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staytiny-dreams · 11 months ago

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a pair of hearts (j.yh x reader)

pairing: jeong yunho x gn! reader

genre: mutual pining, friends to (implied) lovers, fluff fluff and more fluff

warnings: alcohol consumption? nobodys super drunk tho, no pronouns used, reader is mentioned to wear a dress once

wc: 3.9k

note: inspired by my friend who wanted to get drunk but didn't so that she could drive me home bc she could tell i wasn't vibing. i tried my best to edit/proofread if u find any mistakes lemme know ill fix it up.

you scrunch your face in distaste as the alcohol burns down your throat. a gag rises in your throat but you push it down, biting into the lime that brings welcome relief.

“that shit tastes like soap.” you whine, glaring at the bottle of tequila as if it had launched a personal attack on you.

the next person reaches for a card and you fold your arms in front of you where you lay, stomach down on the carpet. with a huff, your head drops down to your arms and your eyes flutter closed.

unknown to you a concerned pair of eyes follow your movements from their place on the couch across the room. yunho is nursing a glass of water, excluding himself from the game in favour of sobering up.

“can we move outside now?” wooyoung suggests for the fifth time. a groan leaves your lips as - for the first time tonight - everyone agrees with him.

as the group stands to go outside, you don't move from your place on the floor, lifting your head to see empty glasses kicked over and forgotten cards strewn across the yellowing carpet.

the music seems louder now that the room has emptied and it causes your head to pound. you curse silently at your own behaviour.

you really did want to have a good time tonight, but as the first drop of alcohol hit your tongue, any energy you might’ve had at the beginning of the night dissipated.

with a groan, you push yourself upwards with your arms, sitting up with your legs folded, looking around the room tiredly. the velvet of your dress rests softly over your knees, the skin of your legs glowing slightly blue beneath the lit christmas tree.

you take in the speaker; still blasting music despite the group's departure, the empty chairs strewn about the room; all of which are surrounded by empty cans and glasses, telling of how intoxicated the rest of your friends already are.

finally your eyes come to rest on the couch, mild surprise shoots through you, your heart jumping, as you finally notice yunho, still sitting on the couch.

having been keeping his eye on you, he immediately noticed your gaze on him, giving you a warm smile.

you briefly wonder why he didn't follow the rest of the group outside, your heart beating faster at the thought that he stayed for you.

dismissing the thought quickly, you push yourself up onto your knees, then onto your feet. smiling back up at yunho, you carefully navigate the carpet of cans, glasses, cards and food as you make your way to the couch.

with a sigh, you flop down onto the couch, close enough to yunho to rest your head on his shoulder, his knitted brown sweater soft on your cheek.

“yun-ah…” you whine and he chuckles quietly, reaching over you for the fluffy, grey blanket resting on the couch. leaning back, he pulls the blanket over the both of you causing you to press yourself into his side even more.

his breath hitches at your closeness, however the alcohol inhibiting your senses makes certain you don't notice this movement.

“yes (y/n)?” he asks, his voice almost a whisper.

“wanna get out of here…” you mumble into his shoulder, curling the blanket around your fingertips and pulling it closer to your chin. you keep your voice low, afraid to break the bubble you two have created, sinking into the couch cushions together.

“i know,” he admits, reaching an arm around your shoulders and rubbing your arm comfortingly.

you squint up at him in confusion, your eyebrows scrunching. it takes everything in yunho to keep himself from reaching out to smooth your furrowed brow.

“been watching you, pretty,” he confesses with a surge of confidence. after registering his own words, his face flushed, red creeping up his neck and the tips of his ears.

your heart sits in your throat at yunho's admission, alcohol still clouds your mind and you think you must've imagined his endearment.

“you want me to take you home?” he asks, wanting to move on from his previous comment as fast as possible, especially considering your lack of response.

“haven't you been drinking?” you remind him, shifting around to pull at your phone from where it sits, beneath your leg.

“not for a while, i stopped drinking at like eight. i can be okay to drive by eleven? eleven thirty?” he takes another sip of his water as if to prove his point to you, but you only pout.

“why'd you stop? are you not having a good time?” you poke his chest with both questions and your phone finally comes free.

yunho's chest warms at your concern, especially considering you yourself were not having a good time. in fact, yunho had noticed your energy levels were lower than usual upon your arrival. after your first shot of the night, your demeanour dropped once more.

“no, i'm having a good time, you're not though.” he points out and you whine into his shoulder.

“having a great time… now.” you unlock your phone and open tiktok, once again pushing yourself further into the warmth of yunho's body.

“now… that you're not drinking and you're left alone?” he teases and you snort a small laugh at the picture his words paint in your mind.

“not alone, with you.” your free hand, not scrolling through your phone, reaches around for yunho's hand where it still rests on your arm.

pulling his arm forward so his hand rests on your lap, you turn his hand over so his palm is open to you.

yunho's heart is beating in his throat, his face feels hot. you begin to play with his fingers and he holds back the whine that wants to leave his lips at your touch.

you tilt your screen towards yunho so he can watch over your shoulder, despite the music blasting and preventing either of you from being able to hear the phone properly.

your eyes flit to the time, showing nine fifty-seven. a groan leaves your throat before you can stop it.

yunho notices your impatience and smiles to himself.

“(y/n)-ah…” he calls and you hum in response, eyes still on your screen. with the knowledge that you're still fairly far under the influence, yunho finds his courage and rests his hand over yours around your phone.

you turn your neck to look up at him, raising a brow at his sudden move. his cheeks burn for the nth time tonight - as do yours - yet he continues.

squeezing your hand with his own, your phone screen goes dark.

“why'd you do that?” you mumble in protest and he shrugs.

“you weren't paying attention to me.” is his only explanation and you laugh in disbelief.

yunho's face lights up, an affectionate smile resting on his lips.

“did you watch that new special you were excited about?” he asks and a sullen pout takes over your face.

“no, i wanted to rewatch the original show first, but they took it off of my streaming service.” with your phone turned off, you drop it in your lap and turn your attention completely to yunho who was humming thoughtfully at your words.

“what streaming service is it on?” he probes and you bring your hand up to trace the knitted patterns on his sweater.

“amazon i think, but i had to cancel my subscription a few months ago.” you try not to sound too ungrateful or whiney, your hand movements continuing absent-mindedly.

yunho thinks he must look like a fool, a blushing mess as his face feels hotter as the seconds pass.

“i have- i have amazon.” he says with no further explanation.

“hm?” you prompt, still focusing your attention on playing with his shirt.

“i mean we could… you could… well, we could watch it together?” his statement is not a question, but his inflection suggests otherwise.

“really?” you finally bring your attention from his shirt, lifting your head from his shoulder to look him in the eyes.

with your innocent eyes shining up at him, tired, but swelling with affection and fondness, yunho finds himself choking on his words. afraid that if he speaks, his voice will come out shaky, he gives a small nod in lieu of a verbal response and your smile widens.

“okay, but you know they only start at the new series, right?” you warn and he nods again, this time huffing out a laugh.

“yeah? why don't you tell me about the old seasons then?”

so you do. you rest your head back on yunho, cheek to his chest, faces warm and a pair of hearts beating faster than normal, and you explain the plot of each season that yunho won't get to see.

yunho practices active listening throughout your explanation, nodding and humming in response, gasping when it’s appropriate, even asking questions about the lore and history of the world.

with every gasp he lets out, every question he asks, you can feel your heart grow bigger and bigger. you would think that a big heart means you have room for everyone in your heart, but that's not true. at least not for you. because for you, yunho had rooted himself deep in your heart, and there was no room for anyone else.

your tangent was interrupted when a sharp ringing cut through the air. finding your forgotten phone hiding in the tangled blanket, you turn it over to see a reminder to take your tablets.

“did you bring them with you?” yunho's voice grabs your attention again, and you swipe the alarm away, turning back to him.

“i took them before i left.” you look back at your phone, checking the time again only to find that as you ranted about your show to yunho, over an hour had passed.

“eleven eleven, make a wish.” there was a teasing lilt to his voice as he too took note of the time.

but, looking up at yunho and his playful smile, his arm around you, your head on his chest and his hand in your lap you thought that if this was your life, you didn't need to make a wish.

the alcohol had started to wear off now, having been just over an hour since you'd had anything to drink.

yunho on the other hand, had been drinking water and snacking on spring rolls for the past three hours.

“shall we get you home now?” if yunho noticed your all but lovesick expression, he didn't say anything.

yunho simply writes off your affection as a result of the alcohol running through you which gives him the courage to tap your cheek affectionately in a gesture for you to sit up.

your cheeks went up in flames as you separated from yunho's side for the first time in about an hour. you hold back your whine at the loss of his warmth and instead stand from the couch.

you turn and hold out your hands for yunho and he raises a brow. despite his scepticism, he grips your hands and lets you try to lift him.

yunho moves easily from the couch at your first pull and you frown up at him.

“okay well you could've resisted a little. you didn't even try to make it seem realistic.”

“what do you mean? i didn't do anything, you're just that strong, really!” his tone is incredulous and you roll your eyes even as a smile spreads across your face.

“you couldn't just humour me? i could pick you up, im strong enough.” you state firmly and he shrugs.

“i’ve been taught it's bad to lie. now go get your stuff.” he places his hands on your shoulders, spinning you around and nudging you in the direction of your bag.

you reach through your bag checking you've got everything, phone, wallet, headphones, charger. deciding if anything else had been left, you could pick it up another day, you sling your bag over your shoulder.

turning back around, you find yourself alone in the room. you consider heading outside to say goodnight to everyone, but a wave of exhaustion washes over you again at the thought of rejoining the group, and you opt instead to message your close friends goodnight.

you pull out your phone and open messages, searching for the groupchat with your closest friends as you walk over to the front door. it had been propped open to allow for easy access to party goers and a cool, midnight breeze was sweeping through the entrance.

you lean against the wall next to the doorway, just out of the way of the entrance, avoiding any goosebumps that could be caused by the wind.

as you type out your message, yunho comes back into the house from the back door, tossing his keys into the air and catching them again.

“ready to go?”

“are you sure you wanna leave early with me?” you wonder, once again. you feel bad he hadn't been drinking with the others, instead staying inside and coddling you just because you weren't feeling it.

“(y/n) i just spent the last hour and a half sitting on a couch with you while everyone parties outside, i don't know what else i can do to show you that you are who i want to spend my time with.” he affirms, but you say nothing.

conveniently, the hem of your clothing becomes very interesting. you look down, picking at the seam as if you can't feel him approach you.

“besides, i didn't spend the last three hours not drinking just so i could end up not driving you home.” you huff out a laugh, still playing with the velvet that hangs around your legs.

yunho reaches out and places a hand on your shoulder, however you are still unable to meet his eyes with your heart swelling, cheeks hot, blood pumping loudly in your ears.

suddenly you wish you'd waited in the doorway maybe the breeze rushing through the door frame would've aided in cooling your body down.

“i told them all you said goodbye and that i was taking you home. didn't think you'd feel up to braving the masses again.” he places his large hand on the small of your back and leads you out the front door.

“you make me sound like a loser.” you complain, letting him shuffle you to his car that sits at the end of the driveway.

“not a loser. just sleepy. hm?” he reaches past you to open the car door for you. you throw your bag to the floor first, then, finding yourself still a little off balance, you grip the centre console with one hand to aid your entrance into the car.

the warmth of his hand doesn't leave your back until you settle into your seat when he finally pulls away he closes your door and disappears from your side.

you watch him through the windscreen as he rounds the car. his dark hair rests on his forehead just above his eyes, shining in the moonlight, looking softer than the blanket you'd been wrapped in half of the night.

his cheeks were flushed and while it was probably from the cold, you could only hope that maybe, the red in his face and neck was an indicator of an effect that you might have on him.

he closes his own car door behind him and smiles at you from his place in front of the wheel. you give a weak smile in return, your head lolling to the side, unable to keep holding your neck up as it nears midnight.

the drive seemed fast as you dozed in the passenger seat, the late night talk shows on the radio droning on and on putting you in a tired trance.

yunho had to remind himself to keep his eyes on the road, knowing that if he glanced over at your sleeping frame, he wouldn't be able to pull his gaze away.

all too soon, he was pulling into the carpark underneath your apartment building, parking in the visitor section.

“is your roommate home?” he asks and you mumble an incoherent response, eyes still closed.

“jagi… are you awake?” he reaches a hand over, resting it on your shoulder, his warmth spreading over your body once more.

“no.” you say, leaning into his touch.

“no?”

“mm mm.” you hum with a minuscule shake of your head.

“ah okay.” is all he says before exiting the car and closing his door.

in a split second, yunho is at your door, the night breeze sweeping over you and his body leaning over you to unbuckle your seatbelt. you can't tell if the goosebumps prickling at your skin are from the wind, or from the proximity of the man above you.

“come on, time to get inside.” his hand rests on your cheek and jaw and you peek an eye open.

“will you stay? don't want you driving home so late alone.” yunho's smile makes your chest hurt, his eyes scrunching and smile lines creasing on his cheeks.

“okay sweetheart, i'll stay.” a smile of your own makes its way to your face and you lean forward into him, allowing him to wrap his arms around your waist to pull you out of the car and to your feet.

leaning into his side, he places one arm around your shoulders and grabs your bag using his free arm. he throws your bag over his shoulder and closes the car door, locking it and shoving his keys in his back pocket.

“keys in my bag yun,” you mention. exhaustion seeps from your pores and you let yunho support your weight almost completely, simply focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

despite your whole body weight being placed upon yunho along with your bag, yunho walks you both into the building, up the elevator and to your apartment door with no complaints.

as you reach your own door, a relieved sigh falls from you and you leave yunho's side to lean against the wall while he rummages through your bag for the keys.

when his fingers brush against the telling seahorse keychain, he hooks the keyring on his index finger and pulls them out. with ease and familiarity he unlocks the door and pushes it open.

you duck under his arm to enter the apartment before he's even fully opened the door and he chuckles at your eagerness.

locking the door behind him, he leaves the keys in the deadlock and puts the chain across.

while his back is turned you make your way through your apartment, heading straight for your bedroom.

“(y/n)?” he calls out for you when he turns back to the empty living area. you call out to him from your bedroom and when he enters behind you he can see you at your linen closet, pulling out spare pillows and blankets.

your own bed looks hurriedly made, the top blankets pulled over, however the lumps underneath suggest that the sheets below the top layer have not been as carefully fixed.

“don't look at that.” you mutter, pushing a pillow into his chest as you pass him on your way out of the room.

he grabs the pillow, hugging it to his middle, turning on his heel and following you back out into your living area, feeling a bit like an overgrown puppy as he trails you through your house again.

in the living room, you finish setting up the couch with the spare blankets before turning back to him.

