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stronghours · 11 months ago

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Nice Nurses

Clay could recite to the thread what he’d worn that early-summer brunch at Roscoe’s apartment; the loose, worn cords that were so easy to pull up his legs one-handed with the nice button that behaved in the cute little pants-slot (button eye? Hole, simple-pat? Jules would know, but he hadn’t met Jules just yet, if details were the thing). The cords were light green. Over this, he wore an oversized t-shirt, grey, one he could pull over his head without a battle, and over that a very long-sleeved chambray shirt he did not button because he enjoyed when it billowed behind his underarms. It made him feel like a famous painter, and nothing untoward showed to upset anyone. A recitation by rote and not of recollection, as Clay hadn’t found the need to recollect much for twenty-five years. Why bother, when it was such a pretty May Day, and the sidewalks were beginning to stay warm, and a robin plumped over there, in that very shrub?

And a soiree! How fun! Phil of all people opened the door for him. Strange, since Roscoe was quite host-y about these matters. “Here we are,” Phil said, with his standard dissected warmth. “Now the party’s started.”

“Darling,” said Clay Carrell, “I hope if already has.”

“And fashionably late, too.”

“I arrive, exactly as I have always arrived, when I intend to.”

He took a turn around the front room, received his acknowledgements and the few respectful touches or kisses some guests felt fit to grant him. He breezed by the goody table (it wasn’t nice manners to show undue interest in the food, directly after your entrance) and treated himself to a peep out the window. Roscoe did not have curtains to sensuously fling aside, a pity. Roscoe!

“Where, now?” He asked Bo G., who unlike others, solidly clapped Clay’s trim shoulder.

“He’s in the damn kitchen.” Bo G. understood him perfectly. “With that damn kid.”

Clay knew, theoretically, about the presence of a damn kid, but memory lay in the eye of the beholder and Clay had never managed to see him. He’d heard bizarre rumors Roscoe kept him stuffed in the shop basement; Clay thought that was a senseless place to store a child. Knowing now he must see at last, off he swanned to the kitchen entryway toward the damp clatter and crash of soapy dishware. He rapped the doorframe smartly. “Now you,” he said, “you, who did not answer your own door! I see you now!”

“Oh Clay,” Roscoe half-turned, smiled vaguely, and held up his bubbling hands. “That’s Clay,” he said to the long, young creature beside him who dangled on a tall stool. It didn’t answer. Clay thought that was only fair, as half the child’s face was a healing fog of yellows and burgundies and eggplant, all in evil gradients, descending from a half-swollen blue-skinned eye before dispersing and reconnecting among a strip of unbecoming, hairy stitches encrusted smack in the middle of the cheek. It could hardly have hurt to tape some nice white gauze over it, but not everyone knew the niceties of Gloria Vanderbilt as well as Clay.

“Clay,” Roscoe continued in the solid, directorial voice he affected whenever Clay was in the room, “Clay, this is Jules. I don’t think you two have run into each other.”

“I am so incredibly charmed,” Clay said. He noticed right away that Jules was looking down, with a teenager’s cruel intent, to work out if Clay’s squashy white shoes truly fastened together with Velcro. “Hideous whispers informed me you were stuck in a basement somewhere. I’m so glad you’re not; people belong aboveground.”

Titters in the room behind Clay. The events could have been connected; he was a witty person. “I can see you’re being very helpful to our lovely man – that’s fine, Roscoe works too hard to arrange the fun then misses out on it.” He scanned automatically over the child’s hands, which were long and battered, adolescently screwboned. He didn’t store them awkwardly like other wallflowers.

Clay felt keen, momentarily. “What do you play?”

The child’s one fully open eye was merely surface-bright and dark and blank. “Piano,” he said. He talked out one side of his mouth and his teeth didn’t show when he spoke.

“You do?” Roscoe was surprised. Their acquaintance was, apparently, short.

Clay dandled his stronger hand in front of his chest. “No-no,” he clarified, “you play?”

“Instruments,” Roscoe tried.

“Cards, my darling.”

“Oh.” The child – J name, Clay would need to hear it a few more times before it could be swallowed – cupped his hands and touched his thumbs together, the poor form of shuffling. “Right. I play.”

“What’s your special?”

“Anything.”

“How did you learn?”

“Old people.”

Clay, delighted, clapped his stronger palm against his weak knuckles. “Marvelous,” he declared. “They’re the best teachers because they’ve played so long – and so sour about it! I bet you have superior attention span to other babies your age. I bet you could play me right now. Roscoe?”

The little foundling looked to Roscoe. Either through injury or through stupidity, his face didn’t appear to express much.

“Sure, you should go and play if you want to play,” Roscoe encouraged. “I got it covered here.”

Clay always made sure he had large pockets, and he always carried a pack on him if suspected a social situation. He steered the child through the crowd out front – everybody seemed to be looking their way with one big grin – directly to the tiny second room and gestured for the magazines to be cleared off one of the end tables. “And pull up that little chair for your young bones,” he bossed. “And I will sit on the couch, and then we will play Gin Rummy – consider this your audition.”

Two men sharing the same chair in the corner yelped together. “Don’t let Frank hear you saying that, Clay!”

“Leave Frank to me.” Clay dismissed them all and cut the deck one handed. He braced his other wrist as firmly as he could against the table, to use it as a base to shuffle against. At this point, those who didn’t know Clay generally said please, I can do that for you! But this one just stared at the feat.

“Now.” Clay settled in after he served out two shares of ten and established the discard. “You must remind me of your name again, and then you may draw first, seeing as you’re brand new.”

“Jules,” said Jules. He drew and then discarded an ace of hearts, which Clay’s brain filed away of its own accord, along with the name as well, if he was lucky.

Clay graciously helped himself through three rounds of passive, plodding gameplay on Jules’ part. He appeared to be thinking merely through muscle memory and allowed Clay to initiate the knocks. Several times he failed to spot where his deadwood coincided with Clay’s melds, requiring a sporting nudge of the shoe on Clay’s part, who briefly worried, after three Gins, that despite the automatic nature of his play, the boy was a little stupid after all. Then he looked round and noticed three other gentlemen had thronged alongside the two on the chair and were absorbing the proceedings quite immodestly – a relief, the only problem at present being the teenage disease of self-consciousness.

“For goodness sakes.” Clay snapped his fingers, a rudeness he did not like to resort to. “If you please?”

The attention dispersed and they continued.

“You can’t mind people when they don’t even know what we’re doing,” Clay suggested.

“I can do whatever I want,” Jules muttered, rude enough. Clay wondered if he was in pain. He was playing one-handed himself, insistently rubbing the unblotted side of his jaw, and he kept jerking his chin apropos to nothing. Whenever a partygoer wandered into the room all these tics would halt for a time, before forcibly sputtering through his body to reignite the cycle. The agitation made him more aggressive in play, and Clay gradually realized he had (pardon his French) a real bitch on his hands. Frank’s opinion be damned – he’d get along just fine.

Now he just needed an opening to extend the invitation, but Clay was not much of a talker in play, and Jules seemed to mirror him. Roscoe wandered in with two orange juice glasses, the dearheart, and being the sensitive kind, left without pestering – minus a small jab at Clay. “You’re not wearing your bracelet,” he scolded.

“It’s ugly,” Clay explained. “Now, you can see we’re busy.”

Roscoe put a brief hand to Jules’ shoulder, who only looked up when he departed. He peered with sudden plaintiveness past Clay’s shoulder, then downward, spotting a folded napkin Roscoe had placed beside his cards. His face absented itself again. Without an expression, the wounds on his face became ghastlier and stood out sharply, deeply nuzzled as they were in winter-sallow skin, teenage skin or no. It was difficult to tell if, after healing, he would be pretty or ugly.

“You came to us very suddenly, I hear,” Clay said.

“I don’t want to know what you heard.” Jules spoke decisively through pink teeth and put the napkin to the corner of his mouth because he was, Clay finally noticed, bleeding. Clay discarded this data as a distraction.

“You’re a lucky little boy,” Clay continued, as Jules’ eyes revolved nastily around the room. “Roscoe is a very nice person. I myself am part of a very exclusive club, that could benefit you socially.”

“Oh, thure.”

“Oh, yeth. Did your old people teach you how to play bridge?”

“Hell,” Jules said. “Since, like, ten? Whatever.” He sipped from the orange juice, pulled an awful, squint-eyed face, and shook his head very slowly. The rim of the glass came away red and slimy and he was reluctant to swallow. “My gran had her old ladies, and I had to round out the play. My boyfriend’s mom played too –” It took him forever, in this state, to spit out the words and without the scaffold of cardplay, Clay had to mentally sweat to grasp the information. “– But he didn’t like me to play with her.”

“Who?”

“My boyfriend didn’t like –”

“Oh, forget him.” Clay waved away all these superfluous people. “I won’t allow almost ten years of experience to be sneezed at.”

He laid out the parameters of the card club to Jules, who rested the unharmed side of his face against balled knuckles and appeared to doze right through it. “They won’t like it,” he murmured, after Clay outlined the sparkling personalities of Frank F., Bo G. (introduced) and numerous others. “They’ll say I’m too young. And I’m tired of old people.”

“But you’re used to them.” Clay, a smooth fifty-five, considered himself a world apart from Frank and Bo.

“I’m doing stuff for Roscoe. I need to find a real job, too.”

“We meet multiple times a week – we have many people to satisfy!”

Jules’ slit eyes popped wide. He gradually lifted himself from his worn slouch. Clay noted Phil’s dour presence piercing his shoulder, and a bowl of pretzels placed sacrilegiously over the discard pile. “Give it up,” Phil said, in his never-ending mildness – amused by everything, and happy about none of it. “Bo already knows what you’re up to with our battered bride. He told me Frank’s gonna rip you a new one after he tattles.”

“Frank can’t rip his own farts,” Clay said. “He suffered chilblains in his youth.”

“I’ll tell him that for you and save you the trouble.”

“A number of people would!” Quite a few in fact, following Phil’s scalpel-edged lead, had taken the second room for open and were dousing it in separate conversations. Jules sat far back in his seat as if to observe, but Phil was the only one he kept his healthy eye on.

“Who’s winning?” Phil directed the question to Clay but put a hand against Jules’ spine and squeezed snappily. Jules twisted away.

“I am,” Clay said, modestly as possible. “But I have many unfair advantages. I’m on the home team. And being as I’m vice-president of the club –”

Jules worked his jaw until it clicked. His hand jerked toward his chin, but he caught himself and fished for the pretzels instead, which he gnawed on uneasily. The color he’d possessed, unattractive as it had been, had drained from his face leaving him claylike and nervous.

“–With all privileges,” Clay continued, “afforded to me thereof, regarding membership –”

Jules gagged – an abrupt and distinctly un-partylike sound that silenced the room in an instant – and as easily as if he were part of the organic conversation occurring between Clay and Phil, he sat forward and ejected a neat spout of blood from his mouth, dirtying the juice and the cards, and overtop all this he spat and scattered a single sharp dirty pearl of a tooth.

The blood put pause deep in Clay’s gut, but, he noted, the color returned rapidly to Jules’ face, a vast improvement too; his body must have been relieved to rid itself of the little nag. The boy automatically wiped his speckled chin, but he’d already put his fingers through the mess on the table. He couldn’t take his eyes off the tooth. Neither could Phil.

“I believe we need a napkin,” Clay said to the room at large – certainly everybody could look, but nobody would do! The problem of crowds. Phil stepped back. He smiled, for whatever mysterious reason people behaved untowardly in odd social situations.

Jules simply got up, his hand politely clasped over his gushing mouth, and calmly left the room as though he’d been called away.

“For goodness sakes.” Clay followed suit; He had the vague inclination he must find Roscoe, to play mother. He left the cards and dental trash for others to sort – people had a bad habit of tidying up after him.

Once, a stranger’s voice floated up behind, I knew a guy who told me it was better the less teeth they had –

“Shut up Louis,” Phil’s voice responded, uncommonly hard. “I’m tired of hearing about what you’ve been told.”

“He’s too young!” Frank F. barked.

“I’m young – almost the youngest one here.” Clay sipped his coffee, which he didn’t like, but drank during card meetings for conviviality. It was important to belong to the group. “And an injection of youth and energy could be what we, as a gathering, have been yearning for.”

Frank glared around the folding table, at anybody on the committee who had dared to yearn without disclosing the fact. “Well?” He demanded. “Who’s found our energy wanting?”

“We’ve been in odd numbers for two months,” Alan M. helpfully pointed out. “Bo doesn’t have a partner, since Gregory.”

“Gregory. Right there.” Frank pointed. “Started here in his sixties, unretired, and I had my doubts – too young!”

“For god’s sake Frank,” Clay said. “The man dropped dead.”

“He couldn’t handle the stress.”

“Cease with Gregory,” Alan (sixties) requested, rubbing his chest anxiously. “Gives me the creeps.”

“I’ve never set eyes on this fabled kid,” Frank said. “Just how young is he?”

Clay, who had pumped Roscoe for information, drew this one out, for his own pleasure. Everybody leaned forward.

“Oh,” he said, with delicacy. “Around, say, nineteen or so.”

Frank bashed the table with his fist. “There!” He roared. “Too young!”

“A very new nineteen, at that – at least Roscoe says so.”

Frank F., overwhelmed with passion, got up and left the room to do something loud and rackety in the kitchen. Clay sat back and basked while everybody fought it out, not worried a jot. Committee days were so stimulating.

“Young is one thing, Clay,” said Alan, conveniently as Frank returned to the table. “A teenager is a whole other thing.”

“Half a thing,” Frank declared.

“He’ll have to be working,” Bo G. said. "He'll be hopping jobs. No consistent schedule."

“He’s going to get his first fucking boyfriend,” Frank added, “and the second that happens – goodbye, card club!”

“Oh, he’s already had a boyfriend.” Clay had no idea how he knew this – maybe he was lying. “And he’s not bound to get another for a while – I saw him at Roscoe’s brunch, and he looks very ugly.”

Frank turned to Bo. “He’s ugly?” He demanded.

Bo G., perhaps taking his own pleasure, took a long time to put his coffee down. “I saw him at Roscoe’s too. He’s not ugly. Somebody just worked his face over damn good.”

Frank jabbed his finger at Clay. “He’s going to heal up,” he predicted. “And bam – a boyfriend!”

“Who worked him over?” Alan asked, alarmed. “Somebody here?”

The facts, from Roscoe, were few enough, but Clay had written them down to assist his memory. He took out his little spiral pad. “Not here,” he soothed. “He arrived – approximately a month ago – from Indiana – probably nineteen –”

“Probably?”

“The bad thing happened; no Alan, I don’t know who – and voila – arrives at Roscoe’s. Who is kind enough, mind you, to lend a helping hand to a helpless, ugly urchin.”

“If Roscoe had any damn brains,” Bo said, “he’d find some understanding lady or a dyke, so he could work out these fatherly instincts in a less disruptive way.”

“Dykes want to keep their own babies – they’re the ones looking at us gents.”

“That’s what Martin did,” Bo said, pulling the empty mugs together into a friendly group at the center of the table. “Got pinned by some girl, not long after Val died, remember. What, ’88? – he’d carry this stacked blonde girl in with him from New York, when he came to visit Roscoe and Phil. Knocked her up and had to follow her to San Francisco.”

“Who?” Clay asked politely.

“Nobody expects you to remember important things,” Frank snapped. Such a shot, in mixed company, would have inspired somebody to scold Frank, but in the confines of the card committee, Clay was left to fend for himself, which was bliss – for Clay, polite, socially able, a smart dresser, a knower of vocab and etiquette, and demon card shark, was also tough. Most people had forgotten.

“His grandmother taught him to play when he was ten,” Clay announced. “He’s been playing as part of a group for years. Among other games, if we’d like him for our mixed open house – I played a two-on-two with him at Roscoe’s brunch before disaster struck, and he’s perfectly teachable. The groundwork is all there.”

“Disaster?” Frank was no dummy, unfortunately.

“Oh.” Clay flapped his hand at the inconvenient details. “Nothing. He lost a tooth and was mortified.”

“He’s still losing his baby teeth. It’s going to look like an elementary school in here.”

He spoke like a man who’d already made his decision. Everybody hopped on the ball, but Frank held them in suspense. He gave the floor to Bo.

“Considering,” he said, “You’re the one short a partner. This is an egalitarian club.”

Clay, who’d known from the start he would win, let his attention drift. Bo G., maybe unaware yet of the victory, worked it out to himself. He turned to Clay. “He’s not a complete dumbass, is he?”

“Haven’t the slightest.”

“Oh, go to hell.” Bo stood up and gathered up the bouquet of mugs. “Let the kid in. Let’s see what happens.”

