#me crawling out of a cave after not answering these prompts for like six months: hello

[nikosasaki]

this is self indulgent but: i guess i want you more than i thought i did + magpie & ej!!!

did I dig up this very old prompt just because I suddenly am overcome with Magpie inspiration? yes I sure did.

EJ Caswell x Magpie Prescott

"I guess I want you more than I thought I did"

or; EJ and Magpie can't stop ruining parties. Ashlyn forces them to talk about it.

word count; 1.6k

Most of the time Magpie really loved Ashlyn.

This was not one of those times.

"—And don't you dare try and leave before you two have made up!" Ashlyn slammed the patio door shut behind her, angrier than Magpie had probably ever seen her.

Once she did finally cool off Magpie would realize that she couldn't blame Ashlyn; it was the umpteenth time EJ and Magpie had ruined a social gathering with what Magpie liked to call a civil disagreement. The third one since Christmas two months ago. Ashlyn always put a lot of thought and love into the get-togethers she hosted, and Magpie really did feel like an asshole for ruining them.

At least, she would. Once she stopped being so damn cold.

"Are you cold?"

Sometimes Magpie could scream at EJ just for existing.

"I'm outside, in February, at nine in the evening, wearing nothing but a t-shirt," Magpie snipped at the boy standing across from her. "Obviously, I'm feeling perfectly fine."

EJ's big sad puppy dog eyes looked down on her with what could only be described as a pout. He looked so stupidly innocent it almost made Magpie regret her tone of voice. Almost, but not entirely. She was still pissed enough about their argument a few minutes ago. And their argument yesterday, and the one from last week, and the one from Christmas, and the one from the summer of 2016.

Magpie believed in neither forgiving nor forgetting.

"Sorry…" EJ mumbled, looking around for a moment before shrugging his jacket off. "You can have this. You know, in case you do get cold."

Magpie took the jacket from him, holding it in a tight fist for a few moments before deciding that her pride wasn't worth catching a cold over. She ignored the happy smile on EJ's face as she wrapped herself in the jacket. It fit her far more comfortably than she was willing to admit.

"So… Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

EJ was looking around to try and avoid Magpie's angry stare, not wanting to shrink any further under her gaze.

"Well if we don't, Ashlyn might just let us freeze to death." EJ attempted a joke, though not a single muscle in Magpie's face moved. Save for the way her jaw clenched to stop from chattering her teeth.

Somewhere in the back of his mind EJ felt the need to step a little closer, warm the girl up by wrapping himself around her. He knew it would probably only result in him getting pushed away before he could even really touch her. He'd been trying to make peace with the fact that Magpie was probably never going to like him—or even forgive him—but it seemed to be getting harder every day, and EJ wasn't sure why.

"What are you doing," Magpie commented, voice slightly pitching as she watched EJ step closer to her. EJ ignored her, walking closer and opening his arms to envelop Magpie in them. "EJ, don't."

But EJ had already made up his mind, and before Magpie could dodge him he'd successfully trapped her in a hug.

"I'm not above biting you," Magpie said, voice muffled by the sleeve of EJ's sweater against her face.

"I know," EJ said, and then, because he was feeling brave, "maybe I'm into that."

"Gross, man!" Magpie immediately complained, smacking a hand against EJ's chest. Though, she didn't attempt to move away either. Actually, EJ was pretty sure he could feel her smile against his arm.

EJ just laughed, pressing Magpie a little closer into him. This was nice. It was nice to make jokes with Magpie and it was nice to see—or feel—her smile. It wasn't something that EJ got to enjoy often, but as of recently he'd begun to realize just how much he liked it.

"I wish we were friends." The words left EJ before he got the chance to stop himself. His entire body froze up in an instant, as if bracing itself for the impact of Magpie pushing him away.

But the push never came.

"We're not, not friends," she responded instead, moving very little at all.

"Friends don't ruin their best friend's slash cousin's Christmas party."

"I'd argue that's exactly what friends do," Magpie responded with—and EJ truly had to make sure he wasn't imagining things—a small laugh, leaning a little closer against EJ's chest. "Haven't you ever watched Gossip Girl, or Degrassi, or any teen show ever? We're basically besties, by their standards."

EJ's whole body felt like he was hanging upside down, with his heart beating against his ribcage like a there was a feral animal in there fighting to get out. This couldn't be real right now. His brain couldn't accept it.

"Are you calling me your best friend right now?" EJ attempted to joke, though the tone was clearly half-hearted. He couldn't joke right now. He could hardly think of any words.

"What are the odds that Ashlyn lets us back in if we tell her that?" Magpie, again, joked, still smiling into EJ's sleeve.

"She might kill me for taking her place," EJ hummed in response, trying his hardest to relax his body again.

This was fine. It wouldn't be weird if he didn't make it weird. He could be so normal. EJ Caswell, local normal guy.

Yeah, that's all very normal.

"Do you really mean what you said?" Do you really think I'm a shit actor, is what EJ wanted to ask, but he had a hard time even getting the words out. It's what Magpie had yelled at him a good three minutes before they were thrown into the yard by Ashlyn.

"I think you're self-obsessed," Magpie answered in truth, turning a little so she was looking at EJ. They weren't the words EJ was hoping to hear, at all, and by the looks of it Magpie wasn't finished yet.

"I think you feel like you deserve things, like the Troy part, just because you're you. Just because you're a handsome jock who wants everyone to believe he can walk on water, or whatever. I think you like to pretend like things come easily to you, like you think that you have to portray some sort of arrogant 'I'm perfect' image all the time, which is stupid. Half the time I don't even think you like yourself, EJ."

EJ stood in stunned silence, looking down at the girl wrapped in his arms, who looked right up at him with such fire in her eyes that he was certain she could heat up the whole yard with it.

The worst part was that Magpie wasn't wrong. Not exactly. The only thing EJ had even been occupied with was being the kind of kid that his dad wanted to have; the perfect copy of himself who did everything right.

"I don't think you're a shit actor," Magpie finally admitted, tone a little more gentle now. "I don't even think you're a shit person. But it's almost like you try to be. Which sucks even worse."

EJ was quiet for a long time. Maybe a bit too long, because he could see the fire in Magpie's eyes burn out and turn into worry. He wanted to talk, but he wasn't sure what to say.

"You're right." It was all he really had to say. There was no defense. No disagreement. Magpie could read him like an open book, it turned out.

EJ had been trying, as of late, to be a better person. But he realized that while he worked hard to change as quickly as he could, he couldn't expect everyone around him to change right along.

If he wanted Magpie to see he'd changed—really changed—he'd have to find a way to show her, and to keep showing her.

EJ found that he didn't mind that, at all.

"Sorry," she replied in earnest.

"It's okay. You're right." And EJ pulled on her again, trying to convey that he was attempting to actually hug her. To his surprise, she actually reciprocated, wrapping her arms around him briefly and hugging back. If not for the fact that his entire soul had been laid bare seconds ago by a girl who's hated him for the better part of their entire lives, EJ would have probably thought about that hug for weeks to come.

He might, still.

"So…" EJ finally, slowly, released Magpie from his hold. The girl shivered a little as she once again felt the cold, gripping the sides of EJ's jacket and burrowing herself in it. Another thing EJ would most likely think about for weeks to come. "Does this mean we're friends, now?"

The sliding patio door opened behind them, the hopeful face of Ashlyn poking out with big round eyes as she chimed in as well, "Does it?"

Magpie looked back up at EJ, almost as if she hadn't noticed Ashlyn at all, and there was something indescribable on her face. Her eyes were still wide, but there was something else. Confusion, or maybe curiosity? EJ couldn't quite place it.

"Sure," She finally said, lowering her head. And then, mumbled so quietly that EJ could hardly hear, "I guess I want you more than I thought I did."

And, well, EJ couldn't have heard her correctly. There was no way. So he needed to clarify, "What?"

"I said," Magpie huffed, "I guess we can be friends. Or are you going to make me regret that immediately?"

EJ was about ninety-nine percent certain she'd said something else, but it was already long-forgotten. He skipped back into the house after Magpie, kissing Ashlyn on top of her head as he passed her. He had her to thank, after all.

He and Magpie we're friends now. She'd said so herself. EJ was going to do everything he could to keep it that way.

[ababanerb]

“when the pillars fall” shoto todoroki

Inspired by @/maddsbuckley on TikTok. Please go check her out, she’s amazing!

                                                      x x x

summary: shoto todoroki is strong, and he’s got the good looks to boot. but sometimes, in the dead of night, he falls apart and without fail, you’re there. you’re always there for him. then, the pillars fell, and he’s there for you just as much as you are for him.

genre: angst with a kinda happy ending

warnings: manga spoilers, takes place after the war arc, some cursing, critical injuries, hospitalization, shoto and reader are weak for each other

word count: 2,217

Shoto Todoroki is supposed to be a hero prodigy. Shoto Todoroki is supposed to stand tall and strong, and keep his father's hero legacy alive.

And he's all of those things. Except for late at night when he comes creeping into your dorm with the key you gave him to crawl underneath the covers with you because of a nightmare he had.

"I'm sorry. I can go if you want." Is what he says the first time he comes to your dorm, but knocking this time because you had yet to give him his own key.

"You've gotta at least tell me what's wrong first." You say gently, and he crumbles. He mumbles that it was just a silly little nightmare as tears roll slowly down his face and you pull him into your dorm to cuddle.

"It's not stupid if it woke you up, Sho," You say as he pulls you into him like you're a teddy bear. And it’s always a little awkward cuddling with him after he’s had a nightmare, his body fluctuating sporadically between hot and cold, but you don’t mind because the longer he holds you the faster you fall back asleep.

You ask him if he wants to tell you about it, but Shoto never does, saying that he’s already forgotten, but the feeling stays longer than the visual. And you nod, and drift off faster than you should, but Shoto doesn’t mind - he never does - and he’s so completely lost in you. He’s so completely enamored by you, and he’s never been so happy to be lost.

He continues to knock for his next five visits after the first night, and you eventually get tired of him waking you up in the dead of the night so you give him his own key.