“will this be okay? or you can take the bed and i can take the couch” immediately he's shaking his head at you, with two large strides he's at your side, placing his pillow on the couch conclusively.

“if the other option was a couch made of rocks i still wouldn't take your bed from you.” he ushers you back towards your bedroom.

“you're so dramatic, the couch is comfy enough.” you whine and he laughs, pushing past you into your bedroom and pulling the covers on your bed back. his earlier suspicions are confirmed when he finds your second sheet scrunched up in the middle of your bed.

choosing not to comment on the mess of a bedspread, yunho turns to you, gripping your shoulders gently and spinning the both of you around so the back of your knees hit your bed. you huff playfully at his actions, which he also ignores in favour of pushing down on your shoulders, prompting you to sit on the edge of the mattress.

“if that’s true, i'll be fine to sleep on it then hm?” you don't respond to him, a pout resting on your lips as he crouches in front of you.

“what are you doing yun?” you swing your legs forward and back slightly before he stops your movements with a gentle yet firm grip.

yunho doesn’t answer, instead he smooths his hands down your calf and unties the laces on your left shoe, ignoring the pitchy sound you release in surprise, yunho slips the shoe off with minimal effort.

focusing his attention on your right shoe next, yunho misses the look in your eyes as you gaze down at the man undoing your laces for you. you think you could cry at the sight, unable to make sense of his behaviour tonight, but your heart feels full.

finally standing, yunho pushes on your shoulders and you follow his lead as he lays you down, petulant frown morphing into a sleepy smile at the teddy bear of a man above you.

he pulls your blanket up around your shoulders and tucks it in tightly beneath your neck and around your shoulders. another cute smile spreads across his face as he takes in your frame, wrapped up in the ocean blue of your blanket, blinking sleepily up at him.

“yunnie?” he crouches down once more to be face to face with you and his hand comes to rest on your cheek.

“hm?”

“jagi?” you ask, finally finding the courage to clarify whether or not you had imagined the term of endearment in your sleepy state.

yunho swallows, face hot as it always seems to be around you.

“yeah. yunnie?” he fires back and you let out a weak, tired laugh.

“touche.” yunho smiles warmly and your eyes close.

he takes a deep breath, pulling all the courage from every crevice of his body, leans over, and presses a soft kiss to your forehead.

assuming you're too far into your sleepy state to respond, he lets out a sigh and begins to stand, only to be stopped by your hand shooting out and gripping his neck.

he lets out a small yelp of surprise as you pull him back down and press a hard kiss to his cheek.

his knees go weak, legs wobbling slightly and his heart leaps into his throat at your affection. recovering from the surprise, he opens his eyes to see yours open again and searching his face as if trying to see inside and find out what he’s thinking.

“we'll talk about this tomorrow, hm? get some sleep.” he leaves his own, softer kiss on your cheek, before disappearing from your line of sight. shortly after he’s left your field of vision, you can hear your bedroom door click softly closed.

despite your racing heart, and your bubbling excitement for the following morning, your eyes flutter closed and you finally let sleep overtake you.

#dedicated to my 4 followers #and my friend who sobered up to drive my tipsy tired ass to maccas then home #yunho fluff #yunho fanfic #ateez fanfic #jeong yunho #ateez x reader #yunho ateez #yunho x reader #jeong yunho x reader #yunho x you #ateez

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 10 months ago

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Napoleonville [Chapter 3: The House Of Soup, Salad, And Breadsticks]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, Nintendo, smoking, kids, parenthood, all-you-can-eat breadsticks, wedding planning, mentions of birth trauma and abortion, a brief Greek lesson, Audi Quattros have very tiny back seats.

Word Count: 9k (someone take this laptop away from me!! I am out of control!!).

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

Taglist: @marvelescvpe @toodlesxcuddles @era127 @at-a-rax-ia @0eessirk8 @arcielee @dd122004dd @humanpurposes @taredhunter @tinykryptonitewerewolf @partnerincrime0 @eltherevirr @persephonerinyes @namelesslosers @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @daenysx @gemini-mama @chattylurker @moonlightfoxx @huramuna @britt-mf @myspotofcraziness @padfooteyes @aemonddtargaryen @trifoliumviridi @joliettes @darkenchantress @florent1s @babyblue711 @minttea07 @libroparaiso @bluerskiees @herfantasyworldd @elizarbell @urmomsgirlfriend1

Thank you so much for your patience and encouragement, I was really not doing well for a while but all your kind comments meant the world to me!!! I don't know when Chapter 4 will be ready, but hopefully early next week. My posting schedule is super wonky now. We'll get back to regular Sunday updates eventually, besties. 🥰🧁

It’s Thursday, late-morning, sunlight bending in through the open windows and a flock of blue-winged teals toddling through the backyard on their clumsy webbed feet. From the little pink Panasonic boombox pipes Whitesnake’s Here I Go Again. Your steps as you dart around the kitchen are airy and effortless; you’re humming without realizing that you are. You can’t seem to stop watching the clock, the second hand ticking endlessly, revolving like a moon around its planet. Olive Garden tonight! Olive Garden with Aemond!

“Knock knock?” your guest ventures tentatively as the front door creaks. You hear her heels click on the ever-so-slightly inclined floor and the bright jangling of keys and bracelets. Her accent does not surprise you; you were the one who answered the phone when she called in a panic yesterday.

Jade Dragon is a European company. I shouldn’t be shocked that Brits are descending upon Napoleonville.

You greet her from the kitchen, sight unseen: “Hi! Come on in!” Amir rushes over to set the very last cupcake on the glass serving tray, key lime with cream cheese frosting peppered with zest like flecks of emeralds. You have scrubbed the counter meticulously to make a space for your guest to do her cake tasting. There is an open wooden barstool for her, a yellow legal pad for you to jot down her selections. She steps into the kitchen—click click click, jangle jangle—and she is a stranger, surely, and yet something about her face strikes you as familiar.

“I really must thank you again,” the woman says, wringing her pinkish little hands, glittering with rings; she’s flushed all over from the heat, which she isn’t used to. She wears what for many women would be their Sunday Best: a modest organza dress patterned with sunflowers, gold jewelry and heels, and (oddly) a khaki overcoat that runs to her knees. Her hair hangs in thick, glossy, auburn waves. She smells like perfume, amber and roses, a brand you don’t recognize. “I was so distressed when I called, I must have sounded like a madwoman. It’s all just been so fraught. I know this is very last-minute, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you making time to see me today. I’m sure you’re very busy.”

“We are delighted to help!” Amir croons warmly as he swoops in to take her coat, which she surrenders with some bewilderment, her large dark eyes clever but innately vulnerable, anxious. Again, you cannot shake the sense that you have met her before. Amir’s hands sweep down the overcoat as he peeks at the tag inside, and he mouths to you, grinning, eyebrows raised above the tortoiseshell rims of his glasses: Christian Dior! He’s delighted to help this lady, sure; but he’s far more enthusiastic about the prospect of squirreling away more cash for his imminent exodus to San Francisco. Amir hangs the coat in the tiny living room closet and then goes to the stovetop to check on the Kentucky butter cookies that are cooling there.

“Amir and I love baking for any occasion related to a wedding. Everyone is cheerful and excited…and hungry too, of course!” You give your guest a reassuring smile and wave her over to the counter. She’s still tormenting her own hands, still glancing uncertainly around the kitchen. Amir is using a spatula to transfer the cookies from the baking sheet to a cake plate. “Remind me, ma’am, on the phone you said your name was…Allison?”

“Alicent,” she corrects, taking a seat on the barstool beside you and clutching a camel-colored leather purse. She hesitates before she adds: “Targaryen.”

Targaryen?! Jade Dragon?! You gawk at her. Amir drops a Kentucky butter cookie on the floor. You exchange a glance with him and can practically see the bills flitting through his mind: Washington, Lincoln, Hamilton, Jackson, Franklin.

“Please don’t make any fuss on my account,” Alicent pleads with those sleek, imploring eyes. “I’m just a customer, just an ordinary customer—”

“A VIP customer!” Amir says, beaming. He won’t work on their rigs, but he’ll take their money in a heartbeat. He considers it compensation for the inevitable environmental catastrophe, for the souls of all the places their dynasty bleeds dry.

“Ma’am…Alicent…Mrs. Targaryen…” you sputter. “What on earth brought you here?”

“My son is getting married.” She squeezes her eyes shut, an infinitesimal frustration, a self-reproach. “Our son, I mean. Viserys and I, our son is getting married, and we’re hosting an engagement party for him and his fiancée this Saturday, as I mentioned when I called. We had arranged to have caterers fly in, but now there’s some sort of visa problem and they won’t be able to make it in time. I found a company based out of New Orleans that is very well thought of for hors d’oeuvre and lunch, but the cakes I sampled…well…they left a lot to be desired. I was desperate, I tell you, utterly bereft, you know we have family and friends and all these industry representatives who will be in attendance, photographers, journalists, and I can’t ruin it, I can’t embarrass the happy couple, it’s not as if people get more than one chance at a wedding!”

Amir rolls his eyes at you from across the kitchen. Listen to this idiot, he means.

“But then I asked around town, and I got the same recommendation over and over again,” Alicent tells you, smiling now. “Everyone said that I just had to stop by Hummingbird Bakery.”

And now you know exactly where you recognize her from. She looks so much like the drunk man from the holding cell; his hair was blonde and his eyes were that sad swirling blue, but nonetheless he was a Targaryen the same as Alicent, and they share so much of the same bones, blood, innate defenselessness. That boy is getting married? His poor goddamn bride. “Well I am thrilled that you found your way to us, Mrs. Alicent Targaryen. And I think you’ll taste at least a few cakes that you’d be proud to serve at the engagement party.”

“And you can have them ready by Saturday?” Alicent asks fretfully.

“Absolutely.” You won’t sleep much between now and then, but the business matters more. And if you can recruit the Targaryens and some of their associates as regular customers…well, you might actually be able to start saving up for that new house Aemond asked you about on the night you met. You gesture to the glass tray on the counter. “Amir and I have baked twelve cupcakes for you to sample today. I’ll write up a list of the flavors you like best, and we can make any customizations. You can choose one flavor and have multiple cakes made, or four cakes in four different flavors, or any other arrangement, you just let me know and we’ll see that your wishes are granted.”

“These are all for me?!” Alicent says, surveying the cupcakes.

“Yes ma’am. Vanilla bean, triple chocolate, coconut, red velvet, carrot, white chocolate raspberry, key lime, lemon, peanut brittle, cherry chocolate chip, blueberry jam and cream cheese, and hummingbird. But don’t get overwhelmed, you only have to eat one bite of each.”

“And whatever you don’t finish we’ll let Cadi throw to the gator,” Amir says.

“Gator?” Alicent is alarmed.

“She lives in the tree row,” you explain. “She doesn’t bother anyone.” And you almost add: Except Aemond, of course. He hates her.

“Oh. Fascinating.” Alicent blinks a few times. “And who is Cadi?”

“My daughter. She’s ten, she’s at school. She’s…” You glance at the clock. “Learning about fractions and decimals at the moment.”

“How wonderful! And what does your husband do for work?”

“Terrorism,” Amir says, and Alicent Targaryen’s jaw drops.

“He’s the sheriff of Assumption Parish,” you swiftly amend. “But he’s my ex-husband now.”

Alicent doesn’t know how to reply. She stares at the cupcakes instead of at you. After several long, awkward seconds, she says: “My, do these look delicious! Where should I start?”

“Wherever you’d like.”

“This one is hummingbird cake, you said?” She picks it up. Her hands are fidgety; she doesn’t seem to ever stop moving. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Did you name the bakery after it, or did you name the cake after the bakery?”

“Oh no, the cake existed first. It’s been popular around here since…what, Amir? The 60s? Something like that. My mom taught me how to make it when I was seventeen. Hummingbird cake was my favorite dessert for years.”

“It’s from Jamaica originally,” Amir notes. The Kentucky butter cookies are displayed on the kitchen table, and now he’s beginning to peel vivid green Granny Smith apples for dumplings.

“It has bananas, pineapple, cinnamon, pecans…”

“Mmm!” Alicent sighs as she takes a bite. “Oh, it’s fantastic! The different fruits add such dimension of flavor! And the texture too, so interesting. Very substantial, almost like a fruitcake. Yes, I think that is a strong contender.” She continues on to the next cupcake. As she nibbles on each one, she chats nervously, almost compulsively. “She’s a darling girl. Woman, I mean. My future daughter-in-law.”

You get up to pour Alicent a glass of sweet tea. “What’s her name?” you ask politely. You are actively trying not to let your thoughts drift to Olive Garden: soup, salad, breadsticks, Aemond licking blood-red marinara sauce from his lips as he smirks at you from across the table, acting like he doesn’t want to be there.

“Christabel.” Alicent sets down the carrot cupcake, opens her purse, and digs through her wallet for a photograph. It’s small and rectangular, and the girl trapped inside the frame—a girl, truly, if she’s twenty you’ll eat your white denim shorts—looks like Teri Copley: billowing platinum hair, squarish jaw, pink cheeks and red lips, large dollish blue eyes. She reminds you of Barbie; she reminds you of something that belongs in a box on a shelf somewhere. “Her father is a marquess.”

“She’s gorgeous! And is that…is that a job…?”

“It’s a title,” Alicent Targaryen says with a demure, apologetic smile as she tucks the photo back into her wallet. She has spoken of things she should have known were above you. “Like a duke or a baron. Christabel is from a noble family back in the United Kingdom. Milford Haven, more specifically.”

Amir gasps, elated, waving his paring knife around in the air. “She’s just like Princess Diana!”

“She’s very young,” Alicent says, a bit wearily. She takes a bite of the lemon cupcake. “But then again, I was even younger when I got married, seventeen. That’s just the way it was back then. None of my friends even thought of going off to school for years and years, or playing the field, or getting a serious job. In our eyes, there were no other options. You found a good man from an acceptable family and you settled down and started having babies.” Alicent sips her sweet tea, ice jangling in the frosted glass. “Oh, that’s dreadful! Cold tea!” She shudders. “I suppose that’s how you all keep from getting heatstroke down here. Cold drinks and no clothes.”

“Sorry.” You glance self-consciously down at your shorts.

“No no, it’s quite alright. I’m in your jungle, I can’t expect you to conform to my idiosyncrasies.” This is a word you don’t know, although you try not to show it. Then Alicent winks. “Now, if you ever find yourself across the pond…”

I’ll never visit another country. Nevertheless, you chuckle as Alicent expects you to. “I understand what you mean about not having options. I got married at seventeen too.”