“What,” Alan suggested, “would Gregory say about being replaced by a nineteen-year-old?”

“The problem with death is that’s it’s boring,” Bo G. mumbled to himself, as he stumped toward the kitchen. “Jesus Frank, what did you do in here?”

“I love egalitarianism,” Clay chirped. “It always seems to mean I win.”

Frank F. rubbed his spotted temples. “Clay,” he requested, “just shut the hell up.”

Months along, Clay Carrell tripped down a burning sunny sidewalk on his way somewhere – to Roscoe, maybe – it was a beautiful day again and he needed no reason to be out and about, as an independent man.

He passed by a line of parking jobs and as curiosity merited, he peeped into the windows until coming upon a mouse-colored car that still contained its driver. Clay peeked closer and to his delight, recognized Jules, even though his face was turned away and resting on his folded arms against the steering wheel.

Clay rapped the window. Jules jumped and shouted, saw Clay, and slouched back against the seat. The window buzzed.

“Don’t scare me, oh my god.”

“You’re a silly child,” Clay pronounced. “Because there’s nothing to be frightened of. Where are you going?”

Jules glanced around him, as if surprised to find he was still in the car. “I don’t know,” he said. “Somewhere, I guess.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I don’t know where I’m going either.” Clay trotted around to the passenger seat and helped himself inside – the door was unlocked. “You should secure that if you’re just going to loiter,” Clay said. “Any stranger could help themselves inside and do away with you.”

“You just said there’s nothing to be scared of.”

“You should always obey your instincts,” Clay advised. He buckled his seatbelt. “One of the first things I was taught, on independent living, was to lock the door behind me. I put a sticky-note on the wall to remind me, for that very purpose. Naturally I don’t need that anymore. Now, let’s be off.”

“Where?”

Irritated by this passiveness, Clay swept his hand at the potted road. Endless possibilities! Jules turned the key, and off they popped. What a relief, Clay thought, to be moving somewhere faster than usual. He checked the sun, saw they were heading vaguely west, and that was enough for him, context-wise. He settled back to let the young people do the work.

Jules, for his part, looked mildly amused, his usual expression around Clay. Driving a car, he looked more relaxed than Clay had ever seen. His face, a few months down the line, had healed in fits and starts, and now struggled to throw off the scrubby laceration on one cheek, and a stubborn blackened crescent hung on the bone underneath the eye. To the disappointment of the committee, Jules was not ugly – when the swelling cooled off, he was a fine-faced youth with a hawk nose braced by huge, dark eyes that were at turns combative or entirely closed away. He had black, vainly tousled hair and what Alan called an intriguing mouth before Frank told him to shut the hell up.

To everybody’s relief, these physical positives were usually obliterated by Jules’ general sourness, a bad attitude that occasionally banana-rotted into downright childishness. This was not a problem in the club, where squabbling was half the reason for arriving. The first significant interaction he provoked with Bo G. was a fight about Bo bringing up, too much in their first partnered scrimmage, what Gregory would have done in that scenario.

“I’m just saying,” Bo had said, “that Greg wouldn’t have overpromised on that bid, especially if he was aware he was a stranger in a new situation –”

“Go dig him up,” Jules suggested, “and see what bid you’ll get out of him now, asshole.”

Clay, in the present, snooped through a collection of CD cases hidden in the door’s side pocket. “Oh my,” he said. “Throbbing Gristle. Sounds disgusting. What is it?”

“Put it in and see.”

Clay did; He sat for several minutes through a groaning, desexed voice with a foreign accent working out some struggling words overtop an auditory ambiance of what Clay thought resembled seasick trains.

“How interesting,” Clay said. “It makes me feel ill.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

“I suppose nowadays bands function in all sorts of interesting ways.”

“They’re not nowadays, they’re from the seventies.” Jules, ignorant in many ways, still felt perfectly free to get snippy and rude with Clay. “They did this song,” he explained, “they did this one song based on this letter this mail-artist did from back then, about working in a burn unit.”

Clay felt the need to check for the sun’s location. “Really now?” He said politely.

“Yeah, about this woman in there who was burned so badly she couldn’t sleep. From the waist up she was like, just meat. She had no ears or nose or eyes, it was that bad. But they had to keep her alive.”

“Ah,” Clay understood. “Like me.”

Jules shut up – a rare feat – and Clay stared out at rushing traffic, wondering where everybody needed to be in such a damn hurry. He was curious to see if Roscoe had attempted, in his appropriate way, to fill Jules in. Apparently not.

“Uh,” Jules said. He flicked his eyes from the road and flashed them, with obligatory understanding across Clay’s weak, folded arm. “Sorry?”

“Oh hush,” Clay dismissed. “You couldn’t know.”

“I kind of just thought you were paralyzed for some reason,” Jules continued brashly, to Clay’s relief.

“I certainly am,” Clay confirmed. “Paralyzed. And disfigured! It’s very ugly.”

“Your hand looks regular, just kind of little.”

“I was involved, incidentally, within a grease fire. A freak accident. The muscles shrank. The rest of the arm isn’t regular,” Clay said. “Nor the shoulder it connects to, or part of my chest and stomach. I try to be sensitive to the – the sensitivities of onlookers.”

“Can I see?”

Clay pierced him with a pretty decent look. “Darling,” he said. “Use your brains.”

Stopped at a red light, Jules could turn his head and bare his teeth in the approximation of a happy grin. His teeth, bless him, were getting awful scarecrow on one side. “It looks bad, right?” Jules asked.

“I suppose some don’t care about ugliness.” Clay turned to the CD library in his lap. “Cannibal Corpse,” he observed. The cover was so lurid he had to flip it over. “Good lord. Were you raised in a whorehouse?”

“In a regular house,” Jules said. “So, worse.”

Because it made sense, Clay insisted they stop for lunch at his absolute favorite restaurant, Panera Bread. They were on an interstate at this point, and Jules had to flip around on the exits to get them there. “I don’t really have much money,” he said.

“What a coincidence, neither do I.”

They went halfsies on one meal. They both shared weak appetites and lanky, girlish figures.

“I want to ask you a question,” Jules said.

Clay assented; how novel.

“What do you think about Phil?”

Clay wondered if the privacy of the booth was affecting him. It had been so long since he’d been asked for his opinion, outside of the context of cardplay or his health, that he completely forgot the question. “Pardon?”

Jules repeated himself patiently.

“I suppose I’ve known him for years,” Clay said. “The same way I’ve known Roscoe for years. He’s not exactly a man you have opinions on – he doesn’t share himself well.”

Jules dissected his half of the sandwich. He didn’t appear put out by the lack of information.

“Why do you want to know, dear?”

“He talks to me sometimes.”

“Well, that’s only polite. He’s around.”

“He’ll go out of his way to talk to me,” Jules clarified. “Kind of in a different way than other guys. And I want to talk to him back, which doesn’t really happen with anyone else. Except Roscoe sometimes.”

“Then there you have it.”

“But it’s different than with Roscoe.”

“Why?”

This question was beyond Jules’ capabilities. “I don’t know,” he said, and looked straight at Clay, hiding nothing. For the first time since Roscoe’s brunch, Clay saw he really was nothing more than a helpless, untrained child. Others might have been alarmed at him playing chauffeur.

“And then,” Jules continued, “he’ll stop talking to me for a long time. I’ll try and he’ll ignore me. And I don’t get why it bothers me. I don’t know if I even like him.”

“I don’t think you could like him,” Clay said. “Not in any significant way. He’s vulpine – you’re equine.”

“I’m what?”

Clay trotted the salt and pepper shakers across the tabletop. “Have you never seen the Kentucky Derby?” He asked. “And observed all the pretty horses? How they stamp their feet beforehand and toss their beautiful manes, when after all, there can be only one winner, draped with roses? Not only have we trained them to want to compete, we’ve taught them the difference between winning and losing. They’ll suffer forever, knowing the reality of competition – and they want it, despite the cruel reality of only one getting ahead, all the others left behind. Equine. That’s you.”

“I’m born to suffer.” For someone with such an egregious taste in music, he seemed put out by the prospect.

“You’re an aggressive competitor,” Clay explained. He knew enough from the club. “You seek out games to win. Losing fuels your spirit even more than a win might. Phil avoids other people’s games – I can’t tell you how many invitations he’s received to the miscellaneous open-house – but he’ll slink behind other people’s finish lines all the same. Just to see how they act when he’s spotted. If he chooses to be. Vulpine.” Clay had looked this up in the dictionary – it was defined in one of his many spiral notebooks. “Foxy, darling. Of sneaky temperament.”

“I know what it means,” Jules whined. “I’m sneaky.”

“You are a mean little pony who spits out his sugar,” Clay said. “That does not a fox make, my dear.”

“You’re mean,” Jules sulked.

“It goes so often unobserved in me,” Clay agreed. “Because I’m most beloved and well taken care of. But that means I’ve been stuck in the stable for years – hellish.”

“You’re not in the stable,” Jules, ignorant, insisted. “You’re right here with me.”

“Wait and see,” Clay said. “Just wait.”

A problem of Clay’s existence was his inability to seek people out. Certainly, he could come across people in the bounds of everyday back-and-forth – he could spot someone at a gathering, or loiter, in acceptable places, where others were known to loiter. But if someone didn’t want to be found, Clay could not find them. He had limited addresses, phone numbers, emails. Computers frightened him. He had no end of ways to get ahold of Roscoe – they were all pasted up on Clay’s refrigerator, and an ugly collage they made, too.

Weeks, and months, slipped by, and Clay, even with the aid of his notes, lost why he’d been interested in speaking to Phil in the first place. The memo in his social calendar read 8/19/2006 – Jules in car at PB, talk of Phil – it signified nothing, except that Clay truly hated his handwriting. He was glad he hadn’t written more. He could have shown Jules and asked for clarification, but there were certain facts Jules didn’t need to be aware of yet. And Roscoe, if deputized, might tattletale and turn the boy against him, and just when he and Bo G. were starting to find a rapport not based on conflict.

Around Halloweentime, in fact, he overheard the most bizarre and intimate conversation between the two.

It had occurred during a rubber open play in Frank’s basement. Clay had no details, except that Jules had shown up for a couple weeks peaked and pale. His face, other than that, was of normal color, but forebodingly swollen around the nose and eyes. Clay thought he’d been coming down with something. Frank agreed and threatened to send him home – he’d been playing without ardor anyway. Jules hadn’t fought, for once – Bo G., of all people, ordered him to stay.

Clay had gone upstairs to freshen his seltzer. The screen to the patio was unguarded, and the kitchen was cool and buffeted. He saw Jules and Bo outside on the little concrete stamp, dashed overhead by a browning tree as they guarded their cigarettes from the wind. It was spooky – Clay hadn’t noticed them leaving the basement, and he briefly entertained the possibility of two copies of each body – one pair outside, one pair stashed underground.

He plastered himself against the wall, obeying the twitching muscle of an instinct he could no longer attach to a situation. He waited.

Jules spoke first. “I think Harper knows.”

“Did you tell him?” Bo G.

“No. I think he guessed.” The wind carried inside a crusty leaf and some mentholated air. “He says I should tell.”

Bo snorted, forcefully. “What does he know?”

“He says it’ll happen again if I don’t.”

“Maybe it will. You’ll never know. It’ll be to someone else.”

Jules had no answer to that.

“It’ll be someone else,” Bo said. “It’s done. You got it over with – think of it like that. You know what you need to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You put it away,” Bo said. “You take it in your hands, and you put it away, and you shut the lid. You don’t look at it ever again. It only has to happen to you once. You did that part. That’s all you’re obligated to survive, that – the initial experience of it. Thinking it over – that’s the stuff that’ll kill you. You know what’ll happen if you think it over?”

Jules had yet to think of an answer.

“It’ll happen again,” Bo said. “To you. Again, and again. You’ll arrange the situations. You’ll put yourself in them, without knowing…”

Clay watched some crumbs of ash light across the kitchen, but by the time they reached the stove they’d cooled.

“Have you seen him again?” Bo demanded to know. He sounded angry, for reasons Clay could not possibly discern.

“I’ll always see him. I can’t not. He’s around.”

“For christ’s sake.”

“Do you know who I’m talking about?” Jules was beginning to sound shrill. “Do you know?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”

Sniffle, sniffle, clack. Somebody’s lighter flared up and died.

“I know this isn’t easy to hear.” It was odd to hear Bo G. attempt to behave gently. “Don’t think I don’t know. I understand.”

“Shut up. You don’t want to hear about me. I don’t want to hear about you. I don’t care what happened to you. Fuck what happened to you.”

“I know because I’m older than you –”

“You don’t know anything!” The sentence began loudly, and ended in a crazed whisper, as if Jules had realized too late they weren’t in total privacy. “You don’t know anything because you’re older! You’re all so fucking old and useless. I fucking hate all of you.”

“Jules –”

“You’re all so fucking old and stupid and miserable and alone and I hate all of you.” The hacked whisper began dissolving damply halfway through.

“Don’t start crying,” Bo ordered. “You can’t cry about this.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

Jules’ voice, crying, was about as ugly as his injured face had been, but Clay was already having trouble recalling it. Drawing – now there was a talent. Writing, frankly, sucked.

“You can’t do whatever you want.” Bo’s voice shifted, as he moved presumably closer to Jules. He sounded lost. He sounded like he was repeating some unlikeable stranger. “You have to be a man about this.”

“I’m not a man. That’s why it happened.”

“You are a man. You’re a man. If someone tries to push you around like that again, you have to stand up for yourself. You can’t wait until it’s too late – do you want to end up like Clay? Okay – Here – a little bit longer.”

Jules, crying, sounded like a little cat trying to throw up.

“Get it out,” Bo counseled. “Get it all out, then put it away. You don’t have to think about it again.”

“I made a mistake,” Jules sobbed. “It’s my fault.”

“It was an accident. Accidents happen.”

“I thought he liked me.”

“Accidents happen,” Bo repeated. He appeared stuck on it. “Accidents happen. They happen. You’re too young to know any better.”

“I thought he liked me.”

Clay took all this, and his empty glass, back down the stairs. He collided with Frank at the bottom.

“Don’t tell me he’s being sick up there,” Frank grouched.

“Nobody’s sick.” Clay pressed him back toward the tables. “He’s been a little stressed about work,” he explained. “Let Bo handle it.”

Lying was a treat he could rarely indulge in. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done it. He could only guess if it had done any good – but that’s not where the pleasure was.

Christmastimes – happy times. And no snow yet! A shame. Clay wrote NO SNOW on his big calendar on the wall. He’d been getting hung up on details lately, when normally, he did not sweat the small stuff.

Wanting to be helpful in the spirit of the season (he made lovely cards, but true presents were rarely affordable) Clay found himself in the shop basement with Roscoe, sorting through the endless memorabilia through the years. Jules was present too, working, if lazily, at a little sloped desk with a harsh, bendable lamp clamped on one edge. He was doing strange things to two pieces of smelly rubber. A sharp alcohol stink pricked Clay’s head. He found himself getting snippy by turns, and, feeling bad, forced an abundant cheer. “You’ll be sorting this garbage forever,” he declared, cheerfully. “Val was collecting for years and years, all the surplus of his events.”

“Some tell me it’s history,” Roscoe said, looking up with interest for some reason. “But either way, it sure brings in the mice.”

“I saw one yesterday,” Jules called over the desk. “It ran right around the glue trap. You’re training them to be smart.”

“Do you know where the humane electric trap is? That looks like a little box?”

“I stomped it. The mouse. When you get smart, you get slow.”

“Marvelous. Spare me the details.”

“I heard it’s little bones break,” Jules chanted. “All the guts exploded out its mouth. It’s eyeballs –”

“You watch too much morbid stuff. You need to expand your horizons.”

“He’s a grim little boy,” Clay added. “He can be funny, though. Jules, what’s the funny word you showed me the other day?”

Jules started giggling and said noooo shut up! Clay, realizing he was being drawn into a contract, started giggling too. He looked toward the little desk to make sure he was matching the hilarity, but the desk light had swollen, swallowing all detail in Jules’ face to the point of bloodless beheading.

“Come on,” Roscoe said. “What was it?”

It came to Clay – painfully, with an equal throb in his good hand. He put down the little tin he was holding and had been struggling to open. “Faggotron,” he declared, with much purpose.

Jules snort-wheezed dismally. Whatever he was dipping his weeny paintbrush into smelled abominably.

“Jules, you know better,” Roscoe was scolding. “– get both of you in trouble –”

“Good god,” Clay exploded. “Whatever you’re working on, child, close it up – it stinks.”

“I have surgical masks. Gimme a sec –”

“Jules, now.” Roscoe said. “Clay, do you feel okay?”