The seventh time he shows up at your door, he doesn’t use the key. No, instead, he stands outside your door and calls you. The dial tone rings in his ear and it doesn’t help soothe the tightness in his chest or the lump in his throat at all, and he wonders if it’s really so bad for him to use the key you’d given him. Eventually though, you answer - you always do - and he falls in love with you all over again.

“Sho?” You ask, voice scratchy and stiff, and he can hear you through the door, “What’s going on?”

It’s technically a stupid question to ask, you know he’d only ever call you so late at night if he’d had a nightmare, but he also doesn’t call you very often either. 

“Can I come in?” Shoto asks, and you make a groggy noise of confusion.

“What d’ya mean, Sho?” 

“Can I come in?” He repeats, and then softly knocks twice on your door.

You hang up then, and Shoto watches your door swing open with tears pricking at his eyes. And when you drag him into bed with you the world feels like it could never be wide enough.

                                                         x x x

Then, your world fell apart. 

The pillars that held up Japan’s hero society crumbled in a measly seven hours. 

With too many prison breaks, fatalities, and injuries to count, Shoto could care less. Because you were gone. He’d been with you early that morning, before everything fell apart.

He’d been in bed with you, cuddled up close and basking in your presence, the two of you had changed into your hero costumes together. He’d been with you for hundreds of hours too little that morning, and he wants to know where you are. 

He asks his older brother Natsuo where you are by showing him the little sticky note that he’d written the question on and shown to every nurse, doctor, teacher, and friend that came in to see him. His throat had been burned to hell, and he wished more than anything to get up and ask every damned person in the hospital where you were.

He’s supposed to be talking about Touya - he’s not Touya anymore, he has to remind to himself, that man is Dabi, not Touya - and all he can think about is you. 

Shoto has to remind himself that he can’t cry. Because right now, the people around him need him to be strong, and that includes you, where ever you are. He hopes you can feel him wavering, desperately wishes for you to show up.

It’s on his sixth night in the hospital that somebody finally tells him where you are. It’s Bakugo, surprisingly enough.

“Hey, IcyHot,” Bakugo greets, and Shoto uses text-to-speech to ask him if he should even be walking. The blonde is covered in just as many bandages as Shoto, and when Aizawa had come by on his third day in the hospital, Shoto had been told all about everybody’s condition except yours.

“Yeah, i’m fine,” Bakugo says, easing himself into hard plastic chair next to Shoto’s hospital bed, “Y/N’s not though.”

Shoto croaks out a pathetic noise, but Bakugo doesn’t need prompting.

“All the other damn extras said not to say anything to you,” Bakugo continues, and for the first time ever, the cocky blonde is visibly nervous, worried, even, “Y/N’s in the ICU. They haven’t stabilized since they got in. Nobody’s told me what happened to them, but apparently Dunce Face was one of the last people to see her before she was brought here. He... He thought that Y/N was already dead when he last saw them. They’re in a medically induced coma, according to Mr.Aizawa.”

Shoto sits there, in silence except for the quiet humming of the AC unit, for thirty minutes. Bakugo sits with him, just as quiet. 

“Where are they now?” Shoto’s phone asks, the words choppy and abrupt, and Bakugo looks pained when he tells him your room number. Neither of them do anything for a while after that, and Bakugo sits in the hard plastic chair that’d begun to make his butt sore until Shoto falls asleep with a million things on the tip of his tongue.

Shoto is released from the hospital four days later, extensive healing and pain meds made sure of that, and nobody had been allowed to see you yet. He’d asked around, and eventually he learned that you’d undergone six different procedures since you’d arrived.

Tonight would be your seventh.

                                                          x x x

It’s hot. Very hot.

The flames are blue, and a few of them lick at you, but they don’t burn. There’s a battle cry from both sides, and you watch as villains pour from the Gunga Mountain Villa. It takes five minutes, and war has broken out all around you.

You’re fighting too, better suited for close combat, and you’re watching your classmates, your friends being battered around, fighting in a war that they shouldn’t be fighting.

You’re the first to make inside the building, and you’re vaguely aware that you’re bleeding. Fatgum tells you to retreat, telling you that you look on the verge of death. You tell him you’re fine.

You’re not fine. The building is rumbling, and the ceiling’s begun to cave in, it’s hard to breathe, and you can’t see through the blood that’s caked over your left eye.

The pillars fall in seven seconds, and you fall too. 

You call for him, for Shoto, in the last three seconds of your consciousness, you call for him.

It’s dark.

                                                        x x x 

When you wake up, really wake up and open your eyes to look right into the harsh white fluorescent lights of your hospital room, nobody’s there with you. There’s a vase of dying roses on the windowsill, and you can already tell from the crisp handwriting on the brown tag that Shoto had been the one to leave them. And it’s cold, but you prefer that to the blazing heat you’d felt when you’d fallen asleep.

Where is Sho anyway?

Your heart monitor steadily beeps away, and when a nurse comes in to check your vitals she’s surprised to see you’re awake. And even more surprised when the first thing you ask for is Shoto.

“Sho,” You say, and your voice is dry and raw and barely a whisper, “Where’s Sho?”

The nurse stares at you wide-eyes for a moment, before she gets you a little dixie cup of water.

“Who’s Sho?” She asks, and you struggle to swallow the little cup of water she’d given you.

“Shoto Todoroki,” You say, “Is he here?”

The nurse purses her lips, and looks at you sadly, and you wonder what she’s thinking about before she tells you that she’ll be right back with the doctor. She leaves three more dixie cups of water on your foldaway table before leaving.

You sit there for almost an hour before the door opens again, and it’s a horrible hour because every time you close your eyes all you can see is the bloody battle that should have killed you.

The doctor comes in first, and right behind him is the person you’d been thinking about since you’d woken up. You’d been with him all that morning before the war, and all that night. And you were with him now.

The doctor tells you what day it is, and you start crying when he tells you it’s been almost a month since you’d first been admitted to the hospital. 

“Fuck,” You whimper, voice crackling and breaking as you reach out for Shoto, and he’s there - he always is - and his hand feels so good in yours - it always does - and you start crying even harder when you see the tears in his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sho. You look so tired.”

“I love you,” And he says it like there will never be another chance to say it, and once the first ‘I love you’ leaves his mouth fifty more follow. And the doctor looks you over as best he can, before telling you that you’re cleared for visitors and that you’d be able to leave within the week.

And as Shoto begins to cry he has to remind himself that he is supposed to be a hero prodigy. That he’s supposed to stand tall and strong, and keep his father's hero legacy alive. But you hold onto his fingers so tightly, and for once, you’re asking if you can come over because you’ve just had a nightmare. It’s a shared nightmare, Shoto tells you, shared by millions.

Two days later you’re allowed to go back home, back to the dorms, and Shoto has to help you get dressed because you can barely breathe standing up let alone walk without your legs collapsing. Shoto kisses your tears away when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. You’re covered in scars, and there are still stitches in places where the wounds were slower to heal. 

Your whole world fell apart in seven hours that day, and it continued to fall apart after that. Shoto’s there for you the whole way back to UA, and he tells you that your school, your second home, had become a home to thousands of others too. Shoto had given his dorm away and he’d been staying at his family home while you’d been in the hospital.

But your dorm is still there. And nothing’s changed at all.

“I’ve also been staying here too,” Shoto tells you when he helps you into bed, “I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all, Sho,” You tell him - you never do mind - and he crawls into bed next to you, minding your right knee with it’s poky little stitches and the new metal patella that replaced the kneecap you’d shattered during the war.

Japan fell apart in four days, Shoto tells you, and you can’t find it in you to care, because the world is too big and too wide but Shoto makes it feel smaller.

It was dark, when the pillars fell. And the two of you are blind, lost in it, and you’d never been so afraid of being lost. 

“I don’t think I can go back to hero work,” You tell him early the next morning, as he gets dressed to go back to his family home, “Not for a long time.”

“That’s okay, my love,” He replies, he won’t tell you, but he’s not sure he wants you to go back, “Do you want to come home with me?”

He doesn’t need to ask, because he would have taken you with him anyway.

“Yeah,” You tell him, and you struggle to push yourself up into a sitting position, “Just... Will you promise me something?”

“Anything.”

“Promise me you won’t die.”

It’s stupid thing to ask for, you know it is. Because everybody dies eventually, but you don’t know what you’d do if you lost him. The two of you are lost, but at least you’re together. 

Shoto doesn’t need to question it, because he’d thought you were dead for almost a whole week. And he doesn’t ever want to be without you, even though he knows he’ll have to.

“I promise you, Y/N, I won’t ever leave you, and I won’t die.”

It’s dark, Shoto thinks, as he helps you into the back of his father’s car, But it’s much less dark with you.

[razzle-zazzle]

Don’t be Long, For the End is Near

Raised By Serpentine AU, Constrictai Tomb

3571 Words

Warning for mentions of death

<+><+><+><+><+><+><+>

When Skalidor was somewhere in his young teens, he met her. Asha, daughter of Shane, the current Master of Earth, and leader of the Constrictai and Tomb Dwellers alongside Krusch. She was no more than a child then, tireless and intrepid in her constant exploration of the tomb. It wasn’t long before she knew everyone, as small and closely-knit as the community was, and no sooner than that everyone knew her, and her bright smiles.

Skalidor could remember in detail what Asha had looked like when she had only just taken up the role of leader after her father’s passing. Standing there beside Krusch with a steady confidence that belied her inexperience, the nervousness that hid underneath her steadfast smile. They had talked then, as they often did, but about a very different topic.

Krusch, as strong as he was, was beginning to show signs of age, tiredness and arthritis seeping into his bones. He had asked Asha to pick his successor, having no children of his own.

Skalidor had recommended Sutara, citing her speed and wit. But Asha had smiled, and asked him to take up the position, as her friend.

Four months later, Skalidor was officially given the title of General.

The years after that were a bit muddied for Skalidor, the small details getting lost within the feeling of responsibility that had grown inside him as he gained experience. 

But he remembered in almost perfect detail when Asha had introduced to him Lou, as if they had never met. Even though they had never talked before, Skalidor knew of Lou, had seen the poetry carved into the tunnel walls for all to see. He had talked to Lou’s parents about the boy’s tendency to go too far when spelunking in the unexplored caves, and he could clearly recall the vigor with which Lou participated in festivals and slither pits. 

