heart making his head begin to hurt as he watches it spread. Has anything ever been so fast? 

The fog works quickly to cover everything in sight, racing towards the ship at a speed he simply cannot comprehend. When he was young, and newly appointed to Third Mate Naval Officer, he sailed aboard the Cygnus, the fastest ship Indolon had ever produced - reaching a record breaking thirteen knots in the correct wind conditions. Somehow, this fog is so much faster, ravenous for absolutely everything it touches as the waves begin to still beneath its touch. 

The wind ceases.

The waves still, cannibalised by the fog.

And as he looks to Grier, their eyes mirroring the horror they find in each other, he realizes the ship has come to a full stop.

It is when the fog touches the boat that he hears it, the anguished screaming of men beneath their feet. Even at war, he has never heard such terror as this. The sound is born from men suddenly learning that they will die, this death an ambush to the unsuspecting and therefore all the more gruesome in its wake. He regards his feet with a disgust that taints his numbness, the abjection of this noise releasing a myriad of feelings within his veins - the urge to run, the urge to scream, a tightness in his throat so painful he fears he may suffocate on the size of it, and the overwhelming desire to cry. Yet, it seems his body cannot decide upon any of these, and so settles on none, rendering him absolutely and completely silent. 

They stand above the berthing hull, listening to the missionaries burst to life for one extraordinary moment before their echoes die one by one, their last breath a wail of anguish. As Ansil takes in a long, slow inhale to steady his growing panic, he can smell the acrid stench of blood and piss wafting up between the boards, bile rising to the back of his throat. The silence that befalls them in the aftermath is threatening, an eerie calm that raises gooseflesh along his skin. Bones brittle and mouth dry, he simply stares at Grier and takes in every detail he can, unfailingly certain this is the last time they will see one another. 

In the distant horizon a tall mast looms beyond the mist, the main mast taller than that of their vessel. The crow’s nest is empty, and if he focuses long enough he has the passing sensation he could look right through the wood into an empty, eternal void. 

‘It can’t be,’ he whispers, reminding himself it is just a legend and that legends are buried in the past.

They are buried.

His voice carries no echo, the atmosphere around them tight enough his voice lives and dies before him, reaching nowhere else but his own ears. Grier does not even react, does not make any movement at all, save for the shifting of his attention to the world behind Ansil, eyes trained on something that makes his adam’s apple bob in the effort of swallowing his trepidation. 

A bead of sweat glides down Ansil’s spine, and he can feel an angry shadow looming behind him. Burning like hellfire, he waits for the scent of his own flesh bubbling beneath his chemise to reach his nose, readying for immolation. Death comes slowly for people like him, he supposes. It likes to take its time weighing the worth of his soul and the value of his existence. He has made love and he has made life, but he has taken far more than he has created, and so he suspects this slow conquering of his person is deserved - retribution for the bloodstains etched into his palms.

‘Ciperion,’ Grier says, eyes widening in sudden, terrible realization.

It is the last thing Ansil sees and hears before cold hands wrap around his jaw, pressing fingers into his mouth and pulling until the pain in his bones, his skin, his muscles is so great the world turns black.

Standing on the old oak dock behind his home, Jaebeom stares out at the open sea and knows that, today, the water is ruthless. 

He can feel the rage beneath her waves, the violent and unforgiving aggression of the current guiding the water as it rolls up against the edge of the dock, shaking its legs as if testing the foundation’s strength. The first light of morning is unable to penetrate the intense cloud cover along the horizon, their peaks and valleys tinged with red shadows behind the murky green and black. Awake far too early to begin his descent to the jetty, he balls his fists in the pockets of his linen coat and eyes the gathering storm with suspicion. 

Once again, he’s been brought out.

Pulled from his feather bed by some unseen force, it has become a habit for him to spend his early hours on the dock, overtaken by a profound sense of longing. Rooting himself to the wood, he has grown used to the passage of time that drifts beyond him, and finds that he is unencumbered by these lost moments. It’s been happening more often as late, his sleep interrupted by the desire to see and to know, an endless stream of questions burning at the back of his mind that chase the sleep from his limbs. But, always, the words are garbled, the thoughts unclear. 

It is worse today - somehow, he knows this with all of his being. Even as he stands, completely alone and unseen, he feels naked all the way down to his nerves. Narrowing his eyes, he peers at the water, unblinking, taking hold of the ache within his chest. Something is missing, has been lost. Or, perhaps, it was taken from him, the intense longing in his chest delivering him a nostalgia too great to be expressed or understood. If he looks long enough, he can almost envision it emerging from the horizon, precariously balanced as though hanging on a thread. 

But the image never fully forms, never reveals its nature, and he is left bereft, hissing a sigh of frustration between his teeth. 

Gulls pass overhead, making way for the Southern shore. Their calls are the music of the morning, a siren song that only serves to mire him deep within his thoughts, and he blinks several times as he rolls his shoulders back, trying, and failing, to collect himself. The current sends a rough breeze through the thin fabric of his chemise, the uncharacteristically cool summer air nipping at his skin, and he bristles though he does not shiver.  Digging his nails into his palm, he struggles to gather the will to leave, every bone in his body telling him he must wait.

Each morning Jaebeom finds himself in this position, looking out to the open water and waiting - wanting to write love letters, wanting to write odes, often wanting to simply cry or curse the tide for what it has taken, but he remains mute, dumbfounded, lingering expectantly for an answer that will not come. And he is angry, muttering to himself that he must leave, that there is no purpose here, but the thought of missing it only serves to aggravate his insistence on keeping still, on looking and looking harder. 

‘Come on,’ he mumbles, as if willing a response from the sea.

When nothing comes, the muscles in his arms and thighs tense as he presses himself into the dock. ‘Show me,’ he hisses, emphatically.

Immediately he feels terribly silly, not even certain to whom he is speaking. It is not the first time he has made these demands, not the first time he has called out to the sea as if it would even deign to reply. The answering silence and empty air should neither surprise nor disappoint him, but as his posture curls and his chest deflates, he finds both of these things happen in quick succession. Something is out there, something beyond the place the light touches, and he thinks what frustrates him most is the endless unknowing. 

Voices along the shore break his concentration, a group of missionaries walking side by side, barefoot in the warm sand as they talk, sometimes laugh, amongst one another. The sound of their chatter breaks the magic of this hour, an unwelcome interruption to the morning solitude. At once he returns to himself, hands in his pockets relaxing out of the fists he’s been holding, and suddenly he feels rather neutral about his position on the dock, about the ocean, and the thick clouds overhead. 

The town has started to wake, the missionaries commencing their morning walk a sign that he is late - terribly late, and the time it will take him to prepare his sails and his nets will likely cause him to miss the golden fishing hour. Closing his eyes, he hangs his head and sighs, certain he will lose the best crabs of the day. 

Briskly walking along the shore to the jetty, he keeps a wide berth from the missionaries as he passes. Jaebeom keeps his eyes trained on the rocky jut of the shoreline, keeping his posture rigid in the effort of not being overtaken by the staggering sense of unease that gradually drops his feet to his stomach with each step he takes. He’s certain they must feel this, must feel the crushing weight of his discomfort, and he furrows his brow, swallows thickly, and grits his teeth as he prepares for conversation. 

‘Good day,’ they chime in unison, bowing their heads in greeting. The steely chill in their voices makes him shiver. ‘May Deus keep you.’

Jaebeom simply nods politely, but says nothing, finding no solace in their words. On instinct, his attention diverts to the slotted diamond shaped symbols on their rosaries, a sense of nausea rising in his stomach. Lifting his gaze to their faces, he focuses on their features - their eyes, their well practiced smiles, their royal blue square hats - but all the while, he battles against himself, soul willing him with all its might to look, once more, at the rosaries. 

Quickening his steps, he hurries past them, releasing a breath he did not know he had been holding. Running a hand through his hair, he chastises himself sheepishly for his disrespectful behavior. He’s old enough now, nearly thirty and well past the age of childish anxiety, to know they are harmless, it is harmless, but still he feels a rattle in his bones even after they have disappeared from view. He remembers the monthly service ceremony - his mother, her pleading eyes, and his frightened distress as she brought him along. Long into the night, he would be plagued with the memory of their long faces and their empty expressions, the fear and hatred in him making him feel sick with fever. 

Eventually, he grew out of this level of anguish but still his maturity and his logical reasoning do not serve as a comfort. In the numerous missionaries that occupy Indolon, he finds no refuge, no joy, somehow more sure now, in his old age, than ever of their wrongness.

His schrooning boat is docked at the base of the rocky cliff side, just below the lighthouse and pushed far away from the crowded wharf. As he makes his approach, he feels the eyes of other fishermen bore into his spine, their judgement of him, his lack of a First Mate, a crew, and his placement of his boat always deeply felt at this hour of the morning. But he does not mind. 