“How could I not be well? Discussing mouse insides, among all this dust, and that piercing light –” Clay struggled to his knees.

“Clay, sit back down, alright?”

A ghastly sense of return, a return to a far worse time, froze Clay’s spine. The adrenaline forced words through his throat, more chemical than logical. “Where is Val?” he demanded. “Tell me this instant. Where did he go?”

“What’s happening?” Jules shrilled onward and upward in hideous alarm, but Clay’s visual perception shrank to exclude him. Roscoe vanished too, more purposeful in disintegration than he was in life. Clay heard a decisive voice call a strange spell – NO staywhereyouare – the always-herald of the big black brick whanged upside his head, a splitting log, the muting of the light he ached to perceive despite the pain, the smell of spitting, overflowing fat – though nobody ever believed him, when said that was what he always smelled. They didn’t believe him even when he wrote it down.

Time out of time out of time out time again and again. Alas. Clay snapped to on a squalid concrete floor. He turned his head and spied Roscoe, a couple feet away, his heavy thighs arranged in a runner’s lunge, consulting his watch. “You alright?” he asked, in utter calm.

From the bottom of his heart, Clay hated him – hated him with ease and abundance of an illogical baby. “Goddamn you to hell,” he said. “Did you put a finger on me?”

“You were going to hit your head on the floor,” Roscoe said. Clay hated him even more, knowing he was telling the perfect truth. “There was nothing soft to put in your way. I made sure you got down okay, then I let go.”

“You’re a beast for touching me,” Clay spit. “A beast. A wild animal. Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry,” Roscoe said simply. “Do you want to try sitting up?”

Clay’s good hand ached horribly. It would stress him for days, the idea of losing both hands. The anticipation was foul. Clay sat up. “How long?” he asked.

“About a minute. Fifty-eight and some milliseconds. I think that’s around the last one. We need to write it down in the little book.”

“You ruined my life.” Again, a cruel muscle flexed, one that understood something beyond Clay’s conscious understanding. “You ruined my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was beautiful, and you destroyed me. You’re an animal.”

“I’m sorry.” Roscoe would take everything he did not deserve, and it only made Clay hate him more.

Beast himself, Clay looked around his enclosure. “Somebody else was here,” he said.

“Jules was here.”

“Where is he?”

“I made him go upstairs. He couldn’t deal with it.”

“He’s a tiny stupid coward.” There was nothing and nobody Clay wouldn’t smash to bits right now. “Childish bitch. What does he have to be afraid of?”

“You’re his friend and he was scared. I don’t think he’s seen something like that before.” Roscoe made his attention scarce, and Clay recognized, for dignity’s sake, he was supposed to check to see if he’d soiled himself. Came up negative. He recalled visiting the bathroom all day outside of all logic, with mounting anxiety. He was sure that was written down somewhere too – useless.

“And if you ever wore your goddamn bracelet,” Roscoe accused, “he might have had some idea of what to expect. Don’t go calling him a bitch or a coward. He’s just a kid.”

The only time Roscoe ever got irritated and demanding of Clay was immediately after witnessing one of the seizures. If Clay did not irrevocably and acutely despise any poor soul who became the main witness of one of his seizures, this propensity would have made him feel more tender toward the man. And now that Jules had seen one, his own time was coming.

“How long has Val been dead?” Clay asked.

“Twenty years. A long time.”

“I know his name. I can’t remember anything of his face.”

“You knew him before I ever showed up. I’ve known him dead longer than I knew him alive – I can’t picture his face either. Not without help.”

“How miserable it must be – that I’m one of the pieces of trash you’ve inherited from him.”

“You’re my friend.”

“Oh no. We’ll be friends again in a few days when I’ve forgotten all this. You’re counting down the seconds, as it gets foggier to me.” Clay raked his nails over his temples. He felt a dent and a curious, inorganic hardness deforming his fine skull. His hair was thinning. Fifty-five. How long since thirty-five? Going to sleep and waking old. “Being robbed of that – that I can’t even be angry at you, at anyone, all the time!”

Roscoe sat through all of this with his forehead balanced on his fingers, as if he were too tired to care. As if he’d heard this a dozen times before, this important speech of Clay’s. “What do you want to tell Jules?” he said.

“I told him about the burns,” Clay said. “And now he knows about this disgrace. And that’s as far as it should go, frankly.”

“If he doesn’t hear it from you, or from someone who cares about you, he’s going to get the details in a bad way.”

“Why shouldn’t he – as nasty gossip? That’s all it happened for – for nasty gossip.”

“You wrote it down once in your own words, remember? When you had that good health aide years ago; she helped you with the police report and court documents and – and the X-rays and things. Show him that – it’s in one of your binders.”

Clay had been told about this magic essay many times. Roscoe attached most importance to it, as an independent effort of self-authority. Clay, to his recollection (which was often wrong) had never shown it to anyone but himself, again and again. He would bring it out before bed, the time of day when he felt at his worst, and parse the stubby, emotionless sentences written by some imbecile who deserved whatever he got.

“He needs to know how these things happen.” Roscoe going on, and on, and on. “If we hide this stuff, it’s just going to repeat itself.”

“You’re far too late,” Clay said. “He’s already some slut.”

Roscoe got up and walked toward Jules’ little desk. He turned off the little light. When he was truly inspired to high anger, he always walked away. Not like a man at all, Clay thought. He couldn’t think of a worse person to teach Jules how to stand up for himself. If the child was lucky, he’d lose the next teeth on the other side of his face – invite some symmetry.

“Have Bo G. tell him,” Clay said, surprising himself.

Roscoe was surprised too. “Why Bo?”

“He was around during that time. He knows what to say. They’re partners, after all. Tell Bo I said so. I won’t ask myself. I won’t take responsibility –” Clay used a filing cabinet to help gather his feet underneath him. “Nobody allows me to take responsibility. So I won’t. Make Bo tell him. And just watch. He’ll treat me differently. He’ll treat me like all of you treat me.”

“I’ll tell Bo.”

“I want to go home now. You take me home. And I don’t want to be bothered tomorrow.”

He would have liked to say I hate you again. Such a vibrant phrase; but already, the stimulating anger was giving way to a constricting drowsiness. Roscoe, like he hadn’t heard Clay insult him and close friends, like he hadn’t said awful swear words he would never repeat in company, came over and helped him pick his way out of the historical mess he’d fallen within.

Time and time again – everybody became another year older. Clay got older. Roscoe got older. He helped Clay find a big new calendar for the wall. Jules, a new nineteen, presumably became a new twenty at some point. After a time, a more experienced twenty. It hardly made a difference to his maturity. He partnered so often with Bo he became a solid figure in Clay’s mental foreground – and for all Clay knew, he’d been there as long as Roscoe and Phil and the rest.

Another seizure, in writing, if not in memory. Clay saw it on the calendar. This time overseen by Alan M., in Frank’s kitchen, after the house had emptied from a post-tournament cocktail hour. Small mercy.

Exciting pastimes: Jules and Clay, driven to madness after begging a pack of Rider-Waite cards from an occultist friend of Roscoe’s longhaired shop cashier, tried their hand adapting it to the French Tarot and to introduce this to the club at large; rejected by Frank, Clay suggested a portes ouvertes of antique French parlor games which, using more conventional decks, Frank could hardly decline. Jules, though not part of the upper committee, had established himself socially as Clay’s deputy, and he was an efficient bully.

At one of these novel events, a blistering cold March afternoon, Clay was reminded of yet another novelty – the arrival of someone new. Which, as it turned out, was someone old. Roscoe said Clay had known Martin since the eighties. He was back from sunny California, for reasons Clay might have learned before he forgot.

He showed up among the basement folding tables that day, unfashionably early to take Frank to some expo or whatnot in the suburbs. A clumsy faux pas, Clay commented, as he oversaw a trial Piquet scrimmage between Jules and Bo G.

“I know what he’s here for,” Bo commented archly.

“Shut up,” Jules said.

Martin worked through the tables. Gregarious as he was, he always seemed to stop short, childishly bashful before Clay, unsure as to the amount of kid glove required in the interaction. Clay had piled up enough consistent interactions with the man to form this sustaining judgment.

“You are so very kind to safely usher our favorite senile gentleman,” Clay said, after the initial awkward greeting took place. “Not many would be so generous.”

“Let him crash,” Bo said. “Put him out of his misery. Then I’ll be president.”

“As vice-president,” Clay corrected, “I will be president.”

“I’m going to put rat poison in one of Alan’s gross fucking brandy alexanders,” Jules joined in. “And then I’ll be treasurer.”

“Is it safe for me to be overhearing this?” Martin asked, directing the question to Jules.

“Stick around and find out,” Jules grumbled.

“As a club representative, you must be more polite,” Clay scolded. “You’re a young man now. And Martin is an old friend.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Martin said. He put his hand gently on the table. “Am I old enough to learn what the hell this game is?”

“Show him, Jules. Start a new game.”

“He doesn’t have to do a damn thing,” Bo said, abruptly. “Shut up, Clay.”

Jules, ignoring them both and shutting down any expression in his eyes, steered Martin to an empty table and forced him down into a chair. Clay snooped enough to spy Jules, in a nasty masterstroke, laying out a hand of Solitaire. Martin was too good-natured to pick up on the slight. He sat attentively under Jules’ pointed posture and followed his jabbing fingers, a docile lamb.

“He’s too old for him,” Bo G. declared. He smothered the gameplay and restacked the cards.

Clay sat down. “We’re all too old,” he said. “Isn’t it a tragedy?”

The Stock, Jules’ instructions floated over his head. The Waste. The Foundations. The Tableau. Undisciplined Martin gazed not at the cards, but at the face that made the words. He’d have to smarten up, Clay thought, if wanted to survive Jules’ bossing. After that he looked away. The sight made him melancholy.

Departing the remnants of the occasion that evening, he left Frank’s at sundown for the first time all day and was struck dumb by the stifling blanket of snow that had fallen. Clay’s mind, geared toward spring and daffodils and birds’ eggs and shining sun, whirlpooled a split moment into terror. Then he caught himself. How nice – a final, light-bright hug from jack frost.

Despite this pep talk, he had trouble moving. He tingled all over, his body recalling other falls in that cold cushion.

“Clay?”

“Oh gracious.” He turned around toward the porch. “Now, would you look at this landscape? And what on earth were you doing in there, without my noticing?”

Phil descended the steps easily. He stepped inside Clay’s tentative footprints. “Miscommunication,” he explained. “I thought Martin was going to be here, but he got shanghaied by Frank.”

“Appreciated, too.”

“Salvatore caught me and gabbed my ear off about a damn hour.” Phil reached out and took Clay’s elbow and started leading him down the unshoveled walkway. “Let me drive you home. You don’t get around so great in this stuff.”

“You’re a doll.”

Clay enjoyed riding in cars. It was something he wanted to do more. It was cozy inside Phil’s, with the big soft flakes suspended in the air as the spaces between all foundations darkened to black.

“Martin is not comfortable around me,” Clay said.

“Nobody’s really comfortable with you,” Phil explained. “You’re not a person to anybody. You remind people.”

Clay was fond of bluntness, even when he couldn’t understand what lay behind its’ motivation. “Of what?”

“That we can’t trust anybody – not even the people we’re closest to - who we see every day.” The tires zizzled pleasantly through a wet right turn. “Martin is just embarrassed. Since fatherhood made him mature, he’d prefer to think he was always that way. But he knows we all remember what he did to Drake.”

“Who, now?” Clay asked.

“Drake. He started sniffing around the neighborhood for you, after your group home closed. Years and years ago."

“Hmmm?”

Traffic piled up against a red light and Phil could turn to look at Clay. “You know something interesting I wonder about sometimes?”

“What could it be, darling?”

“If you remember more than you let on,” Phil revealed. He said this with no urgency or true amusement. Phil always spoke as if held no worries and felt no significance. He was most relaxed. Here was a man you could have a seizure around. “If you remember everything, and you’ve just been having fun with us this whole time.”

“What an idea!” Clay had to laugh. “And a tempting one. You want to know what I remember, dear?”

“Tell me.”

“Nothing. Not a speck. Zot. If only I could have fun with you all.” The cars inched forward. “I’d like to thank you, you know.”

“For what?”

“I have a feeling,” Clay said, “that you’ve always been very frank with me. And frankness is something I appreciate. You know who you remind me of? You remind me of Jules.”

Phil, driving comfortably with one hand on the wheel, pushed his head gently against the driver’s seat. He started to smile, close-lipped.

“Jules once asked me if my arm was never going to work normally, or look normally, then why didn’t the doctors simply amputate? Can you imagine anyone else having the nerve? But I appreciated being asked, all the same.” The question had pleased Clay so much, he’d made Jules write it down himself in the little notebook.

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him I was hardly in a state to be consulted.”

“You know how to get Jules to shut up?” Phil said in turn. “You get him on his stomach, and you grind his face into the floor.”

Clay cackled at such an absurd image. “Now stop,” he said. “That’s quite mean!”

“You get your knee pressed in real low on his spine,” Phil continued quietly, “and you shove his face in, and you twist. You don’t stop until his nose starts bleeding. After that he quiets down and gets to liking it."

“That’s quite enough,” Clay insisted, patting his own mouth to discourage his giggles. “Don’t tease him when he’s not here to defend himself.”

Phil steered down the narrow enclave of a one-way street. They were entirely in the dark now, purged in fountains of orange light. Clay squeezed Phil’s wrist. “Stop!” he asked. “Just stop. Stop a moment.”

Phil braked. Eventually, he shifted to park. They watched the unseasonal snow drowse in the air, suspended in swags of streetlight. Clay could not see the end of the road. Nobody was out and about. A pleasant enclosure calmed his heart.

“Now just look at that,” he said, still holding Phil’s wrist. “Why must artists always act like they’re so miserable? If I could paint this picture, I would never be sad again.”

“Yeah,” Phil agreed, dreamily. “I see what you mean.”

He was watching the snow – Clay checked to confirm, and it made him glad. Watching together, faces trained out within a safe shelter like clever woodland creatures, Clay could believe he had somebody by his side who understood him by instinct, if not through conscious effort. He could communicate, through the act of sitting together, all the secrets his brain and body held away from his knowledge. It was the darkness that reminded him – not doing for oneself, not eating for oneself, nor speaking nor toileting for oneself, in a mass of years so long he could no longer comprehend; and lighted hour upon lighted hour, lying there and anticipating the moment of terror – terror he had yanked pleasure from, after many years of practice – when the light would go out.

Clay sat there and he wished to make this known – in goodwill, in peace, in love, surrounded, with no respite, by his beloved friends.

#safeworld #2006 2007 & 2008

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bookwormscififan · 26 days ago

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Reflected Refractions, Chapter 13

Raggedly Revealing

Read on AO3!

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

A/N: The aftermath of Mare and Mad's night together brings some... new things to light.

Warnings: There's a bit of implied smut, but nothing too explicit.

“How you managed to get past the doorman like that, I’ll never understand,” Phantom commented from his place sprawled on the bed as Mare came into the dorm. “It’s way past curfew and you look like you lost a fight with a cat, but also like you had a fun night.”

“Two seconds,” Mare muttered, opening his notebook and jotting down several dot points before closing it and heading to the bathroom. “I climbed in the window,” he explained, voice carrying from the other room. “And no, I didn’t fight a cat, but I did have a fun—oh shit!” There was a clatter of objects falling into the sink before Mare came back from the bathroom, hand against his neck with wide eyes.

“Ah,” Phantom hummed, rolling onto his back to smirk at his twin. “You spotted it.” Resting his feet on the edge of his bed, he watched as Mare prodded the ragged bite mark at his neck, catching the wince that crossed his face. “How’d you manage to get bitten so roughly and not realise it?”

“I was… distracted,” Mare defended, cheeks bright red as he searched his desk for something to cover the bite. “Demon anatomy is distracting. You’ll understand when Jackie lets you fuck him.”

“Oh, so someone got to fuck the head of the demons, then?” Phantom sang, hopping out of bed to flick through Mare’s notebook, eyes widening as he read the notes. “I’m sorry, he could change his body to ‘accommodate’?” he asked, looking into Mare’s flustered face with furrowed brows.

“We know demons shift and change their appearances,” Mare explained, forgetting his bite for a moment. “Well, that applies to everything. Just have to… gauge the size of what they need to fit, and they’ll adapt.”

“You mean—wait, you went to meet Mad, and you didn’t bring any prep?”

“Don’t need prep. They’ll provide it themselves. It was like he produced his own slick as he stretched himself. And then…” he trailed off as his fingers idly touched his bite, smiling to himself as his eyes glazed over.