So when Asha, strong and steady Asha, dragged Lou, energetic but nervous, over to Skalidor to share the news, Skalidor wished them well.

While he never quite came to know Lou as well as he knew Asha, Skalidor could say with a certain sincerity that they had become friends. He’d express his concerns over disputes to Lou, the peppy young man offering the occasional piece of advice. And Lou, in turn, would come to Skalidor with his anxieties over his art, or whether he could ever be as good to Asha as she was to him. They’d discuss at length the songs passed down by their forefathers, the cave system that provided the tomb with food and extra space, and sometimes, when nearly everyone else in the tomb was at rest, they’d talk about family. Skalidor supposed he might one day find his partners; Lou was tightly bound to his. On some days, they never saw each other, too busy with their own duties to take the time to chat and catch up.

They were friends, and Skalidor never wanted that to change.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was born, Skalidor was in his early forties, still single, but happy all the same. It was a good year, the number of deaths hitting an all-time low and the harvest bringing in more food than usual; there had been a festival to celebrate. Asha had made her appearance, but had spent most of the night at home with her husband and son, leaving it up to Skalidor to oversee the event. The first chance he got he’d slithered off to Lou and Asha’s cavern, to see Cole with his own eyes now that the child was more than four weeks old.

“He’s… sso ssmall.” Skalidor commented, watching attentively as Lou rocked the child back and forth in his arms. He hadn’t been expecting Cole to be so small, it didn’t fit with the image of four-year-old Asha in his mind. “Are all infants this ssmall?”

Lou smiled, slowing down when he noticed Cole stirring. “Cole’s actually a bit big, Skal. He’ll probably grow to be taller than me.” Given the way Asha towered over Lou, Skalidor didn’t doubt that.

But was the size of a human infant comparable to the size of a freshly hatched Serpentine? Skalidor thought of the few Serpentine couplings he knew; none of them had had a clutch yet. Sutara and her lovers were expecting, but their clutch wouldn’t hatch for a while yet. Perhaps Skalidor could ask to watch the hatching? He didn’t have a coupling yet, but maybe one day… and it certainly couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

“You ever think you’ll have this?” Lou asked, breaking Skalidor from his musings.

“Have what?” Skalidor asked, already knowing the answer.

“You know.” Lou shrugged. “A family. Lovers. Children. You ever think you’ll have that, as old as you are now?” The jab at his age meant nothing to Skalidor, who would outlive Lou by decades, but it did get him thinking.

“I don’t really know…” Skalidor concluded, crossing his arms as he mused. “Nobody’s really caught my eye, and with how busy I’ve been managing everything, I don’t think I will.” He locked eyes with Lou, “There’s a reason the title of General isn’t hereditary.”

Lou laughed quietly, standing up to put Cole to bed. “I’m sure your someones are out there, Skal.”

“I would have met them already if they were, Lou.” Skalidor said, picking up his staff as he made his way to the entrance. “I’m just happy to see everyone else doing well.”

“Well,” Lou said, meeting Skalidor by the entrance, “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself, Skal.”

Skalidor nodded. “I won’t.”

Thoughts of family followed Skalidor all the way back to his cavern.

+=+=+=+=+

The next few years passed by uneventfully, save for the occasional death. The yearly harvests had been shrinking, but not so much as to cause fear.

Cole was growing more confident each day, going from crawling around the cavern to running through the tomb with the same abandon his mother once had, Lou chasing after him frantically in the hopes of catching the toddler before he got into trouble.

Skalidor had developed a fondness for the child, likely due to all the time he’d had to watch over Cole while Asha and Lou went off into the caverns for alone time. There weren’t many places for young couples to get away from the community, so it wasn’t uncommon to find young teens—both Serpentine and human—laughing and wandering the caves.

This time, Asha had left to ensure the stability of the tunnels after a recent earthquake, Lou accompanying her to look for signs she might miss. Which left Cole, a toddler with a tendency to get into trouble at a moment’s notice, in the care of Skalidor.

Honestly, Skalidor had faced more perplexing challenges. Cole wasn’t old enough to have met anyone in the community yet—a tradition that Asha had seriously been considering breaking, it didn’t make sense to isolate her child for so long—but Skalidor was more than capable of entertaining the toddler for a few hours, keeping Cole in place by setting him in the coils of his tail.

Cole was babbling, stacking the rocks Skalidor had given him and knocking them over with shrieks of laughter, so Skalidor had taken a moment to glance at this year’s census, absentmindedly noting that the harvest had been delayed again this year. It was then that Cole had chosen to go silent, prompting Skalidor to turn back to the toddler.

Cole was staring up at him, big brown eyes (Asha’s eyes, Skalidor thought) full of curiosity. Skalidor stared back, his tongue flicking in and out of his mouth out of habit.

Cole stuck his tongue out, as if in imitation of Skalidor. He did it again, and again, and suddenly Skalidor was chuckling, his tail shaking as Cole giggled in response.

“Uh!” Cole said, holding his arms out. Skalidor obliged, picking up the toddler and shaking him slightly, making Cole laugh.

Skalidor didn’t need a family; he already had one.

+=+=+=+=+

The prosperity surrounding Cole’s birth didn’t last. The harvests became fewer and further in between, reports of a blight coming in droves. Starvation had always been a worry in the tomb—they needed something more reliable than what they could find in the caves—but it had never been this bad. By the time Cole was four, eight humans and one serpentine had died from starvation—and the number of those who were malnourished was more than thrice that.

Serpentine didn’t need to eat as much as their human friends, meaning the blight impacted the humans the most. It was disheartening, watching friends and family suffer and not being able to do anything about it, but the community pulled through. They always did.

It all came to a head when Cole was six—Skalidor could remember, in near perfect detail, the apprehension on Lou and Asha’s face when they explained where they were going.

They were searching for another source of food, Asha had said. And if they were lucky, a way aboveground, where the sun shone and crops could grow and maybe things wouldn’t be as bad. It was a long shot, but they had hope. And so they went, down into the tunnels, far further than anyone had been before, promising to return with good news.

By the third day, Cole had grown restless in their absence, becoming moody and disagreeable no matter what Skalidor did.

By the seventh, the effects of their absence reached the community, tensions and anxiety rising as the lack of news made room for fear. Skalidor was called out to break up more than twelve disputes on the eighth day alone.

The community couldn’t continue like this, Skalidor decided. If Asha and Lou didn’t return before twenty days had passed, then he’d send out a search party to look for them.

It was on the thirteenth day. There had been a commotion in the central chamber, sending Skalidor slithering out to see it. When he got there, he stopped in his tracks.

Asha had returned.

Relief mixed with anxiety as Skalidor noted Lou’s absence, which quickly became dread when he saw Asha stumbling towards him, badly injured.

“Get a medic. Now!” Skalidor hissed, watching as Chokun ran off to grab one. Skalidor made his way through the crowd, repeatedly telling everyone to disperse, make way.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said breathlessly, her face far too pale. Her shirt was stained with blood. “Had to come back early…” She trailed off, gazing at the floor. “Lou’s—he’s—” she choked out a sob, “The cave fell in. I couldn’t get him free in time. I—” Skalidor had put his arms on her shoulders to steady her, but Asha simply crumpled, shoulders shaking.

The crowd parted to let in Vera and Sutara, who quickly ushered Asha away to treat her wounds. She didn’t protest as she might have before the journey, letting them guide her through the tears blurring her eyes.

As she left, Skalidor felt something tighten in his chest. He should have done something, should have had them be accompanied by someone—anyone. This shouldn’t have happened. He should have done better.

What was he going to tell Cole?

+=+=+=+=+

The moment he was able, Skalidor rushed into the infirmary, Cole at his side, to see Asha. “Will she be alright?” he’d hissed, worry turning his tone hard. Sutara nodded, gesturing to the bed where Asha lay.

Cole was already at her side, crying quietly as he held her hand. Skalidor let out a sigh of relief. Asha would live. She’d be okay. But Lou…

There was nothing Skalidor could do now. He could only focus on who was still alive. He didn’t have time to mourn his friend just yet.

“Hey, Skal.” Asha said quietly, sitting up in bed. She’d pulled Cole up onto her lap, running her fingers through his hair to calm him. She smiled at Skalidor, but this smile did not hide her exhaustion.

“Asha…” Skalidor wasn’t sure where to begin. There were so many things he needed to say, with no idea how to say it. He wanted to comfort her over Lou’s death, he needed her to begin leading again, he wanted her to stay in bed and recover—he didn’t know what was the right choice, and what might lead to even more lives lost.

“It’s alright, Skal. I’ll manage.” She was staring at Cole, who’d stopped crying, still playing with his hair. Skalidor watched awkwardly, not sure what to say.

“Cole,” Asha began, Cole turning to her attentively, “Can you go get Sutara and ask her for some water?” Cole nodded fiercely, jumping off the bed and running off to find the serpentine in question.

“He won’t be gone long.” Skalidor cautioned, catching on to what Asha was doing.

“Then we’ll make this quick.” Asha said, her voice firm as it was normally. Her hands were trembling. “Lou…”

Skalidor couldn’t stand by anymore. With a gentleness that belied his imposing presence, he wrapped his arms around Asha. She broke down then, returning the hug as sobs wracked her frame.

“There was nothing I could do, yet I still feel responsible. If we hadn’t gone down that way, or if I’d noticed the instability sooner, then—”

Skalidor hushed her with a hiss. “Of coursse it lookss like there’ss ssomething you could have done. Guilt is like that.”

“Yeah” Asha agreed. “Guilt is just like that.”

With that, they parted, Skalidor leaning back to let Asha resettle herself. After a moment of adjusting, she looked to him again. Her words, though they were spoken softly, cut through Skalidor like a knife.

“How do I tell Cole that his father is never coming home?”

Skalidor didn’t have an answer for her.

+=+=+=+=+

Five days later, Chokun found Cole crying over his mother’s body, begging her to get up.

Her stitches had broken, and she’d collapsed on the floor from blood loss.