Since he was small, Jaebeom’s understanding of the sea, of her nature and her cruelty, has kept him at a great distance from his peers. As a child, he preferred to listen - to listen to the ocean and to watch it change, finding a deep affinity in her tumultuous loneliness. This kind of loving relationship, he thinks, has developed into a skill that keeps his family well paid, a roof over his head, and the bellies of many full. Maintaining a crew would simply distract him, his mind less on the water and more on the work of his members. 

And while he, too, might have agreed the placement of his boat against the rocks is reckless at best, it is placed where he would catch crabs as a child with his father - the best location to spot their lavender and purple shells as they eat the moss along the stones. And just below, the bright vermillion of the king crabs glittering as they sink to the ocean floor.

Stepping onto his boat, he sheds his linen jacket and cranes his head back to observe the large mast, its mainsail tied neatly at the base with a strong sailor’s knot. Rolling up his sleeves, he lets the sea breeze kiss his warm skin, heated and dewy with moisture from his walk, and watches light behind the clouds do its best to illuminate the land below. The rains will likely start soon, the hours left in the day for adequate fishing conditions dwindling, and so he hoists himself up on the shroud, untying the sail in quick, easy motions. 

Climbing up the iron ladder connected to the mast, he reaches for the rope at the center of the sail and latches his fingers, giving one large tug to set the sail free. It flaps loosely in the wind, releasing itself to its full length, and as he makes his way down in the cover of its shadow, he looks out to the lighthouse, admiring the way the tall grass is somehow more viridescent beneath the grey skies as it reaches upwards, asking for rain. Autumn is nestled in the branches of the trees, the peak summer season soon to give way to the burning gold of autumn, but as he regards the lighthouse field he finds it difficult to imagine the world any other way than this. It’s as though the earth has always been green, always been bright, too alive to ever fully be witnessed.

As he takes in the splendor of the earth, letting pleasure root itself against his ribs, he notices, rather curiously, a pile of cloth discarded amongst the rocks. Strewn carelessly across the sharp incline, the ivory cloth has been yellowed and torn, resting long forgotten in the shallows. Narrowing his eyes, he steps off the shroud and leans over the edge of his boat, glad that it is still tied to the fender and not drifting away with the sudden displacement of his weight. As he continues to look, the ivory gives way to the vitality of flesh and long limbs, and his mouth runs dry. 

‘By Deus,’ he whispers, the dread in his veins restricting the volume of his voice. ‘It’s a person.’

Limbs moving of their own accord, Jaebeom is carried back to the dock, hands working quickly to remove his boots. Gaze unwavering, he keeps his eyes on the body, transfixed and horrified, afraid of letting his eyes wander for fear of it disappearing altogether. His heart beats like thunder against his sternum, warring with too many emotions and unable to allow any one a victor. Behind the worry, the confusion, the terror, a curious sense of relief is building, a calm that would almost have him believe he is not in the process of coming undone. 

If he focuses on it, he gets the sense that this is what he has been waiting for - not just in the morning before the dawn breaks, not just in the crash of waves against his boat and their icy waters demanding his spirit, but for always. In this moment, the hollowed sensation in his heart, the sense of something long absent, is scabbing over with each breath he takes. 

Barefoot, he moves at a slow run, something like grief and hope mixing in his blood and putting a swell in the joints of his fingers. Jaebeom stifles these feelings, grounds himself in the reality that someone might be hurt, might be in need, and reminds himself, dutifully, that it is not the time to be carried away with his emotions. Still, there is a tingle at the base of his neck, an urgency that goes beyond humanitarianism, pushing him forward with exhilaration.

'Help.'

A female voice is carried on the wind, musical in its cadence and pleasurable in the way it sings its request. The ocean spray delivers it to him at the same moment the water bursts over the rocks, the sea mist rising up against his cheeks before retreating through the crevices in the earth, cooling the flush beneath his skin. Inside him, it burrows, reaching down and deep to nestle in the long empty caverns of his heart. As he moves over the rocks, carefully placing his feet to maintain his balance, he strains to hear it once more, certain it is a woman he is racing to help and she is begging to be saved. 

'Help heal.'

'I'm coming,' he calls out, voice as shaky as his legs and echoing over the ocean’s roar. 

He does his best not to cut his toes on the angular shards that have been eroded over years of rough sea water, but with each step he takes the water rises over the rocks with an aggression bordering on feral, demanding all of him within its foam. With each rush of water, he has the feeling it is reaching for his ankles, hands desperate to clutch at his person and drag him down, and down. 

Yet, the closer he gets, the more he feels as though he could weep - from joy, from desperation, from loss - and this alone is enough to make him want to rush, pushing through the erratic rhythm of his heart and beyond the lump in his chest that makes each inhale ache. Now, with a clear vision of the body, it is as though you have been spit from the ocean’s mouth, cast out for your transgressions and all the corrupted ways you have disappointed the ocean. There is tragedy in the way you are draped over the rocks, body poised at woeful angles for having displeased the gods. Now, you have been forced to greet the horror of your retribution. 

Only a few rocks away, Jaebeom allows himself a brief pause and takes you in, letting his eyes take their time in their discovery of your person. Hugging himself, he suddenly feels conflicted, as though he is learning your shapes while still becoming reacquainted with something long missed. This state of being is a paradox, and in the full emptiness of it, he has the passing sensation that he is learning the essence of love, and little else. 

Shaking himself free from his idle reverence, he takes a few steps closer and notices the silk of your dress is ruined, perhaps permanently. His jaw drops slightly at the still gleaming shine of the fabric, the most expensive silk he has ever seen. It clings to your skin, dampened and tarnished, fraying at the ripped edges but still doing its best to hold you delicately, clinging to you in the effort of keeping you safe. Something about the cut of the dress triggers a memory he cannot quite reach, a familiarity in its lines and shapes that make him recall there was a purpose behind this outfit, a reason that it is both extraordinary and unforgettable, but it vanishes from him as quickly as it came. The fog in his mind is heavy, muddling his thoughts and pulling at the edges of his concentration and he knits his brow together to keep himself grounded.

In the aftermath of this brief recollection, he bites a whine of longing burning at the back of his throat, a pathetic sound of loss, regret, mourning. Your hair spills over the rocks, eyes closed and skin bruised though not scraped to bleeding. Flickers of recognition press at him, mind racing around the image of your soft lips, the high angle of your cheekbones, and the delicate elegance found in your wrists. Struggling to recall your name, Jaebeom approaches gently, coming to a kneel at your side, unsure what to say at all.

Pressing two fingers to the pulse point in your neck, he feels a dull, yet ever present, throb of life beneath your skin and releases a breath he did not know he had been holding. Alive, though just barely and unconscious, lungs likely full of sea water. Everything about you is soft, the warmth of life fading quickly beneath his fingers and rendering you terribly fragile, and he retracts his hand for fear of his touch giving bloom to more marks along your flesh. 

Glancing around the cliff face, he looks for signs of wood, other bodies, ripped sails or bent iron, but finds nothing. No signs of shipwreck, no signs of a waiting party to receive you. You are alone in this torment, rejected by land and sea, and forced to exist within the limbo of life and death. 

Before he can stop himself, he lifts you to his chest, cradling you close as he rises to a stand. If you were awake, you would be shivering, would tremble in the chill that means to overtake your very bones, and he hurries as best he can back to his boat and the woolen blankets he keeps in case of cold summer rains. Moving quickly over the shore, he stumbles slightly, feet tripping over themselves in surprise as he feels you burrow into him, seeking warmth with a low moan, and brow furrowed in what he hopes is simply the effort of healing. 

Finally aboard once more, he takes you into the small cabin beneath the helm and tucks you into the straw bed he keeps for nights when the winds are threatening and violent, remaining on the boat in case the waves should do their best to reclaim the wood. Draping several blankets over you, he crawls close enough the heat from his chest could radiate into your skin, encouraging a rush of blood in your veins. His fingers twitch, wanting to brush stray strands of hair out of your eyes, but he presses the flat of his hand into the bed, resisting his urges. 

The medic will need to be informed. This realization hits him with a bitterness that speaks of separation, chest restricting and tightening against the air in his lungs until it hurts to breathe. Against his bones, his muscles battle the urge to hold you close and he shuts his eyes with a grimace as a headache blooms at the base of his skull. Yet, as he strains to focus in the quiet of the cabin, he is acutely aware there are no traces of your breath, no labored wheeze no even inhalation, and so he resolutely declares that he will ferry your oxygen, coming to sit up on his knees as he plugs your nose and presses his lips to yours, opening them slightly. 

Cradling your chin between his thumb and forefinger, Jaebeom exhales deeply, letting the strength of his breath travel into the limit of your lungs. Squeezing his eyes closed, he exhales for as long as he can manage, giving everything within himself to you before, all at once and all over again, he feels as though he has stepped out of himself. 

Once more, voices materialize at the back of his mind, these new sounds more like echoes that erupt from nowhere and no when, fingerprints of a bygone era carried to him on wings. Their words are a garbled mess of sounds, undeterminable cadences lacking diction or emphasis, but he hears the sound of a man, low and gentle and wondrously tender.

He hears a man, and the man is unmistakably, unfailingly, him. 