“Alright, I think I’ve heard enough about your own sex life,” Phantom groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose and heading back to his bed. “I’ll talk to Jackie about this tomorrow. You need something to cover that bite, or Night may actually kill you this time.”

“Do you think I can get away with bandaging it and saying I got into a fight with some lower demons?” Mare asked, frowning as he looked at his bite in the mirror, startling and blinking when he caught a flash of Mad’s face looking smugly back at him.

“Tell Night you tried to kill Mad and he fought back,” Phantom replied, staring at the ceiling with tired eyes. “Might be less suspicious if he thinks you’ll go back for revenge.”

----

“Tell me everything,” Jackie demanded as he appeared back at the archives, sitting beside Mad with shining eyes. “I know something happened; it stinks of sex in here.”

“He was perfect,” Mad breathed, eyes flickering between yellow and bright pink, colours Jackie knew meant happiness and love. “Absolutely perfect. Oh, Jackie, I think I finally understand what love feels like, truly.”

“Was being with a human any different to other demons?”

“Very different,” Mad replied, turning to face Jackie as he pulled a page of notes from his pocket. “He made sure I was alright with everything at every opportunity and gave me a code for when it got to be too much. And… he was bigger than I expected,” he admitted with a blush, eyes switching to a red-pink gradient.

“The last person who slept with you was a demon,” Jackie began, wincing when Mad turned blood-red eyes on him, “Let me finish. You almost tore the world apart when the hunters killed him. I just worry about what you’ll do if Mare gets hurt.”

Mad hesitated a moment before his eyes faded into a dusty blue, staring blankly at a spot behind Jackie. “Mare won’t get hurt,” he mumbled, picking at his fingers. “It won’t happen.”

“But what if it does?” Jackie persisted, resting a hand on Jackie’s knee. “What if Mare gets hurt and you aren’t there in time to save him?” He watched Mad pause, then look at him with a face set in determination.

“I’d make the world feel my pain deep enough to cripple them. Plus, nobody will touch Mare after I do the Bonding with him.”

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

@iamvegorott @brokentimewatch @rattyboyisemo @dungeon-dragons-dragons

#writing #fanfiction #nwtb fanfiction #alt demon au #jacksepticeye fanfiction #madmare

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laequiem · 2 years ago

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Cheek to Cheek in Hell - Chapter 18

Fandom: The Folk of the Air

Pairing: Jude Duarte/Cardan Greenbriar

Rating: explicit

Word count: 3,301

“I could not let you outshine me in that dress. Speaking of which,” I say, feigning innocence, “will you be needing assistance to dress?” She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says. She gets up from her cocoon of blankets and pulls the dress out of her bag. “Turn around.” I grin widely, “I’ve seen you naked before. Just hours ago, I had my face—” “Get. Out.

read it on ao3

Chapter 17 • next chapter • Cheek to Cheek masterpost

Cardan POV

We must have drifted asleep, because the next thing I know, I wake up. I can still taste Jude in my mouth, which does nothing to halt the inevitable morning erection. What does, however, is the shuffling of bushes outside the stall, the faint noise of someone creeping towards our shelter. I lift Jude’s arm off my chest and get up, buttoning my pants as I do.

Elfhame’s weather is a lot tamer than New York City’s, but the cold shocks me all the same after being near Jude’s warmth all night. I listen as the creature skitters away and only then do I leave the stables. Waiting for me on a rock is a bundle of folded clothes, opalescent scales shining in the moonlight against the dark blue fabric.

I fish a bag of Skittles from our pack and swap it for the clothing, my payment for a job well done. As I put down the bright red bag, a bush further away shifts, and I see a pair of black eyes staring at me.

When I head back inside, Jude is sitting up, the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Her hair is tousled, her eyelids drooping with sleepiness, but her brows furrow at the sight of what I’m carrying.

“Where did you get this?” she asks.

I shrug, “We couldn’t go to Hollow Hall, so I got someone to go for me.”

In truth, when I filled the troughs for the animals earlier, I found a brownie sleeping on the job. I didn’t even have to pull rank on him, I simply made a deal—if he got me clothing from my room, I would give him something worthy of his time. And what is more worthy than a bag of sugary snacks from the mortal realm?

The corners of Jude’s mouth tugs up. She raises a brow. “Your mortal clothes weren’t good enough for you?”

“I could not let you outshine me in that dress. Speaking of which,” I say, feigning innocence, “will you be needing assistance to dress?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m fine,” she says. She gets up from her cocoon of blankets and pulls the dress out of her bag. “Turn around.”

I grin widely, “I’ve seen you naked before. Just hours ago, I had my face—”

“Get. Out,” she barks and throws the balled-up blanket at me.

I obey, if only so I can get the full effect of seeing the dress on her when she’s ready. The bag of Skittles is already gone, no trace left of my dealing. I make quick work of dressing myself outside, the outfit the brownie brought fairly simple compared to what I would normally wear to a coronation.

I linger outside, flattening wrinkles with my hands, until Jude calls from inside, “I’m done.”

I feel my heart beating in my throat as I make my way back inside, eager to finally see what I’ve been dreaming about.

To say that Jude is the most beautiful thing in here would not do her justice—she is standing in a stable, after all. She doesn’t belong here. She would not be out of place at the palace. In fact, she belongs on a throne, presiding over a mass of obedient subjects. Her brown hair is still wild, but she has combed through it with her fingers to tame it. The white gradient of the bustle is stark against her dark skin, drawing attention to her assets and yet—the branching embroidery is so intricate that I somehow manage not to stare at the plunging neckline. The dress flares out at her waist, the fabric flowing down in blue waves that I would love to get lost under.

I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. I raise my eyes to Jude’s, and realize that she’s staring, too. She bites her bottom lip, then her jaw clenches and she releases it.

“You look…” she trails off.

Her hesitancy tugs a smile out of me. “Beautiful? Handsome? Like I could break hearts?”

Jude scowls and she turns her nose up at me. “Well, since you put it so well, I guess I don’t have to say it.”

My jaw drops at the same time as my heart, and I realize that she won this exchange. I won’t let her have the last word, though.

“I was aiming to be more beautiful than you,” I tell her, offering her my arm. “But it seems I failed.”

A blush creeps up her cheeks, and she looks down at my arm. Instead of answering, she takes my arm, and we leave the stables for the palace.

///

Night broke a few hours ago, the faeries of Elfhame now fully awake and ready to revel. We stay off the main path as we make our way to the palace. The few people we meet do not seem to notice us. In the forest, a couple of Grackles drink to Balekin’s upcoming victory, while a phooka plays their version of tag with a dazzled group of human servants. At the palace, guests are arriving, and we make our way through the procession, mingling with the other fae.

The guards at the entrance don’t bother stopping us. I can see in their eyes that they recognize me, but they nod and let us through. I see them nod at a set of guards standing further inside, who detach themselves from the wall, surely to alert my brother.

I let Jude take the lead as we enter the throne room. My brother ensured that the event would be as grandiose as possible. A carpet of golden spidersilk divides the room in two, defining a trail straight to the throne in case folk forget where they have to go to kneel. There is currently no king, of course, so the throne sits empty, unguarded. On both sides of the walkway, large tables are overfilled with food and drinks. Glamoured humans dart around the place, refilling drinks before people even finish them. Jude sees them too, and she clenches her hand around my arm. I put a hand over hers, a small reassurance.

Fae of all shapes and sizes stomp around in the moss, dancing, flirting, fighting. Heads turn towards us as Jude and I make our entrance, their gasps and whispers smothered by the music. I raise my chin higher and out of the corner of my eye, I see Jude do the same, squaring her shoulders.

I don’t see Balekin or the crown. I lean towards Jude and whisper, “Do you have a plan?”

“No,” she lies. Of course she has a plan, she always does.

I sigh. If she doesn’t want to tell me, then nothing I say will make her change her mind. All I can do is trust her and expect the worst.

“Cardan.”

My brother’s voice cuts through every thought. Balekin’s voice has a tendency to bring out the worst in me, and hearing it now is no different. Whatever small part of childhood innocence still lives in me yearns to please him. After all, I have modeled myself after him, and my truthful tongue would never let me admit that I don’t want him to be proud of me, even now.

I turn to face him. All of us might have different mothers, but it would be impossible to tell by looking at the pair of us. Balekin looks like an older, more masculine version of me. Sharp cheekbones with a hint of stubble, cruel eyes and raven black hair. He keeps his long, falling in waves to his broad shoulders. It’s a shame, really, because it means that I have to keep mine short, lest I look like I am trying to emulate him still. My brother wears an opulent robe, his chest bare underneath, ready to shrug off the robe to let his subjects paint the words of the ceremonial oaths over him. A leather strap sits over his hips and, though it’s hidden by the robe, I assume he is carrying his sword. He wears no crown atop his head, but there are bloody moths fluttering around his head like a crimson halo.

“Brother,” I reply curtly. “You know of Jude, I am sure.”

Balekin’s eyes flick towards Jude, then back at me, as if she were nothing more than an accessory. “Is she the one who keeps besting you, or the one who knows her place?”

“The one who kidnapped him,” Jude cuts in, her tone amused. The only sign that Balekin has heard her is a twitch of his brow.

“A great event you have organized here, brother,” I drawl. “You must excuse us, I would like to sample some of your delicacies.”

Before I can drag Jude away, Balekin lays his hand on my shoulder, his sharp nails digging through the fabric of my shirt and into my skin.

“You have wasted enough of my time,” Balekin snarls.

Next to me, Jude stiffens. Before she can say something we’ll both regret, though, a large figure appears next to Balekin. Madoc, dressed in his finery and wearing his crusty red cap, bows to my brother.

“Your Highness,” he says. He turns to Jude, “Daughter.”

I am not the least bit surprised that he does not even acknowledge me.

“Father,” Jude replies.

“I expected you to ride here with us,” he accuses, his words chosen carefully.

What he means, surely, is Why did you bring this fop to Balekin instead of me?, but it wouldn’t do to let Balekin know of his plan, I suppose.

I pipe up, “After being away from Elfhame for so long, we had friends to greet. I’m sure you understand, Grand General, the value of keeping relations.” He does not need to know that the friends in question were a stable toad and other various barn animals.

Madoc’s gaze lands on me for the first time. He narrows his eyes. “Is that so?”

“In fact,” Jude adds, “I believe I see Nicasia over there. We should go greet her.”

I have no doubt that Jude has no intention to go to Nicasia, that she simply dropped her name as someone both Madoc and Balekin would know. She drops in a clumsy curtsy for my brother, and we all but run away from our overbearing guardians.

As we weave our way through the crowd, people bump into us. I get hit by elbows and tails, and by the time I notice that Jude has let go of my arm, it’s too late. I whirl, looking around, but I can’t see past the wings, antennae or straight up bulk of some of my fellow fae. I have lost Jude. Swearing under my breath, I shove my way out of the mass of people. I emerge in front of the drinks table, thankfully. I will need some liquid courage to endure this evening.

I grab a pitcher and drink straight from it.

I need to find Jude.

The music dies down. People turn towards the dais, where my brother stands tall in his green and gold robe. On one side, the Living Council are lined up, save for the Grand General. Val Moren, our father’s former seneschal and human lover, flanks his other side, his eyes glazed over. Whether it’s from a glamour, or due to his grief following my father’s death, I do not know.

“Folk of Elfhame,” Balekin bellows, “for too long, our Kingdom has been without a High King. The land remembers the tragedy, the blood shed on that ill-omened day. Without its rightful ruler, the land withers.”

Balekin gestures behind him to the throne, its branches dry and bare of any bloom. It’s not just the throne, though—the air tastes different, like Elfhame’s magic cannot keep out the iron from the Mortal Realm as much as it used to. The mossy ground of the palace lacks its usual dewy covering, drying out in patches where it climbs on the roots of the throne.

My brother continues. “It is my hope that today, Elfhame will regain its ruler with much merriment and no inconveniences,” he pauses, his eyes scanning the crowd until they land on me. He smiles, but his eyes are cold with a violent promise. “I am beside myself to know my brother is alive and well, that he is back by my side. Where he belongs.”

Madoc slides in between Randalin and Baphen, taking his place with the rest of the Living Council. In his hands, he holds a velvet cushion, its surface embroidered with the Greenbriar sigil. Atop it rests the Blood Crown. On Balekin’s other side, Val Moren steps forth.

“Two of Mab’s heirs remain,” he intones, his voice rough with disuse. “Crown Prince Cardan Greenbriar, join us on the dais.”

I never thought I would ever hear someone refer to me as Crown Prince, but I suppose the situation is unusual. I’m not the only one feeling strange, as chatter arises between the folks, head turning towards me. I don’t think I ever had this many eyes on me at any royal event before. Even the time when I made a boy scream in pain, I was still ignored by most. So I raise my chin, paste a rictus of a grin on my face, and march to the dais.

I finally spot Jude, in the front row of the crowd beneath the dais where she stands with the rest of her family, holding Oak’s hand. She smiles at me, but it does not reach her eyes.

“As the former High King’s wish to have his third-born rule in his stead cannot be fulfilled,” Val Moren continues, his voice full of sorrow, “you will have to decide between yourselves who will rule.”

Balekin’s hand goes to his sword belt, as if I needed a reminder of my place. His smile sharpens.

“I believe my brother has no desire to be High King,” Balekin says without even looking at me.

“Indeed, I do not,” I reply.

“It is decided, then,” Val Moren says. “Grand General, bring the Blood Crown to His Highness Prince Cardan.”

Madoc’s face is carefully blank as he crosses the dais to stand before me. He does not kneel—I am not his King. Instead, he leans towards me.

“Do not disappoint,” he whispers before straightening.

My eyes locked with his, I grab the crown. The metal is warm to the touch, as if all the magic in the land sleeps in the golden oak leaves adorning it. Madoc’s lip twitches in a frown, but he retreats with the cushion and leaves me standing there, alone, with the crown in my hands.

I wish Jude had told me the plan. Before I can turn to her for guidance, Val Moren speaks. “Prince Cardan Greenbriar, will you bestow the crown of Mab upon Crown Prince Balekin?”

Madoc’s hand rests on the sword at his hip, his back stiff as he stands taller than everyone else in the living council. I don’t know who would behead me first, if I was to step out of line—him or Balekin? Perhaps Jude would take the honor away from them and do it herself, though it has been a while since she has threatened me.

Jude takes a step forward, letting go of Oak’s hand. The guards flanking the steps of the dais cross their halberds to block her from advancing further, so she stays standing between the crowd and the dais.

“Ciaran Cardan Greenbriar,” Jude says, her voice just loud enough for me–and everyone else on the dais–to hear. “With your True Name, freely given, I forbid you to crown your oldest brother. For as long as I live and beyond.”

My hands suddenly clench around the crown, unbidden. I whip my head towards Jude in shock. She quickly turns her gaze away from me, but not fast enough—I see the guilt before she can hide it. Gasps erupt from the Living Council, then a scoff, the hiss of metal against metal as someone unsheathes their weapon.

“Cardan, you fool,” Balekin growls, pure hatred dripping from every syllable.

When I turn towards him, I realize he doesn’t have his sword in hand. Madoc does, though, cat eyes attuned to Balekin’s movement. Ready to strike.

So this was the plan, then. Jude has sided with her father, and they will have me crown Oak instead of my brother. I wish she had told me beforehand. Maybe then I wouldn’t feel so betrayed, so… used. Anger rises in me. I am tired of everyone around me scheming behind my back, ignoring me. All my life, ever since—

He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.

I look down at the crown in my hands. It has been around for millenia. Wars have been fought for it. My siblings were killed for it, my father pushed me aside for fear that I would destroy it.

I take a deep breath.

And I snap the crown in half.

The crowd gets ever louder. The ground starts shaking, as if people are trampling it, but—no, it’s the land, quaking, shifting. The roots holding up the ceiling of the palace begin to shrink, dirt falling from the roof like dark snow. Beneath my feet, a crack starts to form. I step back, towards the throne. Its branches shrivel and snap off until it is no more than a pile of dead branches.

Courtiers rush out of the brugh, bottlenecking at the too few points of escape. Some of the fiercest lords and ladies of the lower courts stay put, weapons drawn, waiting to see if they can elevate their status now that the crown is no more. Orlagh is grinning madly, shark-toothed guards surrounding her and Nicasia and protecting them with their bodies. Nicasia’s glassy eyes are on me—she has been crying, I think—and I force myself to look away. Lord Roiben of the Court of Termites is giving orders to his knights, his sword tightly gripped in his fist, and I catch a glimpse of Severin’s human knight amongst the throng, her red hair advancing like the lit flame of a fuse as she guides her king out.

Madoc has whirled on Jude, his tusks fully visible as he spits his anger out at her. Every time his sword arm so much as moves, I flinch, thinking this might be the time he snaps and murders his bastard daughter.