By the time Sutara and Vera arrived, she was long gone.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole hadn’t been adjusting well. Between the grief of losing his parents and the change of switching caverns, it was a wonder the boy hadn’t crumbled in on himself. No, Cole had suddenly gained a stark solemnity in his actions and words, and he’d isolate himself in the corners of Skalidor’s cavern, refusing to speak to anyone. Skalidor was worried, because what reasonable adult wouldn’t be, but he struggled to make time for Cole more and more each day, what was once a shared burden of leadership between him and Asha falling to him and him alone.

Worse, something was wrong with the other humans. Some kind of sickness, one that nobody had seen before, had started claiming lives a few months after Asha’s death. The Serpentine were (mostly) fine, but that did nothing to dissuade the panic that gripped the community. The tomb they called home was becoming a prison, rendering everyone subject to sickness and blight.

Skalidor and the other Serpentine did what they could; some even went so far as to induce hibernation to allow the humans bigger rations. Sutara had expanded the infirmary, using all of her resources to combat the sickness that plagued the tomb.

But it was in vain. The humans, who had once numbered more than a hundred, were reduced to barely fifty in the following years.

It was clear that all of this death was having an effect on Cole—it was having an effect on everyone, the choking fear turning the once homely tomb into a death trap—the boy refused to eat, insisting that others needed it more. He had only become more gloomy when Sutara came with mixed news—Cole and Asha had an immunity to the sickness, but Asha had likely been the one to bring it to the tomb. Cole had run off to the empty cavern where Asha and Lou once lived at that, refusing to come out for more than a week.

It hurt Skalidor, not being able to do anything. All he had was a staff and a title, and look where it had gotten him—General of a prison, a death trap that nobody would escape. Cole was nine now, he should be learning how to control his powers from his mother, should be dancing at the festivals and trying to fight in the slither pits, but no, here he was, growing up as everyone around him died, and there was nothing Skalidor could offer Cole beyond false reassurances—

“Skalidor?” Skalidor turned over to face Cole, staring blearily at the child who’d woken him o late. He stood up, offering his coils to Cole.

“Yesss, Cole?” Skalidor asked, as the child in question settled in among the coils, curling up within.

“What’s the sky supposed to look like?”

Skalidor stood there. Okay. He hadn’t been expecting that question; he hadn’t heard it since Cole was five.

“Well, it’s ssaid to be big, bigger than anything you’ve ever seen before.” Skalidor began, happy to have this chance to connect with Cole.

Cole wrinkled his nose, sticking out his tongue on habit, “Bigger than the central chamber?”

“Yess.” Skalidor hummed, pulling Cole closer. Cole leaned into the touch. “It’ss big, and bright, and full of—” what were those things called again? Oh, yes, “—cloudss.”

“What are clouds?” Cole’s voice wasn’t as quiet now, some of the old curiosity returning.

“Hmmm, let me think,” Skalidor tapped his chin, trying to recall what he’d been told. “They’re like the mossss in the cavess, but white.”

Cole stuck his tongue out at that, as though musing it over. “And what does the sun look like?”

“Like fire” Skalidor whispered, “But brighter than any fire you’ll ever find in the tomb.”

Cole was silent for a moment.

Skalidor supposed the boy was satisfied, when—

“Do you think we’ll ever see the sky?”

Skalidor smiled. “I can only hope.”

+=+=+=+=+

“We can’t go on like thiss.” Sutara whispered, wary of Cole who was playing with Chokun and Bytar nearby. “There’s not enough humanss left to keep the community alive, even if the ssicknesss were to dissappear right now.”

Skalidor nodded. “We’ll just make do for as long as we can, then.”

But they both knew those were empty words.

+=+=+=+=+

When Cole was ten, there was a tunnel collapse, bigger than any before. It was the same set of tunnels that were hit directly by the earthquake all those years ago, Asha’s precautions finally failing.

“Give me a damage report.” Skalidor hissed, watching as Serpentine—the remaining humans not caught in the collapse, less than ten, were far too sick to leave the infirmary—cleared away the rubble in the hopes of finding survivors.

“The tunnelss that collapssed were ssuppossed to be unoccupied, sssir.” Chokun stated.

“But…?” It was more of a statement than a question.

“The Sserpentine who chosse to hibernate were there. And the humanss who were still healthy were tending to them.”

“Which meansss we may have just lost all of them.” Skalidor concluded, gripping his staff far too tightly. This wasn’t supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to end this soon, how, how were they supposed to recover from this? The blight’s effects were reaching the Serpentine; more and more had started hibernating every day. There had been more than fifty sleeping in those tunnels.

They couldn’t survive down here much longer. They had to find a way out. But trying to do just that had cost Lou’s life and brought upon the sickness. There was no way out that didn’t end in tragedy.

Skalidor growled. He’d never paid much thought to the surface dwellers before, their existence becoming a distant memory, but now he needed someone to blame. Now he needed someone to take his frustration out on. The surface dwellers had been the ones to seal the Serpentine away, the ones to condemn everyone in the tomb to this fate. Were it not for them, Cole might have had a life up there, below the sky, where he should have been. Were it not for them, the Serpentine wouldn’t be watching their human brethren die off slowly, while starving off themselves.

If Skalidor ever lived to see the tomb open, he’d make the surface dwellers pay.

+=+=+=+=+

Cole was the only human left in the tomb, and that made him precious. Of course, he’d always been viewed favorably, being the son of the Master of Earth, and thus the next in line to lead and protect, but now almost everyone kept an eye out for him, doing what they could to keep him alive.

The next four years passed without much incident—Serpentine continued to die, just as eggs continued to hatch—and Cole was growing fast.

It was on a day like any other when, for the first time in more than 200 years, the tomb opened.

Skalidor wasn’t sure he should trust the Anacondrai standing before him, but the words of revenge and the promise of a better life swayed him. He’d assist this “Pythor” in his goals, but only to the point where it served the Constrictai. Only to the point where it wouldn’t endanger Cole.

Cole was the first Tomb Dweller in 200 years to see the sky. It was just as big as the stories said. Skalidor had watched as Cole reached up towards it, his eyes squinted in the bright light, had smiled when Cole laughed, joyous and carefree.

The Serpentine were his people. Cole was his family.

Skalidor would give anything to protect them all.

[harrykilledmoi]

A Bell Through The Night

Or the one where Harry surprises you in more ways than one.

Word Count: 7.3 k Themes:  AU, fluff, angst, 70s!Harry, Fleetwood Mac Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader / Harry Styles x Stevie Nicks (circa 1975) Warnings: drug use Author’s Note: I know this is a little late, since the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame train has long left the station but I still wanted to share this! Inspired by this:   “This beautiful child should’ve been born in 1948, too, because he just fits in with all of us.”                - Stevie Nicks [on Harry Styles] 

                              masterlist      read on wattpad       edits

August 24, 1975.

It’s a phone call that has you in the Arizona desert at the tail end of the summer months. Harry had gone down days before you for a meeting. Work had been slow in coming your way for a few weeks and photographing locals for a small newspaper in the city had left you with little to be desired. So when he’d asked for you to join him on this specific day, in this specific place, you were more than excited to oblige. 

The trek from the opposite coast hadn’t been as bad as you thought it would be. You were nervous at first because, up until this point, you had never been on a plane. But there was something about the ride amongst sun kissed, gossamer clouds that made you never want to get off.

Now you were stood at the airport, wedged in a phone booth, camera strapped and hanging from your neck. Your small blue suitcase tucked in between your legs as you rest the phone between your ear and shoulder. Rooting around in your denim jacket pocket for the piece of paper containing the phone number for the motel Harry was staying in, as well as an address. You find it, then drop a dime into the coin slot. The dial tone buzzes loudly through the receiver before a pre-recorded woman’s voice prompts you to dial “the number you wish to reach.”

The shrill phone ring bleeds through the phone becoming the soundscape for your observation of your surroundings as you wait for him to answer. Two young children run around screaming and laughing, A young couple sit cuddled up together on an island bench, a TSA guard, with his too small button up shirt, stained with sweat, smoking a cigarette and drinking coffee at a counter cafe. You scratch your arm, it had been weeks since you’d decided to quit smoking and it was getting harder and harder everyday to not just cave.

“Hello?”

His voice pours through the phone like honey, comb still in, static dances around the accompanying silence. You jump even though you had been expecting his voice, you hadn’t realized just how long it had been since you’d last spoken.

“Hey, Harry, Hi,” you speak, while fumbling to readjust the phone, settling on just holding it up to your ear with your hand.

“Hey love, y’here? How was the flight?”

“Good, good. I mean there was a baby crying the whole way down but I feel worse for their mom than I do myself and the attendants just seemed like they wanted to jump out of the plane, sans parachute, ya know? It was wild, so beautiful but like, we were up so high. It’s weird to think about how far technology has come. Uhm, are you picking me up still?” You ramble and Harry notices, his soft chuckle trickles through the phone, notifying you.

“You nervous or something, bunny?”

You laugh, waving your hand in the air in front of you, as if doing so would fan away the acute feelings of anxiety that followed you from your home, onto a plane, and right to Sky Harbour International airport. You hated surprises and although you had been together for nearly three years, you weren’t sure if Harry had known.

“No, no. I’m fine. Totally copasetic.”

There’s a light shuffling on the other end of the phone as well as a few soft voices but none clear enough for you to distinguish.

“Choice.  I can’t pick you up. I gotta finish up getting your surprise ready but I will meet you at the motel at six, you have the address. Y’alright with taking a cab?”

You glance around the airport. The TSA guard is now talking to a woman who is holding the hands of the two children that were rebel rousing earlier. She looks exhausted.

“Yeah, yeah. I can… I can do that.” “Alright! I’ll see you then,” the smile on his face was evident through his words, bringing the corners of your lips as well.

“See you then.”

You hang up and push yourself away from the pay phone, picking up your suitcase. You survey the wide, open space of the airport. People coming to and from, going everywhere, going nowhere. Finding their place in the world by getting lost. It was something that had always fascinated you; the idea that everyone you’re surrounded by in a public place has their own story. Sonder, a three dollar word that you’d thought Harry had made up during one of your game nights. The both of you had been so high that night - deciding that an LSD fueled scrabble game would be way more fun - that it took you nearly 45 minutes to locate it in the dictionary.

