#like yeah sure if the child is alive you can probably just pass it off to someone who wants it

[koinotame]

if i was your husband

word count: 1.4K content warnings: unhealthy relationship dynamics, some nonsexual touching of dubious consent, otherwise just 1400 words of yandere-typical obsession

characters included: childe

a/n: this is a repost (heavily edited in some parts, lightly edited in others)! and a sequel to this. you can read this as a standalone modern au oneshot, but it'll probably make more sense with the context of the previous one. also on ao3! next part here

"you know," you say after a while of quiet between the two of you, staring vacantly at the tv playing some seasonal movie and leaning further into the couch. "my friends were saying you’d make a good husband."

out of the corner of your eye, you see him still.

"…really?"

something about the way he says it makes your stomach queasy.

you hum halfheartedly, still trying to pretend you’re more invested in the movie than the current conversation.

"what do you think, then?"

that gets you to turn to him. "huh?"

he’s looking directly at you, face propped up on his fist. the way his eyes, deep and all consuming, bore into yours makes you feel like you’re a sailor about to give in to the enthralling call of the ocean. "how do you think I’d do as your husband?"

"well…" you pause for a bit, eyes flicking back to the movie and staying there for a bit. he doesn’t move, staring directly at your face. your eyes inch to the opposite corner of the scren, a bit further away from him.

a few minutes pass by before you say anything again. "I mean, your cooking is great. and you like cleaning, and—" you start counting off other husbandly traits he has on your fingers. your hands are almost full by the time you’re done, which is also when you finally turn back to him. "so. yeah, I think you’d make for a good husband."

his stare is starting to get kind of unnerving.

you smile awkwardly, trying to ease the tense air. "…maybe that makes you more of a house husband, though?"

he doesn’t respond to your jest.

"you think so?"

instead, he sounds strikingly serious. he usually sounds light and lively, so his current inflection sounds eerie.

you don’t have time to think about it any more before he’s draping himself over you, his arms leaning onto the couch behind you and torso just barely not touching you. his eyes search your face for something, not missing the jolt at his sudden movement.

after an intense couple seconds of observing you, his face turns up into a wide, almost overexcited smile.

his head drops into the crook of your shoulder, arms wrapping themselves around your waist and pressing you even further into the couch. you hear him inhale loudly, then let out a content sigh as he presses his face further against you. he doesn’t mind the way you stiffen at the sudden sensation, or the way your arms remain rigidly at your sides.

"…what are you doing?"

"if I was your husband," he ignores your question, not moving. "I’d be the happiest man alive. no, forget that—I’d be the happiest person alive."

your mouth feels dry when he presses a light kiss against the exposed skin on your throat.

"I’d cook breakfast, lunch and dinner for you every day. I’d learn all your favourites and I’d pack you lunch every day." he takes another deep whiff. you’re sure you’re not imagining it this time. "I could pack you those cute themed lunch boxes, too. I’d get up early every morning to make sure I can finish everything in time."

his eyes open, his lashes brushing tenderly against your skin. "I’d wake you every day, and I’d hold you as we fall asleep every night. I’d take care of everything so you can always take it easy, and I’d make sure you’re always comfortable."

his breath is hot against your skin. "I’d make sure to tell you that I love you every day. the house would always be ready for your return, the sheets always fresh and your clothing always ironed."

he moves down, pressing his face against where your heart is. his ear lays flat against your chest. the look on his face is hard to describe, bordering on hypnotised. "I’d make sure you’re always happy. I’d take care of all the rent, and the utility bills, and food, and whatever else needs to be paid."

his eyes appear glazed over. "you could spend your days lounging around, doing nothing while I take care of you and pamper you. I could buy you whatever you want, whenever you want, for whatever reason you want. I’d do anything for you. nothing is off the table for you."

his grip tightens, pressing you further into him, as if he doesn’t want there to be an end to him and a beginning to you between the two of you.

"I’d make sure nobody could hurt you, of course. anyone who tries will sorely regret it." he says the words as if they come so naturally to him as his voice gets just a little bit more frantic. "I’ll take care of any and all of your problems. no matter what."

"if I couldn’t do that, I wouldn’t have the right to call myself your husband." he smiles up at you, tone suddenly cheerful. if it wasn’t for his previous words, his smile would seem innocently excited.

for all the months you’ve been living with ajax, you’ve never felt particularly threatened by him. he’s never made you think the rumours about him are true, never given you any reason to be scared or angry with him. he’s weird, and kind of pushy sometimes, and you’re never quite sure what he’s thinking of, but he’s never been scary.

you’re not sure you agree with that anymore.

with bated breath, you watch as he takes one of your stiff hands gently into his own and presses it against his cheek. it feels uncomfortably warm against your skin.

"I’d be the best husband you could have. you’d always be happy with me, I promise. I swear it on my life. I’ll never let you down."

his expression remains equally love-struck and intense no matter what he says, like he’s barely managing to contain his devotion, but there’s a hint of desperation behind them the more he goes on.

"if I was your husband…"

he pauses, dark pools of blue staring into your eyes intensely.

"your grace," he suddenly drops to his knees in front of you, keeping his hold on your hand but moving to hold it in front of him gingerly. "would you marry me?"

he doesn’t give you time to answer, instead pressing his face against your knee. his gaze doesn’t waver. "I know I’m getting ahead of myself, that I could never deserve you, that we’re still so young, but… now that I’ve had a taste of being around the real you, I’m not sure I could ever let that feeling go."

his eyelids close and he lays his head on your lap. "I don’t know what I’d do if I ever lost your favour. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I drove you away."

the movie is still playing in the background. your fingers feel cold.

"but I can’t help myself." his eyes open again and stare at you again, deeper than any lake could ever be. "I love you."

he presses himself further against you, arms wrapping around your calves delicately.

"I love all of you. I love you when you’re happy and I love you when you’re sad. I love every single part of you." he starts rubbing his cheek against your legs. "whenever you come back home tired or downcast, I want to go out and destroy whatever is causing you grief. I’d overthrow the entire world for you if it’d please you."

the way he talks about you as if you’re some sort of divine being is makes your head spin.

"actually…" the flush on his cheeks accentuates, the warmth of his face tangible even against your clothed leg. "wouldn’t that be nice? you could be the divine ruler and I’d be your personal knight, the strongest and most loyal in the entire world…"

the tone in his voice is overeager, though his words remind you more of a fairy tale story disconnected from reality than like something he really means. "it wouldn’t even be hard, nobody here has visions and no matter what they say, anyone with one has an innate advantage over those who don’t. and should that fail, I’ll always have…" the rest is mumbled against your legs and unintelligible.

after a couple more seconds, he sighs, almost wistfully. "but this world has those pesky nuclear weapons instead, so I’ll settle for being your husband instead."

one of his hands reaches out and intertwines with yours again. he squeezes it tenderly.

"I love you."

his eyes bore into yours even as he presses a reverent kiss to the back of your hand.

"if you find me suitable…" the expression on his face can only be described as lovesick. "please marry me."

[brewingcoffi]

UNDERTALE: YELLOW ‘REVIVED! CLOVER’ AU

PART 1

Explanation:

AS WE CAN TELL BY THE CUTSCENES, THAT DYING WITHOUT A SOUL ISNT IMMEDIATE. but slowly, it sorta drains away your energy, but seeing that Clover was literally hunched down during Floweys speech before having ENOUGH energy to drag themselves to position their last death place shows how REALLY strong Clover is. So, assuming that they DIDNT immediately passed away after they positioned themselves for prob a few last breath minutes really made me think.

What if Flowey decided to still keep Clover? They were ‘pals’ Yeah. Flowey decided to let them rest… BBBBBut, what if before Clover used their last breath. Floweys forced a TINY ounce of his determination into them. Making Clover a sort of a walking dying corpse.

Nevertheless, since it is shown that Clover has enough energy to drag themselves without their soul. In their now revived state, they can do simple movements by themselves. It’s just their legs can't balance anymore due to a lack of soul energy, so Flowey helps them with their balance and movements by being their support via using Vines as body strings.

Flowey and Them DO meet Frisk at some point,

Clover genuinely looks so tired which make sense because they literally got their energy sucked out after they lost their soul. Clover now has to drink ANY energy giving drinks or they barely functions for 2 hours (Forced to drink coffee.)

Character Info:

Clover & Flowey

Due to Clover's SOUL already being taken Encased in a capsule (Takes places during OG Undertale.)

Flowey mostly ‘Helps’ with their movements since without a soul, their control over their body are VERY WEAK. Revived! Clover can’t do Shit. Only thinks and blinks (But has enough energy to speak simple words.) of course, they can move their arms with any leftover weak energy. but it will never be enough to resists Flowey's control over their movement and actions.

I also wanted to add a detail that the vines will extend more rapidly and secure/support more, depending on what body part(s) Clover is going to use more effortly just incase of Clover was caught in a fight.

Qna questions that are answered for the lore of this AU:

Question 1. You think the lack of a soul might cause empathy/emotion issues like with flowey? Imagine flowey teaching clover to cope with it.

Answer:

“The answer is, Yeah! But, I have a feeling or a (hc of course) that it still has same affect upon losing your soul, slowly but surely. It would take Clover a few days or maybe one month in the underground to suddenly lose their concept of emotions, since like what happened after they lost their soul.

But Clover probably "tries' to hold onto their emotions to as long as possible, to make sure they don't ended up like flowey (I like to think that they slowly soon starts to act semi-like their genocide counterpart; ruthless and bold.)”

Question 2. Wondering how their friends would interact with how... "kind of alive" their body is. Or heck, how they and their friends would interact with the undertale cast.

Before the aftermath, how would Clover "kind-of live" in the underground? With all of the emotionlessness consuming their days, would they act like some kind of cryptid since they don't want their friends to see them as this... soulless shell.

Answer:

1.) I bet they would interact with Clover by treating them like a glass child (Which would start A LOT of conflicts, especially when the side effect of being soulless could affect their moral Justice as well.), and for the UT cast, it depends on your idea!

2.) Clover went into hiding and lived off caffeine and energy drinks(Or leftover food from their inventory.) But, Flowey being their pal would probably give them food if they don't, And Yeah! Clover became this ‘Cryptic entity’ that tends to lurk around where ‘Injustice or corruption’ happens. I like to see Clover, before the emotionlessness began; Was that Clover USED to be this ‘Peacekeeper’ vigilante. Relating to them acting like this ‘Cryptic’ due to them. Even in OG Undertale, I like to imagine that Clover appears for a short period of time and disappears from Frisk point of view(Like that Flowey Easter egg from the OG UT.)

Question 3. does clover tell flowey what limb or does flowey just know?

Answer:

Well, they used The first one, but until a few days or weeks, they’ve gotten used to it, so Flowey now just knows.

4. What exactly WAS flowey's plan for Clover

Answer:

The only logical and ‘in-character’ thought I had of Flowey’s plan; was that Flowey was going to use Clover against or perhaps use Clover as bait/trick the last human child, and help kill King Asgore. Which backfired.

And I also realized that Clover no longer has their Gun, so I wanted to give Clover a weapon to help ppl while also defending themselves. (Clover is used to range, so they probably suck-ass on melee weapons.)

[starstruckmoony]

Can I get a FIC abt the reader being Theodore’s gf and best friend and she’s embarrassed and alone in her dorm bc of cramps and they are REALLY REALLY bad and he just comforts her and they snuggle and he gives her his hoodie and fluffy!! (I’m dying from my cramps in my bed rn 🙏 I need comfort from my book bf)

thank you for this request anon!! i am so so so sorry for taking longer than i should have but i've just been all over the place with requests and in just general this past week 😭 so yeah i am a little late but i hope you're feeling better and that this meets your expectations <333333

in between.

masterlist , requests

pairing - theodore nott x slytherin!reader

trope/tags - fluff

word count - 1.7k

warnings - descriptive period pains

waking up in time for class was always difficult for you. not even because you were lazy or didn't care about your grades enough, but mostly because theodore, your boyfriend and number one favourite person in the world, had an annoying little habit of staying inside of your room until pansy chased him out because she wanted her beauty sleep. most of the time, that would be somewhere around two in the morning. and you had to get up at six. four hours of sleep. wonderful. usually, you didn't mind. you didn't like getting out of bed, anyway.

but this morning, you very much minded. your eyes snapped open, you weren't entirely sure what had woken you up. you grunted, irritated, and disappeared under your two blankets to shield yourself from the cold of the dawn, sighing when your realised you that you'd have to get up in no less than ten minutes. with transfiguration as your first class, too. how you loved having to turn tables into chairs first thing in the morning.

but then you felt it. a terrible sensation in your abdomen, so harsh it felt like sharp knife was slicing through you. it took everything in you not release a pained moan. the discomfort spread almost all the way to your upper thighs, coming in constant strong waves. you groaned, hiding further under the covers and curling yourself up into a ball.

you wanted to cry. not only were you exhausted, but you were also in a tremendous amount of pain. you had got your period the night before, and it was going kind of smoothly... as smooth as they go... so you weren't really expecting to wake up with a dying wish to pass the hell away barely five hours later.

pansy's footsteps sounded throughout the room, and you heard the bathroom door shut. you didn't move a muscle. a few moments later, it opened again, and she paced around for a bit, shuffling through her trunk and then your own when she couldn't find a clean pair of socks. she was humming some tune as she got ready, seeming to be in an okay mood, but then she scoffed. her steps got louder as she neared your bed, pulling the covers off of you.