And as if I wasn’t terrified enough, Balekin clears his throat. A shiver of dread crawls up my spine as I turn to him. Purposefully, he unsheathes his sword, his eyes mad with fury and his smile sharp.

“It seems my brother has shown us today what the prophecy surrounding his birth meant.” Balekin’s cold voice dominates through the ambient chaos. “He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne.” He says the words that have been haunting me my whole life as if they’re a joke only he understands. “But there was more to it, wasn’t there, Astrologer?”

Balekin takes a step towards me, his sword deceptively loose in his grip. “Only out of his spilled blood can a great ruler rise.”

I don’t need to look at Baphen, the Royal Astrologer, to know that he confirms Balekin’s words.

“I shall awaken the great ruler, then,” Balekin snarls.

In one swift motion, Balekin is upon me. I don’t have a weapon, but it would not make a difference if I did. Pain stabs my side as Balekin lunges. Once, in and out, before flicking the blood off his sword with a triumphant smile.

Some laughs, some gasp, some scream. But above all of them, someone bellows my name in a shriek of pure grief.

---

tag list: @figonas @kingandfireheart @godgavemelou @adxmparriish @hazelsheartsworn @zumurruds @inconspicuoussophia @idonotcareaboutyouropinion

#the folk of the air #tfota #jurdan #judecardan #jude duarte #cardan greenbriar #the cruel prince #the wicked king #the queen of nothing #c2c

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almighty-letu · 2 years ago

Note

How would the younger versions of the characters react to seeing themselves now? how would Tom and Tord react to being together in the future? Reagan to killing his family?

I couldn’t resist writing a small fic, i’m sorry

Tord couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing before him was… himself? An older version, at least. He wore a cool red and blue uniform, an eyepatch, half his face was burned, and he has a sick as heck robotic arm! How cool was that?

“Whoa!” Young Tord’s eyes widened in awe as he stared at his future self. “I’m so cool! Are we cool? Do I get to win plenty of robotics contests? Do we get to become PRESIDENT?”

Future Tord chuckled, stooping down to ruffle his younger self’s hair with a gleam of pride in his one eye. “Think bigger. You’ll be great one day!”

“Wow, I can’t wait for the future!” Young Tord exclaimed, smiling from ear yo ear and showing off his tooth gap. “Wait til mom sees me then!”

Future Tord’s smile fell, his expression darkening. “Actually…”

“Oh! What of our friends?” Young Tord blurted. “I bet they’ll be so jealous once they see what I’ll become!”

Tord’s heart twisted in his chest as stared down at his younger self. He resisted the strong urge to warn him, advise him and stir him away from the mistakes he’s made; but it would be unwise to tamper with the timelines. No matter what he does, Tord is doomed to make mistakes.

“Never lose sight of what’s truly important.” He said coolly, stooping down to be at a steady eye level with his younger self. “No matter what happens, you must remember this. Alright?”

Young Tord didn’t fully understand the meaning behind those ominous words, but he couldn’t help but smile and nod eagerly; soaking up every word his wise and cool older self had to say.

Not far away, a young Tom gazed curiously at a man in blue and black clothes, spiky hair, and a futuristic visor with pixel eyes towering over him as he clutched tomee bear close to his chest. This man was supposedly him from the future, and he can certainly see the resemblance between them, and yet… he seemed do vastly different. Is really destined to become him in the future? He looks mean and scary, and there was something deeply sad and lonely about him as well.

“Hi.” Young Tom mumbled shyly.

“Hello.” Future Tom kneeled down to be in the same eye level. He’d forgotten how bright and shy he was as a kid. So much has changed since then… the thought alone that this innocent child has yet to experience all the pain and grief he went through to get to where he is made Tom’s chest tighten with pain. He opened his arms and beckoned his younger self closer and embraced him. “Be kind to yourself, okay? Life is hard enough as it is, you don’t need another enemy.”

“Okay.” Young Tom mumbled, confused more than anything.

Future Tom pulled away, tipping his head to stop his eyes from watering. Tord was by his side in an instant and held his hand, rubbing small circles along the back of his palm. Tom smiled, thankful for his support and leaned closer into him, letting Tord wrap an arm around him in a half embrace.

Young Tord and young Tom observed them closely, confused and also amused by the display of affection they were seeing. Tom hid behind tomee bear bashfully and Tord giggled nervously.

BONUS:

Meanwhile, someplace else, Reagan towered over his bruised, thin, weak, battered younger self. Young Reagan cowered away from him, eyes blown wide and welling up with tears.

“Who are you? Where is everybody?” Young Reagan wailed. “Ma? Pops? Mum? Where are you?”

Reagan stared down at him in exhaustion and yet still managed to grin despite that. “It’s okay. You’ll be okay, kid. Eventually, anyways.” He drawled. “You can trust me. I’d never let anything happen to us. Look!” One of his hands morphed into a monster claw with a golden-brown gradient. “See? We’ll become unstoppable. No one will mess with us again!”

Young Reagan looked up at him tearfully. “Does that mean… we’ll finally be loved?”

Reagan stiffened. He couldn’t bring himself to answer that.

#ask #anonymous #MLTS #MLTS Reagan #smol fic

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office-clerk-wade · 1 year ago

Text

GG grumbles in their room. Tasque Manager hovers over their shoulder curiously, and watches as GG types another line of code. There’s an error noise. GG hisses at the computer in anger and slams the laptop shut.

“FUCK THIS IM SO FUCKING TIRED OF THIS. FINE. ITLL BE LATE.”

Tasque Manager sighs. It opens the door for GG, and they storm downstairs. Tasque floats behind them, and the two pass by a variety of festive decorations. Wade is in the living room watching a movie.

“Hey Wade. Sorry I took so long.”

“Oh!”

He pauses the movie and looks at them. Wade smiles, barely hiding his excitement.

“Better late than never! Come on, come open your gifts!”

GG pauses, their anger fades quickly.

“You… got me things?”

“Of course I did. Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“… I mean. Im not your kid or anything. I just live here.”

Wade laughs, and gets up from the couch. He moves over to the tree and picks up a few presents.

“That doesn’t matter to me. You’re my friend, and I love gifting things to friends.”

He puts the packages down on the ground in front of them. GG hesitates before slowly clawing at one of the wrappers.

“… just feel kinda bad yknow? My gift isn’t ready.”

“That’s fine! I didn’t want anything in return anyways.”

GG opens a small rectangular package first. It’s a wireless mouse with a blue gradient.

“Oh sick. My old mouse kinda sucked anyway. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome! Keep going.”

They open the next package. It’s also rectangular, but much longer. It’s a mechanical keyboard with wireless capabilities.

“Geez, you really didn’t hold out with the peripherals huh? Man, I’m getting a big upgrade today.”

“Yep! Go on, open the last one!”

Wade’s enthusiasm is almost infectious. GG practically rips open the next one. It’s the largest of the three, and when GG realizes what it is they gasp.

“You DIDN’T. WADE THATS SO EXPENSIVE WHAT THE HELL.”

He just laughs as they continue to pull the wrapping paper off. It’s a new laptop.

“WADEEEE!!! STOP IT!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK WADE!”

“I knew you’d like it! Oh, here. I got something for Tasque to use too.”

Wade hands Tasque Manager a steam gift card.

“Since you won’t need your old laptop anymore, I figured it would be good for them to have it for themselves. I got them a card to buy any game they want.”

GG just sits there dumbfounded. They don’t know how to act. Tasque hums happily and takes the card.

“Well, that’s all from me. I’m glad you like it!”

“You’re too much man.”

Wade laughs again and goes to grab 2 other packages. He puts one down in front of them.

“It’s a gift from… someone. Supposedly it’s something you desire? I’m not sure how much I believe that, but here.”

“Man, I’m not even surprised anymore. Alright.”

Both of them slowly tear off the paper, revealing small boxes. GG opens theirs first and practically explodes from excitement. The grab the box in their mouth and run off upstairs.

“SORRY BE RIGHT BACK!!”

Wade laughs to himself. Tasque Manager sighs and follows after them, leaving him alone.

“Well, let’s see if it’s really that exciting!”

He pulls the lid off the package. It’s a Net Ball with a few small stickers on it. It’s old and worn. And he recognizes it instantly. Wade flinches away from the box.

“N. No. Please. I’m. I’m.”

He gasps for air as he presses the release button. There’s no Pokémon in it.

“R. Right. Right. He wouldn’t. Right.”

Wade puts the Pokeball down. He holds his breath all the way to his room.

#eebydeeby irl #pkmn irl #rotumblr #pokeblogging #ooc post #offscreen post #//yayyyyyyy yayyyyyyyyyyyyy :333 holiday fun!

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cycle-verse · 1 year ago

Text

A couple of days later, Error was knocking on the door where he thought Ink, and at least one of the kids, might have been. Despite how everything went down with rescuing Cross, he had pushed himself straight back into his daily routine. He was still stressed, especially about Malevolence finding out he was alive, but he pushed that away.

Ink had managed to bring himself out of hiding after the first day and a half, mostly because he missed the kids and he knew they missed him. He called for Error to come in and was currently lying on the floor of the room, drawing, with Palette and Pic.

Gradient was in the room with them, reading a book while Stain slept, curled against his brother. Error smiled at the crew, Moku peeking out from behind his legs.

“Daddy!” Moku called, waving from where he was still behind Error. He’d spent all day with Error, attempting to bake cookies for Cross.

Pic was sitting against Ink, as quiet as ever while watching him draw. Ink looked up when Error came in, "Hey Ruru, hey Moku. Come to join me?"

“Yea!” Moku giggled, running over and nearly tripping before Errors strings caught him. The boy froze for a second before giggling and crawling out of the safety net Error built.

“I would but I came to check in on you all. The blues might come in soon too… and PJ left for Omni’s again so…” Error shrugged a bit.

Ink nodded, "I'm alright with the Blues coming, and so long as PJ got there safe, it's alright.”

“Okay…” Error sighed and looked over to Gradient and Stain.

“They still don’t leave your side, do they?” He whispered, knowing that the blues would have run up there soon anyway. Stain shifted in his sleep at the new noises and Gradient leaned down to flick him in the forehead.

Ink shook his head, "It's rather sweet, and I don't mind their company... they are my children..." Ink looked down at his sketchbook as he picked up a new drawing tool, adjusting his position so Moku could climb into his lap. Palette was sitting on the other side of Pic, slapping paints onto a canvas.

“Oh, no doubt… it’s just kinda cute is all…” Error hummed, watching as Stain opened his eyes and shoved Gradient's book in retaliation for being awoken. Moku scrambled into Ink's lap, looking up at his dad with a big grin. “Pops and I made cookies for Papa today!”

"Oh did you?" Ink smiled down at Moku. "I'm sure he'll love them- he'll probably visit soon I imagine.”

He looked back up at Error for a moment, seeming to try and confirm so. He'd kept himself a bit in the dark, with his hiding and all.

Error shrugged a bit but then nodded. He’d been waiting for Ink to feel a bit more comfortable again before they made plans but all it would take would be a call. He then stumbled forward as Bluescreen ran into his legs. The younger of the blues was shaking and Error picked him up. “Someone’s outside!” Blueprint yelled as he followed his little brothers.

“Someone like who?” Error asked, suddenly focused in.

“Someone we didn’t know… just showed up,”

"What did they look like?" Ink set his sketchbook and tools aside, moving to pull Moku off his lap to stand. "Tall and dark?"

Print nodded, whimpering a bit as he clutched onto Errors pant leg.

“Shit. Moku, come here,” Gradient immediately ushered the second youngest over and then moved to take Blueprint away from Error, reaching to take Blueprint's hand.

“We’re already all up here so we’ll treat this like the safe room?” He asked, turning to Stain. The teen was just sort of standing there.

“I can feel him…” Stain whispered, sounding scared.

"The kids should stay up here. Error, go and make sure there are no other kiddos anywhere downstairs. I'll take care of the rest," Ink moved to head out of the room, working on getting his sash off.

“Dad…” Stain whispered. He didn’t know what he wanted to say. Maybe it was ‘don’t put yourself in danger again’ or ‘be safe’.

“Will do. I think this is everyone but I’ll do a headcount and a look around. Gradient, Stain. You know how to keep peace here. Pal, you’re twelve buddy, think you can help out?” Error hummed and Stain stepped towards him until he looked back at his siblings.

Palette nodded as he moved to stand, "I can help, Pa, what do I need to do?"

Ink moved to head downstairs, toward the door... and an inevitable battle. He'd already gotten his sash off, and his emotion was quickly draining from his eyelights.

“Can you help keep the younger kids entertained? Gradient will help too but we need everyone to stay in here and have fun,” Error smiled at his son. While he took inventory of the children around him, minus the oldest few, Stain took that moment to sneak past him and ran down the steps. He wasn't exactly following Ink as much as following the tug of negativity that he could feel.

“Damn…”

Palette nodded, knowing that helping entertain the kids would help his parents.

Ink had ended up grabbing a hatchet on the way down, and was approaching the front door, expecting Malevolence to crash through it at any moment.

Stain was nearby, staying out of view as the door exploded open, tearing off its hinges and flying into the living room nearby.

“Not it for cleaning that one,” he muttered.

There Malevolence stood. He was still out of Stain’s view but definitely in Inks and he looked formidable

Ink had his sash of paints in one hand and the hatchet in the other, though he moved to throw the sash at Malevolence as a sign that he wouldn't back down. He then stepped back into a fighting stance, basically laser-focused on Malevolence. It was obvious he wouldn't go down easy, if at all.

Malevolence glared at Ink, practically seething. “Where. Is. Cross?” He hissed and Stain gulped, trying to find a way to spot Malevolence without being heard by Ink or spotted by Malevolence.

"Sure as hell not here, and you shouldn't be either," Ink gritted his teeth a bit, waiting for Malevolence to try any sort of attack on him.

Malevolence’s tentacles lashed out, pushing through the doorframe and making the wall shake. The blues could be faintly heard crying out upstairs.

Stain yelped and stumbled backwards, into Malevolence’s view, to avoid a wood shard that went flying at his face. Malevolence turned to him and smirked a bit.

“Then I want my son,” he hissed and Stain scrambled farther away from the door

Ink glanced at Stain before taking a step toward Malevolence, "You know I won't give him to you, Malevolence. At least, I hope you would know."

“Malevolence? Oh! I like that! And I don’t care. I want him. If I can’t have Cross, who you shouldn’t have taken, then I’ll take the kid,” he didn’t even really know Stain's name. Stain whimpered a bit as one of his tentacles came for him.

Ink quickly threw his hatchet at the tentacle, with fairly accurate aim, to lop it off, before moving to stand in front of Stain. He wanted to protect his baby.

“Dad…” Stain scrambled to his feet and focused on Malevolence, who was looming in front of them.

“I want him, Ink. I gave you fifteen years with him and you took one of mine, that means I need repayment,”

"You. Don't. Need. Shit." Ink quickly moved to grab the hatchet again, "Stain, get upstairs!"

He quickly turned on Malevolence again, ready to pretty much jump at him.

“But… dad he’s really strong, I can feel it… what if you get hurt?” Stain whispered and then screamed as a tentacle made it past Ink and grabbed Stain's arm.

Ink rushed to, once again, slice the tentacle, "I'm not worried about me!"

“But I am!” Stain cried out, stumbling back from where he’d been grabbed, closer to the stairs.

Error hurried down the hall, spotting Stain just out of grabs from the top of the staircase. He could also see a little bit of ink and one of Malevolence’s tentacles but that meant if he moved too far down the stairs, or wrapped Stain in his strings, Malevolence might see him and that would ruin the effect of essentially faking his own death

Ink stood in front of Stain, hatchet still in hand, "You're going to have to go through me before you ever get him!"

“We both know I can, Ink. And I will if I need to,”

Error took a step or two down the stairs. He couldn’t speak, not when Malevolence was so close, but he needed to get close enough to grab Stain with his strings and pull him closer without hurting him.

"Then try it, see what happens," Ink gripped the hatchet tighter.

“You don’t have any right, to withhold my son from me,” Malevolence lashed out at Ink again, although he was watching Stain who was cowering just beyond the bottom of the stairs, crying. “Huh… I’ll have to fix that first then,” he grumbled to himself

"You have no right to try and call him your son after you abandoned him," Ink took half a step toward Malevolence to try and keep his attention off Stain.

Malevolence laughed and focused back in on Ink.

“Abandoned him? No, I simply let you do all the hard work of raising, and even then you failed. He’s over there crying. My son should be better than that,” he hissed and Error took that moment to run down the stairs and grab Stain, pulling him up the stairs while Malevolence was distracted.