You step through the large glass doors towards the taxi nursery at the edge of the curb. The late afternoon sun washes you in a soft glow, as a snug blanket of dry heat surrounds you. You place your suitcase by your feet and pull off your jacket, tying it around your waist. The plain white tank top you have on reflects the surrounding light. You hold a hand out and a bright yellow car, top light on, pulls up in front of you. You toss in your suitcase before climbing in yourself. Dictating the address to the driver, you settle in for the ride.

Phoenix is unlike any place you’d ever been before. The city, with its towering, stalagmite-esque buildings scattered amongst vast flatlands. It carries a warm, sepia tone with an occasional burst of colour. You snap several pictures through the windows as you drive through the downtown metropolis. Attempting to catch the quick passing beauty of the city at sunset.

The Caravan Inn is a sight in the evening. The glow of lights irradiates the building making it seem as if the sun is shining right from it. The neon illuminated sign, a cavalcade of colours topped with the silhouette of a man riding a camel. A click of your camera shutter and the taxi speeds away, leaving you standing in front of your accommodations for the next few days.

You walk to the motel office, taking in the large OASIS sign, just to the left of it, that hangs right above a pool area. You mentally curse yourself for not packing a swimsuit. A light, airy chime sounds when you enter the small office, followed by the smell of stale coffee and the faint scent of lingering body odor. A stout woman, with white blonde hair stack and pinned to the gods, assists you, handing you a key and pointing you in the direction of the room Harry had been staying in, 2A.

The sound of your shoes echoes every time they meet the teal painted concrete steps. Your quick ascent to the second level of the motel causes your camera to bounce against your chest. You swivel left then right, then left again once you reach the landing. It only takes you a moment before you realize that the door you’re looking for is right in front of you, cloaked in the same aqua hue as the steps. A rusted, brass ‘2A’ sits in the center of it.

The room itself, modest in size, looks as if it held secrets that would cause your demise if you were to learn them.  A queen sized bed, dressed in an obnoxious orange comforter sits against the wall, coming far into the middle of the room. Beside it, two bedside tables covered in a wood patterned vinyl, one with a clock, both with matching lamps. Gold bulbous bases, cylindrical off white shades throwing rays of toasty light around the room. Harry’s worn leather shoulder bag sits unzipped in the far corner, at the square, wooden base of the bed.

The soles of your shoes drag against the low, dark carpeted floor as you enter the room.  A small side skip allows you to squeeze through the tight space between the foot of the bed and a small television stand before dropping your bag next to Harry’s.

The lone analog clock ticks right as you look at it, as if speaking directly to you. The hour hand rests just past the 5 and the minute, on the 3. It’s then that you realize just how long the journey had been. You sit on the bed, your weight lightly ricochets your body up then down, a squeal from the springs echos off of the brown and cream striped wallpapered walls. You’re exhausted and after a few passing seconds, decide to prioritize a nap over a shower. You lay back on top of the blanket, your head sinks into the pillow and just like that, you’re out.

Keys in a deadbolt brings you into a stream of consciousness. You keep your eyes closed and attempt to keep your breathing even and leveled, wanting to will yourself back to sleep. A shuffling sound follows the soft click of the of the door closing. You feel the bed dip then a strong arm secure itself around your waist along with a nose nuzzling into the hair at the base of your neck.

“Bunny?”

His lips touch your neck in a barely there kiss as his breath seeps into your skin and down your spine.

“Know you’re awake.” You groan as he kisses the base of your neck before untangling himself from you.

“Scoot your tush, got your surprise f’ya.”

You open your eyes and sit up, finding him standing at the edge of the bed, hands behind his back. You turn to face him, positioning yourself in the middle of the bed, legs crossed beneath you. His face holds a smile as bright as the neon signs of the countless motels on the interstate. Dimples on full display. His eyes trace the lines of your face.

You run your hand through your hair, smoothing it down.

“What is it?”

“My god, you’re gorgeous.”

“Duuuude,” you whine, the anticipation of not knowing why he’d asked you to come to Arizona was reaching critical mass. You want to know, you need to know.

“You have t’guess.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes,” his tone is laced with mock seriousness, causing his face follow suit, fighting against a smile.

You crawl forward across the bed towards him and rise to your knees when you’re right in front of him, so close your chests touch. You bring a hand up to his hair, playing with the long curls before tracing your hand down his t-shirt clad chest painfully slow. You notice his adam’s apple bob as your hand rests right above the top of his jeans. You trace your fingers from hip bone to hip bone as you pepper sluggish kisses up his neck to his jaw, which clenches when you kiss the soft groove between the sharp edge and his earlobe. His lips part, his eyes close and you know this is your chance. You use your free hand to snatch “your surprise” out of his hands, snapping Harry out of his revelry.

You scoot back quickly, your back bumps up against the headboard, laughing as Harry lunges towards you. You hold the item, which you now knew is a record, in the air as he tries to take it away from you. He sighs, giving up almost immediately while settling into the space between your legs, his chin resting on your stomach.

“Fine, you win.” You flash your teeth in victory.

“Don’t I always,” you laugh through your gloat, looking down at him. His eyes, wide and bright staring back at you, the pale jade speaking to your soul in a way nothing else ever could. He kisses the small patch of skin on your torso where your shirt has ridden up in all the excitement.

“Well, check it.”

You roll your eyes then bring the record down to eye level, blocking Harry’s face completely. In your hands, Fleetwood Mac’s self titled album, which left you a bit confused. You distinctly remember going to the record store with Harry to buy it the day it had come out. In fact, you were pretty sure this was that exact copy, the coffee ring in the corner confirmed that. You tilt the record to the side to reveal Harry’s smirking face, your eyebrow raises to silently ask him what the heck was going on.

“Turn it over you mong.”

You sigh causing Harry’s head to sink with the release of air, flipping the record, turning to look at it from the side. Harry’s eyes are trained on you as you read the delicate, black scrawl that takes up the bottom right corner of the sleeve. Your eyes widen as you look back and forth between Harry and the album. His smile growing wider each time.

“How the fuck did you… oh my god!”

                                                    Hey Bunny!

                                    Thank you for loving and living.

                                             Love, Stevie Nicks x.

“I know a guy. Check inside,” Harry pushes, he rolls his lips together, eyes trained on you as you tilt the record sleeve. Two small, rectangular pieces of pink hued paper, a stiff card like stock, fall onto the bed beside you. You place the record down gently and pick them up. Reading them, Harry didn’t think you could be more visibly excited, he was wrong. The fist holding them clench as you use you free hand to pull Harry up to eye level with you.

Pressing your lips together in a kiss that screamed appreciation and adoration. You pull apart moments later to catch your breaths, resting your forehead on his, all heavy breathing and dilated pupils you manage to squeeze out an nearly inaudible, “thank you.”

Harry takes you by the hand, pulling you through the crowd of sweaty, intoxicated in some way or another, bodies closer to the front of the stage. Turning back every once in a while with a huge smile on his face, which you returned with just as much enthusiasm.

The opening band had just finished their set and the crowd is amply warmed up, ready for the magic that is Fleetwood. You had chosen to go sober, wanting to soak in every song, every moment, every emotion, to hold on to for years to come. For when your grandchildren asked you about your youth, knowing that this was a moment you would regret to forget.

Harry pulls you into him, lazily draping an arm around your shoulders, once you both find yourself in a great spot; two rows behind those pressed up to the stage. You wouldn’t have to crane your neck to see but you felt bad for the shorter folks left standing behind your beau. The boy was tall and there was no denying that.

The house lights come down resulting in a boisterous roar from the crowd, mirroring the rumbling anticipation and excitement in your gut. You’d been listening to the band for as long as you could remember, from before Stevie had become a part of the magic, but it really was her addition that had made you fall in love all over again.

One by one Mick, Lindsey, Christine, and John take their places, instruments on their person. Safe for Mick’s drum set, which he quickly shuffles behind. Stevie is last on but most definitely not least. She floats onto the stage with a grace unparalleled to any earthly creature, dressed in a white, lace, tie up, cropped blouse, a sheer white shawl around her shoulders and light denim bell bottoms. She takes her place behind the microphone at center stage, tambourine in hand. The stage lights create an angelic halo around her as it shines through her flowing, blonde hair. You’re mesmerized, so much so that you hadn’t noticed Harry’s arm drop from around your shoulder.

It’s Christine who speaks first, addressing the crowd, welcoming you all to the show, thanking you for wanting to be a part of this experience with them, introducing the first song.

“‘Bout to do a song from the Kiln House album for you. This one’s called Station Man.”

Her accent catches you by surprise, breaking you out of your trance with a smile. You nudge Harry softly in the ribs, looking up at him. He looks down at you, a knowing smirk etched on his face.

You’re having the time of your life, dancing and singing along. Both to songs you hadn’t heard before and songs your soul could recognize in the afterlife. Jumping and spinning circles around Harry as he sways along to the music. Watching you enjoy yourself is one of his favourite things about spending time with you. A close second to your ability to challenge his mind with just the words that came out of your mouth.

“This is a song from our latest album that came out a few months ago. It’s a song from Stevie Nicks called Rhiannon,” Christine’s voice echoes throughout the theater.

Whistles and hoots drift from the back of the room to the front, cloaking you in a feeling of belonging. The opening chord of the song drip from Lindsey’s guitar, in a new yet familiar way, as Stevie steps up to the mic. You bring your camera up and snap a quick photo before settling. Preparing yourself for your favourite song off of the album you’d been listening to on repeat since you’d first had it in your possession.

“This is a song about an old Welsh witch.”

It’s then that she makes eye contact with you, smiling, and for a split second your heart stops. You can’t help but allow the grin on your face to grow exponentially. Her eyes leave yours and land beside you, on Harry, and she sends a short, familiar wave in his direction, to which Harry returns before she launches into the song.

Her voice guttural and raw, full of unspoken feelings and unknown history. She’s petite but so incredibly chasmal. You elbow him in his side, harder this time, fueled completely by awe.

“Heeeeey. What was that for?”

“Stevie just fucking waved at you!”