“Did you?” she asks, somber now. Her large umber eyes are uneasy, searching.

“Yeah. I was way too young. And unfortunately, the only way to know you’re too young is to not be young anymore. And by then you’ve already made such a mess of things.”

Amir looks over at you; this is not recruiting-a-customer conversation. Alicent nods, slow and thoughtful, studying you with those vast eyes like a dark mirror image of that Targaryen boy in the holding cell. She nibbles on the peanut brittle cupcake to avoid having to respond.

You pivot. “How many children do you have?”

Now Alicent brightens. “Four.”

“That many! I can’t even imagine. They must bring you so much joy.”

“In between the chaos, yes,” Alicent says, sampling the key lime cupcake. “Daeron is my youngest, he’s so sweet-natured, so encouraging, always offering to help with my projects around the house. He never complains. He hasn’t been gobbled up by the company yet. My only criticism is his obsession with his godawful parrot. I’d have it murdered, but tragically Daeron already knows it’s supposed to live 50 years. Helaena reads a lot—about gardens and insects and other planets, all sorts of things I can’t make heads or tails of—but she’s kind and gentle, and she still lets me fix her hair and take her shopping once in a while.” You think, smiling: If I tried to touch Cadi’s hair, I think she’d claw my face off. “And then my son who’s getting married—”

The front door bangs open and heavy footsteps race across the floor. He appears in the kitchen: greased-back black hair, a single gold earring, tan skin, white suit, a bold Hawaiian shirt—sapphire blue water, green palm trees, hot pink flamingos—underneath. He’s breathing heavily and his forehead gleams with perspiration. Alicent appears stunned to see him.

“Criston? What’s wrong? I said you could wait in the Lexus.”

Amir asks the man: “You’ve been in the car this whole time?”

“Don’t feel too bad for me. The Lexus has air conditioning.” The man, Criston, turns back to Alicent. “There’s a lizard out there!”

Amir sighs impatiently. “It’s a gator. And she’s perfectly harmless.”

“I just watched her maul a duck to death! There’s blood all over the grass!”

Amir is unfazed. “To humans, I mean.” He resumes peeling apples.

You tell Amir glumly: “I might have to get Willis to shoot her.”

“Only if it’s a murder-suicide.”

“Criston, help me choose,” Alicent says. She has a gift for ignoring unpleasantness, you’re beginning to notice. “I suddenly feel so overwhelmed.”

He walks over to the counter and begins taking a hefty bite out of each cupcake, eating after Alicent without any trepidation. They confer in murmurs, nods, shrugs, their own language that is threaded with a distinct and curious familiarity. Alicent catches you observing.

“He’s my bodyguard,” she explains hastily, then titters. “And my personal assistant, and my driver…”

“And your babysitter,” Criston says, grinning, crumbs all over his face.

“Yes, they never seem to outgrow the need for that, do they?” Then Alicent addresses you. “Could you manage to have six cakes ready by Saturday, do you think? They’re all so lovely. I don’t think I can narrow it down to less than that.”

Amir casts you a petrified glance. Notwithstanding that, you reply: “I suppose we can handle six.”

“Brilliant.” And you think: Aemond uses that word a lot too. “Then we’d like one vanilla, one chocolate, one blueberry, one coconut, and one hummingbird. And a key lime. I just adore the color, don’t you? A gorgeous, vivid green. It reminds me of the moors back home.”

“Yes ma’am.” You scribble her order down on your legal pad.

“And how much do your cakes cost?”

“$10 each,” Amir tells her.

“$10!” Alicent exclaims, looking at Criston. “Can you believe that? We’re certainly not in Knightsbridge anymore.” She takes $60 out of her wallet and hands it to you. “And you can deliver it to the house if I leave you an address? Around noon on Saturday?”

“Of course, no problem.”

Alicent gives you an address to add to your notes—you don’t recognize the street name, it must be in a new development—and then checks the clock on the wall. “Oh, is that right?! Christabel will be landing at the airport any minute. I’ve got to rush back to the house to make sure everything is ready for her. I can’t be a subpar host.”

“Where’s your coat, Ali?” Criston asks.

“In that closet over there.”

Criston fetches her coat and drapes it over her shoulders. Amir flashes you a salacious smirk. You wiggle your eyebrows back.

As Alicent and Criston cross the kitchen towards the living room and the front door, they pause by the table where an assortment of baked goods, different every day, is displayed for walk-in customers. Criston points to a cake plate piled high with Rice Krispie Treats. “You know who likes those,” he says softly.

“They’re very popular!” Amir announces, ever the salesman. “And we can make them with any kind of cereal you could imagine. Fruity Pebbles, Frosted Flakes, Cocoa Puffs…”

Alicent says, a bit randomly: “Cap’n Crunch?”

Amir doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely!”

“Alright.” She has a faraway look in those dark oil-drop eyes, always a little shimmery, always a little sad. “I’ll take two dozen of those as well.”

“I’ll add it to the list,” you say.

“Thank you. Cheers.”

“Cheers,” you echo, perplexed.

Criston and Alicent depart. You hear the front door swing open and then close again. Outside, Criston reminds Alicent to leave plenty of space between her and the gator. An engine rumbles and gravel crunches as the Lexus rolls out of the driveway.

“If they’re not fucking, I’m Tom Cruise,” Amir says. “Speaking of fucking, what time is Scarface coming to pick you up?”

“5:15.” You nod to where Alicent was sitting. “She’s not bad for a robber baron.”

“Oh, please. She would grind your bones into flour if that’s what it took to have cakes ready for her child bride engagement party. I hope that Christabel girl knows what she’s getting into.”

What is she, eighteen? Nineteen? “She doesn’t.” The phone rings and you scramble for it. “Hello?!”

It’s not Aemond. “Hey, sugar.”

Ugh. “Hi, Willis.” Across the kitchen, Amir mimes slitting his own wrists with the paring knife.

“Listen,” Willis drawls in his familiar, I’m-about-to-deliver-bad-news tone. You can hear noise wherever he is: sirens, shouting. He must be using his car phone. “I’m all tied up down here on Route 90, we got a hell of a wreck, ten cars and an 18-wheeler. Had to close all the goddamn lanes in both directions. I don’t think I’m gonna get home until late, really late, maybe not ‘til 9 or 10.”

“So you have to switch nights. You can’t pick Cadi up from school.”

“Tell her I’m sorry, will ya? And that I’ll take her fishin’ this weekend to make it up to her. I’ll keep her Saturday and Sunday, if that works for you.”

“She’ll love that,” you say distractedly. No Olive Garden. No Aemond. Not tonight, anyway. “Anything outside and with animals. Anything that lets her get filthy.”

“Thanks for understandin’. I gotta run.”

“Bye.”

“So long, sugar.” Willis hangs up. So do you.

“Oh no!” Amir waves his knife around threateningly. “No, not a chance, that gremlin does not get to ruin the first real date you’ve had in…what…ever?!”

You smile; you can’t help it. “It’s not a date. Aemond is fancy and kinky, I’m a mom covered in frosting, people like us don’t date. Besides, his personal ad was very clear: Single and not looking to change that.”

“He’s not acting very single.” Amir begins chopping the peeled apples.

“It’s fine. It happens. We can go to Olive Garden some other time. I’ll try to call Aemond, and if he doesn’t answer I’ll tell him when he gets here. Maybe we can at least chat on the front porch for a while or something. Watch the lightning bugs come out as it gets dark.”

“I’ll hang out here with Cadi,” Amir offers.

“What? Really?” Olive Garden might be back on the menu! “You will?”

“Yeah, ho. I can’t in good conscience just stand by while you are deprived of traumatized war veteran dick. I need a break from Grandma anyway. She’s gotten really into Unsolved Mysteries and that shit gives me the creeps. I don’t want to hear about missing or murdered people. I’m already scared I might end up like that.”

“I’d find you. I’d rescue you. My and my pet gator.”

Amir laughs, his eyes sparkling behind his glasses. “Sure you would.”

“I’ll give you $10 out of my share of the bakery profits this week. For watching Cadi, I mean.”

“Deal,” he says. “Now help me with these dumplings so we can get started on those six cakes for the motherfucking Rockefellers.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s 5:13 p.m. when Aemond arrives at what Cadi named the Fall-Down House when she was in kindergarten, toting in her Chewbacca backpack sheets of homework about shapes and seasons, things you could help her with. You wonder what you’ll say when she gets to her senior year of high school and starts asking about calculus, physics, Shakespeare, college applications. It’ll be like she’s trying to talk to you in a foreign language. It’ll be like trying to explain colors to a blind man.

You’re almost done wiping down the stove and counter; Amir and Cadi are singing along and dancing to Kyrie by Mr. Mister: the Moonwalk, the Electric Slide, the Wop, the Sprinkler. Aemond wanders in and hovers on the border between the living room and the kitchen, his neon teal duffle bag hanging from one shoulder, staring with this profound, childlike puzzlement on his face. He looks like he’s never seen people dancing before; it’s some exotic ritual, some rite of a religion he doesn’t practice. He wears dark jeans, a black button-up shirt, black Converses, and his trusty Marlboro jacket. His fists are buried deep in the pockets like he’s holding something precious there, treasure, wisdom, secrets.

“Wassup, Scarface?!” Amir yells over the music, pretending to be reeling Aemond in like a fish. “Show us your best moves! Do the Worm! Do the Robocop!”

Aemond raises an eyebrow, drops his duffle bag, and—after a moment’s hesitation—glides across the tilted wooden floor to you. He takes your hands, spins you around, something like a clumsy, out-of-practice waltz, something real and enchanting beyond measure. And when was the last time you really danced with a man? Willis’ senior prom? Aemond sings as Amir and Cadi do the Running Man:

“Kyrie eleison down the road that I must travel,

Kyrie eleison through the darkness of the night,

Kyrie eleison where I’m going, will you follow?

Kyrie eleison on a highway in the night…”

Aemond releases you, sweeps his blonde hair off his forehead, and guzzles your frosty glass of sweet tea that you left on the counter in an expanding pool of condensation. You are reminded of how Criston devoured the cupcakes with no concern for the fact that Alicent had already tasted them.

“Such a weird song,” Cadi says as it fades out, as the cicadas and nighthawks grow louder through the screens of the open windows. “What the heck is a kyrie eleison?”

“It means Lord have mercy,” Aemond tells her. “It’s Greek.”

“Willis got stuck cleaning up an accident about a half hour south of here,” you explain. “But Amir and Cadi are going to have some nice couch potato time together.”

“Can we watch Unsolved Mysteries?” Cadi asks Amir excitedly, clinging to his arm. Amir groans.

“I might have an alternative,” Aemond says. He returns to his duffle bag, unzips it, and produces—not blue silk scarves, fuzzy handcuffs, a riding crop, or any other tokens of depravity—but a Nintendo game console.

Cadi screams and sprints to Aemond, unable to rip it out of his hands fast enough. “No way! Really?! I can play it?!”

“You can keep it.”

“What?!” She ogles the tannish rectangular box, the two handheld controllers. “This is the most epic day of my life!”

“I’m glad I could deliver it in person. I was just going to leave it with your mum.” Aemond starts taking cartridges out of the duffle bag. “I have Commando, Super Mario Bros., Star Force, the Karate Kid, Kung Fu, Burger Time, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong 3, Alpha Mission, the Legend of Zelda, and Golf, which I honestly would not recommend. I used to have Top Gun too, but my brother spilled Tang all over it.”

“This is better than Christmas!” Cadi shrieks. “This is better than my birthday!” She dashes to Amir and starts hauling him off towards her room. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

“I’m being kidnapped,” he tells you, feigning distress.

“Cadi, chill. Do you know how to hook that up to your tv?”

She reluctantly surrenders Amir’s hand. “Yeah, Michelle has one.”

“Okay. You can get it ready, I have to talk to Amir for a sec.”

“Fine,” she grumbles, and vanishes into her bedroom with the Nintendo and a precarious armful of game cartridges.

“Thank you,” you tell Amir quietly. “Seriously. I know I owe you.”

He grins. “Anytime. You’re helping to pay my way to San Fransisco, I really can’t complain.”

Aemond perks up. “You’re visiting San Fran?”

“I’m moving there,” Amir says. “And as soon as humanly possible! Sun, sand, and Speedos, here I come! Why? Have you been?”

“I have, actually. It’s a great city.”

You turn to Aemond; this is new information. “Did you go to school there?”

“No, I went to Imperial College in London. But I flew to San Franscisco to interview someone I was writing a term paper about.”

Amir squints at him. “Imperial paid for you to fly across the world for one interview?”

Aemond shrugs, hands back in his jacket pockets. “I got, uh, a research stipend.”

You ask: “Who did you interview?”

“I don’t think you’d recognize the name, but he was a really incredible guy. He was a nurse and the first person to ever come out publicly as having AIDS. Then he spent the rest of his life educating people about the disease. Bobbi—”

“Bobbi Campbell?!” Amir is awed. “Of course I know who he is! You actually met Bobbi Campbell?!”

“Yeah, we had lunch together. Wine and cioppino. His partner was there too.” Aemond is somber, reflective. “It’s probably the most worthwhile thing I’ve ever done.”

“Well you just get better and better, don’t you, big boy?” Amir says. “Have fun at Olive Garden. Don’t hurry home or anything.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You are beaming, serene, warm all over, bewitched by the magic of liminal spaces, doorways between realities that rarely touch. Frank Sinatra—Fly Me To The Moon—floats through the restaurant speakers. The table is cluttered with plates and bowls: breadsticks, salad wet with Italian dressing, zuppa toscana, minestrone, main courses. Families in nearby booths are chattering; wine glasses clink, stories are recalled. You always wonder when you see cheerful married couples surrounded by children: Are they really happy? Is it worth it? Or do they go home after these displays of fairytale adoration and ignore each other, argue, brawl, crack open the Bud Lights, crack knuckles, crack bones like glass? Does true love exist at all? Or is it a lie we’re taught so the species can live on? “I’m in Italy.”

“You’re not in Italy, Cupcake. You’re in Gonzales, Louisiana. I can glance out the window and see a Doller General and a Burger King.”

“I’m basically in Italy.” You gesture to your plate, large and oval-shaped. Your entrée is divided into thirds: chicken parmesan, lasagna, fettuccine alfredo. “I got the Tour of Italy. I’m now an expert in all things Italian.”

Aemond smiles at you, the way he usually does: amused, teasing, craving. “In Italy, the pasta is always al dente. And they use very little sauce, not like here where everything is drowning in it.”

“I personally love my ocean of sauce.”