"bitch, you'll be la– oh merlin, are you alive?" she was a little startled seeing you resemble the appearance of an ill victorian child, but nevertheless took a seat at the edge of your mattress, "no." you dragged out, retrieving your precious blanket. you couldn't recall the last time you felt this bloody awful.

"period cramps, huh?" she made a sympathetic face at you, very familiar with that struggle. you only nodded. she hugged you and stayed like that for a bit, before standing up and walking over to her drawer. she dug out a few chocolate frogs and tossed them over to you.

you muttered a strained thank you, collecting them all. you placed them onto your night stand, grunting. you knew that they probably wouldn't help as much as you wished for them to, but you still appreciated your friend for trying. it was the least she could do in those circumstances.

she sighed, picking up her bag and throwing it over her shoulder, "i'll tell mcgonagall you won't be coming in today." you sat up immediately, getting a bit stressed, "don't tell theo."

"huh?" she deadpanned, eyeing you like you had gone mental.

"i don't want him to worry." you explained with a shrug, wincing when the cramps got stronger. you knew what your boyfriend was like, meaning you were aware that he'd come running right to you if pansy were to tell him about the dreadful state you were in. you didn't really want him to see you like that. your head was beginning to hurt, too.

she rolled her eyes, "as if he won't come looking for you the moment he sees you aren't with me." she bent down and picked up a dirty stocking, throwing it at you. and she was right. theodore loved you more than all of his friends combined, so you could already picture him bolting through the dungeons and straight through your door after seeing that you were missing. he wouldn't even have to be told why you weren't present.

pansy left then, leaving you to suffer all alone. you were barely able to get out of bed to clean yourself up. even moving around was hard. it took you about two minutes to drag yourself to the bathroom and and another fifteen to leave it. managing your hygiene had never been more exhausting.

just as you collapsed back into your bed, ready for a few more hours of torture, the door of your room opened. there went theodore, holding one of his hoodies, a bunch of period products you weren't sure how he acquired, and some chocolates he had stolen from lorenzo's drawer. your heart may have simply melted.

"hi." you peeked at him from beneath the covers, your voice small and tired.

"oh, love." his face twisted with concern as he took in the sight of you. he quietly shut the door and was next to your bed in a matter of seconds. he clumsily set all of the things he brought onto your nightstand, eager to have you in his arms as soon as possible. he shrugged off his robes, kicking his shoes away too. you tried to sit up, and once you did, he took the opportunity to take the shirt you had slept in off of you. he replaced it with his hoodie before settling down next to you. it smelled like him, which was also one of your favourite things in the world. you sighed, a warm feeling overwhelming you.

"tell me if you need anything and i'll get it for you, okay?" he brought the blankets all the way up to your neck, throwing an arm around you and pulling you close. he was willingly missing out on classes for you. could you just let that slide?

"theo–" he placed a finger against your lips to hush you, "i can take one day off, it's not like it's gonna kill me." he retrieved his hand.

"but–"

"no buts." he made you get closer, and you let out a startled giggle, momentarily forgetting about the pain you were in.

you laid there in silence for a little while. theo was rubbing comforting circles into your back, pressing a kiss to your forehead every now and then. it eased you a little bit, and you weren't feeling so terrible anymore. the pain was still there, but whatever he was doing made it a little easier to bear.

"is it really bad?" he questioned after seeing you had scrunched your face up. you hummed and he sat up, reaching under your bed. "where is it– oh." he pulled out the hot pack he knew you sometimes used in similar situations, heading for the bathroom to fill it up with warm water. he returned rather quickly and reclaimed his position on the bed. he adjusted your pillows and placed the hot pack against your stomach, throwing an arm around you again. it made it a little difficult for him to pull you completely against his chest, but your own comfort mattered more to him.

"thank you." you sighed. he gave you a look, not a particularly annoyed one, but one that told you that you didn't have to thank for him doing things like that. he pecked your nose, the urge was too difficult to resist. you exhaled comfortably, taking a hold of his hand and intertwining your fingers.

he began massaging your knuckles, and you shuffled closer, as close as it was possible, burying your face into his chest. he kissed your hand this time before releasing it, and tangled his fingers in your locks instead. you loved it when he played with your hair, and he loved it just as much, mostly because you were giving him a fantastic excuse to touch you.

"what explanation did you come up with for missing classes today?" you questioned, suddenly feeling curious. your cramps slightly reduced in their intensity, so you didn't mind talking or even getting up for a bit.

"i just told it as it is." he shrugged, continuing to play with your hair. he tucked a strand behind your ear, smiling at you.

"what?" you chuckled in surprise.

"i told mcgonagall my girlfriend wasn't feeling well and that i wanna take care of her." he was so, very causal about it. you were surprised he actually knew what to do to help you. you did assume he asked pansy, but it at least meant that he cared. and it made you that much more happy to have him there with you.

"really? what did she say?" you raised an eyebrow.

"she was a little annoyed but she understood what i was getting at," of course she did, she couldn't not, "and then she told the other boys to take notes," he grinned proudly, "draco especially."

you burst out laughing, "that did not happen."

"yes, it did," he snickered against your cheek before placing a big, loud kiss against it, "you can ask anyone." he pulled back, but did not move away. you were so close that your noses were touching.

"hm, i think i'll take your word for it." he smiled again, and you pecked his lips, another way to thank him for doing all of that for you, "i love you." you whispered.

"i love you more." he gave you a cheeky grin.

"wrong." you retorted playfully, poking at his chest.

"that's up for debate." he put his hand over yours, holding it in place.

"do not argue with me." you warned, not very seriously, though.

he snorted at your teasing reply, but didn't push the discussion any further. on a different day, he probably would have. that one adored getting on your nerves more than anyone else in the world, but he wasn't so stupid to do it when you were having such bad period pains. there were other things to be done. he said he'd give you cuddles, and kisses, and hugs, and snuggles, and even more kisses and everything in between. and he did just that. that one time, and all the other times.

[waitingonher]

Hi can you do some Percy Jackson x Hades Child hc?

percy jackson dating a child of hades

pairing: percy jackson x child of hades!reader

content warning: cursing

word count: 780

author's note: sorry this one's a bit shorttt

a son of poseidon and a child of hades? ANOTHER POWER COUPLE. 

everyone knows not to mess with either one of you, or else they’re in for a doozy. 

percy’s always making sure that you’re not overworking yourself. he saw what it did to nico, so he for sure does not want that happening to you too. 

he’ll usually ask in more subtle and casual ways like “training was rough yesterday, how’d you sleep?” or “the lunch selection was good today, what’d you think?” 

it may be overbearing to some, but percy honestly can’t help it. the very last thing he wants is you being too hard on yourself. 

when you two first started dating, you guys—for some reason—decided to make gardening your little thing together?? but when you had accidentally killed them with your aura, you and percy decided to go forward with something a little less…alive. 

LOL so now your guys’ little thing is baking!! 

somehow chiron allowed you and him to use the camp kitchen?? 

anyways, you guys are pretty much pro bakers now! well, if you ignore the time when percy mistook the salt for sugar, then you guys are basically pros. 

you reach your hand out to your boyfriend, “perce, pass me a cookie.” “here,” he passes you a cookie while grabbing himself one, “on the count of three?”  you nod and begin counting, “one, two, three.” taking a bite of the warm cookie, you both immediately realize something’s wrong. the cookie tastes…salty? you see percy’s eyes widen as you two make a dash towards the sink.  “oh my gods! why is it salty?” percy screeches, the chewed up cookie muffling his voice.  after what felt like years of rinsing your mouth, the unpleasant salty taste had left your mouth, “babe, you were in charge of the dry ingredients...so did you use the salt instead of the sugar?”  percy’s eyes widen to the size of saucers, “no…i’m not that stupid. look,” he grabs the plastic container and turns it around, only to reveal the label that reads ‘salt’, "oh…yeah, that’s my bad.” 

considering the reputation your dad has, percy’s always looking out for you. but don’t get me wrong, everyone at camp could not give less of a shit about your dad, but it’s the newcomers he worries about. 

some of the new kids are so bold??? but don’t worry, cuz you and percy ALWAYS find ways to humble them. 

percy’s the type of bf to have almost anything you may need on hand. you need a hair tie? he’s pulling one off his wrist. your lips are chapped? he’s taking out his aquaphor. 

he loves seeing you use your powers, because like…pretty gf who has cool powers over the dead?? what is there not to love??

sometimes when you two are training, you’ll look out the corner of your eye to see your boyfriend just staring at you? percy has ZERO shame and will stare at you whenever he feels like it. 

whenever you guys have sleepovers, he always makes sure you fall asleep before him. it’s more of a comfort thing for him. percy just sleeps better knowing that you’re already sleeping. 

normally he’s a pretty light sleeper, but around you, he’s an even lighter sleeper. he just wants to make sure that he’ll be awake to comfort you in case you have any particularly alarming dreams. 

when you two eat, he never fails to save and offer the last bite to you. but percy doesn’t want you to feel bad about you eating his last bite, so he just nonchalantly offers it to you. 

movie nights with percy!!! 

you’d make him watch all the classic horror movies. shit talking the ones with bad acting and graphics is your guys’ favorite pastime. 

“oh my gods,” percy groans for the umpteenth time, “i swear, it’s probably a mortal who made this movie. they can’t even get the stupid ghosts to look right.”  you laugh at percy’s passion for complaining, “literally! okay but can they get some other guy to play the main character?” 

at this point, you two should make your own horror movie because you’re too busy making fun of them instead of actually enjoying them. 

you also made percy watch tusk… 

ever since watching it, he can’t look at walruses the same. (me too percy)  

gods forbid he runs into one in the ocean. 

percy also has a cork board in his cabin with a shit ton of polaroids on it jdfsksd 

they range from pictures with you to pictures of the sunsets.

but if you pay attention, you’ll find that the majority of the photos include you in them <33

[haphazardlyannotated]

Sometimes I think about an AU where Harrow's birth didn't require 200 child murders.

Gideon and Harrow probably wouldn't have grown up in each other's pockets the way they did in canon, with 200 other kids around. Still, having only about a hundred kids in their approximate age range (I'm assuming continued births with a similar frequency here) would mean that they'd know each other at least in passing.

Harrow without the crushing guilt of 200 lives on her shoulders would not attempt to open the Locked Tomb, and even if she wanted to, she would be much less likely to happen to have Gideon's blood conveniently on her hands in her attempt, plus Gideon would probably not be following her around to catch her in the act. Though somebody else might, to be fair.

Bottom line is, Harrow's parents are probably still alive. While I'm not sure about the psychological consequences of this, one change that does seem likely is that they might arrange a betrothal for Harrow. We already know from GtN that the only reason Harrow didn't end up engaged to Ortus is that they didn't want to mix up the Reverend Family's and their cavalier's bloodline. So this AU's Harrow is probably engaged to a man (or trans woman), since the Ninth doesn't seem to have the resources for whichever technological advancement on artificial insemnation gave Camilla two dads.

So considering that, in this AU Harrow might be the one with eighty-seven escape attempts.

As for Gideon, even with more potential friends around, chances are good she still wants to join the Cohort. She would probably not experience the same level of alienation and downright hatred as in canon, since Harrow's parents have no reason to freak out about her, but the general culture of the Ninth just isn't a good fit for her. Since Harrow wouldn't be as desperate to keep Gideon specifically on the Ninth, I expect she could just make her intentions to pay off her indentured servitude in the Cohort known, and that would be considered a perfectly fine choice for her career. I expect she'd still train under Aiglamene, but as part of a regular program for Ninth House children with stabby ambitions this time.

Which would be how she and Harrow end up stuck together this time.

When the summon for he house heirs arrives, everyone takes a look at Ortus and goes "...yeah, that won't do." So Aiglamene suggests replacing him with her star pupil, Gideon Nav, who was about to go join the Cohort, but could probably be persuaded to step in as Harrow's cavalier if you offered her a little improvement on the terms of her indentured servitude.

As expected, Gideon receives the offer and goes "Sure, I can swing around a toothpick while Harrow takes her employment test, sounds like a good gig to me. And besides, 'Cavalier Primary' would look good on my resumée for the Cohort."