He smiles, lifting and dropping his shoulders at your verbal observation. He stays silent, swaying to the music as you stare at him in complete and utter disbelief. You take a minute, glancing at Stevie and then back at Harry. Finally connecting her acknowledgement of his presence and his casual indifference.

“You know Stevie Nicks…” He turns his head to acknowledge your realization, but keeps his eyes glued to the stage.

“You know Stevie Nicks? How do you know Stevie Nicks?”

He stays silent, his lower lip now wedged under this teeth. Gnawing ever so slightly.

You had now lost complete interest in the events happening on stage, shifting your focus, trying to understand how your boyfriend knew your idol.

You try again, slower this time, louder.

“Harry. How do you know Stevie Nicks?”

He releases his lip, only to replace his teeth with his thumb and forefinger. Pulling at it pensively, his eyes still trained on the stage.

“We used to date.”  

His words are so nonchalant that you’re thoroughly convinced you’ve misheard him. Your eyes widen. You look back and forth between Harry and Stevie. A lump forms in your throat as you watch the golden haired goddess twirl and glide around the stage. Her voice echoing throughout the theater.

Your mind drifts as you attempt to enjoy the show. You want to enjoy this moment, to relish in it but you continuously find your train of thought crashing into an pit of ugly envy, a flaming, fiery mess with no survivors. Jealousy had never been your MO but you’d always been distressingly aware of how absurdly incomparable Harry is. The passing eyes of both women and men alike was a constant reminder of that fact. It wasn’t only the fact that he was painfully handsome either - although denying that it is a colossal factor would be naive and foolish - but the genuine and intoxicating aura that surrounds him. Pulling people in, making them want him and want to know him. It had been the very reason you’d approached him in that dark, dingy dive years prior, and now it’s the reason you feel as small as you do. Incredibly inadequate standing next to him, in the pit of a show led by a woman whose aura and beauty matched his, whom of which he had been involved with. How could you compare? How could you ever live up to that? A lyrical angel, a literal rockstar. You’re tired of the sour feeling pinching your stomach but you can’t help but compare yourself to the ethereal enigma that is Stevie. Who could? You didn’t say anything to Harry through the rest of the show nor him to you. You’re so consumed with the rush of feelings that’ve come over you that you hadn’t noticed the show had ended. It wasn’t until you felt the movement of the crowd heading towards the back of the theater, like a high tide being pulled by the moon, that you re-join reality. Your nerves are fried and you’re not quite sure if they could be repaired.

Harry turns to you, smiling. His hands on your face, cradled beneath your ears as his thumbs stroke your cheeks.

“How’d you like the show?”

His voice is soft and expecting. You look up at him, pushing a brief small smile up from the reservoir of adrenaline you hadn’t known you had left over.

“Got one more surprise f’you.”

He sounds so excited that you didn’t have the the heart to tell him, point blank, that you’d had enough and just wanted to go home. Not back to the motel, home.

He pulls you gently to a door on the side of the theater that reads “CREW MEMBERS ONLY” in big, red block letters, leading you through a long hallway filled with gear cases and crew members, giving a swift nod to every other passerby. Your confusion only grows when he stops in front of a door labelled in fancy, slick cursive as the green room. A mixture of laughter, conversation, and music seep through, muffled by the barrier in front of you. He stops and turns to you, dropping your hand before relocating them to your shoulders. You look anywhere but him, the ground having more interest than yours to be transparent about how you’re feeling in this moment. He went through all of this trouble, although now you question how much trouble it truly was, for you. You didn’t want to seem ungrateful because you were far from it. You just didn’t want to spoil his mood with yours that had curdled within the last hour.

You feel a hand lift off of one shoulder. A light finger placement under your chin brings your eyes into contact with the saturated everglade within his. He’d always been really good at reading you. Knowing when something was off, when you felt off. You weren’t sure if it was the post-concert fumes or the joint he’d smoked in the parking lot before the show, but he hadn’t shown you any hints of knowing. You found yourself silently praising every deity you knew by name.

“‘lright, m’gonna need to stay calm. Okay?” A soft laugh peeks through his words.

You remain silent, nodding in complacent understanding. He turns, lightly rapping on the door. His ring - the rose one you’d given him on his birthday last year - sounds a vague metallic clang on the antiqued wood.

The noise of the room, once muddled, hits you like a speeding freight when the door swings open. A sing-song chorus of Harry’s name plays through the space. You shuffle in behind him, keeping your head down. You aren’t generally a quiet person but moments like this are far and few between for you.

Harry working the room is nothing short of magical. Greeting anyone and everyone as you tail him, a firm grip on the bottom of his worn Rolling Stones tour tee. Hugs, fist bumps and light conversation all around. It isn’t until he introduces you loudly to the room that you realize you’re standing in the center of it. Harry no longer in front of you, but at your side, nudging you gently forward.

You look up, raising your hand in a demure greeting, as names you won’t have the chance to remember are hurdled towards you. Then, out of a door you hadn’t noticed in the corner of the room, steps the woman of the hour. She fiddles with the tie on her shirt as she enters deeper into the room.

“What’s with all the commotion out here?”

She sounds just like she sings, real and raw, and you’re enthralled all over again. She scans the room, biting back a smile. It grows only when she spots Harry and speeds to his person, arms out and welcoming.

“Harry! You came. I’m so glad!” He laughs into the hug and tsunami of invidiousness you’d been riding crashes at your feet with full force. You feel smaller than a head on a pin.

You watch as they step out of their embrace, but continue to hold each other at arm's length. Stevie’s on his biceps, Harry’s on her forearms.

“Wow, this is so good. This is great.” Her words are like sunshine and although she’s not speaking to you, you can’t help but to be filled with an indiscriminate warmth. You cross your arms over your chest. You feel intrusive on this reunion but just when you’re about to make a mad dash for the door she turns and looks at you.

“Is this Bunny?” She looks back at Harry. A rush of confidence propels you forward, hand out, you introduce yourself.

Stevie smiles, releasing Harry and takes your hand, pulling you into a hug. The scent of patchouli and lavender radiates from her, sending your head in a spiral. You look up at Harry, eyes wide. His elbow rests on his other arm that’s strung across his chest. His hand covering the large grin that has surfaced on his face. She pulls away from you, holding you in the same way she had Harry.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you. He talks about you nonstop. So nice to finally put a face to a name.”

You look back and forth between Stevie and Harry, who was now stood behind her.

“Uh… yeah. Big… uh, I’m a big fan of the band,” you stumble, “...and of yours. Huge fan of yours. Massive,” and blaze through the end of your truth.

She laughs gently, sweetly then she’s gone, beckoned from across the room, whisking over to whomever required her attention.

You’re in shock, hands still out in front of you. Harry steps forward, a light snicker escapes him as he takes your hands. You stare up at him but you’re not really looking at him.

“You okay?”

You nod slowly, your jaw slack, leaving an open space between your lips. Harry kisses the side of your mouth before letting go of your hands. He tells you to grab a seat, that he’ll grab you a drink, before jetting off to the refreshment table where Stevie and Mick are having, what seems like, a deep conversation.

You find a spot on a small, gray couch in the corner of the room. Watching people get drunker and more rowdy as the time goes by. They start to blur together into one massive streak of colour and sound. It isn’t until you spot the time on a clock located just above the bathroom door that you realize Harry had been gone for nearly an hour. The air grows suffocating as you stand, searching over heads of fluffed and curled hair for refuge. You spot Harry moments later. His arm slung around Stevie’s shoulder as they talk animatedly with Christine. You want to walk over and pull him away, plead with him to take you back to the motel, but the barbed wire twisting around your stomach made you hesitant. You watch him place an exaggerated kiss on Stevie’s head and that’s what sends you off the deep end. The feeling as frigid and sharp as an ice bath.

You scramble towards the door you’d entered through just a few short hours ago. Knocking shoulders and bumping drinks until you finally reach the handle. You tug it so violently that you could’ve sworn you’d ripped the door off its hinges.

Almost blindly, you stagger forwards into the hallway, sucking in a deep breath. You can hear your heart in your ears, feel your pulse in your throat, as you push yourself further down the hall. Stopping when you reach a pile of equipment cases piled just high enough for you to get your feet off the ground had you chosen to climb them; and you did. Propping yourself on the edge of a peripheral case and sitting on top of the large amp casing.

You shouldn’t be feeling this way, you know you shouldn’t but your head and heart weren’t cooperating. The futility of trying to get them to comply and coexist to give you some semblance of  sanity is incredibly high. So in turn you decide to become just that, incredibly high. You shimmy backwards, resting your head and back against the wall, before pulling a joint out of your pocket. Rainy day insurance is what Harry had called it when he found out it was a permanent fixture to your person.

“...in case of emergencies.” “Good to know you’re so prepared, love. If I’m ever in need of some immediate enlightenment, I’ll know who to ring.”

You light it with a match from a matchbook you’d taken from the motel. You inhale deeply, letting the small, packaged green sit tightly between your lips. You hold it in, one, two, three seconds before releasing a cloud of smoke with a big audible sigh. Your eyes sliding shut as you wait for your erratic heartbeat to level out.

When Stevie’s head peeks out of the green room door a few moments later, you’re too floaty to realize. She spots you, however, looking as serene as they come. The joint, now a roach, pinched between your fingers. She glides over to you, her movements so fluid, you’d swear she were swimming through the air.

“There you are,” you open your eyes at the sound of her voice to find her smiling at you. A lazy smile graces your features.

“Hey there.”

“I wondered where you’d run off too. Harry was talking my ear off all weekend about how I just had to meet his Bunny and I barely got to chat with you tonight.”

Your smile and relaxed demeanor fall as you take in her words. The filter you once had has burned down to non-existent. Your immediate thoughts began to flow sluggishly from your lips and you were sure you shouldn’t have let it but you couldn’t stop yourself.

“Harry was with you all weekend?”

“Yeah, we had a few days off. We were trying to work out some logistics for the third leg of the tour, one of our openers dropped out and I remembered that Harry had been trying to do the music thing for so long, figured we’d give him a shot. Y’know?”

“Tour?” you sit up, leaning forward, pulling your legs into a criss cross position.