“And in Italy the bread is served plain. No butter, no olive oil, no…” He scrutinizes a breadstick. “Whatever this is. Assorted soy products, probably.”

“Don’t ruin my dinner or I’ll tie you up next time.”

Aemond laughs: crinkles around his eyes, pure boyish radiance. “Go ahead. I dare you.” He eats a bite of his herb-grilled salmon. “I looked into your Saint Honoratus of Amiens. He’s the patron saint of bakers.”

You roll your eyes like this is obvious. You like knowing something Aemond doesn’t, Aemond with his vocabulary and his high-powered career and his petroleum engineering degree from Imperial College in London, England, a place you have never seen and never will, a city that might as well be located on one of Saturn’s rings. “Yeah, clearly.”

But you never feel like the clever one for long. “And of oil refiners.”

“Is he really?”

Aemond grins. “Yeah. So we’ll have to share him.”

“Did you ever think about doing something besides engineering?” You already know the answer. You saw it in the way he talked about Bobbi Campbell.

“I did,” Aemond admits. “The engineering thing…it was expected of me. It wasn’t really my choice. It’s fine, I’m okay with my job, I’ve come to terms with it. But when I was a kid, I wanted to be a historian.”

“People get paid for that? To study history?”

“Not a lot. But I love the stories. When I was at Imperial, I’d fill every extra space in my schedule with history and anthropology courses. I interviewed Bobbi for my Microhistory class.”

“Micro…history? Tiny history…?”

“You learn everything there is to know about one individual, or one town, or one product, whatever, and through it you can get a better sense of the bigger picture. Like…you could catalogue what specific pieces of furniture were in George Washington’s house to study 18th-century trade routes.”

“Or you could use Ketchikan, Alaska as an example of the dangers of oil rigs and the corrupt, greedy company policies of modern-day robber barons.”

Aemond stares at you. “Yeah. Sure. You get it.” He wastes no time changing the subject. “Where did you go to college?”

“College?” This is preposterous. “Aemond, I never finished high school.”

“You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not,” you say. “I dropped out. I don’t have a high school diploma. I definitely didn’t go to college.”

He’s utterly bewildered. “But…you aren’t stupid.”

“Yes, Aemond, a lot of not-stupid people don’t go to college. And I’d imagine the opposite is true as well.”

He sighs, long and deep, rubbing his scarred forehead with his fingertips. “I’m sorry. I could have worded that more sensitively.”

“Willis is a year older than me. I got pregnant the night of his senior prom. I never went back after summer break. I figured…you know…what was the point? I didn’t need Calculus or World History. I needed money. I needed baby clothes and a crib and a car. And my high school wouldn’t have let me in anyway.”

Now Aemond glares, though his wrath isn’t for you. “They kicked out pregnant girls?”

You smile wryly, chomping on a breadstick wet with marinara sauce. “They still do. They have to make cautionary tales out of us. The weak and the lustful.”

“Well then how the fuck is someone like you supposed to provide for yourself?”

“By marrying whoever got us pregnant and never leaving them.”

“Medieval,” he snaps. He stabs at his salmon, loses his appetite, slams the fork down on the plate. The waitress had just been approaching to ask about dessert; she does a 180 and vanishes again.

“Aemond,” you say gently. I don’t want to ruin tonight. “Please don’t be angry.”

“There are specific things that make me angry.” He rests his chin on his knuckles and peers out the window. Seconds tick by; Frank Sinatra sings about New York, another city you’ll never visit. Then Aemond looks at you again. “What is it like to be a parent?” he says, in the same reverent and mystified tone that someone might use to ask what it was like to flatline on an operating table before being brought back to life. Did you get a glimpse of the gates of Heaven? Did you feel the heat of Hell?

“I can only tell you how it feels to me.” You are wistful; you are painfully honest. You’ve never told anyone this before. No one has ever asked. “It’s…wonderful, and terrifying, and exhausting. You love them more than anything, but that doesn’t mean you don’t get tired, irritated, impatient, resentful. One minute you’re laughing hysterically with them, the next you’re begging them to go to sleep so you can have a half hour to yourself, or just ten minutes, or just five. And then as soon as they’re gone you miss them. You’re too strict or too lenient, never just right. You sacrifice—money, time, your body, your soul—but it’s never enough. You accidentally hurt their feelings and then tie yourself in knots to fix it, but you can never show them when you’re sad, or frustrated, or afraid. They can be so sweet and then so inadvertently cruel. They’re too young to understand that they’re being ungrateful. They ask you questions you don’t want to answer. They’re your reason for living, they’re a burden, they’re the best thing that ever happened to you, they’re your closest friend, they’ve trapped you somewhere you don’t want to be. There are all these emotions that come in waves, they go around and around and never stop. It’s like a tire spinning in mud.”

Aemond considers you for a long time before he speaks. “I think you’re doing a good job. Cadi seems happy. She’s…uh…spirited. But happy.”

“She’s a little wild, but that’s my fault. We grew up together. I didn’t draw many lines, and now it’s too late. And she’s getting old enough to notice things she didn’t see before. Most of her friends’ parents are still married. They might not be in love, but she doesn’t understand that part yet. What she understands is that we’re broke and her dad lives in a different house, and I’m the one who made that happen.”

“You’re doing a good job,” Aemond insists. He starts to reach across the table for your hands, then stops, reconsiders, grabs his duffle bag that’s squeezed next to him in the booth instead. He unzips the small pocket on the side and pulls out a toothbrush, a travel-sized tube of Crest, and a miniature bottle of Listermint. “I’m going to go brush my teeth in the bathroom, and then I’m going to fuck you in the back of my car. Okay?”

Your smile has returned. The magic has too. “Okay. You don’t want dessert?”

“I don’t need tiramisu. I already have a Cupcake. Unless…do you want tiramisu…?”

“No, I don’t like coffee.”

“I think they have other things too, cannoli, cheesecake…”

“Aemond,” you say. “I want to leave now.”

“Got it.” He leaves $30 for the waitress on the table—he always pays with cash, you notice—and bolts for the bathroom. Fortunately, you’d had the same thought; shortly before Aemond arrived at the house two hours ago, you’d packed your pink toothbrush and a tube of Ultra Brite in your Valerie Barad rainbow purse…just in case. By the time you get back to the table, Aemond is waiting and looking uncharacteristically anxious: biting his lower lip, clasping his hands together behind his back. He’s relieved when he spots you. “I thought you might have ditched me.”

“What, and walked 25 miles home?”

“Forget it. Let’s go.” And he shoves his hands into the pockets of his Marlboro jacket before he can reveal any more of himself with them.

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re flying down Route 70 with all the windows down, warm twilight wind flooding through the gaps between your fingers, centuries-old southern live oaks and flowering dogwoods passing by in a blur, an Eddie Money tape in the Audi Quattro’s cassette deck. Under the bridges you cross, brackish bayou water ripples lazily, thick with cypress trees, duckweed, spider lilies, salvinia, wading great egrets and lurking alligators. The seats are tan leather and spotless. Aemond rests a palm on your bare thigh, just below the hem of your shorts. His blonde hair whips in the breeze. From the passenger seat, you can only see the right side of his face, the unscarred side. It’s almost like he’s whole again. He puffs on a Marlboro Red, smoke escaping through the open windows, tobacco and tar and nicotine, chemicals and earth.

“We better stop before we get into Assumption Parish,” you tease. “You don’t want one of Willis’ deputies to stumble upon us.”

But Aemond is particular; he wants the perfect spot. Just a mile before Ascension Parish gives way to Assumption, he finds an overgrown dirt pull-off used for fishing. He parks the Quattro just out of sight of the highway, rolls up the automatic windows, blasts the icy air conditioning.

“Get in the back,” he orders, unclicking his seatbelt. The intro of Take Me Home Tonight thunders through the speakers. You obey, climbing into the (very not-spacious) back seat. Just seconds later, Aemond follows.

You giggle when he pulls you into his lap to straddle him. As you toss away his Marlboro jacket and unbutton his shirt, Aemond yanks off your orange tank top, unhooks your bra, accidentally breaks the tab of the zipper off your white denim shorts with his strong, frantic hands. He needs you; he needs you all the time, everywhere, and he’ll never get enough. He’s kissing you deeply, roughly, nipping at your lips and tongue, breathing his smoke into you. His fingers slip into your shorts and under the silk that you bought for him, blue like his eyes, blue like the sky before heavy rain. You’re moaning, grinding, impatient; he’s helping you shimmy out of your shorts, he’s tugging down his jeans. And now you realize that he wants you to stay on top. “Aemond, no, I’m not good at it…”

“Shut up. You’re good at everything.”

That’s a lie, you know it is; still, Aemond makes you believe it. He grabs your hips and shows you exactly how to move them, and soon the rhythm feels effortless, soon you are wet and relaxed enough for him. At the last minute, he gets a condom from the pocket of his jeans, rips it open, and rolls it on. And again, you are struck by a strange but unmistakable disappointment that you cannot have all of him, that you cannot experience what it’s like to be as close to him as humanly possible, this man that you hardly know, this body that unleashes ecstasy in yours.

It’s quick: your arms linked around the back of his neck, Aemond kissing your throat and the slope of your jaw, his hands and murmurs guiding you, delicious fullness and friction. You’re amazed when he comes—I made that happen?? I did that??—and a tidal wave of extraordinary pride, lust, power surges through you. Aemond helps you finish with his fingers, only a few vigorous strokes, and then he drags you down onto the Quattro’s back seat with him.

“Careful,” you say as you lie on top of Aemond’s chest, both of you breathless and slick with sweat, goosebumps springing up in the chill of the air conditioning. You’re all tangled up in each other; there’s no room to get away. “You’re not going to be able to get rid of me.”

“I’ll accept the risk.” The last rays of sunlight fall across his damp skin, turning him to amber, tiger’s eye, gold. “What happened when you had Cadi?”

You turn your face to look at him. “Huh?”

“You said you were unconscious for a few days after she was born.”

“I told you that?”

“Yeah. The first night I came over. And you’ve been on the pill ever since. You never wanted more kids?”

“No,” you say quietly. “No, I didn’t. I still don’t.”

“So something happened.”

“It’s not a cute story. It’s not sexy.”

“I’ve surmised that.” Another word you don’t know.

“I don’t really ever talk about it.”

“Because you don’t want to, or because people don’t ask?”

You’re amazed by how much he sees, like you’re a clean window, like your skin and skull are made of glass. “My water broke and I went into labor, but I wasn’t progressing fast enough,” you tell Aemond. “I mean, the nurses told me I wasn’t progressing. I didn’t really understand what that meant. It felt like something was happening. There was a lot of pain and pressure, and it was intense, definitely, but it was bearable, I still felt like myself. I was actually really proud of how calm I was. But I guess it wasn’t enough. So the doctor started me on something called Pitocin, and then the contractions weren’t bearable anymore. They were…I can’t even describe it. It was like this bone-breaking twisting, but also sharpness, razor sharpness. I imagined knots of barbed wire. It’s the only thing I could compare it to. And I wasn’t in control anymore. I wasn’t myself at all. I was this animal being trapped, being tortured, and there was no break between the contractions, they happened over and over and over again, one right after the other, and it went on for hours. I kept telling everyone that I couldn’t do it. I needed an epidural, laughing gas, pills, anything. I was begging them to knock me out. I was trying to rip the IV with the Pitocin out of my hand. But no one listened. The nurses acted like I was being dramatic. Women have babies every single day all over the world, why couldn’t I just shut up and deal with it? My mom was around, but she had pretty straightforward births, and I don’t think she could comprehend what it was like. Willis told me I was doing a good job. That’s all he could say: Good job, sugar, you’re doin’ just fine, sugar. But I didn’t want mindless encouragement. I wanted somebody to help me. I thought I was dying.”

Aemond’s hand smooths your hair. He’s watching you closely.

“When Cadi…when she was finally born, I wasn’t excited to hold her. I didn’t even care. I was just relieved the pain wasn’t so bad anymore. I told my mom to take her. I could hear the baby crying, and I remember thinking: Who is that? I almost died for that? I felt nothing for her, absolutely nothing. And then I heard…it sounded like someone had turned a sink on, because there was water running. But then the nurses were yelling and the doctor rushed back into the room. I was hemorrhaging, and it wasn’t water that I’d heard, it was blood, my blood, gushing all over the floor. I passed out and I needed transfusions and I woke up three days later. The very first thing a nurse said was that she was so happy to tell me that they’d been able to stop the bleeding without doing a hysterectomy, so I’d be able to have more children. Can you believe that? It was like I didn’t exist. I was just a vessel. As if I wanted to go through that again. No, never, no thank you. I got attached to Cadi, but it took months. Obviously, now I love her. But I was empty for a long time. Just empty, and sad, and in pain, and hopeless.”

“And your useless fucking husband named the baby you almost bled to death having.”

“He didn’t mean for it to be hurtful,” you say. “He thought he was helping. And it’s a hell of a name, I have to admit it. Arcadia Dove, like a Star Wars character or a superhero. It suits her.”

But still: Aemond shakes his head, incredulous, outraged on behalf of your long-gone teenage self. “When you found out you were pregnant, did you ever consider…you know…not having it?”

You give him a small, guilty smirk. What kind of mother could admit this? “Yeah. Yeah, I did. That was my plan, actually. I called a clinic in New Orleans and made an appointment. Cleared out every penny of my savings to pay for it. Cheaper than a life sentence, right? Amir offered to go with me, but neither of us had a car or a license, and I could never let my mom know. So I asked Willis.”

“And he wouldn’t drive you.”

Worse. “He told me that if I went, I’d be a murderer.”

Aemond jolts upright, furious. “He actually said that to you?”

“Aemond—”

“No, hold on, he actually said that?! He said that you could drop out of high school, you could throw all your dreams out the window, you could become a mum at fucking seventeen years old and marry some guy you barely knew, and if you wanted a way out that would make you a murderer?!”

You offer weakly: “Willis is really, really Catholic. A lot of people down here are, and—”

“He’s a coward, that’s what he is. He was willing to sacrifice your future to soothe his conscience. His life didn’t change. Yours did.”

“I love Cadi. I don’t regret her.”

“But you should have had a choice.”

You study Aemond: his glinting right eye, the deep stormy furrows in his brow. “Why are you so angry?”

“Because you deserved better. You could have been something more.”

Something more? Something more? “I’m not horrified by how I’ve turned out, Aemond. I made the best of my circumstances. I have a job I enjoy, I keep a roof over our heads, I have people to live for.”

“You deserved better,” Aemond repeats, soft and low.

“So did you.” You touch your palm to his scarred cheek and ask in a whisper: “What happened? Who hurt you?”