"You kicked us out when he didn't look like you- he isn't your son, Malevolence!" He pointed the hatchet at Malevolence, a bit of a threat, and a challenge.

“Well, he certainly has my abilities!” Malevolence snapped, his eyes focused on the hatchet before going to look at Stain, who was gone.

“Ahh, it seems your pet destroyer found that he was missing a kid,” he snarled and stepped back. He could fight Ink by himself, maybe even defeat him, but with Error closer in the equation, it wasn’t as easy a battle.

"No one in my house is a pet," He took another step toward Malevolence, sensing his wariness. "But you're all bark and no bite, huh?"

Malevolence snarled at him but kept his eyes on the staircase, “No, I just don’t want to deal with a traitor and my traitorous son today,”

"You wouldn't have to if you'd just left us alone!" He took yet another step forward, even if Malevolence didn't move.

Malevolence took a step backward. “Just give me back Cross and things will be okay huh? I’ll leave if you just tell me where he is.”

He’d given up going after Stain and had returned to his main goal; Cross.

"You say that like I know everything about anything anywhere."

“He’s with my brother then? Of course,” he hissed, “if you wouldn’t keep him here, he’d be with someone close to you…”

Malevolence retreated then, leaving a destroyed front door and the quiet sobs of Stain upstairs

Ink gritted his teeth a bit as he watched Malevolence go, "Damn it-"

Error heard the quiet and carefully went down the stairs, an arm wrapped around Stain, just in case, “Are we clear?”

"We are, but Dream's not," Ink moved to sheath his hatchet at his side and go to pick up his sash.

“Shit,” Error hissed, letting Stain go as the boy ran to his dad, wrapping his arms around Ink as soon as he could. “I’ll call, give them a heads up…”

Ink nodded, "Good idea, but we'll need to get the kids settled and go help them."

He wrapped his arms tightly around Stain. "I've got you, baby..."

“Why does he only want me when I serve some purpose?”

“Because he’s an ass…” Error grumbled as he grabbed his phone to call and warn Dream.

"It's just how he is, and how it will be for a while..."

It wasn't long before Dream picked up.

Stain clung to his dad for a few moments until Gradient came bolting down the stairs, a mix of looking pissed and terrified.

Ink looked up when Gradient came down, "I need to go make sure Dream and Cross are alright."

Gradient nodded and moved to put a hand on his brother's shoulder, which easily shifted Stain's attention

Ink moved to let go of Stain and set his paints nearby, "Stain, you shouldn't follow me. Not again. I won't have you in danger again because of him."

“O-okay,” Stain nodded, hiccuping and wiping away flowing tears.

Ink looked at Error, "Do you want my help with the kids before I go?"

“I… maybe? Scarlet was in her room when it happened so she’s a bit shaken up but most of them don’t realize what happened… Palette has been playing a game with them so it’s just getting her settled and getting these two there and calm. It shouldn’t be long,” Error hummed.

Ink nodded, "I'll help where I can before I go, we at least have a little time before Malevolence actually gets there," Ink moved to head upstairs.

“Considering Dreams moved and this version of Malevolence can’t just track his positivity as easily, we should have time, yea,” Error moved to wrap his arm around Stain and Gradient, ushering them quietly upstairs to where the rest of the kids were. Moku and Scarlet were peeking out the doors but ducked in right after they spotted their parents, thinking they’d been sneaky enough not to be seen. Scarlet still looked like she’d been crying.

Ink moved to enter the room, "Hey, kiddos, how are we doing up here?"

He'd noticed and moved to pick up Scarlet.

Scarlet leaned against Ink.

“We’re playing a game, daddy!” Print hummed. He’d decided to help watch Pic and had moved to toddler to sit next to him.

“A game? What game?” Stain forced a smile and wiped his tears, moving to sit next to Print, scooping up the youngest into his arms and putting Pic in his lap. It seemed like Scarlet calmed down rather quickly once everyone was in the room.

Pic didn't seem to mind, usually comfortable wherever he was placed, and Ink walked over to the rest of the kids, "Do you mind playing the game for a bit longer? Downstairs is a little bit of a mess, and Daddy needs to clean it up."

“Okay!” The kids seemed mostly content, although Stain was still trying to not cry, and Scarlet squirmed to be let go, not also wanting to plan.

Ink moved to set Scarlet back down, "You go play with your siblings, ok? I'll be back soon."

Scarlet nodded and moved to join the game.

“Dad, papa… be safe!” Stain called as Error turned to leave the room.

"We will be," Ink waved and stepped out of the room.

Error sighed as he shut the door.

“Remind me how we ended up with 9 kids?” He grumbled, although meant no actual anger. “Ready to go help our family?”

Ink nodded, moving to open a portal, "I am."

#ink #ink sans #ink!sans #error sans #error!sans #undertale au #gradient #cycleverse #nightmare!sans #nightmare #bluescreen #blueprint #stain

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astraldraco · 1 month ago

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- I don't know what qualifies as "preparing a house for snow," but sometimes you do have to keep an eye on pipes and hoses and things so they don't freeze

- mud rooms are definitely real, but if you don't have them usually a boot tray w a mat will do

- subpoint: you have to kick your feet on the doorstep first or else nothing can save you from snow everywhere.

- also subpoint, not a mud room but if in a place that gets blizzards regularly you will have a storm door. or else. sometimes a new store or restaurant will open up in a building that even has an indent for one, and they don't put one up. it is very enjoyable to make fun of them, because they will regret it when they're snowed in. older places that don't have indents will put up structures that sometimes take up half the sidewalk to avoid this.

- there might be a point where scarves are actually required for safety, but in my experience it depends on the person. if you have short hair you probably want one. I always wear one cause my lungs are stupid

- snow and spring are besties. last year I think our frost date (last day that there's any chance of having snow) was in May. they are skipping in circles around a maypole together while the flowers alternately join in and fight for their lives.

- snow is great. always appreciate thick snow. not only is it beautiful, but it's very fun to walk in (if kind of slow). when it gets a bit warmer a tiny layer on top melts and freezes again, making it satisfyingly crunchy. it can screw with your bones though because you have to walk weird (my ankles always hurt when I'm adjusting to snow again)

- ice however is evil and bad. the only way to really avoid slipping is to walk like a penguin and keep your eyes very sharp for shiny bits of sidewalk. if choosing between plain ice or snow covered ice PICK THE SNOW COVERED. it will give you traction and help. most people don't focus that hard on walking and just go as normal but some of us (read: me) think too hard about it

- as much as I love how pretty snow is, snow blindness is very real. sunglasses may be necessary after a big clean snow. once it's been a bit the walking and wear will break it in and make it less pristine, but new snow will give you a headache.

- gloves have sizes. you may discover that your fingers are disproportionately long. while manageable, you may have to suffer slightly webbed fingers for the sake of warmth

- if gloveless you might also want to pull a Minecraft villager and put your hands in opposite sleeves.

- wearing a hat will keep your entire body much warmer. if it's cold, wear a hat. kids do not want to follow this instruction but they will realize their parents were right eventually.

- static is evil. everything is staticky. there is no escape. you're just doomed

- wear layers that you can take off and put on again! temperatures are not consistent, make sure you have a gradient of options (eg. t-shirt + long sleeve + hoodie + jacket. you can get all the way from ice-safe to tshirt easily.) bring a way to transport this if you plan on going past 3 layers though, cause those things can add up fast when you're carrying them.

hope some of this helps! or is even just interesting

Contrary to popular belief there is in fact snow in California and I have been to the snow. For most Californians we’ve gotta visit the snow. We go to the snow, the snow doesn’t come to us. There are some Californians who live in the snow but they live in really rural areas in the mountains or far up north.

All of this is to say that I’ve seen snow. I’ve walked in snow. I’ve kept warm in a snowstorm. I’ve slipped on black ice and seen The Slush but I haven’t lived it long term.

So part of the book I’m writing takes place in the bit of winter just before spring when there’s The Slush and black ice forms overnight and I’m having to Google some things like do you have to prepare a house for snow and are mud rooms real and at what point is a scarf mandatory for your lungs to not freeze over and can there be snow and spring at the same time I’m not sure

#north midwest wahooo #draco talks #i love winter so much btw i have complaints but i adore it #second best season

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loiswolf · 2 years ago

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Day 55 July 25 Sheguiandah - Tehkummah 42kms

Today was kind of like a rest day after all. I had a relaxing breakfast in my lovely RV and went for a short walk Jack had recommended up the back of the property. I managed to waste enough time to delay leaving until 9:45.

This is a photo from the deck on my RV last night taken at an out 8:30pm. I sat out there reading my kindle and for some reason there were no mozzies.

After returning to the main road today my first challenge was the 3km hill a few people had warned me about. It was nothing! A very easy gradient, I didn’t even raise a sweat and it was quite a hot day today.

A few kilometres after the hill I came to another beautiful rest area/lookout/First Nation craft shop.

I snapped a couple of photos and started to cycle off. What was I doing? I had all day to waste! I decided to play tourist and circled back to the shop. It had a few nice things I was tempted to buy. I made myself walk out, took a photo of Shirley who was looking good, stopped and admired the view .

Again I was about to cycle off when I thought, meh, I’m not going to be here again, so I went back into the shop and bought the things I’d been looking at.

Another few kilometres on and there was a waterfall. Like a good tourist I stopped and took a photo.

The cycling was flat and easy but I was already hungry and looking forward to getting a coffee at Manitowaning.

Since I finished the hilly section yesterday I’ve been on Manitoulin Island. It’s a really lovely place to be a tourist. 😁

Somehow I managed to miss the turnoff ( it wasn’t signed) and when I stopped up the road to check the map some ladies in a car pulled over to check I was OK ( they are very nice people here) and confirmed my suspicion. I doubled back into town and found the coffee shop I’d picked out.

It was a bit hot inside but I enjoyed my coffee and piece of chocolate and raspberry cake so much I had another piece of cake. This one was lemon and it was so big I felt really full by the time I’d finished.

I rolled out onto the bike for the last 15kms. It was well after midday so the headwind had blown up. Since I had all the time in the world it didn’t matter and actually helped to cool me off a bit.

I was still way early to check in to my rather unusual accommodation. I am staying at the Kicking Mule Guest Ranch in a covered wagon.

Cool hey? They have all sorts of different ‘rooms’ including teepees. Jeff is trying to make a go of the place and has put a lot of effort into improving it. I spent ages talking to him this afternoon.

Tomorrow I cross back onto the mainland on the ferry for the final few days of my journey.

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dustofthedailylife · 2 years ago

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A Fennec Fox's Guide To Botany

→ Masterlist || → Taglist

Summary: Tighnari comes back from a day of work and is greeted by yet another new patient who has consumed poisonous mushrooms in the forest. That it would be another fennec fox he'd have to save is a surprise - yet not an unwelcome one.

Pairing: Tighnari x Fennec Fox!Reader (gn!)

Tags: Fluff, SFW, mentions of food poisoning and corresponding symptoms (Reader)

A/N: Back with a new fic! This is the first time I wrote something for Tighnari outside of headcanons and I hope I managed to portray his character well. I brainrotted about the idea of this fic a while ago and just couldn't get it out of my head. Hope you like it! :3

→ Part 2 (A Fennec Fox's Guide to Love)

Today had been a rather uneventful day in Avidya Forest. Now that Irminsul was cured, thanks to the efforts of the Traveler, the number of Withering Zones that still remained throughout the forest steadily decreased every day and they were generally easier to deal with, too. Additionally, Collei was as energetic as ever now that her Eleazar was cured.

Though just as Tighnari came back from patrol training with Collei Amir, the Search and Rescue Dog Trainer of the Forest Watchers hurriedly ran in their direction as soon as he spotted them back at the camp.

“Master Tighnari!”, he panted breathlessly and came to a halt in front of the pair.

“Amir? What’s wrong? Did the dogs eat poisonous mushrooms like last time?”, Tighnari retorted half amused.

There really was always something, wasn’t there? He should be surprised but he really wasn't anymore. There goes his chance of getting some downtime for once.

“No! Well… yes. I mean, no, not directly.”, Amir stammered.

“Well, what is it now? Yes or no?”

“Please just come with me and take a look.”, Amir prattled on before he quickly hurried back towards the medical hut.

Tighnari didn’t know what was going on yet but his gut feeling told him that it meant nothing good. It wasn’t rare that he was called over to assist with a patient but never before had he seen Amir so anxious.

As he pushed past the entrance of the hut he found Amir and another Forest Ranger standing in front of the bed where he could vaguely make out the legs of a heavily shivering person. If he had to take a wild guess it was likely yet another fool who couldn’t tell a poisonous mushroom apart from an edible one. The usual tourist; they ate everything they could find on the forest floor.

Tighnari sighed deeply and pushed past the others towards the bed and that’s where he found you lying. He stopped dead in his tracks the moment he saw you. You were a fennec fox just like him. The fur on your features was mainly golden-beige colored and had a color gradient toward the tips of your tail and ears that matched your hair color.

Your ears were flattened downwards against your head, your eyes were pressed shut and your mouth was pulled into a pained grimace. Beads of sweat were running down your forehead as you were writhing on the bed with your hands clasped over your stomach and your tail tucked in between your legs.

The anger that had been welling up inside the pit of his stomach the entire way here was gone the second he laid eyes on you.

All these years he spent thinking he was the only Fennec fox left in Sumeru and then you suddenly appear out of nowhere with a strong food poisoning. As much as he wanted to be as annoyed as he usually was towards tourists, he couldn’t quite bring himself to be. Especially not when you looked so incredibly beautiful. It felt wrong to him to think about something like this in the current situation but he couldn’t take his eyes off of you.

“What happened?”, he questioned Amir without averting his gaze.

“We found them while on patrol. They begged us to help them because they were in horrible pain, babbling something about eating mushrooms and that they were hungry… as soon as we arrived here they started hallucinating and were completely unresponsive. They seem to be deteriorating fast.”, Amir explained with a quivering voice. He looked like he was scared out of his mind and close to tears.

“Did they mention what they ate?”, Tighnari inquired, trying his hardest to keep his composure because if he didn't you'd be a goner.

He found himself thinking that it is lucky he returned right on time because no matter how good his Forest Rangers otherwise were when it came to medical emergencies or unprecedented incidents, they were completely unfit to deal with them.

“They mentioned something about a… red starshroom with white dots, I think?”

“Star Death Cap… abdominal pain, nausea, fever, hallucinations. Highly poisonous…”, Tighnari mumbled to himself as he rummaged inside the medical cabinet in the corner of the room. He took out several medical supplies and a small bottle containing a bright green liquid.

“Master, can you still help them?!”, Amir hysterically interrupted while nervously dancing around on the spot behind Tighnari.

“Not if you keep making me nervous, Amir. Leave, both of you. I need room to think.”, he bit back.

Amir waved to the other Forest Ranger who had been present the entire time as well and quickly left the hut with a worried frown painted on his face.

Tighnari took a deep breath and pulled a chair in front of the bed where you were lying. He took out a flashlight and pulled your eyes open with his the pad of his thumb to test the reaction of your pupils; and if he was being honest things weren’t looking too good. Your eyes barely reacted to the light at all and you didn’t even seem to properly notice him. Even though he knew from himself that fennec foxes had a high toxin resistance, he still needed to act, otherwise, things were looking grim for you.

He stood up from his chair again and went to grab the cup with the medicine he had concocted for this specific type of mushroom, although he has never had to use it before since people usually didn’t eat the mushroom you seemed to have consumed. It was bright red and basically screamed “danger, don’t eat me”. Although that didn’t seem to be enough to stop you from eating it. If you were going to make it, he’s got to ask you what in Celestia you were thinking.

He lifted the cup to your face and carefully aligned it with your lips when you suddenly grabbed his wrist and looked directly at him.

“A-are you a god?”, you breathed out through pants while you stared at him with eyes wide-blown in surprise.

“What?”, he startled. You were probably hallucinating again, but even though he was very much aware of that, he couldn’t stop his heart from beating an octave higher. “No. N-no! I’m Tighnari, I’m a Forest Watcher.”

“You’re the Dendro Archon!”, you revered and clutched one hand into the fabric of his sweater as soon as you saw the Dendro vision dangling on his hip. He tried to loosen your grip on him again in order to not spill the medicine you so desperately needed to take but you held onto him for dear life.

You pulled yourself up and snaked your arms around his neck, your fluffy tail slowly swaying from left to right behind you while you nuzzled your head against his cheek with a soft hum. Your soft ears brushed against his cheek and he could feel the heat that emanated from your body. The poison in your system was causing you to burn up rapidly. If he didn’t hurry up now the protein in your cells would start to coagulate and he couldn’t let that happen.