Harry saunters out of the green room, spotting you and Stevie, he approaches the two of you but you’re too distracted to notice. Not sure if it’s because of the haze from the smoke or the news you’d just heard. “Yeah, he’s gonna be great.”

��What am I gonna be great at?” He questions, entering the conversation.

You look at him, all droopy eyelids and knitted brows. You’re positive that if you weren’t as high as you are now, you’d be shaking.

“Opening for Fleetwood on tour.”

You speak so curtly and clearly that you scare yourself. It feels as if your soul is trying to disconnect itself from its earthbound prison, but you’re holding on for dear life.

Harry turns to Stevie so quickly you can see his movements blur, following him in delayed time as if it were on another plane of existence.

“You told her?”

“You didn’t?” Stevie’s eyebrows are raised.

“I need a drink,” your words muffled by starch, the interior of your mouth feeling as if you’d just played an insanely long round of chubby bunny. You try to jump off of the case but your clouded mind executes the action before your body could follow, causing you to stumble once your feet hit the ground. Harry’s arms are out in an instant, catching you. You land face first into his strong, broad chest. His scent hits you in a billowing poof of air. It’s woodsy and citrusy and salty and sweet. It’s too much.

You push yourself away from him, out of his arms. He calls after you but you’re already sliding back into the green room. At the refreshment table a wide spread of liquors is presented to you. You reach for the vodka but make a split last second decision and reach for the tequila instead, knocking over a bottle that was in the way. You hold the bottle of tequila above your head but it’s snatched from your fingers right as you’re about pour a shot into your mouth.

Harry stands in front of you, tequila in hand. He looks like someone has kicked his puppy and you find yourself vexed because he had no reason to be upset. He was the one leaving you.

He leans in, mouth so close to your ear that you can smell the faint trace of alcohol on his breath.

“Can we please talk about this outside?”

You scoff, a light snorting noise punctuated with an eye roll. Oh, noooow he wants to talk.

“Please?”

“Fine,” you humour him, your concession tangled in a heavy sigh.

He places the bottle back on the table before spinning you around. Placing his hands on your waist, he guides you gently out of the green room.

You don’t stop moving until you’re outside, in a loading area, buses and trucks lined up uniformly. The late night air is a lot staler than it had been when you first arrived. An oven with the door open, no wind, just warmth all around. It sobers you up almost instantly. Harry stops nudging when the two of you are settled in between two, large packing trucks parked closely together, leaving only a few inches between your bodies. You lean lazily against the truck, allowing your eyes to close and your head to lul to the the side, awaiting his reasoning, his explanation, as if there was one good enough to justify him keeping this from you.

When he speaks your name it’s soft, reminding you of the clouds you’d flown over less than twelve hours ago. What you wouldn’t give to have that peace of mind back in this moment.

“Listen, I didn’t know if it was actually going to happen. Been talking to Christine and just recently caught up with Stevie and she’d mentioned it. I didn’t want to tell you unless it was a sure thing.” You open your eyes, raising them to the sky. The height of the trucks tunnel your vision, redirecting your focus to the twinkling clusters of stars stitched to the deep, dark velvet of the two am sky. He keeps his eyes trained on you.

“And is it?”

“S’what?”

You finally look at him, immediately meeting his gaze, throwing you off for half a beat. You shift your weight from one leg to the other.

“Is it a sure thing?”

He remains silent, his chest rising and falling with each breath he takes and releases. You can see the gears in his head turning, the possible negative outcomes of answering your question, playing in his eyes. Like a silent stop motion film. All in black and white. All unhappy endings.

He does, however, answer you with a slow nod. Keeping his eyes on you, studying you as if he had a major exam coming up that could make or break his school year, watching for any signs that may point to you telling him that you were done with him.

“And when were you going to tell me? If you even were going to tell me,” you mutter the latter under your breath but he still catches it. His posture straightens.

“I was going to tell you Bunny! I swear. Was gonna be tonight too, like when we got back to the motel. After I loved on you cause god, I’ve fuckin’ missed you and it’s only been a few days…” he pauses, stepping towards you but you’re quicker, side stepping so you were no longer flush the truck. Square with the opening between them, creating much needed space between you and Harry. A pained expression plateaus his features but he continues, turning his body to face your new position.

“I just… I wanted tonight to be perfect. I wanted you to have an unforgettable one. Wanted to make up for what happened on your birthday last year.”  

You cross your arms over your chest, relinquishing a sigh. You remember it vividly, although you wish you could forget it.

It had been a while since you had celebrated your earthstrong day but Harry insisted that you must do something for it. 25 was a big deal, it was important. Harry had made a big deal of planning a dinner for you and your family to celebrate. What he hadn’t told you was that the dessert he’d prepared, your favourite after meal pastry, had a little something extra in it that he hadn’t warned you about. Long story short, you spent the rest of your night talking your parents down from a very bad high, and Harry - the cause of all of your grief that night - slept through it all. You’d put him in the dog house for months after that and he’d never stopped apologizing.

“You have to admit though. Now when y’look back at it, s’kind of funny. I mean your mum really dug that shag rug,” he chuckles.

“It’s not funny.”

He tries to subdue his giggles resulting in a wide grin instead. You struggle to remain stoic, still fuming, but you could feel the edges of your icy-ness began to melt away. There’s just something about this boy that always gets to you in the best way possible. Which is why finding out that he may be away for months at a time tasted so incredibly bitter.

You let out a puff of air.

He gives himself a light tap on the cheek. His mouth pursed in a small frown as he tries to focus on remaining serious.

“Oh come on Bunny, I’m sorry okay. I swear I was gonna tell you.”

He nudges you softly, hoping the contact would soften your hard demeanor and lighten up the weight of the situation. He’d really been hoping to have this talk to you when you were in a better mood but he now knew he had to tread lightly.

He takes a tentative step towards you. Your arms, still tightly crossed against your chest, begin to loosen. Slowly, as if counting the seconds and steps in his head, he reaches for your arm. When you don’t resist, he pulls you in close to him in a warm embrace. Whispers of apologies and pleasantries leave his lips in short bursts, threading through your hair and landing on your shoulders. He’s being incredibly gentle with you, and although you’re sure he wishes it had the opposite effect, every touch breeds heartache. The dam is cracking and your hand is hovering above the manual release button for the floodgates.

You release the hold that you have on your own arms when he starts petting your hair. Long, molassing strokes that fall in time with both of your breathing. Naturally synced. Your face pressed against his chest, fitting like your favourite pair of jeans: snug, comfortable, perfect.

“Didn’t even know you wanted to pursue music,” your words are muffled by the cotton of his shirt but his sigh lets you know that he’s heard you. He rests his chin on top of your head.

“Wasn’t something I thought I’d get the chance to do, y’know? Was a hobby for so long, always just mucked about with it. Used it as an outlet. Gave it up before I met you”

Your arms wrap themselves around your stomach loosely, as if they were keeping you from falling apart.

“How come?” You were curious. You couldn’t help help but think that it was because he’d met you that he given up his dream. Freelance photography didn’t pay greatly but it was your passion and Harry had always pushed you to do what made you happy. So he’d taken a job managing a bakery down the street from the apartment you shared to support the both of you.

“It was a different time in my life, back when I was living in California. Didn’t really have much that I had to care about. I was living with a bunch of people who were trying to make a living that way so I fell into it.” He’d stopped his work on your hair, bringing his arm around you shoulder to bring you in closer.

“Is that how you met Stevie?”

He chuckles, it’s airy but full of reminiscent energy.

“Yeah, that’s how I met Stevie.”

You shuffle, moving your head to look up at him. His eyes full of memories. You urge him to continue.

“I was crashing on a friend’s couch in this artist commune. They had a party one night and she was there. We talked and just, I don’t know. Ran with it. We don’t have to talk about this, it’s weird innit? Me talking about my ex.” You lean back to look up at him eyebrow raised.

“You really think this is the weirdest thing to happen tonight?”

He laughs.

“You’re right.”

The corners of your mouth twitch upwards for a split second. You move back to your former position, pressed up against his chest. You close your eyes, indulging in the rhythmic beat of his heart.

“So what happened?”

“It was a lot. There was a lot going on and I couldn’t handle it.”

You hum, nodding ever so slightly.

“Plus she met Lindsey…” He pauses, untangling his arms from you taking a small step back. He lifts his hand and runs the pad of his thumb lightly across your cheekbone. You eyes flick up to his, looking down at you. He sighs, the corner of his mouth lifts, “...and I met you.

The flutter you feel in your stomach is strong but short lived when you remember why you were both standing in the loading area of a theater instead of hanging out with your favourite band just a mere feet away. You’ve been trying to avoid asking your next question. Trying to push it to the back of your mind, attempting to distract yourself from it because you already knew what the answer would be but it stayed stewing, and now it was bubbling over. Before you could stop it, it flew out of your mouth and into the space around you.

“Are you going to accept the offer?”

Harry stays too quiet for too long. With each passing moment, you can feel the ends of your already frayed nerves fizzle and burn out. He looks at you, really looks at you. Your eyes, your lips, you, as a whole. When he finally does speak, his voice is steady and his words, soft. He leans down, cheek touching cheek. And although it’s whispered, his lips tickling the shell of your ear, his words speak unreachable volumes.

“Only if you come with me.”

[tinyfierce]

"Honestly, just stop it," for Evfra/Ryder. Or "We really need better people," for Jaal/Ryder. Thank you for all the ficlets, they are really awesome!

[Prompts from thispost. Still open!]

(Glad you’re enjoying these!

The first timeGil was on extended shore leave, the rest of the Tempest crew tookadvantage of his absence to have Poker Night on something resemblinga level playing field. Vetra, the only experienced bartender onboard, ran the whole thing like they were in a seedy off-strip bar onOmega -

-complete withabsolutely terrible alcohol.

“Addsto the ambience,” she said, and Drack let out a booming laugh.

“Damnright,” he said. “If your cup’s clean, you’re not on Omega.”

“Whatis Omega,” Jaal asked as his glass was refilled, “and why is itterrible?”

“Oh,let me.” Liam raked in the chips and started sorting them back intothe holding rack. “So, picture Kadara, except a tenth the size withtwice the people. Every type of crime you can imagine, and some youcan’t. No government and no rules.”