Opening his eyes, he drinks you in, and surrenders to the notion he is being conquered by the mere sight of you. One word from you, and it would be as violent as a new beginning, a great shattering of all the comforts he knows of the world. And he would welcome it, knows, as if by magic, that he has given over to it before, would give over to it again, the power in you so great only ritual could contain it.

Blinking several times to clear the shock from his mind, he quickly moves his hands to your chest and presses against your sternum in the rhythmic way his sister taught him when he announced he wanted to be a fisherman, just like their father. Her eyes had glazed over then with the memory of loss and strife, and so she laid him on the floor and promptly taught him how to save a life should the sea threaten to claim a man as her own. The muscles in his harms strains as he continues pressing, and he thinks maybe he will need to press his lips to yours once more, bracing, instinctively, for more voices to fill his head, but a rush of water bursts from between your lips and he quickly moves back, turning you to your side to let it drain completely.

Falling back on your side, you release a cough but you do not wake, the small puddle of water between you both at once threatening and sacred, a reminder that everything Jaebeom has seen and felt is real, tethered to this moment. Tethered to you. 

‘Who are you?’ he murmurs, but even as he says it, even as the words leave his mouth, he knows this is not the right question. 

In the oncoming silence, the correct words swell on his tongue, nearly tumble from his lips, but, instead, he chews the inside of his cheek, aware that the right question will insight a riot in him he is unprepared to endure. 

When Jaebeom carries you into his home, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, overtaken by the staggering weight of deja-vu. 

He’s been in this position before, holding you against him in the center of his small kitchen as the elasticity of his emotions stretches outward for an eternity. There is an awakening occurring at the very center of his soul, bursting like a new star as its white heat slithers down his spine. Glancing down at you, your soft lips, your closed eyes, and your limp frame, held so closely to him, he feels the earth move beneath his feet, the shifting tectonics of his life all leading to this single moment. 

Shaking his head, he releases himself from this, moving to his bedroom with focused steps as he places you in his bed. Igniting the oil lamps, he works quickly to bathe you in warm light, covering you with his down comforter before moving to the furnace tucked in the corner of the room. In summer, he keeps little coal and kindling but he uses the last of the brush wood he’s saved from the recent winter to ignite a small fire that burns red and gold behind the latched closing.

He regards your still form with a frown, running a hand through his hair in distress and grits his teeth. The last several days have been almost unbearably hot, but it seems August’s heatwave has been broken by the cool wind of the day, the overall gloom breaking the humidity and blocking the sun from her usual path. Of all days, it pains him that this would be the day the sea released you from her clutches, sent you from the cold depths of her darkness back to the shore where the sun refused to keep you. 

From his kitchen, he takes a small linen cloth, inspecting it for cleanliness, and folds it into a long rectangle. Warming it in front of the furnace, he rotates it in circles before he feels it is sufficiently heated, just enough to ease tension in your muscles and restore heat where you need it most. It warms his hands, palms already swollen and grown clammy, room becoming relatively stuffy as he slides the cloth beneath your neck while you sleep. Already, a pink flush has begun to settle within your cheeks, the relief in him not unlike a rapture.

What will you say when you wake, he wonders. How will you sound when you look him in the eye, unsure of where you are? More importantly, he worries if you will wake at all, if perhaps the rush of blood beneath your skin is the last tour it will take before it stills altogether, heart too sluggish to keep a steady flow. The thought sends a tremor of heartbreak into the base of his spine, and a pained gasp tumbles through his lips, scorning the very notion of the thought. 

He needs an occupation to distract, needs a purpose to feel as though there is progress being made, and so he turns on his heel and grabs his coat, supposing that when you do wake, he should at least be ready.

The walk to his sister’s cottage is not long, one that he usually relishes in the spring when the path is lined with blossom trees and the foxes play around their dens, their ruddy tails bouncing amongst the high grasses. Today, his strides are long but the journey feels endless, the path reaching well beyond the limits of the land, his mind thinking only of arrival rather than enjoying the view. 

Another group of missionaries passes him along the dirt road, and he crosses to the other side to give himself space, freedom, liberation from their watchful eyes. Offering them sidelong glances, he studies the way they regard him conspicuously, whispering to one another as though he cannot hear the faint sounds of their voices, the conviction of their stares a judgement he feels with all of his body. Do they somehow know that he has found and kept a woman? Have they heard the voices too, the echoes he is resurrecting just by being near you? 

He finds he cares little for the answers to these questions, deeming their existence as something infinitely less important or significant in the light of resolute purpose. 

Byeol answers the door after three hard knocks, her face a picture of confusion that still does nothing to mar her beauty. She stands just shy of his height, one hand on the door and the other on her hip, the laugh lines along her cheeks carrying a secret smile within them. 

‘Jaebie,’ she announces, more a question than a statement. Arching a single brow, her brown eyes bore into his with the chastising admonishment only an older sibling could manage. ‘Shouldn’t you be fishing?’

Jaebeom nods, a noncommittal gesture of affirmation, and presses his way through the doorway, past her slight frame. He wastes no time slipping off his boots as he fumbles for an explanation. 

‘Sorry for the unexpected arrival,’ he mumbles, only partially apologetic. ‘Something’s…’ his voice drifts away, eyes looking everywhere but her face as he searches for the right words. To tell the truth means he must tell the whole truth, unable to hide anything from her, and so he settles for one single, vague word. ‘Happened,’ he says, finally.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Byeol’s eyes widen, hands raising to gently cup his face in her palms. Satisfied he is whole, they run down his shoulders to his arms, searching. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, no.’ He pulls himself from her grasp, hands raised in surrender, offering her a sheepish smile of amiable regret. ‘Nothing like that. I, uh, need to borrow some of your clothes.’

She takes a single step back, brow knit together in bewilderment. A myriad of emotions pass over her face, and Jaebeom does his best to count them all, the youth of her features rising and falling between her fear, her amusement, her apprehension. Eventually, she settles on curiosity as her eyes rake him up and down, one hand resting on her chest, perplexed yet surprised.

Rolling his eyes, he turns away from her and moves through her home, heading towards the wooden staircase. ‘They’re not for me.’

Byeol follows close behind, hot on his heels. ‘You’re telling me you…’

There’s too much excitement in her voice, the sound and volume of it making him close his eyes as if bracing for a storm. In one fluid motion, she rounds in front of him to block his path, eyes wide in delight as she makes an inappropriate gesture with her hands. 

‘No!’ he scolds, though he finds he must swallow the early threads of a laugh. ‘Not that either.’

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he feels a slight flush creep into his cheeks as she giggles in childish glee. Gently easing her to the side, he continues up the stairs with heavy thuds of his feet. It always amazes him how easily, and how quickly, Byeol can manipulate the atmosphere in the room, her energy always barely contained and always terribly infectious. Questions are burning at the back of her throat, and she follows closely behind, the bounce in her step echoing around the house behind him. 

Just like their mother, she will not let this go until she is satisfied, will not let him leave until she has received at least one answer, and so he releases a silent sigh as he reaches the landing, turning down the hall towards her room. He should be commended, he thinks, for the bravery he must assume to endure her interrogation.

‘There’s a woman -’ he begins slowly, only to be cut off.

‘You bastard!’ she exclaims delightedly, slapping his shoulder blade with enough force to make him stumble. 

She takes his slight hesitation as an opportunity to run ahead of his once more, the glee in her eyes wild and bright, a look he once found vindictive in their youth. Spreading her arms wide, she presses her hands into the frames of her bedroom doorway, full of impish joy as she stares him down. The love he feels for her blurs together with his frustration, the affection in him rising like a tide.

‘Would you stop?’ he pleads, though now he does not bother to stop his laugh. ‘I just need some stays. A chemise and some trousers, too, if you have them.’ 

Standing to her full height, she raises her head elegantly, full of self-importance and authority, swallowing her smile for a serious expression of warning. ‘You can borrow them on the grounds that you give me her name.’

Exasperated, he looks away, letting his gaze move to the side and into the small rectangle that is Sun Hee’s room. It’s messy, the bed unmade and several books piled onto their mother’s antique rocking chair. Atop the books, her stuffed crochet kitten rests, presiding over the chaos like a queen. Along the walls, sepia portraits of his mother and father hang beside cross-stitch pieces his sister did while pregnant: one a rabbit, another a bundle of wild flowers, one a vestige of the sea. In the center of the wall, above her small wrought iron bed, a portrait of her father is framed and hung, the frame a silver gilded edge that catches all the light, even when the clouds threaten to block the sun.

When he looks once more at his sister, he sees how his silence and avoidance has riled her further, her wry grin returned once more with all its damning inquisitiveness.

‘Do I know her?’ she presses, narrowing her eyes.

He shakes his head, and offers a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘No,’ he explains, ‘I actually don’t know it.’

Jaw dropping, she reaches forward once more and slaps his arm. ‘Jaebie!’