When they reach Canaan House, Harrow still hopes to restore the Ninth House to its former glory, but more importantly, she is desperate to escape her arranged marriage, especially since her eighteenth birthday is alarmingly close and Ortus just stopped being her cavalier.

Gideon meanwhile enjoys sword fighting, actual flavour in her food, and looking at hot women.

Harrow: Are you taking this seriously?

Gideon: Of course I am! I get five years off my contract for this! I'm just saying, what's the harm in having some fun while we're here?

Harrow: If I fail to become a Lyctor, I will have to marry Ortus.

Gideon: *shudders* Fair enough.

Overall, the setting is more of a romantic comedy with the projected ending of the Reverend Daughter scandalously eloping with her cavalier- until the first murders, that is.

Due to Griddlehark not having seventeen years worth of reasons to go for the worst faith interpretation of each other's actions, and Harrow being at least a little less paranoid, they're able to work together with less conflict. However, Harrow doesn't have convenient puppet parents at home to help her realise that the Seventh cavalier is a beguiling corpse, so the net result could easily be the same. The biggest potential difference I can think of is that Harrow wouldn't try to send Gideon away with Jeannemary and Isaac. Since I like the Fourth House babies, I'm going to declare two murders less here.

Overall though, I don't see any clear options here that don't end with Gideon dead on a fence again.

The big difference would be her perception of HtN.

In this AU, Gideon's relationship with Harrow isn't tainted with obsessive hate-love masked as indifference on Harrow's side. This AU's Gideon sees her relationship with Harrow as a spicy forbidden romance, and therefore ironically interprets Harrow's lobotomy much more accurately than canon Gideon, who has been joined at the hip to her Harrow for as long as she can remember, and I'd love to see how that would change her character in HtN and NtN.

Canon Gideon gives us the beautiful, heartbreaking "I gave you my whole life and you didn't even want it" combined with "She can be in hell for all I care, I just need to know where" for the two hit kill.

This Gideon on the other hand knows that Harrow would have married her given the chance and 'only' has to think about how Harrow might have died to save her.

Which raises the question of where Harrow's soul ends up in a world where she never entered the Locked Tomb. My personal theory is that, with no link to Alecto's body, Harrow is pulled back into her own body after Gideon's soul leaves it. Then we get Harrow stuck on New Rho with Pyrrha, Camilla and Palamedes, and Gideon with Jod and Ianthe, both of them desperately trying to find each other.

When Harrow sees the broadcast, she immediately marches to the Compound, blasts open the door and demands to see her girlfriend.

A few days later, the Ninth House receives another letter from the First, informing them that their Reverend Daughter is not a Lyctor anymore, but will wed the Emperor's daughter as soon as he can stay sober through the ceremony.

The End.

[humanityinahandbag]

Steddie Accidental Marriage

AKA: Eddie and Steve have been together for twenty plus years and married for one.

No one told Eddie.

A brief one shot about Eddie being in love and also an idiot.

-

Eddie quickly becomes an expert at nodding.

More specifically, he becomes an expert at nodding to whatever Steve Harrington is saying, and as long as Steve Harrington's eyes stay fixed on his, he knows he'll probably keep nodding until his head tips off his neck and rolls away.

See, 1986 hadn't gone the way anyone could have predicted. The monsters, the portals, the child who could probably summon a giant marshmallow man if she tried hard enough. But the most startling development (besides coming out on the other side, scarred and shaken and very much alive) was Steve Harrington.

Steve Harrington, who was kind, sweet, and all too thoughtful. Who protected people with everything he had and pressed his heart into other people's hands without asking for it back.

And that sucks, honestly. Because he could still remember being invited to parties for drug deals and sneered at in the hallways, shoved into lockers by the group of hair-sprayed goons while Steve had watched like some all-seeing vassal.

It didn't help that Eddie had been in love with the guy since before popularity graced him with its unwelcome presence.

And now that he's kind, sweet, generous, thoughtful?

Well. He was doomed when he held that bottle to Steve's throat.

So yeah. Eddie is deliriously in love. He's not sure when it will end, but he knows it will end eventually. He'll slip up and Steve will realize he's gay and punch his lights out, or he'll find better, less frustrating friends and leave Eddie and the rest of them in the dust. But until then? He needs to take every moment he has.

And so he nods.

He nods when Steve Harrington asks if he'd like to attend pool parties with the kids. He nods when Steve Harrington asks if he wants to hang out alone and see a movie. He nods when Steve Harrington picks him up from physical therapy.

He even nods when Steve Harrington leans over and asks I'm not imagining things, right? You're, like... into me?

Steve beams. "Awesome," he says, and leans forward to press warm, full lips against his.

It will end soon, Eddie tells himself as Steve's hand presses into his hair and lips leave little dappling pocks along his jaw. So he'll take what he can.

-

A year passes, and Eddie is still waiting for everything to quietly shatter.

Which makes it all the more frustrating when it doesn't.

Steve is over at their new (government hush-moneyed) apartment almost every day. It's not unusual to see him puttering about, folding blankets or hovering above the stove. Their little home smells less and less like microwaved meals and more like whatever Steve has tried to cook up that day.

Wayne is delighted. "Finally got someone to talk about important stuff with," he crows one night after dinner, sitting in the recliner with a beer while Steve takes the couch besides Eddie. Their fingers link, bodies pressed tight alongside the other. If Wayne notices, he doesn't say anything.

"My stuff's important," Eddie mutters.

Steve just laughs, stealing the beer from his hand to take a swig before pressing a fond kiss to his cheek. "Sports trump everything, Eds," he says, and then goes back to discussing the game playing on the little TV with Wayne.

His thumb rubs back and forth against Eddie's hand the whole time.

Eddie holds tight.

-

Steve Harrington's phase to figure out himself lasts longer than Eddie would have expected. Long enough for Steve to drag him into bed, confident and shy all at once before taking Eddie apart slowly before putting him back together one little piece at a time.

When Eddie lets the I love you slip out, he waits for everything to crash around him.

Instead, Steve whispers something that sounds suspiciously like I love you into the seam of his shoulder.

Eddie holds even tighter and wills the moment to last forever.

-

Another year passes. Steve applies for community college and celebrates with Eddie and Wayne and Robin when he's accepted to the social work track. There's talk about moving closer to Indiana so the commute isn't as long. Robin already has an apartment with Nancy there while they work out plans for Boston that Steve has become more and more invested in.

Housing becomes more difficult to come by as prices rocket upwards. Which is absolutely, definitely, positively, one-thousand-percent why Steve turns to Eddie and says, "We'll find something that works for the both of us," and then proceeds to show up at Eddie's work in the little garage on Maple Street with a clipped advertisement for an apartment.

"I visited it today," he says, giddily drumming on the wheel as they drive through the main slot of road and past Loch Nora. "Just wait. It's got great lighting. And the landlord says that she'll let us get a pet if we want one!"

"That's... that's great," says Eddie.

It is a great apartment. Large windows. High ceilings.

"Which bedroom would you want?" he asks Steve, who's busy opening and closing every door to see how it latches.

"Whichever one you choose," says Steve, like that sentence alone hasn't rocked Eddie to his very core and shaken his heart loose.

Eddie nods mutely which seems to at least get a positive reaction out of Steve. "Oh! And I had this great idea. We could totally turn the other bedroom into a studio for you. How cool would that be!" He went on to describe the pullout couch they could put in the center of the living room. How they could host the kids, his Uncle, Robin, whoever else wanted to drop by.

Eddie could only nod along.

And he'd keep nodding as the furniture was moved in, and Jonathan and Wayne and Steve argued over the little bolts and screws while they put together the bed frame in the master bedroom. He'd keep nodding as the walls in that room were painted a lovely, dusted blue and two bedside tables were added to either end.

They didn't argue over sides. They didn't have to. Eddie naturally fell to the right, Steve to the left. Shared books filled the shelves along with sports trophies and twenty sided dice.

He didn't stop nodding when it was their first night there and Steve climbed into bed alongside him, exhausted and clingy, and pressed himself to Eddie's back whispering fantasies about how their life would play out.

-

And play out their life does.

They move to Boston. Eddie finds a new band. Steve begins working for Boston General Hospital in their pediatric wing where he holds kids hands and talks them through what scares them before surgeries. Sometimes, he brings Eddie along. The kids always shriek and laugh and ask to touch his guitar, and Steve watches Eddie with a kind of Love that could spin the world off its course when he plucks the first notes of a favorite Tears for Fears song.

Robin and Nancy live just next door, because Steve and Robin have separation anxiety and Nancy declared herself and Eddie to be best friends that couldn't live without the other.

There are great moments. And terrible ones. Sometimes there are fights and slammed doors and Eddie always waits for the other shoe to come crashing down, and yet it never does. He and Steve always find one another again.

Which is... odd.

Mostly because he's never heard of any other friends-with-benefits case working quite like theirs.

He brings it up once with Gareth on a weekly phone call.

"I don't get it," he says. "I mean... you'd think the guy could find himself someone to spend his life with. He's just... he's so great. He's just perfect."

There was silence on the other end. And then;

"Eddie?"

"Yeah?"

"You're an idiot."

Eddie spluttered and hung up. He didn't bring it up again after their next call.

-

The 1990's come and go. The year 2000 is celebrated with a kind of raucous glee followed by '01, '02, '03. Steve becomes head of the social work department. Eddie has stopped touring and is instead teaching music in an elementary school, where he plays music to children who hang off his knees and scream about wheels on school busses. They're happy in ways he couldn't have dreamed they'd ever be.

2004 arrives with the purchase of their first house, an occasion marked with Steve dragging Eddie from room to room, christening each one with an attention that borders on religious.

Eddie blames it on homeowner stamina and has to wonder why buying a house with your "booty call" (as the teens are now calling it) is something worth celebrating.

Though he supposes it makes said booty call more accessible, and makes it a little easier to struggle through the intense love and adoration that fill his chest at all times.

He's never believed in a God, but if he did, he'd probably ask what he did in a former life to deserve this. Even if he can't have Steve, he can still have him in any way that Steve is willing to give.

Which is why, ten years later and still somehow living out his dream, Eddie is left so completely and totally confused when all of his friends and family plan to swarm Boston to celebrate... something.

He's not really sure what they're celebrating.

But they're definitely celebrating something.

It's when he finds paperwork during an attic cleanout that he finally realizes it.

They bought their house ten years ago.

That must have been it!

Ten years of being homeowners come and gone.

This is made even clearer when Steve looks over his shoulder, curses, and says, "I forgot all about that."

"Me too."

"We should probably think of remortgaging soon." Steve tousled his hair with a sigh. "Not like it'll be any fun, but..."

"Look at you," says Eddie, hating how sour Steve's pretty face had become. He leaned over and pressed a kiss by Steve's ear, pleased to see him perk up. "Being an adult and everything."

"I can say the same for you."

"Don't you dare," says Eddie with a laugh.

And yeah, sure, maybe that didn't seem like much of an achievement, but Eddie was happy to give what he could. And so when Wayne arrived at the airport and practically broke down in tears, tugging Eddie into a hug to let him know how proud and happy he was for his boy, Eddie could only just smile and nod.

If his Uncle wanted to cry about Eddie repainting some plaster and tending to a garden and making consistent mortgage payments, who was he to stop him?

"Can you even believe it?" his Uncle asked in the car ride back to their home.

Eddie laughed. "I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal."

"You just can't see it for what it is cause you've been doin' it for so long."

Which was a fair point. He had been a homeowner for a while now.

"I guess," he agreed, and Wayne smiled and pat his shoulder and asked him all about his job. He tells Wayne all about a group of six year olds who've all learned about becoming tea pots (short and stout).

Two days later (much to Eddie's consistent shock and confusion), Steve dresses in his best suit and helps Eddie knot a tie covered in tiny skulls and drags them both to town hall. They wait in a line on the third floor, Eddie looking around a little dazed and unsure, until they're finally let into an office and Steve (through tears) signs his name on a line before turning to Eddie and clasping their hands tight together.

"Eds," Steve says. "You gotta sign it too."

And Eddie, who has been nodding since 1986, can only nod again and reach for the pen.

He's not entirely sure why everyone arrived to celebrate them renewing their mortgage. He didn't even know City Hall made a huge fuss over the financial gains of two middle aged men in middle America. But his friends and family are waiting in the lobby. They're all crying, even though he's not really sure why, but that just triggers him into crying. Even more when the kids (though they're not so much kids any more) clump around them with hugs and tears and shouts about how excited and proud they are.

"It's about time," Dustin sobs.

"I mean, I guess," says Eddie, wondering why Steve hasn't let go of his hand yet.

But he's not going to let go.

-

He doesn't find out until one year later when Steve surprises him with a trip to Hawkins. They meet Uncle Wayne first thing before going off to explore their old haunts, flipping their middle fingers out the window at the high school, stopping off at one of their favorite old diners that still served what Steve considered to be the most okay chocolate milkshakes in the entire world.