“Stop,” Aemond says, flinching away from your hand. And that’s the safe word; you have to listen.

~~~~~~~~~~

At home, Cadi and Amir are chatting at the kitchen counter with a late-night snack of apple dumplings, warmed in the microwave, and Breyer’s vanilla ice cream. Blue Bell is cheaper, but Breyer’s tastes real; it’s one of the few things you won’t compromise on.

“Mom, guess how many levels I beat in Super Mario Bros.!” Cadi doesn’t notice that your tank top isn’t quite covering the brutalized zipper of your shorts. Amir definitely does notice; he mouths to you: Baby Jesus is so sad.

“Um, I don’t know…how many levels does it have?”

“Thirty-two,” Aemond informs you.

“Seven?” you say.

“Try ten!” Cadi grins triumphantly.

“Radical! Amazing!”

Aemond applauds. “No way! You’re a prodigy!” You don’t have to ask if he wants to stay. He scoops two apple dumplings into the same bowl and then pops open the microwave, like he lives here too. “How long should I heat these up?”

“About 45 seconds,” Amir says. He yawns and puts his dishes in the sink.

“Thanks again for entertaining Cadi.” You give him a tired, repentant smile. “I would tell you to take tomorrow off, but we both know that’s not an option. I’m going to set my alarm for 3:00 a.m.”

“I myself will most certainly not be awake at 3:00 a.m. But I’ll try to get here by 7:00.” Amir gives Cadi a hug that she pretends not to appreciate. “Goodnight, slayer of Bowsers.” Then he waves to Aemond as he breezes out of the kitchen. “Goodnight, destroyer of zippers.”

Aemond covers his mouth to keep from laughing. “Cheers, Amir.” He brings the bowl of apple dumplings from the microwave to the counter, adds several heaping mounds of vanilla ice cream and two spoons, and slides it over so you can share. Outside, you hear Amir’s Ford Escort pull out of the gravel driveway. “You have a lot of baking to do, huh?”

“Oh my God, I completely forgot to tell you. You’ll never believe who showed up—”

“Mom, can we go shopping tomorrow?” Cadi asks, derailing your train of thought.

Cadi? Shopping? This is an unusual request. “Shopping for what?”

“For my riding boots,” Cadi says brightly as she finishes her apple dumpling, and you think, sinking in ways you can’t let her see: Oh fuck. Here’s the conversation I’ve been avoiding for weeks. “Michelle and Erica are both going to that horse camp in July. Breanna and Sam are going too. Kristen might even go, and she’s a total freakazoid! I can go, right? I’ll need boots, and a helmet, and I want to ride an Appaloosa. They have all kinds of horses, but Appaloosas are my favorite, and if they don’t let me ride one I’m going to go nuclear.”

“Honey, I don’t think it’s going to be possible this year.”

“But I have to go. Everyone else is going.”

“I tried, I really did. But I just can’t swing it right now. Next summer I’ll have more money saved up, hopefully, and then you can go to horse camp, and maybe we can even go to Biloxi for a week too—”

“I don’t care about Biloxi.” And now she’s lashing out, because she’s realizing the answer might really be no. Aemond is silently picking at the apple dumplings, looking between the two of you but not knowing what to say. “I care about going to horse camp when literally all of my friends get to—”

“Cadi, I’m so sorry, I really am. But sometimes things just don’t work out, and that’s okay, that’s a part of life. We’ll still have fun this summer.”

“I’m not going to have fun if I’m just stuck here at home all day!”

Stuck here with me, stuck here in the life I built for her. “Cadi, please—”

“I’ll give up my birthday presents,” she pleads, her eyes turning misty. “You can just not buy me anything for my birthday, or Christmas either, and you can use what you would have spent on that for—”

“I’m sorry,” you say gently, a hand on her little shoulder, her tiny breakable bones. “I wish I could give you what you want. I really, really do. I’m trying to make things better for us.”

“Can’t you ask Daddy for more money?”

And you remember what Willis said at the Assumption Parish Sheriff’s Office: Tell her if she grows her hair back out, maybe she can go next year. “Daddy wants to help too, I’ve already talked to him about it. We just can’t make it happen right now.”

“Daddy always says he’d have more money if he didn’t have to send you so much every month!” Cadi blurts out. Aemond is watching you, but you shake your head. He can’t say anything. It’s not his place. “That’s why I can’t go to horse camp, isn’t it? Because we don’t all live together?”

“No, Cadi, that’s not what this is about—”

“Erica’s parents live together and she gets to go! Michelle’s mom and dad are always taking vacations!”

“Every family is different,” you say, fighting to stay calm while your throat is closing up and the blood in your face is hot enough to scald.

“Sam’s mom just bought her riding boots and gloves!”

“I’m not your friends’ mothers, I’m sorry, I’m just not.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have kids if you can’t afford them!” Cadi screams, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes, and then she storms off to her bedroom and slams the door.

You and Aemond are left alone in the midst of humming florescent lightbulbs, long-eared owl hoots, the ambient shrieks of cicadas. The apple dumplings and ice cream have dissolved into a soup. Your lips are trembling; a single blistering tear escapes down your cheek. You refuse to break down. You learned years ago that there is nothing to be gained from it. Aemond studies you, seeking and worried. You avoid his gaze. His hand reaches for yours, stops short, retreats to drum his fingers against the counter.

At last, Aemond says: “How much is the horse thing?”

“Too much. Way too much. It’s over $300, I won’t be able to make rent.”

He sighs; not a frustrated sigh, you think, but a sigh of incredulity, maybe even of pity, which is the last thing in the world that you want from him. Aemond takes his wallet from his jeans pocket, leafs through it, and counts out $400 in twenties and tens that he stacks on the countertop.

You are mortified, horrified. “Aemond, no—”

“Look, next time I see you, we need to talk. We need to talk about my situation, and your situation, and what we’re going to do going forward. And it’s…fuck, it’s, it’s complicated. You’ll see. But we have to get it sorted out, because this is…” He gestures to you, to him, to what you’re building between you like a bridge linking islands. “It’s different than what I expected it would be. And that’s a good thing, but…there’s just a lot we have to discuss.”

“Aemond, I can’t accept this much money from you.”

“The money doesn’t matter. $400? That’s nothing. The money’s not real to me. But it is real to you. So please just take it. And next time I see you we’ll…we’ll decide what happens next.”

It’s complicated, Aemond said. You’ll see. See what? How bad could it possibly be? “We can’t talk now?”

“No, I can’t do it now. I just can’t.”

He’s not just uneasy or distracted. He’s fucking scared. “You’re married,” you say.

“No. No wife, no kids. I swear to God.”

“No girlfriend either?”

“No.”

“You’re divorced.”

“No.” He combs his fingers through his short blonde hair, stares blankly at the wall behind you. “You’re free Saturday, right?”

“Yeah. I think Cadi will be with Willis all weekend, actually. He’s taking her fishing on Lake Verret. If Jade Dragon hasn’t blown it up by then. I’ll be busy with work Saturday morning and early afternoon, but after that I’ll be around.”

“I’ll come over around dusk, probably,” Aemond says, hands in his Marlboro jacket pockets, thoughts miles away. “I have something going on Saturday afternoon too.”

And he leaves before you can thank him for the stack of cash on the counter, or for any of the rest of what he’s given you.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #aemond fanfiction #aemond x you #aemond x y/n

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bleue-flora · 3 months ago

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Was gonna do everyone, but I'm feeling lazy so here's what I got so far for the playdate au character details:

Name - Make Believe Name(s) - Age - Favorite Color - Physical Appearance - Other

Phil - Philza, Dadza - 16 - dark green - greenish blue eyes, gingerish blond hair - when he decides to go outside and play with the kids he tends to wear a silly looking striped hat (mostly though he tends to stay inside and text his girlfriend, Kristen)

Wilbur - WilburSoot (or also Ghostbur, Revivebur) - 13 - Blue - pretty fit and tan (because he’s on the school’s swim team), tall and lanky, brown hair and eyes - almost always wears his colonial style hat and when it’s cold enough his favorite yellow sweater

Sam - Awesamdude, Sam, Sam-nook, The Warden - 12 - green - naturally light brown hair he dyed green, brown eyes - has glasses, wears yellow tee-shirt and green cargo pants that he fills the pockets of with all kinds of handy tools and things, including rocks that he loves to collect, has a fake ruby necklace he loves to wear as well as his crown

Clay - Dream - 11 - lime green - green eyes, dirty blond hair - as he’s autistic he wears comfy clothes only like gym shorts and soft tee-shirts for example and hoodies when it’s cold enough (he will not be caught dead in jeans), used a paper plate with a smile on it to jump scare Tommy once and now it’s his Dream aesthetic

Luke - Punz - 11 - blue - bright blond hair and blue eyes - has a gold necklace he never takes off, his ears are pierced with some gold studs,, his favorite outfit is his ripped black jean shorts and white tee-shirt

Alex - Quackity - 10 - Red - dark brown eyes and black hair, kinda more short stubby - him and his family are mexican, tends to wear classic dark blue and black and doesn’t mind getting dressed up for the occasion, always wears a beanie though, carries a pack of candy cigarettes he pretends to light with a lighter he found, tends to carry a deck of cards and his dad’s old pocket knife, knows a little more than a kid should, has a little scar over his lip from falling face first that Techno turned into a whole lore point

Alexander - Technoblade - 9 - red - blue eyes and dirty blond hair though he tried to dye it an edge red to be cool and it turned out pink instead - he loves to wear his red cape and crown all the time, someone once called him a pig because of his pink hair and after that he added pig ears and nose to his Technoblade look, he also often is seen riding his stick horse steed named Carl, he has glasses that George often steals

Mark - Ranboo - 8 - purple - brown hair, green eyes and super tall and lanky - entire wardrobe is black with lots or variations of black and white, often see with sunglasses and face mask on to be mysterious and of course his crown

Nick - Sapnap - 7 - Orange - brown eyes and unkempt hair that’s just long enough to be annoying that he keeps out of his eyes with his white ninja headband - favorite outfit is black athletic shorts or pants with a flame themed shirt, when it’s cold he’ll wear the same shirts just with a long sleeve black shirt underneath, often carriers around a katana and pretends to be a stealthy ninja

Karl - Karl Jacobs - 7 - purple - light brown hair and blue eyes - when it’s cold he loves to wear his iconic hoodie, he wears lots of fun colors and patterns like the stereotypical stylish gay guy, he has a old stopwatch he likes to carry around

Thomas - Tommy, Tommyinnit - 6 - red - blond hair, blue eyes, tall (for his age) and lanky - likes to wear khaki and that two toned classic tee-shirt, often see with red bandana around his next like some western outlaw and appropriate red devil horns

Toby - Tubbo - 6 - green - bright blond hair and blue eyes - Niki gave him bumble bee barrettes he wears to keep his bangs out of his eyes, he’s very attached to his stuffed pig, can be found wearing cuffed jean shorts or sometimes overalls

George - Gogi - 5 - light blue - brown eyes and messy hair - always carries around his mushroom patterned blanky, likes wearing his favorite iconic blue shirt and jeans

Current families developed in age order:

Dream, Techno, Sapnap, George

Phil, Wilbur (and surely Fundy needs to be the youngest)

Purpled, Quackity, Slimecicle

Punz, Vikk and Lazar (4 year old twins)

(Ya know based off appearances alone maybe Tubbo and Tommy should be twins?…)

Others TBD...

#playdate au #it developes...... mmmmmmmmmmmm for anyone who wanted to know XD #dsmp au #for you hextv - let me know if you have specific other characters you want details on #dsmp

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mallleus · 2 months ago

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OMG i LOVE your headcanons of Stan with a Hispanic spouse and I wanned to rant a little bit since I'm from Costa Rica and wanted to share and know what you think about it, we have some desserts that I found funny for them to try out like the arroz con leche you can eat it hot or cold so it can be like el caldo de pollo but in dessert

-its okay chiquilines hay arroz con leche!

Dipper/Mable/Stan: :D

-Fresh out the olla!

Dipper/Mable/Stan: D:

There's also tamal de Maizena that looks kinda like yellow squares and it's pretty tasty, also the helado de sorbetera

Also in the parties telling Mable about the los dulces 15s and now making the dress and all for her future 15 party

Also disguising sometimes like for Halloween or to scare the Tourists in the shack dressed as la segua or el cadejos

And with the fun remedies my grandma have black tea, lime and honey to ease the throat and it does work or Do gargles with baking soda dissolved in water that works for Phlegm's

Also a specific for Stan, el cofal, it's a Muscle rubbing cream it's white and it really help for backache or Shoulder pain neck pain etc

Also thought in the "estan" to call him when the spouse it's angry, in my family it's the long full name so would be kinda like "ESTANLIIII PAAAAAAAINS"

I love this ask, send more Stan with Hispanic! Spouse reader

#gravity falls imagine #gravity falls #stanley pines #dipper pines #mabel pines #stanley pines x reader #Stan x Hispanic reader

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annislittleshopofhorrors · 16 hours ago

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I’m not going to lie…

I was pleasantly surprised by how obvious they made it last night that they pay attention to the fandom chatter (or criticism) 😂.

1) arriving in the same car and letting people see them come out from the same side! Remember ghosted? And I guess Berlin but I didn’t bother to go looking for that arrival footage. The weird going around the side instead of just opening the door to the crowd…they fixed that last night!

2) matching outfits. Finally not one dressing in lime green and dark brown and the other wearing bright red, looking like they didn’t bother to check what the other was wearing. However, she’s shy but wore a dress that was showing 3x too much sideboob to a family movie? 🤔

3) holding hands and smiling this time for 5 seconds. Good improvement on the last 6 times where it was dead pan face while running through a park.

Now other areas that still need improvement….I mean, not going to give them more ideas.

But I do have to say, I’m continuously disappointed she keeps letting down the shy, private, and hates attention narrative. What kind of shy person who wants everyone to forget her keeps showing up to world premieres with chaperones wearing an outfit fit for 2016 era clubbing? In 50 degree weather ? Also…the clearly repeated outfit choices…

The fact that even I recognized the shoes and bag that she’s reused like three or four times this year alone for these events is both sad but also funny. Your BFF claims to be a fashionista himself and often gives the impression he loves judging on others. Yet he’s friends with you who continues to make fashion faux pas after fashion faux pas?? Either he’s setting you up to embarrass yourself or he’s just given up.

You will never be invited to the met gala. What happened to that next miumiu It girl????

It's still funny whenever they try to get rid of plot holes, they create new ones. 😂 But yeah, they took notes.

Oh and what about her bestie? She has so many brand deals. Couldn't she borrow anything from her. (Not the yellow dress again) Not even a nice purse?

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dailyanimatronics · 28 days ago

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[ID: a drawing of mini mozzarella in a sleeveless, shiny yellow dress with a bow at the waist. she has a pearl necklace on. she's smiling with her arms behind her back. the drawing is outlined in a deep blue, with a lime green background. /end ID]