Dropping his head, he presses his fingers into his eyes and wishes, with all of him, that her assumptions of his perpetual loneliness and solitude were not such a concern. Wishes, more than anything in this moment, that Sun Hee did not frequently ask for an auntie to play with, her lack of a father rendering her wishes for a sibling obsolete. For any other man on Indolon, a woman in his home, let alone his bed, would hardly be news, would hardly warrant any discussion at all, but Byeol has watched him try, and fail, over the years to find a woman who loves as ardently, as openly, as intensely as he does. 

She has watched him resort to his life by the sea, watched him spend days alone on his boat, returning at sunset and smelling of brine and salt. All her life she has watched and she has worried, alluding to the full weight of her concern only in jest.

‘Can I please just have them?’ he groans weakly.

Lowering her arms from the doorway, she steps to the side and welcomes him through. ‘Yes,’ she acquiesces. ‘Take what you need from the closet, but this isn’t over. And be quick, I’m on my way out.’

Jaebeom tosses her a silent expression of gratitude over his shoulder, moving through her room with quick steps. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks, sliding open her wardrobe and taking things he knows she keeps but does not often wear, certain she will not miss them. ‘Isn’t Sun-hee already at school.’

Byeol moves behind him, gathering her headscarf from atop her bed and tying it with a hum of confirmation. ‘I’m going to Mala Green’s. Her husband’s ship was meant to port two days ago. It never made it.’ 

Jaebeom stills, clothes draped haphazardly over his arm as he turns to greet her eyes. Together, they regard one another in silence, a cold chill seeming to overtake the room. He remembers the look he sees in her eyes now, remembers the bone deep anxiety and the way she did not sleep for weeks, not even months. In a single moment, it is four years ago and they are both bereft.

‘The Pyxis?’ he murmurs, remembering how he and his sister and his niece, and all the town had watched it sail away from port eight months ago, waving until it disappeared from the horizon. 

She nods minutely, a small motion almost imperceptible had he not been watching her intently, looking down at her hands where she nervously picks at her fingernails. ‘She is thinking the worst.’ 

Dropping the clothes to the bed, Jaebeom takes a few strides and comes to stand before his sister. Letting his hands rest on her shoulders, his thumbs press idle, reassuring circles into her muscles, hoping his expression looks hopeful, at least. ‘It could just be delayed.’

Taking in a shaking breath, Byeol nods but does not lift her eyes to his, gaze trained instead on the unsteady  motions of her hands.‘We always like to think that, but…’ Falling quiet, she glances towards her vanity, a distant expression of longing painting her features. He knows she is looking at her wedding photo, but he does not mention it. ‘A woman always knows, doesn’t she?’ she finishes, finally looking at him with an empty smile.

And just like that, in the length of the shallow stretch of her lips, they fall back in time to Port Vela. She clutched his hand as the Aquila departed, the strength in her grip enough to turn both their knuckles white. The intensity of this touching reminded him that to love is to open the heart to grieving, that to love means to welcome the notion of losing, and so he pressed his fingers against hers with the same force, joining her in solidarity. 

Even before the missionaries declared him dead, she knew he was lost. The tears she shed in childbirth were not those of bodily trauma but those of heartbreak, once more holding his hand and begging for him to tell her why Dong Hyun wasn’t there with her, why the missionaries were forcing her to believe he was still alive. She said it hurt to know they were teasing with the heart of a widow, that moment perhaps the last time he ever feigned trust in the gods and their mortal vessels. 

Dong Hyun had left to deliver a group of missionaries from a nearby port, and they were angry for weeks at their failed return, citing a growing population that needed more help. Jaebeom never knew why they didn’t come to the funeral, his sister and his newborn niece crying in unison against an empty coffin while he pressed his feet into the wet grass. He wanted them to see what their selfishness had done, the rage in him putting a sheen of sweat on his neck, the most angry he had ever been. 

‘He’ll be okay,’ he states, pulling them both out of the darkness of their thoughts. ‘They will all be okay.’

It’s a nice thing to say, he thinks, something that sounds reassuring and optimistic, but he wonders, quietly in the back of his mind, to whom he is offering this confidence.

Byeol startles slightly, eyes glassy and slightly glazed over with memory as she takes him in. ‘Yes, well,’ she begins, stepping out his hold to gather her things. ‘It will be good to be there for her.’

Jaebeom watches her move towards the door, hands balled into fists and pressing his nails into his palms. It’s more visceral now, somehow more tangible than ever, the unease he feels when he thinks about their blue cloaks - their endless, royal blue. 

‘Launder those when you’re done please,’ she says, coming to a halt and pointing her long index finger at the clothes piled on the bed. ‘I don’t want to be wearing any of your remains -’

Jaebeom’s eyes widen, the spell of his thoughts broken by Byeol’s teasing giggle. ‘Byeol!’

She simply steps into the hallway and moves down the stairs, her laughter carrying through the house as though the sadness had never been let in. 

It was only when you said you were leaving, announcing the date of your expected departure with wild eyes and ink stained hands, that he thought maybe, horribly, he had not told you he loved you enough. 

You showed him the boarding papers, the crew notes, the bonds list and you were laughing, disbelieving that good fortune could shine on the persistent. Years of work had culminated in this opportunity, and you could not tear your eyes away from the King’s signature, it’s black script so formal you pressed your fingers to your lips to hide the ferocity of your smile. He loved you most then, burning in silence and struggling to find the right way, the best way, to tell you that his love for you demanded he become monstrous, too many hearts in his chest to contain the totality of this wanting.

‘It will be the longest we’ve ever been apart,’ you said, chancing a look at him, and the briefest flickers of grief walked across your face. In an instant, you tucked them away, smoothed your smile over and put the light back in your eyes, hiding from him the very thing that could bring him to his knees.

‘I’ll send a hawk to woo you,’ he offered, the smile tugging at his lips only half genuine, only half true. 

He was certain you knew it, too, but you simply chuckled, arched one perfect brow and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

‘You’ve already done that.’

He only had a week to show you that he loved you beyond reason, beyond the human capacity for emotion. One week, and you would be gone, drifting away from him at sea, and he would be waiting, always waiting. 

‘Then I’ll do it again.’

Again and again he would do his best to win you over, holding you tightly against his chest and reminding you there was nowhere as safe, nowhere as sacred as against his skin, against his heart. You leaned up to kiss him, always eager and impatient for the things you wanted most, but he breathed against your lips, let your twin exhales unify your heartbeats and reminded himself that you were still here.

He could feel you. You were still there.

Jaebeom wakes with a start, hairline dampened with warmth, stress, and confusion. 

The dawn breaks through the sheer curtains of his bedroom window, the heat in the room oppressive and stifling as the embers within the furnace strain to match the gleam of the sun. Curled in a ball atop the lambskin carpet at the foot of his bed, the joints of his knees and elbows are aching, having been forced into one position too long. Tentatively, he stretches his limbs with a low groan, elongating his back against the floor and does his best to remain quiet in his relief. 

When he’d returned home, you were still sleeping. Unchanged and in the exact position he had left you, a brief anxiety overtook him at the sight of your too relaxed face and the weakness in your limbs. There was a fragility in you that frightened him, a treacherous sort of quiet that promised great annihilation consuming the room and reaching down, deep within his ribs, compressing his lungs. He would have shed tears for you, would have unleashed an expression of grief so holy and so silent it would have broken worlds - but you moaned, almost regal in your suffering, and, for a moment, he was weightless.

In the tense tranquility that followed he slumped into the reading chair beside his bookcase, head buried in his hands, and sighed. With his eyes closed, he could pretend things had not changed, that he was still himself, that he still belonged to himself. It was as though there were two of him, battling within his blood - the one that knew nothing, that craved the assurance and predictable simplicity inherent in the life he had built for himself. 

But the other is violent, a torrent against his bones reminding him this life is not his, that you are his life, and the passion in him is pushed into madness at the notion of not being able to follow where you have gone.

‘All this?’ he lamented into the rough skin of his palm. ‘All this over the desire to be loved?’

The moon was midway through its journey across the sky when he fell asleep, nestling into the rug at the foot of your bed - at your feet, though still giving you the distance, giving himself the distance. And all night he had seen you, felt you, let his whole world become enamored with you.

Pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, he groans, letting the dark become coloured with reds, whites, and purples under the pressure. Rustling from somewhere in the room makes his heart stutter in its rhythm, motions still and muscles tense with the effort of not moving, simply listening. His is not the only breath in the room, and when he takes his hands away from his eyes, his vision adjusts to see you - your face framed by your hair as you lean over the bed, regarding him curiously. 

Startled, Jaebeom sits up, head dizzy with the sudden movement, and he presses a hand to his temple though he does not close his eyes, fearing he might still be dreaming. A dark night lives in your irises, hungry for everything that comprises his very being, and even as he lets his vision focus, lets himself recline into the intensity of your stare, he feels as though you are burning inside him, tearing your way through his sinew, the most voracious thing he’s ever seen. You regard him, unblinking, studying every detail and nuance of his features with tension in your brow and parted lips. 