Their waitress was a lovely older woman named Dotty who looked moments away from pinching Steve's cheeks when she collected their menus.

"What are you folks here for?" she asked. "Haven't seen you around here!"

"We used to live here," said Eddie. "We moved away."

"And we're celebrating," countered Steve.

Eddie blinked, considering the date before he remembered. "Yeah," he agreed with a nod.

"Oh, how lovely!" Dotty clasped her hands around the sticky diner menus. "What's the occasion."

And before Steve could get in a word, Eddie apparently decided to leap headfirst off idiocy mountain and say, "we refinanced our mortgage."

There was silence.

"Oh..." said Dotty, finally. "Well. That's... nice?"

Across the table, Steve stared at him.

Eddie couldn't shake the feeling that he'd said something wrong. "Um." He reached for a napkin, tearing and twisting it between his hands. "Yeah. Totally. It was a, uh. A big deal."

"Was it...?"

"Mmmhm," he squeaked, trying hard not to look at the way Steve was gaping at him. "We've, uh... we've been roommates for a while, so."

Steve looked moments away from sliding off the booth and into the earth's core.

It wasn't until Dotty left (a little confused and befuddled) that Steve sprung up, grabbing Eddie by the arm, marching them both into the parking lot.

"Refinancing our mortgage!" Steve stomped little circles around the concrete. A family walking by crossed to the other side of the street. "We're refinancing our mortgage!"

"Steve, you're uh. You're scaring people..."

"You're scaring me!" Steve tossed his hands into the air.

"Right. Uh... I got that? But... why? Am I scaring you?"

"Because you said we're roommates!"

"But. We are roommates?"

"We-!" Steve froze, mid panic.

Eddie, taking a chance, snuck forward and gave him a little poke. "Uh. Steve? You rebooting?"

Steve blinked. He reached up and scrubbed his face. He looked back up at Eddie before squeezing his eyes shut and counting back from ten. When he opened them again, Eddie was amazed to find there wasn't a blue screen behind Steve's eyes.

"Eddie," Steve said. "You honestly think I took you to city call to refinance our mortgage?"

"They're important documents," Eddie said.

"And that we've been roommates for over twenty years?"

"We're very good roommates," said Eddie, weakly.

Steve's eye twitched. "Roommates don't have sex, Eddie! They don't tell each other they love each other! They don't get married!"

"I never said we were traditional roommates! I just said-" And then Eddie stopped, Steve's words finally striking ground. "Wait..."

"Yeah."

"Wait."

"Mmmhm."

"Wait!"

Steve waved his hands. "Now he gets i- mph!"

Whatever he was going to say was cut off by Eddie dragging him quick into a kiss.

Dottie arrived back at their table just as Steve and Eddie slipped back into the booth, looking a little mussed and tossed about, lips red and eyes shining.

"Still celebrating that mortgage?"

"Actually," said Eddie, "it turns out, we're married!"

"Isn't that nice."

"It is," agreed Eddie, accepting his hamburger and shake. "Did you know I've been in love with him since high school?"

"How sweet! And how long have you been married?"

"A year!" Eddie preened.

Steve accepted his own burger. "He just found out," he said.

Dotty wasn't sure what that meant, but the two of them looked happy enough. Who was she to question a good marriage?

-

Published, edited, and slightly longer story found here!

[marsipaniscool]

Santana really did have a shit life. First, his family was massacred. Then he got kidnapped by the murderers and told to become a strong warrior, and when he failed, they just left him there for a minimum of 2000 years. And THEN he woke up to being experimented on, and I'm not sure if he then died or stayed alive but in pieces. Lowkey hope he died and has some peace

RIGHT. gonna talk abt both of the boys because I feel like they bounce off of each other really well, almost foils. under the cut because I love yapping <3

in my opinion, Wamuu and Santana internalised Kars' and Esidisi's actions very differently. Wamuu acknowledges it happened, but his loyalty to his masters runs so deep that he willingly turns a blind eye to it, even though it brings him a lot of turmoil. I think that's a part of the reason he doesn't like fighting women or children, he sees Kars ordering him to kill his mother, and even himself as a child. Something something if Wamuu had been a child instead of an actual baby, he realises Kars would have had him killed too more than likely. He copes with this by proving his worth time and time again on the battlefield, doing quite literally whatever Kars demands. This increased tenfold when Santana was left behind. Yeah Wamuu talks big game about having a code of honour and strong morals but alllllll of that goes out the window when daddy kars demands. Honestly, Wamuu won the genetic lottery in terms of being a fierce warrior, he ends up taller than Kars or Esidisi and appears more well built. I don't think it was the fact that Santana was weak, I think he was just comparatively weak to Wamuu, and ended up being perceived as the weakest link. Kars and Esidisi had milleniums of training and Wamuu was a fighting prodigy, so Santana, who was probably just an average, untrained, pillar person (see:child), was by default the weakest. Santana had to process the information of Kars and Esidisi killing his family in an entirely different way. While Wamuu came to his own conclusion, I can easily see Kars holding that information above Santana's head. Santana had to hear that Kars "saved him from a life of darkness and drab" and how Santana should be "thankful you (Santana) weren't slaughtered like everyone else/your parents/family." When physical punishments were given to Santana, I can see Kars and/or Esidisi telling him how he was just as worthless and weak as his mother. I talked about it in-depth before, so just to rehash my thoughts: Santana was abandoned in Mexico at least 5,000 years ago (K,E,+W went to Eurasia in search of the super aja.) Santana would have looked around 10 years old at his age of 5,000. Picking up here, Santana would very likely stick to the same general area for quite a while before branching out into the greater Central America. Honestly think he became an idol in these areas due to him being bored as fuck with a booming population of humans around him. I see him spending a few thousand years like this, until eventually he got bored/not enough nourishment/whatever happened, and he fell asleep for several thousand years. Really leaning towards lack of nourishment leading to his slumber, he holed himself up in the temple and only woke up to a copious blood sacrifice. He woke up, the events of the show happened, Santana is stone in the SWF again. I don't think Santana is dead, I think they woke him back up and experimented on him. Von Stroheims entire mechanical body is based off of Santana. They may have been able to study him to such a degree while he was asleep, but honestly I think homeboy was awake and just restrained in some fashion while the Nazis and SWF experimented on him. I really hope he passed by the events of part 4 at the latest, but maybe they studied him until they were satisfied, and then kept him turned to stone. Maybe they had Joseph swing by and kill him idk. I just hope he found a peaceful ending.

[daughterofthequeen]

Fear is Only a Obstacle

Pairing: Poe Dameron x reader

Summary: Poe is finally able to see you and he’s not wasting anymore time

Warnings: Describing injuries, cliche cliche cliche, fluff a lot, and angst but this time the fluff out ways the angst, not proofread I’m sleepy you guys, let me know if I missed anything

A/n: Just a part 2 to my fic Till the End of Time

The sound of tie fighters are deafening

Along with the sound of exploding ships

Laser canons of different ships all around you

All of it replaying in your mind over and over until you finally wake up and the first thing you see are a pair of annoying bright lights. Groaning as your sitting up, it seems like you’ve been here for a few hours if you listen to what your body is telling you, but it only feels like a few minutes have passed. You remember trying to land as best you can with a blown engine then nothing. And now you’re even more confused because you’re not in any pain.

“Why happened?” You said getting ready to stand up and get out of the medibed you were in. “I hate med bays. Hello? Anyone here? You know im not claiming to be the smartest person in the galaxy but im pretty sure someone is supposed to at least be hovering over me.” You say in a semi loud sarcastic tone to make sure the person at the front desk could hear you.

And as you suspected your nurse came in. “You shouldn’t be sitting up just yet”, she said gently laying you back down on the bed. “It’s not like anyone was here to stop me. What happened anyway, I’m guessing the crash knocked me out but I’m not in the slightest of pain, you guys must’ve gave me some of the real good meds.”

Catching the nurse off guard she started laughing. “Yes, with all the injuries you have they were needed before you woke or you were going to be in a lot of pain. A migraine due to your concussion, fractured rib, a severely sprained ankle, and all of your cuts and bruises to top it off, you are very lucky those were the only extents of your wounds.”

“Yeah, I guess so. I’m not gonna be as lucky soon though because these pain meds are starting to wear off.” The groaning thats coming from you and the intense pain in your ankle is saying enough.

“Yeah, according to your chart it is time for another dosage. I’ll be right back.”

“Oh wow she wasn’t kidding.” You whispered feeling a major throbbing pain on the left side of your ribs.

Heading someone knock softly on the door you look up and see Leia standing in the door way smiling at you which causes you to smile back.

“Hey.”

“Hey, how are you feeling?” She asked sitting down next to you on your medibed.

“The pain is starting to kick in but my nurse is going to get me another dosage for the pain. What about you and everyone else?”

“ We took some heavy loses and a bunch more injured including yourself, I had to come down to check on your all.”

“ That’s going to take a while.”

“ I don’t mind it, you all risk your life to fight for a cause that could affect the whole galaxy willingly under my orders the least I can do is sit with you all and keep you company.”

“Your kindness never ceases to surprise me.”

“That’s something I use to tell your mother all the time.” That caught you off guard but it brought you joy, you knew your mom and Leia were friends before she passed. And it gave you some comfort to know you could got to Leia and ask questions about who she was and what she was like as a person anytime you wanted. It was one of the reasons you and Poe had bonded so well because you understood each others pain. Wait a minute, Poe.

“Oh Maker, I gotta find Poe, is he ok?!”

“Calm child. Poe is just find he’s out in the hallway now waiting to see you.”

“He’s not injured?”

“No. He’s perfectly fine, he seen you going down and was trying to get to you but you crashed. He’s actually the reason your alive he got you out the ship and here to the medbay in time enough for them to heal your wounds.

“He’s probably a mess right now.”

“Oh he is in complete distress but it’s not as bad as it was.” Looking up she says your nurse with the pain killers, getting ready to put them through your IV.

“Nurse Poy.”

“Yes general?”

“After you finish giving Y/n her medicine let Poe Dameron in. Seeing the nurse about to protest, she stops her in time. “I know visitors aren’t aloud right now but he needs this, they both do. Just let them have the room for a few minutes. Please?”

“Yes general, but make it quick.” The sides says looking down at your worried eyes. “If anyone see’s it’ll cause a ruckus and everyone would want to do it, then the whole medbay is full.”

“A few minutes is all we need.”

Leia stands and heads out the door into the hallway where Poe is waiting to hear anything about your condition. “I’ll get him.”

After a few minutes you see and hear Poe rush through the door. It actually startled you a little bit.

“Hi? You ok?”

“Am I ok? Are you ok? I’ve been worried for hours and all they kept telling me was that you still weren’t responding. They wouldn’t let me in no matter how many times I tried, they actually threatened to sedate me if I didn’t sit down. I was this close to punching a doctor Y/n I swear.”

All of his rambling was making you laugh until you seen the tears still coming out of his red and dry eyes. “Poe, you’re crying. Stop crying, I’m fine.”

“ I was worried about you. Seeing you just lying there in my arms not moving and barely breathing, that out a picture in my head that I never wanted to see. And now it’s something I can’t get out my head.” He says grabbing your hand that’s closest to him and squeezing it softly.

“Poe-“

“No, wait a minute, just listen for a second, okay? I prayed and promised to whoever was listening that if you made it out of this I would tell you the truth, and we only have a couple more minutes, so just let me say it, please?” He took your silence as a green light to tell you.

“Okay look Y/n, I don’t know how this is going to affect us but I can’t hold it in anymore. I’m in love with you.”

That made you stop breathing completely.

“And I know we always flirt and joke around but it’s real for me and I know it is for you too. Why do we keep torturing ourselves? Why don’t we just let go of the fear and see where it takes us?” Taking off his signature necklace, the one he holds close to his heart the one with his mothers band on it, and he holds it up for you to see it clearly. “You see this? When I met you I knew this ring was meant for you, I just didn’t know how to approach you with it. Now I am, and I know you’re afraid about what could happen to one of us in the future, but to be honest I don’t care about what could happen. Because I would rather us be together whole heartedly in love with each other for only one day, then to continue putting ourselves through this cycle of suffrage, and not having the chance to show it at all. I know you’re afraid but we can’t let fear dictate how we feel about each other anymore. So what do you say?”

“Poe”, you sigh. “Poe I have lost to many people to this war, if let you in now and something we’re to happen to you, the pain would be unbearable. And don’t say you promise you won’t leave because that’s not a promise you can keep, no matter how loyal you are. Trust me many have, and their deaths still way heavy in my mind.”

“I wasn’t going to make you that promise because that is not in our control, you’re right. But I can promise you that I will love you unconditionally till the day I die whether that be on the battlefield or after we grow old together, I’m going to love you. So what do you say?”