tried to change up my colors slightly. and mini is my favorite to draw so

#art #showbiz pizza #wolfpack 5 #wolf pack 5 #wp5 #mini mozzarella

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ticklishshenanigansau · 24 days ago

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LaughterLand - Chapter 20: Witch

(story by Mod Secret, art by Mod Secret)

The old woman was plump and round. Her skin was a bright lime green with darker green freckles and liver spots dotting along her face and hands. She was slightly hunched over, like the top of her spine had been purposefully curved. Yet she moved with such an energy that didn't at all match her aged appearance. She wore a classic witch's attire with the pointed hat and dress, but the colors were the farthest thing from typical. Both her dress and hat were a warm pink color. The bottom half of her dress, as well as her pointed hat, were decked out in dark green stripes. The dark purple belt that was wrapped around her hat and her waist matched her curly elf shoes. Even her ears were elf-like as they curled up into a point.

She had the typical witch nose that was extra big and protruded far out from where her face began. But in place of the big wart that usually decorated the end of a witch's nose was a tiny little pale pink flower. Two more of the same kind of flower sat in the middle of the purple belts on her hat and waist. She had bright cherry-red hair that was kept as an unruly mess on top of her large head. Her nails were a shimmering dark lavender color, they were long and perfectly tipped, making them ideal for tickling. While it was clear that she couldn't have cared less about her hair or her toothy yellow smile, it was obvious that she valued her nails.

Her large and striking golden eyes sparkled with delight upon seeing the skeletons trapped within the coils of the Magenta and Lilac Snakes. She clapped her hands with utter delight before holding open the door to her cottage.

"Oh-ho-ho-ho!! Come in, come in, my precious pets! Please see to it that our new guests are nice and comfortable!" She giggled like a child that had just been given a new toy.

The brothers struggled uselessly as the snakes dragged them into the old cottage, they blinked as the warm glow of the lights stung their sockets. Once their vision had adjusted, they saw where the warm glow had been coming from.

Directly in the middle of the cottage floor was an enormous bubbling cauldron sitting in a makeshift fireplace, which looked to be a large hole in the ground. Flames wisped around the bottom of the giant pot, heating the strange violet liquid inside to a boil. The smell that engulfed the cottage was sweet, almost too sweet. Like someone had added gallons upon gallons of sugar to an already saccharine syrup.

On the right side of the cauldron was a large wooden table. A tall, slightly crooked black wand rested right next to a large pile of feathers. The feathers were bright pastel colors, large and exuberantly fluffy. Sans knew that they had to have come from the Squeal Owls, along with several other types of bird-like creatures from this place. But feathers weren’t the only terrible tools that this table was carrying. Off to the side there were hairbrushes, paintbrushes, toothbrushes, feather dusters, scratchers, and even a small vial looked to be carrying baby oil. Clearly she was well-versed in the subject of tickle torture. The brothers’ anxiety nearly hit the roof upon seeing her devious collection.

Laying against the wall on the other side of the room, were large wooden shelves that contained a multitude of glass bottles and vials. The liquid inside the little containers were a mixture of different colors and substances, some even glowing and sparkling with fire. Standing right next to the shelves were two large wooden stakes that were sticking straight out of the wooden floor. The snakes dragged the squirming brothers over to the stakes and roughly pinned them down against them.

Sans pushed and clawed at the Magenta Snake as he felt it shoving his spine against the thick wooden stake. He fought with all of his might, even threatening to bite down on its tail again if it dared to venture anywhere near his face. The Magenta Snake let out a sharp warning hiss that immediately got the attention of the witch.

“Tsk, tsk. Now this kind of behavior won’t do at all,” she tutted.

The witch grabbed the wand off of the wooden table. Light sparked out of the end as she gave it a swift flick towards the wooden stakes. A long strand of rope that had been hidden in the corner of the room came to life and started slithering towards the brothers. In a flash, the rope coiled around Sans's wrists, pulling itself into a tight knot.

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hey! Stop it! OW!!"

Sans panicked and struggled but it was too late. With a swift yank, the rope pulled Sans's wrists upwards, securing his hands over his head and tying him to the wooden stake.

"Can't have you giving my precious pets a hard time, can I?" The Witch beamed at her handiwork. With another flick of the twisted black wand, she summoned three more hidden ropes. One to tie Papyrus's wrists in the same position as Sans’s, and the other two to tie around their waists like makeshift seat belts securing them even tighter to the stakes. The skeletons squirmed and struggled against their new bonds, much to the witch's entertainment.

"Relax, Bone-Boys," she teased after an outburst of amused cackling. "Enjoy your stay at the Old Dropwart cottage."

"D-Dropwart?" Papyrus stammered nervously.

"That's me, deary!" She approached him with a burst of energy that startled him into shaking. "They call me Old Witch Dropwart, now doesn't THAT have a nice ring to it?" She cackled again, her high-pitched laughter echoing off the cottage walls.

"Um … it's … v-very um...." Papyrus stuttered and trembled, unsure of what to say and terrified of saying the wrong thing.

"Nasty," Sans finished for him with a blunt and bitter tone. "Nasty? Gross? Disgusting? Appalling? Do I have it about right?"

To his surprise, with every unfavorable word he used to describe what he thought of her name, her smile grew wider and prouder.

"Oh, why thank you, my deary!" She gave Sans a playful little curtsey with her striped skirt. "It's a family name you know, passed down from generations. Why … have you ever heard of the Hemlock Water Dropwort?"

She looked eagerly at the brothers, as if hopeful for an answer. Sans just stood there silently glaring at her while Papyrus timidly shook his head.

"Why! It's one of the most deadliest flowers in the whole world!" she eagerly explained. "Consuming such a plant has led to such countless gruesome deaths!"

She let out another shrieking cackle, one that caused the skeletons an even greater deal of anxiety. She just seemed so unnaturally cheerful talking about such a grim subject.

"But what was the most fascinating thing about these victims … was that they were all found with such adorable ear-to-ear smiles." She demonstrated with her own rotting toothy grin. "It was as if it had caused them all to DIE LAUGHING!!"

She doubled over in hysterics, recalling the terrifying tale. Sans and Papyrus observed her, utterly horrified, she was truly crazy. Was this what she had planned for them? Was she going to force them to die laughing, true to her namesake? The brothers pulled even harder against the magical ropes.

"Please...!" Papyrus strained. "Please no!! Y-Your snakes have already attempted to tickle us to death!! We can't take anymore!!"

"What?!"

Dropwart's demeanor suddenly changed to one of annoyance. She turned back to her serpents who seemed to have a look of guilt upon their faces.

"Oh you naughty little worms!" she scolded, bopping them both on the snout with her wand, causing them to recoil. "You know better than to snack on my fresh ingredients! You get your own food at dinnertime!"

The snakes looked at her with sorry eyes, reminiscent of a puppy getting yelled at for not listening to its owner. They both slinked away back into the corner of the room while Dropwart turned her attention back to the brothers.

"I am dreadfully sorry about them, my dears." She gave them both an insincere look of concern. "Sometimes they just can't resist…." She approached the brothers with a devious grin as she very purposefully eyed their exposed tickle spots. "You two must be particularly delectable sources of food!"

She made a show of greedily licking her lips before turning towards her shelf. She grabbed a handful of empty glass vials and placed them across the wooden table before turning towards her bubbling cauldron. She gave the bright violet liquid a steady stir causing the overly saturated sweet smell to engulf the air with renewed life.

"You stay away from us!"

Sans growled once she stopped stirring to give the cauldron a deep inhalation. She looked back at him, her toothy grin turned halfway up in amusement.

“Oh, not to worry, my deary!” she smirked. “I’m not about to spoil my new source of ingredients!”

“You keep calling us that,” Sans retorted bluntly. “What are you even talking about?”

“S-Sans…,” Papyrus stammered in a hushed tone. “Don’t make her mad! You know what it means, she’s going to devour our laughter just like everybody else!”

Sans wasn’t entirely convinced. If she was as tickle-crazy as their previous adversaries, she would have been on top of them by now. Why all this prep work? Why the cauldron? Why the empty vials? She was planning something else.

Sans squinted his eyes to get a closer look at the glass vials, he noticed that they were all labeled … now if he could just see what was scribbled on the parchment. The larger vial that was closest to the edge of the table was the only one Sans could read clearly. It read; ‘Hysterical’. The one next to it was a lot smaller, Sans lurched his neck forward to try and read it. It looked like it spelled out the word; ‘Tittering’.

As she went back to the table to fumble around with the order in which she wanted the vials placed, Sans could make out one that she had grabbed in her hand. It read; ‘Belly Laughter’. Finally it dawned on him, the prep work and the strangely labeled vials started to make sense. She wasn’t about to consume their laughter … she was about to collect it!

“There we go!” she said once she had organized the vials on the table to her liking. She grabbed the smaller one at the end of the line and approached the brothers eagerly. “Let’s start off with this one, shall we?”

Anxiety flooded Sans’s chest, he tried to read the label, but it was clutched deeply into her green speckled hand. Papyrus whimpered and tugged at the ropes as he panicked.

“Wh-What are you gonna do with us?!” he practically shrieked.

“Well isn’t it obvious my dear?” Dropwart replied in a playful manner. “Why I’m going to tickle you, of course! Now where did I put that wand?”

"Oh no! No! No! Please don't!! I'm begging you!!"

Papyrus shrieked as he strained against the ropes. Sans gritted his teeth scowling at the giggling witch as she reached for her wand.

"Don't you EVEN dare!" he spat angrily. "Don't touch him or I swear I'll—"

Sans was cut off by the craziness he saw unfolding in front of him. With another flick of the twisted black wand, the pile of pastel feathers stood up on the wooden table before proceeding to levitate into the air. They hovered together in a colorful cluster just above Dropwart's head as she grinned maliciously at the skeletons.

“Now here’s a fun little game I want to play with you boys.” She pointed the wand at the brothers, her toothy grin growing wider with mischief. The feathers, in turn, aimed themselves in the same direction causing Sans and Papyrus to tense up with anxiety.

“Just try and keep your laughter in!”

She let out another shrieking cackle as she directed the horde of levitating feathers to swarm after the skeletons. Sans shut his eyes tightly as he felt the bristles of the soft Squeal Owl feathers starting to brush against the back of his knees. He moved to kick his leg out, but the rope bound him too tightly to the stake. He stood there helplessly as two more feathers brushed against the sides of his skull, tickling at his ears, cheeks and jawbone.

He shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, trying his best to hold back the laughter. The soft tickling on his gentler spots would have otherwise elicited a lot of giggling out of him, he began to wonder why she wasn’t immediately going for the dangerous spots. As grateful as he was that the soft tickling wasn’t completely unbearable right off the bat, it was still irritating. He tried his best to scrunch up his neck and toss his head around, but whichever way his skull moved, the feathers followed.

Sans peeked open one eye to notice that the same thing was happening to Papyrus. His ears, cheeks, and neck were all being targeted. He didn’t even have to look down to know that there was a group of feathers also aiming behind his knees. Much like him, Papyrus was also trying to hold it in and squirm away. It wasn’t until an extra fluffy feather moved to the front of his throat to start swishing around that Papyrus let out a strained giggle.

“Nyehee…! Heeheeheehee…!” He still tried so hard to hold back, Sans could feel his toes thumping against the wooden floor. It didn’t make too much of a difference. Many more feathers moved to brush against his neck and collarbone, Papyrus, in response, choked back a squeal.

“Agh…!! Nyahaha…!! N-Nohoho! Eeek!! Heeheeheehee!!”

The feathers on Sans’s side also began fluffing along his throat and collarbone. Sans felt the laughter starting to bubble up in his chest, but he swallowed hard, refusing to immediately be undone by such soft and gentle tickling. He barely released small spurts of breath as his bones jerked around from the buildup of pressure.

“Ohhh! Look at that!” Dropwart began bouncing on her toes excitedly. She held the vial close to Papyrus’s face, a look of anticipation in her eyes.

Sans kept his sockets locked on Papyrus, making sure she didn’t do anything more to him. That’s when he realized something had changed. A stream of what looked like red smoke was pouring out of Papyrus’s mouth as he continued to snicker. It was phosphorescent and moved like it was purposefully trying to escape from him. Suddenly, it turned to the direction of Dropwart’s bottle. The direction of the strange red smoke dove straight into the glass vial, filling it up in an instant.

“Excellent!” she exclaimed as she fastened the cork onto the vial’s opening, quickly trapping the red smoke inside. “I just knew you’d be the first to break!”

She gave Papyrus a playful wink before giving the wand another flick of her wrist. The feathers around them stopped tickling and fell lifeless to the floor. Both brothers immediately gasped for air, though it didn’t take them long to once again regulate their breathing. After everything they had been through, the soft feather tickles were basically nothing more than a gentle warm-up.

“Pap! Are you okay?” Sans asked worriedly. He didn’t know what that smoke meant, or how it would affect him. But to his relief, Papyrus seemed perfectly fine.

“I…. I think so,” Papyrus replied quietly.

He too was terrified to know just what they were dealing with. The brothers watched as Dropwart placed the now glowing red vial onto the table before grabbing another one.

“What did you do to him?” Sans demanded boldly.

“Oh, you mean this?”

Dropwart gave the older skeleton a cheeky smile before reaching for the red vial again to give them a better view of it. As she approached with the little glass bottle in hand, Sans could finally read the label, it said; ‘Tittering’.

“This kind of brew requires a total of seven different kinds of laughter,” Dropwart explained as she dangled the vial of Papyrus’s tittering laughter in front of them. “And you boys are gonna help me get every last drop!”

She hurriedly placed the red vial back onto the table before proceeding to remove the cork from the next vial in line. Both brothers stood there, terrified and utterly dumbfounded. In this world, laughter wasn’t just a main food source, it could be used as a physical ingredient like any other piece of food. The idea that she was milking their laughter out of them like a dairy farmer did to a cow was terrifying enough, but what wouldn’t stop ringing in the brothers’ skulls was the fact that she had said she needed ‘seven different kinds of laughter’. What did that even mean? It was seven different kinds of crazy that was unfolding right before them, and all they knew was that they didn’t want to be here for any of it.

“No! Please! Please don’t do this!!” Papyrus started panicking once he got a good look at the other vials on the table. “Please! W-We don’t taste good, it’s not worth it!! We’ll give you indigestion! Let us go!!”