Briefly, he wonders how long it has been since someone looked at him like this, looked at him as though he is both the universe’s greatest secret and its most coveted answer.

‘You’re awake,’ he manages, throat dry and voice constricting beneath such coveted attention.

Instantly, he curses himself for such a simple and obvious statement. All night he had imagined hundreds of first conversations with you, knowing his first words with you would ultimately be the most important, and already he has betrayed himself. You’ve taken all the power from him, left him in such a state of shock, he supposes his words have withered, nothing in the world as sacred as your eyes on him. 

But the smile you offer him at the sound of his voice could combat the sun, the world brightening around the fullness of your cheeks and the pleasure you keep at the corner of your lips, like a secret. A blush burns at the tips of his ears, and he is glad it does not immediately live in his cheeks, pleased he has learned, somehow, to not give himself away all at once. 

‘I am,’ you nod in affirmation. A chill walks down Jaebeom’s spine, the sound of your voice an echo of his dreams, exactly as he heard it all night long. ‘You found me.’

Seconds stretch between your bodies, an infinite eternity between your last syllable and his first breath, his eyes on yours like a pledge of loyalty. 

‘Were you looking for me?’

Hope invades his words without his permission, helpless against their desire to be the thing you sought most, to be lucky enough to be your prize. His fingers press into the soft strands of the carpet beneath him, and he watches as you fall back against your legs, shoulders slumped as you look around the room. All at once, emptiness overtakes you, the light in your eyes dimming as you search within yourself for an answer.

‘I don’t know,’ is your whispered reply. Looking at him once more, he feels as though you are rooting within his soul, continuing the expedition within him. But still, you are lost, voice adrift and lost at sea. ‘I can’t remember.’

He smiles encouragingly, wanting you to know, more than anything, that it is okay. For himself, he reminds you both that everything is okay.

Inching along the carpet, he clears his throat as he rests his arms on the bed, gazing up at you as though he is making wishes on the moon. He wants to be close to you - more than he’s ever wanted anything, Jaebeom wants to be in your orbit, close enough he could taste the salt that still lingers on your skin. Biting his tongue, he swallows all his rushed, messy emotions and clears his throat, choosing instead the words of logic, the words of practicality. 

‘What is your name?’

Little by little, your smile slowly fades, burned by this simple question. Still, you remain calm, perplexed and unsure of how much of you has truly been misplaced. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s okay,’ he reassures you gently. ‘My name is Jaebeom.’ In saying his name, he waits for a flicker of recognition, a response that would confirm all he has spent the night feeling, but you simply regard him blankly, glad for the conversation. Shaking his head, he sighs. ‘How did you get here?’ he tries, keeping his voice calm so you find no reason to panic or run.

Now, your smile disappears completely and all that is left behind is you, your sadness, and the way it clings to your body like a shadow. The smallness of you in this moment puts an ache in his chest that feels like an inheritance - something he has been owed, that you owed one another having vanished in the completeness of your unknowing, and, together, you grieve. With a slow shake of your head, you confirm there is a void surrounding the nature of your being and the reason for your arrival, and the longer he looks the more he sees how this torments the deep desire that quakes inside you.

He knows nothing of you, knows only that you are here and you are tangible and you are emptied, but still he can sense you are a wild, impossible beast of a woman. The storm in you could tear the world asunder, and so he tries a different tactic, choosing to ask what is felt rather than what can be recalled, wanting to hold onto as much of you as he possibly can.

‘Are you hurt?’

For a long moment, you consider his question, as if thinking through the concept of hurt, the very notion of it, rather than the truth of it. Running his eyes over your frame, he notices that some bruises on your arms have already faded, as if the midnight sky was your healer. You are far healthier and far more whole than the person he found yesterday, but there is a strangeness to the way you look at him, to the way you think through his questions that gives him the passing sensation that you are not there at all.

He fears, all the way down to his marrow, that if he were to look away, you would disappear completely.

‘It does hurt, yes,’ you admit finally. Offering him a small nod of confirmation, your eyes grow wide as though you yourself are surprised by the experience, the ability to truly hurt a clandestine experience.

Jaebeom had feared this. Always, the most lethal of wounds are the ones not worn on the skin. ‘Where?’

Slowly, you lift a hand to your chest, right above your heart. Pain etches itself on your face, the turmoil of bewilderment and confusion, the misery of things long lost, making a home of your soft features. He watches your brow knit together as you regard him, a slight downturned frown tugging at your lips as you silently beg him for answers. 

Reaching a hand forward, his fingertips nearly graze the smooth skin of your knee, exposed between the ripped threads of your silk dress. When he’s close enough he can feel the warmth from your skin, he remembers himself, retreating back to curl his hand into a fist.

‘Did a man hurt you?’ 

He hates the way the words taste, sour and acrid on his tongue, but he supposes this dress is your wedding gown and he’s seen more than his fair share of broken hearts around town. This, of course, would be the worst he has ever seen, but he chooses not to worry you further, keeping his voice soothing and calm.

‘No,’ you shake your head, looking beyond him into a distance that is both contained within and expanding outward. ‘Not one,’ you continue with a dark whisper. ‘Many.’

Jaebeom does not think himself a man prone to violence or aggression but, in a single moment, he feels his heart is a weapon. His spine straightens as he rears back slowly, relying entirely on the support of the floor beneath him. His hands are no longer his own, knuckles taught with the desire to tear his way through flesh and sinew. There is no limit to the monstrous creatures he would face standing up for you; he’s burning, fully ablaze alongside you, and it surprises him how quickly kindness can burn away.

‘We can report it when you are well enough,’ he announces, clearing his throat in the effort of remembering himself. As much as he would go to battle for you, he similarly does not want to frighten you. ‘When you remember the details we can report it. They won’t get away with it.’

Shoulders relaxing, your hand falls away from your chest as you find comfort in his words, and a small sense of pride prickles at his ears and neck. With anyone else, he’d be sheepish that he is giving himself and his emotions away so quickly with you, but he can’t help it, he thinks. Not when you look at him like this, like he’s the part of summer you’ve been anticipating most and are pleased by the mere sight of him. People don’t look at him like this, especially the people he wishes would look at him and want to continue the mere act of seeing him. You make him feel like someone, and he is more with you than he ever has been on his own. 

Keeping your eyes on his, you shift so you rest on your hands and knees, crawling across the bed towards him. Jaebeom leans back, pushes himself away from the bed and it is only when the heat from the still burning furnace threatens to sear his chemise that he pauses, looking over his shoulder to pout at the proximity. Your hand presses against his foot, stopping his movements and he returns his focus to you once more, all breath and blood flow halted in his veins. 

You’ve climbed off the bed, settled on the floor with your hand on him and a glimmer behind your eyes that says you know he has longed to be touched. Has he been real before this moment? Has he truly existed until the moment you placed your hand on his skin, a paradoxically cold warmth that sends a chill up his legs and into his groin. Until this moment, he has been afflicted with the strangest sense of object permanence, but only of himself - himself and his relation to you, the only thing that has ever truly mattered.

‘You won’t come close to me,’ you explain, sounding terribly sad.

Deflating, he leans forward and places his hand on yours, finally, running his thumb along your knuckles. The salt from the sea has turned your skin into the softest thing he’s ever touched, and he applies just enough pressure to remind himself you are tangible, real, present. 

There’s something familiar and, simultaneously, ephemeral about the way his hand moves over yours. He finds it impossible to look away as he explains, ‘I wanted to give you space.’

‘I’ve had enough,’ you counter, and the sharpness in your words has him taking in your lips, your cheeks, your face in wonder. You are every bit the tempest he knew you would be, and he smiles, amused and gladdened by your confident vehemence.  

Pulling your hand out from under his, you raise it to the side of his face, tucking strands of hair behind his ear and letting your fingers glide along his cheekbone. The intimacy leads him, momentarily, to believe that he is completely naked, exposed to you in all the ways that could truly break him. Once more, he feels you searching within him for something you can almost grasp. Words live and die on his tongue, answers he too craves fading before he has the chance to truly process them.

You are unified in this complex looking, the act of remembering both a mysterious and a fact.

‘You’re familiar to me.’ Cocking your head to the side as you speak, the childlike curiosity you exude has him pressing his hands into the carpet, reminding himself it is still too early to take hold of you, too early to hold you against his heart as he had done in his dream.

‘Have we met before?’ he offers gently.

Excitement colours you, has you straightening as you pull your hand from his skin. ‘Do you know me?’

It’s his turn to shake his head, his turn to smother hope with little disappointments. ‘No.’

‘Then I suppose not.’ 

With a slight shrug, you return your hand once more to the side of his face, palm cupping his cheek to trace the contour of the bone. Little by little, your eyes soften and a silent yearning overtakes your features. Jaebeom wants to tell you everything when you look at him like that. Things he’d never breathe to another person, things he had long since forgotten rise up in his throat and he nearly chokes on them, wanting you to have absolutely everything.

Running your thumb over his bottom lip, a blissful sigh escapes from the center of your chest, eyes slightly glazed as you luxuriate in the texture of his skin beneath your finger. ‘I don’t mind, though. I like looking at you.’ 