“…”

“It’s ok you don’t have to answer right away I know it’s a lot to think about and pro-”

“Yes.”

“What.”

“Yes. I love you, and you’re right, no more hiding behind fear, its just me and you from now on, the good and the bad.”

The joy that Poe felt go through his body was one he had never felt before. Fumbling a little to get the ring off of his chain and put it on your finger but you stop him, and the hurt and pain in his eyes caused you to elaborate more on what you meant.

“I mean not right now. I want to receive this ring at out ceremony, just hold on a little bit long because I will be expecting that ring to be on my finger very very soon.”

Pure joy goes through Poe’s body from head to toe and he was smiling so hard that his cheeks were hurting. And he did something that he has been wanting to do since he laid eyes on you. Faster than you can comprehend he stands up from his chair and smashes his lips onto yours. Catching you off guard but you quickly recover, melting into the most explosive and head spinning kiss you’ve ever had, no scratch that you’ve never had a kiss like this before. It’s a good thing you’re already laying down in the bed because if you weren’t you were sure your knees would have gave out on you. You both pulled away after a few more quick pecks, and just sat there holding hands, staring at each other. Talking wasn’t needed to know what the other was thinking. Both of you wondering how did you get so lucky.

————————————————————

A/n: Running on a couple hours of sleep from last night. But I can’t believe I got this done in only a few hours. Would’ve been a lot sooner if tumblr didn’t erase the whole ending so I had to rewrite what I remembered. Which I am not completely satisfied with because I liked the original ending a lot better than this even though similar. Curse tumblr and my foggy brain I should sleep but that’s most likely not gonna happen anytime soon.

@theidiotsincontrol @book-place

[artisticmenace]

Hii!! I keep forgetting but I always wanted to ask! On your intro page(?) it mentioned a project of yours called ‘those days’?

I’m REEEEAAALLY interested on learning more about it!!! Lore drop?

IVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR CENTURIES

so basically Those Days is a comic that i am currently making. its about two guys, Scott and Rodney who are both 58 and live in the midwest(because i do). Scotts sister Deb has just passed away so his great nephew, Danny comes down. The story is them telling him(and this chick named Candy, which im still figuring out how to introduce) about their life and how they met. I have over fifty issues written, but none released because after a while, it was kind of a chore, and i wasn't sure if anyone was interested! so THANK YOU SOOOOO MMUCH for asking about it!

Scott is based off of those "bad" kids that are actually really nice and are sort of vigilantes. Rodney is an easy bullying victim and even though he could totally do something about it, he doesnt.

this is very much a story about people and what they are and how your initial judgment is not always the correct assumption. its also very much how the key word in the last part of that is ALWAYS. its about life.

ill leave some character intros under the cut i case you want those too bc i could blab all day about them. scott and rodney may or may not be my sons. my boys. there will be art too. probably silly art. mostly the main group of characters. not their families though because i have barely drawn them(character design is tricky)

if you want to see all my silly drawings, they'll be tagged #those days comic or with the characters full name. but yeah THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT THAT!!! I HAVE MOTIVATION NOW!!!! ok character rant under the more heeeheee

This is Scott

Scott has quite possibly the worst rbf ever and he looks like a scary mean guy. he steals his moms makeup because he can and he wears black eyeshadow 24/7. in reality, hes very nice and also has depression. hes a male MANIPULATED and has 6 semi terrible ex gfs. he is sort of homophobic at the beginning which is important to his lore. but even being a sad son of a bitch he can still beat the hell out of someone with a baseball bat. which leads to my next point. hes an adrenaline junkie. another design thing im slowly figuring out is simplifying his tattoos. theyre all on his torso and theyre all flowers. he loves flowers.

ROOOODNEYYYYY!!!!!

a lot of the time im trying to figure out how to draw him better tbh. Rodney has a prey animal stare. and he behaves much the same. hes pretty chubby but hes also fairly strong. he is very much a victim of child abuse but instead of becoming a bully, he just kinda gives up. he doesnt really have motivations outside of survival and hes not sure why. in fact, the primary reason he stuck around scott after meeting him was because scott believed him immediately after he said he didnt do something and made him feel safe. under the surface of being a prey animal, hes also incredibly angry. angry about a lot.

LUCY CAMPBELL EVERYBODY!!!

i dont draw her a lot...

Lucy is scotts lesbian ex gf and best friend ever. she kind of pushes them together because she knows too much. shes incredibly easy to talk to and people would confess to basically anything to her. design wise she also has a terrible rbf and DONT BE FOOLED!!! SCOTT STOLE HER LOOK WITH THE EYESHADOW!!! she also has lots of tattoos and actually gave scott all of his.

JORDAN AND DIANE (theyre kind of a set)

again. barely draw them and diane has had a few revisions.

diane and jordan are very much gay and in love. diane's family is like. the only immigrant family for miles. shes very nice but fairly cynical. shes very used to the notion that she has to find her way in the world and that if she doesnt fight, she wont survive. jordan is anxious as hell and dianes sister HATES her because she knows that jordan is a lesbian and is in love with diane. jordan also doesnt know why or how shes alive.

edward! ive only drawn him once.

eddie is lucys adopted brother. hes brilliant and silly. also gay as hell. idk if youve realized but almost none of these people are straight. edward isnt a very developed character because he is very much a supporting static character.

clyde and parker

clyde and parker are the two main members of scotts gang. its not really a gang but it might as well be. they dont really become important until the whole 1992 thing. youll find out. clyde was scotts best friend for a long time before he started hanging out with rodney. they have some very complicated history. diversity win! clyde finds out that he, too, is bisexual and gets with eddie! i dont know if ill wver bring that up in comic.

so thats basically the main cast of characters youll see in the comic. THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! SORRY I YAPPED SO MUCH HAHA.

the comic will be release on a separate blog called @thosedayscomic there isnt really much on there except a mini comic that takes place around 1996, scott and rodneys thirties. its just scott getting home from work and going to sleep haha.

[valle-de-sombra-de-muerte]

Homestuck Reread: Act 3, Part 2/3 (p. 892-1026)

Read the previous post here.

The second third of Act 3 introduces yet another new character: the Peregrine Mendicant.

PM is obsessed with the sanctity of the postal service in the same way WV is obsessed with democracy. The exiles hold dear symbols of their lost civilization while they're stranded in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. They cling to the desperate hope that society can one day be rebuilt as long as the memory of these institutions are kept alive.

Also, "brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade"? I didn't realize these chess people were so Christian.

The fact that Mom Lalonde has her own secret littlespace in the lab is something that I never see anyone talk about. Can we please talk more about this grown woman who knows the world is going to end in her lifetime, who drinks every day to distract herself from that cursed knowledge, and also has this whole secret setup where she can hide away and pretend to be a little kid with no responsibilities?

This was probably all beyond Hussie's capabilities as a writer, so of course this is never elaborated on. What a hack. Maybe I'll write a fanfic about this myself one of these days.

Jade falls asleep in the foyer where Grandpa Harley's remains are and we get this unnecessary "psycheout" where instead of transitioning to Dave's POV, the next page immediately follows with Jade's "strife" with her dead grandpa. It's another lame interactive page like the one where she plays the flute (which I didn't mention last post because it's a waste of time).

Hussie "trolling" the reader is a character trait that he unfortunately leans into more and more as time passes.

It also would've been nice if it were better acknowledged that Jade has essentially raised herself for most of her life. What kind of strain would that put on a child's development? Obviously a lot if she's having imaginary arguments with her dead grandfather.

If Jade had been written as someone who was socially stunted from being raised without an adult human presence (she was raised by a fucking dog, remember?), and uses excessive positivity both because she literally doesn't know how to interact with others, and also as a mask to hide the stress she's under from experiencing constant visions of doomsday, perhaps she would've been a good character.

But, oh no, this is just another silly flash, you guys! Grandpa Harley is just a lifeless prop that Jade pretends is still alive because she's a manic pixie silly girl! No deeper meaning here.

Ah yeah, the cat's characteristic recalcitrance. I can't dunk on Rose too much here because I'm sure a lot of us tried to incorporate our pets in make-believe scenarios when we were kids.

I love the kitten playing with Rose's scarf off to the side.

The reason Rose wants to play Sburb is to resurrect Jaspers so he can follow up on his "secret." But... it's not like he can actually speak. You're telling me the whole reason she wants to bring back Jaspers is so he can follow up on the time he meowed in her ear nine years ago? And people really want to frame Rose as the most "serious" out of the kids.

Again, none of this seems worth ending the world for. Rose, you were like four years old here. It's time to move on. I know that "meow" actually ends up being somewhat important later, but Rose isn't aware of it at this point so it comes across as her being obsessed with something really silly.

Rose mentioned before that the funeral was held because of her request. So was it Rose who wanted a funeral for Jaspers, or was it Mom? Maybe both. I think it's very in-character for Mom to be torn up about the cat's death, so she wanted the funeral to have all the pomp and circumstance she believed he deserved.

The fact that the appearifier was already programmed to the moment before Jaspers's death means that Mom was trying to clone him through ectobiology. She really loved that cat. Rose is unable to realize this because she still views her mother as a callous and passive-aggressive bitch.

In what is perhaps the eeriest flash in the whole comic, we see a time lapse of Jaspers's body being recovered, his funeral, and the sequence of events leading to his body's reappearance on the transportalizer platform. "Chorale for Jaspers" is a strange track. The combination of the dreary organ and those sad, ethereal meows makes for an disquieting tune.

Coming off the heels of that somber flash is this overly dramatic flash where John has a mental breakdown after finding out how boring his dad really is. This so-called "reveal" that Dad Egbert is just a normal guy and not an undercover clown is like... no shit? Who in their right mind actually thought that he was a clown before this point? John's misconceptions made no sense to begin with and this payoff is equally underwhelming. At least this running gag is finally put to rest now.

I'd love to write this off as just another lame joke if not for the narrative weight attached to it. Yes, this load of shit is actually a pivotal moment for John's development.

Okay, I stand corrected. Dad Egbert is definitely not "just a normal guy" if he's able to hold that safe over his head.

He's also able to overpower the strongest Derse goon who was carrying a much larger safe. This dude is jacked.

Every panel we've seen so far suggests that everything related to the sylladex is flat like a card (especially with such terminology like captchalogue "card" and strife "deck"). Blowing into them suggests there's some kind of exterior housing and a hollow space inside where dust collects.

I get that Hussie is using this as an excuse to make this old video game joke, but if they're completely flat like say a TurboGrafx-16 game card, you wouldn't blow on those at all.

Trust me, I'm like one of the 10 people who grew up with a TG-16 instead of a Nintendo.

The admission that John's freakout over the Gushers is "stupid" suggests that his earlier mental breakdown was not "stupid." Uh huh...

Jade has a robot that her consciousness inhabits while she's dreaming on Prospit. Because at this point, why the fuck not? It's not like she builds anything else later on so might as well make this invention really complex. This is one last gasp at reminding the reader that, hey, remember this girl likes to invent stuff???

"guys'es"? That's a weird typo. John's username is "ghostyTrickster" in the past. According to the Formspring, Hussie noticed that the kids' usernames except John's all share the letters of DNA nucleobases, so this is him to backtrack and say "oh, his username used to fit the pattern until he changed it."

And like... it's stupid because TT, TG, and GG only correspond to two of the four nucleobases: thymine and guanine. That's hardly even notable, so why try to establish that pattern anyway?

The trolls came about later to complete the full set of nucleobase combinations. He created twelve whole new characters to complete a pattern that was half-formed and wasn't even intentional to begin with. Incredible.

John doesn't seem terribly concerned that the fire has reached Rose's house. This can be read as either a bumbling attempt at matching her sarcasm, or him taking her statement at face value and thinking she really is pleased that her house is on fire. Knowing John, the latter is more likely.

John refers to Bro beating up Dave in a very flippant manner. We can take this as evidence that Dave and Bro's strifes aren't actually that concerning. But if we're meant to take Dave's domestic situation seriously, then holy shit what the fuck is John's problem??

You know, for all the people who say John and Dave have such a strong friendship, John's been acting like a real dick to Dave so far. He insults him in his chats with Rose, ignores his messages, throws shade at him in his portion of the GameFAQs guide, and makes light of his distress. The only nice thing he's done for Dave so far is give him the Ben Stiller sunglasses for his birthday, and even that was an admittedly shitty gift that he assumed Dave would only appreciate "ironically."

Okay, this is what I've been waiting for. Rose says she knew about John's defaced posters all along.

But in this page, from Rose's own viewport, the posters are fine.

Rose also says that she can "see only [...] what John can see, or has seen already" which is why she can't see into his dad's room. Taking the above page into account, it's also reasonable to assume that since John was unable to see the damaged posters until now, Rose couldn't see them either.