“Itwas great,” Drackinsisted.

“Itwas a pit,” Cora corrected him, “and the source of a lot ofproblems. Drugs, weapons, bribes, you name it – it could all betraced back there at some point.”

“Hadthe best strippers, though.”

“Drack.”

Rydersnickered as she listened to the banter around the table. They sorarely got to relax like this together, especially so informally. Thesmack talk that had been encouraged over the game – Cora cleanedthem all out, naturally – had made Liam practically vibratewith happiness. They were just coming off of a big win, too, havingKadara back in (at least for appearances’ sake) Angaran hands. Theywere salty, they were drunk, and they were bonding.

“We’vestill got hours in the night and a lotmore booze,” Peebee pointed out from her seat. Though the game wasover, no one had left the table. “And I’m not leavingempty-handed.”

“Iturn this over to our social coordinator,” Ryder said, sippingsomething god-awful with a curl of some mystery fruit wedged on therim. “Liam?”

Hethought a moment, flipping a poker chip between a few fingers.Suddenly, his eyes lit up, and he palmed it on the table. “Got it.‘Never have I ever,’ no limits.”

Theother humans at the table groaned, but Peebee leaned in. “Ooh, youhad me at ‘no limits.’ Rules?”

“Itgoes like this,” he explained, pulling the lowest-level chips outfrom their bay. “We go round in a circle, each person making a‘never have I ever’ statement, anywhere from 'never have I everbroken a bone’ to 'never have I ever had sex in zero-g.'”

Peebeetook a drink. “Oh, I am gonna lose this game.”

“Ifyou match,” he continued, “you’re safe. But if you have done it,you take a chip. Person with the least at the end wins.”

“Sowhat are the stakes?” Drack pulled over a bottle with scribbledKrogan writing on it and popped the cap.

Amoment of silence passed before a suitable prize occurred to Ryder.

“Ihave a photo of Director Tann faceplanting on his office stairs,”she said. “I framed it. Win and it’s yours.”

Judgingfrom the enthusiastic reactions thatgot, things were about to get fun. As everyone got up for last-minuterefills, Jaal leaned over.

“Areyou sure, taoshay? Youlove that picture.”

Rydersmiled over the rim of her glass. “SAM was taking video. I canreplay it in my visor whenever I feel down.”

Hechuckled and squeezed her thigh affectionately, straightening as theothers began to return. When the last butt was in the last seat, thegame was on.

“I’llstart,” Liam said, clearing his throat. “Never have I ever…tried Ryncol.”

Halfof the hands around the table went up, though no one was surprised.Drack, Vetra, Peebee, and Ryder all took chips.

“Iwas a bartender,” Vetra said. “What’s your excuse, Ryder?”

“Mybrother dared me,” she offered, and Drack snorted.

“Therest of you idiots don’t know what you’re missing.”

Liam folded hisarms. “Your liver, your baddecisions. You’re up, Drack.”

“Right,”he rumbled. “Never have I ever gotten my hand stuck in a vendingmachine trying to steal a copy of Fornax.”

Everyonelaughed as Peebee was the only one to take a chip, angrily snatchingit from the center of the table. “Damnit, Drack! I told you thatstory in confidence.”

Coraleaned back. “Oh, I want to hear this.”

“Iwas young and curious!”

“Howold were you,” Jaal asked, and Peebee looked sheepish.

“Fifty?”

“Speaking ofyoung and stupid,” Vetra interrupted, “never have I ever punchedmy sibling in the junk.”

Ryder, Jaal, andDrack all raised their hands, the latter most enthusiastically ofall.

“Par for thecourse,” he declared. “You only really need three balls, anyway.”

Jaal took his chip,chuckling at what clearly was a fond memory. “Does it still countif it was an accident?”

“Depends,”Vetra said. “Was it actually an accident?”

Jaal smirked. “No.But that was what I told our mothers.”

“That’s going inmy next e-mail to your mom,” Ryder threatened, and Jaal cleared histhroat as he pointedly tapped the chip she had alsotaken that round.

“Ibelieve it is my turn,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table.“Very well. Never have I ever… run about naked after drinking.”

Peebeelet loose a string of colorful swears as she took yet another chip,joined by both Liam and Drack.

“Tooktwo dozen C-sec officers to take me down,” Drack boasted. “Hellof a Monday.”

Liamlaughed. “Wish I’d been there. My bit’s boring – got overheatedand didn’t think I needed clothes, I guess. Even went for a swimin the Academy fountain and started a tradition.”

“Wereally need better people on the Tempest,” Ryder muttered into herdrink with a smile, and her second-in-command apparently agreed.

“I am institutingan at-least-pants rule on the ship, with the Pathfinder’spermission,” Cora announced, and Ryder toasted her assent, much tothe chagrin of the other players.

“Aw, don’t besuch a wet blanket.” Peebee pointed to Cora’s nonexistent pile.“Either you’re hiding something, or you are the most boringperson-who-decided-to-jump-into-deep-space ever.”

Cora said nothing,only smiled and drank, earning her a frustrated groan from the Asari.

“I told youI would lose. All right, who’s next?”

“I’m up. Neverhave I ever…” Ryder considered her statement, given theincreasingly risque turn they had each been taking. “Never have Iever had sex with someone of the same gender.”

Jaal, Vetra, andPeebee all took chips, prompting some murmurs around the table.

Vetra studied theAngara through her visor, mandibles flaring in amusement.“Interesting, Jaal.”

“Imake no effort to hide it.” Smirking, he seemed almost boastful ashe crossed his arms. “You’ve met my former commander, and have seenfor yourself how attractive he is.”

“Seriously,”Liam managed, “you’re telling me that you slept with yourC.O.? While still in the ranks?”

“Givesa whole new meaning to 'serving under’ someone,” Peebee joked, andJaal tilted his head.

“Youassume too much about the roles in our relationship,” he countered,and Liam choked on his drink.

“Jaal,”he coughed, “have I told you lately that I love you?”

Jaalrumbled a laugh. “I love you too, Liam.”“Don’tsee what the issue is,” Drack said, pouring himself another.“Krogan do it all the time. Fighting’s a hell of an aphrodisiac.That, and blood.”

“Was with you upuntil that last part,” Peebee said. “Going to have to callbullshit on Cora, though.”

Cora frowned.“What? I didn’t take one.”

“I know!”Peebee leaned over the table, practically crawling over the stack ofchips in the middle. “And I’m calling. You. Out.”

“All that time inclose with the Asari commandos,” Liam added, “and you never?”

“No.”

“Noteven once. Trapped in a cave or a safehouse, alone -”

“No,Liam.”

Vetragestured with the hand holding a glass. “And your hair.”

“Ohmy god,” Cora said, exasperated. “A Turiandoes not get to lecture me on my undercut.”

“Andif we’re all female, technically Asari are genderless, so…” Peebeeshrugged innocently. “She could technically still notbe lying.”

“That’s it, I’mending this right now.” Cora set her drink down and pointed to thechips. “Never have I ever slept with anyone outside my own race.”

This time, it wasPeebee, Vetra, Ryder, and Jaal who took chips.

“All right,fair,” Peebee muttered.

“Dated a Drellfor six months,” Vetra said, brandishing her chip. “Beats anyhigh on the market.”

That garnered someprobing discussion, cut short when Peebee took count.

“Wait,” shesaid, frowning. “Jaal, I thought that aside from the Kett, we werethe first outsiders to Heleus.”

Ryder tensed, andshe saw him do the same.

“You were,” hesaid plainly.

All eyes turned tohim, except for Cora - who nonchalantly sipped her drink and shotRyder a meaningful sideways glance.

Well?their silence asked, and Ryder could see Jaal hesitate.

Fuckit, she thought as she finished her drink and set it down on thetable. She raised her empty hand, waving it to catch their attentionand rescue her lover.

“Pathfinder,reporting for duty.”

Corasmiled, and Ryder felt Jaal’s hand seek hers under the table.

Silence,then an explosion.

“Holyshit, since when -”

“Iknew it! Ha! I told you, I knew somethingwas going on -”

“Spirits, just tell me not on the common room couch-”

“Heh.Must be nice to be young.”

“Whomade the first move, then?”

“Well,he was already okay with sleeping with his commander, so -”

“Thisis legitimately historical and important-”

“Andnot in our showers, right?”

“Whoelse knows?”

Despitethe feeling of an onslaught, Ryder could see that Jaal was as pleasedby the attention as he was embarrassed, attempting to answer whateverquestions he could. For her part, the Pathfinder was surprised tofind herself rather nonplussed by the entire thing, almost relievedthat there was no need for some sort of grand announcement. She’d hadnightmares about the latter. But here, over drinking games and pokerand good-natured barbs, it felt as right as it was going to get.

“Details,Ryder,” Peebee pleaded from her left, and Ryder snickered.

“Oneword,” she said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Bioelectricity.”

Thatearned her some laughs, Peebee dragging her palms down her face.

“Ryder,I am literally so jealous of you right now that I could die.”

“Youcan’t die yet – it’s your turn.”

“Oh,shit. Right. Ahem.” She straightened, folding her hands neatly infront of her. “Never have I ever… seen a Blasto vid.”

Acollective gasp came up from the rest of the table, and she backedaway defensively. “What? They’re total trash.”

“You’rewrong,” Vetra toldher, and Liam stood up from his seat.

“Youneed to be educated,” he said, “and I have Blasto One througheight on my drive, including the holiday special.”

“Noo,”Peebee whined, but it was too late. Bottles were grabbed, arms weretaken prisoner, and the group was on the move to the bridge to hijackthe projector. Jaal hung back, waiting for Ryder to join him.

“I…”he began as they walked. “Was that… all right?”

“Yeah.It’s good.”

Hesmiled, lifting his arm to invite her beneath it. She accepted,draping her arm lazily about his waist.

“Iwas surprised,” he admitted. “You prefer to… discuss suchthings, and we never had the chance.”

“True.”She laughed. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m that drunk or I loveyou that much, but it worked out.”

Atthe word 'love,’ the hand on her shoulder squeezed warmly. He alwaysreacted when she said it aloud.

“So,”he prompted. “What is a Blasto?”