How like a child he feels when he is with you - suddenly restless and impatient and young, the boundaries and the calculated logic he has spent years cultivating in his adulthood dissolving the moment he learns you are pleased with him. In his dream, he somehow knew your kisses were a hurricane, all raindrops and wild winds that made his skin feel electric. The way you seem to tear through him now is a confirmation he was correct, the summer in you so immaculate he thinks it is always the bloom of July in your soul.

Were he to look elsewhere in the room, he is certain it would be a betrayal - the treachery of looking away from the gods’ sky. Jaebeom is calmed by the sight of you, the anxious itch in the back of his mind dormant simply because you have decided he is worthy of being adored. He wonders where he has been looking all this time, if he has truly seen anything at all until this moment, the colours of the world infinitely more rich because of how you choose to wear them. 

Clearing his throat, he looks briefly at your hand where it holds his foot like a cross and trembles. ‘I like looking at you, too.’ It feels so silly and unimpressive, repeating your words back like a parrot, but he means it - there is more conviction in those small words than any other promise he has ever made and, when he looks at you again, he hopes you can feel it.

Your answering smile is so rich and full, he finds his thoughts are rendered unintelligible, and so he lowers his gaze to the ripped dress that does its best to maintain the echo of its former shape.  

Clearing his throat, he slowly pulls his foot out from your grip, skin tingling from the loss of contact. The warmth from your hand still lingers, and he frowns, regretting his decision even through his commitment to the choice. Pressing his hands to the floor, he rises to stand and brushes off his trousers, looking for ways to keep his hands busy.

‘Can you stand?’ You look up at him, expectant and congenial. ‘Are your legs strong enough?’

Copying his earlier movements, you press your hands into the floor and, unsteadily, lift yourself to a stand. For a moment your knees wobble, but you keep your eyes on his, shoulders rolling back as you take in a slow inhale. Finding your balance takes focus, brow knotted together with the effort of standing on weakened muscles, but you keep your feet planted, hands spread at your sides to aid in maintaining your center of gravity. And when you stand, stable and sure, at your full height, you nod proudly, delighted you have surprised yourself.

‘Good.’ The most natural thing in the world, he finds, is praising you; a long dormant habit awakening once more ‘I’m actually not sure what I’d done if you couldn’t,’ he admits sheepishly.

Amidst your infectious giggle, Jaebeom finally has an opportunity to truly take in the state of your clothes. He wonders what torment you have seen, what hell you’ve walked through that has torn the silk and chiffon down to the essence of their threads. The bodice hugs your waist, but the whalebone corset is torn at the ribs, threatening to expose your skin. There will be no saving the sleeves that hang limply off your shoulders, falling behind your back like a ragged cape. Sea water has stained the silk to a tarnished, bleak yellow, the sand of the seabed nestled deep within the folds of your skirts. 

Still, too much of your skin is visible to him. The skirts have pulled away from the bodice and a large portion of your thigh remains bare, the other leg free of clothing from the ankle to just above your knee. Standing before him, he sees you as a survivor of a slaughter that bore no claws, and he aches to pull you close, to keep you safe, to remind you that you are whole.

Perhaps, he thinks, the reminder is mostly for himself.

‘I brought you some clothes,’ he announces gently. Gesturing vaguely to the wardrobe in the opposite corner, his nerves get the better of him, words becoming bashful. ‘You look like the size of my sister, so they should fit.’ Running a hand through his hair and gripping the strands to alleviate the tension in his wrists, he pulls himself out of your orbit and heads toward the wardrobe.  ‘We need to go into town anyway to see the medic, so I can get you some if these don’t fit properly. I just…’ 

Opening the doors, he pulls out the clothes he borrowed from his sister- stays for night time, two pairs of trousers, a woolen skirt he remembers buying for his sister one solstice that she has never worn, and three chemises he hopes will fit you. He lays them out delicately on the bed, arranging them into outfits he hopes you find comfortable. Fixating on the trousers, he looks at them too long as his stomach drops. Indolon is one of the few islands where women wear trousers, their propensity for skirts just as enthusiastic and common. He hops the sight of them will not offend you.

‘Thank you.’ Approaching the bed with light, careful steps, the smallness of your voice does little to mask your immense gratitude, hands coming to graze the myriad of fabrics he has selected. 

Something about the feel of them between your fingers astounds you, a stunned silence turning adding a weight to the room that did not previously exist. 

‘These are beautiful.’ Your hand moves to the skirt, the difference in its texture putting a glee in your eyes that makes his heart swell. ‘Thank you for caring for me,’ you finish, finally looking up at him once more.

Time bleeds past him as he falls into you, falls beyond himself and into a love that consumes him. Around your body, light seems to vibrate, uncertain how to hold you and so it holds all of you, and none of you, at once, bending around your back until he wonders if the very nature of this conversation is merely an illusion. Should he look away, he worries you would vanish, that he might forget, and so he steps near enough that he might touch you. 

Keeping his hands forced at his sides, he drowns momentarily in his wanting before he speaks. ‘Anyone would do it.’

Lowering the skirt, you reach up to cup his face, forcing him to look at you. A shiver walks down his spine, followed swiftly by an unfamiliar heat in his blood as you speak. ‘I don’t remember much of the world, but I do remember that is not true. Not everyone would do as you have done.’ You lean into him, close enough your breaths touch between your bodies, his entire existence narrowing to this single moment. ‘I’m grateful for you.’ 

All of him craves giving in to the boundless lust that rages within his chest, memories of his dream resurfacing to haunt his bones. There were other memories within that dream, memories of your body wrapped beneath his, memories of your lips and the way you always pressed hard against his mouth, ensuring he would feel you long after you had departed. Jaebeom wants to live in those memories now, wants to force them into his reality so badly his hands and his sides start to shake.

But in those memories, lives the texture of your skin and the way his fingers have mapped every node of your spine. And it is only when he recalls the distant blur of this experience, so foreign to him it is as though it belongs to someone else, that he remembers there is nowhere in his home for you to undress.

When he had selected this house by the sea, he had assumed his life would contain the dawn, the dusk, the ocean, and little else in between. His home is merely one large square, the kitchen bleeding into his open bedroom and the sitting area tucked into corners he felt would be comfortable. There is, fundamentally, no element of privacy, and this is the only thing, he thinks, that gives him the strength to pull away - the desire to keep you comfortable and to be polite his only saving grace.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, taking one small step back. It is enough for his head to become clear, enough for the sadness in your eyes at the separation to not sting like a bullet. ‘I can leave you to change.’ 

He moves around you, not really certain what he would say should you inform him you will need assistance with your bodice and corset. They are torn enough and ruined enough he imagines they will not be a problem, but the mere idea of his fingers accidentally caressing the smooth expanse of your back puts a tightness in his chest the magnitude of which has him both frightened and bewildered. 

Jaebeom does not want people like this, certainly does not want them this badly and with this much conviction, and so he walks through the bedroom and into the kitchen, the cool metal of the doorknob a balm against his skin. And it is only when he is outside, eyes closed as he lets the breeze overtake his heart, his spirit, his soul, does he feel like himself once more.

It is only when he is in an entirely different location, far enough away from you he cannot feel you, that he remembers to breathe.

The walk to town, by your side, is among the most eventful experiences of his life. 

Having roamed the island roads all his life, he has grown used to the view, the unchanging scenery resulting in him finding it to be rather dull and grey. He cannot remember the last time he saw this world with fresh eyes, the last time he took in the trees, the slope of the land and felt joy - the last time this world brought him pleasure. You however, combat the very essence of his ennui with your inherent enthusiasm, taking in every sight and every sound as if it is, not the first time you have witnessed them but, the first time you have reunited with them after many years away. 

In you, a language of reconciliation is being cultivated - one that only you will be able to understand, and one that makes Jaebeom cast you curious side long glances as you press your hands together in consternation. Your scrutiny of each detail slows the walk considerably, your presence somewhat distant and hollow as you struggle to define the essence of familiarity within you. Each time, it fades miserably and quickly, leaving you momentarily disheartened only for new wonder to replace the frustration once more. 

Through you, he begins to see the town as something eternal, something so long lasting and sacred that, even if it is forgotten, it is still unchanged and important enough to be missed. Selfishly, he ponders what place he held in your old life, if he held any place at all, aware that, sometimes, you look at him with this same questioning fixation. In his own life experiences, you appear missing, but the way you look at him and touch him assures a small, needy piece of his heart that he is remembered, and therefore not ephemeral. 

Still, he is certain you have been here, on Indolon, that this is your home and nowhere else. Having decided to forgo the shoes he had taken from his sister in favor of your bare feet, claiming it felt more natural to feel the earth beneath your toes, your steps are confident as you walk. Your eyes take everything in with too much intensity, but your steps are sure, certain of the placement and used to the cracks and the gravel that line the journey. When you are not focused on a building, a face, a view, you do not follow behind him. Instead, you are perhaps just a hair’s breadth ahead of him, relaxed in your inherent certainty. 