Basically, this whole "twist" doesn't make sense and was poorly executed.

Not content with telling us himself how amazing Jade is, Hussie has characters in the comic say it too.

Aw yeah, there he is. My boy gets his first appearance. <3

Rose spouts a bunch of psychobabble about how John has been repressed all his life and it's only by learning the truth about his father that he's able to see what was once invisible to him. Not only is this event being framed as a pivotal moment where John grows from boy to man (further represented by John earning his suit after entering his dad's room), it's also supposed to be an enlightening moment for him. All because he solved a "mystery" that any reader with a brain would've figured out from the get-go.

As seen before in instances where she's either dismissive or totally ignorant of the motives behind others' behavior, Rose only possesses a superficial knowledge of psychoanalysis. Everything points to her being a massive pseud, so her theory here should've been called out as bogus. Except this isn't actually Rose positing a theory. This is Hussie literally spelling out the explanation for John's actions. We're meant to take Rose's words here at face value, so it means that Hussie somehow thinks any of this makes sense. This is what happens when dumb writers try to write smart characters.

It's funny that Rose correctly states the reason for Dad Egbert's eccentric nature, but fails to make the same connection to her own situation, instead continuing to insist that Mom Lalonde is just being passive-aggressive. Cruel irony. You don't know your mom that well either, Rose.

The further we go into this Act, the more elements Hussie seems to throw at the wall to further bog down the plot and create the illusion of depth. Let's see how things wrap up in the final third.

Read the next post here.

[catesartworks]

Isekai Maid Asks Pt. 4

Hello!

I have some asks below the cut that I got in my inbox I've gotten over the following months. Sorry it took so long!

Thank you so much for reading! Glad you like it :DD

Emilie most likely sees Claire as her own person, rather than an extension of Phoebe or King Dimitri (Claire's parents). Claire was born as a replacement for her elder brother, who was assassinated, and wasn't very close to her siblings or parents.

I think Emilie just saw a lonely child who needed someone.

Deliliah and Saoirse were lovers, definitely. Way before Saoirse became Caravaggio's mistress, Saoirse was dedicated to Delilah. Their relationship will be explored in season 3.

King Dimitri abolished the monarchy by purges. The aristocracy had tried to assassinate him because of his volatile personality and short temper. They wanted to replace him with a distant cousin. So he found a select, small group of nobles who would do his bidding, and started with killing any relatives that could pose a succession risk to him. Then, he killed all nobles (plus their families) who participated, or he thought participated in planning his assassination. He confiscated their properties and wealth afterwards.

In a way, yes. It was about Phoebe and Clara working through their own grief. Phoebe and Clara were co-protagonists.

If Clara survived and lived into older age, I think that Bridgette would still exist, but she wouldn't be "aware" like Clara is. She also would probably have a different name and life events that aren't influenced by it. Thing is, Bridgette is a bit of a glitch, and can theoretically have a second body on "standby." If Clara somehow was alive when she shouldn't be, she could even pass "herself" on the street! But most of the time, Bridgette's just born again and birthed normally. So she gets a hard reset and has to experience life all over again.

Pepper's daughter, Lily married into the Limpette aristocracy to get revenge for her mother. She had loads of blackmail material by the time she was older, and she was able to get compensation for her mother's wrongful death. Currently, Lily's descendants are quite rich, but fragmented due to some being loyal to Teffrah, and the others, the Kolt/Limpette aristocracy.

There are a bunch of other countries surrounding the three main ones. There's multiple continents as well. But I don't want the scale to get too big, so if I introduce new countries they probably won't have the same attention as Limpette and Teffrah. But I will have them mentioned in season 3.

Thank you so much! Yeah, I wish I had some of those stones too, hearing sensitivity can huuurt. ( T 0 T )

Thank you!

As for the "you were the whole character all along" trope I don't think I will use it since my story is really complicated/confusing sometimes, and I'm not entirely sure I could pull it off! ( T w T )

I tend to drop the really bad ones, but Iris: Lady and Her Smartphone was one of the first Otome Isekai I read, and while I still have a ton of love for it because of nostalgia, I also know that it uses some pretty terrible tropes that have come to haunt the genre.

The whole fossil fuels thing was just ughhhhh! They had a renewable resource, the magic stones and they just...pollute their world like we do because of Iris.

I finished it until the end, though....so...haha

It depends on the genre, or the setting. I think the main characters (Bridgette, Marina, and Shellie) would really thrive in a futuristic setting.

And I did make a jokey image "what if the maids were in a horror action survival webtoon?" where Lord Anders exploded because of a demon apocalypse, and the only people who could survive were maids.

I didn't finish it, tho

Thank you!

Yeah, I noticed that. I think as long as the maid is being compensated, it's fine but so much of the time I'm just thinking "you guys need to hire more people." Especially in "Divorcee's Dessert Cafe".

Neither would have any time on their hands for the level of product their making, not to mention the main character is always running off with the princes so many times I'm just wondering how she even manages a store.

But it's a fantasy a lot of stories have, not just in manhwa so it's nothing new. People fantasize a lot about opening bakeries, even though the reality is waking up at four every day and dealing with terrible customers.

Thanks for reading Isekai Maid! I really appreciate it. ( ^ w ^ )

[atopvisenyashill]

Because I like giving Jaehaerys a headache: Baelon goes to avenge his brother Aemon against the Myrish pirates. He ends up dying as well. Who is now heir?

Well in canon, Baelon runs off to kill the pirates, then comes back and is suddenly named heir. So if he runs off, and just doesn't come back, that puts Jaehaerys is a trickier position because he had never actually named Baelon as heir, plus Viserys isn't yet married while Rhaenys is married with a powerful husband and a dragon (I don't think Viserys nor Daemon had even claimed their dragons just yet).

So...I do think he'd use this opportunity to say "well I have two grandchildren who could be my heirs and given the rapid deaths of both their parents, I think the lords should help me decide between them" as a way of sort of kicking away any responsibility for the aftermath. However...so fucking tricky. Viserys hasn't already become entrenched as heir yet which is a lot of why he has so many votes in the GC 101. He also doesn't have his Targaryen bride yet nor even a lone daughter to point to - his heir would still be Daemon and Daemon isn't all that old yet. Now, Rhaenys doesn't have a son either but she's at least had a single child, is married, and again, has a dragon.

I think he'd go for a GC earlier because just straight up bypassing Rhaenys for Viserys is very weird in this situation; you can almost see the sense in passing up a granddaughter for another son because Jaehaerys is still alive (ie it's not inherently in his eyes, a daughter before an uncle thing - he's just passing up one son for the other). But this is just very clearly passing up Aemon's line for Baelon's and I do think there'd be some pushback here. And I also think he'd have to play politic a lot more here as well - yeah, he can definitely still rely on misogyny (that's what the greens did after all lmao) to back his claim up, but without having named Baelon as heir, he looks like a little bit of an asshole here. And unfortunately for him, while he's politcking, Alysanne is not only politicking to get Rhaenys the throne, she's also probably really fucking pissed off that he's doing this after their two oldest sons have just died. This is absolutely going to be a crazy Second Quarrel where the King and Queen are a) not living together b) on completely opposite sides and c) getting ready to duke it out via their Rhaenys/Viserys proxies. So for sure, Jaehaerys is having Viserys claim and probably Daemon claim a dragon immediately, marrying Viserys to Aemma immediately, and um. Probably things go badly for poor Aemma here.

Whatever way it goes, I think it's a really close vote. These men are not just going to vote in a woman without a lot of promises made to them. The main people Corlys and Rhaenys need to win over are the Lannisters, Tyrells, and Tullys. We don't know how the Tyrells voted but we do know the Tyrells and Hightowers clash a bit so it's possible they can sway their votes. I think Grover Tully is a nonstarter but Elmo might be able to sway some votes, along with the Blackwoods who are already voting for them. Who knows what's happening with the Lannisters - they side with Viserys, then the Greens, but that doesn't mean Tymond can't be swayed. Plus, with Alysanne actively campaigning for Rhaenys (she had died before the GC 101 remember), that might sway things in their favor.

It's really tricky to say! I think what way it goes just kinda depends on your read of the characters and Westeros as a whole - I think canon shows us that they'd still rather a man above all else in several instances, especially when the person sitting on that seat would prefer a man. Jeyne, for example, had the backing of the Royces against her male cousins. And Rhaenys has to wait until 94 AC for Laenor, but Aemon/Baelon die in 92, so the GC is probably held in 93 while she's pregnant again, so she's arguing on behalf of a theoretical child, while Viserys and Daemon are here and alive, and a living breathing man is always worth more than a girl's theoretical baby (regardless of whether Viserys has his own heir or not smFh). On the other hand, god wouldn't it just be fun if Jaehaerys' plans were all completely ruined because Baelon runs off and gets himself and maybe Vhagar killed as well because he's upset and Alysanne manages to out politic him and get Rhaenys crowned while she hasn't even had a son yet? That's my dream, their marriage would be completely FINISHED but it would be so fucking funny.

[fruit-teeth]

Truth Won’t Change the Way You Lie

“Women shouldn’t curse.” 

“Fuck you!” 

When all she got back was a blank stare, Bea grabbed the nearest table and flipped it over with her hands. “Are you even listening to anything I’m saying, fuckhead!?” 

“Please stop swearing at me,” Fred begged her. 

“Oh, yeah? And why should I?” Bea wanted to know. “You come in here, accusing me of stupid shit, and I’m supposed to just…listen to you, or…?!” 

Fred put up his hand to stop her. “I know the truth, Bea. I know what happened, you don’t gotta keep denying it.” 

Bea hugged her arms, staring at the floor. After a long moment, she asked, “How’d you find out?” 

“It was on the newer medical records, I saw a note,” Fred confirmed. 

Bea grit her teeth. “Damn it! So it was that other Medic? I gonna fucking kill him!” 

“Why?” Fred asked, approaching her. “What’s that gonna do? Do you think he’s gonna blackmail you or somethin’? Look, you ain’t the only one in this position. Do you think I like being in this situation with Dell? Only difference is he knows who I am, your daughter doesn’t…” 

Bea dropped down into a chair, covering her face with her hands. A silence passed between the two of them, before Fred spoke again. 

“This is a shitty situation,” he pointed out. 

Bea managed to look at him through the spaces between her fingers, glaring at him. “I thought you didn’t like swearing.” 

“I know,” Fred sighed. “But it is what it is. Look, you don’t have to kill her. Maybe we can figure something out.” 

Bea sucked in a breath, drawing her hands away from her face and putting them on her lap. She looked towards the door, quiet for a long moment, before speaking. “I don’t know what there is to figure out. One of us won’t leave here alive.” 

“You don’t know that,” Fred tried to reassure. 

Another pause. Bea spoke once more, “Do you think Medic will tell her?” 

Fred shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll pretend not to care about her,” Bea decided after a moment, voice dropped lower. “I mean…I never wanted to be a mom. But…” she trailed off, unsure of her words. 

“This company has a way of bringing people together,” Fred pointed out. “And not in a good way.” 

Bea closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I know…I know!” 

Another silence. Fred headed to the door, opening it. “I gotta go. Lemme know if you need anything,” 

“Sure,” Bea managed to say, focusing on the floor again. Once Fred was gone, she focused on the files in front of her. With a shaking hand, she picked one up and opened it. 

Miss Pauling’s face stared back up at her, a company headshot taken probably a year or so earlier. She was so beautiful — she’d always been beautiful. 

Bea closed the file, forcing herself not to look at it again. She had a job to do, they all did. It didn’t matter if one of her enemies was the child she’d given up decades earlier. 

"I hope you never find out," she muttered aloud to the file containing all of her daughter's information. After successfully pushing her emotions back down, Bea turned back to the door and opened it.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Kind of want to toss more snippets of things that probably won't become long extended fics up onto tumblr. So: Eddie/Chrissy, with deeply bisexual ADHD disaster child Eddie, because we deserve it. (Also background hints of Steve/Nancy, but rest assured Eddie is 100% projecting and highly incorrect about that dynamic.)

Chrissy lives, through sheer dumb luck -- a tape shoved into a player out of some vague idea in the back of Eddie's mind that he could be smooth, could maybe help a pretty girl who for some godforsaken reason seemed to like him have a good time -- and it's great, it's incredible, it's more luck than any of them should've ever dared hope for--

And Eddie is thrilled, obviously. Terrified out of his mind, pretty sure he should be running for the hills, but. Chrissy Cunningham is alive, and for some bizarre, unfathomable reason, she seems to like him.

It's just...jesus christ, what is he supposed to do with that?

It's not that Eddie doesn't like girls. Girls are pretty, and smell good, and have curves in places he's maybe imagined putting his hands a time or two (thousand), and have generally starred in at least thirty to forty percent of his favorite jerk-off fantasies for the past several years. But the general class of females of approximately his own age in Hawkins, Indiana have heretofore been somewhat disinclined to follow up on Eddie's occasional flirtations, and somehow he doesn't think the other skill set is going to be much help here.