While Papyrus struggled and pleaded, Sans could only glare. He knew it was of no use now. The way she was clutching the empty vial and looking at them, one way or another she was going to drain the laughter out of them, and there was nothing they could do to stop her.

“Oh, such nonsense dearies!” Dropwart chuckled. “Even your simple snickers are worth their weight in gold. You two have just what I’m looking for!”

She suddenly placed the empty vial on the shelf next to them. She held up both of her hands, the mischievous look on her face never faltering.

“But … if you need a little more energy … I bet I can give you a hand!”

With two distinct popping sounds, Dropwart’s hands completely disconnected from her wrists and jumped down to the floor crawling around like two giant lime green spiders.

Sans and Papyrus practically jolted out of their bonds in surprise. Being skeletons, they too could disconnect their hands and feet when necessary. But this was the very last thing they had expected from a being of flesh and blood. Her wrists didn’t appear hurt by this at all, they were just left as two green stumps at the end of her arms. Clearly, she had done this before.

The two disconnected hands immediately scurried towards Papyrus, quickly crawling up his legs and heading towards his upper body with intense speed. Papyrus shrieked and cringed with disgust at the sight, but as the perfectly-tipped nails made contact with his ribs, he found that he couldn’t stop himself from giggling.

“EEK!! Ahaha! No! Nyahahahaha!! N-Nohoho! Get them off meheeheehee!!”

The hands stopped just under opposite sides of his underarms. One hand began crawling across the entirety of his ribcage with lightning speed. The other one stayed put, scratching under his right underarm.

Papyrus giggled frantically and tugged at the restraints. The idea of being tickled by uncontrollable disembodied hands made him horribly uncomfortable, and to make matters worse, they were both highly skilled when it came to tickling.

“Nyahahahahaha!! Pl-Plehehease!! Hahahaha!! Please stahahahap!! Ahahahaha!!” he pleaded, squealing every time a nail would graze a sensitive spot on his ribs. “Plehehehehehease!! This—ahaha!! Th-This is ahahahahawful!! Nyahahahahaha!!”

Sans looked on in horror as the hands tickled mercilessly at Papyrus’s upper body. He pulled at his own restraints, a newfound resolve taking hold of him in wanting to rescue his brother. But no matter how hard he pulled, the ropes wouldn’t budge an inch. He looked back at Papyrus, expecting to find the same smoke trailing out of his mouth for Dropwart to collect. But to his surprise, nothing was happening. She didn’t even have a vial ready, her hands were too busy tickling Papyrus.

Sans sharply turned as he heard a subtle hissing sound. The Magenta Snake was looking at him, a look of greed dancing in the light of its piercing eyes. Sans felt himself starting to squirm as the snake began slithering towards him. He kept his sockets locked on the serpent, wishing with all of his might that he could kick at it, lunge at it, do anything that would scare it away, but it continued to creep towards him, feathery tongue flicking away teasingly.

“St-Stay back!” Sans timidly snapped. The snake continued moving forward, completely ignoring his warning. “I mean it! You stay away!”

At last, the Magenta Snake lay in front of him, only a few inches away. If Sans wasn’t bound to the wooden stake, he would have been able to reach out and touch it. Or more specifically, reach out and punch it in the nose. For what felt like an eternity, he and the brightly colored serpent just stared at each other, the reptile refused to blink or look away for even a second. That’s when Sans realized … it was quiet. Papyrus’s laughter had ceased, and the younger skeleton was now taking deep inhalations.

In the heat of the moment, Sans suddenly felt two very distinct hands start digging into his underarms, tickling away with reckless abandon.

“WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AHAHAHAHAHA!! NO—NAHAHAHAHA!!”

The older skeleton erupted with laughter as the disembodied hands scribbled mercilessly at his defenseless underarms. He wasn’t even aware that a bright blue smoke was trailing out of his mouth until he felt the hands lifting away from his sensitive tickle spot and start crawling down the sides of his body.

As the hands reconnected with Dropwart’s wrists, she giggled to herself as she reached for the vial to collect the second type of laughter from Sans.

“Ohoho! The old ‘distract ‘em, attack ‘em’! I just love that one!” she beamed proudly at the Magenta Snake as it nuzzled its broad snout into the side of her dress. “Nicely done, my pet!”

The blue smoke emitting from Sans’s mouth immediately funneled into the glass vial before Dropwart sealed it up with another cork. Sans read the label just before she was able to take the glass bottle back to the table. It read: ‘Outburst’. Sans growled bitterly at the old witch, he felt so played. If only he could tell which kind of laughter she was going for next, maybe he could find a way to predict what she was going to pull next to drag it out of them. But she was clearly experienced with this kind of thing, he knew she wasn’t going to simply let slip what her next move was.

“That’s two!” she cheered as she placed the glowing blue vial next to the red one. “Now, I think I’ll need something special for this one.”

The brothers watched in helpless anticipation as she pondered over the various tools laid across the wooden table. They held their breath, wincing with fear whenever her fingers would graze across a particularly deadly-looking instrument.

“Ah-ha! That’s the ticket!” She held up a large paintbrush, twirling it around in her fingers before staring intently back at Papyrus. “I think this will work nicely on you.”

To an extent, the skeletons were relieved that it hadn’t been something worse like the hairbrush or the toothbrush. But still, the bristles on the end of the paintbrush looked to be incredibly soft, and not knowing what she was planning still left them in a state of panic. Papyrus whimpered and squirmed as she approached him, still twirling the paintbrush between her fingers.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, deary,” she said in a soft tone, motioning for the Lilac Snake to come slithering next to her. “I’m afraid these old bones of mine are too tired to be bending over.”

POP!

Papyrus gasped, his eyes wide with a look of complete shock and horror. At first, Sans didn’t know what had happened. He just stood there watching Papyrus’s expression suddenly change, his Soul nearly froze not knowing what was going on. Then he noticed the tail of the Lilac Snake slithering away with something wrapped up in its coils. Sans, in turn, let out a shocked gasp when he realized what it had … it was Papyrus’s left foot.

With little effort or risk, both brothers are able to physically remove parts of their bodies. Once their chosen appendage is disconnected, however, they are unable to move them around until they are properly reconnected with the rest of them. They can still feel everything that happens, which meant that Papyrus’s foot was now totally helpless and in the clutches of a tickle-hungry witch.

“Oh no … no!” Papyrus whimpered as he watched the Lilac Snake drop his foot into Dropwart’s open palm. “No! You can’t!” He started uselessly pulling at the restraints again, panic engulfing his bones.

“Give him his foot back, right now!” Sans growled, also struggling hopelessly against the ropes.

“Oh, I’ll give it back … after I do this of course!” She gave the underside of Papyrus’s toes a quick swipe of the paintbrush. As expected, the bristles were incredibly soft, and unbearably ticklish.

“EEK!!” Papyrus shrieked.

“Pap! Hold your breath!” Sans instructed.

Papyrus did as he was told, inhaling a deep breath into his cheekbones. Both of them knew that it wasn’t going to last, and it most certainly wasn’t going to deter Dropwart from trying. But it was the only thing either of them could think of in the heat of the moment.

“Oh no you don’t!”

Dropwart eagerly swiped the paintbrush under Papyrus’s toes again. The younger skeleton’s eyes bugged out as a tiny whimper snuck out of him. She continued the motion of dragging the paintbrush back and forth under his toes, greedily eating up every single one of Papyrus’s muffled reactions.

“My, my, my!” she cruelly teased as she began wriggling the bristles between his toes. “You can’t move at all, can you?”

More than anything Papyrus wanted to curl and wiggle his toes. Even though it would do nothing to alleviate the horrid tickling sensations, the physical venting would at least help a little. But to his dismay, his toes remained still and practically lifeless. Helpless to every swipe and bristle the tickling paintbrush had to offer.

Papyrus threw his head back with his sockets shut tight. He lightly banged the back of his skull against the wooden stake as he trembled. The paintbrush wasn’t the worst tickle tool in the world, and his feet weren’t as ticklish as places like his spine or upper body. But more than anything, he just didn’t want to give Dropwart any more of the ‘ingredients’ that she needed.

“Just hang on, Pap,” Sans quietly encouraged him, though he knew the worst was yet to come.

“Well, if you’re gonna be stubborn, then I’ll just have to get you up here, then!” Dropwart pulled the paintbrush out, and proceeded to brush along the tops of Papyrus’s toes. “Tickle tickle tickle!” she teased.

“Nyaaaaaaah!! Ahahahahahahaha!! Ohohoh nooo!! Hahahaha!! Nonononononohoho!! Nahahat thehehere!! Heeheeheeheehee!!”

If Dropwart’s teasing coos weren’t enough, the tops of Papyrus’s toes were even worse than the underside. Although he wasn’t in a position where he could freely bend his toes anyway, he knew that even if he could, he wouldn’t have been able to use them to protect the tops of his toes.

“Ha! I knew that would getcha!” Dropwart cackled. “But that’s a little bit much for me, deary. I’m afraid I’m gonna need something a little bit lighter.”

To their surprise, Dropwart moved the paintbrush back down to the underside of Papyrus’s toes. She swirled and swiped the bristles under and between them, causing Papyrus’s laughter to soften as he released frantic spurts of giggles.

“Eeeeheeheeheehee!! Nohohohoho!! Quihihihihit it!! Nyahahaha!! It-It stihihihill tickles!! Heeheeheeheehee!!” Papyrus chuckled as his upper body squirmed.

It didn’t make any sense to either of them. Clearly the tops of Papyrus’s toes were more ticklish than the bottom side, so why switch it up after finally getting him to break? Sans figured it out once he started seeing the red smoke pouring from Papyrus’s mouth again. She wasn’t yet after the boisterous laughter like for the vial that read ‘Belly Laughter’. She was still warming them up for that by collecting softer chuckles. Sure enough, the vial that collected Papyrus’s red smoke read; ‘Giggling’.

Then Sans got to thinking. His own toes were a lot more ticklish than Papyrus’s, what would have happened had she gone after him instead? She wouldn’t have been able to get any of his giggling, that was for sure. She seemed to know the exact spot that would elicit the perfect giggle from his brother, but the question was how?

“Now let’s see…,” she pondered after placing the full vial of smoke next to the others. She turned to look back and forth between the two skeletons before settling her eyes on Sans. Grinning deviously, she grabbed the next empty bottle in one hand before handing Papyrus’s foot back to the Lilac Snake.

“Please see to it that this gets returned my dear,” she said slyly, never taking her gaze off of the older skeleton. “I do believe I need something from this one now.”

Sans couldn’t help but squirm, she hated the way she was staring at him. Such greedy hunger in those piercing golden eyes. Her toothy grin ensuring nothing but mischief and mayhem. He could just tell, she was going to have way too much fun with whatever she was planning to do with him.

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, I’m not interested,” Sans retorted boldly, still glaring at the old woman with utter disdain.

“Oh, you don’t have to be, deary. All I need from you is your precious laughter!” She stopped in front of him, teasingly wiggling her fingers directly over his body.

Sans tensed up, the physical teasing affecting him more than he cared to admit. He half-expected her hands to pop off again, or for the levitating feathers to come back to life. But to his surprise, she lunged for him, tickling at his ribs with her hands still attached.

“AAGH!! Ahahahahaha!! Nohohohohoho!! Hahahahahaha!! Get ahahahahaff!! Hahaha!! Get off of meheeheeheehee!! Ahahahaha!!”

There was no hope of holding back for this one. Sans’s ribs were horribly sensitive, and Dropwart’s perfect nails were well-practiced and skilled in the tickling technique. It was a dangerous combination for the poor laughing skeleton.

“Aww, does that tickle, deary?” Dropwart teased as she skittered her nails along the different parts of Sans’s ribcage. “Well, what about here? Yeah? And here? Oh, that must tickle a LOT, huh?”

Dropwart’s verbal teasing was already causing Sans’s sockets to tear up, he was so caught up in the unbearable laughing fit that he didn’t even notice. He hated how sensitive his rib bones were, they never failed to throw him into a blind panic.

“Stahahahahahap ihihihihit!!” Sans screeched. “Dohohohohon’t—ahahahaha!! Don’t—Dohohohon’t tehehehehease!! Ahahahahahaha!!”

“Leave him alone!” Papyrus shouted, still trying his best to break free.

“Oh, don’t worry, deary, we’ll get to you later.” Dropwart smirked at the younger skeleton. “Now where is that spot, huh?”

Although it was clear that she was having a blast tickling at Sans’s ribs with her own two hands, it became clear that Dropwart was in search of something. Papyrus would notice how much time she would spend on one particular spot before turning to another spot giving it that same vigorous treatment. He wasn’t sure what it was she wanted out of Sans, but she wouldn’t stop teasing and tickling him until she would get it.

“Plehehehehehehease!!”

Sans laughter started trailing off into desperate-sounding wheezes. He didn’t know if that’s what she wanted out of him, but at this point he would have done anything to give her the next missing ingredient. Just to make the torture on his ribs stop.

“Plehehehehease!! Please stahahahahahap!! Ahahahahaha!! I-I cahahahan’t…!”

Dropwart finally let her hands up as Sans fell into silent laughter. Her giddy expression of enjoyment was replaced by one of confusion.

“I just don’t get it,” she replied, looking the older skeleton up and down. “I just know that was supposed to get you snorting.”

Sans inhaled sharply, suddenly it made sense. She was after his snorting spot. He felt the spaces in between his ribs starting to tingle just at the thought of it. He silently prayed that his subtle reaction hadn’t immediately tipped her off to where the spot was located. His mind buzzed with confusion. How could she possibly know that his snorting spot was located around the ribcage?

The sharp hissing sound of the Lilac Snake jostled Sans out of his racing thoughts. It eagerly slithered towards Sans without silencing its hissing dialogue. Sans glanced over at Dropwart, who had turned her head towards the serpent listening intently. A sinking feeling of dread began forming in Sans’s bones as he remembered what the serpent had done to him before dragging him to the cottage.

“Well, you don’t say!” Dropwart exclaimed, turning back towards Sans with a knowing smirk on her face. “Alright my pet. Proceed.”

Before Sans had a chance to protest, the Lilac Snake once again shoved its enormous head under Sans’s shirt.

“Oh no! No! No—AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!” Sans shrieked with renewed laughter as he felt the familiar feeling of the snake’s feathery tongue slipping between his ribs. “NAHAHAHAHAHA!! STAHAHAHAP!! N-NAHAHAT AGAHAHAHAHAIN!!”

Sans erupted with a fit of snorting laughter. Every sharp inhale was met with a louder and louder burst from his nasal cavity, and there was absolutely nothing he could do to control it

Dropwart eagerly collected the blue smoke that poured out of his mouth in little bursts. It was a slightly larger vial than the rest, so she cruelly took her time filling it up to the brim. She fastened the cork onto the glass container firmly before giving the Lilac Snake a steady pat on the back.

“Thank you, my pet. I believe that will do.”