‘Is any of this triggering your memory?’ he quietly tries, hoping he does not completely disrupt your train of thought.

‘Yes, but at the same time no.’ Your lips continue moving even as your voice dies, murmuring mysteriously to yourself as you look around. ‘It’s like I’ve seen this before in a dream, but then anything can look like anything if you want it to badly enough.’ Offering him a sly smirk, you peer up at him through your eyelashes. ‘I still like looking at you the most, though.'

Heat paints pink smears along his cheeks, and he glances down to his feet momentarily to smile at himself, flattered and, helplessly, twitter-patted. With you beside him, so close, his fingers dig into the pockets of his coat, gripping the cloth in the effort of stifling the desire to reach for your hand.

'Thank you,' he begins, his smile unwilling to fade. Still, he does his best to warp his features into a serious expression. 'I'm glad I'm more interesting than trees and brick.'

The music of your laugh is an eruption, the juicy fullness of it breaking over his tongue and filling his mouth with unprecedented gladness. You are unshy with your laughter, endearingly liberal and letting it echo through the air, demanding everyone hear your pleasure. Jaebeom swallows thickly, feeling almost as though he can taste you on the wind, in his mouth, and he holds his breath wanting to keep you inside him just a moment longer.

'I'm serious,' you tease, nudging into his side

Passing the field of pink and blue wildflowers, you become transfixed by a group of small children playing amongst the grass. Holding hands, they jump and dance in a circle, their laughter interrupting the song they are singing in broken unison. He recognizes the nursery rhyme of Ciperion immediately, remembering how his sister and some of the older children would make him play this game with them, dancing in a circle until the song ended and they had to remain completely still. Always, one of his sister's older friends, usually the boy she had a crush on, would play Ciperion, choosing a victim to steal away from the group. Only then would the circle continue dancing over and over until only one player remained and they had to outrun Ciperion to win.

He chuckles at the memory, how petulant he always felt at being the first one out - always, and without fail. Now, he realizes it was merely because of his strong reaction to being taken that made it more entertaining for his sister's friends, his cries and yells something they would tease him about for days.

‘What are they singing?’ you ask softly, interrupting his thoughts.

Jaebeom hears your voice and looks to his side, finding you are no longer with him. Turning, he finds you have come to a halt alongside the edge of the field, watching the children with a dark fascination that runs a chill down his spine.

He approaches you slowly, looking between the children and you, finding the tether of your fixation to be unbreakable. ‘The song of Ciperion,' he explains gently. 

When you look at him again, your inquisitive expression is marred by such a sincere sense of aloneness his throat runs dry. Your prying eyes demand more from him, demand explanations and answers, so greedy and so painfully hopeful he wonders what the word wounded in you. 

‘It’s an old urban legend on the island,’ he begins, looking back at the children who have now stilled, a little girl roaming behind the group with her hands raised like claws. ‘Everyone knows it, primarily because we grow up hearing it from friends or parents. It’s really just a ghost story. Parents tell it to make sure their children don’t go too far near the shore if they can’t see them, and kids tell it amongst friends just to see who is the most brave.’

Mystified, you keep your eyes on the group of children. ‘And it’s a song?’ 

He shakes his head, meeting your eyes on the raised arms and laughing faces of the children, hoping this contact of just your twin gazes is a comfort. ‘Not really, no. It’s a story, but it’s so old it’s become a nursery rhyme.’

‘Tell me.’

Jaebeom hums, trying to remember the way his mother told him this story when he was small. ‘Centuries ago, there was a ship called Ciperion that was meant to arrive at Port Vela.’

At the word Ciperion, you bristle, eyes widening slightly, though if in terror or recognition he cannot tell.

‘It was commissioned by the King, back when there were Kings,’ he continues, watching your reactions in the corner of his eye. ‘In those days, it was the fastest ship ever created, and had been assigned one of the largest crews - they called it the jewel of the sea. The crew was composed of experts in every field - cartography, cosmology, anthropology - and the ship’s sole mission was exploration.’

When you finally look at him, the heat from your gaze puts a fire in his veins, the sheer fervor and earnestness of your attention making him shudder. Swallowing thickly, he continues. 

‘Legend says that they reached an island and saw how corrupt the Indolon King had been, how far reaching his power and torment really was.’ In the field, a little boy is taken by a young Ciperion, his scream of surprise mingling with the relieved laughter of the other children. ‘They rushed home to stop him from destroying their land, but the ship never made it. No one knew where the ship had gone, especially because the waters had been calm the night of their intended arrival.’

‘So they all perished?’ Even as the words leave your mouth, your focus turning back to the children, he knows this question is not meant to be answered, a small voice in the back of his mind advising him you already know this answer. Its rhetorical nature is anguished, lost, full of a yearning he presumes no language could ever express.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jaebeom nods knowing you cannot see him, and continues. ‘The lighthouse stayed on for weeks, even on clear nights. But still, Ciperion never came back.’

The silence in you is a sea, and once more he presses his fingers in the fabric of his jacket, warring within himself to keep his hand still. Your own hands look lonely, hanging limply at your sides as though you have been defeated by something much larger, and much more complex, than just your lack of memory. As he studies your changing expression, he counts the emotions that swim over your features - anger, fury, loss, grief, and, strangely, happiness - before you settle on none of these, choosing instead to remain empty. 

But the magnitude of this choice renders you disheartened, tears pooling in your eyes, and he watches you swallow, fighting them back to the depths within your heart.

‘There’s never been any proof that Ciperion was real,’ he offers, hoping this will aid in bringing you comfort. It was never real, he supposes, and so there is no need to mourn the loss of made up things.

Yet, this consolation does not help, only serves to insight frustration, hands at your side curling into small fists as your eyes narrow. 

Looking back at the children, Jaebeom combats the ever creeping flush at his neck and ears with the rest of the story. ‘Some say that every twenty years, on the anniversary of its port date, you can see the ghost ship Ciperion sailing along the horizon, looking for ways to dock. Only if the night is clear, that is.’

‘And if it isn’t?’ you question, a bitterness biting at your words that takes him aback.

‘If it’s cloudy,’ he offers delicately, ‘the fog along the water is so thick it blocks the lighthouse altogether. It moves up from the water onto the shore, looking for ways into houses or into town as if it has a mind of its own. And if it touches land, you can hear screams in the clouds themselves.’

As if they never happened at all, as if, all along, you nothing of this story had touched a bleeding wound within you, the tears in your eyes seem to dissolve. Your hands unfurl from their fists, and a touch of pink warms your cheeks. There is contentedness all over you, and you turn to face, a pleasant smile tugging at your lips.

‘That’s a nice story,’ you say, simply, blinking up at him in genuine interest.

A laugh bursts from his chest, one that comes from nowhere at all and instead is a bark of surprise rather than a logical expression of amusement. Furrowing his brow, he laughs to himself through the fear and the confusion, waiting for your earlier expression of grief to overtake you once more. But when it does not come, when you giggle along with him merely because it is something to share rather than an honest or sincere experience of humor, he silences himself with a low grumble and kicks the stones at his feet.

‘Yes,’ he agrees quietly. ‘It’s just something we grow up hearing, but nothing ever comes of it.’

‘Is it the anniversary, then?’ You smile up at him, seeming happy to be included in a story, happy, too, to be sharing his company, and you press your bare feet into the stones, making little shapes with your toes. ‘They’re singing with so much fervor.’

‘Yeah,’ he hums in confirmation, watching you draw circles into the earth. ‘Actually, I think it’s tomorrow.’

‘And will you look for the ship?’ 

Cocking his head to the side questioningly, he studies your face as he speaks. ‘Would you like to?’

‘Are you asking me?’ you press, tilting your head to the same angle as his. The sight of you makes his breath catch, your beauty always somehow the most arresting, the most bewitching, but watching you mirror his position creates an uncanny sense of unease in his belly. ‘I’m not sure what I would be looking for,’ you finish, uncertainty lacing your tone.

‘I’m not either,’ he laments, furrowing his brow as he takes you in. There are so many things he’d like to say to you, only to you, so many things he’d like to ask, but starting feels painful, complicated, as though he’s attempting to speak a language he does not yet understand, so he swallows, drawing the same circles as you with his shoe. ‘I haven’t gone looking for it since I was a kid.’ Your circles are so clean, while his are oblong, and he is unsure why this matters, but he is excited, fundamentally, that there is so much he can learn from you. ‘The last time it was here, I was eight, and even then we didn’t see anything.’

Nodding in understanding you hum, knitting your brow together in consideration of his words. ‘It would be...fun?’

‘If you want to, we can,’ he chuckles, peering at you through his lashes, still waiting for another response of sadness, of melancholic heartbreak to rise up in you again. The legend of Ciperion stirred something in you, touched pieces of your spirit denying access to all else, and he thinks, perhaps, it is the tragedy of lost life and torn wood that triggers memories of spilled blood. Anyone would weep at the horror of this, and so he clears his throat, remembering true horrors are the ones humanity can touch.