“I’ve dreamt about you a lot. I’ve always wanted to meet you… and to think you’re so handsome, too.”, you rambled on, making his heart flutter uncontrollably in his chest. “If I make it you have to promise to give me a kiss.” If you were planning to keep going like that it was he who soon needed medical attention instead.

Despite you making his head spin, Tighnari decided to take advantage of your hallucination-induced confusion and used his “role” as the Dendro Archon to make you comply so he could finally make you take the much-needed medicine.

“I’ve come to help you. It is my job as the deity of Sumeru to protect its citizens and I have sensed that you are in grave danger.”, Tighnari vowed. He could feel your grip on his sweater loosen and saw you look deep into his eyes, flattening your ears against your head in awe again. “Will you let me help you?”

You slowly nodded and let him raise the cup with the medicine to your lips. You felt a light burn shoot through your system as soon as the bitterness of the medicine enveloped your tastebuds. You contorted your face due to the unpleasant taste and soon after felt how your eyelids suddenly grew heavy, making you fall into a deep slumber.

Once you had fallen asleep in his arms Tighnari carefully tucked you in and rested your head on the pillow. He softly brushed over your hair and ears before smiling to himself. All you needed now was a good night’s sleep and you’d be as good as new.

As soon as the sun rose over Avidya Forest the next morning, Tighnari went back to the medical hut to check on your condition. He had brewed some tea and prepared some pita pockets for you to eat since he figured you must be hungry. He had thought about making his signature mushroom hodgepodge for you but considering that you had just overcome mushroom poisoning, you probably wouldn’t be eager to eat them again immediately.

When he entered the hut he found you sitting on the bed, leaning against the headboard and eagerly staring at him.

“Good morning! Welcome back from the dead!”, Tighnari greeted you.

“Ehe, good morning.”, you awkwardly chuckled, scratching yourself behind your ears while avoiding his gaze. “Thanks for saving my butt yesterday.”

“That’s what we do here. You somehow managed to consume one of the rarest and most poisonous mushrooms in the entire rainforest.”, he explained.

“Guess that is just my luck, as usual.”

"You're lucky fennec foxes have a high poison resistance."

"We do?"

"We do.", he nodded with a small smile. You were beyond adorable to him.

Tighnari passed you a cup of the herbal tea he brought along with him, as well as one of the pita pockets, which you hungrily devoured like someone who hasn’t had anything to eat in a week.

“Say, what made you eat the mushroom anyway?”

You awkwardly averted your gaze again while you felt the blood rush to your cheeks in embarrassment. You were incredibly ashamed about your absolute incompetence, especially because of the attractive man in front of you, who just happened to be a fox like you, too.

“This is kind of awkward… but I’m from the desert and am about to start as an Amurta scholar at the Akademiya in a couple of months. I wanted to get acquainted with the local botany and… I kind of got lost in the forest and eventually was so starved I started collecting mushrooms.”

You were supposed to become an Amurta scholar and managed to consume the most poisonous mushroom in the entire forest. It was so ironic that Tighnari wasn’t able to hold back his laughter which flustered you even further and made your ears droop. At least the fact that you were from the desert explained why you didn’t understand the local flora and fauna.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at you.”, he said as he wiped a tear out of the corner of his eyes. “It’s just a bit ironic is all.”

“Yeah… I know. I’m kind of embarrassed about it as well. I can’t make a bigger fool out of myself at this point.”, you awkwardly chuckled.

“Mhhh, I don’t know about that, you thought I was the Dendro Archon yesterday and called me handsome.”, Tighnari casually remarked. “Oh, and then then you made me promise to give you a kiss if you end up making it.”

You spat your tea out in full force following his last sentence. How was he able to recite it so casually when your heart was about to burst out of your chest? Archons, how embarrassing.

“I take that back… apparently I can make an even bigger fool out of myself. Forgive me.”, you retorted, pulling your ears over your eyes with your hands in an attempt to hide behind them. And while it was correct, you did think he was incredibly attractive, you had probably ruined every chance with him after this encounter anyway.

Contrary to your beliefs however, Tighnari thought you were beyond pretty and adorable. Even more so when you were flustered.

“Well, coincidentally this handsome Dendro Archon happens to have graduated from Amurta. So, if you’re willing, I could give you a quick rundown of the local botany.”, he proposed cheekily but not without a blush starting to bloom across his own cheeks as well.

“You would do that for me? That definitely sounds like it could save me from trouble like this again in the future.”, you agreed with an awkward chuckle as your tail began to wag.

“Perfect. You’re free to rest here as long as you like before we start your personal crash course… oh and by the way, the name’s Tighnari, pleased to meet you.”, he introduced himself, stretching his hand out for you to shake; unknowingly making both of your hearts flutter in unison.

“I’m pleased to meet you, too.”

What a curious little fox you were. He couldn’t wait to get to know you better. After all, he still had to fulfill the promise he gave you.

Do not repost, copy, translate or edit - © dustofthedailylife || reblogs, comments, and asks about Genshin or my fics are always greatly appreciated! Maple dividers are mine - do not copy.

#genshin impact #genshin fanfic #genshin x reader #tighnari x reader #tighnari x y/n #tighnari x you #genshin fluff #genshin drabbles #genshin scenarios #genshin headcanons #genshin x female reader #genshin x gn reader #tighnari #genshin crack #genshin x you #genshin fanfiction #🍁 dust writes

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inviouswriting · 2 years ago

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Moments With You

This is a 18+ post minors DNI.

Zhongli x fem!reader

Something a little softer than my usual.

Moments with you.

There are small instances when you are around Zhongli, when you have gotten married you notice little nuances that he’ll do around you. From a gentle smile or a kiss on your fingers whenever he greets you or has to leave you.

Those gold eyes always regard you with warmth, they show you nothing but love whenever you stand next to him as he appraises items at an antiques store. To What he does to show you genuine affection, a press of his face against your own. You delight him in letting him steal a kiss just behind a book, he acted like he couldn’t get enough of you.

There were the heated moments that led you both down paths to pleasure, those were always in the moment. He never planned that kind of intimacy and you realized why he always loves you that way, is to give you the purest emotion and experience possible while laying underneath him as he caged your head between his arms watching every expression you make.

Mornings are his favorite, when you are shy but clinging to him for warmth. Zhongli radiated a warmth you couldn’t resist, and he did his best to make you feel loved and protected. It’s here you see the side of him that those in the harbor never would. The messy brown-haired former archon, luring molten eyes that stare at you from where he rests his head on the pillow.

You pick up one of the locks of his hair, the amber gradient at the end being toyed with between your fingers. His arms loose around your waist letting you touch him as you please. When your fingers slip up closer to his face, he dips his head enough to kiss over your fingers. He even catches this hand to place a kiss on each finger, paying special attention to your wedding band.

Zhongli places your hand on his face letting you feel his cheek and rubs against your hand, almost like he wants to be petted by you. You snicker a little at this behavior of his and indulge him by carding your fingers through his hair earning him pressing closer to your hand, you do this again. Your thumb sweeping the bangs off so you can see the marks at the edges of his eyes.

Your archon when alone shows off those gold and black arms, a feature he can’t always hide even as an ex-archon. You trace the edges where the black meets the tan of his skin. You follow the gold lines while his eyes fall close at your touch. You ghost a touch across his lips and get him to kiss just at your fingertips.

Zhongli’s hands at your waist tugs you closer when he had enough of you teasing his face, pinning you down beneath him so he could keep you where he can watch over your every expression. Gold eyes seeking your own eyes for unsaid permissions, even when you feel him lower onto you to slip his arms beheath you and hold you close to him.

You make small noises at the kisses trailed from your shoulder to your lips. The subtle chuckle from him that tells you how playful he is being. When he pulls back, you feel his hand slip up along your arm till his fingers lace with yours. Zhongli watches your face as it darkens in color from when you meet his eyes.

Zhongli untangles the sheets from your body wanting to see more of your skin, you react to this by rolling onto your stomach to start crawling away from him. You immediately feel hands on your waist pulling you back underneath him.

“Where are you going?” Is all you hear before weight is pressed to your back, and teeth delicate on your neck, you feel the pricks of fangs as he nibbles there. You reach your hands to grab anything and find one of the pillows that got strewn away from earlier. You manage to snare it only to have it wrested away and tossed off the bed.

You feel air hit your skin when Zhongli pulls off the sheets covering you both. A gasp leaves your lips when you feel him against you, tender touches on your back tracing your spine as he waits for permission. Diamonds being traced along your shoulder-blades, geo symbols as if mapping where he wants to place his marks.

“Do you want me to?” You hear next to your ear, followed with a kiss and hot breath that makes you react to moving towards him. His right hand slips up between you both to grasp himself and rubs the head of his cock along the crease of your folds.

“Of course, I do.” You give him permission, a reverent kiss on your neck as he slips himself into you. You let out the breath you were holding as he bottoms out. It’s always the same sensation whenever he’s inside, you’re full and overwhelmed at how intense the emotions are. He does his best to make sure you feel him with all of your senses, from when he draws his hips back one of his hands goes to covers your eyes tying in place a blindfold, he used the night before.

The wet heat on your shoulder from his kisses and tongue while his thrusts get into a rhythm. His hands find purchase on your waist tugging you into his thrusts as you feel him more and more. Zhongli doesn’t forget to rub along your sides or grasp a breast to squeeze. The way you tighten on him does wonders and tugging your head up so he can thrust nicely into you till you clench on him when your sweet spot is found.

There is always a faint scent of sandalwood in the air; adding into everything that is Zhongli. Your senses on fire when your sense of feel is overwhelmed even more with each jolt of pleasure surging through your spine. Or the slight bittersweet taste of his kiss from the tea he drinks. You are not sure of where your mind is at this point, and really feel vulnerable when he takes your hands in his before hugging you to him.

“You feel so wonderful.” He lets out breathy moans into your ear letting you hear how he takes pleasure in you as much as you receive from him. He undoes the blindfold from around your eyes and you momentarily feel him pull out so he can flip you onto your back. The sight that greets you when you lie back is one of him squeezing himself to not cum right there when you shed the shyness with him. You see his cheeks flush red a rare sight on his stony face when you invite him to your body again with parting your folds for him to be back inside you.

He does with pinning you down underneath him and you feel your face hotter when he towers over you as he thrusts wild into your body, his last restraint gone. You thrash underneath him and cry his name in breathy moans, you reach for anything only to be given his hands to hold. Zhongli lowers onto you so he can kiss your face till he catches your lips, you whimper into the kiss and really feel it with him.

Before you know it you are shaking underneath him as your body is drawn into an intense orgasm that you leave lines in his back to where the light of his skin meets the black of his arms. Zhongli keeps pushing into you till he feels you squeeze, his thrusts not letting up as he rides out his own orgasm spilling his seed within you, a deep sigh escaping him.

You shake in his arms and feel extra sensitive; he rubs his face against yours and peppers your face in kisses. Zhongli hears your sobs, the lovemaking being almost too much as you cry into his shoulder.

“My love, my dear love.” You hear through the fog; thumbs wipe away the tears streaming down your cheeks. You look up into warm gold eyes, his forehead against yours so you have nowhere else to look but his eyes. He works on grounding you to him and takes your hands in his own to get you to feel him. He kisses you so you taste him, a small hum to hear him, and you remember the scent of sandalwood that lingers in the bedding from him.

“There we are my beautiful one.” He stays within you till you squirm from discomfort to tell him to pull out. He does only to collect you into his arms and reach for the cover to wrap you in with himself. You sigh feeling boneless and comfortable. Zhongli finding his place with resting his head on your chest to hear your heartbeat and feels the softness of your skin.

He soothes your mind with cupping your face in his hands to kiss over it till you giggle in response to all his affection. You settle into his arms relaxed and content with him. Zhongli seeks your fingers with his to lace them together, resting your hands together over your abdomen.

“We can linger today and enjoy our company together.” Zhongli tugs you closer till all you feel is an arm, leg or his torso against your body and lips making promises for the rest your life with him.

#zhongli #zhongli smut #Zhongli x female reader #genshin impact zhongli

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etsuven · 2 years ago

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rating: angst to fluff word count: 4.8k (i got carried away and all of a sudden it was 4k words long what happened my previous max was like 2.5k-) cw: death, slight mentions of blood includes: god! reader, reincarnation au, college au, mild cursing, reader is implied to be shorter than zhongli, the two of you are a bit awkward at first but honestly it's cute <3, childe has a few appearances, mentions of childe and his real name (it's used a lot because i don't see 'childe' being used a lot in a modern au), lowkey wingman childe, fischl and barbara make an appearance, reader is described as pretty. summary: amidst the screams of gods under the night sky, you make a wish...

note: the summary was originally supposed to be a gradient but everything kept going wrong with it, like having the colors merge with the words before it, and i got annoyed and deleted it so if you notice some spelling mistakes i LITERALLY cannot edit them out or else everything will fall apart as im writing this part it's 3:19 AM on 10/31. but anyways i started writing at like, 6:30 AM on 10/30 and when i properly finished it it was around... 2:00 AM? i got a bit carried away, i had to make this good! anyways enjoy-

screams rang through the night air, but they were only background noise to the throbbing that seemed to echo throughout your body. your vision was blurring more and more by the second, and you could feel your thoughts fading away.

you attempted to inhale deeply, but the pain in your chest kept you from doing so. 'where was zhongli?' you thought, looking around. you tried to keep your mind away from the battlefield around you, but it was hard, especially considering that it was probably the only thing you could see for miles.

a sharp intake of breath caught your attention, and you quickly looked to your left, still alert even though you could slowly feel the life leaving you. you could see the figure of your lover crawling towards you, and you managed to reach out a bloody hand towards him.

he took your hand in his, kissing the back of it before pulling you towards him. weakly wrapping your arms around him, you inhaled his scent. the smell of his expensive cologne lingered on him, but there was also the familiar smell of the battlefield on his clothes.

"i'm so tired, 'li..." you whispered. your lover took in a shaky breath, and you tried not to think about the faint beating of his heart in your ear. he was clearly having trouble, perhaps this battle was too much for him. too much for the both of you.

zhongli pressed his lips against your head. "i know, darling." he adjusted your body in his arms, resting his back against one of the only trees that were still standing. "you did your best, i'm proud of you."

you let out a little hum, your eyes closing for a split second until you forced them open. the two of you sat in silence, and you found your gaze trailing to the stars above. "hey, do you think we'll fall in love again?"

your lover took no time to nod, his eyes also going towards to the sky. "of course we will-" his sentence was cut off by a cough, and you looked at him worriedly. you hadn't had the time to look at his face since he found you, meaning that you hadn't yet gotten a glimpse of all of the cuts on his face.

his gaze fell down to your face, and he found himself smiling. even now, you were still gorgeous. "i'd fall in love with you a million times over if i had the chance to..." your hand reached towards his jaw, and you used all of your energy to press your lips against his cheek.

a long exhale left your lips. it was getting harder to stay awake now. "let's do that then. let's fall in love a million times over, just like you said..." zhongli chucked, trying his best to ignore how quiet your voice was getting.

"okay. i love you... so much." he looked down at your form, watching as you responded faintly before your eyes closed. he glanced at the sky, pleading silently that your shared wish would come true. the stars twinkled above the two of you, and it was almost as if they were giving him permission to join them.

one seemed to shine brighter than the others. perhaps it was you?

his body was aching. maybe it was time for him to go, too... he took one last look at your body, using more strength than usual to lift his hand up and brush his fingers through your hair. his eyes slid shut, eyebrows furrowing at the effort he took to do such a simple task.

the feeling of the tree against his back faded away, and his breathing began to slow. the only thing on his mind was you- you and your smile, your laugh, everything about you. and unbeknownst to him, the sky seemed to gain another brightly shining star, right next to the first one- just as he let out his final breath...

you took in a deep breath. college was hard. opening the door to the library, you walked in, going to your preferred section. you placed a few insignificant things down at a table, secretly hoping that no one would come by and take them. your more expensive things were in your backpack, so you weren't too worried. but you had chosen a spot close to the section of books you needed for your essay, so your worried were quickly quelled.

once everything was situated, you went to the shelves, quickly scanning through until you found the section you needed. you seem to have needed a specific book for the essay, as an upperclassman had recommended it to you. after a minute or two of looking, you still couldn't seem to find it. perhaps it was on the other side? you were on the right track alphabetically...

you turned to go to the other side, but you were quickly distracted by the absolute hunk of a man standing on the other end.

he was very tall, and he had a certain air to him that practically screamed royalty. he had very long chocolate brown hair that was put in a ponytail, and the color went quiet well with the tan of his slightly oversized sweater.

the circle rimmed glasses sat nicely on his nose, complementing the sharpness of his jawline and the content on his face as he looked through the books. all in all, he was really cute.