It's just...look. Eddie knows, he knows goddamn well that for ninety-nine point nine percent of guys like him, whose eyes skate over the slope of a gentleman's broad shoulders as readily as the swell of a lady's hips, that the easy road would mean playing straight for sixty-some-odd years, marrying a nice girl who doesn't ask too many questions, and maybe getting the occasional blowjob in a truck stop bathroom from a pretty boy you pretend you don't want half as much as you actually do. Of course he knows that. He's given those blowjobs, a lot more often than he's ever had a nice girl like Chrissy Cunningham look at him twice. Because that's the thing, isn't it, once again the Munson luck striking right at the heart of things. Once again, Eddie isn't like every other guy in Hawkins or Indiana or, fuck, the whole damn world probably. Can't just do things the normal way. Has to do everything opposite, and look where that's gotten him lately.

Truck-stop bathrooms are easy. The grit of them, the feel of cold tile through thin denim, the taste of latex and the smell of musk and sweat and come, a thick-fingered hand in his hair and the press of tight muscle under his fingertips, the rush of knowing that even on his knees, he's the one with the power here -- it's good. It's so good, the back rooms of that bar in Indy where one flash of his fake ID gets him an all-access pass to all the sex a boy could want, no strings attached. Slipping into that space is almost as easy, as natural, as slipping into the DM's seat at Hellfire. He doesn't even have to change his look, just makes sure the bandana is tucked into the correct pocket and they come to him, ready to let Eddie take the reins and drag them into something just painful enough to be really satisfying when they make it through to the end.

That's the thing about being a freak. That's the thing, that's always the thing, the backwards mixed-up thing in Eddie's brain that had him reading Tolkien before he turned nine but can't get through one Charles Dickens novel without wanting to scrape himself out of his own skin. He can calculate probabilities and percentage tables for a D&D game in his sleep but can't sit still through a single math class. It took less than a week to get note-perfect on the entire Master of Puppets guitar solo and six years might not be enough to graduate high school.

So yeah, Eddie knows how to be a freak and a faggot, can take a grown man to pieces with his hands and his voice and his dick if he just clicks into that zone where he has all the power to shape the world the way he wants it. That doesn't mean he has any goddamn idea what to do when Chrissy Cunningham smiles at him like that and he trips over his own feet.

He should be looking at Harrington. Steve goddamn Harrington is striding around like that, absolutely shirtless, streaked in dirt and his own blood like some goddamn primal warrior come to life. That would be safe. Safer. Something. Pretty boy in just the right amount of pain, Eddie should be enjoying the eye candy, but he can't because: 1) they're literally in hell and monsters could come after them at any time, 2) Nancy Wheeler apparently has a bedroom full of actual guns and is still in love with her ex-boyfriend, so Eddie's pretty sure he'd better keep his eyes to himself if he wants to keep them at all, and 3) far more importantly than all of that, Chrissy is scared enough to be holding his hand and he's terrified that his palms might be sweating. She's so pretty. He wants her to actually like him so, so badly. This is an absolute nightmare.

"You doing okay?" he asks Chrissy quietly, letting her lean on his arm to help her over some rough terrain when they have to take a detour around a knot of vines. She clutches at his sleeve and smiles timidly, putting on a brave face that makes Eddie want to do something insane like find a suit of shining armor just so he can bow to her in it.

"We're going to be fine," she says. "We just have to get to Nancy's house and it'll all be okay. Right?"

"Gonna let Wheeler make you a a total badass with a gun?" Eddie asks, and then mentally kicks himself. Who flirts with a girl by calling her a total badass? How do smooth guys flirt with girls if they stick around past the initial five minutes of inviting them to come see your band, which literally no girl has ever actually said yes to before? Eddie isn't even sure he has a band any more, if Chrissy's ex-boyfriend has anything to say about it, which means he's kind of out of ideas.

Eddie has one blinding, insane moment of wondering what would Jason Carver do here? before he almost chokes on his own tongue. Fuck. He really can't do this.

"Maybe," Chrissy says, a little shy, and slides her hand down his arm to slip her palm into his again. "Do you think I could?"

There's a smudge of dirt on her perfect nose. Eddie wants to lick it off. Oh god he's a freak. You can't lick cheerleaders. Fuck, Eddie doesn't even know how to go down on a girl. Fuck, why did he think about that. It doesn't matter! He's never going to get the chance! Chrissy is never going to want him to touch her like that anyway!

"I think if the last few days have proven anything, it's that literally anything is possible," Eddie says, and then realizes he just implied that Chrissy being a badass is even more unlikely than alternate dimensions, which is probably even worse than calling her one in the first place, and holy shit, how is it even possible to be this awful at this? Why is she still standing here with him? "I mean, I could even stop being a coward who apparently runs away from absolutely everything, which I've discovered I am now, that's how weird things are, so yeah, compared to that, Chrissy, I think you could absolutely be a badass if you wanted to be."

"I don't think you're a coward," Chrissy says, and she's stepping closer, why is she stepping closer, tucking their arms together. "I mean, I couldn't even run away. He would've gotten me right there, if you hadn't..."

"Luckily I think Harrington and Wheeler are big enough heroes for all of us." Eddie catches sight of them up ahead, Wheeler on point like a hunting hound leading the way, Harrington keeping watch on all sides with that flashlight ready to spring into action at any minute. It should probably be Harrington back here with Chrissy, if he and Wheeler weren't so obviously the perfect battle couple together. Hell, even Buckley, who's up front with Nancy right now and who Eddie knows he clocked checking out Chrissy's legs earlier. She's awkward, yeah, but on her it'd be endearing, and maybe Chrissy deserves better than cowardly asshole boys for a while anyway.

She definitely deserves better than Eddie. She tugs him out of the way of a vine half a second before he trips over it in the dark, like a klutz and a dumbass, and Eddie curses himself for a failure.

[offsidekineticist]

Dear lord the content warnings on this one are going to go on forever. I think I got them all, but yeah, this one is kind of intense. The good news is that if any of the CWs are no-go's for you, you can probably skip this one without losing track of the plot.

In any case, here's Part Six of the (Completely Platonic!) Breakup Arc: In Which Offside Remembers This Is Supposed To Be A WOTR Fic And Throws In A Cameo.

CW: confinement in small dark spaces, food/water deprivation, loss of glasses, physical restraint, prisoner abuse, torture, difficulty breathing, summary executions, gore, sleep deprivation as torture, insomnia, possible hallucinations, family dysfunction and estrangement, nonverbal episodes, hand injuries as torture, watching hellknights drag your kid off to be tortured, and saaaaaaaaaad Theo

Our Sacred Allies

You're not sure how long you spend in the dark, feeling every little bump and bounce in the road. They stop periodically to give you water from a tin cup and a piece of bread, but you can't tell how often those "meals" are. Often enough to keep you alive, not often enough to satisfy.

You sit in the dark with nothing to do, and you think about Qweck and her meditation retreats, and how she once told you that the darkness makes meditation deeper because your eyes cannot deceive you. You try to meditate–you did learn a little when Qweck was a child–but your thoughts keep circling back to a halfling with sparkling green eyes.

They don't take you out of the cart until you're inside the citadel. Part of you–the proud Chelaxian part of you–wishes you could have seen it from afar. You don't know for certain that this is Citadel Rivad–nobody has told you where you're going, after all–but if it is, you would have liked to have seen it. But even if you hadn't been inside the cart, your glasses are gone, smashed and the pieces left behind in Brastlewark. You wouldn't have seen anything except a great dark blur.

(Regill would have seen it when he first came here, back when it was home to the Order of the Scourge. You wonder how he felt when he saw it. Certainly more hopeful than you feel now)

Your eyes sting when they pull you from the cart, blinded by the sudden flood of light. You squeeze your eyes closed as they half-drag, half-march you into the main building in the keep and take you down a set of stairs. 

(You will regret not keeping your eyes open. It might have been your last chance to see the sun.)

You open your eyes halfway down the stairs. It's dark–not as dark as the cart was, but dark enough that one of your captors carries a lantern. The walls are made of stone, but in the light of the lantern you can see water dripping down the sides of the wall. Cold and damp.

The dungeons are small and cramped by human standards. For you they are comfortably sized, if anything in this place could be called comfortable. Each cell is a recess in the wall, just large enough for a human to lay down if they curled themselves into a ball and lay on their sides, with a gate of iron bars serving as a door. It is difficult to make out details in the dim light, but as you pass each cell you catch glimpses of other prisoners–dirty, unkempt, often unclothed, usually pressed as far as possible from the cell door. 

They stop in front of an empty cell, and one knight opens the door while the other removes your manacles before pushing you into the cell. You don't turn around until you hear the door clank closed and see the lantern light slip away.

Week One

There is a room at the end of the dungeons, past the last cells, through a wooden door that does nothing to muffle the screams of those inside. You have no means of telling time, but you know you sit through the screams of four other inmates before someone comes to your cell and marches you down the long corridor and through the wooden door.

It's not a large room, but it's far more spacious than your cell. In the center is a table, a candle at its center and chairs on opposite sides. Your guard gestures towards one of the chairs. It's not what you had expected from the screams. The chair has no shackles or locks or bars. There are no spikes to pierce you as you sit. It is, as far as you can tell, a completely normal chair.

You warily take your seat (because resisting will do you no good). Your back is to the wooden door, but you hear it open. You hear heavy footsteps leave the room–and lighter footsteps enter. You don't turn to see who has replaced your guard, but you don't need to. She comes around the table and sits in the chair opposite you. You see very little of her features–she wears a metal mask that covers her face except for her mouth. She is a hellknight signifer, you realize: a spellcaster in hellknight armor.

"Good evening, Mr. Derenge," she says. Evening. It is evening. Not that it matters. You nod politely at the signifer. No need to antagonize her. "I trust that I don't need to impress upon you the severity of your situation. Nor the situation of those you've influenced over the years."

"I never breathed a word of any of this to any of my students–I taught them to be good and loyal Chelaxians, I swear by Irori's hand. Nobody knew about those books but me," you blurt out before you can stop yourself. She does not reveal any emotion at that–no doubt, no sympathy, no disdain. 

"We will be more inclined to believe your testimony regarding their innocence if the rest of your testimony is truthful," she says before casting a spell, and you can feel your ability to lie evaporating. "Let's start with something simple." She places a piece of paper on the table. "This was intercepted by a patrol at the Isgeri border. Do you recognize it?"

You study the paper in the dim candlelight.

I must offer my congratulations on the successful conquest of Citadel Dinyar and the retrieval of the alleged Heart's Edge. I say alleged because, with the materials I have immediate access to, I cannot offer any definitive description of the sword, nor identify any features that might distinguish Heart's Edge from a more 'mundane' Holy Avenger. As such, I caution you to temper your celebration. While it may seem impossibly extravagant to commission a Holy Avenger to serve as a decoy, the cost is but a pittance when weighed against a priceless artifact such as Heart's Edge.

I will consult our sacred allies in search of a more detailed description of the Inheritor's sword. It is my hope that my next letter will have more definitive information for you.

The letter is signed with a sketch of an insect. You do not recognize the letter, but you do not have to. You understand now why the Rack came to your library. Giliys did not turn you in. Nobody turned you in. They were not looking for you at all. They just assumed, when they found you with your books, that you were who they sought.

And now that you understand that, you also understand that they can never know they were wrong.

You nod slowly. The gesture is ambiguous enough that it slips easily through the net cast on your mind to catch lies.

"This picture you use as your signature," the signifer continues, pointing to the sketch at the end of the letter. "What is it?"

"It is a pseudoscorpion–or a book scorpion, if you prefer" you say easily. "It's a species of insect that preys on bookworms. We'll occasionally introduce them to the library to protect the books." You pause a moment. "I've always been quite fond of them," you admit.

The signifer nods at your explanation, and you suspect she already knew what the drawing was. This was a test of your honesty–and somehow, impossibly, you've passed. "You refer in the letter to 'sacred allies.' Who are these allies?"

You have no idea. But admitting as much would mean admitting you did not write the letter. So instead you say, "I can't tell you that."

The signifer's head cocks to the side, and you've never been so afraid of body language in your life. "You are unable to lie, so I know this is not mere bluster, but sincere miscalculation." She points at your chest. "Tormentum damnum."

Your insides are crushed, and you double over in pain. You try to cry out, but your lungs have collapsed. You can't breathe–and then, just as suddenly as it began, it ends. You can breathe. You can feel your heart beating again. But the pain remains.

"You will tell me everything I want to know," the signifer says. "It is only a question of how much you suffer first."

"I can suffer quite a bit," you gasp. The signifer almost chuckles at that.