‘But,’ he begins, loud enough the children in the field turn to look at them, worrying their play will be halted before continuing to sing once more, ‘you washed up on the rocks.’ Looking at you fully, he feels his chest tighten, remembering the shredded silk and the way your hair wound over the rocks, latching into deep crevices just to keep you safe. ‘People don’t just come from the sea. If there’s a shipwreck somewhere, we’d have to tell the medic and the council. That’s a more pressing ship to be looking for.’

Biting your lip, your eyes grow distant and glassy as you retreat inward, mind racing towards shadowed images that render your voice small and soft. ‘I don’t remember where I was before this.’

‘Sometimes that can happen with trauma,’ Jaebeom advises, and it strikes him that your admission does not bring despair, only annoyance at your failing memory.

Through all of this, not once have you expressed fear at the notion of death, unafraid for your own mortality even after the very essence of it has been threatened and challenged. It hits him now that the only time you have ever been afraid is when confronted with the notion of others experiencing a fate meant for you. One tale of a shipwreck, and so soon were you unmade into a dark beast, woven together by sorrow. 

Kicking the stones away from his feet, he tilts his head encouragingly, wordlessly advising that you continue alongside him. ‘The medic is one of my old school friends,’ he explains with a small grin, readying for Stefan’s loud laugh and teasing sarcasm. ‘He’ll be able to tell you more once he can run a few tests. You’ll like him. He’s quite funny.’

Walking beside him, there is a bounce to your step. ‘I remember that I like funny people,’ you announce, tossing him a playful smirk. ‘Maybe I will like looking at him as much as I like looking at you.’

Jealousy tightens itself around his ribs, the selfish desire for him to be the only thing that brings you pleasure rising in his throat like bile. It is an entirely new experience for him, the notion of love that one must remember its fragility, the sacredness of a lover's admiration more divine than the gods. Already, every breath he takes is heavy with you, body and soul hypnotized by your existence, and, in the effort of appearing aloof and affable, he grits his teeth through a humorless laugh.

‘Better not,’ he teases, though the jovial nature of it is almost nonexistent. As soon as he says it, he becomes upset with himself, the statement alone so preposterous and out of his character he shivers to shake the sound of it off his skin.

You, however, do not seem to notice, nudging into his shoulder once more as you continue on the journey.

Jaebeom has not seen the entirety of Isle Indolon, his ability to travel limited by his small income and the availability of everything he needs being centered to the town. However, he has never truly felt the need to explore, their small city of Sunridge Keep the capital of the island and therefore so full and bustling with activity he finds it impossible to muster the desire to leave. Orange red brick buildings decorated with limestone columns line the road, the gravel and dirt of the path turning into smooth cobblestone, warmed by the light of the blazing sun. 

Hissing slightly as your toes touch the warm stones, you pull your foot back in surprise, only to place it back down with careful movements, mind racing once more as you take tentative steps forward. Immediately, your eyes are everywhere, touching everything all at once. You are hungry for absolutely everything, reading names of shops, studying faces of strangers as they pass, watching the florist hand out daffodils from her wicker basket as though nothing has ever been so marvelous. The bread maker offers you a warm sticky bun, and you look instead to the man’s face, not to the pastry held in his large palm, studying him as though his name might arrive on your tongue.

Jaebeom guides you away, offering the vendor a dismissive wave of his hand, only to find your eyes latched onto something else. He grows light headed watching the trajectory of your focus, your wild discontent and ravenous hunger gnawing you into a frenzied state of almost savage inquisitiveness. There is not a single thing your gaze does not touch, and occasionally you stop in front of shop windows to look in, eyes searching ever deeper for something familiar. 

The center of town always smells the sweetest to Jaebeom, and so he leads you in this direction, hoping that the star shaped expanse and its wide angles will ease some of your tension. Childishly, he plans to acquire some roasted chestnuts, certain their candied deliciousness will provide you comfort even if it does not inspire remembrance. The throng of people eases as he approaches town center, the citadel bell chiming the late early hour, and you pause, looking up into the sky in awe. He’d always loved the bell tower - even if he did not trust the missionaries, even if he made himself believe it was deception that lurked behind their irises and not concern, he always appreciated their music. 

Leading you to the large fountain directly in the center of the star, he settles on the warm marble and gestures for you to sit beside him. The rushing water calms his erratic heartbeat, and, yet again, with his eyes closed he can pretend he is small, little more than a boy who belongs completely to himself and to his mother, the whim of his will the only thing that stirs his reason.

‘We have a bit of time to rest here,’ he says, leaning back and closing his eyes as the sun cascades over his skin. It warms him from within, the magic of his childhood returning on the breadth of a sunbeam. ‘I always like to sit here a while before I run my errands. One can never deny music, can they?’

Jaebeom awaits your response, what feels like his very spirit existing in anticipation of you. But when it does not come, his skin begins to tighten amidst another wave of unease, and he opens his eyes to find you have retreated so far within yourself the shock of it lives on your features.

Hands in your lap, your back is rigid and straight, gaze flicking between the citadel tower and the people mingling at its base - up and down and back again, rushing between each as though you will never have your fill, teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek. Your fingernails pick at your skin before pressing crescent shapes into your palms, adrenaline putting you in a state of anxiety so severe he finds he, too, is sitting up straight and watching the crowd for familiar faces.

‘Do you recognize something?’ It takes work to keep his voice calm and soothing, doing his best not to startle you.

‘There’s something wrong with this,’ is all you whisper, and Jaebeom scours the crowd for a sign of injury, panic, even an out of place cart, but he comes up empty, finding nothing untoward in the surroundings.

Once more, he studies every face that passes, every horse drawn carriage that moves past, wondering which of these is the culprit for your turmoil. It is only when your hand moves to his thigh, gripping tightly enough he comes to see your grip as a vice, that he notices what it is that has you so undone. 

At the base of the citadel, the crowd has started to dissipate, the smiling faces of mothers and their children departing after receiving their blessings. A group of four missionaries stands, handing out pamphlets and greeting passerby with neutral, unreadable expressions. Their royal blue cloaks catch the late morning sun, the velvet of the fabric gleaming in all their expensive glory, putting cerulean shadows on the limestone behind them. In this way, they are glowing, ephemeral visions that at once are otherworldly and oppressive, the sort of power in their light that would bring one to their knees.

As always, he shivers at the sight of them, but your grip on his leg tightens and when he looks at you again you are murmuring to yourself and he feels his jaw go slack.

‘Murderers,’ you hiss, softly enough that only he can hear but you say the word over and over, voice rising in pitch until your voice dies altogether.

You watch them, unblinking and repulsed, the fear and loathing in you so great he sees you now as a mere apparition of the woman you once were. A great tremor has started to creep through your limbs, body rocking back and forth as though you are at sea, your center of gravity warped as you continue to look and look. 

Running his hand up and down your back in an effort to calm you, Jaebeom feels his own voice start to waver. ‘What is it?’ 

You say nothing, merely shake your head, unwilling to speak for fear that they may hear you. All his question manages to do is inspire another round of mumbling, calling them murderers only to yourself and only to Jaebeom, simply because he is close enough for your voice to reach. His eyes scour the crowd for a discreet way to remove you from the fountain, looking in the direction of Stefan’s practice only to drop to a disappointed frown. In front of the pathway, at his end of the star,a group of people have gathered to inspect a vendor of Veruvian silk.

‘Murderers,’ you say again, and this time it is loud enough that a young boy passing by hears your voice, his eyes widening in surprise. 

Jaebeom grimaces apologetically, waving the boy along as he pulls you into his side, holding you close. Even in his state of panic, his heart breaks that this should be the first time he holds to him, the first time you would be able to remember, the comfort his arms reduced to merely a time and a place, and not a feeling. The trembling in your muscles is palpable, tangible enough his hands feel as though they are gripping something monstrous, something absolute in its knowledge and power. In a single moment, you have become something Other, shaking against his ribs with enough violence he fears you may tear the marble of the fountain asunder. Your hand leaves his thigh and comes to grip your seat, fingers pressing against the stone until your knuckles turn white. 

He’s certain the missionaries must see you, certain this will turn into something holy and something wholly unwelcome, but they seem to pay you both no mind, their attention devoted instead to the good and to the whole.

And just when he thinks he may be able to ease words out of you, the noise of you reduced to slow, deep inhales between your parted lips and the shaking in your muscles coming abruptly to a halt, you bed over, eyes wide in shock, as you vomit sea water, seaweed, and, most horribly of all, blood at your feet.

Author’s Note: lord god, im telling you i thought this was going to be a very short story but here i am...all this with so much more to go. im just really in love with this world and actually really proud of it? ive never done anything like this and ive been in love with fisherman!jb ever since the dye preview pics came out. ive had this in my mind since i messaged @imdifferentshadesofpurple​ in may about it and im just so glad it lives. did i make an entire story out of that one promo pic and the oyster dress by alexander mcqueen? sure bet but you cannot blame me.

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