"he's single, y'know~" a voice whispered near you, and you had to cover your mouth in order to keep a yelp from escaping into the quiet of the library. an equally as tall man walked by you, though this one had bright ginger hair. he took a quick glance at you, a teasing smile on his face as he walked over to the cute guy.

'well shit.' you felt your face heat up in embarrassment. 'you've been caught.' you turned on your heels, trying to ignore the burning feeling in your cheeks. you were trying to find a book, not stare at a random guy in the library! who did you think you were?

you sat down at your table, silently groaning in exasperation. you hadn't even gotten the book yet! taking a quick glance around the area around you, you noticed the two men walking out of the section you were just in.

taking your chance, you got up, speed walking over to the area and finding the book you so desperately needed. as you walked back to your table, you locked gazes with the ginger- almost orange haired man, trying to ignore the knowing look in his blue eyes. the brown haired man started to turn around, and you quickly looked away, heading back to your seat.

"what are you looking at, ajax?" zhongli looked behind him in confusion. the only thing really behind him was a fellow student walking by with a book clutched in their arms. his gaze followed them for a few seconds, and he found it quite hard to tear his eyes away.

"oh, i dunno... what are you looking at?" zhongli finally turned around, noticing the familiar teasing look in his childhood friends' eyes. with a roll of his own, he went back to the book he had just picked up. "nothing, i was just looking where you were."

ajax- or childe as known by others, chuckled quietly, thinking back to the person he had caught staring at his childhood friend. you looked like a deer in headlights, enamored by the sight of the young man. and judging by how zhongli's eyes had followed you as you walked by, he seemed to feel the same way.

zhongli hadn't dated anyone his whole entire life, always claiming that he wanted to wait for the perfect person. even though he only seemed to care about his studies to the average person, he was quite sweet, and he even had a romantic side to him.

don't tell anyone, but ajax had even caught his friend reading a few romantic books in his free time.

"you were staring at that person walking by, weren't you?" he asked, the teasing tone still in his voice. zhongli groaned, trying to ignore his friend as he went back to his book. maybe he was staring at you, but admitting it to ajax would be like signing his own death certificate.

you spotted the library man a few times in the next few days. walking across campus, in the dining hall with the rich kids (of course he would be friends with those such as ningguang, diluc, and ayato.), and of course, in the library. you even swore that you had seen him in your dreams, even way before you had seen him for the first time.

for as long as you could remember, you had been having these dreams.

it was weird, honestly, and sometimes you couldn't tell if you recognized the person materialized by your brain. you often dreamt of someone similar to the mystery library man, someone who also had an aura of power and knowledge that you could sense from a mile away.

the dreams were often blurry, and half of the time you couldn't even see what you were looking at. visions of midday hangouts, nights in the city during a noticeably orange and blue toned festival, and stories being told by that man raced through your mind. you had always found them quite interesting, even before you knew what the strange man was talking about.

they weren't always nice dreams, though.

you had bad ones too, nightmares of a bloody battlefield, fighting for your life and eventually losing... you were in the embrace of another, presumably the same person that you seemed to dream of since you were a child.

"perhaps you've seen him around campus before that day, and your brain just put him in your head?" the soft voice of your underclassman- barbara, spoke up. she twirled an ash blonde pigtail around her fingers, looking up at you from her paper. "they say that the people in your dreams are people you've seen in your daily life."

you sighed, resting your face in your hands. "i swear i've never seen him before- i would have remembered someone as good looking as him!" you locked eyes with fischl, another underclassman. she was studying theatre, and you honestly couldn't think of a better major for her.

"well, maybe he's your soulmate! all of those dreams seem to be too vivid, and..." the sound of her voice went in one ear and out the other as you started to think. soulmates sounded nice, sure, but you were certain they weren't real. of course you had seen couples who seemed to be made for each other, but maybe they had just gotten lucky.

or perhaps you were just bitter that you never seemed to be able to find a lover.

"anyways, guys, i have to go back to the library." you spoke, and the girls let out noises of disappointment. fischl even stopped her speech for a bit. barbara placed her pencil down, a confused look on her face.

"can't you look online for what you need?" a knowing look was on her face, and you found yourself looking away. clearly she was starting to figure out why you liked going to the library so much. fischl had the same look on her face, and you could already see them gossiping about you when you left. "no, i uh- it's not online... i'll see you later though, bye!' and with a quick wave, you were off.

you entered the library a few minutes later, already subconsciously starting to look for the mystery man. strangely enough, even though you had seen him around more times than you could count, you hadn't even spoken to him once. more strangely, the mystery man wasn't there.

you let out a disappointed sigh, heading to your usual table. going through the now memorized routine of placing your stuff down, you walked to the section you needed your book from. this time the book seemed to be way out of reach. you stood on your tiptoes, trying your best to reach the item.

"ah, allow me to get that for you." a deep voice reached your ears, and you found yourself looking over in surprise. the man you had been seeing everywhere for days was right in front of you! normally you would be scared if some random guy invaded your personal space, but the mystery man seemed to have a certain sense of... familiarity around him.

you looked up at the young man, trying to hide how you were checking him out. he was definitely prettier up close. "is this the book you wanted?" his voice was also deeper than you expected. you nodded quickly, shyness suddenly creeping up on you.

you let out a small thanks, about to walk away before his voice stopped you. he had told you to wait. you looked at him in confusion, feeling your heart speed up. it was so weird, you had never properly met him before, yet it felt like you'd known him forever. perhaps it was just the similar figure in your dreams messing with your head.

you watched as he turned around, and you quickly noticed that the tips of his ears were slightly red. maybe he was as nervous as you? you followed his line of sight, noticing the same ginger man from a few days ago looking at the mystery man with a quite dumb smile and a thumbs up.

the tall man looked back at you, and- wow, his eyes were so pretty. they were an amber color, almost gold. it was a color you had never seen on anyone before.

"so... what do you need the book for?" he asked. you could see him tense up a bit, almost as if he didn't want to say what he said. you looked over at your spot, pointing over in the direction of your stuff. "i have a paper due in a few days, i was told that this book was one that could help me with research."

the two of you chatted about your majors, and you found out that he was a history major studying business on the side. clearly he was very smart, but the workload must have been insane. he claimed he was fine with it though, even stating that it was quite easy considering that he had a fondness for those types of things.

he offered to help you with your paper, and even though you initially declined- you didn't want to burden him- he insisted, leaving you to lead him to your table. unbeknownst to you, there was a man on the sidelines cheering the two of you on.

"goodness, it's getting quite late..." a quick glance at your phone alerted you to the time. the sun was starting to set, and golden light was streaming through the windows in the library. clearly you had gotten carried away, but you had also finished your paper! due to you looking at your phone, you just managed to miss the flash of disappointment on the mystery man's face, now known as 'zhongli.'

"my, you're right." he stood up, brushing invisible dust off his pristine clothes. he picked up a few of your things, handing them to you politely as you gathered everything together. you felt your heart sinking as you placed your things in your bag, starting your walk to the entrance of the library with the mystery man.

what if you never had the courage to speak to him again? he was wonderful, and you didn't know if you could take not being able to speak to him again. he seemed quite shy as well, perhaps even awkward at times, especially in the beginning of your conversation. that only meant a lower chance of ever speaking to him again.

suddenly, an idea popped up in your head as you made it outside. it would be perfectly fine if he rejected you, after all- you fully believed that you'd never see him again after this. and so...

"um... can i give you my number?" you blurted out, a slight shakiness in your voice. you watched zhongli's eyes widen in surprise, and if you looked close enough, you could even see a faint coloration of his cheeks. was he embarrassed? did you do something wrong? was there-

"yes- yes, of course!" he seemed flustered as he took out his phone, unlocking it and handing it to you with shaky hands. you took the item out of his hand (the new model? wasn't this super expensive?), inserting your number and name into the phone before reading over it twice and handing it out to him.

zhongli pressed the corner of the screen to save the number, pressing the power button soon after and placing the device into his pocket. adjusting your backpack and jacket, you failed to notice his eyes lingering on your figure. the light from the sunset fell onto you perfectly, encasing you in a sort of heavenly glow that had his heart skipping a few beats. he had never felt this way before, so why...

"i live a bit away from here, so i'll get going now before the sun sets." he began to rock nervously on the balls of his feet, hoping that you didn't hear the slight stutter in his voice. you nodded quickly, and the zipper of your jacket made a cute jingle as it collided with the metal part of the garment.

"okay! um, stay safe!" you gave him a wave, speed walking away towards... wherever you needed to go. zhongli sighed, a tightness in his chest as he watched you leave. suddenly, a hand slapped onto his shoulder, causing him to almost yelp in surprise.

ajax was standing next to him, a wide smile on his face as he started leading his friend towards their shared apartment. "so..." he dragged on, looking at his friend expectantly. zhongli shrugged, trying his best to fight down the blush that was threatening to form on his cheeks.

"they uh... gave me their number." zhongli watched out of the corner of his eyes as his friends jaw dropped, sighing deeply at his friends' dramatics. ajax patted his back, looking up at the now darkening sky above their college. "you'd better actually do something with that."

you entered the hallway to your dorm, sighing deeply at how tired you suddenly were. you thought back to you giving zhongli your number, your face heating up at how quickly you left. you couldn't even say a proper goodbye? how rude-

a ding interrupted your thoughts, and it took you a few seconds to realize it was coming from your phone. you took it out of your pocket, quickly looking at the screen only to have your jaw drop in shock.

(___)-___-____ would you like to hang out sometime? -zhongli.

"you're smitten, dude." zhongli looked at ajax in disbelief, wondering why he would assume such an absurd thing. the two of you had just properly met, and even though he had been seeing you around campus for a while now, it was way too soon to consider him being in love.

he leaned his back against the couch, looking at the ceiling above him. the two of them were in their shared apartment, one that ajax mainly paid for considering that he had more money than he could imagine. since they were upperclassman, it was naturally harder for them to find dorms to stay in. not that they'd want to do that, anyways.

"there's no way. we just met each other, that's not enough time for anything to form." zhongli looked forward again, grabbing at the teacup resting on the coffee table in front of him. ajax sat on the other side of the couch, only to lean back and rest his feet on the table much to his roommates dismay.

zhongli sighed softly, swirling his tea around in his cup. it was weird, the way he felt for you. he'd never felt this way about anyone before and honestly... he was scared. ajax looked at his friend with concern, wondering if he really was okay.

"it was a joke, i promise..." and it really was. he just wanted to rile the young man up a bit, as well as get the pretty person who was unabashedly staring at his friend a chance with him. he was about to speak again when zhongli began to speak before him.

"have you ever met someone... only to feel like you've known them forever?" he continued to stare into his teacup, almost lost in the sight of himself in the liquid. ajax began to ponder the question. he would say that about zhongli, but the man didn't even like him that much when they were younger.

he took a long sip at his tea, inhaling the aroma after he was done. "that's how i feel. it's weird but... also nice?" zhongli watched as ajax hummed along, as if pondering his statement. what he didn't know was that his words had only cemented what was originally a 'joke' in his friends' head.

'he was definitely smitten.'

you and zhongli began to hang out more over the following weeks, getting used to each other's personalities and habits. you studied together, ate lunch together, and you finally introduced him to your friends! at this point, you could call him a friend of your own. but lately you seemed to have started thinking of him in a more than friends kind of way.

even though you were already feeling these things way before you had properly met him- nervousness around him, your heart skipping a bit whenever he did or said certain things, that sense of familiarity that never seemed to fade away- you were sure that they would go away eventually.

but they never did. in fact, they only got worse.

zhongli began to feel the same way, and ajax used that as an opportunity to both encourage him and tease him. encouraging as he's the one who helps him gather the courage to ask you to hang out more, and teasing when ajax makes fun of how flustered he gets around you.

while zhongli tries his best to ignore his friends' recent bout of teasing, he takes note of the meteor shower that was said to happen later in the week. although he didn't want to dedicate time to something that probably wasn't even guaranteed to happen, he understood that it was still an opportunity to hang out with you.

shooting you a quick text about the event, he shut off his phone, acting nonchalant as he waited for you to answer. the phone dinged right away, the screen lighting up to your message.

(y/n) <3 of course i'll come! should i bring some snacks?

he smiled at the text, answering back before cutting off the phone once more. trying to avoid the look he knew ajax was giving him, he spoke up. "i'll be gone late friday night." he could see the ginger trying to hold in a laugh.

"going to go hang out with your lover?" zhongli stood up, phone in hand as he walked to his room. he inhaled deeply, trying to quell the pounding of his heart in his chest. "they're not my lover, ajax!"

"not yet!"

friday night was finally here. you had just taken a quick shower to freshen up, and you were now trying to find an outfit to wear for your little outing. date? you didn't even know what to call it at this point. your roommate helped you a little bit, picking out a few items that they had felt fit the overall vibe.

the outfit was cute, and it was even paired with a sweater incase it got cold. you left your dorm a few minutes after, heading to the meeting spot you and zhongli had agreed on around two days prior.

like usual, he was there earlier than the agreed time, waiting for you with a blanket in hand. you called out to him, waving excitedly as you watched him smile at the sight of you. "hey, 'li!" even though you had already seen him earlier in the day with a few friends, it felt different when it was just the two of you.

"shall we go? from what i heard, it should be starting soon." you nodded at his words, letting him lead you to where you were going to sit for the next few hours. there were a few people out tonight, probably because a meteor shower definitely wasn't an event to miss.

zhongli placed the blanket down once the two of you had found a suitable spot with barely anyone nearby, and you quickly spread the snacks around before sitting down. the young man wasn't really a snacking type, but it seemed that you had brought along a few things he liked this time. had you done it on purpose? no, no- it was probably a coincidence.

though, instead of opening the snacks, you seemed to be occupied with fiddling at the hem of your sweater. zhongli looked forward to look at you, concerned by your sudden change in attitude. "is everything okay, (y/n)?" he asked, his voice quiet. you made eye contact with him, and he noticed how you seemed so similar to the person he had met all those weeks ago.

you took in a deep breath, and he watched as your shoulders rose and fell with the action. "sorry if this is sudden, but... what if i told you i liked you?" zhongli felt his heart both stop and skip a beat.

you... liked him?

you continued speaking, almost as if you were trying to block off any potential interruption from him. you spoke of the moment you saw him, and how you felt that fateful day (even speaking of 'the ginger guy who told you that zhongli was single.')

he weakly called out your name, half wanting to tell you his own feelings and half wanting to hear all of the reasons why you liked him. you didn't seem to hear him though. clearly that fischl girl you had introduced him to had rubbed off on you. after a few more tries, he realized that he had to quickly had to think of a way to interrupt you.

you continued to babble on, barely noticing the warm hand on your cheek or zhongli's steadily nearing face until it was too late. his lips connected with yours, and for a split second, your mind went blank. the only thing you could think about were his lips on yours and how it felt like a long, long overdue kiss. it was almost as if you had been waiting for this kiss for longer than you had been alive...

he pulled away a few seconds later, forehead resting against yours as he tried to regulate his breathing. his forehead was warm, and you could even see his flushed cheeks through the darkness of the night. "i like you too..." he whispered, uncharacteristically shy and quiet. you were so used to hearing him talk about what he loved, so to see him like this?...

a sound of excitement from a nearby woman caught your attention, and the two of you looked up to see that the meteor shower had finally started. you stared at the sky in awe, watching the little streaks of light fall down.

suddenly, you felt something brush against your hand, causing you to jump in surprise. you looked down, noticing how zhongli's fingers seemed to be creeping closer and closer to yours. feeling a bit bold, you grabbed at his hand, only to smile shyly when you felt him squeeze at yours.

looking up at the stars in the sky, you noticed quickly that there were two particular ones sitting next to each other that seemed to shine brighter than the rest. you pointed up at them, wanting your new boyfriend to look as well. "that's weird, those two stars are super bright compared to the rest.

zhongli let out a hum, trying to come up with a reason as to why. "perhaps it's us?" he said, glancing at you with a sort of mischievous look in his eyes. he brought your hand up to his lips, kissing it in a way that felt all too familiar.

you shoved at his shoulder with your free hand, complaining lightly . it wasn't enough to hurt him, but it was enough to make him chuckle a bit. squeezing at his hand a bit more, you looked towards the sky and at those two brightly stars. maybe zhongli was right…

maybe they were the two of you…

#genshin #genshin impact #zhongli x reader #genshin fluff #genshin fanfic #genshin impact zhongli #genshin smut #zhongli #genshin zhongli #genshin headcannons #genshin scenarios #genshin zhongli fluff #genshin zhongli x reader #etsuven #zhongli fluff #zhongli genshin impact #zhongli angst #angst to fluff

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