"Very well. Prove it."

Week Two

You mark the passage of time with how many times you are dragged back to your cell to recover before the signifer begins anew. It's after your tenth rest that you wake from one of your rare stretches of sleep to the sound of desperate pleading.

"No! No, please, I–"

"But I told you everything! You sai–"

The voices blend together–people begging for their lives, suddenly cut off. It is only when you watch a knight open the cell across from yours that you understand what's happening. The prisoner screams as the knight thrusts his sword forwards. Screams become gurgles. Blood pools on the floor. The knight turns around. He reaches for your cell door. You freeze in place and close your eyes– 

"Not that one!" a voice farther up the corridor commands. You open your eyes and see the knight look to his left. "That one had Cansellarion's ear. Signifer Zerna is still interrogating him."

"Yes, sir," the knight says with a salute before taking the corpse out of the cell across from you and carrying it out of your field of view.

They're gone as quickly as they arrived. You are alone. You don't understand what just happened, except that you are only alive because they think you know something you don't.

Week Three

It's nice not hearing screams when you're failing to sleep. You try not to think about why the screams have stopped. It doesn't keep you awake anymore than everything else does, but it is not pleasant, either.

You can't remember the last time you really slept. Now that you're their only prisoner, they don't have to worry about fitting you into a rotation to be tortured–it's just you, so they can be strategic about when they take you. Ever since the massacre, they've taken to coming to check on you and leaving if you are awake.

They only take you if you're asleep.

You don't mean to force yourself to stay awake. You do need sleep, after all, and you know this. The problem is that to sleep, you need to relax, and it's impossible to relax when you know you're going to wake, unrefreshed, to knights dragging you back to That Room.

So instead you sit propped up in the corner of your cell, exhausted and disheartened and broken feeling because you just want to sleep, and you can't hold onto a coherent train of thought because you're too tired, and you think you're on the verge of hearing things (you can still distinguish between imagined sounds created by your train of thought crashing into itself and actual sounds, but the distance between them is narrowing), and so you focus your thoughts as best you can on one thought–

You can't tell them. You can't tell them. You can't tell them.

–until you're roused from sleep by a knight kicking you in the ribs and hauling you to your feet. He–she?–they half lead, half drag you down the hall and into That Room, a gauntleted hand clutching your already bruised arm far too tightly. They set you in the chair and take some rope from their belt. They've started tying you down to the chair since the first week–otherwise you fall to the floor the first time you faint. 

The signifer unrolls a canvas bag on the table, revealing an assortment of knives and needles and various metal tools whose purpose you do not want to guess. "We will be trying something different, today," she says. "I usually prefer to avoid such methods, but since you have refused to cooperate, I don't have much choice."

She takes what looks like a small vice from the canvas. She turns to you and slips the fingers of your right hand into the vice. She turns the screw until your fingers are held snugly in place. "Your communication with Cansellarion refers to 'sacred allies.' Who are they?"

You can't tell them. You can't tell them. You can't tell–

She turns the screw. The vice tightens. You hold back a scream.

"You're going too quickly. If you break all his fingers in a single turn of the screw, there will be nothing left for him to dread," a voice behind the signifer says, and you feel your blood freeze because you know that voice. Your eyes focus, and you can just make out in the darkness the shape of an armored gnome. The years have not been kind to him–he is older, half-bleached (just as you feared when he left), skin almost as colorless as yours but with occasional pink tints because his blood has not yet gone gray. But the intensity of his expression–those sharp yellow eyes–there is no mistaking who he is. 

Regill Derenge, clad in the flayed armor of the Order of the Rack, looks vaguely frustrated when the signifer ignores him. "It is your interrogation, of course," he acknowledges, clasping his hands behind his back. "Though I question the wisdom of bringing an advisor you intend to ignore."

You had known he wasn't in the Scourge anymore–a few years after the end of the bleaching, you finally built up the courage to write him a letter. It was returned, unopened, with a note attached: Regill Derenge is no longer a member of the Order of the Scourge. There was no further explanation–was he expelled? Did he resign? Had he been killed? You didn't know, and given the lack of explanation with your letter, you doubted you ever would. The signifer says something, but you can't hear her. You can only stare at your brother. He's alive. Bleaching aside, he seems healthy. 

And he will kill you once you've told him what he wants to know. 

The signifer turns the screw. You clench your teeth to mask the pain. 

"Answer the question," Regill orders. "It can and will get much worse for you if you don't."

You can't tell him. You can't tell him. You can't tell him.

It wouldn't matter even if you wanted to tell the truth. You feel the tightness of your throat, and though you haven't felt this since before you last heard Regill's voice, you recognize it just as easily: your body refuses to speak. The torture has made you weak, and now words are too heavy. You stare at your brother pleadingly, opening and closing your mouth as you try to get something out, even if it's just his name. He'll recognize this, won't he? He has to. When you were children, it was he who always spoke for you when words were too heavy. He'll recognize it, and he'll tell her–

Your brother watches as your tormentor turns the screw, and you scream.

Week Four

Someone is speaking in the dungeons. No, that's not right. That's not what is strange.

Someone is pleading in the dungeons.

No, no, that's not strange, either.

Someone, who is not you, is pleading in the dungeons.

"He's going into shock–his body can't regenerate the lost blood quickly enough–please, he'll die before he can tell you anything, just let me finish healing him!"

There's something else strange, too. That voice. It isn't right. Or–well, it is a real voice, that part is right, but it's not supposed to–not supposed to–

Your thoughts freeze. The knights are dragging the newest prisoners past. That is strange, too. You're the only one they keep in the dungeons. People visit you, but no one else stays. No one else is dragged. Except for these two. These two who you know. Who don't fit. 

Qweck is here.

You hear them open the cell to your right, and another one across the corridor, just out of sight. The voice–it's Qweck, you fool!–keeps begging the knights to let her save him, but they ignore her. They always ignore you when you beg. She'll learn.

She'll learn.

Oh, gods, she'll learn.

"Qweck!" You call, and your voice sounds so weak you wonder if she can hear you.

"Theo?" She answers. "Oh, gods, you're alive. Giliys is here, too, but he's hurt and–"

"Qweck! You didn't–you tell them I wrote the letter, alright?" You interrupt, because Gilly can look out for himself–he always does. If she's here, she can't–she has to know–

"What?"

"You-you don't–I wrote the letter, you're a good, loyal Chelaxian. You uphold Order. Godclaw–tell them you like the Godclaw. But I wrote the letter. You're a good Chelaxian."

"What–what letter?"

"You'd tell them everything if you knew anything," you continue, because she needs to understand. "But you don't. Because I wrote the letter, and I didn't tell you, and you had nothing to do with any of this, but you are good and loyal and respect the hellknights and want to help them–"

"Theo, you're not making any sense–and I don't think they're going to believe–"

"They have to!" You explode. "Because they will hurt you if they don't, so please, you didn't write that letter!"

Footsteps. You freeze. The knights have returned. They come closer, and then you hear a cell door open, and then–

"Stop her!"

"Sanesces!"

The sound of a scuffle, and then you hear Qweck cry out in pain–

You failed.

The knights drag her past your cell. You can't see her so well without your glasses and in the dim light, but you think you see blood.

"No, no, no, no!" You shout after them. "Cowards! Bastards! Let her go! You want what I know? I'll tell you everything! Just let her go–" 

Your brother is following them. He stops in front of your cell and surveys you. You can't speak - you haven't been able to speak in his presence at all since he arrived, even after several sessions with him overseeing your torture. A self-satisfied smirk appears on his face, and he continues out of sight.

The wooden door slams shut, and you know it's too late. She's in That Room, and soon the signifer and your brother will hurt her the way they've hurt you.

You failed. You failed. You failed.

She isn't supposed to be here. You lied to them and endured their torture because she isn't supposed to be here!

Gilly brought her here. He must have. Why else would she be here? Gilly brought her here, and he's in the cell beside you. You want to hurt him for that. He deserves to be hurt for that–hurt like they're hurting Qweck. And so you let your cruelty speak.

"Are you happy now, Gilly?"

[dayeongi]

¡¡Hola!!! I see you taking small requests? Maybe “Kisses in the rain” with any Naruto pairing?? I’ll gladly read it.

Have a GREAT day/night <3

¡hola, hola! This was longer than I intended!!

But of course, I wrote shikatema, hope that's okay!

If you have any other requests feel free to check out my "writing prompts" tag! you can search it like that on mobile if the link doesn't work!

☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔☔

“You didn’t have to come all this way,” Temari said, huddling closer to him, the cold air seeping through her wet clothes. “You’ll get a cold, and then you’ll say it’s my fault.”

“The usual phrase is ‘thank you’.”

Shikamaru had to raise his voice, the rain feeling more like being hosed down for interrogation, rather than the pleasant early spring rain it was supposed to be for the time of year, roaring down on the umbrella he had brought with him.

The wind blew again, and suddenly she was holding the handle of the umbrella, as he started to shuffle his arms out of his raincoat.

“I’m fine!” she protested, wiping the wet hair plastered onto her forehead.

“You’re shivering.” He put the coat around her shoulders, so preoccupied with making sure she was properly covered, she could see the goosebumps rise in his arms, his pale skin already getting a little red from the cold.

“I’m not,” she said but put her arms into the coat’s sleeves anyway.

A warm feeling, like sinking into a warm bath, blossomed inside her.

“Thank you,” she said lowly as he finished buttoning the coat.

“Y-yeah,” Shikamaru stuttered, probably realizing, like her, just how close they were, his face and neck now flushed in red.

He offered his hand, and Temari gave him the umbrella handle.

Careful to keep the umbrella balanced, he took it and offered her his other hand.

“Oh!”

Hand-holding.

They hadn’t been officially together long, she wasn’t yet used to all of this coupley stuff.

She slid her hand into his, not daring to look at his face, but accidentally catching the eye of the shinobi perched at the welcome station.

They were giving them knowing looks, and she so badly wanted to walk over there; perhaps if it was a fistfight and her tessen wasn’t involved it wouldn’t qualify as a shinobi attack so much as a personal spat?

The Lord Sixth Hokage surely wouldn’t hold it against her. She had, just last year, wrecked herself into his office and here she was, still alive.

Surely he’d understand it was just a very, very personal thing?

“Oh… alright…” Shikamaru pulled her away by the hand, the surprise of it nearly making her stumble and sigh in frustration.

They walked together, hand in hand, the streets full of people rushing their way through the rain, a father deciding that picking his child up would get them out of the rain faster, a stall vendor at the morning market still struggling to put everything inside her cart, and children, chasing each other, opening their mouths to the sky to catch the rain, then spitting at each other.

It was a lovely sight.

The kind of lovely a shinobi didn’t always have occasion to witness; the simple and understated.

Suddenly, she wondered what it would have been like to be born in the leaf, grown up there, and still end up there, her hand in Shikamaru’s as they walked on.

Temari turned to look at him and saw he was already looking at her.

“What?” she mumbled, her face hot, sure he wouldn’t hear her through the rain roaring around them.

Shikamaru’s face was still red. What if he caught a fever?

“Just… come here,” he pulled gently, this time, leading her behind a tree, just off the park they’d just passed.

Under the tree, the rain condensed into streams that crashed on the umbrella, like waterfalls.

“W-what?” she stuttered out. Something was wrong with her heart: it jumped inside her, and she couldn’t swallow.

Shikamaru inhaled shakily, opened his mouth, and froze.

And then, all of a sudden, and still too slow, he was embracing her, his heartbeat thundering; she could feel him now, despite the umbrella handle trapped between them.

“I… What are you doing?! We’re... We’re in public!”

“Temari.”

His voice, now tinged with a hungry, desperate tone traveled through her skin in a shiver.

“Yeah…”

She could feel him swallow.

“Will you… will you let me kiss you?”

“Kiss?!”

He stepped away holding her, but his grip was soft on her shoulders.

Her grip was weak on the umbrella; it tilted a little to the side, the rain splashing on his shoulder, but he wouldn’t look away from her.

The afternoon sky was bleak, what light filtered through the treetops gray and grim, but looking at him, you wouldn’t know it, Shikamaru’s brown eyes were warm, his shoulders only a little wider than hers, yet he held her so delicately. Her gaze fluttered over his tall nose, his lips, so pale and soft.

It was like a haze had come over her, she was nodding, but all that mattered was that he came closer.

He was leaning down and she…

And his lips were on hers, soft and beautiful, and warm against her skin.

The rain was crashing down on them, now.

Too sweet, and too short, the kiss was over, and he stepped back, or tried to because she was gripping his shirt and pulling him to her again.

The water ran down their faces and sloped off their noses and jaws into their chests, but so long as he never stopped kissing her, nothing else mattered.

Later, when the rain had subsided and he was walking her to her apartment, he held her hand again, the closed umbrella swinging from the other.