The Lilac Snake gave Sans one last harsh little hiss against his ribs before slinking out of his shirt to return to its owner’s side. Sans shrieked in response before falling limp against the wooden stake. His body greedily swallowing huge gulps of air, as he tried to blink away fresh tears.

“H…. How…?” he breathed out, his question causing Dropwart to pause. “How … did you … know … about … my ribs…?”

“Well … why don’t you take in a deep breath and hold it?” Dropwart replied with a coy smile. Sans responded with an unamused scowl, obviously not in the mood for any more tricks. “Go on,” Dropwart insisted “Take a big breath and hold it until it feels as though you could burst.”

Sans was hesitant, almost certain that this was another one of her schemes to get more laughter out of him. But still … he wanted answers, and it wasn’t like there was anything they could do to stop her. So he inhaled sharply, holding the air within his cheekbones. At first nothing happened, he could feel the pressure starting to rise in his chest, so he clenched his fists together in an attempt to ignore it. He suddenly heard Papyrus take in a sharp inhalation of his own.

“Sans…,” his brother said, shakily. “You’re … glowing.”

Sans’s sockets flew open, he looked down at his body. Sure enough various areas of his body were glowing that same violet color as the sweet-smelling liquid in the cauldron. Some spots were showing up more intensely than others. His underarms, which was one of his most sensitive areas, was glowing brightly. Meanwhile, less ticklish spots like his hips were much more dull in terms of light.

Sans looked up to see Dropwart proudly patting her cauldron, and it all made sense. Ever since stepping into this cursed cottage, Sans and his brother had been inhaling the overly-saturated sweetness of that bubbling potion. Now with the aroma firmly planted into their system, Dropwart could see clearly which spots of their bodies were the most ticklish.

In a total panic, Sans looked down to where the grooves of his back were located. Sure enough, his most ticklish secret spot was the most illuminated part of his body.

“It’s my most favorite spell.” Dropwart beamed down at the bubbling potion. “I never do anything without it. Now … shall we continue?” She picked up another vial from the wooden table, along with her twisted black wand.

As she approached the struggling skeletons, Dropwart looked back and forth between the brothers and the vial. Her expression pondering and perplexed.

“Hmm…,” she hummed in thought. “This will require some belly laughter, but … it looks like we don’t have bellies to work with, my dearies.”

“See?” Papyrus immediately spoke up. “I told you we didn’t have what you needed! Now let us go!”

“Right!” Sans added. “No bellies, no belly laughter, nothing you can do about it!”

“Oh no?” Dropwart’s smile returned slyly. “I can see those spines of yours aren’t too ticklish on their own … so maybe we can just fix that.”

She swiftly grabbed a hefty burlap bag off of the top shelf. Holding it open, Sans could see a sparkling pink substance on the inside. Immediately it reminded him of the fairies’ Tickle Dust and he started to panic.

“What…. What is that? What is that?! What are you doing?!” He pulled and pulled at his restraints. Despite knowing full well that he wasn’t going anywhere, fear completely overtook him and all of his actions.

Dropwart dipped the twisted black wand into the bag of sparkling powder and steadily swirled it around. When she pulled it back out, the wand was coated in the pink glittering powder. There was no doubt in the skeleton’s minds, she had her own special supply of the dangerous dust, and she was going to use it at full force.

She aimed the now sparkling wand at the brother’s midsections and gave it a gentle flick. The pink glittering substance flew from the tip of the wand and landed with an audible ‘POOF’ onto both of their spines.

Laughter exploded out of the skeletons, they could physically feel their bodies shake and jolt with every powerful inhale and exhale that pounded out of them. It was the strangest sensation feeling how immensely ticklish their spines had become, and with nothing there to even be tickling them no less.

While Papyrus had always struggled with how sensitive his spine was, as it was closest to his sweet spot, the sensation was all too new to Sans. Now it was on the same playing field as his underarms, and he absolutely hated it.

As the skeletons flopped around hysterically laughing in their bonds, Dropwart immediately grabbed the larger vial to collect the red and blue smoke that was practically flooding out of the brothers’ mouths. They opened their jaws to let out tearful screams of protest, but all that came out of them was more helpless laughter and more phosphorescent smoke. Dropwart took her sweet time filling up the vial, clearly relishing every moment of watching the poor skeletons writhe in ticklish agony. A look of sickening satisfaction spread across her face each time she heard one of them let out a strained squeal or a breathy cackle.

She loved this, being the cause of their delicious misery, and ultimately being the one that could put an end to it whenever it suited her. Such power looked to be just as intoxicating as the laughter she was forcing out of her victims. The red and blue smoke swirled around in the glass vial, mixing into a bright purple color. It was almost identical to the violet bubbling potion in the cauldron, though not quite exact.

Dropwart secured the cork onto the nearly overflowing vial of laughter, but didn't yet stop her spell on the brothers. Instead, she leaned forward, taking a deep and satisfying breath. The red and blue smoke traveled effortlessly up the nostrils of her long, lime green nose, and left her with an expression of unadulterated bliss. At last, she gave the wand another gentle flick, causing the Tickle Dust and all of its aftereffects to disappear with a 'POOF’!

Sans and Papyrus panted so hard they both started coughing due to the rapid inhales hitting the back of their throats. They wheezed and spluttered, desperately trying to regain their normal breathing again. Exhausted and anxious, they looked up to see Dropwart placing the purple vial next to the others, wasting no time grabbing the next one in line. There were only two left, and neither of them wanted to know what it took to extract the last two forms of laughter.

“These last two are most definitely my favorite part of the job,” she mused, playing with the second-to-last bottle in her hand.

By the devilish look in her eyes, the brothers could just tell that this was going to be very bad. She stood between the two of them, carefully looking each one up and down. Sans felt so exposed and vulnerable, knowing full well that she could see every inch of their tickle spots on full display. Finally, she stepped in front of Papyrus, causing the younger skeleton to shake with anxiety.

“I’ve had such fun watching you giggle and wriggle around!” Dropwart cooed, teasing Papyrus by tenderly tracing a finger down his skull and neck.

Papyrus whined and tried squirming away from her touch. Fury flashed in Sans’s gaze, watching his brother be toyed with this way. He knew better than to waste his energy struggling, but he couldn’t seem to help himself whenever Papyrus was at risk.

With another twirl of the wand, the pastel feathers that were still resting on the floor around them came back to life. They purposefully hovered over Papyrus as the younger skeleton let out a quiet whimper of fear. He flashed a desperate look at Dropwart as the witch spoke with a teasing tone again.

“That spot right there, is it? Where the hips meet the spine?”

Papyrus’s jaw dropped in horror, immediately he began to panic and fight against the ropes with everything he had. Dropwart grinned evilly, her suspicions confirmed by his reaction.

“NOOOOOO!! PLEASE!! PLEASE DON’T!!” Papyrus pleaded, tears already falling down his cheeks. “I’LL DO ANYTHING!! JUST PLEASE NOT THAT!!”

Sans in turn pulled even harder against the ropes, growling and grunting with frustration.

“Don’t you dare!” he threatened. “Don’t lay a single finger on him!!”

Dropwart only chuckled in reply. “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, deary … that’s what these are for!”

With another flick of the wand, the large group of feathers danced and swirled and twirled around Papyrus’s secret sweet spot. The younger skeleton was immediately lost in a spasming fit of laughter, screaming, crying and thrashing. Completely hysterical and unable to utter a single cohesive word.

“NYAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!! N-N-NAHAHAHAHA!!! AGH!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! STAHAHAHA…!! PL-PLE-AHAHAHAHAHA!!”

It didn’t take long for the red smoke to immediately start pouring out of his open mouth. Dropwart wasted no time funneling it into the large vial, Sans could see the label on the glass container read; ‘Hysterical’. The look of utter delight spread across Dropwart’s wicked expression, as she watched Papyrus struggle and suffer.

Sans pulled so hard, he could feel the rope burning into his bones. But he didn’t care, he had hoped with all of his might that witnessing Papyrus being tortured like this would be the motivation he finally needed to break out of the restraints. But even with his growing resentment towards their new kidnapper, it wasn’t enough to break free. Exhausted and hanging limp against the stake, he watched his brother hopelessly laugh and scream in unbearable ticklish agony.

“Let him GO!!” Sans growled over the sound of his brother’s hysteria.

“All in due time, deary.” Dropwart giggled, watching the vial fill up with Papyrus’s glowing laughter.

“Come … on!” Sans grunted, still struggling against the ropes. “Get off of him!! Don’t touch him, you ugly old crone!!”

In an instant, Dropwart’s face changed. The giddy smile across her face dropped to one of shock as she turned to give Sans a wide-eyed expression. At first, her change in demeanor startled the older skeleton, but he kept his gaze on her spiteful and steaming with hatred. He finally said something that got under her skin, he wasn’t about to take it back now.

As the vial filled to the brim, Dropwart kept her gaze on Sans as she placed the cork on top. Before giving her wand another wave and commanding the feathers to stop, her eyes narrowed to a disdainful expression towards Sans. She glared at him with an intensity that almost matched the one he had for her. As the feathers dropped to the ground again and the room was filled with the sound of Papyrus gasping and coughing for air, Dropwart faced Sans, her voice suddenly low and menacing.

“I think you will be the one to fill the last vial, then.”

Ordinarily, this would be the part where Dropwart would turn away to place the full vial on the table and retrieve another. But this time, as she gripped the glowing red container in her hands, she brought the feathers to life again with another flick of the wand.

In an instant, the pastel cluster of fluffy feathers dived under the back of Sans’s shirt, intruding in from the top of his collar. Just as he had feared, the intense group of feathers headed straight for the grooves of his back. They swished and twirled and brushed and dragged along his ultra-sensitive spot, tickling like mad.

“AAAAAAAGGHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! AHAHAHAHAHA!! NAHAHAHAHA!!! AAAGH!!”

Sans didn’t even try to beg for mercy this time, he knew that this was just her petty revenge for calling her ugly. Bucking and thrashing his body around did nothing to deter the feathers from attacking his vulnerable spot. Tears flew in every direction as he cackled and screeched in total anguish.

To make matters worse, Dropwart didn’t even move to grab ahold of the final vial. She just stood there, evilly watching Sans writhe in ticklish agony with a glaring smirk across her face.

“This is what you get for being rude to your hostess, deary!” she cruelly taunted.

It took a solid minute before Papyrus regained enough breath to properly hold his head up straight. His breathing was still ragged and strained but was steadily returning to normal, at least until he saw Sans. Although he couldn’t see the feathers as they were perfectly hidden down his shirt, the way Sans was struggling combined with the look on his face told him everything.

“What…. What are you … doing?!” Papyrus tried to scream, but his body was too weak from breathing so hard. “You…. You already got … the worst spot … out of me!! L-Let him … go!”

“Oh yes, deary, I got the hysterical laughter from you,” Dropwart replied in a patronizing tone. “But from him, I think I’m gonna need something just a bit more pungent.”

She finally turned back towards the table to replace the full vial with an empty one, leaving poor Sans a laughing, screaming, crying mess. Tears flung in every direction as he rapidly shook his head. Nothing alleviated the flaring tingles that left his body absolutely wracked with laughter.

“Oh Sans….” Papyrus felt so helpless, standing there watching him suffer. More than anything he wanted to break out of the bonds to rescue his brother. Exactly how Sans had always tried to do for him.

It seemed to take forever before Dropwart returned with the empty vial. The minutes went by like hours for poor Sans. His throat was positively worn down and on fire from the shrieking laughter that tore from him. Surprisingly, it hadn’t yet manifested into smoke for Dropwart to collect. A horrified thought raced through the skeleton’s already dizzy mind. What if she needed to do even more to tickle him in addition to getting after his worst spot? If she aimed for any other spots like his feet or underarms, there was no way he could take it! This was already pushing him past the brink of insanity.

He tried to let out a terrified scream, but to his horror, nothing came out but a barely audible squeak. Dropwart looked on eagerly as Sans dissolved into silent laughter. It was so strained and so quiet, they could hear the dripping sound of Sans’s tears hitting the wooden floor.

“There it is,” Dropwart eagerly whispered.

Eventually something finally did spill out of Sans’s mouth, the phosphorescent blue smoke. This time it seemed to glow brighter than any form of laughter that had come out of the brothers before. Sans could only take short little inhalations before practically choking to cough out the quiet chortling.

Thankfully, once the vial was filled to the top with the glowing blue smoke, Dropwart waved her wand to finally put an end to the tickling feathers. Sans inhaled so deeply his bones began to shake. The lingering tingles of the feathers dropping from the back of his shirt caused leftover laughter to come pouring freely from his mouth. His body wracked with quiet sobs and still-bubbling chuckles that threatened to torture him even further.

“Shh, it’s okay Sans,” Papyrus gently comforted. “It’s over, everything’s gonna be okay.”

He wished more than anything that he could reach out to physically comfort him. Poor Sans was so exhausted and weak. Even the act of crying was too strenuous for him to take. Before Dropwart turned back to the table to complete her collection, Papyrus got a good look at the label of the last vial. It read; ‘Silent Laughter’.

With all seven glass vials filled to the brim with the glowing laughter, Dropwart giddily reached for the wooden spoon still resting in the cauldron of bubbling potion. One by one she added each container of laughter, watching the potion hiss and bubble with each new change to its formula. The echoes of the skeleton’s laughter reverberated off the walls of the cottage with every ingredient that was added.

Papyrus watched on in horror, fearful for what she was planning to do with that deadly-looking brew. Sans’s head still hung limply in place, though he was too exhausted to look up, he could still hear the sounds of the contained laughter as Dropwart added them to the mixture. The overly sweet smell of the potion once again overtook the cottage, the aroma was so strong that it almost made Sans sick to his nonexistent stomach.

After what felt like forever, Sans finally had enough strength to lift his head, his breathing slow and steady. He blinked the tears and blurriness from his sockets to see Dropwart pulling out the large wooden spoon from the cauldron. She had scooped up a small amount of the still steaming potion in the spoon. She gently blew cool air over it that immediately extinguished the steam. She gave the violet liquid a satisfied sniff before turning back to the exhausted skeletons.

“It’s ready,” she said eagerly. “Now who wants a taste?”

#Tickletober #Tickletober2024 #Undertale #LaughterLand Story #Sans #Papyrus

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